"Indians," announced Stanley after a brief moment of inspection.
"We are cut off," he added, looking alertly over the landscape about
them. "This way, Bucks. Ride as low as you can." Without further words
he made an abrupt turn to the right, striking south to get behind a
friendly butte that rose half a mile away.
"The question now is," said Stanley, as they held their horses up a
little after getting somewhat farther out of sight, "whether they have
likewise seen us."
The harried pair were not long in doubt. They had hardly changed their
course when there was immediate activity on the hill-side. The
railroad men spurred on; the distant horsemen, now on their flank,
dashed out upon the broad slope that lay between the two parties and
rode straight and hard after the fleeing men. Stanley steadied his
inexperienced companion as the latter urged his horse. "Not too hard
just now. Your pony will need all his wind. It's a question of getting
away with our scalps and we must be careful. Follow me."
Bucks's heart, as he looked back, crowded up into his throat. A long
skirmish line of warriors had spread across the unbroken plateau to
the east, and Stanley, with nothing but instinct for a guide, was
making at top speed to the south to get away from them.
As the two dashed on, they found to their consternation that the
country was growing smoother and affording fewer hiding-places from
the sharp eyes behind them. Stanley knew they must either ride through
the hills ahead or perish. He sought vainly for some break in the
great black wall of low-lying mountains toward which they were riding,
yet from what he knew of the country he hardly dared hope for one.
He had reconnoitred these hills time after time when running the
railroad lines and knew pretty well where he was. The pursuers, too,
apparently sure of their prey, rode hard, gradually lessening the
distance that separated them from the wary soldier and his companion.
The Indians had ceased yelling now. It was beyond that. But even in
his excitement and fear the inexperienced boy could not but admire the
composure and daring of his companion.
As Stanley glanced now and again back at his enraged enemies he was
every inch a soldier. And he watched the distance between the
Cheyennes and himself as coolly as if calculating a mere problem in
geometry. While saving every possible breath for his horses, he yet
managed to keep the Cheyennes at a distance. The Indians, bent on
overhauling the fleeing men before they could reach even the scant
protection of the scattered timber they were now approaching,
redoubled their efforts to cut off the escape.
Forced by the desperation of his circumstances, Stanley bent more and
more to the west of south, even though in doing so he seemed to be
getting into a more hopeless country. The veteran campaigner eyed
Bucks's horse carefully as he turned in his saddle, but Scott's wiry
beast appeared quite fresh, and Stanley, turning his eyes, again swept
the horizon for a friendly break in the black walls ahead. As he did
so he was startled to see, directly in front, Indians riding at full
speed out of the hills he was heading for. He reined his galloping
horse and turned straight into the west.
"Bucks," he exclaimed, looking with concern at the rider now by his
side, "it's a case of obey orders now. If I stop at any time, you ride
straight on--do you understand? You've got a revolver?" Bucks tapped
the big Colt at his side. "Don't let them take you alive. And hold
your last shot till a buck rides in for your scalp."
The straining horses seemed to understand the sharp words that passed
from saddle to saddle. The Indians were already within gunshot, but
too sure of their game to lose any time in shooting; nor was Stanley
willing to waste a shot upon them. As he dodged in between a broken
wall of granite and a scrubby clump of cedars, closely followed by
Bucks, their pursuers could have picked either man from his saddle.
Stanley had no longer any fixed purpose of escape. He meant merely to
dismount when he could ride no farther and sell his life as best he
could, while Bucks took such further chance of escape as his
companion's last stand might afford. The hard-driven fighter was even
looking for a well-placed rock to drop behind, when the horse plunging
under him lurched to one side of the cedars and a gulf in the walls
suddenly opened before his surprised rider.
A rotten ledge of burned granite seemed to head a mountain wash
directly in their path. There was a sheer drop of twenty feet to the
crumbling slope of disintegrated stone under the head of the draw
itself, but Stanley, without looking back, never hesitated. Urging his
panting horse, he made a flying leap down into space, and horse and
rider landed knee-deep in the soft, gravelly granite below them.
Bucks's mustang shied on the brink. He spurred him excitedly, and the
trembling beast, nerving himself, leaped far out over the ledge,
following Stanley so closely that he almost struck him with his hoofs
as he went flying over the engineer's head. Bucks rolled headlong as
his horse plunged into the loose debris. He scrambled to his feet and,
spitting the gravel from between his bruised lips, caught the bridle
of his horse as the latter righted himself.
No legs were broken and much was already gained.
"Quick!" cried Stanley. "Ride for your life!" he shouted as Bucks
regained his saddle. The two spurred at the same time and dashed down
the draw at breakneck speed just as the Indians yelling on the brink
of the ledge stopped to pour a volley after the desperate men. Unable
to land an effective shot, the Cheyennes, nothing daunted, and
hesitating only a moment, plunged over the precipice after their
quarry.
