CHAPTER XXXII.
THE TRAP.
He shared the teepee with his six guards. Sleep was remote from his eyes. Nevertheless, he did fall off at last, only, it seemed to him, to be immediately awakened by his guards.
His ankles were unbound, and he was made to understand that he must ride again. Ambrose, seeing no advantage to be gained by resistance, did what they ordered without objection.
He got to his feet and went outside. A pitiful little yelp behind him caused him to whirl about and dart inside again.
"Hands off my dog!" he cried in a voice that caused the Kakisas to fall back in affright.
There was a little light from the fire. Their attitude was conciliatory. In their own language they sought to explain. One pointed to a kind of pannier of birch-bark hanging from a teepee pole, whence issued a violent scratching.
"Let him out!" cried Ambrose.
They expostulated with him. None made any move to obey.
"Let him out!" commanded Ambrose, "or I'll smash something!"
Watusk, attracted by the noise, stuck his head in. The matter was explained to him. Lifting the cover of the pannier, he exhibited the frightened but unharmed Job to his master.
"Him all right," he said soothingly. "Let be. We got mak' new camp to-night. Can't tak' no dogs. Him come wit' women to-morrow."
Ambrose did not believe him, of course; but if help were really so near, he felt it would be suicidal to provoke a conflict at this moment. Apparently they intended the dog no harm. He assumed to be contented with Watusk's explanation.
"Good dog," he said to Job. "You're all right. Lie down."
Ambrose mounted, and they tied him on as usual. On every hand he could see men mounting and riding out of the village. His heart slowly rose into his throat.
Could it be meant that he was to take part in a night attack on the police? Surely the redcoats would never allow themselves to be surprised! Anyhow, if he was to be present, it would be strange if he could not help his own in some way.
His horse was led up the hill, off at right angles to the village. Watusk remained near him. As they rose to higher ground the moon came into view, hanging above the tree-tops across the valley, preparatory to sinking out of sight.
In its light the objects around him were more clearly revealed. Apparently the riders were straggling to a rendezvous. There was no haste. The terrible depression which had afflicted Ambrose since Nesis had disappeared was dissipated by the imminence of a great event.
He lived in the moment. Out of the tail of his eye he observed Watusk's mount, a lustrous black stallion, the finest piece of horseflesh he had seen in the north.
Ambrose heard a confused murmur ahead. Rising over the edge of the hill he saw its cause. A great body of horses was gathered close together on the prairie, each with its rider standing at its head.
The animals jostled each other, bit and squealed, stamped their forefeet, and tossed their manes. The men were silent. It made a weird scene in the fading moonlight.
Men and horses partook of a ghostly quality; the faces nearest him blank, oval patches, faintly phosphorescent, were like symbols of the tragedy of mankind.
Watusk kept Ambrose at his side. Facing his men, he raised his hand theatrically. They sprang to their saddles and, wheeling, set out over the prairie. Gradually they lengthened out into single file.
Presently the leader came loping back, and the whole body rode around Watusk and Ambrose in a vast circle. It was like an uncanny midnight circus.
The riders maintained their silence. The only sounds were the thudding of hoofs on turf and the shaking of the horsemen in their clothes. Only one or two used saddles. The rifle-barrels caught dull gleams of moonlight.
At another signal from Watusk they pulled up and, turning their horses' heads toward the center, made as small a circle as their numbers could squeeze into.
Watusk addressed Ambrose with a magniloquent air. "See my children, white man! Brave as the white-face mountain bear! Swift as flying duck! This only a few my men. Toward the setting sun I got so many more wait my call.
"By the big lake I got 'nother great army. Let white men tak' care how they treat us bad. To-morrow red man's day come. He got Watusk lead him now. Watusk see through white man's bluff!"
It was impossible for Ambrose not to be impressed, ridiculous as Watusk's harangue was. There were the men, not less than two hundred—and twenty police to be attacked.
Watusk now rode around the circle, addressing his men in their own tongue, singling out this man and that, and issuing instructions. It was all received in the same silence.
Ambrose believed these quiet, ragged little warriors to be more dangerous than their inflated leader. At least in their ignorance they were honest; one could respect them.
In more ways than one Ambrose had felt drawn to the Kakisas. They seemed to him a real people, largely unspoiled as yet by the impact of a stronger race.
If he could only have talked to them, he thought. Surely in five minutes he could put them to rights and overthrow this general of straw!
