George Henty - In the Hands of the Cave-Dwellers

That night they slept at the hacienda of some acquaintances of Señor Sarasta, where they were most hospitably entertained; the next day they halted for a few hours at San Felice, and rode on as soon as the sun had lost its full power. They were now beyond the region of general cultivation; the plain was, however, fairly green, as a short time before the unusual circumstance of a heavy rain had occurred, with the result that in the course of a few days the whole face of the country was changed. As soon as the horses were unsaddled the men scattered to collect dead brushwood, and in a short time a fire was blazing, and a slice from a hindquarter of venison that had been presented to them by their host of the night before was skewered on a ramrod and placed over it. They had made sixty-five miles in two days' journey. They had not been following any beaten track, but the men had all made the journey so often that no path was needed. In the morning they would begin the ascent of the lower slopes of the mountains, whose crest rose some thirty miles ahead of them, although, seen in the clear air, they did not seem to Will Harland to be more than a fifth of that distance. Rather to the surprise of the men, Juan ordered that a watch should be kept, a precaution they had never taken before.

"I have an idea," he said to Will, "that we shall be attacked either to-night or while mounting the hill to-morrow. It is just as well to take the precaution to set a guard to-night, but I do not really think that if a party are out after us they will trouble us to-night. They could not know exactly the road we should take, but will be sure that we shall cross the hills and come down on the north side of the Great Dry Lake, and probably stop at Martinez. From there the country is better cultivated, as we go along the Chatenezonais Valley, in which there are several villages. To-morrow's journey is, therefore, the most lonely and dangerous, and they would have no motive whatever in going farther, so I think that for to-night we can sleep tranquilly. To-morrow we shall have to be on our guard."

The night passed quietly. The soil was soft and sandy, and, rolled in his poncho, Will slept as comfortably as if in a hammock. They were in the saddle early, for the day's ride would be a very long one, and Juan intended to give the horses a day's rest at Martinez.

"We don't consider sixty miles to be a long journey here," Juan said, as they started, "and, indeed, if one starts on fresh horses it is a mere nothing; but when one rides the same, day after day, forty is as much as one has a right to expect from them after one is once fairly on his way. We shall meet with no water to-day, and it is specially for this part of the journey that we brought the water-skins with us."

"I noticed that you did not fill them half full at the last stream we crossed."

"No, it was not necessary; the horses will have a good drink at a stream we shall cross in a couple of hours, and we shall fill the skins there; beyond that we enter the mountains and travel through an extremely difficult pass, or, rather, I should say, passes, till we come down into the valley. The carts do not come this way; they strike the Colorado River many miles down and follow its bank. It is at least a third longer, but if it were three times as long they would have to go that way; the passes are difficult enough for horses, but they would be impossible for wheeled carriages."

After riding for thirty miles they halted for half an hour; the horses were watered, and the men ate some of the meat they had cooked overnight and some cold pancakes that had been fried in deer's fat. They were now far up on the hillside and following a regular track.

"Another hour's sharp climbing and we shall be on the top summit of the pass. See to the priming of your rifles and pistols. If we are not attacked before we reach the top I shall admit that I have been wrong, and that the attack upon me was, after all, the work of street ruffians."

The four vaqueros were ordered to look to their pistols before remounting; they did not carry guns.

"Do you expect an attack, master?" one asked. "I have not heard of there being any bands on the road just lately, but of course there may be some, and this bit of road is their favourite lurking-place, as the traffic between San Filepi and the Chatenezonais Valley all comes this way."

"I do not know that I expect to be attacked, Lopez, but I have grounds for suspecting that it is possible. If we should be ambushed, dismount at once, and take up your position behind the rocks and fight them in their own way. If the road were good enough I should say gallop on, but it is too steep and too rough for that."

Will Harland soon found that his friend had not exaggerated the difficulty of the pass. On both sides the hills sloped very steeply and were covered by boulders. The track in the middle of the ravine was just wide enough for a cart, but at distances of two hundred or three hundred yards apart the rock had been cut away for some twenty yards, so that two or three carts could draw aside there to allow others coming the other way to pass. As it was inconvenient for two to ride abreast, Juan said: "We had better go in single file."

"Yes, and I will ride first," Will replied. "If there should be a fellow hiding among these rocks, it will be you they are after, and, riding first, you would present an easy mark for them; whereas, if I am first, they won't be able to aim at you till you are pretty nearly abreast of them."

"I don't like that," Juan began, but Will pushed his horse forward. Both had unslung their rifles from their shoulders, and were carrying them in readiness for instant use.

"Keep your eyes on the rocks," Juan said to the men behind him; "if one of you sees the least movement give a shout, and all throw yourselves at once off your horses."

It would, however, have been no easy matter to distinguish a man's head among the masses of rock and boulders through which in many places brushwood and small trees had sprung up, and, although all kept scanning the hillsides minutely, nothing suspicious was heard, until suddenly a shot was fired from a spot some forty feet up the rocks on the left-hand side. Will instantly swung himself to the ground, gave a sharp slap on his horse's quarters, and ensconced himself behind a rock, while the animal, relieved from the weight of his rider, made his way rapidly along the path. The first shot had been followed by half a dozen others. These came from both sides of the ravine, and a ball striking the rock close to Will's head, showed him that his position was no more safe there than it would have been on horseback. He therefore made a rush upward, and took up a position between two rocks which covered him from either side. Then he took advantage of some bushes and crawled some yards farther along, until he came to a spot where he could lie in shelter, and yet obtain a view through the bushes both above and below him.

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