The Guns of Bull Run Part 14

"I'm not afraid since you've got safely through," replied Colonel Kenton. "We had a hint that Skelly was coming. That's why you see me with this rifle. I'd have sent you a telegram to stop at Winton, but couldn't reach you in time. Come into the house. Some friends of ours are here, ready to help us hold it against anybody and everybody that Skelly may bring."

Harry, with his saddle bags and holsters over his arm, entered the front hall with his father, who closed the door behind him. A single lamp burned in the hall, but fifteen men, all armed with rifles, stood there. He saw among them Steve Allison, the constable, Bracken the farmer, Senator Culver, and even old Judge Kendrick. Most of them, besides the rifles, carried pistols, and the party, though small, was resolute and grim. They greeted Harry with warmth, but said few words.

"We've food and hot coffee here," said Colonel Kenton. "After your long ride, Harry, you'd better eat."

"A cup of coffee will do," replied the boy. "But let me have a rifle. Skelly and his men will be here in ten minutes."

Old Judge Kendrick smiled.

"You can't complain, colonel," he said, "that your son has not inherited your temperament."

A rifle, loaded and ready, was handed to Harry, and, at the same time he drank a cup of hot coffee, brought by a trembling black boy. Allison meanwhile had opened the door a little and was listening.

"I don't hear 'em yet," he said.

"They'll approach cautiously," said Colonel Kenton. "I think they're likely to leave their horses at the edge of the wood and enter the lawn on foot. We'll put out the light and go outside."

"Good tactics," said Culver, as he promptly blew out the single light. Then all went upon the great front portico, where they stood for a few moments waiting. They could neither see nor hear anything hostile. Drifting clouds still hid the moon and stars, and a swish of light, cold rain came now and then.

There were piazzas on both sides of the house, and a porch in the rear. Colonel Kenton disposed his men deftly in order to meet the foe at any point. The stone pillars would afford protection for the riflemen. He, his son and old Judge Kendrick, held the portico in front.

Harry crouched behind a pillar, his fingers on the trigger of a rifle, and his holster containing the big double-barreled pistols lying at his feet. Impressionable, and with a horror of injustice, his heart was filled with rage. It was merely a band of outlaws who were coming to plunder and destroy his beautiful home and to kill any who resisted. He had respected those who held Sumter so long, but these fought only for their own hand.

A slight sound came from the road, a little distance to the south. He waited until it was repeated and then he was sure.

"They're out there," he whispered to his father at the next pillar.

"I heard them," replied the colonel. "They'll come upon the lawn, hiding behind the pines, and hoping to surprise the house. I fancy the surprise will be theirs, not ours. When you shoot, Harry, shoot to kill, or they will surely kill us. Keep as much as you can behind the pillar, and don't get excited."

Colonel Kenton was quite calm. The old soldier had returned to his work. Wary and prepared, he was not loath to meet the enemy. Harry, keeping his father's orders well in mind, crouched a little lower and waited. Presently he heard a slight rustling, and he knew that Skelly's men were among the dwarf pines on the lawn. The rustling continued and came nearer. Harry glanced at his father, who was behind a pillar not ten feet away.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" called Colonel Kenton into the darkness.

There was no answer and the rustling ceased. Harry heard nothing but the gentle fall of the rain.

"Speak up!" called the colonel once more. "Who are you?"

The answer came. Forty or fifty rifles cracked among the pines. Harry saw little flashes of fire, and he heard bullets hiss so venomously that a chill ran along his spine. There was a patter of lead on every side of the house, but most of the shots came from the front lawn. It was well that the colonel, Harry and the judge, were sheltered by the big pillars, or two or three shots out of so many would have found a mark.

Harry's rage, which had cooled somewhat while he was waiting, returned. He began to peer around the edge of the pillar, and seek a target, but the colonel whispered to him to hold his fire.

"Getting no reply, they'll creep a little closer presently and fire a second volley," he said.

Harry pressed closer to the pillar, kneeling low, as he had learned already that nine out of ten men fire too high in battle. He heard once more the rustling among the pines, and he knew that Skelly's men were advancing. Doubtless they believed that the defenders had fled within the house at the first volley.

He heard suddenly the clicking of gun locks, and the rifles crashed together again, but now the fire was given at much closer range. Harry saw a dusky figure beside a pine not thirty feet away, and he instantly pulled trigger upon it. His father's own rifle cracked at the same time, and two cries of pain came from the lawn. The boy, hot with the fire of battle, s.n.a.t.c.hed the pistols out of the holsters and sent in four more shots.

Rapid reports from the other side of the house showed that the defenders there were also repelling attacks.

But Skelly's men, finding that they could not rush the house, kept up a siege from the ambush of the pines. Bullets rattled like hailstones against the thick brick walls of the house, and several times the smas.h.i.+ng of gla.s.s told that windows had been shot in. Harry's blood now grew feverishly hot and his anger mounted with it. It was intolerable that these outlaws should attack people in their own homes. Lying almost flat on the floor of the portico he reloaded his rifle and pistols. As he raised his head to seek a new shot, a bullet tipped his ear, burning it like a streak of fire, and flattened against the wall behind him. He fired instantly at the base of the flash and a cry of pain showed that the bullet had struck a human target.

Harry, in his excitement, raised himself a little for another shot, and a second bullet cut dangerously near. A warning command came from his father, veteran warrior of the plains, to keep down, and he obeyed promptly. Then followed a period of long and intensely anxious waiting. Harry thought that if the night would only lighten they could get a clean sweep of the lawn and drive away the mountaineers, but it grew darker instead and the wind rose. He heard the boughs of the clipped pines rustle as they were whipped together, and the cold drops lashed him in the face. He had become soaking wet, lying on the floor of the portico, but he did not notice it.

