The Keepers of the Trail Part 33

He held out his hand and as Wyatt took it, his face cleared. Then the three turned to animated talk about their plans. It was agreed that they should push on in the morning at all speed, and join the main band and the artillery. Dangerous as these cannon were, Henry saw that the Indians gave them almost magic powers. They would completely blow away the settlements, and the forests would soon grow again, where the white man had cut a little open place for himself with the ax.

The conference over, Red Eagle wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down with his feet toward the fire. Again Henry felt an impulse of respect for him. He was true to his race and his inheritance, while the renegades were false in everything to theirs. He did not depart from the customs and thoughts bred into him by many generations, but the renegades violated every teaching of their own race that had brought civilization to the world, and he hated and despised them.

He saw Blackstaffe and Wyatt wrap themselves in their blankets and also lie down with their feet to the fire. All the Indians were at rest save two sentinels. Henry watched this strange scene a few minutes longer.

The coals were dying fast and now he saw but indistinctly the figures of white men and red men, joined in a compact to destroy his people utterly, from the oldest man and woman to the youngest child.

Henry did not know it, but he was as much a knight of chivalry and romance as any mailed figure that ever rode with glittering lance.

Beneath the buckskin hunting shirt beat a heart as dauntless as that of Amadis of Gaul or Palmerin of England, although there were no bards in the great forest to sing of his deeds and of the deeds of those like him.

He intended to stay only two or three minutes longer, but he lingered nevertheless. The Indian campfire gave forth hardly a glimmer. The figures save those of the sentinels became invisible. The wind blew gently and sang among the leaves, as if the forest were always a forest of peace, although from time immemorial, throughout the world, it had been stained by bloodshed. But the forest spell which came over him at times was upon him now. The rippling of the leaves under the wind he translated into words, and once more they sang to him the song of success.

This new task of his, straight through the heart of danger, had been achieved, and in his modesty, which was a modesty of thought as well as word, he did not ascribe it to any strength or skill in himself, but to the fact that a Supreme Being had chosen him for a time as an instrument, and was working through him. Like nearly all who live in the forest and spend most of their lives in the presence of nature, he invariably felt the power of invisible forces, directed by an omniscient and omnipotent mind, which the Indian has crystallized into the name Manitou, the same as G.o.d to Henry.

For that reason this forest spell was also the spirit of thankfulness.

He had been guided and directed so far, and he felt that the guidance and direction would continue. All the omens and prophecies remained good, and, with the wind in the leaves still singing the song of victory in his ears, he silently crept away, inch by inch, even as he had come.

Well beyond the Indian ear, he rose and returned swiftly to his comrades.

Ross was still on guard and the others sleeping when Henry's figure appeared through the dusk, but they awoke and sat up when he called, low, to them.

"What are you wakin' us up fur, Henry?" asked the shiftless one, as he rubbed a sleepy eye. "Are the warriors comin'? Ef so, I'd like to put on my silk knee breeches, an' my bee-yu-ti-ful new silk stockin's an' my new shoes with the big silver buckles, afore I run through the forest fur my life."

"No, they're not coming, Sol," said Henry. "They're asleep off there and tomorrow morning Blackstaffe, Braxton Wyatt, Red Eagle and the others hurry on to join the main band."

"How do you know that, Henry?"

"They told me."

"You've been settin' laughin' an' talkin' with 'em, right merry, I reckon."

"They told me, just as I said. They told me their plan in good plain Shawnee."

"An' how come Braxton Wyatt with Red Eagle and Blackstaffe?"

"Leaving a fruitless quest, he overtook them. I was lying in the thicket, in hearing distance, when Wyatt came up with his men, joined Blackstaffe and Red Eagle, and had to tell them of his failure."

"You sh.o.r.ely do hev all the luck, Henry. I'd hev risked my life an'

risked it mighty close, to hev seed that scene."

Then Henry told them more in detail of the meeting and of the plans that Red Eagle and the two renegades had talked over, drawing particular attention to the net the Indians intended to spread for the five.

"'Pears to me," said Shif'less Sol, "that the right thing fur us to do is to make a big curve--we're hefty on curves--an' go clear 'roun' in front of the band. They'll be lookin' fur us everywhere, 'cept right thar, an' while they're a-plottin' an' a-plannin' an' a-spreadin' out their nets, we'll be a-plottin' an' a-plannin' an' mebbe a-doin' too what we've undertook to do."

"The very thing," said Henry.

"A true strategic march," said Paul.

"Looks like sense," said Silent Tom.

"You do hev rays o' reason at times, Sol," said Long Jim.

"Then it's agreed," said Henry. "We'll take a little more rest, and, soon after daylight, we'll start on one of our great flying marches."

Paul and Long Jim kept the watch, and, not long after the sun rose, they were up and away again. They were now beginning to forge another link in their chain, and, as usual, the spirits of all five rose when they began a fresh enterprise. Their feet were light, as they sped forward, and every sense was acute. They were without fear as they marched on the arc of the great circle that they had planned. They were leaving so wide a s.p.a.ce between themselves and the great trail that they could only meet a wandering Indian hunter or two, and of all such they could take care easily.

In truth, so free were they from any kind of apprehension, that plenty of room was left in their minds to take note of the wilderness, which was here new to them. But it was their wilderness, nevertheless, all these fine streams and rolling hills, and deer that sprang up from their path, and the magnificent forest everywhere clothing the earth in its beautiful robe of deepest green, which in the autumn would be an equally beautiful robe of red and yellow and brown.

