CHAPTER V--IN DRIPPING RAIN AND DARKNESS
With what consternation Kingdom received the startling intelligenceJohn's words conveyed would never have been guessed from his actions. Hetossed his rough, squirrel-skin cap on the bunk, which was a bed bynight and a lounge by day, and sat down, wiping the perspiration fromhis forehead.
"They're after me, I s'pose, Ree,--blame 'em!" Jerome went on in thesame half whisper. "I just happened to be up here pawing over some ofthe skins stored away so long, and got a glimpse of the rascals amongthe trees. So I've been watching ever since, and I don't want you tothink I crawled up here to hide. Just so much as hint at such a thingand I'll--"
John did not say what he would do, but seeing how he hated being foundin a position which might be taken as a reflection upon his courage, Reewas considerably tempted to suggest that maybe he himself had better getunder the bed. But it was no time for joke-making and the facetiousthought had no more than occurred to him than, unspoken, it wasforgotten.
"Stay up there, John, old boy; see everything you can. I'll stroll outand put Phoebe in the lean-to and gape around some in a natural sort ofway myself. The whole business looks mighty bad. What Fishing Bird saidis all true; I found out that much. I'll tell you about it when I comein."
If John Jerome had been a lad easily alarmed or one likely to fall aready victim to a too lively imagination, Return Kingdom would certainlyhave thought that he had done so in this case when, after unsaddling themare and tying her in her stall, he sat down in the open doorway of thecabin and with apparent indifference scanned the clearing from end toend, without seeing the slightest sign of the Indians' presence.
With his elbow on his knee, his head upon his hand, as if he were merelyresting, he continued to watch the wooded boundary most intently frombetween the fingers which concealed his eyes. He had little fear thatthe Indians would fire upon him from some place of concealment among thetrees; the distance was too great. A white hunter might easily havebrought down a deer at the same number of yards with an exceptionallyheavy charge in his long-barreled rifle, but the Redskins, as Ree wellknew, usually loaded with so little powder, owing to its scarcity withthem, no doubt, that he had little to fear in thus exposing himself solong as the enemy came no nearer than the edge of the woods.
"You're downright sure you saw them, John?" inquired Kingdom, in a lowvoice, rising and entering.
"There he goes! There--did you see that?" came an excited undertone fromJerome as if in answer.
Instantly Kingdom looked out but he saw nothing.
"I vow! I think it was the Seneca!" John whispered. "He ran from the bigbeech near the patch to the clump of little trees at the left. Guess hethought no one was watching but you, and darted out when your back wasturned."
"I'll stay back out of sight a bit, and you look sharp. Maybe we canmake out what they're up to," Kingdom replied. Then, to lead the savagesto suppose that their presence was not suspected, Ree went about makinga bright fire as if to prepare dinner, and soon the smoke from the cabinchimney conveyed to the crouching redskins in hiding along theclearing's edge the very impression he wished them to receive.
Kingdom spent half an hour,--a long half hour of suspense and anxiousthoughts--in putting the room to rights, busying himself in a dozendifferent ways, while John peered closely from the crack, to see throughwhich his eyes had already been strained so long they ached severely.Still he saw nothing. Whether the savages were only extremely wary orwhether, as the boys fervently hoped, they had slipped away and gone assilently as they came could not be known, and continued vigilance wasthe only key to their safety.
All day John Jerome remained concealed in the loft, watching almostconstantly from the narrow crevice which permitted him to see withoutbeing seen. All day Return Kingdom went about from the cabin into thelean-to barn, from the barn into the cabin again, and in and out of theopen door a hundred times on one pretext and another, doing his best tomake his every movement seem composed and natural.
He was certain in his own mind that the savages were watching for John.Perhaps they expected to see him in some fantastic and witch-likeshape,--see him change from a cloud to human form, or turn himself intosome wild beast.
Once a wandering crow flew into the clearing and circled idly over thelittle cornfield. As it flew down to a shock of corn, both boys chancedto notice it and both saw, too, a sudden, rapid movement, and thenanother and another, within the fringe of the woods. Were they thedancing shadows of wind-tossed branches, or were the Seneca and his bandstill near? Quick as the movements were, little as the boys had seen,they knew the answer to the question which occurred to them and thankedthe vagrant crow for the information he had been the means of givingthem.
"Still," said John, "if those fool Delawares get it into their headsthat that crow is me, and like as not Lone-Elk may tell 'em some suchthing, it'll just make the whole lot of them believe more than ever thatI am a sure enough witch."
Full well did Kingdom realize how very correct John's observationprobably was. He was confident that it was the crow which occasioned themoving about among the hiding Indians,--the flitting shadows both he andJohn had seen. He made no answer to his friend's remark at once, butturned over again in his mind a plan which he had been considering allday. It seemed wise. He could think of nothing better.
"John," said Ree at last, "if they stay away till it's dark enough to doit, how would you like to slip away and go up among the rocky ledges fora few days?"
