THE WORK OF A LIE.
The settler’s eyes fell upon Zebulon Strong, as the startling words
written at the conclusion of chapter five rung from his lips.
But the captain stood the scrutiny unflinchingly, and started forward
with drawn sword.
“The traitor shall die!” he cried. “Let every one look to his neighbor,
and watch him closely. As for myself, I believe that Morg Sawyer is the
villain; but he is beyond our power. Men, to the lower floor with picks;
we’ll dig another well immediately. By the help of God, we’ll hold out
against the red and white fiends until fresh water can be struck!”
He turned away as he finished, and was ordering a number of men below to
inaugurate the digging of a new well, when Huldah Armstrong bounded
toward the settler and touched his arm.
“Father,” she said, in a cautious tone, “Captain Strong is the traitor!
I was standing near the logs, a moment since, and heard Wolf-Cap at the
gate. He told the guards that our captain had betrayed us into the hands
of the savages.”
The next instant Levi jerked his arm from Huldah’s grip, and started
toward Strong, who was handing buckets of water to the men on the roof.
“Men,” he cried, in thunderous tones, “treason must not thrive here.
Captain Strong, you must consider yourself the prisoner of the
garrison.”
Before turning to the old settler the traitor passed the bucket he was
in the act of lifting to the nearest man.
He retained a wonderful self composure.
“I submit, if it be the will of the men,” he said, calmly. “Heaven
forefend that I should seek to betray these women and children into
merciless hands,” and he glanced around on the swarthy faces revealed by
the tallow dips.
“Let the captain help us,” cried several voices; but old Levi silenced
the speakers with a look.
“I’d like to, but it won’t do,” he said. “The evidence is strong against
him. I saw him whispering to Morg Sawyer at the gate, a minute before
that dog’s desertion, and Wolf-Cap has just shouted over the palisades
that he is a traitor.”
For the first time the captain’s face grew pale, and Levi proceeded to
disarm him.
“I’m sorry for all this, Cap,” he said, sympathetically; “but you see,
we’ve got to do it, and—”
“Arrest Captain Strong!” interrupted a sturdy young settler, whose head
shot above the hatchway at this juncture. “Wolf-Cap has just halloed
over the gate that he is a traitor. Ah! so you’ve already caught the
dog! Zeb Strong, for a shilling I’d strike you stiff and cold on these
boards. I’ve two sisters here, and to think that you would give them
over to the tomahawk!”
The youth towered before the suspected man with flashing eyes and
leveled gun, and other weapons were drawn to shed the captain’s blood.
“No, no, boys; he’s not condemned yet,” said Levi Armstrong, pushing the
weapons aside. “We’ll tend to him after the fight.”
“But we may not win.”
“Then, of course, he dies.”
A guard of several men was placed over the captain, who was taken below
where strong arms threw up the earth in great heaps. Mad eyes fell upon
the captive, and he was told that his life would be forfeited if he
attempted to escape.
Above, the settlers fought the flames at the risk of their lives, for
the foe were raining bullets from the hill and the battle had opened in
terrible earnest.
Suddenly a startling cry came from the vicinity of the well.
“No more water!”
And the words were echoed on every side. Mothers pressed their babes to
their breasts, and told the little ones that the last drop of water had
been drawn from the well!
“What of the fire?” shouted Armstrong to the men on the roof.
“If we had more water we could master it,” was the reply. “Without water
we are doomed.”
Then he leaped to the gangway and cried to the well-diggers below.
“No water yet?”
“No!” was the despairing answer.
The fire-fighters threw the buckets from the roof and clambered down
after them. But all who went up did not come down. Several had been shot
by the enemy, and lay dead on the ground between the fort and the
palisades.
Now every one believed that the fort was doomed to destruction. The
clapboards on the western roof were blazing furiously, and cinders were
falling among the besieged. The light added to the ghastly scene; but
the settlers stood nobly at the port-holes and more than one shot proved
the death-knell of a foe.
All at once a peal of thunder, rattling over their heads, shook the fort
to its very foundation, and ejaculations of joy burst from every throat.
