Book Three—Chapter Two.
Fighting with Indians.
“But yonder comes the powerful king of day
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain’s brow
Illumed with gold, his near approach
Betoken glad.”
Thomson.
Scene: The fort in the Rocky Mountains. Morning breaking in the east. Wind hushed. Captain Blunt and party making their way along the bottom of the cañon, which in many places is deep in drifted snow.
Who can paint in words the beauty, the glory of a sunrise among the mountains? Why wish to be a poet—even a Longfellow?
Why wish to be even a Turner? for what artist that ever lived could sketch in colour the deep blue of yonder sky, or the great grey clouds that, even as we look change slowly to yellow and gold; or that strip of crimson, or the darkness of those pine trees outshining from the blue uncertain horizon’s haze?
Some such thoughts as these rushed through Leonard’s mind as he stood on the ramparts of the little fort that had been to him and his friends a quiet romantic home for so many months. For those friends, though still absent, he somehow felt no anxiety. They were well armed, and if they met the hostile Indians, they could no doubt give a good account of them, if indeed the enemy should be brave enough to come to close quarters. But despite the tales of Cooper—who has managed to encircle the Red Man with a halo of romance—Leonard had been long enough in the woods to find out that just as the American novelist depended upon imagination for the facts embodied in his delightful stories, so the American Indian depends upon numbers for his courage. He is bold and daring enough when he is in strong force, and when sure of victory. Then he will fight. I am not belying him.
When the party did arrive at the fort, they were much astonished at what Leonard had to tell them.
“And the blizzard sent them adrift, eh?” said Captain Blunt. “Well, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.”
“But they’ll come back,” said the trapper. “Gentlemen, they’ll return, that’s as sartain as sunrise.”
The Indian guides thought the same.
So the drawbridge was kept up all day.
But night after night passed by, and still there was no sign of the Ojibbeways. Our party got bolder, and went hunting as usual.
But one day a scout found an unmistakable trail, and they followed it up and up for many miles, till it led them to the top of a high hill. They did not show themselves over this, for far away in a green valley beneath they beheld an encampment; Indians on the warpath undoubtedly, with fleet, wild-looking horses hobbled near them, and a cooking fire smoking in their midst. There could not be less than fifty at the least. Well, the fort was well stocked to stand a siege. But a siege was the one thing the party wanted to avoid. Pleasant as was this land in summer and autumn, no one of them wished to winter here. It was determined, therefore, to dispatch one of the Indian scouts for assistance to his tribe. It would be a terrible adventure, to journey all alone over hill and dale and prairie land in an enemy’s country, but the promise of a reward was sufficient to make several volunteer.
Another went out every night to watch the enemy. They had come nearer, and were now only three miles from the fort.
Now, there is nothing that Britons will not dare; and when one evening Leonard said,—
“I say, Douglas, some of those Indian horses would come in handy to assist in our journey homeward.”
“That they would,” replied Douglas. “I was thinking the same.”
“Hurrah!” then said Leonard; “let us have them.”
So it was agreed to make the attempt.
And this is how it was accomplished. Four of the friendly Indians made a détour, and attacked the camp of the foe in the rear. It was a lovely moonlight night, and this ruse was completely successful. The enemy sprang to their bows and arrows, and prepared to repel the attack. A shot or two was fired, then the friendlies ran pursued by the foe. The white men had it all their own way now; they speedily picked out eight of the best horses, and were soon galloping off camp-wards as quickly as the nature of the ground would permit.
In this case, at all events, fortune favoured the brave, and all got safe inside the fort, only one Indian being wounded slightly.
But the Ojibbeways determined on revenge, and the very next night quite a cloud of arrows was poured into the fort, and then an attempt made to scale the rampart, the savages making night hideous with their howlings and wild cries. They had to retire worsted, however, and it was nearly a week before they again made an attack. But meanwhile they had been greatly reinforced, and the fight was now a terrible one. It began while it still was dark, but soon the moon rose, then the Indians suffered severely for their rashness.
For many days, and night after night, these attacks were made. None of the white men were wounded, but one friendly was killed, and another put hors de combat. Things began to look very serious, and if assistance came not soon Captain Blunt feared the very worst.
“Surely,” thought Leonard and Douglas, “the worst has come,” when one night the poor trapper fell at their feet, pierced through the heart with an arrow. This night’s attack was a fearful one. The savages, regardless of their lives, leapt on top of the rampart, though only to fall dead within the enclosure.
