Richard and I would first beg a little space in which to drain the water
from our boots, and to wring some pounds' weight of it from our clothes.
That done, we fell in line once more; and being so fortunate as to hit
upon a ravine which led to the cliff-crowned summit, the climb was shorn
of half its toil and difficulty. Nevertheless, by the sun's height it
was well on in the forenoon before we came out, perspiring, like sappers
in a steam bath, upon the mountain top.
As Yeates had guessed, this northern mountain proved to be a lofty
table-land. So far as could be seen, the summit was an undulating plain,
less densely forested than the valley, but with a thick sprinkling of
pines to make the still, hot air heavy with their resinous fragrance. As
it chanced, our ravine of ascent headed well back from the cliff edge,
so we must needs fetch a compass through the pine groves before we could
win out to any commanding point of view.
The old borderer took his bearings by the sun and laid the course
quartering to bring us out as near as might be on the heights above the
gorge. But when we had gone a little way, a thinning of the wood ahead
warned us that we were approaching some nearer break in the table-land.
Five minutes later we four stood on the brink of a precipice, looking
abroad upon one of nature's most singular caprices. Conceive if you can
a segment of the table-land, in shape like a broad-bilged man o' war,
sunk to a depth of, mayhap, six or seven hundred feet below the general
level of the plateau. Give this ship-shaped chasm a longer dimension of
two miles or more, and a breadth of somewhat less than half its length;
bound it with a wall-like line of cliffs falling sheer to steep,
forested slopes below; prick out a silver ribbon of a stream winding
through grassy savannas and well-set groves of lordly trees from end to
end of the sunken valley; and you will have some picture of the scene we
looked upon.
But what concerned us most was a sight to make us crouch quickly lest
sharp eyes below should descry us on the sky-line of the cliff. Pitched
on one of the grassy savannas by the stream, so fairly beneath us that
the smallest cannon planted on our cliff could have dropped a shot into
it, was the camp of the powder train.
XXV
HOW UNCANOOLA TRAPPED THE GREAT BEAR
'Twas Richard Jennifer who first broke the noontide silence of the
mountain top, voicing the query which was thrusting sharp at all of us.
"Now how in the name of all the fiends did they make shift to burrow
from yonder bag-bottom into this?" he would say.
"Ez I allow, that's jest what the good Lord fotched us here for--to find
out," was Yeates's rejoinder. "Do you and the chief, Cap'n John,
circumambylate this here pitfall yon way, whilst Cap'n Dick and I go
t'other way 'round. By time we've made the circuit and j'ined company
again, I reckon we'll know for sartain whether 'r no they climm' the
mounting to get in."
So when we had breathed us a little the circuiting was begun, Ephraim
Yeates and Jennifer going toward the lower end of the sink, and the
Catawba and I in the opposite direction.
Since we must examine closely every rift and crevice in the boundary
cliff, it was a most tedious undertaking; and I do remember how my great
trooper boots, sun-drying on my feet, made every step a wincing agony.
They say an army goes upon its belly, but an old campaigner will tell
you that you can march a soldier till he be too thin to cast a shadow if
only he hath ease of his footgear.
Taking it all in all, it proved a slow business, this looping of the
sunken valley; and when we had worked around to the eastern cliff and to
a meeting point with the old hunter and Richard Jennifer, the sun was
level in our faces and the day was waning.
Coming together again, we made haste to compare notes. There was little
enough to add to the common fund of information, and the mystery of the
lost trail remained a mystery. True, we, the Indian and I, had found a
ravine at the extreme upper end of the valley through which, we thought,
a sure-footed horse might be led at a pinch, up or down; but this ravine
had not been used by the powder train, and apart from it there was no
practicable horse path leading down from the plateau.
As for the hunter and Richard, they had made a discovery which might
stand for what it was worth. At its lower extremity the sunken valley
was separated from the great gorge without only by a ridge which was no
more than a huge dam; and this diking ridge was evidently tunneled by
the stream, since the latter had no visible outlet.
Inasmuch as the most favorable point of espial upon the camp below was
the cliff whence we had first looked down into the sink, we harked back
thither, passing around the lower end of the valley and along the
barrier ridge. Plan we had none as yet, for the preliminary to any
attempt at a rescue must be some better knowledge of the way into and
out of Falconnet's cunningly chosen stronghold. True, we might win in
and out again by the ravine which the chief and I had explored at the
upper end, and Dick was for trying this when the night should give us
the curtain of darkness for a shield. But the old hunter would hold this
forlorn hope in reserve as a last resort.
