"Now, in telling you that a band of gold hunters are on their way hither, and that I have recently crossed Indian trails, I have served you. Help me, now, my friends, with your practical counsel—how can I soonest overtake those men?"
There was a long silence. Bill and Ridge conferred in the sign language as if their thoughts were too full of action to be diluted into verbiage.
"One question?" said the trapper. "In all your story you have manifested the greatest heed not to mention names except of the villainous. Those are no clue to me. But, may happen, those of yourself and kinsfolk may enlighten us. Who are you?"
"My name is Filditch, Samuel George Filditch, my father's George W., and my father-in-law's Don Tolomeo Peralta, well known in California and Sonora."
"Enough. What was the name of your father's brother, whom you never saw, but whom you remember to have heard spoken of in childhood. Was it not James? Come, come!" continued the old hunter, rising and kicking a log so that the freshened flame should flood him with radiance: "They used to say we were like as boys; can you see no trace of a likeness to my brother George in these features? Still silent? Ridge is only a 'mountain name'; but believe me, and Cherokee Bill will bear me out with gun and knife—there never was a deed of mine done under it which my real name would not proudly cover. It is Heaven that has brought you to my bosom, Sam! Come to my heart, where I had clean given up dreams of having a loving head pillowed! Heaven knows this was a wish long gnawing at my bones! We'll chip in together. Don't you carry any heaviness at your heart now. Your interests are mine. I am not a young chicken, but I am game, and with this new spirit, I feel thar's a lot o' living in me yet! We start on this manhunt together. Thar's my hand, Sam!"
"And here is mine!" added the Cherokee. "The Old Man and me always hold together like burrs," he continued, in a kind of apologetic tone. "And if this ain't the most remarkable fact I ever struck, then I don't want my breakfast in the morning."
Thereupon was sealed between the trio a compact that would bring about strange events, hidden under the veil of the future, so that the most imaginative could not foresee the incidents, far more surprising than this meeting of kindred, not at all an uncommon event in the West, where congregate the members of the Eastern families, so wondrously disrupted and attracted West.
Ridge—still to use that name—and his nephew were evoking home memories, when suddenly the latter felt a touch on the shoulder. Cherokee Bill was making the sign for silence, and pointing out of the cave opening.
There was a novel sound, indeed, in the stilly night air: music as from a seraphic choir, for a score of women's voices were singing a hymn at a distance which the limpidity of the air materially diminished:
"Come, tell the broken spirit That vainly sighs for rest There is a home in glory, A home forever blest; Still sound the gospel trumpet O'er hill and rolling sea, From chains of sin and blackness, To set the captive free!"
"Saints in the Mountain!" murmured Jim Ridge, astonished. "I never heard the likes hereabouts. It carries me away back fifty year', when I was a boy in the church! But what are white women doing here? I am staggered. And tuning up like that, too. That's first-class bait for Crows. The angels must ha' taken a fancy to them, or they are cracked to sing at top of the v'ice, an' redskins on the loose. What do you make of it, Bill?"
"See!"
The hunter stared forth. A yellow light appeared as a lining to a cold fog over a vale.
"Ah, a powerful camp! No Crow men will attack that in a hurry—those dogs want to be twenty to one, and, then, somebody has to kick them on to it. Things are bound to be interesting, but, I judge, we can wait till morning. At least, that's my way. I am ready to drop, myself."
"And I," said Filditch, indeed exhausted.
"I will take the first watch," observed the Cherokee, calmly.
In another few minutes, wrapped in fur and blankets, the two white men were profoundly reposing. Ridge chose the flat ground to which the body accommodates itself, whilst his newfound kinsman, less wise, made a kind of bed. The son of the assassinated trapper guarded them who had now the same vow as himself to be their life task.
When Ulla Maclan came to her senses she found herself in darkness, but it was not that of the grave. The snow had been falling again, and all the night through; but the warmth of her body had hollowed out a cave around her, in the roof of which her breath had maintained an aperture. But, cruelly enough, the same blanched mantle that preserved her from freezing had sheltered her from the eager eyes of the only other survivor of her father's party.
With a suffocated feeling, she broke open the shell, and warily emerged into the more than ever wintry landscape. All the breakage of the sledge loads had been smoothly buried with the remains of the hapless Canadians.
Not a mark on the level snow revealed the substantiality of the form which she believed in her terror the spectre of the Indian Chief, but which we know as the secretary, so nearly discovering her, but going on his fruitless way, brokenhearted.
The musical trickling of melting snow tantalised her palate, and she scrambled through the soft drift to a cleft where a rivulet was beginning to run. The cool draught was delicious. She then set to reviving herself with a dash of it over her face, and was binding up her hair, when a loud and coarse laugh made her start and turn, blushing.
Three white men in hunters' garb stood on a crest of the rocks swept clear of the snow, where they travelled as well to avoid leaving traces as to be free of step. The mountains rose behind them, a sweet faint azure, with an opal edge, which was the last night's snow.
Two of the strangers were about the same age, some five-and-thirty; harsh and angular of feature, brutal and bullying, tall and burly. In their half wild, half border town dress, they were not to be taken for genuine trappers by anyone less new to this region than our heroine. They were what is called hide hunters, or skin scalpers, whose least shameful occupation is the slaughtering buffaloes for the hide alone, or even collecting their bones to be sent East for the best ivory knife handles.
The third and superior was more than ten years older, with piercing grey eyes and low forehead, a dirty yellow beard and long hair; the aspect of a confirmed rogue, sly, base, and wicked. They were all armed to the teeth, and their arms were a great deal better kept than their teeth, innocent of any attentions whatever, which did not add any attraction to their grins at surprising the young lady at her toilet.
Somehow, she would almost have preferred to see the red men themselves than these representatives of her race. Nevertheless, she named herself, related the disaster, and implored their help for Heaven's sweet sake.
"A da'ter of one of these top-shelf hunting gentlemen," remarked the old man, laughing; "and wants help mighty sudden? She's terribly fine, boys! Narrerly 'scaped being gobbled by thefriendlies," in sarcasm, "andcorralledall night by that equal-knocks-sial storm. Yes, it'd gi'n me a deal of cramp; but see what itareto be young and spry! She's 'mazingly lovely!" he exclaimed again in an audible aside to his fellows, amused at his playing the gallant. "I hain't seen no sech since I was an inch high and an hour old! It almost tempts a lone hunter not to 'bach' it anymore, but go into pardnership. She's 'prime fur.' Yes, Miss, you can come along o' us—you're the kind to be welcome anywhar' without a cent! How it will shorten up the ride, a 'greeable gal like you! Jerusha! We shall go back full-handed on the queen o' hearts!"
"Are you captain of some party, sir?"
"Why, not today, Miss. We 'lect our cap'en, and I did not treat the boys well enough to head the polls. But I am chief of the scouts; yes, that's my rank. However, it's a considerable show of white men. The cap's a gentleman, and you'll be as safe as in the Mint as soon as the captain sees you."
