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THE YOUNG TRAILERS

A Story of Early Kentucky

by

JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER







Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.
New York
Copyright, 1907, by
D. Appleton and Company
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not be
reproduced in any form without permission of the publishers.
Copyright 1934 by Sallie B. Altsheler
Printed in the United States of America




TO
SYDNEY
A YOUNG KENTUCKIAN




CONTENTS

       I.--Into the Unknown

      II.--The First Great Exploit

     III.--Lost in the Wilderness

      IV.--The Haunted Forest

       V.--Afloat

      VI.--The Voice of the Woods

     VII.--The Giant Bones

    VIII.--The Wild Turkey's "Gobble"

      IX.--The Escape

       X.--The Cave Dust

      XI.--The Forest Spell

     XII.--The Primitive Man

    XIII.--The Call of Duty

     XIV.--The Return

      XV.--The Siege

     XVI.--A Girl's Way

    XVII.--The Battle in the Forest

   XVIII.--The Test

     XIX.--An Errand and a Friend




THE YOUNG TRAILERS




CHAPTER I

INTO THE UNKNOWN


It was a white caravan that looked down from the crest of the mountains
upon the green wilderness, called by the Indians, _Kain-tuck-ee_. The
wagons, a score or so in number, were covered with arched canvas,
bleached by the rains, and, as they stood there, side by side, they
looked like a snowdrift against the emerald expanse of forest and
foliage.

The travelers saw the land of hope, outspread before them, a wide sweep
of rolling country, covered with trees and canebrake, cut by streams of
clear water, flowing here and there, and shining in the distance, amid
the green, like threads of silver wire. All gazed, keen with interest
and curiosity, because this unknown land was to be their home, but none
was more eager than Henry Ware, a strong boy of fifteen who stood in
front of the wagons beside the guide, Tom Ross, a tall, lean man the
color of well-tanned leather, who would never let his rifle go out of
his hand, and who had Henry's heartfelt admiration, because he knew so
much about the woods and wild animals, and told such strange and
absorbing tales of the great wilderness that now lay before them.

But any close observer who noted Henry Ware would always have looked at
him a second time. He was tall and muscled beyond his years, and when he
walked his figure showed a certain litheness and power like that of the
forest bred. His gaze was rapid, penetrating and inclusive, but never
furtive. He seemed to fit into the picture of the wilderness, as if he
had taken a space reserved there for him, and had put himself in
complete harmony with all its details.

The long journey from their old home in Maryland had been a source of
unending variety and delight to Henry. There had been no painful
partings. His mother and his brother and young sister were in the fourth
wagon from the right, and his father stood beside it. Farther on in the
same company were his uncles and aunts, and many of the old neighbors.
All had come together. It was really the removal of a village from an
old land to a new one, and with the familiar faces of kindred and
friends around them, they were not lonely in strange regions, though
mountains frowned and dark forests lowered.

It was to Henry a return rather than a removal. He almost fancied that
in some far-off age he had seen all these things before. The forests and
the mountains beckoned in friendly fashion; they had no terrors, for
even their secrets lay open before him. He seemed to breathe a newer and
keener air than that of the old land left behind, and his mind expanded
with the thought of fresh pleasures to come. The veteran guide, Ross,
alone observed how the boy learned, through intuition, ways of the
wilderness that others achieved only by hard experience.

They had met fair weather, an important item in such a journey, and
there had been no illness, beyond trifling ailments quickly cured. As
they traveled slowly and at their ease, it took them a long time to pass
through the settled regions. This part of the journey did not interest
Henry so much. He was eager for the forests and the great wilderness
where his fancy had already gone before. He wanted to see deer and bears
and buffaloes, trees bigger than any that grew in Maryland, and
mountains and mighty rivers. But they left the settlements behind at
last, and came to the unbroken forest. Here he found his hopes
fulfilled. They were on the first slopes of the mountains that divide
Virginia from Kentucky, and the bold, wild nature of the country pleased
him. He had never seen mountains before, and he felt the dignity and
grandeur of the peaks.

Sometimes he went on ahead with Tom Ross, the guide, his chosen friend,
and then he considered himself, in very truth, a man, or soon to become
one, because he was now exploring the unknown, leading the way for a
caravan--and there could be no more important duty. At such moments he
listened to the talk of the guide who taught the lesson that in the
wilderness it was always important to see and to listen, a thing however
that Henry already knew instinctively. He learned the usual sounds of
the woods, and if there was any new noise he would see what made it. He
studied, too, the habits of the beasts and birds. As for fishing, he
found that easy. He could cut a rod with his clasp knife, tie a string
to the end of it and a bent pin to the end of a string, and with this
rude tackle he could soon catch in the mountain creeks as many fish as
he wanted.

Henry liked the nights in the mountains; in which he did not differ from
his fellow-travelers. Then the work of the day was done; the wagons were
drawn up in a half circle, the horses and the oxen were resting or
grazing under the trees, and, as they needed fires for warmth as well as
cooking, they built them high and long, giving room for all in front of
the red coals if they wished. The forest was full of fallen brushwood,
as dry as tinder, and Henry helped gather it. It pleased him to see the
flames rise far up, and to hear them crackle as they ate into the heart
of the boughs. He liked to see their long red shadows fall across the
leaves and grass, peopling the dark forest with fierce wild animals; he
would feel all the cosier within the scarlet rim of the firelight. Then
the men would tell stories, particularly Ross, the guide, who had
wandered much and far in Kentucky. He said that it was a beautiful land.
He spoke of the noble forests of beech and oak and hickory and maple,
the dense canebrake, the many rivers, and the great Ohio that received
them all--the Beautiful River, the Indians called it--and the game, with
which forests and open alike swarmed, the deer, the elk, the bear, the
panther and the buffalo. Now and then, when the smaller children were
asleep in the wagons and the larger ones were nodding before the fires,
the men would sink their voices and speak of a subject which made them
all look very grave indeed. It sounded like Indians, and the men more
than once glanced at their rifles and powderhorns.

But the boy, when he heard them, did not feel afraid. He knew that
savages of the most dangerous kind often came into the forests of
Kentucky, whither they were going, but he thrilled rather than shivered
at the thought. Already he seemed to have the knowledge that he would be
a match for them at any game they wished to play.

Henry usually slept very soundly, as became a boy who was on his feet
nearly all day, and who did his share of the work; but two or three
times he awoke far in the night, and, raising himself up in the wagon,
peeped out between the canvas cover and the wooden body. He saw a very
black night in which the trees looked as thin and ghostly as shadows,
and smoldering fires, beside which two men rifle on shoulder, always
watched. Often he had a wish to watch with them, but he said nothing,
knowing that the others would hold him too young for the task.

But to-day he felt only joy and curiosity. They were now on the crest of
the last mountain ridge and before them lay the great valley of
Kentucky; their future home. The long journey was over. The men took off
their hats and caps and raised a cheer, the women joined through
sympathy and the children shouted, too, because their fathers and
mothers did so, Henry's voice rising with the loudest.

A slip of a girl beside Henry raised an applauding treble and he smiled
protectingly at her. It was Lucy Upton, two years younger than himself,
slim and tall, dark-blue eyes looking from under broad brows, and
dark-brown curls, lying thick and close upon a shapely head.

"Are you not afraid?" she asked.

"Afraid of what?" replied Henry Ware, disdainfully.

"Of the forests over there in Kentucky. They say that the savages often
come to kill."

"We are too strong. I do not fear them."

He spoke without any vainglory, but in the utmost confidence. She
glanced covertly at him. He seemed to her strong and full of resource.
But she would not show her admiration.

They passed from the mountain slope into a country which now sank away
in low, rolling hills like the waves of the sea and in which everything
grew very beautiful. Henry had never seen such trees in the East. The
beech, the elm, the hickory and the maple reached gigantic proportions,
and wherever the shade was not too dense the grass rose heavy and rank.
Now and then they passed thickets of canebrake, and once, at the side of
a stream, they came to a salt "lick." It was here that a fountain
spouted from the base of a hill, and, running only a few feet, emptied
into a creek. But its waters were densely impregnated with salt, and all
around its banks the soft soil was trodden with hundreds of footsteps.

"The wild beasts made these," said the guide to Henry. "They come here
at night: elk, deer, buffalo, wolves, and all the others, big and
little, to get the salt. They drink the water and they lick up the salt
too from the ground."

A fierce desire laid hold of the boy at these words. He had a small
rifle of his own, which however he was not permitted to carry often. But
he wanted to take it and lie beside the pool at night when the game came
down to drink. The dark would have no terrors for him, nor would he need
companionship. He knew what to do, he could stay in the bush noiseless
and motionless for hours, and he would choose only the finest of the
deer and the bear. He could see himself drawing the bead, as a great
buck came down in the shadows to the fountain and he thrilled with
pleasure at the thought. Each new step into the wilderness seemed to
bring him nearer home.

Their stay beside the salt spring was short, but the next night they
built the fire higher than ever because just after dark they heard the
howling of wolves, and a strange, long scream, like the shriek of a
woman, which the men said was the cry of a panther. There was no danger,
but the cries sounded lonesome and terrifying, and it took a big fire to
bring back gayety.

Henry had not yet gone to bed, but was sitting in his favorite place
beside the guide, who was calmly smoking a pipe, and he felt the
immensity of the wilderness. He understood why the people in this
caravan clung so closely to each other. They were simply a big family,
far away from anybody else, and the woods, which curved around them for
so many hundreds of miles, held them together.

The men talked more than usual that night, but they did not tell
stories; instead they asked many questions of the guide about the
country two days' journey farther on, which, Ross said, was so good, and
it was agreed among them that they should settle there near the banks of
a little river.

"It's the best land I ever saw," said Ross, "an' as there's lots of
canebrake it won't be bad to clear up for farmin'. I trapped beaver in
them parts two years ago, an' I know."

This seemed to decide the men, and the women, too, for they had their
share in the council. The long journey was soon to end, and all looked
pleased, especially the women. The great question settled, the men
lighted their pipes and smoked a while, in silence, before the blazing
fires. Henry watched them and wished that he too was a man and could
take part in these evening talks. He was excited by the knowledge that
their journey was to end so soon, and he longed to see the valley in
which they were to build their homes. He climbed into the wagon at last
but he could not sleep. His beloved rifle, too, was lying near him, and
once he reached out his hand and touched it.

The men, by and by, went to the wagons or, wrapping themselves in
blankets, slept before the flames. Only two remained awake and on guard.
They sat on logs near the outskirts of the camp and held their rifles in
their hands.

Henry dropped the canvas edge and sought sleep, but it would not come.
Too many thoughts were in his mind. He was trying to imagine the
beautiful valley, described by Ross, in which they were to build their
houses. He lifted the canvas again after a while and saw that the fires
had sunk lower than ever. The two men were still sitting on the logs and
leaning lazily against upthrust boughs. The wilderness around them was
very black, and twenty yards away, even the outlines of the trees were
lost in the darkness.

Henry's sister who was sleeping at the other end of the wagon awoke and
cried for water. Mr. Ware raised himself sleepily, but Henry at once
sprang up and offered to get it. "All right," Mr. Ware said.

Henry quickly slipped on his trousers and taking the tin cup in his hand
climbed out of the wagon. He was in his bare feet, but like other
pioneer boys he scorned shoes in warm weather, and stubble and pebbles
did not trouble him.

The camp was in a glade and the spring was just at the edge of the
woods--they stopped at night only by the side of running water, which
was easy to find in this region. Near the spring some of the horses and
two of the oxen were tethered to stout saplings. As Henry approached, a
horse neighed, and he noticed that all of them were pulling on their
ropes. The two careless guards were either asleep or so near it that
they took no notice of what was passing, and Henry, unwilling to call
their attention for fear he might seem too forward, walked among the
animals, but was still unable to find the cause of the trouble. He knew
everyone by name and nature, and they knew him, for they had been
comrades on a long journey, and he patted their backs and rubbed their
noses and tried to soothe them. They became a little quieter, but he
could not remain any longer with them because his sister was waiting at
the wagon for the water. So he went to the spring and, stooping down,
filled his cup.

When Henry rose to his full height, his eyes happened to be turned
toward the forest, and there, about seven or eight feet from the ground,
and not far from him he saw two coals of fire. He was so startled that
the cup trembled in his hand, and drops of water fell splashing back
into the spring. But he stared steadily at the red points, which he now
noticed were moving slightly from side to side, and presently he saw
behind them the dim outlines of a long and large body. He knew that this
must be a panther. The habits of all the wild animals, belonging to this
region, had been described to him so minutely by Ross that he was sure
he could not be mistaken. Either it was a very hungry or a very ignorant
panther to hover so boldly around a camp full of men and guns.

The panther was crouched on a bough of a tree, as if ready to spring,
and Henry was the nearest living object. It must be he at whom the great
tawny body would be launched. But as a minute passed and the panther did
not move, save to sway gently, his courage rose, especially when he
remembered a saying of Ross that it was the natural impulse of all wild
animals to run from man. So he began to back away, and he heard behind
him the horses trampling about in alarm. The lazy guards still dozed and
all was quiet at the wagons. Now Henry recalled some knowledge that he
had learned from Ross and he made a resolve. He would show, at a time,
when it was needed, what he really could do. He dropped his cup, rushed
to the fire, and picked up a long brand, blazing at one end.

Swinging his torch around his head until it made a perfect circle of
flame he ran directly toward the panther, uttering a loud shout as he
ran. The animal gave forth his woman's cry, this time a shriek of
terror, and leaping from the bough sped with cat-like swiftness into the
forest.

All the camp was awake in an instant, the men springing out of the
wagons, gun in hand, ready for any trouble. When they saw only a boy,
holding a blazing torch above his head, they were disposed to grumble,
and the two sleepy guards, seeking an excuse for themselves, laughed
outright at the tale that Henry told. But Mr. Ware believed in the truth
of his son's words, and the guide, who quickly examined the ground near
the tree, said there could be no doubt that Henry had really seen the
panther, and had not been tricked by his imagination. The great tracks
of the beast were plainly visible in the soft earth.

"Pushed by hunger, an' thinking there was no danger, he might have
sprung on one of our colts or a calf," said Ross, "an' no doubt the boy
with his ready use of a torch has saved us from a loss. It was a brave
thing for him to do."

But Henry took no pride in their praise. It was no part of his ambition
merely to drive away a panther, instead he had the hunter's wish to kill
him. He would be worthy of the wilderness.

Henry despite his lack of pride found the world very beautiful the next
day. It was a fair enough scene. Nature had done her part, but his
joyous mind gave to it deeper and more vivid colors. The wind was
blowing from the south, bringing upon its breath the odor of wild
flowers, and all the forest was green with the tender green of young
spring. The cotton-tailed hares that he called rabbits ran across their
path. Squirrels talked to one another in the tree tops, and defiantly
threw the shells of last year's nuts at the passing travelers. Once they
saw a stag bending down to drink at a brook, and when the forest king
beheld them he raised his head, and merely stared at these strange new
invaders of the wilds. Henry admired his beautiful form and splendid
antlers nor would he have fired at him had it even been within orders.
The deer gazed at them a few moments, and then, turning and tossing his
head, sped away through the forest.

All that he saw was strange and grand to Henry, and he loved the
wilderness. About noon he and Ross went back to the wagons and that
night they encamped on the crest of a range of low and grassy hills.
This was the rim of the valley that they had selected on the guide's
advice as their future home, and the little camp was full of the
liveliest interest in the morrow, because it is a most eventful thing,
when you are going to choose a place which you intend shall be your home
all the rest of your days. So the men and women sat late around the
fires and even boys of Henry's age were allowed to stay up, too, and
listen to the plans which all the grown people were making. Theirs had
not been a hard journey, only long and tedious--though neither to
Henry--and now that its end was at hand, work must be begun. They would
have homes to build and a living to get from the ground.

"Why, I could live under the trees; I wouldn't want a house," whispered
Henry to the guide, "and when I needed anything to eat, I'd kill game."

"A hunter might do that," replied Ross, "but we're not all hunters an'
only a few of us can be. Sometimes the game ain't standin' to be shot at
just when you want it, an' as for sleepin' under the trees it's all very
fine in summer, if it don't rain, but 'twould be just a least bit chilly
in winter when the big snows come as they do sometimes more'n a foot
deep. I'm a hunter myself, an' I've slept under trees an' in caves, an'
on the sheltered side of hills, but when the weather's cold give me for
true comfort a wooden floor an' a board roof. Then I'll bargain to sleep
to the king's taste."

But Henry was not wholly convinced. He felt in himself the power to meet
and overcome rain or cold or any other kind of weather.

Everybody in the camp, down to the tiniest child, was awake the next
morning by the time the first bar of gray in the east betokened the
coming day. Henry was fully dressed, and saw the sun rise in a
magnificent burst of red and gold over the valley that was to be their
valley. The whole camp beheld the spectacle. They had reached the crest
of the hill the evening before, too late to get a view and they were
full of the keenest curiosity.

It was now summer, but, having been a season of plenteous rains, grass
and foliage were of the most vivid and intense green. They were entering
one of the richest portions of Kentucky, and the untouched soil was
luxuriant with fertility. As a pioneer himself said: "All they had to do
was to tickle it with a hoe, and it laughed into a harvest." There was
the proof of its strength in the grass and the trees. Never before had
the travelers seen oaks and beeches of such girth or elms and hickories
of such height. The grass was high and thick and the canebrake was so
dense that passage through it seemed impossible. Down the center of the
valley, which was but one of many, separated from each other by low easy
hills, flowed a little river, cleaving its center like a silver blade.

It was upon this beautiful prospect that the travelers saw the sun rise
that morning and all their troubles and labors rolled away. Even the
face of Mr. Ware who rarely yielded to enthusiasm kindled at the sight
and, lifting his hand, he made with it a circle that described the
valley.

"There," he said. "There is our home waiting for us."

"Hurrah!" cried Henry, flinging aloft his cap. "We've come home."

Then the wagon train started again and descended into the valley, which
in very truth and fact was to be "home."




CHAPTER II

THE FIRST GREAT EXPLOIT


They found the valley everything in beauty and fertility that Ross had
claimed for it, and above all it had small "openings," that is, places
where the trees did not grow. This was very important to the travelers,
as the labor of cutting down the forest was immense, and even Henry knew
that they could not live wholly in the woods, as both children and crops
must have sunshine to make them grow. The widest of these open spaces
about a half mile from the river, they selected as the site of their new
city to which they gave the name of Wareville in honor of their leader.
A fine brook flowed directly through the opening, but Ross said it would
be a good place, too, to sink a well.

It was midsummer now and the period of dry weather had begun. So the
travelers were very comfortable in their wagon camp while they were
making their new town ready to be lived in. Both for the sake of company
and prudence they built the houses in a close cluster. First the men,
and most of them were what would now be called jacks-of-all-trades,
felled trees, six or eight inches in diameter, and cut them into logs,
some of which were split down the center, making what are called
puncheons; others were only nicked at the ends, being left in the rough,
that is, with the bark on.

The round logs made the walls of their houses. First, the place where
the house was to be built was chosen. Next the turf was cut off and the
ground smoothed away. Then they "raised" the logs, the nicked ends
fitting together at the corner, the whole inclosing a square. Everybody
helped "raise" each house in turn, the men singing "hip-hip-ho!" as they
rolled the heavy logs into position.

A place was cut out for a window and fastened with a shutter and a
larger space was provided in the same manner for a door. They made the
floor out of the puncheons, turned with the smooth side upward, and the
roof out of rough boards, sawed from the trees. The chimney was built of
earth and stones, and a great flat stone served as the fireplace. Some
of the houses were large enough to have two rooms, one for the grown
folks and one for the children, and Mr. Ware's also had a little lean-to
or shed which served as a kitchen.

It seemed at first to Henry, rejoicing then in the warm, sunny weather,
that they were building in a needlessly heavy and solid fashion. But
when he thought over it a while he remembered what Ross said about the
winters and deep snows of this new land. Indeed the winters in Kentucky
are often very cold and sometimes for certain periods are quite as cold
as those of New York or New England.

When the little town was finished at last it looked both picturesque and
comfortable, a group of about thirty log houses, covering perhaps an
acre of ground. But the building labors of the pioneers did not stop
here. Around all these houses they put a triple palisade, that is three
rows of stout, sharpened stakes, driven deep into the ground and rising
full six feet above it. At intervals in this palisade were circular
holes large enough to admit the muzzle of a rifle.

They built at each corner of the palisade the largest and strongest of
their houses,--two-story structures of heavy logs, and Henry noticed
that the second story projected over the first. Moreover, they made
holes in the edge of the floor overhead so that one could look down
through them upon anybody who stood by the outer wall. Ross went up into
the second story of each of the four buildings, thrust the muzzle of his
rifle into every one of the holes in turn, and then looked satisfied.
"It is well done," he said. "Nobody can shelter himself against the wall
from the fire of defenders up here."

These very strong buildings they called their blockhouses, and after
they finished them they dug a well in the corner of the inclosed ground,
striking water at a depth of twenty feet. Then their main labors were
finished, and each family now began to furnish its house as it would or
could.

It was not all work for Henry while this was going on, and some of the
labor itself was just as good as play. He was allowed to go considerable
distances with Ross, and these journeys were full of novelty. He was a
boy who came to places which no white boy had ever seen before. It was
hard for him to realize that it was all so new. Behold a splendid grove
of oaks! he was its discoverer. Here the little river dropped over a
cliff of ten feet; his eyes were the first to see the waterfall. From
this high hill the view was wonderful; he was the first to enjoy it.
Forest, open and canebrake alike were swarming with game, and he saw
buffaloes, deer, wild turkeys, and multitudes of rabbits and squirrels.
Unaccustomed yet to man, they allowed the explorers to come near.

Ross and Henry were accompanied on many of these journeys by Shif'less
Sol Hyde. Sol was a young man without kith or kin in the settlement, and
so, having nobody but himself to take care of, he chose to roam the
country a great portion of the time. He was fast acquiring a skill in
forest life and knowledge of its ways second only to that of Ross, the
guide. Some of the men called Sol lazy, but he defended himself. "The
good God made different kinds of people and they live different kinds of
lives," said he. "Mine suits me and harms nobody." Ross said he was
right, and Sol became a hunter and scout for the settlement.

There was no lack of food. They yet had a good supply of the provisions
brought with them from the other side of the mountains, but they saved
them for a possible time of scarcity. Why should they use this store
when they could kill all the game they needed within a mile of their own
house smoke? Now Henry tasted the delights of buffalo tongue and beaver
tail, venison, wild turkey, fried squirrel, wild goose, wild duck and a
dozen kinds of fish. Never did a boy have more kinds of meat, morning,
noon, and night. The forest was full of game, the fish were just
standing up in the river and crying to be caught, and the air was
sometimes dark with wild fowl. Henry enjoyed it. He was always hungry.
Working and walking so much, and living in the open air every minute of
his life, except when he was eating or sleeping, his young and growing
frame demanded much nourishment, and it was not denied.

At last the great day came when he was allowed to kill a deer if he
could. Both Ross and Shif'less Sol had interceded for him. "The boy's
getting big and strong an' it's time he learned," said Ross. "His hand's
steady enough an' his eye's good enough already," said Shif'less Sol,
and his father agreeing with them told them to take him and teach him.

Two miles away, near the bank of the river, was a spring to which the
game often came to drink, and for this spring they started a little
while before sundown, Henry carrying his rifle on his shoulder, and his
heart fluttering. He felt his years increase suddenly and his figure
expand with equal abruptness. He had become a man and he was going forth
to slay big game. Yet despite his new manhood the blood would run to his
head and he felt his nerves trembling. He grasped his precious rifle
more firmly and stole a look out of the corner of his eye at its barrel
as it lay across his left shoulder. Though a smaller weapon it was
modeled after the famous Western rifle, which, with the ax, won the
wilderness. The stock was of hard maple wood delicately carved, and the
barrel was comparatively long, slender, and of blue steel. The sights
were as fine-drawn as a hair. When Henry stood the gun beside himself,
it was just as tall as he. He carried, too, a powderhorn, and the horn,
which was as white as snow, was scraped so thin as to be transparent,
thus enabling its owner to know just how much powder it contained,
without taking the trouble of pouring it out. His bullets and wadding he
carried in a small leather pouch by his side.

When they reached the spring the sun was still a half hour high and
filled the west with a red glow. The forest there was tinted by it, and
seen thus in the coming twilight with those weird crimsons and scarlets
showing through it, the wilderness looked very lonely and desolate. An
ordinary boy, at the coming of night would have been awed, if alone, by
the stillness of the great unknown spaces, but it found an answering
chord in Henry.

"Wind's blowin' from the west," said Sol, and so they went to the
eastern side of the spring, where they lay down beside a fallen log at a
fair distance. There was another log, much closer to the spring, but
Ross conferring aside with Sol chose the farther one. "We want to teach
the boy how to shoot an' be of some use to himself, not to slaughter,"
said Ross. Then the three remained there, a long time, and noiseless.
Henry was learning early one of the first great lessons of the forest,
which is silence. But he knew that he could have learned this lesson
alone. He already felt himself superior in some ways to Ross and Sol,
but he liked them too well to tell them so, or to affect even equality
in the lore of the wilderness.

The sun went down behind the Western forest, and the night came on,
heavy and dark. A light wind began to moan among the trees. Henry heard
the faint bubble of the water in the spring, and saw beside him the
forms of his two comrades. But they were so still that they might have
been dead. An hour passed and his eyes growing more used to the dimness,
he saw better. There was still nothing at the spring, but by and by Ross
put his hand gently upon his arm, and Henry, as if by instinct, looked
in the right direction. There at the far edge of the forest was a deer,
a noble stag, glancing warily about him.

The stag was a fine enough animal to Ross and Sol, but to Henry's
unaccustomed eyes he seemed gigantic, the mightiest of his kind that
ever walked the face of the earth.

The deer gazed cautiously, raising his great head, until his antlers
looked to Henry like the branching boughs of a tree. The wind was
blowing toward his hidden foes, and brought him no omen of coming
danger. He stepped into the open and again glanced around the circle. It
seemed to Henry that he was staring directly into the deer's eyes, and
could see the fire shining there.

"Aim at that spot there by the shoulder, when he stoops down to drink,"
said Ross in the lowest of tones.

Satisfied now that no enemy was near, the stag walked to the spring.
Then he began to lower slowly the great antlers, and his head approached
the water. Henry slipped the barrel of his rifle across the log and
looked down the sights. He was seized with a tremor, but Ross and
Shif'less Sol, with a magnanimity that did them credit, pretended not to
notice it. The boy soon mastered the feeling, but then, to his great
surprise, he was attacked by another emotion. Suddenly he began to have
pity, and a fellow-feeling for the stag. It, too, was in the great
wilderness, rejoicing in the woods and the grass and the running streams
and had done no harm. It seemed sad that so fine a life should end,
without warning and for so little.

The feeling was that of a young boy, the instinct of one who had not
learned to kill, and he suppressed it. Men had not yet thought to spare
the wild animals, or to consider them part of a great brotherhood, least
of all on the border, where the killing of game was a necessity. And so
Henry, after a moment's hesitation, the cause of which he himself
scarcely knew, picked the spot near the shoulder that Ross had
mentioned, and pulled the trigger.

The stag stood for a moment or two as if dazed, then leaped into the air
and ran to the edge of the woods, where he pitched down head foremost.
His body quivered for a little while and then lay still.

Henry was proud of his marksmanship, but he felt some remorse, too, when
he looked upon his victim. Yet he was eager to tell his father and his
young sister and brother of his success. They took off the pelt and cut
up the deer. A part of the haunch Henry ate for dinner and the antlers
were fastened over the fireplace, as the first important hunting trophy
won by the eldest son of the house.

Henry did not boast much of his triumph, although he noticed with secret
pride the awe of the children. His best friend, Paul Cotter, openly
expressed his admiration, but Braxton Wyatt, a boy of his own age, whom
he did not like, sneered and counted it as nothing. He even cast doubt
upon the reality of the deed, intimating that perhaps Ross or Sol had
fired the shot, and had allowed Henry to claim the credit.

Henry now felt incessantly the longing for the wilderness, but, for the
present, he helped his father furnish their house. It was too late to
plant crops that year, nor were the qualities of the soil yet altogether
known. It was rich beyond a doubt, but they could learn only by trial
what sort of seed suited it best. So they let that wait a while, and
continued the work of making themselves tight and warm for the winter.

The skins of deer and buffalo and beaver, slain by the hunters, were
dried in the sun, and they hung some of the finer ones on the walls of
the rooms to make them look more cozy and picturesque. Mrs. Ware also
put two or three on the floors, though the border women generally
scorned them for such uses, thinking them in the way. Henry also helped
his father make stools and chairs, the former a very simple task,
consisting of a flat piece of wood, chopped or sawed out, in which three
holes were bored to receive the legs, the latter made of a section of
sapling, an inch or so in diameter. But the baskets required longer and
more tedious work. They cut green withes, split them into strips and
then plaiting them together formed the basket. In this Mrs. Ware and
even the little girl helped. They also made tables and a small stone
furnace or bake-oven for the kitchen.

Their chief room now looked very cozy. In one corner stood a bedstead
with low, square posts, the bed covered with a pure white counterpane.
At the foot of the bedstead was a large heavy chest, which served as
bureau, sofa and dressing case. In the center of the room stood a big
walnut table, on the top of which rested a nest of wooden trays,
flanked, on one side, by a nicely folded tablecloth, and on the other by
a butcher knife and a Bible. In a corner was a cupboard consisting of a
set of shelves set into the logs, and on these shelves were the
blue-edged plates and yellow-figured teacups and blue teapot that Mrs.
Ware had received long ago from her mother. The furniture in the
remainder of the house followed this pattern.

The heaviest labor of all was to extend the "clearing"; that is, to cut
down trees and get the ground ready for planting the crops next spring,
and in this Henry helped, for he was able to wield an ax blow for blow
with a grown man. When he did not have to work he went often to the
river, which was within sight of Wareville, and caught fish. Nobody
except the men, who were always armed, and who knew how to take care of
themselves, was allowed to go more than a mile from the palisade, but
Henry was trusted as far as the river; then the watchman in the lookout
on top of the highest blockhouse could see him or any who might come,
and there, too, he often lingered.

He did not hate his work, yet he could not say that he liked it, and,
although he did not know it, the love of the wild man's ways was
creeping into his blood. The influence of the great forests, of the vast
unknown spaces, was upon him. He could lie peacefully in the shade of a
tree for an hour at a time, dreaming of rivers and mountains farther on
in the depths of the wilderness. He felt a kinship with the wild things,
and once as he lay perfectly still with his eyes almost closed, a stag,
perhaps the brother to the one that he had killed, came and looked at
him out of great soft eyes. It did not seem odd at the time to Henry
that the stag should do so; he took it then as a friendly act, and lest
he should alarm this new comrade of the woods he did not stir or even
raise his eyelids. The stag gazed at him a few moments, and then,
tossing his great antlers, turned and walked off in a graceful and
dignified way through the woods. Henry wondered where the deer would go,
and if it would be far. He wished that he, too, could roam the
wilderness so lightly, wandering where he wished, having no cares and
beholding new scenes every day. That would be a life worth living.

The next morning his mother said to his father:

"John, the boy is growing wild."

"Yes," replied the father. "They say it often happens with those who are
taken young into the wilderness. The forest lays a spell upon them when
they are easy to receive impressions."

The mother looked troubled, but Mr. Ware laughed.

"Don't bother about it," he said. "It can be cured. We have merely to
teach him the sense of responsibility."

This they proceeded to do.




CHAPTER III

LOST IN THE WILDERNESS


The method by which Mr. and Mrs. Ware undertook to teach Henry a sense
of responsibility was an increase of work. Founding a new state was no
light matter, and he must do his share. Since he loved to fish, it
became his duty to supply the table with fish, and that, too, at regular
hours, and he also began to think of traps and snares, which he would
set in the autumn for game. It was always wise for the pioneer to save
his powder and lead, the most valuable of his possessions and the
hardest to obtain. Any food that could be procured without its use was a
welcome addition.

But fishing remained his easiest task, and he did it all with a pole
that he cut with his clasp knife, a string and a little piece of bent
and stiffened wire. He caught perch, bass, suckers, trout, sunfish,
catfish, and other kinds, the names of which he did not know. Sometimes
when his hook and line had brought him all that was needed, and the day
was hot, he would take off his clothing and plunge into the deep, cool
pools. Often his friend, Paul Cotter, was with him. Paul was a year
younger than Henry, and not so big. Hence the larger boy felt himself,
in a certain sense, Paul's teacher and protector, which gave him a
comfortable feeling, and a desire to help his comrade as much as he
could.

He taught the smaller lad new tricks in swimming, and scarcely a day
passed when two sunburned, barefooted boys did not go to the river,
quickly throw off their clothing, and jump into the clear water. There
they swam and floated for a long time, dived, and ducked each other, and
then lay on the grass in the sun until they dried.

"Paul," said Henry once, as they were stretched thus on the bank,
"wouldn't you like to have nothing to do, but wander through the woods
just as you pleased, sleep wherever you wished, and kill game when you
grew hungry, just like the Indians?"

Henry's eyes were on the black line of the forest, and the blue haze of
the sky beyond. His spirit was away in the depths of the unknown.

"I don't know," replied Paul. "I guess a white boy has to become a white
man, after a while, and they say that the difference between a white man
and the Indian is that the white man has to work."

"But the Indians get along without it," said Henry.

"No they don't," replied Paul. "We win all the country because we've
learned how to do things while we are working."

Yet Henry was unconvinced, and his thoughts wandered far into the black
forest and the blue haze.

The cattle pastured near the deepest of the swimming holes, and it often
fell to the lot of the boys to bring them into the palisade at sunset.
This was a duty of no little importance, because if any of the cattle
wandered away into the forest and were lost, they could not be replaced.
It was now the latter half of summer, and the grass and foliage were
fast turning brown in the heat. Late on the afternoon of one of the very
hottest days Henry and Paul went to the deepest swimming hole. There had
not been a breath of air stirring since morning; not a blade of grass,
not a leaf quivered. The skies burned like a sheet of copper.

The boys panted, and their clothing, wet with perspiration, clung to
them. The earth was hot under their feet. Quickly they threw off their
garments and sprang into the water. How cool and grateful it felt! There
they lingered long, and did not notice the sudden obscurity of the sun
and darkening of the southwest.

A slight wind sprang up presently, and the dry leaves and grass began to
rustle. There was thunder in the distance and a stroke of lightning. The
boys were aroused, and scrambling out of the water put on their
clothing.

"A storm's coming," said Henry, who was weatherwise, "and we must get
the cattle in."

These sons of the forest did not fear rain, but they hurried on their
clothing, and they noticed, too, how rapidly the storm was gathering.
The heat had been great for days, and the earth was parched and thirsty.
The men had talked in the evening of rain, and said how welcome it would
be, and now the boys shared the general feeling. The drought would be
ended. The thirsty earth would drink deep and grow green again.

The rolling clouds, drawn like a great curtain over the southwest,
advanced and covered all the heavens. The flashes of lightning followed
each other so fast that, at times, they seemed continuous; the forest
groaned as it bent before the wind. Then the great drops fell, and soon
they were beating the earth like volleys of pistol bullets. Fragments of
boughs, stripped off by the wind, swept by. Never had the boys in their
Eastern home known such thunder and lightning. The roar of one was
always in their ears, and the flash of the other always in their eyes.

The frightened cattle were gathered into a group, pressing close
together for company and protection. The boys hurried them toward the
stockade, but one cow, driven by terror, broke from the rest and ran
toward the woods. Agile Henry, not willing to lose a single straggler,
pursued the fugitive, and Paul, wishing to be as zealous, followed. The
rest of the cattle, being so near and obeying the force of habit, went
on into the stockade.

It was the wildest cow of the herd that made a plunge for the woods, and
Henry, knowing her nature, expected trouble. So he ran as fast as he
could, and he was not aware until they were in the forest that Paul was
close behind him. Then he shouted:

"Go back, Paul! I'll bring her in."

But Paul would not turn. There was fire in his blood. He considered it
as much his duty to help as it was Henry's. Moreover, he would not
desert his comrade.

The fugitive, driven by the storm acting upon its wild nature, continued
at great speed, and the panting boys were not able to overtake her. So
on the trio went, plunging through the woods, and saving themselves from
falls, or collisions with trees, only by the light from the flashes of
lightning. Many boys, even on the border, would have turned back, but
there was something tenacious in Henry's nature; he had undertaken to do
a thing, and he did not wish to give it up. Besides that cow was too
valuable. And Paul would not leave his comrade.

Away the cow went, and behind her ran her pursuers. The rain came
rushing and roaring through the woods, falling now in sheets, while
overhead the lightning still burned, and the thunder still crashed,
though with less frequency. Both the boys were drenched, but they did
not mind it; they did not even know it at the time. The lightning died
presently, the thunder ceased to rumble, and then the darkness fell like
a great blanket over the whole forest. The chase was blotted out from
them, and the two boys, stopping, grasped each other's hands for the
sake of company. They could not see twenty feet before them, but the
rain still poured.

"We'll have to give her up," said Henry reluctantly. "We couldn't follow
a whole herd of buffaloes in all this black night."

"Maybe we can find her to-morrow," said Paul.

"Maybe so," replied Henry. "We've got to wait anyhow. Let's go home."

They started back for Wareville, keeping close together, lest they lose
each other in the darkness, and they realized suddenly that they were
uncomfortable. The rain was coming in such sheets directly in their
faces that it half blinded them, now and then their feet sank deep in
mire and their drenched bodies began to grow cold. The little log houses
in which they lived now seemed to them palaces, fit for a king, and they
hastened their footsteps, often tripping on vines or running into
bushes. But Henry was trying to see through the dark woods.

"We ought to be near the clearing," he said.

They stopped and looked all about, seeking to see a light. They knew
that one would be shining from the tower of the blockhouse as a guide to
them. But they saw none. They had misjudged the distance, so they
thought, and they pushed on a half hour longer, but there was still no
light, nor did they come to a clearing. Then they paused. Dark as it was
each saw a look of dismay on the face of the other.

"We've come the wrong way!" exclaimed Paul.

"Maybe we have," reluctantly admitted Henry.

But their dismay lasted only a little while. They were strong boys, used
to the wilderness, and they did not fear even darkness and wandering
through the woods. Moreover, they were sure that they should find
Wareville long before midnight.

They changed their course and continued the search. The rain ceased by
and by, the clouds left the heavens, and the moon came out, but they saw
nothing familiar about them. The great woods were dripping with water,
and it was the only sound they heard, besides that made by themselves.
They stopped again, worn out and disconsolate at last. All their walking
only served to confuse them the more. Neither now had any idea of the
direction in which Wareville lay, and to be lost in the wilderness was a
most desperate matter. They might travel a thousand miles, should
strength last them for so great a journey, and never see a single human
being. They leaned against the rough bark of a great oak tree, and
stared blankly at each other.

"What are we to do?" asked Paul.

"I can't say," replied Henry.

The two boys still looked blank, but at last they laughed--and each
laughed at the other's grewsome face. Then they began once more to cast
about them. The cold had passed and warm winds were blowing up from the
south. The forest was drying, and Henry and Paul, taking off their
coats, wrung the water from them. They were strong lads, inured to many
hardships of the border and the forest, and they did not fear ill
results from a mere wetting. Nevertheless, they wished to be
comfortable, and under the influence of the warm wind they soon found
themselves dry again. But they were so intensely sleepy that they could
scarcely keep their eyes open, and now the wilderness training of both
came into use.

It was a hilly country, with many outcroppings of stone and cavelike
openings in the sides of the steep but low hills, and such a place as
this the boys now sought. But it was a long hunt and they grew more
tired and sleepy at every step. They were hungry, too, but if they might
only sleep they could forget that. They heard again the hooting of owls
and the wind, moaning among the leaves, made strange noises. Once there
was a crash in a thicket beside them, and they jumped in momentary
alarm, but it was only a startled deer, far more scared than they,
running through the bushes, and Henry was ashamed of his nervous
impulse.

They found at last their resting place, a sheltered ledge of dry stone
in the hollow of a hill. The stone arched above them, and it was dark in
the recess, but the boys were too tired now to worry about shadows. They
crept into the hollow, and, scraping up fallen leaves to soften the hard
stone, lay down. Both were off to slumberland in less than five minutes.

The hollow faced the East, and the bright sun, shining into their eyes,
awakened them at last. Henry sprang up, amazed. The skies were a silky
blue, with little white clouds sailing here and there. The forest,
new-washed by the rain, smelt clean and sweet. The south wind was still
blowing. The world was bright and beautiful, but he was conscious of an
acute pain at the center of his being. That is, he was increasingly
hungry. Paul showed equal surprise, and was a prey to the same annoying
sensation in an important region. He looked up at the sun, and found
that it was almost directly overhead, indicating noon.

