Page:The Overland Monthly Volume 5 Issue 3.djvu/85



never saw them again. In the spring following some Indians brought in a notebook, which is now in my possession, with this writing: "Lost in the snow, December 19th, 1862, James A. Keel, of Macoupin County, IIl.; Wesley Dean, of St. Louis; Ed. Parker, of Boston." They, at the same time, brought in a pair of boots containing bones of human feet. The citizens went out and found the remains of three men, and also a large sum of money.

English stopped, studied a moment, and then, as if resolving to take all into his own hands, said:

"We must stick together; stick together, and follow me. I will shoot the first man who don't obey, and send him to hell a-fluking."

Again he led on. We struggled after in silence —benumbed, spiritless, helpless, half-dead. Baboon was moody, as of old. Scott seemed like a child. It grew dark soon, the most fearful darkness I ever saw. I heard English call and curse like a madman. "There is but one chance," he said; "come up here with your horses, and cut off your saddles." He got the horses together as close as possible, and shot them down —throwing away his pistols as he emptied them. Throwing the saddles on the heap, he had each man wrap his blankets around him, and all huddle together on the mass.

"No nodding, now! I'll shoot the first man who don't answer when I call him."

I truly believe he would have done so. Every man seemed to have given up all hope, save this fierce man of iron. He moved as if in his element. He madea track in the snow around us, and kept constantly moving and shouting. In less than an hour we saw the good effects of his action: the animal heat from the horses warmed us as it rose.

Suddenly English ceased to shout, and uttered an oath of surprise. The storm had lifted like a curtain; and

away in the north, as it seemed to us, the full, stately moon moved on toward the east. That moon to us was as the sea to the Ten Thousand. We felt that we were saved. For asthe moon seemed going in the wrong direction for the station, we, of course, were in the right, and could not be far from help.

When the morning sun came out, our leader bade us up and follow. It was almost impossible to rise. Baboon fell, rose, fell, and finally stood on his feet. But one of his party —a small German, named Ross—could not be roused. English returned, cursed, kicked, and rolled him over the frozen horses, and into the snow, but it was useless. I think he was already dead; at least he had not moved from the position we left him in, when found by the returning party.

At eleven in the morning English, who still resolutely led the party, gave a shout of joy, as he stood on the edge of a basaltic cliff, and looked down on the parterre. A long, straight pillar of white smoke rose from the station, like a column of marble supporting the blue dome above.

The dead man and money were brought in, and in a few days the trail broken.

Baboon stood leaning on the neck of his horse, and firing double-barreled discharges of smoke across it, as over a barricade. Then he called Scott and English to him; told them he knew their calling; still he liked them; that he believed a brave robber better than many legal thieves who infested the land; and offered them, or any of their band, a fair start in life, to leave the mountains and go with him. Scott laughed gayly—it flattered his vanity; but English was for a moment very thoughtful. Then he threw it off, and spoke a moment to Wabash—a quiet, half-melancholy young man, born in the papaw woods of Indiana.

"Wabash has been wanting to quit and go home," said English to Baboon.