Vanguards of the Plains: A Romance of the Old Santa Fé TrailMcCarter, Margaret Hill
History
Vanguards of the Plains: A Romance of the Old Santa Fé Trail
McCarter, Margaret Hill
Santa Fe National Historic Trail -- Fiction; West (U.S.) -- History -- Fiction
And though there's never a grave to tell,
Nor a cross to mark his fall,
Thank God! we know that he "batted well"
In the last great Game of all.
--SERVICE.
We left Santa Fé within an hour, and struck out toward the unknown land
where Beverly Clarenden, in the midst of uncertain friends, was being
hunted down by an Apache band. As our little company passed out on the
trail toward Agua Fria, I recalled the day when we had gone with Rex
Krane to this little village beside the Santa Fé River. Eloise and
Father Josef and Santan and Little Blue Flower were all there that day;
and Jondo, although we did not know it then. Rex Krane had told Beverly,
going out, that an Indian never forgets. In all the years Santan had not
forgotten.
To-day we covered the miles rapidly. Jondo and Father Josef rode ahead,
with Esmond Clarenden and Felix Narveo following them; then came Eloise
St. Vrain with Sister Gloria; behind them, Aunty Boone, with Rex and
myself bringing up the rear. Three pack-mules bearing our equipment
went tramping after us with bobbing ears and sturdy gait.
I looked down the line of our little company ahead. The four men in the
lead were college chums once, and all of them had loved the mother of
the girl behind them. I have said the girl looked best by twilight. I
had not seen her in a coarse-gray riding-dress when I said that. I had
seen her when she needed protection from her enemies. I had not seen her
until to-day, going out to meet hardship fearlessly, for the sake of one
who wanted her--only an Indian maiden, but a faithful friend. In the
plainest face self-forgetfulness puts a beauty all its own. That beauty
shone resplendent now in the beautiful face of Mary Marchland's
daughter.
The world can change wonderfully in sixty minutes. As we rode out toward
the Rio Grande, the yellow sands, the gray gramma grass, the purple
sage, the tall green cliffs, and, high above, the gleaming snow-crowned
peaks, took on a beauty never worn for me before. Why should a hope
spring up within me that would die as other hopes had died? But back of
all my thought was the longing to help Beverly, and a faith in Aunty
Boone's weird, prophetic grip on things unseen. He had just "gone out"
to her--why not to all of us? I could not understand Little Blue
Flower's part in this tragedy, so I let it alone.
A day out from Santa Fé we were joined by the little squad of cavalrymen
with whom we had parted company back at the Fort Bent camping-place.
With these we had little cause to dread personal danger. The Apache band
was a small, vicious gang that could do much harm to the Hopis, but it
seemed nothing for us to fear.
Our care was to reach Beverly before the Hopis should rise up against
Little Blue Flower, or the band led by Santan should fall upon them.
Father Josef had sent a runner on to tell them of our coming and to warn
them of the Apache raid. But runners sometimes come to grief.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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