ADAM BRENT'S STORY.
"I shall try to tell my story," began Adam, "just as my father told it
to me, years ago. It is not a long one, and even if it was, I should
hurry through it as rapidly as possible, for it is a matter I do not
like to talk about. That man," he added, nodding his head toward the
outlaw, and speaking as plainly as a mouthful of fish would permit, "is
a walking illustration of what bad company will do. He is my uncle, I am
sorry to say, but, for a long time, I have never called him by any other
name than Black Bill. In my story, however, I shall speak of him as
William. I can remember when he was an uncle worth having. I used to run
to meet him whenever I saw him coming, would stand at his side for hours
listening to the story of his adventures in the mines, and was never
easy unless I was in his company. But things have changed of late. I
would run away from him now if I saw him coming toward me, and I am much
more uncomfortable in his presence than I used to be out of it.
"When I was about six years old, mother and I lived with my grandfather
at Placer City, in California. He kept a grocery and provision store,
and my father and his brother William owned and worked a claim in the
mines. The claim paid well, much better than any other for miles about,
and father was steadily growing rich by his labor. William ought to have
been equally prosperous, for he received half the profits; but somehow
he never had a cent of money in his pocket, but was continually asking
assistance from father, of whom he borrowed, first and last, several
thousand dollars, which he has never taken the trouble to return. He
said he was buying up claims; but when he had a quarrel with a miner
about a gambling debt which he could not pay, the truth came out, and
father saw where his money had been going. He found out, too, that for
months William had been keeping company with some of the very worst men
in the mines--gamblers, horse-thieves, and criminals of every sort, who
had run away from the States to get out of reach of the law.
"I need not stop to tell you how shocked and pained all the family were
when they heard of this, or how they tried, by every means in their
power, to make William see what would surely be his end if he did not
abandon the life he was leading. Of course, he made promises of
amendment, and, for a while, held manfully to them; but it requires
moral courage to resist temptation, and that was something William did
not possess. It was not long before he was as bad as ever; and when he
could go no farther for want of money, he came to father to borrow. Then
came the first quarrel between the brothers. Father refused to accede to
his demand, and William threatened vengeance. He did not say what he
would do, but father knew what he had determined upon, as well as if he
had told him in so many words.
"Father had been in the habit of depositing his gold-dust in the safe at
the store. William knew it, and was resolved to have that gold-dust. If
he could not borrow it, he would steal it. He broke into the store that
very night, but found the safe empty. Father had removed every dollar of
the money. The noise he made in breaking open the safe aroused
grandfather, who slept in a room over the store; and not recognizing
William in the darkness, he gave him a shot from his revolver. The ball
took effect somewhere, for the next morning there was blood on the
floor, and William was nowhere to be found. Every one wondered who the
robber could be, and a great many questions were asked about the missing
man; for he had been a prominent character in the mines, and his
mysterious disappearance excited curiosity. But it did not stop there.
That curiosity became suspicion; and it was not long before it was
noised abroad that he was the guilty one.
"William kept clear of Placer City forever afterward. The miners had a
summary way of dealing with such men, and if they could have found him,
the influence of all his friends and relatives combined could not have
saved him. It was not long after that before people began to talk about
Black Bill--the leader of a band of robbers who infested the mountains
between Placer City and Sacramento; and in less than two weeks father
fell into his hands. He recognized the chief, if others did not, and you
can imagine what his feelings were when he found that he was his own
brother. Black Bill robbed him, as he robbed every one else who came in
his way, and released him with this warning, as nearly as I can recall
the words:
"'You have made me what I am,' said the robber, 'and I will be revenged
in a way you do not think of. I shall not lift a hand against you, but
keep an eye on that boy of yours. If I get hold of him, I will make him
a second Black Bill.'
"That was all the outlaw said, but it was enough to frighten father more
than any physical danger would have done; and, as for myself, I might as
well have been sent to the State's prison at once, for I could scarcely
have been more closely confined there than I was at home. Several
attempts to steal me were frustrated by the vigilance of my father, who,
becoming weary at last of living in constant fear of losing me, sold out
his claim in the mines, and removing to this wild region, erected the
house in which we lived until last night, and began business as a
fur-trader. It was there he made the acquaintance of Capt. Porter. No
sooner had we become fairly settled in our new home, than Black Bill
made his appearance; and, although he has occasionally been off on
trapping expeditions, he has spent the most of his time for the last ten
years in hanging around the valley, watching his opportunity to capture
me. He never succeeded, however, until last night; and, as good luck
would have it, he was not destined to keep me long."
"O, I haint done with you yet!" exclaimed the outlaw, who had listened
attentively to the story. "You're free now, an' I'm a pris'ner; but it
won't be so long. I've got plenty of friends roamin' about among these
mountains."
