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," a.s.sented 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 circ.u.mstance 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 coa.r.s.e 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-gra.s.s 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 a.s.sented eagerly. First going to the mound, the removal of the overgrowth of gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sage 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 n.o.body came to get us out of our fix next week?"

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