THE TERRIBLE FORD
"The ford ain't much more than an hour's march farther on," said Dick
Salter to Daniel Poe, "an' the way to it leads over purty smooth groun'."
"And we have not seen anything of the warriors yet, except the trails of
small bands," said Daniel Poe hopefully. "It may be that our new friends
are mistaken."
Dick Salter shook his head.
"Tom Ross never makes a mistake in matters uv that kind," he said, "an'
that boy, Henry Ware, couldn't ef he tried. He's wonderful, Mr. Poe."
"Yes," said Daniel Poe. "Nobody else ever made such an impression upon me.
And the one they call Paul is a fine fellow, too. I wish I had a son like
that."
"He's the most popular fellow in the train already," said Dick Salter.
Both looked admiringly at Paul, who was walking near the head of the line,
a group of lithe, strong-limbed boys and girls surrounding him and
begging him for stories of the wilderness. Paul remained with the train by
arrangement. It was his business to cheer, invigorate, and hearten for a
great task, while his comrades roamed the forest and looked for the danger
that they knew would surely come. Never did youth succeed better at his
chosen task, as confidence spread from him like a contagion.
Paul presently quickened his steps, and came quite to the head of the
line, where Daniel Poe and Dick Salter were walking, both circling the
forest ahead of them with anxious eyes. They and Paul at the same time saw
a figure emerge from the woods in front. It was Henry, and he was coming
on swift foot. In an instant he was before them, and Paul knew by his look
that he had news.
"They are waiting?" said Paul.
"Yes," replied Henry. "They are in the thickets at the ford, less than two
miles ahead."
Daniel Poe shuddered again--for the five hundred lives in his charge--and
then his heart rose. The waiting, the terrible suspense, were over, and it
was battle now. The fact contained relief.
"Shall we halt?" he said to Henry. Unconsciously, he, too, was submitting
to the generalship of this king of forest runners.
"No," replied Henry; "we've got to go on some time or other, and they can
wait as long as we can. We must force the passage of the ford. We can do
it."
He spoke with confidence, and courage seemed to leap like sparks from him
and set fire to the others.
"Then it's go ahead," said Daniel Poe grimly. "We'll force the passage."
"Put all the little children, and all the women who don't fight, in the
wagons, and make them lie down," said Henry. "The men must swarm on either
flank. My comrades will remain in the front, watching until we reach the
river."
Then a great bustle and the chatter of many voices arose; but it soon died
away before stern commands and equally stern preparations, because they
were preparing to run as terrible a gantlet as human beings ever face,
these dauntless pioneers of the wilderness. The children were quickly
loaded in the wagons, and all the weaker of the women; but with the men on
the flanks marched at least two-score grim Amazons, rifle in hand.
Then the train resumed its slow march, and nothing was heard but the
rolling of the wheels and the low cluck of the drivers to their horses.
The way still led through an open, parklike country, and the road was
easy. Soon those in front saw a faint streak cutting across the forest.
The streak was silvery at first, and then blue, and it curved away to
north and south among low hills.
"The river!" said Daniel Poe, and he shut his teeth hard.
All the men and the Amazons drew a long, deep breath, like a sigh; but
they said nothing, and continued to march steadily forward. The river
broadened, the blue of its waters deepened, and from the high ground on
which they marched they could see the low banks on the farther shore,
crowned by clustering thickets.
Three men emerged from the undergrowth. They were Tom Ross, Shif'less Sol,
and Long Jim Hart. The shiftless one looked lazy and careless, and Jim
Hart, stretching himself, looked longer and thinner than ever.
"We found it, Henry," said Ross. "Little more'n a mile to the south, men
wadin' to the waist kin cross."
"Good!" said Henry. "We're lucky!"
He began to give rapid, incisive commands, and everyone obeyed as a matter
of course, and without jealousy. Daniel Poe was the leader of the wagon
train, but Henry Ware, whom they had known but a few days, was its leader
in battle.
"Take fifty men," he said to Ross, "the best marksmen and the stanchest
fighters, and cross there. Then come silently among the thickets up the
bank, to strike them when they strike us."
