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CHAPTER XXII
AN ENCOUNTER WITH “BLOODS.”
The Indians appeared to be in no hurry, and from the fact that the carcass of a deer lay across the back of one of their ponies Ralph judged that they were a hunting party. But the appraising glances that they cast at the tethered ponies were by no means reassuring.
They looked about them cautiously for a time, and exchanged some hasty words in their guttural dialect. Then the one who wore the odd-looking frock coat and the eagle feather slipped from his pony and approached those that were tied.
It was high time to interfere apparently; but still Ralph hung back. Unarmed as he was, he was unwilling to show himself until actual necessity called for it. But when the frock-coated Indian deliberately began to unknot the tie ropes of their ponies his intention was only too plain and the boy cast all prudence aside.
“Hey, you, let go of that pony!” he exclaimed, coming out from the shelter of the alders.
The Indian started and turned, and his two companions did the same. For a minute they were considerably startled, for “red coats” (mounted police) occasionally rode through that part of the country.
But when they saw that it was only a boy who faced them, they quickly recovered their composure.
“Hullo, white boy,” said the one that appeared to be the leader, speaking a dialect that cannot be reproduced on paper. “Hullo, white boy, what you want, eh?”
“I want you to leave those ponies alone,” spoke back Ralph boldly, “they belong to me and my partner.”
“That so, eh? Well, we take them ’long small piece, savee?”
The rascal coolly bent over the rope and went on unfastening it. Ralph was, for a minute, at a loss what to do. Then he bethought himself of Jim in the cave.
“Jim! oh, Jim!” he cried shrilly.
“Hullo,” came a hearty voice in reply, “what’s up?”
“Some rascals are stealing – ” began Ralph, when one of the mounted Bloods slipped swiftly from his pony and, before the boy could utter an other syllable, grasped him by the throat. Ralph was a powerful boy, but in the hands of the wiry, muscular Blood he was no more than an infant The man drew an ugly looking knife.
“You keep quiet, eh? Me plentee stickee you, you make any more chac-chac (talk).”
Whether the Indian would really have carried out his threat or not Ralph had no means of guessing, but he deemed it most prudent under the circumstances to obey. The Indian smelled most abominably of liquor, and was evidently in no docile mood. A sort of reckless deviltry danced in his eyes that warned Ralph not to cross him.
But the next instant, to his unspeakable relief, he heard Jim’s voice again.
“I’m trying to climb up the rock. I’ll be there in a jiffy. Confound it, but it’s slippery!”
Of course Ralph could not reply, but the words cheered him. If Jim would only appear with his rifle maybe he could scare the Bloods off. In an agony of impatience he waited. Luckily the rain had wetted the knots so that they were hard to untie and the Blood leader was having a lot of trouble with them.
Suddenly Ralph heard a sharp cry from the Indian that still remained on horseback. The one that was bending over the knots heard the exclamation and glanced up, as did the one that was threatening Ralph. The boy, too, looked around and soon saw what had alarmed them.
Creeping into the clearing were two immense, tawny forms. The female cougar had returned with her mate!
The Indians gave a series of sharp cries, and the one that held Ralph released his hold and ran for his pony. So did the one that had been bent on stealing the white men’s mounts.
Lashing the ground with their tails the lions began to give utterance to a sort of whining snarl.
This was answered from within the cave by a chorus of mewings and squeals from the cubs. The sound of her young appeared to drive the lioness to fury. She leaped full at the nearest Indian, and landed on the haunches of his terrified pony.
One of the others snatched a rifle from his saddle and fired at the animal, but before he could aim properly the male cougar had attacked him, and the bullet went wild. Evidently the lions thought the Indians were responsible for keeping them from their cubs.
The rifle was an old, single-barrelled one, and having fired the one shot the Indian had no chance to reload. But as the bullet sang by her, the lioness had relaxed her hold on the terrified pony’s haunches and slipped to the ground to face this new antagonist. Ralph gazed on with fascinated horror. The scene was unreal, fantastic almost. The three Indians, an instant before bent on thievery, were now fighting for their lives against two creatures urged to fury by the most powerful motive known to the animal kingdom – the love of their young.
