CHAPTER XIII
THE CALL OF DUTY
They arrived at their valley and prepared for the second winter there,returning to the place for several reasons, chief among them being theright of prescription, to which the other tribes yielded tacit consent.The Indian recks little of the future, but in his reversion to primitivetype Henry had taken with him much of the acquired and modern knowledgeof education. He looked ahead, and, under his constant suggestion,advice and pressure they stored so much food for the winter that therewas no chance of another famine, whatever might happen to the game.
Before they went into winter quarters Henry clearly perceived onething--he was first in the little tribe; even Black Cloud, the chief,willingly took second place to him. He was first alike in strength andwisdom and it was patent to all. He was now, although only a boy inyears, nearly at his full height, almost a head above an ordinarywarrior, with wonderfully keen eyes, set wide apart, and a squareprojecting chin, so firm that it seemed to be carved of brown marble.His shoulders were of great breadth, but his lean figure had all thegraceful strength and ease of some wild animal native to the forest. Hewas scrupulous in his attire, and wore only the finest skins and fursthat the village could furnish.
Henry felt the deference of the tribe and it pleased him. He glidednaturally into the place of leader, feeling the responsibility andliking it. He was tactful, too, he would not push Black Cloud from hisold position, but merely remained at his right hand and ruled throughhim. The chief was soothed and flattered, and the arrangement worked tothe pleasure of both, and to the great good of the village which nowenjoyed a winter of prosperity hitherto unknown to such natives of thewoods. Nobody had to go hungry, there was abundant provision against thecold. Henry, though not saying it, knew that with him the credit lay,and just now the world seemed very full. As human beings go he wasthoroughly happy; the life fitted him, satisfied all his wants, and thememory of his own people became paler and more distant; they could dovery well without him; they were so many, one could be spared, and whenthe chance came he would send word to them that he was alive and well,but that he would not come back.
When the buds began to burst they traveled eastward, until they came tothe Mississippi. The sight of its stream brought back to Henry a thoughtof those with whom he had first seen it and he felt a pang of remorse.But the pang was fleeting, and the memory too he resolutely put aside.
They crossed the Mississippi and advanced into the land of littleprairies, a green, rich region, pleasant to the eye and full of game.They wandered and hunted here, drifting slowly to the eastward, untilthey came upon a great encampment of the fierce and warlike nation,known as the Shawnees. The Shawnees were in their war paint and weresinging warlike songs. It was evident to the most casual visitor thatthey were going forth to do battle.
It was late in the afternoon when Henry, Black Cloud and two others cameupon this encampment. His own band had pitched its lodges some milesbehind, but the kinship of the forest and the peace between them, madethe four the guests of the Shawnees as long as they chose to stay.
At least a thousand warriors were in all the hideous varieties of warpaint, and the scene, in the waning light, was weird and ominous even toHenry. The war songs in their very monotony were chilling, and full offerocity, and in all the thousand faces there was not one that shonewith the light of kindness and mercy.
Long glances were cast at Henry, but even their keen eyes failed tonotice that he was not an Indian, and he stood watching them, his faceimpassive, but his interest aroused. A dozen warriors naked to the waistand hideously painted were singing a war song, while they capered andjumped to its unrhythmic tune. Suddenly one of them snatched somethingfrom his girdle and waved it aloft in triumph. Henry knew that it was ascalp, many of which he had seen, and he paid little attention, but theIndian came closer, still singing and dancing, and waving his hideoustrophy.
The scalp flashed before Henry's eyes, and it displayed not the coarseblack locks of the savage, but hair long, fine and yellow like silk. Heknew that it was the scalp of a white girl, and a sudden, shudderinghorror seized him. It had belonged to one of his own kind, to the raceinto which he had been born and with which he had passed his boyhood.His heart filled with hatred of these Shawnees, but the warriors of hisown little tribe would take scalps, and if occasion came, the scalps ofwhite people, yes, of white women and white girls! He tried to dismissthe thought or rather to crush it down, but it would not yield to hiswill; always it rose up again.
