THE MOUNTAIN MAN IS REINFORCED.
The Piegan captains remained squatted at the council fire, thoughtfully
smoking.
After directing Doña Rosario, for this was the young lady whom he had
saved from the Manitobans' clutches, to be attended to in a hut placed
wholly at her service, Cherokee Bill wrapped himself up in buffalo
robes to steam himself dry and drive away rheumatism. The others
respected his curative withdrawal from the conversational circle, but
evinced some anxiety lest his catching cold should spoil his voice.
The way things had come about was thus:--
We know that it was arranged that Doña Rosario should be put in the
pannier of a riding mule, so that the party of gold seekers might
travel by a straighter road. Meanwhile, Filditch and Williams were
hovering about them as closely as they dared, cautiously exchanging
brief confidence with Joe and Dearborn up to the critical moment. Then
the Spanish girl was to be aided by the two friends of Ridge.
The plan was so simple and infallible, that the girl gleefully adopted
it.
Soon after the second day's start in this order, whilst the mule was
yet fresh, Filditch and his companion sprang on two outriders and
pulled them to the ground. Unfortunately, Foxface, whom the Californian
had thrown, was up again like lightning and encumbered the other as he
was trying to mount in the warm saddle. The result was, that Bill was
on horseback and riding alone at the point in the file where he could
take Rosario's mule by the bridle.
It is true Filditch kicked the man away, but the delay was fatal. He
was compelled to plunge into the woods at the side of the ravine where
this occurred, or be the target for twenty rifle shots.
During this the Cherokee had executed his project. Thanks to his whoop,
which set the animals curveting, and the increase in the confusion
due to Joe, Leon, and Ranald, no one could get an effectual shot at
the abductor of the young girl as the two dived in at a gap in the
underwood.
But there was too much of a good thing. Rosario's mule was not alone in
attraction towards the coquettish mare which the Cherokee had stolen.
A number of the animals set up a cry at the mare's whinny, and for a
moment the stampede threatened to be general. To be left without a
hoof under them in the wild woods is the worst fate known to men like
Kidd's command. They flew to work with superhuman activity, daring, and
strength, and secured most of the frenzied animals. Still, a dozen had
tailed off after Bill and the girl, very deeply to his disgust. But the
only thing was to move on with the torrent of horseflesh of his own
originating. In time they could be beguiled into a steep path, where,
by dragging Rosario into a niche, the rest would hurl themselves by and
be gone irreturnably.
Here, again, calculations were upset by the Half-breeds on their way to
rendezvous with Kidd at the fixed place.
Bill saw them only in time to take a new course. But Dagard and a few
of the better mounted started off after the straggling line, of which
they at once cut off two or three hindmost. But the others freshened
up at being so harried, and the kind of wild hunt continued hotter
than ever. The thunder of the added coursers continually reminded the
Cherokee that these woodsmen were not easily to be outridden and thrown
off so broad a track.
"Are you brave?" inquired he of the girl, flushed and excited by the
mad gallop.
"I do not know, judged by your measure," she replied; "but there's
one thing sure, I would sooner kill myself than fall again into those
ruffians' power."
"That's the true talk? By the way, have a knife," he said, putting a
sheath dagger into her hand as if he were offering a bonbon to a child.
"You may want it, though I fancy you have no great shakes to fear. I am
responsible for you."
"Thank you. I believe in you."
The flight continued, only that the Canadians, being less wearied,
gained like a whirlwind on a fleeing wayfarer.
Cherokee Bill had his Winchester "fourteen shoot" and a brace of heavy
revolvers--a portable magazine.
"Keep on galloping," said he, "smack into the running water. You shall
have a warm-up beyond. I reckon it will also be hot enough here!"
So saying he blazed away at the Half-breeds for six shots. Down went
the men out of the saddles, the rest being terrified by the accuracy of
aim and the long, killing range. Meanwhile Bill and the girl effected
the crossing and came upon the plain where the Piegans were encamped.
The reader knows the sequel. For the nonce Doña Rosario was safe.
The day advanced, and yet the Cherokee seemed loth to check his
contemplation of mental pictures. Red Knife made up his mind to begin
the talking.
"Are the ears of my father open?" he asked.
Bill had become a father for wisdom after having been a brother for
valour.
"What is my son's desire?" was the counter query.
"The Piegans want the Cherokee sage's advice."
"The Piegans are boys of mine at my knee. Speak away."
"The Raven is a wise bird--a bird that scents a battlefield from afar.
He flies straight to the mark. As the coyotes and wolves join to track
the deer, so the bad whites and mixed bloods join to take hold of the
red man's territory. What is my father's opinion on this? What ought
the redskins to do when the mine robbers threaten to invade the holy
ground of the Basin of Fire?"
