Читать книгу: «In the Heart of the Rockies: A Story of Adventure in Colorado», страница 10

"As far as I could make out there was only one horseman with them, and I reckoned the other was gone on ahead; looking for a camping-ground maybe, or going on to one of the Mormon farms to tell them to get things ready there. What I reckoned on doing, so far as I reckoned at all, was to scout up to them as soon as it got dark and listen to their talk, and try to find out for certain whether the women war goin' willing. Then I thought as I would walk straight up to their fires and just bluff those four men as they tried to bluff me. Waal, they went on until late in the afternoon, unhitched the cattle, and camped. I waited for a bit, and now that I war cooled down and could look at the thing reasonable, I allowed to myself that I had showed up as a blamed fool, and I had pretty well made up my mind to take back tracks and go down the valley, when I heard the sound of some horses coming down fast from the camp.

"Then the thought that I was a 'tarnal fool came to me pretty strong, you bet. One of those fellows had ridden on and brought down some of the Regulators, as we used to call them in the mining camps, but I believe the Mormons call them Destroying Angels, though there is mighty little of angels about them. I hoped now that they had not caught sight of me during the day, and that the band were going right down to the waggon camp; but as I had not taken any particular pains to hide myself, I reckoned they must have made me out. It war pretty nigh dark, and as I took cover behind a bush I could scarce see them as they rode along. They went down about two hundred yards and then stopped, and I could hear some of them dismount.

"'You are sure we are far enough?' one said.

"'Yes; I can swear he was higher up than this when we saw him just before we camped.'

"'If you two fellows hadn't been the worst kind of curs,' a man said angrily, 'you would have hidden up as soon as you made out he was following you and shot him as he came along.'

"'I told you,' another voice said, 'that the man is an Indian fighter, and a dead shot. Suppose we had missed him.'

"'You could not have missed him if you had waited till he was close to you before you fired; then you might have chucked him in among the bushes and there would have been an end of it, and we should have been saved a twenty-mile ride. Now then, look sharp for him and search every bush. Between us and Johnson's party above we are sure to catch him.'

"I didn't see that, though I did wish the rocks behind had not been so 'tarnal steep. I could have made my way up in the daylight, though even then it would have been a tough job, but without light enough to see the lay of the ledges and the best places for getting from one to another, it was a business I didn't care about. I was just thinking of making across to the other side of the valley when some horsemen came galloping back.

"'You stop here, brother Ephraim, and keep your ears well open, as well as your eyes. You stop fifty yards higher up, Hiram, and the others at the same distance apart. When the men among the rocks come abreast of you, Ephraim, ride on and take your place at the other end of the line. You do the same, Hiram, and so all in turn; I will ride up and down.'

"It was clear they meant business, and I was doubting whether I would take my chance of hiding or make for the cliff, when I saw a light coming dancing down from the camp, and knew it was a chap on horseback with a torch. As he came up the man who had spoken before said: 'How many torches have you got, brother Williams?'

"'A dozen of them.'

"'Give me six, and take the other six down to the men below. That is right, I will light one from yours.'

"You may guess that settled me. I had got to git at once, so I began to crawl off towards the foot of the cliffs. By the time I had got there, there war six torches burning a hundred yards below, and the men who carried them were searching every bush and prying under every rock. Along the middle of the valley six other torches were burning fifty yards apart. There was one advantage, the torches were pitch-pine and gave a fairish light, but not so much as tarred rope would have done; but it was enough for me to be able to make out the face of the cliff, and I saw a break by which I could get up for a good bit anyhow. It was where a torrent came down when the snows were melting, and as soon as I had got to the bottom I made straight up. There were rocks piled at its foot, and I got to the top of these without being seen.

"I hadn't got a dozen feet higher when my foot set a boulder rolling, and down it went with a crash. There were shouts below, but I did not stop to listen to what they said, but put up the bed of the torrent at a two-forty gait. A shot rang out, and another and another, but I was getting now above the light of their torches. A hundred feet higher I came to a stand-still, for the rock rose right up in front of me, and the water had here come down from above in a fall. This made it a tight place, you bet. There war no ledge as I could see that I could get along, and I should have to go down a good bit afore I got to one. They kept on firing from below, but I felt pretty sure that they could not see me, for I could hear the bullets striking high against the face of the rock that had stopped me.

