Leloo's father and mother were both of the great Lillooet tribe of
British Columbia Indians, splendid people of a stalwart race of red men,
who had named the boy Leloo because, from the time he could toddle about
on his little, brown, bare feet, he had always listened with delight
to the wolves howling across the canyons and down the steeps of the
wonderful mountain country where he was born. In the Chinook language
Leloo means wolf, and before the little fellow could talk he would stand
nightly at the lodge door and imitate the long, weird barking and
calling of his namesakes, while his father would smile knowingly and
say, "He will some day make a great hunter, will our little Leloo," and
his mother would answer proudly, "Yes, he has no fear of wild things.
No wolf in the mountains will be mighty enough to scare him--our little
Leloo."
So he grew from babyhood into boyhood with a love for the furry-coated
wild creatures that prowled along the timber line, and their voices were
to him the voices of friends who had sung him to sleep ever since he
could remember anything.
But the night of his famous ride up the Cariboo Trail where it skirts
the Bonaparte Hills proved to him how wise a thing it was that he had
long ago made friends, instead of foes, of the wolves, for if he had
feared them, it would have been a ride of terror instead of triumph, as
it was his love for them that helped him to do a great, heroic thing
which made the very name "Leloo" beloved by every man, both white and
Indian, in all the Lillooet country.
It was one day early in the autumn that Leloo's father sent him down the
trail some ten or fifteen miles with a message to the "boss" of the
great railway construction camp that the Lillooet Indians would supply
fifty men to work on the Company's roadway. So the boy mounted his pet
cayuse and started off early, swinging down the mountain trails into the
canyons, then climbing again across the summit, with its dense growth of
timber. His little legs were almost too short to grip his horse's middle
as his father could have done, so he went more slowly and carefully over
the dangerous places, marking every one in his mind, in case he was late
in returning. When he reached the camp the "boss" was absent, and,
Indian-like, he would deliver his message to no one else except the man
it was intended for, and when the "boss" returned at supper time from
far down the grade, he insisted upon Leloo sharing his pork and beans
and drinking great quantities of tea.
"Better stay all night, youngster," said the boss kindly; "It's a long
ride back, and it's going to be dark."
"No stay to-night," answered Leloo. "Maybe some time I stay, but no
to-night."
"Well, you know best, kid," replied the boss. "There's one thing--no
harm will ever come to an Indian boy on a mountain trail. But be
careful; the canyons are deep, and the trail is bad in spots."
"Me know, me careful," smiled Leloo, and mounting his cayuse, trotted
off gayly, just as the sun was lost behind a grim, rocky peak in the
west. But the "boss" was right: night comes quickly in the mountains,
and this night was unusually dark. Leloo had to ride very slowly, for
the narrow trail was a mere ledge carved out from the perpendicular
walls of the cliffs, which arose on the left, a sheer precipice hundreds
of feet above him, and fell away to the right in a yawning chasm, black,
and deep and unexplored. But the sure-footed cayuse stepped gingerly and
knowingly, neither halting nor stumbling, and his wise little rider let
the animal pick its own way, knowing well that a horse's senses in the
dark are more acute than a human's. Presently from far across the canyon
arose a weird, prolonged howl. Then from the heights above came an
answering one.
"Ah, my brothers!" called Leloo aloud. "You have come to greet me
through the night," and his eyes lighted like twin black fires, for he
loved these wolves that made their dens and lairs along the Cariboo
Trail, and to-night they were to serve him in the oddest fashion that a
wild animal was ever called upon to do. As he rode on, he would--just
for company's sake--call back to the wolves, answering their cries with
such a perfect imitation of their wild voices that they would reply to
him, from far below, then again from far above, and Leloo would smile
to himself and say, "That is right, O great and fierce Leloos; answer
me, for you are my kin and my cousins."
