“Ho!” exclaimed the trapper, after they had gone a little farther; “here’s a trail that even a settlement man could hardly fail to see. There’s bin fifty men or more. D’ye see it Tolly?”
“See it? I should think so. D’you suppose I carry my eyes in my pocket?”
“Come now, lad,” said Drake, turning to Leaping Buck, “you want to walk in your father’s tracks, no doubt. Read me this trail if ye can.”
The boy stepped forward with an air of dignity that Drake regarded as sublime and Tolly thought ludicrous, but the latter was too fond of his red friend to allow his feelings to betray themselves.
“As the white trapper has truly said,” he began, “fifty men or more have passed this way. They are most of them white men, but three or four are Indians.”
“Good!” said Drake, with an approving nod; “I thought ye’d notice that. Well, go on.”
“They were making straight for my father’s camp,” continued the lad, bending a stern look on the trail, “but they turned sharp round, like the swallow, on coming to the trail of the white man Brixton, and followed it.”
“How d’ye know that, lad?” asked the trapper.
“Because I see it” returned the boy, promptly, pointing at the same time to a spot on the hill-side considerably above them, where the conformation of the land at a certain spot revealed enough of the trail of the “fifty men or more,” to show the change of direction.
“Good again, lad. A worthy son of your father. I didn’t give ’e credit for sharpness enough to perceive that. Can you read anything more?”
“One man was a horseman, but he left his horse behind on getting to the rough places of the hills and walked with the rest. He is Paul Bevan’s enemy.”
“And how d’ye know all that?” said Drake, regarding the little fellow with a look of pride.
“By the footprints,” returned Leaping Buck. “He wears boots and spurs.”
“Just so,” returned the trapper, “and we’ve bin told by Paul that Stalker was the only man of his band who wouldn’t fall in wi’ the ways o’ the country, but sticks to the clumsy Jack-boots and spurs of old England. Yes, the scoundrel has followed you up, Tolly, as Paul Bevan said he would, and, havin’ come across Brixton’s track, has gone after him, from all which I now come to the conclusion that your friend Mister Tom is a prisoner, an’ stands in need of our sarvices. What say you, Tolly?”
“Go at ’em at once,” replied the warlike Trevor, “an’ set him free.”
“What! us three attack fifty men?”
“Why not?” responded Tolly, “We’re more than a match for ’em. Paul Bevan has told me oftentimes that honest men are, as a rule, ten times more plucky than dishonest ones. Well, you are one honest man, that’s equal to ten; an’ Buckie and I are two honest boys, equal, say, to five each, that’s ten more, making twenty among three of us. Three times twenty’s sixty, isn’t it? so, surely that’s more than enough to fight fifty.”
“Ah, boy,” answered the trapper, with a slightly puzzled expression, “I never could make nothin’ o’ ’rithmetic, though my mother put me to school one winter with a sort o’ half-mad parson that came to the head waters o’ the Yellowstone river, an’ took to teachin’—dear me, how long ago was it now? Well, I forget, but somehow you seem to add up the figgurs raither faster than I was made to do. Howsever, we’ll go an’ see what’s to be done for Tom Brixton.”
The trapper, who had been leaning on his gun, looking down at his bold little comrades during the foregoing conversation, once more took the lead, and, closely following the trail of the robber-band, continued the ascent of the mountains.
The Indian village was by that time far out of sight behind them, and the scenery in the midst of which they were travelling was marked by more than the average grandeur and ruggedness of the surrounding region.
On their right arose frowning precipices which were fringed and crowned with forests of pine, intermingled with poplar, birch, maple, and other trees. On their left a series of smaller precipices, or terraces, descended to successive levels, like giant steps, till they reached the bottom of the valley up which our adventurers were moving, where a brawling river appeared in the distance like a silver thread. The view both behind and in advance was extremely wild, embracing almost every variety of hill scenery, and in each case was shut in by snow-capped mountains. These, however, were so distant and so soft in texture as to give the impression of clouds rather than solid earth.
Standing on one of the many jutting crags from which could be had a wide view of the vale lying a thousand feet below, Tolly Trevor threw up his arms and waved them to and fro as if in an ecstasy, exclaiming— “Oh, if I had only wings, what a swoop I’d make—down there!”
