CHAPTER XI.

PARTING—A LONELY RIDE—A NIGHT STORM IN THE MOUNTAINS.

Rapid riding soon brought the party of Waltermyer to the first swell of the mountain. A rest here was necessary, but the frontiersman granted it grudgingly, for his iron frame despised repose when any exciting purpose urged him forward. With the horse he was master of, an animal that between sun and sun had coursed his hundred miles, it was very difficult for him to realize that the steeds of others could grow faint upon so short a trail. But his keen eye told him that some of these poor wretches, at least, were sorely distressed, and his kind heart would not permit of cruelty to the meanest beast alive; yet he chafed at the moments thus wasted, as he said, when one in whom he had become so strangely interested was a prisoner, either with the Indians, or—and, in his view of the matter, far worse—the Mormons.

“Lite, boys, lite,” was his command, “and give your horses a good rubbin’ down, though it ain’t of much use, neither, nussin’ up such good for nothin’ but pullin’ beasts. Thar isn’t five miles an hour left in any one of them, and ef we catch the red-skins, we’ll have to travel faster than that by a considerable sight. But give them a good rubbin’ down, and, ef worst comes to worst, it will help them to get back to the train.”

“Then you think, Waltermyer, that there is little chance of overtaking them?” asked the anxious father.

“Yours, yes. And I might as well tell you the truth, stranger, now as any time. I’ve kept it back because I was rale sorry for you, and couldn’t find words soft enough. Kirk Waltermyer calls himself a man, but he has a woman’s heart about some things, and when he sees a fine old gray-headed chap like you a-weepin’ for a daughter, he can’t help thinkin’ of a sister he had once—a little blue-eyed darlin’, that went to sleep when the early snow-flakes were fallin’, and never woke again.”

The stout frontiersman drew a hand across his eyes to free them from the tears that swelled into them.

“God knows how much I love Esther, and—”

“Esther? Yes, I had almost forgotten; but the little child that the minister said had gone to heaven to be an angel—them war his own words, stranger—was named Esther. Est—little Est, I used to call her, and—but, stranger,” and his words were toned down into a deeply-breathed whisper, as if coming from the very bottom of his heart, “but, stranger, do you think a man that has lived the life I have can ever go thar?” his finger was pointed reverently upward as he spoke, and an anxious glance shone out through his tears.

“Heaven is ever in sight, my friend. It is as near to you here in the wilderness, as if you lived within the sound of church-going bells.”

“Stranger, I thank you.” He wrung the hand of Morse convulsively, and then continued: “Yes, stranger, Kirk Waltermyer, thanks you, and that is a thing he doesn’t often do, for he has lived with Diggers and Greasers until he has got to be a’most as unpolite as they are. I have often thought of this thing when ridin’ along alone over the wide perarers, but never had any schoolin’, and, therefore, couldn’t make up my mind. Sometimes, stranger, I have thought I heard that far-off bell tolling again, just as it did when they laid poor little Est in the ground. And then again, when campin’ by myself—when layin’ out nights, with nothin’ under me but the bare ground, and nothin’ over me but the starry blanket they call heaven, I have thought I could see her blue eyes looking down upon me, and have heard her whisper, just as she used to do, ‘Now I lay me down.’ I’ve forgotten the rest, stranger, but I always try to be better afterward, for poor little Est’s sake.”

There was something so pitiful in the sorrow of the hardy frontiersman, so unusual and different from any that he had before seen, that Miles Morse felt that the accustomed common expressions of condolence would be entirely out of place, and wisely refrained from giving them utterance. Ah, when such men weep—when their strong natures are melted into tears, be sure the grief is deep, and far too sacred for human cure. Believe, full surely, that there is a spot somewhere, concealed though it be from public gaze, a sacred cleft in which a tiny flower is budding for heaven.

