"Don't move a hair else then, or you're a stiff," was the grim uncompromising reply.

"Now," went on the fellow, having a.s.sured himself that the paper was there, "take six steps backward--six and no more. Quick march!"

With the deadly rifle-barrel still covering his heart, Vipan obeyed.

"Well! what's the next thing?" he said, and at the same time he noticed that the other carried a lariat rope dangling in loose coils from his left arm.

"The next thing, eh?" jeered the fierce aggressor. "I and some of the boys have kept our eye upon you for a good while, and the next thing is we're going to lynch you. Now--Turn round!"

The man in his eagerness had made a step forward, with the result that, the little ridge of ground whereon he was standing being slippery with the frost, he missed his footing, stumbled, staggered wildly in his efforts to recover his balance, and finally rolled headlong almost at Vipan's feet.

Crack!

The aggressor lay writhing in his death-throes. All this time warily on the look-out for the smallest chance in his favour, Vipan, quick as thought, had whipped out the little Derringer which he carried in his breast-pocket, and sent a bullet through his adversary's brain.

"I think I've turned the tables on you with effect, my hearty," he said, contemplating the dead man with a savage sneer. Now that there was no further necessity for coolness, his blood boiled at the recent humiliation this fellow had made him undergo. "Ha, ha! Go and tell your two precious 'pardners' what a sorry hash you made of it on their account, you miserable idiot, and bait a few more Tartar traps down in the nethermost shades. Ha, ha!"

The first thing he did was to pick up and secure the sheet of paper.

Then he searched the dead man lest anything bearing upon the cipher might be in his possession, but without avail. He was about to leave the spot, when an idea struck him.

For a moment he stood contemplating his late enemy. Bending down, an expression of strong disgust in his face, he gripped the dead man by the hair--a couple of quick slashes, and the scalp was in his hand. Then he drew his knife across the throat of the corpse.

"The Sioux--his mark," he muttered, with grim jocosity. "Faugh! Now to stow away this beastly thing," wiping the scalp upon its late proprietor's clothing.

He removed the latter's weapons--rifle, revolver, knife--and keeping a sharp look-out against any further aggression, regained his horse. In mounting, he trod on something which crackled crisply. It was a dried and shrivelled knee-boot, from which the leg-bone still protruded. And his attention being once more attracted to these ghastly relics, it almost seemed to him that the two heads had changed their position, and were glaring at him with hideous and menacing scowl. The ravens, from a neighbouring tree, renewed their lugubrious croak, as if resentful at being so long kept away from their repulsive feast. Overhead, the sky grew blacker and blacker, and the snowflakes whirled round the horseman as he emerged from the gloom of that grisly brake.

"There's more carrion for you, you black devils," he muttered, apostrophising the ravens. "Heavens! What had I to do with the brute's unwashen 'pardners'? If I'm to be held answerable for the scalp of every idiot who goes to sleep with both eyes shut, I've got my work cut out for me. Ha, ha! The red brother comes in mighty convenient sometimes."

Thus musing, he had gained the crossing of a mountain torrent, at the entrance to a long, narrow canon, whose sheer, overhanging walls were gloomy and forbidding, even by the light of day. Dismounting, he took out the scalp, and wrapping it round a stone, hurled it away into a deep, swirling pool, whose centre was free from ice. The dead man's weapons followed suit.

"There! Pity to throw away good serviceable arms, but--'Self-preservation, etc.' I only treated the dog as he would have treated me, but I don't want to establish a vendetta among his desperado mates with myself for its object. A lot the scoundrels care about such a plea as self-defence. No. Let them credit the reds with the job."

The rising gale shrieked wildly overhead, but within the black walls of the canon the wayfarer was entirely protected from its force. The snowflakes, large and fleecy, now fell thickly about him. And now there was exultation in place of the former anxiety in his glance as ever and anon he studied the dark and overcast sky.

"Better and better. Nothing like snow for covering up a trail, and by the time it's open again there'll be not much left of yon carrion. Up, Satanta! We'll soon be home now."

The black steed arched his splendid neck responsive to his master's voice. And his said master, m.u.f.fling himself closer in his buffalo robe, settled himself down in his saddle with every confidence in the ability of one or other, or both of them, to keep the right trail, even through the pitchy blackness which was now descending upon them. The driving snow, the shrieking of the gale, the howling of wolves in the dark forest, the grisly sight left behind, the stain of blood, were nothing to him who rode there--on--on through the night.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

"TO QUIT."

When Vipan narrated the events of the last chapter to his friend and partner, the latter looked grave.

"I know the chap you dropped," he said, "and he'll be no loss to this territory, nohow. He's one o' them desperate, hard-drinkin', cussin'

bullies that a whole township--ay, and many a township 'll be only too glad to see laid. But then, you see, there are his mates to reckon with; bullies, all of 'em, like himself. I'm afraid if they light upon the trail we shall have some warm work along."

