Yet, in the days that followed, all their preparations seemed for nothing. The mornings came one after another, each crisp and clear, and the days warmed. The gra.s.s was green on all the hills now. There were several light showers and a thunderstorm that brought a crashing downpour that lasted for less than an hour.

The Qu'Appelle River lay somewhere before them and off to the west the Moose Mountains.

Orrin found himself thinking of Nettie. She should be well on her way to Fort Carlton now, far away to the north. He would probably not see her again. The thought made him melancholy, yet there was nothing to be done. Their way lay west, and if Tell were alive, he would be coming on to join them if by some chance he was not already there before them.

Occasionally, they saw the bones of buffalo, once the antlers of a deer. Occasionally, there were other bones, unfamiliar to a quick glance, but there was no time to pause and examine them. They pushed on, accompanied by the creaking, groaning wheels of the Red River carts.

Tyrel's bruised leg remained sore and stiff, but his flesh wound healed rapidly, as wounds usually did on the plains and in the mountains. He took to riding a little more each day, usually scouting wide of the drive and only returning to it occasionally.

"Something's not right," he commented once. "I can smell trouble."

"The Ox is worried," Orrin added. "He's got something on his mind. That partner of his, I guess. Gilcrist, his name was. Or so he said."

"Good a name as any," Tyrel said. "Out here, if a man doesn't like his name, he can choose his own, and a lot of folks have."

"He never talks to Fleming," Orrin said. "At least, I haven't seen them even near one another for days."

A brief but violent thunderstorm came with the afternoon. Fort Qu'Appelle was nearby, but there was no need to stop, and when the storm pa.s.sed, he led the drive on past the fort. However, he had gone but a mile or less when a party of riders appeared. Several Indians, Crees by the look of them, rode up. While the cattle moved on, Orrin waited with Baptiste and the carts.

The Indians were friendly, curious as to where the cattle were being taken and about the Sioux, with whom they were only occasionally friendly.

Tyrel rode to meet them when they finally caught up.

"Picked up some sign," he said. "Something you should see, Orrin."

"Trouble?"

"Maybe."

Orrin glanced at the sun. "We've got a few miles of driving ahead of us. All right, let's go look!"

The tracks were two miles ahead of the herd. At least five riders had come up from the southwest and had met a half-dozen riders coming down from the northeast. They had dismounted, built a small fire, and made coffee. The coffee grounds had been thrown out when they emptied their pot for packing.

"Maybe a dozen men riding well-shod horses," Tyrel said, "and they rode off to the west together."

Orrin nodded. He had been poking around the campfire and looking at tracks.

"Just for luck, Tye," he said, "let's turn due north for a spell."

"Toward Fort Carlton?" Tyrel asked, his eyes too innocent.

Orrin flushed. "Well, it seems a good idea."

Chapter XVI.

When first it come to me that I was alive, I was moving. For what seemed a long time, I lay there with my eyes closed and just feeling the comfort of lying still. Then I tried to move, and everything hurt, and I mean everything.

Then I got to wondering where I was and what was moving me and what was I doing flat on my back when there was work to be done?

When I tried to move my right arm, I could, and my hand felt for my gun, and it was gone. So was my gun belt and holster. Yet I wasn't tied down, so it must be that I was with friendly folks. About that time, I realized I was riding on a travois pulled behind an Indian pony.

After a bit, I closed my eyes and must have pa.s.sed out again because the next thing I knew we were standing still. I was lying flat out on the ground, and I could hear a fire crackling and smell meat broiling.

Now when a body has been around as long as me, he collects a memory for smells, and the smells told me even without opening my eyes that I was in an Indian camp.

About that time, an Indian came over to me, and he saw my eyes were open, and he said something in an Indian dialect I hadn't heard before, and an Indian woman came over to look at me. I tried to sit up, and although it hurt like h.e.l.l, I managed it. Didn't seem I had any broken bones, but I was likely bruised head to foot, which can be even more painful sometimes.

She brought me a bowl with some broth in it, and whatever else was wrong with me hadn't hurt my appet.i.te. The man who had found me awake was a young man, strongly made but limping.

A youngster, walking about, came over and stared at me with big round eyes, and I smiled at him. When I had put away two bowls of broth, an old Indian came to me with my gun belt and holster. My six-shooter was in it, and he handed it to me. First thing, I checked the loads, and they were there.

