The Watchers of the Plains Part 44

There was something so unsophisticated in the man's rascality that Seth almost smiled. He turned on him severely, however.

"You've been workin' with your countrymen, murderin' an' lootin', an' now you see the game's up you come around to me, ready to sell 'em same as you'd sell us. Say, you're a durned skunk of an Indian!"

"Jim Crow no Indian. I, Jim Crow, scout," the man retorted.

Seth eyed him.

"I see. You figger to git scoutin' agin when this is through. Say, you're wuss'n I thought. You're wuss'n----"

He broke off, struck with a sudden thought. In a moment he had dropped his tone of severity.

"See, I'm goin' to hand you twenty dollars," he said, holding the other's shifty eyes with his own steady gaze, "if you've a notion to earn 'em an'

act squar'. Say, I ken trust you if I pay you. You ain't like the white Injun, Nevil Steyne, who's bin Black Fox's wise man so long. After he'd fixed the mischief he gits around to us an' turns on the Indians. He's fought with us. An' he's goin' to fight with us to-morrow. He's a traitor to the Indians. You belong to the whites, and you come to help us when you can. Now, see here. You're goin' to make north hard as h.e.l.l 'll let you, savee? An' if the soldiers git here at sundown to-morrow night, I'm goin'

to give you twenty dollars, and I'll see you're made head scout agin."

Seth waited for his answer. It came in a great tone of self-confidence.

"I, Jim Crow, make soldiers dis night. So."

"Good. You act squar'. You ain't no traitor to the white man, same as Nevil Steyne's traitor to the Indian, which I guess Black Fox likely knows by this time."

"Yes. Black Fox know."

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE LAST STAND

Sunrise brought the alarm. The call to arms came in the midst of breakfast. But it came to men who were discussing possibilities with smiling faces, and to women who were no longer held silent by the dread of the last few days. For all had shared in Seth's news. And if ever words were graven on the hearts of human beings, Seth's announcement, "Troops are comin' from the north," would most certainly have been found inscribed on the hearts of the defenders of White River Farm.

The attack began as the sun cleared the horizon, and continued all day.

Like the first few raindrops of a storm-shower the enemy's bullets hissed through the air or spattered upon the buildings. Their long-range firing did little harm, for Indians are notoriously bad marksmen.

The sun mounted; the hours crept by. The attack was general, and each minute diminished the enveloping circle. The Indians had learned many lessons during the past six days, and not the least of them the utter folly of recklessness. Now they crawled upon their bellies through the gra.s.s, offering the smallest possible target to the keen-eyed garrison.

But even so their death-roll was enormous. The plainsmen held them at their mercy, and it was only their vast numbers that gave them headway.

Death had no terrors for them. As each man drooped his head upon the earth another was there to take his place; and so the advance was maintained.

Noon drew near; the ever-narrowing circle was close upon the farm.

There was no sound of voices, only the sharp cracking of rifles, or the ping of bullets whistling through the air as the Indians returned the biting fire of their intended victims. It was a life and death struggle against time, and both besieged and besiegers knew it.

Seth watched with quiet eyes but with mind no less anxious that he did not show it. He had no fixed station like the others. He moved here, there, and everywhere watching, watching, and encouraging with a quiet word, or lending his aid with a shot wherever pressure seemed to be greatest.

Noon pa.s.sed. The whole plain was now alive with the slowly creeping foe stealing upon the doomed fort. The head of the advance was within three hundred yards of the stockade.

Parker was at Seth's side. Both were aiming at a party of young braves, endeavoring to outstrip their fellows by a series of short rushes. For some moments they silently picked them off, like men breaking pipes in a shooting gallery. The last had just fallen.

"It's red-hot this time," observed the Agent, turning his attention in a fresh direction. "We'll be lucky if we hold out until to-night." He was blackened with perspiration and dust. He wore three bandoliers bristling with ammunition over a torn and stained shirt.