"Hide?" Jerome demanded rather contemptuously.
"Why, no! There's no need to call it hiding," Kingdom answeredtactfully. "Just stay away from the cabin for awhile and give me achance to find out what killed Big Buffalo and get the witch idea out ofthese crazy Delawares' minds."
"But, don't you--"
"I know what you're going to say. It is, don't I think that the fact ofyour being away will make the Indians all the more certain about thiswitchcraft business--make them think you've skedaddled! We can't helpwhat they think. We do know, though, that they're after you and eitherwe've got to pack up and light out, or get this witch idea out of theirheads. Now I think I can do it, in spite of Gentle Maiden's discouragingtalk; if I only have a chance."
On one point, as the discussion continued, hardly above a whisper, bothboys agreed. It was that some time during the night the Indians wouldvisit the cabin. They might come as if in a friendly way just to learnwhether Little Paleface was there; or they might make a determinedattack. The redskins' supposition that Ree was alone, confirmed by allthat they had seen during the day, however, would probably suggest tothem an apparently friendly, but in reality spying, visit.
In whatever way the lads viewed their situation they found so much ofuncertainty surrounding them that at best they must take a chance.
Often and often was it this way in pioneer days. Every importantmovement was encompassed by more or less danger. If a settler needed butto go to mill, or to some frontier trading place for supplies, heconfronted many uncertainties and often left his family in danger, too.Danger was always present, and although only the foolhardy weredisregardful entirely, even the most prudent came by constantassociation to take it as a matter of course.
The latter was the feeling of the two boys from Connecticut. If they hadbeen less accustomed to the alarms of the wilderness, they would, in thepinch in which they now found themselves, most probably have soughtsafety at once at Fort Pitt or perhaps at some of the Ohio riversettlements. If they had done so their story would have been a verydifferent one.
Though he had but reluctantly agreed to Ree's proposal, not wishing toleave his friend to face the situation alone, John found so much tothink about in the prospect of spending the night--and it might be manynights and days--alone in the woods, that the reflection that he alsowould be in danger was almost comforting. He thought with dread of thelong and lonely hours of darkness without even a camp-fire's comfort,but somehow there was something quite interesting about it all, too.Perhaps it was the change
and the excitement, as he planned howstealthily he would steal through the woods, that appealed to him.Certain it is that he found himself anxious to be gone, and watching thedeepening shadows almost impatiently lest something happen to preventhis departure before thick darkness came. His greatest fear lay in thefact that on three sides at least the cabin was, in all probability,still surrounded by Indians. On the fourth or west side was the river.How was he to reach the open woods? How reach the rocky ledges to thenorth and east, among whose deep ravines and clefts and long, narrowpassages and shallow caves he would remain until the rage of the savageshad passed?
A bank of clouds, wide as the eye could see above the treetops, had comeup out of the southwest to meet the sinking sun and, when at last theshadows had filled the valley, darkness came on rapidly. The wind rose,too, and quite before its approach was suspected, a drizzling fall rainhad set in, which gave promise of continuing all night.
The cabin door had stood open all day, but Ree felt he could close itnow without exciting the suspicions of those who watched. As he did so,John clambered quickly down from the low loft and slipped noiselesslythrough the low opening connecting the lean-to stable and the singleroom of the cabin itself. How well he remembered the good purpose thehole had served once before! He remarked to Ree about it with a nervouslittle laugh, recalling that lively battle of their early days in thewoods and how nearly fatal to them both it had been. But Kingdom toldhim to make haste; that they could not know who was watching now, and inthe darkness there might be Indians even within hearing of a whisper.
Ree had improved the opportunity before night came on to fill John'spowder horn and bullet pouch and to pack in the form of a knapsack forhim a blanket and a supply of dried meat and bread. These, with Jerome'srifle, he had previously passed through the "cat hole," as it wascalled, into the stable; but now that John had followed them, hesuddenly found himself wishing that he had planned otherwise. Yetconfident all was for the best, though the wind never had had so much ofawful homesickness in its mournful sounds before, though the rain neverbefore had beaten with such seeming tearful sorrow upon the roof, hewhispered hastily:
"Be careful, old boy. Look for news by the day after tomorrow if youhear nothing before, and be sure that everything will be all right in afew days at most."
"And you come where I am the minute you're in danger, mind," Johnanswered. "Good-bye, Ree, I'm going along the river's edge. It'll beeasy to get past anybody or anything tonight. Good-bye."
Ree would have whispered another word of caution and of farewell, but herealized that John was gone--felt it in his very bones that he wasalone, alone; and the autumn wind blew more mournfully than ever; thepatter of the raindrops sounded twice as melancholy as before.
