The Border Watch Part 39

The warriors returned in great force to the attack. They appreciated the value of the position, but the sharpshooters fired from the shelter of the logs.

The five, following their long custom, kept close together, and when they threw themselves down behind the logs they took a rapid accounting.

Paul was the only one who had escaped unhurt. A tomahawk, thrown at short range, had struck Henry on the side of the head, but only with the flat of the blade. His fur cap and thick hair saved him, but the force of the blow had made him reel for a minute, and a whole constellation of stars had danced before his eyes. Now his head still rung a little, but the pain was pa.s.sing, and all his faculties were perfectly clear and keen. A bullet had nicked Tom Ross's wrist, but, cutting a piece of buckskin from his shirt, he tied it up well and gave it no further attention. Jim Hart and Shif'less Sol had received new scratches, but they were not advertising them.

They lay panting for a few minutes among the fallen trees, and all around them they heard the low words of the gallant hundred; though there were not really a hundred now. Boone was so near that Henry could see the outline of the great forest-fighter's figure.

"Well, we succeeded, did we not, Colonel Boone?" he said, giving him a t.i.tle that had been conferred upon him a year or two before.

"We have so far," replied Boone, guardedly, "and this is a strong position. We couldn't have taken it if we hadn't been helped by surprise. I believe they'll make an effort to drive us out of this place. Timmendiquas and Girty know the need of it. Come with me, Mr.

Ware, and see that all our men are ready."

Henry, very proud to serve as the lieutenant of such a man, rose from his log and the two went among the men. Everyone was ready with loaded weapons. Many had wounds, but they had tied them up, and, rejoicing now in their log fortifications, they waited with impatience the Indian onset. Henry returned to his place. A red flare of lightning showed his eager comrades all about him, their tanned faces, set and lean, every man watching the forest. But after the lightning, the night, heavy with clouds, swept down again, and it seemed to Henry that it was darker than ever. He longed for the dawn. With the daylight disclosing the enemy, and helping their own aim, their log fortress would be impregnable.

Elsewhere the battle seemed to be dying. The shots came in irregular cl.u.s.ters, and the war whoop was heard only at intervals. Directly in front of them the silence was absolute and Henry's rapid mind divined the reason for all these things. Girty and Timmendiquas were a.s.sembling their main force there and they, too, would rely upon surprise and the irresistible rush of a great ma.s.s. He crawled over to Boone and told him his belief. Boone nodded.

"I think you are right," he said, "an' right now I'll send a messenger back to Colonel Clark to be ready with help. The attack will come soon, because inside of an hour you'll see dawn peeping over the eastern trees."

Henry crawled back to his comrades and lay down with them, waiting through that terrible period of suspense. Strain their ears as they would, they could hear nothing in front. If Timmendiquas and Girty were gathering their men there, they were doing it with the utmost skill and secrecy. Yet the watch was never relaxed for an instant. Every finger remained on the trigger and every figure was taut for instant action.

A half hour had pa.s.sed. In another half hour the day would come, and they must fight when eyes could see. The lightning had ceased, but the wind was moaning its dirge among the leaves, and then to Henry's ears came the sound of a soft tread, of moccasined feet touching the earth ever so lightly.

"They are coming! They are coming!" he cried in a sharp, intense whisper, and the next instant the terrible war whoop, the fiercest of all human sounds, was poured from the hundreds of throats, and dusky figures seemed to rise from the earth directly in front of them, rushing upon them, seeking to close with the tomahawk before they could take aim with their rifles in the darkness. But these were chosen men, ready and wonderfully quick. Their rifles leaped to their shoulders and then they flashed all together, so close that few could miss. The front of the Indian ma.s.s was blown away, but the others were carried on by the impetus of their charge, and a confused, deadly struggle took place once more, now among the logs. Henry, wielding his clubbed rifle again, was sure that he heard the powerful voice of Timmendiquas urging on the warriors, but he was not able to see the tall figure of the great Wyandot chieftain.

"Why don't the help from Colonel Clark come?" panted Shif'less Sol. "If you don't get help when you want it, it needn't come at all."

But help was near. With a great shout more than two hundred men rushed to the rescue. Yet it was hard in the darkness to tell friend from enemy, and, taking advantage of it, the warriors yet held a place among the fallen trees. Now, as if by mutual consent, there was a lull in the battle, and there occurred something that both had forgotten in the fierce pa.s.sions of the struggle. The dawn came. The sharp rays of the sun pierced the clouds of darkness and smoke, and disclosed the face of the combatants to one another.

Then the battle swelled afresh, and as the light swung higher and higher, showing all the forest, the Indian horde was driven back, giving ground at first slowly. Suddenly a powerful voice shouted a command and all the warriors who yet stood, disappeared among the trees, melting away as if they had been ghosts. They sent back no war cry, not another shot was fired, and the rising sun looked down upon a battlefield that was still, absolutely still. The wounded, stoics, both red and white, suppressed their groans, and Henry, looking from the shelter of the fallen tree, was awed as he had never been before by Indian combat.

The day was of uncommon splendor. The sun shot down sheaves of red gold, and lighted up all the forest, disclosing the dead, lying often in singular positions, and the wounded, seeking in silence to bind their wounds. The smoke, drifting about in coils and eddies, rose slowly above the trees and over everything was that menacing silence.

"If it were not for those men out there," said Paul, "it would all be like a dream, a nightmare, driven away by the day."

"It's no dream," said Henry; "we've repulsed the Indians twice, but they're going to try to hold us here. They'll surround us with hundreds of sharpshooters, and every man who tries to go a hundred yards from the rest of us will get a bullet. I wish I knew where Logan's force is or what has become of it."

