The Prairie Chief by Robert Michael Ballantyne (reading cloud ebooks .txt) 📕

a sheer precipice.

"No escape here," remarked the preacher sadly, as he looked round. "In my present state I could not venture down such a path even to save my life. But care not for me, Softswan. If you think you can escape, go and--"

He stopped, for to his amazement the girl stooped, and with apparent ease raised the ponderous mass of rock above referred to as though it had been a slight wooden trap-door, and disclosed a hole large enough for a man to pass through. The preacher observed that the stone was hinged on a strong iron bar, which was fixed considerably nearer to one side of it than the other. Still, this hinge did not account for the ease with which a mere girl lifted a ponderous mass which two or three men could not have moved without the aid of levers.

But there was no time to investigate the mystery of the matter, for another ringing war-whoop told that the Blackfeet, having recovered from their consternation, had summoned courage to renew the assault.

"Down queek!" said the girl, looking earnestly into her companion's face, and pointing to the dark hole, where the head of a rude ladder, dimly visible, showed what had to be done.

"It does not require much faith to trust and obey such a leader," thought the preacher, as he got upon the ladder, and quickly disappeared in the hole. Softswan lightly followed. As her head was about to disappear, she raised her hand, seized hold of a rough projection on the under surface of the mass of rock, and drew it gently down so as to effectually close the hole, leaving no trace whatever of its existence.

While this was going on the Blackfeet were advancing up the narrow pathway with superlative though needless caution, and no small amount of timidity. Each man took advantage of every scrap of cover he could find on the way up, but as the owner of the hut had taken care to remove all cover that was removable, they did not find much, and if the defenders had been there, that little would have been found to be painfully insufficient, for it consisted only of rugged masses and projections of rock, none of which could altogether conceal the figure of a full-grown man. Indeed, it seemed inexplicable that these Indians should have made this assault in broad day, considering that Indians in general are noted for their care of "number one," are particularly unwilling to meet their foes in fair open fight, and seldom if ever venture to storm a place of strength except by surprise and under the cover of night.

The explanation lay partly in the fact that they were aware of the advance of friends towards the place, but much more in this, that the party was led by the great chief Rushing River, a man possessed of that daring bulldog courage and reckless contempt of death which is usually more characteristic of white than of red men.

When the band had by galvanic darts and rushes gained the last scrap of cover that lay between them and the little fortress, Rushing River gave vent to a whoop which was meant to thrill the defenders with consternation to the very centre of their being, and made a gallant rush, worthy of his name, for the breastwork. Reaching it in gasping haste, he and his braves crouched for one moment at the foot of it, presumably to recover wind and allow the first fire of the defenders to pass over their heads.

But no first fire came, and Rushing River rolled his great black eyes upward in astonishment, perhaps thinking that his whoop had thrilled the defenders off the face of the earth altogether!

Suspense, they say, is less endurable than actual collision with danger. Probably Rushing River thought it so, for next moment he raised his black head quickly. Finding a hole in the defences, he applied one of his black eyes to it and peeped through. Seeing nothing, he uttered another whoop, and vaulted over like a squirrel, tomahawk in hand, ready to brain anybody or anything. Seeing nobody and nothing in particular, except an open door, he suspected an ambush in that quarter, darted round the corner of the hut to get out of the doorway line of fire, and peeped back.

Animated by a similar spirit, his men followed suit. When it became evident that no one meant to come out of the hut Rushing River resolved to go in, and did so with another yell and a flourish of his deadly weapon, but again was he doomed to expend his courage and violence on air, for he possessed too much of natural dignity to expend his wrath on inanimate furniture.

Of course one glance sufficed to show that the defenders had flown, and it needed not the practised wit of a savage to perceive that they had retreated through the back door. In his eagerness to catch the foe, the Indian chief sprang after them with such a rush that nothing but a stout willow, which he grasped convulsively, prevented him from going over the precipice headlong--changing, as it were, from a River into a Fall--and ending his career appropriately in the torrent below.

When the chief had assembled his followers on the limited surface of the ledge, they all gazed around them for a few seconds in silence. On one side was a sheer precipice. On another side was, if we may so express it, a sheerer precipice rising upward. On the third side was the steep and rugged path, which looked sufficiently dangerous to arrest all save the mad or the desperate. On the fourth side was the hut.

Seeing all this at a glance, Rushing River looked mysterious and said, "Ho!"

