"Your conduct is right. The traitors are these Red River Half-breed dogs, for allying themselves with a bandit who respects neither red nor white, and then comes to a redskin camp and asks help and favour as being a red man himself."

"Go!" said Cherokee Bill, with scorn so withering that the Indians did not regret the four scalps thus rejected, and Dagard felt no joy at the deliverance. "Should your feet take root here, you will be trees cut down for the night fire! The girl is free! Until you cross that stream, you are neither foe nor friend, merely dogs kicked out of camp! Go, it is a chief that speaks."

The Embarrasseur seemed too much embarrassed himself this time to even lift his head. Steelder squinted horribly as he shrunk past the Cherokee. The four Canadians hastened to join the lieutenant, impatiently holding the horses, and, mounting rapidly, they rushed over the river. The Piegan party had contented themselves with examining the pack animals, the dead and wounded, under orders in some way signalled to them by the sun flash code. The Half-breeds put the wounded on the beasts of burden and dolefully returned to their camp.

CHAPTER XXVII
THE MOUNTAIN MAN IS REINFORCED

The Piegan captains remained squatted at the council fire, thoughtfully smoking.

After directing Doña Rosario, for this was the young lady whom he had saved from the Manitobans' clutches, to be attended to in a hut placed wholly at her service, Cherokee Bill wrapped himself up in buffalo robes to steam himself dry and drive away rheumatism. The others respected his curative withdrawal from the conversational circle, but evinced some anxiety lest his catching cold should spoil his voice.

The way things had come about was thus: —

We know that it was arranged that Doña Rosario should be put in the pannier of a riding mule, so that the party of gold seekers might travel by a straighter road. Meanwhile, Filditch and Williams were hovering about them as closely as they dared, cautiously exchanging brief confidence with Joe and Dearborn up to the critical moment. Then the Spanish girl was to be aided by the two friends of Ridge.

The plan was so simple and infallible, that the girl gleefully adopted it.

Soon after the second day's start in this order, whilst the mule was yet fresh, Filditch and his companion sprang on two outriders and pulled them to the ground. Unfortunately, Foxface, whom the Californian had thrown, was up again like lightning and encumbered the other as he was trying to mount in the warm saddle. The result was, that Bill was on horseback and riding alone at the point in the file where he could take Rosario's mule by the bridle.

It is true Filditch kicked the man away, but the delay was fatal. He was compelled to plunge into the woods at the side of the ravine where this occurred, or be the target for twenty rifle shots.

During this the Cherokee had executed his project. Thanks to his whoop, which set the animals curveting, and the increase in the confusion due to Joe, Leon, and Ranald, no one could get an effectual shot at the abductor of the young girl as the two dived in at a gap in the underwood.

But there was too much of a good thing. Rosario's mule was not alone in attraction towards the coquettish mare which the Cherokee had stolen. A number of the animals set up a cry at the mare's whinny, and for a moment the stampede threatened to be general. To be left without a hoof under them in the wild woods is the worst fate known to men like Kidd's command. They flew to work with superhuman activity, daring, and strength, and secured most of the frenzied animals. Still, a dozen had tailed off after Bill and the girl, very deeply to his disgust. But the only thing was to move on with the torrent of horseflesh of his own originating. In time they could be beguiled into a steep path, where, by dragging Rosario into a niche, the rest would hurl themselves by and be gone irreturnably.

Here, again, calculations were upset by the Half-breeds on their way to rendezvous with Kidd at the fixed place.

Bill saw them only in time to take a new course. But Dagard and a few of the better mounted started off after the straggling line, of which they at once cut off two or three hindmost. But the others freshened up at being so harried, and the kind of wild hunt continued hotter than ever. The thunder of the added coursers continually reminded the Cherokee that these woodsmen were not easily to be outridden and thrown off so broad a track.

"Are you brave?" inquired he of the girl, flushed and excited by the mad gallop.

