While they listened it was repeatedonly once, but this time it died away in a moan, that told the terribletale that a deed of blood had been done.
"Los Indios? Los Indios?" That was the shout from the Gaucho camp.
"To arms, men, to arms!" roared patriarchal old McDonald, rushing swordin hand into our heroes' bed-chamber.
There was bustle and hurry now, but no confusion. The women were gotinto the fort first, the men covering their retreat, and hardly was thiseffected ere there was a headlong rush of a dark cloud that sweptupwards from the river's brink.
"Fire, men!" cried McDonald. "Give it 'em."
There was a rattling volley, and the cloud fell back with shouts andgroans. In five minutes more every man was inside, and the drawbridgewas up.
Foiled in their attempt to seize and occupy the estancia by a surprise,the Indians, who were over a hundred strong, would hardly dare to attackthe fort before morning. Nor did they seem to want to, but twice theymade attempts to creep towards the houses, intent on plunder, but such acontingency as this had been well considered while building the fort,and those who now made the attempt bitterly repented their rashness thevery next moment.
The men in the fort were thirty in all; their rifles were twenty.Twenty rifles against a hundred spears, the odds were not sooverwhelming; but those Indians are terribly cunning in their mode ofwarfare, as our heroes soon found out, for small balls of burning grass,thrown sling-fashion, attached to a stone and rope of skin, soon beganto fall thick and fast into the garrison.
McDonald made up his mind he would wait no longer. The drawbridge wassuddenly lowered, and out rushed the defenders. The surprise wassudden, the rout complete.
"To horse, to horse!" cried McDonald, who seemed to be everywhere in thefight. Then followed a wild stampede of the Indians, numbers of thembit the sod, and the rest scattered and disappeared. They seemed indeedto melt away.
When the victors returned it was so nearly day that no one would thinkof retiring, so breakfast was got ready.
This night's adventure did not interfere in the least with the sport ourheroes enjoyed, during the remainder of their stay. But the Indiansnever showed face again.
CHAPTER TWENTY.
PART VIII--THE BACKWOODS.
ROUNDING CAPE HORN--STORM AND TEMPEST--SAN FRANCISCO--GUIDES FOR THEBACKWOODS--THE GROUP AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE--A WILD HUNTER'S STORY.
Two months after the adventures related in last chapter, our wanderingtrio of friends found themselves bivouacked in one of the forests of thefar West, just as the shades of evening were beginning to deepen intonight. They had bade adieu to kind-hearted Captain Lyell at MonteVideo, finding a passage in an American ship to San Francisco. Heavyweather had been experienced while rounding the Horn, weather that putthem in mind of the old days up north in the ice-fields: stronghead-winds snow-laden, against which they could scarcely stand, far lesswalk; tempestuous grey seas, foam-fringed, that often broke aboard ofthem with sullen roar, or went hurrying astern with an angry growl, likea wild beast disappointed in its prey. But the good barque had borneherself well. And when at length her head was fairly north, clouds, andgloom, and storm fled away; the sun shone down on a sea of ripplingblue; reefs were shaken out, stu'n'sails set alow and aloft; and in afew weeks they were safely at anchor not far off that busy world's mart,that mighty mushroom city called San Francisco. Here they had lazed fora whole week, then wended their way towards the wilderness. Yet am Iloth to call it a wilderness, this beautiful tract of country in whichthey now found themselves. Savage and wild it was; its woods more oftenrang with the war-whoop of the Indian, or the roar of the grizzly bear,than echoed to the sound of the white roan's rifle; savage in allconscience. But no one who has not wandered in its great andinterminable forests, roamed over its mountains, or embarked on itsthousand and one rivers and lakes, could imagine that such sublimescenery could exist anywhere out of a poet's dream or an artist's fancy.
Now, although as the historian of their adventures, I am quite willingto admit that our heroes were, after nearly three years of wandering andhair-breadth 'scapes, and adventures in almost every land the sun shinesupon, both good travellers and sportsmen in the true sense of the word,still, I think, it was lucky for them they met with two experiencedhunters, who consented to guide them on their expedition to the northernbackwoods of America. They met them, as they had met Lyell, at a tabled'hote, in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco; and in a few days afriendship was cemented between them, which none of the party had everreason to repent of, because they were men of the world.
