CHAPTER IX
THE ESCAPE
Henry and Paul, with their eyes at the crevices, stared and stared, butthey saw only those dark, horrible forms lying close to the earth, andheard again the peaceful wind blowing among the peaceful trees. Thesavage army had melted away as if it had never been, and the darkobjects might have been taken for stones or pieces of wood.
"We beat 'em off, an' nobody on our side has more'n a scratch,"exclaimed Shif'less Sol jubilantly.
"That's so," said Ross, casting a critical eye down the line, "it'sbecause we had a good position an' made ready. There's nothin' liketakin' a thing in time. How're you, boys?"
"All right, but I've been pretty badly scared I can tell you," repliedPaul frankly. "But we are not hurt, are we, Henry?"
"Thank God," murmured the schoolmaster under his breath, and then hesaid aloud to Ross: "I suppose they'll leave us alone now."
Ross shook his head.
"I wish I could say it," he replied, "but I can't. We've laid out fourof 'em, good and cold, an' the Shawnees, like all the other redskins,haven't much stomach for a straightaway attack on people behindbreastworks; I don't think they'll try that again, but they'll be up tonew mischief soon. We must watch out now for tricks. Them's sly devils."
Ross was a wise leader and he gave food to his men, but he cautionedthem to lie close at all times. Two or three bullets were fired from theforest but they whistled over their heads and did no damage. They seemedsafe for the present, but Ross was troubled about the future, andparticularly the coming of night, when they could not protect themselvesso well, and the invaders, under cover of darkness, might slip forwardat many points. Henry himself was man enough and experienced enough tounderstand the danger, and for the moment, he wondered with a kind ofimpersonal curiosity how Ross was going to meet it. Ross himself wasstaring at the heavens, and Henry, following his intent eyes, noticed achange in color and also that the atmosphere began to have a differentfeeling to his lungs. So much had he been engrossed by the battle, andso great had been his excitement, that such things as sky and air had nopart then in his life, but now in the long dead silence, they obtrudedthemselves upon him.
The last wisp of smoke drifted away among the trees, and the sunlight,although it was mid-afternoon, was fading. Presently the skies were avast dome of dull, lowering gray, and the breeze had a chill edge. Thenthe wind died and not a leaf or blade of grass in the forest stirred.Somber clouds came over the brink of the horizon in the southwest, andcrept threateningly up the great curve of the sky. The air steadilydarkened, and suddenly the dim horizon in the far southwest was cut by avivid flash of lightning. Low thunder grumbled over the distant hills.
"It's a storm, an' it's to be a whopper," said Shif'less Sol.
"Ay," returned Ross, who had been back among the horses, "an' it maysave us. All you fellows be sure to keep your powder dry."
There would be little danger of that fatal catastrophe, the wetting ofthe powder, as it was carried in polished horns, stopped securely, norwould there be any danger either of the salt being melted, as it wasinclosed in bags made of deerskin, which would shed water.
"One of the men," continued Ross, "has found a big gully running downthe back end of the hill, an' I think if we're keerful we can lead thehorses to the valley that way. But just now, we'll wait."
Henry and Paul were watching, as if fascinated. They had seen before thegreat storms that sometimes sweep the Mississippi Valley, but the onepreparing now seemed to be charged with a deadly power, far surpassinganything in their experience. It came on, too, with terrible swiftness.The thunder, at first a mere rumble, rose rapidly to crash after crashthat stunned their ears. The livid flash of lightning that split thesouthwest like a flaming sword appeared and reappeared with suchintensity that it seemed never to have gone. The wind rose and theforest groaned. From afar came a sullen roar, and then the greathurricane rushed down upon them.
"Lie flat!" shouted Ross.
All except four or five who held the struggling and frightened horsesthrew themselves upon the ground, and, although Henry and Paul huggedthe earth, their ears were filled with the roar and scream of the wind,and the crackle of boughs and whole tree trunks snapped through, likethe rattle of rifle fire. The forest in front of them was quickly filledwith fallen trees, and fragments whistled over their heads, butfortunately they were untouched.
The great volley of wind was gone in a few moments, as if it were asingle huge cannon shot. It whistled off to the eastward, but left inits path a trail of torn and fallen trees. Then in its path came thesweep of the great rain; the air grew darker, the thunder ceased tocrash, the lightning died away, and the water poured down in sheets overthe black and mangled forest.
