The Pass
They resumed the journey early the next day, Bright Sun telling
Conway that they could reach the range before sunset, and that
they would find there an easy pass leading a mile or two farther
on to a protected and warm glen.
"That's the place for our camp," said Conway, and he urged the
train forward.
The traveling was smooth and easy, and they soon left the little
blue lake well behind, passing through a pleasant country well
wooded with elm, ash, birch, cottonwood, and box elder, and the
grass growing high everywhere. They crossed more than one clear
little stream, a pleasant contrast to the sluggish, muddy creeks
of the prairies.
The range, toward which the head of the train was pointing, now
came nearer. The boys saw its slopes, shaggy with dark pine, and
they knew that beyond it lay other and higher slopes, also dark
with pine. The air was of a wonderful clearness, showing in the
east and beyond the zenith a clear silver tint, while the west
was pure red gold with the setting sun.
Nearer and nearer came the range. The great pines blurred at
first into an unbroken mass, now stood out singly, showing their
giant stems. Afar a flash of foamy white appeared, where a brook
fell in a foamy cascade. Presently they were within a quarter of
a mile of the range, and its shadow fell over the train. In the
west the sun was low.
"The pass is there, straight ahead," said Bright Sun, pointing to
the steep range.
"I don't see any opening," said Conway.
"It is so narrow and the pines hide it," rejoined Bright Sun,
"but it is smooth and easy."
Albert was at the rear of the train. He had chosen to walk in
the later hours of the afternoon. He had become very tired, but,
unwilling to confess it even to himself, he did not resume his
place in the wagon. His weariness made him lag behind.
Albert was deeply sensitive to the impressions of time and
place. The twilight seemed to him to fall suddenly like a great
black robe. The pines once more blurred into a dark, unbroken
mass. The low sun in the west dipped behind the hills, and the
rays of red and gold that it left were chill and cold.
"Your brother wishes to see you. He is at the foot of the creek
that we crossed fifteen minutes ago."
It was Bright Sun who spoke.
"Dick wants to see me at the crossing of the creek! Why, I
thought he was ahead of me with the train!" exclaimed Albert.
"No, he is waiting for you. He said that it was important,"
repeated Bright Sun.
Albert turned in the darkening twilight and went back on the
trail of the train toward the crossing of the creek. Bright Sun
went to the head of the train, and saw Dick walking there alone
and looking at the hills.
"Your brother is behind at the creek," said Bright Sun. "He is
ill and wishes you. Hurry! I think it is important!"
"Albert at the creek, ill?" exclaimed Dick in surprise and
alarm. "Why, I thought he was here with the train!"
But Bright Sun had gone on ahead. Dick turned back hastily, and
ran along the trail through the twilight that was now fast
merging into the night.
"Al, ill and left behind!" he exclaimed again and again. "He
must have overexerted himself!"
His alarm deepened when he saw how fast the darkness was
increasing. The chill bars of red and gold were gone from the
west. When he looked back he could see the train no more, and
heard only the faint sound of the cracking of whips. The train
was fast disappearing in the pass.
But Dick had become a good woodsman and plainsman. His sense
of direction was rarely wrong, and he went straight upon the
trail for the creek. Night had now come but it was not very
dark, and presently he saw the flash of water. It was the creek,
and a few more steps took him there. A figure rose out of the
shadows.
"Al!" he cried. "Have you broken down? Why didn't you get into
the wagon?"
"Dick," replied Albert in a puzzled tone, "there's nothing the
matter with me, except that I'm tired. Bright Sun told me that
you were here waiting for me, and that you had something
important to tell me. I couldn't find you, and now you come
running."
Dick stopped in amazement.
"Bright Sun said I was waiting here for you, and had something
important to tell you?" exclaimed Dick. "Why, he told me that
you were ill, and had been left unnoticed at the crossing!"
The two boys stared at each other.
"What does it mean?" they exclaimed together.
From the dark pass before them came a sound which in the distance
resembled the report of a firecracker, followed quickly by two or
three other sounds, and then by many, as if the whole pack had
been ignited at once. But both boys knew it was not firecrackers.
It was something far more deadly and terrible--a hail of rifle
bullets. They looked toward the pass and saw there pink and red
flashes appearing and reappearing. Shouts, and mingled with them
a continuous long, whining cry, a dreadful overnote, came to their
ears.
