Before daybreak the scout roused his companion, and, after breakfast
with the three Sioux, who, according to Bob, were still eating supper,
the two hunters left their chance companions in the canyon, rode
rapidly south, and, with their antelope haunches as trophies, reached
Casement's camp about ten o'clock.
Stanley, who was conferring with Casement, came out of the tent
greatly amazed at his scout's venturing so far on a hunt as to expose
himself and his companion to danger.
"We were safe every minute, colonel," declared Scott.
"Safe?" echoed Stanley incredulously. "No man is safe, Bob, a mile
from the track-layers. The Sioux killed and scalped one of our
engineers not ten miles from here, when we were running this very line
last winter."
"This lad," nodded Scott, "is as good a shot as I am. He brought down
the first antelope. We get along with the Sioux all right, too, don't
we, Bucks?" he demanded, appealing to his fellow-hunter. "We ate
supper with them last night," he added to mystify his listeners, "and
camped with Iron Hand."
Even General Casement stared at this and waited to hear Scott tell
Stanley the story of their night's adventure. "However, colonel,"
concluded Scott, "there is a war party of Cheyennes near here. It is a
good time to be careful."
"All right, Bob," retorted Stanley, looking at his scout keenly,
though no one could be angry at Scott long. "You set the example."
The words were hardly out of his mouth when an operator came running
down the track from the telegraph tent with a message for General
Casement. It contained word from the operator at Peace River that
section men reported a war party of Indians, crossing the railroad
near Feather Creek, had attacked an emigrant party camped there.
In an instant the whole construction camp had the news and the work
was thrown into confusion. Feather Creek was twenty miles away. Orders
flew fast. A special train was made up, and Stanley taking command,
with Casement to aid, made ready instantly to leave for the scene of
the disaster.
The men running from the grade fell into line like veteran soldiers.
Indeed, most of them had seen service in the war just closed and the
smell of powder was no novelty. Bob Scott turned the venison over to
Oliver and loaded his horse in the car with those of the cavalrymen.
Under Stanley's orders he himself rode as pilot in the cab with the
engine crew. Bucks also reported to Stanley, and within twenty minutes
the relief train carrying two hundred men was plunging down the long
hill toward Feather Creek. Heads were craned out of the car windows,
and in rounding every curve Bucks, with the scout Leon Sublette,
sitting greatly wrought up behind Stanley and Casement, expected
momentarily to see Cheyenne war bonnets spring up out of the stunted
cedars that lined the hills along the right of way.
But not a sign could be seen of any living thing. The train reached
Feather Creek, and slowly crossed the bridge before Scott signalled
the engineman to stop. His eye had detected the scene of the fight,
and the ground beyond--a low cut--was favorable for getting the men
safely out of the cars.
As the engine slowed, a little scene of desolation beside the right of
way met Bucks's eye, and he caught sight of the ghastly battle-field.
A frightened section crew emerged from the wild-plum thickets along
the creek bottom, as the cavalrymen, followed by Casement's armed men,
poured out of the three cars. Stanley with his scouts led the way to
the emigrant camp, where the fight had taken place. The wagons had
been burned, the horses run off, and the three unfortunate men
butchered.
Bucks experienced a shock when Scott came upon the three dead men
whose mutilated bodies had been dragged from the scene by the section
men and who lay with covered faces side by side under a little
plum-tree, fragrant with blossoms and alive with the hum of bees. The
sunshine and the beauty of the spot contrasted strangely with the
revolting spectacle upon the grass.
Stanley gave the orders by which the bodies were conveyed to the train
and with the scouts and cavalrymen reconnoitering the surrounding
country, Casement's men lay on their arms in the shade of the cut.
Dancing rigged a pony instrument to the telegraph wires, which had not
been disturbed, and Bucks transmitted messages to Fort Kearney
advising the commanding officer of the murders and adding afterward
the report of Scott and Sublette as to the direction the marauders had
taken in flight.
