The Red River Half-Breed: A Tale of the Wild North-West Read online

  CHAPTER III.

  THE MOUNTAINEERS' SNUG CABIN.

  The two hunters, red and white, who had taken eight days to ascendthe western slope of the Rocky Mountains, were only one reaching areasonable approach to the level of the plateau of the YellowstoneBasin.

  A little above them shone the snow line belting the giants of granite,and here the timberline spread in brown. The breath of numberless icycaverns murmured of the stupendous crystal founts, sources of powerfulstreams which would be on their way to enrich regions remote.

  The declining sun glimmered along the smooth steeps and glittered onthe jagged ones, reflected from ice, softened by snows, sparkling intorrents as the scattered diamonds leaped so far that finally they weredissipated in humid dust.

  Through all the difficulties of the way, where no trodden way existed,the two guides and guards of the little train proceeded with theperfection of experience to be acquired only by bearing fatigues anddanger with which that magnificent mountain chain abounds.

  In fact, it was impossible, even among the host of Western pioneers,more numerous than those imagine who never can see them collected, tofind two mountain men more keen, skilled, and resolute than "Old Jim"Ridge and "Cherokee Bill."

  Ridge was a taller man than ordinarily met, even in the West; but toowell proportioned, though a little spare, to reveal to the carelesseye how enviably he was gifted by nature. His features were handsome,though worn and weather-beaten; after a course of Turkish baths andfine toilet appliances, he would have eclipsed the showiest cavaliersin a Paris, London, or Vienna opera house ball. His forehead, high andbroad, was creased rather by play of emotions than effect of age. Hisblue eyes were mild enough in repose to charm the most timid maid; butin action they became fierce and sharp as a buffalo's at bay. They wereeyes that could follow a trail without his getting out of the saddle orleaning over much. His nose was long, rather curved than straight, withpliant nostrils which rose and fell freely in his liberal respirationfor the supply of a massive chest. The mouth was full of teeth, strong,sound and white, as only garnish those who are mostly meat eaters; thelips were red, but almost concealed in a moustache and beard, trimmedrarely, yet well kept, of a warm flaxen striped with silver; this tintalso gleamed in his long locks from under a blue fox skin cap. Erect,something like a Mars who inclined towards Apollo rather than Hercules,sturdy, firm, energetic, any beholder knew that he stood before anexceptional man, full of goodness, courage, and simple belief in manbeing no merely inspired _animal_.

  In "citizen's dress" he would have seemed confined; hence, his huntingcostume suited him far better. It was--from the fur cap mentioned tothe moccasins fortified with rawhide soles--composed of a leatherfrock, caught in at the waist to support his small arms by its belt,fringed with its own buckskin; a red flannel shirt, with a blacksilk neckerchief carelessly fastened by a diamond pin of Californiagold, such as an ingenious miner himself may shape; the leggings werealso of buckskin, fringed like the frock, and similarly so "workedup in grease" as to have lost the tendency to stretch in the wetwhich plays the mischief with leather garments. Balancing a swordbayonet on one hip, not unlike a machete, hung a hatchet, whilst hissix-shooters were of a size that promised damage at a longish range.His gun was peculiar. It was a "yager," or short rifle of the oldUnited States dragoons, sending a large ball; he had had it convertedinto a breechloader, a "fourteen shoot," with the availability toreserve the store and load at the muzzle with any particular chargeindependently. The stock was fortified with homemade rawhide bands.Thanks to long and continual practice, knowing how to humour all "herleetle peculiarities," as he would affectionately say, the rifle wasused by him afoot or on horse, offhanded or in a rest, with long andcalculated aim or at a snap shot with a fatality that made it dreaded.As often as by any other title, Jim Ridge was called "the Yager of theYellowstone." As far south as the mysterious sun-worshipping Indians'secluded homes, this name was the backbone of camp stories, in whichour mountaineer's marksmanship was not unduly praised.

  Jim Ridge looked the man to make history, but his time had not come, hewould have modestly said, if reproached therefore.