“Cheysoyo tamya!” cried the one with the eagle feather, and, urging their ponies to mad flight, the Indians made off at top speed. The lions made two or three bounds after them, but then stopped to listen to the appealing cries of the cubs inside the cave.
They were a badly embarrassed pair of felines. Evidently the manner in which the cave had been sealed up during their absence was a mystery to them. They walked about in front of it sniffing, growling and lashing their tails like gigantic cats in a rage. Dangerous as his position was, Ralph could not but admire the restless grace of the tawny creatures with their smooth, yellowish coats and great green savage eyes.
Suddenly, and without any particular reason that Ralph could see, although they had undoubtedly smelled him, the two cougars came bounding toward the alder thicket into which he had crouched back when first they appeared. Ralph’s heart almost stopped beating as they came. He looked toward the cave despairingly.
As he gazed he saw Jim’s rugged face appear in the crack above the rock. The mountaineer took in the scene instantly, and, although he could not see Ralph, he called to him.
“Come on the rock, boy! I’ll hold them back.”
Ralph saw the muzzle of Jim’s rifle gleam in the afternoon sun as he thrust it through the crack and sighted with his keen eyes along the barrel.
Instantly his mind was made up as to what he would do. As the lions dived into the alders not far from him he dashed out and made for the rock. In the meantime the tethered ponies were plunging and rearing as if they would break their ropes. But the lions paid no attention to them. Apparently they were only seeking those who had invaded their den.
As Ralph made his dart for safety the lions spied him. With crashing bounds they came out of the underbrush.
Ralph felt a bullet whiz by his ear, but he heard no howl to tell that one of the lions had been hit. Instead, came Jim’s voice from above.
“Oh, Lord! This plagued rock juts out too far for me to aim down on ’em.”
“Throw me down the rifle, quick!” cried Ralph, an agony in his voice.
He knew he could not clamber up the rock in time to avoid the lions’ claws. His one chance lay in the desperate plan he had formed as Jim’s exclamation came to his ears.
Jim let the rifle come sliding and clattering down the rock and Ralph caught it up. The strange noise of the weapon as it came to the ground after the startling report halted the lions for an instant. But as he turned to face them Ralph saw that they were all ready for another attack.
He bravely prepared to meet it, although his pulses throbbed and his breath came so fast that he could hardly hold the rifle in the proper position.
CHAPTER XXIII
FIGHTING MOUNTAIN LIONS
“Steady, boy! Steady!” came Jim’s voice from above, vibrant with agitation.
He knew only too well that to the tyro at big game shooting any large animal appears about twice as large and ferocious as it really is. Many lives have been lost and many painful and disfiguring wounds carried to the grave because a man’s nerve has failed him at the critical moment when hunting dangerous game.
“You’re only shootin’ at a mark, boy! That’s all! Hold on ’em now! Hold on ’em!”
Jim’s voice steadied Ralph’s nerves wonderfully. He glanced down the rifle barrel and then, as his finger pressed the trigger the report roared and crashed through the valley.
“Give it to ‘em! Oh, give it to ‘em!” yelled Jim wildly.
Following the two sharp, quick reports and mingling with them came a scream full of ferocious agony. Ralph saw a big, tawny body leap high into the air and then, falling back, begin to claw the earth and stones frantically.
“Look out for the other!” roared Jim, and none too soon, for the female, seeing that her mate was stricken by the brave boy’s shot, now prepared to spring.
Ralph’s attention had been distracted from her by the death agonies of the male cougar. Jim’s warning shout recalled the boy to himself.
He fired once more, but this time he did not inflict a mortal wound. Instead, his bullet pierced the lion’s shoulder. Apparently she did not care for any more of that sort of punishment, for with a yelp and a howl she turned and dashed off, leaving her mate stark in death on the ground in front of the cave.
Ralph, white and shaking, now that it was all over, reeled for a minute and then leaned against the rock to recover himself a little.
“Bravely done, lad!” came a voice from above.
It was Jim, but Ralph felt almost too weak from the ordeal he had just passed through to answer.
