The Keepers of the Trail Part 40

"Technically only. At the present time I'm making no boasts."

"Now, you go back to your colonel and the renegades and the red chiefs and tell them they'll find no thoroughfare to the white settlements."

"So, you don't mean to kill me?"

"No, we don't do that sort of thing. Since we can't hold you a prisoner now, we release you. It's likely that you don't know your way to your own camp, but your red comrade here will guide you. My friend didn't break his skull, when he struck him with the b.u.t.t of his rifle, though it was a shrewd blow. He's coming to."

Cawthorne looked down at the reviving savage, and then looked up to thank the foresters, but they were gone. They had vanished so quickly and silently that he had not heard them going. Had it not been for the savage who was now sitting up he would not have believed that it was real.

Henry and the shiftless one had dropped down in the bushes only a little distance away, and, by the moonlight, they saw the look of bewilderment on the face of the young Englishman.

"It don't hardly look fair to our people that we should let him go,"

said the shiftless one.

"But we had to," Henry whispered back. "It was either kill him or let him go, and neither you nor I, Sol, could kill him. You know that."

"Yes, I know it."

"Now, the warrior has all his senses back, though his head is likely to ache for a couple of days. We don't lose anything by letting them have their lives, Sol. The talk of their encounter with us will grow mightily as they go back to the Indian army. The warrior scarcely caught a glimpse of us, and he's likely to say that he was struck down by an evil spirit. Cawthorne's account of his talk with us will not weaken him in his belief. Instead it will make him sure that we're demons who spared them in order that they might carry a warning to their comrades."

"I see it, Henry. It's boun' to be the way you say it is, an' our luck is still workin' fur us."

They saw the English lad and the warrior turn back toward the camp, and then they rose, going away swiftly at a right angle from their original course. After pursuing it a while, they curved in again toward the camp.

In a half-hour they saw the distant flare of lights, and knew that they were close to the Indian army. They were able by stalking, carried on with infinite pains and skill, to approach so near that they could see into the open, where the fires were burning, but not near enough to achieve anything of use.

Alloway, Cartwright, the renegades and the chiefs stood together, and Cawthorne, and the warrior who had been with him, stood before them.

Evidently they had just got back, and were telling their tale. Both of the foresters laughed inwardly. Their achievement gave them much pleasure, and they felt that they were making progress toward forging the new link in the chain.

"Can you see the cannon?" whispered Shif'less Sol.

"Over there at the far edge. The ammunition wagons carrying the powder and the b.a.l.l.s and the grapeshot are drawn up between them. But we can't get at 'em, Sol. Not now, at least."

"No, but see, Henry, a lot of them warriors are beginnin' to dance, an'

thar are two medicine men among 'em. They've overheard the news o' what we've done, an' they're gittin' excited. They're sh.o.r.e now the evil sperrits are all 'roun' 'em."

"Looks like it, Sol, and those medicine men are not afraid of Alloway, the renegades, the chiefs or anybody else. They're encouraging the dancing."

Henry and the shiftless one saw the medicine men through the glow of the lofty flames, and they looked strange and sinister to the last degree.

One was wrapped in a buffalo hide with the head and horns over his own head, the other was made up as a bear. The glare through which they were seen, magnified them to twice or thrice their size, and gave them a tint of blood. They looked like two monsters walking back and forth before the warriors.

"The seed we planted is sh.o.r.ely growin' up good an' strong," whispered Shif'less Sol.

More and more warriors joined in the chant of the medicine men. The two saw Alloway gesture furiously toward them, and then they saw Yellow Panther and Red Eagle shake their heads. The two interpreted the movements easily. Alloway wanted the chiefs to stop the chanting which had in it the double note of awe and fear, and Yellow Panther and Red Eagle disclaimed any power to do so.

Again the foresters laughed inwardly, as the monstrous and misshapen figures of the two medicine men careered back and forth in the flaming light. They knew that at this moment their power over the warriors was supreme. The more Alloway raged the more he weakened his own influence.

"An' now they're dancin' with all their might," whispered the shiftless one. "Look how they bound an' twist an' jump! Henry, you an' me have seed some wild sights together, but this caps 'em."

It was in truth a most extraordinary scene, this wild dance of the hundreds in the depths of the primeval forest. Around and around they went, led by the two medicine men, the bear and the buffalo, and the hideous, monotonous chant swelled through all the forest. It did not now contain the ring of triumph and antic.i.p.ation. Instead it was filled with grief for the fallen, fear of the evil spirits that filled the air, and of Manitou who had turned his face away from them.

Alloway and the white men who were left, drew to one side. Henry could imagine the rage of the colonel at his helplessness, and he could imagine too that he must feel a thrill of awe at the wild scene pa.s.sing before him. The time and the circ.u.mstances must work upon the feelings of a white man, no matter how stout his heart.

"If we could strike another good strong blow now," said the shiftless one, "I think they would break into a panic."

