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DOWN THE LONG HILLS
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Life or Death
II HE WIND RUSTLED and something stirred in
Jand. the brush. The stallion's head was up,
nostrils flared. Suddenly, angrily, he pawed
the earth.
In the brush, the grizzly called Three-Paws
peered through the leaves. Deep in his chest, he gave
a growl. He crept forward . . . one step . .
. another.
Hardy's heart was pounding and his mouth was dry with fear.
He backed toward the tree. "Betty Sue," he
whispered hoarsely, "climb up. Climb to that big
limb above your head."
Hardy stood with his back to the tree and notched an
arrow. Old Three-Paws thrust his huge head from
the brush and stared at the horse. The stallion blew
shrilly, then reared on his hind legs, his front
legs pawing.
And then Old Three-Paws charged.
Bantam Books by Louis L'Amour
SK YOUR BOOKSELLER FOR THE BOOKS
YOU HAVE MISSED.
NOVELS
Bendigo Shaffer J
Borden Chantry greater-than
Brionne
The Broken Gun
The Burning Hills
The Californios
Callaghen
Catlow
Chancy
The Cherokee Trail
Comstock Lode
Conagher
Crossfire Trail
Dark Canyon
Down the Long Hills
The Empty Land
Fair Blows the Wind
Fallon
The Ferguson Rifle
The First Fast Draw
Flint
Guns of the Timberlands
Hanging Woman Creek
The Haunted Mesa
Heller with a Gun
The High Graders
High Lonesome
Hondo
How the West Was Won
The Iron Marshal
The Key-Lock Man
Kid Rodelo
Kilkenny
Killoe
Kilrone
Kiowa Trail
Last of the Breed
Last Stand at Papago
Wells
The Lonesome Gods The Man Called Noon The
Man from Skibbereen The Man from the Broken
Hills
Matagorda Milo Talon
The Mountain Valley War North to the Rails
Over on the Dry Side Passin' Through The
Proving Trail
The Quick and the Dead
Radigan
Reilly's Luck
The Rider of Lost Creek
Rivers West
The Shadow Riders
Shalako
Showdown at Yellow
Butte
Silver Canyon Sitka
Son of a Wanted Man Taggart The Tall
Stranger
To Tame a Land
Tucker
Under the Sweetwater Rim
Utah Blaine
The Walking Drum
Westward the Tide
Where the Long Grass Blows
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS Beyond the Great
Snow
Mountains Bowdrie Bowdrie's Law Buckskin
Run From the Listening
Hills
Dutchman's Flat End of the Drive The
Collected Short Stories of Louis
L'Amour: The Frontier Stories, Volume
1 The Hills of Homicide Law of the Desert
Born Long Ride Home Lonigan
May There Be a Road Monument Rock
Night over the Solomons Off the Mangrove
Coast The Outlaws ofMesquite The Rider of the
Ruby
Hills Riding for the Brand
The Strong Shall Live
The Trail to Crazy Man
Valley of the Sun
War Party
West from Singapore
West of Dodge
Yondering
SACKETT TITLES Sackett's Land To the
Far Blue
Mountains The Warrior's Path Jubal
Sackett Ride the River The Daybreakers
Sackett Lando
Mojave Crossing Mustang Man The Lonely
Men
Galloway
Treasure Mountain
Lonely on the Mountain
Ride the Dark Trail
The Sackett Brand
The Sky-Liners
THE HOPALONG CASSIDY NOVELS
The Rustlers of West
Fork
The Trail to Seven Pines The Riders of High
Rock Trouble Shooter
NONFICTION
Education of a
Wandering Man Frontier
The Sackett Companion-. A Personal
Guide to the Sackett Novels A Trail of
Memories:
The Quotations of be Louis L'Amour,
compiled by Angelique e L'Amour
POETRY
Smoke from this Altar
BANTAM BOOKS
DOWN THE LONG HILLS
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
A Bantam Book stJanuary 1968
New Bantam edition still April 1971
Bantam reissue still November 1998
Bantam reissue still August 2004
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and
incidents either are the product of the author's
imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual persons, living
or dead, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc. New
York, New York
Photograph of Louis L'Amour by John
Hamilton- Globe Photos, Inc.
All rights reserved Copyright [*copygg'1968
by Louis and Katherine L'Amour Trust.
No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and
retrieval system, without the written permission of the
publisher, except where permitted by law. For
information address:
Bantam Books, New York, New York.
To Jody andjonna,
to Beau and Angelique,
each of whom contributed
something to this book
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be
aware that this book is stolen property. It was
reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher,
and neither the author nor the publisher has received any
payment for this "stripped book."
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are
registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
ISBN 0-553-28081-3
Manufactured in the United States of America
Published simultaneously in Canada
OPM 70 69 68 67 66 65
Down
the
Long Hills
W:
WHEN HARDY COLLINS woke up, Big Red was
gone. Hardy had picketed the stallion himself, and with
sudden guilt he remembered that in his hurry
to return to the supper fire he had struck the
picket-pin only a couple of sharp blows.
He knew the horse was gone because from where he lay he
could have seen its outline against the sky. He lay still
for a minute or two, his heart pounding, frightened by what
had happened.
Red embers remained of the cooking fire.... A
coyote talked to the moon. In the wagon above him
Mrs. Andy stirred in her sleep.
It was his fault that Big Red was gone. Mr. Andy
was forever telling Hardy that he was old enough to accept
responsibility; and aside from seeing his pa at the
end of the trip there was nothing Hardy wanted more than
to be considered responsible by Mr. Andy.
When folks crossed the plains together everybody had
to do his or her part. Even Betty Sue, who was just
past three, collected buffalo chips with her ma.
Careful to make no sound, Hardy eased from under the
blankets and tugged on his boots. He knew by the
stars that day was not far off, but he might find the
stallion and get it back before anybody realized
he was gone. And Hardy had a good idea where
to look.
He was especially quiet because of Betty Sue,
who tagged after him wherever he went. If she woke
up now she would ask questions. That was the trouble with women,
Hardy decided; they just asked too many darned fool
questions.
First, he got his canteen. Mr. Andy had warned
him that a western man should never be without a canteen of
water; and out where his pa lived water was a
scarce thing, so it was better to learn that lesson now.
His hunting knife he always carried with him, because that
mountain man who had stopped by for supper and a yarning
time had said that if you gave an Indian or a
mountain man a knife he'd make out anywhere, no
matter what.
The circle of wagons was on a low hill with good
visibility in all directions, and it was only a
little more than a mile to the place where Hardy
expected to find Big Red.
There was a seep back there with green grass all
around, the best grass they'd seen in days, and when the
wagons made camp for the night they had picketed the
stock on that grass. When Hardy had gone out to bring
him in, Big Red was of no mind to leave, and it would
be like him to go back.
Out away from the wagons it did not seem so dark.
He had walked almost a third of the way when he
heard a rustle behind him and, scared, he turned
sharply around. It was Betty Sue.
"You turn right around and go back," Hardy said.
"What would your ma say if she knew you were out this time
of night?"
"She wouldn't mind if I was with you."
"You go on back," he repeated. "I've
got to find Big Red."
"I want to go with you."
She would surely get lost, Hardy reflected,
if he made her go back now. Or she might even
try to circle around and get ahead of him. It
wouldn't be the first time she'd done that. "All right,"
he said. "But you'll have to be still. There might be
Indians around."
She trudged along beside him, and after a while he
admitted to himself that he was glad of her company. Not
that he was scared-he had said that about Indians
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 3
just to keep Betty Sue quiet. Mr. Andy and the
men all agreed there were no Indians around this time of
year.
There was a faint suggestion of gray in the eastern
sky when they reached the coulee and found the big
chestnut cropping grass. He looked at them,
ears pricked, and then started toward them, dragging his
picket-pin behind him. But when he was almost to them he
stopped and his head and ears went up, his nostrils
flaring as he listened into the night.
"You're sure spooky, Red," Hardy said. He
picked up the picket-rope. "And you sure caused
a sight of trouble, walkin' off like that.
Suppose we'd gone off and left you? Then what
would you do?"
Big Red was a stallion, but he was also a pet.
Hardy had sat on his back when he was just four and the
stallion was a frisky two-year-old. He was still
skittish around strangers, and at times he could be
mean. Especially, he hated anybody fussing
around his tail. He would kick like a mule even if
Mr. Andy tried to take the cockle-burrs out of
it.
Hardy had cared for Big Red since he was a
colt, and it was Hardy who fed him carrots and
turnips, and took him to water. Big Red knew
who his friend was, and had known it all his born days.
The trouble now was that Hardy was too short to climb
to his back without help, for Big Red stood a
shade over seventeen hands. Hardy could boost
Betty Sue up, but he couldn't make it himself.
Otherwise they could have ridden back to camp.
"Hardy . .. there's plums!" Betty Sue
exclaimed.
Exasperated, Hardy looked around at her.
"Plums! Everything is plums to you! Those aren't
plums, they're blackberries."
Betty Sue was picking them and cramming them
into her mouth with a cheerful disregard for names. In the
distance there was a popping sound like a far-off breaking of
branches, and Hardy glanced at the sky.
It was too late now to get back undiscovered.
But if
they took back a hatful of blackberries Mr.
Andy might be less likely to be angry.
Hardy thought he heard an animal cry, or a
baby. He listened, but heard nothing more, so he went
back to picking berries, eating about every third one
himself.
When his hat was full they started back, with Betty
Sue sitting up on the horse, hands and mouth stained
with berry juice. One thing you could say for Betty
Sue. She would do what she was told, without making a
big argument. A sight better than most grown-up
women ... always arguing a man. Even Mrs. Andy.
She couldn't do anything without making a lot of talk
about it. Fussed more than a jaybird over a garden
snake.
They climbed out of the coulee to within a couple of
hundred yards of the wagons. He could see the
smoke of the cook fires ... that was an awful lot
of smoke!
All of a sudden he was scared. That was a lot
more smoke than he had ever seen, even that time when
somebody dropped some hot coals and started a
grass fire inside the wagon circle. He thought
he heard a sound of running horses, but when they
topped out on the next rise there was only the smoke
and what might have been dust.
The first thing he noticed was that the white wagoncovers
were missing. Of course, not many of them were white
anymore, but out on the prairie they looked white,
and you could see them from miles off, like a string of
clouds floating close to the ground. And there was no
moving around and hooking up, as there should have been at this
hour. When he had first seen the smoke he had
dropped back by Big Red and taken Betty
Sue's hand. Now his grip unconsciously
tightened and Betty Sue cried out in protest.
Big Red stopped abruptly. His eyes looked
wild, and he was smelling something he didn't like.
Quickly, Hardy reached up and took Betty Sue
from the dissaddle. Night after night before starting west he
had listened to stories of Indian attacks and what
had to be done about
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 5
them. Squires, the mountain man who had stopped at
their supper fire to eat and talk, had warned
them, too.
Hardy had listened to too much such talk not to realize
now what had happened. He drove the picket-pin
into the ground and took Betty Sue by the shoulders.
"You sit down," he told her. "I've got to go
up there. You move one inch and I won't take you
anywhere ever again."
She looked at him soberly. "I want mama,"
she said.
"You just set there. Set right there."
He trudged off alone, making slow time up the long
slope of the hill. His heart was pounding heavily, and
there was a lump in his throat he could not swallow.
There had been only twelve wagons in the train,
but starting late in the season they believed they could
make it through without trouble. The war party that had
attacked them had been a small one, outnumbered
almost two to one by the men of the wagon train, and the
attack had been a surprise to both parties.
The Comanches, ranging far north of their usual
haunts, were riding fast for home. They came upon the
wagons unexpectedly in the first light of dawn.
The guard had been stoking the fire for breakfast when
the arrow struck him. Two others died in their sleep
from arrows, and then the Indians swept through the
small camp, knifing and killing.
There had been a brief flurry of shots when Mr.
Andy reached his rifle and made a desperate
attempt to defend his wife. They died together,
unaware that Hardy and Betty Sue were not with them.
Hardy stopped outside the ring of burned and
halfburned wagons, gripped by a feeling he had
never known before. He had never seen death, and now it was
all around him, in this strange guise. The stripped,
scalped body of Mr. Andy did not look at all
like the man . .. nor did any of the others look like
the people Hardy had known. The wagons had been
hastily looted
and set afire, the bodies stripped and left as they
had fallen.
Avoiding them, and embarrassed by their nakedness,
Hardy searched quickly through the camp. He would need
weapons and food. There were no weapons, of
course-the Indians would have taken those first. He did
find some scattered cans of fruit and meat, and some
cans with the labels burned off. Evidently the
Indians had no acquaintance with canned goods. He
gathered up the cans in an old burlap sack.
Some flour was there, but he had no idea how to use
it, and left it behind. Hurriedly, he left
the wagons and went back down the hill to Betty
Sue and Big Red.
Hardy Collins was seven years old, and he had
never been alone before . .. not like this. He knew where
the North Star was, and he knew the sun came up
in the east and went down in the west. At home he
had done chores around the farm, had run and played in
the wooded hills with other boys, and for the last two
winters he had kept a trap-line down along the
creek. He did not know much more about the world except
that pa was out west.
He did not know how to tell Betty Sue about what
had happened, or whether she would understand if he told
her.
He dropped on his knees beside her. "We have to go
on alone," he said. "Indians came, and our
folks all had to go west. We have to go meet them."
It was a lie, and he did not want to lie, but he
did not know what to tell Betty Sue, and he did
not want her to cry. Nor did he believe that she
knew what "dead" meant. The only thing he could
think of was to go ahead now, and quickly. The Indians
might come back, or the smoke might attract
other Indians.
"Betty Sue," he repeated, "we've
got to go."
She looked at him doubtfully. "I want my
mama."
"We have to sneak away. Everybody ran from the
Indians."
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 7
"Are we going to run away, too?"
"Uh-huh. We have to hide from the Indians."
She stared at him, round-eyed. "Is it like a
game?"
"It's like hide-and-seek," he said, "only we have
to run a long way before we can hide."
"All right," she said.
He boosted her to the stallion's back. It was all
he could do to get her up there, but he pushed and she
scrambled and the big horse stood patiently.
There was no way for him to get up on the horse.
There were no rocks close by for him to stand on, no
places where he might get the horse lower down
than himself, and so scramble into the saddle. Taking the
picket-rope, he led the horse and they started
westward.
They were all alone. Ahead of them and all around them
there was nothing but prairie and sky. There were no
clouds this morning, and there was no dust. Neither
was there a tree, a shrub, or anything taller than
the stiff brown grass on which they walked.
The prairie was flat or gently rolling, with
occasional long brown hills, tawny as the flank
of a sleeping lion. There was almost no indication of
distance, for there were no landmarks.
When they had gone on for what seemed a long time, and
when the sun was high in the sky, Betty Sue began
to whimper, so Hardy helped her down and they sat
together on the ground and ate the rest of the
blackberries. Then each of them took a careful
drink from the canteen.
Betty Sue's eyes seemed to have grown larger and
rounder. "Hardy," she asked, "will mama be very far
off?"
"We won't see her today," he said.
When they started on Betty Sue walked beside him,
as she had many times when he had gone to the fields
to carry a lunch to Mr. Andy. When she grew tired
he lifted her again to Big Red's back.
At last they came to a high place, and the long
brown
land lay before them in all its endless distance, miles
upon miles of vast prairie, with nothing to be seen
on it anywhere. And then, searching the land again,
he did see something-between distant hills a smudge
of blue, edged by green.
They started on, and Hardy no longer thought of the
wagon train nor of the people who lay dead back there.
Always before wherever he had walked, there had been the
lights of home or at least a campfire waiting
for him. There had been a good meal, and a bed at last.
Now there was nothing like that; only somewhere far off, pa was
expecting him, and in the meantime he was responsible for
Betty Sue and for Big Red.
The sun was gone and the wind of evening was stirring the
grass when they came at last to the slough in its
shallow valley. At the water's edge the
cattails were six feet tall and more. They found a
place among a thick clump of willows where a
trickle of water ran from some rocks down to the
slough, and there they drank. The grass was good, and
Hardy picketed Big Red carefully, talking to the
horse all the while. Betty Sue was very quiet.
Once when the wind suddenly stirred the rushes
Hardy turned around sharply, suddenly frightened, and
Betty Sue looked as if she were about to cry.
"It's nothing. It is just the wind," he said.
He gathered cattails and dead grass and made a
bed for them. After that he opened one of the cans
with his hunting knife just as Mr. Andy used to do, and
they both ate. It was some kind of meat, and it tasted
good.
"Now you've got to wash your hands and face before you go
to sleep," he said.
"All right," the little girl said meekly.
At the water's edge they both washed, and the water was
cold and felt good on their skin after the long day of
traveling. When they came back Betty Sue
lay down on the cattails and Hardy covered her with
his coat.
He sat down nearby, the knife in his hand. He
had no
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 9
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
faroff 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
anc went to sleep again.
When day broke gray over the hills, a gray
shot witr vivid streaks of widening crimson, he
wanted a fire, bu he feared it might bring
Indians upon them. So he backslash a] still,
looking up at the sky, and thinking. They had
beei going west, and there was nothing for it but to keep or
With every step they were coming closer to pa.
He was used to walking on the farm and in the wood:
and with the wagon train all of them had walked up tt
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
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 11
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
bottorn 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. "Pawpaws!" 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.
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 13
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.
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 15
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.
OUDDENLY 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 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.
M bar ILL SQUIRES SQUATTED on his
heels, his back JL caret 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 offen 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 horseflesh."
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,
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 19
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 wa
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
JL 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
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 21
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 Squires'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
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 23
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.
@lJk FTER THE FOURTH day Betty Sue
asked no A. JL more about her mother, nor did she
cry at all. Her face became thin, her eyes
unnaturally large. She clung to Hardy, so
close he found it difficult to picket the
stallion or hunt for food or fuel.
They had come to the crossing of Pole Creek, but they
found it dry in both directions. There was grass, very
good grass, and despite the lack of water Hardy
stopped long enough to let Big Red fill his belly.
And then, for the first time, he found a place where he could
mount the horse.
There might have been other such places, but from
the reverse slopes where they walked, the country
along the river, seen in occasional glimpses through
gaps among the low hills, looked as dangerous as
it did inviting.
He mounted the horse from a bank of the creek, and at
once they moved away at a good clip. Big Red
was restive and eager to go. He had been worried
all day. Hardy could see it in his manner; and the
horse did not like the feel of the cool wind coming out of the
north.
On this day they ate the last of their small store of
food, a can of beans. Betty Sue ate
hungrily, then looked longingly at what still
remained of Hardy's, so he gave it to her,
hungry though he was.
He thought of the big Indian. Though there had been no
sign of him, Hardy was not reassured. The Indian
had probably said nothing to the others, wanting their
scalps for himself, and wanting Big Red. It could be
he was pursuing them even now.
During the course of the day they crossed and recrossed
the creek bed, once finding a pool of water. There
was water in the canteen, so they did not drink,
Hardy not liking the look of the water, but the stallion
drank, and gratefully.
The sky was an unbroken gray when they started on
again, and the bluffs were covered with dead pines. The day was
bleak and cold. Big Red moved out anxiously,
eager to be going. Hardy studied their back trail
from time to time, but saw nothing disturbing.
Several times he saw rabbits and tried shots at
them, but the third one he saw he did not try for,
since there was no way to get back on the horse after
retrieving the arrow if he missed.
When he at last found a place to camp, he was
hungry and tired. Too tired to be scared, but not
too tired to be cautious. The camp he made was
under dead pines, below a bluff covered with them. There
was only a trickle of water in the creek, and the
grass was dry and brown. They found nothing to eat, and
although he set some snares he had small hopes for
them. It was a cold, miserable, unhappy night, and
toward morning it began to rain. Nothing was in the
snares, and there was nothing to do but go on.
Big Red wanted to trot, so he gave the
stallion his head and let him go. Today they stayed with the
main trail, for Hardy knew that Indians will not
ride in the rain unless circumstances demand it.
The rain slanted across the gray sky like a steel
mesh, and under the hoofs of Big Red the
trail grew slippery, but the horse kept on
untiringly. Huddled on his back, holding Betty
Sue before him, Hardy lost all track of time.
Finally the big horse slowed to a walk, but he
plodded on. Around them the land grew rougher.
Now the ridges were crested with trees, and along the
watercourses there were some big old cottonwoods.
Hardy straightened up in the saddle and peered around
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 27
him. He must find shelter, and somehow get some
food. Betty Sue was too quiet, and it frightened
him.
Hardy was learning to see. Back in the woods one
always had to be alert, he knew, but there the range was
narrower. Even when he was riding the wagon seat, the
view was always somewhat obscured by the other wagons,
by riders or dust. Now, riding high on Big
Red, he could see farther, and from hearing the mountain
man talk, he had learned something about looking and
seeing.
All people look, but few really see; and they can
rarely give details of any place they have
passed-its appearance or what might be found there.
Hardy was looking out for trouble, but now he was looking
for food too, for something-anything-they could
eat.
Just before dark the rain stopped, but the sky remained
overcast. They had only a brief time in which to find
shelter before night came, but shelter was no longer so
difficult to come by, for there were frequent
deadfalls, hollows under the banks of a stream, or
thick clumps of trees.
Presently he found a huge cottonwood that had
fallen, its top resting on the bank of a stream.
Its boughs were still hung with dead brown leaves.
Alongside it was a green slope leading down to the
stream, and on this slope he staked Big Red, after
watering him and rubbing him down with handfuls of grass.
Betty Sue sat in a woebegone little huddle
near the tree, watching him.
Hardy crawled in under the tree and broke branches
until he had shaped a hollow into which they could
crawl. The broken branches he then wove in
among those stretching out to the sides, to improve their
shelter. He gathered the longer grass and weeds
to make a mat several inches thick to cover the
ground.
Under a slab of rock that had fallen across two
boulders he found a place big enough to hide Big
Red, where he could lie down. Hardy tugged
and sweated, getting some stones out of the sand so Red could
rest easier.
He was cold and tired, and shivered in his wet shirt,
but it was Betty Sue who really troubled him. She
sat so silent, asking none of her usual interminable
questions, only staring with big, frightened eyes. He
suddenly realized that she reminded him of a woman
back in Wisconsin, a neighbor whose husband had
died. She had sat still like that, talking to no one, and
then one day they found her dead. Hardy gave a little
shudder as he thought of this.
Yet, he reassured himself, they had come a good way
today, and every step brought them closer to pa; by now pa must
be looking for them. On that one thing his faith did not
waver. Pa would come, and he must care for Betty
Sue and Big Red until he did come.
He planned to set five snares, but by the time he
had found places to set two he was too cold and
tired to go on with the others. Returning to their shelter,
he lay down beside Betty Sue and huddled close
to her. During the night it began to rain again.
The soft patter on the leaves above them was
strangely comforting. He felt Betty Sue stir
beside him and he spoke to her, making his tone confident.
"Pa will be coming soon. He said he would
meet us."
"I'm hungry," Betty Sue said.
It was the first thing she had said all that day, and he
caught at it quickly. "So'm I. Tomorrow I'll
get out an' hunt. Don't you worry, Betty
Sue-I'll find something."
But even as he spoke, he knew his chances would be
slim. Wild life did not like to move when the weather
was wet; aside from the discomfort, the dampness caused
them to leave more scent behind. Animals knew better
than to stir around in wet weather.
Suddenly Hardy decided: if it was raining tomorrow, or
even if it wasn't, they would stay right where they were.
They had water, there was good grass on the slope for
Big Red, and the shelter was keeping off the rain-
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 29
well, almost. Even as he thought they were snug and
dry, a big drop fell down the back of his
neck.
There might be fish in the stream. Maybe nothing but
suckers, but he had eaten suckers before this and they were
good enough. Not like the pickerel and pike from
Wisconsin, but still pretty good eating when a man was
hungry. And he had seen some bird tracks, like
those of a prairie chicken, only larger.
Maybe one of those sage hens he'd heard the
mountain man speak of.... His thoughts trailed off,
and he slept.
He had forgotten all about that Indian.
Several times the damp cold awakened him, and once
the coat had fallen off. He covered Betty
Sue and himself again, and lay awake several minutes
listening to the rain.
" Fort Bridger was west of here, somewhere beyond South
Pass, and maybe somebody would be hunting out of that
fort, and would find them. Hardy thought of the warm kitchen
smells back home, and of the gaiety and laughter
around the campfires on the way west.