The old man squatted beside me. "Much cows, all gone," he said. He gestured to show they'd scattered every which way.

"Men?" I asked.

He shrugged and pointed across the way, and I saw another man lying on the ground a dozen feet away. I raised up a bit and looked. It was Lin, the Chinese cook.

"How bad?"

"Much bad. Much hurt." He looked over at Lin and then said, "White man?"

"Chinese," I said.

The word meant nothing to him, so I drew a diagram in the dust, showing where we now were, the south Saskatchewan and the mountains of British Columbia. That he grasped quickly. Then I made a s.p.a.ce and said, "Much water." Beyond it, I drew a coast and indicated China. "His home," I said.

He studied it, then indicated British Columbia and drew his eyes thin to seem like Lin's. "Indian," he said, "here."

It was true. A long time since I had been told by a man in the Sixth Cavalry that some of the Indians from the northwest coast had eyes like the Chinese.

After a while, I went to sleep and was only awakened when they were ready to offer me food; it was daybreak.

The young Indian who had been wounded and on the travois when first we encountered them carried a rifle of British make. The older men were armed only with bows. We were heading northwest, but I asked no questions, being content to just lie and rest. What had happened to me, I did not know, but I suspected a mild concussion and that I had fallen and been dragged. My shoulders were raw, I discovered, and had been treated with some herbs by a squaw.

On the following day, I got up and could move around. Then one old Indian, who seemed to be in authority if anyone was, showed me my saddle, bridle, saddlebags, and rifle, carefully cared for on another travois. I left the riding gear where it was but took up the rifle, at which the old man showed approval. Seemed to me they expected grief and were glad to have another fighting man on his feet.

Lin had a broken leg. He was skinned up and bruised not unlike what happened to me, but he had the busted leg to boot. They'd set the bone, put splints on the leg, and bound it up with wet rawhide, which had dried and shrunk tight around the leg.

"Where are the others?"

I walked beside him as we moved. "No tellin'. Dead, maybe. Scattered to the winds, maybe. All you've got to do is get well."

Well, I was a long way from being a well man. Before the day was over, I was so tired I could scarce drag. They made camp in a tree-lined hollow with a small waterhole and a bunch of poplars.

We'd lost all track of time, Lin an' me. We'd both been unconscious, and we didn't know how long. I'd no idea what had become of my horse or the remuda stock we had, and we'd lost all our cattle.

Only thing I could say for us was that we were headin' in the right direction and we were alive.

What I needed was a horse. This was the first time I'd been caught afoot in a long time, and I didn't like it. I should be scouting the country, hunting for Tyrel and roundin' up cows.

Lin was feeling better. As for me, I limped along with a head aching something fierce and a disposition that would frighten a grizzly. Not that I let those Indian folks see it, but, believe me, I was sore.

Meanwhile, a way out in the western mountains, Logan was in trouble and wishful of our coming.

As to Tyrel, he might be killed dead, but I mis...o...b..ed that. Tyrel was just too downright ornery to be killed that easy. If he ever went down to death, there'd be bodies stacked all about, you could bet on that.

One thing about a Sackett, he finishes what he starts if it is a good thing to start. All of us knew that whatever else was happening, we'd be pushing on west. West was where I was going, and if I arrived there with no cows, I'd round up a buffalo herd and drive it in, or try.

If that failed, I'd have to get a rattlesnake for a whip and drive a flock of grizzlies. Right now I was mad enough to do it.

It so happened that at the time of the stampede these Indians were a way off to one side where they'd had to go to camp on water. The stampede went right by, an easy half mile off.

"Where do you go?" I asked the old man.

He gestured to the northwest. They were going back to some place; that was all I could gather. His English was limited, and I spoke none of the Indian tongues that made sense to him. It was a rare thing to find an Indian who spoke any language but his own, although some had picked up some French or English because of trade.

Their direction was our direction, so we stayed with them. Besides, they needed us. The young warrior was still not able to travel far when hunting, and neither of the old men had much luck with hunting. Their food was mostly small game or roots picked hither and yon.

The meat I'd left them had been a G.o.dsend.

Soon as I was fit, I scouted around some of an evening. First evening I had no luck; never even saw anything worth shooting until the second day when I spotted a buffalo calf.

