The Scouts of the Valley Part 24

children slept, an' on the other side uv the fire is whar the warriors lay anywhars. You can still see how the bodies uv some uv 'cm crushed down the gra.s.s an' little bushes."

"An' I'm thinkin'," said Shif'less Sol, as he looked at the trail that led away from the camp fire, "that some o' them little ones wuz gittin'

pow'ful tired. Look how these here little trails are wobblin' about."

"Hope we kin come up afore the Injuns begin to draw thar tomahawks,"

said Tom Ross.

The others were silent, but they knew the dreadful significance of Tom's remark, and Henry glanced at them all, one by one.

"It's the greatest danger to be feared," he said, "and we must overtake them in the night when they are not suspecting. If we attack by day they will tomahawk the captives the very first thing."

"Sh.o.r.ely,', said the shiftless one.

"Then," said Henry, "we don't need to hurry. We'll go on until about midnight, and then sleep until sunrise."

They continued at a fair pace along a trail that frontiersmen far less skillful than they could have followed. But a silent dread was in the heart of every one of them. As they saw the path of the small feet staggering more and more they feared to behold some terrible object beside the path.

"The trail of the littlest child is gone," suddenly announced Paul.

"Yes," said Henry, "but the mother has picked it up and is carrying it.

See how her trail has suddenly grown more uneven."

"Poor woman," said Paul. "Henry, we're just bound to overtake that band."

"We'll do it," said Henry.

At the appointed time they sank down among the thickest bushes that they could find, and slept until the first upshot of dawn. Then they resumed the trail, haunted always by that fear of finding something terrible beside it. But it was a trail that continually grew slower. The Indians themselves were tired, or, feeling safe from pursuit, saw no need of hurry. By and by the trail of the smallest child reappeared.

"It feels a lot better now," said Tom Ross. "So do I."

They came to another camp fire, at which the ashes were not yet cold.

Feathers were scattered about, indicating that the Indians had taken time for a little side hunt, and had shot some birds.

"They can't be more than two or three hours ahead," said Henry, "and we'll have to go on now very cautiously."

They were in a country of high hills, well covered with forests, a region suited to an ambush, which they feared but little on their own account; but, for the sake of extreme caution, they now advanced slowly.

The afternoon was long and warm, but an hour before sunset they looked over a hill into a glade, and saw the warriors making camp for the night.

The sight they beheld made the pulses of the five throb heavily. The Indians had already built their fire, and two of them were cooking venison upon it. Others were lying on the gra.s.s, apparently resting, but a little to one side sat a woman, still young and of large, strong figure, though now apparently in the last stages of exhaustion, with her feet showing through the fragments of shoes that she wore. Her head was bare, and her dress was in strips. Four children lay beside her' the youngest two with their heads in her lap. The other two, who might be eleven and thirteen each, had pillowed their heads on their arms, and lay in the dull apathy that comes from the finish of both strength and hope. The woman's face was pitiful. She had more to fear than the children, and she knew it. She was so worn that the skin hung loosely on her face, and her eyes showed despair only. The sad spectacle was almost more than Paul could stand.

"I don't like to shoot from ambush," he said, "but we could cut down half of those warriors at our firs fire and rush in on the rest."

"And those we didn't cut down at our first volley would tomahawk the woman and children in an instant," replied Henry. "We agreed, you know, that it would be sure to happen. We can't do anything until night comes, and then we've got to be mighty cautious."

Paul could not dispute the truth of his words, and they withdrew carefully to the crest of a hill, where they lay in the undergrowth, watching the Indians complete their fire and their preparations for the night. It was evident to Henry that they considered themselves perfectly safe. Certainly they had every reason for thinking so. It was not likely that white enemies were within a hundred miles of them, and, if so, it could only be a wandering hunter or two, who would flee from this fierce band of Senecas who bad taken revenge for the great losses that they'

had suffered the year before at the Oriskany.

They kept very little watch and built only a small fire, just enough for broiling deer meat which they carried. They drank at a little spring which ran from under a ledge near them, and gave portions of the meat to the woman and children. After the woman had eaten, they bound her hands, and she lay back on the gra.s.s, about twenty feet from the camp fire. Two children lay on either side of her, and they were soon sound asleep. The warriors, as Indians will do when they are free from danger and care, talked a good deal, and showed all the signs of having what was to them a luxurious time. They ate plentifully, lolled on the gra.s.s, and looked at some hideous trophies, the scalps that they carried at their belts.

The woman could not keep from seeing these, too, but her face did not change from its stony aspect of despair. Then the light of the fire went out, the sun sank behind the mountains, and the five could no longer see the little group of captives and captors.

They still waited, although eagerness and impatience were tugging at the hearts of every one of them. But they must give the Indians time to fall asleep if they would secure rescue, and not merely revenge. They remained in the bushes, saying but little and eating of venison that they carried in their knapsacks.