But the trail was growing steeper, narrower every moment, and after a
time Leloo forgot to reply to his forest friends, and just rode on,
peering through the shadows to avoid the dangers on all sides. Presently
a sound that belonged to neither crag nor canyon fell across his quick,
Indian ears. It was a man's voice, hushed, subdued, speaking very low,
and speaking in English. It said:
"I hear a horse coming."
"Shut up! Don't talk so loud," replied another voice.
"I tell you I hear horses," answered the first voice irritably. "It must
be the stage coming. Get ready!"
"You're clean crazy," said the other voice. "The stage makes more
noise than that, and I know for sure there's no horseman up the trail
to-night. It's some wild animal you hear."
Leloo pulled his cayuse stock still. He did not understand English
readily, he was not versed in the ways of the white man, but his
wonderful native wit and instinct told him at once that there was
something wrong--the wrong things that white men were sent to jail for
sometimes. He asked himself, "Why should they hide and whisper?" Only
hunters hid and refused to speak aloud. Then he remembered--the stage.
How often his father had talked of the great lumps of gold the white men
were digging up, two hundred miles north, up the Frozen River--"Cariboo
gold," his father had called it, and said that it was sent down in
numberless bags to "the front," and the stage brought it. And his father
would always finish the tale with, "The white men will risk their lives
and kill each other for this gold."
Leloo could never understand it, for he would much rather have a soft
wolf skin to lie on, a string of blue Hudson's Bay beads around his dark
throat, and fine, beaded moccasins, than all the gold in the world. But
while he sat stock still, the voices continued:
"There, it's stopped. I knew it was an animal. The stage won't be along
for an hour yet."
"They are white men, but the gold does not belong to them," Leloo told
himself. "It belongs to the white men on the stage, or up in the
Barkerville gold ledges. These white men here are 'bad medicine.' They
shall not find that stage."
But even as he thought it out, the voices began afresh.
"There's something wrong with my gun," said one, "it won't work."
"There's nothing wrong with _mine_," came the sneering reply. "_Mine_
will work all right. I'm going to have that gold."
"How much did Jim Orton say there was a-coming down on the stage?"
whispered the other.
"Some twenty thousand dollars' worth of nuggets," was the answer. "And
you'll use your gun, too, to get it, if you don't turn coward."
Then there was silence. So his father was right. These white men would
kill each other for gold--gold that belonged to another, to the men who
were working day and night for it up at the ledges, two hundred miles
north. Instantly Leloo's plan was formed. He would save the gold for the
men who owned it; save the good stage driver from the bullets of these
hiding, whispering sneaks and robbers. But how was he to do it? How
could he dare to move a step unless to turn backward? Twenty yards ahead
of him the two men crouched. Even by their lowered voices he could
locate them as hiding behind a giant boulder, some ten feet above the
trail. If he was to advance to meet the stage and warn the driver,
he needs must pass under their very feet. Was it quite impossible to
daringly gallop under their guns and be lost in the darkness before they
could recover from their surprise? Leloo could trust his cayuse, he
knew. The honest little creature was at this moment standing still as
the silence about them. Then acutely across that silence cut the long
wail of a lonely wolf wandering across the heights. A very inspiration
seized Leloo. In a second he had flung back his head, and from his thin,
Indian boyish lips there issued a weird, prolonged howl. He was
answering the wolf in his own language.
"Great guns!" ejaculated one of the highwaymen, "that wolf's right under
our feet. There he goes now. I hear him prowling past." For with the
howl, Leloo had started his cayuse gently, and the wise creature was
slipping beneath the dreaded boulder almost noiselessly. The boy fairly
held his breath. Suppose they should peer through the dark, and see that
it was a horse and rider, and no wild animal padding up the trail? Then
his wolf friend from the heights answered him, and Leloo once more
lifted his head, and the strange half-barking, half-sobbing cry again
broke the silence. He was well past the boulder now, ten, twenty, thirty
yards, when his innocent little cayuse gave that peculiar snort which a
horse always gives when some sudden fear or danger threatens. The
animal's instinct had evidently detected the presence of enemies.
