sir! That horse must have cantered into the gold seekers' camp – they are already in the ravine."
"Gold seekers?"
"Robbers, thieves, and all that!" explained Bill Williams, hastily. "There is no safety for you that way. On the other hand, there are the Crows – four score at least. I have been counting their noses, so near that I could have killed more than that one decently."
"Oh, what must we do?" ejaculated Miss Maclan.
"The lady asks you what'll we best do?" repeated the half-breed sarcastically, eyeing the young man as if to "value him up."
"Cut our way through them!"
"That's good to say, but how can it be done? The gold seekers number two hundred, and perhaps half of them are crowding in off the plain now. You and I may trust these horses as far as horses can travel, but encumbered with the lady, that one will run double risk as a bigger mark of an arrow and bullet."
"I dare!" said Ulla simply.
But Dearborn shuddered at the idea.
"Take her, man! I will trust you," said he, "stranger though you are, in all senses of the word; and leave me to detain them from an instant pursuit."
"Oh, they have their own roasting pieces to spit," said Bill.
"What is your advice, sir? Your tone is that of a commander here," said Ulla, regarding the Cherokee steadily as he bore himself nobly erect and unaffected, though, better than either, he estimated the dangers of the situation aright.
"I say, in the hands of these robbers you will run no risk for the present, whilst I guarantee this man's safety if we but reach a certain point on these horses."
"I flee, and abandon the lady into the power of disreputable men? No such coward, sir!"
"Coward, when I want you to run the double gauntlet of Indians and desperadoes! I don't see what she could despise you for. Hark! They come on both sides – stealthily, but I hear them! The young woman cannot accompany me where I must lead – are we all to be uselessly crumpled up, or all to be saved?"
"Go!" said Ulla; "Who will save me if you are slain?" in a voice meant for Dearborn's ear alone.
But the Cherokee overheard her, and instantly subjoined:
"You're the queen trump! I have offered to help you in this strait because you are white, and your enemies are dogs! But now, on the soul of my fathers! Supposed to be chasing the phantom buffalo in the aerial realm which those mountaintops support – I swear to save you from this hellish crew, or my bones shall swing in the hangman's loop!"
"I hear you, believe you, and I thank you!" exclaimed Miss Maclan, forcing a smile through tears. "But our enemies come! Hasten away, in Heaven's name! Dearborn, we shall meet again under that heaven, or within its golden gates!"
She threw him a kiss with a pretence of playfulness, and bounded away in the direction of the plain, crying:
"Do not shoot! It is only a woman! I surrender!"
At the same time Cherokee Bill leaped on the free horse over the tail up, à l'Indienne, and catching the other reins, plunged into the thicket, bidding the Englishman bend low to elude thorns and missiles, and heedless of his reproaches. In their rapid course, it seemed to the latter that he saw groups and pairs of grappling men plying clubs and knives, but no reports of firearms cracked the icicles off the boughs. Each contesting party showed a respectful dislike to bringing on a regular engagement.
"What's your horse good for still?" queried the half-breed in a whisper.
"Five or six minutes more at this headlong pace."
"We are nearing an ambush, through which we must cleave our way. Do no less than I do, and we shall be safe!"
"With heaven my aid, I shall do more!"
The half-breed found a broad way by a miracle of knowledge and faultless application.
"To the right – wheel to the right!" vociferated he abruptly, as half a dozen arrows and a light spear or two whizzed under the noses of the suddenly turned horses.
"Ride them down! Now! Hurrah!"
"Hurrah!" cried Dearborn, firing a shot and hurling his gun in his frenzy at the row of dark faces that grinned with flaming eyes like a wall before him.
Few men, except with a long spear, can steadily receive cavalry. Only one Indian really awaited the English youth on his approach; his lance snapped in in the horse's chest. It fell on him, enclosing him between the forelegs. Dearborn was dismounted; but Bill was before him, on the ground, steadied him as he rose, put a revolver in his hand, and bade him fire "low and fast." They had passed through the ambuscade at the cost of the two horses, and the ten shots they poured forth enabled them to have a start in their retreat on foot. They were speedily in a hollow of the rocky bluffs, where no sane Indian would follow an armed foe. The ground was sandy, now mingled with dry snow as hard, and at random rose needles of stone of varied dimensions, among which the half Indian trapper serenely threaded his way. At the foot of a nearly perpendicular mountain they were brought to a standstill. The face seemed smooth as if polished at first glance, but there ran a ledge, or cornice, as Alpine climbers call it, along that level spread.
"I see now why a woman could not have accompanied us in our flight," said Dearborn.
"No, you don't quite," replied Bill, drily, as he led the young man slowly upwards on this narrow footway. No quadruped could have mounted, for these men had to proceed with their backs to the wall, or face to it, in the case of the inexperienced Englishman. (He feared vertigo if he looked out or down on the abyss.) At last the ledge ended abruptly. But, about breast high, the granite was cracked horizontally, just wide enough for one's finger to be hid in it.
"Watch me," said Bill, calmly. "If you do not think you can follow me in such a spider's way, cling where you are till I bring a friend and a lasso that we may swing you over here. It was necessary that we should leave no trail those dogs dare pursue," he added apologetically.
"Go on," said Ranald, who felt his blood boil with the determination to show this strange hybrid that he had, at least the bravery of the white race, if not the athletic craft of the aborigines.
Thus adjured, the Cherokee inserted his hands in the prolonged crevice, let his body hang at the end of his arms with no other hold; and gradually worked himself along some twenty feet.
The watcher suffered more than he with the suspense. After a period seeming immeasurable, the way was clear; the rock was untenanted save by the young man, and he might have believed he was abandoned in this horrific site by a deluding demon. He looked up: a thousand feet of granite seemed bowing out to fall and entomb him; he looked outward – miles of ether intervened betwixt him and the tops of gigantic trees; he looked down, just for an instant's fraction, and felt his heart shrink; he was some three thousand feet over a cup of frozen water – a lake diminished thus by the space.
"Come!" said the Cherokee's voice, designedly emotionless that he might not affect the young man in any way.
The latter breathed a prayer to live for the sake of the bereaved daughter of his patron, and steadily swung himself over the chasm by his eight fingers alone; the thumbs seemed useless; the cliff fell away insensibly beneath him, so that his feet failed to touch. It was the dream of a man-fly acted out.
Finally,
