THE THORN OF ROSES.
It was going on seven o'clock when the unhappy Captain of the gold seekers and his deliverer, as he emphatically termed him, reached the former's camp.
The weather kept cold, and the frost was biting. The cloudless sky of a clear night was lavishly sprinkled with the brightest stars.
Lieutenant Carcajieu was on the point of sending out some scouts to find the captain and missing men as he reappeared. He was warmly greeted. Not that his fellows doated upon him; but, being like seamen navigating an unknown sea, they would have been in a quandary if he had eloped. After thanking them, the leader gave an account of his adventure, upon which the congratulations broke forth afresh for one who had escaped two grizzlies. Three or four men, as they were fully equipped, were directed to go out and bring in the remains of the English convict.
"By the way, where's the Frenchman?" enquired Kidd, though desirous of repose.
"Paul has not returned," responded the lieutenant, to his surprise. "Though it's blamed late for scrambling round in the district overflowing with b'ar."
"I hope nothing's befallen him," observed Kidd, gravely. "Double the force of scouts, and let them move most warily."
Leaving Joe to govern the camp, and seeking the recuperation of which he felt in need, the captain and Dearborn proceeded towards the tent. Wearied, aching, and meditative, Kidd did not remark a quick peculiar sign of "friend!" from the young hunter to his right-hand man. A plate additional was set for Dearborn, and the captain plied a good knife and fork. Soon he gave the Negro Samson an order. In five minutes its purport was made manifest, for the black man ushered in under the canvas flap, Doña Rosario. She came forward in a singularly embarrassed way, a feverish blush on her face, and her eyes curiously enkindled. She seemed struggling between interest in the stranger and a resolve not to exhibit it.
This caution was so quickly mastered, that it was invisible by the time she had taken a seat prepared for her between the two men. Dearborn had gazed at her with no other sentiment than admiration, unless, also, some pity was involuntarily betrayed.
Ordinarily Captain Kidd let no incident escape him; but he was too bruised and too famished not to be exceedingly self-concentrated. Happily for them, therefore, nothing met his eye.
"I must ask your forgiveness, Niña," he said in Spanish, in a voice which he tried to soften, "I ought to have notified you of a stranger guest."
"As the ruler, sir, you can do just as you please," she returned, with indifference.
"Nay, nay, my sweet! I don't want the gentleman to have a poor opinion of me, and suppose I act tyrannically over you."
"I beg pardon, Mr. Kidd," interrupted Dearborn, playing carelessly with his knife, "as everybody has his hands full in minding his own business, I make it a rule never to go out of my way supposing things. At the same time, this foreign language before a guest is not what I was educated to call the correct etiquette. Besides, if you must discuss family matters with this young lady, whom I take to be your daughter, would it not be better to put that by till we are through the meal?"
"Oh, I thought you knew Spanish," returned the captain, smoothly. "The lady is not my daughter, but my ward—a far-removed relative—but I love her as if she were my own child; and there is nothing that depends on me that should not be hers to satisfy her in any way."
The girl smiled mockingly. The captain never moved a muscle as he went on thus:
"I was merely observing, my pet—querida Niña—that I never should have invited a complete stranger hither—one I have only known a few hours—to be our guest but for his having rendered me one of those services utterly unpayable. In plain English, he has saved my life."
"Delighted to hear it," rejoined the young lady, nibbling at the sweet biscuit.
"It is only too true," took up the hunter, laughing, "that, without any vaunt, my interpolation in your trialogue with the grizzly bears alone prevented the last repartee being rather fatal than otherwise to you."
"Ugh! The bare idea makes me shudder!" said the captain, with no intention to jest. "I am gooseflesh all over now!"
"Did this gentleman really save you from the monsters?" queried she, apparently at length interested in the conversation.
"Save is the word!" ejaculated the bandit chief. "I was under the very claws, between the teeth of the horrible beasts. So shake again, Mr. Dearborn," he added, with a fine tragi-comic offering of his hand. "We are brothers right on till death do us part! I am not much given to speechifying, but I have a rare memory for good and evil deeds done me, and as I live, you may ask anything of mine, and halves we go in it, though 'tis my gold placer in the—well yonder!"
"Mind, I'm booking that offer, captain." said the young man, with an Englishman's hearty joviality; "I am not a man to forget easily, either, and I am a great fellow for taking people at their word. So, though I am for claiming nothing just now, do you see, I should not wonder if someday I remind you of your pledge. So hold yourself ready to meet the demand, and cash up."
"There is no reminder needed in my case," said the captain, rather coldly and proudly. "You will find me ready to act up to my pledges."
"Therefore, I shall not dwell on that point. Let us change the subject. You were laughing at me as a foolhardy son of fortune who renounces old country luxuries, and penetrates the American wilderness, quite by himself," he said with a stress meant for the auditress to mark the phrase; "but what the plague brings you into desolation? You have not the look of a merchant. You would not haggle and bicker with Messrs. Lo & Co., as the Yankees playfully call the noble son of the forest."
"Quite so, I am not here to trade. Oh, dear, no! I am just jogging along."
"But whither? I do not want to be rude; but where there are no roads, I should imagine one's route led nowhere."
"The proof that your inquiry is not impertinent is shown in my freely answering you. My course is public property. On the border, everyone knows that my mates and I are going to the gold fields."
