The Young Trailers Part 11

"Of course."

Henry, watching Paul keenly, saw him grow pale. But his lips did not tremble and that pa.s.sing pallor failed to lower Paul in Henry's esteem.

The bigger and stronger boy knew his comrade's courage and tenacity, and he respected him all the more for it, because he was perhaps less fitted than some others for the wild and dangerous life of the border.

After these few words they sank again into silence, and to Paul and the master the sun grew very hot. It was poised now at a convenient angle in the heavens, and poured sheaves of fiery rays directly upon them. Mr.

Pennypacker began to gasp. He was a man of dignity, a teacher of youth, and it did not become him to run so fast from something that he could not see. Ross's keen eye fell upon him.

"I think you'd better mount one of the horses," he said; "the big bay there can carry his salt and you too for a while until you are rested."

"What! I ride, when everybody else is afoot!" exclaimed Mr. Pennypacker, indignantly.

"You're the only schoolmaster we have and we can't afford to lose you,"

said Ross without the suspicion of a grin.

Mr. Pennypacker looked at him, but he could not detect any change of countenance.

"Hop up," continued Ross, "it ain't any time to be bashful. Others of us may have to do it afore long."

Mr. Pennypacker yielded with a sigh, sprang lightly upon the horse, and then when he enjoyed the luxury of rest was glad that he had yielded.

Paul, and one or two others took to the horses' backs later on, but Henry continued the march on foot with long easy strides, and no sign of weakening. Ross noticed him more than once but he never made any suggestion to Henry that he ride; instead the faint smile of approval appeared once more on the guide's face.

The sun began to sink, the twilight came, and then night. Ross called a halt, and, cl.u.s.tered in the thickest shadows of the forest, they ate their supper and rested their tired limbs. No fire was lighted, but they sat there under the trees, hungrily eating their venison, and talking in the lowest of whispers.

Mr. Pennypacker was much dissatisfied. He had been troubled by the hasty flight and his dignity suffered.

"It is not becoming that white men should run away from an inferior race," he said.

"Maybe it ain't becomin', but it's safe," said Ross.

"At least we are far enough away now," continued the master, "and we might rest here comfortably until dawn. We haven't seen or heard a sign of pursuit."

"You don't know the natur' of the red warriors, Mr. Pennypacker," said the leader deferentially but firmly, "when they make the least noise then they're most dangerous. Now I'm certain sure that they struck our trail not long after we left Big Bone Lick, an' in these woods the man that takes the fewest risks is the one that lives the longest."

It was a final statement. In the present emergency the leader's authority was supreme. They rested about an hour with no sound save the shuffling feet of the horses which could not be kept wholly quiet; and then they started on again, not going so quickly now, because the night was dark, and they wished to make as little noise as possible, threshing about in the undergrowth.

Paul pressed up by the side of Henry.

"Do you think we shall have to go on all night, this way?" he asked.

"Wasn't Mr. Pennypacker right, when he said we were out of danger?"

"No, the schoolmaster was wrong," replied Henry. "Tom Ross knows more about the woods and what is likely to happen in them than Mr.

Pennypacker could know in all his life, if he were to live a thousand years. It's every man to his own trade, and it's Tom's trade that we need now."

After hearing these sage words of youth Paul asked no more questions, but he and Henry kept side by side throughout the night, that is, when neither of them was riding, because Henry, like all the others, now took turns on horseback. Twice they crossed small streams and once a larger one, where they exercised the utmost caution to keep their precious salt from getting wet. Fortunately the great pack saddles were a protection, and they emerged on the other side with both salt and powder dry.

When the night was thickest, in the long, dark hour just before the dawn, Henry and Paul, who were again side by side, heard a faint, distant cry. It was a low, wailing note that was not unpleasant, softened by the s.p.a.ces over which it came. It seemed to be far behind them, but inclining to the right, and after a few moments there came another faint cry just like it, also behind them, but far to the left.