All the country about them was strange, an unbroken expanse of hill and
forest, and nowhere a sign of a human being. They scrutinized the
horizon with the keen eyes of boyhood, but they saw no line of smoke,
rising from the chimneys of Wareville. Whether the villages lay north or
south or east or west of them they did not know, and the wind that
sighed so gently through the forest never told. They were alone in the
wilderness and they knew, moreover, that the wilderness was very vast
and they were very small. But Henry and Paul did not despair; in fact no
such thought entered Henry's mind. Instead he began to find a certain
joy in the situation; it appealed to his courage. They resolved to find
something to eat, and they used first a temporary cure for the pangs of
hunger. Each had a strong clasp knife and they cut strips of the soft
inner bark of the slippery-elm tree, which they chewed, drawing from it
a little strength and sustenance. They found an hour or two later some
nearly ripe wild plums, which they ate in small quantities, and, later
on, ripe blackberries very juicy and sweet. Paul wanted to be voracious,
but Henry restrained him, knowing well that if he indulged liberally he
might suffer worse pangs than those of hunger. Slender as was this diet
the boys felt much strengthened, and their spirits rose in a wonderful
manner.

"We're bound to be found sooner or later," said Henry, "and it's strange
if we can't live in the woods until then."

"If we only had our guns and ammunition," said Paul, "we could get all
the meat we wanted, and live as well as if we were at home."

This was true, because in the untrodden forest the game was plentiful
all about them, but guns and ammunition they did not have, and it was
vain to wish for them. They must obtain more solid food than wild plums
and blackberries, if they would retain their strength, and both boys
knew it. Yet they saw no way and they continued wandering until they
came to a creek. They sat a while on its banks and looked down at the
fish with which it was swarming, and which they could see distinctly in
its clear waters.

"Oh, if we only had one of those fine fellows!" said Paul.

"Then why not have him?" exclaimed Henry, a sudden flash appearing in
his eye.

"Yes, why not?" replied Paul with sarcasm. "I suppose that all we have
to do is to whistle and the finest of 'em will come right out here on
the bank, and ask us to cook and eat 'em."

"We haven't any hooks and lines now but we might make 'em," said Henry.

"Make 'em!" said Paul, and he looked in amazement at his comrade.

"Out of our clothes," replied Henry.

Then he proceeded to show what he meant and Paul, too, when he saw him
begin, was quickly taken with the idea. They drew many long strands from
the fiber of their clothing--cloth in those days was often made as
strong as leather--and twisted and knotted them together until they had
a line fifteen feet long. It took them at least two hours to complete
this task, and then they contemplated their work with pride. But the
look of joy on Paul's face did not last long.

"How on earth are we to get a hook, Henry?" he asked.

"I'll furnish that," replied Henry, and he took the small steel buckle
with which his trousers were fastened together at the back. Breaking
this apart he bent the slenderest portion of it into the shape of a
hook, and fastened it to the end of his line.

"If we get a fish on this he may slip off or he may not, but we must
try," he said.

The fishing rod and the bait were easy matters. A slender stem of
dogwood, cut with a clasp knife, served for the first, and, to get the
latter, they had nothing to do but turn up a flat stone, and draw angle
worms from the moist earth beneath.

The hook was baited and with a triumphant flourish Henry swung it toward
the stream.

"Now," he said, "for the biggest fish that ever swam in this creek."

The boys might have caught nothing with such a rude outfit, but
doubtless that stream was never fished in before, and its inhabitants,
besides being full of a natural curiosity, did not dream of any danger
coming from the outer air. Therefore they bit at the curious-looking
metallic thing with the tempting food upon it which was suddenly dropped
from somewhere.

But the first fish slipped off as Henry had feared, and then there was
nothing to do but try again. It was not until the sixth or seventh bite
that he succeeded in landing a fine perch upon the bank, and then Paul
uttered a cry of triumph, but Henry, as became his superior dignity at
that moment, took his victory modestly. It was in reality something to
rejoice over, as these two boys were perhaps in a more dangerous
situation than they, with all their knowledge of the border, understood.
The wilderness was full of animal life, but it was fleeter than man,
and, without weapons they were helpless.

"And now to cook him," said Henry. So speaking, he took from his pocket
the flint and steel that he had learned from the men always to carry,
while Paul began to gather fallen brushwood.

To light the fire Henry expected to be the easiest of their tasks, but
it proved to be one of the most difficult. He struck forth the elusive
sparks again and again, but they went out before setting fire to the
wood. He worked until his fingers ached and then Paul relieved him. It
fell to the younger boy's lot to succeed. A bright spark flying forth
rested a moment among the lightest and dryest of the twigs, igniting
there. A tiny point of flame appeared, then grew and leaped up. In a few
moments the great pile of brushwood was in a roaring blaze, and then the
boys cooked their fish over the coals. They ate it all with supreme
content, and they believed they could feel the blood flowing in a new
current through their veins and their strength growing, too.

But they knew that they would have to prepare for the future and draw
upon all their resources of mind and body. Their hook and line was but a
slender appliance and they might not have such luck with it again. Paul
suggested that they make a fish trap, of sticks tied together with
strips cut from their clothing, and put it in the creek, and Henry
thought it was a good idea, too. So they agreed to try it on the morrow,
if they should not be found meanwhile, and then they debated the subject
of snares.

The undergrowth was swarming with rabbits, and they would make most
toothsome food. Rabbits they must have, and again Henry led the way. He
selected a small clear spot near the thick undergrowth where a rabbit
would naturally love to make his nest and around a circle about six
inches in diameter he drove a number of smooth pegs. Then he tied a
strong cord made of strips of their clothing to one end of a stout bush,
which he bent over until it curved in a semicircle. The other end of the
cord was drawn in a sliding loop around the pegs, and was attached to a
little wooden trigger, set in the center of the inclosure.

The slightest pressure upon this trigger would upset it, cause the noose
to slip off the pegs and close with a jerk around the neck of anything
that might have its head thrust into the inclosure. The bush, too, would
fly back into place and there would be the intruder, really hanged by
himself. It was the common form of snare, devised for small game by the
boys of early Kentucky, and still used by them.

Henry and Paul made four of these ingenious little contrivances, and
baited them with bruised pieces of the small plantain leaves that the
rabbits love. Then they contemplated their work again with satisfaction.
But Paul suddenly began to look rueful.

"If we have to pay out part of our clothes every time we get a dinner we
soon won't have any left," he said.

Henry only laughed.

It was now near sunset, and, as they had worked hard they would have
been thankful for supper, but there was none to be thankful for, and
they were too tired to fish again. So they concluded to go to sleep,
which their hard work made very easy, and dream of abundant harvests on
the morrow.

They gathered great armfuls of the fallen brushwood, littering the
forest, and built a heap as high as their heads, which blazed and roared
in a splendid manner, sending up, too, a column of smoke that rose far
above the trees and trailed off in the blue sky.

It was a most cheerful bonfire, and it was a happy thought for the boys
to build it, even aside from its uses as a signal, as the coming of
night in the wilderness is always most lonesome and weird.

They lay down near each other on the soft turf, and Henry watched the
red sun sink behind the black forest in the west. The strange,
sympathetic feeling for the wilderness again came into his mind. He
thought once more of the mysterious regions that lay beyond the line
where the black and red met. He could live in the woods, he was living
now without arms, even, and if he only had his rifle and ammunition he
could live in luxury. And then the wonderful freedom! That old thought
came to him with renewed force. To roam as he pleased, to stop when he
pleased and to sleep where he pleased! He would make a canoe, and float
down the great rivers to their mouths. Then he would wander far out on
the vast plains, which they say lay beyond the thousand miles of forest,
and see the buffalo in millions go thundering by. That would be a life
without care.

He fell asleep presently, but he was awakened after a while by a
long-drawn plaintive shriek answered by a similar cry. Once he would
have been alarmed by the sound, but now he knew it was panther talking
to panther. He and Paul were unarmed, but they had something as
effective as guns against panthers and that was the great bonfire which
still roared and blazed near them. He was glad now for a new reason that
they had built it high, because the panther's cry was so uncanny and
sent such a chill down one's back. He looked at Paul, but his comrade
still slept soundly, a peaceful smile showing on his face. He remembered
the words of Ross that no wild animal would trouble man if man did not
trouble him, and, rolling a little nearer to Paul, he shut his eyes and
sought sleep.

But sleep would not come, and presently he heard the cry of the panther
again but much nearer. He was lying with his ear to the ground. Now the
earth is a conductor of sound and Henry was sure that he heard a soft
tread. He rose upon his elbow and gazed into the darkness. There he
beheld at last a dim form moving with sinuous motion, and slowly it took
the shape of a great cat-like animal. Then he saw just behind it another
as large, and he knew that they were the two panthers whose cries he had
heard.

Henry was not frightened, although there was something weird and uncanny
in the spectacle of these two powerful beasts of prey, stealing about
the fire, before which two unarmed boys reposed. He knew, however, that
they were drawn not by the desire to attack, but by a kind of terrified
curiosity. The fire was to them the magnet that the snake is to the
fascinated bird. He longed then for his gun, the faithful little rifle
that was reposing on the hooks over his bed in his father's house. "I'd
make you cry for something," he said to himself, looking at the largest
of the panthers.

The animals lingered, glaring at the boys and the fire with great red
eyes, and presently Henry, doing as he had done on a former occasion,
picked up a blazing torch and, shouting, rushed at them.

The panthers sprang headlong through the undergrowth, in their eagerness
to get away from the terrible flaming vision that was darting down upon
them. Their flight was so quick that they disappeared in an instant and
Henry knew they would not venture near the site of the fire again in a
long time. He turned back and found Paul surprised and alarmed standing
erect and rubbing his eyes.

"Why--why--what's the matter?" cried Paul.

"Oh, it's nothing," replied Henry.

Then he told about the panthers. Paul did not know as much as Henry
concerning panthers and the affair got on his nerves. The lonely and
vast grandeur of the wilderness did not have the attraction for him that
it had for his comrade, and he wished again for the strong log walls and
comfortable roofs of Wareville. But Henry reassured him. The testimony
of the hunters about the timidity of wild beasts was unanimous and he
need have no fears. So Paul went to sleep again, but Henry lingered as
before.

He threw fresh fuel on the fire. Then he lay down again and gradually
weary nature became the master of him. The woods grew dim, and faded
away, the fire vanished and he was in slumberland.

When Henry awoke it was because some one was tugging at his shoulder. He
knew now that the Indian warriors had come across the Ohio, and had
seized him, and he sprang up ready to make a fierce resistance.

"Don't fight, Henry! It's me--Paul!" cried a boyish voice, and Henry
letting his muscles relax rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. It was Paul
sure enough standing beside him, and the sun again was high up in the
heavens. The fire was still burning, though it had died down somewhat.

"Oh, my breakfast!" cried Henry as he felt a sudden pang.

"Come, let's see if we're going to have any," said Paul, and off they
went to their snares. The first had not been touched, nor had the
second. The bait was gone from the third, and the loop sprung, but there
was nothing in it. The hearts of the boys sank and they thought again of
wild plums and blackberries which were but a light diet. But when they
came to the fourth snare their triumph was complete. A fat rabbit,
caught in the loop, was hanging by the neck, beside the bush.

"It's lucky the forest is so full of game that some of it falls into our
trap," said Henry.

They cooked the rabbit, and again they were so hungry that they ate it
all. Then they improvised new fishing tackle and both boys began to
fish. They knew that they must devote their whole time to this problem
of food, and they decided, for the present, not to leave the creek. They
were afraid to renew the search for Wareville, lest they wander deeper
into the wilderness, and moreover lose the way to the creek which seemed
to be the surest source of food. So they would stay a while where they
were, and keep their fire burning high as a signal to searchers.

Either the fish had learned that the curiously shaped thing with the
tempting bait upon it was dangerous, or they had gone to visit friends
in distant parts of the creek, for, at least two hours passed, without
either boy getting a bite. When the fish did lay hold it was usually to
slip again from the rude hook, and it was at least another hour before
they caught a fish. It was Paul who achieved the feat, and it repaid him
for being asleep when the panthers came, a matter that had lain upon his
mind somewhat.

They persisted in this work until Henry also made a catch and then they
gathered more plums and berries. They dug up, too, the root of the
Indian turnip, an herb that burnt the mouth like fire, but which Henry
said they could use, after soaking it a long time in water. Then they
discussed the matter of the fish trap which they thought they could make
in a day's work. This would relieve them of much toil, but they deferred
its beginning until the morrow, and used the rest of the day in making
two more snares for rabbits.

Paul now suggested that they accumulate as much food as possible, cook
it and putting it on their backs follow the creek to its mouth. He had
no doubt that it emptied into the river that flowed by Wareville and
then by following the stream, if his surmise was right, they could reach
home again. It was a plausible theory and Henry agreed with him.
Meanwhile they built their fire high again and lay down for another
night's rest in the woods. The next day they devoted to the fish trap
which was successfully completed, and put in the river, and then they
took their places on the turf for the third night beside the camp fire.

The day, like its predecessor, had been close and hot. All traces of the
great rain were gone. Forest and earth were again as dry as tinder. They
refreshed themselves with a swim in the creek just before lying down to
sleep, but they were soon panting with the heat. It seemed to hang in
heavy clouds, and the forest shut out any fresh air that might be moving
high up.

Despite the great heat the boys had built the fire as high as usual,
because they knew that the search for them would never cease so long as
there was a hope of success, and they thought that the signal should not
be lacking. But now they moved away from it and into the shadow of the
woods.

"If only the wind would blow!" said Henry.

"And I'd be willing to stand a rain like the one in which we got lost,"
said Paul.

But neither rain nor wind came, and after a while they fell asleep.
Henry was awakened at an unknown hour of the night by a roaring in his
ears, and at first he believed that Paul was about to have his storm.
Then he was dazzled by a great rush of light in his eyes, and he sprang
to his feet in sudden alarm.

"Up, Paul!" he cried, grasping his comrade by the shoulder. "The woods
are on fire!"

Paul was on his feet in an instant, and the two were just in time.
Sparks flew in their faces and the flames twisting into pyramids and
columns leaped from tree to tree with a sound like thunder as they came.
Boughs, burnt through, fell to the ground with a crash. The sparks rose
in millions.

The boys had slept in their clothes or rather what was left of them,
and, grasping each other's hands, they ran at full speed toward the
creek, with the great fire roaring and rushing after them. Henry looked
back once but the sight terrified him and the sparks scorched his face.
He knew that the conflagration had been set by their own bonfire, fanned
by a rising wind as they slept, but it was no time to lament. The rush
and sweep of the flames, feeding upon the dry forest and gathering
strength as they came, was terrific. It was indeed like the thunder of a
storm in the ears of the frightened boys, and they fairly skimmed over
the ground in the effort to escape the red pursuer. They could feel its
hot breath on their necks, while the smoke and the sparks flew over
their heads. They dashed into the creek, and each dived down under the
water which felt so cool and refreshing.

"Let's stay here," said Paul, who enjoyed the present.

"We can't think of such a thing," replied Henry. "This creek won't stop
that fire half a minute!"

A fire in a sun-dried Western forest is a terrible thing. It rushes on
at a gallop, roaring and crackling like the battle-front of an army, and
destroying everything that lies before it. It leaves but blackened
stumps and charred logs behind, and it stops only when there is no
longer food for it to devour.

The boys sprang out of the creek and ran up the hill. Henry paused a
moment at its crest, and looked back again. The aspect of the fire was
more frightful than ever. The flames leaped higher than the tops of the
tallest trees, and thrust out long red twining arms, like coiling
serpents. Beneath was the solid red bank of the conflagration, preceded
by showers of ashes and smoke and sparks. The roar increased and was
like that of many great guns in battle.

"Paul!" exclaimed Henry seizing his comrade's hand again. "We've got to
run, as we've never run before! It's for our lives now!"

It was in good truth for their lives, and bending low their heads, the
two boys, hand in hand, raced through the forest, with the ruthless
pursuer thundering after them. Henry as he ran, glanced back once more
and saw that the fire was gaining upon them. The serpents of flame were
coming nearer and nearer and the sparks flew over their heads in greater
showers. Paul was panting, and being the younger and smaller of the two
his strength was now failing. Henry felt his comrade dragging upon his
hand. If he freed himself from Paul's grasp he could run faster, but he
remembered his silent resolve to take Paul back to his people. Even were
it not for those others at Wareville he could never desert his friend at
such a moment. So he pulled on Paul's hand to hasten his speed, and
together the boys went on.

The two noticed presently that they were not alone in their flight, a
circumstance that had escaped them in the first hurry and confusion.
Deer and rabbits, too, flew before the hurricane of fire. The deer were
in a panic of terror, and a great stag ran for a few moments beside the
boys, not noticing them, or, in his fear of greater evil, having no fear
of human beings who were involved in the same danger. Three or four
buffaloes, too, presently joined the frightened herd of game, one, a
great bull running with head down and blowing steam from his nostrils.

Paul suddenly sank to his knees and gasped:

"I can't go on! Let me stay here and you save yourself, Henry!"

Henry looked back at the great fiery wall that swept over the ground,
roaring like a storm. It was very near now and the smoke almost blinded
him. A boy with a spirit less stanch than his might well have fled in a
panic, leaving his companion to his death. But the nearer the danger
came the more resolute Henry grew. He saw, too, that he must sting Paul
into renewed action.

"Get up!" he exclaimed, and he jerked the fainting boy to his feet.
Then, snatching a stick, he struck Paul several smart blows on his back.
Paul cried out with the sudden pain, and, stimulated by it into physical
action, began to run with renewed speed.

"That's right, Paul!" cried Henry, dropping his stick and seizing his
comrade again by the hand. "One more big try and we'll get away! Just
over this hill here it's open ground, and the fire will have to stop!"

It was a guess, only made to encourage Paul, and Henry had small hope
that it would come true, but when they reached the brow of the hill both
uttered a shout of delight. There was no forest for perhaps a quarter of
a mile beyond, and down the center of the open glittered a silver streak
that meant running water.

Henry was so joyous that he cried out again.

"See, Paul! See!" he exclaimed. "Here's safety! Now we'll run!"

How they did run! The sight gave them new strength. They shot out of
that terrible forest and across the short dry grass, burnt brown by late
summer days, running for life toward the flowing water. They did not
stop to notice the size of the stream, but plunged at once into its
current.

Henry sank with a mighty splash, and went down, down, it seemed to him,
a mile. Then his feet touched a hard, rocky bottom, and he shot back to
the surface, spluttering and blowing the water out of eyes, mouth and
nostrils. A brown head was bobbing beside him. He seized it by the hair,
pulled it up, and disclosed the features of Paul, his comrade. Paul,
too, began to splutter and at the same time to try to swim.

Splash!

A heavy body struck the water beside them with a thud too great for that
of a man. It was the stag leaping also for safety and he began to swim
about, looking at the boys with great pathetic eyes, as if he would ask
them what he ought to do next for his life. Apparently his fear of
mankind had passed for the moment. They were bound together by the
community of danger.

Splash! Splash! Splash!

The water resounded like the beating of a bass drum. Three more deer, a
buffalo, and any number of smaller game sprang into the stream, and
remained there swimming or wading.

"Here, Paul! Here's a bar that we can stand on," said Henry who had
found a footing. At the same time he grasped Paul by the wrist, and drew
him to the bar. There they stood in the water to their necks, and
watched the great fire as it divided at the little prairie, and swept
around them, passing to left and right. It was a grim sight. All the
heavens seemed ablaze, and the clouds of smoke were suffocating. Even
there in the river the heat was most oppressive, and at times the faces
of the boys were almost scorched. Then they would thrust their heads
under the water, and keep them there as long as they could hold their
breath, coming up again greatly refreshed. The wild game clustered near
in common terror.

"It's a lucky thing for us the river and prairie are here," said Henry.
"Another half mile and we'd have been ashes."

Paul was giving thanks under his breath, and watching the fire with
awe-stricken eyes. It swept past them and rushed on, in a great red
cloud, that ate all in its path and gave forth much noise.

It was now on the far side of the prairie, and soon began to grow
smaller in the distance. Yet so great was the wall of fire that it was
long in sight, dying at last in a red band under the horizon. Even then
all the skies were still filled with drifting smoke and ashes.

The boys looked back at the path over which they had come, and although
the joy of escape was still upon them it was with real grief that they
beheld the stricken forest, lately so grand a sight. It was now but a
desolate and blackened ruin. Here and there charred trunks stood like
the chimneys of burned houses, and others lay upon the ground like
fallen and smoking rafters. Scattered about were great beds of living
coals, where the brush had been thickest, and smoke rose in columns from
the burned grass and hot earth. It was all like some great temple
destroyed by fire; and such it was, the grandest of all temples, the
natural temple of the forest.

"We kindled that fire," said Paul.

"I guess we did," responded Henry, "but we didn't know our spark would
grow into so great a blaze."

They swam to the bank and walked toward the remains of the forest. But
the ground was still hot to their feet, and the smoke troubled them.
Near the edge of the wood they found a deer still alive and with a
broken leg, tripped in its panic-stricken flight or struck by a fallen
tree. Henry approached cautiously and slew him with his clasp knife. He
felt strong pity as the fallen animal looked at him with great mournful
eyes, but they were two hungry boys, and they must have a food supply if
they would live in the woods.

They cleaned and dressed the deer and found that the carcass was as much
as they could carry. But with great toil they lifted it over the hot
ground, and then across another little prairie, until they came to woods
only partially burned. There they hung the body to the bough of a tree,
out of the reach of beasts of prey.

Then they took thought for the future. Barring the deer which would last
some time they would now have to begin all over again, but they resolved
to spend the rest of the present day, there under the shade of the
trees. They were too much exhausted with exertion and excitement to
undertake any new risk just yet.

Paul was afflicted with a great longing for home that afternoon. The
fire and their narrow escape were still on his nerves. His muscular
fiber was not so enduring as that of Henry, and the wilderness did not
make so keen an appeal to him. Their hardships were beginning to weigh
upon him and he thought all the time of Wareville, and the comfortable
little log houses and the certain and easy supplies of food. Henry knew
what was on his comrade's mind but he did not upbraid him for weakness
of spirit. He, too, had memories of Wareville, and he pitied the grief
of their people who must now be mourning them as lost forever. But he
had been thinking long and hard and he had a plan. Finally he announced
to Paul that they would build a raft.

"I believe this is the same river that runs by Wareville," he said. "I
never heard Ross or Shif'less Sol or any of the men speak of another
river, near enough for us to have reached it, since we've been wandering
around. So it must be the same. Now either we are above Wareville or we
are below it. We've got to guess at that and take the risk of it. We can
roll a lot of the logs and timber into the river, tie 'em together, and
float with the stream until we come to Wareville."

"But if we never come to it?" asked Paul.

"Then all we have to do is to get off the raft and follow the river back
up the bank. Then we are sure to reach home."

This was so plausible that Paul was full of enthusiasm and they decided
that they would set to work on the raft early in the morning.




CHAPTER IV

THE HAUNTED FOREST


As the two boys sat before their camp fire that night, after making
their plan, they were far from feeling gloomy. Another revulsion had
come. Safe, for the moment, after their recent run for life, it seemed
to them that they were safe for all time. They were rested, they had
eaten good food in plenty, and the fire was long since but a dim red
blur on the horizon. Ashes, picked up by wandering puffs of wind, still
floated here and there among the burned tree trunks, and now and then a
shower of sparks burst forth, as a bough into which the flames had eaten
deep, broke and fell to the ground; but fear had gone from the lads,
and, in its place, came a deep content. They were used to the forest,
and in the company of each other they felt neither loneliness nor
despair.

"It's good here," said Paul who was a reader and a philosopher. "I guess
a fellow's life looks best to him just after he's thought he was going
to lose it, but didn't."

"I think that's true," said Henry, glancing toward the far horizon,
where the red blur still showed under the twilight. "But that was just a
little too close for fun."

But his satisfaction was even deeper than Paul's. The wilderness and its
ways made a stronger appeal to him. Paul, without Henry, would have felt
loneliness and fear, but Henry alone, would have faced the night
undaunted. Already the great forest was putting upon him its magic
spell.

"Have you eaten enough, Paul?" he asked.

"I should like to eat more, but I'm afraid I can't find a place for it,"
replied Paul ruefully.

Henry laughed. He felt himself more than ever Paul's protector and
regarded all his weaknesses with kindly tolerance. There the two lay
awhile, stretched out on the soft, warm earth, watching the twilight
deepen into night. Henry was listening to the voice of the wilderness,
which spoke to him in such pleasant tones. He heard a faint sighing,
like some one lightly plucking the strings of a guitar, and he knew that
it was the wandering breeze among the burned boughs; he heard now and
then a distant thud, and he knew that it was the fall of a tree, into
whose trunk the flames had bit deeply; as he lay with his ear to the
earth he heard more than once a furtive footfall as light as air, and he
knew that some wild animal was passing. But he had no fear, the fire was
a ring of steel about them.

Paul heard few of these sounds, or if hearing them he paid no heed. The
wilderness was not talking to him. He was merely in the woods and he was
very glad indeed to have his strong and faithful comrade beside him.

The twilight slipped away and the night came, thick and dark. The red
blur lingered, but the faintest line of pink under the dark horizon, and
the scorched tree trunks that curved like columns in a circle around
them became misty and unreal. Despite himself Paul began to feel a
little fear. He was a brave boy, but this was the wilderness, the
wilderness in the dark, peopled by wild animals and perhaps by wilder
men, and they were lost in it. He moved a little closer to his comrade.
But Henry, into whose mind no such thoughts had come, rose presently,
and heaped more wood on the fire. He was merely taking an ordinary
precaution, and this little task finished, he spoke to Paul in a vein of
humor, purposely making his words sound very big.

"Mr. Cotter," he said, "it seems to me that two worthy gentlemen like
ourselves who have had a day of hard toil should retire for the night,
and seek the rest that we deserve."

"What you say is certainly true, Mr. Ware," responded Paul who had a
lively fancy, "and I am glad to see that we have happened upon an inn,
worthy of our great merits, and of our high position in life. This, you
see, Mr. Ware, is the Kaintuckee Inn, a most spacious place, noted for
its pure air, and the great abundance of it. In truth, Mr. Ware, I may
assert to you that the ventilation is perfect."

"So I see, Mr. Cotter," said Henry, pursuing the same humor. "It is
indeed a noble place. We are not troubled by any guest, beneath us in
quality, nor are we crowded by any of our fellow lodgers."

"True! True!" said Paul, his bright eyes shining with his quick spirit,
"and it is a most noble apartment that we have chosen. I have seldom
been in one more spacious. My eyes are good, but good as they are I
cannot see the ceiling, it is so high. I look to right and left, and the
walls are so far away that they are hidden in the dark."

"Correctly spoken, Mr. Cotter," said Henry taking up the thread of talk,
"and our inn has more than size to speak for it. It is furnished most
beautifully. I do not know of another that has in it so good a larder.
Its great specialty is game. It has too a most wonderful and plenteous
supply of pure fresh water and that being so I propose that we get a
drink and go to bed."

The two boys went down to the little brook that ran near, and drank
heartily. They then returned within the ring of fire.

They were thoroughly tired and sleepy, and they quickly threw themselves
down upon the soft warm earth, pillowing their heads on their arms, and
the great Kaintuckee Inn bent over them a roof of soft, summer skies.

But the wilderness never sleeps, and its people knew that night that a
stranger breed was abroad among them. The wind rose a little, and its
song among the burned branches became by turns a music and a moan. The
last cinder died, the earth cooled, and the forest creatures began to
stir in the woodland aisles where the fire had passed. The disaster had
come and gone, and perhaps it was already out of their memories forever.
Rabbits timidly sought their old nests. A wild cat climbed a tree,
scarcely yet cool beneath his claws, and looked with red and staring
eyes at the ring of fire that formed a core of light in the forest, and
the two extraordinary beings that slept within its shelter. A deer came
down to the brook to drink, snorted at the sight of the red gleam among
the trees, and then, when the strange odor came on the wind to its
nostrils, fled in wild fright through the forest.

The news, in some way unknown to man, was carried to all the forest
creatures. A new species, strange, unexplainable, had come among them,
and they were filled with curiosity. Even the weak who had need to fear
the strong, edged as near as they dared, and gazed at the singular
beings who lay inside the red blaze. The wild cat crawled far out on the
bare bough, and stared, half afraid, half curious, and also angry at the
intrusion. He could see over the red blaze and he saw the boys stretched
upon the ground, their faces, very white to the eye of the forest,
upturned to the sky. To human gaze they would have seemed as two dead,
but the keen eyes of the wild cat saw their chests rising and falling
with deep regular breaths.

The darkness deepened and then after a while began to lighten. A
beautiful clear moon came out and sheathed all the burned forest in
gleaming silver. But the boys were still far away in a happy
slumberland. The wild cat fled in alarm at the light, and the timid
things drew back farther among the trees.

Time passed, and the red ring of fire about Paul and Henry sank. Hasty
and tired, they had not drawn up enough wood to last out the night, and
now the flames died, one by one. Then the coals smoldered and after a
while they too began to go out, one by one. The red ring of fire that
inclosed the two boys was slowly going away. It broke into links, and
then the links went out.

Light clouds came up from the west, and were drawn, like a veil, across
the sky. The moon began to fade, the silver armor melted away from the
trees, and the wild cat that had come back could scarcely see the two
strange beings, keen though his eyes were, so dense was the shadow where
they lay. The wild things, still devoured with curiosity, pressed
nearer. The terrible red light that filled their souls with dread, was
gone, and the forest had lost half its terror. There was a ring of eyes
about Henry and Paul, but they yet abode in glorious slumberland,
peaceful and happy.

Suddenly a new note came into the sounds of the wilderness, one that
made the timid creatures tremble again with dread. It was faint and very
far, more like a quaver brought down upon the wind, but the ring of eyes
drew back into the forest, and then, when the quaver came a second time,
the rabbits and the deer fled, not to return. The lips of the wild cat
contracted into a snarl, but his courage was only of the moment, he
scampered away and he did not stop until he had gone a full mile. Then
he swiftly climbed the tallest tree that he could find, and hid in its
top.

The ring of eyes was gone, as the ring of fire had died, but Henry and
Paul slept on, although there was full need for them to be awake. The
long, distant quaver, like a whine, but with something singularly
ferocious in its note came again on the wind, and, far away, a score of
forms, phantom and dusky, in the shadow were running fast, with low,
slim bodies, and outstretched nostrils that had in them a grateful odor
of food, soon to come.

Nature had given to Henry Ware a physical mechanism of great strength,
but as delicate as that of a watch. Any jar to the wheels and springs
was registered at once by the minute hand of his brain. He stirred in
his sleep and moved one hand in a troubled way. He was not yet awake,
but the minute hand was quivering, and through all his wonderfully
sensitive organism ran the note of alarm. He stirred again and then
abruptly sat up, his eyes wide open, and his whole frame tense with a
new and terrible sensation. He saw the dead coals, where the fire had
been; the long, quavering and ferocious whine came to his ears, and, in
an instant, he understood. It was well for the two that Henry was by
nature a creature of the forest! He sprang to his feet and with one
sweeping motion pulled Paul to his also.

"Up! Up, Paul!" he cried. "The fire is out, and the wolves are coming!"

Paul's physical senses were less acute and delicate than Henry's, and he
did not understand at once. He was still dazed, and groping with his
hands in the dusk, but Henry gave him no time.

"It's our lives, Paul!" he cried. "Another enemy as bad as the fire is
after us!"

Not twenty feet away grew a giant beech, spreading out low and mighty
boughs, and Henry leaped for it, dragging Paul after him.

"Up you go!" he cried, and Paul, not yet fully awake, instinctively
obeyed the fierce command. Then Henry leaped lightly after him and as
they climbed higher among the boughs the ferocious whine burst into a
long terrible howl, and the dusky forms, running low, gaunt and ghostly
in the shadow, shot from the forest, and hurled themselves at the beech
tree.

Henry, despite all his courage, shuddered, and while he clutched a bough
tightly with one hand put the other upon his comrade to see that he did
not fall. He could feel Paul trembling in his grasp.

The two looked down upon the inflamed red eyes, the cruelly sharp, white
teeth and slavering mouths, and, still panting from their climb, each
breathed a silent prayer of thankfulness. They had been just in time to
escape a pack of wolves that howled horribly for a while, and then sat
upon their haunches, staring silently up at the sweet new food, which
they believed would fall at last into their mouths.

Paul at length said weakly:

"Henry, I'm mighty glad you're a light sleeper. If it had been left to
me to wake up first I'd have woke up right in the middle of the stomachs
of those wolves."

"Well, we're here and we're safe for the present," said Henry who never
troubled himself over what was past and gone, "and I think this is a
mighty fine beech tree. I know that you and I, Paul, will never see
another so big and friendly and good as it is."

Paul laughed, now with more heart.

"You are right, Henry," he said. "You are a mighty good friend, Mr. Big
Beech Tree, and as a mark of gratitude I shall kiss you right in the
middle of your honest barky old forehead," and he touched his lips
lightly to the great trunk. Paul was an imaginative boy, and his whim
pleased him. Such a thought would not have come to Henry, but he liked
it in Paul.

"I think it's past midnight, Paul," said Henry, "and we've been lucky
enough to have had several hours' sleep."

"But they'll go away as soon as they realize they can't get us," said
Paul, "and then we can climb down and build a new and bigger ring of
fire about us."

Henry shook his head.

"They don't realize it," he replied. "I know they expect just the
contrary, Paul. They are as sure as a wolf can be that we will drop
right into their mouths, just ready and anxious to be eaten. Look at
that old fellow with his forepaws on the tree! Did you ever see such
confidence?"

Paul looked down fearfully, and the eyes of the biggest of the wolves
met his, and held him as if he were charmed. The wolf began to whine and
lick his lips, and Paul felt an insane desire to throw himself down.

"Stop it, Paul!" Henry cried sharply.

Paul jerked his eyes away, and shuddered from head to foot.

"He was asking me to come," he said hysterically, "and I don't know how
it was, but for a moment I felt like going."

"Yes and a warm welcome he would have given you," said Henry still
sharply. "Remember that your best friend just now is not Mr. Big Wolf,
but Mr. Big Beech Tree, and it's a wise boy who sticks to his best
friend."

"I'm not likely to forget it," said Paul.

He shuddered again at the memory of the terrible, haunting eyes that had
been able for a brief moment to draw him downward. Then he clasped the
friendly tree more tightly in his arms, and Henry smiled approval.

"That's right, Paul," he said, "hold fast. I'd a heap rather be up here
than down there."

Paul felt himself with his hand.

"I'm all in one piece up here," he said, "and I think that's good for a
fellow who wants to live and grow."

Henry laughed with genuine enjoyment. Paul was getting back his sense of
humor, and the change meant that his comrade was once more strong and
alert. Then the larger boy looked down at their besiegers, who were
sitting in a solemn circle, gazing now at the two lads and now at the
venison, hanging from the boughs of another tree very near. In the dusk
and the shadows they were a terrible company, gaunt and ghostly, gray
and grim.

For a long time the wolves neither moved nor uttered a sound; they
merely sat on their haunches and stared upward at the living prey that
they felt would surely be theirs. The clouds, caught by wandering
breezes, were stripped from the face of the sky, and the moonlight came
out again, clear, and full, sheathing the scorched trunks once more in
silver armor, and stretching great blankets of light on the burned and
ashy earth. It fell too on the gaunt figures of the gray wolves, but the
silent and deadly circle did not stir. In the moonlight they grew more
terrible, the red eyes became more inflamed and angry, because they had
to wait so long for what they considered theirs by right, the snarling
lips were drawn back a little farther, and the sharp white teeth gleamed
more cruelly.

Time passed again, dragging slowly and heavily for the besieged boys in
the tree, but the wolves, though hungry, were patient. Strong in union
they were lords of the forest, and they felt no fear. A shambling black
bear, lumbering through the woods, suddenly threw up his nose in the
wind, and catching the strong pungent odor, wheeled abruptly, lumbering
off on another course. The wild cat did not come back, but crouched
lower in his tree top; the timid things remained hidden deep in their
nests and burrows.

It was a new kind of game that the wolves had scented and driven to the
boughs, something that they had never seen before, but the odor was very
sweet and pleasant in their nostrils. It was a tidbit that they must
have, and, red-eyed, they stared at the two strange, toothsome
creatures, who stirred now and then in the tree, and who made queer
sounds to each other. When they heard these occasional noises the pack
would reply with a long ferocious whine that seemed to double on itself
and give back echoes from every point of the compass. In the still night
it went far, and the timid things, when they heard it, trembled all over
in their nests and burrows. Then the leader, the largest and most
terrible of the pack would stretch himself upon the tree trunk, and claw
at the scorched bark, but the food he craved was still out of reach.

They noticed that the strange creatures in the tree began to move
oftener, and to draw their limbs up as if they were growing stiff, and
then their long-drawn howl grew longer and more ferocious than ever; the
game, tired out, would soon drop into their mouths. But it did not, the
two creatures made sounds as if they were again encouraging each other,
and the hearts of the wolves filled with rage and impatience that they
should be cheated so long.

The night advanced; the moonlight faded again and the dark hours that
come before the dawn were at hand. The forest became black and misty
like a haunted wood, and the dim forms of the wolves were the ghosts
that lived in it. But to their sharp red eyes the dark was nothing; they
saw the two beings in the tree do a very queer thing; they tore strips
from themselves, so it seemed to the wolves, from their clothing in
fact, and wound it about their bodies and a bough of the tree against
which they rested. But the wolves did not understand, only they knew
that the creatures did not stir again or make any kind of noise for a
long time.

When the darkness was thickest the wolves grew hot with impatience.
Already they smelled the dawn and in the light their courage would ooze.
Could it be that the food they coveted would not fall into their mouths?
The dread suspicion filled every vein of the old leader with wrath, and
he uttered a long terrible howl of doubt and anger; the pack took up the
note and the lonely forest became alive with its echoes. But the
creatures in the tree stirred only a little, and made very few sounds.
They seemed to be safe and content, and the wolves raged back and forth,
leaping and howling.

The old leader felt the dark thin and lighten, and the scent of the
coming dawn became more oppressive to him. A little needle of fear shot
into his heart, and his muscles began to grow weak. He saw afar in the
east the first pale tinge, faint and gray, of the dreadful light that he
feared and hated. His howl now was one of mingled anger and
disappointment, and the pack imitated the note of the king.

The black veil over the forest gave way to one of gray. The dreadful bar
of light in the east broadened and deepened, and became beaming, intense
and brilliant. The needle of terror at the heart of the gray wolf
stabbed and tore. His red eyes could not face the great red sun that
swung now above the earth, shooting its fierce beams straight at him.
The dark, so kindly and so encouraging, beloved of his kind, was gone,
and the earth swam in a hideous light, every ray of which was hostile.
His blood changed to water, his knees bent under him, and then, to turn
fear to panic, came a powerful odor on the light, morning wind. It was
like the scent of the two strange, succulent creatures in the tree, but
it was the odor of many--many make strength he knew--and the great gray
wolf was sore afraid.

The sun shot higher and the world was bathed in a luminous golden glow.
The master-wolf cast one last, longing look at the lost food in the
tree, and then, uttering a long quavering howl of terror, which the pack
took up and carried in many echoes, fled headlong through the forest
with his followers close behind, all running low and fast, and with
terror hot at their heels. Their gaunt, gray bodies were gone in a
moment, like ghosts that vanish at the coming of the day.

"Rouse up, Paul!" cried Henry. "They are gone, afraid of the sun, and
it's safe for us now on the ground."

"And mighty glad I am!" said Paul. "The great Inn of Kaintuckee was not
so hospitable after all, or at least some of our fellow guests were too
hungry."

"It's because we were careless about our fire," said Henry. "If we had
obeyed all the rules of the inn, we should have had no trouble. Jump
down, Paul!"

Henry dropped lightly and cheerfully to the ground. As usual he let the
past and its dangers slip, forgotten, behind him. Paul alighted beside
him and the wilderness witnessed the strange sight of two stout boys,
running up and down, pounding and rubbing their hands and arms, uttering
little cries of pain, as the blood flowed at first slowly and with
difficulty in their cramped limbs, and then of delight, as the
circulation became free and easy.

"Now for breakfast," said Henry. "It will be easy, as Mr. Landlord has
kept the venison hanging on the tree there for us."

Henry was breathing the fresh morning air, and rejoicing in the
sunlight. His wonderful physical nature had cast away all thought of
fear, but Paul, who had the sensitive mind and delicate fancy, was still
troubled.

"Henry," he said, "I'm not willing to stay here, even to eat the deer
meat. All through those hours we were up there it was a haunted forest
for me. I don't want to see this spot any more, and I'd like to get away
from it just as soon as I can."

Was it some instinct? or an unseen warning given to Paul, and registered
on his sensitive mind, as a photographic plate takes light? To the keen
nose of the old wolf leader an alarming odor had come with the dawn! Was
a kindred signal sent to Paul?

Henry stared at his comrade in surprise, but he knew that he and Paul
were different, and he respected those differences which might be either
strength or weakness.

"All right, if you wish it, Paul," he said, lightly. "There are many
rooms in the Kaintuckee Inn, and if the one we have doesn't suit us
we'll just take another. Wait till I cut this venison down, and we'll
move without paying our score."

