How long Tolly Trevor remained in a state of horrified surprise no one
can tell, for he was incapable of observation at the time, besides being
alone. On returning to consciousness he found himself galloping towards
the exploded fortress at full speed, and did not draw rein till he
approached the bank of the rivulet. Reflecting that a thoroughbred
hunter could not clear the stream, even in daylight, he tried to pull
up, but his horse refused. It had run away with him.
Although constitutionally brave, the boy felt an unpleasant sensation of
some sort as he contemplated the inevitable crash that awaited him; for,
even if the horse should perceive his folly and try to stop on reaching
the bank, the tremendous pace attained would render the attempt futile.
"Stop! won't you? Wo-o-o!" cried Tolly, straining at the reins till the
veins of his neck and forehead seemed about to burst.
But the horse would neither "stop" nor "wo-o-o!" It was otherwise,
however, with the pony. That amiable creature had been trained well,
and had learned obedience. Blessed quality! Would that the human
race--especially its juvenile section--understood better the value of
that inestimable virtue! The pony began to pull back at the sound of
"wo!" Its portion in childhood had probably been woe when it refused to
recognise the order. The result was that poor Tolly's right arm, over
which was thrown the pony's rein, had to bear the strain of conflicting
opinions.
A bright idea struck his mind at this moment. Bright ideas always do
strike the mind of genius at critical moments! He grasped both the
reins of his steed in his right hand, and took a sudden turn of them
round his wrist. Then he turned about--not an instant too soon--looked
the pony straight in the face, and said "Wo!" in a voice of command that
was irresistible. The pony stopped at once, stuck out its fore legs,
and was absolutely dragged a short way over the ground. The strain on
Tolly's arm was awful, but the arm was a stout one, though small. It
stood the strain, and the obstinate runaway was arrested on the brink of
destruction with an almost broken jaw.
The boy slipped to the ground and hastily fastened the steeds to a tree.
Even in that hour of supreme anxiety he could not help felicitating
himself on the successful application of pony docility to horsey
self-will.
But these and all other feelings of humour and satisfaction were
speedily put to flight when, after crossing the remains of the plank
bridge with some difficulty, he stood before the hideous wreck of his
friend's late home, where he had spent so many glad hours listening to
marvellous adventures from Paul Bevan, or learning how to read and
cipher, as well as drinking in wisdom generally, from the Rose of
Oregon.
It was an awful collapse. A yawning gulf had been driven into the
earth, and the hut--originally a solid structure--having been hurled
bodily skyward, shattered to atoms, and inextricably mixed in its parts,
had come down again into the gulf as into a ready-made grave.
It would be vain to search for any sort of letter, sign, or
communication from his friends among the _debris_. Tolly felt that at
once, yet he could not think of leaving without a search. After one
deep and prolonged sigh he threw off his lethargy, and began a close
inspection of the surroundings.
"You see," he muttered to himself, as he moved quickly yet stealthily
about, "they'd never have gone off without leavin' some scrap of
information for me, to tell me which way they'd gone, even though they'd
gone off in a lightnin' hurry. But p'raps they didn't. The reptiles
may have comed on 'em unawares, an' left 'em no time to do anything. Of
_course_ they can't have killed 'em. Nobody ever could catch Paul Bevan
asleep--no, not the sharpest redskin in the land. That's quite out o'
the question."
Though out of the question, however, the bare thought of such a
catastrophe caused little Trevor's under lip to tremble, a mist to
obscure his vision, and a something-or-other to fill his throat, which
he had to swallow with a gulp. Moreover, he went back to the ruined hut
and began to pull about the wreck with a fluttering heart, lest he
should come on some evidence that his friends had been murdered. Then
he went to the highest part of the rock to rest a little, and consider
what had best be done next.
While seated there, gazing on the scene of silent desolation, which the
pale moonlight rendered more ghastly, the poor boy's spirit failed him a
little. He buried his face in his hands and burst into tears.
Soon this weakness, as he deemed it, passed away. He dried his eyes,
roughly, and rose to resume his search, and it is more than probable
that he would ere long have bethought him of the cave where Betty had
left her note, if his attention had not been suddenly arrested by a
faint glimmer of ruddy light in a distant part of the forest. The
robbers were stirring up their fires, and sending a tell-tale glow into
the sky.
"O-ho!" exclaimed Tolly Trevor.
He said nothing more, but there was a depth of meaning in the tone and
look accompanying that "O-ho!" which baffles description.
