The Phantom of the River Part 23

PUTTING OUT FROM Sh.o.r.e.

Not a moment was to be lost. Everything depended upon boarding the flatboat and pus.h.i.+ng off at once from sh.o.r.e. The party was so large that the craft was sure to be crowded, but its buoyancy was sufficient to carry still more.

To most of the party hurrying on board, the silence and inactivity of the Shawanoes were incomprehensible. That they had been partially dazed was fair to believe, but it could not continue long. The presence of the boat, with its sail still spread, against the bank, must tell the story to the fierce red men, who ought to be as quick to recover from it as were the pioneers.

It mattered not that the wind had failed. The one point was to get the flatboat away from land, and out into the stream. That done, a long step would be taken toward safety. The ambuscade would be flanked and avoided.

"You can't hurry too much," said the missionary, beginning to show nervousness now that the critical moment was at hand. He helped the women on board, and did what he could to prevent the confusion caused at this juncture by the crowding. He expected that a volley would come every moment from the gloom along the sh.o.r.e, and therefore held his station where his body would be most likely to s.h.i.+eld the helpless ones.

Amid the confusion there was something approaching order, and it can be said that no time was thrown away. Within a minute of reaching the flatboat it seemed that every one of the pioneers was on board.

"Lay down," whispered Boone, addressing the settlers especially; "the varmints are sartin to fire afore you can get out on the river--"

"Dar goes dat canue," called Jethro Juggens, who managed to be the first on board.

The little boat had been swung around and fastened to the farther side of the more bulky craft, so as to allow the latter to approach nearer the land. The youth was doing what he could to aid his friends (really doing nothing), when he observed the canoe several feet away with the intervening s.p.a.ce steadily increasing.

"Jump over after it," commanded Kenton, who himself would have done what he ordered but for the need of his presence on the flatboat.

"Drop dat boat!" shouted Jethro, addressing (with a view of impressing those around him) an imaginary foe. At the same moment, leaving his gun behind him, he leaped overboard and swam powerfully toward the little craft. The clothing of the youth had not yet dried from the wetting received by his bath earlier in the evening, and at this sultry season of the year a plunge in the river was pleasant than otherwise.

Jethro ought to have noticed that while the canoe was drifting with the current it was also approaching the middle of the Ohio. That could hardly take place without the interference of some one.

But the powerful youth noted not the significant fact, and swam with l.u.s.ty stroke straight for the little boat that had changed hands so frequently during the last few hours, and been the cause of more than one furious wrangle. Only a second or two was necessary to reach it, and he laid his hand on the gunwale.

At that instant a Shawanoe warrior rose from the interior of the canoe, and lifted his hand in which was clasped a knife, with the purpose of burying it with vicious energy in the breast of the astonished youth.

"Whew! gorrynation! I didn't know yo' war dar!" gasped Jethro, dropping like a loon beneath the surface just in time to escape the ferocious thrust.

The Shawanoe leaned so far out, with upraised weapon, to strike the African when he came up, that the canoe careened almost upon its side.

He was in this att.i.tude of expectancy when, from the flatboat, came the sharp crack of a rifle, and the savage plunged over, head first, with a smothered shriek, and sank from sight.

"I expected something of the kind," muttered Simon Kenton, who, amid the tumult around him, proceeded to reload his rifle with as much coolness as if he were in the depth of the forest and had just brought down a deer or bear.

From the undergrowth immediately above where the boat was pus.h.i.+ng from land, a second warrior, whose zeal outran his discretion, emitted a ringing whoop, and dashed straight at the crowding fugitives. He was nearer Mrs. Altman than any of the others, and meant to bury his uplifted tomahawk in her brain, but when almost within reach he made a frenzied leap from the ground, and, with outspread arms and legs, tumbled forward on his face.

It was never clearly established who was quick enough to check the murderous miscreant in this fas.h.i.+on, for fighting had fairly begun and considerable shooting was going on; but the moon at that moment was un.o.bscured, and Mr. Altman insisted that he saw Missionary Finley raise his rifle like a flash and discharge it in the direction of the warrior just at the instant before the husband could intervene in defence of his wife.

When the good man was afterward taxed with the exploit, so creditable to his coolness and courage, he showed a reluctance to discuss it. Pressed further, he would not admit the charge, and yet refrained from denial.

It will be conceded, therefore, that the presumption is reasonable that Missionary Finley was the instrument of saving Mrs. Altman's life when it was in the gravest possible peril. Meanwhile Jethro Juggens found himself with interesting surroundings. Availing himself of his great skill in the water, he dived so deeply that his feet touched bottom and he came up a dozen rods away from the canoe and between it and the Ohio sh.o.r.e. The pa.s.sing of the Shawanoe took place while the youth was beneath the surface, so that he was unaware of the true situation when he arose and stared at the boat.

