The Keepers of the Trail Part 37

"I'll do my best," said Paul, and Henry went about three hundred yards farther, lying close in a clump of laurel, where he could command a perfect view of the opposite sh.o.r.e, noticeable there because of a considerable dip. It was just such a place as the flanking warriors would naturally seek, because the crossing would be easier, and he intended to repel them himself.

He lay quite still for a quarter of an hour. Nothing stirred in the forest on the other sh.o.r.e, but he had expected to wait. The Indians, believing that a formidable force opposed them, would be slow and cautious in their advance. So he contained himself in patience, as he lay with the slender muzzle of his rifle thrust forward.

Finally, he saw the bushes on the opposite sh.o.r.e move, and a face, painted and ghastly, was thrust out. Others followed, a half-dozen altogether, and Henry saw them surveying the river and examining his own sh.o.r.e. The muzzle of his rifle moved forward a few inches more, but he knew that it would be an easy shot.

The leader of the warriors presently began to climb down the bank. He was a stalwart fellow and Henry knew by his paint that he was a Miami.

Again the great youth was loath to fire from ambush, but a desperate need drives scruples away, and the rifle muzzle, thrusting forward yet an inch or two more, bore directly upon the Indian's heart.

The man was halfway down the bank, about thirty feet high at that point, when Henry pulled the trigger. Then the Indian uttered his death yell, plunged forward and fell head foremost into the stream. His body shot from sight in the water, came up, floated a moment or two with the current and then sank back again. The other warriors, appalled, climbed back hastily, while from the bushes that fronted the ford below came a series of triumphant and tremendous shouts, as Long Jim, hearing the shot, poured forth all the glory of his voice.

Truly he surpa.s.sed himself. His earlier performance was dimmed by his later. The thickets, where he ranged back and forth, shouting his triumphant calls, seemed to be full of armed men. His voice sank a moment and then came the report of a shot down the stream, followed by the death cry. Long Jim knew that it was Shif'less Sol or Silent Tom who had pulled the fatal trigger and he began to sing of that triumph also.

Clear and full his voice came once more, moving rapidly from point to point, and Henry in his covert laughed to himself, and with satisfaction, at the long man's energy and success.

The great youth did not fail to watch the opposite sh.o.r.e, quite sure that the party would not retire with the loss of a single warrior, but would make an attempt elsewhere. His eyes continually searched the thickets, but they were so dense that they disclosed nothing. Then he moved slowly up the stream, believing that they would go farther for the second trial, and he was rewarded by the glimpse of a feather among the trees. That feather, he knew was interwoven with a scalp lock, and, as the slope of the bank there was gradual, he was sure that they were coming.

It seemed to Henry that verily the fates fought for him. He knew that they were going to try the crossing there, and they would be easy prey to the concealed marksman. Even as he knelt he heard Long Jim's voice raised again in his mighty song of triumph, and although he could not hear the shot now, he was certain that the rifle of Silent Tom or Shif'less Sol had found another victim. So they, too, were guarding the ford well, and he smiled to himself at the courage and skill of the invincible pair.

He saw another scalp lock appear, then another and another, until they were eight in all. The warriors remained for several minutes partly hidden, scanning the opposite sh.o.r.e, and then one only emerged into full view, as if he were feeling the way for the others. Henry changed his tactics, and, instead of waiting for the man to begin the descent of the cliff, fired at once. The warrior fell back in the bushes, where his body lay hidden, but the others set up the death cry, and Henry was so sure that they would not try the crossing again soon--at least not yet--that he went back to Paul's covert, and the two returned to Long Jim. Shif'less Sol and Silent Tom were called in and the leader said:

"I think we've done all we can here. We've created the impression of a great force to hold the ford. We've also made them think it can stretch far enough to watch its wings. Four warriors just fallen prove that.

They'll probably send scouts miles up and down the stream to cross, and then hunt us out, but that'll take time, until night at least, and maybe they won't know positively until morning, because scouting in the thickets in the face of an enemy is a dangerous business. So, I propose that we use the advantage we've gained."

"In what way?" asked Paul.

"We'll go now. We don't want 'em to find out how few we are, and we don't want 'em to learn, either, that we're we."

"That is, they must continue to think that we're behind 'em or on their flanks, and that this is another and larger force in their front."

"That's the idea. What say you?"

"I'm for it," said Paul.

"Votin' ez a high private I say too, let's leg it from here," said Long Jim.

"The jedgment o' our leader is so sound that thar ain't nothin' more to say," quoth the shiftless one.

"Let's go," said Silent Tom.

Then the little band, five against a thousand, rifles against cannon, that had victoriously held the ford, stole away with soundless tread through the greenwood. But they did not travel southward long. When darkness came they turned toward the east, and traveling many miles, made camp as they had done once before on a little island in a swamp, which they reached by walking on the dead and fallen trees of many years. There when they sat down under the trees they could not refrain from a few words of triumph and mutual congratulation, because another and most important link in the chain had been forged with brilliant success.

"Although it's dark and it's seven or eight miles away," said Shif'less Sol, "I kin see that Indian army now, a-settin' before the ford, an'

wonderin' how it's goin' to git across."

"An' I kin hear that savage army now, movin' up an' down, restless like," said Long Jim. "I kin hear them redcoat officers, an' them renegades, an' them Injun chiefs, grindin' thar upper teeth an' thar lower teeth together so hard with anger that they won't be able to eat in the mornin'."

