If Yseulte Santorex stood lost in amazement at this wholly unlooked-for
meeting, there was really considerable excuse for some upsetting of her
mental poise. Beyond a brief and formal farewell in the presence of her
family, she had not seen her former admirer since that passionate and
despairing declaration of his in the summer meadows which skirted the
pleasant Lant, and neither at that time nor since had the faintest idea
crossed her mind that he contemplated any such undertaking as Western or
any other travel. And now here he was, flung, so to say, by Fate at her
very feet, escaping by the narrowest chance from the hands of hostile
savages, the most ruthless in the world. And she had been mainly
instrumental in saving him.
But Geoffry had the advantage of her, in that his surprise was mainly
confined to the circumstances and place of their meeting. When he had
quarrelled with and separated from the rather worthless guide whom he
had engaged at the nearest frontier post, he had reckoned on pushing on
so as to overtake Major Winthrop's outfit in a day at the outside, and
having found it, the first part of his object would be accomplished.
Then he had lost himself, as we have seen, and but for the present
opportune meeting his fate was sealed. And now here was the object of
his search, more winsome, more beautiful than ever, her loveliness
enhanced tenfold by the glorious open-air life she had been leading.
But who on earth was her companion? Not her brother. George Santorex
could never have altered beyond recognition within three or four years;
besides, he was dark-haired--darker than Yseulte herself--and had not
the herculean build of this stranger. Thus ran Geoffry's thoughts as,
with half-closed eyes, he lay on the sward, thoroughly done up with
fright and exhaustion.
Vipan, for his part, took no notice of the man whose life he had saved.
He saw before him a loosely hung, shambling sort of youth, commonplace
of aspect, and in no wise over-burdened with practical intelligence.
Beyond the first half-bantering, half-contemptuous remark, he hardly
seemed to think his new acquaintance worth addressing. Nor did he seem
to think the unexpected recognition between him and Yseulte Santorex
worthy of notice.
"Will they attack us, Mr Vipan?" asked the latter, with a shade of
anxiety. For the Indians, having finished their consultation, were
riding just beyond range, so as to make a wide circuit of the position.
"I doubt it. They are going to find our trail leading in here, so as to
discover the extent of our force. They will find the trail of two
horses, and not having seen you will take for granted that represents
two men, instead of one man and a non-combatant. That, with our friend
here, makes three. Three men with rifles, snugly fixed in a strong
position, constitute far too tough a nut for a small force like that to
try and crack, and they are only sixteen. No. They will conclude to go
away and leave us alone."
Yseulte gave a sigh of relief. A skirmish would mean bloodshed, and,
brave as she was, the idea of seeing men shot down, even in
self-defence, could not be otherwise than abhorrent to her.
"Look," went on Vipan, "they have picked up our trail, and--there goes
the inevitable white rag."
The warriors had stopped, clustered together, and having briefly
scrutinised the ground, one of their number rode out, waving a dirty rag
on a lance-point.
"Flourish away, friend," remarked Vipan, drily; "I guess we're not going
to be drawn by any such childish device."
"Don't they want to make terms?" said Yseulte.
"No doubt. But we don't. They know our number. What they want now is
to find out our strength--who we are, in short. Now there isn't a red
on the Northern Plains who doesn't know me, by sight or intuition, and
this time I'm going to let them entertain a Tartar unawares; if they try
fighting, that is."
Finding no notice whatever was taken of their signals, the savages again
gathered in consultation. Then the warrior who had hoisted the white
flag advanced from among the rest, and yelled out in broken English:
"Ha-yah, ha-yah! Golden Face Injun's brudder! Good hoss, ole debbil
Satanta--make big trail. Golden Face bring out lily white gal. Good
squaw for Injun brudder! Ha-yah!"
The whole band screamed with laughter, but the insolent buck grinned
rather too soon. Long as the range was, a ball from Vipan's rifle
crashed through his shin-bone, and both he and his pony rolled upon the
ground; the latter in the throes of death. Their mirth changed into a
yell of rage; the band scattered, and withdrawing to a more respectful
distance, began circling frantically around the position, waving their
weapons and bawling out such expletives and coarse expressions as their
limited knowledge of Anglo-Saxon allowed. Finally, their vocabulary
having given out, they once more collected together, and with a parting
jeer rode leisurely away.
