Then began a race for life, which the spectators could not but watch
with thrilling interest.  Fortunately for the fugitive, his horse was an
animal of blood and mettle, and seemed likely to show a good lead to the
fleet war-ponies.  But on the other hand the fugitive himself was an
indifferent rider, and more than once, wholly unaccustomed to the
tremendous pace, he would sway in the saddle, and only save himself by a
hurried clutch at his steed's mane from being cast headlong to the
earth.  The whoops and yells of the savage pursuers sounded nearer and
nearer in his ears, and the expression of his countenance, livid as with
the dews of death, and eyeballs starting from their sockets, was that of
such despairing horror as to turn one of the two spectators sick and
faint.

"There's just a chance for him," muttered Vipan, more to himself than to
his companion.  "If he takes the right fork of the valley he's a dead
man--nothing can save him.  If he takes the left, it'll bring him close
under us, and I'll give him a hail."

"Do, for the love of Heaven!" gasped the girl through her ashy lips.
"God will help us, if we try and save this stranger."

Along the valley-bottom swept this most engrossing of all hunts--a
man-hunt.  Whatever advantage the superiority of his horse afforded him
the fugitive was throwing away by his own clumsiness; for wildly
gripping the bridle to steady himself in his seat, he was checking and
worrying his steed to a perilous extent.  Bent low on the necks of their
ponies, the savages were urging the latter to their utmost speed.
Slowly but surely now they were gaining.  But a minute more and the
fugitive must choose--the right fork of the valley, away into certain
death--the left, succour, possible safety.

Suddenly a warrior, urging his steed in advance of the rest, literally
flying over the ground, comes within fifty yards of the fugitive.
Five--ten--another effort and he will be within striking distance.  Then
rising upright in his saddle the savage whirls a lasso in the air.
Another moment and the fatal coil will have settled around the doomed
man's shoulders.

But it is not to be.  A crack and a puff of smoke from the spectators'
hiding-place.  The distance is too great for accuracy of aim--six
hundred yards if an inch--but the ball ploughs up the ground under the
pony's feet, causing the animal to swerve and the rider to miss his
cast.  The warriors, disconcerted by this wholly unlooked-for danger,
halt for a moment, gazing in the direction of the report.  At the same
time a stentorian voice calls out:

"This way, stranger.  This way, for your blessed soul, or you're a dead
man!"

The fugitive needs no second invitation.  His horse's head is turned
towards the never-so-welcome refuge.  Amid a shower of bullets and
arrows from his discomfited pursuers he gallops up the gradual slope
which lies between himself and safety, and, fainting, exhausted,
speechless, more dead than alive, at length flings himself upon the
ground at his rescuers' feet.

Vipan's attention is for the moment more taken up with the red warriors
than with the man he has saved from their ruthless clutches.  The whole
party has now withdrawn beyond range, and is busily discussing the
sudden turn affairs have taken.  Then turning to the panting and
exhausted man stretched at full length upon the ground with closed eyes,
he remarks drily:

"You've had a narrow squeak for it, friend.  I don't think your scalp
could sit much more lightly than it has done within the last few minutes
short of coming off altogether."

But the fugitive seemed not to hear.  His whole attention was fixed--
riveted--upon the beautiful face bending over him in alarm--solicitude--
then unbounded surprise.

"Yseulte!" he stammered.  "Yseulte!  Is it really you, or am I dead or
dreaming?"

"Why it's Geoffry.  Geoffry Vallance!  Why, Geoffry, where on earth
_have_ you dropped from?"

"Er--I was trying to catch up your--er--Major Winthrop's party--and lost
my way," he answered stupidly--rubbing his eyes in sheer bewilderment.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

THE "TENDERFOOT."

If Yseulte Santorex stood lost in amazement at this wholly unlooked-for
meeting, there was really considerable excuse for some upsetting of her
mental poise.  Beyond a brief and formal farewell in the presence of her
family, she had not seen her former admirer since that passionate and
despairing declaration of his in the summer meadows which skirted the
pleasant Lant, and neither at that time nor since had the faintest idea
crossed her mind that he contemplated any such undertaking as Western or
any other travel.  And now here he was, flung, so to say, by Fate at her
very feet, escaping by the narrowest chance from the hands of hostile
savages, the most ruthless in the world.  And she had been mainly
instrumental in saving him.

But Geoffry had the advantage of her, in that his surprise was mainly
confined to the circumstances and place of their meeting.  When he had
quarrelled with and separated from the rather worthless guide whom he
had engaged at the nearest frontier post, he had reckoned on pushing on
so as to overtake Major Winthrop's outfit in a day at the outside, and
having found it, the first part of his object would be accomplished.
Then he had lost himself, as we have seen, and but for the present
opportune meeting his fate was sealed.  And now here was the object of
his search, more winsome, more beautiful than ever, her loveliness
enhanced tenfold by the glorious open-air life she had been leading.
But who on earth was her companion?  Not her brother.  George Santorex
could never have altered beyond recognition within three or four years;
besides, he was dark-haired--darker than Yseulte herself--and had not
the herculean build of this stranger.  Thus ran Geoffry's thoughts as,
with half-closed eyes, he lay on the sward, thoroughly done up with
fright and exhaustion.

Vipan, for his part, took no notice of the man whose life he had saved.
He saw before him a loosely hung, shambling sort of youth, commonplace
of aspect, and in no wise over-burdened with practical intelligence.
Beyond the first half-bantering, half-contemptuous remark, he hardly
seemed to think his new acquaintance worth addressing.  Nor did he seem
to think the unexpected recognition between him and Yseulte Santorex
worthy of notice.

"Will they attack us, Mr Vipan?" asked the latter, with a shade of
anxiety.  For the Indians, having finished their consultation, were
riding just beyond range, so as to make a wide circuit of the position.

"I doubt it.  They are going to find our trail leading in here, so as to
discover the extent of our force.  They will find the trail of two
horses, and not having seen you will take for granted that represents
two men, instead of one man and a non-combatant.  That, with our friend
here, makes three.  Three men with rifles, snugly fixed in a strong
position, constitute far too tough a nut for a small force like that to
try and crack, and they are only sixteen.  No.  They will conclude to go
away and leave us alone."

Yseulte gave a sigh of relief.  A skirmish would mean bloodshed, and,
brave as she was, the idea of seeing men shot down, even in
self-defence, could not be otherwise than abhorrent to her.

"Look," went on Vipan, "they have picked up our trail, and--there goes
the inevitable white rag."

The warriors had stopped, clustered together, and having briefly
scrutinised the ground, one of their number rode out, waving a dirty rag
on a lance-point.

"Flourish away, friend," remarked Vipan, drily; "I guess we're not going
to be drawn by any such childish device."

"Don't they want to make terms?" said Yseulte.

"No doubt.  But we don't.  They know our number.  What they want now is
to find out our strength--who we are, in short.  Now there isn't a red
on the Northern Plains who doesn't know me, by sight or intuition, and
this time I'm going to let them entertain a Tartar unawares; if they try
fighting, that is."

Finding no notice whatever was taken of their signals, the savages again
gathered in consultation.  Then the warrior who had hoisted the white
flag advanced from among the rest, and yelled out in broken English:

"Ha-yah, ha-yah!  Golden Face Injun's brudder!  Good hoss, ole debbil
Satanta--make big trail.  Golden Face bring out lily white gal.  Good
squaw for Injun brudder!  Ha-yah!"

The whole band screamed with laughter, but the insolent buck grinned
rather too soon.  Long as the range was, a ball from Vipan's rifle
crashed through his shin-bone, and both he and his pony rolled upon the
ground; the latter in the throes of death.  Their mirth changed into a
yell of rage; the band scattered, and withdrawing to a more respectful
distance, began circling frantically around the position, waving their
weapons and bawling out such expletives and coarse expressions as their
limited knowledge of Anglo-Saxon allowed.  Finally, their vocabulary
having given out, they once more collected together, and with a parting
jeer rode leisurely away.

"There go sixteen as disgusted reds as are to be met on the Plains this
day," said Vipan as the last of the warriors disappeared over the far
rise.  "And now, Miss Santorex, sorry as I am to disappoint you, we must
put off our picnic _a deux_, or rather _a trois_, and get back to camp
as soon as possible.  Those chaps might fall in with a lot more of their
tribe, and double back on us sharp, or half-a-hundred things might
happen.  So we've no time to lose."

Vipan was not the man to leave anything to chance, but although no
square foot of the surrounding country escaped his keen glance, as they
cantered merrily away from the scene of the late _fracas_, not a sign of
their recent foes was visible.  The vast rolling plains shimmering in
the afternoon heat lay silent and deserted, and save that a film of
smoke in the far distance, marking the site of the emigrants' camp, was
faintly discernible, might have been untrodden by human foot.

"By the way, Mr--er?" began Vipan.

"--Vallance."

"Well, Mr Balance."

"Er--Vallance."

"Oh, Vallance, I beg your pardon.  Well, Mr Vallance, I was going to
say, what do you think of Indian fighting?  Never saw `Mr Lo' [Note 1]
on the war-path before, I take it?"

"No, never.  And I don't particularly care if I never see him again,"
answered Geoffry, flurriedly.  "Er--you have saved my life, Mr--er--?"

"Vipan."

"--Mr Vipan," he stuttered; "and but for you I should be a dead man at
this moment."

"Not strictly accurate, and that in two particulars," was the quiet
reply.  "In the first place, you should have said `But for Miss
Santorex'; in the second, you would not have had the luck to be a dead
man at this moment.  You would be squirming a good deal nearer to a slow
fire than is either pleasant or salubrious."

Geoffry turned pale, nor could he repress a slight shudder as he thought
of the ghastly fate from which he had escaped, as it were, by the skin
of his teeth.  Then the sight of his enslaver--so unexpectedly met with,
and, like himself, dependent for aid and protection amid the grisly
perils of these Western wilds, upon this mysterious stranger, who
treated him, Geoffry, with a patronising and tolerant air which under
any other circumstances would have been galling in the extreme--roused a
wave of jealousy and distrust in the young man's breast.  What the deuce
was she doing here, careering about the country with this splendidly
handsome desperado?  But the latter's next words seemed to solve the
enigma.

"I reckon you'll follow the crowd next time you feel like running
buffalo, Miss Santorex.  I ought not to have exposed you to even this
small risk."

"A delicate way of reminding me that I've only myself to thank for
risking being scalped," she replied demurely, but with a mischievous
smile struggling not to break forth.  "Well, it's perfectly true.  I
made you take me, and you all agreed it was quite safe.  But we killed
our buffalo after all--though I didn't like the killing part of it--and
I shall never get the chance of a buffalo hunt again.  Besides," with a
glance at Geoffry and a serious ring in her voice, "it looks as if we
had been sent here on purpose."

"I say," sputtered Geoffry, staring at Vipan, as though bursting with a
new idea.  "I say, w-were you ever at the 'Varsity?"

"Which 'Varsity?"

"Why, Oxford or Cambridge, don't cher know.  You give me the idea of a
man who has been there."

"Do I?  If I was there at all, it must have been rather before you were
born," replied the other, imperturbably.

"Hang the fellow, he needn't be so close!" thought Geoffry, with a
sullen sense of having been "shut up."  But he was glad enough to see
safety and comfort in the shape of Major Winthrop's camp, which lay
about a mile distant, between them and the setting sun, although he was
conscious of a profound feeling of jealousy and distrust towards the man
to whom he owed that safety and comfort.

"My partner will show up this evening," said Vipan, tranquilly.  "In
fact I shouldn't wonder if we found him in camp when we arrive, and
what's more, he'll know exactly what we've been doing since I joined
you."

"How on earth will he know?" asked Yseulte, wonderingly.

"That's just how he will know," was the amused reply.  "By looking on
the earth.  We have a code of our own.  But, you'll see, anyhow."

Note 1.  A Western joke, from the passage in Pope's Essay on Man which
runs: "Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind."

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A BOMB FOR THE REV. DUDLEY.

The Rev. Dudley Vallance sat in his library sorting out the contents of
the post-bag.

There was his usual correspondence, all of which he knew at a glance,
and tossed impatiently aside, and two or three missives in an unknown
hand, which met with no greater attention.  But that which he sought was
not there.  Not a line from his absent son.

More than a month had elapsed since Geoffry had started on his travels.
To the surprise of his parents, he had as suddenly come round to their
plans, and was as ardently ready to go abroad as he had been formerly
opposed to the idea.  Still more to their surprise, he had expressed a
firm determination to travel in the United States and nowhere else; and,
with an energy wholly foreign to his limp nature, had extorted from them
a promise to reveal no word of his intention until after his departure.
Of course, the reason of this was soon made manifest; yet his indulgent
father would not oppose him.  And now, for nearly a fortnight, no news
of him had been received.  To be sure, he had been on the eve of
quitting the furthest limits of Western civilisation when he last
wrote--probably opportunities of communication were few and far between.
Yet the Rev. Dudley felt very anxious, very disappointed.

Mechanically he opened his letters, one after another, but hardly
glanced at the contents.  Even the announcement that a couple of farms
would shortly be thrown on his hands--a notice which at any other time
would have disturbed his rest for a week--passed unheeded now.  Suddenly
his face paled, and a quick gasp escaped his white lips.  He had come to
the last letter of all, and it was from his solicitors.

We know of nothing more calculated to knock a man out of all time than a
wholly unexpected and equally unwelcome communication imparted through
the agency of the post.  If imparted by word of mouth, he can find some
relief in questioning his informant, but when coming through the medium
of a letter, especially a lawyer's letter, there is that in the cold,
stiff paper, in the precise, hateful characters, as unbending, as
inexorable as the very finality of Fate.  The communication which, even
in the midst of his paternal anxiety, had knocked Mr Vallance so
thoroughly out of time, conveyed nothing less than the news that a
claimant had come forward to dispossess him of the Lant estates, to
contest the late squire's will on several grounds, including that of
fraud.  And the said claimant was no less a personage than the late
squire's son.