To which his men returned, "How!" "Hi!" and "Hee!" or some other exclamation indicative of bafflement and surprise.

Standing on the trap-door rock as on a sort of pulpit, the chief pointed with his finger to the precipitous path, and said solemnly--

"Big Tim has gone down _there_. He has net the wings of the hawk, but he has the spirit of the squirrel, or the legs of the goat."

"Or the brains of the fool," suggested a follower, with a few drops of white blood in his veins, which made him what boys call "cheeky."

"Of course," continued Rushing River, still more solemnly, and scorning to notice the remark, "of course Rushing River and his braves could follow if they chose. They could do anything. But of what use would it be? As well might we follow the moose-deer when it has got a long start."

"Big Tim has got the start, as Rushing River wisely says," remarked the cheeky comrade, "but he is hampered with his squaw, and cannot go fast."

"Many pale-faces are hampered by their squaws, and cannot go fast," retorted the chief, by which reply he meant to insinuate that the few drops of white blood in the veins of the cheeky one might yet come through an experience to which a pure Indian would scorn to submit. "But," continued the chief, after a pause to let the stab take full effect, "but Softswan is well known. She is strong as the mountain sheep and fleet as the mustang. She will not hamper Big Tim. Enough! We will let them go, and take possession of their goods."

Whatever the chief's followers might have thought about the first part of his speech, there was evidently no difference of opinion as to the latter part. With a series of assenting "Ho's," "How's," "Hi's," and "Hee's," they returned with him into the hut, and began to appropriate the property, commencing with a cold haunch of venison which they discovered in the larder, and to which they did ample justice, sitting in a circle on the floor in the middle of the little room.

Leaving them there, we will return to Softswan and her new friend.

"The place is very dark," remarked the preacher, groping cautiously about after the trap-door was closed as above described.

"Stan' still; I vill strik light," said Softswan.

In a few moments sparks were seen flying from flint and steel, and after one or two unsuccessful efforts a piece of tinder was kindled. Then the girl's pretty little nose and lips were seen of a fiery red colour as she blew some dry grass and chips into a flame, and kindled a torch therewith.

The light revealed a small natural cavern of rock, not much more than six feet high and ten or twelve wide, but of irregular shape, and extending into obscurity in one direction. The only objects in the cave besides the ladder by which they entered it were a few barrels partially covered with deerskin, an unusually small table, rudely but strongly made, and an enormous mass of rock enclosed in a net of strong rope which hung from an iron hook in the roof.

The last object at once revealed the mystery of the trap-door. It formed a ponderous counterpoise attached to the smaller section of the stone slab, and so nearly equalised the weight on the hinge that, as we have seen, Softswan's weak arm was sufficient to turn the scale.

The instant the torch flared up the girl stuck it into a crevice in the wall, and quickly grasping the little table, pushed it under the pendent rock. It reached to within half an inch of the mass. Picking up two broad wooden wedges that lay on the floor, she thrust them between the rock and the table, one on either side, so as to cause it to rest entirely on the table, and thus by removing its weight from the iron hook, the slab was rendered nearly immovable. She was anxiously active in these various operations, for already the Indians had entered the hut and their voices could be distinctly heard overhead.

"Now," she whispered, with a sigh of relief, "six mans not abil to move the stone, even if he knowed the hole is b'low it."

"It is an ingenious device," said the preacher, throwing his exhausted form on a heap of pine branches which lay in a corner. "Who invented it--your husband?"

"No; it was Leetil Tim," returned the girl, with a low musical laugh. "Big Tim says hims fadder be great at 'ventions. He 'vent many t'ings. Some's good, some's bad, an' some's funny."

The preacher could not forbear smiling at this account of his old friend, in spite of his anxiety lest the Indians who were regaling themselves overhead should discover their retreat. He had begun to put some questions to Softswan in a low voice when he was rendered dumb and his blood seemed to curdle as he heard stumbling footsteps approaching from the dark end of the cavern. Then was heard the sound of some one panting vehemently. Next moment a man leaped into the circle of light, and seized the Indian girl in his arms.

"Thank God!" he exclaimed fervently; "not too late! I had thought the reptiles had been too much for thee, soft one. Ah me! I fear that some poor pale-face has--" He stopped abruptly, for at that moment Big Tim's eye fell upon the wounded man. "What!" he exclaimed, hastening to the preacher's side; "you _have_ got here after all?"

"Ay, young man, through the goodness of God I have reached this