The Young Trailers Part 19

A new impulse drove him to another step in the daring play, and, raising his head, he uttered his own war cry, a long piercing shout that died in distant echoes; it was at once a defiance, and an intimation to them where they might find him, and then, mirth in his eyes, he resumed his flight, although, for the present, he chose to keep an unchanging distance between his pursuers and himself.

That party of warriors may have pursued many a man before and may have caught most of them, but the greatest veteran of them all had never hung on the trail of such another annoying fugitive. All day he led them in swift flight toward the south, and at no time was he more than a little beyond their reach; often they thought their hands were about to close down upon him, that soon they would enjoy the sight of his writhings under the f.a.got and the stake, but always he slipped away at the fatal moment, and their savage hearts were filled with bitterness that a lone fugitive should taunt them so. His footsteps were those of the white man, but his wile and cunning were those of the red, and curiosity was added to the other motives that drew them on.

At the coming of the twilight one of their best warriors who pursued at some distance from the main band was slain by a rifle shot from the bushes, then came that defiant war cry again, faint, but full of irony and challenge, and then the trail grew cold before them. He whom they pursued was going now with a speed that none of them could equal, and the darkness itself, thick and heavy, soon covered all sign of his flight.

Henry Ware's expectations of joy had been fulfilled and more; it was the keenest delight that had yet come into his life. At all times he had been master of the situation, and as he drew them southward, he fulfilled his duty at the same time and enjoyed his sport. Everything had fallen out as he planned, and now, with the night at hand, he shook them off.

Through the day he had eaten dried venison from his pouch, as he ran, and he felt no need to stop for food. So, he did not cease the flight until after midnight when he lay down again in a thicket and slept soundly until daylight. He rose again, refreshed, and faster than ever sped on his swift way toward Wareville.

CHAPTER XIV

THE RETURN

Wareville lay in its pleasant valley, rejoicing in the young spring, so kind with its warm rains that the men of the village foresaw a great season for crops. The little river flowed in a silver current, smoke rose from many chimneys, and now and then the red homemade linsey dress of a girl gleamed in the sunlight like the feathers of the scarlet tanager. To the left were the fields cleared for Indian corn, and to the right were the gardens. Beyond both were the hills and the unbroken forest.

Now and then a man, carrying on his shoulder the inevitable Kentucky rifle, long and slender-barreled, pa.s.sed through the palisade, but the cardinal note of the scene was peace and cheerfulness. The town was prospering, its future no longer belonged to chance; there would be plenty, of the kind that they liked.

In the Ware house was a silent sadness, silent because these were stern people, living in a stern time, and it was the custom to hide one's griefs. The oldest son was gone; whether he had perished n.o.body knew, nor, if he had perished, how.

John Ware was not an emotional man, feelings rarely showed on his face, and his wife alone knew how hard the blow had been to him--she knew because she had suffered from the same stroke. But the children, the younger brother Charles and the sister Mary could not always remember, and with them the impression of the one who was gone would grow dimmer in time. The border too always expected a certain percentage of loss in human life, it was one of the facts with which the people must reckon, and thus the name of Henry Ware was rarely spoken.

To-day was without a cloud. New emigrants had come across the mountains, adding welcome strength to the colony, and extending the limits of the village. But danger had pa.s.sed them by, they had heard once or twice more of the great war in the far-away East, but it was so distant and vague that most of them forgot it; the Indians across the Ohio had never come this way, and so far Henry Ware was the only toll that they had paid to the wilderness. There was cause for happiness, as human happiness goes.

A slim girl bearing in her hand a wooden pail came through the gate of the palisade. She was bare-headed, but her wonderful dark-brown hair coiled in a shining ma.s.s was touched here and there with golden gleams where the sunshine fell upon it. Her face, browned somewhat, was yet very white on the forehead, and the cheeks had the crimson flush of health. She wore a dress of homemade linsey dyed red, and its close fit suggested the curves of her supple, splendid young figure. She walked with strong elastic step toward the spring that gushed from a hillside, and which after a short course fell into the little river.

It was Lucy Upton, grown much taller now, as youth develops rapidly on the border, a creature nourished into physical perfection first by the good blood that was in her, then developed in the open air, and by work, neither too little nor too much.

She reached the spring, and setting the pail by its side looked down at the cool, gushing stream. It invited her and she ran her white rounded arm through it, making curves and oblongs that were gone before they were finished. She was in a thoughtful mood. Once or twice she looked at the forest, and each time that she looked she shivered because the shadow of the wilderness was then very heavy upon her.

Silas Pennypacker, the schoolmaster, came to the spring while she was there, and they spoke together, because they were great friends, these two. He was unchanged, the same strong gray man, with the ruddy face. He was not unhappy here despite the seeming incongruity of his presence.

