第29章 JIMMY HAYES AND MURIEL(2)
They loved him for his simplicity and drollness, but there hung above him a great sword of suspended judgment.To make merry in camp is not all of a ranger's life.There are horse-thieves to trail, desperate criminals to run down, bravos to battle with, bandits to rout out of the chaparral, peace and order to be compelled at the muzzle of a six-shooter.Jimmy had been "'most generally a cow-puncher," he said; he was inexperienced in ranger methods of warfare.Therefore the rangers speculated apart and solemnly as to how he would stand fire.For, let it be known, the honour and pride of each ranger company is the individual bravery of its members.
For two months the border was quiet.The rangers lolled, listless, in camp.And then -- bringing joy to the rusting guardians of the frontier -- Sebastiano Saldar, an eminent Mexican desperado and cattle-thief, crossed the Rio Grande with his gang and began to lay waste the Texas side.There were indications that Jimmy Hayes would soon have the opportunity to show his mettle.The rangers patrolled with alacrity, but Saldar's men were mounted like Lochinvar, and were hard to catch.
One evening, about sundown, the rangers halted for supper after a long ride.Their horses stood panting, with their saddles on.The men were frying bacon and boiling coffee.Suddenly, out of the brush, Sebastiano Saldar and his gang dashed upon them with blazing six-shooters and high-voiced yells.It was a neat surprise.The rangers swore in annoyed tones, and got their Winchesters busy; but the attack was only a spectacular dash of the purest Mexican type.After the florid demonstration the raiders galloped away, yelling, down the river.The rangers mounted and pursued; but in less than two miles the fagged ponies laboured so that Lieutenant Manning gave the word to abandon the chase and return to the camp.
Then it was discovered that Jimmy Hayes was missing.Some one remembered having seen him run for his pony when the attack began, but no one had set eyes on him since.Morning came, but no Jimmy.They searched the country around, on the theory that he had been killed or wounded, but without success.Then they followed after Saldar's gang, but it seemed to have disappeared.Manning concluded that the wily Mexican had recrossed the river after his theatric farewell.And, indeed, no further depredations f rom him were reported.
This gave the rangers time to nurse a soreness they had.As has been said, the pride and honour of the company is the individual bravery of its members.And now they believed that Jimmy Hayes had turned coward at the whiz of Mexican bullets.There was no other deduction.Buck Davis pointed out that not a shot was fired by Saldar's gang after Jimmy was seen running for his horse.There was no way for him to have been shot.
No, he had fled from his first fight, and afterward he would not return, aware that the scorn of his comrades would be a worse thing to face than the muzzles of many rifles.
So Manning's detachment of McLean's company, Frontier Battalion, was gloomy.It was the first blot on its escutcheon.Never before in the history of the service had a ranger shown the white feather.All of them had liked Jimmy Hayes, and that made it worse.
Days, weeks, and months went by, and still that little cloud of unforgotten cowardice hung above the camp.
III
Nearly a year afterward -- after many camping grounds and many hundreds of miles guarded and defended -- Lieutenant Manning, with almost the same detachment of men, was sent to a point only a few miles below their old camp on the river to look after some smuggling there.One afternoon, while they were riding through a dense mesquite flat, they came upon a patch of open hog-wallow prairie.There they rode upon the scene of an unwritten tragedy.
In a big hog-wallow lay the skeletons of three Mexicans.Their clothing alone served to identify them.The largest of the figures had once been Sebastiano Saldar.His great, costly sombrero, heavy with gold ornamentation -- a hat famous all along the Rio Grande -- lay there pierced by three bullets.Along the ridge of the hog-wallow rested the rusting Winchesters of the Mexicans -- all pointing in the same direction.
The rangers rode in that direction for fifty yards.There, in a little depression of the ground, with his rifle still bearing upon the three, lay another skeleton.It had been a battle of extermination.There was nothing to identify the solitary defender.His clothing -- such as the elements had left distinguishable -- seemed to be of the kind that any ranchman or cowboy might have worn.
"Some cow-puncher," said Manning, "that they caught out alone.Good boy!
He put up a dandy scrap before they got him.So that's why we didn't hear from Don Sebastiano any more!"And then, from beneath the weather-beaten rags of the dead man, there wriggled out a horned frog with a faded red ribbon around its neck, and sat upon the shoulder of its long quiet master.Mutely it told the story of the untried youth and the swift "paint" pony -- how they had outstripped all their comrades that day in the pursuit of the Mexican raiders, and how the boy had gone down upholding the honour of the company.
The ranger troop herded close, and a simultaneous wild yell arose from their lips.The outburst was at once a dirge, an apology, an epitaph, and a paean of triumph.A strange requiem, you may say, over the body of a fallen, comrade; but if Jimmy Hayes could have heard it he would have understood.