True to the Old Flag Part 3

The boy and girl knelt in the darkness and said their simple prayers. Then they lay down, and Harold was pleased to hear in a few minutes the steady breathing which told him that his cousin was asleep. It was a long time before he followed her example. During the day he had kept up a brave front and had endeavored to make the best of their position, but now that he was alone he felt the full weight of the responsibility of guiding his companion through the extreme danger which threatened them both. He felt sure that the Indians would prolong the siege for some time, as they would be sure that no re-enforcements could possibly arrive in aid of the garrison.

Moreover, he by no means felt so sure as he had pretended to his companion of the power of the defenders of the house to maintain a successful resistance to so large a number of their savage foes. In the daylight he felt certain they could beat them off, but darkness neutralizes the effect both of superior arms and better marksmanship.

It was nearly midnight before he lay down with the determination to sleep, but scarcely had he done so when he was aroused by an outburst of distant firing. Although six or seven miles from the scene of the encounter, the sound of each discharge came distinct to the ear along the smooth surface of the lake, and he could even hear, mingled with the musketry fire, the faint yells of the Indians. For hours, as it seemed to him, he sat listening to the distant contest, and then he, unconsciously to himself, dozed off to sleep, and awoke with a start, to find Nelly sitting up beside him and the sun streaming down through the boughs. He started to his feet.

"Bless me!" he exclaimed, "I did not know that I had been asleep. It seems but an instant ago that I was listening"--and here he checked himself--"that is, that I was wide awake, and here we are in broad daylight."

Harold's first care was to examine the position of the canoe, and he found that fortunately it had touched the sh.o.r.e at a spot where the boughs of the trees overhead drooped into the water beyond it, so that it could not be seen by anyone pa.s.sing along the lake. This was the more fortunate as he saw, some three miles away, a canoe with three figures on board. For a long distance on either side the boughs of the trees drooped into the water, with only an opening here and there such as that through which the boat had pa.s.sed the night before.

"We must be moving, Nelly. Here are the marks where we scrambled up the bank last night. If the Indians take it into their heads to search the sh.o.r.e both ways, as likely enough they may do, they will be sure to see them. In the first place let us gather a stock of berries, and then we will get into the boat again and paddle along under this arcade of boughs till we get to some place where we can land without leaving marks of our feet. If the Indians find the place where we landed here, they will suppose that we went off again before daylight."

For some time they rambled in the woods and succeeded in gathering a store of berries and wild fruit. Upon these Nelly made her breakfast, but Harold's appet.i.te was sufficiently ravenous to enable him to fall to upon the fish, which, he declared, were not so bad, after all.

Then they took their places in the canoe again and paddled on for nearly a mile.

"See, Harold!" Nelly exclaimed as she got a glimpse through the boughs into the lake, "there is another canoe. They must have got the Braithwaite boat. We pa.s.sed their place coming here, you know. I wonder what has happened there."

"What do you think is best to do, Nelly?" Harold asked. "Your opinion is just as good as mine about it. Shall we leave our canoe behind, land, and take to the woods, or shall we stop quietly in the canoe in shelter here, or shall we take to the lake and trust to our speed to get away? in which case, you know, if they should come up I could pick them off with my gun before they got within reach.

"I don't think that would do," the girl said, shaking her head. "You shoot very well, but it is not an easy thing to hit a moving object if you are not accustomed to it, and they paddle so fast that if you miss them once they would be close alongside--at any rate we should be within reach of their guns--before you could load again. They would be sure to catch us, for although we might paddle nearly as fast for a time, they would certainly tire us out. Then, as to waiting here in the canoe, if they came along on foot looking for us we should be in their power. It is dreadful to think of taking to the woods with Indians all about, but I really think that would be our safest plan."

"I think so too, Nelly, if we can manage to do it without leaving a track. We must not go much further, for the trees are getting thinner ahead and we should be seen by the canoes."

Fifty yards further Harold stopped paddling.

"Here is just the place, Nelly."

At this point a little stream of three or four feet wide emerged into the lake; Harold directed the boat's head toward it. The water in the stream was but a few inches deep.

"Now, Nelly," he said, "we must step out into the water and walk up it as far as we can go--it will puzzle even the sharpest redskin to find our track then."

They stepped into the water, Harold taking the head-rope of the canoe and towing the light boat--which, when empty, did not draw more than two inches of water--behind him. He directed Nelly to be most careful as she walked not to touch any of the bushes, which at times nearly met across the stream.

"A broken twig or withered leaf would be quite enough to tell the Indians that we came along this way," he said. "Where the bushes are thick you must manage to crawl under them. Never mind about getting wet--you will soon dry again."

Slowly and cautiously they made their way up the stream for nearly a mile. It had for some distance been narrowing rapidly, being only fed by little rills from the surrounding swamp land. Harold had so far looked in vain for some spot where they could land without leaving marks of their feet. Presently they came to a place where a great tree had fallen across the stream.

"This will do, Nelly," Harold said. "Now, above all things you must be careful not to break off any of the moss or bark. You had better take your shoes off; then I will lift you on to the trunk and you can walk along it without leaving a mark."