"Oh, after gold," repeated the other with well-feigned surprise. "Over the range into California? In that case, if there's any reliance in maps—though when maps are made by geographers at a desk ten thousand miles off, I have not too much faith in maps myself—well, you are askew! Granting you the finding of a pass in the Rockies, you will be three weeks reaching the eastern slope of the Nevada Range, and if you go that way and can climb the Oregonian Heights, you will be three months getting down to Portland. Either way, you will have so heavy and fatiguing a 'jog,' that I wonder very much that you take a delicate young lady with you."
"What you say may be very true, sir; but, to begin with, do not run away with the wrong notion. This young lady would not be in my company—I may better say, one of my company—if it were not absolutely her wish and will."
"Oh, now I curl back into my shell," said the Englishman, with a sardonic smile, "I cannot say I am amazed at the fair young lady's determination. Your American girls have already a name in Europe for daring, devotion, constancy, and—caprices."
"I beg your pardon, sir," broke in the young lady, looking at him fixedly, "for intervening in your conversation unbesought, but you should be fully informed on one point, Mr. Dearborn—I believe you are so named—"
"Ranald Dearborn, at your service."
"Well, Mr. Ranald Dearborn, I do not deserve your eulogy in any measure. Captain Kidd lies, and very well knows that he lies, when he asserts that I wish to accompany him in his journey. I am here, in his company—as he puts it—in spite of myself, against my will, because I have been shamefully torn from all the semblance of home that I had, and dragged thence I know not whither. I am no relative of his, not his ward, but his slave!"
"Señorita!" began the captain violently, on recovering his tongue.
"Do you dare deny it!" she cried, energetically, looking him in the eyes. "It is high time the truth came out! And that everybody knew of what you are capable, and what my position is! I thank Heaven you have at last brought a stranger to my hearing, not your hangdog confederates. Too well, señor, you relied on my scorn and acquiescence when you had the impudence to utter those words. I will not allow my weakness to bring me in as your accomplice, Mr. Dearborn," she continued, turning abruptly to the hunter, "this man has lied; he has cowardly abducted me for reasons unknown, and he intends to leave my dead body so far from civilization that it will never rise in judgment of this world against him."
"Have a care, young lady," said the captain, moodily, "I can't let you run on too far in this style—"
"One moment, captain," broke in Dearborn, sternly, "questions are raised which do not come into my province. But I am obliged to observe that you—or anybody else—has got to behave like a gentleman when a lady is present—"
"But, sir, if—"
"I know no ifs or buts, sir, for none but a coward and a blackguard would threaten a defenceless woman. You brought her here as the ornament to the supper table, so it's your own fault. I warn you once for all that, before me, you will have to treat the young lady with all the respect due to her age and sex, or else we shall have to settle the punctilio of etiquette with pistol or knife! And I doubt if you will be lucky enough to have anyone burst in between you and me as I did between you and the grizzlies."
"Good gracious, sir," the captain hastened to reply, the last turn of the defiant speech making him cease to bite his lips till the blood ran, "I am very sorry this awkward incident occurred—very! Nothing of the kind did ever take place; and I shall take the greatest heed it does not repeat itself," he went on, with a look of evil augury aside at the girl, who was wringing her hands and tapping the ground with her feet. "I allow that I let myself ramble farther than I ought. To show you how much I regret having displeased the young lady, I beg her to overlook the offence, and bear me no grudge."
Rosa tossed her head disdainfully.
"That's more like," said the English hunter, lightly; "since you apologise, I haven't a word to say."
"Yes; I am thoroughly vexed. Let us drop the hot but dying coals of dissention, therefore, and—what were we talking about when they flew out of the fire?"
"I don't know now."
"Oh, señor, you were observing that it looked as if my present route for the goldfields would bring me out in the Sacramento Valley, or at Vancouver's. Are you sure?"
"Well, I am no resident; but, coming down from the North, few signs of gold bearing tracts met my humble vision."
"Did you come through the Yellowstone Basin?" inquired the captain.
"What the Canadians called the 'Infernal Regions,' and the trappers the 'Fireholes?' Well, not what you can call through. I did—as I do when a big band of Indians cross my trail—I skirted it. They say it is the devil's own home on earth; and I have no wish, prematurely, to soak in a sulphur bath!"
"Mr. Dearborn, are you the man to render me still a further service?"
"I want to know, you know," said the Englishman, humorously.
"¡Diablo! You are in no hurry to contract yourself into a bargain, señor;" commented Mr. Kidd, with a bitter grin.
"Being a foreigner—"
"It's prudent. I wish I had always been as slow to plunge at your age! Tell me, where were you going when we met?"
"Southerly: I came to hunt. But the presence of Indians makes me fear that a solitary man would be hunted here."
"If you have no disinclination to remain with a force around you at which no Indian lances will tilt," said Captain Kidd, proudly, "I can offer you something—a way to utilise your recently gained knowledge in skirting the Yellowstone Basin; guide us inside it!"
"Why, what the—"
"Gold! That's the 'the!'"
"Gold there?"
The prairie rover leaned forward, resting both elbows on the board, and fixing his glowing eyes on the Englishman, spoke earnestly as follows.