"The train has been attacked!" cried Dick. "It has marched
straight into an ambush!"
"Indians?" exclaimed Albert, who was trembling violently from
sheer physical and mental excitement.
"It couldn't be anything else!" replied Dick. "This is their
country! And they must be in great force, too! Listen how the
fight grows!"
The volume of the firing increased rapidly, but above it always
rose that terrible whining note. The red and pink flashes in the
pass danced and multiplied, and the wind brought the faint odor
of smoke.
"We must help!" exclaimed Dick. "One can't stand here and see
them all cut down!"
He forgot in his generous heart, at that moment, that he disliked
Conway and all his men, and that he and Albert had scarcely a
friend in the train. He thought only of doing what he could to
beat back the Indian attack, and Albert felt the same impulse.
Both had their rifles--fine, breech-loading, repeating weapons,
and with these the two might do much. No one ever parted with
his arms after entering the Indian country.
"Come on, Albert!" exclaimed Dick, and the two ran toward the
pass. But before they had gone a hundred yards they stopped as
if by the same impulse. That terrible whining note was now
rising higher and higher. It was not merely a war whoop, it had
become also a song of triumph. There was a certain silvery
quality in the night air, a quality that made for illumination,
and Dick thought he saw dusky forms flitting here and there in
the mouth of the pass behind the train. It was only fancy,
because he was too far away for such perception, but in this case
fancy and truth were the same.
"Hurry, Dick! Let's hurry!" exclaimed the impulsive and generous
Albert. "If we don't, we'll be too late to do anything!"
They started again, running as fast as they could toward that
space in the dark well where the flashes of red and blue came and
went. Dick was so intent that he did not hear the short, quick
gasps of Albert, but he did hear a sudden fall beside him and
stopped short. Albert was lying on his back unconscious. A
faint tinge of abnormal red showed on his lips.
"Oh, I forgot! I forgot!" groaned Dick.
Such sudden and violent exertion, allied with the excitement of
the terrible moment, had overpowered the weak boy. Dick bent
down in grief. At first he thought his brother was dead, but the
breath still came.
Dick did not know what to do. In the pass, under the shadow of
night, the pines, and the mountain wall, the battle still flared
and crackled, but its volume was dying. Louder rose the fierce,
whining yell, and its note was full of ferocity and triumph,
while the hoarser cries of the white men became fewer and lower.
Now Dick really saw dusky figures leaping about between him and
the train. Something uttering a shrill, unearthly cry of pain
crashed heavily through the bushes near him and quickly passed
on. It was a wounded horse, running away.
Dick shuddered. Then he lifted Albert in his arms, and he had
the forethought, even in that moment of excitement and danger, to
pick up Albert's rifle also. Strong as he naturally was, he had
then the strength of four, and, turning off at a sharp angle, he
ran with Albert toward a dense thicket which clustered at the
foot of the mountain wall.
He went a full three hundred yards before he was conscious of
weariness, and he was then at the edge of the thicket, which
spread over a wide space. He laid Albert down on some of last
year's old leaves, and then his quick eyes caught the sight of a
little pool among some rocks. He dipped up the water in his felt
hat, and after carefully wiping the red stain from his brother's
lips, poured the cold fluid upon his face.
Albert revived, sat up, and tried to speak, but Dick pressed his
hand upon his mouth.
"Nothing above a whisper, Al," he said softly. "The fight is not
yet wholly over, and the Sioux are all about."
"I fainted," said Albert in a whisper. "O Dick, what a
miserable, useless fellow I am! But it was the excitement and
the run!"
"It was doubtless a lucky thing that you fainted," Dick whispered
back. "If you hadn't, both of us would probably be dead now."
"It's not all over yet," said Albert.
"No, but it soon will be. Thank God, we've got our rifles. Do
you feel strong enough to walk now, Al? The deeper we get into
the thicket the better it will be for us."
Albert rose slowly to his feet, rocked a little, and then stood
straight.
Only a few flashes were appearing now in the pass. Dick knew too
well who had been victorious. The battle over, the Sioux would
presently be ranging for stragglers and for plunder. He put one
arm under Albert, while he carried both of the rifles himself.
They walked on through the thicket and the night gradually
darkened. The silvery quality was gone from the air, and the two
boys were glad. It would not be easy to find them now. In the
pass both the firing and the long, whining whoop ceased entirely.
