Altsheler Joseph Alexander
The Border Watch: A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand
"What is it?" asked Early, as the paddles ceased to sigh through the water.
"I thought I heard something behind us," replied Wyatt, although he had heard nothing, "and you know we cannot afford to be seen here by any white scout or hunter."
The Indians listened intently with their trained ears and then shook their heads. There was no sound behind them, save the soft flowing of the river, as it lapped against either bank.
"I hear nothing," said Early.
"Nor do I," admitted Wyatt, "yet I could have sworn a few minutes ago that we were being followed. Instinct is sometimes a good guide in the forest."
"Then I suggest," said Early, "that we turn back for a few miles. We can float with the current close up to the bank under the overhanging boughs, and, if hunters or scouts are following us, they'll soon wish they were somewhere else."
He laughed and Braxton Wyatt joined him in his savage mirth.
"Your idea is a good one," said Wyatt, "and we may catch a mouse or two in our trap."
He gave another signal and the Shawnees turned the boat about, permitting it to float back with the stream, but as Early had suggested, keeping it in the shadow. Despite his experience and the lack of proof that anyone else was near, Wyatt's heart began to beat fast. Suppose the game was really there, and it should prove to be of the kind that he wanted most to take! This would be indeed a triumph worth while, and he would neglect no precaution to achieve it. They had gone back about a mile now, and he signaled to the warriors to swing the boat yet a little closer to the bank. He still heard no sound, but the belief was once more strong upon him that the quarry was there. They drifted slowly and yet there was nothing. His eye alighted upon a great mass of bushes growing in the shallow water at the edge of the river. He told the paddlers to push the boat among them until it should be completely hidden and then he waited.
But time passed and nothing came. The sun dropped lower. The yellow light on the water turned to red, and the forest flamed under the setting sun. A light breeze sprang up and the foliage rustled under its touch. Braxton Wyatt, from his covert among the bushes, watched with anger gnawing at his heart. He had been wrong or whoever it was that followed had been too wary. He was crafty and had laid his trap well, but others were crafty, too, and would turn from the door of an open trap.
The sun sank further. The red in the west deepened but gray shadows were creeping over the east and the surface of the river began to darken. Nothing had come. Nothing was coming. Braxton Wyatt said reluctantly to himself that his instinct had been wrong. He gave the word to pull the boat from the canes, and to proceed up the stream again. He was annoyed. He had laid a useless trap and he had made himself look cheap before the Indians. So he said nothing for a long time, but allowed his anger to simmer. When it was fully dark they tied up the boat and camped on shore, in the bushes near the water.
Wyatt was too cautious to permit a fire, and they ate cold food in the darkness. After a while, all slept but two of the Shawnees who kept watch. Wyatt's slumbers were uneasy. About midnight he awoke, and he was oppressed by the same presentiment that had made him turn back the boat. He heard nothing and saw nothing save his own men, but his instinct was at work once more, and it told him that his party was watched. He lay in dark woods in a vast wilderness, but he felt in every bone that near them was an alien presence.
Wyatt raised himself upon his arm and looked at the two red sentinels. Not a muscle of either had stirred. They were so much carven bronze. Their rifles lay across their knees and they stared fixedly at the forest. But he knew that their eyes and ears were of the keenest and that but little could escape their attention. Yet they had not discovered the presence. He rose finally to his feet. The Indians heard the faint noise that he made and glanced at him. But he was their commander and they said nothing, resuming in an instant their watch of the forest.
Wyatt did not take his rifle. Instead, he kept his hand on the hilt of a fine double-barreled pistol in his belt. After some hesitation he walked to the river and looked at the boat. It was still there, tied securely. No one had meddled with it. The moon was obscured and the surface of the river looked black. No object upon it could be seen far away. He listened attentively and heard nothing. But he could not rid himself of the belief that they had been followed, that even now a foe was near. He walked back to the little camp and looked at Early who was sleeping soundly. He was impatient with himself because he could not do likewise, and then, shrugging his shoulders, he went further into the forest.
