The Sioux forecasts our course—On the watch—Directions—We separate—Red Cloud is seen far out on the plains—Rival tactics—Scent versus sight—A captured scout—The edge of the hills again—The signal fire.
And now the reader must come back to our own camp, where we have all this time been comfortably settled for the night. The concluding portion of the Cree’s story had thoroughly alarmed the Sioux. From the few words in which the Cree had described the passing of the war-party, he had easily been able to put together all that was needful for thoroughly understanding the situation. His knowledge of the prairies, and his complete mastery of every detail of Indian thought and habit, made easy to him the task of tracking the further progress of the party, and guessing their whereabouts almost to exactness.
They were camped, he thought, only some seven or eight miles distant, in the same range of hills, and not far from where the level prairie bordered on the west the broken ground.
Of course he knew nothing of the arrival, in the camp of the war-party, of his deadly enemy, the trader; but he had[98] long surmised the whereabouts of that individual to be not very remote, and from the information which he had gained when in the neighbourhood of the settlement, he was led to conjecture that the first large Indian camp he came to would have the trader as one of its inmates.
But as to the probable movements of the party, he formed a very correct anticipation. Their scouts would be sure to discover our camp at furthest on the morrow, even if they had not already done so; the Cree would prove to them too strong a temptation to be resisted, and the near presence of such good horses would be sure to give rise to some attempt at robbery. He did not communicate any of these thoughts to us, his companions, now. He determined to wait quietly until we were asleep, then to drive in the steeds, and to remain on watch until daybreak. With these precautions there would be little danger.
Departing quietly from the camp when our easy and regular respiration told him that we were asleep, he drove in the hobbled horses to the fire; then hobbling them so that the neck and forelegs were fastened together in addition to the fastening of the two forelegs, he withdrew to the shelter of a small thicket which commanded a view of the camp and its neighbourhood, and wrapping himself in his robe sat down, with his rifle between his knees and his dog beside him, to pass the night on guard.
How weary such a night to a white man! How slowly the long dark hours would roll by! How anxiously the first gleam of light would be looked for in the east! Not so with the red man; night after night will he thus sit, watching with eyes that never close, with ears that never deaden in their keen sense of sound. Sometimes in his lodge, sometimes as here in the thicket on the plain, thus will he sit hour after hour until the grey light steals into the east, grows broader over the sky, and the night is done.
At the first gleam of daylight Red Cloud moved gently back to camp, threw wood upon the fire, roused me from my slumbers, and got breakfast ready.
The meal over, he took me aside and unfolded to me his plan of action.
“To-day,” he said, “we are sure to be found out by the war-party of Assineboines. They will not venture openly to attack us during the day, but they will reconnoitre our camp, and probably to-night they will attempt to run off the horses and kill this Cree. We cannot wait here, they are too many for us; neither can we move out into the plain, they would instantly see us and give chase; and though you and your companion might make a good stand with me by ourselves, yet with this Cree we could not do it. What I propose doing is this: the Cree is able to sit a horse; you three will start at once, taking the hound with you, heading straight into the hills. The Cree will know the line to follow, and how to keep the bottom of the valley. Until one hour before noon you must hold your course deep into the hills due east, then you will turn to the north and ride fast for three hours until the sun is half-way to the prairie. Then turning quickly to the west, you will continue your way until you come again to the edge of three hills; by this course you will have followed three sides of a square. Within that square lies the camp of the Assineboines. This evening, if you do all I say, you will be as far to the north of that camp as we are to the south of it now. Look how the grass falls.”
So saying, he threw some dry grass into the air. It fell towards the south, the wind was blowing from the north.
“To-night,” he said, “that wind will blow in the direction I want. You will reach the edge of the hills before the sun has set. When it is quite dark make a small fire on the slope of one of the hills facing towards the plain; let it be in such a position that while visible to a person out on the prairie, it will be concealed from the sight of any one in the hills to the south. Keep the fire burning for half an hour after dark; then extinguish it, and make your camp near the spot, but within the shelter of the hills. Soon after that time I will be with you. For the rest, fire no shot during the day unless you should happen to be attacked, and move silently in your course through the hills.”
The preparations for moving were soon made; there was no time to be lost. We took three horses and set off into the hills. The Sioux spoke a word to the dog, ordering him to go with us; the dog reluctantly obeyed, but his training was perfect and he trotted on after the Cree. Having seen us out of the camp and behind the first intervening rise of ground, he turned his horse’s head full for the plains, and taking the lariat of a loose pack-horse carrying only a few light articles, he set off at a sharp pace into the great prairie.
He had kept his own plans to himself, but they will unfold themselves to view as we follow his steps.
