Next morning, when the mist was breaking and rolling away under the
warm rays of the Indian-summer sun, Jonathan Zane beached his canoe on
the steep bank before Fort Henry. A pioneer, attracted by the
borderman's halloo, ran to the bluff and sounded the alarm with shrill
whoops. Among the hurrying, brown-clad figures that answered this
summons, was Colonel Zane.
"It's Jack, kurnel, an' he's got her!" cried one.
The doughty colonel gained the bluff to see his brother climbing the
bank with a white-faced girl in his arms.
"Well?" he asked, looking darkly at Jonathan. Nothing kindly or genial
was visible in his manner now; rather grim and forbidding he seemed,
thus showing he had the same blood in his veins as the borderman.
"Lend a hand," said Jonathan. "As far as I know she's not hurt."
They carried Helen toward Colonel Zane's cabin. Many women of the
settlement saw them as they passed, and looked gravely at one another,
but none spoke. This return of an abducted girl was by no means a
strange event.
"Somebody run for Sheppard," ordered Colonel Zane, as they entered his
cabin.
Betty, who was in the sitting-room, sprang up and cried: "Oh! Eb! Eb!
Don't say she's----"
"No, no, Betts, she's all right. Where's my wife? Ah! Bess, here, get
to work."
The colonel left Helen in the tender, skilful hands of his wife and
sister, and followed Jonathan into the kitchen.
"I was just ready for breakfast when I heard some one yell," said he.
"Come, Jack, eat something."
They ate in silence. From the sitting-room came excited whispers, a
joyous cry from Betty, and a faint voice. Then heavy, hurrying
footsteps, followed by Sheppard's words of thanks-giving.
"Where's Wetzel?" began Colonel Zane.
The borderman shook his head gloomily.
"Where did you leave him?"
"We jumped Legget's bunch last night, when the moon was about an hour
high. I reckon about fifteen miles northeast. I got away with
the lass."
"Ah! Left Lew fighting?"
The borderman answered the question with bowed head.
"You got off well. Not a hurt that I can see, and more than lucky to
save Helen. Well, Jack, what do you think about Lew?"
"I'm goin' back," replied Jonathan.
"No! no!"
The door opened to admit Mrs. Zane. She looked bright and cheerful,
"Hello, Jack; glad you're home. Helen's all right, only faint from
hunger and over-exertion. I want something for her to eat--well! you
men didn't leave much."
Colonel Zane went into the sitting-room. Sheppard sat beside the couch
where Helen lay, white and wan. Betty and Nell were looking on with
their hearts in their eyes. Silas Zane was there, and his wife, with
several women neighbors.
"Betty, go fetch Jack in here," whispered the colonel in his sister's
ear. "Drag him, if you have to," he added fiercely.
The young woman left the room, to reappear directly with her brother.
He came in reluctantly.
As the stern-faced borderman crossed the threshold a smile, beautiful
to see, dawned in Helen's eyes.
"I'm glad to see you're comin' round," said Jonathan, but he spoke
dully as if his mind was on other things.
"She's a little flighty; but a night's sleep will cure that," cried
Mrs. Zane from the kitchen.
"What do you think?" interrupted the colonel. "Jack's not satisfied to
get back with Helen unharmed, and a whole skin himself; but he's going
on the trail again."
"No, Jack, no, no!" cried Betty.
"What's that I hear?" asked Mrs. Zane as she came in. "Jack's going
out again? Well, all I want to say is that he's as mad as a
March hare."
"Jonathan, look here," said Silas seriously. "Can't you stay home
now?"
"Jack, listen," whispered Betty, going close to him. "Not one of us
ever expected to see either you or Helen again, and oh! we are so
happy. Do not go away again. You are a man; you do not know, you
cannot understand all a woman feels. She must sit and wait, and hope,
and pray for the safe return of husband or brother or sweetheart. The
long days! Oh, the long sleepless nights, with the wail of the wind in
the pines, and the rain on the roof! It is maddening. Do not leave us!
Do not leave me! Do not leave Helen! Say you will not, Jack."
To these entreaties the borderman remained silent. He stood leaning on
his rifle, a tall, dark, strangely sad and stern man.
"Helen, beg him to stay!" implored Betty.
Colonel Zane took Helen's hand, and stroked it. "Yes," he said, "you
ask him, lass. I'm sure you can persuade him to stay."
Helen raised her head. "Is Brandt dead?" she whispered faintly.
Still the borderman failed to speak, but his silence was not an
affirmative.
"You said you loved me," she cried wildly. "You said you loved me, yet
you didn't kill that monster!"
The borderman, moving quickly like a startled Indian, went out of the
door.
* * * * *
Once more Jonathan Zane entered the gloomy, quiet aisles of the forest
with his soft, tireless tread hardly stirring the leaves.
It was late in the afternoon when he had long left Two Islands behind,
and arrived at the scene of Mordaunt's death. Satisfied with the
distance he had traversed, he crawled into a thicket to rest.
Daybreak found him again on the trail. He made a short cut over the
ridges and by the time the mist had lifted from the valley he was
within stalking distance of the glade. He approached this in the
familiar, slow, cautious manner, and halted behind the big rock from
which he and Wetzel had leaped. The wood was solemnly quiet. No
twittering of birds could be heard. The only sign of life was a gaunt
timber-wolf slinking away amid the foliage. Under the big tree the
savage who had been killed as he would have murdered Helen, lay a
crumpled mass where he had fallen. Two dead Indians were in the center
of the glade, and on the other side were three more bloody, lifeless
forms. Wetzel was not there, nor Legget, nor Brandt.
