got his own horse to its feet.
“They’ll scatter now,” Mose Harper said.
“Not till they come up with their horse herd, they won’t!”
“Somebody’s got to stay with Ed,” Mose reminded them. “I suppose I’m the one to do that— old crip that I be. But some
of them Comanch’ might circle back. You’ll have to leave Zack with me.”
“That’s all right.”
“And I need one fast man on a good horse to get me help. I can’t move him. Not with what we got here.”
“We all ought to be back,” Amos objected, “in a couple of days.”
“Fellers follering Comanches don’t necessarily ever come back. I got to have either Brad Mathison or Charlie MacCorry.”
“You get Mathison, then,” Charlie said. “I’m going on.”
Brad whirled on Charlie in an unexpected blast oftemper. “There’s a quick way to decide it,” he said, and stood braced, his open hand ready above his holster.
Charlie MacCorry looked Brad in the eye as he spat at Brad’s boots and missed. But after that he turned away.
So three rode on, following a plume of dust already distant upon the prairie. “We’ll have the answer soon,” Amos promised.
“Soon. We don’t dast let ’em lose us now.”
Mart Pauley was silent. He didn’t want to ask him what three riders could do when they caught up with the Comanches. He was
afraid Amos didn’t know.
Chapter Nine
They kept the feather of dust in sight all day, but in the morning, after a night camp without water, they failed to pick
it up. The trail of the Comanche war party still led westward, broad and plain, marked at intervals with the carcasses of
buffalo ponies wounded at the Cat-tails. They pushed on, getting all they could out of their horses.
This day, the second after the Fight at the Cat-tails, became the strangest day of the pursuit before it was done, because
of something unexplained that happened during a period while they were separated.
A line of low hills, many hours away beyond the plain, began to shove up from the horizon as they rode. After a while they
knew the Comanches they followed were already into that broken country where pursuit would be slower and more treacherous
than before.
“Sometimes it seems to me,” Amos said, “them Comanches fly with their elbows, carrying the pony along between their knees.
You can nurse a horse along till he falls and dies, and you walk on carrying your saddle. Then a Comanche comes along, and
gets that horse up, and rides it twenty miles more. Then eats it.”
“Don’t we have any chance at all?”
“Yes.... We got a chance.” Amos went through the motions of spitting, with no moisture in his mouth to spit. “And
I’ll tell you what it be. An Indian will chase a thing until he thinks he’s chased itenough. Then he quits. So the same when he runs. After while he figures we must have quit, and he starts to loaf. Seemingly
he never learns there’s such a thing as a critter that might just keep coming on.”
As he looked at Amos, sitting his saddle like a great lump of rock—yet a lump that was somehow of one piece with the horse—Mart
Pauley was willing to believe that to have Amos following you could be a deadly thing with no end to it, ever, until
he was dead.
“If only they stay bunched,” Amos finished, and it was a prayer; “if only they don’t split and scatter... we’ll come up to
’em. We’re bound to come up.
Late in the morning they came to a shallow sink, where a number of posthole wells had been freshly dug among the dry reeds.
Here the trail of the main horse herd freshened, and they found the bones of an eaten horse, polished shiny in a night
by the wolves. And there was the Indian smell, giving Mart a senseless dread to fight off during their first minutes in this
place.
“Here’s where the rest of ’em was all day yesterday,” Amos said when he had wet his mouth; “the horse guards, and the stole
horses, and maybe some crips Henry
“They’ll scatter now,” Mose Harper said.
“Not till they come up with their horse herd, they won’t!”
“Somebody’s got to stay with Ed,” Mose reminded them. “I suppose I’m the one to do that— old crip that I be. But some
of them Comanch’ might circle back. You’ll have to leave Zack with me.”
“That’s all right.”
“And I need one fast man on a good horse to get me help. I can’t move him. Not with what we got here.”
“We all ought to be back,” Amos objected, “in a couple of days.”
“Fellers follering Comanches don’t necessarily ever come back. I got to have either Brad Mathison or Charlie MacCorry.”
“You get Mathison, then,” Charlie said. “I’m going on.”
Brad whirled on Charlie in an unexpected blast oftemper. “There’s a quick way to decide it,” he said, and stood braced, his open hand ready above his holster.
Charlie MacCorry looked Brad in the eye as he spat at Brad’s boots and missed. But after that he turned away.
So three rode on, following a plume of dust already distant upon the prairie. “We’ll have the answer soon,” Amos promised.
“Soon. We don’t dast let ’em lose us now.”
Mart Pauley was silent. He didn’t want to ask him what three riders could do when they caught up with the Comanches. He was
afraid Amos didn’t know.
Chapter Nine
They kept the feather of dust in sight all day, but in the morning, after a night camp without water, they failed to pick
it up. The trail of the Comanche war party still led westward, broad and plain, marked at intervals with the carcasses of
buffalo ponies wounded at the Cat-tails. They pushed on, getting all they could out of their horses.
This day, the second after the Fight at the Cat-tails, became the strangest day of the pursuit before it was done, because
of something unexplained that happened during a period while they were separated.
A line of low hills, many hours away beyond the plain, began to shove up from the horizon as they rode. After a while they
knew the Comanches they followed were already into that broken country where pursuit would be slower and more treacherous
than before.
“Sometimes it seems to me,” Amos said, “them Comanches fly with their elbows, carrying the pony along between their knees.
You can nurse a horse along till he falls and dies, and you walk on carrying your saddle. Then a Comanche comes along, and
gets that horse up, and rides it twenty miles more. Then eats it.”
“Don’t we have any chance at all?”
“Yes.... We got a chance.” Amos went through the motions of spitting, with no moisture in his mouth to spit. “And
I’ll tell you what it be. An Indian will chase a thing until he thinks he’s chased itenough. Then he quits. So the same when he runs. After while he figures we must have quit, and he starts to loaf. Seemingly
he never learns there’s such a thing as a critter that might just keep coming on.”
As he looked at Amos, sitting his saddle like a great lump of rock—yet a lump that was somehow of one piece with the horse—Mart
Pauley was willing to believe that to have Amos following you could be a deadly thing with no end to it, ever, until
he was dead.
“If only they stay bunched,” Amos finished, and it was a prayer; “if only they don’t split and scatter... we’ll come up to
’em. We’re bound to come up.
Late in the morning they came to a shallow sink, where a number of posthole wells had been freshly dug among the dry reeds.
Here the trail of the main horse herd freshened, and they found the bones of an eaten horse, polished shiny in a night
by the wolves. And there was the Indian smell, giving Mart a senseless dread to fight off during their first minutes in this
place.
“Here’s where the rest of ’em was all day yesterday,” Amos said when he had wet his mouth; “the horse guards, and the stole
horses, and maybe some crips Henry
Similar Books
