A GOOD SHOT--THE WHITE HORSE--APPROACHING HELP--ONLY A FLEA-BITE--A
SHOUT OF JOY--RAISING THE SIEGE--AN INDIAN PANIC--THE
PURSUIT--RECOVERING MY SENSES--FOR THE LAST TIME--A BEAD AND NO
POWDER--BARE FEET AND THE SHARP "SHALE"--HEROIC SELF-SACRIFICE--A
RAPID AND DASHING RESCUE.
The hour of suspense which followed their having left the camp, was
terrible. Every moment of it passed so slowly, that it appeared to be
winged with lead. Each instant we were expecting to hear the crack of
fire-arms, or the sound of a fierce struggle--not for life, but death.
As the minutes passed slowly away, at length we began to realize the
fact that they might have succeeded in passing undetected through the
midst of the slumbering Indians. This belief gradually ripened into a
positive certainty.
Brighton Bill was the first of us who found sufficient hardihood to give
voice to this. Bringing down his hand with a ringing slap upon his
thigh, he blurted out:
"May H'i be blamed, hif pluck don't pay hafter h'all. The boys hare
safe."
"I'll bet they are," said Stanaford with a round oath. "The red skunks
haven't nabbed 'em."
And so, that night, for the first time in three days, I was able to get
some few hours of slumber, and woke with something akin to hope stirring
in my bosom.
This day the Indians conducted themselves much as they had before done.
We, however, were more prudent, and wasted no more ammunition save when
we were sure of one of them. They, also, when they saw this, grew more
cautious. Possibly, they were reasoning on our condition from the same
stand-point we did ourselves. Seeing we wasted no more powder, they were
probably reckoning that it was getting smaller in quantity, and thought
it useless to run any more risk, until we were starved into making a
dash for the open.
About the middle of the day, however, they began to tire of waiting.
A party of them would ride from their camp, and endeavor, by insulting
gestures and exclamations of derision, to induce us to come out. This
was always out of rifle-range. At length one of them, more daring than
the rest, approached us within a hundred yards, and repeated their
taunts. Stanaford, who was near me, said:
"I'll pick that red devil off, anyhow."
No sooner had he said this, than he dropped his cheek to his rifle, and
in another moment the Bannock fell from his horse. Scarcely had he seen
the Indian tumble, than, dropping his gun, he leapt out of the trench,
in whose cover he was lying, singing out as he did so:
"I'll have his darned hair."
Jennings and the rest of us shouted for him to come back. This was of no
use. He had reached the dead Indian and scalped him, before the other
Bannocks realized what he was doing.
One of them, who was mounted on a beautiful white horse, and whom we had
noticed on the preceding day, with a fancy that he must be some
prominent chief, rushed towards Stanaford. Dropping on my knee, I was
taking dead aim, when Jennings sang out:
"Hold on! Let me have a shot at him."
"Don't you be ha blamed fool!" roared out Brighton Bill. "H'if the Cap
don't 'it 'im, you can take my wig." Then he added, "D'idn't Hi say so?"
The last question was caused by the chief's falling backward and
dropping to the ground, while his horse made straight for our camp. Like
Stanaford, I was bound to take his scalp, and ran to get it. This was,
nevertheless, close work. We had been right in imagining the fallen
brave to be a chief. Almost as soon as he had dropped, and I was in
clear view, some dozen or more of the red-skins made a rush for me.
Had they been a moment speedier, I should have exchanged my own hair for
that I had taken.
The loss of their chief seemed to have excited them almost to madness.
Every few minutes they would dash at us, shaking their clinched hands,
brandishing their rifles, and yelling out taunts, which we were unable
to comprehend, save from the beastly gestures with which they were
accompanied. Their latter experience of our skill as marksmen,
nevertheless, prevented them from getting within range of our guns.
The afternoon was rapidly passing away, when Arnold called my attention
to some dust in the east. It was moving rapidly down the side of a small
hill.
"White help!" he curtly said.
"Please Heaven! it may be, Hank!" I answered, as I watched the
approaching cloud intently.
In a few moments, we were able to detect the forms of some fourteen
horsemen coming straight toward us, at a rapid rate.
"They are a mere flea-bite for the red devils," he exclaimed,
querulously. "However, we may make a better show, with them to help us."
The whole of our companions were now watching them, as also were the
Indians, who commenced a movement, from our right and left, towards the
approaching party.
"We must go to their assistance," I said to Harry.
"H'in course we must," cried Brighton Bill, making a step to the spot
where our horses were.
