Chapter XXII
A NEW SETTLEMENT
There is nothing else like enthusiasm. That band of bearded miners went into their work like a crowd of boys building a snow fort. Ha-ha-pah-no and Na-tee-kah took full possession of the camp-fires and cooked for dear life. Judge Parks and Yellow Pine finished their inspection of the hole in the rock and of the ore which had been dug out of it, and then they went to help Sile and Two Arrows care for the horses and mules.
"We won't unpack much till the house is up," said the judge.
"You're satisfied with the outcrop, are ye?" asked Pine, a little proudly.
"It's all you said it was, and that is all I could ask for. We can run a tunnel right in now, so we can work straight along, under cover, in bad weather."
"That's the thing to do. I believe it will pay for itself from the very start."
"If it does," said the judge, "it will be an uncommonly good mine for a gold-mine. Not one in ten but what empties the pocket of its first owner."
"This one won't, then. It's as good a property as there is, and we can cover all the ledge with claims and get a good title to 'em. It's fresh ground, and no kind of interference – "
"Unless the Apaches interfere."
"They don't often come east so far as this, 'specially now that most of 'em have been cornered. Mining in these parts isn't the risky kind of business it used to be. Must say, though, that I felt kind o' streaked sometimes, last year, when I was a prospectin'."
"There was risk in it, all alone; but nine rifles and a good breastwork will make a tremendous difference."
"They will that, and there's no sech thing as takin' us in the rear. They can't climb over that ridge, nor that one."
It was later than usual when anybody lay down that evening. Two Arrows and his sister had heard of mines before, but they had never seen one, and the whole matter was a great curiosity.
These uncommonly well-behaved pale-faces meant to dig a hole into the side of that mountain and get gold out of it, and they were going to build a stone "lodge" and stay there. Sile explained to them, as well as he could, a purpose he had formed of making a great farm in that valley, and raising all sorts of things to feed the miners, and of having a town there, with schools and churches for the Indians, and a public library and a saw-mill and a grist-mill and a blacksmith-shop and a hotel. The main idea obtained by Two Arrows was that in a little while the valley would be full of horses of the best kinds. Na-tee-kah went beyond that and got a picture into her mind of a big stone lodge, where a trader would live and have for sale a wonderful heap of all such things as the white squaws dressed themselves up with. She went to sleep at last, with her black eyes half dazzled by a vision of bright colors and glitterings, and had a dream that the trader had come and was ready to trade almost anything for the skin of a grisly bear. As for Two Arrows, not all that could be said about mines and farms could drive from him one grand ambition, that had taken deep root as he studied the many possessions of those pale-faces. Somehow or other, he meant to obtain a rifle. His father had a good one, and so had each of the acknowledged warriors of his band, but all the boys were as yet forced to put up with bows and arrows. Some of the braves even carried revolvers, and the hunting had been so poor that they were well supplied with ammunition. Two Arrows had learned from Sile that there were extra rifles and pistols, and no end of cartridges, in those wagons, but everybody knew that all that sort of thing had to be paid for, and Two Arrows lay awake a long time, feverishly wondering what he could find among those mountains to buy a rifle with, and a revolver and some ammunition. He felt that he should be a mere boy, after all, and not a full-grown brave, until he could exchange his bow and arrows for weapons which would kill a bear at long range. He wished never to have to wait for another on the top of any rock. It was the only point in which he could see that Sile had any real advantage over him to balance the humiliation of being a pale-face instead of the son of a Nez Percé chief. He was compelled to admit one more in the morning, for he had forgotten the fishing-rods and hooks and lines, and Sile was up before it was light, ready to begin his duty of keeping the camp supplied with provisions.
"We won't walk this time," he said, in a very business-like way. "We'll just ride across to the river and catch enough for breakfast and hurry back. None of the men can be spared from their work."
The sun arose very grandly over the magnificent mountain ranges, but he showed them all that wonderful scenery in vain. Sile was fishing for provisions for his father's men, and Two Arrows thought of rifles and pistols every time he pulled in a trout. He did not speak of the weight upon his mind as yet, but he was gradually forming a purpose of doing so at the earliest opportunity. It was almost like going to an open market for fish, except that there was nothing to pay for them. As fast as a line could be thrown, and its little silvery trap set a whirling, the hook was seized by some trout or other, large or small. Some of them were so heavy as to test the toughness of the upper joints of the rods, and now Two Arrows made a discovery. He had watched Sile work his reel until he had caught the secret of it, and could let a strong fish run a little before he drew him in. It was an idea that suited him exactly, and it made the fun more exciting.
