No 'fraid! Me good Injun, me. Ha, ha! Me good Injun brudder."

The exultant mockery underlying this friendly address was too transparent. Her eyes dilating with horror, the girl stepped back, the consciousness that she was alone in the power of these fiends turning her limbs to stone. They, for their part, secure of their beautiful prize, were enjoying her terror.

"No run 'way," said the first speaker, who had diminished the distance between them. "No run 'way. Injun, good brudder." And he seized her left wrist in the grasp of a vice--while another, with a fierce chuckling laugh, made a movement to seize her right one.

But the brutal contact broke the spell of horror which was weaving around her. A wild cry of indignation escaped her lips, and her eyes blazed. Wrenching her right wrist free, she dashed the heavy b.u.t.t end of her fishing-rod with all her force--and it was not small--full into the first a.s.sailant's face, knocking out some of his front teeth, and causing him to loosen his hold.

With the fierce growl of a wounded cougar, the savage sprang at her again, the blood streaming from his mouth, and as the unhappy girl recoiled to renew her efforts to keep her persecutors at bay, such a marvellous change came over the scene that not one of the actors in it was quite aware what had happened.

An enormous dark ma.s.s seemed to fall from the very heavens, simultaneously with a thundrous roar. The girl, now tottering on the verge of faintness, saw, as in a flash, her first a.s.sailant lying with his skull crushed to pulp, another lay gasping in the agonies of death, while the third was just vanishing in the timber! At him pointing the still smoking muzzle of a revolver, mounted on a huge black horse, was the most splendidly handsome man she had ever seen.

"Quick! Drop all that gear and mount in front of me. Give me your hand."

There was no disobeying the curt commanding tone. Resisting a deadly impulse to faint right away, she extended her hand. In a second she was swung up before the stranger on his powerful horse.

It was all done like lightning. The first appearance of the savages-- the a.s.sault--the rescue--occupied barely a couple of minutes. Pale to the lips, shaky, and unnerved, she could hardly now realise it all. But often in the time to come would she look back to that strange ride, the weight of the appalling danger she had just escaped still hanging over her, the courage and prompt.i.tude of her rescuer, the struggle she was waging with her own natural terror, dreading she knew not what.

The black steed was going at a gallop now, but his rider had him well in hand. The girl noticed that they were making something of a _detour_ which took them far out on the open plain, whereas her ride down to the river had led her along the very edge of the timber. She noticed, too, the anxious, alert look on the stranger's face. Though he did not turn his head, she felt a.s.sured that not a detail in the surroundings escaped him.

"There are your people," he said briefly, as they suddenly came in sight of the camp. The waggons had just unhitched, and the mules and oxen were being driven down to the water; not the river we have seen, but a small creek running into it. Already columns of smoke were rising on the evening air.

"I can never thank you enough," said the girl, suddenly and with a shudder. "But for your prompt.i.tude where should I be now?"

"Say but for your own courage and self-possession. The average idiot in petticoats would have shrieked and fainted and gone into hysterics.

Meanwhile, the reds would have captured her and shot me," he rejoined, somewhat roughly. "Be advised by me now. Don't startle the rest of the women, or they'll hamper us seriously. Now we'll dismount."

He lifted her to the ground, and, without another word, turned to confront a man who had hurried up. But the girl's clear voice interrupted him before he could speak.

"This gentleman has rescued me from frightful danger, Major Winthrop.

There are Indians about."

"By Jove!" said he addressed, with a start of astonishment, looking from the one to the other. He was a man below middle age, of medium height, active and well-built, and there was no mistaking him for anything other than what he was--an English gentleman.

"Boss of this outfit, I take it?" said the new arrival shortly.

"Yes. Allow me to offer you my most grateful thanks for--"

"Well, there's a big lot of Sioux preparing to 'jump' you at any moment.

Corral your waggons without delay, and have your cattle brought in at once. Not a second to lose."

A frightful yell drowned his words. There was a thunder of hoofs upon the turf as a band of some fifty mounted Indians, dashing from their cover, bore down upon the herd of draught stock which was being driven back from the water in charge of three or four men. On came the savages, whooping and whistling, brandishing blankets and buffalo robes with the object of stampeding the now frantic cattle.

But among those in charge of the latter there chanced to be a couple of experienced plainsmen. In a trice there rang out three shots, and two of the a.s.sailants' ponies went riderless. Crack--crack! Another pony went down. This was more than the redskins could stand. Like a bird of prey alarmed in its swoop, the entire band swerved at a tangent and skimmed away over the plain as fast as their ponies could carry them.

The herd was saved.

"There goes the first act in the drama," said the stranger coolly. "Now stand clear for the second."

The suddenness of it all--the yelling, the shots, the swoop of the painted and feathered warriors--had created a terrible panic in the camp, and had the main body of the savages charged at that moment nothing could have saved its inmates. As the stranger had at first conjectured, two of the waggons were full of women and children, the families of some of the emigrants. These at once rushed to the conclusion that their last hour had come, and shrieks and wailings tended to render confusion worse confounded. But Major Winthrop, with military prompt.i.tude, had got the men well in hand, and a very few minutes sufficed to corral the waggons, bring in the cattle, and put the whole camp into a creditable state of defence. It was now nearly dark.

