The wagon was still creaking slowly along and Holdness did not stop his team. He dropped the lantern and dodged back to the rear of the wagon. There he quickly flung aside the end curtain and then returned to the driver’s seat.
Hadley had ridden by, but the instant he saw the curtain raised he wheeled Molly about and aimed her for the end of the huge wagon. “Quick, girl! You’ve done it before,” muttered the boy, and the little mare obeyed. The driver did not bring his wagon to a stop, but it was moving very slowly. Molly had long since learned the trick expected of her, and she trotted up to the rear of the vehicle, rose in the air, and landed firmly on the straw-covered bottom.
“Draw the curtain, Had, ’n’ keep yer hand on her nose,” commanded Holdness, the teamster, without turning his head.
Already the boy had ordered the little mare to lie down and she had sunk upon the straw. He whipped down the curtain, fastened it, and then lay down beside the mare with his hand upon her velvety nose, ready to stifle any desire on her part to whinny when the pursuing horses should arrive.
And they were here in a moment now. Colonel Knowles, on his great charger, ahead, and the company of dragoons not many rods behind.
“Well, hurry back, boy. You’re rather green, you know, to be going out alone.” The captain winked at Sergeant Mills as Tom Ray turned towards his horse.
There had been no fighting as yet, and Tom was rather disappointed, for, to tell the truth, it was love of adventure rather than patriotism that had induced him to join the little squad of cavalry then journeying through the heart of the Apache country. They had encamped in the little valley of the Salt River, in Arizona. The land was dry and parched. Even the hardy cactus was taking on a leathery hue.
To Tom it was a monotonous view--the yellow earth: that everlasting Giant Cactus; and occasionally the tall, bleached form of a dead tree, reaching its arms despairingly upward from the dearth of life below.
With some little impatience he urged the pony into a gallop. In an hour he must be at the fork of the Salt to receive Custer’s dispatches. Everybody had wondered why Tom Ray, the only one in the party who had never heard an Indian war-whoop, should have been chosen for the work. It was a case of eloquence. Tom pleaded, and the captain--who wasn’t much afraid of Indians himself--forgot his military caution and consented.