And really it is not surprising that he should have been knocked out of
time.  In a lightning-flash there passed before him a vision of years of
litigation, draining his resources and impoverishing his estate--and
that even should things not come to the worst.  The tone of his lawyers'
letter was not reassuring.  This meant that, in their opinion, the
claimant had a good case.  How good that case might be was a
consideration which turned the reverend squire's features a trifle
paler.

Then came a ray of hope.  Ralph Vallance had not been heard of for
years, nearer twenty than ten.  He had probably gone to the dogs long
ago, had joined the ranks of the "shady," and, in keeping with his
umbrageous character, was now trying to extort a compromise, or, failing
that, a sum of money not to make himself troublesome.  But to this happy
idea succeeded a darker one, dousing the first as in a rush of ink.
Probably with the extraordinary luck which now and then befalls the
thorough adventurer, Ralph was returning a rich man, prepared, out of
sheer vindictiveness, to devote a large portion of his wealth to
plunging his cousin into protracted litigation, with all its harassing
and impoverishing results.  This would be about as disastrous, in the
long run, as the actual establishment of the claim.

Again and again he read the hateful missive, until every word of it was
burnt into his brain, but he gleaned no comfort.  From whatever point he
thought it over, the outlook was about as gloomy as it could be.  The
summer air came into the room in soft and balmy puffs, laden with the
scent of roses.  He could hear his children's voices on the terrace
below, and away over many a mile of rolling down his eye wandered over
pleasant pastures alternating with velvety woodland, and yellow
corn-fields awaiting the sickle; to the river flashing like a silver
streak through the shade of the beeches, where the deer lay in antlered
and dappled groups, lazily chewing the cud in the soft and sensuous
forenoon.  All this was his own, and his son's after him--an hour ago,
that is.  But now?  He saw himself adrift in his old age, and his
idolised son drudging miserably for daily bread.  He saw the kinsman, in
whose place he had for so long stood, ejecting him pitilessly,
vindictively; exacting, it might be, all arrears to the uttermost
farthing.  Even after this lapse of years (nearer twenty than ten) he
cowered beneath the bitter and burning home-truths which that kinsman
had hurled at him, here, in this very room, and his heart quaked and his
blood curdled at the promise of a terrible and unlooked-for vengeance
with which his kinsman had left him.  Time had gone by; year had
succeeded year; his children growing up, and he himself in undisturbed
possession, and the force of these denunciations and threats had become
dulled.  He had long since come to categorise them in his own mind as
the furious vapourings of a desperate and disappointed man.  And now
they were to bear fruit, to strike him down in his old age, to turn him
and his homeless and helpless on the world.  The wretched man dropped
his head into his hands and groaned aloud.

But, the reader will ask, what was the man made of to start by
discounting the worst; to throw up the sponge so abjectly at the very
first threat of battle?  Well, there may be something in the adage that
conscience makes cowards--of certain temperaments, or there may have
been a something underlying the whole affair unknown even to Mr
Vallance's own lawyers, or, possibly, a good deal of both.  We can only
say: Reader, persevere, and discover for yourself.

Suddenly there floated in upon the summer air a mellow peal of church
bells.  Mr Vallance aroused himself.  He had forgotten it was Sunday,
forgotten his anxiety about Geoffry, forgotten everything in this new
and terrible blow that threatened him.  The turning of the door-handle
made him fairly start from his chair, so overwrought were his nerves.

"The girls have gone on, Dudley," said his wife, entering, a sumptuous
presence in her church-going attire.

"All right, my dear.  Kindly overtake them, will you?  I'll follow you
when I'm ready."

"But you'll be very late.  Why, what is the matter?" she broke off,
alarmed by his appearance and the huskiness of his tone.  Then glancing
at the pile of newly-opened letters--"Is it bad news?  Not--not about
Geoffry?"

"_No_, not about Geoffry; thank Heaven for that.  There is no word of
the boy or his movements.  It is--er--merely a very unfortunate and
perplexing matter of business.  Please don't wait for me."

Those who caught a glimpse of their pastor's face that morning as he
swept up the church behind his little procession of choir-boys were
startled at the grey, set expression it wore; and when, after several
mistakes and omissions in the performance of the service, he brought it
to a close without a sermon, the parish--such of it as was present, at
least--came to the conclusion that something must have gone very wrong
indeed.  Had Mr Vallance heard bad news about his son?  No, for when
the retired jerry-builder, who was also churchwarden, meeting the parson
after service, made the enquiry in a sepulchral and sympathising
stage-whisper, he met with a very unconcerned answer in the negative.

"Parson do look main sick, surely" was the verdict of the village, as,
represented by its choicest louts, it hung around the churchyard gate,
and subsequently at the corners of the roads and lanes, previous to its
afternoon Sunday loaf among the same.  "Parson, he be agein', he be."

Thus the village verdict.

"Poor Mr Vallance was looking very ill this morning," remarked Mrs
Santorex at dinner that day.  "He could hardly get through the service.
Everybody thought at first that he had heard bad news of Geoffry, but it
appears not.  In fact, he had heard no news of him at all."

"Likely enough he has been hard hit in the pocket department," rejoined
her lord.  "Probably, `poor Mr Vallance' has been dabbling in bubble
investments; and his particular bubble has--gone the way of all bubbles.
Rather rough that he should hear about it on Sunday, though, the day of
all others when he has to show up in public.  So he blundered over the
service, did he?  Well, our shepherd ought to know by this time that he
can't serve two masters--ha--ha!"

But when later in the afternoon Mr and Mrs Vallance, with a brace of
daughters, dropped in, Mr Santorex felt persuaded that at least one of
the quartet had come there with further intent than that of making a
mere friendly call, and accordingly he awaited events in a kind of
mental ambush congenial to his cynical soul.

"Any news of Yseulte?" asked Mrs Vallance, rising to depart.

"Yes.  She has fallen in with a Major Winthrop and his wife.  They seem
very good sort of people, and the little girl is going to travel under
their charge.  They are neighbours of my boy George, and are returning
to their ranche."

"Can I have a word with you, Santorex?" said the Rev. Dudley, lingering
at the gate, having told his wife and daughters to go on without him.
"Er--the fact is," he continued, lowering his voice, as the other nodded
assent, "the fact is--er--something rather troublesome--a mere trifle
that is to say--has occurred to worry me.  Have you any idea of the
whereabouts of Ralph Vallance?"

"Not the faintest."

"Oh.  I thought perhaps you might know something about him.  I believe
you and he were--er--on friendly terms at one time?"

"Yes, we were.  Why?  Have _you_ heard anything about him?"

"Er--well, I may say this much.  I fancy the poor fellow is in need of
assistance--if only I knew where he was."

"Afraid I can't help you to learn.  Stay.  It was only lately I was
turning out a lot of old correspondence, and there was a whole bundle of
Ralph's letters.  It was just before Chickie went away.  I'll hunt them
up and see if they afford any clue."

The other started.  A scared, anxious look came into his face at the
mention of the correspondence.

"Might I--might I just look over those letters?" he asked, eagerly.

"H'm.  I'm afraid I can hardly agree to that.  But if I find anything in
them likely to be of service to you I won't fail to let you know."

With this, Mr Vallance was forced to be content.  His late host stood
shaking his head softly as he looked after his retreating figure, and
that cynical half-smile played about the corners of his mouth.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

POOR GEOFFRY AGAIN.

True to Vipan's prediction, the first person they met on their return to
camp was Smokestack Bill.

Leaning against a waggon-wheel, lazily puffing at his pipe, his faithful
Winchester ever ready to hand, the scout watched their approach as
imperturbably as though he had parted with his friend but half-an-hour
back, instead of nearly a month ago, when he had watched the latter ride
off with Mahto-sapa's band into what looked perilously like the very
jaws of death.  But he could not restrain a covert guffaw as he marked
in what company he now met his friend again.

"Hello, Bill!  Any news?" cried the latter, as they rode up to the
waggon corral.  "By the way, I must call round and collect that twenty
dollars from Seth Davis."

"Guess you'll have to trade his scalp to raise it," was the grim reply.
"And you'll find it drying in the smoke of an Ogallalla _teepe_."

"That so?"

"It is.  Couple o' nights after War Wolf was run off, a crowd of 'em
came along and shot Seth in the doorway of his store.  Then they cleared
out all the goods and burnt down the whole shebang.  They couldn't nohow
get rid of the idea that he'd had a hand in giving War Wolf away."

"Well, we've just stood off a handful of reds."

"Sho!  With the young lady too!  Say, stranger"--he broke off, turning
to Geoffry--"are you the `tenderfoot' them reds was after?"

"Er--yes.  But--how did you know?" answered Geoffry, staring with
astonishment.

"Struck your trail.  But jest before, I'd struck the trail o' them
painted varmints.  Knew they'd jump you, but reckoned you'd make camp
'fore they got within shootin' distance."

"You're out of it this time, Bill," said Vipan.  "He'd have been roast
beef by now if we hadn't happened along.  It was a very pretty chase,
though," he added, with a laugh.  "Our friend here covered the ground in
fine style."

"Bless your heart, stranger, that's just nothing," laughed the scout,
noting the offended look which came into the young man's face at this
apparently unfeeling comment on the frightful peril from which he had
barely escaped.  "Why, me and Vipan there have had many and many such a
narrow squeak when we've been out scoutin' alone--ay, and narrower.
Haven't we scooted for a whole day with a yellin' war-party close on our
heels, and no snug corral like this handy to stand 'em off in!"

"Really!" exclaimed Geoffry, open-mouthed.  "You bet.  Them devils were
just a lot of young Cheyenne bucks out in search of any devilment that
might come handy.  But you were in luck's way, stranger, this time."

Smokestack Bill was the bearer of news which tended not a little to
relieve the travellers' minds.  He had thoroughly scouted the country
ahead and pronounced it free from Indians.  He was of opinion that no
further trouble need be feared.  The Sioux, he declared, had quite
enough to occupy their attention at home, for they were mustering every
available warrior to resist an expected invasion of the troops, and to
this end all raiding parties then abroad on the Plains had been called
in.  A council of war on a large scale, together with a grand medicine
dance, was to be held at the villages of Sitting Bull, Mad Horse, and
other chiefs of the hostiles, and it was expected that from twelve to
fifteen thousand warriors would assemble.  Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, and
some few other chiefs still remained on their reservations, but the bulk
of their followers had deserted and joined the hostiles.  The scout was
of opinion that they would encounter no considerable body of Indians,
though their stock might be exposed to the risk of stampede at the hands
of a few adventurous young bucks, such as those who had so nearly
captured Geoffry Vallance.

The latter's arrival in the camp, or rather the manner of it, was
productive of no slight sensation among the more inexperienced of the
emigrants.  The seasoned Western men, however, characteristically viewed
the incident as of no great importance, and after one glance at the new
comer, tacitly agreed that the advent of a "tenderfoot" more or less
constituted but a sorry addition to their fighting force.  However, with
the consideration and tact so frequently to be found among even the
roughest of the pioneers of civilisation, no sign of this was suffered
to escape them, and beyond a little good-humoured chaff, and an
occasional endeavour--generally successful--to "cram" the "Britisher,"
Geoffry had no reason to complain of lack of kindliness or hospitable
feeling on the part of the travellers, who, while amusing themselves at
the expense of his "greenness," were ever ready and willing to give him
the benefit of their experience or lend him a helping hand.

By the Winthrops the young man was made warmly welcome.  The Major, glad
of such an acquisition as an educated fellow-countryman, pressed him to
remain with them until they arrived at their destination, and see
something of the West under his own auspices, and his kind-hearted
little wife, very much impressed by his tragic escape from such a
terrible fate, took the young stranger completely under her wing, and
was disposed to make a hero of him.

Thus the days went by, and the waggon train pursued its slow course over
the Western plains; now winding around the spur of some high foot-hill
of a loftier range; now emerging from the timber belt fringing some
swiftly-flowing river, upon a level tableland carpeted with the greenest
of prairie-grass, bespangled with many a strange and delicate-hued
flower.  The exhilarating air, the unclouded blue of the heavens, the
danger lately threatening them removed--removed, too, by the sturdy
might of their own right hands--infused a cheerfulness into the
wanderers.  And when the camp was pitched and the waggons securely
corralled for the night, many a song and jest and stirring anecdote
enlivened the gathering round the red watch-fires.  By day the more
enterprising spirits would diverge from the route to track the red deer
or the scarcer blacktail in the wooded fastnesses of some neighbouring
ravine, while the waggons creaked on their slow and ponderous course.

To this strange new life Geoffry Vallance took with a readiness which
was surprising to himself.  Indeed, he would have been thoroughly happy
but for one thing.  From the moment they had recognised each other, when
he reeled panting and exhausted to the ground at her feet, Yseulte's
demeanour towards him had been one of studied coldness and reserve.  She
would never address him of her own initiative, and deftly defeated any
attempt on his part to be with her alone.  The poor fellow was beside
himself with mortification; and when he recalled the circumstances of
that first recognition, how he had found her alone with the splendidly
handsome scout, to his mortification was added a perfect paroxysm of
jealous rage.

Mrs Winthrop took in the situation at a glance--indeed, it would have
been manifest to a far less clearsighted observer, so transparent were
the symptoms in so simple a subject as poor Geoffry--and it annoyed her.

"I can't think why," she began one day, when the latter was away on some
hunting expedition with most of the men, and the two ladies were alone
together, "I can't think why you treat the poor fellow so standoffishly,
Yseulte.  I'm sure he worships the very ground you walk on, and you
might be a little kinder to him."