"Gorrynation, if de t'ing ain't upsot!" was his exclamation when he had approached somewhat nearer and saw the boat turned bottom upward.

The spasmodic lunge of the Shawanoe had overturned the craft, which resembled a huge tortoise, drifting with the current.

"He's walking on de bottom ob de ribber, wid dat boat ober his head, to keep from gettin' moonstruck. Dat can't be neither," added Jethro, "onless he am seventeen foot tall, and I don't tink he am dat high."

The gently moving arms of the swimmer came in contact with something.

Closing his hands about it, he found it to be the oar flung out of the canoe by the overturning.

"Dat'll come handy," thought Jethro. "When he sticks out his head to get a bref ob air, I'll whack him wid de paddle till he s'renders."

After manoeuvring about the canoe for some minutes, a suspicion of the truth dawned upon the youth. Even when under the water he was able to hear the deadened reports of the rifles above, and he believed that one of the shots must have reached the occupant of the boat, whose frenzied leap capsized it.

Gathering courage after a few minutes, he grasped the canoe and managed to swing it back into proper position, but it contained so much water as to forbid its use until it was emptied. This could be done only by taking it ash.o.r.e. Jethro therefore tossed the paddle inside, and grasping the gunwale with one hand, swam with the other toward Ohio. It may be added that he reached it without further event, and there for a time we will leave him to himself.

"Lie down!" thundered the missionary, seeing that his first order was only partially obeyed. "My good woman, I beg your pardon, but it must be done."

His words were addressed to Mrs. Ashbridge, who, in her anxiety for her husband and son, was exposing herself in the most reckless manner. As he spoke, he seized her in his arms as though she were but an infant, and placed her not too gently flat in the bottom of the boat.

"There! spend these minutes in prayer--no; that will never do," he added, grasping the shoulder of Agnes Altman, who, at that moment, attempted to rise; "keep down--all that is between you and death is that plank."

"But--but," pleaded the distressed girl, "tell father and George to be careful, won't you, please?"

"We are in the hands of G.o.d, my child, and have only to do our duty.

Help us by causing no anxiety about yourselves."

The great necessity, as has been explained, was to work the flatboat away from land. The most direct means of doing this was by pus.h.i.+ng with the poles that had been taken on board for that use; but they were fastened in place as supports for the sail that had brought the craft to this place. The sweeps would accomplish this work, but only slowly and by frightful exposure on the part of those swaying them.

Nevertheless, Jim Deane seized the bow sweep at the moment another ranger grasped the rear one, and both wrought with right good will.

Dark forms appeared in greater number along sh.o.r.e and near the craft itself. The gloom was lit up by flashes of guns, and the air was rent by the shouts of the combatants, for the white men could make as much noise as their enemies in the swirl and frenzy of personal encounter and deadly conflict.

Boone, Kenton, the missionary and most of the men had leaped into the flatboat and crouched low, where all seemed huddled together in inextricable confusion. The two were toiling at the sweeps, and the craft worked away from the sh.o.r.e with maddening tardiness. To some of the terrified inmates it did not seem to move at all.

"A little harder, Jim," called the missionary "shall I lend a hand?"

"No," replied Deane; "I'll fetch it, I don't need you--yes I do, too."

As he spoke, he let go of the sweep and sagged heavily downward.

"Are you hit?" asked the good man, raising the head upon his knee.

"I got my last sickness that time, parson--it's all up--good-by!"

The missionary would have said more, would have prayed with the fellow, despite the terrifying peril around him, had there been time to do so, but Jim Deane was dead.

"G.o.d rest his soul!" murmured the good man, gently laying down the head, and drawing the body as closely as he could to the gunwale, where it would be out of the way.

As from the first, the missionary exposed himself with the utmost recklessness, and, where the bullets were hurtling all about him, the wonder was that he had not already been struck; but the life of Rev. J.

B. Finley was one of sacrifice, peril, suffering and hards.h.i.+p, in which his last thought was for himself. He was ready for the call of the dark angel, whether he came at midnight, morning, or high noon, and the angel did not come until after the lapse of many years, when the scenes such as we are describing had long pa.s.sed away.

A strange and for a time wholly unaccountable occurrence took place near the stem of the flatboat, only a moment before Jim Deane was mortally smitten.

Simon Kenton had just withdrawn his attention from Jethro Juggens and his canoe, and was looking toward the bank at his elbow, when he uttered an exclamation, the meaning of which no one caught, or, if he did, failed to notice it in the tumult and hullabaloo. At the same moment the ranger gathered his muscles into one mighty effort, and made a leap toward sh.o.r.e.

Superb as was his skill in this direction, the distance was too great to be covered, and he stuck in the water, but so near land that he sank only to his waist. He struggled furiously forward, seemingly in the very midst of the Shawanoes, and was immediately lost to sight.