THE BUFFALO RING
Henry, feeling some alarm at first over the discovery of his trail, soon
felt elation instead. He was at the very height of his powers. The long
rest on the oasis had restored all his physical vigor. Every nerve and
muscle was flexible and strong, as if made of steel wire. His eye had
never before been so clear, nor his ear so acute, and above all, that
sixth sense, the power of divination almost, which came from a perfect
correlation of the five senses, developed to the utmost degree, was
alive in him. Nothing could stir in the brush without his knowing it,
and, welcoming the pursuit, the spirit of challenge was so strong in him
that he threw back his head and uttered a long, thrilling cry, the note
of defiance, just as the trumpet of the mediæval knight sang to his
enemy to come to the field of battle.
Then he continued his flight toward the northwest, not too fast, because
he wished his trail to remain warm for the warriors who followed, but
stooping low, lest some wanderers from the main band should see him as
he ran. No answer came to his cry, but he knew well enough that the
Indians had heard it, and he knew, too, that it filled them with rage
because any of the five had been bold enough to defy their full power.
Reaching the crest of one of the low hills in which the region abounded,
he looked toward the southwest and saw the vast maze of the swamp in
which his comrades lay hidden. He had not been able to think of any plan
to turn aside the forces of Red Eagle, but now it came to him suddenly.
He intended when the pursuit ended to be far away from the swamp, and
then he could rejoin the four at some other point.
He reached a brook, leaped it and passed on. He could have followed the
bed of the stream, hiding his trail for a space, but he knew the
pursuers would soon find it again, and after all he did not wish his
trail to be hidden. He laughed a little as he planted his moccasin
purposely in a soft spot in the earth, and noticed the deep imprint he
left. There was no warrior so blind who would not see the trace, and he
sped on, leaving other such marks here and there, and finally sending
forth another thrilling note of defiance that swelled far over the
forest, a cry that was at once an invitation, a challenge and a taunt.
It bade the warriors to use the utmost speed, because they would need
it. It asked them to pursue, because the one who fled wished to be
followed, and so wishing, he did not hide his trail from them. He would
be bitterly disappointed if they did not come. It told them, too, that
if they did come, no matter how great their speed, the hunters could
never catch the hunted.
He stopped two minutes perhaps, long enough for the fleetest of the
warriors to come within sight. Just as their brown bodies appeared among
the trees he uttered his piercing cry a third time and took to flight
again at a speed greater than any of theirs. Two shots were fired, but
the bullets cut only the uncomplaining leaves, falling far short. He
gained a full hundred yards, and then he turned abruptly toward the
north. His sixth sense, in which this time the supreme development of
hearing was predominant, warned him that other warriors were coming up
from the south. In truth they were approaching so fast that they uttered
a cry of triumph in reply to his own cry, but, increasing his speed, he
merely laughed to himself once more, knowing that he had evaded the
trap. His elation grew. His plan was succeeding better than he had
hoped. One after another he was drawing the Indian bands upon his trail,
and he hoped to have them all. He hoped that Red Eagle would lead the
pursuit and he hoped that Blackstaffe and Wyatt would be there.
His ear had given warning before, and now it was his eye that told him
of the menace. He caught a glimpse of a flitting figure in the north,
and then of two more. And so a third band was bearing down upon him, but
from a point of the compass opposite the second. Any one of ordinary
powers might well have been trapped now, but he yet had strength in
reserve, and now he put forth an amazing burst of speed that carried him
well ahead of all three bands.
Then he entered another low region covered with bushes and reeds, and,
lest they lose his trail, he took occasion, as he fled, to trample down
a clump of reeds here and a bush there. On the far side of this sunken
land he came to a creek, in which the water rose to his knees, but he
forded it without hesitation, and even took the time to make a plain
trail after he had crossed.
He knew that the warriors would pursue, in spite of every obstacle, and
he knew, too, that they would divine who it was whom they followed.
Using a new burst of speed, he widened the gap as he surmised to a full
quarter of a mile. And then he let his gait sink to not much more than a
long walk, wishing to recover his full physical powers. His spirit of
elation remained. In very truth, he was enjoying himself, and he felt
that he could lead them on forever. He was even able to note the
character of the country as he passed, the numerous brooks, the splendor
of the forest, the brown leaves as they fell before the light wind, and
then a great patch of early blackberries hanging ripe and rich. He
paused a moment or two, long enough to gather many of the berries and
eat them, noting that they were the juiciest and best he could recall to
have tasted.
