CHAPTER XIII.
THE LAST OF TETZCATL
A week had gone by and a little cavalcade rode slowly on along a fairly well marked forest road. In front was a man on a fine-looking horse, but at his side a mule was carrying a rider who almost lay down, with his arms around the animal's neck.
"Can you stand it to get there?" asked the man on the horse.
"Bowie, you are in the valley now," was the faint-voiced response. "Ride on, Tetzcatl cannot die but in the house of Huitzilopochtli."
"Pretty nigh gone, old chap?" was the not unkindly inquiry from the next horseman behind them. "We'll git you thar. You may pull through. You're as tough as a hickory knot."
They could have seen how beautiful was the valley they were riding through if they had not been in it. As soon, however, as the path they were in began to climb a steep ascent and they could look back through the trees, they broke out into strong expressions of admiration.
"It was a'most worth while comin'," said Jim Cheyne, "if 'twas only to see this 'ere. If Americans got hold of sech a country as this is they'd make something out of it."
"They never will," remarked Bowie. "Best timber. Best farm land in the world. Fine climate – "
"Gold! gold! Silver!" gasped the sufferer on the mule. "Americans – all men will come some day. I die, but the lands of the Montezumas will not be held by the Spaniards."
It was as if he could bear the idea of leaving his mountains and valleys and their riches to any other race than the one which had broken the empire of its ancient kings and destroyed the temples of the Aztec gods.
The Texans could also see more clearly now the grand height of the mountain chain into which they were climbing. They were evidently in a pass, partly natural and partly artificial. In places which would otherwise have been difficult the narrow roadway had been solidly constructed of massive stonework, for the greater part unhewn. There had been excavations also, but before long Joe was justified in remarking, —
"I say, colonel, this might do for mules, but it won't for mustangs. I'd rather go afoot."
He sprang to the ground as he spoke, and his comrades followed his example. Well they might, for at their right arose an almost perpendicular cliff, while at their left the side of the mountain went down, for hundreds of feet, without a tree or a bush to prevent man or horse from rolling the entire descent.
"How far have we now to go?" asked Bowie of his guide. "Red Wolf, hold on."
"Red Wolf find road," came back in Lipan-Spanish. "Big Knife bring old man. Tetzcatl heap dead."
"Pitch ahead, then!" exclaimed the colonel. "Boys, wait here with the critters. I'll go on and find the place. The boy can come back after you."
"All right, colonel," replied Jim. "He won't last long now."
"On! on!" exclaimed Tetzcatl, his fierce, black eyes burning with the fire of the fever which had set in upon him, caused by his hurts. "We are at the door! I will die in the house!"
He was very weak and in pain, but at the end of a hundred yards more of that steep and dangerous pass he halted his mule, slipped off to the ground, and actually stood erect.
"Stay here," he said. "No Spaniard ever entered the last house of Huitzilopochtli. I go on!"
He turned, bracing himself with all his remaining strength, and went forward as if he believed that his injunctions had been obeyed.
"Fever crazy," said the colonel, in a low voice. "Keep just behind him. If we can follow without his knowing."
That was by no means difficult, for he did not turn his head, and there were many bushes, but it was best to let him keep a number of paces in the advance.
It was a winding pathway as well as steep. There were sudden turns around rocky projections, and now the gorge at the left was deeper and more terrible to look down into.
"What?" exclaimed Bowie, as he and his boy companion turned one of these corners. "Where is he? Did he tumble off the path? There isn't a trace of him!"
Vacant indeed was the narrow way before them, but Red Wolf sprang forward. The mountain-side above was not perpendicular at this point and there were bushes.
"Too much heap bush," said Red Wolf. "Track rabbit into hole. Ugh!"
He parted the luxuriant growth as he spoke and uncovered something plainer than a rabbit-track.
"Go ahead!" said the colonel. "Don't make a sound. He was trying to get away. He never meant to show it to us at all. Thunder! A man might hunt for this a hundred years and never find it."
"Ugh!" came warningly from Red Wolf, for right before him was the cleft in the rock.
No guard was there to hinder them, but they pushed forward with all caution. Tetzcatl could not be many paces farther on. He must, as yet, be entirely unaware that he had been so closely followed.
"It's a hole into a den," muttered Bowie. "We've got to all but go on all-fours."
