Yes—one halt was to be made. I had promised the ci-devant soldiers to make civilians of them before bringing them face to face with the escort; and this was to be accomplished by means of some spare wardrobe which Wingrove and I chanced to have among our packs. The place fixed upon as the scene of the metamorphosis was the butte—which lay directly on our route. As we rode forward, I was gratified at perceiving that the waggon still remained in sight. If it was moving on, it had not yet reached the head of the valley. Perhaps it had stopped to receive some repairs? So much the better: we should the sooner overtake it.
On arriving at the butte, the white canvas was still visible; though from our low position on the plain, only the top of the tilt could be seen. While Wingrove was unpacking our spare garments, I dismounted, and climbed to the summit of the mound—in order to obtain a better view. I had no difficulty in getting up—for, strange to say, a trail runs over the Orphan Butte, from south-east to north-west, regularly aligned with Pike’s Peak in the latter direction, and with Spanish Peaks in the former! But this alignment was not the circumstance that struck me as singular. A far more curious phenomenon came under my observation. The path leading to the summit was entirely clear of the granite blocks that everywhere else covered the declivities of the mound. Between these it passed like a narrow lane, the huge prisms rising on each side of it, piled up in a regular trap-like formation, as if placed there by the hand of man! The latter hypothesis was out of the question. Many of the blocks were a dozen feet in diameter, and tons in weight. Titans alone could have lifted them! The summit itself was a table of some twenty by forty feet in superficial extent, and seamed by several fissures. Only by following the path could the summit be reached without great difficulty. The loose boulders rested upon one another, in such fashion, that even the most expert climber would have found difficulty in scaling them; and the stunted spreading cedars that grew between their clefts, combined in forming a chevaux de frise almost impenetrable.
I was not permitted to dwell long on the contemplation of this geological phenomenon. On reaching the summit, and directing my telescope up the valley, I obtained a tableau in its field of vision that almost caused me to drop the glass out of my fingers! The whole waggon was in view down to its wheel-tracks; and the dark forms were still around it. Some were afoot, others on horseback—while a few appeared to be lying flat along the sward. Whoever these last may have been, I saw at the first glance what the others were. The bronzed skins of naked bodies—the masses of long sweeping hair—the plumed crests and floating drapery—were perfectly apparent in the glass—and all indicating a truth of terrible significance that the forms thus seen were those of savage men! Yes: both they on horseback and afoot were Indians beyond a doubt. And those horizontally extended? They were white men—the owners of the waggons? This truth flashed on me, as I beheld a fearful object—a body lying head towards me, with its crown of mottled red and white, gleaming significantly through the glass. I had no doubt as to the nature of the object: it was a scalpless skull!
Chapter Fifty Two.
Raising a Rampart.
I kept the telescope to my eye not half so long as I have taken in telling of it. Quick as I saw that the men stirring around the waggon were Indians, I thought only of screening my person from their sight. To effect this, I dropped down from the summit of the rock—on the opposite side from that facing toward the savages. Showing only the top of my head, and with the glass once more levelled up the valley, I continued the observation. I now became assured that the victim of the ensanguined skull was a white man; that the other prostrate forms were also the bodies of white men, all dead—all, no doubt, mutilated in a similar manner?
The tableau told its own tale. The presence of the waggon halted, and without horses—one or two dead ones lying under the tongue—the ruck of Indians clustering around it—the bodies stretched along the earth—other objects, boxes, and bales, strewed over the sward—all were significant of recent strife. The scene explained what we had heard while coming up the cañon. The fusillade had been no fancy, but a fearful reality—fearful, too, in its effects, as I was now satisfied by the testimony of my telescope. The caravan had been attacked, or, more likely, only a single waggon that had been straggling in the rear? The firing may have proceeded from the escort, or the armed emigrants? Indians may have fallen: indeed there were some prostrate forms apart, with groups gathered around them, and those I conjectured to be the corpses of red men. But it was evident the Indians had proved victorious: since they were still upon the field—still holding the place and the plunder.
Where were the other waggons of the train? There were fifty of them—only one was in sight! It was scarcely possible that the whole caravan had been captured. If so, they must have succumbed within the pass? A fearful massacre must have been made? This was improbable: the more so, that the Indians around the waggon appeared to number near two hundred men. They must have constituted the full band: for it is rare that a war-party is larger. Those seen appeared to be all warriors, naked from the breech-clout upward, their skins glaring with pigments. Neither woman nor child could I see among them. Had the other waggons been captured, there would not have been so many of the captors clustered around this particular one. In all likelihood, the vehicle had been coming up behind the others? The animals drawing it had been shot down in the skirmish, and it had fallen into the hands of the successful assailants?