“Ah, boy, you ain’t the first that’s wished for wings in the like circumstances. But we’ve bin denied these advantages. P’r’aps we’d have made a bad use of ’em. Sartinly we’ve made a bad use o’ sich powers as we do possess. Just think, now, if men could go about through the air as easy as the crows, what a row they’d kick up all over the ’arth! As it is, when we want to fight we’ve got to crawl slowly from place to place, an’ make roads for our wagins, an’ big guns, an’ supplies, to go along with us; but if we’d got wings—why, the first fire eatin’ great man that could lead his fellows by the nose would only have to give the word, when up would start a whole army o’ men, like some thousand Jack-in-the-boxes, an’ away they’d go to some place they’d took a fancy to, an’ down they’d come, all of a heap, quite onexpected—take their enemy by surprise, sweep him off the face o’ the ’arth, and enter into possession.”
“Well, it would be a blue lookout,” remarked Tolly, “if that was to be the way of it. There wouldn’t be many men left in the world before long.”
“That’s true, lad, an’ sitch as was left would be the worst o’ the race. No, on the whole I think we’re better without wings.”
While he was talking to little Trevor, the trapper had been watching the countenance of the Indian boy with unusual interest. At last he turned to him and asked—
“Has Leaping Buck nothin’ to say?”
“When the white trapper speaks, the Indian’s tongue should be silent,” replied the youth.
“A good sentiment and does you credit, lad. But I am silent now. Has Leaping Buck no remark to make on what he sees?”
“He sees the smoke of the robber’s camp far up the heights,” replied the boy, pointing as he spoke.
“Clever lad!” exclaimed the trapper, “I know’d he was his father’s son.”
“Where? I can see nothing,” cried Tolly, who understood the Indian tongue sufficiently to make out the drift of the conversation.
“Of course ye can’t; the smoke is too far off an’ too thin for eyes not well practised in the signs o’ the wilderness. But come; we shall go and pay the robbers a visit; mayhap disturb their rest a little—who knows!”
With a quiet laugh, Mahoghany Drake withdrew from the rocky ledge, and, followed by his eager satellites, continued to wend his way up the rugged mountain-sides, taking care, however, that he did not again expose himself to view, for well did he know that sharp eyes and ears would be on the qui vive that night.
Chapter Nineteen
When Tom Brixton sternly set his face like a flint to what he believed to be his duty, he wandered, as we have said, into the mountains, with a heavy heart and without any definite intentions as to what he intended to do.
If his thoughts had taken the form of words they would probably have run somewhat as follows:—
“Farewell for ever, sweet Rose of Oregon! Dear Betty! You have been the means, in God’s hand, of saving at least one soul from death, and it would be requiting you ill indeed were I to persuade you to unite yourself to a man whose name is disgraced even among rough men, whose estimate of character is not very high. No! henceforth our lives diverge wider and wider apart. May God bless you and give you a good hus— give you happiness in His own way! And now I have the world before me where to choose. It is a wide world, and there is much work to be done. Surely I shall be led in the right way to fill the niche which has been set apart for me. I wonder what it is to be! Am I to hunt for gold, or to become a fur-trader, or go down to the plains and turn cattle-dealer, or to the coast and become a sailor, or try farming? One thing is certain, I must not be an idler; must not join the ranks of those who merely hunt that they may eat and sleep, and who eat and sleep that they may hunt. I have a work to do for Him who bought me with His precious blood, and my first step must be to commit my way to Him.”
Tom Brixton took that step at once. He knelt down on a mossy bank, and there, with the glorious prospect of the beautiful wilderness before him, and the setting sun irradiating his still haggard countenance, held communion with God.
That night he made his lonely bivouac under a spreading pine, and that night while he was enjoying a profound and health-giving slumber, the robber-chief stepped into his encampment and laid his hand roughly on his shoulder.
In his days of high health Tom would certainly have leaped up and given Stalker a considerable amount of trouble, but starvation and weakness, coupled with self-condemnation and sorrow, had subdued his nerves and abated his energies, so that, when he opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by as disagreeable a set of cut-throats as could well be brought together, he at once resigned himself to his fate, and said, without rising, and with one of his half-humorous smiles—
“Well, Mister Botanist, sorry I can’t say it gives me pleasure to see you. I wonder you’re not ashamed to return to the country of the great chief Unaco after running away from him as you did.”
“I’m in no humour for joking,” answered Stalker, gruffly. “What has become of your friend Paul Bevan?”
“I’m not aware that anything particular has become of him,” replied Tom, sitting up with a look of affected surprise.
“Come, you know what I mean. Where is he?”
