Two Arrows wiped the blood of the cougar from the blade of his lance. He was glad it was a good lance. His father had traded a pony for it, as he well knew, with a Mexican, years before that, and it was no ordinary weapon. He had chosen it from among half a dozen, as the very thing with which to do something uncommon, and now it had proved its value. He almost felt an affection for that lance.
One-eye had lain down close to the dead body of the cougar, as if watching him for any returning signs of life. If that great cat had quivered, there was a dog ready to shake the quiver out of him.
"It's all good meat," said Two Arrows, "but what shall I do with it?"
There was but one answer to that question. He took off the skins of both animals, cut them up as well as he could, carried all the meat he did not need at once to a cool place among the rocks, piled stones over it and left it. He had no ice-house, and that was the best he could do, but he made a fire and ate plentifully of antelope venison, and of what the Western men call "painter meat." It was hard for him to say which he liked the best. Then he took a bit of charcoal and made his mark upon the rocks where he buried his game. He was immensely proud of his right to do that. He scored two very large and distinct arrows, heaped on some more heavy stones, shouted to One-eye, and again pushed forward. His exploring trip was already brimming full of glory and adventure, and he was ready to fight all the cougars in the mountains. So was One-eye, for he had had one of the biggest dinners he had ever eaten, and not another dog on hand to dispute it with him. He seemed to be possessed with an idea that that place must have more antelopes and mountain-cats in it, and that he was likely to find some of them behind rocks. He was doubtless right on the main point, but not a stone of the many he smelled under turned him out a cougar or a big-horn. Hunting was over for that day, and so much time had been consumed that Two Arrows felt like running to make it up. He did but walk, however, and as the road was now all the way downhill, like a bad man's life, he walked easily. The great gorge widened until its broken walls stretched away to the right and left, and the eager-hearted explorer came out from among the scattered rocks at a point from which he could suddenly see a great deal. Away beyond and below him spread such a scene as he could hardly have hoped for, and yet which can be found in hundreds of places all over the mountain country of the American continent. Just such scenes are to be found among the Alps, the Andes, the Himalayas, and every other similar group of rocky upheavals, but Two Arrows knew of no other country than his own, the one his band of Nez Percés had hunted and feasted and starved in.
It was a great, deep, grassy, well-wooded, well-watered valley, the very home of game and a sure promise of all comfort to a hunter. How far it might reach to the westward no eye could tell, for the prospect was bounded by other mountains, and there were plain tokens that a considerable stream ran through the middle of it.
"Much water, perhaps," said Two Arrows. "Must go somewhere. Find out some day."
The idea of a river suggested the other idea that it could be followed until an ambitious boy could ascertain where it went to. All that was swallowed up at once by the immediate desire to get down upon that green grass and among those trees. One-eye had seen the valley, but was inclined to stick pretty closely at the side of his master. There were only two of them, and they might need each other's help at any moment.
The road tramped by the bison herds did not wind much, as it went on down towards the level ground, but it lazily picked out the easiest slopes and turned the corners of the great rocks on good curves. As Two Arrows and his faithful companion wound around one of these curves, almost at the bottom of the long descent, they suddenly came upon a discovery that startled them. Even the dog pricked up his ears and began to growl, and Two Arrows stepped quickly back behind the rock. He had never been in a white man's village, but he had seen a fort and a few houses around it, and he had seen the houses of Mexican Indians and some others, built of "adobe" or sunburnt brick. He was not, therefore, a judge of such matters, and what he saw filled him with astonishment. He was not exactly alarmed, for a house could not chase him, but he exclaimed,
"Pale-face lodge. Good many. Very bad. What can he do now?"
He peered silently forth for several minutes, but not a human being was in sight. There were no signs of life, no curling smoke, no barking dogs, no cattle, nothing but scattered structures of stone. These must have been put there by somebody, but it began to look as if whoever had built them had gone to some other hunting-ground.