Keeping for some time along the base of the hills, he had at length begun to edge farther and farther out into the plain, until after a couple of hours’ riding he was many miles in a diagonal line from his starting-point. Then he began to direct his horse more to the west, making a wide curve the base of which was the range of hills, then turning towards the north he continued for some time to hold a course in that direction. He was now fully ten miles out in the plain, a distance which made him and his horse appear mere specks in the immense range of vision.
Small as these specks of life were, they did not escape, however, the watchful glance of a scout, who from the neighbourhood of the Assineboine camp scanned the plains; but not even Indian sight could resolve at that distance these objects. Horsemen or horseman certainly—but[102] what horsemen? No human eye could tell.
The scout’s report brought quickly to the standpoint some more of the braves, but no additional light could be gleaned from their opinions as to who the distant specks might be, or where their course was laid for. At break of day that morning the trusty scout who had first discovered the camp, and had brought tidings of the Cree to his companions, had started to again reconnoitre the place and its occupants.
While Red Cloud is thus slowly making his way across the plain, under the distant range of vision of the Assineboines, we will follow for a time the fortunes of this single scout, whose work it was to watch during the day the camp, the attack of which had been fixed for the following night.
In his survey of the previous evening, the Assineboine scout had observed that at the farther side of the camp to the one on which he had approached it, there stood a hill partly covered with brushwood, which would afford him, if he could gain its shelter, a better position for watching the movements and hearing the conversation of the occupants of the camp. His only means of reaching the cover of this hill was to make a long détour through the broken ground lying towards the east, and by coming out south of the camp approach it from its most distant side: this he determined to attempt.
Estimating the two camps to be ten miles from each other, the course the Assineboine proposed to travel would take him about fifteen or twenty miles. He pushed rapidly along, keeping to the hollows between the ridges, and at times leading his horse through thickets and copsewood, and ever and anon in wet and boggy ground, stopping to listen, or ascending some ridge higher than others for a wide view around.
Thus it happened that about the same time of the morning the Assineboine scout and our little party were pursuing two circular courses, the lines of which must intersect each other at one point. Whoever came to that point last would be made aware of the passage of the others. No eye could fail to see a trail in the soft turf of the valleys.
Leaving the scout to pursue his way, we will now follow our own fortunes along our path. Without incidents of any kind, we had continued our course through the hills towards the east. It was almost time for that change of direction which the Sioux had enjoined upon us.
I led the way, closely followed by Donogh; the Cree was in the rear with the dog. Between them ran two pack-horses. The Cree was mounted on the other pack-horse whose load was now light, inasmuch as the supplies of meat had been considerably lessened by the consumption of the past three days, no large game having fallen since the death of the wapiti; the wild ducks and prairie grouse so plentiful in this part of the plains having amply sufficed[104] to keep our party in food.
As we now journeyed on, the Cree, who was in rear of all, saw by the attitude of the dog that it suddenly betokened the presence of some animal to the left. He called my attention to the fact.
The dog showed unmistakable signs of having either seen or smelt some living thing. He stood with head turned towards the left, and ears pointed forwards, as though he partly expected an advance from that quarter of man or beast. At times a low growl escaped his half-closed mouth.
Determined to discover what it could mean, I spoke a few words to the dog. Instantly he bounded forward full into a thicket, which stood only some sixty paces distant. There was a loud noise and breaking of branches in the thicket; a succession of fierce barks were succeeded by a sharp howl of pain, and there broke forth from one side of the thicket the figure of an Indian on horseback closely followed by the hound. Ere the horseman had got quite clear of the wood the dog was upon him, upon the side nearest to us. With a terrific spring he fastened upon the right leg of the Indian. In vain the man struck him with a short bow and a handful of arrows which he held in his right hand. In an instant the dog had dragged him from his pony, and both dog and man were rolling together upon the ground.
Both dog and man were rolling together upon the ground.
At this moment we rode in upon the struggle. Ere the Indian could rise and shake himself loose from his savage assailant I had struck him a violent blow upon the head with the butt of my gun, which effectually put a stop to all power of resistance; then ordering the dog to loose his hold, we had time to take note of both dog and captive. The first-named was bleeding profusely from an arrow, which the Indian had shot at him at the moment he had entered the thicket. The shaft had struck full upon his breast between his fore legs, but the direction of the arrow fired from on horseback was downwards, and the point had penetrated the flesh and muscle of his chest, coming out again beneath his ribs. Still it was an ugly wound, one half-inch higher, or fired even from the level of a man on foot instead of on horseback, and the poor dog must have been a dead animal.
But it is these half-inches that make all the difference between a dead dog and a captured Assineboine; for, as the reader must be aware, the Indian was no other than the scout on his way to reconnoitre from the south the camp we had so lately quitted.
