The afternoon wore on. Angry clouds, gathering in the sky, portended early darkness and a black night. The patient herd plodded slowly on. The hopes of Luis Mariel rose high. Two hours more and escape would be assured if, in the meantime, they did not reach the camp of the Apaches.
"B" Troop of the --th had been dispatched into Chihuahua in the search for the scattered bands of the marauding renegades. Lieutenant Samuel Adams King, with four troopers, was scouting far afield, He had been following what appeared to be a fresh, though faint, Indian track that led toward the north; but now, with night coming down and a storm threatening, he had lost it. While one of the troopers held the horses of the others, King and his remaining men searched on foot for the elusive spoor. Proceeding in different directions the four walked slowly, scrutinizing every inch of ground, searching for a turned pebble, a down-pressed spear of vegetation, King's path took him through a deep arroyo and out upon the opposite bank. Absorbed in his search he took no note of the growing menace of the gathering storm nor of the distance, constantly increasing, between himself and his men. He knew that when the rain came it would wipe out all trace of the tracks they sought, and this knowledge constituted the urge that kept him oblivious to all other considerations.
The dusk of evening had fallen. Heavy clouds rolled angrily and low above the scene as a herd of cattle slowly topped a gentle rise to the south. Two men drove them, but only one of these saw the soldiers a couple of miles ahead--saw, and knew them for what they were. This one glanced quickly at the landscape ahead and at the gathering storm above. He knew that it was about to break. He knew, too, that the arroyo would soon be filled with muddy, raging water--a barrier impassable by man or beast. All but one of the soldiers would be upon the opposite side of the arroyo from the herd and him.
Knowing these things, Shoz-Dijiji urged the cattle onward in the general direction of the enemy, for even though he passed close to them they would be unable to see him after the rain came--the rain and night.
Luis Mariel viewed the prospect of the impending storm hopefully. Soon it would be dark, but even before that the blinding rain would obliterate all objects within a few yards of him. They had not yet come to the camp of the renegades, and Luis had a horse under him.
The storm was in their rear. The cattle, doubtless, would move on before it; but Luis would turn back into it, and when it had passed he would be safely beyond the ken of the Apache Devil.
A great cloud! black and ominous, bellied low above them, sagging as though to a great weight of water; jagged lightning shot through it, followed by a deafening crash of thunder; the rent cloud spewed its contents upon the earth. It was not rain; it did not fall in drops nor sheets but in a great mass of solid water.
With the bursting of the cloud King found himself in water a foot deep on the level, and afterward the rain fell in torrents that shut everything from view beyond a few yards. Lightning flashed and thunder roared, and. the pounding of the rain between drowned all other sounds. The man floundered through the new made mud back in the direction of his men. All was water--above, below, around him. Suddenly there appeared before him, almost at his feet, a depression. Here the water swirled and eddied, running in a mighty current across his path.
At its very edge he stopped and, realizing what it was, staggered back a few steps--back from the brink of eternity. So close had he been to the shelving bank of the arroyo that another step might have hurled him into the racing, yellow flood that filled it now from brim to brim.
Disconcerted by the first great mass of water that fell upon them, the cattle stopped. The leaders turned back upon the herd. Shoz-Dijiji, in the rear, urged the stragglers forward until, presently, the herd was milling in a muddy circle; but with the coming of the steady torrent and beneath the heavy quirt of the Apache they gradually strung out again in the direction they had been travelling, the storm at their backs.
Shoz-Dijiji, seeing that he was handling the herd alone, looked about him for his companion; but the blinding torrent hid everything but the nearer cattle, and Shoz- Dijiji did not know that Luis was driving his unwilling pony into the teeth of the storm in an effort to escape.
An hour later the storm was over. A full moon shone out of a clear sky. Directly ahead of him Shoz-Dijiji saw something that was frightening the leaders of the herd, causing them to stop and then turn aside. A moment later the Apache recognized the cause of the distraction. It was a man on foot. At first Shoz-Dijiji thought that it was Luis, but when he had ridden nearer he discovered that the man was a soldier. Shoz-Dijiji drew a revolver from the holster at his hip. He would ride close enough to make sure of his aim before firing. He was not afraid that the other would fire first, since the soldier, before he fired, would wish to make sure that Shoz-Dijiji was an enemy. In this Shoz-Dijiji had a great advantage. Being an Apache he knew that all men were his enemies. He could.make no mistake on that score.
The soldier hailed him in rather lame Spanish, but there was something in the voice that sounded familiar to the Apache Devil who never forgot anything. So he rode yet closer.
And then, in perfectly understandable English, he said: "Put up your hands, King, or I'll kill you."
Lieutenant King put his hands above his head. As yet he had not recognized the other as an Indian. The English, the use of his own name, mystified him.
"Who the hell are you?" he inquired.
"Turn your back," commanded Shoz-Dijiji. King did as he was bid, and the Apache rode up and disarmed him.
"All right," said Shoz-Dijiji, after King lowered his arms and turned about.
"Shoz-Dijiji!" exclaimed King.
"Shoz-Dijiji, war chief of the Be-don-ko-he Apaches," replied the Apache Devil.
"And you're on the war path. That doesn't look so good for me, does it, Shoz-Dijiji?"
"Shoz-Dijiji not on war trail now. Shoz-Dijiji good Indian now. Go in cattle business."
In the moonlight King saw the grim half smile that accompanied the words of the Indian, but he made no reply. Apache humor was something that he did not pretend to understand. All he knew about it was that upon occasion it might be hideous.
"Mebbe so you like go in cattle business with Shoz-Dijiji?" suggested the Apache.
"I guess that whatever you say goes," replied the officer.
"All right. Take this horse." The Indian indicated the led horse at his side. "Now you help drive our cattle. Sabe?"
King grinned. "Perfectly," he said. Slowly the two men urged the cattle onward until at dawn they came to a patch of meadow land well within the mountain range they had entered shortly after meeting. There was water there and good grazing and little likelihood that the tired animals would wander far from either.
Taking King with him, Shoz-Dijiji rode to the top of a high hill that commanded the broad valley to the south and west, across which they had come. For half an hour the Apache scanned the country below them, using field glasses that King recognized as having once belonged to him, glasses that had been taken from him several years before during an engagement with hostiles.
In the far distance the Indian saw a tiny speck and recognized it as Luis. Beyond Luis and approaching him from the southeast were horsemen. This was doubtless the company of soldiers to which King belonged. Shoz-Dijiji did not call the officer's attention to either Luis or the soldiers. In his mind he figured quickly just how long it would take the soldiers to reach this point should Luis put them upon the trail of the herd, which he knew that they could easily pick up and follow from the point at which the storm had overtaken them.