The Great Sioux Trail Part 12

"It means 'Attention, watch!' They've got a code almost as complete as that of our armies when they use the signal flags. Look at that other crest off to the north. Maybe an answer will come from it."

"There _is_ an answer. I can see it rising now from the very place you indicate, Jim. What does the answer signify?"

"I can see it now with the naked eye. It merely says to the first, 'I've seen you, I'm waiting. Go ahead.' Look back to the other crest."

"Two smokes are now going up there."

"They say 'Come.' It's two bands wanting to meet. Now, the other place."

"Three smokes there."

"Three means, 'We come.'"

"Now back to the other."

"Four smokes."

"Which says in good, plain English, 'We are following the enemy.' That settles it. They've found out, some way or other, that we're here, and the two bands mean to meet and capture or destroy us. They never suspected that we could read their writing against the sky. We don't wait until tonight. We leave as soon as we can get our packs on our horses and mules."

"I'd like to make a suggestion first," said the Little Giant with some diffidence.

"What is it?" asked Boyd.

"Suppose we stay an' have a crack at 'em before we go, jest kinder to temper their zeal a little. I'd like to show young William that I kin really shoot, an' sorter live up to the braggin' you've been doin'."

"No, you ferocious little man-killer. We can't think of it. We'd have a hundred Sioux warriors on our heels in no time. Now hustle, you two!

Pack faster than you ever packed before, and we'll start inside of two hours. Do you see any more smokes, Will?"

"No, the sky is now without a blemish."

"Which means they've talked enough and now they're traveling straight toward our valley. It's lucky they've got such rough country to cross before they reach us."

Inside the two hours they were headed for the western end of the valley, the Little Giant riding one of his mules, the other following. The wickiup was abandoned, but they brought much of the jerked meat with them, thinking wisely of their commissariat.

It was with genuine regret that Will looked back from his saddle upon Clarke Valley and Boyd Lake, s.h.i.+mmering and beautiful now in the opalescent suns.h.i.+ne. They had found peace and plenty there. It was a good place in which to live, if wild men would let one alone, and, loving solitude at times, he could have stayed there several weeks longer in perfect content. He caught the last gleam of the lake as they entered the pa.s.s. It had the deep sheen of melted silver, as the waters moved before the slow wind, and he sighed a little when a curve of the cliff cut it wholly from view.

"Never mind, young William," said the Little Giant, "you'll see other lakes and other valleys as fine, an' this wouldn't look so beautiful, after all, tomorrow, filled with ragin' Sioux huntin' our ha'r right whar it grows, squar' on top o' our heads."

Young Clarke laughed and threw off his melancholy.

"You're right," he said briskly. "The lake wouldn't look very beautiful if a half dozen Sioux were shooting at me. You came through this pa.s.s, now tell us what kind of a place it is."

"We ride along by the creek, an' sometimes the ledge is jest wide enough fur the horses an' mules. We go on that way four or five miles, provided we don't fall down the cliff into the creek an' bust ourselves apart.

Then, ag'in, purvided we're still livin', we come out into a valley, narrow but steep, the water rus.h.i.+n' down it in rapids like somethin'

mad. Then we keep on down the valley with our hosses lookin' ez ef they wuz walkin' on their heads, an' in four or five miles more, purvided, o'

course, once more that we ain't been busted apart by falls, we come out into some woods. These woods are cut by gulleys an' ravines an' they have stony outcrops, but they'll look good by the side o' what you hev pa.s.sed through."

"Encouraging, Giant!" laughed Will. "But hard as all this will be for us to pa.s.s over, it will be just as hard for the Sioux, our pursuers."

"Young William," said the Little Giant approvingly, "I like to hear you talk that way. It shows that you hev all the makin's o' them opty-mists, the bunch o' people to which I belong. I never heard that word till three or four years ago, when I wuz listenin' to a preacher in a minin'

camp, an' it kinder appealed to me. So I reckoned I would try to live up to it an' make o' myself a real opty-mist. I been workin' hard at it ever sence, an' I think I'm qualifyin'."

"You're right at the head of the cla.s.s, that's where you are, Giant,"

said Boyd heartily. "You've already earned a thousand dollars out of the mine that we're going to find, you with your whistling and cheerfulness bracing us up so that we're ready to meet anything."

"What's the use o' bein' an opty-mist ef you don't optymize?" asked the Little Giant, coining a word for himself. "Now, ain't this a nice, narrow pa.s.s? You kin see the water in the creek down thar, 'bout two hundred feet below, a-rus.h.i.+n' an' a-roarin' over the stones, an' then you look up an' see the cliff risin' five or six hundred feet over your head, an' here you are betwixt an' between, on a shelf less'n three feet broad, jest givin' room enough fur the horses an' mules an' ourselves, all so trim an' cosy, everythin' fittin' close an' tight in its place."