Suddenly a chilling fear swept over him.
Suppose something had happened to pa? Suppose he
wasn't corning at all?
The distance seemed so far. A month, Mr. Andy had
said, a month by wagon train without having to walk as
he had, without searching for food. Three more weeks
and a bit over. Could Betty Sue keep going that
long?
He sat up and clasped his arms around his knees.
He daren't think of that. He just had to keep going.
What was it pa used to say? "Give me a stayer every
time. I like a man or a horse who just
gets in there and keeps on going."
But how could they keep going? Betty Sue was already
so thin it frightened him to look at her.
As soon as it was light he had to get out and rustle,
rain or no rain. So far he had only looked for
food when they traveled, or when they had stopped for the
night. He had not deliberately taken time out
to hunt for it.
Finally he lay down again and went to sleep, and the rain
whispered him into a deeper, sounder sleep, all his
tired, aching muscles relaxing slowly. The rain
fell gently upon the brown grass, over the powdery
dust, over the trees and the rocks. It fell where the
horse had walked, and slowly the tracks
disappeared, fading out bit by bit under the caressing touch
of the rain.
JL HE BIG INDIAN, Ashawakie, was
curious, as any wild thing is curious.
Ashawakie had been trained from childhood
to observe, and when he saw a little riled-up water
floating by he knew something close upstream had
disturbed it. When he looked that way he thought he
caught the sheen of sunlight on a chestnut or
sorrel flank. He had also thought he glimpsed a
momentary shadow upon the waters, but he might
be wrong. He said nothing to the others with him, for if
there was a chance to count coups, he wanted it first; and
if there was a horse to steal, he wanted the first chance
at it.
Horses meant wealth to him, for an Indian was
judged by the number of horses he had. Coups
meant pride among the maidens, meant boasting by the
campfire. Ashawakie was a great warrior, he
had proven it many times; but he was a warrior who
liked to work alone. Now, when he could find an
excuse, he left the others and circled back.
He discovered the tracks quickly enough, but was puzzled
by them. The tracks of the horse were large, but those of the
people-two of them-were small. Young ones? Alone?
He dismissed it as unlikely.... The Little People?
He felt a shiver of superstitious dread. The
Old Ones had left stories behind of the Little People, and
he wanted nothing to do with them. Anyway, they were
supposed to have disappeared long ago into a cleft in the
mountain far away in the northern Big Horns.
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 31
Of the two people whose tracks he had found, he rarely
saw the tracks of the much smaller one.
The sign left by the horse excited him. The
stride was long and even, the stride of a big,
smooth-traveling horse that could hold its pace
hour after hour. He wanted that horse, Little People or
no.
But he soon felt assured that they were not the Little
P. They must be children of the White-Eyes, and they were
alone. They had built fires rarely. He found
no scraps of food, no bones. Only at first
did he find a tin can.
Ashawakie could read sign, and like any Indian
worth his salt, he deduced a good deal from what he
saw. These were children alone, hurrying westward, and they
had no food.
He found where snares had been set, but there was no
blood and no hair, no feathers. They had caught
nothing. But the Little Warrior, as Ashawakie came
to think of him, had removed the snares before he left,
wanting none of the Forest People to be trapped and die after
he left.
Ashawakie was a Cheyenne. He did not make war
upon children, but he was curious; and after a while, he was
faintly admiring. The Little Warrior was cunning.
He chose his camps well. He hid his horse.
Before leaving each camp, he tried to remove all
sign of his presence. He only rode in the trail
after the rain began, when a few hours, or
even minutes, would wipe out all trace of his
passing.
Interested, Ashawakie followed. He had no
idea what he would do when he came up to them. He
wanted the horse. The children would be a nuisance. Still,
the boy would make a warrior, and he was young enough to be
raised as one of them.
Hardy awakened to find it was daylight, and the rain was still
falling. No game was likely to be about in the rain,
but he must look-he might come across something.
The air was gray and heavy, and the tree above him would
scatter the smoke, so he took a chance and built
a fire, then rustled wood. The fire would be a
comfort for Betty Sue while he was gone.
"You've got to stay here with Red," he told her.
"I've got to find something to eat, and I can't do it
with you following after. You stay close to the fire and
keep warm."
Whether it was the warmth of the shelter, coupled with her own
waning strength, Hardy did not know. Perhaps it was the
fire and the presence of Big Red, but at any rate
Betty Sue was willing to stay behind, and agreed not
to stir, no matter how long he was gone.
Taking his bowstring from his pocket where he kept it
coiled and dry, he strung his bow. He had
only three arrows, but he hoped they would be enough.
He took them and stepped out into the rain, keeping the
bow close to his body to shield it from the wet.
There was a huge, lightning-blasted cottonwood
near the shelter, and he chose that for his landmark.
Instead of walking swiftly away, he walked off
a short distance, looked back, then walked a slow
half-circle past the shelter to see it from every point.
He knew how even the most familiar things can seem
different when looked at from a different angle.
Then he began to hunt. Hollow trees, clumps
of brush-anywhere an animal might hide. The
trees here extended only a few hundred yards
beyond the stream, but in some places the distance narrowed
down to only a few feet, but there was brush along the
stream and on some of the hillsides near the water.
Once he started a rabbit, but it was gone before he
could notch an arrow. He would have to try for them at
sundown, when they were more apt to sit still and look around;
even if startled they would usually stop at the edge of a
hiding place to look back.
He had been gone for almost an hour and was about
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 3 3
to turn back when he saw a clump of bushes about
four feet high . . . hazelnuts!
He went to them quickly. Many of the nuts had fallen,
but he found dozens still clinging to the branches and he
picked his hat full.
By the time he went back to the shelter the rain had
stopped and there were breaks in the clouds. Betty
Sue was there waiting for him; she seemed to have hardly
moved. Huddled over the fire, they cracked open the
hazelnuts with a small rock and ate them.
After that Hardy put out the fire and scattered earth
over it to smother any remaining coals. Then, putting
Betty Sue on Red's back, he led the horse
down into the stream. On the bank he found a place
where he could climb to the stallion's back, and he
walked the horse upstream until near the
hazelnut bushes.
The sun shone bright, and it felt good on his back and
shoulders. He had almost forgotten what it meant not
to be wet, cold, and hungry. When they reached the
hazelnuts he rode out of the stream, found a place
where he would be able to remount, and picketed Red on the
hillside grass. Then he proceeded to pick
nuts until his hat was full again, and the front of his
shirt too. By that time there were few nuts left.
He mounted again, and walked the horse along a winding
trail, made by buffalo, no doubt, that
followed the stream along the opposite side from that
he had traveled thus far. In case the Indian was
behind him the rain might have wiped out Hardy's
tracks, leaving no sign for the Indian to find.
By crossing the stream, wading in it for a short time, and
then following the opposite bank, he might lose
the Indian completely.
The day was warm and clear, but they made slow time because
the track led along a steep slope above the river.
Trees on the banks masked their movements. About
midday they halted and Hardy staked out the horse on
good grass; he and Betty Sue ate more of the
nuts. He was about to start on again when he saw the
chokecherries.
Only a few were left, but the taste of them, even
though they puckered the mouth, was somehow refreshing after the
nuts.
After a while they went on, and the sun was pleasant
after the chilling rain. It had only taken a few of the
nuts to fill them up, and he carried those that were left
inside his shirt.
Presently Betty Sue fell asleep, and he
cradled her head against him until his arm was so stiff
he could scarcely move it, but he did not want
to wake her. When she slept, she was at
least not afraid.
He was trying to think. What was it his pa had said so
often? "Remember, son, the only thing that makes a
man able to get along in this world is his brain. A
man doesn't have the claws a bear has, nor the
strength of a bull. He doesn't have the nose of a
wolf, nor the wings of a hawk, but he has a
brain. You're going to get along in this world as long as
you use it."
He couldn't count on it that pa would be hunting for him.
Scary as it was even to think of it, he knew he had
to think of what he would do if pa didn't come.
They had to keep on to Fort Bridger. There were people
there, and there he and Betty Sue would be safe. There
were womenfolks who would tend to her, and it was a place
where he could sleep without being scared what he'd wake
up to.
But Fort Bridger was a long way ahead, and the
country was getting higher. Last night it had been
almost cold enough for frost, and any night it might
really freeze. It had snowed this early, too, a
time or two.
Maybe he had lost that Indian who was trailing
them-or who he thought was trailing them. But maybe the
Indian was coming on, wanting their scalps, and
wanting Big Red. Hardy wanted to believe they
would see no more of him, but pa had always taught him
to be foresighted.
"Try to foresee the worst things that could happen," pa
said, "and plan for them. Figure out what you would
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 35
do beforehand. Chances are, they'll never happen; but if
you plan ahead, you're ready."
Well, all right, he would think of those things later.
Now he had two things he had to be thinking of right
off. They were going to need more food, and some way to fix
something warm to eat or drink. Somehow he had to get
some meat. And he had to figure out some way of
cooking something if he caught it.
Also, they were going to need something warm to wear. He was
cold all the time, except when right in the sun, and
Betty Sue shivered, even under his coat. He
tried not to think of how far they had to go, or how short
a distance they had come so far.
Meanwhile, he had to look for a camp, a hidden
place where he could see around without being seen, and a
place where he could get back on the horse.
stbackslash SHAWAKIE WAS EAGER to find that
big horse. He had lost the trail because of the rain,
but he rode on. Shrewdly, he was paying
little attention to trail sign . . . instead, he was
trying to foresee what the Little Warrior would do.
That was how he found the crudely made shelter under the
dead cottonwood.
FRANK DARROW SWUNG his horse around and
studied the tracks. "Injun pony," he said.
"Scott, you've got to face it. Any chance we
had to find those youngsters was washed away by that rain.
Look for yourself... there ain't any tracks to be
seen. Not even antelope tracks."
Collins indicated the pony tracks. "That
Indian was going somewhere. If he left tracks,
we can find Hardy's
tracks."
"If he's alive to make any." Darrow rested his
hands on the pommel. "Scott, I ain't sayin"
I wouldn't feel the same, was I in your boots, but
you've got to see reason. "That youngster is only
seven years old, and he's up against a fix no
grown man would like to face. He's out in the wilderness
with no grub, no weapon that we know of, an' he's
got him a girl kid to care for. You say he knows
how to get along, but this here is Injun country an'
he's got him a horse any Injun would give his
eyeteeth for.
"You talk about gettin' along. This here country this
time of year has mighty little game. There'll be
cold winds blowin' down across this flat like the
mill-tails of hell in no time at all. The
Injuns an' the game know that, so they head for
sheltered places in the hills. Your kid ain't
got a chance."
Scott Collins nodded his head. "Frank, you go
along back and I'll not hold it against you. I know
winter is coming on and you've got stock to feed and work
to do. You've got wood to cut and lay by before cold
weather
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 37 sets in.
I've got to keep looking, and you know why? Because I
know that boy.
"He's followed me to the field and the woods ever
since he was knee-high to a grasshopper, and he's
questioned me up one side and down the other. We've
hunted plants in the woods and fields, and sold
them to folks for medicine. We've hunted them for
grub. He's helped me with the planting, and he's
got a mighty keen sense
of responsibility.
"He's known some Indians. He's played with their
youngsters, and he's hunted with them. I know my
boy; and young as he is, he'd take a lot of
killing, believe me.
"And that isn't all. There's just the two of us now,
him and me. And he knows that I'll be hunting him.
I'll be along the trail somewhere, and he'll trust
me to look, because he knows that's the way I'm geared.
Frank, it may take me a long time, but I'll
not stop hunting until I find that boy, or find his
body. You go along if you're of
a mind to."
Darrow stared at him. "I never knew such a
pigheaded, stubborn fool in my life. All right,
I'll stay with you, but only for one reason. If that
boy is half as stubborn as you are, he's
probably too stubborn to quit or to die.
Let's get to huntin'."
Bill Squires had been studying his chewing
tobacco. Now he bit off a bite and tucked it
into his cheek. "If you two sidewinders would quit
arguin' long enough to think, you'd be askin' yourselves a
question."
They looked at him, and Squires took his time.
He got his jaws to working on the tobacco, and was
enjoying the suspense. "Yessir. If you two would
stop to think, you'd ask yourselves what that Injun
was doin' out here in the rain."
They stared at him, and he rolled the tobacco in his
jaws. "Now you look at that track. That there
Injun pony left that track sometime before the rain
quit. She's a fairly fresh track, edges not
broken down, yet there's a
showin' of water in it, and there ain't goin' to be much
seepage in that kind of clay.
"So what have you got? You got an Injun who's
away to hell an' gone out in the open, ridin' through the
drivin' rain ... that's before he got to this point.
An' no Injun is fool enough to do that-not unless he's
close to his wickiup, he ain't.
"Now, we ain't close to no camp or we'd have
seen sign before this. That Injun is ridin' alone through
the rain, which no Injun is likely to do. So I
got to ask myself why."
"You think he's following the youngsters?"
"Scott, an Injun would trail them kids through the
worst storm you ever did see to get that stallion.
This here's the first promise we've had."
"It's a slim chance," Darrow agreed
reluctantly. "Come to think of it, it is odd.
An Injun would find himself a place to hole up
until the storm was gone."
"We got nothin' else," Squires said, "so
let's try her on for size."
It was a slow, painstaking task to work out the trail.
The Indian had held to hard surfaces when he could
find them, and occasionally his tracks had been washed out
by rivulets. Once they rode half a mile on
trust because a belated rush of water down a stream bed
had washed the sand free of any tracks after the
Indian's passing. Sure enough, farther on, after
an hour of scattering out and searching, they picked up
a track.
It was the Indian who led them to the shelter under the dead
cottonwood.
They reached it at the end of a long hard day, and made
their own camp there. Bill Squires studied it with
interest. "He's a canny lad, that one," he said
admiringly. "He had himself a nice camp fixed
up here, and one nobody was likely to find."
"That redskin found it," Darrow commented wryly. He
indicated the fire. "He covered that up well.
They've
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 39
been eatin', too." With a stick he pushed several
charred shells out of the fire. "Hazelnuts."
"Look here." Squires had found the
impress of a tiny hand on the dirt beside the bed-just the
outer edge of a palm, a smudge where the knuckles
must have been, and the slight print left by the thumb.
"He's got Andy Powell's girl with him, all
right."
Hardy had left a small pile of wood neatly
stacked against the bank on which the top of the tree
rested, and they used it now for their own fire.
Frank Darrow fried bacon and made up some
fryingpan bread and coffee. Bill Squires sat
musing and smoking. He rarely smoked on the
trail.
"We've got us some trouble," he said finally.
Darrow looked up, and Collins stopped shaving
kindling for the morning fire.
"You've told me a lot about that boy," Squires
said, "an' I can see a good deal around here. He
knows that Injun is after him."
They waited, while the bacon sputtered in the pan
and the smell of coffee filled the small shelter.
"It's more a feeling than anything else. But look
at this place. He took pains to hide out. He
wasn't just makin' himself a shelter-he tried to cover
it up, too.
"He's got a knife. We've seen
places he's used it, but not around this camp. Nothing
sticks out more'n a fresh-cut tree or limb
with the white wood showin'. Well, did you see any
around here? This boy must be dead-tired, he must be
scared, but he's usin' that little head of his all the time.
I'd lay a bet that if a body took time you'd
find scattered places where he cut firewood
all through the trees yonder, but you'd have to hunt for
them. I doubt if he'd be that careful unless he
suspicioned somebody was huntin' him .. .
somebody other than his pa."
"Why do you say we're in trouble?" Collins
asked. "The kid will hide his tracks," Darrow
answered, "sure as shootin'. He figures
to meet you comin' up the
trail, but that Injun is behind him, an' he ain't
goin' to leave him nothing if he can help it. That
means he ain't leavin' anything for us, neither."
Over their meal they studied and discussed every
possibility they could think of. Hardy Collins would
not want to leave the trail where he knew his father
might be searching, yet he might be forced to do just that.
Scott felt sure about what his son would do, and on
that score the two mountain men agreed with him. He was
sure that on leaving camp Hardy would take
to the water so as to leave no tracks-but where would he go
then?"
"We got to find where he found them nuts,"
Squires said. "If there was more, he'd go back after
them."
Scott Collins could not sleep. He lay awake
a long time thinking of his son out there in the cold and
dark. By day Collins could keep a bold face before
the other men, and by day he was confident of what his son
would do, or try to do; but at night when he lay down
in the darkness he could only think of how frail even
a sturdy seven-year-old can be.
Hardy had grown up to an outdoor life, of
course- in fact, he knew no other life. Many
a time he and his father had camped in the woods together;
they had gone off hunting, each in his own direction,
and had left signs for each other to indicate the way
they had gone. They had often rustled meals for themselves
from small game and wild herbs. Nevertheless, he was
only a small boy, caring for a smaller girl....
Finally Collins drifted off into sleep.
He had been awake for a minute or two, hearing the
low sound of voices outside, before he realized it was
early morning. When he opened his eyes he found a
fire going, smelled the coffee, and heard
Darrow speaking.
"In lookin' for this youngster, Bill, we'd better
not forget that Injun. He'd like to notch his stick for
our scalps, no doubt, an' we'd best keep a
weather eye open for him."
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 41
Scott Collins sat up. "Wonder one of you
wouldn't give me a call. I'm overdue for some
coffee."
They both ducked their heads and came in through the
small opening. "You looked plumb tuckered out, so
we let you sleep," Bill said. He was smoking his
pipe. "Whilst Frank was fixing grub, I took
a look around. There's a clump of hazelnuts right
across the stream an' up a ways. Plenty of sign
around there. The boy must have loaded up on them,
judgin' by the fresh pickin' sign he left."
"He's not starving, anyway," Scott said. There was
very little conversation. When Scott had finished eating, the
three men, with Bill Squires leading, went down
to the stream, and they followed it, eyeing the banks
carefully. They came to the hazelnut patch, and
went on. From time to time they saw signs left by the
Indian.
The tracks were now several days old, but they
did not dare increase their pace for fear they would
lose the vague trail-and sometimes there was hardly a
trail at all.
Late that afternoon, Scott Collins drew up,
studying the tracks of the Indian. "Does it seem
to you, Bill," he said, "that this Indian spends a
lot of time checking out the way those youngsters get
along? Every time he comes on a place where they've
stopped, he leaves enough tracks for four or five."
Squires chuckled. "He's curious. They've
got him puzzled, Scott, an' it seems to me
he's real interested. He wants to see how they're
getting on, an' what they have to eat."
"Hardy knows a good deal about getting along in the
outdoors, if he'll just use his head."
"He's got his troubles," Darrow put in.
"There's a lot he can't fix to eat because he's got
no dish or pot. For somebody travelin' light,
I'd say he's gettin' along all right."
"How far are we behind him now?" Scott asked.
"Two, three days. Maybe four.. . . He
travels awful slow at times, an' I figure
he didn't make over four, five miles the first
day out. Maybe less the next day. But when he can
get up on that horse they usually make good
time."
They were in camp when Collins suddenly looked around
at the others. "I'm afraid he'll quit the
trail."
"I've been thinkin' on that, too," Squires
agreed. "The way I see it, it's his only chance
to get away from that Injun. Might not do it even then,
for the Injun is good on readin' sign, but if he could
pick the right time he might ride north an' get
into the deeper woods, cut across until he hits the
foothills of the Wind River Range, an' then
cut down for Bridger. The boy might do just that.
He's thinkin', all he can."
"I wish they were dressed warmer," Scott said.
"Yeah ... so do I."
r caret SHAWAKIE WAS THINKING about the cold,
too, but not in the same way. Several times he was
sure he would catch the Little Warrior, but each time
they had slipped away somehow. In their camps, they
kept the fire small, as an Indian does, and
huddled close to it, but the wind was blowing cold off the
mountains where there was snow. At any time the streams
might begin to freeze along the edges, and the Little
Warrior and the small girl would be cold.
But Ashawakie was not thinking of them with pity.
That they might suffer from the cold aroused no
response in him. He was simply aware of the
fact, curious as to what they might do, and he knew
that he must calculate upon it in searching out their
camps.
He had known few white men, and no white women
or children. Many of his people had known them, and some had
spoken of them with favor; but most Cheyennes had
only known the white man to fight him or to steal his
horses, though the Cheyennes placed less
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 43
emphasis on the virtue of stealing horses than
did the Comanches.
Ashawakie was no more concerned with the feelings of the children
than he would be with those of wolf cubs. The horse was
what he wanted, but he was much interested in the way the
Little Warrior faced his problems.
The Indian did not, as yet, realize that he,
too, was followed. As did all Indians, he
watched his back trail, but the three white men were still
too far behind him for him to know about it. Had he
guessed they were following him, he might have made a
desperate effort to catch the children, kill them, and
take the horse. He was now too far from his own
wickiup to think of taking them back as
prisoners.
But Ashawakie had more to think of than the children and the
horse, for he was nearing the place of one of his
greatest tests. It had happened three years ago,
when he met the bear.
The Cheyenne was thirty-five years old and a strong
warrior now, but he admitted to himself that when he met
the bear he had known fear-for the first and only time.
The bear was a grizzly, and Ashawakie had come upon
him unexpectedly. He had seen at once that the
grizzly was in no good frame of mind. Some
animals, like some men, are born with a chip on their
shoulder, and the grizzly had a chip on his. He
saw Ashawakie on the narrow trail, and
Ashawakie whipped up his rifle and fired.
The bullet struck and the grizzly lunged, snarling.
There was no chance to reload, and the Indian jammed the
rifle into the bear's jaws and grabbed his hunting
knife. The bear slapped the rifle from his jaws;
Ashawakie got one swipe at an upraised paw
with his knife, and then he was knocked off the trail.
Luckily, he fell clear, struck a clump of
bushes, and dropped flat on his face in the sand beside
the stream.
The wind was knocked out of him, or he might
have moved. As it was, he had just got his breath when
he heard the enraged bear coming down the slope some
sixty yards away.
Snuffling, and making an angry rumbling sound, the
animal nosed around among the bushes and rocks for
some time before the pain of his wounds took him away.
There had been nothing to guide him, for in falling,
Ashawakie had left no trail, and the bear's
search was futile.
Ashawakie looked around now and muttered to himself,
remembering the happening. It was his closest brush with
death, and he recalled the episode and the area with
distaste. Was it an omen, that he had been led back
here by the children?
were they children, or were they, after all, the Little People? Had
they brought him back again to this place where he had known
fear? To the place of the bear?
UNTIL NOW, HARDY had lived in a state of
apprehension, fearing the dangers of the trail less
than he feared his inability to cope with them. But now,
suddenly, he found himself confident. They had been on
the trail for several days, and they had survived.
He was up on Big Red and the stallion was moving
along at a pleasant gait. Betty Sue was
sleeping peacefully, and for the first time she was not
whimpering in her sleep. But above all, he felt that
he was thinking well about their situation.
It was the fish that began it. Hardy had crossed the
stream twice during the last half-mile, and then had
reentered it and traveled a quarter of a mile
upstream in the water.
There are few trails that, given time, cannot be worked out
by a good tracker, and Hardy had small hope of
losing the Indian. All he could do was play for time;
and perhaps he could gain as much as an hour- maybe
several hours.
It was while riding in the water that he saw the fish,
and for the first time he began to realize how much his worry
had kept him from making the most of the country.
Back home he had often watched the Indian boys
making fish traps of branches and reeds; in fact,
he had helped them, and had caught fish by that method.
Here he was, going hungry with a stream close by that
was filled with fish.
His arm was aching from supporting Betty Sue's
head, but his mind was busy with the problem. To make
a fish trap he would need a little time ... he could
make one, with good luck, in an hour or less.
He could set it at night, and perhaps find fish in the
morning. His bad luck was that he had to keep
moving....
Or did he?
Suppose he left the trail? By now the Indian
would be sure he was headed west, as most white men
were, and was keeping to the trail. What if he
selected some not too obvious spot and left the
trail entirely? Suppose he took to the hills
and camped beside some small stream until he could
catch a good meal or two, perhaps even enough fish
to smoke a few for the days ahead?
He could broil the fish over a fire, or in the
coals. As far as that went, he could make a dish out
of bark, as his father had taught him. There were plants
around that could be cooked with meat or fish ... he just
had not been thinking.
