Not until darkness came did they venture to leave their secure retreat. Even then they moved with the utmost caution, leading the horses instead of riding them, and progressing so slowly that hours elapsed before they came out into the open country below. There the land lay broad and free before them, and the stars pointed the way.
Yet they did not ride toward the town. Instead, they turned back into the hills; for the discovery that the Blackfeet had taken the warpath under Crazy Snake made the scout fearful for the safety of a family he knew, who lived just under the shadows of the big hills.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE CABIN.
The home of John Forest was a simple and unpretentious one, but it was lighted by the beauty of a girl whom he loved as his own life, his daughter Lena.
Forest was lured by that witch of the world—gold. He believed he had found gold at the foot of Big Tom Mountain, gold in quantities to pay not only for working the mine he soon opened there, but enough to make him rich. He had a brother who had found good ore in a region not many miles away, and his brother’s success encouraged him to “stick it out” even to the bitter end.
The country was forbidding, and the Blackfeet were not far away; yet Forest established his home under the shadow of the mountain, installed in it his daughter as his housekeeper, and set to work.
Like many mines, there was far more promise in the Lady Bird, as he called it, than there was performance. He took out barely enough gold to give him a living and supply him with tools and blasting powder. Daily he kept hoping to strike the “mother lode,” or a seam of gold, or, perhaps, a pocket of nuggets.
He paid little heed to the Blackfeet.
As for callers or visitors, he had a few; one of them being young Bruce Clayton, who had fallen in love with the beautiful face of the miner’s daughter, and who came there as frequently as his new “job” permitted.
Down in the town of Crystal Spring, some miles away, on one of her infrequent visits, Lena Forest learned of the trouble brewing with the Blackfeet, and its cause.