“The rifle just seemed to go off by itself,” he stammered. “I was so scared I couldn’t see anything plainly.”
“Never mind that. You did the trick, and that’s what counts. Wish you’d got both of ’em, though. That lioness wasn’t badly hurt and she’ll be back for her young ones before long.”
“Well, she can’t get into the cave,” said Ralph with a rather shaky laugh, “any more than you can get out,” he added ruefully.
“That’s so. I declare for a minute I’d forgotten all about our fix. Say, but those lions served us one good turn when they drove off those Bloods. The fellows were ugly and meant trouble.”
“But won’t they be back?”
“Not they. They’ve had time to think it over by this time, and they’ll have come to realize that these ain’t early days, and that horse stealing would result in their whole reservation being turned inside out till the culprits were found.”
“Hark!” cried Ralph suddenly, “somebody’s coming now. Maybe it is those Indians coming back, after all.”
“Great Blue Bells of Scotland, it’s someone on a horse, sure enough. I’ll duck down into the cave and get your rifle up.”
For it was Jim’s “Old Trusty,” as he called it, with which Ralph had despatched one lion and wounded the other.
But to Ralph’s unspeakable relief it was no band of Bloods that rode into the clearing, but a bearded man on a wild, shaggy pony leading a pack mule by a hair rope. From the pack Ralph could see shovel and pick handles sticking out and both rider and animals appeared to have been roughing it for many months.
The man wore rough buckskin garments, and his stirrups were made of rope. On his head was a battered old Stetson hat with a leather band around it. Across his saddle bow he carried a long-barrelled rifle, with the stock embossed with silver. He glanced at Ralph in a quick, surprised sort of way.
“Wa’al, what in the ’tarnal’s bin goin’ on here?” he demanded in a nasal tone, which Ralph recognized as belonging to a native of the States.
“Why, I – that is, we’ve been mixed up in a sort of scrap with Indians and lions,” replied Ralph hesitatingly.
The man looked so wild and uncouth that he did not know but he might have to deal with a highwayman of some sort.
“Do tell,” exclaimed the rough-looking stranger, “and you’re only a kid, too! Yankee?”
Ralph nodded. Just then Jim reappeared at the crack on the top of the fallen rock, and as his eyes fell on the stranger he uttered a yell of astonishment.
“Great Blue Bells of Scotland,” he shouted, “it’s Bitter Creek Jones!”
“That’s me,” rejoined the stranger shifting in his saddle, “but who may you be? Come out and show yourself.”
“I can’t. My door is locked on the outside, so to speak; but I’m Mountain Jim Bothwell – remember me?”
The stranger broke into a great roar of delight.
“Wa’al, do tell. If this ain’t luck. Mountain Jim! I ain’t never forgot that day on the Bow River that you saved me from that bunch of huskies that was goin’ to hold me up and take my dust away frum me. But come on out. Let’s shake your paw, old pal!”
“Sorry, but I’m not receiving to-day,” responded Mountain Jim. He hastened on to explain what had happened within the last few hours, interrupted constantly by Bitter Creek Jones’ astonished exclamations.
“I heard an almighty firin’ an’ blazin’ away frum over this neck of the woods,” he said, “and I jes’ nacherally come over ter see what in Sam Hill was goin’ forward. So ye’re all walled up, hey? Jes’ wait a jiffy while I take a look at that rock. It’ll be tough luck if Bitter Creek can’t get you out’n that mouse-trap without’n you havin’ ter ride fifty miles fer help.”
“Do you think you can do anything, Mr. Jones?” asked Ralph, as the odd-looking stranger slipped off his sorry-appearing steed.
“Say, Sonny, I’m plain Bitter Crik to my friends. I’m Mister Jones to them that don’t like me, see? So far as gittin’ Mountain Jim out’n that hole, it’ll be hard luck if I kain’t do it. Bitter Crik’s got gold out’n tougher places nor that, you kin bet your last red. Lucky I came along this way, too. You see I’ve bin prospectin’ all through here, but it’s a rotten country. I’m going back to the States and ship to Alasky, when I git out’n the Rockies.”
