The Free Rangers Part 17

"That's so," said the shiftless one brightening up. "What am I growlin'

about, when here's a river, mebbe ten thousand miles long that we know next to nothin' 'bout, an' buffalers an' b'ars an' panthers an' deer to shoot, an' red Injuns to fight ez long ez I live. After all, we're sh.o.r.ely mighty lucky to live at the time we do, ez I've said before. Do you think thar'll ever be any times hereafter as interestin' ez ourn, Paul?"

"I can't say," replied Paul with a smile, "but they're not likely to be as interesting to us."

They went on their way, and the air became still warmer. Moreover, it grew heavy and oppressive, and the spring rains were resumed with great violence. They had worked meanwhile on their tarpaulin, enlarging and strengthening it with skins which they had allowed to dry on the boat, and they rested, sheltered and secure, as they floated along.

Although Frenchmen had gone up and down the river long before, they felt like genuine explorers. So little was known of the mighty stream that they regarded every stretch and turn with keen interest. It was not beautiful now, a vast, brown flood flowing between low and changing sh.o.r.es, but in its size and loneliness it had a majesty peculiarly its own.

Wild geese and wild ducks flew over the river in abundance, and they were so little used to man that often they pa.s.sed near "The Galleon." The fowling pieces proved useful again, as the five were able to sit in comfort on their boat and shoot geese and ducks for their needs. Some were of kinds that they had never seen before, but all proved to be good eating, and they were welcome.

Jim Hart also exercised his ingenuity in a very useful manner. In the prow of the boat, but under the tarpaulin, he spread a layer of mud about two inches thick. Protected from the rain, it soon dried, forming a hard, impervious, brick-like covering for the bottom of the boat, and upon this he built a small smothered fire of dry sticks, a supply of which they kept in the boat. Here Jim, with all the skill and delicacy of a gastronomic artist, would cook their wild ducks and wild geese, and, considering the limited area and resources for the exercise of his favorite occupation, he did extremely well. Nor was it any longer necessary for them to run in to the sh.o.r.e and worry in the dripping forest with wet wood.

"It ain't like that stove we built the time we wuz on the ha'nted islan',"

Long Jim would say, "but it's a heap sight better than nothin."

"It sh.o.r.ely is," said Shif'less Sol. "You ain't much account for anything, Jim, but you kin cook a leetle bit."

Long Jim smiled contentedly.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CHATEAU OF BEAULIEU

They noticed one day a high bluff shooting up on the eastern bank and running along for some distance. It was clothed in dense green forest, and it was rather a welcome break in the monotony of the low sh.o.r.es.

"A big city will be built there some day," said the prophetic Paul.[B]

"Now, Paul, why in tarnation do you say that?" exclaimed Tom Ross.

"Why, because it's such a good place. It's a high hill on a great river so well suited to navigation, and it has a vast, rich country behind it."

But Tom Ross shook his head.

"Seems to me, Paul," he said, "that you're bitin' off a lot more'n you can chaw. Things that are to happen a hundred years from now ain't never happenin' fur me."

But Paul merely smiled and held to his opinion.

On the following day they tied up at a point, where the river began a sharp and wide curve around a long, narrow peninsula. It was just about dark when they stopped and, as usual, they were able to run the boat into dense foliage at the margin, where not even the keenest eye could see it.

"We've got plenty of goose and duck left over from dinner," said Henry, "so I'm thinking, Jim, that you'd better not light the fire on your bricks to-night."

"All right," replied Jim, "I don't mind restin'. I feel about ez lazy ez Sol Hyde looks."

But Henry Ware had another and more important thing in mind. His was the keenest eye of them all, and just before landing he had noticed to the southward and on the other side of the peninsula a faint, dark line against the edge of the sunset. Few, even with an eye good enough to see it, would have taken it for anything but a wisp of cloud, but the physical sense of Henry Ware, so acute that it bordered upon intuition, was not deceived.

"Sol," he said after they had eaten a little, "let's walk across this neck of land and explore a bit."

"It's a dark night to be traveling," said Paul. But Henry only laughed.

Tom Ross may have had his suspicions, but he did not deem it worth while to say anything. He knew that Henry and Shif'less Sol were quite competent to achieve any task that they might be undertaking.

Henry and Sol strolled carelessly into the bush, but before they had gone a dozen steps their whole manner changed. Each became eager and alert.

"What is it, Henry?" asked Shif'less Sol. "What have you seed?"

"Smoke! the smoke of a camp fire and it's on the other side of this neck.

I think it's the camp of Alvarez. He must have been going more slowly than we thought."

"We'll soon find out," said Shif'less Sol, as they advanced.