Two Arrows noted everything with eyes that grew more brilliant in their swift and searching glances. There could hardly be any danger in such a solitude as that, but the occasion required caution, and the young "brave" made his advances from cover to cover as if there were eyes in every stone of those houses. One-eye crept at his side with his head and tail up, very much as if there had been game ahead. It was a curious piece of business. The nearer they drew to the objects of their curiosity the safer and lonelier became the appearance of all things. Some of the stone walls had tumbled down, and not one of them had a roof over it of any sort. That was nothing to Two Arrows. For all he knew there were tribes of cunning and wicked pale-faces who built their lodges without roofs. If the world contained anything cunning and wicked and dangerous, in the mind of Two Arrows it was a pale-face. He had been brought up to look upon a white man as a being to be watched, and as an evil to be avoided or destroyed, as the case might be, and yet as a sort of magician, capable of doing wonders, and of bringing the richest presents in all the earth.
He now at last felt confidence and courage to actually crawl through an opening of one of those walls and look around him. It was one great, empty room, strewn with bits of stone, and growing thickly, here and there, were grass and tall weeds.
"Nobody here for ever so long," had already been his conclusion, and he was thoroughly satisfied of it now. He arose and walked around and looked at things in that and every other house. Some of them had windows so high up as to prove that they must have had two or even three stories in some old time when people used them, but those were "signs" that Two Arrows could not read. The main thing to him was that he was still all alone and in perfect safety. If the wisest white man in the world had been there with him, he could not have formed an idea by whom those houses were constructed. Just such ruins have been found in many places among the valleys of the western mountains, and all that learned people can yet do is to guess how they came to be there. The houses did not come up like so many mushrooms, and beyond that they have almost nothing to say for themselves. Two Arrows had no further questions to ask, and One-eye had searched nooks and corners with an assiduity which had been duly rewarded: he had captured a fine, fat rabbit, and he brought it to his master as a sort of token. No rabbit would have made a home in a place infested by white men, for rabbits have the same idea of them that Indians have and for somewhat similar reasons. The rabbits get very little good from them, however, and the Indians a great deal—that is, unless the rabbits live near a white man's farm and garden. In that case they come up fully to the Indian standard and help themselves to all they can get hold of.
Two Arrows picked up the rabbit and walked out to what had been the door of that house. It was nearly sunset, and there could be no more exploring done that day. He looked away off into the valley and saw another token that he was alone in that part of it: no less than three gangs of deer were feeding quietly between him and a bit of forest not more than half a mile away.
Right past the group of old ruins ran a dancing brook of cool, pure water from the mountains, and a better place to camp in could not have been imagined. It was evidently safe to build a fire and cook the rabbit, but for more perfect safety Two Arrows made his blaze on a spot where some old walls prevented the light of it from being seen at too great a distance. After his supper was eaten there came over him a feeling that he had seen and done altogether too much for one boy in one day. He had come out into a sort of new world through a cleft in the mountains, and he did not know that precisely the same thing happens to every boy in the world who makes up his mind to be something. The boys who are contented not to be anything do not have much of a world to live in, anyhow, poor fellows; they only hang around and eat and wear clothes.
Na-tee-kah had all the load a girl of her size could comfortably carry when she set out with her people. So had all the rest except the dignified warriors. For that reason all the urging in the world could not get out of that dispirited cavalcade one-half the speed attained by Two Arrows and One-eye the previous evening. Na-tee-kah thought continually of her pony, between thoughts of her daring brother and wonderings of what he had done and seen. She knew very well that there is nothing so disables a "plains Indian" as to dismount him. It is not so bad as to break both his legs, but he is so accustomed, from childhood, to use a horse's legs instead of his own that he is like a man lost when he is set on foot. He has learned to hunt on horseback mostly, and all his fighting has been done in the saddle. The old-time Indians of the East and of Cooper's novels had hardly any horses, and in their deep forests could not have used them to advantage. What the far Western tribes did in those days nobody knows, but all the tribes which have migrated out of the woods into the prairie country have become "pony-men."
