Kitabı oku: «Twice Bought», sayfa 9

Gradually his huge shoulders rose till he rested on his left elbow.

A sense of danger, which had never left him even while he slept, aroused Fred, but he did not lose his self-possession. He carefully watched, from the other side of the extinct fire, the motions of the stranger, and lay perfectly still—only tightening his grasp on the knife-handle that he had been instinctively holding when he dropped asleep.

The night was too dark for Fred to distinguish the man’s features. He could only perceive the outline of his black figure, and that for some time he rested on his elbow without moving, as if he were contemplating the stars. Despite his efforts to keep awake, Fred felt that drowsiness was again slowly, but surely, overcoming him. Maintaining the struggle, however, he kept his dreamy eyes riveted on their guest until he seemed to swell into gigantic proportions.

Presently Fred was again thoroughly aroused by observing that the right arm of the man moved slowly upwards, and something like a knife appeared in the hand; he even fancied he saw it gleam, though there was not light enough to render that possible.

Feeling restrained, as if under the horrible influence of nightmare, Fred lay there spell-bound and quite unable to move, until he perceived the stranger’s form bend over in the direction of Paul Bevan, who lay on the other side of him.

Then, indeed, Fred’s powers returned. Shouting, “look out, Paul!” he sprang up, drew his bowie-knife, and leaped over the blackened logs, but, to his surprise and confusion, found that the stranger lay extended on the ground as if sound asleep. He roused himself, however, and sat up, as did the others, on hearing Fred’s shout.

“Fat is wrong, yoong man?” he inquired, with a look of sleepy surprise.

“Ye may well ax that, sor,” said Flinders, staggering to his feet and seizing his axe, which always lay handy at his side. Paul had glanced round sharply, like a man inured to danger, but seeing nothing to alarm him, had remained in a sitting position.

“Why, Westly, you’ve been dreaming,” he said with a broad grin.

“So I must have been,” returned the youth, looking very much ashamed, “but you’ve no notion what a horrible dream I had. It seemed so real, too, that I could not help jumping up and shouting. Pardon me, comrades, and, as bad boys say when caught in mischief, ‘I won’t do it again!’”

“Ve pardon you, by all means,” said the botanist stretching himself and yawning, “and ve do so vid de more pleasure for you has rouse us in time for start on de joorney.”

“You’re about right. It’s time we was off,” said Paul, rising slowly to his feet and looking round the horizon and up at the sky, while he proceeded to fill a beloved little black pipe, which invariably constituted his preliminary little breakfast.

Pat Flinders busied himself in blowing up the embers of the fire.

A slight and rapidly eaten meal sufficed to prepare these hardy backwoodsmen for their journey, and, long before daybreak illumined the plains, they were far on their way towards the Sawback mountain range.

During the journey of two days, which this trip involved, the botanist seemed to change his character to some extent. He became silent—almost morose; did not encourage the various efforts made by his companions to draw him into conversation, and frequently rode alone in advance of the party, or occasionally fell behind them.

The day after the stranger had joined them, as they were trotting slowly over the plains that lay between the Rangers Hill and the Sawbacks, Fred rode close up to Bevan, and said in a low voice, glancing at the botanist, who was in advance—

“I am convinced, Paul, that he is a scoundrel.”

“That may be so, Mr Fred, but what then?”

“Why, then I conclude that he is deceiving us for some purpose of his own.”

“Nonsense,” replied Bevan, who was apt to express himself bluntly, “what purpose can he serve in deceiving strangers like us! We carry no gold-dust and have nothing worth robbing us of, even if he were fool enough to think of attemptin’ such a thing. Then, he can scarcely be deceivin’ us in sayin’ that he met three Redskins carryin’ off a white man—an’ what good could it do him if he is? Besides, he is goin’ out of his way to sarve us.”

“It is impossible for me to answer your question, Paul, but I understand enough of both French and German to know that his broken English is a mere sham—a mixture, and a bad one too, of what no German or Frenchman would use—so it’s not likely to be the sort of bad English that a Swede would speak. Moreover, I have caught him once or twice using English words correctly at one time and wrongly at another. No, you may depend on it that, whatever his object may be, he is deceiving us.”

“It’s mesilf as agrees wid ye, sor,” said Flinders, who had been listening attentively to the conversation. “The man’s no more a Swede than an Irishman, but what can we do wid oursilves! True or false, he’s ladin’ us in the diriction we want to go, an’ it would do no good to say to him, ‘Ye spalpeen, yer decavin’ of us,’ for he’d only say he wasn’t; or may be he’d cut up rough an’ lave us—but after all, it might be the best way to push him up to that.”

