The Silver Canyon: A Tale of the Western Plains

by George Manville Fenn

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

  IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT.

  The hours went by, but no sound or sign came from the plain; the starsstarted out bright and clear, and in the east there was a faint, lambentlight that told of the coming of the moon ere long, but still all seemedsilent in the desert.

  The Englishmen of the party seemed to grow weary, and began talking soloudly that the Doctor sent sternly-worded messages to them to besilent; and once more all was still, save when some one fidgeted aboutto change his position.

  "Why can't they keep still?" growled Joses, softly, as he lay perfectlymotionless, listening to every sound. "They don't understand how aman's life--ah, all our lives--may depend on their being still. Look atthem Injuns. They never move."

  Joses was quite right. Each Indian had taken his place where appointed,and had not moved since, saving to settle down into a part of the rock.The swarthy, muscular fellows might have been part of the stone for anysign they gave of life.

  At last the moon rose slowly above the edge of the vast plain, sending aflood of light to bring into prominence every bush and tree, striking onthe face of the mountain, and casting its shadow right away over theplain. From where Bart crouched he could not see the moon, for he andhis companions were behind rocks, but there was the heavy shadow of themountain stretching to an enormous distance; and as he watched it, andsaw how boldly it was cut, and how striking was the difference betweenthe illumined portions of the plain and those where the shadow fell, hecould not help thinking how easily the Indians might creep right up tothem and make a bold assault, and this idea he whispered to Joses.

  "'Taint much in their way, my lad," he whispered. "Injun don't careabout night-fighting, it's too risky for them. They don't mind a sneakup--just a few of them to scare the horses and cattle and make 'emstampede, and they don't mind doing a bit o' spy of the enemy's camp inthe dark; but it isn't often they'll fight at night."

  "But you expect them to come, don't you?"

  "I don't," said Joses; "but the Beaver does, and I give in. He knowsbest about it, having been so much more among the Injun than I have, andbeing Injun himself. I daresay they will come, but they won't stampedeour horses, I'm thinking, and they won't get the cattle. They may getto know where the ways are into the corral and the horse 'closure, andperhaps find out the path up to the castle, as the master calls it."

  "But they couldn't unless they came close up, Joses."

  "Well, what's to hinder 'em from coming close up? They'll crawl throughthe grass, and from stone to stone in the dark there, and who's to see'em? My eyes are sharp enough, but I don't know as I should see themcoming. Let's ask the Beaver what he says."

  "The Beaver-with-Sharp-Teeth has heard all you said," whispered theinterpreter, "and he says that the Apaches will come before long to findthe way into the camp, and then they will go away again if they do notdie."

  A curious silence seemed to fall after this, and Bart felt, as hecrouched there watching the plains, that something very terrible wasgoing to happen ere long. At another time he would have been drowsy,but now sleep was the last thing of which he thought, all his nervesbeing overwrought; and as his eyes swept the wide flat plain, he kept onfancying that sooner or later he would see the Apaches coming up to themwith the slow, silent approach of so many shadows.

  And now it suddenly struck Bart that the shadow of the mountain wasshorter than when the moon first rose, and that its edges were moreboldly defined, and by this he knew, of course, that the moon wasgetting higher. At the same time though, soft fleecy clouds began tohide the stars, and at times the shadow of the mountain was blotted out,for the moon was from time to time obscured, and the peculiarindistinctness of the earth seemed to Bart as exactly suited for anenemy's approach.

  A slight movement at his side told him that this was the Indians' ideaas well, and that to a man they were eagerly scanning the plain and therugged patches of rock beneath.

  Every here and there the fallen masses were piled-up into buttresses,and it was amongst these that, after failing to keep his attention uponthe misty plain, Bart let his gaze wander till at last he becameconvinced that he could see some dark patch in slow motion, and it waslong enough before he could satisfy himself that it was only a stone.

  He was deceived in this way so often--the various little prominencesbelow him seeming to waver and move, and assume form in accordance withhis ideas--that he grew tired of watching, feeling sure at last thatthere would be nothing to trouble them that night, when suddenly a softfirm hand glided gently and silently as a snake to his wrist, took firmhold of it and pressed it, before rising and pointing down below theminto the plain.

