The pillar of smoke went swirling up into the air, and ascended high into the blue before little wisps of wind scattered it.
I put fresh shells into the rifle.
Ten minutes later there were answering columns of smoke coming up from the mountains ahead of us.
Karg’s face was chalky.
“Yes,” he said, “I want to turn back.”
Phil Brennan clamped his lips.
“No,” he said. “We’re going forward.”
His face was as white as Karg’s, but he was standing straight and his head was back.
The desert was commencing to leave its mark on Phil Brennan.
“Brennan wins. We go forward,” I said.
I let them believe that it was because Brennan had made the decision. As a matter of fact, it was too late to go back.
“No, no!” rasped Karg. “I’m paying for this little expedition, and what I say goes. We’re going back. Turn back, Zane.”
I shrugged my shoulders and pointed back.
“If you want the back trail, there it is, shimmering in the heat. We’re pushing forward.”
And the thought of being alone in the desert sent Karg huddling close to us.
We marched on.
“The Yaqui?” asked Karg.
“Should be killed, but we can’t waste time on him. He’s burrowed into a shelter somewhere, and we’d be all day locating him.”
“No,” said Karg; “he’ll be back, and he’ll come asking for friendship.” He spoke with calm confidence.
“You don’t know the first damned thing about Indian character,” I told him.
“Wait and see,” he said.
I let it go at that.
But he was right.
It was the next afternoon, late. I could see that some one was running toward us, stumbling, holding his right hand up with the palm out, a gesture of peace.
I got out the gun.
The figure grew in size. It was the Yaqui.
He was haggard. His face was pale underneath its dusky color. His eyes were all red, and his lips were twitching. Little spasms seemed to ripple his skin.
I thought he wanted water, which was strange, because he had undoubtedly seen those answering smoke signals and been able to join his friends.
But it wasn’t water he wanted.
And he’d met up with his friends, and deserted them again. For he had a canteen over his shoulder, and a gun at his hip. He’d left us empty handed.
I strode toward him.
But he avoided me. He dodged past and ran straight to Karg, and he was like a dog finding its master.
Karg motioned me to keep back, and then he walked out in the desert for fifty or sixty yards and had quite a little talk with the Yaqui.
The Indian was fawning on him, slavering for something, begging. Karg was hard. That was the way Karg could be his hardest, when some one was coming to him for something.
After a while Karg got up and came toward me.
The Indian remained on the desert, hunched over in a huddled heap.
“Give me the black package,” said Karg.
I took it out from under my shirt.
He fitted a key to the lock, snapped it open, walked back toward the Yaqui. They went together down a little depression, walking along slowly.
They just walked through the depression, taking but little more time to it than they would have taken if they’d been walking steadily; but, somehow or other, I had an idea they had stopped for a few seconds.
They came back into sight, and the Indian had stopped talking. Karg motioned to him, and the Indian surrendered the gun. Karg came toward me.
“The Yaquis have got behind us, and they’re closing in,” he said.
“Don’t think you’re telling me any news.” I said.
“You knew it?”
“Of course. After that smoke signal, there was nothing to it.”
“Murietta betrayed us,” said Karg. I laughed.
“That ain’t news. It’s history.”
“And was to lead the attack,” he said.
I nodded. “He led you here to lead you into a trap,” I told him. “He’d been intending to betray you all along. You’ve got some hold on him, but he hates you.”
He made an impatient gesture with his hand, as though he was brushing something aside, something that was unimportant.
“All men that I have a hold on hate me,” he said.
“But Pedro’s going to lead us through their lines. There’s just a chance we can get through. There’s a water hole to the south that Pedro knows about. No one else knows of it. If we can win our way through then we won’t be surrounded.”
“They’ll trail us,” I told him.
“Of course. But we’ll have the advantage of them. We get into a rocky country.”
“And Murietta’s probably betraying you again.”
He shook his head positively
“No,” he said, “never again. Murietta knows he has to save me now. He wants to save my life.”
I laughed at him, but he was right. I found it out when I got to talking with the Indian. He was frantically, hysterically anxious to see that we won through, and then he wanted us to go back. He wanted to leave.
I knew that if he’d double-crossed his own people and come over to us to get us through, he’d never dare to be caught alive. They reserve their most fiendish tortures for those who ton traitors, those Yaquis.
But I couldn’t figure out just what it was that was holding Murietta to Karg.
IV. Into Ambush
We started out after night, on a course at right angles, and we pushed through little passes, down little coulees, along dry stream beds, over little rocky ridges. The Indian seemed to know every foot of the way.
Then a dog barked.
Someone muttered something in a hoarse voice and the rocks began to spit little tongues of fire.
The bullets rained around us. Karg wanted to return the shots, but I held his hand. They outnumbered us about ten to one, and the flashes of our guns would have shown them exactly where we were. But, pushing forward in the darkness, keeping under cover, we had them shooting with only a general idea of what they were shooting at.
We lost one of the burros, and, as we were winning clear, I felt something slam into my side with a force that spun me around, jerked me off my feet.
I figured it was the end, but I dropped and didn’t say anything. I wanted the others to win through if they could. No use waiting for me.
It was Phil Brennan who came running back.
I tried to send him on, but I couldn’t get my breath, couldn’t manage to say a word. I made motions with my hands, but he stuck to me, lifted me to my feet.
Then I began to get so I could breathe. I put my hand to my side to see how badly I was hit. I could feel moisture trickling down my side, and my hand came away all sticky. I felt that my side was ripped wide open.
But, when I finally located the place, I found that it wasn’t a wound at all. The bullet had ripped into the black leather case that Karg had given me to keep for him, and had slammed it into my side with the force of a mule’s kick.
I could talk then, and explained to Brennan, but I couldn’t walk, and the Indians were milling around over the country, calling to each other, lighting torches, trying to pick up our trail.
I persuaded Brennan to run on ahead and join the others and tell them I was waiting behind to act as sort of a rear guard, that I was all right, and would join them as soon as I found out just what the Indians would do.
He went on.
After a while I forced my legs into action, and forged ahead as best I could, but I’d lost the others. There was no moon, and the starlight was deceptive. I plugged along in the direction the Indian had said to take, but I couldn’t find any trace of the others.
The Indians had the trail by this time, but a trail in rocky country by torchlight isn’t easy to follow, and there were mountains off to the left that were great slabs of rock and timber. I figured they’d have to ditch the burros, but they stood some chance of getting through.