by Morgan Scott
CHAPTER V.
AMBUSHED.
Priscilla Kent, spinster, sharp-visaged, old and eccentric, satknitting by lamplight before the open Franklin stove at which shewarmed her slippered toes. In its hanging cage an old green parrotslept fitfully, occasionally waking to roll a red eye at its mistressor to mutter fretfully like one disturbed by unpleasant dreams. Behindher back a small monkey had silently enlarged a rent in the hairclothcovering of an old spring couch and was industriously extracting andcuriously inspecting the packing with which the couch was stuffed. Thehands of the old-fashioned clock upon the mantel pointed to eightthirty-five.
“Goodness!” said Miss Priscilla, after peering at the clock. “It’sgoin’ on to nine, and Rod ain’t back yet. He said he was just goin’down to the village to mail a letter. I’m afeared he’s gittin’ into thehabit of keepin’ late hours. He takes his natteral reckless dispositionfrom his father’s side, but I do hope the terrible misfortune thatbefell Oscar will be a lesson to him and teach him to shun bad companyand curb his violent temper. If he don’t come purty soon I shall getreal worried.”
Now Miss Priscilla, living as she did on the outskirts of the villagein a small house reached only by a footpath from the main highway,might have worried indeed had she known that the darkness and thebushes bordering that path hid a trio of armed and desperate-lookingsavages who were lying in ambush. The faintest sort of a moon or even afew stars might have shed light sufficient to show that the ambuscaderswere attired in fringed khaki garments and moccasins, and wore upontheir heads bonnets adorned with feathers plucked from the tails ofmore than one unfortunate rooster. Even such a dim light would alsohave revealed that the papier-mache masks which hid their faces addedin a degree to their make-up as Indians, while the red paint whichstained the edges of their wooden tomahawks and scalping knives wascertainly sufficient to produce a shudder. In the parade of“horribles,” on last Independence Day, these warriors had appeared forthe amusement of the admiring populace of Oakdale, and now theircarefully preserved disguises were again being put to use.
Even though they lurked in concealment so near the exposed anddefenseless home of Miss Priscilla, the savages had no murderousdesigns upon the spinster. They were, however, as their guardedconversation indicated, lying in wait for some one whom they expectedsoon to return along that footpath, and protracted lingering in ambushupon a nipping November night was proving far from pleasant, as theirchattering teeth and occasional fretful remarks plainly indicated.
“Ugh!” grunted one, whose voice sounded amazingly like that of PhilSpringer. “I wonder why the hated pup-paleface does not appear?”
“Peace, noble Osceola,” said another, with a shivery chuckle that mighthave come from the lips of Chipper Cooper. “The hated enemy of ourpeople will surely return in time to his wigwam. If he don’t I’ll befroze stiff; for, with only this feather headdress as protection, Ican’t keep my own wig warm to-night.”
“Oh, say, King Philip,” drawled the third, “don’t increase oursufferin’s by any such cracks as that.”
“Enjoy you not my persiflage, Tecumpseh?” asked the one who had beenaddressed as the war chief of the Narragansetts. “’Tis thus by lightand airy jesting we aid the leaden hours to pass on fleeting wings.”
“Heap bub-bad Injun lingo, King Philip,” criticized Osceola. “A realaborigine such as you impersonate wouldn’t talk about leaden hours.Cuc-cut it out.”
“Your slang, Osceola, is somewhat too modern. You don’t s’pose thatsucker got onto our game and fooled us by sneaking back to his teepeeby some other road, do you?”
“If he has,” growled Tecumpseh, “he’ll sartainly have the laugh on us.But, in that case, why hain’t we been informed by Girty, the renegade,who’s trailin’ him?”
“’Sh!” hissed King Philip suddenly. “I hear a signal. Muffle thechin-music and listen.”
A smothered, suppressed sound, like the faint-hearted hooting of anowl, drifted up the dark path, and instantly the three savages werepalpitant with eagerness.
“It’s Hunk—I mean Girty,” spluttered Cooper, rising on his hands andknees. “Where’s the blanket? Get the blanket ready, fellows. Now don’tbungle this job.”
A sound of running feet grew more distinct, and a panting lad camehurrying up the path.
“Hey, Hunk—hey!” called Tecumpseh softly. “Here we be. Is he comin’?”
“Oh, here you are!” gasped the new arrival, as he plunged into theshelter of the pathside thicket and joined them. “Yep, he’s coming. Iwatched him till I saw him start, then I made a short cut by thefootpath past Tige Fletcher’s, and got here first. He’ll be rightalong. I guess the fellers are getting the other end of the game fixedup all right, for I see Sleuth buying phosphorus at the drug store. Oh,say! we’ll scare that bragging coward to death to-night. After we catchhim we’ve got to keep him till they get ready to work the rescueracket.”
OUT FROM COVER LEAPED THE QUARTET, FLINGING THEMSELVESON THE PALEFACE. —Page 55.]
“Oh, we’ll keep him all right if we catch him, and we’ll make it warmfor him, too,” said King Philip. “Come on, Hunk—I mean Girty,—we’lltake the other side of the path, you and I. Osceola and Tecumpseh, havethe blanket ready. Everybody jump at him all together; get him beforehe can scoot. Come on.”
Followed by the one called Girty, who was disguised in rough, loosefitting clothes, a slouch hat and a hideous white-face mask, KingPhilip hustled across the path and ensconced himself close beside a lowclump of cedars. Silence followed, broken presently by the faint, clearsound of a whistled tune, becoming more and more distinct as thewhistler drew near. Their muscles taut, their nerves strung high, thethree redskins and the renegade crouched for the attack upon theirchosen victim, who, wholly unsuspecting, sauntered heedlessly into thetrap.
Out from cover leaped the quartet, flinging themselves upon thepaleface, whose whistled tune was actually cut short by the mufflingfolds of the blanket cast over his head and twisted tight.Nevertheless, although his feet were kicked from beneath him and allfour united in the effort to subdue him, the boy from Texas, squirming,twisting, kicking, fighting desperately to fling off the blanket, gavethem a lively time of it for several minutes. At last, however,smothered and crushed, he began to weaken, and presently his hands weretwisted round behind his back and tied there with a stout piece of ropeproduced from a pocket of King Philip’s khaki war-suit.
“Got him now!” grated Girty viciously, as he gave the captive a punchin the ribs. “Confound him! he kicked me one in the breadbasket thatnear knocked the wind out of me.”
“Stop that!” commanded King Philip authoritatively. “He will pay thebitter penalty when we put him to the torture. Come on, let’s hit thehigh places.”
Still keeping the blanket wrapped about the head and shoulders of thevictim, they lifted him to his feet, held him fast, plunged through thebushes, and struck out across a rough open field in the direction ofTurkey Hill. The captive staggered as he was forced along, but theirfirm hands sustained him, and they paid no heed to the muffled gaspingand groaning which came from beneath the blanket. Over a fence andacross a stone wall he was pushed and dragged, and finally the woods atthe eastern base of Turkey Hill were reached. A short distance into theblackest of the night-shrouded timber they penetrated, halting at lastin a small glade near a bubbling spring.
“This is the place,” whispered King Philip. “We agreed to have him hereat the spring. We’ll have some fun with him while we’re waiting for theother fellers to come.”
“I guess we’d better give him a chance to git a breath,” observedTecumpseh, who was supporting the captive with both arms. “He’s limp asa dish-rag. I cal-late he’s purty near done up.”
In truth, Rodney Grant was nearly smothered, and when the blanket wasremoved he lay gasping painfully upon the cold ground.
“Guard the paleface dog, Osceola,” commanded King Philip. “If heattempts to
escape, crack his skull with your trusty tomahawk and lifthis topknot with your gory scalping knife. Girty, build a fire, andfear not; for neither Daniel Boone nor Simon Kenton are nearer to-nightthan the Dark and Bloody Ground.”
Girty promptly gathered some sticks of wood, scraped together a mass ofdry fallen leaves, and applied a lighted match. A blaze sprang up atonce, illuminating the whole glade.
“My brothers,” said King Philip, “we will now hold a council of war todecide the fate of this wretched paleface captive. As the war chief ofthe Narragansetts, hunted in the swamps like a wild beast, my spiritcries out for vengeance. The most frightful torture we can inflict uponthis wretch will but poorly atone for the suffering he has caused ourpeople; for has he not with his own lips boasted that he tortured threenoble warriors to death by tickling them on the bottoms of their barefeet with feathers? What torture can we devise that will serve assufficient retaliation? I would listen to the wisdom from the lips ofthe great Seminole, Osceola.”
“It is my idea,” said Osceola, “that we ought to soak it to him heapmuch. I’m in favor of skinning him alive.”
“What do you propose, Tecumpseh?”
“I would hang him by the heels over a slow fire. I guess that wouldwarm him up some.”
“Simon Girty, even though your skin is the color of the despisedpaleface, you have renounced your people and become one of us. You areeven more bloodthirsty and cruel than the bloodiest warrior that roamsthe primeval forest. What say you? Spit it out.”
“Burn him to the stake,” growled Girty.
“Good! It shall be done. Lift him and tie him, standing, with his backto a stout sapling. Here’s another hunk of rope.”
The captive, although somewhat recovered, made resistance when theyraised him from the ground and dragged him to the sapling.
“Go ahead with your funny business, you onery coyotes!” he exclaimed.“I opine I know you all, in spite of your rigs; and when I promise toget even a plenty I certain mean it.”
Scoffing at him, they tied him fast, and then piled in a circle abouthis feet a mass of dry leaves and broken branches, taking care,however, that this combustible material did not touch him by a foot ormore.
“We’ll toast him gently at first,” chuckled King Philip. “When a victimis too quickly burned at the stake it is a sad _mistake_, for it endsour fiendish joys all too soon. Apply the torch.”
Girty seized a burning stick of wood and touched it to the leaves nearthe prisoner’s feet. The fire blazed up and began creeping round thecircle of combustible material. The heat of the flames reached thehelpless boy’s face and hands, while the smoke filled his eyes andnostrils, making him choke and gasp. In a moment King Philip,Tecumpseh, Osceola, and Girty, the renegade, were dancing and whoopingaround Rod Grant, flourishing their tomahawks and knives.
From the midst of the enveloping mass of smoke and sparks came a harshvoice, vibrant with intense rage:
“Whoop it up, you skunks! You’d better carry the game through andfinish me, for if you don’t I’ll make every one of you dance adifferent jig before long!”
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