"Really, I don't see that the fact entails upon me a corresponding
reciprocity," was the reply, given a little coldly.

"There you go with your long words, Yseulte.  And now you turn the
stand-offishness upon me.  I only mean, dear, that I want everyone to be
friendly and on good terms around.  Let him say what he wants to say.
Then give him an answer.  That'll fix him one way or another right
along, and put everything on a friendly footing again."

"Would it?  Supposing I were to tell you, Hettie, that Geoffry Vallance
can't take No for an answer, you would retort that you thought the more
of him for it.  But there is more than that.  He should not have
followed me out here.  It was not right--it was even ungentlemanly.  He
has taken an unfair advantage in besieging me like this.  In fact, he
has placed me in a thoroughly false position."

"But, dear," mischievously, "so far from following you, it was you who
brought him here."

"Say Mr Vipan, rather.  _I_ am not an Indian fighter."

Then spake Hettie Winthrop unadvisedly.

"Well, Mr Vipan, then.  But, Yseulte dear, you are always pleasant and
cordial enough with Mr Vipan.  Naturally the other poor fellow notices
it."

Yseulte turned her grand eyes full upon the speaker, and there was an
angry flash in them.  These two friends were as near a quarrel as they
would ever be likely to arrive.

"I don't know what you mean, Hettie.  Mr Vipan saved me from the most
horrible of fates.  Am I to show my appreciation by keeping him at arm's
length to please Geoffry Vallance?"

"Tut-tut!  You needn't be so fiery about it," said the other, laughing
mischievously.  "I didn't mean anything in particular that I know of,
and I guess I don't hold a brief for any Geoffry Vallance."

That evening, for the first time since her rescue just alluded to,
Yseulte was strolling by herself.  She had been strangely reserved and
silent all day, and now had stolen quietly away to be alone and think.
A stream flowed between its fringe of fig and wild plum trees, about two
hundred yards off the camp, and now she stood meditatively gazing into
the current and thinking with a pang over the loss of her trout-rod.
The evening air was lively with many a sound, the screech of myriad
crickets, the shout of the teamsters driving in the animals for the
night, the occasional cry of a fretful infant, and the wash and bubble
of the water flowing at her feet.  Suddenly the utterance of her own
name broke in upon her meditations.  There stood Geoffry Vallance, the
expression of his face that of eagerness to make the most of his
opportunity.

"Why do you always avoid me now?" he began, with a quick glance around,
as if fearful of interruption, "What have I done that you will hardly
speak to me now?"

A flush of anger mounted to her face.

"Have they come back from hunting?" she said, ignoring the question.

"No, I came back by myself.  I couldn't go on any longer till I knew
what I had done to offend you.  Have I not followed you to the end of
another world?  And this is how you treat me."

She could have struck him.  "What an idiot the boy is!" she thought.
"Father was right.  A witless idiot!"

"That is just what you have done," she flashed forth.  "Who gave you any
sort of encouragement to follow me to what you are pleased to call `the
end of another world'?  Why did you come here to render me thoroughly
ridiculous, to place me in a false position?  By what right do you
presume to call me to account?  Answer me that, and then kindly leave me
at once."

For a moment he seemed thunderstruck, and stood staring at her in blank
dismay.  Then a light seemed to dawn upon him.

"I thought, at any rate, that one more to protect you--to stand between
you and harm--in this wild country, counted for something.  But it seems
to constitute an offence.  Well, I will leave, this very night if you
wish it."

"Nonsense!" was the angry retort.  "Have you so soon forgotten the
result of trying to cross the plains alone?  You know perfectly well I
don't want you to run any such foolish risk.  But you should not have
followed me here at all.  I thought I had given you a final answer once
and for all at Lant--"

"Good evening, Miss Santorex!" struck in a voice behind them.  And Vipan
raised his hat as he rode by at a foot's pace within a dozen yards of
them.  So engrossed had they been that they had not heard the
hoof-strokes of his horse.  A flush came over Yseulte's face.  Could he
have heard? she thought.  Surely he must have.  The evening air was so
still, and Geoffry's voice was of the high "carrying" order.  Oh, that
unlucky Geoffry!  And for the moment she found it in her heart to wish
that he had been left to the tender mercies of the red men.

"I can't think how it is," said Geoffry, moodily, bringing his glance
back from Vipan's retreating form to the flushed face of his companion.
"I've a dim recollection of having seen that fellow before--how, when,
and where is just what puzzles me."

Yseulte started.  If she was thinking the same thing she was not going
to say so.  She suggested a return to the camp.

"And it's my belief," pursued Geoffry, with a dash of venom--"my firm
belief, that he's a bad hat."

"Is it?"

"Yes.  I've heard one or two queer whispers about him in the camp.  It's
said that he's too friendly with the Indians."

"Especially the other day when you and I had the pleasure of meeting.
Where would you be now but for him, or where should I?  I don't think we
ought to go out of our way to cultivate a bad opinion of a man who has
saved both our lives, do you?"

She left him, for they had now reached the camp--left him standing there
feeling very sore, very resentful, and thoroughly foolish.  Yseulte
Santorex could be very scornful, very cutting, when she chose.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

"AT HIS TIME OF LIFE."

"Something not quite right there--not quite right.  No, sir," said the
scout to himself, shaking his head softly as he furtively watched his
companion.  "And I reckon I can fix it," he added.  "Lord!  Lord!  To
think what we may come to--the most sensible of us as well as the most
downright foolishest."

Vipan, stretched at full length beside the camp fire, smoking his long
Indian pipe, looked the very picture of languid repose.  Yet his
thoughts were in a whirl.  Why had he come there?--why the devil had he
stayed?

The hour was late--late, that is, for those destined to rise at the
first glimmer which should tell of the rising dawn--and sundry shapes
rolled in blankets, whence emanated snores, betokened that most of the
denizens of the encampment were sleeping the sleep of the healthy and
the just.  The murmur of voices, however, with now and then an airy
feminine laugh from the Winthrops' side of the corral, told that some at
any rate were keeping late hours.

"Say, Bill, I conclude I'll git from here."

No change of expression came into the speaker's face.  Nor did he even
glance at him addressed.  The words seem to escape him as the natural
and logical outcome of a train of thought.

"Right, old pard.  I'm with you there.  Where'll you light out for?"

"I think I'll go to Red Cloud's village and see what's on.  Perhaps look
in upon Sitting Bull or Mahto-sapa on the way."

"There I ain't with you," answered the scout decisively.  "Better leave
the reds alone just now.  Haven't you been shooting 'em down like
jack-rabbits around here, and won't they now be bustin' with murderation
to take your hair?  No, no."

"May be.  But I want a change, anyway.  So I'm for looking up that
_placer_ on upper Burntwood Creek.  The troops won't molest us this
time, because all the miners'll have left.  Besides all available
cavalry will be told off against Sitting Bull."

"It's strange that Mr Vipan hasn't been near us all day," Mrs Winthrop
was saying.  "But I suppose he'll clear out as suddenly as he came.
These Western men are queer folks, and that's a fact."

"Vipan isn't a Western man," answered the Major, thoughtfully.  "And
it's my private opinion he could give a queer account of himself if he
chose.  Sometimes I could swear he had been in the Service.  However
that's his business, not ours."

"Well, he might be a little more open with us, anyway, considering the
time we have been together."

"Just over a week."

"That's as long as a year out here.  But I shall be sorry when he does
leave us--very sorry."

"May I hope that remark will apply to me, Mrs Winthrop?" said a voice
out of the gloom, as its owner stepped within the firelight circle.
"It's odd how things dovetail, for as a matter of fact I strolled across
for the purpose of taking leave."

"Oh, how you startled me!" she cried.  "Of taking leave?  Surely you are
not going to leave us yet, Mr Vipan?  Why, we hoped you would accompany
us home, and stay awhile, and have a good time generally.  You really
can't go yet.  Fred--Yseulte--tell him we won't allow it."

"Why, most certainly, we won't," began the former, heartily.  "Come,
Vipan--your time's your own, you know, and you may just as well do some
hunting out our way as anywhere else."

"Of course," assented his wife.  "But--I know what it is.  We have
offended him in some way.  Yseulte, what have you done to offend Mr
Vipan?  I'm sure I can't call to mind anything."

"There is no question of offence," protested Vipan.  "I am a confirmed
wanderer, you see, Mrs Winthrop--here to-day, away to-morrow.  The
country is clear of reds now, and you will no longer need our additional
rifles.  If we have rendered you some slight service, I can answer for
it, my partner is as glad as I am myself."

No man living was less liable to be swayed by caprice than the speaker.
Yet suddenly he became as resolved to remain a little longer, as he had
been a moment before to leave.  And this change was brought about by the
most trivial circumstance in the world.  While he was speaking, his eyes
had met those of Yseulte Santorex.

Only for a moment, however.

When Vipan, in his usual laconic manner, informed his comrade that he
concluded to wait a bit longer, the latter merely remarked, "Right,
pard.  Jest as you fancy."  But as he rolled over to go to sleep, he
nodded off to the unspoken soliloquy--

"It's a rum start--a darn rum start.  At his time of life, too!  Yes,
sir."

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

IN THE "DUG-OUT."

Yseulte Santorex was conscious of a new and unwonted sensation.  She
felt nervous.

Yet why should she have felt so, seeing that this was by no means the
first time she had undertaken an expedition _a deux_ under her present
escort?  But somehow it seemed to her that his tone had conveyed a
peculiar significance when he suggested this early morning
antelope-stalk at the time of making up his mind to remain.

It was a lovely morning.  The sun was not an hour high, and the air was
delicious.  But their success had been _nil_.  To account for the
absolute lack of game was a puzzle to Vipan, but it could hardly be the
cause of his constrained taciturnity.

Yseulte felt nervous.  Why had he induced her to come out like this
to-day?  Instinctively she felt that he was on the eve of making some
revelation.  Was he about to confide to her the history of his past?
Her nervousness deepened as it began to dawn upon her what an
extraordinary fascination this adventurer of the Western Plains, with
his splendid stature and magnificent face, was capable of exercising
over her.  A silence had fallen between them.

"I want you to see this," said Vipan suddenly as they came upon the
ruins of what had once been a strong and substantial building.  "It's an
old stage-station which was burnt by the reds in '67."

There was eloquence in the ruins of the thick and solid walls which even
now stood as high as ten or twelve feet in places, and which were still
spanned by a few charred and blackened beams, like the gaping ribs of a
wrecked ship.  The floor was covered with coarse herbage, sprouting
through a layer of _debris_, whence arose that damp, earthy smell which
seems inseparable from ancient buildings of whatever kind.  Standing
within this relic of a terrible epoch, Yseulte could not repress a
shudder.  What mutilated human remains might they not actually be
walking over?  Even in the cheerful daylight the flap of ghostly wings
seemed to waft past her.

"If these old walls could speak they'd tell a few queer yarns," said her
companion.  "Look at these loop-holes.  Many a leaden pill have they
sent forth to carry `Mr Lo' to the Happy Hunting-Grounds.  I don't know
the exact history of this station, but it's probably that of most others
of the time.  A surprise--a stiff fight--along siege in the `dug-out'
when the reds had set the building on fire--then either relief from
outside, or the defenders, reduced by famine or failure of ammunition,
shooting each other to avoid capture and the stake."

"Horrible!" she answered, with a shiver.  "But what is a `dug-out'?"

"Let's get outside, and I'll tell you all about it.  Look--you see that
mound of earth over there," pointing to a round hump about a score of
yards from the building, and rising three or four feet above the ground.
"Well, that is a roof made of earth and stones, and therefore bullet
and fire proof.  It is loop-holed on a level with the ground, though
it's so overgrown with buffalo-grass that the holes'll be choked up, I
reckon.  This roof covers a circular hole about ten or twelve feet in
diameter, and just high enough for a man to stand up in.  It is reached
by a covered way from the main building, and its object was this:--When
the reds were numerous and daring enough they had not much difficulty in
setting the building on fire by throwing torches and blazing arrows on
the roof, just as they threw them into our camp the other day.  Then the
stage people got into the `dug-out,' and with plenty of rations and
ammunition could hold their own indefinitely against all comers.  The
`dug-out' was pretty nearly an essential adjunct to every stage-station,
and a good many ranches had them as well.  And now, if you feel so
disposed, we will try and explore this one, and then it will be time to
start camp-wards."

She assented eagerly.  First going to the mound, the removal of the
overgrowth of grass revealed the loop-holes.

"It is like looking into the _oubliettes_ of a mediaeval castle," said
Yseulte, striving to peer through the apertures into the blackness
beneath.

"Now come this way," said her companion, leading the way into the
building once more.

A moment's scrutiny--then advancing to a corner of the building he
wrenched away great armfuls of the thick overgrowth.  A hole stood
revealed--a dark passage slanting down into the earth.

"Wait here a moment," he said.  "I'll go in first and see that the way
is clear."

The tunnel was straight and smooth.  Once inside there was not much
difficulty in getting along.  But it suddenly occurred to Vipan that he
might be acting like a fool.  What if he were to encounter a snake in
this long-closed-up _oubliette_, or foul air?  Well, for the latter, the
matches that he lighted from time to time burnt brightly and clear.  For
the former--he was already within the "dug-out" when the thought struck
him.

He glanced around in the subterranean gloom.  It was not unlikely that
the floor of the tomb-like retreat might be strewn with the remains of
its former owners, who had perished miserably by their own hands rather
than fall into the power of their savage foe.  But no grim death's-head
glowered at him in the darkness.  The place was empty.  Quickly he
returned to his companion.

"It's pretty dark in there," he said.  "Think you'd care to undertake
it?  It may try your nerves."