“I think not” said Bevan. “Doesn’t English law say that a man should be held innocent till he’s proved guilty?”

“It’s little I know or care about English law,” answered Flinders, “but I’m sure enough that Irish law howlds a bad man to be guilty till he’s proved innocent—at laste av it dosn’t it should.”

“You’d better go an’ pump him a bit, Mr Fred,” said Bevan; “we’re close up to the Sawback range; another hour an’ we’ll be among the mountains.”

They were turning round the spur of a little hillock as he spoke. Before Fred could reply a small deer sprang from its lair, cast on the intruders one startled gaze, and then bounded gracefully into the bush, too late, however, to escape from Bevan’s deadly rifle. It had barely gone ten yards when a sharp crack was heard; the animal sprang high into the air, and fell dead upon the ground.

“Bad luck to ye, Bevan!” exclaimed Flinders, who had also taken aim at it, but not with sufficient speed, “isn’t that always the way ye do?—plucks the baste out o’ me very hand. Sure I had me sights lined on it as straight as could be; wan second more an’ I’d have sent a bullet right into its brain, when crack! ye go before me. Och! it’s onkind, to say the laste of it. Why cudn’t ye gi’ me a chance?”

“I’m sorry, Flinders, but I couldn’t well help it. The critter rose right in front o’ me.”

“Vat a goot shote you is!” exclaimed the botanist riding back to them and surveying the prostrate deer through his blue spectacles.

“Ay, and it’s a lucky shot too,” said Fred, “for our provisions are running low. But perchance we shan’t want much more food before reaching the Indian camp. You said, I think, that you have a good guess where the camp lies, Mister—what shall we call you?”

“Call me vat you please,” returned the stranger, with a peculiar smile; “I is not partickler. Some of me frunds calls me Mr Botaniste.”

“Well, Mr Botanist, the camp cannot be far off now, an’ it seems to me that we should have overtaken men travelling on foot by this time.”

“Ye vill surely come on de tracks dis naight or de morrow,” replied the botanist, riding forward, after Bevan had secured the carcass of the deer to his saddle-bow, “bot ye must have patience, yoong blood be always too hote. All in goot time.”

With this reply Fred was fain to content himself, for no amount of pressure availed to draw anything more satisfactory out of their strange guide.

Before sunset they had penetrated some distance into the Sawback range, and then proceeded to make their encampment for the night under the spreading branches of a lordly pine!

Chapter Thirteen

Tables are frequently turned in this world in more senses than one. As was said in the last chapter, the romantic pair who were in search of the Indians did not find those for whom they sought but as fickle fortune willed it, those for whom they sought found them. It happened thus.

Soon after the Rose of Oregon and her young champion, with their captors, had passed through the Long Gap, crossed the plain, and entered the Sawback Hills, they fell in with a band of twenty Indians, who from their appearance and costume evidently belonged to the same tribe as their captors. From the manner in which they met also, it seemed that they had been in search of each other, and had something interesting to communicate, for they gesticulated much, pointed frequently to the sky, and to various directions of the compass, chattered excitedly, showed their brilliant teeth in fitful gleams, and glittered quite awfully about the eyes.

They paid little attention at first to their prisoners, who remained sitting on their steeds looking on with interest and some anxiety.

“O Betty, what would I not give to have my arms free just now! What a chance it would be for a bold dash and a glorious run!”

“You’d make little of it on such rough ground, Tolly.”

“Pooh! I’d try it on any ground. Just fancy, I’d begin with a clear leap over that chief’s head—the one there wi’ the feathers an’ the long nose that’s makin’ such hideous faces—then away up the glen, over the stones, down the hollows, shoutin’ like mad, an’ clearin’ the brooks and precipices with a band o’ yellin’ Redskins at my tail! Isn’t it enough to drive a fellow wild to be on the brink of such a chance an’ miss it? I say, haven’t you got a penknife in your pocket—no? Not even a pair o’ scissors? Why, I thought you women never travelled without scissors!”

“Alas! Tolly, I have not even scissors; besides, if I had, it would take me at least two minutes with all the strength of my fingers to cut the thongs that bind you with scissors, and I don’t think the Redskins would stand quietly by and look on while I did it. But what say you to me trying it by myself?”

