IN THE BRÛLÊ
That was a very beautiful camp and a merry night, that last night
with the cowboys from Rosebud. The fire they had made was what they
called a nor'-wester. Timber was plentiful--to be had, indeed, for
the felling--and the men left in camp had found it better fun to
swing an axe than to do nothing. So whole trees lay across the fire,
and huge tongues of flame kept leaping out and shooting into the
darkness. Every now and then a log broke, and the ends fell in with
a crash, the flames roared more fiercely than ever, and a shower of
red sparks went away on the wind.
The men left in camp, being in a luxurious mood and having lots of
time on their hands, had run up a shelter of boughs--two great props
and a crosspiece, with a lot of underbrush sloping from this
ridge-pole to the ground. Under this, with their feet to the fire,
lay the men smoking.
'Wal, Dick,' said the Judge, 'I reckon I don't owe you no grudge.
You've been a good pal to us, and I hope, mate, you'll strike it rich
where you're a-goin'.'
'Them's my sentiments to a dot,' said Texan, 'and if those boys of
yourn don't get their har raised by grizzly or Injun before they're
six months older, I shouldn't be much surprised if you made cowboys
of them.'
'Thank you, Texan, old chap,' laughed Snap. 'If you don't do any
more mining amongst those gopher-holes before I come back, I'll bet
you my best saddle that the Cradle and I lick your head off at any
distance you like on old "Springheels."
The laugh, for a moment, went against Texan, for in the round-up just
over it was commonly stated as a fact that, whilst riding at full
pace down a hill after cattle, his pony had put its foot in one
gopher-hole and shot its owner into another, from which, five minutes
later, he was extracted by a comrade, who said that he had found
Texan 'growing anyhow, just planted root up'ards in a gopher-hole!'
'There's one thing agin you, Dick, and that's the weather,' remarked
the Judge; 'for all it's so fine now, I don't half like that fringe
round the moon.'
'No, it does look watery, doesn't it?' said old Dick, looking up;
'but, hang it all, don't let us croak. Hand me another of those
fish, Snap, if you can spare one. Bust me! if you don't eat
half-pound trout as if they was shrimps,' he added.
'There's summat I'm thinking,' said Texan after a pause, 'that's
worse nor weather. I don't want to croak, Dick, but air you sure
about them Injuns? I kem acrost their fishing-camp to-day, and there
isn't a soul in it. Do you calculate as they're on the war-path?'
'Not they!' replied Dick; 'a Crow won't face a Blackfoot nowadays,
and, unless they're stealing horses or killing cattle, they aren't
doing any harm, you bet.'
'How!'
It was a sound between a human voice and a dog's bark, sharp, hoarse,
and guttural, and it appeared to proceed from the ground under Snap's
seat. Snap was round as if a wasp had stung him. There had been no
sound behind the camp-fire; no dry twig had cracked, no leaf rustled;
and yet there was this sudden 'How!' and behind Snap stood, stiff and
silent, a tall, grim-looking Redskin.
A sort of pointed hat of rush was on his head, through the band of
which an eagle's plume had been stuck; round his shoulders was a
bright-coloured blanket, and wide trousers of deer-skin, with long
fringes of the same down the seams, reached to his ankles.
'Not a beauty,' Snap thought, and he moved a little uneasily away
from the stranger, who stood quietly staring at the group.
The Indian was certainly not a beauty, even for an Indian. His hair
was sleek and black--'snaky' Towzer called it. His eyes were small
and set close together in a big bull-like head, and he was
hare-lipped. His face, too, was full of lines and wrinkles. He was
as old as the hills apparently, but old as the oaks grow old--strong
and rugged, and nowhere near being worn out.
'How!' said Dick, and he rose and gave the chief his hand, and
offered him a seat on his blanket, which he took.
'Do you speak English?' asked Snap as the Indian sat beside him, but
the only answer he got was a stony stare.
'I guess he does, for all that,' whispered Texan; 'these beggars
never let on how much they know. Say, Dick, you talk their lingo;
ask him where he comes from.'
So adjured, old Dick Wharton supplied his guest with fish, bread, and
tea, all of which he took without a word, and then Dick began to
question him.
