CHAPTER XV.
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.
Jo Stinger had decided to venture out from the block-house, at a timewhen the Wyandots were on every side, and when many of them werewithin the stockade and close to the building itself It was a perilousact, but the veteran had what he deemed good grounds for undertakingit.
In the first place, the darkness had deepened to that extent, withinthe last few hours, that he believed he could move about without beingsuspected: he was confident indeed that he could stay out as long ashe chose and return in safety.
He still felt chagrined over the audacity of the Wyandots, which cameso near success, and longed to turn the tables upon them.
But Jo Stinger had too much sense to leave the garrison and run intogreat peril without the prospect of accomplishing some good thereby.He knew the Wyandots were completing preparations to burn theblock-house. He believed it would be attempted before morning, and,if not detected by him, would succeed. He had strong hope that, byventuring outside, he could learn the nature of the plan against whichit would therefore be possible to make some preparation.
Colonel Preston was not without misgiving when he drew the ponderousbolts, but he gave no expression to his thoughts. All was blankdarkness, but, when the door was drawn inward, he felt several coldspecks on his hand, from which he knew it was snowing.
The flakes were very fine and few, but they were likely to increasebefore morning, by which time the ground might be covered.
"When shall I look for your return?" asked the Colonel, but, to hissurprise, there was no answer. Jo had moved away, and was gone withoutexchanging another word with the commandant.
The latter refastened the door at once. He could not but regard theaction of the most valuable man of his garrison as without excuse: atthe same time he reflected that his own title could not have been moreempty, for no one of the three men accepted his orders when theyconflicted with his personal views.
In the meantime Jo Stinger, finding himself on the outside of theblock-house, was in a situation where every sense needed to be on thealert, and none knew it better than he.
The door which Colonel Preston opened was the front one, being thatwhich the scout passed through the previous night, and which opened onthe clearing along the river. He was afraid that, if he emerged fromthe other entrance, he would step among the Wyandots and be recognizedbefore he could take his bearings.
But Jo felt that he had entered on an enterprise in which the chanceswere against success, and in which he could accomplish nothing exceptby the greatest risk to himself. The listening Colonel fancied heheard the sound of his stealthy footstep, as the hunter moved from thedoor of the block-house. He listened a few minutes longer, but all wasstill except the soft sifting of the snow against the door, like thefinest particles of sand and dust filtering through the tree-tops.
The Colonel passed to the narrow window at the side and looked out. Ithad become like the blackness of darkness, and several of the whirlingsnow-flakes struck his face.
"The Wyandots are concocting some mischief, and there's no tellingwhat shape it will take until it comes. I don't believe Jo will doanything that will help us."
And with a sigh the speaker climbed the ladder again and told hisfriends how rash the pioneer had been.
"I wouldn't have allowed him to go," said Ned Preston.
"There's no stopping him when he has made up his mind to do anything."
"Why didn't you took him by de collar," asked Blossom Brown, "and slamhim down on de floor? Dat's what I'd done, and, if he'd said anyting,den I'd took him by de heels and banged his head agin de door tillhe'd be glad to sot down and behave himself."
"Jo is a skilled frontiersman," said the Colonel, who felt that it wastime he rallied to the defence of the scout; "he has tramped hundredsof miles with Simon Kenton and Daniel Boone, and, if his gun hadn'tflashed fire one dark night last winter, he would have ended thecareer of Simon Girty."
"How was that?"
"Simon Girty and Kenton served together as spies in Dunmore'sexpedition in 1774, and up to that time Girty was a good soldier, whorisked much for his country. He was badly used by General Lewis, andbecame the greatest scourge we have had on the frontier. I don'tsuppose he ever has such an emotion as pity in his breast, and thereis no cruelty that he wouldn't be glad to inflict on the whites. Heand Jo know and hate each other worse than poison. Last winter, Jocrept into one of the Shawanoe towns one dark night, and when only ahundred feet away, aimed straight at Girty, who sat on a log, smokinghis pipe, and talking to several warriors. Jo was so angered when hisgun flashed in the pan, that he threw it upon the ground and barelysaved himself by dashing out of the camp at the top of his speed. Johas been in a great many perilous situations," added Colonel Preston,"and he can tell of many a thrilling encounter in the depths of thesilent forest and on the banks of the lonely streams, where no otherhuman eyes saw him and his foe."
