young hunter sprang through the bushes towards his horse, and was just in time to save a Banattee Indian from being strangled by the dog. It had evidently scented out this fellow, and pinned him just as he was in the act of springing on the back of Charlie, for the halter was cut, and the savage lay on the ground close beside him.
Dick called off the dog, and motioned to the Indian to rise, which he did so nimbly that it was quite evident he had sustained no injury beyond the laceration of his neck by Crusoe’s teeth, and the surprise.
He was a tall strong Indian, for the tribe to which he belonged, so Dick proceeded to secure him at once. Pointing to his rifle and to the Indian’s breast, to show what he might expect if he attempted to escape, Dick ordered Crusoe to keep him steady in that position.
The dog planted himself in front of the savage, who began to tremble for his scalp, and gazed up in his face with a look which, to say the least of it, was the reverse of amiable, while Dick went towards his horse for the purpose of procuring a piece of cord to tie him with. The Indian naturally turned his head to see what was going to be done, but a peculiar gurgle in Crusoe’s throat made him turn it round again very smartly, and he did not venture, thereafter, to move a muscle.
In a few seconds Dick returned with a piece of leather and tied his hands behind his back. While this was being done the Indian glanced several times at his bow, which lay a few feet away, where it had fallen when the dog caught him, but Crusoe seemed to understand him, for he favoured him with such an additional display of teeth, and such a low—apparently distant, almost, we might say, subterranean—rumble, that he resigned himself to his fate.
His hands secured, a long line was attached to his neck with a running noose, so that if he ventured to run away the attempt would effect its own cure by producing strangulation. The other end of this line was given to Crusoe, who at the word of command marched him off, while Dick mounted Charlie and brought up the rear.
Great was the laughter and merriment when this apparition met the eyes of the trappers; but when they heard that he had attempted to shoot Dick their ire was raised, and a court-martial was held on the spot.
“Hang the reptile!” cried one.
“Burn him!” shouted another.
“No, no,” said a third; “don’t imitate them villains; don’t be cruel. Let’s shoot him.”
“Shoot ’im,” cried Pièrre; “Oui, dat is de ting; it too goot pour lui, mais, it shall be dooed.”
“Don’t ye think, lads, it would be better to let the poor wretch off?” said Dick Varley; “he’d p’raps give a good account o’ us to his people.”
There was a universal shout of contempt at this mild proposal. Unfortunately, few of the men sent on this exploring expedition were imbued with the peacemaking spirit of their chief; and most of them seemed glad to have a chance of venting their hatred of the poor Indians on this unhappy wretch, who although calm, looked sharply from one speaker to another, to gather hope, if possible, from the tones of their voices.
Dick was resolved at the risk of a quarrel with Pièrre to save the poor man’s life, and had made up his mind to insist on having him conducted to the camp to be tried by Cameron, when one of the men suggested that they should take the savage to the top of a hill about three miles further on, and there hang him up on a tree as a warning to all his tribe.
“Agreed, agreed,” cried the men; “come on.”
Dick, too, seemed to agree to this proposal, and hastily ordered Crusoe to run on ahead with the savage, an order which the dog obeyed so vigorously that before the men had done laughing at him, he was a couple of hundred yards ahead of them.
“Take care that he don’t get off!” cried Dick, springing on Charlie and stretching out at a gallop.
In a moment he was beside the Indian. Scraping together the little of the Indian language he knew, he stooped down, and, cutting the thongs that bound him, said—“Go, white men love the Indians.”
The man cast on his deliverer one glance of surprise, and the next moment bounded aside into the bushes and was gone.
A loud shout from the party behind showed that this act had been observed, and Crusoe stood with the end of the line in his mouth, and an expression on his face that said, “You’re absolutely incomprehensible, Dick! It’s all right, I know; but to my feeble capacity it seems wrong.”
“Fat for, you do dat?” shouted Pièrre in a rage, as he came up with a menacing look.
Dick confronted him. “The prisoner was mine. I had a right to do with him as it liked me.”
“True, true,” cried several of the men who had begun to repent of their resolution, and were glad the savage was off. “The lad’s right. Get along, Pièrre.”
“You had no right, you vas wrong. Oui, et I have goot vill to give you one knock on de nose.”
Dick looked Pièrre in the face, as he said this, in a manner that cowed him.
“It is time,” he said quietly, pointing to the sun, “to go on. Your bourgeois expects that time won’t be wasted.”
Pièrre muttered something in an angry tone, and, wheeling round his horse, dashed forward at full gallop followed by the rest of the men.
The trappers encamped that night on the edge of a wide grassy plain, which offered such tempting food for the horses that Pièrre resolved to forego his usual cautious plan of picketting them close to the camp, and set them loose on the plain, merely hobbling them to prevent their straying far.
Dick remonstrated, but in vain. An insolent answer was all he got for his pains. He determined, however, to keep Charlie close beside him all night, and also made up his mind to keep a sharp look out on the other horses.
At supper he again remonstrated.
“No fraid,” said Pièrre, whose pipe was beginning to improve his temper. “The red reptiles no dare to come in open plain when de moon so clear.”
“Dun know that,” said a taciturn trapper, who seldom ventured a remark of any kind; “them varmints ’ud steal the two eyes out o’ you’ head when they set their hearts on’t.”
“Dat ar’ umposs’ble, for de have no hearts,” said a half-breed; “dey have von hole vere de heart vas be.”
This was received with a shout of laughter, in the midst of which an appalling yell was heard, and, as if by magic, four Indians were seen on the backs of four of the best horses, yelling like fiends, and driving all the other horses furiously before them over the plain.
How they got there was a complete mystery, but the men did not wait to consider that point. Catching up their guns they sprang after them with the fury of madmen, and were quickly scattered far and wide. Dick ordered Crusoe to follow and help the men, and turned to spring on the back of Charlie, but at that moment he observed an Indian’s head and shoulders rise above the grass, not fifty yards in advance from him, so without hesitation he darted forward, intending to pounce upon him.
Well would it have been for Dick Varley had he at that time possessed a little more experience of the wiles and stratagems of the Banattees. The Snake nation is subdivided into several tribes, of which those inhabiting the Rocky Mountains, called the Banattees, are the most perfidious. Indeed, they are confessedly the banditti of the hills, and respect neither friend nor foe, but rob all who come in their way.
Dick reached the spot where the Indian had disappeared in less than a minute, but no savage was to be seen! Thinking he had crept ahead he ran on a few yards further, and darted about hither and thither, while his eye glanced from side to side. Suddenly a shout in the camp attracted his attention, and looking back he beheld the savage on Charlie’s back turning to fly. Next moment he was off and away far beyond the hope of recovery. Dick had left his rifle in the camp, otherwise the savage would have gone but a short way—as it was, Dick returned, and sitting down on a mound of grass, stared straight before