The Mountain Divide
CHAPTER V
"Indians," announced Stanley after a brief moment of inspection.
"We are cut off," he added, looking alertly over the landscape aboutthem. "This way, Bucks. Ride as low as you can." Without further wordshe made an abrupt turn to the right, striking south to get behind afriendly butte that rose half a mile away.
"The question now is," said Stanley, as they held their horses up alittle after getting somewhat farther out of sight, "whether they havelikewise seen us."
The harried pair were not long in doubt. They had hardly changed theircourse when there was immediate activity on the hill-side. Therailroad men spurred on; the distant horsemen, now on their flank,dashed out upon the broad slope that lay between the two parties androde straight and hard after the fleeing men. Stanley steadied hisinexperienced companion as the latter urged his horse. "Not too hardjust now. Your pony will need all his wind. It's a question of gettingaway with our scalps and we must be careful. Follow me."
Bucks's heart, as he looked back, crowded up into his throat. A longskirmish line of warriors had spread across the unbroken plateau tothe east, and Stanley, with nothing but instinct for a guide, wasmaking at top speed to the south to get away from them.
As the two dashed on, they found to their consternation that thecountry was growing smoother and affording fewer hiding-places fromthe sharp eyes behind them. Stanley knew they must either ride throughthe hills ahead or perish. He sought vainly for some break in thegreat black wall of low-lying mountains toward which they were riding,yet from what he knew of the country he hardly dared hope for one.
He had reconnoitred these hills time after time when running therailroad lines and knew pretty well where he was. The pursuers, too,apparently sure of their prey, rode hard, gradually lessening thedistance that separated them from the wary soldier and his companion.The Indians had ceased yelling now. It was beyond that. But even inhis excitement and fear the inexperienced boy could not but admire thecomposure and daring of his companion.
As Stanley glanced now and again back at his enraged enemies he wasevery inch a soldier. And he watched the distance between theCheyennes and himself as coolly as if calculating a mere problem ingeometry. While saving every possible breath for his horses, he yetmanaged to keep the Cheyennes at a distance. The Indians, bent onoverhauling the fleeing men before they could reach even the scantprotection of the scattered timber they were now approaching,redoubled their efforts to cut off the escape.
Forced by the desperation of his circumstances, Stanley bent more andmore to the west of south, even though in doing so he seemed to begetting into a more hopeless country. The veteran campaigner eyedBucks's horse carefully as he turned in his saddle, but Scott's wirybeast appeared quite fresh, and Stanley, turning his eyes, again sweptthe horizon for a friendly break in the black walls ahead. As he didso he was startled to see, directly in front, Indians riding at fullspeed out of the hills he was heading for. He reined his gallopinghorse and turned straight into the west.
"Bucks," he exclaimed, looking with concern at the rider now by hisside, "it's a case of obey orders now. If I stop at any time, you ridestraight on--do you understand? You've got a revolver?" Bucks tappedthe big Colt at his side. "Don't let them take you alive. And holdyour last shot till a buck rides in for your scalp."
The straining horses seemed to understand the sharp words that passedfrom saddle to saddle. The Indians were already within gunshot, buttoo sure of their game to lose any time in shooting; nor was Stanleywilling to waste a shot upon them. As he dodged in between a brokenwall of granite and a scrubby clump of cedars, closely followed byBucks, their pursuers could have picked either man from his saddle.
Stanley had no longer any fixed purpose of escape. He meant merely todismount when he could ride no farther and sell his life as best hecould, while Bucks took such further chance of escape as hiscompanion's last stand might afford. The hard-driven fighter was evenlooking for a well-placed rock to drop behind, when the horse plungingunder him lurched to one side of the cedars and a gulf in the wallssuddenly opened before his surprised rider.
A rotten ledge of burned granite seemed to head a mountain washdirectly in their path. There was a sheer drop of twenty feet to thecrumbling slope of disintegrated stone under the head of the drawitself, but Stanley, without looking back, never hesitated. Urging hispanting horse, he made a flying leap down into space, and horse andrider landed knee-deep in the soft, gravelly granite below them.
Bucks's mustang shied on the brink. He spurred him excitedly, and thetrembling beast, nerving himself, leaped far out over the ledge,following Stanley so closely that he almost struck him with his hoofsas he went flying over the engineer's head. Bucks rolled headlong ashis horse plunged into the loose debris. He scrambled to his feet and,spitting the gravel from between his bruised lips, caught the bridleof his horse as the latter righted himself.
No legs were broken and much was already gained.
"Quick!" cried Stanley. "Ride for your life!" he shouted as Bucksregained his saddle. The two spurred at the same time and dashed downthe draw at breakneck speed just as the Indians yelling on the brinkof the ledge stopped to pour a volley after the desperate men. Unableto land an effective shot, the Cheyennes, nothing daunted, andhesitating only a moment, plunged over the precipice after theirquarry.