"No doubt of all that," replied Ned, who knew that he was speaking thesentiments of his uncle, "but it seems to me he is running a greatdeal more risk than he ought to."
"I agree with you, but we have been greatly favored so far, and wewill continue to hope for the best."
The long spell of quiet which had followed the attempt to fire theblock-house, permitted the children to sleep, and their mother, uponthe urgency of her husband, had lain down beside them and was sinkinginto a refreshing slumber.
Megill and Turner kept their places at the loopholes, watching for thesigns of danger with as vigilant interest as though it was the firsthour of the alarm. They were inclined to commend the course of JoStinger, despite the great peril involved.
The Wyandots, beyond question, were perfecting some scheme of attack,which most likely could be foiled only by previous knowledge on thepart of the garrison. The profound darkness and the skill of thehunter would enable him to do all that could be done by any one, underthe circumstances.
There came seconds, and sometimes minutes, when no one spoke, and thesilence within the block-house was so profound that the faint siftingof the snow on the roof was heard. Then an eddy of wind would whirlsome of the sand-like particles through the loopholes into the eyesand faces of those who were peering out. Men and boys gathered theirblankets closer about their shoulders, and set their muskets downbeside them, where they could be caught up the instant needed, whilethey carefully warmed their benumbed fingers by rubbing and strikingthe palms together.
All senses were concentrated in the one of listening, for no otherfaculty was of avail at such a time. Nerves were strung to the highestpoint, because there was not one who did not feel certain they were onthe eve of events which were to decide the fate of the little companyhuddled together in Fort Bridgman.
This stillness was at its profoundest depth, the soft rustling of thesnowflakes seemed to have ceased, and not a whisper was on the lips ofone of the garrison, when there suddenly rang out on the night ashriek like that of some strong man caught in the crush of death. Itwas so piercing that it seemed almost to sound from the center of theroom, and certainly must have been very close to the block-houseitself.
"That was the voice of Jo!" said Colonel Preston, in a terrifiedundertone, after a minute's silence; "he has met his fate."
"You are mistaken," Megill hastened to say; "I have been with Jo toooften, and I know his voice too well to be deceived."
"It sounded marvelously like his."
"It did not to me, though it may have been so to you."
"If it was not Jo, then it must have been one of the Wyandots."
"That follows, as a matter of course; in spite of all of Jo's care, hehas run against one of their men, or one of them has run against him.The only way to settle it then was in the hurricane order, and Jo hasdone it that promptly that the other has just had time to work in afirst-class yell like that."
"I'm greatly relieved to hear you take such a view," said ColonelPreston, who, like the rest, was most agreeably disappointed to hearMegill speak so
confidently, his brother-in-law adding his testimonyto the same effect.
"Directly after that shriek," said Turner, "I'm sure there was thetramping of feet, as if some one was running very fast: it passedunder the stockade and out toward the well."
"I heard the footsteps too," added Ned Preston.
"So did I," chimed in Blossom Brown, feeling it his duty to saysomething to help the others along; "but I'm suah dat de footsteps datI heerd war on de roof. Some onrespectful Wyamdot hab crawled up dar,and I bet am lookin' down de chimbley dis minute."
"It seems to me," observed Ned to his uncle, "that Jo will want tocome back pretty soon."
"I think so too," replied his uncle, "I will go down-stairs and waitfor him."
With these words he descended the rounds of the ladder and movedsoftly across the lower floor to the door, where he paused, with hishands on one of the heavy bars which held the structure in place.
While crossing the room he looked toward the fire-place. Among theashes he caught the sullen red of a single point of fire, like theglowering eye of some ogre, watching him in the darkness.
Beside the huge latch, there were three ponderous pieces of timberwhich spanned the inner side of the door, the ends dropping intomassive sockets strong enough to hold the puncheon slabs againstprodigious pressure from the outside.
