THE RAIDING PARTY
Thunder River at last! Like most northern streams it had cut its channel
deeply into the earth, through soil, rock and sandstone, and the result
now, after ages of this corrosive action, was a deep canyon at the
bottom of which roared and tumbled the mighty river.
Spring floods, caused by melting snow and ice in the hills and mountains
to the west, had made a veritable torrent of the river, and Dick, Toma
and Sandy, looking down at the racing, foam-capped waters, were a little
dubious about crossing it.
“We’ll never get the horses over at any rate,” Dick decided. “There’s no
animal living that can swim against that current. It simply can’t be
done.”
“No,” agreed Sandy, “it can’t. And I very much doubt whether we can get
across ourselves. It looks to me as if the strongest raft in the world
would be dashed to pieces against those rocks in a very few minutes.
What do you think, Toma?”
For once, apparently, their guide was at a complete loss to know what to
say. He frowned as he looked down below.
“I never see river so bad like that before,” he admitted, shaking his
head.
“If Toma thinks it’s bad, it must be pretty bad indeed,” laughed Dick.
“How are we going to cross it, I wonder?”
“We no cross here,” said Toma, “but mebbe we find better place somewhere
else.”
Acting upon this suggestion, they started out. They followed the river
for several miles, making their way along the comparatively level ground
that skirted the edge of the canyon. At the end of an hour, they paused
in dismay.
“It seems to be getting worse instead of better,” complained Sandy.
“It’s hopeless. I don’t believe we’re going to get over.”
“We’ve got to do it somehow,” Dick gritted his teeth. “Let’s make camp
here, stake out the ponies and go after this thing systematically. Sandy
and I will return to the place we just came from and scout further up
the river, while you, Toma, go on in the other direction. We’ll meet
back here sometime before evening.”
“All right,” said Toma, “I think that good idea. We pretty sure find
some place not quite so bad. Then we build raft.”
“But what about the ponies?” Sandy wanted to know.
“They’ll be safe enough here.”
“I don’t mean that, Dick. What are we going to do when we build the
raft? We can’t take pack-horses along with us.”
“We can take the packs along,” reasoned Dick, “and that’s almost as
important. We’ll turn the ponies loose and let them shift for
themselves.”
“But we can’t carry all our supplies with us when we do get over. It’s
impossible. We can’t do it.”
“No,” admitted Dick, very much perplexed. “We can’t.”
“We make ’em cache for supplies,” Toma suggested. “We carry ’em over to
mine, little at a time.”
“That’s the only solution, I suppose,” said Sandy, “but it’s sure to be
a whale of a job. How’ll you like to climb up those slippery rocks with
a hundred pounds on your back? Another thing, how far do you think it is
from the other side of the river to the mine?”
Dick produced the map, while Sandy and Toma gathered around him.
“It doesn’t say how far it is,” Dick stated, as he unfolded the now
soiled piece of paper. “But it isn’t so very far because the cross,
indicating its position, is very close to the river.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Sandy turned away in disgust. “How do we
know at what point along the river the mine is? We may be fifteen or
twenty miles out of our course, for all you know. The place where we
cross may be miles and miles away from the mine.”
Dick placed an agitated finger on the map and bit his lips in vexation.
Sandy was right. How could they possibly find the mine unless they knew
at least approximately at what point along the river it was situated?
And then, suddenly, staring at the paper in his hand, he became aware of
something he had not noticed before. Across the upper portion of the
map, Thunder River was indicated by a line, a fairly straight line
throughout its entire length. A casual or fleeting look at the line
brought out nothing of importance, but a close and careful examination
showed that, midway between the source and mouth of the river, there was
a tiny loop or bow. Within this bow, on the opposite or upper side of
the line, was the “X,” which showed the location of the mine.
“I’ve got it!” Dick shouted. “There’s an abrupt curve in the river at
only one place—opposite the mine. When we find that curve, we’ll know
where to cross.”
Sandy took the map from his friend and inspected it closely, silently.
“Yes, the curve is there,” he was forced to admit. “And it ought to
simplify matters, too. The next thing on our program is to find it.”
“Why not do as I just proposed,” said Dick. “While we’re hunting for a
place to cross, we may find the bow.”