  As for his comrade, he was clad as an Indian rover, with betterunderclothing and equipments than the red man obtains. His gun wasa formidable and costly Winchester rifle. He was tall and slender,rather forbidding and haughty, gloomy and imperturbable; but hissmall beadlike black eyes sparkled with daring cunning and a kind ofnourished hatred. Spite of his savage airs and war paint, the closeobserver must have perceived that he had enjoyed civilisation at oneperiod. He was not an "unwashed Injin." Indeed, Cherokee Bill was thebest pupil in a St. Louis college, where his intelligence, courtesyquite charming, kindliness, and devotion to study gained the esteemof his tutor and the respect of the white students, who, Southernersthough they were, never objected to his blood.

  One day, when he was about eighteen, an old Indian woman, whom hepassed at the college gate, followed him to a lonely street, and calledhim affectionately. It was his mother, whom he had rarely seen, andwhose latest absence had lasted nearly a year. She had not wasted thoseten months; they were spent on his behalf.

  She was a Cherokee, daughter of a chief; she had been united gladly tothe celebrated South and Northwestern trapper and mountain adventurer,Bill Williams, one of those excellent shots whose gains in the furtrade were seldom capped by any other three, though "there were giantsin those days"--1830-50. There was no doubt that he possessed somesecret knowledge of the winter refuges of the wild animals valuable incommerce. Hither he went, always alone, to slay the pick at leisure.Quaint, hearty, "whole-souled," "Old Bill" Williams had not an enemy,spite of this "certainty," and even the hunters who tried to follow himand discover the sources of his fortune, would turn away laughinglywhen, at some mountain pass, where one man could keep back a multitude,they would abruptly run up against Williams' trusty rifle, and hear himchallenge.

  "D'ye h'ar, now, boys! Go 'way from fooling with the old mossback whenhe has his shooting iron loaded--it may hurt some o' ye; mind that,boys!"

  Nevertheless, at last, Bill Williams failed to come to St. Louis orSanta Fe with the well-known pack; and, as year after year passed,the old hunters would sadly shake their frosting brows and feelinglymutter, "Old Billy's gone up, sure! 'Tell 'ee for a true thing, they'verubbed out the old marksman. See! H'yar goes for a sign on my stock;I've a bullet for the nigger that sent him under, mind that!"

  At length the mountains yielded up the mystery in part. Bill Williams'squaw, penetrating snow filled gorges where, assuredly, no woman hadever stepped, came into a glade where a skeleton of a horse gleamedyellow like old alabaster in the icy crust. In a snowbank, half fallenopen like a split nut, was visible a kind of human figure, mummifiedby dry cold. It was the veteran trapper. He was in the position of ahunter awaiting a prowling foe ambushed in the shrub, his rifle inadvance, his shrunken face still leaning out eagerly. In the leathershirt and breast, almost as tanned with sun and wind, was a bullet'swound: the squaw could even chisel it out of the frozen flesh, whereblood had long since ceased to flow. That was the only clue to thetracker and slayer of the trapper, and that was the single token andheritage which altered the entire course of young Williams' life.School and cities saw him no more; he took to the wilds, and lived onthe warpath as far as the still unpunished murderer of his father wasconcerned.

  He was rich, like Jim Ridge, for they had penetrated the very "motherpocket" of the Rocky Mountains' gold store; but he, no more than hispure white partner, would renounce the existence of peril, but also ofindependence.

  Suddenly a deep "Hugh!" of attention from Cherokee Bill attracted thewhite man's ear.

  "What?" said he, peering around, but seeing nothing to alarm him; norhad the animals, usually acute observers, perceived anything even novel.

  "A solitary man," answered Bill, who spoke good English, of course.

  Ridge shook his head, not in doubt of his comrade's ability, but inself-blame.

  On the highl
ands, nothing but long habit endows one with the powerto calculate distances exactly. Rarefaction gives the atmosphere aclearness which seems to bring the horizon to hand--the sight isextended indefinitely, and masses of shadows in vast valleys looklike mere specks in the expanses of light, so that the space betweenthe standpoint and a distant object is usually mistaken. There arealso fantastic effects from the vapour being frozen or expanded, andpresenting apparently solid forms, where, in fact, unsubstantiallyreigns.

