projecting point, the savages had got up, and were clustering around it. At least a score, with spears couched, bows bent, and clubs brandishing, stood ready to receive them.
It was a gauntlet the pursued men might well despair of being able to run. Truly now seemed their retreat cut off, and surely did death appear to stare them in the face.
“We must die, Walt,” said the young prairie merchant, as he faced despairingly toward his companion.
“Maybe not yet,” answered Wilder, as with a searching glance, he directed his eye along the façade of the cliff.
The red sandstone rose rugged and frowning, full five hundred feet overhead. To the superficial glance it seemed to forbid all chance either of being scaled, or affording concealment. There was not even a boulder below, behind which they might find a momentary shelter from the shafts of the pursuers. For all that, Wilder continued to scan it, as if recalling some old recollection.
“This must be the place,” he muttered. “It is, by God!” he added more emphatically, at the same time wrenching his horse around, riding sharp off, and calling to his companion to follow him.
Hamersley obeyed, and rode after, without knowing what next. But, in another instant, he divined the intent of this sudden change in the tactics of his fellow fugitive. For before riding far his eyes fell upon a dark list, which indicated an opening in the escarpment.
It was a mere crack, or chine, scarce so wide as a doorway, and barely large enough to admit a man on horseback; though vertically it traversed the cliff to its top, splitting it from base to summit.
“Off o’ yur hoss!” cried Wilder, as he pulled up in front of it, at the same time flinging himself from his own. “Drop the bridle, and leave him behint. One o’ ’em’ll be enough for what I want, an’ let that be myen. Poor critter, it air a pity! But it can’t be helped. We must hev some kiver to screen us. Quick, Frank, or the skunks will be on to us!”
Painful as it was to abandon his brave steed, Hamersley did as directed without knowing why. The last speeches of the guide were somewhat enigmatical, though he presumed they meant an important signification.
Slipping down from his saddle, he stood by his horse’s side, a noble steed, the best blood of his own State, Kentucky, famed for its fine stock. The animal appeared to know that its master was about to part from it. It turned its head towards him; and, with bent neck, and steaming nostrils, gave utterance to a low neigh that, while proclaiming affection, seemed to say, “Why do you forsake me?”
Under other circumstances the Kentuckian would have shed tears. For months he and his horse had been as man and man together in many a long prairie journey – a companionship which unites the traveller to his steed in liens strong as human friendship, almost as lasting, and almost as painful to break. So Frank Hamersley felt, as he flung the bridle back on the animal’s withers – still retaining hold of the rein, loth to relinquish it.
But there was no alternative. Behind were the shouting pursuers quickly coming on. He could see their brandished spears glancing in the sun glare. They would soon be within reach, thrusting through his body; their barbed blades piercing him between the ribs.
No time for sentiment nor dallying now, without the certainty of being slain.
He gave one last look at his steed, and then letting go the rein, turned away, as one who, by stern necessity, abandons a friend, fearing reproach for what he does, but without the power to explain it.
For a time the abandoned steed kept its place, with glances inquiringly sent after the master who had forsaken it. Then, as the yelling crew came closer behind, it threw up its head, snorted, and tore off with trailing bridle.
Hamersley had turned to the guide, now also afoot, but still retaining hold of his horse, which he was conducting towards the crack in the cliff, with all his energies forcing it to follow him; for the animal moved reluctantly, as though suspecting danger inside the darksome cleft.
Still urging it on, he shouted back to the Kentuckian, “You go first, Frank! Up into the kanyon, without losin’ a second’s time. Hyar, take my gun, an’ load both, whiles I see to the closin’ o’ the gap.”
Seizing both guns in his grasp, Hamersley sprang into the chine, stopping when he got well within its grim jaws.
Wilder went after, leading his steed, that still strained back upon the bridle.
There was a large stone across the aperture, over which the horse had to straddle. This being above two feet in height, when the animal had got its forelegs over Wilder checked it to a stand. Hitherto following him with forced obedience, it now trembled, and showed a strong determination to go back. There was an expression, in its owner’s eye it had never seen before – something that terribly frayed it. But it could not now do this, though ever so inclined. With its ribs close pressing the rocks on each side, it was unable to turn; while the bridle drawn firmly in front hindered it from retiring.
Hamersley, busily engaged in loading the rifles, nevertheless found time to glance at Wilder’s doings, wondering what he was about.
“It air a pity!” soliloquised the latter, repeating his former words in similar tones of commiseration. “F’r all that, the thing must be done. If thar war a rock big enough, or a log, or anythin’. No! thar ain’t ne’er another chance to make kiver. So hyar goes for a bit o’ butcherin’.”
As the guide thus delivered himself, Hamersley saw him jerk the bowie knife from his belt, its blade red and still reeking with human gore. In another instant its edge was drawn across the throat of the horse, from which the blood gushed forth in a thick, strong stream, like water from the spout of a pump. The creature made a last desperate effort to get off, but with its forelegs over the rocks and head held down between them, it could not stir from the spot. After a convulsive throe or two, it sank down till its ribs rested upon the straddled stone; and in this attitude it ended its life, the head after a time drooping down, the eyes apparently turned with a last reproachful look upon the master who had murdered it!
“It hed to be did; thar war no help for it,” said Wilder, as he hurriedly turned towards his companion, adding: “Have you got the guns charged?”
Hamersley made answer by handing him back his own rifle. It was loaded and ready. “Darn the stinkin’ cowarts!” cried the guide, grasping the gun, and facing towards the plain. “I don’t know how it may all eend, but this’ll keep ’em off a while, anyhow.”
As he spoke he threw himself behind the body of the slaughtered steed, which, sustained in an upright position between the counterpart walls, formed a safe barricade against the bullets and arrows of the Indians. These, now riding straight towards the spot, made the rocks resound with exclamations of surprise – shouts that spoke of a delayed, perhaps defeated, vengeance.
They took care, however, not to come within range of that long steel-grey tube, that, turning like a telescope on its pivot, commanded a semicircle of at least a hundred yards’ radius round the opening in the cliff.
Despite all the earnestness of their vengeful anger, the pursuers were now fairly at bay, and for a time could be kept so.
Hamersley looked upon it as being but a respite – a mere temporary deliverance from danger, yet to terminate in death. True, they had got into a position where, to all appearance, they could defend themselves as long as their ammunition lasted, or as they could withstand the agony of thirst or the cravings of hunger. How were they to get out again? As well might they have been besieged in a cave, with no chance of sortie or escape.
These