"You may bet I was careful how I went down again, and I took my time, for I could see that the men with the torches had halted at the foot of the heap of rocks below, not caring much, I expect, to begin to mount, while the horsemen kept on firing, hoping to hear my body come rolling down; besides, they must have known that with their torches they made a pretty sure mark for me. At last I got down to the ledge. It war a narrow one, and for a few yards I had to walk with my face to the rock and my arms spread out, and that, when I knew that at any moment they might make me out, and their bullets come singing up, warn't by no means pleasant. In a few yards the ledge got wider and there was room enough on it for me to lie down. I crawled along for a good bit, and then sat down with my back against the rock and reckoned the matter up. All the torches war gathered round where I had gone up. Four more men had come down from the camp on horseback, and five or six on foot with torches were running down the valley. They had been searching for me among the bushes higher up, and when they heard the firing had started down to jine the others. The leader was shouting to the men to climb up after me, but the men didn't seem to see it.

"'What's the use?' I heard one fellow say; 'he must be chock-full of bullets long ago. We will go up and find his carcass in the morning.'

"'But suppose he is not dead, you fool.'

"'Well, if he ain't dead he would just pick us off one after another as we went up with torches.'

"'Well, put your torches out, then. Here, I will go first if you are afraid,' and he jumped from his horse.

"You can bet your boots that my fingers itched to put a bullet into him. But it warn't to be done; I did not know how far the ledge went or whether there might be any way of getting off it, and now I had once got out of their sight it would have been chucking away my life to let them know whar I lay. So I got up again and walked on a bit farther. I came on a place where the rock had crumbled enough for me to be able to get up on to the next ledge, and after a lot of climbing up and down I got to the top in about two hours, and then struck across the hills and came down at eight o'clock next morning on to the caravan track. I hid up till evening in case they should come down after me, and next morning I came up to the caravan just as they were hitching the teams up for a start."

"You got out of that better than you deserved," Harry said. "I wouldn't have believed that any man would have played such a fool's trick as to go meddling with the Mormons in their own country without any kind of reason. It war worse than childishness."

The other two miners assented vigorously, and Sam said: "Waal, you can't think more meanly of me over that business than I do of myself. I have never been able to make out why I did it, and you may bet it ain't often I tells the story. It war a dog-goned piece of foolishness, and, as Harry says, I didn't desarve to get out of it as I did. Still, it ain't made me feel any kind of love for Mormons. When about two hundred shots have been fired at a man it makes him feel kinder like as if he war going to pay some of them back when he gets the chance, and you may bet I mean to."

"Jee-rusalem!"

The exclamation was elicited by the fall of a heavy mass of snow on to the fire, over which the kettle had just begun to boil. The tripod from which it hung was knocked over. A cloud of steam filled the place, and the party all sprung to their feet to avoid being scalded.

"It might have waited a few minutes longer," Jerry grumbled, "then we should have had our tea comfortable. Now the fire is out and the water is spilt, and we have got to fetch in some more snow; that is the last lot there was melted."

"It is all in the day's work, Jerry," Harry said cheerfully, "and it is just as well we should have something to do. I will fetch the snow in if the rest of you will clear the hearth again. It is a nuisance about the snow, but we agreed that there is no help for it, and we may thank our stars it is no worse."

It was not long before the fire was blazing again, but it took some time before water was boiling and tea made, still longer before the bread which had been soddened by the water from the kettle was fit to eat. By this time it was dark. When the meal was over they all turned in for the night. Tom was just going off to sleep, when he was roused by Leaping Dog suddenly throwing off his buffalo robe and springing to his feet with his rifle in his hand.

"Hist!" he said in a low tone. "Something comes!"

The men all seized their rifles and listened intently. Presently they heard a soft step on the snow outside, then there was a snuffing sound.

"B'ar!" the Indian said.

A moment later a great head reared itself over the bushes at the entrance. Five rifles rang out, the two Indians reserving their fire; the report was followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall outside.

