"Humph!" snorted our leader, feeling in her pockets. She drew forth two flasks, each stoppered with a bit of corncob. The one held sulphur matches, thus kept quite dry, and this she pa.s.sed to me. The other she handed to the young woman.

"Here," said she, "take a drink of that. It'll do you good."

I heard the girl gasp and choke as she obeyed this injunction; and then Mandy applied the bottle gurglingly to her own lips.

"I've got a gallon of that back there on the boat," said Auberry ruefully.

"Heap of good it'll do you there," remarked Mandy. "Looks to me like you all never did travel much. Fer me, I always go heeled. Wherever I gits throwed, there my rifle, and my matches, and my licker gits throwed _too_! Now I'll show you how to, light a fire."

Presently we had a roaring blaze started, which added much to the comfort of all, for the chill of night was over the river, despite the fact that this was in the springtime. Mandy seated herself comfortably upon a log, and producing a corncob pipe and a quant.i.ty of natural leaf tobacco, proceeded to enjoy herself in her own fashion. "This here's all right," she remarked. "We might be a heap worse off'n we air."

I could not help pitying the young woman who crouched near her at the fireside, still shivering; she seemed so young and helpless and so out of place in such surroundings. As presently the heat of the flame made her more comfortable, she began to tuck back the tumbled locks of her hair, which I could see was thick and dark. The firelight showed in silhouette the outlines of her face. It seemed to me I had never seen one more beautiful. I remembered the round firmness of her body in my arms, the clasp of her hands about my neck, her hair blown across my cheek, and I reflected that since fortune had elected me to be a rescuer, it was not ill that so fair an object had been there for the rescuing.

Perhaps she felt my gaze, for presently she turned and said to me, in as pleasant a speaking voice as I had ever heard, "Indeed, it might be worse. I thank you so much. It was very brave of you."

"Listen at that!" grunted Mandy McGovern. "What'd them men have to do with it? Where'd you all be now if it wasn't for me?"

"You'd be much better off," I ventured, "if I hadn't done any rescuing at all, and if we'd all stayed over there on the boat." I pointed to the lights of the _River Belle_, lying on the opposite sh.o.r.e, something like a mile above us.

"We're all right now," said old Auberry after a time. "If we can't get across to the boat, it's only four or five miles up to the settlements on this side, opposite the old Independence landing."

"I couldn't walk," said the girl. She shyly looked down at the edge of her thin wrapper, and I saw the outline of an uncovered toe.

"Here, ma'am," said Auberry, unknotting from his neck a heavy bandana.

"This is the best I can do. You and the woman see if you can tie up your feet somehow."

The girl hesitated, laughed, and took the kerchief. She and Mandy bent apart, and I heard the ripping of the handkerchief torn across. The girl turned back to the fire and put out a little foot for us to see, m.u.f.fled now in the red folds of the kerchief. Her thin garments by this time were becoming dry, and her spirits now became more gay. She fell into a ready comradeship with us.

As she stood at the fire, innocent of its defining light, I saw that she was a beautiful creature, apparently about twenty years of age. Given proper surroundings, I fancied, here was a girl who might make trouble for a man. Eyes like hers, I imagined, had before this set some man's heart astir; and one so fair as she never waited long in this world for admirers.

She stooped and spread out her hands before the flames. I could see that her hands were small and well formed, could see the firelight shine pink at the inner edges of her fingers. On one finger, as I could not avoid noticing, was a curious ring of plain gold. The setting, also of gold, was deeply cut into the figure of a rose. I recalled that I had never seen a ring just similar. Indeed, it seemed to me, as I stole a furtive glance at her now and then, I had never seen a girl just similar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY FOUGHT FURIOUSLY THE YELLING CHARGING REDSKIN WARRIORS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WAGONS DRAW INTO A DEFENSIVE CIRCLE]

We had waited perhaps not over an hour at our fireside, undecided what to do, when Auberry raised a hand. "Listen," he said. "There's a boat coming"; and presently we all heard the splash of oars. Our fire had been seen by one of the boats of the _River Belle_, out picking up such stragglers as could be found.