The others exchanged a merry look.
"A large party?" she repeated. "Was that your singing I heard in the night, or was that a dream?"
"Well, no, Miss, you never heard any singing in our camp. Stop a bit, when I went on my guard thar was some singing out of Quarry Dick, because they had sneaked away his pillow, which it was a whiskey bottle—no offence, Miss! No, no singing."
"It sounded like church music—a hymn."
"Church moosic? You must 'a been on the dream, sartin sure. 'Sides, thar are Injins squandrin' round hyar, a right few, say a leetle less than a thousand ton, over an' above the band you mentioned. This is a hard season for the redskin, and he's come up here to warm himself at the Firehole, I reckon. The only singer we hev is one young lady about your age, and she only sings to herself in Mexican lingo."
"A young lady," repeated Ulla, somewhat reassured. "At least, I see, you are not friends of the savages."
"No; we are our own friends!" returned the old man, grinning again, "And, individooally, our friends is in our belt," slapping his pistol and his knife as he spoke.
"And will your captain help me to learn the fate of my poor father, and the brave men he engaged—if any escaped from that horrid massacre?"
"The captain, miss, will do anything for a pretty face like yours. If you'll step this way, we'll put you on a pony—there's no possibility of your little feet gitting over this crust. It's not many miles, but the milestones are pesky far apart in this country."
"I would prefer to walk."
"That's downright onpossible. Sol Garrod hyar's got a foot like an army cartridge box lid; but even he would mire himself to the knees."
"Sol Garrod's foot can take care of itself, and yousit downwith your opinions, unless you want to appreciate the beauties of it in kicking!" growled the subject of the criticism.
"When a gentleman talks about kicking," returned the second man, hitherto content to ogle the girl in silence, "he is to know that 'Niobraska Pete' is the champion kicker of the wide, wild West, and hyar's my hat in the corral—"
"Close up!" thundered the eldest of the three, so very garrulous himself, but not willing for the others to entertain the unfortunate girl with their eloquence; "You have a mouth like a set beaver trap! What's the drift of this stupid row? It's no use stringing it out, I tell 'ee! We've enough to take the back track upon. Whar' do 'ee think you are? Haven't we better things to do than go popping pistols off when the rocks swarm with redskins who have made a raise?" and, as the pair continued to glower at each other, their hands on their weapons, he went on: "Must I knock you both down to l'arn you manners? Don't you see we must cage this frightened bird, and then club up some of the boys to see what the reds have left worth picking at the wreck of the sporting swell? Ginerally these green 'galoots' yield up rich, and those red idiots leave the best goods as beyond their comprehension. Look at the gal trembling; what on airth must she think of your broughtens up?"
"I am trembling with cold, not with apprehension," said Miss Maclan, resolutely.
"Oh, hang her opinion; she's bright eyes, and she sees we are all rogues!" Mr. Garrod observed carelessly.
"Don't you paint us so black, Sol," returned the old man, winking; "the fact is, we only obey orders under our chief. If thar be any blame flying about, it must fall on the captain. When we hand the young lady over to the executive, I shall wash my hands of it, as she was a-doing when we surprised her; and I advise you to do the same for your sweet conscience!"
"You talk like an Injin orator, Mr. Cormick," said Sol Garrod; "if ever we are put in the wrong box—ha, ha!—I shall let you conduct my defence!"
"Come on, Miss," said Niobraska Pete; "in the meantime, them's the two wust-eddicated brutes in the band, and no average specimen idiots!"
They had three horses in hiding, and the 'capture' was lifted upon one behind Cormick, whom she was obliged to enclasp, spite of her loathing, to save herself from falling. They rattled off at a good pace as long as the soil was bare and stony. They soon had to traverse one of those narrow vales between a couple of rocky "divides," which are commonly halved themselves by a more or less broad ribbon of water, and which terminate in a basin, a series of steps, or a "cutoff." The riders were about to scramble down the ravine which yawned, in this case, to appal less venturesome cavaliers, when Cormick ordered a pulling up.
"I want to look ahead, that's all," he said; "maybe, it's a fool feeling; but we have been trotting along a leetle too smoothly for Injin country, and too much quiet I reckon suspicious."
"Some joke o'your'n, to let our coffee and corn cakes git cold!" sneered Pete.
"Say what you like; but let's have one of you scout up that hole."
"Very good, Cormick," said Garrod, tranquilly; "it's my turn. I'll bring you back the nigger's top feather!"
"With his hair, too, my boy; but caution; caution never costs too much, and it's a wise man that wakes up tomorrow morning, as the Spanish say."
"Oh, dry up, Cormick," cried Sol, impatiently reining in, after starting. "Do you railly think the red devils would browse so nearourcamp?"
"Not I, my lad; only I repeat, you cannot poke the bushes with too much prudence."
Garrod scrutinised the speaker's surly and scowling countenance with a puzzled expression; but he must have been encouraged, for he pushed his horse onwards and down, with a snatch of a Negro dance tune hummed between his teeth, and a chew of tobacco.
"He's pretty much a daring chap," said Pete, with a mocking glance at his companion as they slowly proceeded.
"Ay, ay, he does not go to market to sell courage with an empty basket," replied the chief scout, with a dubious grin; "but I prefer his showing the lead to this child."
Meanwhile Garrod had been spurred by the latter's air and tone into taking the precautions indispensable on ground sown with hostilities. His repugnance grew as he dived into the defile, though it was ample for cavalry to have ridden two abreast. The sides were wooded with pine, and gradually climbed to a fair height. The adventurer rode more and more hesitatingly, looking about him on each hand, and as well behind as before, his rifle ready to fire. But the complete calmness of the untrodden wind trap mocked his fears. The gorge had many an awkward turn; but nothing inimical appeared anywhere till the rider came clear out on the edge of a plain, across which a daring smoke advertised the site of his camp—one that defied attack, no doubt; for the wolf knows his bones are not worth the picking.
"What trash!" he muttered, reining in testily. "Old Cormick is in a cranky fit, or sick with too much alkali water in his whisky. Deuce take me if I have seen anything to make a flying squirrel chatter! We might have been at camp by this, where a darned good breakfast is about ready. Hang the old scared crow!"
Perfectly reassured, but still grumbling, Solomon—without the wisdom of his namesake—laid his rifle across his saddlebow, and slowly began to retrace his steps. But hardly had he gone fifty strides, when his horse's ears were trembling, and the animal pointed, like a dog, at the head of an Indian, smeared with red clay and covered with feathers, which arose in the thicket. Instantly a rude rope of bark fibre was cast over the horseman's head, and he was pulled, half strangled, out of the saddle, and dashed on the ground in the partly thawed mud and snow. This done, a man leaped at the horse, and secured it before it could turn away; when, no doubt, it would have exploded the gun against the trees in its flight. The assailant was only a red man in looks—it was Sir Archie Maclan's secretary. Thus far had he wandered, when he perceived from the wind trap, where he was bewildered, the chief object of his search. One glance at the ruffians, who affected to befriend her, had enlightened him on their standing.
