18 Gray Wolf’s Coming

While young spring was touching the mountains with green, the desert also was waking from sleep and putting on its scanty signs of new life. In a valley to the eastward of the canyon, a band of Apaches had spent the cold months, although a few of the warriors now and then roamed far in the hope of finding game or perhaps a wandering prospector who might be picked off with the aid of a happy bullet and never be missed by his own people.

This was the band that had taken Charles, and that had lost the great shaman, old Ka-jú, slain by a rifle bullet, fired from a great distance, perhaps by Se-má-che himself, and it retained for a long time its respect for the terrible pass and the inviolate home of the cliff dwellers. But with the months the influence of these events waned, and the Professor’s prediction came true.

One spirit more daring than all the rest wandered, just as the snow was melting, into the mass of mighty cliffs and peaks about the great canyon. This warrior entered tentatively upon the first fringe of the cold mountains. Then, as the snow melted, he went on up the great canyon to behold at last a sight that stirred in his primeval blood the desire for action. Upon the very shelf where cliff dwellers had been slaughtered long, long ago, he saw two lads going to and fro. They were well tanned, but undeniably they belonged to the white race, and they were far, very far from their people. They might disappear here and no one of their race ever know the secret of their disappearance. All the cunning cruelty and hate in the warrior’s nature blazed up at this happy chance. He remembered the face of one of the boys, and he began to believe now that his release had been secured by some one of the white man’s cunning tricks.

He crouched in the bushes, where he lay motionless more than an hour, his body apparently a part of the earth, but his burning black eyes intently watching the two white beings on the shelf above him. He saw a third white face also much tanned, but undeniably white, and then a fourth. The last was a little man, but with a great head covered by an enormous pith helmet, and the warrior with fierce anger remembered him too. The four attended to various duties and talked together now and then. They seemed to be wholly oblivious of danger, and the cunning Apache judged from what he saw that they had been there a long time.

The soul of the savage leaped within him at the great opportunity. There were human beings like himself. They were not protected by Se-má-che. He might have waited around until he could pick off one or two himself, but the Apache takes no needless risks, and he stole away from the canyon, and then across the desert to his comrades. The tale that he told—he was a bold and convincing orator—filled them, too, with the same desire, and they entered the mountains to achieve their triumph.

No warning came as yet to the four. They had enjoyed immunity so long since the slaying of old Ka-jú that the thought of the savage seldom entered their minds, and they were occupied now with preparations for the departure with the gold. Meanwhile the Apaches were in the canyon, encouraged by the fact that Se-má-che seemed to take no notice of their entrance, and were now cautiously approaching the path that led to the shelf.

Spring had made progress. A green robe lay over the lower slopes of the mountains, and above shone a sky of peaceful, unbroken blue. A little wind played among the grass stems, and the new-blown flowers. The four were having their breakfast again in the open air, and all were in the finest of humors. Then Herbert took a notion to wander on the shelf.

The boy was silent and abstracted. He could not have told why he was sad, but for the first time in days he was thinking of Mr. Carleton, who had perished so miserably, and he was blaming himself because he did not think of him oftener and grieve more. But from this tragedy his thoughts turned to something vague and intangible that suddenly oppressed him. The sixth sense, which perhaps belonged to the caveman, was registering an alarm; he had a feeling that danger was near; the feeling was unaccountable, but it grew in power, and he looked out at the canyon, the mountains and the lofty row of white peaks to the north. This was “home,” peaceful and protecting, with green on the slopes and golden sunlight above, but this air, seemingly so pure, was surcharged with an unknown quality that made his nerves quiver as he breathed it.

Without saying a word to the others, and almost forgetting for the moment their presence, he rose and stood at the edge of the shelf, gazing into the blue abyss. Here his sense of danger increased, as if he were coming nearer to that which brought the danger. Why he felt that way, at that particular moment, he could never tell. Nothing stirred but the little wind that played among the grass stems and leaves. No sound came to his ears, but the unknown warning was repeated.

A pebble rattled on the slope, and he looked down with eyes that had grown far more acute than those of the ordinary lad. A weed by the path moved more than it should have done in the wind, and he glanced at it twice. The second time he saw behind the bush a pair of fierce black eyes, gazing intently upward, and then he saw the coarse black hair and low brown forehead of the head to which the eyes belonged. In an instant he knew and, every nerve attuned, he was ready for what he had to do.

He stepped back from the edge, shouting to the others that they were attacked, and then he sprang forward again. At that moment the black hair and the brown face appeared over the terrace and Herbert promptly fired at it with the revolver that he always carried more from a sense of duty lately than from any fear of danger. A cry followed, and then the sound of a body falling, until the echo died far away. After that there was silence in the great canyon, save for the little wind that played among the grass stems.