And now the question presented itself to our minds what was to be done with the captive. The Cree’s solution was perfectly simple—it was to instantly despatch him as he lay, and with his scalp and his horse in our possession (for the steed had in true Indian fashion stopped when his rider fell) resume our way; but I could not hear of this proposal. First tying the Assineboine, so that no attempt at escape could become possible even if he were sufficiently recovered from the vigorous application of the butt of the gun, I next examined carefully the dog’s wound, and having extracted the arrow by breaking the shaft outside the wound and drawing the head fully out, we saw that it was not dangerous. Then we caught the Assineboine’s pony, and bringing the steed to its fallen rider—who by this time had sufficiently recovered consciousness to be fully aware of all that had passed and was passing around him—we made him mount his horse, his arms still remaining tied; then passing a leather line tightly round his legs, we strapped our prisoner to the horse’s girth, and passing a double line through the animal’s mouth, remounted our own horses, and set out on our road—first having given the Assineboine a pretty intelligible hint that any attempt to escape would quickly cause the revolver in my holster to speak its mind.
The course was now to the north, and for some hours we held our way in silence, through the small hills and deep valleys in which thickets of alders and cotton-wood trees abounded. In many places the grass rose above our horses’ knees thick and dry, the hot sun of the summer, now nearly over, had made it as sere and yellow as straw, and it sounded against the horses’ legs like stalks of corn, as our file of horsemen came along at a good pace through hill and dale.
I now realized as I rode through this tangled mass of dry vegetation what a prairie fire must be when it has such a material to feed on in its rapid flight across the plains in autumn. For the first time, too, as I rode along this day, the idea of my being the leader of a separate movement of the character of a branch expedition became present to my mind. I felt elated to think that in such a very short space of time I had reached the real home of adventure, and was bearing my part in the wild work of the wilderness. I had each day learned something of that life I had so often longed for, and as my experience had widened out, it seemed that each item of knowledge gained had also lengthened out the time, and distance.
I could scarcely believe that it was but a week since we had started on this journey with only the hope of toiling on day by day into the prairie. Already we had become actors in a real adventure, and were engaged in the performance of those things the mere recital of which at home had so often given me the keenest pleasure.
While thinking these pleasant thoughts now as we rode along, I nevertheless watched with jealous eye the security of our prisoner. I was especially anxious to take the Assineboine alive into camp; the Cree’s method would on no account have suited me. I desired to be able to hand over the prisoner to Red Cloud, and to say, “Here is an[108] Assineboine brave taken by your dog. The Cree wanted to kill him. Dead men tell no tales; but neither can they give any information. From this man you will hear all news—the Assineboine plans will be laid bare to you.”
Thus ruminating within myself we held our way, until the time had come for changing the course towards the west.
Taking advantage of a valley running through the hills in that direction, we turned abruptly to our left, and riding for about two hours began to draw nigh the edge of the broken ground.
The sun, now low upon the horizon, poured along the little valley the full flood of his evening splendour. Soft and still the landscape lay, tinged in many a colour of green and gold; for the first shades of autumn on the cotton-wood trees gave back the salute of the sunset from their bronzed and yellow leaves, and the green of longer-lived foliage lay still intermixed among them, as fresh as though spring had but lately left these quiet hillsides.
At last we reached the edge of the hills; before us the great plain lay in the glory of the sunset, stretching into what seemed an endless west: it was an ocean of green shored by a sky of gold.
But I had other things to think of, and leaving the prisoner in a hollow in Donogh’s charge, I rode to the summit of one of the hills and began anxiously to scan the plain beneath. No trace of life met my eye; the great ocean of grass held upon its bosom no sign of existence. Then I set myself to do all that Red Cloud had told me. The camp was made some little distance in rear amid the shelter of the hills. Donogh with gun in hand sat sentry over the prisoner, and the dog lay alternately licking his wounded chest and gazing ominously at his enemy, as though the very smallest provocation would induce him to repeat his onslaught of the mid-day.
By the time camp was made night had fallen. I had already selected my ground for the signal fire; it was a saddle-back depression between two ridges, it was fully open to the plain west and south-west, but a higher ridge hid it from the direct south. Here I made a small bright fire, continuing to feed the flames with dry wood, which cast up a bright clear light about three feet in height. For half an hour I kept the flame steadily burning; then quenching it, I returned to our camp to find supper nearly ready.
We could as yet only communicate with the Cree by signs, but Donogh was quickly becoming an adept in the sign language of the wilds, and he and the Cree had exchanged much information. The prisoner evidently regarded me as his sole guarantee for safety, and his face brightened considerably when I returned to camp.
Another half-hour passed; supper had been ready some time, and the Cree and the Assineboine had already fallen to upon their portions of dry meat. I began to look anxiously towards the western darkness for the arrival of the Sioux.