And here we have the five of them, mostly intent on the preparation ofthe evening meal. Lyell is cook to-night; and he evidently cooks fromno badly-stored larder. Yonder hangs a lordly deer; wild-fowl they havein prolusion; and in a short time they will, doubtless, enjoy their _alfresco_ dinner as only sportsmen can.
Dugald McArthur, one of their pioneers, is standing with his armsfolded, and his brawny shoulders leant against a tree, while honest JohnTravers is carefully examining the mechanism of Chisholm O'Grahame'sbone-crusher. Chisholm himself is gazing dreamily at the log-fire, andso, too, is Frank. But Dugald is the first to break the silence. Hebends down, and lays a hand on Chisholm's shoulder.
"I say," he remarks, "you wouldn't think to look at me that there wasmuch the matter with me, would you?" Chisholm smiled by way of reply.
"But there is, though," continued Dugald. "I'm suffering from a diseasethe doctors call nostalgia, and I oftentimes dream o' the bonnie hillsand glens of dear auld Scotland."
[Nostalgia, home-sickness; an irresistible longing to return to one'snative land, which sometimes becomes with the Swiss a fatal disease.]
"Well, you don't look very bad, I must say," said Chisholm. "But ifgoing back will cure you, why not go with us?"
"It is just what Jack and I mean to," said Dugald. "Now wait a weeuntil we have eaten supper, and sit down to toast our toes, and John andI will tell you what brought us out."
"Now," said Dugald, when the time had come, "it is ten long years, andbegun again, since Jack there and I came to the conclusion thatcivilisation was a grand mistake, that broad Scotland wasn't big enoughto hold us, and so turned our eyes to the West, to seek for adventuresand fortune. What determined our choice? Why this, we both fell inlove with the same lass. John and I always rowed in the same boat. Wewere both orphans, and had been at school and college together; and had,on coming to age, both put our monies into the same grand scheme. Thegrand scheme was a bubble; and, like all bubbles, it burst. While wewere still rich and fortunate, neither Jack nor I could ever tell whichof the two of us was most regarded by the beautiful, accomplished, butheartless Maggie Rae. As soon as we became poor, however, Maggie didn'tleave us much longer in doubt; she ended our suspense by marrying thewealthy old laird of Drumliedykes. That was a sad blow for me; and, Ibelieve, for Jack too, though it wasn't his nature to say very much.But I took to moping. I used to wander about the woods and lonelyglens, longing for peace, even if it were in the grave."
"I met Jack one evening as I was returning from one of these rambles;and I suppose I looked very lugubrious. I addressed him in the words ofour national poet--
"`Oppress'd with grief, oppress'd with care, A burden more than I can bear, I sit me down and sigh: O life! thou art a galling load, Along a rough and weary road, To wretches such as I.'"
But Jack pulled me up sharp.
"`Havers,'" [Scottish for absurd nonsense] said Jack, in a bold, manlyvoice. "I tell you, Dugald, man was never made to sit on a stane andgreet (weep); man was made to work. You envy the rich? Bah! Carriageswere made for the sick and the auld. A young man should feel the legsbeneath him, should feel the soul within him. Let us be up and doin',Dugald; there's no pleasure on earth, man, can equal his, wha can lookup to God, fra honest wark.
"Well, gentlemen, after this I was just as anxious to get away fromEngland as Jack was, so we made our preparations; and in a month's timewe had crossed
the wide Atlantic, and journeyed as near to the RockyMountains as cars would take us. I don't think we had either of us anyvery definite notion of what we should do, or what adventures we shouldmeet with. We were not unprepared, however, for anything. We had notgone abroad with our fingers in our mouths, so to speak; but we had readbooks on travel, and taken the best advice on everything. We had goodhorses, good waggons, good guns and compasses, and a fair supply of thenecessaries of life, to say nothing of a trusty guide. So we just set astout heart to a stiff brae (hill), and began the march. `To the west'was our watchword; and there was in all our wanderings, ever in ourhearts, the reflection of a sweet dream, which we firmly believed wouldone day become a reality, namely, that we would fall in with some