"Wait a moment," Harry said sharply, as the others were preparing to rush out, "let us make sure he is dead."

"He is dead enough," Jerry said. "I reckon even a grizzly cannot walk off with five bullets in his head."

Harry looked over the screen. "Yes, he is dead enough; anyhow he looks so. Waal, this is a piece of luck." They all stepped out on to the platform.

"Is it a grizzly, uncle?" Tom asked excitedly.

"He is a grizzly, sure enough. You don't want to see his colour to know that. Look at his size."

"Why, he is as big as a cow."

"Ay, lad, and a big cow too. You go in and make up the fire while we cut off enough meat for supper."

The fact that they had eaten a meal but half an hour before, went for nothing; slices of bear-meat were soon frizzling, and as hearty a meal was eaten as if no food had been tasted since the previous day. The men were in the highest spirits; the fact that they were out of meat had been the greatest drawback to the prospect of being shut up for perhaps a week, for badly-baked bread is but a poor diet to men accustomed to live almost exclusively upon meat.

"What brought the bear down here?" Tom asked.

"Curiosity at first perhaps, and then hunger," his uncle replied. "I expect he was going along on the path above when he saw the light among the leaves, and then no doubt he smelt the bread, and perhaps us and the horses, and came down to see what he could get.

"Curiosity is a bad fault, Tom. You have had two lessons in that this evening. Bear in mind that in this part of the world the safest plan is always to attend strictly to your own business."

All thought of sleep was for the present dissipated; their pipes were again lighted, and it was midnight before they lay down. In the morning the bear was with some difficulty skinned and cut up, the joints being left outside to freeze through. The snow still fell steadily, but the wind had almost died down. Sallying out they cut five or six long poles, and with some difficulty fixed these from above across from the cliff to the outstanding rock, pushed the bear's-skin across them, and lashed it there, its bulk being sufficient to cover the space above the fire and a considerable portion of their dwelling room.

After breakfast snow was again melted for the horses, and the work for the day thus done they seated themselves contentedly round the fire.

CHAPTER X
AN AVALANCHE

"You don't think, chief," Harry asked, "that there is any chance of the

'Rappahoes taking it into their heads to come up to have a look round?"

"Indians keep in lodges, no like cold; they think we have gone on over pass. If weather gets fine perhaps they come to look for our guns and packs. They think sure we die in snow-storm when we up in pass. When snow stops falling, we make no more fire; but path from valley all shut up by snow now."

"Yes, I don't think anyone would try to climb it till the sun has cleared the track; it was a pretty bad place when we came up," Harry said. "I don't say that men on foot could not make their way up; but as you say, the red-skins are not likely to try it until the weather has cleared a bit, though I don't say that they wouldn't if they knew we were camped here close to the top."

"What noise is that?" Tom asked. "I have heard it several times before, but not so loud as that."

"Snow-slide," Leaping Horse said. "Snow come down from mountains; break off trees, roll rocks down. Bad place all along here."

"Yes. I saw that you looked up at the hills behind there before you looked over the edge here, chief," Ben Gulston said, "and I reckoned that you had snow-slides in your mind. I thought myself that it was like enough the snow might come tumbling over the edge of that high wall and then come scooting down over where we war, and there would have been no sort of show for us if we had been camped whar the trail goes along."

"Leaping Horse has heard from his red brothers with whom he has spoken that trail from top of valley very bad when snow falls. Many Indians stopping too long at fort, to trade goods, have been swept away by snow-slides when caught in storm here."

"I thought it looked a bad place," Harry remarked. "There ain't no fooling with a snow-slide anyway. I have come across bones once or twice lying scattered about in snug-looking valleys—bones of horses and men, and it was easy to see they had been killed by a snow-slide coming down on them. Rocks were heaped about among them, some of the bones were smashed. They had been hunting or trapping, and sheltered up in a valley when the storm came on and the slide had fallen on them, and there they had laid till the sun melted the snow in summer, when the coyotes and the vultures would soon clean the bones." He broke off suddenly; there was a dull sound, and at the same moment a distinct vibration of the ground, then a rustling murmur mingled with a rumbling as of a waggon passing over a rocky ground.

