CHAPTER XII.
THE SILENT WITNESS.
Meanwhile Dick Lewis and those of the Club who remained at the Fort, were awaiting the return of the wanderers with no little impatience. Dick, who knew almost to an hour how long they ought to be gone, exhibited no anxiety until the sixth day, and then he began to be uneasy. He made frequent trips to the summit of a high swell near the Fort, gazed long and earnestly in the direction the boys had gone, looked dubiously at the clouds, and was always moody and silent when he returned to the camp. On one occasion, when he had been on the lookout nearly all day, he was met by George Le Dell, who seemed to be greatly excited about something.
“What is it, youngster?” exclaimed the trapper. “Your face says you’ve got news of some sort for me.”
“Come with me and see for yourself,” replied George. “I may be mistaken, and certainly hope I am. I haven’t said a word about it, for I didn’t want to excite any unnecessary alarm.”
George, followed by the trapper, made a wide circuit around the camp, and entering the grove from the opposite side, walked into it a short distance, and then stopped and pointed to a horse which was hitched to one of the trees.
“I found him feeding with my horse, and brought him in here to keep him until you came” said George. “I hope I have made a mistake.”
“Wal, you hain’t,” said the trapper, bluntly. “That’s leetle Fred’s hoss, if I ever seed him. Something’s happened to them keerless fellers.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” said George, an expression of anxiety settling on his face. “You see he has a piece of rawhide rope around his neck. He never broke that.”
“In course he didn’t,” said the trapper. “I’ve a notion to tell ole Bob to give me a good wallopin’ fur lettin’ ’em go. The snow’ll be four foot deep afore this time to-morrow, an’ something’s got to be done, right quick.”
As the trapper spoke he untied the horse and led him through the grove to the camp. Uncle Dick and all the boys were there, and, as may be imagined, the trapper’s appearance created no little commotion among them. They recognised Fred’s horse at once.
“Thar hain’t no need of wastin’ time an’ words over it,” said Dick, hurriedly. “This hoss’s lariat has been cut with a knife, an’ he’s come home. Fred didn’t cut it himself, in course; so something’s happened to them boys, an’ me an’ Bob’s got to see about it, to onct. We’d oughter gone two days ago. I kinder felt it in my bones.”
The Club and Uncle Dick said plainly enough by their actions that if the trappers were going to look for the missing boys, they were not going alone. A general rush was made for bridles, saddles and weapons, and confusion reigned supreme until Uncle Dick took the management of affairs into his own hands. Two of the boys were directed to hitch the mules to the wagon, drive them up to the Fort and request permission of the colonel to leave them there until they should be called for; another was instructed to strike the tent and pack it away in the wagon; another to get out a supply of bacon, hard-tack and coffee sufficient to last them a week; and the two trappers to saddle the horses. Uncle Dick himself bundled up the blankets; and order being thus established, and each one having a certain duty to perform, everything was done in a very short space of time.
Colonel Gaylord readily promised to take charge of such of the Club’s property as they wished to leave behind, and took the trouble to come down to camp to see what the matter was. When he had heard Uncle Dick’s story, he generously offered him a squad of cavalry to assist in hunting up the boys, but the trappers said they didn’t need it.
In half an hour the whole party were in the saddle and the Fort was out of sight. Frank Nelson, of course, led the way. He went at such a rate of speed that the foot-hills were reached a little after midnight, and there Dick Lewis ordered a halt. The storm was by this time fairly under way, and a terrible one it was, too. Walter and the rest of the boys from Louisiana, who had never experienced anything of the kind before, were amazed at its violence, and even Uncle Dick and the two trappers, who had “roughed it” all their lives, said it was something rather out of the ordinary. It continued all night, and the next morning the little hollows between the swells were filled with snow. The wind seemed to blow with redoubled force as the day advanced, but it was at their backs, and by keeping close along the edge of the hills, Uncle Dick and his party were in some measure protected from its fury. They were all warmly clad and suffered but little from the cold. They did not stop again until near the middle of the afternoon, and then a circumstance happened which gave the Club an opportunity to gain some idea of the wonderful skill in woodcraft possessed by their two backwoods companions. Dick Lewis, who was riding by Frank’s side, suddenly drew rein, turned his horse’s head toward the willows which lined the base of the hills, and after snuffing the air a few times, looked inquiringly at old Bob. The latter nodded his head and Dick exclaimed: “It hain’t fur off. We must go back.”
“What isn’t far off, and why must we go back?” asked George.
“I smell smoke,” replied Dick.
The boys looked at one another a moment, but none of them could understand the matter.
“Now I’ll tell you what’s a fact,” said Perk. “Suppose you do smell smoke; what of it?”