He walked back to the edge of the encampment, where some of the warriorswere yet singing the war songs that with all of their monotony were soweird and chilling. Twilight was over the forest, save in the west,where a blood-red tint from the sunken sun lingered on trunk and bough,and gleamed across the faces of the dancing warriors. In this luridlight Henry suddenly saw them savage, inhuman, implacable. They weretruly creatures of the wilderness, the lust of blood was upon them, andthey would shed it for the pleasure of seeing it flow. Henry's primevalworld darkened as he looked upon them.
He was about to leave with Black Cloud and his friends when it occurredto him to ask which way the war party was going and who were thedestined victims. He spoke to two or three warriors until he came to onewho understood the tongue of his little tribe.
The man waved his hand toward the south.
"Off there; far away," he said. "Beyond the great river."
Henry knew that in this case "great river" meant the Ohio and he wassomewhat surprised; it was still a long journey from the Ohio to theland of the Cherokees, Chickasaws and Choctaws with whom the Northerntribes sometimes fought, and he spoke of it to the warrior, but the manshook his head, and said they were going against the white people; therewas a village of them in a sheltered valley beside a little river, theyhad been there three or four years and had flourished in peace; freedomso long from danger had made them careless, but the Shawnee scouts hadlooked from the woods upon the settlement, and the war band would slayor take them all with ease.
The man had not spoken a half dozen words before Henry knew thatWareville was the place, upon which the doom was so soon to fall. Thechill of horror that had seized him at sight of the yellow-haired scalppassed over him again, deeper, stronger and longer than before. And thecolony would fall! There could be no doubt of it! Nothing could save it!The hideous band, raging with tomahawk and knife, would dash without aword of warning, like a bolt from the sky upon Wareville so longsheltered and peaceful in its valley. And he could see all the phases ofthe savage triumph, the surprise, the triumphant and ferocious yells,the rapid volleys of the rifles, the flashing of the blades, the burningbuildings, the shouts, the cries, and men, women and children in one redslaughter. In another year the forest would be springing up whereWareville had been, and the wolf and the fox would prowl among thecharred timbers. And among the bleaching bones would be those of his ownmother and sister and Lucy Upton--if they were not taken away for aworse fate.
He endured the keenest thrill of agony that life had yet held for him.All his old life, the dear familiar ties surged up, and were hot uponhis brain. His place was there! with them! not here! He had yielded tooeasily to the spell of the woods and the call of the old primevalnature. He might have escaped long ago, there had been manyopportunities, but he could not see them. His blindness had beenwillful, the child of his own desires. He knew it too well now. He sawhimself guilty and guilty he was.
But in that moment of agony and fear for his own he was paying the priceof his guilt. The sense of helplessness was crushing. In two hours thewar party would start and it would flit southward like the wind, assilent but far more deadly. No, nothing could save the innocent peopleat Wareville; they were as surely doomed as if their destruction hadalready taken place.
But not one of these emotions, so tense and so deep, was written on theface of him whom even the Shawnees did not know to be white. Not afeature changed, the Indian stoicism and calm, the product alike of hisnature and cultivation, clung to him.
His eyes were veiled and hismovements had their habitual gravity and dignity.
He walked with Black Cloud to the edge of the encampment, said farewellto the Shawnees, and then, with a great surge of joy, his resolutioncame to him. It was so sudden, so transforming that the whole worldchanged at once. The blood-red tint, thrown by the sunken sun, was gonefrom the forest, but instead the silver sickle of the moon was risingand shed a radiant light of hope.
He said nothing until they had gone a mile or so and then, drawing BlackCloud aside, spoke to him words full of firmness, but not withoutfeeling. He made no secret of his purpose, and he said that if BlackCloud and the others sought to stay him with force with force he wouldreply. He must go, and he would go at once.
Black Cloud was silent for a while, and Henry saw the faintest quiver inhis eyes. He knew that he held a certain place in the affections of thechief, not the place that he might hold in the regard of a white man, itwas more limited and qualified, but it was there, nevertheless.
