Whilst uttering this promise he had disarmed the prisoner of the weapons which he tossed over the precipice; then he used the lasso to bind the man, who could not think of resistance on that perilous shelf, all with a skill and dexterity that a European hangman might envy. As soon as he was pinioned so that to shudder was almost an impossibility, Bill gagged him so that his breathing was confined to the nostrils, Indian mode, and shouldering him like a bale of furs, he carried him to a cleft in the stone whence he could see nothing, and dropped him down within.
"It's nigh as close a fit as a grave," said he ominously. "But the coyotes won't touch you, never fear! And nobody else will. I'd advise your putting in some sleep whilst awaiting my coming back; it will prepare you for the long sleep you are fated to enjoy."
He left the wretch. He let a glance trace the circuit of the landscape, and, carrying his valuable gun under his left arm in the savage's fashion, he returned to discover the trail of the horsemen from the southeast. He seemed to be fully pleased with the late incident.
"All the news those scouts bring to old Captain Kidd will not spoil his slumber," he remarked, chewing some checkerberry leaves as if to counteract the nauseating flavour of the gold hunter's name.
Having settled his object, he marched forward in the Indian style, as the crow flies, all the more recommendable, as path there was none. This plan has the advantage of considerably abridging the road; but in a broken mountainous land most people would rather be excused. It requires steel muscles and uncommon vigour, and the craft to employ them properly; no fear of giddiness—the gifts of the mountain sheep, in short.
Without appearing to give a second thought to the narrow squeaks he had, turning angles in midair merely to reach cornices goats would have evaded, the Cherokee went steadfastly on and on, though each fresh hindrance seemed less surmountable than the easiest before. On the whole he moved rapidly, so that in three half hours he had gone what must have taken anybody else three or, maybe, four full ones.
About eleven, he bounded down on a broadish clearing, where an extremely transparent rivulet ran shallowly, with a melodious murmur, over pebbles where Californian diamonds and agates glowed in all colours, between banks edged with lilies and other aquatic plants.
His piercing eye explored the scene till he was satisfied with the profound stillness. He collected dead wood in a pile a little off from the streamlet, and lit a fire. When it had taken good hold, he dug up some edible roots, which he had found by the leaves as well as if they were labelled, and put them in the ashes to roast. On a large bed of hot coals he laid some strips of deer meat, and lighting his pipe, sat down for a quiet smoke—his gun ever handy, however.
During twenty minutes he only shifted to turn the meat with the point of his knife; both meat and the substitute for potatoes were soon nicely cooked. But even after he dished the peeled tubers upon a leaf and the meat on a strip of bark, with its satin lining equalled by no Dresden china platter, he seemed to wait for the cue to eat.
Indeed, there was a faint rustle in the covert which he must have heard, for he smiled and turned his face fully that way. A hunter crept out of the brush, his gun barrel directed forward and his finger on the trigger.