The Indians had broken up their fishing-camp, the Redskin said; their
medicine-man had advised them to. Oh, yes, it was a good season, and
there were lots of fish there yet, but the medicine-man had seen a
bird, and the tribe could not stay any longer.
'Seen a bird!' cried old Wharton; 'well, I reckon he sees a good many
birds in a day; but what kind of a bird was this to frighten the
whole tribe from fishing and gambling?'
'The tribe was not frightened, O white-skin,' replied the Indian with
dignity; 'but they knew that the bird which Teeveevex saw was the
bird of doom, which preys on the tribes of men, and the Crows have
hidden until the danger is passed.'
'But what sort of a bird is the bird of doom?' persisted Wharton.
'Only Teeveevex has seen it,' replied the chief, 'but its white wings
are as the clouds which contain the rain-storms, and it rushes
through the sky like a star falling from its throne.'
'Bunkum!' muttered Texan, and, low as he muttered it, a spark seemed
suddenly to kindle and as suddenly to die out in the watchful eye of
the savage. 'I'll bet the Blackfeet are going to have a lively time
of it, unless they're going to do a bit of horse-stealing at Rosebud.'
'What is the name by which the braves call you?' asked Wharton.
'The men call me the Great White Rabbit,' replied the chief proudly.
'Not a bad name either for a hare-lipped one,' muttered Frank.
The Indian could not have understood what was meant, but he saw the
smile, and gave Frank one of his ugly looks.
That sturdy young Englishman stared coolly at him, remarking to Snap,
'It's an engaging young thing when it's pleased, isn't it, Snap?
And, oh Lord, what a mouth for a fish dinner!' he added as the savage
filled up the vacuum between his jaws with about half a pound of
trout.
'Ask him how old he is,' said Snap, and Wharton repeated the question.
The chief thought for a moment, and then held up five fingers
solemnly.
'Oh, you be hanged!' cried Towzer. 'Why, the beggar's laughing at
us. A nice, tender, five-year-old you are, aren't you, my beauty?'
And the boys laughed in concert.
'He is right enough, though,' said Wharton; 'with these chaps each
finger stands for ten, and I don't suppose that he is more than
fifty.'
After eating everything which the whites had left, and begging for a
charge or two of powder, the cowboys' visitor got up and left without
a word either of thanks or adieu.
'Well,' said Towzer, 'that twopence which I presume our friend's
mamma, Mrs. Doe Rabbit, spent on her son's manners doesn't appear to
have been a good investment.'
'Lord bless you, you don't expect thanks from an Injun, do you?'
remarked Wharton; 'like enough that chap will put a ball in you if he
gets a chance, and I should be very much surprised if either of your
grizzlies has its hide on to-morrow. If it has, old Buck Rabbit, or
whatever he calls himself, won't be to blame, you bet!'
And sure enough, when Snap and Texan went up next morn (rather late,
it is true), both bear-skins had gone, and the place, so Texan said,
'stunk of Injuns.'
When Snap and Texan got back without their bear-skins old Wharton had
the ponies packed, and 'the Judge' had made all preparations for a
start.
'So Buck Rabbit got those skins, did he?' asked Wharton. 'Well, I'll
forgive him, whatever Snap says, if that's all the hair he raises
this fall.'
'Yes, you may say that,' Texan added grimly. 'I've been here some
while now, but I never knowed those Crows give up their summer
gamble, and bust me if I think they'll feel inclined to lie idle now
that they have been skeered out of their fishing-camp.'
'That being so,' said Dick, 'it seems to me you mout as well lead
them off our trail a bit. Don't let them sight you between this and
Rosebud, and maybe, if Buck Rabbit didn't count the horses, he'll
think, when he sees the trail of all them ponies, that we've all gone
back to Rosebud.'
'And how about Rosebud, Dick?' asked Texan.
'Oh, I reckon Rosebud can look after itself, leastways it could when
I was theer,' replied the old foreman; and Texan and the Judge nodded
approvingly, and murmured with emphasis 'You bet!'
'Then you'll be back in spring for the cows?' asked Texan.
'Well, we'll do our possible,' replied Wharton, busy with the
Cradle's lash-rope; 'if we don't turn up you'll understand that we're
wiped out, and "the boys" can divide my band amongst 'em.'
