by G. A. Henty
CHAPTER III
ON THE PLAINS
The purchase of a buffalo robe, blankets, boots, and a Colt's revolveroccupied but a short time, but the rifle was a much more difficultmatter.
"You can always rely upon a Colt," the miner said, "but rifles aredifferent things; and as your life may often depend upon yourshooting-iron carrying straight, you have got to be mighty careful aboutit. A gun that has got the name of being a good weapon will fetch fourtimes as much as a new one."
Denver was but a small place; there was no regular gunsmith's shop, butrifles and pistols were sold at almost every store in the town. In thisquest Jerry was assisted by Pete Hoskings, who knew of several men whowould be ready to dispose of their rifles. Some of these weapons weretaken out into the country and tried at marks by the two men. They madewhat seemed to Tom wonderful shooting, but did not satisfy Hoskings.
"I should like the youngster to have a first-rate piece," he said, "andI mean to get him one if I can. There are two of these would do if wecan't get a better, but if there is a first-rate one to be had in thistownship I will have it." Suddenly he exclaimed, "I must have gone offmy head, and be going downright foolish! Why, I know the very weapon.You remember Billy the scout?"
"In course I do, everyone knew him. I heard he had gone down just beforeI got back here."
"That is so, Jerry. You know he had a bit of a place up in the hills,four or five miles from here, where he lived with that Indian wife ofhis when he was not away. I went out to see him a day or two afore hedied. I asked him if there was anything I could do for him. He said no,his squaw would get on well enough there. She had been alone most of hertime, and would wrestle on just as well when he had gone under. He had abig garden-patch which she cultivated, and brought the things down intothe town here. They always fetch a good price. Why more people don'tgrow them I can't make out; it would pay better than gold-seeking, youbet. He had a few hundred dollars laid by, and he said they might comein handy to her if she fell sick, or if things went hard in winter.Well, you remember his gun?"
"In course--his gun was nigh as well known as Billy himself. He used tocall it Plumb-centre. You don't mean to say she hasn't sold it?"
"She hasn't; at least I should have been sure to hear if she had. I knowseveral of the boys who went to the funeral wanted to buy it, andoffered her long prices for it too; but she wouldn't trade. I will rideover there this evening and see what I can do about it. She will sell tome if she sells to anyone, for she knows I was a great chum of Billy's,and I have done her a few good turns. She broke her leg some years backwhen he was away, and luckily enough I chanced to ride over there thenext day. Being alone and without anyone to help, she would have got onbadly. I sent a surgeon up to her, and got a redskin woman to go up tonurse her. I don't wonder she did not like to sell Billy's piece, seeinghe was so famous with it, and I feel sure money would not do it; butperhaps I can talk her into it."
The next morning the articles agreed upon as the price of the horseswere packed on Jerry's pony, and they went out to the meeting-place.
"It is twenty minutes early," Jerry said, as Tom consulted his watch,"and the red-skins won't be here till it is just twelve o'clock. Ared-skin is never five minutes before or five minutes after the time hehas named for a meeting. It may have been set six months before, and ata place a thousand miles away, but just at the hour, neither before norafter, he will be there. A white man will keep the appointment; but likeenough he will be there the night before, will make his camp, sleep, andcook a meal or two, but he does not look for the red-skin till exactlythe hour named, whether it is sunrise or sunset or noon. Red-skins ain'tgot many virtues,--least there ain't many of them has, though I haveknown some you could trust all round as ready as any white man,--butfor keeping an appintment they licks creation."
A few minutes before twelve o'clock three Indians were seen coming downthe valley on horseback. They were riding at a leisurely pace, and itwas exactly the hour when they drew rein in front of Tom and hiscompanion. Jerry had already unloaded his pony and had laid out thecontents of the pack. First he proceeded to examine the two ponies, tomake sure that they were the same he had chosen.
"That is all right," he said; "they would hardly have tried to cheat usover that--they would know that it would not pay with me. There, chief,is your exchange. You will see that the blankets are of good quality.There is the keg of powder, the bar of lead, ten plugs of tobacco, thecloth for the squaws, and all the other things agreed on."
The chief examined them carefully, and nodded his satisfaction. "If allthe pale-faces dealt as fairly with the red man as you have done therewould not be so much trouble between them," he said.
