THE GATHERING OF THE FIVE
As the report of his shot sped in echoes through the forest, Henry Ware
sprang to his feet and stood there for a little space, his knees weak
under him, and drops of perspiration thick on his face. The rifle was
clenched in his hands, and a light smoke came from the muzzle.
Thus he stood, not yet willing to turn around and see, but when the last
echo of the shot was gone there was no sound. The wind had ceased to
blow. Not a leaf, not a blade of grass stirred. He was affected as he
had never been in battle, because he knew that a man whose shadow alone
he had seen lay dead behind him.
He shifted the rifle to one hand only, and wiped his face with the
other. Then, as his knees grew stronger and he was able to control the
extraordinary quivering of the nerves, he turned. The warrior, the red
spot upon his forehead, lay stretched upon his back. He had died without
a sound, as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning. The handle of
the tomahawk was still clutched in his fingers, but his rifle had fallen
beside him. The single minute that he had paused to exult over the foe
who seemed so completely in his power had been fatal.
Henry took the powder and bullets from the fallen warrior and added them
to his own store--the bullets he found would fit his rifle--but he did
not wish to burden himself with the extra rifle, knife, and tomahawk.
Nor did he wish to abandon them. Their value was too great in the
wilderness. He chose a middle course. He thrust all three in a hollow
tree that he found about a mile further on. They were so well hidden in
the trunk that there was not one chance in a million of anybody but
himself ever finding them.
"I may need you again some day," he murmured to the inanimate weapons,
"and if so you'll be here waiting for me."
He noted well the locality, the trees, and the lay of the land.
Everything was photographed on his memory and would remain there until
such time as he needed the use of the picture. Then he continued his
advance, at the long easy walk that he had learned from the
frontiersmen, and soon his shaken nerves were restored.
He began to calculate now how far he might be from the Ohio, and, as he
was traveling more east than south, he reckoned that it would be several
days before he reached the mouth of the Licking. But he felt assured
that he would reach it, despite the dangers that were still thick about
him. In the afternoon he saw smoke on the horizon, and, going at once to
ascertain its cause, he found a small Shawnee village in a cozy valley.
He saw signs of preparation among the warriors in it, and he divined
that they, too, were destined for the "landing place" on the Ohio,
opposite the mouth of the Licking.
He left the village after the cursory look and plunged again into the
unbroken wilderness. Two or three hours later he decided that he was
being followed. He had not seen or heard anything, but it was a sort of
divination. He sought to throw it aside, telling himself that it was
mere foolishness, but he could not do it. The thought stayed with him,
and then he knew that it must be true.
He cared little for a single warrior, but he did not wish to be delayed.
He increased his speed, but the sense of being followed did not depart.
He was not alarmed, but he was annoyed intensely. He had already
encountered two warriors, triumphing each time, and it seemed to him
that he ought now to be let alone.
He made a complete circle, coming back on his own tracks in order to
convince himself absolutely that he was or was not followed, and he
found a few traces in the soft earth to show him that his sixth sense
had not warned him in vain. There moccasins had passed, and the owner of
them was undoubtedly pursuing Henry. For what else but his life?
It was hard necessity, but he resolved to have it out with this warrior
who trailed him so relentlessly. Night was coming on, and he must sleep
and rest, but he could not do so with an enemy so near. Hence he now
dropped the role of the pursued, and became the pursuer.
It was a difficult task, but an occasional trace in the earth helped
him, and he followed unerringly. So intent was he upon his object that
he did not notice for some time that he was still traveling in a circle,
and that his mysterious foe was doing the same. They were going around
and around. Both were pursuers and both pursued.
Henry's annoyance increased. He had never been irritated so much before
in his life. He could not continue forever with this business and let
his mission go. Moreover, night was now much nearer. The western world
was already sinking into darkness, and the twilight would soon reach
him. He wished to deal with his enemy, while it was yet light enough to
see.
He turned directly about on his own trail and, after advancing a little,
lay hidden in the bushes. The warrior, unless uncommonly wary, would
soon come in sight. But he did not come. Henry was not able either to
see or hear a sign of him. The bushes were tinged with the reddish light
of the setting sun, but they moved only in the way in which the wind
blew them. His foe had not come into the trap, and Henry knew now that
he would not come.
He remained a full half hour in his hiding place, and then, turning
again, he tried the other way around the circle. A slight motion in the
thicket behind him told that his foe was still there, and he stopped.
His annoyance gave way to admiration. This was undoubtedly a great
warrior who trailed him, a man of courage, the possessor of all forest
skill. It must surely be the best of the whole Wyandot tribe. Henry was
willing to give full credit.
But he must deal with such a foe. His safety and perhaps the safety of
many others depended upon it. He could not shake him off; therefore, he
must fight him, and he summoned all his energy and faculties for the
task.