"It's a horseman, not a wolf," fairly yelled a voice behind him; but
Leloo had already struck the cayuse a smart blow on the flank, at which
the animal bunched its four hoofs together, shivered, snorted again,
then plunged, galloping like mad down the trail, down, blindly down into
the darkness ahead. One, two, three sharp revolver shots rang out behind
him, the bullets falling wide of their mark in the blackness of the
night, rapidly running feet that seemed to gain upon him, the crash of
a falling man, then terrible language--all rang in his ears in quick
succession, but the boy never drew rein, never halted. On plunged the
horse, heedlessly, wildly, but Leloo stuck to his back, scorning the
fear of a horrible death in the canyon below, thinking only of the
danger of the treasure-laden stage and of the safety of Big Bill, the
driver, whom his father loved, and whom every Indian of the Lillooet
tribe respected.
The stones were now rattling from the rush of his horse's hoofs, and
once or twice the boy held his breath, as they swung round a boulder in
the dark, and the sturdy animal almost lost its balance. Sometimes he
heard the robbers scrambling down the trail far above him, the trail
he had already covered, and twice they fired on him; but the kindly
darkness saved him. He was nearing the foot of the mountain now, and the
cayuse was beginning to heave badly, but Leloo still struck the sweating
flanks, and the creature still plunged on, until, finally, in fear and
exhaustion, it stumbled. Instantly it recovered itself, but Leloo knew
that this was the first sign of the coming end. Then only did he stop.
In his mad ride Leloo had been so intently listening for sounds from
behind that he never once thought of sounds ahead, and in this pause
of the rattling hoofs and flying stones, his ears caught the rumble
of wheels coming towards him, the gentle beat of six horses trotting
slowly, and the cheery whistle of the big Canadian who drove the Cariboo
stage. As Leloo came slowly upon them, the big driver called, "Who's
there--ahead in the trail? Who's shooting around here?"
"Go back, you!" cried the boy. "Two bad men's up trail. They shoot you.
They get gold."
"Gee whiz!" yelled Big Bill, bringing his six-in-hand to a standstill.
"Holdup, eh? I declare, but that's a narrow escape. I guess Big Bill
won't cross the divide to-night."
"No, you go back," reiterated the boy.
"Well, I'll be blowed if it isn't just a kid!" exclaimed the driver, as
Leloo rode up close beside him. "And look at the horse of him, clean
played out. I say, boy, no wonder you rode hard, with all that gunning
behind you. I'm rather handy with a gun myself, and I never drive the
'gold' stage without these two here," tapping the revolvers in his big
belt, "but if our friends up there had got the drop on me first, there'd
have been a dead driver, and no gold for the boys in the bank, I'm
thinking. What is your name, anyway, boy?"
"Me? I'm Leloo," the little Indian replied. "My father, he Chief
Buckskin, Lillooet tribe."
"Whew!" gasped Big Bill. "Old Buckskin's son, eh? Then you're all right,
for Buckskin is 'white'--all but his skin. You climb up beside me here,
and give that poor, busted horse of yours a rest. This outfit is a-goin'
to turn back, and we'll all sleep at Pete's place to-night. But how did
you get past those sneaking gunners up there? That's what I want to
know."
And later when Leloo, safely seated beside the big driver, related how
he had tricked the scoundrels, Big Bill was as proud as if he had been
the boy's father. "The whole Cariboo trail from end to end shall know of
this," he declared, "know just how you saved me and the miners' gold."
"Me no save," said Leloo, shaking his head with denial. "Not me save,
just save by big wolf-brother. He teach me to make his cry, he answer me
when I talk his talk to him."
And it must have been this speech that the big driver told far and wide,
for at the next great "potlatch" (feast) given by the Lillooets, the
entire tribe conferred the great honor of a new name upon Leloo, the
name he had won for himself--"Wolf-Brother."