He sat down nearby, the knife in his hand. He had no idea what kind of wild animals he might have to fight but he would be ready. There were wolves, for he had seen them from the wagon train, and there were coyotes. In the creek bottoms sometimes there were cougars or bears, he knew.
The light faded and the stars came out. Wind ruffled the darkening steel of the water. He sat silent, listening to the comforting sound of Big Red tugging at the grass and munching it.
Vaguely, he recalled Mr. Andy saying it would take about a month to reach Fort Bridger where his father was to meet them, but that was with good luck and the wagons. How long would it take Betty Sue and himself, when he must walk?
It grew cold, and he was very tired. He lay down close to Betty Sue and wished the coat were big enough to cover them both. The stars looked like lamps in far-off houses.
A long time after he had fallen asleep he woke with a start. He heard the stallion breathing heavily, and he lay still, listening. Somewhere not far off he heard water splash and the sound of an animal as it drank. Lifting himself cautiously to one elbow, he peered through the branches toward the water’s edge. A great black bulk showed there, and he waited, half-frightened. Then the big head lifted, drops trickled from its muzzle, and he saw it was a bull buffalo, and a large one.
It drank again, then moved away downwind of them, and when Big Red resumed eating Hardy lay back and went to sleep again.
When day broke gray over the hills, a gray shot with vivid streaks of widening crimson, he wanted a fire, but he feared it might bring Indians upon them. So he lay still, looking up at the sky, and thinking. They had been going west, and there was nothing for it but to keep on. With every step they were coming closer to pa.
He was used to walking on the farm and in the woods, and with the wagon train all of them had walked up the long hills to make it easier on the wagon stock. Of course, the wagons had always been there to crawl into when he was tired, but now there were no wagons, and he couldn’t even get up on old Red.
Sooner or later he would find a big rock or a bank of earth from which he could scramble to Red’s back, and after that he would always try to find places to stop where he could get up on the stallion’s back again. Too bad pa had always insisted on roaching the stallion’s mane, or he might have laid hold on it to help himself up.
Betty Sue slept without moving. Hardy knew they should be traveling on with the first light, but she needed the rest, so he got up quietly and took the stallion to water, within sight of camp. The horse drank while Hardy drank at the spring, and he refilled his canteen. When they walked back, Betty Sue was awake, but she didn’t ask for her mama, or for anything else.
He opened another can and they ate, and drank cold water again from the spring. The sun was already high when they moved out. He looked around for something to use to climb on the horse’s back, but there was nothing—not an old tree trunk, the side of a buffalo wallow, or anything.
The country was less flat now, stretching away in a series of long, graceful rolls of gentle hills. He knew he should keep to low ground because of Indians, but he wanted to keep a lookout for another wagon train, or something.
He had not stayed with the wagon trail. He had a feeling Indians might be watching it, so he stayed over the slope when he could, but whenever he topped out on a rise to scan the trail he could see the ruts left by the wagons rolling west. As they went along, a couple of times he found wild onions, but Betty Sue refused to try them.
The day grew hot, and the brown hills were dusty. Betty Sue whimpered a little, and he was afraid she might cry, but she did not. He plodded on, putting one foot ahead of the other at an even pace, trying to forget how far he must go, and how short a distance they had come.
As he walked he tried to remember all that pa had taught him about getting along by himself, and he tried to recall everything he had heard Bill Squires say. There had been others, too, whom he had heard talking of traveling west, of Indians, and of hunting.
Once, far off, he glimpsed a herd of antelope, but they disappeared among the dancing heat waves. Again, and not so far away, he saw three buffalo moving; they paused when they saw the big red horse and the two children.
They were stragglers from the great herds that had moved south weeks before. Men on the wagons had talked of the wide track they made in passing. The big wolves had gone with them, following the herd to pull down those too weak to keep up. It was the way, Mr. Bill Squires said, that nature had of weeding out the weak to keep the breed strong, for the wolves could only kill the weak or the old.
Hardy took to watching Big Red, for he remembered something else Bill Squires had said: that a man riding in western country should watch his horse, for it was likely to see or smell trouble before a man could. But in all directions the vast plain was empty.
He studied the country, watched the movements of animals and the flight of birds. These could maybe tell you if somebody was near, or if there was danger of other kinds.
The sun slid toward the horizon and Hardy saw no place to stop. He plodded on, desperate in his weariness and the sense of responsibility that hung over him. When the last red was fading from the sky, Big Red began to tug at the lead rope, pulling off toward the south. Knowing the stallion might smell water, Hardy walked in that direction, with the stallion almost leading him. And then he saw the trees.
