245
Stifling their impatience as well as they could, the avenging party waited till the four hours had expired; then all set off on their mountain climb, though darkness would be coming on almost immediately. Half a mile from the top of the ridge, von Tempsky was seen to spring from his saddle and make a dash at some dark object that lay in the shelter of a rock. Before he had reached it, however, a scuffling, clattering sound arose near him, and a horse, saddled but riderless, struggled to his feet. The others halted.
“Show a light some of you; I’ve got him,” shouted von Tempsky. “But—why, the man’s dead!”
Jago dismounted, and, striking a light, revealed the pallid face of a Mexican, who lay with an arrow through his back. Von Tempsky, who had been the only one of the riders to notice the recumbent figure, had imagined it to be that of an Indian spy or sentinel, and had at once made a grab at his throat, only to find the body stiff and quite cold.
“One more score against them,” cried the doctor. “Ride on.”
They travelled all night and till long after daybreak, without meeting or seeing anyone; and at length Steel called another halt for a few hours. Presently, as he and von Tempsky sat chatting, the latter drew his attention to a body of mounted men riding slowly across their projected path, a couple of miles away.
“We’ve got them this time,” said Steel, jumping up.
“Those are not Indians, Señor,” said Jago.
“Tch! Look at their spears, man.”
“I do. They are our Mexican lancers. There; do you not hear their bugle?”
246
A faint note or two from some brass instrument was carried to them by the wind.
“All right; mount,” cried the doctor. “We’ll have a look at them, anyway.”
They had not gone more than a few hundred yards, when the new-comers caught sight of them riding down the incline; they reined up and, waving their lances, greeted them with jubilant shouts.
“Well—of all the scraggy-looking donkey-drivers!” exclaimed Steel in an aside, as they came up with the “lancers.” There were about eighty of them, all more or less in rags, each man armed with a lance, a very rusty sabre, and a carbine. In their midst, two men held their lances aloft, each spear-point being decorated with the head of an Indian. The men were hearty-looking, happy-go-lucky ruffians, brave as need be, but woefully undisciplined, and out of gear generally. After one glance at them, von Tempsky no longer wondered that many an Englishman, Irishman, Scot, or Yankee who would think himself lucky if he ever rose to the rank of sergeant, at home, could here become a field-marshal or an admiral in half an hour. For the Mexico of those days was, like the southern republics, a happy hunting-ground for foreign soldiers of fortune.
“And they sendthesefellows to put down an Indian rising!” he muttered to the doctor; adding aloud, in Spanish: “Is that all you have killed? Who is your officer?”
The lancers grinned. No; they had killed at least thirty, out of some two hundred. Officer? H’m! Nobody was quite sure. The two men with the heads247weresupposedto be something in that line; but really they couldn’t say for certain.
“All right; pray go on. I and my troop will follow you,” said Steel.
There was one advantage in having fallen in with these ragamuffins; two at least of their number were half-bloods, with eyes like hawks for a trail; and this put an end to all doubt as to the way which must be followed now that the plain was reached. Some of the lancers had more terrible tales of the Indians to add to what the travellers already knew. A priest and a farmer had been murdered two days before; and, only that morning, three ladies had been found speared to death near anestancia(farm).
The track wound in serpentine fashion, now skirting a town, now going straight through aranchowhence the occupants had fled. By late afternoon the pursuers were within half a dozen miles of Durango; but here the track—more visible than ever now, in the long grass to which they had come—broke away at an obtuse angle, towards the more hilly ground on their right. The doctor pulled up, and he and von Tempsky began to confer with the soldiers. Horses and mules and men were all jaded, urged Steel; and the trail might lead them on through another all-night journey; and to no purpose. Why not ride for the town, take a short rest, and beat up recruits?
The question was being argued and re-argued, when a series of whistles, followed by one concerted and unearthly yell, proceeded from the hills; and, like a pack of wolves, the Indians for whom they had been hunting came charging down the slope; full three hundred of248them, stark naked, their bodies painted scarlet and black, their hair and their horses decked with feathers. Steel looked glumly at his own little army. Oh for a couple of dozen well-armed men who had learned the virtues of obedience and combination!
“You lancers prepare to receive their charge,” he shouted; and motioned to his own men to draw off and be ready to attack the Seris in the rear. He was obeyed indifferently; further urged by von Tempsky and Jago, the guides andrancheroswere wheeling slowly northwards; but the lancers were evidently more than half minded to charge wholesale at the oncoming savages.
