_ CHAPTER XXIV. SILE'S VICTORY
There had been no anxiety at the mine on account of the absent hunters. Judge Parks and Yellow Pine had their hands very full of an inspection of the cargoes of the two wagons. The men toiled vigorously at the stone wall and at the shingle riving. Ha-ha-pah-no and Na-tee-kah were as busy as bees over the lengthening list of marvels put before their eyes. It seemed to Na-tee-kah as if Judge Parks must be a kind of magician, or else that he had a whole lodge full of "medicine-men" of a rare breed at home, who could conjure up for him almost anything he might chose to call for. It was no use to try to understand such things as he and Yellow Pine were examining. They belonged to the great mystery of pale-face life, and a Nez Perce girl could not be expected to guess very nearly at their uses. She could comb her hair more carefully, however, and discover a new way of doing it up, and she did not know how closely she was imitating many pale-face young ladies of about her age, not to speak of older ones.
Noon came and went, and there were no signs of returning hunters or of game of any sort, but there was no danger of famine in that camp for days and days to come.
Judge Parks would hardly have unpacked mining-tools and "fixings," as Pine called them, so composedly if he could have known what was going forward farther down the valley and on the other side of the little river.
On, on rode Two Arrows and his companion, and it almost seemed as if both were growing older. It was no sort of boy-play to ride like that, with such tremendous consequences depending upon them. Sile's merry face put on a tremendously sober and earnest expression, while Two Arrows looked as if he were already a chief in command of a war-party. So he was, only that the party was a very small one.
Mile after mile went by, and the horses held out capitally; but at last Two Arrows slackened his gait, seemed to make a silent calculation, and halted.
"Pale-face camp there," he said, emphatically, pointing across towards the mountain range at their left. "Red-head cross water. Tell his people. Two Arrows ride. Tell Nez Perce. Red-head go straight, find camp. Ugh!"
"I can find it," said Sile. "I was thinking we'd gone up river about far enough. We must have got away ahead of the Apaches. Hope I sha'n't meet any."
"Shoot quick," said Two Arrows. "Kill. Take 'calp. Be great brave. Two Arrows kill grisly. Kill 'Pache some day. How!"
He held out his hand, and Sile shook it hard in token of good-bye, and the two boys separated, each to carry his own tidings and face his own dangers. Two Arrows rode on in a straight line up the valley, and Sile wheeled towards the line of forest which bordered the river. It struck him that he was yet a little below the precise neighborhood of the mine, and he was correct, but as yet it was all guess-work. At all events, he was sure that his remaining ride could not be a long one; it could not fail to be intensely exciting. Again he saw plenty of game, and he was strangely tempted to try a shot at a deer until the idea came to him,
"I can't say what ears might hear the report of my rifle."
Deer did not seem to be of any account after that idea took form, and he galloped on. In a few minutes more his horse's feet were in the water, and he was almost immediately aware that he had not chosen a good ford. It grew deep too fast, and he had to ride out again.
"I won't go into another pool," he said to himself. "I'll hunt for a wide place where it ripples well."
He had not the experience and the quick eyes of Two Arrows, but he was learning fast, and it was easy to find a better crossing. Once over, he felt that the forest was itself a sort of protection, and there came a great thrill all over him at the thought of riding out from under it. What if the Apaches should be already there, and what if they had found the camp and destroyed it?
"They haven't done that," said Sile, "unless they managed to take it by surprise. Guess they couldn't do that in broad daylight. Our men are all old hands, and Yellow Pine keeps his eyes about him. I'll get in a good while before dark--that is, if I make out to get in. I wish there was good cover all the way."
He drew rein for a moment under the last line of trees, and he looked earnestly in all directions, but even his spy-glass could not reveal to him a sign of danger. He had never seen anything more absolutely quiet and peaceful than was that stretch of open valley, with its grass and its bushes, and its clusters of grand old trees. It encouraged him a good deal to see a buck and two does feeding within a quarter of a mile of him, and he at once rode watchfully onward. His horse was beginning to show signs of hard riding, and he noted it regretfully. There might yet be a race to run, for all he knew.
There was to be something very different from a race, and the notice of it came to him very suddenly. Just as he rode out through a patch of willows in a long hollow, walking his horse because of their being in his way a little, his heart seemed to stop beating and stand still. Then it beat again, and like a trip-hammer, for a moment. The bridle fell from his hand, and he made ready his rifle as if by an instinctive movement.