  Bart followed the direction of the pointing hand, but he could seenothing, and he was about to say so, when gradually sweeping past, a fewlight clouds must have left the moon partially clear, and with thesudden access of light, Bart could make out two somethings close besidethe piled-up rocks, and for some moments he could not be sure that theywere men prostrated on their chests crawling towards the entrance to thecattle corral, for they seemed to assimilate with the colour of theearth; and though he strained his eyes, not a trace of motion could hedetect.

  By degrees though it seemed to him that one of the figures was a man,the other some shaggy kind of crouching beast, till his eyes grew moreeducated, and he decided that one was an Indian naked to the waist,while the other was wearing his buffalo robe as an additional means ofprotection.

  Bart watched them attentively, and still the figures did not move. Atlast, however, he saw that they had changed their position, creepingcloser to the piled-up rocks, and at last, evidently encouraged by thefact that when the firing took place that evening there was no response,the two savages suddenly rose erect, and went to the piled-up stonesthat blocked the corral entry.

  "How did they know the cattle were there?" said Bart, putting his lipsclose by Joses' ear.

  "Nose!" whispered back the frontiersman, laconically.

  "But how could they tell that this was the entrance?" whispered Bartagain.

  "Eyes!" replied Joses; and he then laid his hand upon Bart's lips, as asign that he must refrain from speaking any more.

  Bart rather chafed at this, and he was growing excited as well, for ittroubled him that Joses and the Beaver should have let these two spiesgo right up to such a treasure as the cattle corral unchallenged; andthough he would not have thought of firing at the savages, he could nothelp thinking that something ought to be done--what he could not say--for the low grating noise he now heard was certainly the Indians movingone of the blocks of stone that had so carefully been placed there thatafternoon.

  "They're opening the corral, my lad," said Joses just then, in a hoarsewhisper; "and if we don't stop 'em we shall be having 'em drive thewhole lot of bullocks and cows right away into the plains, and never seea hoof again."

  "What's to be done, then?" whispered Bart, whose face was covered with acold dew, while his cheeks were at fever heat.

  "Well, my lad, they seem to have found out the way easy enough bycrawling over the cattle trail, and it's a very unpleasant thing to do,but I suppose we shall either have to be robbed, or else we must stop'em; so as the Doctor won't like all our cattle to go, I'm going to stop'em."

  "It's very horrible," whispered Bart.

  "Horrid, my lad; so's having your cattle and horses stole, for if theyget one they're bound to have t'other; so is being starved to death; andthe worsest of all is being scalped, and that's sure to come if we letthem brutes go."

  "But it is so horrible to shoot them, Joses," panted Bart.

  "'Tis, my lad, so don't you do it. Leave it to us. Hah! that's a bigstone down, and the cattle's beginning to fidget. Now, Beaver, what doyou say?"

  The Beaver answered with his rifle, which gave a sharp report, just asthe moon shone out a little more clearly.

  "Hit!" said Joses, laconically, as they saw quite plainly the twoIndians start back from the rocks right out into the clear moonl
ight,one of them uttering a fierce, hoarse yell, and staggering as if aboutto fall, when the other sprang forward and caught him by the chest,holding him up, and, as it was plain to see, forming of the body of hiswounded companion a shield to protect himself from the bullets of theirunseen assailants.

  "They must not go away and tell tales," muttered Joses, as he took aim;but just then the interpreter's rifle rang out, and the half-nude Indianturned partly round, so that they could see in white paint upon hisbreast, seeming to gleam horribly in the moonlight, the ghastly skulland cross-bones that seemed to have been adopted as the badge of thetribe. Then he fell back into the arms of his friend, who clasped hisarms round him, and backed slowly, keeping the wounded man's face to thefiring party, while, as if mechanically, the injured savage kept step.

  _Crack_ went the Beaver's rifle again, and there was a dull thud tellingof a hit, but still the two Indians retreated slowly.

  _Crack_! went Joses' rifle, and he uttered a low growl.

  "I'll swear I hit him, but I dunno whether it touched the t'other one--acowardly skunk, to sneak behind his fellow like that."

  _Crack_--_crack_--_crack_--_crack_! four rifles uttered their reports,which seemed to reverberate from the face of the mountain; and as thesmoke rose slowly, and Bart could gaze at the moonlit plain, and try toread the meaning of the fierce yell of defiance that he had heard arise,he saw that the first Indian lay upon his back with the moon shiningupon his ghastly, painted breast, while his companion was rapidlydisappearing as he ran swiftly over the plain.