"That is right enough, chief; it can't be gainsaid that a great many,ay, I might say the most part, of the traders are rogues. But they wouldcheat us just the same as they would you, and often do take us in. Ihave had worthless goods passed off on me many a time; and I don't blameyou a bit if you put a bullet into the skull of a rogue who has cheatedyou, for I should be mightily inclined to do the same myself."
No more words were wasted; the lads who had ridden the ponies down madeup the goods in great bundles and went up the valley with their chief,while Jerry and Tom took the plaited leather lariats which were roundthe ponies' necks and returned to Denver. A saddle of Mexican pattern,with high peak and cantle, massive wooden framework, huge straps andheavy stirrups, was next bought. Jerry folded a horse-rug and tried itin different positions on the horse's back until the saddle fitted wellupon it.
"That is the thing that you have got to be most particular about, Tom.If the saddle does not sit right the horse gets galled, and when a horseonce gets galled he ain't of much use till he is well again, though theIndians ride them when they are in a terrible state; but then they havegot so many horses that, unless they are specially good, they don't holdthem of any account. You see the saddle is so high that there is goodspace between it and the backbone, and the pressure comes fair on theribs, so the ponies don't get galled if the blankets are foldedproperly. The Indians do not use saddles, but ride either on a pad orjust a folded blanket, and their ponies are always getting galled."
"The saddle is tremendously heavy."
"It is heavy, but a few pounds don't make much difference to the horseone way or the other, so that he is carrying it comfortably. The saddleswould be no good if they were not made strong, for a horse may put hisfoot in a hole and come down head over heels, or may tumble down aprecipice, and the saddle would be smashed up if it were not pretty nearas strong as cast-iron. Out on the plains a man thinks as much of hissaddle as he does of his horse, and more. If his horse dies he will putthe saddle on his head and carry it for days rather than part with it,for he knows he won't be long before he gets a horse again. He can buyone for a few charges of powder and ball from the first friendly Indianshe comes across, or he may get one given to him if he has nothing toexchange for it, or if he comes across a herd of wild horses he cancrease one."
"What is creasing a horse?" Tom asked.
"Well, it is a thing that wants a steady hand, for you have got to hithim just on the right spot--an inch higher, you will miss him; half aninch lower, you will kill him. You have got to put a bullet through hisneck two or three inches behind the ears and just above the spine. Ofcourse if you hit the spine you kill him, and he is no good except togive you a meal or two if you are hard-up for food; but if the ball goesthrough the muscles of the neck, just above the spine, the shock knockshim over as surely as if you had hit him in the heart. It stuns him, andyou have only got to run up and put your lariat round his neck, and beready to mount him as soon as he rises, which he will do in two or threeminutes, and he will be none the worse for the shock; in fact you willbe able to break him in more easily than if you had caught him by therope."
Jerry then adjusted his own saddle to the other Indian horse.
"Can you ride?" he asked.
"No, I have never had any chance of learning at home."
"W
ell, you had better have a lesson at once. This is a good way for abeginner;" and he took a blanket, and having rolled it up tightly,strapped it over the peak of the saddle and down the flaps.
"There," he said. "You get your knees against that, and what with thehigh peak and the high cantle you can hardly be chucked out anyhow, thatis, if the horse does not buck; but I will try him as to that before youmount. We will lead them out beyond the town, we don't want to make acircus of ourselves in the streets; besides, if you get chucked, youwill fall softer there than you would on the road. But first of all wewill give them a feed of corn. You see they are skeary of us at present.Indian horses are always afraid of white men at first, just as whitemen's horses are afraid of Indians. A feed of corn will go a long waytowards making us good friends, for you may be sure they have never hada feed in their lives beyond what they could pick up for themselves."
The horses snuffed the corn with some apprehension when it was held outtowards them, backing away from the sieves with their ears laid back;but seeing that no harm came to them they presently investigated thefood more closely, and at last took a mouthful, after which theyproceeded to eat greedily, their new masters patting their necks andtalking to them while they did so. Then their saddles and bridles wereput on, and they were led out of the stable and along the streets. Atfirst they were very fidgety and wild at the unaccustomed sights andsounds, but their fear gradually subsided, and by the time they werewell in the country they went along quietly enough.
"Now you hold my horse, Tom, and I will try yours."
Jerry mounted and galloped away; in ten minutes he returned.
