The Yellow Chief. Reid Mayne

      There was no more sleep for the eyes of the emigrants. One and all ran wildly around the wagons – the whites meeting each other with cautions and curses, alike contradictory; the blacks – men, women, and children – huddling together, and giving voice to their fears in shrieks and chattering.

      And, in the midst of this confusion, a dark mass was seen moving across the prairie, upon which the white light of the moon was already becoming blended with that of the grey dawn.

      At first it came slowly and silently, as though stealing toward the camp. Then, as if concealment was no longer deemed necessary, the mass broke into a scattered cloud, showing it to be composed of horsemen.

      Their trampling sounded upon the turf, at the same time that a wild yell, issuing simultaneously from threescore throats, struck terror into the hearts of the emigrants. There could be no mistaking that cry. It was the war-whoop of the Cheyennes.

      The travellers had no time to reflect upon it – it was the slogan of attack; and, before they could think of any plan for defending themselves, the dusky horsemen were at hand, swooping down upon them like the breath of a tornado!

      The emigrants were not all cowards. Three or four were men of courage, and not the least courageous was Snively the overseer. Still was it more by a mechanical impulse, than any hope of successfully defending themselves, that they discharged their guns in the faces of the approaching foemen.

      It did not stay the impetuosity of the charge. Their shots were returned by a volley from the guns of their savage assailants, followed up by a thrusting of spears; and, in less than ten minutes’ time, the corral was captured.

      When the day broke, it disclosed a scene, since then, alas! far from unfrequent on the prairies. A wagon train, with its tilts torn down, and the contents strewed around it; the cattle that had drawn it along standing near, and wondering what had befallen it; their owners in captivity, some of them bound hand and foot, others lying lifeless upon the turf!

      Embracing all, a cohort of painted savages – some keeping guard over the captives, others indulging in on unchecked Saturnalia; some dead-drunk, others reeling in a state of half intoxication – each with cup in hand, filled with the fire-water taken from the captured wagons!

      Such was the spectacle on Bijou Creek on that morning, when the emigrant train of the ex-Mississippi planter fell into the hands of a war-party of Cheyennes, led by the Yellow Chief.

      Chapter Six.

      Two Trappers

      The gorge in which the young Cheyenne chief and his followers had made their night bivouac, was only one of a series of similar glens, that with short intervals between, notched the foot of the sierra4 where it edged upon the open prairie. It was not the main chain of the Rocky Mountains, but a spur running out into the plain.

      About a mile farther along, and nearer to Bijou Creek, was another gorge, not very dissimilar in size, but somewhat so in character. Instead of an embouchure open to the plain, it was shut in on all sides by bluffs, rising abruptly above it to the height of over a hundred feet.

      There was an outlet nevertheless; where a tiny spring-branch, gurgling forth from the bottom of the encircling cliffs, passed out into the open country, after making its way through a cañon (pronounced Kenyon) which it had no doubt cut for itself in the course of countless ages.