"True," said Henry, "but we must not depart from our original purpose to get at the cannon. I don't think we can do it tonight and so we'd better withdraw. Maybe we'll have another chance tomorrow night."

"I'm agreein' with you, Henry, an' I'm beginnin' to think mighty like the warriors do, that Manitou, which is jest their name for our G.o.d, turns his face upon you or turns his face away from you."

"It looks so, Sol. I suppose the Indians in most ways don't differ much from us. Only they're a lot more superst.i.tious."

Slowly they crept away, but when they finally rose to their feet in the depths of the forest they could still see the glow of the great fires behind them. Henry and the shiftless one knew that the Indians had been heaping logs upon coals until the flames sprang up fifteen or twenty feet, and that around them nearly the whole army was now dancing and singing. The wailing note of so many voices still reached them, shrill, piercing and so full of lament that the nerves of the forest runners themselves were upset.

"I want to git away from here," said the shiftless one, and then he added wistfully: "I wish we could strike our big blow, whatever it is, tonight, Henry. Their state o' mind is terrible. They're right on edge, an' ef we could do somethin' they'd break, sh.o.r.e."

"I know it," said Henry, "but we're not able to get at what we want to reach."

Nevertheless they stood there, and listened some time to the wailing note of all the hundreds who were oppressed and afraid, because the face of Manitou was so obviously turned from them.

Henry and the shiftless one, as they returned toward their comrades whom they had left behind, did not relax their caution, knowing that hunting parties were still abroad, and that veteran chiefs like Yellow Panther and Red Eagle had sent scouts ahead. Twice they struck trails, and fragments of feathers left on the bushes by warriors returning with turkeys.

They were at least two miles from the camp when they heard noises that indicated the pa.s.sage of a small body of the Indians, and as they stepped behind trees to conceal themselves Shif'less Sol's foot suddenly sank with a bubbling sound into an oozy spot. In an instant, all the Indians stopped. Henry and his comrade heard rustling sounds for a moment, and then there was complete silence. The two knew that the warriors had taken to cover, and that probably they would not escape without a fight. They were intensely annoyed as they wished to return to Paul, Long Jim and Silent Tom.

The shiftless one withdrew his foot from the ooze, and he and Henry crouched on dry ground, watching with eye and ear for any movement in the thicket opposite. They knew that the warriors, with infinite patience, were waiting in the same manner, and it was likely that the delay would be long.

"Luck has turned ag'in us fur a little bit," whispered Shif'less Sol, "but I can't think that after favorin' us fur so long it'll leave us fur good."

"I don't think so either," said Henry. "I hear one of them moving."

"That bein' the case we'll lay nearly flat," said Shif'less Sol.

It was well they did so, as a rifle flashed in the thicket before them, and a bullet cut the leaves over their heads. They did not reply, but crept silently to one side. A few minutes later another bullet crashed through the bushes at the same place, and this time Henry fired by the flash. He heard a low cry, followed by silence and he was sure that his bullet had struck a target. Shif'less Sol held his rifle ready in case a rush should come, but there was none, and Henry reloaded rapidly.

A full half-hour of waiting followed, in which only a single shot was fired, and that by the warriors, to go wide of the mark, as usual, and the wrath of Henry and the shiftless one, at being held there so long, became intense. It seemed the veriest piece of irony that this unfortunate chance should have occurred, but Henry presently recalled the arrangement they had made with the three, wondering why they had not thought of it sooner.

"The warriors are before us," he whispered to Shif'less Sol, "and Long Jim, Paul and Tom are behind us. They may have heard the rifle shots or they may not, but at any rate there is something that will carry further."

"You mean the howl of the wolf! O' course, that's our call to them."

"Yes, and if we bring 'em up it won't be hard to drive off this band."

"Let me give the signal then, Henry. Ef Long Jim is the best yeller among us mebbe I'm the best howler. I'm right proud o' bein' a wolf sometimes, an' I feel like one jest now."

"Go back then some distance," said Henry. "When the boys come up you must meet 'em and not let 'em run into any ambush."

The shiftless one glided away toward the rear, and Henry, lying almost flat on the gra.s.s and watching the thickets in front of him so intensely that no warrior could have crept out of them unseen, waited. At the end of five minutes he heard behind him a note, low at first, but swelling gradually so high that it pierced the sky and filled the forest. It was fierce, prolonged, seeming to come from the throat of a monster wolf, and, as it died away, a similar cry came from a point far back in the forest. The wolf near by howled again, and the wolf deep in the forest replied in like fashion. The signal was complete, and Henry knew that Paul, Silent Tom and Long Jim would come fast to help.

There was a stirring in the thicket before him, evidently prompted by the signals, and another vain bullet crashed through the bushes. Henry fired once more at the flash, but he could not tell whether or not he had hit anything, although it was sufficient to hold the warriors in the bush. Evidently they did not consider themselves strong enough for a rush, and again he waited patiently, judging that the three would arrive in twenty minutes at the furthest.