The clattering of hoofs sounded behind me, and a horseman rode up alongside. I knew, without turning my head, that it was the trapper.
“Fair swop, they say, ain’t no stealin’. Putty har, too, it ur. Wagh! It won’t neyther match nor patch mine; but it makes one’s feelin’s easier.”
Puzzled at this speech, I turned to ascertain its meaning. I was answered by the sight that met my eye. An object was hanging from the old man’s belt, like a streak of snow-white flax. But it was not that. It was hair. It was a scalp!
There were drops of blood struggling down the silvery strands as they shook, and across them, near the middle, was a broad red band. It was the track of the trapper’s knife where he had wiped it!
Chapter Forty.
The Fight in the Pass.
We entered the woods, and followed the Indian trail up stream. We hurried forward as fast as the atajo could be driven. A scramble of five miles brought us to the eastern end of the valley. Here the sierras impinged upon the river, forming a cañon. It was a grim gap, similar to that we had passed on entering from the west, but still more fearful in its features. Unlike the former, there was no road over the mountains on either side. The valley was headed in by precipitous cliffs, and the trail lay through the cañon, up the bed of the stream. The latter was shallow. During freshets it became a torrent; and then the valley was inaccessible from the east, but that was a rare occurrence in these rainless regions.
We entered the cañon without halting, and galloped over the detritus, and round huge boulders that lay in its bed. Far above us rose the frowning cliffs, thousands of feet overhead. Great rocks scarped out, abutting over the stream; shaggy pines hung top downward, clinging in their seams; shapeless bunches of cacti and mezcals crawled along the cliffs, their picturesque but gloomy foliage adding to the wildness of the scene.