"He will do," he said as he dismounted. "He is fresh yet and wantstraining. I don't suppose he has been ridden half a dozen times, butwith patience and training he will turn out a first-rate beast. I couldsee they were both fast when those boys rode them. I don't wonder thechief asked what, for an Indian pony, was a mighty long price, though itwas cheap enough for such good animals. He must have two or threeuncommon good ones at home or he would never have parted with them, forwhen an Indian gets hold of an extra good pony no price will tempt himto sell it, for a man's life on the plains often depends on the speedand stay of his horse. Now, I will take a gallop on my own, and when Icome back you can mount and we will ride on quietly together.
"There is not much difference between them," he said on his return."Yours is a bit faster. Pete told me to get you the best horse I couldfind, and I fixed upon yours, directly my eye fell upon him, as beingthe pick of the drove. But this is a good one too, and will suit me aswell as yours, for he is rather heavier, and will carry me better thanyours would do on a long journey. Now climb up into your saddle."
Jerry laughed at the difficulty Tom had in lifting his leg over the highcantle. "You will have to practise presently putting your hands on thesaddle and vaulting into it. Half a minute in mounting may make all thedifference between getting away and being rubbed out. When you see thered-skins coming yelling down on you fifty yards away, and your horse isjumping about as scared as you are, it is not an easy matter to get onto its back if you have got to put your foot in the stirrup first. Youhave got to learn to chuck yourself straight into your seat whether youare standing still or both on the run. There, how do you feel now?"
"I feel regularly wedged into the saddle."
"That is right. I will take up the stirrups a hole, then you will getyour knees firmer against the blanket. It is better to learn to ridewithout it, even if you do get chucked off a few times, but as we startto-morrow you have no time for that. In a few days, when you get at homein the saddle, we will take off the blanket, and you have got to learnto hold on by your knees and by the balance of your body. Now we will bemoving on."
As soon as the reins were slackened the horses started together at aneasy canter.
"That is their pace," Jerry said. "Except on a very long journey, whenhe has got squaws and baggage with him, a red-skin never goes at a walk,and the horses will keep on at this lope for hours. That is right. Don'tsit so stiffly; you want your legs to be stiff and keeping a steadygrip, but from your hips you want to be as slack as possible, justgiving to the horse's action, the same way you give on board ship whenvessels are rolling. That is better. Ah! here comes Pete. I took thisway because I knew it was the line he would come back by--and, by gosh,he has got the rifle, sure enough!"
Pete had seen them, and was waving the gun over his head.
"I've got it," he said as he reined up his horse when he met them. "Itwas a stiff job, for she did not like to part with it. I had to talk toher a long time. I put it to her that when she died the gun would haveto go to someone, and I wanted it for a nephew of Straight Harry, whomshe knew well enough; that it was for a young fellow who was safe toturn out a great hunter and Indian fighter like her husband, and that hewould be sure to do credit to Plumb-centre, and make the gun as famousin his hands as it had been in her husband's. That fetched her. She saidI had been kind to her, and though she could not have parted with thegun for money, she would do it, partly to please me, and partly becauseshe knew that Straight Harry had been a friend of her husband's, and hadfought by his side, and that the young brave I spoke of, would be likelyto do credit to Plumb-centre. Her husband, she said, would be glad toknow that it was in such good hands. So she handed it over to me. Shewould not hear of taking money for it; indeed, I did not press it,knowing that she would feel that it was almost a part of her husband;but I will make it up to her in other ways. There, Tom; there is as gooda shooting-iron as there is in all the territories."
"Thank you very much indeed, Pete. I shall value it immensely, and Ionly hope that some day I shall be able to do credit to it, as the poorwoman said."
There was nothing particular in the appearance of the rifle. It was aplainly-finished piece, with a small bore and heavy metal.
"It don't look much," Jerry said, "but it is a daisy, you bet."
"We will try a shot with it, Jerry. She gave me the bag of bullets and abox of patches and his powder-horn with it. We will see what it will doin our hands, we are both pretty good shots."
He loaded the rifle carefully.
"You see that bit of black rock cropping out of the hill-side. I guessit is about two hundred and fifty yards away, and is about the size ared-skin's head would be if he were crawling through the grass towardsus. Will you shoot first or shall I?"
"Fire away, Pete."
Hoskings took a steady aim and fired.
"You have hit it," Jerry exclaimed. "Just grazed it at the top."
They walked across to the rock; there was a chip just on the top.
