A MEETING IN THE WILDERNESS
Beverley set out on his mid-winter journey to Kaskaskia with a tempest
in his heart, and it was, perhaps, the storm's energy that gave him the
courage to face undaunted and undoubting what his experience must have
told him lay in his path. He was young and strong; that meant a great
deal; he had taken the desperate chances of Indian warfare many times
before this, and the danger counted as nothing, save that it offered
the possibility of preventing him from doing the one thing in life he
now cared to do. What meant suffering to him, if he could but rescue
Alice? And what were life should he fail to rescue her? The old, old
song hummed in his heart, every phrase of it distinct above the tumult
of the storm. Could cold and hunger, swollen streams, ravenous wild
beasts and scalp-hunting savages baffle him? No, there is no barrier
that can hinder love. He said this over and over to himself after his
rencounter with the four Indian scouts on the Wabash. He repeated it
with every heart-beat until he fell in with some friendly red men, who
took him to their camp, where to his great surprise he met M.
Roussillon. It was his song when again he strode off toward the west on
his lonely way.
We need not follow him step by step; the monotony of the woods and
prairies, the cold rains, alternating with northerly winds and blinding
snow, the constant watchfulness necessary to guard against a meeting
with hostile savages, the tiresome tramping, wading and swimming, the
hunger, the broken and wretched sleep in frozen and scant wraps,--why
detail it all?
There was but one beautiful thing about it--the beauty of Alice as she
seemed to walk beside him and hover near him in his dreams. He did not
know that Long-Hair and his band were fast on his track; but the
knowledge could not have urged him to greater haste. He strained every
muscle to its utmost, kept every nerve to the highest tension. Yonder
towards the west was help for Alice; that was all he cared for.
But if Long-Hair was pursuing him with relentless greed for the reward
offered by Hamilton, there were friendly footsteps still nearer behind
him; and one day at high noon, while he was bending over a little fire,
broiling some liberal cuts of venison, a finger tapped him on the
shoulder. He sprang up and grappled Oncle Jazon; at the same time,
standing near by, he saw Simon Kenton, his old-time Kentucky friend.
The pungled features of one and the fine, rugged face of the other swam
as in a mist before Beverley's eyes. Kenton was laughing quietly, his
strong, upright form shaking to the force of his pleasure. He was in
the early prime of a vigorous life, not handsome, but strikingly
attractive by reason of a certain glow in his face and a kindly flash
in his deep-set eyes.
"Well, well, my boy!" he exclaimed, laying his left hand on Beverley's
shoulder, while in the other he held a long, heavy rifle. "I'm glad to
see ye, glad to see ye."
"Thought we was Injuns, eh?" said Oncle Jazon. "An' ef we had 'a' been
we'd 'a' been shore o' your scalp!" The wizzened old creole cackled
gleefully.
"And where are ye goin'?" demanded Kenton. "Ye're making what lacks a
heap o' bein' a bee-line for some place or other."
Beverley was dazed and vacant-minded; things seemed wavering and dim.
He pushed the two men from him and gazed at them without speaking.
Their presence and voices did not convince him.
"Yer meat's a burnin'," said Oncle Jazon, stooping to turn it on the
smouldering coals. "Ye must be hungry. Cookin' enough for a regiment."
Kenton shook Beverley with rough familiarity, as if to rouse his
faculties.
"What's the matter? Fitz, my lad, don't ye know Si Kenton? It's not so
long since we were like brothers, and now ye don't speak to me! Ye've
not forgot me, Fitz!"
"Mebby he don't like ye as well as ye thought he did," drawled Oncle
Jazon. "I HEV known o' fellers a bein' mistaken jes' thet way."
Beverley got his wits together as best he could, taking in the
situation by such degrees as seemed at the time unduly slow, but which
were really mere momentary falterings.
"Why, Kenton! Jazon!" he presently exclaimed, a cordial gladness
blending with his surprise. "How did you get here? Where did you come
from?"
He looked from one to the other back and forth with a wondering smile
breaking over his bronzed and determined face.
"We've been hot on yer trail for thirty hours," said Kenton.
