Bertram Mitford

“ But amid the indescribable tumult, the yelling of the Indians, the plunging of the frenzied cattle, the crash and rattle of volleys, the fiery peril which threatened to wrap the whole camp in flames, the on-rushing squadrons of demon centaurs, and the piteous shrieks of terrified women and children, three or four men there kept their heads, and well indeed was it for the rest that they did so.
“Keep cool, boys! Don’t fire too quick,” thundered Vipan, deliberately picking up one of the blazing torches and hurling it with good aim full against the striped countenance of a too daring assailant. ”

“ The race was literally one for life, and the pace was terrific. To the girl it seemed like some fearful dream. Sky and earth, the great mountain rampart reared up in front, all blended together in rocking confusion during that mad race. The yells of the pursuing barbarians sounded horribly nearer, and the pursued could almost hear the whistle of their uncouth trappings as they streamed out on the breeze.
Vipan, reaching over, lashed her horse with a thong which he detached from his saddle. The animal sprang forward, but the spurt was only momentary. And the war-ponies were horribly fresh. ”

“ Great stars blaze forth in the frosty sky, not one by one, but with a rush, for now darkness has settled upon the scene, though penetrated and scattered here and there by the red glare of some convivial or household fire. And now it becomes apparent that some event of moment is to take place shortly, for a huge fire is kindled in front of the large council-lodge, which stands in the centre of the village, and, mingling with the monotonous “tom-tom” of drums, the voices of heralds are raised, convening chiefs and warriors to debate in solemn conclave. ”

“ Something white and ghostlike glints athwart the gloom. A huge pine, dead, and stripped of all its lower bark, clearly by several successive strokes of lightning. This can be no other than the “blasted tree” of the cipher. Almost trembling with excitement, once more he unfolds the dirty sheet of paper and eagerly scans it.
“Hands up, stranger! Hands up! or you’re a stiff ’un, by God!”
The harsh, threatening voice, cleaving the twilight solitude, where a moment before Vipan had imagined himself absolutely alone, was enough to unnerve a less resolute hearer. ”

“ Vipan arose. Throughout the horror of the shock his self-possession did not desert him, for he retained firm hold of the lariat rope. He was on his feet again, active as a cat, though stiff and bruised, but his steed stood shaking with alarm, using its right foreleg limpingly.
A yell of exultation went up from the pursuers. Half-a-dozen warriors, better mounted than the rest, were some distance ahead. So easy a capture would be that of the unarmed fugitive that they had not troubled to hold a weapon in readiness. ”

“ Amid the whirling, plunging mass, a warrior was seen to leap convulsively in his saddle, and, throwing up his arms, sink beneath the pounding hoofs. More than one pony rolled upon the ground, but still the flying horde circled in nearer and nearer, full half its strength preparing for a final and decisive charge. It seemed that the doom of every man, woman, and child in that camp was sealed.
Maddened by the terrific yells, by the flames of the burning missiles scorching their legs, the frantic animals picketed within the corral plunged and kicked, and strained wildly at their picket ropes. ”

“ The two owners of the cabin are fast asleep; Vipan with his blanket rolled round his head. The scout, however, is lying on his back, and his blanket has partially slipped off, as though he had found its weight too burdensome. The three are lying with their feet to the fire in fan-shaped formation from it: the scout in the centre, their guest on the outside. The latter, too, is fast asleep.
Is? Surely not. Unless a man can be said to sleep with both eyes open.
A half-charred log fell into the embers, raising a small spluttering flame. This flame glowed on the fierce orbs of the red warrior. ”

“ Rending the air with their shrill, vibrating war-whoop, a vast crowd of painted horsemen swooped down in full charge upon the doomed and demoralised whites. Flinging themselves behind their trained steeds, the Sioux delivered their fire with deadly effect, then, recovering themselves in the saddle with cat-like agility, they rode in among their writhing, shrieking victims, spearing and tomahawking right and left. Perfectly mad with terror, the draught animals stampeded. Waggons were overturned, and their inmates flung screaming to the ground, or crushed and mangled beneath the wreckage. ”

