The Riflemen of the Ohio Part 14

He did not stop running while he examined the rifle, and when he put it back on his shoulder the wind began to blow. Hark! There was the song among the leaves again, and now it told not merely of hope, but of victory achieved and danger pa.s.sed. Henry was sure that he heard it. He had an imaginative mind like all forest-dwellers, like the Indians themselves, and he personified everything. The wind was a living, breathing thing.

He stopped at the end of two or three hours. The sun was sailing high in the heavens, and he had come at last to a little prairie. Game, it was likely, would be here, and he meant now to have food, not blackberries, but the nutritious flesh that his strong body craved. He could easily secure it now, and he stroked the beautiful rifle joyously.

Except for the great villages at Chillicothe, Piqua, and a few other places, the Indians shifted their homes often, leaving one region that the game might increase in it again, until such time as they wished to come back, and Henry judged that the country in which he now was had been abandoned for a while. If so, the game should be plentiful and not shy.

The prairie was perhaps a mile in length, and at its far edge two deer were grazing. It was not difficult to stalk them, and Henry, choosing the doe, brought her down with an easy shot. He carried the body into the woods, skinned it, cut off the tenderer portions, and prepared for a solid dinner. With his food now before him, he realized how very hungry he was. Yet he was fastidious, and, as usual, he insisted upon doing all things in season, and properly.

He brought forth the Indian's flint and steel--he was very glad now that he had had the forethought to take them--and after much effort set about kindling a fire. Flint and steel are not such easy things to use, and it took Henry five minutes to light the blaze, but five minutes later he was broiling tender, juicy slices of deer meat on the end of a twig, and then eating them one by one. He ate deliberately, but he ate a great many, and when he was satisfied he put out the fire. He crushed the coals into the earth with his heels and covered them with leaves, instinctive caution making him do it. Then he went deep into the forest, and, lying down in a thicket, rested a long time.

He knew that the Indian tribes intended to gather at Tuentahahewaghta (the site of Cincinnati), the place where the waters of the Licking, coming out of the wild Kentucky woods, joined the Ohio, and he believed that the best thing for him to do was to go to that point. He calculated that, despite his long delay at the Wyandot village, he could yet arrive there ahead of the fleet, and after seeing the Indian mobilization, he could go back to warn it. Only one thing worried him much now. Had his four faithful comrades taken his advice and stayed with the fleet, or were they now in the forest seeking him? He well knew their temper, and he feared that they had not remained with the boats after his absence became long.

But these comrades of his were resourceful, and he was presently able to dismiss the question from his mind. He had acquired with the patience of the Indian another of his virtues, an ability to dismiss all worries, sit perfectly still, and be completely happy. This quality may have had its basis originally in physical content, the satisfaction that came to the savage when he had eaten all he wished, when no enemy was present, and he could lie at ease on a soft couch. But in Henry it was higher, and was founded chiefly on the knowledge of a deed well done and absolute confidence in the future, although the physical quality was not lacking.

He felt an immense peace. Nothing was wrong. The day was just right, neither too hot nor too cool. The blaze of the brilliant skies and of the great golden sun was pleasantly shaded from his eyes by the green veil of the leaves. Those surely were the finest deer steaks that he had ever eaten! There could not be such another wilderness as this on the face of the earth! And he, Henry Ware, was one of the luckiest of human beings!

He lay a full two hours wrapped in content. He did not move arm or leg.

Nothing but his long, deep breathing and his bright blue eyes, shaded by half-fallen lashes, told that he lived. Every muscle was relaxed. There was absolutely no effort, either physical or mental.

Yet the word pa.s.sed by the forest creatures to one another was entirely different from the word that had been pa.s.sed the night before. The slackened human figure that never moved was dangerous, it was once more the king of the wilderness, and the four-footed kind, after looking once and fearfully upon it, must steal in terror away.

