THE WILDERNESS TRAPPER
The haft of the hatchet was still a-quiver from the Prophet’s cast when
Jack Davis’ long rifle spoke in reply. Then, with a hiss, an arrow from
the bow of Running Elk found its mark; Frank’s piece cracked sharply,
and then all three turned and darted away through the trees.
Behind them arose a terrific din; the Creeks, amazed at the unexpected
happening, could, for a space, do nothing but yell their surprise and
anger. Then they seized their weapons; arrows began to sing their
swift flights over the heads of the running boys; a few rifles spoke
spitefully; but in the darkness the aim of the Indians was bad.
As swiftly as they could travel, the lads tore through the woods;
emerging from this their way was easier and they could make better
time. When about a half a mile from the camp of the Creeks, Jack paused
and his comrades drew up beside him. After listening a moment, the
youthful borderer said:
“They are not after us; we must have given them a scare.”
“Creek not know how many,” said Running Elk. “Him think plenty white
man.”
“Well, I’m glad enough for that,” spoke Frank, as he mopped his face
with a handkerchief which he wore about his neck. “It would not be any
too comfortable with that crowd pounding at our heels.”
They waited for perhaps a half hour for some sounds of pursuit; but as
none came, they resumed their course toward the abandoned camp where
their horses were tied.
“At daylight the Creeks will be stirring,” said Jack, “and then they’ll
find our tracks and learn how few there are of us. So the best thing
we can do is to mount and be on our way before they know too much about
us.”
“A good idea,” said Frank.
“Creek good trailer,” admitted Running Elk. “Find track, like wolf.”
Accordingly they saddled, untied and mounted their horses; then in
Indian file they rode away in the semi-darkness of the coppery sky.
Jack Davis and Frank Lawrence had been friends for almost ten years.
Jack’s father was a prosperous farmer with a great tract of land which
he had won from the wilderness of Tennessee, and the boy had been
brought up at the plow in the planting season, harvesting the crop
in the autumn, and in the fall and winter ranging the woods with his
rifle, accompanied by friendly Indians, or by some old trapper who had
spent his life in the wilds.
But there had been three years in which Jack had gone to school. The
school selected for him had been at Richmond and kept by a dapper,
kindly old Frenchman who knew much, and had the knack of imparting
it. It was here that Jack and Frank first met; they became chums, and
during those weeks in which the schoolmaster saw fit to close his
establishment at Christmas time, and during the heated term Jack was
always carried enthusiastically away to the fine old house on the banks
of the James, outside the city.
Frank’s father had then been a man of wealth and social position,
but things, as his son had told Jack beside the camp that night, had
changed. He had great losses in various ventures. And now this old
French grant in the heart of the Creek country, once looked upon
lightly enough, was all that stood between the old gentleman and real
want.
Frank had realized this with a shock, and at once he set about turning
the land to some practical account. First it had to be located, and
that meant a journey through the wilderness. With the thought of this
journey came one of Jack.
“The very fellow to go with me!” Frank had exclaimed. “He’s as learned
in the lore of the woods as the oldest trapper.”
So away rode Frank into Tennessee and put the matter before his friend.
Jack leaped at the idea; a venture into the woods appealed to him
mightily; and at once he sent word to a Cherokee village, two score
miles distant, for the young hunter, Running Elk, companion of many an
exploit with the wild denizens of the forest.
They had been out something like two weeks when they met with the
adventure related in the preceding chapter; but save for two bears and
a panther, which gave Frank a very thrilling moment, they had had few
experiences. But the scene at the savage camp-fire, the streaked faces
of the Creek council, the words of the Red Warrior and of Tecumseh had
been ominous and impressed themselves upon the boys’ minds.
“If the Injuns ever really join together for a war against the whites,
they’ll sweep the border like flame for a while,” observed Jack,
soberly, as they rode along. “The settlers are far apart, and the
soldiers would be a long time getting into action.”
“I hope it never comes,” spoke Frank, fervently. “It will gain nothing
for the tribes, and it will cost many an honest man his life.”
“Big war!” said Running Elk, confidently. “Heap fight. Much kill.
Prophet great medicine. Injun fool! Soldiers shoot ’um like wolf.”
However, whatever the prospects for an Indian uprising, the mission of
the boys at this time was to locate the old land grant, the position
of which was set down upon a chart which Frank carried in the breast
of his buckskin hunting shirt. Jack now dwelt rather gravely upon the
situation; he felt that it would be well to return to the settlements
and give warning as to the presence of Tecumseh and the Prophet among
the Creeks, but he couldn’t very well see how it could be done at that
time. It was daylight and they were seated beside a fire, kindled upon
the banks of a small stream, and eating their breakfast of ash cake and
baked woodcock when an idea occurred to the youthful borderer.
“We’re not more than a day and a half’s travel from old Joe Grant’s
trapping grounds,” said he, delighted at the thought. “Joe will be
going to the settlements for traps, powder and provisions to carry on
his winter work. If we can reach him before he starts, he’ll carry the
news we have to tell.”
Frank was equally pleased at this plan; and after a rest until noon,
for both they and their horses were tired out by the all night ride to
escape the Creeks, they mounted once more and headed in the direction
of the old trapper’s cabin in the woods.
Old Joe Grant was one of those unique backwoods characters so plentiful
in the early days of the fur hunters. He had a line of traps, in
season, for miles along the banks of the streams; he hunted bear and
hill-cats and deer, and lived in a small log house in the shelter of a
huge, uprearing rock, in a region into which man, white or red, seldom
ventured. Here with a packhorse and a brace of huge dogs, almost as
savage as wolves, he had lived for years, only venturing into the
settlements in the spring to sell his furs, and in the early fall to
lay in his necessities, as Jack had said, for the winter.
