The Riflemen of the Ohio Part 36

When he withdrew, the forest relapsed into silence, but when he attempted the pa.s.sage again the next day he was attacked by a similar, though greater, fire. He was now in a terrible quandary. He did not wish another such desperate battle as that which he had been forced to fight on the Lower Mississippi. He might win it, but there would be a great expenditure of men and ammunition, and at this vast distance from New Orleans neither could be replaced.

He drew back to a wider part of the river and decided to wait a day or two, that is, to take counsel of delay.

Adam Colfax was proud of his fleet and the great amount of precious stores that it carried. The reinforcements after the Battle of the Bayou had raised it to more than its original strength and value. All the men had recovered from their wounds, and everybody was in splendid health.

He had made up his mind that fleet and cargo should be delivered intact at Pittsburgh, otherwise he could never consider his voyage wholly a success.

The night after he fell back from the watery pa.s.s he held a council of his captains and guides on his own flat boat, which had been named the _Independence_. He had with him Adolphe Drouillard, a brave and devoted French Creole from New Orleans; James Tilden, a Virginian; Henry Eckford, a south Carolinian; Charles Turner, a New Yorker, and William Truesdale, and Eben Barber, New Englanders, and besides these, Nat Thrale and Ned Lyon, the best of the scouts and guides since the disappearance of the five, were present.

The fleet was anch.o.r.ed in the middle of the river, out of rifle shot for the present, but Adam Colfax knew very well that the enemy was in the dense wood lining either bank. He had sent skirmishers ash.o.r.e in the afternoon, and they did not go many yards from the stream before they were compelled to exchange shots with the foe. Thrale and Lyon, who were on the southern bank, reported that the Indians were still thick in the forest.

"They see us here on the river," said Thrale, "an' ef we don't keep well in the middle uv it they kin reach us with thar bullets. But we won't be able to see the least speck or sign uv them."

Adam Colfax had sighed when he heard these words, and now, as his little council gathered, it seemed that all predictions of evil were about to be fulfilled. A smoky red sun had set behind the hills, and the night, true to the promise of the sun, had come on dark and cloudy. It was not exactly the cloudiness of rain; it was rather that of heat and oppressiveness, and it had in it a certain boding quality that weighed heavily upon the spirits of Adam Colfax.

The boats were anch.o.r.ed in a double row in the exact center of the stream, swaying just a little with the gentle current. All those carrying sails had taken them down. Adam Colfax's boat was outside the two lines, slightly nearer to the southern sh.o.r.e, but still beyond rifle shot.

While the leader sat in the stern of his boat waiting for the two scouts who were last to come, he surveyed the fleet with the anxious eyes of one who carries a great responsibility. In the darkness the boats were not much more than dark lines on the darker river. Now and then they were lighted up by flares of heat lightning, but the eyes of Adam Colfax turned away from them to the banks, those high banks thick with forest and undergrowth, which contained so many dangers, real dangers, not those of the imaginary kind, as he had ample proof. Now and then a shot, apparently as a taunt, was fired from either sh.o.r.e, and two or three times he heard the long, whining yell which is the most ominous of human cries. This, too, he knew, was a taunt, but in every case, cunning, ferocity and power lay behind the taunt, which was another truth that he knew.

They were all soon gathered on the deck of the little _Independence_, and the faces of the two scouts who came last were very grave.

"What do you think of it, Lyon?" said Adam Colfax.

Lyon gave his head one brief shake.

"We're right in the middle of the biggest hornet's nest the country ever saw," he replied. "Looks ez ef we couldn't git past without another terrible fight."

"And you, Drouillard?" Adam Colfax asked of the Creole.

"Eet ees hard to go on," replied Drouillard in his broken English, "but we cannot go back at all. So eet ees true that we must go on. Eet ees is the only thing we can do."

"But how?" said Adam Colfax. "We cannot use up all the ammunition that we have in these battles. If we were to reach Pittsburgh in that condition we'd be a burden instead of a help."

"But as Mr. Drouillard says, we can't go back," said Truesdale.

They sat dumbly a minute or two, no one knowing what to propose, and all looking toward the southern bank, where they believed the chief danger to lie. The dark green forest made a high black line there in the night, a solid black until it was broken by a pink dot, which they knew to be the flash of a rifle.

"They are jeering at us again," said Adam Colfax.

"'Tain't no jeer, either," said Thrale, as five or six pink dots appeared where the one had been, and faint sounds came to their ears.

Lyon confirmed the opinion of his brother scout.

"So many wouldn't let off their guns at once jest fur fun," he said. "I wonder what in tarnation it means!"

