THE HAUNTED FOREST
As the two boys sat before their camp fire that night, after making
their plan, they were far from feeling gloomy. Another revulsion had
come. Safe, for the moment, after their recent run for life, it seemed
to them that they were safe for all time. They were rested, they had
eaten good food in plenty, and the fire was long since but a dim red
blur on the horizon. Ashes, picked up by wandering puffs of wind, still
floated here and there among the burned tree trunks, and now and then a
shower of sparks burst forth, as a bough into which the flames had eaten
deep, broke and fell to the ground; but fear had gone from the lads,
and, in its place, came a deep content. They were used to the forest,
and in the company of each other they felt neither loneliness nor
despair.
"It's good here," said Paul who was a reader and a philosopher. "I guess
a fellow's life looks best to him just after he's thought he was going
to lose it, but didn't."
"I think that's true," said Henry, glancing toward the far horizon,
where the red blur still showed under the twilight. "But that was just a
little too close for fun."
But his satisfaction was even deeper than Paul's. The wilderness and its
ways made a stronger appeal to him. Paul, without Henry, would have felt
loneliness and fear, but Henry alone, would have faced the night
undaunted. Already the great forest was putting upon him its magic
spell.
"Have you eaten enough, Paul?" he asked.
"I should like to eat more, but I'm afraid I can't find a place for it,"
replied Paul ruefully.
Henry laughed. He felt himself more than ever Paul's protector and
regarded all his weaknesses with kindly tolerance. There the two lay
awhile, stretched out on the soft, warm earth, watching the twilight
deepen into night. Henry was listening to the voice of the wilderness,
which spoke to him in such pleasant tones. He heard a faint sighing,
like some one lightly plucking the strings of a guitar, and he knew that
it was the wandering breeze among the burned boughs; he heard now and
then a distant thud, and he knew that it was the fall of a tree, into
whose trunk the flames had bit deeply; as he lay with his ear to the
earth he heard more than once a furtive footfall as light as air, and he
knew that some wild animal was passing. But he had no fear, the fire was
a ring of steel about them.
Paul heard few of these sounds, or if hearing them he paid no heed. The
wilderness was not talking to him. He was merely in the woods and he was
very glad indeed to have his strong and faithful comrade beside him.
The twilight slipped away and the night came, thick and dark. The red
blur lingered, but the faintest line of pink under the dark horizon, and
the scorched tree trunks that curved like columns in a circle around
them became misty and unreal. Despite himself Paul began to feel a
little fear. He was a brave boy, but this was the wilderness, the
wilderness in the dark, peopled by wild animals and perhaps by wilder
men, and they were lost in it. He moved a little closer to his comrade.
But Henry, into whose mind no such thoughts had come, rose presently,
and heaped more wood on the fire. He was merely taking an ordinary
precaution, and this little task finished, he spoke to Paul in a vein of
humor, purposely making his words sound very big.
"Mr. Cotter," he said, "it seems to me that two worthy gentlemen like
ourselves who have had a day of hard toil should retire for the night,
and seek the rest that we deserve."
"What you say is certainly true, Mr. Ware," responded Paul who had a
lively fancy, "and I am glad to see that we have happened upon an inn,
worthy of our great merits, and of our high position in life. This, you
see, Mr. Ware, is the Kaintuckee Inn, a most spacious place, noted for
its pure air, and the great abundance of it. In truth, Mr. Ware, I may
assert to you that the ventilation is perfect."
"So I see, Mr. Cotter," said Henry, pursuing the same humor. "It is
indeed a noble place. We are not troubled by any guest, beneath us in
quality, nor are we crowded by any of our fellow lodgers."
"True! True!" said Paul, his bright eyes shining with his quick spirit,
"and it is a most noble apartment that we have chosen. I have seldom
been in one more spacious. My eyes are good, but good as they are I
cannot see the ceiling, it is so high. I look to right and left, and the
walls are so far away that they are hidden in the dark."
"Correctly spoken, Mr. Cotter," said Henry taking up the thread of talk,
"and our inn has more than size to speak for it. It is furnished most
beautifully. I do not know of another that has in it so good a larder.
Its great specialty is game. It has too a most wonderful and plenteous
supply of pure fresh water and that being so I propose that we get a
drink and go to bed."
The two boys went down to the little brook that ran near, and drank
heartily. They then returned within the ring of fire.