Mr. Ranald Dearborn was no fool, if he had not enjoyed prolonged acquaintance with this region. The love for woodcraft had enlisted him under the rich Scotchman's banner, almost as much as his great, though sudden, admiration for his daughter.
For adventure, he had certainly a strong bitter taste at the outset; and what immediately ensued bid fair to be worthy that sample in peril.
Ensconced by the path, he had seized an excellent moment to overthrow Mr. Garrod.
Still upon the young Englishman were the rags which had been taken from the dead Indian for the need of warmth. These he was glad to cast off, donning in their stead, as a shade less repulsive, the outer garments of the senseless scout.
He dragged him out of the way. He mounted the horse and, filled with his idea of separating the two remaining bandits so as to have a single-handed battle in the end for the young lady, he returned towards the friends awaiting Garrod's report. They had come to a halt halfway down the abrupt slope. As soon as he beheld them, Ranald waved Sol's cap to beckon them to come on. The distance between, the gloom in the defile, and the well-remembered garments and horse, sufficed to destroy suspicion in any but Cormick.
"Thar you are," said Pete, laughing in relief, though he could not descry the features of the horseman; "thar's Sol beckoning us on—he hasn't been no time scouting the channel."
"He's been much too quick," objected Cormick, sulkily.
"Well, aren't you coming on? What's the matter? Does yourcayusekick at so little an added load as the young gal? 'Tell 'ee what, I'll be proud to have the charge of her!"
The old ranger shook his head dubiously.
"Are you sure that's Sol?"
"Am I sure of my being in my boots? What new 'skeeter's bit you?"
"'Seems to this old man that Garrod bulks up larger in the saddle."
"So he will after the breakfast we are all sp'iling for. Let out your pony—don't you see he is waving his hand that all's clear?"
"Why don't he come back all the way, then?"
"Because he's no such ass as to want double trouble. You'd tire out a Salt Lake Saint, Cormick, you would! Car'fulness is the first thing to put in your bag when you come out on the plains, but you don't want to have car'fulness as pepperandsaltandsugar in all your messes, morn, noon and night;andThanksgiving,andNew Year's,andIndependence Day! Why, old father, you're getting skeered o' your shadder—which it ar' no beauty on the snow, by thunder! Here, I've had my full measure of this hanging back from breakfast, and if you freeze thar, I foller the thaw and let Sol carry me into camp."
"Go on, then!" replied Cormick. "I tell 'ee thar's some devilment awake afore us this morning! And that's not Sol Garrod drawing us into a trap. He's a bad egg, but he wasn't made to throw at a pardner's head. You'll see, you'll see!"
"Eggs or no eggs, I am going on! Follow at your own pace! But mind! If you gallop off with the young gal, in whose ransom I have my share as the fellow finder, I'll report you to Captain Kidd—and you'll not be safe this side o' the Jordan."
In very open order they resumed the march. The cavalier moved on away as they started, stride for stride.
"Look at that!" cried Cormick, triumphantly; "See him ride away."
"Why should he not ride on in front of us, and keep the way clear? He know's the picket's duty—a dragoon deserter, anyhow, he'd ought to."
Still wrangling, they penetrated the defile, where Niobraska Pete taunted his elder to press on. At a third of the course, nothing justified Cormick's apprehensions.
"Sol has got out of the way altogether now, though," he remonstrated.
"Pooh! He has darted on to tell cook to dish up, that's all."
"Well, I shan't be satisfied till I have had the first mouthful down," said the old man, with a still uneasy look around.
Presently he pulled up his horse, saying that he was in a good spot for defence; the rising ground over a bulging root of a large cedar crossing the narrowing path.
"You go on and give the call if all goes well and it is no bogus Sol," said he. "Here I stay till the way is safe to my belief."
"He's stubborn as a mule," muttered Pete. "A stamp crusher would not shake him. Old man," he said, angrily, "Ishallgit on, and tell the captain you are up to some trick as regards the young lady. Don't you fear, though, miss, the captain will stew him like a fish in the kettle if he plays any tricks on the fair prize of the band represented by its three scouters in company."
With that he disappeared in the forest cleft, and the snowy crust ceased to crackle under his horse's hoofs.
The stillness became oppressive, broken only by the swishing of the branches suddenly relieved of snowy burdens by the effect of the sunbeams and springing up gaily. All the beasts were hibernating or asleep; all the birds gone south except the Arctic robins and the sedately soaring eagles, whose white heads seemed frosted and presented to the sun to be freed of the chill.
Expectation weighed as poignantly upon the unfortunate girl as on the old border ruffian. Insensibly yielding to the desire to battle anxiety with even futile action, he was slowly pushing on his horse when a peculiar sound at last in advance caused him to check it. Within a few seconds, the horse of Niobraska Pete came back to its companion, with no thought but refuge from some startling horror. Pete had not raised an alarm; consequently that smear of blood on the mane denoted that he had been unhorsed by a deathblow. Nor did Sol, nor his mysterious personator appear, and Cormick felt assured that he was left alone, and that foes were planted between him and the camp, of which he almost inhaled the savory fumes. The situation was maddening.
"You are bad luck," he snarled at the girl, with the superstition of the low sort of white men, who soon equal the reds in such fancies. "It has cost two good men's lives just to have met you."
He waited a while longer, but there was no fresh alarm.
"Hark ye," said he, roughly. "I am going to put you on that horse, and we must circle round out of this accursed glade. If you try to 'part co.' I shall shoot you with my first shot. It strikes me, from the way that we have been beset, it is because of you, and hence you are worth as much money as I had concluded from your story; but thar's no calculating on what anybody says nowadays."
As he drew the riderless steed towards him, and tried to make it sidle up flank to flank, its ears were moved in affright. It sniffed some alarming taint on the air, and set up so furious a kicking that the headgear was detached, and left in the astonished bandit's grasp. Then, emitting a scream like a maimed warhorse on the battle field, it dashed into the first opening, and crashed on out of all perception.
"It smells the war paint, by all that's cruel! Injins!" muttered Cormick. "But why did I hear no whoops when they made their 'coups' on Sol and Pete?"
At the same instant, as if to warrant his reflection, a vibrating yell of triumph burst forth so clearly as to seem at their elbows—a war whoop of which Cormick had never heard the like. It was so provocatory in tone that, irresistibly, at least a hundred savage cries answered it inquiringly from all parts of the ravine traversed by the bandits.
"Why, it's a nest of them," groaned the old scoundrel, aghast, and only mechanically restraining his plunging steed.
In the lull which followed—painful by contrast with that hideous clamour—a horseman dashed into the glen and faced the paralysed scout. The clothes were of Sol Garrod; but at the cry of "Oh, Mr. Dearborn! You! Help, help!" from his saddle companion, Cormick was relieved of any doubt as to his previous surmise of a deception.