"See!" cried Arnold, with a shout of irrepressible joy, "the red skunks
are trapped."
When he uttered this, he pointed to one side of the knoll. At the same
instant, Stanaford grasped my shoulder and called my attention to the
other. Our attention had hitherto been so engrossed by the approach of
this party, that we had not detected the advance upon either side, of
two much larger bodies. These reckoned, as we subsequently learned, more
than two hundred each. Gardner and Jasper had done their work well, and
deserved all gratitude for the courage and speed with which they had
carried through the work they had entered upon.
Moreover, the attention of the Bannocks had been engrossed with the
approach of that party of our fellow-countrymen which I had, the very
moment before, in company with Harry Arnold, noticed.
When they heard the rolling thunder of our shout of joy, and knew that
we were mounting our horses, they gazed round upon either side. In an
instant, they became aware of the manner in which they had been trapped.
There was a moment of hurried consultation. After this, they seemed to
be stricken with perfect dismay. The presence of our friends had smitten
them with a thorough panic. A telling volley had been poured in upon
their shrinking figures, when we charged upon them.
It was with the yell of a band of tigers.
Shouting, clubbing, striking, and stabbing, we broke in, upon all we
came across.
For the time, we were in a complete delirium of savage rage. So much so,
indeed, that no incident of the struggle can be in any way recalled by
me, for the next two hours.
At the close of these, my recollection had come back. I was far to the
north of our camping-ground. Noon was waning into evening. The blue sky
of the morning was seamed and blurred with rushing cloud. The horse I
was mounted on was urged by me, in a headlong chase, after two flying
figures. In the commencing shadow of the evening, I was enabled to see
that they were Indians.
Did I not recognize one of them?
What if I did do so? Was I not maddened with the long siege I had
endured? Was I not wild from my lengthy imprisonment on the mound, and
eager upon the work of death? Suddenly, one of their horses stumbled and
fell. Its rider was thrown under the body of the fallen animal. With a
wild scream of delight, I urged my own steed up to them.
When I did so, the other Indian had dismounted, and was standing between
me and the fallen red-skin, in a queenly and defiant posture.
It was a Mahala.
"The white chief has killed the husband of Clo-ke-ta. Let him now, if he
wills it, take the life of her father."
Par-a-wau was stretched upon the dry earth, crushed under the motionless
body of the animal he had been riding.
For a moment, I gazed upon the two. My brain seemed to whirl in a wild
dance, as I did this. Then it was stilled, and, without a word of reply,
I leapt from the back of my horse. With some little difficulty I
extracted the Cheyenne chief from beneath the dead body of the animal he
had been mounted upon. The gallant little beast had been stricken,
earlier, by one of our balls. It had passed through its hind quarter.
Yet, in spite of the loss of blood and the weakness gradually growing on
it from this, it had carried the Cheyenne thus far.
Although bruised severely by the fall, when I raised him, Par-a-wau was
able to stand erect.
Neither of us spoke.
He, very evidently, supposed that it was my intention to make him a
prisoner. In all probability, he had too much Indian pride to make any
entreaty. Very possibly, he believed white blood might run in as hard
veins as that of the red-skin. I led my own horse toward him.
"Will Par-a-wau mount the horse of his brother?"
Without a word of answer, he obeyed me. Then, I raised his rifle, which
was still upon the ground, and placed it in his hands.
After this, I turned to the Mahala. She had been standing motionless,
watching every movement which I had made. Touching her widowed brow with
my parched lips, dry and smeared as they were with the grime of battle,
I lifted her into the saddle of her pony, which had been standing near
us, saying:
"Clo-ke-ta will sometimes think of the brother who has never forgotten
her!"
As I quitted her side, I heard the same cry of anguish, which had been
uttered by her, when I refused to obey her counsel and fly from the men
with whom my lot was at the moment cast. My heart throbbed fiercely, yet
I would not turn to her. Haply, she was thinking of the husband whom I
had slain--perchance, she may momentarily have recalled the long-quelled
dream of her youth. What was it to me what she was thinking of?
Resolutely, I commenced my return.
In a few seconds after, I heard the tramp of the horse which had borne
me, as well as that upon which I had placed Clo-ke-ta, ringing upon the
plain behind me. Par-a-wau had breathed a few words to his daughter, as
she passed from my hearing, in their own tongue. It almost seemed to me,
as though a portion of my life had been torn from me.
Treading rapidly along the plain, I was buried in the mingled gloom of
the present and the past.
Yes! This was the end. My hand had widowed the woman, for whom I had
once been so sorely tempted to forswear civilization.