But the task was not as easy as they had thought. The peninsula was very low and the greater part of it had been overflowed recently. Their feet, no matter how lightly they stepped, sank in the mire, and when they pulled them out again the mud emitted a sticky sigh. An owl perched in a tree, high above the marsh, began to hoot dismally, and Shif'less Sol uttered a growl.

"I wish we had the big, dry woods o' Kentucky to go through," he whispered to Henry. "I ain't much o' a mud-crawler."

"But as we haven't got those big, dry woods," Henry whispered back, "we'll have to crawl, creep, or walk through the mud."

It was about two miles across the neck, and as they went very slowly for fear of making noise, it took them a full hour to reach the other side, or to come near enough to see what might be there. Then they found that Henry's belief, or rather intuition, was right.

They could see quite well from the dense covert. All the Spanish boats were tied up at the sh.o.r.e and two or three fires had been built for the purposes of cooking. The soldiers in their picturesque costumes lounged about. The hum of conversation and now and then a laugh arose.

Henry soon marked Francisco Alvarez. The Spanish leader sat on a little heap of boughs on the highest and dryest spot in the camp, and all who approached him did so with every sign of respect--if they spoke it was hat in hand.

The firelight fell in a red blaze across the face of Francisco Alvarez and revealed every feature in minute detail to the keen eyes in the covert. It was a thin, haughty face, clear-cut and cruel, but just now it's air was that of satisfaction, as if in the opinion of Francisco Alvarez all things were going well with his plans. Henry believed that he could guess his thoughts. "He thinks that the Spanish are already committed against us and that he and Braxton Wyatt with a force of Spaniards and the tribes will yet destroy our settlements in Kentucky."

Thinking of Braxton Wyatt he looked for him and, as he looked, the renegade came from a point near the sh.o.r.e toward the commander. It was evident that Wyatt had been faring well. His frontier dress had been partly replaced with gay Spanish garments. He now wore a cap with a feather in it, and a velvet doublet. He, too, had a most complacent look.

Wyatt approached Alvarez and the commander courteously invited him to a seat on the hillock near him. When he took the seat a soldier brought the renegade a cup of wine, and he drank, first lifting the cup toward Alvarez as if he drank a toast to the success of the alliance. There could be no doubt about the perfect understanding of the two; and Henry's anger rose.

It was impossible to set a limit to what a ruthless and determined man like Francisco Alvarez might do.

Wyatt rose presently after a nod to the commander and walked among the soldiers. He seemed to have no particular object in view and his strollings brought him near to the edge of the swampy forest.

"Perhaps he's spying about, and will come into the woods where we are,"

whispered Henry. "Maybe he has those maps and plans upon him, and it would be a great thing to get them. I don't believe he could make a new set soon."

"It's a risky thing to try," said Shif'less Sol, "but ef he comes in here, an' you think it the best thing to do, I'm ready to help."

The two crouched a little lower and remained breathless. Braxton Wyatt strolled on. He was making a sort of vague inspection of the camp, but he was really thinking more about the great triumph that he saw ahead. Since he had turned renegade, leaving his own white race to join the Indians, a thing that was sometimes done, he had been stung by many defeats and he wished a great revenge that would pour oil upon all these wounds.

A bad nature grows worse with failure. Seeking to injure his former people and failing at every turn, Braxton Wyatt hated them more and more all the time. His wrath was particularly directed against the five who had been such great instruments in sending his careful plans astray. His scheme with the Indian league had failed chiefly through them, but he felt that he could now come with a Spanish force that would prove irresistible. That was why he glowed with internal warmth and pride. The settlements would be destroyed and he, in fact, would be the destroyer.

Braxton Wyatt entered the edge of the woods, still occupied with the cruel triumph that was to be his. He did not notice that the foliage was gradually shutting out the firelight. Presently he saw, or believed that he saw, a shadowy but terrible figure. It was the figure of the one whom he dreaded most on earth.

It was but a glimpse of a form, seen through the bushes, but Wyatt's blood turned cold in every vein. He uttered a half-choked cry, and running back through the bushes, sprang into the firelight. Two or three Spanish soldiers looked at him in amazement, but he was not a coward, and he had pride of a kind. As soon as he leaped back into the firelight he felt that he had made a fool of himself. Henry Ware could not have been there--he and his comrades had been left behind long ago. Coming suddenly out of his thoughts, he had been deceived in the dark by a bush and imagination had done the rest. Yes, it was only fancy!

"A rattlesnake! I nearly trod on him," he said in broken Spanish words that he had picked up, and then walked in as careless a manner as he could a.s.sume toward the mound where Francisco Alvarez sat. But he could not wholly control himself--the shock had been too great--and his body yet trembled. He did not know it, but the pallor of his face showed through the tan, and Alvarez noticed it.