It was an appalling situation indeed. There were fully thirty mounted and fully-armed Indians in front of them, not one less in their rear, and on the right and left rose the perpendicular sides of the cañon to a hight of forty feet!
What was to be done?
The trappers had been in many fearful situations, and had passed through more than one frightful experience, but they had never been placed where they were so completely cut off from human help as now. No one could see a ray of hope.
Black Tom was the first to speak. As the group huddled together, staring affrightedly at the hideously painted miscreants that had ambushed and so completely outwitted them, he said, in a voice that was without tremor or quiver, “B’ars and bufflers! this is what I call rough!”
“Is there no hope?” asked Hammond.
“I don’t see the first shadow.”
“Let’s set up a Tipperary screech and charge right down through them,” said Teddy O’Doherty, who clenched his lips, and meant every word he uttered.
“Can’t we do it?” asked Hammond, who saw in the daring proposition of the Irishman, the forlorn but the only hope.
“There ain’t no more chance of doin’ that,” replied the trapper, “than thar is of ridin’ our horses up them forty feet of rocks, that ar’ as straight up and down as the side of a house. Ain’t that so, Steb.?”