"Ah, ah," grunted he, "now I know why he never came back."
With one man, and a young white only before him, he recovered full sway of his homicidal acquirements, and his gun and that Ranald had snatched from the burial place were levelled at each other.
"Don't fire!" appealed Ulla, though not in fear for herself, and "Don't fire!" cried a louder and manly voice, as an additional personage for the group leaped down from a rock and fell beside the restless horse.
How it reared at this unannounced apparition! That rearing disturbed Cormick's aim, and whilst his shot passed above Dearborn's head, that of the latter buried itself in his groin, after scarring the horse's neck. The newcomer seized the bridle, and shook off the wounded man, whilst Ranald gladly received the half-swooning lady.
"What the thunder did you fire for?" demanded he, angrily.
The young people stared at him in surprise. He spoke perfect English, but, we know, Cherokee Bill as perfectly resembled a full-blooded Indian when animated with ferocity. Besides, his buffalo robe was tucked up into his belt to leave his legs free, and a ruddy scalp dangled in a tuck of it.
"A dog of a Crow!" he explained, seeing that it caught their eyes. "He'll beg no more powder and ball at the Agency to shoot the two legged buffalo in 'store' clothes, that the wise style afreshfrom the States."
Perplexed by this singular speech, so unlike either an Indian's or a white man's, the young people had immediately turned their offended eyes aloof. Ulla must have believed she was saved on ascertaining that Dearborn had never relaxed his endeavours to come up with her and her captors. She laughed and sobbed hysterically like one aroused from a nightmare and excessively delighted; it was but a play of fancy. Alas! There was to be another waking, and that not long delayed.
Suddenly the Cherokee's hand was laid upon the Englishman's shoulder, and he said:
"Rouse, sir! That horse must have cantered into the gold seekers' camp—they are already in the ravine."
"Gold seekers?"
"Robbers, thieves, and all that!" explained Bill Williams, hastily. "There is no safety for you that way. On the other hand, there are the Crows—four score at least. I have been counting their noses, so near that I could have killed more than that one decently."
"Oh, what must we do?" ejaculated Miss Maclan.
"The lady asks you what'll we best do?" repeated the half-breed sarcastically, eyeing the young man as if to "value him up."
"Cut our way through them!"
"That's good to say, but how can it be done? The gold seekers number two hundred, and perhaps half of them are crowding in off the plain now. You and I may trust these horses as far as horses can travel, but encumbered with the lady, that one will run double risk as a bigger mark of an arrow and bullet."
"I dare!" said Ulla simply.
But Dearborn shuddered at the idea.
"Take her, man! I will trust you," said he, "stranger though you are, in all senses of the word; and leave me to detain them from an instant pursuit."
"Oh, they have their own roasting pieces to spit," said Bill.
"What is your advice, sir? Your tone is that of a commander here," said Ulla, regarding the Cherokee steadily as he bore himself nobly erect and unaffected, though, better than either, he estimated the dangers of the situation aright.
"I say, in the hands of these robbers you will run no risk for the present, whilst I guarantee this man's safety if we but reach a certain point on these horses."
"I flee, and abandon the lady into the power of disreputable men? No such coward, sir!"
"Coward, when I want you to run the double gauntlet of Indians and desperadoes! I don't see what she could despise you for. Hark! They come on both sides—stealthily, but I hear them! The young woman cannot accompany me where I must lead—are we all to be uselessly crumpled up, or all to be saved?"
"Go!" said Ulla; "Who will save me if you are slain?" in a voice meant for Dearborn's ear alone.
But the Cherokee overheard her, and instantly subjoined:
"You're the queen trump! I have offered to help you in this strait because you are white, and your enemies are dogs! But now, on the soul of my fathers! Supposed to be chasing the phantom buffalo in the aerial realm which those mountaintops support—I swear to save you from this hellish crew, or my bones shall swing in the hangman's loop!"
"I hear you, believe you, and I thank you!" exclaimed Miss Maclan, forcing a smile through tears. "Butourenemies come! Hasten away, in Heaven's name! Dearborn, we shall meet again under that heaven, or within its golden gates!"
She threw him a kiss with a pretence of playfulness, and bounded away in the direction of the plain, crying:
"Do not shoot! It is only a woman! I surrender!"
At the same time Cherokee Bill leaped on the free horse over the tail up,à l'Indienne, and catching the other reins, plunged into the thicket, bidding the Englishman bend low to elude thorns and missiles, and heedless of his reproaches. In their rapid course, it seemed to the latter that he saw groups and pairs of grappling men plying clubs and knives, but no reports of firearms cracked the icicles off the boughs. Each contesting party showed a respectful dislike to bringing on a regular engagement.
"What's your horse good for still?" queried the half-breed in a whisper.
"Five or six minutes more at this headlong pace."
"We are nearing an ambush, through which we must cleave our way. Do no less than I do, and we shall be safe!"
"With heaven my aid, I shall do more!"
The half-breed found a broad way by a miracle of knowledge and faultless application.
"To the right—wheel to the right!" vociferated he abruptly, as half a dozen arrows and a light spear or two whizzed under the noses of the suddenly turned horses.
"Ride them down! Now! Hurrah!"
"Hurrah!" cried Dearborn, firing a shot and hurling his gun in his frenzy at the row of dark faces that grinned with flaming eyes like a wall before him.
Few men, except with a long spear, can steadily receive cavalry. Only one Indian really awaited the English youth on his approach; his lance snapped in in the horse's chest. It fell on him, enclosing him between the forelegs. Dearborn was dismounted; but Bill was before him, on the ground, steadied him as he rose, put a revolver in his hand, and bade him fire "low and fast." They had passed through the ambuscade at the cost of the two horses, and the ten shots they poured forth enabled them to have a start in their retreat on foot. They were speedily in a hollow of the rocky bluffs, where no sane Indian would follow an armed foe. The ground was sandy, now mingled with dry snow as hard, and at random rose needles of stone of varied dimensions, among which the half Indian trapper serenely threaded his way. At the foot of a nearly perpendicular mountain they were brought to a standstill. The face seemed smooth as if polished at first glance, but there ran a ledge, or cornice, as Alpine climbers call it, along that level spread.
"I see now why a woman could not have accompanied us in our flight," said Dearborn.
"No, you don't quite," replied Bill, drily, as he led the young man slowly upwards on this narrow footway. No quadruped could have mounted, for these men had to proceed with their backs to the wall, or face to it, in the case of the inexperienced Englishman. (He feared vertigo if he looked out or down on the abyss.) At last the ledge ended abruptly. But, about breast high, the granite was cracked horizontally, just wide enough for one's finger to be hid in it.
"Watch me," said Bill, calmly. "If you do not think you can follow me in such a spider's way, cling where you are till I bring a friend and a lasso that we may swing you over here. It was necessary that we should leave no trail those dogs dare pursue," he added apologetically.