"I am the captive of the tribe I know," said Henry. "It has made me itsson, but my white blood is not changed and I must save my people. TheShawnees march south to-night against them and I go to give warning. Itis better that I go in peace."
He spoke simply, but with dignity, and looked straight into the eyes ofthe chief, where he saw that slight pathetic quiver come again.
"I cannot keep you now if you would go," said Black Cloud, "but it maybe when you are far away that the forest and we with whom you have livedand hunted so many seasons will call to you again, in a voice to whichyou must listen."
Henry was moved; perhaps the chief was telling the truth. He saw thehardships and bareness of the wilderness but the life there appealed tohim and satisfied the stronger wants of his nature; he seemed to be thereincarnation of some old forest dweller, belonging to a time thousandsof years ago, yet the voice of duty, which was in this case also thevoice of love, called to him, too, and now with the louder voice. Hewould go, and there must be no delay in his going.
"Farewell, Black Cloud," he said with the same simplicity. "I will thinkoften of you who have been good to me."
The chief called the other warriors and told them their comrade wasgoing far to the south, and they might never see him again. Their facesexpressed nothing, whatever they may have felt. Henry repeated thefarewell, hesitated no longer and plunged into the forest. But hestopped when he was thirty or forty yards away and looked back. Thechief and the warriors stood side by side as he had left them,motionless and gazing after him. It was night now and to eyes less keenthan Henry's their forms would have melted into the dusk, but he sawevery outline distinctly, the lean brown features and the black shiningeyes. He waved his hands to them--a white man's action--and resumed hisflight, not looking back again.
It was a dark night and the forest stretched on, black and endless, thetrunks of the trees standing in rows like phantoms of the dusk. Henrylooked up at the moon and the few stars, and reckoned his course.Wareville lay many hundred miles away, chiefly to the south, and he hada general idea of the direction, but the war party would know exactly,and its advantage there would perhaps be compensation for the superiorspeed of one man. But Henry, for the present, would not think of such adisaster as failure; on the contrary he reckoned with nothing butsuccess, and he felt a marvelous elation.
The decision once taken the rebound had come with great force, and hefelt that he was now about to make atonement for his long neglect, andmore than neglect. Perhaps it had been ordained long ago that he shouldbe there at the critical moment, see the danger and bring them thewarning that would save. There was consolation in the thought.
He increased his pace and sped southward in the easy trot that he hadlearned from his red friends, a gait that he could maintainindefinitely, and with which he could put ground behind him at aremarkable rate. His rifle he carried at the trail, his head was bentslightly forward, and he listened intently to every sound of the forestas he passed; nothing escaped his ear, whether it was a raccoon stirringamong the branches, a deer startled from its covert, or merely the windrustling the leaves. Instinct also told him that the forest was atpeace.
To the ordinary man the night with its dusk, the wilderness with itsghostly tree trunks, and the silence would have been full of weirdnessand awe, black with omens and presages. Few would not have chilled tothe marrow to be alone there, but to Henry it brought only hope and thethrill of exultation. He had no sense of loneliness, the forest hid nosecrets for him; this was home and he merely passed through it on agreat quest.
He looked up at the moon and stars, and confirmed himself in his course,though he never slackened speed as he looked. He came out of the forestupon a prairie, and here the moonlight was brighter, touching the crestsof the swells with silver spear-points. A dozen buffaloes rose up andsnorted as he flitted by, but he scarcely bestowed a passing glance uponthe black bulk of the animals. The prairie was only two or three milesacross, and at the far edge flowed a shallow creek which he crossed atfull speed, and entered the forest again. Now he came to rough country,steep little hills, and a dense undergrowth of interlacing bushes, andtwining thorny vines. But he made his way through them in a manner thatonly one forest-bred could compass, and pressed on with speed but littleslackened.
When the night became darkest, in the forest just before morning he laydown in the deepest shadow of a thicket, his hand upon his rifle, and ina few minutes was sleeping soundly. It was a matter of training with himto sleep whenever sleep was needed and he had no nerves. He knew, too,despite his haste that he must save his strength, and he did nothesitate to follow the counsels of prudence.