Their curve was toward the west, and all that day they followed it. They saw the golden sun go creeping up the blue arch of the heavens, hang for a while at the zenith, as if it were poised there to pour down perpendicular beams, and then go sliding slowly down the western sky to be lost in a red sea of fire. And the view of all the glory of the world, though they saw it every day, was fresh and keen to them all. The shiftless one was moved to speech.

"When I go off to some other planet," he said, "I don't want any new kind o' a world. I want it to be like this with big rivers and middle-sized rivers and little rivers, all kinds o' streams an' lakes, and the woods, green in the spring an' red an' yellow in the fall, an'

winter, too, which hez its beauties with snow an' ice, an' red roarin'

fires to keep you warm, an' the deer an' the buff'ler to hunt. I want them things 'cause I'm used to 'em. A strange, new kind o' world wouldn't please me. I hold with the Injuns that want to go to the Happy Huntin' Grounds, an' I 'xpect it's the kind o' Heaven that the Book means fur fellers like me."

"Do you think you're good enough to go to Heaven, Sol?" asked Long Jim.

The shiftless one deliberated a moment and then replied thoughtfully:

"I ain't so good, Jim, but I reckon I'm good enough to go to Heaven.

People bein' what people be, an' me bein' what I am, all with a pow'ful lot to fight ag'inst an' born with somethin' o' the old Nick in us, an'

not bein' able to change our naturs much, no matter how hard we try, I reckon I hev a mighty fine chance o' Heaven, which, ez I said, I want to be a world, right smart like this, only a heap bigger an' finer. But I don't mean to go thar for seventy or eighty years yet, 'cause I want to give this earth a real fa'r trial."

In which the shiftless one had his wish, as he lived to be a hundred, and his eyes were clear and his voice strong to the last.

"That's a mighty fine picture you draw, Sol," said Long Jim, appreciatively, "an' if you're up thar settin' on the bank uv a river that looks plum' like runnin' silver with green trees a thousand feet high risin' behind you, you ketchin' fish thirty or forty feet long, an'

ef you should happen to turn an' look 'roun' an' see comin' toward you a long-legged ornery feller that you used ter cahoot with in the wilderness on both sides uv the Ohio, would you rise up, drop them big fish an' your fishin' pole, come straight between the trunks uv them green trees a thousand feet high toward that ornery lookin' long-legged feller what wuz new to the place, stretch out your right hand to him, an' say: 'Welcome to Heaven Long Jim Hart. Come right in an' make yourself to home, 'cause you're goin' to live with us a million an' a billion years, an' all the rest uv the time thar is. Your fishin' pole is down thar by the bank. I've been savin' it fur you. Henry is 'bout a mile farther up the stream pullin' in a whale two hundred feet long that he's had his eye on fur some time. Paul is down thar, settin' under a bush readin' a book uv gold letters on silver paper with diamonds set in the cover, an' Tom Ross is on that hill, 'way acrost yonder, lookin' at a herd uv buff'ler fifty miles wide which hez been travelin' past fur a month.' Now, Sol, would you give your old pardner that kind uv a welcome?"

"Would I Jim? You know I would. I'd blow on a trumpet an' call all the boys straight from what they wuz doin' to come a-runnin' an' meet you.

An' I'd interduce you to all our new friends. An' I'd show you the best huntin' grounds an' the finest fishin' holes right away, an' when night come all o' us with our new friends would hev a big feast an'

celebration over you. An' all o' us thar in Heaven that knowed you, Jim, would be right proud o' you."

"I knowed that you'd take me right in, Sol," said Long Jim, as they shook hands over the future.

"Now for the night," said Henry. "We must be at least fifteen miles west of the great trail, and as the woods are so full of game I don't think any of the Indian hunters will find it necessary to come this far for it. So, I propose that we have a little warm food ourselves. We need it by this time."

"That's the talk," said Long Jim. "It would be jest a taste uv Heaven right now. What wuz you thinkin' to hev fur our supper table, Henry?"

"I had an idea that all of us would like turkey. I've been noticing turkey signs for some time, and there, Jim! don't you hear that gobbling away off to the right? They're settling into the trees for the night, and it should be easy to get a couple. Just now I think turkey would be the finest thing in the world."

"I've a mighty strong hankerin' after turkey myself an' the way I kin cook turkey is a caution to sinners. Ever since you said turkeys a half minute ago, Henry, I'm famishin'. Bring on your turkey, the cook's ready."

"Me an' Sol will go an' git 'em," said Tom Ross, and the two slipped away in the twilight toward the sound of the gobbling. Presently they heard two shots and then the hunters came back, each with a fat bird.

Selecting a dip from which flames could be seen only a little distance, they dressed the turkeys in frontier fashion and Long Jim, his culinary pride strong within him, cooked them to a turn. Then they ate long, and were unashamed.

"Jest a touch o' Heaven right now," said Shif'less Sol, in tones of deep conviction. "This is the healthy life here, an' it makes a feller jump when he oughter jump. Me bein' a naterally lazy man, I'd be likely to lay 'roun' an' eat myself so fat I couldn't walk, but the Injun's don't give me time. Jest when I begin to put on flesh they take after me an' I run it all off. You wouldn't think it, but Injuns has their uses, arter all."

"Keep people from comin' out here too fast," said Ross. "Think they wuz put in the wilderness to save it, an' they will, long after my time."

"Why, Tom," said the shiftless one, "you're becomin' real talkative. I think that's the longest speech I ever heard you make."

"Tom is certainly growing garrulous," said Paul.