Adventures Among the Red Indians Part 24

"You don't understand them, do you?" said Campbell in a low voice.

"More do I, worse luck. They seem to be very proud of themselves all at once. If I were you, I'd have an answer out of that chap."

The lieutenant laid his hand sharply on the redskin's naked shoulder.

"Answer the question, my friend. We don't want all that mumbling and whispering."

The man remained sulkily silent, but the Chippewyan to whom he had spoken, a brighter, more intelligent fellow, said:

"We are pleased because our warriors have come down from the mountains, and are burning the town."

"Your warriors'll get hurt, if that's their game," said Mayne; and for a while nothing more was said. But as they came nearer to the lights, the Indians all began talking at the top of their voices, and Mayne was obliged to call for silence. Presently the mounted redskin stopped his horse, and a halt was called.

"We had better go back, or wait for more warriors," he said; "we are too few."

"What are you talking about?" asked young Mayne sharply.

"It is not the white men's camp that is burning, but our own. It is clear that our brethren have not come, as we had hoped. There are over seventy of the miners, and you are but eighteen. They will ma.s.sacre you."

"Ride on, and hold your stupid tongue," said the sailor. But the redskin suddenly struck his horse across the withers and would have galloped away, but that Dr. Campbell made a deft spring and managed to seize the thong that did duty for a bridle.

"Thanks, Doctor.--Now, my man, you get down and march with the rest."

Mayne turned to his sailors. "Can any of you lads manage a leather jib-sheet?"

"Ay, ay; let me have her, please, sir," volunteered a young seaman.

The guide was made to dismount and the sailor began to lead the horse in the rear. After a few minutes the Indians resumed their talk among themselves again and--evidently taking courage from the careless demeanour of the bluejackets--began to handle their tomahawks more or less jubilantly, as though waxing eager to be at their enemies; so much so that the two officers held a muttered debate. They had come out here to make peace; but if these savages once saw themselves backed by resolute and well-armed white men, they would never rest till they had butchered as many of the diggers as possible. It was a trying position for a young man who would be held responsible for whatever evil might happen; and Mayne, though he had gone through the Crimean War with distinction, gaining his first lieutenant's step in the Sea of Azov, was still only a lad of twenty-two.

"What would _you_ do?" he asked.

"Disarm the jolly lot, straight away," said Campbell, who was his senior by a few years.

Mayne halted his men, explained the position to them, and told the Indians what he and his colleague had decided; and they, with many grunts of dissatisfaction, gave up their arms on condition that they should be restored if necessary for self-defence.

"You know, _this_ begins to look like business," commented the surgeon when, within half a mile of the glaring flames, a chorus of hooting, yelling, and singing greeted their ears.

"_I_ think it looks like advancing at the quick step," said his companion; and he gave the order.

Very soon only a fringe of pine-trees separated them from the scene of the tumult, and, as they reached these, three men jumped up from the ground, and cried:

"Who the blazes are you?"

"Firing-party from H.M.S. _Plumper_."

"Then git off back to your mothers and mind your own business, afore ye git killed," hiccupped the first, who carried a lantern in one hand and a revolver in the other. The next moment he was lying on his back, for Dr. Campbell had wrenched the pistol out of his hand, and, with a single blow of his fist, had knocked him clean off his feet. The second man put his hand in his pocket, doubtless in search of a pistol, but, without waiting to make sure of that, Mayne had him round the arms and waist and was soon squeezing half the breath out of his body. The third man turned to give the alarm, but a petty-officer sprang after him and dragged him back by his shirt-collar.

"Take away their weapons," cried Mayne as, with a smart trick of the heel, he threw his captive violently to the ground. "No time for prisoners.--Forward!"

A few steps more and the sailors were past the trees, and in full view of all that was going on. And a pretty sight it was. Thirty or more miners, many of them delirious with drink, were capering round one or other of the fuel and fodder stacks to which they had set light; Indians and white men, to the number of a score, lay on the ground dead or wounded; and, beyond the stacks, was a heaving, struggling, shrieking mob of miners and redskins, the former brandishing knives and pickaxes, and shouting to their drunken allies to come to their a.s.sistance; the latter spending all their savage energies in defence of their homes and families.

A whisper of indignant disgust ran through the little knot of sailors; a fair and square sea-fight, or even a "set-to" in a Portsmouth or Chatham slum, was respectable in comparison with all this. The men at the fires were the first to be aware of the new arrivals; they broke off their dancing and, some awestruck, others bombastic, lurched towards them.

"Halt!--Now listen to me, you sweeps, if you've got sense enough left," cried Mayne, drawing his sword.

The wild-looking, drink-sodden crowd--English, German, French, and Yankee--ceased their babel for a moment. But when they saw that the little force consisted of only sixteen men led by what they considered a couple of boys, their appearance became mere matter for uproarious jesting; the noise broke out afresh and was echoed by despairing wails from the Indians in the background, who only saw a powerful addition to their persecutors.

"Who's your leader?" shouted young Mayne.