The wolf felt it. Slinking through the thicket, he measured the great length of the rec.u.mbent shape, observed the half-opened eye, and departed in speed and silence; a yellow puma smelt the human odor, thought at first that the youth was dead, but, after a single look, followed the wolf, his heart quaking within him. A foolish bear, also, shambled into the thicket, but he was not too foolish, after he saw Henry, to shamble quickly away.

When Henry rose he was as thoroughly refreshed and restored as if he had never run a gantlet, made a flight of a night and a day, and fought with a Wyandot for his life. The very completeness of it had made him rest as much in two hours as another would have rested in six. He resumed his flight, taking with him venison steaks that he had cooked before he put out his fire, and he did not stop until the night was well advanced and the stars had sprung out in a dusky sky. Then he chose another dense thicket and, lying down in it, was quickly asleep.

He awoke about midnight and saw a faint light shining through the woods.

He judged that it was a long distance away, but he resolved to see what made it, being sure in advance that it was the glow of an Indian camp fire.

He approached cautiously, looked from the crest of a low hill into a snug little valley, and saw that his surmise was true.

About fifty warriors sat or lay around a smouldering fire, and he inferred from their dress and paint that they were Shawnees. Four who sat together were talking earnestly, and he knew them to be chiefs. It was impossible to hear what they said, but he believed this to be a party on the way to the great meeting at the mouth of Licking. It was evident that he had not escaped too soon, and he withdrew as cautiously as he had approached.

An excitable youth would have hastened on in the night at full speed, but Henry knew better and could do better. He returned to his nest in the thicket and fell asleep again, as if he had seen nothing alarming.

But he rose very early in the morning, and after a breakfast on the cold deer meat, made a circle around the Indian camp, and continued his southeastern journey at great speed.

He traveled all that day, and he saw that he was well into the enemy's country. Indian signs multiplied about him. Here in the soft earth was the trace of their moccasins. There they had built a camp fire and the ashes were not yet cold. Further on they had killed and dressed a deer.

There was little effort at concealment, perhaps, none. This was their own country, where only the roving white hunter came, and it was his business, not theirs, to hide. Henry felt the truth of it as he advanced toward the Ohio. He was compelled to redouble his caution, lest at any moment he plunge into the very middle of a war band.

He pa.s.sed more than a half dozen trails of large parties, and he felt sure that, according to arrangement, they were converging on the Ohio, at the point where the Licking emptied the waters and silt of the Kentucky woods into the larger stream. Timmendiquas, no doubt, would be there, and Henry's heart throbbed a little faster at the thought that he would meet such a splendid foe.

He lay in a thicket about noonday, and saw over a hundred warriors of the Ottawas, worshipers of the sun and stars, go by. They were all in full war paint, and he had no doubt that they had come from the far western sh.o.r.e of Lake Huron to join the great gathering of the tribes at Tuentahahewaghta and to help destroy the fleet and all river posts if they could.

That evening, taking the chances that the Indians would or would not hear him, he shot a wild turkey in a tree, traveled two or three miles further, built a small fire in the lee of a hill, where he cooked it, then ran in a curve three or four miles further, until he came to a thicket of pawpaw bushes, where he ate heartily by a faint moonlight. He watched and listened two hours, and then, satisfied that no one had heard the shot, he went to sleep with the ease and confidence of one who reposes at home, safe in his bed.

The night was warm. Sleeping in the open was a pleasure to such as Henry Ware, and he was not disturbed. He had willed that he should wake before daylight, and his senses obeyed the warning. He came back from slumber while it was yet dark. But he could feel the coming dawn, and, eating what was left of the turkey, he sped away.

He saw the sun shoot up in a shower of gold, and the blue spread over the heavens. He saw the green forest come into the light with the turning of the world, and he felt the glory of the great wilderness, but he did not stop for many hours. The day was warmer than the one before, and when the sun was poised just overhead he began to feel its heat. He was thirsty, too, and when he heard a gentle trickling among the bushes he stopped, knowing that a brook or spring was near.