"Go on," said Ranald, who felt his blood boil with the determination to show this strange hybrid that he had, at least the bravery of the white race, if not the athletic craft of the aborigines.
Thus adjured, the Cherokee inserted his hands in the prolonged crevice, let his body hang at the end of his arms with no other hold; and gradually worked himself along some twenty feet.
The watcher suffered more than he with the suspense. After a period seeming immeasurable, the way was clear; the rock was untenanted save by the young man, and he might have believed he was abandoned in this horrific site by a deluding demon. He looked up: a thousand feet of granite seemed bowing out to fall and entomb him; he looked outward—miles of ether intervened betwixt him and the tops of gigantic trees; he looked down, just for an instant's fraction, and felt his heart shrink; he was some three thousand feet over a cup of frozen water—a lake diminished thus by the space.
"Come!" said the Cherokee's voice, designedly emotionless that he might not affect the young man in any way.
The latter breathed a prayer to live for the sake of the bereaved daughter of his patron, and steadily swung himself over the chasm by his eight fingers alone; the thumbs seemed useless; the cliff fell away insensibly beneath him, so that his feet failed to touch. It was the dream of a man-fly acted out.
Finally, the end of the crack was attained. Here the climber without an assistant was a doomed man, unless he could retreat as he came—almost an impossibility. But, on this occasion, Cherokee Bill was waiting, with the loop of a counterbalanced rope in his hand, which he lowered over the young man and drew up so as to engirdle him. More than his pair of arms were not needed, considering the size of the boulder which weighed the farther end of the cord; but, none the less, two other men were hauling on it. In a few minutes the young man stood on the threshold of the cavern of the Old Nick's Jump. This was the only other way in.
With a cordial wave of the hand, Cherokee Bill presented his protégé to Jim the Yager and Mr. Filditch.
"A recruit," said he, laconically, "andA one!We are going to have some rare tussles, right soon and right here; but this friend o' ours will keep up his end o' the board, and don't you forget who says so!"
The Cherokee and his young friend had barely vanished from the defile before some twenty men rushed in upon Miss Maclan. They had left her in a growing trepidation lest she had committed a great blunder in not sharing their flight. The newcomers were on horse and afoot. In this rugged way, expert footmen could keep pace with the riders. The principal was a tall, thin man, about fifty, rather bowed than straight; his tawny hair fell in locks thickly upon his shoulders in the style of the adopters of the Indian fashion; his face was bloodless in the third part not hidden by a red beard; as a guard against snow blindness, he wore green goggles, which gave him the air of a student or professor on a most guileless scientific enterprise. Spite of this, he was the Western desperado who had taken the notorious name of "Captain Kidd," that of the most ferocious pirate known on the Atlantic coast in the 18th century. He had already seen Sol Garrod inanimate, and the view of Old Cormick, a much more prized member of his band, doubled the malignity of his scowl. Nevertheless, he was surprised into some courtesy on seeing nobody but the young lady, for he removed his fur cap a little, and faltered:
"Who are you? This is never your work, is it?" pointing to the dead bandit. "Oh, I see," he went on, quickly. "The rogues quarrelled over the plum, and they would have deprived their captain of his option to redeem it at the band's estimation."
"Sir," said she haughtily, "you are right to call them rogues; they professed no great respect for me, and they have been punished for it by men who, on the contrary, have acted like honourable gentlemen."
"That will do. This is no time or place for such pages out of the Book of Elocution! What is it, my boys?" as his men returned quickly from the track of the horses.
An uproar in the woods, where the flyers burst through the Indians, enlightened them on the danger of prosecuting their researches too far.
"Our red brother!" he exclaimed, jestingly. "You'd better fall back before he extends the tomahawk of friendship."
"But the slayers of our mates and stealers of their horses are not Indians," added a scout who most recently came in.
"Never mind. Return to camp. Neither in the sky or along the land now is the lookout serene, and we shall meet any mishap better there. Two of you take care of that saucebox. Hang me if she be not, though fair as a lily, as pert and disdainful as a Mexican."
Lighting a cigar, he rode back, meditatively smoking, among his sullen and apprehensive men, without appearing to remember he had made a prisoner.
They were not the kind of characters to whom a young lady's protection should have been confided. On the contrary, their dissipated faces, truculent carriage, and noisy talk, proclaimed them the scum of the dross of the mining camp. Not worthy the name of gold seeker, they deserved that of horse thief, secret stabber, and "gold grabber."
For her part, Ulla was overcome by violent emotions, after the brief hope of being free of persecution. The persistent devotion of Mr. Dearborn impressed her. Others who may have escaped apparently looked to their own safety, but he had armed himself merely to follow her steps and seek to deliver her against any odds. She ruefully reviewed the events during which she had passed through hope, fear, and pain, till plunged into a despair greater than any since her father's death. On marking the number of her escort, and their villainous visages and robust physique, she saw little possibility of her only friend, however energetic his new associate, to save her from a miserable fate.
The retreating bandits did not seem to draw the Indians after them. There was no event on the way, and the watch at their camp had none to report.
The adventurers' "fort" presented a semicircle, the horns resting on marshland and on an inaccessible ravine respectively. It had an improvised musket battery gun, such as Prince Maurice of Holland invented years ago, and modern armourers have perfected and adorned with their generally unpronounceable names. Its rows of barrels, two deep, could be fired simultaneously, and a light, strong, broad-wheeled carriage allowed it to be quickly shifted in position. It defended the only breach in a barricade of pickets. But it was evident the gold seekers were fairly well content to entrust their surety to their rifles and strong arms.
Captain Kidd responded carelessly to the questions of the men in camp, waved them to stand back, and proceeded towards the rocks of the ravine. Soon he stopped, alighted, and offered to assist Miss Maclan down from a horse which a rider had resigned to her. She made no answer to his speech of welcome, more or less satirical, and eluded his hand by leaping lightly to the ground. He turned pale, frowned, and cried:
"Take her to the señorita. They are proud cats alike, and tell Doña Rosario that you bring her a companion or a slave—I care not which she makes of her."
"But, sir!" interrupted Miss Maclan, more alarmed at being thrown into the power of a woman than heretofore, "You must know that I am the daughter of Sir Archie Maclan! That he—"
"Oh, the frontier barrooms are full of such sirs!" he replied, brutally. "I care not who you are, since you would not be civil. Know that here you are like one of those tent poles—something I can snap asunder and toast my cheese with. Take her away! Three men lost because of her. I amhalf froze for hair!" and he made with his finger in the air near her forehead the atrocious pantomime of scalping her.
She did not shrink, but looked at him steadily with her cold blue eyes, and, with a lofty mien, followed the man in whose charge she was placed.
"And now that we have the petticoats out of the way," said one of the bandits hastily, "I suppose we can launch out and punish those who have wiped out poor Sol and his 'pardners?'"
"You will do nothing of the sort, Dick," replied Captain Kidd to the coarse Englishman who addressed him.
