"Chunchuses! Bimeby allo come this-side. What can do? Catchee killum one-tim'."
Now that danger was actually upon him, Bob prepared instantly to meet it. In a flash he remembered the gully he had passed recently with Ah-Sam, and recognized that it was the nearest, indeed the only, defensible position within reach. It was so narrow that, near its summit, it might be held, he thought, by a few against a host. He at once ordered Ah-Sam to turn the cart and drive it as quickly as possible back to the spot where the waterfall emptied itself into the stream, and then up the steep, rocky gorge. In a few minutes the team was plunging through the broken ice at a great pace. Nothing but a Manchurian cart could have stood the strain. It was flung about at all angles; it cannoned against rocks, now one wheel, now the other disappearing in mud or snow; but it survived every shock, and drawn by its four sturdy beasts with Ah-Sam at their head, it groaned and creaked on its upward course until it reached an abrupt twist in the gorge about three hundred yards from its lower extremity.
Meanwhile Bob had led the two ladies diagonally across the hillside by a shorter route than that taken by the cart. Mrs. Pottle bravely panted along, making tremendous exertions under her thick sealskin jacket to keep pace with Bob, who assisted her with his arm. Her niece stepped along as lightly as a doe, her cheeks flushed with excitement, and her wavy black hair escaping in disorder below her white tam o' shanter.
Gaining a point above the bend at which the cart had just arrived, Bob saw that the stream flowed around a huge granite boulder which had slipped, apparently at no very distant date, from the almost perpendicular cliffs above, blocking up the greater part of the already narrow defile. Here Bob shouted to Ah-Sam to stop and wedge the cart between the boulder and the opposite wall of the ravine. Looking round, he saw, some fifty feet above, to the left of the stream, the cleft near which the bear had been seated. It was visible now as a fault in the rock, a few yards across. The fissure narrowed towards its base, and from it a shelf of rock ran horizontally outwards, meeting the stream at an acute angle about a hundred yards from where Bob stood. Beyond this junction the gorge rapidly narrowed, and became extremely steep. Leaving the ladies to rest, Bob climbed up the rocky bed to explore, and found that after a time further progress was blocked by a perpendicular wall that rose sheer two hundred feet.
Returning, he reassured the ladies with a word, and then took Ah-Sam with him down the gully. The mouth, some thirty yards wide, was jagged and strewn with rocks, and formed so eminently defensible a position that Bob hesitated whether to attempt to hold it or to retire at once to the still more difficult post behind the cart. It would be a hazardous matter to turn his position; before this could be effected he could inflict severe loss on his assailants. But in a few moments he gave up the idea of holding the lower ground. To begin with, he had no desire to come to blows if a fight could be avoided, for, apart from the risk of being overpowered by the Chunchuses, there was the likelihood that the sound of shots would bring the Russians on the scene. They must be in great force no more than twenty or thirty miles away, engaged on the Yalu entrenchments, and firing in the hills would almost certainly be heard by scouting parties. If the Russians came up, the Chunchuses could disperse with their accustomed celerity, but Bob would be unable to save himself unless he were prepared to abandon the ladies who had so strangely fallen under his care. They would no doubt be well treated if entrusted to an officer of rank; but if the Russians happened to be an ordinary troop of Cossacks, Bob doubted whether he might not as well leave the ladies to the Chunchuses as to them. First of all, at any rate, he had the Chunchuses to deal with. He hoped that when they saw how strongly he was posted behind the cart and the boulder they would draw off. In any case, Ah-Sam's forethought had stocked the cart with enough provisions to last through a siege of some days, and in view of that contingency it was wise to do what he could to strengthen his position still further.
The distant specks on the mountain-side had disappeared. Slowly scanning every portion of the horizon, neither Bob nor Ah-Sam saw any sign of life. They retraced their steps towards the boulder, halting now and then to roll down the steep slope such loose rocks as might give cover to an attacking force. The ladies met them as they reached the cart.
"Well, Mr. Fawcett," said Mrs. Pottle, "did you see anything way down there?"
"Nothing. But if those were your friends the brigands, we shall have them upon us in half an hour."
"Oh! what shall we do, then? You had some plan in bringing us here?"
"Yes. Ah-Sam and I are going to fortify ourselves; it is our only chance."