The Riflemen of the Ohio Part 35

Jim Hart stirred. His knee struck a little stick that broke with a snap.

Paul heard it, and instantly he threw down the bark, s.n.a.t.c.hed up his rifle, and began to investigate.

"He'll come up here spyin'," whispered Shif'less Sol. "While he's lookin', let's steal his bark away from him an' see what's on it."

"We'll do it," said Henry, and while Paul, rifle in hand, ascended the slope to see what had caused the noise, they deftly slipped away, descending to the other side of the glade.

When Paul entered the bushes, Shif'less Sol ran out, picked up the roll of bark, and returned silently with it to his comrades, who lay in a dense thicket. Filled with curiosity, all looked at it promptly.

"It's a map," whispered Henry, "and he's trying to locate himself in that way. See, this long line is the Ohio, here is the route of our own flight, this place is where he thinks he left us, and this line, I suppose, shows his own course after he dropped out. This deep mark here indicates where he now is. It's pretty good, but he's got everything turned around. South is where east ought to be, and north has taken the place of west."

"But what good is a map ef it don't take you anywhar?" asked Jim Hart.

"That's a plum' foolish question fur you to ask, Jim Hart," said Shif'less Sol disdainfully. "Great scholars like me an' Paul always draw maps. What does it matter ef you don't git anywhar? Thar's your map, anyhow."

"Sh!" whispered Tom Ross. "He's comin' back, havin' diskivered that thar's nothin' in the bushes. Now what'll he do?"

Paul, his mind relieved, returned to the glade, put back his rifle on the gra.s.s, and looked for the precious map that was costing him so much time and thought. It was not there, and great was the boy's amazement.

He had certainly laid it down at that very spot, and he had not been gone a minute. He looked all around, and even up into the air, and the four in the brush were forced to smile at his puzzled face.

Paul stood staring at the place where his precious map had lain, but where it lay no more, and his amazement deepened. They admired Paul and had a deep affection for him, but they thought that their little joke might keep him nearer to the earth when he was in a dangerous Indian country.

"Mebbe he thinks Alfred the Great an' his Mogul Tartars hev come an'

took it away," whispered Shif'less Sol.

Then Paul held up his hand.

"Feelin' o' the wind," said Shif'less Sol. "He hez now come to the conclusion that the wind took his map away, and so he thinks ef he kin find out which way it's blowin' he kin find out which way the map hez blowed, too."

Paul concluded that the light wind was blowing toward the east, and going in that direction he began to search for his map among the bushes that enclosed the glade. The moment his figure was hidden Henry whispered to the others:

"Come on!"

They came silently from the thicket, ran to the center of the glade, where Henry, kneeling down, spread out the map on the ground and began to examine it with the greatest attention. The others knelt beside him, and they also became absorbed in a study of the map. The four heads almost touched over the sheet of bark.

Paul, failing to find his map in the bushes, turned back to the glade.

Then he stood transfixed with astonishment. He saw four figures, the backs of two, and the heads and shoulders of two more. Heads, backs, and shoulders were familiar. Could it really be they? He winked his eyes rapidly to clear away any motes. Yes, it was they, the four faithful comrades with whom he had roved and hunted and fought so long. He uttered a shout of joy and rushed toward them.

Paul's hands were shaken so often and so hard that his fingers were numbed. A little moisture gathered on the eyelids of the sensitive boy when he saw how glad they were to see him.

"You've found me," he said, "and it's so good to see you again that I enjoy with you the little trick you've played on me."

"Pow'ful fine map, this o' yours, Paul," said Shif'less Sol, holding up the sheet of bark. "'Pears to me you kin find everything on it, 'cept whar you are."

"That was just the trouble with it, Sol," said Paul frankly. "It looked fine to me, but I couldn't make it work."

"Well," said Henry, "here we are, together again, all five of us, ready for anything. Isn't that so, boys, and isn't it fine?"

"Sh.o.r.ely," said Shif'less Sol, speaking for them all.

"Now, Paul," said Henry, "what were you trying to do?"

"I had an idea that I could reach the river," said Paul. "If I did so, then I might be able to swim across it in the night, and take a warning to Fort Prescott, if it wasn't too late."

"Got anything to eat left?" asked Tom Ross.

"I've had wild fruit," replied Paul, "and I shot a turkey, the last of which went this morning, but I was hoping for more luck of that kind."

"Well," said Tom, "we, too, hev about et up all that we had. So we'll hev to take a little hunt together. 'Twon't take long. Country's full uv game."

They shot a deer within an hour, feasted abundantly and retained enough more to last them several days.

"Wish we had Jim Hart's oven here," said Shif'less Sol as they ate.

"While Jim wuz waitin', Paul, he made more improvements in the art o'

cookin'."

Long Jim grinned with appreciation. It was a compliment that he liked.

"Now," said Henry, "the next thing for us to do is to find the fleet.

Mr. Boone told me that it was being held up in a narrow part of the river by the Indian sharpshooters. I suppose that Adam Colfax doesn't want to lose any more men for fear that he will grow short-handed before he reaches Pittsburgh."

"But he's got to get through, an' he's got to help the fort, too," said Shif'less Sol.

"That's so," said Henry, "and we must find him just as soon as we can."

Rising, they sped toward the southwest.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE HALTING OF THE FLEET

Adam Colfax had been making slow progress up the Ohio, far slower than he had hoped, and his brave soul was worn by hardships and troubled by apprehensions. A great hurricane had caused him serious alarm for his smaller boats. They had been saved from sinking with the greatest difficulty, and the precious stores had to be kept well and guarded well.

He was grieved and troubled, too, over the disappearance of the five, the valiant five who had continually been doing him such great service from the very moment of the start at New Orleans. He liked them all, and he mourned them for their own sakes as well. He also realized quickly that he had lost more than the five themselves. His fleet seemed to have come into a very nest of dangers. Men who went ash.o.r.e to hunt never returned. At narrow points in the river they were fired upon from the dense forest on the bank, and if they sent a strong force ash.o.r.e, they found nothing. If they camped at night, bullets drew blood or scattered the coals at their feet.

Invisible but none the less terrible foes hung upon them continually, and weakened their spirits. The men in the fleet were willing and eager to fight a foe whom they could see, but to be stung to death by invisible hornets was the worst of fates.

Adam Colfax missed the "eyes of the fleet" more and more every day. If Henry Ware and Shif'less Sol and their comrades had been there, they could have discovered these unseen foes, and they could have told him what to do. At night he often saw signal fires, blazing on either side of the Ohio and, although he did not know what they meant, he felt sure that they were lighted by his enemies, who were talking to one another.

Two or three of his men who had been originally woodsmen of the great valley told him that the allied tribes had come to destroy him. They had seen certain signs in the forest that could not be mistaken. The woods were full of warriors. They had heard, too, that further on was a fort on the river bank which the Indians had probably taken by this time, and which they would certainly use against the fleet. Adam Colfax wished once more for the five, who were more familiar than anybody else with the country, and who were such magnificent scouts. Never had he felt their absence more.

He came at last to the narrowest place in the river that he had yet seen, enclosed on either bank by jutting hills. As the fleet approached this watery pa.s.s a tremendous fire was opened upon it from either sh.o.r.e.

The bullets not only came from the level of the water, but from the tops of the hills, and the sides of the boat offered no protection against the latter. The men of the fleet returned the fire, but their lead was sent into the forest and the undergrowth, and they did not know whether it hit anything except inoffensive wood and earth.

Adam Colfax drew back. He felt that he might have forced the pa.s.s, but the loss in men and stores would be too great. It was not his chief object to fight battles even if every battle should prove a victory.