In the Days of Poor Richard Part 39

Standing before Jack about three feet away, he drew out his ram rod and tossed it to the young man, who caught it a little above the middle.

Jack knew the meaning of this. They were to put their hands upon the ram rod, one above the other. The last hand it would hold was to do the killing. It was Solomon's.

"Thank G.o.d!" he whispered, as his face brightened.

He seemed to be taking careful aim with his right eye.

"It's my job," said he. "I wouldn't 'a' let ye do it if ye'd drawed the chanst. It's my job--proper. They ain't an hour ahead.

Mebbe--it's jest possible--he may go to sleep to-night 'fore I do, an'

I wouldn't be supprised. They'll build their fire at the Caverns on Rock Crick an' roast a captive. We'll cross the bush an' come up on t'

other side an' see what's goin' on."

They crossed a high ridge, with Solomon tossing his feet in that long, loose stride of his, and went down the slope into a broad valley. The sun sank low and the immeasurable green roofed house of the wild was dim and dusk when the old scout halted. Ahead in the distance they had heard voices and the neighing of a horse.

"My son," said Solomon as he pointed with his finger, "do you see the brow o' the hill yonder whar the black thickets be?"

Jack nodded.

"If ye hear to me yell stay this side. This 'ere business is kind o'

neevarious. I'm a-goin' clus up. If I come back ye'll hear the call o' the bush owl. If I don't come 'fore mornin' you p'int fer hum an'

the good G.o.d go with ye."

"I shall go as far as you go," Jack answered.

Solomon spoke sternly. The genial tone of good comrades.h.i.+p, had left him.

"Ye kin go, but ye ain't obleeged," said he. "Bear in mind, boy.

To-night I'm the Cap'n. Do as I tell ye--_exact_."

He took the lightning hurlers out of the packs and unwrapped them and tried the springs above the hammers. Earlier in the day he had looked to the priming. Solomon gave one to Jack and put the other two in his pockets. Each examined his pistols and adjusted them in his belt.

They started for the low lying ridge above the little valley of Rock Creek. It was now quite dark and looking down through the thickets of hemlock they could see the firelight of the Indians and hear the wash of the creek water. Suddenly a wild whooping among the red men, savage as the howl of wolves on the trail of a wounded bison, ran beyond them, far out into the forest, and sent its echoes traveling from hilltop to mountain side. Then came a sound which no man may hear without getting, as Solomon was wont to say, "a scar on his soul which he will carry beyond the last cape." It was the death cry of a captive.

Solomon had heard it before. He knew what it meant. The fire was taking hold and the smoke had begun to smother him. Those cries were like the stabbing of a knife and the recollection of them like blood-stains.

They hurried down the slant, brus.h.i.+ng through the thicket, the sound of their approach being covered by the appalling cries of the victim and the demon-like tumult of the drunken braves. The two scouts were racked with soul pain as they went on so that they could scarcely hold their peace and keep their feet from running. A new sense of the capacity for evil in the heart of man entered the mind of Jack. They had come close to the frightful scene, when suddenly a deep silence fell upon it. Thank G.o.d, the victim had gone beyond the reach of pain.

Something had happened in his pa.s.sing--perhaps the savages had thought it a sign from Heaven. For a moment their clamor had ceased. The two scouts could plainly see the poor man behind a red veil of flame.

Suddenly the white leader of the raiders approached the pyre, limping on his wooden stump, with a stick in his hand, and prodded the face of the victim. It was his last act. Solomon was taking aim. His rifle spoke. Red Snout tumbled forward into the fire. Then what a scurry among the Indians! They vanished and so suddenly that Jack wondered where they had gone. Solomon stood reloading the rifle barrel he had just emptied. Then he said:

"Come on an' do as I do."

Solomon ran until they had come near. Then he jumped from tree to tree, stopping at each long enough to survey the ground beyond it.

This was what he called "swapping cover." From behind a tree near the fire he shouted in the Indian tongue:

"Red men, you have made the Great Spirit angry. He has sent the Son of the Thunder to slay you with his lightning."

No truer words had ever left the lips of man. His hand rose and swung back of his shoulder and shot forward. The round missile sailed through the firelight and beyond it and sank into black shadows in the great cavern at Rocky Creek--a famous camping-place in the old time.

Then a flash of white light and a roar that shook the hills! A blast of gravel and dust and debris shot upward and pelted down upon the earth. Bits of rock and wood and an Indian's arm and foot fell in the firelight. A number of dusky figures scurried out of the mouth of the cavern and ran for their lives shouting prayers to Manitou as they disappeared in the darkness. Solomon pulled the embers from around the feet of the victim.

"Now, by the good G.o.d A'mighty, 'pears to me we got the skeer s.h.i.+fted so the red man'll be the rabbit fer a while an' I wouldn't wonder,"

said Solomon, as he stood looking down at the scene. "He ain't a-goin'

to like the look o' a pale face--not overly much. Them Injuns that got erway 'll never stop runnin' till they've reached the middle o' next week."

He seized the foot of Red Snout and pulled his head out of the fire.

"You ol' h.e.l.lion!" Solomon exclaimed. "You dog o' the devil! Tumbled into h.e.l.l whar ye b'long at last, didn't ye? Jack, you take that luther bucket an' bring some water out o' the creek an' put out this fire. The ring on this 'ere ol' wooden leg is wuth a hundred pounds."

Solomon took the hatchet from his belt and hacked off the end of Red Snout's wooden leg and put it in his coat pocket, saying:

"'From now on a white man can walk in the bush without gittin' his bones picked. Injuns is goin' to be skeered o' us--a few an' I wouldn't be supprised."

When Jack came back with the water, Solomon poured it on the embers, and looked at the swollen form which still seemed to be straining at the green withes of moose wood.

"Nothin' kin be done fer him," said the old scout. "He's gone erway.

I tell ye, Jack, it g'in my soul a sweat to hear him dyin'."

A moment of silence full of the sorrow of the two men followed.

Solomon broke it by saying:

"That 'ere black pill o' mine went right down into the stummick o' the hill an' give it quite a puke--you hear to me."

They went to the cavern's mouth and looked in.

"They's an awful mess in thar. I don't keer to see it," said Solomon.

Near them they discovered a warrior who had crawled out of that death chamber in the rocks. He had been stunned and wounded about the shoulders. They helped him to his feet and led him away. He was trembling with fear. Solomon found a pine torch, still burning, near where the fire had been. By its light they dressed his wounds--the old scout having with him always a small surgeon's outfit.

"Whar is t' other captive?" he asked in the Indian tongue.

"About a mile down the trail. It's a woman and a boy," said the warrior.

"Take us whar they be," Solomon commanded.

The three started slowly down the trail, the warrior leading them.

"Son of the Thunder, throw no more lightning and I will kiss your mighty hand and do as you tell me," said the Indian, as they set out.

It was now dark. Jack saw, through the opening in the forest roof above the trail, Orion and the Pleiades looking down at them, as beautiful as ever, and now he could hear the brook singing merrily.

"I could have chided the stars and the brook while the Indian and I were waiting for Solomon to bring the packs," he wrote in his diary.

CHAPTER XIX

THE VOICE OF A WOMAN SOBBING

Over the ridge and more than a mile away was a wet, wild meadow. They found the cow and horses feeding on its edge near the trail. The moon, clouded since dark, had come out in the clear mid-heavens and thrown its light into the high windows of the forest above the ancient thoroughfare of the Indian. The red guide of the two scouts gave a call which was quickly answered. A few rods farther on, they saw a pair of old Indians sitting in blankets near a thicket of black timber.

They could hear the voice of a woman sobbing near where they stood.