""Tis a rest camp," quoth d.i.c.k; "though why they should break the march here is more than I can guess."
"No," said Ephraim Yeates. ""Tain"t jest rightly a rest camp, ez I take it. Ez I was a-saying last night, this here is Tuckasege country, and we ain"t no furder than a day"s running from the Cowee Towns. Now the Tuckaseges and the over-mounting Cherokees ain"t always on the best o"
tarms, and I was a wondering if the hoss-captain hadn"t sot down here to wait whilst he could send a peace-offer" o" powder and lead on to the Cowee chiefs to sort o" smooth the way."
"No send him yet; going to send," was Uncanoola"s amendment. "Look-see, Chelakee braves make haste for load horses down yonder now!"
Again the sharp eyes of the Catawba had come in play. At the foot of the great boulder some half dozen of the Cherokees were busy with the powder cargo, lashing pack-loads of it upon two horses. One of the group, who appeared to be directing the labor of the others, stood apart, holding the bridle reins of three other horses caparisoned as for a journey.
When the loading was accomplished to the satisfaction of the horse-holding chieftain, he and two others mounted, took the burdened animals in tow, and the small cavalcade filed off down the stream toward the apparent _cul de sac_ at the lower end of the valley.
Ephraim Yeates was up in a twinkling, dragging us back from the cliff edge.
"Up with ye!" he cried. "Now"s our chance to kill two pa"tridges with one stone! If we can make out to get down into t"other valley in time to see how them varmints come out, we"ll know the way in. More"n that, we can ambush "em and so make sartain sure o" five o" the six hosses we"re a-going to need, come night. But we"ve got to leg for it like Ahimaaz the son of Zadok!"
Thus the old borderer; and being only too eager to come to handgrips with the enemy, we were up and running faster than ever Joab"s messenger ran, long before the old man finished with his Scriptural simile.
Not to take the risk of delay on any unexplored short cut, we made straight for the ravine of our ascent, found it as by unerring instinct, and were presently racing down to the Indian trace in the little upland valley above the gorge.
For all the helter-skelter haste I found time to remember that the gorge as we had last seen it had been well besprinkled with armed Cherokees lying in wait for us. If they were still there we should be like to have a hot welcome; and some reminder of this I gasped out to Yeates in mid flight.
"Ne"m mind that; if we run up ag"inst "em anywhere, "twon"t be there-away. They"ve took the hint and quit; scattered out to hunt us long ago," was his answer, jerked out between bounds. And after that I loosed the Ferara in its sheath and saved my breath as I might for the killing business of the moment.
"Twas a sharp disappointment that, for all the haste of our mad scramble down the mountain, we were too late to surprise the secret of the enemy"s stronghold. The Catawba was leading when we dashed down into the valley, and one glance sent him flying back to stop us short with a dumb show purporting that the quarry was already out of the defile and coming up the Indian path.
Richard swore grievously, but the old backwoodsman took the checkmate placidly and began to set the pieces for the second game in which the horses were the stake, hiding his useless rifle in a hollow tree,--his powder had been soaked and spoiled in the early morning plunge for life,--and drawing his hunting-knife to feel its edge and point.
"Ez I allow, that fotches us to the hoss-lifting," he said, in his slow drawl. Then he laid his commands upon us. "Ord"ly, and in sojer-fashion, now; no whooping and yelling. If the hoss-captain"s got scouts out a-s"arching for us, one good screech from these here varmints we"re a-going to put out"n their mis"ry "u"d fix our flints for kingdom come.
I ain"t none afeard o" your nerve,"--this to Richard and me--"leastwise, not when it comes to fair and square sojer-fighting. But this here onfall has got to be like the smiting o" the "Malekites--root _and_ branch; and if ye"re tempted to be anywise marciful, jest ricollect that for the sake o" them wimmen-folks _we"ve got to have these hosses_!"
You are not to suppose that he was holding us inactive while he thus exhorted us. On the contrary, he was posting us skilfully beside the trace like the shrewd old Indian fighter that he was, with a rare and practised eye to the maximum of cover with the minimum of thicket tangle to impede the rush or to shorten the sword-swing.
But when all was done we were at this disadvantage; that since the enemy was close at hand we dared not cross the path to give our trap a jaw on either side. To offset this, the Catawba dropped out of line and disappeared; and when the Cherokees were no more than a hundred yards away, Uncanoola came in sight a like distance in the opposite direction, running easily down the path to meet the up-coming riders.
Richard let slip an admiration-oath under his breath. "There"s a fine bit of strategy for you!" he whispered. "That wily Jack-at-a-pinch of ours will befool them into believing that he is a runner from the Cowee Towns. "Tis our cue to lie close; he will halt them just here, and there will be roving eyes in the heads of the two who have not to talk."
We had not long to wait. Our cunning ally timed his halting of the emissaries to a nicety, and when the three Cherokees drew rein they were within easy blade"s reach. The powwow, lengthened by Uncanoola till we were near bursting with impatience, was spun out wordily, and presently we saw the pointing of it. The Catawba was affecting to doubt the protests of the emissaries and would have them dismount and prove their good faith by smoking the peace-pipe with him.
I give you fair warning, my dears, that you may turn the page here and skip what follows if you are fain to be tender-hearted on the score of these savage enemies of ours. It was in the very summer solstice of the year of violence; a time when he who took the sword was like to perish with the sword; and we thought of little save that Margery and her handmaiden were in deadliest peril, and that these Indians had five horses which we must have.
And as for my own part in the fray, when I recognized in the five-feathered chieftain of the three that copper-hued imp of Satan who had been the merciless master of ceremonies at the torturing of my poor black Tomas, the decent meed of mercy which even a seasoned soldier may cherish died within me, and I made sure the steel would find its mark.
So, when Uncanoola drew forth his tobacco pipe and made the three doomed ones sit with him in the path to smoke the peace-whiff all around, we picked out each his man and smote to slay. The scythe-like sweep of Jennifer"s mighty claymore left the five-feathered chieftain the shorter by a head in the same pulse-beat that the Ferara scanted a second of the breath to yell with; though now I recall it, the gurgling death-cry of the poor wretch with the steel in his throat was more terrible to hear than any war-whoop. As for the old borderer, he was more deliberate.
Being fair behind and within arm"s reach of his man, he seized him by the scalp-lock, bent the head backward across his knee--but, faugh!
these are the merest butcher details, and I would spare you--and myself, as well.
While yet this most merciless deed was a-doing, the Catawba bounded to his feet and made sure of the horses which were rearing and snorting with affright. That done, he must needs gloat, Indian-wise, over his fallen adversary, turning the headless body with his foot and gibing at it.
"Wah! Call hisself the Great Bear, hey? Heap lie; heap no bear; heap nothing, now. Papoose bear no let hisself be trap" that way. No smoke peace-pipe--"
But now Ephraim Yeates, standing ear a-c.o.c.k and motionless, like some grim old statue done in leather, cut him short with a sudden, "Hist, will ye!" and a twinkling instant later we had other work to do.
"Onto the hosses with this here Injun-meat, ez quick ez the loving Lord"ll let ye!" was the sharp command. "There"s a whole clanjamfrey o"
the varmints a-coming down the trace, and I reckon ez how we"d better scratch gravel immejitly, _if_ not sooner!"
XXVI
WE TAKE THE CHARRED STICK FOR A GUIDE
Luckily for us the new danger was approaching from the westward. So, by dint of the maddest hurryings we got the bodies of the three Cherokees hoist upon the horses, and were able to efface in part the signs of the late encounter before the band of riders coming down the Indian path was upon us. But there was no time to make an orderly retreat. At most we could only withdraw a little way into the wood, halting when we were well in cover, and hastily stripping coats and waistcoats to m.u.f.fle the heads of the horses.
So you are to conceive us waiting with nerves upstrung, ready for fight or flight as the event should decide, stifling in such pent-up suspense as any or all of us would gladly have exchanged for the fiercest battle.
Happily, the breath-scanting interval was short. From behind our thicket screen we presently saw a file of Indian hors.e.m.e.n riding at a leisurely footpace down the path. Ephraim Yeates quickly named these new-comers for us.
""Tis about ez I allowed--some o" the Tuckaseges a-scouting down to hold a powwow with the hoss-captain. Now, then; if them sharp-nosed ponies o" their"n don"t happen to sniff the blood--"
The hope was dashed on the instant by the sudden snorting and shying of two or three of the horses in pa.s.sing, and we laid hold of our weapons, keying ourselves to the fighting pitch. But, curiously enough, the riders made no move to pry into the cause. So far from it, they flogged the shying ponies into line and rode on stolidly; and thus in a little time that danger was overpast and the evening silence of the mighty forest was ours to keep or break as we chose.
