The Watchers of the Plains

by Cullum, Ridgwell

  It was on the seventh day that a curious change came over the situation. At first it was greeted with delight, but after the novelty had passed, a grave suspicion grew in the minds of the worn and weary defenders. There was not a shot fired. The enemy had withdrawn to their distant camps, and a heavy peace prevailed. But the move was so unaccountable that all sought the reason of it.

  Counsel was taken by the heads of the defence, and the feeling of uneasiness grew. The more experienced conceived it to be the herald of a final, overwhelming onslaught. The younger preferred optimistic views, which they found unconvincing. However, every one took care that advantage was taken of the respite.

  Seth had his supper in one of the upper rooms in company with Parker and Nevil Steyne. He sat at the open window watching, watching with eyes straining and nerves painfully alert. Others might rest, he could not, dared not.

  The sun dipped below the horizon. The brief spring twilight changed from gold to gray. A footstep sounded outside the door of the room where the three men were sitting. A moment later Mrs. Rickards came in. Rosebud’s cousin had changed considerably in those seven days. Her ample proportions were shrunken. Her face was less round, but had gained in character. The education of a lifetime had been crowded into the past week for her. And it had roused a spirit within her bosom, the presence of which she had not even suspected.

  “Rube wants you, Seth,” she announced. “He’s on the north side of the stockade. It’s something particular, I think,” she added. “That’s why he asked me to tell you.”

  With a few words of thanks, Seth accompanied her from the room and moved down-stairs. It was on their way down that Mrs. Rickards laid a hand, already work-worn, upon the man’s arm.

  “They’re advancing again. Seth, shall we get out of this trouble?”

  The question was asked without any expression of fear, and the man knew that the woman wanted a plain, truthful answer.

  “It don’t seem like it,” he answered quietly.

  “Yet, I kind o’ notion we shall.” Then after a pause he asked, “What’s your work now?”

  “The wounded.”

  “Ah! Did you ever fire a gun, ma’am?”

  “No.”

  “Have you a notion to try?”

  “If necessary.”

  “Mebbe it’s going to be.”

  “You can count on me.”

  Wondering at the change in this Englishwoman, her companion left her to join Rube.

  He found the whole garrison agog with excitement and alarm. There was a large gathering at the north side of the stockade, behind the barn and outbuildings. Even in the swift falling darkness it was evident that a big move was going on in the distant Indian camps. Nor did it take long to convince everybody that the move was in the nature of an advance.

  After a long and earnest scrutiny through a pair of old field-glasses, Seth, followed by Rube, made a round of the fortifications. The movement was going on in every direction, and he knew that by morning, at any rate, they would have to confront a grand assault. He had completed the round, and was in the midst of discussing the necessary preparations with Rube, still examining the outlook through the glasses, when suddenly he broke off with a sharp ejaculation. The next moment he turned to the old man below him.

  “Take these glasses, Rube,” he said rapidly, “an’ stay right here. Guess I’m goin’ to drop over. I’ll be back in awhiles. There’s somethin’ movin’ among the grass within gunshot.”

  With a cheery “aye,” Rube clambered to the top of the stockade as the younger man disappeared on the other side.

  Seth landed on his hands and knees and moved out in that manner. Whatever his quarry the plainsman’s movements would have been difficult of detection, for he crept along toward his goal with that rapid, serpentine movement so essentially Indian.

  Rube watched him until darkness hid him from view. Then, stooping low, and scanning the sky-line a few minutes later, he distinctly made out the silhouette of two men standing talking together.

  Seth found himself confronting an Indian. The man was plastered with war-paint, and his befeathered head was an imposing sight. But, even in the darkness, he recognized the broad face and slit-like eyes of the scout, Jim Crow. He was fully armed, but the white man’s gun held him covered. In response to the summons of the threatening weapon, the man laid his arms upon the ground. Then he stood erect, and, grinning in his habitual manner, he waved an arm in the direction of the moving Indians.

  “Wal?” inquired Seth, coldly.

