AMBUSHED.
Priscilla Kent, spinster, sharp-visaged, old and eccentric, sat
knitting by lamplight before the open Franklin stove at which she
warmed her slippered toes. In its hanging cage an old green parrot
slept fitfully, occasionally waking to roll a red eye at its mistress
or to mutter fretfully like one disturbed by unpleasant dreams. Behind
her back a small monkey had silently enlarged a rent in the haircloth
covering of an old spring couch and was industriously extracting and
curiously inspecting the packing with which the couch was stuffed. The
hands of the old-fashioned clock upon the mantel pointed to eight
thirty-five.
“Goodness!” said Miss Priscilla, after peering at the clock. “It’s
goin’ on to nine, and Rod ain’t back yet. He said he was just goin’
down to the village to mail a letter. I’m afeared he’s gittin’ into the
habit of keepin’ late hours. He takes his natteral reckless disposition
from his father’s side, but I do hope the terrible misfortune that
befell Oscar will be a lesson to him and teach him to shun bad company
and curb his violent temper. If he don’t come purty soon I shall get
real worried.”
Now Miss Priscilla, living as she did on the outskirts of the village
in a small house reached only by a footpath from the main highway,
might have worried indeed had she known that the darkness and the
bushes bordering that path hid a trio of armed and desperate-looking
savages who were lying in ambush. The faintest sort of a moon or even a
few stars might have shed light sufficient to show that the ambuscaders
were attired in fringed khaki garments and moccasins, and wore upon
their heads bonnets adorned with feathers plucked from the tails of
more than one unfortunate rooster. Even such a dim light would also
have revealed that the papier-mache masks which hid their faces added
in a degree to their make-up as Indians, while the red paint which
stained the edges of their wooden tomahawks and scalping knives was
certainly sufficient to produce a shudder. In the parade of
“horribles,” on last Independence Day, these warriors had appeared for
the amusement of the admiring populace of Oakdale, and now their
carefully preserved disguises were again being put to use.
Even though they lurked in concealment so near the exposed and
defenseless home of Miss Priscilla, the savages had no murderous
designs upon the spinster. They were, however, as their guarded
conversation indicated, lying in wait for some one whom they expected
soon to return along that footpath, and protracted lingering in ambush
upon a nipping November night was proving far from pleasant, as their
chattering teeth and occasional fretful remarks plainly indicated.
“Ugh!” grunted one, whose voice sounded amazingly like that of Phil
Springer. “I wonder why the hated pup-paleface does not appear?”
“Peace, noble Osceola,” said another, with a shivery chuckle that might
have come from the lips of Chipper Cooper. “The hated enemy of our
people will surely return in time to his wigwam. If he don’t I’ll be
froze stiff; for, with only this feather headdress as protection, I
can’t keep my own wig warm to-night.”
“Oh, say, King Philip,” drawled the third, “don’t increase our
sufferin’s by any such cracks as that.”
“Enjoy you not my persiflage, Tecumpseh?” asked the one who had been
addressed as the war chief of the Narragansetts. “’Tis thus by light
and airy jesting we aid the leaden hours to pass on fleeting wings.”
“Heap bub-bad Injun lingo, King Philip,” criticized Osceola. “A real
aborigine such as you impersonate wouldn’t talk about leaden hours.
Cuc-cut it out.”
“Your slang, Osceola, is somewhat too modern. You don’t s’pose that
sucker got onto our game and fooled us by sneaking back to his teepee
by some other road, do you?”
“If he has,” growled Tecumpseh, “he’ll sartainly have the laugh on us.
But, in that case, why hain’t we been informed by Girty, the renegade,
who’s trailin’ him?”
“’Sh!” hissed King Philip suddenly. “I hear a signal. Muffle the
chin-music and listen.”
A smothered, suppressed sound, like the faint-hearted hooting of an
owl, drifted up the dark path, and instantly the three savages were
palpitant with eagerness.
“It’s Hunk—I mean Girty,” spluttered Cooper, rising on his hands and
knees. “Where’s the blanket? Get the blanket ready, fellows. Now don’t
bungle this job.”
A sound of running feet grew more distinct, and a panting lad came
hurrying up the path.
“Hey, Hunk—hey!” called Tecumpseh softly. “Here we be. Is he comin’?”
“Oh, here you are!” gasped the new arrival, as he plunged into the
shelter of the pathside thicket and joined them. “Yep, he’s coming. I
watched him till I saw him start, then I made a short cut by the
footpath past Tige Fletcher’s, and got here first. He’ll be right
along. I guess the fellers are getting the other end of the game fixed
up all right, for I see Sleuth buying phosphorus at the drug store. Oh,
say! we’ll scare that bragging coward to death to-night. After we catch
him we’ve got to keep him till they get ready to work the rescue
racket.”
[Illustration: OUT FROM COVER LEAPED THE QUARTET, FLINGING THEMSELVES
ON THE PALEFACE. —Page 55.]
“Oh, we’ll keep him all right if we catch him, and we’ll make it warm
for him, too,” said King Philip. “Come on, Hunk—I mean Girty,—we’ll
take the other side of the path, you and I. Osceola and Tecumpseh, have
the blanket ready. Everybody jump at him all together; get him before
he can scoot. Come on.”