But Yseulte laughingly disclaimed the proprietorship of any such
inconvenient attributes.  She was resolved to see as much wild adventure
as she could, she declared.  Nevertheless, when she found herself buried
in the earthy darkness as she crawled at her companion's heels, she
could not feel free from an inclination to turn back there and then.

But when she stood upright within the underground fortress, and her eyes
became accustomed to the half-light, she forgot her misgivings.

"How ingenious!" she cried, looking first around the earthy cell and
then out through the loop-holes.  "Now, let's imagine we are beleaguered
here, and that the savages are wheeling and circling around us.  We
could `stand them off'--isn't that the expression?--till next week."

"And then if nobody came to get us out of our fix next week?"

"Oh, then we could hold out until the week after."

"You think that would be fun, eh?"

"Of course," she answered, her eyes dancing with glee in response to his
queer half-smile.

"H'm.  Well I'm very glad there's no chance of your undergoing the
actual experience," he answered drily, turning away to gaze out on the
surrounding country, but really that she should not see the expression
that swept across his face.  For it had come to this.  Rupert Vipan--
adventurer, renegade, freebooter--a stranger, for many a year, to any
softening or tender feeling--a man, too, who had already attained middle
age--thought, as he listened to her words, how willingly he would give
the remainder of his life for just that experience.  To be besieged here
for days with this girl--only they two, all alone together--himself her
sole protector, with a violent and horrible death at the end of it, he
admitted at that moment would be to him Paradise.  Yet a consciousness
of the absurdity of the idea struck him even then.  Who was he in her
eyes, in the eyes of those around her, her friends and protectors?  An
unknown adventurer--a mere commonplace border ruffian.  And--at his time
of life, too!

"Were you ever besieged in one of these places?" asked Yseulte.

Her voice recalled him to himself.

"Once," he answered.  "In '67, on the Smoky Hill route, four stagemen
and myself.  The reds burnt us out the first night, and we got into the
dug-out.  It was wearisome work, for they preserved a most respectful
distance once we were down there.  They wouldn't haul off, though.  So
one man kept a look-out at the loop-holes, while the rest of us played
poker or varied the tedium by swapping lies."

"Doing what?"

"Oh, exchanging `experiences.'  Tall twisters some of them were, too.
Well, by the third night we got so sick of it that we made up our minds
to try and quit.  The reds were still hanging around.  We needn't have,
for we had plenty of rations and ammunition, but the business was
becoming so intolerably monotonous.  Well, we started, and the upshot
was that out of the five, three of us fell in with a cavalry patrol the
next evening, having dodged the reds all day, each of us with an arrow
or two stuck more or less badly into him, and the Cheyennes went home
with a brace of new scalps.  Otherwise the affair was tame enough."

"Tame, indeed?  But you tell it rather tamely.  Now, how did the Indians
first come to attack you?  You left that out."

"Did I?  Oh, well, I happened to discover their propinquity, and
concluded to warn the stage people.  The red brother divined my
intention afar off, and came for me--and them."

"You ought to be called the Providence of the Plains," she said, with a
laugh that belied the seriousness of her face.  "There, I christen you
that on the spot."

"That would be a good joke to tell them over in Henniker City!  But to
be serious, in these latter days I never go out of my way to spoil the
red brother's fun.  None of my business, any way."

"But you made an exception in favour of us.  I don't believe you are
talking seriously at all."

"You don't?" he echoed, turning suddenly upon her, and there was that in
his tones which awed her into wonder and silence.  "You don't?  Well,
let me tell you all about it.  It was you, and you alone, who saved
every soul in that outfit from the scalping-knife and the stake.  I
sighted your party straggling along just anyhow, and I'd already been
watching the Sioux preparing to ambush it.  Then while promising my self
a good time lying up there on the butte, and looking on at the fun, I
chanced to catch sight of--you.  That decided the business.  Instead of
assisting at a grand pitched battle in the novel character of a
spectator, I elected to warn your people.  Otherwise--ambling along
haphazard as they were--they'd have lost their head-coverings to a dead
certainty.  That is how you saved them."

"What!  You would have done nothing to warn them?  I cannot believe it."

"Wouldn't have lifted a finger.  Why should I?" he broke off, almost
angrily.  "What interest had I in a few ranchmen and bullwhackers more
or less?  They were no more to me than the painted savages lying in wait
to scalp them.  Stop, you were going to say something about colour,
religion, and all that sort of thing.  But a white skin as often as not
covers as vile a nature as a red one, and for the other consideration
look at its accredited teachers.  About as good Christians as the
average Sioux medicine-man, neither better nor worse.  It was a blessed
good thing, though, that I had a first rate field-glass on that
occasion."

She raised her eyes to his as if expecting him to continue, and they
seemed to grow soft and velvety.  But he did not continue.  Instead, he
had taken a rigid attitude, and appeared to be listening intently.

"What can you hear?" she began, wonderingly.

But the words died away on her lips, and she grew ashy pale as her
dilated glance read her companion's face in the gloomy half-light of the
"dug-out."  No need to pursue her enquiry now.

For, audible to both, came a dull muffled roar, distant, faint, but of
unmistakable import.  Even Yseulte did not require her companion to
explain the sound.  Even she recognised in the long, dropping roll the
heavy discharge of firearms.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

A TERRIBLE DRAMA.

The waggon train had just pulled out.

Winding along over the wide prairie came the string of great cumbrous
vehicles, their white tilts gleaming in the morning sunshine, the
monotonous creaking of their axles mingling with the cheery shout of the
"bullwhackers" and the crack of whips.  Here and there along the line
rode horsemen in twos and threes, some leading spare horses, others
giving a general eye to the progress of the train.  Squads of children
chattered and squabbled in the waggons, a shrill feminine voice now and
again rising high in remonstration.  Women sat placidly sewing or
knitting--indulging too in gossip--of which perhaps Yseulte Santorex was
the subject more frequently than she would have guessed or approved.
All were in good spirits, for their journey was nearing its end.  No
room was there for apprehension either, for they had now reached the
extreme limits of the Sioux range.  So far from all minds was any
thought of danger that even scouting precautions had been of late very
much relaxed.

Thus they journeyed.

"There's something moving away there on the bluff, Dave," said Winthrop,
suddenly, shading his eyes.

"D'you say so, Colonel?" answered the cowboy, who with his employer and
mate was riding some little way ahead of the train.  "Likely enough it's
Smokestack Bill coming back.  He started off in that direction before
daybreak to hunt."

They were skirting a range of low round-topped bluffs, on one of which
had appeared the object which attracted Winthrop's attention.

"It's gone now," said the latter, still gazing intently.  "I could have
sworn it was somebody's head."

"Oh, thunder!  Look!" said the cowboy, quickly reining in his horse with
a jerk.

Well might even his stout heart--the heart of every soul in that
company--die away.  For the crest of the bluff was by magic alive with
mounted figures.  A great sheet of flame burst forth, and amid the
deafening crash of the volley a storm of leaden missiles whizzed and
hummed around the ears of the party.  Oregon Dave had uttered his last
words.  He threw up his arms with a stiffening jerk, and toppled heavily
from his saddle.

Then followed a scene of indescribable terror and confusion.  Rending
the air with their shrill, vibrating war-whoop, a vast crowd of painted
horsemen swooped down in full charge upon the doomed and demoralised
whites.  Flinging themselves behind their trained steeds, the Sioux
delivered their fire with deadly effect, then, recovering themselves in
the saddle with cat-like agility, they rode in among their writhing,
shrieking victims, spearing and tomahawking right and left.  Perfectly
mad with terror, the draught animals stampeded.  Waggons were
overturned, and their inmates flung screaming to the ground, or crushed
and mangled beneath the wreckage.

The surprise was complete; the demoralisation perfect.  Utterly
panic-stricken, helpless with dismay, men allowed themselves to be cut
down without offering a shadow of resistance.  Apart from the terror
inspired by the suddenness of the onslaught, there was literally not a
minute of time wherein to mass together and strike a blow in defence.
Even the privilege of selling their lives dearly was denied these doomed
ones.

The waggon train, pulled out at its full length, offered an easy prey,
and along this line, after the first and fatal charge, the warriors,
breaking up into groups, urged their fleet ponies; shooting down the
wretched emigrants with their revolvers, and ruthlessly spearing such
few who, being wounded, instinctively tried to crawl away.  Whooping,
yelling, whistling, brandishing their weapons, they strove to increase
the terror of the maddened teams, who, unable to break loose, upset the
vehicles wholesale.  They goaded the frenzied animals with their
lance-points, laughing like fiends if the wheels passed over the bodies
of any of the inmates thrown out or trying to escape; and once when a
whole family, driven wild with terror, instinctively flung themselves
from the creaking, swaying vehicle, which, upsetting at that moment,
crushed mother and children alike in a horrible mangled heap beneath the
splintering wreckage, the glee of the savages knew no bounds.

It was all over in a moment.  Not a man was left standing--not a man
with power in him to strike another blow.  All had been slain or were
lying wounded unto death.  All?  Stay!  All save one.

Winthrop, alone out of all that outfit, was untouched.  But he had
better have been dead.  His wife!  Oh, good God!  For her to fall into
the power of these fiends!

There was the light horse waggon; but between himself and it already
surged a crowd of skimming warriors.  Many a piece was aimed at him--
many a bullet sang about his ears, but still he went unscathed.

Spurring his horse, straight for the waggon he went--straight into the
thick of the yelling, whirling crowd.  Already, searing his ears like
molten lead, rose the piercing shrieks of miserable women writhing
beneath the scalping-knife, or struggling in the outraging grasp of the
victorious barbarians.  He sees a number of small bodies flung high into
the air--even marks the piteous terror in the faces of the wretched
little infants as they fall, to be caught dexterously on the bright
lance-points extended to receive them, and the laughing yells of the
painted fiends as the warm blood spurts forth and falls in jets upon
their hands and persons.  All this passes before his eyes and ears as a
vision of hell, and more than one of those fierce and ruthless
assailants deftly turns his horse away rather than face the awful fury
of despair blazing from his livid countenance.  One after another falls
before his revolver.  A moment more and he will reach his wife.  Then
they will both die together by his own hand.

The crowd of whirling centaurs seems to give way before him, and with
his eye upon his goal he spurs between their ranks.  But a roar of
mocking laughter greets his ears.

The canvas curtains of the waggon-tilt part, and a great savage,
hideously painted, springs forth, uttering an exultant whoop as he
brandishes something in the air.  It is a scalp--the blood trickling
freely down the long, shining, silky tress.

The whoop dies in the Indian's throat.  Winthrop's ball has sped true.
His wife's slayer falls heavily, still grasping in the locked grip of
death the relic of the murdered victim.  Yet, grim as it may seem, the
murderer really deserves the gratitude of both.  Then a thumping blow on
the arm sends his pistol flying out of his hand.

"How! white Colonel," says a gruff voice at his side.  "How!
Crow-Scalper big chief.  White scalp damn better nor `chuck.'  How?"

Grinning with delight, the gigantic warrior extended his hand in the
most friendly fashion; with difficulty curbing the plunges of his
excited steed.  He felt sure of his prey now.

Not yet.

Quick as thought, Winthrop had whipped out another pistol--a Derringer.

But for a timely swerve, Crow-Scalper would have been sent straight to
his fathers.  Then thinking things had gone far enough, the chief
pointed his revolver and shot the unfortunate Englishman dead.

It was all over in a moment--the firing and the din, the shrieks of
tortured women, the dying groans of mortally-wounded men--over in an
infinitely shorter time than it takes to narrate.  Not a man was left
alive; and already many a corpse lay where it had fallen, stripped and
gory, a hideous mangled object in the barbarous mutilation which it had
undergone.  Some of the Indians were busy looting the waggons.  Others,
scattered far and wide over the plain, were in pursuit of the fleeing
animals, which had stampeded in every direction.  All were in the
wildest degree of excitement and exultation.  They had mastered the
outfit at a stroke, with the loss of only three warriors.  They had
wiped out their former defeat, and had reaped a rich harvest of scalps.
They accordingly set to work to make merry over their plunder.

Over the worst of what followed we will draw a veil.  There were females
in that doomed waggon train.  Where these are concerned the red man, in
his hour of victory, is the most brutal, the most ungovernable fiend in
the world.

Singing, dancing, feasting, whooping, the barbarians kept up their
hideous orgie.  Then in furtherance of a new amusement a number of them
began to pile together the beams and planks of the wrecked waggons until
a huge heap was formed, in shape something like a rough kiln.  Up to
this structure were dragged about a dozen bodies.

Dead bodies?  No; living.

Men wounded unto helplessness and death, yet still with just the spark
of life in them.  Women, two or three, too elderly or unattractive to
fulfil the terrible fate invariably befalling the female captive of the
ruthless red man.  Some of the elder children who had not been speared
were also there.  All these, bound and helpless, were first deliberately
scalped, then flung inside the improvised kiln.  Fire was applied.

Drowning the appalling shrieks of their miserable victims in shrill
peals of laughter, the whole array of painted and feathered fiends
danced and circled around the blazing pyre in an ecstasy of glee.  For
upwards of an hour this frightful scene continued.  Then when the
anguish of the tortured victims had sunk in death, the savages gathered
up their spoils and departed, refraining from setting fire to any more
of the wreckage lest the too conspicuous sign of their bloody work
should by its volume be visible at a greater distance than they desired.

One more tragedy of the wild and blood-stained West.  A pack of coyotes,
snapping and snarling over their meal of mangled and defaced corpses,
whose scalpless skulls shone red and clotted in the sunlight.  A cloud
of wheeling, soaring vultures, a few piles of charred and shattered
wreckage, and many an oozy, shining pool of gore.  One more frightful
massacre.  One more complete and ruthless holocaust to the unquenchable
vendetta ever burning between the unsparing red man and his hated and
despised foe, the invading white.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

THERMOPYLAE.

