Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: "'THERE THEY ARE! SEE? BY THE END OF THE HOUSE!'
EXCLAIMED PHILIP." (See page 98.)]
THE
LAST THREE SOLDIERS
BY
WILLIAM HENRY SHELTON
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1897
Copyright, 1896, 1897, by
THE CENTURY CO.
THE DEVINNE PRESS.
WITH AN APOLOGY TO THE LITTLE SISTER
THAT THE PLOT IS NOT MORE BLOOD-CURDLING AND
HARROWING, THIS STORY OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO HIS YOUNG
FRIENDS GUSSIE AND GENIE DEMAREST
BY THE AUTHOR
145 WEST FIFTY-FIFTH STREET,
NEW YORK, September 4, 1897
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I Completing the Line
II The Old Man of the Mountain
III The Mountain of the Twentieth Red Pin
IV A Day of Discoveries
V The Cipher Code
VI Messages of Dire Disasters
VII In which the Three Soldiers Make a Remarkable Resolution
VIII Which Ends in a Battle
IX The Plateau Receives a Name
X The Prisoners
XI In which the Soldiers Make a Map
XII How the Bear Disgraced Himself
XIII How the Bear Distinguished Himself
XIV Which Gives a Nearer View of the Neighbor Called "Shifless"
XV The Golden Mill
XVI Which Shows that a Mishap is Not Always a Misfortune
XVII How the Postmaster Saw a Ghost
XVIII Knowledge from Above
XIX The Cave of the Bats
XX The Stained-glass Windows and the Prismatic Fowls
XXI A Scrap of Paper
XXII The Deserted House
XXIII Starvation
XXIV The Rescue
XXV Conclusion
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"'There They Are! See? By the End of the House!' Exclaimed Philip" . .
. . . . _Frontispiece_
"It was a Mighty Fortress, Unscalable on its Western Side"
Andy Tells the Story of the Old Man of the Mountain
"Lieutenant Coleman was the First to Ascend, with the Telescope of the
Station Strapped on his Shoulders"
"Corporal Bromley Took Position with a Red Flag having a Large White
Square in the Center"
"Poor Philip, Left Alone, Burst into Tears"
The Mother Bear Comes for her Cub
"She Rose Suddenly on her Hind Feet and Dealt Him such a Whack as
Nearly Broke his Ribs"
Christening the Territory
"The Fowls Hung about the Door"
"Philip Made Up the Most Marvelous Stories, which were Recited before
the Fire"
"The Cask was Overturned so that the Yellow Pieces Poured Out upon the
Floor"
"They Drove Him Off with Sticks and Stones"
Making a Hundred-dollar Caster
The Golden Mill
Philip on the Edge of the Precipice
"Philip could See the Hole in the Snow, through which He Knew He must
have Fallen"
"Rushing Out from under the Trees, They Saw a Huge Balloon Sweeping
over their Heads"
"Beyond the Illumination of his Torch He Saw Two Gleaming Eyes"
Exploring the Cave of the Bats
"He was Down on his Hands and Knees upon the Turf"
"The Scrap of Paper"
The Deserted House
The Grave of the Old Man of the Mountain
The Beacon Fire
"He Could Only Cry Out, 'Fred! Fred! Here They Come!'"
"They Looked Hardly Less Comical than Before"
THE LAST THREE SOLDIERS
CHAPTER I
COMPLETING THE LINE
If Andy Zachary, the guide, had not mysteriously disappeared from his
home within the month which followed the events of the night of the 2d
of July in the year 1864, sooner or later the postmaster in the Cove on
one side and the people in the valley on the other must have learned of
the presence of the little colony on the summit of the great rock.
On that particular night the cavalcade had come silently and secretly
over the mountains by an unfrequented trail from the last station on
Upper Bald, which towered above the Sandy River country. The troopers
had followed the guide in single file along the ridges and down the
stony trails, and now, when they emerged on the open Cove road for the
first time, Andy fell back to the captain's side, in his butternut suit
and mangy fur cap, with his long rifle slung behind his broad, square
shoulders.