"There is another one," Jerry exclaimed, "and it is somewhere just above us. Keep your backs to the wall, boys."

Louder and louder grew the sound; the tremor of the earth increased, the horses neighed with fright, the men stood with their backs against the rock next to the hill. Suddenly the light was darkened as a vast mass of snow mingled with rocks of all sizes leapt like a torrent over the edge of the cliff, the impetus carrying it over the outer wall of their shelter and down into the ravine. There was a mighty sound of the crashing of trees, mingled with a thumping and rolling of the rocks as they clashed against the side of the ravine and went leaping down into the valley. The ground shook with a continuous tremor, and then the light returned as suddenly as it had been cut off, and a few seconds later a dead stillness succeeded the deafening roar from below. The passage of the avalanche overhead had lasted but a minute, though to the men standing below it the time had seemed vastly longer. Instinctively they had pressed themselves against the rock, almost holding their breath, and expecting momentarily that one of the boulders in its passage would strike the top of the outside wall and fall in fragments among them. The silence that followed was unbroken for some seconds, and then Sam Hicks stepped a pace forward.

"Jee-rusalem!" he said, "that was a close call. I don't know how you felt, boys, but it seemed as if all the sand had gone out of me, and I weakened so that my knees have not done shaking yet."

The men, accustomed as they were to danger, were all equally affected. Tom felt relieved to see that the others all looked pale and shaken, for he was conscious that he had been in a terrible fright, and that his legs would scarcely support his weight.

"I am glad to hear you say so, Sam, for I was in an awful funk; but I should not have said so if you hadn't spoken."

"You needn't be ashamed of that, Tom," his uncle put in. "You showed plenty of pluck when we were in trouble with the red-skins, but I am sure there was not one of us that did not weaken when that snow-slide shot over us; and none of us need be ashamed to say so. A man with good grit will brace up, keep his head cool and his fingers steady on the trigger to the last, though he knows that he has come to the end of his journey and has got to go down; but it is when there is nothing to do, no fight to be made, when you are as helpless as a child and have no sort of show, that the grit runs out of your boots. I have fought red-skins and Mexicans a score of times; I have been in a dozen shooting scrapes in saloons at the diggings; but I don't know that I ever felt so scared as I did just now. Ben, there is a jar of whisky in our outfit; we agreed we would not touch it unless one of us got hurt or ill, but I think a drop of medicine all round now wouldn't be out of place."

There was a general assent. "But before we take it," he went on, "we will take off our hats and say 'Thank God' for having taken us safe through this thing. If He had put this shelter here for us express, He could not have planted it better for us, and the least we can do is to thank Him for having pulled us through it safe."

The men all took off their hats, and stood silent for a minute or two with bent heads. When they had replaced their hats Ben Gulston went to the corner where the pack-saddles and packs were piled, took out a small keg, and poured out some whisky for each of the white men. The others drank it straight; Tom mixed some water with his, and felt a good deal better after drinking it. Ben did not offer it to the Indians, neither of whom would touch spirits on any occasion.

"It is a good friend and a bad enemy," Harry said as he tossed off his portion. "As a rule there ain't no doubt that one is better without it; but there is no better medicine to carry about with you. I have seen many a life saved by a bottle of whisky. Taken after the bite of a rattlesnake, it is as good a thing as there is. In case of fever, and when a man is just tired out after a twenty-four hours' tramp, a drop of it will put new life into him for a bit. But I don't say as it hasn't killed a sight more than it has cured. It is at the bottom of pretty nigh every shooting scrape in the camps, and has been the ruin of hundreds of good men who would have done well if they could but have kept from it."

"But you ain't a temperance man yourself, Harry?"

"No, Sam; but then, thank God, I am master of the liquor, and not the liquor of me. I can take a glass, or perhaps two, without wanting more. Though I have made a fool of myself in many ways since I have come out here, no man can say he ever saw me drunk; if liquor were to get the better of me once, I would swear off for the rest of my life. Don't you ever take to it, Tom; that is, not to get so as to like to go on drinking it. In our life we often have to go for months without it, and a man has got to be very careful when he goes down to the settlements, else it would be sure to get over him."