Talking thus, Bitter Creek, who looked so ferocious, but proved so good-natured, examined the rock from all sides. As he carried on his investigations he hummed to himself like a man in deep thought.
At length he straightened up and hailed Jim.
“I’ll get you out’n here, Jim,” he said.
“All right, old man, wish you would. These cubs smell like a shoe factory on fire. I ain’t particular, but I know a heap of smells that’s sweeter, including skunk.”
Bitter Creek turned to Ralph.
“Know what I’m goin’ ter do, Sonny?” he asked.
Ralph shook his head.
“Well, see here. That rock rests on this little terrace or ledge, don’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And the ground all slopes away from it toward the creek?”
“It does,” rejoined Ralph, seeing that the odd man expected some sort of a reply.
“Well, I’m going to put a slug of giant powder in under that terrace and blow it out from under the rock. Onless I mistake my guess, that’s all that’s holdin’ it. When we blow that to Kingdom Come that ol’ rock is jes’ nacherally goin’ ter start rollin’ down ther hill, and out ’ull walk Jim as large as life and twice as nacheral.”
“But won’t the explosion hurt him?” asked Ralph, to whom this appeared to be a dangerous proceeding.
“May shake him up a bit, but yer see, the force of giant powder works downward, and I’ll drive in under the rock for the shot.”
The scheme was explained to Mountain Jim, who entirely acquiesced in it. Bitter Creek Jones wasted no more time, but hurried off to his mule. From the pack he produced a small box carefully wrapped in various soft cloths. This proved to be filled with excelsior, amidst which nestled sticks of giant powder. From another box came caps and fuse.
Then with a crowbar, the miner drove a deep hole under the terrace on which the rock rested, and this done, capped and fused two sticks of dynamite and “tamped” them into place. Then summoning Ralph they both retreated to a distance, and Bitter Creek bent over and lit the fuse.
“Look out, Jim!” he yelled as it sputtered and sparked. “In about tew minutes there’s goin’ ter be ‘Hail Columbia’ round these diggin’s.”
CHAPTER XXIV
“BITTER CREEK JONES.”
A dull, booming crash that shook the ground under their feet, followed within a few seconds. A cloud of dust and rocks arose from the cave mouth. Suddenly Ralph broke into a shout:
“The rock! The rock! It’s moving!”
“Hold on, boy,” warned the prospector, laying a hand on Ralph’s shoulder. “Watch!”
The big boulder hesitated, swayed, and then, with a reverberating crash, as the blasted terrace under it gave way, it rolled down the hillside. An instant after, Jim Bothwell burst from the cavern and ran toward them. It was all that Ralph, in his joy, could do to keep from embracing him, but just then a sudden shout from Bitter Creek Jones caught and distracted his attention. In their excitement they had forgotten all about the tethered ponies. The great rock was now bounding toward them with great velocity.
It shook the ground as its ponderous weight rumbled down the hillside. The ponies whinnied with terror and tugged and strained at their ropes. But just as it appeared inevitable that they must be crushed, the huge rock struck a smaller one and its course was diverted. Down it went, but on a safe track now, and terminated its career in the clump of thick growing alders that fringed the stream.
“Wow, a narrow escape!” ejaculated Ralph breathlessly.
“Yep, we come pretty durn near killin’ two birds – or ponies, rayther – with one stone,” grinned Bitter Creek Jones; “but all’s well as turns out all right, as the poet says.”
“Bitter, you’re all right,” cried Jim, clutching the hand of the prospector who had turned up so opportunely.
“Shucks! That’s all right, Jim. It wasn’t much to do fer you, old pal,” responded Bitter returning the pressure. “And now,” he went on, as if anxious to change the subject, “you’d better skin that lion and be gettin’ on yer way. It’s drawin’ in late, and this is a bad part of the country to get benighted in, more specially with a bunch of Bloods hanging about all lit up with fire-water.”
“Reckon you’re right, Bitter,” was the response as Mountain Jim deftly made the necessary incisions and he and his friend skinned the dead cougar with skillful hands.