It is proverbial that the greater the pain or the danger or the suspense, the more readily a man finds time to notice minute detail that has little or nothing to do with the matter in hand. Steel observed, on this occasion—though the yelling mob was within thirty yards of him—that apparently not a man of them was under six feet in height; that every man sat his horse as though he were a part of it, and that each carried a spear, bow, and quiver, and also a trumpery-looking round shield, studded with bits of brass, shell, and looking-glass. As he had half anticipated, the savages suddenly changed their tactics on reaching the hill foot, and wheeled sharply towards the smaller force.
“Lancers, charge, the moment our volley’s fired,” shouted the doctor. “Fire!—Charge!Charge, you thick-headed clod-hoppers, can’t you?—O Lord!” His voice died away in a disheartened little groan.
For the lancers might so easily have had it all their own way; at least twenty redskins had fallen before249the carbines of therancheros, and clearly the rest were surprised and confused. Yet there sat these intelligent lancers, their spears in rest, calmly unslinging their carbines for a volley that was quite as likely to hurt their own side as the enemy.
“Can’t be helped now,” said the doctor to his followers. “Blaze away at them as best you can.”
There were no quick-firing magazine-rifles in those days, and with the exception of von Tempsky and Steel, who had each a couple of revolvers, every man was armed with a muzzle-loader; but necessity had long been the mother of invention with therancheros, as with the trappers and the Gauchos. Wads were dispensed with; a generous pinch of powder was thrown into the barrel, and each man had his mouth full of bullets, ready to spit one after the powder; a cap was hastily stuck on the pin and everyone was ready for another volley. But even as it was fired, a shower of arrows was launched at each troop, and many a man dropped forward in his saddle. Already the boot was on the other leg; it was the whites who were confused now, while the Indians had recovered their coolness; and, with a discord of howls, they swiftly separated into two parts, one preparing to charge at each white division.
“Pull yourselves together!”—“Die like men!” cried Steel and von Tempsky respectively, as, abandoning their bridles and with a revolver in each hand, they rode straight to meet the charge; while one half of the lancers fled, and the other half sought to cut a way through their assailants and rejoin therancheros.
The doctor fired off six shots into the front rank as250the two forces met, and four Indians fell dead; but his own mule dropped under him, transfixed by a spear.
“Here you are; mount,” bawled von Tempsky in his ear, just when, in imagination, he was already being trampled down by the Indians’ horses.
The ready-witted Pole had sent a bullet into the head of the redskin nearest him, and as he fell, had caught the bridle of his horse. The old backwoodsman, active as a cat, sprang to the horse’s back, and the next moment was emptying his second revolver into the faces of the enemy. Meanwhile, the lancers fought furiously but spasmodically. Their lances could not avail them against the war-hatchets of the savages; and while one half clubbed their carbines, the other made but fruitless play with their sabres, seeking at the same time to drown the howls of the Indians with their own.
But suddenly, when the fight was at its hottest, and when the issue was very much in the balance, a cry of dismay broke from one batch of redskins, who, pointing towards Durango, began to wheel round with the obvious intention of taking flight.
“Help is coming,” cried Jago encouragingly; and, looking back for an instant, Steel saw about forty men, splendidly mounted, and coming up at a gallop from the direction of the town. The second division of the enemy followed the example of the first, and turned to flee. The forty strangers, without uttering a word as they swept past, dashed in pursuit, firing while still at the gallop. It was vain for the Indians to goad their tired horses; those of the rescuing party were fresh.251Before they had gone a mile they were overtaken, and Steel, who had followed as best he could, heard a voice cry in English:
“No quarter; they don’t deserve mercy. If we take prisoners, the Mexicans will torture them to death.”
In a few minutes there was not an Indian left alive; every man of the fugitives had fallen before the ceaseless shower of bullets poured into their ranks by the strangers.
The very sort of men for whom Steel had been longing had come; forty of the Texan mounted militia, who had been sent down-country to treat for mules, had put themselves at the disposal of the Durango police for the suppression of the Indian hordes; and on this, as on subsequent occasions, the punishment which they served out was so terrible that the redskins fled south and east, or hid in the hills, and for a year or two, at least, little was heard of their attacking either travellers or homesteads.
