The Trapper's Daughter Part 36

The squatter pressed his daughter to his heart, but had not the strength to utter a word--he had never felt such sweet emotion before. The missionary rose.

"Farewell," he said, "and take courage; put your trust in G.o.d, who will not abandon you. I will watch over you at a distance. Farewell, my children, and bless you. Go, go, without delay."

Then, tearing himself by an effort from Red Cedar's arms, Father Seraphin remounted, dug his spurs into his horse's flanks, and started at full speed, after giving his proteges a parting wave of the hand.

"Oh!" Red Cedar muttered, "That could not last, for I was almost happy."

"Courage, father," Ellen said to him softly.

They re-entered the jacal, where the men were awaiting them.

"Go and saddle the horses," the squatter said, "we are going away."

"Ah!" the monk whispered Sutter, "did I not tell you the demon was on our side? Canarios! He would not forget us, as we have done so much for him."

The preparations for quitting the jacal were not long, and an hour later, the five persons started.

"In what direction do we go?" the monk asked.

"Let us go in the mountains," the squatter answered, laconically, as he took a melancholy glance at this wretched hut, in which he had perhaps hoped to end his days, and which fate compelled him to leave forever.

The fugitives had scarce disappeared behind a clump of trees, when a cloud of dust rose on the horizon, and five hors.e.m.e.n soon appeared, coming up at full speed. They were Valentine and his friends.

The hunter must have obtained precise information from Bloodson as to the situation of the jacal, for he did not hesitate a moment, but rode straight in. Don Pablo's heart beat, as if to burst his chest, though he apparently remained unmoved.

"Hum!" Valentine said, when about a dozen yards from the jacal, "Everything is very silent here."

"The squatter is no doubt out hunting," Don Miguel observed, "we shall only find his daughter."

Valentine began laughing.

"Do you think so?" he said. "No, no, Don Miguel, remember Father Seraphin's words."

General Ibanez, who was the first to reach the jacal, dismounted and opened the door.

"n.o.body!" he said, in surprise.

"By Jove!" Valentine said, "I suspected that the bird had flown; but this time he will be very cunning if he escapes us. Forward, forward!

They cannot be far ahead."

They started again. Curumilla remained behind for a second, and threw a lighted torch into the shanty, which was soon burned down.

"The fox is unearthed," the Indian muttered to himself, while rejoining his comrades.

CHAPTER XXI.

CURUMILLA.

About a month after the events we have just described, in the early part of December, which the Comanches call, in their picturesque language, "the Moon of the roebuck that sheds its horns," and a few minutes after sunrise, a party, consisting of five or six men, whom, by their garb, it was easy to recognise as wood rangers from the Far West, climbed one of the highest peaks of the Sierra de los Comanches, the eastern chain of the Rocky Mountains, running down into Texas, where it terminates in the Guadaloupe mountains.

The weather was cold, and a dense layer of snow covered the sides of the mountains. The slope which these bold adventurers were following, was so scarped that, although accustomed to travel in these regions, they were often compelled to bend their backs and creep along on their hands and knees. But no difficulty baffled them, no obstacle was great enough to make them turn back.

At times, worn out with fatigue, and bathed in perspiration, they stopped to take breath, lay down on the snow, and picked up some handfuls to allay the ardent thirst that devoured them; then, after resting a little while, they courageously set out again, and clambered up the eternal ice, whose gigantic ma.s.ses became with each moment more abrupt.

Were these men in search of a practicable road in this frightful labyrinth of mountains, whose peaks rose around them, at an immense height, in the icy regions of the sky? Perhaps, however, they wished, for reasons known to themselves alone, to gain a spot whence they could have an extensive prospect.

If such were their hope, it was not deceived. When, after incessant toil they all at last reached the summit of the peak they were scaling, they suddenly had before them a landscape, whose grand appearance amazed and startled them through its sublime immensity. In whatever direction they looked, they were confounded by the majesty of the panorama unfolded at their feet.

In truth, the Rocky Mountains are unique in the world, bearing no resemblance with the Pyrenees, Alps, and Apennines, and those magnificent chains of mountains which here and there stride across the old world, and seem with their barren crest to protest against the pride of creatures, in the name of the Creator.