Now began the forest combat between invisible and noiseless forces, but
none the less deadly because neither could see nor hear his foe. Yet
each knew that the other was always there. It was the slight waving of a
bush or the flutter of a leaf, stirred by a moccasin, that told the
tale.
As the hunt, the deadliest of all hunts, proceeded, each became more
engrossed in it, neglecting no precaution, seeking incessantly some
minute advantage. Henry was by nature generous and merciful, but at this
time he did not think of those things. Wilderness necessity did not
permit it.
The reddish tint on trees and bushes faded quite away, the sun was gone,
and the night came, riding down on the world like a black horseman, but
the eyes of the two grew used to the dark as it came, and they continued
their invisible battle, circling back and forth in the forest.
Henry's admiration for his foe increased. He had never encountered
another such warrior. Surpassing skill was his. He knew every trick,
every device of the forest. Every move that Henry tried he met on equal
terms, and, strive as Henry would to see him, he was still unseen.
This singular duel would have exhausted the patience of most men. One or
the other, finding it unbearable, would have exposed himself, but not so
these two. An hour, two hours, passed, and they were still seeking the
advantage. The moon had come out and touched trees and bushes with
silver, but they were still creeping to and fro, seeking a chance for a
shot.
It was Henry who secured the first glimpse. He saw for an instant a face
in a bush fifty yards away, and at the same moment he fired. But he knew
almost before his finger ceased to pull the trigger that he would miss,
and he threw down his head to escape the return shot. He was barely in
time. He heard the bullet pass over him, and it seemed to him that it
sung a taunting little song as it went by. But he was busy reloading his
rifle as fast as he could, and he knew that his foe was doing the same.
The rifle reloaded, a sudden extraordinary idea leaped up in his brain.
It seemed impossible, but the impossible sometimes comes true. It was
the merest of fleeting glimpses that he had caught of that face, but his
eye was uncommonly quick, and his mind equally retentive.
His mind would not let go of the idea; an impression at first, it
quickly became a belief and then a conviction. He was lying on his
chest, and, raising his head a little, he emitted the call of the
night-owl, soft, long, and weird. He uttered the cry twice and waited.
From the woods fifty yards away came the answering hoot of an owl, once,
twice, thrice. Henry gave the cry twice again, and the second reply came
from the same place, once, twice, thrice.
Henry, without hesitation, sprang up to his full length, and walked
boldly forward. A second tall figure had risen and was coming to meet
him. The moonlight streamed down in a silver shower upon the man who had
stalked him so long, and revealed Shif'less Sol.
"Sol!" exclaimed Henry. "And I shot at you, thinking that you were a
Wyandot."
"You did not shoot any harder at me than I did at you," said Shif'less
Sol, "an' me all the time thinkin' that you wuz one o' them renegades!"
"Thank God we both missed!" said Henry, fervently.
"An' thank God that you're here, an' not tied down back thar in the
Wyandot village," said Shif'less Sol.
Their hands met in the strong firm clasp of those who have been friends
through the utmost dangers.
"It's fine to see you again, Sol," said Henry. "Are the others well?"
"When I last saw 'em," replied the shiftless one.
"Tell me how you ran across my trail and what went before," said Henry,
as they sat down on a fallen log together.
"You'll ricolleck," said Shif'less Sol, "that you told us not to hunt
you ef you didn't come back, but to go on with the fleet. I reckon it
wuz easier fur you to give that advice than for us to keep it. We knowed
from what the others said that you wuz captured, but we hoped that you'd
escape. When you didn't come, we agreed right quick among ourselves that
we had more business huntin' you than we had with that fleet.
"We didn't have much to go by. We guessed thar was a Wyandot village
somewhar in these parts, an' we hunted fur it. Last night me an' Tom
Ross saw some Injuns who wuz in camp an' who wuz rather keerless fur
them. Some white men wuz with 'em, an' we learned from scraps o' talk
that we could pick up that you had escaped, fur which news we wuz
pow'ful glad. We heard, too, that they wuz goin' to the Ohio at the
mouth o' the Lickin,' whar thar wuz to be a great getherin' o' 'em. One
or two o' the white men wuz to go on ahead this mornin'. So we let 'em
alone an' we spread out so we could find you.
"When I run across your trail afore sundown, I wuz shore it belonged to
one o' them renegades I heard called Blackstaffe, and I made up my mind
to git him."
"You come mighty near getting the fellow who stood in his place," said
Henry. "I thought I had against me about the best warrior that was ever
in these woods."
The moonlight disclosed the broad grin and shining teeth of the
shiftless one.
"I reckon I ain't been sleepin' on no downy couch myself fur the last
two hours," he said. "Henry, what's all this about the getherin' at the
mouth o' the Lickin'?"