"It was a good shot, Pete; especially considering how you are out ofpractice. If it had been a red-skin it would have stunned him sure, forI doubt whether it is not too high by a quarter of an inch or so, tohave finished him altogether."
JERRY GIVES TOM A LESSON IN SHOOTING.]
"It would have cut his top-knot off, Jerry, and that is all. I doubtwhether it would have even touched his skin."
They returned to the spot where Pete had fired, and Jerry threw himselfdown on the grass and levelled his rifle.
"That is not fair, Jerry," Pete protested.
"It would not be fair if I was shooting against you, but we are onlytrying the rifle, and if that rock were a red-skin you may be sure thatI should be lying down."
He fired: and on going to the stone again they found that the bullet hadstruck it fair, within an inch of its central point.
"That is something like a rifle," Jerry said delighted. "Now, Tom, youshall have a shot."
As they walked to the shooting-point, Jerry showed the lad how to holdthe rifle, instructed him as to the backsight, and showed him how to getthe foresight exactly on the nick of the backsight. "You must just seethe bead as if it were resting in the nick, and the object you aim atmust just show above the top point of the bead." He showed him how toload, and then told him to lie down, as he had done, on his chest, andto steady the rifle with the left arm, the elbow
being on the ground."You must be quite comfortable," he said; "it is of no use trying toshoot if you are in a cramped position. Now, take a steady aim, and themoment you have got the two sights in a line on the rock, press thetrigger steadily. Press pretty hard; it is only a pull of about twopounds, but it is wonderful how stiff a trigger feels the first time youpull at it. You need not be at all afraid of the kick. If you press thebutt tightly against your shoulder you will hardly feel it, for there isplenty of weight in the barr'l, and it carries but a small charge ofpowder. You won't want to shoot at anything much beyond this range, butsometimes you may have to try at four or five hundred yards when you arein want of a dinner. In that case you can put in a charge and a half ofpowder. Now, are you comfortable? You need not grip so hard with yourleft hand, the gun only wants to rest between your thumb and fingers.That is better. Now take a steady aim, and the moment you have got itpress the trigger. Well done! that is a good shot for a first. You hitthe dust an inch or two to the right of the stone. If it had been ared-skin you would have hit him in the shoulder. You will do, lad, andby the time we get to Fort Bridger I guess you will bring down a stag asclean as nine out of ten hunters."
"Don't get into the way of waiting too long before you fire, Tom," PeteHoskings said. "Better to try to shoot too quick to begin with than tobe too long about it. When you have made up your mind that you are goingto shoot, get your bead on your mark and fire at once. You may want tohit a red-skin's head as he looks out from behind a tree, and to do thatyou must fire the instant you see him or he will be in again. One of thebest shots I ever saw never used to raise his gun to his shoulder atall. He just dropped his piece into the hollow of his left hand, andwould fire as he touched it. He did not seem to take any aim at all, buthis bullet was sartin to hit the thing he wanted to, even if it were nobigger than an orange. He could not tell himself how he did it. 'I seenthe thing and I fired, Pete,' he would say; 'the gun seems to pointright of its own accord, I have not anything to say to it.' You see,shooting is a matter of eye. Some men may shoot all their lives, andthey will never be more than just respectable, while others shoot wellthe first time that a gun is put in their hands. Want of nerve is whatspoils half men's shooting; that and taking too long an aim. Well, it istime for us to be mounting and getting back. I have got to see that thedinner is all ready. I never can trust that black scoundrel, Sam, to dothings right while I am away."
The preparations for the journey were completed by the evening.
"Now mind, Tom," Pete Hoskings said the last thing before going to bed,"if you don't find your uncle, or if you hear that he has got wiped out,be sure you come right back here. Whether you are cut out for a hunteror not, it will do you a world of good to stick to the life until youget four or five years older and settle as to how you like to fixyourself, for there ain't no better training than a few years out on theplains, no matter what you do afterwards. I will find a good chum foryou, and see you through it, both for the sake of my old mate, StraightHarry, and because I have taken a liking to you myself."
"Why do you call my uncle Straight Harry?" Tom asked, after thankingPete for his promise. "Is he so very upright?"
