The Phantom of the River Part 32

"But he'll fight like a wounded catamount, He is sure he'll wipe me out and send me under this time, and that he can go on shootin' settlers in the back, tomahawking women and children without stoppin' to bother with me. Somehow or other I don't feel as sartin in this matter as afore, but I wouldn't let this chance of closing accounts with The Panther pa.s.s by for the whole of Kentucky--sh! there he comes!"

A rustle, such as a quail might have made in walking over the leaves, caused the ranger to turn his head like a flash. The undergrowth parted, and Wa-on-mon, chief of the Shawanoes, stepped into full view hardly ten feet distant, with his glittering eyes fixed upon the face of the ranger.

The coa.r.s.e black hair dangled about the shoulders, with a couple of strands hanging loosely over the chest. Three stained eagle feathers projected backward from the crown, where the hair was stained with several hues of paint. The hard, sinister features displayed the same fantastic daubs that marked them when The Panther was a prisoner on the flatboat, the white cross showing on the forehead, with streakings of red and black on the cheeks and chin. The coppery chest was bare to the waist, where reposed the single weapon of the chieftain--his formidable hunting knife, which had committed many a dark deed when wielded in the vicious grip of the dusky miscreant.

Below the breech-clout the iron limbs were encased in leggings and the small feet were covered with moccasins, now faded and worn by hard usage. The Panther paused, with his left foot in advance, his right hand grasping the hilt of his knife at his waist, and his shoulders and head thrust forward, the att.i.tude of the body being that of an athlete with his muscles concentrated for a leap across a chasm that yawns in front of him.

The pose of Kenton was dissimilar, and yet showed some points of resemblance. In accordance with the custom of his people, he carried his knife, in a small scabbard, by a string over his left breast. He grasped the handle, ready to whip it out on the first need. He did not mean that his antagonist should "get the drop" on him.

Kenton stood with his feet well together, but separated enough to give his att.i.tude grace and strength. His c.o.o.nskin cap, fringed hunting shirt, leggings and shoes were such as were commonly worn by people of his calling. He was taller, more sinewy and equally active with the Shawanoe, upon whom his blue eyes were fixed with burning intensity and a glow that was the "light of battle" itself.

The Panther had brought no weapon except his knife with him. The rifle of the ranger rested against a tree several paces away, and as near the Indian as the white man. It was a strange position for two mortal enemies, thoroughly distrusting each other, but in neither case did it imply a lessening of that distrust; it simply attested the faith of the two in a third person--Missionary Finley. He had arranged this meeting, and both believed in him.

A scornful smile lit up the thin, smooth, handsome face of Kenton, who, with his fingers still clasping the haft of the weapon at his breast, said in the Shawanoe tongue:

"The Panther meets his enemy at last, but does he bring no warriors with him to hide among the trees and rush forward when he begs for mercy from the white man?"

This question was meant for the cutting taunt it proved to be, for it was a strange fashion on the frontier, when two enemies came face to face in deadly encounter, for each to try to goad the other to the point of what may be termed nervousness before the critical a.s.sault took place.

"The Panther needs no one to help him bring the dog of a white man to his knees," replied Wa-on-mon, holding his pa.s.sion well in hand.

"Then why, Shawanoe, did you run away when a short time since you promised to meet me by the splintered tree near the clearing?"

"The dog of a white man speaks as a fool! He knows that Wa-on-mon hastened to find his brave warriors, that the pale-faces should not be allowed to make their way to the fort. He found them, and they shall never get there."

"The Shawanoes have tried to stop them, but could not; they tried last night, and more than one of the dogs were brought low. The gun that leans against the tree there did its part, as it shall continue to do.

The Shawanoes fled as children, and I leaped ash.o.r.e and chased them, but they ran too fast for me to catch them."

This was drawing it with a long bow, but as we have intimated, it was in accordance with the fashion of the times. The chieftain restrained his temper better than would have been expected, for the reason that he understood the motive of his enemy; it was the contest preliminary to the decisive one.

"Why did not the white dogs all come ash.o.r.e and chase the Shawanoes?" he asked, with little appearance of pa.s.sion in voice or manner.

"One of them did--a little child--you, dog of a Shawanoe, made captive the child and strode back among your warriors, proud and boastful because it was the first prisoner you ever took. Oh, brave Shawanoe! Oh, mighty chieftain!"

While uttering these taunts, Kenton did not permit the slightest "sign"

to escape him. He saw he was fast goading his foe to the resistless point, the object he had in view. There was an almost insensible tightening of the muscles of the fingers closing around the handle of the knife, the faintest possible quiver pa.s.sed through the thighs, or showed in a single twitch of the toes of the left foot, which inched forward. The Panther gave a quick inhalation, and while the words recorded were in the mouth of Kenton, he hissed:

"Die, dog of a pale-face!"