  "I am going for him," proceeded Cherokee Bill; "after all, it's noodds--we are 'to home!'" with a smile at his own imitation of theYankee twang.

  Wrapping his gun in his buffalo robes, taken off his pony, thehalf-breed slid down the declivity at the side of the "road," soto flatter it, and scrambling along an icy torrent of lovely bluewater, suddenly sprang in under the cascade from an arching rock anddisappeared.

  Ridge did not even glance after him; besides, he had arrived, indeed.He suddenly took the bell mare by the bridle, and swerved her into anapparently impenetrable thicket--a "wind-slash," where the maze ofdeadwood was increased by the prostration of many tough evergreens,blown down by an irresistible tornado. But there had been traced herea kind of way, through which the pack animals insinuated themselveswith the sureness of a cat, brushing off nothing of their loads. Asfor the two horses, they were more familiar with the strange path, andthreaded its sinuosities like dogs tunnelling under the walls of a meatsmokehouse. It is probable they scented their stable, and knew restand food would shortly reward them for terrible toil and tribulation.Having pierced the tunnel of vegetation, there was one of stone, stillmore curious.

  It was an almost regular tube, in black lava stone, four feet wide,seven or eight in height, smooth as glass mostly. Invisible fissures,however, must have supplied sweet air, for it was not hard breathingin all the extent, nearer three quarters of a mile than a half on thestraight. No human hand had fashioned it; one must presume that, inthe days when Vulcan swayed over Neptune on the earth, a torrent oflava was rushing down the steeps, when, suddenly, an immense snowfallsmothered the fiery river and chilled it into a casing of stone arounda still molten interior. That inner flow had continued, and left thetubular crust intact.

  The ground was a fine sand, heavy with iron, so that it did not risefar. At the end of this channel a star suddenly gleamed, welcome in thecomplete darkness, into which, assuredly, the bravest of men would havehesitated to follow a foe. It was the outer air again, filling a basin,rock-engirt to a great height. In this lonely spot there was not ascrap of moss, not one blade of grass, and no shrub, however hardy. Thecalcined "blossom rock" wore a yellow hue, streaked with red and black;but here and there rose separate boulders of quartz, disintegrated bytime and rain and whirling winds, which danced these Titanic blockslike thistles, and squeezed out those dull misshapen lumps. Those lumpswere gold, however; this was a "mother-source"--one of those nests ofFortune for which the confirmed gold seeker quits home, family, wealthitself in other mines that content the less ravenous. Ridge traversedthis placer--no pleasure to him, lonely Man of the Mountain--with afoot as reckless as those of the string of animals. The night wascoming. He hurried them on into a second but short subterraneanpassage, with a couple of turnings, which finally opened into a cavern.At its far end a natural doorway afforded a view of the deep blue sky,where the brilliant stars seemed all of a sudden to be strewn. In thosefew moments the sun had gone down, and darkness come.

  Ridge laid aside his gun, and started a fire, already laid, in a cavityof the grotto. The walls gleamed back the rising firelight; here amberstuds in coal, there patches of mica-schist, varied gold and silver inhue.

  After unpacking the animals, whose stores he carefully placed in caves,he sent them after the bell mare and the hunting horses, in througha channel to a sort of enclosed pasturage. Returning, he put somejerked meat down to broil, some roots to roast like so many potatoes,and added to the setting-out of a rude but hearty meal several of thedelicacies brought in the train from Oregon. He was calmly smoking,reclining at great ease, with the air of one who felt he had earned therepose, lulled by the sweet murmur of underground streams, pouring outof ancient glaciers. The approach of footsteps made him glance round.The steps he knew to be Cherokee Bill's; so it was their being heavierthan usual that alone roused him.

  The half-breed was carrying a man over his shoulder with no moredelicacy than if it had been a deer's carcase.

  "Got him, Bill!" remarked Ridge.

  "I should smile not to capture such a tenderfoot," was the rejoinder,as he flung his human prize upon the cavern floor.