It seemed about the only thing to do under the circumstances. In a short
time the boys had staked out the ponies, and had picked up their rifles
in preparation for departure. Toma, who had been looking about, suddenly
exclaimed:
“I have good idea. I climb big, tall tree over there an’ mebbe I find
out where river makes turn. I go up see.”
He crossed over to the tree at a brisk trot and commenced climbing up.
It was a huge, towering spruce, and it was several minutes before he
reached the top.
“Do you see anything?” shouted Sandy.
Toma clung to the topmost branches, swaying there nearly seventy-five
feet above their heads, a dark blur against a background of blue sky. He
made no answer to Sandy’s shouted inquiry, in fact refusing to divulge
any information until he had clambered down again and stood there on the
knoll beside them.
“I find ’em curve all right,” he announced gleefully, brushing away the
fragments of bark which clung to his clothing. “You laugh when I tell
you only two miles down river. I see very plain from top of tree. River
come out on this side nearly quarter-mile before it turn go back again.”
Sandy clapped his hands joyfully.
“What luck! Toma, you old rascal.”
“I find out something else too,” continued the guide, pleased at the
impression he was making. “In place where river turns, I see another big
ravine where river flow long time ago. Mebbe it just about place where
you find ’em mine.”
Waiting to hear no more, Sandy, overcome with a fever of excitement,
rushed over to the pack-horses again.
“Let’s hurry,” he called, beginning to gather up their supplies.
“Come on, Dick, get a move on! Toma, you’ll have to pack these brutes
yourself. I never could throw a diamond hitch. Gee, but I’m excited.”
Dick had never seen Sandy quite like this before. His chum’s face was
flushed; his eyes glowed brightly.
“We’ll get to the mine tonight,” he exulted. “Throw on these packs,
Toma. If we can’t cross the river any other way, I’m going to swim.”
The contagion had caught Dick, too. His own hands were trembling as he
stooped down to untie the picket-rope from the stake he had driven down
only a few minutes before.
“This is great!” he mumbled to himself. “We’re almost there. I can
hardly believe—”
The pony, only a few feet away, reared suddenly on its hind legs,
screaming in pain. The stake snapped under Dick’s hands and the rope
swished away in the grass as the stricken little beast leaped forward a
few feet, then fell headlong.
Completely taken aback, Dick raised his head. Sandy and Toma had
flattened themselves out on the ground and were reaching for their
rifles. A series of sounds very much like small rocks thudding around
them, was followed soon after by a deep, resounding crash from the
direction of Toma and Sandy. A few more reports from Toma’s gun, and the
deep, brooding hush of the wilderness became suddenly intensified—a
silence that seemed to wall them about, to encompass them.
Three startled, white-faced youths crawled on hands and knees to the
protection of a large rock and squatted down in mute terror. By some
wonderful miracle, each had escaped injury. A score or more of
yellow-plumed shafts; the arrows of the invading party, projected here
and there above the green grass, like so many tiny sentinels of death.
“A close call,” breathed Dick, “and may God help us if they come back.”
“They were all in hiding over there on that ridge,” Sandy volunteered
the information, pointing out the place with a finger that still shook.
“I didn’t see one of them—not one! Did you, Toma?”
“No.”
“Cracky! but how those arrows came,” Sandy shivered. “Well, our pony’s
gone.”
“We go too,” said Toma, “unless we be more careful. Crazy, them fellows!
What harm we do them?”
“No harm,” answered Dick, “unless they feel we’ve no business here on
their hunting ground. We _are_ trespassing, when it comes right down to
it.”
“This bad medicine land,” Toma asserted. “That’s why free traders no
come here. Once in a while mebbe come but never go back.”
“Be quiet!” Sandy expostulated. “I’m feeling creepy enough now. Those
Indians steal up on us and disappear again like ghosts. It takes the
nerve right out of me.”
“Me too,” said Dick, “but hereafter I, for one, intend to be ready for
them. At least, I don’t purpose to be asleep when they come over for
their next raid. And I’m going to keep my eyes open as I never kept them
open before.”
“Well, we weren’t exactly asleep,” objected Sandy.
“We might just as well have been. I’ll bet that any one of their party
could have walked over here and taken a scalp before we would have
noticed him.”
Toma rose warily and went over to the packs.
“I think no more danger now,” he called. “We better hurry before dark
comes. Lots of work build raft over at river.”
“We’ll have to make two trips down there,” Dick suddenly remembered.
“We’ve only one pony now.”