"No, lad, no; it ain't nothing to do with that. There are plenty moreerect men than him about. He is about the size of Jerry, though, maybe abit taller. No; he got to be called Straight Harry because he was asquare man, a chap everyone could trust. If he said he would do a thinghe would do it; there weren't no occasion for any papers to bind him.When he said a thing you could bet on it. You could buy a mine on hisword: if he said it was good you need not bother to take a journey tolook at it, you knew it was right there, and weren't a put-up job. Oncewhen we were working down on the Yuba we got to a place where there werea fault in the rock, and the lode had slipped right away from us.Everyone in camp knew that we had been doing well, and we had only gotto pile up a few pieces of rock at the bottom, and no one who would haveseen it would have known that the lode was gone. That is what most chapswould have done, and a third chap who was working with us was all fordoing it. Anyone would have given us five hundred ounces for it. Well, Ididn't say nothing, it was what pretty nigh anyone on the mines wouldhave done if he had the chance, but Harry turned on our partner like amountain lion. 'You are a mean skunk, New Jersey' says he. 'Do you thinkthat I would be one to rob a man only because he would be fool enough totake a place without looking at it? We've worked to the edge of theclaim both ways, and I don't reckon there is a dollar's worth of goldleft in it, now that it has pettered out at the bottom, and if there wasI would not work another day with a man who proposed to get up aswindle.' So as soon as he got up to the surface he told everyone thatthe lode had gone out and that the claim weren't worth a red cent. Heand New Jersey had a big fight with fists that evening. The other wasbigger than Harry, and stronger, but he were no hand with his pistol,and Harry is a dead shot; so he told New Jersey he would fight himEnglish fashion, and Harry gave him the biggest licking I ever saw a manhave. I felt pretty mean myself, you bet, for having thought of plantingthe thing off; but as I hadn't spoken, Harry knew nothing about it. Ifhe had, I doubt if he would ever have given me his hand again. Yes, sir,he is a straight man all round, and there is no man better liked thanHarry. Why, there are a score of men in this town who know him as I do,and, if he came to them and said, 'I have struck it rich, I will gohalves with you if you will plank down twenty thousand dollars to openher up,' they would pay down the cash without another word; and, I tellyou, there ain't ten men west of the Missouri of whom as much could besaid."
The next morning at daybreak Jerry and Tom started. They rode due north,skirting the foot of the hills, till they reached the emigrant route,for the railway had not been carried farther than Wabash, from whichpoint it ran south to Denver. It was a journey of some five hundredmiles to Fort Bridger, and they took a month to accomplish it, sometimesfollowing the ordinary line of travel, sometimes branching off more tothe north, where game was still abundant.
"That is Fort Bridger, Tom. It ain't much of a place to look at; but is,like all these forts, just a strong palisading, with a clump of woodenhuts for the men in the middle. Well, the first stage of your journey isover, and you know a little more now than when you left Denver; butthough I have taught you a good bit, you will want another year'spractice with that shooting-iron afore you're a downright good shot; butyou have come on well, and the way you brought down that stag on a runyesterday was uncommon good. You have made the most of youropportunities, and have got a steady hand and a good eye. You are allright on your horse now, and can be trusted to keep your seat if youhave a pack of red-skins at your heels. You have learnt to make a camp,and to sleep comfortable on the ground; you can frizzle a bit ofdeer-flesh over the fire, and can bake bread as well as a good many. Sixmonths of it and you will be a good plain's-man. I wish we had had ashot at buffalo. They are getting scarcer than they were, and do notlike crossing the trail. We ain't likely to see many of them west of theColorado; the ground gets too hilly for them, and there are too many badlands."
"What are bad lands, Jerry?"
"They are just lands where Nature, when she made them, had got plenty ofrock left, but mighty little soil or grass seed. There are bad lands allover the country, but nowhere so bad as the tract on both sides of theGreen and Colorado rivers. You may ride fifty miles any way over barerock without seeing a blade of grass unless you get down into some ofthe valleys, and you may die of thirst with water under your feet."
"How do you mean, Jerry?"
"The rivers there don't act like the rivers in other parts. Instead ofworking round the foot of the hills they just go through them. You ridealong on what seems to be a plain, and you come suddenly to a crack thatain't perhaps twenty or thirty feet across, and you look down, if youhave got head enough to do it, and there, two thousand feet or morebelow you, you see a river foaming among rocks. It ain't one river or itain't another river as does it; every little stream from the hills cutsitself its canyon and makes its way along till it meets
two or threeothers, then they go on together, cutting deeper and deeper until theyrun into one of the arms of the Green River or the Colorado or theGrand.