"I do not know, judged by your measure," she replied; "but there's one thing sure, I would sooner kill myself than fall again into those ruffians' power."

"That's the true talk? By the way, have a knife," he said, putting a sheath dagger into her hand as if he were offering a bonbon to a child. "You may want it, though I fancy you have no great shakes to fear. I am responsible for you."

"Thank you. I believe in you."

The flight continued, only that the Canadians, being less wearied, gained like a whirlwind on a fleeing wayfarer.

Cherokee Bill had his Winchester "fourteen shoot" and a brace of heavy revolvers – a portable magazine.

"Keep on galloping," said he, "smack into the running water. You shall have a warm-up beyond. I reckon it will also be hot enough here!"

So saying he blazed away at the Half-breeds for six shots. Down went the men out of the saddles, the rest being terrified by the accuracy of aim and the long, killing range. Meanwhile Bill and the girl effected the crossing and came upon the plain where the Piegans were encamped. The reader knows the sequel. For the nonce Doña Rosario was safe.

The day advanced, and yet the Cherokee seemed loth to check his contemplation of mental pictures. Red Knife made up his mind to begin the talking.

"Are the ears of my father open?" he asked.

Bill had become a father for wisdom after having been a brother for valour.

"What is my son's desire?" was the counter query.

"The Piegans want the Cherokee sage's advice."

"The Piegans are boys of mine at my knee. Speak away."

"The Raven is a wise bird – a bird that scents a battlefield from afar. He flies straight to the mark. As the coyotes and wolves join to track the deer, so the bad whites and mixed bloods join to take hold of the red man's territory. What is my father's opinion on this? What ought the redskins to do when the mine robbers threaten to invade the holy ground of the Basin of Fire?"

Without replying in words, the Cherokee looked about him. In one spot a chalky seam cropping out was soaked with blood from the butchered game. He pointed to the white earth on one side of the red stain, and then scratched the soft substance up with his fingernail. But to scrape the blood-caked chalk, hardened into stone, he was forced to use his hunting knife. He took up a handful of the soft dust and slowly let it fall through his open fingers.

"This dust is the Indians, uncemented by their blood; they are grains that a child's breath could spin into the river. United by blood, a block is formed which turns the edge of a knife. Do my brothers comprehend?"

"I do," answered Red Knife. "The Raven of the Cherokee counsels us to be one. Before now we have done the same, and waged war. Perhaps, had not some weaklings and traitors fallen away, a great and lasting victory would have been ours. But our enemies are powerful as they are. What if the white trappers and hunters unite with these Canadians and the Men of Montana?"

"You need not fear that. Oil and water do not blend."

"But the Old Man of the Mountain, the friend of the Cherokee, would he not come to the aid of the Piegans?" asked the chief, subtly.

"But the white trapper is alone – " began Bill.

"He may be alone at this hour, but my spies speak of the lone trappers converging to join him. Does not the Cherokee know – his moccasins have crossed the traces of theirs?"

"I know what I know. The Old Man has no secrets from his brother. The trappers are massing, that's a fact."

"To what end? Will he guide the gold seekers into the Enchanted Valley, where the holy fire rages, which my father has drank."

"No. Jim Ridge loves the Yellowstone – he does not want a whole caboodle of scourings to be poured into its lovely glades and peaceful parts, where the fawns come up and lick your hands."

"Ah! Does the old Yager wish the help of the Piegans to keep off the whites? Is his Cherokee mate sent to ask that help?" came from the Red Knife, in a coaxing voice.

"Lor', no," responded Bill, coldly. "On the other hand, the old man never refused help to an Indian who played him fair. Many a poor wretch, frozen out, has been succoured by him – more than fed, mark you; clothed in fine fur, and given a gun and powder and ball, with the promise only understood that he should not use them on any of Jim's colour. But never has he craved any return for what he has done. That's his style, chief. What the Raven says is dictated by the friendly spirit in his very bones, with which his mother tempered them. He has no mission from anyone. But still, if to drive away these gold thirsty dogs, ay, and to crush them, the Piegans want the trapper's help, who entertains no kindly feelings for the disgraces to their race, then find out whether he will give it. It is a sachem that you have heard. Ponder over his words."

