THE NEST OF TRAITORS.
"Dear me, Rosa," exclaimed Miss Maclan, the tent being cleared once more, "I thought all you Southern Americans rode horses like centaurs. At least, you know my meaning though the simile is bad."
Rosario gave her a hug.
"Eh, darling!" she whispered; and added with a fine smile. "At present I do not know how to ride."
"But I should have thought—"
"You are not good at the kind of thinking wanted out here, lassie! The guide spoken of by the captain is devoted to us, eh? Yes; well, then, if he got that idiot of a Captain Kidd to put these questions to me, it is because he wanted no for an answer. Do you comprehend now?"
"Better than ever. Oh, you are keen, Rosario! They will not cheat you easily!"
"Alas, dear, it is misfortune's grindstone that sharpens wits. When even girls are constantly surrounded by tricks and stratagems, the senses wear clear and bright. Cunning and dissimulation are the slave's sole weapons. We can only baffle our enemies with skill and finesse."
When the starting time came Captain Kidd's bugle sounded it, and gave orders for the movement. The guide had not come back from his hunt, but as he had left precise directions, the leader showed no tokens of being crossed by that absence, and took the lead himself.
It was a most painful journey.
Out of the snowlined woods issued a black damp frost, which cut to the bone even the thickest wrapped. A few large snowflakes were spun out of treetops and wandered about. The semblance of a road was dreadfully cut up and flanked by deep chasms, which required the utmost heedfulness on the part of the teamster lest the vehicles and pack animals were thrown down and over. They seemed to have nothing but ups and downs, and the worst of the downs was, it being through torrents or pools where the water was excessively chilly.
The caravan proceeded noiselessly on the whole, excepting the groaning and screaming of the wheels and the sonorous oaths of the drivers: men who do not sleep happily unless they have invented a fresh blasphemy every day.
Their disagreeable march, during which but scanty progress was made after all, was kept on till half past four, when darkness came on. The train had reached a natural clearing resembling that of their last halt.
Such a huge fire as served our ancestors to roast oxen whole, and as their present-day descendants now and then use for the same purpose at extraordinary meetings, was blazing in the open space. Right in front stood the guide, leaning on his rifle as easily as if he little cared for the pyre attracting Indians as a lantern does gnats on a summer night.
The party quickened their gait as much as possible, enheartened by the ruddy flame of which the mere reflection seemed to thaw their stiffened limbs.
Soon were the wagons unlimbered and ranged in defensive order, the mules unladen, and the encampment as swiftly installed as could be. As the night was to be spent here, the measures of assurance were unusually well taken. The wagons were chained in two crescents connected by parallel bars, the interstices choked up with stake and thorn bushes, and the tents set up within the enclosure. The sentries were told to keep their eyes skinned. Plenty of watch fires were kindled and provided with fuel.
Only when these precautions were concluded did the gold grabbers get leave to prepare supper. Think what their appetite was with this hard work on top of that excited by the long and arduous journey. They "wolf'd" their meal.
After the captain had strictly inspected the camp, investigated the surrounding scenery, and became convinced all was in order, he strolled over to Ranald. He was at his own fire, smoking a pipe, the guide not being an officer who "chums" with anyone; again a point of resemblance with a sea pilot.
"My friend the hunter," said the captain, in a most amicable tone, "I desire you to pass the night with us, and take supper with our chiefs."
"Many thanks, captain; I do not see any reason why I should go out on the prowl tonight, and nothing bars me from putting my knife into your Washington pie. But a little condition on that, captain."
"Name it, dear boy. If it depends on me, it is granted beforehand," said Kidd, who was becoming accustomed to Dearborn's "little whims."
"I only ask one thing, that there shall be none but men at the board."
"A 'stag party?' But what do you say that for?"