"Who were the beasts, Bob, that could treat men like that?" demanded
Bucks in an angry undertone, when he had clicked the messages over the
wires.
"Bad Indians," answered Scott sententiously. "You have that kind of
white men, don't you? These fellows are probably Turkey Leg's thieving
Cheyennes. We shall hear more of them."
In the meantime the scouts and the cavalry detail rode out again
trying to unmask the Cheyennes, but without success. It was a week
before they were even heard of, and after an all-day attempt to do
something, the train backed up to camp and work was resumed as if
nothing had happened.
After waiting a few days, Stanley, always restive under idleness,
determined to push on across the Sweet Grass country with horses, to
learn how the timber cutters on the river were faring with their
slender military guard. The party, consisting of the detail of ten men
and the two scouts and Bucks, started one morning at sunrise and made
their way without molestation into the little-known mountain range
called then, as far south as Colorado, the Black Hills.
Stanley explained to Bucks during the morning how the chief
engineering difficulty of the whole transcontinental line confronted
the engineers right where they were now riding. Here the mountains
were thrown abruptly above the plain to a great height and the
locating engineers were still at their wits' ends to know how to
climb the tremendous ascent with practicable grades. Stanley became
so interested in studying the country during the day, as the
difficulties of the problem presented themselves afresh to him, that
the party made slow progress. Camp was pitched early in the afternoon
under a ridge that offered some natural features for defence. Here the
cavalrymen were left, and Stanley, taking Scott, started out after
some venison for supper. Bucks stood by, looking eager as the two made
ready for the hunt.
"Come along if you like," said Stanley at length. "You won't be happy,
Bucks, till you get lost somewhere in this country."
Sublette lent Bucks a rifle, and the three men set out together,
riding rapidly into the rough hills to the northwest. Scott covered
the ground fast, but he searched in vain for sign of antelope.
"Indians have been all over this divide," he announced after much hard
riding and a failure to find any game. "It doesn't look like venison
for supper to-night, colonel. Stop!" he added suddenly.
His companions, surprised by the tone of the last word, halted.
Leaning over his pony's neck the scout was reading the rocky soil. He
dismounted, and walking on, leading his horse, he inspected, very
carefully, the ground toward a dry creek bed opening to the east.
He was gone perhaps five minutes. "Colonel," he said, smiling
reassuringly, when he returned, "this is no place for us."
"Indians," said Stanley tersely.
"Cheyennes. Back to camp."
"Down the creek?" suggested Stanley.
"The bottom is alive with Indians."
"Up then, Bob?"
"Their camp is just above the bend. They have spotted our trail, too,
somehow. It may be they are riding easy to close in on us," smiled
Scott, while Bucks's hair began to pull. "Our way out is over this
divide." He indicated the rough country east of the creek as he
spoke.
"Divide!" exclaimed Stanley, looking up at the practically sheer walls
of rock that hedged the course of the creek. "We can't climb those
hills, if we never get out."
"They're not quite so bad as they look. Anyway, colonel, we've got
to."
"They can pick us off our horses like monkeys all the way up!"
"It's a chance for our scalps, colonel. And it will be as hard riding
for them as it is for us."
Stanley looked at Bucks with perplexity. "This boy!"
"I can make it, Colonel Stanley," exclaimed Bucks, who felt he must
say something.
Stanley still hesitated.
"We've no time to lose," smiled Scott significantly.
"Then go ahead, Bob."
They had half a mile of comparatively level ground to cross before
they began their climb, and this strip they rode very hard. When they
reached the hills, Scott headed for a forbidding-looking canyon and
urged his horse without ceasing through the rocky wash that strewed
its floor. Stanley, with an excellent mount, could have kept well up,
but he had put Bucks ahead of him in the safe place of the little
procession, and the boy had difficulty in keeping within call of
their active leader. The minute they were out of sight of the creek
bottoms, Scott, choosing an apparently unscalable ascent, urged his
horse up one of the canyon walls and the three were soon climbing in
order.
