UPRISING OF THE INDIANS
Supporting Mrs. Risley between them, the two youths did not stop until
they had passed into the timber for a distance of five or six rods. They
had crossed the stream once more and now reached a slight knoll from
which they could see the cabin, which still blazed away, although the
roof and one side had fallen in.
[Illustration: They could see the cabin, which still blazed.]
The faint light from the conflagration, sifting through the bare tree
branches, was the only light they had, and by this they set the sufferer
down and proceeded to make her as comfortable as possible. As fortune
would have it, Dave wore two jackets, both somewhat thin. One of these
he gave to Henry, who in turn gave his thick jacket to Mrs. Risley.
"You--you are quite sure you can spare it?" she asked.
"Yes, yes," answered Henry. "I am sorry I can't give you something to
put over your dress, but I haven't anything. Before you put on the
jacket let me bind up that arrow wound."
There was now no time to stand upon ceremony and she allowed him to
dress the wound with all the skill he could muster, Dave in the meantime
keeping watch, that the Indians might not surprise them. Fortunately
Henry, having suffered similarly himself, knew what to do, and after he
had finished Mrs. Risley announced that the sore place felt greatly
relieved.
"But I don't see how I can travel far," she said, trying to stand up.
"My limbs are all in a tremble under me."
"We will help you along," said Henry, sympathetically, and Dave echoed
the words.
With the wounded woman between them, it was no easy matter to pick their
way through the black forest and more than once one or another stumbled
over a tree root or into a hole. Looking back, they saw that the fire
was now dying down. The whooping of the redmen also lessened and finally
ceased altogether.
"I know you wish to get home," panted Mrs. Risley, presently.
"But--but--I cannot go--go another step!" And with these words she
pitched forward and would have gone in a heap had not their strong
youthful arms supported her.
"She has fainted," said Henry, "and it is not to be wondered at. Come,
here is something of a shelter in between the rocks and those trees. We
may as well let her rest there, for we cannot carry her all the way
home."
"But the delay--" began Dave.
"Surely you don't wish to leave her to her fate, Dave?"
"No! no! You know me better than that, Henry, but I was thinking of
those left at home. They may be in trouble, too, and if so they will
need us."
"I've been thinking of a plan. I'm stronger than you and perhaps I can
get her along alone, after she recovers. Can you find the house from
here?"
"I think I can. The creek is just beyond that next patch of timber,
isn't it?"
"Yes, in that direction." Henry pointed with his hand. "If you find
everything all right you might bring father back to help--if he isn't
afraid the Indians will arrive in the meantime."
So it was arranged, and without loss of another moment Dave started on
his solitary way through the somber woods, now as silent as the grave,
for the wind had gone down and the last of the night birds had given
their final calls.
Under ordinary circumstances Dave would have been sleepy, for the day's
tramping had been sufficient to tire anybody, but now all thoughts of
rest were banished and he was as alert as ever as he stole forward, gun
before him, and his eyes shifting from one dark object to another, on
the lookout for a possible enemy.
Dave was in the midst of the next patch of timber,--some beautiful
walnuts and chestnuts,--when he saw something glimmer through the
darkness far to his left. He was immediately interested, wondering what
the light could be. He came to a halt and gazed attentively in the
direction.
"It must be an Indian camp-fire," he mused. "What a lot of the redskins
there must be in this vicinity!"
He was about to move on, giving the fire a wide berth, when something
prompted him to turn toward it, to make sure that it was not the
encampment of friends. It might possibly be Barringford or some other
trapper in the woods, and if so to pass him by would be far from wise,
since such a person might be able to afford just the assistance needed.
Careful of every footstep taken, Dave gradually drew close to the
camp-fire. There was a small, dry clearing, fringed by a series of low
rocks, and behind these rocks the young hunter crouched. The sight that
met his gaze held him spell-bound.
The camp-fire in the center of the clearing was divided into two parts,
one to the east and the other to the west. That in the east was beset
with sharp stakes while its companion was being used for cooking
purposes.
Around both camp-fires were fully thirty Indians; all more than
ordinarily hideous in their daubs of red, blue, and yellow war paint,
and their crowns of colored feathers and strings of animals' teeth and
human scalps. The redmen had been marching around the camp-fires but now
they halted and all sank cross-legged upon the soil.
Suddenly, after a second of silence, one Indian, tall and straight,
leaped to his feet and holding his arms out at full length before him
began to rock his body from side to side. Then he ran for one of the
fires, and pulling a sharp stick from its place in the ground smote the
burning end on his breast.
"This is the fear Spotted Wolf has for the English," he cried, in his
native tongue. "Even as he has pulled this stake from the ground so will
he pull the English from their cabins and burn them at the stake. The
English shall flee at the sound of his war whoop, and the children of
the English shall die of fright when he draws near. The French are our
friends but the English will be our enemies so long as one of them is
allowed to live. I will go forward to kill! Spotted Wolf has spoken."
