Altsheler, Joseph - [Great West 01] Read online

  "That's always the way," he said. "Jest when you've got it, it slips through your fingers, though I will say to you, young William, that it's not the lost gold only I'm mournin* 'bout. I'm sorry, too, for the death of your brave father."

  "But, knowing the uncertainties of war, he took thought for the future," said Boyd. "He drew a map

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  showing where his great mine is, and it's now in the possession of his son, Will, who sits before you/'

  The shadow left the face of the Little Giant, and his eyes glistened as Will produced the precious map, spreading it before him. After examining it care- fully, he said:

  "Ef you fight off many thousand Sioux, run through fifty or a hundred mountain blizzards, starve a dozen times, freeze twenty times an' stick to it three or four years you'll git that thar gold."

  Then the Little Giant sighed, and his face clouded again it had perhaps been years since his face had clouded twice in one day.

  "You fellers are in great luck. I wish you well."

  "We wish ourselves well," said Boyd, watching him closely.

  A sudden thought seemed to occur to the Little Giant and his face brightened greatly.

  "Do you two fellers want a hired man.?" he asked.

  "What kind of a hired man?" said Boyd.

  "A likely feller, not very tall, but strong an* with a willin' heart, handy with spade an' shovel, under- standin' hosses an' mules, an' ab le to whistle fur you gay an' lively tunes in the evenin', when you're all tired out from the day's work in the richest mine in the world."

  "No, we don't want any hired man."

  "Not even the kind I'm tellin' you 'bout?"

  "Not even that, nor any other."

  "An' both o' you hev got your minds plum' made up 'bout it?"

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  "Plumb made up."

  The Little Giant's face fell for the third time in one day, an absolute record for him.

  "I reckon thar ain't no more to say/' he said.

  Boyd was still watching him closely, but now his look was one of sympathy.

  "We don't want any hired man," he said. "We've no use for hired men, but we do want something."

  "What's that, Jim Boyd?"

  "We want a partner."

  "Why, each of you has got one. You hev young William and young William hez you."

  "Well, young William and me have talked about this some, not much, but we came straight to the point. For such a big hunt as ours, through dangers piled on dangers, we need a third man, one that's got a strong heart and a cheerful soul, one that can shoot straighter than anybody else in the world, one whose picture, if I could take it, would be the exact picture of you, Tom Bent."

  "But I ain't done nothin' to come in as a pardner."

  "Neither did I, but Will took me in as a guide, hunter and fighting man. Don't you understand, Giant, that to get the Clarke gold we'll have to pay the price? We'll have to fight and fight, and we'll have to risk our lives a thousand times apiece. Why, in a case like this, you're worth a cool hundred thousand dollars."

  "Then I come in fur a tenth ef we git it."

  "You come in for the same share as the rest, share and share alike, but I will say this to you, Little Giant, that we expect you to do the most tremendous fighting

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  the world has ever seen, we expect you to wipe out whole bands of Sioux and Blackfeet by yourself while Will and me stand by and rest, and, after it's all over, we expect you to sit down and whistle an hour or two, until you soothe us to sleep."

  "Then, on them conditions I come in as a full pard- ner," said Giant Tom, and he grinned with pleasure, the most amazing grin that Will had ever seen. It spread slowly across his face, until the great crack seemed to reach almost to each ear, revealing a splen- did set of powerful white teeth, without a flaw. Above the chasm two large blue eyes glistened and glowed with delight. It was all so infectious, so contagious that both Will and Boyd grinned in return. They were not only securing for a perilous quest a man who was beyond compare, but they were also giving the most exquisite mental pleasure to a likable human being.

  "It Shorely does look," said the Little Giant, "ez ef my luck wuz goin' to hev a turn. At any rate, I'll be with you boys, in the best company I've had fur years."

  "You and the mules rest a day," said Boyd, "and then we'll be off. We'll keep to the mountains for a while, and then we'll curve back to the plains, where we'll take up the line laid down on the map, and where the going is easier. Maybe we can dodge the Sioux."