  “I, Jim Crow, come. I know heap. Fi’ dollar an’ I say.”

  Seth thought rapidly. And the result was another sharp inquiry.

  “What is it?”

  “Fi’ dollar?”

  “If it’s worth it, sure, yes.”

  “It heap worth,” replied the scout readily.

  Seth’s comment was short.

  “You’re a durned scoundrel anyway.”

  But Jim Crow was quite unabashed.

  “See, it this,” he said, and for the moment his face had ceased to grin. “I see much. I learn much. See.” He waved an arm, comprehensively taking in the whole countryside. “White men all dead—all kill. Beacon—it gone. Fort—it gone. Farm—all gone. So. Miles an’ miles. They all kill. Soldiers, come by south. They, too, all kill. Indian man everywhere. So. To-morrow they eat up dis farm. So. They kill all.”

  “Wal?” Seth seemed quite unconcerned by the man’s graphic picture.

  At once Jim Crow assumed a look of cunning. His eyes became narrower slits than ever.

  “So. It dis way,” he said, holding up a hand and indicating each finger as he proceeded to make his points. “Black Fox—him angry. Much. Big soldier men come from north. They fight—very fierce, an’ tousands of ’em. They drive Indian back, back. Indian man everywhere kill. So. They come. Chief him much angry. Him say, ‘They come. But I kill all white men first.’ So to-morrow he burn the farm right up, an’ kill everybody much dead.”

  “And the soldiers are near?”

  The white man’s words were coldly inquiring, but inwardly it was very different. A mighty hope was surging through him. The awful suspense had for the moment dropped from his sickening heart, and he felt like shouting aloud in his joy. The Indian saw nothing of this, however.

  “Yes, they near. So. One sun.”

  Seth heard the news and remained silent. One day off! He could hardly realize it. He turned away and scanned the horizon. Jim Crow grew impatient.

  “An’ the fi’ dollar?”

  There was something so unsophisticated in the man’s rascality that Seth almost smiled. He turned on him severely, however.

  “You’ve been workin’ with your countrymen, murderin’ an’ lootin’, an’ now you see the game’s up you come around to me, ready to sell ’em same as you’d sell us. Say, you’re a durned skunk of an Indian!”

  “Jim Crow no Indian. I, Jim Crow, scout,” the man retorted.

  Seth eyed him.

  “I see. You figger to git scoutin’ agin when this is through. Say, you’re wuss’n I thought. You’re wuss’n——”

  He broke off, struck with a sudden thought. In a moment he had dropped his tone of severity.

  “See, I’m goin’ to hand you twenty dollars,” he said, holding the other’s shifty eyes with his own steady gaze, “if you’ve a notion to earn ’em an’ act squar’. Say, I ken trust you if I pay you. You ain’t like the white Injun, Nevil Steyne, who’s bin Black Fox’s wise man so long. After he’d fixed the mischief he gits around to us an’ turns on the Indians. He’s fought with us. An’ he’s goin’ to fight with us to-morrow. He’s a traitor to the Indians. You belong to the whites, and you come to help us when you can. Now, see here. You’re goin’ to make north hard as hell ’ll let you, savee? An’ if the soldiers git here at sundown to-morrow night, I’m goin’ to give you twenty dollars, and I’ll see you’re made head scout agin.”

  Seth waited for his answer. It came in a great to
ne of self-confidence.

  “I, Jim Crow, make soldiers dis night. So.”

  “Good. You act squar’. You ain’t no traitor to the white man, same as Nevil Steyne’s traitor to the Indian, which I guess Black Fox likely knows by this time.”

  “Yes. Black Fox know.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXX

  THE LAST STAND

  Sunrise brought the alarm. The call to arms came in the midst of breakfast. But it came to men who were discussing possibilities with smiling faces, and to women who were no longer held silent by the dread of the last few days. For all had shared in Seth’s news. And if ever words were graven on the hearts of human beings, Seth’s announcement, “Troops are comin’ from the north,” would most certainly have been found inscribed on the hearts of the defenders of White River Farm.

