Chapter Nineteen.
Winthrop’s Outfit.
Nearer, nearer, the sun sank down to the western peaks, and upon the wilderness rested the sweet and solemn stillness of the evening hour. Save the call of a bird at intervals within the timber belt, there was a silence that might be felt. The broad stream, tranquilly flowing around its bend, gleamed first with living fire, then red, as the last rays of the sun fell upon its surface, to lift in a moment, leaving its waters grey and cold. Then one last kiss of golden light upon the tree-tops, and the lamp of day had gone down.
One living creature moved within this solitude, however. Alone, enjoying with all her soul the spacious grandeur of the Western wilderness, stood a very lovely girl. Every now and then she would pause for a few moments to drink in that glorious sense of unfettered freedom which the vast expanding roll of hill and plain, never ending, like a sea of billowy verdance stretching from sky to sky, inspired in her, then return to her occupation. That occupation was—fishing.
She wore a riding-habit which, fitting her like a glove, revealed the undulating curves of an unrivalled figure. By some clever contrivance she had shortened its otherwise inconvenient length, and with the grace and deftness of a practised hand she was wielding a trout-rod. What a spectacle to come upon suddenly in the heart of the wild and blood-stained West! And what insane fatuity should bring her here alone in the fast falling twilight?
At this moment, however, the last thought in her mind is any fear of danger. Her cast whirls in the air; the flies drop noiselessly into a bubbling eddy. There is a rush through the water and a splash. An eager light comes into the velvety blue eyes, fading as rapidly to give place to one of vexation as the cast, suddenly released from its tension, springs high overhead, describing many a fantastic gyration.
“How sickening,” she cries, with a little stamp of impatience. “How unutterably sickening! That was a beauty, and I shan’t rise another to-night. But—it’s nearly dark. I must go back.”
What is that stealthy rustle in the depths of yonder scrub? For the first time the girl is conscious of a shade of nervousness as she hurriedly begins to take her rod to pieces. Her thoughts suggest the proximity of some hideous snake, or a panther perhaps.
She turns towards where she left her pony. Can the gathering dusk be playing her tricks? The animal is not there. Though securely fastened, it has disappeared.
But the sight which does meet her eyes roots her to the ground with horror. Stealing noiselessly towards her, in the dark shade of the timber, are three half-naked Indians—tall, athletic, hulking savages, hideously painted. They halt for a moment as they see themselves perceived. They are barely a dozen yards distant.
“How, lily gal!” grunts the foremost, wreathing his repulsive face into a frightful grin, and advancing with outstretched hand. “How, lily gal! No ’fraid! Me good Injun, me. Ha, ha! Me good Injun brudder.”
The exultant mockery underlying this friendly address was too transparent. Her eyes dilating with horror, the girl stepped back, the consciousness that she was alone in the power of these fiends turning her limbs to stone. They, for their part, secure of their beautiful prize, were enjoying her terror.
“No run ’way,” said the first speaker, who had diminished the distance between them. “No run ’way. Injun, good brudder.” And he seized her left wrist in the grasp of a vice—while another, with a fierce chuckling laugh, made a movement to seize her right one.
But the brutal contact broke the spell of horror which was weaving around her. A wild cry of indignation escaped her lips, and her eyes blazed. Wrenching her right wrist free, she dashed the heavy butt end of her fishing-rod with all her force—and it was not small—full into the first assailant’s face, knocking out some of his front teeth, and causing him to loosen his hold.
With the fierce growl of a wounded cougar, the savage sprang at her again, the blood streaming from his mouth, and as the unhappy girl recoiled to renew her efforts to keep her persecutors at bay, such a marvellous change came over the scene that not one of the actors in it was quite aware what had happened.
An enormous dark mass seemed to fall from the very heavens, simultaneously with a thundrous roar. The girl, now tottering on the verge of faintness, saw, as in a flash, her first assailant lying with his skull crushed to pulp, another lay gasping in the agonies of death, while the third was just vanishing in the timber! At him pointing the still smoking muzzle of a revolver, mounted on a huge black horse, was the most splendidly handsome man she had ever seen.
“Quick! Drop all that gear and mount in front of me. Give me your hand.”
There was no disobeying the curt commanding tone. Resisting a deadly impulse to faint right away, she extended her hand. In a second she was swung up before the stranger on his powerful horse.
It was all done like lightning. The first appearance of the savages—the assault—the rescue—occupied barely a couple of minutes. Pale to the lips, shaky, and unnerved, she could hardly now realise it all. But often in the time to come would she look back to that strange ride, the weight of the appalling danger she had just escaped still hanging over her, the courage and promptitude of her rescuer, the struggle she was waging with her own natural terror, dreading she knew not what.
