THE GOLD GRABBERS.
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 am _half 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!"