Told in the Hills: A Novel

by Marah Ellis Ryan

The echoing steps of the forty men were as if forty hundred were making their way through the mine of the Tamahnous; for no living tribe ever claimed it, even by descent. The hill that contained it had for generations been given by tradition to the witches of evil, who spoke through the rock—a clever scheme of those vanished workers to guard their wealth, or the wealth they hoped to find; but for what use? Neither silver in coin nor vessel can be traced as ever belonging to tribes of the Northern Indians. Yet that honey-combed peak, with its wide galleries, its many entries, and well-planned rooms, bespoke trained skill in underground quarrying. From some unseen source fresh air sifted through the darkness to them, and the tinkle of dripping water in pools came to their ears, though the pools were shrouded in the darkness that, just beyond the range of the few torches, was intense; and after the long tramp through echoing winds and turns, the misty dawn that was still early seemed dazzling to the eyes, red and haggard from the vigil of the night.

"You will have to get away from here on a double-quick," said Genesee sharply, after a glance at the sky and up the sides of the hill from which they had come. "Once down there in the valley, the fog may hide you till sun-up, and then, again, it mightn't. Just mind that they have horses."

"We are not likely to forget it," was Captain Holt's answer; and then hesitated a moment, looking at Genesee.

"Are you not coming with us?" asked Lieutenant Murray, giving voice to the question in his commander's mind as well as the others.

"Yes, part of the way," said the scout quietly, but with a challenge to detention in the slight pause with which he glanced at the group; "but I have a beast to carry me back, and I'm just tired enough to use it." And disappearing for a minute in the brush, he led out Mowitza, and, mounting her, turned her head toward the terraces of the lower valley.

They passed the isolated cabin that brought back to Stuart a remembrance of where they were; then down the steps of the Tamahnous and along the little lake, all swathed alike in the snow and the mist leaving null all character in the landscape.

The cabin was commented on by the men, to whom it was a surprise, looming up so close to them through the cloud curtain.

"That's mine," their guide remarked, and one of them, puzzled, stated it as his belief that Genesee claimed the whole Kootenai territory.

The scout gave up his saddle to a man with a leg-wound, but he did not let go the bridle of Mowitza; and so they went on with their guide stalking grimly ahead, ready, they all knew, to turn as fiercely against them at a sign of restraint as he had worked for them, if a movement was made to interfere with his further liberty.

The sun rolled up over the purple horizon—a great body of blushes suffusing the mountains; but its chaste entrance had brazened into a very steady stare before it could pierce the veil of the valleys, and pick out the dots of moving blue against the snow on the home trail.