Читать книгу Golden Face: A Tale of the Wild West - Mitford Bertram - Страница 2

“Snakes! if that ain’t the war-whoop, why then old Smokestack Bill never had to keep a bright lookout after his hair.”

Both inmates of the log cabin exchanged a meaning glance. Other movement made they none, save that each man extended an arm and reached down his Winchester rifle, which lay all ready to his hand on the heap of skins against which they were leaning. Within, the firelight glowed luridly on the burnished barrels of the weapons, hardly penetrating the gloomy corners of the hut. Without, the wild shrieking of the wind and the swish and sough of pine branches furiously tossing to the eddying gusts.

“Surely not,” was the reply, after a moment of attentive listening. “None of the reds would be abroad on such a night as this, let alone a war-party. Why they are no fonder of the cold than we, and to-night we are in for something tall in the way of blizzards.”

“Well, it’s a sight far down that I heard it,” went on the scout, shaking his head. “Whatever the night is up here, it may be as mild as milk-punch down on the plain. There’s scalping going forward somewhere – mind me.”

“If so, it’s far enough away. I must own to having heard nothing at all.”

For all answer the scout rose to his feet, placed a rough screen of antelope hide in front of the fire, and, cautiously opening the door, peered forth into the night. A whirl of keen, biting wind, fraught with particles of frozen snow which stung the face like quail-shot, swept round the hut, filling it with smoke from the smouldering pine-logs; then both men stepped outside, closing the door behind them.

No, assuredly no man, red or white, would willingly be abroad that night. The icy blast, to which exposure – benighted on the open plain – meant, to the inexperienced, certain death, was increasing in violence, and even in the sheltered spot where the two men stood it was hardly bearable for many minutes at a time. The night, though tempestuous, was not blackly dark, and now and again as the snow-scud scattered wildly before the wind, the mountain side opposite would stand unveiled; each tall crag towering up, a threatening fantastic shape, its rocky front dark against the driven whiteness of its base. And mingling with the roaring of the great pines and the occasional thunder of masses of snow dislodged from their boughs would be borne to the listeners’ ears, in eerie chorus, the weird dismal howling of wolves. It was a scene of indescribable wildness and desolation, that upon which these two looked forth from their winter cabin in the lonely heart of the Black Hills.

But, beyond the gruesome cry of ravening beasts and the shriek of the gale, there came no sound, nothing to tell of the presence or movements of man more savage, more merciless than they.

“Snakes! but I can’t be out of it!” muttered the scout, as once more within their warm and cosy shanty they secured the door behind them. “Smokestack Bill ain’t the boy to be out of it over a matter of an Indian yelp. And he can tell a Sioux yelp from a Cheyenne yelp, and a Kiowa yelp from a Rapaho yelp, with a store-full of Government corn-sacks over his head, and the whole lot from a blasted wolfs yelp, he can. And at any distance, too.”

“I think you are out of it, Bill, all the same;” answered his companion. “If only that, on the face of things, no consideration of scalps or plunder, or even she-captives, would tempt the reds to face this little blow to-night.”

“Well, well! I don’t say you’re wrong, Vipan. You’ve served your Plainscraft to some purpose, you have. But if what I heard wasn’t the war-whoop somewhere – I don’t care how far – why then I shall begin to believe in what the Sioux say about these here mountains.”

“What do they say?”

“Why, they say these mountains are chock full of ghosts – spirits of their chiefs and warriors who have been scalped after death, and are kept snoopin’ around here because they can’t get into the Happy Hunting-Grounds. However, we’re all right here, and ’live or dead, the Sioux buck ’d have to reckon with a couple of Winchester rifles, who tried to make us otherwise.”

He who had been addressed as Vipan laughed good-humouredly, as he tossed an armful of fat pine knots among the glowing logs, whence arose a blaze that lit up the hut as though for some festivity. And its glare affords us an admirable opportunity for a closer inspection of these two. The scout was a specimen of the best type of Western man. His rugged, weather-tanned face was far from unhandsome – frankness, self-reliance, staunchness to his friends, intrepidity toward foes, might all be read there. His thick russet beard was becoming shot with grey, but though considerably on the wrong side of fifty, an observer would have credited him with ten years to the good, for his broad, muscular frame was as upright and elastic as if he were twenty-five. His companion, who might have been fifteen years his junior, was about as fine a type of Anglo-Saxon manhood as could be met with in many a day’s journey. 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.