"The camp is attacked," said Yseulte, not even pausing to brush off the
dust which had gathered upon her clothing during her passage into and
out of the "dug-out."

"I'm afraid so."

Both stood eagerly listening.  Again came the long, crackling roll, this
time more dropping and desultory, also more distinct than when they
first heard it underground.

"How will it end?" she asked.

Their glances met.  In the grave and serious expression of her
companion's face Yseulte read the worst.

"We must hope for the best.  Meanwhile, my first care must be for your
safety, so we must leave this spot at once.  See what comes of allowing
oneself to get careless.  As a matter of fact, we are off the Sioux
range, and reckoning on that we haven't been scouting so carefully as we
ought."

"When can we return to the camp?"

"Not a moment before dark," he replied, wondering if she knew that the
chances were a hundred to one against there being any camp to return to.
For to his experienced mind the situation was patent.  That sudden and
heavy fusillade meant a numerous war-party.  It also meant a surprise.
Further, and worst of all, he realised that at the time it took place
the waggon train would have pulled out, in which event the Indians would
not allow it time to corral.  Again, the firing had completely ceased,
which meant that one of two things had happened.  Either the assailants
had been beaten off; which was hardly likely within such a short space
of time.  Or they had carried the whole outfit at the first surprise;
and this he decided was almost certain.  But there was no need to break
the terrible news to his companion.

"Can we not wait here?" said the latter.  "We could retire into the
`dug-out' if they discovered us."

"How very near your ideal of fun has come to being realised!" was the
reply, with a shadow of a smile.  "No, we should stand no chance."

It did not escape Yseulte that, previous to starting, her escort gave a
quick, careful look to her saddlery and girths, pausing to tighten the
latter, and her heart sank with a chill and direful foreboding.

"You see, it's this way," continued Vipan.  "It is almost certain that
the war-party is a Sioux one, probably our old friends Crow-Scalper and
Mountain Cat.  This is the extreme western edge of the Sioux range,
consequently when the reds quit the scrimmage they are bound to travel
north or north-east.  So we must put as much space as we can between us
and them in the contrary direction.  For the same reason, if your
friends have whipped them--"

He paused abruptly, but it was too late.  She turned to him, her eyes
dilating with horror.

"_If_!  Oh, tell me the truth.  You think they have no chance?"

"One can but hope for the best."  She turned her face away, and the
tears fell thick and fast.  She could hardly realise it.  Her dear
friends, under whose protection she had travelled many and many a day,
in whose companionship she had been initiated into the delights of this
wild new land, and also its perils, now massacred; even at that moment,
perhaps, falling beneath the merciless blows of these bloodthirsty
savages.  She could hardly realise it.  Her mind felt numb.  Even the
sense of her own peril failed to come home to her.

But her companion realised it to the full.  This was no time to think of
anything but how to neglect no possible means of effecting her safety,
yet he could not banish the thrill of triumph which the thought inspired
in him that her fate, her very life, was absolutely in his hands.
Suddenly she turned to him.  The black drop of suspicion was corroding
her mind.

"Why did you bring me away from them all this morning?" she said,
speaking quickly and in a hard tone.  "Did you _know_ what was going to
happen?"

The adventurer's face went ashy white.  Even she could entertain such
suspicions!

"You forget, Miss Santorex.  My tried and trusted friend of years is in
that outfit.  Should I be likely to sell his scalp, even if I sold those
of _your_ friends?"

There was a savour of contempt in the cold incisiveness of his tone that
went to her heart.  What is baser than the sin of ingratitude?  Did she
not owe her life--and more than her life--to this man already, and now
to be flinging her pitiable and unworthy suspicions at him!  Would she
ever recover his good opinion again?

"Forgive me!" she cried.  "Forgive me!  I hardly knew what I was
saying."  And she burst into tears.  Even yet she would hardly believe
but that her fellow-travellers would succeed in holding their own.

Young though the day was, the torrid rays of the sun blazed fiercely
down upon the great plains.  Some distance in front rose a rugged ridge,
almost precipitous.  The only passage through this for many miles was a
narrow canon--a mere cleft.  Beyond lay miles and miles of
heavily-timbered ravines, and for this welcome shelter Vipan was making.
This plan he explained to his companion.

"Look!  What are those?" she cried, growing suddenly eager.  "Indians?
No.  Wild horses?  I didn't know there were any wild horses in these
parts."

Save for a scattered line of brush here and there, the great plains
until they should reach the defile above referred to were treeless, and
presented a succession of gentle undulations.  Nearly a mile distant,
seeming to emerge from one of these belts of brush, careering along in a
straggling, irregular line converging obliquely with the path of the two
riders, came a large herd of ponies.  It almost looked as if the latter
were bent on joining them.

Yseulte did not see the change in her companion's face, so intent was
she on watching the ponies.

"Get your horse into a gallop at once, but keep him well in hand," he
said.  But before she could turn to him, startled, alarmed by the
significance of his tone, the sudden and appalling metamorphosis which
came over the scene nearly caused her to fall unnerved from her saddle.
By magic, upon the back of each riderless steed there started an upright
figure, and, splitting the stillness of the morning air with its loud
fiendish quaver, the hideous war-whoop went up from the throats of half
a hundred painted and feathered warriors, who, brandishing their weapons
and keeping up one long, unbroken, and exultant yell, skimmed over the
plain, sure of their prey.

"Keep quite cool, and don't look back," he said.  "We've got to reach
that canon before they do--and we shall.  The war-pony that can overhaul
old Satanta when he's in average working order has yet to be built."

So far good, so far true.  But the same would not precisely hold good of
Yseulte's palfrey, which steed, though showy, was not much above the
average in pace or staying power.

The race was literally one for life, and the pace was terrific.  To the
girl it seemed like some fearful dream.  Sky and earth, the great
mountain rampart reared up in front, all blended together in rocking
confusion during that mad race.  The yells of the pursuing barbarians
sounded horribly nearer, and the pursued could almost hear the whistle
of their uncouth trappings as they streamed out on the breeze.

Vipan, reaching over, lashed her horse with a thong which he detached
from his saddle.  The animal sprang forward, but the spurt was only
momentary.  And the war-ponies were horribly fresh.

Nearer, nearer.  The great rock walls dominating the entrance to the
pass loomed up large and distinct.  Again he glanced back at the
pursuers.  Yes, they were gaining.  It was more a race than a pursuit--
the goal that grim rock-bound pass.  Even should the fugitives reach it,
what then?  Their chances would still be of the slenderest.

Ah, the horror of it!  Yseulte, white to the lips, kept her seat by an
effort of will, her heart melting with deadly fear.  Her companion,
fully determined she should never fall alive into the hands of the
savages, held his pistol ready, first for them, then for her, his heart
burning with bitter curses on his own blind and besotted negligence.  It
was too late now.  They were to founder in sight of land.  Ah, the
bitterness of it!

Bang!

The whiz of a bullet, simultaneously with a puff of blue smoke--this
time in front.  Vipan ground his teeth.  There was no escape, they were
between two fires.

But the regular thunder of the pursuing hoofs seemed to undergo a
change.  What did it mean?

Bang!

Then a glance over his shoulder told him that as the second ball came
whizzing into their midst, the painted warriors had swerved, throwing
themselves on the further side of their horses.

Only for a moment, though.  Realising that this new enemy represented
but a single unit, they hurled themselves forward with redoubled ardour,
yelling hideously.

"The gulch, pardner!  Streak for the gulch!" sung out a stentorian
voice; and sending another bullet among the on-rushing redskins, this
time with effect, Smokestack Bill kicked up his horse, which had been
lying prone, and in half a minute was flying side by side with his
friend.

Short though this check had been, yet it had given them a momentary
advantage.  But, now, as they neared the mouth of the pass, it became
clear to these two experienced Indian fighters that one of them must
give his life for the rest.

"Take the young lady on," said the scout.  "You're in it together, and
must get out of it together.  Reckon I'll stand them back long enough
for you to strike cover."

Here was a temptation.  Vipan knew well that it was so.  A short ten
minutes would save her--would save them both.  His friend could hold the
bloodthirsty savages in check for more than that.  A struggle raged
within him--a bitter struggle--but he conquered.

"No, no, old pard.  I'm the man to stay," he answered, slipping from his
saddle, for they were now at the entrance of the pass.  "Good-bye.  Take
her in safe."

It was no time for talking.  The pursuers, rendered tenfold more daring
by the prospect of the most coveted prize of all--a white woman--were
almost on their heels, the rocks re-echoing their exultant yells.
Yseulte's horse, maddened with terror and stimulated by a shower of
blows from the scout, bounded forward at a tearing gallop.

"Wait, wait!  We cannot leave him like this!  We must turn back!" she
cried, breathless, but unable to control her steed, which was stampeding
as though all the Sioux in the North-West were setting fire to its tail.

"Help me!  Help me to turn back!" she cried, in a perfect frenzy of
despair.  "We have deserted him--left him to die!"

Left alone, the bold adventurer felt no longer any hope, but in its
stead he was conscious of a wild elation.  His death would purchase
_her_ safety, and death was nothing in itself, but every moment gained
was of paramount importance.  Carefully he drew a bead on the charging
warriors and fired.  A pony fell.  Another rapid shot.  This time a
human victim.  This stopped their headlong rush, and still wheeling in
circles they hesitated to come nearer.

He glanced around.  Overhead, the slopes, almost precipitous, offered
many a possible hiding-place.  He might even escape--but he was not
there for that.  He was there to hold back the enemy--till night, if
necessary.

The day wore on.  The Sioux, who had drawn off to a distance, seemed in
no mood to renew the attack.  They were resting their ponies.

Suddenly he saw a score of them leap on horseback again and ride rapidly
away.  What could this mean?

A shadow fell between him and the light.  There was a hurtling sound--a
crash--and before he could turn or look up, the whole world was blotted
out in a stunning, roaring, heaving sea of space.  Then faintness,
oblivion, death.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

"I WOULD RATHER HAVE DIED WITH HIM."

Not till they had covered at least two miles could Yseulte Santorex
regain the slightest control over her recalcitrant steed.  In fact, in
her fatigue and nervousness it was as much as ever she could do to keep
her seat at all.  At length, panting and breathless, she reined in and
turned round upon the scout, who had kept close upon her pony's heels.

"I am going back," she cried, her great eyes flashing with anger and
contempt.  "I would sooner die than desert a--a friend."

"Not to be done, miss," was the quiet answer.  "Vipan said to me the
last thing--`Bill, on your life take her safe in.'  And on my life I
will.  You bet."

Yseulte looked at him again.  A thought struck her and she seemed to
waver.

"See here, miss," went on the scout.  "Vipan and I have hunted and
trapped and prospected together and stood off the reds a goodish number
of years.  We are pardners, we are, and if he entrusts me with an
undertaking of this kind, I've got to see it through.  Same thing with
him.  So the sooner we reach Fort Vigilance, where I'm going to take
you, and you're safe among the people there, the sooner I shall be able
to double back and try what can be done for Vipan."

"Oh, I never thought of that.  Pray do not let us lose a moment."

"So.  That's reasonable.  You see, miss, it's this way.  Women are
terrible dead-weights when it comes to fightin' Indians.  The
varmints'll risk more for a white woman than for all the scalps and
plunder in this Territory rolled together.  No.  Like enough, now that
you're snug away, they'll turn round and give up my pard as `bad
medicine.'  I reckon there ain't a man between Texas and the British
line knows Indians better than my pardner.  One day he's fighting 'em,
another day he's smokin' in their lodges.  He knows 'em, he does."

With this she was forced to be content.

Loyalty to his friend thus moved him to reassure her, but, as a matter
of fact, the honest scout felt rather bitter towards this girl.  He
blamed her entirely for his comrade's peril.  He had narrowly watched
that comrade of late, and accurately gauged the state of the latter's
feelings.  Why had this fine lady come out there and played the fool
with his comrade--the man with whom he had hunted and trapped for
years--with whom he had fought shoulder to shoulder in many a fierce
scrimmage with white or red enemies?  They had stood by each other
through thick and thin, and now this English girl had come in the way,
and to satisfy her vanity had sent Vipan to his death--his death,
possibly, amid the ghastly torments of the Indian stake.  She would
probably go home again and brag of her "conquest" with a kind of
patronising pity.

In silence they kept on their way--the scout's watchful glance ever on
the alert.  Suddenly his companion's voice aroused him from the
intensity of his vigilance.  He started.

"Tell me," she said.  "What chance is there of rescuing your friend?"

Her tone was so calm, so self-possessed, that in spite of the deathly
pallor of her face it deceived the worthy scout.  He felt hard as iron
towards her.

"About as much chance, I judge, as I have of being elected President,"
he replied, gruffly.  "And now I want you to know this--If you hadn't
troubled your dainty head about my pard, he wouldn't be where he is now.
And mind me, if it hadn't been for him, where d'you think you'd be
to-day?  You'd be wishing you were dead.  You'd be doin' scavenger work
in a Sioux village, leading a dog's life at the hands of every sooty
squaw in the camp--if it hadn't been for Vipan.  And now if the Lord
works an almighty miracle and I get my pard clear of the red devils,
maybe you won't say overmuch to him if you meet him--won't be
over-anxious to say you're glad to see him safe and sound again--"

The speaker pulled up short, staring blankly at her.  She had burst into
a wild storm of sobs.

"You are unjust.  Oh, God!  Oh, God! send him back to me!"  Then turning
to the dumbfoundered scout, and controlling herself to speak firmly:
"Listen.  If it would save his life I would cheerfully undergo death at
this moment.  I would suffer the slow fire or anything.  Think what you
like of me--God knows I speak the truth."