"All the tribes will be there--Wyandots, Shawnees, Miamis, Delawares,
Ottawas, and Illinois. I've heard them in council. They mean to begin a
new and greater war to drive the whites from their hunting ground. The
fleet will be attacked in great force again, and all the settlements
will have to fight."
"Then," said Shif'less Sol, "we'd better pick up the other fellers, Tom
an' Saplin' an' Paul, ez soon ez we kin, an' git ahead o' the Indians."
"Where are the others?" asked Henry.
"Off that way lookin' fur you," replied Sol, waving his hand toward the
southeast. "We scattered so ez to cover ez much ground as we could."
"We must hunt them and use our signal," said Henry, "two hoots of the
owl from the first, three from the others, and then the same over again
from both. It's a mighty good thing we arranged that long ago, or you
and I, Sol, might be shooting at each other yet."
"That's so, an' we're likely to need them bullets fur a better use,"
rejoined the shiftless one. "Pow'ful good gun you've got thar, Henry.
Did the Injuns make you a present o' that before you ran away?"
"It was luck," replied Henry, and he told his story of the fight with
the Wyandot, the fall over the cliff, and his taking of the rifle and
the ammunition.
"That fall wuz luck, maybe," said Shif'less Sol sagely, "but the rest o'
it wuz muscles, a sharp eye, quickness, an' good sense. I've noticed
that the people who learn a heap o' things, who are strong and healthy,
an' who always listen and look, are them that live the longest in these
woods."
"You're surely right, Sol," said Henry with great emphasis.
But Henry was in the best of humors. The shiftless one was a power in
himself, as he had proved over and over again, and the two together
could achieve the impossible. Moreover, the rest of his comrades were
near. He felt that the God of the white man, the Manitou of the red man,
had been kind to him, and he was grateful.
"Do you think we ought to try the signal for the others now, Sol?" he
asked.
"Not now. I'm shore that they're too fur off to hear. Ef the Injuns
heard us signalin' so much they'd come down on us hot-foot."
"Just what I was thinking," said Henry. "Suppose we push on a few miles,
wait a while and then send out the cry."
"Good enough," said the shiftless one.
They advanced three or four miles and then stopped in a dense cluster of
hickory saplings, where they waited. Within the thicket they could see
to some distance on either side, while they themselves lay hidden. Here
they talked now and then in low voices, and Shif'less Sol, although he
did not speak of his feelings, was very happy. He had believed all the
time that Henry would escape, but believing is not as good as knowing.
"You shorely had a pow'ful interestin' time in the Wyandot village,
Henry," he said, "an' that chief, White Lightning--I've heard o' him
afore--'pears to hev been good to you. What did you say his Injun name
wuz?"
"Timmendiquas. That means Lightning in Wyandot, and our people have
tacked on the word 'white.' He's a great man, Sol, and I think we're
going to meet him again."
"Looks likely. I don't blame him for puttin' up sech a pow'ful good
fight fur the huntin' grounds, 'though they look to me big enough for
all creation. Do you know, Henry, I hev sometimes a kind o' feelin' fur
the Injuns. They hev got lots o' good qualities. Besides, ef they're
ever wiped out, things will lose a heap o' variety. Life won't be what
it is now. People will know that thar scalps will be whar they belong,
right on top o' thar heads, but things will be tame all the time. O'
course, it's bad to git into danger, but thar ain't nothin' so joyous ez
the feelin' you hev when you git out o' it."
The night advanced, very clear and pleasantly cool. They had heard
occasional rustlings in the thicket, which they knew were made by the
smaller wild animals, taking a look, perhaps, at those curious guests of
theirs and then scuttling away in fright. Now absolute stillness had
come. There was no wind. Not a twig moved. It seemed that in this
silence one could hear a leaf if it fell.
Then Henry sent forth the cry, the long, whining hoot of the owl,
perfectly imitated, a sound that carries very far in the quiet night.
After waiting a moment or two he repeated it, the second cry being
exactly the same in tone and length as the first.
"Now you listen," said Shif'less Sol.
There was another half minute of the absolute silence, and then, from a
point far down under the southeastern horizon came an answering cry. It
was remote and low, but they heard it distinctly, and they waited
eagerly to see if it would be repeated. It came a second time, and then
a third. Henry answered twice, and then the other came thrice. Call and
answer were complete, and no doubt remained.
"I judge that it's Saplin' who answered," ruminated Shif'less Sol. "He
always did hev a hoot that's ez long ez he is, an' them wuz shorely
long."
"I think, too, that it was Long Jim," said Henry, "and he'll come
straight for us. In five minutes I'll send out the cry again, and maybe
another will answer."
When Henry gave the second call the answer came from a point almost due
east.