He pressed his way through the dense tangle of undergrowth and entered the open, where he stood for a few minutes, cooling his eyes with the silver sparkle of flowing water and the delicate green tints of the gra.s.s, which grew thickly on the banks of the little stream. He was motionless, yet even in repose he seemed to be the highest type of physical life and energy, taller than the average man, despite the fact that he was yet but a boy in years, and with a frame all bone and sinew.

Blue eyes flashed out of a face turned to the brown of leather by a life that knew no roof-tree, and the uncut locks of yellow hair fell down from the fur cap that sat lightly upon his head.

Around him the wilderness was blazing with all the hues of spring and summer, yet untouched by autumn brown. The dense foliage of the forest formed a vast green veil between him and the sun. Some wild peach trees in early bloom shone in cones of pink against the green wall. Shy little flowers of delicate purple nestled in the gra.s.s, and at his feet the waters of the brook gleamed in the sunshine in alternate ripples of silver and gold, while the pebbles shone white on the shallow bottom.

He stood there, straight and strong like a young oak, a figure in harmony with the wilderness and its lonely grandeur. He seemed to fit into the scene, to share its colors, and to become its own. The look of content in his eyes, like that of a forest creature that has found a lair to suit him, made him part of it. His dress, too, matched the flush of color around him. The fur cap upon his head had been dyed the green of the gra.s.s. The darker green of the oak leaves was the tint of his hunting shirt of tanned buckskin, with the long fringe hanging almost to his knees. It was the tint, too, of the buckskin leggings which rose above his moccasins of buffalo hide.

But the moccasins and the seams of the leggings were adorned with countless little Indian beads of red and blue and yellow, giving dashes of new color to the green of his dress, just as the wild flowers and peach blossoms and the silver and gold of the brook varied the dominant green note of the forest. A careless eye would have pa.s.sed over him, his figure making no outline against the wall of forest behind him. It was the effect that he sought, to pa.s.s through wood and thicket and across the green open, making slight mark for the eye.

Henry was not only a lover of the wilderness and its beauty, but he was also a conscious one. He would often stop a moment to drink in the glory of a specially fine phase of it, and this was such a moment. Far off a range of hills showed a faint blue tracery against the sky of deeper blue. At their foot was a band of silver, the river to which the brook that splashed before him was hurrying. Everywhere the gra.s.s grew rich and rank, showing the depth and quality of the soil beneath. A hundred yards away a buffalo grazed as peacefully as if man had never come, and farther on a herd of deer raised their heads to sniff the southern wind.

It was pleasant to Henry to gaze upon the stretch of meadow before him.

So he stood for a minute or two, looking luxuriously, his rifle resting across his shoulder, the sun glinting along its long, slender, blue barrel. Then he knelt down to drink, choosing a place where a current of the swift little brook had cut into the bank with a circular sweep, and had formed a pool of water as clear as the day, a forest mirror.

Henry did not feel the presence of any danger, but he retained all his caution as he knelt down to drink, a caution become nature through all the formative years of practice and necessity. His knees made no noise as they touched the earth. Not a leaf moved. Not a blade of gra.s.s rustled. The rifle remained upon his shoulder, his right hand grasping it around the stock, just below the hammer, the barrel projecting into the air. Even as he rested his weight upon one elbow and bent his mouth to the water, he was ready for instant action.

The water touched his lips, and was cool and pleasant. He had come far, and was thirsty. He blew the bubbles back and drank, not eagerly nor in a hurry, but sipping it gently, as one who knows tastes rare old wine.

Then he raised his head a little and looked at his shadow in the water, as perfect as if a mirror gave back his face. Eyes, mouth, nose, every feature was shown. He bent his head, sipping the water a little more, and feeling all its grateful coolness. Then he raised it again and saw a shadow that had appeared beside his own. The mirror of the water gave back both perfectly.