Happily, Bucks's scrub horse gave a better account of himself in
climbing than he had done in covering better ground. As their horses
stumbled hurriedly along the narrow ledges, they made noise enough to
wake the Indian dead and the loose rock tumbled with sinister echoes
down the canyon wall. But progress was made, and the white men felt
only anxious lest pursuit should catch them exposed on the uncovered
height up which they were fast clambering.
Secure in their escape, the three were nearing the coveted top when a
yell echoed through the canyon from below. There was no mistaking such
a yell. Bucks, who had never heard anything so ferocious, had no need
to be told what it was--it, so to say, introduced itself. And it was
answered by another yell, more formidable still, and again by a
chorus of yells. Then it seemed to Bucks's unaccustomed ears as if a
thousand lusty throats were opened, and scared rigid he looked behind
him and saw the canyon below alive with warriors.
They were riding helter-skelter to reach a range where they could pick
the fugitives off the crest of the canyon side. Within a minute,
almost, their rifles were cracking. Scott had already reached a point
of concealment, and above the heads of Bucks and Stanley fired his
rifle in answer. An Indian brave, riding furiously to a rock that
would have commanded Stanley and Bucks as they urged their horses on,
started in his saddle as Scott fired and clutched his side instantly
with his rifle hand. His pony bolted as the half-hitch of the rawhide
thong on its lower jaw was loosened and the rider, toppling, fell
heavily backward to the ground. The riderless horse dashed on. The
yelling Indians had had their blunt warning and now scurried for
cover. The interval, short as it was, gave Bucks and Stanley a
chance.
Spurring relentlessly and crouching low on their horses' necks, they
made a dash across the exposed wall of rock near the top, that lay
between them and safety. A renewed yell echoed the rage and chagrin of
their pursuers, and a quick fire of scattering shots followed their
rapid flight, but the Indians were confused, and Bucks, followed by
his soldier champion, flung himself from his saddle in the clump of
cedars behind which Scott, safely hidden, was reloading his rifle.
Choosing his opportunity carefully, Stanley fired at once at an
exposed brave and succeeded in disabling him. Bucks was forbidden to
shoot and told to hold his rifle, if it were needed, in readiness for
his companions. With the bullets cutting the twigs above their heads,
Stanley and Scott held a council of war. Scott insisted on remaining
behind to check their pursuers where they were, while the two with him
rode on to safety.
"I can hold this bunch, colonel," declared Scott briefly. "There may
not be a second chance as good. Get on with the boy before another
party cuts you off. They can cross below us and save two or three
miles. Get away."
"But how will you get away?" demanded Bucks.
Stanley laughed. "Never mind Bob. He could crawl through a Cheyenne
village with a camp-fire on his back. It's what to do with you, Bucks,
that bothers us."
"Just you get on, colonel," urged Bob. "I'll manage all right. Leave
your horse," he added, turning to Bucks, "and you take mine."
Bucks protested and refused to leave Scott with an inferior mount, but
his protests were of no avail. He was curtly directed by Stanley to do
as he was told, and unwillingly he turned his horse over to Scott and
took the scout's better steed. Scott added hurried and explicit
directions to Stanley as to the course to follow back to camp, and
without loss of time Stanley and Bucks crouching behind friendly rocks
led their horses up the inner canyon wall and, remounting at the top,
galloped hurriedly down a long ridge.
At intervals, shots from the Indians reached their ears, and
long-drawn yells, followed by the sharper crack of Scott's rifle,
echoed from the west as the scout held the wall against the enemy.
Bucks did not understand the real danger that the scout feared for
his party. It was that other parties of the marauding Cheyennes might,
by following the creek, gain the divide in time to cut off the
railroad men from their line of escape. The sounds of the stubborn
contest behind them died away as their straining horses gradually put
miles between them and the enemy. The fugitives had reached the summit
of the hills and with a feeling of safety were easing their pace when
Bucks discerned, almost directly ahead of them, dark objects moving
slowly along the foot of a wooded hill. The two men halted.