The wilderness appealed to him too in a way, he was the intellectual leader of the colony and almost everything that his nature called for met with a response.

"The spring is here, Lucy," he said, "and it has been an easy winter. We should be thankful that we have fared so well."

"I think that most of us are," she replied. "We'll soon be a big town."

She glanced at the spreading settlement, and this launched Mr.

Pennypacker upon a favorite theme of his. He liked to predict how the colony would grow, sowing new seed, and already he saw great cities to be. He found a ready listener in Lucy. This too appealed to her imagination at times, and if at other times interest was lacking, she was too fond of the old man to let him know it. Presently when she had finished she filled the pail and stood up, straight and strong.

"I will carry it for you," said the schoolmaster.

She laughed.

"Why should I let you?" she asked. "I am more able than you."

Most men would have taken it ill to have heard such words from a girl, but she was one among many, above the usual height for her years; she created at once the impression of great strength, both physical and mental; the heavy pail of water hung in her hand, as if it were a trifle that she did not notice. The master smiled and looked at her with eyes of fatherly admiration.

"I must admit that you tell the truth," he said. "This West of ours seems to suit you."

"It is my country now," she said, "and I do not care for any other."

"Since you will not let me carry the water you will at least let me walk with you?" he said.

She did not reply, and he was startled by the sudden change that came over her.

First a look of wonder showed on her face, then she turned white, every particle of color leaving her cheeks. The master could not tell what her expression meant, and he followed her eyes which were turned toward the wilderness.

From the forest came a figure very strange to Silas Pennypacker, a figure of barbaric splendor. It was a youth of great height and powerful frame, his face so brown that it might belong to either the white or the red race, but with fine clean features like those of a Greek G.o.d. He was clad in deerskins, ornamented with little colored beads and fringes of brilliant dyes. He carried a slender-barreled rifle over his shoulder, and he came forward with swift, soundless steps.

The master recoiled in alarm at the strange and ominous figure, but as the red flooded back into the girl's cheeks she put her hand upon his arm.

"It is he! I knew that he was not dead!" she said in an intense tremulous whisper. The words were indefinite, but the master knew whom she meant, and there was a surge of joy in his heart, to be followed the next moment by doubt and astonishment. It was Henry Ware who had come back, but not the same Henry Ware.

Henry was beside them in a moment and he seized their hands, first the hands of one and then of the other, calling them by name.

The master recovering from his momentary diffidence threw his arms around his former pupil, welcomed him with many words, and wanted to know where he had been so long.

"I shall tell you, but not now," replied Henry, "because there is no time to spare; you are threatened by a great danger. The Shawnees are coming with a thousand warriors and I have hastened ahead to warn you."

He hurried them inside the palisade, his manner tense, masterful and convincing, and there he met his mother, whose joy, deep and grateful, was expressed in few words after the stern Puritan code. The father and the brother and sister came next, but the younger people like Lucy felt a little fear of him, and his old comrade Paul Cotter scarcely knew him.

He told in a few words of his escape from a far Northwestern tribe, of the coming of the Shawnees, and of the need to take every precaution for defense.

"There is no time to spare," he said. "All must be called in at once."

A man with powerful lungs blew long on a cow's horn, those who were at work in the fields and the forest hastened in, the gates were barred, the best marksmen were sent to watch in the upper story of the blockhouses and at the palisade, and the women began to mold bullets.

Henry Ware was the pervading spirit through all the preparations. He knew everything and thought of everything, he told them the mode of Indian attack and how they could best meet it, he compelled them to strengthen the weak spots in the palisade, and he encouraged all those who were faint of heart and apprehensive.

Lucy's slight fear of him remained, but with it now came admiration. She saw that his was a soul fit to lead and command, the work that he was about to do he loved, his eyes were alight with the fire of battle; a certain joy was shining there, and all, feeling the strength of his spirit, obeyed him without asking why.

Only Braxton Wyatt uttered doubts with words and sneered with looks. He too had become a hunter of skill, and hence what he said might have some merit.

"It seems strange that Henry Ware should come so suddenly when he might have come before," he remarked with apparent carelessness to Lucy Upton.

She looked at him with sharp interest. The same thought had entered her mind, but she did not like to hear Braxton Wyatt utter it.

"At all events he is about to save us from a great danger," she said.

Wyatt laughed and his thin long features contracted in an ugly manner.

"It is a tale to impress us and perhaps to cover up something else," he replied. "There is not an Indian within two hundred miles of us. I know, I have been through the woods and there is no sign."

She turned away, liking his words little and his manner less. She stopped presently by a corner of one of the houses on a slight elevation whence she could see a long distance beyond the palisade. So far as seeming went Braxton Wyatt was certainly right. The spring day was full of golden sunshine, the fresh new green of the forest was unsullied, and it was hard to conjure up even the shadow of danger.