morris had not to wait more than fifteen minutes after len’s departure before he found his work at hand. the snow so softened the trail that the sound of the horse’s hoofs were not heard until they had approached within a few feet of the ambush, and amid the blinding flakes, it was impossible to recognize the face of the well-muffled rider.
it was certainly old bob, however, who had been seen saddling the horse, and morris concluded that the man before him was he. had it been scotty, he might have hardened his heart to almost any degree of severity, but heretofore he had had no quarrel with bob, for whom he felt contempt chiefly, and he intended to let him off as easily as it would be safe to do.{170}
rousing himself at the sound of the stumbling nag, morris had but half a minute to pause, before suddenly springing in front of the horse, with a blow at the animal’s head and a yell like a wild shoshone.
the startled and punished animal reared, spun round in the narrow trail as nimbly as a deer could have done, slipped on the wet stones, and fell headlong over the low bank at the edge of the trail, flinging his astounded rider over his head into the creek.
morris, delighted at the effect of his first charge, followed it up with a second whoop, hearing which the horse picked himself up and rushed up the trail at break-neck speed, frightened out of its senses.
old bob, panic-stricken, dumb-founded, and shocked by his fall, was just rising from the shallow water, when morris got down the bank. leaping upon him, he seized the wretched victim by collar, and shook him by both hands as a terrier does a rat. then snatching up his stick he began to lay it vigor{171}ously over bob’s shoulders, keeping at it until the old fellow could find enough of his scattered wits and tangled legs to enable him to run away.
“get back in your hole, you old sarpint!” morris yelled, as he flung his cudgel after the retreating enemy. “next time you thieves want to sneak off to town, mind you get permission of your betters!”
to this bob replied, as was expected, by a couple of shots from his revolver, which, up to this time, he had fairly forgotten in the surprise of the unexpected attack, but morris dodged behind a rock at the first flash, and no harm was done.
he did not return this random fire, but kept wide-awake for a few minutes, thinking bob might come back with his companions. this, however, he did not do, and morris lost no further time in starting home.
bob admitted afterward, that he thought that at least two men had attacked him, which spoke well for morris’s activity, and that it{172} was max who was giving him the shaking. wet, sore, chilled and altogether dazed, he was in no condition to lead an attack against an ambushed enemy in the middle of a snowy night, nor were his accomplices eager to go and avenge his wrongs, preferring, so long as their own precious skins remained whole, to stay where they were and scold at him for his failure.
all this happened on friday night, and to that fact the superstitious miner attributed his misfortunes.
the storm ceased before daybreak. then what a strange, new, glorious landscape was that the sun rose upon! its beams streamed athwart limitless spaces of snow. overhead, the height sandy had partly ascended rose in rounded outlines, a huge dome of unblemished white. ahead, as if a mighty drift had been heaped across the gap between the mountains, lay the saddle over which the trail led through the woods; and inside the gorge all the roughnesses were smoothed, all the bowlders{173} and prostrate logs, the boughs of the spruces and cottonwoods, bushes, ferns, and weeds, were packed full and weighed down with the soft and flurry flakes.
beyond calling for a little shoveling inside the fort, the snow was no hindrance, of course, to the underground work of the firm of b. b. & co. they hammered away at improving their tunnel all day on saturday and until late at night, and followed it by a pleasant sunday’s rest, in spite of their cramped quarters and tedious guard-duty.
the case was far different with the unfortunate jumpers, who, at the aurora, had no shelter, and no way of getting free from the snow and the wet.
this misfortune was doubled by a thaw on sunday afternoon, suddenly letting loose a great flood of melted snow, and turning the creek into a torrent, which, before monday morning, had so swollen as to cover the trail and ford with a rushing flood six or eight feet deep, that it would have been madness to cross.{174}
old bob and his companions, therefore, were not only very uncomfortable, but between the impassable creek and the unscalable wall on one side, and the rifles of our friends on the other, they were really prisoners.
“i reckon they’re getting hungry over yonder, too,” remarked morris, when a heavy rain on monday night had produced a second flood in the creek. “i don’t believe they have grub enough to last much longer. they couldn’t have brought a great deal with ’em, and it must be about used up.”
that was the fact of the case. rations were growing very short in the enemy’s camp, and if the end had not come pretty soon they would have been obliged to surrender, since it was impossible to get to where their provisions had been cached with such great labor preparatory to this campaign.
even to our friends, who had no such miseries to fret them, the situation was becoming extremely monotonous and annoying.{175} max was glum and anxious. sandy had lost his humor. morris would growl softly at himself first for letting old bob get away with a single unbroken bone, and then for having allowed that kid, as he called len, to go on alone to town in the storm. it was tedious enough to be shut up in this cabin, in the midst of such miserable weather, and in hourly danger of a bullet in one’s brain, but when to that was added the worry over len’s safety, the suspense became nearly unendurable.