The air was fresh and cool, the stream rustled along
over the rocks, and occasionally wind stirred in the
trees. When the wind came down off the snowfields
on top of the mountains, it was chill. Several times,
topping out on small rises among the trees, he
had looked back. So far he had not seen the
Indian once, but he felt sure he was back
there.
The trouble with leaving the trail was that he might miss
his father, who he still felt must be searching for
him. But his father was a man who used his head, and he
knew how Hardy thought. Of course, in the past there
had been those signs they left for each other, signs
to indicate a change of direction, or to show when the
trail was abandoned. Undoubtedly any sign he
left for his father the Indian would see, too. The
usual way to leave sign was with rocks: one or
two rocks piled on top of another, with a rock
beside the pile to indicate direction, or a broken
branch to point the way.
From among the trees Hardy looked ahead and saw
where, a few hundred yards off, a smaller stream
flowed into the river from the south. It was just what he
wanted.
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 47
Descending the bank, he found a good place to get
into the water, and then rode along upstream. The water
was rarely more than two feet deep, and was running
swiftly. Riding along until he was opposite
the inflowing stream, Hardy went on upstream a short
distance farther, and then came up out of the water and,
doubling back through the trees, rode a little way
toward the hills.
After he had gone a short distance, he returned to the
bank of the larger stream at the spot where the
smaller one entered it, and placed a broken branch
in a bush beside the trail, the butt end of it pointing
in the direction he had taken. There was a chance,
since Hardy had not used such a method before, that the
Indian might miss its significance. His father,
he was sure, would be looking for such signs as they had
used for each other, and this one was the most frequent.
That night Hardy and Betty Sue camped by a
small stream near a grove of willows, and Hardy
set to work to make his fish trap. First, he gathered
a number of thin willow withes and tied them all together
at one end with another, thinner withe. Then he made
several hoops, graduated in size, and pushed the
smallest hoop as far down toward the tied end as
possible, and tied it to the willow withes. He placed
the other hoops, each somewhat larger than the next,
within the cone of willow, tying each in place. When
he had the trap ready for use, he put it in the
stream and returned to their camp.
Remembering the fish trap had jogged his memory about
other things, and he thought of the arrowhead, or wapatoo,
a water plant growing in ponds and slowmoving
streams. The tuberous roots could be boiled like
potatoes, or roasted in hot ashes. He
remembered that there had been two seasons when
the potato crop failed, and he and his father had eaten
the wapatoo instead. The Indians used to find them
while wading and would pick them with their toes from under the
muddy water. Hardy wished he could find some now.
Foraging around through the brush the children found
a few more nuts, which they ate as they searched, and also
some chokecherries. It was not enough to satisfy their
appetites, but it did help.
The night was cold. The stars were clear and bright. The
gleaming mountain peaks were crystal sharp against the sky.
When daylight came, his fish trap had three
goodsized trout in it and, baked in coals, they tasted
good. For the first time neither of them felt hungry.
The deep glen where they had taken refuge was reached
by a narrow trail, long untraveled, to judge by its
condition, except by wild game. They had found a
spot concealed among great fallen trees, and although
there was little grass, the stallion browsed off the
lowgrowing plants and brush, and seemed content.
During the day Hardy spitted several fish on
sticks above the fire and smoked them as best he could,
and while the fish smoked the children gathered
serviceberries. It was then that Hardy found the
track.
He had never seen a grizzly bear track
before, but he knew it at once by the long claw marks
made by the front feet. He had heard about these from
Bill Squires.
The grizzly had apparently been gathering berries
there, perhaps only the day before, and his tracks were all
around. Hardy studied them with care, his scalp
prickling as he thought that the bear might not be far
away. Of course the grizzly might travel far
in foraging for food-he might be miles away, even
now. But the thought of the roasting nuts or fish ... if
the bear was anywhere nearby, the smell would attract
him.
Later, Hardy found more tracks on the open
trail, and he was puzzled by something. One of the
forepaws, he decided, was curiously crippled, and
mentally he began to call the grizzly Old
Three-Paws.
It was already late on the second day in the glen when
Hardy found the tracks. To leave now, with their fish
still not thoroughly smoked, and to ride out and try to
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 49
find another camp at this hour was more than he wanted
to do.
"We'll stay," he said to Betty Sue, "but if
you hear anything in the night, you touch me
awake. But don't move, and don't speak."
She looked at him with big eyes. "Why?"
"Just do what I tell you," he said firmly.
"Why?"
He did not want to tell her, but it was better than
having her asking questions. "I think there's a bear
somewhere around," he said, "a big bear."
Suddenly he thought of Big Red. The small
space in which he had picketed the stallion gave
him too little room. It was no more than fifty yards
across, and scarcely that wide. Not enough room to get
away, nor enough to fight in, and no living creature
he knew of could match a grizzly. And Hardy
thought that, while a grizzly prefers nuts and
berries or roots, he would not miss a chance to add
red meat to his diet.
It was already dusk, but he made his decision-they would
have to leave. They would have to go at once.
Hurriedly he began to get their few things together.
He started toward Big Red, and the horse
side-stepped nervously, keeping his head turned
toward the forest. His ears were pricked, his eyes
wide, his nostrils flaring.
"All right, Red," the boy said gently. "You let
me put Betty Sue up. We're going
to leave."
The stallion ducked his head a little, but his eyes
stayed on the forest.
VyLD THREE-PAWS was coming on. He was a
huge grizzly, a little past his prime, and he was
cranky. Born with a streak of meanness, it had doubled
and redoubled since the injury to his paw long before.
He had been on a long sweep around his
territory, a sweep some twenty miles around, and
he was coming
back to that corner he much preferred. He was
returning from an unsuccessful hunt, hungry and
fierce.
The wind was from him and toward them, or he might have
caught the man-smell then and turned aside. But as
he drew nearer he caught tantalizing,
unfamiliar odors mingled with familiar ones. He
recognized the smell of horse-he had eaten
horse once or twice-and he knew the smell of
raw fish.
Old Three-Paws weighed about nine hundred
pounds. He was not quite as quick as he used to be, but he
was still quick, and he could crush the skull of an ox with
one blow of his good paw. He feared nothing on earth,
and earlier that day he had lumbered past a
mountain lion. It spat and snarled, then darted past
him on the narrow trail, turning to snarl after him.
Old Three-Paws ignored the cat as something beneath
his notice.
He was not far from the camp when he first smelled
horse; then he got the smell of smoke, which he
did not like, and that tantalizing smell of smoked
fish, which was different from any smell he had ever
encountered before.
Old Three-Paws stopped on the trail and
lifted his nose inquisitively. He was not
afraid, but he was curious. This was a narrow,
secluded canyon. His own den, where he would soon
be crawling in for the winter, was only a short distance
farther on. He sniffed again, and growled deep in his
chest. Now there was, faintly, a tinge of
man-smell on the wind.
He left the trail and went down the slope toward
the water, pausing from time to time to sniff the wind. He
drank at the stream, stared into the gathering dusk, for it
was darker among the trees, and then he turned again
toward the smell. He was hungry, and he wanted
meat... and there were, too, other possibilities
of food where the man-smell was. He had raided
camps before this ... and gotten away with it.
Three miles farther back on the trail,
Ashawakie had
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 51
come upon the trail of his old enemy. With a thrill of
supersitious fear, he recognized the bear
track, then noted the crippled forepaw. He
remembered his last, desperate swing with the knife,
and the paw streaming blood. That had been his final
glimpse of the red-eyed bear as it knocked him
sprawling over the cliff.
Ashawakie, descendant of generations of warriors,
stood irresolute.
Only a little farther up the trail was the great red
horse ... he had found hairs left in the bark
where the horse had scratched himself . .. and he
wanted that stallion. The children-if real children they
were-would be there too. .. . And the bear.
The tracks of the bear were fresh, made only a
short time before; and that bear had almost killed him
once. For months, although he told no one, he was
charged by a red-eyed bear in his dreams, and he would
wake up cold with sweat, seeing again those slavering
jaws, those gleaming teeth, and the wrinkled,
curled-back lips.
He checked his rifle, then the bow and arrows
he carried against the possibility of damage to the
rifle.
Ashawakie had his own pride, a fierce pride in
his strength, and he had taken many scalps, counted
coups many times. He would ride on. But the fear of the
bear rode with him, that bear that was, that must be, an
evil spirit incarnate, a monster who lived only
to destroy him. His fingers strayed to his medicine
bag, and touched it lightly. He would need his
medicine.
X2LWIND MOVED the leaves ever so gently, and
Hardy's eyes grew round as he moved toward the
horse to lift Betty Sue to its back. The
stallion side-stepped quickly, moving away from the
burden for the first time. Hardy hesitated, wanting
desperately to be away, yet aware that the
stallion sensed danger and wanted to be free
to move.
He led Betty Sue to a large tree, and hoisted
her to
a limb. "You sit still," he warned, "and don't
make a sound."
He got out his bow and his arrows. They were pitiful
weapons against the might of a grizzly, but he had
nothing else.
Again the wind rustled, and something stirred in the brush.
Crossing to the big horse, Hardy reached up and
unsnapped the picket-rope from the halter. "There you
go, Red, you do what you need to do, and I'd not blame
you if you run out of here."
The stallion's head was up, nostrils flared.
Suddenly, angrily, he pawed the earth.
In the brush the grizzly peered through the leaves, his
red eyes blinking. Deep in his chest, he gave a
growl. He recognized the stallion for what he
was, or should have been, the leader of a herd. He had
met such creatures before, but usually they fled, leading
their mares away in a swift rush that left Old
Three-Paws far behind. Only when he was about
to attack a mare with a foal did the stallion stand
to fight; and there are few things more terrible in battle
than an infuriated mustang stallion.
Three-Paws took a slow step forward. The
stallion was a good twenty yards off, and the grizzly
wanted his first charge to be decisive. One blow of
his good paw and that stallion would be down with a broken
neck; but the grizzly knew from past experience that a
fighting stallion was like a demon unleashed, swift
to dart in, to spring aside, to retreat.
Big Red was larger than any mustang
stallion ThreePaws had ever seen, but the
grizzly was not worried. He merely wanted to get
it over with quickly. He crept forward ... one step
... another.
Hardy's heart was pounding, and his mouth was dry with
fear. He backed toward the tree. "Betty
Sue," he whispered hoarsely, "climb up.
Climb to that big limb above your head."
Betty Sue was a good climber-she had always been
good at it ever since she first followed Hardy into the
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 53
forest. Now she got up and climbed easily to the
limb that was another four feet above the ground.
Black bears can climb trees swiftly, and a young
grizzly will often climb. But a mature grizzly
will not, because of his weight. Hardy stood with his back
to the tree and notched an arrow.
Old Three-Paws thrust his huge head from the
brush and stared at the horse. The stallion blew
shrilly, then reared on his hind legs, his front
legs pawing.
And then Old Three-Paws charged.
THE GRIZZLY HAD expected with that juggernaut
charge to smash the stallion back against the brush and
trees, where the weight of the bear's body would
carry the horse off balance long enough for teeth and
claws to do their work.
The stallion leaped aside, pivoting on his
forefeet and letting go with both iron-shod hoofs. The
kick caught the bear on the shoulder and flank as he
reached the end of his charge, and it was he who was knocked
off balance, falling on his bad side.
He was up instantly, but not in time to escape the
driving strike of the stallion's forefeet, smashing
down for a kill. The bear moved, evading one hoof,
but the other ripped a great gash in his shoulder.
Warily, as if realizing that until now he had been
lucky, Big Red circled the bear.
Three-Paws reared up on his hind legs, wanting
to get in a blow with his forepaw that might break the
stallion's neck or his leg. It was at this moment
that Hardy chose to let fly with his first
arrow.
It was not a particularly good arrow and it was not shot from
a particularly good bow, but the distance was less than
fifty feet and the white spot near the base of the
grizzly's throat made a perfect target.
Hardy drew his bow to its utmost, and let go. The
arrow shot true, striking the bear in the throat, a
bit to one side, but going in for more than half
its length.
The grizzly struck at the stinging in his throat, then
half-turned, staring toward his new enemy. He
caught sight of the boy near the bole of the tree, and
instantly
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 55 he went for
him. Hardy, his bow hung over his shoulder, was already
scrambling up the tree when the bear glimpsed him.
The branches were low, for he had chosen the tree
well, and Betty Sue was already climbing higher
to give him room.
As the bear charged for the tree, the stallion leaped
in, great jaws agape, and slashed the bear on the
hindquarters. The grizzly wheeled, striking a
mighty blow that would have ripped the stallion apart had
it landed; as it was, it left a long thin streak across
one side that almost instantly began to show blood.
Old Three-Paws was really angry now. He
stood there staring, shifting his eyes from the stallion to the
boy in the tree; but mostly he watched the stallion
as it moved back and forth in front of him, well beyond
reach, but within leaping distance if the bear gave the
stallion a chance.
A fighting stallion is an awesome creature, able
to rip with teeth, clamp with mighty jaws,
kick with the hind feet, or strike with the forefeet,
yet Hardy knew that Big Red was no match for the
grizzly, even a crippled grizzly
such as this one was.
But the grizzly had been badly hurt. The kick
had knocked the wind from him, his side hurt him now,
and there was bleeding from his shoulder and rump, but it was the
arrow in his throat that worried him most. He tried
to get at it with his teeth, but he could not. He heard
the stallion start, and waited with slavering jaws, the
foam now mixed with blood. "Red!" Hardy
yelled. "No!"
The stallion was beyond hearing, beyond caring. Before him was his
enemy, and he started forward, almost dancing, neck
extended, lips curled back over his great
teeth.
Ashawakie rested on one knee in the brush. He
had seen only a little of the terrible fight, just a
glimpse of it in the few seconds since his
arrival; and the whole fight
si
had not yet lasted a minute. Carefully, he
lifted his rifle, watching for a good shot at the bear.
This was his old enemy. Here was his chance to destroy his
fear. If this was a medicine bear, as he
almost half-believed, his bullet would be useless; but
if it was not, his old enemy would be destroyed, his fear
gone
forever.
Ashawakie took careful aim, the bear turned
slightly, and Ashawakie eased back the hammer.
In the stillness, as the stallion moved forward,
cat-footed, the click of the hammer was loud, and it was
a sound Old ThreePaws had heard before. He
turned toward the sound, and Ashawakie's finger
tightened .. . tightened ... his eye held on the
sight-picture.. .. Suddenly the rifle leaped in
his hands, and the great bear, struck full in the chest,
staggered back and went to all fours. Hastily, the
Indian started to reload. Old Three-Paws
heaved himself to try to rise up, but he only succeeded
in falling back on his haunches.
Now, Hardy thought-if I could only get Big
Red. If I could drop on his back, and get
Betty Sue down from the tree, we could slip
away.
He called again, this time more softly. "Red! Big
Red,
come here!"
The call reached the stallion and he
hesitated, still wanting to attack, yet fearing the
bear, knowing the danger that lay in the grizzly. Again
he heard the call, more insistent now, and somehow the
old habits of love and obedience fought down his
fury, his instinctive lust to destroy lest he be
destroyed.
Old Three-Paws was puzzled. He had come here
to kill a horse, not such a creature of fury
incarnate as this, nor had he expected to be
assailed on every side. Again he tried to snap at
the irritating thing thrust into his
throat.
He started to growl, and coughed on the blood
trickling down his throat. He heaved himself up, and
started for the horse. Ashawakie, within his place of
conceal-
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pleading voice, the voice he knew and
loved so well. Hardy scrambled from the limb to his
back. "Let's go! he whispered.
The stallion hesitated. They could hear the bear
floundering in the brush, but there was no other sound.
Reluctantly, the stallion let himself be turned
away. Scrambling out of the hollow, Hardy found a
dim trail and took it, then he deliberately
headed back for the river.
He was nearing it when he saw a dim trail left
by wagons-not many wagons, and long ago, but it was a
trail and it was pointing westward. Red took it at
a gallop, then slowed to a trot. Leaning over,
Hardy could see the red streaks left by the bear's
claws. Behind them there sounded another shot.
There was still light in the sky, and the crimson along the
ridges was just fading, the higher clouds still flushed and
pink above them. Hardy had no thought except
to escape, and he rode swiftly. Once away from
the scene of the fight, Big Red seemed eager enough
to be going, and they made good time, crossing a shoulder
of the mountain by a faint trail, and descending toward the
river.
There they came upon an old wagon trail, and
Hardy followed it, content to be headed west, or
almost west.
He had no idea who had been shooting from the brush,
but he suspected it was the Indian who had followed
them. All he could think of was that they were getting
away, leaving the grizzly behind. Now, for the first time,
he was aware that he was really frightened. It came over
him all of a sudden, and he clung, trembling, to the
stallion's back.
After a while he felt better; the stars came out,
and the big stallion moved on steadily, seemingly in
no hurry to stop for the night. A light wind came
down from the mountains, cool from the snows and fresh from the
pines. Several times Hardy almost fell asleep,
but the horse plodded on, regardless.
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 59
The trail turned slightly north, then still farther
north, but Hardy was only half awake, and
scarcely noticed. They came out of the trees into a
valley of long meadows, streams, and scattered
clumps of trees. And then, suddenly, the stallion
stopped.
Hardy opened his eyes wide. Betty Sue was
asleep in his arms, but the big horse, ears up, was
staring ahead, and seemed to be scenting the air.
Hardy sat up tall and peered past Big Red's
head. Some distance off, right down on the
ground, there was a light... a fire!
A campfire .. .
Hardy's heart took a great leap ... it must be
pa! Pa had come hunting for them! He slapped his
small heels against the stallion's side and started
forward. But, the big horse hung back, seemingly
reluctant to go on.
Could it be Indians?
Hardy rode more cautiously. Suddenly, somewhere
ahead, a horse whinnied, and there was a flurry of
movement near the fire.
Hardy walked the horse a little closer. He could
see two saddles, some pack saddles, and a
coffeepot on the fire, and there was a smell of
bacon. ...
"Set right still," a voice said, "or I'm likely
to fire. Now you jest walk that horse right up to the
fire an' le's have a look at you."
Hardy tried to speak, but his throat was tight. He
walked the horse forward, and suddenly he heard the
voice say, "Hell, it's a couple of kids!"
"They come from somewhar," the other man said. "That means
thar's folks about."
"Here? At this time of year?"
"Well, look at "em."
One of the men was lean and somewhat stooped; he had a
hard, angular face and small cruel eyes. He
walked forward, looking at Big Red. "Jud,"
he exclaimed, "would you look at that horse now?
Man's there's a hoss!"
"He belongs to my pa," Hardy managed to say.
"Well, mebbe. Whar is your pa, boy?"
"He's . .. he's back on the trail. He's
hunting us."
The other man was shorter, barrel-chested. He
walked slowly up to them, studying the stallion. "You
mean he don't know whar you be? How'd that happen?"
Betty Sue wakened and was staring at the men,
wideeyed. She felt tense in Hardy's arms, as
if frightened. Well, Hardy reflected, so was he.
There was something about these men .. .
Hardy explained briefly how their wagons had
been burned, how they had started on west. Once
he started talking, he told them about the Indian,
then about the grizzly.
"Aw, come off it!" The shorter man scoffed. "A
grizzly'd kill you quicker'n scat. No horse can
match up to a grizzly!"
"Red wasn't afraid. He fought him."
"Reckon he did, at that," the taller
man said. "He got clawed along the ribs." The
man reached a hand up for Red's bridle, and the
stallion jerked his head away.
"Don't you pull away from me, damn you!" The
tall man lifted a hand to strike Red, but the
stallion swung away and Hardy said, "Don't you
dare strike my horse!"
"Take it easy, Cal," Jud said, more
quietly. "You're likely to lose 'em all. I
figure we better let those kids have some grub
an" sort of study on this a mite."
"I don't like any horse actin' up with me.
What he needs is a taste of the club."
"Cal's just a-talkin', boy. Now, why don't you
two git down? We got us some grub here, an' in
the mornin' we can sort of figure out what to do.
Mebbe we can find your pa for you."
Hardy didn't like the looks or the sound of these men,
and he wanted nothing so much as to ride away, but the
two men were standing too close. One of them was all
poised for just such a move, so though he didn't
want to,
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 61
Hardy slid to the ground. He would wait until the
men were asleep, then they would slip away.
The man called Cal started to reach again for the
bridle, but Red pulled back, eyes rolling.
"Let me stake him out," Hardy said. "He knows
me."
"You jest do that, youngster." Jud looked past him,
shaking his head at Cal. "Your little sister, she can
jest stay here with us. No use her wanderin' around in the
dark, out yonder."
When he had picketed the stallion, Hardy went
up to Red and rubbed him gently on the shoulder.
"Looks to me as if I got us into trouble, Red.
You be careful now. Maybe we can get away from
them."
He walked tiredly back to the fire. Betty
Sue was seated on a rock near the fire, her
eyes big and staring.
Jud looked over at her. "Now how old would that
one be, boy?"
"She's three," he said, "just past three."
"Don't seem reasonable," Cal offered, "you two
out here alone like that. You say your pa is riuntin'
you? How d'you know that?"
"I just know it. That's the way pa is."
Cal chuckled. "Chances are he figures the
Injuns killed you. He ain't huntin'
you, boy."
"That's not true!" Hardy was near to tears. "He
is so hunting us!"
Hardy ate some food while the two men talked,
muttering together in low tones. Finally Jud brought them
a blanket. "You two roll up in that. We'll have
us a talk in the mornin'."
Cal glanced over at them. "An' don't do any
wanderin' about camp. I got a mighty touchy way
with a gun. I might mistake you for an Injun."
When they were covered up near the fire, Betty
Sue whispered, "I don't like those men!"
"Ssh!" After a moment Hardy said, "I don't like
them, either!" Then he added, his lips close to her
ear, "Maybe we can slip off."
With the best intentions of staying awake, he fell sound
asleep. He had been tired for such a long time, and
now for the first time in days he was under a blanket. In
the night he woke up, hearing a low murmur of
voices.
One of the men was speaking. "Look at it, Jud.
Nobody even knows they're alive. And I'd
give an arm for that horse."
"What about that Injun?"
"Boy's talk. Iffen there was an Injun,
you can bet that b'ar got him."
"Wonder who the boy's pa was?"
"What's it matter? Nobody'll ever hear of it."
"Might recognize the horse."
"We found him astray... or swapped him from some
Injun. Ain't one chance in a million we'd ever
see anybody who'd know the horse. You go to sleep
now."
Hardy lay wide awake, staring up at the stars.
He was terribly afraid. Once he half sat
up, but he saw Cal watching him, and lay down
again.
It would be very hard to get away from these two.

D
II JIAYLIGHT CAME WITH A chill wind off
the i*ful was mountains, rustling the leaves of the
brush, and moaning a little among the pines. The camp
lay in an open meadow on the banks of a small
stream. There were clumps of willow, a few
cottonwoods, and on the slopes of the mountains the
golden aspen in thick stands.
Hardy was up, rustling wood for the fire. He was
wary now, watching for the slim chance of getting to Big
Red, and getting Betty Sue into the
saddle. He was frightened, but he told himself he must
be brave. He must do what pa would want him to do;
but he had no weapon with which to fight these men. He could
only wait, and watch for his chance.
At the worst, he might have to run away, even without
Betty Sue. That thought was hateful, but for a moment
it seemed to him there was little likelihood of their harming
her if he was at large and able to testify against them..
.. No, he couldn't bear to think of doing that. Somehow
there had to be a way to escape. Pa, he said in his
thoughts, pa please come!
Now, he thought, he would even be glad to see the
Indian. Just as the Indian's arrival had given
them a chance to escape the grizzly, so his coming now
might give them the chance to run away from these men and
hide.
He rustled the fire together, and had coffee water on
by the time the two men had pulled on their boots.
"This one's quite a hand, Cal," Jud commented.
"He's a likely lad around a camp."
Cal did not speak. He looked at the children with a
sour expression. It was only when he watched Big
Red that his face lit up. "I'm goin' to ride that
horse," he said. "I'm goin' to ride him this
mornin'."
"Pa don't let anybody ride that horse but him
or me," Hardy said.
Cal looked over at him. "You keep your trap
shut, boy. Your pa ain't here, an' I'll ride
him any time I see fit."
Well, Hardy thought, you take your chances then.
