He crept along the ground with his face close to the earth. Once or twice the smoke grappled with him—as often a blessed breath of air came creeping after. Suddenly a cold draft struck him on the brow: he knew that it came up from the ravine. Gasping, exhausted, he made yet another effort, reached the edge of the rock, dragged himself over, hanging by his hands, and dropped, in the darkness, knowing nothing of the distance beneath him, nor what cruel reception he might meet from objects below.
For a short time after the fall he lay stunned by the shock, gradually reviving to a sense of safety—that he was alive and whole. He could hear the blessed music of the running stream; all was deep darkness where he was, but he crept along until he could dip his hand in the water, and cool his scorched face and parched tongue. Lifting up his head, he could see the glare of the burning forest against the sky, and the huge showers of sparks floating off into space. Men pray instinctively in times of peril and preservation; Buckskin Joe, albeit unused to prayer, uttered a fervent exclamation of thankfulness for his escape. The next instant he buried his face in his hands with a groan. He had thanked God for his own welfare, but he shuddered as the fate of his companion rushed over him.
It seemed a long time to him before the break of day enabled him to do any thing; it was hard work for him to remain idle while a chance remained in favor of Nat's escape. The glorious September morning was dull with hovering smoke in this vicinity; Joe discovered, by its light, that he had dropped some thirty feet down a precipice and lodged upon a shelf of rock so well cushioned with earth and moss that he had escaped without broken bones.
As he stood up and essayed to walk, he found himself stiff with bruises. Following the ledge upon which he was until he came around the precipice to a now broken and uneven fork, which promised sufficient foothold, he began to climb back to the forest. When he reached the surface of the wood, he found the fire still burning; the tops of the trees were consumed, but the trunks were standing like pillars of fire, and the ground—covered inches thick with dry pine-tassels, cones and other tinder-like combustibles—was now one mass of smoldering fire, upon which it was impossible to set foot.
The smoke was suffocating, coming as it did from the green wood of the trunks and branches, which were slowly charring without being consumed. If Nat Wolfe had not escaped by such an almost miraculous chance as had occurred to the guide, then he had indeed met a terrible death—nothing but his ashes could now remain upon that vast bed of fire.
There was life nowhere but in the deep ravine; back to that Buckskin Joe descended, with a heart of lead. Nearly all day he wandered up and down its intricacies, calling aloud, and getting only mocking echoes for answer.
He thought little of gold that day—he would have given a pound of gold for a pound of bread; and he would have given all the treasures he ever expected to find in the Rocky Mountains for a sight of his friend, alive and well before him. His acquaintance with Nat Wolfe had not been of long duration; but there was that in the stuff which Nat was made of which had secured the old guide's warmest friendship and admiration.
As the day wore away he gradually abandoned the faint hope to which, against reason, he had clung. Forlornly he set his face homeward. He would starve to death if he did not make his way out of that barren gully; there was no game, and if there had been, his rifle had been left to destruction. It being impossible to attempt the forest, all he could do was to follow the water course until he could reach some track which was clear of the fire, through which he might strike for the settlement. That night he lay on the damp rock; the next day, hungry, rheumatic and low-spirited, he continued on a few miles, came out upon the open mountain side, and, guided by the sun and his general knowledge of the country, pushed forward for Pike's Peak. He could see the forest-fires still raging to the south of him; but the wind had carried them from his present vicinity. A few prickly pears from a tree which he found on his way gave him a welcome though insufficient dinner.
About sunset he entered Pike's Peak settlement, which he startled with the news of the fate of Nat Wolfe.