"Say that again, miss," stammered the other.  "Well, I ask your pardon.
I allow I don't know shucks of the ways of women.  If it's to be done,
my pard'll be brought out.  What shall I tell him if so be I find him?"
he added, as if struck with a bright idea.

"Tell him," and her voice shook with a tenderness she now no longer
cared to conceal, "tell him to come straight to me wherever I am.  And
if--ah, I cannot think of it--I would rather have died with him!"

Thus the secret of her tortured heart escaped her in that cry of
anguish; not to a sister woman, but to the rough and weather-beaten
frontiersman who was piloting her across that grim and peril-haunted
wilderness.

Again she relapsed into silence, and her escort noted that her tears
were falling thick and fast.  Suddenly she asked about the attack upon
the waggon train.

Smokestack Bill felt in a quandary.  She had gone through so much
already, she still had need of all her strength, all her nerve, before
she should reach the distant frontier post to which he was guiding her.
What would happen if he were to tell her the horrible news that they two
were the sole survivors of the ill-fated caravan; that he owed his
escape from the hideous massacre to the same cause as she did her own--
accidental absence?  He felt unequal to the task, and evaded the
necessity of replying by the invention of a somewhat cowardly pretext,
to wit, the imperative advisability of preserving silence as far as
possible.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

A RACE FOR--DEATH.

When Vipan recovered consciousness he found himself unable to stir.  A
lariat rope was tightly coiled around him from head to foot, binding his
arms to his sides, and rendering him as helpless as a log.

He tried to move, but an acute pain shooting through his head seemed to
crush him again, and he half closed his eyes, stunned and confused.

A dark face peered into his.  A tall Indian was bending over him.  In
the grim painted lineaments he recognised, to his astonishment, the
countenance of War Wolf.

"Ha, Golden Face.  You feel better now?  Good!  We will start."

He made no reply.  Glancing around him, he noted that the warriors were
making their preparations to move.  The ponies, which had been grazing
all ready saddled, were caught; and at a sign from War Wolf two of the
Indians proceeded to loosen the lariat rope in such wise as to allow him
the use of his legs.

"Now, mount," said one of them, as his fellow led a pony alongside of
the captive, who surveyed his steed designate with a dubious air.

"That sheep isn't up to my weight," he said.

"He will carry you as far as needful," was the reply, ominous in its
grim brevity.  "Quick, mount."

As he turned to obey a wild thought rushed through the adventurer's
mind.  Could he not seize the opportunity to make a dash for it?  His
wily guards must have read his thoughts, for, catching his eye, they
shook their heads with a ferocious grin.  Then with a raw hide thong
they secured their prisoner's feet beneath the horse's belly, and one of
them winding the end of the lariat rope which served as a bridle round
his hand, the band started.

Ever with a keen eye to opportunity, Vipan noted two things--one that
the band had undergone diminution by at least half its original number,
the other that they were travelling almost due north-east.  The halt had
been made not many miles from the fatal gorge, whose frowning entrance
he could just see as he turned his head.

No one could be more thoroughly aware than himself of the desperate
strait into which he had fallen.  He had witnessed more than one
instance of men taking their own lives at the last critical moment to
avoid capture and its inevitable sequel, a lingering death amid tortures
too horrible to name.  And now even that alternative was denied to him.
The opportunity was past and gone.

"Ha, Golden Face," said War Wolf, ranging his horse alongside his
prisoner.  "You thought I should have been hung before this."

"Well, yes, I did.  How did you manage to get clear?"

Then the savage, in fits of laughter, narrated all that had befallen him
at Fort Price; how, after a time, he had been allowed a certain amount
of guarded liberty, and how he had deftly managed to disarm the sentry
and make his escape.  It was a bold exploit, and so his listener
candidly told him.

"Ha!" cried the warrior, chuckling and swelling with inflated vanity, "I
am a man.  Even the stone walls of the Mehneaska cannot hold me.  I
laugh, and down they go!"

Several of the Indians gathered around, and the conversation became
lively.  No one would have thought that this white man in their midst,
with whom they were chatting and laughing so gaily was a prisoner,
doomed to the most barbarous of deaths at their hands.  The conversation
turned on his own capture, and, in a nonchalant way, Vipan asked for
particulars of that feat.

"Ha!  Burnt Shoes is not a fool," said War Wolf.  "He is my brother."

The warrior named grinned, and at a word from the chief he narrated how
he had slipped away from the main body, and, unobserved by the prisoner,
had gained the rocks over the latter's head.  When he was ready he had
signalled to his fellows, who had made that unexpected move in order to
fix the prisoner's attention.  He could easily have shot his enemy, but
the temptation to take him alive was great.  Therefore, seeing a
convenient boulder handy, he had hurled it upon his enemy's head, with
the most satisfactory result to himself and his tribesmen.

"But," added this candid young barbarian, "your scalp will be mine,
anyhow."

Vipan took no notice of this remark.  He knew the speaker by sight apart
from having recognised him as War Wolfs brother.  Then he asked what had
become of Satanta.

Here the Indians looked foolish, at least most of them did, while those
who did not, unmercifully chaffed their companions.  It came out that
the black steed objected to the new ownership which it was purposed to
assert over him, and watching his opportunity, which occurred while his
saddle was being changed during the recent halt, had concluded to part
company with the band.  In a word, he had started off as fast as his
legs could carry him.  But several warriors had gone after him, added
the speaker.

"They are after a shooting star, then," said Satanta's lawful owner.
"They had the best horse in the North-West, and they have let him slip
through their hands."

The party had been travelling at a rapid pace, and now the day was
merging into twilight.  Despatching pickets to neighbouring heights, the
savages prepared for a good long halt.

Vipan was released from his steed, and allowed to seat himself upon the
ground by the side of a fire that had been built.  His captors crowded
round him, laughing and talking in the friendliest fashion, and, noting
it, his heart sank within him.

And who shall blame him?  Bound and helpless, he knew the moment had
come for putting him to the most hellish tortures.  He read it in the
grim, painted visages closing him in on every side.  And between those
ruthless demon-faces he beheld in the background a sight whose meaning
he knew but too well.

Two Indians were busy driving strong pegs into the ground at intervals
of several feet apart.

Then he did a strange thing.  Quick as thought, and without any warning,
he spat full into War Wolfs face.

With a yell of rage, the young chief, starting back, swung his tomahawk
in the air.  In another instant the prisoner would have gained his wish.
He intended to exasperate the Indian into killing him on the spot.

But the others were wider awake.  Seizing their chiefs arm, a couple of
bystanders succeeded in arresting the blow.  Then half-a-dozen sinewy
warriors flinging themselves upon Vipan began to drag him towards the
pegs aforesaid.

A barbarity popular among the Plains' tribes is that known as "staking
out."  The wretched captive is stripped and thrown on his back.  Each
hand and foot is then fastened to a peg driven firmly into the ground at
the necessary distance apart.  Thus spread-eagled, he is powerless to
stir, beyond a limited wriggle.  Then the fun begins, and when is
remembered the hideous agony that a handful of live coals stacked
against the soles of a man's feet alone is warranted to produce, it
follows that the amount of burning at the disposal of the red demons
before death mercifully delivers the victim from their power is
practically unlimited.  In fact, their hellish sport may be bounded not
by hours, but even by days.  They generally begin by roasting the
tenderest parts of the body, finally piling up the fire all over the
stomach and chest of the sufferer.

Vipan, aware of the fate in store for him, seized his opportunity.
While the savages were slightly relaxing their grasp in order to pull
off his clothes, he made one stupendous effort.  Cramped as he was, his
herculean strength stood him in good stead.  A couple of violent kicks
in the stomach sent as many warriors to the earth gasping, and dragging
others with them in their fall.  Like a thunderbolt he dashed through
the group, and before his enemies had recovered from their confusion he
was many rods away, speeding down the hillside like a deer.

A frightful yell went up from the startled redskins.  A score of rifles
covered the flying fugitive, but a peremptory word from War Wolf knocked
them up.  Their prisoner was safe enough, no need to spoil sport by
killing him.  Though his legs where free, his arms were bound.  A rush
was made for the ponies.  The plain was open for miles and miles.  In
five minutes they would retake him with ease.

Of this Vipan was only too well aware.  The chances of escape had never
entered into his calculations when he made his wild attempt.  On foot
and unbound he might have distanced the savages, but what chance had he
against their ponies?  A water-hole lay in the bottom, a mile away.  He
would strive to reach this, and, bound as he was, an easy death by
drowning would be the alternative to hours of fiery torment.

And as he ran it seemed to the hunted man that this was no real
occurrence--only a horrid nightmare.  The events of a lifetime shot
through his mind.  Then the thunder of flying hoofs behind.

He glanced over his shoulder.  Would he reach the water?  Ah, never did
hunted man strain every nerve and muscle for life as did this one with
death before him as the prize.

Nearer!  The water-hole gleams cool and inviting.  A hundred yards--then
fifty.  The roar and thunder of hoofs is in his ears.  It stuns him.
Now for the final leap.  Then death!  Twenty steps more.  He poises
himself for the final spring.  But it is not to be.  The coil of a lazo
has settled around him; he is jerked from his feet, dragged back a dozen
yards--stunned, half senseless.

Then, as he wearily opens his eyes, doubtful whether he is dead or
alive, he finds himself in the midst of a crowd of Indians, all mounted
save the half-dozen who have run forward to secure him.  With a
sensation of surprise, his glance wanders amid the sea of painted
visages--of surprise because many of them are known to him, and were
certainly not among the band that effected his capture.  And--can he
believe his ears?--the chief of the party, a fine martial-looking
warrior, is giving instructions that his bonds shall be cut.

"Wagh!" ejaculated the latter, with the ghost of a smile.  "You have
fallen upon rough times, Golden Face."

Then the prisoner, once more a free man, looked up at the speaker and
knew that he was safe.  He recognised Mahto-sapa.

And now a great hubbub arose as War Wolf and his party rode up, and
angrily demanded their prisoner, emphasising their request by making a
dash at the latter.  But at a sign from the chief a dozen warriors
placed themselves in front of Vipan.

Then the debate began to wax very breezy, and small wonder.  By every
right of immemorial custom and usage, the late prisoner was absolutely
their property, and had they not been "choused" out of a rare and
exquisitely enjoyable form of sport?  Vipan, though too far off to hear
all that was being said, caught the name "Tatanka-yotanka" as mentioned
pretty frequently, and it seemed to have the effect of a damper on War
Wolf.  That impulsive savage, having indulged in a good deal of swagger,
ended by sullenly accepting the situation.  There is not much
hard-and-fast law among Indians in a matter of this kind.  If the
redoubted war-chief of the Minneconjou clan, surrounded by a large armed
force, chose to retain half-a-dozen prisoners, War Wolf, who was not,
properly speaking, a chief at all, had no redress, save such as he might
attain by force of arms.  But his following numbered barely thirty
warriors, whereas Mahto-sapa was at the head of fully five times that
number.

Dismounting, the Minneconjou chief gravely sat down upon the ground.
Then filling his pipe, and applying a light to the bowl, he handed it to
Vipan without a word.  In silence the latter received it, and after a
few puffs handed it back.

"What was said just now about Sitting Bull?" he enquired at length.

"This.  I have come out to look for you, Golden Face.  Sitting Bull is
anxious that you should visit him."

"Oho, I begin to see," said the adventurer to himself, as he lazily
watched his late captors draw their ponies out of the crowd and ride
sullenly away.

Now, in the debate just held, his rescuer had justified his action on
twofold ground.  War Wolf having allowed his prisoner to escape had
forfeited all claim to him; secondly, the said prisoner, being an
Englishman, his presence was required by Sitting Bull, the renowned
chief of the hostiles, for political purposes.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

THE VILLAGE OF THE HOSTILES.

All night long--with a brief halt towards morning--the war-party, with
Vipan in its midst, pushed forward at a rapid pace.

The sun rose.  They had passed the intricate defiles of the Bad Lands,
and were now threading the rugged and broken country beyond.  Piled in
chaotic confusion, the great peaks leaning towards each other, or split
and riven as by a titanic wedge, caught the first red glow upon their
iron faces.  Dark pinnacles soaring aloft, huge and forbidding, stood in
the first delicate flush like graceful minarets; and here and there
through a vista of falling slopes, the striped and fantastic face of a
_mesa_ would come into view, seamed with blue and black and red,
according to the varying strata of its soft and ever-crumbling
formation.  A hundred bizarre shapes reared their heads around.  Here a
clean rock shaft, so even and perpendicular in its towering symmetry
that it seemed impossible to have been planned by the hand of Nature
alone, standing side by side with some hugely grotesque representation
of a head, changing from animal to human with every fresh point of view,
so distorted yet so real, so hideous and repelling as to suggest
involuntary thoughts of a demon-guarded land.  There a black and yawning
fissure whose polished sides would hardly seem to afford resting-place
for the eyrie of yon great war-eagle soaring high above, his plumage
gleaming in the lustre of the new-born day.  Dark, cedar-clad gorges
rent the mountain sides, and on the nearer slopes the flash of something
white through the tall, straight stems of the spruce firs showed where a
deer, alarmed by this redoubtable inroad on his early grazing ground,
had darted away, with a whisk of his white "flag."

And in thorough keeping with its surroundings was the aspect of the wild
host, threading its way through these solitudes.  A clear, dashing
mountain brook curved and sparkled along a level bottom carpeted with
the greenest of sweet grass, and along this, strung out to the distance
of a mile, cantered group after group of mounted savages, the fantastic
adornments of themselves and their steeds streaming out to the morning
breeze; their waving plumes, and painted faces, their shining weapons
and brilliantly-coloured accoutrements, and the easy grace with which
they sat their steeds as they defiled along the ever-winding gorge,
forming about as striking and wildly picturesque a sight as would be
happened upon, travel we the whole world over.