"The Green and the Colorado are all the same river, only the upper partis called the Green. For about a thousand miles it runs through greatcanyons. No one has ever gone down them, and I don't suppose anyone everwill; and people don't know what is the course of the river from thetime it begins this game till it comes out a big river on the southernplains. You see, the lands are so bad there is no travelling acrossthem, and the rapids are so terrible that there is no going down them.Even the Indians never go near the canyons if they can help it. I believethey think the whole thing is the work of an evil spirit."
"But you said some of the valleys had grass?"
"Yes; I have gone down one or two myself from the mountains of Utah,where the stream, instead of cutting a canyon for itself, has behaved fora bit in the ordinary way and made a valley. Wonderfully good placesthey were--plenty of grass, plenty of water, and no end of game. I havespent some months among them, and got a wonderful lot of skins, beaversprincipally of course, but half a dozen mountain lions and twogrizzlies. I did not bring home their skins, you bet. They were tooheavy, and I should not have troubled them if they had not troubled me.There was good fish, too, in the streams, and I never had a better time.The red-skins happened to be friendly, and I was with a hunter who had ared-skin wife and a dozen ponies. If it hadn't been for that I shouldsoon have had to quit, for it ain't no good hunting if you can't carryaway the skins. As it was I made a good job of it, for I got nigh athousand dollars for my skins at Utah.
"Well, here we are at the fort. I guess we may as well make our campoutside. If you go in you have got to picket your horse here and putyour baggage there and come in at gun-fire, and all sorts of things thattroubles a man who is accustomed to act as he likes."
The horses were soon picketed. "I will go in first and see who is here,Tom. There are usually a lot of loafing Indians about these forts, andthough it is safe enough to leave our traps, out on the plain, it willnot do here. We must stay with them, or at any rate keep them in sight;besides, these two horses would be a temptation to any redskin whohappened to want an animal."
"I will wait willingly, Jerry; I should know nobody inside the fort if Iwent in. I will see to making a fire and boiling the kettle, and I willhave supper ready at seven o'clock."
"I shall be sure to be back by that time; like enough I sha'n't be aquarter of an hour away."
It was but half an hour, indeed, before Tom saw him returning,accompanied by a tall red-skin.
"This is a friend of mine, Tom. He was a chief of the Senecas, but histribe are nearly wiped out, and he has been all his life a hunter, andthere are few of us who have been much out on the plains who don't knowhim. Chief, this is Straight Harry's nephew I was telling you of, whohas come out here to join his uncle. Sit down, we have got somedeer-flesh. Tom here knocked one over on the run at two hundred andfifty yards by as good a shot as you want to see; while it is cooking wecan smoke a pipe and have a chat."
The chief gravely seated himself by the fire.
"What have you been doing since I last saw you up near the Yellowstone?"
"Leaping Horse has been hunting," the Indian said quietly, with a waveof his hand, denoting that he had been over a wide expanse of country.
"I guessed so," Jerry put in.
"And fighting with 'Rappahoes and Navahoes."
"Then you've been north and south?"
The Indian nodded. "Much trouble with both; they wanted our scalps. Butfour of the 'Rappahoe lodges are without a master, and there are fiveNavahoe widows."
"Then you were not alone?"
"Garrison was with me among the 'Rappahoes; and the Shoshone hunter,Wind-that-blows, was with me when the Navahoes came on our trail."
"They had better have left you alone, chief. Do you know the Utecountry?"
"The Leaping Horse has been there. The Utes are dogs."
"They are troublesome varmint, like most of the others," Jerry agreed."I was telling you Straight Harry is up in their country somewhere. Tomhere is anxious to join him, but of course that can't be. You have notheard anything of him, I suppose?"
"The Leaping Horse was with him a week ago."
"You were, chief! Why did you not tell me so when I was saying we didnot know where he was?"
"My white brother did not ask," the chief said quietly.
"That is true enough, chief, but you might have told me without asking."
The Indian made no reply, but continued to smoke his hatchet pipetranquilly, as if the remark betrayed such ignorance of Indian mannersthat it was not worth replying to.
Tom took up the conversation now.
"Was it far from here that you saw him?"
"Five days' journey, if travel quick."
"Was he hunting?" Jerry asked.