Big Red was no horse to fool around with. Hardy
remembered when that gangling Peterson boy thought he
was a smart aleck. He was going to ride Red whether
anybody liked it or not, and the Peterson boy was
known as a good rider.... Well, he lasted less
than a jump, and if he hadn't rolled out between the
corral bars he would have been killed.
Maybe that's the way, Hardy thought. Maybe that's
the way it will happen.
"Pa will be coming along," he said quietly, "and pa
has a way about him."
Jud looked over at him before Cal could speak.
"Who is your pa, kid? What's his name?"
"He's at Fort Bridger," Hardy said, "and his
name is Scott Collins."
Cal's head turned slowly toward Hardy, his mean
eyes staring at him. Hardy thought Jud looked kind
of greenish around the gills. "Did you say Scott
Collins?"
"Yes," said Hardy. "Do you know him?"
"Not exactly ... we know of him." Jud looked
at Hardy. "How's your pa with a shootin' iron,
son?"
"He used to win all the turkey shoots back
home," Hardy answered. "And folks who served with
him during the Indian fighting said he was the best shot
they ever did see." Suddenly Hardy remembered a
story he had heard Mr. Andy tell around the fire
when he thought Hardy was asleep.
The boy told it now. "One time a bunch of men
came through our part of the country and stole a cow of
pa's, and some stock belonging to some neighbors. They
fig-
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 65
ured the stock was lost for good, but pa, he wouldn't
say quit. He just set out and followed those men. It
was four months before he came back, and he had all
that stock and the horses the four men had been riding.
He had followed their sign clear down
into Missouri.
"Somebody asked pa what would he do if those men
came back hunting their horses, and pa just grinned
and said he never was afraid of ghosts."
Jud looked thoughtful and glanced at Cal,
who shrugged and said, "He's just one man. What he
don't know won't start any wars."
"I don't like it, Cal."
Cal snorted, but Jud was persistent. He looked
over at Hardy. "Yours must've been the last
wagon train west," he said. "This here's late in
the season."
"That's what Bill Squires said."
"Squires?"
"He stopped by to do some yarnin', as he said. He was
with us the night before the Indians came, but he rode
off by himself, going west. He promised Mr. Andy
he'd tell pa we were on our way."
"Cal, we better have another think."
"Like hell!"
Jud sliced bacon into the pan, and did not speak
for a moment. Betty Sue huddled close to Hardy
and sipped a little weak coffee.
"If you're figurin' to keep that horse," Jud
said quietly, evidently fearing Cal's
irritation, "you'd best forget about ridin' him now.
We'd best saddle up an' light out."
Cal made no reply to this. He finished his
coffee, got up, and went to his saddle.
"That's my pa's horse!" Hardy
protested. "You just leave him alone!"
"Set down, boy," Jud said harshly. "You get
Cal mad an' yoVll sure enough find out what
meanness is."
Cal threw the blanket on Red's back and the big
stallion side-stepped, but Cal picked up his
saddle, threw it
on the big horse, and cinched it tight. Then he
put the bridle on, and Red stood still for it, chomping
and tasting the bit a little.
Cal gathered the reins, put his toe in the stirrup,
and threw his leg over. The instant he hit the
saddle, Big Red reared straight up, slammed his
forefeet down, with his head between his knees, and Cal
left the saddle in an arc. He hit the ground in a
heap, and Red started for him.
Jud swore and grabbed for his pistol, but Hardy
threw himself against Jud's legs, staggering him
into losing balance, and he fell.
Jud lunged to his feet, took a swipe at
Hardy that knocked him rolling, and reached again for his
gun. Cal had rolled over, and he dove for the
stream when the stallion came at him. Jud,
grabbing for his gun, found only an empty holster.
Looking around quickly, he saw the gun on
the ground, and Hardy scrambling to reach it. He
kicked the boy, caught up the gun, and wheeled
around.
Big Red was gone!
Cal limped from the water, swearing. The side of his
face was raw where the skin had been scraped when he
landed, and he was soaked to the hide.
"Where'd he go? Where did that-was He stopped,
looking around, then turned on Jud. "You damn
near let me get killed! Why didn't you shoot
him?"
"The kid here bumped me," Jud answered.
"Anyway, you're all right."
Hardy was humped over, still gasping for breath.
Blood was dripping slowly from his nose, and Betty
Sue stared at him in a kind of wide-eyed
horror, unable to believe Hardy was hurt, Hardy
who had seemed to her strong and invulnerable.
Hardy wanted to cry, but he fought back the tears.
What was it pa said? "You've got to think, son.
Think!" As he hugged his arms to his aching body his
eyes searched the brush around. He was bent over so
they
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 61
could not see his face, and they were talking now,
seeming almost to forget him.
Big Red would not go far, Hardy told himself. He
was out there, somewhere. If they could only-
"Give me your horse," Cal was saying. "I'll
go find that red devil, an' when I do I'll throw
and hog-tie him. Before he gets up he'll know
who's boss!"
"Go ahead," Jud replied, with a meaning glance.
"I'll take care of things here."
Cal saddled up and rode out, but Jud sat down and
drank coffee. Occasionally he looked over at
Betty Sue. Hardy crawled back near her and
sat up, holding himself tight.
"Busted a rib, mebbe," Jud commented
maliciously. "Serves you right."
He picked up the coffeepot, sloshed the coffee
around, and drank from the side of the pot, then he put
the pot down and wiped the back of his hand across his
mouth. He picked up the bacon and wrapped it up,
then ran his hunting knife into the ground a couple of
times to clean it off.
Hardy bumped against Betty Sue. "Run!" he
whispered. "Run hard!"
Betty Sue got to her feet. She was frightened, and
she was not too good a runner, for she was
scarcely more than a baby. Hardy was worried about
her getting away, but he knew he couldn't carry
her and run too.
Jud turned around, knife in hand, a cold, ugly
look in his eyes.
"Now!" Hardy yelled shrilly, and Betty Sue
started to run for the bushes.
Jud swore and started to turn to go after her, and
Hardy threw himself against his legs. Again the man
fell, but Hardy was up first, and was running too.
He crashed into the bushes an instant before Betty
Sue, and turned and dragged her into some kind of game
tunnel. Jud was coming after them, swearing and shouting.
Hardy crawled through the tunnel, which was scarcely
large enough for him, and reached the bank of the stream. He
picked up Betty Sue and ran stumbling along the
river bank where it was partly clear.
Jud, unable to follow through the tunnel, was coming around
the bushes, coming fast. But Hardy had played too
many games in the woods with the boys not to know every ruse.
"Betty Sue!" he yelled. "This way!" Then
he turned and started back the way they had come,
remembering a place in the stream where he had seen a
sandy bottom and some stepping stones.
They got across the stream and into the trees
without being seen and, gasping for breath, he put
Betty Sue down. Pain was stabbing at his side,
but he didn't think anything was broken-it was just a
bad bruise. He had been bruised like that before, the
time he had tried to ride old Brindle's calf,
and the calf threw him. Only this hurt more.
They walked away from the stream, and dodged from bush
to bush on the slope until they came to a grove of
aspen. They crawled in among the trees, needing little
space in which to hide.
After a bit, they peered out. Jud was walking along
the river bank, studying it for tracks. Soon he
found them and crossed the stream, hunting along the near
bank for some sign of the children.
It was very still. Hardy could hear Betty Sue's
breathing as she lay beside him in their hiding place. The
air was clear, and he could hear small twigs
cracking under Jud's feet as he searched. Hardy
lay there, his heart pounding, and tried to think what to do.
Was it better to lie still and hope that Jud could not find
them, or to try and get farther up the hill and risk
being seen? A moving object attracts the eye;
pa had taught him that.
The hill behind them was steep, and Hardy had an idea
he could outrun Jud going uphill, but he
knew that Betty Sue could not. And she was too
heavy for him to carry more than a few feet.
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 69
Jud had rushed at first; now he was settling down
to work out their trail. But there was a chance that he was not as
good a tracker as pa or Bill Squires.. ..
And where was Big Red?
Hardy could smell the dark earth beneath them, and the
leaves. Above them the aspen trembled unceasingly.
There was a legend about that... what was it?
Now it seemed that Jud had lost the trail, and had
gone back to try to work it out.
"Watch him," Hardy whispered, then eased back in
the aspens and found a place where he could look up the
slope. He needed to locate a place they could
get to without being seen. After a moment, he found it.
As was often the case in such places, the slope of the
mountain was dotted with small clusters of aspen,
growing so compactly that in many places only a child or
small animal could crawl in among them with any
ease.
Not over fifty yards up and farther along the slope
was another aspen grove, and there were clumps of brush
here and there, all with the bright colors of autumn. And
rocks were scattered about. With luck, they
could make it unseen.
He started to hiss to Betty Sue, but then
remembered how easily sound carried. He slipped
back, touched her, and they started up.
It was only about twenty feet to the nearest rock and
they made it easily, concealed from below by the aspens they
had just left. Squirming along the ground, they got
to a clump of brush, and then they waited until
Jud's back was turned and sprinted for the next
clump. They reached it just as he swung his head
around, perhaps drawn by some faint sound.
Hardy studied the valley below with care, but there was still
no sign of Big Red.
On the slightly hollowed surface of a rock they
found some water from the recent rains, and scooped it
up with their hands to get a drink. Watching from the
rock,
they could see Jud was almost up to their first hiding
place, so they moved on, going higher and higher.
They were cold, and it was clouding up again. But most of
all, Hardy was worried about Big Red. He was
afraid of what Cal might do if he managed
to rope and tie the horse; but he also knew that without
the horse he and Betty Sue were not going very far.
He had never felt so tired, and more than
anything he wanted to curl up in some warm place and
just sleep. But first they had to get safely away from
Cal and Jud, and they had to find Red. Pa loved
that horse as much as Hardy did, and Red was
Hardy's responsibility.
Jud wasn't much of a tracker. Apparently he
had given up in disgust, and was just looking around at
random. Hardy and Betty Sue did not weigh much,
and their feet were small, so that they made little
impression on the ground or the grass. An
Indian would have had no trouble following them, but Jud
was no Indian, and he was lazy. He knew the children
could not have gone far, so if he just went from one possible
hiding place to another along the slope, he felt
that he could find them.
Hardy could see just what Jud was beginning to do, and the
worst of it was, it would work. And if they started out
to run, Jud could catch them-at least, he could catch
Betty Sue.
Keeping a grove of aspens between them and Jud, they
climbed higher. Up there, in the shadow of a rock,
Hardy saw a little snow. He had seen it up on the
mountains, but here, so close to them, it was different, and
it frightened him. They were much higher up now than they
had been before, and tonight it would be cold, and they
would have no blanket.
That was when the idea came to him. Instead of just running
away from them, why not give Jud and Cal something
to worry about? Suppose, while Cal was following
the stallion and Jud was hunting for them, they slipped
back and robbed Jud's camp?
Stealing was wrong; but this was war, and if Jud
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 71
caught them now they would be killed, Hardy knew that.
He had known that was what the men intended to do from that
conversation he had overheard that first night.
If he could worry them enough, he could make them
afraid to leave their camp to look for either Big Red
or for Betty Sue and himself.
As if in answer to his thinking, he saw a deep
groove cut by a runlet of snow water coming off the
mountain. It was not deep enough to hide the movements of a
man, but it was perfect for them. Hardy took
Betty Sue by the hand and they crept toward it.
IT WAS SCOTT Collins who found the first sign
of the grizzly. He indicated it to the others without
comment. They all knew what it might mean. It was a
little over an hour later that they came upon the scene
of the titanic battle.
The ground was torn by the marks of the
stallion's hoofs and the paw marks of the grizzly.
Here and there they also found the footprints of the children,
most of them Hardy's. The carcass of the bear, torn
somewhat by scavenging coyotes, lay in the deepest
brush.
"Those youngsters are shot with luck," Darrow said
grimly. "Wonder that bear didn't do "em in."
"Look here." Collins tugged the boy's arrow from the
bear's throat. "That's no Indian arrow. Hardy
got in one shot, anyway."
Slowly, methodically, as was their way, they put the
story together. They could see the tracks, they could see
the wounds in the bear's body, and they could imagine
what had happened. These were men of the mountains and the
prairie, who read trail sign as an educated
man reads print.
The torn earth, the swirling, twisting hoof marks of the
stallion were plain enough; so were the gashes in the
bear's hide. But the gashes were only superficial
wounds, nothing that could have seriously hampered the bear.
There was no obvious evidence of the kick in the ribs
that the bear had received, but even that proved little. The
grizzly bear, the largest of flesh-eating
creatures, is, when cornered, the firecest.
The one thing they looked at, and at first
avoided
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 73
thinking about, was the deep slash in the bear's breast.
Somebody with a knife had cut open the dead bear and
ripped out its heart.
Finally Bill Squires pointed to it. "That's an
Injun trick," he said. "He eats the bear's
heart to get his strength and fierceness. On'y there's
somethin" else here ... somethin' must've made that
Injun figure this bear was strong medicine."
"This isn't finding Hardy," Scott Collins said
after a moment. "We'd best be getting on."
"They're ridin' again," Darrow said from across the
clearing. "The stallion took out of here like he was
rode."
The evidence of the trail proved him correct. The
steady, even gait of the stallion showed that he was
ridden by someone.
They followed the trail. It was vague here and there,
almost gone in some places, and unraveling it was a
problem. But there were three men to scatter out to pick
up leads, and they kept on, traveling slower than
Hardy had, but pushing on all the time.
Scott was far off to one side when Squires
hailed him. "Hey, look at this!" he
called.
Darrow and Scott rode over and studied the fresh
sign-two mounted horses and a pack outfit.
Squires took out his tobacco and bit off a chew,
then squinted his eyes at Scott. "You see what
I see?"
"I see." Collins studied the tracks
closely. "Those tracks were made by that piebald
gelding of Ben Starr's."
"Uh-huh ... and what d'you know about that
piebald?"
"Hell," Darrow said, remembering, "he was
stolen."
"I ought to know those tracks," Squires said. "It
was me swapped him that horse."
Those two riders were making no effort to conceal their
trail, and they evidently did not fear pursuit.
It was late in the season for them to be traveling in the
area, and pursuit was unlikely here, even if they
were suspected.
"If we ride behind "em long enough," Squires
said, "we'll sure enough know who they be. It ain't as
if this country was full of folks, an" I been
here long enough to know most of "em. Why, I come into this
country so early Jim Bridger was
considered a tenderfoot. Weren't many ahead of me
... 'cept John Coulter an" them."
The valley in which they now rode was wide, cut by many
small streams and crossed by at least one river; and
another river flowed down from the north. There were towering
mountains off to the east, and high mountains closer by,
to the west. Even now, in late September, it was a
green and lovely land, with trout leaping in the rivers
and wild game everywhere.
The three men had found the markers left by Hardy, so
they knew he had taken this way. "He's tryin'
to git away," Darrow said. "I reckon he knew
that Injun was behind him."
"He's got more trouble," Scott Collins commented.
He had been worrying about this for some time. "If those
men who are trailing him would steal the piebald,
they'd steal my stallion too-if they don't get
killed trying. That stallion doesn't take
to strangers. He never did."
Twice they lost the trail, and twice they found it
again. The track of the stallion was easy enough to follow
when Hardy made no effort to conceal it.
It was dusk when they found the ashes of a campfire.
"No use trying to see anything tonight," said
Squires. "Walk back the way we
came so's we won't mess up the ground."
About fifty yards away, they made camp, and
Scott could not restrain himself-he was sure they were
close, so very sure. He went out a ways from the
camp and called... a dozen times he called into the
night, but there was no answer.
"He's goin' to take it hard," Darrow commented
to Bill Squires, "if we don't find that
boy."
"We got to find him," Squires said. "That there's
a
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 75
good man ... and, come to think of it, that's quite a youngster,
too."
"Scott sure enough put the run on those
claimjumpers back at Hangtown. Sent the lot
of "em packin"." Darrow grinned. "All but
Dub Holloway."
"Holloway convinced "em," Squires said.
"Holloway was goin" to take his measure. And he
sure did ... trouble was he didn't live to see
it."
Scott Collins finally came back to camp. "The
way I see it," he said, "those horse stealers
came upon the stallion's tracks. If
they followed very far they'd soon know there was only a
couple of young ones riding him. What happened then
depends on what kind of men they are."
"Ain't many would do harm to a youngster," Darrow said.
"There wouldn't be a place they'd dare show their
face."
"If it was found out," Squires responded.
"Look at it. The kids are out here alone. They'd
have no idea we were huntin' "em. There's on'y that
Injun to know."
It was a quiet camp. Squires smoked a
pipe, and after that he turned in. Frank Darrow
tried to make talk of the trail and the country around, but
finally he gave up. Only Scott Collins
remained awake and stayed up. He could not have slept
anyway, and there was always the chance he might hear
something.
After a little while he moved out from camp and sat down
in the darkness to listen.
This was Indian country, although not very many Indians were
wandering now. At any time snow could close the country
in, and any Indian in his right mind preferred the
warmth of his lodge and a squaw to feed him and keep his
fire going. The Utes, the Bannocks, the
Cheyennes and the Blackfeet all rode
through here. The Shoshone too, for that matter; and
occasionally, in good weather, the Crows.
The air was clear, and the night was cold. On such
nights, and in such air, sound carried a long distance,
so Scott sat out there alone and listened. What he
feared
was that if the children were alive they might be carried off
by some wandering party of Indians. The Utes might
take them far down into Colorado or Utah; the
Cheyennes might go back north to the mountains.
The stars were very bright. Once he heard a beaver
tail slap the still waters of his pond, and a wolf
howled. It was not a coyote . . . that was a wolf,
a big one, a timber wolf.
There was that to worry about, too. Many a wild
animal that would not dare attack a man might
attack a child.
At daybreak he was back at camp; Darrow was
putting together some breakfast. Around the campfire they
worked out the events that had taken place.
"Horse throwed him an" got away," Squires
said. After a while he added, "Those youngsters got
away, too. Seems like."
Scott looked at Squires. "You read it the
way I do?" he asked.
"Looks like your boy got some rough treatment,
near's a body can see. Thing is, they all got
away. Now, if that horse was a mustang he'd
trace that boy. I see a mustang foller a
trail like a bloodhound."
"Red does all right. I've seen him follow the
boy when he went hunting. Did you ever see a
horse like to go hunting?"
"Uh-huh. Had a pony one time who'd come up behind
me an' hang his head right over my shoulder when I
was about to shoot."
"How long ago?" Scott queried, indicating the
sign. "Two days?"
"Looks like. No longer'n three. We gained on
"em some, I figure."
On the slope above the camp they lost all trace
of the two children. Leaving one of the clumps of aspen, they
had come out on a wide shelf of native rock
swept free of soil by a long-ago landslide. The
two children
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 77
had gone across that rock like ghosts, and left no
trail behind.
"What do we do now?" Darrow asked.
"Try to find the stallion. He's
pretty sure to be with the children."
"I'd like to come up to those men," Collins said
grimly.
"I know one of 'em," Darrow admitted suddenly.
"I can't place 'im, but I know 'im."
"What's that mean?"
"I don't know myself, except that I was in a camp
with one of those men sometime or other. I recognized the
way things were around camp ... you know, a man gets
into habits."
"You can't recall his name? It might help."
"I'll think of it. It'll come to me."
They rode on. Now the trail was more difficult
to follow, for the two riders had spread out, trying
to find the stallion's hoofprints.
"It's familiar country," Bill Squires
commented. "We made rendezvous one time just south of
Horse Creek near the Green. Near as I can
recall it was July, 1837. That's eleven years
ago now, but it don't seem so long a time."
He squinted his eyes at the mountains. "We
better find those youngsters quick. She's comin" on
to cold."
"We'll find them. I can feel it now," Collins
said.
It was a lovely land in the crisp autumn air, the
sunlight dancing on the creek waters, and the golden
aspen twinkling in its rustling movement. Here and there
the red of other leaves was like a splash of blood across
the flank of the mountain.
Now the land grew rougher. Deep gorges opening out
from the mountain sides were like raw wounds in the earth.
Often they saw deer, and once a small herd of
elk. There were wolf tracks and cougar tracks, and the
marks of beaver teeth.
"We nearly trapped "em out in the spring of
"37 and
the fall of '36," Squires said. "We had
to keep an eye out for Blackfeet too. They were
cruising this country, and there was no friendship amongst us
in those days.
"I was with Joe Meek, Osborne Russell, and
them when we had the big fight. They nearly licked
us, too. And nearly everybody in those times had
"im a brush with grizzlies. Russell and me
come up a stream up Yellowstone way ... I
forget the year ... and saw eight or nine
grizzlies standin" up on their hind legs jest
a-eatin' berries for all they was worth. They paid us
no mind, just went on eatin'."
Scott Collins drew up. He could see the
tracks of the children clearly enough, and superimposed on
them the tracks of the stallion.
"Red's trailing them!" he called to Squires,
who had ridden off a few feet to check the earth around
a flat stone.
"They rested a while here," Squires said. "I
figured when I saw that rock, "Now, if I was
a boy, an" tired, where would I set?"' An"
sure enough, there they'd been."
Scott leaned over and looked at the tracks when
he drew alongside. He was a man very easy in his
movements, but quick to move when the occasion demanded.
He studied the ground while Squires offered a
running commentary.
"The little one, she's tired. Draggin' her feet
more'n we've been seein' her do. But look there
now. The boy's got himself some sort of pack.
See where he put it down?"
Squires chuckled. "You know what I'm thinkin'?
That boy snuck back into their camp whilst they
hunted "im, an" he made off with some of their
grub. Leastways, that's what I hope he done."
They followed along. Scott Collins took the
lead now. He fought back the worry that
rode him relentlessly, trying to keep an
objective view so he would not be persuaded one
way or the other. A man could read both too much and
too little into a trail, and until now the chil-
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 79
dren had been both fortunate in finding a little something
to eat, and unfortunate in those they met, animal
or man.
He could hope, yet he dared not let himself hope
too much. "I'll find them," he told himself.
"I've got to find them." He remembered to be
proud of his son. The boy had learned his lessons
well, and was recalling now things he needed to know.
In midafternoon they lost the trail at a small
stream. It was gone completely where a herd of elk
had wandered across it and, perhaps frightened by something, had
milled about a good deal. Then they had wandered on,
leaving no sign behind that helped.
The men searched across the grass of the meadow, cropped
over and trodden by deer and elk, and apparently even
by a few buffalo, rare in that region. They found
nothing they could identify as a track of horse or
man. Once, near a bush, they thought they found what
might have been a moccasin print, one vague side
of a footprint which they could not decide upon as
human. Children, horse, and their pursuers had
vanished as if caught up by the wind.
Scattered out, the three men rode on. They had
seen trails peter out before, and had found them again, so
they were not too discouraged. There was still good grass, and the
streams running off the mountain were clear and bright, but
they found no place where a horse had fed, and no
horse tracks along the streams where they searched.
"I got to be pullin' out soon." Frank Darrow
spoke reluctantly. A gruff, hard-bitten
man, he held few illusions and only one
loyalty... that was to his friends. "I got to think of
my stock, with winter comin' on." He glanced at
Scott. "Ain't like I want to leave you in the
lurch."
"I know it, Frank. You go along when you're
ready."
Their camp was somber that night, and there was
no talk around the fire. All three were now feeling
depressed by losing the trail and not finding it again as
they had expected.
"They turned off," Darrow said. "I figure they
turned off somewheres, the whole kit an' kaboodle
of "em."
They discussed the possibilities, weighing
each one. They had to put themselves in the minds of the children,
had to imagine what they would do.
"I doubt they'd tackle the mountain," Squires
said. "It looks almighty hard."
"Hardy might," Scott said after a moment. "He
always liked to climb, and he might try to go where
they'd not expect him to go. And he'd try his best
to point toward Bridger."
None of them wanted to turn back now, but all of
them felt they had come too far, and so at last they
turned away from the camp. With every step Scott
worried for fear they were abandoning his son and the child of his
friend. He knew, as they all did, that the time for
searching with any hope was almost at an end. It was time
for the winter storms to sweep through the valley, to cloak
the mountains with snow; and then no lightly clad child could
be expected to live.
There was no question of hurrying, for to hurry now meant
losing the trail completely, a trail more
difficult to find with every passing hour.