Watusk rode out of the circle, followed by Ambrose and Ambrose's guard. Several of the leading men, including one that Ambrose guessed from his size to be Myengeen, joined Watusk in front, and the main body made a soft thunder of hoofs in the rear.
They were headed in a southeasterly direction—that is to say, back toward the Kakisa River. They rode at a walk. There was no conversation except among the leaders. The moon went down and the shadows pressed closer.
In a little while there was a division. Myengeen, parted from Watusk and rode off to the right, followed, Ambrose judged from the sounds, by a great part of the horsemen.
The remainder kept on in the same direction. Half a mile farther Watusk himself drew aside. Ambrose's guards and others joined him, while the balance of the Indians rode on and were swallowed in the darkness.
Watusk turned to the right. Presently they were stopped by a bluff of poplar saplings growing in a hollow. Here all dismounted and tied their horses to trees.
Ambrose's ankles were loosed and, with an Indian's hand on either shoulder, he was guided through the grass around the edge of the trees. He speculated vainly on what this move portended.
No attack, certainly; they were striking matches and lighting their pipes. Suddenly the dim figures in front were swallowed up.
Immediately afterward Ambrose was led down an incline into a kind of pit. The smell of turned earth was in his nostrils; he could still see the stars overhead. They gave him a corner, and his ankles were again tied.
Soon it began to grow light. Little by little Ambrose made out the confines of the pit or trench. It was some twenty-five feet long and five feet wide. When the Indians stood erect, the shortest man could just look over the edge.
Ambrose counted twenty-one men besides Watusk and himself. It was close quarters. When it became light enough to see clearly, they lined up in front of him, eagerly looking over. One was lighting a little fire and putting grass on it to make a smudge.
Ambrose got his feet under him, and managed after several attempts to stand upright. He was tall enough to look over the heads of the Indians.
Stretching before him he saw the valley he had remarked the evening before, with the streamlet winding like a silver ribbon in a green flounce.
But what the Indians were looking at were little pillars of smoke which ascended at intervals all around the edge of the hills, hung for a moment or two in the motionless air, and disappeared. Ambrose counted eight besides their own.
Watusk exclaimed in satisfaction, and ordered the fire put out. This, then, was the explanation of the digging—rifle-pits!
Ambrose marveled at the cunning with which it had all been contrived.
The excavated earth had been carried somewhere to the rear.
Wild-rose scrub had been cut and replanted in the earth around three sides of the pit, leaving a clear space between the stems for the men to shoot through, with a screen of the crimson leaves above.
So well had it been done that Ambrose could not distinguish the other pits from the patches of wild-rose scrub growing naturally on the hills.
Ambrose's heart sank with the apprehension of serious danger. He began to wonder if he and all the other whites in the country had not under-rated these red men. Where could Watusk have learned his tactics? The thing was devilishly planned.
With the cross-fire of two hundred rifles they could mow down an army if they could get them inside that valley. Each narrow entrance was covered by a pair of pits. Every part of the bowl was within range of every pit.
Ambrose feared that the police, in their careless disdain of the natives, might ride straight into the trap and be lost.
"Watusk, for God's sake, what do you mean to do?" he cried.
Watusk was intensely gratified by the white man's alarm. He smiled insolently. "Ah!" he said. "You on'erstan' now!"
"You fool!" cried Ambrose. "If you fire on the police you'll be wiped clean off the earth! The whole power of the government will descend on your head! There won't be a single Kakisa left to tell the story of what happened!"
Watusk's face turned ugly. His eyes bolted. "Shut up!" he snarled, "or I gag you."
Ambrose, bethinking himself that he might use his voice to good purpose later, clenched his teeth and said no more.
At sunrise a fresh breeze sprang up from the south. Soon after a whisper of distant trotting horses was home upon it. Ambrose's heart leaped to his throat. An excited murmur ran among the Indians. They picked up their guns.
Watusk's pit was one of the pair covering the upper entrance to the valley. It was thus farthest away from the approaching horsemen. It faced straight down the valley. Through the lower gap they caught the gleam of the red coats.
Ambrose beheld them with a painfully contracted heart. He gaged in his mind how far his voice might carry. The wind was against him.
Presumably he would only be allowed to cry out once, so it behooved him to make sure it was heard. However, the same thought was in the minds of the Indians. They scowled at him suspiciously.
Suddenly, while it was yet useless for him to cry out, they fell upon him, bearing him to the ground!