He sat down, and immediately another warrior leaped up and with another
burning stick went through the same performance. "I am called Black
Eagle," he cried, "because I have eyes that never sleep and a strength
handed down to me from Elk Heart, my father, and Janassarion, my
grandfather, he who slew the mighty Little Thunder of the Delawares. Our
medicine men have spoken and the English must be driven out like wolves
in the winter season. If we allow them this land, and the French the
land to the north and the west, where shall the Indian find his hunting
ground when he would hunt, and where raise his wigwam when he would rest
with his squaw and his children? I, too, will kill and burn until our
land knows them no longer! I have the strength of ten white men and I
will use it. Black Eagle has spoken."
He had not yet finished when two others sprang up, followed by others,
until nearly all were again on their feet, talking of their alleged
wrongs and boasting of their strength, and promising each other to do
all in their power to wipe out all English settlers west of the Blue
Ridge mountains. The bragging was often ludicrous, yet it was easy to
see that the Indians were working themselves up into a state of mind
where they would hesitate at nothing in order to accomplish their
purpose.
Dave could understand only a few words of what was said, yet, from
having such scenes described to him by his father and Sam Barringford,
he knew that this was a "big war talk," as White Buffalo called them.
Once he fancied he heard his Uncle Joe's name mentioned and his heart
almost stopped beating. Surely they must be planning an attack on his
home, and that for very soon!
"I must get back and give the warning!" he told himself. "Henry will
have to do the best he can with Mrs. Risley. If they get to the cabin
and kill Uncle Joe, what will become of Rodney, Aunt Lucy and little
Nell? Oh, I must get back!"
Turning, he crawled from the spot with care, and once back into the
timber, commenced to run, with his gun slung over his shoulder and his
hands held out before him, to keep from running afoul of any
obstruction. More than once he bumped into a tree or fell sprawling over
some exposed roots, knocking the wind out of him. But he always picked
himself up and went on again with undiminished speed. Indeed, the nearer
he got to home the greater was his fear that something might have
happened in his absence and finally he fairly flew, when he reached
familiar ground.
"Hi! who goes there?"
It was a call from close at hand and it made Dave jump as though stung
by a snake. He whirled around, to behold a man behind a tree, a leveled
gun in his hands.
"Don't shoot!" he called out, for he fancied he knew the voice. "Is that
you, Mr. Risley?"
"Yes. Dave Morris, is it not?"
"Yes." Dave ran to meet the Englishman. "Tell me quickly is everything
all right over to our house?"
"It was all right when I left, an hour or so ago, lad. But your uncle
had been talking to Hans Lomann and said the German had heard of
something of an Indian uprising."
At this Dave gave a sigh of relief. But immediately his heart sank, at
the thought of the news he had to impart to his friend.
"The Indians are rising, all over this section of the country. They
attacked your cabin."
"My cabin!" The Englishman could scarcely utter the words. "Davy, is it
the truth? And what of my wife--tell me quickly!"
"Your wife is safe, although she got an arrow through the shoulder. The
redskins attacked the cabin and set fire to it. She leaped out of a rear
window and hid in the milk-house. Henry and I came up just in time to
get her into the woods. We ran as far as we could and then she fainted.
Henry said he would stay with her and told me to come on and give the
alarm. We were afraid the Indians had attacked our place, although we
didn't hear any shooting or see any fire."
"Then the cabin is destroyed? But never mind that. You are sure the
wound wasn't fatal?"
"Quite sure, for Henry dressed it as well as he could. But she was very
weak from having been in the water under the milk-house floor so long."
"And where are they now?"
"About a mile or more from here--in that direction. But you want to be
careful. There are Indians all around here--one band is over yonder
holding a war talk--and I'm sure they'll show you no mercy if they catch
you."
The Englishman nodded his head half a dozen times. "I know it, lad, I
know it. They are a bloodthirsty set. Sometimes I am sorry I came to
this country to settle among them. But times were bad with us in old
England, and we had to do something. But you'll take me to my wife,
won't you, that's a brave lad."
"I--I don't know," faltered Dave. He was still anxious to go home.
"Perhaps you can find them alone."
"I'm not equal to it, lad--the forest is almost as much of a mystery to
me as the day I landed here. Do come, and then we can all go back to
your home with all possible speed."
The young hunter could see that Uriah Risley was sorely distressed, and
unwilling to add to the man's misery, he consented to go back, although
he knew the way was full of ever-increasing perils. Soon they were on
the way, and tired as he was Dave set a pace that caused the settler to
puff and blow to keep up with him.