"I reckoned so," muttered Jonathan as he studied the scene. The grass
had been trampled, the trees barked, the bushes crushed aside.
Jonathan went out of the glade a short distance, and, circling it,
began to look for Wetzel's trail. He found it, and near the light
footprints of his comrade were the great, broad moccasin tracks of
the outlaw. Further searching disclosed the fact that Brandt must have
traveled in line with the others.
With the certainty that Wetzel had killed three of the Indians, and,
in some wonderful manner characteristic of him, routed the outlaws of
whom he was now in pursuit, Jonathan's smoldering emotion burst forth
into full flame. Love for his old comrade, deadly hatred of the
outlaws, and passionate thirst for their blood, rioted in his heart.
Like a lynx scenting its quarry, the borderman started on the trail,
tireless and unswervable. The traces left by the fleeing outlaws and
their pursuer were plain to Jonathan. It was not necessary for him to
stop. Legget and Brandt, seeking to escape the implacable Nemesis,
were traveling with all possible speed, regardless of the broad trail
such hurried movements left behind. They knew full well it would be
difficult to throw this wolf off the scent; understood that if any
attempt was made to ambush the trail, they must cope with woodcraft
keener than an Indian's. Flying in desperation, they hoped to reach
the rocky retreat, where, like foxes in their burrows, they believed
themselves safe.
When the sun sloped low toward the western horizon, lengthening
Jonathan's shadow, he slackened pace. He was entering the rocky,
rugged country which marked the approach to the distant Alleghenies.
From the top of a ridge he took his bearings, deciding that he was
within a few miles of Legget's hiding-place.
At the foot of this ridge, where a murmuring brook sped softly over
its bed, he halted. Here a number of horses had forded the brook. They
were iron-shod, which indicated almost to a certainty, that they were
stolen horses, and in the hands of Indians.
Jonathan saw where the trail of the steeds was merged into that of
the outlaws. He suspected that the Indians and Legget had held a short
council. As he advanced the borderman found only the faintest
impression of Wetzel's trail. Legget and Brandt no longer left any
token of their course. They were riding the horses.
All the borderman cared to know was if Wetzel still pursued. He passed
on swiftly up a hill, through a wood of birches where the trail showed
on a line of broken ferns, then out upon a low ridge where patches of
grass grew sparsely. Here he saw in this last ground no indication of
his comrade's trail; nothing was to be seen save the imprints of the
horses' hoofs. Jonathan halted behind the nearest underbrush. This
sudden move on the part of Wetzel was token that, suspecting an
ambush, he had made a detour somewhere, probably in the grove
of birches.
All the while his eyes searched the long, barren reach ahead. No
thicket, fallen tree, or splintered rocks, such as Indians utilized
for an ambush, could be seen. Indians always sought the densely matted
underbrush, a windfall, or rocky retreat and there awaited a pursuer.
It was one of the borderman's tricks of woodcraft that he could
recognize such places.
Far beyond the sandy ridge Jonathan came to a sloping, wooded
hillside, upon which were scattered big rocks, some mossy and
lichen-covered, and one, a giant boulder, with a crown of ferns and
laurel gracing its flat surface. It was such a place as the savages
would select for ambush. He knew, however, that if an Indian had
hidden himself there Wetzel would have discovered him. When opposite
the rock Jonathan saw a broken fern hanging over the edge. The heavy
trail of the horses ran close beside it.
Then with that thoroughness of search which made the borderman what
he was, Jonathan leaped upon the rock. There, lying in the midst of
the ferns, lay an Indian with sullen, somber face set in the repose of
death. In his side was a small bullet hole.
Jonathan examined the savage's rifle. It had been discharged. The
rock, the broken fern, the dead Indian, the discharged rifle, told the
story of that woodland tragedy.
Wetzel had discovered the ambush. Leaving the trail, he had tricked
the redskin into firing, then getting a glimpse of the Indian's red
body through the sights of his fatal weapon, the deed was done.
With greater caution Jonathan advanced once more. Not far beyond the
rock he found Wetzel's trail. The afternoon was drawing to a close. He
could not travel much farther, yet he kept on, hoping to overtake his
comrade before darkness set in. From time to time he whistled; but got
no answering signal.
When the tracks of the horses were nearly hidden by the gathering
dusk, Jonathan decided to halt for the night. He whistled one more
note, louder and clearer, and awaited the result with strained ears.
The deep silence of the wilderness prevailed, suddenly to be broken by
a faint, far-away, melancholy call of the hermit-thrush. It was the
answering signal the borderman had hoped to hear.
Not many moments elapsed before he heard another call, low, and near
at hand, to which he replied. The bushes parted noiselessly on his
left, and the tall form of Wetzel appeared silently out of the gloom.
The two gripped hands in silence.
"Hev you any meat?" Wetzel asked, and as Jonathan handed him his
knapsack, he continued, "I was kinder lookin' fer you. Did you get out
all right with the lass?"
"Nary a scratch."
The giant borderman grunted his satisfaction.
"How'd Legget and Brandt get away?" asked Jonathan.
"Cut an' run like scared bucks. Never got a hand on either of 'em."
"How many redskins did they meet back here a spell?"
"They was seven; but now there are only six, an' all snug in Legget's
place by this time."
"I reckon we're near his den."
"We're not far off."
Night soon closing down upon the bordermen found them wrapped in
slumber, as if no deadly foes were near at hand. The soft night wind
sighed dismally among the bare trees. A few bright stars twinkled
overhead. In the darkness of the forest the bordermen were at home.