The trees grew closely where Wyatt stood and there were bushes everywhere. His concealment was good and he leaned against the trunk of a huge oak to listen. He could not see fifteen feet away, but he did not believe that any human being could pass near and escape his hearing. He stood thus in the darkness for a full ten minutes, and then he was quite sure that he did hear a sound as of a heavy body moving slightly. It was not instinct or prescience, the product of a vivid fancy, but a reality. He had been too long in the woods to mistake the fact. Something was stalking something else and undoubtedly the stalker was a man.
What was the unknown stalking? Suddenly a cold sweat broke out on Braxton Wyatt's face. It was he who was being stalked and he was now beyond the sight of his own sentinels. He was, for the moment, alone in the midnight woods, and he was afraid. Braxton Wyatt was not naturally a coward, and he had been hardened in the school of forest warfare, but superstitious terrors assailed him now. He was sorry that he had left the camp. His curiosity had been too great. If he wished to explore the woods, why had he not brought some of the Indians with him?
He called upon his courage, a courage that had seldom failed him, but it would not come now. He heard the stalker moving again in the bushes, not fifteen yards away, and the hand on the pistol belt became wet. He glanced up but there was no moon and clouds hid the sky. Only ear could tell when the danger was about to fall, and then it would be too late.
He made a supreme effort, put his will in control of his paralyzed limbs, and wrenched himself away. He almost ran to the camp. Then bringing his pride to his aid he dropped to a walk, and stepped back into the circle of the camp. But he was barely able to restrain a cry of relief as the chill passed from his backbone. Angry and humiliated, he awakened four of the Shawnees and sent them into the woods in search of a foe. Early was aroused by the voices and sat up, rubbing his eyes.
"What is it, Braxton?" he asked. "Are we about to be attacked?"
"No," replied Wyatt, calming himself with a violent effort, "but I am convinced that there is someone in the bushes watching us. I know that I heard the noise of footsteps and I only hope that our Shawnees will run afoul of him."
"If he's there they'll get him," said Early confidently.
"I don't know," said Braxton Wyatt.
The Indians came back presently, and one of them spoke to Wyatt, who went with them into the bushes. The moon had come out a little and, by its faint light, they showed him traces of footsteps. The imprints were ever so light, but experienced trailers could not doubt that human beings had passed. The renegade felt at the same time a certain relief and a certain alarm, relief to know that he had not been a mere prey to foolish fears, and alarm because they had been stalked by some spy so skillful and wary that they could not follow him. The Indians had endeavored to pursue the trail, but after a rod or so it was lost among the bushes.
Wyatt, apprehensive lest his mission should fail, doubled the watch and then sought sleep. He did not find it for a long time, but toward morning he fell into a troubled slumber from which he was awakened by Early about an hour after the sun had appeared above the eastern forest.
"We must be moving," said Early, "if we're going to spy out that Wareville of yours and tell our people how to get in."
"You're right," said Wyatt, "but we must watch behind us now as well as before. It is certain that we are followed and I'm afraid that we're followed by an enemy most dangerous."
Neglecting no precaution, he ordered a warrior to follow along the bank about two miles in the rear. An Indian in the deep brush could not be seen and the renegade's savage heart thrilled at the thought that after all he might be setting a trap into which his enemy would walk. Then his boat moved forward, more slowly now, and hugging the bank more closely than ever. Wyatt knew the way well. He had been several times along this river, a fine broad stream. He meant to leave the boat and take to the forest when within twenty miles of Wareville, but, before doing so, he hoped to achieve a victory which would console him for many defeats.
The warrior left behind for purposes of ambush was to rejoin them at noon, but at the appointed hour he did not come. Nor did he come at one o'clock or at two. He never came, and after Wyatt had raged with disappointment and apprehension until the middle of the afternoon he sent back a second warrior to see what had become of him. The second warrior was the best trailer and scout in the band, a Shawnee with a great reputation among his fellows, but when the night arrived neither he nor the other warrior arrived with it. They waited long for both. Three of the Indians in a group went back, but they discovered no sign. They returned full of superstitious terror which quickly communicated itself to the others and Wyatt and Early, despite their white blood, felt it also.
