"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 b.u.t.te, and looking on at the fun, I chanced to catch sight of--you. That decided the business. Instead of a.s.sisting 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-gla.s.s 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 att.i.tude, 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 m.u.f.fled 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 c.u.mbrous 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d! 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 pa.s.ses before his eyes and ears as a vision of h.e.l.l, and more than one of those fierce and ruthless a.s.sailants 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 grat.i.tude 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 d.a.m.n 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.