They were thoroughly tired and sleepy, and they quickly threw themselves
down upon the soft warm earth, pillowing their heads on their arms, and
the great Kaintuckee Inn bent over them a roof of soft, summer skies.
But the wilderness never sleeps, and its people knew that night that a
stranger breed was abroad among them. The wind rose a little, and its
song among the burned branches became by turns a music and a moan. The
last cinder died, the earth cooled, and the forest creatures began to
stir in the woodland aisles where the fire had passed. The disaster had
come and gone, and perhaps it was already out of their memories forever.
Rabbits timidly sought their old nests. A wild cat climbed a tree,
scarcely yet cool beneath his claws, and looked with red and staring
eyes at the ring of fire that formed a core of light in the forest, and
the two extraordinary beings that slept within its shelter. A deer came
down to the brook to drink, snorted at the sight of the red gleam among
the trees, and then, when the strange odor came on the wind to its
nostrils, fled in wild fright through the forest.
The news, in some way unknown to man, was carried to all the forest
creatures. A new species, strange, unexplainable, had come among them,
and they were filled with curiosity. Even the weak who had need to fear
the strong, edged as near as they dared, and gazed at the singular
beings who lay inside the red blaze. The wild cat crawled far out on the
bare bough, and stared, half afraid, half curious, and also angry at the
intrusion. He could see over the red blaze and he saw the boys stretched
upon the ground, their faces, very white to the eye of the forest,
upturned to the sky. To human gaze they would have seemed as two dead,
but the keen eyes of the wild cat saw their chests rising and falling
with deep regular breaths.
The darkness deepened and then after a while began to lighten. A
beautiful clear moon came out and sheathed all the burned forest in
gleaming silver. But the boys were still far away in a happy
slumberland. The wild cat fled in alarm at the light, and the timid
things drew back farther among the trees.
Time passed, and the red ring of fire about Paul and Henry sank. Hasty
and tired, they had not drawn up enough wood to last out the night, and
now the flames died, one by one. Then the coals smoldered and after a
while they too began to go out, one by one. The red ring of fire that
inclosed the two boys was slowly going away. It broke into links, and
then the links went out.
Light clouds came up from the west, and were drawn, like a veil, across
the sky. The moon began to fade, the silver armor melted away from the
trees, and the wild cat that had come back could scarcely see the two
strange beings, keen though his eyes were, so dense was the shadow where
they lay. The wild things, still devoured with curiosity, pressed
nearer. The terrible red light that filled their souls with dread, was
gone, and the forest had lost half its terror. There was a ring of eyes
about Henry and Paul, but they yet abode in glorious slumberland,
peaceful and happy.
Suddenly a new note came into the sounds of the wilderness, one that
made the timid creatures tremble again with dread. It was faint and very
far, more like a quaver brought down upon the wind, but the ring of eyes
drew back into the forest, and then, when the quaver came a second time,
the rabbits and the deer fled, not to return. The lips of the wild cat
contracted into a snarl, but his courage was only of the moment, he
scampered away and he did not stop until he had gone a full mile. Then
he swiftly climbed the tallest tree that he could find, and hid in its
top.
The ring of eyes was gone, as the ring of fire had died, but Henry and
Paul slept on, although there was full need for them to be awake. The
long, distant quaver, like a whine, but with something singularly
ferocious in its note came again on the wind, and, far away, a score of
forms, phantom and dusky, in the shadow were running fast, with low,
slim bodies, and outstretched nostrils that had in them a grateful odor
of food, soon to come.
Nature had given to Henry Ware a physical mechanism of great strength,
but as delicate as that of a watch. Any jar to the wheels and springs
was registered at once by the minute hand of his brain. He stirred in
his sleep and moved one hand in a troubled way. He was not yet awake,
but the minute hand was quivering, and through all his wonderfully
sensitive organism ran the note of alarm. He stirred again and then
abruptly sat up, his eyes wide open, and his whole frame tense with a
new and terrible sensation. He saw the dead coals, where the fire had
been; the long, quavering and ferocious whine came to his ears, and, in
an instant, he understood. It was well for the two that Henry was by
nature a creature of the forest! He sprang to his feet and with one
sweeping motion pulled Paul to his also.
"Up! Up, Paul!" he cried. "The fire is out, and the wolves are coming!"
Paul's physical senses were less acute and delicate than Henry's, and he
did not understand at once. He was still dazed, and groping with his
hands in the dusk, but Henry gave him no time.
