An hour before day in the Kootenais! Not the musical dawn of that early autumn, when all the woods were a-quiver with the fullness of color and sound; when the birds called to each other of the coming sun, and the little rills of the shady places moistened the sweet fern and spread its fragrance around and about, until one could find no couch so seductive as one on the amber grasses with the rare, all-pervading scents of the virgin soil.
Not any of those seductions solaced or made more bitter the watch of the men who stood hopeless in the snow of that treacherous ravine. Not even a fire dared be lit all the night long, because of those suddenly murderous natives, who, through knowing the secrets of the cleft earth, held their fates at the mercy of eager bronze hands.
"And one man who knew the country could have prevented this!" groaned Hardy, with a thought of the little wife and Miss Margaret. How would they listen to this story?
"If we had Genesee with us, we should not have been penned up in any such fashion as this," decided Murray, stamping back and forward, as many others were doing, to keep their blood in circulation—for what?
"Hard to tell," chimed in the scout from Idaho. "Don't know as it's any better to be tricked by one's own gang than the hostiles. Genesee, more'n likely, was gettin' ready for this when he run off the stock."
Just then something struck him. The snow made a soft bed, but the assailant had not stopped to consider that, and quick as light his knee was on the fallen man's chest.
"Take it back!" he commanded, with the icy muzzle of a revolver persuading his meaning into the brain of the surprised scout. "That man is no horse-thief. Take it back, or I'll save the Indians the trouble of wasting lead on you."
"Well," reasoned the philosopher in the snow, "this ain't the damnedest best place I've ever been in for arguin' a point, an' as you have fightin' ideas on the question, an' I haven't any ideas, an' don't care a hell of a sight, I'll eat my words for the time bein', and we'll settle the question o' that knock on the head, if the chance is ever given us to settle anything, out o' this gully."
"What's this?" and though only outlines of figures could be distinguished, the voice was the authoritative one of Captain Holt. "Mr. Stuart, I am surprised to find you in this sort of thing, and about that squaw man back in camp. Find something better to waste your strength for. There is no doubt in my mind now of the man's complicity—"
"Stop it!" broke in Stuart curtly; "you can hold what opinion you please of him, but you can't tell me he's a horse-thief. A squaw man and adopted Indian he may be and altogether an outlaw in your eyes; but I doubt much your fitness to judge him, and advise you not to call him a thief until you are able to prove your words, or willing to back them with all we've got left here."