21 Friends

I had heard of the great winter storms of the plains and I knew their dangers. To stand there would mean freezing to death, I turned to Onomo, and I was so horrified at what he had told me that my first thought was to finish him where he lay. But I could not do that. Besides he was dying fast. So I said:

“Onomo, I ought to put another bullet through you, but I will not do it. I may perish as you say, but I do not think I will deserve my fate as you have deserved yours.”

I took one look at him and his face was as ferocious as ever. Then I plunged blindly forward through the snow. It was driving so furiously that I could not tell anything about my course, and I could not have returned to the spot where Onomo lay had I wished to do so.

The storm increased in vigor. The wind howled and screamed and lashed me across the face like a whip. The snow was picked up in whirlwinds which scuttled across the plain in white, conical, revolving masses. A numbing deadly cold crept through my clothing and into the very marrow of my bones.

I thought no longer of the direction in which I was going. My sole object now was to keep life in my body. I strapped my rifle to my back, rubbed my hands vigorously together and ran about, always seeking to keep my back to the wind. This helped me somewhat, but the violence of the storm remained unabated. The wind shrieked as if it were some live thing. Even when I dared to raise my eyes and face the beating snow which was whirled at me from every point of the compass I could not see twenty feet away.

Hour after hour passed, and still I plunged on in the wind and the snow. If I could only live that storm through I felt that I could face anything afterwards. Staggering forward, I stumbled and fell to my knees. I sprang up again and with joy recognized the cause of my fall. I had come unexpectedly upon the steep side of a hillock. Broken ground would mean some protection from the storm. I sought about and presently stumbled into a kind of ravine. I crouched down in it, and the screaming wind which dashed and tore over my head failed to reach me there. But I kept up the vigorous rubbing of my hands and slapping of my thighs and ankles to keep from freezing and moved about as much as I could in the narrow ravine without exposing myself again to the full force of the storm.

I was busy tramping up and down and having no thought of anything but to keep warm, when distinctly above the howling of the storm I heard the sharp report of a rifle, and a bullet whizzed past my cheek and flattened itself against a stone in the side of the ravine.

I looked up and saw the vengeful face of Onomo glaring at me, and even as I looked the tense muscles of his figure relaxed. His still smoking rifle slid from his hands. The eyes grew dull and vacant. His head dropped over and he rolled to the bottom of the ravine and lay at my feet. I put my hand upon his pulse and found he was stone dead. He had died in the last effort to take my life.

How Onomo, when gasping out his life, was able to regain his feet, reload his rifle and follow me in that fearful storm I do not know. Only an Indian seeking blood could show such tenacity.

I thoroughly assured myself Onomo was dead and then I took away his store of powder and bullets, thinking I would need them hereafter. Even when dead he inspired me with such horror that I turned my face away in order not to see his body. But when next I looked that way the sifting snow had covered it up and concealed it from my view.

All day the storm swept the plain and, shrieked in my ears. Soon after nightfall it ceased with an abruptness that astonished me. The last pyramid of snow had gone whirling out of sight. The air was still, and all the tumult which the storm had created was succeeded by complete silence.

I crept from the ravine and looked around me. The plain was a vast sheet, broken here and there by mounds and long windrows of snow, which the hurricane had heaped up. Then I looked back in the ravine and saw the white shape that was Onomo in his burial robe of snow.

Without any particular object in mind I set out again over the plain. The night was bright, the snow and the moon together making it almost like day. I trudged steadily on all through the night I think my only reflection was that if I kept going I must in the end come to something.

Constant movement kept me fairly warm, but hunger began to gnaw at me. I sucked balls of snow, and these refreshed me a little, but I would have given a fortune if I had had it to give for a big piece of jerked buffalo meat or venison.

Now that I look back at it my situation should have appeared very hopeless to me, but I had escaped so much that I did not give up. I suppose there is a certain amount of reserve strength in us that nature provides for just such emergencies.

Daylight came again and found me still plodding through the snow. I began to look around me in the hope of finding game, but saw instead some upright objects on the horizon line. I shouted aloud in joy, for they were trees. Trees meant the presence of water, and water meant the presence of game.

It might be that our cabin lay over there and I might succeed in rejoining my brother and the others.

I hurried on with all speed, and before I was half way to the trees I saw a thin blue column of smoke rising above them. I was sure now that I had come back to the starting point and that the smoke I saw came from the Indian encampment. I determined to approach and take the risk of being captured again. I was eager to know whether Pike and the boys still held the cabin.

The grove appeared to be rather broad, and as the smoke rose from the far side I thought I could approach its edge without great danger. In a half hour I had reached the nearest tree. I stood behind it a few minutes listening. But, hearing nothing, I stole further on to another tree. I peeped from behind it and beheld a scene that contained no familiar aspect.

Before me was a little valley, and around its sides were a dozen or more of cabins resembling ours. Smoke rose from all of them.

As I peered into the valley trying to make out the character of what it contained, a strong hand fell upon my collar and a loud voice exclaimed:

“Wa’al, what under the ’tarnal sun hev we got here?”

I looked up and saw a face, bearded and rough, but white and kindly. I suppose I was already on the point of exhaustion, for when I started to reply the words stuck in my throat, I felt a curious catching of the breath and I tumbled over in the snow in a dead faint.

When my senses returned I found I was lying upon a pile of soft furs, and a half dozen big-boned men dressed in deerskins and carrying rifles in their hands, were standing around me. But they were white and were regarding me with great interest. When I opened my eyes one of them asked:

“Who are you, young feller, and how did you come to get here?”

“Give me something to eat first,” I replied, “and I will tell you all you want to know.”

“Give him some venison, Bill,” said the man to one of his companions, “the lad’s starvin’.”

The man called Bill returned presently with a chunk of deer meat which I ate like a ravenous wolf. After that they brought me a gourd of water, and I sat up greatly refreshed. Then I told my story, to which they listened with the utmost attention.

“Do you know where you are now and into whose hands you hev dropped?” asked the man who had first addressed me, after I had finished my story.

“No,” I replied, “I do not know whar I am, but I am sure I am in the hands of friends.”

“You are right, thar, my lad,” said the man. “This is a detachment of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, encamped here fur the winter. Thar are sixty of us, every man of ’em a thorough plainsman and trapper. I’m thar leader, Jim Harper. I guess that cabin o’ yourn is on this same river further down. The river is jest across the hill thar. But I didn’t think thar war any Injuns in this part o’ the kentry.”

This was luck, the most wonderful luck that had ever befallen me, and instantly the hope of rescuing the boys flamed up in me. I turned to Harper and said:

“My friends are fighting for their lives against the Indians down there. Won’t you take your men and rescue them?”

“I kain’t say about that,” he replied. “Our business is to trap beaver and other such animals, not to fight Injuns unless they drive us to it. I’ll hev to lay it afore the boys.”

But there was a flash in his eyes that encouraged me. Feeling quite strong again I went out with Harper, for they had put me down in one of their cabins, and looked at the camp. It was a snug place, well protected from the weather, and the men, most of whom were present, were a hardy, powerful lot. I was forced to tell my tale over again for the benefit of those who had not heard it already. My pursuit by Onomo and his death interested them deeply. Many had known him, and they had never doubted his sincere friendship for the whites.

After we had eaten a substantial dinner, Harper called the men together and said:

“Boys, down this river somewhars thar are white men tryin’ to hold thar cabin agin the Injuns. In that cabin among them white men is Zeke Pike, one of the best fighters that ever plunked a redskin, one of the best hunters that ever knocked over a buffalo, a pard that a man kin tie to, fur he always knows whar to find him. Most of you know ’im, an’ them that don’t know him by face hev heard uv him. Now, boys, ef any of you wuz in his place he’d resk his life to help you. Will you do ez much fer him an’ his friends that’s down thar? All them that’ll foller me and help pull Zeke Pike an’ his friends out o’ danger hold up thar hands.”

Every man held up his hand, and Harper said, with a smile of satisfaction:

“Wa’al, that’s settled. I guess we’ll give them Injuns fits or the boys hev forgot how to shoot”

Harper was a man after Pike’s own fashion. He wasted no time deliberating. A half-hour after the vote was taken we had set out. A half-dozen men were left behind, much against their will, to look after the camp, and in a short time the remainder of us were miles away, tramping over the snow and following the southward course of the river. We were fifty-seven strong, as fine a body of men as one could wish to see for the work that was marked out for us. Every one of the trappers was a skilled backwoodsman, as courageous as a lion, and a Daniel Boone with the rifle.

We followed the course of the river until night came, and then we halted among some trees. Harper sent three or four of his best scouts in advance, and in a few hours they returned with the welcome news that the defenders were still holding the cabin, and that, the Indian encampment having been torn up greatly by the cyclone, everything there was in confusion.

“That’s good, darned good!” said Harper. “We’ll catch ’em jest about half-way between midnight and day, an’ ef we don’t send ’em flyin’ may I never trap another beaver.”

We resumed our march, and when midnight came I saw familiar ground. We halted again. Then Harper took me and three or four others and stole forward through the trees.

“Do you know that place over thar?” said Harper to me, pointing with a long arm.

I looked and saw the tepees of the Indian encampment and beyond it the little hut against the hill that I knew so well.

“We’ll save yer friends, now,” said Harper. “I guess you’re ready to b’ar a hand in the scrimmage.”

I assured him that I was, and took my place with my cocked rifle in my hand. Harper arranged his men in a semicircle, lapping around the camp, and we stole down upon them.

An Indian sentinel saw a dark form gliding from tree to tree. He opened his mouth to utter the yell of alarm, but a ball from Harper’s rifle took him in the forehead.

“Forward, boys,” shouted Harper, in a stentorian voice. “Drive the varmints from the face uv the earth!”

We uttered a mighty yell, all together, and swept down upon the encampment Indian warriors darted among the tepees, and a few scattering shots saluted us. But I suppose the Indians being taken by surprise after they had been threshed about by the storm—for their camp was in an exposed position—lost all heart when we made our attack. There was a crackling’ fire from our rifles, some death-whoops, the rapid beat of flying feet, an overturning of tepees, and the combat was over;

“That wuz jest as easy as anything I ever see,” said Harper, leaning on his rifle. “The hull caboodle uv ’em wuz sent a-skippin’, an’ not a man of us wuz hurt wuss than a scratch.”

“But it was a good job for somebody else, Jim Harper,” said a well-known voice near him, “fur thar warn’t more’n ten charges fur our rifles left, an’ we’d a had to give up soon ef you hadn’t come, and I won’t forgit you fur it, Jim Harper.”

I uttered a shout of joy and sprang forward, and wrung Pike’s hand, and then came greetings from Henry and Starboard Sam and Bonneau, who followed behind him. Starboard Sam did a sailor dance on the snow, and sang the song of the Constitution from beginning to end.

We joined the trappers and spent a pleasant winter with them. In the spring we bade them a regretful good-bye and pushed on to the Mormon settlements, where we joined a large emigrant train bound for California. How we reached the Golden State, Pike, Starboard Sam, Bonneau, Henry and I, and found our lumps of gold, is not a part of this story.

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