CHAPTER XVII
THE BATTLE IN THE FOREST
Henry and Ross after their second scouting expedition reported that thegreat war band of the Shawnees was retreating slowly, in fact wouldlinger by the way, and might destroy one or two smaller stationsrecently founded farther north. Instantly a new impulse flamed up amongthe pioneers of Wareville. The feeling of union was strong among allthese early settlements, and they believed it their duty to protecttheir weaker brethren. They would send hastily to Marlowe the nearestand largest settlement for help, follow on the trail of the warriors anddestroy them. Such a blow, as they might inflict, would spread terroramong all the northwestern tribes and save Kentucky from many anotherraid.
Ross who was present in the council when the eager cry was raised shookhis head and looked more than doubtful.
"They outnumber us four or five to one," he said, "an' when we go out inthe woods against 'em we give up our advantage, our wooden walls. Theycan ambush us out there, an' surround us."
Mr. Ware added his cautious words to those of Ross, in whom he had greatconfidence. He believed it better to let the savage army go. Discouragedby its defeat before the palisades of Wareville it would withdraw beyondthe Ohio, and, under any circumstances, a pursuit with greatly inferiornumbers, would be most dangerous.
These were grave words, but they fell on ears that did not wish tolisten. They were an impulsive people and a generous chord in theirnatures was touched, the desire to defend those weaker than themselves.A good-hearted but hot-headed man named Clinton made a fiery speech. Hesaid that now was the time to strike a crushing blow at the Indianpower, and he thought all brave men would take advantage of it.
That expression "brave men" settled the question; no one could afford tobe considered aught else, and a little army poured forth from Wareville,Mr. Ware nominally in command, and Henry, Paul, Ross, Sol, and all theothers there. Henry saw his mother and sister weeping at the palisade,and Lucy Upton standing beside them. His mother's face was the last thathe saw when he plunged into the forest. Then he was again the hunter,the trailer and the slayer of men.
While they considered whether or not to pursue, Henry Ware had saidnothing; but all the primitive impulses of man handed down from lostages of ceaseless battle were alive within him; he wished them to go, hewould show the way, the savage army would make a trail through theforest as plain to him as a turnpike to the modern dweller in acivilized land, and his heart throbbed with fierce exultation, when thedecision to follow was at last given. In the forest now he was again athome, more so than he had been inside the palisade. Around him were allthe familiar sights and sounds, the little noises of the wilderness thatonly the trained ear hears, the fall of a leaf, or the wind in thegrass, and the odor of a wild flower or a bruised bough.
Brain and mind alike expanded. Instinctively he took the lead, not fromambition, but because it was natural; he read all the signs and he ledon with a certainty to which neither Ross nor Shif'less Sol pretended toaspire. The two guides and hunters were near each other, and a lookpassed between them.
"I knew it," said Ross; "I knew from the first that he had in him themaking of a great woodsman. You an' I, Sol, by the side of him, are justbeginners."
Shif'less Sol nodded in assent.
"It's so," he said. "It suits me to follow where he leads, an' since weare goin' after them warriors, which I can't think a wise thing, I'mmighty glad he's with us."
Yet to one experienced in the ways of the wilderness the little armythough it numbered less than a hundred men would have seemed formidableenough. Many youths were there, mere boys they would have been back insome safer land, but hardened here by exposure into the strength andcourage of men. Nearly all were dressed in finely tanned deerskin,hunting shirt, leggings and moccasins, fringes on hunting shirt andleggings, and beads on moccasins. The sun glinted on the long slender,blue steel barrel of the Western rifle, carried in the hand of everyman. At the belt swung knife and hatchet, and the eyes of all, now thatthe pursuit had begun, were intense, eager and fierce.
The sounds made by the little Western army, hid under the leafy boughsof the forest, gradually died away to almost nothing. No one spoke, saveat rare intervals. The moccasins were soundless on the soft turf, andthere was no rattle of arms, although arms were always ready. In frontwas Henry Ware, scanning the trail, telling with an infallible eye howold it was, where the enemy had lingered, and where he had hastened.
Mr. Pennypacker was there beside Paul Cotter. A man of peace he was, butwhen war came he never failed to take his part in it.