Followed by the one called Girty, who was disguised in rough, loose
fitting clothes, a slouch hat and a hideous white-face mask, King
Philip hustled across the path and ensconced himself close beside a low
clump of cedars. Silence followed, broken presently by the faint, clear
sound of a whistled tune, becoming more and more distinct as the
whistler drew near. Their muscles taut, their nerves strung high, the
three redskins and the renegade crouched for the attack upon their
chosen victim, who, wholly unsuspecting, sauntered heedlessly into the
trap.
Out from cover leaped the quartet, flinging themselves upon the
paleface, whose whistled tune was actually cut short by the muffling
folds of the blanket cast over his head and twisted tight.
Nevertheless, although his feet were kicked from beneath him and all
four united in the effort to subdue him, the boy from Texas, squirming,
twisting, kicking, fighting desperately to fling off the blanket, gave
them a lively time of it for several minutes. At last, however,
smothered and crushed, he began to weaken, and presently his hands were
twisted round behind his back and tied there with a stout piece of rope
produced from a pocket of King Philip’s khaki war-suit.
“Got him now!” grated Girty viciously, as he gave the captive a punch
in the ribs. “Confound him! he kicked me one in the breadbasket that
near knocked the wind out of me.”
“Stop that!” commanded King Philip authoritatively. “He will pay the
bitter penalty when we put him to the torture. Come on, let’s hit the
high places.”
Still keeping the blanket wrapped about the head and shoulders of the
victim, they lifted him to his feet, held him fast, plunged through the
bushes, and struck out across a rough open field in the direction of
Turkey Hill. The captive staggered as he was forced along, but their
firm hands sustained him, and they paid no heed to the muffled gasping
and groaning which came from beneath the blanket. Over a fence and
across a stone wall he was pushed and dragged, and finally the woods at
the eastern base of Turkey Hill were reached. A short distance into the
blackest of the night-shrouded timber they penetrated, halting at last
in a small glade near a bubbling spring.
“This is the place,” whispered King Philip. “We agreed to have him here
at the spring. We’ll have some fun with him while we’re waiting for the
other fellers to come.”
“I guess we’d better give him a chance to git a breath,” observed
Tecumpseh, who was supporting the captive with both arms. “He’s limp as
a dish-rag. I cal-late he’s purty near done up.”
In truth, Rodney Grant was nearly smothered, and when the blanket was
removed he lay gasping painfully upon the cold ground.
“Guard the paleface dog, Osceola,” commanded King Philip. “If he
attempts to escape, crack his skull with your trusty tomahawk and lift
his topknot with your gory scalping knife. Girty, build a fire, and
fear not; for neither Daniel Boone nor Simon Kenton are nearer to-night
than the Dark and Bloody Ground.”
Girty promptly gathered some sticks of wood, scraped together a mass of
dry fallen leaves, and applied a lighted match. A blaze sprang up at
once, illuminating the whole glade.
“My brothers,” said King Philip, “we will now hold a council of war to
decide the fate of this wretched paleface captive. As the war chief of
the Narragansetts, hunted in the swamps like a wild beast, my spirit
cries out for vengeance. The most frightful torture we can inflict upon
this wretch will but poorly atone for the suffering he has caused our
people; for has he not with his own lips boasted that he tortured three
noble warriors to death by tickling them on the bottoms of their bare
feet with feathers? What torture can we devise that will serve as
sufficient retaliation? I would listen to the wisdom from the lips of
the great Seminole, Osceola.”
“It is my idea,” said Osceola, “that we ought to soak it to him heap
much. I’m in favor of skinning him alive.”
“What do you propose, Tecumpseh?”
“I would hang him by the heels over a slow fire. I guess that would
warm him up some.”
“Simon Girty, even though your skin is the color of the despised
paleface, you have renounced your people and become one of us. You are
even more bloodthirsty and cruel than the bloodiest warrior that roams
the primeval forest. What say you? Spit it out.”
“Burn him to the stake,” growled Girty.
“Good! It shall be done. Lift him and tie him, standing, with his back
to a stout sapling. Here’s another hunk of rope.”
The captive, although somewhat recovered, made resistance when they
raised him from the ground and dragged him to the sapling.
“Go ahead with your funny business, you onery coyotes!” he exclaimed.
“I opine I know you all, in spite of your rigs; and when I promise to
get even a plenty I certain mean it.”
Scoffing at him, they tied him fast, and then piled in a circle about
his feet a mass of dry leaves and broken branches, taking care,
however, that this combustible material did not touch him by a foot or
more.
“We’ll toast him gently at first,” chuckled King Philip. “When a victim
is too quickly burned at the stake it is a sad _mistake_, for it ends
our fiendish joys all too soon. Apply the torch.”
Girty seized a burning stick of wood and touched it to the leaves near
the prisoner’s feet. The fire blazed up and began creeping round the
circle of combustible material. The heat of the flames reached the
helpless boy’s face and hands, while the smoke filled his eyes and
nostrils, making him choke and gasp. In a moment King Philip,
Tecumpseh, Osceola, and Girty, the renegade, were dancing and whooping
around Rod Grant, flourishing their tomahawks and knives.
From the midst of the enveloping mass of smoke and sparks came a harsh
voice, vibrant with intense rage:
“Whoop it up, you skunks! You’d better carry the game through and
finish me, for if you don’t I’ll make every one of you dance a
different jig before long!”
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