Esther

“Abel Cummings, what are you a-doing there, my good man? Come, be stirring;” and the speaker issued from a large wagon near at hand.

“Doin’, Squire? Only lookin’ out to see if I could see any thing of Miss Esther. But it ain’t of no use, for she’s gone clear out of sight,” replied the man, addressing the owner of the train, and the father of the wandering girl.

“You might be in better business than spying after a runaway girl. Let her go. Hunger will soon bring her back again, I’ll warrant. So stir around—wake up the men, and have every thing ready for a start.”

“But, Squire, they say that thar’s lots an’ lots of Indians a-skulkin’ around, and who knows but that they may carry Miss Esther off and—”

“Eat her up, I suppose!” interrupted the parent, with a hearty laugh.

Checked in his speech, the man turned sullenly away, and in the bustle of the hour had soon forgotten his fears. So, indeed, it was with the majority, if they had in fact any curiosity about a young creature who had always been accustomed to wander at will and without restraint. But, careless as the father apparently was, he often turned his eyes in the direction pointed out by the man, and grew more and more troubled that she did not return.

Strange, very strange it would have been if that father had not been anxious, for she was all that remained to him of a beloved family. Wife and sons had fallen victims to the terrible reaper of the scythe and hour-glass, as he swept in a fearful epidemic through the land. This beautiful daughter was now his sole idol. Heart-sick, he had turned his back upon the place of his birth—gathered up his means, and, following the westering star, had determined to make for himself a new home in the regions “where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound save its own dashings.”

The breakfast-hour arrived and still the girl came not; passed, and she had not appeared. The time of starting was delayed, until a feeling of intense uneasiness—a vague sense of danger, took possession of every heart. Anxious eyes were strained prairie-ward, but in vain. No flutter of dress or springing step told of her coming. Once, only, moving life appeared in the distance: they saw a troop of horse sweeping over a far-off eminence—wild horse they must have been, for none bore riders. For one moment they flashed before their eyes, floundering madly on, and then were lost in a cloud of whirling dust, which alone told of their passage.

Simple as the incident was, they remembered it well in the hereafter.

“Saddle up your best horses, boys!”

The order came with startling sternness, for the heart of that poor father was now sorely troubled.

“Abel Cummings, lead the way. You saw her last, and should be a sure guide.”

“Waal, Squire, yes; but, yer see—”

“Silence! This is no time for words. Action, man, prompt and decisive action may save my child; nothing else. A hundred silver dollars to him who first brings me news of her. Mount and forward! Mount all, except those who guard the wagons. Mount and—”

A little cloud of dust, scarcely larger than an infant’s hand, arose suddenly in the distance, whirling in eddies aloft, and checking further speech, for in those regions slight causes often produced events of the most startling character. Who could tell that this little cloud of dust might not be caused by the hoofs of a savage band, resolved on robbery, if not murder!

Without waiting for commands, the circular line of the corral was again formed, the cattle and horses secured within, and each man, fully armed, at his post. Then every eye was turned upon the prairie, eager to learn what the cloud might portend.

Nearer, still nearer, it came, as if lightning were trailing its red flashes along the earth, searing the foliage as it passed and leaving only a train of whirling dust behind. Nearer it came, and soon the beating of each heart was less fitful, and every rifle was dropped from its poise. Nearer—still nearer, and two horsemen came bounding up the slope, “bloody with spurring, fiery red with speed.”

The foremost—for his good steed, though held in check, came many lengths ahead—was mounted on a horse of great power. With the exception of a single snowy spot in his forehead, the superb animal was black from hoof to fore-top. He cleared the earth with great, vigorous bounds, his thin, open nostrils red as coral, his head matchless in its symmetry, ears delicate and pointed, and tail and mane waving like twin banners in the breeze. With a firm, yet light hand, the rider controlled his slightest motion, and guided him at will. When he had reached the corral, and the rider flung himself carelessly to the ground, there was not a quivering of the limbs or heaving flank to tell of the rapid race he had just finished.

