18 The Hut in the Cove

John Bedford forgot everything in those moments of wild exultation save the fact that he was free. The miracles had begun, and the whole chain was now complete. After three years in one cell he had left behind him forever, as he believed, the Castle of Montevideo, and he was going straight to his brother and powerful friends. He cast back only a single look, and then he saw the huge dim bulk of the castle showing through the mists and the rain. But presently the woods shut it from view, and he could not have seen it had he looked again. John’s exultation, the vast rebound, grew. He had escaped, and he had struck down the enemy who had struck him. He felt equal to anything, and he forgot for the moment that the man who had rescued him in such an extraordinary way was wounded. But the man himself stopped soon.

“We’ll wait here, Sir John of the Fleet Foot,” he said. “Our friends who are frolicking in this thorny Forest of Arden were to come if they heard the sound of firing, and we must not go far away lest we miss them. Truly that was a fine and timely shot of yours, Sir John of the Bold Escape, and I judged by the look of your face that you had no love for the man at whom you fired.”

“I did not,” replied John. “He beat me, when I was in chains.”

The other man uttered a low whistle.

“That was a nasty thing to do, but you are even. If he’s still alive he’ll have a face that will scare a dog.

“Bear that in mind, young sir. In the hour of triumph do not rejoice too much in the fall of the man who has failed, because when he achieves his triumph and you have failed, which is likely to come to pass some time or other, he may make some moments exceedingly bitter unto thee. And now I shall dress myself, as I think I hear the footsteps of visitors.”

John remembered that he, too, was clad lightly, and hastily put on his upper garments, while his friend did likewise. He now heard the steps, also, and they were rapidly coming nearer.

“Shouldn’t we move?” he whispered. “Those must be Mexicans.”

“No, we shouldn’t move, because those are not the footsteps of Mexicans. Those sounds are made by the hardy feet of just two persons. One of them is a large brave German man, whose tread I would know a mile away, and the other, the lighter tread of whom is drowned in the volume of sound made by his comrade, is a boy, a strong, healthy boy who comes from a little town in Kentucky, which has the same name as a big town in France.”

John began to tremble all over. He knew what these words meant. His friend uttered a low whistle, and quickly a low whistle in reply came from a point not twenty feet away. There was a moment of silence, then the approaching footsteps were resumed, the bushes were parted, and, as the lightning flared once more across the sky, John Bedford and Philip Bedford looked into the faces of each other.

They wrung hands in the darkness that followed the lightning flash, and, after the Anglo-Saxon fashion, said brief, inconsequential words. Yet the hearts of the two were full, and both Bill Breakstone, who had done the last miracle, and Hans Arenberg were moved deeply.

“Your letter came, John,” said Phil simply, “and we are here. These are the best friends I ever had or that anybody ever could have. The man who brought you out of the castle was Bill Breakstone, and the one with me is Hans Arenberg. Without them I never could have reached you in the castle.”

“You talk too much, young sir,” said Bill Breakstone.

Then John suddenly remembered.

“Mr. Breakstone is wounded,” he exclaimed. “We took off most of our clothes to swim the moat and I remember seeing a red spot on his side.”

“Like your brother, you talk too much,” said Bill Breakstone. “It seems to be a family failing with the Bedfords. It’s a mere scratch.”

“No harm iss done where none iss meant,” said Arenberg sententiously. “It iss also well for us soon to be away from where we now are.”

“That is true,” said Breakstone. “The Mexicans undoubtedly will make some sort of a search and pursuit, though I don’t think they’ll carry it far on such a night. Come on boys, I’ll lead, and the reunited family will bring up the rear. But no talking is best. You can’t tell what we might stir up.”

He led the way, and the others followed in silence. They crossed a valley, reached a mountain slope and began to climb. Up they went for at least two hours, pausing at times for John to take breath and rest. Meanwhile the storm continued, with cold rain, an alternate groaning and whistling of the wind through the valley, deep rumblings of thunder, and now and then a bright flare of lightning. John caught only one other glimpse of the huge, ominous bulk of the Castle of Montevideo, but it was far below him now. He knew, too, that it was impossible for anybody to follow a mountain trail in such darkness and storm. But, despite his great joy, he was feeling an exceeding weariness of the body. The long confinement had told heavily, but he would utter no complaint.