“ Of tall, almost herculean, stature, he was without a suspicion of clumsiness; quick, active, straight as a dart. His features, regular as those of a Greek-sculpture, were not, however, of a confidence-inspiring nature, for their expression was cold and reticent, and the lower half of his face was hidden in a magnificent golden beard, sweeping to his belt. The dress of both men was the regulation tunic and leggings of dressed deerskin, of Indian manufacture, and profusely ornamented with beadwork and fringes; that of Vipan being adorned with scalp-locks in addition. ”

“ Leaning against a lodge pole, as thoroughly unconcerned and at his ease among the red chieftains as ever he was in Belgravian boudoir, his splendid face as impassive as their own, sits Rupert Vipan, and if ever man lived who was thoroughly calculated to inspire respect in the breasts of these warlike savages, assuredly he was that man. That he is here at all is sufficient to show in what honour he is held among his barbarian entertainers. ”

“ To the ordinary observer there would have been something terrible beyond words in the situation. That little handful advancing fearlessly into the vast wilderness, their every step watched by the hawk-like gaze of savage videttes lying face to the ground on more than one of the adjoining heights, advancing step by step into the trap, heedless of the awful cloud overhanging their march, even that lurking band of the fiercest and most ruthless barbarians to be found upon the earth’s surface. ”

“ But before she could turn to him, startled, alarmed by the significance of his tone, the sudden and appalling metamorphosis which came over the scene nearly caused her to fall unnerved from her saddle. By magic, upon the back of each riderless steed there started an upright figure, and, splitting the stillness of the morning air with its loud fiendish quaver, the hideous war-whoop went up from the throats of half a hundred painted and feathered warriors, who, brandishing their weapons and keeping up one long, unbroken, and exultant yell, skimmed over the plain, sure of their prey. ”

“ One after another falls before his revolver. A moment more and he will reach his wife. Then they will both die together by his own hand.
The crowd of whirling centaurs seems to give way before him, and with his eye upon his goal he spurs between their ranks. But a roar of mocking laughter greets his ears.
The canvas curtains of the waggon-tilt part, and a great savage, hideously painted, springs forth, uttering an exultant whoop as he brandishes something in the air. ”

“ Gradually, imperceptibly, he checked his steed. Any moment the fog might lift. He must back out of this perilous escort as imperceptibly as he had entered it. But, just as he reckoned himself clear, a fresh group of figures would start up on his rear, and canter forward in the wake of those who had gone before. These ceased, and by the time the fog began fairly to roll back beneath the dispelling power of the rising sun, Vipan, to his inexpressible relief, found himself alone. Then spying a confused heap of rocks and bushes high up on the slope of a hill he made for it. ”

“ What enemy has not felt the spring of Mountain Cat? From the far hunting-grounds of the Kiowas and the Apaches to the boundary line of the English in the North, there is not a spot of ground that Mountain Cat has not swept with his war-parties; not a village of the crawling Shoshones or skulking Pawnees that he has not taken scalps from; not a waggon train of these invading whites that he has not struck. When in the South the destroying locusts sweep down upon the land, they come not in one mighty cloud. ”

“ He sees a number of small bodies flung high into the air—even marks the piteous terror in the faces of the wretched little infants as they fall, to be caught dexterously on the bright lance-points extended to receive them, and the laughing yells of the painted fiends as the warm blood spurts forth and falls in jets upon their hands and persons. All this passes before his eyes and ears as a vision of hell, and more than one of those fierce and ruthless assailants deftly turns his horse away rather than face the awful fury of despair blazing from his livid countenance. ”

