A FIRE AND AN ESCAPE
THE next day was an exceedingly hot one in and around Fort Oswego, and
Dave was content to remain in the shade of some trees and take it easy.
Early in the morning a detachment of soldiers from Fort Niagara arrived,
having been sent down by General Gage, who had now superseded Sir
William Johnson in command.
These soldiers were followed by others, who had scouted through the
woods lining the lake shore and who declared that all the French and
unfriendly Indians had left the locality.
The soldiers brought with them two barge loads of powder which the
commandant at Oswego desired. The powder did not come in until almost
dark, but it was decided to place it in the powder house that night,
rather than leave it on the lake until morning.
For the want of something better to do, Dave walked down to the powder
house and watched the soldiers bring in the kegs of powder, and also
several boxes of flints. It was rather hard work, in such warm weather,
and it caused more than one soldier to grumble.
“I didn’t enlist for this,” grumbled one pioneer. “Between such work and
working on the fort at Niagara, I’ve toiled harder than when I built my
cabin on the Mohawk.”
“Never mind,” said another, who was more cheerful. “Remember, it’s all
for the good of the cause.”
“Yes, the good of England,” growled the first speaker. “After this war
between England and France is over, the Canadians will still be our
neighbors, and do you think they’ll like it because we walloped them?
Not to my style of thinking.”
One of the kegs of powder had burst open, and this left a train of
grains running from the lake front almost to the powder-house door. Some
of the powder was spilt on a rough rock, but nobody noticed this, until
a soldier in passing scraped his foot on the rock, when there was a
flash which made him jump high in the air and drop the keg he was
carrying.
“It’s powder!” he roared, and ran for his life.
A dozen others saw the flash, including Dave, and many leaped back,
while half a dozen other spurts of flame went up from the long grass,
which was now on fire. The keg the soldier had dropped rolled into this
long grass, and might have exploded had not Dave rushed forward.
“Hi! what are you up to?” roared one soldier. “Look out, or you will be
killed!”
“I’ll risk it,” muttered the young soldier, and sprang beside the keg.
He gave it a vigorous kick, which sent it spinning away from the
dangerous spot.
The train of fire had burnt backward as well as forward, and it reached
another patch of grass close to where two half-kegs of powder rested,
the last taken from one of the barges. Nobody cared to go near these,
and a minute later one exploded with a loud report, hurling stones,
dirt, and the other half-keg into the lake.
The sound of the exploding powder caused an alarm in and around the
fort, and soldiers came hurrying from all directions.
“The grass is on fire in a dozen places!”
“It is creeping up to the powder house!”
“If the house goes up we had best all take to the woods!”
[Illustration:
He gave it a vigorous kick, which sent it spinning away
from the dangerous spot.—_Page 146._
]
These and other cries rang out, and for the moment nobody knew what to
do. A few began to stamp on the grass and thereby burnt their shoes, but
the majority felt like retreating in short order.
“Form a bucket brigade!” at last shouted an officer, and a rush was made
for the leathern buckets, while other, coming suddenly to their senses,
ran for picks and shovels, with which to dig away the burning grass.
It was perilous work, for there was no telling how soon the flames might
leap to the powder house and blow everything for rods around sky-high.
In the excitement Dave forgot all about his sore knee, and catching up a
bucket, he worked as manfully as anybody to bring water. Two lines were
formed, one passing up the water and the other returning the empty
buckets, and soon the work began to tell in spite of the dryness of the
grass, which seemed to burn like so much tinder.
It was a good hour before the excitement came to an end, and to make
sure that there should be no more danger of fire, the grass all around
the powder house was dug up and cast to one side, and the ditch thus
formed was filled with water. Then the remaining grass was thoroughly
saturated; and the danger was over.
“Rather a close call, Dave,” remarked Raymond, when the two were washing
up, later on. “I thought sure we’d all be blown to kingdom come.”
“I thought that, too,” put in Shamer. “I felt more like running than
like trying to put out the fire.”
“It was certainly exciting enough,” answered Dave. “I forgot all about
my knee,” and he rubbed that member tenderly, for it had now begun to
assert itself once more.
“They tell me that two of the sick prisoners in the hospital are
missing,” came from a soldier standing near. “They took French leave
during the confusion.”
“Two prisoners missing?” queried Dave with interest. “Do you know who
they were?”
“I do not.”
“I’m going to find out.”
“Do you think one was that rascal of a Bevoir?” asked Raymond.
“It would be just my luck if it was,” answered Dave, as he hurried away.
At the hospital the guards could give no information, for they had been
ordered to keep silent. But a little later Dave found the surgeon who
had caught him talking to the French trader.
“Yes, one of the missing ones is Jean Bevoir,” said the surgeon. “The
explosion of the powder, and the fire, upset both the nurses and the
guards, and in the excitement Bevoir got away, with another Frenchman
named Chalette.”
“It’s too bad.”
The surgeon gazed at Dave sharply.
“You are quite sure you didn’t change your mind about helping that man?”
he demanded.
“Me? Not much, sir. Why, I’ve been out fighting the fire.”
“He kicked away one of the kegs of powder,” said a nurse, who had
chanced to see the brave act. “He couldn’t have been around here when
the men got away.”
A detachment of soldiers was sent out to roam the woods and watch the
lake front, in an effort to locate Bevoir and his companion. But though
the search was kept up for four days, nothing was seen or heard of the
escaped prisoners.
“This is certainly too bad,” said Raymond to Dave, when the search was
practically given up. “I suppose you reckoned on sending him to prison.”
“Yes, and he deserved it.”
“You want to be on your guard against such a man, Dave. He will not
forget you, remember that.”
“I only wish I could meet him!” burst out Dave.
“He will probably get over to Canada just as fast as he can. He knows he
won’t dare to show himself around any English camp, or at that
trading-post again.”
Dave was still on the sick list, and to spend the time went fishing the
next day. He had just pulled in a fine perch when a well-known voice
reached his ears, causing him to leap up from the rock on which he was
fishing and drop his pole.
“So here ye air, eh?” came to his ears. “Jest as nateral as ever, bless
my eyes if ye aint!”
“Sam Barringford!” exclaimed Dave, and caught the old frontiersman by
both hands. “Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I’ve been looking for
you for several days.”
“Have ye now? Waal, it’s good to be looked fer—better’n when folks hopes
ye will stay away.” Barringford winked one eye. “I had to stop at Albany
on business. How air ye, an’ where is Henry?”
“Henry—oh, Sam, how can I tell you. He——”
“Don’t say Henry is dead, lad—no, no, not that!” And all the color in
the honest hunter’s face seemed to die away. “He’s alive, o’ course he
is.”
“I—I hope so. But I don’t know. We had a fearful fight with the Indians,
and Henry was captured by them, and by some Frenchmen, and taken away in
a boat.” And Dave told the whole story, just as it has been written in
these pages.
Sam Barringford listened in utter silence, shaking his head from time to
time, to show that he understood. Henry was very dear to him, as old
readers of this series know, and the pair had been on many a hunting
expedition together.
“I don’t think the Frenchmen would kill him,—not in cold blood and they
wearing the army uniform,” he said slowly. “But the redskins are the Old
Nick’s own, and if they got Henry to themselves——”
“That is what I am thinking, Sam. Oh, it is awful.”
“Ye got no news at all?”
“Not a word.”
“Have ye been back to the spot?”
“I couldn’t go. My knee——”
“Oh, yes, I forgot. How is the knee now?”
“A good deal better.”
“I’ll go up to thet spot to-morrow,” said Barringford with sudden
determination.
“But they went off in a boat.”
“Perhaps thet was a blind, lad.”
Barringford had but little to tell outside of what Dave had already
learned through the medium of Mr. Morris’s letter. The journey to Wills’
Creek with little Nell and the Rose twins had proved uneventful, but the
neighbors had flocked from far and near to see the restored children.
“It would have done your heart good to have seen your aunt,” said the
old hunter. “She nearly went crazy, laughin’ one minit an’ cryin’ the
next, and little Nell and Rodney laughed and cried too. Your father and
Uncle Joe and me couldn’t stand it nohow, and we went down to the barn
and blubbered too. Never felt so queer in my hull life afore.” And
Barringford rubbed his coat sleeve over his eyes. The tears were in
Dave’s eyes too, and he was not ashamed of them either.
“I know I ought to write home about Henry,” said the young soldier, when
he could trust himself to speak. “But, somehow, I can’t bring myself to
do it, although I’ve tried a dozen times. Every day I live in the hope
that the next day will bring good news.”
“Wait until I’ve made thet trip I spoke about, Dave.”
“Shall I go along?”
“Best not, with that hurt knee. A hurt knee aint to be fooled with. Jack
Pepper twisted his knee onct, and walked lame the rest o’ his nateral
life.”
“Oh, I hope I won’t have to do that!” cried Dave. “I’ll take the best
care I can of it.” And he did.
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