"Sort it out for yourself, Cap'n Dick," he argued. "Whatsomedever we
make out to do--four on us ag'inst that there whole enduring army o'
their'n--has got to be done on the keen jump, with a toler'ble plain
hoss-road for the skimper-scamper race when it _is_ done. For, looking
it up and down and side to side, we've got to have hosses--some o' their
hosses, at that. I jing! if we could jest make out somehow 'r other to
lay our claws on the beasteses aforehand--"
We had reached the cliff and were once more peering down at the enemy's
camp. Though for the cliff-shadowed valley it was long past sunset and
all the depths were blue and purple in the changing half-lights of the
hour, the shadow veil was but a gauze of color, softening the details
without obscuring them. So we could mark well the metes and bounds of
the camp and prick in all the items.
The camp field was the largest of the savannas or natural clearings. On
the margin of the stream the Indian lodges were pitched in a semicircle
to face the water. Farther back, Falconnet's troop was hutted in
rough-and-ready shelters made of pine boughs--these disposed to stand
between the camp of the Cherokees and the tepee-lodge of the captive
women which stood among the trees in that edge of the forest hemming the
slope which buttressed our cliff of observation.
At first we sought in vain for the storing-place of the powder. It was
the sharp eyes of the Catawba that finally descried it. A rude housing
of pine boughs, like the huts of the troopers, had been built at the
base of a great boulder on the opposite bank of the stream; and here was
the lading of the powder train.
From what could be seen 'twas clear that the camp was no mere bivouac
for the day; indeed, the Englishmen were still working upon their
pine-bough shelters, building themselves in as if for a stay indefinite.
"'Tis a rest camp," quoth Dick; "though why they should break the march
here is more than I can guess."
"No," said Ephraim Yeates. "'Tain't jest rightly a rest camp, ez I take
it. Ez I was a-saying last night, this here is Tuckasege country, and we
ain't no furder than a day's running from the Cowee Towns. Now the
Tuckaseges and the over-mounting Cherokees ain't always on the best o'
tarms, and I was a wondering if the hoss-captain hadn't sot down here to
wait whilst he could send a peace-offer' o' powder and lead on to the
Cowee chiefs to sort o' smooth the way."
"No send him yet; going to send," was Uncanoola's amendment. "Look-see,
Chelakee braves make haste for load horses down yonder now!"
Again the sharp eyes of the Catawba had come in play. At the foot of the
great boulder some half dozen of the Cherokees were busy with the powder
cargo, lashing pack-loads of it upon two horses. One of the group, who
appeared to be directing the labor of the others, stood apart, holding
the bridle reins of three other horses caparisoned as for a journey.
When the loading was accomplished to the satisfaction of the
horse-holding chieftain, he and two others mounted, took the burdened
animals in tow, and the small cavalcade filed off down the stream toward
the apparent _cul de sac_ at the lower end of the valley.
Ephraim Yeates was up in a twinkling, dragging us back from the cliff
edge.
"Up with ye!" he cried. "Now's our chance to kill two pa'tridges with
one stone! If we can make out to get down into t'other valley in time to
see how them varmints come out, we'll know the way in. More'n that, we
can ambush 'em and so make sartain sure o' five o' the six hosses we're
a-going to need, come night. But we've got to leg for it like Ahimaaz
the son of Zadok!"
Thus the old borderer; and being only too eager to come to handgrips
with the enemy, we were up and running faster than ever Joab's
messenger ran, long before the old man finished with his Scriptural
simile.
Not to take the risk of delay on any unexplored short cut, we made
straight for the ravine of our ascent, found it as by unerring instinct,
and were presently racing down to the Indian trace in the little upland
valley above the gorge.
For all the helter-skelter haste I found time to remember that the gorge
as we had last seen it had been well besprinkled with armed Cherokees
lying in wait for us. If they were still there we should be like to have
a hot welcome; and some reminder of this I gasped out to Yeates in mid
flight.
"Ne'm mind that; if we run up ag'inst 'em anywhere, 'twon't be
there-away. They've took the hint and quit; scattered out to hunt us
long ago," was his answer, jerked out between bounds. And after that I
loosed the Ferara in its sheath and saved my breath as I might for the
killing business of the moment.