These two were bound together by the closest friendship, but there was this difference between them. Whereas everyone knew Smokestack Bill, whether as friend or foe, from Monterey to the British line, who he was and all about him, not a soul knew exactly who Rupert Vipan was, nor did Rupert Vipan himself, by word or hint, evince the smallest disposition to enlighten them. That he was an Englishman was clear, his nationality he could not conceal. Not that he ever tried to, but on the other hand, he made no sort of attempt at airing it.

This winter cabin was a substantial log affair, run up by the two men with some degree of trouble and with an eye to comfort. 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. The cabin was reared almost against the great trunk of a stately pine, whose spreading boughs contributed in no slight degree to its shelter. Not many yards distant stood another log-hut, similar in design and dimensions; this had been the habitation of a French Canadian and his two Sioux squaws, but now stood deserted by its former owners.

Vipan flung himself on a soft thick bearskin, took a glowing stick from the fire, and pressed it against the bowl of a long Indian pipe.

“By Jove, Bill,” he said, blowing out a great cloud. “If this isn’t the true philosophy of life it’s first cousin to it. A tight, snug shanty, the wind roaring like a legion of devils outside, a blazing fire, abundance of rations and tobacco, any amount of good furs, and – no bother in the world. Nothing to worry our soul-cases about until it becomes time to go in and trade our pelts, which, thank Heaven, won’t be for two or three months.”

“That’s so,” was the answer. “But – don’t you feel it kinder dull like? A chap like you, who’s knocked about the world. Seems to me a few months of a log cabin located away in the mountains, Can’t make it out at all.” And the scout broke off with a puzzled shake of the head.

“Look here, you unbelieving Jew,” said the other, with a laugh. “Even now you can’t get rid of the notion that I’ve left my country for my country’s good. Take my word for it, you’re wrong. There isn’t a corner of the habitable globe I couldn’t tumble up in every bit as safely as here.”

“I know that, old pard. Not that I’d care the tail of a yaller dog if it was t’other way about. We’ve hunted, and trapped, and ‘stood off’ the reds, quite years enough to know each other. And now I take it, when we’ve lit upon a barrelful of this gold stuff, you’ll be cantering off to Europe again by the first steamboat.”

“No, I think not. Except – ” and a curious look came into Vipan’s face. “Well, I don’t know. I’ve an old score to pay off. I want to be even with a certain person or two.”

“You do? Well now don’t you undertake anything foolish. You know better than I do that in your country you’ve got to wait until your throat’s already cut before drawing upon a man, and even then like enough you’ll be hung if you recover. Say, now, couldn’t you get the party or parties out here, and have a fair and square stand up? You’d make undertaker’s goods of ’em right enough, never fear.”

“No, no, my friend. That sort of reptile doesn’t face you in any such simple fashion. It strikes you through the lawyers – those beneficent products of our Christian civilisation,” replied the other, with a bitter laugh. “However, time enough to talk about that when we get to our prospecting again.”

“If we ever do get to it again. Custer’s expedition in the fall of last year didn’t go through here for fun, nor yet to look after the Sioux, though that was given as the colour of it. Why, they were prospectin’ all the time, and not for nothin’ neither. No, ‘Uncle Sam’ wants to have all the plums himself, and, likely enough, the hills’ll be full of cavalrymen soon as the snow melts. Then I reckon we shall have to git.”

“Well, the reds’ll be hoist with their own petard. It’s the old fable again. They call in ‘Uncle Sam’ to clear out the miners, and ‘Uncle Sam’ hustles them out as well. But we may not have to clear, after all, for it’s my belief that the moment the grass begins to sprout the whole Sioux nation will go upon the war-path.”

“Then we’d have to git all the slicker.”

“Not necessarily,” replied Vipan, coolly. “I’ve a notion we could stop here more snugly than ever.”

“Not unless we helped ’em,” said the scout, decidedly. “And that’s not to be done.”