  The attack began as the sun cleared the horizon, and continued all day. Like the first few raindrops of a storm-shower the enemy’s bullets hissed through the air or spattered upon the buildings. Their long-range firing did little harm, for Indians are notoriously bad marksmen.

  The sun mounted; the hours crept by. The attack was general, and each minute diminished the enveloping circle. The Indians had learned many lessons during the past six days, and not the least of them the utter folly of recklessness. Now they crawled upon their bellies through the grass, offering the smallest possible target to the keen-eyed garrison. But even so their death-roll was enormous. The plainsmen held them at their mercy, and it was only their vast numbers that gave them headway. Death had no terrors for them. As each man drooped his head upon the earth another was there to take his place; and so the advance was maintained.

  Noon drew near; the ever-narrowing circle was close upon the farm.

  There was no sound of voices, only the sharp cracking of rifles, or the ping of bullets whistling through the air as the Indians returned the biting fire of their intended victims. It was a life and death struggle against time, and both besieged and besiegers knew it.

  Seth watched with quiet eyes but with mind no less anxious that he did not show it. He had no fixed station like the others. He moved here, there, and everywhere watching, watching, and encouraging with a quiet word, or lending his aid with a shot wherever pressure seemed to be greatest.

  Noon passed. The whole plain was now alive with the slowly creeping foe stealing upon the doomed fort. The head of the advance was within three hundred yards of the stockade.

  Parker was at Seth’s side. Both were aiming at a party of young braves, endeavoring to outstrip their fellows by a series of short rushes. For some moments they silently picked them off, like men breaking pipes in a shooting gallery. The last had just fallen.

  “It’s red-hot this time,” observed the Agent, turning his attention in a fresh direction. “We’ll be lucky if we hold out until to-night.” He was blackened with perspiration and dust. He wore three bandoliers bristling with ammunition over a torn and stained shirt.

  “Guess so,” Seth replied. “This ’ll last another two hours, I’m figgerin’, then we’ll—git busy.”

  A fresh rush had started and the two rifles were kept at work. The Indians fell like ninepins, but there were always more to come on.

  Hargreaves joined them a moment. He, too, was terribly war-worn. He still wore his clerical stock, but it had lost all semblance to its original shape.

  “They’re rushing us everywhere, Seth,” he said.

  Seth replied while he aimed at another daring warrior.

  “I know,” he said, and fired.

  Hargreaves went back to his post. There must be no waste of time. This gentle pastor had little of gentleness about him now. A good Christian in every way, he still had no thought of turning the other cheek when women were in peril.

  By three o’clock in the afternoon the rush became general. The defenders had no time even to keep their rifles cool. A steady fire was kept up, and the Indians were picked off like flies. But the gaps were filled by men beyond all description in their recklessness. Nothing could stem the tide. They drew nearer and nearer like the waters of an oncoming sea. The end was looming. It was very near.

  Suddenly, in response to an order from Seth, some of the women left the shelter of the house and followed him. A few minutes later the well was working, and a chain of buckets was passing up to the roof of the house. A process of saturation was put into operation. The thatch was soaked until the water ran through the ceilings.

  While this was going on a cry came from the northern extremity. The first Indian had reached the stockade and paid the penalty of his temerity.

  Now orders, swift and sharp, passed from lip to lip. Seth was everywhere. The battle would be in full swing in a minute.

  Suddenly Rube and Nevil appeared from a small outhouse rolling two large barrels. These were stood on end and the heads knocked out of them. The pails used for water were requisitioned; a fresh saturation went forward; this time it was the log stockade, and the saturation was being performed with coal-oil.

  The sun was already dropping over the western horizon when a party of the enemy, in face of the fiercest fire, reached the defences. It was the moment Seth had awaited. From the stockade he called out a sharp order to the women in the upper parts of the house, and the loyal creatures, distracted with the nervous tension of inaction, poured out a deadly volley.