  The Little Giant made his bed under one of the trees, and he slept very soundly that night, eating pro- digiously in the morning. The three were discussing the advisability of leaving at once or of waiting until the dusk for departure, when Will, happening to look

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  toward the east, saw what he took at first to be a tiny cloud in the clear blue sky. He carried his glasses over his shoulders, and he raised them at once. The hunter and the Little Giant had noticed his act.

  "What is it, Will?" asked Boyd anxiously.

  "Smoke! A big puff of it!"

  "And it came from the top of that mountain to the east of the valley."

  "It rose straight and fast, as if it had been sent up by some human agency."

  "And so it was. It's a signal !"

  "Indians!"

  "Yes, Will."

  "What does it mean?"

  "It means 'Attention, watch !' They've got a code almost as complete as that of our armies when they use the signal flags. Look at that other crest off to the north. Maybe an answer will come from it."

  "There is an answer. I can see it rising now from the very place you indicate, Jim. What does the an- swer signify?"

  "I can see it now with the naked eye. It merely says to the first, Tve seen you, I'm waiting. Go ahead/ Look back to the other crest."

  "Two smokes are now going up there."

  "They say 'Come/ It's two bands wanting to meet. Now, the other place."

  "Three smokes there."

  "Three means, 'We come/ "

  "Now back to the other."

  "Four smokes."

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  "Which says in good, plain English, 'We are follow- ing the enemy.' That settles it. They've found out, some way or other, that we're here, and the two bands mean to meet and capture or destroy us. They never suspected that we could read their writing against the sky. We don't wait until tonight. We leave as soon as we can get our packs on our horses and mules."

  "I'd like to make a suggestion first," said the Little Giant with some diffidence.

  "What is it?" asked Boyd.

  "Suppose we stay an' have acrack at 'em before we go, jest kinder to temper their zeal a little. I'd like to show young William that I kin really shoot, an' sorter live up to the braggin' you've been doinV

  "No, you ferocious little man-killer. We can't think of it. We'd have a hundred Sioux warriors on our heels in no time. Now hustle, you two ! Pack faster than you ever packed before, and we'll start inside of two hours. Do you see any more smokes, Will ?"

  "No, the sky is now without a blemish."

  "Which means they've talked enough and now they're traveling straight toward our valley. It's lucky they've got such rough country to cross before they reach us."

  Inside the two hours they were headed for the west- ern end of the valley, the Little Giant riding one of his mules, the other following. The wickiup was aban- doned, but they brought much of the jerked meat with them, thinking wisely of their commissariat.

  It was with genuine regret that Will looked back from his saddle upon Clarke Valley and Boyd Lake,.

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  shimmering and beautiful now in the opalescent sun- shine. They had found peace and plenty there. It was a good place in which to live, if wild men would let one alone, and, loving solitude at t
imes, he could have stayed there several weeks longer in perfect con- tent. He caught the last gleam of the lake as they en- tered the pass. It had the deep sheen of melted sil- ver, as the waters moved before the slow wind, and he sighed a little when a curve of the cliff cut it wholly from view.

  "Never mind, young William," said the Little Giant, "you'll see other lakes and other valleys as fine, an* this wouldn't look so beautiful, after all, tomorrow, filled with ragin' Sioux huntin' our ha'r right whar it grows, squar' on top o' our heads."

  Young Clarke laughed and threw off his melancholy.

  "You're right," he said briskly. "The lake wouldn't look very beautiful if a half dozen Sioux were shoot- ing at me. You came through this pass, now tell us what kind of a place it is."

  "We ride along by the creek, an* sometimes the ledge is jest wide enough fur the horses an' mules. We go on that way four or five miles, provided we don't fall down the cliff into the creek an' bust ourselves apart. Then, ag'in, purvided we're still livin', we come out into a valley, narrow but steep, the water rushin* down it in rapids like somethin' mad. Then we keep on down the valley with our hosses lookin' ez ef they wuz walkin* on their heads, an' in four or five miles more, purvided, o* course, once more that we ain't been busted apart by falls, we come out into some woods. These

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  woods are cut by gulleys an' ravines an* they have stony outcrops, but they'll look good by the side o' what you hev passed through."