"And I can see their wrath and chagrin tomorrow, when their scouts tell them no enemy is there," said Paul. "I can tell now how the white leaders and the red leaders will rage, and how they will wonder who the men were that held them."

"And I can read their minds ahead," said Henry. "The five of us will become not a hundred, but two hundred, and every pair of our hands will carry forty rifles."

"We've fooled 'em well," said Silent Tom, tersely.

"And now to sleep," said Henry, "because we must begin again in the morning."

Soon the five slept the deep sleep that comes after success.

CHAPTER XV

THE GREAT CULMINATION

It could almost be said of them, so sensitive were they to sound or even to a noiseless presence, that usually when sleeping they were yet awake, that, like the wild animals living in the same forest, warnings came to them on the wind itself, and that, though the senses were steeped in slumber, the sentinel mind was yet there. But this morning it was not so. They slept, not like forest runners, who breathe danger every hour, both day and night, but like city dwellers, secure against any foe.

It was Silent Tom who awoke first, to find the day advanced, the sun like a gigantic shield of red and gold in the western heavens, and the wind of spring blowing through the green foliage. He shook himself, somewhat like a big, honest dog, and not awakening the others, walked to the edge of their island in the swamp, the firm land not being more than thirty feet across.

But on this oasis the trees grew large and close and no one on the mainland beyond the swamp could have seen human beings there. The swamp was chiefly the result of a low region flooded by heavy spring rains, and in the summer would probably be as dry and firm as the oasis itself.

But, for the present, it was what the pioneers called "drowned lands"

and was an effective barrier against any ordinary march.

Silent Tom looked toward the north, and saw a coil of smoke against the brilliant blue of the sky. It was very far away, but he was quite sure that it came from the Indian camp, and its location indicated that they had not yet crossed the river. He felt intense satisfaction, but he did not even chuckle in his throat, after the border fashion. He had not been named Silent Tom for nothing. He was the oldest of the five, several years older than Long Jim, who was next in point of age, and he was often called Old Tom Ross, although in reality the "old" in that case was like the "old" that one college boy uses when he calls another "old fellow."

But if Silent Tom did not talk much he thought and felt a very great deal. The love of the wilderness was keen in him. Elsewhere he would have been like a lion in an iron-barred cage. And, like the rest of the five, he would have sacrificed his life to protect those little settlements of his own kind to the south. It has been said that usually when the five slept they were yet almost awake, but this morning when Silent Tom was awake he was also dreaming. He was dreaming of the great triumph that they had won on the preceding day: Five against a thousand!

Rifles against cannon! A triumph not alone of valor but of intellect, of wiles and stratagems, of tactics and management!

He did not possess, in the same great degree, the gift of imagination which illuminated so n.o.bly the minds and souls of Henry and Paul and the shiftless one, but he felt deeply, nevertheless. Matter-of-fact and practical, he recognized, that they had won an extraordinary victory, to attempt which would not even have entered his own mind, and knowing it, he not only gave all credit to those who had conceived it, but admired them yet the more. He was beginning to realize now that the impossible was nearly always the possible.

Life looked very good to Tom Ross that day. It was bright, keen and full of zest. A deeply religious man, in his way, he felt that the forest, the river, and all the unseen spirits of earth and air had worked for them. The birds singing so joyously among the boughs sang not alone for themselves, but also for his four comrades who slept and for him also.

He listened awhile, crossed the swamp on the fallen trees, scouted a little and then came back, quite sure that no warrior was within miles of them, as they were marching in another direction, and then returned to the oasis. The four still slept the sleep of the just and victorious.

Then Tom, the cunning, smiled to himself, and came very near to uttering a deep-throated chuckle.

Opening his little knapsack, he took out a cord of fishing line, with a hook, which, with wisdom, he always carried. He tied the line on the end of a stick, and, then going eastward from the oasis, he walked across the fallen or drifted trees until he came to the permanent channel of a creek, into which the flood waters drained. There he dropped his hook, having previously procured bait, worms found under a stone.

Doubtless no hook had ever been sunk in those waters before, and the fish leaped to the bait. In fifteen minutes he had half a dozen fine fellows, which he deftly cleaned with his hunting knife. Then he returned, soft-footed, to the island. The four, as he wished, still slept. After all, he did have imagination and, a feeling for surprise, and the dramatic. Had his comrades awakened then, before his preparations were complete, it would have spoiled his pleasure.

It was a short task for one such as he to use flint and steel, and kindle a fire on the low side of the island, facing toward the east, but yet within the circle of the trees. Dead wood was lying everywhere and it burned rapidly. Then, quickly broiling the fish on sharpened ends of twigs and laying them on green leaves, he went back and awakened the four, who opened their eyes and sat up at the same time.

"What's the smell that's ticklin' my nose?" exclaimed Long Jim.

"Fish," replied Silent Tom gruffly. "Breakfast's ready! Come on!"

The four leaped to their feet, and followed the pleasant odor which grew stronger and more savory as they advanced.

"Ain't cooked like you kin do it," said Silent Tom to Long Jim, "but I done my best."

"Kings could do no more," said the shiftless one, "an' this is the finest surprise I've had in a 'c.o.o.n's age. I wuz gettin' mighty tired o'