"That's not easy to explain. But the fact is, I haven't come out into the wilderness to hear women squeak, and see them mince about and play all those niminy-piminy lures and graces that city people think are agreeable. I have no wish to say a word contrary to the respect I hold for the young Southern lady in your charge; but, by Jove! I'll confess that I prefer the wolf scaring faggot here to sitting at table over against the fair sex."
"Oh, good," replied the captain, who knew that for every seven young men whom a homicide, debt, loss at gambling, love of wild life, etc., drove into the desert, there were six whose first love affair turned out disastrously; he thought he perceived at last the true cause of the youth's reserved mood and peculiarities. "You'll not be bothered with her, particularly as we are going to talk about her, and could not well do that if she were by, or her Scotch attendant either."
"Attendant?"
"Yes, I've picked out the woman we rescued to be her companion. It cheers her up. She was moping a little."
"Things being so, captain, I am your man."
In five minutes, the captain, Joe, and the Englishman were supping together with hearty appetite. When this was a trifle allayed by the first course, Kidd brought the conversation round upon Doña Rosario, by reason of her having stopped the choice of the short cut.
"Women are always a bother," remarked the young misanthrope with a sneer. "With no intention to offend you, I would not mind betting a trifle that the young lady can ride as well as you or I."
"She says the other thing," returned the host, thoughtful of a sudden.
"Out of the spirit of contradiction, that's all."
"It's very certain," interposed Joe, "if she was educated at New Orleans, that she must be a rare exception to the troops of schoolgirls who go out riding on the Shell Road."
"It's all pure contradiction," resumed Dearborn; "who can say a thing is black to a woman without her saying it is white?"
"Or grey, at least," added the lieutenant, sagely.
"That's why," continued the youngest man, "I have sworn off woman's society. Though the best woman in creation came out here, I should send her back to the nearest railway station! I'll never cumber myself up with the baggage! They're a bad bargain, though they come with a million in the Funds!"
"Whew!" exclaimed Joe, laughing, "Our guide does not strike me as a very passionate adorer of the sex."
"No, no, don't put me down as either hating or liking them," went on the hunter; "write me as indifferent. My father was a man of great good sense; an oracle in his county. He used to say that the modern woman is like the grand piano: it looks useful, but it takes up too much room, and is always in the way. You cannot use the wires for a gridiron, the top is badly shaped for a billiard table, and the legs are so hard, you cannot chop them up in a sudden emergency for heating shaving water. And when she is musical, the neighbours move out and leave the last quarter's rent owing. I agree with my dear old dad."
The others laughed.
"The sad part of it all is, that we must pass three or four days we might have saved in this dreary solitude," remarked the captain.
"Still, you might take the short cut," observed Joe.
"I don't see how."
"Well, my principle is, that the few must give in to the many. Sound democratic maxim. Doña Rosario says she cannot ride. Never mind whether she can or not, truly; but that does not bind us down from taking the cutoff. Not a bit of it."
"I wish you would explain," said Kidd, testily. "What would you do in my place, man full of dodges?"
"One thing—the easiest thing in the world," responded the Carcajieu, playing with his knife on a bone. "I would pick out an old sure-foot mule—we've several rare good ones—I'd put a sidesaddle on, well filled with a bag of leaves, rugs, blankets, and such fixings, so the lady should not get cold, and fasten her in."
"Not a bad notion. What do you think, guide?"
Dearborn laughed in the face of Joe.
"And when the mule slips, your hardbound lady rider would be dashed to sausage meat in the gulf below. They run eight hundred feet deep round here."
"Bah! That's nothing. Apparently, you do not know what a mule is—a cat for clinging to the roughnesses, a fly for walking up a smooth perpendicular."
"Oh, if you think the mule can scramble along—"
"A mule can go where we daren't."
"Then I will share in your lieutenant's suggestions," said Dearborn, exchanging a secret glance of intelligence with Joe.
"That's fine, then! Tomorrow we will strike into the straight line you proposed, guide. Are your horns full? Then, here's to the Yellowstone Valley!"