A Waif of the Mountains by Edward Sylvester Ellis (best free ereader txt) 📕

less than an hour, when the captain touched him. Rising immediately to a sitting position, he asked:

"Is it midnight?"

"It's a half hour past."

"Why didn't you awake me afore? Have you seen anything wrong?"

"I am not sure; my doubt made me hold on a little longer, but I learned nothing of account."

"What was it anyway?"

"It is only that the animals appear to be uneasy, but it may mean nothing, or it may mean a good deal."

"It's more'n likely it means something. Where are they?"

"Lying down off there to the right, almost near enough to be seen."

"They can't be too close; wal, you can sleep and I'll take my turn."

Thus warned by Captain Dawson, Vose Adams assumed the duties of sentinel with his senses on the alert. He had become so accustomed to the delicate duty, when aware that the slightest slip on his part meant death, that he was better fitted for the task than any member of the party, though the experience of Ruggles and the captain in the army had given them the ability to awake at any moment fixed upon before sinking into slumber, and they were sensitive to the least disturbance while enjoying refreshing rest.

Adams believed what he had remarked more than once that the little company of mountain Indians would do their utmost to revenge themselves upon the men who had taken off their chief. He suspected that the five were prowling in the neighborhood, looking for some such opportunity, and that they would strike a blow before the rising of the morrow's sun.

Nothing was to be hoped for in the way of a diversion, created by the intrusion of Colonel Briggs and his vagrant miners. Not that the Indians were not eager to strike at any members of the hated race, but the all-controlling motive was lacking in the case of the larger party.

Although the moon was in the sky, only a small part of its light penetrated the canyon. Peering into the darkness, Vose dimly made out the forms of the four animals, who, having ceased their cropping of the grass, had lain down for the remainder of the night. They were so near that they could not be stampeded or stolen without the effort being known to the sentinel.

It would have been the height of rashness to start a camp fire, for all the figures within its circle of illumination must have formed the best of targets for their stealthy foes. As it was, an enemy would have to steal from the gloom and approach near enough to touch them, before striking a blow or firing a shot.

Vose Adams, with his Winchester in his right hand and held close to his side, took his seat on the ground, resting his back against the nearest boulder. As a rule, a sentinel can keep awake for an extended time only by motion and exercise, such as walking to and fro, but the trained hunter often takes the risk and there is little danger of his succumbing, especially after he has just finished a nap, as was the case with the guide.

Thus seated, with the boulder rising several feet above his head, Adams's only reliance was upon his keenness of hearing and sight.

He had not waited long when he saw proof of what the captain had told him: the animals were restless, or rather one of them was. The quadruped thus affected was Hercules, his own mule, who, although lying down, twice rose to his feet, shifted his position and lay down again. Then he sniffed as if the air contained an odor that was displeasing to him.

"I wouldn't think much of it, if it was one of the horses," reflected his master, "but Hercules has brains; he knows more'n all the others together, and yet it may be it ain't that after all."

One of the singular facts regarding cattle and other quadrupeds is that they are sometimes troubled with disquieting dreams, the same as ourselves. This trifling cause has resulted many a time in the stampeding of a drove numbering tens of thousands.

"I've knowed Hercules to kick and snort in his sleep, and one time he come mighty near breakin' a leg of mine; howsumever, I don't think that's the trouble with him to-night. I 'spect it's Injins this time!"

When Captain Dawson lay down to sleep and Vose Adams assumed his place as sentinel, the moon was near the zenith, but the contour of the canyon shut out its beams. While Vose was striving to pierce the gloom, over and about the four animals, he noted a flickering tremor against the vast wall which formed the other side of the canyon. A faint, fleecy veil of moonlight having been lifted over the mountain crests, was now flung downward and caught against and suspended upon the projecting rocks and crags. It was but a frosty shimmer, but the veil dangled lower and lower, pendant here and there until the fringe rested on the bottom of the gorge.

The sleeping miners and horses were wrapped in deep shadow, but the tremulous, almost invisible veil still fluttered on the further side of the canyon. By and by, the shifting moon would whisk it up again and all would be gloom as before.

The sentinel lay flat on his face and peered over the prone animals toward the faint light across the canyon, and, looking thus, he saw the outlines of a man moving among the horses and mule. A shadow could not have been more noiseless. Not the faintest rustle betrayed his footsteps.

"Just what I expected," thought Vose; "I'll wager Hercules against a dozen of the best horses in Sacramento that that shadder is one of them five Injins we seen stealin' along the ledge this mornin'. All the same, I can't imagine what the mischief he is driving at."

