Page:The Overland Monthly Volume 5 Issue 3.djvu/84



Scott was tall, slim, brown-haired, and had a face fine and delicate as a woman's. Both men, as well as their four followers —one of whom was once well known to circus -goers of California as Billy Peoples— were young.

Knowing their object, I asked them if Old Baboon had left camp.

They answered, "Yes, they thought he had." They then halted, and I rode by uninterruptedly. I reached camp, got a fresh horse, returned, and before dawn overtook Baboon and party. Six days, or rather nights, of travel, and we reached Lewiston, now a sea of canvas. The next day English and party also entered. The river was full of ice, and the steamers tied up for the winter. Even the ferry was impassable for thirteen days. It was a little over one hundred miles to Walla Walla, anc the snow deep and still falling. We had hardly got over the ferry, when English and party followed. But as we had been joined by three resolute men, and were now nine, while they were but six, we kept on. We knew their business, and when they passed us soon, chatting gayly, they must have felt, from our compact manner of travel and silence, that they were understood. I observed that they were splendidly mounted and armed.

It was twenty-four miles to Petalia —-the nearest station. The days were short, and the snow deep. With the best of fortune, we did not expect to make it till night. At noon we left the Alpowa, and rode to a vast plateau without stone, stake, or sign to point the way to Petalia, twelve miles distant. Here the snow was deeper, more difficult; besides, a furious wind had set in, which blinded and discouraged our horses. It was intensely cold. We had not been an hour on this high plain before each man's face was a mass of ice, and our horses white with frost. The sun, which all day had been but dim, now faded in the storm like a star of morning drowned

in a flood of dawn, and I began to experience grave fears. Still English and party kept on—not so cheerful, not so fast as before, it is true—but still kept on as if they felt secure. Once I saw them stop, consult, look back, and then in a little while silently move on. I managed to turn my head a moment in the terrible storm, and saw that our trail was obliterated the moment we passed. Return was impossible—even had it been possible to recross the river, if we had reached it. Again they halted, huddled together, looked back, then slowly struggled on again: sometimes Scott, sometimes English, and then Wabash or Peoples in the lead; but most of the time that iron-man English silently and stubbornly kept ahead. I did not speak to Baboon—it was almost impossible to be heard; besides, it was useless. I now knew we were in deadly peril —not from the robbers, but from the storm. Again they halted; again grouped together, gesticulating in the storm, shielding their faces against the sheets of ice. Our trail had closed like a grave behind us, and our horses were now floundering helplessly in the snow. Again English struggled on; but at three in the evening, standing up to the waist in the snow beside his prostrate horse, he shouted for us to approach. We did so, but could scarcely see each other's faces as we pushed against the storm. We held our heads bowed and necks bent, as you have seen cattle at such times in a barnyard.

"H——'s to pay, boys! I tell you, h——'s to pay; and if we don't keep our heads level, we'll go up the flume like a spring salmon. Which way do you think is the station?" said English.

Most of the party did not answer, but of those who did, scarcely two agreed. It was deplorable—pitiful. To add to our consternation, the three men who had joined us at Lewiston did not come up. We called, but no answer. We