The Spirit of the Border and the Last Trail

by Zane Grey

  “Yes, I know, I know; of course it has,” he replied, taking her hand. “But be brave, Helen, bear up, bear up. Oh! this border is a stern place! Do not think of that poor girl. Come, let me introduce Jonathan’s friend, Wetzel!”

  Helen looked up and held out her hand. She saw a very tall man with extremely broad shoulders, a mass of raven-black hair, and a tanned face. He stepped forward, and took her hand in his huge, horny palm, pressing it, he stepped back without speaking. Colonel Zane talked to her in a soothing voice; but she failed to hear what he said. This Wetzel, this Indian-hunter whom she had heard called “Deathwind of the Border,” this companion, guide, teacher of Jonathan Zane, this borderman of wonderful deeds, stood before her.

  Helen saw a cold face, deathly in its pallor, lighted by eyes sloe-black like glinting steel. Striking as were these features, they failed to fascinate as did the strange tracings which apparently showed through the drawn skin. This first repelled, then drew her with wonderful force. Suffering, of fire, and frost, and iron was written there, and, stronger than all, so potent as to cause fear, could be read the terrible purpose of this man’s tragic life.

  “You avenged her! Oh! I know you did!” cried Helen, her whole heart leaping with a blaze to her eyes.

  She was answered by a smile, but such a smile! Kindly it broke over the stern face, giving a glimpse of a heart still warm beneath that steely cold. Behind it, too, there was something fateful, something deadly.

  Helen knew, though the borderman spoke not, that somewhere among the grasses of the broad plains, or on the moss of the wooded hills, lay dead the perpetrators of this outrage, their still faces bearing the ghastly stamp of Deathwind.

  CHAPTER VI

  Happier days than she had hoped for dawned upon Helen after the first touch of border sorrow. Mabel Lane did not die. Helen and Betty nursed the stricken girl tenderly, weeping for very joy when signs of improvement appeared. She had remained silent for several days, always with that haunting fear in her eyes, and then gradually came a change. Tender care and nursing had due effect in banishing the dark shadow. One morning after a long sleep she awakened with a bright smile, and from that time her improvement was rapid.

  Helen wanted Mabel to live with her. The girl’s position was pitiable. Homeless, fatherless, with not a relative on the border, yet so brave, so patient that she aroused all the sympathy in Helen’s breast. Village gossip was in substance, that Mabel had given her love to a young frontiersman, by name Alex Bennet, who had an affection for her, so it was said, but as yet had made no choice between her and the other lasses of the settlement. What effect Mabel’s terrible experience might have on this lukewarm lover, Helen could not even guess; but she was not hopeful as to the future. Colonel Zane and Betty approved of Helen’s plan to persuade Mabel to live with her, and the latter’s faint protestations they silenced by claiming she could be of great assistance in the management of the house, therefore it was settled.

  Finally the day came when Mabel was ready to go with Helen. Betty had given her a generous supply of clothing for all her belongings had been destroyed when the cabin was burned. With Helen’s strong young arms around her she voiced her gratitude to Betty and Mrs. Zane and started toward the Sheppard home.

  From the green square, where the ground was highest, an unobstructed view could be had of the valley. Mabel gazed down the river to where her home formerly stood. Only a faint, dark spot, like a blur on the green landscape, could be seen. Her soft eyes filled with tears; but she spoke no word.

  “She’s game and that’s why she didn’t go under,” Colonel Zane said to himself as he mused on the strength and spirit of border women. To their heroism, more than any other thing, he attributed the establishing of homes in this wilderness.

  In the days that ensued, as Mabel grew stronger, the girls became very fond of each other. Helen would have been happy at any time with such a sweet companion, but just then, when the poor girl’s mind was so sorely disturbed she was doubly glad. For several days, after Mabel was out of danger, Helen’s thoughts had dwelt on a subject which caused extreme vexation. She had begun to suspect that she encouraged too many admirers for whom she did not care, and thought too much of a man who did not reciprocate. She was happy and moody in turn. During the moody hours she suspected herself, and in her other ones, scorned the idea that she might ever care for a man who was indifferent. But that thought once admitted, had a trick of returning at odd moments, clouding her cheerful moods.