Na-tee-kah could not remember another time when she, daughter of a chief, had been compelled to carry so much, even for a short distance. She knew how to pack a pony capitally well, for that is one of the first arts of Nez Percé house-keeping. When and where should they ever get some more ponies? Her father was a renowned horse-thief, and so were several others of the best warriors in the band, and there was hope in that thought; still there is a double difficulty before a man who sets out to steal horses without having one of his own to ride.
"Two Arrows will steal horses some day," she said to Ha-ha-pah-no, confidently.
"Big chief: steal a heap. No boy any more. Big Tongue find a horse; say he stole him. No brave. Pony come somehow."
Nobody else in that band could have guessed how the mind of Long Bear himself was busy with plans concerning that very matter. He thought of all the horses of all the tribes at any kind of difference with the Nez Percés, and he thought of the white traders and their rich droves of quadrupeds of all sorts. He had won his rank fairly, as his son was likely to do after him, and he had a great deal of courage and ambition; just at present, however, he was a dismounted horse-thief, and he felt the disgrace of it even more than the inconvenience. It was a sad thing to be afoot at his time of life, and he brooded over it like some great white merchant who had suddenly failed in business. He feared that it would take some time to set up that band again, without any four-footed capital to begin on.
It was pleasant to find the trail so good, at all events, and before dark they made out to reach the very spot where Two Arrows had camped. They had been more than twice as long in getting there, but the first brave who pushed on into the open space found the dead embers of a fire and began to study them. Not far behind him were Na-tee-kah and Ha-ha-pah-no, and it was hard to say which of them was the first to point at the black coals and ashes, and exclaim, "Two Arrows!"
The word was echoed from lip to lip until it came to Long Bear and his wife. For a wonder he was walking beside her, which was as near as he could come to carrying her load for her. She was only the step-mother of Na-tee-kah and her brother, and had a pappoose of her own as part of her burden, but she took her full share of the family pride when her husband drew himself grimly up and shut off the strong temptation to "whoop."
"Young brave," he said to her with great calmness. "Great chief some day. All like father. Same. Go steal pony pretty soon."
The camp was quickly made, and there was food for all in moderate allowance. They were certain of resting in perfect security, and in the morning they were as eager as Two Arrows had been to push on out of such narrow quarters. Nothing happened to any of them until late in the day, and then the whole band went suddenly into camp again.
The Big Tongue had become almost a silent Indian under the effects of hard walking, but he had been stung again by remarks from Ha-ha-pah-no, and he had gone ahead. He had not gone far enough to make him look enterprising, but all at once the cañon fairly rang with a whoop he sent back, to let the rest know he had found something. At the same moment three great vultures, or buzzard-eagles, arose from a prize they had found, and soared away. They were wonderfully wide-winged birds, and each carried off a good dinner, for they had nearly finished the offal left upon the ground by the carcasses of the cougar and the big-horn.
The Big Tongue pointed proudly at the discovery he had made, and was about to say something, when he was once more overwhelmed. His whooping had brought a swarm of the braves around him, but of course no squaws had presumed to push in. It was for that very cause that the eyes of Na-tee-kah had been busy among the rocks, and so she had discovered the charcoal "token" scored upon one of them.
"Two Arrows!" she screamed, and in a moment more there were warriors there, taking away the stones which covered the meat and the skins.
It was time now for Long Bear to do all the whooping there was in him. His son had slain a cougar single-handed, and had killed a big-horn, and here were the proofs of it. The whole band could at once have another feast of fresh meat, provided by the young hero, for whom they were indebted to the great Long Bear.
It was decided that they had travelled far enough for one day, but that an early start should be made the next morning. That had also been an interesting day at the camp by the spring.
The over-wearied pale-faces slept well, but Yellow Pine arose three times to go around among the animals and see how they were doing. He had them all fed and rubbed down most carefully in the morning. It was a good thing to do, and when Sile Parks awoke and stretched himself, he felt as if he also wanted to be fed and rubbed down. Almost everybody else was already astir, and breakfast was soon ready for him.