"Do you know him?" he asked of Paul, nodding toward Henry.
Paul understood.
"No," he replied, "I do not. He used to be my old partner, Henry Ware,but he's another now."
"Yes, he's changed," said the master, "but I am not surprised. I foresawit long ago, if the circumstances came right."
On the second morning they were joined by the men from Marlowe who hadbeen traveling up one side of a triangle, while the men of Wareville hadbeen traveling up the other side, until they met at the point. Theirmembers were now raised to a hundred and fifty, and, uttering one shoutof joy, the united forces plunged forward on the trail with renewedzeal.
They were in dense forest, in a region scarcely known even to thehunters, full of little valleys and narrow deep streams. The Indianforce had suddenly taken a sharp turn to the westward, and the knowledgeof it filled the minds of Ross and Sol with misgivings.
"Maybe they know we're following 'em," said Ross; "an' for that reasonthey're turnin' into this rough country, which is just full of ambushes.If it wasn't for bein' called a coward by them hot-heads I'd say it wastime for us to wheel right about on our own tracks, an' go home."
"You can't do nothin' with 'em," said Sol, "they wouldn't stand withouthitchin', an' we ain't got any way to hitch 'em. There's goin' to be ascrimmage that people'll talk about for twenty years, an' the best youan' me can do, Tom, is to be sure to keep steady an' to aim true."
Ross nodded sadly and said no more. He looked down at the trail, whichwas growing fresher and fresher.
"They're slowin' up, Sol," he said at last, "I think they're waitin' forus. You spread out to the right and I'll go to the left to watch ag'inambush. That boy, Henry Ware'll see everything in front."
In view of the freshening trail Mr. Ware ordered the little army to stopfor a few moments and consider, and all, except the scouts on the flanksand in front, gathered in council. Before them and all around them laythe hills, steep and rocky but clothed from base to crest with denseforest and undergrowth. Farther on were other and higher hills, and inthe distance the forests looked blue. Nothing about them stirred. Theyhad sighted no game as they passed; the deer had already fled before theIndian army. The skies, bright and blue in the morning, were nowovercast, a dull, somber, threatening gray.
"Men," said Mr. Ware, and there was a deep gravity in his tone, asbecame a general on the eve of conflict, "I think we shall be on theenemy soon or he will be on us. There were many among us who did notapprove of this pursuit, but here we are. It is not necessary to saythat we should bear ourselves bravely. If we fail and fall, our womenand children are back there, and nothing will stand between them andsavages who know no mercy. That is all you have to remember."
And then a little silence fell upon everyone. Suddenly the hot-headsrealized what they had done. They had gone away from their wooden walls,deep into the unknown wilderness, to meet an enemy four or five timestheir numbers, and skilled in all the wiles and tricks of the forest.Every face was grave, but the knowledge of danger only strengthened themfor the conflict. Hot blood became cool and cautious, and wary eyessearched the thickets everywhere. Rash and impetuous they may have been;but they were ready now to redeem themselves, with the valor, withoutwhich the border could not have been won.
Henry Ware had suddenly gone forward from the others, and the greenforest swallowed him up, but every nerve and muscle of him was now readyand alert. He felt, rather t
han saw, that the enemy was at hand; and inhis green buckskin he blended so completely with the forest that onlythe keenest sight could have picked him from the mass of foliage. Hisgeneral's eye told him, too, that the place before them was made for aconflict which would favor the superior numbers. They had been coming upa gorge, and if beaten they would be crowded back in it upon each other,hindering the escape of one another, until they were cut to pieces.
The wild youth smiled; he knew the bravery of the men with him, and nowtheir dire necessity and the thought of those left behind in the twovillages would nerve them to fight. In his daring mind the battle wasnot yet lost.
A faint, indefinable odor met his nostrils, and he knew it to be the oiland paint of Indian braves. A deep red flushed through the brown ofeither cheek. Returning now to his own kind he was its more ardentpartisan because of the revulsion, and the Indian scent offended him. Helooked down and saw a bit of feather, dropped no doubt from some defiantscalp lock. He picked it up, held it to his nose a moment, and then,when the offensive odor assailed him again, he cast it away.