A most vigilant watch was kept that night. No fire was lighted and nobody slept. The renegade still hoped that the two missing warriors would return, but they did not do so. The other Indians began to believe that the evil spirit had taken them, and they were sorry that they had come upon such an errand. They wished to go back down the stream and beyond the Ohio. Near morning a warrior saw something moving in the bushes and fired at it. The shot was returned quick as a flash, and the warrior, who would fire no more, fell at the feet of the others and lay still. Wyatt and his men threw themselves upon their faces, and, after a long wait, searched the bushes, but found nothing.
Now the Indians approached the point of rebellion. It was against the will of Manitou that they should prosper on their errand. The loss of three comrades was the gravest of warnings and they should turn back. But Wyatt rebuked them angrily. He did not mean to be beaten in such a way by an enemy who remained in hiding. The bullet had shown that it was an earthly foe, and, as far as Manitou was concerned, he always awarded the victory to courage, skill and luck. The Indians went forward reluctantly.
The next night they tied up again by the wooded bank. Wyatt wanted two of the warriors to remain in the boat, but they refused absolutely to do so. Despite all that he could say their superstitious fears were strong upon them, and they meant to stay close to their comrades upon the solid earth. Dreading too severe a test of his authority the renegade consented, and all of them, except the guards, lay down among the bushes near the shore. It was a fine summer night, not very dark, and Wyatt did not believe a foe could come near them without being seen. He felt more confidence, but again he was sleepless. He closed his eyes and sought slumber by every device that he knew, but it would not come. At last he made a circuit with Early and two of the Indians in the forest about the camp, but saw and heard nothing. Returning, he lay down on his blanket and once more wooed sleep with shut eyes.
Sleep still refused obstinately to come, and in ten minutes the renegade reopened his eyes. His glance wandered idly over the recumbent Indians who were sound asleep, and then to those who watched. It passed from them to the river and the black blur of the boat lying upon the water about twenty yards away. Then it passed on and after a while came back again to the boat.
Braxton Wyatt knew that optical illusions were common, especially in the obscurity of night. One could look so long at a motionless object that it seemed to move. That was why the boat, tied securely to low boughs, did that curious trick of apparently gliding over the surface of the river. Wyatt laughed at himself. In the faint light, brain was superior to eye. He would not allow himself to be deceived, and the quality of mind that saved him from delusions gave him pride. He did not have a very good view of the boat from the point where he lay, but he saw enough of it to know that when he looked again it would be lying exactly where it had been all the time, despite that illusory trick of movement. So, to show the superiority of will over fancy, he kept his eyes shut a longer time than usual, and when he opened them once more he looked directly at the boat. Surely the shifting light was playing him new tricks. Apparently it was much farther out in the stream and was drifting with the current.
Wyatt reproved himself as an unsteady fool. His nerves were shaken, and in order to restore his calmness he closed his eyes once more. But the eyes would not stay shut. Will was compelled to yield at last to impulse and the lids came apart. He was somewhat angry at himself. He did not wish to look at the boat again, and repeat those foolish illusions, but he did so nevertheless.
Braxton Wyatt sprang to his feet with a cry of alarm and warning. It was no trick of fancy. He saw with eyes that did not lie a boat out in the middle of the stream and every moment going faster with the current. The power that propelled it was unseen, but Wyatt knew it to be there.
"Fire! Fire!" he shouted to his men. "Somebody is carrying off our boat!"
Rifles flashed and bullets made the water spout. Two struck the boat itself, but it moved on with increasing swiftness. Wyatt, Early and the Indians dashed to the water's edge, but a sharp crack came from the further shore, and Early fell forward directly into the river. Wyatt and the Indians shrank back into the bushes where they lay hidden. But the renegade, with a sort of frightened fascination, watched the water pulling at the body of his slain comrade, until it was carried away by the current and floated out of sight. The boat, meanwhile, moved on until it, too, passed a curve, and was lost from view.