It was an exciting moment with so much mystery and uncertainty just ahead of him, but he did not betray any excitement. Hardly as much could be said for the Red Wolf, for he was on an entirely new kind of hunt and it did excite him.
There is a singular muscular power that often comes with the delirium of fever. It sometimes even exceeds, for a moment, the utmost strength of health.
Not at all feeble, but firm and elastic, was the step with which Tetzcatl walked out from the entrance burrow into the great hall of the cavern. He went forward without a pause at first, and without speaking, although something more than ordinary was going on.
The sculptured head of the war-god stood out in full relief from the dark face of the rock, for a great glare fell upon it from the altar. The fire was blazing high, revealing here and there the ghastly, ghostly figures of the priestly worshippers. They seemed to be more in number than on the day of his departure, but there were also other human beings present. Several of these latter stood immediately in front of the altar with rope fetters on their wrists.
A species of monotonous chant was sounding, by discordant voices, in the tongue of the ancient race. Every now and then, as the weird, hoarse cadences rose and fell, a club was lifted, a heavy blow was struck, followed by a flash of steel and the fall of one of the fettered persons. Each shriek of fear or agony seemed to act as a signal for louder chanting, that had in it a sound of angry mockery.
"God in heaven!" exclaimed Bowie, in a hushed whisper, at the upper end of the cave. "I've heard of it! I've read of it! That's an idol. They are offering human sacrifices. It's awful, and I can't do one thing for 'em. There went the last of 'em, as far as I can see. Red Wolf, keep close by me. I'm going to see this thing clean through. There goes Tetzcatl."
"Ugh!" was all the reply of Red Wolf, but he was apparently quite ready to charge forward, lance in hand, if such were his orders from his white chief.
Bowie had drawn his knife and had taken a heavy belt-pistol in his left hand, cocking it. He had not halted for an instant, and he was now half-way down the cavern. Here, however, he almost lay down, with Red Wolf at his side, in so deep a shadow that there was little danger of their presence being speedily discovered. At that moment, moreover, the cave-dwellers were giving all their attention to Tetzcatl, as he stood haranguing them at the highest pitch of his sepulchral voice. If he were giving them an account of his journey into Texas, only those who understood his dialect could tell, and before long he turned and walked away toward the lower end of the cave, still talking and gesticulating fiercely. All the others moved when he did, and they were dragging with them the lifeless forms of the victims that had been slain in front of the altar.
"This is a terrible piece of work," muttered Bowie to himself. "I'd like to kill every one of those fellows. I knew they were still doing this kind of thing in Africa, wholesale and retail, thousands on thousands, all the while, but I'd reckoned it was long ago played out on this continent. There are loads of things that we don't know. Anyhow, this must be about the last of it."
Not even Africa itself exceeded some parts of America in the bloody nature of their old-time idol-worship. There could be, moreover, no sound reason for supposing that altogether unreclaimed heathen, here or there, would change their ways or cease from observing their rites merely because other men had become civilized.
Tetzcatl and his companions reached the level at the brink of the chasm, and the booming sound came loudly up.
"What can it be?" thought Bowie. "I'll see what they're going to do, cost what it may. There isn't a shooting-iron among 'em. Some of 'em are stark naked. If it's got to be a fight, I believe I could wipe out the whole crowd, but I don't mean to run any risks. What I want is to learn all I can this trip and get out alive."
Red Wolf went forward at his side, lance in hand, with the crouching, springing step of a young panther rather than the gliding of a wolf.
"Big Knife strike!" he said. "Heap kill. Ugh! Red Wolf! Son of Castro!"
The chanting began again, and Tetzcatl seemed to be leading it, gesticulating furiously, while body after body was lifted from the floor and hurled into the chasm to go down to the gods. As the last offering disappeared, he turned and pointed at the planks. In an instant these were raised and slipped across the chasm.
"Bridge," muttered Bowie. "I've been in caves before, but this is a pretty big one. There's more of it, I suppose, away in yonder. Best kind of hiding-place. Now, what are they going to do?"
Up to this moment Tetzcatl had exhibited the strength of the hot fever which was consuming him. Now, however, he tottered and reeled as he walked out to the middle of the bridge. Standing here, staggering back and forth, he shouted a few words in his own tongue and then plunged down, head foremost.
"That's the last of him!" exclaimed Bowie.
"Ugh!" whispered Red Wolf. "Heap look!"
The chanting began again, as if a sacrifice had been offered. One after another the withered guardians of the cave of Huitzilopochtli walked slowly across the bridge, and their torches speedily disappeared in a vast and vaulted gloom upon the other side.
"Now!" exclaimed Bowie.
He sprang to the altar and snatched from it a branch of blazing pine. Red Wolf did the same, and they were without other company when they stood together at the brink of the chasm.
"We won't go across," said Bowie; "but what's this? God in heaven! It's the treasure!"
There they lay, the stacks of ingots and the heaps of nuggets. He could not even roughly estimate their value, but he exclaimed, —
"Enough to pay the entire debt of Texas; equip an army; build a navy; buy out Mexico from all the land, west, to the Pacific."
It was the golden dream of a new empire, and he stood as still as a statue for a half-minute, dreaming it, while Red Wolf lifted his torch and peered into the yawning gulf and across the bridge.
"Just as old Tetzcatl said," remarked Bowie, when his thoughtful fit ended. "But we can't take it now. There may be a hundred men in yonder. What's more, if we tried it on we might be caught in the pass by a swarm of 'em. It won't do. There are not enough of us this time. We'll have to come again. I'll take along some samples, but gold is heavy."
He began at once to cut off long strips from the serape which Tetzcatl had thrown upon the floor. They answered for straps with which to tie up for himself and Red Wolf as many gold bars as they could conveniently carry. They worked rapidly, for time might be precious. Not merely for the present matter of their own life or death, but that no returning idol-worshipper might know that the secret of the cavern had been discovered.
"Out now," said Bowie. "This is all we can do this time, but I don't want to see any more high old Mexican religion."
"Ugh!" said Red Wolf. "Tetzcatl gone. Heap fool jump!"
"Well," replied Bowie, coolly, "the old rascal was about dead anyhow."
After that he was silent and so was his companion, while they hurried out of the cave. They hardly uttered a word until they stood among their comrades in the pass.
"Hurrah!" shouted Jim Cheyne. "We've been up and we've been down huntin' ye. What kept ye so long, colonel?"
The fagots of golden bars were held up before the astonished eyes of the rangers, and they crowded around to see and to feel the wonderful yellow metal.
"Colonel," gasped Joe, "I don't believe a word of it, but just tell us what it is."
"The Montezuma treasure!" shouted Bowie. "Heaps on heaps of it in the cave."
"We'll go right in," responded voice after voice, in feverish eagerness.
"Not to-day, we won't," he said, and then, while they listened in awe-struck silence, he told them all there was to tell and what he intended doing.
"Your head's level," said Jim, at the conclusion of it. "We mustn't go in. We'd be followed by an army of 'em all the way to the Rio. Not one of us 'd git thar."
"Just so," said the colonel. "Now I'll swear you all in to keep the secret, and then we must be moving. We can come back with three hundred men, and even then nobody must know we're coming till the job's done clean."
Every man was ready to be sworn to secrecy, but the Texan patriot made them swear to one thing more. One full half of all that might be recovered from the cave, over and above the expenses of an expedition to obtain it, was to go into the treasury of Texas, to be spent in fighting for its freedom. They were of one accord as to that, without a dissenting voice, but Bowie was a liberal man as well as patriotic and prudent, and as soon as the future was duly cared for, he saw that it was right and wise to provide them with a sufficient reward for their services in the present expedition.
"You've done well this first time," had come from Jim Cheyne.
"Well," said the colonel, "these things are near of a size. We'll divide 'em, share and share alike, every fellow to tote his own winnings. It 'll be the best four weeks' work any of you were ever paid for – "
"Half to Texas anyhow!" shouted Jim, as he handled the bars that fell to his lot. "The republic can have my whole pile if I'm knocked on the head. Hurrah! Now for home! We've done enough!"
As for Red Wolf, he hardly knew what to do with three long, heavy, dingy sticks of metal that were assigned to him. He fastened them behind the saddle which now adorned his mustang, but he did so out of respect for Big Knife. The saddle itself was a kind of paleface emcumbrance, but he had won it at the hacienda, and he rode in it for the sake of glory, as a prize of war.
As for regarding a gold bar as a silver dollar, he had not yet climbed as high as that. The nearest he came to an understanding was when Joe held up one of his own bars and shouted, —
"I say, colonel, just what we've got here would buy another eighteen-pounder as big as the one in the Alamo."
"Two of 'em," replied Bowie, "and a dozen rounds apiece of powder and ball. That's what we want, – powder and ball. Boys! One more secret! I'm going to take you right thar! We'll go home with cash enough to put the Alamo in first-rate order, rations, rifles, and all. Forward, march!"
On they went, down the mountain, carrying with them the secret of the treasures of the Montezumas.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PERILOUS PATH
Can the mere possession of a secret turn a brave man into a coward? One would think not, and yet the entire demeanor and conduct of Colonel Bowie underwent a change. It seemed to be growing upon him, as he led the way down the pass and out into the valley. His men, too, hardened frontiersmen and Indian fighters as they were, responded almost nervously to his every suggestion of extreme watchfulness.
There were good reasons for it all. They had reached the valley in peace, but no one could guess by what eyes their arrival had been noted, or what forces might be gathering to strike a blow at them.
The dark clans of the Mexican mountains were known to be courageous. No other men had a greater disregard for either the lives of other men or their own. They had succeeded in protecting their fastnesses so perfectly that the Spanish and then the several Mexican governments had consented to let them alone. As to the latter, indeed, the short history of Mexico as an independent state had been, thus far, little better than the record of struggles for power between warring chiefs and factions. Whoever at any date had been temporarily in authority had had quite enough to do to maintain his own supremacy. There had been few troops to spare for operations against the red men of the North, and none at all for the penetration of the really undiscovered country which contained such remnants as Tetzcatl and his comrades of the cave.
"They could wipe us out, boys," was the freely expressed opinion all around, and they were ready, as Joe expressed it, "to just sneak all the way back, if we've any idee of comin' this way ag'in after that pewter."
Bowie's own calculations continually went on beyond the dangers of the road.
"I've got to reach Houston," he said, "and set him at work with those dollars. We can make up a force to come again with. I can trust Crockett and Travis. We can have our pick of men. But we needn't let the rank and file know the whole thing. One of 'em might let it out too soon. If we work still enough, we can ride across all this country and hardly stir up the Mexicans. One big mule train 'll carry all there is in the cave. We can get it across the Rio Grande, perhaps, without having to fire a shot. Not that I mind fighting, if it comes to that, but as soon as it's all landed as far as the Alamo, the republic of Texas is a made nation. We can arm all the men we can raise, and we can whip Santa Anna out of his boots."
It was the fate of the future that was in his mind and on his shoulders. If he should now get himself killed, with his little band of rangers, who would ever know where to come for the treasures of the Montezumas?
As for Red Wolf, the secret did not trouble him. It did not seem to belong to him at all. Nevertheless, it was entirely in accord with his ideas that a war-party, returning through an enemy's country, should travel as stealthily as so many wild animals.
That first night no fire was kindled, and the march began again before the sun was up. Before the end of the next day one worn-out horse had to be left behind.
"We'll use 'em all up if need be," remarked Bowie. "All I want is to get to the chaparral with critters enough to go home from there on a walk."
It was on one of those days of watchful, tiresome pushing for the men who had the secret to carry and the ingots of gold from the cave, but it was hundreds of miles away from them that a group of very serious-looking men sat around a table in a log farm-house. If it were any kind of council, the conversational part of it had momentarily ceased and they all were thinking silently.
A heavy step sounded outside the door; it swung suddenly open, and a voice not at all loud but very much in earnest startled them to their feet.
"Here I am, Houston! They're coming!"
"Crockett!" shouted the astonished general. "I thought you were in Washington."
"Well, I ain't, then," responded the grim bear-killer, throwing his coonskin cap violently upon the table. "I didn't git beyond New Orleans. I found a heap of letters thar, and thar was all sorts of deviltry in 'em. It's no use to look for anything from Congress this session, and that ain't the wust of it."
"Out with it, colonel," came from across the table. "Let's have it all. We were having a blue time anyhow."
"Stingy! stingy! stingy!" roared Crockett. "Everybody's afraid to put in a cent. Not a dollar to be had, nor any pound of stuff without the dollars. You see, boys, the trouble is the news from Mexico. Santa Anna was at Monterey gathering his best troops and getting ready to come after us. Thar are several regiments already down near Matamoras on the coast getting supplies by the sea. Every friend of ours seems to be skeered. They reckon we'll be chawed up."