“Who and what are you?” demanded Miles Morse, as the new-comer glanced around and appeared to take in the entire scene with a single look, while every eye was riveted upon him.

Well might these men gaze upon the new-comer both in admiration and surprise, for a more superb specimen of the Western hunter and border scout never trod the earth. More than six feet in height, with long black hair, and a thick beard sprinkled with gray, an aquiline nose, and eyes piercing and restless as the eagle’s, he was a man well worth remembering as a noble specimen of the class.

His dress was the usual picturesque costume, formed mostly of doeskin, curiously fringed and embroidered. His hat was the true slouch—“rough and ready,” with a gold band glittering around it. He held a long rifle in one hand, while pistols and a knife bristled defiantly in his belt. As he stood stroking the arched neck of his good horse, you saw the very beau ideal of that pioneer race who, scorning the ease and fashionable fetters of city life, have laid the foundation of new States in the unexplored regions of the giant West, and dashed onward in search of new fields of enterprise, leaving the great results to be gathered by the settlers that come slowly after him. There he stood, leaning against his horse, lithe as a panther, fearless as a poor honorable man may well be after he has, companionless, traversed the trackless desert, and fought the grizzly bear in his own fastnesses.

“Who am I, stranger?” he said, with something like a smile. “May be you have heard of Kirk Waltermyer?”

“Waltermyer? I think I have heard your name before.”

“Heard of me, stranger? Why, I am well known from the pines of Oregon to the chapparel of Texas. Ask La Moine, there, if we haven’t danced at every fandango, hunted in every thicket, and trapped on every stream.”

His companion, whom he had called La Moine, was a tough and wiry specimen of the half-breed Frenchman, so often found among the north-western hunters and voyageurs—a man of but few words, but true as steel to a friend, and implacable in his hate of an enemy.

“Yes, I have heard of you,” continued Morse. “I remember, now, and was expecting to find you somewhere in the vicinity of Salt Lake. I was told you could guide me by the best route to the Walla Walla valley.”

“I guide you!” and the weather-bronzed man laughed in a reckless and heart-whole manner. “I guide you? Why, stranger, I could do it blindfolded.”

“Well, I believe you, but we’ll talk of it another time. First, let me ask what brought you here?”

“Why, my good horse—the best-limbed, swiftest, surest horse on the perarer. None of your mustangs, that, stranger, but a full-blooded cretur, worth his weight in diamonds.”

“I know that; but your business? From what I learned about you, this is not your usual trail.”

“Waal, it hain’t, that’s a fact; but some of the skulkin’ followers of that devil-worshiper, Brigham Young, ukered me out of nigh a hundred head, and I’m not the man to play such games with, sure as you live.”

“Hundred head? What do you mean?”

“Ha! ha! Waal, you must’er come from the tother side of sunrise. Head? Why, cattle, to be sure; but they didn’t steal them, for they knew my rifle had a rayther imperlite way of speakin’ its mind, so they bought them and have forgot to pay.”

“I understand. And now, listen to me. My daughter wandered away from the camp early this morning and has not returned. I fear that—”

“La Moine,” interrupted Waltermyer, somewhat rudely, while the cheerful expression of his face changed into a frown as black as a thunder-cloud, and his entire nature appeared to have assumed a stern purpose, “La Moine, do you remember the red rascals we saw dashing over the perarer like so many frightened wild horses? I told you thar was something wrong—that some traveler had lost his stock or something worse had happened. Which way did the girl take, stranger?”

“There—toward the timber.”

“And some skulkin’, thievin’ savage was lyin’ in ambush for her, I’ll bet a dozen beaver-skins. La Moine, go with—who saw her last—you, man?—well, go with him and see if you can find the trail.” As the Frenchman departed, accompanied by Abel Cummings, he continued: “Ef thar ever was a man that was part hound, had the hearing of a deer and the cunning of a fox, thar he goes;” and he stripped the heavy saddle from his horse, took the bit from his mouth, and allowed him to graze at will.

A half-hour—which appeared very long to the watchers—and the two men returned.

“Waal, La Moine?”