"I guess we paid that to the wolves," said Paul, smiling a little.

Henry detached the venison and divided it. Then each took his share, and
they moved swiftly away among the trees, still keeping to the general
course of the river. They came presently to a large area of unburned
forest, thick with foliage and undergrowth and, without hesitation, they
plunged into it. Henry was in front and suddenly to his keen ears came a
sound which he knew was not one of the natural noises of the forest. He
listened and it continued, a beat, faint but regular and steady. He knew
that it was made by footfalls, and he knew, too, that in the wilderness
everyone is an enemy until he is proved to be a friend. They were in the
densest of the undergrowth, and thought and action came to him on the
heels of each other, swift as lightning.

"Sink down, Paul! Sink down!" he cried, and grasping his comrade by the
shoulder he bore him down among the thick bushes, going down with him.

"Don't move for your life!" he whispered. "Men are about to pass and
they cannot be our kind!"

Paul at once became as still as death. He too under the strain of the
wilderness life and the need of caring for oneself was becoming
wonderfully acute of the senses and ready of action. The two boys
crouched close together, their heads below the tops of the bushes,
although they could see between the leaves and twigs, and neither moved
a hair.

Almost hidden in the foliage a line of Indian warriors, like dusky
phantoms, passed, in single file, and apparently stepping in one
another's tracks. Well for the boys that Paul had felt his impulse to
leave the vicinity of the besieged tree, because the course of the
warriors would carry them very near it, and they could not fail to
detect the alien presence. But no such suspicion seemed to enter their
minds now, and, like the wolves, they were traveling fast, but
southward.

The boys stared through the leaves and twigs, afraid but fascinated.
They were fourteen in all--Henry counted them--but never a warrior spoke
a word, and the grim line was seen but a moment and then gone, though
their dark painted faces long remained engraved, like pictures, on the
minds of both. But to Paul it was, for the instant, like a dream. He saw
them, and then he did not. The leaves of the bushes rustled a little
when they passed, and then were still.

"They must be Southern Indians," whispered Henry. "Cherokees most
likely. They come up here now and then to hunt, but they seldom stay
long, for fear of the more warlike and powerful Northern Indians, who
come down to Kaintuckee for the same purpose, at least that's what I
heard Ross and Sol say."

"Well, they did seem to be traveling fast," breathed Paul, "and I'm
mighty glad of it. Do you think, Henry, they could have done any harm at
Wareville?"

Henry shook his head.

"I have no such fear," he said. "We are a good long distance from home,
and they've probably gone by without ever hearing of the place. Ross has
always said that no danger was to be dreaded from the south."

"I guess it's so," said Paul with deep relief, "but I think, Henry, that
you and I ought to go down to the river's bank, and build that raft as
soon as we can."

"All right," said Henry calmly. "But we'll first eat our venison."

They quickly did as they agreed, and felt greatly strengthened and
encouraged after a hearty breakfast. Then with bold hearts and quick
hands they began their task.




CHAPTER V

AFLOAT


The boys began at once the work on their raft, a rude structure of a few
fallen logs, fastened together with bark and brush, but simple, strong
and safe. They finished it in two days, existing meanwhile on the deer
meat, and early the morning afterwards, the clumsy craft, bearing the
two navigators, was duly intrusted to the mercy of the unknown river.
Each of the boys carried a slender hickory pole with which to steer, and
they also fastened securely to the raft the remainder of their deer,
their most precious possession.

They pushed off with the poles, and the current catching their craft,
carried it gently along. It was a fine little river, running in a deep
channel, and Henry became more sure than ever that it was the one that
flowed by Wareville. He was certain that the family resemblance was too
strong for him to be mistaken.

They floated on for hours, rarely using their poles to increase the
speed of the raft and by and by they began to pass between cliffs of
considerable height. The forest here was very dense. Mighty oaks and
hickories grew right at the water's edge, throwing out their boughs so
far that often the whole stream was in the shade. Henry enjoyed it. This
was one of the things that his fancy had pictured. He was now floating
down an unknown river, through unknown lands, and, like as not, his and
Paul's were the first human eyes that had ever looked upon these hills
and splendid forests. Reposing now after work and danger he breathed
again the breath of the wilderness. He loved it--its silence, its
magnificent spaces, and its majesty. He was glad that he had come to
Kentucky, where life was so much grander than it was back in the old
Eastern regions. Here one was not fenced in and confined and could grow
to his true stature.

They ate their dinner on the raft, still floating peacefully and tried
to guess how far they had come, but neither was able to judge the speed
of the current. Paul fitted himself into a snug place on their queer
craft and after a while went to sleep. Henry watched him, lest he turn
over and fall into the river and also kept an eye out for other things.

He was watching thus, when about the middle of the afternoon he saw a
thin dark line, lying like a thread, against the blue skies. He studied
it long and came to the conclusion that it was smoke.

"Smoke!" said he to himself. "Maybe that means Wareville."

The raft glided gently with the current, moving so smoothly and
peacefully that it was like the floating of a bubble on a summer sea.
Paul still lay in a dreamless sleep. The water was silver in the shade
and dim gold where the sunshine fell upon it, and the trees, a solid
mass, touched already by the brown of early autumn, dropped over the
stream. Afar, a fine haze, like a misty veil, hung over the forest. The
world was full of peace and primitive beauty.

They drifted on and the spire of smoke broadened and grew. The look of
the river became more and more familiar. Paul still slept and Henry
would not awaken him. He looked at the face of his comrade as he
slumbered and noticed for the first time that it was thin and pale. The
life in the woods had been hard upon Paul. Henry did not realize until
this moment how very hard it had been. The sight of that smoke had not
come too soon.

There was a shout from the bank followed by the crash of bodies among
the undergrowth.

"Smoke me, but here they are! A-floatin' down the river in their own
boat, as comfortable as two lords!"

It was the voice of Shif'less Sol, and his face, side by side with that
of Ross, the guide, appeared among the trees at the river's brink. Henry
felt a great flush of joy when he saw them, and waved his hands. Paul,
awakened by the shouts, was in a daze at first, but when he beheld old
friends again his delight was intense.

Henry thrust a pole against the bottom and shoved the raft to the bank.
Then he and Paul sprang ashore and shook hands again and again with Ross
and Sol. Ross told of the long search for the two boys. He and Mr. Ware
and Shif'less Sol and a half dozen others had never ceased to seek them.
They feared at one time that they had been carried off by savages, but
nowhere did they find Indian traces. Then their dread was of starvation
or death by wild animals, and they had begun to lose hope.

Both Henry and Paul were deeply moved by the story of the grief at
Wareville. They knew even without the telling that this sorrow had never
been demonstrative. The mothers of the West were too much accustomed to
great tragedies to cry out and wring their hands when a blow fell.
Theirs was always a silent grief, but none the less deep.

Then, guided by Ross and the shiftless one, they proceeded to Wareville
which was really at the bottom of the smoke spire, where they were
received, as two risen from the dead, in a welcome that was not noisy,
but deep and heartfelt. The cow, the original cause of the trouble, had
wandered back home long ago.

"How did you live in the forest?" asked Mr. Ware of Henry, after the
first joy of welcome was shown.

"It was hard at first, but we were beginning to learn," replied the boy.
"If we'd only had our rifles 'twould have been no trouble. And father,
the wilderness is splendid!"

The boy's thoughts wandered far away for a moment to the wild woods
where he again lay in the shade of mighty oaks and saw the deer come
down to drink. Mr. Ware noticed the expression on Henry's face and took
reflection. "I must not let the yoke bear too heavy upon him," was his
unspoken thought.

But Paul's joy was unalloyed; he preferred life at Wareville to life in
the wilderness amid perpetual hardships, and when they gave the great
dinner at Mr. Ware's to celebrate the return of the wanderers he reached
the height of human bliss. Both Ross and Shif'less Sol were present and
with them, too, were Silas Pennypacker who could preach upon occasion
for the settlement and did it, now and then, and John Upton, who next to
Mr. Ware was the most notable man in Wareville, and his daughter Lucy,
now a shy, pretty girl of twelve, and more than twenty others. Even
Braxton Wyatt was among the members although he still sneered at Henry.

Theirs was in very truth a table fit for a king. In fact few kings could
duplicate it, without sending to the uttermost parts of the earth, and
perhaps not then. Meat was its staple. They had wild duck, wild goose,
wild turkey, deer, elk, beaver tail, and a half dozen kinds of fish; but
the great delicacy was buffalo hump cooked in a peculiar way--that is,
served up in the hide of a buffalo from which the hair had been singed
off, and baked in an earthen oven. Ross, who had learned it from the
Indians, showed them how to do this, and they agreed that none of them
had ever before tasted so fine a dish. When the dinner was over, Henry
and Paul had to answer many questions about their wanderings, and they
were quite willing to do so, feeling at the moment a due sense of their
own importance.

A shade passed over the faces of some of the men at the mention of the
Indians, whom Henry and Paul had seen, but Ross agreed with Henry that
they were surely of the South, going home from a hunting trip, and so
they were soon forgotten.

Henry's work after their return included an occasional hunting
excursion, as game was always needed. His love of the wilderness did not
decrease when thus he ranged through it and began to understand its
ways. Familiarity did not breed contempt. The magnificent spaces and
mighty silence appealed to him with increasing force. The columns of the
trees were like cathedral aisles and the pure breath of the wind was
fresh with life.

The first part of the autumn was hot and dry. The foliage died fast, the
leaves twisted and dried up and the brown grass stems fell lifeless to
the earth. A long time they were without rain, and a dull haze of heat
hung over the simmering earth. The river shrank in its bed, and the
brooks became rills.

Henry still hunted with his older comrades, though often at night now,
and he saw the forest in a new phase. Dried and burned it appealed to
him still. He learned to sleep lightly, that is, to start up at the
slightest sound, and one morning after the wilderness had been growing
hotter and dryer than ever he was awakened by a faint liquid touch on
the roof. He knew at once that it was the rain, wished for so long and
talked of so much, and he opened the shutter window to see it fall.

The sun was just rising, but showed only a faint glow of pink through
the misty clouds, and the wind was light. The clouds opened but a little
at first and the great drops fell slowly. The hot earth steamed at the
touch, and, burning with thirst, quickly drank in the moisture. The wind
grew and the drops fell faster. The heat fled away, driven by the waves
of cool, fresh air that came out of the west. Washed by the rain the dry
grass straightened up, and the dying leaves opened out, springing into
new life. Faster and faster came the drops and now the sound they made
was like the steady patter of musketry. Henry opened his mouth and
breathed the fresh clean air, and he felt that like the leaves and grass
he, too, was gaining new life.

When he went forth the next day in the dripping forest the wilderness
seemed to be alive. The game swarmed everywhere and he was a lazy man
who could not take what he wished. It was like a late touch of spring,
but it did not last long, for then the frosts came, the air grew crisp
and cool and the foliage of the forest turned to wonderful reds and
yellows and browns. From the summit of the blockhouse tower Henry saw a
great blaze of varied color, and he thought that he liked this part of
the year best. He could feel his own strength grow, and now that cold
weather was soon to come he would learn new ways to seek game and new
phases of the wilderness.

The autumn and its beauty deepened. The colors of the foliage grew more
intense and burned afar like flame. The settlers lightened their work
and most of them now spent a large part of the time in hunting, pursuing
it with the keen zest, born of a natural taste and the relaxation from
heavy labors. Mr. Ware and a few others, anxious to test the qualities
of the soil, were plowing up newly cleared land to be sown in wheat, but
Henry was compelled to devote only a portion of his time to this work.
The remaining hours, not needed for sleep, he was usually in the forest
with Paul and the others.

The hunting was now glorious. Less than three miles from the fort and
about a mile from the river Henry and Paul found a beaver dam across a
tributary creek and they laid rude traps for its builders, six of which
they caught in the course of time. Ross and Sol showed them how to take
off the pelts which would be of value when trade should be opened with
the east, and also how to cook beaver tail, a dish which could, with
truth, be called a rival of buffalo hump.

Now the settlers began to accumulate a great supply of game at
Wareville. Elk and deer and bear and buffalo and smaller animals were
being jerked and dried at every house, and every larder was filled to
the brim. There could be no lack of food the coming winter, the settlers
said, and they spoke with some pride of their care and providence.

The village was gaining in both comfort and picturesqueness. Tanned
skins of the deer, elk, buffalo, bear, wolf, panther and wild cat hung
on the walls of every house, and were spread on every floor. The women
contrived fans and ornaments of the beautiful mottled plumage of the
wild turkey. Cloth was hard to obtain in the wilderness, as it might be
a year before a pack train would come over the mountains from the east,
and so the women made clothing of the softest and lightest of the
dressed deer skin. There were hunting shirts for the men and boys,
fastened at the waist by a belt, and with a fringe three or four inches
long, the bottom of which fell to the knees. The men and boys also made
themselves caps of raccoon skin with the tail sewed on behind as a
decoration. Henry and Paul were very proud of theirs.

The finest robes of buffalo skin were saved for the beds, and Ross gave
warning that they should have full need of them. Winters in Kentucky, he
said, were often cold enough to freeze the very marrow in one's bones,
when even the wildest of men would be glad enough to leave the woods and
hover over a big fire. But the settlers provided for this also by
building great stacks of firewood beside each house. They were as well
equipped with axes--keen, heavy weapons--as they were with rifles and
ammunition, and these were as necessary. The forest around Wareville
already gave great proof of their prowess with the ax.

Now the autumn was waning. Every morning the wilderness gleamed and
sparkled beneath a beautiful covering of white frost. The brown in the
leaves began to usurp the yellows and the reds. The air, crisp and cold,
had a strange nectar in it and its very breath was life. The sun lay in
the heavens a ball of gold, and a fine haze, like a misty golden veil,
hung over the forest. It was Indian summer.

Then Indian summer passed and winter, which was very early that year,
came roaring down on Wareville. The autumn broke up in a cold rain which
soon turned to snow. The wind swept out of the northwest, bitter and
chill, and the desolate forest, every bough stripped of its leaves,
moaned before the blast.

But it was cheerful, when the sleet beat upon the roof and the cold wind
rattled the rude shutters, to sit before the big fires and watch them
sparkle and blaze.

There was another reason why Henry should now begin to spend much of his
time indoors. The Rev. Silas Pennypacker opened his school for the
winter, and it was necessary for Henry to attend. Many of the pioneers
who crossed the mountains from the Eastern States and founded the great
Western outpost of the nation in Kentucky were men of education and
cultivation, with a knowledge of books and the world. They did not
intend that their children should grow up mere ignorant borderers, but
they wished their daughters to have grace and manners and their sons to
become men of affairs, fit to lead the vanguard of a mighty race. So a
first duty in the wilderness was to found schools, and this they did.

The Reverend Silas was no lean and thin body, no hanger-on upon stronger
men, but of fine girth and stature with a red face as round as the full
moon, a glorious laugh and the mellowest voice in the colony. He was by
repute a famous scholar who could at once give the chapter and text of
any verse in the Bible and had twice read through the ponderous history
of the French gentleman, M. Rollin. It was said, too, that he had nearly
twenty volumes of some famous romances by a French lady, one
Mademoiselle de Scudery, brought over the mountains in a box, but of
this Henry and Paul could not speak with certainty, as a certain wooden
cupboard in Mr. Pennypacker's house was always securely locked.

But the teacher was a favorite in the settlement with both men and
women. A sight of his cheerful face was considered good enough to cure
chills and fever, and for the matter of that he was an expert hand with
both ax and rifle. His uses in Wareville were not merely mental and
spiritual. He was at all times able and willing to earn his own bread
with his own strong hands, though the others seldom permitted him to do
so.

Henry entered school with some reluctance. Being nearly sixteen now,
with an unusually powerful frame developed by a forest life, he was as
large as an ordinary man and quite as strong. He thought he ought to
have done with schools, and set up in man's estate but his father
insisted upon another winter under Mr. Pennypacker's care and Henry
yielded.

There were perhaps thirty boys and girls who sat on the rough wooden
benches in the school and received tuition. Mr. Pennypacker did not
undertake to guide them through many branches of learning, but what he
taught he taught well. He, too, had the feeling that these boys and
girls were to be the men and women who would hold the future of the West
in their hands, and he intended that they should be fit. There were
statesmen and generals among those red-faced boys on the benches, and
the wives and mothers of others among the red-faced girls who sat near
them, and he tried to teach them their duty as the heirs of a
wilderness, soon to be the home of a great race.

Among his favorite pupils was Paul who had not Henry's eye and hand in
the forest, but who loved books and the knowledge of men. He could
follow the devious lines of history when Henry would much rather have
been following the devious trail of a deer. Nevertheless, Henry
persisted, borne up by the emulation of his comrade, and the knowledge
that it was his last winter in school.




CHAPTER VI

THE VOICE OF THE WOODS


To study now was the hardest task that Henry had ever undertaken. It was
even easier to find food when he and Paul were unarmed and destitute in
the forest. The walls of the little log house in which he sat inclosed
him like a cell, the air was heavy and the space seemed to grow narrower
and narrower. Then just when the task was growing intolerable he would
look across the room and seeing the studious face of Paul bent over the
big text of an ancient history, he would apply himself anew to his labor
which consisted chiefly of "figures," a bit of the world's geography,
and a little look into the history of England.

Mr. Pennypacker would neither praise nor blame, but often when the boy
did not notice he looked critically at Henry. "I don't think your son
will be a great scholar," he said once to Mr. Ware, "but he will be a
Nimrod, a mighty hunter before men, and a leader in action. It's as
well, for his is the kind that will be needed most and for a long time
in this wilderness, and back there in the old lands, too."

"It is so," replied Mr. Ware, "the clouds do gather."

Involuntarily he looked toward the east, and Mr. Pennypacker's eyes
followed him. But both remained silent upon that portion of their
thoughts.

"Moreover I tell you for your comfort that the lad has a sense of duty,"
added the teacher.

Henry shot a magnificent stag with great antlers a few days later, and
mounting the head he presented it to Mr. Pennypacker. But on the
following day the master looked very grave and Henry and Paul tried to
guess the cause. Henry heard that Ross had arrived the night before from
the nearest settlement a hundred miles away, but had stayed only an
hour, going to their second nearest neighbor distant one hundred and
fifty miles. He brought news of some kind which only Mr. Ware, Mr.
Upton, the teacher and three or four others knew. These were not ready
to speak and Paul and Henry were well aware that nothing on earth could
make them do so until they thought the time was fit.

It was a long, long morning. Henry had before him a map of the Empire of
Muscovy but he saw little there. Instead there came between him and the
page a vision of the beaver dam and the pool above it, now covered with
a sheet of ice, and of the salt spring where the deer came to drink, and
of a sheltered valley in which a herd of elk rested every night.

Mr. Pennypacker was singularly quiet that morning. It was his custom to
call up his pupils and make them recite in a loud voice, but the hours
passed and there were no recitations. The teacher seemed to be looking
far away at something outside the schoolroom, and his thoughts followed
his eyes. Henry by and by let his own roam as they would and he was in
dreamland, when he was aroused by a sharp smack of the teacher's
homemade ruler upon his homemade desk.

But the blow was not aimed at Henry or anybody in particular. It was an
announcement to all the world in general that Mr. Pennypacker was about
to speak on a matter of importance. Henry and Paul guessed at once that
it would be about the news brought by Ross.

Mr. Pennypacker's face grew graver than ever as he spoke. He told them
that when they left the east there was great trouble between the
colonies and the mother country. They had hoped that it would pass away,
but now, for the first time in many months, news had come across the
mountains from their old home, and had entered the great forest. The
troubles were not gone. On the contrary they had become worse. There had
been fighting, a battle in which many had been killed, and a great war
was begun. The colonies would all stand together, and no man could tell
what the times would bring forth.

This was indeed weighty news. Though divided from their brethren in the
east by hundreds of miles of mountain and forest the patriotism of the
settlers in the wilderness burned with a glow all the brighter on that
account. More than one young heart in that rude room glowed with a
desire to be beside their countrymen in the far-off east, rifle in hand.

But Mr. Pennypacker spoke again. He said that there was now a greater
duty upon them to hold the west for the union of the colonies. Their
task was not merely to build homes for themselves, but to win the land
that it might be homes for others. There were rumors that the savages
would be used against them, that they might come down in force from the
north, and therefore it was the part of everyone, whether man, woman or
child to redouble his vigilance and caution. Then he adjourned school
for the day.

The boys drew apart from their elders and discussed the great news.
Henry's blood was on fire. The message from that little Massachusetts
town, thrilled him as nothing in his life had done before. He had a
vague idea of going there, and of doing what he considered his part, and
he spoke to Paul about it, but Paul thought otherwise.

"Why, Henry!" he said. "We may have to defend ourselves here and we'll
need you."

The people of Wareville knew little about the causes of the war and
after this one message brought by Ross they heard no more of its
progress. They might be fighting great battles away off there on the
Atlantic coast, but no news came through the wall of woods. Wareville
itself was peaceful, and around it curved the mighty forest which told
nothing.

Mountains and forest alike lay under deep snow, and it was not likely
that they would hear anything further until spring, because the winter
was unusually cold and a man who ventured now on a long journey was
braver than his fellows.

The new Kentuckians were glad that they had provided so well for winter.
All the cupboards were full and there was no need for them now to roam
the cold forests in search of game. They built the fires higher and
watched the flames roar up the chimneys, while the little children
rolled on the floor and grasped at the shadows.

Though but a bit of mankind hemmed in by the vast and frozen wilderness
theirs was not an unhappy life by any means. The men and boys, though
now sparing their powder and ball, still set traps for game and were not
without reward. Often they found elk and deer, and once or twice a
buffalo floundering in the deep snowdrifts, and these they added to the
winter larder. They broke holes in the ice on the river and caught fish
in abundance. They worked, too, about the houses, making more tables and
benches and chairs and shelves and adding to their bodily comforts.

The great snow lasted about a month and then began to break up with a
heavy rain which melted all the ice, but which could not carry away all
the snow. The river rose rapidly and overflowed its banks but Wareville
was safe, built high on the hill where floods could not reach. Warm
winds followed the rain and the melting snow turned great portions of
the forest into lakes. The trees stood in water a yard deep, and the
aspect of the wilderness was gloomy and desolate. Even the most resolute
of the hunters let the game alone at such a time. Often the warm winds
would cease to blow when night came and then the great lagoons would be
covered with a thin skim of ice which melted again the next day under
the winds and the sun. All this brought chills and fever to Wareville
and bitter herbs were sought for their cure. But the strong frame of
Henry was impervious to the attacks and he still made daily journeys to
his traps in the wet and steaming wilderness.

Henry was now reconciled to the schoolroom. It was to be his last term
there and he realized with a sudden regret that it was almost at its
end. He was beginning to feel the sense of responsibility, that he was
in fact one of the units that must make up the state.

Despite these new ideas a sudden great longing lay hold of him. The
winds from the south were growing warmer and warmer, all the snow and
ice was gone long ago, faint touches of green and pink were appearing on
grass and foliage and the young buds were swelling. Henry heard the
whisper of these winds and every one of them called to him. He knew that
he was wanted out there in the woods. He began to hate the sight of
human faces, he wished to go alone into the wilderness, to see the deer
steal among the trees and to hear the beaver dive into the deep waters.
He felt himself a part of nature and he would breathe and live as nature
did.

He grew lax in his tasks; he dragged his feet and there were even times
when he was not hungry. When his mother noticed the latter circumstance
she knew surely that the boy was ill, but her husband shrewdly said:

"Henry, the spring has come; take your rifle and bring us some fresh
venison."

So Henry shouldered his rifle and went forth alone upon the quest, even
leaving behind Paul, his chosen comrade. He did not wish human
companionship that day, nor did he stop until he was deep in the
wilderness. How he felt then the glory of living! The blood was flushing
in his veins as the sap was rising in the trees around him. The world
was coming forth from its torpor of winter refreshed and strengthened.
He saw all about him the signs of new life--the tender young grass in
shades of delicate green, the opening buds on the trees, and a subtle
perfume that came on the edge of the Southern wind. Beyond him the wild
turkeys on the hill were calling to each other.

He stood there a long time breathing the fresh breath of this new world,
and the old desire to wander through illimitable forests and float
silently down unknown rivers came over him. He would not feel the need
of companionship on long wanderings. Nature would then be sufficient,
talking to him in many tongues.

The wind heavy, with perfumes of the South, came over the hill and on
its crest the wild turkeys were still clucking to each other. Henry,
through sheer energy and flush of life, ran up the slope, and watched
them as they took flight through the trees, their brilliant plumage
gleaming in the sunshine.

It was the highest hill near Wareville and he stood a while upon its
crest. The wilderness here circled around him, and, in the distance, it
blended into one mass, already showing a pervading note of green with
faint touches of pink bloom appearing here and there. The whole of it
was still and peaceful with no sign of human life save a rising spire of
smoke behind him that told where Wareville stood.

He walked on. Rabbits sprang out of the grass beside him and raced away
into the thickets. Birds in plumage of scarlet and blue and gold shot
like a flame from tree to tree. The forest, too, was filled with the
melody of their voices, but Henry took no notice.

He paused a while at the edge of a brook to watch the silver sunfish
play in the shallows, then he leaped the stream and went on into the
deeper woods, a tall, lithe, strong figure, his eyes gazing at no one
thing, the long slender-barreled rifle lying forgotten across his
shoulder.

A great stag sprang up from the forest and stood for a few moments,
gazing at him with expanding and startled eyes. Henry standing quite
still returned the look, seeking to read the expression in the eyes of
the deer.

Thus they confronted each other a half minute and then the stag turning
fled through the woods. There was no undergrowth, and Henry for a long
time watched the form of the deer fleeing down the rows of trees, as it
became smaller and smaller and then disappeared.

All the forest glowed red in the setting sun when he returned home.

"Where is the deer?" asked his father.

"Why--why I forgot it!" said Henry in confused reply.

Mr. Ware merely smiled.




CHAPTER VII

THE GIANT BONES


About this time many people in Wareville, particularly the women and
children began to complain of physical ills, notably lassitude and a
lack of appetite; their food, which consisted largely of the game
swarming all around the forest, had lost its savor. There was no mystery
about it; Tom Ross, Mr. Ware and others promptly named the cause; they
needed salt, which to the settlers of Kentucky was almost as precious as
gold; it was obtained in two ways, either by bringing it hundreds of
miles over the mountains from Virginia in wagons or on pack horses, or
by boiling it out at the salt springs in the Indian-haunted woods.

They had neither the time nor the men for the long journey to Virginia,
and they prepared at once for obtaining it at the springs. They had
already used a small salt spring but the supply was inadequate, and they
decided to go a considerable distance northward to the famous Big Bone
Lick. Nothing had been heard in a long time of Indian war parties south
of the Ohio, and they believed they would incur no danger. Moreover they
could bring back salt to last more than a year.

When they first heard of the proposed journey, Paul Cotter pulled Henry
to one side. They were just outside the palisade, and it was a beautiful
day, in early spring. Already kindly nature was smoothing over the cruel
scars made by the axes in the forest, and the village within the
palisade began to have the comfortable look of home.

"Do you know what the Big Bone Lick is, Henry?" asked Paul eagerly.

"No," replied Henry, wondering at his chum's excitement.

"Why it's the most wonderful place in all the world!" said Paul, jumping
up and down in his wish to tell quickly. "There was a hunter here last
winter who spoke to me about it. I didn't believe him then, it sounded
so wonderful, but Mr. Pennypacker says it's all true. There's a great
salt spring, boiling out of the ground in the middle of a kind of marsh,
and all around it, for a long distance, are piled hundreds of large
bones, the bones of gigantic animals, bigger than any that walk the
earth to-day."

"See here, Paul," said Henry scornfully, "you can't stuff my ears with
mush like that. I guess you were reading one of the master's old
romances, and then had a dream. Wake up, Paul!"

"It's true every word of it!"

"Then if there were such big animals, why don't we see 'em sometimes
running through the forest?"

"My, they've all been dead millions of years and their bones have been
preserved there in the marsh. They lived in another geologic era--that's
what Mr. Pennypacker calls it--and animals as tall as trees strolled up
and down over the land and were the lords of creation."

Henry puckered his lips and emitted a long whistle of incredulity.

"Paul," he said, reprovingly, "you do certainly have the gift of
speech."

But Paul was not offended at his chum's disbelief.

"I'm going to prove to you, Henry, that it's true," he said. "Mr.
Pennypacker says it's so, he never tells a falsehood and he's a scholar,
too. But you and I have got to go with the salt-makers, Henry, and we'll
see it all. I guess if you look on it with your own eyes you'll believe
it."

"Of course," said Henry, "and of course I'll go if I can."

A trip through the forest and new country to the great salt spring was
temptation enough in itself, without the addition of the fields of big
bones, and that night in both the Ware and Cotter homes, eloquent boys
gave cogent reasons why they should go with the band.

"Father," said Henry, "there isn't much to do here just now, and they'll
want me up at Big Bone Lick, helping to boil the salt and a lot of
things."

Mr. Ware smiled. Henry, like most boys, seldom showed much zeal for
manual labor. But Henry went on undaunted.

"We won't run any risk. No Indians are in Kentucky now and, father, I
want to go awful bad."

Mr. Ware smiled again at the closing avowal, which was so frank. Just at
that moment in another home another boy was saying almost exactly the
same things, and another father ventured the same answer that Mr. Ware
did, in practically the same words such as these:

"Well, my son, as it is to be a good strong company of careful and
experienced men who will not let you get into any mischief, you can go
along, but be sure that you make yourself useful."

The party was to number a dozen, all skilled foresters, and they were to
lead twenty horses, all carrying huge pack saddles for the utensils and
the invaluable salt. Mr. Silas Pennypacker who was a man of his own will
announced that he was going, too. He puffed out his ruddy cheeks and
said emphatically:

"I've heard from hunters of that place; it's one of the great
curiosities of the country and for the sake of learning I'm bound to see
it. Think of all the gigantic skeletons of the mastodon, the mammoth and
other monsters lying there on the ground for ages!"

Henry and Paul were glad that Mr. Pennypacker was to be with them, as in
the woods he was a delightful comrade, able always to make instruction
entertaining, and the superiority of his mind appealed unconsciously to
both of these boys who--each in his way--were also of superior cast.

They departed on a fine morning--the spring was early and held
steady--and all Wareville saw them go. It was a brilliant little
cavalcade; the horses, their heads up to scent the breeze from the
fragrant wilderness, and the men, as eager to start, everyone with a
long slender-barreled Kentucky rifle on his shoulder, the fringed and
brilliantly colored deerskin hunting shirt falling almost to his knees,
and, below that deerskin leggings and deerskin moccasins adorned with
many-tinted beads. It was a vivid picture of the young West, so young,
and yet so strong and so full of life, the little seed from which so
mighty a tree was soon to grow.

All of them stopped again, as if by an involuntary impulse, at the edge
of the forest, and waved their hands in another, and, this time, in a
last good-by to the watchers at the fort. Then they plunged into the
mighty wilderness, which swept away and away for unknown thousands of
miles.

They talked for a while of the journey, of the things that they might
see by the way, and of those that they had left behind, but before long
conversation ceased. The spell of the dark and illimitable woods, in
whose shade they marched, fell upon them, and there was no noise, but
the sound of breathing and the tread of men and horses. They dropped,
too, from the necessities of the path through the undergrowth, into
Indian file, one behind the other.

Henry was near the rear of the line, the stalwart schoolmaster just in
front of him, and his comrade Paul, just behind. He was full of
thankfulness that he had been allowed to go on this journey. It all
appealed to him, the tale that Paul told of the giant bones and the
great salt spring, the dark woods full of mystery and delightful danger,
and his own place among the trusted band, who were sent on such an
errand. His heart swelled with pride and pleasure and he walked with a
light springy step and with endurance equal to that of any of the men
before him. He looked over his shoulder at Paul, whose face also was
touched with enthusiasm.

"Aren't you glad to be along?" he asked in a whisper.

"Glad as I can be," replied Paul in the same whisper.

Up shot the sun showering golden beams of light upon the forest. The air
grew warmer, but the little band did not cease its rapid pace northward
until noon. Then at a word from Ross all halted at a beautiful glade,
across which ran a little brook of cold water. The horses were tethered
at the edge of the forest, but were allowed to graze on the young grass
which was already beginning to appear, while the men lighted a small
fire of last year's fallen brushwood, at the center of the glade on the
bank of the brook.

"We won't build it high," said Ross, who was captain as well as guide,
"an' then nobody in the forest can see it. There may not be an Indian
south of the Ohio, but the fellow that's never caught is the fellow that
never sticks his head in the trap."

"Sound philosophy! sound philosophy! your logic is irrefutable, Mr.
Ross," said the schoolmaster.

Ross grinned. He did not know what "irrefutable" meant, but he did know
that Mr. Pennypacker intended to compliment him.

Paul and Henry assisted with the fire. In fact they did most of the
work, each wishing to make good his assertion that he would prove of use
on the journey. It was a brief task to gather the wood and then Ross and
Shif'less Sol lighted the fire, which they permitted merely to smolder.
But it gave out ample heat and in a few minutes they cooked over it
their venison and corn bread and coffee which they served in tin cups.
Henry and Paul ate with the ferocious appetite that the march and the
clean air of the wilderness had bred in them, and nobody restricted
them, because the forest was full of game, and such skillful hunters and
riflemen could never lack for a food supply.

Mr. Pennypacker leaned with an air of satisfaction against the upthrust
bough of a fallen oak.

"It's a wonderful world that we have here," he said, "and just to think
that we're among the first white men to find out what it contains."

"All ready!" said Tom Ross, "then forward we go, we mustn't waste time
by the way. They need that salt at Wareville."

Once more they resumed the march in Indian file and amid the silence of
the woods. About the middle of the afternoon Ross invited Mr.
Pennypacker and the two boys to ride three of the pack horses. Henry at
first declined, not willing to be considered soft and pampered, but as
the schoolmaster promptly accepted and Paul who was obviously tired did
the same, he changed his mind, not because he needed rest, but lest Paul
should feel badly over his inferiority in strength.

Thus they marched steadily northward, Ross leading the way, and
Shif'less Sol who was lazy at the settlement, but never in the woods
where he was inferior in knowledge and skill to Ross only, covering the
rear. Each of these accomplished borderers watched every movement of the
forest about him, and listened for every sound; he knew with the eye of
second sight what was natural and if anything not belonging to the usual
order of things should appear, he would detect it in a moment. But they
saw and heard nothing that was not according to nature: only the wind
among the boughs, or the stamp of an elk's hoof as it fled, startled at
the scent of man. The hostile tribes from north and south, fearful of
the presence of each other, seemed to have deserted the great wilderness
of Kentucky.

Henry noted the beauty of the country as they passed along; the gently
rolling hills, the rich dark soil and the beautiful clear streams. Once
they came to a river, too deep to wade, but all of them, except the
schoolmaster, promptly took off their clothing and swam it.

"My age and my calling forbid my doing as the rest of you do," said the
schoolmaster, "and I think I shall stick to my horse."

He rode the biggest of the pack horses, and when the strong animal began
to swim, Mr. Pennypacker thrust out his legs until they were almost
parallel with the animal's neck, and reached the opposite bank,
untouched by a drop of water. No one begrudged him his dry and unlabored
passage; in fact they thought it right, because a schoolmaster was
mightily respected in the early settlements of Kentucky and they would
have regarded it as unbecoming to his dignity to have stripped, and swum
the river as they did.

Henry and Paul in their secret hearts did not envy the schoolmaster.
They thought he had too great a weight of dignity to maintain and they
enjoyed cleaving the clear current with their bare bodies. What! be
deprived of the wilderness pleasures! Not they! The two boys did not
remount, after the passage of the river, but, fresh and full of life,
walked on with the others at a pace so swift that the miles dropped
rapidly behind them. They were passing, too, through a country rarely
trodden even by the red men; Henry knew it by the great quantities of
game they saw; the deer seemed to look from every thicket, now and then
a magnificent elk went crashing by, once a bear lumbered away, and twice
small groups of buffalo were stampeded in the glades and rushed off,
snorting through the undergrowth.

"They say that far to the westward on plains that seem to have no end
those animals are to be seen in millions," said Mr. Pennypacker.

"It's so, I've heard it from the Indians," confirmed Ross the guide.

They stopped a little while before sundown, and as the game was so
plentiful all around them, Ross said he would shoot a deer in order to
save their dried meat and other provisions.

"You come with me, while the others are making the camp," he said to
Henry.

The boy flushed with pride and gratification, and, taking his rifle,
plunged at once into the forest with the guide. But he said nothing,
knowing that silence would recommend him to Ross far more than words,
and took care to bring down his moccasined feet without sound. Nor did
he let the undergrowth rustle, as he slipped through it, and Ross
regarded him with silent approval. "A born woodsman," he said to
himself.

A mile from the camp they stopped at the crest of a little hill, thickly
clad with forest and undergrowth, and looked down into the glade beyond.
Here they saw several deer grazing, and as the wind blew from them
toward the hunters they had taken no alarm.

"Pick the fat buck there on the right," whispered Ross to Henry.

Henry said not a word. He had learned the taciturnity of the woods, and
leveling his rifle, took sure aim. There was no buck fever about him
now, and, when his rifle cracked, the deer bounded into the air and
dropped down dead. Ross, all business, began to cut up and clean the
game, and with Henry's aid, he did it so skillfully and rapidly that
they returned to the camp, loaded with the juicy deer meat, by the time
the fire and everything else was ready for them.

Henry and Paul ate with eager appetites and when supper was over they
wrapped themselves in their blankets and lay down before the fire under
the trees. Paul went to sleep at once, but Henry did not close his eyes
so soon. Far in the west he saw a last red bar of light cast by the
sunken sun and the deep ruddy glow over the fringe of the forest. Then
it suddenly passed, as if whisked away by a magic hand, and all the
wilderness was in darkness. But it was only for a little while. Out came
the moon and the stars flashed one by one into a sky of silky blue. A
south wind lifting up itself sang a small sweet song among the branches,
and Henry uttered a low sigh of content, because he lived in the
wilderness, and because he was there in the depths of the forest on an
important errand. Then he fell sound asleep, and did not awaken until
Ross and the others were cooking breakfast.

A day or two later they reached the wonderful Big Bone Lick, and they
approached it with the greatest caution, because they were afraid lest
an errand similar to theirs might have drawn hostile red men to the
great salt spring. But as they curved about the desired goal they saw no
Indian sign, and then they went through the marsh to the spring itself.

Henry opened his eyes in amazement. All that the schoolmaster and Paul
had told was true, and more. Acres and acres of the marsh lands were
fairly littered with bones, and from the mud beneath other and far
greater bones had been pulled up and left lying on the ground. Henry
stood some of these bones on end, and they were much taller than he.
Others he could not lift.

"The mastodon, the mammoth and I know not what," said Mr. Pennypacker in
a transport of delight. "Henry, you and Paul are looking upon the
remains of animals, millions of years old, killed perhaps in fights with
others of their kind, over these very salt springs. There may not be
another such place as this in all the world."

Mr. Pennypacker for the first day or two was absolutely of no help in
making the salt, because he was far too much excited about the bones and
the salt springs themselves.

"I can understand," said Henry, "why the animals should come here after
the salt, since they crave salt just as we do, but it seems strange to
me that salt water should be running out of the ground here, hundreds of
miles from the sea."

"It's the sea itself that's coming up right at our feet," replied the
schoolmaster thoughtfully. "Away back yonder, a hundred million years
ago perhaps, so far that we can have no real conception of the time, the
sea was over all this part of the world. When it receded, or the ground
upheaved, vast subterranean reservoirs of salt water were left, and now,
when the rain sinks down into these full reservoirs a portion of the
salt water is forced to the surface, which makes the salt springs that
are scattered over this part of the country. It is a process that is
going on continually. At least, that's a plausible theory, and it's as
good as any other."

But most of the salt-makers did not bother themselves about causes, and
they accepted the giant bones as facts, without curiosity about their
origin. Nor did they neglect to put them to use. By sticking them deep
in the ground they made tripods of them on which they hung their kettles
for boiling the salt water, and of others they devised comfortable seats
for themselves. To such modern uses did the mastodon come! But to the
schoolmaster and the two boys the bones were an unending source of
interest, and in the intervals of labor, which sometimes were pretty
long, particularly for Mr. Pennypacker, they were ever prowling in the
swamp for a bone bigger than any that they had found before.

But the salt-making progressed rapidly. The kettles were always boiling
and sack after sack was filled with the precious commodity. At night
wild animals, despite the known presence of strange, new creatures,
would come down to the springs, so eager were they for the salt, and the
men rarely molested them. Only a deer now and then was shot for food,
and Henry and Paul lay awake one night, watching two big bull buffaloes,
not fifty yards away, fighting for the best place at a spring.