At first it appeared to be only a long shadow in the bottom of a shallow valley, but as they drew nearer the shadow became willows and cottonwoods, and there was the bed of a winding stream. No more than a dozen feet wide and scarcely that many inches deep, the water was cold and clear, and there was grass for Big Red and a place to hide.
He helped Betty Sue down and led the horse to water. There at the stream’s edge his heart almost stopped. In the sand right at the water’s edge was a moccasin track.
Filling the canteen with water without stepping off the rock, he hurried back and hid the stallion in a small clearing deep among the willows. The area was not large, but it gave the horse a bit of grazing and room to roll if he wished…and he wished.
Having made a bed for Betty Sue, Hardy then opened another can. They were eating it when he saw something growing among the brush, something dark and about as thick as a stubby banana. Gleefully, he plucked it from the branch. “Paw-paws!” he exclaimed. “There’s pawpaws!”
“I don’t like pawpaws,” Betty Sue said quietly.
“I didn’t either, one time. Now I like them. You try one.”
The fruit was almost four inches long and an inch and a half thick, greenish-yellow when he saw it close up. Searching the bushes, he found half a dozen more. Suddenly they tasted good, better than he remembered. Betty Sue ate hers quickly, then took another.
Excited as he was at finding the pawpaws, he kept remembering that moccasin track. He was not much of a judge of the age of tracks, but this one must be fresh. The edges of the track had not crumbled the least bit, and there were no marks of insects crossing it. That track had certainly been made that day, and probably within the last hour or two.
Though the moccasin track stayed in his mind, another thought was that he wanted a fire. There was something mighty comforting about a fire. That was what pa always said, and it must be so, because after ma died pa spent a lot of time just looking into the fire. It was then he started talking about going west.
Not that he wasn’t doing well. Pa was a hard worker, and Hardy had heard folks talk of him, saying he was a man who would always do well. Mr. Andy had said it more than once. “You just watch that Scott Collins,” he would say; “there’s a man who is going to make tracks in the land.”
A fire would have been a comfort now, especially for Betty Sue, but when he looked over at her she was already fast asleep on the grass, a half-eaten pawpaw in her hand. He covered her with his coat and curled up close to her, and looked up at the stars.
Where was pa now? How long would it be before he knew what had happened to the wagons?
It would be a month before the wagons were due. Why, he and Betty Sue might even get there before pa realized the wagons were not coming! Suddenly Hardy hoped so…no use pa to worry more. He had been hard hurt when ma died.
Hardy had started following pa into the field when he was not more than two, toddling and falling, but watching and listening, too. By the time he was a year older he was helping drop seed potatoes, fetching and carrying for pa, and sitting under the elms with pa while he ate his noon meal. Pa used to talk to him about his work, and sometimes about his dreams too. Other times they talked about birds, and ants, and animals. Pa taught him to set snares and to stalk game, as well as to build quick shelters in the woods from any material at hand.
As there were only the two of them, he helped his father with everything. He used to pick up the big, flat chips his father cut from logs that he was shaping into square beams with an adze and a broadaxe. The big logs would be notched every eight inches or so along the four sides, and then with the broadaxe pa would flake off the big chips between the notches until the log was shaped into a square beam. Hardy liked gathering them, and they made a grand fire.
He had always gone to the woods with his father when he went to search for herbs and nuts, or to select the logs for the cutting. He could even help with hoisting the beams into place when they were ready to build the house. Using oxen, ropes, and a greased log over which the ropes could slide, the huge logs could be lifted into place.
At night they would sit by the fire making nails, heating the long nail-rod, sharpening it to a point with hammer blows, then indenting it at the proper length and breaking off the nail.
When not making nails, they wove baskets from reed fibers to make containers for grain and vegetables. Pa was so good at this that he often traded his baskets for food or other things he wanted to have.
When they were sitting together of an evening, pa would tell Hardy stories of his own boyhood in his native Ireland, and how he had been apprenticed to a millwright when he was ten years old. At fifteen he had been tall and strong enough to be swept up by a press gang and taken off to sea, but after a year of that he left his ship in New Orleans and went up the Mississippi and the Ohio, and then over the mountains to New York. From there he had gone to sea again, this time as a ship’s carpenter, and after the voyage he worked around New York, and had gone to New Hampshire, where he met ma.
After ma died they had gone west, as far as Wisconsin, but even there pa was still restless. He wanted a larger place, in more open country where he could raise horses. At his home in Ireland there had been fine saddle stock all around, and it was such horses he intended to raise.