"Why not? Are you afraid of the Crows who infest the wood? So it appears."
"No, nor of the Blackfeet who are also in the neighbourhood."
"Of the Red River Half-breeds, then, who are camped yonder? Pooh, I could eat the lot, three at a bite."
"No."
"Of the sledging train, whose unconcealed traces abounded to the northeast, as Lottery Paul reported two days ago?"
"Of them still less. If this young woman's tale be true, they came scooting along with sails on their sledges—what a notion! And scooted into a cutoff! They were smashed, and the reds and the wolves have left no more than their bones."
"I know now! You are afeard o' running up against the Old Man of the Mountains!"
"Jim Ridge—"
"And his red-nigger companyero, Cherokee Bill!"
"No!" answered the captain, more warmly than with any of his negatives before.
"'Tis the Yager and his blood brother! I am sure we are near that haunt of theirs which no one has yet wormed out, and yet scores of daredevils have left the settlements to try to discover their places, as we are doing."
"My dear 'pal' Dick," replied Captain Kidd. "I do not underrate Old Jim. He is wise, expert, brave, with an enormous influence over all the prairie and mountain rangers from the Great Lakes to the Waterless Desert of the Apache Country. I defy anyone to tell certainly beforehand whether he will have the enmity or support of even those red men who most hate us whites as a rule. He must be our prisoner—our guide, by any means, mark, to the treasures of this region. Though it is a hard task to master him, he shall fall into our clutches, I promise you. But my fear is no more of him than of Canadians, Blackfeet, or Crows."
"Of whom, then, captain?"
"Have you seen any eagles on the sierra today?"
"No!"
"Or wild beasts in the glens?"
"No! But yesterday they were out of their retreats."
"I believe it. The eagles were whetting their beaks; and the bears, wolves, and wolverines sharpening their claws."
"Very like, because they have seen us and so many other gangs almost jostling in these wilds, and they know there will be meat."
"No, Dick; our conflicts will not furnish them with a glut. It will be a mightier devastator—one that we cannot resist, and we will be lucky to dodge. See the clouds rolling over and over on the top of the Rockies—above the snowbelt! That is the blizzard concentrating for a rush down upon the valleys and plains. Go and set the men to making all weatherproof. We shall be snowed up! And may the devil take care of his own!"
Whilst Ranald and Filditch reposed, the more restless trappers went out reconnoitring all the day.
There was a rising wind, which boomed in the hollows, rattled the loose stones, and soughed among the ice coated boughs.
Their first find was the lodgement of the Crow Indians. For over twenty hours these had remained in a fireless camp in a gulch eastward, living on "cold bites," so as not to betray themselves, and sending out no scouts till the recent snow should be hardened.
At half past five in the morning, Cherokee Bill had heard a murmur in this camp, like that of the bees in swarming, and thus it was pointed out. The two crept as near as they dared. They could distinguish the forms of the more prominent leaders as they drilled their followers, and could recognise the head chief.
It was Ahnemekee—noted, though young. He was bold, vain of his good looks and long hair, and very rapacious. His people esteemed him a hero; but the frontiersmen set him down as one of the biggest thieves in creation—which, by the way, is much the same thing. Ahnemekee made a speech to his troop, rather at length, and with a confident bearing. The two beholders conjectured, from the gestures, that he was planning an attack on a grand scale. The subchiefs, having also addressed their bands, a war whistle sounded the order to depart, and all the warriors left the camp, except a strong guard over their few horses. Being Mountain Crows, they were accustomed to fight on foot.
The two hunters had no more to learn there; but, by following the first party, whose trail they came upon, they soon judged whither they all converged; and running on in advance, by a wide circuit to the same point, they discovered an encampment, and thereby the cause of the hymns in the midnight.
At first sight, it looked like a caravan of emigrants. There were carts, waggons, horses, oxen, mules, and even sheep, calves, and pigs. The guardians of this valuable train, so far up in the mountains, were nearly a hundred in number. There were many women, about the same age, but few or no children; and, coming to examine closely, while the men were all of an age, also, their dark tint was quite contrary to the complexion of their charges. The conveyances showed a variety of construction and brands, which showed to the acute scouts that it was no legitimate grouping, but rather a conglomeration of spoil from a raid on the edge of civilisation.
"It will be dog eating dog," observed the Yager; "for here is the target of 'the Thunderbolt.' What do you make them out to be?"
"Red River Half-breeds," answered Bill—"Bob Rulies, sure as a gun. The Crows will have a tough dinner to tackle if they trouble them!"
"Bob Ruly" is a burlesque pronunciation ofBois Brulé, or "burnt wood;" that is to say, men of the colour of the red of a fire stick between the black end and the unfired portion. It is applied to the Half-breeds of Canada, French and Indian, who refused to accept their transference under the Anglo-French treaty of 1763 to the English flag, and withdrew to the west. Their realm of retirement, called the Red River Territory, or Manitoba, is geographically in the British Dominion; but they flourished there in freedom till the development of Canada, and the project of a North Pacific Railway compelled the Canadian Government to enforce their submission. At this time, it was supposed that the Bois Brulés would maintain their independence, if more or less helped by American adventurers, until the intervention of the United States would confirm it, preliminary to their absorption into the Great Republic. No one foresaw that the British troops, under Sir Garnet Wolseley, would quickly suppress the rebels, and that the United States Civil War would direct the Washington statesmen's attention elsewhere.
The Bois Brulés, through their Indian blood, are friendly with many northwestern tribes; and, being good trappers, and gay and easygoing spirits, keep on pleasant terms with the white rovers.
"Tell 'ee what, chief," said Ridge, after prolonged observation, "they're a band of villains there! Either they have been robbing, or they are consignees of plunder. If it were not for those poor women, whom anyone can tell are prisoners, I should cheer the Crows on to 'em!"
"Yes; Ahnemekee is a murderous thief—he thinks nothing of killing women and babes—a bad Indian, Jim! He must not be let have his way here!"
"We must hold a 'medicine council,'" continued the Old Man of the Mountain; "so back to our friends!"
They had to take their return route with more caution than in coming, since the Crows were no doubt at hand. But their intimate knowledge of the ground enabled them to avoid any contact. Thanks to the detour they traced, and to the infinite pains with which they scanned every square yard of the scene, they perceived that a small party had come to a halt in the rocks. These were not Blackfeet; and they thought at the first that they might be the Crows, of whose presence Filditch's moccasin had given an intimation. In any case, they crept up to the shallow dug out den in the side of a shale and sandstone cliff, and, when the faces were distinguishable, rose out of the cover, and boldly went forward, waving their open right hands in token of peaceful intentions.
Indeed, the group of seven men was friendly. Two more were collecting wood for a fire, luckily for them not yet burning.
It was the remnant of Sir Archie Maclan's hapless expedition.