Ross and Shif'less Sol did not do much of the work at the salt-boiling,
but they were continually scouting through the forest, on a labor no
less important, watching for raiding war parties who otherwise might
fall unsuspected upon the toilers. Henry, as a youth of great promise,
was sometimes taken with them on these silent trips through the woods,
and the first time he went he felt badly on Paul's account, because his
comrade was not chosen also. But when he returned he found that his
sympathy was wasted. Paul and the master were deeply absorbed in the
task of trying to fit together some of the gigantic bones that is, to
re-create the animal to which they thought the bones belonged, and Paul
was far happier than he would have been on the scout or the hunt.

The day's work was ended and all the others were sitting around the camp
fire, with the dying glow of the setting sun flooding the springs, the
marshes and the camp fire, but Paul and the master toiled zealously at
the gigantic figure that they had up-reared, supported partly with
stakes, and bearing a remote resemblance to some animal that lived a few
million years or so ago. The master had tied together some of the bones
with withes, and he and Paul were now laboriously trying to fit a
section of vertebræ into shape.

Shif'less Sol who had gone with Henry sat down by the fire, stuffed a
piece of juicy venison into his mouth and then looked with eyes of
wonder at the two workers in the cause of natural history.

"Some people 'pear to make a heap o' trouble for theirselves," he said,
"now I can't git it through my head why anybody would want to work with
a lot o' dead old bones when here's a pile o' sweet deer meat just
waitin' an' beggin' to be et up."

At that moment the attempt of Paul and the schoolmaster to reconstruct a
prehistoric beast collapsed. The figure that they had built up with so
much care and labor suddenly slipped loose somewhere, and all the bones
fell down in a heap. The master stared at them in disgust and exclaimed:

"It's no use! I can't put them together away out here in the
wilderness!"

Then he stalked over to the fire, and taking a deer steak, ate hungrily.
The steak was very tender, and gradually a look of content and peace
stole over Mr. Pennypacker's face.

"At least," he murmured, "if it's hard to be a scholar here, one can
have a glorious appetite, and it is most pleasant to gratify it."

As the dark settled down Ross said that in one day more they ought to
have all the salt the horses could carry, and then it would be best to
depart promptly and swiftly for Wareville. A half hour later all were
asleep except the sentinel.




CHAPTER VIII

THE WILD TURKEY'S GOBBLE


Henry had conducted himself so well on his first scout and, had shown
such signs of efficiency that Ross concluded to take him again the next
day. Henry's heart swelled with pride, and he was no longer worried
about Paul, because he saw that the latter's interest and ambitions were
not exactly the same as his own. Henry could not have any innate respect
for heaps of "old bones," but if Paul and the master found them worthy
of such close attention, they must be right.

Henry and Ross slipped away into the undergrowth, and Henry soon noticed
that the guide's face, which was tense and preoccupied, seemed graver
than usual. The boy was too wise to ask questions, but after they had
searched through the forest for several hours Ross remarked in the most
casual way:

"I heard the gobble of a wild turkey away off last night."

"Yes," said Henry, "there are lots of 'em about here. You remember the
one I shot Tuesday?"

Ross did not reply just then, but in about five minutes he vouchsafed:

"I'm looking for the particular wild turkey I heard last night."

"Why that one, when there are so many, and how would you know him from
the others if you found him?" asked Henry quickly, and then a deep
burning flush of shame broke through the tan of his cheeks. He, Henry
Ware, a rover of the wilderness to ask such foolish questions! A child
of the towns would have shown as much sense. Ross who was looking
covertly at him, out of the corner of his eye, saw the mounting blush,
and was pleased. The boy had spoken impulsively, but he knew better.

"You understand, I guess," said Ross.

"Yes," replied Henry, "I know why you want to find that wild turkey, and
I know why you said last night we ought to leave the salt springs just
as soon as we can."

The smile on the face of the scout brightened. Here was the most
promising pupil who had ever sat at his feet for instruction; and now
they redoubled their caution, as their soundless bodies slipped through
the undergrowth. Everywhere they looked for the trail of that wild
turkey. It may be said that a turkey can and does fly in the air and
leaves no trail, but Henry knew that the one for which they looked might
leave no trail, but it did not fly in the air.

Time passed; noon and part of the afternoon were gone, and they were
still curving in a great circle about the camp, when Ross, suddenly
stopped beside a little brook, or branch, as he and his comrades always
called them, and pointed to the soft soil at the edge of the water.
Henry followed the long finger and saw the outline of a footstep.

"Our turkey has passed here."

The guide nodded.

"Most likely," he said, "and if not ours, then one of the same flock.
But that footprint is three or four hours old. Come on, we'll follow
this trail until it grows too warm."

The footsteps led down the side of the brook, and when they curved away
from it Ross was able to trace them on the turf and through the
undergrowth. A half mile from the start other footsteps joined them, and
these were obviously made by many men, perhaps a score of warriors.

"You see," said Ross, "I guess they've just come across the Ohio or we
wouldn't be left all these days b'il'n salt so peaceful, like as if
there wasn't an Indian in the whole world."

Henry drew a deep breath. Like all who ventured into the West he
expected some day to be exposed to Indian danger and attack, but it had
been a vague thought. Even when they came north to the Big Bone Lick it
was still a dim far-away affair, but now he stood almost in its
presence. The Shawnees, whose name was a name of terror to the new
settlements, were probably not a mile away. He felt tremors but they
were not tremors of fear. Courage was an instinctive quality in him.
Nature had put it there, when she fashioned him somewhat in the mold of
the primitive man.

"Step lighter than you ever did afore in your life," said Ross, "an'
bend low an' follow me. But don't you let a single twig nor nothin' snap
as you pass."

He spoke in a sharp, emphatic whisper, and Henry knew that he considered
the enemy near. But there was no need to caution the boy, in whom the
primal man was already awakened. Henry bent far down, and holding his
rifle before him in such a position that it could be used at a moment's
warning, was following behind Ross so silently that the guide, hearing
no sound, took an instant's backward glance. When he saw the boy he
permitted another faint smile of approval to pass over his face.

They advanced about three-quarters of a mile and then at the crest of a
hill thickly clothed in tall undergrowth the guide sank down and pointed
with a long ominous forefinger.

"Look," he said.

Henry looked through the interlacing bushes and, for the second time in
his life, gazed upon a band of red men. And as he looked, his blood for
a moment turned cold. Perhaps thirty in number, they were sitting in a
glade about a little fire. All of them had blankets of red or blue about
them and they carried rifles. Their faces were hideous with war paint
and their coarse black hair rose in the defiant scalp lock.

"Maybe they don't know that our men are at the Lick," said Ross, "or if
they do they don't think we know they've come, an' they're planning for
an attack to-night, when they could slip up on us sleepin'."

The guide's theory seemed plausible to Henry, but he said nothing. It
did not become him to venture opinions before one who knew so much of
the wilderness.

"It can't be more'n two o'clock," whispered Ross, "an' they'd attack
about midnight. That gives us ten hours. Henry, the Lord is with us.
Come."

He slid away through the bushes and Henry followed him. When they were a
half mile from the Indian camp they increased their speed to an
astonishing gait and in a half hour were at the Big Bone Lick.

"Have 'em to load up all the salt at once," said Ross to Shif'less Sol,
"an' we must go kitin' back to Wareville as if our feet was greased."

Shif'less Sol shot him a single look of comprehension and Ross nodded.
Then the shiftless one went to work with extraordinary diligence and the
others imitated his speed. To the schoolmaster Ross breathed the one
word "Shawnees," and Henry in a few sentences told Paul what he had
seen.

Fortunately the precious salt was packed--they had no intention of
deserting it, however close the danger--and it was quickly transferred
to the backs of the horses along with the food for the way. In a little
more than a half hour they were all ready and then they fled southward,
Shif'less Sol, this time, leading the way, the guide Ross at the rear,
eye and ear noticing everything, and every nerve attuned to danger.

The master cast back one regretful glance at his beloved giant bones,
and then, with resignation, turned his face permanently toward the south
and the line of retreat.

"O Henry," whispered Paul, half in delight, half in terror, "did you
really see them?"

"Yes," replied Henry, "twenty or more of 'em, and an ugly lot they were,
too, I can tell you, Paul. I believe we could whip 'em in a stand-up
fight, though they are three to our one, but they know more of these
woods than we do and then there's the salt; we've got to save what we've
come for."

He sighed a little. He did not wholly like the idea of running away,
even from a foe thrice as strong. Yet he could not question the wisdom
of Ross and Shif'less Sol, and he made no protest.

The men looked after the heavily laden horses--nobody could ride except
as a last resort--and southward they went in Indian file as they had
come. Henry glanced around him and saw nothing that promised danger. It
was only another beautiful afternoon in early spring. The forest glowed
in the tender green of the young buds, and, above them arched the sky a
brilliant sheet of unbroken blue. Never did a world look more
attractive, more harmless, and it seemed incredible that these woods
should contain men who were thirsting for the lives of other men. But he
had seen; he knew; he could not forget that hideous circle of painted
faces in the glade, upon which he and Ross had looked from the safe
covert of the undergrowth.

"Do you think they'll follow us, Henry?" asked Paul.

"I don't know," replied Henry, "but it's mighty likely. They'll hang on
our trail for a long time anyway."

"And if they overtake us, there'll be a fight?"

"Of course."

Henry, watching Paul keenly, saw him grow pale. But his lips did not
tremble and that passing pallor failed to lower Paul in Henry's esteem.
The bigger and stronger boy knew his comrade's courage and tenacity, and
he respected him all the more for it, because he was perhaps less fitted
than some others for the wild and dangerous life of the border.

After these few words they sank again into silence, and to Paul and the
master the sun grew very hot. It was poised now at a convenient angle in
the heavens, and poured sheaves of fiery rays directly upon them. Mr.
Pennypacker began to gasp. He was a man of dignity, a teacher of youth,
and it did not become him to run so fast from something that he could
not see. Ross's keen eye fell upon him.

"I think you'd better mount one of the horses," he said; "the big bay
there can carry his salt and you too for a while until you are rested."

"What! I ride, when everybody else is afoot!" exclaimed Mr. Pennypacker,
indignantly.

"You're the only schoolmaster we have and we can't afford to lose you,"
said Ross without the suspicion of a grin.

Mr. Pennypacker looked at him, but he could not detect any change of
countenance.

"Hop up," continued Ross, "it ain't any time to be bashful. Others of us
may have to do it afore long."

Mr. Pennypacker yielded with a sigh, sprang lightly upon the horse, and
then when he enjoyed the luxury of rest was glad that he had yielded.
Paul, and one or two others took to the horses' backs later on, but
Henry continued the march on foot with long easy strides, and no sign of
weakening. Ross noticed him more than once but he never made any
suggestion to Henry that he ride; instead the faint smile of approval
appeared once more on the guide's face.

The sun began to sink, the twilight came, and then night. Ross called a
halt, and, clustered in the thickest shadows of the forest, they ate
their supper and rested their tired limbs. No fire was lighted, but they
sat there under the trees, hungrily eating their venison, and talking in
the lowest of whispers.

Mr. Pennypacker was much dissatisfied. He had been troubled by the hasty
flight and his dignity suffered.

"It is not becoming that white men should run away from an inferior
race," he said.

"Maybe it ain't becomin', but it's safe," said Ross.

"At least we are far enough away now," continued the master, "and we
might rest here comfortably until dawn. We haven't seen or heard a sign
of pursuit."

"You don't know the natur' of the red warriors, Mr. Pennypacker," said
the leader deferentially but firmly, "when they make the least noise
then they're most dangerous. Now I'm certain sure that they struck our
trail not long after we left Big Bone Lick, an' in these woods the man
that takes the fewest risks is the one that lives the longest."

It was a final statement. In the present emergency the leader's
authority was supreme. They rested about an hour with no sound save the
shuffling feet of the horses which could not be kept wholly quiet; and
then they started on again, not going so quickly now, because the night
was dark, and they wished to make as little noise as possible, threshing
about in the undergrowth.

Paul pressed up by the side of Henry.

"Do you think we shall have to go on all night, this way?" he asked.
"Wasn't Mr. Pennypacker right, when he said we were out of danger?"

"No, the schoolmaster was wrong," replied Henry. "Tom Ross knows more
about the woods and what is likely to happen in them than Mr.
Pennypacker could know in all his life, if he were to live a thousand
years. It's every man to his own trade, and it's Tom's trade that we
need now."

After hearing these sage words of youth Paul asked no more questions,
but he and Henry kept side by side throughout the night, that is, when
neither of them was riding, because Henry, like all the others, now took
turns on horseback. Twice they crossed small streams and once a larger
one, where they exercised the utmost caution to keep their precious salt
from getting wet. Fortunately the great pack saddles were a protection,
and they emerged on the other side with both salt and powder dry.

When the night was thickest, in the long, dark hour just before the
dawn, Henry and Paul, who were again side by side, heard a faint,
distant cry. It was a low, wailing note that was not unpleasant,
softened by the spaces over which it came. It seemed to be far behind
them, but inclining to the right, and after a few moments there came
another faint cry just like it, also behind them, but far to the left.
Despite the soft, wailing note both Henry and Paul felt a shiver run
through them. The strange low sound, coming in the utter silence of the
night, had in it something ominous.

"It was the cry of a wolf," said Paul.

"And his brother wolf answered," said Henry.

Shif'less Sol was just behind them, and they heard him laugh, a low
laugh, but full of irony. Paul wheeled about at once, his pride aflame
at the insinuation that he did not know the wolf's long whine.

"Well, wasn't it a wolf--and a wolf that answered?" he asked.

"Yes, a wolf an' a wolf that answered," replied Shif'less Sol with
sardonic emphasis, "but they had only four legs between 'em. Them was
the signal cries of the Shawnees, an', as Tom has been tellin' you all
the time, they're hot on our trail. It's a mighty lucky thing for us we
didn't undertake to stay all night back there where we stopped."

Paul turned pale again, but his courage as usual came back. "Thank God
it will be daylight soon," he murmured to himself, "and then if they
overtake us we can see them."

Faint and far, but ominous and full of threat came the howl of the wolf
again, first from the right and then from the left, and then from points
between. Henry noticed that Ross and Shif'less Sol seemed to draw
themselves together, as if they would make every nerve and muscle taut,
and then his eyes shifted to Mr. Pennypacker, and seeing him, he knew at
once that the master did not understand; he had not heard the words of
Shif'less Sol.

"It seems that we are pursued by a pack of wolves instead of a war
party," said Mr. Pennypacker. "At least we are numerous enough to beat
off a lot of cowardly four-footed assailants."

Henry smiled from the heights of his superior knowledge.

"Those are not wolves, Mr. Pennypacker," he said, "those are the
Shawnees calling to one another."

"Then, why in Heaven's name don't they speak their own language!"
exclaimed the exasperated schoolmaster, "instead of using that which
appertains only to the prowling beast?"

Henry, despite himself, was forced to smile, but he turned his face and
hid the smile--he would not offend the schoolmaster whom he esteemed
sincerely.

The dawn now began to brighten. The sun, a flaming red sword, cleft the
gray veil, and then poured down a torrent of golden beams upon the vast,
green wilderness of Kentucky. Henry, as he looked around upon the little
band, realized what a tiny speck of human life they were in all those
hundreds of miles of forest, and what risks they ran.

Ross gave the word to halt, and again they ate of cold food. While the
others sat on fallen timber or leaned against tree trunks, Ross and Sol
talked in low tones, but Henry could see that all their words were
marked by the deepest earnestness. Ross presently turned to the men and
said in tones of greatest gravity:

"All of you heard the howlin' just afore dawn, an' I guess all of you
know it was not made by real wolves, but by Shawnees, callin' to each
other an' directin' the chase of us. We've come fast, but they've come
faster, an' I know that by noon we'll have to fight."

The schoolmaster's eyes opened in wonder.

"Do you really mean to say that they are overhauling us?" he asked.

"I shore do," replied Ross. "You see, they're better trained travelers
for woods than we are, an' they are not hampered by anythin'."

Mr. Pennypacker said nothing more, but his lips suddenly closed tightly
and his eyes flashed. In the great battle ground of the white man and
the red man, called Kentucky, the early schoolmaster was as ready as any
one else to fight.

Ross and Sol again consulted and then Ross said:

"We think that since we have to fight it would be better to fight when
we are fresh and steady and in the best place we can find."

All the men nodded. They were tired of running and when Ross gave the
word to stop again they did so promptly. The questioning eyes of both
Ross and Sol roamed round the forest and finally and simultaneously the
two uttered a low cry of pleasure. They had come into rocky ground and
they had been ascending. Before them was a hill with a rather steep
ascent, and dropping off almost precipitously on three sides.

"We couldn't find a better place," said Ross loud enough for all to
hear. "It looks like a fort just made for us."

"But there is no line of retreat," objected the schoolmaster.

"We had a line of a retreat last night and all this mornin' an' we've
been followin' it all the time," rejoined the leader. "Now we don't need
it no more, but what we do need to do is to make a stan'-up fight, an'
lick them fellers."

"And save our salt," added the master.

"Of course," said Ross emphatically. "We didn't come all these miles an'
work all these days just to lose what we went so far after an' worked so
hard for."

They retreated rapidly upon the great jutting peninsula of rocky soil,
which fortunately was covered with a good growth of trees, and tethered
the horses in a thick grove near the end.

"Now, we'll just unload our salt an' make a wall," said Ross with a
trace of a smile. "They can shoot our salt as much as they please, just
so they don't touch us."

The bags of salt were laid in the most exposed place across the
narrowest neck of the peninsula and they also dragged up all the fallen
tree trunks and boughs that they could find to help out their primitive
fortification. Then they sat down to wait, a hard task for men, but
hardest of all for two boys like Henry and Paul.

Two of the men went back with the horses to watch over them and also to
guard against any possible attempt to scale the cliff in their rear, but
the others lay close behind the wall of salt and brushwood. The sun
swung up toward the zenith and shone down upon a beautiful world. All
the wilderness was touched with the tender young green of spring and
nothing stirred but the gentle wind. The silky blue sky smiled over a
scene so often enacted in early Kentucky, that great border battle
ground of the white man and the red, the one driven by the desire for
new and fertile acres that he might plow and call his own, the other by
an equally fierce desire to retain the same acres, not to plow nor even
to call his own, but that he might roam and hunt big game over them at
will.

The great red eye of the sun, poised now in the center of the heavens,
looked down at the white men crouched close to the earth behind their
low and primitive wall, and then it looked into the forest at the red
men creeping silently from tree to tree, all the eager ferocity of the
man hunt on the face of everyone.

But Paul and Henry, behind their wall, saw nothing and heard nothing but
the breathing of those near them. They fingered their rifles and through
the crevices between the bags studied intently the woods in front of
them, where they beheld no human being nor any trace of a foe. Henry
looked from tree to tree, but he could see no flitting shadow. Where the
patches of grass grew it moved only with the regular sweep of the
breeze. He began to think that Ross and Sol must be mistaken. The
warriors had abandoned the pursuit. He glanced at Ross, who was not a
dozen feet away, and the leader's face was so tense, so eager and so
earnest that Henry ceased to doubt, the man's whole appearance indicated
the knowledge of danger, present and terrible.

Even as Henry looked, Ross suddenly threw up his rifle, and, apparently
without aim, pulled the trigger. A flash of fire leaped from the long
slender muzzle of blue steel, there was a sharp report like the swift
lash of a whip, and then a cry, so terrible that Henry, strong as he
was, shuddered in every nerve and muscle. The short high-pitched and
agonizing shout died away in a wail and after it came silence, grim,
deadly, but so charged with mysterious suspense that both Henry and Paul
felt the hair lifting itself upon their heads. Henry had seen nothing,
but he knew well what had happened.

"They've come and Ross has killed one of 'em," he whispered breathlessly
to Paul.

"That yell couldn't mean anything else," said Paul trembling. "I'll hear
it again every night for a year."

"I hope we'll both have a chance to hear it again every night for a
year," said Henry with meaning.

The master crouched nearer to the boys. He was one of the bravest of the
men and in that hour of danger and suspense his heart yearned over these
two lads, his pupils, each a good boy in his own way. He felt that it
was a part of his duty to get them safely back to Wareville and their
parents, and he meant to fulfill the demands of his conscience.

"Keep down, lads," he said, touching Henry on his arm, "don't expose
yourselves. You are not called upon to do anything, unless it comes to
the last resort."

"We are going to do our best, of course, we are!" replied Henry with
some little heat.

He resented the intimation that he could not perform a man's full duty,
and Mr. Pennypacker, seeing that his feelings were touched, said no
more.

A foreboding silence followed the death cry of the fallen warrior, but
the brilliant sunshine poured down on the woods, just as if it were a
glorious summer afternoon with no thought of strife in a human breast
anywhere. Henry again searched the forest in front of them, and,
although he could see nothing, he was not deceived now by this
appearance of silence and peace. He knew that their foes were there,
more thirsty than ever for their blood, because to the natural desire
now was added the tally of revenge.

More than an hour passed, and then the forest in front of them burst
into life. Rifles were fired from many points, the sharp crack blending
into one continuous ominous rattle; little puffs of white smoke arose,
whistling bullets buried themselves with a sighing sound in the bags of
salt, and high above all rang the fierce yell, the war whoop of the
Shawnees, the last sound that many a Kentucky pioneer ever heard.

The terrible tumult, and above all, the fierce cry of the warriors sent
a thrill of terror through Paul and Henry, but their disciplined minds
held their bodies firm, and they remained crouched by the primitive
breastwork, ready to do their part.

"Steady, everybody! Steady!" exclaimed Ross in a loud sharp voice, every
syllable of which cut through the tumult. "Don't shoot until you see
something to shoot at, an' then make your aim true!"

Henry now began to see through the smoke dusky figures leaping from tree
to tree, but always coming toward them. It was his impulse to fire, the
moment a flitting figure appeared, gone the next instant like a shadow,
but remembering Ross's caution and their terrible need he restrained
himself although his finger already lay caressingly on the trigger.
Around him the rifles had begun to crack. Ross and Sol were firing with
slow deliberate aim, and then reloading with incredible swiftness, and
down the line the others were doing likewise. Bullets were spattering
into trunks and boughs, or burying themselves with a soft sigh in the
salt, but Henry could not see that anybody was yet hurt.

He saw presently a dark figure passing from one tree to another and the
passage was long enough for him to take a good aim at a hideously
painted breast. He pulled the trigger and then involuntarily he shut his
eyes--he was a hunter, but he had never hunted men before. When he
looked again he saw a blur upon the ground, and despite himself and the
fight for life, he shuddered. Paul beside him was now in a state of wild
excitement. The smaller boy's nerves were not so steady and he was
loading and firing almost at random. Finally he lifted himself almost
unconsciously to his full height, but he was dragged down the next
instant, as if he had been seized from below by a bear.

"Paul!" fiercely exclaimed the schoolmaster, all the instincts of a
pedagogue rising within him, "if you jump up that way again exposing
yourself to their bullets, I'll turn you over my knee right here, big as
you are, and give you a licking that you'll remember all your life!"

The master was savagely in earnest and Paul did not jump up again. Henry
fired once more, and a third time and the tumult rose to its height.
Then it ceased so suddenly and so absolutely that the silence was
appalling. The wind blew the smoke away, a few dark objects lay close to
the ground among the trees before them, but not a sound came from the
forest, and no flitting form was there.




CHAPTER IX

THE ESCAPE


Henry and Paul, with their eyes at the crevices, stared and stared, but
they saw only those dark, horrible forms lying close to the earth, and
heard again the peaceful wind blowing among the peaceful trees. The
savage army had melted away as if it had never been, and the dark
objects might have been taken for stones or pieces of wood.

"We beat 'em off, an' nobody on our side has more'n a scratch,"
exclaimed Shif'less Sol jubilantly.

"That's so," said Ross, casting a critical eye down the line, "it's
because we had a good position an' made ready. There's nothin' like
takin' a thing in time. How're you, boys?"

"All right, but I've been pretty badly scared I can tell you," replied
Paul frankly. "But we are not hurt, are we, Henry?"

"Thank God," murmured the schoolmaster under his breath, and then he
said aloud to Ross: "I suppose they'll leave us alone now."

Ross shook his head.

"I wish I could say it," he replied, "but I can't. We've laid out four
of 'em, good and cold, an' the Shawnees, like all the other redskins,
haven't much stomach for a straightaway attack on people behind
breastworks; I don't think they'll try that again, but they'll be up to
new mischief soon. We must watch out now for tricks. Them's sly devils."

Ross was a wise leader and he gave food to his men, but he cautioned
them to lie close at all times. Two or three bullets were fired from the
forest but they whistled over their heads and did no damage. They seemed
safe for the present, but Ross was troubled about the future, and
particularly the coming of night, when they could not protect themselves
so well, and the invaders, under cover of darkness, might slip forward
at many points. Henry himself was man enough and experienced enough to
understand the danger, and for the moment, he wondered with a kind of
impersonal curiosity how Ross was going to meet it. Ross himself was
staring at the heavens, and Henry, following his intent eyes, noticed a
change in color and also that the atmosphere began to have a different
feeling to his lungs. So much had he been engrossed by the battle, and
so great had been his excitement, that such things as sky and air had no
part then in his life, but now in the long dead silence, they obtruded
themselves upon him.

The last wisp of smoke drifted away among the trees, and the sunlight,
although it was mid-afternoon, was fading. Presently the skies were a
vast dome of dull, lowering gray, and the breeze had a chill edge. Then
the wind died and not a leaf or blade of grass in the forest stirred.
Somber clouds came over the brink of the horizon in the southwest, and
crept threateningly up the great curve of the sky. The air steadily
darkened, and suddenly the dim horizon in the far southwest was cut by a
vivid flash of lightning. Low thunder grumbled over the distant hills.

"It's a storm, an' it's to be a whopper," said Shif'less Sol.

"Ay," returned Ross, who had been back among the horses, "an' it may
save us. All you fellows be sure to keep your powder dry."

There would be little danger of that fatal catastrophe, the wetting of
the powder, as it was carried in polished horns, stopped securely, nor
would there be any danger either of the salt being melted, as it was
inclosed in bags made of deerskin, which would shed water.

"One of the men," continued Ross, "has found a big gully running down
the back end of the hill, an' I think if we're keerful we can lead the
horses to the valley that way. But just now, we'll wait."

Henry and Paul were watching, as if fascinated. They had seen before the
great storms that sometimes sweep the Mississippi Valley, but the one
preparing now seemed to be charged with a deadly power, far surpassing
anything in their experience. It came on, too, with terrible swiftness.
The thunder, at first a mere rumble, rose rapidly to crash after crash
that stunned their ears. The livid flash of lightning that split the
southwest like a flaming sword appeared and reappeared with such
intensity that it seemed never to have gone. The wind rose and the
forest groaned. From afar came a sullen roar, and then the great
hurricane rushed down upon them.

"Lie flat!" shouted Ross.

All except four or five who held the struggling and frightened horses
threw themselves upon the ground, and, although Henry and Paul hugged
the earth, their ears were filled with the roar and scream of the wind,
and the crackle of boughs and whole tree trunks snapped through, like
the rattle of rifle fire. The forest in front of them was quickly filled
with fallen trees, and fragments whistled over their heads, but
fortunately they were untouched.

The great volley of wind was gone in a few moments, as if it were a
single huge cannon shot. It whistled off to the eastward, but left in
its path a trail of torn and fallen trees. Then in its path came the
sweep of the great rain; the air grew darker, the thunder ceased to
crash, the lightning died away, and the water poured down in sheets over
the black and mangled forest.

"Now boys, we'll start," said Ross. "Them Shawnees had to hunt cover,
an' they can't see us nohow. Up with them bags of salt!"

In an incredibly short time the salt was loaded on the pack horses and
then they were picking their way down the steep and dangerous gully in
the side of the hill. Henry, Paul and the master locked hands in the
dark and the driving rain, and saved each other from falls. Ross and Sol
seemed to have the eyes of cats in the dark and showed the way.

"My God!" murmured Mr. Pennypacker, "I could not have dreamed ten years
ago that I should ever take part in such a scene as this!"

Low as he spoke, Henry heard him and he detected, too, a certain note of
pride in the master's tone, as if he were satisfied with the manner in
which he had borne himself. Henry felt the same satisfaction, although
he could not deny that he had felt many terrors.

After much difficulty and some danger they reached the bottom of the
hill unhurt, and then they sped across a fairly level country, not much
troubled by undergrowth or fallen timber, keeping close together so that
no one might be lost in the darkness and the rain, Ross, as usual,
leading the line, and Shif'less Sol bringing up the rear. Now and then
the two men called the names of the others to see that all were present,
but beyond this precaution no word was spoken, save in whispers.

Henry and Paul felt a deep and devout thankfulness for the chance that
had saved them from a long siege and possible death; indeed it seemed to
them that the hand of God had turned the enemy aside, and in their
thankfulness they forgot that, soaked to the bone, cold and tired, they
were still tramping through the lone wilderness, far from Wareville.

The darkness and the pouring rain endured for about an hour, then both
began to lighten, streaks of pale sky appeared in the east, and the
trees like cones emerged from the mist and gloom. All of the
salt-workers felt their spirits rise. They knew that they had escaped
from the conflict wonderfully well; two slight wounds, not more than the
breaking of skin, and that was all. Fresh strength came to them, and as
they continued their journey the bars of pale light broadened and
deepened, and then fused into a solid blue dawn, as the last cloud
disappeared and the last shower of rain whisked away to the northward. A
wet road lay before them, the drops of water yet sparkling here and
there, like myriads of beads. Ross drew a deep breath of relief and
ordered a halt.

"The Shawnees could follow us again," he said, "but they know now that
they bit off somethin' a heap too tough for them to chaw, an' I don't
think they'll risk breaking a few more teeth on it, specially after
havin' been whipped aroun' by the storm as they must 'a been."

"And to think we got away and brought our salt with us, too!" said Mr.
Pennypacker.

Dark came soon, and Ross and Sol felt so confident they were safe from
another attack that they allowed a fire to be lighted, although they
were careful to choose the center of a little prairie, where the rifle
shots of an ambushed foe in the forest could not reach them.

It was no easy matter to light a fire, but Ross and Sol at last
accomplished it with flint, steel and dry splinters cut from the under
side of fallen logs. Then when the blaze had taken good hold they heaped
more brushwood upon it and never were heat and warmth more grateful to
tired travelers.

Henry and Paul did not realize until then how weary and how very wet
they were. They basked in the glow, and, with delight watched the great
beds of coals form. They took off part of their clothing, hanging it
before the fire, and when it was dry and warm put it on again. Then they
served the rest the same way, and by and by they wore nothing but warm
garments.

"I guess two such terrible fighters as you," said Ross to Henry and
Paul, "wouldn't mind a bite to eat. I've allers heard tell as how the
Romans after they had fought a good fight with them Carthaginians or
Macedonians or somebody else would sit down an' take some good grub into
their insides, an' then be ready for the next spat."

"Will we eat? will we eat? Oh, try us, try us," chanted Henry and Paul
in chorus, their mouths stretching simultaneously into wide grins, and
Ross grinned back in sympathy.

The revulsion had come for the two boys. After so much danger and
suffering, the sense of safety and the warmth penetrating their bones
made them feel like little children, and they seized each other in a
friendly scuffle, which terminated only when they were about to roll
into the fire. Then they ate venison as if they had been famished.
Afterwards, when they were asleep on their blankets before the fire,
Ross said to Mr. Pennypacker:

"They did well, for youngsters."

"They certainly did, Mr. Ross," said the master. "I confess to you that
there were times to-day when learning seemed to offer no consolation."

Ross smiled a little, and then his face quickly became grave.

"It's what we've got to go through out here," he said. "Every settlement
will have to stand the storm."

A vigilant watch was kept all the long night but there was no sign of a
second Shawnee attack. Ross had reckoned truly when he thought the
Shawnees would not care to risk further pursuit, and the next day they
resumed their journey, under a drying sun.

They were not troubled any more by Indian attacks, but the rest of the
way was not without other dangers. The rivers were swollen by the spring
rains, and they had great trouble in carrying the salt across on the
swimming horses. Once Paul was swept down by a swift and powerful
current, but Henry managed to seize and hold him until others came to
the rescue. Men and boys alike laughed over their trials, because they
felt now all the joy of victory, and their rapid march south amid the
glories of spring, unfolding before them, appealed to the instincts of
everyone in the band, the same instincts that had brought them from the
East into the wilderness.

They were passing through the region that came to be known in later days
as the Garden of Kentucky. Then it was covered with magnificent forest
and now they threaded their way through the dense canebrake. Squirrels
chattered in every tree top, deer swarmed in the woods, and the buffalo
was to be found in almost every glen.

"I do not wonder," said the thoughtful schoolmaster, "that the Indian
should be loath to give up such choice hunting grounds, but, fight as
cunningly and bravely as he will, his fate will come."

But Henry, with only the thoughts of youth, could not conceive of the
time when the vast wilderness should be cut down and the game should go.
He was concerned only with the present and the words of Mr. Pennypacker
made upon him but a faint and fleeting impression.

At last on a sunny morning, whole, well fed, with their treasure
preserved, and all fresh and courageous, they approached Wareville. The
hearts of Henry and Paul thrilled at the signs of white habitation. They
saw where the ax had bitten through a tree, and they came upon broad
trails that could be made only by white men, going to their work, or
hunting their cattle.

But it was Paul who showed the most eagerness. He was whole-hearted in
his joy. Wareville then was the only spot on earth for him. But Henry
turned his back on the wilderness with a certain reluctance. A primitive
strain in him had been awakened. He was not frightened now. The danger
of the battle had aroused in him a certain wild emotion which repeated
itself and refused to die, though days had passed. It seemed to him at
times that it would be a great thing to live in the forest, and to have
knowledge and wilderness power surpassing those even of Shif'less Sol or
Ross. He had tasted again the life of the primitive man and he liked it.

Mr. Pennypacker was visibly joyful. The wilderness appealed to him in a
way, but he considered himself essentially a man of peace, and Wareville
was becoming a comfortable abode.

"I have had my great adventure," he said, "I have helped to fight the
wild men, and in the days to come I can speak boastfully of it, even as
the great Greeks in Homer spoke boastfully of their achievements, but
once is enough. I am a man of peace and years, and I would fain wage the
battles of learning rather than those of arms."

"But you did fight like a good 'un when you had to do it, schoolmaster,"
said Ross.

Mr. Pennypacker shook his head and replied gravely:

"Tom, you do right to say 'when I had to do it,' but I mean that I shall
not have to do it any more."

Ross smiled. He knew that the schoolmaster was one of the bravest of
men.

Now they came close to Wareville. From a hill they saw a thin, blue
column of smoke rising and then hanging like a streamer across the clear
blue sky.

"That comes from the chimneys of Wareville," said Ross, "an' I guess
she's all right. That smoke looks kinder quiet, as if nothin' out of the
way had happened."

They pressed forward with renewed speed, and presently a shout came from
the forest. Two men ran to meet them, and rejoiced at the sight of the
men unharmed, and every horse heavily loaded with salt. Then it was a
triumphal procession into Wareville, with the crowd about them
thickening as they neared the gates. Henry's mother threw her arms about
his neck, and his father grasped him by the hand. Paul was in the center
of his own family, completely submerged, and all the space within the
palisade resounded with joyous laugh and welcome, which became all the
more heartfelt, when the schoolmaster told of the great danger through
which they had passed.

That evening, when they sat around the low fire in his father's
home--the spring nights were yet cool--Henry had to repeat the story of
the salt-making and the great adventure with the Shawnees. He grew
excited as he told of the battle and the storm, his face flushed, his
eyes shot sparks, and, as Mrs. Ware looked at him, she realized, half in
pride, half in terror, that she was the mother of a hunter and warrior.




CHAPTER X

THE CAVE DUST


The great supply of salt brought by Ross and his men was welcome to
Wareville, as the people had begun to suffer for it, but they would have
enough now to last them a full year, and a year was a long time to look
ahead. Great satisfaction was expressed on that score, but the news that
a Shawnee war party was in Kentucky and had chased them far southward
caused Mr. Ware and other heads of the village to look very grave and to
hold various councils.

As a result of these talks the palisade was strengthened with another
row of strong stakes, and they took careful stock of their supplies of
ammunition. Lead they had in plenty, but powder was growing scarce. A
fresh supply had been expected with a new band of settlers from Virginia
but the band had failed to come, and the faces of the leaders grew yet
graver, when they looked at the dwindling supply, and wondered how it
could be replenished for the dire need that might arise. It was now that
Mr. Pennypacker came forward with a suggestion and he showed how book
learning could be made of great value, even in the wilderness.

"You will recall," he said to Mr. Ware and Mr. Upton, and other heads of
the settlement, "that some of our hunters have reported the existence of
great caves to the southwestward and that they have brought back from
them wonderful stalactites and stalagmites and also dust from the cave
floors. I find that this dust is strongly impregnated with niter; from
niter we obtain saltpeter and from saltpeter we make gunpowder. We need
not send to Virginia for our powder, we can make it here in Kentucky for
ourselves."

"Do you truly think so, Mr. Pennypacker?" asked Mr. Ware, doubtfully.

"Think so! I know so," replied the schoolmaster in sanguine tones. "Why,
what am I a teacher for if I don't know a little of such things? And
even if you have doubts, think how well the experiment is worth trying.
Situated as we are, in this wild land, powder is the most precious thing
on earth to us."

"That is true! that is true!" said Mr. Ware with hasty emphasis.
"Without it we shall lie helpless before the Indian attack, should it
come. If, as you say, this cave dust contains the saltpeter, the rest
will be easy."

"It contains saltpeter and the rest _will_ be easy!"

"Then, you must go for it. Ross and Sol and a strong party must go with
you, because we cannot run the risk of losing any of you through the
Indians."

"I am sure," said Mr. Pennypacker, "that we shall incur no danger from
Indians. The region of the great caves lies farther south than Wareville
and the Southern Indians, who are less bold than the Northern tribes,
are not likely to come again into Kentucky. The hunters say that Indians
have not been in that particular region for years."

"Yes, I think you are right," said Mr. Ware, "but be careful anyhow."

Henry, when he heard of the new expedition, was wild to go, but his
parents, remembering the great danger of the journey to the salt licks,
were reluctant with their permission. Then Ross interceded effectively.

"The boy is just fitted for this sort of work," he said. "He isn't in
love with farming, he's got other blood in him, but down there he will
be just about the best man that Wareville has to send, an' there won't
be any Indians."

There was no reply to such an argument, because in the border
settlements the round peg must go in the round hole; the conditions of
survival demanded no surplusage and no waste.

When Paul heard that Henry was to go he gave his parents no rest, and
when Mr. Pennypacker, whose favorite he was, seconded his request, on
the ground that he would need a scholar with him the permission had to
be granted.

Rejoicing, the two boys set forth with the others, the dangers of the
Shawnee battle and their terrors already gone from their minds. They
would meet no Indians this time, and the whole powder-making expedition
would be just one great picnic. The summer was now at hand, and the
forests were an unbroken mass of brilliant green. In the little spaces
of earth where the sunlight broke through, wild flowers, red, blue, pink
and purple peeped up and nodded gayly, when the light winds blew. Game
abounded, but they killed only enough for their needs, Ross saying it
was against the will of God to shoot a splendid elk or buffalo and leave
him to rot, merely for the pleasure of the killing.

After a while they forded a large river, passed out of the forests, and
came into a great open region, to which they gave the name of Barrens,
not because it was sterile, but because it was bare of trees. Henry, at
first, thought it was the land of prairies, but Ross, after examining it
minutely, said that if left to nature it would be forested. It was his
theory that the Indians in former years had burned off the young tree
growth repeatedly in order to make great grazing grounds for the big
game. Whether his supposition was true or not, and Henry thought it
likely to be true, the Barrens were covered with buffalo, elk and deer.
In fact they saw buffalo in comparatively large numbers for the first
time, and once they looked upon a herd of more than a hundred, grazing
in the rich and open meadows. Panthers attracted by the quantity of game
upon which they could prey screamed horribly at night, but the flaming
camp fires of the travelers were sufficient to scare them away.

All these things, the former salt-makers, and powder-makers that hoped
to be, saw only in passing. They knew the value of time and they
hastened on to the region of great caves, guided this time by one of
their hunters, Jim Hart, although Ross as usual was in supreme command.
But Hart had spent some months hunting in the great cave region and his
report was full of wonders.

"I think there are caves all over, or rather, under this country that
the Indians call Kaintuckee," he said, "but down in this part of it
they're the biggest."

"You are right about Kentucky being a cave region," said the
schoolmaster, "I think most of it is underlaid with rock, anywhere from
five thousand to ten thousand feet thick, and in the course of ages,
through geological decay or some kindred cause, it has become
crisscrossed with holes like a great honeycomb."

"I'm pretty sure about the caves," said Ross, "but what I want to know
is about this peter dirt."

"We'll find it and plenty of it," replied the master confidently. "That
sample was full of niter, and when we leach it in our tubs we shall have
the genuine saltpeter, explosive dust, if you choose to call it, that is
the solution of gunpowder."

"Which we can't do without," said Henry.

They passed out of the Barrens, and entered a region of high, rough
hills, and narrow little valleys. Hills and valleys alike were densely
clothed with forest.

Hart pointed to several, large holes in the sides of the hills, always
at or near the base and said they were the mouths of caves.