  The Beaver's rifle rang out again, and he started up into a kneelingposition, gazing after the object at which he had fired, while hisfingers mechanically reloaded his piece. Then he uttered a low gutturalcry of anger, and sank down into his former position.

  "Missed him, Beaver," said Joses, quietly.

  "No," was the sharp retort. "He was hit, but he will escape to his dogsof people."

  This was a tremendous speech for the chief, who, however, seemed to beacquiring the English tongue with remarkable rapidity, the fact beingthat he had long known a great deal of English, but had been too proudto make use of it till he could speak sufficiently well to make himselfunderstood with ease, and therefore he had brought up the interpreter asa medium between him and his English friends.

  They watched through the rest of the night, after communicating to theDoctor the reason for the firing, but there was no fresh alarm. Themoon rose higher, and shed a clear effulgence that seemed to make theplain as light as day, while the shadow of the mountain appeared tobecome black, and the ravines and cracks in its sides to be so manydense marks cut in solid silver.

  Daylight at last, with the silvery moon growing pale and the starsfading out. First a heavy grey, then a silvery light, then soft,roseate tints, followed by orange flecks far up in the east, and thenone glorious, golden blaze to herald the sun, as the great orb slowlyseemed to roll up over the edge of the plain, and bring with it life,and light, and hope.

  "Hurrah!" shouted Bart, as he rose from his cramped position in therifle-pit. "Oh, Joses! my back! my legs! Ah, ah! Oh my! Do rub me!I'm so stiff I can hardly move."

  "That'll soon go off, my lad. There, I suppose most of us may go offduty now, for I can't see any Injun out on the plains."

  "Yes: hundreds!" said the Beaver, who had been shading his eyes andgazing attentively over the sunlit expanse of rocky landscape dottedwith trees.

  "Where, Beaver?" said Joses.

  For answer the chief pointed right away, and both Joses and Bart triedto make out what he meant, but in vain.

  "Your eyes are younger than mine, Bart," said Joses at last, gruffly."I can't see nothing--can you?"

  "No, Joses," replied Bart. "I can see nothing but trees."

  The Beaver smiled.

  "Ah, it's all very well for you to laugh," said Joses, bluntly, "butyou've got eyes that see round corners of hills, and through clumps ofwood and bits of mountain. I never saw such eyes in my life."

  "My eyes will do," said the Beaver, quietly. "The Apaches are overyonder. They will be on the watch to carry off the cattle or to kill usif they can."

  "Yes, that's it," said Joses; "if they can."

  Without another word, the Beaver and half-a-dozen of his followers wentdown the slope, and climbed the stone gateway, to leap into the plain,where, without a word of instruction, they bore off the body of thefallen Indian, and buried it down in the rift where the other two hadbeen laid, after which they returned to partake of the morning meal thathad been prepared--fires being lit in various crevices and chasms offthe zigzag way; and this meal being partaken of in the bright morningsunshine, seemed to make the dangers of the night appear trifling, andthe spirits of the people rose.

  In fact, there was no time for despondency. Every man knew when he cameout to adventure for silver that he would have to run the risk ofencounters with the Indians, and nothing could be more satisfactory thantheir position. For they had a stronghold where they could set half theIndian nations at defiance, while the savages could not hinder theirmining operations, which could be continued on the mountain if they wereinvested, and at the edge of the canyon or down below, where there wasnothing to fear.

  The greatest danger was with respect to the cattle, which had to bedrawn out to pasture along near the side of the lake, and this was doneat once, every available man mounting his horse and forming guard, so asto protect the cattle and pasture his horse at the same time.

  This was carried on for some days, and a careful watch was kept outtowards the plain; but though bodies of Indians were seen manoeuvring inthe distance, none approached the mountain, whose flag waved outdefiance; and as night after night passed without alarm, there were someof the party sanguine enough to say that the Indians had had theirlesson and would come no more.

  "What do you say to that, Beaver?" said Joses, laying his hand upon thechiefs shoulder, and looking him in the face.

  "Indian dog of Apache never forgives," he replied quietly. "They maycome to-day--to-morrow--next moon. Who can tell when the Apache willcome and strike? But he will come."

  "There, Master Bart, hear that!" said Joses. "How about going down intothe canyon to spear salmon now?"

  "The young chief, Bart, can go and spear salmon in the river," said theBeaver, whose face lit up at the prospect of engaging in something moreexciting than watching cattle and taking care that they did not straytoo far. "The Beaver and his young men will take care the Apaches donot come without warning."