NATURE’S NOBLEMAN—WALTERMYER.
“Abel Cummings, what are you a-doing there, my good man? Come, be
stirring;” and the speaker issued from a large wagon near at hand.
“Doin’, Squire? Only lookin’ out to see if I could see any thing of Miss
Esther. But it ain’t of no use, for she’s gone clear out of sight,”
replied the man, addressing the owner of the train, and the father of
the wandering girl.
“You might be in better business than spying after a runaway girl. Let
her go. Hunger will soon bring her back again, I’ll warrant. So stir
around—wake up the men, and have every thing ready for a start.”
“But, Squire, they say that thar’s lots an’ lots of Indians a-skulkin’
around, and who knows but that they may carry Miss Esther off and—”
“Eat her up, I suppose!” interrupted the parent, with a hearty laugh.
Checked in his speech, the man turned sullenly away, and in the bustle
of the hour had soon forgotten his fears. So, indeed, it was with the
majority, if they had in fact any curiosity about a young creature who
had always been accustomed to wander at will and without restraint. But,
careless as the father apparently was, he often turned his eyes in the
direction pointed out by the man, and grew more and more troubled that
she did not return.
Strange, very strange it would have been if that father had not been
anxious, for she was all that remained to him of a beloved family. Wife
and sons had fallen victims to the terrible reaper of the scythe and
hour-glass, as he swept in a fearful epidemic through the land. This
beautiful daughter was now his sole idol. Heart-sick, he had turned his
back upon the place of his birth—gathered up his means, and, following
the westering star, had determined to make for himself a new home in the
regions “where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound save its own
dashings.”
The breakfast-hour arrived and still the girl came not; passed, and she
had not appeared. The time of starting was delayed, until a feeling of
intense uneasiness—a vague sense of danger, took possession of every
heart. Anxious eyes were strained prairie-ward, but in vain. No flutter
of dress or springing step told of her coming. Once, only, moving life
appeared in the distance: they saw a troop of horse sweeping over a
far-off eminence—wild horse they must have been, for none bore riders.
For one moment they flashed before their eyes, floundering madly on, and
then were lost in a cloud of whirling dust, which alone told of their
passage.
Simple as the incident was, they remembered it well in the hereafter.
“Saddle up your best horses, boys!”
The order came with startling sternness, for the heart of that poor
father was now sorely troubled.
“Abel Cummings, lead the way. You saw her last, and should be a sure
guide.”
“Waal, Squire, yes; but, yer see—”
“Silence! This is no time for words. Action, man, prompt and decisive
action may save my child; nothing else. A hundred silver dollars to him
who first brings me news of her. Mount and forward! Mount all, except
those who guard the wagons. Mount and—”
A little cloud of dust, scarcely larger than an infant’s hand, arose
suddenly in the distance, whirling in eddies aloft, and checking further
speech, for in those regions slight causes often produced events of the
most startling character. Who could tell that this little cloud of dust
might not be caused by the hoofs of a savage band, resolved on robbery,
if not murder!
Without waiting for commands, the circular line of the corral was again
formed, the cattle and horses secured within, and each man, fully armed,
at his post. Then every eye was turned upon the prairie, eager to learn
what the cloud might portend.
Nearer, still nearer, it came, as if lightning were trailing its red
flashes along the earth, searing the foliage as it passed and leaving
only a train of whirling dust behind. Nearer it came, and soon the
beating of each heart was less fitful, and every rifle was dropped from
its poise. Nearer—still nearer, and two horsemen came bounding up the
slope, “bloody with spurring, fiery red with speed.”
The foremost—for his good steed, though held in check, came many lengths
ahead—was mounted on a horse of great power. With the exception of a
single snowy spot in his forehead, the superb animal was black from hoof
to fore-top. He cleared the earth with great, vigorous bounds, his thin,
open nostrils red as coral, his head matchless in its symmetry, ears
delicate and pointed, and tail and mane waving like twin banners in the
breeze. With a firm, yet light hand, the rider controlled his slightest
motion, and guided him at will. When he had reached the corral, and the
rider flung himself carelessly to the ground, there was not a quivering
of the limbs or heaving flank to tell of the rapid race he had just
finished.
