"THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY."
About a month later than the events just detailed, a solitary individual
might have been descried occupying one of the high buttes overlooking a
large tract of the northern buffalo range, somewhat near the border
between the territories of Montana and Wyoming. Howbeit, we must
qualify the statement in some degree. Save to the keen eye of yon
war-eagle, poised high aloft in the blue ether, the man was not to be
descried by any living thing, for the simple reason that he took very
especial care to keep his personality effectually concealed.
Beneath lay the broad rolling plains extending in bold undulation far as
the eye could reach, stretching away to the foothills, and then the
distant snow peaks, of the Bighorn range. No cloud was in the sky. The
atmosphere in its summer stillness was wondrously clear, all objects
being sharply definable up to an incredible distance. From his lofty
perch the man looks down upon the surrounding country as upon a map
lying outspread before his feet.
That something is occupying his attention is evident. Lying flat on his
face, his gaze is riveted on the plain beneath. What object has
attracted his keen vision--has sufficed to retain it?
Crawling onward, unwinding its slow length like some huge variegated
centipede, comes a waggon train, and, though it is at least ten miles
distant, the observer, from his vantage-ground, can with his unaided
vision master every essential detail--several great lumbering waggons,
veritable prairie schooners, their canvas tilts looking like sails upon
that sea of rolling wilderness; a little way ahead of these a lighter
waggon, drawn by a team of four horses. He can also make out a few
mounted figures riding in front.
"Looks a pretty strong outfit," would run his thoughts, if put into
words. "Looks a pretty strong outfit. The boss--two guides, or
scouts--six or eight bullwhackers--a chap to worry the horse team--
probably two or three more men thrown in--a dozen or more all told--
possibly a score. But then--the family coaches--Lord knows how many
women-folk and brats they hold--all down-Easters, too, most likely, who
never saw a redskin, except a drunken one at the posts. A dozen men
ought to be able to stand off the reds; and anyhow whether they can or
not the next few hours will decide. But then they've got their women to
look after, and their cattle to mind. No, no; they must be idiots to
come crossing this section at this time of day."
The observer's reflections are, to say the least of it, ominous for
those who belong to the waggon train. Let us see what there is to
justify them.
Far away in front of him, at least as far as the waggon train itself--
ahead of it, but rather off its line of route, is another object; an
object which he has espied before the outfit appeared, and the sight
whereof has kept him immovable on his lofty observatory for upwards of
an hour. This object the inexperienced eye would hardly notice, or
would pass over as an indistinct clump of scrub lying on the slope of a
deep ravine. To the practised eye of the watcher, however, that object
stood revealed in its true light at the very first glance, and it hardly
needed the aid of the powerful double glass which he carried, and which
rendered an object at ten miles almost as distinct as one at a hundred
yards, to tell him that the harmless-looking clump of scrub was nothing
less formidable than a strong band of Indians--a strong band of red
warriors _on the war-path_.
"That'll be it," he mused. "The old game. They'll jump that outfit at
yonder creek while it's unhitching just about sundown--rather over two
hours from this. If those chaps are, as I suspect, down-Easters,
they'll be thrown into the liveliest confusion, and while a few of the
reds run off every hoof of the cattle, the rest'll rush the whole show.
Their guide or guides can't be worth a damn, anyhow, to judge from the
free and easy way in which the whole concern is shuffling along.
There'll be fresh scalps among that war-party to-night, I'll lay long
odds; but--it's rough on the women-folk, to put it mildly."
To the ordinary observer there would have been something terrible beyond
words in the situation. That little handful advancing fearlessly into
the vast wilderness, their every step watched by the hawk-like gaze of
savage videttes lying face to the ground on more than one of the
adjoining heights, advancing step by step into the trap, heedless of the
awful cloud overhanging their march, even that lurking band of the
fiercest and most ruthless barbarians to be found upon the earth's
surface. And the radiant sun shedding the golden glories of his nearly
run course upon the majestic vastness of those fair solitudes sank lower
and lower to his rest, only too certain to be lulled in his far-off
mountain bed by the crash and rattle of shots, the exultant yells of
human fiends, the unheeded prayer for mercy, then massacre mingled with
a demon orgie of sickening barbarity from the very thought of which the
average mind shrinks in dismay. Well, what then? Only one more chapter
of horror in the annals of the blood-stained West.
But if to the ordinary mind the situation would have been appalling,
repulsive and incomprehensible to the last degree would have been the
attitude of this man, who lounged there as cold-blooded a spectator of
the coming struggle as a frequenter of the bull-ring awaiting his
favourite entertainment, and in much the same vein; who saw those of his
race and kindred advancing step by step to the most terrible form of
death--for the chances in their favour were about equal to those of the
bull when pitted against the _cuadrilla_--and made no effort to warn
them of their peril. Yet had he delivered his mind on the subject he
would coolly have justified himself by the explanation that in the first
place he made a point of never interfering in other people's business;
while in the next he was a man who recognised no race or kindred, and
who, if anything, had a greater respect for the savage red man than for
the huckstering, swindling, lying white Christian. The former was man
ruthless as Nature made him, the latter a nondescript product--equally
ruthless, but _plus_ hypocrisy and cant wherewith to cloak his
blood-sucking propensities.
And now the waggon train was well-nigh abreast of his position.
Cautiously adjusting his field-glasses so that no ray of the sun
glinting on the lens should betray his whereabouts, either to friend or
foe, he narrowly scanned the travellers. There were, as he had
conjectured, females among them, two of whom rode on horseback among the
group of men in front. He scanned the ground beyond, and not a detail
escaped him, even to the heads of the three Indian scouts lying _perdu_,
like himself, at intervals along a high ridge overlooking the line of
march. Then he closely scrutinised the lurking war-party.
The latter was astir, and he could easily make out a sea of plumed
crests and painted countenances, even to the colour of the pennons
floating from the lance-heads. Warriors might be seen rapidly
caparisoning their ponies, while others, already prepared for action,
were gathered around the little group of chiefs in the centre apparently
engaged in debate. It wanted an hour to sundown.
Once more he brought his glasses to bear upon the travellers. Suddenly
the blood surged in waves over the man's bronzed and sunburnt
countenance, and his hand trembled to such an extent that he nearly
dropped the telescope. What did he see? Pausing a moment, with an
angry frown at his own weakness, again he sent a long, eager, steady
look into the group riding ahead. What did the powerful lens reveal to
upset the equanimity, to shake the very nerves of this cool, hardened,
cynical plainsman? Among the group of advancing specks is a white one--
a mere white speck. Framed within the lens, however, that speck becomes
a white horse, and upon his back is a girl of extraordinary beauty.
Surely this is not the disturbing factor? We shall see.
"_That's_ too good for our dear red brother, anyhow," said the watcher
half-aloud, shutting up his glass. Then, without arising to his feet,
he slid behind the knoll. But before doing so he sent one more glance
at the distant halting place of the savages. The band was on the move,
riding slowly down into the ravine.