THE GOLD GRABBERS.
The Cherokee and his young friend had barely vanished from the defile before some twenty men rushed in upon Miss Maclan. They had left her in a growing trepidation lest she had committed a great blunder in not sharing their flight. The newcomers were on horse and afoot. In this rugged way, expert footmen could keep pace with the riders. The principal was a tall, thin man, about fifty, rather bowed than straight; his tawny hair fell in locks thickly upon his shoulders in the style of the adopters of the Indian fashion; his face was bloodless in the third part not hidden by a red beard; as a guard against snow blindness, he wore green goggles, which gave him the air of a student or professor on a most guileless scientific enterprise. Spite of this, he was the Western desperado who had taken the notorious name of "Captain Kidd," that of the most ferocious pirate known on the Atlantic coast in the 18th century. He had already seen Sol Garrod inanimate, and the view of Old Cormick, a much more prized member of his band, doubled the malignity of his scowl. Nevertheless, he was surprised into some courtesy on seeing nobody but the young lady, for he removed his fur cap a little, and faltered:
"Who are you? This is never your work, is it?" pointing to the dead bandit. "Oh, I see," he went on, quickly. "The rogues quarrelled over the plum, and they would have deprived their captain of his option to redeem it at the band's estimation."
"Sir," said she haughtily, "you are right to call them rogues; they professed no great respect for me, and they have been punished for it by men who, on the contrary, have acted like honourable gentlemen."
"That will do. This is no time or place for such pages out of the Book of Elocution! What is it, my boys?" as his men returned quickly from the track of the horses.
An uproar in the woods, where the flyers burst through the Indians, enlightened them on the danger of prosecuting their researches too far.
"Our red brother!" he exclaimed, jestingly. "You'd better fall back before he extends the tomahawk of friendship."
"But the slayers of our mates and stealers of their horses are not Indians," added a scout who most recently came in.
"Never mind. Return to camp. Neither in the sky or along the land now is the lookout serene, and we shall meet any mishap better there. Two of you take care of that saucebox. Hang me if she be not, though fair as a lily, as pert and disdainful as a Mexican."
Lighting a cigar, he rode back, meditatively smoking, among his sullen and apprehensive men, without appearing to remember he had made a prisoner.
They were not the kind of characters to whom a young lady's protection should have been confided. On the contrary, their dissipated faces, truculent carriage, and noisy talk, proclaimed them the scum of the dross of the mining camp. Not worthy the name of gold seeker, they deserved that of horse thief, secret stabber, and "gold grabber."
For her part, Ulla was overcome by violent emotions, after the brief hope of being free of persecution. The persistent devotion of Mr. Dearborn impressed her. Others who may have escaped apparently looked to their own safety, but he had armed himself merely to follow her steps and seek to deliver her against any odds. She ruefully reviewed the events during which she had passed through hope, fear, and pain, till plunged into a despair greater than any since her father's death. On marking the number of her escort, and their villainous visages and robust physique, she saw little possibility of her only friend, however energetic his new associate, to save her from a miserable fate.
The retreating bandits did not seem to draw the Indians after them. There was no event on the way, and the watch at their camp had none to report.
The adventurers' "fort" presented a semicircle, the horns resting on marshland and on an inaccessible ravine respectively. It had an improvised musket battery gun, such as Prince Maurice of Holland invented years ago, and modern armourers have perfected and adorned with their generally unpronounceable names. Its rows of barrels, two deep, could be fired simultaneously, and a light, strong, broad-wheeled carriage allowed it to be quickly shifted in position. It defended the only breach in a barricade of pickets. But it was evident the gold seekers were fairly well content to entrust their surety to their rifles and strong arms.
Captain Kidd responded carelessly to the questions of the men in camp, waved them to stand back, and proceeded towards the rocks of the ravine. Soon he stopped, alighted, and offered to assist Miss Maclan down from a horse which a rider had resigned to her. She made no answer to his speech of welcome, more or less satirical, and eluded his hand by leaping lightly to the ground. He turned pale, frowned, and cried:
"Take her to the señorita. They are proud cats alike, and tell Doña Rosario that you bring her a companion or a slave—I care not which she makes of her."
"But, sir!" interrupted Miss Maclan, more alarmed at being thrown into the power of a woman than heretofore, "You must know that I am the daughter of Sir Archie Maclan! That he—"
"Oh, the frontier barrooms are full of such sirs!" he replied, brutally. "I care not who you are, since you would not be civil. Know that here you are like one of those tent poles—something I can snap asunder and toast my cheese with. Take her away! Three men lost because of her. I am half froze for hair!" and he made with his finger in the air near her forehead the atrocious pantomime of scalping her.
She did not shrink, but looked at him steadily with her cold blue eyes, and, with a lofty mien, followed the man in whose charge she was placed.
"And now that we have the petticoats out of the way," said one of the bandits hastily, "I suppose we can launch out and punish those who have wiped out poor Sol and his 'pardners?'"
"You will do nothing of the sort, Dick," replied Captain Kidd to the coarse Englishman who addressed him.
"Why not? Are you afraid of the Crows who infest the wood? So it appears."
"No, nor of the Blackfeet who are also in the neighbourhood."
"Of the Red River Half-breeds, then, who are camped yonder? Pooh, I could eat the lot, three at a bite."
"No."
"Of the sledging train, whose unconcealed traces abounded to the northeast, as Lottery Paul reported two days ago?"
"Of them still less. If this young woman's tale be true, they came scooting along with sails on their sledges—what a notion! And scooted into a cutoff! They were smashed, and the reds and the wolves have left no more than their bones."
"I know now! You are afeard o' running up against the Old Man of the Mountains!"
"Jim Ridge—"
"And his red-nigger companyero, Cherokee Bill!"
"No!" answered the captain, more warmly than with any of his negatives before.
"'Tis the Yager and his blood brother! I am sure we are near that haunt of theirs which no one has yet wormed out, and yet scores of daredevils have left the settlements to try to discover their places, as we are doing."
"My dear 'pal' Dick," replied Captain Kidd. "I do not underrate Old Jim. He is wise, expert, brave, with an enormous influence over all the prairie and mountain rangers from the Great Lakes to the Waterless Desert of the Apache Country. I defy anyone to tell certainly beforehand whether he will have the enmity or support of even those red men who most hate us whites as a rule. He must be our prisoner—our guide, by any means, mark, to the treasures of this region. Though it is a hard task to master him, he shall fall into our clutches, I promise you. But my fear is no more of him than of Canadians, Blackfeet, or Crows."
"Of whom, then, captain?"
"Have you seen any eagles on the sierra today?"
"No!"
"Or wild beasts in the glens?"
"No! But yesterday they were out of their retreats."
"I believe it. The eagles were whetting their beaks; and the bears, wolves, and wolverines sharpening their claws."
"Very like, because they have seen us and so many other gangs almost jostling in these wilds, and they know there will be meat."
"No, Dick; our conflicts will not furnish them with a glut. It will be a mightier devastator—one that we cannot resist, and we will be lucky to dodge. See the clouds rolling over and over on the top of the Rockies—above the snowbelt! That is the blizzard concentrating for a rush down upon the valleys and plains. Go and set the men to making all weatherproof. We shall be snowed up! And may the devil take care of his own!"