"That's Tom," said the shiftless one decisively. "Couldn't mistake it.
Didn't that owl hoot sharp and short fur an owl? Jest like Tom Ross.
Don't waste any words that he kin help, an' makes them that he has to
use ez short ez he kin."
Another five minutes, and Henry gave the third call. The answer came
from the southwest, and the shiftless one announced instantly that it
was Paul.
"O' course we know it's Paul," he said, "'cause we know that his owl is
the poorest owl among the whole lot o' us, an' I've spent a lot o' time,
too, trainin' his hoot. No Injun would ever take Paul's owl to be a real
one."
Henry laughed.
"Paul isn't as good in the woods as we are," he said, "but he knows a
lot of other things that we don't."
"O' course," said Shif'less Sol, who was very fond of Paul. "It's
shorely a treat to set by the camp fire an' hear him tell about
A-Killus, an' Homer, an' Virgil, an' Charley-mane, and all the other
fierce old Roman warriors that had sech funny names."
"They'll be here in less than half an hour," said Henry. "So we'd better
leave the thicket, and sit out there under the big trees where they can
see us."
They took comfortable seats on a fallen log under some giant maples, and
presently three figures, emerging from various points, became palpable
in the dusk. "Tom," murmured Henry under his breath, "and Jim--and
Paul."
The three uttered low cries of joy when they saw the second figure
sitting on the log beside that of Shif'less Sol. Then they ran forward,
grasped his hands, and wrung them.
"How did you escape, Henry?" exclaimed Paul, his face glowing.
"Shucks! he didn't escape," said Shif'less Sol, calmly. "Henry owes
everything that he is now, includin' o' his life, to me. I wuz scoutin'
up by the Wyandot village, an' I captured in the thickets that thar
chief they call White Lightnin'--Timmendiquas he told me wuz his
high-toned Injun name. I took him with my hands, not wishin' to hurt him
'cause I had somethin' in mind. Then I said to him: 'Look at me,' an'
when he looked he began to tremble so bad that the beads on his
moccasins played ez fine a tune ez I ever heard. 'Is your name Hyde?'
said he. 'It is,' said I. 'Solomon Hyde?' said he. 'Yes,' said I. 'The
one they call Shif'less Sol?' said he. 'Yes,' said I. 'Then,' said he,
'O great white warrior, I surrender the whole Wyandot village to you at
once.'
"I told him I didn't want the whole Wyandot village ez I wouldn't know
what to do with it ef I had it. But I said to him, puttin' on my
skeriest manner: 'You've got in your village a prisoner, a white boy
named Henry Ware, a feller that I kinder like. Now you go in that an'
send him out to me, an' be mighty quick about it, 'cause ef you don't I
might git mad, an' then I can't tell myself what's goin' to happen.'
"An' do you know, Saplin'," he continued, turning a solemn face upon Jim
Hart, "that they turned Henry over to me out thar in the woods inside o'
three minutes. An' ef I do say it myself, they got off pow'ful cheap at
the price, an' I'm not runnin' down Henry, either."
Long Jim Hart, a most matter-of-fact man, stared at the shiftless one.
"Do you know, Sol Hyde," he said indignantly, "that I believe more'n
half the things you're tellin' are lies!"
Shif'less Sol burst into a laugh.
"I never tell lies, Saplin'," he said. "It's only my gorgeeyus fancy
playin' aroun' the facts an' touchin' 'em up with gold an' silver
lights. A hoe cake is nothin' but a hoe cake to Saplin' thar, but to me
it's somethin' splendid to look at an' to eat, the support o' life, the
creater o' muscle an' strength an' spirit, a beautiful thing that builds
up gran' specimens o' men like me, somethin' that's wrapped up in
poetry."
"Ef you could just live up to the way you talk, Sol Hyde," said Long
Jim, "you'd shorely be a pow'ful big man."
"Maybe Indians have heard our calls," said Henry, "and if so, they'll
come to look into the cause of them. Suppose we go on four or five miles
and then sleep, all except one, who will watch."
"The right thing to do," said Tom Ross briefly, and they proceeded at
once, Tom leading the way, while Henry and Paul, who followed close
behind, talked in low voices.
A long, lonesome sound came from the north, and then was repeated three
or four times. Henry laughed.
"That's real," he said. "I'd wager anything that if we followed that
sound we'd find a big owl, sitting on a limb, and calling to some friend
of his."
"You ain't mistook," said Tom Ross sententiously.
As they walked very fast, it did not take them long to cover the four or
five miles that they wished, and they found a comfortable, well-hidden
place in a ravine. The darkness also had increased considerably, which
was good for their purpose, as they were hunting for nobody, and wished
nobody to find them.
All save Tom Ross lay down among the bushes and quickly fell asleep. Tom
found an easy seat and watched.