Right before him and hardly a hundred yards away, on the rising ground, sat an Indian brave, in his war-paint, upon a very fine looking horse, and Sile was sure at a glance that he could not be one of his Nez Perce friends. They had no such horses as that among all that he and Two Arrows had found for them. The warrior was looking in the opposite direction at the instant, but he was also wheeling his horse, and in a second or so more he caught sight of Sile. He had a lance, but it was slung behind him, and in his hands was as good a repeating-rifle as Sile's own, and he raised it like a flash.
It was as if he lifted two, for Sile's rifle also came up with precisely the same quick, ready-handed motion.
It was an awful moment for Sile. He had never before done as much real thinking in one hour as he did between his first glimpse of that redskin and the rising of the dark, threatening line of that rifle-barrel.
He had thought of the men at the mine, and of their need of warning, and therefore of the necessity that he should protect himself and get to them alive. He had thought of his father and his mother, and of some other people, and he had also thought what a dreadful thing it was to shoot straight at a man, and perhaps to kill him. He had just said to himself,
"I might just kill his horse, and then I could get away from him."
At that very instant the two rifles came to a level, whether he would or not. He felt no symptoms of "buck ague" this time, for every nerve and muscle of his body was stiffening, while his tired horse stood as still as a stone. That was where he had a priceless advantage. The spirited animal ridden by his enemy was a trifle restive for some reason, and caused a shade of delay that was just enough to give Sile his only remaining chance.
"If I hit his horse in the head," he was thinking as he pulled the trigger: but that would have been close shooting at a hundred yards, and just beyond the head of the horse was the naked breast of the warrior.
There were two reports close together, and Sile felt something prick him sharply on the left arm near the shoulder. At the same moment he saw the red man reel to and fro upon his horse, and then pitch off head foremost into the grass.
"Oh, dear me, I've shot him!" he exclaimed, and his first impulse was to ride away as fast as he could.
Then came a suggestion that the brave might be only wounded, and that it was his duty to go and see if he could do anything for him. With that, too, there came a great gush of curiosity and a fierce and feverish sense of triumph. He had fought a duel on horseback with an Indian warrior, with rifles, and there were no other white boys who could say that they had done that. He sat still upon his horse for a moment, and his breath came and went very quickly, and then he somewhat cautiously rode forward. The Indian's horse had bounded away for a little distance when his master fell, but was now standing and looking at him, as if in doubt as to what he ought to do next. Not another human being of any kind was to be seen, but Sile looked around him anxiously enough to make sure that he was alone. Not one sound disturbed the peaceful silence of the valley after those two rifles had spoken.
All irresolution passed out of Sile's mind as he rode forward, for he felt that he had behaved rightly, and had done nothing for which he could blame himself. He watched the fallen man narrowly as he drew near him, but there was no motion or any other sign of life.
"I must have killed him outright!" He sprang from his horse and bent over the prostrate form, but he did not have to look more than once. "That hole--that's where the bullet went in. It must have gone right through his heart. Well, he would have killed me if I had not killed him. I would not have hurt him if I could have helped it."
It seemed to Sile a matter of course that he should pick up the red warrior's rifle, unbuckle and take off the bead-worked belt that carried his knife and revolver, take his lance, catch his horse, and then ride onward, carrying with him all as "spoils of war." He did it coolly and steadily but rapidly, and without any idea how very fast he was growing. He was learning lessons in a great school, but any wise old man could have told him that no two boys learn the same lessons anywhere. A good deal more depends upon the boy himself than upon the school or the teacher.
That tall, brawny Apache warrior had been a distinguished brave, and he had been sent upon a scouting trip away in advance of the rest merely as a customary precaution. There had been no expectation that he would discover anything remarkable. In meeting a solitary pale-face, he had undertaken to kill him very much as a matter of course, for he was just then at war with all white men. Sile had made the better shot of the two, and that was about all that could be said. As for Sile, he was in a greater hurry than ever to get to the mine, and again and again he wondered whether Two Arrows had met any Apaches.
"I do hope he hasn't," he said to himself, "with only a bow and arrows. I wish he had a rifle." _