Wyatt recovered his courage and presence of mind, but he sought in vain to urge the Shawnees in pursuit. Superstition held them in a firm grasp. It was true that Early had been slain by a bullet, but a mystic power was taking the boat away. The hand of Manitou was against them and they would return to the country north of the Ohio. They started at once, and Wyatt, raging, was compelled to go with them, since he did not dare to go southward alone.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SHADOWY FIGURE
After Braxton Wyatt and the Indians had fled, their canoe proceeded steadily up the stream. Henry Ware, with his head only projecting, and sheltered fully by the boat, swam on. He heard neither shots nor the sound of men running through the bushes along the bank in pursuit. Nor did he expect to hear either. He had calculated well the power of hidden danger and superstition, and, confident of complete victory, he finally steered the boat toward the farther shore, bringing it under the overhanging boughs, about a mile from the point where Braxton Wyatt's canoe had been. As the prow struck the soft soil and he rose from the water, Paul came forward to meet him. Paul carried in his hands a rifle that he had just reloaded.
"It was a success, Henry, more thorough even than we had hoped," Paul said.
"Yes," replied Henry as he stood up, a dripping water god. "Fortune was surely good to us. I have not been pursued, and I know it is because the Indians did not dare to follow. They will certainly flee as fast as they can to their own country, and meanwhile we are the gainer by one fine big boat, which I think is not empty."
"No, it is not," said Mr. Pennypacker, appearing from the bushes, "but I will never again enter into such another enterprise. It may suit young foresters like you two, but it is not for me, an old man and a schoolmaster."
"Still, we have turned back a scouting party which might have carried dangerous information," said Henry, "and I propose that we now look and see what is in our new boat."
The spoils were richer than they had expected. They found two extra rifles of good make, a large quantity of powder and bullets, some blankets and much food.
"We can use all these things," said Henry, "and we'll go to Wareville in this big canoe, tying our own little one behind. When we get there we'll contribute the rifles and other things to the general store."
"Where they may be welcome enough," said Mr. Pennypacker. "Well, you lads achieved this deed, while I filled the rôle of spectator and well-wisher. I am very glad, however, that you have secured this boat. It is a great improvement upon our own small one."
The schoolmaster was a fine paddler, and he insisted that Henry and Paul rest, while he showed his skill. He was anxious, he said, to do his own part in the return, and this offered him the only chance. Henry and Paul acquiesced and he paddled stoutly on for a long time. But before morning he gave in, and the lads relieved him. Paul had slept for an hour or two, but Henry had remained wide awake.
The river now flowed very slowly, and with but little opposition from the current, they were able to make good time. Both were full of eager anticipation. By the following night they ought to reach Wareville, the snug home of theirs that they had not seen in so long a time.
"I wonder if they will know us," said Henry.
"Not at first sight. Of that I am sure," replied Paul. "It seems to me, Henry, that you have grown at least six inches since we were last at Wareville."
"You haven't been any sluggard yourself, Paul, so far as growth is concerned. They may or may not know us, but I feel quite certain that they won't believe everything we tell them, although every word will be gospel truth."
"No, it's not likely, and yet sooner or later we can bring the witnesses. I suppose they'll find it hardest to believe about Wyoming. I wish myself that it wasn't true."
Paul shuddered at the black memory.
"But we've already struck back for it," said Henry. "It caused the destruction of the Iroquois power."
Then both were silent. The schoolmaster, lying on a roll of the captured blankets, slept soundly. His breathing was steady and rhythmic, and the two youths glanced at him.
"At any rate we're bringing him back," said Paul. "They'll be glad to see him at Wareville. I've no doubt they gave him up for dead long ago."
The day came with a splendid sun shining on the green world. The spring had been very rainy, and the summer thus far had rejoiced in frequent showers. Hence no brown had yet appeared in the foliage, and the world looked fresh and young. Although they were now approaching Wareville the forest was unbroken, and no sound of civilization came to their ears. Henry told Paul, who was very tired, to go to sleep as he could paddle the boat alone. Paul lay down on the blankets beside the schoolmaster, and in a couple of minutes was off to slumberland.