"It's a lot too close and tight for me, Giant!" exclaimed Will. "I've a terrible fear that I'll go tumbling off the path and into the creek two hundred feet below."

"Oh, no, you won't, young William. The people who fall off cliffs are mighty few compared with them that git skeered 'bout it. Ef you feel a-tall dizzy, jest ketch holt o' the tail o' that rear mule o' mine. He won't kick, an' he won't mind it, a-tall, a-tall. Instead o' that it'll give him a kind o' home-like feelin', bein' ez I've hung on to his tail myself so many times when we wuz goin' along paths not more'n three inches wide in the mountain side. You won't bother or upset him. The biggest cannon that wuz ever forged couldn't blast him out o' the path."

Thus encouraged, young Clarke seized the tail of the mule, which plodded unconcernedly on, and for the rest of the distance along the dizzying heights he felt secure. Nevertheless his relief was great when they emerged into the rough valley of which the Little Giant had spoken, and yet more when, still pressing on, they came to the rocky and hilly forest. Here they were all exhausted, animals and human beings alike, and they stopped a long time in the shade of the trees.

At that point there was no sign of the valley from which they had fled, unless one could infer its existence from the creek that flowed by.

Looking back, Will saw nothing but a ma.s.s of forest and mountain, and then looking back a second time he saw rings of smoke rising from points which he knew must be in their valley. He examined and counted them through his gla.s.ses and described them to the hunter and the Little Giant.

"The Sioux have come down and invaded our pleasant home," said Boyd.

"There's no doubt about it, and I can make a good guess that they're mad clean through, because they found us gone. They may be signaling now to another band to come up, and then they'll give chase. You've got to know, Will, that nothing will make the Sioux pursue like the prospect of scalps, white scalps. A Sioux warrior would be perfectly willing to go on a month's trail if he found a white scalp at the end of it."

"They'll naturally think that we'll turn off toward the south so as to hit the plains ez soon ez we kin," said the Little Giant.

"And for that reason, you think we should turn to the north instead, and go deeper into the mountains?" said Boyd.

"'Pears sound reasonin' to me."

"Then we'll do it."

"But we don't go fur, leastways not today. It wouldn't be more'n two or three hours till night anyhow, an' see them clouds in thar to the south, all thickenin' up. We're going to hev rain on the mountains, an' I think we'd better make another wickiup, ez one o' them terrible sleets may come on."

Boyd and Will agreed with him and a mile farther they found a place that they considered suitable, an opening in which they would not be exposed to any tree blown down by a blizzard, but with a heavy growth of short pines near by, among which the horses and mules might find shelter.

Then the three worked with amazing speed, and by the time the full dark had come the wickiup was done, the skins that they had brought with them being stretched tightly over the poles. Then, munching their cold food, they crawled in and coiled themselves about the walls, wrapped deep in their blankets. Contrary to the Indian custom, they left the low door open for air, and just when Will felt himself well disposed for the night he heard the first patter of the sleet.

It was almost pitch dark in the wickiup, but, through the opening, he could see the hail beating upon the earth in streams of white. The old feeling of comfort and security in face of the wildest that the wilderness had to offer returned to him. When they reached Clarke Valley and built their wickiup he had one powerful friend, but now when the Sioux were once more in pursuit, he had two. The Little Giant had made upon him an ineffaceable impression of courage, skill and loyalty that would stand any test.

"The hail's goin' to drive all through the night," Giant Tom called out in the darkness.

"Right you are," said the hunter, "and the Sioux won't think of trying that pa.s.s on such a night. They're back in the valley, in wickiups of their own."

"Might it not stop them entirely?" asked Will.

"No, young William, it won't," said the Little Giant. "They'll come through the pa.s.s tomorrow, knowin' thar's only one way by which we kin go, an' then try to pick up our trail when the sleet melts. But tonight, at least, n.o.body's goin' to find us."

They slept late the next morning, and when they crawled out of the wickiup they found the sleet packed about an inch deep on the ground.

The horses and mules, protected by the pines, had not suffered much, and, in order that their trail might be hidden by the melting sleet, they packed and departed before breakfast, choosing a northwesterly direction. They picked the best ground, but it was all rough.

Nevertheless the three were cheerful, and the Little Giant whistled like a nightingale.

"Ef I remember right," he said, "we'll soon be descendin', droppin' down fast so to speak, an' then the weather will grow a heap warmer. The sun's out now, though, an' by noon anyway all the sleet will be gone, which will help us a lot."