"Much water, perhaps," said Two Arrows. "Must go somewhere. Find out some day."

The idea of a river suggested the other idea that it could be followed until an ambitious boy could ascertain where it went to. All that was swallowed up at once by the immediate desire to get down upon that green gra.s.s and among those trees. One-eye had seen the valley, but was inclined to stick pretty closely at the side of his master. There were only two of them, and they might need each other's help at any moment.

The road tramped by the bison herds did not wind much, as it went on down towards the level ground, but it lazily picked out the easiest slopes and turned the corners of the great rocks on good curves. As Two Arrows and his faithful companion wound around one of these curves, almost at the bottom of the long descent, they suddenly came upon a discovery that startled them. Even the dog p.r.i.c.ked up his ears and began to growl, and Two Arrows stepped quickly back behind the rock. He had never been in a white man's village, but he had seen a fort and a few houses around it, and he had seen the houses of Mexican Indians and some others, built of "adobe" or sunburnt brick. He was not, therefore, a judge of such matters, and what he saw filled him with astonishment. He was not exactly alarmed, for a house could not chase him, but he exclaimed,

"Pale-face lodge. Good many. Very bad. What can he do now?"

He peered silently forth for several minutes, but not a human being was in sight. There were no signs of life, no curling smoke, no barking dogs, no cattle, nothing but scattered structures of stone. These must have been put there by somebody, but it began to look as if whoever had built them had gone to some other hunting-ground.

Two Arrows noted everything with eyes that grew more brilliant in their swift and searching glances. There could hardly be any danger in such a solitude as that, but the occasion required caution, and the young "brave" made his advances from cover to cover as if there were eyes in every stone of those houses. One-eye crept at his side with his head and tail up, very much as if there had been game ahead. It was a curious piece of business. The nearer they drew to the objects of their curiosity the safer and lonelier became the appearance of all things.

Some of the stone walls had tumbled down, and not one of them had a roof over it of any sort. That was nothing to Two Arrows. For all he knew there were tribes of cunning and wicked pale-faces who built their lodges without roofs. If the world contained anything cunning and wicked and dangerous, in the mind of Two Arrows it was a pale-face. He had been brought up to look upon a white man as a being to be watched, and as an evil to be avoided or destroyed, as the case might be, and yet as a sort of magician, capable of doing wonders, and of bringing the richest presents in all the earth.

He now at last felt confidence and courage to actually crawl through an opening of one of those walls and look around him. It was one great, empty room, strewn with bits of stone, and growing thickly, here and there, were gra.s.s and tall weeds.

"n.o.body here for ever so long," had already been his conclusion, and he was thoroughly satisfied of it now. He arose and walked around and looked at things in that and every other house. Some of them had windows so high up as to prove that they must have had two or even three stories in some old time when people used them, but those were "signs"

that Two Arrows could not read. The main thing to him was that he was still all alone and in perfect safety. If the wisest white man in the world had been there with him, he could not have formed an idea by whom those houses were constructed. Just such ruins have been found in many places among the valleys of the western mountains, and all that learned people can yet do is to guess how they came to be there. The houses did not come up like so many mushrooms, and beyond that they have almost nothing to say for themselves. Two Arrows had no further questions to ask, and One-eye had searched nooks and corners with an a.s.siduity which had been duly rewarded: he had captured a fine, fat rabbit, and he brought it to his master as a sort of token. No rabbit would have made a home in a place infested by white men, for rabbits have the same idea of them that Indians have and for somewhat similar reasons. The rabbits get very little good from them, however, and the Indians a great deal--that is, unless the rabbits live near a white man's farm and garden. In that case they come up fully to the Indian standard and help themselves to all they can get hold of.

Two Arrows picked up the rabbit and walked out to what had been the door of that house. It was nearly sunset, and there could be no more exploring done that day. He looked away off into the valley and saw another token that he was alone in that part of it: no less than three gangs of deer were feeding quietly between him and a bit of forest not more than half a mile away.

Right past the group of old ruins ran a dancing brook of cool, pure water from the mountains, and a better place to camp in could not have been imagined. It was evidently safe to build a fire and cook the rabbit, but for more perfect safety Two Arrows made his blaze on a spot where some old walls prevented the light of it from being seen at too great a distance. After his supper was eaten there came over him a feeling that he had seen and done altogether too much for one boy in one day. He had come out into a sort of new world through a cleft in the mountains, and he did not know that precisely the same thing happens to every boy in the world who makes up his mind to be something. The boys who are contented not to be anything do not have much of a world to live in, anyhow, poor fellows; they only hang around and eat and wear clothes.