[Illustration: THE TRAPPER WAS SEATED IN THE DOORWAY]
At about sundown next day as the three were riding through a depression
between two hills, they heard the deep bay of dogs; in another quarter
of an hour they sighted the lonely cabin. The trapper was seated in the
doorway, his rifle at his side, mending a trap. The two white boys
shouted and waved their caps as they approached; the huge hounds which
had winded them from afar rushed forward, their red jaws gaping, and
growling deep in their mighty chests.
“Down, Bully! Down, Snow!” cried the trapper. At sight of the horsemen
he had dropped the trap and seized his rifle; but recognizing Jack he
arose, shouted once more to the dogs, and advanced with a broad smile.
“Wal, wal!” said he, “this here is a surprise! I wasn’t calculatin’ on
no visitors. Howdy, Injun,” to Running Elk. “Light, lads, and have a
snack and a shake-down for the night.”
Both Bully and Snow, who was a white dog, had subsided at seeing their
master so friendly with the newcomers; they now sniffed inquiringly at
the horses’ heels and at the boys themselves when they rode up to the
log house and alighted. The lads found a place to picket their horses
where there was plenty of grass; then they joined the trapper, who was
already gathering dried leaves and twigs to start a fire.
“Got some good fresh pickerel,” stated old Joe, “and some bear meat
which was killed only yesterday morning. Hope you got some flour in
your pack; bread’s mighty scarce with me just now.”
“We’ve got quite a lot of it,” said Frank, who had been introduced to
the old backwoodsman and received a hearty hand-grasp from him.
While the fish and strips of bear meat were cooking at one fire and
the bread was baking in the ash of another, the two white boys took a
plunge into a deep clear pool which was close at hand, and then ran
themselves dry in the last glancing barbs of the sun. Then after they
had all four done complete justice to the meal, they drew inside the
cabin, where old Joe lighted some home-made candles of bear’s grease;
settling back upon the skins of bear, deer and catamount which covered
the floor, they fell into a conversation which was one of the most
interesting in which Frank Lawrence had ever taken part.
The candles flared yellow, lighting up the rough log walls chinked with
clay; from the peak of the roof hung dried roots and herbs gathered
by the trapper for medicinal use; heaps of pelts were piled up in one
corner; others were stretched upon the walls to dry. Upon the door was
the skin of a panther which in life must have been a monster; bears’
claws and teeth, traps, fishing-tackle, hatchets, and axes, and an
extra gun also hung upon the wall. There was a huge fireplace at one
side, built of stones and dried clay. With a little thrill of content,
Frank pictured the cabin as it must be in the winter, with a fire
of logs roaring up the chimney’s wide throat; all was snow and cold
without, the dreary wilderness stretched away on every hand, but,
within, the fire-glow gave off a cheer and comfort missing in a more
stately dwelling.
“Wal, what brings you younkers so far down this a-way?” questioned the
old man. “Never thought to see anybody this summer.”
Jack informed the trapper as to the nature of their errand in the
wilderness; the old man, who had resumed the tinkering at the trap
which their arrival had interrupted, listened with many nods of the
head.
“Some day them there old French grants will be worth a mighty heap of
money,” said he at length when the boy had done. “But, in the first
place, they’ll have to be powerful well proven; and then it’ll not be
until the Creeks is larned a lesson.”
This naturally brought up the subject of the boys’ journey and as Jack
related the adventure with the Creeks, and the words of Tecumseh, the
ancient woodsman put the trap aside and gave the matter his undivided
attention. After the youngster had related all the details, old Joe
began to ask questions; and when Jack had answered these at length,
there was a silence. The trapper sat bolt upright, his shoulders
resting against the wall, and his heavy white brows bent.
“So them varmint Shawnees have got into the Muscogee country again,
have they?” said he. “Well, I’ve been expecting it for some time now;
but I didn’t think to hear of it so soon, for all that.”
“As we couldn’t turn back from our hunt just yet,” said Frank, “Jack
thought you’d carry the news to the settlements when you went in for
your stores.”
“That I will,” replied old Joe, grimly. “I’ll carry it right enough;
and I’ll be heading that way in four days’ time. And it won’t be none
too pleasant for them to listen to, youngsters; for the Spaniards in
Florida and the British on the northern frontier will give the redskins
rifles, and ball and powder, and with plenty of them same articles, the
varmints’ll be more dangerous than ever.”
“The Spaniards have never been any too friendly on the border,” said
Jack, resentfully; “and the Creeks, when it gets too hot for them, will
race for Spanish territory.”
“I suppose the outbreak of the war with England will be of great
advantage to Tecumseh,” spoke Frank. Congress had only recently
declared war against the British because of that nation’s aggression on
the sea. “And, if the truth were known, I’ll venture that’s one of his
reasons for starting an Indian uprising at this time.”
“Like as not. The Shawnees are a cute lot of redskins,” commented the
old trapper. “And Tecumseh and his brother, the medicine man, are the
sharpest of them all.”
The boys slept well that night in the trapper’s cabin; and next
morning after a good backwoods breakfast, they bid the old man good-bye.
“Take care of yourselves,” said he. “With things as they are, there’s
no telling what might happen. Always be on the safe side of anything
that turns up, if you can fix it that way. For you are in the enemy’s
country, and there are only three of you.”
He shook each of them by the hand.
“If you see my father,” said Jack, “tell him I’m all right and expect
to keep that way.”
“I’ll do it, son,” promised old Joe.
“And say that we’ll be back as soon as we can finish up our errand,”
said Frank.
The trapper waved his hand to them as they rode away; and the huge dogs
barked their good-bye as they disappeared in the green of the forest.