Another dozen steps forward, and he sank down in a clump of grass,blending perfectly with the green, and absolutely motionless. Thirtyyards away two Shawnee warriors in all the savage glory of their warpaint, naked save for breechcloths, were passing, examining the woodswith careful eye. Yet they did not see Henry Ware, and, when they turnedand went back, he followed noiselessly after them, his figure stillhidden in the green wood.
The two Shawnees, walking lightly, went on up the valley which broadenedout as they advanced, but which was still thickly clothed in forest andundergrowth. Skilled as they were in the forest, they probably neverdreamed of the enemy who hung on their trail with a skill surpassingtheir own.
Henry followed them for a full two miles, and then he saw them join agroup of Indians under the trees, whom he knew by their dress andbearing to be chiefs. They were tall, middle-aged, and they woreblankets of green or dark blue, probably bought at the British outposts.Behind them, almost hidden in the forest, Henry saw many other darkfaces, eager, intense, waiting to be let loose on the foe, whom theyregarded as already in the trap.
Henry waited, while the two scouts whom he had followed so well,delivered to the chief their message. He saw them beckon to the warriorsbehind them, speak a few words to them, and then he saw two savageforces slip off in the forest, one to the right and one to the left. Onthe instant he divined their purpose. They were to flank the littlewhite army, while another division stood ready to attack in front. Thenthe ambush would be complete, and Henry saw the skill of the savagegeneral whoever he might be.
The plan must be frustrated at once, and Henry Ware never hesitated. Hemust bring on the battle, before his own people were surrounded, andraising his rifle he fired with deadly aim at one of the chiefs who fellon the grass. Then the youth raised the wild and thrilling cry, which hehad learned from the savages themselves, and sped back toward the whiteforce.
The death cry of the Shawnee and the hostile war whoop rang togetherfilling the forest and telling that the end of stealth and cunning, andthe beginning of open battle were at hand.
Henry Ware was hidden in an instant by the green foliage from the sightof the Shawnees. Keen as were their eyes, trained as they were tonoticing everything that moved in the forest, he had vanished from themlike a ghost. But they knew that the enemy whom they had sought to drawinto their snare had slipped his head out of it before the snare couldbe sprung. Their long piercing yell rose again and then died away in afrightful quaver. As the last terrible note sank the whole savage armyrushed forward to destroy its foe.
As Henry Ware ran swiftly back to his friends he met both Ross and Sol,drawn by the shot and the shouts.
"It was you who fired?" asked Ross.
"Yes," replied Henry, "they meant to lay an ambush, but they will nothave time for it now."
The three stood for a few moments under the boughs of a tree, threetypes of the daring men who guided and protected the van of the whitemovement into the wilderness. They were eager, intent, listening, bentslightly forward, their rifles lying in the hollow of their arms, readyfor instant use.
After the second long cry the savage army gave voice no more. In all thedense thickets a deadly silence reigned, save for the trained ear. Butto the acute hearing of the three under the tree came sounds that theyknew; sounds as light as the patter of falling nuts, no more, perhaps,than the rustle of dead leaves driven against each other by a wind; butthey knew.
"They are coming, and coming fast," said Henry. "We must join the mainforce now."
"They ought to be ready. That warning of yours was enough," said Ross.
Without another word they turned again, darted among the trees, and in afew moments reached the little white force. Mr. Ware, the nominalleader, taking alarm from the shot and cries, was already disposing hismen in a long, scattering line behind hillocks, tree trunks, brushwoodand every protection that the ground offered.
"Good!" exclaimed Ross, when he saw, "but we must make our line longerand thinner, we must never let them get around us, an' it's lucky nowwe've got steep hills on either side."
To be flanked in Indian battle by superior numbers was the most terriblething that could happen to the pioneers, and Mr. Ware stretched out hisline longer and longer, and thinner and thinner. Paul Cotter was full ofexcitement; he had been in deadly conflict once before, but his was amost sensitive temperament, terribly stirred by a foe whom he could yetneither see nor hear. Almost unconsciously, he placed himself by theside of Henry Ware, his old partner, to whom he now looked up as a sonof battle and the very personification of forest skill.