Bill rose and retired to a tent made ready for him. He was left alone to recruit till about sunrise, when the chiefs flocked round his tent door with all the ceremony laid down by Indian etiquette. The medicine man hallowed the tent, so that they could hold a council smoke, and this was Red Knife's proposal:

"After considering the words of the Cherokee chief, the headmen of the Piegans have come to this conclusion: Quorinnah is a wise man; he knows that only boys and squaws, having no keenness or experience like trained men, who have made their mark, set about things unthinkingly, and with no conception of their extent. The Piegans do not ask in this fashion, being men of war. The chief, subchief, captains, and big braves of the nation have resolved to say this: The Cherokee chief loves his brothers, the Blackfeet. His heart is red, and prompts him to speak good counsel, and that counsel has been debated on. It is true the Old Man of the Mountain has punished trap robbers and ravagers of the cachés, and that he has given shot for shot when fired on. But if he has shed blood, he, too, has had his blood spilt. Let the rock moss and the desert sands drink the blood up of both foe and friend of ours, and say no more about it. On the other hand, the Yager has helped many a naked, starved, gunless Indian about the Yellowstone, and on the highland slope. He has defended the Enchanted Valley, and never has he offered men to guide his white brethren within its bounds of fire and steam and smoke. He is alone, yet he does not need help. But we do. Never in our memory, or on the painted books of the tribe history in the sacred lodge, have so many evil men been covering the wilderness. Lo! The buffalo and the bear are driven away by the reek of strange campfires, and the birds hurry from the uproar of carouses. The Raven of the Cherokees speaks true. He comes on no errand from the Great White Trapper. But the Piegans, proud to have the slayer of six-at-full-gallop-under-their-own-eyes as their guest, claim a service of him: the chiefs desire to see the Yager of the Yellowstone. Did they know where to meet him, they would go forth in their best clothes to greet him; but the Mountain Man is a great hunter – he disguises his trail neatly, and his fort is an undiscoverable refuge. But the Cherokee chief knows where his friend abides, and he will go to him, and say, 'Old Man of the Mountain, your sons the Piegans have a weight on the heart, a skin over their eyes – they beseech your help, with the wondrous gun that sends death so far and so true. Come to their aid against their enemies, who are yours; come quick; let your presence console and make joy displace the grief that eats up their heart.'"

Bill did not in the faintest believe in the more than temporary sincerity of the speaker, but he spoke so feelingly, that he joined in the murmur of applause which hailed the final words.

"The saying of my brother, the renowned of the Piegans, ring sweetly in my ear," returned the Cherokee half-breed. "What the Piegans wish, the Raven will do this night. Away goes the cloud on my brother's heart! Leaving the young paleface girl in his brother's keep, the Raven will fly. I have spoken all that is in me."

"The young paleface maiden is not here, we see only a sister of the Piegans," answered Red Knife, nobly. "She is in the shadow of the totem pole of the tribe, her head is pillowed on the ark of the Blackfeet Piegans. No danger shall befall her, though the Cherokee chief stayed away till the moon and stars fell out of the sky, and the sun burnt itself to a dead coal and dropped also into the lakes!"

An hour afterwards, at dusk, Bill Williams rode out of the camp, confidently. As we know something of the singular telegraphing and telephoning which the old trapper and his comrade employed to correspond secretly, we need not describe how again they conferred without the overhearers piercing the mystery. A little before sunrise, the Cherokee was back at the Piegan resting place. Red Knife was awake, and eagerly awaiting him at the inlet.

"What does the old father say?" queried he, after the customary greeting.