A half hour more, and they turned into a deep cove which led three or four hundred yards into the Sierra. At its end stood a small cabin, built of logs and almost hidden under the overhang of the cliff.

“Welcome to our home, Sir John,” said Bill Breakstone, “we have no title to it, and it probably belonged to some Mexican sheep herder or hunter, but since our arrival none has appeared to claim it.”

He threw open the door, and all went inside into the dry dark. John heard the door close behind him, a bar fell into place, and then the striking of a match came to his ear. A little blue flame appeared and grew. Arenberg, who had struck the match, lighted a pine torch, which he stuck at an angle in a hole in the wall, and a fine red flame lighted up the whole interior of the little cabin. Cabin! It was no cabin to John Bedford. It was a gorgeous palace, the finest that he had ever seen, and he was surrounded by the most devoted and daring friends that man ever had. Had they not just proved it?

The little torch disclosed a hard earthen floor, upon which the skins of wild animals had been spread, log Walls with wooden hooks and pins inserted here and there, evidently within recent days, a strong board roof, rafters from which skins and some tools hung, a fireplace with a stone hearth, and four narrow skin couches, three of which had been often occupied, the fourth never. Outside, the wind still wailed, and the cold rain still beat upon the logs, but here it was warm, dry, and light. The greatness of it all suddenly overwhelmed John, and he sank forward in a faint.

Phil instantly seized his brother and raised him up, but Breakstone and Arenberg told him not to be alarmed, that it was merely the collapse of a weakened frame after tremendous tension, both physical and mental. Breakstone brought water in a gourd from a pail that stood in the corner, and soon John sat up again, very much ashamed of himself, and offering many apologies, at all of which the others laughed.

“Considering all you’ve been through to-night,” said Bill Breakstone, “it’s a wonder that you held out so long. I wouldn’t have believed that you could do it, if I hadn’t known your brother so well. Good thing I learned to be an actor. I was always strong in those Spanish parts. Wide hat brim, big black cloak coming up to meet the hat brim, terrible sword at my thigh, and terrible frown behind the cloak and the hat brim. Now, Hans, I think you can light the fire on the hearth there. No chance that anybody will see the smoke on a night like this, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t dry our clothes and have a gay party. We’ve carried through our great adventure, and we’ll just royster over it awhile.”

Arenberg, without another word, took down the pine torch from its hole in the wall and ignited the heap of dry pine boughs that lay in the fireplace. They caught at once, crackled, and blazed pleasantly. Warm red shadows were soon cast across the floor, and a generous heat reached them all. They basked in it, and turned about and about, drying all their clothing and driving the last sign of chill from their bones. Arenberg also made coffee over the coals, and cooked venison, which they had in abundance. When John ate and drank in plenty, he felt that life did not have much more to offer. He sat on one of the skins, leaned comfortably against the wall, and contemplated his younger brother.

“You have grown a lot, Phil,” he said.

“You didn’t expect him to stand still, just because you were away locked up in a castle?” asked Bill Breakstone. “He had to grow up, so he could come and rescue you. Such tasks are too big for little children.”

John Bedford smiled indulgently.

“It was certainly a big job,” he said. “I am the one who ought to appreciate most its size and danger. It was a big thing to get through Texas even. Of course I learned while I was a prisoner in the castle that the Mexicans had retaken it. It made me feel mighty bad for a long time.”

Phil and Bill Breakstone looked at each other. Arenberg pushed one of the pine-knots back into the fire. For a little while there was silence. Then Breakstone said:

“You tell him, Phil.”

John Bedford looked in wonder at the three, one by one. Their silence impressed him as ominous, and he, too, was silent.