The black steed was going at a gallop now, but his rider had him well in hand. The girl noticed that they were making something of a détour which took them far out on the open plain, whereas her ride down to the river had led her along the very edge of the timber. She noticed, too, the anxious, alert look on the stranger’s face. Though he did not turn his head, she felt assured that not a detail in the surroundings escaped him.
“There are your people,” he said briefly, as they suddenly came in sight of the camp. The waggons had just unhitched, and the mules and oxen were being driven down to the water; not the river we have seen, but a small creek running into it. Already columns of smoke were rising on the evening air.
“I can never thank you enough,” said the girl, suddenly and with a shudder. “But for your promptitude where should I be now?”
“Say but for your own courage and self-possession. The average idiot in petticoats would have shrieked and fainted and gone into hysterics. Meanwhile, the reds would have captured her and shot me,” he rejoined, somewhat roughly. “Be advised by me now. Don’t startle the rest of the women, or they’ll hamper us seriously. Now we’ll dismount.”
He lifted her to the ground, and, without another word, turned to confront a man who had hurried up. But the girl’s clear voice interrupted him before he could speak.
“This gentleman has rescued me from frightful danger, Major Winthrop. There are Indians about.”
“By Jove!” said he addressed, with a start of astonishment, looking from the one to the other. He was a man below middle age, of medium height, active and well-built, and there was no mistaking him for anything other than what he was—an English gentleman.
“Boss of this outfit, I take it?” said the new arrival shortly.
“Yes. Allow me to offer you my most grateful thanks for—”
“Well, there’s a big lot of Sioux preparing to ‘jump’ you at any moment. Corral your waggons without delay, and have your cattle brought in at once. Not a second to lose.”
A frightful yell drowned his words. There was a thunder of hoofs upon the turf as a band of some fifty mounted Indians, dashing from their cover, bore down upon the herd of draught stock which was being driven back from the water in charge of three or four men. On came the savages, whooping and whistling, brandishing blankets and buffalo robes with the object of stampeding the now frantic cattle.
But among those in charge of the latter there chanced to be a couple of experienced plainsmen. In a trice there rang out three shots, and two of the assailants’ ponies went riderless. Crack—crack! Another pony went down. This was more than the redskins could stand. Like a bird of prey alarmed in its swoop, the entire band swerved at a tangent and skimmed away over the plain as fast as their ponies could carry them. The herd was saved.
“There goes the first act in the drama,” said the stranger coolly. “Now stand clear for the second.”
The suddenness of it all—the yelling, the shots, the swoop of the painted and feathered warriors—had created a terrible panic in the camp, and had the main body of the savages charged at that moment nothing could have saved its inmates. As the stranger had at first conjectured, two of the waggons were full of women and children, the families of some of the emigrants. These at once rushed to the conclusion that their last hour had come, and shrieks and wailings tended to render confusion worse confounded. But Major Winthrop, with military promptitude, had got the men well in hand, and a very few minutes sufficed to corral the waggons, bring in the cattle, and put the whole camp into a creditable state of defence. It was now nearly dark.
“Will they attack us to-night?” enquired Major Winthrop, as, having completed his arrangements, he returned to where the stranger was seated smoking a pipe and gazing narrowly out into the gloomy waste.
“I should be inclined to say not. Their surprise has fallen through, you see, and then Indians don’t like fighting at night. But it’s at the hour before dawn, when we’re all infernally sleepy and more or less shivery with being up all night—it’s then we shall have to keep a very bright look-out indeed. I should keep about half your men at a time on guard all night through if I were in your place.”
“Who air you, stranger?” said a not very friendly voice.
He addressed turned, and beheld a lank, dried-up individual who might have been any age between thirty and fifty. His hawk-like face was the colour of mahogany, and, but for a small moustache, was devoid of hirsute adornment. His deep-set grey eyes, however, were those of a man prompt and keen to act in the moment of difficulty or danger. His dress consisted of a rather dirty blue shirt and fringed breeches.
“Who am I? Why just who I look—neither more nor less,” was the rejoinder, given with provoking tranquillity.
“And what might your name be—if it’s a fair question?”
“It might be Jones, or it might not. The question is a fair one, however. That being so, I don’t mind telling you my name is Vipan. What’s yours?”
“I’m Oregon Dave, champion bronco-buster (ranch term for a professional horse-breaker) of Wyoming. I’m boss-guide of this hyar outfit, and the chap who reckons he knows Injuns and their little ways better nor I had best just step out and say so.”
“If I were boss-guide of any outfit, I’m damned if I’d let a young lady belonging to that same start off by herself to go fishing among a Sioux war-party,” said Vipan, with a quiet satire in his tone that was maddening to the last degree. He resented the other’s truculent bearing, and intended to let him know it.
“Eh! Say that again,” said the first speaker, flushing with anger.