"Are they really there, Henry?" he asked. "I see nothing and hearnothing."
"Yes," replied Henry, "they are in front of us scarcely a rifle shotaway, five to our one."
Paul strained his eyes, but still he could see nothing, only the greenwaving forest, the patches of undergrowth, the rocks on the steep hillsto right and left, and the placid blue sky overhead. It did not seempossible to him that they were about to enter into a struggle for lifeand for those dearer than life.
"Don't shoot wild, Paul," said Henry. "Don't pull the trigger, until youcan look down the sights at a vital spot."
A few feet away from them, peering over a log and with his rifle everthrust forward was Mr. Pennypacker, a schoolmaster, a graduate of acollege, an educated and refined man, but bearing his part in the darkand terrible wilderness conflict that often left no wounded.
The stillness was now so deep that even the scouts could hear no soundin front. The savage army seemed to have melted away, into the airitself, and for full five minutes they lay, waiting, waiting, alwayswaiting for something that they knew would come. Then rose the fiercequavering war cry poured from hundreds of throats, and the savage horde,springing out of the forests and thickets, rushed upon them.
Dark faces showed in the sunlight, brown figures, naked save for thebreechcloth, horribly painted, muscles tense, flashed through theundergrowth. The wild yell that rose and fell without ceasing ran off indistant echoes among the hills. The riflemen of Kentucky, lying behindtrees and hillocks, began to fire, not in volleys, not by order, buteach man according to his judgment and his aim, and many a bullet flewtrue.
A sharp crackling sound, ominous and deadly, ran back and forth in theforest. Little spurts of fire burned for a moment against the green, andthen went out, to give place to others. Jets of white smoke roselanguidly and floated up among the trees, gathering by and by into acloud, shot through with blue and yellow tints from sky and sun.
Henry Ware fired with deadly aim and reloaded with astonishing speed.Paul Cotter, by his side, was as steady as a rock, now that the suspensewas over, and the battle upon them. The schoolmaster resting on oneelbow was firing across his log.
But it is not Indian tactics to charge home, unless the enemy isfrightened into flight by the war whoop and the first rush. The men ofWareville and Marlowe did not run, but stood fast, send
ing the bulletsstraight to the mark; and suddenly the Shawnees dropped down among thetrees and undergrowth, their bodies hidden, and began to creep forward,firing like sharpshooters. It was now a test of skill, of eyesight, ofhearing and of aim.
The forest on either side was filled with creeping forms, white or red,men with burning eyes seeking to slay each other, meeting in strife moreterrible than that of foes who encounter each other in open conflict.There was something snakelike in their deadly creeping, only the movinggrass to tell where they passed and sometimes where both white and reddied, locked fast in the grip of one another. Everywhere it was acombat, confused, dreadful, man to man, and with no shouting now, onlythe crack of the rifle shot, the whiz of the tomahawk, the thud of theknife, and choked cries.
Like breeds like, and the white men came down to the level of the red.Knowing that they would receive no quarter they gave none. The whiteface expressed all the cunning, and all the deadly animosity of the red.Led by Henry Ware, Ross and Sol they practiced every device of forestwarfare known to the Shawnees, and their line, which extended across thevalley from hill to hill, spurted death from tree, bush, and rock.
To Paul Cotter it was all a nightmare, a foul dream, unreal. He obeyedhis comrade's injunctions, he lay close to the earth, and he did notfire until he could draw a bead on a bare breast, but the work becamemechanical with him. He was a high-strung lad of delicate sensibilities.There was in his temperament something of the poet and the artist, andnothing of the soldier who fights for the sake of mere fighting. Thewilderness appealed to him, because of its glory, but the savageappealed to him not at all. In Henry's bosom there was respect for hisred foes from whom he had learned so many useful lessons, and his heartbeat faster with the thrill of strenuous conflict, but Paul was anxiousfor the end of it all. The sight of dead faces near him, not the lack ofcourage, more than once made him faint and dizzy.
