The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1895-01-10

walls to which they were attached. Then
silence.
"Jackl o, Jack 4" called Cherokee, as
he raised his friend to chair and opened
the buck-skin jacket, through which the
blood WAS flowing. Jack! Have you
got it, old boy?" And never was sound
so mournful e'er 30 dear a. the groan
with which his friend and comrsde an
swered him. A hssty examination Of the
wound which showed that the ball had
glanced of rib and done no serious dam
age; glass OF whisky down the throat
of his reviving partner; quick jump to
the door and back again with the state
ment that the gang was heading for the
Natcheez gap-and then the lights at
Churchill's went out and q squad OF hur-
rying horsemen rode down the single
street of Old Town aud out upon the
plain; Jack Munroe-hstless. his hair
blowing about his face, the fire Of hate in
bis eyes and vengeance in his heart, in
the lead.
Boston man heap memalooss," Um-
tuch savagely told Edison, AS they gal
loped to the head of the retreating In
dians. Therein was the hall. breed
nightly mistaken, though Edison could
not contradict him. The cavalcade
stopped at the door OF his cabin, and
Bess answered her fathers call. Then,
without warning, 4 redskin buried his
Ratchet IN the old mans head, Umtuch
threw his arm around the girls form and
drew her to his saddle-snd the wild ride
began again.
Not soon enough, however. to drown
the frenzied scream which came from the
lips of the Mortified daughter; not soon
enough TO silence the echoes OF it, which
| fioated into the still, December air, back
over the plain, through the clear moon
light, and brought heart-broken my
God! from the breast of the man who
led the pursuers.
That was all. Never a sound broke
from the steadily galloping crowd of de-
termined men, never an answer to the
fendish yell which at times came back
from the fleeing band far ahead. Only
Joe Bowser, as the horsemen dashed by
the body of Edison, lying white and still
near the roadside, muttered: Damn SIGH
caryon" While Churchill remembered
his fears of the early evening and nodded
grimly to himself.
| Down the trail went pursuers and pur-
sued. And even when they felt they
were gaining on the painted devils, they
knew they dare not shoot. Strategy must
be prevail-yet how? That worried Jack
more than the sting of his wound. He
ground his teeth in anguish as he thought
of Bess' fate should he fail to liberate her.
Fail? He'd die at her very feet, though
a thousand bowling redskins surrounded
her, before he would fail And 90 the
chase went on.
Meantime the girl was suffering a
thousand tortures as she felt herself
borne along by the flying horse Umtuch
bestrode. Grief for her fathers death
was mingled with thousand attempted
excuses for his apparent duplicity and
baseness. Her Indian csptor frequently
addressed her, yet she preserved an obsti-
nate silence, which only served to irrltate
! him. He tainted her with her lovers
death, her fathers wickedness, and he
dwelt at length upon the fate in store for
her Glorying in her despair he rode for
ward-past the site of the present beauti-
full city of North Yakima, up the trail to
the northwest, out over the valley now
watered by the Hubbar ditch, into the
little walled fertile basin beyond the
Cowychee, and spurred up the narrow
path cut in the base OF the Painted Rocks,
the Septris Patahanum only to be met
at its ending with a rushing, swirling,
boiling torrent of water which effectualy
blocked his passage, telling him the ford
was impossible, and that his race was
| run!
| There had hesn a chinook the day be-
| fore; and the waters of the Natcheez had
been fed by heaps upon heaps, drifts upon
drifts Of melting snow in the lower sum-
mits of the Cascades. A mountain
strsamlet is ever treacherous, and the
Nstcheez is a mighty river at its lowest.
When it rises in its might it sweeps all
natural barriers before it and at no point
in all it's sinuous wsnderings, whirlpools
and cataracts is it more tempestuous than
at the base of the grand cliffs at the gap.
famous over Washington and known to
every pioneer as the Painted Rocks. On
this Christmas night the great waves
were capped with foam and kissing with
the swiftness of their motion. Huge logs
tumbled over and over in the mad torrent,
parts of shattered bui ldings tossed their
broken planks high in the sir-only to
fall back again to be swallowed up by the
flood OF waters.
Umtuch was affrighted, appalled,. He
wheeled bis horse at the very brink of the
rapids, which threw their cooling spray
over his scowling, angry face, and turned
to retrace his steps. Fear gave him pru-
dence in this act, however. He ordered
his men to gallop back over the trail,
while he followed in the rear, and scarce
ly had the foremost riders reached the
basin at the Cowychee bridge, just be-
yond the turn where the Septris Pata-
hsnum begin, when the sharp crack OF
| - II