“When I last saw him he was in Oregon. Whether he has now gone to Europe or the moon or the sun I cannot tell, but I should think it unlikely.”
“If you don’t give me a direct and civil answer I’ll roast you alive, you young puppy!” growled Stalker.
“If you roast me dead instead of alive you’ll get no answer from me but such as I choose to give, you middle-aged villain!” retorted Tom, with a glare of his eyes which quite equalled that of the robber-chief in ferocity, for Tom’s nature was what we may style volcanic, and he found it hard to restrain himself when roused to a certain point, so that he was prone to speak unadvisedly with his lips.
A half-smothered laugh from some of the band who did not care much for their chief, rendered Stalker furious.
He sprang forward with a savage oath, drew the small hatchet which he carried in his belt, and would certainly then and there have brained the rash youth with it, if his hand had not been unexpectedly arrested. The gleaming weapon was yet in the air when the loud report of a rifle close at hand burst from the bushes with a sheet of flame and smoke, and the robber’s right arm fell powerless at his side, hit between the elbow and shoulder.
It was the rifle of Mahoghany Drake that had spoken so opportunely.
That stalwart backwoodsman had, as we have seen, followed up the trail of the robbers, and, with Tolly Trevor and his friend Leaping Buck, had lain for a considerable time safely ensconced in a moss-covered crevice of the cliff that overlooked the camping-place. There, quietly observing the robbers, and almost enjoying the little scene between Tom and the chief, they remained inactive until Stalker’s hatchet gleamed in the air. The boys were almost petrified by the suddenness of the act.
Not so the trapper, who with rapid aim saved Tom’s life, as we have seen.
Dropping his rifle, he seized the boys by the neck and thrust their faces down on the moss: not a moment too soon, for a withering volley was instantly sent by the bandits in the direction whence the shots had come. It passed harmlessly over their heads.
“Now, home like two arrows, and rouse your father, Leaping Buck,” whispered the trapper, “and keep well out o’ sight.”
Next moment, picking up his empty rifle, he stalked from the fringe of bushes that partially screened the cliff, and gave himself up.
“Ha! I know you—Mahoghany Drake! Is it not so?” cried Stalker, savagely. “Seize him, men. You shall swing for this, you rascal.”
Two or three of the robbers advanced, but Drake quietly held up his hand, and they stopped.
“I’m in your power, you see,” he said, laying his rifle on the ground. “Yes,” he continued, drawing his tall figure up to its full height and crossing his arms on his breast, “my name is Drake. As to Mahoghany, I’ve no objection to it though it ain’t complimentary. If, as you say, Mister Stalker, I’m to swing for this, of course I must swing. Yet it do seem raither hard that a man should swing for savin’ his friend’s life an’ his enemy’s at the same time.”
“How—what do you mean?”
“I mean that Mister Brixton is my friend,” answered the trapper, “and I’ve saved his life just now, for which I thank the Lord. At the same time, Stalker is my enemy—leastwise I fear he’s no friend—an’ didn’t I save his life too when I put a ball in his arm, that I could have as easily put into his head or his heart?”
“Well,” responded Stalker, with a fiendish grin, that the increasing pain of his wound did not improve, “at all events you have not saved your own life, Drake. As I said, you shall swing for it. But I’ll give you one chance. If you choose to help me I will spare your life. Can you tell me where Paul Bevan and his daughter are?”
“They are with Unaco and his tribe.”
“I could have guessed as much as that. I ask you where they are!”
“On the other side of yonder mountain range, where the chief’s village lies.”
Somewhat surprised at the trapper’s readiness to give the information required, and rendered a little suspicious, Stalker asked if he was ready and willing to guide him to the Indian village.
“Surely. If that’s the price I’m to pay for my life, it can be easily paid,” replied the trapper.
“Ay, but you shall march with your arms bound until we are there, and the fight wi’ the redskins is over,” said the robber-chief, “and if I find treachery in your acts or looks I’ll blow your brains out on the spot. My left hand, you shall find, can work as well as the right wi’ the revolver.”
“A beggar, they say, must not be a chooser,” returned the trapper. “I accept your terms.”
“Good. Here, Goff,” said Stalker, turning to his lieutenant, “bind his hands behind him after he’s had some supper, and then come an’ fix up this arm o’ mine. I think the bone has escaped.”
“Hadn’t we better start off at once,” suggested Drake, “an’ catch the redskins when they’re asleep?”
“Is it far off?” asked Stalker.
