Walter nodded comprehension and began stuffing sh.e.l.ls into the magazine of his Winchester.
From him, Charley pa.s.sed on to the captain and Chris, to whom he gave the same explanations and instructions. As he took his own place behind the barricade, the young Indian crawled quietly up beside him.
"Why did you not stay with your father?" said Charley, impatiently.
The little Indian drew himself up proudly and recklessly to his full height, inviting a storm of bullets, all of which happily missed their mark. Before the volley could be repeated, Charley pulled him down on the turf beside him out of danger.
"The chief has awakened from his sleep," said the young Seminole with dignity. "Of the things you had told me and I had seen, I told him all and he believed. Then he bade me come forth, saying, "Where the bullets sing is the place for the son of a chief.""
"Then keep close to me and shoot when I do," Charley ordered. He raised his right hand in the air and the captain"s and Chris" rifles sent thirty-two bullets zipping and singing in amongst the trees.
Before the convicts recovered from their surprise, forty-eight more leaden messengers whined through the air above them. The effect was magical, the convicts ceased their fire, and puzzled and alarmed by the sudden leaden hail, sought shelter behind the largest trees they could find.
For ten minutes the hunters poured volley after volley of lead into the forest. Suddenly a white rag tied to a stick was thrust out from behind a tree.
Instantly Charley gave the signal to stop firing. As it ceased, a man stepped out into the open, bearing the flag of truce in his hand.
Charley laid down his smoking rifle and leaped lightly over the barricade.
"Don"t go to meet him, Charley," Walter implored, "anyone of those murderers are likely to take a pot shot at you. Do come back."
"Better listen to the lad, Charley," said the captain, earnestly. "You can"t count on that gang respecting a truce flag. Don"t go, my boy."
But Charley only smiled determinedly. "I want to hear what he has to say, and I don"t want him to see the weak points in our barricade," he said, "besides, the other day, I was noticing that fellow coming.
Criminal he may be, but he is far too good for the company he"s in.
I"ve got a feeling that he would not stand to be a decoy. Here goes, anyway. Don"t worry."
Midway of the open s.p.a.ce the two met. The convict was a young man, with a dark, handsome face and bold, reckless eyes. He greeted the young hunter as coolly as though they were meeting for a pleasant social chat.
"I came because the rest were afraid," he explained, cheerfully, eyeing the other from head to foot with cool a.s.surance. "They are so crooked and treacherous themselves that they think that your companions will do as they would do,--not hesitate to fire on the bearer of a white flag."
"They have a good chance at me now," said Charley with a smile.
The stranger grinned as he skilfully rolled a cigarette with one hand.
"I gave them to understand before I left that they would have to reckon with me if they tried any such trick," he remarked, cheerfully. "I guess that will keep the brutes quiet for a while. But let"s get down to business. I have," he said ironically, "the distinguished honor to be their messenger, but first let me say that, although with that gang of beasts, I am not of them. I"ve killed my man, but it was in fair fight, and not by a knife in the back. I have no kick coming over what the law dealt out to me. Furthermore, if I had known the animals, I would have to travel with, I would not have let my longing for freedom draw me away from the turpentine camp. Lord knows, I wish I was back there now." His voice, which had grown earnest, dropped again into a sarcastic note. "But I am wandering, as I said before, my n.o.ble, gallant friends have made me their messenger and agent. It will help you to understand their demands if I state that the afternoon"s work has been far from satisfactory. So many of the canoes were overturned that the plumes secured will not amount to more than seven hundred dollars where my friends expected to reap as many thousand as the fruit of their labor."
"Come to the point," said Charley, impatiently, his eyes shifting anxiously to the declining sun.
The other"s tone grew still more bitterly sarcastic. "We have been bitterly disappointed," he declared. "My brave, valiant companions have suffered sorely in body and spirit. You saw them engage a mighty fleet of a race whose color was an offense in their eyes. It was also rumored that the fleet contained many thousands of dollars in bird plumes which it was clearly wrong to leave in the possession of those who would not know how to spend the money intelligently.
"It is true my dear companions kept in the shelter of the largest trees, but the incautious ones,--there was an arm barked here and a leg scratched there, and pain stalked abroad in our midst. Then, when the battle was over, judge of the bitterness of mind of my n.o.ble comrades when they searched the canoes not overturned and found less than seven hundred dollars" worth of plumes, barely enough for one good right"s drunk and carouse in town."