Then he came into a country that the animal kingdom seemed to have made
its own. He could not remember having seen anywhere else such an
abundance of game. Buffaloes, puffing and snorting, ran to one side as
he crossed the little prairies. Deer, some big and some little, sped
away through the thickets. Bears, hidden in their coverts, gazed at him
with curious eyes. Rabbits leaped away in the grass, squirrels ran in
alarm out on the farthest boughs, and flocks of wild fowl rose with a
whirr and a rush.
Henry was so sure of himself, so sure he could not be overtaken, that he
noted the character of this country which seemed to be so much favored
by the creatures of earth and air. Some time, when all their present
dangers were over, he and his comrades would come back there and have a
pleasant and peaceful hunt. Doubtless it had been neglected a long time
by the Indians, who were in the habit of using a region for a season or
two and then of letting it lie fallow until the wild animals should
forget and come back again.
He ascended a hill larger and higher than the others, and bare, being
mostly a stony outcrop. Here he sat down in the shadow of a ledge and
took long breaths. He felt that the pursuit was then fully a mile
behind, and he could afford to stop for a little while. From the lofty
summit he saw a great distance. Toward the southwest was where the swamp
lay, but, despite the height, it was invisible now. Behind him was the
deep forest through which his pursuers were coming, to the north lay the
same forest, but to the east he caught a shimmer of blue through the
browning leaves. It was so faint that at first he was not certain of its
nature, but a second look told him it was one of the little lakes often
to be found in the country north of the Ohio.
His flight, as he was making it, would take him straight against that
body of blue water, impassable to him then, and as he drew a deep breath
of gratitude he felt that he was in truth being watched over by a
supreme power. If not, why were all the turns of chance in his favor?
Why had he stopped to rest a moment or two by the stony ledge, and why
in doing so had he caught a glimpse of the lake which soon would have
been an insuperable bar across his path, enabling the Indians to hem him
in on either flank?
He breathed his thanks, and then he lay back against the ledge for
another minute or two of rest. Near grew a dwarf oak, still thick in
green foliage, and as if by command the wind suddenly began to sing
among its leaves, and the leaves, as if touched by the hand of a master
artist, gave back a song. Henry had heard that song before. It came to
him in his greatest moments of spiritual exaltation. Always it was a
song of strength and encouragement, telling him that he would succeed,
and now its note was not changed.
He opened his eyes, sure that his pursuers were not yet within rifle
shot, and rising, refreshed, passed over the hill and into the forest
again, curving now toward the north. When he was sure he was well hidden
by the bushes, he ran at great speed, intending to pass between the
northern wing of his pursuers and the lake. They, of course, had known
of the water there and were expecting to catch him in the trap, and as
he ran he heard the two wings calling distantly to each other. His
silent laugh came once more. He had invisible guides who always led him
out of traps, and he had heard the voice that sang to him so often
saying this pursuit, like so many others, might be long, but in vain.
Fifteen minutes more, and he caught another view of the lake, which
appeared to be about two miles long and a quarter of a mile across, a
fine sheet of water, on which great numbers of wild fowl swam, or over
which they hovered. It was heavily wooded on all sides, and had he not
seen it earlier it would surely have proved an obstacle leading to his
capture or destruction. The pursuing bands, evidently believing that the
trap had been closed with the fugitive in it, began to exchange signals
again, and Henry discerned in their cries the note of triumph. It gave
the great youth satisfaction to feel that they would soon be undeceived.
Now he called up all the reserves of strength that he had been saving
for some such emergency as this, and sped toward the northeast at a pace
few could equal, cleaving the thickets, leaping gullies, and racing
across the open. The lake on his right came nearer and nearer, but he
was rapidly approaching the northern end, and he knew that he would pass
it before the band pursuing in that quarter could close in upon him.
Now the critical time came and he increased his speed to the utmost,
running through a thicket, passing the extreme northern curve of the
lake, and entering a wood where only firm ground lay before him. The
great obstacle was passed and he felt a mighty surge of triumph. He was
for the time being primitive and wild, like the warriors who pursued
him, thinking as they thought, and acting as they acted. Feeling now
that he was victorious anew, he raised his voice and sent forth once
more that tremendous thrilling cry, a compound of triumph, defiance and
mockery. Yells of disappointment came from the deep woods behind him,
and to hear them gave him all the satisfaction he had anticipated.
He kept a steady course toward the east, not running so fast as before,
but maintaining a steady pace, nevertheless. As he ran he began to think
now of hiding his trail, not in such a manner that it could be lost
permanently, that being impossible, but long enough for him to take
rest. However great one's natural powers might be and however severely
and often one might have been hardened in the fire, one could not run on
forever. He must lie down in the forest by and by, and the time would
come, too, when he must sleep.