“ That this woman, whose selfish reticence had ruined his life, to screen whom he had sacrificed his prospects up to blighting point, as to whose whereabouts he had long ceased to speculate, should appear before him alone in the camp of the hostile Sioux—living there as one of themselves—struck him as little short of miraculous, and a superstitious feeling seemed to warn him, eagerly as he strove to dismiss it, that an occurrence so startling, so entirely out of all reckoning, portended some grave crisis to himself. ”

“ The fugitive needs no second invitation. His horse’s head is turned towards the never-so-welcome refuge. Amid a shower of bullets and arrows from his discomfited pursuers he gallops up the gradual slope which lies between himself and safety, and, fainting, exhausted, speechless, more dead than alive, at length flings himself upon the ground at his rescuers’ feet.
Vipan’s attention is for the moment more taken up with the red warriors than with the man he has saved from their ruthless clutches. ”

“ The latter brave’s bumptiousness had become simply overwhelming. Full of the recently-acquired importance conferred upon him by his captivity among the whites and subsequent escape, he would strut and swagger around, bedecked in all his war-paint and finery—passing Vipan with a contemptuous laugh or a remark of covert insolence. The only consideration that restrained the latter from inflicting summary chastisement was the certainty that the hour he did so would be his last. And his friend and protector, Mahto-sapa, was frequently absent on warlike or diplomatic expeditions. ”

“ Smokestack Bill, seizing one of the murdered men’s picks, began to dig, lustily and in silence, every now and again shaking his head ominously. Vipan, who thought this voluntary sextonship a bore, lent a hand to oblige his friend. These two unknown miners were no more his kin than the savage Sioux who had slain them. He had no kin. All the world was an enemy, to be turned to advantage when possible, and defeated at any rate when not. ”

“ And the radiant sun shedding the golden glories of his nearly run course upon the majestic vastness of those fair solitudes sank lower and lower to his rest, only too certain to be lulled in his far-off mountain bed by the crash and rattle of shots, the exultant yells of human fiends, the unheeded prayer for mercy, then massacre mingled with a demon orgie of sickening barbarity from the very thought of which the average mind shrinks in dismay. ”

“ Built in a hollow on the mountain face, it hung perched as an eyrie over a ravine some thousands of feet in depth, in such wise that its occupants could command every approach, and descry the advent of strangers, friendly or equivocal, long before the latter could reach them. Behind rose the jagged, almost precipitous mountain in a serrated ridge, and inaccessible from the other side; so that upon the whole the position was about as safe as any position could be in that insecure region, where every man took his rifle to bed with him, and slept with one eye open even then. ”

“ As with a man, so it was with a nation. Prudence was everything. This gold which white men were now finding among the Hills—did not all experience show that wherever it was discovered, there the whites would soon appear in countless swarms? Gold was the “medicine” of the whites—they could not resist it. Not even all the warriors the Dahcotah could muster could in the long run stand between the whites and gold—no, nor all the warriors of every tribe from the Apaches in the south to the Blackfeet on the English boundary line. ”

“ Nowhere is diplomatic talent and readiness in debate held in such high respect as among savage races.
“The white girl who hunted with Golden Face is very beautiful,” went on Sitting Bull. “Was it for her he lifted his rifle against his Dahcotah brethren?”
“Who would not fight for a beautiful woman, be she white or red?” answered Vipan, with a burst of well-timed frankness. “Sitting Bull is a great chief, let him judge if my words are straight. Did War Wolf and his followers come to me as to a friend? No; they attacked me as enemies. ”

“ Stores of every kind were plentiful—flour, coffee, and sugar, whisky, warm furs, and abundance of tobacco—and surrounded by every creature comfort they would sit and smoke their long pipes, after a day of hard and healthful exercise, while the wind shrieked without, and all the voices of the weird wilderness were abroad, and the great mountains reverberated ever and anon the thunderous boom of some mighty mass of snow which, dislodged by the wind or its own weight, roared down the slopes, perchance to plunge with a crash over a huge cliff. ”