  "Encouraging, Giant !" laughed Will. "But hard as all this will be for us to pass over, it will be just as hard for the Sioux, our pursuers."

  "Young William," said the Little Giant approvingly, "I like to hear you talk that way. It shows that you hev all the makin's o' them opty-mists, the bunch o' people to which I belong. I never heard that word till three or four years ago, when I wuz listenin' to a preacher in a minin* camp, an 1 it kinder appealed to me. So I reckoned I would try to live up to it an' make o' myself a real opty-mist. I been workin' hard at it ever sence, an' I think I'm qualifyin'."

  "You're right at the head of the class, that's where you are, Giant," said Boyd heartily. "You've already earned a thousand dollars out of the mine that we're going to find, you with your whistling and cheerfulness bracing us up so that we're ready to meet anything."

  "What's the use o' bein' an opty-mist ef you don't optymize ?" asked the Little Giant, coining a word for himself. "Now, ain't this a nice, narrow pass? You kin see the water in the creek down thar, 'bout two hun- dred feet below, a-rushin' an' a-roarin' over the stones, an' then you look up an' see the cliff risin' five or six hundred feet over your head, an' here you are betwixt an' between, on a shelf less'n three feet broad, jest givin' room enough fur the horses an' mules an' our- selves, all so trim an' cosy, everythin' fittin' close an' tight in its place."

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  "It's a lot too close and tight for me, Giant!" ex- claimed Will. "I've a terrible fear that I'll go tumb- ling off the path and into the creek two hundred feet below."

  "Oh, no, you won't, young William. The people who fall off cliffs are mighty few compared with them that git skeered 'bout it. Ef you feel a-tall dizzy, jest ketch holt o' the tail o' that rear mule o' mine. He won't kick, an' he won't mind it, a-tall, a-tall. In- stead o' that it'll give him a kind o' home-like feelin', bein' ez I've hung on to his tail myself so many times when we wuz goin' along paths not more'n three inches wide in the mountain side. You won't bother or up- set him. The biggest cannon that wuz ever forged couldn't blast him out o' the path."

  Thus encouraged, young Clarke seized the tail of the mule, which plodded unconcernedly on, and for the rest of the distance along the dizzying heights he felt secure. Nevertheless his relief was great when they emerged into the rough valley of which the Little Giant had spoken, and yet more when, still pressing on, they came to the rocky and hilly forest. Here they were all exhausted, animals and human beings alike, and they stopped a long time in the shade of the trees.

  At that point there was no sign of the valley from which they had fled, unless one could infer its exist- ence from the creek that flowed by. Looking back, Will saw nothing but a mass of forest and mountain, and then looking back a second time he saw rings of smoke rising from points which he knew must be in their valley. He examined and counted them

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  through his glasses and described them to the hunter and the Little Giant.

  "The Sioux have come down and invaded our pleas- ant home," said Boyd. "There's no doubt about it, and I can make a good guess that they're mad clean through, because they found us gone. They may be signaling now to another band to come up, and then they'll give chase. You've got to know, Will, that nothing will make the Sioux pursue like the prospect of scalps, white scalps. A Sioux warrior would be per- fectly willing to go on a month's trail if he found a white scalp at the end of it."

  "They'll naturally think that we'll turn off toward the south so as to hit the plains ez soon ez we kin," said the Little Giant.

  "And for that reason, you think we should turn to the north instead, and go deeper into the mountains?" said Boyd.

  " Tears sound reasonin' to me."

  "Then we'll do it."

  "But we don't go fur, leastways not today. It wouldn't be more'n two or three hours till night any- how, an' see them clouds in thar to the south, all thick- enin* up. We're going to hev rain on the mountains, an' I think we'd better make another wickiup, ez one o' them terrible sleets may come on."