The guide's first impulse was to bring his rifle to his shoulder and let fly. The intruder was so near that it was impossible to miss him, but two causes operated to prevent this summary course: Vose wished first to learn the business of the intruder, and there was a single possibility in a hundred that he was neither an Indian nor an enemy.

The latter doubt could be solved by challenging the prowler with a threat to fire, if instant satisfaction was refused, while the firing could be made so promptly that the stranger would have no chance of whisking out of reach. Vose decided to wait until he got some idea of the other's business.

He could still dimly discern the form, but it was so obscure that had it not been moving about, he would not have been able to distinguish it or make sure it was within his field of vision.

While studying the phantom, the lower part of the veil of moonlight on the other side of the canyon was twitched up for a hundred feet. Lingering thus a minute, it was twitched still higher; then a third flirt snatched it out of the gorge. The shifting of the moon had left the canyon shrouded in darkness as before.

Nothing could have attested more strikingly the marvelous stealth of the intruder than the fact that not one of the horses was awakened by him. The approach of the great Geronimo and several of his Apaches was betrayed under somewhat similar circumstances by the neighing of a horse that they awakened, apparently when making no noise at all.

This prowler was a shadow in a world of shadows. If Hercules detected his presence, the man succeeded in soothing the fear of the hybrid.

"_Halt or I'll fire!_"

Vose Adams's voice was low, but in the tomb-like stillness a thunderclap could not have been more distinct. The hail, however, produced no response. The angered Vose drew his Winchester to a level, with his finger on the trigger, but when he ran his eye along the barrel, he failed to perceive any target. He lowered the muzzle a few inches and peered over the top. Nothing was discernible.

"You're there somewhere and I'll find you!"

Instead of rising erect, the sentinel advanced in a crouching posture, so that his head was no higher than if he were on his hands and knees.

This clever strategy was thrown away. Within five seconds, he was at the side of Hercules, prepared and expecting to grapple with his enemy, who, to his exasperation, continued invisible. Vose did not require to have the matter explained to him, for he understood it. Upon being hailed, the intruder instead of throwing up his hands or starting to run, had also assumed a stooping position. It was as if he had quietly sunk below the surface of a sea of darkness through which he was wading, and swum with noiseless celerity to a point beyond reach.

Vose was angered but took his defeat philosophically.

"You was too smart for me that time; I never had it played finer on me, but I guess it's just as well; you've learned that we're on the lookout and you can't sneak into camp without _some_ risk of having a hole bored inter you."

But Vose was not yet through with his nocturnal experiences. He held his seat for some fifteen or twenty minutes without seeing or hearing anything to cause the slightest misgiving. The horses still slept, and even the uneasy Hercules appeared to have become composed and to have made up his mind to slumber until morning.

"I don't b'leve there'll be anything more to disturb me, onless some wild animal wants his supper----"

The thought had hardly taken shape, when a shiver of affright ran through him, though the cause was so slight that it might have brought a smile, being nothing more than a pebble rolling down the ravine, up which the fugitives had passed the day before. The stone came slowly, loosening several similar obstructions, which joined with it, the rustling increasing and continuing until all reached the bottom and lay at rest a few feet from where he sat.

Nothing could have been easier than for this to occur in the natural course of things, since hundreds of such instances were taking place at every hour of the day and night, but in the tense state of the sentinel's nerves, he was inclined to attribute it either to the Indian that had just visited camp and slunk away, or to one of his comrades trying to steal a march upon him.

"I 'spose the next thing will be for him to climb over this boulder behind me and drop onto my head. Howsumever, if he does, he'll find me awake."

Vose sat thus, depending almost wholly upon his sense of hearing to apprise him of the stealthy approach of an enemy, while the long silent hours gradually passed, without bringing additional cause for alarm.


CHAPTER XXV

INSTINCT OR REASON

As the night wore away without bringing any further evidence of the presence of enemies, the solicitude of Vose Adams was transferred to the two, who, hardly a mile distant, were awaiting with equal anxiety the coming of morning. They and he had agreed upon the plan to be pursued, but now, with the crisis at hand, the guide became apprehensive about the final issue.

Suppose the couple should leave their hiding place to return to the main trail before their pursuers were out of the way? Mutual discovery was certain with the dreadful catastrophe that none dreaded more than he. But it would seem that Lieutenant Russell was too cautious to