It was hard work for Nelly to take off her drenched boots, but she managed at last. Harold lifted her on to the trunk and said:

"Walk along as far as you can and get down as lightly as possible on to a firm piece of ground. It rises rapidly here and is, I expect, a dry soil where the upper end of the tree lies."

"How are you going to get out, Harold?"

"I can swing myself up by that projecting root."

Before proceeding to do so Harold raised one end of the canoe and placed it on the trunk of the tree; then, having previously taken off his shoes, he swung himself on to the trunk; hauling up the light bark canoe and taking especial pains that it did not grate upon the trunk, he placed it on his head and followed Nelly along the tree. He found, as he had expected, that the ground upon which the upper end lay was firm and dry. He stepped down with great care, and was pleased to see, as he walked forward, that no trace of a footmark was left.

"Be careful, Nelly," he exclaimed when he joined her, "not to tread on a stick or disturb a fallen leaf with your feet, and above all to avoid breaking the smallest twig as you pa.s.s. Choose the most open ground, as that is the hardest."

In about a hundred yards they came upon a large clump of bushes.

"Now, Nelly, raise those lower boughs as gently and as carefully as you can. I will push the canoe under. I don't think the sharpest Indian will be able to take up our track now."

Very carefully the canoe was stowed away, and when the boughs were allowed to fall in their natural position it was completely hidden from sight to every pa.s.ser-by. Harold took up the fish, Nelly had filled her ap.r.o.n with the berries, and carrying their shoes--for they agreed that it would be safer not to put them on--they started on their journey through the deep forest.

CHAPTER III.

THE REDSKIN ATTACK.

Mr. Welch was with the men, two or three hundred yards away from the house, when the Indians suddenly sprang out and opened fire. One of the men fell beside him; the farmer stooped to lift him, but saw that he was shot through the head. Then he ran with full speed toward the house, shouting to the hands to make straight for the gate, disregarding the cattle. Several of these, however, alarmed at the sudden outburst of fire and the yells of the Indians, made of their own accord for the stables as their master rushed up at full speed.

The Indians were but fifty or sixty yards behind when Mr. Welch reached his gate. They had all emptied their pieces, and after the first volley no shots had been fired save one by the watchman on the lookout. Then came the crack of Pearson's rifle just as Mr. Welch shut the gate and laid the bar in its place. Several spare guns had been placed in the upper chambers, and three reports rang out together, for Mrs. Welch had run upstairs at the first alarm to take her part in the defense.

In another minute the whole party, now six in all, were gathered in the upper room.

"Where are Nelly and Harold?" Mr. Welch exclaimed. "I saw the canoe close to the sh.o.r.e just before the Indians opened fire," the watchman answered.

"You must have been asleep," Pearson said savagely. "Where were your eyes to let them redskins crawl up through the corn without seeing 'em? With such a crowd of 'em the corn must have been a-waving as if it was blowing a gale. You ought to have a bullet in yer ugly carkidge, instead of its being in yer mate's out there."

While this conversation was going on no one had been idle. Each took up his station at a loop-hole, and several shots were fired whenever the movement of a blade of corn showed the lurking place of an Indian.

The instant the gate had been closed War Eagle had called his men back to shelter, for he saw that all chance of a surprise was now over, and it was contrary to all redskin strategy to remain for one moment unnecessarily exposed to the rifles of the whites. The farmer and his wife had rushed at once up into the lookout as the Indians drew off and, to their joy, saw the canoe darting away from sh.o.r.e.

"They are safe for the present, thank G.o.d!" Mr. Welch said. "It is providential indeed that they had not come a little further from the sh.o.r.e when the redskins broke out. Nothing could have saved them, had they fairly started for the house."

"What will they do, William?" asked his wife anxiously.

"I cannot tell you, my dear. I do not know what I should do myself under the circ.u.mstances. However, the boy has got a cool head on his shoulders, and you need not be anxious for the present. Now let us join the others. Our first duty is to take our share in the defense of the house. The young ones are in the hands of G.o.d. We can do nothing for them."

"Well?" Pearson asked, looking round from his loop-hole as the farmer and his wife descended into the room, which was a low garret extending over the whole of the house. "Do you see the canoe?"

"Yes, it has got safely away," William Welch said; "but what the lad will do now is more than I can say."

Pearson placed his rifle against the wall. "Now keep your eyes skinned," he said to the three farm hands.

"One of yer's done mischief enough this morning already, and you'll get your har raised, as sure as you're born, unless you look out sharp. Now," he went on, turning to the Welches, "let us go down and talk this matter over. The Injuns may keep on firing, but I don't think they'll show in the open again as long as it's light enough for us to draw bead on 'em. Yes," he went on, as he looked through a loop-hole in the lower story over the lake, "there they are, just out of range."

"What do you think they will do?" Mrs. Welch asked.

The hunter was silent for a minute.

"It aint a easy thing to say what they ought to do, much less what they will do; it aint a good outlook anyway, and I don't know what I should do myself. The whole of the woods on this side of the lake are full of the darned red critters. There's a hundred eyes on that canoe now, and, go where they will, they'll be watched."

"But why should they not cross the lake and land on the other side?"

Mr. Welch said.