"Guess so," Seth replied. "This 'll last another two hours, I'm figgerin', then we'll--git busy."

A fresh rush had started and the two rifles were kept at work. The Indians fell like ninepins, but there were always more to come on.

Hargreaves joined them a moment. He, too, was terribly war-worn. He still wore his clerical stock, but it had lost all semblance to its original shape.

"They're rushing us everywhere, Seth," he said.

Seth replied while he aimed at another daring warrior.

"I know," he said, and fired.

Hargreaves went back to his post. There must be no waste of time. This gentle pastor had little of gentleness about him now. A good Christian in every way, he still had no thought of turning the other cheek when women were in peril.

By three o'clock in the afternoon the rush became general. The defenders had no time even to keep their rifles cool. A steady fire was kept up, and the Indians were picked off like flies. But the gaps were filled by men beyond all description in their recklessness. Nothing could stem the tide.

They drew nearer and nearer like the waters of an oncoming sea. The end was looming. It was very near.

Suddenly, in response to an order from Seth, some of the women left the shelter of the house and followed him. A few minutes later the well was working, and a chain of buckets was pa.s.sing up to the roof of the house. A process of saturation was put into operation. The thatch was soaked until the water ran through the ceilings.

While this was going on a cry came from the northern extremity. The first Indian had reached the stockade and paid the penalty of his temerity.

Now orders, swift and sharp, pa.s.sed from lip to lip. Seth was everywhere.

The battle would be in full swing in a minute.

Suddenly Rube and Nevil appeared from a small outhouse rolling two large barrels. These were stood on end and the heads knocked out of them. The pails used for water were requisitioned; a fresh saturation went forward; this time it was the log stockade, and the saturation was being performed with coal-oil.

The sun was already dropping over the western horizon when a party of the enemy, in face of the fiercest fire, reached the defences. It was the moment Seth had awaited. From the stockade he called out a sharp order to the women in the upper parts of the house, and the loyal creatures, distracted with the nervous tension of inaction, poured out a deadly volley.

The terrible bombardment of short range weapons had instant effect. The enemy fell back under the withering hail. Headed by Seth a dozen men mounted the ramparts, and the next instant the vast corral formed a circle of leaping flame in the faces of the besiegers. The coal-oil had done its work, and the resinous pine logs yielded to the demands of those who needed their service.

The defence was consummate. For the great walls were sufficiently far from the buildings to render life possible within the fiery circle.

Baffled and furious, the Indians fell back before a foe they were powerless to combat. At a respectful distance they watched the conflagration with wonder. The magical abruptness of it filled them for a moment with superst.i.tious awe. But this phase did not last long.

The gates were the weak spot, and they quickly burnt through. In half an hour they crashed from their hinges, and the lynx-eyed foe beheld the breach thus open before them. They charged to the a.s.sault, while inside the defenders stood ready for them just beyond the range of the fierce heat.

Now was given an example of that strange, fanatical courage for which the red man is so famous. To pa.s.s the breach was like pa.s.sing through a living furnace, for the fire was raging at its full height upon each side. There was no hesitation, no shrinking.

Those nearest it charged the opening, and as they came were mowed down by the rifles waiting for them. Again and again was the gateway besieged, and the roasting human flesh sent up a nauseous reek upon the smoke-laden air.

Nothing could exceed the insensate fearlessness of these benighted creatures, nothing the awful slaughter which the white defenders dealt out.

But the superior intelligence and skill of the white men served them for only a time against the daring horde. Dozens rushed to the sacrifice, but ever there were more behind asking for the death of their comrades. And inch by inch they drove through the opening to within striking distance.

They had abandoned their firearms, and, with hatchet and tomahawk, their natural close-quarter weapons, the final struggle began.

All that had gone before was as nothing to the fight that waxed now. The howling mob were within the defences, and there was only one possible outcome. The position was one of those when the true spirit of the frontiersman is at its highest and grandest pitch.