by John Fox
IX
Led by Dave, sometimes by the boy, the four followed the course ofrivers, upward, always except when they descended some mountain whichthey had to cross, and then it was soon upward again. The two Virginialads found themselves, much to their chagrin, as helpless as children,but they were apt pupils and soon learned to make a fire with flint andeven with dry sticks of wood. On the second day Harry brought down abuck, and the swiftness and skill with which Dave and the Kentucky boyskinned and cleaned it greatly astonished the two young gentlemen fromthe James. There Erskine had been helpless, here these two were, andthey were as modest over the transposition as was the Kentucky lad inthe environment he had just left. Once they saw a herd of buffalo andthey tied their horses and slipped toward them. In his excitement Harryfired too soon and the frightened herd thundered toward them.
"Climb a tree!" shouted Erskine dropping his rifle and skinning up ayoung hickory. Like squirrels they obeyed and from their perches theysaw Dave in an open space ahead of them dart for a tree too late.
The buffalo were making straight for them through no purpose but to getaway, and to their horror they saw the big hunter squeezing his hugebody sidewise against a small tree and the herd dashing under them andpast him. They could not see him for the shaggy bodies rushing by, butwhen they passed, there was Dave unhurt, though the tree on both sidesof him had been skinned of its bark by their horns.
"Don't do that again," said Dave, and then seeing the crestfallen terroron Harry's face, he smiled and patted the boy on the shoulder:
"You won't again. You didn't know. You will next time."
Three days later they reached the broad, beautiful Holston River,passing over the pine-crested, white-rocked summit of Clinch Mountain,and came to the last outlying fort of the western frontier. Next daythey started on the long, long wilderness trail toward the Cumberlandrange. In the lowland they found much holly and laurel and rhododendron.Over Wallen's Ridge they followed a buffalo trail to a river that hadbeen called Beargrass because it was fringed with spikes of whiteumbelliferous flowers four feet high that were laden with honey andbeloved by Bruin of the sweet tooth. The land was level down the valley.On the third day therefrom the gray wall of the Cumberland that ran withfrowning inaccessibility on their right gathered its flanks into steepgray cliffs and dipped suddenly into Cumberland Gap. Up this theyclimbed. On the summit they went into camp, and next morning Dave swepta long arm toward the wild expanse to the west.
"Four more days," he cried, "and we'll be there!"
The two boys looked with awe on the limitless stretch of wooded wilds.It was still Virginia, to be sure, but they felt that once they starteddown they would be leaving their own beloved State for a strange land ofunknown beasts and red men who peopled that "dark and bloody ground."
Before sunrise next morning they were dropping down the steep and rockytrail. Before noon they reached the beautiful Cumberland River, and Davetold them that, below, it ran over a great rocky cliff, tumbling intofoam and spray over mighty boulders around which the Indians had tocarry their bark canoes. As they rode along the bank of the stream thehills got lower and were densely thicketed with laurel and rhododendron,and impenetrable masses of cane-brake filled every little valley curve.That night they slept amid the rocky foot-hills of the range, and nextmorning looked upon a vast wilderness stretch of woods that undulated tothe gentle slopes of the hills, and that night they were on the edge ofthe blue-grass land.
Toward sunset Dave, through a sixth sense, had the uneasy feeling thathe was not only being followed but watched from the cliffs alongside,and he observed that Erskine too had more than once turned in his saddleor lifted his eyes searchingly to the shaggy flanks of the hills.Neither spoke to the other, but that night when the hoot of an owlraised Dave from his blanket, Erskine too was upright with his rifle inhis hand. For half an hour they waited, and lay down again, only to beawakened again by the snort of a horse, when both sprang to their feetand crawled out toward the sound. But the heavy silence lay unbroken andthey brought the horses closer to the fire.
"Four more days," he cried, "and we'll be there!"]
"Now I _know_ it was Indians," said Dave; "that hoss o' mine can smellone further'n a rattlesnake." The boy nodded and they took turns onwatch while the two boys slept on till daylight. The trail was broadenough next morning for them to ride two abreast--Dave and Erskine inadvance. They had scarcely gone a hundred yards when an Indian steppedinto the path twenty yards ahead. Instinctively Dave threw his rifle up,but Erskine caught his arm. The Indian had lifted his hand--palm upward."Shawnee!" said the lad, as two more appeared from the bushes. The eyesof the two tidewater boys grew large, and both clinched their gunsconvulsively. The Indian spokesman paid no heed except to Erskine--andonly from the lad's face, in which surprise was succeeded by sorrow andthen deep thoughtfulness, could they guess what the guttural speechmeant, until Erskine turned to them.