  Boyd and Will agreed with him and a mile farther they found a place that they considered suitable, an opening in which they would not be exposed to any tree blown down by a blizzard, but with a heavy growth of short pines near by, among which the horses and

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  mules might find shelter. Then the three worked with amazing speed, and by the time the full dark had come the wickiup was done, the skins that they had brought with them being stretched tightly over the poles. Then, munching their cald food, they crawled in and coiled themselves about the walls, wrapped deep in their blan- kets. Contrary to the Indian custom, they left the low door open for air, and just when Will felt himself well disposed for the night he heard the first patter of the sleet.

  It was almost pitch dark in the wickiup, but, through the opening, he could see the hail beating upon the earth in streams of white. The old feeling of com- fort and security in face of the wildest that the wilder- ness had to offer returned to him. When they reached Clarke Valley and built their wickiup he had one pow- erful friend, but now when the Sioux were once more in pursuit, he had two. The Little Giant had made upon him an ineffaceable impression of courage, skill and loyalty that would stand any test.

  "The hail's goin* to drive all through the night," Giant Tom called out in the darkness.

  "Right you are," said the hunter, "and the Sioux won't think of trying that pass on such a night. They're back in the valley, in wickiups of their own."

  "Might it not stop them entirely?" asked Will.

  "No, young William, it won't," said the Little Giant. "They'll come through the pass tomorrow, knowin* thar's only one way by which we kin go, an' then try to pick up our trail when the sleet melts. But tonight, at least, nobody's goin' to find us."

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  They slept late the next morning, and when they crawled out of the wickiup they found the sleet packed about an inch deep on the ground. The horses and mules, protected by the pines, had not suffered much, and, in order that their trail might be hidden by the melting sleet, they packed and departed before break- fast, choosing a northwesterly direction. They picked the best ground, but it was all rough. Nevertheless the three were cheerful, and the Little Giant whistled like a nightingale.

  "Ef I remember right," he said, "we'll soon be de- scendin', droppin' down fast so to speak, an* then the weather will grow a heap warmer. The sun's out now,
though, an* by noon anyway all the sleet will be gone, which will help us a lot."

  They had been walking most of the time, allowing their animals to follow, which both horses and mules did, not only through long training but because they had become used to the companionship of men. The three might have abandoned them, escaping pursuit in the almost inaccessible mazes of the mountains, but no such thought entered their minds. The horses and mules not only carried their supplies, chief among which being the ammunition, but also the tools with which to work the mine, and then, in Will's mind at least, they and more of them would be needed to bring back to civilization the tons of gold.

  They were now in a fairly level, though narrow, val- ley, and all three of them were riding. Once more they saw far behind them smoke signals rising, and Boyd felt sure that the Sioux somehow had blundered upon

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  the trail anew. Then he and the Little Giant spoke together earnestly.

  "The longest way 'roun' is sometimes the shortest way through," said Giant Tom. "It's no plains for us, not fur many days to come. I'm thinkin' that what we've got to do is to keep on goin' deeper an' deeper into the mountains, an* higher an' higher, too, plum' up among them glaciers, whar the Sioux won't keer to f oiler. Then, when we winter a while thar we kin turn back toward the plains an* our search."

  "Looks like good reasoning to me," said Boyd. "As I toid the boy here, once, we're richer in time than anything else. We must make for the heights. What say you, Will?"

  "I'm learning patience," replied the lad. "It's better to wait than to spill all the beans at once. Let's head straight for the glaciers."

  Will felt that there was something terrible about the Sioux pursuit. He was beginning to realize to the full the power of Indian tenacity, and he was anxious to shake off the warriors, no matter how high they had to go. He knew nothing of the region about them, but he had heard that mountains in many portions of the West rose to a height of nearly three miles. He could well believe it, as he looked north and south to tre- mendous peaks with white domes, standing like vast, silent sentinels in the sky. They were majestic to him, but not terrifying, because they held out the promise of safety.