But they had lost their great advantage. The dry watercourse proved
unexpectedly good riding for the fleeing railroad men. It was a
downhill run, with their hopes rising every moment. Moreover, the draw
soon turned sharply to the south and put a big shoulder of granite
between the pursuers and the pursued. The horses of the latter were
now relieved, and the wary Stanley, riding with some reserve speed,
held his rifle ready for a stern shot should one become necessary. He
found himself riding between two almost perpendicular walls washed by
the same granite gravel into which they had plunged on the start, but
with the course again turning, to his surprise, to the east. Once,
Stanley checked the flight long enough to stop and listen, but the two
heard the active Indians clattering down the canyon after them, and
rode on and on.
As they could see by the lengthening shadow on the mountain-sides far
above them, the sun was setting.
"Cheer up," cried Stanley, who had put his companion ahead of him.
"We've got the best of them. All we need is open country."
He did not mention the chances of disaster, which were that they might
encounter an obstacle that would leave them at bay before their
tireless pursuers. Mile after mile they galloped without halting again
to see whether they were being chased. Indeed, no distance seemed too
considerable to put between them and the active war-paint in the
saddles behind.
A new turn in the canyon now revealed a wide valley opening between
the hills before them. Far below, golden in the light of the setting
sun, they saw the great eastern slope of the Black Hills spreading out
upon a beautiful plain.
Stanley swung his hat from his head with an exulting cry, and Bucks,
without quite understanding why, but assuming it the right thing to
do, yelled his loudest. On and on they rode, down a broad, spreading
ridge that led without a break from the tortuous hills behind them
into the open country far below. Stanley put full ten miles between
himself and the canyon they had ridden out of before he checked his
speed. The Indians had completely disappeared and, disappointed in
their venture, had no doubt ridden back to their fastnesses to wait
for other unwary white men. Stanley chose a little draw with good
water and grass, and night was just falling as they picketed their
exhausted horses and stretched themselves, utterly used up, on the
grass.
"We are safe until morning, anyway," announced Stanley as he threw
himself down. "And this Indian chase may be the luckiest thing that
has ever happened to me in the troublesome course of an unlucky life.
"You don't understand," continued the engineer, wiping the sweat and
dust from his tired face. Bucks admitted that he did not.
"No matter," returned his companion; "it isn't necessary now. You will
sometime. But I think I have done in the last hour something I have
been trying to do for years. Many others have likewise failed in the
same quest."
Bucks listened with growing interest.
"Yes, for years," Stanley went on, "incredible as it may sound, I have
been searching these mountains for just such a crevice as we have this
moment ridden down. You see how this range"--the exhausted engineer
stretched flat on his back, but, with burning eyes, pointed to the
formidable mountain wall that rose behind them in the dusk of the
western sky--"rises abruptly from the plains below. Our whole grade
climb for the continental divide is right here, packed into these few
miles. Neither I nor any one else has ever been able to find such a
pass as we need to get up into it. But if we have saved our scalps, my
boy, you will share with me the honor of finding the pass for the
Union Pacific Railroad over the Rocky Mountains."
They were supperless, but it was very exciting, and Bucks was
extremely happy. Stanley watched that night until twelve. When he woke
Bucks the moon was rising and the ghostly peaks in the west towered
sentinel-like above the plains flooded with silver. The two were to
move at one o'clock when the moon would be high enough to make riding
safe. It was cold, but fire was forbidden.
The horses were grazing quietly, and Bucks, examining his revolver,
which he had all the time felt he was wretchedly incompetent to shoot,
sat down beside Stanley, already fast asleep, to stand his watch. He
had lost Sublette's rifle in falling into the wash-out. At least he
had found no leisure to pick it up and save his hair in the same
instant, and he wondered now how much he should have to pay for the
rifle.
When the sun rose next morning the two horsemen were far out of the
foot-hills and bearing northeast toward camp--so far had their ride
for life taken them from their hunting ground. They scanned the
horizon at intervals, with some anxiety, for Indians, and again with
the hope of sighting their missing guide. Once they saw a distant herd
of buffalo, and Bucks experienced a shock until assured by Stanley
that the suspicious objects were neither Cheyennes nor Sioux.
By nine o'clock they had found the transcontinental telegraph line and
had a sure trail to follow until they discovered the grade stakes of
the railroad, and soon descried the advance-guard of the graders busy
with plough and shovel and scraper. As they rode into camp the very
first man to emerge from Casement's tent, with his habitual smile, was
Bob Scott.
Casement himself, who had heard Scott's story when the latter had come
in at daybreak, was awaiting Stanley's return with anxiety, but this
was all forgotten in the great news Stanley brought. Sublette and
Scott now returned to the hunting camp for the cavalry detail, and,
reinforced by these, the two heroes of the long flight rode back to
reconnoitre their escape from the mountains. Bucks rode close to Bob
Scott and learned how the scout had outwitted his assailants at the
canyon, and how after they had all ridden out of it, he had ridden
into it and retraced with safety in the night the path that the
hunters had followed in riding into the hill country.
The second ride through the long defile, which itself was now the
object of so much intense inspection, Bucks found much less exciting
than the first. The party even rode up to where the first flying leap
had been made, and to Bucks's joy found Sublette's rifle still in the
wash; it had been overlooked by the Indians.
What surprised Bucks most was to find how many hours it took to cover
the ground that Stanley and he had negotiated in seemingly as many
minutes.