California Joe, the Mysterious Plainsman | Page 9

back to where he had left his horse and, the hoppled mustang. Quickly he got them both up, and hiding the white animal under robes and blankets, he mounted him and rode toward the camp once more. Passing the spot where he had before halted, he continued on until he could near the snorting and stamping of the red-skins' mustangs, and again he stopped and staked out the three horses. At a run on foot he approached the herd, and gained their midst without attracting the attention of any of the guards, who were little dreaming of danger from that point, and were taken up wholly in watching and waiting for the attack of their comrades, which was to bring them scalps and plunder. From horse to horse Joe glided, his sharp knife severing the lariat near their necks, and in a few moments' time he had set free the lot, excepting the few near the guards, who, five in number, were grouped together waiting to hear the sound of conflict begin. The Indians had left their horses over a mile from the camp, so that no neigh or sound should alarm the guards, and this distance they had to go on foot, and moving with the greatest caution, it gave Joe nearly an hour in which to perfect his little game. At last the ringing war-cry, for the charge upon the emigrant camp, broke on the air, and immediately after came the terrific yells of the red fiends as they rushed upon what they supposed were their victims. Then, like a deer, Joe ran back toward his horses, threw the robes and blankets off of his own animal, and leading the two mustangs by long lariats, dashed toward the ponies of the red-skins. Firing his pistol, yelling, and at fully speed he charged the herd and at once, as he had forseen began a wild stampede. The guards in vain tried to check their flight, and over them the frightened animals dashed, driven straight toward the camp. As he neared it, by the flaming up of the fire, Joe saw that the red-skins had been badly hurt, and were flying too, and he increased the racket behind the charging mustangs. Not, for an instant believing that their own animals were stampeded, and fearing that they were charging soldiery, the red-skins fled from their ponies at first, until too late they discovered their mistake. And on by the camp rushed the frightened ponies, held at their speed by Joe, to disappear in the darkness beyond, though the thunder of their hoofs was long heard by the emigrants in the camp, and the enraged and skulking Indians, as they fell back on foot toward their own village, too utterly demoralized for their savage chief to bring them again to the attack.

CHAPTER VII.
JOE STRIKES A BARGAIN.
THE sentinel at Fort ---- was considerably surprised the next morning, after the attack an the emigrant train, while waiting to be relieved from duty, to see, what he at first supposed, was a regiment of cavalry coming toward him. A closer look however showed him that though the equine portion of a regiment was there the bipeds were wanting. In other words the horses were riderless. At a slow, weary trot they came on over a distant roll of the prairie, nearly, two hundred in number, and they, were heading directly for the fort. The sentinel sung out for the corporal of the guard, and made his report and that worthy reported to the sergeant, and so on to the officer of the day, which sent the news flying through the fortress that: "A drove of wild horses was coming." Officers at once ordered out their swiftest steeds, seized their lassoes and scouts and hunters joining them, all dashed out from the stockade inclosure to suddenly descry that the herd had a driver. What could it mean? There was but one man behind them and he was waving his hat as though for those at the fort to head them off. A line was quickly formed, and the herd was headed straight for the corral, and were at once secured, while all seemed anxious to see the single driver of so many ponies that had upon them the bridle and saddles they knew belonged to red-skin masters. As this person rode up he saluted the officers and said bluntly: "Them are Injun ponies." "So I see, my young friend; but who are you?" asked the major in command of the fort, and a thorough sportsman he had come out for a wild horse chase as he had supposed. "Oh! I'm Joe, was the quaint reply. "Joe who, or Joe what?" asked the major with a smile looking fixedly at the strange youth before him. "Either one