Silently, that the children might not be waked and lurking savage might not hear, we put the powder and bullets in the middle of the room and loaded the guns and pistols. For Polly Ann had learned to shoot. She took the loopholes of two sides of the cabin, I of the other two, and then began the fearful watching and waiting which the frontier knows so well. Suddenly the cattle stirred again, and stampeded to the other corner of the field. There came a whisper from Polly Ann.
"What is it?" I answered, running over to her.
"Look out," she said; "what d"ye see near the mill?"
Her sharp eyes had not deceived her, for mine perceived plainly a dark form skulking in the hickory grove. Next, a movement behind the rail fence, and darting back to my side of the house I made out a long black body wriggling at the edge of the withered corn-patch. They were surrounding us. How I wished that Tom were home!
A stealthy sound began to intrude itself upon our ears. Listening intently, I thought it came from the side of the cabin where the lean-to was, where we stored our wood in winter. The black shadow fell on that side, and into a patch of bushes; peering out of the loophole, I could perceive nothing there. The noise went on at intervals. All at once there grew on me, with horror, the discovery that there was digging under the cabin.
How long the sound continued I know not,--it might have been an hour, it might have been less. Now I thought I heard it under the wall, now beneath the puncheons of the floor. The pitchy blackness within was such that we could not see the boards moving, and therefore we must needs kneel down and feel them from time to time. Yes, this one was lifting from its bed on the hard earth beneath. I was sure of it. It rose an inch--then an inch more. Gripping the handle of my tomahawk, I prayed for guidance in my stroke, for the blade might go wild in the darkness.
Upward crept the board, and suddenly it was gone from the floor. I swung a full circle--and to my horror I felt the axe plunging into soft flesh and crunching on a bone. I had missed the head! A yell shattered the night as the puncheon fell with a rattle on the boards, and my tomahawk was gone from my hand. Without, the fierce war-cry of the Shawanees that I knew so well echoed around the log walls, and the door trembled with a blow. The children awoke, crying.
There was no time to think; my great fear was that the devil in the cabin would kill Polly Ann. Just then I heard her calling out to me.
"Hide!" I cried, "hide under the shake-down! Has he got you?"
I heard her answer, and then the sound of a scuffle that maddened me.
Knife in hand, I crept slowly about, and put my fingers on a man"s neck and side. Next Polly Ann careened against me, and I lost him again.
"Davy, Davy," I heard her gasp, "look out fer the floor!"
It was too late. The puncheon rose under me, I stumbled, and it fell again. Once more the awful changing notes of the war-whoop sounded without. A body b.u.mped on the boards, a white light rose before my eyes, and a sharp pain leaped in my side. Then all was black again, but I had my senses still, and my fingers closed around the knotted muscles of an arm. I thrust the pistol in my hand against flesh, and fired. Two of us fell together, but the thought of Polly Ann got me staggering to my feet again, calling her name. By the grace of G.o.d I heard her answer.
"Are ye hurt, Davy?"
"No," said I, "no. And you?"
We drifted together. "Twas she who had the presence of mind.
"The chest--quick, the chest!"
We stumbled over a body in reaching it. We seized the handles, and with all our strength hauled it athwart the loose puncheon that seemed to be lifting even then. A mighty splintering shook the door.
"To the ports!" cried Polly Ann, as our heads knocked together.
To find the rifles and prime them seemed to take an age. Next I was staring through the loophole along a barrel, and beyond it were three black forms in line on a long beam. I think we fired--Polly Ann and I--at the same time. One fell. We saw a comedy of the beam dropping heavily on the foot of another, and he limping off with a guttural howl of rage and pain. I fired a pistol at him, but missed him, and then I was ramming a powder charge down the long barrel of the rifle. Suddenly there was silence,--even the children had ceased crying. Outside, in the dooryard, a feathered figure writhed like a snake towards the fence. The moon still etched the picture in black and white.
Shots awoke me, I think, distant shots. And they sounded like the ripping and tearing of cloth for a wound. "Twas no new sound to me.
"Davy, dear," said a voice, tenderly.
Out of the mist the tear-stained face of Polly Ann bent over me. I put up my hand, and dropped it again with a cry. Then, my senses coming with a rush, the familiar objects of the cabin outlined themselves: Tom"s winter hunting shirt, Polly Ann"s woollen shift and sunbonnet on their pegs; the big stone chimney, the ladder to the loft, the closed door, with a long, jagged line across it where the wood was splintered; and, dearest of all, the chubby forms of Peggy and little Tom playing on the trundle-bed. Then my glance wandered to the floor, and on the puncheons were three stains. I closed my eyes.
Again came a far-off rattle, like stones falling from a great height down a rocky bluff.
"What"s that?" I whispered.
"They"re fighting at McAfee"s Station," said Polly Ann. She put her cool hand on my head, and little Tom climbed up on the bed and looked up into my face, wistfully calling my name.
"Oh, Davy," said his mother, "I thought ye were never coming back."
"And the redskins?" I asked.
She drew the child away, lest he hurt me, and shuddered.
"I reckon "twas only a war-party," she answered. "The rest is at McAfee"s. And if they beat "em off--" she stopped abruptly.
"We shall be saved," I said.
I shall never forget that day. Polly Ann left my side only to feed the children and to keep watch out of the loopholes, and I lay on my back, listening and listening to the shots. At last these became scattered.
Then, though we strained our ears, we heard them no more. Was the fort taken? The sun slid across the heavens and shot narrow blades of light, now through one loophole and now through another, until a ray slanted from the western wall and rested upon the red-and-black paint of two dead bodies in the corner. I stared with horror.
"I was afeard to open the door and throw "em out," said Polly Ann, apologetically.
Still I stared. One of them had a great cleft across his face.
"But I thought I hit him in the shoulder," I exclaimed.
Polly Ann thrust her hand, gently, across my eyes. "Davy, ye mustn"t talk," she said; "that"s a dear."
Drowsiness seized me. But I resisted.
"You killed him, Polly Ann," I murmured, "you?"
"Hush," said Polly Ann.
And I slept again.
CHAPTER II. "THE BEGGARS ARE COME TO TOWN"
"They was that dest.i.tute," said Tom, ""twas a pity to see "em."
"And they be grand folks, ye say?" said Polly Ann.
"Grand folks, I reckon. And helpless as babes on the Wilderness Trail.
They had two n.i.g.g.e.rs--his n.i.g.g.e.r an" hers--and they was tuckered, too, fer a fact.
"Lawsy!" exclaimed Polly Ann. "Be still, honey!" Taking a piece of corn-pone from the cupboard, she bent over and thrust it between little Peggy"s chubby fingers "Be still, honey, and listen to what your Pa says. Whar did ye find "em, Tom?"
""Twas Jim Ray found "em," said Tom. "We went up to Crab Orchard, accordin" to the Colonel"s orders and we was thar three days. Ye ought to hev seen the trash we turned back, Polly Ann! Most of "em was scared plum" crazy, and they was fer gittin "out "n Kaintuckee at any cost.
Some was fer fightin" their way through us."
"The skulks!" exclaimed Polly Ann. "They tried to kill ye? What did ye do?"
Tom grinned, his mouth full of bacon.
"Do?" says he; "we shot a couple of "em in the legs and arms, and bound "em up again. They was in a t"arin" rage. I"m more afeard of a scar"t man,--a real scar"t man--nor a rattler. They cussed us till they was hoa.r.s.e. Said they"d hev us hung, an" Clark, too. Said they hed a right to go back to Virginny if they hed a mind."