THE WOODRANGER
[Illustration: “‘I’M UNDER OATH.’”]
THE WOODRANGER
A Story of the Pioneers of the Debatable
Grounds
BY
G. WALDO BROWNE
AUTHOR OF
“TWO AMERICAN BOYS IN
HAWAII,” ETC.
Illustrated by
L. J. BRIDGMAN
NEW YORK
A. WESSELS COMPANY
1907
_Copyright, 1899_
BY L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
(Incorporated)
_All rights reserved_
TO
Norman Stanley Browne
MY MERRY LITTLE SON
HOPING IT WILL INTEREST AND INSTRUCT HIM
THIS VOLUME IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 7
I. THE DEER’S LEAP 11
II. THE WOODRANGER AND THE DEER REEVE 16
III. NORMAN MEETS HIS ENEMY 23
IV. A PERILOUS PREDICAMENT 30
V. JOHNNY STARK 43
VI. THE MAN WHO KNEW IT ALL 53
VII. NORMAN’S TRIAL 63
VIII. END OF THE TRIAL 75
IX. THE SHOOTING-MATCH 84
X. AN ALARM 97
XI. A FIERY GIRDLE 103
XII. BAD NEWS AT HOME 112
XIII. THE HONOUR OF THE McNIELS 119
XIV. NORMAN WORKS IN A STUMP-FIELD 126
XV. HANGING A BEAR 139
XVI. GUNWAD TAKES DECISIVE ACTION 149
XVII. THE CANOE MATCH 163
XVIII. THE FALL HUNT 180
XIX. DEER NECK 188
XX. THE CRY FOR HELP 196
XXI. A PECULIAR PREDICAMENT 202
XXII. THE GUN-SHOT 209
XXIII. THE FOREST TRAGEDY 215
XXIV. BEAR’S CLAWS――THE TURKEY TRAIN 221
XXV. THE PLACE OF THE BIG BUCK 229
XXVI. AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE 234
XXVII. “CREEPING” THE MOOSE 242
XXVIII. THE BATTLE OF THE MONARCHS 250
XXIX. TEST SHOTS――THE SNOW-STORM 255
XXX. THE BURNING OF CHRISTO’S WIGWAM 262
XXXI. THE WOODRANGER SURPRISES MR. MacDONALD 270
XXXII. ZACK BITLOCK’S DEER 278
XXXIII. RAISING THE MEETING-HOUSE 286
XXXIV. THE FRESHET 294
XXXV. THE WOODRANGER’S SECRET 300
XXXVI. THE TURNING OF THE TIDE 308
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
“‘I’M UNDER OATH’” _Frontispiece_
“THE DEER SPRANG OUT OVER THE DIZZY BRINK” 15
“ARCHIE IMPROVED HIS OPPORTUNITY TO DROP THE NOOSE OVER HER HEAD” 144
“HIS RIGHT ARM MOVED SLOWLY TO AND FRO” 278
INTRODUCTION.
In order to understand the scenes about to be described, it is
necessary to take a hasty glance at the general situation in 1740 of
the colonists in the vicinity of the Merrimack River. It should be
borne in mind that New England was only a narrow strip of country along
the seacoast, and was divided into four provinces,――Rhode Island,
Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.
Unfortunately for the welfare of the pioneers in the last-named
province, the boundary line between New Hampshire and Massachusetts
was a matter of dispute for nearly a hundred years. The difference had
arisen from a misconception at the outset in regard to the source of
the Merrimack River, which was believed by its early discoverers and
explorers to rise in the west and follow an easterly course to the
ocean. Accordingly, the province of Massachusetts claimed not only all
of the land to the southwest of the other province, but a strip three
miles wide along the east bank of the stream to its supposed source
in the great lake (Winnepesaukee), including not only the debatable
ground of Namaske, but a tract of country to its south and east,
called the “Chestnut Country,” on account of the large number of those
trees growing there.
In 1719 a part of this territory was settled by a party of colonists
from the north of Ireland, known as Scotch-Irish, from their having
previously emigrated to that country from Scotland. These settlers, who
called their new town first Nutfield and then Londonderry, in honour
of the county from whence they had come, supposed that the deeds and
grants which they had received from the province of New Hampshire would
allow them to hold the debatable ground. They were upright, courageous
men and women, but were rigid Presbyterians, and for this reason met
with little favour from their equally austere Puritan neighbours from
Massachusetts.
In order to colonise the disputed territory, Massachusetts at about
this time began a system of granting lands as a reward for meritorious
service in fighting the Indians, and among others was a grant to the
survivors of the famous “Snow Shoe Expedition” of the tract of land
below Namaske Falls, which had gained the disreputable name of Old
Harrytown. The leader of the expedition, Captain Tyng, was dead, but in
honour of him the new town was named Tyng Township.
In one respect the settlers of Tyng Township were fortunate. They
arrived during one of those transitory intervals of comparative peace,
which came and went during the long and sanguinary struggle with the
Indians like flashes of sunlight on a stormy day. In 1725, following
several victories of the whites over their savage enemies, foremost
of which was Lovewell’s fight, the chief of the Abnaki Indians, then
the leading tribe in New England, signed a treaty of peace at Boston.
This treaty was not broken until 1744, and the whole history of Tyng
Township is included within these two dates.
