Morning dawned bright and clear after the night of the storm.
Our friends in the ranger’s cavern breakfasted early, for they were
anxious to be off for the land of civilization.
Captain Warren Walraven concluded to give up his wild, secluded life,
and with his angel wife go back to his old home in Iowa.
Though Ebony Jim and Flick O’Flynn were going to accompany them beyond
the dangers of the hills, they had no desire to quit their nomadic
life of hunters, and, in token of his respect for them, Rodger Rainbolt
presented them his hidden home and all its appurtenances, Purle, the
pet panther, and his library, though, unfortunately, neither of them
could read a word.
Echo, the eagle, the ranger resolved to keep, so long as a feather of
him was left.
As for Frank and Willis Armond, Ralph Rodman and Walter Lyman, they
were _fully_ satisfied with their few days of “recreation in the
mountains,” and concluded to go back to Omaha.
When all were ready to leave the cavern, Florence turned to her husband
and said:
“Oh, Warren! how I would love to visit father’s lonely grave before we
return to the East.”
“And I, too,” said Silvia; “it would afford me great consolation to
look upon poor father’s grave before we go away.”
“Your desire shall be granted, my dear children,” said the ranger, with
tears of tenderness in his eyes.
And so they left the cavern.
The ranger called up his faithful mustang, and having bridled and
saddled it, mounted the women upon it.
Then, with the (seeming) indispensable and capacious saddle-bags, which
he always carried, thrown across his arm, the ranger took the lead and
the party moved away.
Echo, the eagle, had been sent away in advance to keep his wary watch
for danger before, while Ebony and Flick were sent out on either side
to watch out for any enemies that might be disposed to attack them.
Their progress was slow and tedious, and it was not until the end
of the third day that they reached the little glade wherein Wayland
Sanford had been buried.
The young sportsmen found the grave as they had left it, though the
bodies of the savages were gone.
That night the party encamped in the glade by the grave.
After supper had been prepared and eaten, and while the party sat
around the camp-fire conversing, the subject of the Aërial Demon came
up.
After each one had given his opinions and views on the subject, the
ranger started to his feet, saying:
“Indeed, I have been neglecting our safety. I will go out into the
forest and reconnoiter the immediate vicinity for lurking danger, then
we must station guards for the night,” and as he concluded, he stooped
and whispered something to Florence and Silvia, then turned, and
calling his eagle, that had perched itself in a tree-top, walked away
into the forest, though none but the women noticed that he took his
capacious saddle-bags with him.
In about ten minutes he returned.
“Any signs ob danger, capt’ing?” asked Ebony.
“None whatever,” returned the captain; “but, where can Echo be?” and,
as he concluded, he placed the horn to his lips and blew a blast that
echoed far away through the hills.
In a moment a scream was heard down the valley, and all eyes were
instantly turned that way.
An exclamation of horror burst from the lips of the two hunters and the
four young sportsmen.
They saw the Aërial Demon coming up the valley toward them!
The women uttered a little scream, while Rainbolt burst into a hearty
laugh, then he placed the horn to his lips and blew another blast.
At this juncture the Aërial Demon was directly over the camp, and as
the blast of the horn pealed out, the horrid creature ceased its flight
and settled down, _down into the very midst of the excited group_.
A cry of surprise, followed by a ringing laugh, pealed from every lip.
The mystery of the Aërial Demon was explained, and the two hunters and
four young sportsmen felt no little ashamed of their fears of such a
harmless, but after all, a rather mysterious contrivance of Rodger
Rainbolt.
Let us analyze the Aërial Demon, the terror of the Indians:
First, it received its motive power of Echo, the eagle.
Second, its great arms, that beat and buffeted the air, were the
eagle’s wings, and the screams that it uttered were Echo’s screams.
Third, the head of the demon was simply a dark lantern, light and
dextrously made, and carefully fastened upon Echo’s back between the
wings.
Fourth, the ghastly proportions, revealed by the flame, resembling a
human frame, _was the representation of a skeleton_, made of light,
dry pine, and suspended beneath the eagle by means of a small strap
attached to it and passing over the back of the bird.
And this was the mystery of the Aërial Demon, a clever and ingenious
contrivance, which, on more than one occasion, had saved the life of
its originator! Only the patience of Rodger Rainbolt, in training Echo
to perform those aërial missions, with almost a human understanding,
could have produced such a result.
The capacious saddle-bags he always carried, were the repository of the
rude contrivance.
Ebony was, at last, forced to give up the idea that the Aërial Demon
was the Old Nick, and begged hard for the eagle and the demon that he
might use it to work on the fears of the Indians.
The ranger would not part with his noble bird, but gave the lantern and
fixtures to the darky, who declared he would catch and train a hawk, or
an owl, at the earliest time possible.
And so the night was spent as well as circumstances would admit, with
our friends.
Morning dawned clear and warm.
The party breakfasted upon wild pigeon and venison procured by the two
hunters, and prepared by Florence.