In an instant the other three were running toward him.

“Apaches!” shouted Herbert.

“Ah,” said the Professor, “I am not surprised!” Charles and Jed ran for the rifles, and in a few seconds every one of the four was provided with his powerful breech-loader. The boys learned in their long stay in the mountains presence of mind, great resource and the use of but few words.

“They’re on the slope,” said Herbert.

“We can beat ’em,” said Charles.

“Here, things favor the defense,” said the Professor.

“This is mighty cur’ous an’ interestin’,” said Jed, “but I think we can handle it.”

It is truth to say that they were not afraid. They were the primeval men now, defending their home. But they had the best of modern arms, and they awaited the contest with the joyous thrill that the strong feel. The attack, for the present, did not come.

Now courage and patience were matched against courage and cunning. The most terrible of human tests was at hand, long waiting in the face of mortal danger. Hour after hour passed, the morning waned, the sun reached the zenith, pouring down floods of golden rays, then the afternoon, too, waned and long black shadows began to creep over the mountains, but the two men and the two boys, rifle in hand, still knelt on the terrace, watching the head of the path, hearing every sound, and seeing every weed or bush that quivered. They felt able to stand on guard, until the end, whatever it might be. The Apaches had not gone—instinct alone would have told them that—and they knew that, sooner or later, the attack would be made. The twilight deepened into the night, and after a while the moon came out.

While the four waited on the shelf, watchful and listening, a group far down in the canyon were also watchful and listening. They belonged to a far-off, more primitive age, and they belonged to it wholly; it was not for moments, it was no psychic revulsion; they dwelt all the time in that fierce old past, and now they were at war with the present.

They sought foes who in their minds were typical of that present with which they fought, and they saw a chance for at least a partial vengeance. All their natural instincts were awake. They were akin now to the animal, and were moved largely by the same impulses. Se-má-che had given them no warning and now he must favor their attempt. The blood-red sun, dropping suddenly behind the mountains, added a new fire to their passion, the weird, ghost-like darkness that crept up the canyon conveyed to them no sense of awe or fear; it was merely the coming of the night which might help them, and they rejoiced in accordance.

As the swift twilight went and black night covered the mountains, the darkness, like the red light of the sun, served to give a new touch of flame to the blood of the besiegers. One, leaner, gaunter, and uglier than all the rest, stalked now and then among them. It was their leader, Gray Wolf, and he urged them always to persistence.

The night advanced, the faint wind died in the canyon, the sickle of a pale moon was blotted out by clouds, and darkness, heavy and brooding, lay over all the great mountains. Nature was silent and waiting, as if she expected a black and ugly deed; the air in the deep canyon became close and heavy, and then, when the somber skies, unlighted by a single star, lay close to the earth, Gray Wolf and his men, fierce for blood, began to creep slowly upward. They were in no hurry; if there was any quality that the Apache possessed in surpassing degree it was patience; he was ready to wait through any measure of time if the taking of a life were only at the end of it. Perhaps no other human beings ever bore a greater semblance to serpents, as they went on, always upward. Had the eyes of men been able to pierce the blackness they would have seen only sinuous brown forms blending against the brown of the slopes.

Gray Wolf, as became him, was always in the front, and he never doubted that they would succeed in their attempt; the defenders would be taken by surprise and the rest would be easy. All the omens were propitious; not a single ray of light came through the clouds, and every voice was dead in the canyon; his savage heart thrilled already with the joys of the coming triumph. Yet he lost no particle of his caution. Now and then, with a soft warning hiss, which redoubled his likeness to a serpent, he would cause all the band to stop, and they would lie there for minutes against the slope, absolutely motionless and scarcely breathing.

Up, up they went, and still no noise reached the listening ear of Gray Wolf. A laugh rose in his throat, but went no further than his lips. They were but whites on the shelf, and, with only the dulled senses of the whites. A more chivalrous enemy might have wished a harder prey, but not so the Apache; courage he had when it was needed, but it gave him the keenest joy to win the greatest prize without cost; he loved to find a sleeping foe.

Gray Wolf presently stopped again, and measured the distance to the shelf, which he could not see, but whose location he knew well. Two hundred yards! He resumed his advance, but stopped again at the last hundred. Still no sound, nothing whatever to indicate that his coming victims suspected their fate to be so near. Gray Wolf brought his rifle well forward, and loosened the knife in his belt. Big Elk, second in command and just behind him, did the same.