'The boys won't none of 'em hanker after their share of that band,
Dick,' replied Texan, shaking the old man's hand. 'Good luck to you!'
'So long!' cried the Judge. 'Keep your eyes skinned at night, pard!'
And with the bell of the leading pack-animal tinkling merrily the two
boys, and all the ponies save the Cradle and another, disappeared
among the trees on the back track.
Dick and the boys stood looking along the trail for some time after
their friends were out of sight. Now and again they could hear the
bell or a cry from Texan or the Judge to one of the self-willed
ponies, but by degrees they passed out of earshot as out of sight.
'I guess we'd better tramp,' said Dick, turning to the three young
Englishmen, over whom a certain sense of loneliness had been stealing.
For the first time they realised what this adventure meant. They saw
now that for the next four months at any rate they were entirely
dependent upon their own efforts for all the necessaries of life.
They were only four men, armed and strong, it is true, isolated among
the great things of Nature--mountains and forests, and by-and-by ice
and snow and tempest--and cut off from railways and the civilised
world, and bound to die if they could not find food and make shelter
for themselves. Old Dick, used all his life to depend on his own
right hand for everything he wanted, probably only felt a bit of a
wrench at parting from his old comrades and saying good-bye to his
old position of foreman.
The boys felt a good deal more than that. Those two rough-riders,
driving their string of pack ponies before them, were to them the
world, or at any rate their last glimpse of it.
'You had better lead "the Cradle," Snap,' cried Wharton, 'but I
reckon we'll all have to swim at the ford. Your friends can swim, I
suppose?'
'Like fish, Dick,' replied Frank for himself and brother.
'Come on, then,' said the old man, and with a long, swinging stride
the four started on their hundred-mile walk.
All four were in mocassins, flannel shirts, and pants of blue jean.
On their heads they wore the usual cowboy hat, a wide light-coloured
sombrero. Snap carried his rifle, as the best shot of the party, but
the others had tied their rifles with their coats and blankets on the
pack-animals' backs.
The river when they reached it was not as full as Wharton had
expected, still for a few paces in the middle horses and men had to
swim.
As they stood shaking themselves on the further bank, Towzer looked
ruefully at his own draggled appearance and remarked:
'I believe I've got my stockings wet! Don't you think, Frank, mother
would like us to change them?'
There was a laugh among the boys, and then as they tramped through
the grimy, burnt forest, with its charred stumps and black, leafless
branches, their thoughts went back to Fairbury.
The thought acted on the different natures differently. Towzer felt
inclined to sit down and cry, and, as that would not do at any price,
he began to whistle an old nigger-minstrel melody. A hard, dogged
expression came into Frank's face. He would rather have been squire
of Fairbury, but he meant to do his duty here all the same. And
Snap! well, Snap's eyes lit up, and his head was very high in the
air. He didn't know that he was leading a pack pony, and that old
Wharton was wondering why the boy's eyes looked so bright and moist.
Snap didn't see the grey old forest, or think of the years of daily
labour, but he saw a bright picture with two sides to it: on the one
a wide stretch of country dotted everywhere with cattle which bore
his brand, and on the other the steps of the old hall at Fairbury,
and the Winthrops, dear old Admiral Chris, and the little mother;
Fairbury had been bought back, and that sweet, grey-haired woman had
her hand in his, and was saying, 'I trusted you, Snap, all along; I
knew my brown boy would go straight.'
Well, it was a dream, and Snap an optimist and a bit of a poet, and
perhaps in nine cases out of ten such dreams only lead to
disappointment; but if you are prepared to meet with disappointment,
a beautiful dream is no bad thing to beguile a long march.