Scott Collins knew this land, and loved it, but he
knew every danger it offered. He knew, too, the
ways to avoid trouble and the ways to survive. You could
not war against the wilderness; to live in it one must
become a part of it, make oneself one with the
trees and the wind, the streams and the plants, the cold
and the heat, yielding a little always, but never too much.
Now, for the first time, he really appreciated the hard
struggle he and Hardy had had to live at all.
Nothing had been easy on the farm where Hardy had
begun growing up. One survived only through work and
because of work. At night when cold winter winds howled
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 81
about their cabin, it had been warm and snug inside, but
only because of the care with which he had built it. He had
done nothing slip-shod, everything had been done with as
meticulous care as possible.
He had shaped each beam, notched each log,
placed each stone of the fireplace with his own hands, and
he had fitted them tightly, knowing the icy fingers of the
cold would find every crack, every crevice.
He had always been a careful workman, and he had
tried to give Hardy the one thing that is needed above
all, a sense of responsibility. He had
sometimes wished that Hardy need not come to the forest with him
when it was cold, or when it was too hot. He had
wished the boy might have had it a bit easier, but now
he was glad he had not.
Hardy had learned in a hard school, where the tests
are given by savage Indians, by bitter
cold, by hunger. These were tests where the result was not
just a bad mark if one failed. The result was a
starved or frozen body somewhere, forgotten in the
wilderness.
JL HE MEN RODE into a basin where a large
lake lay at the bottom of a depression north of the
Sweetwater. Scott put a fire together, while
Squires set about rustling some grub. Scott had
killed a deer that morning, so they did not lack for
meat.
Frank Darrow rode out from camp. Two hours
later, when the others had eaten, he rode in and
swung down, stripping the gear from his horse.
"Picked up some sign," he said over a cup of
coffee. "That red stallion had himself a drink
t'other side of the lake."
"Any other sign?" Scott was almost afraid
to ask. "Are the youngsters with him?"
Frank Darrow took a big bite of frying pan
bread, and chewed methodically, while Bill
Squires's eyes started to twinkle.
"Uh-huh," Darrow said, no longer able to repress
a grin. "They're with 'im. Somehow or t'other they
found each other. It was yestiddy mornin", near as
a body could figure."
He gulped hot coffee. "We got to hurry,"
he said. "Those others weren't far behind "em." And
after a minute he added, "The stallion's got a
saddle on him now, so the kid can get up on him
when he's of a mind to. So one o" them others is
ridin' bare-back ... I seen the place where he
mounted up again."
"Maybe tomorrow then," Squires said. "I'm
lookin' forward to meetin' up with those gents."
n:
13aret 1 OBODY WAS IN camp when Hardy
Collins JL greater-than like crawled up through the
brush and studied the layout. He waited long enough
to be sure it was not a trap; to wait longer might
give them time to return. He did not ask himself if
he was doing a wrong thing, for the men had talked of
stealing Big Red and killing Betty Sue and himself.
Moreover, the men had plenty of grub, and he did
not intend that Betty Sue should go hungry when bad
men had more than enough.
He planned every move before he started from the brush, and
once he emerged in the open he worked swiftly. A
slab of bacon into a burlap sack, a pound of
coffee, a pound or so of sugar, above five pounds
of pilot bread, and maybe four pounds, as
near as he could guess, of dried fruit. It made
a heavy load, but when he got it to the brush he
left it hidden there and returned to camp.
Hastily, he rummaged through everything, but he could
find nothing to shoot with. There was ammunition enough, but.
.. Then he found it-a U.s. Army derringer, 41
caliber. He checked quickly to see if it was
loaded, then he stuffed it down in his pocket.
There was a movement in the brush, and he turned and
fled, ducking into the opening in the brush almost without
slowing down. Once inside, he took hold of the
sack and dragged it after him. On the other side of the
heavy growth he shouldered the sack and, keeping to low
ground, he worked his way back to where Betty Sue
waited. Together they trudged off.
If Big Red was to find them-and he could find them
much more easily than they could find him-they must leave
a trail he could follow. To do that, they must, he
decided, walk right straight across the valley. In
that way the horse would come upon their trail. For Red
had run away to the north-at least, he was heading
north when last they saw him-so if he started back
he must cross their trail.
Having taken a sighting on a peak, Hardy started
off, holding to as straight a course as
possible. Betty Sue walked beside him.
"Get something to eat?" Betty Sue asked, after a
while.
"Don't you worry. We'll eat tonight," Hardy
said, "and Big Red will find us. You can figure on
it. Why, I can't number the times he's traipsed
into the woods after me, and sometimes I'd hide out from
him, but he'd find me, ever' time."
They went down into the bed of a stream, but this time they
did not follow through the water, although it was shallow enough for
wading. Instead, they walked through the grass along the
banks, and Hardy frequently wetted his feet in
the water, hoping to make the scent more lasting.
When they had gone no more than two miles, Hardy
saw Betty Sue lagging. He was afraid to stop
so soon, but he knew she could not go any farther. In
a deep, wooded hollow near the stream he made a
small fire and broiled some bacon over the
coals. They ate this, and each of them ate a small
piece of the pilot bread. Then they carefully put
out the fire, and Hardy led Betty Sue to a thick
grove of aspen on the slope above them. Between the
aspen and a cluster of rocks they made a bed and lay
down.
The wind blew cold on the mountain, and the
aspen leaves rustled. Betty Sue was soon
asleep, but Hardy lay awake a long time,
listening for Big Red.
He had always taken responsibilities
seriously, but now in the lonely night he was frightened,
fearful of the strange sounds, of mysterious rustlings,
of the move-
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 85
ments of prowling creatures. In the night he thought
of pa, and he remembered Mr. Andy and his slow,
purposeful ways. Mr. Andy never seemed
to hurry, but he was always busy, always getting something
done, and he had many skills. As pa said, Mr.
Andy was the kind of man the frontier needed.
Pa himself was a driver. He moved more quickly, but just
as surely. He was a man who knew what he
wanted, and never stopped working to get it. If he
failed along one line, he was always ready to proceed
on another.
Hardy realized that he had learned some good things from
pa; one was to do one thing at a time; not to cross
bridges until he came to them, but at the same
time to try to imagine how he could cross them when the
time came. Though he was scared now, he was scared
less for himself than for Betty Sue, for it
was always in his mind how helpless she would be if anything
happened to him.
He knew she trusted in him, and believed in him
cornpletely. And that made him remember something
else pa had told him: that a body never knew how
strong he could be until somebody expected it of
him.
He tried to figure how far they must be from Fort
Bridger now. As well as he could figure, they were
somewhere in the foothills of the Wind River
Mountains, and Bridger was way beyond there. He knew
he had to keep out of the mountains, because everybody
talked about how awful it was to get snowed in ... and
snow could come almighty sudden. Tomorrow, when he made
the slope of the mountains, he would have to turn and follow
along them.
Betty Sue didn't talk much. She was so tired
when they came to bed down at night that she fell
asleep right off, and during the daytime they had to ride
quiet most of the time ... or walk quiet. He was
glad they had not had much talk, for she was always so
filled with questions, and he was in no position to answer
her questions now. He could not even answer his own.
But she must not know how frightened he was, or
how little he actually could do. She must keep
her cornplete trust in him, for without it she had
nothing.
Somewhere in these thoughts he fell asleep, and for four
hours he slept well. When he woke up
suddenly it was still dark. Two things had brought him out
of his sound sleep. One was the light, feathery, cool
touch of a snowflake on his cheek; the other was a
sound, the faintest of sounds.
He lay perfectly still. One hand felt for the pistol
tucked in his pocket.
Another snowflake touched his cheek, and then another,
and another.
He lay there listening. Again he heard a faint stir
on the slope below them; something was moving down there, ever
so carefully. Very quietly he sat up and tugged
on his boots. Betty Sue slept on, shivering
a little under his old coat.
The night was velvety soft, but there were no stars.
Nearby the aspens whispered to the gentle wind.
Hardy waited, his heart pounding, listening for the
surreptitious movements on the slope below them.
At last, shivering with cold, he lay down again and
cuddled close to Betty Sue.
But he did not stay there long, for he thought of the snow
falling, and of the tracks they would leave. They
could not be very far from where Cal and Jud had camped.
The thought gave him an idea, and he sat up again,
listening.
This time he heard no sound and after listening a little
longer he crept around to the side of the clump of
aspen behind which they had found shelter. Out across the
valley he saw a faint red glow. Without doubt it
was a campfire; it might be a mile off, or even
more. He was well above the valley, and he could see
such a light from some distance away.
Suddenly his scalp prickled. There was a slight
movement close behind him. He stood for an instant,
frozen in fear, and then he knew what he had to do.
He must
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 87
jump straight ahead and try to scramble through the
brush.
At that instant something prickly and wet touched him
on the neck. He seemed to jump inside his skin,
barely stifling an outcry, and at the same moment
there came realization.
It was Big Red. He had found them.
Hardy put an arm around Big Red's lowered neck
and hugged him close, and then he started to cry,
struggling all the while to fight back the
tears. It was not the manly thing to do, but he couldn't
help it.
He knew at once what they must do. They must
leave now, before snow covered the ground, they must leave
before there were any tracks to find. If they did this,
they might leave Cal and Jud behind them for good, and that
big Indian too, if he was still back there.
Hardy led the horse back to Betty Sue and
shook her awake. Hoisting her to the saddle-for Red
still wore Cal's saddle-Hardy put the sack of
food up and then climbed up himself. There were rocks
enough here for him to stand on, but with the saddle a rock was no
longer necessary.
It was completely dark, but he had only to follow
along the slope, keeping the mountain on his right
side, and when they reached the southern end of the Wind
River chain, to go south and around the tip and then head
west.
Big Red needed no guiding. Seemingly happy
to find them again, he started off along the mountain at a
fast, space-eating walk. Hardy hunched his thin
shoulders against the cold and hung the reins on the
pommel. With an arm on either side of Betty
Sue, he clung to the saddle-forks.
After a while he even dozed a little, and the
big horse walked steadily on into the night.
r caret So bar You THE TIME day broke, the
snow was falling less-than ULJ-RATHER steadily, and
Hardy was blue with cold. He turned Big Red
toward a row of trees that seemed to indicate nearby
water, and when they came to a stream he followed
along it, seeking shelter of any kind at all.
It was sheer luck that he glimpsed the half-open
door of the dugout.
The door was hidden behind a huge, leaning
cottonwood; when the tree leafed out, it would be
invisible. It was a crudely made door of split
cottonwood, and was hung on leather hinges.
All about the place, and along the bank of the small
stream, the only tracks were those of animals and
birds. Warily, Hardy rode up and, hanging to the
stirrup strap, slid to the ground.
Pulling the door open a little wider, he peered in.
It was a deserted but snug little place. In one
wall was a fireplace, utilizing a natural
hole, enlarged with a pick or an axe, for a
chimney. A double bunk had been built along the
right-hand wall, and nearby was a block of wood that
had evidently done its turn as a chair or table.
The top of it was polished, apparently from
much sitting.
Packrats had been around-at least Hardy
supposed that was what they were-and the place was dusty and
seemed long-abandoned.
He helped Betty Sue down, and rubbed her
cold little hands between his own, making them both warmer.
Then he took his knife and went out to look around.
Farther along the bank he found an overhang where
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 89
the unknown occupant-perhaps a miner or trapper- had
stabled his horse. The place was sheltered from wind and
snow, and it was also well concealed by willows and
cottonwoods. He picketed the stallion there, the
rope permitting the horse to move from the stream to the
overhang.
Then Hardy went back to the dugout and, gathering
sticks from the packrats' nest, he kindled a
fire. There was wood enough outside, some of it from
fallen trees, some of it driftwood brought
downstream and cast up against rocks or brush on the
bank.
When Hardy had a good fire going, he began
to poke about. He found a frying pan, an old
iron kettle, an old pick, with the handle almost
gnawed away by porcupines or some other
wild creatures for the salty taste left by sweaty
hands.
Somebody had spent a good deal of time working on the
place. "Looks to me," he said to Betty Sue,
"as if somebody holed up here quite a spell. He
surely knew how to do for himself," he added. "This here
is a kind of natural cave which he made bigger
by knocking off chunks of rock here and there. Even that
chimney was a natural hole in the rocks."
He took the kettle and the frying pan to the stream and
washed both of them with wood ashes, which took the
place of soap, and scoured them with sand. After he
rinsed them they looked pretty good, and would do for
heating water and frying bacon.
He went back to the dugout, where the fire was making
it warm, and held his cold hands out to the blaze. As
they warmed up they prickled as if little needles were
sticking in them. When they were really warm again he got
out the bacon and sliced several slices into the pan,
then put some water on in the kettle to boil.
Several times he made quick dashes out into the cold
to get armfuls of wood to put beside the fireplace so
they would have a good supply. He found that he could shut
the door, and there was a bar for it, but he felt almost
guilty
about being so warm inside when he had to leave Big
Red outside.
The dugout was shaped like a triangle with one point
lopped off, and the door was where the point would have been.
The room was no more than eight feet deep, but the
firelight scarcely reached the gloom of the
opposite wall. The fireplace side of the wall
was very rough, and some of the projections of rock had been
used as small shelves.
When Hardy had fried the bacon the water was
boiling, and he dropped the coffee into it. After they
had eaten the bacon and a piece of pilot bread
apiece, be dropped a little cold water into the
kettle to settle the grounds, and they took turns
drinking from the kettle, Hardy holding the kettle
with a piece of old sacking so as not to burn his hands.
Rummaging about in the back of the dugout, he found that
at the head of the bunk there was a tight wooden door
in the wall. He opened it and, holding a brand from the
fire, studied the small interior. On the floor
lay a tightly wrapped pack of furs, much
gnawed, and on sticks thrust into the wall there hung
a pair of old jeans, worn and patched, a couple
of folded blankets, very dusty and motheaten, and a
huge old buffalo coat. This, although
difficult of access by animals, for it touched the
wall nowhere, was somewhat chewed around the collar.
Taking the coat outside-and it was so heavy that moving
it was a struggle-he threw it over a bush after
knocking off the snow, and proceeded to beat dust from it
with a stick. Extra large as it was, it would do
to sleep under, and it would cover them both while riding.
The blankets were of little use, or so he thought at
first. But after beating dust from them in the gathering
twilight, he suddenly had an idea. With his
knife, he cut pieces from one of them that would make
a sort of cape for Betty Sue and one for himself.
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 91
The other blanket, which was in somewhat better shape,
he took outside, and by working a strip of rawhide
he found in the dugout through the many holes, he had a
blanket that would at least partly cover Big Red.
Now, for the first time in days they were really warm. A
cold wind came in under the door from time to time, but
otherwise it was pleasant and almost cheerful.
"Hardy, when will we get to For' Brid'er?"
Betty Sue asked.
"Soon."
"Will mama be there?"
"She might be. I hope so."
She was silent a moment. "I like this place. It's
warm."
"I like it, too." He remembered the falling snow.
"Maybe we'll stay here until the storm is
over," he added.
He had not considered it until that moment, but he
knew right away that it was the thing to do. They had food
enough for two or three days of resting and waiting for the
snow to stop, and a little less for the rest of the trip.
Outside the snow continued to fall steadily. The world
had turned white, with the snow covering the trees,
bending down the heavily laden branches, and wiping out
any trail they had left. When they had finished
eating, Hardy put on his blanket-cape and went
out to carry in wood for the fire. He found
driftwood, and many dry branches broken from
deadfalls. He took some of it inside, and stacked
the rest near the door.
Though he was terribly tired and his feet were dragging,
he forced himself to keep going. After all, he was only
seven, and there was so much for him to do, but he remembered
that pa had often told him that the way to succeed in
life was just to keep trying.. . and to keep faith.
He knew what that meant, even though he could not have
put it in words.
From time to time he stopped in the overhang shelter
to talk to Big Red, and to pat him. The snow made
it
light outside and he worked long after night had come,
until at last he was too tired to do any more. Then
he dragged himself back to the dugout and closed and
barred the door behind him.
The fire kept the place warm. Though a little cold
air came in under the door, he knew they would need
that much ventilation, and when they sat on the bunk, their
feet dangling, they were warm and snug, and were not
hungry.
"You wait," Hardy said to Betty Sue, "pa will
come. If he isn't hunting us now, he's waiting
for us at Bridger. I know my pa, and if we
don't come soon, I know he'll be looking for us."
But even as he spoke he knew that, even if the
wagon train had been moving steadily westward, it
probably could not have been at Bridger yet, though
it might have been getting close. He had no
reason to believe pa knew anything had happened
to it, or to Hardy and Betty Sue. But he would not
be long in finding out.
Pa was like that. He never took anything for granted,
and he always set out to learn all he could.
You could bet that by the time he had reached Bridger he
had heard all anybody knew about conditions along
the Overland Trail; he might even imagine what
could happen to the children.
"A man lives by what he knows," he used to tell
Hardy. "Try to get all the facts, and study
them, and you can usually make out. When I was a boy,
apprenticed to a millwright, he would make me check
every measurement, study every piece of lumber we used.
If he taught me anything, it was to learn all I
could about whatever I was doing."
Back there in Wisconsin, when other folks shunned
the Indians pa was always out there talking to them. Those
Indians, he used to tell Hardy, had lived in that
country a long time before the white man came, and they
knew a lot worth learning. Pa went to the woods
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 93
with them and, when Hardy was old enough, he took him
along.
It was a time of warring for the Indians. A lot of
folks had the idea that the Indians lived together in
peace until the white man came, but times of peace
were rare among them. The Sioux and the Chippewas were
always fighting and raiding back and forth. Many a time
Hardy himself had seen painted Indians
slipping through the woods headed north or south on the
warpath.
"One time," he told Betty Sue, "pa and me
had been to Fort Snelling. Pa, he had business
there with Major Greenleaf Dearborn-some kind of
building work. I can just recall it, but I do
remember seeing the Dragoons on parade, the
flags and everything. It's about the earliest thing I do
remember.
"Only on the way back, pa and me ran into a war
party of Winnebagos. There must have been twenty or
thirty of them, and we hid under a river bank, with
them right close above us. We could hear them talking.
They had seen our tracks and, come daylight, they would
try to round us up for our scalps and for pa's rifle
gun."
"What did you do?" Betty Sue asked.
"I only remember what pa told me, and not much
else. I recall hiding under that bank, though, and
pa with his hand over my mouth, and then I recall how
pa put me in one of their canoes and he took his
hand-axe and cut holes in the bottom of all the
other canoes. He got off in the one canoe, and
they shot at us. I remember their guns going off,
and pa putting down his paddle to shoot."
Hardy stared into the fire, thinking back to how he had
gone with pa when pa worked in the lumber woods on
Rum River, and how pa had helped change over a
mill from a flutter mill to an overshot mill.
The two of them had spent a lot of time walking through
the woods from place to place. The only way pa
could make any cash money was to work at his trade, and
he was good at it.
The officers at Fort Snelling and Fort Atkinson
wanted to fix up their quarters, and they were allowed to do
it if they stood the expense themselves, and pa had done
much of the work. The trouble was, it meant neglecting the
farm, and pa didn't like to do that.
Hardy had liked it when they traveled. The woods
were dark and deep, and there was a mixture of evergreen
trees and those that dropped their leaves in the fall of the
year. There was a great variety-sugar maple and
elm, oak, butternut, white and black ash,
wild plum, birch, hackberry, and cedar; Hardy
knew them all. Farther north there were the pines and
spruce. There were nuts and berries too-the beaked
hazelnut like the ones he'd found back yonder, and
blueberries, wild currants, and crab
apples.
Many a time they lived off the country,
gathering herbs, picking nuts or berries, and
shooting game. A knowing man could live well in the
forest, and it had taken pa no time at all to learn
what the Indians knew. He took to the wild
country like a man born to it, and to tracking as if
he'd lived with it all his life. A good deal of it
rubbed off on Hardy. He watched and he listened and
he helped. For a boy full of questions, it was a grand
way to live.
Pa read to him, too, but mostly Hardy learned from
the book of the forest and the book of men. The latter
learning came to him from listening to pa talk with other men
about farming and hunting, or about their work, and from hearing
pa's comments on places and people.
They hadn't much to read, although there was some exchanging of
books. Pa had come west with a Bible, Pilgrim's
Progress, Scottish Chiefs, and Ivanhoe.
When Mr. Andy finally joined up with them, he had
Thaddeus of Warsaw, by Porter, and Castle
Rackrent, by Maria Edgeworth. At night, by the
fire, pa read to him from the books and started teaching
him his letters.
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 95
One time "when they had gone to Fort Snelling to work on
some building there, Major Dearborn had
loaned pa a copy of Marmion and a new book,
published only a few years before, Carlyle's
History of the French Revolution. The two books
lasted the winter through, and Marmion they read three
times, from beginning to end.
Often they would be on the road, usually walking for
four or five days at a stretch, and Hardy and his
pa being together they talked man talk.
"About all a man can leave his boy," pa had said,
"is the little he's learned, and maybe what he thinks
in his mind and feels in his heart. What use you
make of it is up to you.
"When we go around towns and are among more people, as we will
when you're older, you'll find there's other laws besides
those you've set for yourself, but still you'll find that the best
laws are those you make for yourself to follow-and a man should
be strict with himself. Nevertheless, you will want to obey the
laws of the towns. Folks couldn't live together unless
they had respect for one another, and for the rights of other
men. When you get right down to it, all law is based
on respect for each other's rights.
"Now, you look at it, you'll see it takes us
nearly all our time just to make a living. We hunt
and we build and we mow, and we cut wood against the
cold of winter, and try to salt some meat and
gather some vegetables to store in the cellar.
"When folks live together in a town they have more time,
time to sit and talk, to listen to music playing, or
to dance. But men can't do that unless they divide the work,
and in a town everybody shares. One man builds,
another does the smithing, one teaches, one preaches,
and another runs a store. When a man can settle
down to do what he does best, he's happier, and his
work is better. I guess that's where civilization
began, with people getting
together in a town, sharing the work, and having a chance
to talk together.
"You're young, so when you sit in company, you sit
quiet and listen. They say little pitchers have big
ears, and they should. That's the way to learn. You'll
hear a lot of foolishness, but you'll hear wisdom,
too, and you must learn not to despise any man.
Even a fool can teach you not to be foolish, and there's
no telling where you'll hear the thing that will help you to do
a job easier, or the thing that may save your
life."
When pa talked like that, Hardy just kept quiet and
listened.
He remembered the time Mrs. Andy spoke to pa about
him. "That's a serious-minded boy you've
got there," she had said, doubtfully. "Don't he
ever get a chance to play?"
Pa had been irritated. "He gets plenty of
chance. He's a thoughtful boy, and I'm glad of it.
We've had a hard time here, and he's been company
for me as well as a help. And there ain't a lazy
bone in his body."
No use for pa to be upset; sure, he had time enough
to play. There wasn't a tree within a mile he
hadn't climbed or tried to climb, and he had
played Indianfighter all over the country. Only
it was more fun trying to track wild game in the forest,
or trying to figure out what birds and animals had
been doing, by giving study to their tracks.
When pa did carpenter work on the officers' quarters
at Snelling or Atkinson, Hardy had gone
along. Then he had played with the youngsters at the forts;
but it was more fun when he and pa were traveling through the
forest, rustling their own grub. He just wished pa was
here now, sitting by the fire with them.
But they were warm, sheltered, and safe for the time being.
Before the snow had gotten too thick he had fixed in
his mind the locations of the dead trees, and other
places where he could find wood for fuel. He got
up now, slipped his blanket-cape over
his head, and said to
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 97
Betty Sue, "I'm going to see to Red before we go
to sleep." He dug into his pack and took a
piece of the pilot bread, and then ducked outside.
It was snowing hard, and commencing to blow. But it was no
problem to get to the stable, as he called it, for all
he had to do was edge along the rock wall until it
curved into the overhang.
Partly sheltered by trees and brush, it was as good a
place as he could have found, and better than many a shed
where animals were kept in such weather. Standing
alongside Big Red, he talked to him and fed him,
bit by bit, the slab of pilot bread.
"You got to help me, Red," he whispered. "I'm
kind of scared, but I'd never tell Betty Sue
that, because she depends on me. We must have come
more'n halfway. You stay by us and we can make
it."
He fed the stallion another corner of the bread, and
then suddenly the stallion's head went up.