“God be praised!” cried a woman bursting from the shuddering throng with
her babe in her arms. “He is sending the rain to save us. Praised be His
holy name!”
A moment later and the storm clouds broke and great gray drops fell
splattering in the fire.
The rain was greeted with a hearty cheer that reached the ears of the
besiegers, and every faint heart took hope. For a moment the rain
descended in scattered quantities, and then it came down in gigantic and
irresistible sheets.
“We are saved—hurrah! hurrah!” cried the younger settlers, stepping back
from the ports and slipping in the blood and water that covered the
puncheons. “Open the well and let the water in.”
Sure enough, the crimson demon was yielding to the deluge, and every one
saw in their deliverance the hand of Deity.
“We’re not out of the fire yet,” said Levi Armstrong, calmly, for to him
command of the fort had been given by unanimous consent. “After the rain
we must fight again, then no roof can protect us—the fire-arrows will
drop among us. But we must to work. Remove the ammunition below to a dry
place, and let our dead be laid aside and the wounded cared for.”
Brave men sprung with eagerness to the task. Several kegs of powder were
carried below, and the loss of the garrison looked after.
It was discovered that it had suffered quite severely during the battle.
From behind stumps, the Indians had fired into the ports, distinctly
revealed by the widely-leaping flames of the roof, and with fatal
effect. The majority of the stricken settlers were killed outright—shot
through the head—while every wound was dangerous. Twenty-one men had
fallen, including the loss at the gate and another, Morgan Sawyer, had
deserted.
The well-diggers struck water as the storm broke over the fort; but they
did not cease their labors, for they knew that it would not last long—a
summer shower, but a furious, a saving one.
“Miss Armstrong, can I trust you?”
“You can.”
“Then come with me.”
The first speaker was Matt Hunter, the man whom Captain Strong had
placed over the well after Sawyer’s defection.
He was a small, wiry man, rather prepossessing in appearance, and had
fought like a tiger with the water buckets.
Huldah Armstrong drew from his look that he had something in view for
the good of the garrison, and followed him to the gangway.
But, as the settler had put his foot on the first round of the ladder,
the face of a strange man was revealed below, and he started back.
“Wolf-Cap!” he shouted to the busy men and women about him. “Wolf-Cap is
here!”
Immediately the cry of “Wolf-Cap” resounded throughout the fort, and the
next minute the Night-Hawks’ foe appeared above the hatch!
“Welcome, welcome, neighbor Belt!” cried old Levi, springing to the
trapper. “Bloody times, these.”
“Ay, ay,” said Wolf-Cap, quickly. “But to the ports; This is the darkest
hour of the night. The foe is crawling through the storm both from the
river and hill. Thank heaven! the rain has saved your fort.”
The settlers sprung to their places.
“The demons carry ladders,” continued Wolf-Cap, “and they’ll make a
desperate effort to carry the palisades by storm.”
Matt Hunter and Huldah did not wait to hear the trapper’s words, but
hurried below and paused before the guard at the lower door.
“You can’t get out here,” said the sentry.
“Can’t,” echoed Hunter. “We’re on a mission from our new captain.”
“True, Miss?” asked the soldier, looking at Huldah.
“Mr. Hunter should know,” she answered, and the heavy door was unbolted,
and they stepped into the yard.
“Miss Armstrong, I am on a secret mission for your father,” he said,
when they heard the door shut violently. “I can not disclose it yet, so
please bear with me. We must now relieve the gate guards.”
He walked rapidly toward the gate, where three sturdy settlers stood.
“Jones, Vanderberg and Poston, I believe,” he said, pausing before the
trio, whose forms were just visible in the gloom.
“Yes,” answered a rough voice, “them’s we. What’s wanting?”
“Our new captain wants Vanderberg and Poston to the council up-stairs.
Wolf-Cap advocates a change of tactics. We—Miss Armstrong and I—will
guard the gate with Jones, until relieved. We were sent hither for that
duty.”