Twice and thrice the Shawnees tried to scale the steep hillsides, andwith their superior numbers swing around behind the enemy, but the linesof the borderers were always extended to meet them, and the bullets fromthe long-barreled rifles cut down everyone who tried to pass. It wasalways Henry Ware who was first to see a new movement, his eyes readevery new motion in the grass, and foliage swaying in a new directionwould always tell him what it meant. More than one of his comradesmuttered to himself that he was worth a dozen men that day.
So fierce were the combatants, so eager were they for each other's bloodthat they did not notice that the sky, gray in the morning, then blue atthe opening of battle, had now grown leaden and somber again. The leavesabove them were motionless and then began to rustle dully in a raw wetwind out of the north. The sun was quite gone behind the clouds anddrops of cold rain began to fall, falling on the upturned faces of thedead, red and white alike with just impartiality, the wind rose,whistled, and drove the cold drops before it like hail. But the combatstill swayed back and forth in the leaden forest, and neither side tooknotice.
Mr. Ware remained near the center of the white line, and retainedcommand, although he gave but few orders, every man fighting for himselfand giving his own orders. But from time to time Ross and Sol or Henrybrought him news of the conflict, perhaps how they had been driven backa little at one point, and perhaps how they gained a little at anotherpoint. He, too, a man of fifty and the head of a community, shared theemotions of those around him, and was filled with a furious zeal for theconflict.
The clouds thickened and darkened, and the cold drops were driven uponthem by the wind, the rifle smoke, held down by the rain, made soddenbanks of vapor among the trees; but through all the clouds of vaporburst flashes of fire, and the occasional triumphant shout or death cryof the white man or the savage.
Henry Ware looked up and he became conscious that not only clouds abovewere bringing the darkness, but that the day was waning. In the west afaint tint of red and yellow, barely discernible through the grayness,marked the sinking sun, and in the east the blackness of night was stilladvancing. Yet the conflict, as important to those engaged in it, as agreat battle between civilized foes, a hundred thousand on a side, andfar more fierce, yet hung on an even chance. The white men still stoodwhere they had stood when the forest battle began, and the red men whohad not been able to advance would not retreat.
Henry's heart sank a little at the signs that night was coming; it wouldbe harder in the darkness to keep their forces in touch, and thesuperior numbers of the Shawnees would swarm all about them. It seemedto him that it would be best to withdraw a little to more open ground;but he waited a while, because he did not wish any of their movements tohave the color of retreat. Moreover, the activity of the Shawnees rosejust then to a higher pitch.
Figures were now invisible in the chill, wet dusk, fifty or sixty yardsaway, and the two lines came closer. The keenest eye could see nothingsave flitting forms like phantoms, but the riflemen, trained toquickness, fired at them and more than once sent a fatal bullet. Therewere two lines of fire facing each other in the dark wood. The flashesshowed red or yellow in the twilight or the falling rain, and the Indianyell of triumph whenever it arose, echoed, weird and terrible, throughthe dripping forest.
Henry stole to the side of his father.
"We must fall back," he said, "or in the darkness or the night, theywill be sure to surround us and crush us."
Ross was an able second to this advice, and reluctantly Mr. Ware passedalong the word to retreat. "Be sure to bring off all the wounded," wasthe order. "The dead, alas! must be abandoned to nameless indignities!"
The little white army left thirty dead in the dripping forest, and, asmany more carried wounds, the most of which were curable, but it was asfull of fight as ever. It merely drew back to protect itself againstbeing flanked in the forest, and the faces of the borderers, sullen anddetermined, were still turned to the enemy.
Yet the line of fire was visibly retreating, and, when the Shawneeforces saw it, a triumphant yell was poured from hundreds of throats.They rushed forward, only to be driven back again by the hail ofbullets, and Ross said to Mr. Ware: "I guess we burned their facesthen."
"Look to the wounded! look to the wounded!" repeated Mr. Ware. "See thatno man too weak is left to help himself."
They had gone half a mile when Henry glanced around for Paul. His eyes,trained to the darkness, ran over the dim forms about him. Many werelimping and others already had arms in slings made from their huntingshirts, but Henry nowhere saw the figure of his old comrade. A fever offear assailed him. One of two things had happened. Paul was eitherkilled or too badly wounded to walk, and somehow in the darkness theyhad missed him. The schoolmaster's face blanched at the news. Paul hadbeen his favorite pupil.