"But the big one, in which I got the peter dirt is farther on," he said.

They came to the place he had in mind, just as the twilight was falling,
a hole, a full man's height at the bottom of a narrow valley, but
leading directly into the side of the circling hill that inclosed the
bowl-like depression. Henry and Paul looked curiously at the black mouth
and they felt some tremors at the knowledge that they were to go in
there, and to remain inside the earth for a long time, shut from the
light of day. It was the dark and not the fear of anything visible, that
frightened them.

But they made no attempt to enter that evening, although night would be
the same as day in the cave. Instead they provided for a camp, as the
horses and a sufficient guard would have to remain outside. The valley
itself was an admirable place, since it contained pasturage for the
horses, while at the far end was a little stream of water, flowing out
of the hill and trickling away through a cleft into another and slightly
lower valley.

After tethering the horses, they built a fire near the cave mouth and
sat down to cook, eat, rest and talk.

"Ain't there danger from bad air in there?" asked Ross. "I've heard tell
that sometimes in the ground air will blow all up, when fire is touched
to it, just like a bar'l o' gunpowder."

"The air felt just as fresh an' nice as daylight when I went in," said
Hart, "an' if it comes to that it will be better than it is out here
because it's allus even an' cool."

"It is so," said the master meditatively. "All the caves discovered so
far in Kentucky have fresh pure air. I do not undertake to account for
it."

That night they cut long torches of resinous wood, and early the next
morning all except two, who were left to guard the horses, entered the
cave, led by Hart, who was a fearless man with an inquiring mind.
Everyone carried a torch, burning with little smoke, and after they had
passed the cave mouth, which was slightly damp, they came to a perfectly
dry passage, all the time breathing a delightfully cool and fresh air,
full of vigor and stimulus.

Paul and Henry looked back. They had come so far now that the light of
day from the cave mouth could not reach them, and behind them was only
thick impervious blackness. Before them, where the light of the torches
died was the same black wall, and they themselves were only a little
island of light. But they could see that the cave ran on before them, as
if it were a subterranean, vaulted gallery, hewed out of the stone by
hands of many Titans! Henry held up his torch, and from the roof twenty
feet above his head the stone flashed back multicolored and glittering
lights. Paul's eyes followed Henry's and the gleaming roof appealed to
his sensitive mind.

"Why, it's all a great underground palace!" he exclaimed, "and we are
the princes who are living in it!"

Hart heard Paul's enthusiastic words and he smiled.

"Come here, Paul," he said, "I want to show you something."

Paul came at once and Hart swung the light of his torch into a dark
cryptlike opening from the gallery.

"I see some dim shapes lying on the floor in there, but I can't tell
exactly what they are," said Paul.

"Come into this place itself."

Paul stepped into the crypt, and Hart with the tip of his moccasined toe
gently moved one of the recumbent forms. Paul could not repress a little
cry as he jumped back. He was looking at the dark, withered face of an
Indian, that seemed to him a thousand years old.

"An' the others are Indians, too," said Hart. "An' they needn't trouble
us. God knows how long they've been a-layin' here where their friends
brought 'em for burial. See the bows an' arrows beside 'em. They ain't
like any that the Indians use now."

"And the dry cave air has preserved them, for maybe two or three hundred
years," said the schoolmaster. "No, their dress and equipment do not
look like those of any Indians whom I have seen."

"Let's leave them just as they are," said Paul.

"Of course," said Ross, "it would be bad luck to move 'em."

They went on farther into the cave, and found that it increased in
grandeur and beauty. The walls glittered with the light of the torches,
the ceiling rose higher, and became a great vaulted dome. From the roof
hung fantastic stalactites and from the floor stalagmites equally
fantastic shot up to meet them. Slow water fell drop by drop from the
point of the stalactite upon the point of the stalagmite.

"That has been going on for ages," said the schoolmaster, "and the same
drop of water that leaves some of its substance to form the stalactite,
hanging from the roof, goes to form the stalagmite jutting up from the
floor. Come, Paul, here's a seat for you. You must rest a bit."

They beheld a rock formation almost like a chair, and, Paul sitting down
in it, found it quite comfortable. But they paused only a moment, and
then passed on, devoting their attention now to the cave dust, which was
growing thicker under their feet. The master scooped up handfuls of it
and regarded it attentively by the close light of his torch.

"It's the genuine peter dust!" he exclaimed exultantly. "Why, we can
make powder here as long as we care to do so."

"You are sure of it, master?" asked Ross anxiously.

"Sure of it!" replied Mr. Pennypacker. "Why, I know it. If we stayed
here long enough we could make a thousand barrels of gunpowder, good
enough to kill any elk or buffalo or Indian that ever lived."

Ross breathed a deep sigh of relief. He had had his doubts to the last,
and none knew better than he how much depended on the correctness of the
schoolmaster's assertion.

"There seems to be acres of the dust about here," said Ross, "an' I
guess we'd better begin the makin' of our powder at once."

They went no farther for the present, but carried the dust in, sack
after sack, to the mouth of the cave. Then they leached it, pouring
water on it in improvised tubs, and dissolving the niter. This solution
they boiled down and the residuum was saltpeter or gunpowder, without
which no settlement in Kentucky could exist.

The little valley now became a scene of great activity. The fires were
always burning and sack after sack of gunpowder was laid safely away in
a dry place. Henry and Paul worked hard with the others, but they never
passed the crypt containing the mummies, without a little shudder. In
some of the intervals of rest they explored portions of the cave,
although they were very cautious. It was well that they were so as one
day Henry stopped abruptly with a little gasp of terror. Not five feet
before him appeared the mouth of a great perpendicular well. It was
perfectly round, about ten feet across, and when Henry and Paul held
their torches over the edge, they could see no bottom. Henry shouted,
throwing his voice as far forward as possible, but only a dull, distant
echo came back.

"We'll call that the Bottomless Pit," he said.

"Bottomless or not, it's a good thing to keep out of," said Paul. "It
gives me the shudders, Henry, and I don't think I'll do much more
exploring in this cave."

In fact, the gunpowder-making did not give them much more chance, and
they were content with what they had already seen. The cave had many
wonders, but the sunshine outside was glorious and the vast mass of
green forest was very restful to the eye. There was hunting to be done,
too, and in this Henry bore a good part, he and Ross supplying the fresh
meat for their table.

A fine river flowed not two miles away and Paul installed himself as
chief fisherman, bringing them any number of splendid large fish, very
savory to the taste. Ross and Sol roamed far among the woods, but they
reported absolutely no Indian sign.

"I don't believe any of the warriors from either north or south have
been in these parts for years," said Ross.

"Luckily for us," added Mr. Pennypacker, "I don't want another such
retreat as that we had from the salt springs."

Ross's words came true. The powder-making was finished in peace, and the
journey home was made under the same conditions. At Wareville there was
a shout of joy and exultation at their arrival. They felt that they
could hold their village now against any attack, and Mr. Pennypacker was
a great man, justly honored among his people. He had shown them how to
make powder, which was almost as necessary to them as the air they
breathed, and moreover they knew where they could always get materials
needed for making more of it.

Truly learning was a great thing to have, and they respected it.




CHAPTER XI

THE FOREST SPELL


When the adventurers returned the rifle and ax were laid aside at
Wareville, for the moment, because the supreme test was coming. The soil
was now to respond to its trial, or to fail. This was the vital question
to Wareville. The game, in the years to come, must disappear, the forest
would be cut down, but the qualities of the earth would remain; if it
produced well, it would form the basis of a nation, if not, it would be
better to let all the work of the last year go and seek another home
elsewhere.

But the settlers had little doubt. All their lives had been spent close
to the soil, and they were not to be deceived, when they came over the
mountains in search of a land richer than any that they had tilled
before. They had seen its blackness, and, plowing down with the spade,
they had tested its depth. They knew that for ages and ages leaf and
bough, falling upon it, had decayed there and increased its fertility,
and so they awaited the test with confidence.

The green young shoots of the wheat, sown before the winter, were the
first to appear, and everyone in Wareville old enough to know the
importance of such a manifestation went forth to examine them. Mr. Ware,
Mr. Upton and Mr. Pennypacker held solemn conclave, and the final
verdict was given by the schoolmaster, as became a man who might not be
so strenuous in practice as the others, but who nevertheless was more
nearly a master of theory.

"The stalks are at least a third heavier than those in Maryland or
Virginia at the same age," he said, "and we can fairly infer from it
that the grain will show the same proportion of increase. I take a third
as a most conservative estimate; it is really nearer a half. Wareville
can, with reason, count upon twenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre,
and it is likely to go higher."

It was then no undue sense of elation that Wareville felt, and it was
shared by Henry and Paul, and even young Lucy Upton.

"It will be a rich country some day when I'm an old, old woman," she
said to Henry.

"It's a rich country now," replied he proudly, "and it will be a long,
long time before you are an old woman."

They began now to plow the ground cleared the autumn before--"new
ground" they called it--for the spring planting of maize. This, often
termed "Indian corn" but more generally known by the simple name corn,
was to be their chief crop, and the labor of preparation, in which Henry
had his full share, was not light. Their plows were rude, made by
themselves, and finished with a single iron point, and the ground, which
had supported the forest so lately, was full of roots and stumps. So the
passage of the plow back and forth was a trial to both the muscles and
the spirit. Henry's body became sore from head to foot, and by and by,
as the spring advanced and the sun grew hotter, he looked longingly at
the shade of the forest which yet lay so near, and thought of the deep,
cool pools and the silver fish leaping up, until their scales shone like
gold in the sunshine, and of the stags with mighty antlers coming down
to drink. He was sorry for the moment that he was so large and strong
and was so useful with plow and hoe. Then he might be more readily
excused and could take his rifle and seek the depths of the forest,
where everything grew by nature's aid alone, and man need not work,
unless the spirit moved him to do so.

They planted the space close around the fort in gardens and here after
the ground was "broken up" or plowed, the women and the girls, all tall
and strong, did the work.

The summer was splendid in its promise and prodigal in its favors. The
rains fell just right, and all that the pioneers planted came up in
abundance. The soil, so kind to the wheat, was not less so to the corn
and the gardens. Henry surveyed with pride the field of maize cultivated
by himself, in which the stalks were now almost a foot high, looking in
the distance like a delicate green veil spread over the earth. His
satisfaction was shared by all in Wareville because after this
fulfillment of the earth's promises, they looked forward to continued
seasons of plenty.

When the heavy work of planting and cultivating was over and there was
to be a season of waiting for the harvest, Henry went on the great
expedition to the Mississippi.

In the party were Ross, Shif'less Sol, the schoolmaster, Henry and Paul.
Wareville had no white neighbor near and all the settlements lay to the
north or east. Beyond them, across the Ohio, was the formidable cloud of
Indian tribes, the terror of which always overhung the settlers. West of
them was a vast waste of forest spreading away far beyond the
Mississippi, and, so it was supposed, inhabited only by wild animals. It
was thought well to verify this supposition and therefore the exploring
expedition set out.

Each member of the party carried a rifle, hunting knife and ammunition,
and in addition they led three pack horses bearing more ammunition,
their meal, jerked venison and buffalo meat. This little army expected
to live upon the country, but it took the food as a precaution.

They started early of a late but bright summer morning, and Henry found
all his old love of the wilderness returning. Now it would be gratified
to the full, as they should be gone perhaps two months and would pass
through regions wholly unknown. Moreover he had worked hard for a long
time and he felt that his holiday was fully earned; hence there was no
flaw in his hopes.

It required but a few minutes to pass through the cleared ground, the
new fields, and reach the forest and as they looked back they saw what a
slight impression they had yet made on the wilderness. Wareville was but
a bit of human life, nothing more than an islet of civilization in a sea
of forest.

Five minutes more of walking among the trees, and then both Wareville
and the newly opened country around it were shut out. They saw only the
spire of smoke that had been a beacon once to Henry and Paul, rising
high up, until it trailed off to the west with the wind, where it lay
like a whiplash across the sky. This, too, was soon lost as they
traveled deeper into the forest, and then they were alone in the
wilderness, but without fear.

"When we were able to live here without arms or ammunition it's not
likely that we'll suffer, now is it?" said Paul to Henry.

"Suffer!" exclaimed Henry. "It's a journey that I couldn't be hired to
miss."

"It ought to be enjoyable," said Mr. Pennypacker; "that is, if our
relatives don't find it necessary to send into the Northwest, and try to
buy back our scalps from the Indian tribes."

But the schoolmaster was not serious. He had little fear of Indians in
the western part of Kentucky, where they seldom ranged, but he thought
it wise to put a slight restraint upon the exuberance of youth.

They camped that night about fifteen miles from Wareville under the
shadow of a great, overhanging rock, where they cooked some squirrels
that the shiftless one shot, in a tall tree. The schoolmaster upon this
occasion constituted himself cook.

"There is a popular belief," he said when he asserted his place, "that a
man of books is of no practical use in the world. I hereby intend to
give a living demonstration to the contrary."

Ross built the fire, and while the schoolmaster set himself to his task,
Henry and Paul took their fish hooks and lines and went down to the
creek that flowed near. It was so easy to catch perch and other fish
that there was no sport in it, and as soon as they had enough for supper
and breakfast they went back to the fire where the tempting odors that
arose indicated the truth of the schoolmaster's assertion. The squirrels
were done to a turn, and no doubt of his ability remained.

Supper over, they made themselves beds of boughs under the shadow of the
rock, while the horses were tethered near. They sank into dreamless
sleep, and it was the schoolmaster who awakened Paul and Henry the next
morning.

They entered that day a forest of extraordinary grandeur, almost clear
of undergrowth and with illimitable rows of mighty oak and beech trees.
As they passed through, it was like walking under the lofty roof of an
immense cathedral. The large masses of foliage met overhead and shut out
the sun, making the space beneath dim and shadowy, and sometimes it
seemed to the explorers that an echo of their own footsteps came back to
them.

Henry noted the trees, particularly the beeches which here grow to finer
proportions than anywhere else in the world, and said he was glad that
he did not have to cut them down and clear the ground, for the use of
the plow.

After they passed out of this great forest they entered the widest
stretch of open country they had yet seen in Kentucky, though here and
there they came upon patches of bushes.

"I think this must have been burned off by successive forest fires,"
said Ross, "Maybe hunting parties of Indians put the torch to it in
order to drive the game."

Certainly these prairies now contained an abundance of animal life. The
grass was fresh, green and thick everywhere, and from a hill the
explorers saw buffalo, elk, and common deer grazing or browsing on the
bushes.

As the game was so abundant Paul, the least skillful of the party in
such matters, was sent forth that evening to kill a deer and this he
triumphantly accomplished to his own great satisfaction. They again
slept in peace, now under the low-hanging boughs of an oak, and
continued the next day to the west. Thus they went on for days.

It was an easy journey, except when they came to rivers, some of which
were too deep for fording, but Ross had made provision for them. Perched
upon one of the horses was a skin canoe, that is, one made of stout
buffalo hide to be held in shape by a slight framework of wood on the
inside, such as they could make at any time. Two or three trips in this
would carry themselves and all their equipment over the stream while the
horses swam behind.

They soon found it necessary to put their improvised canoe to use as
they came to a great river flowing in a deep channel. Wild ducks flew
about its banks or swam on the dark-blue current that flowed quietly to
the north. This was the Cumberland, though nameless then to the
travelers, and its crossing was a delicate operation as any incautious
movement might tip over the skin canoe, and, while they were all good
swimmers, the loss of their precious ammunition could not be taken as
anything but a terrible misfortune.

Traveling on to the west they came to another and still mightier river,
called by the Indians, so Ross said, the Tennessee, which means in their
language the Great Spoon, so named because the river bent in curves like
a spoon. This river looked even wilder and more picturesque than the
Cumberland, and Henry, as he gazed up its stream, wondered if the white
man would ever know all the strange regions through which it flowed.
Vast swarms of wild fowl, as at the Cumberland, floated upon its waters
or flew near and showed but little alarm as they passed. When they
wished food it was merely to go a little distance and take it as one
walks to a cupboard for a certain dish.

Now, the aspect of the country began to change. The hills sank. The
streams ceased to sparkle and dash helter-skelter over the stones;
instead they flowed with a deep sluggish current and always to the west.
In some the water was so nearly still that they might be called lagoons.
Marshes spread out for great distances, and they were thronged with
millions of wild fowl. The air grew heavier, hotter and damper.

"We must be approaching the Mississippi," said Henry, who was quick to
draw an inference from these new conditions.

"It can't be very far," replied Ross, "because we are in low country
now, and when we get into the lowest the Mississippi will be there."

All were eager for a sight of the great river. Its name was full of
magic for those who came first into the wilderness of Kentucky. It
seemed to them the limits of the inhabitable world. Beyond stretched
vague and shadowy regions, into which hunters and trappers might
penetrate, but where no one yet dreamed of building a home. So it was
with some awe that they would stand upon the shores of this boundary,
this mighty stream that divided the real from the unreal.

But traveling was now slow. There were so many deep creeks and lagoons
to cross, and so many marshes to pass around that they could not make
many miles in a day. They camped for a while on the highest hill that
they could find and fished and hunted. While here they built themselves
a thatch shelter, acting on Ross's advice, and they were very glad that
they did so, as a tremendous rain fell a few days after it was finished,
deluging the country and swelling all the creeks and lagoons. So they
concluded to stay until the earth returned to comparative dryness again
in the sunshine, and meanwhile their horses, which did not stand the
journey as well as their masters, could recuperate.

Two days after they resumed the journey, they stood on the low banks of
the Mississippi and looked at its vast yellow current flowing in a
mile-wide channel, and bearing upon its muddy bosom, bushes and trees,
torn from slopes thousands of miles away. It was not beautiful, it was
not even picturesque, but its size, its loneliness and its desolation
gave it a somber grandeur, which all the travelers felt. It was the same
river that had received De Soto's body many generations before, and it
was still a mystery.

"We know where it goes to, for the sea receives them all," said Mr.
Pennypacker, "but no man knows whence it comes."

"And it would take a good long trip to find out," said Sol.

"A trip that we haven't time to take," returned the schoolmaster.

Henry felt a desire to make that journey, to follow the great stream,
month after month, until he traced it to the last fountain and uncovered
its secret. The power that grips the explorer, that draws him on through
danger, known and unknown, held him as he gazed.

They followed the banks of the stream at a slow pace to the north,
sweltering in the heat which seemed to come to a focus here at the
confluence of great waters, until at last they reached a wide extent of
low country overgrown with bushes and cut with a broad yellow band
coming down from the northeast.

"The Ohio!" said Ross.

And so it was; it was here that the stream called by the Indians "The
Beautiful River"--though not deserving the name at this place--lost
itself in the Mississippi and at the junction it seemed full as mighty a
river as the great Father of Waters himself.

They did not stay long at the meeting of the two rivers, fearing the
miasma of the marshy soil, but retreated to the hills where they went
into camp again. Yet Ross, and Henry, and Sol crossed both the Ohio and
the Mississippi in the frail canoe for the sake of saying that they had
been on the farther shores. The three, leaving Paul and the schoolmaster
to guard the camp, even penetrated to a considerable distance in the
prairie country beyond the Ohio. Here Henry saw for the first time a
buffalo herd of size. Buffaloes were common enough in Kentucky, but the
country being mostly wooded they roamed there in small bands. North of
the Ohio he now beheld these huge shaggy animals in thousands and he
narrowly escaped being trampled to death by a herd which, frightened by
a pack of wolves, rushed down upon him like a storm. It was Ross who
saved him by shooting the leading bull, thus compelling them to divide
when they came to his body, by which action they left a clear space
where he and Henry stood. After that Henry, as became one of
fast-ripening experience and judgment, grew more cautious.

All the party were in keen enjoyment of the great journey, and felt in
their veins the thrill of the wilderness. Paul's studious face took on
the brown tan of autumn, and even the schoolmaster, a man of years who
liked the ways of civilization, saw only the pleasures of the forest and
closed his eyes to its hardships. But there was none who was caught so
deeply in the spell of the wilderness as Henry, not even Ross nor the
shiftless one. There was something in the spirit of the boy that
responded to the call of the winds through the deep woods, a harking
back to the man primeval, a love for nature and silence.

The forest hid many things from the schoolmaster, but he knew the hearts
of men, and he could read their thoughts in their eyes, and he was the
first to notice the change in Henry or rather less a change than a
deepening and strengthening of a nature that had not found until now its
true medium. The boy did not like to hear them speak of the return, he
loved his people and he would serve them always as best he could, but
they were prosperous and happy back there in Wareville and did not need
him; now the forest beckoned to him, and, speaking to him in a hundred
voices, bade him stay. When he roamed the woods, their majesty and leafy
silence appealed to all his senses. The two vast still rivers threw over
him the spell of mystery, and the secret of the greater one, its hidden
origin, tantalized him. Often he gazed northward along its yellow
current and wondered if he could not pierce that secret. Dimly in his
mind, formed a plan to follow the yellow stream to its source some day,
and again he thrilled with the thought of great adventures and mighty
wanderings, where men of his race had never gone before.

Knowledge, too, came to him with an ease and swiftness that filled with
surprise experienced foresters like Ross and Sol. The woods seemed to
unfold their secrets to him. He learned the nature of all the herbs,
those that might be useful to man and those that might be harmful, he
was already as skillful with a canoe as either the guide or the
shiftless one, he could follow a trail like an Indian, and the habits of
the wild animals he observed with a minute and remembering eye. All the
lore of those far-away primeval ancestors suddenly reappeared in him at
the voice of the woods, and was ready for his use.

"It will not be long until Henry is a man," said Ross one evening as
they sat before their camp fire and saw the boy approaching, a deer that
he had killed borne upon his shoulders.

"He is a man now," said the schoolmaster with gravity and emphasis as he
looked attentively at the figure of the youth carrying the deer. No one
ever before had given him such an impression of strength and physical
alertness. He seemed to have grown, to have expanded visibly since their
departure from Wareville. The muscles of his arm stood up under the
close-fitting deerskin tunic, and the length of limb and breadth of
shoulder in the boy indicated a coming man of giant mold.

"What a hunter and warrior he will make!" said Ross.

"A future leader of wilderness men," said Mr. Pennypacker softly, "but
there is wild blood in those veins; he will have to be handled well."

Henry threw down the deer and greeted them with cheerful words that came
spontaneously from a joyful soul. They had built their fire, not a large
one, in an oak opening and all around the trees rose like a mighty
circular wall. The red shadows of a sun that had just set lingered on
the western edge of the forest, but in the east all was black. Out of
this vastness came the rustling sound of the wind as it moved among the
autumn leaves. In the opening was a core of ruddy light and the living
forms of men, but it was only a tiny spot in the immeasurable
wilderness.

The schoolmaster and he alone felt their littleness. The autumn night
was crisp, and from his seat on a log he held out his fingers to the
warm blaze. Now and then a yellow or red leaf caught in the light wind
drifted to his feet and he gazed up half in fear at the great encircling
wall of blackness. Then he uttered silent thanks that he was with such
trusty men as the guide and the shiftless one.

The effect upon Henry was not the same. He had become silent while the
others talked, and he half reclined against a tree, looking at the sky
that showed a dim and shadowy disk through the opening. But there was
nothing of fear in his mind. A delicious sense of peace and satisfaction
crept over him. All the voices of the night seemed familiar and good. A
lizard slipped through the grass and the eye and ear of Henry alone
noticed it; neither the guide nor the shiftless one had seen or heard
its passage. He measured the disk of the heavens with his glance and
foretold unerringly whether it would be clear or cloudy on the morrow,
and when something rustled in the woods, he knew, without looking, that
it was a hare frightened by the blaze fleeing from its covert. A tiny
brook trickled at the far edge of the fire's rim, and he could tell by
the color of the waters through what kind of soil it had come.

Paul sat down near him, and began to talk of home. Henry smiled upon him
indulgently; his old relation of protector to the younger boy had grown
stronger during this trip; in the forest he was his comrade's superior
by far, and Paul willingly admitted it; in such matters he sought no
rivalry with his friend.

"I wonder what they are doing way down there?" said Paul, waving his
hand toward the southeast. "Just think of it, Henry! they are only one
little spot in the wilderness, and we are only another little spot way
up here! In all the hundreds of miles between, there may not be another
white face!"

"It is likely true, but what of it?" replied Henry. "The bigger the
wilderness the more room in it for us to roam in. I would rather have
great forests than great towns."

He turned lazily and luxuriously on his side, and, gazing into the red
coals, began to see there visions of other forests and vast plains, with
himself wandering on among the trees and over the swells. His comrades
said nothing more because it was comfortable in their little camp, and
the peace of the wilds was over them all. The night was cold, but the
circling wall of trees sheltered the opening, and the fire in the center
radiated a grateful heat in which they basked. The scholar, Mr.
Pennypacker, rested his face upon his hands, and he, too, was dreaming
as he stared into the blaze. Paul, his blanket wrapped around him and
his head pillowed upon soft boughs, was asleep already. Ross and Sol
dozed.

But Henry neither slept nor wished to do so. His gaze shifted from the
red coals to the silver disk of the sky. The world seemed to him very
beautiful and very intimate. These illimitable expanses of forest
conveyed to him no sense of either awe or fear. He was at home. He had
become for the time a being of the night, piercing the darkness with the
eyes of a wild creature, and hearkening to the familiar voices around
him that spoke to him and to him alone. Never was sleep farther from
him. The shifting firelight in its flickering play fell upon his face
and revealed it in all its clear young boyish strength, the firm neck,
the masterful chin, the calm, resolute eyes set wide apart, the lean
big-boned fingers, lying motionless across his knees.

Mr. Pennypacker began to nod, then he, too, wrapped himself in his
blanket, lay back and soon fell fast asleep; in a few minutes Sol
followed him to the land of real dreams, and after a brief interval
Ross, too, yielded. Henry alone was awake, drinking deep of the night
and its lonely joy.

The silver disk of the sky turned into gray under a cloud, the darkness
swept up deeper and thicker, the light of the fire waned, but the boy
still leaned against the log, and upon his sensitive mind every change
of the wilderness was registered as upon the delicate surface of a
plate. He glanced at his sleeping comrades and smiled. The smile was the
index to an unconscious feeling of superiority. Ross and Sol were two or
three times his age, but they slept while he watched, and not Ross
himself in all his years in the wilderness had learned many things that
came to him by intuition.

Hours passed and the boy was yet awake. New feelings, vague and
undetermined came into his mind but through them all went the feeling of
mastery. He, though a boy, was in many respects the chief, and while he
need not assert his leadership yet a while, he could never doubt its
possession.

The light died far down and only a few smoldering coals were left. The
blackness of the night, coming ever closer and closer, hovered over his
companions and hid their faces from him. The great trunks of the trees
grew shadowy and dim. Out of the darkness came a sound slight but not in
harmony with the ordinary noises of the forest. His acute senses, the
old inherited primitive instinct, noticed at once the jarring note. He
moved ever so little but an extraordinary change came over his face. The
idle look of luxury and basking warmth passed away and the eyes became
alert, watchful, defiant. Every feature, every muscle was drawn, as if
he were at the utmost tension. Almost unconsciously his figure sank down
farther against the log, until it blended perfectly with the bark and
the fallen leaves below. Only an eye of preternatural keenness could
have separated the outline of the boy from the general scene.

For five minutes he lay and moved not a particle. Then the discordant
note came again among the familiar sounds of the forest and he glanced
at his comrades. They slept peacefully. His lip curled slightly, not
with contempt but with that unconscious feeling of superiority; they
would not have noticed, even had they been awake.

His hands moved forward and grasped his rifle. Then he began to slip
away from the opening and into the forest, not by walking nor altogether
by crawling, but by a curious, noiseless, gliding motion, almost like
that of a serpent. Always he clung to the shadows where his shifting
body still blended with the dark, and as he advanced other primitive
instincts blazed up in him. He was a hunter pursuing for the first time
the highest and most dangerous game of all game and the thrill through
his veins was so keen that he shivered slightly. His chin was projected,
and his eyes were two red spots in the night. All the while his comrades
by the fire, even the trained foresters, slumbered in peace, no warning
whatever coming to their heavy heads.

The boy reached the wall of the woods, and now his form was completely
swallowed up in the blackness there. He lay a while in the bushes,
motionless, all his senses alert, and for the third time the jarring
note came to his ears. The maker of it was on his right, and, as he
judged, perhaps a couple of hundred yards away. He would proceed at once
to that point. It is truth to say that no thought of danger entered his
mind; the thrills of the present and its chances absorbed him. It seemed
natural that he should do this thing, he was merely resuming an old
labor, discontinued for a time.

He raised his head slightly, but even his keen eyes could see nothing in
the forest save trunks and branches, ghostly and shapeless, and the
regular rustle of the wind was not broken now by the jarring note. But
the darkness heavy and ominous, was permeated with the signs of things
about to happen, and heavy with danger, a danger, however, that brought
no fear to Henry for himself, only for others. A faint sighing note as
of a distant bird came on the wind, and pausing, he listened intently.
He knew that it was not a bird, that sound was made by human lips, and
once more a light shiver passed over his frame; it was a signal,
concerning his comrades and himself, and he would turn aside the danger
from those old friends of his who slept by the fire, in peace and
unknowing.

He resumed his cautious passage through the undergrowth, and, the
inherited instinct blossoming so suddenly into full flower, was still
his guide. Not a sound marked his advance, the forest fell silently
behind him, and he went on with unerring knowledge to the spot from
which the discordant sounds had come.

He approached another opening among the trees, like unto that in which
his comrades slept, and now, lying close in the undergrowth, he looked
for the first time upon the sight which so often boded ill to his kind.
The warriors were in a group, some sitting others standing, and though
there was no fire and the moonlight was slight he could mark the
primitive brutality of their features, the nature of the animal that
fought at all times for life showing in their eyes. They were hard,
harsh and repellent in every aspect, but the boy felt for a moment a
singular attraction, there was even a distant feeling of kinship as if
he, too, could live this life and had lived it. But the feeling quickly
passed, and in its place came the thought of his comrades whom he must
save.

The older of the warriors talked in a low voice, saying unknown words in
a harsh, guttural tongue, and Henry could guess only at their meaning.
But they seemed to be awaiting a signal and presently the low thrilling
note was heard again. Then the warriors turned as if this were the
command to do so, and came directly toward the boy who lay in the
darkest shadows of the undergrowth.

Henry was surprised and startled but only for a moment, then the
primeval instinct came to his aid and swiftly he sank away in the bushes
in front of them, as before, no sound marking his passage. He thought
rapidly and in all his thoughts there was none of himself but as the
savior of the little party. It seemed to come to him naturally that he
should be the protector and champion.

When he had gone about fifty yards he uttered a shout, long, swelling
and full of warning. Then he turned to his right and crashed through the
undergrowth, purposely making a noise that the pursuing warriors could
not fail to hear. Ross and the others, he knew, would be aroused
instantly by his cry and would take measures of safety. Now the savages
would be likely to follow him alone, and he noted by the sounds that
they had turned aside to do so.

At this moment Henry Ware felt nothing but exultation that he, a boy,
should prove himself a match for all the cunning of the forest-bred, and
he thought not at all of the pursuit that came so fiercely behind him.

He ran swiftly and now directly more than a mile from the camp of his
friends. Then the inherited instinct that had served him so well failed;
it could not warn him of the deep little river that lay straight across
his path flowing toward the Mississippi. He came out upon its banks and
was ready to drop down in its waters, but he saw that before he could
reach the farther shore he would be a target for his pursuers. He
hesitated and was about to turn at a sharp angle, but the warriors
emerged from the forest. It was then too late.

The savages uttered a shout of triumph, the long, ferocious, whining
note, so terrible in its intensity and meaning, and Henry, raising his
rifle, fired at a painted breast. The next moment they were hurled upon
him in a brown mass. He felt a stunning blow upon the head, sparks flew
before his eyes, and the world reeled away into darkness.




CHAPTER XII

THE PRIMITIVE MAN


When Henry came back to his world he was lying upon the ground, with his
head against a log, and about him was a circle of brown faces, cold,
hard, expressionless and apparently devoid of human feeling; pity and
mercy seemed to be unknown qualities there. But the boy met them with a
gaze as steady as their own, and then he glanced quickly around the
circle. There was no other prisoner and he saw no ghastly trophy; then
his comrades had escaped, and, deep satisfaction in his heart, he let
his head fall back upon the log. They could do now as they chose with
him, and whatever it might be he felt that he had no cause to fear it.

Three other warriors came in presently, and Henry judged that all the
party were now gathered there. He was still lying near the river on
whose banks he had been struck down, and the shifting clouds let the
moonlight fall upon him. He put his hand to his head where it ached, and
when he took it away, there was blood on his fingers. He inferred that a
heavy blow had been dealt to him with the flat of a tomahawk, but with
the stained fingers he made a scornful gesture. One of the warriors,
apparently a chief, noticed the movement, and he muttered a word or two
which seemed to have the note of approval. Henry rose to his feet and
the chief still regarded him, noting the fearless look, and the hint of
surpassing physical powers soon to come. He put his hand upon the boy's
shoulder and pointed toward the north and west. Henry understood him.
His life was to be spared for the present, at least, and he was to go
with them into the northwest, but to what fate he knew not.

One of the warriors bathed his head, and put upon it a lotion of leaves
which quickly drove away the pain. Henry suffered his ministrations with
primitive stoicism, making no comment and showing no interest.

At a word from the leader they took up their silent march, skirting the
river for a while until they came to a shallow place, where they forded
it, and buried themselves again in the dark forest. They passed among
its shades swiftly, silently and in single file, Henry near the middle
of the column, his figure in the dusk blending into the brown of theirs.
He had completely recovered his strength, and, save for the separation
from his friends and their consequent wonder and sorrow, he would not
have grieved over the mischance. Instinct told him--perhaps it was his
youth, perhaps his ready adaptability that appealed to his captors--that
his life was safe--and now he felt a keen curiosity to know the outcome.
It seemed to him too that without any will of his own he was about to
begin the vast wanderings that he had coveted.

Hour after hour the silent file trod swiftly on into the northwest, no
one speaking, their footfalls making no sound on the soft earth. The
moonlight deepened again, and veiled the trunks and branches in ghostly
silver or gray. By and by it grew darker and then out of the blackness
came the first shoot of dawn. A shaft of pale light appeared in the
east, then broadened and deepened, bringing in its trail, in terrace
after terrace, the red and gold of the rising sun. Then the light swept
across the heavens and it was full day.

They were yet in the forest and the dawn was cold. Here and there in the
open spaces and on the edges of the brown leaves appeared the white
gleam of frost. The rustle of the woods before the western wind was
chilly in the ear. But Henry was without sign of fatigue or cold. He
walked with a step as easy and as tireless as that of the strongest
warrior in the band, and at all times he held himself, as if he were one
of them, not their prisoner.

About an hour after dawn the party which numbered fifteen men halted at
a signal from the chief and began to eat the dried meat of the buffalo,
taken from their pouches. They gave him a good supply of the food, and
he found it tough but savory. Hunger would have given a sufficient sauce
to anything and as he ate in a sort of luxurious content he studied his
captors with the advantage of the daylight. The full sunshine disclosed
no more of softness and mercy than the night had shown. The features
were immobile, the eyes fixed and hard, but when the gaze of any one of
them, even the chief, met the boy's it was quickly turned. There was
about them something furtive, something of the lower kingdom of the
animals. That inherited primitive instinct, recently flaming up with
such strength in him, did not tell him that they were his full brethren.
But he did not hate them, instead they interested him.

After eating they rested an hour or more in the covert of a thicket and
Henry saw the beautiful day unfold. The sunshine was dazzling in its
glory, the crisp wind made one's blood sparkle like a tonic, and it was
good merely to live. A vast horizon inclosed only the peace of the
wilderness.

The chief said some words to Henry, but the boy could understand none of
them, and he shook his head. Then the chief took the rifle that had
belonged to the captive, tapped it on the barrel and pointed toward the
southeast. Henry nodded to indicate that he had come from that point,
and then smiling swept the circle of the northwestern horizon with his
hands. He meant to say that he would go with them without resistance,
for the present, at least, and the chief seemed to understand, as his
face relaxed into a look of comprehension and even of good nature.

Their march was resumed presently and as before it was straight into the
northwest. They passed out of the forest crossed the Ohio in hidden
canoes and entered a region of small but beautiful prairies, cut by
shallow streams, which they waded with undiminished speed. Henry began
to suspect that the band came from some very distant country, and was
hastening so much in order not to be caught on the hunting grounds of
rival tribes. The northwesterly direction that they were following
confirmed him in this belief.

All the day passed on the march but shortly after the night came on and
they had eaten a little more of the jerked meat, they lay down in a
thicket, and Henry, unmindful of his captivity, fell in a few minutes
into a sleep that was deep, sweet and dreamless. He did not know then
that before he was asleep long the chief took a robe of tanned deerskin
and threw it over him, shielding his body from the chill autumn night.
In the morning shortly before he awoke the chief took away the robe.

That day they came to a mighty river and Henry knew that the yellow
stream was that of the Mississippi. The Indians dragged from the
sheltering undergrowth two canoes, in which the whole party paddled up
stream until nightfall, when they hid the canoes again in the foliage on
the western shore, and then encamped on the crest. They seemed to feel
that they were out of danger now as they built a fine fire and the
captive basked in its warmth.

Henry had not made the slightest effort to escape, nor had he indicated
any wish to do so, finding his reward in the increased freedom which the
warriors gave to him. He had never been bound and now he could walk as
he chose in a limited area about the camp. But he did not avail himself
of the privilege, for the present, preferring to sit by the fire, where
he saw pictures of Wareville and those whom he loved. Then he had a
swift twinge of conscience. When they heard they would grieve deep and
long for him and one, his mother, would never forget. He should have
sought more eagerly to escape, and he glanced quickly about him, but
there was no chance. However careless the warriors might seem there was
always one between him and the forest. He resigned himself with a sigh
but had he thought how quickly the pain passed his conscience would have
hurt him again. Now he felt much comfort where he sat; the night was
really cold, bitingly cold, and it was a glorious fire. As he sat before
it and basked in its radiance he felt the glorious physical joy that
must have thrilled some far-away primeval ancestor, as he hugged the
coals in his cave after coming in from the winter storm.

Henry had the best place by the fire and a warrior who was sitting where
his back was exposed to the wind moved over and shoved him away. Henry
without a word smote him in the face with such force that the man fell
flat and Henry thrust him aside, resuming his original position. The
warrior rose to his feet and rubbed his bruised face, looking doubtfully
at the boy who sat in such stolid silence, staring into the coals and
paying no further attention to his opponent. The Indian never uses his
fists, and his hand strayed to the handle of his tomahawk; then, as it
strayed away again he sat down on the far side of the fire, and he too
began to stare stolidly into the red coals. The chief, Black Cloud,
bestowed on both a look of approval, but uttered no comment.

Presently Black Cloud gave some orders to his men and they lay down to
sleep, but the chief took the deerskin robe and handed it to Henry. His
manner was that of one making a gift, and a gesture confirmed the
impression. Henry took the robe which he would need and thanked the
chief in words whose meaning the donor might gather from the tone. Then
he lay down and slept as before a dreamless sleep all through the night.

Their journey lasted many days and every hour of it was full of interest
to Henry, appealing alike to his curiosity and its gratification. He was
launched upon the great wandering and he found in it both the glamour
and the reality that he wished, the reality in the rivers and the
forests and the prairies that he saw, and the glamour in the hope of
other and greater rivers and forests and prairies to come.

Indian summer was at hand. All the woods were dyed in vivid colors, reds
and yellows and browns, and glowed with dazzling hues in the intense
sunlight. Often the haze of Indian summer hung afar and softened every
outline. Henry's feeling that he was one of the band grew stronger, and
they, too, began to regard him as their own. His freedom was extended
more and more and with astonishing quickness he soon picked up enough
words of their dialect to make himself intelligible. They took him with
them, when they turned aside for hunting expeditions, and he was
permitted now and then to use his own rifle. Only six men in the band
had guns, and two of these guns were rifles the other four being
muskets. Henry soon showed that he was the best marksman among them and
respect for him grew. The Indian whom he knocked down was slightly gored
by a stag when only Henry was near, but Henry slew the stag, bound up
the man's wound and stayed by him until the others came. The warrior,
Gray Fox, speedily became one of his best friends.

Henry's enjoyment became more intense; all the trammels of civilization
were now thrown aside, he never thought of the morrow because the day
with its interests was sufficient, and from his new friends he learned
fresh lore of the forest with marvelous rapidity; they taught him how to
trail, to take advantage of every shred of cover and to make signals by
imitating the cry of bird or beast. Once they were caught in a
hailstorm, when it turned bitterly cold, but he endured it as well as
the best of them, and made not a single complaint.

They came at last to their village, a great distance west of the
Mississippi, a hundred lodges perhaps, pitched in a warm and sheltered
valley and the boy, under the fostering care of Black Cloud, was
formally adopted into the tribe, taking up at once the thread of his new
life, and finding in it the same keen interest that had marked all the
stages of the great journey.

