Chapter V: Flying From the Piutes

We sat for sometime listening and watching, as far as the darkness would permit, for some new form of attack to be made; but not a sound was to be heard but the dismal cackling of a cuckoo owl which I had mistaken at first, on coming to my mountain residence for the evidence of settlers near, by its somewhat remote resemblance to the cackle of a hen. We were, to say the least, in an unenviable situation. Our horses were all gone, we were three hundred miles from our base of supplies, and the Indians on the warpath in earnest, as Callaway had been able to determine by their gorgeously ugly style of paint.

To attempt to make our way back to Leadville on foot, through a region beset by mounted hostiles, would be to invite destruction. To stay in the cabin might serve to prolong our lives a few hours, but it was only a matter of time till they would succeed in crushing, burning, or starving us out, and we preferred to die fighting for life, while there was a chance, to being cooped up where we would eventually be at their mercy.

But where could we go? That was the question that vexed our meditation. How could we subsist in a hostile country when our guns were our only providers and to fire one would be to announce to the enemy that we were courting their company? We munched a slapjack as we talked, and wondered where our next meal would come from. The old man had fallen into a brown study, and, when he straightened himself up and spoke, I knew by his decided gestures that he had decided on a line of action.

“I have it, by St. Nicholas!” he exclaimed. “Four years ago, I and my pard went down the Gunnison on a raft to its mouth, and on down the Grand into Colorado as far as the southern end of the Elk Range, and done some prospectin’ down thar. Just after we got into the Colorado we saw a number of caves dug out of the solid rocks along the bluffs like the ones I’ve often seen in the canyons in New Mexico; but who built them, or for what, I’m dead sure I don’t know. But it strikes me that just at this pertickler minit in the history of the Mountain Spring mine up thar in the hill above us, a little buryin’ alive in one o’ them rocky sepulchers would beat bein’ devoured or mashed here, and buried permanently minus our scalp locks and the decent rites of burial in this blessed Christian, Injun-polluted, God-forsaken country, whar yallar gold, and redskin humans is considerations of the first water. And if we live long enough to see the next paper after these bodies is found, we’ll read a hair stiffenin’ article from some pertickler friend of the Piutes in the East, tellin’ how some border ruffins had pitched into a handful of peaceable Injuns in the wilds of the Elk Mountain regions of the young and struttin’ state of Colorado, and butchered ’em in cold blood because they wouldn’t dance a pleasin’ jig fur the fassechus white savages. But damn ’em, if the fine-haired hypocrites won’t take care of their precious pets and convert ’em to Joe Smithism and shirts, or some other modern style of hypocrisy, we’ll take the job off their hands, and serve ’em with some Christianizing literatoor from the Winchester magazine, and a substantial breakfast of lead pellets served with saltpeter sass. What do you think, my lad?”

I had never seen the old man’s profane anger soar so high or his store of grammar run so low, for he was by no means lacking in a fair elementary education; but when he was greatly agitated, the later accumulation of mining slang bubbled out much more naturally.

“Well, Uncle Abner,” I replied, “since you have asked my advice, which you know is not very valuable on the present subject, I think that the sooner we get out of this dead-fall and out of the Piute country in any direction that offers a chance to escape, by fire, water, or air, we’d better embrace it; and I’m with you, general,” said I, saluting him, “and I am confident that you’ll lead your little army to victory.”

“All right, my boy, much obliged to you for your handsome compliment to my ability, which is nothin’ extra at all; but whatever I’ve learned about Injuns has been learned by hard knocks through a long life among them, when, if you failed to learn your lesson, you had to pay it with your life. I take it, there isn’t as much difference in the size of men’s brainpans as there is in the disposition to keep peggin’ away at the same idea till it’s got to come. Just now my idea’s to peg away till we’ve got a lot of poles pegged together for a raft, and let’er glide down the river, out of the range of these birds. I know how far their happy hunting ground goes south, and we can do a little prospecting down there to amuse ourselves till they go back across the Grand River to their winter quarters; then we can come back by our claim and maybe fall in with some sheep men or prospectors, and get back to Leadville with our samples before winter sets in.”

“But how are you going to make a raft with these Piutes lurking around here?” I asked; “they want no better opportunity to sneak upon us, and pick us off, as they intended to do this evening before we got shelter.”

