It was too late to escape.  Joe Blunt and Henri had already swept round and cut off their retreat.  In this extremity the Indians slipped from the backs of their steeds and darted into the bushes, where they were safe from pursuit, at least on horseback, while the trappers got behind the horses and drove them towards the camp.

At this moment one of the horses sprang ahead of the others and made for the mountain, with its mane and tail flying wildly in the breeze.

“Marrow-bones and buttons!” shouted one of the men, “there goes Dick Varley’s horse.”

“So it am!” cried Henri, and dashed off in pursuit, followed by Joe and two others.

“Why, these are our own horses,” said Cameron in surprise, as they drove them into a corner of the hills from which they could not escape.

This was true, but it was only half the truth, for, besides their own horses, they had secured upwards of seventy Indian steeds; a most acceptable addition to their stud, which, owing to casualties and wolves, had been diminishing too much of late.  The fact was that the Indians who had captured the horses belonging to Pierre and his party were a small band of robbers who had travelled, as was afterwards learned, a considerable distance from the south, stealing horses from various tribes as they went along.  As we have seen, in an evil hour they fell in with Pierre’s party and carried off their steeds, which they drove to a pass leading from one valley to the other.  Here they united them with the main band of their ill-gotten gains, and while the greater number of the robbers descended farther into the plains in search of more booty, four of them were sent into the mountains with the horses already procured.  These four, utterly ignorant of the presence of white men in the valley, drove their charge, as we have seen, almost into the camp.

Cameron immediately organized a party to go out in search of Pierre and his companions, about whose fate he became intensely anxious, and in the course of half-an-hour as many men as he could spare with safety were despatched in the direction of the Blue Mountains.

CHAPTER XXII.

Charlie’s adventures with savages and bears—­Trapping life.

It is one thing to chase a horse; it is another thing to catch it.  Little consideration and less sagacity are required to convince us of the truth of that fact.

The reader may perhaps venture to think this rather a trifling fact.  We are not so sure of that.  In this world of fancies, to have any fact incontestably proved and established is a comfort, and whatever is a source of comfort to mankind is worthy of notice.  Surely our reader won’t deny that!  Perhaps he will, so we can only console ourself with the remark that there are people in this world who would deny anything—­who would deny that there was a nose on their face if you said there was!