Despite the soft, wailing note both Henry and Paul felt a shiver run through them. The strange low sound, coming in the utter silence of the night, had in it something ominous.

"It was the cry of a wolf," said Paul.

"And his brother wolf answered," said Henry.

Shif'less Sol was just behind them, and they heard him laugh, a low laugh, but full of irony. Paul wheeled about at once, his pride aflame at the insinuation that he did not know the wolf's long whine.

"Well, wasn't it a wolf--and a wolf that answered?" he asked.

"Yes, a wolf an' a wolf that answered," replied Shif'less Sol with sardonic emphasis, "but they had only four legs between 'em. Them was the signal cries of the Shawnees, an', as Tom has been tellin' you all the time, they're hot on our trail. It's a mighty lucky thing for us we didn't undertake to stay all night back there where we stopped."

Paul turned pale again, but his courage as usual came back. "Thank G.o.d it will be daylight soon," he murmured to himself, "and then if they overtake us we can see them."

Faint and far, but ominous and full of threat came the howl of the wolf again, first from the right and then from the left, and then from points between. Henry noticed that Ross and Shif'less Sol seemed to draw themselves together, as if they would make every nerve and muscle taut, and then his eyes shifted to Mr. Pennypacker, and seeing him, he knew at once that the master did not understand; he had not heard the words of Shif'less Sol.

"It seems that we are pursued by a pack of wolves instead of a war party," said Mr. Pennypacker. "At least we are numerous enough to beat off a lot of cowardly four-footed a.s.sailants."

Henry smiled from the heights of his superior knowledge.

"Those are not wolves, Mr. Pennypacker," he said, "those are the Shawnees calling to one another."

"Then, why in Heaven's name don't they speak their own language!"

exclaimed the exasperated schoolmaster, "instead of using that which appertains only to the prowling beast?"

Henry, despite himself, was forced to smile, but he turned his face and hid the smile--he would not offend the schoolmaster whom he esteemed sincerely.

The dawn now began to brighten. The sun, a flaming red sword, cleft the gray veil, and then poured down a torrent of golden beams upon the vast, green wilderness of Kentucky. Henry, as he looked around upon the little band, realized what a tiny speck of human life they were in all those hundreds of miles of forest, and what risks they ran.

Ross gave the word to halt, and again they ate of cold food. While the others sat on fallen timber or leaned against tree trunks, Ross and Sol talked in low tones, but Henry could see that all their words were marked by the deepest earnestness. Ross presently turned to the men and said in tones of greatest gravity:

"All of you heard the howlin' just afore dawn, an' I guess all of you know it was not made by real wolves, but by Shawnees, callin' to each other an' directin' the chase of us. We've come fast, but they've come faster, an' I know that by noon we'll have to fight."

The schoolmaster's eyes opened in wonder.

"Do you really mean to say that they are overhauling us?" he asked.

"I sh.o.r.e do," replied Ross. "You see, they're better trained travelers for woods than we are, an' they are not hampered by anythin'."

Mr. Pennypacker said nothing more, but his lips suddenly closed tightly and his eyes flashed. In the great battle ground of the white man and the red man, called Kentucky, the early schoolmaster was as ready as any one else to fight.

Ross and Sol again consulted and then Ross said:

"We think that since we have to fight it would be better to fight when we are fresh and steady and in the best place we can find."

All the men nodded. They were tired of running and when Ross gave the word to stop again they did so promptly. The questioning eyes of both Ross and Sol roamed round the forest and finally and simultaneously the two uttered a low cry of pleasure. They had come into rocky ground and they had been ascending. Before them was a hill with a rather steep ascent, and dropping off almost precipitously on three sides.

"We couldn't find a better place," said Ross loud enough for all to hear. "It looks like a fort just made for us."

"But there is no line of retreat," objected the schoolmaster.

"We had a line of a retreat last night and all this mornin' an' we've been followin' it all the time," rejoined the leader. "Now we don't need it no more, but what we do need to do is to make a stan'-up fight, an'