“I’ve thought about all that; we’ll sneak down to the river after an hour or so and take our arms, axes, and some grub with us, to the mouth of the canyon, whar I started to trail up the ledge, yonder; I cut a lot of poles there and made me a little shelter for cool nights. We’ll take them and make our raft and then we’ll make another trip up here and get everything that we can use or take along with us, and bid the Mountain Spring Mine farewell for a while; but the first painful duty we have to perform is to bury our poor unlucky pardner, so that it will take a keener scent than a Piute’s to nose him out.”

“How do you propose to do that?” said I.

“Well,” said he, “did you notice how that pile of rubbish balanced itself on that big rock like a circus rider on a flying trapeze? I propose to lay his poor carcus close under that rock, and then topple about forty tons of rock and dirt over on it, and we can defy Injuns or wolves to disturb Riley’s long sleep.”

He proceeded to carry out his idea, picking up the form of our dead comrade from the floor, and with my help, carried him to his resting place.

Abner tried to speak bravely and keep down any show of emotion, but his hot tears fell on my hands as we laid him carefully by the base of the rock, without even the poor privilege of looking once more upon his inanimate features. Then whispering to me to go back to the cabin, he made his way around where he had noticed a small tree trunk sticking out of the mass he wished to precipitate, and using this as a lever, as he told me afterward, I soon heard it fall with a heavy report in the still air, and knew that the funeral obsequies of our faithful, honest friend were completed. Few people have so rude a burial in our land, it is true, but few die more sincerely regretted by those left behind than did Riley Cox. Only a poor sheep rancher in the wildest mountains of the West, isolated from human companionship, but enduring the hardships of his lonely life with manly fortitude and true heroism. No decorations of the star and garter gleamed from his funeral pile, but the stars of heaven witnessed his sepulture, and keep watch and ward till the sunlight of Eternal Morning shall call him to the companionship of kindred pure souls, and the cold and loneliness of the “sheep walks” be forever forgotten in the new loves and pleasures of fields elysian. After about another hour’s painful suspense in the darkness, we deemed it safe to strike a light, after carefully screening all the openings, and made our brief preparations for our abrupt and disastrous departure from a region that had awakened for us dazzling visions of fabulous wealth; but the day of our final triumph seemed as far off as ever. Our little capital was swallowed up in the outfit necessary to develop our mine, and now swept away entirely from us, while a summer’s efforts were rendered fruitless, for we could scarcely expect to get back to our mine again this season, as it was now well advanced, and the hostile Indians would, in all probability, occupy this territory till winter drove them back to their camp. A dozen things might happen to our mine, even though we were fortunate enough to escape the dangers that beset us. If my partner should become disabled for active work, as most men at his age are apt to be, it was doubtful if any man beside him could again locate the mine. I felt that I could not, and now that Riley was gone, we two alone possessed the knowledge of its existence and location. Again prospectors might stumble upon it and take possession of it in our absence, and give us no end of trouble, and so my mind conjured up one ill after another, that might befall us and our financial prospects, lately so brilliant, but now so obscured by portentous clouds.

We _cachéd_ our stock of provisions that we could not take along, which was quite a liberal one; but decided to take all that we could possibly accommodate on our raft. To guard against possible invasion in our absence of several hours that we expected to be occupied in constructing our raft, we carried our provisions intended for the journey to some distance from the cabin toward the river, and hid them carefully in some leaves and underbrush, till we should return. Then we took all our little store of tools and our rather respectable arsenal, consisting of three Winchester rifles and six heavy pistols, with a good supply of ammunition, which, with axes and augers, made a heavy load. We crept along as stealthily as panthers, Callaway leading and I following him closely, feeling wild thrills of excitement like the mental intoxication experienced by a boy when taking a daring leap from a cross-beam in a barn to the heap of straw below, or his dizzy flight down an icy hillside on a sled.

With a degree of accuracy that seemed to me like the workings of a sixth sense, Uncle Abner shaped his course in the dark so well that we found our destination without trouble, and proceeded to light a lantern within the hut he had made, and fell to work in earnest to prepare our rude craft by laying the poles together and fastening them by cross-timbers, to which each pole was pinned. We agreed that if our raft could just be got to hold together till we were safely afloat, and out of range of the hostiles, we could further strengthen it later on, by more crossties and doweling pins.

We worked as rapidly as the disadvantages of darkness, and as stealthily as the nature of our task allowed, till we judged by the constellations of the heavens that it was about an hour past midnight, when our crude float was ready to be launched. Then we climbed again to the region of our late abiding place, where we had concealed our provisions, and found them undisturbed. I could hardly resist an impulse to visit the cabin once more, but prudence forbade it, for our time was precious, to say nothing of taking the additional risk, and I hastened away with the unerring guide, who conducted us to our place of embarking, made such provision as we could for the safety of our cargo, shoved our raft into the stream, and stepped upon it, and began a voyage that in eventfulness was to cast all our former exploits, and present difficulties in deep shade.

