Right up the trail trotted One-eye, all alone, and with an air of business anxiety. He neither paused nor turned until he came to Long Bear himself, and in front of the chief he sat down, threw up his head, and let out the most mournful howl he knew--and he knew a great many.
"Where Two Arrows?" asked the chief, as if the dog had been human, and he was answered first by another howl and then by an eager look and a tug at his deer-skin leggings. Then One-eye trotted off a little distance along the trail and looked back and barked, and the dullest man in the world could have understood him. It all plainly meant,
"Come on. There"s a fellow down this way that"s in need of help. Follow me and help him."
"Ugh!" exclaimed Long Bear, and he added the names of half a dozen of the leading braves. "Two Arrows send dog after warrior. Come."
That was somewhat more than the truth, seeing that all the credit belonged to One-eye, but in a minute or so the old chief was leading his men rapidly down the pa.s.s. There was nothing whatever to be said, and One-eye kept well ahead of them, every now and then trying to express an idea he had that no time was to be wasted.
"Ugh!" was all the remark made by any brave when the valley came in sight, and hardly more was remarked upon the ruins of the ancient village, but every grunt meant a great deal.
"Not here. Dog go right on," said Long Bear. "Follow. Find Two Arrows somewhere."
They had not far to go now before they halted as if with one accord.
From the summit of a granite bowlder, a hundred yards in advance of them, came a shrill whoop, and there stood the object of their search, firmly erect and seemingly unharmed.
"Boy all right," said Big Tongue. "Better come down."
"Two Arrows no fool," said Long Bear. "Go slow. Watch dog."
One-eye still trotted on, but more slowly, until he turned the corner of the rock. He reappeared in a second, with a sharp, warning yelp, followed by the fierce growling charge of an uncommonly large grisly bear.
"Ugh!" said Long Bear. "Stand still. Boy been treed."
He had not been "treed," he had been bowldered, and the grisly had been arrowed and lanced thoroughly. His angry charge had been made with his last energies, and before he advanced half-way he reeled and fell.
There was no boy upon the rock now. Two Arrows darted down from his perch, slipping, sliding the instant the bear followed One-eye. He had waited up there for hour after hour, looking down at his half disabled enemy, and he was tired of it. He had seen that the strength of the bear was failing and that he bled freely, and was not far behind him when he fell.
"Whoop! whoop! whoop! I have killed a grisly. My bear!" he shouted, and it was all in vain that the Big Tongue ran faster than even the Long Bear himself, for Two Arrows had the advantage of them. His lance was the first to be plunged into the dying monster, and the great brute tore up the sod around him for only half a minute before he stretched himself out and all was over. With the help of several hours of quiet bleeding, which cannot always be provided for in such cases, Two Arrows had fought and killed a grisly single-handed, and again Long Bear was the proudest man in the whole Nez Perce nation. The steepness of the rock had helped a good deal, and the bear had hardly had a fair chance, but after all he had been whipped by a boy of fifteen. It was a disgrace to the grisly but it was a great honor to the young hero, for by all Indian law he was thenceforth ent.i.tled to wear the claws of that bear on state occasions.
Adding all things together, bisons and big-horn and cougar and grisly, Two Arrows was rapidly getting to be a middle-aged warrior, and the other boys had no hope of catching up with him. He might also fairly be said to have led his band into that valley, and now the pity of it was that they had no ponies to eat such excellent gra.s.s.
The remainder of the band came down the pa.s.s remarkably, with Na-tee-kah well in advance of everybody else.
"Could anything terrible have happened to Two Arrows?"
Her heart beat hard with exertion and anxiety, and when she reached the level she hurried right along upon the trail of the braves. It was not many minutes before she could see them, and a sort of mist came before her eyes. They were all sitting upon the gra.s.s around something, and she could hear her father"s voice chanting. It was a curious kind of song of triumph, belonging especially to a case of large grisly bear slaying, but Na-tee-kah could not hear it clearly at first, and it might have been a funeral song for all the music there was in it. All out of breath she toiled on, as near as an Indian girl might come to a party of warriors, and then she understood it like a flash. Red or white, she was only a girl, and she sat down on the gra.s.s and began to cry. The Big Tongue had risen as she came near, and he was polite enough to say to her,
"Squaw not cry. Boy all right. We have killed a bear. Ugh!"