For many minutes Kingdom intently listened, then throwing wide the cabindoor, made a pretense of emptying just beyond the doorstep the wooden,trough-like bowl which did duty as a wash basin. Though he made a braveshow of unconcern, his heart beat hard and fast. But he was glad to seehow totally dark the night was. One must have been very close indeed ifhe had seen John emerge from the darkness of the lean-to into the equalblackness without, he thought. Surely the Indians, if still watching,would never suspect him going out that way, and not having seen him atall would be very certain that he had been gone for a full day at least,should they call at the cabin and still not discover him.
Despite the storm, the night was warm for so late in the season, andKingdom was glad to have the door ajar while he waited for the firststep which would tell him of the Indians' coming. He had no doubt theywould come, unless their general plan was quite different from what hesupposed it to be. Still, time dragged on bringing no tidings--no soundbut the drip, drip of the rain, the sad sighing of the wind and now andthen the rattle of some loose puncheon on the roof, moved by a passinggust more lively than the rest.
Again and again Ree mentally computed the distance John had probablytraveled in the time that he had been gone. "Now he must be just aboutat the foot of the bluff and creeping along the water's edge, shieldedby the higher bank of the river," he thought at first. "Now he must behalf-way to the woods. Now, if nothing has happened, he is past theworst of the danger and safe among the trees."
And so thinking, encouraged by the absence of any alarming sound,Kingdom breathed easier, and was glad John had gone along the riverinstead of trying to cross the stream just at the cabin's rear and sogain the cover of the trees more quickly, as he had originally proposed,and would have done but for the possibility that even on the oppositebank of the stream there were watchers in hiding.
But safe and certain as John's escape seemed to Ree, the truth was thatduring these past few minutes that young man had been in decidedlygreater danger of losing his scalp than he cared ever to be again.
Creeping on hands and knees close to the wall whose dark backgroundwould help conceal his movements, John had made his way out of the barnand around to the rear of the cabin. Almost flat on his stomach, he drewhimself slowly along the bluff and so descended to the valley where theriver bank was not nearly so steep and comparatively low, rising only afew feet above the level of the water. Crawling cautiously along thenarrow strip of slippery beach between the river's edge and the bank, heprogressed steadily toward the woods. Often he paused to listen, andeven when he moved on again he strained his ears and tried his utmost tosee; but so deep was the darkness that, except for the denser black wallin the distance, which he felt rather than saw was the woods, he wascertain that his situation, so far as seeing went, would be the samewith his eyes shut as with them wide open.
In one of his pauses to hearken closer than he could do when moving,John thought he heard a low, hoarse "Ugh!"--an inarticulate sound, butone which seemed to express impatience, weariness, and "What's the use?"combined. He fancied he could see the shrug of the Indian's shoulderswho, he was sure, was responsible for the guttural noise. For a longtime the boy did not move. The rain came dripping down almostnoiselessly. The wind whispered ever so softly in the lower parts of thevalley and seemed to make no sound whatever save in the woods. To Johnit seemed that he waited an hour, though in fact it was but a fewminutes. Over his shoulder he could see the ray of light from thecabin's open door. How far away it looked! Still that was fortunate. Hewould not have had it nearer for a great deal. Now he would try again.Softly--softly he raised one hand from the ground; softly, softly heraised a foot.
"Ugh!" Again it came; scarcely audible was the sound but the fierce howlof a wolf directly in his ears would not have startled, and frightenedmore the young white man crouching by the water.
The danger seemed nearer now--not more than three yards from him, Johnwas certain--perhaps only two. He felt that he could put out his handand touch the place from which it came. Again he was quiet, so quietthat he breathed in noiseless little gasps, a thing so trying on histhroat and lungs that he would have felt as comfortable had he tried notto breathe at all.
But soon came another sound. Instantly John recognized it--the stealthydipping of the paddle and low murmur of water against the nose of acanoe. Where was the canoe headed? That was the question. Toward him?Either that or up stream. The murmur of the current indicated that thecraft ran not with it but against it. Now he heard the canoe touch thehalf submerged grass close in to shore. It was just abreast of him andwithin two arms' length. Now it grated ever so lightly upon the grasswhich, before the fall rains, had been quite up out of the water.
Again light as a feather came the dip of the paddle, again the softmurmur of the water barely heard above the quiet, even patter of therain. At the same moment John felt himself slipping. Slowly the wetground was giving way beneath him. He must move. It was a case of twodangers, either stand still and slide violently into the river, or moveon a step and--
He must run the risk. Faster and faster he was sliding down. He muststep quickly, and step quickly he did. He made no noise himself, hethought, but some pebble or bit of earth, loosened by his movement,rolled down and dropped with a splash
into the water. Again came themuttered "Ugh!" something lower than before, and oh! Heaven be praised!no longer abreast but some yards from him.
Again came the low dipping of the paddle. They were patrolling the riverfor him, John knew now; but they would not find him. They might paddlesilently up and down the whole night long, if they wished. In fact herather hoped they would, and chuckled inwardly at the thought.
The Trail of the Seneca Page 5