Part 33 (1/2)
Two or three of the robbers advanced, but Drake quietly held up his hand, and they stopped.
”I'm in your power, you see,” he said, laying his rifle on the ground.
”Yes,” he continued, drawing his tall figure up to its full height and crossing his arms on his breast, ”my name is Drake. As to Mahoghany, I've no objection to it though it ain't complimentary. If, as you say, Mister Stalker, I'm to swing for this, of course I must swing. Yet it do seem raither hard that a man should swing for savin' his friend's life an' his enemy's at the same time.”
”How--what do you mean?”
”I mean that Mister Brixton is my friend,” answered the trapper, ”and I've saved his life just now, for which I thank the Lord. At the same time, Stalker is my enemy--leastwise I fear he's no friend--an' didn't I save _his_ life too when I put a ball in his arm, that I could have as easily put into his head or his heart?”
”Well,” responded Stalker, with a fiendish grin, that the increasing pain of his wound did not improve, ”at all events you have not saved your own life, Drake. As I said, you shall swing for it. But I'll give you one chance. If you choose to help me I will spare your life. Can you tell me where Paul Bevan and his daughter are?”
”They are with Unaco and his tribe.”
”I could have guessed as much as that. I ask you _where_ they are!”
”On the other side of yonder mountain range, where the chief's village lies.”
Somewhat surprised at the trapper's readiness to give the information required, and rendered a little suspicious, Stalker asked if he was ready and willing to guide him to the Indian village.
”Surely. If that's the price I'm to pay for my life, it can be easily paid,” replied the trapper.
”Ay, but you shall march with your arms bound until we are there, and the fight wi' the redskins is over,” said the robber-chief, ”and if I find treachery in your acts or looks I'll blow your brains out on the spot. My left hand, you shall find, can work as well as the right wi'
the revolver.”
”A beggar, they say, must not be a chooser,” returned the trapper. ”I accept your terms.”
”Good. Here, Goff,” said Stalker, turning to his lieutenant, ”bind his hands behind him after he's had some supper, and then come an' fix up this arm o' mine. I think the bone has escaped.”
”Hadn't we better start off at once,” suggested Drake, ”an' catch the redskins when they're asleep?”
”Is it far off?” asked Stalker.
”A goodish bit. But the night is young. We might git pretty near by midnight, and then encamp so as to git an hour's sleep before makin' the attack. You see, redskins sleep soundest just before daybreak.”
While he was speaking the trapper coughed a good deal, and sneezed once or twice, as if he had a bad cold.
”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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sing 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 gra.s.s to grow under their feet? The former went over the hills at a pace and in a manner that fully justified his t.i.tle; and the latter followed with as much vigour and resolution, if not as much agility, as his friend.
In a wonderfully short s.p.a.ce 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 c.u.mbrous 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 pa.s.sing swiftly up the mountain-side. Then, as distance united the individuals, as it were, to each other, it a.s.sumed 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.