DEFENDING A LOG CABIN
A swift glance showed Oliver Barclay that there were perhaps twoscore
Indians in the band. Directly in front were about half this number
fighting from behind stumps, logs and tree trunks.
“At them at top speed,” said Oliver, “and each pick an important man if
you can see one. After you fire, shout as loud as you can!”
Like thunderbolts the three lads swept down upon the war party of
Shawnees. Shooting from the saddle, with horse going at top speed, was
one of the tricks of marksmanship cherished and practiced by the youths
at the frontier; and so, as the three long weapons cracked, three
savages sprang into the air with tossing arms and fell dead upon the
ground. Then yelling like demons the lads plunged among the others.
Taken utterly by surprise the redskins were demoralized. Evidently they
thought, judging by the boldness of the attack, that what they saw was
but a part of a large force of whites; so in the panic of the moment
they turned and fled.
Never checking the speed of their horses the boys dashed up to the
cabin which was now in full view. Throwing themselves from their horses
they proceeded to wipe and reload their rifles.
As they were so engaged the door of the cabin was flung open and an old
man with a flowing white beard appeared upon the threshold. He had a
blood-stained bandage about his head, and a rifle was gripped in his
hand. Behind him the boys caught glimpses of a number of anxious faces.
“Glad to see you, lads,” cried the old settler, welcomingly. “How many
of you are there?”
“Just the three,” answered Eph, a grin on his face.
The man with the white beard looked the amazement he felt.
“Only three, and come a-plunging into the critters that way?”
A murmur went up from those behind him.
“I reckon the Shawnees thought we were a regiment, at least, the way
they ran off,” said Oliver, laughing at the recollection.
“Yes, and by this time they’ve seen their mistake and will come----”
“Whizz! Thud!”
The feathered shaft of an arrow quivered from one of the logs just
below Sandy Campbell’s shoulder; a hail of others flew all about them.
“They’ve found it out!” cried a man from within the house. As he spoke
he sprang out and threw open the heavy door of a building adjoining the
cabin. “Quick,” said he. “Drive your horses in here.”
The boys led the horses through the doorway; the man followed them
in and threw a heavy oaken bar into place. The sounds from the cabin
showed that the door there had also been made secure, and then the
siege was once more begun.
There was a doorway leading into the cabin from the building which was
crowded with horses and cattle. Through this came the white-bearded man
and some others.
“We’re obliged to you, young strangers, for what you tried to do for
us. And we are sorry that you’ve run into this danger.”
“We rode this way on the word of Captain Boone that some settlers were
perhaps unwarned of the Indian rising,” said Oliver. “Perhaps you are
one of them, sir.”
“My name,” said the old man, “is Curley.”
“Do you know anything of the McAfees and Baldwins who live hereabout?”
“They are all here,” said Mr. Curley. “They grew suspicious of things
yesterday, and rode over, thinking if the worst came we’d all be
together, and so have a better chance for defense.”
There were at least a dozen grown men gathered in the Curley cabin, and
almost as many boys, some of whom were old enough to take part in the
defense. The wives and daughters of the settlers were, in the main,
courageous and accustomed to the idea of danger; some of them, indeed,
looked capable of taking up a rifle and using it as well as brother
or husband. The heavy timber walls of the house were pierced by small
openings, each of which permitted the barrel of a rifle to be protruded.
At each of these port-holes was stationed a man; keen eyes watched
the movements of the Shawnees upon the edge of the clearing, and now
and then a shot rang out or an arrow whizzed through the air as a red
marksman sought to drive bullet or barb through an opening.
While Oliver talked to Mr. Curley and several of the other settlers
and gave them all the information he possessed as to the state of the
border, Eph Taylor selected an unguarded port-hole and protruded the
eager muzzle of the faithful Jerusha.
“Take care of yourself, youngster,” said a man in buckskins at the next
opening. “Don’t trust too much to your port-hole being narrow; there’s
an Injun there on the edge of the timber who’s doing some almighty good
shooting with the bow; several times he’s put one of his shafts right
on through.”
Keenly, Eph scoured the timber line; from one place or another a rifle
cracked, or a bowstring sang almost constantly. But he was not long in
locating the marksman of whom the settler had spoken. He lay behind
the uprooted butt of a huge tree which had resisted both axe and fire;
a thick growth of weeds had sprung up about it, and it afforded a
splendid vantage place for a marauder with a quick eye and a steady
hand.
Twice Eph saw an arrow speed from behind this shelter and bury itself
in the timbers upon the edge of a port-hole. Then a cry told that a
third shot had flown through and found a mark.
“Through the arm,” said the man who had spoken to Eph. “That varmint
out there has an eye like a hawk.”