“Quite useless,” returned Tolly. “You’d be caught at once—or break your neck. And you’d never get on, you know, without me. No, no, we’ve got fairly into a fix, an’ I don’t see my way out of it. If my hands were free we might attempt anything, but what can a fellow do when tied up in this fashion?”

“He can submit, Tolly, and wait patiently.”

Tolly did not feel inclined to submit, and was not possessed of much patience, but he was too fond of Betty to answer flippantly. He therefore let his feelings escape through the safety-valve of a great sigh, and relapsed into pensive silence.

Meanwhile the attention of the band of savages was attracted to another small band of natives which approached them from the eastward. That these were also friends was evident from the fact that the larger band made no hostile demonstration, but quietly awaited the coming up of the others. The newcomers were three in number, and two of them bore on their shoulders what appeared to be the body of a man wrapped up in a blanket.

“They’ve got a wounded comrade with them, I think,” said little Trevor.

“So it would seem,” replied Betty, with a dash of pity in her tone, for she was powerfully sympathetic.

The savages laid the form in the blanket on the ground, and began to talk earnestly with their comrades.

“It’s not dead yet anyhow,” remarked Tolly, “for I see it move. I wonder whether it is a man or a woman. Mayhap it’s their old grandmother they’re giving a little exercise to. I’ve heard that some o’ the Redskins are affectionate sort o’ fellows, though most of ’em are hard enough on the old folk.”

As he spoke he looked up in Betty’s face. Just as he did so a startling change came over that face. It suddenly became ashy pale, the large eyes dilated to their utmost extent, and the mouth opened with a short gasp.

In great alarm the boy turned his eyes in the direction in which the girl gazed so fixedly, and then his own visage assumed a somewhat similar appearance as he beheld the pale, thin, cadaverous countenance of his friend Tom Brixton, from off which a corner of the blanket had just slipped. But for the slight motion above referred to Tom might have been mistaken for a dead man, for his eyes were closed and his lips bloodless.

Uttering a sudden shout Tolly Trevor flung himself headlong off the pony and tried to get on his feet but failed, owing to his hands being tied behind him. Betty also leaped to the ground, and, running to where Tom lay, went down on her knees and raised his head in her hands.

The poor youth, being roused, opened his eyes. They were terribly sunken and large, but when they met those of Betty they enlarged to an extent that seemed positively awful, and a faint tinge of colour came to his hollow cheeks.

“Betty!” he whispered; “can—can it be possible?”

“Yes, it is I! Surely God must have sent me to save your life!”

“I fear not, dear—”

He stopped abruptly and shut his eyes. For a few moments it seemed as if he were dead, but presently he opened them again, and said, faintly, “It is too late, I fear. You are very kind, but I—I feel so terribly weak that I think I am dying.”

By this time Tolly, having managed to get on his feet stood beside his friend, on whom he gazed with intense anxiety. Even the Indians were solemnised by what appeared to be a death-scene.

“Have you been wounded!” asked the girl, quickly.

“No; only starved!” returned Tom, a slight smile of humour flickering for a second on his pale face even in that hour of his extremity.

“Have the Indians given you anything to eat since they found you?”

“They have tried to, but what they offered me was dry and tough; I could not get it down.”

The girl rose promptly. “Tolly, fetch me some water and make a fire. Quick!” she said, and going up to an Indian, coolly drew from its sheath his scalping-knife, with which she cut Tolly’s bonds. The savage evidently believed that such a creature could not possibly do evil, for he made no motion whatever to check her. Then, without a word more, she went to the saddle-bags on the obstinate horse, and, opening one of them, took out some soft sugar. The savage who held the horse made no objection. Indeed, from that moment the whole band stood silently by, observing the pretty maiden and the active boy as they moved about, regardless of everything but the work in hand.

The Rose of Oregon constituted herself a sick-nurse on that occasion with marvellous facility. True, she knew nothing whatever about the duties of a sick-nurse or a doctor, for her father was one of those fortunate men who are never ill, but her native tact and energy sufficed. It was not her nature to stand by inactive when anything urgent had to be done. If she knew not what to do, and no one else did, she was sure to attempt something. Whether sugar-and-water was the best food for a starving man she knew not, but she did know—at least she thought—that the starvation ought to be checked without delay.

“Here, Mr Brixton, sip a little of this,” she said, going down on her knees, and putting a tin mug to the patient’s mouth.

Poor Tom would have sipped prussic acid cheerfully from her hand! He obeyed, and seemed to like it.

