A Fortune Hunter; Or, The Old Stone Corral: A Tale of the Santa Fe Trail. John Dunloe Carteret

A Fortune Hunter; Or, The Old Stone Corral: A Tale of the Santa Fe Trail - John Dunloe Carteret


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but a sense of coming disaster, a foreboding of some great calamity, seemed to weigh on the spirits of our party on that fatal evening.

      "How strange it is that when the sky is serene and clear we may feel the approaching storm! Who can explain that shock of repulsion we feel when we meet a secret foe? The same Providence whispered, that murky night, of the danger and disaster lurking near.

      "But each one tried to shake off the feeling of apprehension; and as a storm was rising in the north-west we attributed our depression to that state of the atmosphere which precedes the thunderstorm.

      "I did not sleep for several hours after retiring to the wagon, but remained wakeful and restless, listening to the jabbering of the wolves and rumble of the distant thunder. The fitful slumber into which I at length fell was pervaded by hideous dreams, and when I was awakened by the yell of savages it seemed, for a moment, only the continuation of the strange phantasms that had haunted my sleep.

      "But I sprang out, a pistol in each hand, and was soon struggling in the whirlpool of confusion and terror that prevailed around. The crack of rifles and whistling of arrows, the shrieks of the wounded and dying, the blood-chilling whoops of the Indians, all commingled with the bellowing of the frightened cattle in hideous clamor.

      "With a feeling of sickening dread I thought of Bruce and his wife as I dashed toward their wagon. As I neared it a vivid flash of lightning from the cloud which had arisen revealed a scene of such revolting horror that its remembrance causes me yet to turn faint and dizzy. More than a quarter of a century has rolled by, fraught with war and sorrow, but that scene of woe is burned deep within my heart, to rankle long as life endures."

      Here the colonel's voice broke to a whisper, while the sobs of Maud and Grace mingled with their mother's soft weeping. Then, after a moment of silent anguish, while his hands hung clenched in an agony of intense grief, with bowed head and a voice so husky that it was barely audible, the colonel continued:—

      "By the dazzling light I saw Ivarene kneeling in her white robe, a look of imploring agony upon her pale, uplifted face. Over her, with a poised tomahawk, glared a powerful, painted demon. Bruce, struggling in the grasp of two hideous savages, was driving his glittering dirk into the breast of one of his assailants. I fired at the heart of the wretch who stood over Ivarene. With a dying yell he bounded into the air. Then, as darkness was once again settling down over the scene, I felt the shock of a stunning blow—then a long oblivion."

      The colonel was too visibly affected to proceed further with the narrative, and as he relapsed into silence the listeners slowly dispersed, some to the duties of camp-life; others strolled out to the long, grass-grown grave, leaving Colonel Warlow alone, lost in meditation.

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