"It's our lives, Paul!" he cried. "Another enemy as bad as the fire is
after us!"
Not twenty feet away grew a giant beech, spreading out low and mighty
boughs, and Henry leaped for it, dragging Paul after him.
"Up you go!" he cried, and Paul, not yet fully awake, instinctively
obeyed the fierce command. Then Henry leaped lightly after him and as
they climbed higher among the boughs the ferocious whine burst into a
long terrible howl, and the dusky forms, running low, gaunt and ghostly
in the shadow, shot from the forest, and hurled themselves at the beech
tree.
Henry, despite all his courage, shuddered, and while he clutched a bough
tightly with one hand put the other upon his comrade to see that he did
not fall. He could feel Paul trembling in his grasp.
The two looked down upon the inflamed red eyes, the cruelly sharp, white
teeth and slavering mouths, and, still panting from their climb, each
breathed a silent prayer of thankfulness. They had been just in time to
escape a pack of wolves that howled horribly for a while, and then sat
upon their haunches, staring silently up at the sweet new food, which
they believed would fall at last into their mouths.
Paul at length said weakly:
"Henry, I'm mighty glad you're a light sleeper. If it had been left to
me to wake up first I'd have woke up right in the middle of the stomachs
of those wolves."
"Well, we're here and we're safe for the present," said Henry who never
troubled himself over what was past and gone, "and I think this is a
mighty fine beech tree. I know that you and I, Paul, will never see
another so big and friendly and good as it is."
Paul laughed, now with more heart.
"You are right, Henry," he said. "You are a mighty good friend, Mr. Big
Beech Tree, and as a mark of gratitude I shall kiss you right in the
middle of your honest barky old forehead," and he touched his lips
lightly to the great trunk. Paul was an imaginative boy, and his whim
pleased him. Such a thought would not have come to Henry, but he liked
it in Paul.
"I think it's past midnight, Paul," said Henry, "and we've been lucky
enough to have had several hours' sleep."
"But they'll go away as soon as they realize they can't get us," said
Paul, "and then we can climb down and build a new and bigger ring of
fire about us."
Henry shook his head.
"They don't realize it," he replied. "I know they expect just the
contrary, Paul. They are as sure as a wolf can be that we will drop
right into their mouths, just ready and anxious to be eaten. Look at
that old fellow with his forepaws on the tree! Did you ever see such
confidence?"
Paul looked down fearfully, and the eyes of the biggest of the wolves
met his, and held him as if he were charmed. The wolf began to whine and
lick his lips, and Paul felt an insane desire to throw himself down.
"Stop it, Paul!" Henry cried sharply.
Paul jerked his eyes away, and shuddered from head to foot.
"He was asking me to come," he said hysterically, "and I don't know how
it was, but for a moment I felt like going."
"Yes and a warm welcome he would have given you," said Henry still
sharply. "Remember that your best friend just now is not Mr. Big Wolf,
but Mr. Big Beech Tree, and it's a wise boy who sticks to his best
friend."
"I'm not likely to forget it," said Paul.
He shuddered again at the memory of the terrible, haunting eyes that had
been able for a brief moment to draw him downward. Then he clasped the
friendly tree more tightly in his arms, and Henry smiled approval.
"That's right, Paul," he said, "hold fast. I'd a heap rather be up here
than down there."
Paul felt himself with his hand.
"I'm all in one piece up here," he said, "and I think that's good for a
fellow who wants to live and grow."
Henry laughed with genuine enjoyment. Paul was getting back his sense of
humor, and the change meant that his comrade was once more strong and
alert. Then the larger boy looked down at their besiegers, who were
sitting in a solemn circle, gazing now at the two lads and now at the
venison, hanging from the boughs of another tree very near. In the dusk
and the shadows they were a terrible company, gaunt and ghostly, gray
and grim.
For a long time the wolves neither moved nor uttered a sound; they
merely sat on their haunches and stared upward at the living prey that
they felt would surely be theirs. The clouds, caught by wandering
breezes, were stripped from the face of the sky, and the moonlight came
out again, clear, and full, sheathing the scorched trunks once more in
silver armor, and stretching great blankets of light on the burned and
ashy earth. It fell too on the gaunt figures of the gray wolves, but the
silent and deadly circle did not stir. In the moonlight they grew more
terrible, the red eyes became more inflamed and angry, because they had
to wait so long for what they considered theirs by right, the snarling
lips were drawn back a little farther, and the sharp white teeth gleamed
more cruelly.
