The Keepers of the Trail Part 22

"What's the matter down there, I wonder," exclaimed Paul.

"Before I could get in here," replied Henry, "I had to choke the breath out of one of their best warriors. I fancy he has just come to and has told the others."

Then the war cry died away and there was nothing but the shriek of the wind that drove drops of rain into the opening.

"How long have you been besieged here?" asked Henry.

"Today and tonight," replied Paul. "Either they struck our trail or some one of them may have been in this grotto once. At any rate a band started up here and we were compelled to fire into 'em. That's our history, since. What have you seen?"

"The main army has gone south with the cannon, but Red Eagle, Braxton Wyatt and Blackstaffe are here. If they can't rush us they'll at least hold us three or four days, or try mighty hard. But I want a drink of water I hear trickling over there. I'm thirsty from all the crawling and creeping I've done."

He knelt and drank deep at the pure little stream.

"Now, Henry," said Silent Tom, "sence you've come I reckon you're mighty tired. You've been trampin' about in the woods a heap. So jest stretch out an' go to sleep while we watch."

"I don't mind if I do," replied Henry, who at last was beginning to feel the effects of his immense exertions. "How are you fellows fixed for food?"

"This ain't no banquet hall an' we ain't settin' dinners fur kings,"

replied Long Jim, "but we've got enough to last a good while. Afore they found out we wuz here Tom went out one night an' killed a deer an'

brought him in. While he wuz gone I took the trouble to gather some wood, which is in the back part uv the place, but 'cause o' smoke an'

sech we ain't lighted any fire, an' no part of the deer hez been cooked."

"I brought a big piece of bear myself," said Henry, unhooking it from his back, "and it was cooked by an Indian, the best cook in all these woods except you, Jim. He wasn't willing for me to take it, but here it is."

Long Jim deposited it carefully in a corner and covered it with leaves.

"Ef people always brought somethin' when they come visitin'," he said, "they'd sh.o.r.ely be welcome ez you are, Henry."

But before he lay down Henry listened a while at the fortress mouth, and the others listened with him. If they heard shots it would indicate that the Indians in some manner had caught sight of Shif'less Sol and were pursuing him. But no sound came out of the vast dark void, save the shriek of the wind and the beat of the rain. Henry had no doubt that the warrior whom he had choked nearly to death was now with his comrades, raging for vengeance, and yet he had been spared when few in like case would have shown him mercy.

The wilderness, black, cold and soaking, looked unutterably gloomy, but he felt no worry about those whom he had left behind. The shiftless one like himself was a true son of the wilderness and he would be as clever as a fox in finding a warm, dry hole. They had forged the first link in their intended chain, and Henry felt the glow of success.

"I think I'll go to sleep now," he said. "I'm pretty well soaked with the rain, but I managed to keep my blanket dry. If the warriors attack, Jim, wake me up in time to put on my clothes. I wouldn't like to go into a battle without 'em."

He removed his wet buckskins and spread them out on the stone floor to dry. Then he wrapped himself in his blanket, raked up some of the dry leaves as a couch, and lay down, feeling a double glow, that of warmth and that of success. What a glorious place it was! All things are measured by contrast. After the black and cold wilderness, swarming with dangers, this was the other extreme. The Caesar in his palace hall and the Persian under his vaulted dome could not feel so much comfort, nor yet so much luxury, as Henry in this snug and warm room in the stone with his brave and faithful friends around him.

Truly it was a n.o.ble place! He heard the trickle of the little stream, like a jet of water flowing over marble, and into a marble fountain.

Above him was a stone ceiling, carved by the ages, and beneath him was a stone floor made by the same master hand. The leaves were very soft to one so thoroughly hardened of body as he, and the blanket was warm. The roaring of the wind outside was turned to music here, and it mingled pleasantly with the trickle of the little stream.

While the forest runner was capable of tremendous and long exertions, he also had acquired the power of complete relaxation when the time came.

Now all of Henry's nerves were quiet, a deep peace came over him quickly, and he slept.

CHAPTER X

BESIEGED

Henry did not awake the next day after his usual fashion, that is with all his faculties and senses alert, for the strain on him had been so great that the process required a minute or two. Then he looked around the little fortress which so aptly could be called a hole in the wall.

Many dried leaves had been brought in and placed in five heaps, the fifth for Shif'less Sol when he should come. The dressed deer, rolled in leaves, lay at the far end. The little stream was trickling away, singing its eternal pleasant song, and a bright shaft of sunlight, entering, illuminated one part of the cave but left the other in cool dusk.

Silent Tom sat by the side of the door watching, his rifle on his knees.

Nothing that moved in the foliage in front of them could escape his eyes. Long Jim was slicing the cooked venison with his hunting knife, and Paul, sitting on his own particular collection of leaves with his back against the wall, was polishing his hatchet. It looked more like a friendly group of hunters than a band fighting to escape death by torture. And despite the real fact the sense of comfort was strong.

Henry knew by the sunlight that the rain had pa.s.sed and that a warm clear day was at hand. He inferred, too, that nothing had happened while he slept, and rising he drank at the stream, after which he bathed his face, and resumed his buckskin clothing which had dried.

"Good sleep," said Paul.

"Fine," said Henry.

"You showed great judgment in choosing your inn."

"I knew that I would find here friends, a bed, water, food and a roof."

"Everything, in fact, except fire."

"Which we can do without for a while."

"But I would say that the special pride of the inn is the roof.

Certainly no rain seems to have got through it last night."

"It's fifteen or twenty feet thick, and you will notice that the ceiling has been sculptured by a great artist."

Henry had seen it before, but he observed it more closely now, with all its molded ridges and convolutions.

"Nature does work well, sometimes," he said.

Long Jim handed him strips of venison.

"Eat your breakfast," he said. "I'm sorry, Mr. Visitor, that I kin offer you only one thing to eat, but as you came late an' we haven't much chance to git anythin' else you'll hev to put up with it. But thar's plenty uv water. You kin drink all day long, ef you like."

Henry accepted the venison, ate heartily, drank again, and went to the door where Silent Tom was watching.

"Look through the little crack thar," said Tom, "an' you kin see everythin' that's to be seen without bein' seen."

Henry took a long and comprehensive look. He saw the thick foliage down the slope, and the equally thick foliage on the other side. It looked beautiful in its deep green, still heavy with the rain drops of the night before, despite a brilliant sun that was rising. The wind had died down to a gentle murmur.

"Anything stirring, Tom?" he asked.

"Nothin' fur some time. 'Bout an hour ago I caught the shine o' a red blanket 'mong them trees over thar, four hundred yards or so from us an'

too fur fur a shot."

"Do you think they'll try to rush us?"

Silent Tom shook his head.