"I don't care for it at all, uncle."

"See you don't get to care for it, Tom. There are plenty start as you do, and before they have been out here long they do get to like it, and from that day they are never any good. It is a big temptation. A man has been hunting or trapping, or fossicking for gold in the hills for months, and he comes down to a fort or town and he meets a lot of mates. One says 'Have a drink?' and another asks you, and it is mighty hard to be always saying 'no'; and there ain't much to do in these places but to drink or to gamble. A man here ain't so much to be blamed as folks who live in comfortable houses, and have got wives and families and decent places of amusement, and books and all that sort of thing, if they take to drink or gambling. I have not any right to preach, for if I don't drink I do gamble; that is, I have done; though I swore off that when I got the letter telling me that your father had gone. Then I thought what a fool I had made of myself for years. Why, if I had kept all the gold I had dug I could go home now and live comfortably for the rest of my life, and have a home for my nieces, as I ought to have. However, I have done with it now. And I am mighty glad it was the cards and not drink that took my dust, for it is a great deal easier to give up cards than it is to give up liquor when you have once taken to it. Now let us talk of something else; I vote we take a turn up on to the trail, and see what the snow-slide has done."

Throwing the buffalo robes round their shoulders the party went outside. The air was too thick with snow to enable them to perceive from the platform the destruction it had wrought in the valley below, but upon ascending the path to the level above, the track of the avalanche was plainly marked indeed. For the width of a hundred yards, the white mantle of snow, that covered the slope up to the point where the wall of cliff rose abruptly, had been cleared away as if with a mighty broom. Every rock and boulder lying upon it had been swept off, and the surface of the bare rock lay flat, and unbroken by even a tuft of grass. They walked along the edge until they looked down upon their shelter. The bear's hide was still in its place, sloping like a pent-house roof, from its upper side two or three inches below the edge of the rock, to the other wall three feet lower. It was, however, stripped of its hair, as cleanly as if it had been shorn off with a razor, by the friction of the snow that had shot down along it.

"That is the blamedest odd thing I ever saw," Sam Hicks said. "I wonder the weight of the snow didn't break it in."

"I expect it just shot over it, Sam," Harry said. "It must have been travelling so mighty fast that the whole mass jumped across, only just rubbing the skin. Of course the boulders and stones must have gone clean over. That shows what a narrow escape we have had; for if that outer rock had been a foot or so higher, the skin would have caved in, and our place would have been filled chock up with snow in a moment. Waal, we may as well turn in again, for I feel cold to the bones already."

On the evening of the fifth day the snow ceased falling, and next morning the sky was clear and bright. Preparations were at once made for a start. A batch of bread had been baked on the previous evening. Some buckets of hot gruel were given to the horses, a meal was hastily eaten, the horses saddled and the packs arranged, and before the sun had been up half an hour they were on their way. The usual stillness of the mountains was broken by a variety of sounds. From the valley at their feet came up sharp reports, as a limb of a tree, or sometimes the tree itself, broke beneath the weight of the snow. A dull rumbling sound, echoing from hill to hill, told of the falls of avalanches. Scarcely had the echoes of one ceased, than they began again in a fresh quarter. The journey was toilsome in the extreme, for the horses' hoofs sank deep in the freshly-fallen snow, rendering their progress exceedingly slow.

"If we had been sure that this weather would hold, chief, it would have been better to have waited a few days before making our start, for by that time the snow would have been hard enough to travel on."

The chief shook his head. "Winter coming for good," he said, waving his hand towards the range of snowy summits to the north. "Clouds there still; if stop, not able to cross pass till next summer."

"That is so; we agreed as to that yesterday, and that if we don't get over now the chances are we shall never get over at all. Yet, it is a pity we can't wait a few days for a crust to form on the snow."

Twice in the course of the next hour avalanches came down from the hills above them; the first sweeping down into the valley a quarter of a mile behind them, the next but two or three hundred yards ahead of them. Scarcely a word was spoken from end to end of the line. They travelled in Indian file, and each horse stepped in the footprints of its predecessor. Every few hundred yards they changed places, for the labour of the first horse was very much heavier than of those following. At the end of an hour the men drew together for a consultation. There was a wide break in the line of cliffs, and a valley ran nearly due south.