CHAPTER X

SILE'S POCKET

Na-tee-kah had all the load a girl of her size could comfortably carry when she set out with her people. So had all the rest except the dignified warriors. For that reason all the urging in the world could not get out of that dispirited cavalcade one-half the speed attained by Two Arrows and One-eye the previous evening. Na-tee-kah thought continually of her pony, between thoughts of her daring brother and wonderings of what he had done and seen. She knew very well that there is nothing so disables a "plains Indian" as to dismount him. It is not so bad as to break both his legs, but he is so accustomed, from childhood, to use a horse's legs instead of his own that he is like a man lost when he is set on foot. He has learned to hunt on horseback mostly, and all his fighting has been done in the saddle. The old-time Indians of the East and of Cooper's novels had hardly any horses, and in their deep forests could not have used them to advantage. What the far Western tribes did in those days n.o.body knows, but all the tribes which have migrated out of the woods into the prairie country have become "pony-men."

Na-tee-kah could not remember another time when she, daughter of a chief, had been compelled to carry so much, even for a short distance.

She knew how to pack a pony capitally well, for that is one of the first arts of Nez Perce house-keeping. When and where should they ever get some more ponies? Her father was a renowned horse-thief, and so were several others of the best warriors in the band, and there was hope in that thought; still there is a double difficulty before a man who sets out to steal horses without having one of his own to ride.

"Two Arrows will steal horses some day," she said to Ha-ha-pah-no, confidently.

"Big chief: steal a heap. No boy any more. Big Tongue find a horse; say he stole him. No brave. Pony come somehow."

n.o.body else in that band could have guessed how the mind of Long Bear himself was busy with plans concerning that very matter. He thought of all the horses of all the tribes at any kind of difference with the Nez Perces, and he thought of the white traders and their rich droves of quadrupeds of all sorts. He had won his rank fairly, as his son was likely to do after him, and he had a great deal of courage and ambition; just at present, however, he was a dismounted horse-thief, and he felt the disgrace of it even more than the inconvenience. It was a sad thing to be afoot at his time of life, and he brooded over it like some great white merchant who had suddenly failed in business. He feared that it would take some time to set up that band again, without any four-footed capital to begin on.

It was pleasant to find the trail so good, at all events, and before dark they made out to reach the very spot where Two Arrows had camped.

They had been more than twice as long in getting there, but the first brave who pushed on into the open s.p.a.ce found the dead embers of a fire and began to study them. Not far behind him were Na-tee-kah and Ha-ha-pah-no, and it was hard to say which of them was the first to point at the black coals and ashes, and exclaim, "Two Arrows!"

The word was echoed from lip to lip until it came to Long Bear and his wife. For a wonder he was walking beside her, which was as near as he could come to carrying her load for her. She was only the step-mother of Na-tee-kah and her brother, and had a pappoose of her own as part of her burden, but she took her full share of the family pride when her husband drew himself grimly up and shut off the strong temptation to "whoop."

"Young brave," he said to her with great calmness. "Great chief some day. All like father. Same. Go steal pony pretty soon."

The camp was quickly made, and there was food for all in moderate allowance. They were certain of resting in perfect security, and in the morning they were as eager as Two Arrows had been to push on out of such narrow quarters. Nothing happened to any of them until late in the day, and then the whole band went suddenly into camp again.

The Big Tongue had become almost a silent Indian under the effects of hard walking, but he had been stung again by remarks from Ha-ha-pah-no, and he had gone ahead. He had not gone far enough to make him look enterprising, but all at once the canon fairly rang with a whoop he sent back, to let the rest know he had found something. At the same moment three great vultures, or buzzard-eagles, arose from a prize they had found, and soared away. They were wonderfully wide-winged birds, and each carried off a good dinner, for they had nearly finished the offal left upon the ground by the carca.s.ses of the cougar and the big-horn.

The Big Tongue pointed proudly at the discovery he had made, and was about to say something, when he was once more overwhelmed. His whooping had brought a swarm of the braves around him, but of course no squaws had presumed to push in. It was for that very cause that the eyes of Na-tee-kah had been busy among the rocks, and so she had discovered the charcoal "token" scored upon one of them.

"Two Arrows!" she screamed, and in a moment more there were warriors there, taking away the stones which covered the meat and the skins.

It was time now for Long Bear to do all the whooping there was in him.