The flashes of red or blue appeared no more. Silence reigned
there and in the valley. Dick shivered despite himself. For the
moment the silence was more terrible than the noise of battle had
been. Black, ominous shadows seemed to float down from the
mountains, clothing all the valley. A chill wind came up, moaning
among the pines. The valley, so warm and beautiful in the day,
now inspired Dick with a sudden and violent repulsion. It was a
hateful place, the abode of horror and dread. He wished to escape
from it.
They crossed the thicket and came up against the mountain wall.
But it was not quite so steep as it had looked in the distance,
and in the faint light Dick saw the trace of a trail leading up
the slope among the pines. It was not the trail of human beings,
merely a faint path indicating that wild animals, perhaps
cougars, had passed that way.
"How are you feeling, Al?" he asked, repeating his anxious query.
"Better. My strength has come back," replied his brother.
"Then we'll go up the mountain. We must get as far away as we
can from those fiends, the Sioux. Thank God, Al, we're spared
together!"
Each boy felt a moment of devout thankfulness. They had not
fallen, and they were there together! Each also thought of the
singular message that Bright Sun had given to them, but neither
spoke of it.
They climbed for more than half an hour in silence, save for an
occasional whisper. The bushes helped Albert greatly. He pulled
himself along by means of them, and now and then the two boys
stopped that he might rest. He was still excited under the
influence of the night, the distant battle, and their peril, and
he breathed in short gasps, but did not faint again. Dick thrust
his arm at intervals under his brother's and helped him in the
ascent.
After climbing a quarter of an hour, they stopped longer than
usual and looked down at the pass, which Dick reckoned should be
almost beneath them. They heard the faint sound of a shot, saw a
tiny beam of red appear, then disappear, and after that there was
only silence and blank darkness.
"It's all over now," whispered Albert, and it was a whisper not
of caution, but of awe.
"Yes, it's all over," Dick said in the same tone. "It's likely,
Al, that you and I alone out of all that train are alive. Conway
and all the others are gone."
"Except Bright Sun," said Albert.
The two boys looked at each other again, but said nothing. They
then resumed their climbing, finding it easier this time. They
reached a height at which the undergrowth ceased, but the pines,
growing almost in ordered rows, stretched onward and upward.
Dick sent occasional glances toward the pass, but the darkness
there remained unbroken. Every time he turned his eyes that way
he seemed to be looking into a black well of terror.
Both Dick and Albert, after the first hour of ascent, had a
feeling of complete safety. The Sioux, occupied with their great
ambush and victory, would not know there had been two stragglers
behind the train, and even had they known, to search for them
among the dense forests of distant mountain slopes would be a
futile task. Dick's mind turned instead to the needs of their
situation, and he began to appreciate the full danger and
hardship of it.
Albert and he were right in feeling thankful that they were
spared together, although they were alone in the wilderness in
every sense of the word. It was hundreds of miles north, east,
south, and west to the habitations of white men. Before them,
fold on fold, lay unknown mountains, over which only hostile
savages roamed. Both he and Albert had good rifles and belts
full of cartridges, but that was all. It was a situation to
daunt the most fearless heart, and the shiver that suddenly ran
over Dick did not come from the cold of the night.
They took a long rest in a little clump of high pines and saw a
cold, clear moon come out in the pale sky. They felt the awful
sense of desolation and loneliness, for it seemed to them that
the moon was looking down on an uninhabited world in which only
they were left. They heard presently little rustlings in the
grass, and thought at first it was another ambush, though they
knew upon second thought that it was wild creatures moving on the
mountain side.
"Come, Al," said Dick. "Another half hour will put us on top of
the ridge, and then I think it will be safe for us to stop."
"I hope they'll be keeping a good room for us at the hotel up
there," said Albert wanly.
Dick tried to laugh, but it was a poor imitation and he gave it
up.
"We may find some sort of a sheltered nook," he said hopefully.
Dick had become conscious that it was cold, since the fever in
his blood was dying down. Whenever they stopped and their bodies
relaxed, they suffered from chill. He was deeply worried about
Albert, who was in no condition to endure exposure on a bleak
mountain, and wished now for the buffalo robe they had regarded
as such a fine trophy.