“A goodish bit. But the night is young. We might git pretty near by midnight, and then encamp so as to git an hour’s sleep before makin’ the attack. You see, redskins sleep soundest just before daybreak.”
While he was speaking the trapper coughed a good deal, and sneezed once or twice, as if he had a bad cold.
“Can’t you keep your throat and nose quieter?” said the chief, sternly.
“Well, p’r’aps I might,” replied Drake, emitting a highly suppressed cough at the moment, “but I’ve got a queer throat just now. The least thing affects it.”
After consultation with the principal men of his band, Stalker determined to act on Drake’s advice, and in a few minutes the trapper was guiding them over the hills in a state of supreme satisfaction, despite his bonds, for had he not obtained the power to make the robbers encamp on a spot which the Indians could not avoid passing on their way to the rescue, and had he not established a sort of right to emit sounds which would make his friends aware of his exact position, and thus bring both parties into collision before daybreak, which could not have been the case if the robbers had remained in the encampment where he found them?
Turn we now to Leaping Buck and Tolly Trevor. Need it be said that these intelligent lads did not, as the saying is, allow grass to grow under their feet? The former went over the hills at a pace and in a manner that fully justified his title; and the latter followed with as much vigour and resolution, if not as much agility, as his friend.
In a wonderfully short space of time, considering the distance, they burst upon the Indian village, and aroused it with the startling news.
Warfare in those regions was not the cumbrous and slow affair that it is in civilised places. There was no commissariat, no ammunition wagons, no baggage, no camp-followers to hamper the line of march. In five or ten minutes after the alarm was given about two hundred Indian braves marched out from the camp in a column which may be described as one-deep—i.e. one following the other—and took their rapid way up the mountain sides, led by Unaco in person. Next to him marched Paul Bevan, who was followed in succession by Fred Westly, Paddy Flinders, Leaping Buck, and Tolly.
For some time the long line could be seen by the Rose of Oregon passing swiftly up the mountain-side. Then, as distance united the individuals, as it were, to each other, it assumed the form of a mighty snake crawling slowly along. By degrees it crawled over the nearest ridge and disappeared, after which Betty went to discuss the situation with Unaco’s old mother.
It was near midnight when the robber-band encamped in a wooded hollow which was backed on two sides by precipices and on the third by a deep ravine.
“A good spot to set a host at defiance,” remarked Stalker, glancing round with a look that would have expressed satisfaction if the wounded arm had allowed.
“Yes,” added the trapper, “and—” A violent fit of coughing prevented the completion of the sentence, which, however, when thought out in Drake’s mind ran—“a good spot for hemming you and your scoundrels in, and starving you into submission!”
A short time sufficed for a bite of cold supper and a little whiff, soon after which the robber camp, with the exception of the sentinels, was buried in repose.
Tom Brixton was not allowed to have any intercourse whatever with his friend Drake. Both were bound and made to sleep in different parts of the camp. Nevertheless, during one brief moment, when they chanced to be near each other, Drake whispered, “Be ready!” and Tom heard him.
Ere long no sound was heard in the camp save an occasional snore or sigh, and Drake’s constant and hacking, but highly suppressed, cough. Poor fellow! He was obviously consumptive, and it was quite touching to note the careful way in which he tried to restrain himself, giving vent to as little sound as was consistent with his purpose.
Turning a corner of jutting rock in the valley which led to the spot, Unaco’s sharp and practised ear caught the sound. He stopped and stood like a bronze statue by Michael Angelo in the attitude of suddenly arrested motion. Upwards of two hundred bronze arrested statues instantly tailed away from him.
Presently a smile, such as Michael Angelo probably never thought of reproducing, rippled on the usually grave visage of the chief.
“M’ogany Drake!” he whispered, softly, in Paul Bevan’s ear.
“I didn’t know Drake had sitch a horrid cold,” whispered Bevan, in reply.
Tolly Trevor clenched his teeth and screwed himself up internally to keep down the laughter that all but burst him, for he saw through the device at once. As for Leaping Buck, he did more than credit to his sire, because he kept as grave as Michael Angelo himself could have desired while chiselling his features.
“Musha! but that is a quare sound,” whispered Flinders to Westly.
“Hush!” returned Westly.
At a signal from their chief the whole band of Indians sank, as it seemed, into the ground, melted off the face of the earth, and only the white men and the chief remained.
“I must go forward alone,” whispered Unaco, turning to Paul. “White man knows not how to go on his belly like the serpent.”
