The fourth morning after the visit of Timmendiquas the young chief returned. He was accompanied by Heno and Hainteroh, and the three regarded the youth with great gravity. Henry, keen of intuition and a reader of faces, knew that his time had come. What they had prepared for him he did not know, but it must be something terrible. A shiver that was of the spirit, but not of the muscles, ran through him. Torture and death were no pleasant prospect to him who was so young and so strong, and who felt so keenly every hour of his life the delight of living, but he would face them with all the pride of race and wilderness training.
"Well, Timmendiquas," he said, "I suppose that you have come for me!"
"It is true," replied Timmendiquas steadily, "but we would first prepare you. It shall not be said of the Wyandots that they brought to the ordeal a broken prisoner, one whose blood did not flow freely in his veins."
Henry's bonds were loosened, and he stood up. Although he had been bound securely, his thongs had always allowed him a little movement, and he had sought in the days of his captivity to keep his physical condition perfect. He would stretch his limbs and tense his muscles for an hour at a time. It was not much, it was not like the freedom of the forest, but pursued by one as tenacious and forethoughtful as he, it kept his muscles hard, his lungs strong, and his blood sparkling. Now, as he stood up, he had all his strength, and his body was flexible and alert.
But Heno and Hainteroh seized him by each hand and pulled strongly. He understood. They were acting in a wholly friendly manner for the time being, and would give him exercise. He tried to guess from it the nature of the first ordeal that awaited him, but he could not. He pulled back and felt his muscles harden and tighten. So strong was he that both warriors were dragged to his side of the wigwam.
"Good!" said Timmendiquas. "Prison has not made you soft. You shall prove to all who see you that you are already a great warrior."
Then they rubbed his ankles and wrists with bear's oil that any possible stiffness from the bonds might be removed, and directed him to walk briskly on the inside circuit of the lodge for about fifteen minutes. He did readily as they suggested. He knew that whatever their motives—and after all they were Indians with all the traits of Indians—they wished him to be as strong as possible for the fate that awaited him outside. The hardier and braver the victim, the better the Indians always liked it. Over a half hour was passed in these preparations, and then White Lightning said tersely and without emotion:
"Come!"
He led the way, and Henry, following him, stepped from the lodge into the sunlight with Hainteroh and Heno close behind. The boy coming from the half darkness was dazzled at first by the brilliant rays, but in a few moments his eyes strengthened to meet them, and he saw everything. A great crowd was gathered for a third time at the meadow, and a heavy murmur of anticipation and excitement came to his ears.
Henry felt that everybody in the Wyandot village was looking at him. It gave him a singular feeling to be thus the center of a thousand eyes, and the little mental shiver came again, because the eyes were now wholly those of savages. He felt a cool breath on his face. The wind was blowing, and from the forest came the faint rustle of the leaves. He listened a moment that he might hear that hopeful note, the almost human voice that had spoken to him, but it was not there. It was just an ordinary wind blowing in the wilderness, and he ceased to listen because now his crisis was at hand.
Timmendiquas led toward the meadow, and Heno and Hainteroh came close behind. Now Henry saw what they had prepared for him as the first stage of his ordeal. He was to run the gantlet.
Two parallel lines had already been formed, running the longest way of the meadow and far down into an opening of the forest, and all were armed with switches or sticks, some of the latter so heavy, that, wielded by a strong hand, they would knock a man senseless. No sympathy, no kindliness showed in the faces of any of these people. The spirit of the ball and the dance was gone. The white youth was their enemy, he had chosen to remain so, and they knew no law but an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Children and women were as eager as men for the sport. It was a part of their teaching and belief.
Henry looked again down the line, and there he saw the renegades, three on one side and three on the other. It seemed to him that theirs were the most cruel faces of all. He saw Braxton Wyatt swinging a heavy stick, and he resolved that it should never touch him. He could bear a blow from an Indian, but not from Braxton Wyatt.
Then he looked from the cruel face of the renegade to the forest, so green, so fresh, and so beautiful. What a glorious place it was and how he longed to be there. The deep masses of green leaves, solid in the distance, waved gently in the wind. Over this great green wilderness bent the brilliant blue sky, golden at the dome from the high sun. It was but a fleeting glance, and his eyes came back to earth, to the Wyandots, and to his fate.
"I was able to make it the gantlet first," Timmendiquas was saying in his ear. "Others wished to begin at once with the fire."
"Thank you, White Lightning," said Henry.
He looked for the third time at the line, and he saw that no human being, no matter how great his strength and dexterity, could reach the end of it. It was at least a quarter of a mile in length, and long before he was half way he would be beaten to the earth, limbs broken. They had not intended that he should have the remotest chance of escape. Nor, look as he would, could he see any.
Hark! What was that? It was a sound from the forest, a low, sweet note, but clear and penetrating, the wind among the leaves, the voice, almost human, that told him to be of good faith, that even yet in the face of imminent death he would escape. It was no longer an ordinary wind blowing through the wilderness; it was some voice out of space, speaking to him. White Lightning saw the face of his prisoner suddenly illumined, and he wondered.
Henry looked down the line for the fourth time, and then the way came to him. He knew what to do, and he drew himself together, a compact mass of muscles, and tense like steel wire. Then, while the clear song from the forest still sang in his ear, he glanced up once more at the beneficent heavens, and uttered his wordless prayer:
"O Lord, Thou who art the God of the white man and the Manitou of the red man, give me this day a strength such as I have never known before! Give me an eye quick to see and a hand ready to do! I would live. I love life, but it is not for myself alone that I ask the gift! There are others who need me, and I would go to them! Now, O Lord, abide with me!"
They were his thoughts, not his words, but he was the child of religious parents, who had given him a religious training, and in the crisis he remembered.
It was the duty of Timmendiquas to give the word, but he waited, fascinated by the singular look on the face of the prisoner. He saw confidence, exaltation there, and he still wondered. But the crowd was growing impatient for its sport. They were bedecked in their gayest for this holiday scene, and the size and obvious strength of the captive indicated that it would be continued longer than common.
Timmendiquas glanced at the prisoner again, and for an instant the eyes of the two met. The chief saw purpose written deep in the mind of the other, and Henry caught the fleeting glimpse of sympathy that he had noticed more than once before.
"Are you ready?" asked Timmendiquas in tones so low that no one else could hear.
"Ready!" replied Henry as low.
"Go!" called Timmendiquas. His voice was so sharp that it cracked like a pistol.
Henry made a mighty leap forward, and shot down between the lines so swiftly that the first blows aimed at him fell after he had passed. Then a switch cut him across the shoulders, a stick grazed his head, another glanced off his back as he fled, but he was so quick that the sticks and switches invariably fell too late. This was what he had hoped for; if he could keep ahead of the shower of blows for forty or fifty yards all might go well. It would go well! It must go well! Hope flamed high in him, and he seemed to grow stronger at every leap. The Indians were shouting with delight at the sport, but so intent was he upon his purpose that he did not hear them.
Henry looked up for a moment, and he saw near him the face of Timmendiquas, who had followed him down the line, seeking, it seemed, to give a blow on his account. Beside him, a warrior held a heavy club poised to strike. Henry saw that he could not escape it, and his heart sank, like a plummet in a pool. But the great chief, so sure of foot, stumbled and fell against the warrior with the poised club. The blow went wide, and Henry was untouched. He ran on, but he understood.