Once when pa went off to market he left Hardy alone for two whole days and nights. Somebody had to stay and care for the stock, and keep the crows out of the corn. When pa returned Mr. Andy was with him, and he took up land close by.
Pa had been listening to stories about California; but it had not been the gold that took him off across the plains, but the attraction of a good climate and a place to ranch horses. He had been gone for a year when he sent for Mr. Andy to come west and bring Hardy.
S
UDDENLY HARDY FOUND himself awake, scarcely aware he had slept. The sky was faintly gray. Easing away from Betty Sue’s side, he got Big Red and and led him to water, then went back to camp and picketed the big horse again.
Among the trees and brush he found some straight shafts for arrows, and a good piece for the bow. His father had taught him how the Indians made their bows and arrows, and he had often hunted rabbits and squirrels with them. Working kept him from thinking now how hungry he was, and how hungry Betty Sue must be. He ate another of the pawpaws as he worked.
He was just finishing the bow when he heard the horses coming. Big Red heard them first and his ears went up and his nostrils fluttered as if he was going to whinny. Hardy caught the lead rope and whispered, “No! No!” Big Red was silent, but he was very curious.
Watching under the willows, Hardy saw three Indians with feathers in their hair. All were naked to the waist, and one had a quarter of an antelope on his saddle. They drew up about thirty yards downstream, and Hardy could hear the low murmur of their voices. He noticed that they were not painted, and they carried no scalps.
One of the Indians dropped from his pony and lay down to drink. As he started to rise he hesitated, then stood up. When he came to his full height he looked upstream, and for a long moment seemed to be looking right into Hardy’s eyes. The boy knew he could not be seen, but he held very still and prayed that neither Betty Sue nor Big Red would make a sound. After a long, long minute, the Indian looked away.
Soon all three rode off together, with the others, but even as they left, the one Indian turned and looked back. Hardy held very still until they had gone, and then he woke up Betty Sue.
He knew that they had to get away from there. They must leave right away. For that big Indian, he felt sure, was going to come back.
Chapter 2
B
ILL SQUIRES SQUATTED on his heels, his back to the pole corral. “About the fourteenth, it was. I come down the left fork and seen a fresh wagon trail stretched out across country.
“It was late to find a wagon train, but I went down the trail after them, figuring on some talk, an’ borrying coffee often them. Then I was right curious to see what they meant, travelin’ so close to snow time.”
Bill Squires spat and rolled his quid into the other cheek. “Mornin’ of the sixteenth I come up with them.” He glanced at Scott Collins. “Yes, I recall the boy. He was sure enough there, and Andy Powell’s girl a-taggin’ after him every step. Good boy. Bright, an’ chock full of questions about Injuns an’ sech.”
“You knew Powell?”
“Hell, yes! I should say. His pa an’ me was friends back in Pennsylvania when Andy was born. I knowed Andy, all right. Ever’ time I went back home I’d see him. Wasn’t often I went home, of course, but time to time. He told me about the boy and the horse.”
He glanced sharply at Collins. “No Injun better see that stallion. He’d give an arm for him. I’m not speakin’ of ’Paches now. They ride a horse half to death, then eat them. I’m speakin’ of the Cheyennes, Sioux, Kiowas, and them. They know horse-flesh.”
Scott Collins sat very still, feeling sick and empty inside. He had been hoping and praying that something had happened to keep the boy from starting west. He did not know what could have happened, but he had been hoping for something, for anything.
“Two, three days later I cut Injun sign. Comanches, an’ a sight too far north for them. Weren’t more than nine or ten of them, but they were drivin’ a dozen shod horses an’ a few head of cattle, so they’d been raidin’.”
He paused, spat, and said, “Now look at it. Them Comanches were a long ways from any settlement, and no Comanche is any hand to drive cows, not when he’s far from his home country. It figured they had raided somebody close by and hadn’t had a chance to eat the beef.
“It had to be them wagons, so I taken off. The way I saw it, the Indians had probably killed them all, yet some of those folks might be stranded back there with no stock an’ winter a-comin’ on. The men with the wagons outnumbered the Comanches, so they might have out-fit ’em.
“No such luck. Looked to me like the Indians come up on ’em about sunup. Nobody had a chance. A body could see the way the bodies lay what happened. No ca’tridge shells anywhere but by Andy Powell’s gun. I figure he got a few shots…nobody else did.”
“What about the youngsters?”
Scott Collins had to force the question, but he did not want to hear the answer.
Squires glanced at Collins sympathetically. “Now, I’m not one to give a man useless hope. I buried all the bodies I found, an’ there was no boy among them the size of yours, nor that girl of Andy’s either.”
Nobody said anything for several minutes, then Scott Collins got out his pipe and stuffed it with tobacco, forcing the fear and grief from his mind and fighting to think logically. Now, if ever, he must do that.
“No young un would have a chance to get away,” Darrow said. “Not out on bald prairie, that away. Comanches must have packed ’em off.”
Squires chewed thoughtfully. “Doubt it,” he said finally. “Them Comanches was travelin’ fast. They didn’t even keep a woman to take along. This was a quick raid, hit-an’-run like, with them Comanches few in number an’ a long way from home.
“You see, this here is Cheyenne country, rightly speakin’. Oh, there’s other Injuns about, time to time, but a small war party wouldn’t want to waste around an’ risk runnin’ into the Cheyennes or Pawnees.”
He paused, then said, “Collins, I hesitate to give hope to a man when there’s mighty little reason for it, but I figure those youngsters got away, somehow.”
After a moment he added, “Two youngsters, out on the prairie that way…” He let the words trail off.
Scott was thinking, trying to put himself into Hardy’s place. Oddly enough, it gave him confidence. The boy was a serious youngster, and he was pretty canny about wild country. Maybe he was being foolish, just trying to give himself hope, but despite his struggle to be cautious, he had a feeling Hardy was alive.
“If you didn’t find their bodies, and if you think the Comanches didn’t carry them off, then they must be back there, somewhere.”
“Now, I don’t know. How long could those youngsters make it, out there with no food, no beddin’, an’ no way to get on? Still,” Squires added, “one thing has worried me ever since I left that burned-out wagon train. What become of the big stallion? I studied that Comanche sign, an’ believe me, I could point out the track of ever’ horse in that outfit this minute, but there sure was no track of the stallion amongst them.”
“Hardy would get away with that horse if he could manage it,” Scott Collins said. “They grew up together. That stallion followed him like a puppy dog from the time it was a bitty colt.”
He knocked out his pipe and got to his feet. “Squires, I’m going back. If those youngsters are alive, I’ve got to find them, and if they aren’t, I’ll find their bodies and give them decent burial.”
Bill Squires looked out from under thick brows. “Comin’ on to winter out there, boy. The weather was nice enough when I rode through there, but she’s due to break any day now.” He paused, “Scott, you got to face it. If those youngsters got away, an’ I’m thinkin’ they did, they’re dead by now. There just ain’t no way they could live out there.”
Collins shrugged into his coat and picked up his rifle. “That boy of mine worked right alongside me since he could walk. He’s bright, and he’s old for his years. He knows how to build snares and he’s killed rabbits with a homemade bow and arrow…made them himself. I brought him up to care for himself.
“Another thing,” he added, “if the boy is alive, he will be expecting me. As for Big Red, that stallion will outrun anything on the Great Plains. If those youngsters get up on that horse no Indian will ever lay hands on them.”
“All right,” Bill Squires got to his feet, “no two ways about it. We’ll go have us a look.”
“You’re a couple of fools,” Darrow grumbled. “Injuns killed those young uns, much as I hate to say it.” He looked up at Collins. “No offense, Scott, but you got to look at it. If you go back there you’ll get killed into the bargain.”
“That boy’s all I’ve got, Frank.”
Darrow reluctantly got to his feet. “You’re a couple of witless wonders; but Scott, I can’t let you go off into wild country alone with Squires. He’ll get you killed sure as shootin’.”
T
HE SKY WAS gray, and a cold wind came down from the Wind River Mountains. There was snow on the peaks and the high timber, and the bunch grass on the plains where the three men rode looked brown and used up.
“You know the boy,” Squires said, “so you’d best be thinkin’. You put yourself in his place, try to recall whatever the boy knows, an’ you figure out what he’s likely to do.”
How to put yourself in the mind of a seven-year-old with a tiny girl and a horse? If, in fact, they were with him. That was the worst of it, they did not know.
Yet there were things he did know. For one, Hardy was stubbornly persistent, and for a boy of his years he had been alone a good bit. And of one thing he was sure. Hardy would try to come west, and unless something prevented he would hold close to the trail.
He held himself tight against the fear that was in him, the fear that grew until his heart throbbed heavily and his knuckles grew white on the reins.
Hardy, his son…his boy…was out there somewhere, in danger of his life. He was not out there alone, either. He had a little girl, almost a baby, to care for.
Squires must have guessed his thought. “Scott,” the old mountain man said roughly, “you got to forget what’s happenin’ out there. You got to think just of how to find them. You got to live each day, each hour, by itself. You think any other way and you’ll go crazy.”
