by G. A. Henty
CHAPTER VIII
IN SAFETY
"We have gained half an hour anyhow," Jerry said, as they galloped upthe ravine, "and I reckon by the time we overtake them we shall findthem stowed away in some place where it will puzzle the red-skins todislodge us. The varmint will fight hard if they are cornered, but theyain't good at advancing when there are a few rifle-tubes, in the handsof white men, pointing at them, and they have had a lesson now that wecan shoot."
The ravine continued to narrow. The stream had become a mere rivulet,and they were high up on the hillside.
"I begin to be afeared there ain't no place for making a stand." Here hewas interrupted by an angry growl, as a great bear suddenly rose to hisfeet behind a rock.
"You may thank your stars that we are too busy to attend to you," Jerrysaid, as they rode past within a few yards of it. "That is a grizzly,Tom; and an awkward beast you would have found him if you had come uponhim by yourself without your shooting-iron. He is a big one too, and hisskin would have been worth money down in the settlements. Ah, there theyare."
The ravine made an abrupt turn to the west, and high up on its side theysaw their three companions with the five horses climbing up theprecipitous rocks.
"How ever did they get up there?" Jerry exclaimed.
"Found Indian trail," the chief said. "Let my brothers keep their eyesopen."
They rode on slowly now, examining every foot of the steep hillside.Presently Hunting Dog, who was ahead, uttered an exclamation. Betweentwo great boulders there was a track, evidently a good deal used.
"Let Hunting Dog go first," the chief said. "Leaping Horse will followthe white men."
"I reckon that this is the great Indian trail over the pass," Jerry saidto Tom, who preceded him. "I have heard there ain't no way over themountains atween that pass by Fremont's Buttes and the pass by thispeak, which they calls Union Peak, and the red-skins must travel by thiswhen they go down to hunt buffalo on the Green River. It is a wonderHarry struck on it."
"Leaping Horse told him to keep his eyes open," the chief said from therear. "He knew that Indian trail led up this valley."
"Jee-rusalem! but it's a steep road," Jerry said presently. "I amdog-goned if I can guess how the red-skins ever discovered it. I expectthey must have tracked some game up it, and followed to see where itwent to."
The trail wound about in a wonderful way. Sometimes it went horizontallyalong narrow ledges, then there was a bit of steep climbing, where theyhad to lead their horses; then it wound back again, and sometimes evendescended for a distance to avoid a projecting crag.
"Ah! would ye, yer varmint?" Jerry exclaimed, as a shot rang out fromthe valley below and a bullet flattened itself against a rock within afoot or two of his head. The shot was followed by a loud yell frombelow, as a crowd of mounted Indians rode at full gallop round the angleof the ravine.
"Hurry on, Hunting Dog, and get round the next corner, for we areregular targets here."
A few yards farther a turn of the path took them out of sight of theIndians, but not before a score of bullets came whistling up from below.
"The varmint have been riding too fast to shoot straight, I reckon. Itwill be our turn directly."
Just as he spoke the chief called upon them to dismount. They threwtheir bridles on their horses' necks, and descending to the ledge theyhad just left, lay down on it.
"Get your revolver out, Tom, before you shoot," Jerry said. "They willbe off before you have time to load your rifle again."
The Indians were some four hundred feet below them, and were talkingexcitedly, evidently hesitating whether to follow up the trail. The fourrifles cracked almost together. Two Indians fell, and the plunging oftwo horses showed that they were hit. In an instant the whole mass wereon their way down the valley, followed by bullet after bullet from therevolvers which Leaping Horse as well as the whites carried. Anythinglike accurate aim was impossible, and no Indian was seen to fall, but itwas probable that some of the bullets had taken effect among the crowdedhorsemen.
"Go on quiet now," Leaping Horse said, rising to his feet. "'Rappahoesnot follow any farther. One man with this"--and he touched hisrevolver--"keep back whole tribe here."
Half an hour later they joined the party who had halted at the top ofthe track.
"It air too bad our being out of it," Ben said. "I hope you have givensome of the varmint grist."
"Only five or six of them," Jerry replied regretfully, "counting in theone Leaping Horse shot at the village. Tom here did a big shot, andbrought one down in his tracks at a good four hundred yards--as neat ashot as ever I saw fired. The chief he accounted for another; thenatween us we wiped out two down below; and I reckon some of the othersare carrying some of our lead away. Waal, I think we have shook them offat last any how. I suppose there ain't, no other road they can come uphere by, chief?"
