XX
IN WHICH WE STRIVE AS MEN TO RUN A RACE
It was some time before the affrighted black could give us any connectedaccount of what had befallen; and when at length the story was told, allsave the principal fact of the carrying off of Mistress Margery and hermaid was hazy enough.
Pruned down to the simple statement of the fact, and with all thefoolish terror chatterings weeded out, his news came to this: the partyof homing revelers had been ambushed and waylaid at the fording of acreek some miles to the southward, and in the mellay the young mistressand her tire-woman had been captured.
So far as any actual witness of the eye went, the negro had seennothing. There had been a volley fire from the thicket-belly of blackdarkness, a swarming attack to a chorus of Indian yells, shouts from themen, shrieks from the women, confusion worse confounded in which thenewsbearer himself had been unhorsed and trodden under foot. After whichhe knew no more till some one--his master, as he thought--kicked himalive and bade him mount and ride post-haste on the backward track toAppleby Hundred, crying the news as he went that Mistress Margery Stairand her maid had been kidnapped by the Indians.
Pinned to the mark and questioned afresh, the slave could not affirm ofhis own knowledge that any one had been killed outright. Pinned again,it proved to be only a guess of his that the one who had given him hisorders was his master. In the darkness and confusion he could make sureof nothing; had made sure of nothing save his own frenzy of terror andthe wording of the message he carried.
When we had quizzed him empty we hoisted him upon his beast and sent himonce more a-gallop on the road to Appleby Hundred. That done, a hurriedcouncil of war was held in which we four fell apart, three against one.Jennifer was for instant pursuit, afoot and at top speed; and EphraimYeates and the Catawba, abandoning their own emprise apparently withouta second thought, sided indifferently with him. For my part, I was forgoing back to prepare in decent order for a campaign which shouldpromise something more hopeful than the probability of speedyexhaustion, starvation and failure.
We grew hot upon it, Richard and I; he with a young lover's unreckingrashness, and I with an old campaigner's foresight to make me stubborn;and Ephraim Yeates and the Catawba drew aside and let us have it out.Dick argued angrily that time was the all-important item, and was notabove taunting me bitterly, flinging the reproach of cold-blooded agein my face and swearing hotly that I knew not so much as the alphabet oflove.
The taunts were passed in silence, since I would set them over againstthe irrevocable wrong I had done him, saying in my heart that nothing hecould say or do should again tempt me to give place to the devil ofjealous wrath.
But when he would give me space I set the hopelessness of pursuit, allunprepared as we were, in plainest speech. The chase might well be along one, and we were but scantily armed and without provisions. Thehunter's rifle must be our sole dependence for food, and in the summerheat we would be forced to kill daily. On the other hand, with horses, abag of corn apiece, firearms and ammunition, we should be in some morehopeful case; and, notwithstanding the delay in starting, could make farbetter speed.
For all the good it did I might have spared my pains and saved mybreath. Jennifer broke me in the midst, crying out that I was even nowkilling the precious minutes; and so our ill-starred venture had itslaunching in the frenzied haste that seldom makes for speed. One smallconcession I wrung out of his impatience--this with the help of Yeatesand the Catawba. We went back to the breakfast camp, rekindled the fire,and cooked what we could keep and carry of the venison.
In spite of this delay it was yet early in the forenoon of thatmemorable Sunday, the twentieth of August, when we set our facessouthward and took up the line of march to the ford of the ambushment.By now the sky was wholly overcast, and the wind was blowing fresher inthe tree-tops; but though as yet the storm held off, the air was thecooler for the threatened rain and this was truly a blessing, since theold hunter put us keen upon our mettle to keep pace with him.
We marched in Indian file, Ephraim Yeates in the lead, Uncanoola at hisheels, and the two of us heavier-footed ones bringing up the rear.Knowing the wooded wilderness by length and breadth, the old man held onthrough thick and thin, straight as an arrow to the mark; and so we hadnever a sight of the road again till we came out upon it suddenly at theford of violence.
Here I should have been in despair for the lack of any intelligible hintto point the way; and I think not even Jennifer, with all his woodcraft,could have read the record of the onfall as Yeates and the Catawba did.But for all the overlapping tangle of moccasin and hoof prints neitherof these men of the forest was at fault, though ten minutes later eventheir skill must have been baffled, inasmuch as the first few spittingraindrops were pattering in the tree-tops when we came upon the ground.