"I say," exclaimed Sile, before a great while, "they're awful eaters, but they can't use up all we've got now. Let's just string 'em, and ride back to camp."
The movements of his hands, along with his words, explained his meaning, and Two Arrows pulled in his last fish with an "Ugh! good," for answer. He was doing one thing more rapidly than anybody had an idea of. He was a born "linguist," as many Indians are, and he was gathering words of English at a great rate. He was not sure he could yet utter correctly quite a number that he fully understood on hearing them, and his pride forbade him to make blunders. His trouble was with his tongue and not with his ears, as many an older fellow has found when he undertook to make a speech before critical people.
The camp was all astir when they rode in, and the coffee-pot was already upon the fire.
"That's the checker, my boy," said Yellow Pine, when he saw the fish. "We sha'n't do any starving. Let your horse feed a while, and then you and he go for some fresh meat. Look at them!"
There was a great grin upon his face as he pointed at Judge Parks and the miners. The judge had taken up a heavy hammer and was busily breaking masses of quartz to examine their quality, and the men had again gone at their building.
"Nary one of 'em's eaten a mouthful," said Pine, just as a chopper rested from his work to shout,
"We'll have enough shingles rived for the roof by the time them fellers gits their wall up;" and another said,
"Pine, that there clay-bank by the spring's the very best kind. It's most as good as mortar."
"'Tis if you temper it well," said Pine. "Call 'em to breakfast. There'll be fish br'iled and ready in no time."
Ha-ha-pah-no and Na-tee-kah each had a frying-pan, and the fish were put in as fast as they were cleaned, but some of the men could not wait for that. They insisted upon cleaning and cooking for themselves, for, as Jonas remarked,
"We can't git at the mine till the shelter's done and the waggins are unpacked. We'll have it up in short order."
As soon as he had finished his coffee and trout and "army bread," Sile went to take a look at what they were doing, and it made him open his eyes. The ground they had chosen, near a fine spring of water, was nearly level. They had marked out the lines of the walls they meant to build, and then along those lines they had dug a trench about a foot deep and two feet wide. No cellar was called for as yet, and the mason-work began at once. There was plenty of broken stone to be had, and it was rolled or carried with busy eagerness to the men who were laying the wall. One man at the clay-bank toiled zealously at the important task of mixing and tempering it, while another came and went with pailfuls that were used up as fast as he could bring them. The stones were laid with their smooth faces inward, and there was not a minute wasted in trimming anything for the sake of appearances. Sile could hardly believe that so much could have been done is so short a time, and he was again astonished when the men returned from breakfast. The wall grew at a tremendous rate. He went from that work to the place where the choppers were swinging their axes. A tall pine-tree, four feet in diameter at the base, was down shortly after the men went at it the previous evening, and now two sturdy fellows were making the chips fly as if they were chopping for a wager. They were evidently cutting the huge trunk into lengths of about three feet, and Sile was studying the matter when Two Arrows touched him on the elbow and pointed at the choppers.
"Ugh! What for?"
"Wait. Show him by-and-by," said Sile. "Make shingles to cover house."
"Ugh! Big lodge. Heap hard. No fall down. Top?"
"Yes. Make cover. Keep out rain."
"Ugh! Pale-face do a heap. Go away and leave him all," said Two Arrows.
It was the longest sentence he had yet attempted in English, and Sile looked at him with some surprise, but he should have remembered that Two Arrows had made a beginning long before that, and was but adding to it. At all events, he was correct in his conclusion that such a lodge could not be carried away, as could those for which Long Bear had sent his braves and squaws through the pass. It was perfectly certain that these would not loiter anywhere, but would go straight on their errand and return, and then the village would once more be under as good a shelter as it knew anything about or cared for.
All that day the axes fell, the wall grew fast, and Judge Parks and Yellow Pine went on with their examinations and their other preparations for "opening the mine;" and all day long some other things went on without their knowing it.