"Leaping Horse only heard of one trail."
"You may bet your life there ain't another," Harry remarked. "They wouldnever have used such a dog-goned road as this if there had been anyother way of going up."
"Camp here," the chief said. "Long journey over pass, too much cold.Keep watch here at head of trail."
"That is a very good plan. I have heard that the pass is over ninethousand feet above the sea, and it would never do to have to camp upthere. Besides, I have been looking at the sky, and I don't much likeits appearance. Look over there to the north."
There were, indeed, evident signs of an approaching change in theweather. On the previous day every peak and jagged crest stood out hardand distinct in the clear air. Now all the higher summits were hidden bya bank of white cloud.
"Snow," the Indian said gravely; "winter coming."
"That is just what I thought, chief. At any rate we know where we arehere, and there is brushwood to be gathered not far down the trail; andeven if we are shut up here we can manage well enough for a day or two.These early snows don't lie long, but to be caught in a snow-stormhigher up would be a sight worse than fighting with red-skins."
From the spot where they were now standing at the edge of the ravine theground sloped very steeply up for some hundreds of feet, and then steepcrags rose in an unbroken wall; but from the view they had had of thecountry from the other side they knew that behind this wall rose a rangeof lofty summits. The Indian trail ran along close to the edge of theravine. The chief looked round earnestly.
"No good place to camp," he said. "Wind blow down hills, horses not ableto stand against it. Heap snow tumble down from there," and he pointedupwards. "Carry everything down below."
"Well, if you think we had better push on, let us do so, chief."
The Indian shook his head and pointed to the clouds again. "See," hesaid; "storm come very soon."
Even in the last two or three minutes a change was perceptible. Theupper edge of the clouds seemed to be suddenly broken up. Long streamersspread out like signal flags of danger. Masses of clouds seemed to bewrenched off and to fly with great rapidity for a short distance; someof them sinking a little, floated back until they again formed a part ofthe mountain cap, while others sped onwards towards the south.
"No time," the chief repeated earnestly; "must look for camp quick." Hespoke in the Indian tongue to Hunting Dog, and the two stood on a pointwhere the ground jutted out, and closely examined the ravine up whoseside they had climbed. The chief pointed farther along, and Hunting Dogstarted at a run along the Indian trail. A few hundred yards farther hepaused and looked down, moved a few steps farther, and then disappearedfrom sight. In three or four minutes he returned and held up his arms.
"Come," the chief said, and taking his horse's rein led it along thepath. The others followed his example, glad, indeed, to be in motion.Five minutes before they had been bathed in perspiration from theirclimb up the cliff; now they were conscious of the extraordinary changeof temperature that had suddenly set in, and each had snatched a blanketfrom behind his saddle and wrapped it round him. They soon reached thespot where Hunting Dog was sta
nding, and looked down. Some thirty feetbelow there was a sort of split in the face of the cliff, a wall of rockrising to within four or five feet of the level of the edge of theravine. At one end it touched the face of the rock, at the other it wasten or twelve feet from it, the space between being in the form of along wedge, which was completely filled up with trees and brushwood. Aledge ran down from the point where Hunting Dog was standing to themouth of the fissure.
"Jee-rusalem, chief!" Ben exclaimed. "That air just made for us--wecould not have found a better, not if we had sarched for a year. But Ireckon we shall have to clear the place a bit before we take thecritters down."
Two axes were taken from one of the pack-horses.
"Don't cut away the bigger stuff, Ben," Harry said as his two matesproceeded down the ledge, "their heads will shelter us from the snow abit; and only clear away the bushes enough to give room for the horsesand us, and leave those standing across the entrance to make a screen.While you are doing it we will fetch in as much more wood and grass aswe can get hold of before the snow begins to fall."
The horses were left standing while the men scattered along the top ofthe ravine, and by the time Ben shouted that they were ready, aconsiderable pile of brushwood and a heap of coarse grass had beencollected. The horses were then led down one by one, unsaddled, andpacked together in two lines, having beyond them a great pile of thebushes that had been cut away.
"I am dog-goned if this ain't the best shelter I ever struck upon,"Jerry said. "We could not have fixed upon a better if we had had itbuilt special," the others cordially agreed.
The place they occupied was of some twelve feet square. On either sidewas a perpendicular wall of rock; beyond were the horses; while at theentrance the bush, from three to four feet high, had been left standing;above them stretched a canopy of foliage. Enough dry wood had beencollected to start a fire.