“The Mexicans have not retaken Texas, John,” said Philip Bedford. “They will never retake Texas. They could never beat the Texans alone, and the Texans are not alone. There has been war between the United States and Mexico for a year. An American army under General Taylor beat the Mexican army at Palo Alto, at Resaca de la Palma, and took the city of Monterey by storm. Then most of his army were drawn off to help General Scott, who is invading Mexico by the way of Vera Cruz. General Taylor, with the rest of his force, between four and five thousand men, nearly all volunteers, many from our own state, John, and some you knew, advanced to Saltillo and beyond. He was attacked in the Pass of Angostura by Santa Anna, the President of Mexico, with more than twenty thousand men, the best of the Mexican troops, but, John, he won the victory over odds of five to one. It was long and hard and desperate, and a half dozen times we were within an inch of losing the battle, but we won at last, John! We won at last! And we know, because we three were there, all through it! all day long! Bill Breakstone, Hans Arenberg, and I!”

John looked at them and gasped. It had all been poured upon him so suddenly that he was overpowered.

“War between Mexico and the United States!” he exclaimed, “and we’ve been winning battle after battle! Why, they never said a word to me about it in the castle. De Armijo made me think that the Mexicans had retaken Texas.”

“I forgot to tell you,” said Bill Breakstone to the others, “that de Armijo knocked John down, when he was chained, but John got back at him to-night when he plowed his face with a bullet. In fact, I think John has the better of the bargain:

“Now, I propose, as it’s pretty near toward morning, and this is about the snuggest hotel I know of anywhere in the Sierras, that John and I, who have been through a lot, go to sleep. Phil, you and Arenberg can toss coins, or decide in. any other way you choose, who’s to keep watch. There’s your bed, John; it’s been waiting for you quite awhile.”

He pointed to the skin couch that had never been occupied, and John lay down upon it. Complete relaxation of both mind and body had now come. The room was warm and dry, his friends were near, and, in two minutes, he was buried in a deep and dreamless sleep. Phil rose and looked at him. His neck and wrists were thin, his face was wasted woefully. Arenberg watched Philip with sympathy.

“Much harm has been done to him,” he said, “but he will overcome it all in a month. You have fared wonderfully well in your quest, Herr Philip, and I take it as an omen that we shall do as well in mine. I come next, you know, Philip.”

“It is true,” said Phil, with a great stirring of the heart. “Nobody ever had such help as you and Breakstone have given to me, and now I will help you, and John, too, as soon as he is strong enough, to our utmost power in whatever task you may have.”

He held out his hand, and Arenberg took it in a powerful grasp.

“Now you sleep! I will watch,” he said. “No, I will not let you stay awake, because I wish to do so instead. I intend to think much with myself.”

Phil saw that the German was in earnest, and he took his place on his own couch. Soon he was asleep. Arenberg sat on a piece of wood before the coals which were now almost dead. He clasped his knees in his hands, and his rifle, which was between his knees, projected above his shoulder. So long as the light from the coals endured he cast a black and almost shapeless shadow on the wall. But the last coal went out by and by, and he sat there in the darkness, never stirring. He watched automatically through the faculty of hearing, but his thoughts were not on that little cabin nor any of its occupants. In the darkness his chest heaved, and a big tear from either eye rolled down his cheek. But he did not move. After awhile he felt the dawn, and went to the single shuttered window, which he opened slightly.

The rain and wind had ceased, but drops of water, turned into a myriad of glittering beads by the rising sun, hung from trees and bushes. The air of the mountains at that early hour was crisp and cold, and it felt good to Arenberg’s face. He glanced at his three comrades. They were still absorbed by that absolute sleep which is the mortal Nirvana. Then Arenberg took from the inside of his coat something small, which he looked at for a long time. Again a big tear from either eye rolled down his cheek and fell on the floor. But the face of Hans Arenberg, in that brilliant Mexican sun which now shone straight upon it, was curiously transformed. For the first time in many days it was illumined with hope.

“It’s my turn now! It’s my turn!” he murmured. “We have succeeded in everything so far, and we will succeed again. I feel it. All the omens are good.”