"Not so easy," came again from across the table. "I reckon the Greasers have got their work cut out."
"Travis," said Crockett, "I'm glad you're here. Have you heard from Bowie?"
"Not a word," replied Travis, "except that he and Castro had some kind of a brush with the Comanches, and another with Bravo's lancers. Reckon it was all right. He's just the kind of fellow to pull through."
Even while he spoke, however, the bright-faced ranger colonel caught Crockett's eye and sent him a look that prevented further questioning.
"Time for us to be moving," said Houston, steadily. "We'll gather what forces we can. The first thing is the Alamo. We can send a pretty good lot of rations."
"Powder!" said Travis, with energy, "What the Alamo needs is powder. And we want men enough to handle guns."
"You shall have them," said Houston. "Texas won't leave you in the lurch. Go and put things in as good condition as you can."
"All right," said Travis; but Crockett was eager to learn whatever news might be had around the table, and he lingered to get it all. At last he and Travis walked out into the open air, and they were no sooner alone than the latter turned and looked his friend in the face.
"Crockett," he said, "either Bowie is wiped out, or he and his men have ridden down into Mexico after that gold of Tetzcatl's."
"That's what he's done, then," said Crockett, confidently. "He's a critter that 'll take no end of killing. He had the right sort of men with him. What I want is to see him back ag'in, gold or no gold, and to have him with us when the Greasers come for the Alamo. I mean to be thar myself."
"Crockett," replied Bowie, "Sam Houston is mistaken. He can't raise a dollar. All we've got to depend on is the men. We'll take our pick, though, and we can hold that fort against all the ragamuffins south of the Rio Grande."
On they walked, talking as they went, but if they could have had a look at some of Santa Anna's "ragamuffins" they might not have felt so confident.
In the great plaza of the city of Monterey, in front of the church, a regiment of infantry was at that hour paraded for inspection. Their arms were good, for they had just been imported from across the Atlantic. Their uniforms were new. Their drill was fair. They seemed to be well handled. They were not by any means, in appearance at least, the kind of soldiers to be despised by a half-armed garrison of an old adobe fort. Even the stone part of the Alamo defences might be in danger, for a battery of heavy cannon was drawn up near them. In front of the line were halted a dozen or so of officers on horseback, brilliant in equipment, whose bronzed and bearded faces wore a very warlike look.
Encamped near the city walls, outside, were other regiments and other batteries. What could the Texans mean by their contempt for the forces which were to come against them? What hope had their poverty-stricken little state in a struggle against such numbers and such resources as now were gathering to conquer it?
The review was over. A salute was fired by the battery. The troops cheered. The name of Santa Anna mingled loudly with the cheering, and the general, sending his splendid horse forward, raised his hat gracefully in response. But then he turned to his attendant officers and remarked, —
"It is well, gentlemen. The troops are in fine condition. We shall sweep the Gringos out of Texas. Now for the cock-fight, and then we will have a quiet game of monte at the palace."
He had pretty fairly condensed into his remarks one feature of the situation. The sturdy riflemen of the American border were strongly impressed with the worthlessness of the Mexican military organization; with the dissipated, lazy character of its men and their commanders; and they confidently expected that a Mexican invasion of Texas would be little more than a campaign of wasteful blunders.
"If we can stand their first rush," had been said by General Houston, "they'll break all to pieces before they make another."
If Travis and his friends were beginning to be anxious concerning the fate of Bowie, he was all the while growing more and more anxious about it himself. He would have been more so if the region of country he was pushing his way through had not been so very nearly unoccupied. Here and there a fortified town or village needed to be given a wide berth. Strongly built haciendas were to be avoided, if they were not already deserted. Most of them were so by reason of the recent civil wars, and yet more on account of the destructive raids of the red men. It was a nearly ruined country, and it was not altogether impossible for even a considerable band of prudent men to travel across it without attracting too much attention.
The men discussed the probabilities again and again, and their leader was studying them carefully, but from time to time he shook his head.
"Boys," he remarked, as they sat around their camp-fire in the woods that evening, "you're only half right. We could march an expedition along by this route and not find a soul to hinder us, but there'd be a whole brigade of lancers riding this way before we could get the bullion and set out for home. I reckon they'd meet us somewhere about here. They could pen us in."