Scott Collins forced himself to think calmly. It was plains country where the wagon train had been attacked and burned, but not far west of there the country broke up into gullies, rolling hills, and some long valleys, with the mountains to the north of the trail, but close by. There were trees along the watercourses, and sometimes there were patches of trees along the ridges.
The year was dry and there would be little water, but the boy had listened well, Squires had said, and he might remember some of Squire’s advice to the wagon-master on water holes. Yet he would have to beware of regular water holes because of the Indians.
One by one Collins added up Hardy’s assets for survival. He knew a few words of Sioux and Chippewa—that came from living near Indians along the Wisconsin border. He also knew a little of the sign language. Occasionally Indians had stopped by the cabin and Scott always fed them, and sometimes they had come by to leave a quarter of venison. The year of the big fire when much of the forest burned after a thunderstorm, and the game ran away to the south, Scott had kept a dozen Indians alive with gifts of food…even sometimes when it meant they went short themselves.
“The wagons were three days out of Laramie Crossin’ when the Indians hit ’em, an’ those youngsters aren’t goin’ to make the time they should, havin’ to hunt grub.” Squires rolled his tobacco to the other cheek. “We got a good many miles to go before we come up with ’em.”
“You traveled fast,” Scott said, “having horses cached for you, and all, but how long do you figure those youngsters have been on their own?”
“I taken a message east,” Squires said, “an I had horses hid out for me. I swapped horses three times. I figure those youngsters been out a week or so…not less’n six days.”
It was a long time. How could they eat? With no rifle, they would get little game…although with a bow and arrow Hardy could likely get a rabbit or a ground squirrel. Maybe even a sage hen.
The three men rode hard and they stopped seldom, and as they moved their eyes studied the ground and the hills around. They were still far from where they might find tracks of the children, but Scott was fearful of passing them.
Near the mountains they saw deer, and several times came across antelope tracks. Once they came upon a herd of elk, and another time they saw wild horses. They left the trail to look at them, but there was no red stallion among them.
“No Injuns yet,” Frank Darrow said, “an’ that’s a blessing.”
“They don’t like this country at this time of year any more’n we do,” Squires said. “Come winter, they head for the hills an’ hole up in some nice valley where there’s wood and such.”
“Bill,” Collins asked, “what would Indians do if they caught the youngsters?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve known ’em to smash their skulls against a tree or rock, but also I’ve known ’em to take youngsters in and care for ’em. Among their own, Indians treat their youngsters mighty good…better than most white men. With captives now, it’s another story. You just can’t tell.”
After a moment, he added, “I’d say the younger they are the better their chances.”
They pushed on until their horses were gaunt and lagged upon the trail. The time came when Squires said, “Scott, we’ve got to rest these ponies, else we’ll find ourselves afoot.”
“Bill, they can’t be far off now. We’ve got to push on.”
“If you kill these horses you’re likely never to find ’em. Think, man!”
“Creek up ahead if I remember rightly,” Darrow commented. “There’ll be grass an’ water an’ fuel. I say we lay up a day, rest the horses, and scout around a mite. Meanwhile we can sort of take stock, consider the country up ahead, an’ try to figure where we stand.”
It was good advice, and Scott knew it. And the camp they made was a good one, sheltered from the wind and the eyes of any passing Indian, with the branches of trees to thin out the smoke from their fire.
Dusk had come by the time they had stripped the gear from their horses and staked them out on grass. Scott Collins walked up the low hill beyond the camp and stood listening into the night. Big Red could really move if they gave him his head, and he might have carried them this far. He was a fine horse and he loved that boy.
But the night wind was cold. Would Hardy have a coat? And what about Andy Powell’s little girl? If she had just up and followed Hardy off, she would be lightly dressed, in no shape for a cold fall in Wyoming.
For more than an hour he stayed on the knoll, straining his ears for any sound, seeking to identify each one, hoping with all that was in him for the sound of Big Red’s hoofs, or the faint cry of a child.
Bill Squires came up to join him. “Scott, this ain’t doin’ you no good. Come down an’ eat. Get some rest. Frank’s throwed together some grub, an’ you sure look peaked.”
“They’re out there somewhere, Bill…we’ve got to find them.”
“If they’re alive, we’ll find them.”
The dancing fire brought no comfort, but the food was good, and the strong black coffee helped to lift their spirits a little.
“We’d better stand watch,” Squires suggested. “Me an’ Frank will stand the first two. Get yourself some sleep.”
And Scott Collins did sleep, and while he slept he dreamed of a great red stallion and two children, who rode on and on through endless nights of cold.