Yellow Pine did a deal of exploring, before and after he breakfasted, and Sile at once set out to imitate him. He asked some question or other of every one he saw, and believed that he had learned a great deal. At last he came to a heap of stones and bushes that seemed to him to have been piled up remarkably.
"How could they ever have got there?" he said, as he began to pull upon a bush with green leaves yet clinging to its twigs. In five minutes more he knew where the Nez Percés had made their hasty "cache" for their lodges and other treasures, and he went at once to report it to his father and to Yellow Pine. The latter looked at Sile with positive respect, and exclaimed,
"There now, jedge; that settles it. I know I'm right; them Indians had lost their ponies. I couldn't find a hoof-mark on their trail this morning; they dragged some lodge-poles along, though. I say, we must leave their cache jest as we found it. We must foller right along, too, or we'll run short of fodder. They've taken my old road. We needn't be afraid of 'em, only we'd best keep a sharp lookout."
Horses and mules and all felt as if a day's rest would be as good as a treat; but after all was said and done it was decided to keep moving. The start made was not an early one, and there was work for all hands here and there. The herds of bisons had not prepared that road for the passage of wagon wheels, and it needed the axe in one place and the crow-bar in another before the teams could pass. There was no sort of danger that the Nez Percés would be caught up with by the mining-party, and Yellow Pine seemed to breathe more freely at the end of every mile.
"No, jedge," he said; "we won't have to leave the outfit anywhere. There'll be a heap of hard work at some spots, but we can make our way through, and we can come and go by this track forever after it's well opened."
Sile Parks learned a great deal that day about the mysteries of road-making; he also learned how much a really well-built wagon will stand if it is not too heavily loaded. For all that, however, the best part of his time was expended in staring at the peaks, and in searching the walls of the cañon for traces of gold and silver ore.
"Father," said he at last, at a place where the wagons were "stuck" for a while, "I'm going ahead to see what'll turn up."
"Don't go too far, that's all."
"Keep yer eye out for mines," shouted Yellow Pine, with a laugh, and Sile took it seriously.
"It's a gold country," he said to himself, "and I might stumble upon some of it."
That was precisely what he made out to do. He was marching along, with his eyes on all the rocky precipices, as if the mouth of a gold-mine might open to him at any moment, and he was not so careful of his feet as he should have been. A loose stone shot away from under him, and down he came upon a fairly level floor of sand and gravel. It was so sudden and so sharp a dropping that he sat still for a moment and looked around him.
"Halloo, what's that?" Something bright and yellow had caught his eye, peering out at him from the gravel his boot-heel had disturbed. "Gold! gold! A chunk of gold!"
Thousands upon thousands of "placer miners" have raised precisely such a shout in just such sandy gullies, but Sile felt as if he were the first being on earth to whom such an experience had ever happened. He at once began to dig and sift among the gravel fiercely. He took out his hunting-knife and plied it as a trowel. Little bits of dull yellow metal rewarded him every now and then until he worked along to where a ledge (or the edge of one) of quartz came nearly to the surface. On the upper side of that, and lying closely against it, he pried out something that made him shout "Hurrah!" and that then gave him almost a sick feeling. It was a gathering of golden nuggets and particles which would nearly have filled his hat, and there were others like it, only smaller, all along the edge of that stone. For unknown centuries it had been serving as a "bar" in the natural "washer" made by that ravine, and had caught and kept whatever the torrents had borne down from crumbling quartz rocks above and had drifted against it.
Sile thought of Aladdin and his wonderful lamp; then he thought of the California miners; then he shut his eyes for a moment. Then he went on digging, and he was hard at it when a tall form stooped over him and the voice of Yellow Pine exclaimed,
"I'd call it—If the youngster hasn't lighted onto a placer and scooped the biggest kind of a pocket! Sile, you've done it. You can jest ax me all the fool questions you've a mind to after this. You was really learnin' by 'em."