There is something mystic in the German nature, a feeling derived, perhaps, from the unknown ages passed by the Teutonic tribes in the dark forests of the Baltic. They were as prolific as the Greeks in seers and priestesses, and some of this feeling was in Arenberg now, as he gazed at the dripping forest and the blazing sun rising over a peak ten thousand feet high. Below him he knew lay the Castle of Montevideo, but before him the mountains were unrolled, peak after peak, and ridge after ridge. To his German mind came visions of Valhalla and the great gods that were.

Hans Arenberg yet felt the great uplift of the spirit. The premonition of success, of a triumphant end to his quest was very strong within him. He kissed the little package and replaced it within the inside of his waistcoat. Then he looked again at his comrades. They were still in Valhalla.

The German was very kindly and very pitiful. He had noticed the wasted frame of John Bedford, and he knew how much he needed sleep. Bill Breakstone, too, had gone through a tremendous ordeal, and Phil Bedford was but a boy, who had waited, tense and strained, all through the night.

“Let them sleep,” murmured Hans Arenberg. “I will still watch.”

He left the window open a little so that the fresh air might come in, and resumed his seat. The other three slept on soundly. An hour or two later he opened the door softly and went out into the cove, which he scouted carefully. It was as silent and desolate as if man had never been there. At forty yards the cabin itself was invisible in the foliage and against the dark, volcanic cliff. The German was quite sure that no one would come, but, for precaution, he examined every bush and projection of rock. Then he climbed one of the cliffs, and, sheltering himself well, looked down the valley. There, far below, was the huge, honey-colored Castle of Montevideo, seeming singularly vivid and near in the intense sunlight. Arenberg thought that he could make out a figure or two on its walls, but he was not sure. He also examined the slopes, but he could not detect human life. Then he returned to the cabin and found his comrades still sound asleep. Arenberg smiled.

“Let them sleep on,” he murmured, “until the sleep that is in them is exhausted.” He opened the door a little in order that he might let in more fresh air, and also because it gave him a complete view down the valley. No one could approach the cabin without being seen by Hans Arenberg, who had uncommonly good eyes.

The German sat there all the morning and listened to the hours as they ticked themselves away. He listened literally, and he heard the ticking literally, because he carried a large silver watch in his waistcoat pocket, and in the dead silence, he could hear it very well. His comrades slept on, each on his couch. Once Arenberg rose and looked at John Bedford.

“A fine young man.” he murmured. “He iss worthy of his brother.”

It was fully an hour after noon when Bill Breakstone began to squirm about on his couch and yawn mightily.

Then he opened his eyes, sat up, and stared at Hans Arenberg, who sat placidly by the fireplace, looking down the valley.

“Hans!” said Bill Breakstone.

Arenberg looked at him and smiled.

“I’m thinking,” said Bill Breakstone, “that we’ve overslept ourselves a bit. I guess from the looks of the light there at the door that the sun must be up at least an hour.”

“It has been up seven hours,” replied Arenberg.

“Then we’re that much ahead,” said Bill Breakstone calmly, “and at least one of those two has needed it badly.”

He looked at the sleeping brothers.

“It iss so,” said Arenberg. “The captive who iss a captive no longer iss, I take it, a good youth, like his brother.”

“He surely is,” said Breakstone with emphasis, “and I have given him the honor of knighthood, along with Phil. Besides, he’s as smart as a steel trap. He read the meaning of the thread that we sent him, and he did everything else exactly as we wished. It’s all the more wonderful because so long a time in prison is apt to make one dull and stupid in some ways. Anything happen on your long watch, Hans?”

“Nothing. I made a scout all the way up the cove. I am sure there iss no human being except ourselves on this mountain.”

“I move that we boil a little coffee and fry a little venison for the youngsters. John, in particular, needs it, because he’s got to be built up. I don’t think there’s any danger.”

“Then we’ll light the fire and let the cooking wake them up.”