"Will they attack us to-night?" enquired Major Winthrop, as, having completed his arrangements, he returned to where the stranger was seated smoking a pipe and gazing narrowly out into the gloomy waste.

"I should be inclined to say not. Their surprise has fallen through, you see, and then Indians don't like fighting at night. But it's at the hour before dawn, when we're all infernally sleepy and more or less shivery with being up all night--it's then we shall have to keep a very bright look-out indeed. I should keep about half your men at a time on guard all night through if I were in your place."

"Who air you, stranger?" said a not very friendly voice.

He addressed turned, and beheld a lank, dried-up individual who might have been any age between thirty and fifty. His hawk-like face was the colour of mahogany, and, but for a small moustache, was devoid of hirsute adornment. His deep-set grey eyes, however, were those of a man prompt and keen to act in the moment of difficulty or danger. His dress consisted of a rather dirty blue shirt and fringed breeches.

"Who am I? Why just who I look--neither more nor less," was the rejoinder, given with provoking tranquillity.

"And what might your name be--if it's a fair question?"

"It might be Jones, or it might not. The question is a fair one, however. That being so, I don't mind telling you my name is Vipan.

What's yours?"

"I'm Oregon Dave, champion bronco-buster [ranch term for a professional horse-breaker] of Wyoming. I'm boss-guide of this hyar outfit, and the chap who reckons he knows Injuns and their little ways better nor I had best just step out and say so."

"If I were boss-guide of any outfit, I'm d.a.m.ned if I'd let a young lady belonging to that same start off by herself to go fishing among a Sioux war-party," said Vipan, with a quiet satire in his tone that was maddening to the last degree. He resented the other's truculent bearing, and intended to let him know it.

"Eh! Say that again," said the first speaker, flushing with anger.

"We mustn't quarrel my friends, we mustn't quarrel," put in Major Winthrop, earnestly. "It was mainly owing to your pluck and prompt.i.tude, Dave, that we haven't lost every hoof of our cattle. And but for Mr Vipan, here, Miss Santorex would at this moment be a prisoner among the Sioux. I was to blame in that matter, and I bitterly acknowledge it." Then he told him the circ.u.mstances of Vipan's unexpected and opportune appearance among them. Before its conclusion Oregon Dave turned to the latter with outstretched palm:

"Shake, stranger, shake. You're all there, and I'm only fit to be kicked into a kennel to yelp. Guide? No, I ain't no guide, only a tenderfoot--a doggoned professor. Scalp me if I don't go and hunt bugs upon the perairie with a brace o' gig-lamps stuck across my nose. I'll go now and ask the reds to tar and roast me. Good-bye, Kurnel; good-bye, stranger, I ain't no guide, I ain't. Thunder, no!"

"Nonsense, man," said Winthrop, clapping him on the shoulder. "We were all to blame. We were informed along the road that the Indians were peaceable, and that all chance of war was at an end, for this summer, at any rate," he explained, for Vipan's benefit. "That being so, we have travelled much too carelessly, although in camp we've been on the alert for horse or cattle thieves."

"I've been watching your outfit, and I've been watching the reds for nearly two hours," said Vipan. "They mean't jumping you yonder at the creek, and would have done so before this if you had not changed your plan, and camped here. As near as I can count, there are about three hundred of them. See that b.u.t.te away up there? That's where I've been located. Came down to warn you--none too soon, either."

"No, indeed. We owe you a debt of grat.i.tude we can never repay, myself especially. Good G.o.d, if harm had befallen Miss Santorex! I can't even stand the idea of it."

"Relative of yours?" said the other shortly.

"_No_. She's the sister of a neighbour of ours--man who runs the adjoining ranch. She's come out from England to stay with her brother for a bit, and took the opportunity of travelling with us. And--if anything had happened--good G.o.d, if anything had happened! It's an awful responsibility, and I devoutly wish we were safe through it. Now, I think, we may go and get some supper."

Major Winthrop, as we have said, was English. He had retired early from the service, and being an energetic fellow had soon found an unoccupied life pall upon him. Accordingly he had migrated to the Far West and started ranching--a life that suited him thoroughly. His wife, a pretty little vivacious brunette, was American. She was considerably his junior, and they had not been long married; and at the time we make their acquaintance were returning from a visit to her home in the Eastern States.

"My! what a fine-looking fellow!" she whispered to her friend, as she watched the approach of her husband's guest. "Why, Yseulte, it was worth while getting into a fix to be rescued by such a knight-errant as that."

To her surprise the colour came to the girl's face--visible in the moonlight--as she answered:

"What nonsense, Hettie! Do be quiet, or they'll hear you."

"I ought to scold you severely, Miss Santorex, for running such an awful risk," said Winthrop, as they sat down to supper, picnic fashion, beside the horse waggon which served as the ladies' bedroom, saloon, and boudoir--and in bad weather, dining-room--all run into one.

"Please don't, for I a.s.sure you I'm very penitent," she answered.

"And then just think what an adventure she'll have to tell about when she gets home again," put in Mrs Winthrop. "Well, now, Yseulte, what do you think of our Indians, now you have seen them--real ones--at last?"

"Oh, don't ask me!" answered the girl, who was still rather pale and shaky, in spite of her plucky efforts to recover her self-possession.