"Hunting, and looking for gold."
"Who had he with him?"
"Two white men. One was Ben Gulston. Leaping Horse had met him in Idaho.The other was called Sam, a big man with a red beard."
"Yes, Sam Hicks; he only came back from California a few months back, soyou would not be likely to have met him before. Were they going toremain where you left them?"
The Indian shook his head. "They were going farther north."
"Farther north!" Jerry repeated. "Don't you mean farther south?"
"Leaping Horse is not mistaken, he knows his right hand from his left."
"Of course, of course, chief," the miner said apologetically; "I onlythought that it was a slip of the tongue. Then if they were goingfarther north they must have come back in this direction."
"They were on the banks of the Big Wind River when Leaping Horse metthem."
"Jerusalem!" the miner exclaimed. "What on airth are they doing there?Why, we thought they had gone down to the west of the Colorado. I toldyou so, chief, when I talked to you about it; and instead of that, herethey are up in the country of the 'Rappahoes and Shoshones."
"They went south," the Indian said quietly, "and had trouble with theUtes and had to come back again, then they went north."
"Ah, that accounts for it. I wonder Harry didn't send word to PeteHoskings that he had gone up to the Big Wind River. I ain't heard ofthere being any gold in that region, though some think that coming downthrough the big hills from Yellowstone Valley on the northwest, metalmight be struck."
"Going to look for gold a little," the chief said, "hunt much; not staythere very long, mean to go down south again after a bit. Leaping Horsego with them."
"Oh, I see. The Utes had come upon them, and they knew that if theystopped there they would lose their scalps sooner or later, so they cameup here and made north for a bit to hunt and fossick about in the hills,and then go back when the Utes had quieted down."
The chief nodded.
"Well, well, that alters the affair altogether. Whereabouts did youleave them?"
"Near the Buffalo Lake."
"Don't know it. Where does it lie?"
"On a stream that runs into the river from the west, from a valleyrunning up near Fremont's Buttes. They were going up so as to follow theRiviere de Noir, and then either strike up across the hills to the UpperYellowstone, or go out west and come down over the Grosventre range onto the Wyoming range, and then down through Thompson's Pass, or elseskirt the foot-hills on to the Green River."
"Waal, chief, I reckon that among all those hills and mountains, onewould have just about the same chance of lighting on them as you wouldhave of finding a chipmunk in a big pine-forest."
"Couldn't find," the chief said, "but might follow. If they go fastnever catch them; if wait about, hunt beaver, look for gold and silver,then might come up to them easy enough, if 'Rappahoes not catch andkill. Very bad place. Leaping Horse told them so. White brother said hethink so too; but other men think they find gold somewhere, so they goon. They have got horses, of course. Three horses to ride, three horsesto carry beaver-traps
and food. Leaping Horse came back here to sell hisskins. He had promised to meet a friend here, or he would not have leftStraight Harry, who is a good man and a friend of Leaping Horse. Threemen not enough in bad country."
"Do you think there would be any chance of my finding them?" Tom askedeagerly.
A slight gleam of amusement passed over the Indian's face.
"My brother is very young," he said. "He will be a brave warrior and agreat hunter some day, but his eyes are not opened yet. Were he to tryhe would leave his scalp to dry in the 'Rappahoes' lodges."
"That is just what I told him, chief. It would be sheer madness."
The Indian made no reply, and Jerry turned the conversation.
"You don't drink spirits, chief, or I would go and get a bottle from thefort."
"Leaping Horse is not a madman," the Indian said scornfully, "that heshould poison his brain with fire-water."
"Yes; I remembered, chief, that you had fallen into our ways and drinktea."
"Tea is good," the Indian said. "It is the best thing the white man hasbrought out on to the plains."
"That is so, chief, except tobacco. We did not bring that; but I reckonyou got it from the Spaniards long ago, though maybe you knew of itbefore they came up from the south."
The meat was now cooked, and Tom took it off the fire and handed thepieces on the ramrod, that had served as a spit, to the others, togetherwith some bread, poured out the tea from the kettle, and placed a bag ofsugar before them. There was little talk until after the meal was over.Then the Indian and Jerry smoked steadily, while Tom took a single pipe,having only commenced the use of tobacco since he had left Denver.Presently the Indian arose.
"In the morning I will see my white friends again," he said, and withoutfurther adieu turned and walked gravely back to the fort.