"But they won't light on it, Bill, thanks to this friendly blizzard.

Why, the snow'll be there for the next three months, but most, if not all, of my late friend won't. He'll be pretty evenly distributed among the wolves and crows by that time," was the grim reply. And the speaker kicked the logs into a blaze, and took a long pull at his whisky-horn.

"Besides," he added, "I took all precautions. If they do strike the trail, they'll credit the whole business to the red brother."

The scout puffed earnestly at his pipe for some little while, his features in no wise relaxing their gravity.

"See here, Vipan," he said, at length; "that's one side of the affair I've been cudgelling over. Most of the chaps located around have got a notion that you're too thick with the reds, and they're pretty mad.

I've run against several of 'em, and have been hearin' some tall talk among 'em while you were away down there. Now, the best thing we can do is to clear out our _caches_ [Note 1] as soon as the weather lifts, and git."

"No, no, Bill; that's not my line at all. It's no part of my idea to be choused out of the goose with the golden eggs just as I've brought that biped home, not to mention being obliged to sneak away from a lot of yapping curs, any one of whom I'm ready to meet, how, when, and where he chooses." And Vipan's face was a picture of contemptuous resentment.

"Whatever they are, old pard, they can shoot--they can. I don't know what's to stand in the way of a straight volley just any time we hap to be on the move, even if not when we poke our noses out of our own door.

But if your mind's set on stayin' on, I'll just dry up."

The other's face softened. This staunch and loyal comrade of his was prepared, as a matter of course, to stand by him and equally share the peril in which the jealous resentment of the incensed miners placed or might place himself.

"Now, look here, old chum," he said, "I'll just tell you what sort of a prospecting I've made. I always maintained the upper bend of Burntwood Creek was worth tapping. It's my private opinion we've at last struck the real yellow, and if you don't think it worth following up after what I'm going to show you, why I'll fall in with your idea, and light out now for some where else. Look at this," and he placed in his friend's hand the paper which he had taken from the pocket of one of the dead miners whom he had helped to bury.

Smokestack Bill studied the plan thoughtfully for a few moments.

"It's tarnation vague," he said at length: "'Forkt pine, Red Peak, blarsted tree, and the creek where half-buried rock.' Why, there's parks of forked pines, and as for the blasted tree it's like enough to be some stem against which one o' them chaps was squelched by his mule, and known only to them. And the creek's just chock full of half-buried rocks."

"Ha, ha, ha! Bill, my boy, I've located them all--all but the half-buried rock, that is. The tree's a scathed pine all right, close to where the two fellows were scalped. I was just going to locate the creek part of the business, when that unhung skulker 'jumped' me. You may just bet your bottom dollar we'll light upon something rich."

"Well, well, I'll see you through it," said the other in a tone as if he began to think there might be something in it. "But seems to me we shan't be much the better for a lot of gold even if we find it. You're bent on a rush to Great Britain, Vipan, I can see that. Well, my boy, if we light on a find, you can take the bigger half, and go and pay off old scores with the party that's tricked you. I've not much use for the stuff, I reckon."

"Bill, old friend, you're an extraordinary production of your day and species--a thoroughly unselfish specimen of humanity to wit. Now, do you think it in the least likely that I should agree to any such arrangement? No, no; share and share alike is the motto between partners. If we make a good thing of it we'll take our jaunt together."

"'M, p'raps. Cities don't like me, and I don't like cities. If it were otherwise I should be jingling my tens of thousands of dollars to-day, instead of owning nought but a good rifle, a good horse, and a _cache_ full of pelts. There's mighty mean tricks done in cities, and those done in a lawyer's office ain't the least mean. My old dad was in that line, and though a good chap in other ways, I saw queer things done in that office of his. I couldn't stand it, and I couldn't stand the life, so I kicked over the stool and struck out West. I got blown up in a Missouri steamboat first thing, and came down on a chunk of the smokestack into the mud on the Nebraska side--leastways, that's what the boys declared, and that's why they call me Smokestack Bill, though I reckon I must have got astride of the smokestack while I was half drowning. And now my brother Seth, who took kindly to lawyering, is the richest man in Carson County."

"But that you are thoroughly happy as a plainsman, Bill, I should say you had made a mistake," answered Vipan, in whom the other's story seemed to have touched a sympathetic chord. "Otherwise the man who sacrifices wealth--beggars himself for a principle--is a consummate a.s.s, and deserves all he condemns himself to; that is, a lifetime spent in regretting it," he added, with an unwonted bitterness. "But never mind that," resuming his normal tone. "When the snow melts we'll go down and prospect Burntwood Creek, and as it's unlucky--deuced unlucky--to discount one's successes beforehand, we'll just dismiss the subject out of hand until then. Meanwhile, life being uncertain, we'll _cache_ the cipher in some snug place in case anything should happen to me."

