May be that moon hinders him from stealing a horse out of their camp. As their guide they ought to trust him to go anywhere. Well, come he or not, I shall attack them all the same – this night. Oh! what a sweet vengeance! But the sweeter, if I can only take them alive – one and all. Then, indeed, shall I have true revenge!
“What can be keeping the Choctaw? I should not have trusted him, but that he speaks the white man’s tongue. They’d have suspected any other. He’s stupid, and may spoil my plans. I want them – must have them alive!
“Now, if he should turn traitor and put them on their guard? Perhaps take them on to the fort? No – no; he would not do that. He hates the white man as much as I myself, and with nearly as good reason. Besides, he dare not do it. If he did – ”
The soliloquy of the recumbent chief was suddenly interrupted, and his thoughts diverted into a different channel, by a sound reaching his ear, that seemed to come from the distant prairie. It was the hoof-stroke of a horse; but so faint, that only a practised ear could have heard, much less make out what was causing it.
In an instant he had changed his attitude, and lay with cheek closely pressed to the turf. In another instant, he muttered to himself:
“A horse – a single horse – must be the Choctaw!”
He raised himself upon his knees and looked out over the plain. A low ridge ran obliquely up to the mouth of the gorge in which the Indians were reposing. There was a clump of bushes upon its crest; and over the tops of these he could perceive a small disk, darker than the foliage. He knew it had not been there before.
While he was scanning it, there came, as if out of the bushes, three short barks, followed by a prolonged lugubrious howl. It seemed the cry of the prairie-wolf. But he knew it was not this; for soon after it was repeated with a different intoning.
Simultaneously with the second utterance, a similar cry was sent back as if in answer. It was the response of the camp-guard, who was keeping watch among the horses. And in this there was an intonation different from either of the others. It was evidently understood by him who had signalled from without, and told him he might safely approach: for the instant after, the dark spot above the bushes was seen moving along behind them; and presently appeared by the side of the clump, in the shape of a man on horseback.
It was a horseman in the garb of a white hunter; but the moon falling full upon his face, showed the copper-coloured skin of an Indian.
He rode forward to the edge of the camp; exchanged some words with the horse-guard, that had answered his signal; and then came on toward the chief, who had risen to receive him. The salutation told him to be the Choctaw so impatiently expected.
“Waboga has delayed long,” said the chief, half-reproachfully. “It is now after midnight. He knows we must make our attack before morning.”
“The Yellow chief need not be troubled about the time. The sleeping-place of the white travellers is near at hand. It will take but an hour to reach it. Waboga was detained against his will.”
“Ha! how?”
“The pale faces had grown suspicious, and watched him. Some trappers, on their way to Saint Vrain’s Fort, came up with the emigrant train after sunrise, and stayed with it till the noon halt. They must have said something against the guide. All day after, Waboga could see that the white men were watching him.”
“Then they are not encamped where I wished them?”
“They are. The Yellow chief may rest sure of it. They were not so suspicious as that; but allowed the guide to conduct them to their sleeping-place. It is in the creek bend where Waboga was instructed to take them.”
“Good! And their numbers?”
“Nine white men in all – with their women and children. Of the blacks, about five times as many – men, squaws, and papooses.”
“No matter for them: they won’t resist. Describe the whites.”
“The chief of the caravan, a man of middle age – a planter. Waboga well knows his kind. He remembers them when a boy dwelling beyond the Big river – in the land of which his people have been despoiled.”
“A planter. Any family with him?”
“A son who has seen some twenty-four summers – like the father in everything but age; a daughter, grown to a woman – not like either. She is fair as a flower of the prairie.”
“It is she – it is they!” muttered the chief to himself, his eyes glistening in the moonlight with an expression at once triumphant and diabolical. “Oh! ’twill be a sweet revenge!”
“Of the other whites,” continued the Choctaw, “one is a tall man, who has much to do with the management. He acts under the orders of the planter. He carries a great whip, and often uses it on the shoulders of the black slaves.”
“He shall have his punishment, too. But not for that. They deserve it.”
“The other six white men are – ”
“No matter; only tell me how they are armed. Will they make resistance?”
Waboga did not think they would – not much. He believed they would let themselves be taken alive.
“Enough!” exclaimed the Cheyenne chief – for it was to this tribe the Indian belonged. “The time has come. Go wake our warriors, and hold yourself ready to guide us.”
Then, turning upon his heel, he commenced gathering up his arms, that lay scattered around the robe on which he had been reposing.
His body-servant, already aroused, was soon in attendance upon him; while the slumbering warriors, one after another, startled from savage dreams, sprang to their feet, and hurried toward their horses.
The best-drilled squadron of light cavalry could not have got half so quickly into their saddles, as did this painted troop of Cheyennes.
In less than ten minutes after receiving the command to march, they were riding beyond the bounds of their bivouac – equipped for any kind of encounter!
Chapter Five.
A Traitorous Guide
As already known, the emigrants had corralled their wagons on the banks of Bijou Creek.
The spot selected, or rather to which their Indian guide had conducted them, was in a bend of the stream, that looped around the encampment in the shape of a horse’s shoe. It enclosed an area of some four or five acres of grassy ground – resembling a new-mown meadow.
With an eye to security, it could not, to all appearance, have been better chosen. The creek, running sluggishly around the loop, was deep enough to foil any attempt at fording; while the narrow, isthmus-like neck could be defended with advantage. It had not been the choice of the travellers themselves, but of their Indian guide, who, as already stated, had presented himself to them at Bent’s Fort, and been engaged to conduct them through Bridger’s Pass. Speaking the white man’s tongue, though but indifferently, and being a Choctaw, as he declared himself, they had no suspicion of his honesty, until that very day, when a band of free trappers, who chanced to pass them on the route, and who knew something of the Indian’s character, had warned them to beware of him. They had obeyed the warning, so far as lay in the power of men so little acquainted with the prairies. And how could they suspect a guide