“Now, a little more.”

“God bless you, dear girl!” murmured Tom, as he sipped a little more.

“There, that will do you good till I can prepare something better.”

She rose and ran to the fire which Tolly had already blown up almost to furnace heat.

“I filled the kettle, for I knew you’d want it,” said the boy, turning up his fiery-red visage for a moment, “It can’t be long o’ boiling with such a blaze below it.”

He stooped again and continued to blow while Betty cut some dried meat into small pieces. Soon these were boiled, and the resulting soup was devoured by the starving man with a zest that he had never before experienced.

“Nectar!” he exclaimed faintly, smiling as he raised his eyes to Betty’s face.

“But you must not take too much at a time,” she said, gently drawing away the mug.

Tom submitted patiently. He would have submitted to anything patiently just then!

During these proceedings the Indians, who seemed to be amiably disposed, looked on with solemn interest and then, coming apparently to the conclusion that they might as well accommodate themselves to circumstances, they quietly made use of Tolly’s fire to cook a meal for themselves.

This done, one of them—a noble-looking savage, who, to judge from his bearing and behaviour, was evidently their chief—went up to Betty, and, with a stately bend of the head, said, in broken English, “White woman git on horse!”

“And what are you going to do with this man?” asked Betty, pointing to the prostrate form of Tom.

“Unaco will him take care,” briefly replied the chief (meaning himself), while with a wave of his hand he turned away, and went to Tolly, whom he ordered to mount the pony, which he styled the “littil horse.”

The boy was not slow to obey, for he was by that time quite convinced that his only chance of being allowed to have his hands left free lay in prompt submission. Any lurking thought that might have remained of making a grand dash for liberty was effectually quelled by a big savage, who quietly took hold of the pony’s rein and led it away. Another Indian led Betty’s horse. Then the original three who had found Tom took him up quite gently and carried him off, while the remainder of the band followed in single file. Unaco led the way, striding over the ground at a rate which almost forced the pony to trot, and glancing from side to side with a keen look of inquiry that seemed to intimate an expectation of attack from an enemy in ambush.

But if any such enemy existed he was careful not to show himself, and the Indian band passed through the defiles and fastnesses of the Sawback Hills unmolested until the shades of evening began to descend.

Then, on turning round a jutting rock that obstructed the view up a mountain gorge, Unaco stopped abruptly and held up his hand. This brought the band to a sudden halt and the chief, apparently sinking on his knees, seemed to melt into the bushes. In a few minutes he returned with a look of stern resolve on his well-formed countenance.

“He has discovered something o’ some sort, I—”

Tolly’s remark to his fair companion was cut short by the point of a keen knife touching his side, which caused him to end with “hallo!”

The savage who held his bridle gave him a significant look that said, “Silence!”

After holding a brief whispered conversation with several of his braves, the chief advanced to Betty and said—

“White man’s in the bush. Does white woman know why?”

Betty at once thought of her father and his companions, and said—

“I have not seen the white men. How can I tell why they are here? Let me ride forward and look at them—then I shall be able to speak.”

A very slight smile of contempt curled the chiefs lip for an instant as he replied—

“No. The white woman see them when they be trapped. Unaco knows one. He is black—a devil with two face—many face, but Unaco’s eyes be sharp. They see far.”

So saying, he turned and gave some directions to his warriors, who at once scattered themselves among the underwood and disappeared. Ordering the Indians who carried Tom Brixton to follow him, and the riders to bring up the rear, he continued to advance up the gorge.

“A devil with two faces!” muttered Tolly; “that must be a queer sort o’ beast! I have heard of a critter called a Tasmanian devil, but never before heard of an Oregon one with two faces.”

An expressive glance from the Indian who guarded him induced the lad to continue his speculations in silence.

On passing round the jutting rock, where Unaco had been checked in his advance, the party at once beheld the cause of anxiety. Close to the track they were following were seen four men busily engaged in making arrangements to encamp for the night.

It need scarcely be said that these were our friends Paul Bevan, Fred Westly, Flinders, and the botanist.

The moment that these caught sight of the approaching party they sprang to their arms, which of course lay handy, for in those regions, at the time we write of, the law of might was in the ascendant. The appearance and conduct of Unaco, however, deceived them, for that wily savage advanced towards them with an air of confidence and candour which went far to remove suspicion, and when, on drawing nearer, he threw down his knife and tomahawk, and held up his empty hands, their suspicions were entirely dispelled.