Gray Wolf and his band passed the last hundred yards more slowly than any of the others, because they now had the utmost need of caution if they would win the easy victory that the Apache loved. But there was yet nothing to indicate that the victims suspected; the black night and the quiet mountains remained favorable. Now he could see the edge of the shelf in the darkness, and no watchful form stood upon it.

The yards melted slowly to nothing, and then Gray Wolf, with all the caution that the Apache learns on his swart, gray plains, drew a little to one side, and beckoned to the stoutest of his band to go up first. They went forward without a word, eager for the triumph, and two straightened up, ready to climb upon the shelf.

Gray Wolf at that moment saw dark figures rise from the ground, made gigantic and terrible by the dusk, and flame shot down almost directly in the face of the leading Apaches, who uttered groans and crashed away down the mountainside, rolling like bowlders. The great canyon took up the sounds, and sent them echoing away toward the white peaks.

Gray Wolf was a brave man, but his brow grew cold with sweat, and red terror plucked at his heart. It was not the white men, but he and his own warriors, who had been surprised. The band fled far more swiftly than they had come to the comparative safety of the canyon-bed below. The four on the shelf could not see the dim, retreating figures in the dusk, but they heard the groans, the rattling sounds, the fall of bowlders and the scraping of bodies, and they knew that the Apaches were in wild retreat. Exultation lifted up the souls of everyone, but most of all that of Jedediah Simpson o’ Lexin’-ton, K—y.

“Swing low, old chariot, swing low,” he chanted. “Can’t you come again, you purty brown men! That was jest a military salute we fixed for you an’ now you have run away! It was so sudden! So impolite! Come again, we’re waitin’! ‘I’m waitin’, only waitin’ for thee.’ ‘Oh come, won’t you come?’”

“Jed,” said the Professor, “you bloodthirsty creature, stop that noise!”

“It ain’t a noise, Purfessor,” said Jed. “It’s a song o’ action. I come o’ fightin’ stock. I’ve got pioneer blood in me, an’ I feel that blood risin’ to the top right now. Settin’ here we can lick the whole Apache nation, ef they are a nation, an’ I’m close to cryin’ fur fear they won’t come again.”

He threw himself flat down on the slope and began to creep over the very edge. His eyes were two coals in the dark, and the song of battle was undoubtedly singing a fierce tune in the ears of Jedediah Simpson.

“Jed, you fool, come back!” exclaimed the Professor, seizing him by the hair and giving it a jerk.

“Leggo, Professor, leggo!” exclaimed Jed. “That’s my hair you’re pullin’.”

“I know it,” said the Professor, retaining his firm grasp, “and I’m keeping you from making a fool of yourself. If you go crashing down there we’ll lose a valuable man whom we need in the defense.”

Jed stopped and the Professor let go of his hair. But Jed remained crouched at the very edge of the terrace, his rifle well forward, his eyes still like coals, seeking to pierce the depths below.

Savages do not like a headlong attack, and the Apache is the wariest of them all. Moreover, he had already had his lesson. All looked now for a long period of terrible waiting, which would oppress nerve and brain alike, and wear down more than real strife. It was this that they dreaded, to sit there in the dark, not knowing what was planned against them, with nothing to show when the blow would be struck, nor where.

“Herbert, you and I will bring food and water, while Charles and Jed continue the watch,” said the Professor. “They aren’t likely to attack again just now.”

The skies had become clear, a vast dome of dusky blue velvet in which the placid stars held on their way. The whole gorge glowed in the moonlight, and on the slope across it Charles saw the stunted bushes move. Then there was a tiny spurt of fire, the echo of a gunshot traveled up the gorge, and a bullet pattered upon the terrace.

“Don’t be troubled by sech a thing as that,” said Jed scornfully, “the shot was fired practically at random, as they can’t see us from the other side o’ the canyon.”

Three more shots were fired presently, but like the first, they pattered vainly upon the black basaltic cliff.

“They will soon grow tired o’ that,” Jed said with increased scorn; and he was right, as the distant bombardment was not renewed.

All of the next day passed without attack or interruption of any kind, but the defenders never relaxed their vigilance. Then the second night came.

Professor Longworth, the two boys and Jedediah Simpson sat on the shelf by the side of one of the cliff houses and talked in whispers. The Professor, although in a state of siege with the probabilities inclining to torture and death, was uncommonly cheerful. Charles made a mental remark that the Professor in such situation was at his very best. Danger, instead of depressing him, seemed instead to arouse some extraordinary intellectual quality that exhilarated him. It was apparently a pleasure that necessity should draw upon his resources, hidden resources, perhaps, of which no one dreamed.