Chapter XXIII
DANGER
The Apaches, in their encampment away down the river, cooked fish for breakfast at about the same hour that the miners did, but their trout had not been caught anything like so rapidly. It had required the work of several men, up and down the bank, for hours of the previous evening and for all the time since daylight, with their imperfect tackle, to get in enough for such a war-party. Nor had they cleaned or cooked so perfectly, and the fish had been eaten without pepper or salt. There was not a plate or a fork in the band, and there was not even a wish for coffee.
It was a hasty meal, greedily devoured, and then the marauders were once more in the saddle, or riding barebacked, as the case might be. All the while that the miners were so enthusiastically raising their stone lodge a peril they hardly thought of was pushing nearer and nearer. They knew well enough that they were in an Indian country, but were well assured that as yet no hostile red men could be aware of their arrival. It was also pretty sure that every stroke of work they did added to their security, for neither arrow nor bullet will go through a wall of quartz and granite two feet in thickness. Judge Parks had ideas of his own as to the future protection of the "notch," but the time had not yet come to say anything about them.
It was not many hours after the Apaches got in motion before they came to the forks of the stream, and here they halted for a general consultation. They already had well-mounted scouts ahead in both directions, and neither side had yet sent in any suggestion of danger discovered. They were evidently familiarly acquainted with the whole region, and there were arguments in favor of both lines of advance, but a gray-headed old warrior at last settled the question. He had been sitting quietly and listening to what others said until his turn seemed to come, but now he arose, and all seemed willing to listen. Pointing with his long, naked arm up the right fork of the river, he said, in his own harsh, gutteral tongue,
"Mountains. When blue-coats come, lose horses. Caught in big trap."
Turning and pointing up the other fork, he said,
"Morning. Hole in mountains. Blue-coats come. Go through hole. Get away. Come back some day, when blue-coats go home sick. Ugh!"
It was not a long speech, and it could hardly be described as "eloquent" but all the wiser and more influential braves said "Ugh!" and the road to the left was decided upon without any more discussion. That also decided in advance the course to be followed by Captain Grover and his cavalry, when they in their turn should reach the same point. Hour by hour they were slowly gaining upon the dangerous horse-thieves they were pursuing, and in due time they would surely learn whether or not they had a right to rejoice upon catching up with them. They were acting as the police and constables of a very disorderly community.
As for Long Bear and his Nez Percés, they had a very good reason for lazily hunting and fishing around their present camp until the return of the party which had gone for the hidden lodges, and so forth. Very few Indians need anything better than an excuse for not doing anything.
Two Arrows was not one of those Indians. Na-tee-kah continually called his attention to something new which she had discovered in the ways or in the possessions of those pale-faces. She was greatly interested in a curious wire "broiler." It opened, and a fish or a steak was put in, and it shut up and was put upon the coals, and when the cooking was finished, the long handles enabled you to take it off and not burn your fingers. There were twenty other things as wonderful as the broiler; and the judge had shown her how to wash her hands with soap, and had given her a pair of ear-rings and a silver buckle for her new blanket. She hardly knew what would come next, but she entirely sympathized with her brother in his own dream when he told her what it was.
"Ask pale-face chief," she said.
"Ugh! Laugh. Bow and arrows good enough for boy."
He said it almost bitterly, and Na-tee-kah stamped on the ground sharply as she responded,
"Two Arrows is a young chief. Big brave. Not a boy any more. Kill grisly. Kill cougar and big-horn. Bring back pony. Great chief in a little while. Give him rifle."
Two Arrows had a good enough opinion of himself, but he perfectly understood the easy good-nature with which he was treated by Yellow Pine and the rest. They regarded Sile as one bright boy and him as another, and had no idea of wasting costly rifles and such things upon him. He grew almost sullen over it, and was glad to get away from the camp when Sile came and asked him to go on a hunt with him.
This time there was a little pride as well as good-sense in his positive refusal to borrow a rifle. He was determined to shoot with his own weapons or none, and he rode away with no better ones than had been used by his tribe before they had ever heard of white men, and long before gunpowder had been invented. They were pretty good weapons yet, but there was one thing Two Arrows did not dream of. That was that it was not such a great number of years since the ancestors of these very pale-faces had gone to war and to hunt with bows and arrows vastly better than any ever carried by any red Indian in the world. The English race were bowmen once, just as they are riflemen now, shooting closer to the bull's-eye than any other.