When they were ready to resume their Journey, Florence drew her husband
toward her father’s grave, and said:
“Warren, promise me by this grave that you will forgive my father the
wrongs he has done you.”
“Let _that_,” he said, kissing her pleading lips, “be the seal to the
promise which I grant with all my heart.”
“Ho! ho! ho! by the mysteries of the Aërial Demon! Here am I in the
camp of a party of lords and ladies!”
All eyes were turned upon the speaker. It was the mysterious Solomon
Strange, who had appeared from the forest at this juncture, and halted
in their midst.
Florence and Silvia changed significant smiles.
“I am glad to meet you, Mr. Strange,” said Captain Walraven.
“And I, you, my lord, but you all seem as serious as though you were in
a graveyard reading the inscriptions on the gravestones.”
“Sir, those ladies’ father lies buried there,” said Frank, pointing to
the grave.
“Ho! ho!” laughed Strange; “and how know you that, my boy?”
“Because I helped to bury him there,” returned Frank.
“And what would you think, boy, if I, Solomon Strange, gifted with the
power of the ancient soothsayers, should tell you that you are guilty
of burying a _live man there_?”
“I would think you were a fool,” retorted Frank.
“‘To err is human, to forgive divine,’ but I will prove it to you, my
boy,” said Strange; and, as he concluded, began to unfasten the strips
of bark and twisted grass from his limbs.
This done, his ragged garments dropped from his body, revealing it
dressed in a fashionable suit of dark cloth. Then the man placed his
hands to his head and face, and tore off the wig and mask of long
yellow hair and whiskers, and--
_Colonel Wayland Sanford stood before them in perfect health!_
The young sportsmen, the two hunters and Rodger Rainbolt were
completely dumbfounded, and started back as if from a ghost, unable to
utter a word.
A merry peal of laughter rung from the sisters’ lips. They knew their
father lived, and were prepared for the meeting. He had made known his
existence to Florence in the Indian encampment, hence their private
interviews there. Florence then communicated the fact to Silvia.
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the colonel; “do you believe now, my boy, that
you buried a live man, _there_?”
“Uncle Wayland Sanford!” exclaimed Frank, realizing the startling fact,
“how in the name of Heaven did you escape?”
“Easy enough, since you had buried me in a _state of catalepsy_,
brought on by excitement and fatigue, and not very deep in the ground,
for when I regained consciousness I found I was in the ground, the dirt
mostly off of me and a pack of wolves lowering around. The beasts had
dug the dirt away.”
The young men came forward and congratulated the colonel on his
resurrection and escape. Rainbolt took him by the hand and said:
“I am happy to meet you thus, Wayland Sanford; your part has been well
played. Solomon Strange _was_ a strange man, and the mystery connected
with him stands revealed.”
“Warren Walraven,” returned the colonel, “it eases my heart to hear you
talk thus--I, who, so--”
“Never mind, colonel, never mind. I know what you would say. Let the
past be forgotten,” said the ranger.
“So be it, thank God!” murmured the colonel.
At this moment Gustave Barker emerged from the woods and joined the
happy group.
Wayland Sanford’s labor had been doubly rewarded.
When he had returned to consciousness and found that he had been buried
for dead, that his young friends were gone, he recalled his situation,
the last he knew before he fell unconscious from the shock the news
Rainbolt had communicated to him had given him, he arose from his
shallow grave, beat off the wolves that had, fortunately, dug him out;
and then he resolved upon disguising himself and going forth to meet
the ranger, and bring to justice the man who held him in his power.
He knew full well that Duval Dungarvon was the direct cause of Silvia’s
abduction, and he determined to search him out and compel him to
acknowledge his innocence in the Miner’s Gulch affair to the world.
Before leaving the grave, however, he filled it up, smoothed it over
and then covered it with the brush which he supposed his friends left
over it. His object in this was to surprise them just as we have seen,
should they ever return there.
Procuring his disguise, he set forth. What he accomplished the reader
has already seen.
After some delay, the party resumed its journey toward Cheyenne City,
increased in number by the colonel and his old friend, Gustave Barker.
In the course of several days they arrived at the city.
There Ebony Jim and Flick O’Flynn bid them adieu and returned to the
mountains, where they still remain; but as the Aërial Demon has never
been heard of since Rodger Rainbolt left there, it is supposed that
Ebony “couldn’t make it work.”
Silvia and her father were so overpowered with joy, that they gave up
their visit to California, and returned with their friends to Omaha.
Captain Warren Walraven and his beautiful wife, Florence, reside at
Council Bluffs, Iowa; and as it is but a little ways over to Omaha,
they often go over to see Walter and Silvia Lyman, who had plighted
their love in the ranger’s cavern, away among the Black Hills, and who
became man and wife shortly after their return home.
Willis, Frank and Ralph are still single, and often declare that Walter
got the best of the summer’s recreation.
Colonel Sanford and his friend, Barker, reside in Omaha.
A short time since, Walter and Silvia became the happy parents of a
bright-eyed boy-baby, and they call him Rodger Rainbolt.
And so we leave them.