"You have found out by this time that the boy you captured last night
was not Adam Brent, haven't you?" said Frank. "Where is he now?"
"Who--that spunky little feller? The last time I seed him the Black Fox
was marchin' him off to the woods."
"Who's the Black Fox?"
"I should think you had oughter know him purty well by this time. He's
the feller you run that race with. I told him that if he would take good
care of that boy, an' not let him get away, I would make him a present
of that leetle gray hoss of mine."
"That little gray horse doesn't belong to you, as it happens," said
Frank. "He's mine."
"I'd like to see you get him. One of my mates, Jack Bowles, has got him
safe."
"Well, if I had my other horse----"
Frank was about to say that if he had Roderick, and could catch Jack
Bowles out on clear ground, he would show him that he hadn't got Pete
quite so safe as he imagined; but he stopped when he reflected that the
mustang was a good many miles away, and in the hands of the savages,
and that possibly he might never see him again.
"I know where your other horse is," said Adam. "He is in the possession
of Dick Lewis. You see, when the trappers learned that Dick had been
captured, they went up and attacked the Indian camp, in the hope that
during the confusion he might see a chance to get away. That was,
probably, the time that Roderick escaped. At any rate, when the trappers
returned to the fort, the mustang came with them, and Dick took care of
him."
"That's all right," said Frank. "I knew the Indians would never catch
Dick. Did you see Bob Kelly?"
"Yes; he was alive and yelling when we cut our way out of the fort."
"I have just thought of something," said Frank, turning to the outlaw.
"You said you gave Archie into the keeping of the Black Fox. I met the
Fox about three miles back in the mountains, and had a fight with him.
What was he doing so far from camp?"
"I don't know," replied the outlaw, looking thoughtfully at the ground.
"Mebbe the leetle feller got away from him."
"That's just my idea. Archie escaped, and he was in pursuit of him. If
the Fox knows when he is well off, he will get help before he tries to
capture him, for Archie is plucky and strong, if he is little. But,
Adam, you were going to tell me what happened at the fort."
"There isn't much to tell," was the reply. "The Indians whipped us, and
they were not more than an hour in doing it. The trappers, as I told
you, left the fort and made an attack on the village, for the purpose of
liberating Dick Lewis. Of course, they did not expect to whip the
Indians in a fair fight; all they wanted to do was to throw the camp
into confusion, and give Dick a chance to do something for himself. But
he had already escaped, and about fifteen minutes after the trappers
left, he came into the fort, puffing and blowing like a porpoise. The
trappers were more successful than they expected to be. Finding the
village nearly deserted, they set it on fire, kept up a running fight
with the Indians for ten miles; and sixteen out of nineteen returned to
the fort in safety. The Indians, in the meantime, must have received
reinforcements from somewhere, for they followed close at the trappers'
heels; and no sooner had the gates been closed than the fight began.
"You learned something about Indians when they made the attack on your
wagon-train, while you were coming across the plains; but you have never
been in a regular battle with them, and you can have but a poor idea of
the state of affairs in and about that fort during the short time the
fight continued. They began operations by setting fire to our house and
barns. The fire lighted up the whole valley; and I shall never forget
how I felt when I looked over the top of the palisades and saw the
savages coming toward us. I had never seen so many Indians before. There
must have been a thousand of them; and the determination with which they
made and carried on their attack, proved that they had great confidence
in their overwhelming numbers, and that they expected an easy victory.
They did not waste time in skulking behind trees and shooting at the
fort--they came on in a body, like soldiers, approaching so close to the
palisades that we could touch them with the muzzles of our guns as we
thrust them through the loop-holes. They expected, no doubt, to find the
fort in the same defenseless state in which they had seen it in the
morning--with the gates gone and the walls broken down; but in this they
were disappointed. The major had paid some attention to Captain Porter's
warning, and the old trading-post was as strong as it had ever been.
That was a fortunate thing for us, for, even as it was, it was all we
could do to prevent the savages from affecting an entrance. They fought
like tigers, climbing up to the top of the wall and throwing their
tomahawks down at the soldiers, and even tearing out the palisades in
some places; and I saw more than one Indian cut down with sabers inside
the fort. The assault did not continue more than five or ten minutes--of
course it seemed much longer to me--and then one of the chiefs set up a
yell, and the savages fell back to the cover of the woods to devise
some new plan of attack; while we improved the time to repair the damage
they had done. I say _we_, because I count myself in as one of the
defenders of the fort. My bullets went as swift and as straight to the
mark as anybody's. I had a good rifle and a brace of revolvers; and,
although I was excited and frightened, as I believe any other boy would
have been under the same circumstances, I was not foolish enough to
waste my ammunition, and did not shoot unless a fair mark was presented.