"That's jest about what I was most afeard of," said the borderer, with ahasty glance skyward. "Down on your hunkers, Chief, and help me readthis sign afore the good Lord takes to sending His rain on the jest andthe unjest," and therewith these two fell to quartering all the groundlike trained dogs nosing for a scent.
We stood aside and watched them, Richard and I, realizing that we wereof small account and should be until, perchance, it should come to thelaying on of hearty blows. After the closest scrutiny, which tookaccount of every broken twig and trampled blade of grass, this prolongeduntil the rain was falling smartly to wash out all the foot-prints inthe dusty road, Yeates and the Indian gave over and came to join usunder the sheltering branches of an oak.
"'Tis a mighty cur'is sign; most mighty cur'is," quoth the hunter,slinging the rain-drops from his fur cap and emptying the pan of hisrifle, not upon the ground, as a soldier would, but saving everyprecious grain. "Ez I allow, I never heerd tell of any Injuns a-doingthat-away afore; have you, Chief? hey?"
The Catawba's negative was his guttural "Wah," and Ephraim Yeates,having carefully restored the final grain of the priming to hispowder-horn, proceeded to enlighten us at some length.
"Mighty cur'is, ez I was a-saying. Them Injuns fixed up an ambush_ment_,blazed in a volley at the clostest sort o' range, and followed it upwith a tomahawk and knife rush,--lessen that there Afrikin was too plumbdaddled to tell any truth, whatsomedever. And, spite of all this hererampaging, they never drawed a single drop o' blood in the wholeenduring scrimmage! Mighty cur'is, that; ain't it, now? And that ain'tall: some o' them same Injuns, or leastwise one of 'em, was a-wearingboots with spurs onto 'em. What say, Chief?"
Uncanoola held up all the fingers of one hand and two of the other."Sebben Injun; one pale-face," he said, in confirmation.
I looked at Richard, and he gave me back the eyeshot, with a heartycurse to speed it.
"Falconnet!" said he, by way of tail-piece to the oath; and I nodded.
"'Twas that there same hoss-captain, sure enough, ez I reckon," drawledYeates. "Maybe one o' you two can tell what-all he mought be a-drivingat."
Jennifer shook his head, and I, too, was silent. 'Twas out of all reasonto suppose that the baronet would resort to sheer violence and make aterrified captive of the woman he wanted to marry. It was a curiousmystery, and the hunter's next word involved it still more.
"And yit that ain't all. Whilst some o' the Injuns was a-whooping it upacrost the creek, a-chasing the folks that was making tracks for theircity o' refuge, t'others run the two gals off into the big woods at theside o' the road. Then Mister Hoss-Captain picks up the Afrikin, chuckshim on a hoss and sends him a-kiting with his flea in his ear; afterwhich he climbs _his_ hoss and makes tracks hisself--not to ketch upwith the gals, ez you mought reckon, but off yon way," pointing acrossthe creek and down the road to the southward.
Jennifer heard him through, had him set it all out again in plainestfashion, and after all could only say: "You are sure you have thestraight of it, Eph?"
The borderer appealed to Uncanoola. "Come, Chief; give us the wo'th ofyour jedgment. Has the old Gray Wolf gone stun-blind? or did he readthem sign like they'd ort to be read?"
"Wah! the Gray Wolf has sharp eye--sharp nose--sharp tongue, sometime.Sign no can lie when he read 'um."
Jennifer turned to me. "What say you, Jack? 'Tis all far enough beyondme, I'll confess."
I was as much at sea touching the mystery as he was; yet the thing to doseemed plain enough.
"Never mind the baronet's mystery; 'tis Mistress Margery's hazard thatconcerns us," I would say. And then to Ephraim Yeates: "Will this rainkill the trail, think you?"
He shook his head dubiously. "I dunno for sartain; 'twill make a heap o'differ' if they was anyways anxious to hide it. Ez it starts out, withthe women a-hossback, 'tis plain enough for a blind man to lift on therun."
"Then let us be at it," said I. "We can very well afford to let themystery untangle itself as we go." And with this the pursuit began inrelentless earnest.
The trail of the two horses ridden by Margery and her woman cut a rightangle with the road, turning northwest along the left bank of thestream; and, despite the rain, which was now pouring steadily even inthe thick wood, the hoof-prints were so plainly marked that we couldfollow at a smart dog-trot.
