CHAPTER II.
JULIAN HEARS SOMETHING.
IN HALF an hour the preparations for the night were all completed, and Julian surveyed the camp with a smile of satisfaction. There were twenty wagons in the train, and of these two barricades had been made, one at the upper and the other at the lower end of the cliffs, as the guide had directed. The vehicles had been drawn close together, and were fastened to one another by chains so that they could not be easily moved from their places. The space between the wheels was blocked up with plows, harrows, stoves, bedsteads and chairs, thus rendering it a matter of some difficulty for any one to effect an entrance into the camp.
While this work was being performed the shadows of twilight had deepened into the gloom of night, and now all objects outside the circle of light made by the camp-fires were concealed by Egyptian darkness. Inside the barricades a scene was presented that was a cheering one to men wearied with their day’s journey. A dozen fires blazed along the base of the cliff, and beside them stalwart pioneers reposed on their blankets, smoking their pipes and watching with hungry eyes the preparations for supper that were going on around them. Venison steaks were broiling on the coals, potatoes roasting in the ashes, and coffee-pots simmered and sputtered, filling the camp with the odor of their aromatic contents. Cattle and horses cropped the herbage that grew along the edge of the gully, and noisy children, all unconscious of the danger that threatened them, rolled about on the grass, or relieved their cramped limbs by running races along the road. But, although the camp wore an air of domesticity and security, preparations for battle were everywhere visible. The saddles and bridles had not been removed from the horses as usual, the emigrants wore their revolvers about their waists, and kept their rifles within easy reach. There were pale faces in that camp, and men who had all their lives been familiar with danger started and trembled at the rustle of every leaf.
Julian Mortimer, from a neighboring wagon, on which he had perched himself to await the return of the guide, watched the scene presented to his gaze, as he had done every night since leaving St. Joseph, and bemoaned his hard lot in life.
“Among all these people,” he soliloquized, “there are none that I can call relatives and friends, and not one even to speak a kind word to me. How I envy those fellows,” he added, glancing at a couple of boys about his own age who were seated at the nearest camp-fire conversing with their parents. “They have a father to watch over them, a mother to care for them, and brothers and sisters to love, but they do not seem to appreciate their blessings, for they are continually quarreling with one another, and no longer ago than this morning one of those boys flew into a terrible rage because his mother asked him to chop some wood to cook breakfast with. If he could be alone in the world for a few days, as I have been almost ever since I can remember, he would know how to value that mother when he got back to her. If the Indians attack us to-night some of the emigrants will certainly be killed, and the friends they have left behind them in the States will mourn over their fate; but if I fall, there will be no one to drop a tear for me or say he is sorry I am gone. There is nothing on earth that cares whether I live or die, unless it is my horse. If the Indians kill me perhaps he will miss me.”
Julian’s soliloquy was suddenly interrupted by a light footstep behind the wagon in which he was sitting. He turned quickly and discovered a man stealing along the barricade and examining it closely, as if he were looking for a place to get through it. Julian’s first thought was to accost him, but there was something so stealthy in the man’s actions that his curiosity was aroused, and checking the words that arose on his lips he remained quiet in his concealment, and waited to see what was going to happen. He had often seen the man during the journey across the plains, and knew that he was one of the emigrants, but why he should seek to leave the camp at that time and in so unusual a manner, was something the boy could not understand.
The man walked the whole length of the barricade, turning to look at the emigrants now and then to make sure that none of them were observing his movements, and finally disappeared under one of the wagons. Julian heard him working his way through the obstructions that had been placed between the wheels, and presently saw him appear again on the outside of the barricade.