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 The whole party has now withdrawn beyond range, and is busily discussing the sudden turn affairs have taken.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 pa.s.sionate 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 circ.u.mstances 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, const.i.tute 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, cl.u.s.tered 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 coa.r.s.e 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 circ.u.mstances 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."