He glanced up at the sun and saw that the day would not last more than
two hours longer. There were no clouds and the night was likely to be
bright, furnishing enough light for the warriors to find an ordinary
trail, and willing to delude them now he began to take pains to make his
own trail one that was not ordinary. He resorted to all the usual forest
devices, walking on hard ground, stones and fallen trees, and wading in
water whenever he came to it, methods that he knew would merely delay
the warriors, but that could not baffle them long.
He did not hear the bands signaling again and he surmised that the one
on the south would pass around the southern end of the lake, reuniting
with the other as soon afterward as possible. Nevertheless he curved off
in that direction, and, sinking now to a long walk, he went steadily
ahead, until the great sun went down in a sea of gold behind the forest
and night threw a dusky veil over the wilderness. Then he stopped
entirely, and standing against a huge tree trunk, with which his figure
blended in the night, he took deep breaths.
At first he felt weakness. No one, no matter how powerful and well
trained, could run so long without putting an immense strain upon the
nerves, and for a little space bushes and trees danced before him. Then
the world steadied itself, his heart ceased to beat so hard and the
suffusion of blood retreated from his head. He saw nothing nor heard
anything of his foes, but he knew that the pursuit would not cease. He
felt that this was his great flight, one that might go on for days and
nights, in which every faculty he had would be tested to the utmost, but
he was willing for it to be so. The longer the flight continued the
further he would draw away from the Indian power, and that was what he
wished most of all. He would make such a fugitive as the chiefs had
never known before.
Henry stood a full fifteen minutes beside the brown trunk of the tree,
of which in the dark he seemed to be a part, and so great was his
physical power and elasticity that the time was sufficient to restore
all his strength. When he thought he caught a glimpse of a bush moving
behind him, he resumed the long running walk that covered ground so
rapidly. An hour later he came to a brook, in the bed of which he walked
fully a mile. But he did not expect this to bother his pursuers very
long. They would send warriors up and down either bank until in the
moonlight they struck the trail anew, and then they would follow as
before. But it would give him time, and not doubting that he would find
some new circumstance to aid him, it came sooner than he had expected or
hoped.
Less than half a mile farther he encountered the wreckage left by a
hurricane of some former season, a path not more than three hundred
yards wide, a perfect tangle of fallen trees, amid which bushes were
already growing. The windrow led two or three miles to the northeast,
and he walked all the way on the trunks, slipping lightly from tree to
tree. It was now late, and as the night fortunately began to turn
considerably darker, he bethought himself of a place in which to sleep,
because in time sleep one must have, whether or not a fugitive.
As he considered, he heard ahead of him a faint puffing and blowing
which he knew to come from buffaloes, and their presence indicated one
of the little prairies in which the country north of the Ohio abounded.
He made his way through the bushes, came to the prairie and saw that it
was black with the herd.
The buffalo, although numerous east of the Mississippi, invariably
grazed in small bands, owing to the wooded nature of the country, and
the present herd, four or five hundred at least, was the largest that
Henry had ever seen away from the Great Plains. As the wind was blowing
from him toward them, and they showed, nevertheless, no sign of flight,
he surmised that the weaker members had been harassed much by wolves,
and that the herd was unwilling to move from its present place of rest.
They shuffled and puffed and panted, but there was no alarm.
He stood a few moments and gazed at them, his look full of friendliness.
The Indians hunted the buffalo and they also hunted him. For the time
being these, the most gigantic of North American animals, were his
brethren, and then came his idea.
A little ridge ran into the prairie, terminating in a hillock, and it
was clear of the buffaloes, as they naturally lay in the lower places.
Henry walked down among the buffaloes along the ridge until he came to
the hillock, where he took the blanket from his back, wrapped it about
him, and reclined with his head on his arm. The buffaloes puffed and
snorted and some of them moved uneasily, but they did not get up.
Perhaps Henry was wholly a wild creature himself then and they discerned
in him something akin to themselves, or perhaps they had been harassed
by wolves so much that they would not stir for anything now. But as the
human intruder lay soundless and motionless, they, too, settled into
quiet.
Henry's friendly feeling for the buffaloes increased, and it had full
warrant. He was surrounded by an army of sentinels. He knew that if the
Indians attempted to cross the prairie, coming in a band, they would
rise up at once in alarm, and if he fell asleep he would be awakened
immediately by such a multitudinous sound. Hence he would go to sleep,
and quickly.
