CHAPTER XIX.
_Adventures with the Peigans_--_Crusoe does good service as a discoverer_--_The savages outwitted_--_The rescue_.
A run of twenty miles brought the travellers to a rugged defile in the mountains, from which they had a view of a beautiful valley of considerable extent.

During the last two days a steady thaw had been rapidly melting away the snow, so that it appeared only here and there in the landscape in dazzling patches.

At the distance of about half-a-mile from where they halted to breathe the horses before commencing the descent into this vale, several thin wreaths of smoke were seen rising above the trees.
"Is that your camp ?" inquired Cameron, riding up to the Indian runners, who stood in a group in front, looking as fresh after their twenty miles' run as though they had only had a short walk.
To this they answered in the affirmative, adding that there were about two hundred Peigans there.
It might have been thought that thirty men would have hesitated to venture to attack so large a number as two hundred; but it had always been found in the experience of Indian life that a few resolute white men well armed were more than a match for ten times their number of Indians.

And this arose not so much from the superior strength or agility of the Whites over their red foes, as from that bull-dog courage and utter recklessness of their lives in combat--qualities which the crafty savage can neither imitate nor understand.

The information was received with perfect indifference by most of the trappers, and with contemptuous laughter by some; for a large number of Cameron's men were wild, evil-disposed fellows, who would have as gladly taken the life of an Indian as that of a buffalo.
Just as the word was given to resume the march, Dick Varley rode up to Cameron and said in a somewhat anxious tone,-- "D'ye obsarve, sir, that one o' the Redskins has gone off ahead o' his comrades ?" "I see that, Master Dick; and it was a mistake of mine not to have stopped him, but he was gone too far before I observed it, and I thought it better to appear unconcerned.