"These are the trapper's words," returned Bill, gravely. "'Am I to be deaf to the appeal of redskin brothers who are fighters and not thieves? No! When the sun is so high that there is no shadow at the base of the tree, then I shall be in the Piegan camp.'"

"Good, good!" said the sachem, cordially, "I thank my father for having swiftly and fully kept his promise. The white trapper will be welcome."

At this moment, hearing Bill Williams' voice, the door flap of Doña Rosario's tent house was pushed aside, and she came forth. Albeit she was in complete safety among the red men, her precarious position filled the dainty girl with restlessness. Throughout the night she had been kept awake by excessive nervous excitement, caused by reflections on recent events, and the pain from bruises and thorn scratches gained during the flight. In the pannier she had been shaken about more than in a cockboat in a chopping sea. She was glad to have her enfevered forehead kissed by the cool morning breeze. She came out over to the two principals, and saluted them with a grateful but still rueful smile.

Red Knife, with that innate delicate grace common to all men who live unfettered in the open air, bowed to her respectfully, and kindly asked how she rested. To encourage her, he repeated that she had nothing to fear from her enemies, as she should never fall again into their hands.

"Thank you, chief," she rejoined; "but," she added, with a brightening eye of deep proud determination, "if, in spite of your powerful protection, those ruffians had succeeded in seizing me again, they would have carried away merely the dead. I would have slain myself rather than have yielded."

With a significant gesture, she flung aside the hem of a Mexican blanket, showing the knife in her waistband.

"'Tis a brave girl," remarked Red Knife, smiling dubiously, for he had his own ideas about using a dagger on himself before he had struck out all he could; "but the steel was useless, my sister being under the guard of the Sacred Emblem, and my warriors would have fought to the last shot for her."

As, in our other Indian stories, we seem to have pourtrayed their treatment of white women in a different light, we beg to say in this digression that there is really no contradiction in sense. The southern Indians are not to be trusted with women, but the northern races and those descended from the ancient nations of the Northeast and Atlantic coast are of opposite morality. The latter will make white women slaves, but never their wives. The Half-breeds spring from the union of red women and white men, it is to be remembered, which in no wise gainsays our statement of an incontestable truth.

Cherokee Bill was too profound an observer and was too familiar with the thoughts of white people and red people, to say nothing of Mexican ones, not to understand Rosario's doubts and dreads. So he hastened to inform her that Jim Ridge would soon be present. This intelligence much exalted her; hope at once was kindled in her bosom and warmed her heart with its beneficent rays. It seemed to her that this celebrated adventurer's intervention must be advantageous to her. This was apart from Mr. Dearborn's promising that he would confer with the Man of the Mountain and compact for her rescue and Miss Maclan's. It is true the Cherokee had only saved her; but, perhaps, already something had been done in as effectual, if not in so dashing, a mode to save her dear companion.

She found time to ask Bill about his partner in the friendly abduction, but he had only spoken with Ridge, who had seen nothing more of Filditch than himself.

"Patience," said he, calm as a "whole red man," "he would not have travelled with me in the warpath unless he was capable of taking care of himself alone."

Quite as impatient as the girl were all the Piegans to receive the famous old explorer; but they had donned the motionless mask which the savages use to hide even the deepest feelings on public occasions.

If we were in town, we should say the hour of twelve sounded when all the Indians, questioning the country with glittering eyes, grunted with pleasure. A horseman was seen to be clearing a piney wood at the extreme limit of the horizon, and gallop in a beeline towards them. He was alone. At a glance he was recognised as Jim Ridge.