If the buffaloes felt their kinship with Henry, he felt his kinship with
them as strongly. Since they had sunk into silence they were like so
many friends around him, ready to fend off danger or to warn him. From
the crest of the low mound upon which he lay he saw the big black forms
dotting the prairie, a ring about him. Then he calmly composed himself
for the slumber which he needed so much.
But sleep did not come as speedily as he had expected. Wolves howled in
the forest, and he knew they were real wolves, hanging on the flank of
the buffalo herd, cutting out the calves or the weak. The big bull
buffaloes moved and snorted again at the sound, but, when it was not
repeated, returned to their rest, all except one that lumbered forward a
step or two and then sank down directly on the little ridge by which
Henry had come to his hillock, as if he were a rear guard, closing the
way to the fugitive. He saw in it at once an omen. The superior power
that was watching over him had put the buffalo there to protect him,
and, free from any further apprehension, he closed his eyes, falling
asleep without delay.
Henry always felt afterward that he must have been wholly a creature of
the wild that night, else the buffaloes would have taken alarm at his
presence and probably would have stampeded. But the kinship they
recognized in him must have endured, or they had been harried so much by
the wolves that they did not feel like moving because of an intruder who
was so quiet and harmless that he was really no intruder at all. The
huge bull, crouched across the path by which he had come, puffed and
groaned at intervals, but he did not stir from his place. He was in very
truth, if not in intent, a guardian of the way.
And yet, while Henry slept amid the herd, the pursuit of him was
conducted with the energy, thoroughness and tenacity of which the
Indians were capable. The spirit of the great Shawnee chief, Red Eagle,
had been stung by his failure to overtake the fugitive, whom he knew to
be the youth Ware, their greatest foe, and he was resolved that Henry
should not escape. With him now were the renegades Blackstaffe and
Wyatt, and they, too, urged on the chase. They felt that if Henry could
be taken or destroyed, the four would fall easier victims, and then the
eyes of the woods that watched so well for the settlers would have gone
out forever.
All through the night the warriors ranged the forest, hunting for the
trail. The moon and the stars returned, bringing with them a light that
helped, and an hour or two after midnight a Shawnee found traces that
led toward the prairie. He called to his comrades and they followed it
to the prairie, where they lost it. The Indian warriors, looking
cautiously from the brush, saw in the open the clustered black forms,
looming gigantic in the moonlight, and they heard the heavings and
puffings and groanings of the big bulls. Directly in front of them,
across a low narrow ridge, lay the biggest bull of them all, a buffalo
that stirred now and then as if he were glad to rub his body against the
soil, which was rougher there than elsewhere. On the far side of the
prairie, wolves yapped and barked, longing to get at the calves inside
the ring of their elders.
The warriors crept away and began the entire circuit of the open,
looking for the lost trail. It had entered it on the western side, and
it would pass out somewhere, probably on the eastern. Red Eagle,
Blackstaffe and Wyatt themselves came up and directed the chase, but
they were mystified when their runners, completing the entire circling
movement, reported that there was no sign of the trail's reappearance.
Red Eagle, after taking thought, refused to believe it. The fugitive had
surpassing skill, as all of them knew, but a human being could not take
a flight through the air, like an eagle or a wild duck, and leave no
trail behind him. They must have overlooked the traces in the moonlight,
and he sent out the warriors anew, to right and to left.
Henry meanwhile slept the sleep of one who was weary and unafraid. He
had not only the feeling, but the conviction, as he lay down, that he
was within an inviolable ring of sentinels, and having dismissed all
care and apprehension from his mind, he fell into a slumber so deep
that for a long time nothing could disturb it. The yapping and barking
of the wolves fell upon an unhearing ear. The puffings and groanings of
the buffaloes were merely whispers to dull him into more powerful sleep.
When the Indian scouts, not fifty yards away, looked at the body of the
big bull that blocked the path, nothing whispered to him that danger was
near. Nor was the whisper needed, as the danger passed as quickly as it
had come.
He awoke at the first streak of dawn, stirred a little in his blanket,
but did not rise yet. He saw the buffaloes all around him and realized
that his faith in them had not been misplaced. The great bull, like a
black mountain, still barred the path to him.
It was warm and snug in his blanket and he yawned prodigiously. It would
have been pleasant to have remained there a few hours longer, but when
one was pursued by a whole Indian nation he could not remain long in one
place. He took the last strips of venison from his pack and ate them as
he lay. Meanwhile the buffaloes themselves began to move somewhat, as if
they were making ready for their day's work, and Henry wondered at their
disregard of him. Perhaps his presence for a night, and the fact that he
had been harmless, removed their fear of him.
