THE RED RIVER HALF-BREEDS.
Whilst Ranald and Filditch reposed, the more restless trappers went out
reconnoitring all the day.
There was a rising wind, which boomed in the hollows, rattled the loose
stones, and soughed among the ice coated boughs.
Their first find was the lodgement of the Crow Indians. For over twenty
hours these had remained in a fireless camp in a gulch eastward, living
on "cold bites," so as not to betray themselves, and sending out no
scouts till the recent snow should be hardened.
At half past five in the morning, Cherokee Bill had heard a murmur in
this camp, like that of the bees in swarming, and thus it was pointed
out. The two crept as near as they dared. They could distinguish the
forms of the more prominent leaders as they drilled their followers,
and could recognise the head chief.
It was Ahnemekee--noted, though young. He was bold, vain of his good
looks and long hair, and very rapacious. His people esteemed him a
hero; but the frontiersmen set him down as one of the biggest thieves
in creation--which, by the way, is much the same thing. Ahnemekee made
a speech to his troop, rather at length, and with a confident bearing.
The two beholders conjectured, from the gestures, that he was planning
an attack on a grand scale. The subchiefs, having also addressed their
bands, a war whistle sounded the order to depart, and all the warriors
left the camp, except a strong guard over their few horses. Being
Mountain Crows, they were accustomed to fight on foot.
The two hunters had no more to learn there; but, by following the first
party, whose trail they came upon, they soon judged whither they all
converged; and running on in advance, by a wide circuit to the same
point, they discovered an encampment, and thereby the cause of the
hymns in the midnight.
At first sight, it looked like a caravan of emigrants. There were
carts, waggons, horses, oxen, mules, and even sheep, calves, and pigs.
The guardians of this valuable train, so far up in the mountains, were
nearly a hundred in number. There were many women, about the same age,
but few or no children; and, coming to examine closely, while the
men were all of an age, also, their dark tint was quite contrary to
the complexion of their charges. The conveyances showed a variety of
construction and brands, which showed to the acute scouts that it was
no legitimate grouping, but rather a conglomeration of spoil from a
raid on the edge of civilisation.
"It will be dog eating dog," observed the Yager; "for here is the
target of 'the Thunderbolt.' What do you make them out to be?"
"Red River Half-breeds," answered Bill--"_Bob Rulies_, sure as a gun.
The Crows will have a tough dinner to tackle if they trouble them!"
"Bob Ruly" is a burlesque pronunciation of _Bois Brulé_, or "burnt
wood;" that is to say, men of the colour of the red of a fire stick
between the black end and the unfired portion. It is applied to the
Half-breeds of Canada, French and Indian, who refused to accept their
transference under the Anglo-French treaty of 1763 to the English
flag, and withdrew to the west. Their realm of retirement, called the
Red River Territory, or Manitoba, is geographically in the British
Dominion; but they flourished there in freedom till the development
of Canada, and the project of a North Pacific Railway compelled the
Canadian Government to enforce their submission. At this time, it was
supposed that the Bois Brulés would maintain their independence, if
more or less helped by American adventurers, until the intervention of
the United States would confirm it, preliminary to their absorption
into the Great Republic. No one foresaw that the British troops, under
Sir Garnet Wolseley, would quickly suppress the rebels, and that
the United States Civil War would direct the Washington statesmen's
attention elsewhere.
The Bois Brulés, through their Indian blood, are friendly with many
northwestern tribes; and, being good trappers, and gay and easygoing
spirits, keep on pleasant terms with the white rovers.
"Tell 'ee what, chief," said Ridge, after prolonged observation,
"they're a band of villains there! Either they have been robbing, or
they are consignees of plunder. If it were not for those poor women,
whom anyone can tell are prisoners, I should cheer the Crows on to 'em!"
"Yes; Ahnemekee is a murderous thief--he thinks nothing of killing
women and babes--a bad Indian, Jim! He must not be let have his way
here!"
"We must hold a 'medicine council,'" continued the Old Man of the
Mountain; "so back to our friends!"
They had to take their return route with more caution than in coming,
since the Crows were no doubt at hand. But their intimate knowledge of
the ground enabled them to avoid any contact. Thanks to the detour they
traced, and to the infinite pains with which they scanned every square
yard of the scene, they perceived that a small party had come to a halt
in the rocks. These were not Blackfeet; and they thought at the first
that they might be the Crows, of whose presence Filditch's moccasin had
given an intimation. In any case, they crept up to the shallow dug out
den in the side of a shale and sandstone cliff, and, when the faces
were distinguishable, rose out of the cover, and boldly went forward,
waving their open right hands in token of peaceful intentions.
Indeed, the group of seven men was friendly. Two more were collecting
wood for a fire, luckily for them not yet burning.
It was the remnant of Sir Archie Maclan's hapless expedition.
Usually, a meeting place at a distance is agreed upon by a troop, in
order that, after dispersal by an attack, the rally may be made for a
reprisal or to affording a strong front in retreat. This precaution had
not been taken by the English gentleman's heterogenous company. Still,
by some natural law prevailing in the wilderness, the few who escaped
the savages had come together. Lame, weaponless, imperfectly clothed,
driven to eat roots painfully scratched out of the frozen soil, they
regarded the two trappers as almost superhuman, glowing, as they were,
with health, and formidably armed, and quite at home in the desolation.
At their first words--thanks to Ranald's account of the disaster--the
newcomers knew with whom they had to deal. These were, save one (a
Surcee Indian), the Scotch hunters. Though the Hudson's Bay Company men
are instructed to show no cordiality towards free trappers in actual
practice, they usually hobnob when they meet. Here, as Jim Ridge at
once promised them supplies if they would accompany him to a _cache_,
the fraternisation was speedily perfect, and when Cherokee Bill, bound
to the mountain home to bring back Ridge's nephew and Mr. Dearborn,
left the rejoicing fugitives, they were toasting the Old Yager in
trading whisky, and vowing to follow him to the edge of the Firehole
Basin, and then over.
Two hours afterwards, the Cherokee returned with the whites, and
the reception of Ranald was hilarious by his comrades, now equipped
and crammed to repletion. Whilst these lost ones "_found_ in every
comfort," as they said, were still recompensing themselves for their
sufferings in the unconstrained mode of the desert, the chiefs of this
now redoubtable band conferred on the plan of action.
Filditch was alone his own master, and placed himself at his relative's
orders; Cherokee Bill judged that the "old hoss knew best;" Ranald,
freely appointed leader of the Scotch contingent, offered their
services as blindly, and Jim had only to debate with himself.
"Gentlemen," said he, "that either the Crows or the Bob Rulies should
slaughter one another in a fight is no item for my book. But those
white women are innocent creatures, wives, and sisters, I daresay,
of poor settlers, who are now lamenting their unknown fate. We are
not numerous enough to match either band now, but when they thin one
another out with a general shoot, one vigorous charge might place the
captives in our hands. When we so charge Bill will look to the horses;
and once we can ride off, I answer for a safe haven for the whole
_cahoot_ (cohort) in a nest in the mountains. Woe to any that follow
us, for I am conceited on not letting Tom, Dick, and Harry collect on
my front doorstep. Is that a good notion, brothers?"
"It will do."
"Then look to your guns, whet your knives, and all be ready to march."
In half an hour the start was made, the men being allowed to finish
their pipes as they proceeded in single file. Down sloping ground,
Ridge led them into a valley, where an unseen river gurgled like a pond
of sunfish. A beaver dam had intercepted this flow, but the beaver
meadow was one sheet of perfectly unruffled ice, under which the
running water could be seen by the bubbles at the airholes. Like so
many schoolboys, the men, with a start down the bank, shot themselves
across this expanse to the wood of tender trees among the stumps cut
by the industrious natural engineer. Here Cherokee Bill took the head
of the Indian file. For twenty minutes the string of men advanced in
absolute quiet, forbearing to snap a dry twig, dislodge a stone, or
crush the ice crust. Bill guided them so skilfully that they were
always well sheltered, till finally they came out into a hodgepodge of
boulders in a sand black and fine as gunpowder, resembling the remains
of bones and vegetables in a giant's stew kettle out of which he had
drained the broth. It occupied the centre of the end of the beaver
meadow, and protected the rivulet channel.
It was the halting post, and a more unscalable and defensible position
it were difficult to select. Under them in front the level ground
extended where the Bois Brulés' caravan had been drawn through,
hindrances which any but western wagoners would deem insurmountable.
The hunters were shielded on all sides, and invisible. On the white
patches of snow they descried the unsuspecting red men leisurely
nearing the palisades of the Canadians to take up position for the
storming. The stockade showed that the Half-breeds intended no move,
and as Indians almost never attack in darkness, the little force on
observation placidly lay down to await their cue to intervene.
Streaks of fog and a dull greyish yellow cloudbank closed in the
setting sun. In the night the wolves called to one another, and seemed,
in their language, to exchange information on the movements of so many
men in the solitude, and laughed at the prospect of carnage on the
morrow.
When the moon shone wan and cold, it not only was adorned with a livid
snow ring, but was accompanied by four "dogs," or weird images of its
pale self, which made the superstitious red men shudder. As for the
whites, hardy as the Scotch-American becomes, they luxuriated under the
blankets and furs which Jim Ridge had generously offered, and mocked
at the glacial chill of the morning frost. A few showers of fine ice,
rather than snow, fell on the lookouts of the mountain men's "fort,"
of the Crows and of the Canadians, suffering with the feverish wakeful
sleepiness to which soldiers, seamen, and hunters are subjected at the
worst stage in the darkest and coldest hours of dawn.
At length stripes of pallid gold and blue announced a sunless day. None
but a snow owl saluted it, and that was a sneering, melancholy hoot
borne on the gusty breeze, laden with sleet, ice, and sand.
The twilight was of a milky opal hue, which concentrated in a midair
layer, while the ground air cleared up and allowed a tolerably extended
view. It seemed an ominous pall over the threatened camps.
Suddenly a vivid glare reddened the plain. A war drum thundered, and
the Crow war whoop furiously resounded.
Ahnemekee's war whistle piped his band on with piercing notes.