Colonel Preston carefully lifted the upper one out of place and thendid the same with the lowest. Then he placed his hand on the middlebar and held his ear close to the jamb, so that he might catch thefirst signal from the scout, whose return was due every minute.
The listening ear caught the silken sifting of the particles of snow,which insinuated themselves into and through the smallest crevices,and a slight shiver passed through the frame of the pioneer, who hadthrown his blanket off his shoulders so that he might have his armsfree to use the instant it should become necessary.
Colonel Preston had stood thus only a few minutes, when he fancied heheard some one on the outside. The noise was very slight and much asif a dog was scratching with his paw. Knowing that wood is a betterconductor of sound than air, he pressed his ear against the door.
To his astonishment he then heard nothing except the snowflakes,which sounded like the tapping of multitudinous fairies, as theyromped back and forth and up and down the door.
"That's strange," thought he, after listening a few minutes; "there'ssomething unusual out there, and I don't know whether it is Jo or not.I'm afraid the poor fellow has been hurt and is afraid to make himselfknown."
The words were yet in his mouth, when he caught a faint tappingoutside, as if made by the bill of a bird.
"That's Jo!" he exclaimed, immediately raising the end of the middlebar from its socket; "he must be hurt, or he is afraid to signal me,lest he be recognized."
At the moment the fastenings were removed, and Colonel Preston wasabout drawing the door inward, he stayed his hand, prompted so to doby the faintest suspicion that something was amiss.
"Jo! is that you?" he asked in a whisper.
"_Sh! Sh!_"
He caught the warning, almost inaudible as it was, and instantly drewthe door inward six or eight inches.
"Quick, Jo! the way is open!"
Even then a vague suspicion that all was not right led Colonel Prestonto step back a single step, and, though he had no weapons, he clenchedhis fist and braced himself for an assault which he did not expect.
The darkness was too complete for him to see anything, while the faintember, smouldering in the fire-place, threw no reflection on thefigure of the pioneer, so as to reveal his precise position.
It was a providential instinct that led Colonel Preston to take thisprecaution, for as he recoiled some one struck a venomous blow at himwith a knife, under the supposition that he was standing on the samespot where he stood at the moment the door was opened. Had he beenthere, he would have been killed with the suddenness almost of thelightning stroke.
The pioneer could not see, and he heard nothing except a suddenexpiration of the breath, which accompanied the fierce blow intovacancy, but he knew like a flash that, instead of Jo, it was aWyandot Indian who was in the act of making a rush to open the way forthe other warriors behind him.
The right fist shot forward, with all the power Colonel Preston couldthrow into it. He was an athlete and a good boxer. As he struck, hehurled his body with the fist, so that all the momentum possible wentwith it. Fortunately for the pioneer the blow landed on the foreheadof the unprepared warrior, throwing him violently backward against hiscomrades, who were in the act of rushing forward to follow in hiswake.
But for them he would have been flung prostrate full a dozen feetdistant.
The instant the blow was delivered, Colonel Preston sprang back,shoved the door to and caught up the middle bar. At such crises itseems as if fate throws every obstruction in the way, and his agonywas indescribable, while desperately trying to get the bar in place.
Only a few seconds were occupied in doing so, but those seconds werefrightful ones to him. He was sure the entire war party would swarminto the block-house, before he could shut them out.
The Indians, who were forced backward by the impetus of the smittenleader, understood the need of haste. They knew that, unless theyrecovered their ground immediately, their golden opportunity wasgone.
Suppressing all outcry, for they had no wish to draw the fire from theloopholes above, they precipitated themselves against the door, asthough each one was the carved head of a catapult, equal to the taskof bursting through any obstacle in its path.
Thank Heaven! In the very nick of time Colonel Preston got the middlebar into its socket. This held the door so securely that the other twowere added without trouble, and he then breathed freely.
Drops of cold perspiration stood on his forehead, and he felt so faintthat he groped about for a stool, on which he dropped until he couldrecover.