252CHAPTER XXA HOLIDAY AMONG THE OJIBEWAS
We have already spoken, in Chapter VIII, of the Algonquin branch of the red race. This vast family, comprising Ojibewas, Shawnees, Crees, Araphoes, Blackfeet, etc., once owned practically the whole of South Canada, as well as the eastern portion of the States as far down as Kentucky. The territory peculiar to the Ojibewas ran in a rough curve from Saratoga to Winnipeg, and round about the lake district; but as the construction of the railway from New York to Montreal seemed to establish the definite claim of the white men, the Indians retreated farther north, some taking service under the farmers, or settling down to farm for themselves; others wandering in what was left of the prairie and forest land, and turning an occasional dishonest penny by robbing unprotected travellers.
When Charles Richard Weld made his tour from Boston into and through Southern Canada in 1854, only a part of the railway was made, and the greater portion of the journey had to be accomplished by coach, by canoe, or on horseback. Mr. Weld (who must not be confused with Isaac Weld, the explorer, his half-brother) was a barrister and literary man, in253whom a close personal friendship with many great travellers, including Sir John Barrow and Sir John Franklin, had bred a strong ambition to see the world and make discoveries on his own account. But a busy man, who adds to his other duties the secretaryship of the Royal Society, must perforce stay at home, and it was not till 1850, when he was a man of thirty-seven, that he saw his way to travelling; and that only by devoting the long vacation of each year to visiting some special quarter of the globe.
It was while journeying northwards on this railway that he encountered his first real “sight,” which was a prairie-fire: a swiftly-moving mass of flame and smoke that rolled almost up to the very rails, making the occupants of the cars feel as though they were in an oven. The fire raged for a good many days, for long after Weld had left the railroad and transferred himself to the coach for Lake George, he could still see the smoke and flare in the distance.
The major part of the coach-route lay along a plank road, bounded on either side by miles of monotonous prairie, or by dark patches of pine-wood, where squirrels, deer, and red foxes abounded. The “coach” was an open arrangement—achar-à-bancs, in fact; and Mr. Weld’s travelling companions consisted of three farmers, a couple of French trappers, a wheezy old Irishwoman and her two granddaughters. On the last stage of the journey, when they were within a few miles of the lake-shore, the Englishman’s attention was attracted by the driver to a dark mass that was moving rapidly through the long grass, towards the road.
“Injuns; see em?”
254
About a score of Ojibewas in full war-dress were riding at the top of their speed, with the apparent intention of cutting off the vehicle.
“Well; I suppose they won’t hurtus?” said Weld.
The coachman whipped up his horses. “I reckon they hadn’t better.”
As nobody seemed in the least alarmed, the tourist watched the approach of the Indians rather with interest than with anxiety. Nevertheless, as the redskins, on coming within a hundred yards, suddenly set up an inharmonious howling, and brandished spears or tomahawks, he thought it time to produce and examine his revolver. Just then the horses were pulled up short, and the driver took from beneath his feet a very workmanlike double-barrelled gun; and, looking round him, Weld saw that the other men were doing the same; while even the old woman and the two girls, albeit without a sign of undue excitement, had each brought out a revolver from her reticule.
“That’s the way to let ’em have it,” said the driver, having fired off both barrels at the advancing mob. Before a second gun could be fired, the whole troop had wheeled about, and were riding away as quickly as they had come. The coachman reloaded as though nothing unusual had happened, put away his rifle, and started the horses again.
“Biggest cowards on the yearth,” he mumbled to Weld. “That was only a couple o’ charges o’ birdshot I give ’em. Bless ye, we know ’em by heart now. Years ago they’d put-up a mail, and tomahawk everybody; but nowadays they seem to run away as soon as they see a gun. If there’d only been you an’ me,255or nobody but women, they’d ha’ tried to bluffsomethingout of us, if ’twas only a keg o’ spirits, or a bit of tobacker; but half a dozen men’ll frighten the lives out of ’em. One time o’ day they’d send a charge of arrows first; but they’re shy of that if they see any rifles waiting for ’em.”
This was Weld’s first and only experience of an Indian assault, for the few wild tribes with which he came in contact were quite disorganised, had lost confidence in their traditional weapons of war, and had as yet a wholesome horror of gunpowder. But this absence of hostilities enabled him to get a good insight into Ojibewa forest and river life, and afforded him plenty of interesting adventure where hunting was concerned. At the lake-side inn, where he stayed for a few days, the host invited him to attend an Ojibewa rattlesnake-hunt, a form of sport of which he had never before heard.
“What weapons must I take?” he asked before starting.
“Oh, nothing. Put a gun (revolver) in your pocket if you like,” was the careless reply.
A small party of redskins were squatting outside the inn, and seeing that the two white men were ready to accompany them, they led the way to a hilly and well-wooded spot, just on the eastern shore of the lake. Weld noticed that the only arms carried by them were a knife and a long, slender stick, and from all he had heard of the terrible rattlesnake, this appeared a poor equipment indeed wherewith to kill reptiles which might be any length up to eight or even ten feet. Being prepared for a very great deal of wariness and256of elaborate preliminary on the part of the Indians, he was, of course,notprepared for the entire absence of such preliminary. One of the hunters who walked beside him stooped unconcernedly, picked up a strip of something, gave it a shake, and put it in his game-bag.
“Healways seems to find the first one,” remarked the innkeeper.
“The firstwhat?” queried Weld. “And what on earth is this awful stench?”
“Rattlesnake,” chuckled the Yankee. “See’d him pick it up, didn’t ye? Come on; here’s a chance foryou, now.—Bah! What in the ’nation did ye want to dothatfor?”
For, without any hesitation, Weld had pulled out his revolver and sent two bullets into the body of a snake which, coiled up like a wire spring, had placed itself across a narrow path, and was rearing its head in an uncomfortably suggestive manner.
“What did you expect me to do?” asked Weld with some impatience.
“Why,this.—Stand clear!”
But the Yankee was too “cocksure,” as the boys say; and was only too glad to spring back again to the side of his guest. What he hadtriedto do was to seize another snake by the tail and “snap” it, as a carter cracks a whip; but the creature’s mouth and poison-fangs happened to be very much in the way just then, and the innkeeper left the task to the more expert Ojibewas.
Now that he knew what to expect, Weld retired to a safe distance and began to note all that took place.257The overpowering smell of which he had complained arose from the snakes themselves. The rats, rabbits, squirrels, etc., on which they feed begin to putrefy as soon as they are swallowed, owing to the action of the poison, and one snake is often enough to make a whole neighbourhood intolerable.
The majority of those captured were small, averaging about three and a half feet long, and the activity of the Indians in detecting, seizing, and killing them was almost incredible. In most cases the snake was lying, straight or coiled as the case might be, in the tracks usually followed by small animals in their periodical path to the water, for rattlesnakes are singularly slow in their movement, and so are forced to rely more on their proverbial “wisdom.” The moment one of them was discovered it was whisked off the ground so rapidly that it seemed to fly up; one deft jerk, or whip-like flick, dislocated its backbone and it was dead. To an Englishman the process sounds about as sane and as safe as lifting a bull-terrier by the tail; but the Indians did their work unmovedly, not a man was bitten, and Weld learned later that not once in ten years was such hunting attended with fatal results to anyone; for should a man be bitten a rough sort of cautery, or the sucking of the wound, together with drugs taken internally, generally gave the lie to the popular belief that a rattlesnake’s bite is incurable.
Where a captive was inconveniently large or long, or where he refused to uncoil himself, the savages used their sticks, either to rap him on the head, or to “straighten-out” his coils. The object in killing was to obtain the oil and gall, which were highly valued258for medicinal and other virtues; therefore, any blow that might wound the body was avoided if possible. In Weld’s opinion the “rattle” of the animal has been much exaggerated by travellers; “creaking” or “rustling” would be a better term, for the noise resembles that made by stiff paper, or parchment, when crumpled in the hand. A few days later, when travelling up-country by canoe, he realised that these snakes can swim with perfect ease, for the Ojibewa guides whom he had engaged more than once drew his attention to one of them gliding down the bank and into the water in determined pursuit of a rat that had refused to become a victim to its supposed (and very doubtful) powers of fascination.
For the first time in his life, Mr. Weld now found himself completely cut off from association with white men, for he had before him a lonely journey by river and lake to a backwoods settlement, where an old friend, Major Strickland, had set up a model farm. Fortunately, one of the Ojibewas spoke English fluently, and the other three had at least a smattering of French. Perhaps they were not remarkable for their intelligence, save where canoeing and hunting were concerned, but at least they were amiable, obliging, and contented.
His first acquaintance with rapids was worthy of remark, for it came without a moment’s warning or preparation. He and two Indians travelled in one canoe, while the other two followed, in a second, with his baggage. Weld was lying back, idly smoking, and probably lost in admiration of the solemn, rugged beauty of the steep banks, fringed with pine and cedar259trees, when all in a moment the world seemed to turn over and slip from under him; his head struck the gunwale smartly, and he gradually got a dim notion that he was standing with his back against something hard and his body at right angles to that of the Indian in the bows, who nevertheless continued to ply his paddle stolidly, and without a smile or a word. For a few seconds the boat trebled her speed in some unaccountable manner, then followed another jerk, another knock on the head, and once more he was lounging in his former position, and the canoe moving along as before.
He now threw a glance behind him, and shuddered, for what he saw was a sheer fall of water, apparently about sixteen feet high, studded everywhere with ugly-looking rocks. He began an angry remonstrance with the Indians for not having warned him, but just then a weird cry, something between the bray of a jackass and the wail of a peacock, echoed through the forest. One second a large white body was seen flapping over their heads; the next, the same body lay fluttering on the water near the boat. One of the Ojibewas had dropped his paddle and, like lightning, sent an arrow through the noisy creature, which turned out to be a pelican that they had disturbed from its evening fishing.
On the following morning, as Weld was finishing his breakfast over his camp fire, he was aroused from his meditations by one of the Indians pointing significantly towards the thicket behind him.
“’Morning! Have you got a drop of tea left; we’re thirsty,” cried a voice as he turned his head,260and a second added, “Well, Peter; what are you doing round our neighbourhood?”
The Indian who spoke English jumped up delightedly, and greeted with much respect three strapping young fellows who suddenly stepped out from among the bushes.
“I don’t know who you are, gentlemen,” said Weld as he rose to welcome them, “but it’s good to hear one’s own language spoken again.”
The lads introduced themselves as farm pupils of Major Strickland’s, and, leaving the Indians to bring Weld’s luggage by water, they showed him a short cut to his friend’s house, which, in a straight line, was but seven miles away.
At the farm he was surprised to find Indians performing all the domestic offices of a civilised household, and dressed more or less in European garb; for, tired of the ingrained laziness of negro servants, the Major had long had all the menial work of his house and estate done by redskins, and these, as far as Weld could see, worked diligently and honestly. One small body of them were kept constantly employed as hunters, and instructors in woodcraft to the pupils, and, judging from their abilities as deer-trackers, the lads could have had no better tutors.
An animal much coveted for the sake both of its skin and its flesh was thecabrit, prong-buck, or prong-horned antelope, as it is variously called; and the stalking of this creature was Weld’s principal amusement during his stay. In spite of frequent slaughter among them, large herds were often to be seen in the neighbourhood, and one day no less than a hundred261carcases were brought home, to be dried for winter food.
The hunting party on this occasion consisted of Weld, Strickland, and six other Englishmen, together with about thirty Ojibewas, a dozen of whom were given a start of five hours. These, leaving the farm at daybreak, moved swiftly through the sparse forest to the hills beyond, and started a herd of over two hundred. Taking up positions at wide intervals from each other, the Indians succeeded in frightening and mystifying the bucks, and gradually driving them towards the spot for which the main body of the hunt was now making. This was some ten miles from the farm, and so rapidly did all his companions cover the distance, that Weld had great difficulty in keeping up with them, though himself a strong and athletic man.
One old Ojibewa was always a few yards ahead of the party, and Weld was instructed to watch and obey every signal made by him. Sometimes he came to a dead halt, and the whole troop followed his example, not so much as a whisper being uttered; then again, he would lead the way at a good swinging pace, often talking freely and even loudly with those behind. All of a sudden, however, he broke off his conversation; a gun-shot had sounded from some three miles away. He held up his hand, and everyone stood breathless. Presently he moved on again, but more slowly, for several hundred yards, the rest gliding along in his wake, and at last he stopped dead again. This was the most irksome, or the most disciplinary, period of the hunt, for the tyrannical leader kept everyone standing motionless for quite ten minutes; and when262Weld merely took out his handkerchief to mop his brow, the Indians nearest him eyed him as reproachfully as though this were a penal offence.
The next thing the guide did was to fall flat on his face, and each man mechanically imitated him—except Weld, who had visions of a dislocated shoulder, if not of a self-discharging gun, and who consequently performed the manœuvre by degrees.
Now that his ear was so close to the ground, he could plainly detect the uniform tread of a large body of light-stepping animals, but he dared not risk spoiling sport by raising his head to peer among the tree-trunks in front of him. In a few minutes a gun went off, half a mile to their left front, and was immediately echoed by one to the right, and another well ahead, whereat the trampling increased in speed and volume. Immediately the leader raised his hand to a perpendicular, and the redskins began to crawl on, worm-fashion, in two diverging lines. Weld started awkwardly to imitate them, but a strong hand caught him by the ankle and held him still. Screwing his head round, he saw that Strickland was his captor.