  One sunshiny morning while the May flowers smiled under the hedge, when dew sparkled on the leaves, and the locust-blossoms shone creamy-white amid the soft green of the trees, the girls set about their much-planned flower gardening. Helen was passionately fond of plants, and had brought a jar of seeds of her favorites all the way from her eastern home.

  “We’ll plant the morning glories so they’ll run up the porch, and the dahlias in this long row and the nasturtiums in this round bed,” Helen said.

  “You have some trailing arbutus,” added Mabel, “and must have clematis, wild honeysuckle, and golden glow, for they are all sweet flowers.”

  “This arbutus is so fresh, so dewy, so fragrant,” said Helen, bending aside a lilac bush to see the pale, creeping flowers. “I never saw anything so beautiful. I grow more and more in love with my new home, and friends. I have such a pretty garden to look into, and I never tire of the view beyond.”

  Helen gazed with pleasure and pride at the garden with its fresh green and lavender-crested lilacs, at the white-blossomed trees, and the vine-covered log cabins with blue smoke curling from their stone chimneys. Beyond, the great bulk of the fort stood guard above the willow-skirted river, and far away over the winding stream the dark hills, defiant, kept their secrets.

  “If it weren’t for that threatening fort one could imagine this little hamlet, nestling under the great bluff, as quiet and secure as it is beautiful,” said Helen. “But that charred stockade fence with its scarred bastions and these lowering portholes, always keep me alive to the reality.”

  “It wasn’t very quiet when Girty was here,” Mabel replied thoughtfully.

  “Were you in the fort then?” asked Helen breathlessly.

  “Oh, yes, I cooled the rifles for the men,” replied Mabel calmly.

  “Tell me all about it.”

  Helen listened again to a story she had heard many times; but told by new lips it always gained in vivid interest. She never tired of hearing how the notorious renegade, Girty, rode around the fort on his white horse, giving the defenders an hour in which to surrender; she learned again of the attack, when the British soldiers remained silent on an adjoining hillside, while the Indians yelled exultantly and ran about in fiendish glee, when Wetzel began the battle by shooting an Indian chieftain who had ventured within range of his ever fatal rifle. And when it came to the heroic deeds of that memorable siege Helen could not contain her enthusiasm. She shed tears over little Harry Bennet’s death at the south bastion where, though riddled with bullets, he stuck to his post until relieved. Clarke’s race across the roof of the fort to extinguish a burning arrow, she applauded with clapping hands. Her great eyes glowed and burned, but she was silent, when hearing how Wetzel ran alone to a break in the stockade, and there, with an ax, the terrible borderman held at bay the whole infuriated Indian mob until the breach was closed. Lastly Betty Zane’s never-to-be-forgotten run with the powder to the relief of the garrison and the saving of the fort was something not to cry over or applaud; but to dream of and to glorify.

  “Down that slope from Colonel Zane’s cabin is where Betty ran with the powder,” said Mabel, pointing.

  “Did you see her?” asked Helen.

  “Yes, I looked out of a porthole. The Indians stopped firing at the fort in their eagerness to shoot Betty. Oh, the banging of guns and yelling of savages was one fearful, dreadful roar! Through all that hail of bullets Betty ran swift as the wind.”

  “I almost wish Girty would come again,” said Helen.<
br />
  “Don’t; he might.”

  “How long has Betty’s husband, Mr. Clarke, been dead?” inquired Helen.

  “I don’t remember exactly. He didn’t live long after the siege. Some say he inhaled the flames while fighting fire inside the stockade.”

  “How sad!”

  “Yes, it was. It nearly killed Betty. But we border girls do not give up easily; we must not,” replied Mabel, an unquenchable spirit showing through the sadness of her eyes.

  Merry voices interrupted them, and they turned to see Betty and Nell entering the gate. With Nell’s bright chatter and Betty’s wit, the conversation became indeed vivacious, running from gossip to gowns, and then to that old and ever new theme, love. Shortly afterward the colonel entered the gate, with swinging step and genial smile.

  “Well, now, if here aren’t four handsome lasses,” he said with an admiring glance.

  “Eb, I believe if you were single any girl might well suspect you of being a flirt,” said Betty.

  “No girl ever did. I tell you I was a lady-killer in my day,” replied Colonel Zane, straightening his fine form. He was indeed handsome, with his stalwart frame, dark, bronzed face, and rugged, manly bearing.

  “Bess said you were; but that it didn’t last long after you saw her,” cried Betty, mischief gleaming in her dark eye.

  “Well, that’s so,” replied the colonel, looking a trifle crestfallen; “but you know every dog has his day.” Then advancing to the porch, he looked at Mabel with a more serious gaze as he asked, “How are you today?”

  “Thank you, Colonel Zane, I am getting quite strong.”

  “Look up the valley. There’s a raft coming down the river,” said he softly.

  Far up the broad Ohio a square patch showed dark against the green water.

  Colonel Zane saw Mabel start, and a dark red flush came over her pale face. For an instant she gazed with an expression of appeal, almost fear. He knew the reason. Alex Bennet was on that raft.

  “I came over to ask if I can be of any service?”

  “Tell him,” she answered simply.

  “I say, Betts,” Colonel Zane cried, “has Helen’s cousin cast any more such sheep eyes at you?”

  “Oh, Eb, what nonsense!” exclaimed Betty, blushing furiously.

  “Well, if he didn’t look sweet at you I’m an old fool.”

  “You’re one any way, and you’re horrid,” said Betty, tears of anger glistening in her eyes.

  Colonel Zane whistled softly as he walked down the lane. He went into the wheelwright’s shop to see about some repairs he was having made on a wagon, and then strolled on down to the river. Two Indians were sitting on the rude log wharf, together with several frontiersmen and rivermen, all waiting for the raft. He conversed with the Indians, who were friendly Chippewas, until the raft was tied up. The first person to leap on shore was a sturdy young fellow with a shock of yellow hair, and a warm, ruddy skin.

  “Hello, Alex, did you have a good trip?” asked Colonel Zane of the youth.

  “H’are ye, Colonel Zane. Yes, first-rate trip,” replied young Bennet. “Say, I’ve a word for you. Come aside,” and drawing Colonel Zane out of earshot of the others, he continued, “I heard this by accident, not that I didn’t spy a bit when I got interested, for I did; but the way it came about was all chance. Briefly, there’s a man, evidently an Englishman, at Fort Pitt, whom I overheard say he was out on the border after a Sheppard girl. I happened to hear from one of Brandt’s men, who rode into Pitt just before we left, that you had new friends here by that name. This fellow was a handsome chap, no common sort, but lordly, dissipated, and reckless as the devil. He had a servant traveling with him, a sailor, by his gab, who was about the toughest customer I’ve met in many a day. He cut a fellow in bad shape at Pitt. These two will be on the next boat, due here in a day or so, according to river and weather conditions, an’ I thought, considerin’ how unusual the thing was, I’d better tell ye.”

  “Well, well,” said Colonel Zane reflectively. He recalled Sheppard’s talk about an Englishman. “Alex, you did well to tell me. Was the man drunk when he said he came west after a woman?”

  “Sure he was,” replied Alex. “But not when he spoke the name. Ye see I got suspicious, an’ asked about him. It’s this way: Jake Wentz, the trader, told me the fellow asked for the Sheppards when he got off the wagon train. When I first seen him he was drunk, and I heard Jeff Lynn say as how the border was a bad place to come after a woman. That’s what made me prick up my ears. Then the Englishman said: ‘It is eh? By God! I’d go to hell after a woman I wanted. An’ Colonel, he looked it, too.”

  Colonel Zane remained thoughtful while Alex made up a bundle and forced the haft of an ax under the string; but as the young man started away the colonel suddenly remembered his errand down to the wharf.

  “Alex, come back here,” he said, and wondered if the lad had good stuff in him. The boatman’s face was plain, but not evil, and a close scrutiny of it rather prepossessed the colonel.

  “Alex, I’ve some bad news for you,” and then bluntly, with his keen gaze fastened on the young man’s face, he told of old Lane’s murder, of Mabel’s abduction, and of her rescue by Wetzel.

  Alex began to curse and swear vengeance.

  “Stow all that,” said the colonel sharply. “Wetzel followed four Indians who had Mabel and some stolen horses. The redskins quarreled over the girl, and two took the horses, leaving Mabel to the others. Wetzel went after these last, tomahawked them, and brought Mabel home. She was in a bad way, but is now getting over the shock.”

  “Say, what’d we do here without Wetzel?” Alex said huskily, unmindful of the tears that streamed from his eyes and ran over his brown cheeks. “Poor old Jake! Poor Mabel! Damn me! It’s my fault. If I’d ’a done right an’ married her as I should, as I wanted to, she wouldn’t have had to suffer. But I’ll marry her yet, if she’ll have me. It was only because I had no farm, no stock, an’ only that little cabin as is full now, that I waited.”

  “Alex, you know me,” said Colonel Zane in kindly tones. “Look there, down the clearing half a mile. See that green strip of land along the river, with the big chestnut in the middle and a cabin beyond. There’s as fine farming land as can be found on the border, eighty acres, well watered. The day you marry Mabel that farm is yours.”

  Alex grew red, stammered, and vainly tried to express his gratitude.

  “Come along, the sooner you tell Mabel the better,” said the colonel with glowing face. He was a good matchmaker. He derived more pleasure from a little charity bestowed upon a deserving person, than from a season’s crops.

  When they arrived at the Sheppard house the girls were still on the porch. Mabel rose when she saw Alex, standing white and still. He, poor fellow, was embarrassed by the others, who regarded him with steady eyes.

  Colonel Zane pushed Alex up on the porch, and said in a low voice: “Mabel, I’ve just arranged something you’re to give Alex. It’s a nice little farm, and it’ll be a wedding present.”

  Mabel looked in a bewildered manner from Colonel Zane’s happy face to the girls, and then at the red, joyous features of her lover. Only then did she understand, and uttering a strange little cry, put her trembling hands to her bosom as she swayed to and fro.

  But she did not fall, for Alex, quick at the last, leaped forward and caught her in his arms.

  * * *

  That evening Helen denied herself to Mr. Brandt and several other callers. She sat on the porch with her father while he smoked his pipe.

  “Where’s Will?” she asked.

  “Gone after snipe, so he said,” replied her father.

  “Snipe? How funny! Imagine Will hunting! He’s surely catching the wild fever Colonel Zane told us about.”

  “He surely is.”

  Then came a time of silence. Mr. Sheppard, accustomed to Helen’s gladsome spirit and propensity to chatter, noted how quiet she was, and wondered.

  “Why are you so still?” />
  “I’m a little homesick,” Helen replied reluctantly.

  “No? Well, I declare! This is a glorious country; but not for such as you, dear, who love music and gaiety. I often fear you’ll not be happy here, and then I long for the old home, which reminds me of your mother.”

  “Dearest, forget what I said,” cried Helen earnestly. “I’m only a little blue to-day; perhaps not at all homesick.”

  “Indeed, you always seemed happy.”

  “Father, I am happy. It’s only—only a girl’s foolish sentiment.”

  “I’ve got something to tell you, Helen, and it has bothered me since Colonel Zane spoke of it to-night. Mordaunt is coming to Fort Henry.”

  “Mordaunt? Oh, impossible! Who said so? How did you learn?”

  “I fear ’tis true, my dear. Colonel Zane told me he had heard of an Englishman at Fort Pitt who asked after us. Moreover, the fellow answers the description of Mordaunt. I am afraid it is he, and come after you.”

  “Suppose he has—who cares? We owe him nothing. He cannot hurt us.”

  “But, Helen, he’s a desperate man. Aren’t you afraid of him?”

  “Not I,” cried Helen, laughing in scorn. “He’d better have a care. He can’t run things with a high hand out here on the border. I told him I would have none of him, and that ended it.”

  “I’m much relieved. I didn’t want to tell you; but it seemed necessary. Well, child, good-night, I’ll go to bed.”

  Long after Mr. Sheppard had retired Helen sat thinking. Memories of the past, and of the unwelcome suitor, Mordaunt, thronged upon her thick and fast. She could see him now with his pale, handsome face, and distinguished bearing. She had liked him, as she had other men, until he involved her father, with himself, in financial ruin, and had made his attentions to her unpleasantly persistent. Then he had followed the fall of fortune with wild dissipation, and became a gambler and a drunkard. But he did not desist in his mad wooing. He became like her shadow, and life grew to be unendurable, until her father planned to emigrate west, when she hailed the news with joy. And now Mordaunt had tracked her to her new home. She was sick with disgust. Then her spirit, always strong, and now freer for this new, wild life of the frontier, rose within her, and she dismissed all thoughts of this man and his passion.