It was his will that he should sleep about four hours, and, his systemobeying the wish, he awoke at the appointed time. The sun was risingover the vast, green wilderness, lighting up a world seemingly as lonelyand deserted as it had been the night before. The unbroken forest,touched with the tender tints of young spring and bathed in the purelight of the first dawn, bent gently to a west wind that breathed onlyof peace.
Henry stood up and inhaled the odorous air. He was a striking figure,yet a few yards away he would have been visible only to the trained eye;his half-savage garb of tanned deerskin, stained green and trimmed atthe edges with green beads and little green feathers, blended with thecolors of the forest and merely made a harmonious note in the whole. Hisfigure compact, powerful and always poised as if ready for a springswayed slightly, while his eyes that missed nothing searched every nookin the circling woods. He was then neither the savage nor the civilizedman, but he had many of the qualities of both.
The slight swaying motion of his body ceased suddenly and he remained asstill as a rock. He seemed to be a part of the green bushes that grewaround him, yet he was never more watchful, never more alert. Theindefinable sixth sense, developed in him by the wilderness, had takenalarm; there was a presence in the forest, foreign in its nature; it wasnot sight nor hearing nor yet smell that told him so, but a feeling orrather a sort of prescience. Then an extraordinary thrill ran throughhim; it was an emotion partaking in its nature of joy and anticipation;he was about to be confronted by some danger, perhaps a crisis, and thephysical faculties, handed down by a far-off ancestor, expanded to meetit. He knew that he would conquer, and he felt already the glow oftriumph.
Presently he sank down in the undergrowth so gently that not a bushrustled; there was no displacement of nature, the grass and the foliagewere just as they had been, but the figure, visible before to thetrained eye at a dozen paces, could not have been seen now at all. Thenhe began to creep through the grass with a swift easy gliding motionlike that of a serpent, moving at a speed remarkable in such a positionand quite soundless. He went a full half mile before he stopped and roseto his knees, and then his face was hidden by the bushes, although theeyes still searched every part of the forest.
His look was now wholly changed. He might be the hunted, but he borehimself as the hunter. All vestige of the civilized man, trained tohumanity and mercy, was gone.
Those who wished to kill were seeking himand he would kill in return. The thin lips were slightly drawn back,showing the line of white teeth, the eyes were narrowed and in them wasthe cold glitter of expected conflict. Brown hands, lean but big-bonedand powerful, clasped a rifle having a long slender barrel and abeautifully carved stock. It was a figure, terrible alike in itsmanifestation of physical power and readiness, and in the fierce eyethat told what quality of mind lay behind it.
He sank down again and moved in a small circle to the right. Hisoriginal thrill of joy was now a permanent emotion; he was like some oneplaying an exciting game into which no thought of danger entered. Hestopped behind a large tree, and sheltering himself riveted his eyes ona spot in the forest about fifty yards away. No one else could havefound there anything suspicious, anything to tell of an alien presence,but he no longer doubted.
At the detected point a leaf moved, but not in the way it should haveswayed before the gentle wind, and there was a passing spot of brown inthe green of the bushes. It was visible only for a moment, but it wassufficient for the attuned mind and body of Henry Ware. Every part ofhim responded to the call. The rifle sprang to his shoulder and beforethe passing spot of brown was gone, a stream of fire spurted from itsslender muzzle, and its sharp cracking report like the lashing of a whipwas blended with the long-drawn howl, so terrible in its note, that isthe death cry of a savage.
The bullet had scarcely left his gun before he fell back almost flat,and the answering shot sped over his head. It was for this that he sankdown, and before the second shot died he sprang to his feet and rushedforward, drawing his tomahawk and uttering a shout that rolled away infierce echoes through the forest.
He knew that his enemies were but two; in his eccentric course throughthe forest he had passed directly over their trail, and he had read thesigns with an infallible eye. Now one was dead and the other likehimself had an unloaded gun. The rest of his deed would be a mere matterof detail.
The second savage uttered his war cry and sprang forward from thebushes. He might well have recoiled at the terrible figure that rushedto meet him; in all his wild life of risks he had never before beenconfronted by anything so instinct with terror, so ominous of death. Buthe did not have time to take thought before he was overwhelmed by hisresistless enemy.