John Bedford, in a dream, as it were, felt a delicious aroma in his nostrils. It was singularly pleasant to a poor prisoner in a bleak stone cell in the Castle of Montevideo, and he did not wish to destroy the illusion. In the early morning the air that came through the loophole was very cold, and there was no reason why he should rise. Perhaps he was really dreaming, and, since it was such a pleasant dream, he would let it run on. But that odor in his nostrils grew more and more powerful, and it was not like the odor of the frijoles and tortillas that Diego brought him. He also heard, or thought he heard, the voices of men, and not one of them bore any resemblance to the harsh Mexican tones of Diego. Then he remembered it all, and the truth came in such a sudden flood of delight that he sat up abruptly and looked around that wonderful cabin, the finest cabin in the world.

Arenberg had just brought the coffee to a boiling point, the strips of venison, under the deft handling of Bill Breakstone, were just becoming crisp. Phil was coming in with a canteen of fresh water, and at the wide-open door, through which he might pass as he pleased, the sunshine was entering like a golden shower.

“Morning, Sir John the Sleeper,” said Bill Breakstone cheerily. “It’s well along in the afternoon, but, if you were to ask me, I’d tell you that you hadn’t slept a minute too long. Phil here has been up only five minutes before you, but, by running for the water, he’s trying to make you believe that he’s an early riser.”

John said not a word, but rose to his feet—they had all lain down fully dressed—and looked at the open door with a gaze so fixed and concentrated that all stared curiously at him. Something was working in John’s mind, something deep and vital. He walked in a perfectly straight line across the cabin floor until he came within a foot of the open door. Then he stood there for a little space, gazing out.

The curiosity of the others deepened. What was passing in his mind? But John said never a word. Instead, he stepped out in the sunshine and crisp air, went two or three yards, and then came back again into the cabin. But he did not stay there. He went out once, came back once more, and repeated the round trip four more times. All the while he said never a word, and, at each successive trip, the look of pleasure on his face grew. At the sixth that look was complete, and he turned to the three who were staring at him open-eyed and open-mouthed.

“I’m not crazy, as you think, not the least bit of it,” lie said. “It’s been three years since I could go out of a door and come in at it as I pleased. I wanted to prove to myself that it was no dream, and to enjoy it at the same time. I’ll never have such an acute joy again in this world, I suppose. As you haven’t been where I’ve been, you’ll never know what it is to go in and come out when you like.”

“We don’t know, but we can guess,” said Phil.

A little lump came into the throat of Bill Breakstone.

“I was never cooped up like that,” he said, “but if I were, I guess I couldn’t stand it. But the coffee and the venison are ready, and while we set to and keep at it, Phil, you tell your brother how it all came about.”

Phil was willing. He was so full of the story himself that he was anxious John should hear it all. He recounted how the letter had reached him at Paris in Kentucky, his journey to New Orleans, and his successive meetings therewith Arenberg, Middleton, and Bill Breakstone; how they had joined the Santa Fé train and their encounter with the Comanches, led by Santana and Black Panther, the deeds of de Armijo, their long trail southward to join Taylor’s army, and a description, as far as he saw it amid the flame and smoke, of the great battle of Buena Vista. He told of the sharp lava, the pass, and of the woman at the well who had given the cup of water to the weary prisoner who was but a boy.

“I remember her, I remember her well.” said John, a thrill of gratitude showing in his tone. “I believe I’d have died if it hadn’t been for that water, the finest that anybody ever tasted. I knew from the voice that it was a woman.”

“We felt sure then,” continued Phil, “that we were on the right trail, and we believed that, with patience and method, we’d be sure to find you if you were living. We knew that the letter had been brought to the Texas frontier by Antonio Vaquez, a driver who had received it in turn from one Porfirio, a vaquero, and we knew from your letter that you were confined in some great stone prison or castle. We learned of Montevideo, which is perhaps the greatest castle in Mexico, and everything pointed to it as the place.