CHAPTER XXVIII
DRAWING TO A HEAD

Red Knife blew his war whistle loudly. This was the cue for forty men to spring on their ponies. The chief took the lead and all tore away like fiends over the level ground. They soon "fanned out" there, banishing their guns over their heads, tossing up war clubs and catching them when all but touching the ground, juggling with their knives and pistols, all without drawing rein; executing, in fact, circus feats, after the manner of the Arabs, who employ this same method, or fantasia, to greet a celebrity. On his part, the trapper was riding a steed without any harness whatever – one that he had caught astray from the unfortunate Half-breed detachment that "bunked up" against the Cherokee. Except for the lasso which had ensnared it, and which served as a halter, it obeyed the rider by his voice and slap of the hand, and was restrained from rebellion by the threatening pressure of his knees, with which he would have crushed in the ribs.

This simple show of arrogant horsemanship delighted the Piegans, who journey oftenest on foot, and they all fired off their guns. Then, forming a line abreast under cover of the smoke, they charged with a prodigious howling, but when almost overwhelming the solitary rider, they reined up by a miracle of skill, as if their poor broken-jawed horses had suddenly taken root in the ground.

Jim had come on at the same round pace, as if the yelling cavalcade were miles remote. He had been too long identified with Indian customs not to see in this demonstration what it really was – a strong manifestation of the regard he was held in, and their joy at his venturing by himself in their midst.

Red Knife and the others now fell in as an escort, and so accompanied him to the encampment, where the tedious ceremony of reception had to be gone through. The Grand Monarch, in all his glories, was not more punctilious than the Indians in their refined etiquette. The whole performances, as Bill termed them to Doña Rosario, were bound to last an hour, and they protracted them to half as much again.

Old Ridge supported them like a king to the manner born. No such trifle was going to hinder him from his purpose.

Whilst the warriors continued their rejoicings, the chiefs went into the medicine lodge, and more solemnly received Ridge there, the Cherokee being his sponsor.

The Old Yager was in a predicament. The red men wanted him to co-operate with them in a league of the Indians against the whites east, south, and north; but as this would have been treachery, or at least apostasy, they had to lessen their desires gradually during a long discussion. As Jim said, he pared the proposition down till it came to a smaller head! The Yellowstone Basin was to be defended from all comers. On his side, Jim promised that none of the trappers, hunters, Scotch Canadians, and whoever might rally to him should enter the Firehole Region. Kidd, the Half-breeds of Red River, and any scoundrels who flocked to them as the redskins advanced and swept the country, were to be destroyed.

"You will have all the fighting you hunger for," remarked Jim drily, "with these rascals, without wanting to go on and injure the Bostons, or King George's men."

As the pact was clear for the morrow, and the savages do not look forward beyond a day, the utmost good feeling remained.

Runners were sent out, and during the evening representatives came in from the hunting parties allied to the Piegans. There were chiefs of the Small Robes, Blackfeet proper, Blackfeet Sioux, which linked the league with the Dacotahs and counterbalanced the Crows, in case Ahnemekee objected to the new and narrow arrangement, and some Rovers. These summed up as one hundred and fifty war men. The Yager counted them and recognised the elders among them with relief and gladness. He had resolved to crush out Kidd and his crew to the last man. He had contemplated the march of events with secret satisfaction, having prepared many of them; and the great progress made in a few days was enormously gratifying.

A little while before he and his nephew and Cherokee Bill stood against huge odds. Now they were commanding an army. If the reds were not perfect matches to the gold grabbers, they were quite so to the Manitobans, and the Scotch Canadians and Americans formed a reserve, or backbone, which ensured success.

Now the intruders were being enveloped in a net of which the meshes were self-plaiting themselves all around them. When the fowler pulled the string, the game would be inextricably caught.

At a final council held at night the concord was perfected. Saying nothing of hostilities against the border settlers, Montana miners, railroad surveyors, and pioneers north, the objective point of the allied reds, with Jim Ridge as mere counsellor and volunteer private, was to be Elk's Leap, where Captain Kidd, reinforced by the French Canadians, was tending to enter the Yellowstone Park.