Time passed again, dragging slowly and heavily for the besieged boys in
the tree, but the wolves, though hungry, were patient. Strong in union
they were lords of the forest, and they felt no fear. A shambling black
bear, lumbering through the woods, suddenly threw up his nose in the
wind, and catching the strong pungent odor, wheeled abruptly, lumbering
off on another course. The wild cat did not come back, but crouched
lower in his tree top; the timid things remained hidden deep in their
nests and burrows.
It was a new kind of game that the wolves had scented and driven to the
boughs, something that they had never seen before, but the odor was very
sweet and pleasant in their nostrils. It was a tidbit that they must
have, and, red-eyed, they stared at the two strange, toothsome
creatures, who stirred now and then in the tree, and who made queer
sounds to each other. When they heard these occasional noises the pack
would reply with a long ferocious whine that seemed to double on itself
and give back echoes from every point of the compass. In the still night
it went far, and the timid things, when they heard it, trembled all over
in their nests and burrows. Then the leader, the largest and most
terrible of the pack would stretch himself upon the tree trunk, and claw
at the scorched bark, but the food he craved was still out of reach.
They noticed that the strange creatures in the tree began to move
oftener, and to draw their limbs up as if they were growing stiff, and
then their long-drawn howl grew longer and more ferocious than ever; the
game, tired out, would soon drop into their mouths. But it did not, the
two creatures made sounds as if they were again encouraging each other,
and the hearts of the wolves filled with rage and impatience that they
should be cheated so long.
The night advanced; the moonlight faded again and the dark hours that
come before the dawn were at hand. The forest became black and misty
like a haunted wood, and the dim forms of the wolves were the ghosts
that lived in it. But to their sharp red eyes the dark was nothing; they
saw the two beings in the tree do a very queer thing; they tore strips
from themselves, so it seemed to the wolves, from their clothing in
fact, and wound it about their bodies and a bough of the tree against
which they rested. But the wolves did not understand, only they knew
that the creatures did not stir again or make any kind of noise for a
long time.
When the darkness was thickest the wolves grew hot with impatience.
Already they smelled the dawn and in the light their courage would ooze.
Could it be that the food they coveted would not fall into their mouths?
The dread suspicion filled every vein of the old leader with wrath, and
he uttered a long terrible howl of doubt and anger; the pack took up the
note and the lonely forest became alive with its echoes. But the
creatures in the tree stirred only a little, and made very few sounds.
They seemed to be safe and content, and the wolves raged back and forth,
leaping and howling.
The old leader felt the dark thin and lighten, and the scent of the
coming dawn became more oppressive to him. A little needle of fear shot
into his heart, and his muscles began to grow weak. He saw afar in the
east the first pale tinge, faint and gray, of the dreadful light that he
feared and hated. His howl now was one of mingled anger and
disappointment, and the pack imitated the note of the king.
The black veil over the forest gave way to one of gray. The dreadful bar
of light in the east broadened and deepened, and became beaming, intense
and brilliant. The needle of terror at the heart of the gray wolf
stabbed and tore. His red eyes could not face the great red sun that
swung now above the earth, shooting its fierce beams straight at him.
The dark, so kindly and so encouraging, beloved of his kind, was gone,
and the earth swam in a hideous light, every ray of which was hostile.
His blood changed to water, his knees bent under him, and then, to turn
fear to panic, came a powerful odor on the light, morning wind. It was
like the scent of the two strange, succulent creatures in the tree, but
it was the odor of many--many make strength he knew--and the great gray
wolf was sore afraid.
The sun shot higher and the world was bathed in a luminous golden glow.
The master-wolf cast one last, longing look at the lost food in the
tree, and then, uttering a long quavering howl of terror, which the pack
took up and carried in many echoes, fled headlong through the forest
with his followers close behind, all running low and fast, and with
terror hot at their heels. Their gaunt, gray bodies were gone in a
moment, like ghosts that vanish at the coming of the day.
"Rouse up, Paul!" cried Henry. "They are gone, afraid of the sun, and
it's safe for us now on the ground."
"And mighty glad I am!" said Paul. "The great Inn of Kaintuckee was not
so hospitable after all, or at least some of our fellow guests were too
hungry."
"It's because we were careless about our fire," said Henry. "If we had
obeyed all the rules of the inn, we should have had no trouble. Jump
down, Paul!"
