Elam Storm, the Wolfer; Or, The Lost Nugget

by Harry Castlemon

"Yes, I got into a fight with them right along here somewhere, and I didn't go to the fort without sending one of them up. There was no need of my going there at all, but I went to shut off some trade that wasn't exactly square. There are no Indians between here and the fort."

"Well, I wish you would ride by the wagon and tell that to my old woman, will you? She is scared half to death. Where are you going?"

Elam replied that he was going to the sheep-herder's ranch to get a saddle and bridle that he had left there, and after that he was going back to the mountains. He had a partner there, and he didn't know whether he was alive or dead. He had had enough of depending on the soldiers for help, for they had declined to assist him, and, furthermore, had shot at him when he attempted to leave the fort.

"Well, I say!" exclaimed the frontiersman, giving Elam a good looking over, "you are a brave lad, and I know you will come out all right."

Elam carried the news to the wagon that there were no Indians between them and the fort, and afterward continued on his lonely way to the sheep-herder's ranch. He came within sight of it about eleven o'clock that night, and, dismounting from his horse and leaving him on the open prairie, he proceeded to stalk it as he would an antelope, being careful that not a glimpse of him should be seen. It was a bright moonlight night, and for that reason he was doubly careful. There was something more than the saddle and bridle he wanted, and that was his blankets. There was some of the lunch left in there. He had eaten but one meal that day, and he had nearly a hundred miles to go before he could get any more.

Elam was nearly an hour in coming up to that ranch, and he was sure that anyone who might be on the lookout would have been deceived for once in his life. He crawled all around the hay-racks without seeing anybody, and finally went in at the open door without seeing or hearing anybody. He found all the articles of which he was in search—the saddle tucked away in one corner of a bunk to serve as a pillow, the blankets spread over them, and the bridle and lunch placed on a box near the head of the bed, and, quickly shouldering them, he made his way out of the cabin in the direction in which he had left his horse.

"Now," said Elam, as he strapped the saddle on the animal's back and slipped the bridle into his mouth, "the next thing is something else, and it's going to be far more dangerous than this. I am going to have those furs. I need them more than they do. I have got the map of the hiding-place of that nugget at my shanty, and some of them are going to get hurt if I don't get it."

Elam kept out a portion of his lunch (the rest was strapped up in the blankets, which were stowed away behind the saddle), eating it as he galloped along, and this time he directed his course toward the willows that lined the base of the foot-hills. At daylight he discovered something—the track of an unshod pony. He looked all around, but there was no one in sight. He dismounted and saw that the horse had been going at full jump, and as there was dew on the ground, the tracks must have been made before it fell. A little further on he found another, and by comparing the two he made up his mind that they must have been made the day before. They were going the same way that he was, and appeared to be holding the direction of a long line of willows a few miles off. Elam's hair seemed to rise on end. He could imagine how those painted warriors had yelled and plied their whips in the endeavor to hunt down their victims; for that they were in plain view of someone Elam could readily affirm. He thought he could hear the yells, "Hi yah! yip, yip, yip!" which the exultant savages sent up as a forerunner of what was coming.

"They got them in there as sure as the world," muttered Elam. "It's all right so far, and I can go on without running the risk of seeing any of them. I just know I shall see something after I get up there."

Elam put his horse into a lope and followed along after the trail as boldly as though he had a right to be there. He didn't feel any fear, for he knew that he was on the trail of the Indians instead of having them upon his, and he knew they would not be likely to come back without the prospect of some gain. Presently he came to the place where some of the savages had dismounted and gone into the willows to fight their victims on foot, and then something told him that if he got in there he would find the bodies of the men who had robbed him of his furs. How that little piece of woods must have rung to the savages' war-whoops! But all was silent now. He led his horse a short distance into the bushes and dismounted, following the trail of an Indian who had crept up on all fours toward the place where the doomed men were concealed, and presently came into a valley in which the undergrowth had been trampled in every direction. Near the middle of the valley were two men who were stretched out on the ground, dead. There was nothing on them to indicate who they were, but Elam had no difficulty in recognizing them.