PUTTING OUT FROM SHORE.
Not a moment was to be lost. Everything depended upon boarding the
flatboat and pushing off at once from shore. The party was so large that
the craft was sure to be crowded, but its buoyancy was sufficient to
carry still more.
To most of the party hurrying on board, the silence and inactivity of
the Shawanoes were incomprehensible. That they had been partially dazed
was fair to believe, but it could not continue long. The presence of the
boat, with its sail still spread, against the bank, must tell the story
to the fierce red men, who ought to be as quick to recover from it as
were the pioneers.
It mattered not that the wind had failed. The one point was to get the
flatboat away from land, and out into the stream. That done, a long step
would be taken toward safety. The ambuscade would be flanked and
avoided.
"You can't hurry too much," said the missionary, beginning to show
nervousness now that the critical moment was at hand. He helped the
women on board, and did what he could to prevent the confusion caused at
this juncture by the crowding. He expected that a volley would come
every moment from the gloom along the shore, and therefore held his
station where his body would be most likely to shield the helpless ones.
Amid the confusion there was something approaching order, and it can be
said that no time was thrown away. Within a minute of reaching the
flatboat it seemed that every one of the pioneers was on board.
"Lay down," whispered Boone, addressing the settlers especially; "the
varmints are sartin to fire afore you can get out on the river--"
"Dar goes dat canue," called Jethro Juggens, who managed to be the first
on board.
The little boat had been swung around and fastened to the farther side
of the more bulky craft, so as to allow the latter to approach nearer
the land. The youth was doing what he could to aid his friends (really
doing nothing), when he observed the canoe several feet away with the
intervening space steadily increasing.
"Jump over after it," commanded Kenton, who himself would have done what
he ordered but for the need of his presence on the flatboat.
"Drop dat boat!" shouted Jethro, addressing (with a view of impressing
those around him) an imaginary foe. At the same moment, leaving his gun
behind him, he leaped overboard and swam powerfully toward the little
craft. The clothing of the youth had not yet dried from the wetting
received by his bath earlier in the evening, and at this sultry season
of the year a plunge in the river was pleasant than otherwise.
Jethro ought to have noticed that while the canoe was drifting with the
current it was also approaching the middle of the Ohio. That could
hardly take place without the interference of some one.
But the powerful youth noted not the significant fact, and swam with
lusty stroke straight for the little boat that had changed hands so
frequently during the last few hours, and been the cause of more than
one furious wrangle. Only a second or two was necessary to reach it, and
he laid his hand on the gunwale.
At that instant a Shawanoe warrior rose from the interior of the canoe,
and lifted his hand in which was clasped a knife, with the purpose of
burying it with vicious energy in the breast of the astonished youth.
"Whew! gorrynation! I didn't know yo' war dar!" gasped Jethro, dropping
like a loon beneath the surface just in time to escape the ferocious
thrust.
The Shawanoe leaned so far out, with upraised weapon, to strike the
African when he came up, that the canoe careened almost upon its side.
He was in this attitude of expectancy when, from the flatboat, came the
sharp crack of a rifle, and the savage plunged over, head first, with a
smothered shriek, and sank from sight.
"I expected something of the kind," muttered Simon Kenton, who, amid the
tumult around him, proceeded to reload his rifle with as much coolness
as if he were in the depth of the forest and had just brought down a
deer or bear.
From the undergrowth immediately above where the boat was pushing from
land, a second warrior, whose zeal outran his discretion, emitted a
ringing whoop, and dashed straight at the crowding fugitives. He was
nearer Mrs. Altman than any of the others, and meant to bury his
uplifted tomahawk in her brain, but when almost within reach he made a
frenzied leap from the ground, and, with outspread arms and legs,
tumbled forward on his face.
It was never clearly established who was quick enough to check the
murderous miscreant in this fashion, for fighting had fairly begun and
considerable shooting was going on; but the moon at that moment was
unobscured, and Mr. Altman insisted that he saw Missionary Finley raise
his rifle like a flash and discharge it in the direction of the warrior
just at the instant before the husband could intervene in defence of his
wife.
When the good man was afterward taxed with the exploit, so creditable to
his coolness and courage, he showed a reluctance to discuss it. Pressed
further, he would not admit the charge, and yet refrained from denial.
It will be conceded, therefore, that the presumption is reasonable that
Missionary Finley was the instrument of saving Mrs. Altman's life when
it was in the gravest possible peril. Meanwhile Jethro Juggens found
himself with interesting surroundings. Availing himself of his great
skill in the water, he dived so deeply that his feet touched bottom and
he came up a dozen rods away from the canoe and between it and the Ohio
shore. The passing of the Shawanoe took place while the youth was
beneath the surface, so that he was unaware of the true situation when
he arose and stared at the boat.
"Gorrynation, if de t'ing ain't upsot!" was his exclamation when he had
approached somewhat nearer and saw the boat turned bottom upward.
The spasmodic lunge of the Shawanoe had overturned the craft, which
resembled a huge tortoise, drifting with the current.
"He's walking on de bottom ob de ribber, wid dat boat ober his head, to
keep from gettin' moonstruck. Dat can't be neither," added Jethro,
"onless he am seventeen foot tall, and I don't tink he am dat high."
The gently moving arms of the swimmer came in contact with something.