All fear of pursuit being now over, the warriors rode anyhow, broken up
into groups or couples as the humour possessed them.  Most of them were
chatting and laughing with that ease and light-heartedness which in
their hours of relaxation is characteristic of most savage peoples, a
light-heartedness and freedom from care which renders them akin to
children.  Near the rear of the party rode Mahto-sapa and his prisoner,
together with three or four warriors of high rank.

For that he was such, Vipan himself was not left in any doubt, nor was
there room for any.  Though relieved from the indignity of bonds, yet
his arms had not been returned to him, not even a knife.  Moreover, the
steed he bestrode was far from being the best in the party.  All of
which he had hinted as delicately as possible to the chief.  The
latter's reply was characteristic.

"Patience--Golden Face.  It is not we who have taken your weapons; it is
War Wolf and his party.  As for horses, my young men are none of them
too well mounted.  Besides," added the Indian, a humorous gleam lighting
up his fine face as he noted the other's deprecatory shake of the head,
"besides--Golden Face has shamefully neglected his red brothers since
the Mehneaska waggons came along.  Why do they bring beautiful white
girls into a country where the ground is too rough for their tender
feet?  No.  Have patience.  My young men would be more than angry did
you leave them now to go and look after a white woman.  She is safe now,
but both she and the Brown Beaver would have fallen into the hands of
War Wolf had you not acted as you did," he continued.  "Wagh!  Golden
Face, it is not like you to throw away your life for a squaw!"

The adventurer made no reply, but the other's remark set him thinking.
It left, so to say, an unpleasant taste.  He was at an age when most men
have parted with their illusions, and he himself certainly was no
exception.  To his keen, cynical nature absolute trust was well-nigh
impossible.  Would he ever see Yseulte Santorex again, and even if he
did, would he not be in the same position as before--a king in these
Western wilds, in civilisation a pauper?  He knew the world--none
better.  It was one thing for this beautiful and refined girl to feel
drawn towards a companion and protector in the midst of the perilous
vicissitudes of Western travel, but that after months of reflection on
her return to safety and comfort she should still continue to think of a
man whose antecedents were doubtful, of whose very identity she was
ignorant, in the face, too, of the opposition of friends and relatives,
was quite another.  For long he rode in silence, and his thoughts were
very bitter.

All day the march continued.  That night the Indians, being
comparatively beyond fear of pursuit, camped for a long rest, and
resuming their progress at dawn, towards nightfall reached the bank of a
river.  This was immediately forded, and then halting on the opposite
bank the whole band collected together.  Then, after a word of
instruction from their chief, the warriors formed into line, and with a
loud and prolonged whoop dashed forward at a brisk canter.

The shout was answered from some distance ahead, and lo! as by magic,
there sprang up the red glow of many a fire, and among the
thinly-scattered timber bordering the stream tall lodges might be
descried, standing in groups or in long irregular lines, hundreds and
hundreds of them.  Then in the gloaming the whole village swarmed with
dusky shapes.  Squaws flung down their burdens, or abruptly quitted
their household employments, and, dancing and singing, crowded around to
welcome the returning war-party.  Young bucks, eager to know what had
been done in scalps and plunder, turned out by the dozen.  Children
yelled and curs barked and howled, and still the ever-increasing crowd
gathered about the returned warriors.

Suddenly the latter, reining in their ponies, burst into a wild
war-song.  It was taken up by the motley crowd following upon their
ponies' heels, and as the savage horsemen, in all the trappings of their
martial bravery, paced at length into the centre of the village, the
shrill, weird chorus echoing from many thousand throats, while the red
light danced and glowed upon plumed crests and burnished weapons rising
above the sea of fierce painted visages, the bold mind of the white
adventurer was filled with admiration as he gazed upon this stirring
picture which for grandeur and awesomeness left nothing to be desired.

Thus they entered the camp of the hostiles.

"Listen, Golden Face," said Mahto-sapa, as he spread a buffalo robe for
his guest.  "It will not be well to wander in the camp alone."

"No, I am a prisoner, and unarmed."

The other smiled slightly, with a significant glance at an old leathern
wallet hanging to the pole.  Then he left the lodge.

The adventurer, following his glance, promptly explored the receptacle.
He found an old single-barrelled pistol and a scalping-knife.  The
pistol was capped and loaded.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

SITTING BULL.

The morning after his arrival in the village of the hostiles Vipan was
seated eating his breakfast in the lodge of his host, in company with
the latter and one of his brothers, when the door of the _teepe_ was
darkened, and an Indian entered.

Now there was nothing in the appearance of this warrior to denote
special rank.  His dress was strikingly plain, the beaded blanket thrown
around his shoulders was considerably the worse for wear, not to say
shabby, and his head was adorned with a single eagle quill stuck in the
back of his hair.  Yet a glance at the powerful, thickly-built frame,
the deep-set, though penetrating eyes, the square jaw and slightly
pock-marked countenance, and Vipan felt instinctively that this was none
other than the redoubtable war-chief of the hostiles himself.

With a grunt of salutation, the new arrival sat himself down among the
inmates of the _teepe_, then, without a word, and as a matter of course,
proceeded to help himself out of the three-legged pot containing the
smoking and savoury stew which constituted the repast.  Not a word was
spoken, not a question asked, and the four men proceeded with their meal
in silence.

Tatanka-yotanka, or Sitting Bull, was at that time in the very zenith of
his pride and influence.  He represented the fearless and implacable
war-faction in the nation, and in his persistent and uncompromising
hostility to the Americans and the United States Government he differed
from the more diplomatic Red Cloud.  As in the case of the latter,
however, Sitting Bull was not born to hereditary chieftainship, yet at
that time the influence he had achieved among his countrymen by his
personal prowess and skilful generalship was so solid and far-reaching
that sagacious and powerful war-chiefs such as Mahto-sapa deemed it
sound policy to co-operate with him; for the authority of a chief among
the Plains tribes, in addition to his prowess in war, depends not a
little on his conformity with the sense and wishes of his tribesmen, and
he who should commit himself unreservedly to a peace policy in
opposition to the desires of his people would soon find himself in the
position of a chief without any adherents.  Yet as savages rarely do
things by halves, it followed that however inclined for peace they might
be at first, such chiefs and warriors once they stood committed to war
threw themselves into the prosecution of hostilities with all the ardour
and aggressiveness of their more bloodthirstily disposed brethren.

Sitting Bull--like many another savage leader--was a shrewd thinker.
The experience of the last campaign had inspired him with profound
contempt for the United States Government.  The latter's demands had
then been successfully resisted, and after a sharp and sanguinary
struggle, culminating in the Fort Phil Kearney massacre, the Government
had retired, almost precipitately.  The Sioux nation had never been
conquered.  The Sioux warriors were as daring and warlike to-day as
then, and were better armed, for they could obtain, and had obtained,
from unscrupulous traders as many weapons of the latest improved
patterns and as much ammunition as they could afford to purchase.  The
Government, he reasoned, had not kept faith with them in the matter of
the Black Hills and other sections of their country, then full of white
men; therefore, let the Government look to itself.  That the Indian
leader's reasoning was sound according to his lights, was proved by
subsequent events, among them the calamitous massacre of nearly three
hundred brave soldiers, together with one of the most dashing cavalry
officers and successful Indian fighters the United States army has ever
possessed.  [Note 1.]  But no savage of his race and instincts could be
expected to take into his reckoning the steady tide of immigration
pouring into the American continent from the Old World, for the simple
reason that his conception of the very existence of an Old World was of
so shadowy a nature as to be practically legendary.

The meal over, each of the three Indians wiped his knife upon his
leggings or the soles of his moccasins with a grunt of satisfaction.
Then the inevitable pipe was filled, lighted, and duly passed round.

Vipan, thoroughly restored by a good night's rest, and with perfect
confidence in himself, looked forward to the keen skirmish of wits which
was at hand, and in which the slightest failure in coolness and wariness
might cost him his life, with feelings not far short of downright
enjoyment.

After the pipe had gone round in silence, Sitting Bull spoke.  He had
often heard of Golden Face, the friend of the Dahcotah nation, he said.
Now he was glad to have an opportunity of smoking with him, and learning
from his lips.

The speaker paused, and Vipan merely acknowledged the compliment by a
grave bend of the head.  The chief continued:

Golden Face, he had been given to understand, had been a great fighting
man among his own people, and a leader of warriors.  He was not of the
Mehneaska, the nation with whom no faith could be kept.  Why, then, had
he fought for the Mehneaska against his Dahcotah brethren?

Vipan, with due deliberation, replied that those for whom he fought
_were_ his own countrymen--not Americans.  They were subjects of the
Great White Queen, whose dominions lay to the north (Canada).  Why had
the Dahcotah attacked them and run off their stock?

"Were they all King George men?" asked the shrewd chief, half closing
his eyes and looking into space.

This was a staggerer, but Vipan was equal to it.

"They were not," he said.  "Only the leader and his household.  For the
rest, they bore me as little love as they do the Dahcotah warriors who
ran off their horses and cattle.  Listen now, and mark."  Then he
graphically narrated the circumstances under which he had warned
Winthrop's outfit of the lurking war-party, making it appear that his
warning had been due simply and solely to his recognition of his
fellow-countrymen among the travellers.

Not a muscle of Sitting Bull's crafty countenance moved as he listened.

"How!" he said, quietly, when the speaker ceased.  "Did not Golden Face
declare that he owned no nationality?"

This was another staggerer, and a more serious one than before.  But
Vipan's imperturbability was of a quality warranted to stand shocks.
Inwardly he laughed over the other's shrewdness in bringing up his own
words in judgment against him.

That was true, he replied.  But apart from the fact of that particular
white man being his fellow-countryman, and therefore one against whom
the Dahcotah nation had no quarrel, he was the son of a man who had once
rendered him a most important service.  Who worthy of the name and
dignity of a warrior ever forgot to requite a good turn once rendered,
even at the peril of his life?

This answer, if not altogether received as gospel by his hearers, sent
him up ten per cent, in their estimation.  Nowhere is diplomatic talent
and readiness in debate held in such high respect as among savage races.

"The white girl who hunted with Golden Face is very beautiful," went on
Sitting Bull.  "Was it for her he lifted his rifle against his Dahcotah
brethren?"

"Who would not fight for a beautiful woman, be she white or red?"
answered Vipan, with a burst of well-timed frankness.  "Sitting Bull is
a great chief, let him judge if my words are straight.  Did War Wolf and
his followers come to me as to a friend?  No; they attacked me as
enemies.  Then when they treated me as an enemy and an ordinary prisoner
of war, did I complain?  Sitting Bull is a great chief, a warrior of
renown, but who is War Wolf?  Who is he, I say?  Enough: I have smoked
in council with Red Cloud and the chiefs of the Dahcotah nation.  My
words are for the ears of chiefs, not for those of boys, who passed the
Sun-dance but yesterday."

The ghost of a smile flitted across Sitting Bull's grim features at this
reply, while a murmur of approbation escaped the other two auditors.  No
one understood better than the speaker the advantage of making the most
of himself among these people, nor was the dexterous compliment to his
own eminence thrown away upon the bold and sagacious warrior who had, so
to say, risen from the ranks.

"But," rejoined the latter, "if the white girl was of the race of King
George, with whom we have no quarrel, why did not Golden Face bring her
among his Dahcotah brethren, where he might have lived with her in peace
and safety?"

Vipan explained that a white girl such as her of whom they were speaking
would never consent to accompany him unless as his wife, and even then
she must be married according to the customs of her people.  To this the
wily chief quoted the case of his friend and brother, Mahto-sapa, who
had a white wife.  She had been taken to wife according to Dahcotah
custom; and whose lodge was more comfortable than hers; who was cared
for better than she?

Now Vipan was aware of the existence of this personage, yet strange to
say, bearing in mind his friendship with the Minneconjou chief, had
never seen her.  He was aware, too, that she was originally a white
captive, seized by the Indians during one of their dreaded raids upon a
settlement or waggon train some years previously, but that was the
extent of his knowledge.  It must be confessed he felt a good deal of
curiosity on the subject, but he was not the man to allow any sign of it
to appear.  His answer, however, was ready and to the point.

That might be true, he replied; but it was a matter of which he, Vipan,
knew nothing, nor did it concern him in any way.  What he did know was
this: The white girl in question was of very considerable account in her
own country.  True, most of the warriors in Sitting Bull's village were
his--the speaker's--brethren.  But some were not.  There were some in it
at that moment who looked upon him as an enemy, who had treated him as
one.  What if he had brought this white girl with him, and she had met--
with harm at the hands of any of these?  Would not her people require a
heavy reckoning?  The Dahcotah hunting-grounds were bounded on the north
by the British line.  Would it be the act of a friend to do anything
which should embroil the Dahcotah nation with two strong Powers instead
of one, in such wise too that they should be surrounded with enemies on
every side?

He had played a very trump card in making this reply, and he knew it.
For he had seen through Sitting Bull's motives in requiring his presence
in the camp of the hostiles, and was resolved to make the most of it;
and upon the extent of his success he was well aware that his very life
depended.

"Wagh!" exclaimed the chief, with well-feigned indifference.  "The
Dahcotah people fear the enmity of no one.  Yet they seek no quarrel
with the countrymen of Golden Face.  They have always heard that the
King George men have straight tongues, and that the Great White Queen
keeps her promises, and fulfils her treaties with the red tribes within
her territory."

