Nat Wolfe; or, The gold hunters: A romance of Pike's Peak and New York

by Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

With long, steady, gliding steps, which took him over the ground with surprising rapidity, yet which had not the appearance of haste or effort, he continued his march, reaching the place at which the emigrants had stayed the previous night, before sundown. Here he was fortunate enough to find, among other relics of their encampment, some of the remains of their breakfasts. He did not pause to scrupulously examine the nicety of these fragments; for he had eaten nothing since early morning, and was very glad of these providential crumbs. Having somewhat rested and refreshed himself, he had about concluded to push on, until nine or ten in the evening, so as to come up with the train by evening of the next day. It was now after sunset. As he arose to resume his journey, he perceived, afar, against the northern hemisphere of the horizon, a party of horsemen sweeping on; he knew them, even at that distance, by their attitudes and manner of riding, as a band of Indians.

"They'd like right well to know I was here, alone and on foot," soliloquized Nat, "though I doubt then if they'd care to approach me, when I was wide-awake and looking out for them. Let 'em come! the whole snaky set! I suppose it would be just as prudent not to show myself until they are out of sight; though if they come where I am, I'm agreeable! I'd like to dislodge a red-skin from one of those horses, and take his place. Perhaps they'll camp here for the night. Ha! here they come; I'd better be looking out for a covert."

He crept along the ground and dropped down the embankment into the river-bed. Here he could conceal himself from observation, unless the party stopped for the night, or came for water. In case he was discovered before the twilight enabled him to escape, he had only to depend upon his weapons, and the dauntless courage which had made him so famous.

It was true that most of these vagrant bands of red-skins were not at war with the whites; but their natural cruelty and covetousness would lead them to murder any solitary traveler they might chance upon; and toward Nat Wolfe they all felt the fury of revenge for the frequent losses they had sustained from him.

As the tramp of the approaching horses drew nearer, he raised his head cautiously and reconnoitered. "They're a well-mounted set of devils—plenty of 'em, too, I'll swear!" he muttered; and seeing a bush hanging over the bank a little further down, which would afford him a better chance to make observations, he crawled on his hands and knees along the yellow clay until he came to the spot over which it grew. This new position was a safer one in this respect—it was around a bend of the stream; so that if the Indians came to dip water from the half-dried pool above him, they would not observe him where he lay, sheltered by the bend; the ground above, also, shelved over, so that he stood a good chance of escaping their keen eyes. Looking well to his trusty rifle, and mechanically feeling the knife and revolvers in his belt, he pressed as closely as possible under the bank and listened until the party drew rein, as he had anticipated they would, and dismounting made preparations for encamping for the night. Nat's trail was so mixed up with that of the company who had occupied the ground the previous day that the new-comers perceived nothing to arouse their suspicions.

It was extremely irksome to Golden Arrow to lie crouched under the bank all the time the new-comers were kindling their fires, broiling their venison and feeding their horses such forage as they had; he had rather have darted upon them like the weapon after which they had named him; but, brave as he was, he knew that one white man was a poor match for thirty Indians, and he restrained his hatred and impatience as best he could; varying the tedium with the rather dangerous amusement of raising himself to watch them behind the shelter of the bush. The two hours which they spent, before they finally stretched themselves in a ring with their feet to the ashes of the fire they had made, seemed to him endless. They had secured their horses by tying a knot in the end of the ropes about their necks, and burying these knots in the earth of the prairie, in lieu of trees to tie them to. Twilight had deepened into the wan moonlight of a chilly night before all was so quiet as to warrant Nat's attempt to escape from his present unfriendly proximity. Quietly creeping along the river-bed, until out of hearing distance of any wakeful ear, he finally stood up, climbed the bank, and struck across the desert—as the stream took him away from instead of toward the track he intended to find and follow.

Nothing interfered with his intentions, and he was soon traveling briskly along the trail, which the descending moon enabled him to follow. For an hour he made good progress; but as the moon went down the wind arose, and soon that terrible tempest which was working such destruction in the camp of the emigrants came upon him also, defying his utmost efforts to hold his own against it. Not a rock to shelter him, not a shrub to cling to, and wrapped in impenetrable darkness, all he could do was to fling himself flat upon the ground, shut his eyes, and let the winds trample him at their pleasure. During all the first fury of the tornado he lay thus; when it had somewhat abated he arose and struggled on against it. His only guide was the fact that the wind had come from the direction in which he wished to go; so he now set his face against it, feeling his way through the starless night. But the wind has the reputation of being fickle, and it is not surprising, therefore, that when the wished-for morning began to break, Nat Wolfe found himself, instead of several miles on the way toward friends, back in the camp of the enemy.

The Indians were already stirring, on the alert to discover what losses they had sustained by the storm. Nat, fearing discovery on the open plain, again took to his hands and knees, creeping along to seek for some shelter in the bed of the stream until the party should have mounted and ridden off. Scarcely had he gained a secure position, with a friendly shrub again giving him an opportunity to reconnoiter, when he perceived another band of mounted men swiftly approaching from the west, along the Denver trail. That these, too, were red-skins, and a part of the former party, he at once decided; but great was his surprise to perceive that one of the savages rode his own lost steed, Kit Carson.

His astonishment was swallowed up in a still greater emotion the next instant; trained as he was to the suppression of all outward signs of excitement, he could scarcely repress a cry, at perceiving, bound to a pony, which was led by the rider of his own horse, a white captive whom he recognized as the very young girl whom he had rescued from the bisons. The east was now golden with the coming sunrise, and as the party drew nearer he plainly observed the face of the captive—that young, beautiful face—now so pale with terror and fatigue, as to excite his deepest pity. The storm had blown the polished braids of her hair into streaming tresses which rippled about her form in dark waves. She was quiet, for her hands were tied, and effort was hopeless; but her features had an expression of dread and anguish impossible to depict. Nat remembered her pitiful avowal to him of her extreme horror of Indians, and his stern heart shook with sympathy, as he noted the still despair—aversion of her look. The one who led her pony Nat recognized too—a dirty, repulsive savage upon whose face he had once inflicted a wound, in a battle between the settlers and red-skins years ago, and who had since concealed the marks of his disgrace with a bandage. This fellow evidently knew that he was riding Golden Arrow's horse; he was in high spirits, as he galloped along, forcing the smaller pony which he led, into doing its best to keep up with him. As the party swept by within two rods of where he crouched, Nat's eyes almost met those of Elizabeth, who turned an eager piercing gaze at the bush, as if her mind or senses had detected the presence of a friend. The two companies now met; the new arrivals would not dismount, making such gestures toward the girl, and the path they had come over, that Nat easily understood they were afraid of pursuit, and were resolved to press on to some more distant ground, before pausing for rest. The others, acquiescing in this, mounted their horses, only pausing to water them at the stream. During this brief interval of grace Nat Wolfe had to make up his mind whether or not there was any thing to be done for the salvation of that poor child whose beauty and distress alike appealed to all the bravery, all the daring and chivalry of his nature.

It was one man, on foot, against forty mounted devils, who, however cowardly some of them might be under equal chances, would be fired with exultant ferocity by the advantages of the occasion. And, however willing he might be to throw away his own life in the effort to preserve the maiden, he felt that any failure on his part would only hasten her fate. All these thoughts rushed through his brain in the brief time he was given for reflection; but his pulse remained as steady, his eyes as cool and quick as ever in his life; indeed, all his faculties, while they intensified in power, gathered to his aid like soldiers rushing to the call of their leader.