An extraordinary thrill ran through him but he made no movement. The blood was leaping wildly in his veins, but his nerves never quivered. In the water he could yet see his own shadow as still as the shadow that had come beside it.

Henry Ware, in that supreme moment, did not know his own thoughts, save that they were full of bitterness. It hurt him to be trapped so. He had escaped so much, he had come so far, to be taken thus with ease; although life was full and glorious to him, he could have yielded it with a better will in fair battle. There, at least, one did not lose his forest pride. He had gloried in the skill with which he had practiced all the arts of the wilderness, and now he was caught like any beginner!

But while these thoughts were running through his mind he retained complete command of himself, and by no motion, no exclamation, showed his knowledge that he was not alone. He suppressed his rebellious nerves, and refused to let them quiver.

The shadow in the water beside his own was distinct. He could see the features, the hair drawn up at the top of the head into a defiant scalp-lock, and the outstretched hand holding the tomahawk. He gazed at the shadow intently. He believed that he could divine his foe's triumphant thoughts.

The south wind freshened a little, and came to Henry Ware poignant with the odors of blossom and flower. The brook murmured a quiet song in his ears. The brilliant sunshine flashed alike over gra.s.s and water. It was a beautiful world, and never had he been more loth to leave it. He wondered how long it would be until the blow fell. He knew that the warrior, according to the custom of his race, would prolong his triumph and exult a little before he struck.

Given a chance with his rifle, Henry would have asked no other favor.

Just that one little gift from fortune! The clutch of his fingers on the stock tightened, and the involuntary motion sent a new thought through him. The rifle lay unmoved across his shoulder, its muzzle pointing upward. Before him in the water the shadow still lay, unchanged, beside his own. He kept his eyes upon it, marking a spot in the center of the forehead, while the hand that grasped the rifle crept up imperceptibly toward the hammer and the trigger. A half minute pa.s.sed. The warrior still lingered over his coming triumph. The boy's brown fingers rested against the hammer of the rifle.

Hope had come suddenly, but Henry Ware made no sign. He blew a bubble or two in the water, and while he seemed to watch them break, the muzzle of the rifle shifted gently, until he was sure that it bore directly upon the spot in the forehead that he had marked on the shadow in the water.

The last bubble broke, and then Henry seemed to himself to put all his strength into the hand and wrist that held the rifle. His forefinger grasped the hammer. It flew back with a sharp click. The next instant, so quickly that time scarcely divided the two movements, he pulled the trigger and fired.

CHAPTER IX

THE GATHERING OF THE FIVE

As the report of his shot sped in echoes through the forest, Henry Ware sprang to his feet and stood there for a little s.p.a.ce, his knees weak under him, and drops of perspiration thick on his face. The rifle was clenched in his hands, and a light smoke came from the muzzle.

Thus he stood, not yet willing to turn around and see, but when the last echo of the shot was gone there was no sound. The wind had ceased to blow. Not a leaf, not a blade of gra.s.s stirred. He was affected as he had never been in battle, because he knew that a man whose shadow alone he had seen lay dead behind him.

He shifted the rifle to one hand only, and wiped his face with the other. Then, as his knees grew stronger and he was able to control the extraordinary quivering of the nerves, he turned. The warrior, the red spot upon his forehead, lay stretched upon his back. He had died without a sound, as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning. The handle of the tomahawk was still clutched in his fingers, but his rifle had fallen beside him. The single minute that he had paused to exult over the foe who seemed so completely in his power had been fatal.

Henry took the powder and bullets from the fallen warrior and added them to his own store--the bullets he found would fit his rifle--but he did not wish to burden himself with the extra rifle, knife, and tomahawk.

Nor did he wish to abandon them. Their value was too great in the wilderness. He chose a middle course. He thrust all three in a hollow tree that he found about a mile further on. They were so well hidden in the trunk that there was not one chance in a million of anybody but himself ever finding them.