It was a singular place in which he and his followers had encamped; a spot romantically picturesque. It was in a gorge or glen forming a flat meadow of about six acres in extent, and covered with grass of the short grama (Note 2) species. It was inclosed on three sides by a bluff rising sheer up from the plain, and bisected by the tiniest of streams, whose water came spout-like over the precipice, with a fall of some twenty feet. On the side open toward the east could be obtained a clear view of the prairie, undulating away to the banks of Bijou Creek. With the moon shining down on the soft grassy sward; the Indian horses grouped and grazing on it; the warriors lying asleep upon their robes; the stream glistening like a serpent as it swept silently past them; the cascade sparkling above; and around the dark framing of cliffs; you have a picture of Rocky Mountain life, that, though rare to you, is common to those who have traversed that region of romance.
It did not appear to have any charm for the young chief, who lay stretched upon the wolf-skins. Evidently thinking of something else, he took no note of the scenery around him, further than now and then to raise himself upon his elbow, and gaze for a time toward that portion of it that was least picturesque; the monotonous surface of the plain stretching eastward. That he was scanning it not for itself, but something that he expected to appear upon it, would have been made manifest to one who could have known his thoughts. Expressed in English they would have run thus:
“Waboga should have been here by this. I wonder what’s detaining him. He must have seen our signal, and should know where to find us. May be that moon hinders him from stealing a horse out of their camp. As their guide they ought to trust him to go anywhere. Well, come he or not, I shall attack them all the same—this night. Oh! what a sweet vengeance! But the sweeter, if I can only take them alive—one and all. Then, indeed, shall I have true revenge!
“What can be keeping the Choctaw? I should not have trusted him, but that he speaks the white man’s tongue. They’d have suspected any other. He’s stupid, and may spoil my plans. I want them—must have them alive!
“Now, if he should turn traitor and put them on their guard? Perhaps take them on to the fort? No—no; he would not do that. He hates the white man as much as I myself, and with nearly as good reason. Besides, he dare not do it. If he did—”
The soliloquy of the recumbent chief was suddenly interrupted, and his thoughts diverted into a different channel, by a sound reaching his ear, that seemed to come from the distant prairie. It was the hoof-stroke of a horse; but so faint, that only a practised ear could have heard, much less make out what was causing it.
In an instant he had changed his attitude, and lay with cheek closely pressed to the turf. In another instant, he muttered to himself:
“A horse—a single horse—must be the Choctaw!”
He raised himself upon his knees and looked out over the plain. A low ridge ran obliquely up to the mouth of the gorge in which the Indians were reposing. There was a clump of bushes upon its crest; and over the tops of these he could perceive a small disk, darker than the foliage. He knew it had not been there before.
While he was scanning it, there came, as if out of the bushes, three short barks, followed by a prolonged lugubrious howl. It seemed the cry of the prairie-wolf. But he knew it was not this; for soon after it was repeated with a different intoning.