Without replying in words, the Cherokee looked about him. In one spot
a chalky seam cropping out was soaked with blood from the butchered
game. He pointed to the white earth on one side of the red stain, and
then scratched the soft substance up with his fingernail. But to scrape
the blood-caked chalk, hardened into stone, he was forced to use his
hunting knife. He took up a handful of the soft dust and slowly let it
fall through his open fingers.
"This dust is the Indians, uncemented by their blood; they are grains
that a child's breath could spin into the river. United by blood,
a block is formed which turns the edge of a knife. Do my brothers
comprehend?"
"I do," answered Red Knife. "The Raven of the Cherokee counsels us
to be one. Before now we have done the same, and waged war. Perhaps,
had not some weaklings and traitors fallen away, a great and lasting
victory would have been ours. But our enemies are powerful as they are.
What if the white trappers and hunters unite with these Canadians and
the Men of Montana?"
"You need not fear that. Oil and water do not blend."
"But the Old Man of the Mountain, the friend of the Cherokee, would he
not come to the aid of the Piegans?" asked the chief, subtly.
"But the white trapper is alone--" began Bill.
"He may be alone at this hour, but my spies speak of the lone trappers
converging to join him. Does not the Cherokee know--his moccasins have
crossed the traces of theirs?"
"I know what I know. The Old Man has no secrets from his brother. The
trappers are massing, that's a fact."
"To what end? Will he guide the gold seekers into the Enchanted Valley,
where the holy fire rages, which my father has drank."
"No. Jim Ridge loves the Yellowstone--he does not want a whole
_caboodle_ of scourings to be poured into its lovely glades and
peaceful parts, where the fawns come up and lick your hands."
"Ah! Does the old Yager wish the help of the Piegans to keep off the
whites? Is his Cherokee mate sent to ask that help?" came from the Red
Knife, in a coaxing voice.
"Lor', no," responded Bill, coldly. "On the other hand, the old man
never refused help to an Indian who played him fair. Many a poor
wretch, frozen out, has been succoured by him--more than fed, mark you;
clothed in fine fur, and given a gun and powder and ball, with the
promise only understood that he should not use them on any of Jim's
colour. But never has he craved any return for what he has done. That's
his style, chief. What the Raven says is dictated by the friendly
spirit in his very bones, with which his mother tempered them. He has
no mission from anyone. But still, if to drive away these gold thirsty
dogs, ay, and to crush them, the Piegans want the trapper's help, who
entertains no kindly feelings for the disgraces to their race, then
find out whether he will give it. It is a sachem that you have heard.
Ponder over his words."
Bill rose and retired to a tent made ready for him. He was left alone
to recruit till about sunrise, when the chiefs flocked round his tent
door with all the ceremony laid down by Indian etiquette. The medicine
man hallowed the tent, so that they could hold a council smoke, and
this was Red Knife's proposal:
"After considering the words of the Cherokee chief, the headmen of the
Piegans have come to this conclusion: _Quorinnah_ is a wise man; he
knows that only boys and squaws, having no keenness or experience like
trained men, who have made their mark, set about things unthinkingly,
and with no conception of their extent. The Piegans do not ask in this
fashion, being men of war. The chief, subchief, captains, and big
braves of the nation have resolved to say this: The Cherokee chief
loves his brothers, the Blackfeet. His heart is red, and prompts him to
speak good counsel, and that counsel has been debated on. It is true
the Old Man of the Mountain has punished trap robbers and ravagers of
the _cachés_, and that he has given shot for shot when fired on. But
if he has shed blood, he, too, has had his blood spilt. Let the rock
moss and the desert sands drink the blood up of both foe and friend
of ours, and say no more about it. On the other hand, the Yager has
helped many a naked, starved, gunless Indian about the Yellowstone,
and on the highland slope. He has defended the Enchanted Valley, and
never has he offered men to guide his white brethren within its bounds
of fire and steam and smoke. He is alone, yet he does not need help.
But we do. Never in our memory, or on the painted books of the tribe
history in the sacred lodge, have so many evil men been covering the
wilderness. Lo! The buffalo and the bear are driven away by the reek
of strange campfires, and the birds hurry from the uproar of carouses.
The Raven of the Cherokees speaks true. He comes on no errand from
the Great White Trapper. But the Piegans, proud to have the slayer of
six-at-full-gallop-under-their-own-eyes as their guest, claim a service
of him: the chiefs desire to see the Yager of the Yellowstone. Did
they know where to meet him, they would go forth in their best clothes
to greet him; but the Mountain Man is a great hunter--he disguises
his trail neatly, and his fort is an undiscoverable refuge. But the
Cherokee chief knows where his friend abides, and he will go to him,
and say, 'Old Man of the Mountain, your sons the Piegans have a weight
on the heart, a skin over their eyes--they beseech your help, with the
wondrous gun that sends death so far and so true. Come to their aid
against their enemies, who are yours; come quick; let your presence
console and make joy displace the grief that eats up their heart.'"