"Colonel," replied Jim Cheyne, "I've thought of that. This is the shortest road to come or go on, isn't it?"
"By all odds the shortest," said Bowie.
"Then it's our road to come back, and we can choose a roundabout road to go there by. They'll foller our trail, and we kin make one we'd jest as lieve they would foller. We kin beat 'em."
It was a kind of relief to their present anxiety to sit there and make plans for the future. They were never tired, moreover, of hearing again and again a description of the cavern, the idol, the sacrifices, the plunges into the chasm, and the heaps of gold and silver. Some day they were to see it all for themselves, and they were to take the treasure out of the cave and pack it upon their mules and ponies. Then they were to go home with it. They could buy plantations, build houses, "live like gentlemen," as Joe was fond of saying, and all the while they could strengthen Texas and help its riflemen to drive out Santa Anna.
One of their number, however, did not care a button for anything that they were saying. Not any of it belonged to him. All that he knew about was the present, and all that he could feel were his keen instincts as a young Lipan warrior with a party of white men upon his hands. They were friends of his, and it was his duty to take care of them. He had gone to sleep at once that evening, after eating his supper at sunset, but not long after the weary rangers spread their blankets and lay down their very red associate was up again.
Joe was acting as sentry at the foot of a tree, with his rifle across his lap, but he paid no attention to Red Wolf when he saw him walking toward the nearest underbrush.
"Indian!" he muttered. "Let him rip."
"Red Wolf heap look," said he, a few minutes afterwards, as he came out into a place where the trees were widely scattered.
A white man might not have seen anything, for all around him was as dark as a pocket, but upon a cloudy gloom above the forest beyond him there rested a faint, yellowish glow.
"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Fire burn."
He had brought no weapons with him excepting the knife and pistols in his belt, but he was now armed better than were most Indian boys, and Bowie had promised him a rifle.
From tree to tree, keeping among the shadows, on he went, and all the while the glow grew brighter, until at last he could see the flashing of fires and the forms of those around them.
"Ugh!" said Red Wolf. "Mexican. No Comanche. Heap sleep."
In every direction lay the prostrate forms of men. Standing erect or walking hither and thither were a few who might be acting as a night watch. A group of these were gathered at the end of the camp nearest the young scout or spy, and he crept toward them, for they were jabbering loudly in Spanish. They carried weapons, bows and arrows, escopetas, or short muskets, machetes of all sorts and sizes, knives, lances, hatchets, clubs. They were not regular soldiers, but their numbers made them sufficiently dangerous.
"Eat up Texan," thought Red Wolf. "No catch him. Go back."
He went rapidly enough, until Joe, at the foot of his tree, was startled by a hand upon his shoulder. A few swift words told him what was the matter, and the other rangers were at once roughly stirred up.
"Do you s'pose, colonel," asked Cheyne, "that we've been followed?"
"Not a bit of it!" exclaimed Bowie. "These chaps got their cue from Tetzcatl somehow while we were on the way. He never meant we should find out this thing and get home again. They don't know the secret either. All they know is that we're a squad of Gringos, and that we must be chopped up. Most likely they heard of us to-day, and mean to strike us in the morning. We must git! That's all."
"Bully for Red Wolf!" seemed to express the general opinion of the rangers, but the half-rested, half-fed animals were untethered at once.
"If it hadn't been for you they'd ha' corralled us," remarked Cheyne to Red Wolf, but all the response he obtained was "Ugh!"
"We have everything in our favor," said the colonel, "now we've passed 'em. Such a crowd as that won't stir out early. They'll all lie around and jabber and smoke cigarettes and drink pulque and gamble and boast, and then they'll swarm in to find that we've stolen a march on 'em."
For once he was mistaken in his estimate of his enemies. It was in the very dawn of the day, when he and his comrades might have been supposed to be asleep, that the miscellaneous militia from the Mexican camp "swarmed in" to slaughter the too adventurous Gringos. It was a sudden rush, made at a signal, a musket-shot, and it was made with wild shouts of anticipated triumph. It would have been entirely successful but for the fact that Bowie and his men had been pushing northward during four long hours, at a rate which had compelled them to abandon one more of their over-driven horses.