"Roussillon put us on it back yonder. But what are ye up to? Where are
ye goin'?"
"I'm going to Clark at Kaskaskia to bring him yonder." He waved his
hand eastward. "I am going to take Vincennes and kill Hamilton."
"Well, ye're taking a mighty queer course, my boy, if ye ever expect to
find Kaskaskia. Ye're already twenty miles too far south."
"Carryin' his gun on the same shoulder all the time," said Oncle Jazon,
"has made 'im kind o' swing in a curve like. 'Tain't good luck no how
to carry yer gun on yer lef' shoulder. When you do it meks yer take a
longer step with yer right foot than ye do with yer lef' an' ye can't
walk a straight line to save yer liver. Ventreblue! La venaison brule
encore! Look at that dasted meat burnin' agin!"
He jumped back to the fire to turn the scorching cuts.
Beverley wrung Kenton's hand and looked into his eyes, as a man does
when an old friend comes suddenly out of the past, so to say, and
brings the freshness and comfort of a strong, true soul to brace him in
his hour of greatest need.
"Of all men in the world, Simon Kenton, you were the least expected;
but how glad I am! How thankful! Now I know I shall succeed. We are
going to capture Vincennes, Kenton, are we not? We shall, sha'n't we,
Jazon? Nothing, nothing can prevent us, can it?"
Kenton heartily returned the pressure of the young man's hand, while
Oncle Jazon looked up quizzically and said:
"We're a tol'ble 'spectable lot to prevent; but then we might git
pervented. I've seed better men an' us purty consid'ble pervented lots
o' times in my life."
In speaking the colloquial dialect of the American backwoodsmen, Oncle
Jazon, despite years of practice among them, gave to it a creole lisp
and some turns of pronunciation not to be indicated by any form of
spelling. It added to his talk a peculiar soft drollery. When he spoke
French it was mostly that of the COUREURS DE BOIS, a PATOIS which still
lingers in out-of-the-way nooks of Louisiana.
"For my part," said Kenton, "I am with ye, old boy, in anything ye want
to do. But now ye've got to tell me everything. I see that ye're
keeping something back. What is it?" He glanced sidewise slyly at Oncle
Jazon.
Beverley was frank to a fault; but somehow his heart tried to keep
Alice all to itself. He hesitated; then--
"I broke my parole with Governor Hamilton," he said. "He forced me to
do it. I feel altogether justified. I told him beforehand that I should
certainly leave Vincennes and go get a force to capture and kill him;
and I'll do it, Simon Kenton, I'll do it!"
"I see, I see," Kenton assented, "but what was the row about? What did
he do to excite ye--to make ye feel justified in breakin' over yer
parole in that high-handed way? Fitz, I know ye too well to be fooled
by ye--you've got somethin' in mind that ye don't want to tell. Well,
then don't tell it. Oncle Jazon and I will go it blind, won't we,
Jazon?"
"Blind as two moles," said the old man; "but as for thet secret," he
added, winking both eyes at once, "I don't know as it's so mighty hard
to guess. It's always safe to 'magine a woman in the case. It's mostly
women 'at sends men a trottin' off 'bout nothin', sort o' crazy like."
Beverley looked guilty and Oncle Jazon continued: "They's a poo'ty gal
at Vincennes, an' I see the young man a steppin' into her house about
fifteen times a day 'fore I lef' the place. Mebbe she's tuck up wi' one
o' them English officers. Gals is slippery an' onsartin'."
"Jazon!" cried Beverley, "stop that instantly, or I'll wring your old
neck." His anger was real and he meant what he said. He clenched his
hands and glowered.
Oncle Jazon, who was still squatting by the little fire, tumbled over
backwards, as if Beverley had kicked him; and there he lay on the
ground with his slender legs quivering akimbo in the air, while he
laughed in a strained treble that sounded like the whining of a
screech-owl.
The old scamp did not know all the facts in Beverley's case, nor did he
even suspect what had happened; but he was aware of the young man's
tender feeling for Alice, and he did shrewdly conjecture that she was a
factor in the problem.