It was not long after that they parted company. Bitter Creek Jones continuing toward the south, while Ralph and Mountain Jim swung on to their ponies and resumed their journey toward the northwest. The last they saw of Bitter Creek Jones he was waving a hearty adieu to them and shouting:
“See you in Alaska north of fifty-three, some time.”
Then a shoulder of mountain shut him out and they saw him no more.
“There’s a white man,” said Jim with deep conviction, as the ponies carried them from the scene. “He’s rough as a bear, is Bitter, but white right down to his gizzard.”
Ralph regretted that he could not have taken one of the cubs along, but on the rough trip that still lay before them it would have been extremely difficult if not impossible to transport it. So the little den of young cougars had to be left behind to await the return of their wounded mother, an event which, Mountain Jim declared, would take place within a short time.
“Maybe I ought to have killed the whole boiling of them young termagents,” he said. “They’ll grow up and make a heap of trouble for sheepmen, but let ’em be. I ain’t got the heart to make away with a lot of babies like them.”
It was dark when, on topping a backbone of desolate mountain, they saw in a valley below them a light shining amidst the blackness. Jim declared that this must be the ranch for which they were searching, and they made their best speed toward the lonely beacon. If it had been hard traveling by daylight through the forest, it was doubly difficult to make their way by night. But Jim appeared to possess in a superlative degree that wonderful sense of location peculiar to persons who have passed their lives in the great silent places of the earth. It has been noted by travelers that a young Indian boy, who has apparently not noted in the slightest the course followed on a hunting expedition into the great woods, has been able, without any apparent mental effort, to guide back to camp the party of which he formed a member. Such a faculty has been ascribed as more due to instinct, the sense that brings a carrier pigeon home over unknown leagues, than to anything else.
Through the darkness they blundered on, through muskegs, fallen timber and swollen creeks – the latter due to the heavy rains of the afternoon. At length, after it appeared to Ralph almost certain that they must have lost their way, they came out on a plateau and saw shining not half a mile from them the light for which Mountain Jim had been aiming.
A sea captain, with all the resources of highly perfected instruments, could not have made a more successful land-fall. But as they drew nearer to the light, a puzzled expression could have been observed on Mountain Jim’s face had it been clearly visible. Ralph, too, soon became aware of a great noise of shouting and singing proceeding from the vicinity of the light.
“Must have some sort of a party going on,” he observed to his companion.
“I dunno,” was Mountain Jim’s rejoinder. “Donald Campbell used to be a bachelor and no great shakes for company. Maybe he’s married and they’re havin’ a pink tea or something.”
Soon after, they rode up to a rough looking house, behind which, bulking blackly against the darkness, were the outlines of haystacks. Several horses were hitched in front of the place and the door was open, emitting a ruddy stream of light that fell full on one of the animals. Ralph recognized the cayuse with a start. It was one of those that had been ridden by the Bloods. There was no mistaking the animal’s pie-bald coat and wall-eye. He was what is known among cowmen as a “paint-horse.”
Ralph gasped out his information to Mountain Jim. His companion only nodded.
“I’ve been thinking for some time that there is something queer about this place,” he said, “but there’s no help for it, we’ve got to see it through now.”
And then a minute later he made an odd inquiry:
“Where’ve you got the money for the ponies, Ralph?”
“Right in my inside coat pocket. Why?”
“Oh, I dunno. Better put it in a safer place; you might lose it.”
Ralph could not quite understand the drift of his companion’s remark, but he shifted the money – one hundred dollars in bills – to his belt, which had a money pocket for such purposes. By this time they were up to the long hitching post where the other ponies were tied and they dismounted and secured their own animals.
“Let me do the talking,” warned Mountain Jim as they approached the door. The noise of their arrival had been noticed within, and a short, stocky figure of a man with a flaming red beard blocked the light from the doorway as they approached.
“Great Blue Bells of Scotland, that ain’t Donald Campbell, by a long shot!”
“Maybe he’s moved on,” said Ralph, recollecting the phrasing of the notice in the deserted log cabin.
“Maybe,” responded Jim briefly. The next minute the man in the doorway hailed them.
“Evening, strangers.”
“Evening,” responded Jim. “Donald Campbell about?”