Henry paddled on. Before him was a long reach of the river almost without current and the prow cut the still water, leaving behind it a long trailing wake of liquid gold. Henry had never seen a finer sun. Beneath it forest and river were vivid and intense. Birds of many kinds chattered and sang in the boughs. Battle and danger seemed far away. Peace and beauty were to attend their coming home and he was glad. His strong arms swept the paddle through the water for a long time. The action was purely mechanical. His muscles were so thoroughly trained and hardened that he was not conscious of action. He was watching instead for the first sign of Wareville's presence, and a little before noon he saw it, a thin spire of smoke rising high, until it stopped like the point of a spearhead against the sky. He knew at once that it hung over Wareville, and his heart throbbed. He loved the great wilderness with an intensity that few men felt for their own acres, but he had been away a long time, a time, moreover, so crowded with events that it seemed far greater than reality.
He did not yet awaken Paul and the schoolmaster, but, putting more power in his arms, he sent the boat on more swiftly. When he turned a point where a little peninsula, covered with forest, jutted into the river, he let the paddle swing idly for a minute or two and listened. A steady thudding sound, as regular as the beat of a drum, though slower, came to his ears. It was the woodsman's ax, and, for a moment, Henry flinched as if he himself lay beneath the blade. That ax was eating into his beloved forest, and a hundred more axes were doing the same. Then he recovered himself. The hundred axes might eat on, the hundred might become a thousand, and the thousand ten thousand, but they could eat only the edge of his wilderness which stretched away thousands of miles in every direction. The trees, and with them the deer and the bear, would be there long beyond his time, though he might live to be a hundred, and beyond that of the generation after. He took comfort in the thought, and once more felt deep content.
It was not solely as a hunter and scout that Henry loved the wilderness. Forest and river and lake touched far deeper springs in his nature. They were for him full of beauty and majesty. Green forest in spring and red forest in autumn alike appealed to him. Brooks, rivers and lakes were alive. When duty did not call he could sit perfectly motionless for hours, happy to see the wilderness and to feel that it was all about him.
He swung the paddle again, and the boat moved leisurely forward. The ring of the ax grew louder, and he heard others to the right and to the left. Presently something struck with a crash and, in spite of all his reasoning with himself, Henry sighed. A great tree cut through by the ax had fallen. Many others had gone in the same way, and many more would follow. The spire of smoke was attended now by smaller spires and Wareville could not be more than three miles away. He awakened Paul and the schoolmaster.
"We shall be at home in less than an hour," he said. "Listen to the axes!"
Paul glanced quickly at him. His fine and sensitive mind understood at once the inflection in Henry's voice, and he sympathized.
"But they are our own people," he said, "and they are making homes which we must help to defend."
"A stronghold in the wilderness, where man, woman and child may be safe from wild beast and savage," said the schoolmaster oracularly. "Ah, boys—boys! how much do I owe you! Truly I thought I should never see this comfortable little village again, and here I am, sound and whole, returning in triumph upon a captured vessel."
They saw at the right a cleared field, in which the young corn was growing amid the stumps, and on the left was the sheen of wheat also amid the stumps. Mr. Pennypacker rubbed his hands delightedly, but Henry was silent. Yet the feeling was brief with the youth. Thoughts of his people quickly crowded it out, and he swung the paddle more swiftly. The other two, who were now helping him, did likewise, and the boat doubled its pace. Through the thinned forest appeared the brown walls of a palisade, and Henry, putting a hand in the shape of a trumpet to his lips, uttered a long, mellow cry that the forest gave back in many echoes. Faces appeared on the palisade and three or four men, rifle on shoulder, approached the bank of the river. They did not know either Henry or Paul, but one of them exclaimed:
"Ef that ain't Mr. Pennypacker riz right up from the dead then I'm a ghost myself!"
"It is Mr. Pennypacker," said the schoolmaster joyfully, "and I'm no more of a ghost than you are. I've come back from captivity, bringing with me two of those who saved me, young citizens of this village, Henry Ware and Paul Cotter."
They turned the head of the boat to the bank and the whole population poured forth to meet them. Henry and Paul were greeted half with laughter and half with tears by their parents—border stoicism was compelled to melt away at this moment—and then they blushed at the words that were said about them. Their stature and strength attracted the attention of everybody. The borderers could not fail to note the ease and grace of their movements, the lightness with which they walked, and the dexterity with which they pulled the big boat upon the bank. It was evident that these two youths were far above the average of their kind, that naturally of a high quality they had been trained in a school that brought forth every merit. Henry towered above his own father, who no longer looked upon him as one to whom he should give tasks and reproofs. And the admiration with which they were regarded increased when the schoolmaster told how he had been rescued by them and their comrades.