Two Arrows felt that there was a sort of fever upon him. It made him hot and restless, and his eyes wandered searchingly in all directions, longing for an opportunity to do something which would bring him nearer to the prizes he coveted. Sile also was watching keenly the tops and branches of every clump of bushes they came to, but it almost seemed as if the game had suddenly migrated. It was natural that none should linger near the smoke and smell of camp-fires and cookery, but it was queer that the two young hunters should canter quietly on for mile after mile, and not so much as get a shot at a deer.
"We won't go back without something," said Sile. "I told father so. I mean to go right along. We can camp in the woods by ourselves if we don't kill anything early enough to get back to-night."
He had some trouble in making his meaning clear to Two Arrows, and the ambitious young Nez Percé was in precisely the frame of mind to agree with him. They even rode a little faster, and were hardly aware of the distance they had travelled. Sile was beginning to grow nervous about his reputation as a hunter and to remember that the camp had only a three days' supply of fresh meat, in spite of the fish. He believed that he had seen everything there was to be seen, but he was mistaken. Suddenly Two Arrows uttered a loud, astonished "Ugh!" sprang from his pony, and beckoned Sile to do the same, leading him hurriedly towards the nearest bushes.
Sile imitated his friend, without any idea of a reason for it, until Two Arrows took him by the arm and pointed away to the right towards the mountain range. They were on the crest of a high roll of ground, and could see for miles in some directions, except as the view was cut off by patches and strips of forest.
"Look! 'Pache!"
All that at first appeared to Sile's eyes were some moving black spots; but now he was able to show Two Arrows another of the advantages of a civilized man over a savage. Slung from his left shoulder was a small leathern case, and Two Arrows watched him closely while he opened it, took out something silver-mounted and handsome and put it to his eyes. Such things had been much discussed in his hearing, and he knew it was the "long eye of the pale-faces;" but he had no faith in it until Sile made him try it.
"There they are; six of 'em," said Sile. "Then look away down yonder and you'll see some more."
"No see us," said Two Arrows. "Come! Heap bad."
So it was, for the dreaded strangers were between them and the mountains. For all they knew, they might have ridden past others unseen, and these might intercept their return. Sile was only a white boy, and in an instant he understood that the young chief was the "captain" of their squad of two.
Two Arrows seemed to have the same notion instinctively, for anybody could read the look of blank uncertainty upon Sile's face. His binocular spy-glass could help him see farther and more accurately than the best pair of Indian eyes in the world, but it could not tell him what to do next.
"Come!" said Two Arrows, as he led his pony back down the slope and towards the forest that skirted the river. This was less than half a mile away, but the horses were not mounted until both were well under cover of it. It struck Sile that they might safely ride homeward along the stream, but Nez Percé training and caution forbade any such risk as that. Even the operation of reaching the bank might be full of peril, for nobody could guess at what moment they might stumble upon Apache warriors, and no others were at all likely to be there. It was most unlikely, however, that their enemies were advancing upon both sides of the water, and as soon as Two Arrows reached it he rode in. It was a wide and therefore shallow place, easily forded, and Sile breathed more freely as soon as he was under the shade of the woods beyond. His guide and captain pushed right on until they were out in a comparatively open reach of country, and then he turned to Sile, his whole face gleaming with uncontrollable excitement, and exclaimed,
"Ugh! Ride now. Kill hoss. Save pale-face. Save Nez Percé. Get there before Apache. All scalp gone if 'Pache come first."
He suppressed a whoop, but the next bound of his pony explained his meaning, and Sile galloped, stride by stride, with him. It was a race for life and for the lives of many others; for Two Arrows had briefly read that problem when he said to Sile, as he handed him back his glass,
"No squaw. Braves on war-path. No hunt. Kill. Take scalp."
Both were well mounted, and Sile rode well, although by no means so completely at home on horseback as was his red friend. His rifle, too, was more tiresome to carry than was a light lance, and the bow and arrows were now tightly "slung," and required no handling. It would not do to wear out their horses in one rush, but they kept on at the highest speed at all consistent with a long ride. It was much faster, at all events, than the Apaches were likely to travel, unless something new should stir them up. By keeping well away from the stream, they were not compelled to follow its windings, and could ride more nearly in a straight line, only turning out for clumps of trees and similar obstructions and paying no attention to game, although they now saw gang after gang of deer and a respectable party of bisons.