Twice Bought, R. M. Ballantyne [ready to read books txt] 📗

or three of the robbers advanced, but Drake quietly held up his hand, and they stopped.

“I’m in your power, you see,” he said, laying his rifle on the ground. “Yes,” he continued, drawing his tall figure up to its full height and crossing his arms on his breast, “my name is Drake. As to Mahoghany, I’ve no objection to it though it ain’t complimentary. If, as you say, Mister Stalker, I’m to swing for this, of course I must swing. Yet it do seem raither hard that a man should swing for savin’ his friend’s life an’ his enemy’s at the same time.”

“How—what do you mean?”

“I mean that Mister Brixton is my friend,” answered the trapper, “and I’ve saved his life just now, for which I thank the Lord. At the same time, Stalker is my enemy—leastwise I fear he’s no friend—an’ didn’t I save his life too when I put a ball in his arm, that I could have as easily put into his head or his heart?”

“Well,” responded Stalker, with a fiendish grin, that the increasing pain of his wound did not improve, “at all events you have not saved your own life, Drake. As I said, you shall swing for it. But I’ll give you one chance. If you choose to help me I will spare your life. Can you tell me where Paul Bevan and his daughter are?”

“They are with Unaco and his tribe.”

“I could have guessed as much as that. I ask you where they are!”

“On the other side of yonder mountain range, where the chief’s village lies.”

Somewhat surprised at the trapper’s readiness to give the information required, and rendered a little suspicious, Stalker asked if he was ready and willing to guide him to the Indian village.

“Surely. If that’s the price I’m to pay for my life, it can be easily paid,” replied the trapper.

“Ay, but you shall march with your arms bound until we are there, and the fight wi’ the redskins is over,” said the robber-chief, “and if I find treachery in your acts or looks I’ll blow your brains out on the spot. My left hand, you shall find, can work as well as the right wi’ the revolver.”

“A beggar, they say, must not be a chooser,” returned the trapper. “I accept your terms.”

“Good. Here, Goff,” said Stalker, turning to his lieutenant, “bind his hands behind him after he’s had some supper, and then come an’ fix up this arm o’ mine. I think the bone has escaped.”

“Hadn’t we better start off at once,” suggested Drake, “an’ catch the redskins when they’re asleep?”

“Is it far off?” asked Stalker.

“A goodish bit. But the night is young. We might git pretty near by midnight, and then encamp so as to git an hour’s sleep before makin’ the attack. You see, redskins sleep soundest just before daybreak.”

While he was speaking the trapper coughed a good deal, and sneezed once or twice, as if he had a bad cold.

“Can’t you keep your throat and nose quieter?” said the chief, sternly.

“Well, p’r’aps I might,” replied Drake, emitting a highly suppressed cough at the moment, “but I’ve got a queer throat just now. The least thing affects it.”

After consultation with the principal men of his band, Stalker determined to act on Drake’s advice, and in a few minutes the trapper was guiding them over the hills in a state of supreme satisfaction, despite his bonds, for had he not obtained the power to make the robbers encamp on a spot which the Indians could not avoid passing on their way to the rescue, and had he not established a sort of right to emit sounds which would make his friends aware of his exact position, and thus bring both parties into collision before daybreak, which could not have been the case if the robbers had remained in the encampment where he found them?

Turn we now to Leaping Buck and Tolly Trevor. Need it be said that these intelligent lads did not, as the saying is, allow grass to grow under their feet? The former went over the hills at a pace and in a manner that fully justified his title; and the latter followed with as much vigour and resolution, if not as much agility, as his friend.

In a wonderfully short space of time, considering the distance, they burst upon the Indian village, and aroused it with the startling news.

Warfare in those regions was not the cumbrous and slow affair that it is in civilised places. There was no commissariat, no ammunition wagons, no baggage, no camp-followers to hamper the line of march. In five or ten minutes after the alarm was given about two hundred Indian braves marched out from the camp in a column which may be described as one-deep—i.e. one following the other—and took their rapid way up the mountain sides, led by Unaco in person. Next to him marched Paul Bevan, who was followed in succession by Fred Westly, Paddy Flinders, Leaping Buck, and Tolly.

For some time the long line could be seen by the Rose of Oregon passing swiftly up the mountain-side. Then, as distance united the individuals, as it were, to each other, it assumed the form of a mighty snake crawling slowly along. By degrees it crawled over the nearest ridge and disappeared, after which Betty went to discuss the situation with Unaco’s old mother.

It was near midnight when the robber-band encamped in a wooded hollow which was backed on two sides by precipices and on the third by a deep ravine.

“A good spot to set a host at defiance,” remarked Stalker, glancing round with a look that would have expressed satisfaction if the wounded arm had allowed.

“Yes,” added the trapper, “and—” A violent fit of coughing prevented the completion of the sentence, which, however, when thought out in Drake’s mind ran—“a good spot for hemming you and your scoundrels in, and starving you into submission!”

A short time sufficed for a bite of cold supper and a little whiff, soon after which the robber camp, with the exception of the sentinels, was buried in repose.