He had marked a spot in the line, fifty yards on, perhaps, where it seemed weakest. With the exception of the leader of the renegades, Girty, it was mostly women and children who stood there. Now he was nearing them. He saw Girty's cruel, grinning face, and the heavy stick in his hand poised for a blow.
He could not run in a perfectly straight line, because he was compelled to dodge right or left to escape the clubs, and he was not always successful. One, a glancing blow, made his head ring, but in a moment his will threw off the effect, and the sting of it merely incited him to greater effort. Now the face of Girty was just before him, and the shouting of the Indians was so loud that he could not but hear.
He saw Girty raise his club, and, quick as lightning, Henry, turning off at a right angle, hurled himself directly at Girty, passed within the circle of the falling club, seized the renegade's arm, and wrenched his weapon from his grasp.
It was done in a second, but the Indian warriors near instantly sprang for the pair. The impact of Henry's body knocked Girty to his knees and, as he fell, the youth made a sweeping blow at him with the captured club. Had Henry been left time to balance himself for the stroke, the evil deeds of Simon Girty would have stopped there, and terrible suffering would have been spared to the border. But he struck as he ran, and, although Girty was knocked senseless, his skull was not fractured.
Henry darted away at a right angle from the line toward the forest. He had done what was achieved a few times by prisoners of uncommon strength and agility. Instead of continuing between the rows he had broken out at one side, and now was straining every effort to reach the forest, with the whole Wyandot village yelling at his heels.
Timmendiquas had seen the deed in every detail. He had marked the sudden turn of the fugitive and the extraordinary quickness and strength with which he had overthrown Girty, at the same time taking from him his weapon, and his eyes flashed approval. But he was a Wyandot chief, and he could not let such a captive escape. After a few moments of hesitation he joined in the pursuit, and directed it with voice and gesture.
Henry's soul sang a song of triumph to him. He would escape! There was nobody between him and the forest, and they would not fire just yet for fear of hurting their own people. His strength redoubled. The forest came nearer. It seemed to reach out great green branches and invite him to its shelter.
An old woman suddenly sprang up from the grass and seized him by the knees. He made a mighty effort, threw her off, and leaped clear of her clawing hands. But he had lost time, and the warriors had gained. One was very near, and if he should lay hands upon him Henry knew that he could not escape. Even if the warrior were able to hold him only a half minute the others then would be at hand. But he was still keyed up to the great tension with which he had started down the line. His effort, instead of reaching the zenith, was still increasing, and, turning sideways as he ran, he hurled the stick back into the face of the warrior who was so near. The Wyandot endeavored to dodge it, but he was not quick enough. It struck him on the side of the head and he fell, knocked senseless as Girty, the renegade, had been.
Then the fleeing youth made another supreme effort, and he drew clear of his pursuers by some yards. The forest was very much nearer now. How cool, how green, and how friendly it looked! One could surely find shade and protection among all those endless rows of mighty trunks! He heard a report behind him and a bullet sang in his ear. The Wyandots, now that he had become a clear target in front of them, began to fire.
Henry, remembering an old trick in such cases, curved a little from side to side as he ran. He lost distance by it, but it was necessary in order to confuse the marksmen. More shots were fired, and the Wyandots, shouting their war cries, began to spread out like a fan in order that they might profit by any divergence of the fugitive from a straight line. Henry felt a pain in his shoulder much like the sting of a bee, but he knew that the bullet had merely nipped him as it passed. Another grazed his arm, but the God of the white man and the Manitou of the red to whom he had prayed held him in His keeping. The Wyandots crowded one another, and as they ran at full speed they were compelled to fire hastily at a zig-zagging fugitive.
He made one more leap, longer and stronger than all the rest, and gained the edge of the forest. At that moment he felt a tap on his side as if he had been struck by a pebble, but he knew it to be a bullet that had gone deeper than the others. It might weaken him later, but not now; it merely gave a new impulse to his speed, and he darted among the trees, spurning the ground like a racing deer.
The bullets continued to fly, but luck made the forest dense, the great trees growing close to one another, and now the advantage was his. Only at times was his body exposed to their aim, and then he ran so fast that mere chance directed the shots. None touched him now, and with a deep exulting thrill, so mighty that it made him quiver from head to foot, he felt that he would make good his flight. Only ten minutes of safety from the bullets, and he could leave them all behind.
Henry's joy was intense, penetrating all his being, and it remained. Yes, life here in this green wilderness was beautiful! He had felt the truth of it with all its force when they brought him forth to die, passing from one torture to another worse, and he felt it with equal poignancy now that he had turned the impossible into the possible, now that the coming gift to him was life, not death. His spirit swelled and communicated itself to his body. Fire ran through his veins.
He took a single fleeting look backward, and saw many brown figures speeding through the forest. He knew their tactics. The fan would develop into a half curve, and pursue with all the fleetness and tenacity with which the Indian—above all the Wyandot—was capable. If he varied but a single yard from the direct line of his flight some one in the half curve would gain by it. He must not lose the single yard! He glanced up through the green veil of foliage at the sun, and noticed that he was running toward the southeast, the way that he wanted to go. Other such glances from time to time would serve to keep him straight, and again he felt the mighty and exultant swell that was in the nature of spiritual exaltation.
The war cries ceased. The Wyandots now pursued in silence, and it would be a pursuit long and tenacious. It was their nature not to give up, and they were filled with chagrin that so notable a prisoner had slipped from them, breaking through their lines and gaining the forest in the face of the impossible. Henry knew all these things, too, and he had no intention of relaxing his speed until he was beyond the range of their rifles. It was well for him that his muscles and sinews were like woven wire, and that he had striven so hard to keep himself in physical trim while he lay a prisoner in the lodge. His breathing was still long and free, and his stride did not decline in either length or quickness.
The ground rolled slightly, and was free from undergrowth for the first half mile. Then he came to clumps of bushes, but they did not decrease his speed, and when he looked back again he saw no Wyandot. The fleetest among them had not been able to equal him, and before long he heard them calling signal cries to one another. The chiefs were giving directions, seeking to place the fugitive, who was now lost to sight, but Henry only ran the faster. He did not delude himself with any such foolish belief that they would quit the pursuit because they could no longer see him.
When Henry looked back a third time and saw that no Wyandot had yet come into view, he made another spurt, one in which he taxed his power of muscle and lung to the utmost. He maintained his speed for a half mile and then slowed down. He had no doubt that he had increased his lead over them, and now he would use cunning in place of strength and speed. It was a country of springs and brooks, and he looked for one in order that he might use this common device of the border—wading in the water to hide his tracks. But he saw none. Here fortune was not kind, and he ran on in the long, easy stride like the gallop of a horse.
He still sought to keep a perfectly straight course toward the southeast. It would not permit that deadly half circle to close in, and it would carry him toward his friends and the fleet. He reached rougher ground, low hills with many outcroppings of stone, and he leaped lightly from rock to rock. His moccasined feet, for a space, left no traces, and when he came to the softer earth again he paused. They would certainly lose the trail at the hills, and it would take them five, perhaps ten, minutes to find it once more.
He leaned against a tree, drawing great breaths and relaxing his muscles. He permitted everything to give way for a minute or two, knowing that in such manner he would procure the most rest and resiliency. Meanwhile he listened with all the powers of those wonderful, forest-bred ears of his, but heard nothing save a far, faint call or two.
After about five minutes he resumed his flight, going at the long, easy frontier lope, and a little later he came to a great mass of tangled and fallen forest where a hurricane had passed. Fortune that had failed him with the brook served him with the trees, and he ran lightly along in the path of the hurricane, leaping from trunk to trunk. He had turned for the first time from his direct course, but now he could afford to do so. It would take the shrewdest of the Wyandot warriors some time to pick up a trail that was lost for a full quarter of a mile, and he did not leave the windrow until fully that distance was covered.
He passed some low hills again, and just beyond them he came to a large creek flowing between fairly high banks. This was better luck than he had hoped. The waters felt cool and fresh, and, hot from his long run, he drank eagerly. But the creek would serve another and better purpose, the hiding of his trail. It flowed in the very direction in which he was going, and he waded down stream for forty or fifty yards. Then he went over his head. The creek had suddenly deepened, but he came up promptly and swam easily with the current.
Swimming rested him in a way. A new set of muscles came into play, and he swam placidly for two or three hundred yards. Then he turned over on his back and floated as far again. Now, as he floated, he found time to take thought. He saw that the sun was still shining brilliantly overhead, and the forest grew in a dense green wall to the water's edge on either side.
He had come so far. It seemed that he had made good his escape, but he was able for the first time to take a survey of his situation. He was alone in the wilderness and without arms. What a ship is to the sailor, so the rifle was to the borderer. It was his meat and drink, his defense, his armor, his truest and trustiest comrade; without it he must surely perish, unless some rare chance aided him, as once in a thousand times the shipwrecked sailor reaches the lone island.
Henry knew that he was a long distance from the Ohio, and it would be difficult to locate the fleet. It would have to move slowly, and it may have tied up several times for weather.
He floated two or three hundred yards further, and then at a dip in the bank he emerged, the water running in streams from his clothing. He stood there a minute or two, watching and listening, but nothing alarming came to his eye or ear. Perhaps he had shaken off the Wyandots, but he was far too well versed in forest cunning and patience to take it for granted. He was about to start again when he felt a little pain in his side. He remembered now the light impact as if a pebble had struck him, and he knew that the wound had been caused by a bullet. But no blood was there. It had all been washed away by the waters of the creek. The cold stream, moreover, had been good for the wound.
He lifted his wet clothing and examined his hurt critically. It might be serious. It would certainly weaken him after a few hours, although the bullet had passed through the flesh, and a few hours now were more precious to him than weeks later. But his pride and joy in life were not yet diminished. He was free and he would not be re-taken. The country around him was as beautiful as any that he had ever seen. The banks of the creek were high and rocky, and its waters were very clear. Splendid forests swept away from either side, and on one far horizon showed the faint line of blue hills. The sun was still shining bright and warm.
He re-entered the forest, continuing his flight toward the southeast, and swung along at a good pace. Exercise restored the warmth to his body and also brought with it now and then the little stitch in his side. His clothing gradually dried upon him, and he did not cease his long, easy trot until he noticed that the sun was far down in the west. It had already taken on the fiery red tint that marks it when it goes, and in the east gray shadows were coming.
Henry believed that he had shaken off the pursuit for good now, and he sat down upon a log to rest. Then a sudden great weakness came over him. The forest grew dim, the earth seemed to tip up, and there was a ringing sound in his ears. He looked at his hand and saw that it was shaking. It required a great effort of the will to clear his vision and steady the world about him. But he achieved it, and then he took thought of himself.
He knew very well what was the matter. His wound had begun to assert itself, and he knew that he could no longer refuse to listen to its will.
The sun sank in a sea of red and yellow fire, and the veil of darkness was drawn over the vast primeval wilderness. Henry welcomed the coming of the dusk. Night is kindly to those who flee. He left the log and walked slowly toward the horizon, on which he had seen the dim, blue line of the hills. He would be more likely to find there rude shelter of some sort.
The reflex from long and strenuous action both physical and mental—no one fights for anything else as he does for his life—had come, and his body relaxed. The dizziness returned at times, and he knew that he must have rest.
He was aware, too, that he needed food, but it was no time to hunt for it. That must be done on the morrow, and intense longing for his rifle assailed him again. It would be more precious to him now than gold or diamonds.
A melancholy note came lonesomely through the forest and the twilight. It was the cry of the whippoorwill, inexpressibly mournful, and Henry listened to it a minute or two. He thought at first that it might be a signal cry of the Wyandots, but when it was twice repeated he knew that it was real. He banished it from his mind and went on.
A gobble came from a tree near by. He caught the bronze gleam of the wild turkeys sitting high on the branches. They may have seen him or heard him, but they did not stir. Something sprang up in the bushes, ran a little way and stopped, regarding him with great lustrous eyes. It was a deer, but it was unafraid. The behavior of deer and turkey was so unusual that a curious idea gripped Henry. They knew that he was unarmed, and therefore they did not feel the need to run.
He always felt a close kinship with the wild things, and he could not put aside this idea that they knew him as he now was, a helpless wanderer. It humiliated him. He had been a lord of creation, and now he was the weakest of them all. They could find their food and shelter with ease, but only luck would bring him either. He felt discouragement because he had suddenly sunk to the lowest place among living things, and that stitch in his side began to grow stronger. It did not come now at intervals but stayed, and soon he must lie down and rest if he had nothing more than the shelter of a tree's outspread boughs.
But he came to the hills and, after some hunting, found a rocky alcove, which he half filled with the dead leaves of last year. There he lay down and drew some of the leaves over him. It was wonderfully soothing and peaceful, and the stitch in his side became much easier. As his nerves resumed their normal state, he grew very hungry. But he would have to endure it, and he tried to think of other things.
It was quite dark now, but he heard noises about him. He knew that it was the night prowlers, and some of them came very near. It was true that they knew him to be unarmed. In some mysterious way the word had been passed among them that their greatest enemy, man, could do them no harm, and Henry saw bright little eyes looking at him curiously through the darkness.
The boy felt deeply his sense of helplessness. Small shadowy forms hopped about through the thickets. He fancied that they were rabbits, and they came very near in the most reckless and abandoned fashion. He was overwhelmed with shame. That a little rabbit eight inches long and weighing only two or three pounds should defy him who had slain bears and buffaloes, and who had fought victoriously with the most powerful and cunning of Indian warriors, was not to be endured. He raised himself up a little and threw a stone at them. They disappeared with a faint noise of light, leaping feet, but in a few moments they came back again. If he frightened them it was only for an instant, and it took an effort of his will to prevent an unreasoning anger toward the most timid and innocent of forest creatures.
The night now was well advanced, but full of dusky beauty. The stars were coming out, bright and confident, and their silvery twinkle lighted up the heavens. Henry looked up at them. They would have been to most people mere meaningless points in the vast, cold void, but they made him neither lonely nor afraid. The feeling of weakness was what troubled him. He knew that he ought to sleep, but his nerves were not yet in the perfect accord that produces rest.
He resolutely shut his eyes and kept them shut for five minutes. Then he opened them again because he felt a larger presence than that of the rabbits. He saw another half circle of bright eyes, but these were much higher above the ground, and presently he made out the lean forms, the sharp noses, and the cruel white teeth of wolves. Still he was not afraid. They did not seem to be above four or five in number, and he knew that they would not attack him unless they were a large pack, but he felt the insult of their presence. He hated wolves. He respected a bear and he admired a buffalo, but a wolf, although in his way cunning and skillful beyond compare, did not seem to him to be a noble animal.
Such contempt for him, a hunter and a warrior, who could slay at two hundred yards, given his rifle, must be avenged, and he felt around at the edge of the hollow until his hand closed upon a stone nearly as large as his fist. Then he closed his eyes all but a tiny corner of the right one and lay so still that even a wolf, with all his wolfish knowledge and caution, might think him asleep. By the faint beam of light that entered the tiny corner of his right eye he saw the wolves drawing nearer, and he marked their leader, an inquiring old fellow who stood three or four inches taller than the others, and who was a foot in advance.
The wolves approached slowly and with many a little pause or withdrawal, but the youth was fully as patient. He had learned his lessons from the forest and its creatures, and on this night nothing was cheaper to him than time. It was another proof of natural power and of the effect of long training that he did not move at all for a quarter of an hour. The old wolf, the leader, who stood high in the wolf tribe, who had won his position by genuine wolfish wisdom and prowess, could not tell whether this specimen of man was alive or dead. He inclined to the opinion that he was dead. Certainly he did not move, he could not see a quiver of the eyelash, and he noticed no rising and falling of the chest under the buckskin hunting shirt. A doubled up hand—the one that enclosed the stone—lay pallid and limp upon the leaves, and it encouraged the wise old leader to come closer. He had seen a dead warrior in his time, and that warrior's hand had lain upon the grass in just such a way.
The old leader took a longer and bolder step forward. The dead hand flashed up from the leaves, flew back, and then shot forward. Something very hard, that hurt terribly, struck the leader on the head, and, emitting a sharp yelp of pain and anger, he fled away, followed by the others. The warrior, whom he in all his wisdom had been sure was dead, had played a cruel joke upon him.
Henry Ware laughed joyously, and turned into a more comfortable position upon the leaves. He was not in his normal frame of mind, or so small an incident would not have caused him so much mirth. But it brought back the divine spark of courage which so seldom died within him. Unarmed as he was, he was not without resources, and he had driven off the wolves. He would find a way for other things.
The wind began to blow gently and beneficently, and the murmur of it among the leaves came to him. He interpreted it instantly as the wilderness voice that, calling to him more than once in his most desperate straits, had told him to have faith and hope. He fell asleep to its music and slept soundly all through the night.
He awoke the next morning after the coming of the daylight, and sprang to his feet. The sudden movement caused a slight pain in his side, but he knew now that the wound was not serious. Had it been so it would have stiffened in the night, and he would now be feverish, but he felt strong, and his head was clear and cool. Another proof of his healthy condition was the fierce hunger that soon assailed him. A powerful body was demanding food, the furnace needed coal, and there was no way just yet to supply it. This was the vital question to him, but he took wilderness precautions before undertaking to solve it.
He made a little circle, searching the forest with eye and ear, but he found no sign that the Wyandots were near. He did not believe that they had given up the pursuit, but he was quite sure that they had not been able to find his last trail in the night. When he had satisfied himself upon this point, he washed his wound carefully in the waters of a brook, and bound upon it a poultice of leaves, the use of which he had learned among the Indians. Then he thought little more about it. He was so thoroughly inured to hardship that it would heal quickly.
Now for food, food which he must take with his bare hands. It was not late enough in the year for the ripening of wild fruits and for nuts, but he had his mind upon blackberries. Therefore he sought openings, knowing that they would not grow in the shade of the great trees, and after more than an hour's hunting he found a clump of the blackberry briars, loaded with berries, magnificent, large, black, and fairly crammed with sweetness.
Henry was fastidious. He had not tasted food for nearly a day, and he ached with hunger, but he broke off a number of briars containing the largest stores of berries, and ate slowly and deliberately. The memory of that breakfast, its savor and its welcome, lingered with him long. Blackberries are no mean food, as many an American boy has known, but Henry was well aware that he must have something stronger, if he were to remain fit for his great task. But that divine spark of courage which was his most precious possession was kindled into a blaze. Food brought back all his strength, and his veins pulsated with life. Somehow he would find a way for everything.
He fixed his course once more toward the southeast. The country here was entirely new to him, much rougher, the hills increasing in height and steepness, and he inferred that he was approaching a river, some tributary of the Ohio.
When he reached the crest of a hill steeper than the rest, he dropped down among the bushes as if he had been shot. He had happened to look back, and he caught a passing glimpse of brown among the green. It was quick come, quick gone, but he had seen enough to know that it was an Indian following him, undoubtedly one of the pursuing Wyandots, who, by chance, had hit upon his trail.
Had Henry been armed he would have felt no fear. He considered himself, with justice, more than a match for a single warrior, but now he must rely wholly upon craft, and the odds against him were more than ten to one. He was at the very verge of a steep descent, and he knew that he could not slip down the crest of the hill and get away without being seen by the Wyandot, who, he was sure, was aware of his presence.
He lay perfectly still for at least five minutes, watching for the warrior and at the same time trying to form a plan. He saw only the waving green bushes, but he knew that he would hear the warrior if he approached. His trained ear would detect the slightest movement among grass or bushes, and he had no doubt that the Wyandot was as still as he.
Luck had been against Henry because the crest of the hill was bare, so if he undertook to slip away in that direction he would become exposed, but it favored him when it made the thicket dense and tall where he lay. As long as he remained in his present position the Wyandot could not see him unless he came very close, and he resolved that his enemy should make the first movement.
The infinite test of patience went on. A quarter of an hour, a half hour, and an hour passed, and still Henry did not stir. If a blade of grass or a twig beside him moved it was because the force of the wind did it. While he lay there, he examined the thicket incessantly with his eyes, but he depended most upon his ears. He listened so intently that he could hear a lizard scuttling through the grass, or the low drone of insects, but he did not hear the warrior.
He looked up once or twice. The heavens were a solid, shimmering blue. Now and then birds, fleet of wing, flashed across its expanse, and a blue jay chattered at intervals in a near tree. The peace that passeth understanding seemed to brood over the wilderness. There was nothing to tell of the tragedy that had just begun its first act in the little thicket.
After the first hour, Henry moved a little, ever so little, but without noise. He did not intend to get stiff, lying so long in one position, and, as he had done when a prisoner in the lodge, he cautiously flexed his muscles and took many deep breaths, expanding his chest to the utmost. He must rely now upon bodily strength and dexterity alone, and he thanked God that Nature had been so kind to him.
He flexed his muscles once more, felt that they were elastic and powerful, and then he put his ear to the earth. He heard a sound which was not the scuttling of a lizard nor the low drone of insects, but one that he ascribed to the slow creeping of a Wyandot warrior, bent upon taking a life. Henry was glad that it was so. He had won the first victory, and that, too, in the quality in which the Indian usually excelled, patience. But this was not enough. He must win also in the second test, skill.
The stake was his life, and in such a supreme moment the boy had no chance to think of mercy and kindliness. Nearly all the wilderness creatures fought for their lives, and he was compelled to do so, too. He now sought the Wyandot as eagerly as the Wyandot sought him.
He resumed the pursuit, and he was guided by logic as well as by sight and hearing. The Wyandot knew where he had first lain, and he would certainly approach that place. Henry would follow in that direction.
Another dozen feet and he felt that the crisis was at hand. The little waving of grass and bushes that marked the passage of the Wyandot suddenly stopped, and the slight rustling ceased to come. Nerving everything for a mighty effort, Henry sprang to his feet and rushed forward. The Wyandot, who was just beginning to suspect, uttered a cry, and he, too, sprang up. His rifle leaped to his shoulder and he fired as the terrible figure sprang toward him. But it was too late to take any sort of aim. The bullet flew wide among the trees, and the next instant Henry was upon him.
The Wyandot dropped his empty rifle and met his foe, shoulder to shoulder and chest to chest. He was a tall warrior with lean flanks and powerful muscles, and he did not yet expect anything but victory. He was one of the many Wyandots who had followed him from the village, but he alone had found the fugitive, and he alone would take back the scalp. He clasped Henry close and then sought to free one hand that he might draw his knife. Henry seized the wrist in his left hand, and almost crushed it in his grasp. Then he sought to bend the Indian back to the earth.
The Wyandot gave forth a single low, gasping sound. Then the two fought wholly in silence, save for the panting of their chests and the shuffling sound of their feet. The warrior realized that he had caught a foe more powerful than he had dreamed of and also that the foe had caught him, but he was still sure of his triumphant return to the village with the fugitive scalp. But as they strove, shoulder to shoulder and chest to chest, for full five minutes, he was not so sure, although he yet had visions.
The two writhed over the ground in their great struggle. The warrior endeavored to twist his hand loose, but in the unsuccessful attempt to do so, he dropped the knife to the ground, where it lay glittering in the grass whenever the sunbeams struck upon its blade. Presently, as they twisted and strove, it lay seven or eight feet away, entirely out of the reach of either, and then Henry, suddenly releasing the warrior's wrist, clasped him about the shoulders and chest with both arms, making a supreme effort to throw him to the ground. He almost succeeded, but this was a warrior of uncommon strength and dexterity, and he recovered himself in time. Yet he was so hard pushed that he could make no effort to reach the tomahawk that still hung in his belt, and he put forth his greatest effort in order that he might drag his foe from his feet, and thus gain a precious advantage.
The last lizard scuttled away, and the drone of the insects ceased. Henry, as he whirled about, caught one dim glimpse of a blue jay, the same that had chattered so much in his idle joy, sitting on a bough and staring at the struggling two.
It was a titanic contest to the blue jay, two monstrous giants fighting to the death. All the other forest people had fled away in terror, but the empty-headed blue jay, held by the terrible fascination, remained on his bough, watching with dilated eyes. He saw the great beads of sweat stand out on the face of each, he could hear the muscles strain and creak, he saw the two fall to the ground, locked fast in each other's arms, and then turn over and over, first the white face and then the red uppermost, and then the white again.
The blue jay's eyes grew bigger and bigger as he watched a struggle such as he had never beheld before. They were all one to him. It did not matter to him whether white or red conquered, but he saw one thing that they did not see. As they rolled over and over they had come to the very brink of the hill, and the far side went down almost straight, a matter of forty or fifty feet. But this made no impression upon him, because he was only a blue jay with only a blue jay's tiny brain.
The two monstrous giants were now hanging over the edge of the precipice, and still, in their furious struggles, they did not know it. The blue jay, perceiving in a dim way that something tremendous was about to happen in his world, longed to chatter abroad the advance news of it, but his tongue was paralyzed in his throat, and his eyes were red with increasing dilation.
The two, still locked fast in each other's arms, went further. Then they realized where they were, and there was a simultaneous writhe to get back again. It was too late. The blue jay saw them hang for a moment on the brink and then go crashing into the void. His paralyzed voice came back to him, and, chattering wildly with terror, he flew away from the terrible scene.
Henry Ware and the Wyandot warrior were clasped so tightly in each other's arms that their hold was not broken as they fell. They whirled over and over, rolling among the short bushes on the steep slope, and then they dropped a clear fifteen feet or more, striking the hard earth below with a sickening impact.
Both lay still a half minute, and then Henry rose unsteadily to his feet. Fortune had turned her face toward him and away from the Wyandot. The warrior had been beneath when they struck, and in losing his life had saved that of his enemy. Henry had suffered no broken bones, nothing more than bruises, and he was recovering rapidly from the dizziness caused by his fall. But the warrior's neck was broken, and he was stone dead.
Henry, as his eyes cleared and his strength returned, looked down at the Indian, a single glance being sufficient to tell what had happened. The warrior could trouble him no more. He shook himself and felt carefully of his limbs. He had been saved miraculously, and he breathed a little prayer of thankfulness to the God of the white man, the Manitou of the red man.
He did not like to look at the fallen warrior. He did not blame the Wyandot for pursuing him. It was what his religion and training both had taught him to do, and Henry was really his enemy. Moreover, he had made a good fight, and the victor respected the vanquished.
It was his first impulse to plunge at once into the forest and hasten away, but it got no further than an impulse, His was the greatest victory that one could win. He had not only disposed of his foe; he had gained much beside.
He climbed back up the hill and took the gun from the bushes where it had fallen. He had expected a musket, or, at best, a short army rifle bought at some far Northern British post, and his joy was great when he found, instead, a beautiful Kentucky rifle with a long, slender barrel, a silver-mounted piece of the finest make. He handled it with delight, observing its fine points, and he was sure that it had been taken from some slain countryman of his.
He recovered the knife, too, and then descended the hill again. He did not like to touch the dead warrior, but it was no time for squeamishness, and he took from him a horn, nearly full of powder, and a pouch containing at least two hundred bullets to fit the rifle. He looked for something else which he knew the Indian invariably carried—flint and steel—and he found it in a pocket of his hunting shirt. He transferred the flint and steel to his own pocket, put the tomahawk in his belt beside the knife, and turned away, rifle on shoulder.
He stood a few moments at the edge of the forest, listening. It seemed to him that he heard a far, faint signal cry and then another in answer, but the sound was so low, not above a whisper of the wind, that he was not sure.
Whether a signal cry or not, he cared little. The last half hour had put him through a wonderful transformation. Life once more flowed high in every vein never higher. He, an unarmed fugitive whom even the timid rabbits did not fear, he, who had been for a little while the most helpless of the forest creatures, had suddenly become the king of them all. He stood up, strong, powerful, the reloaded rifle in his hands, and looked and listened attentively for the foe, who could come if he chose. His little wound was forgotten. He was a truly formidable figure now, whom the bravest of Indian warriors, even a Wyandot, might shun.
Still hearing and seeing nothing that told of pursuit, he entered the forest and sped on light foot on the journey that always led to the southeast. The low rolling hills came again, and they were covered densely with forest, not an opening anywhere. The foliage, not yet touched with brown, was dark green and thick, forming a cool canopy overhead. Tiny brooks of clear water wandered through the mass and among the tree trunks. Many birds of brilliant plumage flew among the boughs and sang inspiringly to the youth as he passed.
It was the great, cool woods of the north, the woods that Long Jim Hart had once lamented so honestly to his comrades when they were in the far south. Henry smiled at the memory. Long Jim had said that in these woods a man knew his enemies; the Indians did not pretend to be anything else. Jim was right, as he had just proved. The Wyandots had never claimed to be anything but his enemies, and, although they had treated him well for a time, they had acted thus when the time again came.
Henry smiled once more. He had an overwhelming and just sense of triumph. He had defeated the Wyandots, the bravest and most skillful of all the Western tribes. He had slipped through the hundred hands that sought to hold him, and he was going back to his own, strong and armed. The rifle was certainly a splendid trophy. Long, slender, and silver mounted, he had never seen a finer, and his critical eye assured him that its quality would be equal to its appearance.
He did not stop running while he examined the rifle, and when he put it back on his shoulder the wind began to blow. Hark! There was the song among the leaves again, and now it told not merely of hope, but of victory achieved and danger passed. Henry was sure that he heard it. He had an imaginative mind like all forest-dwellers, like the Indians themselves, and he personified everything. The wind was a living, breathing thing.
He stopped at the end of two or three hours. The sun was sailing high in the heavens, and he had come at last to a little prairie. Game, it was likely, would be here, and he meant now to have food, not blackberries, but the nutritious flesh that his strong body craved. He could easily secure it now, and he stroked the beautiful rifle joyously.
Except for the great villages at Chillicothe, Piqua, and a few other places, the Indians shifted their homes often, leaving one region that the game might increase in it again, until such time as they wished to come back, and Henry judged that the country in which he now was had been abandoned for a while. If so, the game should be plentiful and not shy.
The prairie was perhaps a mile in length, and at its far edge two deer were grazing. It was not difficult to stalk them, and Henry, choosing the doe, brought her down with an easy shot. He carried the body into the woods, skinned it, cut off the tenderer portions, and prepared for a solid dinner. With his food now before him, he realized how very hungry he was. Yet he was fastidious, and, as usual, he insisted upon doing all things in season, and properly.
He brought forth the Indian's flint and steel—he was very glad now that he had had the forethought to take them—and after much effort set about kindling a fire. Flint and steel are not such easy things to use, and it took Henry five minutes to light the blaze, but five minutes later he was broiling tender, juicy slices of deer meat on the end of a twig, and then eating them one by one. He ate deliberately, but he ate a great many, and when he was satisfied he put out the fire. He crushed the coals into the earth with his heels and covered them with leaves, instinctive caution making him do it. Then he went deep into the forest, and, lying down in a thicket, rested a long time.
He knew that the Indian tribes intended to gather at Tuentahahewaghta (the site of Cincinnati), the place where the waters of the Licking, coming out of the wild Kentucky woods, joined the Ohio, and he believed that the best thing for him to do was to go to that point. He calculated that, despite his long delay at the Wyandot village, he could yet arrive there ahead of the fleet, and after seeing the Indian mobilization, he could go back to warn it. Only one thing worried him much now. Had his four faithful comrades taken his advice and stayed with the fleet, or were they now in the forest seeking him? He well knew their temper, and he feared that they had not remained with the boats after his absence became long.
But these comrades of his were resourceful, and he was presently able to dismiss the question from his mind. He had acquired with the patience of the Indian another of his virtues, an ability to dismiss all worries, sit perfectly still, and be completely happy. This quality may have had its basis originally in physical content, the satisfaction that came to the savage when he had eaten all he wished, when no enemy was present, and he could lie at ease on a soft couch. But in Henry it was higher, and was founded chiefly on the knowledge of a deed well done and absolute confidence in the future, although the physical quality was not lacking.
He felt an immense peace. Nothing was wrong. The day was just right, neither too hot nor too cool. The blaze of the brilliant skies and of the great golden sun was pleasantly shaded from his eyes by the green veil of the leaves. Those surely were the finest deer steaks that he had ever eaten! There could not be such another wilderness as this on the face of the earth! And he, Henry Ware, was one of the luckiest of human beings!
He lay a full two hours wrapped in content. He did not move arm or leg. Nothing but his long, deep breathing and his bright blue eyes, shaded by half-fallen lashes, told that he lived. Every muscle was relaxed. There was absolutely no effort, either physical or mental.
Yet the word passed by the forest creatures to one another was entirely different from the word that had been passed the night before. The slackened human figure that never moved was dangerous, it was once more the king of the wilderness, and the four-footed kind, after looking once and fearfully upon it, must steal in terror away.
The wolf felt it. Slinking through the thicket, he measured the great length of the recumbent shape, observed the half-opened eye, and departed in speed and silence; a yellow puma smelt the human odor, thought at first that the youth was dead, but, after a single look, followed the wolf, his heart quaking within him. A foolish bear, also, shambled into the thicket, but he was not too foolish, after he saw Henry, to shamble quickly away.
When Henry rose he was as thoroughly refreshed and restored as if he had never run a gantlet, made a flight of a night and a day, and fought with a Wyandot for his life. The very completeness of it had made him rest as much in two hours as another would have rested in six. He resumed his flight, taking with him venison steaks that he had cooked before he put out his fire, and he did not stop until the night was well advanced and the stars had sprung out in a dusky sky. Then he chose another dense thicket and, lying down in it, was quickly asleep.
He awoke about midnight and saw a faint light shining through the woods. He judged that it was a long distance away, but he resolved to see what made it, being sure in advance that it was the glow of an Indian camp fire.
He approached cautiously, looked from the crest of a low hill into a snug little valley, and saw that his surmise was true.
About fifty warriors sat or lay around a smouldering fire, and he inferred from their dress and paint that they were Shawnees. Four who sat together were talking earnestly, and he knew them to be chiefs. It was impossible to hear what they said, but he believed this to be a party on the way to the great meeting at the mouth of Licking. It was evident that he had not escaped too soon, and he withdrew as cautiously as he had approached.
An excitable youth would have hastened on in the night at full speed, but Henry knew better and could do better. He returned to his nest in the thicket and fell asleep again, as if he had seen nothing alarming. But he rose very early in the morning, and after a breakfast on the cold deer meat, made a circle around the Indian camp, and continued his southeastern journey at great speed.
He traveled all that day, and he saw that he was well into the enemy's country. Indian signs multiplied about him. Here in the soft earth was the trace of their moccasins. There they had built a camp fire and the ashes were not yet cold. Further on they had killed and dressed a deer. There was little effort at concealment, perhaps, none. This was their own country, where only the roving white hunter came, and it was his business, not theirs, to hide. Henry felt the truth of it as he advanced toward the Ohio. He was compelled to redouble his caution, lest at any moment he plunge into the very middle of a war band.
He passed more than a half dozen trails of large parties, and he felt sure that, according to arrangement, they were converging on the Ohio, at the point where the Licking emptied the waters and silt of the Kentucky woods into the larger stream. Timmendiquas, no doubt, would be there, and Henry's heart throbbed a little faster at the thought that he would meet such a splendid foe.
He lay in a thicket about noonday, and saw over a hundred warriors of the Ottawas, worshipers of the sun and stars, go by. They were all in full war paint, and he had no doubt that they had come from the far western shore of Lake Huron to join the great gathering of the tribes at Tuentahahewaghta and to help destroy the fleet and all river posts if they could.
That evening, taking the chances that the Indians would or would not hear him, he shot a wild turkey in a tree, traveled two or three miles further, built a small fire in the lee of a hill, where he cooked it, then ran in a curve three or four miles further, until he came to a thicket of pawpaw bushes, where he ate heartily by a faint moonlight. He watched and listened two hours, and then, satisfied that no one had heard the shot, he went to sleep with the ease and confidence of one who reposes at home, safe in his bed.
The night was warm. Sleeping in the open was a pleasure to such as Henry Ware, and he was not disturbed. He had willed that he should wake before daylight, and his senses obeyed the warning. He came back from slumber while it was yet dark. But he could feel the coming dawn, and, eating what was left of the turkey, he sped away.
He saw the sun shoot up in a shower of gold, and the blue spread over the heavens. He saw the green forest come into the light with the turning of the world, and he felt the glory of the great wilderness, but he did not stop for many hours. The day was warmer than the one before, and when the sun was poised just overhead he began to feel its heat. He was thirsty, too, and when he heard a gentle trickling among the bushes he stopped, knowing that a brook or spring was near.
He pressed his way through the dense tangle of undergrowth and entered the open, where he stood for a few minutes, cooling his eyes with the silver sparkle of flowing water and the delicate green tints of the grass, which grew thickly on the banks of the little stream. He was motionless, yet even in repose he seemed to be the highest type of physical life and energy, taller than the average man, despite the fact that he was yet but a boy in years, and with a frame all bone and sinew. Blue eyes flashed out of a face turned to the brown of leather by a life that knew no roof-tree, and the uncut locks of yellow hair fell down from the fur cap that sat lightly upon his head.
Around him the wilderness was blazing with all the hues of spring and summer, yet untouched by autumn brown. The dense foliage of the forest formed a vast green veil between him and the sun. Some wild peach trees in early bloom shone in cones of pink against the green wall. Shy little flowers of delicate purple nestled in the grass, and at his feet the waters of the brook gleamed in the sunshine in alternate ripples of silver and gold, while the pebbles shone white on the shallow bottom.
He stood there, straight and strong like a young oak, a figure in harmony with the wilderness and its lonely grandeur. He seemed to fit into the scene, to share its colors, and to become its own. The look of content in his eyes, like that of a forest creature that has found a lair to suit him, made him part of it. His dress, too, matched the flush of color around him. The fur cap upon his head had been dyed the green of the grass. The darker green of the oak leaves was the tint of his hunting shirt of tanned buckskin, with the long fringe hanging almost to his knees. It was the tint, too, of the buckskin leggings which rose above his moccasins of buffalo hide.
But the moccasins and the seams of the leggings were adorned with countless little Indian beads of red and blue and yellow, giving dashes of new color to the green of his dress, just as the wild flowers and peach blossoms and the silver and gold of the brook varied the dominant green note of the forest. A careless eye would have passed over him, his figure making no outline against the wall of forest behind him. It was the effect that he sought, to pass through wood and thicket and across the green open, making slight mark for the eye.
Henry was not only a lover of the wilderness and its beauty, but he was also a conscious one. He would often stop a moment to drink in the glory of a specially fine phase of it, and this was such a moment. Far off a range of hills showed a faint blue tracery against the sky of deeper blue. At their foot was a band of silver, the river to which the brook that splashed before him was hurrying. Everywhere the grass grew rich and rank, showing the depth and quality of the soil beneath. A hundred yards away a buffalo grazed as peacefully as if man had never come, and farther on a herd of deer raised their heads to sniff the southern wind.
It was pleasant to Henry to gaze upon the stretch of meadow before him. So he stood for a minute or two, looking luxuriously, his rifle resting across his shoulder, the sun glinting along its long, slender, blue barrel. Then he knelt down to drink, choosing a place where a current of the swift little brook had cut into the bank with a circular sweep, and had formed a pool of water as clear as the day, a forest mirror.
Henry did not feel the presence of any danger, but he retained all his caution as he knelt down to drink, a caution become nature through all the formative years of practice and necessity. His knees made no noise as they touched the earth. Not a leaf moved. Not a blade of grass rustled. The rifle remained upon his shoulder, his right hand grasping it around the stock, just below the hammer, the barrel projecting into the air. Even as he rested his weight upon one elbow and bent his mouth to the water, he was ready for instant action.
The water touched his lips, and was cool and pleasant. He had come far, and was thirsty. He blew the bubbles back and drank, not eagerly nor in a hurry, but sipping it gently, as one who knows tastes rare old wine. Then he raised his head a little and looked at his shadow in the water, as perfect as if a mirror gave back his face. Eyes, mouth, nose, every feature was shown. He bent his head, sipping the water a little more, and feeling all its grateful coolness. Then he raised it again and saw a shadow that had appeared beside his own. The mirror of the water gave back both perfectly.
An extraordinary thrill ran through him but he made no movement. The blood was leaping wildly in his veins, but his nerves never quivered. In the water he could yet see his own shadow as still as the shadow that had come beside it.
Henry Ware, in that supreme moment, did not know his own thoughts, save that they were full of bitterness. It hurt him to be trapped so. He had escaped so much, he had come so far, to be taken thus with ease; although life was full and glorious to him, he could have yielded it with a better will in fair battle. There, at least, one did not lose his forest pride. He had gloried in the skill with which he had practiced all the arts of the wilderness, and now he was caught like any beginner!
But while these thoughts were running through his mind he retained complete command of himself, and by no motion, no exclamation, showed his knowledge that he was not alone. He suppressed his rebellious nerves, and refused to let them quiver.
The shadow in the water beside his own was distinct. He could see the features, the hair drawn up at the top of the head into a defiant scalp-lock, and the outstretched hand holding the tomahawk. He gazed at the shadow intently. He believed that he could divine his foe's triumphant thoughts.
The south wind freshened a little, and came to Henry Ware poignant with the odors of blossom and flower. The brook murmured a quiet song in his ears. The brilliant sunshine flashed alike over grass and water. It was a beautiful world, and never had he been more loth to leave it. He wondered how long it would be until the blow fell. He knew that the warrior, according to the custom of his race, would prolong his triumph and exult a little before he struck.
Given a chance with his rifle, Henry would have asked no other favor. Just that one little gift from fortune! The clutch of his fingers on the stock tightened, and the involuntary motion sent a new thought through him. The rifle lay unmoved across his shoulder, its muzzle pointing upward. Before him in the water the shadow still lay, unchanged, beside his own. He kept his eyes upon it, marking a spot in the center of the forehead, while the hand that grasped the rifle crept up imperceptibly toward the hammer and the trigger. A half minute passed. The warrior still lingered over his coming triumph. The boy's brown fingers rested against the hammer of the rifle.
Hope had come suddenly, but Henry Ware made no sign. He blew a bubble or two in the water, and while he seemed to watch them break, the muzzle of the rifle shifted gently, until he was sure that it bore directly upon the spot in the forehead that he had marked on the shadow in the water.
The last bubble broke, and then Henry seemed to himself to put all his strength into the hand and wrist that held the rifle. His forefinger grasped the hammer. It flew back with a sharp click. The next instant, so quickly that time scarcely divided the two movements, he pulled the trigger and fired.
As the report of his shot sped in echoes through the forest, Henry Ware sprang to his feet and stood there for a little space, his knees weak under him, and drops of perspiration thick on his face. The rifle was clenched in his hands, and a light smoke came from the muzzle.
Thus he stood, not yet willing to turn around and see, but when the last echo of the shot was gone there was no sound. The wind had ceased to blow. Not a leaf, not a blade of grass stirred. He was affected as he had never been in battle, because he knew that a man whose shadow alone he had seen lay dead behind him.
He shifted the rifle to one hand only, and wiped his face with the other. Then, as his knees grew stronger and he was able to control the extraordinary quivering of the nerves, he turned. The warrior, the red spot upon his forehead, lay stretched upon his back. He had died without a sound, as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning. The handle of the tomahawk was still clutched in his fingers, but his rifle had fallen beside him. The single minute that he had paused to exult over the foe who seemed so completely in his power had been fatal.
Henry took the powder and bullets from the fallen warrior and added them to his own store—the bullets he found would fit his rifle—but he did not wish to burden himself with the extra rifle, knife, and tomahawk. Nor did he wish to abandon them. Their value was too great in the wilderness. He chose a middle course. He thrust all three in a hollow tree that he found about a mile further on. They were so well hidden in the trunk that there was not one chance in a million of anybody but himself ever finding them.
"I may need you again some day," he murmured to the inanimate weapons, "and if so you'll be here waiting for me."
He noted well the locality, the trees, and the lay of the land. Everything was photographed on his memory and would remain there until such time as he needed the use of the picture. Then he continued his advance, at the long easy walk that he had learned from the frontiersmen, and soon his shaken nerves were restored.
He began to calculate now how far he might be from the Ohio, and, as he was traveling more east than south, he reckoned that it would be several days before he reached the mouth of the Licking. But he felt assured that he would reach it, despite the dangers that were still thick about him. In the afternoon he saw smoke on the horizon, and, going at once to ascertain its cause, he found a small Shawnee village in a cozy valley. He saw signs of preparation among the warriors in it, and he divined that they, too, were destined for the "landing place" on the Ohio, opposite the mouth of the Licking.
He left the village after the cursory look and plunged again into the unbroken wilderness. Two or three hours later he decided that he was being followed. He had not seen or heard anything, but it was a sort of divination. He sought to throw it aside, telling himself that it was mere foolishness, but he could not do it. The thought stayed with him, and then he knew that it must be true.
He cared little for a single warrior, but he did not wish to be delayed. He increased his speed, but the sense of being followed did not depart. He was not alarmed, but he was annoyed intensely. He had already encountered two warriors, triumphing each time, and it seemed to him that he ought now to be let alone.
He made a complete circle, coming back on his own tracks in order to convince himself absolutely that he was or was not followed, and he found a few traces in the soft earth to show him that his sixth sense had not warned him in vain. There moccasins had passed, and the owner of them was undoubtedly pursuing Henry. For what else but his life?
It was hard necessity, but he resolved to have it out with this warrior who trailed him so relentlessly. Night was coming on, and he must sleep and rest, but he could not do so with an enemy so near. Hence he now dropped the role of the pursued, and became the pursuer.
It was a difficult task, but an occasional trace in the earth helped him, and he followed unerringly. So intent was he upon his object that he did not notice for some time that he was still traveling in a circle, and that his mysterious foe was doing the same. They were going around and around. Both were pursuers and both pursued.
Henry's annoyance increased. He had never been irritated so much before in his life. He could not continue forever with this business and let his mission go. Moreover, night was now much nearer. The western world was already sinking into darkness, and the twilight would soon reach him. He wished to deal with his enemy, while it was yet light enough to see.
He turned directly about on his own trail and, after advancing a little, lay hidden in the bushes. The warrior, unless uncommonly wary, would soon come in sight. But he did not come. Henry was not able either to see or hear a sign of him. The bushes were tinged with the reddish light of the setting sun, but they moved only in the way in which the wind blew them. His foe had not come into the trap, and Henry knew now that he would not come.
He remained a full half hour in his hiding place, and then, turning again, he tried the other way around the circle. A slight motion in the thicket behind him told that his foe was still there, and he stopped. His annoyance gave way to admiration. This was undoubtedly a great warrior who trailed him, a man of courage, the possessor of all forest skill. It must surely be the best of the whole Wyandot tribe. Henry was willing to give full credit.
But he must deal with such a foe. His safety and perhaps the safety of many others depended upon it. He could not shake him off; therefore, he must fight him, and he summoned all his energy and faculties for the task.
Now began the forest combat between invisible and noiseless forces, but none the less deadly because neither could see nor hear his foe. Yet each knew that the other was always there. It was the slight waving of a bush or the flutter of a leaf, stirred by a moccasin, that told the tale.
As the hunt, the deadliest of all hunts, proceeded, each became more engrossed in it, neglecting no precaution, seeking incessantly some minute advantage. Henry was by nature generous and merciful, but at this time he did not think of those things. Wilderness necessity did not permit it.
The reddish tint on trees and bushes faded quite away, the sun was gone, and the night came, riding down on the world like a black horseman, but the eyes of the two grew used to the dark as it came, and they continued their invisible battle, circling back and forth in the forest.
Henry's admiration for his foe increased. He had never encountered another such warrior. Surpassing skill was his. He knew every trick, every device of the forest. Every move that Henry tried he met on equal terms, and, strive as Henry would to see him, he was still unseen.
This singular duel would have exhausted the patience of most men. One or the other, finding it unbearable, would have exposed himself, but not so these two. An hour, two hours, passed, and they were still seeking the advantage. The moon had come out and touched trees and bushes with silver, but they were still creeping to and fro, seeking a chance for a shot.
It was Henry who secured the first glimpse. He saw for an instant a face in a bush fifty yards away, and at the same moment he fired. But he knew almost before his finger ceased to pull the trigger that he would miss, and he threw down his head to escape the return shot. He was barely in time. He heard the bullet pass over him, and it seemed to him that it sung a taunting little song as it went by. But he was busy reloading his rifle as fast as he could, and he knew that his foe was doing the same.
The rifle reloaded, a sudden extraordinary idea leaped up in his brain. It seemed impossible, but the impossible sometimes comes true. It was the merest of fleeting glimpses that he had caught of that face, but his eye was uncommonly quick, and his mind equally retentive.
His mind would not let go of the idea; an impression at first, it quickly became a belief and then a conviction. He was lying on his chest, and, raising his head a little, he emitted the call of the night-owl, soft, long, and weird. He uttered the cry twice and waited. From the woods fifty yards away came the answering hoot of an owl, once, twice, thrice. Henry gave the cry twice again, and the second reply came from the same place, once, twice, thrice.
Henry, without hesitation, sprang up to his full length, and walked boldly forward. A second tall figure had risen and was coming to meet him. The moonlight streamed down in a silver shower upon the man who had stalked him so long, and revealed Shif'less Sol.
"Sol!" exclaimed Henry. "And I shot at you, thinking that you were a Wyandot."
"You did not shoot any harder at me than I did at you," said Shif'less Sol, "an' me all the time thinkin' that you wuz one o' them renegades!"
"Thank God we both missed!" said Henry, fervently.
"An' thank God that you're here, an' not tied down back thar in the Wyandot village," said Shif'less Sol.
Their hands met in the strong firm clasp of those who have been friends through the utmost dangers.
"It's fine to see you again, Sol," said Henry. "Are the others well?"
"When I last saw 'em," replied the shiftless one.
"Tell me how you ran across my trail and what went before," said Henry, as they sat down on a fallen log together.
"You'll ricolleck," said Shif'less Sol, "that you told us not to hunt you ef you didn't come back, but to go on with the fleet. I reckon it wuz easier fur you to give that advice than for us to keep it. We knowed from what the others said that you wuz captured, but we hoped that you'd escape. When you didn't come, we agreed right quick among ourselves that we had more business huntin' you than we had with that fleet.