The Great Sioux Trail Part 26

Then he shuddered once more at the growling he had heard and what he had seen in the bushes the next morning, but his feeling of horror did not last long, because they were now climbing well upon the shoulder of the White Dome and the spectacle, magnificent and inspiring, claimed all their attention.

The last bushes and dwarfed vegetation disappeared. Before them rose terrace on terrace, slope on slope of rock, golden or red in the sun, and beyond them the great snow fields and the glaciers. Over it all towered the White Dome, round and pure, the finest mountain Will had ever seen. He never again saw anything that made a more deep and solemn impression upon him. Far above all the strife and trouble of the world swam the white peak.

Meanwhile the Little Giant continued to whistle merrily. He was not awed, and he was not solemn. p.r.o.ne to see the best in everything, he enjoyed the magnificent panorama outspread before them, and also drew from it arguments most favorable for their quest.

"We're absolutely safe from the warriors," he said. "We're above the timber line, and they'd never come up here huntin'. An Indian doesn't do anythin' more than he has to. He ain't goin' to wear hisself out climbin' to the top o' a mounting ten miles high in order to hev a look at the scenery. We won't be troubled by no warriors 'til we go down the shoulder o' your White Dome on the other side."

He resumed his clear, musical whistling, pouring out in a most wonderful manner the strains of "Dixie," changing impartially to "Yankee Doodle,"

shifting back to "The Bonnie Blue Flag," and then, with the same lack of prejudice, careering into "Marching Through Georgia."

The horses and mules that they were now leading felt the uplifting influence, raised their heads and marched forward more st.u.r.dily.

"What makes you so happy?" asked Will.

"The kindness o' natur' what gave me that kind o' a disposition,"

replied the Little Giant, "an' added to it the feelin' that all the time I'm drawin' closer to my gold. What did you say my share would be, young William, a matter o' a million or a half million?"

"A quarter of a million."

"Seems to me it wuz a half million, but somehow it grows ez we go 'long. When you git rich, even in the mind, you keep on gittin' richer."

Then he began to whistle a gallant battle stave with extraordinary richness and variety of tone, and when he had finished Will asked:

"What was that song, Tom? It's a new one to me."

"It's new to most people," replied the Little Giant, "but it's old jest the same. It wuz writ 'way back in the last war with England, an' I'll quote you the first two verses, words an' grammar both correct:

"Britannia's gallant streamers Float proudly o'er the tide, And fairly wave Columbia's stripes In battle side by side, And ne'er did bolder seamen meet Where ocean surges pour O'er the tide now they ride While the bell'wing thunders roar While the cannon's fire is flashing fast And the bell'wing thunders roar.

"When Yankee meets the Briton Whose blood congenial flows, By Heaven created to be friends By fortune reckoned foes: Hard then must be the battle fray E'er well the fight is o'er, Now they ride, side by side, While the bell'wing thunders roar, While the cannon's fire is flashing fast And the bell'wing thunders roar.

"That's a lot more verses, young William, an' it's all 'bout them great naval duels o' the war o' 1812, an' you'll notice that whoever writ 'em had no ill feelin' in his natur', an' give heaps o' credit to the British. It does seem that we an' the British ought to be friends, bein'

so close kin, actin' so much alike, an' havin' inst.i.tutions just the same, 'cept that whar they hev a king we hev a president. Yet here we are quarrelin' with 'em a lot, though not more than they quarrel with us."

"The trouble lies in the fact that we speak the same language," said Will. "Every word of abuse spoken by one is understood by the other.

Now, if the French or the Spanish or the Russians denounce us we never hear anything about it, don't know even that it's been done."

"That's good ez fur ez it goes," said the Little Giant. "I've seen a lot o' English that don't speak any English, a-tall, fellers that come out o' the minin' regions in England an' some from London, too, that talked a lingo soundin' ez much like English ez Sioux does, but it doesn't alter the fact that them an' us ought to be friends. An' I reckon we will be now, 'cause I hear they're claimin' that our Washington wuz an Englishman, the same immortal George that they would hev hung in the Revolution along with his little hatchet, too, ef they could hev caught him."

Will laughed with relish.

"In a way Washington was an Englishman," he said. "That is, he was of pure English stock, transplanted to another land. The Athenians were Greeks, the most famous of the Greeks, but they were not the oldest of the Greeks by any means. They were a colony from Asia Minor, just as we were a colony from England."

"I don't know much 'bout the Greeks, young William, my lad, but ef the English kin lay claim to Washington ez one o' their sons, 'cause he wuz of pure English blood, then me an' most o' the Americans kin lay jest ez good a claim to Shakespeare 'cause, we bein' o' pure British blood, he wuz one o' our ancestors."

"Your claim is perfectly good, Giant. By and by, both Washington and Shakespeare will belong to the whole English-speaking world."