“The Mexican army retreated in great haste southward after Buena Vista, in order to meet Scott, who was advancing on Mexico by the way of Vera Cruz. That left the country comparatively clear for us, and we came through the mountains, until we saw the Castle of Montevideo. When we saw it, we believed still more strongly that this was the place, but we knew that the biggest part of our work was before us. We would have to spy, and spy, and keep on spying before we could act. Any mule driver or sheepherder might carry news of us, and we must have a secure hiding-place as a basis. After a long search we found this cabin, which I don’t think had been occupied for several years. We soon fixed it up so it was comfortable, as you can now see. There’s a little spring at the west edge of the cove, and on the other side of the ridge there’s a little valley with water and grass, but with walls so steep that a horse won’t climb ’em unless he’s led. Our horses are there now, having perhaps the best time of their lives.

“When we were located, good and snug, we began to spy. I believed after we met the woman at the well that fortune was favoring us. Arenberg here talked a lot about the spirits of the forest and the stream, some old heathen mythology of his, to which Bill and I didn’t pay any attention. But anyway, we had luck. We scouted about the castle for weeks, but we didn’t learn a thing, except that de Armijo was now governor there. We could find no more trace of you than if you had been on the moon.

“At last our lucky day came. We ran squarely upon a good-looking young Mexican, a vaquero. There wasn’t time for us to get away or for him to get away. So we, being the more numerous, seized him. I suppose he thought he was going to be killed at once, as we were Americans, looking pretty tough from exposure and hardships, and so to make a play on our good feelings—Bill Breakstone could understand his Spanish—he said that once he’d tried to help a Gringo, a prisoner, in the great castle in the valley. He said he’d carried a letter from him, asking for help, and that the prisoner was not much more than a boy, taken in a raid from Texas three years ago.

“It flashed over us all at once that we had found the right man. Everything fitted too well together to permit of a mistake, and you can believe that we treated Porfirio, the vaquero, the finest we knew how, and made him feel that he had fallen into the hands of the best friends in the world. Were you still alive? We waited without drawing breath for the answer. You were still alive he answered, and well, so far as a prisoner could be. He knew that positively from his mother, Catarina, who was a cook at the castle, although he himself would not stay there, as, like a sensible man, he liked the mountains and the plains and the free life. He did not tell us of the blow that de Armijo had given you, perhaps because Catarina had said nothing of it to him, but we learned that he hated de Armijo, who had once struck him when he was at the castle, for some trifle or other—it seems that de Armijo had the striking habit—and after that we soon made our little plot. Catarina, of course, was the center of it, and her duties as a cook gave her the chance.

“It was Catarina who put the thread in the tamale. She might have put the letter there, but the writing on it would have been effaced, and even if it could have remained she did not dare. If the paper had been discovered by the Mexicans, she, of course, would have been declared guilty, but thread, even a package of it, might have found its way into the loose Mexican cooking, and if it had been discovered none of the sentinels or officers could have made anything out of such a slender thing. We trusted to your shrewdness that you would drop the thread out of the window, because there was nothing else to do with it, and you didn’t fail us.”

“But who tied the note on it?” asked John.

“Catarina, again—that is, she was at the end of the chain, Porfirio was in the middle, and we were at the other or far end. He passed the letter in to her—he works about the castle at times—and she tied it on the end of the thread. The key and the dagger reached you by the same route. Then we knew that, although you might unlock the door of your cell, you could never go outside the castle without the aid of some one within. For that reason we told you the night on which to unlock it, and the very hour, in order that the right man might be waiting for you at the head of the stairway. Bill Breakstone had to be that man, because he can speak Spanish and the Mexican dialects, and because, lucky for you, he’s been an actor; often to amuse others he has played parts like the one that he played last night in such deadly earnest.

“Catarina got the keys—there are duplicates to all the cells—so we sent that up early, and on the day before your escape she stole the one to the big gate that guards the stairway. It was easy enough to steal the clothes for Breakstone, take him in as a servant, and his nerve and yours did the rest. But we must never forget Catarina and her son Porfirio, the vaquero. Without them we could have done nothing.”

“I’m prouder of it than of any other thing in which I ever took part,” said Bill Breakstone.

“It was not one miracle, it was a chain of them,” said John Bedford.

“Whatever it was, here we all are,” said Phil.

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