In spite of the excitement of the last few hours, my thoughts were for
the moment with the past, when they were suddenly brought back by a
voice, whose tones I had recently become more than well acquainted with.
They were characterized by a somewhat coarse and insolent surprise.
"Wall! I swar, if this don't beat all. It's Buckskin Mose."
This exclamation was followed by the heartier and more energetic
utterance of Brighton Bill.
"Hi'm blamed, Cap, hif you weren't lucky; we 'adn't no more powder."
"Whar's yer horse?"
"May Hi be blamed hif h'it hain't nabbed by them thieving Hingins.
Nare' a matter, Mose; 'ang me hif Hi don't get h'it back for you."
Bill's horse was already plunging by me, when my grasp was on its
bridle.
"You won't, Bill!"
"What d' you mean?"
"What I say!"
Jennings, the man who had been with Bill when the two had caught sight
of me, was already some ten yards from the place where I was standing.
"Come back!"
Glancing over his shoulder at me, he saw me drawing a bead upon him. Not
knowing I also was out of powder as well as himself, he thought it best
to pull in and return, swearing at what he considered my stupidity. The
opinion of Brighton Bill was, however, of greater importance in my
estimation. This, the more especially, when I found out he evidently had
settled my conduct as an undoubted example of temporary insanity. At any
rate, I saw him, when he fancied my glance was turned away, looking at
Jennings, and touching his forehead in a very significant manner.
"What are you thinking of, Bill?" I asked him, suddenly.
"Nothing, Cap! Hi'll be blamed hif Hi am. H'only hit's queer."
And so, I can scarcely doubt, it seemed to him. Returning to the camp on
foot, I neither explained in what way I had lost my horse--whether it
had been shot, stolen, or run away. Nor did I in any way allude to my
share in the battle. My questions were, however, numerous enough during
our return. The Bannocks had, indeed, been completely routed. Saving
Colonel Connor's defeat of the Indians on Bear River, it was the most
terrible defeat the red-skins had met with, since I had taken up my
residence in this portion of the country. As I afterwards learned, some
four hundred of them had been slain, and almost as large a number of
horses had been captured.
By the bye, I may mention that the white animal previously mentioned,
subsequently was known as one of the fleetest race-horses in all Idaho.
On our way back to Boice City, the party who had come to our rescue
related to us the adventures and sufferings of the two brave fellows who
had succeeded in carrying them intelligence of our position.
After quitting the knoll upon which we were besieged they had commenced
their stealthy advance through the Indian lines, crawling flatly upon
the earth, like a serpent. Each of them had taken a different direction.
Frequently they passed close to a slumbering Indian. But for the grave
necessity which imposed every precaution upon him to avoid detection,
Gardner said more than once, he was tempted to knife some of the red
devils, who had reduced him and the rest of us to so sore a strait.
However, feeling that if he did so the struggle he might possibly cause
would rouse the camp, he had wisely enough refrained from doing so.
After they had passed their enemies and were some mile or more beyond
them, each rose to his feet.
Jasper had followed a small creek for some distance, and then struck
across the rock and shale of the mountains until he reached Boice City.
His body was scratched and cut by the brush he had stricken against in
the commencement of the route, while the flesh had been actually torn
from his feet by the jagged shale he had passed over. When he arrived
in the city, those who first saw him fancied he had just made his escape
from the Indians, who had been amusing themselves by torturing him.
Gardner had struck in a more northerly direction for Idaho City. His way
had been nearly as bad, and he was almost dead when he arrived there. It
should be mentioned that the former of these two unrecorded heroes died
within a short time, after reaching Boice City. He had, voluntarily, as
Gardner had also done, exposed himself to the almost sure risk of death,
on behalf of his companions. Peace be with the gallant fellow, in that
long sleep, for which we shed tears of blood!
No sooner had his information been given than Jake Jordan leapt upon his
horse, and stopping at every house, called for volunteers. Every horse
was placed in requisition. They were even taken from the teams that were
standing in the main street, and mounted by those who were eager to join
the expedition, whether their owners or not.
A well-equipped party soon after came in from Idaho City, and joined
them.
When everything was in readiness, and not a moment had been lost by
them, they placed themselves under the command of Jordan, and took the
road. Nor did they slacken rein, even for an instant, until they had so
bravely opened the doors of the trap into which we had unfortunately
fallen. It was one of the most rapid and dashing rescues I ever remember
in the West, and does infinite credit to him who carried it through, in
every particular, with such complete success.