Hardy heard the sound, too. It was a wolf ...
somewhere not very far off. He let the stallion have more
rope, enough so he could lie down if he was of a mind
to-or fight wolves if need be. He
heard the long, lonely howl of the wolf again... and then
another, farther away.
were they on their trail? Had they found the scent of the
horse and the children?
"It's all right, Red." Hardy patted the
stallion's shoulder. "It's all right, boy."
The horse nuzzled the boy, and Hardy fed him the
last of the pilot bread. With a look around,
satisfied to see that no snow had yet blown into the
shelter, Hardy went out. Snow swirled about him, but
he felt along the wall to the door, lifted the
latch, and went in. Once inside, he dropped the
bar and pulled the latch-string back through its hole.
He added wood to the fire, and sat down beside
Betty Sue. Somewhere out in the night the wolf
howled, and
Betty Sue snuggled against him. "Don't you
worry," he reassured her, "no wolf is going
to get in here."
"I hope your pa finds us," she said wi/lly.
"He'll find us," Hardy said positively. "I
know he will. Why, I'd bet anything he's hunting
us right this minute!"

caret caret COTT COLLINS DREW
up to let the others overVJJ take him. His face
was lined and haggard, and he could see the dismay in
Darrow's features. Bill Squires reined in,
took out his tobacco and bit off a healthy chew, then
tucked the plug away in his shirt pocket.
"Snow," Darrow said bitterly. "That was all we
needed."
"What do you think, Bill?" Collins asked. "You
know this country better than we do."
"She's goin' to be a storm, a real old howler.
That means three, four days. We've got to hole
up and set it out, boys."
The snow was thickening as they talked. A rising wind
whipped the snow into their faces and flapped the brims
of their hats.
"How long have we got before it's too thick for us
to travel?" Scott Collins asked. "I mean
if we pushed on fast?"
"Mebbe an hour, mebbe less. Look at it,
Scott. If we don't find a place to hole
up we're goin' to freeze to death, an' then who'll
look for the youngsters?"
"All right, but let's push on as long as we can
see tracks. Then we'll hunt for a place."
Squires started his pony, glancing
briefly at the tracks. The tracks of the
stallion were there, but the tracks of the pursuers were there
too.
Intent upon the trail of the children and the two men who
followed them, nobody thought to ride wide of their
trail, and so those other tracks, only a little way
off, went unnoticed. Ashawakie had not given up
on the
great red horse, and he was fully aware of the
presence of Cal and Jud. With a little skill he
might return with their scalps and ponies as well,
and he would have much to sing about in the winter lodges.
The three men rode swiftly, all of them watching
the trail, but not forgetting the country around them, either.
"A man's got to be careful," Darrow said
stubbornly. "This here's late for Injuns, but who
knows the mind of a redskin? We're apt to come on
"em at any time."
"Pete Schifflin had him a place somewhere around
here," Squires commented. "We trapped this country
together, an" he claimed he found some color.
All I know is that he took out of Fort Hall like
the devil was after him, an' we'd only just pulled
in. Slipped off by himself with quite an outfit."
"What happened?"
"He never showed up anymore," Squires said.
He shrugged. "Mebbe Injuns ... who knows? A
man off by himself like that... he might break a leg...
or he might get down sick, an' who's to rustle
grub and water for "im?"
"It would be a good place to hole up if we could
find it," Darrow suggested.
"We'd been riding the Beaver Rim," Squires
went on. "We split up, figurin" to meet a
few days later over at the Crow's Nest, west of
here. If he found gold, it was somewhere between the Rim
an' the Sweetwater."
Darrow chuckled cynically. "That's a big piece
of country, Squires."
"Well, he didn't go south so far's the
Sweetwater, an' we split up near the head of
Crooked Creek an' I cut his trail on
Beaver Creek, due west of here. We rode on
up to the Nest together."
The snow was growing thicker. Now all tracks were
covered. There was no longer any question of following a
trail; they could only depend on their minds.
"You're his pa-what will the boy do?" Squires
asked.
"He'll do as we will. He'll find him a
hole and crawl into it. We waited out storms together
a couple of times
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 101
up in Wisconsin. An' he'd find a place with
wood an' water. That's a canny lad. My
guess would be he'd found cover before he ran into the
snow. He'd see it comin'."
"Which figures he'd be somewhere along a creek.
He'll hold straight, unless he figures he'd
do better along the Sweetwater."
"Too far."
"Yeah ... if he knows it."
It was growing colder and the snow was thicker now. There was
no longer any question of riding on. They must find their
shelter quickly.
They found it on Rocky Draw, where the rock had
been undercut by the creek waters. Working with axes,
they soon had built a windbreak across the opening, which
would also reflect their fire's heat into the overhang.
There was room enough for themselves and their horses, but before they
finally took shelter the ground already had a thick
covering of snow.
Scott Collins dropped beside the fire, his face
gray. "You were right, Frank," he said to Darrow;
"they'll never make it. I was foolish
to hope."
"Nothin' of the kind!" Darrow replied roughly. "You
said yourself the kid was smart enough to hole up. If we were
right, an' that was a grub sack he was draggin' when
he left the camp of those thieves, then the youngsters have
got some grub. Hell, how much does it take
to feed a couple of kids that small?"
"They'll make out," Squires agreed. "The
kid's canny."
Darrow went about mixing a batch of frying-pan
bread. From time to time he glanced at Collins.
That's a good man, he thought, too good a man
to lose a youngster like that one. He found himself trying
to imagine what the boy was doing now, and he grew
impatient with their own warmth, their security. Had
there been tracks, he would have gone right out to look...
but where to go? Where to look?
All through the night the snow fell, and the rising
wind whipped it into drifts. Slowly the landmarks
disappeared, the world became changed. The wind howled,
and those lesser killers, the savage timber
wolves, burrowed deep and hid to wait out the
storm, some with bellies half-filled, some starving;
but there would be nothing for them to eat until the storm was
over. For during the storm, nothing moved but
the wind... the wind and the snow.
The pines lowered their limbs under the weight of the snow,
and a few animals sought shelter in the hollows
close to the protected trunks. The wolves did
not worry. They tucked their noses under the brush of
their tails, curled into a ball, and went to sleep.
They were used to this-it was their life.
Scott Collins was restless and irritable, but he
fought down the feeling, knowing there was nothing worse in the
confinement of a snowbound shelter than a man who
grumbles and complains. There was nothing to be done
until the storm blew itself out, and the snow ceased.
To move now would mean only to waste strength in
struggling against the storm.
So he forced himself to recall those times when Hardy had
faced the wilderness and the cold with him, and he drew
some small reassurance from the realization that Hardy
would remember some of the things he had learned then.
"When the storm's over," Squires suggested, "I
think we'd best waste no time, but head right on for
South Pass. The boy's got to take that route,
an' we stand a better chance of catchin' him that
way."
XI-LSHAWAKIE WAS NO longer alone. In a
corner of the hills off the Flats he had
come on a travois trail made by some of his people.
He found them well hidden at the edge of the woods.
There were a dozen warriors, seven squaws, and
half a dozen children, who had made camp
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 103
to sit out the storm before going on to their main camp
farther to the northeast.
All through the day Ashawakie talked with them, and
by next daybreak he had arranged with six warriors
to accompany him to track down and attack the two
parties of white men and the children. They would take their
horses, weapons, and other equipment.
The two parties they were to track down were separated,
and Ashawakie knew where both parties were hidden. The
undertaking looked comparatively simple. There was no
risk now of missing their trail. As soon as the
storm ceased they would move out.
But there was one thing he did not know. Scott
Collins, on the second night of the storm, had
gone out again to listen into the night. He made his way
up through the trees and stood there alone. The wind had
died down somewhat, and he strained his ears for some sound
in the darkness, not knowing exactly what he hoped
to hear .. . perhaps a child's voice, crying in the
night.
He had started to return to camp when he saw the
tracks. Had he been less attuned to listening for
every sound, looking for anything that might help them in their
search, he might have missed them.
The thing he noticed first was a tree branch from which the
snow had fallen or had been brushed away. All
the other branches were covered with at least a couple of
inches of snow ... why not that one?
Careful to disturb nothing, he moved closer. Behind the
clouds there was a moon, and the snow itself added to the
light.
There were moccasin tracks in the snow, many of them, and
all apparently made by the same man. An
Indian had come into these bushes, had crouched here staring
through the trees at their shelter. And he had been there
for some time.
Scott returned to the shelter and, accompanied
by Squires-for Darrow was already asleep-he
returned
to the spot. Together they trailed the Indian back,
by his moccasin tracks, which were half filled with
snow. It brought them to a sheltered spot among the
trees a few hundred yards off where a horse had
been tethered. Then they went back to their camp.
At daylight all three men returned and
studied the tracks. "It's him all right,"
Squires said. "Those are the same horse tracks
of the Injun who follered the kids- the one who
tangled with the grizzly."
"We'd better ride loose," Darrow commented.
"A man could get mighty chilly, ridin' around
without his scalp in this kind of weather."
Half an hour later they cut the trail of the
travois and the hunting party of Indians, heading
north.
"Cheyennes," Darrow said. "He'll be meetin'
up with them sure as shootin'."
They were in trouble, and they knew it. The Cheyennes
might decide to ride on north-no Indian liked
to fight in cold weather-but they might elect to drop
back just to pick up a few scalps and ponies.
The plans of the three men to sit out the storm, which was not
yet over, had gone glimmering, since their camp had
been discovered. An Indian, hiding out there in the
dark, could kill any man who emerged to check on the
stock or to rustle firewood. They knew they had
to move on, to find a better defensive position
... and with luck to come on the trail of the children.
Three miles away to the south, Cal and Jud were
holed up in an even less desirable
position, and they, too, were thinking of moving on.
Four miles down Rocky Draw, and scarcely more
than a mile from the head of Beaver Creek, were the
children and the stallion. Their tracks were now covered with
snow, for they had been the first to seek shelter.
Scott Collins led off, riding out of the draw and
heading west. Less than an hour after cutting the
trail of the travois they were riding about half a
mile north of the dugout that sheltered Hardy and
Betty Sue.
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 105
They had no doubt their trail would be found, and they
knew there might be a fight. It all depended on
the Cheyennes themselves. Would they decide to ride south
on a scalp-hunting foray this late in the season,
or would they dismiss that idea and ride on to their
home?
"Scott, we hadn't better ride too far."
Squires had come up beside him. "If we get
ahead of those youngsters we'll never find "em. If
we've guessed right an" they're holed up, they
ain't likely to move . .. an' it's startin'
to snow again."
Squires's worry showed in his face. The storm
might be the end of it all. Even if the
youngsters survived it, how would they ever find their
trail again? This was a big country, and a man couldn't
hope to cover it all.
The place they found to hole up was under some buttes
that loomed above Beaver Creek. They offered
protection from the north wind, as well as from attack
from that direction, and there was a small shelter where high
water on the Beaver had stranded several dead trees
upon three large boulders. These trees made a
partial roof, and other debris as well as the snow
had formed the rest. It was a place for the three men,
and a combination of trees and the buttes made a rough but
adequate shelter for their horses.
Scott Collins set to work to clean his guns. He
had a bad feeling about the days ahead. They had been
lucky so far, too lucky, he thought.
Darrow picked up some slabs of rock from the foot
of the butte and placed them back of the fire to serve as
a reflector that would throw the heat into the shelter.
Squires patched up a few holes where the wind
might blow in, covering them with pine boughs.
Collins finished cleaning his guns and then gathered
evergreen boughs for their beds. After that he got together as
much dead wood as he could find and stacked it at the
edge of their shelter. The night was going to be
a cold one, and the fire must be kept going. From time
to time one of them moved out from the camp and listened.
They knew there was not very much danger of an Indian
attack on such a night, but it did not pay to take
anything for granted.
It was still and cold when Collins went outside the
camp again. A faint sifting of snow was still in the
air, and his boots made a crunching sound as he
went down the little slope to the creek. There was ice
along the edges, but no ice in midstream. He
crossed the stream on a fallen log, and climbing the
bank he went up through the snow-laden trees to the
slight rise beyond.
Looking back, he could see nothing of their camp.
From this direction, at least, it was well hidden.
"Hardy, boy," he whispered, "where are you?"
There was no answer, no sound. The snow fell
gently, silently.

friend-HI ARDY AWOKE WITH A start. He had
been JL. JL sound asleep, and suddenly he was
wide awake and listening. For a minute he heard
nothing, then there was the sound of movement, and Big Red
snorted angrily.
Hardy slipped from under the buffalo coat and
tiptoed to the door. For a moment he stood there
listening, and he heard a low whine of eagerness.
Peeping through a crack, he looked out. It had been
snowing earlier in the night, but now it had stopped,
leaving everything white and still-except for two ...
three ... black spots on the snow.
Wolves ...
He could see them quite clearly. They were big
wolves, and they were close by. One of them was not more
than thirty feet from the dugout, and all of them were
looking toward the crude stable where Big Red was.
The stallion sensed their presence, and was aware of the
danger.
Hardy hesitated, his heart pounding. He must try
to frighten them away. Pa had told him how wolves
worked. One or two of them would get at a horse's
heels, staying just out of reach, but ready to run in and
hamstring him if possible. Another wolf or two
could circle in front, watching for a chance to rush in and
grab at the animal's throat.
These were timber wolves, larger than any he had
ever seen. He could shoot at them, but the derringer would
be useless and the one shot would not stop them for long.
Then he thought of it... fire!
Turning quickly, he went to the fireplace
and stirred the coals. Under the ashes a few were still
alive, and he stirred them, adding barks and twigs that
had been put aside for the purpose. He was
frightened, but he knew he must help Big Red right
away, before the wolves closed in on him.
He thrust a large branch into the coals and it
caught fire. When it was blazing well, he took
down the bar at the door and caught up the branch and
rushed outside, yelling and waving the branch.
Startled, the wolves sprang away, and rushed off
into the snow. Hardy went back and laid the branch
at the edge of the fireplace. He glanced at
Betty Sue. She was sleeping quietly, and he
blessed the fact that she was tired and was a sound
sleeper.
Carrying a large stick, he went out to the stallion.
"It's all right, Red," he said reassuringly.
He patted the big horse on the shoulder.
"We'll handle them."
He stayed with the stallion a minute or two, but the
chill began to strike him and he went back to the
dugout and closed the door.
He dared not go to sleep again, for the wolves would be
back as soon as they got over their momentary fear.
He did not know how successful he would be
in driving them off again, but he knew he would have
to try. But first, he built up the fire.
When it was burning brightly he peered out of the door
again. Sure enough, he caught a flicker of
movement in the brush. One of the hungry beasts was
lurking out there. What could he do?
And then a new idea came to him. Just how it
suddenly became a full-fledged plan he had no
idea. Twice he had gone to the door, simply
opening and closing it, and the sound had been enough to send a
wolf loping away into the brush, but the animal had not
gone far, and he had not hurried.
Outside the dugout, about halfway between the
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 109
dugout and the horse's shelter, but back toward the
edge of the creek, was a big old stump. Hardy had
cut several pieces of pitch from it for kindling, and
there were droplets of pitch where it had oozed from
cracks in the old pine stump.
If he could set that afire ...
Gathering some bark, he rubbed it to shreds between his hands,
then took a branch from the fire and went outside.
He left the door open so that he could rush in if the
wolves attacked. He doubted they would, for the
man-smell was on him, and they had learned
to fear it. But he felt sure they might soon know
there was nothing to fear from him, might realize he was
small and vulnerable.
On top of the splintered stump he dug out a little
hollow. It was the stump of a blow-down, broken off
jaggedly, ought to burn well. He tried his branch,
but the fire had gone out.
Going back to the dugout he got another one from the
fire, added it to the shredded bark, and blew to tease it
into a flame. It caught some bits of pitch, which
blazed up brightly.
At the base the stump was partly hollow, and he
kindled another fire there, and added fuel from
branches lying about. Soon the fire was blazing
well, and he withdrew to the dugout.
The stump was very pitchy, and pitch pine burns with a
hot, bright flame. There was a good chance the fire would
burn all night through-or through what was left of the
night.
Inside the dugout he huddled near the fire, arms
squeezing his knees for warmth, and he turned a little
from time to time when his back grew cold.
Several times he peered out, but he saw no
wolves. A long time later, when it was almost light,
he crawled under the buffalo coat and went
to sleep.
When he woke on the morning of the third day he
knew it was time to go.
The stump was burned down to almost nothing, and the wolves
might come back. They would follow him, he was
sure, but from a distance. Wherever he stopped, he must
be sure the place was one where there would be shelter for
both them and Red, and where he could keep a fire
going. Wild animals were afraid of fire, and in
that lay safety perhaps.
It was a gray morning, and under a sullen sky they
started west once more. They had scarcely started when
they came upon the travois trail of the Cheyennes,
the same one Scott Collins, Squires, and
Darrow had seen only a short time before.
Hardy knew a travois trail when he saw one,
and a travois meant Indians. At this time of year,
he thought, they were probably headed for their winter
camp, so their presence in this region did not alarm
him. He was more worried about the wolves, but at first
he saw no sign of them.
The snow was almost eight inches deep on the level,
but it was drifted in places to a depth of three or
four feet. Hardy avoided the drifts, and tried
to keep a straight course to the west.
Though he was scared and tired, he was glad to be
moving, and the big red stallion seemed as eager as
they were to be on the way. They moved forward at a
steady pace, and for the most part Hardy let the horse
choose his own trail.
For a while they found no tracks at all. The snow
was unbroken, and there was almost no wind.
Looming close above them were the Wind River
Mountains. South Pass lay to the south of the range,
and it was the accepted route to the west. If all he
had heard talked about on the wagon train was true,
they should be at South Pass soon. He had heard
them say it was mostly a big, wide-open country
where a body could scarcely tell when he crossed the
divide. On one side the streams flowed toward the
east, on the other toward the Pacific-or at any
rate in that direction. Some of the
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 111
water, he'd heard them say, wound up in the
bottom of the Great Basin.
The trail they were taking followed Beaver Creek more
or less. Suddenly he came upon the tracks of
three riders. All the horses were shod, but he could
see that only in an occasional track where it had
been sheltered by a tree or bush, for the rest
of the tracks were almost covered by last night's snow.
"These look like yesterday's tracks," he said
to Betty Sue. "It might be those men we got
away from." "There were only two of them," Betty
Sue said. "They might have picked up a friend. But
no, these don't look like the same tracks. I
can't make out enough to tell, though-it might even be
Indians on stolen horses."
He turned Big Red away to the north, then taking
a westward direction again, he followed Beaver
Creek. He could not rightly see the sun, but by what
he thought should be noon they had put ten or twelve
miles behind them. Big Red was tireless, and they had
found no place to stop.
It was midafternoon before he saw a wolf. The animal
was perhaps half a mile behind them, and when Hardy
turned in the saddle he glimpsed it, loping
easily along through the snow, just keeping them in sight.
Fear tightened his throat. If there was one wolf,
there would be others.
"We've got to find a place to stop," he said.
"You keep looking, Betty Sue. You might see
something that I don't."
"Are there going to be wolves, Hardy?"
"Maybe. In this kind of country there
generally are wolves. Nothing to worry about though,"
he added. "We'll have a place with a fire."
"What if the wolves come before we get the fire
lit?"
"They won't come much before night," Hardy said
hopefully. "We're going to make camp pretty
quick."
He knew it would be no use to shoot at them. Pa
had
done that once, but it only scared them for a little while,
and then they had come back.
Big Red continued along Beaver Creek, and
Hardy studied every nook and cranny for a place
to camp. They would need something at their backs, and they
would need fuel-lots of it. They also needed a
place that was big enough to get the horse in with them.
Twice Hardy saw a place he thought might do for
camp, but each time he had to decide against it.
He kept thinking back to the tracks of those three
riders. Would it have been better to have followed them?
But he had no idea who they might be, or where they
were going. He kept seeing tracks of animals
too, for they were out and moving now, but most of the tracks
were wolf tracks.
The afternoon wore on, and it grew colder.
When he looked back again he saw there were two
wolves now . .. and yes, another one, still farther
back.
It would soon be dark. Red had slowed his pace, and
Hardy knew the big horse was hungry and must be
allowed to scratch away the snow to get at the grass
before they tied him up. Hardy was not only frightened, but
he was close to tears. There was no place to stop
... no place. Behind him a wolf howled, answered
by another. Suddenly he saw a wolf ahead of them,
waiting in the trail.
Red saw it, too, but he did not turn and run...
instead started for the animal, teeth bared.
The wolf leaped aside, in no way frightened. He
was not a lone hunter, and the rest were coming. Wolves had
pulled down horses before this.
Their way went down into a grove of trees, where it
was dark. The stallion ran through the trees
swiftly, and suddenly, in the gathering dusk, Hardy
saw what he had been looking for.
Across the creek and under the shoulder of the hill was a
cave. It did not look like a deep cave, just an
overhang,
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 113
but there was some scattered wood there, left
by high water of the past.
"Over there, Red," Hardy urged, "across the
creek!"
The big horse splashed through the knee-high water and
up the rocky bank on the far side. The bluff
rose high above them. The interior of the cave under the
overhang was black and forbidding, but close to the
entrance there was a small parapet of stones made for a
breastwork, or for a reflector.
Hardy slid down, gathered dry sticks under the
overhang, and heaped them together. From the last camp he
had brought some shavings and a handful of shredded bark, and
he put these on the ground under the dried sticks and
started a fire. It blazed up, died down, then
caught again.
Picketing Big Red on a level spot nearby,
he scraped off some of the snow to get at the grass
underneath, but Red needed no showing. He knew where the
grass was, and went after it.
Then Hardy set to work to gather more sticks. Betty
Sue came with him, walking close to him. First of
all he searched for a short, strong stick for a club,
and then he gathered as much wood as he could find and
piled it in the hollow under the bluff. He built his
fire brighter.
It would soon be night. The wolves were out there. He
could already see them coming closer and slinking around.
Kicking a couple of rocks loose that were partly
frozen to the earth, he hurled them at the wolves-and
he had a strong throwing arm. The wolves ran off a
few feet, then stopped. And that was when he thought of the
slingshot.
He had no rubber or anything to use for rubber, but
he could make a sling. His pa had made the first one
for him when he was four, after telling him the story of
David and Goliath, and he had practiced with it
off and on for a year. Then he discarded it until he
was six, when one day he tried it again and barked a
squirrel with it. After that, he had practiced a good
deal. He still
couldn't be sure of hitting his mark, although he did every
once in a while.
With his knife he cut a strip from the worn bottom
of the old buffalo coat, and made his sling. Then he
hunted in the creek bottom for stones of the right
size. The water was so cold that he nearly froze
his hands hunting for them, but he had soon gathered
fifteen or twenty.
He stood shivering over the fire, stretching his wet
hands out toward the flames.... There was so
much to do, and he was so tired. He had never been so
tired in his whole life. And he was scared-scared of the
wolves, of the Indians, of the cold, and of the distance
to Fort Bridger.
"We're going to make it, Betty Sue," he said
confidently. "I just know we are. You know that, don't
you?" "Yes."
Her voice was small, and she looked up at him,
sensing something of what he felt.
"You roll up in that buffalo coat," Hardy told
her. "I'll be fixing around for a while."
He took up the stick and the sling and went out to the
horse. One of the wolves, a big, heavy-chested
brute, was not more than fifty feet away, just
sitting there. Big Red had pulled back to the end of
his tether and Hardy had to go past him, toward the
wolf, to pull up the picket-pin. He was afraid
Red might pull away from him.
He took a step over to the horse and put a hand
on his shoulder. "It's all right, Red. Don't you
fuss none."
He slipped a stone into the sling and, carrying the stick
in his left hand, walked toward the picket-pin. The
wolf got up on all four feet and seemed
to snarl, deep in his throat. Suddenly,
almost of its own volition, Hardy's arm whipped over
with the sling. The distance was short, and Hardy was lucky.
He heard the thump as the stone struck the wolf, and the
animal jumped straight up, yelping in surprise
and pain, and then it scrambled off into the darkness.
Almost crying with fear, Hardy tugged and pulled at
* DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 115
the picket-pin, but it held, half frozen in the
hard ground. He worked at it, and finally it came
loose and he pulled it up. Then catching up the
stick and the sling again, he went back toward the
overhang.
He led the horse deep inside, back of the fire.