The country through which the boys were now travelling was as
desolate and uncanny as anything which the world can show. They were
crossing a belt of forest between the forks of a great stream, one
arm of which they crossed in the morning. Between the two streams a
great fire had raged some years ago, and range after range of rolling
hills lay before them covered with tall trees charred to a cinder,
yet standing upright still--grey, unburied skeletons of the past. In
some places a tree which had once been nearly two hundred feet in
height still reared a great grey spire towards heaven, and yet a few
yards from the ground you could see that fire and weather between
them had eaten the trunk almost through, so that its balance alone
seemed to keep it upright. All through the brûlé, as this burnt
forest is called, the trails are blocked by fallen timber. At every
breeze a score of them come crashing down, and hardly a minute goes
by without a snap like a rifle-shot to remind you that it is merely
by an interposition of Providence that each of the great pines along
your path has not fallen upon you as you passed. The difficulty of
getting pack animals through a forest of this kind is considerable,
although they will jump and crawl like cats; and the walking is weary
work even for the strongest man, where at one moment you have to
balance along the stem of a fallen pine, or climb over a log ten feet
high, and the next have your pants caught by the point of a sharp
rampike which tears them to shreds and perhaps takes a foot or two of
skin with it.
'I am afraid Texan was right,' said Dick as they plodded along, while
the sun was setting slowly in the west, 'those clouds are coming up
uncommon fast, and it's main dark for three o'clock.'
Winthrop was leading 'the Cradle,' and Towzer was walking alongside
of him, and when Dick spoke he spoke to Snap, who had fallen a bit
behind.
'Don't you agree, Snap?' he said after a pause, and as no answer came
he looked round.
'Hulloh! Why, where in thunder have you got to?' he cried. 'Here!
hold on there in front. Where's Snap?'
The boys pulled up and looked round. Not five minutes before they
had seen him; now, though they could see plainly amongst the grey,
bare poles, there was no sign of him.
'Snap! hi, Snap!' they cried; and faint and far away an echo seemed
to say 'halloa.'
'Was that an answer?' said Dick; 'here, dang your skin, hold up
there,' he added, giving 'the Cradle' an angry dig in the ribs, to
induce that animal to stop pawing the ground and snorting.
'Now shout agin, Frank, and mebbe this brute will let us hear if he
answers.'
'Snap! halloa, halloa there, Snap!' cried Frank, and again from far
away came an answering halloa, very feeble and faint, but still
recognisable as Snap's voice.
'Why, he's underground,' said Towzer.
'Yes, I reckon he is,' said Dick; 'I hope he ain't much hurt.'
'Why, do you know where he is?' asked both boys.
'Not exactly, but if you'll give me thet lash-rope we'll, maybe, find
him pretty soon. It's lucky we missed him so soon,' he added.
Turning back, the old man walked along the trail, calling Snap by
name from time to time, the answer getting plainer as he advanced,
but still proceeding apparently from somewhere under their feet.
'Here he is,' remarked Wharton at last, 'and a pretty dark hole it
is, too. Are you hurt any, Snap?' he inquired, leaning over a log
and looking down on the other side.
'No, I'm all right,' said the voice, 'but I can't get out.'
'Lay hold of that,' replied Wharton, lowering the rope, 'and we'll
pretty soon haul you out.'
When the Winthrops came up this was what met their gaze. The whole
floor of the forest was composed of fallen trees and dead logs, in
most cases overgrown with moss and bushes, which in their turn had
been burnt or scorched. For centuries the trees had grown and
fallen, rotted or refused to rot, and over them the fresh forest had
grown, until in many cases they formed a solid soil of rotted wood
and debris. Here and there, however, where a few great trees had
fallen and had not yet rotted, a thin crust, as it were, of boughs
and soil and debris had formed above, and through such a crust as
this Snap had tumbled into what Towzer called the basement of the
forest, a dark, damp, underground hollow, in which in places you
could travel upright for thirty or forty yards under a bridge of
fallen timber. Out of a place of this kind Snap was hauled, very
black and grimy, and as hoarse as a crow with shouting, but otherwise
unhurt.
'We had better push on at once,' said Wharton as soon as he was sure
that his friend was unhurt. 'I don't like the look of the evening a
bit, and should be thankful if we could get under the lee of some big
boulders I know of, a few miles further on, before the storm breaks.'
'It does look bad, doesn't it?' said Frank; 'however, a little rain
would do no harm, as we shall not strike water to-night, and we all
want a wash badly, specially Snap.'
'If this storm catches us in the brûlé, we shan't want washing any
more,' was Dick's gloomy reply; and, though the sky--covered with
long fleecy storm-clouds, and full of an angry yellow light--did not
look reassuring, the boys all thought that for once Dick was taking
an unnecessarily black view of their chances.