“We mustn’t quarrel my friends, we mustn’t quarrel,” put in Major Winthrop, earnestly. “It was mainly owing to your pluck and promptitude, Dave, that we haven’t lost every hoof of our cattle. And but for Mr Vipan, here, Miss Santorex would at this moment be a prisoner among the Sioux. I was to blame in that matter, and I bitterly acknowledge it.” Then he told him the circumstances of Vipan’s unexpected and opportune appearance among them. Before its conclusion Oregon Dave turned to the latter with outstretched palm:
“Shake, stranger, shake. You’re all there, and I’m only fit to be kicked into a kennel to yelp. Guide? No, I ain’t no guide, only a tenderfoot—a doggoned professor. Scalp me if I don’t go and hunt bugs upon the perairie with a brace o’ gig-lamps stuck across my nose. I’ll go now and ask the reds to tar and roast me. Good-bye, Kurnel; good-bye, stranger, I ain’t no guide, I ain’t. Thunder, no!”
“Nonsense, man,” said Winthrop, clapping him on the shoulder. “We were all to blame. We were informed along the road that the Indians were peaceable, and that all chance of war was at an end, for this summer, at any rate,” he explained, for Vipan’s benefit. “That being so, we have travelled much too carelessly, although in camp we’ve been on the alert for horse or cattle thieves.”
“I’ve been watching your outfit, and I’ve been watching the reds for nearly two hours,” said Vipan. “They mean’t jumping you yonder at the creek, and would have done so before this if you had not changed your plan, and camped here. As near as I can count, there are about three hundred of them. See that butte away up there? That’s where I’ve been located. Came down to warn you—none too soon, either.”
“No, indeed. We owe you a debt of gratitude we can never repay, myself especially. Good God, if harm had befallen Miss Santorex! I can’t even stand the idea of it.”
“Relative of yours?” said the other shortly.
“No. She’s the sister of a neighbour of ours—man who runs the adjoining ranch. She’s come out from England to stay with her brother for a bit, and took the opportunity of travelling with us. And—if anything had happened—good God, if anything had happened! It’s an awful responsibility, and I devoutly wish we were safe through it. Now, I think, we may go and get some supper.”
Major Winthrop, as we have said, was English. He had retired early from the service, and being an energetic fellow had soon found an unoccupied life pall upon him. Accordingly he had migrated to the Far West and started ranching—a life that suited him thoroughly. His wife, a pretty little vivacious brunette, was American. She was considerably his junior, and they had not been long married; and at the time we make their acquaintance were returning from a visit to her home in the Eastern States.
“My! what a fine-looking fellow!” she whispered to her friend, as she watched the approach of her husband’s guest. “Why, Yseulte, it was worth while getting into a fix to be rescued by such a knight-errant as that.”
To her surprise the colour came to the girl’s face—visible in the moonlight—as she answered:
“What nonsense, Hettie! Do be quiet, or they’ll hear you.”
“I ought to scold you severely, Miss Santorex, for running such an awful risk,” said Winthrop, as they sat down to supper, picnic fashion, beside the horse waggon which served as the ladies’ bedroom, saloon, and boudoir—and in bad weather, dining-room—all run into one.
“Please don’t, for I assure you I’m very penitent,” she answered.
“And then just think what an adventure she’ll have to tell about when she gets home again,” put in Mrs Winthrop. “Well, now, Yseulte, what do you think of our Indians, now you have seen them—real ones—at last?”
“Oh, don’t ask me!” answered the girl, who was still rather pale and shaky, in spite of her plucky efforts to recover her self-possession. “That last charge was all over so quickly. But aren’t they rather cowardly?”
“Why?” said the Major.
“Well, a number of them like that to be turned back by three men.”
“I trust you may have no practical occasion to alter your opinion,” put in Vipan, speaking for the first time. “That was a small surprise party bent on running off the stock—not fighting. As it was, they lost two killed and wounded at the first fire, and one pony, which is enough to turn any Indian charge of that strength.”
“Killed! Were there any killed?” asked Mrs Winthrop, in a horrified tone. “They seemed only frightened.”
“H’m, perhaps that was all, or they may have been only wounded,” said Vipan, inventing a pious fraud for the occasion. These two delicately nurtured women would require all their resolution on the morrow; there was no need to unnerve them with an instalment of horrors to-night. So both men affected an unconcern which one of them at any rate was far from feeling, and little by little the contagion spread, and the emigrants’ families began to forget their first fears, and the spell of brooding horror which had first lain upon them began to pass away, and the terrible danger with which they were threatened seemed more remote, yet, the night through, men sat together in groups, chatting in an undertone, as, rifle in hand, they never entirely took their gaze off the moonlit waste, lest the ferocious and lurking foe should creep upon them in his strength and strike them unawares.