continued the sutler. "If they told me that the property belonged to them, I should have to believe them."
"But I will be here," said Elam indignantly.
"Well, you must get somebody to prove that the skins are yours."
Elam looked down at the counter, turning these words over in his mind, and when he had grasped their full import, it became clear to him that he had no one to depend on but himself. It became evident to him that the arm of the law was not extensive enough to reach from the States away out there to the fort, and, as the sutler would not lend him a.s.sistance, he must either take the matter into his own hands or stand idly by and see the proceeds of his work go into the pockets of rascals.
That he resolved he would never do. The very thought enraged him.
"Look a-here, Mr.--Mr. Bluenose," said Elam--Elam did not know the sutler"s name, and this cognomen was suggested to him by the most prominent feature on the man"s face, which was a dark purple, telling of frequent visits to a private demijohn he kept in the back room--"you shan"t never make a cent out of that plunder of mine, because it will not come into this fort!"
"Don"t get excited," said the sutler.
"I aint. I"m only just a-telling of you."
"What are you going to do?"
"Well, the major wouldn"t make them two fellows give back my furs, and so I asked him if he would raise a furse in case I got them back in my own way, and he said he wouldn"t," said Elam. "That"s all I"ve got to say."
"I"ll tell you what"s the matter," said the sutler, a bright idea striking him; "the Cheyennes have got them. Were they afoot?"
"Yes, they were. I don"t know whether they tried to steal my horse or not, but anyway they didn"t get him."
"Then the Cheyennes have got them beyond a doubt. They could never travel through the country you came through."
"Then what"s become of my furs? Do you reckon the savages have got them, too?"
"I certainly do. I"ll tell you what I could do: If the Cheyennes came here to sell their furs, I could easily tell your furs from their own, and I could throw them out. But, you see, the Indians don"t come here.
They take all their furs to Fort Mitch.e.l.l."
"Maybe you would throw them out and maybe you wouldn"t," said Elam emphatically. "I guess I had better take the matter into my own hands.
When I get my grip on to them furs, you"ll know it."
The sutler merely nodded and gazed after Elam, who marched out as if he intended to do something.
"That boy is going to be killed," said he to himself. "He thinks more of those furs than he does of so much gold. If I was commander of this fort, I wouldn"t let him go out."
Elam directed his course toward the barn in which he had left his horse and rifle when he went in to visit the surgeon. He found them there yet, and it was but the work of a moment to shoulder the one and unhitch the other, who greeted him with a whinny of recognition, and lead him out to the gate. As he expected, there was a sentry there, and he stepped in front of him with his musket at "arms port."
"You can"t go out," said he.
"Why, what"s the matter?" asked Elam innocently.
"Too many Indians," was the reply.
"Oh, well, I just want to let my horse have some gra.s.s. He don"t think much of the hay you have here."
"You don"t want your rifle if you"re just going out to get gra.s.s," said the soldier, with a smile.
"No, but I like to have it handy when the pinch comes. If I hadn"t had it and been able to use it, you wouldn"t have seen me here now."
"That"s so," said the sentry. "I don"t suppose you care enough about them as to go among them again. But we"ll have to see the corporal about that." Then, raising his voice, he called out:
"Corporal of the guard No. 1!"
In process of time the officer of the guard came up, and the sentry made known Elam"s request in a few words. He looked at Elam and said:
"Oh, let him go. It aint likely that he will go far away with the Indians all around him. You don"t want to get too far away," he added, turning to the young hunter, "because the men on post have orders to fire on people that are going out of range."
"Do you see this rifle?" said Elam. "Well, when they come, I will let you know. You will never see me inside that fort again," said Elam to himself, as the sentry brought his musket to his shoulder and stepped out of the way, leaving the road clear for him. "I am going to get my furs the first thing, and then I am going down to trade them off to Uncle Ezra for a grub-stake for three months. That"s what I"ll do, and I bet you that those two fellows will get hurt."
Elam pa.s.sed through the gate, and the horse began to crop the gra.s.s as he went out, thus doing what he could to prove that it was gra.s.s he wanted, and not the hay that was served up to him in the stable. Being continually urged by his master, he kept getting further and further away from the stockade. The sentries on guard looked at him, but supposing that, as he had got by post No. 1, he was all right, although one sentinel did shake his head and warn him that he was going further off than the law allowed; so Elam turned and went back.
"I don"t like the looks of that fellow, for he handles his gun as though he might shoot tolerable straight," said Elam. "We will go more in this direction, for here"s where the stock was when the Indians came up.
We"ll be a little cautious at first, but we are bound to get away in the end."
By keeping his horse on the opposite side from him, and paying no attention to the warning gestures of the sentries, he succeeded in reaching a point beyond which he was certain that the guards could not hit him, and, with a word and a jump, he landed fairly on his nag"s back.
"Now, old fellow, show them what you can do," he whispered, digging his heels into his horse"s sides.