'Twas a sharp disappointment that, for all the haste of our mad scramble
down the mountain, we were too late to surprise the secret of the
enemy's stronghold. The Catawba was leading when we dashed down into the
valley, and one glance sent him flying back to stop us short with a dumb
show purporting that the quarry was already out of the defile and coming
up the Indian path.
Richard swore grievously, but the old backwoodsman took the checkmate
placidly and began to set the pieces for the second game in which the
horses were the stake, hiding his useless rifle in a hollow tree,--his
powder had been soaked and spoiled in the early morning plunge for
life,--and drawing his hunting-knife to feel its edge and point.
"Ez I allow, that fotches us to the hoss-lifting," he said, in his slow
drawl. Then he laid his commands upon us. "Ord'ly, and in sojer-fashion,
now; no whooping and yelling. If the hoss-captain's got scouts out
a-s'arching for us, one good screech from these here varmints we're
a-going to put out'n their mis'ry 'u'd fix our flints for kingdom come.
I ain't none afeard o' your nerve,"--this to Richard and me--"leastwise,
not when it comes to fair and square sojer-fighting. But this here
onfall has got to be like the smiting o' the 'Malekites--root _and_
branch; and if ye're tempted to be anywise marciful, jest ricollect that
for the sake o' them wimmen-folks _we've got to have these hosses_!"
You are not to suppose that he was holding us inactive while he thus
exhorted us. On the contrary, he was posting us skilfully beside the
trace like the shrewd old Indian fighter that he was, with a rare and
practised eye to the maximum of cover with the minimum of thicket tangle
to impede the rush or to shorten the sword-swing.
But when all was done we were at this disadvantage; that since the enemy
was close at hand we dared not cross the path to give our trap a jaw on
either side. To offset this, the Catawba dropped out of line and
disappeared; and when the Cherokees were no more than a hundred yards
away, Uncanoola came in sight a like distance in the opposite direction,
running easily down the path to meet the up-coming riders.
Richard let slip an admiration-oath under his breath. "There's a fine
bit of strategy for you!" he whispered. "That wily Jack-at-a-pinch of
ours will befool them into believing that he is a runner from the Cowee
Towns. 'Tis our cue to lie close; he will halt them just here, and there
will be roving eyes in the heads of the two who have not to talk."
We had not long to wait. Our cunning ally timed his halting of the
emissaries to a nicety, and when the three Cherokees drew rein they were
within easy blade's reach. The powwow, lengthened by Uncanoola till we
were near bursting with impatience, was spun out wordily, and presently
we saw the pointing of it. The Catawba was affecting to doubt the
protests of the emissaries and would have them dismount and prove their
good faith by smoking the peace-pipe with him.
I give you fair warning, my dears, that you may turn the page here and
skip what follows if you are fain to be tender-hearted on the score of
these savage enemies of ours. It was in the very summer solstice of the
year of violence; a time when he who took the sword was like to perish
with the sword; and we thought of little save that Margery and her
handmaiden were in deadliest peril, and that these Indians had five
horses which we must have.
And as for my own part in the fray, when I recognized in the
five-feathered chieftain of the three that copper-hued imp of Satan who
had been the merciless master of ceremonies at the torturing of my poor
black Tomas, the decent meed of mercy which even a seasoned soldier may
cherish died within me, and I made sure the steel would find its mark.
So, when Uncanoola drew forth his tobacco pipe and made the three doomed
ones sit with him in the path to smoke the peace-whiff all around, we
picked out each his man and smote to slay. The scythe-like sweep of
Jennifer's mighty claymore left the five-feathered chieftain the shorter
by a head in the same pulse-beat that the Ferara scanted a second of the
breath to yell with; though now I recall it, the gurgling death-cry of
the poor wretch with the steel in his throat was more terrible to hear
than any war-whoop. As for the old borderer, he was more deliberate.
Being fair behind and within arm's reach of his man, he seized him by
the scalp-lock, bent the head backward across his knee--but, faugh!
these are the merest butcher details, and I would spare you--and myself,
as well.
While yet this most merciless deed was a-doing, the Catawba bounded to
his feet and made sure of the horses which were rearing and snorting
with affright. That done, he must needs gloat, Indian-wise, over his
fallen adversary, turning the headless body with his foot and gibing at
it.
