The Pioneer Boys of the Yellowstone; or, Lost in the Land of Wonders

by St. George Rathborne

  CHAPTER VI

  ON THE TRAIL TO THE BAD LANDS

  WITH the first peep of dawn both lads were astir. Their hearts andthoughts were so wrapped up in the desire to once more find JasperWilliams and obtain his signature to a duplicate document, that, totell the truth, neither had slept at all soundly.

  As all preparations had been completed, there was little for them to doexcept get their breakfast, shoulder their packs, say good-by to thetwo leaders of the expedition, as well as the men, and start boldlyforth.

  Before the sun was half an hour above the horizon the little party ofthree had left the camp and the nearby Mandan village behind them, andwere on their way.

  It was known just where Williams and his companions expected to spendtheir first night, having started at noon, so none of them felt anynecessity for trying to follow the trail until that point had beenreached.

  All through the morning they moved on, and as noon approached drewnear the place where the camp had been mapped out.

  "That much is settled, Dick, you see!" ventured Roger, as he pointed towhere the dead ashes of a fire were visible, there having been no highwind to blow them broadcast.

  "Yes, they spent the first night here," admitted the other, "and sothey must have just two and a half days the jump of us."

  "That's a long start," grumbled Roger.

  "Well, we expect to keep on the move each day longer than they will,"explained the other. "Then again, they may find some place so muchto their liking they would conclude to spend a couple of days therehunting or trapping. Jasper is always one to say a 'bird in the hand isworth two in the bush'; and those stories about the wonderful valleythat is haunted by the spirits may turn out to be fairy tales afterall."

  "And now the real work begins, when we have to follow this trail,"added Roger, who acted as though he did not want to lose a singleminute.

  "That is not going to be such a hard problem, I should think," Dicktold him. "In the first place, they will not try to hide their trailvery much, because they do not expect hostile Indians to follow them;though at night, of course, they will take every precaution againsta surprise. And then again, Roger, we know something about trailing,while Mayhew, here, has not his equal in our camp, so Captain Clarktold me."

  Mayhew did not hear this, for he was busy looking around the camp,examining the cold ashes, and in various ways picking up little detailsthat an ordinary person would never have been able to discover.

  "Unless--well, I might as well own up, Dick," said Roger. "I've beenwondering whether after all that tricky Lascelles would be satisfiedto go away from here after destroying our paper. He might know aboutJasper Williams's trip to the Wonderland the Indians tell about, andtry to capture him, so as to keep him from signing another paper forus."

  Dick shook his head as though he did not believe such a thing could bepossible.

  "It _might_ happen that way, Roger, but I feel pretty sure we're wellrid of that rascal. Let us keep the one thing before us to find Jasper,and fetch him back to camp again in time to start afresh."

  "There, Benjamin is beckoning to us, Dick; he is ready to start off,"and Roger eagerly obeyed the finger of the guide, for he was anxious tobe on the move.

  They did not even stop to make a fire and cook anything at noon,but munched some food that had been brought along with them. Rogerbegrudged even a ten-minute stop, when it was not absolutely necessary.

  "We ought to keep on the move as long as daylight lasts," he declared."After it gets dark there'll be plenty of time to rest, and do a littlecooking. By then we might possibly be lucky enough to reach theirsecond camping place."

  Time passed on, and constantly the little party pressed ahead. Just ashad been hoped, Williams and his companions did not seem to care tohide their trail; though, when the chance offered, they always took acourse that gave them an opportunity to walk on hard ground, or evenrocks, which actions sprang from the natural caution of frontiersmen.

  Slowly the sun sank toward the golden West. The boys surveyed alow-lying bank of somber gray clouds and wondered if the long delayedopening snow-storm of winter might spring from that source. Roger asusual found cause for new anxiety in that possibility.

  "If it does come down on us, you see, Dick," he said, complainingly,"the first thing we'd lose the trail we're following, and then we'd bein a nice pickle. What could we do if that happened?"

  "Just as we did when following the explorers along the Missouri," hewas told. "Use our heads to figure things out and take chances. It hasworked with us lots of times, and will again."

  "You mean we've got a general idea where that valley they are headingfor lies, and might get there even without following their trail; isthat it?"

  "Yes, and to reach it we will have to pass through the country theIndians fear so much, so that, before we are through with this trip, wemay know whether there is any truth in those strange tales or not."

  "They tell of a large and beautiful lake in which the river with theyellow stones along its bank has its source," Roger went on, recallingall he had heard. "Then there are marvelous fountains that have spiritbreath, the red men say, and spring up from holes in the ground, totry to reach the skies. They tell of many colored stones, and mud asblue as the heavens; they say it is the home of the Evil Spirit, andthat no one's life is safe who wanders that way, and passes a singlenight there."