Tightening his belt, he at once glided down the slope, flitted across
the rivulet, skimmed over the open space, and melted into the forest
after the most approved method of Red Indian tactics.
The expedition from which he had just returned having been peaceful,
little Trevor carried no warlike weapons--for the long bowie-knife at
his side, and the little hatchet stuck in his girdle, were, so to speak,
merely domestic implements, without which he never moved abroad. But as
war was not his object, the want of rifle and revolver mattered little.
He soon reached the neighbourhood of the robbers' fire, and, when close
enough to render extreme caution necessary, threw himself flat on the
ground and advanced a la "snake-in-the-grass."
Presently he came within earshot, and listened attentively, though
without much interest, to a deal of boastful small talk with which the
marauders beguiled the time, while they fumigated their mouths and noses
preparatory to turning in for the night.
At last the name of Paul Bevan smote his ear, causing it,
metaphorically, to go on full cock.
"I'm sartin sure," said one of the speakers, "that the old screw has
gone right away to Simpson's Gully."
"If I thought that, I'd follow him up, and make a dash at the Gully
itself," said Stalker, plucking a burning stick from the fire to
rekindle his pipe.
"If you did you'd get wopped," remarked Goff, with a touch of sarcasm,
for the lieutenant of the band was not so respectful to his commander as
a well-disciplined man should be.
"What makes you think so?" demanded the chief.
"The fact that the diggers are a sight too many for us," returned Goff.
"Why, we'd find 'em three to one, if not four."
"Well, that, coupled with the uncertainty of his having gone to
Simpson's Gully," said the chief, "decides me to make tracks down south
to the big woods on the slopes of the Sawback Hills. There are plenty
of parties travelling thereabouts with lots of gold, boys, and
difficulties enough in the way of hunting us out o' the stronghold.
I'll leave you there for a short time and make a private excursion to
Simpson's Gully, to see if my enemy an' the beautiful Betty are there."
"An' get yourself shot or stuck for your pains," said Goff. "Do you
suppose that such a hulking, long-legged fellow as you are, can creep
into a camp like an or'nary man without drawin' attention?"
"Perhaps not," returned Stalker; "but are there not such things as
disguises? Have you not seen me with my shootin'-coat and botanical box
an' blue spectacles, an' my naturally sandy hair."
"No, no, captain!" cried Goff, with a laugh, "not sandy; say yellow, or
golden."
"Well, golden, then, if you will. You've seen it dyed black, haven't
you?"
"Oh yes! I've seen you in these humblin' circumstances before now,"
returned the lieutenant, "and I must say your own mother wouldn't know
you. But what's the use o' runnin' the risk, captain?"
"Because I owe Bevan a grudge!" said the chief, sternly, "and mean to be
revenged on him. Besides, I want the sweet Betty for a wife, and intend
to have her, whether she will or no. She'll make a capital bandit's
wife--after a little while, when she gets used to the life. So now you
know some of my plans, and you shall see whether the hulking botanist
won't carry all before him."
"O-ho!" muttered the snake-in-the-grass, very softly; and there was
something so compound and significant in the tone of that second "O-ho!"
soft though it was, that it not only baffles description, but--really,
you know, it would be an insult to your understanding, good reader, to
say more in the way of explanation! There was also a heaving of the
snake's shoulders, which, although unaccompanied by sound, was eminently
suggestive.
Feeling that he had by that time heard quite enough, Tolly Trevor
effected a masterly retreat, and returned to the place where he had left
the horses. On the way he recalled with satisfaction the fact that Paul
Bevan had once pointed out to him the exact direction of Simpson's Gully
at a time when he meant to send him on an errand thither. "You've on'y
to go over there, lad," Paul had said, pointing towards the forest in
rear of his hut, "and hold on for two days straight as the crow flies
till you come to it. You can't well miss it."
Tolly knew that there was also an easier though longer route by the
plains, but as he was not sure of it he made up his mind to take to the
forest.
The boy was sufficiently trained in woodcraft to feel pretty confident
of finding his way, for he knew the north side of trees by their bark,
and could find out the north star when the sky was clear, besides
possessing a sort of natural aptitude for holding on in a straight line.
He mounted the obstinate horse, therefore, took the rein of the
obedient pony on his right arm, and, casting a last look of profound
regret on Bevan's desolated homestead, rode swiftly away. So eager was
he that he took no thought for the morrow. He knew that the wallet
slung at his saddle-bow contained a small supply of food--as much,
probably, as would last three days with care. That was enough to render
Tolly Trevor the most independent and careless youth in Oregon.
