Gustave Aimard - The Red River Half-Breed - A Tale of the Wild North-West

"So he will after the breakfast we are all sp'iling for. Let out your pony – don't you see he is waving his hand that all's clear?"

"Why don't he come back all the way, then?"

"Because he's no such ass as to want double trouble. You'd tire out a Salt Lake Saint, Cormick, you would! Car'fulness is the first thing to put in your bag when you come out on the plains, but you don't want to have car'fulness as pepper and salt and sugar in all your messes, morn, noon and night; and Thanksgiving, and New Year's, and Independence Day! Why, old father, you're getting skeered o' your shadder – which it ar' no beauty on the snow, by thunder! Here, I've had my full measure of this hanging back from breakfast, and if you freeze thar, I foller the thaw and let Sol carry me into camp."

"Go on, then!" replied Cormick. "I tell 'ee thar's some devilment awake afore us this morning! And that's not Sol Garrod drawing us into a trap. He's a bad egg, but he wasn't made to throw at a pardner's head. You'll see, you'll see!"

"Eggs or no eggs, I am going on! Follow at your own pace! But mind! If you gallop off with the young gal, in whose ransom I have my share as the fellow finder, I'll report you to Captain Kidd – and you'll not be safe this side o' the Jordan."

In very open order they resumed the march. The cavalier moved on away as they started, stride for stride.

"Look at that!" cried Cormick, triumphantly; "See him ride away."

"Why should he not ride on in front of us, and keep the way clear? He know's the picket's duty – a dragoon deserter, anyhow, he'd ought to."

Still wrangling, they penetrated the defile, where Niobraska Pete taunted his elder to press on. At a third of the course, nothing justified Cormick's apprehensions.

"Sol has got out of the way altogether now, though," he remonstrated.

"Pooh! He has darted on to tell cook to dish up, that's all."

"Well, I shan't be satisfied till I have had the first mouthful down," said the old man, with a still uneasy look around.

Presently he pulled up his horse, saying that he was in a good spot for defence; the rising ground over a bulging root of a large cedar crossing the narrowing path.

"You go on and give the call if all goes well and it is no bogus Sol," said he. "Here I stay till the way is safe to my belief."

"He's stubborn as a mule," muttered Pete. "A stamp crusher would not shake him. Old man," he said, angrily, "I shall git on, and tell the captain you are up to some trick as regards the young lady. Don't you fear, though, miss, the captain will stew him like a fish in the kettle if he plays any tricks on the fair prize of the band represented by its three scouters in company."

With that he disappeared in the forest cleft, and the snowy crust ceased to crackle under his horse's hoofs.

The stillness became oppressive, broken only by the swishing of the branches suddenly relieved of snowy burdens by the effect of the sunbeams and springing up gaily. All the beasts were hibernating or asleep; all the birds gone south except the Arctic robins and the sedately soaring eagles, whose white heads seemed frosted and presented to the sun to be freed of the chill.

Expectation weighed as poignantly upon the unfortunate girl as on the old border ruffian. Insensibly yielding to the desire to battle anxiety with even futile action, he was slowly pushing on his horse when a peculiar sound at last in advance caused him to check it. Within a few seconds, the horse of Niobraska Pete came back to its companion, with no thought but refuge from some startling horror. Pete had not raised an alarm; consequently that smear of blood on the mane denoted that he had been unhorsed by a deathblow. Nor did Sol, nor his mysterious personator appear, and Cormick felt assured that he was left alone, and that foes were planted between him and the camp, of which he almost inhaled the savory fumes. The situation was maddening.

"You are bad luck," he snarled at the girl, with the superstition of the low sort of white men, who soon equal the reds in such fancies. "It has cost two good men's lives just to have met you."

He waited a while longer, but there was no fresh alarm.

"Hark ye," said he, roughly. "I am going to put you on that horse, and we must circle round out of this accursed glade. If you try to 'part co.' I shall shoot you with my first shot. It strikes me, from the way that we have been beset, it is because of you, and hence you are worth as much money as I had concluded from your story; but thar's no calculating on what anybody says nowadays."

As he drew the riderless steed towards him, and tried to make it sidle up flank to flank, its ears were moved in affright. It sniffed some alarming taint on the air, and set up so furious a kicking that the headgear was detached, and left in the astonished bandit's grasp. Then, emitting a scream like a maimed warhorse on the battle field, it dashed into the first opening, and crashed on out of all perception.

"It smells the war paint, by all that's cruel! Injins!" muttered Cormick. "But why did I hear no whoops when they made their 'coups' on Sol and Pete?"

At the same instant, as if to warrant his reflection, a vibrating yell of triumph burst forth so clearly as to seem at their elbows – a war whoop of which Cormick had never heard the like. It was so provocatory in tone that, irresistibly, at least a hundred savage cries answered it inquiringly from all parts of the ravine traversed by the bandits.

"Why, it's a nest of them," groaned the old scoundrel, aghast, and only mechanically restraining his plunging steed.

In the lull which followed – painful by contrast with that hideous clamour – a horseman dashed into the glen and faced the paralysed scout. The clothes were of Sol Garrod; but at the cry of "Oh, Mr. Dearborn! You! Help, help!" from his saddle companion, Cormick was relieved of any doubt as to his previous surmise of a deception.

"Ah, ah," grunted he, "now I know why he never came back."

With one man, and a young white only before him, he recovered full sway of his homicidal acquirements, and his gun and that Ranald had snatched from the burial place were levelled at each other.

"Don't fire!" appealed Ulla, though not in fear for herself, and "Don't fire!" cried a louder and manly voice, as an additional personage for the group leaped down from a rock and fell beside the restless horse.

How it reared at this unannounced apparition! That rearing disturbed Cormick's aim, and whilst his shot passed above Dearborn's head, that of the latter buried itself in his groin, after scarring the horse's neck. The newcomer seized the bridle, and shook off the wounded man, whilst Ranald gladly received the half-swooning lady.

"What the thunder did you fire for?" demanded he, angrily.

The young people stared at him in surprise. He spoke perfect English, but, we know, Cherokee Bill as perfectly resembled a full-blooded Indian when animated with ferocity. Besides, his buffalo robe was tucked up into his belt to leave his legs free, and a ruddy scalp dangled in a tuck of it.

"A dog of a Crow!" he explained, seeing that it caught their eyes. "He'll beg no more powder and ball at the Agency to shoot the two legged buffalo in 'store' clothes, that the wise style a fresh from the States."

Perplexed by this singular speech, so unlike either an Indian's or a white man's, the young people had immediately turned their offended eyes aloof. Ulla must have believed she was saved on ascertaining that Dearborn had never relaxed his endeavours to come up with her and her captors. She laughed and sobbed hysterically like one aroused from a nightmare and excessively delighted; it was but a play of fancy. Alas! There was to be another waking, and that not long delayed.