For that night his will was law above that of the captain; and before
the three pack-mules at the end of the train had come out on the road,
the head of the column had turned up a washout to the left, which
presently brought the whole outfit into the shelter of a grove of pines
alongside a deserted log cabin. It was just a trifle past midnight by
the captain's watch, and the full moon which hung above the ridge to
the west would light the Cove face of old Whiteside for yet an hour;
and during the darkness which must follow in the small hours of the
morning there would be ample time to steal through the sleeping
settlement and find a lodgment high up on the mountain which was the
objective of the expedition.
The troopers dismounted, and some lay down on the ground by the horses,
while two kindled a fire in the stone chimney of the cabin and made
coffee for the others. Corporal Bromley leaned a bundle of
red-and-white flags against the door-post, and after turning aside with
Lieutenant Coleman and Philip Welton to inspect their supplies on the
pack-mules, the three joined the captain and the guide in the shadow of
that end of the cabin which looked toward the singular mountain
standing boldly between the Cove and the valley beyond. That it was a
mighty fortress, unscalable on its western side, could be seen at a
glance. The broad moonlight fell full on a huge boulder, whose mighty
top, a thousand feet above the Cove, was fringed with a tall forest
growth that looked in the distance like stunted berry-bushes, and whose
rounded granite side was streaked with black storm-stains where the
rains of centuries had coursed down. The moonlight picked out white
spots underneath the huge folds which here and there belted the rock
and protected its under face from the storms. These were the spots
which the rills dribbled over and the torrents jumped clear of to meet
their old tracks on the bulging rock below. It looked for all the
world as if the smoke from huge fires had been curling against the
mountain for ages, so black were the broad upward streaks and so white
in the moon's light were the surrounding faces of the rock. Phil was
the first to speak.
[Illustration: "IT WAS A MIGHTY FORTRESS, UNSCALABLE ON ITS WESTERN
SIDE."]
"It must have been a giant that rolled it there," he said with a sigh
of relief, and looking up at Andy, the guide.
"Well, now, youngster," said Andy, "you'd 'low so if you was round
these parts in the springtime, when the sun loosens the big icicles
hangin' on them black ledges, an' leaves 'em fall thunderin' into the
Cove bottom."
The Cove post-office, whose long white roof crowned a knoll nearly in
the center of a small tract within the mountain walls, Andy said, was
at such times a great resort of the mountaineers, who came that they
might watch the movement of the avalanches of snow and ice.
Because of its wonderful formation this mountain was of abundant
interest to all during their brief halt, but it was examined most
carefully by the three young soldiers who were to be stationed on its
crest. Philip Welton was the youngest of the three, only just past
seventeen, and it was well known to his officers that if he had not
been an orphan, without parents to object, he would never have been
permitted to enlist even as a drummer-boy in the 2d Ohio, or in any
capacity in any other command. The lad was of a gentle, affectionate
nature, sensitive and refined, but his opportunities for education had
been limited to the winter schools and the books he had read behind the
flour-sacks in his uncle's mill. Some said his uncle was glad to be
rid of him when he went away to the war. Like his friend and
protector, Bromley, he had served with the colors on many a hard-fought
field, and now the two had just been detached from their regiment and
assigned to duty under the command of Frederick Henry Coleman, a second
lieutenant whose regiment was the 12th United States Cavalry.
George Bromley, although the oldest of the three, was not yet twenty at
the time he had enlisted at the beginning of the war, and he had left
college in his junior year to enter the army.
Lieutenant Coleman had graduated from West Point the summer before, the
very youngest member of his class. Although the three were mere boys
at the time of their enlistment, each had entered the service through
the strongest motives of patriotism, and each followed the fortunes of
the national arms with an interest which showed itself in accordance
with his personal character.
At that time General Sherman's army was engaged in that series of
battles which began at Marietta, Georgia, and, including the capture of
Pine and Lost Mountains, was soon to end in the victory at Kenesaw.