"Wah! Call hisself the Great Bear, hey? Heap lie; heap no bear; heap
nothing, now. Papoose bear no let hisself be trap' that way. No smoke
peace-pipe--"
But now Ephraim Yeates, standing ear a-cock and motionless, like some
grim old statue done in leather, cut him short with a sudden, "Hist,
will ye!" and a twinkling instant later we had other work to do.
"Onto the hosses with this here Injun-meat, ez quick ez the loving
Lord'll let ye!" was the sharp command. "There's a whole clanjamfrey o'
the varmints a-coming down the trace, and I reckon ez how we'd better
scratch gravel immejitly, _if_ not sooner!"
XXVI
WE TAKE THE CHARRED STICK FOR A GUIDE
Luckily for us the new danger was approaching from the westward. So, by
dint of the maddest hurryings we got the bodies of the three Cherokees
hoist upon the horses, and were able to efface in part the signs of the
late encounter before the band of riders coming down the Indian path was
upon us. But there was no time to make an orderly retreat. At most we
could only withdraw a little way into the wood, halting when we were
well in cover, and hastily stripping coats and waistcoats to muffle the
heads of the horses.
So you are to conceive us waiting with nerves upstrung, ready for fight
or flight as the event should decide, stifling in such pent-up suspense
as any or all of us would gladly have exchanged for the fiercest battle.
Happily, the breath-scanting interval was short. From behind our thicket
screen we presently saw a file of Indian horsemen riding at a leisurely
footpace down the path. Ephraim Yeates quickly named these new-comers
for us.
"'Tis about ez I allowed--some o' the Tuckaseges a-scouting down to
hold a powwow with the hoss-captain. Now, then; if them sharp-nosed
ponies o' their'n don't happen to sniff the blood--"
The hope was dashed on the instant by the sudden snorting and shying of
two or three of the horses in passing, and we laid hold of our weapons,
keying ourselves to the fighting pitch. But, curiously enough, the
riders made no move to pry into the cause. So far from it, they flogged
the shying ponies into line and rode on stolidly; and thus in a little
time that danger was overpast and the evening silence of the mighty
forest was ours to keep or break as we chose.
The old frontiersman was the first to speak.
"Well, friends, I reckon ez how we mought ez well thank the good Lord
for all His marcies afore we go any furder," he would say; and he doffed
his cap and did it forthwith.
It was as grim a picture as any limner of the weird could wish to look
upon. The twilight shadows were empurpling the mountains and gathering
in dusky pools here and there where the trees stood thickest in the
valley. The hush of nature's mystic hour was abroad, and even the
swiftly flowing river, rushing sullenly along its rocky bed no more than
a stone's cast beyond the Indian path, seemed to pretermit its low
thunderings. There was never a breath of air astir in all the wood, and
the leaves of the silver poplar that will twinkle and ripple in the
lightest zephyr hung stark and motionless.
Barring the old borderer, who had gone upon his knees, we stood as we
were; the Catawba holding the pack horses, and Jennifer and I the three
that bore the ghastly burdens of mortality. The bodies of the slain had
been flung across the saddles to balance as they might; and to the
pommel of that saddle which bore the trunk of the five-feathered
chieftain, Uncanoola had knotted the grisly head by its scalp-lock to
dangle and roll about with every restless movement of the horse--a
hideous death-mask that seemed to mop and mow and stare fearsomely at us
with its wide-open glassy eyes.
With this background fit for the staging of a scene in Dante Alighieri's
tragic comedy, the looming mountains, the upper air graying on to dusk,
and the solemn forest aisles full of lurking shadows, you are to picture
the old frontiersman, bareheaded and on his knees, pouring forth his
soul in all the sonorous phrase of Holy Writ, now in thanksgiving, and
now in most terrible beseechings that all the vials of Heaven's wrath
might be poured out upon our enemies.
His face, commonly a leather mask to hide the man behind it, was now
ablaze with the fire of zealotry; and, truly, in these his spasm-fits of
supplication he stood for all that is most awe-inspiring and unnerving,
asking but a little stretch of the imagination to figure him as one of
those old iron-hard prophets of denunciation come back to earth to be
the herald of the wrath of God.