The climate here was colder than that from which he had come, and
winter, with fierce winds from the Great Plains was soon upon them. But
the camp which was to remain there until spring was well chosen and the
steep hills about them fended off the worst of the blast. Yet the snow
came soon in great, whirling flakes and fell all one night. The next
morning the boy saw the world in white and he found it singularly
beautiful. The snow he did not mind as clothing of dressed skins had
been given to him and he had a warm buffalo robe for a blanket. Now,
young as he was, he became one of the best hunters for the village and
with the others he roamed far over the snowy hills in search of game.
Many were the prizes that fell to his steady aim and eye, chief among
them the deer, the bear and the buffalo.

His fame in the village grew fast, and it would be hiding the fact to
deny that he enjoyed it. The wild rough life with its limitless range
over time and space appealed to every instinct in him, and his new fame
as a tireless and skillful hunter was very sweet to him. He thought of
his people and Wareville, it is true, but he consoled himself again with
the belief that they were well and he would return to them when the
chance came, and then he plunged all the deeper and with all the more
zest into his new life which had so many fascinations. At Wareville
there were certain bounds which he must respect, certain weights which
he must carry, but here he was free from both.

Meanwhile his body thrived at a prodigious rate. One could almost see
him grow. There was not a warrior in the village who was as strong as
he, and already he surpassed them all in endurance; none was so fleet of
foot nor so tireless. His face and hair darkened in the wind and sun,
his last vestige of civilized garb had disappeared long ago, and he was
clothed wholly in deerskin. His features grew stronger and keener and
the eyes were incessantly watchful, roving hither and thither, covering
every point within range. It would have taken more than a casual glance
now to discover that he was white.

The winter deepened. The snow was continuous, fierce blasts blew in from
the distant western plains and even searched out their sheltered valley.
The old men and the women shivered in the lodges, but sparkling young
blood and tireless action kept the boy warm and flourishing through it
all. Game grew scarce about them and the hunters went far westward in
search of the buffalo.

Henry was with the party that traveled farthest toward the setting sun,
and it was long before they returned. Winter was at its height and when
they came out of the forest into the waving open stretches which are the
Great Plains all things were hidden by the snow.

Henry from the summit of a little hill saw before him an expanse as
mighty as the sea, and like it in many of its aspects. They told him
that it rolled away to the westward, no man knew how far, as none of
them had ever come to the end of it. In summer it was covered with life.
Here grew thick grass and wild flowers and the buffalo passed in
millions.

It inspired in Henry a certain awe and yet by its very vagueness and
immensity it attracted. Just as he had wished to explore the secrets of
the forest he would like now to tread the Great Plains and find what
they held.

They turned toward the southwest in search of buffalo and were caught in
a great storm of wind and hail. The cold was bitter and the wind cut to
the bone. They were saved from freezing to death only by digging a rude
shelter through the snow into the side of a hill, and there they
crouched for two days with so little food left in their knapsacks, that
without game, they would perish, in a week, of hunger, if the cold did
not get the first chance. The most experienced hunters went forth, but
returned with nothing, thankful for so little a mercy as the ability to
get back to their half-shelter.

Henry at last took his rifle and ventured out alone--the others were too
listless to stop him--and before the noon hour he found a buffalo bull,
some outcast from the herd which had gone southward, struggling in the
snow. The bull was old and lean, and it took two bullets to bring him
down, but his death meant their life and Henry hurried to the camp with
the joyful news. It was clearly recognized that he had saved them, but
no one said anything and Henry was glad of their silence.

When the storm ceased they renewed their journey toward the south with a
plentiful supply of food and not long afterwards the snow began to melt.
Under the influence of a warm wind out of the southwest it disappeared
with marvelous quickness; one day the earth was all white, and the next
it was all brown. The warm wind continued to blow, and then faint
touches of green began to appear in the dead grass; there were delicate
odors, the breath of the great warm south, and they knew that spring was
not far away.

In a week they ran into the buffalo herd, a mighty black mass of moving
millions. The earth rumbled hollowly under the tread of a myriad feet,
and the plain was black with bodies to the horizon and beyond.

They killed as many of the buffalo as they wished and after the fashion
of the more northerly Indians reduced the meat to pemmican. Then, each
man bearing as much as he could conveniently carry, they began their
swift journey homeward, not knowing whether they would arrive in time
for the needs of the village.

Henry felt a deep concern for these new friends of his who were left
behind in the valley. He shared the anxiety of the others who feared
lest they would be too late and that fact reconciled him to the retreat
from the Great Plains, whose mysteries he longed to unravel.

As they went swiftly eastward the spring unfolded so fast that it seemed
to Henry to come with one great jump. They were now in the forests and
everywhere the trees were laden with fresh buds, in all the open spaces
the young grass was springing up, and the brooks, as if rejoicing in
their new freedom from the ice-bound winter, ran in sparkling little
streams between green banks.

The physical world was full of beauty to him, more so than ever because
his power of feeling it had grown. During the winter and by the
triumphant endurance of so many hardships his form had expanded and the
tide of sparkling blood had risen higher. Although a captive he was
regarded in a sense as the leader of the hunting party; it was obvious,
in the deference that the others, though much older, showed to him and
he knew that only his resource, courage and endurance had saved them all
from death. A song of triumph was singing in his veins.

They found the village at the edge of starvation despite the approach of
spring; two or three of the older people had died already of weakness,
and their supplies arrived just in time to relieve the crisis. There
were willing tongues to tell of his exploits, and Henry soon perceived
that he was a hero to them all and he enjoyed it, because it was natural
to him to be a leader, and he loved to breathe the air of approbation.
Yet as they valued him more they grew more jealous of him, and they
watched him incessantly, lest he should take it into his head to flee to
the people who were once his own. Henry saw the difficulty and again it
soothed his conscience by showing to him that he could not do what he
yet had a lingering feeling that he ought to do.

Good luck seemed to come in a shower to the village with the return of
the hunting party. Spring leaped suddenly into full bloom, and the woods
began to swarm with game. It was the most plentiful season that the
oldest man could recall, there was no hunter so lazy and so dull that he
could not find the buffalo and the deer.

Then the band, with the spirit of irresponsible wandering upon it, took
down its lodges and traveled slowly into the north farther and farther
from the little settlement away down in Kentucky. There was peace among
the tribes and they could go as they chose. They came at last to the
shores of a mighty lake, Superior, and here when Henry looked out upon
an expanse of water, as limitless to the eyes as the sea, he felt the
same thrill of awe that had passed through his veins when the Great
Plains lay outspread before him. As it was now midsummer and the forests
crackled in the heat they lingered long by the deep cool waters of the
lake. Here white traders, Frenchmen speaking a tongue unknown to Henry,
came to them with rifles, ammunition and bright-colored blankets to
trade for furs. More than one of them saw and admired the tall powerful
young warrior with the singularly watchful eyes but not one of them knew
that under his paint and tan he was whiter than themselves; instead they
took him to be the wildest of the wild.

Henry's heart had throbbed a little at the first sight of them, but it
was only for a moment, then it beat as steadily as ever; white like
himself they might be, but they were of an alien race; their speech was
not his speech, their ways not his ways and he turned from them. He was
glad when they were gone.

Toward the end of summer they went south again and wandered idly through
pleasant places. It was still a full season with wild fruits hanging
from the trees and game everywhere. There had been no sickness in the
little tribe and they basked in physical content. It was now a careless
easy life with the stimulus of wandering and hunting and all the old
primeval instincts in Henry, made stronger by habit, were gratified. He
fell easily into the ways of his friends; when there was nothing to do
he could sit for hours looking at the forests and the streams and the
sunshine, letting his soul steep in the glory of it all. To his other
qualities he now added that of illimitable patience. He could wait for
what he wished as the Eskimo sits for days at the air hole until the
seal appears.

In their devious wanderings they kept a general course toward the valley
in which they had passed the first winter, intending to renew their camp
there during the cold weather, but autumn, as they intended, was at hand
before they reached it. They were yet a long distance north and west of
their valley when they were threatened by a danger with which they had
not reckoned. A local tribe claimed that the band was infringing upon
their hunting grounds and began war with a treacherous attack upon a
hunting party.

The war was not long but the few hundreds who took part in it shared all
the passions and fierce emotions of two great nations in conflict. Henry
was in the thick of it, first alike in attack and defense, superior to
the Indians themselves in wiles and cunning. Several of the hostile
tribe fell at his hand, although he could not take a scalp, the remnants
of his early training forbidding it. But once or twice he was ashamed of
the weakness. The hostile party was triumphantly beaten off with great
loss to itself and Henry and his friends pursued their journey leisurely
and triumphantly. Now besides being a great hunter he was a great
warrior too.




CHAPTER XIII

THE CALL OF DUTY


They arrived at their valley and prepared for the second winter there,
returning to the place for several reasons, chief among them being the
right of prescription, to which the other tribes yielded tacit consent.
The Indian recks little of the future, but in his reversion to primitive
type Henry had taken with him much of the acquired and modern knowledge
of education. He looked ahead, and, under his constant suggestion,
advice and pressure they stored so much food for the winter that there
was no chance of another famine, whatever might happen to the game.

Before they went into winter quarters Henry clearly perceived one
thing--he was first in the little tribe; even Black Cloud, the chief,
willingly took second place to him. He was first alike in strength and
wisdom and it was patent to all. He was now, although only a boy in
years, nearly at his full height, almost a head above an ordinary
warrior, with wonderfully keen eyes, set wide apart, and a square
projecting chin, so firm that it seemed to be carved of brown marble.
His shoulders were of great breadth, but his lean figure had all the
graceful strength and ease of some wild animal native to the forest. He
was scrupulous in his attire, and wore only the finest skins and furs
that the village could furnish.

Henry felt the deference of the tribe and it pleased him. He glided
naturally into the place of leader, feeling the responsibility and
liking it. He was tactful, too, he would not push Black Cloud from his
old position, but merely remained at his right hand and ruled through
him. The chief was soothed and flattered, and the arrangement worked to
the pleasure of both, and to the great good of the village which now
enjoyed a winter of prosperity hitherto unknown to such natives of the
woods. Nobody had to go hungry, there was abundant provision against the
cold. Henry, though not saying it, knew that with him the credit lay,
and just now the world seemed very full. As human beings go he was
thoroughly happy; the life fitted him, satisfied all his wants, and the
memory of his own people became paler and more distant; they could do
very well without him; they were so many, one could be spared, and when
the chance came he would send word to them that he was alive and well,
but that he would not come back.

When the buds began to burst they traveled eastward, until they came to
the Mississippi. The sight of its stream brought back to Henry a thought
of those with whom he had first seen it and he felt a pang of remorse.
But the pang was fleeting, and the memory too he resolutely put aside.

They crossed the Mississippi and advanced into the land of little
prairies, a green, rich region, pleasant to the eye and full of game.
They wandered and hunted here, drifting slowly to the eastward, until
they came upon a great encampment of the fierce and warlike nation,
known as the Shawnees. The Shawnees were in their war paint and were
singing warlike songs. It was evident to the most casual visitor that
they were going forth to do battle.

It was late in the afternoon when Henry, Black Cloud and two others came
upon this encampment. His own band had pitched its lodges some miles
behind, but the kinship of the forest and the peace between them, made
the four the guests of the Shawnees as long as they chose to stay.

At least a thousand warriors were in all the hideous varieties of war
paint, and the scene, in the waning light, was weird and ominous even to
Henry. The war songs in their very monotony were chilling, and full of
ferocity, and in all the thousand faces there was not one that shone
with the light of kindness and mercy.

Long glances were cast at Henry, but even their keen eyes failed to
notice that he was not an Indian, and he stood watching them, his face
impassive, but his interest aroused. A dozen warriors naked to the waist
and hideously painted were singing a war song, while they capered and
jumped to its unrhythmic tune. Suddenly one of them snatched something
from his girdle and waved it aloft in triumph. Henry knew that it was a
scalp, many of which he had seen, and he paid little attention, but the
Indian came closer, still singing and dancing, and waving his hideous
trophy.

The scalp flashed before Henry's eyes, and it displayed not the coarse
black locks of the savage, but hair long, fine and yellow like silk. He
knew that it was the scalp of a white girl, and a sudden, shuddering
horror seized him. It had belonged to one of his own kind, to the race
into which he had been born and with which he had passed his boyhood.
His heart filled with hatred of these Shawnees, but the warriors of his
own little tribe would take scalps, and if occasion came, the scalps of
white people, yes, of white women and white girls! He tried to dismiss
the thought or rather to crush it down, but it would not yield to his
will; always it rose up again.

He walked back to the edge of the encampment, where some of the warriors
were yet singing the war songs that with all of their monotony were so
weird and chilling. Twilight was over the forest, save in the west,
where a blood-red tint from the sunken sun lingered on trunk and bough,
and gleamed across the faces of the dancing warriors. In this lurid
light Henry suddenly saw them savage, inhuman, implacable. They were
truly creatures of the wilderness, the lust of blood was upon them, and
they would shed it for the pleasure of seeing it flow. Henry's primeval
world darkened as he looked upon them.

He was about to leave with Black Cloud and his friends when it occurred
to him to ask which way the war party was going and who were the
destined victims. He spoke to two or three warriors until he came to one
who understood the tongue of his little tribe.

The man waved his hand toward the south.

"Off there; far away," he said. "Beyond the great river."

Henry knew that in this case "great river" meant the Ohio and he was
somewhat surprised; it was still a long journey from the Ohio to the
land of the Cherokees, Chickasaws and Choctaws with whom the Northern
tribes sometimes fought, and he spoke of it to the warrior, but the man
shook his head, and said they were going against the white people; there
was a village of them in a sheltered valley beside a little river, they
had been there three or four years and had flourished in peace; freedom
so long from danger had made them careless, but the Shawnee scouts had
looked from the woods upon the settlement, and the war band would slay
or take them all with ease.

The man had not spoken a half dozen words before Henry knew that
Wareville was the place, upon which the doom was so soon to fall. The
chill of horror that had seized him at sight of the yellow-haired scalp
passed over him again, deeper, stronger and longer than before. And the
colony would fall! There could be no doubt of it! Nothing could save it!
The hideous band, raging with tomahawk and knife, would dash without a
word of warning, like a bolt from the sky upon Wareville so long
sheltered and peaceful in its valley. And he could see all the phases of
the savage triumph, the surprise, the triumphant and ferocious yells,
the rapid volleys of the rifles, the flashing of the blades, the burning
buildings, the shouts, the cries, and men, women and children in one red
slaughter. In another year the forest would be springing up where
Wareville had been, and the wolf and the fox would prowl among the
charred timbers. And among the bleaching bones would be those of his own
mother and sister and Lucy Upton--if they were not taken away for a
worse fate.

He endured the keenest thrill of agony that life had yet held for him.
All his old life, the dear familiar ties surged up, and were hot upon
his brain. His place was there! with them! not here! He had yielded too
easily to the spell of the woods and the call of the old primeval
nature. He might have escaped long ago, there had been many
opportunities, but he could not see them. His blindness had been
willful, the child of his own desires. He knew it too well now. He saw
himself guilty and guilty he was.

But in that moment of agony and fear for his own he was paying the price
of his guilt. The sense of helplessness was crushing. In two hours the
war party would start and it would flit southward like the wind, as
silent but far more deadly. No, nothing could save the innocent people
at Wareville; they were as surely doomed as if their destruction had
already taken place.

But not one of these emotions, so tense and so deep, was written on the
face of him whom even the Shawnees did not know to be white. Not a
feature changed, the Indian stoicism and calm, the product alike of his
nature and cultivation, clung to him. His eyes were veiled and his
movements had their habitual gravity and dignity.

He walked with Black Cloud to the edge of the encampment, said farewell
to the Shawnees, and then, with a great surge of joy, his resolution
came to him. It was so sudden, so transforming that the whole world
changed at once. The blood-red tint, thrown by the sunken sun, was gone
from the forest, but instead the silver sickle of the moon was rising
and shed a radiant light of hope.

He said nothing until they had gone a mile or so and then, drawing Black
Cloud aside, spoke to him words full of firmness, but not without
feeling. He made no secret of his purpose, and he said that if Black
Cloud and the others sought to stay him with force with force he would
reply. He must go, and he would go at once.

Black Cloud was silent for a while, and Henry saw the faintest quiver in
his eyes. He knew that he held a certain place in the affections of the
chief, not the place that he might hold in the regard of a white man, it
was more limited and qualified, but it was there, nevertheless.

"I am the captive of the tribe I know," said Henry. "It has made me its
son, but my white blood is not changed and I must save my people. The
Shawnees march south to-night against them and I go to give warning. It
is better that I go in peace."

He spoke simply, but with dignity, and looked straight into the eyes of
the chief, where he saw that slight pathetic quiver come again.

"I cannot keep you now if you would go," said Black Cloud, "but it may
be when you are far away that the forest and we with whom you have lived
and hunted so many seasons will call to you again, in a voice to which
you must listen."

Henry was moved; perhaps the chief was telling the truth. He saw the
hardships and bareness of the wilderness but the life there appealed to
him and satisfied the stronger wants of his nature; he seemed to be the
reincarnation of some old forest dweller, belonging to a time thousands
of years ago, yet the voice of duty, which was in this case also the
voice of love, called to him, too, and now with the louder voice. He
would go, and there must be no delay in his going.

"Farewell, Black Cloud," he said with the same simplicity. "I will think
often of you who have been good to me."

The chief called the other warriors and told them their comrade was
going far to the south, and they might never see him again. Their faces
expressed nothing, whatever they may have felt. Henry repeated the
farewell, hesitated no longer and plunged into the forest. But he
stopped when he was thirty or forty yards away and looked back. The
chief and the warriors stood side by side as he had left them,
motionless and gazing after him. It was night now and to eyes less keen
than Henry's their forms would have melted into the dusk, but he saw
every outline distinctly, the lean brown features and the black shining
eyes. He waved his hands to them--a white man's action--and resumed his
flight, not looking back again.

It was a dark night and the forest stretched on, black and endless, the
trunks of the trees standing in rows like phantoms of the dusk. Henry
looked up at the moon and the few stars, and reckoned his course.
Wareville lay many hundred miles away, chiefly to the south, and he had
a general idea of the direction, but the war party would know exactly,
and its advantage there would perhaps be compensation for the superior
speed of one man. But Henry, for the present, would not think of such a
disaster as failure; on the contrary he reckoned with nothing but
success, and he felt a marvelous elation.

The decision once taken the rebound had come with great force, and he
felt that he was now about to make atonement for his long neglect, and
more than neglect. Perhaps it had been ordained long ago that he should
be there at the critical moment, see the danger and bring them the
warning that would save. There was consolation in the thought.

He increased his pace and sped southward in the easy trot that he had
learned from his red friends, a gait that he could maintain
indefinitely, and with which he could put ground behind him at a
remarkable rate. His rifle he carried at the trail, his head was bent
slightly forward, and he listened intently to every sound of the forest
as he passed; nothing escaped his ear, whether it was a raccoon stirring
among the branches, a deer startled from its covert, or merely the wind
rustling the leaves. Instinct also told him that the forest was at
peace.

To the ordinary man the night with its dusk, the wilderness with its
ghostly tree trunks, and the silence would have been full of weirdness
and awe, black with omens and presages. Few would not have chilled to
the marrow to be alone there, but to Henry it brought only hope and the
thrill of exultation. He had no sense of loneliness, the forest hid no
secrets for him; this was home and he merely passed through it on a
great quest.

He looked up at the moon and stars, and confirmed himself in his course,
though he never slackened speed as he looked. He came out of the forest
upon a prairie, and here the moonlight was brighter, touching the crests
of the swells with silver spear-points. A dozen buffaloes rose up and
snorted as he flitted by, but he scarcely bestowed a passing glance upon
the black bulk of the animals. The prairie was only two or three miles
across, and at the far edge flowed a shallow creek which he crossed at
full speed, and entered the forest again. Now he came to rough country,
steep little hills, and a dense undergrowth of interlacing bushes, and
twining thorny vines. But he made his way through them in a manner that
only one forest-bred could compass, and pressed on with speed but little
slackened.

When the night became darkest, in the forest just before morning he lay
down in the deepest shadow of a thicket, his hand upon his rifle, and in
a few minutes was sleeping soundly. It was a matter of training with him
to sleep whenever sleep was needed and he had no nerves. He knew, too,
despite his haste that he must save his strength, and he did not
hesitate to follow the counsels of prudence.

It was his will that he should sleep about four hours, and, his system
obeying the wish, he awoke at the appointed time. The sun was rising
over the vast, green wilderness, lighting up a world seemingly as lonely
and deserted as it had been the night before. The unbroken forest,
touched with the tender tints of young spring and bathed in the pure
light of the first dawn, bent gently to a west wind that breathed only
of peace.

Henry stood up and inhaled the odorous air. He was a striking figure,
yet a few yards away he would have been visible only to the trained eye;
his half-savage garb of tanned deerskin, stained green and trimmed at
the edges with green beads and little green feathers, blended with the
colors of the forest and merely made a harmonious note in the whole. His
figure compact, powerful and always poised as if ready for a spring
swayed slightly, while his eyes that missed nothing searched every nook
in the circling woods. He was then neither the savage nor the civilized
man, but he had many of the qualities of both.

The slight swaying motion of his body ceased suddenly and he remained as
still as a rock. He seemed to be a part of the green bushes that grew
around him, yet he was never more watchful, never more alert. The
indefinable sixth sense, developed in him by the wilderness, had taken
alarm; there was a presence in the forest, foreign in its nature; it was
not sight nor hearing nor yet smell that told him so, but a feeling or
rather a sort of prescience. Then an extraordinary thrill ran through
him; it was an emotion partaking in its nature of joy and anticipation;
he was about to be confronted by some danger, perhaps a crisis, and the
physical faculties, handed down by a far-off ancestor, expanded to meet
it. He knew that he would conquer, and he felt already the glow of
triumph.

Presently he sank down in the undergrowth so gently that not a bush
rustled; there was no displacement of nature, the grass and the foliage
were just as they had been, but the figure, visible before to the
trained eye at a dozen paces, could not have been seen now at all. Then
he began to creep through the grass with a swift easy gliding motion
like that of a serpent, moving at a speed remarkable in such a position
and quite soundless. He went a full half mile before he stopped and rose
to his knees, and then his face was hidden by the bushes, although the
eyes still searched every part of the forest.

His look was now wholly changed. He might be the hunted, but he bore
himself as the hunter. All vestige of the civilized man, trained to
humanity and mercy, was gone. Those who wished to kill were seeking him
and he would kill in return. The thin lips were slightly drawn back,
showing the line of white teeth, the eyes were narrowed and in them was
the cold glitter of expected conflict. Brown hands, lean but big-boned
and powerful, clasped a rifle having a long slender barrel and a
beautifully carved stock. It was a figure, terrible alike in its
manifestation of physical power and readiness, and in the fierce eye
that told what quality of mind lay behind it.

He sank down again and moved in a small circle to the right. His
original thrill of joy was now a permanent emotion; he was like some one
playing an exciting game into which no thought of danger entered. He
stopped behind a large tree, and sheltering himself riveted his eyes on
a spot in the forest about fifty yards away. No one else could have
found there anything suspicious, anything to tell of an alien presence,
but he no longer doubted.

At the detected point a leaf moved, but not in the way it should have
swayed before the gentle wind, and there was a passing spot of brown in
the green of the bushes. It was visible only for a moment, but it was
sufficient for the attuned mind and body of Henry Ware. Every part of
him responded to the call. The rifle sprang to his shoulder and before
the passing spot of brown was gone, a stream of fire spurted from its
slender muzzle, and its sharp cracking report like the lashing of a whip
was blended with the long-drawn howl, so terrible in its note, that is
the death cry of a savage.

The bullet had scarcely left his gun before he fell back almost flat,
and the answering shot sped over his head. It was for this that he sank
down, and before the second shot died he sprang to his feet and rushed
forward, drawing his tomahawk and uttering a shout that rolled away in
fierce echoes through the forest.

He knew that his enemies were but two; in his eccentric course through
the forest he had passed directly over their trail, and he had read the
signs with an infallible eye. Now one was dead and the other like
himself had an unloaded gun. The rest of his deed would be a mere matter
of detail.

The second savage uttered his war cry and sprang forward from the
bushes. He might well have recoiled at the terrible figure that rushed
to meet him; in all his wild life of risks he had never before been
confronted by anything so instinct with terror, so ominous of death. But
he did not have time to take thought before he was overwhelmed by his
resistless enemy.

It was an affair of but a few moments. The Indian threw his tomahawk but
Henry parried the blade upon the barrel of his rifle which he still
carried in his left hand, and his own tomahawk was whirled in a
glittering curve about his head. Now it was launched with mighty force
and the savage, cloven to the chin, sank soundless to the earth; he had
been smitten down by a force so sudden and absolute that he died
instantly.

The victor, elate though he was, paused, and quickly reloaded his
rifle--wilderness caution would allow nothing else--and afterwards
advancing looked first at the savage whom he had slain in the open and
then at the other in the bushes. There was no pity in him, his only
emotion was a great sense of power; they had hunted him, two to one, and
they born in the woods, but he had outwitted and slain them both. He
could have escaped, he could have easily left them far behind when he
first discovered that they were stalking him, but he had felt that they
should be punished and now the event justified his faith.

It was not his first taking of human life, and while he would have
shuddered at the deed a year ago he felt no such sensation now; they
were merely dangerous wild animals that had crossed his path, and he had
put them out of it in the proper way; his feeling was that of the hunter
who slays a grizzly bear or a lion, only he had slain two.

He stood looking at them, and save for the rustling of the young grass
under the gentle western wind the wilderness was silent and at peace.
The sun was shooting up higher and higher and a vast golden light hung
over the forest, gilding every leaf and twig. Henry Ware turned at last
and sped swiftly and silently to the south, still thrilling with
exultation over his deed, and the sequel that he knew would quickly
come. But in the few brief minutes his nature had reverted another and
further step toward the primitive.

When he had gone a half mile in his noiseless flight he stopped, and,
listening intently, heard the faint echo of a long-drawn, whining cry.
After that came silence, heavy and ominous. But Henry only laughed in
noiseless mirth. All this he had expected. He knew that the larger party
to which the two warriors belonged would find the bodies, with hasty
pursuit to follow after the single cry. That was why he lingered. He
wanted them to pursue, to hang upon his trail in the vain hope that they
could catch him; he would play with them, he would enjoy the game
leading them on until they were exhausted, and then, laughing, he would
go on to the south at his utmost speed.

A new impulse drove him to another step in the daring play, and, raising
his head, he uttered his own war cry, a long piercing shout that died in
distant echoes; it was at once a defiance, and an intimation to them
where they might find him, and then, mirth in his eyes, he resumed his
flight, although, for the present, he chose to keep an unchanging
distance between his pursuers and himself.

That party of warriors may have pursued many a man before and may have
caught most of them, but the greatest veteran of them all had never hung
on the trail of such another annoying fugitive. All day he led them in
swift flight toward the south, and at no time was he more than a little
beyond their reach; often they thought their hands were about to close
down upon him, that soon they would enjoy the sight of his writhings
under the fagot and the stake, but always he slipped away at the fatal
moment, and their savage hearts were filled with bitterness that a lone
fugitive should taunt them so. His footsteps were those of the white
man, but his wile and cunning were those of the red, and curiosity was
added to the other motives that drew them on.

At the coming of the twilight one of their best warriors who pursued at
some distance from the main band was slain by a rifle shot from the
bushes, then came that defiant war cry again, faint, but full of irony
and challenge, and then the trail grew cold before them. He whom they
pursued was going now with a speed that none of them could equal, and
the darkness itself, thick and heavy, soon covered all sign of his
flight.

Henry Ware's expectations of joy had been fulfilled and more; it was the
keenest delight that had yet come into his life. At all times he had
been master of the situation, and as he drew them southward, he
fulfilled his duty at the same time and enjoyed his sport. Everything
had fallen out as he planned, and now, with the night at hand, he shook
them off.

Through the day he had eaten dried venison from his pouch, as he ran,
and he felt no need to stop for food. So, he did not cease the flight
until after midnight when he lay down again in a thicket and slept
soundly until daylight. He rose again, refreshed, and faster than ever
sped on his swift way toward Wareville.




CHAPTER XIV

THE RETURN


Wareville lay in its pleasant valley, rejoicing in the young spring, so
kind with its warm rains that the men of the village foresaw a great
season for crops. The little river flowed in a silver current, smoke
rose from many chimneys, and now and then the red homemade linsey dress
of a girl gleamed in the sunlight like the feathers of the scarlet
tanager. To the left were the fields cleared for Indian corn, and to the
right were the gardens. Beyond both were the hills and the unbroken
forest.

Now and then a man, carrying on his shoulder the inevitable Kentucky
rifle, long and slender-barreled, passed through the palisade, but the
cardinal note of the scene was peace and cheerfulness. The town was
prospering, its future no longer belonged to chance; there would be
plenty, of the kind that they liked.

In the Ware house was a silent sadness, silent because these were stern
people, living in a stern time, and it was the custom to hide one's
griefs. The oldest son was gone; whether he had perished nobody knew,
nor, if he had perished, how.

John Ware was not an emotional man, feelings rarely showed on his face,
and his wife alone knew how hard the blow had been to him--she knew
because she had suffered from the same stroke. But the children, the
younger brother Charles and the sister Mary could not always remember,
and with them the impression of the one who was gone would grow dimmer
in time. The border too always expected a certain percentage of loss in
human life, it was one of the facts with which the people must reckon,
and thus the name of Henry Ware was rarely spoken.

To-day was without a cloud. New emigrants had come across the mountains,
adding welcome strength to the colony, and extending the limits of the
village. But danger had passed them by, they had heard once or twice
more of the great war in the far-away East, but it was so distant and
vague that most of them forgot it; the Indians across the Ohio had never
come this way, and so far Henry Ware was the only toll that they had
paid to the wilderness. There was cause for happiness, as human
happiness goes.

A slim girl bearing in her hand a wooden pail came through the gate of
the palisade. She was bare-headed, but her wonderful dark-brown hair
coiled in a shining mass was touched here and there with golden gleams
where the sunshine fell upon it. Her face, browned somewhat, was yet
very white on the forehead, and the cheeks had the crimson flush of
health. She wore a dress of homemade linsey dyed red, and its close fit
suggested the curves of her supple, splendid young figure. She walked
with strong elastic step toward the spring that gushed from a hillside,
and which after a short course fell into the little river.

It was Lucy Upton, grown much taller now, as youth develops rapidly on
the border, a creature nourished into physical perfection first by the
good blood that was in her, then developed in the open air, and by work,
neither too little nor too much.

She reached the spring, and setting the pail by its side looked down at
the cool, gushing stream. It invited her and she ran her white rounded
arm through it, making curves and oblongs that were gone before they
were finished. She was in a thoughtful mood. Once or twice she looked at
the forest, and each time that she looked she shivered because the
shadow of the wilderness was then very heavy upon her.

Silas Pennypacker, the schoolmaster, came to the spring while she was
there, and they spoke together, because they were great friends, these
two. He was unchanged, the same strong gray man, with the ruddy face. He
was not unhappy here despite the seeming incongruity of his presence.
The wilderness appealed to him too in a way, he was the intellectual
leader of the colony and almost everything that his nature called for
met with a response.

"The spring is here, Lucy," he said, "and it has been an easy winter. We
should be thankful that we have fared so well."

"I think that most of us are," she replied. "We'll soon be a big town."

She glanced at the spreading settlement, and this launched Mr.
Pennypacker upon a favorite theme of his. He liked to predict how the
colony would grow, sowing new seed, and already he saw great cities to
be. He found a ready listener in Lucy. This too appealed to her
imagination at times, and if at other times interest was lacking, she
was too fond of the old man to let him know it. Presently when she had
finished she filled the pail and stood up, straight and strong.

"I will carry it for you," said the schoolmaster.

She laughed.

"Why should I let you?" she asked. "I am more able than you."

Most men would have taken it ill to have heard such words from a girl,
but she was one among many, above the usual height for her years; she
created at once the impression of great strength, both physical and
mental; the heavy pail of water hung in her hand, as if it were a trifle
that she did not notice. The master smiled and looked at her with eyes
of fatherly admiration.

"I must admit that you tell the truth," he said. "This West of ours
seems to suit you."

"It is my country now," she said, "and I do not care for any other."

"Since you will not let me carry the water you will at least let me walk
with you?" he said.

She did not reply, and he was startled by the sudden change that came
over her.

First a look of wonder showed on her face, then she turned white, every
particle of color leaving her cheeks. The master could not tell what her
expression meant, and he followed her eyes which were turned toward the
wilderness.

From the forest came a figure very strange to Silas Pennypacker, a
figure of barbaric splendor. It was a youth of great height and powerful
frame, his face so brown that it might belong to either the white or the
red race, but with fine clean features like those of a Greek god. He was
clad in deerskins, ornamented with little colored beads and fringes of
brilliant dyes. He carried a slender-barreled rifle over his shoulder,
and he came forward with swift, soundless steps.

The master recoiled in alarm at the strange and ominous figure, but as
the red flooded back into the girl's cheeks she put her hand upon his
arm.

"It is he! I knew that he was not dead!" she said in an intense
tremulous whisper. The words were indefinite, but the master knew whom
she meant, and there was a surge of joy in his heart, to be followed the
next moment by doubt and astonishment. It was Henry Ware who had come
back, but not the same Henry Ware.

Henry was beside them in a moment and he seized their hands, first the
hands of one and then of the other, calling them by name.

The master recovering from his momentary diffidence threw his arms
around his former pupil, welcomed him with many words, and wanted to
know where he had been so long.

"I shall tell you, but not now," replied Henry, "because there is no
time to spare; you are threatened by a great danger. The Shawnees are
coming with a thousand warriors and I have hastened ahead to warn you."

He hurried them inside the palisade, his manner tense, masterful and
convincing, and there he met his mother, whose joy, deep and grateful,
was expressed in few words after the stern Puritan code. The father and
the brother and sister came next, but the younger people like Lucy felt
a little fear of him, and his old comrade Paul Cotter scarcely knew him.

He told in a few words of his escape from a far Northwestern tribe, of
the coming of the Shawnees, and of the need to take every precaution for
defense.

"There is no time to spare," he said. "All must be called in at once."

A man with powerful lungs blew long on a cow's horn, those who were at
work in the fields and the forest hastened in, the gates were barred,
the best marksmen were sent to watch in the upper story of the
blockhouses and at the palisade, and the women began to mold bullets.

Henry Ware was the pervading spirit through all the preparations. He
knew everything and thought of everything, he told them the mode of
Indian attack and how they could best meet it, he compelled them to
strengthen the weak spots in the palisade, and he encouraged all those
who were faint of heart and apprehensive.

Lucy's slight fear of him remained, but with it now came admiration. She
saw that his was a soul fit to lead and command, the work that he was
about to do he loved, his eyes were alight with the fire of battle; a
certain joy was shining there, and all, feeling the strength of his
spirit, obeyed him without asking why.

Only Braxton Wyatt uttered doubts with words and sneered with looks. He
too had become a hunter of skill, and hence what he said might have some
merit.

"It seems strange that Henry Ware should come so suddenly when he might
have come before," he remarked with apparent carelessness to Lucy Upton.

She looked at him with sharp interest. The same thought had entered her
mind, but she did not like to hear Braxton Wyatt utter it.

"At all events he is about to save us from a great danger," she said.

Wyatt laughed and his thin long features contracted in an ugly manner.

"It is a tale to impress us and perhaps to cover up something else," he
replied. "There is not an Indian within two hundred miles of us. I know,
I have been through the woods and there is no sign."

She turned away, liking his words little and his manner less. She
stopped presently by a corner of one of the houses on a slight elevation
whence she could see a long distance beyond the palisade. So far as
seeming went Braxton Wyatt was certainly right. The spring day was full
of golden sunshine, the fresh new green of the forest was unsullied, and
it was hard to conjure up even the shadow of danger.

Wyatt might have ground for his suspicion, but why should Henry Ware
sound a false alarm? The words "perhaps to cover up something else"
returned to her mind, but she dismissed them angrily.

She went to the Ware house and rejoiced with Mrs. Ware, to whom a son
had come back from the dead, and in whose joy there was no flaw.
According to her mother's heart a wonder had been performed, and it had
been done for her special benefit.

The village was in full posture of defense, all were inside the walls
and every man had gone to his post. They now awaited the attack, and yet
there was some distrust of Henry Ware. Braxton Wyatt, a clever youth,
had insidiously sowed the seeds of suspicion, and already there was a
crop of unbelief. By indirection he had called attention to the strange
appearance of the returned wanderer, the Indianlike air that he had
acquired, his new ways unlike their own, and his indifference to many
things that he had formerly liked. He noticed the change in Henry Ware's
nature and he brought it also to the notice of others.

It seemed as the brilliant day passed peacefully that Wyatt was right
and Henry, for some hidden purpose of his own, perhaps to hide the
secret of his long absence, had brought to them this sounding alarm.
There was the sun beyond the zenith in the heavens, the shadows of
afternoon were falling, and the yellow light over the forest softened
into gray, but no sign of an enemy appeared.

If Henry Ware saw the discontent he did not show his knowledge; the
light of the expected conflict was still in his eyes and his thoughts
were chiefly of the great event to come; yet in an interval of waiting
he went back to the house and told his mother of much that had befallen
him during his long absence; he sought to persuade himself now that he
could not have escaped earlier, and perhaps without intending it he
created in her mind the impression that he sought to engrave upon his
own; so she was fully satisfied, thankful for the great mercy of his
return that had been given to her.

"Now mother!" he said at last, "I am going outside."

"Outside!" she cried aghast, "but you are safe here! Why not stay?"

He smiled and shook his head.

"I shall be safe out there, too," he said, "and it is best for us all
that I go. Oh, I know the wilderness, mother, as you know the rooms of
this house!"

He kissed her quickly and turned away. John Ware, who stood by, said
nothing. He felt a certain fear of his son and did not yet know how to
command him.

As Henry passed from the house into the little square Lucy Upton
overtook him.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I think I can be of more help out there than in here," he replied
pointing toward the forest.

"It would be better for you to stay," she said.

"I shall be in no danger."

"It is not that; do you know what some of them here are saying of
you--that you are estranged from us, that there is some purpose in this,
that no attack is coming! Your going now will confirm them in the
belief."

His dark eyes flashed with a fierceness that startled her, and his whole
frame seemed to draw up as if he were about to spring. But the emotion
passed in a moment, and his face was a brown mask, saying nothing. He
seemed indifferent to the public opinion of his little world.

"I am needed out there," he said, pointing again toward the dark line of
the forest, "and I shall go. Whether I tell the truth or not will soon
be known; they will have to wait only a little. But you believe me now,
don't you?"

She looked deep into his calm eyes, and she read there only truth. But
she knew even before she looked that Henry Ware was not one who would
ever be guilty of falsehood or treachery.

"Oh yes I know it," she replied, "but I wish others to know it as well."

"They will," he said, and then taking her hand in his for one brief
moment he was gone. His disappearance was so sudden and soundless that
he seemed to her to melt away from her sight like a mist before the
wind. She did not even know how he had passed through the palisade, but
he was certainly outside and away. There was something weird about it
and she felt a little fear, as if an event almost supernatural had
occurred.

The sudden departure of Henry Ware to the forest started the slanderous
tongues to wagging again, and they said it was a trap of some kind,
though no one could tell how. A sly report was started that he had
become that worst of all creatures in his time, a renegade, a white man
who allied himself with the red to make war upon his own people. It came
to the ears of Paul Cotter, and the heart of the loyal youth grew hot
within him. Paul was not fond of war and strife, but he had an abounding
courage, and he and Henry Ware had been through danger together.

"He is changed, I will admit," he said, "but if he says we are going to
be attacked, we shall be. I wish that all of us were as true as he."

He touched his gun lock in a threatening manner, and Braxton Wyatt and
the others who stood by said no more in his presence. Yet the course of
the day was against Henry's assertion. The afternoon waned, the sun, a
ball of copper, swung down into the west, long shadows fell and nothing
happened.

The people moved and talked impatiently inside their wooden walls. They
spoke of going about their regular pursuits, there was work that could
be done on the outside in the twilight, and enough time had been lost
already through a false alarm. But some of the older men, with cautious
blood, advised them to wait and their counsel was taken. Night came,
thick and black, and to the more timid full of omens and presages.

The forest sank away in the darkness, nothing was visible fifty yards
from the palisade and in the log houses few lights burned. The little
colony, but a pin point of light, was alone in the vast and circling
wilderness. One of the greatest tests of courage to which the human race
has ever been subjected was at hand. In all directions the forest curved
away, hundreds of miles. It would be a journey of days to find any other
of their own kind, they were hemmed in everywhere by silence and
loneliness, whatever happened they must depend upon themselves, because
there was none to bring help. They might perish, one and all, and the
rest of the world not hear of it until long afterwards.

A moaning wind came up and sighed over the log houses, the younger
children--and few were too young not to guess what was expected--fell
asleep at last, but the older, those who had reached their thinking
years could not find such solace. In this black darkness their fears
became real; there was no false alarm, the forest around them hid their
enemy, but only for the time.

