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Updated: May 28, 2025
Well, as I said, he had it in for me, and the first thing I didn't know, he'd hit me on the head with a rifle-stock, bundled the squaw into the canoe, and pulled out. You all know what the Yukon country was in '84. And there I was, without an outfit, left alone, a thousand miles from anywhere. I got out all right, though there's no need of telling how, and so did he.
One Indian fell, and another set up a cry like the bellowing of a bull. But poor Gowan did not fire a third shot. A tall savage approached him from behind, and striking him upon the head with his rifle-stock felled him to the earth. Then the savages fired five or six shots into him as he lay upon the floor.
Silently through the dense, shadowy wood crept the sheriff and his men, followed by the tall woman in black and a lank, bearded man whose rifle-stock bore seven tiny but significant notches, sinister epitaphs for as many by-gone men. A dog barked, the first alarm. Then another, and still a third joined in a fierce outcry against the invaders.
I had sighted the rifle among the yellow leaves of the fallen oak an hundred times. But Polly Ann looked not once to the right or left. Her eyes and her prayers followed the form of her husband. Then, like the cracking of a great drover's whip, a shot rang out in the stillness, and my hands tightened over the rifle-stock.
When his assailants were close to him they hesitated, for, aged and bent as he was, the old man looked dangerous. He stood there like a wounded lion, and swung the rifle-stock about. Presently one of the men struck at him and missed him, but before he could retreat Silas brought down the stock of the rifle on his head, and down he went like an ox beneath a poleaxe.
He struck once, twice; he saw bodies whirl sidewise and fall to the ground. Then suddenly he seemed alone, panting fiercely, the smashed rifle-stock uplifted for a blow. "It's the big fellow," roared a voice at his left. "Why don't you fools shoot?" He sprang backward, crouching lower, his one endeavor to draw their fire, so as to protect her lying hidden among the rock shadows.
"He's a cheerful brute," remarked Joe to Jim. "Ugh!" grunted the big Indian, jamming Joe with his rifle-stock. Joe took heed to the warning and spoke no more. He gave all his attention to the course over which he was being taken. Here was his first opportunity to learn something of Indians and their woodcraft.
Suddenly there was a break in the silence, a weird, thrilling sound, like a great sigh, but not human a sound to make one's blood run faster and fingers twitch on rifle-stock. It came from the gloom of the tamaracks. After it there fell a deeper silence than before, and the owl, like a noiseless snowflake, drifted out over the frozen lake.
She had heard that California stage-drivers were picturesque fellows, and in all probability the displacing of the old Concord coach of the movie-thriller in favour of the motor-stage had not disturbed the idiosyncrasies of the drivers in their choice of raiment. She noted the rifle-stock projecting from the scabbard, and a vision of a stage hold-up flashed across her mind.
A bright, brisk, early spring morning, with bugles sounding, the tramp of feet, an occasional hoarse shout, and, out in the sunshine, gleams of light flashing in all directions from well-burnished brass ornament or rifle-stock; while the generally dismal-looking barrack yard was gay as a garden-bed newly planted with scarlet geraniums in full bloom.
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