He looked back and saw that the sentry he feared most was already levelling his gun, and a moment later the bullet ploughed up the gra.s.s a little beyond him. Had he remained fairly in his seat, it would have taken him out of it; but he did just as he had seen the Cheyennes do--he threw himself on the side of his horse opposite the marksman, and so he had nothing to shoot at save the swiftly running steed. Another musket popped, and still another, but Elam did not hear the whistle of their bullets. That was all the guards on that side of the stockade, and Elam knew he was safe. Before they could load again he would be far out of range. He raised himself to a sitting posture, took off his hat and waved it at the guards, and then settled down and kept on his way, taking care, however, to watch against all chances of pursuit. The fact was that his escape had been reported to the major, who, out of all patience, exclaimed: "Let him go!"
Elam was now a free man once more, and he resolved that it would be a long time before he would again trust himself in the power of the soldiers. His first care must be to go back to the sheep-herder"s cabin in which he had camped the night before he reached the fort, and get his saddle and bridle, for he rightly concluded that the savages had been so anxious to capture him that they had not time to go in and see if he had left anything behind him. It required considerable nerve to do this, but Elam had already shown that he had a good share of it. He had not gone many miles on his way until he began to meet some sheep-herders and cattle-men who were fleeing from their homes and going to the fort for protection. The men were generally riding on ahead, and the women came after them in wagons drawn by mules. He waved his hat whenever he came within sight, for fear that the men might shoot at him, and he knew by experience that they could handle their rifles with greater skill than the soldiers could handle their muskets.
"Where you going?" demanded one of the men, as he galloped up to meet Elam. "Seen any Indians around here?"
"There were plenty of them here this morning," said Elam. "Did they come near you?"
"Well, I should say so. They"ve jumped down on us when we wasn"t looking for them, and I"ve got one brother in the wagon that"s been laid out.
You must have been in a rucus with them, judging by the looks of your hand and the horse."
"Yes, I got into a fight with them right along here somewhere, and I didn"t go to the fort without sending one of them up. There was no need of my going there at all, but I went to shut off some trade that wasn"t exactly square. There are no Indians between here and the fort."
"Well, I wish you would ride by the wagon and tell that to my old woman, will you? She is scared half to death. Where are you going?"
Elam replied that he was going to the sheep-herder"s ranch to get a saddle and bridle that he had left there, and after that he was going back to the mountains. He had a partner there, and he didn"t know whether he was alive or dead. He had had enough of depending on the soldiers for help, for they had declined to a.s.sist him, and, furthermore, had shot at him when he attempted to leave the fort.
"Well, I say!" exclaimed the frontiersman, giving Elam a good looking over, "you are a brave lad, and I know you will come out all right."
Elam carried the news to the wagon that there were no Indians between them and the fort, and afterward continued on his lonely way to the sheep-herder"s ranch. He came within sight of it about eleven o"clock that night, and, dismounting from his horse and leaving him on the open prairie, he proceeded to stalk it as he would an antelope, being careful that not a glimpse of him should be seen. It was a bright moonlight night, and for that reason he was doubly careful. There was something more than the saddle and bridle he wanted, and that was his blankets.
There was some of the lunch left in there. He had eaten but one meal that day, and he had nearly a hundred miles to go before he could get any more.
Elam was nearly an hour in coming up to that ranch, and he was sure that anyone who might be on the lookout would have been deceived for once in his life. He crawled all around the hay-racks without seeing anybody, and finally went in at the open door without seeing or hearing anybody.
He found all the articles of which he was in search--the saddle tucked away in one corner of a bunk to serve as a pillow, the blankets spread over them, and the bridle and lunch placed on a box near the head of the bed, and, quickly shouldering them, he made his way out of the cabin in the direction in which he had left his horse.
"Now," said Elam, as he strapped the saddle on the animal"s back and slipped the bridle into his mouth, "the next thing is something else, and it"s going to be far more dangerous than this. I am going to have those furs. I need them more than they do. I have got the map of the hiding-place of that nugget at my shanty, and some of them are going to get hurt if I don"t get it."
Elam kept out a portion of his lunch (the rest was strapped up in the blankets, which were stowed away behind the saddle), eating it as he galloped along, and this time he directed his course toward the willows that lined the base of the foot-hills. At daylight he discovered something--the track of an unshod pony. He looked all around, but there was no one in sight. He dismounted and saw that the horse had been going at full jump, and as there was dew on the ground, the tracks must have been made before it fell. A little further on he found another, and by comparing the two he made up his mind that they must have been made the day before. They were going the same way that he was, and appeared to be holding the direction of a long line of willows a few miles off. Elam"s hair seemed to rise on end. He could imagine how those painted warriors had yelled and plied their whips in the endeavor to hunt down their victims; for that they were in plain view of someone Elam could readily affirm. He thought he could hear the yells, "Hi yah! yip, yip, yip!"
which the exultant savages sent up as a forerunner of what was coming.