They reached the crest of the ridge in a half hour, as Dick had
expected, and looking northward in the moonlight saw the dim
outlines of other ridges and peaks in a vast, intricate maze. A
narrow, wooded valley seemed to occupy the space between the
ridge on which they stood and the next one parallel to it to the
northward.
"It ought to be a good place down there to hide and rest," said
Albert.
"I think you're right," said Dick, "and we'll go down the slope
part of the way before we camp for the night."
They found the descent easy. It was still open forest, mostly
pine with a sprinkling of ash and oak, and it was warmer on the
northern side, the winds having but little sweep there.
The moon became brighter, but it remained cold and pitiless,
recking nothing of the tragedy in the pass. It gave Dick a chill
to look at it. But he spent most of the time watching among the
trees for some sheltered spot that Nature had made. It was over
an hour before he found it, a hollow among rocks, with dwarf
pines clustering thickly at the sides and in front. It was so well
hidden that he would have missed it had he not been looking for
just such a happy alcove, and at first he was quite sure that some
wild animal must be using it as a den.
He poked in the barrel of his rifle, but nothing flew out, and
then, pulling back the pine boughs, he saw no signs of a previous
occupation.
"It's just waiting for us, Al, old fellow," he said gayly, "but
nothing of this kind is so good that it can't be made better.
Look at all those dead leaves over there under the oaks. Been
drying ever since last year and full of warmth."
They raked the dead leaves into the nook, covering the floor of
it thickly, and piling them up on the sides as high as they would
stay, and then they lay down inside, letting the pine boughs in
front fall back into place. It was really warm and cozy in there
for two boys who had been living out of doors for weeks, and Dick
drew a deep, long breath of content.
"Suppose a panther should come snooping along," said Albert, "and
think this the proper place for his bed and board?"
"He'd never come in, don't you fear. He'd smell us long before
he got here, and then strike out in the other direction."
Albert was silent quite a while, and as he made no noise, Dick
thought he was asleep. But Albert spoke at last, though he spoke
low and his tone was very solemn.
"Dick," he said, "we've really got a lot to be thankful for. You
know that."
"I certainly do," said Dick with emphasis. "Now you go to sleep,
Al."
Albert was silent again, and presently his breathing became very
steady and regular. Dick touched him and saw that he was fast
asleep. Then the older boy took off his coat and carefully
spread it on the younger, after which he raked a great lot of the
dry leaves over himself, and soon he, too, was sound asleep.
Dick awoke far in the night and stirred in his bed of leaves.
But the movement caused him a little pain, and he wondered dimly,
because he had not yet fully come through the gates of sleep, and
he did not remember where he was or what had happened. A tiny
shaft of pale light fell on his forehead, and he looked up through
pine branches. It was the moon that sent the beam down upon him,
but he could see nothing else. He stirred again and the little
pain returned. Then all of it came back to him.
Dick reached out his hand and touched Albert. His brother was
sleeping soundly, and he was still warm, the coat having
protected him. But Dick was cold, despite the pines, the rocks,
and the leaves. It was the cold that had caused the slight pain
in his joints when he moved, but he rose softly lest he wake
Albert, and slipped outside, standing in a clear space between
the pines.
The late moon was of uncommon brilliancy. It seemed a molten
mass of burnished silver, and its light fell over forest and
valley, range and peak. The trees on the slopes stood out like
lacework, but far down in the valley the light seemed to shimmer
like waves on a sea of silver mist. It was all inexpressibly
cold, and of a loneliness that was uncanny. Nothing stirred, not
a twig, not a blade of grass. It seemed to Dick that if even a
leaf fell on the far side of the mountain he could hear it. It
was a great, primeval world, voiceless and unpeopled, brooding in
a dread and mystic silence.
Dick shivered. He had shivered often that night, but now the
chill went to the marrow. It was the chill the first man must
have felt when he was driven from the garden and faced the
globe-girdling forest. He came back to the rock covert and
leaned over until he could hear his brother breathing beneath
the pine boughs. Then he felt the surge of relief, of
companionship--after all, he was not alone in the
wilderness!--and returned to the clear space between the
pines. There he walked up and down briskly, swinging his arms,
exercising all his limbs, until the circulation was fully
restored and he was warm again.
Dick felt the immensity of the problem that lay before him--one
that he alone must solve if it were to be solved at all. He and
Albert had escaped the massacre, but how were they to live in
that wilderness of mountains? It was not alone the question of
food. How were they to save themselves from death by exposure?