“They can climb the slopes elsewhere and reach the plateau above us,” said Herbert.

“Undoubtedly,” replied the Professor.

“And we may be attacked in the dark both from below and above,” continued Herbert.

“That’s so,” broke in Jedediah Simpson, “an’ then we’ll be caught between two fires. An’ I hear that them Apache fires can be terrible warm. Leastways, they’ll do it, ef the Professor here don’t stop ’em.”

His tone, even in the low whisper in which he spoke, expressed a confidence in the Professor that was at once touching and encouraging. Both the boys felt cheered by it.

“Yes, Jedediah, you are quite right,” said Professor Longworth calmly. “We should be caught as you say between two fires—that is if we sat still. But there is a way to escape such things. You can move from the space between the fires, or you can put out one fire or both. It is a scientific problem, capable of demonstration; if you sit still in the path of a steam roller you are likely to get hurt, but if you will move out of its way it will pass on without touching you. In addition you can disable the man who runs the steam roller, or you can damage the machinery of the roller itself. In either event it cannot start. There are plenty of alternatives for a resourceful man.”

“Ain’t he a wonder?” breathed Jed, in tones of admiration, tinged with awe, into the ear of Herbert. “Them Apaches are as good as beat off already. I ain’t afeard, a-tall, a-tall!”

“I feel, too, that the Professor will pull us out somehow,” Herbert whispered back.

“The night is dark,” continued Professor Longworth, casting a glance up at the black heavens, “which favors the besiegers, a fact patent even to those who have made no study of the military art. Therefore the Apaches will come, trusting that they will be face to face with us before they are discovered. They will not come up the path from the gorges, because that path is narrow, difficult to ascend, and they have had terrible proof that it will be well guarded. Hence they will try to drop from the cliff above upon us. It is a perfectly simple matter, clear, logical and easily capable of demonstration, as we shall see to-night.”

“Since you have fathomed the offense, what is your plan for the defense?” asked Charles.

“The plan was formed a half hour ago,” replied the Professor in a tone of calm confidence, “and I think it a good one. To-night, my boys, we shall draw upon resources that we have not yet put into play. Herbert will watch at the head of the path from the ravine. You and I, Charles, will go upon the plateau, and await the coming of these foolish Apaches, who in their sanguine desire for our scalps know little how well fitted we are to keep them on our heads. I’ll be back with you in a moment, my lads.”

He slipped into the cliff house, and returned bearing in one hand a small object round and relatively long, and in the other a package. Then he and Charles mounted the primitive ladder to the head of the plateau, and Herbert and Jed, rifles in hand, moved to the head of the path leading up from the gorge.

* * * *

Meanwhile a great impulse was stirring the souls of the warriors in the Apache camp. Gray Wolf was one of those bold spirits who defied precedents. His inquiring mind persisted in ascribing things to natural causes. Se-má-che might have his favorites, those whom he loved and protected, but, if such there were, it must be the Apaches themselves, and not white men or white boys.

Gray Wolf talked to Big Elk and he talked to the others. Never had he been more fervent, never more logical, and they were convinced. He laid his plan before them, he would take the lead and the chief danger himself and success must crown such worthy efforts. His, too, was a reasoning, scientific mind like that of Professor Longworth. It was easier to come down upon an enemy than to climb up to him. Hence they would reach the plateau and descend on the cliff village.

Taking a dozen of the best warriors and seconded by Big Elk, Gray Wolf and his band circled about the side of the mountain and reached the plateau above the village. It continued to be just such a night as suited their noble purpose. The heavens were an unbroken dome of black. The light of not a single star was able to pierce through the dark covering, but the Apaches, used to it, moved easily without falls or noise.

The confidence of Gray Wolf was communicated to Big Elk and all the members of his redoubtable band. They would break the spell which had hung so long over this place. Even if Se-má-che had once turned his face away from them there was nothing to prove that he had not now turned it back upon them. They dreamed already of an easy conquest. They might find the white defenders asleep and scalp them without resistance.

Gray Wolf was a little in advance, Big Elk was next to him and the others came just behind, a silent and shadowy file. There was, for the moment, peace on the plateau. The trees and grass stirred faintly, and out from the black depths of the gorge came a moaning, but the Apaches knew very well that it was the wind drawn between the high, basaltic walls. Nothing occurred to show them that the enemy was on guard.