Incompetent to give sympathy, there remained but one way to give Waltermyer relief, that of changing the subject, and this Morse hastened to do, believing that his volatile nature would soon recover. And in this he was right. A prairie life is one of constant changes and excitement. Few are the moments that can be spared from watchfulness, amid its ever-present danger, to give to regret. The tear must be dashed from the eye to sight the deadly rifle, and the hand that is performing the last acts of affection for the departed must turn hastily away for self-protection. It is a school, the like of which there is not elsewhere on earth, for training men to be self-reliant, brave to recklessness, scornful of privation, uncaring for hardship, and steady and unquailing in the hour of strife. Turn to the blood-written records of Henry, Donelson, Pittsburg Landing, and read there the proof of the matchless daring, unflinching bravery, and almost hopeless victories won by our frontiersmen—the hardy, prairie-nurtured and trained gladiators of the West.

“You were going to tell me,” continued Morse, after a pause that he deemed sufficient to allow the turbulent waters in the breast of Waltermyer to subside, “you were going to tell me something that you couldn’t find words to express. This is what you were saying.”

“Soft words, stranger, soft words. Yes, I was, but poor little Est put it all out of my mind. Forget it, and don’t think me a baby for cryin’ about one who has been so long dead.”

“Forget it? I think the better of you for it. It shows you have a heart, and that it is in the right place. No brave or true man forgets his little ones who are sleeping beneath the cold sod of the valley.”

“Truer words you never spoke, and the memory of that dear little child that God took to be a bright-winged angel—yes, them was the very words the old minister used—has kept me from many a sin out on the frontier.”

“May it always do so.”

“And now, then, about what I was a-goin’ to say. Ef I don’t word it softly, stranger, you must forgive me, for it’s the tongue and not the heart.”

“You need no apology. Go on, friend.”

“Friend, yes. Waal, I will try to earn that name. And now, stranger, what I was a-goin’ to say was this. _You can’t follow this trail any longer._”

“Not follow the trail? You must be mad.”

“No, no. I only wish I was. You’re an old man, and the hard ridin’ ana hot work we’ve had is tellin’ on you. You need rest and must have it or you will die right out. Stranger, a horse or a deer that outruns its strength falls suddenly. I know the nature of the beasts and I allow its just the same with humans. Then, too, you haven’t a horse in the bull crowd that could stand an hour’s journey in the mountings. Besides it will soon be dark—dark as a pile of black snakes, for thar is no moon to-night, and he who rides must have a sure hand and an eye that is used to followin’ trails.”

“Alas, you but speak the truth. But my daughter? My poor, poor child?”

“Didn’t you say just now that the Lord was on the perarer the same as in the great cities? I believe you did, and I believe it’s gospel truth. But your Esther shall not want a friend, if it was only for the sake of the poor little child that was named for her.”

“But what shall I do?”

“You and the boys must stop here. When it gets to be dark you will see the light from the fires of your train yender. La Moine would never pass that camping-ground. It’s a cl’ar road—no sloos or rocks between, and you ought to ride it in two hours. I’ve done it many a time in half the time. You must go there and tell the Frenchman that Kirk Waltermyer says he mustn’t move until he hears from him.”

“But suppose any accident should happen to you?”

“Accident! Well, stranger, thar mought be such a thing, that’s a fact, but I don’t believe it,” and he laughed as if disaster to him was an utter impossibility. “Anyhow, you keep quiet thar, and if I don’t come back within three days and bring your daughter safe and sound, tell La Moine to take the back track, hunt up my bones and bring them in.”

“And I?”

“Must trust in heaven. Kirk Waltermyer will have done all that was possible for man to do.”

“I believe it must be as you say. The horses, poor things, are worn out, and I feel that I could not long endure riding. But had you not better take some of the boys with you?”

“Not a single one. They would only bother me.”

“Go, then, friend, and if you do not come back within three days I myself will follow, and never rest until I have found you if alive, and if dead, which kind heaven avert—make for you a grave.”

Again a tear stood in the eye of Waltermyer. He strove to speak, but the words were lost in his throat. A strong, hearty shake of the hand was the only thanks he was able to return, then, as if fearing to trust himself further, he whistled his horse to his side, sprung upon his back without touching the stirrup, and with a wave of his hand dashed toward the frowning steeps and disappeared.

The disconsolate parent followed his advice, and just as the guard was changed at midnight, reached the train—there to relate the story of their wanderings—hear of the attack and repulse of the Indians, and then, after partaking of food and drink, to fall into the dreamless, all-forgetting slumber that follows arduous toil.