When the light awoke Two Arrows, he found One-eye standing guard as if he did not like the look of things, but no danger showed itself. It was a new country—too much so, perhaps—and a dog with a high sense of duty could not be too careful. Two Arrows also had duties, and he felt that one of them was to go back at once and tell his band what he had discovered. He had no idea that they were already on the march, or he might have been less troubled in mind about them. His other duty, not quite so plain, was to explore the valley a little and see how many buffaloes and deer and all that sort of thing were in it. He wondered at the greenness of the grass, not knowing that the mountain range east of it took care of that, taking the water out of the winds from the west so that they were often sponge-dry when they passed over upon the parching plains beyond. He had never heard of Eden and he could not make any comparisons, but he roundly declared that he had never been in a place that promised better hunting. He did not even ask himself how a herd of bisons should remember what their fathers had told them about that valley and come hundreds of miles to find grass there. He had not seen one yet, but he had caught a glimpse of a gang of deer in rapid motion. That fact set him to thinking and made him cautious, for it was an hour when deer are feeding unless they have been disturbed. He cooked and ate his breakfast, providing liberally for One-eye, but could hardly make up his mind in which direction to go. There was the mouth of the cañon, telling him one thing, and in all other directions were the possible secrets of that valley.
His feet took him along, at last, and he wandered for nearly a mile before he came to any sort of adventure. Then he suddenly discovered why the deer were in motion, and why it was time for him and One-eye to wander back again. It was almost as bad as a war-party of another tribe or even a band of wicked pale-faces, for at the edge of a little grove of wild plum-trees One-eye broke out into something between a howl and a bark, and turned, running towards his master. Then Two Arrows himself turned and ran, for his quick eyes caught the meaning of it. The head of a grisly bear came out between two bushes, and no idea of heroism called for any waiting. The cañon, or the ruins, or almost any other place, would have been better, at that moment, than the spot where he was when Bruin saw him.
The grisly may have had bad-luck that morning. At all events, he was out after game, and was in a bad temper. He hated all dogs, naturally, and he had seen One-eye. He hated men, as well, but his first rush was after the scared quadruped. That was an excellent thing for Two Arrows. He was the best runner of his age in his band, and never before had he done quite so well, but he stuck to his weapons. His bag of provisions had been hidden among the old houses, and he was glad of it as he bounded away across the grass. Every jump counted, for One-eye was doing the right thing. He was not following his master too closely, he was only thinking of getting away from that bear. He, too, had been the best runner of his tribe, when there had been other dogs to run with him, and he certainly was now. He ran well, but so did the bear, for a good horse does not too easily overtake a grisly, and a man on foot can never do it if the bear does his best.
It was an exciting race, but Two Arrows knew it must have an end some time. He longed for a tree, and to be away up in the top of it, but there were none near enough to be of any use. He kept an eye on the other racers, and it was not many minutes before he saw that One-eye was doing almost too well. He was getting away so fast that the grisly gave him up and turned to his other chance for a breakfast. It was as if he had said to himself,
"Dogs are no good. They run too well. A nice, tender, well-fed Indian boy, now, and I'll get him in a moment."
Two Arrows had gained a pretty good start, and it led him towards the cañon. He tried to calculate the distance, and how long it would take him to get there, but his next thought was that he had never heard of a grisly that could gallop and rush like this one.
"It'll all be over with me. I'd fight him, but he's too much for me. Got to die now."
It was an awful moment, and all the courage in him did not make it any less so. The claws and jaws and hug of a mountain grisly are a terrible prospect to set before anybody's ambition.
Just then another prospect and a ray of hope dawned upon him. Away to the right he saw a solitary bowlder of gray granite, with a round top, nearly thirty feet above the grass.
"If it isn't too smooth to climb," flashed through the mind of Two Arrows, as he turned and ran for it. He was running now for his life, and the bear was rapidly gaining on him, but it told well for his valor that he did not drop lance or bow.