The spray of pink dots did not reappear, and they turned their minds once more to their great problem, which seemed as insoluble as ever. The flowing of the current, gentle but deep and strong, swung the _Independence_ a little further from the two lines of boats, but those on board, in their absorption, did not notice it. Three or four minutes pa.s.sed, and there was the report of a rifle shot from the southern bank, followed an instant later by another. Two bullets splashed in the water near the _Independence_.

"We'd better pull back a leetle," said Drouillard. "We are drifting within range of ze warriors."

"So we are," said Lyon, laying his hand on a sweep. "Now, what under the moon is that?"

He pointed to a dark object, a mere black dot on the dusky surface of the river. But it was not a stationary dot, and in its movement it came toward the _Independence_.

"Sh.o.r.ely they don't mean to come swimmin' to attack us," said the other guide, Thrale. "That's a human head on top uv the water an' thar's a body belongin' to it under the water. An' see, thar's another head behind it, an' behind that another, an' likely thar's more."

"Eet ees certainlee the warriors trying to reach us on the water," said Adolphe Drouillard, and, raising his rifle, he took aim at the first swimming head.

"Hold a little," said Adam Colfax, pushing down the barrel of the weapon. "Look, as they come closer now, you can see a fourth and a fifth head and then no more. Five swimming heads on the water must mean something, I hope; yet I'm afraid I hope too much."

The foremost of the swimming figures raised a hand out of the water, and held it high in token of amity. Instantly the four behind did the same thing.

"Most amazing," said Adolphe Drouillard. "Ees eet possible that they are friends?"

"I think it not only possible, but probable," said Adam Colfax with a rising tone of joy in his voice. "They are near now, and that first head looks familiar to me. I devoutly hope that I'm not mistaken."

The leader's head, propelled by the powerful strokes of the arms below, came within a yard or two of the _Independence_, and some stray rays of the moon, falling upon it, brought it from dusk into light. It was the face of a young river G.o.d, strong features cut cleanly, a ma.s.sive projecting chin, and long yellow hair from which the water flowed in streams.

The head was raised from the water, the hands grasped the edge of the boat, and the figure sprang lightly on board, standing perfectly erect for a moment, while the water ran from his fringed hunting shirt, his moccasins, the knife and tomahawk at his belt, and flowed away over the boards.

"Henry Ware alive!" exclaimed Adam Colfax, springing forward and seizing the hand which dripped water from the tip of every finger.

"An' don't furgit me," said Shif'less Sol, as he leaped aboard and stood beside Henry, a tiny cataract pouring from every seam of his clothing.

"Nor me," said Tom Ross briefly, taking his place with his comrades.

"An' I'm here, too," said Jim Hart, uprearing his thin six feet four.

"So am I," said Paul, as he drew himself over the rail of the _Independence_.

"All of you alive and well!" exclaimed Adam Colfax, departing for once from his New Hampshire calm. "All returned from the dead together! I feel as if an army had come to our relief!"

"We ain't been dead," said Shif'less Sol. "An' we ain't been havin' sech a hard time, either. It's true three o' us hev been troubled by Injun bullets, but Jim Hart thar spent his time inventin' a new way o' cookin'

rabbits, which will keep him happy for the next five years."

"And he could not spend his spare time in a better way," said Adolphe Drouillard. "Ze man who invents a new wholesome dish ees a blessing to hees country."

"Shake, friend," said Long Jim, holding out a huge hand still dripping with portions of the Ohio, and Adolphe Drouillard, without hesitation, shook.

"Them two shots that hit in the water close to us wuz fired at you, wuzn't they?" asked Thrale.

"Yes, they were aimed at us," replied Henry, "and so was the little volley on the bank, which you must have heard. As you probably know, there's a fort and settlement not many miles on called Fort Prescott.

We've warned it, and the garrison has also beaten off all attacks. But all the allied tribes of the north are here, and they expect to catch you, the fort, and everything else, in their net. They are led by all their great chiefs, but Timmendiquas, the White Lightning of the Wyandots, is the soul of the attack. We have seen his vigilance in our effort to reach the river. We were discovered, fired upon by a party, although their bullets missed us in the dark, and then we had to swim for it."

"You must have dry clothing at once," said Adam Colfax.

"We won't mind changin'," said Shif'less Sol, "an' we'd like to dry our rifles an' have 'em reloaded ez soon ez you kin."

"We'll have that done for you," said Adam Colfax, looking at them with admiration.

They resigned their weapons to his men, although they had succeeded in keeping their powder dry in tightly closed horns. Adam Colfax then led the way to his cabin, where dry clothing was brought them, and food and drink were given. Then Henry told to the little, but deeply interested, company the tale of their wanderings and adventures.