Usually, a meeting place at a distance is agreed upon by a troop, in order that, after dispersal by an attack, the rally may be made for a reprisal or to affording a strong front in retreat. This precaution had not been taken by the English gentleman's heterogenous company. Still, by some natural law prevailing in the wilderness, the few who escaped the savages had come together. Lame, weaponless, imperfectly clothed, driven to eat roots painfully scratched out of the frozen soil, they regarded the two trappers as almost superhuman, glowing, as they were, with health, and formidably armed, and quite at home in the desolation.
At their first words—thanks to Ranald's account of the disaster—the newcomers knew with whom they had to deal. These were, save one (a Surcee Indian), the Scotch hunters. Though the Hudson's Bay Company men are instructed to show no cordiality towards free trappers in actual practice, they usually hobnob when they meet. Here, as Jim Ridge at once promised them supplies if they would accompany him to acache, the fraternisation was speedily perfect, and when Cherokee Bill, bound to the mountain home to bring back Ridge's nephew and Mr. Dearborn, left the rejoicing fugitives, they were toasting the Old Yager in trading whisky, and vowing to follow him to the edge of the Firehole Basin, and then over.
Two hours afterwards, the Cherokee returned with the whites, and the reception of Ranald was hilarious by his comrades, now equipped and crammed to repletion. Whilst these lost ones "foundin every comfort," as they said, were still recompensing themselves for their sufferings in the unconstrained mode of the desert, the chiefs of this now redoubtable band conferred on the plan of action.
Filditch was alone his own master, and placed himself at his relative's orders; Cherokee Bill judged that the "old hoss knew best;" Ranald, freely appointed leader of the Scotch contingent, offered their services as blindly, and Jim had only to debate with himself.
"Gentlemen," said he, "that either the Crows or the Bob Rulies should slaughter one another in a fight is no item for my book. But those white women are innocent creatures, wives, and sisters, I daresay, of poor settlers, who are now lamenting their unknown fate. We are not numerous enough to match either band now, but when they thin one another out with a general shoot, one vigorous charge might place the captives in our hands. When we so charge Bill will look to the horses; and once we can ride off, I answer for a safe haven for the wholecahoot(cohort) in a nest in the mountains. Woe to any that follow us, for I am conceited on not letting Tom, Dick, and Harry collect on my front doorstep. Is that a good notion, brothers?"
"It will do."
"Then look to your guns, whet your knives, and all be ready to march."
In half an hour the start was made, the men being allowed to finish their pipes as they proceeded in single file. Down sloping ground, Ridge led them into a valley, where an unseen river gurgled like a pond of sunfish. A beaver dam had intercepted this flow, but the beaver meadow was one sheet of perfectly unruffled ice, under which the running water could be seen by the bubbles at the airholes. Like so many schoolboys, the men, with a start down the bank, shot themselves across this expanse to the wood of tender trees among the stumps cut by the industrious natural engineer. Here Cherokee Bill took the head of the Indian file. For twenty minutes the string of men advanced in absolute quiet, forbearing to snap a dry twig, dislodge a stone, or crush the ice crust. Bill guided them so skilfully that they were always well sheltered, till finally they came out into a hodgepodge of boulders in a sand black and fine as gunpowder, resembling the remains of bones and vegetables in a giant's stew kettle out of which he had drained the broth. It occupied the centre of the end of the beaver meadow, and protected the rivulet channel.
It was the halting post, and a more unscalable and defensible position it were difficult to select. Under them in front the level ground extended where the Bois Brulés' caravan had been drawn through, hindrances which any but western wagoners would deem insurmountable. The hunters were shielded on all sides, and invisible. On the white patches of snow they descried the unsuspecting red men leisurely nearing the palisades of the Canadians to take up position for the storming. The stockade showed that the Half-breeds intended no move, and as Indians almost never attack in darkness, the little force on observation placidly lay down to await their cue to intervene.
Streaks of fog and a dull greyish yellow cloudbank closed in the setting sun. In the night the wolves called to one another, and seemed, in their language, to exchange information on the movements of so many men in the solitude, and laughed at the prospect of carnage on the morrow.
When the moon shone wan and cold, it not only was adorned with a livid snow ring, but was accompanied by four "dogs," or weird images of its pale self, which made the superstitious red men shudder. As for the whites, hardy as the Scotch-American becomes, they luxuriated under the blankets and furs which Jim Ridge had generously offered, and mocked at the glacial chill of the morning frost. A few showers of fine ice, rather than snow, fell on the lookouts of the mountain men's "fort," of the Crows and of the Canadians, suffering with the feverish wakeful sleepiness to which soldiers, seamen, and hunters are subjected at the worst stage in the darkest and coldest hours of dawn.
At length stripes of pallid gold and blue announced a sunless day. None but a snow owl saluted it, and that was a sneering, melancholy hoot borne on the gusty breeze, laden with sleet, ice, and sand.
The twilight was of a milky opal hue, which concentrated in a midair layer, while the ground air cleared up and allowed a tolerably extended view. It seemed an ominous pall over the threatened camps.
Suddenly a vivid glare reddened the plain. A war drum thundered, and the Crow war whoop furiously resounded.
Ahnemekee's war whistle piped his band on with piercing notes.
On the several signals, the mountaineers saw the Crows spring up even from coverts where they had not suspected them to lurk. They shook off the snow like so many feathers off a shot bird, as well as their robes, which would encumber their onset. Immediately firearms of all sorts, for the red men are rarely armed uniformly, began and kept up the sharp continuous crackle of a firing at will.
"Thar she blazes!" said Cherokee Bill, with a ferocious grin.
Besides their bullets, the Crows had flung fireballs and fire tipped arrows upon the waggons, and had followed them in at the openings of the interlocked carts. But they had no timid emigrants to deal with, whatever they might have thought. Quite otherwise, for the Bois Brulés were on the alert, employing all defensive measures in their full knowledge available in that site. Their firing was only done when they pushed the Indians with the muzzles, and it was dead or wounded whom they thus blew back without the barrier.
This repulse did not dishearten the marauders. They came on again as boldly, but with more method. Some carried bunches of resinous twigs smeared with elk fat, and using them first as shields by which to reach the waggon wheels, dropped them between them and fired them before retiring. The camp defenders were forced to detach several to put out these flames, which soon caught the waggon canvas covers.
At one gap about forty of the savages clambered in, and plied knives and hatchets to reach the horses, which they hoped to stampede, and so augment the confusion, whilst relieving the owners of the power to depart speedily. Their whoops were already impressed with the tone of victory.
The main body of the Red River Half-breeds surrounded a large tent which undoubtedly contained their valuables, including the captive women, whose psalms had been heard by the mountain men. The rest of the Half-breeds resisted the rush towards the cattle.
All at once several Indians were seen setting upon a young Canadian, who had a keg under one arm, which he defended with a woodman's axe.
"Whisky! Whisky! The firewater; ha, ha!" cried these savages, laughing and yelling in his face under the very axe which menaced to leave them no heads into which to gulp their beloved liquor.
"You asses, it's powder!" he returned, contemptuous of their stupidity.