The army of General Sherman was steadily advancing its lines in spite
of the most heroic resistance of General Johnston, and every new
position gained was fortified by lines of log breastworks, sometimes
thrown up in an hour after the regiments had stacked arms. These
hastily constructed works, extending ten and twelve miles across the
thickly wooded country, were nowhere less than four feet high, with an
opening under the top log for musketry, and out in front the tree-tops
were thrown into a tangled mass, almost impossible for an attacking
army to pass. These peculiar and original tactics of General Sherman
enabled him to hold his front with a thin line of men, while the bulk
of his troops were sent around one flank or the other to turn the enemy
out of his works and so gain a new position.
This was the sort of service Corporal Bromley and Philip Welton had
been engaged in during the early part of the campaign; and when they
remembered the long rains and the deep mud through which the soldiers
marched, and the wagon-trains foundered and stuck fast, they were not
sorry to be mounted on good horses and riding over hard roads.
Now that the moon had set, the troopers mounted again and moved quietly
along the stony road, Andy Zachary, the guide, riding with the captain
at the head of the column. The deep silence of the forest was on every
hand, broken only by the clicking of iron shoes and the occasional
foaming and plunging of a mountain stream down some laurel-choked
gorge. The road wound and turned about, fording branches, mounting
hills, and dipping down into hollows for an hour, until open fields
began to appear bristling with girdled trees, and then the wooded side
of the huge granite mountain shot up, towering over the left of the
column. Soon thereafter the forest gave way to open country, and as
the road swept round the base of the mountain it became a broad and
sandy highway, so that when the horses trotted out there was only a
light jangling of equipments,--sabers clicking on spurred heels, and
the jingling of steel bits,--and when the pace was checked to a walk in
passing some dark cabin only the creaking of the saddles was heard.
So it was that the troopers stole silently through the valley of
Cashiers, with the solemn mountain-peaks standing like blind sentinels
above the sparse settlement. Occasionally a drowsy house-dog roused
himself to bark, and his fellow gave back an answering echo across the
bushy fields; but no one of the sleepers awoke under the patchwork
quilts of many colors, and the long rifles hung undisturbed over the
cabin doors. Then the troopers exulted in their cleverness, and
laughed softly in their beards, while the night winds blew over the
roofs of the dark cabins as they passed.
After they were clear of the sandy road in the settlement, it was a
long way up the mountain-side, and the iron shoes of the scrambling
horses clicked on many a rolling stone, and some sleepy heads caught
forty winks as they climbed and climbed. The cabins disappeared, and
the fences, and the plow-steers in the hill pastures rattled their
copper bells from below as the troop got higher; and so it was lonesome
enough on the shaggy mountain, and every trace of the habitation of man
had disappeared long before they reached the rickety old bridge which
spanned the deep gorge.
Andy said that this bridge was the only possible way by which the top
of the mountain could be reached, and that it had been built a great
many years ago by a crazy old man who once lived on the mountain, but
who was long since dead. It was still too dark to examine its
condition. It could be seen that the near-by poles of the old railing
had rotted away and fallen into the black chasm below. More than half
of the bridge was swallowed up in the shadows of the foliage on the
other bank. Away down in the throat of the gorge, where tall
forest-trees grew and stretched their topmost limbs in vain to reach
the level of the grass and flowers on the fields above them, a tinkling
stream fell over the rocks with a far-away sound like the chinking of
silver coins in a vault. The silence above and the murmur of the water
below in the thick darkness were enough to make the stoutest hearts
quail at the thought of crossing over by the best of bridges, so the
captain prudently decided to wait for daylight; and as the distance
they had gained above the settlement made the spot a safe encampment
for a day, he ordered the troopers to unsaddle.
After feeding the tired horses from the sacks of oats carried in front
of the saddles, the men lay down on the ground and were soon sleeping
soundly under the tall pines which grew above the bridge-head.