While these events were occurring in the neighbourhood of Bevan's Gully,
three red men, in all the glory of vermilion, charcoal, and feathers,
were stalking through the forest in the vicinity of the spot where poor
Tom Brixton had laid him down to die. These children of the wilderness
stalked in single file--from habit we presume, for there was ample space
for them to have walked abreast if so inclined. They seemed to be
unsociable beings, for they also stalked in solemn silence.
Suddenly the first savage came to an abrupt pause, and said, "Ho!" the
second savage said, "He!" and the third said, "Hi!" After which, for
full a minute, they stared at the ground in silent wonder and said
nothing. They had seen a footprint! It did not by any means resemble
that deep, well developed, and very solitary footprint at which Robinson
Crusoe is wont to stare in nursery picture-books. No; it was a print
which was totally invisible to ordinary eyes, and revealed itself to
these children of the woods in the form of a turned leaf and a cracked
twig. Such as it was, it revealed a track which the three children
followed up until they found Tom Brixton--or his body--lying on the
ground near to the little spring.
Again these children said, "Ho!" "He!" and "Hi!" respectively, in
varying tones according to their varied character. Then they commenced
a jabber, which we are quite unable to translate, and turned Tom over on
his back. The motion awoke him, for he sat up and stared.
Even that effort proved too much for him in his weak state, for he fell
back and fainted.
The Indians proved to be men of promptitude. They lifted the white man
up; one got Tom's shoulders on his back, another put his legs over his
shoulders, and thus they stalked away with him. When the first child of
the wood grew tired, the unburdened one stepped in to his relief; when
the second child grew tired, the first one went to his aid; when all the
children grew tired, they laid their burden on the ground and sat down
beside it. Thus, by easy stages, was Tom Brixton conveyed away from the
spot where he had given himself up as hopelessly lost.
Now, it could not have been more than six hours after Tom had thus been
borne away that poor Tolly Trevor came upon the same scene. We say
"poor" advisedly, for he had not only suffered the loss of much
fragmentary clothing in his passage through that tangled wood, but also
most of the food with which he had started, and a good deal of skin from
his shins, elbows, knuckles, and knees, as well as the greater part of
his patience. Truly, he was in a pitiable plight, for the forest had
turned out to be almost impassable for horses, and in his journey he had
not only fallen off, and been swept out of the saddle by overhanging
branches frequently, but had to swim swamps, cross torrents, climb
precipitous banks, and had stuck in quagmires innumerable.
As for the horses--their previous owner could not have recognised them.
It is true they were what is styled "all there," but there was an
inexpressible droop of their heads and tails, a weary languor in their
eyes, and an abject waggle about their knees which told of hope deferred
and spirit utterly gone. The pony was the better of the two. Its
sprightly glance of amiability had changed into a gaze of humble
resignation, whereas the aspect of the obstinate horse was one of
impotent ill-nature. It would have bitten, perhaps, if strength had
permitted, but as to its running away--ha!
Well, Tolly Trevor approached--it could hardly be said he rode up to--
the spring before mentioned, where he passed the footprints in stupid
blindness.
He dismounted, however, to drink and rest a while.
"Come on--you brute!" he cried, almost savagely, dragging the horse to
the water.
The creature lowered its head and gazed as though to say, "What liquid
is that?"
As the pony, however, at once took a long and hearty draught it also
condescended to drink, while Tolly followed suit. Afterwards he left
the animals to graze, and sat down under a neighbouring tree to rest and
swallow his last morsel of food.
It was sad to see the way in which the poor boy carefully shook out and
gathered up the few crumbs in his wallet so that not one of them should
be lost; and how slowly he ate them, as if to prolong the sensation of
being gratified! During the two days which he had spent in the forest
his face had grown perceptibly thinner, and his strength had certainly
diminished. Even the reckless look of defiant joviality, which was one
of the boy's chief characteristics, had given place to a restless
anxiety that prevented his seeing humour in anything, and induced a
feeling of impatience when a joke chanced irresistibly to bubble up in
his mind. He was once again reduced almost to the weeping point, but
his sensations were somewhat different for, when he had stood gazing at
the wreck of Bevan's home, the nether lip had trembled because of the
sorrows of friends, whereas now he was sorrowing because of an exhausted
nature, a weakened heart, and a sinking spirit. But the spirit had not
yet utterly given way!