“Why thar’s a fire around here somewhere,” answered the trapper; “an’ whar thar’s a fire thar must have been somebody to set it agoin’.”
The boys understood it now, and exhibited no little surprise. They snuffed the air repeatedly, but their senses were not as keen as those of the trappers, and they could detect no smell of smoke. But Dick and old Bob could, and they followed it up with all the sagacity of a brace of hounds. They skirted the hills for a quarter of a mile or more, breasting the fierce wind which almost took their breath away, and then Dick suddenly reined his horse into the willows. He kept straight ahead, turning neither to the right nor left, and presently brought his companions within sight of the fire.
The boys were greatly disappointed. They had confidently expected to find Archie and his friends there, but they saw no one except a solitary stranger, who was doubled up over a small bed of coals, rubbing his palms together and shaking violently in every limb. His hands and face were blue with cold. He glanced up as they approached, and then looked down into the fire again.
“Hallo, stranger!” cried Dick. “Whar mought you be a travellin’ to?”
“I’m lost,” was the faint reply, “an’ starvin’ an’ freezin’.”
“Sho!” exclaimed the trapper; “freezin’ with a fire in front of you an’ all this timber around you!”
“Boys,” said Uncle Dick, “unpack the provisions, a couple of you, and the rest of us cut some wood. This poor fellow is so nearly benumbed that he can’t keep his fire going.”
A few minutes’ work made a great change in the appearance of the stranger’s camp. Three or four small trees had been cut down for the horses to browse upon; the fire was roaring cheerfully; a coffee-pot and several slices of bacon were spattering on the coals; and the bushes and saplings had been cleared away for a space of twenty feet or more, and piled on one side of the camp to protect it from the fury of the wind. The kind-hearted and thoughtful George, noticing that the stranger’s well-worn clothing was but a poor protection against the wintry blasts, had thrown a pair of heavy blankets over his shoulders; but he was so cold that he hugged the fire long after all the rest had begun to back away from it. The boys were eager to hear how he came there, but old Bob restrained their impatience. “A man that’s hungry an’ half froze can’t talk,” said he. “Wait till he gets warmed up with a pot or two of hot coffee, an’ stows away a few pounds of them bacon an’ crackers, an’ his tongue will run lively enough, I tell you.”
The old trapper was mistaken for once, however. The stranger emptied his cup as fast as it was filled for him, and disposed of three men’s share of the bacon and biscuits, but they seemed to have no effect on his tongue. He was as dumb as a wooden man, and seemed uneasy in the presence of those who had fed and warmed him.
At length Uncle Dick began questioning him, telling him also that if he would let them know where he wanted to go the trappers would put him on his course; and furthermore, they would give him provisions enough to last him until he reached his destination. He finally succeeded in getting the stranger started on his story, which he told in such a way that none of his auditors believed a word of it. He said he had belonged to a wagon-train which had been attacked by the Indians. The most of the emigrants had been massacred, all the stock driven off and he had barely escaped with his life. It happened a week ago, and he had had nothing to eat since.
Uncle Dick and his party heard him through, and then settled back and looked their disbelief. If there had been any Indian depredations during the week that had just passed, Colonel Gaylord would not have been ignorant of the fact, and they would have been certain to have heard of it through him. The impression at once became general that the man had been doing something that would not bear investigation, else why had he trumped up such a story? They made no remark, however, and it is probable that the stranger would have been permitted to go his way without any further questioning or offers of assistance from them, had it not been for one little circumstance. There was a witness against him which he had not thought of, and Frank was the one who discovered it. The latter, who was sitting on the opposite side of the fire with his hands clasping his knees, suddenly straightened up and looked closely at something lying on the ground by the stranger’s side. Presently he arose and walking over to him, laid hold of the object, which was concealed from the view of the others by the blankets that George Le Dell had thrown over the man’s shoulders. As he made an effort to lift it, the stranger seized it and held it fast. The expression on Frank’s face brought the Club to their feet in a twinkling.
“Let go,” said Frank, earnestly. “I want to see what you’ve got here.”
“It’s mine,” said the stranger.
“Well, I must see it and know how you came by it. Let go.”
The man still held fast to the object, whatever it was, and Frank, seizing it with both hands wrenched it out of his grasp, jerking off the blankets at the same time, and bringing to light a Maynard rifle—the mate to his own. It was so much like it, in fact, that when the rifles were first purchased by the cousins, they could never tell them apart until they had had their names engraved on them. Frank was so well acquainted with the weapon that he would have known it had he seen it in Asia. He turned it up, and there was Archie’s name on the butt-plate. He read the name aloud, and the boys flocked about him with exclamations of wonder, each one taking the rifle into his own hands and giving it a good looking over. It was so unexpected, this finding of Archie’s property in the possession of a stranger, that they wanted the evidence of their own eyes before they could believe it.