His son had slain a cougar single-handed, and had killed a big-horn, and here were the proofs of it. The whole band could at once have another feast of fresh meat, provided by the young hero, for whom they were indebted to the great Long Bear.

It was decided that they had travelled far enough for one day, but that an early start should be made the next morning. That had also been an interesting day at the camp by the spring.

The over-wearied pale-faces slept well, but Yellow Pine arose three times to go around among the animals and see how they were doing. He had them all fed and rubbed down most carefully in the morning. It was a good thing to do, and when Sile Parks awoke and stretched himself, he felt as if he also wanted to be fed and rubbed down. Almost everybody else was already astir, and breakfast was soon ready for him.

Yellow Pine did a deal of exploring, before and after he breakfasted, and Sile at once set out to imitate him. He asked some question or other of every one he saw, and believed that he had learned a great deal. At last he came to a heap of stones and bushes that seemed to him to have been piled up remarkably.

"How could they ever have got there?" he said, as he began to pull upon a bush with green leaves yet clinging to its twigs. In five minutes more he knew where the Nez Perces had made their hasty "cache" for their lodges and other treasures, and he went at once to report it to his father and to Yellow Pine. The latter looked at Sile with positive respect, and exclaimed,

"There now, jedge; that settles it. I know I'm right; them Indians had lost their ponies. I couldn't find a hoof-mark on their trail this morning; they dragged some lodge-poles along, though. I say, we must leave their cache jest as we found it. We must foller right along, too, or we'll run short of fodder. They've taken my old road. We needn't be afraid of 'em, only we'd best keep a sharp lookout."

Horses and mules and all felt as if a day's rest would be as good as a treat; but after all was said and done it was decided to keep moving.

The start made was not an early one, and there was work for all hands here and there. The herds of bisons had not prepared that road for the pa.s.sage of wagon wheels, and it needed the axe in one place and the crow-bar in another before the teams could pa.s.s. There was no sort of danger that the Nez Perces would be caught up with by the mining-party, and Yellow Pine seemed to breathe more freely at the end of every mile.

"No, jedge," he said; "we won't have to leave the outfit anywhere.

There'll be a heap of hard work at some spots, but we can make our way through, and we can come and go by this track forever after it's well opened."

Sile Parks learned a great deal that day about the mysteries of road-making; he also learned how much a really well-built wagon will stand if it is not too heavily loaded. For all that, however, the best part of his time was expended in staring at the peaks, and in searching the walls of the canon for traces of gold and silver ore.

"Father," said he at last, at a place where the wagons were "stuck" for a while, "I'm going ahead to see what'll turn up."

"Don't go too far, that's all."

"Keep yer eye out for mines," shouted Yellow Pine, with a laugh, and Sile took it seriously.

"It's a gold country," he said to himself, "and I might stumble upon some of it."

That was precisely what he made out to do. He was marching along, with his eyes on all the rocky precipices, as if the mouth of a gold-mine might open to him at any moment, and he was not so careful of his feet as he should have been. A loose stone shot away from under him, and down he came upon a fairly level floor of sand and gravel. It was so sudden and so sharp a dropping that he sat still for a moment and looked around him.

"Halloo, what's that?" Something bright and yellow had caught his eye, peering out at him from the gravel his boot-heel had disturbed. "Gold!

gold! A chunk of gold!"

Thousands upon thousands of "placer miners" have raised precisely such a shout in just such sandy gullies, but Sile felt as if he were the first being on earth to whom such an experience had ever happened. He at once began to dig and sift among the gravel fiercely. He took out his hunting-knife and plied it as a trowel. Little bits of dull yellow metal rewarded him every now and then until he worked along to where a ledge (or the edge of one) of quartz came nearly to the surface. On the upper side of that, and lying closely against it, he pried out something that made him shout "Hurrah!" and that then gave him almost a sick feeling.

It was a gathering of golden nuggets and particles which would nearly have filled his hat, and there were others like it, only smaller, all along the edge of that stone. For unknown centuries it had been serving as a "bar" in the natural "washer" made by that ravine, and had caught and kept whatever the torrents had borne down from crumbling quartz rocks above and had drifted against it.

Sile thought of Aladdin and his wonderful lamp; then he thought of the California miners; then he shut his eyes for a moment. Then he went on digging, and he was hard at it when a tall form stooped over him and the voice of Yellow Pine exclaimed,

"I'd call it--If the youngster hasn't lighted onto a placer and scooped the biggest kind of a pocket! Sile, you've done it. You can jest ax me all the fool questions you've a mind to after this. You was really learnin' by 'em."