“Hold on,” whispered the Major. “We get our fun from this side.”
Another three minutes’ silence followed, only broken by the tramp of the approaching herd, slower now, and more hesitating.
“Now then; roll away or crawl away to your right, as far as you can, and as sharp as you can; and jump up when I open fire,” whispered the old soldier, and Weld could see that, at a wave of his friend’s arm, all the Englishmen were swiftly separating. He263obeyed; but by the time he had covered a dozen yards, he became convinced that the Indians had all gone suddenly demented, for from every direction there arose a succession of demoniacal yells that almost drowned the crack-crack of the rifles that now sounded on his left.
He leapt to his feet; not an Indian was in sight. The white men, all standing up, were blazing away as hard as they could, into an immense herd of bucks, which were falling in numbers out of all reasonable proportion to the shots fired. Then he discovered that, from the other three sides, the Ojibewas, lying in the long grass or crouching behind trees, were pouring volley after volley of arrows at the bewildered beasts, which, butting each other, were starting hither and thither, completely panic-stricken.
“’Ware horns!” shouted the Major’s son as, hurriedly butting his rifle, he felled an antelope that had charged despairingly at him; and very soon Weld was glad enough to follow the example, as a stout young buck rushed, head down, in his direction.
More terrified now by the noise of the guns and the sight of the white men than by the arrows and shouts that proceeded from the other three points of the compass, the herd turned to flee back towards the hills. But this was only the signal for every Indian to spring erect and brandish his long spear. That effectually broke up the herd; the distracted creatures squeezed a passage for themselves wherever they could, and fled out of sight, leaving a good half of their number to be carried back to the farm in the waggons which were now on their way to the scene of the battue.
264CHAPTER XXICHIPPEWYANS AND COLUMBIAN GOLD-DIGGERS
While human nature is what it is, the sudden discovery of gold in any country must ever be the signal for all the available flotsam and jetsam and riff-raff of society to flock to that country, in the sorry hope of finding a shorter road to wealth than the old-fashioned one of steady plodding.
Before mining concerns were regulated by governments or by syndicates, the edifying spectacle of men wrangling and fighting over a claim or a “find,” like dogs over a bone, might be witnessed at any hour of the day. Add to this the constant disturbance between the strangers and the original inhabitants, and you have a condition of affairs which must quickly call for some intervention by the State. This is what our Government thought when, in 1857, the discovery of gold in British Columbia began to lead to rioting among the miners and to petty insurrections of the Indians of the vicinity. In order to nip such disorders in the bud, a few troops were landed near what is now called New Westminster, on the Fraser River, and a man-of-war, H.M.S.Plumper, commanded by Captain Richards, was ordered to keep a watchful eye265on the river mouth. Rumour said that the ship had been sent to hold the Indians in check; but Admiral Mayne, who was then first lieutenant of thePlumper, tells us that it was the white immigrants who required handling, and that, but for them, the Columbian Indians, who had long been quiet and inoffensive, would have confined their attentions to their fishing and farming.
One day, just at the beginning of winter, news was brought to the ship that fighting was going on among the miners and Indians at a camp near a small town called Yale. ThePlumperhad a steam-launch which was ordinarily used for river work, and an armed body of bluejackets under Lieutenant Mayne at once put off in a large pinnace for the spot—two miles higher up—where she was lying in dock, with the intention of hastening to the scene of the disturbance. To the young officer’s dismay, the launch had disappeared, and, on inquiry, he learned that Colonel Moody of the Engineers, who had been the first to hear the news, had immediately put off in her with twenty-five men and a howitzer. A mounted messenger was soon dispatched back to the harbour and, in half an hour, returned with orders from the Captain, for the firing-party to hurry after the soldiers and offer their services.
By nightfall the place was reached; a cheerless, rugged spot where the crew had some difficulty in landing. The pinnace was made fast to the launch, and, following the directions of the men who had been left in charge of her, the sailors marched quickly over a hill and were soon at the diggings.
266
“You’ve come too late,” were the Engineer officer’s first words. He pointed to a group of prisoners, Indian and white, who, under the guard of an armed picket, were making themselves comfortable for the night. “We’ve had a heavy day, though,” continued Colonel Moody; “and three of my fellows have been badly wounded. Your men pretty fresh, I suppose?”