Charley was interested in spite of himself in this gay, humorous young outlaw, who was so evidently superior to his brutal companions, and he would have liked to let him come to the point in his own amusing way, but the sun was getting low, and he feared to waste more time. "Cut out your nonsense and come to the point," he said curtly. "What do you want with us?"
The other dropped his mocking tone. "We want that chief and his boy, whom you are harboring in your camp. According to our Indian companion, they own, or know of the hiding-place of, a fortune in plumes. If the plumes are not to be easily reached, we can still hold the chief and boy for a big ransom. His people will raise it quick enough, for he is a big man among them." He hesitated and then went on. "The gang said for me to tell you, if the chief and boy were given up, your party would not be troubled further."
Charley smiled incredulously. "And what do you say?" he demanded.
"That whether you give them up or not, you are all as good as dead,"
exclaimed the other in a burst of frankness. "Good Lord, boy, do you dream that they figure on letting any eyewitness escape to a town and set the officers of law on their trail? You can hold them off here until night, but when darkness comes you"ll be wiped out like the blowing out of a candle."
Charley laid his hand on the other"s arm. "You are too good for that gang, better come over to our side," he said, earnestly.
The young outlaw hesitated for the fraction of a second, then shook off the hand roughly. "No matter how bad they are, they are my comrades, and I am no traitor," he said curtly. "Your answer, please."
"Tell them we will not give up the chief or boy," said the young envoy earnestly. "Tell them that they have not got us yet by a long shot.
Tell them that the one object we are going to work for from now on, is to get them back into the hands of the law."
The young outlaw gave him a look of admiration. "You"ve got the nerve, all right," he said. "Well, so long, till we meet again," and whirling around he sauntered slowly off in the direction of the forest, merrily whistling as he went.
Charley for a moment looked after him regretfully, then turning, he quickly rejoined his companions behind the barricade.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE RETREAT.
A few words gave his companions the substance of the conversation.
"Now," he continued, "I wish we could all get together in the camp for a few minutes to talk this thing over, and decide on our next move, but it"s too risky to leave the wall unguarded, although I don"t believe they will try another a.s.sault before dark."
The young Seminole spoke up, "when the Big Tiger speaks, the whelp is silent, I will stay."
"Golly, I reckon dis n.i.g.g.e.r ain"t no good at planning, spec I better stay here, too," observed Chris.
A parting volley was fired into the forest, and under cover of the smoke the rest retired quickly to the lean-to.
The wounded man was lying awake on his couch, his keen, black eyes burning with an unnatural light.
Although he must have been suffering intense pain from his wound, his features were calm and composed. He tried to rise as the hunters entered, but could not raise himself even on his elbow.
"Don"t try to move," exclaimed Charley, hurrying to his side.
"How," said the sufferer, in greeting, extending a hand surprisingly small and well-formed for a man of his size.
Charley gave it a hearty shake and his companions crowding around, gravely followed his example.
The wounded man lay silent for a moment surveying the little party with shrewd, appraising eyes. A friendly gleam shone in his beady orbs as they lingered for a second on the captain"s kindly, weather-beaten face. He looked a trifle longer at Walter"s eager, open countenance, but his glance came back to rest on Charley"s face, and to him his words were addressed.
"He, whom his people call the Big Tiger, was made as weak as a tiny papoose by the bullet of a jackal," he began in broken English. "The Little tiger has told me all; how the jackals would have taken their prey but for your coming in the canoe of cloth and bringing the helpless ones here. The jackals" bullet has sped true, and the Big Tiger will lead his followers no more in the hunt, but the son of a chief will remain and his life will be at the young white chieftain"s command."
The stricken man burst into a fit of coughing, and Charley noted with pity that flecks of scarlet stained the sufferer"s lips. "Shot through the lungs," he decided, but he allowed no trace of pity to show on his face.
"A chief of the Seminoles must be wise with the wisdom of the owl in council," he said, as soon as the fit of coughing had left its victim.
"Payment from father or son we desire not, only the counsel of wisdom now. We are but braves in the hunt or fight, and great danger threatens, now, but the ripe wisdom of a great chief may be able to point out a path to safety."
Clearly and in few words, he described their present desperate position and the demands and threats of the outlaws.
The Indian listened in impa.s.sive silence and for some time after Charley finished, remained buried in profound meditation.