  The terrible bombardment of short range weapons had instant effect. The enemy fell back under the withering hail. Headed by Seth a dozen men mounted the ramparts, and the next instant the vast corral formed a circle of leaping flame in the faces of the besiegers. The coal-oil had done its work, and the resinous pine logs yielded to the demands of those who needed their service.

  The defence was consummate. For the great walls were sufficiently far from the buildings to render life possible within the fiery circle.

  Baffled and furious, the Indians fell back before a foe they were powerless to combat. At a respectful distance they watched the conflagration with wonder. The magical abruptness of it filled them for a moment with superstitious awe. But this phase did not last long.

  The gates were the weak spot, and they quickly burnt through. In half an hour they crashed from their hinges, and the lynx-eyed foe beheld the breach thus open before them. They charged to the assault, while inside the defenders stood ready for them just beyond the range of the fierce heat.

  Now was given an example of that strange, fanatical courage for which the red man is so famous. To pass the breach was like passing through a living furnace, for the fire was raging at its full height upon each side. There was no hesitation, no shrinking.

  Those nearest it charged the opening, and as they came were mowed down by the rifles waiting for them. Again and again was the gateway besieged, and the roasting human flesh sent up a nauseous reek upon the smoke-laden air. Nothing could exceed the insensate fearlessness of these benighted creatures, nothing the awful slaughter which the white defenders dealt out.

  But the superior intelligence and skill of the white men served them for only a time against the daring horde. Dozens rushed to the sacrifice, but ever there were more behind asking for the death of their comrades. And inch by inch they drove through the opening to within striking distance. They had abandoned their firearms, and, with hatchet and tomahawk, their natural close-quarter weapons, the final struggle began.

  All that had gone before was as nothing to the fight that waxed now. The howling mob were within the defences, and there was only one possible outcome. The position was one of those when the true spirit of the frontiersman is at its highest and grandest pitch.

  Gradually the riflemen on each flank dropped back before the raging mob.

  The rank, of which Rube was the centre, stood. Here was no rifle practice. Revolvers were at work with the rapidity of maxim guns. As they were emptied, they were passed back and reloaded by the women. But even this was inadequate to hold the mob.

  Suddenly Rube, prompted by that feeling which is in the hea
rt of every man of mighty muscle, abandoned his revolver, and, clubbing his rifle, reverted to the methods of the old savage. He swung it around his head like a flail, and crashed it amongst those directly in front of him. And his action became an example for the rest. Every rifle was clubbed, and by sheer might, and desperate exertion, the defenders cleared a space before them. The great Rube advanced, his rugged face fiercely alight. He could no longer wait for attack; he went to meet it, his giant form towering amidst the crowd, and the rest following.

  The scene was one never to be forgotten. He hewed a road for himself through the living crush, his rifle butt crashing amongst heads recklessly, indiscriminately, but urged with all the might of his giant strength. Seth and the Agent, and Nevil and the minister were his chief supporters. And there was a light in the cleric’s eyes, such as had never been seen there before by any of his flock, and a devilish joy in his heart as he felt the concussion of his blows upon heads that crushed beneath them.

  Back they drove the howling throng, back toward the fiery gateway. It literally crumpled before their furious attack. But as the warriors fell back the progress of the white men slowed and finally ceased altogether, for the masses beyond were pressing, and so packed were the savages that they could not retreat.

  Darkness was settling over the land. The Indians rallied as the first fury of the white men’s onslaught spent itself. The red men, stern fighters at all times, were quick to seize upon the advantage. And their counter was no less furious than the defenders’ assault had been. Step by step, with hatchets gleaming in the yellow light, they regained their lost ground.

  Slowly the white men were beaten back; all but Rube, whose fury was unabated. He had cleared a space for himself, from which the fiercest efforts of the enemy could not dislodge him.

  Shouting to those behind to care for the women, Seth sprang to the old man’s side, and, setting his back to his, stood to help him. Retreat was cut off, but, all unconcerned for everything, like a maddened bull, Rube sought only to slay, to crush, to add to the tally of the dying and dead.