Abner had provided a rude steering oar or rudder, and propelling oars, but for the present he advised that we should simply drift noiselessly with the tide, rather than run the chances of attracting the attention of the Indians by the splash of our oars, for, said he, “they’ll more’n likely be campin’ along the river here. It’s lucky for us there’s no moon.”

It was a clear night, and the stars afforded just enough light to enable us to dimly discern the outlines of the shore on either hand, and Callaway steered our raft as close to the farther shore as he might venture to do in the dark, to guard against detection. We had floated down perhaps a mile, when a dog set up a loud barking on the hostile shore, right opposite to us. “Sh!” whispered Abner, “that’s the camp of the Piute fiends now.”

The dog continued to bark furiously, and we heard, or imagined we heard, a murmur of guttural voices and expected every moment to hear their diabolical yell, and to be greeted with a volley of rifle balls. We were so still that our hearts seemed to rebel against the decree of silence and kept up a terrible thumping. “If they see us now we have a pretty narrow chance,” whispered Abner. “We are in a strange country, and they know every nook and corner in it. I’ve often thought that when they do take a notion to prowl in the dark, they can expand their eyes like a cougar, and see objects that are as impossible to our vision as their camp is now.”

But as we drifted on and no outcry was made except the persistent yelping of the cur, we began to hope that we had passed unobserved, and presently the dog seemed himself to despair of attracting any attention and gave over the attempt. Silence and darkness were again our only companions. “Two o’clock and all’s well!” I whispered. “We are safely past their camp by this time, are we not?”

“Yes,” replied Abner, “they didn’t hear us. We gave ’em enough exercise to make ’em sleep sound, but there may be other hunting squads down below farther, and it stands us in hand to keep a sharp lookout.” But nothing further occurred to give us alarm during the little space that darkness continued. When day dawned we were rowing lustily down the Gunnison for we knew that if the Indians returned to the attack in the morning they would soon discover that we had decamped, and, as the Piutes are expert trailers, they would have no trouble in tracking us to the shore where they would read as an open book, the signs of our departure, the method of our conveyance, and be able even to tell almost to the hour how long it had been since we had embarked; and being mounted, they would gallop down the river after us and employ our own horses in overtaking and destroying us.

The only form of attack we feared particularly in case they did follow us, was that of an ambuscade. To be haunted by the uncomfortable suggestion that you may be gliding right into their trap, that at any moment, from behind a tree or rock along the shore may come a volley of leaden death, sends a cold chill through the spinal marrow, and awakens a vague impulse to leap from the raft, and take refuge from the hidden enemy beneath the surface of the river. To guard against surprise, we now kept our boat in mid-current and urged her on with the oars till we reached a speed that we knew would tax the speed of the mounted Indians, through a broken country, to overtake us with our leeway.

But no further indications of Indians disturbed us, and our appetites were sharpened by an all-night’s effort to turn night into day; but we were compelled to content ourselves with munching a cold slapjack, promising ourselves, that if no enemy appeared by noon, we would land and cook a sumptuous meal and enjoy a more elaborate _menu_.

The wild scenery through which we were passing was a source of wondering pleasure to me, whose ideas of natural scenery were gained from city parks, pretty enough in their way, but tame, absolutely flat, compared with nature’s exhibition of her power and grandeur here. This was to me an entirely new class of scenery, the element of sublimity being strongest.

For three days we drifted down the river, tying up at night and camping on the shore, and after the first day we ventured to kill a deer, which animals were plentiful, and forgot our late privations in feasting on venison, which Abner was an expert at broiling on the embers of a camp fire.

On the third day he began to recognize familiar objects along the river, and announced that we should arrive at the place he had in mind before night, and be able to sleep in a castle that would relieve us of all uneasiness on account of Indians. The river banks began to be precipitous and rocky, and to be suggestive of caverns and freebooters, or the natural home of the Cliff Dwellers, and when Abner, the son of Ner, at last pointed out our prospective stronghold, it seemed the realization of all that I had read and imagined of the lost race that had been driven away by pressure of circumstances, apparently to adopt these dismal but impregnable rock dwellings that perforate like swallows’ nests the walls of the canyons and river bluffs of the southwest.