CHAPTER V.RIFLE, FIRE AND LASSO.
Severalminutes of silence followed the thud of the Pawnee bullets.
Then the voice of a white man came from the brink of the stream.
“Shackelford!”
The trapper glanced knowingly at George Long, and ascended to the uncouth dormitory. In the gable that lookedtoward the besiegers a small window was situated, and to this the frontiersman applied his face.
“Well, what do you want, Kyle?”
“Reports which reached my ears say that you slew eight Pawnees last night. Is it true?”
“I suppose it is,” was the reply, “though I counted but seven.”
“I fear that your deeds have sealed your doom.”
“You don’t fear any such thing, Tom Kyle.”
The renegade bit his lip, and said a few words to Red Eagle, who sat on his horse near by.
“Shackelford, our errand here can not be a mystery to you,” he said, turning toward the cabin again.
“It is not, Tom.”
“The odds are against you!”
“Decidedly so.”
“Then you had best surrender without further bloodshed.”
“What are your terms?”
“I have left all to the Indians; but I will do all I can for you.”
“We won’t surrender.”
“Consider, man.”
“We won’t surrender.”
“Shackelford—”
“We won’t surrender!we’ll fight you and your cutthroats, Tom Kyle, so help me God!”
Then the renegade consigned the inmates of the cabin to the depths of perdition, and turned to his followers again.
The trapper remained for a few moments at the gable loop-hole, and then ducked his head and disappeared.
“Did you hear everything, George?” he asked, as he struck the ground before the youth.
“Yes.”
“Do you want to surrender?”
“No!”
Theyoung lips closed emphatically behind the monosyllable, and additional emphasis flashed from the young speaker’s dark eyes.
“You’re a man, by Joshua!” exclaimed Frontier Shack, grasping the boy’s hand. “We’ll fight the hounds to-day, and when night comes we’ll do suthing else, probably.”
After his failure in effecting a surrender, Tom Kyle moved his forces further up-stream, and halted just beyond rifle-shot of the cabin.
He evidently did not care to trust himself within range of Shackelford’s rifle, nor was Red Eagle loth to leave the spot where they had first halted.
From his dormitory Shackelford could note the movements of his foes. He saw them lounging about carelessly, or overhauling their ammunition-pouches, and cleaning their weapons. He knew that they were preparing for the darkness, that his island home would then be invested, and stormed by the treacherous two hundred.
“I half expected that the hounds would wait till night,” he said, addressing the boy adventurer, who was engaged in cleaning the chambers of a revolver. “Tom Kyle is not going to attempt to reach the island so long as I can cover his heart; but if they get to this grove to-night, they’ll hear the biggest noise they ever heard.”
The youth looked up, inquiringly.
A minute later the trapper rose and unbarred the door. Opening it boldly, he stepped out, and, in full view of the savages, walked to a giant cottonwood which stood perhaps fifty feet from the cabin.
His movements, which, to say the least, were mysterious, caused the Indians to suspend operations, and watch him.
He walked around the cottonwood several times, not appearing to notice the Indians, then suddenly hastened to the cabin again.
He smiled as he barricaded the door, and George Long could not restrain his curiosity.
“What do such movements mean?” he asked.
“You’ll see to-night if they come to the island.”
“They will come; I feel certain of that.”
“Of course they will.”
The day wore wearily on and as the shades of night gathered about the scene, the Pawnee band seemed to gain new life. Ammunition-pouches were carefully inspected, andadjusted for the last time, and Tom Kyle was seen in the midst of eight or ten sub-chiefs, holding, as it were, a pacific council of war.
When, at last, the council broke up, a young Pawnee, bearing a white fabric on the point of his lance, ran down the river.
Opposite the center of the wooded cove, he hesitated.
“Pale faces give up now?”
“No!”
The undaunted reply caused the brave to whirl on his heel and dart back to his brethren.
Then night, as if eager to witness appalling deeds, suddenly swooped like a black eagle down upon the earth.
“They’re swimming the river!” said Frontier Shack, from the loop-hole in the gable. “They were afraid to trust their horses among the sand. Now look out, boy, for they’ve reached my island.”
For the last time Shackelford descended from the gable, and prepared for the attack.
Large numbers of the attacking party had remained on the river banks for the purpose of intercepting the white-faces’ escape, should they be so fortunate as to leave the island safely.
The cabin was almost noiselessly surrounded; but the cautious footsteps had been heard by Massasoit, and the faithful animal would follow them around the limits of the hut, with flashing eyes and bristling back.
“I hate this suspense,” said George Long, looking up into the trapper’s face. “I wish the ball would open.”
“They’re hatching up something devilish. I know Tom Kyle, and what he can’t think of, that Red Eagle can.”
At this juncture Massasoit sprung to one corner of the hut with a fierce growl.
“The devils’ work has commenced,” said Shackelford, calmly. “They’re burning us out!”
Without another word he began to ascend to the eaves, with the aid of the rough logs that formed the cabin. George Long watched him by the fire, that cracked in the center of the room.
Presently he heard the report of a pistol, and the soundof a heavy body falling on brushwood quickly followed.
“One Pawnee won’t kindle any more fires,” said Frontier Shack, descending. “First blood for Ote Shack. Next!”
A wild yell drowned his last words, and again a volley was poured against the door.
The hunter sprung from the logs and snatched a torch from the fire.
“Dash me if they ain’t standing around the tree!” he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up with fierce triumph. “I’ll make a scatteration ’mong their ranks now, by Joshua! I will!”
He sprung toward a heavy tinned box which sat in one corner of the apartment, and threw back the lid with his left hand. The next moment he stepped back, thrusting the torch into the box as he executed the movement. A slight noise, like the explosion of a few grains of powder succeeded, and a white smoke rose from the recesses of the box.
But the noise that followed the explosion of the fuse was most terrific. It shook the cabin from gable to foundation and drove our young buffalo-hunter from the crevice by which he was standing. His eyes, too, were blinded by a bright light, and before the noise died away he heard the shrieks of Indians, frightened, wounded, and dying!
“By Joshua! it set the tree on fire!” cried the trapper, gazing at the large cottonwood, now terribly lacerated by the mine which so long had slept in its recesses.
From behind the magnificent trees, the Pawnees were now raining balls upon the cabin, and burning arrows were hissing toward the dry roof.
The destruction must have been fearful, for the burning tree revealed more than a score of forms, mangled and motionless, on the ground, while others, badly injured, were crawling from the spot.
“Listen!”
The dry stuff that formed the roof of the cabin was crackling beneath the blaze of the fiery arrows, and the object of the Pawnees to fire the cabin seemed at last attained.
“They’ll burn us out.”
“Yes; the old house is bound to go, and we’re going, too, presently.”
“Going where?”
“To Fort Kearny, mebbe; p’r’aps to the Pawnee village.”
“As prisoners?”
“Yes, if we go thar at all,to-night.”
Then the trapper suddenly walked into the apartment which had served as Tecumseh’s stable.
Three minutes later he returned and startled the youth with cocked rifle near the door.
“Did you shoot?”
“No.”
“But you heard the report?”
“Yes; it seemed to come from a spot above us.”
Frontier Shack lifted his eyes, and placed his index finger on his lip.
Somebody was on the burning roof.
Frontier Shack climbed up the logs, and waited at the aperture between the eave and the uppermost log, for the person on the roof.
Presently he heard the unknown person descending, and sustaining himself with one hand, the trapper cocked a revolver.
But he hesitated; the person might be a friend, for the shot, which had been fired from the roof, had killed an Indian, and who among the Pawnees would attempt such a deed?
The unknown let himself over the eave hurriedly yet cautiously.
The legs first descended, then came the body, and when the head appeared between the trapper and the stars, a low hiss sounded:
“I hit him between the eyes; the Gold Girl is mine now!”
Frontier Shack raised the pistol, but the head had disappeared before he could scatter the brains he wished to.
“Tom Kyle was on the roof.”
“Tom Kyle?” echoed George Long.
“Yes, and he shot an Indian, too.”
“What can he mean?”
“A girl’s at the bottom of the thing,” said Shackelford. “He shot somebody important, for listen at them Indians.”
Loud cries, which indicated the death of some Indian of distinction, came from beyond the burning tree, and dark forms could be seen moving wildly in every direction.
“Dash me if he hasn’t audacity!” suddenly exclaimed Shackelford, who was watching the savages from a crack near the door. “After killing the Pawnee, Tom Kyle walks right among ’em, no doubt swearing I plugged ’im.”
Almost wholly absorbed in the scene before them, the twain continued to look until a burning brand fell at their feet.
“By Joshua! it’s getting too hot here, boy. Now for Fort Kearney or Pawneedom.”
“I’m ready.”
“We must hurry. The Indians won’t do much till the chief dies, I calculate; but we must move rapidly.”
For a moment the trapper disappeared in Tecumseh’s stable, and when he faced the youth again he held a light boat in his arms.
“I hev two boats, but, of course, the dirty dogs found the one at the western point of the island,” he said, standing the canoe on end against the logs and clambering to the eaves. “The renegade’s bullet has drawn the Indians from behind the cabin, and now is the accepted time.”
His strong hands tore the heated roof timbers aside, and almost in less time than I can record the fact, the couple had safely landed themselves with the boat on the island.
George Long breathed freer.
Frontier Shack picked up the canoe and bounded toward the eastern extremity of the cottonwood cone.
They reached it safely, and the boat was launched.
“Silence,” admonished the trapper, in the lowest of whispers, and the next minute a noiseless stroke sent the light craft with the speed of a rocket down the quick-sanded river toward Fort Kearney.
The oars were lifted from the clear waves for a second stroke, when a score of rifles sent their leaden contents after the daring fugitives. But the bullets whistled harmlessly past their heads, and George Long uttered an ejaculation of joy.
“We ain’t out of the frying-pan yet,” whispered the Westerner. “There’s a sunken island hyarabouts, and if we strike it, there’ll be the deuce to pay.”
With the utterance of the final word, Frontier Shack suddenly guided the canoe to the right, and the next second several rifles flashed on the bank.
An oar dropped from the strong hand that griped it, and the boat was borne around by the rapids.
Suddenly it struck!
“The island, by Joshua!”
George Long sprung to his feet, and the following moment the light craft capsized, hurling him out into the water!
He could not repress a shriek, as he struck the sand, and felt it ingulfing his nether limbs, drawing him, slowly yet surely, down to a terrible death!
Frontier Shack had suddenly disappeared, nor was Massasoit to be seen.
The unfortunate boy struggled bravely; but the accursed sand continued to drag him down. He could not extricate himself.
Suddenly he saw two Indians spring to the water’s edge. The stars revealed their forms and actions.
He saw the tallest of the twain whirl a rope above his head.
After three circles, the noose suddenly shot from the Pawnee’s hand, quivered for a moment in mid-air, and then dropped over the boy’s head!
A quick jerk, which almost threw the young Ohioan on his face, tightened the lasso around his body, and he saw the savages grip the lariat tightly, while a yell of triumph pealed from their throats.
It was now a battle between the Pawnee and the quicksand!