Runners and riders went out to collect scouts and strayers. Messengers were selected to throw a sheaf of arrows, a knife, and a bag of powder and balls into the camp of Captain Kidd and that of the Red River Rovers if separate. The war pole, forty feet high, was set up at the Piegan camp, for the war dance to be performed round it. Jim Ridge did not join in the capering, but the Cherokee, curtly remarking that "it would do him good," stripped, and paraded, and leaped among the dancers. The cut of his hatchet on the pole was a tie with Red Knife's for height of the bound and cleanness of the chop. At the dawn, the deputies hurried to their camps to marshal their braves and conduct them to the rendezvous.

It is to be noted that the Red Indians spring sharply from their laziness of peacetimes into the strain of warfare. They become other men. Metamorphosed entirely, they endure with unflinching stoicism the greatest fatigue and longest privations. The very men who were ridiculous sloths and gluttons will never groan at having no sight of food for two, three, or even four days, or even at having no water.

Then they are granite and stop for nothing, and are not surprised at any disaster. Cold, heat, sun or rain, snow or hail, these are silently mocked at. Hence the secret foundation of their rapid movements, the fury of their attack, and their unconquerable energy in battle.

After the final talk, Ridge had a short conversation with Williams, immediately after which the latter left the camp. The white trapper had, we have remarked, kept himself out of the savage demonstration, sitting at a watch fire without even dozing off. A white man with an army of reds is like a chemist experimenting with an explosive of which all the qualities have yet to be tested. In some unexpected manner the whole may hoist the engineer himself.

About an hour after sunrise the Cherokee returned. He was accompanied by two white hunters. They were to be the guards of Doña Rosario, who, though she made a wry face about it, as if she personally wished to assist in the deliverance of Miss Maclan, consented reluctantly to being lodged in one of Jim Ridge's mountain refuges.

"Poor girl," murmured he, as she departed, "what a blessing that she has no idea that I am her kinsman, and that her father has perhaps lost his life in helping Bill to wrest her from that villain."

He was very thoughtful, and his chat with his comrades was more brief and in shorter phrases than ever. If he was idle in his moodiness, however, the Cherokee redoubled his activity in scouting.

There was already one screw loose in the machinery: the Crows had lost connection with the Piegans. Their disappearance was perplexing, ominous even. The Piegans were completely puzzled. And all Ridge surmised was that somehow Ahnemekee had learnt, or strongly supposed, that not Kidd, but the Mountain Men had interfered with his descent on the Red River Half-breeds.

Red Knife, though, soon offered his opinion that the Crows were cowards, and had skulked away from the prospective battlefield.

Apart from this defection, all went on merrily enough for six days, when the concentration was perfected. Each day the border ruffians and Canadians were kept under view, and camp for camp invisibly opposed each other. It is true the mixed bloods and the whites had their scouts and outliers busy, but they found nothing to alarm. The trappers and Blackfeet seemed to be swallowed up in the mountain gorges.

The temperature became milder. The influence of the hot water springs of the Yellowstone certainly affected the air. In four days or so, toilsomely as the adventurers broke their way through the pathless wilds, they would hail the promised golden land.

But one evening Cherokee Bill, as director of all the scouts, reported that there were more ingredients for the stew. Instead of finding Ahnemekee's band in the eastward, his spies had descried evidences of a strong force of whites. And in the Northwest also another body of whites were perceived.

This news very much disquieted Jim Ridge, and deepened his thoughtfulness. According to the flag to which they held allegiance, the newcomers might exert a preponderating influence on what was to become a veritable war. Hesitation would be fatal. It was imperative to have done with present opposing elements as quickly as possible, or have a double force to contest. It is soundest reason in the wilderness to believe enemies approach, and, anyway, white men would rather combine with those of their complexion than the redskins.

This was strictly logical, but, as often happens in practical life, that itself made it wrong; but the Yager could not suspect this. Always in his fears was that of the lovely enclosed country of the Yellowstone becoming the prey to land raiders and freebooters. He warded off intruders from that garden like the dragon of antique fable.