The Young Trailers
J >> Joseph A. Altsheler >> The Young TrailersCHAPTER 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.