“Can’t you keep your throat and nose quieter?” said the chief, sternly.
“Well, p’r’aps I might,” replied Drake, emitting a highly suppressed cough at the moment, “but I’ve got a queer throat just now. The least thing affects it.”
After consultation with the principal men of his band, Stalker determined to act on Drake’s advice, and in a few minutes the trapper was guiding them over the hills in a state of supreme satisfaction, despite his bonds, for had he not obtained the power to make the robbers encamp on a spot which the Indians could not avoid passing on their way to the rescue, and had he not established a sort of right to emit sounds which would make his friends aware of his exact position, and thus bring both parties into collision before daybreak, which could not have been the case if the robbers had remained in the encampment where he found them?
Turn we now to Leaping Buck and Tolly Trevor. Need it be said that these intelligent lads did not, as the saying is, allow grass to grow under their feet? The former went over the hills at a pace and in a manner that fully justified his title; and the latter followed with as much vigour and resolution, if not as much agility, as his friend.
In a wonderfully short space of time, considering the distance, they burst upon the Indian village, and aroused it with the startling news.
Warfare in those regions was not the cumbrous and slow affair that it is in civilised places. There was no commissariat, no ammunition wagons, no baggage, no camp-followers to hamper the line of march. In five or ten minutes after the alarm was given about two hundred Indian braves marched out from the camp in a column which may be described as one-deep—i.e. one following the other—and took their rapid way up the mountain sides, led by Unaco in person. Next to him marched Paul Bevan, who was followed in succession by Fred Westly, Paddy Flinders, Leaping Buck, and Tolly.
For some time the long line could be seen by the Rose of Oregon passing swiftly up the mountain-side. Then, as distance united the individuals, as it were, to each other, it assumed the form of a mighty snake crawling slowly along. By degrees it crawled over the nearest ridge and disappeared, after which Betty went to discuss the situation with Unaco’s old mother.
It was near midnight when the robber-band encamped in a wooded hollow which was backed on two sides by precipices and on the third by a deep ravine.
“A good spot to set a host at defiance,” remarked Stalker, glancing round with a look that would have expressed satisfaction if the wounded arm had allowed.
“Yes,” added the trapper, “and—” A violent fit of coughing prevented the completion of the sentence, which, however, when thought out in Drake’s mind ran—“a good spot for hemming you and your scoundrels in, and starving you into submission!”