"Don't make it too big. Jerry, we don't want to scorch up our roof,"Harry Wade said. "Well, I reckon we have got enough fuel here for aweek, for there is what you cut down and what we brought, and all thatis left standing beyond the horses; and with the leaves and the grassthe ponies should be able to hold out as long as the fuel lasts. We areshort of meat, but we have plenty of flour; and as for water, we canmelt snow."
Buffalo rugs were laid down on each side by the rock walls, and on thesethey took their seats and lighted their pipes.
"I have been wanting a smoke pretty bad," Jerry said; "I ain't had onesince we halted in that there canyon. Hello, here it comes!"
As he spoke a fierce gust of wind swayed the foliage overhead and sentthe smoke, that had before risen quietly upwards, whirling round therecess; then for a moment all was quiet again; then came another and astronger gust, rising and gathering in power and laden with fineparticles of snow. A thick darkness fell, and Harry threw some more woodon the fire to make a blaze. But loud as was the gale outside, the airin the shelter was hardly moved, and there was but a slight rustling ofthe leaves overhead. Thicker and thicker flew the snow flakes in the airoutside, and yet none seemed to fall through the leaves.
"I am dog-goned if I can make this out," Sam Hicks said. "We are asquiet here as if we were in a stone house, and one would think there wasa copper-plated roof overhead. It don't seem nat'ral."
The others were also looking up with an air of puzzled surprise, notunmingled with uneasiness. Harry went to the entrance and looked outover the breastwork of bushes. "Look here, Sam," he said.
"Why, Harry, it looks to me as if it were snowing up instead of down,"the miner said as he joined him.
"That is just it. You see, we are in the elbow of the valley and arelooking straight down it, into the eye of the wind. It comes rushing upthe valley and meets this steep wall on its way, and pushed on by thewind behind has to go somewhere, and so it is driven almost straight uphere and over the hilltops behind us. So you see the snow is carried upinstead of falling, and this rock outside us shoots it clear up over thepath we were following above. As long as the wind keeps north, I reckonwe sha'n't be troubled by the snow in here."
The explanation seemed satisfactory, and there was a general feeling ofrelief.
"I remember reading," Tom said, as the others took their seats again,"that people can stand on the edge of a cliff, facing a gale, withoutfeeling any wind. For the wind that strikes the cliff rushes up withsuch force that it forms a sort of wall. Of course, it soon beats downagain, and not many yards back you can feel the gale as strongly asanywhere else. But just at the edge the air is perfectly still."
The miners looked at Tom as if they thought that he was making a joke attheir expense. But his uncle said:
"Yes, I can quite believe that. You see, it is something like awaterfall; you can stand right under that, for the force shoots itoutwards, and I reckon it is the same sort of thing here." The chiefnodded gravely. He too had been surprised at the lull in their shelterwhen the storm was raging so furiously outside, but Harry's illustrationof the action of rushing water enlightened him more than his firstexplanation had done.
"But water ain't wind, Harry," Ben said.
"It is like water in many ways, Ben. You don't see it, but you can feelit just the same. If you stand behind a tree or round a corner it rushespast you, and you are in a sort of eddy, just as you would be if it wasa river that was moving alongside of you. Wind acts just the same way aswater. If it had been a big river coming along the valley at the samerate as the wind it would rush up the rocks some distance and then sweepround and race up the valley; but wind being light instead of beingheavy is able to rush straight up the hill till it gets right over thecrest."
"Waal, if you say it is all right I suppose it is. Anyhow, it's a goodthing for us, and I don't care how long it goes on in the same way. Ireckoned that before morning we should have those branches breaking downon us with the weight of snow; now I see we are like to have a quietnight."
"I won't answer for that, Ben; it is early in the day yet, and there isno saying how the wind may be blowing before to-morrow morning. Anyhow,now we have time we may as well get some of those bundles of bushes thatwe brought down, and pile them so as to thicken the shelter of thesebushes and lighten it a bit. If we do that, and hang a couple ofblankets inside of them, it will give us a good shelter even if the windworks round, and will help to keep us warm. For though we haven't gotwind or snow in here, we have got cold."
"You bet," Jerry agreed; "it is a regular blizzard. And although I don'tsay as it is too cold sitting here by the fire, it won't cost usanything to make the place a bit warmer."
Accordingly the bundles of wood they had gathered were brought out, andwith these the screen of bush was thickened, and raised to a height offive feet; and when this was hung inside with a couple of blankets, itwas agreed that they could get through the storm comfortably even if itlasted for a month.