“Who and what are you?” demanded Miles Morse, as the new-comer glanced
around and appeared to take in the entire scene with a single look,
while every eye was riveted upon him.
Well might these men gaze upon the new-comer both in admiration and
surprise, for a more superb specimen of the Western hunter and border
scout never trod the earth. More than six feet in height, with long
black hair, and a thick beard sprinkled with gray, an aquiline nose, and
eyes piercing and restless as the eagle’s, he was a man well worth
remembering as a noble specimen of the class.
His dress was the usual picturesque costume, formed mostly of doeskin,
curiously fringed and embroidered. His hat was the true slouch—“rough
and ready,” with a gold band glittering around it. He held a long rifle
in one hand, while pistols and a knife bristled defiantly in his belt.
As he stood stroking the arched neck of his good horse, you saw the very
_beau ideal_ of that pioneer race who, scorning the ease and fashionable
fetters of city life, have laid the foundation of new States in the
unexplored regions of the giant West, and dashed onward in search of new
fields of enterprise, leaving the great results to be gathered by the
settlers that come slowly after him. There he stood, leaning against his
horse, lithe as a panther, fearless as a poor honorable man may well be
after he has, companionless, traversed the trackless desert, and fought
the grizzly bear in his own fastnesses.
“Who am I, stranger?” he said, with something like a smile. “May be you
have heard of Kirk Waltermyer?”
“Waltermyer? I think I have heard your name before.”
“Heard of me, stranger? Why, I am well known from the pines of Oregon to
the chapparel of Texas. Ask La Moine, there, if we haven’t danced at
every fandango, hunted in every thicket, and trapped on every stream.”
His companion, whom he had called La Moine, was a tough and wiry
specimen of the half-breed Frenchman, so often found among the
north-western hunters and voyageurs—a man of but few words, but true as
steel to a friend, and implacable in his hate of an enemy.
“Yes, I have heard of you,” continued Morse. “I remember, now, and was
expecting to find you somewhere in the vicinity of Salt Lake. I was told
you could guide me by the best route to the Walla Walla valley.”
“I guide you!” and the weather-bronzed man laughed in a reckless and
heart-whole manner. “I guide you? Why, stranger, I could do it
blindfolded.”
“Well, I believe you, but we’ll talk of it another time. First, let me
ask what brought you here?”
“Why, my good horse—the best-limbed, swiftest, surest horse on the
perarer. None of your mustangs, that, stranger, but a full-blooded
cretur, worth his weight in diamonds.”
“I know that; but your business? From what I learned about you, this is
not your usual trail.”
“Waal, it hain’t, that’s a fact; but some of the skulkin’ followers of
that devil-worshiper, Brigham Young, ukered me out of nigh a hundred
head, and I’m not the man to play such games with, sure as you live.”
“Hundred head? What do you mean?”
“Ha! ha! Waal, you must’er come from the tother side of sunrise. Head?
Why, cattle, to be sure; but they didn’t steal them, for they knew my
rifle had a rayther imperlite way of speakin’ its mind, so they bought
them and have forgot to pay.”
“I understand. And now, listen to me. My daughter wandered away from the
camp early this morning and has not returned. I fear that—”
“La Moine,” interrupted Waltermyer, somewhat rudely, while the cheerful
expression of his face changed into a frown as black as a thunder-cloud,
and his entire nature appeared to have assumed a stern purpose, “La
Moine, do you remember the red rascals we saw dashing over the perarer
like so many frightened wild horses? I told you thar was something
wrong—that some traveler had lost his stock or something worse had
happened. Which way did the girl take, stranger?”
“There—toward the timber.”
“And some skulkin’, thievin’ savage was lyin’ in ambush for her, I’ll
bet a dozen beaver-skins. La Moine, go with—who saw her last—you,
man?—well, go with him and see if you can find the trail.” As the
Frenchman departed, accompanied by Abel Cummings, he continued: “Ef thar
ever was a man that was part hound, had the hearing of a deer and the
cunning of a fox, thar he goes;” and he stripped the heavy saddle from
his horse, took the bit from his mouth, and allowed him to graze at
will.
A half-hour—which appeared very long to the watchers—and the two men
returned.