There was little noise in the station. By the low fires in the houses
the women steadily molded bullets, and seldom spoke to each other, as
they poured the melted lead into the molds. By the walls the men too,
rifle in hand, were silent, as they sought with intent eyes to mark what
was passing in the forest.

Lucy Upton was molding bullets in her father's house and they were
melting the lead at a bed of coals in the wide fireplace. None was
steadier of hand or more expert than she. Her face was flushed as she
bent over the fire and her sleeves were rolled back, showing her strong
white arms. Her lips were compressed, but as the bullets shining like
silver dropped from the mold they would part now and then in a slight
smile. She too had in her the spirit of warlike ancestors and it was
aroused now. Girl, though she was, she felt in her own veins a little of
the thrill of coming conflict.

But her thoughts were not wholly of attack and defense; they followed as
well him who had come back so suddenly and who was now gone again into
the wilderness from which he had emerged. His appearance and manner had
impressed her deeply. She wished to hear more from him of the strange
wild life that he had led; she too felt, although in a more modified
form, the spell of the primeval.

Her task finished she went to the door, and then drawn by curiosity she
continued until her walk brought her near the palisade where she watched
the men on guard, their dusky figures touched by the wan light that came
from the slender crescent of a moon, and seeming altogether weird and
unreal. Paul Cotter in one of his errands found her there.

"You had better go back," he said. "We may be attacked at any time, and
a bullet or arrow could reach you here."

"So you believe with me that an attack will be made as he said!"

"Of course I do," replied Paul with emphasis. "Don't I know Henry Ware?
Weren't he and I lost together? Wasn't he the truest of comrades?"

Several men, talking in low tones, approached them. Braxton Wyatt was
with them and Lucy saw at once that it was a group of malcontents.

"It is nothing," said Seth Lowndes, a loud, arrogant man, the boaster of
the colony. "There are no Indians in these parts and I'm going out there
to prove it."

He stood in the center of a ray of moonlight, as he spoke, and it
lighted up his red sneering face. Lucy and Paul could see him plainly
and each felt a little shiver of aversion. But neither said anything
and, in truth, standing in the dark by themselves they were not noticed
by the others.

"I'm going outside," repeated Lowndes in a yet more noisy tone, "and if
I run across anything more than a deer I'll be mighty badly fooled!"

One or two uttered words of protest, but it seemed to Lucy that Braxton
Wyatt incited him to go on, joining him in words of contempt for the
alleged danger.

Lowndes reached the palisade and climbed upon it by means of the cross
pieces binding it together, and then he stood upon the topmost bar,
where his head and all his body, above the knees, rose clear of the
bulwark. He was outlined there sharply, a stout, puffy man, his face
redder than ever from the effect of climbing, and his eyes gleaming
triumphantly as, from his high perch, he looked toward the forest.

"I tell you there is not--" But the words were cut short, the gleam died
from his eyes, the red fled from his face, and he whitened suddenly with
terror. From the forest came a sharp report, echoing in the still night,
and the puffy man, throwing up his arms, fell from the palisade back
into the inclosure, dead before he touched the ground.

A fierce yell, the long ominous note of the war whoop burst from the
forest, and its sound, so full of menace and fury, was more terrible
than that of the rifle. Then came other shots, a rapid pattering volley,
and bullets struck with a low sighing sound against the upper walls of
the blockhouse. The long quavering cry, the Indian yell rose and died
again and in the black forest, still for aught else, it was weird and
unearthly.

Lucy stood like stone when the lifeless body of the boaster fell almost
at her feet, and all the color was gone from her face. The terrible cry
of the savages without was ringing in her ears, and it seemed to her,
for a few moments, that she could not move. But Paul grasped her by the
arm and drew her back.

"Go into your house!" he cried. "A bullet might reach you here!"

Obedient to his duty he hastened to the palisade to bear a valiant hand
in the defense, and she, retreating a little, remained in the shadow of
the houses that she might see how events would go. After the first shock
of horror and surprise she was not greatly afraid, and she was conscious
too of a certain feeling of relief. Henry Ware had told the truth, he
knew of what he spoke when he brought his warning, and he had greatly
served his own.




CHAPTER XV

THE SIEGE


It was not Lucy Upton alone who felt relief when the attack upon the
stockade came, hideous and terrifying though it might be; the suspense
so destructive of nerves and so hard to endure was at an end, and the
men rushed gladly to meet the attack, while the women with almost equal
joy reloaded empty rifles with the precious powder made from the cave
dust and passed them to the brave defenders. The children, too small to
take a part, cowered in the houses and listened to the sounds of battle,
the lashing of the rifle fire, the fierce cry of the savages in the
forest, and the answering defiance of the white men. Amid such scenes a
great state was founded and who can wonder that its defenders learned to
prize bravery first of all things?

The attack was in accordance with the savage nature, a dash, irregular
volleys, shots from ambush, an endeavor to pick off the settlers,
whenever a head was shown, but no direct attempt to storm the palisade,
for which the Indian is unfitted. A bullet would not reach from the
forest, but from little hillocks and slight ridges in the open where a
brown breast was pressed close to the earth came the flash of rifles,
some hidden by the dusk, but the flame showing in little points of fire
that quickly went out. The light of the moon failed somewhat, and the
savages in ambush were able to come nearer, but now and then a
sharpshooter behind the wall, firing at the flash of the concealed
rifle, would hear an answering death cry.

Lucy Upton behind the barricade with other girls and women was reloading
rifles and passing them to her father and Paul Cotter who stood in a
little wooden embrasure like a sally port. For a time the fire of battle
burned as fiercely in her veins as in those of any man, but after a
while she began to wonder what had become of Henry Ware, and presently
from some who passed she heard comments upon him again; they found fault
with his absence; he should have been there to take a part in the
defense, and while she admitted that their criticisms bore the color of
truth, she yet believed him to be away for some good purpose.

For two hours the wild battle in the dark went on, to the chorus of
shouts from white man and red, the savages often coming close to the
walls, and seeking to find a shelter under them in the dark, but always
driven back. Then it ceased so suddenly that the intense silence was
more pregnant with terror than all the noise that had gone before. Paul
Cotter, looking over the palisade, could see nothing. The forest rose up
like a solid dark wall, and in the opening not a blade of grass stirred;
the battle, the savage army, all seemed to have gone like smoke melting
into the air, and Paul was appalled, feeling that a magic hand had
abruptly swept everything out of existence.

"What do you see?" asked Lucy, upon whose ears the silence too was heavy
and painful.

"Nothing but darkness, and what it hides I cannot guess."

A report ran through the village that the savage army, beaten, had gone,
and the women, and the men with little experience, gave it currency, but
the veterans rebuked such premature rejoicing; it was their part, they
said, to watch with more vigilance than ever, and in nowise to relax
their readiness.

Then the long hours began and those who could, slept. Braxton Wyatt and
his friends again impeached the credit of Henry Ware, insinuating with
sly smiles that he must be a renegade, as he had taken no part in the
defense and must now be with his savage friends. To the slur Paul Cotter
fiercely replied that he had warned them of the attack; without him the
station would have been taken by surprise, and that surely proved him to
be no traitor.

The hours between midnight and day not only grew in length, but seemed
to increase in number as well, doubling and tripling, as if they would
never end for the watchers in the station. The men behind the wooden
walls and some of the women, too, intently searched the forest, seeking
to discover movements there, but nothing appeared upon its solid black
screen. Nor did any sound come from it, save the occasional gentle moan
of the wind; there was no crackling of branches, no noise of footsteps,
no rattle of arms, but always the heavy silence which seemed so deadly,
and which, by its monotony, was so painful to their ears.

Lucy Upton went into her father's house, ate a little and then spreading
over herself a buffalo robe tried to sleep. Slumber was long in coming,
for the disturbed nerves refused to settle into peace, and the excited
brain brought back to her eyes distorted and overcolored visions of the
night's events. But youth and weariness had their way and she slept at
last, to find when she awakened that the dawn was coming in at the
window, and the east was ablaze with the splendid red and yellow light
of the sun.

"Are they still there?" was her first question when she went forth from
her father's house, and the reply was uncertain; they might or might not
be there; the leaders had not allowed anyone to go out to see, but the
number who believed that the savages were gone was growing; and also
grew the number who believed that Henry Ware was gone with them.

Even in the brilliant daylight that sharpened and defined everything as
with the etcher's point, they could see nothing save what had been
before the savages came. Their eyes reached now into the forest, but as
far as they ranged it was empty, there was no encampment, not a single
warrior passed through the undergrowth. It seemed that the grumblers
were right when they said the besieging army was gone.

Lucy Upton was walking toward the palisade where she saw Paul Cotter,
when she heard a distant report and Paul's fur cap, pierced by a bullet,
flew from his head to the earth. Paul himself stood in amaze, as if he
did not know what had happened, and he did not move until Lucy shouted
to him to drop to the ground. Then he crawled quickly away from the
exposed spot, although two or three more bullets struck about him.

The station thrilled once more with excitement, but the new danger was
of a kind that they did not know how to meet. It was evident that the
firing came from a high point, one commanding a view inside the walls,
and from marksmen located in such a manner the palisade offered no
shelter. Bullets were pattering among the houses, and in the open spaces
inclosed by the walls, two men were wounded already, and the threat had
become formidable.

Ross and Shif'less Sol, the best of the woodsmen, soon decided that the
shots came from a large tree at the edge of the forest northeast from
the stockade, and they were sure that at least a half-dozen warriors
were lying sheltered among its giant boughs, while they sent searching
bullets into the inclosure. There had been some discussion about the
tree at the time the settlement was built, but expert opinion held that
the Indian weapons could not reach from so great a distance, and as the
task of cutting so huge a trunk when time was needed, seemed too much
they had left it, and now they saw their grievous and perhaps mortal
error.

The side of the palisade facing the tree was untenable so long as the
warriors held their position, and it was even dangerous to pass from one
house to another. The terrors of the night, weighty because unknown,
were gone, but the day had brought with it a more certain menace that
all could see.

The leaders held a conference on the sheltered side of one of the
houses, and their faces and their talk were full of gloom. The
schoolmaster, Ross and Sol were there, and so were John Ware and Lucy's
father. The schoolmaster, by nature and training a man of peace, was
perhaps the most courageous of them all.

"It is evident that those savages have procured in some manner a number
of our long-range Kentucky rifles," he said, "but they are no better
than ours. Nor is it any farther from us to that tree than it is from
that tree to us. Why can't our best marksmen pick them off?"

He looked with inquiry at Ross and Sol, who shook their heads and abated
not a whit of their gloomy looks.

"They are too well sheltered there," replied Ross, "while we would not
be if we should try to answer them. Our side would get killed while they
wouldn't be hurt and we can't spare the men."

"But we must find a way out! We must get rid of them somehow!" exclaimed
Mr. Ware.

"That's true," said Upton, and as he spoke they heard a bullet thud
against the wall of the house. From the forest came a wild quavering
yell of triumph, full of the most merciless menace. Mr. Ware and Mr.
Upton shuddered. Each had a young daughter, and it was in the minds of
each to slay her in the last resort if there should be no other way.

"If those fellows in the tree keep on driving us from the palisade,"
said Ross, setting his face in the grim manner of one who forces himself
to tell the truth, "there's nothin' to prevent the main band from makin'
an attack, and while the other fellows rain bullets on us they'll be
inside the palisade."

They stared at each other in silent despair, and Ross going to the
corner of the house, but keeping himself protected well, looked at the
fatal tree. No one was firing, then, and he could see nothing among its
branches. In the fresh green of its young foliage it looked like a huge
cone set upon a giant stem, and Ross shook his fist at it in futile
anger. Nor was a foe visible elsewhere. The entire savage army lay
hidden in the forest and nothing fluttered or moved but the leaves and
the grass.

The others, led by the same interest, followed Ross, and keeping to the
safety of the walls, stole glances at the tree. As they looked they
heard the faint report of a shot and a cry of death, and saw a brown
body shoot down from the green cone of the tree to the ground, where it
lay still.

"There is a marksman among us who can beat them at their own trick,"
cried the schoolmaster in exultation. "Who did it? Who fired that shot,
Tom?"

Ross did not answer. First a look of wonder came upon his face, and then
he began to study the forest, where all but nature was yet lifeless. The
faint sound of a second shot came and what followed was a duplicate of
the sequel to the first. Another brown body shot downward, and lay
lifeless beside its fellow on the grass.

The master cried out once more in exultation, and wished to know why
others within the palisade did not imitate the skillful sharpshooter.
But Ross shook his head slowly and spoke these slow words:

"A great piece of luck has happened to us, Mr. Pennypacker, an' how it's
happened I don't know, at least not yet. Them shots never come from any
of our men. We've got a friend outside an' he's pickin' off them
ambushed murderers one by one. The savages think we're doin' it, but
they'll soon find out the difference."

There was a third shot and the tree ejected a third body.

"What wonderful shootin'!" exclaimed Ross in a tone of amazement. "Them
shots come from a long distance, but all three of 'em plugged the mark
to the center. Them savages was dead before they touched the ground. I
never saw the like."

The others waited expectantly, as if he could give them an explanation,
but if he had a thought in his mind he kept it to himself.

"There, they've found it out," he said, when a terrific yell full of
anger came from the forest, "but they haven't got him, whoever he is.
They'd shout in a different way if they had."

"Why do you say him?" asked Mr. Pennypacker. "Surely a single man has
not been doing such daring and deadly work!"

"It's one man, because there are not two in all this wilderness who can
shoot like that. I'd hate to be in the place of the savages left in that
tree."

The wonder of the new and unknown ally soon spread through Wareville,
and reached Lucy Upton as it reached others. A thought came to her and
she was about to speak of it, but she stopped, fearing ridicule, and
merely listened to the excited talk going on all about her.

An hour later a fourth Indian was shot from the tree, and less than
fifteen minutes afterwards a fifth fell a victim to the terrible rifle.
Then two, the only survivors, dropped from the boughs and ran for the
forest. Ross, Sol and Paul Cotter were watching together and saw the
flight.

"One of them brown rascals will never reach the woods," said Ross with
the intuition of the borderer.

The foremost savage fell just at the edge of the forest, shot through
the heart, and the other, the sole survivor of the tree, escaped behind
the sheltering trunks.

The cry of the angry savages swelled into a terrible chorus and bullets
beat upon the stockade, but the attack was quickly repulsed, and again
quiet and treacherous peace settled down upon this little spot, this pin
point in the mighty wilderness, whose struggle must be carried on
unaided, and, in truth, unknown to all the rest of the world.

When the savages were driven back they melted again into the forest, and
the old silence and peace laid hold of everything, the brilliant
sunshine gilding every house, and dyeing into deeper colors the glowing
tints of the wilderness. The huge tree, so fatal to those who had sought
to use it, stood up, a great green cone, its branches waving softly
before the wind.

In the little fortress the wonder and excitement yet prevailed, but
mingled with it was a devout gratitude for this help from an unknown
quarter which had been so timely and so effective. The spirits of the
garrison, from the boldest ranger down to the most timid woman, took a
sudden upward heave and they felt that they should surely repel every
attack by the savage army.

The remainder of the day passed in silence and with the foe invisible,
but the guard at the palisade, now safe from ambushed marksmen, relaxed
its vigilance not at all. These men knew that they dealt with an enemy
whose uncertainty made him all the more terrible, and they would not
leave the issue to shifting chance.

The day waned, the night came, heavy and dark again, and full, as it was
bound to be, of threats and omens for the beleaguered people. Lucy Upton
with Mary Ware slipped to the little wooden embrasure where Paul Cotter
was on watch.

They found Paul in the sheltered nook, watching the forest and the open,
through the holes pierced for rifles, and he did not seek to hide his
pleasure at seeing them. Two other men were there, but they were
middle-aged and married, the fathers of increasing families, and they
were not offended when Paul received a major share of attention.

He told them that all was quiet, his own eyes were keen, but they failed
to mark anything unusual, and he believed that the savages, profiting by
their costly experience, would make no new attempt yet a while. Then he
spoke of the mysterious help that had come to them, and the same thought
was in his mind and Lucy's, though neither spoke of it. They stood there
a while, talking in low tones and looking for excuses to linger, when
one of the older men moved a little and held up a warning hand. He had
just taken his eyes from a loophole, and he whispered that he thought he
had seen something pass in the shadow of the wall.

All in the embrasure became silent at once, and Lucy, brave as she was,
could hear her heart beating. There was a slight noise on the outside of
the wall, so faint that only keen ears could hear it, and then as they
looked up they saw a hideous, painted face raised above the palisade.

One of the older men threw his rifle to his shoulder, but, quick as a
flash, Paul struck his hand away from the trigger. He knew who had come,
when he looked into the eyes that looked down at him, though he felt
fear, too--he could not deny it--as he met their gaze, so fierce, so
wild, so full of the primitive man.

"Don't you see?" he said, "it is Henry! Henry Ware!"

Even then Lucy Upton, intimate friend though she had been, scarcely saw,
but laughing a low soft laugh of intense satisfaction, Henry dropped
lightly among them. Good excuse had these men for not knowing him as his
transformation was complete! He stood before them not a white man, but
an Indian warrior, a prince of savages. His hair was drawn up in the
defiant scalp lock, his face bore the war paint in all its variations
and violent contrast of colors, the dark-green hunting shirt and
leggings with their beaded decorations were gone, and in their place a
red Indian blanket was wrapped around him, drooping in its graceful
folds like a Roman toga.

His figure, erect in the moonlight, nearly a head above the others, had
a certain savage majesty, and they gazed upon him in silence. He seemed
to know what they felt and his eyes gleamed with pride out of his darkly
painted face. He laughed again a low laugh, not like that of the white
man, but the almost inaudible chuckle of the Indian.

"It had to be," he said, glancing down at his garb though not with
shame. "To do what I wished to do, it was necessary to pass as an
Indian, at least between times, and, as all the Shawnees do not know
each other, this helped."

"It was you who shot the Indians in the tree; I knew it from the first,"
said the voice of the guide, Ross, over their shoulders. He had come so
softly that they did not notice him before.

Henry did not reply, but laughed again the dry chuckle that made Lucy
tremble she scarcely knew why, and ran his hand lovingly along the
slender barrel of his rifle.

"At least you do not complain of it," he said presently.

"No, we do not," replied Ross, "an' I guess we won't. You saved us,
that's sure. I've lived on the border all my life, but I never saw such
shootin' before."

Then Henry gave some details of his work and Lucy Upton, watching him
closely, saw how he had been engrossed by it. Paul Cotter too noticed,
and feeling constraint, at least, demanded that Henry doff his savage
disguise, put on white men's clothes and get something to eat.

He consented, though scarce seeing the necessity of it, but kept the
Indian blanket close to hand, saying that he would soon need it again.
But he was very gentle with his mother telling her that she need have no
fear for him, that he knew all the wiles of the savage and more; they
could never catch him and the outside was his place, as then he could be
of far more service than if he were merely one of the garrison.

The news of Henry Ware's return was throughout the village in five
minutes, and with it came the knowledge of his great deed. In the face
of such a solid and valuable fact the vague charge that he was a
renegade died. Even Braxton Wyatt did not dare to lift his voice to that
effect again, but, with sly insinuation, he spoke of savages herding
with savages, and of what might happen some day.

When night came Henry resuming his Indian garb and paint slipped out
again, and so skillful was he that he seemed to melt away like a mist in
the darkness.

The savage army beleaguering the colony now found that it was assailed
by a mysterious enemy, one whom all their vigilance and skill could not
catch. They lost warrior after warrior and many of them began to think
Manitou hostile to them, but the leaders persisted with the siege. They
wished to destroy utterly this white vanguard, and they would not return
to their villages, far across the Ohio, until it was done.

They no longer made a direct attack upon the walls, but, forming a
complete circle around, hung about at a convenient distance, waiting and
hoping for thirst and famine to help them. The people believed
themselves to have taken good precautions against these twin evils, but
now a terrible misfortune befell them. No rain fell and the well inside
the palisade ran dry. It was John Ware himself who first saw the coming
of the danger and he tried to hide it, but it could not, from its very
nature, be kept a secret long. The supply for each person was cut down
one half and then one fourth, and that too would soon go, unless the
welcome rains came; and the sky was without a cloud. Men who feared no
physical danger saw those whom they loved growing pale and weak before
their eyes, and they knew not what to do. It seemed that the place must
fall without a blow from the enemy.




CHAPTER XVI

A GIRL'S WAY


Lucy left her father's house one of these dry mornings, and stood for a
few moments in the grounds, inclosed by the palisade, gazing at the dark
forest, outlined so sharply against the blue of the sky. She could see
the green of the forest beyond the fort, and she knew that in the open
spaces, where the sun reached them, tiny wild flowers of pink and
purple, nestled low in the grass, were already in bloom. From the west a
wind sweet and soft was blowing, and, as she inhaled it, she wanted to
live, and she wanted all those about her to live. She wondered, if there
was not some way in which she could help.

The stout, double log cabins, rude, but full of comfort, stood in rows,
with well-trodden streets, between, then a fringe of grass around all,
and beyond that rose the palisade of stout stakes, driven deep into the
ground, and against each other. All was of the West and so was Lucy, a
tall, lithe young girl, her face tanned a healthy and becoming brown by
the sun, her clothing of home-woven red cloth, adorned at the wrists and
around the bottom of the skirt with many tiny beads of red and yellow
and blue and green, which, when she moved, flashed in the brilliant
light, like the quivering colors of a prism. She had thrust in her hair
a tiny plume of the scarlet tanager, and it lay there, like a flash of
flame, against the dark brown of her soft curls.

Where she stood she could see the water of the spring near the edge of
the forest sparkling in the sunlight, as if it wished to tantalize her,
but as she looked a thought came to her, and she acted upon it at once.
She went to the little square, where her father, John Ware, Ross and
others were in conference.

"Father," she exclaimed, "I will show you how to get the water!"

Mr. Upton and the other men looked at her in so much astonishment that
none of them replied, and Lucy used the opportunity.

"I know the way," she continued eagerly. "Open the gate, let the women
take the buckets--I will lead--and we can go to the spring and fill them
with water. Maybe the Indians won't fire on us!"

"Lucy, child!" exclaimed her father. "I cannot think of such a thing."

Then up spoke Tom Ross, wise in the ways of the wilderness.

"Mr. Upton," he said, "the girl is right. If the women are willing to go
out it must be done. It looks like an awful thing, but--if they die we
are here to avenge them and die with them, if they don't die we are all
saved because we can hold this fort, if we have water; without it every
soul here from the oldest man down to the littlest baby will be lost."

Mr. Upton covered his face with his hands.

"I do not like to think of it, Tom," he said.

The other men waited in silence.

Lucy looked appealingly at her father, but he turned his eyes away.

"See what the women say about it, Tom," he said at last.

The women thought well of it. There was not one border heroine, but
many; disregarding danger they prepared eagerly for the task, and soon
they were in line more than fifty, every one with a bucket or pail in
each hand. Henry Ware, looking on, said nothing. The intended act
appealed to the nature within him that was growing wilder every day.

A sentinel, peeping over the palisade, reported that all was quiet in
the forest, though, as he knew, the warriors were none the less
watchful.

"Open the gate," commanded Mr. Ware.

The heavy bars were quickly taken down, and the gate was swung wide.
Then a slim, scarlet-clad figure took her place at the head of the line,
and they passed out.

Lucy was borne on now by a great impulse, the desire to save the fort
and all these people whom she knew and loved. It was she who had
suggested the plan and she believed that it should be she who should
lead the way, when it came to the doing of it.

She felt a tremor when she was outside the gate, but it came from
excitement and not from fear--the exaltation of spirit would not permit
her to be afraid. She glanced at the forest, but it was only a blur
before her.

The slim, scarlet-clad figure led on. Lucy glanced over her shoulder,
and she saw the women following her in a double file, grave and
resolute. She did not look back again, but marched on straight toward
the spring. She began to feel now what she was doing, that she was
marching into the cannon's mouth, as truly as any soldier that ever led
a forlorn hope against a battery. She knew that hundreds of keen eyes
there in the forest before her were watching her every step, and that
behind her fathers and brothers and husbands were waiting, with an
anxiety that none of them had ever known before.

She expected every moment to hear the sharp whiplike crack of the rifle,
but there was no sound. The fort and all about it seemed to be inclosed
in a deathly stillness. She looked again at the forest, trying to see
the ambushed figures, but again it was only a blur before her, seeming
now and then to float in a kind of mist. Her pulses were beating fast,
she could hear the thump, thump in her temples, but the slim scarlet
figure never wavered and behind, the double file of women followed,
grave and silent.

"They will not fire until we reach the spring," thought Lucy, and now
she could hear the bubble of the cool, clear water, as it gushed from
the hillside. But still nothing stirred in the forest, no rifle cracked,
there was no sound of moving men.

She reached the spring, bent down, filled both buckets at the pool, and
passing in a circle around it, turned her face toward the fort, and,
after her, came the silent procession, each filling her buckets at the
pool, passing around it and turning her face toward the fort as she had
done.

Lucy now felt her greatest fear when she began the return journey and
her back was toward the forest. There was in her something of the
warrior; if the bullet was to find her she preferred to meet it, face to
face. But she would not let her hands tremble, nor would she bend
beneath the weight of the water. She held herself proudly erect and
glanced at the wooden wall before her. It was lined with faces, brown,
usually, but now with the pallor showing through the tan. She saw her
father's among them and she smiled at him, because she was upheld by a
great pride and exultation. It was she who had told them what to do, and
it was she who led the way.

She reached the open gate again, but she did not hasten her footsteps.
She walked sedately in, and behind her she heard only the regular tread
of the long double file of women. The forest was as silent as ever.

The last woman passed in, the gate was slammed shut, the heavy bars were
dropped into place, and Mr. Upton throwing his arms about Lucy
exclaimed:

"Oh, my brave daughter!"

She sank against him trembling, her nerves weak after the long tension,
but she felt a great pride nevertheless. She wished to show that a woman
too could be physically brave in the face of the most terrible of all
dangers, and she had triumphantly done so.

The bringing of the water, or rather the courage that inspired the act,
heartened the garrison anew, and color came back to men's faces. The
schoolmaster discussed the incident with Tom Ross, and wondered why the
Indians who were not in the habit of sparing women had not fired.

"Sometimes a man or a crowd of men won't do a thing that they would do
at any other time," said Ross, "maybe they thought they could get us all
in a bunch by waitin' an' maybe way down at the bottom of their savage
souls, was a spark of generosity that lighted up for just this once.
We'll never know."

Henry Ware went out that night, and returning before dawn with the same
facility that marked all his movements in the wilderness, reported that
the savage army was troubled. All such forces are loose and irregular,
with little cohesive power, and they will not bear disappointment and
waiting. Moreover the warriors having lost many men, with nothing in
repayment were grumbling and saying that the face of Manitou was set
against them. They were confirmed too in this belief by the presence of
the mysterious foe who had slain the warriors in the tree, and who had
since given other unmistakable signs of his presence.

"They will have more discouragement soon," he said, "because it is going
to rain to-day."

He had read the signs aright, as the sun came up amid the mists and
vapors, and the gentle wind was damp to the face; then dark clouds
spread across the western heavens, like a vast carpet unrolled by a
giant hand, and the wilderness began to moan. Low thunder muttered on
the horizon, and the somber sky was cut by vivid strokes of lightning.

Nature took on an ominous and threatening hue but within the village
there was only joy; the coming storm would remove their greatest danger,
the well would fill up again, and behind the wooden walls they could
defy the savage foe.

The sky was cut across by a flash of lightning so bright that it dazzled
them, the thunder burst with a terrible crash directly overhead, and
then the rain came in a perfect wall of water. It poured for hours out
of a sky that was made of unbroken clouds, deluging the earth, swelling
the river to a roaring flood, and rising higher in the well than ever
before. The forest about them was almost hidden by the torrents of rain
and they did not forget to be thankful.

Toward afternoon the fall abated somewhat in violence, but became a
steady downpour out of sodden skies, and the air turned raw and chill.
Those who were not sheltered shivered, as if it were winter. The night
came on as dark as a well, and Henry Ware went out again. When he came
back he said tersely to his father:

"They are gone."

"Gone?" exclaimed Mr. Ware scarcely able to believe in the reality of
such good news.

"Yes; the storm broke their backs. Even Indians can't stand an all-day
wetting especially when they are already tired. They think they can
never have any luck here, and they are going toward the Ohio at this
minute. The storm has saved us now just as it saved our band in the
flight from the salt works."

They had such faith in his forest skill that no one doubted his word and
the village burst into joy. Women, for they were the worst sufferers
gave thanks, both silently and aloud. Henry took Ross, Sol and others to
the valley in the forest, where the savages had kept their war camp.
Here they had soaked in the mire during the storm, and all about were
signs of their hasty flight, the ground being littered with bones of
deer, elk and buffalo.

"They won't come again soon," said Henry, "because they believe that the
Manitou will not give them any luck here, but it is well to be always on
the watch."

After the first outburst of gratitude the people talked little of the
attack and repulse; they felt too deeply, they realized too much the
greatness of the danger they had escaped to put it into idle words. But
nearly all attributed their final rescue to Henry Ware though some saw
the hand of God in the storm which had intervened a second time for the
protection of the whites. Braxton Wyatt and his friends dared say
nothing now, at least openly against Henry, although those who loved him
most were bound to confess that there was something alien about him,
something in which he differed from the rest of them.

But Henry thought little of the opinion, good or bad in which he was
held, because his heart was turning again to the wilderness, and he and
Ross went forth again to scout on the rear of the Indian force.




CHAPTER XVII

THE BATTLE IN THE FOREST


Henry and Ross after their second scouting expedition reported that the
great war band of the Shawnees was retreating slowly, in fact would
linger by the way, and might destroy one or two smaller stations
recently founded farther north. Instantly a new impulse flamed up among
the pioneers of Wareville. The feeling of union was strong among all
these early settlements, and they believed it their duty to protect
their weaker brethren. They would send hastily to Marlowe the nearest
and largest settlement for help, follow on the trail of the warriors and
destroy them. Such a blow, as they might inflict, would spread terror
among all the northwestern tribes and save Kentucky from many another
raid.

Ross who was present in the council when the eager cry was raised shook
his head and looked more than doubtful.

"They outnumber us four or five to one," he said, "an' when we go out in
the woods against 'em we give up our advantage, our wooden walls. They
can ambush us out there, an' surround us."

Mr. Ware added his cautious words to those of Ross, in whom he had great
confidence. He believed it better to let the savage army go. Discouraged
by its defeat before the palisades of Wareville it would withdraw beyond
the Ohio, and, under any circumstances, a pursuit with greatly inferior
numbers, would be most dangerous.

These were grave words, but they fell on ears that did not wish to
listen. They were an impulsive people and a generous chord in their
natures was touched, the desire to defend those weaker than themselves.
A good-hearted but hot-headed man named Clinton made a fiery speech. He
said that now was the time to strike a crushing blow at the Indian
power, and he thought all brave men would take advantage of it.

That expression "brave men" settled the question; no one could afford to
be considered aught else, and a little army poured forth from Wareville,
Mr. Ware nominally in command, and Henry, Paul, Ross, Sol, and all the
others there. Henry saw his mother and sister weeping at the palisade,
and Lucy Upton standing beside them. His mother's face was the last that
he saw when he plunged into the forest. Then he was again the hunter,
the trailer and the slayer of men.

While they considered whether or not to pursue, Henry Ware had said
nothing; but all the primitive impulses of man handed down from lost
ages of ceaseless battle were alive within him; he wished them to go, he
would show the way, the savage army would make a trail through the
forest as plain to him as a turnpike to the modern dweller in a
civilized land, and his heart throbbed with fierce exultation, when the
decision to follow was at last given. In the forest now he was again at
home, more so than he had been inside the palisade. Around him were all
the familiar sights and sounds, the little noises of the wilderness that
only the trained ear hears, the fall of a leaf, or the wind in the
grass, and the odor of a wild flower or a bruised bough.

Brain and mind alike expanded. Instinctively he took the lead, not from
ambition, but because it was natural; he read all the signs and he led
on with a certainty to which neither Ross nor Shif'less Sol pretended to
aspire. The two guides and hunters were near each other, and a look
passed between them.

"I knew it," said Ross; "I knew from the first that he had in him the
making of a great woodsman. You an' I, Sol, by the side of him, are just
beginners."

Shif'less Sol nodded in assent.

"It's so," he said. "It suits me to follow where he leads, an' since we
are goin' after them warriors, which I can't think a wise thing, I'm
mighty glad he's with us."

Yet to one experienced in the ways of the wilderness the little army
though it numbered less than a hundred men would have seemed formidable
enough. Many youths were there, mere boys they would have been back in
some safer land, but hardened here by exposure into the strength and
courage of men. Nearly all were dressed in finely tanned deerskin,
hunting shirt, leggings and moccasins, fringes on hunting shirt and
leggings, and beads on moccasins. The sun glinted on the long slender,
blue steel barrel of the Western rifle, carried in the hand of every
man. At the belt swung knife and hatchet, and the eyes of all, now that
the pursuit had begun, were intense, eager and fierce.

The sounds made by the little Western army, hid under the leafy boughs
of the forest, gradually died away to almost nothing. No one spoke, save
at rare intervals. The moccasins were soundless on the soft turf, and
there was no rattle of arms, although arms were always ready. In front
was Henry Ware, scanning the trail, telling with an infallible eye how
old it was, where the enemy had lingered, and where he had hastened.

Mr. Pennypacker was there beside Paul Cotter. A man of peace he was, but
when war came he never failed to take his part in it.

"Do you know him?" he asked of Paul, nodding toward Henry.

Paul understood.

"No," he replied, "I do not. He used to be my old partner, Henry Ware,
but he's another now."

"Yes, he's changed," said the master, "but I am not surprised. I foresaw
it long ago, if the circumstances came right."

On the second morning they were joined by the men from Marlowe who had
been traveling up one side of a triangle, while the men of Wareville had
been traveling up the other side, until they met at the point. Their
members were now raised to a hundred and fifty, and, uttering one shout
of joy, the united forces plunged forward on the trail with renewed
zeal.

They were in dense forest, in a region scarcely known even to the
hunters, full of little valleys and narrow deep streams. The Indian
force had suddenly taken a sharp turn to the westward, and the knowledge
of it filled the minds of Ross and Sol with misgivings.

"Maybe they know we're following 'em," said Ross; "an' for that reason
they're turnin' into this rough country, which is just full of ambushes.
If it wasn't for bein' called a coward by them hot-heads I'd say it was
time for us to wheel right about on our own tracks, an' go home."

"You can't do nothin' with 'em," said Sol, "they wouldn't stand without
hitchin', an' we ain't got any way to hitch 'em. There's goin' to be a
scrimmage that people'll talk about for twenty years, an' the best you
an' me can do, Tom, is to be sure to keep steady an' to aim true."

Ross nodded sadly and said no more. He looked down at the trail, which
was growing fresher and fresher.

"They're slowin' up, Sol," he said at last, "I think they're waitin' for
us. You spread out to the right and I'll go to the left to watch ag'in
ambush. That boy, Henry Ware'll see everything in front."

In view of the freshening trail Mr. Ware ordered the little army to stop
for a few moments and consider, and all, except the scouts on the flanks
and in front, gathered in council. Before them and all around them lay
the hills, steep and rocky but clothed from base to crest with dense
forest and undergrowth. Farther on were other and higher hills, and in
the distance the forests looked blue. Nothing about them stirred. They
had sighted no game as they passed; the deer had already fled before the
Indian army. The skies, bright and blue in the morning, were now
overcast, a dull, somber, threatening gray.

"Men," said Mr. Ware, and there was a deep gravity in his tone, as
became a general on the eve of conflict, "I think we shall be on the
enemy soon or he will be on us. There were many among us who did not
approve of this pursuit, but here we are. It is not necessary to say
that we should bear ourselves bravely. If we fail and fall, our women
and children are back there, and nothing will stand between them and
savages who know no mercy. That is all you have to remember."

And then a little silence fell upon everyone. Suddenly the hot-heads
realized what they had done. They had gone away from their wooden walls,
deep into the unknown wilderness, to meet an enemy four or five times
their numbers, and skilled in all the wiles and tricks of the forest.
Every face was grave, but the knowledge of danger only strengthened them
for the conflict. Hot blood became cool and cautious, and wary eyes
searched the thickets everywhere. Rash and impetuous they may have been;
but they were ready now to redeem themselves, with the valor, without
which the border could not have been won.

Henry Ware had suddenly gone forward from the others, and the green
forest swallowed him up, but every nerve and muscle of him was now ready
and alert. He felt, rather than saw, that the enemy was at hand; and in
his green buckskin he blended so completely with the forest that only
the keenest sight could have picked him from the mass of foliage. His
general's eye told him, too, that the place before them was made for a
conflict which would favor the superior numbers. They had been coming up
a gorge, and if beaten they would be crowded back in it upon each other,
hindering the escape of one another, until they were cut to pieces.

The wild youth smiled; he knew the bravery of the men with him, and now
their dire necessity and the thought of those left behind in the two
villages would nerve them to fight. In his daring mind the battle was
not yet lost.

A faint, indefinable odor met his nostrils, and he knew it to be the oil
and paint of Indian braves. A deep red flushed through the brown of
either cheek. Returning now to his own kind he was its more ardent
partisan because of the revulsion, and the Indian scent offended him. He
looked down and saw a bit of feather, dropped no doubt from some defiant
scalp lock. He picked it up, held it to his nose a moment, and then,
when the offensive odor assailed him again, he cast it away.

Another dozen steps forward, and he sank down in a clump of grass,
blending perfectly with the green, and absolutely motionless. Thirty
yards away two Shawnee warriors in all the savage glory of their war
paint, naked save for breechcloths, were passing, examining the woods
with careful eye. Yet they did not see Henry Ware, and, when they turned
and went back, he followed noiselessly after them, his figure still
hidden in the green wood.

The two Shawnees, walking lightly, went on up the valley which broadened
out as they advanced, but which was still thickly clothed in forest and
undergrowth. Skilled as they were in the forest, they probably never
dreamed of the enemy who hung on their trail with a skill surpassing
their own.

Henry followed them for a full two miles, and then he saw them join a
group of Indians under the trees, whom he knew by their dress and
bearing to be chiefs. They were tall, middle-aged, and they wore
blankets of green or dark blue, probably bought at the British outposts.
Behind them, almost hidden in the forest, Henry saw many other dark
faces, eager, intense, waiting to be let loose on the foe, whom they
regarded as already in the trap.

Henry waited, while the two scouts whom he had followed so well,
delivered to the chief their message. He saw them beckon to the warriors
behind them, speak a few words to them, and then he saw two savage
forces slip off in the forest, one to the right and one to the left. On
the instant he divined their purpose. They were to flank the little
white army, while another division stood ready to attack in front. Then
the ambush would be complete, and Henry saw the skill of the savage
general whoever he might be.

The plan must be frustrated at once, and Henry Ware never hesitated. He
must bring on the battle, before his own people were surrounded, and
raising his rifle he fired with deadly aim at one of the chiefs who fell
on the grass. Then the youth raised the wild and thrilling cry, which he
had learned from the savages themselves, and sped back toward the white
force.

The death cry of the Shawnee and the hostile war whoop rang together
filling the forest and telling that the end of stealth and cunning, and
the beginning of open battle were at hand.

Henry Ware was hidden in an instant by the green foliage from the sight
of the Shawnees. Keen as were their eyes, trained as they were to
noticing everything that moved in the forest, he had vanished from them
like a ghost. But they knew that the enemy whom they had sought to draw
into their snare had slipped his head out of it before the snare could
be sprung. Their long piercing yell rose again and then died away in a
frightful quaver. As the last terrible note sank the whole savage army
rushed forward to destroy its foe.

As Henry Ware ran swiftly back to his friends he met both Ross and Sol,
drawn by the shot and the shouts.

"It was you who fired?" asked Ross.

"Yes," replied Henry, "they meant to lay an ambush, but they will not
have time for it now."

The three stood for a few moments under the boughs of a tree, three
types of the daring men who guided and protected the van of the white
movement into the wilderness. They were eager, intent, listening, bent
slightly forward, their rifles lying in the hollow of their arms, ready
for instant use.

After the second long cry the savage army gave voice no more. In all the
dense thickets a deadly silence reigned, save for the trained ear. But
to the acute hearing of the three under the tree came sounds that they
knew; sounds as light as the patter of falling nuts, no more, perhaps,
than the rustle of dead leaves driven against each other by a wind; but
they knew.

"They are coming, and coming fast," said Henry. "We must join the main
force now."

"They ought to be ready. That warning of yours was enough," said Ross.

Without another word they turned again, darted among the trees, and in a
few moments reached the little white force. Mr. Ware, the nominal
leader, taking alarm from the shot and cries, was already disposing his
men in a long, scattering line behind hillocks, tree trunks, brushwood
and every protection that the ground offered.