“Quite, sir.”
“Give them half an hour for supper, and then I shall want you to march them about ten miles across country. I have guides ready for you. Come and have something to eat, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
The Colonel, a subaltern, and a regimental surgeon had established themselves in a miner’s hut, and here, over a very unconventional meal, Mayne learned what had happened. Scarcely had the soldiers put an end to the rioting, when six Chippewyan Indians had galloped into the camp. The miners at the next claim had fired on them, they said; had threatened to burn their winter fodder-stacks, and meant to drive them out of their old settlement.
“Of course, we’ve only heard one side,” concluded Colonel Moody. “Don’t trust your guides too far, Mr. Mayne. Let one of them keep his horse, in case you want to send me a message in a hurry, and make the other five march between your men; they can leave their horses here.” He turned to the surgeon. “You’d better go, too, Campbell; you may be wanted. They’ve a very good doctor here if we need him. Good-bye, and good luck to you both.”
The doctor buckled on his sword and Mayne collected the sailors, placing five of the Indians in the centre,267and all set off at a brisk step. The mounted redskin led them some miles along a curving valley and then across an open tract of country, whence they were soon able to see the lights from some settlement.
“Is that the place?” the lieutenant asked of a redskin who spoke intelligible English.
“Yes; we have but four miles to go now.”
“There seems to be plenty of light in the place; how is that?”
The Indian did not reply, but spoke in his own language to his neighbour.
“You don’t understand them, do you?” said Campbell in a low voice. “More do I, worse luck. They seem to be very proud of themselves all at once. If I were you, I’d have an answer out of that chap.”
The lieutenant laid his hand sharply on the redskin’s naked shoulder.
“Answer the question, my friend. We don’t want all that mumbling and whispering.”
The man remained sulkily silent, but the Chippewyan to whom he had spoken, a brighter, more intelligent fellow, said:
“We are pleased because our warriors have come down from the mountains, and are burning the town.”
“Your warriors’ll get hurt, if that’s their game,” said Mayne; and for a while nothing more was said. But as they came nearer to the lights, the Indians all began talking at the top of their voices, and Mayne was obliged to call for silence. Presently the mounted redskin stopped his horse, and a halt was called.
“We had better go back, or wait for more warriors,” he said; “we are too few.”
268
“What are you talking about?” asked young Mayne sharply.
“It is not the white men’s camp that is burning, but our own. It is clear that our brethren have not come, as we had hoped. There are over seventy of the miners, and you are but eighteen. They will massacre you.”
“Ride on, and hold your stupid tongue,” said the sailor. But the redskin suddenly struck his horse across the withers and would have galloped away, but that Dr. Campbell made a deft spring and managed to seize the thong that did duty for a bridle.
“Thanks, Doctor.—Now, my man, you get down and march with the rest.”
Mayne turned to his sailors. “Can any of you lads manage a leather jib-sheet?”
“Ay, ay; let me have her, please, sir,” volunteered a young seaman. The guide was made to dismount and the sailor began to lead the horse in the rear. After a few minutes the Indians resumed their talk among themselves again and—evidently taking courage from the careless demeanour of the bluejackets—began to handle their tomahawks more or less jubilantly, as though waxing eager to be at their enemies; so much so that the two officers held a muttered debate. They had come out here to make peace; but if these savages once saw themselves backed by resolute and well-armed white men, they would never rest till they had butchered as many of the diggers as possible. It was a trying position for a young man who would be held responsible for whatever evil might happen; and Mayne, though he had gone through the Crimean War269with distinction, gaining his first lieutenant’s step in the Sea of Azov, was still only a lad of twenty-two.
“What wouldyoudo?” he asked.
“Disarm the jolly lot, straight away,” said Campbell, who was his senior by a few years.
Mayne halted his men, explained the position to them, and told the Indians what he and his colleague had decided; and they, with many grunts of dissatisfaction, gave up their arms on condition that they should be restored if necessary for self-defence.
“You know,thisbegins to look like business,” commented the surgeon when, within half a mile of the glaring flames, a chorus of hooting, yelling, and singing greeted their ears.
“Ithink it looks like advancing at the quick step,” said his companion; and he gave the order.
Very soon only a fringe of pine-trees separated them from the scene of the tumult, and, as they reached these, three men jumped up from the ground, and cried:
“Who the blazes are you?”
“Firing-party from H.M.S.Plumper.”