They were not on the war-path against the whites, he explained. Hisfoster-father--Kahtoo, the big chief, the king--was very ill, and hismessage, brought by them, was that Erskine should come back to the tribeand become chief, as the chief's only daughter was dead and his only sonhad been killed by the palefaces. They knew that in the fight at thefort Erskine had killed the Shawnee, his tormentor, for they knew thearrow, which Erskine had not had time to withdraw. The dead Shawnee'sbrother--Crooked Lightning--was with them. He it was who had recognizedthe boy the day before, and they had kept him from killing Erskine fromthe bushes. At that moment a gigantic savage stepped from the brush. Theboy's frame quivered, straightened, grew rigid, but he met themalevolent glare turned on him with emotionless face and himself quietlybegan to speak while Harry and Hugh and even Dave watched himenthralled; for the lad was Indian now and the old chief's mantle wasabout his shoulders. He sat his horse like a king and spoke as a king.He thanked them for holding back Crooked Lightning's evil hand,but--contemptuously he spat toward the huge savage--he was not to die bythat hand. He was a paleface and the Indians had slain his white mother.He had forgiven that, for he loved the old chief and his foster motherand brother and sister, and the tribe had always been kind to him. Thenthey had killed his white father and he had gone to visit his kindred bythe big waters, and now he loved _them_. He had fled from the Shawneesbecause of the cruelty of Crooked Lightning's brother whom he had slain.But if the Indians were falling into evil ways and following evilcounsels, his heart was sad.
"I will come when the leaves fall," he concluded, "but Crooked Lightningmust pitch his lodge in the wilderness and be an outcast from the tribeuntil he can show that his heart is good." And then with an imperiousgesture he waved his hand toward the west:
"Now go!"
It was hard even for Dave to realize that the lad, to all purposes, wasactually then the chief of a powerful tribe, and even he was a littleawed by the instant obedience of the savages, who, without a word,melted into the bushes and disappeared. Harry wished that Barbara hadbeen there to see, and Hugh was open-mouthed with astonishment andwonder, and Dave recovered himself with a little chuckle only whenwithout a word Erskine clucked Firefly forward, quite unconsciouslytaking the lead. And Dave humored him; nor was it many hours before thelad ceased to be chief, although he did not wholly become himself againuntil they were near the fort. It was nearing sunset and from a littlehill Dave pointed to a thin blue wisp of smoke rising far ahead from thegreen expanse.
"There it is, boys!" he cried. All the horses were tired except Fireflyand with a whoop Erskine darted forward and disappeared. They followedas fast as they could and they heard the report of the boy's rifle andthe series of war-whoops with which he was heralding his approach.Nobody in the fort was fearful, for plainly it was no unfriendly coming.All were gathered at the big gate and there were many yells and cries ofwelcome and wonder when the boy swept into the clearing on a run,brandishing his rifle above his head, and pulled his fiery black horseup in front of them.
"Whar'd you steal that hoss?" shouted Bud.
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br /> "Look at them clothes!" cried Jack Sanders. And the women--MotherSanders, Mother Noe, and Lydia and Honor and Polly Conrad--gathered abouthim, laughing, welcoming, shaking hands, and asking questions.
"Where's Dave?" That was the chief question and asked by several voicesat the same time. The boy looked grave.
"Dave ain't comin' back," he said, and then seeing the look on Lydia'sface, he smiled: "Dave--" He had no further to go, for Dave's riflecracked and his voice rose from the woods, and he and Harry and Hughgalloped into the clearing. Then were there more whoopings andgreetings, and Lydia's starting tears turned to smiles.
Healthy, husky, rude, and crude these people were, but hearty, kind,wholesome, and hospitable to the last they had. Naturally the youngpeople and the two boys from the James were mutually shy, but it wasplain that the shyness would soon wear off. Before dark the men came in:old Jerome and the Noe brothers and others who were strangers even toDave, for in his absence many adventurers had come along the wildernesstrail and were arriving all the time. Already Erskine and Bud had shownthe two stranger boys around the fort; had told them of the last fightwith the Indians, and pointed out the outer walls pockmarked withbullet-holes. Supper was in the open--the women serving and the menseated about on buffalo-skins and deer-hides. Several times Hugh orHarry would spring up to help serve, until Polly turned on Hugh sharply:
"You set still!" and then she smiled at him.
"You'll spile us--but I know a lot o' folks that might learn manners fromyou two boys."
Both were embarrassed. Dave laughed, Bud Sanders grunted, and Erskinepaid no heed. All the time the interchange of news and experiences wasgoing on. Dave had to tell about his trip and Erskine's races--for thelad would say nothing--and in turn followed stories of killing buffalo,deer, panther, and wildcat during his absence. Early the womendisappeared, soon the men began to yawn and stretch, and the sentinelswent to the watch-towers, for there had been Indian signs that day. Thisnews thrilled the eastern lads, and they too turned into the same bedbuilt out from the wall of one of the cabins and covered with bearskins.And Harry, just before his eyes closed, saw through the open doorErskine seated alone by the dying fire in deep thought--Erskine, theconnecting-link between the tide-water aristocrats and these rudepioneers, between these backwoodsmen and the savage enemies out in theblack encircling wilderness. And that boy's brain was in a turmoil--whatwas to be his fate, there, here, or out there where he had promised togo at the next falling of the leaves?