Henry dropped lightly and cheerfully to the ground. As usual he let the
past and its dangers slip, forgotten, behind him. Paul alighted beside
him and the wilderness witnessed the strange sight of two stout boys,
running up and down, pounding and rubbing their hands and arms, uttering
little cries of pain, as the blood flowed at first slowly and with
difficulty in their cramped limbs, and then of delight, as the
circulation became free and easy.
"Now for breakfast," said Henry. "It will be easy, as Mr. Landlord has
kept the venison hanging on the tree there for us."
Henry was breathing the fresh morning air, and rejoicing in the
sunlight. His wonderful physical nature had cast away all thought of
fear, but Paul, who had the sensitive mind and delicate fancy, was still
troubled.
"Henry," he said, "I'm not willing to stay here, even to eat the deer
meat. All through those hours we were up there it was a haunted forest
for me. I don't want to see this spot any more, and I'd like to get away
from it just as soon as I can."
Was it some instinct? or an unseen warning given to Paul, and registered
on his sensitive mind, as a photographic plate takes light? To the keen
nose of the old wolf leader an alarming odor had come with the dawn! Was
a kindred signal sent to Paul?
Henry stared at his comrade in surprise, but he knew that he and Paul
were different, and he respected those differences which might be either
strength or weakness.
"All right, if you wish it, Paul," he said, lightly. "There are many
rooms in the Kaintuckee Inn, and if the one we have doesn't suit us
we'll just take another. Wait till I cut this venison down, and we'll
move without paying our score."
"I guess we paid that to the wolves," said Paul, smiling a little.
Henry detached the venison and divided it. Then each took his share, and
they moved swiftly away among the trees, still keeping to the general
course of the river. They came presently to a large area of unburned
forest, thick with foliage and undergrowth and, without hesitation, they
plunged into it. Henry was in front and suddenly to his keen ears came a
sound which he knew was not one of the natural noises of the forest. He
listened and it continued, a beat, faint but regular and steady. He knew
that it was made by footfalls, and he knew, too, that in the wilderness
everyone is an enemy until he is proved to be a friend. They were in the
densest of the undergrowth, and thought and action came to him on the
heels of each other, swift as lightning.
"Sink down, Paul! Sink down!" he cried, and grasping his comrade by the
shoulder he bore him down among the thick bushes, going down with him.
"Don't move for your life!" he whispered. "Men are about to pass and
they cannot be our kind!"
Paul at once became as still as death. He too under the strain of the
wilderness life and the need of caring for oneself was becoming
wonderfully acute of the senses and ready of action. The two boys
crouched close together, their heads below the tops of the bushes,
although they could see between the leaves and twigs, and neither moved
a hair.
Almost hidden in the foliage a line of Indian warriors, like dusky
phantoms, passed, in single file, and apparently stepping in one
another's tracks. Well for the boys that Paul had felt his impulse to
leave the vicinity of the besieged tree, because the course of the
warriors would carry them very near it, and they could not fail to
detect the alien presence. But no such suspicion seemed to enter their
minds now, and, like the wolves, they were traveling fast, but
southward.
The boys stared through the leaves and twigs, afraid but fascinated.
They were fourteen in all--Henry counted them--but never a warrior spoke
a word, and the grim line was seen but a moment and then gone, though
their dark painted faces long remained engraved, like pictures, on the
minds of both. But to Paul it was, for the instant, like a dream. He saw
them, and then he did not. The leaves of the bushes rustled a little
when they passed, and then were still.
"They must be Southern Indians," whispered Henry. "Cherokees most
likely. They come up here now and then to hunt, but they seldom stay
long, for fear of the more warlike and powerful Northern Indians, who
come down to Kaintuckee for the same purpose, at least that's what I
heard Ross and Sol say."
"Well, they did seem to be traveling fast," breathed Paul, "and I'm
mighty glad of it. Do you think, Henry, they could have done any harm at
Wareville?"
Henry shook his head.
"I have no such fear," he said. "We are a good long distance from home,
and they've probably gone by without ever hearing of the place. Ross has
always said that no danger was to be dreaded from the south."
"I guess it's so," said Paul with deep relief, "but I think, Henry, that
you and I ought to go down to the river's bank, and build that raft as
soon as we can."
"All right," said Henry calmly. "But we'll first eat our venison."
They quickly did as they agreed, and felt greatly strengthened and
encouraged after a hearty breakfast. Then with bold hearts and quick
hands they began their task.