"That's me, gov'nor," said a tall Englishman, who carried "escaped convict" in every line of his face. "All right, boys; they've only come to lend a hand; why, they've got some Injun pris'ners. Come on, Lootenant; I was a seaman afore you was born. Shake hands."

The noisy ruffian came swaggering forward, and the sailors breathed hard for a moment. Surely their favourite officer would never stand that sort of talk. Yet it was no time for words; these men were harmless, compared to the other blackguards who were trying to burn the Indians' wigwams and huts over their heads.

The lieutenant sheathed his sword and took a half-step forward, at the same time clenching his left fist; then let drive, straight at the digger's chin. The fellow went down like a sack of flour, apparently stunned, for he made no attempt to get up again. But immediately several revolver-barrels flashed in the fire-light and three shots were fired; a burning pain in his left arm told Mayne that he was wounded, but the other shots went wide. He stepped from in front of his men.

"Open order!--Out of the way, you red men.--_Present!_" The rifles flew to the sailors' shoulders like magic. There was no time to be lost now; only thirty yards away, Indians were murdering and being murdered, and the shrieks of the women made the young fellow's blood run cold. Yet he dared not place his few men between two forces of desperate maniacs. The rioters had again ceased their gabble.

"Hands up, every one of you." The lieutenant waited for a few seconds.

"Make up your minds; you'll not get another warning."

However mad the diggers might be, it began to dawn on them that they could not hold their own for three minutes against men who regarded fighting as part of their day's work. Still they hesitated, for the more curious or less pressed of the other body were leaving the huts and coming over to them. They looked from these to the sailors, in whose faces there was no sign of wavering; already the officer's lips seemed to be framing the word "Fire!" Then they could bear the tension no longer. Some in ill-tempered silence, the rest whimpering for mercy, threw up both hands.

"Dr. Campbell; take charge here till all arms are collected; then join me.--Rear rank; 'tion! Left turn. Trail arms. Double!"

But when Mayne and his eight men reached the wigwams, it was plain enough that it would be the Indians who would give the trouble. They had at last discovered that the white warriors were with them, and now, though their disheartened a.s.sailants were already ceasing to fight, other than on the defensive, and were retiring as fast as they could get clear of the crush, they began to strike with double fury, shrieking their war-whoops, hacking and stabbing wherever they could.

Mayne gave a command, and every sailor slung his rifle and drew his cutla.s.s.

"Now separate them, lads."

The bluejackets dashed into the crowd with a cheer, and good-humouredly flung themselves between miners and redskins, employing fists, shoulders, and, where necessary and practicable, the hilts or flats of their cutla.s.ses. By the time Campbell came running up with his eight men, the wonder-stricken Indians had drawn back, and were meditating on the apparent illogicalness of their Queen's warriors.

"Serve this lot the same as the others," said Mayne; and those of the miners who had not fled were soon holding up their hands, while the grinning sailors crammed their haversacks with pistols and bowie-knives, or stacked rifles and pickaxes out of harm's way.

The Indian guides now asked for their weapons and were curtly refused by Mayne, who, intimating to the miners that they were now under arrest, made them fall in, preparatory to a return to their own camp, which was but a few hundred yards away. While the indefatigable doctor was singling out the more sober and respectable of these to help him in an examination of the wounded of both parties, a German digger who had fled came running back to the camp, hysterical with fright.

"The Chippewyans!" he screamed, clutching at Campbell's arm, and sobbing convulsively.

There was no need to ask what he meant, for the thunder of horses'

hoofs could already be heard, and, by the time the sailors were brought to attention, the wild war-whoop of a body of Indians was resounding over the slopes.

"Our pistols. Give us our arms," roared the terrified miners; and again the lieutenant found himself in an uncomfortable predicament.

Only a minute before, he had been considering the advisability of disarming the redskins in case of a treacherous attack during the night. The new arrivals were mounted, and doubtless strong in numbers; and, backed by the forty or more Indians already present, they might easily be a more powerful force than he could deal with.

Already the savages, seeing vengeance for their burning stacks within their grasp, had gathered together and were chattering and waving their war-hatchets.

"I can't trust you with pistols," he said coldly, and beckoned to him the most reliable of the Indian guides. "You must tell your people who are coming that the White Queen's judges will punish these men. If they attempt to do it themselves, they also will be punished."

The Indian hurried away to repeat the message to his chief, who appeared to be haranguing his warriors; while Mayne spoke a few cheery words of caution to the sailors.

A whistle from the doctor made him turn round. "Here they come. By George! how many more of them?"

In the shifting blaze of the stacks, the body of hors.e.m.e.n who suddenly shot from among the trees seemed to be at least a thousand; in reality, there were between eighty and a hundred; some belonging to this camp, but the majority of them braves from the Cascade or other mountains, whom the messengers had hurriedly collected. The unarmed miners huddled together, shivering or cursing; while the seamen, with their rifles "shouldered," stood in a single line between them and the advancing savages. At a sign from the chief, the hors.e.m.e.n drew up and a palaver began.