"Come!" he cried, starting up. "This won't do, Tolly. Be a man! Why,
only think--you have got over two days and two nights. That was the
time allowed you by Paul, so your journey's all but done--must be. Of
course those brutes--forgive me, pony, _that_ brute, I mean--has made me
go much slower than if I had come on my own legs, but notwithstanding,
it cannot be--hallo! what's that!"
The exclamation had reference to a small dark object which lay a few
yards from the spot on which he sat. He ran and picked it up. It was
Tom Brixton's cap--with his name rudely written on the lining. Beside
it lay a piece of bark on which was pencil-writing.
With eager, anxious haste the boy began to peruse it, but he was
unaccustomed to read handwriting, and when poor Tom had pencilled the
lines his hand was weak and his brain confused, so that the characters
were doubly difficult to decipher. After much and prolonged effort the
boy made out the beginning. It ran thus:
"This is probably the last letter that I, Tom Brixton, shall ever write.
(I put down my name now, in case I never finish it.) O dearest
mother!--"
Emotion had no doubt rendered the hand less steady at this point, for
here the words were quite illegible--at least to little Trevor--who
finally gave up the attempt in despair. The effect of this discovery,
however, was to send the young blood coursing wildly through the veins,
so that a great measure of strength returned, as if by magic.
The boy's first care was naturally to look for traces of the lost man,
and he set about this with a dull fear at his heart, lest at any moment
he should come upon the dead body of his friend. In a few minutes he
discovered the track made by the Indians, which led him to the spot near
to the spring where Tom had fallen. To his now fully-awakened senses
Trevor easily read the story, as far as signs could tell it.
Brixton had been all but starved to death. He had lain down under a
tree to die--the very tree under which he himself had so recently given
way to despair. While lying there he--Brixton--had scrawled his last
words on the bit of birch-bark. Then he had tried to reach the spring,
but had fainted either before reaching it or after leaving. This he
knew, because the mark of Tom's coat, part of his waist-belt and the
handle of his bowie-knife were all impressed on the softish ground with
sufficient distinctness to be discerned by a sharp eye. The moccasined
footprints told of Indians having found Brixton--still alive, for they
would not have taken the trouble to carry him off if he had been dead.
The various sizes of the moccasined feet told that the party of Indians
numbered three; and the trail of the red men, with its occasional
halting-places, pointed out clearly the direction in which they had
gone. Happily this was also the direction in which little Trevor was
going.
Of course the boy did not read this off as readily as we have written it
all down. It cost him upwards of an hour's patient research; but when
at last he did arrive at the result of his studies he wasted no time in
idle speculation. His first duty was to reach Simpson's Gully, discover
his friend Paul Bevan, and deliver to him the piece of birch-bark he had
found, and the information he had gleaned.
By the time Tolly had come to this conclusion his horse and pony had
obtained both rest and nourishment enough to enable them to raise their
drooping heads and tails an inch or two, so that when the boy mounted
the former with some of his old dash and energy, it shook its head, gave
a short snort, and went off at a fair trot.
Fortunately the ground improved just beyond this point, opening out into
park-like scenery, which, in another mile or two, ran into level prairie
land. This Trevor knew from description was close to the mountain
range, in which lay the gully he was in quest of. The hope which had
begun to rise increased, and communicating itself, probably by
sympathetic electricity, to the horse, produced a shuffling gallop,
which ere long brought them to a clump of wood. On rounding this they
came in sight of the longed-for hills.
Before nightfall Simpson's Gully was reached, and little Trevor was
directed to the tent of Paul Bevan, who had arrived there only the day
before.
"It's a strange story, lad," said Paul, after the boy had run rapidly
over the chief points of the news he had to give, to which Betty, Fred,
and Flinders sat listening with eager interest.
"We must be off to search for him without delay," said Fred Westly,
rising.
"It's right ye are, sor," cried Flinders, springing up. "Off to-night
an' not a moment to lose."
"We'll talk it over first, boys," said Paul. "Come with me. I've a
friend in the camp as'll help us."
"Did you not bring the piece of bark?" asked Betty of the boy, as the
men went out.
"Oh! I forgot. Of course I did," cried Trevor, drawing it from his
breast-pocket. "The truth is I'm so knocked up that I scarce know what
I'm about."
"Lie down here on this deer-skin, poor boy, and rest while I read it."
Tolly Trevor flung himself on the rude but welcome couch, and almost
instantly fell asleep, while Betty Bevan, spreading the piece of
birch-bark on her knee, began to spell out the words and try to make
sense of Tom Brixton's last epistle.