At the same moment, whilst his and half a dozen other pairs of hands wrenched the keg asunder, one of the gusts of wind swept towards the group the blazing shreds of a tarpaulin of a waggon being pillaged. A spark kindled the outpouring grains, the explosion ensued, and the cluster of redskins was horribly scattered, while the Bois Brulés fell limbed.
Though almost conquerors, the unsuppressible screams of the victims of this ravage intimidated the Crows, and nothing but the prompt encouragement of their chiefs prevented a panic. On the other hand, the view of so much harm wrought by a single hand revived the Half-breeds' courage. They saw that, at least, they would not perish without retaliation, and that they could evade death by torture by blowing themselves up.
The death dealing explosion acted as a signal for an armed truce of scanty duration.
Meanwhile the Scotch allies of the mountain men had watched the struggle from their aerie with the burning impatience of boarhounds who hear the beast gnashing his tusks. All but Ridge seemed thus chafing to take a share in the sanguinary game. They only controlled their warlike instincts till the bursting of the gunpowder keg forced them to applaud the Canadian victim. Then, without a word, they bounded from among the rocks and rushed down on the 'Plat.' All that Ridge could do was get them under some restraint, so as to "plunge in" orderly.
The combatants had their attention so engaged within the camp, that the new arrivals ran up to the waggon hubs without being noticed. Therefore the Yager halted them behind two stumps, of which the trunk and limbs had helped fence the enclosure, and went half round it to inspect the smoking ruins, where gashed and mutilated bodies proved that neither Canadian nor Indian struck with daintiness. Rejoining his companions, he briefly explained how he wished them to aim, and they impatiently awaited his word of command.
The pause was now over, for Ahnemekee was flourishing his spiked war club and sounding the charging cry. In another moment the redskins who survived the last shots of the Bois Brulés would be in the tent of the women and raining merciless blows on their unresisting forms.
"Fire into the brown of them!" roared Ridge, furious at the scene, not unknown to him, which he imagined.
At the back of the Crows, then, through the smoke and a few idly falling flakes of spotless snow, a dozen shots resounded, and at least ten of them pitched headfirst towards the Canadians, whose balls whizzed over them and strewed death among their surprised companions.
Taken between two fires, the Crows felt they had lost the day. The Bois Brulés, without wasting time in seeking whence were their timely deliverers, shouted "Vive la Canadienne!" and bravely took the offensive. But, casting aside their empty guns, the Crows scattered through the camp, and tried to scramble out of the environment with even more alacrity than they had shown in entering. Shot down by the unknown foe and cut to pieces by the reanimated Half-breeds—it was a "fix." Weaponless, stripped almost naked for the action, debarred from speeding to the spot where their garments were stored, the Indians must have been slaughtered to a man on the frigid waste had not their frantic appeals to the patron of their tribe seemed to have obtained an intervention.
That storm which had been two days breeding, and was unmistakably threatened overnight, flew over the mountain crest and burst on the tablelands with unmeasured violence. It was the "blizzard," to which East Indian cyclones, West Indian tornadoes, and what Europe calls tempests, are zephyrs to fan a baby's brow. One of those cataclysms which befall poor earth as if destined to destroy it, and rage in the desert so furiously that the aspect of the whole tract for thousands upon thousands of miles is often transformed in a few hours. The wind came out of gorges like a compacted bolt, and basalt was pierced like putty; the eddies, or "screw wind," uprooted hoary pines and waltzed away with them in the distance. The snow and hail clouds were compressed to the tree and hill tops, and condensed the lower atmosphere so that breathing was difficult, and cattle stopped in frantic flight as if a colossal hand were laid on their backs. The snow fell in balled up masses, and light absolutely disappeared so far as any ability to fix its source existed. All the eye could perceive was a variation in the density of the seams of gloom. As for hearing, any one of the portentous sounds must have deafened—the roar of the wind, the crash of the dethroned peaks, the ripping of the trees, the rush of the avalanches of snow, sand, and rocks.
The Indians had scattered over the plain, trembling and moaning their prayers indiscriminately to the Great Good Spirit and the Little Bad One. On they fled, trampling on birds and beasts, whose lifelong lairs and nests were wrecked, and which grovelled flat in agony of apprehension. Most dreadful of all, now and then a fugitive was balled up in a thick gust, and the packing flakes around him rapidly gathering additional layers, he was soon thrown down, and thence forth, the core of a rolling hill spun on for leagues over the tablelands.
Ridge had time to raise the cry, "With me, on our only chance, boys!" and by a miracle, blindly, yet surely, led the band back to their late post, however precarious was that refuge, attained over new and terrible obstacles in the thick snow.
The lately smooth-as-glass beaver meadow lake was rough with stones that had smashed the mirror; the subterranean stream, vastly swollen, rose up like an entombed snake, bursting the surface and splashed about impetuously for outlets which continual changes of the rocky barriers offered and withdrew. As the torrent rose to the hunters, the snow massively came down. But they were hardened border men, and far from letting even justifiable awe paralyse their courage, arched their backs against the piercing north wind, and listened to judge by its sinister voice where would open an escape from the enwrapping danger.
Fortunately, the very violence of these Rocky Mountain snowstorms lessen their duration, and they calm down more rapidly than they break out—suddenly and without a warning lull. This the adventurers knew, except Filditch and Ranald alone, perhaps, and though they were knee deep in icy water and mere snowmen, they dwelt statuesque without a murmur.
During three hours they huddled up, clinging to each other, merely shifting, so that every now and then the more exposed should be replaced by the best sheltered—a living bulwark, that built and unbuilt itself for its own protection.
"Hurrah, boys!" shouted the Yager, as the wind died away sharply, "We have weathered it. Old Rocky is some, though, when he pitches snowballs!"
The snowflakes were soft at last, and not intermingled with icy atoms that cut the cheek, ay, and even the leather of their dress, like a sandblast. Soon that ceased, and they could view the dreadful medley of the devastated country.
All the landmarks were removed, and the new ones were frightfully fantastic. Trees were stripped into logs, and flung upon the bluffs, and boulders were perched in the crotches of dismantled trunks. The grove where the hunters had been ambushed among the stumps, to succour the Half-breeds' captives, no longer existed even to the roots. No sound arose where no breathing creature remained. Four feet deep the snow and sleet spread as a blanched shroud over the level ground.
The survivors waited an hour for the frothy torrent to go down, so that they could ford it by offering an angular resistance, all supporting the upstream leader against the still raging current. Then, rigging up temporary snowshoes out of fragments of elder and their ragged robes, they began to glide over the fresh floor, hardly firm enough yet to support even their restless skimming. They were five hours reaching a place of refuge near the secluded cave which Ridge did not wish to make of public knowledge.
Of the Crows and the Bois Brulés there was not a trace. Such a storm could have made one huge snowball of waggons and cattle, and trundled it irresistibly down the steppes into the gullies of the Bad Lands of Montana.