He rose to his knees, and then suddenly sank back again. He had caught
the gleam of red feathers in the forest to the west, and he knew they
were in the scalplock of a Shawnee. Raising his head cautiously he saw
several more. It was a small band passing toward the north. But he had
too much experience to imagine that they were chance travelers. Beyond a
doubt they were a part of Red Eagle's army, and that army had come up in
the night and had surrounded him.
He lay back and listened. An Indian call arose in the west and another
in the east, and then they came from north and south and points between.
They were on all sides of him and he had been trapped as he slept. He
saw that the danger was the most formidable he had yet encountered, but
he did not despair. It was characteristic of him that when there seemed
to be no hope, he yet had hope, and plenty of it. His heart beat a
little faster, but he lay quiet in his blanket, taking thought with
himself.
He had been aided before by storms, but there was not the remotest
chance now of one. The sun was rising in the full splendor of an early
autumn morning, and the thin, clear air had the brightness of silver.
The blue skies held not a single cloud. Far over his head a flock of
wild fowl in arrow formation flew southward, and for the moment they
expressed to him, as he lay in the snare, the very quintessence of
freedom. But he spent no time in vain longings. His eyes came back to
the earth and that which surrounded him. Once more he caught the gleam
of feathers in the forest and he was sure that the line about the
prairie was now continuous.
He must find a way through that line, and he poured all his mind upon
one point. When one thinks for life, one thinks fast and hard.
Stratagem after stratagem flitted before him, to be cast aside one after
another. Meanwhile the buffaloes were stirring more and more, and some
of them began to nip at the dry grass of the prairie, but the big black
bull on the little ridge remained crouched and motionless. He was not
fifteen feet away and between him and Henry lay fragments of dead wood
which had been blown from the forest by some old wind. His eyes alighted
upon them idly, but remained there in interest, and then, in a sudden
burst of intuition, came his plan. Hesitating not a single instant, he
prepared for it.
Henry slid forward, recovered a long dead stick, and rapidly whittled
from it a lot of shavings. He never knew why the buffaloes did not take
alarm at his presence and actions, but he always supposed that the
mystic tie of kinship still endured. Then using his flint and steel with
all the energy and power that imminent danger could inspire, he lighted
first the shavings and then the end of the long stick.
The buffaloes at last began to puff and snort and show alarm, and Henry,
springing to his feet, whirled the torch in a circle of living fire
around his head. The whole herd broke in an instant into a frightful
panic, and with much snorting and bellowing rushed away in a black mass
toward the east. He threw down his torch, and grasping his rifle and
throwing his pack over his shoulder, followed close upon them, so close
that not even the keenest eye in the forest could have distinguished
him from the herd in the great cloud of dust that quickly rose.
It was for this cloud of dust that he had bargained. The soil of the
prairie became dry in the autumn, and the tramplings of four or five
hundred huge beasts churned it into a powder which the wind picked up
and blew into a blinding stream. Henry felt it in his eyes, his nose,
his ears and his mouth, but he was glad and he laughed aloud in his joy.
The rush and bellowings of the buffaloes made it a mighty roar, and the
soul within him was wild and triumphant, as became one who was the very
spirit and essence of the wilderness. He shouted aloud like Long Jim
Hart, knowing that his voice would be lost in the thunder of the herd
and could not reach the Indians.
"On, my gallant beasts!" he cried. "Charge 'em! Break their line! They
can't stand before you! Faster! Faster!"
He struck one of them across the body with the butt of his rifle, but
the herd was already running as fast as it could, while the cloud of
dust was continually rising in greater and thicker volume. In the midst
of this cloud, and hanging almost bodily to the herd itself, Henry was
invisible as he rushed on, shouting his battle song of triumph and
defiance, although no word of it reached the warriors who had lain in
the brushwood and who were now fleeing in fright before the rush of the
mad herd.
Mad it certainly was, said Red Eagle, for the chief himself, with Wyatt
and Blackstaffe, had been directly in its path, and they had been
compelled to run in undignified haste, while the great pillar of dust,
filled with the dim figures of buffaloes, crashed and thundered past,
trampling down bushes, crushing saplings, and driving off to the east,
the pillar of dust still visible long after the buffaloes were deep in
the forest. Red Eagle stared after it. He was a wise old chief, and he
had seen buffaloes before in a panic, but he did not understand the
cause of this sudden and terrific flight.
"It is strange," he said, "but we must let them run. We will go back now
and look for Ware."