They let a full three hours pa.s.s, and the night remained dark, but with a faint moon showing. Then they descended slowly into the valley, approaching by cautious degrees the spot where they knew the Indian camp lay. This work required at least three quarters of an hour, and they reached a point where they could see the embers of the fire and the dark figures lying about it. The Indians, their suspicions lulled, had put out no sentinels, and all were asleep. But the five knew that, at the first shot, they would be as wide awake as if they had never slept, and as formidable as tigers. Their problem seemed as great as ever. So they lay in the bushes and held a whispered conference.

"It's this," said Henry. "We want to save the woman and the children from the tomahawks, and to do so we must get them out of range of the blade before the battle begins." "How?" said Tom Ross.

"I've got to slip up, release the woman, arm her, tell her to run for the woods with the children, and then you four must do the most of the rest."

"Do you think you can do it, Henry?" asked Shif'less Sol.

"I can, as I will soon show you. I'm going to steal forward to the woman, but the moment you four hear an alarm open with your rifles and pistols.

You can come a little nearer without being heard."

All of them moved up close to the Indian camp, and lay hidden in the last fringe of bushes except Henry. He lay almost flat upon the ground, carrying his rifle parallel with his side, and in his right hand. He was undertaking one of the severest and most dangerous tests known to a frontiersman. He meant to crawl into the very midst of a camp of the Iroquois, composed of the most alert woodsmen in the world, men who would spring up at the slightest crackle in the brush. Woodmen who, warned by some sixth sense, would awaken at the mere fact of a strange presence.

The four who remained behind in the bushes could not keep their hearts from beating louder and faster. They knew the tremendous risk undertaken by their comrade, but there was not one of them who would have shirked it, had not all yielded it to the one whom they knew to be the best fitted for the task.

Henry crept forward silently, bringing to his aid all the years of skill that he had acquired in his life in the wilds. His body was like that of a serpent, going forward, coil by coil. He was near enough now to see the embers of the fire not yet quite dead, the dark figures scattered about it, sleeping upon the gra.s.s with the long ease of custom, and then the outline of the woman apart from the others with the children about her. Henry now lay entirely flat, and his motions were genuinely those of a serpent. It was by a sort of contraction and relaxation of the body that he moved himself, and his progress was absolutely soundless.

The object of his advance was the woman. He saw by the faint light of the moon that she was not yet asleep. Her face, worn and weather beaten, was upturned to the skies, and the stony look of despair seemed to have settled there forever. She lay upon some pine boughs, and her hands were tied behind her for the night with deerskin.

Henry contorted himself on, inch by inch, for all the world like a great snake. Now he pa.s.sed the sleeping Senecas, hideous with war paint, and came closer to the woman. She was not paying attention to anything about her, but was merely looking up at the pale, cold stars, as if everything in the world had ceased for her.

Henry crept a little nearer. He made a slight noise, as of a lizard running through the gra.s.s, but the woman took no notice. He crept closer, and there he lay flat upon the gra.s.s within six feet of her, his figure merely a slightly darker blur against the dark blur of the earth. Then, trusting to the woman's courage and strength of mind, he emitted a hiss very soft and low, like the warning of a serpent, half in fear and half in anger.

The woman moved a little, and looked toward the point from which the sound had come. It might have been the formidable hiss of a coiling rattlesnake that she heard, but she felt no fear. She was too much stunned, too near exhaustion to be alarmed by anything, and she did not look a second time. She merely settled back on the pine boughs, and again looked dully up at the pale, cold stars that cared so little for her or hers.

Henry crept another yard nearer, and then he uttered that low noise, sibilant and warning, which the woman, the product of the border, knew to be made by a human being. She raised herself a little, although it was difficult with her bound hands to sit upright, and saw a dark shadow approaching her. That dark shadow she knew to be the figure of a man. An Indian would not be approaching in such a manner, and she looked again, startled into a sudden acute attention, and into a belief that the incredible, the impossible, was about to happen. A voice came from the figure, and its quality was that of the white voice, not the red.

"Do not move," said that incredible voice out of the unknown. "I have come for your rescue, and others who have come for the same purpose are near. Turn on one side, and I will cut the bonds that hold your arms."

The voice, the white voice, was like the touch of fire to Mary Newton.

A sudden fierce desire for life and for the lives of her four children awoke within her just when hope had gone the call to life came. She had never heard before a voice so full of cheer and encouragement. It penetrated her whole being. Exhaustion and despair fled away.

"Turn a little on your side," said the voice.

She turned obediently, and then felt the sharp edge of cold steel as it swept between her wrists and cut the thongs that held them together. Her arms fell apart, and strength permeated every vein of her being.

"We shall attack in a few moments," said the voice, "but at the first shots the Senecas will try to tomahawk you and your children. Hold out your hands."

She held out both hands obediently. The handle of a tomahawk was pressed into one, and the muzzle of a double-barreled pistol into the other.

Strength flowed down each hand into her body.

"If the time comes, use them; you are strong, and you know how," said the voice. Then she saw the dark figure creeping away.

CHAPTER XIV. THE PURSUIT ON THE RIVER