“Then git off back to your mothers and mind your own business, afore ye git killed,” hiccupped the first, who carried a lantern in one hand and a revolver in the other. The next moment he was lying on his back, for Dr. Campbell had wrenched the pistol out of his hand, and, with a single blow of his fist, had knocked him clean off his feet. The second man put his hand in his pocket, doubtless in search of a pistol, but, without waiting to make sure of that, Mayne had him round the arms and waist and was soon squeezing half the270breath out of his body. The third man turned to give the alarm, but a petty-officer sprang after him and dragged him back by his shirt-collar.
“Take away their weapons,” cried Mayne as, with a smart trick of the heel, he threw his captive violently to the ground. “No time for prisoners.—Forward!”
A few steps more and the sailors were past the trees, and in full view of all that was going on. And a pretty sight it was. Thirty or more miners, many of them delirious with drink, were capering round one or other of the fuel and fodder stacks to which they had set light; Indians and white men, to the number of a score, lay on the ground dead or wounded; and, beyond the stacks, was a heaving, struggling, shrieking mob of miners and redskins, the former brandishing knives and pickaxes, and shouting to their drunken allies to come to their assistance; the latter spending all their savage energies in defence of their homes and families.
A whisper of indignant disgust ran through the little knot of sailors; a fair and square sea-fight, or even a “set-to” in a Portsmouth or Chatham slum, was respectable in comparison with all this. The men at the fires were the first to be aware of the new arrivals; they broke off their dancing and, some awestruck, others bombastic, lurched towards them.
“Halt!—Now listen to me, you sweeps, if you’ve got sense enough left,” cried Mayne, drawing his sword.
The wild-looking, drink-sodden crowd—English, German, French, and Yankee—ceased their babel for a moment. But when they saw that the little force consisted of only sixteen men led by what they considered271a couple of boys, their appearance became mere matter for uproarious jesting; the noise broke out afresh and was echoed by despairing wails from the Indians in the background, who only saw a powerful addition to their persecutors.
“Who’s your leader?” shouted young Mayne.
“That’s me, gov’nor,” said a tall Englishman, who carried “escaped convict” in every line of his face. “All right, boys; they’ve only come to lend a hand; why, they’ve got some Injun pris’ners. Come on, Lootenant; I was a seaman afore you was born. Shake hands.”
The noisy ruffian came swaggering forward, and the sailors breathed hard for a moment. Surely their favourite officer would never stand that sort of talk. Yet it was no time for words; these men were harmless, compared to the other blackguards who were trying to burn the Indians’ wigwams and huts over their heads.
The lieutenant sheathed his sword and took a half-step forward, at the same time clenching his left fist; then let drive, straight at the digger’s chin. The fellow went down like a sack of flour, apparently stunned, for he made no attempt to get up again. But immediately several revolver-barrels flashed in the fire-light and three shots were fired; a burning pain in his left arm told Mayne that he was wounded, but the other shots went wide. He stepped from in front of his men.
“Open order!—Out of the way, you red men.—Present!” The rifles flew to the sailors’ shoulders like magic. There was no time to be lost now; only thirty yards away, Indians were murdering and being272murdered, and the shrieks of the women made the young fellow’s blood run cold. Yet he dared not place his few men between two forces of desperate maniacs. The rioters had again ceased their gabble.
“Hands up, every one of you.” The lieutenant waited for a few seconds. “Make up your minds; you’ll not get another warning.”
However mad the diggers might be, it began to dawn on them that they could not hold their own for three minutes against men who regarded fighting as part of their day’s work. Still they hesitated, for the more curious or less pressed of the other body were leaving the huts and coming over to them. They looked from these to the sailors, in whose faces there was no sign of wavering; already the officer’s lips seemed to be framing the word “Fire!” Then they could bear the tension no longer. Some in ill-tempered silence, the rest whimpering for mercy, threw up both hands.
“Dr. Campbell; take charge here till all arms are collected; then join me.—Rear rank; ’tion! Left turn. Trail arms. Double!”
But when Mayne and his eight men reached the wigwams, it was plain enough that it would be the Indians who would give the trouble. They had at last discovered that the white warriors were with them, and now, though their disheartened assailants were already ceasing to fight, other than on the defensive, and were retiring as fast as they could get clear of the crush, they began to strike with double fury, shrieking their war-whoops, hacking and stabbing wherever they could. Mayne gave a command, and every sailor slung his rifle and drew his cutlass.