"Its proudest ornyments, so to speak. Now, that bein' settled, I'd like to go back to a p'int that troubles me."

"If I can help call on me."

"It's 'bout that song I wuz jest singin'. At the last line o' each verse it says: 'An' the bell'wing thunders roar.' I've thought it over a heap o' times, but I've never rightly made out what a bell'wing thunder is.

Thar ain't nothin' 'bout thunder that reminds me o' bells. Now what is it, young William?"

Will began to laugh.

"What do you find so funny?" asked the Little Giant suspiciously.

"Nothing at all! Nothing at all!" replied Will hastily. "'Bell'wing' is bellowing. The writer meant the bellowing thunders, and it's cut off to bell'wing for the sake of rhyme and metre, a poetical liberty, so to speak. You see, poets have liberties denied to other people."

"Wa'al, I reckon they need a few. All that I ever seed did. But I'm mighty glad the p'int hez been settled. It's been botherin' me fur years. Thank you, young William."

"I think now," said Boyd, "that we'd better be looking for a camp."

"Among all these canyons and valleys," said Will, "it shouldn't be hard to find a suitable place."

Canyons were too abundant for easy traveling, and finding a fairly level though narrow place in one of the deepest, they pitched camp there, building a fire with wood which they had added to their packs for this purpose, and feeding to the animals gra.s.s which they had cut on the lower slopes. With the warm food and the fire it was not so bad, although the wind began to whistle fiercely far above their heads. The animals hovered near the fire for warmth, looking to the human beings who guided them for protection.

"I think we shall pa.s.s the highest point of our journey tomorrow," said Brady, "and then for the descent along the shoulder of the White Dome.

Truly the stars have fought for us and I cannot believe that, after having escaped so many perils, we will succ.u.mb to others to come."

"O' course we won't," said the Little Giant cheerfully, "an' all the dangers we've pa.s.sed through will make our gold all the more to us.

Things ain't much to you 'less you earn 'em. When I git my million, which is to be my share o' that mine, I'll feel like I earned it."

"A quarter of a million, Tom," laughed Will. "You're getting avaricious as we go on. You raised it to a half million and now you make it a million."

"It does look ez ef my fancy grew more heated the nearer we come to the gold. I do hev big expectations fur a feller that never found a speck of it. How that wind does howl! Do you think, young William, that a glacier is comin' right squar' down on us?"

"No, Tom. Glaciers, like tortoises, move slowly. We'll have time to get out of the way of any glacier. It's easy to outrun the fastest one on the globe."

"I've heard tell that the earth was mostly covered with 'em once. Is that so?"

"They say there was an Ice Age fifty thousand or so years ago, when everything that lived had to huddle along the equator. I don't vouch for it. I'm merely telling what the scholars tell."

"I'll take your word for it, young William, an' all the same I'm glad I didn't live then. Think o' bein' froze to death all your life. Ez it is I'm ez cold ez I keer to be, layin' here right now in this canyon."

"If we were not hunting for gold," said Brady, "I'd try to climb to the top of this mountain. I take it to be close on to fourteen thousand feet in height and I often feel the ambition of the explorer. Perhaps that's why I've been willing to search so long and in vain for the great beaver horde. I find so many interesting things by the way, lakes, rivers, mountains, valleys, game, hot springs, n.o.ble forests and many other things that help to make up a splendid world. It's worth while for a man like me, without any ties, just to wander up and down the face of the earth."

"Do you know anything about the country beyond the White Dome?" asked Will.

"Very little, except that it slopes down rapidly to a much lower range of mountains, mostly forested, then to hills, forested also, and after that we have the great plains again."

"Now you've talked enough, young William," said the Little Giant. "It's time for you to sleep, but ez this is goin' to be a mighty cold night up here, fifteen or twenty miles 'bove the clouds, I reckon we'd better git blankets, an' wrap up the hosses an' mules too."

Having enough to go around they tied one blanket around the body of every animal, and Will was the most proficient in the task.

"It's 'cause they help him an' they don't help us," said the Little Giant. "Seein' that you've got such a touch with animals we're goin' to use you the next time we meet a grizzly bear. 'Stead o' wastin' bullets on him an' runnin' the chance o' some o' us gittin' hurt, we'll jest send you forrard to talk to him an' say, 'Ephraim! Old Eph, kindly move out o' the path. You're obstructin' some good men an' scarin' some good hosses an' mules.' Then he'll go right away."

Despite their jesting they pitched the camp for that critical night with the greatest care, making sure that they had the most sheltered place in the canyon, and ranging the horses and mules almost by the side of them. More clothing was brought from the packs and every man was wrapped up like a mummy, the fur coats they had made for themselves proving the best protection. Although the manifold wrappings kept Will's blood warm in his veins, the night itself and their situation created upon his mind the effect of intense cold.