“Now I’ll just tell you what’s a fact,” said Perk, who was the first to speak, “you’ve been up to something. Where did you get it?”
“Hand out the cartridges,” said Frank, finding that there was an empty shell in the chamber of the rifle.
“What’s that thar stickin’ out thar?” exclaimed old Bob, suddenly.
Bob pushed away the stranger’s leg and snatched up a belt containing two revolvers. They were Eugene’s, and every one about the fire recognised them.
“You’ve been up to something, I tell you,” said Perk.
“Hand out the cartridges,” repeated Frank.
“I hain’t got none,” replied Simon Cool, for it was he. “I didn’t have but one load for the rifle, and I tried to get something to eat with that.”
“When did you last see the boys who own these things?” asked Uncle Dick.
“Two days ago.”
“How many of them were they, and were they all right?”
Simon replied that there were three of them, and that the last time he saw them they were safe and sound, and in no danger of suffering from cold or hunger; and then, in obedience to Uncle Dick’s command, went on to tell his story—the true story this time—to which his auditors listened with much more attention than they had given when he related his first one. He told everything just as we have told it, and when his story was ended, Dick Lewis declared that they had rested long enough, and ordered an immediate start.
The sorrow which Simon Cool pretended to feel for the wrong he had done, did not secure his release, as he had hoped it would. Uncle Dick did not know how much faith to put in him. They might not find the boys where Simon said he had left them; or if they did find them, they might not be all right after all. Then, too, they might have more to tell than Simon had seen fit to disclose; and taking all these things into consideration, Uncle Dick decided that the man should be detained until they had opportunity to satisfy themselves of the truth of his statements.
Frank’s horse, being the largest and strongest animal in the party, was given over to Dick Lewis, who took Simon up behind him and carried him during the rest of the journey. So impatient were they all to find the missing boys, that their halts were few and far between, and they made such good headway, in spite of the snow-drifts, that they reached the mouth of the gully on the afternoon of the second day after the finding of Simon Cool. The gully was filled with snow, and as it had not been recently disturbed, they knew that the boys were still finding shelter under the cliffs.
While Dick and Bob were breaking a road for the horses, the former, whose eyes were everywhere, called Frank’s attention to something. It was a smooth, bare spot on a beech tree, from which the bark had been cleared by a knife or hatchet. Frank became excited at once. He floundered through a deep drift, brushed the snow off the tree, and calling the attention of his companions, read aloud the following, which had been written with a lead-pencil:
“Nov. 12th.—All well and hearty, but don’t like being weather-bound. If we must be snowed up again, should rather have it done in summer. Take the first right-hand gully, then the next right-hand one, and you will find us before you have gone a quarter of a mile.”
“Well, the boys are in good heart,” said Uncle Dick, and the long breath that came up from his broad chest showed the relief he felt.
“I knowed we’d find them keerless fellers all right,” said Dick Lewis.
“And here’s something else that I can’t quite make out,” said Frank, still studying the writing on the tree. “Archie always writes a horrible hand when he’s in a hurry.”
“Perhaps his fingers were cold,” said Walter.
“It is dated November 16,” continued Frank.
“That was yesterday,” said Uncle Dick, with some uneasiness. “No bad news, I hope. Try and make it out if you can.”
Frank lightly brushed off the snow, taking care not to erase the pencil-marks, and then slowly read, spelling out each word, a sentence that created as great a commotion as a thunderbolt would have done, had it suddenly fallen into the midst of the party:
“We have found Chase, and he is well.”
“What!” cried Uncle Dick.
“That’s what I make it,” said Frank, breaking away from the tree to make room for Perk and the rest of the boys, who came plunging through the drift. “I shouldn’t wonder if your missing friend had turned up at last.”
“Yes, sir, he has!” exclaimed Bob, after he had closely examined the writing; “hasn’t he, Perk?”
Perk took a look, then Walter and George, and each declared that Frank’s rendering of the obscure sentence was the correct one. The boys were so surprised and delighted that they could scarcely speak.
“Well! well! I never will be surprised at anything again,” said Uncle Dick. “There are some people away off in Louisiana who would give something to know what we know now. Push ahead, Lewis. You can’t go any too fast for us.”
“Look a yer,” said Simon Cool, suddenly. “Seein’ you’ve found your friends, mightn’t you as well turn me loose?”
“Why, man, you would freeze or starve,” said Bob.
“I kin take keer of myself,” replied Simon, who, it was plain, would much rather have taken his chances on the prairie than face those whom he had wronged.
“We have another story to listen to before we take leave of you,” said Uncle Dick. “Climb up, boys, and we’ll be off.”
The whole party were in their saddles in two minutes more, and riding down the gully as fast as the deep snow-drifts would permit.