"Good!" exclaimed Ross, when he saw, "but we must make our line longer
and thinner, we must never let them get around us, an' it's lucky now
we've got steep hills on either side."

To be flanked in Indian battle by superior numbers was the most terrible
thing that could happen to the pioneers, and Mr. Ware stretched out his
line longer and longer, and thinner and thinner. Paul Cotter was full of
excitement; he had been in deadly conflict once before, but his was a
most sensitive temperament, terribly stirred by a foe whom he could yet
neither see nor hear. Almost unconsciously, he placed himself by the
side of Henry Ware, his old partner, to whom he now looked up as a son
of battle and the very personification of forest skill.

"Are they really there, Henry?" he asked. "I see nothing and hear
nothing."

"Yes," replied Henry, "they are in front of us scarcely a rifle shot
away, five to our one."

Paul strained his eyes, but still he could see nothing, only the green
waving forest, the patches of undergrowth, the rocks on the steep hills
to right and left, and the placid blue sky overhead. It did not seem
possible to him that they were about to enter into a struggle for life
and for those dearer than life.

"Don't shoot wild, Paul," said Henry. "Don't pull the trigger, until you
can look down the sights at a vital spot."

A few feet away from them, peering over a log and with his rifle ever
thrust forward was Mr. Pennypacker, a schoolmaster, a graduate of a
college, an educated and refined man, but bearing his part in the dark
and terrible wilderness conflict that often left no wounded.

The stillness was now so deep that even the scouts could hear no sound
in front. The savage army seemed to have melted away, into the air
itself, and for full five minutes they lay, waiting, waiting, always
waiting for something that they knew would come. Then rose the fierce
quavering war cry poured from hundreds of throats, and the savage horde,
springing out of the forests and thickets, rushed upon them.

Dark faces showed in the sunlight, brown figures, naked save for the
breechcloth, horribly painted, muscles tense, flashed through the
undergrowth. The wild yell that rose and fell without ceasing ran off in
distant echoes among the hills. The riflemen of Kentucky, lying behind
trees and hillocks, began to fire, not in volleys, not by order, but
each man according to his judgment and his aim, and many a bullet flew
true.

A sharp crackling sound, ominous and deadly, ran back and forth in the
forest. Little spurts of fire burned for a moment against the green, and
then went out, to give place to others. Jets of white smoke rose
languidly and floated up among the trees, gathering by and by into a
cloud, shot through with blue and yellow tints from sky and sun.

Henry Ware fired with deadly aim and reloaded with astonishing speed.
Paul Cotter, by his side, was as steady as a rock, now that the suspense
was over, and the battle upon them. The schoolmaster resting on one
elbow was firing across his log.

But it is not Indian tactics to charge home, unless the enemy is
frightened into flight by the war whoop and the first rush. The men of
Wareville and Marlowe did not run, but stood fast, sending the bullets
straight to the mark; and suddenly the Shawnees dropped down among the
trees and undergrowth, their bodies hidden, and began to creep forward,
firing like sharpshooters. It was now a test of skill, of eyesight, of
hearing and of aim.

The forest on either side was filled with creeping forms, white or red,
men with burning eyes seeking to slay each other, meeting in strife more
terrible than that of foes who encounter each other in open conflict.
There was something snakelike in their deadly creeping, only the moving
grass to tell where they passed and sometimes where both white and red
died, locked fast in the grip of one another. Everywhere it was a
combat, confused, dreadful, man to man, and with no shouting now, only
the crack of the rifle shot, the whiz of the tomahawk, the thud of the
knife, and choked cries.

Like breeds like, and the white men came down to the level of the red.
Knowing that they would receive no quarter they gave none. The white
face expressed all the cunning, and all the deadly animosity of the red.
Led by Henry Ware, Ross and Sol they practiced every device of forest
warfare known to the Shawnees, and their line, which extended across the
valley from hill to hill, spurted death from tree, bush, and rock.

To Paul Cotter it was all a nightmare, a foul dream, unreal. He obeyed
his comrade's injunctions, he lay close to the earth, and he did not
fire until he could draw a bead on a bare breast, but the work became
mechanical with him. He was a high-strung lad of delicate sensibilities.
There was in his temperament something of the poet and the artist, and
nothing of the soldier who fights for the sake of mere fighting. The
wilderness appealed to him, because of its glory, but the savage
appealed to him not at all. In Henry's bosom there was respect for his
red foes from whom he had learned so many useful lessons, and his heart
beat faster with the thrill of strenuous conflict, but Paul was anxious
for the end of it all. The sight of dead faces near him, not the lack of
courage, more than once made him faint and dizzy.

Twice and thrice the Shawnees tried to scale the steep hillsides, and
with their superior numbers swing around behind the enemy, but the lines
of the borderers were always extended to meet them, and the bullets from
the long-barreled rifles cut down everyone who tried to pass. It was
always Henry Ware who was first to see a new movement, his eyes read
every new motion in the grass, and foliage swaying in a new direction
would always tell him what it meant. More than one of his comrades
muttered to himself that he was worth a dozen men that day.

So fierce were the combatants, so eager were they for each other's blood
that they did not notice that the sky, gray in the morning, then blue at
the opening of battle, had now grown leaden and somber again. The leaves
above them were motionless and then began to rustle dully in a raw wet
wind out of the north. The sun was quite gone behind the clouds and
drops of cold rain began to fall, falling on the upturned faces of the
dead, red and white alike with just impartiality, the wind rose,
whistled, and drove the cold drops before it like hail. But the combat
still swayed back and forth in the leaden forest, and neither side took
notice.

Mr. Ware remained near the center of the white line, and retained
command, although he gave but few orders, every man fighting for himself
and giving his own orders. But from time to time Ross and Sol or Henry
brought him news of the conflict, perhaps how they had been driven back
a little at one point, and perhaps how they gained a little at another
point. He, too, a man of fifty and the head of a community, shared the
emotions of those around him, and was filled with a furious zeal for the
conflict.

The clouds thickened and darkened, and the cold drops were driven upon
them by the wind, the rifle smoke, held down by the rain, made sodden
banks of vapor among the trees; but through all the clouds of vapor
burst flashes of fire, and the occasional triumphant shout or death cry
of the white man or the savage.

Henry Ware looked up and he became conscious that not only clouds above
were bringing the darkness, but that the day was waning. In the west a
faint tint of red and yellow, barely discernible through the grayness,
marked the sinking sun, and in the east the blackness of night was still
advancing. Yet the conflict, as important to those engaged in it, as a
great battle between civilized foes, a hundred thousand on a side, and
far more fierce, yet hung on an even chance. The white men still stood
where they had stood when the forest battle began, and the red men who
had not been able to advance would not retreat.

Henry's heart sank a little at the signs that night was coming; it would
be harder in the darkness to keep their forces in touch, and the
superior numbers of the Shawnees would swarm all about them. It seemed
to him that it would be best to withdraw a little to more open ground;
but he waited a while, because he did not wish any of their movements to
have the color of retreat. Moreover, the activity of the Shawnees rose
just then to a higher pitch.

Figures were now invisible in the chill, wet dusk, fifty or sixty yards
away, and the two lines came closer. The keenest eye could see nothing
save flitting forms like phantoms, but the riflemen, trained to
quickness, fired at them and more than once sent a fatal bullet. There
were two lines of fire facing each other in the dark wood. The flashes
showed red or yellow in the twilight or the falling rain, and the Indian
yell of triumph whenever it arose, echoed, weird and terrible, through
the dripping forest.

Henry stole to the side of his father.

"We must fall back," he said, "or in the darkness or the night, they
will be sure to surround us and crush us."

Ross was an able second to this advice, and reluctantly Mr. Ware passed
along the word to retreat. "Be sure to bring off all the wounded," was
the order. "The dead, alas! must be abandoned to nameless indignities!"

The little white army left thirty dead in the dripping forest, and, as
many more carried wounds, the most of which were curable, but it was as
full of fight as ever. It merely drew back to protect itself against
being flanked in the forest, and the faces of the borderers, sullen and
determined, were still turned to the enemy.

Yet the line of fire was visibly retreating, and, when the Shawnee
forces saw it, a triumphant yell was poured from hundreds of throats.
They rushed forward, only to be driven back again by the hail of
bullets, and Ross said to Mr. Ware: "I guess we burned their faces
then."

"Look to the wounded! look to the wounded!" repeated Mr. Ware. "See that
no man too weak is left to help himself."

They had gone half a mile when Henry glanced around for Paul. His eyes,
trained to the darkness, ran over the dim forms about him. Many were
limping and others already had arms in slings made from their hunting
shirts, but Henry nowhere saw the figure of his old comrade. A fever of
fear assailed him. One of two things had happened. Paul was either
killed or too badly wounded to walk, and somehow in the darkness they
had missed him. The schoolmaster's face blanched at the news. Paul had
been his favorite pupil.

"My God!" he groaned, "to think of the poor lad in the hands of those
devils!"

Henry Ware stood beside the master, when he uttered these words,
wrenched by despair from the very bottom of his chest. Pain shot through
his own heart, as if it had been touched by a knife. Paul, the
well-beloved comrade of his youth, captured and subjected to the
torture! His blood turned to ice in his veins. How could they ever have
missed the boy? Paul now seemed to Henry at least ten years younger than
himself. It was not merely the fault of a single man, it was the fault
of them all. He stared back into the thickening darkness, where the
flashes of flame burst now and then, and, in an instant, he had taken
his resolve.

"I do not know where Paul is," he said, "but I shall find him."

"Henry! Henry! what are you going to do?" cried his father in alarm.

"I'm going back after him," replied his son.

"But you can do nothing! It is sure death! Have we just found you to
lose you again?"

Henry touched his father's hand. It was an act of tenderness, coming
from his stoical nature, and the next instant he was gone, amid the
smoke and the vapors and the darkness, toward the Indian army.

Mr. Ware put his face in his hands and groaned, but the hand of Ross
fell upon his shoulder.

"The boy will come back, Mr. Ware," said the guide, "an' will bring the
other with him, too. God has given him a woods cunnin' that none of us
can match."

Mr. Ware let his hands fall, and became the man again. The retreating
force still fell back slowly, firing steadily by the flashes at the
pursuing foe.

Henry Ware had not gone more than fifty yards before he was completely
hidden from his friends. Then he turned to a savage, at least in
appearance. He threw off the raccoon-skin cap and hunting shirt, drew up
his hair in the scalp lock, tying it there with a piece of fringe from
his discarded hunting shirt, and then turned off at an angle into the
woods. Presently he beheld the dark figures of the Shawnees, springing
from tree to tree or bent low in the undergrowth, but all following
eagerly. When he saw them he too bent over and fired toward his own
comrades, then he whirled again to the right, and sprang about as if he
were seeking another target. To all appearances, he was, in the darkness
and driving rain, a true Shawnee, and the manner and gesture of an
Indian were second nature to him.

But he had little fear of being discovered at such a time. His sole
thought was to find his comrade. All the old days of boyish
companionship rushed upon him, with their memories. The tenderness in
his nature was the stronger, because of its long repression. He would
find him and if he were alive, he would save him; moreover he had what
he thought was a clew. He had remembered seeing Paul crouched behind a
log, firing at the enemy, and no one had seen him afterwards. He
believed that the boy was lying there yet, slain, or, if fate were
kinder, too badly wounded to move. The line of retreat had slanted
somewhat from the spot, and the savages might well have passed, in the
dark, without noticing the boy's fallen body.

His own sense of direction was perfect, and he edged swiftly away toward
the fallen log, behind which Paul had lain. Many dark forms passed him,
but none sought to stop him; the counterfeit was too good; all thought
him one of themselves.

Presently Henry passed no more of the flitting warriors. The battle was
moving on toward the south and was now behind him. He looked back and
saw the flashes growing fainter and heard the scattering rifle shots,
deadened somewhat by the distance. Around him was the beat of the rain
on the leaves and the sodden earth, and he looked up at a sky, wholly
hidden by black clouds. He would need all his forest lore, and all the
primitive instincts, handed down from far-off ancestors. But never were
they more keenly alive than on this night.

The boy did not veer from the way, but merely by the sense of direction
took a straight path toward the fallen log that he remembered. The din
of battle still rolled slowly off toward the south, and, for the moment,
he forgot it. He came to the log, bent down and touched a cold face. It
was Paul. Instinctively his hand moved toward the boy's head and when it
touched the thick brown hair and nothing else, he uttered a little
shuddering sigh of relief. Dead or alive, the hideous Indian trophy had
not been taken. Then he found the boy's wrist and his pulse, which was
still beating faintly. The deft hands moved on, and touched the wound,
made by a bullet that had passed entirely through his shoulder. Paul had
fainted from loss of blood, and without the coming of help would surely
have been dead in another hour.

The boy lay on his side, and, in some convulsion as he lost
consciousness, he had drawn his arm about his head. Henry turned him
over until the cold reviving rain fell full upon his face, and then,
raising himself again, he listened intently. The battle was still moving
on to the southward, but very slowly, and stray warriors might yet pass
and see them. The tie of friendship is strong, and as he had come to
save Paul and as he had found him too, he did not mean to be stopped
now.

He stooped down and chafed the wounded youth's wrists and temples, while
the rain with its vivifying touch still drove upon his face. Paul
stirred and his pulse grew stronger. He opened his eyes catching one
vague glimpse of the anxious face above him, but he was so feeble that
the lids closed down again. But Henry was cheered. Paul was not only
alive, he was growing stronger, and, bending down, he lifted him in his
powerful arms. Then he strode away in the darkness, intending to pass in
a curve around the hostile army. Despite Paul's weight he was able also
to keep his rifle ready, because none knew better than he that all the
chances favored his meeting with one warrior or more before the curve
was made. But he was instinct with strength both mental and physical, he
was the true type of the borderer, the men who faced with sturdy heart
the vast dangers of the wilderness, the known and the unknown. At that
moment he was at his highest pitch of courage and skill, alone in the
darkness and storm, surrounded by the danger of death and worse, yet
ready to risk everything for the sake of the boy with whom he had
played.

He heard nothing but the patter of the distant firing, and all around
him was the gloom, of a night, dark to intensity. The rain poured
steadily out of a sky that did not contain a single star. Paul stirred
occasionally on his shoulder, as he advanced, swiftly, picking his way
through the forest and the undergrowth. A half mile forward and his ears
caught a light footstep. In an instant he sank down with his burden, and
as he did so he caught sight of an Indian warrior, not twenty feet away.
The Shawnee saw him at the same time, and he, too, dropped down in the
undergrowth.

Henry did not then feel the lust of blood. He would have been willing to
pass on, and leave the Shawnee to himself; but he knew that the Shawnee
would not leave him. He laid Paul upon his back, in order that the rain
might beat upon his face, and then crouched beside him, absolutely
motionless, but missing nothing that the keenest eye or ear might
detect. It was a contest of patience, and the white youth brought to
bear upon it both the red man's training and his own.

A half hour passed, and within that small area there was no sound but
the beat of the rain on the leaves and the sticky earth. Perhaps the
warrior thought he had been deceived; it was merely an illusion of the
night that he thought he saw; or if he had seen anyone the man was now
gone, creeping away through the undergrowth. He stirred among his own
bushes, raised up a little to see, and gave his enemy a passing glimpse
of his face. But it was enough; a rifle bullet struck him between the
eyes and the wilderness fighter lay dead in the forest.

Henry bestowed not a thought on the slain warrior, but, lifting up Paul
once more, continued on his wide curve, as if nothing had happened. No
one interrupted him again, and after a while he was parallel with the
line of fire. Then he passed around it and came to rocky ground, where
he laid Paul down and chafed his hands and face. The wounded boy opened
his eyes again, and, with returning strength, was now able to keep them
open.

"Henry!" he said in a vague whisper.

"Yes, Paul, it is I," Henry replied quietly.

Paul lay still and struggled with memory. The rain was now ceasing, and
a few shafts of moonlight, piercing through the clouds, threw silver
rays on the dripping forest.

"The battle!" said Paul at last. "I was firing and something struck me.
That was the last I remember."

He paused and his face suddenly brightened. He cast a look of gratitude
at his comrade.

"You came for me?" he said.

"Yes," replied Henry, "I came for you, and I brought you here."

Paul closed his eyes, lay still, and then at a ghastly thought, opened
his eyes again.

"Are only we two left?" he asked. "Are all the others killed? Is that
why we are hiding here in the forest?"

"No," replied Henry, "we are holding them off, but we decided that it
was wiser to retreat. We shall join our own people in the morning."

Paul said no more, and Henry sheltered him as best he could under the
trees. The wet clothing he could not replace, and that would have to be
endured. But he rubbed his body to keep him warm and to induce
circulation. The night was now far advanced, and the distant firing
became spasmodic and faint. After a while it ceased, and the weary
combatants lay on their arms in the thickets.

The clouds began to float off to the eastward. By and by all went down
under the horizon, and the sky sprang out, a solid dome of calm,
untroubled blue, in which the stars in myriads twinkled and shone. A
moon of unusual splendor bathed the wet forest in a silver dew.

Henry sat in the moonlight, watching beside Paul, who dozed or fell into
a stupor. The moonlight passed, the darkest hours came and then up shot
the dawn, bathing a green world in the mingled glory of red and gold.
Henry raised Paul again, and started with him toward the thickets, where
he knew the little white army lay.

       *       *       *       *       *

John Ware had borne himself that night like a man, else he would not
have been in the place that he held. But his heart had followed his son,
when he turned back toward the savage army, and, despite the reassuring
words of Ross, he already mourned him as one dead. Yet he was faithful
to his greater duty, remembering the little force that he led and the
women and children back there, of whom they were the chief and almost
the sole defenders. But if he reached Wareville again how could he tell
the tale of his loss? There was one to whom no excuse would seem good.
Often Mr. Pennypacker was by his side, and when the darkness began to
thin away before the moonlight these two men exchanged sad glances. Each
understood what was in the heart of the other, but neither spoke.

The hours of night and combat dragged heavily. When the waning fire of
the savages ceased they let their own cease also, and then sought ground
upon which they might resist any new attack, made in the daylight. They
found it at last in a rocky region that doubled the powers of the
defense. Ross was openly exultant.

"We scorched 'em good yesterday an' to-night," he said, "an' if they
come again in the day we'll just burn their faces away."

Most of the men, worn to the bone, sank down to sleep on the wet ground
in their wet clothes, while the others watched, and the few hours, left
before the morning, passed peacefully away.

At the first sunlight the men were awakened, and all ate cold food which
they carried in their knapsacks. Mr. Ware and the schoolmaster sat
apart. Mr. Ware looked steadily at the ground and the schoolmaster,
whose heart was wrenched both with his own grief and his friend's, knew
not what to say. Neither did Ross nor Sol disturb them for the moment,
but busied themselves with preparations for the new defense.

Mr. Pennypacker was gazing toward the southwest and suddenly on the
crest of a low ridge a black and formless object appeared between him
and the sun. At first he thought it was a mote in his eye, and he rubbed
the pupils but the mote grew larger, and then he looked with a new and
stronger interest. It was a man; no, two men, one carrying the other,
and the motion of the man who bore the other seemed familiar. The
master's heart sprang up in his throat, and the blood swelled in a new
tide in his veins. His hand fell heavily, but with joy, on the shoulder
of Mr. Ware.

"Look up! Look up!" he cried, "and see who is coming!"

Mr. Ware looked up and saw his son, with the wounded Paul Cotter on his
shoulder, walking into camp. Then--the borderers were a pious people--he
fell upon his knees and gave thanks. Two hours later the Shawnees in
full force made a last and desperate attack upon the little white army.
They ventured into the open, as venture they must to reach the
defenders, and they were met by the terrible fire that never missed. At
no time could they pass the deadly hail of bullets, and at last, leaving
the ground strewed with their dead, they fell back into the forest, and
then, breaking into a panic, did not cease fleeing until they had
crossed the Ohio. Throughout the morning Henry Ware was one of the
deadliest sharpshooters of them all, while Paul Cotter lay safely in the
rear, and fretted because his wound would not let him do his part.

The great victory won, it was agreed that Henry Ware had done the best
of them all, but they spent little time in congratulations. They
preferred the sacred duty of burying the dead, even seeking those who
had fallen in the forest the night before; and then they began their
march southward, the more severely wounded carried on rude litters at
first, but as they gained strength after a while walking, though lamely.
Paul recovered fast, and when he heard the story, he looked upon Henry
as a knight, the equal of any who ever rode down the pages of chivalry.

But all alike carried in their hearts the consciousness that they had
struck a mighty blow that would grant life to the growing settlements,
and, despite their sadly thinned ranks, they were full of a pride that
needed no words. The men of Wareville and the men of Marlowe parted at
the appointed place, and then each force went home with the news of
victory.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE TEST


The people of Wareville had good reason alike for pride and for sorrow,
pride for victory, and sorrow for the fallen, but they spent no time in
either, at least openly, resuming at once the task of founding a new
state.

Henry Ware, the hero of the hour and the savior of the village, laid
aside his wild garb and took a place in his father's fields. The work
was heavy, the Indian corn was planted, but trees were to be felled,
fences were to be cut down, and as he was so strong a larger share than
usual was expected of him. His own father appreciated these hopes and
was resolved that his son should do his full duty.

Henry entered upon his task and from the beginning he had misgivings,
but he refused to indulge them. He handled a hoe on his first day from
dawn till dark in a hot field, and all the while the mighty wilderness
about him was crying out to him in many voices. While the sun glowed
upon him, and the sweat ran down his face he could see the deep cool
shade of the forest--how restful and peaceful it looked there! He knew a
sheltered glade where the buffalo were feeding, he could find the deer
reposing in a thicket, and to the westward was a new region of hills and
clear brooks, over which he might be the first white man to roam.

His blood tingled with his thoughts, but he never said a word, only
bending lower to his task, and hardening his resolve. The voices of the
wilderness might call, and he could not keep from hearing them, but he
need not go. The amount of work he did that day was wonderful to all who
saw, his vast strength put him far ahead of all others and back of his
strength was his will. But they said nothing and he was glad they did
not speak.

When he went home in the dusk he overtook Lucy Upton near the palisade.
She was in the same red dress that she wore when she ran the gantlet and
in the twilight it seemed to be tinged to a deeper scarlet. She was
walking swiftly with the easy, swinging grace of a good figure and good
health, but when he joined her she went more slowly.

He did not speak for a few moments, and she gave him a silent glance of
sympathy. In her woman's heart she guessed the cause of his trouble, and
while she had been afraid of him when he appeared suddenly as the Indian
warrior yet she liked him better in that part than as she now saw him.
Then he was majestic, now he was prosaic, and it seemed to her that his
present rôle was unfitting.

"You are tired," she said at last.

"Well, not in the body exactly, but I feel like resting."

There was no complaint in his tone, but a slight touch of irony.

"Do you think that you will make a good farmer?" she asked.

"As good as the times and our situation allow," he replied. "Wandering
parties of the savages are likely to pass near here and in the course of
time they may send back an army. Besides one has to hunt now, as for a
long while we must depend on the forest for a part of our food."

It seemed to her that these things did not cause him sorrow, that he
turned to them as a sort of relief: his eyes sparkled more brightly when
he spoke of the necessity for hunting and the possible passage of Indian
parties which must be repelled. Girl though she was, she felt again a
little glow of sympathy, guessing as she did his nature; she could
understand how he thrilled when he heard the voices of the forest
calling to him.

They reached the gate of the palisade and passed within. It was full
dusk now, the forest blurring together into a mighty black wall, and the
outlines of the houses becoming shadowy. The Ware family sat awhile that
evening by the hearth fire, and John Ware was full of satisfaction. A
worthy man, he had neither imagination nor primitive instincts and he
valued the wilderness only as a cheap place in which to make homes. He
spoke much of clearing the ground, of the great crops that would come,
and of the profit and delight afforded by regular work year after year
on the farm. Henry Ware sat in silence, listening to his father's
oracular tones, but his mother, glancing at him, had doubts to which she
gave no utterance.

The days passed and as the spring glided into summer they grew hotter.
The sun glowed upon the fields, and the earth parched with thirst. In
the forest the leaves were dry and they rustled when the wind blew upon
them. The streams sank away again, as they had done during the siege,
and labor became more trying. Yet Henry Ware never murmured, though his
soul was full of black bitterness. Often he would resolutely turn his
eyes from the forest where he knew the deep cool pools were, and keep
them on the sun-baked field. His rifle, which had seemed to reproach
him, inanimate object though it was, he hid in a corner of the house
where he could not see it and its temptation. In order to create a
counter-irritant he plunged into work with the most astonishing vigor.

John Ware, in those days, was full of pride and satisfaction, he
rejoiced in the industrial prowess of his son, and he felt that his own
influence had prevailed, he had led Henry back to the ways of
civilization, the only right ways, and he enjoyed his triumph. But the
schoolmaster, in secret, often shook his head.

The summer grew drier and hotter, it was a period of drought again and
the little children gasped through the sweating nights. Afar they saw
the blaze of forest fires and ashes and smoke came on the wind. Henry
toiled with a dogged spirit, but every day the labor grew more bitter to
him; he took no interest in it, he did not wish to calculate the result
in the years to come, when all around him, extending thousands of miles,
was an untrodden wilderness, in which he might roam and hunt until the
end, although his years should be a hundred.

It was worst at night, when he lay awake by a window, breathing the hot
air, then the deep cool forest extended to him her kindest invitation,
and it took all his resolution to resist her welcome. The wind among the
trees was like music, but it was a music to which he must close his
ears. Then he remembered his vast wanderings with Black Cloud and his
red friends, how they had crossed great and unnamed rivers, the days in
the endless forest and the other days on the endless plains, and of the
mighty lake they had reached in their northernmost journey--how cool and
pleasant that lake seemed now! His mind ran over every detail of the
great buffalo hunts, of those trips along the streams to trap the beaver
and the events in the fight with the hostile tribe.

All these recollections seemed very vivid and real to him now, and the
narrow life of Wareville faded into a mist out of which shone only the
faces of those whom he loved--it was they alone who had brought him back
to Wareville, but he knew that their ways were not his ways, and it was
hard to confine his spirit within the narrow limits of a settlement.

But his long martyrdom went on, the summer was growing old, with the
work of planting and cultivating almost done and the harvest soon to
follow, and whatever his feelings may have been he had never flinched a
single time. Nourished by his great labors the Ware farm far surpassed
all others, and the pride of John Ware grew. He also grew more exacting
with his pride, and this quality brought on the crisis.

Henry was building a fence one particularly hot afternoon, and his
father coming by, cool and fresh, found fault with his work, chiefly to
show his authority, because the work was not badly done--Mr. Ware was a
good man, but like other good men he had a rare fault-finding impulse.
The voices in the woods had been calling very loudly that day and
Henry's temper suddenly flashed into a flame. But he did not give way to
any external outburst of passion, speaking in a level, measured voice.

"I am sorry you do not like it," he said, "because it is the last work I
am going to do here."

"Why--what do you mean?" exclaimed his father in astonishment.

"I am done," replied Henry in his firm tones, and dropping the fence
rail that he held he walked to the house, every nerve in him thrilling
with expectation of the pleasure that was to come. His mother was there,
and she started in fear at his face.

"It is true, mother," he said, "I am not going to deceive you, I am
going into the forest, but I will come again and often. It is the only
life that I can lead, I was made for it I suppose; I have tried the
other out there in the fields, and I have tried hard, but I cannot stand
it."

She knew too well to seek to stop him. He took his rifle from its
secluded corner, and the feeling of it, stock and barrel, was good to
his hands. He put on the buckskin hunting shirt, leggings and moccasins,
fringed and beaded, and with them he felt all his old zest and pride
returning. He kissed his mother and sister good-by, shook hands with his
younger brother, did the same with his astonished father at the door,
and then, rifle on shoulder, disappeared in the circling forest.

That night Braxton Wyatt sneered and said that a savage could not keep
from being a savage, but Paul Cotter turned upon him so fiercely that he
took it back. The schoolmaster made no comment aloud, but to himself he
said, "It was bound to come and perhaps it is no loss that it has come."

Meanwhile Henry Ware was tasting the fiercest and keenest joy of his
life. The great forest seemed to reach out its boughs like kind arms to
welcome and embrace. How cool was the shade! How the shafts of sunlight
piercing the leaves fell like golden arrows on the ground! How the
little brooks laughed and danced over the pebbles! This was his world
and he had been too long away from it. Everything was friendly, the huge
tree trunks were like old comrades, the air was fresher and keener than
any that he had breathed in a long time, and was full of new life and
zest. All his old wilderness love rushed back to him, and now after many
months he felt at home.

Strong as he was already new strength flowed into his frame and he threw
back his head, and laughed a low happy laugh. Then rifle at the trail he
ran for miles among the trees from the pure happiness of living, but
noting as he passed with wonderfully keen eyes every trail of a wild
animal and all the forest signs that he knew so well. He ran many miles
and he felt no weariness. Then he threw himself down on Mother Earth,
and rejoiced at her embrace. He lay there a long time, staring up
through the leaves and the shifting sunlight, and he was so still that a
hare hopped through the undergrowth almost at his feet, never taking
alarm. To Henry Ware then the world seemed grand and beautiful, and of
all things in it God had made the wilderness the finest, lingering over
every detail with a loving hand.

He watched the setting of the sun and the coming of the twilight. The
sun was a great blazing ball and the western sky flowed away from it in
circling waves of blue and pink and gold, then long shadows came over
the forest, and the distant trees began to melt together into a gigantic
dark wall. To the dweller in cities all this vast loneliness and
desolation would have been dreary and weird beyond description; he would
have shuddered with superstitious awe, starting in fear at the slightest
sound, but there was no such quality in it for Henry Ware. He saw only
comradeship and the friendly veil of the great creeping shadow. His eye
could pierce the thickest night, and fear, either of the darkness or
things physical, was not in him.

He rose after a while, when the last sign of day was gone, and walked
on, though more slowly. He made no noise as he passed, stepping lightly,
but with sure foot like one with both genius and training for the
wilderness. He knelt at a little brook to slake his thirst, but did not
stop long there. His happiness decreased in nowise. The familiar voices
of the night were speaking to him. He heard the distant hoot of an owl,
a deer rustled in the bush, a lizard scuttled over the leaves, and he
rejoiced at the sounds. He did not think of hunger but toward midnight
he raked some of last year's fallen leaves close to the trunk of a big
tree, lay down upon them, and fell in a few moments into happy and
dreamless sleep.

He awoke with the first rays of the dawn, shot a deer after an hour's
search, and then cooked his breakfast by the side of one of the little
brooks. It was the first food that had tasted just right to him in many
weeks, and afterwards he lay by the camp fire awhile, and luxuriated. He
had the most wonderful feeling of peace and ease; all the world was his
to go where he chose and to do what he chose, and he began to think of
an autumn camp, a tiny lodge in the deepest recess of the wilderness,
where he could store spare ammunition, furs and skins and find a
frequent refuge, when the time for storms and cold came. He would build
at his ease--there was plenty of time and he would fill in the intervals
with hunting and exploration.

He ranged that day toward the north and the west, moving with
deliberation, and not until the third or the fourth day did he come to
the place that he had in mind. In the triangle between the junction of
two streams was a marshy area, thickly grown with bushes and slim trees,
that thrust their roots deep down through the mire into more solid soil.
The marsh was perhaps two acres in extent; right in the heart of it was
a piece of firm earth about forty feet square and here Henry meant to
build his lodge. He alone knew the path across the marsh over fallen
logs lying near enough to each other to be reached by an agile man, and
on the tiny island all his possessions would be safe.

He worked a week at his hut, and it was done, a little lean-to of bark
and saplings, partly lined with skins, but proof against rain or snow.
On the floor he spread the skins and furs of animals that he killed, and
on the walls he hung trophies of the hunt.

Two weeks after his house was finished he used it at its full value.
Summer was gone and autumn was coming, a great rain poured and the wind
blew cold. Dead leaves fell in showers from the trees, and the boughs
swaying before the gale creaked dismally against each other. But it all
gave to Henry a supreme sense of physical comfort. He lay in his snug
hut, and, pulling a little to one side the heavy buffalo robe that hung
over the doorway, watched the storm rage through the wilderness. He had
no sense of loneliness, his mind was in perfect tune with everything
about him, and delighted in the triumphant manifestation of nature.

He stayed there all day, content to lie still and meditate vaguely of
anything that came of its own accord into his mind. About the twilight
hour he cooked some venison, ate it and then slept a dreamless sleep
through the night.

The rain ceased the next day but the air became crisp and cold, and
autumn was fully come. In a week the forest was dyed into the most
glowing colors, red and yellow and brown, and the shades between. The
heavens were pure blue and gold, and it was a poignant delight to
breathe the keen air. Again he ranged far and rejoiced in the hunting.
His infallible rifle never missed, and in the little hut in the marsh
the stock of furs and skins grew so fast that scarcely room for himself
was left. He hid a fresh store at another place in the forest, and then
he returned to Wareville for a day. His father greeted him with some
constraint, not with coldness exactly, but with lack of understanding.
His mother and his sister wept with joy and Mrs. Ware said: "I was
expecting you about this time and you have not disappointed me."

He stayed two days and his keen eyes, so observant of material matters,
noted that the colony was not doing well for the time, the drought
having almost ruined the crops and there was full promise of scanty food
and a hard winter. Now came his opportunity. He had looked upon his
month in the forest as in part a holiday, and he never intended to throw
aside all responsibility for others, roving the wilderness absolutely
free from care. He knew that he would have work to do, he felt that he
should have it, and now he saw the way to do the kind of work that he
loved to do.

He replenished his supply of ammunition, took up his rifle again and
returned to the forest. Now he used all his surpassing knowledge and
skill in the chase, and game began to pour into the colony, bear, deer,
buffalo and the smaller animals, until he alone seemed able to feed the
entire settlement through the winter.

He experienced a new thrill keener and more delightful than any that had
gone before; he was doing for others and the knowledge was most
pleasant. Winter came on, fierce and unyielding with almost continuous
snow and ice, and Henry Ware was the chief support of that little
village in the wilderness. The game wandering with its fancy, or perhaps
taking alarm at the new settlement had drifted far, and he alone of all
the hunters could find it. The voices that had been raised against him a
second time were stilled again, because no one dared to accuse when his
single figure stood between them and starvation.

He took Paul Cotter with him on some of his hunts, but never even to
Paul did he tell the secret of his hut in the morass; that was to be
guarded for himself alone. He was fond of Paul, but Paul able though he
was fell far behind Henry in the forest.

The debt of Wareville to him grew and none felt privileged to criticise
him now, as he appeared from the forest and disappeared into it again on
his self-chosen tasks.

The winter broke up at last, but with the spring came a new and more
formidable danger. Small parties of Indians, not strong enough to attack
Wareville itself but sufficient for forest ambush, began to appear in
the country, and two or three lives that could be ill spared were lost.
Now Henry Ware showed his supreme value; he was a match and more than a
match for the savages at all their own tricks, and he became the ranger
for the settlement, its champion against a wild and treacherous foe.

The tales of his skill and prowess spread far through the wilderness.
Single handed he would not hesitate in the depths of the forest to
attack war parties of half a dozen, and while suffering heavily
themselves they could never catch their daring tormentor. These tales
even spread across the Ohio to the Indian villages, where they told of a
blond and giant white youth in the South who was the spirit of death,
whom no runner could overtake, whom no bullet could slay and who raged
against the red man with an invincible wrath.

As his single hand had fed them through the winter so his single hand
protected them from death in the spring. He seemed to know by instinct
when the war parties were coming and where they would appear. Always he
confronted them with some devious attack that they did not know how to
meet, and Wareville remained inviolate.

Then, in the summer, when the war bands were all gone he came back to
Wareville to stay a while, although, everyone, himself included, knew
that he would always remain a son of the wilderness, spending but part
of his time in the houses of men.




CHAPTER XIX

AN ERRAND AND A FRIEND


Two stalwart lads were marching steadily through the deep woods, some
months later. They were boys in years, but in size, strength, alertness
and knowledge of the forest far beyond their age. One, in particular,
would have drawn the immediate and admiring glance of every keen-eyed
frontiersman, so powerful was he, and yet so light and quick of
movement. His wary glance seemed to read every secret of tree, bush and
grass, and his head, crowned by a great mass of thick, yellow hair, rose
several inches above that of his comrade, who would have been called by
most people a tall boy.

The two youths were dressed almost alike. Each wore a cap of raccoon
fur, with the short tail hanging from the back of it as a decoration.
Their bodies were clad in hunting shirts, made of the skin of the deer,
softly and beautifully tanned and dyed green. The fine fringe of the
shirt hung almost to the knees, and below it were leggings also of
deerskin, beaded at the seams. The feet were inclosed in deerskin
moccasins, fitting tightly, but very soft and light. A rifle, a
tomahawk, and a useful knife at the belt completed the equipment.

They were walking, but each boy led a stout horse, and on the back of
this horse was a great brown sack that hung down, puffy, on either side.
The sacks were filled with gunpowder made from cave-dust and the two
boys, Henry Ware and Paul Cotter, were carrying it to a distant village
that had exhausted its supply, but which, hearing of the strange new way
in which Wareville obtained it, had sent begging for a loan of this
commodity, more precious to the pioneer than gold and jewels. The
response was quick and spontaneous and Henry and Paul had been chosen to
take the powder, an errand in which both rejoiced. Already they had been
two days in the great wilderness, now painted in gorgeous colors by the
hand of autumn, and they had not seen a sign of a human being, white or
red.

They walked steadily on, and the trained horses followed, each just
behind his master, although there was no hand upon the bridle. They
stopped presently at the low rounded crest of a hill, where the forest
opened out a little, and, as if with the same impulse, each looked off
toward the vast horizon with a glowing eye. The mighty forest, vivid
with its gleaming reds and yellows and browns, rolled away for miles,
and then died to the eye where the silky blue arch of the sky came down
to meet it. Now and then there was a flash of silver, where a brook ran
between the hills, and the wind brought an air, crisp, fresh and full of
life.

It was beautiful, this great wilderness of Kaintuckee, and each boy saw
it according to his nature. Henry, the soul of action, the boy of the
keen senses and the mighty physical nature, loved it for its own sake
and for what it was in the present. He fitted into it and was a part of
it. The towns and the old civilization in the east never called to him.
He had found the place that nature intended for him. He was here the
wilderness rover, hunter and scout, the border champion and defender,
the primitive founder of a state, without whom, and his like, our Union
could never have been built up. Henry gloried in the wilderness and
loved its life which was so easy to him. Paul, the boy of thought, was
always looking into the future, and already he foresaw what would come
to pass in a later generation.

Neither spoke, and presently, by the same impulse, they started on
again, descending the low hill, and plunging once more into the forest.
When they had gone about half a mile, Henry stopped suddenly. His
wonderful physical organism, as sensitive as the machinery of a watch,
had sounded an alarm. A faint sound, not much more than the fall of a
dying leaf, came to his ears and he knew at once that it was not a
natural noise of the forest. He held up his hand and stopped, and Paul,
who trusted him implicitly, stopped also. Henry listened intently with
ears that heard everything, and the sound came to him again. It was a
footfall. A human being, besides themselves, was near in the forest!

"Come, Paul," he said, and he began to creep toward the sound, the two
darting from tree to tree, and making no noise among the fallen leaves,
as they brushed past, with their soft moccasins. The trained horses
remained where they had been left, silent and motionless.

Henry, as was natural, was in front, and he was the first to see the
object that had caused the noise. A man stepped from the shelter of a
tree's great trunk, and, although armed, he held up one hand, in the
manner of a friend. He was an Indian of middle age and dignified look,
although he was not painted like any of the tribes that came down to
make war in Kentucky.

Henry recognized at once the friendly signal, and he too stepped from
the cover of the forest, walking slowly toward the warrior, who was
undoubtedly a chief and a man of importance. Twenty feet away, the boy
started a little, and a sudden light leaped into his eyes. Then he
strode up rapidly, and took the warrior's hand after the white custom.

"Black Cloud! My friend!" he said.

"You know me! You have not forgotten?" replied the chief and his eyes
gleamed ever so quickly.

"You have come far from your people and among hostile tribes to see me?"
said Henry who instantly divined the truth.

"It is so," replied the chief, "and to ask you to go back with me. Our
warriors miss you."

Henry was moved to the depths of his nature. Black Cloud had come a
thousand miles to ask him this question, and he had a far, sweet vision
of a life utterly wild and free. Again he saw the great plains, and
again came to his ears, like rolling thunder, the tread of the
myriad-footed buffalo herd. He was tempted sorely tempted and he knew
it, but, with a mighty effort he put the temptation away from him and
shook his head.

"It cannot be, Black Cloud," he said. "My people need me, as yours need
you."

A shadow passed over the eyes of the chief, but it was gone in a moment.
He knew that the answer was final, and he said not another word on the
subject.

Black Cloud went on with Henry and Paul half a day, then he bade them
farewell. They watched him go, but it could be only for a minute or two,
because his form quickly melted away into the forest. Then the two boys,
turning their faces steadily toward duty, marched on, and the great
wilderness, gleaming in its reds and yellows and browns curved about
them.