"My God!" he groaned, "to think of the poor lad in the hands of thosedevils!"
Henry Ware stood beside the master, when he uttered these words,wrenched by despair from the very bottom of his chest. Pain shot throughhis own heart, as if it had been touched by a knife. Paul, thewell-beloved comrade of his youth, captured and subjected to thetorture! His blood turned to ice in his veins. How could they ever havemissed the boy? Paul now seemed to Henry at least ten years younger thanhimself. It was not merely the fault of a single man, it was the faultof them all. He stared back into the thickening darkness, where theflashes of flame burst now and then, and, in an instant, he had takenhis resolve.
"I do not know where Paul is," he said, "but I shall find him."
"Henry! Henry! what are you going to do?" cried his father in alarm.
"I'm going back after him," replied his son.
"But you can do nothing! It is sure death! Have we just found you tolose you again?"
Henry touched his father's hand. It was an act of tenderness, comingfrom his stoical nature, and the next instant he was gone, amid thesmoke and the vapors and the darkness, toward the Indian army.
Mr. Ware put his face in his hands and groaned, but the hand of Rossfell upon his shoulder.
"The boy will come back, Mr. Ware," said the guide, "
an' will bring theother with him, too. God has given him a woods cunnin' that none of uscan match."
Mr. Ware let his hands fall, and became the man again. The retreatingforce still fell back slowly, firing steadily by the flashes at thepursuing foe.
Henry Ware had not gone more than fifty yards before he was completelyhidden from his friends. Then he turned to a savage, at least inappearance. He threw off the raccoon-skin cap and hunting shirt, drew uphis hair in the scalp lock, tying it there with a piece of fringe fromhis discarded hunting shirt, and then turned off at an angle into thewoods. Presently he beheld the dark figures of the Shawnees, springingfrom tree to tree or bent low in the undergrowth, but all followingeagerly. When he saw them he too bent over and fired toward his owncomrades, then he whirled again to the right, and sprang about as if hewere seeking another target. To all appearances, he was, in the darknessand driving rain, a true Shawnee, and the manner and gesture of anIndian were second nature to him.
But he had little fear of being discovered at such a time. His solethought was to find his comrade. All the old days of boyishcompanionship rushed upon him, with their memories. The tenderness inhis nature was the stronger, because of its long repression. He wouldfind him and if he were alive, he would save him; moreover he had whathe thought was a clew. He had remembered seeing Paul crouched behind alog, firing at the enemy, and no one had seen him afterwards. Hebelieved that the boy was lying there yet, slain, or, if fate werekinder, too badly wounded to move. The line of retreat had slantedsomewhat from the spot, and the savages might well have passed, in thedark, without noticing the boy's fallen body.
His own sense of direction was perfect, and he edged swiftly away towardthe fallen log, behind which Paul had lain. Many dark forms passed him,but none sought to stop him; the counterfeit was too good; all thoughthim one of themselves.
Presently Henry passed no more of the flitting warriors. The battle wasmoving on toward the south and was now behind him. He looked back andsaw the flashes growing fainter and heard the scattering rifle shots,deadened somewhat by the distance. Around him was the beat of the rainon the leaves and the sodden earth, and he looked up at a sky, whollyhidden by black clouds. He would need all his forest lore, and all theprimitive instincts, handed down from far-off ancestors. But never werethey more keenly alive than on this night.
The boy did not veer from the way, but merely by the sense of directiontook a straight path toward the fallen log that he remembered. The dinof battle still rolled slowly off toward the south, and, for the moment,he forgot it. He came to the log, bent down and touched a cold face. Itwas Paul. Instinctively his hand moved toward the boy's head and when ittouched the thick brown hair and nothing else, he uttered a littleshuddering sigh of relief. Dead or alive, the hideous Indian trophy hadnot been taken. Then he found the boy's wrist and his pulse, which wasstill beating faintly. The deft hands moved on, and touched the wound,made by a bullet that had passed entirely through his shoulder. Paul hadfainted from loss of blood, and without the coming of help would surelyhave been dead in another hour.
