No herd of cattle could have withstood the sight of this wild phantasmagoria. The men who owned these felt that their own time had come. Without command, each man dropped low behind his bed roll, his rifle resting above his bent arm.
“Don’t let than in, men—but don’t shoot yet! They’ve got nothing but spears!”
It was the voice of Dan McMasters which arose. He alone of them all was standing, rifle in hand. He threw up his hand in the command to halt as the Red men came on in, slapping his rifle stock.
The Comanches paid little attention to any command, but made no immediate motion of hostility. Their leader was a great-chested man with wide chin and mouth and narrow eyes. Jabbering in his own tongue, two-thirds Spanish, he grinned as he came on close up to the rifles which covered him and his men. At length he threw up his own hand carelessly, indifferently, curiously, as though he now would see what was to be found hereabouts.
“How, _amigo_! How, _amigo_!” called out McMasters. No one had chosen him as leader, but none now denied him the place. “_Usted_ Yellow Hand?”
“_Si_,” said he. “Me Yellow Han’. _Habla Español?_”
“_Si_,” replied McMasters, and went on in that tongue.
After a few moments of rapid talk he turned.
“He says they are Quahradas, but are riding through, going home. Says he wants some spotted buffaloes. Says they are on Indian land and we have got to get out. Says we will have to give him half our horses and all our tobacco. Says he knows we have got something in the wagons because we keep the covers tight. Says we can’t go on through, but have got to go back.”
“You tell him to go to hell!” broke out Jim Nabours. “Tell him I know who he is. Yellow Hand has got no right in here. Tell him the soldiers will be after him for chasing the Chickasaws’ buffalo. Flour—beef—tobacco? Tell him we won’t give him a damned thing! Tell him if he rides ten feet further in we’ll open fire and clean ’em out—our rifles shoot a week and we don’t have to load.”
He patted the stock of the rifle which he held up before him in defiance—one of the Henry repeating rifles, first of repeating arms seen in the Southwest after the Civil War; and already the Comanches knew what these repeating rifles meant. Old Yellow Hand also knew that his men had nothing but their spears. He traded Comanche lives as dear as possible always. No doubt it occurred to him that he could get all the beef he wanted by following the stampede. Perhaps he figured that night time would be a better hour for an attack—when all his warriors were on hand.