Transcriber’s Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
LIGHTNING JO,
THE TERROR OF THE SANTA FE TRAIL.
A TALE OF THE PRESENT DAY.
BY CAPT. J. F. C. ADAMS.
NEW YORK:
BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS,
98 WILLIAM STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
BEADLE AND ADAMS,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
(P. N. No. 9.)
LIGHTNING JO,
THE TERROR OF THE SANTA FE TRAIL.
CHAPTER I. THE CRY FOR HELP.
“To the Commandant at Fort Adams:
“For God’s sake send us help at once. We have beenfighting the Comanches for two days; half our men are killedand wounded, and we can not hold out much longer. Butwe have women and children with us, and we shall fight tothe last and die game. Send help without an hour’s delay,or it’s all up.
J. T. Shields.”
Covered with dust, and reeking with sweat, with bloodynostril and dilated eye, the black mustang thundered up tothe gate of the fort, staggered as if drunken, and then witha wheezing moan, shivered from nose to hoof, and with anawful cry, like that of a dying person, his flanks heaved andhe dropped dead to the ground, his lithe, sinewy rider leapingfrom the saddle, just in time to escape being crushed todeath.
Scarcely less frightful and alarming was the appearance ofthe horseman, so covered with dust and grime, that no onecould tell whether he was Indian, African or Caucasian; but,whoever he was, he showed that he was alive to the situation,by running straight through the gate of the stockades, intothe parade-ground, where, pausing in a bewildered sort ofway, he glanced hurriedly around, and then shouted:
“Where’s the commandant? Quick! some one tell me!”
Colonel Greaves chanced to be standing at that moment inconverse with a couple of his officers, and upon hearing thecry, he moved toward the stranger with a rapid tread, butwith a certain dignified deliberation that always marked his[Pg 10]movements. Knowing him to be the man for whom he wassearching, the messenger did not wait for him to approach,but fairly bounded toward him, and thrusting a piece of dirtypaper, scrawled over with lead pencil, looked imploringly in hisface, while he read the words given above.
And as the colonel read, his brows knitted and his facepaled. He felt the urgency of that despairing appeal, andhe saw the almost utter impossibility of complying with it.
“When was this written?” he asked, of the dust-begrimedcourier.
“At daybreak this morning,” was the prompt reply.
“How far away are your friends?”
“Forty miles as the crow flies, and I have never drawnrein since my horse started, till he fell dead just outside thegate.”
“How many men are there in this fix?”
“There were twenty men, and a dozen women and children.When I left, about half that