All night long--with a brief halt towards morning--the war-party, with
Vipan in its midst, pushed forward at a rapid pace.
The sun rose. They had passed the intricate defiles of the Bad Lands,
and were now threading the rugged and broken country beyond. Piled in
chaotic confusion, the great peaks leaning towards each other, or split
and riven as by a titanic wedge, caught the first red glow upon their
iron faces. Dark pinnacles soaring aloft, huge and forbidding, stood in
the first delicate flush like graceful minarets; and here and there
through a vista of falling slopes, the striped and fantastic face of a
_mesa_ would come into view, seamed with blue and black and red,
according to the varying strata of its soft and ever-crumbling
formation. A hundred bizarre shapes reared their heads around. Here a
clean rock shaft, so even and perpendicular in its towering symmetry
that it seemed impossible to have been planned by the hand of Nature
alone, standing side by side with some hugely grotesque representation
of a head, changing from animal to human with every fresh point of view,
so distorted yet so real, so hideous and repelling as to suggest
involuntary thoughts of a demon-guarded land. There a black and yawning
fissure whose polished sides would hardly seem to afford resting-place
for the eyrie of yon great war-eagle soaring high above, his plumage
gleaming in the lustre of the new-born day. Dark, cedar-clad gorges
rent the mountain sides, and on the nearer slopes the flash of something
white through the tall, straight stems of the spruce firs showed where a
deer, alarmed by this redoubtable inroad on his early grazing ground,
had darted away, with a whisk of his white "flag."
And in thorough keeping with its surroundings was the aspect of the wild
host, threading its way through these solitudes. A clear, dashing
mountain brook curved and sparkled along a level bottom carpeted with
the greenest of sweet grass, and along this, strung out to the distance
of a mile, cantered group after group of mounted savages, the fantastic
adornments of themselves and their steeds streaming out to the morning
breeze; their waving plumes, and painted faces, their shining weapons
and brilliantly-coloured accoutrements, and the easy grace with which
they sat their steeds as they defiled along the ever-winding gorge,
forming about as striking and wildly picturesque a sight as would be
happened upon, travel we the whole world over.
All fear of pursuit being now over, the warriors rode anyhow, broken up
into groups or couples as the humour possessed them. Most of them were
chatting and laughing with that ease and light-heartedness which in
their hours of relaxation is characteristic of most savage peoples, a
light-heartedness and freedom from care which renders them akin to
children. Near the rear of the party rode Mahto-sapa and his prisoner,
together with three or four warriors of high rank.
For that he was such, Vipan himself was not left in any doubt, nor was
there room for any. Though relieved from the indignity of bonds, yet
his arms had not been returned to him, not even a knife. Moreover, the
steed he bestrode was far from being the best in the party. All of
which he had hinted as delicately as possible to the chief. The
latter's reply was characteristic.
"Patience--Golden Face. It is not we who have taken your weapons; it is
War Wolf and his party. As for horses, my young men are none of them
too well mounted. Besides," added the Indian, a humorous gleam lighting
up his fine face as he noted the other's deprecatory shake of the head,
"besides--Golden Face has shamefully neglected his red brothers since
the Mehneaska waggons came along. Why do they bring beautiful white
girls into a country where the ground is too rough for their tender
feet? No. Have patience. My young men would be more than angry did
you leave them now to go and look after a white woman. She is safe now,
but both she and the Brown Beaver would have fallen into the hands of
War Wolf had you not acted as you did," he continued. "Wagh! Golden
Face, it is not like you to throw away your life for a squaw!"
The adventurer made no reply, but the other's remark set him thinking.
It left, so to say, an unpleasant taste. He was at an age when most men
have parted with their illusions, and he himself certainly was no
exception. To his keen, cynical nature absolute trust was well-nigh
impossible. Would he ever see Yseulte Santorex again, and even if he
did, would he not be in the same position as before--a king in these
Western wilds, in civilisation a pauper? He knew the world--none
better. It was one thing for this beautiful and refined girl to feel
drawn towards a companion and protector in the midst of the perilous
vicissitudes of Western travel, but that after months of reflection on
her return to safety and comfort she should still continue to think of a
man whose antecedents were doubtful, of whose very identity she was
ignorant, in the face, too, of the opposition of friends and relatives,
was quite another. For long he rode in silence, and his thoughts were
very bitter.
All day the march continued. That night the Indians, being
comparatively beyond fear of pursuit, camped for a long rest, and
resuming their progress at dawn, towards nightfall reached the bank of a
river. This was immediately forded, and then halting on the opposite
bank the whole band collected together. Then, after a word of
instruction from their chief, the warriors formed into line, and with a
loud and prolonged whoop dashed forward at a brisk canter.
The shout was answered from some distance ahead, and lo! as by magic,
there sprang up the red glow of many a fire, and among the
thinly-scattered timber bordering the stream tall lodges might be
descried, standing in groups or in long irregular lines, hundreds and
hundreds of them. Then in the gloaming the whole village swarmed with
dusky shapes. Squaws flung down their burdens, or abruptly quitted
their household employments, and, dancing and singing, crowded around to
welcome the returning war-party. Young bucks, eager to know what had
been done in scalps and plunder, turned out by the dozen. Children
yelled and curs barked and howled, and still the ever-increasing crowd
gathered about the returned warriors.
Suddenly the latter, reining in their ponies, burst into a wild
war-song. It was taken up by the motley crowd following upon their
ponies' heels, and as the savage horsemen, in all the trappings of their
martial bravery, paced at length into the centre of the village, the
shrill, weird chorus echoing from many thousand throats, while the red
light danced and glowed upon plumed crests and burnished weapons rising
above the sea of fierce painted visages, the bold mind of the white
adventurer was filled with admiration as he gazed upon this stirring
picture which for grandeur and awesomeness left nothing to be desired.
Thus they entered the camp of the hostiles.
"Listen, Golden Face," said Mahto-sapa, as he spread a buffalo robe for
his guest. "It will not be well to wander in the camp alone."
"No, I am a prisoner, and unarmed."
The other smiled slightly, with a significant glance at an old leathern
wallet hanging to the pole. Then he left the lodge.
The adventurer, following his glance, promptly explored the receptacle.
He found an old single-barrelled pistol and a scalping-knife. The
pistol was capped and loaded.