It was a week before Lin could walk, even a little, and by that time we'd traveled most of a hundred miles. It was that night by the fire that Little Bear came to me. He was the youngster walking about, and me and him had talked a good deal, neither understanding too much except that we liked one another.

He had been out setting snares, and he came to me by the fire. "A horse!" he said.

"That's it, son. That's what I need."

He pointed off to the east. "A horse!" he repeated.

"You mean you've seen a horse?"

When he said yes, I went to my saddle and took my rope, from it. "You show me," I said.

Our horses had been scattered when the stampede took place, and it might just be one of our own. Not that it would be any easier to catch.

We walked maybe a mile, and he pointed. Sure enough, feeding along the shadow of some poplars was a dun horse.

Now Tyrel and me, we both rode line-back duns, probably get of the same sire, as we'd caught them out of a wild bunch who ran with a powerful old dun stallion. The stallion was no horse to catch. He'd run wild too long; he was too strong and too mean. A horse like that will never stop fighting, and he'll either kill somebody or himself.

At that distance, I couldn't make out whether that was Tyrel's dun or mine. But he'd been riding his when the stampede hit us, so this one must be mine. There was a shadow from the trees, or I might have guessed which one it was.

Anyway, we moved toward him. His head came up sharp, and he looked at me with ears p.r.i.c.ked and he let me come on.

When I was within fifty yards, he shied away a mite, but he didn't run, and I called to him. He walked toward me then, and I rubbed his neck a little, and he seemed glad to be back with folks again. I rigged a hackamore and led him back to camp. Next morning, when we started out, I was in the saddle and felt like a whole man again.

The wind began to pick up, the gra.s.s bending before it, and I was scouting ahead looking for game when I came on some tracks.

Little Bear looked at them and pointed toward the direction they'd taken. "You cattle," he said. "Two mans!"

Maybe thirty head of cattle and two riders, and we set off after them.

We found them bedded down near a slough alongside a capful of fire with some meat broiling.

" 'Light an' set!" Cap said, like he'd seen me only that morning. "Brandy an' me got a few of your cows."

It was good to see them. They had six horses, two of them strange, wearing a Lazy Y brand.

"You don't look the worse for wear," I said.

"Pure-dee luck! We was out in front, and we run for it. We had fast horses, an' after a mile or two, we managed to cut away to the side. Seen anybody else?"

"Lin's alive. He's with the Indians."

Little Bear rode off to get his people, and we set by the fire explainin' to each other what happened.

"All we can do," I said, "is head north to meet Orrin. He'll have grub, and if there's anybody else alive, they'll come to that rendezvous."

"That's how I figured it." Cap glanced over at me. "You see the tracks? It wasn't Sioux."

"We know."

"I wonder what Logan's tied into, anyway?"

The smell of the wood fire was almighty nice, and I felt right just having a horse again. I've spent so much time sittin' on the hurricane deck of a horse that I ain't at home anywhere else.

Little Bear's folks came in shy of midnight, and we all bedded down close together, with Cap, Brandy, an' me sharin' time with the cows.

Cap an' Brandy were sure enough hungry. They'd been eatin' squirrel, rabbit, and skunk most of the time since the stampede, when they ate anything at all.

"There's hills up ahead," Cap said. "Maybe we'll run into Orrin an' his carts. Those are the Thunder Breeding Hills. If he didn't find anything west of the Turtles, he'd keep on west, wouldn't he?"

"He would. Or I think he would."

Yet I was worried. We were a long way from the mines, we had only thirty head or so, we were short on riding stock, and we had no grub or ammunition. We'd lost the biggest part of our outfit, and we were riding strange country.

There were Sioux around, and there were the white renegades who'd attacked before. Yet it felt good to be back with Cap. Brandy and Lin were new men, but Cap I knew from way back. Any kind of a stir-up, be it work or fight, Cap would stand his ground.

The cattle had lost weight. A stampede can run a good many pounds off a critter, and these had been driven hard since.

The way we drove them was across a prairie with islands of brush and occasional swamps. Time or two we had to stop and rope some old mossyhorn out of the bog. Those islands of brush worried me because a body could get close to a man before he realized. And they did.

All of a sudden, Cap ups with his hand and outs with his Winchester, and we saw three men ride into view from behind a clump of brush.