Such a surveying party Ferdinand had joined, intending to transact some affairs at San Francisco; and on the third day of his journey, when descending a steep hill-side, the war-shouts of the Indians were heard, and presently about thirty beplumed and painted savages were seen evidently triumphing after a victory.
The travellers scarcely uttered a word, but settled themselves in their saddles, and drew their revolvers, then charged the foe with the full impetus of a down-hill gallop. It was the affair of a moment; the Indians threw themselves on their horses and scoured away like the wind, while the new comers found that they had been exulting over the slaughter of only two men and one little child, whom they had been proceeding to mangle after the custom of their tribe. One victim was quite dead, and already scalped and scored; the other, though senseless, stripped, and gashed in many places, was still breathing, as was the child—a boy of six or seven, though shot through the breast, and the mark of the scalping-knife already begun on his head.
The keen wiry dauntless fellow, who acted as guide, driving two of the party in a much enduring waggon, opined that they came from Fiddler's Ranch, about two miles off, and recognized the living one as the Fiddler himself—the best company, he guessed, between this and the Atlantic. It was a service of danger to lift the bodies into the vehicle, for the Indians might be hovering about in ambush to fall on the rescuers in great numbers; but the transit was safely performed; up to the stockade and ditch protecting the township called Fiddler's Ranch, whence issued a population of the rudest description, vituperating the Indians, and bewailing 'poor Tom the Fiddler and little Jerry, the smartest, cutest little critter that side of the mountains.' 'Pretty nigh gone, stranger; bring him in, lay him by the side of his father; those brutes of Injuns fix their work off too handsome—best if neither opens his eyes again.'
A low frame-house, the outer half-store, also post-office, newspaper office, photographic studio—such was the place into which the father was carried, Ferdinand following with the child into an inner room, where were some appliances of comfort, a neatly ordered bed, a few chairs, a table, and some drawings fastened to the wall—among them a photograph that arrested Ferdinand's attention. Had he not gazed at the likeness from his bed in Mr. Audley's room? did he not know it in the family parlour, and in Clement's cell at St Matthew's? It was the likeness of Edward Underwood!
He turned hastily to the bed. Yes, the face, weather-stained yet ghastly, overgrown with neglected beard, stained with blood and dust, still showed the delicate chiselling of eyebrow and nose, the Underwood characteristic!
Such remedies as the Ranch afforded produced tokens of reviving power, and Ferdinand could not believe the wounds necessarily mortal. The rest of the party were about to pursue their journey, and through them he sent the most urgent entreaties and liberal promises that could induce a surgeon to take his life in his hand, and cross that dreadful waste. The signature of F.A. Travis was well known in the West.
While Ferdinand was washing away the soil from the face once so fair and brilliant, bringing out more of the familiar features, consciousness returned in groans; and when at last the lids were raised, and showed the well remembered deep blue eyes, the first word that struggled articulately from the lips was, 'Jerry! Baby!'
'Here!' Ferdinand laid the nerveless hand on the little flaxen head, still motionless.
That was enough at first, but as the tide of life began to flow more freely, Edgar called the child again; and as no answer came, used his hand to feel, writhed his head to look. 'Jerry!—what—asleep? They've not hurt him!' The last words in a tone of full sense and anguish.
'He does not seem to suffer,' said Ferdinand. 'I have sent for a doctor, and I trust to keep you both up till he comes.'