RINGED IN BY FIRE.
Nevertheless, in spite of this welcome lull after the storm, Major
Clendenning was determined to take no chances of a minor outbreak
on the part of the surviving members of the Blackfoot band. He
had learned from Buffalo Bill something of the haughty nature and
indomitable ambition of the younger chief, Lightfoot; and he had good
reason to fear that the Blackfeet would not long remain in their
refuge among the hills. Whether they would again molest the whites,
particularly the miners, or confine their hostile attentions to their
constant foes, the Crees, was an open question, and Major Clendenning
felt certain that the great scout could solve it. He, therefore,
dispatched Buffalo Bill to the territory formerly occupied by Crazy
Snake’s tribe, with instructions to find out as much as possible.
Having left Lena Forest in charge of the kindly wife of one of the
officers at the fort, and having said farewell to Pawnee Bill, old
Nomad, and Bruce Clayton--who promised Lena that he would ride over
to the fort as often as he possibly could, and that he would work
hard and save enough money for them to be married--Buffalo Bill
mounted and rode forth to new adventures, in which his friends were
destined to share.
He shaped his course directly toward the high hills, and on the
evening of the third day of his journey he found himself entering a
thick forest of scrub oaks and pines. As the shadows of night were
deepening, he decided to camp in a favorable spot; so he tethered
his horse, climbed farther up the mountain, spread a blanket on the
ground, and, carefully building a small fire, cooked his frugal meal.
After that, he dozed peacefully and soon fell into profound slumber.
When he awoke in the morning he was startled by the smell of burning
pine needles and the sight of clouds of smoke drifting between the
trees. The ground was a solid carpet of pine needles, inches deep,
and this was now a carpet of flame. The fire climbed the trees,
throwing out red banners, wrapping the straight pines in roaring fire.
In front of the scout was the edge of a precipice overhanging the
Bitter Water that here cut through the solid rock of its deep cañon
chasm.
Yet sheer as was that precipice, and far down as were the waters of
the little river, Buffalo Bill seemed almost on the point of leaping
down.
The mountain was steep, and he had left his horse near its base,
climbing himself to the rugged spot where he now stood. He was
trapped. Where he stood there was a narrow space of rock, on the edge
of the precipice; in front of him a small space of needle-covered
ground still untouched by fire; and beyond that a very furnace of
flame and smoke. The roar of the fire was terrifying of itself, and
now and then the fall of a burned tree trunk thundered through it,
like the crash of a cannon shot.
“My own fault, too!” he said, as he looked about, searching vainly
for some avenue of escape. “I don’t know that I slept so soundly that
the fire got such a start as that. I suppose I must have thought it
the roar of the river.”
But Buffalo Bill could not be quite sure that all the fault was with
himself. For, who had started the fire? He had deadly enemies in that
country, men who would have roasted him there as coolly as they would
have roasted a plucked partridge.
But Buffalo Bill was not really troubling his mind so much about the
origin of the fire as how he could escape from it. He ran along the
edge of the precipice, looking down.
The lariat that might have helped him he had left on the saddle, with
the horse.
Twenty feet below him, on the side of the precipice, was a ledge; but
he could not get down to it, for the wall above it was as smooth as
a board, and glassy in its slipperiness. To jump down to that ledge
would be the same as deliberately committing suicide; for the ledge
was narrow, and the drop sheer, so that he would only have bounded,
or fallen, on down into the black cañon, if he had tried it. He could
see the white water roaring and racing far below; and could even see
other ledges and shelves that he might reach if he could only get
down to that first one.
Seeing that he could not climb down the sheer wall, he turned, and
again faced the fire.
Even in the few brief moments spent in inspecting the ledge, the
fire had gained in a startling way, and was now much closer and
much hotter than before. It roared and glowed in a big semicircle,
the two ends of the semicircle resting on the rim of the precipice
and traveling fast toward him. That he would be roasted alive if he
remained admitted of not a doubt; as even now, at the distance, the
heat of the fire was almost unbearable.
A strange look, perhaps never before seen on the face of the
indomitable scout, came to it, and he took out his revolver. For
the instant he felt that he preferred to shoot himself rather than
to suffer the tortures of a living death by fire. But he shook his
head, thrust back the revolver, and turned again to the rim of the
precipice.
“Perhaps I could tear up my clothes and make a rope that would reach
part way to the ledge, and I could drop the rest of the distance,”
was his thought. “I’ll try it; for I’ll die here if I don’t, and I’d
prefer to die trying to do something.”
He was about to strip off his coat, when a shout reached him. It came
so suddenly and unexpectedly that it made his heart jump.
“Yes?” he yelled, springing to the edge of the chasm and looking
about. He did not see any one. “Where are you?” he called, his heart
jumping with excitement and new hope.
“Here!” The voice had a singular sound, shrill and feminine.
He ran along the edge of the chasm, looking down, for it seemed to
come from below; and again he shouted an inquiry.
Then he saw the figure of a young woman, who was on one of the ledges
below him, and was trying to ascend the steep side of the chasm. She
had a rope, which she had flung up, with its noose hooked over a
projection.
“I’m coming!” she cried confidently, and began to climb the rope.
Her slight body swung and swayed over the dizzy chasm as she began to
climb. Slowly ascending, sometimes she slipped back, with a motion
that made him think she was falling and brought his heart into his
mouth.
He did not clearly see her face now, and he had not secured a very
good view of it, but he felt sure he knew who the young woman was.
With much difficulty, the girl climbed the rope and drew herself upon
the ledge to which the noose held. She looked up, and then he saw her
face clearly--the face of Lena Forest. Yet it seemed impossible she
could be there, as he had believed she was safe at the fort.
While the plucky girl was thus climbing the face of the dizzy
precipice, the fire was raging with wild fury, as if it knew that
help was coming to the scout and it was determined to overwhelm him
before that help could arrive. The increasing heat almost blistered
his face and hands now, and it drove him to the very edge of the
precipice, over which he soon was hanging, to escape it.
With a heroism that was beyond praise, Lena continued to mount, from
ledge to ledge, throwing up the rope and catching it on projections,
and then climbing up to the projections. At length she gained the
ledge below the scout.
When she looked up now he saw that she was on the point of
exhaustion. Her face was pale, and her eyes were big and bright. Her
breath came in gasps, as she stood up for the last cast of the rope.
“Catch it!” she said, then the rope shot from her hand, and the noose
was caught by the scout.
With a turn, he looped the noose over a point of the rock by him, and
the next instant he was sliding down the rope. It was like a rescue
from the very jaws of death.
When Buffalo Bill gained the ledge, he found Lena Forest lying there,
almost in a faint, from sheer exhaustion and intense excitement.
“Thank Heaven, I was in time!” she said, in a tremulous voice, when
she saw he had reached the ledge.
“Yes!” he echoed. “I can never thank you enough for that. It saved me
from an awful fate, though we’re not entirely secure here.”
“No, but you’re safe from the fire.”
“Yes, I think so.”
He looked down at the ledges still below him. The noose of the rope
was on the rock point above, and he had no rope now with which to
make a further descent. How he was ever to get down into the cañon
without a rope he did not know.
“We’ll hope the fire won’t trouble the noose up there,” he said to
her; “and, if it doesn’t, when the fire dies down we can climb up
the rope and get out above. It seems impossible to descend into the
cañon.”
“It seems to me I can never climb another yard,” Lena declared, so
thoroughly fatigued that she was almost crying.