  "But you do not believe such silly stories, I hope?"

  "Whether they are true or not, I am not prepared to say," replied theother, after a little pause; "but you ought to know me too well tothink so ill of me as to believe that a hundred evil spirits wouldkeep me from exploring that country of the big lake and the flowingfountains, and all the other strange things!"

  So they talked as they moved along. Much of the labor of following thetrail fell upon the shoulders of the frontiersman, Mayhew, who seemedonly too glad to assume the responsibility. Not once did he lose thetrack. When it crossed a stony section he seemed to be able to decidejust the point for which the others must have been making, and in allcases he quickly pointed out the tracks again where the soil becamesoft enough to allow of impressions.

  They had seen considerable game while on the way, though not stoppingto obtain any fresh meat. All that could keep until they had overtakenthose who were ahead. So, although Roger was greatly tempted when hediscovered a trio of big elk feeding in a glade not a quarter of a mileto windward, he shut his teeth hard and told himself that on anotherday his chance would come.

  Here were jack-rabbits in plenty, gophers whistled in the little openstretches, antelopes were seen feeding on the prairies that lay betweenthe uplifts, while ducks and wild geese swam on the waters of smallponds, and might easily have been bagged had the boys cared to take thetime.

  Some of the rapid little streams they crossed looked as though theymight be well stocked with splendid trout; indeed, they often saw finegamy fellows dart out of sight beneath some overhanging bank. Theyloved to fish as well as any boys who ever lived; but just then felt itnecessary to put the temptation behind them.

  Once they even discovered a herd of buffalo not a great distance away.

  "How I would like to creep up on them, and pick out a nice young bullto drop," said Roger. Then he shook his head and heaved a sigh, forthere came before his mental vision the happy home so far away, overwhich such a dark shadow rested, and which could only be dissipatedthrough the efforts of himself and his cousin.

  "One thing we ought to remember with thankfulness," remarked Dick, "andthat is that so far we have seen not a single sign of Indians. TheMandans do not come this way very often, you know, and the Sioux areeven more timid about venturing into the region of the Bad Lands; butthere are other tribes who are not so fearful."

  "You mean the Blackfeet and the Crows," Roger added; "both of themfierce fighters, and hating the whites like poison. I'm afraid we willsee more or less of them before we get back to camp."

  "We have always been able to take care of ourselves in the p
ast,remember, Roger, and can again. Here are three of us, well armed anddetermined. If the Indians try to do us injury they will find two canplay at that game. Our fathers had to fight just the same kind ofenemies away back there on the Ohio, and if we're 'chips of the oldblock,' as they tell us, why shouldn't we do as well? There, Benjaminhas discovered something, and wants to show us."

  Mayhew showed the boys where Jasper and his two companions had droppeddown behind some bushes, and crawled along for quite a distance.

  "Here is where they stopped to raise their heads," explained the guide."I think they must have discovered some enemies over in that direction,for they always kept peering out that way. See, here is where theyeven plucked some of the dead leaves from this bush to glue their eyesto the opening. It is an old hunter's trick for a moving branch mightbetray the one in hiding."

  A short time afterwards Mayhew seemed pleased, for he announced anotherradical change in the trail he was following so carefully.

  "The danger was passed successfully, you can see," he told the boys,"for here they arose to their feet again, and hurried on, perhapsbending low, because they were careful to keep behind these rocks.After this we may not find it so easy to follow the trail, for theyhave scented danger."

  It turned out just as he said, and from that time on it required theexercise of considerable woodcraft on the part of the frontiersman toenable him to detect the tracks of the three whom they were pursuing.

  Now Jasper and his two friends had followed an outcropping stone ledgeas far as they could, and swung across a patch of soft ground by meansof a dangling wild grave-vine. Another time they had stepped upon anoverturned tree, proceeded some distance along the trunk, and then madea great leap for some spot where soft-soled moccasins would leave butscant evidence of their passing.

  But Mayhew was acquainted with all these methods of concealing a trail.He had spent much of his life in the wilderness, and knew Indian waysas well as any man Dick and Roger had ever met.

  Gradually that long afternoon gave place to the coming of night.Shadows began to steal out from among the trees and stalk boldly. Moreand more difficult did it become for the trailer to see the fainttracks of those he was pursuing. Finally he came to a full stop.

  "It is no use trying further, lads," Mayhew told them, "for there wouldbe constant danger of losing the trail entirely. Unless we choose torisk lighting torches, and keeping on, we must make camp here, cooksomething to eat, and then get what rest we may, looking to a new dayand an early start."

  Although Roger hated to give up, he knew there was nothing else to bedone.