The rude jest at her expense did not seem to his withered and toughened
taste in the least out of the way. Indeed it was a delectable bit of
humor from Oncle Jazon's point of view.
"Don't get mad at the old man," said Kenton, plucking Beverley aside.
"He's yer friend from his heels to his old scalped crown. Let him have
his fun." Then lowering his voice almost to a whisper he continued:
"I was in Vincennes for two days and nights spyin' around. Madame
Godere hid me in her house when there was need of it. I know how it is
with ye; I got all the gossip about ye and the young lady, as well as
all the information about Hamilton and his forces that Colonel Clark
wants. I'm goin' to Kaskaskia; but I think it quite possible that Clark
will be on his march to Vincennes before we get there; for Vigo has
taken him full particulars as to the fort and its garrison, and I know
that he's determined to capture the whole thing or die tryin'."
Beverley felt his heart swell and his blood leap strong in his veins at
these words.
"I saw ye while I was in Vincennes," Kenton added, "but I never let ye
see me. Ye were a prisoner, and I had no business with ye while your
parole held. I felt that it was best not to tempt ye to give me aid, or
to let ye have knowledge of me while I was a spy. I left two days
before ye did, and should have been at Kaskaskia by this time if I
hadn't run across Jazon, who detained me. He wanted to go with me, and
I waited for him to repair the stock of his old gun. He tinkered at it
'tween meals and showers for half a week at the Indian village back
yonder before he got it just to suit him. But I tell ye he's wo'th
waiting for any length of time, and I was glad to let him have his way."
Kenton, who was still a young man in his early thirties, respected
Beverley's reticence on the subject uppermost in his mind. Madame
Godere had told the whole story with flamboyant embellishments; Kenton
tiad seen Alice, and, inspired with the gossip and a surreptitious
glimpse of her beauty, he felt perfectly familiar with Beverley's
condition. He was himself a victim of the tender passion to the extent
of being an exile from his Virginia home, which he had left on account
of dangerously wounding a rival. But he was well touched with the
backwoodsman's taste for joke and banter. He and Oncle Jazon,
therefore, knowing the main feature of Beverley's predicament, enjoyed
making the most of their opportunity in their rude but perfectly
generous and kindly way.
By indirection and impersonal details, as regarded his feelings toward
Alice, Beverley in due time made his friends understand that his whole
ambition was centered in rescuing her. Nor did the motive fail to
enlist their sympathy to the utmost. If all the world loves a lover,
all men having the best virile instinct will fight for a lover's cause.
Both Kenton and Oncle Jazon were enthusiastic; they wanted nothing
better than an opportunity to aid in rescuing any girl who had shown so
much patriotism and pluck. But Oncle Jazon was fond of Alice, and
Beverley's story affected him peculiarly on her account.
"They's one question I'm a goin' to put to ye, young man," he said,
after he had heard everything and they had talked it all over, "an' I
want ye to answer it straight as a bullet f'om yer gun."
"Of course, Jazon, go ahead," said Beverley. "I shall be glad to
answer." But his mind was far away with the gold-haired maiden in
Hamilton's prison. He scarcely knew what he was saying.
"Air ye expectin' to marry Alice Roussillon?"
The three men were at the moment eating the well broiled venison. Oncle
Jazon's puckered lips and chin were dripping with the fragrant grease
and juice, which also flowed down his sinewy, claw-like fingers.
Overhead in the bare tops of the scrub oaks that covered the prairie
oasis, the February wind sang a shrill and doleful song.
Beverley started as if a blow had been aimed at him. Oncle Jazon's
question, indeed, was a blow as unexpected as it was direct and
powerful.
"I know it's poo'ty p'inted," the old man added after a short pause,
"an' ye may think 'at I ain't got no business askin' it; but I have.
That leetle gal's a pet o' mine, an' I'm a lookin' after her, an'
expectin' to see 'at she's not bothered by nobody who's not goin' to do
right by her. Marryin' is a mighty good thing, but--"
"What do ye know about matrimony, ye old raw-headed bachelor?" demanded
Kenton, who felt impelled to relieve Beverley of the embarrassment of
an answer. "Ye wouldn't know a wife from a sack o' meal!"