In this speeding the old hunter and the Indian easily outweariedJennifer and me. They both ran with a slow swinging leap, like theracking gait, half pace, half gallop, of a well-trained troop horse.Mile after mile they put behind them in these swinging bounds; and when,well on in the afternoon, we stopped to eat a snack of the cold meat andto slake our thirst at one of the many rain pools, I was fain to followJennifer's lead, throwing myself flat on the soaking mold to pant andgasp and pay off the arrears of breathlessness.
This breathing halt was of the briefest; but before the race beganagain, Ephraim Yeates took time to make a careful scrutiny of the trail,measuring the stride of the horses, and looking sharply on the briarsfor some bit of cloth or other token of assurance. When we came up withhim he was mumbling to himself.
"Um-hm; jes' so. They was a-making tracks along hereaway, sartain, sure;larruping them hosses to a keen jump, lickity-split. Now, says I tomyself, what's the tarnation hurry? Ain't they got all the time there isto get where they're a-going, immejitly, _if_ not sooner?" Then heturned upon me. "Cap'n John, can't you and the youngster lay your headsside and side and make out what-all this here hoss-captain mought be upto? It do look like he had some sort o' hatchet to grind, a-sending thatAfrikin back to raise a hue and cry, and then a-letting his Injuns leavea trail like this here that any tow-head boy from the settlemints couldfollow at a canter."
Richard said he could never guess the meaning of it all; and my mind wasto the full as blank as his. I made sure some deep-laid plot was at thebottom of the mystery; but we had measured many weary miles in thewilderness, and the plotter's trap had been fairly baited, set andsprung, before the lightning flash of explication came to show us allits devilish ingenuity.
But now "Forward," was the word, and we fell in line again, and againthe tireless running of the two guides stretched and held us on the rackof weariness. Happily for us two who were out of training, the rainy-daydusk came early; and though Yeates and the Indian, running now withtheir bodies bent double and their noses to the ground, held on longafter Richard Jennifer and I were bat-blind for any seeing of thehoof-prints, the end came at length and we bivouacked as we were,fireless, and with the last of the cooked ration of deer's meat for ascanty supper.
After the meal, which was swallowed hastily in the silence of utterfatigue, we scooped a hollow in a last year's leaf bed and lay down tosleep, wet to the skin as any four half-drowned water rats, and to thefull as miserable.
Fagged as I was, 'twas a long time before sleep came to make me forget;a weary interval fraught with dismal mental miseries to march step andstep with the treadmill rackings of the aching muscles. What grievoushap had befallen my dear lady? and how much or how little was I to blamefor this kidnapping of her by my relentless enemy? Was it a sharpforeboding of some such resort to savage violence that had tortured herinto sending the appeal for help?
With this, I fell to dwelling afresh upon the wording of her message,hungering avidly for some hint to give me leave to claim it for my own.Though I made sure she did not love me,--had never loved me as otherthan a make-shift confidant, whose face and age would set him far beyondthe pale of sentiment,--yet I had hoped this friendship-love would giveher leave to call upon me in her hour of need.
Was I the one to whom her message had been sped? Suddenly I rememberedwhat Richard had said; that the arrow was the Catawba's. If Uncanoolawere the bearer of the parchment, he would surely know to whom he hadbeen sent.
His burrow in the leaf bed chanced to be next to mine, and I could hearhis steady breathing, light and long-drawn, like that of some wildcreature--as, truly, he was--sleeping with all the senses alert tospring awake at a touch or the snapping of a twig. A word would arousehim, and a single question might resolve the doubt.
I thought of all this, and yet, when I would have wakened the Indian, ashaking ague-fit of poltroon cowardice gave me pause. For while thedoubt remained there was a chance to hope that she had sent to me,making the little cry for help a token, not of love, perchance, but ofsome dawning of forgiveness for my desperate wronging of her. And inthat hesitant moment it was borne in upon me that without this slenderchance for hope I should go mad and become a wretched witling at a timewhen every faculty should be superhuman sharp and strong for spending inher service.
So I forebore to wake the Indian; and following out this thought ofservice fitness, would force myself to go to sleep and so to gatherfresh strength for the new day's measure.
The Master of Appleby Page 22