“My word is to get out of this valley,” he declared. “We’d best make no night camp with red dogs hanging around. Here, ask the guides if they know about this Spirit Lake!”
Crawford nodded. “Break camp!” he commanded sharply, and beckoned one of the Crees. He was just putting the question to the red man, when from the fringe of trees there roared up the voice of Maclish.
“So I can’t stop ye, eh? Then take it, ye lousy rogues——”
A musket crashed, and the Cree beside Hal Crawford plunged and thrashed in the snow like a stricken partridge.
From the trees all around shrilled up a wild chorus of yells. Another musket and another spoke out from that encircling ring of unseen foes; then came a buzz and a hum of loosened bowstrings, and shafts began to pour in from the trees. It was not battle, it was murder. With guns all fur-cased against the frost, unable to sight an enemy, Crawford and his men could strike scarcely a blow. The wild yells of the Stone Men, fierce cousins of the fiercer Dacotah, pealed up in triumph and hideous mockery.
The five Cree guides died where they stood. An Englishman coughed with an arrow through his gullet, and lay reddening the snow. Sir Phelim Burke reeled up to Crawford, a shaft protruding from his side.
“Got us, Hal!” he cried. “At them, lad——”
Crawford caught him as he fell, saw his helpless men dropping, heard the black curses of Frontin, knew that he was utterly lost and all his men. Then, sudden as it had burst, the treacherous storm was stilled. The voice of Maclish lifted again from among the trees.
“There’s stoppage for ye, Crawford! Now sit ye down, and I’ll talk a bit more with ye presently, when I get these red devils quiet.”
Then fell silence, and ghastly horror on the valley where the snow lay reddened. So suddenly had it all passed, that save for the dead men the thing seemed like a dream.