Big Brother: A Story of Indian War
Page 7
CHAPTER VII.
CONFUSED.
The two Indians who had startled Sam, were on the point of entering theold dwelling house, and seemingly were unaccompanied by any others. Samhappened fortunately to be standing in shadow, and they passed withoutseeing him. But what was he now to do? He was at the back of the house,and a high picket fence around the place made it impossible for him toescape by the front-way, towards which the savages had gone. Lookingthrough the door-way, he saw that the pair had passed through the roomnearest him and into the adjoining apartment. He knew that other Indianswere in the neighborhood, and that a dozen of them might wander into theenclosure at any moment. Resolving upon a bold manoeuvre, he steppedlightly into the rear room of the house, and climbed up inside the widemouthed chimney. Whether the Indians heard him or not he never knew, butat any rate he was none too soon in hiding, for he had hardly clearedthe fireplace in his ascent when four or five savages came into the roomand began to demolish the few articles of furniture left in the house.They had got whiskey somewhere, and having drank freely were evennoisier than white men get under the influence of strong drink. Theyremained but a short time, when, setting fire again to the half-burnedhouse, they left the place yelling as savages only can. Sam escaped assoon as he could from his uncomfortable quarters and made his way to thegrove. Mounting his horse he rode away in the direction of the rootfortress, keeping in the woods as well as he could and taking everyprecaution to avoid coming suddenly upon savages.
As he rode only at night, the Indians' almost universal habit ofbuilding camp-fires wherever they stop for the night, helped him toavoid them. When morning came he sought a place deep in the forest, whenhe turned his horse loose to graze all day, while he slept at somedistance from the animal, so that the noise of the beast's stamping andbrowsing might not lead to the discovery of his own whereabouts.
As the evening of the second day of his return came round, Sam foundhimself genuinely sick. His foot and leg were much inflamed, and theexcitement of the preceding night, together with his continued exposureto the drenching dews of the Southern autumn, had brought back his feverwith increased violence, and a very brief experiment convinced him thathe could not go further that night. He mounted his horse, but had riddenless than a mile when he felt a giddiness coming over him and found itnecessary to abandon the effort to ride that night. He could hardly see,and the pain in his head, neck, back and limbs was excruciating. Hedismounted and threw himself down on the ground without taking thetrouble even to separate himself from his horse. The truth is, Sam hadwhat they call in South Carolina country fever, a high type of malarialfever, which stupefies and benumbs its victim almost as soon as itattacks him. The dews in the far South, especially in the fall, are soheavy that the water will drip and even stream off the foliage of thetrees all night, and Sam had been drenched every night during both hisjourneys, having no fire by which to warm himself or dry his clothes.Even without this drenching the poisonous exhalations of the swamps andwoods would doubtless have given him the fever, and as it was he had itvery severely. He laid down again almost under his horse's feet and fellinto a sort of stupor. He knew that his fever required treatment, andthat it would rapidly sap his strength, and the thought came to him:What if he should die there and never get back to the tree fortress? Hewas too sick to care for himself, but the thought of little Judiehaunted his dreams, and he was seized with a semi-delirious impulse toremount his horse and ride straight away to the hiding-place in which hehad left her, regardless of Indians, and of everything else. He dreameda dozen times that he was doing this, and finally, when morning came, heforgot all about the danger of travelling by daylight, and mounting hishorse in a confused, half-delirious way, rode straight out of the woodstowards the open country, which he had hitherto so carefully avoided.