"Now don't git too peart an' fast, Si Kenton," cried Oncle Jazon,
glaring truculently at his friend, but at the same time showing a dry
smile that seemed to be hopelessly entangled in criss-cross wrinkles.
"Who told ye I was a bach'lor? Not by a big jump. I've been married
mighty nigh on to twenty times in my day. Mos'ly Injuns, o' course; but
a squaw's a wife w'en ye marries her, an' I know how it hurts a gal to
be dis'p'inted in sich a matter. That's w'y I put the question I did.
I'm not goin' to let no man give sorry to that little Roussillon gal;
an' so ye've got my say. Ye seed her raise thet flag on the fort,
Lieutenant Beverley, an' ye seed her take it down an' git away wi' it.
You know 'at she deserves nothin' but the best; an' by the Holy Virgin,
she's got to have it, or I'm a goin' to know several reasons why.
Thet's what made me put the question straight to ye, young man, an' I
expects a straight answer."
Beverley's face paled; but not with anger. He grasped one of Oncle
Jazon's greasy hands and gave it such a squeeze that the old fellow
grimaced painfully.
"Thank you, Oncle Jazon, thank you!" he said, with a peculiar husky
burr in his voice. "Alice will never suffer if I can help it. Let the
subject drop now, my friend, until we have saved her from the hands of
Hamilton." In the power of his emotion he continued to grip the old
man's hand with increasing severity of pressure.
"Ventrebleu! let go! Needn't smash a feller's fingers 'bout it!"
screeched Oncle Jazon. "I can't shoot wo'th a cent, nohow, an' ef ye
cripple up my trigger-finger--"
Kenton had been peeping under the low-hanging scrub-oak boughs while
Oncle Jazon was speaking these last words; and now he suddenly
interrupted:
"The devil! look yonder!" he growled out in startling tone. "Injuns!"
It was a sharp snap of the conversation's thread, and at the same time
our three friends realized that they had been careless in not keeping a
better look-out. They let fall the meat they had not yet finished
eating and seized their guns.
Five or six dark forms were moving toward them across a little point of
the prairie that cut into the wood a quarter of a mile distant.
"Yander's more of 'em," said Oncle Jazon, as if not in the least
concerned, wagging his head in an opposite direction, from which
another squad was approaching.
That he duly appreciated the situation appeared only in the celerity
with which he acted.
Kenton at once assumed command, and his companions felt his perfect
fitness. There was no doubt from the first as to what the Indians
meant; but even if there had been it would have soon vanished; for in
less than three minutes twenty-one savages were swiftly and silently
forming a circle inclosing the spot where the three white men, who had
covered themselves as best they could with trees, waited in grim
steadiness for the worst.
Quite beyond gunshot range, but near enough for Oncle Jazon to
recognize Long-Hair as their leader, the Indians halted and began
making signs to one another all round the line. Evidently they dreaded
to test the marksmanship of such riflemen as they knew most border men
to be. Indeed, Long-Hair had personal knowledge of what might certainly
be expected from both Kenton and Oncle Jazon; they were terrible when
out for fight; the red warriors from Georgia to the great lakes had
heard of them; their names smacked of tragedy. Nor was Beverley without
fame among Long-Hair's followers, who had listened to the story of his
fighting qualities, brought to Vincennes by the two survivors of the
scouting party so cleverly defeated by him.
"The liver-colored cowards," said Kenton, "are afeared of us in a
shootin'-match; they know that a lot of 'em would have to die if they
should undertake an open fight with us. It's some sort of a sneakin'
game they are studyin' about just now."
"I'm a gittin' mos' too ole to shoot wo'th a cent," said Oncle Jazon,
"but I'd give half o' my scalp ef thet Long-Hair would come clost
enough fo' me to git a bead onto his lef' eye. It's tol'ble plain 'at
we're gone goslins this time, I'm thinkin'; still it'd be mighty
satisfyin' if I could plug out a lef' eye or two 'fore I go."