The boy lay on his side, and, in some convulsion as he lostconsciousness, he had drawn his arm about his head. Henry turned himover until the cold reviving rain fell full upon his face, and then,raising himself again, he listened intently. The battle was still movingon to the southward, but very slowly, and stray warriors might yet passand see them. The tie of friendship is strong, and as he had come tosave Paul and as he had found him too, he did not mean to be stoppednow.
He stooped down and chafed the wounded youth's wrists and temples, whilethe rain with its vivifying touch still drove upon his face. Paulstirred and his pulse grew stronger. He opened his eyes catching onevague glimpse of the anxious face above him, but he was so feeble thatthe lids closed down again. But Henry was cheered. Paul was not onlyalive, he was growing stronger, and, bending down, he lifted him in hispowerful arms. Then he strode away in the darkness, intending to pass ina curve around the hostile army. Despite Paul's weight he was able alsoto keep his rifle ready, because none knew better than he that all thechances favored his meeting with one warrior or more before the curvewas made. But he was instinct with strength both mental and physical, hewas the true type of the borderer, the men who faced with sturdy heartthe vast dangers of the wilderness, the known and the unknown. At thatmoment he was at his highest pitch of courage and skill, alone in thedarkness and storm, surrounded by the danger of death and worse, yetready to risk everything for the sake of the boy with whom he hadplayed.
He heard nothing but the patter of the distant firing, and all aroundhim was the gloom, of a night, dark to intensity. The rain pouredsteadily out of a sky that did not contain a single star. Paul stirredoccasionally on his shoulder, as he advanced, swiftly, picking his waythrough the forest and the undergrowth. A half mile forward and his earscaught a light footstep. In an instant he sank down with his burden, andas he did so he caught sight of an Indian warrior, not twenty feet away.The Shawnee saw him at the same time, and he, too, dropped down in theundergrowth.
Henry did not then feel the lust of blood. He would have been willing topass on, and leave the Shawnee to himself; but he knew that the Shawneewould not leave him. He laid Paul upon his back, in order that the rainmight beat upon his face, and then crouched beside him, absolutelymotionless, but missing nothing that the keenest eye or ear mightdetect. It was a contest of patience, and the white youth brought tobear upon it both the red man's training and his own.
A half hour passed, and within that small area there was no sound butthe beat of the rain on the leaves and the sticky earth. Perhaps thewarrior thought he had been deceived; it was merely an illusion of thenight that he thought he saw; or if he had seen anyone the man was nowgone, creeping away through the undergrowth. He stirred among his ownbushes, raised up a little to see, and gave his enemy a passing glimpseof his face. But it was enough; a rifle bullet struck him between theeyes and the wilderness fighter lay dead in the forest.
Henry bestowed not a thought on the slain warrior, but, lifting up Paulonce more, continued on his wide curve, as if nothing had happened. Noone interrupted him again, and after a while he was parallel with theline of fire. Then he passed around it and came to rocky ground, wherehe laid Paul down and chafed his hands and face. The wounded boy openedhis eyes again, and, with returning strength, was now able to keep themopen.
"Henry!" he said in a vague whisper.
"Yes, Paul, it is I," Henry replied quietly.
Paul lay still and struggled with memory. The rain was now ceasing, anda few shafts of moonlight, piercing through the clouds, threw silverrays on the dripping forest.
"The battle!" said Paul at last. "I was firing and something struck me.That was the last I remember."
He paused and his face suddenly brightened. He cast a look of gratitudeat his comrade.
"You came for me?" he said.
"Yes," replied Henry, "I came for you, and I brought you here."
Paul closed his eyes, lay still, and then at a ghastly thought, openedhis eyes again.
"Are only we two left?" he asked. "Are all the others killed? Is thatwhy we are hiding here in the forest?"
"No," replied Henry, "we are holding them off, but we decided that itwas wiser to retreat. We shall join our own people in the morning."
Paul said no more, and Henry sheltered him as best he could under thetrees. The wet clothing he could not replace, and that would have to beendured. But he rubbed his body to keep him warm and to inducecirculation. The night was now far advanced, and the distant firingbecame spasmodic and faint. After a while it ceased, and the wearycombatants lay on their arms in the thickets.