"Now boys, we'll start," said Ross. "Them Shawnees had to hunt cover,an' they can't see us nohow. Up with them bags of salt!"
In an incredibly short time the salt was loaded on the pack horses andthen they were picking their way down the steep and dangerous gully inthe side of the hill. Henry, Paul and the master locked hands in thedark and the driving rain, and saved each other from falls. Ross and Solseemed to have the eyes of cats in the dark and showed the way.
"My God!" murmured Mr. Pennypacker, "I could not have dreamed ten yearsago that I should ever take part in such a scene as this!"
Low as he spoke, Henry heard him and he detected, too, a certain note ofpride in the master's tone, as if he were satisfied with the manner inwhich he had borne himself. Henry felt the same satisfaction, althoughhe could not deny that he had felt many terrors.
After much difficulty and some danger they reached the bottom of thehill unhurt, and then they sped across a fairly level country, not muchtroubled by undergrowth or fallen timber, keeping close together so thatno one might be lost in the darkness and the rain, Ross, as usual,leading the line, and Shif'less Sol bringing up the rear. Now and thenthe two men called the names of the others to see that all were present,but beyond this precaution no word was spoken, save in whispers.
Henry and Paul felt a deep and devout thankfulness for the chance thathad saved them from a long siege and possible death; indeed it seemed tothem that the hand of God had turned the enemy aside, and in theirthankfulness they forgot that, soaked to the bone, cold and tired, theywere still tramping through the lone wilderness, far from Wareville.
The darkness and the pouring rain endured for about an hour, then bothbegan to lighten, streaks of pale sky appeared in the east, and thetrees like cones emerged from the mist and gloom. All of thesalt-workers felt their spirits rise. They knew that they had escapedfrom the conflict wonderfully well; two slight wounds, not more than thebreaking of skin, and that was all. Fresh strength came to them, and asthey continued their journey the bars of pale light broadened anddeepened, and then fused into a solid blue dawn, as the last clouddisappeared and the last shower of rain whisked away to the northward. Awet road lay before them, the drops of water yet sparkling here andthere, like myriads of beads. Ross drew a deep breath of relief andordered a halt.
"The Shawnees could follow us again," he said, "but they know now thatthey bit off somethin' a heap too tough for them to chaw, an' I don'tthink they'll risk breaking a few more teeth on it, specially afterhavin' been whipped aroun' by the storm as they must 'a been."
"And to think we got away and brought our salt with us, too!" said Mr.Pennypacker.
Dark came soon, and Ross and Sol felt so confident they were safe fromanother attack that they allowed a fire to be lighted, although theywere careful to choose the center of a little prairie, where the rifleshots of an ambushed foe in the forest could not reach them.
It was no easy matter to light a fire, but Ross and Sol at lastaccomplished it with flint, steel and dry splinters cut from the underside of fallen logs. Then when the blaze had taken good hold they heapedmore brushwood upon it and never were heat and warmth more grateful totired travelers.
Henry and Paul did not realize until then how weary and how very wetthey were. They basked
in the glow, and, with delight watched the greatbeds of coals form. They took off part of their clothing, hanging itbefore the fire, and when it was dry and warm put it on again. Then theyserved the rest the same way, and by and by they wore nothing but warmgarments.
"I guess two such terrible fighters as you," said Ross to Henry andPaul, "wouldn't mind a bite to eat. I've allers heard tell as how theRomans after they had fought a good fight with them Carthaginians orMacedonians or somebody else would sit down an' take some good grub intotheir insides, an' then be ready for the next spat."
"Will we eat? will we eat? Oh, try us, try us," chanted Henry and Paulin chorus, their mouths stretching simultaneously into wide grins, andRoss grinned back in sympathy.
The revulsion had come for the two boys. After so much danger andsuffering, the sense of safety and the warmth penetrating their bonesmade them feel like little children, and they seized each other in afriendly scuffle, which terminated only when they were about to rollinto the fire. Then they ate venison as if they had been famished.Afterwards, when they were asleep on their blankets before the fire,Ross said to Mr. Pennypacker:
"They did well, for youngsters."
"They certainly did, Mr. Ross," said the master. "I confess to you thatthere were times to-day when learning seemed to offer no consolation."