I know I hit one Indian, and saved a soldier's life; but I haven't come
to that yet.
"If you had been in the fort, I don't think you would have failed to
take particular notice of Dick Lewis and Bob Kelly. All the trappers
seemed to be in their element--I don't believe there was one among them
who experienced any more fear than you and I would if we were defending
a snow fort against the attacks of our schoolmates--but Dick and Bob
were as wild as any of the Indians. Such yells I never before heard
uttered by white men. If there was one place in the fort more dangerous
than another, those two trappers were sure to be there. On one occasion,
when the Indians had cut down a portion of the palisades, and the
soldiers were doing some desperate hand-to-hand fighting to keep them
from entering through the opening, Dick seized one of the savages, and,
whirling him clear over his head, threw him back into the fort, calling
out: 'Ketch him, somebody!' Three or four soldiers sprang upon him at
once, and before they had time to bind him, Dick threw them another.
When the savages had been driven back, and the soldiers were repairing
the palisades, the major took occasion to thank the trappers, and
especially Dick and Bob, for what they had done. The former listened
attentively to what he had to say, and then drew himself up and gave the
major a regular military salute.
"'Fightin' comes as nateral to me as eatin',' said he. 'Me an' my chum,
poor ole Bill Lawson, fit all through the Mexikin war; an' as fur
Injuns, I've been in a heap of skrimmages with 'em, fust an' last. But
we'll have to do wusser fightin' nor that afore we are done with 'em,
major. They're goin' to begin their tricks, now.'
"The trapper had scarcely uttered these words, when a chorus of savage
yells arose on all sides of us, and bullets and arrows began to come
into the fort like hail-stones. A new danger threatened us now, for some
of the arrows had bunches of burning leaves and pine-knots attached to
them. They came over the walls in a perfect shower, some falling on the
stables, some on the quarters, and in less than a minute the fort was on
fire in a dozen different places.
"'Shovels!' shouted Captain Porter. 'All my men turn to and throw dirt
on the fire!'
"But the savages were prepared for this. A number of them had climbed
into the trees surrounding the fort, from which they could see all that
was going on inside the palisades; and no sooner did the trappers fall
to work in obedience to the captain's order, than a storm of bullets
fell among them, sending more than one poor fellow to eternity.
"For the next half hour we had a serious time of it; but I believe the
trappers would have succeeded in frustrating the designs of the
savages, had it not been for the reckless bravery of a young chief, who,
in some mysterious way, succeeded in entering the fort unobserved. How
he managed to elude the vigilance of the soldiers, who were watching the
loop-holes while the trappers were engaged in fighting the fire, I can
not tell; but, at any rate, he got in, went into the officers' quarters,
and after piling a quantity of clothing in one corner, set it on fire. I
was standing at one of the loop-holes, watching a chance for a shot at a
warrior who was concealed in the top of a tree about fifty yards from
the fort, when I heard a yell, and, turning quickly, saw a soldier
struggling on the ground, and an Indian standing over him with his
tomahawk raised to strike. I was not quick enough to prevent the weapon
from descending, but I destroyed the Indian's aim by sending a ball into
his shoulder. The hatchet grazed the soldier's head, and his enemy fell
into the arms of a trapper, who bound him hand and foot before he could
wink twice.
"If the trapper had known what the Indian had been doing, I do not
think he would have taken him prisoner. He believed that the savage had
just entered the fort, and that he had not had time to do any mischief;
but he soon discovered his mistake, for when somebody opened the door of
the officers' quarters, a thick volume of smoke rushed out. The trappers
were ordered to the spot immediately, but it was too late. The fire had
made rapid headway, and the inside of the building was a sheet of
flames. It quickly spread to the stables adjoining the quarters, thence
to the palisades, and almost before we knew it we were surrounded by a
wall of fire.
"'The jig's up at last, youngster,' said Dick, as he hurried past me.
'Shovels aint no more account. We've got to trust to our hosses' legs
now!'
"I don't believe I was ever before so badly frightened as I was when I
heard these words. My situation then was bad enough, surrounded as I was
by burning houses, almost suffocated by smoke, while bullets and flaming
arrows were whistling through the air, carrying death and destruction on
all sides of me; but to leave the shelter of those walls, and ride out
of the fort under the very noses of a thousand yelling Indians, with
nothing but the speed of my horse to stand between me and their fury--I
tell you, Frank, the bare thought was enough to make my old fur cap rise
on my head as it had never done before. While I was standing inactive,
the soldiers had sprung into their saddles, and with drawn sabers in one
hand, and revolvers in the other, were awaiting the order to cut their
way out of the fort. Father and Captain Porter had secured my horse, and
were looking for me. I had barely time to mount before the gate flew
open, the bugle sounded a charge, and we swept out of the fort into the
midst of the savages."