Читать книгу Frank in the Mountains - Castlemon Harry - Страница 2

No sooner had the chief's yell died away than the whole tribe took it up; and such a din as that which rung in Frank's ears during the next few seconds, he had never heard before. The yells did not express delight, but surprise and indignation; for their youthful champion was being left behind at the very commencement of the race. Frank took the lead at the start. The instant the signal was given, he bounded forward like an arrow from a bow, and was well under way before the Indian had made a step.

"Whoop!" yelled Dick, his stentorian voice ringing out loud and clear above the noise made by the excited savages; "if that wasn't well done may I never draw a bead on an Injun agin." The trapper was following close at Frank's heels, swinging along with an easy, graceful motion, and moving over the ground so lightly that he scarcely seemed to touch it. "Don't be in too big a hurry," said he, as Frank continued to increase his speed. "Save some of your wind for the finish. Come along, thar," he added, looking over his shoulder at the young Indian. "If you can't keep up, come here an' I'll tote you."

The savage, however, was not yet beaten. Quickly recovering from his surprise, and spurred on by the yells of derision which his friends sent after him, he exerted himself to the utmost; and before they reached the end of the course, he had overtaken Frank, and was running side by side with him; but he could not pass him. Indeed, it was quite as much as he could do to keep pace with him; while Frank was running well within himself, with plenty of power held in reserve, and ready, at a word from the trapper, to put on a fresh burst of speed, and leave his rival far in the rear. They reached the tree at the end of the course, swung round it like two flashes of light, and sped along the home stretch with unabated speed, the Indian beginning to feel the effects of his rapid run, and Frank apparently as fresh as when he started.

"He aint half the runner I thought he was," said the trapper, to encourage his young friend. "He's blowing his bellows already. I say, Injun! I reckon you're a little out of practice, aint you? The next time you banter a white feller to race with you, you had better pick out a good hoss to carry you. We haint begun to run yet. Let out just the least bit, youngster."

Frank "let out" a good deal; and although the Indian made desperate attempts to keep pace with him, he quickly left him behind, and finally flew past the place where the chief was standing, the winner by fifty yards.

"Whoop! Whoop!" shouted Dick, who seemed to be almost beside himself with delight. "I say, chief! If you've got any young fellers in camp, who think themselves something great at ridin', jumpin', throwin' the lasso, an' handlin' the rifle, jest trot 'em out. We've beat you runnin', an' now that we have got our blood up, we are ready for a'most any thing."

The issue of the race greatly astonished the Indians. Frank, as he passed the chief, was welcomed with cheers from the officers of the fort, the trappers, and from Archie, who hurried up to him, and shook his hand as though he had not met him for months; while the defeated runner was greeted with jeers and ridicule. No one, not even Dick, seemed more delighted than the chief. He approached the place where Frank was standing, patted him on the back, and looked at him with as much curiosity and admiration as he would have bestowed upon a steamboat or a locomotive, had one suddenly made its appearance in the valley. "Good boy!" said he, approvingly. "Ought to be Injun."

"He had oughter be a trapper," said old Bob. "A boy who can run like that is wasting his time by living in the States. If you would stay out here among the mountains fur a few years, Master Frank, you might get to be the leader of a band of trappers, or the captain of a wagon train."

Frank, flushed with excitement and exercise, turned to look for his rival. He saw him standing at a little distance from the other members of the tribe, leaning against a tree, with his arms folded, and a fierce scowl on his face. His defeat, and the reception he had met with from his friends, had made him very angry. Now and then some one jeered at him, but the majority of the tribe took no notice of him whatever. They seemed to think that an Indian who would allow a white boy to run faster than he did, was not worth noticing.

"You've give him a big back-set, Frank," said Dick; "an' my advice to you is to keep your eyes open as long as we stay in the valley. You've made an enemy of that feller, an' I know, by the squint in his eye, that he wouldn't think no more of slippin' a ball or arrer into you, than he would of eatin' a piece of jerked buffaler. You see these Injuns are mighty wild yet; they haint been whipped enough to make 'em tame. They seem friendly enough now, but they've no great love fur white folks; an', if they thought they could do it without bringin' harm to themselves, they would massacree the last one of us afore they are an hour older. I don't like the way they act, any how; an', mark what I say, youngster, we're goin' to have trouble with 'em. Bars an' buffaler! What's up now?"

The trapper was not long in finding out what was up, and neither was Frank. The young Indian, smarting under his defeat, and stung by the ridicule of his friends, had determined to retrieve his lost reputation. If he could not distance the white boy in a foot-race, he could perhaps beat him at something else, and so regain some of the laurels that had been wrested from him. He resolved to try it; and before Frank knew what was going on, the Indian stepped up behind him, and clasping his sinewy arms around his body, lifted him from his feet, and attempted to throw him to the ground. He took Frank by surprise, and caught him in such a manner that his arms were pinned to his side, thus placing him at great disadvantage.

"That's a cowardly way of doing business," shouted Archie, indignantly. "Why don't you give a fellow a fair chance? If he throws you, Frank, get up and try it again, for this won't be a fair test."

"He aint a goin' to be throwed," said the trapper. "That Injun will have to eat a heap of dried buffaler meat afore he can get Frank off his pins. Show him what you can do, youngster."