Ross smiled a little, and then his face quickly became grave.
"It's what we've got to go through out here," he said. "Every settlementwill have to stand the storm."
A vigilant watch was kept all the long night but there was no sign of asecond Shawnee attack. Ross had reckoned truly when he thought theShawnees would not care to risk further pursuit, and the next day theyresumed their journey, under a drying sun.
They were not troubled any more by Indian attacks, but the rest of theway was not without other dangers. The rivers were swollen by the springrains, and they had great trouble in carrying the salt across on theswimming horses. Once Paul was swept down by a swift and powerfulcurrent, but Henry managed to seize and hold him until others came tothe rescue. Men and boys alike laughed over their trials, because theyfelt now all the joy of victory, and their rapid march south amid theglories of spring, unfolding before them, appealed to the instincts ofeveryone in the band, the same instincts that had brought them from theEast into the wilderness.
They were passing through the region that came to be known in later daysas the Garden of Kentucky. Then it was covered with magnificent forestand now they threaded their way through the dense canebrake. Squirrelschattered in every tree top, deer swarmed in the woods, and the buffalowas to be found in almost every glen.
"I do not wonder," said the thoughtful schoolmaster, "that the Indianshould be loath to give up such choice hunting grounds, but, fight ascunningly and bravely as he will, his fate will come."
But Henry, with only the thoughts of youth, could not conceive of thetime when the vast wilderness should be cut down and the game should go.He was concerned only with the present and the words of Mr. Pennypackermade upon him but a faint and fleeting impression.
At last on a sunny morning, whole, well fed, with their treasurepreserved, and all fresh and courageous, they approached Wareville. Thehearts of Henry and Paul thrilled at the signs of white habitation. Theysaw where the ax had bitten through a tree, and they came upon broadtrails that could be made only by white men, going to their work, orhunting their cattle.
But it was Paul who showed the most eagerness. He was whole-hearted inhis joy. Wareville then was the only spot on earth for him. But Henryturned his back on the wilderness with a certain reluctance. A primitivestrain in him had been awakened. He was not frightened now. The dangerof the battle had aroused in him a certain wild emotion which repeateditself and refused to die, though days had passed. It seemed to him attimes that it would be a great thing to live in the forest, and to haveknowledge and wilderness power surpassing those even of Shif'less Sol orRoss. He had tasted again the life of the primitive man and he liked it.
Mr. Pennypacker was visibly joyful. The wilderness appealed to him in away, but he considered himself essentially a man of peace, and Warevillewas becoming a comfortable abode.
"I have had my great adventure," he said, "I have helped to fight thewild men, and in the days to come I can speak boastfully of it, even asthe great Greeks in Homer spoke boastfully of their achievements, butonce is enough. I am a man of peace and years, and I would fain wage thebattles of learning rather than those of arms."
"But you did fight like a good 'un when you had to do it, schoolmaster,"said Ross.
Mr. Pennypacker shook his head and replied gravely:
"Tom, you do right to say 'when I had to do it,' but I mean that I shallnot have to do it any more."
Ross smiled. He knew that the schoolmaster was one of the bravest ofmen.
Now they came close to Wareville. From a hill they saw a thin, bluecolumn of smoke rising and then hanging like a streamer across the clearblue sky.
"That comes from the chimneys of Wareville," said Ross, "an' I guessshe's all right. That smoke looks kinder quiet, as if nothin' out of theway had happened."
They pressed forward with renewed speed, and presently a shout came fromthe forest. Two men ran to meet them, and rejoiced at the sight of themen unharmed, and every horse heavily loaded with salt. Then it was atriumphal procession into Wareville, with the crowd about themthickening as they neared the gates. Henry's mother threw her arms abouthis neck, and his father grasped him by the hand. Paul was in the centerof his own family, completely submerged, and all the space within thepalisade resounded with joyous laugh and welcome, which became all themore heartfelt, when the schoolmaster told of the great danger throughwhich they had passed.
That evening, when they sat around the low fire in his father'shome--the spring nights were yet cool--Henry had to repeat the story ofthe salt-making and the great adventure with the Shawnees. He grewexcited as he told of the battle and the storm, his face flushed, hiseyes shot sparks, and, as Mrs. Ware looked at him, she realized, half inpride, half in terror, that she was the mother of a hunter and warrior.