Beverley was silent; the words of his companions were heard by him, but
not noticed. Nothing interested him save the thought of escaping and
making his way to Clark. To fail meant infinitely more than death, of
which he had as small fear as most brave men, and to succeed meant
everything that life could offer. So, in the unlimited selfishness of
love, he did not take his companions into account.
The three stood in a close-set clump of four or five scrub oaks at the
highest point of a thinly wooded knoll that sloped down in all
directions to the prairie. Their view was wide, but in places
obstructed by the trees.
"Men," said Kenton, after a thoughtful and watchful silence, "the thing
looks kind o' squally for us. I don't see much of a chance to get out
of this alive; but we've got to try."
He showed by the density of his voice and a certain gray film in his
face that he felt the awful gravity of the situation; but he was calm
and not a muscle quivered.
"They's jes' two chances for us," said Oncle Jazon, "an' them's as slim
as a broom straw. We've got to stan' here an' fight it out, or wait
till night an' sneak through atween 'em an' run for it."
"I don't see any hope o' sneakin' through the line," observed Kenton.
"It's not goin' to be dark tonight."
"Wa-a-l," Oncle Jazon drawled nonchalantly while he took in a quid of
tobacco, "I've been into tighter squeezes 'an this, many a time, an' I
got out, too."
"Likely enough," said Kenton, still reflecting while his eyes roamed
around the circle of savages.
"I fit the skunks in Ferginny 'fore you's thought of, Si Kenton, an'
down in Car'lina in them hills. If ye think I'm a goin' to be scalped
where they ain't no scalp, 'ithout tryin' a few dodges, yer a dad
dasteder fool an' I used to think ye was, an' that's makin' a big
compliment to ye."
"Well, we don't have to argy this question, Oncle Jazon; they're a
gittin' ready to run in upon us, and we've got to fight. I say,
Beverley, are ye ready for fast shootin'? Have ye got a plenty of
bullets?"
"Yes, Roussillon gave me a hundred. Do you think--"
He was interrupted by a yell that leaped from savage mouth to mouth all
round the circle, and then the charge began.
"Steady, now," growled Kenton, "let's not be in a hurry. Wait till they
come nigh enough to hit 'em before we shoot."
The time was short; for the Indians came on at almost race-horse speed.
Oncle Jazon fired first, the long, keen crack of his small-bore rifle
splitting the air with a suggestion of vicious energy, and a lithe
young warrior, who was outstripping all his fellows, leaped high and
fell paralyzed.
"Can't shoot wo'th a cent," muttered the old man, deftly beginning to
reload his gun the while; "but I jes' happened to hit that buck. He'll
never git my scalp, thet's sartin an' sure."
Beverley and Kenton each likewise dropped an Indian; but the shots did
not even check the rush. Long-Hair had planned to capture his prey, not
kill it. Every savage had his orders to take the white men alive;
Hamilton's larger reward depended on this.
Right on they came, as fast as their nimble legs could carry them,
yelling like demons; and they reached the grove before the three white
men could reload their guns. Then every warrior took cover behind a
tree and began scrambling forward from bole to bole, thus approaching
rapidly without much exposure.
"Our 'taters is roasted brown," muttered Oncle Jazon. He crossed
himself. Possibly he prayed; but he was priming his old gun the next
instant.
Kenton fired again, making a hurried and ineffectual attempt to stop
the nearest warrior, who saved himself by quickly skipping behind a
tree. Beverley's gun snapped, the flint failing to make fire; but Oncle
Jazon bored a little hole through the head of the Indian nearest him;
and then the final rush was made from every direction.
A struggle ensued, which for desperate energy has probably never been
surpassed. Like three lions at bay, the white men met the shock, and
lion-like they fought in the midst of seventeen stalwart and determined
savages.
"Don't kill them, take them alive; throw them down and hold them!" was
Long-Hair's order loudly shouted in the tongue of his tribe.
Both Kenton and Jazon understood every word and knew the significance
of such a command from the leader. It naturally came into Kenton's mind
that Hamilton had been informed of his visit to Vincennes and had
offered a reward for his capture. This being true, death as a spy would
be the certain result if he were taken back. He might as well die now.