Closing his hands about it, he found it to be the oar flung out of the
canoe by the overturning.
"Dat'll come handy," thought Jethro. "When he sticks out his head to get
a bref ob air, I'll whack him wid de paddle till he s'renders."
After manoeuvring about the canoe for some minutes, a suspicion of the
truth dawned upon the youth. Even when under the water he was able to
hear the deadened reports of the rifles above, and he believed that one
of the shots must have reached the occupant of the boat, whose frenzied
leap capsized it.
Gathering courage after a few minutes, he grasped the canoe and managed
to swing it back into proper position, but it contained so much water as
to forbid its use until it was emptied. This could be done only by
taking it ashore. Jethro therefore tossed the paddle inside, and
grasping the gunwale with one hand, swam with the other toward Ohio. It
may be added that he reached it without further event, and there for a
time we will leave him to himself.
"Lie down!" thundered the missionary, seeing that his first order was
only partially obeyed. "My good woman, I beg your pardon, but it must be
done."
His words were addressed to Mrs. Ashbridge, who, in her anxiety for her
husband and son, was exposing herself in the most reckless manner. As he
spoke, he seized her in his arms as though she were but an infant, and
placed her not too gently flat in the bottom of the boat.
"There! spend these minutes in prayer--no; that will never do," he
added, grasping the shoulder of Agnes Altman, who, at that moment,
attempted to rise; "keep down--all that is between you and death is that
plank."
"But--but," pleaded the distressed girl, "tell father and George to be
careful, won't you, please?"
"We are in the hands of God, my child, and have only to do our duty.
Help us by causing no anxiety about yourselves."
The great necessity, as has been explained, was to work the flatboat
away from land. The most direct means of doing this was by pushing with
the poles that had been taken on board for that use; but they were
fastened in place as supports for the sail that had brought the craft to
this place. The sweeps would accomplish this work, but only slowly and
by frightful exposure on the part of those swaying them.
Nevertheless, Jim Deane seized the bow sweep at the moment another
ranger grasped the rear one, and both wrought with right good will.
Dark forms appeared in greater number along shore and near the craft
itself. The gloom was lit up by flashes of guns, and the air was rent by
the shouts of the combatants, for the white men could make as much noise
as their enemies in the swirl and frenzy of personal encounter and
deadly conflict.
Boone, Kenton, the missionary and most of the men had leaped into the
flatboat and crouched low, where all seemed huddled together in
inextricable confusion. The two were toiling at the sweeps, and the
craft worked away from the shore with maddening tardiness. To some of
the terrified inmates it did not seem to move at all.
"A little harder, Jim," called the missionary "shall I lend a hand?"
"No," replied Deane; "I'll fetch it, I don't need you--yes I do, too."
As he spoke, he let go of the sweep and sagged heavily downward.
"Are you hit?" asked the good man, raising the head upon his knee.
"I got my last sickness that time, parson--it's all up--good-by!"
The missionary would have said more, would have prayed with the fellow,
despite the terrifying peril around him, had there been time to do so,
but Jim Deane was dead.
"God rest his soul!" murmured the good man, gently laying down the head,
and drawing the body as closely as he could to the gunwale, where it
would be out of the way.
As from the first, the missionary exposed himself with the utmost
recklessness, and, where the bullets were hurtling all about him, the
wonder was that he had not already been struck; but the life of Rev. J.
B. Finley was one of sacrifice, peril, suffering and hardship, in which
his last thought was for himself. He was ready for the call of the dark
angel, whether he came at midnight, morning, or high noon, and the angel
did not come until after the lapse of many years, when the scenes such
as we are describing had long passed away.
A strange and for a time wholly unaccountable occurrence took place near
the stem of the flatboat, only a moment before Jim Deane was mortally
smitten.
Simon Kenton had just withdrawn his attention from Jethro Juggens and
his canoe, and was looking toward the bank at his elbow, when he uttered
an exclamation, the meaning of which no one caught, or, if he did,
failed to notice it in the tumult and hullabaloo. At the same moment the
ranger gathered his muscles into one mighty effort, and made a leap
toward shore.
Superb as was his skill in this direction, the distance was too great to
be covered, and he stuck in the water, but so near land that he sank
only to his waist. He struggled furiously forward, seemingly in the very
midst of the Shawanoes, and was immediately lost to sight.
There was no time to inquire the meaning of this extraordinary action,
and no one suspected it, but it became apparent within a brief space of
time.
It was at this juncture that several noticed the wind had risen again.
It was blowing not so strongly as before, but with sufficient power to
start the flatboat slowly up stream. Boone called to all to keep down,
while he, crouching close to the stern, held the oar so that it helped
steer the craft into mid-stream.
The missionary did the same with the forward sweep, and, impelled by the
wind, the craft slowly forged away from the Kentucky and toward the Ohio
shore.
All hearts were beating high with hope and thankfulness when a piercing
cry came from Mrs. Ashbridge.
"Where is Mabel? What has become of Mabel? Oh, where is she?"
Dismay reigned during the minute or two of frenzied search of the
interior of the craft. The space was so small that the hunt was quickly
over, with the dreadful truth established that little ten-year old Mabel
Ashbridge was not on the flatboat.
Missionary Finley announced the fact when he said:
"She has fallen into the hands of the Shawanoes; that was the cause of
Simon Kenton leaping ashore."