It was an affair of but a few moments. The Indian threw his tomahawk butHenry parried the blade upon the barrel of his rifle which he stillcarried in his left hand, and his own tomahawk was whirled in aglittering curve about his head. Now it was launched with mighty forceand the savage, cloven to the chin, sank soundless to the earth; he hadbeen smitten down by a force so sudden and absolute that he diedinstantly.
The victor, elate though he was, paused, and quickly reloaded hisrifle--wilderness caution would allow nothing else--and afterwardsadvancing looked first at the savage whom he had slain in the open andthen at the other in the bushes. There was no pity in him, his onlyemotion was a great sense of power; they had hunted him, two to one, andthey born in the woods, but he had outwitted and slain them both. Hecould have escaped, he could have easily left them far behind when hefirst discovered that they were stalking him, but he had felt that theyshould be punished and now the event justified his faith.
It was not his first taking of human life, and while he would haveshuddered at the deed a year ago he felt no such sensation now; theywere merely dangerous wild animals that had crossed his path, and he hadput them out of it in the proper way; his feeling was that of the hunterwho slays a grizzly bear or a lion, only he had slain two.
He stood looking at them, and save for the rustling of the young grassunder the gentle western wind the wilderness was silent and at peace.The sun was shooting up higher and higher and a vast golden light hungover the forest, gilding every leaf and twig. Henry Ware turned at lastand sped swiftly and silently to the south, still thrilling withexultation over his deed, and the sequel that he knew would quicklycome. But in the few brief minutes his nature had reverted another andfurther step toward the primitive.
When he had gone a half mile in his noiseless flight he stopped, and,listening intently, heard the faint echo of a long-drawn, whining cry.After that came silence, heavy and ominous. But Henry only laughed innoiseless mirth. All this he had expected. He knew that the larger partyto which the two warriors belonged would find the bodies, with hastypursuit to follow after the single cry. That was why he lingered. Hewanted them to pursue, to hang upon his trail in the vain hope that theycould catch him; he would play with them, he would enjoy the gameleading them on until they were exhausted, and then, laughing, he wouldgo on to the south at his utmost speed.
A new impulse drove him to another step in the daring play, and, raisinghis head, he uttered his own war cry, a long piercing shout that died indistant echoes; it was at once a defiance, and an intimation to themwhere they might find him, and then, mirth in his eyes, he resumed hisflight, although, for the present, he chose to keep an unchangingdistance between his pursuers and himself.
That party of warriors may have pursued many a man before and may havecaught most of them, but the greatest veteran of them all had never hungon the trail of such another annoying fugitive. All day he led them inswift flight toward the south, and at no time was he more than a littlebeyond their reach; often they thought their hands were about to closedown upon him, that soon they would enjoy the sight of his writhingsunder the fagot and the stake, but always he slipped away at the fatalmoment, and their savage hearts were filled with bitterness that a lonefugitive should taunt them so. His footsteps were those of the whiteman, but his wile and cunning were those of the red, and curiosity wasadded to the other motives that drew them on.
At the coming of the twilight one of their best warriors who pursued atsome distance from the main band was slain by a rifle shot from thebushes, then came that defiant war cry again, faint, but full of ironyand challenge, and then the trail grew cold before them. He whom theypursued was going now with a speed that none of them could equal, andthe darkness itself, thick and heavy, soon covered all sign of hisflight.
Henry Ware's expectations of joy had been fulfilled and more; it was thekeenest delight that had yet come into his life. At all times he hadbeen master of the situation, and as he drew them southward, hefulfilled his duty at the same time and enjoyed his sport. Everythinghad fallen out as he planned, and now, with the night at hand, he shookthem off.
Through the day he had eaten dried venison from his pouch, as he ran,and he felt no need to stop for food. So, he did not cease the flightuntil after midnight when he lay down again in a thicket and sleptsoundly until daylight. He rose again, refreshed, and faster than eversped on his swift way toward Wareville.