The young Indian speedily found that he had got his hands full, and that one hundred and sixty pounds of bone and muscle was an exceedingly unhandy weight to manage, especially when backed up by such skill and courage as Frank possessed. The latter positively refused to be thrown. The Indian, although he exerted himself to the utmost, could not force him from an upright position, for Frank, like a cat, always fell feet foremost. The excitement ran high as the young athletes struggled over the ground. Yells of delight and encouragement from the friends of both parties arose in deafening chorus, and Indians, officers, and trappers pushed and elbowed one another to obtain a position from which they could view the contest, which was decided in Frank's favor much more easily and quickly than the foot-race. After a few ineffectual attempts, he succeeded in freeing his arms; and catching the Indian around the body, broke his hold in an instant, and sent him headlong to the ground. The ease with which it was done astonished every one who witnessed it, and had a very chilling effect upon the ardor of the Indian, who jumped to his feet and stole off toward the village, looking exceedingly humiliated and crestfallen.

Frank, although he was proud of his victories, as any other boy would have been under the same circumstances, was almost sorry that he had allowed himself to be persuaded into contesting the Indian's claims to superiority. The expression he saw on the face of his rival told him that he was almost beside himself with fury; and Frank did not relish the thought that any one, even an Indian, whom he never expected to see again, should be angry at him for any thing he had done. He would have been astonished had he known what was to be the result of this morning's work. He was destined to see and know a great deal more of his rival, and also of the chief, whose interest in him now seemed to be redoubled; and this foot-race and wrestling match were the preludes to more than one exciting and disagreeable event that was to happen before he saw California again.

"Youngster, I am proud of you," exclaimed Dick, seizing Frank's hand, and giving it a grip and a shake that made the boy double up like a jack-knife; "but I say agin, that you had better keep a good lookout as long as them red skins stay about here. They're mighty onsartin, an' thar's no knowin' what they may do. Let's go home."

Frank put on his jacket and hat, and followed the trappers toward the house. He found Captain Porter, Mr. Brent, and Adam impatiently awaiting his arrival, for they had witnessed the race, and were anxious to know all about it. Dick, as usual, acted as spokesman; and Frank afterward said that he had not the least idea how swift a runner he was, or what an astonishing victory he had won, until he heard the trapper relate the particulars. If one might judge by what he said, Frank could beat any mustang in Mr. Brent's stables.

The listeners were all as highly elated as the trapper. Adam shook his new friend warmly by the hand, and the Captain laughed until he shook all over like a big bowl of jelly. Frank was once more a hero, and during the next half hour the race formed the chief topic of conversation; but even that grew tiresome at last, and the cousins, who could not remain long inactive, strolled off toward the camp of the trappers. Shortly afterward they emerged from the grove, mounted on their horses, and rode toward the mountains.

They had not decided where they were going, or what they would do; but, as far as the sport they were likely to meet with was concerned, that made little difference. In that wilderness they could not run amiss of something to excite and amuse them, let them go in what direction they would. If they preferred quiet sport, there was plenty of it to be found in the brook that ran through the valley. No city fishermen, with their jointed poles and artificial flies, had ever invaded this retired spot; and having no enemies except an occasional fishhawk, and a few straggling Indians and trappers to contend with, the trout had increased and multiplied until the stream fairly swarmed with them. If they decided to try their rifles, and engage in some more active and exhilerating sport than fishing, there were the mountains, which abounded in game of every description. If they felt so inclined they might, within less than half an hour, make the acquaintance of a panther or two, or renew their intimacy with the grizzlies. Archie did not deny that he was afraid of grizzly bears, and, for that reason, he thought it best to give them and their haunts a wide berth. He picked out a shady spot on the bank of the brook, and said he would stop there and try his luck at fishing; while Frank, who had heard that elk were plenty in the mountains, thought he would ride farther on and see if he could find one. "I shall not go far," said he, "for not being acquainted with the country, I might get lost; and I shouldn't like the idea of being obliged to stay in the mountains all night."

"Nor I either," replied Archie; "and for that reason I am going to stay here, where I know I am safe. Hold on a minute, and see me catch a fish."

Archie dismounted from his horse, and after tying the animal to a neighboring tree, cut from the thicket a long, slender sapling, which, on being stripped of its branches, promised to answer the purpose for which it was intended, and to pull out a trout as well as any twenty-five-dollar rod. Then he produced a fish-line from his pocket, and in a short time his pole was rigged. The bait was dropped carefully over the bank, and no sooner had it touched the water than it was seized by a ravenous trout, which found itself struggling on the ground in a twinkling.

"He is rather larger than those we used to catch about Lawrence, isn't he?" said Frank. "Now, if I am fortunate enough to knock over an elk, we'll have a supper such as people in the cities do not often enjoy."

Archie, intent upon securing his fish before it floundered back into the water, did not reply; and when he looked up again, his cousin was out of sight.

Frank urged Roderick into a gallop, and soon had left the valley behind, and was threading his way through a thickly-wooded ravine that led into the mountains. Here he became more cautious in his movements, and allowed his horse to walk leisurely along, while he peered through the trees on every side of him, in the hope of meeting with one of the numerous elk which every evening descended from the mountains into the valley to crop the grass and slake their thirst at the brook. His chances for a shot at one of these animals would have been greatly increased if he had left his horse behind; but grizzlies were plenty, and Frank did not like the idea of encountering one while on foot. On this particular evening, however, the mountains seemed to be deserted. Not a living animal of any description did he see, during the hour and a half that he continued on his course up the ravine; and becoming discouraged at last, he turned Roderick about and rode toward the rancho.

"I wish I could see just one squirrel," said Frank, who, like all young hunters, considered it his duty to empty his gun at something before he returned home. "What's that?"

A slight movement in the bushes in advance of him attracted his attention; then a twig snapped behind him, and a yell, so sudden and appalling that it made Frank's blood run cold, echoed through the ravine; and before he could look about him to see what was the matter, he was pulled from his saddle and thrown to the ground. In a twinkling his rifle was torn from his grasp, his hands bound behind his back, and he was helped to his feet to find himself surrounded by a party of Indians in war costume.