As for Beverley, he thought only of Alice, yonder as he had left her, a
prisoner in Hamilton's hands, Oncle Jazon, if he thought at all,
probably considered nothing but present escape, though he prayed
audibly to the Blessed Virgin, even while he lay helpless upon the
ground, pinned down by the weight of an enormous Indian. He could not
move any part of himself, save his lips, and these mechanically put
forth the wheezing supplication.
Beverley and Kenton, being young and powerful, were not so easily
mastered. For a while, indeed, they appeared to be more than holding
their own. They time and time again scattered the entire crowd by the
violence of their muscular efforts; and after it had finally closed in
upon them in a solid body they swayed and swung it back and forth and
round and round until the writhing, savage mass looked as if caught in
the vortex of a whirlwind. But such tremendous exertion could not last
long. Eight to one made too great a difference between the contending
parties, and the only possible conclusion of the struggle soon came.
Seized upon by desperate, clinging, wolf-like assailants, the white men
felt their arms, legs and bodies weighted down and their strength fast
going.
Kenton fell next after Oncle Jazon, and was soon tightly bound with
rawhide thongs. He lay on his back panting and utterly exhausted, while
Beverley still kept up the unequal fight.
Long-Hair sprang in at the last moment to make doubly certain the
securing of his most important captive. He flung his long and powerful
arms around Beverley from behind and made a great effort to throw him
upon the ground. The young man, feeling this fresh and vigorous clasp,
turned himself about to put forth one more mighty spurt of power. He
lifted the stalwart Indian bodily and dashed him headlong against the
buttressed root of a tree half a rod distant, breaking the smaller bone
of his left fore-arm and well-nigh knocking him senseless.
It was a fine exhibition of manly strength; but there could be nothing
gained by it. A blow on the back of his head the next instant stretched
Beverley face downward and unconscious on the ground. The savages
turned him over and looked satisfied when they found that he was not
dead. They bound him with even greater care than they had shown in
securing the others, while Long-Hair stood by stolidly looking on,
meantime supporting his broken fore-arm in his hand.
"Ugh! dog!" he grunted, and gave Beverley a kick in the side. Then
turning a fiendish stare upon Oncle Jazon he proceeded to deliver
against his old, dry ribs three or four like contributions with
resounding effect. "Polecat! Little old greasy woman!" he snarled,
"make good fire for warrior to dance by!" Kenton also received his full
share of the kicks and verbal abuse, after which Long-Hair gave orders
for fires to be built. Then he looked to his hurt arm and had the bone
set and bandaged, never so much as wincing the while.
It was soon apparent that the Indians purposed to celebrate their
successful enterprise with a feast. They cooked a large amount of
buffalo steak; then, each with his hands full of the savory meat, they
began to dance around the fires, droning meantime an atrociously
repellant chant.
"They're a 'spectin' to hev a leetle bit o' fun outen us," muttered
Oncle Jazon to Beverley, who lay near him. "I onderstan' what they're
up to, dad dast 'em! More'n forty years ago, in Ca'lina, they put me
an' Jim Hipes through the ga'ntlet, an' arter thet, in Kaintuck, me an'
Si Kenton tuck the run. Hi, there, Si! where air ye?"
"Shut yer fool mouth," Kenton growled under his breath. "Ye'll have
that Injun a kickin' our lights out of us again."
Oncle Jazon winked at the gray sky and puckered his mouth so that it
looked like a nutgall on an old, dry leaf.
"What's the diff'ence?" he demanded. "I'd jest as soon be kicked now as
arter while; it's got to come anyhow."
Kenton made no response. The thongs were torturing his arms and legs.
Beverley was silent, but consciousness had returned, and with it a
sense of despair. All three of the prisoners lay face upward quite
unable to move, knowing full well that a terrible ordeal awaited them.
Oncle Jazon's grim humor could not be quenched, even by the galling
agony of the thongs that buried themselves in the flesh, and the
anticipation of torture beside which death would seem a luxury.
"Yap! Long-Hair, how's yer arm?" he called jeeringly. "Feels pooty
good, hay?"
Long-Hair, who was not joining in the dance and song, turned when he
heard these taunting words, and mistaking whence they came, went to
Beverley's side and kicked him again and again.
