The Red River Half-Breed: A Tale of the Wild North-West

Finally, the end of the crack was attained. Here the climber without an assistant was a doomed man, unless he could retreat as he came – almost an impossibility. But, on this occasion, Cherokee Bill was waiting, with the loop of a counterbalanced rope in his hand, which he lowered over the young man and drew up so as to engirdle him. More than his pair of arms were not needed, considering the size of the boulder which weighed the farther end of the cord; but, none the less, two other men were hauling on it. In a few minutes the young man stood on the threshold of the cavern of the Old Nick's Jump. This was the only other way in.

With a cordial wave of the hand, Cherokee Bill presented his protégé to Jim the Yager and Mr. Filditch.

"A recruit," said he, laconically, "and A one! We are going to have some rare tussles, right soon and right here; but this friend o' ours will keep up his end o' the board, and don't you forget who says so!"

CHAPTER VIII

THE GOLD GRABBERS

The Cherokee and his young friend had barely vanished from the defile before some twenty men rushed in upon Miss Maclan. They had left her in a growing trepidation lest she had committed a great blunder in not sharing their flight. The newcomers were on horse and afoot. In this rugged way, expert footmen could keep pace with the riders. The principal was a tall, thin man, about fifty, rather bowed than straight; his tawny hair fell in locks thickly upon his shoulders in the style of the adopters of the Indian fashion; his face was bloodless in the third part not hidden by a red beard; as a guard against snow blindness, he wore green goggles, which gave him the air of a student or professor on a most guileless scientific enterprise. Spite of this, he was the Western desperado who had taken the notorious name of "Captain Kidd," that of the most ferocious pirate known on the Atlantic coast in the 18th century. He had already seen Sol Garrod inanimate, and the view of Old Cormick, a much more prized member of his band, doubled the malignity of his scowl. Nevertheless, he was surprised into some courtesy on seeing nobody but the young lady, for he removed his fur cap a little, and faltered:

"Who are you? This is never your work, is it?" pointing to the dead bandit. "Oh, I see," he went on, quickly. "The rogues quarrelled over the plum, and they would have deprived their captain of his option to redeem it at the band's estimation."

"Sir," said she haughtily, "you are right to call them rogues; they professed no great respect for me, and they have been punished for it by men who, on the contrary, have acted like honourable gentlemen."

"That will do. This is no time or place for such pages out of the Book of Elocution! What is it, my boys?" as his men returned quickly from the track of the horses.

An uproar in the woods, where the flyers burst through the Indians, enlightened them on the danger of prosecuting their researches too far.

"Our red brother!" he exclaimed, jestingly. "You'd better fall back before he extends the tomahawk of friendship."

"But the slayers of our mates and stealers of their horses are not Indians," added a scout who most recently came in.

"Never mind. Return to camp. Neither in the sky or along the land now is the lookout serene, and we shall meet any mishap better there. Two of you take care of that saucebox. Hang me if she be not, though fair as a lily, as pert and disdainful as a Mexican."

Lighting a cigar, he rode back, meditatively smoking, among his sullen and apprehensive men, without appearing to remember he had made a prisoner.

They were not the kind of characters to whom a young lady's protection should have been confided. On the contrary, their dissipated faces, truculent carriage, and noisy talk, proclaimed them the scum of the dross of the mining camp. Not worthy the name of gold seeker, they deserved that of horse thief, secret stabber, and "gold grabber."