The hunters were hanging, as it were, over a world. Beneath them was the Sierra de los Comanches, an immense mountain broken up into snowy peaks, displaying all their gloomy caverns, deep and awe-inspiring valleys, their brilliant lakes, their dark defiles and their foaming torrents, which bounded noisily downward; then, far beyond these savage limits, the eye was lost in an unbounded landscape, bathed in a hazy distance, like the surface of the sea in calm weather.

Owing to the purity and transparency of the atmosphere, the adventurers distinguished the smallest objects at a surprising distance. However, in all probability, these men had not undertaken so perilous an ascent through motives of curiosity. The mode in which they examined the country and a.n.a.lysed the immense panorama unrolled before them, proved, on the contrary, that very serious reasons had urged them to brave the almost insurmountable difficulties they had overcome, in order to reach the point where they were.

The group formed by these men with their bronzed faces, energetic features and picturesque garb, as they leant on their rifles, with eyes fixed on s.p.a.ce and frowning brow, had something grand about it; at this extraordinary elevation, at the summit of the peak covered with eternal snow, which served them as a pedestal in the midst of the chaos that surrounded them.

For a long time they remained there without speaking, trying to distinguish in the windings of the _quebradas_ the slightest break of the ground, deaf to the mournful growling of the torrents that leaped at their feet, and the sinister rolling of the avalanches, which glided down the mountain side, and fell with a crash into the valleys, dragging trees and rocks with them.

At length the man who appeared the leader of the party pa.s.sed his hand over his brow, damp with exertion, though the cold was intense in these regions, and turned to his companions to say, "My friends, we are now twenty thousand feet above the level of the plain, that is to say, we have reached the spot where the Indian warrior sees for the first time after death the country of souls, and contemplates the happy hunting grounds, the brilliant abode of just, free, and generous warriors. The eagle alone could rise higher than ourselves."

"Yes," one of his comrades replied, with a shake of head; "but, though I keep looking around, I see no possibility of getting out."

"Hilloh, General!" the first speaker interposed, "What is that you are saying? We might fancy, which Heaven forbid, that you were despairing."

"Well," the other, who was General Ibanez, replied, "that supposition would not be without a certain degree of correctness; listen to me, Don Valentine; for ten days we have been lost on these confounded mountains, surrounded by ice, and snow, and with nothing to eat, under the pretext of finding the hiding place of that old villain Red Cedar, and I do not mind confessing to you, that I am beginning, not to despair, but to believe that, unless a miracle happen, it will be impossible for us to get out of this inextricable chaos in which we are enclosed."

Valentine shook his head several times. The five men standing on the peak were really the Trail-hunter and his friends.

"No matter," General Ibanez continued, "you will agree with me that our position, far from improving, is growing with each moment more difficult; for two days we have been completely out of provisions, and I do not see how we shall procure any in these icy regions. Red Cedar has tricked us with that diabolical cunning which never fails him, he has led us into a trap we cannot get out of, and where we shall find death."

There was a mournful silence. The despair of these energetic men, coldly calculating, amid the steep, northerly country that surrounded them, the few hours of existence still left them, had something crushing about it.

Scarce able to stand, more like corpses than men, with haggard features and eyes reddened with fever, they stood calm and resigned, gazing on the magnificent plains stretching out at their feet, on which thousands of animals sported and covered everywhere with trees, whose fruit would so quickly have checked their hunger.

But between them and these plains stood an insurmountable barrier, which neither strength nor cunning could carry: all that was humanly possible, these men had done during the last two days to save themselves. All their plans had been foiled by a strange fatality, which made them constantly go round in a circle among these mountains, which are so like each other, and all their attempts had broken down.

"Pardon me, my friends," Don Miguel de Zarate said, with a crushing accent of sorrow, "pardon me, for I alone am the cause of your death."

"Speak not so, Don Miguel," Valentine quickly exclaimed, "all is not lost, yet."

A heart-rending smile played round the hacendero's lips.

"You are ever the same, Don Valentine," he said; "good, and generous, forgetting yourself for your friends. Alas! Had we followed your advice, we should not be dying of famine and misery in these desolate mountains."

"That will do," the hunter said, gruffly; "what is done cannot be undone; perhaps it would have been better had you listened to me some days back, I grant; but of what use is recrimination now? Let us rather seek the means to get out of this."