“I don’t know that. Speaking for myself, I get on very well with the reds. They’ve got their faults, but then so have other people. Wait, I know what you’re going to say – they’re cruel and treacherous devils, and so forth. Well, cruelty is in their nature, and, by the way, is not unknown in civilisation. As for treachery, it strikes me, old chum, that we’ve got to keep about as brisk a look-out for a shot in the back in any of our Western townships as we have for our scalps in an Indian village.”

The scout nodded assent; puffing away vigorously at his pipe as he stared into the glowing embers.

“For instance,” went on the other, “when that chap ‘grazed’ me in the street at Denver while I wasn’t looking, and would have put his next ball clean through me if you hadn’t dropped him in his tracks so neatly – that was a nice example for a white man and a Christian to set, say, to our friends Mountain Cat, or Three Bears, or Hole-in-a-Tree, down yonder, wasn’t it? But to come to the point – which is this: Supposing some fellow had rushed us while we were prospecting that place down on the Big Cheyenne in the summer and invited us to clear, I guess we should briskly have let him see a brace of muzzles. Eh?”

“Guess we should.”

“Well, then, it amounts to the same thing here. We are bound to strike a good vein or two in the summer – in fact, we have as good as struck it. All right. After all the risk and trouble we’ve stood to find it, Uncle Sam lopes in and serves us with a notice to quit. It isn’t in reason that we should stand that.”

“Well, you see, Vipan, we’ve no sort of title here. This is an Indian reservation, and Uncle Sam’s bound by treaty to keep white men out. There are others here besides us, and I reckon in the summer the Hills’ll be a bit crowded up with them. So we shall just have to chance it with the rest, and if we’re moved, light out somewhere else.”

“Well, I don’t know that I shall. It’s no part of good sense to chuck away the wealth lying at our very feet.” And the speaker’s splendid face wore a strangely reckless and excited look. “The scheme is for the Government to chouse the Indians out of this section of country by hook or by crook – then mining concessions will be granted to the wire-pullers and their friends. And we shall see a series of miscellaneous frauds blossoming into millionaires on the strength of our discoveries.”

“And are you so keen on this gold, Vipan? Ah I reckon you’re hankering after Europe again, but I judge you’ll be no happier when you get there.”

The scout’s tone was quiet, regretful, almost upbraiding. The other’s philosophy was to end in this, then?

“It isn’t exactly that,” was the answer, moodily, and after a pause. “But I don’t see the force of being ‘done.’ I never did see it; perhaps that’s why I’m out here now. However, the Sioux won’t stand any more ‘treaties.’ They’ll fight for certain. Red Cloud isn’t the man to forget the ignominious thrashing he gave Uncle Sam in ’66 and ’67, and, by God, if it comes to ousting us I’ll be shot if I won’t cut in on his side.”

“I reckon that blunder won’t be repeated. If the cavalrymen had been properly armed; armed as they are now, with Spencer’s and Henry’s instead of with the sickest old muzzle-loading fire-sticks and a round and a half of ammunition per man, Red Cloud would have been soundly whipped at Fort Phil Kearney ’stead of t’other way about.”

“Possibly. As things are, however, he carried his point. And there’s Sitting Bull, for instance; he’s been holding the Powder River country these years. Why don’t they interfere with him? No, you may depend upon it, a war with the whole Sioux nation backed by the Indian Department, won’t suit the Govermental book. ‘Uncle Sam’ will cave in – all the other prospectors will be cleared out of the Hills, except – except ourselves.”

“Why except ourselves?” said the scout, quietly, though he was not a little astonished and dismayed at his friend and comrade’s hardly-suppressed excitement.

“We stand well with the chiefs. Look here, old man: I’d wager my scalp against a pipe of Richmond plug – if I wasn’t as bald as a billiard ball, that is – that I make myself so necessary to them that they’ll be only too glad to let us ‘mine’ as long as we choose to stay here. Just think – the stuff is all there and only waiting to be picked up – just think if we were to go in on the quiet, loaded up with solid nuggets and dust instead of a few wretched pelts. Why, man, we are made for life. The reds could put us in the way of becoming millionaires, merely in exchange for our advice – not necessarily our rifles, mind.” And the speaker’s eyes flashed excitedly over the idea.