Tom Brixton was not allowed to have any intercourse whatever with his friend Drake. Both were bound and made to sleep in different parts of the camp. Nevertheless, during one brief moment, when they chanced to be near each other, Drake whispered, “Be ready!” and Tom heard him.

Ere long no sound was heard in the camp save an occasional snore or sigh, and Drake’s constant and hacking, but highly suppressed, cough. Poor fellow! He was obviously consumptive, and it was quite touching to note the careful way in which he tried to restrain himself, giving vent to as little sound as was consistent with his purpose.

Turning a corner of jutting rock in the valley which led to the spot, Unaco’s sharp and practised ear caught the sound. He stopped and stood like a bronze statue by Michael Angelo in the attitude of suddenly arrested motion. Upwards of two hundred bronze arrested statues instantly tailed away from him.

Presently a smile, such as Michael Angelo probably never thought of reproducing, rippled on the usually grave visage of the chief.

“M’ogany Drake!” he whispered, softly, in Paul Bevan’s ear.

“I didn’t know Drake had sitch a horrid cold,” whispered Bevan, in reply.

Tolly Trevor clenched his teeth and screwed himself up internally to keep down the laughter that all but burst him, for he saw through the device at once. As for Leaping Buck, he did more than credit to his sire, because he kept as grave as Michael Angelo himself could have desired while chiselling his features.

“Musha! but that is a quare sound,” whispered Flinders to Westly.

“Hush!” returned Westly.

At a signal from their chief the whole band of Indians sank, as it seemed, into the ground, melted off the face of the earth, and only the white men and the chief remained.

“I must go forward alone,” whispered Unaco, turning to Paul. “White man knows not how to go on his belly like the serpent.”

“Mahoghany Drake would be inclined to dispute that p’int with ’ee,” returned Bevan. “However, you know best, so we’ll wait till you give us the signal to advance.”

Having directed his white friends to lie down, Unaco divested himself of all superfluous clothing, and glided swiftly but noiselessly towards the robber camp, with nothing but a tomahawk in his hand and a scalping-knife in his girdle. He soon reached the open side of the wooded hollow, guided thereto by Drake’s persistent and evidently distressing cough. Here it became necessary to advance with the utmost caution. Fortunately for the success of his enterprise, all the sentinels that night had been chosen from among the white men. The consequence was that although they were wide awake and on the qui vive, their unpractised senses failed to detect the very slight sounds that Unaco made while gliding slowly—inch by inch, and with many an anxious pause—into the very midst of his foes. It was a trying situation, for instant death would have been the result of discovery.

As if to make matters more difficult for him just then, Drake’s hacking cough ceased, and the Indian could not make out where he lay. Either his malady was departing or he had fallen into a temporary slumber! That the latter was the case became apparent from his suddenly recommencing the cough. This, however, had the effect of exasperating one of the sentinels.

“Can’t you stop that noise?” he muttered, sternly.

“I’m doin’ my best to smother it,” said Drake in a conciliatory tone.

Apparently he had succeeded, for he coughed no more after that. But the fact was that a hand had been gently laid upon his arm.

“So soon!” he thought. “Well done, boys!” But he said never a word, while a pair of lips touched his ear and said, in the Indian tongue—

“Where lies your friend?”

Drake sighed sleepily, and gave a short and intensely subdued cough, as he turned his lips to a brown ear which seemed to rise out of the grass for the purpose, and spoke something that was inaudible to all save that ear. Instantly hand, lips, and ear withdrew, leaving the trapper in apparently deep repose. A sharp knife, however, had touched his bonds, and he knew that he was free.

A few minutes later, and the same hand touched Tom Brixton’s arm. He would probably have betrayed himself by an exclamation, but remembering Drake’s “Be ready,” he lay perfectly still while the hands, knife, and lips did their work. The latter merely said, in broken English, “Rise when me rise, an’ run!”

Next instant Unaco leaped to his feet and, with a terrific yell of defiance, bounded into the bushes. Tom Brixton followed him like an arrow, and so prompt was Mahoghany Drake to act that he and Tom came into violent collision as they cleared the circle of light thrown by the few sinking embers of the camp-fires. No damage, however, was done. At the same moment the band of Indians in ambush sprang up with their terrible war whoop, and rushed towards the camp. This effectually checked the pursuit which had been instantly begun by the surprised bandits, who at once retired to the shelter of the mingled rocks and shrubs in the centre of the hollow, from out of which position they fired several tremendous volleys.

“That’s right—waste yer ammunition,” said Paul Bevan, with a short laugh, as he and the rest lay quickly down to let the leaden shower pass over.

“It’s always the way wi’ men taken by surprise,” said Drake, who, with Brixton and the chief, had stopped in their flight and turned with their friends. “They blaze away wildly for a bit, just to relieve their feelin’s, I s’pose. But they’ll soon stop.”

“An’ what’ll we do now?” inquired Flinders, “for it seems to me we’ve got all we want out o’ them, an’ it’s no use fightin’ them for mere fun—though it’s mesilf that used to like fightin’ for that same; but I think the air of Oregon has