"That's a mighty important thing to us," said Boone, "an' it'll grow more important every hour. I guess Logan has been attacked too, but he and Clark have got to unite or this campaign can't go on."

Henry said nothing but he was very thoughtful. A plan was forming already in his mind. Yet it was one that compelled waiting. The day deepened and the Indian force was silent and invisible. The inexperienced would have thought that it was gone, but these borderers knew well enough that it was lying there in the deep woods not a quarter of a mile away, and as eager as ever for their destruction. Colonel Clark reenforced the detachment among the fallen trees, recognizing the great strength of the position, and he spoke many words of praise.

"I'll send food to you," he said, "and meat and drink in plenty. After a night such as we have had refresh yourselves as much as you can."

They had an abundance of stores in the boats, and the men were not stinted. Nor did they confine themselves to cold food. Fires were lighted in the woods nearest to the river, and they cooked beef, venison, pork and buffalo meat. Coffee was boiled in great cans of sheet iron, and breakfast was served first to the gallant hundred.

Shif'less Sol, as he lay behind his tree, murmured words of great content. "It's a black night that don't end," he said, "an' I like fur mine to end jest this way. Provided I don't get hurt bad I'm willin' to fight my way to hot coffee an' rich buff'ler steak. This coffee makes me feel good right down to my toes, though I will say that there is a long-legged ornery creatur that kin make it even better than this. Hey, thar, Saplin'!"

Long Jim Hart's mouth opened in a chasm of a grin.

"I confess," he said, "I'm a purty good cook, ef I do tell it myself.

But what are we goin' to do now, Henry?"

"That's for Colonel Clark to say, and I don't think he'll say anything just yet."

"Nice day," said Tom Ross, looking about approvingly.

All the others laughed, yet Tom told the truth. The clouds were gone and the air had turned cooler. The forest looked splendid in its foliage, and off to the south they could see wild flowers.

"Nothin' goin' to happen for some time," said Shif'less Sol, "an' me bein' a lazy man an' proud o' the fact, I think I'll go to sleep."

n.o.body said anything against it, and stretching himself out among the bushes which shaded his face, he was sleeping peacefully in a few minutes. Paul looked at him, and the impression which the slumbering man made upon him was so strong that his own eyelids drooped.

"You go to sleep, too," said Henry. "You'll have nothing to do for hours, and sleep will bring back your strength."

Paul had eaten a heavy breakfast, and he needed nothing more than Henry's words. He lay down by the side of his comrade, and soon he too was slumbering as soundly as Shif'less Sol. Several hours pa.s.sed. The sun moved on in its regular course toward the zenith. Paul and the shiftless one still slept. Toward the eastern end of the camp someone ventured a little distance from the others, and received a bullet in his shoulder. A scout fired at the figure of an Indian that he saw for a moment leaping from one tree to another, but he could not tell whether he hit anything. At the other end of the camp there were occasional shots, but Paul and the shiftless one slept on.

Henry glanced at the sleepers now and then and was pleased to see that they rested so well. He suggested to Jim Hart that he join them, and Jim promptly traveled to the same blissful country. Henry himself did not care to go to sleep. He was still meditating. All this sharpshooting by the two sides meant nothing. It was more an expression of restlessness than of any serious purpose, and he paid it no attention. Silent Tom noticed the corrugation of his brow, and he said:

"Thinkin' hard, Henry?"

"Yes; that is, I'm trying," replied Henry.

Tom, his curiosity satisfied, relapsed into silence. He, too, cared little for the casual shots, but he was convinced that Henry had a plan which he would reveal in good time.

The sniping went on all day long. Not a great deal of damage was done but it was sufficient to show to Colonel Clark that his men must lie close in camp. If the white army a.s.sumed the offensive, the great Indian force from the shelter of trees and bushes would annihilate it. And throughout the day he was tormented by fears about Logan. That leader was coming up the Licking with only three or four hundred men, and already they might have been destroyed. If so, he must forego the expedition against Chillicothe and the other Indian towns. It was a terrible dilemma, and the heart of the stout leader sank. Now and then he went along the semicircle, but he found that the Indians were always on watch. If a head were exposed, somebody sent a bullet at it. More than once he considered the need of a charge, but the deep woods forbade it. He was a man of great courage and many resources, but as he sat under the beech tree he could think of nothing to do.

The day--one of many alarms and scattered firing--drew to its close.

The setting sun tinted river and woods with red, and Colonel Clark, still sitting under his tree and ransacking every corner of his brain, could not yet see a way. While he sat there, Henry Ware came to him, and taking off his hat, announced that he wished to make a proposition.

"Well, Henry, my lad," said the Colonel, kindly, "what is it that you have to say? As for me, I confess I don't know what to do."

"Somebody must go down the Licking and communicate with Colonel Logan,"

replied the youth. "I feel sure that he has not come up yet, and that he has not been in contact with the Indians. If his force could break through and join us, we could drive the Indians out of our path."

"Your argument is good as far as it goes," said Colonel Clark somewhat sadly, "but how are we to communicate with Logan? We are surrounded by a ring of fire. Not a man of ours dare go a hundred yards from camp. What way is there to reach Logan?"

"By water."

"By water? What do you mean?"

"Down the Ohio and up the Licking."

Colonel Clark stared at Henry.

"That's an easy thing to talk about," he said, "but who's going down the Ohio and then up the Licking for Logan?"

"I--with your permission."

Colonel Clark stared still harder, and his eyes widened a little with appreciation, but he shook his head.

"It's a patriotic and daring thing for you to propose, my boy," he said, "but it is impossible. You could never reach the mouth of the Licking even, and yours is too valuable a life to be thrown away in a wild attempt."