They cooked their last chunk of deer's flesh, after having firstprepared some bread and put it in the baking pot among the embers, andmade some tea from the water in the skins. When they had eaten theirmeal they covered themselves up in buffalo robes and blankets, andlighted their pipes. There was, however, but little talk, for the noiseof the tempest was so great, that it was necessary to raise the voicealmost to a shout to be heard, and it was not long before they were allasleep.
For hours there was no stir in the shelter, save when a horse pawed theground impatiently, or when Hunting Dog rose two or three times to putfresh sticks on the fire. It seemed to Tom when he woke that it ought tobe nearly morning. He took out his watch, and by the light of the firemade out to his surprise that it was but ten o'clock. The turmoil of thewind seemed to him to be as loud as before, and he pulled the blanketsover his shoulder again and was soon sound asleep. When he next woke, itwas with the sensation of coldness in the face, and sitting up he sawthat the blankets and the ground were covered with a thick coating offine snow. There was a faint light in addition to that given by theembers of the fire, and he knew that morning was breaking. His movementdisturbe
d his uncle, who was lying next him. He sat up and at oncearoused the others.
"Wake up, mates," he said; "we have had somewhere about eighteen hours'sleep, and day is breaking."
In a minute all were astir. The snow was first shaken off the blankets,and then Harry, taking a shovel, cleared the floor. Jerry took thelargest cooking-pot, and saying to Tom, "You bring that horse-bucketalong," pushed his way out through a small gap that had been left in thescreen of bushes. The wind had gone down a good deal, though it wasstill blowing strongly. The snow had drifted against the entrance, andformed a steep bank there; from this they filled the pot and bucket,pressing the snow down. Tom was glad to get back again within theshelter, for the cold outside was intense. The fire was already burningbrightly, and the pot and a frying-pan were placed over it, and keptreplenished with snow as fast as their contents melted. "We must keep onat this," Harry said, "there is not a drop left in the skins, and thehorses must have water."
As soon as enough had melted it was poured into the kettle. There wassome bacon among the trappers' stores, as they had calculated that theywould not be able to hunt until out of Big Wind Valley and far up amongthe forests beyond. The frying-pan was now utilized for its proper work,while the pail was placed close enough to the fire to thaw its contents,without risking injury to it. Within an hour of breakfast being finishedenough snow had been thawed to give the horses half a bucket of watereach. In each pail a couple of pounds of flour had been stirred to helpout what nourishment could be obtained from the leaves, and from thesmall modicum of grass given to each animal.
"It will be a big journey over the pass, anyhow," Harry had said. "Nowthat we are making tracks for the settlements we need not be sparing ofthe flour; indeed, the lighter we are the better."
The day did not pass so pleasantly as that preceding it, for the air wasfilled with fine snow that blew in at the entrance and found its waybetween the leaves overhead; while from time to time the snowaccumulating there came down with a crash, calling forth much stronglanguage from the man on whom it happened to fall, and shouts oflaughter from his comrades. The party was indeed a merry one. They hadfailed altogether in the objects of their expedition, but they hadescaped without a scratch from the Indians, and had inflicted somedamage upon them; and their luck in finding so snug a shelter in such astorm far more than counterbalanced their disappointment at theirfailure.
"Have you often been caught in the snow, uncle?"
"You bet, Tom; me and the chief here were mighty nigh rubbed out threeyears ago. I was prospecting among the Ute hills, while Leaping Horsewas doing the hunting for us both. It was in the middle of winter; thesnow was deep on the ground in the valleys and on the tops of the hills,but there was plenty of bare rock on the hillside, so I was able to goon with my work. While as for hunting, the cold drove the big-horns downfrom the heights where they feed in summer, and the chief often got ashot at them; and they are good eating, I can tell you.
"We hadn't much fear of red-skins, for they ain't fond of cold and inwinter move their lodges down to the most sheltered valleys and livemostly on dried meat. When they want a change they can always get a bearor maybe a deer in the woods. We were camped in a grove of pines in avalley and were snug enough. One day I had struck what I thought was therichest vein I had ever come on. I got my pockets full of bits of quartzwith the gold sticking thick in it, and you may bet I went down to thecamp in high glee. A quarter of a mile before I got there I saw LeapingHorse coming to meet me at a lope. It didn't want telling that there wassomething wrong. As soon as he came up he said 'Utes.' 'Many of them,chief?' I asked. He held up his open hands twice.