Paul listened with admiration. He knew Henry's genius for battle, and,
like the others, he was inspired by his comrade's confidence. The fifty
men were quickly told off behind the wagons, and, headed by Tom Ross and
Jim Hart, they disappeared at once in the woods. Shif'less Sol remained
with Henry and Paul.
"Now, forward!" said Henry Ware, and the terrible, grim march was begun
again. There was the river, growing broader and broader and bluer and
bluer as they came closer. The children and women--except the Amazons--saw
nothing because they were crouched upon the floors of the wagon beds, but
the drivers, every one of whom had a rifle lying upon the seat beside him,
were at that moment the bravest of them all, because they faced the
greatest danger.
"Slowly!" said Henry, to the leading wagons. "We must give Sol and his men
time for their circuit."
He noted with deep joy that the ford was wide. At least five wagons could
enter it abreast, and he made them advance in five close lines.
"When you reach the water," he said to the drivers, "lie down behind the
front of the wagon beds, and drive any way you can. Now, Sol, you and I
and Dick Salter must rouse them from the thickets."
The three crept forward, and looked at the peaceful river under the
peaceful sky. So far as the ordinary eye could see, there was no human
being on its shores. The bushes waved a little in the gentle wind, and the
water broke in brilliant bubbles on the shallows.
But Henry Ware's eyes were not ordinary. There was not a keener pair on
the continent, and among the thickets on the farther bank he saw a stir
that was not natural. The wind blew north, and now and then a bush would
bend a little toward the south. He crept closer, and at last he saw a
coppery face here and there, and savage, gleaming eyes staring through the
bushes.
"Tell the wagons to come on boldly," he said to Shif'less Sol, and the
shiftless one obeyed.
"Now, Sol," he said, when the man returned, "take fifty more riflemen, and
hide in that thicket, at the highest part of the bank. Stay there. You
will know what else to do."
"I think I will," said the shiftless one, and every trace of indifference
or laziness was gone from him. He was the forester, alert and
indomitable--a fit second to Henry Ware. Then Henry and Jim Hart alone
were left near the river's brink. Henry did not look back.
"Are the wagons coming fast?" he asked.
"Yes," said Jim Hart, "but I'm beckonin' to 'em to come still faster.
They'll be in the water in three minutes. Listen! The drivers are whippin'
up the horses!"
The loud cracking of whips arose, and the horses advanced at a trot toward
the ford. At the same instant Henry Ware raised his rifle, and fired like
a flash of lightning at one of the coppery faces in the thicket on the
opposite shore. The death cry of the savage rose, but far above it rose
the taunting shout of the white youth, louder and more terrible than their
own. The savages, surprised, abandoned their ambush. The leading wagons
dashed into the water, and down upon them dashed the picked power of the
allied western tribes.
In an instant the far edge of the water was swarming with coppery bodies
and savage faces, and the war whoop, given again and again, echoed far up
and down the stream, and through the thickets and forest. Rifles cracked
rapidly, and then blazed into volleys. Bullets sighed as they struck on
human flesh or the wood of wagons, and now and then they spattered on the
water. Cries of pain or shouts of defiance rose, and the furious conflict
between white man and red rapidly thickened and deepened, becoming a
confused and terrible medley.
Henry Ware and Jim Hart ran down into the stream by the side of the
leading wagons, and loaded and fired swiftly into the dense brown mass
before them. Nor did they send a bullet amiss. Henry Ware was conscious at
that moment of a fierce desire to see the face of Braxton Wyatt amid the
brown horde. He knew he was there, somewhere, and in the rage of conflict
he would gladly have sent a bullet through the renegade's black heart. He
did not see him, but the dauntless youth pressed steadily forward,
continually shouting encouragement and showing the boldest example of them
all.
A bank of blue and white smoke arose over the stream, shot through by the
flashes of the rifle firing, and out of this bank came the defiant shouts
of the combatants. Suddenly, from the high bank, on the shore that they
had just left, burst a tremendous volley--fifty rifles fired at once. A
yell of pain and rage burst from the savages. Those rifles had mowed a
perfect swath of death among them.
"Good old Sol! Good old Sol!" exclaimed Henry, twice through his shut
teeth. "On, men, on! Trample them down! Drive the wagons into them!"