CHAPTER XIII
GREAT SCOUTING
The quadrupeds of the mining expedition showed many signs of the hard time they had been having, and it was needful to get out from among the rocks quickly. It was yet quite shadowy in the deep canon when the wagons were set in motion, but not a great deal of "road mending" was called for from that point onward. Early in the day they came out upon the level, and before noon the horses and mules were picking the rich gra.s.s around the ancient ruins.
It was a grand time, and Sile had a dim idea that he only drew his breath now and then, the great, long ones came so frequently. He had felt one kind of awe in the canon and in looking at the mountain peaks.
Now he felt quite another kind of awe in looking at the rude mason-work of those houses.
"Father," he asked, "do you s"pose they were people anything like us?"
"They built three-story houses. No Indians ever did that."
"Is there nothing at all about them in history?"
"Yes, here are the ruins. Here are little books like this."
He handed Sile what looked for all the world like a broken piece of an old pot, and Sile said so.
"That"s it. If it is one, it shows that they understood making pottery.
n.o.body has ever found anything to prove that they were miners, and all the stones of these houses are only broken. None of them are cut or trimmed."
It was a wonder of wonders to stand there and talk about a lost and vanished people, but Yellow Pine was thinking of a people who had vanished without being lost. They were the Indians whose camp-grounds he had moved into and out of, and he had an idea that they might be found again at any hour. He advised the judge not to move on again until some exploring and scouting should have been done. Meantime the "critters,"
as he called them, did their feeding under a strong guard and close watching.
"Sile," he said, "as soon as your horse has had a good feed, you and I will ride a circuit and see what we can find."
Sile"s blood danced a little. Scouting after Indians was a thing he had read about, and he did not dwell too much upon the fact that he was chosen to go with Pine rather because his horse was a fast one and had not pulled wagons than for any reason. Pine said to him,
"Your eyes are pretty good ones, too. Who knows but what you might see something. Jedge, I won"t run him into any danger. Them Indians is all on foot."
Sile set to work at once upon his repeating-rifle, his revolver, and the edge of his hunting-knife, as if he had a battle with p.a.w.nees on hand.
He gave up studying the ruins at once, and even forgot how many nuggets his gold had been run into. He had never before felt precisely that kind of excitement, and was too young to know that every entirely new enthusiasm is worth a whole book in the way of education, if it comes rightly. People who have never been waked up are apt to be dull people.
It was an old story to Yellow Pine, and when at last they both were mounted and ready to ride away, it was worth while to look at his cast-iron face and then at that of Sile Parks.
"Sile," said his father, as he looked at him, "bring me in some Indians; not a whole tribe; just a few."
"Come on, Sile," said Pine. "We"ll bring all we find, I reckon."
He showed no disposition to ride fast, but cantered away to the right, skirting the edge of the mountain slope, and seeming to study every clump of trees and bushes they came to. It was mostly gra.s.sy "open" for quite a distance from the mouth of the canon.
"No smoke anywhere," said Pine. "They"re not camped hereaway."
"I walked out along their trail, at the ruins," said Sile. "Why didn"t you follow it?"
"That"s a fair question, Sile. It looks as if I"d orter ha" done it, but you see, I don"t want to ketch up with "em or let "em know we"re here. I want to find "em without telling "em what road I kem by."
It was a sort of half-Indian cunning, but it was not quite equal to the needs of the matter. Full-blooded Indian cunning beat it all to pieces, as they were to find out before morning. It came to pa.s.s in a perfectly easy and natural sort of way.
When the entire band of Nez Perces had arrived, and every soul in it had taken a look at the dead grisly, they had no notion of walking back a single rod. The braves had noted the indications of running water in the distance, and they pushed on until they found a camp-ground on the border of a swift, bright stream, almost alive with trout. It was bordered by a wide band of forest, and the trees were magnificent. Here at last they could all sit down in a kind of peace and plenty, and mourn for their dogs and ponies.
Two Arrows had no mourning to do. What he really needed was to be hooped, like a barrel, for fear his pride and ambition might burst him.
He felt as if he were about ten feet high and weighed more than a horse.
All the other Indians he had heard of were nothing at all to what he was or was pretty soon going to be. He almost despised cougars and even grislies until he recalled how he had felt when the open jaws of the one which had hunted him came up over the curve of the bowlder.