At the same time he bounded forward, as does the animal whose name he bore when leaping upon his prostrate foe. The intervening s.p.a.ce was cleared at the single leap, and the knife, whipped from the girdle at the instant of starting, made a fierce sweep through the air, almost too quick for the eye to follow, and shot like the head of a rattlesnake at the breast of the ranger.

Nevertheless, it clove through vacancy, for Kenton recoiled a single step, the hundredth part of a second before the weapon flashed in front of his face, and struck with equal power and swiftness at the crouching demon while yet in mid-air; but nothing could have surpa.s.sed the dexterity of The Panther, who, by a flirt of the head, dodged the blow, and dropping like a cat upon his feet, not only endeavored to strike the white man in the back, but came within a hair of succeeding. It need hardly be said that had he done so, the conflict would have been over on the instant.

But Kenton saved himself, and faced about to receive the a.s.sault from the opposite direction.

Instead of following up the slight and yet possibly fatal advantage thus obtained, The Panther became more guarded in his attack. The opening bout made both more cautious; their respect for each other's prowess was increased.

Neither uttered a syllable; the taunts had ended; there was no call to goad each other to fury, for the highest point of pa.s.sion was already attained. To spend breath in the utterance of words was to place themselves in the position of the gymnast who breaks into laughter--it would be a fatal weakening of strength.

The Panther, crouching low, clutching knife, with head thrust forward, and gleaming eye fixed on his victim, began slowly circling around him, on the watch for an opening that would permit him to bound forward and strike his foe to the earth.

Standing thus in the centre of a circle, Kenton had but to turn slowly so as to keep his face turned toward his a.s.sailant. It was the easiest thing in the world to present indefinitely an una.s.sailable front, and yet The Panther had barely completed his first circuit when the opening which he sought offered itself, and he seized it with lightning-like quickness.

But it was presented purposely; Kenton incited the attack, and when the Shawanoe demon shot through the air toward him, he steadied himself for a second, and struck again with all the might and skill at command.

That which the ranger had not counted upon, or which was not likely to happen once in a thousand times, intervened to save The Panther for the single instant. He and Kenton struck precisely the same blow, and their forearms glanced against each other. The stroke of the white man was the more powerful, and impinging against the less muscular arm of the Shawanoe with paralyzing force, sent his knife spinning twenty feet away among the undergrowth. Before the agile Shawanoe could recover himself the left hand of Kenton griped his throat, he was borne furiously backward, hurled to the ground as though he were an infant, the knee of the ranger was at his breast, and the knife was held ready to complete the fearful work.

"Dog of a Shawanoe!" hissed the infuriated hunter, "you are conquered at last! Now beg for mercy!"

Had the positions of the two been reversed, the prostrate foe could not have been more defiant when he hissed back, with flashing eye:

"Dog of a pale-face, that is afraid to strike!"

The words were meant as a taunt to the ranger to do his worst.

Down deep in the heart of every being, no matter how degraded, how sinful, how wicked, how merciless, is a spark of goodness which, when fanned by the angel's breath, glows or spreads until it burns out all the dross that years of wrong-doing have implanted there. Why it was and how it came about, Simon Kenton to his dying day never fully understood, but he always insisted that at that moment he heard the voice of Missionary Finley, with unmistakable distinctness, in his ear:

"Show him mercy, and mercy shall be shown to you when you need it!"

Impelled by a power which he dared not resist, the ranger rose from the chest of The Panther, and said in tones that sounded like those of another person:

"Shawanoe, take your life; I give it to you!"

CHAPTER x.x.x.

CONCLUSION.

The heart of Missionary Finley stood still when he saw The Panther stride from the wood into the open s.p.a.ce where the campfire was burning.

He knew that the terrible chieftain and Simon Kenton had met in mortal combat, and what could the return of the Shawanoe mean but that the prince of pioneers and rangers had been overthrown and slain by his implacable enemy?

With a self-possession which surprised even himself, the good man looked straight into the face of the Indian as he approached, and, noting its strange expression, said:

"Wa-on-mon has met the white hunter and conquered him."

Three paces away The Panther abruptly halted and stood for several seconds, looking silently at the missionary. Then he said, in a low, deliberate voice:

"Wa-on-mon has met the white hunter--the white hunter has conquered Wa-on-mon."

Missionary Finley was quick to catch the point of a situation; but, for a moment, he was dumfounded. Then a suspicion of the truth flashed upon him.

The good man was too sagacious to question The Panther. A strange, hitherto impossible condition of affairs existed. It was dangerous to meddle with them.

Suppressing all evidence of emotion, Finley asked: