With what consternation Kingdom received the startling intelligence
John's words conveyed would never have been guessed from his actions. He
tossed his rough, squirrel-skin cap on the bunk, which was a bed by
night and a lounge by day, and sat down, wiping the perspiration from
his forehead.
"They're after me, I s'pose, Ree,--blame 'em!" Jerome went on in the
same half whisper. "I just happened to be up here pawing over some of
the skins stored away so long, and got a glimpse of the rascals among
the trees. So I've been watching ever since, and I don't want you to
think I crawled up here to hide. Just so much as hint at such a thing
and I'll--"
John did not say what he would do, but seeing how he hated being found
in a position which might be taken as a reflection upon his courage, Ree
was considerably tempted to suggest that maybe he himself had better get
under the bed. But it was no time for joke-making and the facetious
thought had no more than occurred to him than, unspoken, it was
forgotten.
"Stay up there, John, old boy; see everything you can. I'll stroll out
and put Phoebe in the lean-to and gape around some in a natural sort of
way myself. The whole business looks mighty bad. What Fishing Bird said
is all true; I found out that much. I'll tell you about it when I come
in."
If John Jerome had been a lad easily alarmed or one likely to fall a
ready victim to a too lively imagination, Return Kingdom would certainly
have thought that he had done so in this case when, after unsaddling the
mare and tying her in her stall, he sat down in the open doorway of the
cabin and with apparent indifference scanned the clearing from end to
end, without seeing the slightest sign of the Indians' presence.
With his elbow on his knee, his head upon his hand, as if he were merely
resting, he continued to watch the wooded boundary most intently from
between the fingers which concealed his eyes. He had little fear that
the Indians would fire upon him from some place of concealment among the
trees; the distance was too great. A white hunter might easily have
brought down a deer at the same number of yards with an exceptionally
heavy charge in his long-barreled rifle, but the Redskins, as Ree well
knew, usually loaded with so little powder, owing to its scarcity with
them, no doubt, that he had little to fear in thus exposing himself so
long as the enemy came no nearer than the edge of the woods.
"You're downright sure you saw them, John?" inquired Kingdom, in a low
voice, rising and entering.
"There he goes! There--did you see that?" came an excited undertone from
Jerome as if in answer.
Instantly Kingdom looked out but he saw nothing.
"I vow! I think it was the Seneca!" John whispered. "He ran from the big
beech near the patch to the clump of little trees at the left. Guess he
thought no one was watching but you, and darted out when your back was
turned."
"I'll stay back out of sight a bit, and you look sharp. Maybe we can
make out what they're up to," Kingdom replied. Then, to lead the savages
to suppose that their presence was not suspected, Ree went about making
a bright fire as if to prepare dinner, and soon the smoke from the cabin
chimney conveyed to the crouching redskins in hiding along the
clearing's edge the very impression he wished them to receive.
Kingdom spent half an hour,--a long half hour of suspense and anxious
thoughts--in putting the room to rights, busying himself in a dozen
different ways, while John peered closely from the crack, to see through
which his eyes had already been strained so long they ached severely.
Still he saw nothing. Whether the savages were only extremely wary or
whether, as the boys fervently hoped, they had slipped away and gone as
silently as they came could not be known, and continued vigilance was
the only key to their safety.
All day John Jerome remained concealed in the loft, watching almost
constantly from the narrow crevice which permitted him to see without
being seen. All day Return Kingdom went about from the cabin into the
lean-to barn, from the barn into the cabin again, and in and out of the
open door a hundred times on one pretext and another, doing his best to
make his every movement seem composed and natural.
He was certain in his own mind that the savages were watching for John.
Perhaps they expected to see him in some fantastic and witch-like
shape,--see him change from a cloud to human form, or turn himself into
some wild beast.
Once a wandering crow flew into the clearing and circled idly over the
little cornfield. As it flew down to a shock of corn, both boys chanced
to notice it and both saw, too, a sudden, rapid movement, and then
another and another, within the fringe of the woods. Were they the
dancing shadows of wind-tossed branches, or were the Seneca and his band
still near? Quick as the movements were, little as the boys had seen,
they knew the answer to the question which occurred to them and thanked
the vagrant crow for the information he had been the means of giving
them.
"Still," said John, "if those fool Delawares get it into their heads
that that crow is me, and like as not Lone-Elk may tell 'em some such
thing, it'll just make the whole lot of them believe more than ever that
I am a sure enough witch."
Full well did Kingdom realize how very correct John's observation
probably was. He was confident that it was the crow which occasioned the
moving about among the hiding Indians,--the flitting shadows both he and
John had seen. He made no answer to his friend's remark at once, but
turned over again in his mind a plan which he had been considering all
day. It seemed wise. He could think of nothing better.
"John," said Ree at last, "if they stay away till it's dark enough to do
it, how would you like to slip away and go up among the rocky ledges for
a few days?"
"Hide?" Jerome demanded rather contemptuously.
"Why, no! There's no need to call it hiding," Kingdom answered
tactfully. "Just stay away from the cabin for awhile and give me a
chance to find out what killed Big Buffalo and get the witch idea out of
these crazy Delawares' minds."
"But, don't you--"
"I know what you're going to say. It is, don't I think that the fact of
your being away will make the Indians all the more certain about this
witchcraft business--make them think you've skedaddled! We can't help
what they think. We do know, though, that they're after you and either
we've got to pack up and light out, or get this witch idea out of their
heads. Now I think I can do it, in spite of Gentle Maiden's discouraging
talk; if I only have a chance."
On one point, as the discussion continued, hardly above a whisper, both
boys agreed. It was that some time during the night the Indians would
visit the cabin. They might come as if in a friendly way just to learn
whether Little Paleface was there; or they might make a determined
attack. The redskins' supposition that Ree was alone, confirmed by all
that they had seen during the day, however, would probably suggest to
them an apparently friendly, but in reality spying, visit.
In whatever way the lads viewed their situation they found so much of
uncertainty surrounding them that at best they must take a chance.
Often and often was it this way in pioneer days. Every important
movement was encompassed by more or less danger. If a settler needed but
to go to mill, or to some frontier trading place for supplies, he
confronted many uncertainties and often left his family in danger, too.
Danger was always present, and although only the foolhardy were
disregardful entirely, even the most prudent came by constant
association to take it as a matter of course.
The latter was the feeling of the two boys from Connecticut. If they had
been less accustomed to the alarms of the wilderness, they would, in the
pinch in which they now found themselves, most probably have sought
safety at once at Fort Pitt or perhaps at some of the Ohio river
settlements. If they had done so their story would have been a very
different one.
Though he had but reluctantly agreed to Ree's proposal, not wishing to
leave his friend to face the situation alone, John found so much to
think about in the prospect of spending the night--and it might be many
nights and days--alone in the woods, that the reflection that he also
would be in danger was almost comforting. He thought with dread of the
long and lonely hours of darkness without even a camp-fire's comfort,
but somehow there was something quite interesting about it all, too.
Perhaps it was the change and the excitement, as he planned how
stealthily he would steal through the woods, that appealed to him.
Certain it is that he found himself anxious to be gone, and watching the
deepening shadows almost impatiently lest something happen to prevent
his departure before thick darkness came. His greatest fear lay in the
fact that on three sides at least the cabin was, in all probability,
still surrounded by Indians. On the fourth or west side was the river.
How was he to reach the open woods? How reach the rocky ledges to the
north and east, among whose deep ravines and clefts and long, narrow
passages and shallow caves he would remain until the rage of the savages
had passed?
A bank of clouds, wide as the eye could see above the treetops, had come
up out of the southwest to meet the sinking sun and, when at last the
shadows had filled the valley, darkness came on rapidly. The wind rose,
too, and quite before its approach was suspected, a drizzling fall rain
had set in, which gave promise of continuing all night.
The cabin door had stood open all day, but Ree felt he could close it
now without exciting the suspicions of those who watched. As he did so,
John clambered quickly down from the low loft and slipped noiselessly
through the low opening connecting the lean-to stable and the single
room of the cabin itself. How well he remembered the good purpose the
hole had served once before! He remarked to Ree about it with a nervous
little laugh, recalling that lively battle of their early days in the
woods and how nearly fatal to them both it had been. But Kingdom told
him to make haste; that they could not know who was watching now, and in
the darkness there might be Indians even within hearing of a whisper.
Ree had improved the opportunity before night came on to fill John's
powder horn and bullet pouch and to pack in the form of a knapsack for
him a blanket and a supply of dried meat and bread. These, with Jerome's
rifle, he had previously passed through the "cat hole," as it was
called, into the stable; but now that John had followed them, he
suddenly found himself wishing that he had planned otherwise. Yet
confident all was for the best, though the wind never had had so much of
awful homesickness in its mournful sounds before, though the rain never
before had beaten with such seeming tearful sorrow upon the roof, he
whispered hastily:
"Be careful, old boy. Look for news by the day after tomorrow if you
hear nothing before, and be sure that everything will be all right in a
few days at most."
"And you come where I am the minute you're in danger, mind," John
answered. "Good-bye, Ree, I'm going along the river's edge. It'll be
easy to get past anybody or anything tonight. Good-bye."
Ree would have whispered another word of caution and of farewell, but he
realized that John was gone--felt it in his very bones that he was
alone, alone; and the autumn wind blew more mournfully than ever; the
patter of the raindrops sounded twice as melancholy as before.
For many minutes Kingdom intently listened, then throwing wide the cabin
door, made a pretense of emptying just beyond the doorstep the wooden,
trough-like bowl which did duty as a wash basin. Though he made a brave
show of unconcern, his heart beat hard and fast. But he was glad to see
how totally dark the night was. One must have been very close indeed if
he had seen John emerge from the darkness of the lean-to into the equal
blackness without, he thought. Surely the Indians, if still watching,
would never suspect him going out that way, and not having seen him at
all would be very certain that he had been gone for a full day at least,
should they call at the cabin and still not discover him.
Despite the storm, the night was warm for so late in the season, and
Kingdom was glad to have the door ajar while he waited for the first
step which would tell him of the Indians' coming. He had no doubt they
would come, unless their general plan was quite different from what he
supposed it to be. Still, time dragged on bringing no tidings--no sound
but the drip, drip of the rain, the sad sighing of the wind and now and
then the rattle of some loose puncheon on the roof, moved by a passing
gust more lively than the rest.
Again and again Ree mentally computed the distance John had probably
traveled in the time that he had been gone. "Now he must be just about
at the foot of the bluff and creeping along the water's edge, shielded
by the higher bank of the river," he thought at first. "Now he must be
half-way to the woods. Now, if nothing has happened, he is past the
worst of the danger and safe among the trees."
And so thinking, encouraged by the absence of any alarming sound,
Kingdom breathed easier, and was glad John had gone along the river
instead of trying to cross the stream just at the cabin's rear and so
gain the cover of the trees more quickly, as he had originally proposed,
and would have done but for the possibility that even on the opposite
bank of the stream there were watchers in hiding.
But safe and certain as John's escape seemed to Ree, the truth was that
during these past few minutes that young man had been in decidedly
greater danger of losing his scalp than he cared ever to be again.
Creeping on hands and knees close to the wall whose dark background
would help conceal his movements, John had made his way out of the barn
and around to the rear of the cabin. Almost flat on his stomach, he drew
himself slowly along the bluff and so descended to the valley where the
river bank was not nearly so steep and comparatively low, rising only a
few feet above the level of the water. Crawling cautiously along the
narrow strip of slippery beach between the river's edge and the bank, he
progressed steadily toward the woods. Often he paused to listen, and
even when he moved on again he strained his ears and tried his utmost to
see; but so deep was the darkness that, except for the denser black wall
in the distance, which he felt rather than saw was the woods, he was
certain that his situation, so far as seeing went, would be the same
with his eyes shut as with them wide open.
In one of his pauses to hearken closer than he could do when moving,
John thought he heard a low, hoarse "Ugh!"--an inarticulate sound, but
one which seemed to express impatience, weariness, and "What's the use?"
combined. He fancied he could see the shrug of the Indian's shoulders
who, he was sure, was responsible for the guttural noise. For a long
time the boy did not move. The rain came dripping down almost
noiselessly. The wind whispered ever so softly in the lower parts of the
valley and seemed to make no sound whatever save in the woods. To John
it seemed that he waited an hour, though in fact it was but a few
minutes. Over his shoulder he could see the ray of light from the
cabin's open door. How far away it looked! Still that was fortunate. He
would not have had it nearer for a great deal. Now he would try again.
Softly--softly he raised one hand from the ground; softly, softly he
raised a foot.
"Ugh!" Again it came; scarcely audible was the sound but the fierce howl
of a wolf directly in his ears would not have startled, and frightened
more the young white man crouching by the water.
The danger seemed nearer now--not more than three yards from him, John
was certain--perhaps only two. He felt that he could put out his hand
and touch the place from which it came. Again he was quiet, so quiet
that he breathed in noiseless little gasps, a thing so trying on his
throat and lungs that he would have felt as comfortable had he tried not
to breathe at all.
But soon came another sound. Instantly John recognized it--the stealthy
dipping of the paddle and low murmur of water against the nose of a
canoe. Where was the canoe headed? That was the question. Toward him?
Either that or up stream. The murmur of the current indicated that the
craft ran not with it but against it. Now he heard the canoe touch the
half submerged grass close in to shore. It was just abreast of him and
within two arms' length. Now it grated ever so lightly upon the grass
which, before the fall rains, had been quite up out of the water.
Again light as a feather came the dip of the paddle, again the soft
murmur of the water barely heard above the quiet, even patter of the
rain. At the same moment John felt himself slipping. Slowly the wet
ground was giving way beneath him. He must move. It was a case of two
dangers, either stand still and slide violently into the river, or move
on a step and--
He must run the risk. Faster and faster he was sliding down. He must
step quickly, and step quickly he did. He made no noise himself, he
thought, but some pebble or bit of earth, loosened by his movement,
rolled down and dropped with a splash into the water. Again came the
muttered "Ugh!" something lower than before, and oh! Heaven be praised!
no longer abreast but some yards from him.
Again came the low dipping of the paddle. They were patrolling the river
for him, John knew now; but they would not find him. They might paddle
silently up and down the whole night long, if they wished. In fact he
rather hoped they would, and chuckled inwardly at the thought.