“Waal, La Moine?”
“The girl has been carried off, Waltermyer, that’s sartin. But one
Indian did it. Thar is the print of another moccasin, but it is a little
one—that of a squaw. I should say that the white gal and the squaw had
been talkin’ together, and after they had separated, some Indian devil
of a warrior jumped from an ambush—dragged the gal inter the stream and
across it—found his braves waitin’, and after lifting the gal inter a
saddle, off they went like so many black thieves.”
“Ef you say so, it is so, and I’ll swear to it.”
“We saw a troop of horses in the distance,” said the father, “but as
they had no riders, thought they must have been wild ones. No, no! they
could never have carried Indians.”
“Not them!” replied Waltermyer, “not them! Why, man, any boy that ever
saw a perarer could have told you how it was. They were hiding behind
their horses—with only one foot thrown over the saddles, if they had any
at all, while the girl was bound down and kept on the further side. It’s
too old a trick to fool any one. But which way were they going, the
prowlin’ wolves carryin’ off young lambs? West, were they? They will
strike for the South Pass; but what in the name of common sense should
take them thar with a stolen girl?”
No one appeared competent to solve the question, and all was silence
until the Frenchman—for so he habitually called himself, notwithstanding
his Indian blood—whispered in the ear of Waltermyer the single word
“Mormons.”
“Right, man! Right for a thousand slugs! Stranger, did you come by the
way of Laramie?”
“Certainly, we stayed there a number of days.”
“War thar any followers of the holy prophet—as the infernal sinners call
themselves, though I call them thieves—around?”
“A large train. We left them there.”
“And they saw your girl?”
“Every day. Several of them visited us. One in particular came often and
appeared very anxious to converse with us.”
“What sort of man was he?”
“Large, rather good-looking, and a plausible and gentlemanly appearing
man.”
“With black hair, as smooth as my colt’s skin, and a scar on one cheek?”
“Yes. I remember it distinctly.”
“I know him, stranger.”
“You! But that is not improbable.”
“I’ll bet my rifle I do, and a bigger Satan never disgraced the name of
man. He’s a hull mule train in rascality, that man is. It isn’t the
first of his infernal capers that I have been knowing to, and unless you
travel swift you may make up your mind to find your daughter in that
serpent’s nest, Salt Lake City.”
“Heaven keep her from it! Death, even, would be a blessing compared to
that.”
“Amen to that, stranger, and ef you had seen and knew as much as I do
you would say it with your hull heart.”
“What can be done to save her Waltermyer? She is my only child—all that
is left to me. You will help a father in his worst troubles? Go with
me—help me and name your price—any thing, all, I possess shall be yours,
if you save her.”
“Stranger, I will go. Thar’s my hand on it, and though I say it who
shouldn’t, it’s just as honest a hand as thar is on the frontier, and
never yet took money for a kindness.”
“I know it—I believe it.”
“Then don’t talk to me of pay. Kirk Waltermyer ain’t no Digger Indian,
or yaller greaser to take blood-money. If thar is any thing, stranger,
that would have kept me from lendin’ you a helpin’ hand it is that same
offer to pay.”
“Forgive me and forget. Trouble—this terrible trouble, should outweigh
my mistake.”
“And so it does. Besides, you didn’t know any better. You men who are
brought up in cities and have your souls cramped up between brick
walls—who buy and sell one another like horses, don’t know what it is to
live out human freedom on the perarers—to enjoy life—to be MEN! But we
are losin’ time. Let half a dozen of your best men mount their swiftest
horses, arm themselves to the teeth and follow me. La Moine, you stay,
guide the train to Fort Bridger and wait thar until you hear from me.
Every hour we can gain now is worth a day to us. Come, stranger, don’t
get downhearted. Kirk Waltermyer will see your girl righted or thar
shall be more howlin’ and prayin’ in Salt Lake than Brigham Young ever
got up at one of his powows.”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before he had whistled his
horse to his side, saddled and bridled him, flung himself on his back,
and was dashing away with the perfect grace and horsemanship of an
Arapahoe. Rude as he was in speech and manner—unlettered and unrefined—a
purer diamond never yet was concealed in any man’s breast than the heart
of Waltermyer.