Nearer, now, and he could see that the rock was one of those bald-headed, smooth-cheeked affairs that look as if they had been ground and polished in a mill.
"Ugh! Other side, maybe," groaned Two Arrows, as he dodged around the hopeless side he came to. Away around, and the same mocking smoothness made his heart sink, while the fierce growl of the huge wild beast behind him thrilled him through and through.
"Ugh! rough place! Climb."
It was a mere crack at the surface of the ground, but at a few feet above it the granite surface was somewhat broken. A good spring, aided by the tough shaft of his lance, and Two Arrows managed to brace himself upon a tolerable holding. If he should slip there would be an end of it, for the grisly was close up now. He clung like a fly, and found place after place for his hands and feet. In a moment more he was sitting upon the round top of the rock safe, but a prisoner, with a guard set to keep him secure. He had come out after adventures and he had found one of the very largest kind. He had never heard such tremendous roaring growls as the disappointed grisly was now uttering. Between these he could also hear, at no great distance, the mournful howls of One-eye. The sagacious animal had not self-conceit enough to match his weight and size against a brute that could have whipped a lion in five minutes, but he could express his feelings concerning the state of affairs.
"He can't get up here," said Two Arrows, but he said it doubtfully, for the grisly is a rock bear, and is made for climbing. He was now studying the face of that rock at the cleft, and it was not long before he made up his mind that he could do something.
"I won't waste any arrows on him," said the boy on the top of the bowlder. "Besides, if I don't get him too angry he may go off."
Not without trying a climb for his human game; and it was wonderful with what care and consideration, as well as skill and strength, Bruin made his effort.
Two-Arrows lay down, bow in hand, and watched him, as he raised his huge bulk against the side of the rock. The long, strong, cruel-looking claws took hold of crevices and roughnesses much more powerfully than a human hand or foot could have grasped them. A grunt, a growl, a great lift, and the grisly was off the ground.
"He is coming. Let him come one length nearer."
Two Arrows did not know that he was testing his quality as a warrior and chief to be. It was a marvellous trial of cool courage to lie there, with an arrow on the string, and bide his time.
"Now! Ugh!"
The arrow went truly to its mark, but the hide of a grisly is a tough shield, and the shaft did not go as deeply as it might have gone into a deer or bison. Arrow after arrow sped in swift, unerring succession, and the bear received them with roars of fury, struggling upward as his wrath and pain aroused him to greater efforts.
"My last two arrows. One for that leg, just above the claw."
Cool and correct again, and the last brace of shafts did their work to admiration. They did not kill the grisly nor even loosen the gripe of that great forearm and claw upon the rock, but the next struggle of the bear brought him upon smooth stone, gently rounding. He reached out over it with his wounded limb, and the black hooks at the end of it did not work well. His game was within a length of him, but it was game that held a long Mexican lance in its ready hand. Under other circumstances Bruin could have parried that thrust and closed with its giver, but not now. It went through his other forearm, and his gripe with that loosened for a second or so—only for an instant, but that was enough. Slip, slide, growl, tear, roar, and the immense monster rolled heavily to the ground below, full of rage and arrow-wounds, and altogether unfitted for another steep climb.
Two Arrows drew a great breath of relief, but he well knew that he had not yet escaped. There were oceans of hate and fight in the wounded grisly, and there was no use whatever in going down for a fair match with him upon the grass. He was in his most dangerous state, and the top of the rock would have to answer all purposes for a season. There was no telling how long that would be, for even when the bear arose and limped all the way around the bowlder, his ferocious growls plainly declared his purpose. He had not the least idea of letting the matter stop there. He meant to stay and watch it out. Perhaps more grislies would come to help him and keep guard while he should doctor himself. It was a most remarkable trap for a young explorer to get caught in, and he well knew that a grisly will take more killing and die longer and harder than any other known animal. Besides, he had no idea how much or how seriously his shafts had touched the vitals of his enemy.