But they had lost their great advantage. The dry watercourse provedunexpectedly good riding for the fleeing railroad men. It was adownhill run, with their hopes rising every moment. Moreover, the drawsoon turned sharply to the south and put a big shoulder of granitebetween the pursuers and the pursued. The horses of the latter werenow relieved, and the wary Stanley, riding with some reserve speed,held his rifle ready for a stern shot should one become necessary. Hefound himself riding between two almost perpendicular walls washed bythe same granite gravel into which they had plunged on the start, butwith the course again turning, to his surprise, to the east. Once,Stanley checked the flight long enough to stop and listen, but the twoheard the active Indians clattering down the canyon after them, androde on and on.
As they could see by the lengthening shadow on the mountain-sides farabove them, the sun was setting.
"Cheer up," cried Stanley, who had put his companion ahead of him."We've got the best of them. All we need is open country."
He did not mention the chances of disaster, which were that they mightencounter an obstacle that would leave them at bay before theirtireless pursuers. Mile after mile they galloped without halting againto see whether they were being chased. Indeed, no distance seemed tooconsiderable to put between them and the active war-paint in thesaddles behind.
A new turn in the canyon now revealed a wide valley opening betweenthe hills before them. Far below, golden in the light of the settingsun, they saw the great eastern slope of the Black Hills spreading outupon a beautiful plain.
Stanley swung his hat from his head with an exulting cry, and Bucks,without quite understanding why, but assuming it the right thing todo, yelled his loudest. On and on they rode, down a broad, spreadingridge that led without a break from the tortuous hills behind theminto the open country far below. Stanley put full ten miles betweenhimself and the canyon they had ridden out of before he checked hisspeed. The Indians had completely disappeared and, disappointed intheir venture, had no doubt ridden back to their fastnesses to waitfor other unwary white men. Stanley chose a little draw with goodwater and grass, and night was just falling as they picketed theirexhausted horses and stretched themselves, utterly used up, on thegrass.
"We are safe until morning, anyway," announced Stanley as he threwhimself down. "And this Indian chase may be the luckiest thing thathas ever happened to me in the troublesome course of an unlucky life.
"You don't understand," continued the engineer, wiping the sweat anddust from his tired face. Bucks admitted that he did not.
"No matter," returned his companion; "it isn't necessary now. You willsometime. But I think I have done in the last hour something I h
avebeen trying to do for years. Many others have likewise failed in thesame quest."
Bucks listened with growing interest.
"Yes, for years," Stanley went on, "incredible as it may sound, I havebeen searching these mountains for just such a crevice as we have thismoment ridden down. You see how this range"--the exhausted engineerstretched flat on his back, but, with burning eyes, pointed to theformidable mountain wall that rose behind them in the dusk of thewestern sky--"rises abruptly from the plains below. Our whole gradeclimb for the continental divide is right here, packed into these fewmiles. Neither I nor any one else has ever been able to find such apass as we need to get up into it. But if we have saved our scalps, myboy, you will share with me the honor of finding the pass for theUnion Pacific Railroad over the Rocky Mountains."
They were supperless, but it was very exciting, and Bucks wasextremely happy. Stanley watched that night until twelve. When he wokeBucks the moon was rising and the ghostly peaks in the west toweredsentinel-like above the plains flooded with silver. The two were tomove at one o'clock when the moon would be high enough to make ridingsafe. It was cold, but fire was forbidden.
The horses were grazing quietly, and Bucks, examining his revolver,which he had all the time felt he was wretchedly incompetent to shoot,sat down beside Stanley, already fast asleep, to stand his watch. Hehad lost Sublette's rifle in falling into the wash-out. At least hehad found no leisure to pick it up and save his hair in the sameinstant, and he wondered now how much he should have to pay for therifle.
When the sun rose next morning the two horsemen were far out of thefoot-hills and bearing northeast toward camp--so far had their ridefor life taken them from their hunting ground. They scanned thehorizon at intervals, with some anxiety, for Indians, and again withthe hope of sighting their missing guide. Once they saw a distant herdof buffalo, and Bucks experienced a shock until assured by Stanleythat the suspicious objects were neither Cheyennes nor Sioux.
By nine o'clock they had found the transcontinental telegraph line andhad a sure trail to follow until they discovered the grade stakes ofthe railroad, and soon descried the advance-guard of the graders busywith plough and shovel and scraper. As they rode into camp the veryfirst man to emerge from Casement's tent, with his habitual smile, wasBob Scott.
Casement himself, who had heard Scott's story when the latter had comein at daybreak, was awaiting Stanley's return with anxiety, but thiswas all forgotten in the great news Stanley brought. Sublette andScott now returned to the hunting camp for the cavalry detail, and,reinforced by these, the two heroes of the long flight rode back toreconnoitre their escape from the mountains. Bucks rode close to BobScott and learned how the scout had outwitted his assailants at thecanyon, and how after they had all ridden out of it, he had riddeninto it and retraced with safety in the night the path that thehunters had followed in riding into the hill country.
The second ride through the long defile, which itself was now theobject of so much intense inspection, Bucks found much less excitingthan the first. The party even rode up to where the first flying leaphad been made, and to Bucks's joy found Sublette's rifle still in thewash; it had been overlooked by the Indians.
What surprised Bucks most was to find how many hours it took to coverthe ground that Stanley and he had negotiated in seemingly as manyminutes.