“Naw. He ain’t lived here in quite a spell. Gone up the valley ten miles or more. Lookin’ for him?”
“Well, I calculated on seeing him,” was Jim’s response. “Can we stay here to-night?”
The man hesitated an instant, but then spoke swiftly as if to cover up his momentary vacillation.
“Yep. Come right in. Guess we kin get you supper and a shake-down. That’s all you want, ain’t it?”
“That’s all,” responded Jim as they passed the threshold. Inside they found themselves in a rough looking room lighted by a hanging lamp which reeked of kerosene. At a table under it some men had been sitting, but they vanished with what appeared suspicious haste as the two strangers came in. The host left them alone soon after, promising to give them some bacon and eggs and coffee. The noise that they had heard as they drew close to the ranch had died out, and now all was as silent as a graveyard. Ralph lowered his voice as he addressed Mountain Jim.
“What sort of a place is this, anyhow?”
In the same low tones Jim made his reply:
“Dunno, but it looks to me like what they call up in this section a ‘whisky ranch.’ It’s the resort of bad characters and is stuck back here in the woods so as to be beyond the ten-mile limit. You see the Canadian government, knowing what harm that stuff does, won’t let liquor be sold within ten miles of a public roadway.”
“Then that’s what brought those Indians here?”
“Looks that way. But this fellow would be in mighty bad if it was found out by the mounted police. But – hush! I reckon he’s coming now.”
Sure enough the red-bearded man re-entered the room at this juncture. He bore a big dish of bacon and eggs in one hand and in the other he had a blackened tin pot from which came the savory aroma of coffee.
From a corner cupboard he got tin plates and cups and wooden-handled knives and forks. He asked them what their business was as he laid the table, which required no cloth, being covered with a strip of white oil-cloth.
“We wanted to buy some ponies from Donald Campbell,” spoke Ralph before Jim’s heavy foot kicked him under the table. For an instant there was a sharp glint in the red-bearded man’s eyes.
“Buyin’ ponies, eh? Must have lots of money. Ponies is high right now.”
“In that case we can’t afford ’em,” said Jim, taking the conversation into his own hands. He had noticed the momentary flash in the man’s eyes when Ralph spoke of buying ponies, and rightly interpreted it. The man stood by them while they ate and told them that he had bought the ranch some time before, but that it was a poor place and he could make nothing out of it He appeared anxious to impress them that he was a rancher and nothing else, and spoke much of crops and stock. Jim and Ralph listened, replying at intervals.
When they had finished eating, the red-bearded man offered to escort them to bed. He wanted to put them in separate rooms, but Mountain Jim demurred to this.
“My partner here is a heavy sleeper,” he said, “and we’ve got to be up early to-morrow. I’d rouse up the whole house waking him if you put him in another room.”
“All right, I can put you in the attic,” said the man, “but you’ll not be over comfortable.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Jim airily. “We’re used to roughing it.”
“You may be, but your partner don’t look over and above husky,” said the red-bearded man, glancing at Ralph’s slender form, which rather belied the boy’s real strength and activity. He conducted them upstairs and left them in an unceiled attic in which were two rough cots. He took the lamp with him when he went, saying that it was too dangerous to leave a kerosene lamp up there so close to the rafters.
“Don’t sleep too sound,” whispered Jim as they got into their cots. “I’ve a notion that our friend with the vermilion chin coverings isn’t any better than he ought to be. I’m sorry you made that crack about buying ponies; it’s given him the idea that we are carrying a lot of money. I saw it in his eyes as soon as he spoke.”
Ralph hadn’t much to say to this. He realized that he had made a bad mistake and blamed himself bitterly. But he determined to try to retrieve his error by keeping awake to watch for any sudden alarm. But try as he would, his exhausted eyelids drooped as if weighted with lead, and before long, tired nature had asserted her sway and the lad was sound asleep on his rough couch.
Just what hour it was Ralph could not determine, but he was suddenly awakened by a noise as if someone had pushed a chair across the room or had stumbled on it. Broad awake in an instant he sat up in the cot, his every sense alert and his heart throbbing violently.