There were only two pieces of the pilot bread
left, but he fed Red one piece, and patted him
for a time. After that he went back to the fire and heaped
wood upon it. I He dragged some sticks close
up to the buffalo coat,
r where he could just reach out from under it and put them on the
fire. It was very cold. He hung up their
blanketcapes so that they would not get damp, and
crawled under the coat, lying on part of it, with the other
part wrapped over them. He felt the back of
Betty Sue's neck. It was warm, and she was
sleeping soundly.
He cuddled up, trying to stop shivering, knowing he would
soon be warm. He looked out at the fire; and beyond
it, in the darkness, something stirred. He reached out and
put two big sticks on the fire, then pulled his
that. hand back.
He was beginning to get warm. He knew he should put
another stick on the fire, but he hated to reach out and
let the cold air in. He wanted to stay just as he
was, but finally he did put out his hand and add more
fuel. i Then he snuggled a little deeper under the
buffalo
coat, warm at last. And then, not knowing just when it
happened, he fell asleep.
Nearby the stallion moved restlessly, ears
pricked. Slowly the wood burned down. Only
ashes glowed. Beyond the fire the wolves had moved
closer, just a little , way out there. The big horse
stamped and blew, but the
backslash boy did not stir.
A stick, propped against a stone, slid down and
fell into the coals. A flame sprang up,
burned brightly, then died away, and there was darkness.
Only the coals glowed, and the eyes of the wolves.
WE SHOULD'VE KILLED that kid," Cal
muttered.
Jud hunched his shoulders against the wind. The night was
bitterly cold, and in the snowfall they had lost the
trail. "You forgettin' that's Scott Collins's
boy?"
"To hell with him!" Cal said.
They had been riding since before daybreak, and now it was
long past midnight. Their horses were dead-beat and
so were they. Cal, who rode bareback, had been
cursing at the loss of his saddle, and neither man had
seen anything remotely like the shelter they needed.
The two men had ridden out of Hangtown just ahead of a
general clean-up, which had been engineered in part
by Scott Collins, and in which he had taken the
major role. They were just two of many who had
scattered to avoid hanging, arid they had ridden east
with some vague idea of robbing wagon trains bound for
California or Oregon.
When news of the gold strike reached the East-and it
had just done so-travelers by the thousands would be coming over
this road, and an organized gang could get rich quick
and live off the fat of the land while doing so.
They had at first considered staying around Salt
Lake, but the stories they heard of Porter
Rockwell, Bill Hickman, and others of the
Danites, had given them the impression it
might become extremely unhealthy in that region.
So their idea had been to hole up somewhere along the
trail, and steal enough supplies to wait for the rush in the
spring of '49.
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 117 "Hold
up, Cal!" Jud pulled in his horse and sat
bolt
upright in the saddle. "I smell smoke."
They tested the wind, waited, and then Jud said,
"Must've been mistook, but I'd have sworn-was
"I think you did," Cal interrupted. "I caught
a whiff
of something."
The night was still; a low wind moaned among the trees
and stirred loose snow. They waited, listening,
trying the wind. They smelled nothing more, and were about to go
on when they heard a wolf howl.
"Ever get a close look at one of them brutes,
Jud?" Cal stared off into the night. "I seen one
must've weighed two hundred, if a pound. Rancher
killed him over on the Green. You never seen such
teeth."
Cal started on, then held up at Jud's motion.
"Hold on a minute," he said. "I think that
wolf's found something. He don't sound like
he's huntin'." "Aw, come on! It's cold and
I want to ..." They both caught it then, the
definite smell of woodsmoke. It came from the
south, and the two renegades swung their horses and
walked them slowly in that direction. From time to time they
continued to catch the smell of smoke.
"Somebody's got "em a far," Jud said.
"Now, Cal, don't you start nothin" with these
folks. Maybe we can get a night's good
sleep."
The smell of smoke was elusive-now faint, now
stronger, then dissipated by the slight wind until there
was no smell of it at all. For almost an hour,
never more than a few hundred yards from the source,
they moved up and back, working about among the trees,
and finally emerging on the top of the bluff.
There the scent was strong, for they were now directly
above the overhang where Hardy and Betty Sue had
taken shelter.
"Look!" Jud pointed. "There's your wolves!"
At least five wolves were within sight, their dark
bodies showing up clearly against the white snow. One
or
two moved restlessly, others just sat there, but one
seemed to be creeping toward a spot right
below them.
"They've spotted something down below," Jud said.
"I'll lay you eight to five it's them young uns."
Skirting the cliff's edge, they found a slide that
would take them to the bottom. The bluff was no more
than sixty feet high, but it was sheer along most of
its length, and the slide itself was steep. The horses
hesitated, but urged on by their riders, they slid
down in a cascade of snow and gravel.
The riders had come up with the wind in their faces,
unseen and undetected by the wolves, but the nearest
wolf, creeping over the snow on his belly, was
close enough to rush.
The horse was trapped against the rock wall. The
wolf crept a little closer, and Big Red, eyes
rolling, pulled back hard on the worn
picket-rope. It snapped, the wolf charged, and
Hardy awoke, all in one instant.
Hardy's eyes flared open to see the belly of the
horse above him, the stallion rearing high, forefeet
churning. Before his eyes the wolf suddenly charged and the
horse struck hard, his hoofs missing the agile
wolf by a hair as it sprang aside, but the horse
was suddenly in the open, and the other wolves were charging
in.
The nearest one leaped, and the stallion caught it in
its powerful jaws. Red hurled the wolf to the snow,
then the big horse spun, kicking and charging as the
other wolves charged.
By now Hardy was up, his derringer in his hand, watching
for the chance for a shot.
Then from out of the darkness came the riders. They charged
in swiftly, and one of them chopped down with his
six-gun. It spat fire and a wolf dropped,
kicking in the bloody snow. The rider fired again, but
at a fleeing target, for as suddenly as they had come,
the wolves were gone.
Hardy knew the horses. Wheeling, he caught
Betty Sue by the hand and darted into the darkest corner
of
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 119
the overhang. Running blindly, he brushed by the
blanket-capes and had the presence of mind to grab
them from the rock where they hung.
He had not yet explored the back of the overhang,
and now he ran into a pile of stones, and scrambled
over them, barking his shins and tearing his hands. Somehow
he got Betty Sue over into the dark recess behind
the stones, and there they crouched, shivering and terrified.
"Get a rope on that horse!" they heard
Cal shout. "I can't rope barebacked!"
"You see them young uns?" "Damn "em! Git that
horse!"
Peering over the rocks, Hardy and Betty Sue
saw Jud build his loop and make his cast, but as
Hardy could have told him, Big Red was too
canny. The horse ducked his head and ran,
circled, and then came back, neck arched and head
canted to one side, his teeth bared.
Jud gathered in his rope, but at that instant Red
charged. He threw himself, screaming with rage, at
Jud. The horse thief swung his own horse, but
its hoofs skidded on the icy ground, and the horse
fell hard.
Red kicked viciously, missed Jud, and then
charged at Cal. Cal tried to throw his gun, but,
hampered by his heavy coat, the gun did not come up
fast enough. His horse reared to meet the stallion's
attack, and Cal went off, falling into the snow.
Big Red's shoulder hit the smaller horse and it
fell, then it sprang up and raced away into the
night, the red stallion pursuing.
Cal got up, swearing and thoroughly scared. Jud
was helping his own horse up. He had jumped free
a split second before his pony fell, and
now he was up and ready.
"Let's get out o" here!" he said. "I've had
enough!" "You can get out-I'll have that damned
stallion or know the-was
He stopped and looked around. "Where are the
young uns?"
"Ain't seen "em. But they must be here."
"Fire's out," Cal said. "That ain't like that kid."
He stirred the ashes with a stick. "Still some coals,
but not much. I can't see that boy lettin" his fire
go out on a night like this."
Cal's head turned, and his eyes swept the
place. His anger made him hasty, and he
overlooked both the turnbled buffalo coat and the
small sack of supplies, almost empty now, that
lay toward the rear. There wasn't much to see,
certainly-just a few sticks of wood piled near the
fire ...
Cal looked around more carefully. "Jud, this ain't
the boy's fire," he said. "That there looks like an
Injun fire. Maybe those young uns never did
catch that horse again. He might be trailin'
"em."
Jud considered that. Then he shook his head. "I
doubt that. Without that horse those kids would
never have come this far in this short a time. No, they've
been here." He hesitated a moment, knowing the
hair-trigger temper of his companion. "Cal,
let's forget 'em and get out of here. I don't like
this."
"What don't you like?" Cal almost snarled the words.
"And how are we gettin" out... on one horse?"
For an instant Jud was silent, suddenly aware of the
dangers represented by one horse between them. Of
course, he might catch Cal's horse, or the
horse might come back to its running mate.
Otherwise they were left with one horse, and Jud had
a fair idea of how long Cal would put up with that.
For that matter, he had no taste for it himself.
Mentally, he stacked himself up against Cal and did not
like the result. Cal was fast. .. one of the best men
with a gun he knew, and quick to shoot. Also there was that
heedless cruelty about Cal, that willingness, almost
eagerness to kill, with no regard for the consequences.
Jud was a bad man, and he admitted it to himself, but
he was a cautious bad man, with a wholesome
respect for his hide, and he had a hankering to live
to an evil old
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 121
age. The more he considered his future with
Cal, the less likely his chances began to seem.
No man in his right mind went around crossing up people like
Scott Collins or Bill Squires with any
anticipation for much of a future.
Collins was a law-and-order man, a quiet,
hardworking man, but one who did not hesitate to stand
up and be counted. His voice had the ring of authority,
and Holloway had demonstrated what happened when you
challenged that voice.
"No use startin' out in the dark," he said casually.
"We might as well stir up the far. Anyway,
those young uns may be somewheres about, an' if they are that
stallion will come back."
Cal simmered down slowly, complaining in his
irritating nasal voice. Jud quietly
ignored him, and went about getting wood without comment.
Cal would settle down after a while, and he could be
fairly easy to get along with when calm. The trouble
was, a man had no idea when Cal would decide
to come uncorked.
Then and there Jud made his resolution. He was going
to get away from Cal, and at the first opportunity it
seemed possible. If he ever encountered him again, he
would have a plausible excuse ... an excuse he
hoped never to need.
The boy had rustled up wood and he had, as always,
chosen a likely spot for his camp. Jud stirred
the fire up, and after it was burning well he studied
the ground for tracks. They were there, a profusion of
them, but Jud's own tracks and those of the stallion
had all but obliterated them.
Neither man made any move to search the back of the
cave for the simple reason that they took it for
granted that the children had abandoned the place some time
before. In fact, there did not appear to be anything
to search. The overhang was there for all to see, and the
tumbled pile of rocks, the remains of an ancient
wall built by bygone Indians, seemed innocent
enough. Such
walls are to be found in many places throughout the
Southwest.
Behind the rocks, Hardy and Betty Sue huddled
together. There was no way to get out, and nowhere to go if
they did. Here at least there was a little warmth, for the
reflector, as well as the way the air
circulated, brought some heat into their corner, though not
enough to keep them really warm. They needed the buffalo
coat for that, and Hardy found himself looking at it
longingly.
When they had scrambled to get out of the way
Hardy had dragged the coat into a heap near the wall
before they got untangled from it, and it lay there in the
darkness now, looking almost like another rock. If he
could somehow .. .
He gave up the thought even as it came to him. There
was no chance. He must lie still and wait. It would
soon be light, and the men might go away.
Finally both men lay down to sleep. An hour
passed, then another. The sky grew pale, and
Jud got up to replenish the fire. He had
turned around to lie down again when he saw the coat.
For a moment he just stood looking at it as if it were
some strange animal, then he went over to it,
picked it up, and let it fall.
"Cal," he said.
The other man's eyes opened, instantly alert at
the tone of Jud's voice. "Cal," Jud said
again, "there's somebody else in this. Here's his
coat."
Cal sat up, staring at the buffalo coat. The
coat presented a new problem, and Cal did not like
problems. Moreover, ever since he first set eyes
on that red stallion there had been more and more problems.
"Who'd be out this time o' year?" he asked
irritably.
"Somebody's around," Jud answered. "A man just
don't go off leavin' a good coat behind."
Cal stretched out again and composed himself for sleep, but
the thought of the coat nagged him, and after a bit he sat
up and tugged on his boots. Besides, the
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 123
bacon Jud was slicing into their frying pan was beginning
to sputter, and it smelled good.
"He'll have a horse," Cal commented, "and we need
a horse-at least a saddle."
"He'll have a gun too," Jud warned, "and by now
he must know we're here, else where is he?"
The two men ate in silence, and Hardy, crouching
among the stones only a few feet away, looked
down at Betty Sue and saw that she had gone
to sleep again. He was frightened, for if she moved or
made a sound in her sleep they would be discovered at
once, and Hardy had no doubt what that would mean.
He lay there, clutching the derringer with its single
bullet, and there was no doubt in his mind as to what he
must do. No matter which one discovered them, it was Cal
he must shoot. Cal was the meanest one, and it looked
to Hardy as if even Jud was afraid of Cal.
But he really didn't want to shoot anyone. All
he wanted was to find pa, or some nice
folks somewhere.
Only a few miles to the north, Ashawakie,
leading his small band of six Cheyennes, started the
ponies through the snow and headed south. They expected
to be gone from their camp for only two suns, and
to return with both ponies and the loot from two
camps. Ashawakie had put in his claim for the red
stallion beforehand.
In the meantime, in the cold of early dawn, Scott
Collins gathered wood for their fire, then climbed
atop the highest ground and stood staring around. The
clouds had disappeared, the air was clear, but it was
intensely cold.
His eyes swept all the vast space, lying white
and still, and he saw nothing, no movement anywhere, and
he heard no sound.
He could not ask Darrow and Squires to stay out any
longer. No youngsters could live through this weather, and if
they fell in the snow it might be spring before their
bodies could be found. But though he could not hold the
others any longer, he had no thought of giving up
himself. Hardy was his son, and Betty Sue was the
daughter of his friend.
He turned to start back to camp, his boots
crunching on the snow.
It was then he saw the smoke.
I

I HE SMOKE WAS far off, and was not much Jk.
more than a suggestion in the sky, not to be recognized
except by eyes accustomed to all the shadings and
changes of mountain, plain, and sky. The quality
of the eyesight is often of less importance than the
selectivity of the brain behind the eyes. From the
hundreds of patterns and the shadow-play of sunlight
and storm, the conditioned eye is quick to choose that which is
different, or seems different.
Just as the eye of the trained tracker can see a
disturbance in the dust invisible to the casual eye, so
anything that does not fit, that does not belong, is
quickly seen by the man trained to the wilderness.
What Scott Collins saw was a vagueness in
outline only a shade different from the trees around,
and above it a scarcely perceptible shading against the
sky. Under other circumstances it might be dust or
it might be smoke, but with snow on the ground dust was
eliminated, and he was sure it must be smoke.
But he did not move to call the others. It was all
too easy to lose such a sight, to return to what
seemed the same position but was off just enough
to make the smoke invisible. He remained where he
was, and with great care he chose landmarks, lining up a
route that would take him to the smoke. Only when he
was sure of its location did he go back to the camp.
Squires and Darrow listened, then Squires got
up and set about smothering the fire. "I think it's
worth a look," he said.
Within minutes they were moving out, holding to the cover of
trees, emerging only long enough to check their
direction. All three rode loose in the saddle,
with their rifles across their saddles. The smoke might
mean the children were there, but it also might mean either the
Indians or the horse thieves.
"That rider now," Darrow said suddenly, "I
recall who it was." They waited.
"It was Cal Thorpe. Least, that's the name I
knew him by. A bad actor, that one."
"I know him," Squires said. "He's killed a
few men. They suspicioned him of robbing sluices
around the Dry Diggin's." He looked over at
Scott Collins. "That's what they called
Hangtown afore your time. In the first few weeks they
called her that, and Cal was around then. There was a lot
of us down from Sutter's place to the Dry Diggin's
together... Cal was in the outfit. He's a
mean one, all right... quick as a snake an' just as
untrustworthy."
The country over which they had to ride was rough, and there was
no direct route. Time and again they had to swing wide
to avoid some obstacle, but always they found their way
back to the course Scott had chosen. At times they
spread out, searching for tracks, but they saw none
until they were in an area they believed to be close
to where the smoke had come from.
Frank Darrow threw up his hand suddenly and motioned
them over. "Indians," he said, "at least four.
Mebbe twice that many."
It would complicate things. They had no desire
to run into a bunch of scalp-hunters. They wanted
only to find the missing children, not to have a fight with
Cheyennes. Besides, a lot of shooting might draw
more Indians down on them-the Sioux traveled this
country, too.
"Headed southeast," said Squires. "D'you think
they saw that smoke?"
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 127
"Mebbe. Could be that Injun who was follerin' the
kids took off to line up some help, seein' our
tracks like he did. We're goin' to have to ride
careful."
Scott Collins would not allow himself to hope. He
realized that the fire might not mean the children at all.
It might be from some other passing travelers or
hunters. Not that travelers were apt to be in the area
at this time of the year. Nobody in his right mind would
want to be out in the open.
Whatever smoke there had been was gone now. They
knew they were within a mile or perhaps less of the place
the smoke had come from, but their landmarks, taken from a
distance, could give them no closer clue to the actual
spot.
"We could scatter out," Darrow suggested.
"No." Scott was definite. "There's too much
risk. We'll stay together and throw a loop around the
area, cutting for sign. Anybody who rode in here
should have left some tracks, and if we ride a
circle we'll sure enough find them."
"It'll take us a while," Squires said, "but
it's better than goin' it blind."
They rode with caution. Scott Collins took the
lead, guiding his horse among the trees until they
reached the fairly open boulder- and brush-strewn
area beyond. The only tracks they found in the snow were
those of coyotes and rabbits. Coming down a slope,
they watered the horses at the Little Beaver.
It was very cold and still. The air was crystal clear, and
they listened, sensing the wind for any slightest sound.
"I don't like it," Squires said in a low
voice. "She's too quiet. We know there's
Injuns about."
Scott led the way across the stream and up the bank
beyond.
- "Pt"...WHICH-TOMORROW caret Ji*.caret rather?-
U NDER THE OVERHANG, Cal finished the
last of the bacon in the skillet. "I got to get
me a horse," he said. 1 don t cotton to this
place."
"It oughtn't to be hard to catch that pony of yours was
Jud said. "I should saddle up and have a look around
?" He held his breath, waiting for Cal's
reply, but Cal was thinking his own thoughts. "We could
head back tor Cahforny," he was saying. "I've
heard that Pueblo de los Angeles is a live
place. An' it's warmer than here." "All right,"
Jud said, "I'll go hunt up your horse."
Cal looked up, his snakelike eyes followed
Jud as he picked up his saddle. "All right,
Jud," he said. "You find him. But you be almighty
sure you come back. If you don't, I'll track
you to hell an' gone, but I'll have your
scalp."
"Don't talk foolish. No man in his right mind
would want to ride alone through the country between here an'
the coast. You set tight.. . I'll find that
horse."
He gathered the reins and put his foot in the stirrup
with the hair prickling on the back of his neck. Not
for a minute did he believe Cal would let him
ride away-yet he did. He simply sat there
watching as Jud moved off slowly.
Immediately Jud was out of sight Cal got up, and he
was grinning. "You damn fool," he said aloud,
"don't you suppose I know whose coat that is?"
The story of Pete Schifflin's gold was widely
told in the cantinas of California, and Cal
heard it there. Moreover, he had known Pete, and
had even seen a sample of the gold. Not many
believed in the story and quite a few did not know gold
from iron pyrites, but Cal did. He had been
one of those who helped push the Cherokees off their land
in Georgia because of the gold strike there, but that had
been piddling compared to California.
He had recognized Schifflin's coat the instant
Jud held it up, for Pete Schifflin had one
short arm, caused
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 129
by a bad break years before, and he had hacked off the
end of the sleeve to allow free use of his hand.
If that was Schifflin's coat, then somewhere around had
been Schifflin's diggings, and that probably meant a
cache of gold.
He got up and went to the far end of the overhang, and with
quick, practiced skill he began scanning the
wall, the ground, the whole layout. If there was a
cache here, there would be some sign of it.
Hardy lay still, listening. He could not see Cal from
where he lay, but the man was busy doing something near the
end of the overhang. Hardy desperately wanted
to peep out, but he was afraid of being seen. He could
hear Cal coming nearer, but so slowly that Hardy could not
guess what he might be doing.
Then Cal came within sight. Hardy saw him
examining the rock wall, moving rocks that lay against
it, obviously searching for something. When only a few
feet from the rocks that hid them, he turned and went
back to the fire, replenished it, and stood there warming
his cold fingers. Then he poured a cup of coffee and
started to sip it.
Hardy was shaking with cold, and his fingers were stiff.
He tried to cover Betty Sue a little
better, but he was fearful that he might wake her.
He even thought of trying to run for it, but Betty
Sue could not run fast enough, and he was afraid
Cal would shoot them. Touchy as he was, he would be
likely to shoot at anything that moved . . . and he
had intended to kill them,
anyway. ., ,
Cal sipped his coffee slowly. Close beside
Hardy, Betty Sue was waking up. Her eyes
opened, and Hardy put his finger over his lips. He
looked longingly toward the trees and brush, not over
twenty feet away. He could see the body of the
wolf Cal had killed lying out on the snow, and a
thick clump of trees just beyond it.
All of a sudden he had an idea. He put a
stone in his backslash sling drew his arm back,
hesitated, then threw it hard
toward the brush beyond the wolf. It struck the trunk
of a tree there with a loud crack, and Cal threw himself
sidewise, grabbing for his gun as he moved.
Hardy had never seen a man move so fast. Nor
did Cal stop; he changed position swiftly,
moving out to a pile of rock, and retrieving his
rifle as he did so. There he lay, poised and
ready to shoot, leaving Hardy no better
off.
If they tried to move now, the slightest noise would
make Cal turn around, and he would turn shooting.
Hardy had hoped to get him out into the brush, away from
the cave. He fitted another stone into the sling. There
was only just enough room to throw if he threw flat, with a
side-arm swing.
He pitched the stone, getting this one farther out. It
lit in the brush and Cal's rifle muzzle lifted
slightly, but he remained where he was, obviously
puzzled. Then he got up to his knee, ready
to move.
"You get ready," Hardy whispered. "We've got
to run."
Cal moved so swiftly they were caught napping.
He lunged into the brush and was gone, like a shadow.
Hardy and Betty Sue moved only an instant
afterward, into the brush on the other side, and once there,
they crouched under a bush.
Cal was gone for some time while they huddled there, not
daring to move, scarcely daring to breathe. Then they saw
him come walking back, taking his time, not even looking
around until he was close to the fire. He turned
his head, and suddenly froze.
Hardy looked where Cal was looking, and was
appalled. There were their tracks, clear and fresh in
the snow. Where they had crossed to get into the brush the
snow had been untouched by man or beast, but now their
tracks were plain to see.
Cal strolled over, studying them. Then he looked
toward the brush and spoke casually. "You young uns
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 131
might as well come in. She's almighty cold out.
You'll surely freeze."
"Hardy, let's go back to the fire. Please."
Betty Sue didn't know the trouble that lay in that
man yonder.
He dearly wanted to be warm himself. It was colder
than it had ever been, and their coat was back there.
Maybe they could somehow ...
"Come on in where it's warm," Cal said, his voice
mild. "We got things to talk over, boy. You
an' me, we might make ourselves a deal." Then he
added, "I know where your pa is."
Was the man lying? Hardy hesitated. Betty
Sue tugged at him, and reluctantly he got
up. "Will you take us to pa?" he asked.
"Sure enough," Cal said. "You tell me where the
man is who left that coat, an' I'll take you
to your pa."
They could at least get warm. If they tried to get
away now, he could track them anyway. It was best
to go in and try to win him over. Hardy wasn't very
confident of that, but the idea of the fire was too much for
him. "We're coming in," he said.
They walked in, hand in hand, and Cal squatted by the
fire, staring at them through his small, cruel eyes,
smiling a little. "Want some coffee, boy? You an'
that gal best have some. It warms you a mite."
When Betty Sue was sipping coffee, and trading
sips with Hardy, Cal asked, "What about the man
who wears that coat, boy? Where is he?"