The boys were still digesting Dick's last speech when there came a
tiny whisper through the trees. It was not anything more. Just a
faint little wind like a sigh; and yet three or four great trees,
which had kept their balance for years, came down before it with a
crash which made even Dick's cheek blanch.
'Caught, by thunder!' cried he. 'Boys, we've only one chance; leave
them ponies and follow me.'
[Illustration: IN THE BRÛLÊ]
Not understanding the danger, the boys could not help seeing that it
was real, by the old man's manner, and the speed with which he darted
back along the trail. As he passed 'Cradle,' Snap noticed that that
intelligent beast turned of his own accord and followed his human
companions. As they ran, another faint wind came, and another
half-dozen great trees thundered down, and one of them right across
the path between Dick and his friends. One of its boughs flew up and
struck Frank across the face, leaving a long black mark and drawing a
bright stream of blood.
For a moment the boys recoiled aghast; but Wharton's voice woke them
to a fresh effort.
'Run, run, tear and ages! _will_ you run?' he shrieked, and one after
another the boys scrambled over the carcase of the great tree and
reached Dick's side.
Dick was on his knees beside the hole from which he had extricated
Snap. The good old fellow, though he knew the danger, meant to see
everyone else safe before he thought of himself.
'Here, young 'un,' he cried to Towzer, 'get hold of my fist. Now
then, down you go,' and he lowered the boy as far as he could into
the hole.
'Let go and drop,' he cried. 'Are you all right?' he added.
'All right,' said Towzer's voice from somewhere beneath their feet.
'Now then, Frank,' said Dick; and one after another he let the boys
down, and a moment after dropped down amongst them.
'Great Scott! how it shakes the wind out of you,' he muttered,
picking himself up, 'I didn't know it was so far.'
Just then a peal of thunder drowned their voices, and after it came
the rain in torrents, driven by a perfect gale of wind. Even where
the boys were the rain came in bucketfuls, and the red lightning lit
up their subterranean shelter until they could see the black logs
above their heads, like the gigantic beams in some old English hall.
But the loud thunder echoing amongst the cliffs beyond the river, and
the hissing rain, and every other sound was drowned when the wind
arose, for after the first rush of the wind it seemed as if the end
of the world had come, or as if, at the very least, some great battle
like Hohenlinden was being fought right over their heads. Tree after
tree came crashing to the ground and, as it fell, dragged down others
with it. Now they would fall one after another with loud reports as
if a regiment of giants were file-firing, and again a great wave of
sound, a very volley of the heaviest artillery, would make the ground
rock with its awful roar.
'Thank God, we got here in time,' said old Dick reverently; 'I guess
there won't be a tree standing when this storm stops, and those poor
wretched ponies will be pounded small enough for sausage meat!'
'Do you think they can't escape, Dick?' asked Frank; 'our rifles
won't be good for much, then.'
'No,' replied Wharton, 'except, maybe, for old iron or chips to light
a fire with. By the way, who has the matches?'
'They are on the packs,' said Towzer.
'What, haven't any of you a match about you?' asked Dick.
'No, I haven't,' said Frank.
'Nor I,' added Towzer.
'Haven't you, Snap?' asked Dick. 'What are you thinking of, boy?'
Dick added.
'No, I haven't a match, Dick. I was thinking what a cur I was to
leave poor old Cradle, and how piteous he looked as I passed him; but
I had no notion what I was leaving him to,' replied Snap sadly.
'Yes, it is a pity. He was a good horse, but there are plenty
better, and, besides, we hadn't a rope strong enough to lower him
into this hole, even if we had had time to try it; and then I'm not
sure as he'd have let us do it,' said Wharton; adding, after a while,
'I guess the storm is stopping, but it's a poor camp we shall have
to-night, without a fire.'
Before long the storm stopped; our friends down below could feel that
the air was fresh and sweet, and that the evening sun was shining
brightly over everything. By tying a little log on to the lash-rope
and throwing it over one of the beams which formed the roof of their
shelter, our friends made themselves a ladder, and one by one climbed
up from the darkness to daylight again.