The Frontier, May 1926 — page 101: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

faintly. [or once he welcomed the buzzing of the hidden snakes. Indians were not likely to be prowling through a gloomy tangle of willows infested with rattlesnakes. Warily he slipped through the willows, and came out on a little grassy bank. There he threw the robe into the rushing current, and jerked off his boots and buckskin shirt. Then, with a great sigh of pleasure, he slipped into the cool-water, and sank down until the little waves splashed his face. When a little of the water had worked its way down his throat, he thought he could hear his blood fairly singing for joy. His body soaked up the reviving fluid like a dry sponge. However, he fought back the desire to gulp his fill of the cold, sweet water, drinking only enough to dull his thirst. Then he made a bundle of his shirt and boots, tied the sleeves around his neck, and waded into the rushing cur- rent, to float luxuriously in the foam and smother. The cool flood, fed by mountain springs, allayed the fever in his wound and eased the pain of his lacerated wrists. After his long hours of suffering, the rushing water seemed to caress and to soothe his every nerve and to remove every physical and men- tal irritation. Lightly and swiftly the current car- ried him. He had only to keep afloat, only to rest lightly on the water. At times he would shift his burden to his chest, and float on his back down the crystal flood, with the little waves ca- ressing his cheek. Now and then, as he floated close to the far bank, a trail- ing willow would brush his face. When he saw-the sandstone cliff looming through the gloom, he left the soothing water regretfully. Faithful received him with a startled snort; but, after a few pats and low-toned admo- nitions, the good horse nuzzled his dripping master and showed every evi- dence of being glad to feel his touch again. VIII Fer wimmin or wine, fer gold or lies, My true-tried pard I’il ne’er forsake; In storm or shine, in life or death, _ I'll stick by him to the last bone-break. —Song of the Pard BREATH _ before the deadly arrows had ended the am- bitions of the Mubsley party, Joe had taken flight. With something of the action of a fly- ing squirrel, he had gained the back of YELLOW IRON Aletes’ horse, severed the picket rope and sped down the canyon, while the nearest warriors were struggling with his partner. The Indians had dismounted above the camp, and crept up on two sides. The way down the dark canyon was open. Their wild yelps of triumph prevented them from hearing the thump of the horse’s hoofs. In their mad excitement and fierce desire to se- cure the scalps of their victims, they failed to note that one man had es- caped., The alcohol had not dulled the little Vis ae Ai A silent, terrible fight man’s thinking powers. Perhaps Aletes had fallen, but he would make sure. A man’s first duty was to save himself, A dead man can be of no help to his partner, With an uncanny sense of location, he pulled in Faithful at the point where the stream curved into the hole in the canyon wall. Dismounting, he dropped on one knee and listened intently, and then led the horse down the center of the stream and into the opening. On each side the creek extended to masses of boulders which blocked the corners of the opening, but, by keeping to the center of the stream, he was able to lead Faithful into the cavern, although the saddle horn scraped the low-hang- ing lip, Feeling his way in the intense dark- ness, he left the horse in a great room hollowed out by countless floods, and returned to the stream that roared into eternal night. He knew that the Indians would, doubtless, with the coming of daylight, note the hoofprints, but he was sure that they would not investigate the hid- den waterway. Such freaks of nature they regarded as the work of the Evil One. To them, the dark opening in the canyon wall was the mouth of the 91 Evil One, The white boulders in the corners of the mouth of the Evil One were his teeth. A stream flowed into the mouth of the Evil Spirit, yet he was always thirsty. As he swallowed the stream, so would he swallow a man. By the dawn-light, through the boul- ders wedged in the side of the open- ing, the frontiersman watched the war party, with Aletes in the center of the column, ford the stream above the point where he had entered the water. Passing a few rods above Faithful’s trail, they had not discovered his hoof- prints. They rode on slowly, talking and gesticulating. Joe sighed his re- lief when the last painted and befeath- ered rider had passed. He waited un- til he was sure they were clear of the canyon before he led Faithful from the grotto, He was not long in gaining the sum- mit of a hill from which he could sweep the country with his telescopic eye. Far to the north, he saw the In- dians moving in a straggling column. Now and then he caught the flash of a lance head or the gleam of a brass ornament. He sent Faithful in a wide-flung cir- cle to the east and approached the In- dian camp from the down-stream side. He had no well-defined plan, but en- tertained some vain hope of rescuing the youth from the clutches of the Da- kotas by deliberately crawling into camp under cover of darkness. He tied the horse among some cot- tonwoods, The sun was down, but the afterglow touched the trees and the swiftly-flowing stream with purple light. The turtle doves were singing mournful farewells to the day, and now and then a nighthawk clove the air with sudden whirring twang. Swiftly and silently as some twilight ghost, the frontiersman slipped toward the camp. White Buffalo, one of the medicine- men of the band, was communing with the spirits and making medicine in a little glade amid the cottonwoods. So engrossed was he in his meditations that he did not see the white man un- til the deadly and intent figure was confronting him, knife in hand. He drew his knife, but, Indian-like, ere their wrists locked, as Joe had hoped, he must tell his name and boast. “\WVhite Buffalo will take the heart of the white man for medicine,” he snarled, “and his hair for ornament!” A silent, terrible fight in the little opening, while the turtle doves cooed sweetly and the nighthawks zoomed through the purple dusk. Presently, Gomicbooksscom