The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier | Page 4

eagerly raised, ears pricked
up, eyes brighten; the leaders step briskly forward and break into a trot.
Cow-hunters say they smell the water. Perhaps they do, or perhaps it is
the last desperate struggle for existence. Anyway, the tide is resistless.

Nothing can check them, and four men gallop in the lead to control and
handle them as much as possible when they reach the stream. Behind,
the weaker cattle follow at the best pace they can. In this way over the
last stage a single herd is strung out over a length of four or five miles.
Great care is needed when the stream is reached to turn them in at easy
waterings, for in their maddened state they would bowl over one
another down a bluff of any height; and they often do so, for men and
horses are almost equally wild to reach the water, and indifferent how
they get there.
However, the Pecos was reached and the herds watered with
comparatively small losses, and both Loving's and Goodnight's outfits
lay at rest for three days to recuperate at Horsehead Crossing. Then the
drive up the wide, level valley of the Pecos was begun, through thickets
of tornilla and mesquite, horses and cattle grazing belly-deep in the tall,
juicy zacaton.
The perils of the Llano Estacado were behind them, but they were now
in the domain of the Comanche and in hourly danger of ambush or
open attack. They found a great deal of Indian "sign," their trails and
camps; but the "sign" was ten days or two weeks old, which left ground
for hope that the war parties might be out on raids in the east or south.
After travelling four days up the Pecos without encountering any fresh
"sign," they concluded that the Indians were off on some foray;
therefore it was decided that Loving might with reasonable safety
proceed ahead of the herds to make arrangements at Fort Sumner for
their delivery, provided he travelled only by night, and lay in
concealment during the day.
In Loving's outfit were two brothers, Jim and Bill Scott, who had
accompanied his two previous Pecos drives, and were his most
experienced and trusted men. He chose Jim Scott for his companion on
the dash through to Fort Sumner. When dark came, Loving mounted a
favourite mule, and Jim his best horse; then, each well armed with a
Henry rifle and two six-shooters, with a brief "So long, boys!" to
Goodnight and the men, they trotted off up the trail. Riding rapidly all
night, they hid themselves just before dawn in the rough hills below

Pope's Crossing, ate a snack, and then slept undisturbed till nightfall.
As soon as it was good dusk they slipped down a ravine to the river,
watered their mounts, and resumed the trail to the north. This night also
was uneventful, except that they rode into, and roused, a great herd of
sleeping buffalo, which ran thundering away over the Plain.
Dawn came upon them riding through a level country about fifteen
miles below the present town of Carlsbad, without cover of any sort to
serve for their concealment through the day. They therefore decided to
push on to the hills above the mouth of Dark Cañon. Here was their
mistake. Had they ridden a mile or two to the west of the trail and
dismounted before daylight, they probably would not have been
discovered. It was madness for two men to travel by day in that country,
whether fresh sign had been seen or not. But, anxious to reach a hiding
place where both might venture to sleep through the day, they pressed
on up the trail. And they paid dearly the penalty of their foolhardiness.
Other riders were out that morning, riders with eyes keen as a hawk's,
eyes that never rested for a moment, eyes set in heads cunning as foxes
and cruel as wolves. A war party of Comanches was out and on the
move early, and, as is the crafty Indian custom, was riding out of sight
in the narrow valley below the well-rounded hills that lined the river.
But while hid themselves, their scouts were out far ahead, creeping
along just beneath the edge of the Plain, scanning keenly its broad
stretches, alert for quarry. And they soon found it.
Loving and Jim hove in sight!
To be sure they were only two specks in the distance, but the trained
eyes of these savage sleuths quickly made them out as horsemen, and
white men.
Halting for the main war party to come up, they held a brief council of
war, which decided that the attack should be delivered two or three
miles farther up the river, where the trail swerved in to within a few
hundred yards of the