But more took their place, and the fighting went on with redoubled fury.
“I fear all is up,” said Captain Blunt in a moment’s lull; “let us sell our lives dearly.”
But hark! what was that wild, unearthly yell in the rear of the foe?
All listened. The savages who had been coming on again towards the fort fell back. The cries and yells were redoubled, and the din was horrible, awful!
“Hurrah!” cried Blunt, “we are saved! The friendlies have come!”
And so it was. The battle in the bush raged for fully an hour, then up rushed the scout who had so bravely done his duty. The drawbridge was lowered, and in he dashed, and after him fully a hundred of his own tribe, all in their war-paint, all fully armed, and, ghastly sight! nearly all had scalps hanging to their girdles.
The very next day the fort was deserted, and the march eastward was commenced. It was a very long and a very toilsome one. But they reached civilisation safely at last. The friendly Indians thought themselves well rewarded by being presented with the horses. And considering that Captain Blunt and party had obtained the animals cheaply enough, it was no wonder that satisfaction was expressed on both sides.
They found the Gloaming Star ready for sea, and after selling their skins and curios they embarked, and made all sail for the sunny south. All the winter and spring was spent in cruising around the West Indian Islands. They even stretched across to lonely Bermuda, encountering a hurricane on the passage, which well-nigh dismantled the ship, and necessitated a longer stay at the islands than they desired. Then southwards and west, touching at Rio Janeiro, the most romantic and lovely harbour in the world.
Monte Video, however, which they reached at last, did not afterwards shine in their memories as Janeiro did. Its low flat lands, its shallow seas and fogs, were not impressive in a pleasant way. But they found the inhabitants—even then a strange mixture of nationalities—kind and hospitable, and Leonard, Douglas, and Captain Blunt accepted an invitation to go for sport into the interior.
The roads were terribly rough; there were no railways here in those days. The roads were rough and the roads were long, but they found themselves at last on the very confines of civilisation. And here they spent some months, most pleasantly, too, though their adventures were not without danger. They found the new settlers at war with the Indians, the latter being a most treacherous race, possessing all the cunning, though hardly so much of the extreme cruelty, which forms so marked a characteristic of the Red men of the American wilderness.
Both Douglas and Leonard soon became adepts in riding the half-wild horses over the plains, and in hunting the emu and llama, in throwing the lasso and the bolas.
“It seems to me,” said Douglas, one day, “that I would like to live in this wild land for ever and a day.”
“It seems to me,” replied Leonard, “that I have been here all my life.”
Everything was so new in this country, and as they happened to be favoured with fine weather, some brief but terrible storms excepted, everything was so lovely. They were the guests of a rich Spaniard, whose house was a kind of shooting-box in the midst of most charming and wild scenery. It was a house of logs, but most artistically designed and built, with terraces around it, and porticoes and verandahs, over which trailed flowers of most beautiful colour, shape, and perfume. It was well surrounded—as indeed it needed to be—by a rampart and a ditch, and more than once it had to stand a siege. Sometimes the Indians made a raid down that way and drove away the horses. But Señor Cabelas had many well-armed servants, and they took a delight in following up and fighting Los Indianos, and returning triumphantly, which they invariably did, with the re-captured animals, or most of them.
Our heroes were always on the hunting path very early in the morning. They went prepared to shoot or fight anything. Wolves there were in plenty, but they gave the horsemen a wide berth, nor were they really worth powder and shot. But far away among the wild hills, those long-haired wolves are really a source of very great danger.
But there were panthers or pumas, and a few jaguars, and although none of these attacked, still once or twice, when at bay, they made a terrible resistance. In a case like this, if a man does not keep cool, or if he allows any nervousness to interfere with his aim, it is ten to one that the jaguar will have the best of the battle, and the huntsman be left dead or terribly wounded.
When the day’s sport or hunting in the pampas was over and done, when the dinner in Señor Cabelas’ tall-ceiled room had been discussed, how pleasant it was to get out and sit under the verandah in the cool of a summer’s evening, and tell tales, and think and talk of home.
How pleasantly tired and drowsy Leonard and Douglas used to be by bedtime, and how soon they were wrapped in dreamless slumber when their limbs were stretched in bed, their heads upon the downy pillows!
How loud the great frogs croaked and snored around the lodge, ay, and even in it; but their croaking and snoring never once wakened our pampas sportsmen!