He must stay where he was, and now he felt something like a sensation of mortification. One-eye had deserted him. All the howling had died away while the bear was climbing the rock. The last dog of that band of Nez Percés had turned tail and left his master on the top of a bowlder to be starved out by a bear.
The wagons came slowly on down the pass, but it was only a few moments before everybody but the two drivers had dismounted and stood gazing at Sile's remarkable "find." There were old "placer miners" among them, and they all declared that it was just the place in which they would have expected a "bonanza." Then they all added that without water to wash the sand and gravel with, there would be little use in doing anything more than to hunt for "pockets." There might be "pay dirt" in all directions, but a man might scratch and sift until he starved and not get more than enough to buy him a new hat. They had been through all that sort of experience, and their heads were not to be turned by it. Still, it was decided to try that level again some day, and the whole cañon, at a time of the year when water was to be had. All that could now be done was to carefully search for and gather up the odds and ends of Sile's "luck." Even the necessity of grass for the horses compelled the train to move onward.
When they came to the rocky ledge, with the precipice on one side and the mountain wall on the other, Judge Parks turned to Yellow Pine with a face full of doubt.
"Don't you be skeered, jedge. I took a measure of it at the narrerest p'int, and it'll let the wheels go by and two feet to spare."
That was close work, when they came to it, and Sile shuddered all over as he saw how near the wheels came to the edge of destruction. A restive mule, a scared horse, a little backing and plunging, and disaster was ready to come. Not an animal shied, however, though some of them trembled and sheered in towards the rock. It was hardest when they had to hold back going down and around some of the sharper curves. Sile had several tremendous shudders at such places and drew long breaths of relief afterwards, as the wagons rolled on in safety. Then, on the next level below, there was more axe and crow-bar work to be done, and it was late in the day when the train once more reached a deserted camping-ground of the band of Indians they seemed to be pursuing.
"We'd better take a rest here, jedge. It's been a hard day on the men and the hosses, and we've struck gold a'ready."
Sile had been strangely aware of that fact for some hours, and it had dazed him a little. He had walked on without asking a question of anybody. He had a dim idea that the metal he had found was worth a great deal of money, but he hardly cared to know how much. It was a new and wonderful sensation. His father told him there was enough of it to buy him a farm and stock it, and when Yellow Pine had finished his other duties, at going into camp, and had noted all the signs the Nez Percés left behind, he said to Sile,
"Now, my boy, gather up all the charcoal you can rake from those dead fires and I'll show you something. Slugs are safer to carry than dust and nuggets. I allers used to slug my finds, first thing."
That was Greek to Sile, but Yellow Pine rummaged one of the wagons and brought out a long-nosed bellows and a crucible and a sort of mould that opened with two handles. He put the crucible in among the coals, filled it from Sile's yellow heap, covered it, and began to work the bellows. Sile was astonished to find how speedily what Pine called "bullion" would melt, and how easy it was to run it into little bars. There did not seem to be so much of it, but there was less danger that any of the smaller chunks and scales and particles could get away.
"There, Sile. There's your farm, cows, hosses, hogs and all, and it only cost you a gitten' thirsty."
"They're wonderful," was all Sile could make out to say, and his father put them in a bag and locked them up in an iron-bound box in one of the wagons.
"You needn't scratch into all the sand you come to after this," said Yellow Pine. "That's what takes the tuck out of placer miners. One good pocket'll most ginerally spile the eyes of a green hand."
He assured the judge that one more push would bring them to good grass, and he added,
"What's more, we ain't in any hurry to ketch up with no redskins till we know what they are. It's peace with most on 'em, but this 'ere isn't a strong band, and I kinder want to feel my way."
There was sense in that, especially as he knew that Indians without horses are also Indians on the lookout for some. What he did not know was the state of mind that band of Nez Percés was in at that hour.
They had set out very early that morning, and were plodding on steadily down the winding slopes of the cañon, when there came to them an unexpected sensation. It was a dog.
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 pass. 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 Percé 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 entitled 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 grass.
The remainder of the band came down the pass 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 grass 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 grass 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!"