Carefully Eph watched the uprooted stump and studied the method of the
savage sharpshooter behind it. Never once did he catch sight of any
part of the Shawnee; not for an instant did even so much as a tip of
a plume show above his breastwork. Satisfying himself as to this, Eph
took to examining other parts about the tree butt. A stirring in the
growth about its largest end took his eye; the movement was of the
slightest, but the eyes of the boy were fixed upon it with all the
eagerness of a practiced hunter.
The shadows from the trees had grown enormously; but the great red sun
sent slanting bars of light through the maze of trunks here and there;
and one of these caught a metal point just as it was steadily poised
for a shot from behind the butt, and the glitter attracted the eye of
Eph. The brain of the boy worked like lightning; from the position of
the arrow-head he calculated the position of the arm that held the bow.
The black eye of Jerusha turned grimly upon the spot in which Eph’s
judgment fixed the Shawnee’s arm; then the rifle spoke. A cry of pain
made answer and an arrow flew wild, burying its point in the ground.
“I reckon that Injun will need some care and considerable rest before
he’s much of a success as a fancy shot in the future,” remarked young
Taylor, with a grin at his neighbor.
“That was a good shot,” said the man. “I sort of felt that Injun was
behind the stump there; but I couldn’t get any signs of him nohow.”
Darkness drew on; supper was cooked and eaten in the cabin; part of the
defenders sat down to the meal while a part manned the port-holes; when
the first lot had satisfied their hunger they changed places with the
watchers. But with the coming of the night the attack of the Shawnees
did not abate; the cracking of their rifles went on, the whizzing of
the arrows continued. Finally there came a flare through the darkness;
it was as though a ball of fire had described an arch, and then fallen
with a thud on the roof.
The faces of the settlers blanched.
“A fire arrow!” said one.
“The varmints are trying to burn the house over our heads,” cried
another.
But old Mr. Curley took the matter coolly enough.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “As it happens, friends, the roof is of
new green wood, cut and put on only this summer; so the arrows won’t
set fire to it in a hurry.”
Ball after ball of fire, each attached to a cunningly aimed arrow, fell
upon the roof. But the green wood would not take the fire readily, as
the old settler had prophesied. Seeing this the savages ceased throwing
the fire arrows, and there fell a silence over all outdoors as complete
as the darkness.
“Something is going forward,” spoke Sandy, his eye at a port-hole
endeavoring to pierce the black pall which enveloped everything. “The
villains are not so quiet as that for nothing.”
There was, indeed, something ominous in the silence; the night seemed
crowded with the grotesque forms of fear; a feeling that there was
something--a dreadful something--pressing toward them, settled upon the
defenders.
“Ready all!” said the man in the buckskins. “We’ll have them down on us
in a moment.”
“And remember, lads,” warned old Mr. Curley, “our powder is not too
plentiful. So don’t waste a shot. Be sure of your Injun before you pull
trigger.”
The prediction of the man in buckskin was, a moment later, fulfilled.
Silent as ghosts the Shawnees had formed a complete circle about the
cabin and crept across the clearing toward it. Now they were close
enough for a rush; the war-whoop, that thing of fear on the border,
rang out; the red braves, dusky and but faintly seen, were under the
log walls.
“Be sure of your shots!” cried old Mr. Curley; “pick your redskin,
lads, and don’t waste the good black powder!”
[Illustration: THE RIFLES SPOKE THROUGH THE PORT-HOLES]
With cold precision the rifles spoke through the port-holes, and in
each case a yell told of a warrior hit. But the Shawnees were not idle.
Unseen, they had borne with them great armfuls of dry brush; under the
fire of the rifles they heaped them against the door of the cabin.
Like cats others scaled the walls and gained the roof.
The first flare of the fire when the brush was ignited acted badly for
the Shawnees, however. Apparently they had failed to foresee that they
would be thrown into full relief by the glare; at any rate the deadly
rifles of the whites swept a rain of lead among them, and a dozen fell
to the earth. Enraged, the remainder charged the house, brandishing
tomahawks and scalping knives; bowstrings sang and rifles cracked; the
flames about the door mounted higher and higher.
Calmly the backwoodsmen went about the work of defense; steadily they
loaded and fired; watchfully they peered through the port-holes.
But up to this time all had failed to hear those savages who had
mounted to the roof. Safe out of the fire of the deadly rifles, a half
score braves were here collected, cunningly planning their next move.
At one end of the log house there was a wide-mouthed chimney, built
of green wood and thickly lined with mud. The fire over which the
settlers’ supper had been cooked had died down and peering down the
smooth interior of this shaft, the Shawnees grinned with dreadful
satisfaction.
“That fire outside there is taking hold,” said old Mr. Curley below in
the big room of the cabin. “The timber in the door is heavy, but as dry
as tinder.”
Anxiously the men looked at each other; the faces of the women were
fearful. And in this tense moment there came a scrambling sound, a
cloud of dust arose from the fireplace together with a shower of dull
sparks. A woman screamed as the tufted head of an Indian appeared in
the great fireplace to be followed an instant later by another and
still another.