"I don't rightly know."
"You know when he'll be back?"
"No, sir."
Cal's irritation showed. "Now look here, boy.
Don't lie to me! That coat's been wore,
recent."
"We've been sleeping in it. We brought it here."
"You're lyin' like hell. You didn't have no coat
before."
"No, sir. We found it."
He stared at them suspiciously. "Found it?
War?"
"Back yonder. We camped in a dugout
during the storm. The coat was there. So were the kettle
and the frying pan."
Cal thought about that and decided it was probably
true. Pete Schifflin was a canny man, and this was
not a likely place for such a man to hole up.
"You didn't see anything of that man Schifflin?"
"We didn't see anybody. The coat was all
dusty, and it hung in a sort of closet.
Nobody had been around that dugout in a long time.
That man must've gone off and maybe hurt himself
somehow. Or Indians got him."
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, nobody had been in there. The coat was
hung out of the way, so I figure it was hung up
during some time when he didn't have any reason to wear
it. I don't think he went away to stay, because he
left too much of his outfit behind."
Cal considered this idea, and accepted it. "You're a
right smart boy," he said. He filled the cup again
for them. "Now, if Jud comes back, you're not
to say anything about this, d'you hear?"
"I won't if you give me some of whatever it is
you're after," Hardy said.
Cal chuckled; he seemed pleased. "You'll do,
boy. You'll do. What do you figure it was
Schifflin had?"
"Gold or furs," Hardy said; "and I don't
think it was furs. I didn't see any traps
around there, nor any cache either. I think it was
gold."
Cal studied him, interested in the boy in spite of
himself. He was a shrewd man, who was filled with
hatred for anything or anyone that opposed him in any
way, but he appreciated cunning, and he felt that
the boy had it. It would be a shame to kill him. If
it wasn't for that baby...
"You see any of that gold?" he asked Hardy.
"No, sir, but I figure a body could find it.
I don't figure he'd want to travel much for
fear of being seen by Indians. The more he moved and the more
tracks he
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 133
made, the better their chance of catching him. So I
figure that gold was somewhere close by the dugout."
"Good figurin', boy. You got any other ideas?"
"Yes, sir. I think that man went off and got
hurt. I didn't see any shovel or pick
around, nor an axe either. So I think he had them with
him when he was hurt, or maybe killed ... or
he left them at the diggings. I think that's
what he'd do. He wouldn't want to have to fetch them
back and forth every day, because he'd want to carry his
rifle to use if Indians came."
Cal seemed to be thinking the matter over, while
Hardy edged closer to the fire. He still had the
derringer. If Cal tried to hurt Betty Sue
he would shoot him.
All the time Hardy was thinking hard, wondering what
they could do to escape. If they could get away, he
desperately wanted to take the coat with him, and some
food.
It was good to be warmer now, but he did not like the way
Cal kept smiling at him. Hardy had been
talking more than he usually did, trying to gain a little
time.
He had seen greedy men before, had seen his father
bargain with them, had seen the look in their eyes, as
he could see it now in Cal's eyes. But he saw
something else too, something that frightened him, and he
knew they must escape or be killed.
"You young uns jes' take it easy," Cal said
calmly. "I figure we got us a chance to git
rich, but don't you say a word if Jud comes
back. That Jud, he's a mighty mean man, an'
he don't cotton to youngsters."
He smoked thoughtfully for a few minutes, and then
said, very casually, "You figure that horse of yours
is somewhere about?"
"He might be. I don't think he'd go far."
"S'pose you called him an' he heard you .. .
would he come?"
"I think so," was the quiet answer.
"Now, s'pose you walk up yonder on the rise
there. You just go up there an' call out a few times.
I'd say
maybe eight or ten times, with a little wait between.
I'll jes' keep your li'l sister here with me ...
sort of to make sure you'll come back."
"Don't you hurt her," Hardy said.
"Now, boy, what kind of talk is that? We're
pards, ain't we? Anyway, you know where that
Schifflin dugout is, an' I don't, so I
ain't likely to get you sore at me, boy. You
git up there now an' call out."
Hardy walked away reluctantly. Slowly he
started up the rise. It was less than seventy long
paces from where Cal sat, and would be an easy
rifle shot. And Cal was holding Betty Sue.
On the climb to the top, Hardy could think of nothing
he could do. He was getting chilled again, and
he was hungry and tired. He felt weaker than he
had at any time before. But the worst of it was not knowing
what to do, and he felt so alone. He cried a. little
as he climbed the hill.
Standing up there, he looked back. Cal was sitting
with his rifle in his hand, and Betty Sue was on the
ground near the fire, where he could see her without
really taking his eyes off Hardy.
The top of the hill was bare. Beyond it were lowgrowing
trees and some brush and rocks, but he could not see
far because there were thicker trees farther along.
He called out, "Red! Red!" He waited to let
the echo die, and then called again. "Red! Red! .
.. Comer
The air was very clear, and even his small voice
carried well. He waited again, looking up at the
sweeping rise of the Wind River Mountains, only
a few miles off to the north. Then he called
once more, directing his voice toward the mountains.
Scott Collins turned his horse away from the
bluff above Beaver Creek and started north,
Bill Squires and Frank Darrow trailing behind.
They had lost any trace of the smoke, though they were
now within a few hun-
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 135
dred yards of it; and the wind, little as there was, carried
the smell off to the south, away from them. Scott
turned in his saddle. "Damn it, Bill, I-was
He did not complete the sentence. Faint, yet not very
far off, they heard the call: "Red! Red! ...
Come!"
SCOTT COLLINS STARTED to cry out when a hard
hand grasped his arm. "Scott!" Squires's
voice was hoarse. "Ssh!"
He pointed. .. . On the slope opposite,
perhaps a half-mile away, three Indians rode,
one behind the other. Three of them ... and then another,
and another.
"We'd better get down there fast," Darrow said.
"They've heard that boy, too. And they're
closer'n we are, I'm bettin'."
The bluff was steep, and was littered with gigantic
boulders, thick brush, and stunted trees. They
rode swiftly along the rim, looking for a way
down. It was Squires who led the way now, for he
had covered this rim before. Soon they found a way
down, steep but negotiable, and they slid their
horses to the bottom.
From the knoll where he was calling to the stallion,
Hardy could see the opposite slope, and
he glimpsed an Indian an instant before the men on
the rim did. He turned and ran down the slope,
back to the camp.
Cal got up and spoke angrily. "You git right
back up there an' call that horse!" he yelled.
"Damn you, if you-was He pointed the pistol barrel
toward Betty Sue.
Hardy stood there. "You'd better listen, mister!
There's Indians coming!"
"You're a-lyin'," Cal said, but he was suddenly
wary. The boy did not look as if he was lying, and
he was frightened, downright scared.
"How many did you see?" Cal asked.
"There's five or six ... maybe more. I
didn't wait to
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 137
see. There was an Indian that followed us, and there was
travois sign back yonder. He could have rounded
up a mess of them to come after us."
Cal swore viciously. No chance to get
away... and where in God's world was ('udf
"Come on, boy. We'd better hole up an'
lie quiet."
He swiftly went back to the cave and looked
around. It could be worse. There was the partial
wall of rocks somebody had thrown up for defense
or for a fire reflector, and there was the corner behind
the rocks where the children had hidden.
The very fact that he had no horse might help. It
was just possible that when the Indians discovered that they would
leave him alone, deciding the fight wouldn't be worth
what they would get out of it.
"Get down behind those rocks in the corner," Cal
told the children, "an' stay out of sight."
Pulling all his gear in behind the wall, Cal
hunkered down there. He had a little food and over a
hundred rounds of ammunition. The field of fire
was a pretty good one, but if those Injuns were smart
and started shooting at the back wall of the cave he was
finished. The ricocheting bullets could tear him
into chopped meat-he had seen that happen before now. But
most Indians lacked enough experience with firearms to do
that; and not even many white men were likely to think of it.
Behind the rock pile where the children lay close together,
Hardy could see very little. It was darker back where they
were, and he thought that the Indians might not even see
them.
"Don't be scared," he whispered to Betty Sue.
"We'll be all right."
"I wish your pa would come."
"He'll come-you'll see. You can just bet he's
comin'."
But how could pa ever find them now, hidden as they
were? Maybe he was still waiting at Bridger. After
all, the wagon train couldn't have reached there yet,
even if it had kept going. Or maybe it would have just
about been there by now. Hardy had lost track of the time.
He could feel Betty Sue trembling. He
wondered how much she had guessed about her ma and pa.
She never talked of them anymore, and he did not
mention them, for he did not want her to think about them.
Sooner or later she would have to know, but he hoped that
wouldn't be until both of them were safe in a warm
place with pa to watch over them.
Betty Sue was so thin, and her eyes always had a
frightened look in them now. As far as that went, he must
look a sight himself. His hands were thin and his wrists were
skinny; his ribs stood out from the flesh. Cal
spoke softly to them: "You be quiet now." Hardy
could see him lying there with his rifle ready, and a neat
double row of ammunition laid out on a flat rock
in front of him. He had a breech-loading
percussion carbine manufactured by Jenks. It was a
.52 caliber, and was a good shooting gun.
For a long time there was no sound, and Hardy's
breathing got almost back to normal. He was even
hoping Betty Sue would go to sleep, but she was
wide-eyed and listening, just as he was.
Suddenly Hardy thought of the bodies at the wagon
train. How still they had been! How tumbled and
strange-looking! He felt his throat grow tight,
and he was trembling. Betty Sue touched his hand.
"Hardy, are you cold?" she asked. "You're
shivering."
He put his head down on the rocks and struggled
to hold himself still. "Yes, I'm cold," he
answered. "I wish we were closer to that fire."
Cal was lifting his rifle, very slowly. Looking in
the direction the rifle pointed, Hardy saw not even
the faintest stirring of leaves.
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 139
Everything was quiet. Not a sound stirred the morning.
The air was still. .. and how cold it was!
Then the stillness was shattered by a weird cacophony
of yells, and from the brush tumbled the body of a man.
He was on his knees, and for an instant it seemed as
if the man would stand up and walk, and then he toppled
slowly forward and rolled over.
It was Jud.
Hardy heard a choking ugly sound from
Cal, then there was silence. Taunting yells came
from the woods, trying to draw his fire. Suddenly a
rider burst from the trees and went sweeping by. As
he passed the overhang he let fly with an arrow,
which smacked harmlessly into the wall shielding the fire.
Cal did not shoot.
Several minutes passed, and then another rider
came from the opposite direction, lying far over on
the side of his horse. He let go with another arrow.
Still Cal did not shoot, but just as the horse turned
up the slope toward the trees the Indian's back
was momentarily revealed, and Cal fired.
Hardy was looking at the Indian and he saw his
body wince, but he was still clinging to his mount when he
disappeared into the trees.
A volley of bullets spattered and ricocheted
among the rocks, the booming thunder of their reports
reverberating from the cliff. One bullet struck a
rock in front of Hardy and scattered stinging
fragments all around. Betty Sue tightened her
body close to him and whimpered.
"It's all right," Hardy said to her. "Those oPeople
bullets can't get to us back here."
He said it only to ease her fears, for he knew
that, though they were out of the line of fire
directed at Cal, a ricochet might hit them.
Cal, evil though he might be, was no fool.
He did not waste a shot, holding his fire for the right
target. In case of need, he had his pistol as
backup.
After the crashing thunder of the volley it was silent.
Cal kept turning his head to right or left, watching
for some try at taking him on the flank. That he was
frightened was obvious, and it was with reason. He was
fighting alone, and he had no horse. Jud was out
there, dead. If Cal came out of this alive, he was
going to have to do it alone.
Hardy knew the Indians could not see into the darkness
behind the pile of rocks, and he peered out, trying
to see if there was any way of slipping into the brush
without being seen. The trouble was, he did not know where
all the Indians were.
He could guess what Cal was afraid of. If the
Indians rushed him from several directions at
once, he might get one, even two or three of
them, but they would surely get him. He might get
one with his first shot with the rifle, but he would have no chance
to reload, and must draw and fire his pistol. He
would be very lucky, considering the few yards the
Indians had to cross, to kill even one
with the pistol.
Hardy's heart was pounding hard. He stopped looking
out and buried his face against his arm to shut out the scene
before him. He tried to think .. . but what could he do?
He had done all he could, but it simply was not
enough.
Then he remembered something he had heard. When an
enemy is struck down, all the Indians try
to get in a blow, to count coups on the enemy's
body. If Cal was downed, wouldn't they all
close in around him, crowding close to strike at the
body? Mightn't there be a chance just at that
moment?... Or would it be better just to lie still here and
hope the Indians would not find them?
The silence and waiting continued. Hardy looked out
again, watching the brush for some movement, but he could
detect none. He saw some low evergreens out there that
had sprung up after an old fire, most of them
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 141
two to four feet high. Trees were back of them, and
there was more brush. He thought he saw, off to the left
where the trees grew close together, the shadow of something
moving.
He stared hard, and something moved again-it was something
large, and seemed to be of a dull copper
hue.... It was Red!
In that light, the coat of the horse looked
duller... but of course, he was putting on his winter
coat.... But Red was there, close by!
A surge of excitement swept through Hardy. He
almost rose up in his wild eagerness to run to the
horse, to throw his arms about him. For a moment he
scarcely thought of what the Indians might do to him,
but even as he seemed about to call out, he stopped.
The Indians would never let such a horse escape
them, and they would kill Hardy or capture him, and
Betty Sue as well. However, the very sight of the
horse, the knowledge that he was near, gave him hope. He
didn't know how it could be done, but there must be some
way of getting to Big Red. And once on the back
of that stallion, nothing in this country could catch them.
"Boy," Cal said softly, only for Hardy's
ears, "that horse of yours is out there. You call him
now. Call him in." "I won't."
"Boy"-Cal spoke quite calmly-"those Injuns
ain't apt to kill anybody as young as you. I want
a runnin' chance. Now you call that horse, or
I'll kill the both of you. I'll do it myself, without
waitin' for no Indians."
At this moment there was room for only one
thought in Hardy's mind. Big Red, in the hands of
such a man? Big Red, who had always trusted
Hardy and loved him. "No," he said. "I won't
do it." "One more chance," Cal said. In his voice the
thin line of sanity that stretched between Cal's calmness
and his insane fury was almost broken. "One more chance,
boy. I'll kill the girl first."
He half turned, rolling on his shoulder a little,
to lift his pistol. "You got mighty little time, boy,
an' that girl's got none at all. You call him
now. I seen him out there, so call him."
Cal eared back the hammer on the pistol, and the
click was loud in the silence.

nARDY WAS SURE that Cal meant to do just what
he said, but there was no panic in him now. The hunger
and the cold, the constant fear, the nights of worry and the
days of struggle had given him something strong, even
when they had been making him grow tired and weak. He
was thinking now, and he knew that Cal would have to shift
position to get a shot at them ... or wait
until the Indians had gone, if they ever did go.
"Mister"-Hardy's voice was low, but it carried far
enough-"you stick your head out to get a shot at me, and
one of those Indians will sure enough kill you."
"Boy," came Cal's wheedling tone, "you toll that
horse over here. On him we can all git away
... scotfree!"
Now that was a sure enough lie. If the horse came
close, one man might jump on him and ride
off... he just might... but the odds were against it. But
three people? And the time they would take mounting up? There
would be no chance of it, and Cal knew it. Cal
wanted Big Red for himself, and if he did throw
himself into the saddle and get away alive he would have
Big Red to keep-and Cal was a mean, cruel
man.
"No."
"Boy"-Cal's voice was trembling with
fury-"I'm tellin' you! I'll kill-was
Two guns fired almost as one. In twisting about,
Cal's boot had thrust beyond the rock, and the two
bullets spat sand, one of them doing no more than that,
the other ripping the heel from his boot.
Cal jerked his foot back, and swore with deep and
awful fury. Turning, he fired with his rifle into the
brush where the shots had come from, then swiftly
reloaded.
Hardy was almost afraid to look for Big Red; how
long would it be before the Indians discovered
him?
"Betty Sue, you be ready now," he said. "We
may have to run real fast... all of a sudden."
"All right."
At the end of the overhang just beyond where Hardy and
Betty Sue were hidden behind the rocks, the space
between the roof and the rock floor was only about four
feet. Elsewhere along the front of the cliff the
roof was six or seven feet above the floor. The
rocks that now formed the pile had once been a wall
enclosing this recess, which might have been a storage
place for grain, or perhaps merely a sleeping
shelter.
Peering out under the overhang toward the woods where
Big Red stood, Hardy looked fearfully at the
open stretch that separated them from the trees. It was
possible they might get into the trees without being seen,
but the chance was slight. Clinging to Betty Sue's
hand, he edged that way, keeping well down behind the
rocks.
Another shot came from the Indians. Apparently
they were undecided about attacking. To attack meant
a warrior would die, and no Indian wanted to face
certain death. To do a daring deed that he could sing about in
the winter lodges was one thing; but this was something
different.
Ashawakie knew they could kill this man-it was only
a matter of time. He advised patience, so they
waited.
But Ashawakie was restless, for it irritated him that
the big red horse was not here, as he had believed he
would be. They had captured two horses and they had
taken a scalp. They had a rifle, a pistol,
some clothes, and a blanket, along with a few odds and
ends. Their foray was not unsuccessful thus far, but
to Ashawakie it would be a failure if he did not
get the great red stallion.
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 145
backslash caret ALSO SPOKE AGAIN. "Boy,
you got one more chance. I tell you, no matter what
happens, you call that horse or I'll shoot the
both of you!"
Hardy did not reply. He had just seen an
Indian corning down from the brush on the far side,
creeping closer and closer. If that Indian was seen
by Cal, Cal would shoot, and they would all be
looking....
The Indian was well around on the right side of
Cal, and close enough to make the try. He sprang
up and, knife in hand, he charged.
Instantly Cal wheeled and fired, and as he did so
Hardy grabbed Betty Sue's wrist and they darted
out from under the end of the overhang and ran for the woods.
Cal's rifle shot caught the Indian full in the
chest, at almost point-blank range, and the sound of the
blast was still in the air when Cal wheeled, pistol in
hand, and fired into the woods. And then he saw the children.
With a hoarse shout, he swung all the way around
to fire, but at that instant there was a burst of firing from
the woods. Cal held his fire, for the shooting was not
directed at him.
An Indian burst from the woods, lying low across his
pony, plunged across the open space, and was gone before
Cal could do more than snap a quick shot that missed.
From other parts of the woods dashed several others; one
shot at him, the others fired behind them at some unseen
enemy.
In an instant they were gone. The crash of gunfire
ended, the Indians had fled. In the stillness there was
the acrid smell of gun powder. "Red!"
Cal turned sharply as the boy called. The
stallion burst from the brush, whinnied softly, and
came quickly up to the boy, who stood waiting,
holding the girl by the hand.
The ugly fury, throttled by his
inability to move while
the Indians kept him under fire, burst now in a
sudden, unreasoning desire to kill.
"Boy, bring me that horse!" The gun was up,
tilted in his hand, ready to fire.
Hardy turned around, standing stiff and straight. "You
leave us alone!" he said. "And you leave Red
alone!"
The gun started to level in a coolly deliberate
plan to murder, when Scott Collins stepped out from
the trees.
"Drop it!" His voice rang sharply. "Drop
it, Cal!"
Cal went to one knee behind the rocks and fired as his
knee hit the ground. He aimed not at the children, but
at Scott Collins.
Scott's rifle muzzle had been lowered, but it
came up in one easy move just a little above the hip.
Cal saw the leap of flame just as his own finger
closed on the trigger. He felt the thud of a
bullet on his chest and started to stand up for a better
shot. The second shot, aimed at his head, caught
him in the throat as he lunged up. The pistol
dropped from his fingers and he fell, hit the rock
parapet, and toppled over.
He rolled free, muttered a curse and tried
to push himself up, then fell back.
Hardy was staring at his father. "Pa?" His voice was a
trembling sound. "Pa?"
Scott went to him and dropped on one knee.
"Hardy... Hardy, boy ..." His voice was low
and hoarse, and it faded out. He could not speak, but he
caught the boy to him and clung to him, looking beyond him
at Betty Sue.
"Come on, honey," he said to her, and gathered her
to him.
Fifty yards away, Bill Squires drew up
alongside Frank Darrow. Squires took his
chewing tobacco out, looked at it speculatively,
then bit off a small piece. "You know something,
Frank?" he said. "To be honest, I never thought
we'd find them."
"You didn't?" Darrow grinned at him. "I
reckon I
DOWN THE LONG HILLS still 147
always did, Bill. I figured if the boy was
anything like his pa he would just keep a-comin', and he
done it."
Scott Collins got to his feet. "Come on,"
he said, and he gathered the reins of the big
horse. "Climb up, Hardy. We've got to be
moving on."
When the boy was in the saddle, he lifted Betty
Sue up.
"Pa," Hardy said, "there's a buffalo coat
yonder. We carried it off from a dugout a ways
back. Can we keep it, pa?"
"You'll need it. We've got a cold ride."
He walked over to the coat, glancing only once
at Cal. He remembered him now from
Hangtown-he had known him the instant he put
eyes on him.
When he was again in the saddle, and Hardy was wrapped
in the buffalo coat, the boy said, "Pa? You carry
Betty Sue. I think she'd like it."
"I'd like it, too, Hardy. I surely would,"
Scott Collins said.
The snow crunched under their horses' hoofs, and a
slight wind stirred, sifting a little loose snow.
Some of the snow settled in the creases of Cal's
clothing, along the line of his lips, upon his open
eyes. The wind stirred again, and more snow sifted
down.
Hardy hunched his small shoulders under the buffalo
coat, warm and snug. Somewhere ahead was
Fort Bridger, and pa was riding right behind him.
"still think of myself in the oral tradition-
as a troubadour, a village taleteller, the man
in the shadows of the campfire. That's the way
I'd like to be remembered-as a storyteller.
A good storyteller."
T T to S DOUBTFUL thatanyaUtHor could
be as, JL home in the world re-created in his
novels as Louis Dearborn L'Amour. Not
only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged
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my characters walk." His personal experiences as well
as his lifelong devotion to historical research
combined to give Mr. L'Amour the unique knowledge and
understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American
frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.
Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L'Amour could
trace his own family in North America back
to the early
1600's and follow their steady progression
westward, "always on the frontier." As a boy
growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he
absorbed all he could about his family's frontier
heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who
was scalped by Sioux warriors.
Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire
to broaden his horizons, Mr. L'Amour left
home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide
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elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, miner,
and an officer in the transportation corps during
World War II. During his "yondering" days he also
circled the world
on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea,
was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the
Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of
fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and
worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a
voracious reader and collector of rare books.
His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.
Mr. L'Amour "wanted to write almost from the time
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written for fiction magazines, Mr. L'Amour
published his first fulllength novel, Hondo, in the
United States in 1953. Every one of his more than
100 books is in print; there are more than 270
million copies of his books in print worldwide,
making him one of the bestselling authors in modern
literary history. His books have been
translated into twenty languages, and more than
forty-five of his novels and stories have been made
into feature films and television movies.
His hardcover bestsellers include The Lonesome
Gods, The Walking Drum (his
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The recipient of many great honors and awards, in
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work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of
Freedom by President Reagan.
Louis L'Amour died on June 10, 1988.
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STRANDED
Everyone was dead. Indian raiders massacred the
entire wagon train. Only seven-year-old
Hardy Collins and three-year-old Betty Sue
Powell managed to survive. With a knife, a
horse, and the survival lessons his father taught
him, Hardy must face the challenges of the open
prairie. Using ingenuity and common sense, he
builds shelters, searches out water, and forages for
food. But as he struggles to keep them alive, he
realizes that their survival will depend on his
ability to go beyond what his father was able to teach him.
Hardy bravely presses on, fighting off the
temptation to give up, until a howling blizzard
and a pack of hungry wolves force him to make
decisions that no seven-year-old boy should ever have
to make.
LOUIS I7AMOUR
Our foremost storyteller of the authentic
West, L'Amour has thrilled a nation
by chronicling the adventures of the brave men and women
who settled the American frontier. There are more
than 270 million copies of his books in print
around the world.
Visit the Louis L'Amour website at
wwwddlouislamour.com.
US$4.99 still $6.99 CAN
ISBN 0-553-28081-3
76783"...00499"...M3