But speedily another unforeseen complication arose. Before I'd gone five miles the hoodoo that had been working overtime on my behalf got busy again. The clouds that were rolling up from the east at sundown piled thick and black overhead, and when dark was fairly upon me I was, for all practical purposes, like a blind man in an unfamiliar room. It didn't take me long to comprehend that I was merely wasting the strength of my horse in bootless wandering; with moonlight I could have made it, but in that murk I could not hope to find the post. So I had no choice but to make camp in the first coulée that offered, and an exceeding lean camp I found it—no grub, no fire, no rest, for though I hobbled my horse I didn't dare let his rope out of my hands.
About midnight the combination of sultry heat and banked clouds produced the usual results. Lightning first, lightning that ripped the sky open from top to bottom in great blazing slits, and thunder that cracked and boomed and rumbled in sharps and flats and naturals till a man could scarcely hear himself think; then rain in flat chunks, as if some malignant agency had yanked the bottom out of the sky and let the accumulated moisture of centuries drop on that particular portion of the Northwest. In fifteen minutes the only dry part of me was the crown of my head—thanks be to a good Stetson hat. And my arms ached from the strain of hanging onto my horse, for, hobbled as he was, he did his best to get up and quit Canada in a gallop when the fireworks began. To make it even more pleasant, when the clouds fell apart and the little stars came blinking out one by one, a chill wind whistled up on the heels of the storm, and I spent the rest of that night shivering forlornly in my clammy clothes.
Still a-shiver at dawn, I saddled up and loped for the crest of the nearest divide to get the benefit of the first sun-rays. But alas! the hoodoo was still plodding diligently on my trail. I topped a little rise, and almost rode plump into the hostile arms of a half-dozen breech-clout warriors coming up the other side. I think there were about half a dozen, but I wouldn't swear to it. I hadn't the time nor inclination to make an exact count. The general ensemble of war-paint and spotted ponies was enough for me; I didn't need to be told that it was my move. My spurs fairly lifted the dun horse, and we scuttled in the opposite direction like a scared antelope. The fact that the average Indian is not a master hand with a gun except at short range was my salvation. If they'd been white men I would probably have been curled in a neat heap within two hundred yards. As it was, they shot altogether too close for comfort, and the series of yells they turned loose in that peaceful atmosphere made me feel that I was due to be forcibly separated from the natural covering of my cranium if I lost any time in getting out of their sphere of influence.
The persistent beggars chased me a good ten miles before they drew up, concluding, I suppose, that I was too well mounted for them to overhaul. But it might have been a lot worse; I still had my scalp intact; the chase and its natural excitement had brought a comfortable warmth to my chilled body; and I had made good time in the direction I wished to go. On the whole, I felt that the red brother had done me rather a good turn. But I kept on high ground, thereafter, where I could see a mile or two, for I was very much alive to the fact that if another of those surprise-parties jumped me now that my horse was tired they would have a good deal of fun at my expense; and an Indian's idea of fun doesn't coincide with mine—not by a long shot!
I made some pointed remarks to my horse about Mr. Goodell and his companions, as I rode along. If Pend d' Oreille hadn't been the nearest place, I'd have turned back to Walsh and made that bunch of exhumers come back after me, if it were absolutely necessary that I should pilot them to the graves. Personally, I thought those two old plainsmen wouldn't thank Major Lessard or any one else for disturbing their last, long sleep; the wide, unpeopled prairies had always been their choice in life, and I felt that they would rather be laid away in some quiet coulée, than in any conventional "city of the dead" with prim headstones and iron fences to shut them in. A Western man likes lots of room; dead or alive, it irks him to be crowded.
I fully expected to find the four waiting for me at Pend d' Oreille, and I was prepared to hear a good deal of chaffing about getting lost. What of my waiting on the ridge that afternoon, and bearing more or less away from the proper direction at night, I did not reach the post till noon; and I was a bit puzzled to find only the men who were on duty there. I was digesting this along with the remains of the troopers' dinner, when Goodell and his satellites popped over the hill that looked down on Pend d' Oreille, and, a few minutes later, came riding nonchalantly up to the mess-house.
"Well, you beat us in," Goodell greeted airily. "Did you find a short cut?"
"Sure thing," I responded, with what irony I could command.
"Where the deuce did you go, anyway, after you stopped in that creek-bottom?" he asked, eying me with much curiosity. "We nearly played our horses out galloping around looking for you—after we'd gone a mile or so, and you didn't catch up."
"Then you must have kept damned close to the coulée-bottoms," I retorted ungraciously, "for I burnt the earth getting up on a pinnacle where you could see me, before you had time to go very far."