"h.e.l.lo, there!" called a rough voice to us, as the boat grated at our beach. Auberry and I walked over and found that it was the mate of the boat, with a pair of oarsmen in a narrow river skiff.

"How many's there of you?" asked the mate--"Five?--I can't take you all."

"All right," said Auberry, "this gentleman and I will walk up to the town on this side. You take the women and the boy. We'll send down for our things in the morning, if you don't come up."

So our little bivouac on the beach came to an end. A moment later the pa.s.sengers were embarked, and Auberry and I, standing at the bow, were about to push off the boat for them.

"A moment, sir," exclaimed our friend of the fireside, rising and stepping toward me as I stood alongside the boat. "You are forgetting your coat."

She would have taken it from her shoulders, but I forbade it. She hesitated, and finally said, "I thank you so much"; holding out her hand.

I took it. It was a small hand, with round fingers, firm of clasp. I hate a hard-handed woman, or one with mushy fingers, but this, as it seemed to me, was a hand excellently good to clasp--warm now, and no longer trembling in the terrors of the night.

"I do not know your name, sir," she said, "but I should like my father to thank you some day."

"All ready!" cried the mate.

"My name is Cowles," I began, "and sometime, perhaps--"

"All aboard!" cried the mate; and so the oars gave way.

So I did not get the name of the girl I had seen there in the firelight.

What did remain--and that not wholly to my pleasure, so distinct it seemed--was the picture of her high-bred profile, shown in chiaroscuro at the fireside, the line of her chin and neck, the tumbled ma.s.ses of her hair. These were things I did not care to remember; and I hated myself as a soft-hearted fool, seeing that I did so.

"Son," said old Auberry to me, after a time, as we trudged along up the bank, stumbling over roots and braided gra.s.ses, "that was a almighty fine lookin' gal we brung along with us there."

"I didn't notice," said I.

"No," said Auberry, solemnly, "I noticed you didn't take no notice; so you can just take my judgment on it, which I allow is safe. Are you a married man?"

"Not yet," I said.

"You might do a heap worse than that gal," said Auberry.

"I suppose you're married yourself," I suggested.

"Some," said Auberry, chuckling in the dark. "In fact, a good deal, I reckon. My present woman's a Shoshone--we're livin' up Horse Creek, below Laramie. Them Shoshones make about the best dressers of 'em all."

"I don't quite understand--"

"I meant hides. They can make the best buckskin of any tribe I know." He walked on ahead in the dark for some time, before he added irrelevantly, "Well, after all, in some ways, women is women, my son, and men is men; that bein' the way this world is made just at these here present times.

As I was sayin', that's a powerful nice lookin' gal."

I shuddered in my soul. I glanced up at the heavens, studded thick with stars. It seemed to me that I saw gazing down directly at me one cold, bright, reproving star, staring straight into my soul, and accusing me of being nothing more than a savage, nothing better than a man.

CHAPTER XIV

AU LARGE

At our little village on the following morning, Auberry and I learned that the _River Bell_ would lie up indefinitely for repairs, and that at least one, perhaps several days would elapse before she resumed her journey up stream. This suited neither of us, so we sent a negro down with a skiff, and had him bring up our rifles, Auberry's bedding, my portmanteaus, etc., it being our intention to take the stage up to Leavenworth. By noon our plans were changed again, for a young Army officer came down from that Post with the information that Colonel Meriwether was not there. He had been ordered out to the Posts up the Platte River, had been gone for three weeks; and no one could tell what time he would return. The Indians were reported very bad along the Platte. Possibly Colonel Meriwether might be back at Leavenworth within the week, possibly not for a month or more!

This was desperate news for me, for I knew that I ought to be starting home at that very time. Still, since I had come hither as a last resort, it would do no good for me to go back unsuccessful. Should I wait here, or at Leavenworth; or should I go on still farther west? Auberry decided that for me.

"I tell you what we can do," he said. "We can outfit here, and take the Cut-off trail to the Platte, across the Kaw and the Big and Little Blue--that'll bring us in far enough east to catch the Colonel if he's comin' down the valley. You'd just as well be travelin' as loafin', and that's like enough the quickest way to find him."