As stated above, some of the Scotch-Irish, under grants from New
Hampshire, had already settled in the territory granted by Massachusetts
to Tyng’s men, and an intense rivalry at once sprang up between the
settlements. The English were determined and aggressive, the Scotch
stubborn and ready to fight to the bitter end for what they considered
their rights, and before long both sides were ready to resort to arms
the moment an overt act of their rivals should seem to call for such
measures.
G. WALDO BROWNE.
THE WOODRANGER.
CHAPTER I.
THE DEER’S LEAP.
As the distant baying of a hound broke like a discordant note upon the
quiet of the summer afternoon, a youth sprang upright on the pinnacle
of a cliff which reared its bald head above the surrounding forest, and
listened for a repetition of the unexpected alarm.
The young listener presented a striking figure, the strong physique
of limb and body brought into bold relief against the sky, and each
feature clearly outlined, as he gazed into space. He was in his
nineteenth year, above the medium height, but so symmetrical in form
that he did not look out of proportion. His high cheek-bones, clear
blue eyes, straight nose, well-curved chin, and firm-set mouth showed
the characteristics of the Lowland sons of old Scotland. His name was
Norman McNiel.
For nearly an hour he had lain there on the summit of Rock Rimmon,
gazing in a dreamy way over the broad panorama of wilderness, while
his mind carried him back across the stormy sea to his early home in
Northern Ireland, which he had left a year before to come to this
country with his young foster-sister Rilma and their aged grandfather,
Robert MacDonald, last of the noted MacDonalds of Glencoe.
“It was Archer’s bark!” he exclaimed. “He must have followed me, and
now has started a deer from its favourite haunt in Cedar Swamp. Hark!
there he sounds his warning again, and never bugle of bold clansman
rang clearer over the braes o’ bonny Scotland. He is coming this way!
Forsooth! A bonny hunter am I with not a grain of powder in my horn,
and the last bullet sent on a fruitless errand after a wild bird. A
pretty kettle of fish is this for a McNiel!”
Another cry from the hound at that moment, clearer, louder, nearer,
held his entire attention, and sent the warm blood tingling through his
veins. Far and wide over the valley rang the deep bass baying of the
hound, the wooded hills on either side catching up the wild sound, and
flinging it back and forth, until it seemed as if a dozen dogs were on
the heels of some poor hunted victim.
The chase continued to draw swiftly nearer and nearer. As if the race
had become too earnest for it to keep up its running outcries, only an
occasional short, sharp cry came from the hound. Soon this too ceased,
and Norman was beginning to fear the chase was taking another course,
when the sharp report of a firearm awoke the silence.
A howl from the hound quickly followed, while this was succeeded by a
more pitiful cry, and the furious crashing of bodies plunging headlong
through the thick undergrowth.
Immediately succeeding the renewed baying of the hound, Norman became
aware of the sound of some one pushing his way rapidly through the
growth off to his right, and at an acute angle to the course being
taken by the deer. The next moment he was surprised to see a human
figure burst into the opening at the lower end of the cliff, apparently
making for the summit of Rock Rimmon. His surprise was heightened by
a second discovery swiftly following the first. The newcomer was an
Indian, carrying in his hand the gun with which he had shot at the deer.
Seeing Norman, instead of approaching any nearer the cliff, the red man
abruptly changed his course, disappearing the next moment in the forest
with the Indian’s peculiar loping gait.
“Christo, the last of the Pennacooks!” exclaimed Norman. “It was he who
fired the shot. I――”
He was cut short in the midst of his speculation by the sudden
appearance of the hunted deer on the opposite side of the clearing.
Though Rock Rimmon has a sheer descent of nearly a hundred feet on the
south, its ascent is so gradual on the north as to make it an easy feat
to reach its top. A growth of stunted pitch-pines grew to within fifty
yards of Norman’s standing place. The ledge was covered with moss in
spots, while here and there a scrubby oak found a precarious living.
Although expecting to get a sight of the deer, as he imagined the
fugitive to be, Norman was still considerably surprised to see the
hunted creature bound out from the matted pines, and leap straight up
the rocky pathway! Close upon its heels followed the hound, no longer
keeping up its resonant baying.
The fugitive deer seemed to have a purpose in pursuing this narrow
course, as it might have turned slightly to the right or left, and
escaped its inevitable fate on the cliff. The large, lustrous eyes,
glancing wildly around, saw nothing clearly. The blood was flowing
freely from its panting sides, and it was evident its strength was
nearly spent. To Norman, who had seen but a few of its kind, there was
a human expression in the soft light of its great, mournful eye, and
intuitively he shrank back, as he saw the doomed creature approaching.
In its fatal alarm the terrified animal had not seen him. In fact it
seemed to see nothing in its pathway,――not even the precipice cutting
off further retreat. As if preferring death by a mad leap over the
chasm, it sped to the very brink without checking the speed of its
flying feet! Norman held his breath with a feeling of horror at the
inevitable fate of the poor creature. The hound, as if realising the
desperate strait to which it had driven its prey, stopped. Then, with
a last mournful glance backward, and a sharp cry of pain and despair,
the deer sprang out over the dizzy brink, its beautiful form sinking
swiftly upon the stony earth at the foot of Rock Rimmon!
[Illustration: “THE DEER SPRANG OUT OVER THE DIZZY BRINK.”]