"'Twenty of them,' I said; 'that is pretty bad. How far are they away?'He said he had seen them coming over a crest on the other side of thevalley. 'Then we have got to git,' I said, 'there ain't no doubt aboutthat. What the 'tarnal do the varmint do here?' 'War-party,' the chiefsaid. 'Indian hunter must have come across our trail and taken word backto the lodges.' The place where he had met me was among a lot of rocksthat had rolled down. There had been no snow for a fortnight, and ofcourse the red-skins would see our tracks everywhere, going and comingfrom the camp. We were on foot that time, though we had a pack-horse tocarry our outfit. Of course they would get that and everything at thecamp. I did not think much of the loss, the point was how were we tosave our scalps? We had sat down behind a rock as soon as he had joinedme. Just then a yell came from the direction of our camp, and we knewthat the red-skins had found it. 'They won't be able to follow yourtrail here, chief, will they?' He shook his head. 'Trail everywhere, notknow which was the last.' We could see the grove where the camp was, andof course they could see the rocks, and it was sartin that if we hadmade off up the hill they would have been after us in a squirrel's jump;so there was nothing to do but to lie quiet until it was dark. We got inamong the boulders, and lay down where we could watch the grove througha chink.
"'I don't see a sign of them,' I said. 'You would have thought theywould have been out in search of us.'
"'No search,' the chief said. 'No good look for us, not know where wehave gone to. Hide up in grove. Think we come back, and then catch us.'
"So it turned out. Not a sign of them was to be seen, and after thatfirst yell everything was as quiet as death. In a couple of hours it gotdark, and as soon as it did we were off. We talked matters over, you maybe sure. There weren't no denying we were cornered. There we werewithout an ounce of flour or a bite of meat. The chief had caught up acouple of buffalo rugs as soon as he sighted the red-skins. That gave usjust a chance, but it wasn't more. In the morning the red-skins wouldknow we had either sighted them or come on their trail, and would bescattering all over the country in search of us. We agreed that we musttravel a good way apart, though keeping each other in sight. They wouldhave noticed that the trails were all single, and if they came upon twotogether going straight away from the camp, would know for sure it wasus making off.
"You may think that with so many tracks as we had made in the fortnightwe had been there, they would not have an idea which was made the firstday and which was made the last, but that ain't so. In the first place,the snow was packed hard, and the footprints were very slight. Then,even when it is always freezing there is an evaporation of the snow, andthe footprints would gradually disappear; besides that, the wind on mostdays had been blowing a little, and though the drift does not count formuch on packed snow, a fine dust is blown along, and if the prints don'tget altogether covered there is enough drift in them to show which areold ones and which are fresh. We both knew that they could not make muchmistake about it, and that they would be pretty sure to hit on the trailI had made in the morning when I went out, and on that of the chief tothe rocks, and following mine back to the same place would guess that wehad cached there till it was dark.
"I could have done that myself; one can read such a trail as that like aprinted book. The worst of it was, there were no getting out of thevalley without leaving sign. On the bare hillsides and among the rockswe could travel safe enough, but above them was everywhere snow, and dowhat we would there would be no hiding our trail. We agreed that theonly thing was to cross the snow as quick as possible, to keep on thebare rock whenever we got a chance, and wherever we struck wood, and todouble sometimes one way sometimes another, so as to give the red-skinsplenty of work to do to follow our trail. We walked all that night, andright on the next day till early in the afternoon. Then we lay down andslept till sunset, and then walked again all night. We did not see anygame. If we had we should have shot, for we knew the red-skins must be along way behind. When we stopped in the morning we were not so very farfrom the camp we had started from, for if we had pushed straight back tothe settlements we should have been caught sure, for the Utes would havebeen certain to have sent off a party that way to watch the valleys weshould have had to pass through. We lay down among some trees and sleptfor a few hours and then set out to hunt, for we had been two dayswithout food, and I was beginning to feel that I must have a meal.
"We had not gone far when we came across the track of a black bear. Weboth felt certain that the trail was not many hours old. We followed itfor two miles, and found it went up to a slide of rocks; they had comedown from a cliff some years before, for there were bushes growing amongthem. As a rule a black bear will always leave you alone if you leavehim, and hasn't much fight in him at the best; so up we went, thinkingwe were sure of our bear-steak without much trouble in getting it. I wasahead, and had just climbed up on to a big rock, when, from a bush infront, the bear came out at me with a growl. I expect it had cubssomewhere, I had just time to take a shot from the hip and then he wason me, and gave me a blow on the shoulder that ripped the flesh down tothe elbow.