Matt Hunter paused; but the two men hesitated. Since the arrest of
Zebulon Strong, they did not know whom to trust, and theirs was the most
important post connected with the safety of the fort.
“No doubt other strength will be sent hither on your appearance above,”
said Hunter, uneasily. “Your voices are needed in the council. You can
leave your muskets here; but I think we will not need ’em. Wolf-Cap
reports the foe under cover.”
His last words decided the guards; they leaned their muskets against the
stockade and left the gate.
Without difficulty they gained the interior of the fort, and paused a
moment to inquire into the progress of the well-diggers.
Then they ascended the ladder and appeared in the battle-room. The storm
had spent its fury by this time, but the wind was flaring the dips and
imparting a demi-gloom to the entire interior of the place. Still, the
light enabled the sentries to see men at the port-holes, and the women
were scrubbing the floor with bedding. There was nothing that looked
like a council of war.
“Where’s the cap’n?” asked Vanderberg, touching a woman’s arm—and the
dame could not repress a cry when she looked up into his white face.
“Here,” called a lusty voice from a darkened corner, and a tall form
advanced toward the guard. “I’m here—what’s wanting?” and then the
commander caught sight of Vanderberg’s face. “Roger Vanderberg, what are
_you_ doing _here_?” he cried, and his hand closed on the settler’s arm.
“Your post is at the outer gate. What can have brought you hither?
Speak! These are nights when traitors are abroad.”
The guard, now thoroughly alarmed and frightened, could not find his
tongue for a moment.
“And Poston, you here too? Who _is_ at the gate?”
“Sir, your daughter and Matt Hunter,” cried Vanderberg, with
considerable fire in his tone. “He sent me up to the council.”
“Council? there’s no council here,” and the old settler’s cheeks
suddenly grew pale. “I never sent for you—never! Matt Hunter must mean
something terrible. We’ll go down and see.”
He sprung to the hatch, and quickly disappeared, followed by the
sentries.
The lower guard opened the door without a challenge, and the trio passed
into the yard.
There Levi Armstrong’s worst fears were realized. The gate was deserted
and stood ajar!
Deserted? No! At the foot of one of the posts lay the body of a man.
“Heavens! Huldah is gone!” cried the settler, staggering from the scene,
for a moment completely unmanned.
For a moment only.
“The gate! the gate!” he cried, springing forward, but Vanderberg and
Poston had foreseen the danger.
Their strong arms closed the ponderous structure, as a hundred arrows
buried their flinty heads in the boards!
The gate was then barricaded in a jiffy.
“Listen! They’re about to storm us,” said Vanderberg.
“Quick, then! Summon thirty men hither!” shouted Levi. “We must meet
them here first. ’Twill be daylight soon, thank heaven!”
Vanderberg sprung to execute the task assigned him, and the old settler
bent over the form lying at the gate.
It was poor Jones. His skull had been crushed by the butt of a musket,
and he was quite dead.
“The old fort swarms with traitors,” said Armstrong, looking up at
Poston. “Hunter was Strong’s confederate. Now we’ll meet the storming
dogs.”
He muttered the last sentence as a body of men emerged from the fort.
“Huldah isn’t gone, Armstrong?” said the foremost man, whose wolf-skin
cap proclaimed his personality.
“Gone—gone, Belt!”
“Curse the luck! Why didn’t I shoot Matt Hunter, when I caught him
tampering with my traps, two years ago?”
“Would to heaven you had.”
Wolf-Cap looked at the settler and then gritted his great teeth till
they fairly cracked.
“Matt Hunter took the girl along to buy his own liberty,” he murmured.
“Royal Funk will get her now. But he sha’n’t wear her—no! not while my
name is Card Belt.”
“Nor while mine is Mark Harmon!”
The trapper started and saw the young borderman standing by his side.
“Your hand on that, boy!” cried the trapper, with a smile, and two hands
were clasped and sealed in determination.
“I guess the dogs have gone back to growl,” said Belt, glancing up.
“They’ve let the golden moment slip. It’s gettin’ too light to attack
now.”