Snap: A legend of the Lone Mountain

by Clive Phillipps-Wolley

'No! no! my brother, creep in like catamounts. These Crows are cunning as Satan, and like enough them deserted-looking tents is full of braves waiting to shoot you down as you charge. Scatter and come in on all sides separately, so as not to give 'em a solid lump to fire into.'

'Our brother is a great warrior, wiser than the serpent,' said Warwolf; 'let us take his advice;' and, so saying, he and his comrades disappeared again amongst the pines.

The Crows' camp looked for all the world as if animation had been suddenly suspended in it, as if in the full swing and vigour of life it had been frozen or paralysed. The teepees of beautifully tanned white deerskin, painted with all manner of quaint devices in red ochre and other bright pigments, stood with their flaps thrown back as if the occupants had just entered them. They were fine teepees, as well made and as big as any you will see on the North American continent, standing as much as twenty feet high, and some of them (one, at any rate) big enough to hold thirty men. On little rails of rough-cut boughs still hung some long strips of deer-meat, drying for winter use, while the hides of the beasts whose flesh this was, were pegged out upon the ground near the tents. On one skin lay a sharp-edged white instrument, the shoulder-blade of a wapiti, as if just dropped by the squaw who had been cleaning the skin with it. Over two fires in the open, hung big cauldrons. The fires were out, and looked grey and cheerless enough, but the coyote, who had been smelling round the camp all night, did not think that they were empty. By-and-by, when he grew bolder, he would drag them down, and, when he had upset them, feast on the meat inside. He had been telling his troubles to the moon all night, and his note was not a cheerful one; but even his coat stood bolt upright with terror, and his tail dropped between his legs, at the hideous yell which suddenly roused him from his lair amongst the rocks.

It was the war-whoop of the Blackfeet, and with it came the ring of a dozen rifles which had been fired at random into the silent tents. But they only roused the echoes. There came no answer, either in little jets of flame, or loud report, or dying groan. All was still. The tents were deserted, or the enemy was strangely patient in reserving his fire.

And now from tent to tent flitted the quick figures, and as tent after tent was entered and found empty the strange silence dissolved and the harsh voices of the warriors shouting to each other gave life and animation to the scene. Here a brave was dragging out a pile of rugs from a deserted tent, there another cut down the scalps from his enemy's tent-pole, or in rare cases laid hands on a rifle or tomahawk which its owner had not had time to take with him in his flight. In the midst of the camp stood one tent larger than all the rest, whiter than all, and richer in that costly trimming which can only be shorn from dead men's heads. Its sides were painted with demons and good spirits, its flap was closed, and a kind of ensign marked it as the tent of the tribal chief.

With a revolver in his hand which one of the Blackfeet had lent him, Dick Wharton approached this tent. Here, if anywhere, he would meet with resistance.

Kheelounha (the grizzly), greatest of all the Crow chieftains, was as brave a man as ever stepped. Whatever had scared away his comrades, he might well have returned, and be lying there behind the closed entrance of his own lodge, prepared to die as he had lived, steel in hand, and the warm blood of his enemies flowing round him in streams.

Dick Wharton listened with straining ear and caught breath, but no rustle of blankets, no breath, however faint, betrayed the presence of a living being. Well! a sudden dash is safer than a deliberate entry, thought Dick, and with a jerk he flung aside the skin-curtain and darted into the gloomy interior.

Quick as light a sinewy figure was upon him, its iron fingers fixed like claws of steel into his throat, and before his finger could touch the trigger of his beloved six-shooter a dexterous back-heel sent him crashing upon his back. As he fell the revolver flew from his grip, he saw the ugly steel flash above his head, while one hand pinned his throat, gagging and choking the life out of him. For a moment his eyes swam, and then a voice somewhere above, seemed to say, 'Dick.'

The old trapper was partially stunned by his fall, and as the word reached his ear the thought that he was already dead flashed through his mind, and this was Snap's first greeting on that further shore. But the hand on his throat had relaxed, and was shaking him now to rouse him, and, looking up half dazed, Dick Wharton saw, not Snap in the spirit, but the strong, wiry figure of the lad he loved.