Gray Wolf, from his position in advance, could see shadowy black depths and he knew that it was the gorge not more than thirty yards away. There was no sign whatever that the enemy was watching for this approach from the rear, and his Apache heart throbbed with the thought of a speedy triumph of the kind that the Apache heart loves. The greatest need for caution came now, and, obedient to a low signal from him, all sank down until their mahogany bodies were blent with the black basalt of the cliff.

Gray Wolf uttered another low word, the signal for the creeping advance, and then occurred an extraordinary thing, something for which neither he nor his comrades could account in either Apache life or Apache mythology. A brilliant beam of light suddenly came from nowhere, piercing the darkness like a flaming arrow and struck full upon the face of Gray Wolf, dazzling and blinding him for the moment.

It was such a bright light, of such an intense burning white, that, despite one of the blackest nights ever known in the Arizona mountains, every feature of Gray Wolf stood revealed in all its Apache ferocity. There were the mahogany skin, roughened by wind and weather, the coarse, straight black hair, the hooked nose, the yellowish eyes, the small even teeth and the slight projection of the countenance into a canine shape that had given him his name, Gray Wolf.

The face of Gray Wolf was more clearly seen in that burning glare than if in sunlight, and a low gasp of astonishment and terror came from the warriors. Then the light went out, not sinking like the light of a torch, but vanishing utterly and instantly into space, leaving the warriors staring blindly into the darkness.

Gray Wolf, despite his courage and logical mind, was taken aback. He did not deny it even to himself. No such thing had ever before occurred in his experience. It might be a bolt from Se-má-che, but if so it was a bolt that had not struck him down. He was alive, unharmed and the phantom light was gone.

He gave the low signal and resumed the advance, but before he had gone a foot the phantom light came again, shooting down in the darkness like a beam from a falling star, only far more vivid. It struck now not upon the face of Gray Wolf, but upon that of Big Elk, his lieutenant, who stood just a little behind him. Gray Wolf turned and stared at his comrade. The face of Big Elk seemed to be a luminous projection in the darkness, resting upon nothing. All the rest of his body was hidden.

Big Elk himself uttered a cry of terror, not a gasp, but a distinct exclamation of fright, of the kind not often drawn from an Apache. It was more than he could stand. This must be Se-má-che himself giving his frightful warning to those who would commit sacrilege. His heart filled with terror, and mahogany beads of perspiration gathered on his mahogany face. Then the light shifted from him as suddenly as it had come. But it did not go away. It struck once more upon the face of Gray Wolf, remained there only an instant, and then played in successive flashes upon every member of the crouching band.

The Apaches shivered, Gray Wolf not excepted, but still they did not run. They were brave warriors, driven on by a great impulse, and they were loath to yield. But while they did not go back, neither did they go forward.

Gray Wolf tried to follow that brilliant beam which now played about them with such dazzling speed that the eye could scarcely follow it, but he grew more dazed and terror steadily mounted in his soul.

“It is the eye of Se-má-che,” someone groaned, and immediately others repeated the groan. The terrible gaze of the Sun God, coming forth from the blackness of night, was upon them, because they were about to commit sacrilege. But they yet held fast, and in a few more seconds the light vanished. The Apaches still crouched on the black basalt, listening to the hard breathing of one another, and the groaning of the wind in the gorge, which their fancy now magnified tenfold.

Then came a third sound, a sharp buzz like that of the rattlesnake and, as the mahogany flesh of the Apaches crept on their bones, a bright light, hissing as it came, shot up from the very pit of the earth, rising in terrible reds and yellows and blues above the trees, and cleaving the sky in a long shining lane.

Apache human nature could stand no more. There was a simultaneous yell of terror, to which the redoubtable Gray Wolf was not the least contributor, and presently the sound of pattering moccasins was lost in the far beyond.

Professor Erasmus Darwin Long worth and Charles descended the pole ladder to the terrace, very well satisfied with themselves.

“We routed them without danger to ourselves and we did not fire a shot,” said the Professor. “It was simple. A good hiding-place for ourselves behind the rocks, that powerful electric torch of mine, one that I hold in reserve for the most urgent cases, and a handful of powder for colored fire, such as boys use on the night of the Fourth of July, only far stronger, but which I had brought along to use for signaling to Jedediah. Simple, most simple indeed! Just as all great results are achieved by the simplest methods! Have you noticed that, Charles, my lad? Telegraph, telephone, electricity, wireless, all are the simplest of processes, when you understand them.”

“Yes, when you understand them,” said Charles behind his teeth, and he added in the same place, almost using the words of Jedediah Simpson o’ Lexin’ton, K—y, “What a wonderful man! What infinite resource!”

The Professor could not hear him, and in a minute or two more they were on the terrace, relating the event to two delighted hearers.

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