Bill did not in the faintest believe in the more than temporary
sincerity of the speaker, but he spoke so feelingly, that he joined in
the murmur of applause which hailed the final words.
"The saying of my brother, the renowned of the Piegans, ring sweetly in
my ear," returned the Cherokee half-breed. "What the Piegans wish, the
Raven will do this night. Away goes the cloud on my brother's heart!
Leaving the young paleface girl in his brother's keep, the Raven will
fly. I have spoken all that is in me."
"The young paleface maiden is not here, we see only a sister of the
Piegans," answered Red Knife, nobly. "She is in the shadow of the totem
pole of the tribe, her head is pillowed on the ark of the Blackfeet
Piegans. No danger shall befall her, though the Cherokee chief stayed
away till the moon and stars fell out of the sky, and the sun burnt
itself to a dead coal and dropped also into the lakes!"
An hour afterwards, at dusk, Bill Williams rode out of the camp,
confidently. As we know something of the singular telegraphing
and telephoning which the old trapper and his comrade employed to
correspond secretly, we need not describe how again they conferred
without the overhearers piercing the mystery. A little before sunrise,
the Cherokee was back at the Piegan resting place. Red Knife was awake,
and eagerly awaiting him at the inlet.
"What does the old father say?" queried he, after the customary
greeting.
"These are the trapper's words," returned Bill, gravely. "'Am I to
be deaf to the appeal of redskin brothers who are fighters and not
thieves? No! When the sun is so high that there is no shadow at the
base of the tree, then I shall be in the Piegan camp.'"
"Good, good!" said the sachem, cordially, "I thank my father for having
swiftly and fully kept his promise. The white trapper will be welcome."
At this moment, hearing Bill Williams' voice, the door flap of Doña
Rosario's tent house was pushed aside, and she came forth. Albeit she
was in complete safety among the red men, her precarious position
filled the dainty girl with restlessness. Throughout the night she had
been kept awake by excessive nervous excitement, caused by reflections
on recent events, and the pain from bruises and thorn scratches gained
during the flight. In the pannier she had been shaken about more than
in a cockboat in a chopping sea. She was glad to have her enfevered
forehead kissed by the cool morning breeze. She came out over to the
two principals, and saluted them with a grateful but still rueful smile.
Red Knife, with that innate delicate grace common to all men who live
unfettered in the open air, bowed to her respectfully, and kindly asked
how she rested. To encourage her, he repeated that she had nothing to
fear from her enemies, as she should never fall again into their hands.
"Thank you, chief," she rejoined; "but," she added, with a brightening
eye of deep proud determination, "if, in spite of your powerful
protection, those ruffians had succeeded in seizing me again, they
would have carried away merely the dead. I would have slain myself
rather than have yielded."
With a significant gesture, she flung aside the hem of a Mexican
blanket, showing the knife in her waistband.
"'Tis a brave girl," remarked Red Knife, smiling dubiously, for he had
his own ideas about using a dagger on himself before he had struck out
all he could; "but the steel was useless, my sister being under the
guard of the Sacred Emblem, and my warriors would have fought to the
last shot for her."
As, in our other Indian stories, we seem to have pourtrayed their
treatment of white women in a different light, we beg to say in this
digression that there is really no contradiction in sense. The southern
Indians are not to be trusted with women, but the northern races and
those descended from the ancient nations of the Northeast and Atlantic
coast are of opposite morality. The latter will make white women
slaves, but never their wives. The Half-breeds spring from the union
of red women and white men, it is to be remembered, which in no wise
gainsays our statement of an incontestable truth.
Cherokee Bill was too profound an observer and was too familiar with
the thoughts of white people and red people, to say nothing of Mexican
ones, not to understand Rosario's doubts and dreads. So he hastened
to inform her that Jim Ridge would soon be present. This intelligence
much exalted her; hope at once was kindled in her bosom and warmed her
heart with its beneficent rays. It seemed to her that this celebrated
adventurer's intervention must be advantageous to her. This was apart
from Mr. Dearborn's promising that he would confer with the Man of the
Mountain and compact for her rescue and Miss Maclan's. It is true the
Cherokee had only saved her; but, perhaps, already something had been
done in as effectual, if not in so dashing, a mode to save her dear
companion.
She found time to ask Bill about his partner in the friendly abduction,
but he had only spoken with Ridge, who had seen nothing more of
Filditch than himself.
"Patience," said he, calm as a "whole red man," "he would not have
travelled with me in the warpath unless he was capable of taking care
of himself alone."
Quite as impatient as the girl were all the Piegans to receive the
famous old explorer; but they had donned the motionless mask which the
savages use to hide even the deepest feelings on public occasions.
If we were in town, we should say the hour of twelve sounded when all
the Indians, questioning the country with glittering eyes, grunted
with pleasure. A horseman was seen to be clearing a piney wood at the
extreme limit of the horizon, and gallop in a beeline towards them. He
was alone. At a glance he was recognised as Jim Ridge.