the sound above referred to increased, attracting the attention of both parties. In a few seconds the air was filled with a steady and continuous rumbling sound, like the noise of a distant cataract. Pursuers and fugitives drew rein instinctively, and came to a dead stand, while the rumbling increased to a roar, and evidently approached them rapidly, though as yet nothing to cause it could be seen, except that there was a dense, dark cloud overspreading the sky to the southward. The air was oppressively still and hot.
“What can’t be?” inquired Dick, looking at Joe, who was gazing with an expression of wonder, not unmixed with concern, at the southern sky.
“Dunno, boy. I’ve bin more in the woods than in the clearin’ in my day, but I niver heerd the likes o’ that.”
“It am like t’ondre,” said Henri; “mais it nevair do stop.”
This was true. The sound was similar to continuous, uninterrupted thunder. On it came with a magnificent roar that shook the very earth, and revealed itself at last in the shape of a mighty whirlwind. In a moment the distant woods bent before it, and fell like grass before the scythe. It was a whirling hurricane, accompanied by a deluge of rain such as none of the party had ever before witnessed. Steadily, fiercely, irresistibly, it bore down upon them, while the crash of falling, snapping, and uprooting trees mingled with the dire artillery of that sweeping storm like the musketry on a battle-field.
“Follow me, lads!” shouted Joe, turning his horse and dashing at full speed towards a rocky eminence that offered shelter. But shelter was not needed. The storm was clearly defined. Its limits were as distinctly marked by its Creator as if it had been a living intelligence sent forth to put a belt of desolation round the world; and, although the edge of devastation was not five hundred yards from the rock behind which the hunters were stationed, only a few drops of ice-cold rain fell upon them.
It passed directly between the Camanchee Indians and their intended victims, placing between them a barrier which it would have taken days to cut through. The storm blew for an hour, then it travelled onward in its might, and was lost in distance. Whence it came and whither it went none could tell; but, far as the eye could see on either hand, an avenue a quarter of a mile wide was cut through the forest. It had levelled everything with the dust; the very grass was beaten flat, the trees were torn, shivered, snapped across, and crushed; and the earth itself in many places was ploughed up and furrowed with deep scars. The chaos was indescribable, and it is probable that centuries will not quite obliterate the work of that single hour.
While it lasted, Joe and his comrades remained speechless and awe-stricken. When it passed, no Indians were to be seen. So our hunters remounted their steeds, and, with feelings of gratitude to God for having delivered them alike from savage foes and from the destructive power of the whirlwind, resumed their journey towards the Mustang Valley.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
Anxious fears followed by a joyful surprise—Safe home at last, and happy hearts.
One fine afternoon, a few weeks after the storm of which we have given an account in the last chapter, old Mrs Varley was seated beside her own chimney corner in the little cottage by the lake, gazing at the glowing logs with the earnest expression of one whose thoughts were far away. Her kind face was paler than usual, and her hands rested idly on her knee, grasping the knitting wires to which was attached a half-finished stocking.
On a stool near to her sat young Marston, the lad to whom, on the day of the shooting match, Dick Varley had given his old rifle. The boy had an anxious look about him, as he lifted his eyes from time to time to the widow’s face.
“Did ye say, my boy, that they were all killed?” inquired Mrs Varley, awaking from her reverie with a deep sigh.
“Every one,” replied Marston. “Jim Scraggs, who brought the news, said they wos all lyin’ dead with their scalps off. They wos a party o’ white men.”
Mrs Varley sighed again, and her face assumed an expression of anxious pain as she thought of her son Dick being exposed to a similar fate. Mrs Varley was not given to nervous fears; but as she listened to the boy’s recital of the slaughter of a party of white men, news of which had just reached the valley, her heart sank, and she prayed inwardly to Him who is the husband of the widow that her dear one might be protected from the ruthless hand of the savage.
After a short pause, during which young Marston fidgeted about and looked concerned, as if he had something to say which he would fain leave unsaid, Mrs Varley continued:—
“Was it far off where the bloody deed was done?”
“Yes; three weeks off, I believe. And Jim Scraggs said that he found a knife that looked like the one wot belonged to—to—” the lad hesitated.
“To whom, my boy? Why don’t ye go on?”
“To your son Dick.”
The widow’s hands dropped by her side, and she would have fallen had not Marston caught her.
“O mother dear, don’t take on like that!” he cried, smoothing down the widow’s hair as her head rested on his breast.
For some time Mrs Varley suffered the boy to fondle her in silence, while her breast laboured with anxious dread.
“Tell me all,” she said at last, recovering a little. “Did Jim see—Dick?”
“No,” answered the boy. “He looked at all the bodies, but did not find his; so he sent me over here to tell ye that p’raps he’s escaped.”
Mrs Varley breathed more freely, and earnestly thanked God; but her fears soon returned when she thought of his being a prisoner, and recalled the tales of terrible cruelty often related of the savages.
While she was still engaged in closely questioning the lad, Jim Scraggs himself entered the cottage, and endeavoured in a gruff sort of way to re-assure the widow.
“Ye see, mistress,” he said, “Dick is a oncommon tough customer, an’ if he could only git fifty yards start, there’s not a Injun in the west as could git hold o’ him agin; so don’t be takin’ on.”
“But what if he’s bin taken prisoner?” said the widow.
“Ay, that’s jest wot I’ve comed about. Ye see it’s not onlikely he’s bin took; so about thirty o’ the lads o’ the valley are ready jest now to start away and give the red riptiles chase, an’ I come to tell ye; so keep up heart, mistress.”
With this parting word of comfort, Jim withdrew, and Marston soon followed, leaving the widow to weep and pray in solitude.
Meanwhile an animated scene was going on near the block-house. Here thirty of the young hunters of the Mustang Valley were assembled, actively engaged in supplying themselves with powder and lead, and tightening their girths, preparatory to setting out in pursuit of the Indians who had murdered the white men, while hundreds of boys and girls, and not a few matrons, crowded round and listened to the conversation, and to the deep threats of vengeance that were uttered ever and anon by the younger men.
Major Hope, too, was among them. The worthy major, unable to restrain his roving propensities, determined to revisit the Mustang Valley, and had arrived only two days before.
Backwoodsmen’s preparations are usually of the shortest and simplest. In a few minutes the cavalcade was ready, and away they went towards the prairies, with the bold major at their head. But their journey was destined to come to an abrupt and unexpected close. A couple of hours’ gallop brought them to the edge of one of those open plains which sometimes break up the woodland near the verge of the great prairies. It stretched out like a green lake towards the horizon, on which, just as the band of horsemen reached it, the sun was descending in a blaze of glory.
With a shout of enthusiasm, several of the younger members of the party sprang forward into the plain at a gallop;