Henry sat that night in his father's house, and told long and true tales of their great wanderings and of danger and escape on land and water. He and Paul had eaten hugely, there was no escape, and he felt that he must sit quiet for a while. He was loth to talk of himself, but there was no escape from that either, and his story was so vivid, so full that it fairly told itself. As he spoke of the great journey and its myriad events between New Orleans and the Great Lakes, the crowd in the big room thickened. No one was willing to lose a word of the magic tale, and it was past midnight when he lay down on the blankets and sought sleep.
The next day and the next were passed in further welcome, but when Henry sought the blankets the third night he became conscious that the first flush of the return was over. The weather had turned very hot—it was now July—and the walls and ceiling of the room seemed to press upon him and suffocate him. He drew deep and long breaths, but there was not air enough to fill a chest that had long been used to the illimitable outside. It was very still in the room. He longed to hear the boughs of trees waving over him. He felt that only such a sound or the trickle of running water could soothe him to sleep. Yet he would make another effort. He closed his eyes and for a half hour lay motionless. Then, angry, he opened them again, as wide awake as ever. He listened, but he could hear no sound in either the house or the village.
Henry Ware rose to his feet, slipped on his clothing, and went to the window. He looked forth upon a sleeping village. The houses, built of solid logs, stood in ordered rows, gray and silent. Nothing stirred anywhere. He took his rifle from the hooks, and leaped lightly out of the window. Then he slipped cautiously among the houses, scaled the palisade and darted into the forest.
He lay down by the side of a cold spring about a mile from the village. The bank of turf was soft and cool, and the little stream ran over the pebbles with a faint sighing sound. The thick leaves that hung overhead rustled beneath the south wind, and played a pleasant tune. Henry felt a great throb of joy. His chest expanded and the blood leaped in every vein. He threw himself down upon the bank and grasped the turf with both hands. It seemed to him that like Antæus of old he felt strength flowing back into his body through every finger tip. He could breathe here easily and naturally. What a wonderful thing the forest was! How its beauty shone in the moonlight! The trees silvered with mist stood in long rows, and the friendly boughs and leaves, moving before the wind, never ceased to sing their friendly song to him.
Deep peace came over him. Lying on his side and soothed by the forest and flowing water his eyelids drooped of their own accord. Presently he slept, breathing deeply and regularly, and drawing the fresh air into his veins. But he awoke before daylight and reëntered the village and his father's house without being seen by anyone. To the questions of his parents he said that he had slept well, and he ate his breakfast with an appetite that he had not known since he came within the palisade.
The news that Henry and Paul had brought of the great invasion threatened by an allied Indian and British force disturbed Wareville. Yet the settlers felt much safer when they learned that the redoubtable George Rogers Clark intended a counterstroke. More than twenty of the most stalwart colonists volunteered to go to Louisville and join Clark for the blow. Henry told his father that he and Paul would return with them.
"I suppose it is your nature," said Mr. Ware, "but do you not think, Henry, that you have already suffered enough hardship and danger for the sake of the border?"
"No, Father, I do not," replied Henry. "Not as long as hardship and danger are to be suffered. And I know, too, that it is my nature. I shall live all my life in the forest."
Mr. Ware said nothing more. He knew that words were useless. That question had been threshed out between them long ago. But he gave him an affectionate farewell, and, a week after their arrival in Wareville, Henry and Paul departed again for the North, the whole population of Wareville waving them good-by as they embarked upon the river.
But the two youths were far from being alone. A score of strong men, mostly young, were with them in four boats, and they carried an ample supply of arms and ammunition. Mr. Pennypacker wanted to go back with them, but he was dissuaded from undertaking the task.
"Perhaps it is best that I stay in Wareville," he said regretfully. "I am really a man of peace and not of war, although war has looked for me more than once."