Those twinges in his knees had been warning signs. Oddly enough,
his mind now fastened upon one thing. He was longing for the
lost buffalo robe, his first great prize. It had been so large
and so warm, and the fur was so soft. It would cover both Albert
and himself, and keep them warm on the coldest night. If they
only had it now! He thought more of that robe just then than he
did of the food that they would need in the morning. Cast forth
upon a primeval world, this first want occupied his mind to the
exclusion of all others.
He returned to the rocky alcove presently, and lay down again.
He was too young and too healthy to remain awake long, despite
the full measure of their situation, and soon he slept soundly
once more. He was first to awake in the morning, and the beam
that struck upon his forehead was golden instead of silver. It was
warm, too, and cheerful, and as Dick parted the branches and
looked out, he saw that the sun was riding high. It had been
daylight a full three hours at least, but it did not matter. Time
was perhaps the only commodity of which he and Albert now
had enough and to spare.
He took his coat off Albert and put it on himself, lest Albert
might suspect, and then began to sing purposely, with loudness
and levity, an old farm rhyme that had been familiar to the boys
of his vicinity:
"Wake up, Jake, the day is breaking.
The old cow died, her tail shaking."
Albert sat up, rubbed his eyes, and stared at Dick and the
wilderness.
"Now look at him!" cried Dick. "He thinks he's been called too
early. He thinks he'd like to sleep eight or ten hours longer!
Get up, little boy! Yes, it's Christmas morning! Come and see
what good old Santa has put in your stocking!"
Albert yawned again and laughed. Really, Dick was such a
cheerful, funny fellow that he always kept one in good spirits.
Good old Dick!
"Old Santa filled our stockings, all right," continued Dick, "but
he was so busy cramming 'em full of great forests and magnificent
scenery that he forgot to leave any breakfast for us, and I'm
afraid we'll have to hustle for it."
They started down the mountain slope, and presently they came to
a swift little brook, in which they bathed their faces, removing,
at the same time, fragments of twigs and dried leaves from their
hair.
"That was fine and refreshing," said Dick, "but it doesn't fill
my stomach. Al, I could bite a tenpenny nail in half and digest
both pieces, too."
"I don't care for nails," said Albert, "but I think I could gnaw
down a good-sized sapling. Hold me, Dick, or I'll be devouring a
pine tree."
Both laughed, and put as good a face on it as they could, but
they were frightfully hungry, nevertheless. But they had grown
up on farms, and they knew that the woods must contain food of
some kind or other. They began a search, and after a while they
found wild plums, now ripe, which they ate freely. They then
felt stronger and better, but, after all, it was a light diet and
they must obtain food of more sustenance.
"There are deer, of course, in this valley," said Dick, fingering
his rifle, "and sooner or later we'll get a shot at one of them,
but it may be days, and--Al--I've got another plan."
"What is it?"
"You know, Al, that I can travel pretty fast anywhere. Now those
Sioux, after cutting down the train and wiping out all the
people, would naturally go away. They'd load themselves up with
spoil and scoot. But a lot, scattered here and there, would be
left behind. Some of the teams would run away in all the shooting
and shouting. And, Al, you and I need those things! We must have
them if we are going to live, and we both want to live!"
"Do you mean, Dick, that you're going back down there in that
awful pass?"
"That's just about what I had on my mind," replied Dick
cheerfully; "and now I've got it off, I feel better."
"But you can never get back alive, Dick!" exclaimed Albert, his
eyes widening in horror at the memory of what they had seen and
heard the night before.
"Get back alive? Why, of course I will," responded Dick. "And
I'll do more than that, too. You'll see me come galloping up the
mountain, bearing hogsheads and barrels of provisions. But,
seriously, Al, it must be done. If I don't go, we'll starve to
death."
"Then I'm going, too."
"No, Al, old boy, you're not strong enough just yet, though you
will be soon. There are certainly no Sioux in this little
valley, and it would be well if you were to go back up the slope
and stay in the pine shelter. It's likely that I'll be gone
nearly all day, but don't be worried. You'll have one of the
rifles with you, and you know how to use it."
Albert had a clear and penetrating mind, and he saw the truth of
Dick's words. They went back up the slope, where he crept within
the pine shelter and lay down on the leaves, while Dick went
alone on his mission.