Then followed a good deal of what, for want of a better word, we will
call "dark" talking.  Sitting Bull in a series of highly diplomatic
hints, and using much figurative language, strove to sound his prisoner
as to the probability of the British being induced to espouse his
people's cause in the event of the coming campaign ending disastrously
to them.  Vipan, ever mindful of his precarious position as in fact a
prisoner, though treated outwardly as a guest, answered cautiously, and
to the effect that although the British would be to the last degree
unlikely actively to interfere in their favour, yet it would be fatally
imprudent to commit any act tending to incur the hostility of the great
and mighty Power who occupied the northern boundary line of their
country, and whose territory, indeed, might yet serve them as a refuge
in time of need, for who could foretell the chances of war?  At the same
time he threw out more than one dexterous hint as to the services he
himself might be able to render his Dahcotah brethren in the event of
any such lamentable contingency.

Judging that enough had been said for the present, Sitting Bull arose.

"It is well," he said, throwing his blanket round his shoulders, as he
prepared to depart.  "The counsels of Golden Face are always good to
listen to.  His presence is very welcome to his red brethren."

Judging the moment a favourable one, Vipan delicately hinted that so
welcome a guest should not be treated in a manner unworthy the dignity
of a warrior--in a word, that his weapons should be restored to him.

Again that ghost of a smile crossed the face of the wily chieftain.

"No one could mistake Golden Face for anything but a warrior," he said,
sweetly.  "Is he not surrounded by his friends, his brothers?  Who
requires to go armed among his friends?"

There was nothing for it but to accept the position, and, moreover, to
accept it with a good grace.  Suddenly there arose a terrific din
outside--shrieks and yells, shouts of demoniac laughter, and the
trampling of many feet.

Note 1.  General George A. Custer, who fell into an ambuscade on the
Little Bighorn river, and perished with his entire command at the hands
of the hostile Sioux, under Sitting Bull, on the 25th June, 1876.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

THE TWO VICTIMS.

If ever a spectacle of hell let loose was vouchsafed to mortal eye,
assuredly it must have borne a strong family likeness to that presented
by the Indian village, as Vipan and the three chiefs stepped gravely
outside the _teepe_ to see what was going on.

A wild, roaring, yelling crowd came surging into the open space where
stood the council-lodge.  Bucks and squaws, children and dogs, all
mingled together in a motley mass, whooping, laughing, chattering and
grinning.  A sea of wild excited faces, the crowd poured onward,
gathering as it rolled.  Then the cause of all this excitement became
discernible.  In the front of the throng, in the centre of a group of
yelling squaws, hustled, beaten, kicked, dragged along by the
bloodthirsty harpies, were two white men.  Their arms were tightly bound
behind their backs, but their feet were tied so as to enable them to
make short steps.  They had been stripped naked, and their bodies,
already lacerated with many a weal, and bruised from the switches and
clubs of their tormentors, were plentifully besmeared with their own
blood.

"Wagh, Golden Face!" exclaimed Sitting Bull, with grim humour.  "Our
squaws seem to handle your countrymen very tenderly."

The adventurer made no reply.  Even he felt his heart sicken within him
at the thought of the hideous fate these two wretched men were about to
undergo.  Yet drawn by an uncontrollable impulse, he found himself
moving beside the three Indians, who were strolling leisurely in the
direction taken by the crowd.  Not that his red friends manifested any
interest in the proceedings.  The torture of helpless prisoners was
sport for boys and squaws, and unworthy of the attention of great chiefs
or warriors of renown.  Still, with the characteristic weakness of their
race to witness anything unusual, they followed the crowd.

As the latter thundered along the open space, the inmates of the
clustering groups of _teepes_ on either side poured forth to swell its
ranks.  Young bucks would dart out in front, and execute a series of
leaps in the air, uttering shrill whoops, and even the river was dotted
with bull-boats, as the inhabitants of the villages on the opposite bank
crowded over in hundreds to see the fun.  Knives were flourished in the
prisoners' faces, kicks and slaps were their portion at every step;
indeed, it almost seemed that the ill-usage of the infuriated mob would
mercifully end their sufferings before they should reach the terrible
stake.  Something of this seemed to strike their tormentors themselves,
for all of a sudden a compact band of young bucks charged into the mass,
drove back the yelling squaws, and seizing the two unhappy wretches,
dragged them forward at a smart run.

Just outside the village was a clear space.  Here a couple of stout
posts, eight or nine feet high, had been driven into the ground about a
dozen yards apart.

And now Vipan had an opportunity of estimating the strength of the band
or bands into whose midst he had so involuntarily penetrated.  Far along
the river-banks on either side, extending a distance of five or six
miles, the tall lodges stood in lines and clusters among the thin belt
of timber which lined the stream.  These and the village behind him,
roughly reckoning, he estimated to represent some four or five thousand
warriors.  Overhead the great mountains shot up their craggy heads,
blasted into a score of fantastic shapes, frowning down upon the
barbarous scene like grim tutelaries of destruction.

The two miserable men were backed against the posts and firmly secured,
their arms being drawn up high above their heads and stretched to the
utmost.  Powerless to move a limb, they were ready for the torturers.

Suddenly a piercing cry for help burst from one of them.  In it Vipan
recognised his own name.

In deference to their rank, the crowd had made way for the chiefs in
whose company he was.  At a sign from Sitting Bull, it now gave way
further, and Vipan was able to approach within easy speaking-distance of
the prisoners.

"Oh, for God's sake, Mr Vipan, save me from torture!  Kill me--put me
out of my misery at once!"

Vipan stared at the utterer of this agonised prayer.  In the distorted
features, cut and bruised out of all knowledge, and livid with the dews
of bodily and mental anguish, in the strained eyeballs staring from
their sockets in deadly fear, he could hardly recognise the unfortunate
Geoffry Vallance.

A curious change passed over the adventurer's face, so curious that even
many of the Indians standing around noticed it and wondered.

"I am the last person in this world, of whom _you_ ought to ask a
benefit," he said curtly.

Had there been time for reflection, poor Geoffry might well have been
amazed.  Now, half-frenzied with terror, he only moaned:

"Save me from the torture!  Kill me, that is all I ask you!"

"I cannot if I would," was the answer, in a more relenting tone.  "How
did you manage to let them capture you?"

"It was the day the camp was taken," gasped the wretched prisoner.  "I
was lingering behind and got lost, and then my horse ran away when I was
dismounted.  I don't know how it was, but I looked up and found myself
in the middle of the Indians."

"Well, I can do nothing for you.  Mind me, though.  I knew a chap in
your position once.  He managed to roll his tongue back into his throat
and choke himself.  He escaped the fire that way.  Try it.  It's your
only chance."

The despairing moan with which this gloomy alternative was received was
drowned by a loud cry from the other white man.

"Colonel Vipan.  Git us out of this fix, for the Lord's sake!  I kin put
you on to a good thing, I kin!"

The adventurer turned in amazement.  He saw what was a villainous
countenance at the best of times, and now with the shaggy beard matted
with saliva and gouts of blood, it was hideous and horrible in the
extreme.  He recognised the man he had felled in the liquor saloon at
Henniker City--Bitter Rube.

"How in thunder did you get into this hobble?" he said.

"It's this way, Colonel.  The red devils jumped us at our _placer_.
They scalped the other three."

"Burntwood Creek?"

"That's it, Colonel.  You get me out of this, and I'll make you a rich
man for life.  There's gold there worth millions and millions."

"Glad to hear it, Bitter Rube," was the unconcerned reply.  "I know the
place all right; going to work it by and by.  It's where your mate
jumped me and got laid out for his pains.  Remember your scheme to lynch
me, eh, Bitter Rube?"

"Oh, Lord, Colonel.  It was the other chaps.  See here now--"

"Well, I can't even repay the little service you were going to render
me--a short shrift and a long rope," interrupted Vipan, the scowling
glances and increasing murmurs of the throng convincing him of the peril
he himself was incurring.  A frantic yell burst from the prisoner.

"You snake-spawned white Injun!  Here's a white man being cut into
chunks before your eyes.  I'll haunt yer!  I'll ghost yer!  I'll make
life a hell to yer!"

The miserable wretch went on to bellow the most frantic blasphemies.
One of the young Indians, stepping up behind him, thrust a red-hot
faggot into his open mouth.  This was greeted as an excellent joke by
the onlookers, who shouted and screamed with laughter.  Then one of them
applied a light to the victim's unkempt and shaggy beard.  It frizzled
and flared up, burning the wretched man frightfully about the face and
head.  The mirth of the spectators became well-nigh uncontrollable.

"How! white brudder," said a burly buck, grinning hideously into
Geoffry's face, and patting him fraternally on the shoulder.  "Injun
brudder hab heap fun.  Injun brudder not hurt you first.  Other man hurt
first--you see him--you hab heap good fun.  You hurt first, you no
laugh--other hurt first, you plenty laugh--Injun brudder plenty laugh.
How--how!"

Then the wretched Geoffry understood that with a diabolical refinement
of cruelty the savages intended that he should witness the torture and
death of his companion in adversity before his own turn came.  He could
only raise his eyes stupidly to the grinning countenance of his
addresser.

Two squaws now stepped forward--hideous hags whose long flattened
breasts fell in disgusting flaps below their waists.  They were nearly
naked, and each held in her hand a sharp knife.  Advancing to the
sufferer they made an incision down each of his sides, and proceeded to
skin him alive as coolly as a butcher would flay a dead sheep.

The anguished shrieks of the victim were terrible to hear; but no spark
of pity did they stir in the hearts of the ruthless fiends who crowded
around, gloating over this diabolical performance.  They danced and
laughed, leaping high in the air, hurling taunting epithets at the
miserable victim, and exhorting the other prisoner to observe what was
in store for him.  And in their hellish glee the women, if anything,
surpassed the younger and more ferocious of the warriors.

For nearly an hour the scene went on--varied at intervals by the passing
of a lighted torch along those portions of the victim's body already
laid bare.  The piercing shrieks of the tortured wretch sunk into
laboured and hollow groans--then ceased altogether.  He had fainted.

A glance having sufficed to show them that he was not dead, the
performers stood back, contemplating their handiwork with a grin of
ferocious satisfaction.  And so deftly had they done it, that from chin
to feet, the front and sides of the sufferer's body was entirely denuded
of skin, which hung from his shoulders in a bleeding and ghastly mantle.
Yet this was only the first stage of his torture.

Vipan, who had perforce witnessed this hideous spectacle, felt seized
with a violent and well-nigh uncontrollable nausea, and would have
turned away.  But as the exhibition of the slightest repulsion or
feeling would have been not merely inexpedient, but highly dangerous, he
was constrained to master himself.  Besides, a sort of horrible
fascination rooted him to the spot--an overmastering and morbid
curiosity to see how the other prisoner would fare.

Sitting Bull, who with a few other chiefs had been witnessing the
hellish performance with grave impassiveness, must have read his
thoughts.

"They are not King George men," he remarked laconically.  "They are not
your countrymen, Golden Face."

Vipan made no reply.  The remark suggested an idea.  He might be able to
save Geoffry by claiming him as a fellow-countryman.  A strange struggle
took place within him.  Why should he?  If he attempted to do so it
would be at deadly risk to himself, and even then would he meet with
success?  And apart from these considerations, as he himself had told
the unfortunate one, he was the last man from whom the latter should
claim any assistance.

Then the bloodthirsty rage of the barbarous horde took a fresh turn.
Their one victim was for the time being insensible to pain, but there
was another.  Him they had been reserving with this end in view.  Shouts
were raised that it was time to begin upon him.

With a wild-beast laugh, the two fiend-like hags approached the new
victim, their reeking knives in hand, the yells and roars of the crowd
urging them on.  The miserable Geoffry, bound immovably to the stake,
watched their approach.  His eyes protruded from their sockets, a cold
sweat rained down his distorted countenance, and there was a strange
hoarse rattle in his throat.  It was a sight to haunt the spectator for
a lifetime.  Then his head fell heavily forward on his chest.

Seizing him by the hair, one of the female fiends forced it back.  It
was as lead in her grasp.  Then the truth became apparent.  The
miserable captive was stone-dead.  He had died of sheer horror and
fright.

A moment of silence, then with a wild yell of disappointed fury the
ferocious crowd flung itself upon the corpse and hacked and mutilated it
into a shapeless and gory mass.  Then the blind madness of their
bloodthirsty rage fairly let loose, they turned once more to the first
victim.  The scalp was torn from his head; knives and burning splinters
were stuck into his flesh; and the yet warm and palpitating heart was
plucked out and reared aloft on the point of a lance.  Then bundles of
dry brushwood were piled around both of the mangled corpses, and set
alight, and soon the red tongues of flame--whose roaring and crackling
was drowned by the frenzied yells of the savages as they danced and
leaped around like devils let loose from the nethermost hell--shot
upward, licking around the cruel stakes of torture, and a horrible and
sickening odour of burning flesh hung upon the air.  A great volume of
smoke mounted to the heavens, and, after watching it for a while, the
whole fiend-like crowd surged back to the village, there to hold a
gigantic scalp-dance--bearing the reeking trophies aloft on
lance-points.

All that remained of the border ruffian and the unfortunate Geoffry
Vallance were two little heaps of calcined bones.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

THE SUN QUEEN.

A month had gone by.  The mountain air had become thin and steely, and
the gorgeous glories of the golden-hued woods were falling fast.  Winter
was in the atmosphere.

In the villages of the hostiles time was of no account.  Dancing and
warlike exercises, gossip, story-telling and gambling, and hunting in
the adjacent mountains, thus this great gathering of savages on a
war-footing solaced their leisure hours--which were many.  Bands of
warriors, under some favourite chief or partisan, would strike the
war-post, and sally forth on some more or less desperate foray,
returning in due time with scalps or plunder, or both.  Once they
brought with them a wretched prisoner, who was promptly done to death
under the usual circumstances of revolting barbarity.