Oncle Jazon heard the loud blows, and considered the incident a
remarkably good joke.
"He, he, he!" he snickered, as soon as Long-Hair walked away again. "I
does the talkin' an' somebody else gits the thumpin'! He, he, he! I
always was devilish lucky. Them kicks was good solid jolts, wasn't
they, Lieutenant? Sounded like they was. He, he, he!"
Beverley gave no heed to Oncle Jazon's exasperating pleasantry; but
Kenton, sorely chafing under the pressure of his bonds, could not
refrain from making retort in kind.
"I'd give ye one poundin' that ye'd remember, Emile Jazon, if I could
get to ye, ye old twisted-face, peeled-headed, crooked-mouthed,
aggravatin' scamp!" he exclaimed, not thinking how high his naturally
strong voice was lifted. "I can stand any fool but a damn fool!"
Long-Hair heard the concluding epithet and understood its meaning.
Moreover, he thought himself the target at which it was so
energetically launched. Wherefore he promptly turned back and gave
Kenton a kicking that made his body resound not unlike a drum.
And here it was that Oncle Jazon overreached himself. He was so
delighted at Kenton's luck that he broke forth giggling and thereby
drew against his own ribs a considerable improvement of Long-Hair's
pedal applications.
"Ventrebleu!" whined the old man, when the Indian had gone away again.
"Holy Mary! Jee-ru-sa-lem! They's nary bone o' me left 'at's not
splintered as fine as toothpickers! S'pose yer satisfied now, ain't ye,
Si Kenton? Ef ye ain't I'm shore to satisfy ye the fust time I git a
chance at ye, ye blab-mouthed eejit!"
Before this conversation was ended a rain began to fall, and it rapidly
thickened from a desultory shower to a roaring downpour that
effectually quenched not only the fires around which the savages were
dancing, but the enthusiasm of the dancers as well. During the rest of
the afternoon and all night long the fall was incessant, accompanied by
a cold, panting, wailing southwest wind.
Beverley lay on the ground, face upward, the rawhide strings torturing
his limbs, the chill of cold water searching his bones. He could see
nothing but the dim, strange canopy of flying rain, against which the
bare boughs of the scrub oaks were vaguely outlined; he could hear
nothing but the cry of the wind and the swash of the water which fell
upon him and ran under him, bubbling and gurgling as if fiendishly
exultant.
The night dragged on through its terrible length, dealing out its
indescribable horrors, and at last morning arrived, with a stingy and
uncertain gift of light slowly increasing until the dripping trees
appeared forlornly gray and brown against clouds now breaking into
masses that gave but little rain.
Beverley lived through the awful trial and even had the hardihood to
brighten inwardly with the first flash of sunlight that shot through a
cloud-crack on the eastern horizon. He thought of Alice, as he had done
all night; but now the thought partook somehow of the glow yonder above
old Vincennes, although he could only see its reflection.
There was great stir among the Indians. Long-Hair stalked about
scrutinizing the ground. Beverley saw him come near time and again with
a hideous, inquiring scowl on his face. Grunts and laconic exclamations
passed from mouth to mouth, and presently the import of it all could
not be mistaken. Kenton and Jazon were gone--had escaped during the
night--and the rain had completely obliterated their tracks.
The Indians were furious. Long-Hair sent out picked parties of his best
scouts with orders to scour the country in all directions, keeping with
himself a few of the older warriors. Beverley was fed what he would eat
of venison, and Long-Hair made him understand that he would have to
suffer some terrible punishment on account of the action of his
companions.
Late in the day the scouts straggled back with the report that no track
or sign of the fugitives had been discovered, and immediately a
consultation was held. Most of the warriors, including all of the young
bucks, demanded a torture entertainment as compensation for their
exertions and the unexpected loss of their own prisoners; for it had
been agreed that Beverley belonged exclusively to Long-Hair, who
objected to anything which might deprive him of the great reward
offered by Hamilton for the prisoner if brought to him alive.
In the end it was agreed that Beverley should be made to run the
gauntlet, provided that no deadly weapons were used upon him during the
ordeal.