“They’re not likely to be onfriendly,” observed Flinders, “for there’s only five o’ them altogither, an’ wan o’ them’s only a bit of a boy an’ another looks uncommon like a wo—”

He had got thus far when he was checked by Paul Bevan’s exclaiming, with a look of intense surprise, “Why, that’s Betty!—or her ghost!”

Flinders’s astonishment was too profound to escape in many words. He only gave vent to, “Musha! there’s Tolly!” and let his lower jaw drop.

“Yes, it’s me an’ the Beautiful Nugget” cried Tolly, jumping off the pony and running to assist the Nugget to dismount, while the bearers of Tom Brixton laid him on the ground, removed the blanket, and revealed his face.

The exclamations of surprise would no doubt have been redoubled at this sight if the power of exclamation had not been for the time destroyed. The sham botanist in particular was considerably puzzled, for he at once recognised Tom and also Betty, whom he had previously known. Of course he did not know Tolly Trevor; still less did he know that Tolly knew him.

Unaco himself was somewhat surprised at the mutual recognitions, though his habitual self-restraint enabled him to conceal every trace of emotion. Moreover, he was well aware that he could not afford to lose time in the development of his little plot. Taking advantage, therefore, of the surprise which had rendered every one for the moment more or less confused, he gave a sharp signal which was well understood by his friends in the bush.

Instantly, and before Tolly or Betty could warn their friends of what was coming, the surrounding foliage parted, as if by magic, and a circle of yelling and painted Redskins sprang upon the white men. Resistance was utterly out of the question. They were overwhelmed as if by a cataract and, almost before they could realise what had happened, the arms of all the men were pinioned behind them.

At that trying hour little Tolly Trevor proved himself to be more of a man than most of his friends had hitherto given him credit for.

The savages, regarding him as a weak little boy, had paid no attention to him, but confined their efforts to the overcoming of the powerful and by no means submissive men with whom they had to deal.

Tolly’s first impulse was to rush to the rescue of Paul Bevan; but he was remarkably quick-witted, and, when on the point of springing, observed that no tomahawk was wielded or knife drawn. Suddenly grasping the wrist of Betty, who had also naturally felt the impulse to succour her father, he exclaimed—

“Stop! Betty. They don’t mean murder. You an’ I can do nothing against so many. Keep quiet; p’r’aps they’ll leave us alone.”

As he spoke a still deeper idea flashed into his little brain. To the surprise of Betty, he suddenly threw his arms round her waist and clung to her as if for protection with a look of fear in his face, and when the work of binding the captives was completed the Indians found him still labouring to all appearance under great alarm. Unaco cast on him one look of supreme scorn, and then, leaving him, like Betty, unbound, turned towards Paul Bevan.

“The white man is one of wicked band?” he said, in his broken English.

“I don’t know what ye mean, Redskin,” replied Paul; “but speak your own tongue, I understand it well enough to talk with ye.”

The Indian repeated the question in his native language, and Paul, replying in the same, said—

“No, Redskin, I belong to no band, either wicked or good.”

“How come you, then, to be in company with this man?” demanded the Indian.

In reply Paul gave a correct account of the cause and object of his being there, explained that the starving man before them was the friend for whom he sought, that Betty was his daughter, though how she came to be there beat his comprehension entirely, and that the botanist was a stranger, whose name even he did not yet know.

“It is false,” returned the chief. “The white man speaks with a forked tongue. He is one of the murderers who have slain my wife and my child.”

A dark fierce frown passed over the chief’s countenance as he spoke, but it was quickly replaced by the habitual look of calm gravity.

“What can stop me,” he said, reverting again to English as he turned and addressed Betty, “from killing you as my wife was killed by white man?”

“My God can stop you,” answered the girl, in a steady voice, though her heart beat fast and her face was very pale.

“Your God!” exclaimed the savage. “Will your God defend the wicked?”

“No, but He will pardon the wicked who come to Him in the name of Jesus, and He will defend the innocent.”

“Innocent!” repeated Unaco, vehemently, as he turned and pointed to the botanist. “Does you call this man innocent?”

“I know nothing about that man,” returned the girl, earnestly; “but I do know that my father and I, and all the rest of us, are innocent of any crime against you.”

For a few seconds the savage chief gazed steadily at Betty, then turning towards the botanist he took a step towards the spot where he sat and looked keenly into his face.

The botanist returned the gaze with equal steadiness through his blue spectacles.