The Fur Bringers Part 56

Ambrose's ankles were loosed and, with an Indian's hand on either shoulder, he was guided through the gra.s.s around the edge of the trees.

He speculated vainly on what this move portended.

No attack, certainly; they were striking matches and lighting their pipes. Suddenly the dim figures in front were swallowed up.

Immediately afterward Ambrose was led down an incline into a kind of pit. The smell of turned earth was in his nostrils; he could still see the stars overhead. They gave him a corner, and his ankles were again tied.

Soon it began to grow light. Little by little Ambrose made out the confines of the pit or trench. It was some twenty-five feet long and five feet wide. When the Indians stood erect, the shortest man could just look over the edge.

Ambrose counted twenty-one men besides Watusk and himself. It was close quarters. When it became light enough to see clearly, they lined up in front of him, eagerly looking over. One was lighting a little fire and putting gra.s.s on it to make a smudge.

Ambrose got his feet under him, and managed after several attempts to stand upright. He was tall enough to look over the heads of the Indians.

Stretching before him he saw the valley he had remarked the evening before, with the streamlet winding like a silver ribbon in a green flounce.

But what the Indians were looking at were little pillars of smoke which ascended at intervals all around the edge of the hills, hung for a moment or two in the motionless air, and disappeared. Ambrose counted eight besides their own.

Watusk exclaimed in satisfaction, and ordered the fire put out. This, then, was the explanation of the digging--rifle-pits!

Ambrose marveled at the cunning with which it had all been contrived.

The excavated earth had been carried somewhere to the rear.

Wild-rose scrub had been cut and replanted in the earth around three sides of the pit, leaving a clear s.p.a.ce between the stems for the men to shoot through, with a screen of the crimson leaves above.

So well had it been done that Ambrose could not distinguish the other pits from the patches of wild-rose scrub growing naturally on the hills.

Ambrose's heart sank with the apprehension of serious danger. He began to wonder if he and all the other whites in the country had not under-rated these red men. Where could Watusk have learned his tactics? The thing was devilishly planned.

With the cross-fire of two hundred rifles they could mow down an army if they could get them inside that valley. Each narrow entrance was covered by a pair of pits. Every part of the bowl was within range of every pit.

Ambrose feared that the police, in their careless disdain of the natives, might ride straight into the trap and be lost.

"Watusk, for G.o.d's sake, what do you mean to do?" he cried.

Watusk was intensely gratified by the white man's alarm. He smiled insolently. "Ah!" he said. "You on'erstan' now!"

"You fool!" cried Ambrose. "If you fire on the police you'll be wiped clean off the earth! The whole power of the government will descend on your head! There won't be a single Kakisa left to tell the story of what happened!"

Watusk's face turned ugly. His eyes bolted. "Shut up!" he snarled, "or I gag you."

Ambrose, bethinking himself that he might use his voice to good purpose later, clenched his teeth and said no more.

At sunrise a fresh breeze sprang up from the south. Soon after a whisper of distant trotting horses was home upon it. Ambrose's heart leaped to his throat. An excited murmur ran among the Indians. They picked up their guns.

Watusk's pit was one of the pair covering the upper entrance to the valley. It was thus farthest away from the approaching hors.e.m.e.n. It faced straight down the valley. Through the lower gap they caught the gleam of the red coats.

Ambrose beheld them with a painfully contracted heart. He gaged in his mind how far his voice might carry. The wind was against him.

Presumably he would only be allowed to cry out once, so it behooved him to make sure it was heard. However, the same thought was in the minds of the Indians. They scowled at him suspiciously.

Suddenly, while it was yet useless for him to cry out, they fell upon him, bearing him to the ground!

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

THE TEST.

After a fierce struggle Ambrose was securely bound and gagged. He managed to get to his feet again. His soul sickened at the tragedy it forecast, yet he had to look.

To his overwhelming relief he saw that the redcoats had halted in the lower entrance to the valley. Evidently the possibility of an ambush in so favored a spot had occurred to their leader. The baggage was sent back.

His relief was short-lived. Presently the advance was resumed at a walk, and a pair of skirmishers sent out on either side to mount the hills. Ambrose counted sixteen redcoats in the main body, and a man in plain clothes, evidently a native guide.

One skirmisher on the left was headed all unconscious straight for a rifle pit. Ambrose, suffocated by his impotence, tugged at his bonds and groaned under the gag. "Turn back! Turn back!" shouted his voiceless tongue.

There was a shot. Ambrose closed his eyes expecting a fusillade to follow. It did not come. From his pit, Watusk hissed a negative order.

Ambrose heard a shrill whistle from the bottom of the valley, and opening his eyes, he saw the skirmishers riding slowly back to the main body. Even at the distance their nonchalant air was evident.

The main body had quietly halted in the middle of the valley. After a moment's pause, one of their number raised a rifle with a white flag tied to the barrel.

The Indians surrounding Ambrose, lowered their guns, and murmured confusedly among themselves. Ambrose looked at Watusk.

The chief betrayed symptoms of indecision, biting his lip, and pulling his fingers until the joints cracked. Ambrose took a little encouragement from the sight.

To Ambrose's astonishment he saw the troopers dismounting. Flinging the lines over their horses' heads, they allowed the beasts to crop the rich gra.s.s of the bottoms.

The men stood about in careless twos and threes, lighting their pipes.

Only their leader remained in the saddle, lolling comfortably sidewise.

The breeze brought the sound of their light talk and deep laughter.

The effect on the Indians was marked. Their jaws dropped, they looked at each other incredulously, they jabbered excitedly.

Plainly they were divided between admiration and mystification. Watusk was demoralized. His hand shook, an ashy tint crept under his yellow skin, an agony of impotent rage narrowed his eyes.

Ambrose's heart swelled with the pride of race. "Splendid fellows!" he cried to himself. "It was exactly the right thing to do!"

Presently a hail was raised in the valley below; a deep English voice whose tones gladdened Ambrose's ears. "Ho, Watusk!"

Every eye turned toward the leader. Watusk had the air of a wilful child called by his parent. He pished and swaggered, and made some remark to his men with the obsequious smile with which child--or man--asks for the support of his mates in his wrong-doing.

The men did not smile back; they merely watched soberly to see what Watusk was going to do about it.

The hail was repeated. "Ho, Watusk! Inspector Egerton orders you to come and talk to him!"

So it was Colonel Egerton, thought Ambrose, commander of B district of the police, and known affectionately from Caribou Lake to the Arctic as Patch-pants Egerton, or simply as "the old man." He was a veteran of two Indian uprisings. Ambrose felt still further rea.s.sured.