"But that was not the worst, for the blow sent me over the edge, and Ifell seven or eight feet down among the sharp rocks. I heard the chief'srifle go off, and it was some time after that before I saw or heardanything more. When I came to I found he had carried me down to the footof the slide and laid me there. He was cutting up some sticks when Iopened my eyes. 'Have you got the bear, Leaping Horse?'
"'The bear is dead,' he said. 'My brother is badly hurt.'
"'Oh, never mind the hurt,' I said, 'so that we have got him. What areyou doing, chief? You are not going to make a fire here, are you?'
"'My brother's leg is broken,' he said. 'I am cutting some sticks tokeep it straight.'
"That brought me round to my senses, as you may guess. To break one'sleg up in the mountains is bad at any time, but when it is in the middleof winter, and you have got a tribe of red-skins at your heels, it meansyou have got to go under. I sat up and looked at my leg. Sure enough,the left one was snapt like a pipe-stem, about half-way between the kneeand the ankle. 'Why, chief,' I said, 'it would have been a sight betterif you had put a bullet through my head as I lay up there. I should haveknown nothing about it.'
"'The Utes have not got my white brother yet.'
"'No,' said I, 'but it won't be long before they have me; maybe it willbe this afternoon, and maybe to-morrow morning.' The chief said nothing,but went on with his work. When he had got five or six sticks aboutthree feet long and as many about a foot, and had cut them so that theyeach had one flat side, he took off his buckskin shirt, and workinground the bottom of it cut a thong about an inch wide and five or sixyards long. Then he knelt down and got the bone in the right position,and then with what help I could give him put on the splints and bandagedthem tightly, a long one and a short one alternately. The long ones hebandaged above the knee as well as below, so that the whole leg wasstiff. I felt pretty faint by the time it was done, and Leaping Horsesaid, 'Want food; my white brother will lie quiet, Leaping Horse willsoon get him some.'
"He set to work and soon had a fire going, and then went up to the rocksand came down again with the bear's hams and about half his hide. It wasnot long before he had some slices cooked, and I can tell you I feltbetter by the time we had finished. We had not said much to each other,but I had been thinking all the time, and when we had done I said, 'Now,chief, I know that you will be wanting to stay with me, but I ain'tgoing to have it. You know as well as I do that the Utes will be hereto-morrow at latest, and there ain't more chance of my getting away fromthem than there is of my flying. It would be just throwing away yourscalp if you were to stop here, and it would not do me a bit of good,and would fret me considerable. Now before you start I will get you toput me somewhere up among those stones where I can make a good fight ofit. You shall light a fire by the side of me, and put a store of woodwithin reach and a few pounds of bear's flesh. I will keep them off aslong as I can with the rifle, then there will be five shots with myColt. I will keep the last barrel for myself; I ain't going to let theUtes amuse themselves by torturing me for a few hours before they finishme. Then you make straight away for the settlements; they won't be sohot after you when they have once got me. The next time you go nearDenver you can go and tell Pete Hoskings how it all came about.'
"'My white brother is weak with the pain,' the chief said quietly; 'heis talking foolishly. He knows that Leaping Horse will stay with hisfriend. He will go and look for a place.' Without listening to what Ihad to say he took up his rifle and went up the valley, which was asteep one. He was away better than half an hour and then came back.'Leaping Horse found a place,' he said, 'where he and his brother canmake a good fight. Straight Harry get on his friend's back.' It wasclear that there weren't no use talking to him. He lifted me up on to myfeet, then he got me well up on to his back, as if I had been a sack ofcoal, and went off with me, striding along pretty near as quick as if Ihad not been there. It might have been half a mile, when he turned up anarrow ravine that was little more than a cleft in the rock that rosealmost straight up from the valley. It did not go in very far, for therehad been a slide, and it was blocked up by a pile of rocks and earth,forty or fifty feet high. It was a big job even for the chief to get meup to the top of them. The snow had drifted down thick into the ravine,and it was a nasty place to climb even for a man who had got nothing buthis rifle on his shoulder. However, he got me up safely, and laid medown just over the crest. He had put my buffalo robe over my shouldersbefore starting, and he rolled me up in this and said, 'Leaping Horsewill go and fetch rifles and bear-meat,' and he set straight off andleft me there by myself."