Waltermyer reached the rocky bed of the cañon, muffled his horse’s feet so as to deaden as much as possible the sound of his footsteps without lessening his speed or rendering him liable to fall. He stripped his steed of every thing except his bridle, making his load easy as possible, then again mounting urged him forward. The twilight was just beginning to gather around him when he parted from his comrades, and soon the shadows settled thickly in his path. Blacker still they became until night had enveloped the earth in a starless, moonless vail.

“Black as a mounting of black minks,” muttered the lone rider to himself, and then, as if pleased with the idea, he continued: “and I reckon them reptiles are e’en a-most as black as you are, Star,” and he patted the neck of his horse. “How I pity any one that has to ride in such a night. Ef that gal is abroad now she will—as I live ef it hain’t a-goin’ to rain, too. Thar fell a drop—a great, big drop pat on my hand. Hark! that rumblin’ way up in the hills means thunder and nothin’ else. Waal, waal, we’re goin’ to have a night of it, and I allow it’s lucky that I didn’t bring them green boys along with me. Softly, pet—steady, boy.”

A sudden flash—a living chain of fire that flashed before the horse, dazzling and blinding, had for an instant startled him, and it needed both voice and rein of the master to control him for a moment; but when another followed and the rolling thunder shook the very rocks beneath his feet, he was calm, and, unmoved, felt his way along the dangerous path. Felt, for even the eyes of the quadruped will fail when the flood-gates of a night storm are suddenly thrown open and the lurid glare of lightning fills earth and sky.

The slowly-dropping rain became a torrent, and the wind, aroused from its slumber in the hills, came raving through the rain, and howled a terrible anthem among the mountains. Moaning it crept among the crevices in the rock, and howling it swept through the high-walled cañon, and wrestled with the tortured trees and shook the granite portals of the mountain. Catching the huge drops in its embrace, it whirled them in fleecy mist aloft—ragged, torn, drifting away into the black darkness. The deep-worn gulleys in the gray old rocks were aflood with water—the cañon’s floor a roaring river, and still the pitiless wind-driven sleet fell deluge-like. Along the inky sky the lightning played, flashing its red bolts—twining in many a fantastic link its burnished gold—tinging the cloudy rifts with shining white, and lighting up cavern and crevice as with shooting star-light. Oh! it was grandly sublime!—a panorama of light and blackness—of gloom and brightness—of blackest chaos and of burning light, and shown to such music as the world can only know when the fingers of Jehovah plays upon the lightning-strings, and the thunder-gun of heaven is fired from the murky battlements of the whirlwind. Such was the mountain storm in which the frontiersman found himself.

“Oh! night, and storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,” sung he of the gloomy lyre years ago, and there, where Jura answered, came such sounds and flashing bolts as rung around the head of that brave frontiersman as he bowed his head to the storm, thinking, save now and then of the little one that was above, of the one below, who might even then be forced by savage warriors to struggle with the tempest as he was doing.

But there was little of written poetry in Waltermyer, and if there had been, custom had blunted his taste for the beauty of a night thunder-storm in the wilderness. He knew the danger of the path that he was traveling at any time—even in the daylight—but now? Death was lurking beneath every footfall. And yet, knowing this, he gave no thought to his own safety or made any effort to escape the beating force of the storm. The mad rushing of the rain, the roaring of the angry thunder or the blinding glare of the lightning was nothing to him. A girl, a feeble girl, was waiting for him to rescue her from the hands of savage warriors, and all the fiends of the storm could not have forced him to pause for his own safety. Besides, he knew that Indian warriors would not travel on a night like that, and if she was still in their hands, he could gain upon them. Shrewdly surmising at what point and under what shelter they would pause, he kept on his dangerous way.

His horse stumbled; he sprung to the ground—if such a flinty floor could so be called—in an instant, and removed the mufflings from the animal’s feet. Then, as the path became more steep, he led him carefully—trying every step before he ventured his weight upon it. And thus, brave heart, he moved still slowly along, while the sky was ablaze and the thunder boomed in his ear, mingled with the shrill whistle of the wind, the rattle of the falling rain, and the crash of tree-boughs beating against each other.