The old frontiersman was the first to speak.
"Well, friends, I reckon ez how we mought ez well thank the good Lord for all His marcies afore we go any furder," he would say; and he doffed his cap and did it forthwith.
It was as grim a picture as any limner of the weird could wish to look upon. The twilight shadows were empurpling the mountains and gathering in dusky pools here and there where the trees stood thickest in the valley. The hush of nature"s mystic hour was abroad, and even the swiftly flowing river, rushing sullenly along its rocky bed no more than a stone"s cast beyond the Indian path, seemed to pretermit its low thunderings. There was never a breath of air astir in all the wood, and the leaves of the silver poplar that will twinkle and ripple in the lightest zephyr hung stark and motionless.
Barring the old borderer, who had gone upon his knees, we stood as we were; the Catawba holding the pack horses, and Jennifer and I the three that bore the ghastly burdens of mortality. The bodies of the slain had been flung across the saddles to balance as they might; and to the pommel of that saddle which bore the trunk of the five-feathered chieftain, Uncanoola had knotted the grisly head by its scalp-lock to dangle and roll about with every restless movement of the horse--a hideous death-mask that seemed to mop and mow and stare fearsomely at us with its wide-open gla.s.sy eyes.
With this background fit for the staging of a scene in Dante Alighieri"s tragic comedy, the looming mountains, the upper air graying on to dusk, and the solemn forest aisles full of lurking shadows, you are to picture the old frontiersman, bareheaded and on his knees, pouring forth his soul in all the sonorous phrase of Holy Writ, now in thanksgiving, and now in most terrible beseechings that all the vials of Heaven"s wrath might be poured out upon our enemies.
His face, commonly a leather mask to hide the man behind it, was now ablaze with the fire of zealotry; and, truly, in these his spasm-fits of supplication he stood for all that is most awe-inspiring and unnerving, asking but a little stretch of the imagination to figure him as one of those old iron-hard prophets of denunciation come back to earth to be the herald of the wrath of G.o.d.
"Twas close upon actual nightfall when the old man rose from his knees and, with the rising, put off the beadsman and put on the shrewd old Indian fighter. Followed some hurried counselings as to how we should proceed, and in these the hunter set the pace for us as his age and vast experience in woodcraft gave him leave.
His plan had all the merit of simplicity. Now that we had the horses, Richard"s notion of an approach from the head of the sunken valley became at once the most hopeful of any. So Ephraim Yeates proposed that we betake ourselves to the mountain top and to the head of that ravine which the Catawba and I had discovered. Here we should leave the horses well hidden and secured, make our way down the ravine, and, with the stream for a guide, follow the sunken valley to the camp at its lower end. Once on the ground without having given the alarm, we might hope to free the captives under cover of the darkness; and our retreat up the valley would be far less hazardous than any open flight by way of the unexplored road the powder train had used.
So said the old backwoodsman; but neither d.i.c.k nor I would agree to this _in toto_. d.i.c.k argued that while we were killing time in the roundabout advance we should be leaving Margery wholly at the mercy of the baronet, and that every hour of delay was full of hideous menace to her. Hence he proposed that three of us should carry out the hunter"s plan, leaving the fourth to take the hint given by the charred stick and the swimming ambush crew, and so penetrating to the valley by the stream cavern, be at hand to strike a blow for our dear lady"s honor in case of need.
""Tis a thing to be done, and I am with you, d.i.c.k," said I. This before Ephraim Yeates could object. "Should there be need for any, two blades will be better than one. If it come to blows and we are killed or taken, Yeates and the chief must make the shift to do without our help."
As you would guess, the old hunter demurred to this halving of our slender force, but we over-persuaded him. If all went well, we were to rendezvous on the scene of action to carry out the plan of rescue. But if our adventure should prove disastrous, Yeates and Uncanoola were to bide their time, striking in when and how they might.
Touching this contingency, I drew the old man aside for a word in private.
"If aught befall us, Ephraim,--if we should be nabbed as we are like to be,--you are not to let any hope of helping us lessen by a feather"s weight the rescue chance of the women. You"ll promise me this?"
"Sartain sure; ye can rest easy on that, Cap"n John. But don"t ye go for to let that rampaging boy of our"n upsot the fat in the fire with any o"
his foolishness. He"s love-sick, he is; and there ain"t nothing in this world so ridic"lous foolish ez a love-sick boy--less"n "tis a love-sick gal."