Three months went by. All the rigours of winter had set in upon the Black Hills. Everywhere the snow lay in an unbroken sheet, attaining in many places such prodigious depths as almost to bury the brakes and thickets of a shorter growth. The dark foliage of the great pines afforded some relief from the dazzling whiteness around, but even that was almost concealed by the huge ma.s.ses of snow which had there effected lodgment. And here and there a mighty cliff of red sandstone stood forth from the surrounding snow, its face half draped with glistening icicles. But the weather was glorious, and the air as exhilarating as champagne. The peaks, shining like frosted silver, rearing their heads to the ever-cloudless blue--that marvellous combination of subtle shades of the richest azure, tempered with green, which is produced by contrast with a snow-enshrouded earth--the smooth face of each great precipice, frowning beneath its brow of dark and bristling pines; the m.u.f.fled roar of the mountain torrent struggling for freedom, far down under its successively imprisoning layers of ice; the wild cry of bird or beast, even more at fault in the icebound rigours of its native waste than its artificial enemy, man--all this went to make up an engraving from the scenes of Nature in her winter magnificence, in all her savage primeval beauty, in her unsurpa.s.sable and most stately grandeur.

In the midst of it all our two friends were thoroughly comfortable.

They trapped a good deal and hunted occasionally. Many a valuable fur of silver fox and marten and beaver were added to their stores, and the thick coat of the great white wolf, and the tawny one of the cougar, or mountain lion. Two grizzlies of gigantic size also bit the dust--the redoubted "Old Ephraim" standing no chance whatever before the rifles of two such dead shots--while deer, both black-tailed and red, unable to make much running in the deep snow, fell an easy prey.

The entrance to their cabin was all but buried in snow, but within it was thoroughly warm and snug. Here, before a blazing fire, they would lounge at night. Stores of every kind were plentiful--flour, coffee, and sugar, whisky, warm furs, and abundance of tobacco--and surrounded by every creature comfort they would sit and smoke their long pipes, after a day of hard and healthful exercise, while the wind shrieked without, and all the voices of the weird wilderness were abroad, and the great mountains reverberated ever and anon the thunderous boom of some mighty ma.s.s of snow which, dislodged by the wind or its own weight, roared down the slopes, perchance to plunge with a crash over a huge cliff. Now and then old Shanks would lift his s.h.a.ggy head and growl as the dismal yell of a cougar would be borne upon the night, but he was well-used to the sounds of the forest, and quickly subsided again. And the ghostly hooting of owls, and the shrill barking of foxes, in the dark pine forest mingled with the ravening howl of the wolves in ceaseless chorus from the frozen and wind-swept slopes.

Sometimes an Indian, belated on his hunt, would take advantage of their hospitality, and on such occasions Vipan would delight to "draw" his savage guest, with the result that the red-skinned warrior, replete with good cheer and good humour, would lie back on his furs, puffing out huge clouds of tobacco smoke, and narrate--with that absence of reserve which characterises the savage when so engaged--many a strange tale of love and war, and among them, here and there, an instance of such fiendish and ruthless atrocity as would have caused the ordinary listener's hair to stand on end with horror and repulsion, not swerving in the smallest degree from his smiling and good-humoured imperturbability during the narration. But Vipan was wholly proof against any such ordinary weakness. The way to know Indians, he said, was first to get them to talk, and then to let them talk. _He_ wanted to know Indians thoroughly, and reckoned by this time he had about succeeded. So in him the red warrior found an attentive, not to say appreciative, listener.

Thus the months went by, and when the crocuses and soldanellas began to appear from beneath the melting snow, and the torrents and creeks ran red in the first spring freshets, an impatience, a feverish longing to be up and doing came upon Vipan, rendering him moody, and at times irritable. But until the rivers should have run off the melted snows nothing could be done. In vain his comrade preached philosophy.

"I judge you'll get no good by tearing your shirt, old pard," said the honest scout. "See here, now. Did you ever set your heart on a single thing, that when you got it you wondered how the snakes you could ever have been so hot on gettin' it? No, you didn't. About this _placer_.

Maybe we shall find plenty of stuff--maybe little--maybe none at all.

But whatever we find or don't find, it's no part of good sense to tear our shirts a' thinkin' of it."

"No, it isn't," agreed the other. "But--'many a slip,' etc."

"'M, yes. What's the odds, though? We can always light on fresh ground. And if the reds go on the war-path soon as the gra.s.s grows, it'd do us both good to get a scouting berth with the command for a spell."