The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier | Page 8

not send for me before? Joe shall not die here like a dog if I can save him. I've got a young Kentucky saddle mare here that's the fastest thing on the Pecos. I'll be in Vegas by sun-up to-morrow morning, and I'll be back here sometime to-morrow night with a doctor, if the Navajos don't get us. Pay? Pay be damned. I'm doin' it for old Joe; he'd go for me in a minute. If I'm not back by nine o'clock to-morrow night, Charlie, send another messenger and just tell old Joe that Scot did his best."
"It's mighty good of you, Scot," replied Goodnight, "I never will forget it, nor will Joe. You know I'd go myself if I could."
"That's all right, pardner," said Scot. "Just come over to my camp a spell and look over some papers I want you to attend to if I don't show up."
And they strolled away. Officers and other bystanders shook their heads sadly.
"Devilish pity old Scot had to come in."
"Might 'a known nobody could hold him from goin'."
"He'll make Vegas all right in a night run if the mare don't give out, but God help him when he starts back with a doctor in a wagon; ain't one chance in a thousand he'll got through."
"Well, if any man on earth can make it, bet your alce Scot will."
These were some of the comments. Scot Moore was known and loved from Chihuahua to Fort Lyon. One of the biggest-hearted, most amiable and generous of men, ha was known as the coolest and most utterly fearless in a country where few men were cowards.
At nightfall, the mare well fed and groomed and lightly saddled, Scot mounted, bearing no arms but his two pistols, called a careless "Hasta luego, amigos" to his friends, and trotted off up the road. For two hours he jogged along easily over the sandy stretches beyond the Bosque Redondo. Then getting out on firmer ground, the mare well warmed, he gave her the rein and let her out into a long, low, easy lope that scored the miles off famously. And so he swept on throughout the night, with only brief halts to cool the mare and give her a mouthful of water, through Puerta de Luna, past the Ca?on Pintado, up the Rio Gallinas, past sleeping freighters' camps and Mexican placitas. Twice he was fired upon by alarmed campers who mistook him for a savage marauder, but luckily the shots flew wild.
The last ten miles the noble mare nearly gave out, but, a friend's life the stake he was riding for, Scot's quirt and spurs lifted her through.
Half an hour after sunrise, before many in the town were out of bed, Scot rode into the plaza of Las Vegas and turned out the doctor, whom he knew.
Dr. D---- was no coward by any means, but it took all Scot's eloquence and persuasiveness to induce him to consent to hazard a daylight journey through to Sumner, for he well knew its dangers. Scarcely a week passed without news of some fearful massacre or desperate defence. But, stirred by Scot's own heroism or perhaps tempted by the heavy fee to be earned, he consented.
Having breakfasted and gotten the best team in town hitched to a light buckboard, Scot and the doctor were rolling away into the south on the Sumner trail before seven o'clock, over long stretches of level grassy mesa and past tall black volcanic buttes.
Driving on without interruption or incident, shortly after noon they approached the head of the Arroyo de los Enteros, down which the trail descended to the lower levels of the great Pecos Valley. Enteros Ca?on is about three miles long, rarely more than two hundred yards wide, its sides rocky, precipitous, and heavily timbered, through which wound the wagon trail, exposed at every point to a perfect ambuscade. It was the most dreaded stretch of the Vegas-Sumner road, but Scot and the doctor drew near it without a misgiving, for no sign of the savage enemy had they seen.
Just before reaching the head of the ca?on, the road wound round a high butte. Bowling rapidly along, Scot half dozing with fatigue, the doctor, unused to the plains, alert and watchful, they suddenly turned the hill and came out upon the immediate head of the ca?on, when suddenly the doctor cried, seizing Scot's arm:
"Good God, Scott, look! For God's sake, look!"
And it was time. There on either hand, to their right and to their left, tied by their lariats to drooping pi?on bough, stood fifty or sixty Navajo ponies. The ponies were bridled and saddled. Upon some were tied lances and on others arms. All were dripping with sweat and heaving of flank, their knife-marked ears drooping with fatigue; not more than five minutes could have