"There go sixteen as disgusted reds as are to be met on the Plains this
day," said Vipan as the last of the warriors disappeared over the far
rise. "And now, Miss Santorex, sorry as I am to disappoint you, we must
put off our picnic _a deux_, or rather _a trois_, and get back to camp
as soon as possible. Those chaps might fall in with a lot more of their
tribe, and double back on us sharp, or half-a-hundred things might
happen. So we've no time to lose."
Vipan was not the man to leave anything to chance, but although no
square foot of the surrounding country escaped his keen glance, as they
cantered merrily away from the scene of the late _fracas_, not a sign of
their recent foes was visible. The vast rolling plains shimmering in
the afternoon heat lay silent and deserted, and save that a film of
smoke in the far distance, marking the site of the emigrants' camp, was
faintly discernible, might have been untrodden by human foot.
"By the way, Mr--er?" began Vipan.
"--Vallance."
"Well, Mr Balance."
"Er--Vallance."
"Oh, Vallance, I beg your pardon. Well, Mr Vallance, I was going to
say, what do you think of Indian fighting? Never saw `Mr Lo' [Note 1]
on the war-path before, I take it?"
"No, never. And I don't particularly care if I never see him again,"
answered Geoffry, flurriedly. "Er--you have saved my life, Mr--er--?"
"Vipan."
"--Mr Vipan," he stuttered; "and but for you I should be a dead man at
this moment."
"Not strictly accurate, and that in two particulars," was the quiet
reply. "In the first place, you should have said `But for Miss
Santorex'; in the second, you would not have had the luck to be a dead
man at this moment. You would be squirming a good deal nearer to a slow
fire than is either pleasant or salubrious."
Geoffry turned pale, nor could he repress a slight shudder as he thought
of the ghastly fate from which he had escaped, as it were, by the skin
of his teeth. Then the sight of his enslaver--so unexpectedly met with,
and, like himself, dependent for aid and protection amid the grisly
perils of these Western wilds, upon this mysterious stranger, who
treated him, Geoffry, with a patronising and tolerant air which under
any other circumstances would have been galling in the extreme--roused a
wave of jealousy and distrust in the young man's breast. What the deuce
was she doing here, careering about the country with this splendidly
handsome desperado? But the latter's next words seemed to solve the
enigma.
"I reckon you'll follow the crowd next time you feel like running
buffalo, Miss Santorex. I ought not to have exposed you to even this
small risk."
"A delicate way of reminding me that I've only myself to thank for
risking being scalped," she replied demurely, but with a mischievous
smile struggling not to break forth. "Well, it's perfectly true. I
made you take me, and you all agreed it was quite safe. But we killed
our buffalo after all--though I didn't like the killing part of it--and
I shall never get the chance of a buffalo hunt again. Besides," with a
glance at Geoffry and a serious ring in her voice, "it looks as if we
had been sent here on purpose."
"I say," sputtered Geoffry, staring at Vipan, as though bursting with a
new idea. "I say, w-were you ever at the 'Varsity?"
"Which 'Varsity?"
"Why, Oxford or Cambridge, don't cher know. You give me the idea of a
man who has been there."
"Do I? If I was there at all, it must have been rather before you were
born," replied the other, imperturbably.
"Hang the fellow, he needn't be so close!" thought Geoffry, with a
sullen sense of having been "shut up." But he was glad enough to see
safety and comfort in the shape of Major Winthrop's camp, which lay
about a mile distant, between them and the setting sun, although he was
conscious of a profound feeling of jealousy and distrust towards the man
to whom he owed that safety and comfort.
"My partner will show up this evening," said Vipan, tranquilly. "In
fact I shouldn't wonder if we found him in camp when we arrive, and
what's more, he'll know exactly what we've been doing since I joined
you."
"How on earth will he know?" asked Yseulte, wonderingly.
"That's just how he will know," was the amused reply. "By looking on
the earth. We have a code of our own. But, you'll see, anyhow."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. A Western joke, from the passage in Pope's Essay on Man which
runs: "Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind."