Seeing that all was lost, the five drew farther away into the woods. They were not wounded, yet their faces were white despite the tan. They had never before looked upon so terrible a scene. The Indians, wild with the excitement of a great triumph and thirsting for blood, were running over the field scalping the dead, killing some of the wounded, and saving others for the worst of tortures. Nor were their white allies one whit behind them. They bore a full part in the merciless war upon the conquered. Timmendiquas, the great Wyandot, was the only one to show nobility. Several of the wounded he saved from immediate death, and he tried to hold back the frenzied swarm of old squaws who rushed forward and began to practice cruelties at which even the most veteran warrior might shudder. But Queen Esther urged them on, and “Indian” Butler himself and the chiefs were afraid of her.
Henry, despite himself, despite all his experience and powers of self-control, shuddered from head to foot at the cries that came from the lost field, and he was sure that the others were doing the same. The sun was setting, but its dying light, brilliant and intense, tinged the field as if with blood, showing all the yelling horde as the warriors rushed about for scalps, or danced in triumph, whirling their hideous trophies about their heads. Others were firing at men who were escaping to the far bank of the Susquehanna, and others were already seeking the fugitives in their vain hiding places on the little islet.
The five moved farther into the forest, retreating slowly, and sending in a shot now and then to protect the retreat of some fugitive who was seeking the shelter of the woods. The retreat had become a rout and then a massacre. The savages raged up and down in the greatest killing they had known since Braddock's defeat. The lodges of the Iroquois would be full of the scalps of white men.
All the five felt the full horror of the scene, but it made its deepest impress, perhaps, upon Paul. He had taken part in border battles before, but this was the first great defeat. He was not blind to the valor and good qualities of the Indian and his claim upon the wilderness, but he saw the incredible cruelties that he could commit, and he felt a horror of those who used him as an ally, a horror that he could never dismiss from his mind as long as he lived.
“Look!” he exclaimed, “look at that!”
A man of seventy and a boy of fourteen were running for the forest. They might have been grandfather and grandson. Undoubtedly they had fought in the Battalion of the Very Old and the Very Young, and now, when everything else was lost, they were seeking to save their lives in the friendly shelter of the woods. But they were pursued by two groups of Iroquois, four warriors in one, and three in the other, and the Indians were gaining fast.
“I reckon we ought to save them,” said Shif'less Sol.
“No doubt of it,” said Henry. “Paul, you and Sol move off to the right a little, and take the three, while the rest of us will look out for the four.”
The little band separated according to the directions, Paul and Sol having the lighter task, as the others were to meet the group of four Indians at closer range. Paul and Sol were behind some trees, and, turning at an angle, they ran forward to intercept the three Indians. It would have seemed to anyone who was not aware of the presence of friends in the forest that the old man and the boy would surely be overtaken and be tomahawked, but three rifles suddenly flashed among the foliage. Two of the warriors in the group of four fell, and a third uttered a yell of pain. Paul and Shif'less Sol fired at the same time at the group of three. One fell before the deadly rifle of Shif'less Sol, but Paul only grazed his man. Nevertheless, the whole pursuit stopped, and the boy and the old man escaped to the forest, and subsequently to safety at the Moravian towns.
Paul, watching the happy effect of the shots, was about to say something to Shif'less Sol, when an immense force was hurled upon him, and he was thrown to the ground. His comrade was served in the same way, but the shiftless one was uncommonly strong and agile. He managed to writhe half way to his knees, and he shouted in a tremendous voice:
“Run, Henry, run! You can't do anything for us now!”
Braxton Wyatt struck him fiercely across the mouth. The blood came, but the shiftless one merely spat it out, and looked curiously at the renegade.
“I've often wondered about you, Braxton,” he said calmly. “I used to think that anybody, no matter how bad, had some good in him, but I reckon you ain't got none.”
Wyatt did not answer, but rushed forward in search of the others. But Henry, Silent Tom, and Long Jim had vanished. A powerful party of warriors had stolen upon Shif'less Sol and Paul, while they were absorbed in the chase of the old man and the boy, and now they were prisoners, bound securely. Braxton Wyatt came back from the fruitless search for the three, but his face was full of savage joy as he looked down at the captured two.
“We could have killed you just as easily,” he said, “but we didn't want to do that. Our friends here are going to have their fun with you first.”
Paul's cheeks whitened a little at the horrible suggestion, but Shif'less Sol faced them boldly. Several white men in uniform had come up, and among them was an elderly one, short and squat, and with a great flame colored handkerchief tied around his bead.
“You may burn us alive, or you may do other things jest ez bad to us, all under the English flag,” said Shif'less Sol, “but I'm thinkin' that a lot o' people in England will be ashamed uv it when they hear the news.”
“Indian” Butler and his uniformed soldiers turned away, leaving Shif'less Sol and Paul in the hands of the renegade and the Iroquois. The two prisoners were jerked to their feet and told to march.
“Come on, Paul,” said Shif'less Sol. “'Tain't wuth while fur us to resist. But don't you quit hopin', Paul. We've escaped from many a tight corner, an' mebbe we're goin' to do it ag'in.”
“Shut up!” said Braxton Wyatt savagely. “If you say another word I'll gag you in a way that will make you squirm.”
Shif'less Sol looked him squarely in the eye. Solomon Hyde, who was not shiftless at all, had a dauntless soul, and he was not afraid now in the face of death preceded by long torture.
“I had a dog once, Braxton Wyatt,” he said, “an' I reckon he wuz the meanest, ornierest cur that ever lived. He liked to live on dirt, the dirtier the place he could find the better; he'd rather steal his food than get it honestly; he wuz sech a coward that he wuz afeard o' a rabbit, but ef your back wuz turned to him he'd nip you in the ankle. But bad ez that dog wuz, Braxton, he wuz a gentleman 'longside o' you.”
Some of the Indians understood English, and Wyatt knew it. He snatched a pistol from his belt, and was about to strike Sol with the butt of it, but a tall figure suddenly appeared before him, and made a commanding gesture. The gesture said plainly: “Do not strike; put that pistol back!” Braxton Wyatt, whose soul was afraid within him, did not strike, and he put the pistol back.
It was Timmendiquas, the great White Lightning of the Wyandots, who with his little detachment had proved that day how mighty the Wyandot warriors were, full equals of Thayendanegea's Mohawks, the Keepers of the Western Gate. He was bare to the waist. One shoulder was streaked with blood from a slight wound, but his countenance was not on fire with passion for torture and slaughter like those of the others.
“There is no need to strike prisoners,” he said in English. “Their fate will be decided later.”
Paul thought that he caught a look of pity from the eyes of the great Wyandot, and Shif'less Sol said:
“I'm sorry, Timmendiquas, since I had to be captured, that you didn't capture me yourself. I'm glad to say that you're a great warrior.”
Wyatt growled under his breath, but he was still afraid to speak out, although he knew that Timmendiquas was merely a distant and casual ally, and had little authority in that army. Yet he was overawed, and so were the Indians with him.
“We were merely taking the prisoners to Colonel Butler,” he said. “That is all.”
Timmendiquas stared at him, and the renegade's face fell. But he and the Indians went on with the prisoners, and Timmendiquas looked after them until they were out of sight.
“I believe White Lightning was sorry that we'd been captured,” whispered Shif'less Sol.
“I think so, too,” Paul whispered back.
They had no chance for further conversation, as they were driven rapidly now to that point of the battlefield which lay nearest to the fort, and here they were thrust into the midst of a gloomy company, fellow captives, all bound tightly, and many wounded. No help, no treatment of any kind was offered for hurts. The Indians and renegades stood about and yelled with delight when the agony of some man's wound wrung from him a groan. The scene was hideous in every respect. The setting sun shone blood red over forest, field, and river. Far off burning houses still smoked like torches. But the mountain wall in the east, was growing dusky with the coming twilight. From the island, where they were massacring the fugitives in their vain hiding places, came the sound of shots and cries, but elsewhere the firing had ceased. All who could escape had done so already, and of the others, those who were dead were fortunate.
The sun sank like a red ball behind the mountains, and darkness swept down over the earth. Fires began to blaze up here and there, some for terrible purpose. The victorious Iroquois; stripped to the waist and painted in glaring colors, joined in a savage dance that would remain forever photographed on the eye of Paul Cotter. As they jumped to and fro, hundreds of them, waving aloft tomahawks and scalping knives, both of which dripped red, they sang their wild chant of war and triumph. White men, too, as savage as they, joined them. Paul shuddered again and again from head to foot at this sight of an orgy such as the mass of mankind escapes, even in dreams.
The darkness thickened, the dance grew wilder. It was like a carnival of demons, but it was to be incited to a yet wilder pitch. A singular figure, one of extraordinary ferocity, was suddenly projected into the midst of the whirling crowd, and a chant, shriller and fiercer, rose above all the others. The figure was that of Queen Esther, like some monstrous creature out of a dim past, her great tomahawk stained with blood, her eyes bloodshot, and stains upon her shoulders. Paul would have covered his eyes had his hands not been tied instead, he turned his head away. He could not bear to see more. But the horrible chant came to his ears, nevertheless, and it was reinforced presently by other sounds still more terrible. Fires sprang up in the forest, and cries came from these fires. The victorious army of “Indian” Butler was beginning to burn the prisoners alive. But at this point we must stop. The details of what happened around those fires that night are not for the ordinary reader. It suffices to say that the darkest deed ever done on the soil of what is now the United States was being enacted.
Shif'less Sol himself, iron of body and soul, was shaken. He could not close his ears, if he would, to the cries that came from the fires, but he shut his eyes to keep out the demon dance. Nevertheless, he opened them again in a moment. The horrible fascination was too great. He saw Queen Esther still shaking her tomahawk, but as he looked she suddenly darted through the circle, warriors willingly giving way before her, and disappeared in the darkness. The scalp dance went on, but it had lost some of its fire and vigor.
Shif'less Sol felt relieved.
“She's gone,” he whispered to Paul, and the boy, too, then opened his eyes. The rest of it, the mad whirlings and jumpings of the warriors, was becoming a blur before him, confused and without meaning.
Neither he nor Shif'less Sol knew how long they had been sitting there on the ground, although it had grown yet darker, when Braxton Wyatt thrust a violent foot against the shiftless one and cried:
“Get up! You're wanted!”
A half dozen Seneca warriors were with him, and there was no chance of resistance. The two rose slowly to their feet, and walked where Braxton Wyatt led. The Senecas came on either side, and close behind them, tomahawks in their hands. Paul, the sensitive, who so often felt the impression of coming events from the conditions around him, was sure that they were marching to their fate. Death he did not fear so greatly, although he did not want to die, but when a shriek came to him from one of the fires that convulsive shudder shook him again from head to foot. Unconsciously he strained at his bound arms, not for freedom, but that he might thrust his fingers in his ears and shut out the awful sounds. Shif'less Sol, because he could not use his hands, touched his shoulder gently against Paul's.
“Paul,” he whispered, “I ain't sure that we're goin' to die, leastways, I still have hope; but ef we do, remember that we don't have to die but oncet.”
“I'll remember, Sol,” Paul whispered back.
“Silence, there!” exclaimed Braxton Wyatt. But the two had said all they wanted to say, and fortunately their senses were somewhat dulled. They had passed through so much that they were like those who are under the influence of opiates. The path was now dark, although both torches and fires burned in the distance. Presently they heard that chant with which they had become familiar, the dreadful notes of the hyena woman, and they knew that they were being taken into her presence, for what purpose they could not tell, although they were sure that it was a bitter one. As they approached, the woman's chant rose to an uncommon pitch of frenzy, and Paul felt the blood slowly chilling within him.
“Get up there!” exclaimed Braxton Wyatt, and the Senecas gave them both a push. Other warriors who were standing at the edge of an open space seized them and threw them forward with much violence. When they struggled into a sitting position, they saw Queen Esther standing upon a broad flat rock and whirling in a ghastly dance that had in it something Oriental. She still swung the great war hatchet that seemed always to be in her hand. Her long black hair flew wildly about her head, and her red dress gleamed in the dusk. Surely no more terrible image ever appeared in the American wilderness! In front of her, lying upon the ground, were twenty bound Americans, and back of them were Iroquois in dozens, with a sprinkling of their white allies.
What it all meant, what was about to come to pass, nether Paul nor Shif'less Sol could guess, but Queen Esther sang:
We have found them, the YengeesWho built their houses in the valley,They came forth to meet us in battle,Our rifles and tomahawks cut them down,As the Yengees lay low the forest.Victory and glory Aieroski gives to his children,The Mighty Six Nations, greatest of men.There will be feasting in the lodges of the Iroquois,And scalps will hang on the high ridge pole,But wolves will roam where the Yengees dweltAnd will gnaw the bones of them all,Of the man, the woman, and the child.Victory and glory Aieroski gives to his children,The Mighty Six Nations, greatest of men.
Such it sounded to Shif'less Sol, who knew the tongue of the Iroquois, and so it went on, verse after verse, and at the end of each verse came the refrain, in which the warriors joined:
“Victory and glory Aieroski gives to his children. The mighty Six Nations, greatest of men.”
“What under the sun is she about?” whispered Shif'less Sol.
“It is a fearful face,” was Paul's only reply.
Suddenly the woman, without stopping her chant, made a gesture to the warriors. Two powerful Senecas seized one of the bound prisoners, dragged him to his feet, and held him up before her. She uttered a shout, whirled the great tomahawk about her head, its blade glittering in the moonlight, and struck with all her might. The skull of the prisoner was cleft to the chin, and without a cry he fell at the feet of the woman who had killed him. Paul uttered a shout of horror, but it was lost in the joyful yells of the Iroquois, who, at the command of the woman, offered a second victim. Again the tomahawk descended, and again a man fell dead without a sound.
Shif'less Sol and Paul wrenched at their thongs, but they could not move them. Braxton Wyatt laughed aloud. It was strange to see how fast one with a bad nature could fall when the opportunities were spread before him. Now he was as cruel as the Indians themselves. Wilder and shriller grew the chant of the savage queen. She was intoxicated with blood. She saw it everywhere. Her tomahawk clove a third skull, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, and eighth. As fast as they fell the warriors at her command brought up new victims for her weapon. Paul shut his eyes, but he knew by the sounds what was passing. Suddenly a stern voice cried:
“Hold, woman! Enough of this! Will your tomahawk never be satisfied?”
Paul understood it, the meaning, but not the words. He opened his eyes and saw the great figure of Timmendiquas striding forward, his hand upraised in protest.
The woman turned her fierce gaze upon the young chief. “Timmendiquas,” she said, “we are the Iroquois, and we are the masters. You are far from your own land, a guest in our lodges, and you cannot tell those who have won the victory how they shall use it. Stand back!”
A loud laugh came from the Iroquois. The fierce old chiefs, Hiokatoo and Sangerachte, and a dozen warriors thrust themselves before Timmendiquas. The woman resumed her chant, and a hundred throats pealed out with her the chorus:
Victory and glory Aieroski gives to his children The mighty Six Nations, greatest of men.
She gave the signal anew. The ninth victim stood before her, and then fell, cloven to the chin; then the tenth, and the eleventh, and the twelfth, and the thirteenth, and the fourteenth, and the fifteenth, and the sixteenth-sixteen bound men killed by one woman in less than fifteen minutes. The four in that group who were left had all the while been straining fearfully at their bonds. Now they had slipped or broken them, and, springing to their feet, driven on by the mightiest of human impulses, they dashed through the ring of Iroquois and into the forest. Two were hunted down by the warriors and killed, but the other two, Joseph Elliott and Lebbeus Hammond, escaped and lived to be old men, feeling that life could never again hold for them anything so dreadful as that scene at “The Bloody Rock.”
A great turmoil and confusion arose as the prisoners fled and the Indians pursued. Paul and Shif'less Sol; full of sympathy and pity for the fugitives and having felt all the time that their turn, too, would come under that dreadful tomahawk, struggled to their feet. They did not see a form slip noiselessly behind them, but a sharp knife descended once, then twice, and the bands of both fell free.
“Run! run!” exclaimed the voice of Timmendiquas, low but penetrating. “I would save you from this!”
Amid the darkness and confusion the act of the great Wyandot was not seen by the other Indians and the renegades. Paul flashed him one look of gratitude, and then he and Shif'less Sol darted away, choosing a course that led them from the crowd in pursuit of the other flying fugitives.
At such a time they might have secured a long lead without being noticed, had it not been for the fierce swarm of old squaws who were first in cruelty that night. A shrill wild howl arose, and the pointing fingers of the old women showed to the warriors the two in flight. At the same time several of the squaws darted forward to intercept the fugitives.
“I hate to hit a woman,” breathed Shif'less Sol to Paul, “but I'm goin' to do it now.”
A hideous figure sprang before them. Sol struck her face with his open hand, and with a shriek she went down. He leaped over her, although she clawed at his feet as he passed, and ran on, with Paul at his side. Shots were now fired at him, but they went wild, but Paul, casting a look backward out of the corner of his eye, saw that a real pursuit, silent and deadly, had begun. Five Mohawk warriors, running swiftly, were only a few hundred yards away. They carried rifle, tomahawk, and knife, and Paul and Shif'less Sol were unarmed. Moreover, they were coming fast, spreading out slightly, and the shiftless one, able even at such a time to weigh the case coolly, saw that the odds were against them. Yet he would not despair. Anything might happen. It was night. There was little organization in the army of the Indians and of their white allies, which was giving itself up to the enjoyment of scalps and torture. Moreover, he and Paul were, animated by the love of life, which is always stronger than the desire to give death.
Their flight led them in a diagonal line toward the mountains. Only once did the pursuers give tongue. Paul tripped over a root, and a triumphant yell came from the Mohawks. But it merely gave him new life. He recovered himself in an instant and ran faster. But it was terribly hard work. He could hear Shif'less Sol's sobbing breath by his side, and he was sure that his own must have the same sound for his comrade.
“At any rate one uv 'em is beat,” gasped Shif'less Sol. “Only four are ban-in' on now.”
The ground rose a little and became rougher. The lights from the Indian fires had sunk almost out of sight behind them, and a dense thicket lay before them. Something stirred in the thicket, and the eyes of Shif'less Sol caught a glimpse of a human shoulder. His heart sank like a plummet in a pool. The Indians were ahead of them. They would be caught, and would be carried back to become the victims of the terrible tomahawk.
The figure in the bushes rose a little higher, the muzzle of a rifle was projected, and flame leaped from the steel tube.
But it was neither Shif'less Sol nor Paul who fell. They heard a cry behind them, and when Shif'less Sol took a hasty glance backward he saw one of the Mohawks fall. The three who were left hesitated and stopped. When a second shot was fired from the bushes and another Mohawk went down, the remaining two fled.
Shif'less Sol understood now, and he rushed into the bushes, dragging Paul after him. Henry, Tom, and Long Jim rose up to receive them.
“So you wuz watchin' over us!” exclaimed the shiftless one joyously. “It wuz you that clipped off the first Mohawk, an' we didn't even notice the shot.”
“Thank God, you were here!” exclaimed Paul. “You don't know what Sol and I have seen!”
Overwrought, he fell forward, but his comrades caught him.
Paul revived in a few minutes. They were still lying in the bushes, and when he was able to stand up again, they moved at an angle several hundred yards before they stopped. One pistol was thrust into Paul's hand and another into that of Shif'less Sol.
“Keep those until we can get rifles for you,” said Henry. “You may need 'em to-night.”
They crouched down in the thicket and looked back toward the Indian camp. The warriors whom they had repulsed were not returning with help, and, for the moment, they seemed to have no enemy to fear, yet they could still see through the woods the faint lights of the Indian camps, and to Paul, at least, came the echoes of distant cries that told of things not to be written.
“We saw you captured, and we heard Sol's warning cry,” said Henry. “There was nothing to do but run. Then we hid and waited a chance for rescue.”
“It would never have come if it had not been for Timmendiquas,” said Paul.
“Timmendiquas!” exclaimed Henry.
“Yes, Timmendiquas,” said Paul, and then he told the story of “The Bloody Rock,” and how, in the turmoil and excitement attending the flight of the last four, Timmendiquas had cut the bonds of Shif'less Sol and himself.
“I think the mind o' White Lightnin', Injun ez he is,” said Shif'less Sol, “jest naterally turned aginst so much slaughter an' torture o' prisoners.”
“I'm sure you're right,” said Henry.
“'Pears strange to me,” said Long Jim Hart, “that Timmendiquas was made an Injun. He's jest the kind uv man who ought to be white, an' he'd be pow'ful useful, too. I don't jest eggzactly understan' it.”
“He has certainly saved the lives of at least three of us,” said Henry. “I hope we will get a chance to pay him back in full.”
“But he's the only one,” said Shif'less Sol, thinking of all that he had seen that night. “The Iroquois an' the white men that's allied with 'em won't ever get any mercy from me, ef any uv 'em happen to come under my thumb. I don't think the like o' this day an' night wuz ever done on this continent afore. I'm for revenge, I am, like that place where the Bible says, 'an eye for an eye, an' a tooth for a tooth,' an' I'm goin' to stay in this part o' the country till we git it!”
It was seldom that Shif'less Sol spoke with so much passion and energy.
“We're all going to stay with you, Sol,” said Henry. “We're needed here. I think we ought to circle about the fort, slip in if we can, and fight with the defense.”
“Yes, we'll do that,” said Shif'less Sol, “but the Wyoming fort can't ever hold out. Thar ain't a hundred men left in it fit to fight, an' thar are more than than a thousand howlin' devils outside ready to attack it. Thar may be worse to come than anything we've yet seen.”
“Still, we'll go in an' help,” said Henry. “Sol, when you an' Paul have rested a little longer we'll make a big loop around in the woods, and come up to the fort on the other side.”
They were in full accord, and after an hour in the bushes, where they lay completely hidden, recovering their vitality and energy, they undertook to reach the fort and cabins inclosed by the palisades. Paul was still weak from shock, but Shif'less Sol had fully recovered. Neither bad weapons, but they were sure that the want could be supplied soon. They curved around toward the west, intending to approach the fort from the other side, but they did not wholly lose sight of the fires, and they heard now and then the triumphant war whoop. The victors were still engaged in the pleasant task of burning the prisoners to death. Little did the five, seeing and feeling only their part of it there in the dark woods, dream that the deeds of this day and night would soon shock the whole civilized world, and remain, for generations, a crowning act of infamy. But they certainly felt it deeply enough, and in each heart burned a fierce desire for revenge upon the Iroquois.
It was almost midnight when they secured entrance into the fort, which was filled with grief and wailing. That afternoon more than one hundred and fifty women within those walls had been made widows, and six hundred children had been made orphans. But few men fit to bear arms were left for its defense, and it was certain that the allied British and Indian army would easily take it on the morrow. A demand for its surrender in the name of King George III of England had already been made, and, sitting at a little rough table in the cabin of Thomas Bennett, the room lighted only by a single tallow wick, Colonel Butler and Colonel Dennison were writing an agreement that the fort be surrendered the next day, with what it should contain. But Colonel Butler put his wife on a horse and escaped with her over the mountains.
Stragglers, evading the tomahawk in the darkness, were coming in, only to be surrendered the next day; others were pouring forth in a stream, seeking the shelter of the mountains and the forest, preferring any dangers that might be found there to the mercies of the victors.
When Shif'less Sol learned that the fort was to be given up, he said:
“It looks ez ef we had escaped from the Iroquois jest in time to beg 'em to take us back.”
“I reckon I ain't goin' to stay 'roun' here while things are bein' surrendered,” said Long Jim Hart.
“I'll do my surrenderin' to Iroquois when they've got my hands an' feet tied, an' six or seven uv 'em are settin' on my back,” said Tom Ross.
“We'll leave as soon as we can get arms for Sol and Paul,” said Henry. “Of course it would be foolish of us to stay here and be captured again. Besides, we'll be needed badly enough by the women and children that are going.”
Good weapons were easily obtained in the fort. It was far better to let Sol and Paul have them than to leave them for the Indians. They were able to select two fine rifles of the Kentucky pattern, long and slender barreled, a tomahawk and knife for each, and also excellent double-barreled pistols. The other three now had double-barreled pistols, too. In addition they resupplied themselves with as much ammunition as scouts and hunters could conveniently carry, and toward morning left the fort.
Sunrise found them some distance from the palisades, and upon the flank of a frightened crowd of fugitives. It was composed of one hundred women and children and a single man, James Carpenter, who was doing his best to guide and protect them. They were intending to flee through the wilderness to the Delaware and Lehigh settlements, chiefly Fort Penn, built by Jacob Stroud, where Stroudsburg now is.
When the five, darkened by weather and looking almost like Indians themselves, approached, Carpenter stepped forward and raised his rifle. A cry of dismay rose from the melancholy line, a cry so intensely bitter that it cut Henry to the very heart. He threw up his hand, and exclaimed in a loud voice:
“We are friends, not Indians or Tories! We fought with you yesterday, and we are ready to fight for you now!”
Carpenter dropped the muzzle of the rifle. He had fought in the battle, too, and he recognized the great youth and his comrades who had been there with him.
“What do you want of us?” asked he.
“Nothing,” replied Henry, “except to help you.”
Carpenter looked at them with a kind of sad pathos.
“You don't belong here in Wyoming,” he said, “and there's nothing to make you stick to us. What are you meaning to do?”
“We will go with you wherever you intend to go,” replied Henry; “do fighting for you if you need it, and hunt game for you, which you are certain to need.”
The weather-beaten face of the farmer worked.
“I thought God had clean deserted us,” he said, “but I'm ready to take it back. I reckon that he has sent you five to help me with all these women and little ones.”
It occurred to Henry that perhaps God, indeed, had sent them for this very purpose, but he replied simply:
“You lead on, and we'll stay in the rear and on the sides to watch for the Indians. Draw into the woods, where we'll be hidden.”
Carpenter, obscure hero, shouldered his rifle again, and led on toward the woods. The long line of women and children followed. Some of the women carried in their arms children too small to walk. Yet they were more hopeful now when they saw that the five were friends. These lithe, active frontiersmen, so quick, so skillful, and so helpful, raised their courage. Yet it was a most doleful flight. Most of these women had been made widows the day before, some of them had been made widows and childless at the same time, and wondered why they should seek to live longer. But the very mental stupor of many of them was an aid. They ceased to cry out, and some even ceased to be afraid.
Henry, Shif'less Sol, and Tom dropped to the rear. Paul and Long Jim were on either flank, while Carpenter led slowly on toward the mountains.
“'Pears to me,” said Tom, “that the thing fur us to do is to hurry 'em up ez much ez possible.”
“So the Indians won't see 'em crossing the plain,” said Henry. “We couldn't defend them against a large force, and it would merely be a massacre. We must persuade them to walk faster.”
Shif'less Sol was invaluable in this crisis. He could talk forever in his-placid way, and, with his gentle encouragement, mild sarcasm, and anecdotes of great feminine walkers that he had known, he soon had them moving faster.
Henry and Tom dropped farther to the rear. They could see ahead of them the long dark line, coiling farther into the woods, but they could also see to right and left towers of smoke rising in the clear morning sunlight. These, they knew, came from burning houses, and they knew, also, that the valley would be ravaged from end to end and from side to side. After the surrender of the fort the Indians would divide into small bands, going everywhere, and nothing could escape them.
The sun rose higher, gilding the earth with glowing light, as if the black tragedy had never happened, but the frontiersmen recognized their greatest danger in this brilliant morning. Objects could be seen at a great distance, and they could be seen vividly.
Keen of sight and trained to know what it was they saw, Henry, Sol, and Tom searched the country with their eyes, on all sides. They caught a distant glimpse of the Susquehanna, a silver spot among some trees, and they saw the sunlight glancing off the opposite mountains, but for the present they saw nothing that seemed hostile.
They allowed the distance between them and the retreating file to grow until it was five or six hundred yards, and they might have let it grow farther, but Henry made a signal, and the three lay down in the grass.
“You see 'em, don't you!” the youth whispered to his comrade.
“Yes, down thar at the foot o' that hillock,” replied Shif'less Sol; “two o' em, an' Senecas, I take it.”
“They've seen that crowd of women and children,” said Henry.
It was obvious that the flying column was discovered. The two Indians stepped upon the hillock and gazed under their hands. It was too far away for the three to see their faces, but they knew the joy that would be shown there. The two could return with a few warriors and massacre them all.
“They must never get back to the other Indians with their news,” whispered Henry. “I hate to shoot men from ambush, but it's got to be done. Wait, they're coming a little closer.”
The two Senecas advanced about thirty yards, and stopped again.
“S'pose you fire at the one on the right, Henry,” said Tom, “an' me an' Sol will take the one to the left.”
“All right,” said Henry. “Fire!”
They wasted no time, but pulled trigger. The one at whom Henry had aimed fell, but the other, uttering a cry, made off, wounded, but evidently with plenty of strength left.
“We mustn't let him escape! We mustn't let him carry a warning!” cried Henry.
But Shif'less Sol and Tom Ross were already in pursuit, covering the ground with long strides, and reloading as they ran. Under ordinary circumstances no one of the three would have fired at a man running for his life, but here the necessity was vital. If he lived, carrying the tale that he had to tell, a hundred innocent ones might perish. Henry followed his comrades, reloading his own rifle, also, but he stayed behind. The Indian had a good lead, and he was gaining, as the others were compelled to check speed somewhat as they put the powder and bullets in their rifles. But Henry was near enough to Shif'less Sol and Silent Tom to hear them exchange a few words.
“How far away is that savage?” asked Shif'less Sol.
“Hundred and eighty yards,” said Tom Ross.
“Well, you take him in the head, and I'll take him in the body.”
Henry saw the two rifle barrels go up and two flashes of flame leap from the muzzles. The Indian fell forward and lay still. They went up to him, and found that he was shot through the head and also through the body.
“We may miss once, but we don't twice,” said Tom Ross.
The human mind can be influenced so powerfully by events that the three felt no compunction at all at the shooting of this fleeing Indian. It was but a trifle compared with what they had seen the day and night before.
“We'd better take the weapons an' ammunition o' both uv 'em,” said Sol. “They may be needed, an' some o' the women in that crowd kin shoot.”
They gathered up the arms, powder, and ball, and waited a little to see whether the shots had been heard by any other Indians, but there was no indication of the presence of more warriors, and the rejoined the fugitives. Long Jim had dropped back to the end of the line, and when he saw that his comrades carried two extra rifles, he understood.
“They didn't give no alarm, did they?” he asked in a tone so low that none of the fugitives could hear.
“They didn't have any chance,” replied Henry. “We've brought away all their weapons and ammunition, but just say to the women that we found them in an abandoned house.”
The rifles and the other arms were given to the boldest and most stalwart of the women, and they promised to use them if the need came. Meanwhile the flight went on, and the farther it went the sadder it became. Children became exhausted, and had to be carried by people so tired that they could scarcely walk themselves. There was nobody in the line who had not lost some beloved one on that fatal river bank, killed in battle, or tortured to death. As they slowly ascended the green slope of the mountain that inclosed a side of the valley, they looked back upon ruin and desolation. The whole black tragedy was being consummated. They could see the houses in flames, and they knew that the Indian war parties were killing and scalping everywhere. They knew, too, that other bodies of fugitives, as stricken as their own, were fleeing into the mountains, they scarcely knew whither.
As they paused a few moments and looked back, a great cry burst from the weakest of the women and children. Then it became a sad and terrible wail, and it was a long time before it ceased. It was an awful sound, so compounded of despair and woe and of longing for what they had lost that Henry choked, and the tears stood in Paul's eyes. But neither the five nor Carpenter made any attempt to check the wailing. They thought it best for them to weep it out, but they hurried the column as much as they could, often carrying some of the smaller children themselves. Paul and Long Jim were the best as comforters. The two knew how, each in his own way, to soothe and encourage. Carpenter, who knew the way to Fort Penn, led doggedly on, scarcely saying a word. Henry, Shif'less Sol, and Tom were the rear guard, which was, in this case, the one of greatest danger and responsibility.
Henry was thankful that it was only early summer the Fourth of July, the second anniversary of the Declaration of Independence-and that the foliage was heavy and green on the slopes of the mountain. In this mass of greenery the desolate column was now completely hidden from any observer in the valley, and he believed that other crowds of fugitives would be hidden in the same manner. He felt sure that no living human being would be left in the valley, that it would be ravaged from end to end and then left to desolation, until new people, protected by American bayonets, should come in and settle it again.
At last they passed the crest of the ridge, and the fires in the valley, those emblems of destruction, were hidden. Between them and Fort Penn, sixty miles away, stretched a wilderness of mountain, forest, and swamp. But the five welcomed the forest. A foe might lie there in ambush, but they could not see the fugitives at a distance. What the latter needed now was obscurity, the green blanket of the forest to hide them. Carpenter led on over a narrow trail; the others followed almost in single file now, while the five scouted in the woods on either flank and at the rear. Henry and Shif'less Sol generally kept together, and they fully realized the overwhelming danger should an Indian band, even as small as ten or a dozen warriors, appear. Should the latter scatter, it would be impossible to protect all the women and children from their tomahawks.
The day was warm, but the forest gave them coolness as well as shelter. Henry and Sol were seldom so far back that they could not see the end of the melancholy line, now moving slowly, overborne by weariness. The shiftless one shook his head sadly.
“No matter what happens, some uv 'em will never get out o' these woods.”
His words came true all too soon. Before the afternoon closed, two women, ill before the flight, died of terror and exhaustion, and were buried in shallow graves under the trees. Before dark a halt was made at the suggestion of Henry, and all except Carpenter and the scouts sat in a close, drooping group. Many of the children cried, though the women had all ceased to weep. They had some food with them, taken in the hurried flight, and now the men asked them to eat. Few could do it, and others insisted on saving what little they had for the children. Long Jim found a spring near by, and all drank at it.
The six men decided that, although night had not yet come, it would be best to remain there until the morning. Evidently the fugitives were in no condition, either mental or physical, to go farther that day, and the rest was worth more than the risk.
When this decision was announced to them, most of the women took it apathetically. Soon they lay down upon a blanket, if one was to be had; otherwise, on leaves and branches. Again Henry thanked God that it was summer, and that these were people of the frontier, who could sleep in the open. No fire was needed, and, outside of human enemies, only rain was to be dreaded.
And yet this band, desperate though its case, was more fortunate than some of the others that fled from the Wyoming Valley. It had now to protect it six men Henry and Paul, though boys in years, were men in strength and ability—five of whom were the equals of any frontiersmen on the whole border. Another crowd of women was escorted by a single man throughout its entire flight.
Henry and his comrades distributed themselves in a circle about the group. At times they helped gather whortleberries as food for the others, but they looked for Indians or game, intending to shoot in either case. When Paul and Henry were together they once heard a light sound in a thicket, which at first they were afraid was made by an Indian scout, but it was a deer, and it bounded away too soon for either to get a shot. They could not find other game of any kind, and they came back toward the camp-if a mere stop in the woods, without shelter of any kind, could be called a camp.
The sun was now setting, blood red. It tinged the forest with a fiery mist, reminding the unhappy group of all that they had seen. But the mist was gone in a few moments, and then the blackness of night came with a weird moaning wind that told of desolation. Most of the children, having passed through every phase of exhaustion and terror, had fallen asleep. Some of the women slept, also, and others wept. But the terrible wailing note, which the nerves of no man could stand, was heard no longer.
The five gathered again at a point near by, and Carpenter came to them.
“Men,” he said simply, “don't know much about you, though I know you fought well in the battle that we lost, but for what you're doin' now nobody can ever repay you. I knew that I never could get across the mountains with all these weak ones.”
The five merely said that any man who was a man would help at such a time. Then they resumed their march in a perpetual circle about the camp.
Some women did not sleep at all that night. It is not easy to conceive what the frontier women of America endured so many thousands of times. They had seen their husbands, brothers, and sons killed in the battle, and they knew that the worst of torture had been practiced in the Indian camp. Many of them really did not want to live any longer. They merely struggled automatically for life. The darkness settled down thicker and thicker; the blackness in the forest was intense, and they could see the faces of one another only at a little distance. The desolate moan of the wind came through the leaves, and, although it was July, the night grew cold. The women crept closer together, trying to cover up and protect the children. The wind, with its inexpressibly mournful note, was exactly fitted to their feelings. Many of them wondered why a Supreme Being had permitted such things. But they ceased to talk. No sound at all came from the group, and any one fifty yards away, not forewarned, could not have told that they were there.
Henry and Paul met again about midnight, and sat a long time on a little hillock. Theirs had been the most dangerous of lives on the most dangerous of frontiers, but they had never been stirred as they were tonight. Even Paul, the mildest of the five, felt something burning within him, a fire that only one thing could quench.
“Henry,” said he, “we're trying to get these people to Fort Penn, and we may get some of them there, but I don't think our work will be ended them. I don't think I could ever be happy again if we went straight from Fort Penn to Kentucky.”
Henry understood him perfectly.
“No, Paul,” he said, “I don't want to go, either, and I know the others don't. Maybe you are not willing to tell why we want to stay, but it is vengeance. I know it's Christian to forgive your enemies, but I can't see what I have seen, and hear what I have heard, and do it.”
“When the news of these things spreads,” said Paul, “they'll send an army from the east. Sooner or later they'll just have to do it to punish the Iroquois and their white allies, and we've got to be here to join that army.”
“I feel that way, too, Paul,” said Henry.
They were joined later by the other three, who stayed a little while, and they were in accord with Henry and Paul.
Then they began their circles about the camp again, always looking and always listening. About two o'clock in the morning they heard a scream, but it was only the cry of a panther. Before day there were clouds, a low rumble of distant thunder, and faint far flashes of lightning. Henry was in dread of rain, but the lightning and thunder ceased, and the clouds went away. Then dawn came, rosy and bright, and all but three rose from the earth. The three-one woman and two children-had died in silence in the night, and they were buried, like the others, in shallow graves in the woods. But there was little weeping or external mourning over them. All were now heavy and apathetic, capable of but little more emotion.
Carpenter resumed his position at the head of the column, which now moved slowly over the mountain through a thick forest matted with vines and bushes and without a path. The march was now so painful and difficult that they did not make more than two miles an hour. The stronger of them helped the men to gather more whortleberries, as it was easy to see that the food they had with them would never last until they reached Fort Penn, should they ever reach it.
The condition of the country into which they had entered steadily grew worse. They were well into the mountains, a region exceedingly wild and rough, but little known to the settlers, who had gone around it to build homes in the fertile and beautiful valley of Wyoming. The heavy forest was made all the more difficult by the presence everywhere of almost impassable undergrowth. Now and then a woman lay down under the bushes, and in two cases they died there because the power to live was no longer in them. They grew weaker and weaker. The food that they had brought from the Wyoming fort was almost exhausted, and the wild whortleberries were far from sustaining. Fortunately there was plenty of water flowing tinder the dark woods and along the mountainside. But they were compelled to stop at intervals of an hour or two to rest, and the more timid continually expected Indian ambush.
The five met shortly after noon and took another reckoning of the situation. They still realized to the full the dangers of Indian pursuit, which in this case might be a mere matter of accident. Anybody could follow the broad trail left by the fugitives, but the Iroquois, busy with destruction in the valley, might not follow, even if they saw it. No one could tell. The danger of starvation or of death from exhaustion was more imminent, more pressing, and the five resolved to let scouting alone for the rest of the day and seek game.
“There's bound to be a lot of it in these woods,” said Shif'less Sol, “though it's frightened out of the path by our big crowd, but we ought to find it.”
Henry and Shif'less Sol went in one direction, and Paul, Tom, and Long Jim in another. But with all their hunting they succeeded in finding only one little deer, which fell to the rifle of Silent Tom. It made small enough portions for the supper and breakfast of nearly a hundred people, but it helped wonderfully, and so did the fires which Henry and his comrades would now have built, even had they not been needed for the cooking. They saw that light and warmth, the light and warmth of glowing coals, would alone rouse life in this desolate band.
They slept the second night on the ground among the trees, and the next morning they entered that gloomy region of terrible memory, the Great Dismal Swamp of the North, known sometimes, to this day, as “The Shades of Death.”