Part 8 (1/2)

There were Blackfeet, to be sure, in that region; and Blackfeet hated Vanderburgh with deadly venom because he had once defeated them and slain a great warrior. Also, the Blackfeet were smarting from the fearful losses of Pierre's Hole.

But if the Rocky Mountain men could go unscathed among the Blackfeet, why, so could the American Fur Company!

And Vanderburgh and Drips went!

Rival traders might not commit murder. That led to the fearful ruin of the lawsuits that overtook Nor' Westers and Hudson's Bay in Canada only fifteen years before.

But the mountaineers knew that the Blackfeet hated Henry Vanderburgh!

Corduroyed muskeg where the mountaineers' long file of pack-horses had pa.s.sed, fresh-chopped logs to make a way through blockades of fallen pine, the green moss that hangs festooned among the spruce at cloudline broken and swinging free as if a rider had pa.s.sed that way, grazed bark where the pack-saddle had brushed a tree-trunk, muddy hoof-marks where the young packers had balked at fording an icy stream, scratchings on rotten logs where a mountaineer's pegged boot had stepped--all these told which way Fitzpatrick and Bridger had led their brigade.

Oh, it was an easy matter to scent so hot a trail! Here the ashes of a camp-fire! There a pile of rock placed a deal too carefully for nature's work--the cached furs of the fleeing rivals! Besides, what with canon and whirlpool, there are so very few ways by which a cavalcade can pa.s.s through mountains that the simplest novice could have trailed Fitzpatrick and Bridger.

Doubtless between the middle of August when Vanderburgh and Drips set out on the chase and the middle of September when they ran down the fugitives the American Fur Company leaders had many a laugh at their own cleverness.

They succeeded in overtaking the mountaineers in the valley of the Jefferson, splendid hunting-grounds with game enough for two lines of traps, which Vanderburgh and Drips at once set out. No swift flight by forced marches this time! The mountaineers sat still for almost a week.

Then they casually moved down the Jefferson towards the main Missouri.

The hunting-ground was still good. Weren't the mountaineers leaving a trifle too soon? Should the Americans follow or stay? Vanderburgh remained, moving over into the adjacent valley and spreading his traps along the Madison. Drips followed the mountaineers.

Two weeks' chase over utterly gameless ground probably suggested to Drips that even an animal will lead off on a false scent to draw the enemy away from the true trail. At the Missouri he turned back up the Jefferson.

Wheeling right about, the mountaineers at once turned back too, up the farthest valley, the Gallatin, then on the way to the first hunting-ground westward over a divide to the Madison, where--ill luck!--they again met their ubiquitous rival, Vanderburgh!

How Vanderburgh laughed at these antics one may guess!

Post-haste up the Madison went the mountaineers!

Should Vanderburgh stay or follow? Certainly the enemy had been bound back for the good hunting-grounds when they had turned to retrace their way up the Madison. If they meant to try the Jefferson, Vanderburgh would forestall the move. He crossed over to the valley where he had first found them.

Sure enough there were camp-fires on the old hunting-grounds, a dead buffalo, from which the hunters had just fled to avoid Vanderburgh! If Vanderburgh laughed, his laugh was short; for there were signs that the buffalo had been slain by an Indian.

The trappers refused to hunt where there were Blackfeet about.

Vanderburgh refused to believe there was any danger of Blackfeet.

Calling for volunteers, he rode forward with six men.

First they found a fire. The marauders must be very near. Then a dead buffalo was seen, then fresh tracks, unmistakably the tracks of Indians.

But buffalo were pasturing all around undisturbed. There could not be many Indians.

Determined to quiet the fears of his men, Vanderburgh pushed on, entered a heavily wooded gulch, paused at the steep bank of a dried torrent, descried nothing, and jumped his horse across the bank, followed by the six volunteers.

Instantly the valley rang with rifle-shots. A hundred hostiles sprang from ambush. Vanderburgh's horse went down. Three others cleared the ditch at a bound and fled; but Vanderburgh was to his feet, aiming his gun, and coolly calling out: ”Don't run! Don't run!” Two men sent their horses back over the ditch to his call, a third was thrown to be slain on the spot, and Vanderburgh's first shot had killed the nearest Indian, when another volley from the Blackfeet exacted deadly vengeance for the warrior Vanderburgh had slain years before.

Panic-stricken riders carried the news to the waiting brigade. Refuge was taken in the woods, where sentinels kept guard all night. The next morning, with scouts to the fore, the brigade retreated cautiously towards some of their caches. A second night was pa.s.sed behind barriers of logs; and the third day a band of friendly Indians was encountered, who were sent to bury the dead.

The Frenchman they buried. Vanderburgh had been torn to pieces and his bones thrown into the river.