'Twas close upon actual nightfall when the old man rose from his knees
and, with the rising, put off the beadsman and put on the shrewd old
Indian fighter. Followed some hurried counselings as to how we should
proceed, and in these the hunter set the pace for us as his age and vast
experience in woodcraft gave him leave.
His plan had all the merit of simplicity. Now that we had the horses,
Richard's notion of an approach from the head of the sunken valley
became at once the most hopeful of any. So Ephraim Yeates proposed that
we betake ourselves to the mountain top and to the head of that ravine
which the Catawba and I had discovered. Here we should leave the horses
well hidden and secured, make our way down the ravine, and, with the
stream for a guide, follow the sunken valley to the camp at its lower
end. Once on the ground without having given the alarm, we might hope to
free the captives under cover of the darkness; and our retreat up the
valley would be far less hazardous than any open flight by way of the
unexplored road the powder train had used.
So said the old backwoodsman; but neither Dick nor I would agree to this
_in toto_. Dick argued that while we were killing time in the roundabout
advance we should be leaving Margery wholly at the mercy of the baronet,
and that every hour of delay was full of hideous menace to her. Hence he
proposed that three of us should carry out the hunter's plan, leaving
the fourth to take the hint given by the charred stick and the swimming
ambush crew, and so penetrating to the valley by the stream cavern, be
at hand to strike a blow for our dear lady's honor in case of need.
"'Tis a thing to be done, and I am with you, Dick," said I. This before
Ephraim Yeates could object. "Should there be need for any, two blades
will be better than one. If it come to blows and we are killed or taken,
Yeates and the chief must make the shift to do without our help."
As you would guess, the old hunter demurred to this halving of our
slender force, but we over-persuaded him. If all went well, we were to
rendezvous on the scene of action to carry out the plan of rescue. But
if our adventure should prove disastrous, Yeates and Uncanoola were to
bide their time, striking in when and how they might.
Touching this contingency, I drew the old man aside for a word in
private.
"If aught befall us, Ephraim,--if we should be nabbed as we are like to
be,--you are not to let any hope of helping us lessen by a feather's
weight the rescue chance of the women. You'll promise me this?"
"Sartain sure; ye can rest easy on that, Cap'n John. But don't ye go for
to let that rampaging boy of our'n upsot the fat in the fire with any o'
his foolishness. He's love-sick, he is; and there ain't nothing in this
world so ridic'lous foolish ez a love-sick boy--less'n 'tis a love-sick
gal."
I promised on my part and so we went our separate ways in the gathering
darkness; though not until the lashings of the packs had been cut and
the powder and lead, save such spoil of both as Ephraim Yeates and
Uncanoola would reserve, had been spilled into the river. As for the
bodies of the dead Indians, the old hunter said he would let them ride
till he should come to some convenient chasm for a sepulcher; but I
mistrusted that he and the Catawba would scalp and leave them once we
were safely out of sight.
At the parting we took the river's edge for it, Richard and I, keeping
well under the bank and working our way cautiously down the gorge until
we were stopped by the pouring cross-torrent of the underground
tributary. Here we turned short to the left along the margin of the
barrier stream, and tracing its course across the gorge came presently
to the northern cliff at the lip of the spewing cavern mouth.
By now the night was fully come and in the wooded defile we could place
ourselves only by the sense of touch.
"Are you ready, Dick?" said I.
"As ready as a man with a shaking ague can be," he gritted out. "This
dog's work we have been doing of late has brought my old curse upon me
and I am like to rattle my teeth loose."
"Let me go alone then. Another cold plunge may be the death of you."
"No," said he, stubbornly. "Wait but a minute and the fever will be on
me; then I shall be fighting-fit for anything that comes."
So we waited, and I could hear his teeth clicking like castanets.
Having had a tertian fever more than once in the Turkish campaigning, I
had a fellow-feeling for the poor lad, knowing well how the thought of a
plunge into cold water would make him shrink.
In a little time he felt for my hand and grasped it.
"I'm warm enough now, in all conscience," he said; and with that we
slipped into the stream.
'Twas a disappointment of the grateful sort to find the water no more
than mid-thigh deep. The current was swift and strong, but with the
pebbly bottom to give good footing 'twas possible to stem it slowly.
Laying hold of each other for the better breasting of the flood we felt
our way warily to the middle of the pool; felt for the low-sprung cavern
arch, and for that scanty lifting of it where we hoped to find head room
between stone above and stream below.