The clouds began to float off to the eastward. By and by all went downunder the horizon, and the sky sprang out, a solid dome of calm,untroubled blue, in which the stars in myriads twinkled and shone. Amoon of unusual splendor bathed the wet forest in a silver dew.
Henry sat in the moonlight, watching beside Paul, who dozed or fell intoa s
tupor. The moonlight passed, the darkest hours came and then up shotthe dawn, bathing a green world in the mingled glory of red and gold.Henry raised Paul again, and started with him toward the thickets, wherehe knew the little white army lay.
* * * * *
John Ware had borne himself that night like a man, else he would nothave been in the place that he held. But his heart had followed his son,when he turned back toward the savage army, and, despite the reassuringwords of Ross, he already mourned him as one dead. Yet he was faithfulto his greater duty, remembering the little force that he led and thewomen and children back there, of whom they were the chief and almostthe sole defenders. But if he reached Wareville again how could he tellthe tale of his loss? There was one to whom no excuse would seem good.Often Mr. Pennypacker was by his side, and when the darkness began tothin away before the moonlight these two men exchanged sad glances. Eachunderstood what was in the heart of the other, but neither spoke.
The hours of night and combat dragged heavily. When the waning fire ofthe savages ceased they let their own cease also, and then sought groundupon which they might resist any new attack, made in the daylight. Theyfound it at last in a rocky region that doubled the powers of thedefense. Ross was openly exultant.
"We scorched 'em good yesterday an' to-night," he said, "an' if theycome again in the day we'll just burn their faces away."
Most of the men, worn to the bone, sank down to sleep on the wet groundin their wet clothes, while the others watched, and the few hours, leftbefore the morning, passed peacefully away.
At the first sunlight the men were awakened, and all ate cold food whichthey carried in their knapsacks. Mr. Ware and the schoolmaster satapart. Mr. Ware looked steadily at the ground and the schoolmaster,whose heart was wrenched both with his own grief and his friend's, knewnot what to say. Neither did Ross nor Sol disturb them for the moment,but busied themselves with preparations for the new defense.
Mr. Pennypacker was gazing toward the southwest and suddenly on thecrest of a low ridge a black and formless object appeared between himand the sun. At first he thought it was a mote in his eye, and he rubbedthe pupils but the mote grew larger, and then he looked with a new andstronger interest. It was a man; no, two men, one carrying the other,and the motion of the man who bore the other seemed familiar. Themaster's heart sprang up in his throat, and the blood swelled in a newtide in his veins. His hand fell heavily, but with joy, on the shoulderof Mr. Ware.
"Look up! Look up!" he cried, "and see who is coming!"
Mr. Ware looked up and saw his son, with the wounded Paul Cotter on hisshoulder, walking into camp. Then--the borderers were a pious people--hefell upon his knees and gave thanks. Two hours later the Shawnees infull force made a last and desperate attack upon the little white army.They ventured into the open, as venture they must to reach thedefenders, and they were met by the terrible fire that never missed. Atno time could they pass the deadly hail of bullets, and at last, leavingthe ground strewed with their dead, they fell back into the forest, andthen, breaking into a panic, did not cease fleeing until they hadcrossed the Ohio. Throughout the morning Henry Ware was one of thedeadliest sharpshooters of them all, while Paul Cotter lay safely in therear, and fretted because his wound would not let him do his part.
The great victory won, it was agreed that Henry Ware had done the bestof them all, but they spent little time in congratulations. Theypreferred the sacred duty of burying the dead, even seeking those whohad fallen in the forest the night before; and then they began theirmarch southward, the more severely wounded carried on rude litters atfirst, but as they gained strength after a while walking, though lamely.Paul recovered fast, and when he heard the story, he looked upon Henryas a knight, the equal of any who ever rode down the pages of chivalry.
But all alike carried in their hearts the consciousness that they hadstruck a mighty blow that would grant life to the growing settlements,and, despite their sadly thinned ranks, they were full of a pride thatneeded no words. The men of Wareville and the men of Marlowe parted atthe appointed place, and then each force went home with the news ofvictory.