A second time the unexpected volley burst from the hill, and a storm of
bullets beat upon the packed mass of the savages at the edge of the water.
Henry Ware had been a true general that day. Shif'less Sol and his men,
from their height and hid among the bushes, poured volley after volley
into the savages below, spurred on by their own success and the
desperation of the cause.
The front wagons advanced deeper into the water and the smoke bank, and
the others came, closely packed behind in a huddle. Unearthly screams
arose--the cries of wounded or dying horses, shot by the savages.
"Cut them loose from the gear," cried Henry, "and on! always on!"
Swift and skillful hands obeyed him, and some of the wagons, in the wild
energy of the moment, were carried on, partly by a single horse and partly
by the weight of those behind them. The shouts of the savages never
ceased, but above them rose the cry of the dauntless soul that now led the
wagon train. More than one savage fired at the splendid figure, never more
splendid than when in battle; but always the circling smoke or the hand of
Providence protected him, and he still led on, unhurt. They were now near
the middle of the river, and Shif'less Sol and his men never ceased to
pour their fire over their heads and into the red ranks.
"Now! Now!" muttered Henry, through his shut teeth. He was praying for Tom
Ross and the first fifty, and as he prayed his prayer was answered.
A great burst of fire came from the thickets on their own side of the
river, and the savages were smitten on the flanks, as if by a bolt of
lightning. It seemed to them at the same moment as if the fire of the men
with the wagon train, and of those on the high bluff, doubled. They
recoiled. They gave back and they shivered as that terrible fire smote
them a second and a third time on the flank. The soul of Shawnee, Miami,
and Wyandot alike filled with dread. In vain Yellow Panther and Red Eagle,
great war chiefs, raged back and forth, and encouraged their warriors to
go on. In vain they risked their lives again and again. The great bulk of
the wagons bore steadily down upon them, and they were continually lashed
by an unerring fire from three points. Well for the people of the wagon
train that a born leader had planned their crossing and had led them that
day!
"They give, they give!" shouted Henry Ware. "We win, we win!"
"They give, they give! We win, we win!" shouted the brave riflemen, and
they pressed forward more strongly than ever. By their side waded the bold
Amazons, fighting with the best.
The wagons themselves offered great shelter for the pioneers. As Henry had
foreseen, they were driven forward in a mass, which was carried partly by
its own impetus. If the Indians had thought to fire chiefly upon the
horses they would have accomplished more, but the few of these that were
slain did not check the progress of the others. Meanwhile, the riflemen
lurked amid the wheels and behind the wagon beds, incessantly pouring
their deadly hail of bullets upon the exposed savages, and the drivers
from sheltered places did the same. The train became a moving fort,
belching forth fire and death upon its enemies.
The defenders did not advance without loss. Now and then a man sank and
died in the stream, many others suffered wounds, and even the women and
children did not escape; but through it all, through all the roar and
tumult, all the shouting and cries, the train drew steadily closer to the
western bank.
"Now, boys," shouted Shif'less Sol to his faithful fifty, "they're about
to run! Pour it into 'em!"
At the same time Tom Ross was giving a similar command to his own equally
faithful fifty, and they closed up on the flank of the allied tribes, and
stung and stung. Henry Ware, through the drifting clouds of smoke and
vapor, saw the savages waver again, and, shouting to the boldest to
follow, he rushed forward. Then Shawnees, Miamis, and Wyandots, despite
the fierce commands of Yellow Panther and Red Eagle, broke and fled from
the water to the shore. There Tom Ross stung them more fiercely than ever
on the flank, and the fire of Shif'less Sol from the high bluff reached
them with deadly aim. They broke again, and, filled with superstitious
terror at their awful losses, fled, a panic horde, into the woods.
"On, on!" shouted Henry Ware, in tremendous tones. "They run, they run!"
The whole train seemed to heave forward, as if by one convulsive but
triumphant movement. Shif'less Sol and his men came down from the bluff
and dashed into the water behind them; Ross and his fifty came forward
from the thicket to meet them; and thus, dripping with water, smoke,
blood, and sweat, the whole train passed up the western bank. The terrible
ford had been won!