Chapter XVI: Donna Iola Meets the Trailers

We will now return to the Donna Iola, whom we have left altogether too long, to follow the fortunes of our hero.

The young girl would have felt very glad had Chauncy but beckoned to her to stop, for then she might at least die at his side. She had conceived a very strong love for her rescuer, and it was with great reluctance that she separated from him.

How was she to know whether she would ever see him again? More than once she had half-resolved to turn back and stay with him, in spite of his entreaties.

But then she remembered what Chauncy had said about her finding assistance and coming to rescue him.

Although the hope was not very strong in her breast that she would find her father and his men, yet she could not help thinking that perhaps, after all, there might be happy days in store for Chauncy and herself.

As long as Chauncy was in sight, she kept turning in the saddle to watch him. Then, when she was out of his sight, she urged the brave horse on still faster.

She was unconsciously following the trail the Indians had made when they had her a captive.

Had she known this, she would have kept on it, knowing that in a day or so she must come up to her father, if he was trailing her up, as she was sure of.

After riding seven or eight miles, she slackened up the speed of her horse, and let him walk, for the animal had had quite a sharp run.

Soon she dismounted and walked beside him for nearly a mile, patting him on the neck, and feeling very proud when the noble animal rubbed his velvet muzzle against her cheeks, as he was wont to do to Chauncy. He evidently saw in Iola one whom he might, in some future time, call his mistress.

It was while Iola was walking beside her steed that she suddenly branched off from the trail she had been pursuing, though unconsciously. It was well for her afterward that she was walking when she left the trail, as the reader will soon see.

All day long the lovely Donna rode on in what she believed to be the right direction. Just as night came on, she found, to her horror, that she had arrived at the place she had started to ride off from the trail at. She had been riding in a circle all day.

She found plenty of provisions in the bundle which was strapped to the saddle, and made a good supper, despite her situation.

She slept that night on the open prairie, with none to watch over her but her Father in heaven. And yet Iola was not one to be easily frightened.

She could not help wondering, however, whether her next night would be passed in the same way.

Long before the sun arose, she was up and off, eating her scanty breakfast as she rode. She knew that she had kept edging toward the right the day before (and this is natural to one not much accustomed to the open plain where there is hardly any mark to guide one) and to remedy this evil she kept turning a little to the left every now and then.

In this way she managed to go in quite a straight line but although she did not know it, yet _she was heading in the wrong direction_, and was going nearly east instead of south.

All day long she rode, keeping a good look-out, but late in the afternoon she felt that it was fated that she should spend another night alone. When she reached a “motte” of trees she resolved to camp here, as it was a great deal better than the open plain, and there was a cool spring in among the trees, too, and this the Donna and her horse attacked with a vigor which was sharpened by long thirsting.

Upon going to the edge of the grove to see the sunset, she was surprised and somewhat startled to see a band of horsemen coming toward the trees, directly from the west.

Who could they be? This was the question that the Donna asked herself, as her eyes first fell upon them.

Friends or foes, which?

She resolved to be ready for any emergency, however, and putting the saddle on the horse again she mounted him, and waited on the edge of the trees, anxious to know who the horsemen were. She had no fears of being captured, even should they prove to be Comanches. Her horse, though tired, could not be in a worse condition than those of the band coming toward her, and she could keep ahead of them until darkness came on, which would not be long for it was already getting dusk.

As the band of horsemen came closer, the Donna saw one thing and that was: _they were following her trail_.

This made her feel that they were her enemies, the Comanches, for what would her father and his men be doing away out here?

They would follow the trail left by Red Buffalo and his warriors when they had the Donna a captive.

The Donna could see one man dismount as dusk came on, and follow up her trail on foot, one of his comrades leading his horse by the bridle. Iola would have fled at once, but it seemed to her as though the men were not naked from the waist up.

The band were hardly distinguishable as they rode up to the “motte.” It was evident that they intended to encamp in the trees.

As they drew near Iola heard one of them speak, and to her intense delight the words were not spoken in the Comanche tongue, but in fluent Mexican.

“Señor,” said the voice, coming from the dismounted trailer, “we will have to rest here until the moon rises. Then we will take up the trail again, and follow it all night if necessary.”

“You are right, Alvarez, we will follow it as long as possible. We know that at the end of this trail is your mistress, and that end _must_ be reached,” said a voice, that made the Donna start and with a sobbing cry dash out.

The next moment she was in the arms of her father, Don Carlos, and the vaqueros and peons, brave men, every one of them, were crowding around her. A fire was soon lighted, and, over a hearty supper, Donna Iola related her adventures to her father. He agreed with her when she said that an effort _must_ be made to rescue Chauncy from the Comanches and when she related what the brave young man had done, the men (there were thirty of them) all signified their approval of his decision. They loved the Donna, and any one that had twice saved her from death, at the risk of his own life, must not be forgotten.

The Donna soon learned how she came to be tracked.

The men had come to where she left the trail, early that morning, in fact just after she was out of sight.

The trailer, Alvarez, after the Don had recognized the tracks of the Donna’s feet, soon found out the true state of affairs.

He knew that the Donna had made a circuit and had camped on the spot. He also knew that the fresh marks was the trail for them to follow. It was very lucky that the Donna had happened to be on foot when she left the main trail; otherwise the trackers would never have suspicioned who rode the horse, the hoof-marks of which they would have seen.

The Donna slept that night in security, and early the next morning the whole band took the back trail.

That night they camped on the spot where Iola had left the Indian trail, and where she had camped two nights before.

The next day they took up the trail, and when night overtook them they were not many miles from the river on the bank of which our hero and his three friends were encamped, and where Monsieur Tierney had that day performed his exploit with his umbrella.

The moon arose, and as it lit up the earth the band, who were in a clump of trees, heard the noise of a fight, just behind another small grove about a mile distant. The yells of the Comanches and the hurrahs of white men could be plainly heard.

Common humanity prompted Don Carlos to leave the Donna in charge of a man, and to go to the aid of the whites.

But it was something more that made Iola hurry the men off. She had a presentiment that her lover was one of the whites, and that he was in a pretty bad fix and needed aid.