It was an appalling situation indeed. There were fully thirty mounted and fully-armed Indians in front of them, not one less in their rear, and on the right and left rose the perpendicular sides of the cañon to a hight of forty feet! What was to be done? The trappers had been in many fearful situations, and had passed through more than one frightful experience, but they had never been placed where they were so completely cut off from human help as now. No one could see a ray of hope. Black Tom was the first to speak. As the group huddled together, staring affrightedly at the hideously painted miscreants that had ambushed and so completely outwitted them, he said, in a voice that was without tremor or quiver, “B’ars and bufflers! this is what I call rough!” “Is there no hope?” asked Hammond. “I don’t see the first shadow.” “Let’s set up a Tipperary screech and charge right down through them,” said Teddy O’Doherty, who clenched his lips, and meant every word he uttered. “Can’t we do it?” asked Hammond, who saw in the daring proposition of the Irishman, the forlorn but the only hope. “There ain’t no more chance of doin’ that,” replied the trapper, “than thar is of ridin’ our horses up them forty feet of rocks, that ar’ as straight up and down as the side of a house. Ain’t that so, Steb.?” “As true as Gospel,” replied the old man, looking fixedly at the red-skins. “In the name of heaven, then, what is to be done?” demanded Hammond, in desperation. “Nothin’,” was the reply of Tom, who had something of the Indian stoicism in the presence of the inevitable. “I ax only one thing.” “What’s that?” “That I could say good-by to the old woman and little ones at home afore I go under,” he answered, as he drew his hand across his eyes; “but it’s no use.” “Lamora,” said Hammond, suddenly turning toward the fair girl, “what will become of _you_?” “I do not think they will harm _me_,” she replied. “I am known to many, and will probably be restored to Kipwan after--” “After we are dead.” “No--no, don’t say that,” she said, with a quivering lip. “But you see no hope for _us_?” “No.” “And there is for you; thank heaven for that!” was the fervent exclamation of the young lover. “Lamora, the future was all sunshine to us, but the night has come sooner than we expected. Go back to your Indian friends again, for, after I am gone, you will find none so faithful. Bear me in remembrance, and I shall await your coming from the other shore.” “Don’t--don’t,” plead the poor girl, bravely striving to keep up. “Keep near me, Lamora, for when my last moment comes, as come it must, let my last glance be fixed upon _you_--” “Stop! stop!” she wailed, “or you will break my heart.” The Blackfeet took the matter quite leisurely. They had the whites in their power, and they indulged in a few whoops, by way of giving vent to their exultation, but still they made no immediate demonstration.