"What do you think, chief? This confounded snow has covered up all signs of the trail, and we have got to find our own way. There is no doubt this valley below is running a deal too much to the west, and that the trail must strike off somewhere south. It looks to me as if that were a likely valley through the cliff. There is no hiding the fact that if we take the wrong turn we are all gone coons."

"Leaping Horse knows no more than his brother," the chief said gravely. "He knows the pass is on the western side of the great peak. The great peak lies there," and he pointed a little to the west of the break in the hills up which they were looking.

"It may be that we must cross the hills into another valley, or perhaps this will turn west presently."

"I tell you what, Harry," Sam Hicks said, "my opinion is, that our best plan by a long chalk will be to go back to our last place and to stop there for a bit. We have got b'ar's flesh enough for another fortnight, and we may kill some more game afore that is done. Ef this is but a spell of snow it may melt enough in another ten days for us to make out the trail and follow it. Ef, as the chief thinks, we have got winter right down on us, we must wait till the snow crust hardens ef it is a month or double. Anything is better than going on like this. What with this soft snow and these 'tarnal snow-slides, there ain't no more chance of our getting over that pass in one day's journey, than there air in our flying right down to Salt Lake City. Ef the worst comes to the worst, I tell yer I would rather go back and take our chance of following the Big Wind River down, and fighting the red-skins, than I would of crossing over these dog-goned hills."

The other three men were of the same opinion.

"Well, what do you say, chief?" Harry asked the Indian.

"Leaping Horse thinks that the trail will not be found until next summer," the chief replied quietly. "Heap of hills in front and heap of snow. If snow-storm catch us in the hills no find way anywhere. Leaping Horse is ready to do whatever his white brother thinks."

"Well, I am with the others," Harry said. "I don't like the look of those clouds. They are quiet enough now, but they may begin to shift any time, and, as you say, if we are caught in a snow-storm on the hills there is an end of us. I think Sam is right. Even if we have to rustle all through the winter in that hut there, I would rather face it than keep on."

That settled it. The horses' heads were turned, and they retraced their steps until they reached the shelter. The bear's-skin had been left where it was, the fire was soon set going, and there was a general feeling of satisfaction as they laid out the robes and blankets again.

"Look here, boys," Harry said, "this is not going to be a holiday time, you bet. We have got to make this place a sight snugger than it is now, for, I tell you, when the winter sets in in earnest, it will be cold enough here to freeze a buffalo solid in an hour. We have got to set to work to make a roof all over this place, and we have got to hunt to lay in a big stock of meat. We have got to get a big store of food for the horses, for we must be mighty careful with our flour now. We can wait a fortnight to see how things go, but if it is clear then that we have got to fight it out here through the winter, we must shoot the pack-ponies at once, and I reckon the others will all have to go later. However, we will give them a chance as long as we can."

"Take them down into the valley," the chief said. "All Indian horses."

"Ah, I didn't think of that, chief. Yes, they are accustomed to rustle for their living, and they may make a shift to hold on down there. I don't think there is much fear of Indians coming up."

"No Indians," Leaping Horse said. "Indians go away when winter set in. Some go to forest, some go to lodges right down valley. No stop up here in mountains. When winter comes plenty game—big-horn, wapiti."

"Ah, that is a more cheerful look-out, chief. If we can get plenty of meat we can manage without flour, and can go down and give the ponies a pail of hot gruel once a week, which will help them to keep life together. The first thing, I take it, is to cut some poles for the roof. I am afraid we shall have to go down to the bottom for them."

"Waal, we needn't begin that till to-morrow," Sam Hicks said. "If we had them, we have got no skins to cover them."

"Cut brushwood," Indian said. "First put plenty of brushwood on poles, then put skins over."

"Yes, that is the plan, chief. Well, if we get down there we shall have to take our shovels and clear the snow off some of the narrow ledges. If we do that we can lead one of the horses down to pack the poles up here."