“Mahoghany Drake would be inclined to dispute that p’int with ’ee,” returned Bevan. “However, you know best, so we’ll wait till you give us the signal to advance.”
Having directed his white friends to lie down, Unaco divested himself of all superfluous clothing, and glided swiftly but noiselessly towards the robber camp, with nothing but a tomahawk in his hand and a scalping-knife in his girdle. He soon reached the open side of the wooded hollow, guided thereto by Drake’s persistent and evidently distressing cough. Here it became necessary to advance with the utmost caution. Fortunately for the success of his enterprise, all the sentinels that night had been chosen from among the white men. The consequence was that although they were wide awake and on the qui vive, their unpractised senses failed to detect the very slight sounds that Unaco made while gliding slowly—inch by inch, and with many an anxious pause—into the very midst of his foes. It was a trying situation, for instant death would have been the result of discovery.
As if to make matters more difficult for him just then, Drake’s hacking cough ceased, and the Indian could not make out where he lay. Either his malady was departing or he had fallen into a temporary slumber! That the latter was the case became apparent from his suddenly recommencing the cough. This, however, had the effect of exasperating one of the sentinels.
“Can’t you stop that noise?” he muttered, sternly.
“I’m doin’ my best to smother it,” said Drake in a conciliatory tone.
Apparently he had succeeded, for he coughed no more after that. But the fact was that a hand had been gently laid upon his arm.
“So soon!” he thought. “Well done, boys!” But he said never a word, while a pair of lips touched his ear and said, in the Indian tongue—
“Where lies your friend?”
Drake sighed sleepily, and gave a short and intensely subdued cough, as he turned his lips to a brown ear which seemed to rise out of the grass for the purpose, and spoke something that was inaudible to all save that ear. Instantly hand, lips, and ear withdrew, leaving the trapper in apparently deep repose. A sharp knife, however, had touched his bonds, and he knew that he was free.
A few minutes later, and the same hand touched Tom Brixton’s arm. He would probably have betrayed himself by an exclamation, but remembering Drake’s “Be ready,” he lay perfectly still while the hands, knife, and lips did their work. The latter merely said, in broken English, “Rise when me rise, an’ run!”
Next instant Unaco leaped to his feet and, with a terrific yell of defiance, bounded into the bushes. Tom Brixton followed him like an arrow, and so prompt was Mahoghany Drake to act that he and Tom came into violent collision as they cleared the circle of light thrown by the few sinking embers of the camp-fires. No damage, however, was done. At the same moment the band of Indians in ambush sprang up with their terrible war whoop, and rushed towards the camp. This effectually checked the pursuit which had been instantly begun by the surprised bandits, who at once retired to the shelter of the mingled rocks and shrubs in the centre of the hollow, from out of which position they fired several tremendous volleys.
“That’s right—waste yer ammunition,” said Paul Bevan, with a short laugh, as he and the rest lay quickly down to let the leaden shower pass over.
“It’s always the way wi’ men taken by surprise,” said Drake, who, with Brixton and the chief, had stopped in their flight and turned with their friends. “They blaze away wildly for a bit, just to relieve their feelin’s, I s’pose. But they’ll soon stop.”
“An’ what’ll we do now?” inquired Flinders, “for it seems to me we’ve got all we want out o’ them, an’ it’s no use fightin’ them for mere fun—though it’s mesilf that used to like fightin’ for that same; but I think the air of Oregon has made me more peaceful inclined.”
“But the country has been kept for a long time in constant alarm and turmoil by these men,” said Fred Westly, “and, although I like fighting as little as any man, I cannot help thinking that we owe it as a duty to society to capture as many of them as we can, especially now that we seem to have caught them in a sort of trap.”
“What says Mahoghany Drake on the subject!” asked Unaco.
“I vote for fightin’, ’cause there’ll be no peace in the country till the band is broken up.”
“Might it not be better to hold them prisoners here?” suggested Paul Bevan. “They can’t escape, you tell me, except by this side, and there’s nothin’ so good for tamin’ men as hunger.”
“Ah!” said Tom Brixton, “you speak the truth, Bevan; I have tried it.”
“But what does Unaco himself think?” asked Westly.
“We must fight ’em at once, an’ root them out neck and crop!”
These words were spoken, not by the Indian, but by a deep bass voice which sent a thrill of surprise, not unmingled with alarm, to more hearts than one; and no wonder, for it was the voice of Gashford, the big bully of Pine Tree Diggings!