"Albert at the creek, ill?" exclaimed d.i.c.k in surprise and alarm. "Why, I thought he was here with the train!"

But Bright Sun had gone on ahead. d.i.c.k turned back hastily, and ran along the trail through the twilight that was now fast merging into the night.

"Al, ill and left behind!" he exclaimed again and again. "He must have overexerted himself!"

His alarm deepened when he saw how fast the darkness was increasing. The chill bars of red and gold were gone from the west. When he looked back he could see the train no more, and heard only the faint sound of the cracking of whips. The train was fast disappearing in the pa.s.s.

But d.i.c.k had become a good woodsman and plainsman. His sense of direction was rarely wrong, and he went straight upon the trail for the creek. Night had now come but it was not very dark, and presently he saw the flash of water. It was the creek, and a few more steps took him there. A figure rose out of the shadows.

"Al!" he cried. "Have you broken down? Why didn't you get into the wagon?"

"d.i.c.k," replied Albert in a puzzled tone, "there's nothing the matter with me, except that I'm tired. Bright Sun told me that you were here waiting for me, and that you had something important to tell me. I couldn't find you, and now you come running."

d.i.c.k stopped in amazement.

"Bright Sun said I was waiting here for you, and had something important to tell you?" exclaimed d.i.c.k. "Why, he told me that you were ill, and had been left unnoticed at the crossing!"

The two boys stared at each other.

"What does it mean?" they exclaimed together.

From the dark pa.s.s before them came a sound which in the distance resembled the report of a firecracker, followed quickly by two or three other sounds, and then by many, as if the whole pack had been ignited at once. But both boys knew it was not firecrackers.

It was something far more deadly and terrible--a hail of rifle bullets. They looked toward the pa.s.s and saw there pink and red flashes appearing and reappearing. Shouts, and mingled with them a continuous long, whining cry, a dreadful overnote, came to their ears.

"The train has been attacked!" cried d.i.c.k. "It has marched straight into an ambush!"

"Indians?" exclaimed Albert, who was trembling violently from sheer physical and mental excitement.

"It couldn't be anything else!" replied d.i.c.k. "This is their country! And they must be in great force, too! Listen how the fight grows!"

The volume of the firing increased rapidly, but above it always rose that terrible whining note. The red and pink flashes in the pa.s.s danced and multiplied, and the wind brought the faint odor of smoke.

"We must help!" exclaimed d.i.c.k. "One can't stand here and see them all cut down!"

He forgot in his generous heart, at that moment, that he disliked Conway and all his men, and that he and Albert had scarcely a friend in the train. He thought only of doing what he could to beat back the Indian attack, and Albert felt the same impulse.

Both had their rifles--fine, breech-loading, repeating weapons, and with these the two might do much. No one ever parted with his arms after entering the Indian country.

"Come on, Albert!" exclaimed d.i.c.k, and the two ran toward the pa.s.s. But before they had gone a hundred yards they stopped as if by the same impulse. That terrible whining note was now rising higher and higher. It was not merely a war whoop, it had become also a song of triumph. There was a certain silvery quality in the night air, a quality that made for illumination, and d.i.c.k thought he saw dusky forms flitting here and there in the mouth of the pa.s.s behind the train. It was only fancy, because he was too far away for such perception, but in this case fancy and truth were the same.

"Hurry, d.i.c.k! Let's hurry!" exclaimed the impulsive and generous Albert. "If we don't, we'll be too late to do anything!"

They started again, running as fast as they could toward that s.p.a.ce in the dark well where the flashes of red and blue came and went. d.i.c.k was so intent that he did not hear the short, quick gasps of Albert, but he did hear a sudden fall beside him and stopped short. Albert was lying on his back unconscious. A faint tinge of abnormal red showed on his lips.

"Oh, I forgot! I forgot!" groaned d.i.c.k.

Such sudden and violent exertion, allied with the excitement of the terrible moment, had overpowered the weak boy. d.i.c.k bent down in grief. At first he thought his brother was dead, but the breath still came.

d.i.c.k did not know what to do. In the pa.s.s, under the shadow of night, the pines, and the mountain wall, the battle still flared and crackled, but its volume was dying. Louder rose the fierce, whining yell, and its note was full of ferocity and triumph, while the hoa.r.s.er cries of the white men became fewer and lower.

Now d.i.c.k really saw dusky figures leaping about between him and the train. Something uttering a shrill, unearthly cry of pain crashed heavily through the bushes near him and quickly pa.s.sed on. It was a wounded horse, running away.

d.i.c.k shuddered. Then he lifted Albert in his arms, and he had the forethought, even in that moment of excitement and danger, to pick up Albert's rifle also. Strong as he naturally was, he had then the strength of four, and, turning off at a sharp angle, he ran with Albert toward a dense thicket which cl.u.s.tered at the foot of the mountain wall.

He went a full three hundred yards before he was conscious of weariness, and he was then at the edge of the thicket, which spread over a wide s.p.a.ce. He laid Albert down on some of last year's old leaves, and then his quick eyes caught the sight of a little pool among some rocks. He dipped up the water in his felt hat, and after carefully wiping the red stain from his brother's lips, poured the cold fluid upon his face.

Albert revived, sat up, and tried to speak, but d.i.c.k pressed his hand upon his mouth.

"Nothing above a whisper, Al," he said softly. "The fight is not yet wholly over, and the Sioux are all about."

"I fainted," said Albert in a whisper. "O d.i.c.k, what a miserable, useless fellow I am! But it was the excitement and the run!"

"It was doubtless a lucky thing that you fainted," d.i.c.k whispered back. "If you hadn't, both of us would probably be dead now."

"It's not all over yet," said Albert.

"No, but it soon will be. Thank G.o.d, we've got our rifles. Do you feel strong enough to walk now, Al? The deeper we get into the thicket the better it will be for us."

Albert rose slowly to his feet, rocked a little, and then stood straight.

Only a few flashes were appearing now in the pa.s.s. d.i.c.k knew too well who had been victorious. The battle over, the Sioux would presently be ranging for stragglers and for plunder. He put one arm under Albert, while he carried both of the rifles himself.

They walked on through the thicket and the night gradually darkened. The silvery quality was gone from the air, and the two boys were glad. It would not be easy to find them now. In the pa.s.s both the firing and the long, whining whoop ceased entirely.

The flashes of red or blue appeared no more. Silence reigned there and in the valley. d.i.c.k shivered despite himself. For the moment the silence was more terrible than the noise of battle had been. Black, ominous shadows seemed to float down from the mountains, clothing all the valley. A chill wind came up, moaning among the pines. The valley, so warm and beautiful in the day, now inspired d.i.c.k with a sudden and violent repulsion. It was a hateful place, the abode of horror and dread. He wished to escape from it.

They crossed the thicket and came up against the mountain wall.

But it was not quite so steep as it had looked in the distance, and in the faint light d.i.c.k saw the trace of a trail leading up the slope among the pines. It was not the trail of human beings, merely a faint path indicating that wild animals, perhaps cougars, had pa.s.sed that way.

"How are you feeling, Al?" he asked, repeating his anxious query.

"Better. My strength has come back," replied his brother.

"Then we'll go up the mountain. We must get as far away as we can from those fiends, the Sioux. Thank G.o.d, Al, we're spared together!"

Each boy felt a moment of devout thankfulness. They had not fallen, and they were there together! Each also thought of the singular message that Bright Sun had given to them, but neither spoke of it.

They climbed for more than half an hour in silence, save for an occasional whisper. The bushes helped Albert greatly. He pulled himself along by means of them, and now and then the two boys stopped that he might rest. He was still excited under the influence of the night, the distant battle, and their peril, and he breathed in short gasps, but did not faint again. d.i.c.k thrust his arm at intervals under his brother's and helped him in the ascent.

After climbing a quarter of an hour, they stopped longer than usual and looked down at the pa.s.s, which d.i.c.k reckoned should be almost beneath them. They heard the faint sound of a shot, saw a tiny beam of red appear, then disappear, and after that there was only silence and blank darkness.

"It's all over now," whispered Albert, and it was a whisper not of caution, but of awe.

"Yes, it's all over," d.i.c.k said in the same tone. "It's likely, Al, that you and I alone out of all that train are alive. Conway and all the others are gone."

"Except Bright Sun," said Albert.

The two boys looked at each other again, but said nothing. They then resumed their climbing, finding it easier this time. They reached a height at which the undergrowth ceased, but the pines, growing almost in ordered rows, stretched onward and upward.

d.i.c.k sent occasional glances toward the pa.s.s, but the darkness there remained unbroken. Every time he turned his eyes that way he seemed to be looking into a black well of terror.

Both d.i.c.k and Albert, after the first hour of ascent, had a feeling of complete safety. The Sioux, occupied with their great ambush and victory, would not know there had been two stragglers behind the train, and even had they known, to search for them among the dense forests of distant mountain slopes would be a futile task. d.i.c.k's mind turned instead to the needs of their situation, and he began to appreciate the full danger and hardship of it.