“The girl has been carried off, Waltermyer, that’s sartin. But one Indian did it. Thar is the print of another moccasin, but it is a little one—that of a squaw. I should say that the white gal and the squaw had been talkin’ together, and after they had separated, some Indian devil of a warrior jumped from an ambush—dragged the gal inter the stream and across it—found his braves waitin’, and after lifting the gal inter a saddle, off they went like so many black thieves.”

“Ef you say so, it is so, and I’ll swear to it.”

“We saw a troop of horses in the distance,” said the father, “but as they had no riders, thought they must have been wild ones. No, no! they could never have carried Indians.”

“Not them!” replied Waltermyer, “not them! Why, man, any boy that ever saw a perarer could have told you how it was. They were hiding behind their horses—with only one foot thrown over the saddles, if they had any at all, while the girl was bound down and kept on the further side. It’s too old a trick to fool any one. But which way were they going, the prowlin’ wolves carryin’ off young lambs? West, were they? They will strike for the South Pass; but what in the name of common sense should take them thar with a stolen girl?”

No one appeared competent to solve the question, and all was silence until the Frenchman—for so he habitually called himself, notwithstanding his Indian blood—whispered in the ear of Waltermyer the single word “Mormons.”

“Right, man! Right for a thousand slugs! Stranger, did you come by the way of Laramie?”

“Certainly, we stayed there a number of days.”

“War thar any followers of the holy prophet—as the infernal sinners call themselves, though I call them thieves—around?”

“A large train. We left them there.”

“And they saw your girl?”

“Every day. Several of them visited us. One in particular came often and appeared very anxious to converse with us.”

“What sort of man was he?”

“Large, rather good-looking, and a plausible and gentlemanly appearing man.”

“With black hair, as smooth as my colt’s skin, and a scar on one cheek?”

“Yes. I remember it distinctly.”

“I know him, stranger.”

“You! But that is not improbable.”

“I’ll bet my rifle I do, and a bigger Satan never disgraced the name of man. He’s a hull mule train in rascality, that man is. It isn’t the first of his infernal capers that I have been knowing to, and unless you travel swift you may make up your mind to find your daughter in that serpent’s nest, Salt Lake City.”

“Heaven keep her from it! Death, even, would be a blessing compared to that.”

“Amen to that, stranger, and ef you had seen and knew as much as I do you would say it with your hull heart.”

“What can be done to save her Waltermyer? She is my only child—all that is left to me. You will help a father in his worst troubles? Go with me—help me and name your price—any thing, all, I possess shall be yours, if you save her.”

“Stranger, I will go. Thar’s my hand on it, and though I say it who shouldn’t, it’s just as honest a hand as thar is on the frontier, and never yet took money for a kindness.”

“I know it—I believe it.”

“Then don’t talk to me of pay. Kirk Waltermyer ain’t no Digger Indian, or yaller greaser to take blood-money. If thar is any thing, stranger, that would have kept me from lendin’ you a helpin’ hand it is that same offer to pay.”

“Forgive me and forget. Trouble—this terrible trouble, should outweigh my mistake.”

“And so it does. Besides, you didn’t know any better. You men who are brought up in cities and have your souls cramped up between brick walls—who buy and sell one another like horses, don’t know what it is to live out human freedom on the perarers—to enjoy life—to be MEN! But we are losin’ time. Let half a dozen of your best men mount their swiftest horses, arm themselves to the teeth and follow me. La Moine, you stay, guide the train to Fort Bridger and wait thar until you hear from me. Every hour we can gain now is worth a day to us. Come, stranger, don’t get downhearted. Kirk Waltermyer will see your girl righted or thar shall be more howlin’ and prayin’ in Salt Lake than Brigham Young ever got up at one of his powows.”

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before he had whistled his horse to his side, saddled and bridled him, flung himself on his back, and was dashing away with the perfect grace and horsemanship of an Arapahoe. Rude as he was in speech and manner—unlettered and unrefined—a purer diamond never yet was concealed in any man’s breast than the heart of Waltermyer.