Harry saw far to his left a single dim light in the dip beyond the forest, and he knew that it shone through a window in one of the houses of Pendleton.

It seemed amazing that so bitter a combat should be going on here, while the people slept peacefully in the town below. But there was not one chance in a thousand that they would hear of the battle on such a night. Then an idea came to him, and creeping to his father he made his proposition. Colonel Kenton opposed it vigorously, but Harry insisted. He knew every inch of the grounds. Why should he not? He had played over them all his life, and he could be in the fields and away in less than two minutes.

Colonel Kenton finally consulted Judge Kendrick, and the judge agreed with Harry. Besieged by so many, they needed help and the boy was the one to bring it. Then Colonel Kenton consented that Harry should go, but pressed his hand and told him to be very careful.

The boy went back into the house, pa.s.sing through the dark rooms to the rear. As he went, he heard the sound of sobbing. It was the colored servants crying with terror. He found the constable and Senator Culver on watch on the back porch and whispered to them his errand.

"For G.o.d's sake, be careful, Harry," the Senator whispered back. "Bad blood is boiling now. Some of Skelly's men have been hit hard, and if they caught you they'd shoot you without mercy."

"But they won't catch me," replied the boy with confidence. Thinking it would be in the way in his rapid flight, he gave his rifle to the senator, and taking the heavy pistols from the holsters, thrust them in the pockets of his coat. Then he dropped lightly from the porch and lay for a few moments in the darkness and on the wet ground, absolutely still.

A strange thrill ran through Harry Kenton when his body touched the damp earth. The contact seemed to bring to him strength and courage. Doubts fled away. He would succeed in the trial. He could not possibly fail. His great-grandfather, Henry Ware, had been a renowned borderer and Indian fighter, one of the most famous in all the annals of Kentucky, gifted with almost preternatural power, surpa.s.sing the Indians themselves in the lore and craft of forest and trail. It was said too, that the girl, Lucy Upton, who became Henry Ware's wife and who was Harry's great-grandmother, had received this same gift of forest divination. His own first name had been given to him in honor of that redoubtable great-grandfather.

Now all the instincts of Harry's famous ancestors became intensely alive in him. The blood of those who had been compelled for so many years to watch and fight poured in a full tide through his veins. His bearing became sharper, his eyes saw through the darkness like those of a cat, and a certain sixth sense, hitherto a dormant instinct which would warn of danger, came suddenly to life.

Two parallel rows of honeysuckle bushes ran back some distance to a vegetable garden. He reckoned that the mountaineers would be hiding behind these, and therefore he turned away to the right, where dwarf pines, clipped into cones, grew as on the front lawn. The gra.s.s, helped by a wet spring, had grown already to a height of several inches, and Harry was surprised at the ease with which he drew his body through it. Every inch of garment upon him was soaked with rain, but he took no thought of the fact. He felt a certain fierce joy in the wildness of night and storm, and he was ready to defy any number of mountaineers.

The sixth and new sense suddenly gave warning and he lay flat in the wet gra.s.s just under one of the pines. Then he saw three men rise from their shelter behind a honeysuckle bush, walk forward, and stand in a group talking about ten feet behind him. Although they were not visible from the house he saw them clearly enough. One of them was Skelly himself, and all three were of villainous face. Straining his ear he could hear what they said and now he was very glad indeed that he had come.

It was the plan of Skelly to wait in silence and patience a long time. The defenders would conclude that he and his men had gone away, and then the mountaineers could either rush the house or set it on fire. If the final resort was fire, they could easily shoot Colonel Kenton and his friends as they ran out. It was Skelly who spoke of this hideous plan, laughing as he spoke, and Harry's hand went instinctively toward the b.u.t.t of one of the pistols. But his will made him draw it away again, and, motionless in the gra.s.s, lying flat upon his face, he continued to listen.

Skelly's plan was accepted and they moved away to tell the others. Harry rose a little, and crept rapidly through the gra.s.s toward the vegetable garden.

Again he was surprised at his own skill. Acute of ear as he had become he could scarcely hear the brus.h.i.+ng of the gra.s.s as he pa.s.sed. As he approached the garden he saw two more men, rifles in hand, walking about, but paying little heed to them he kept on until he lay against the fence enclosing the garden.

It was a fence of palings, spiked at the top, and climbing it was a problem. Studying the question for a moment or two he decided that it was too dangerous to be risked, and moving cautiously along he began to feel of the palings. At last he came to one that was loose, and he pulled it entirely free at the bottom. Then he slipped through and into the garden. Here were long rows of grapevines, fastened on sticks, and, for a few moments, he lay flat behind one of the rows. He knew that he was not yet entirely safe, as the mountaineers were keen of eye and ear, and an outer guard of skirmishers might be lying in the garden itself. But he was now even keener of eye and hearing than they, and he could detect nothing living near him. The house also, and all about it, was silent. Evidently Skelly's men had settled down to a long siege, and Harry rejoiced in the amount of time they gave him.

He rose to his feet, but, stooped to only half his height, he ran swiftly behind the row of grapevines to the far end of the garden, leaped over the fence and continued his rapid flight toward Pendleton, where the single light still burned. He surmised that his father had received the warning too late to gather more than a few friends, and that the rest of the town was yet in deep ignorance.

The first house he reached, the one in which the light burned, was that of Gardner, the editor, and he beat heavily upon the door. Gardner himself opened it, and he started back in astonishment at the wild figure covered with mud, a heavy pistol clutched in the right hand.

"In Heaven's name, who are you?" he cried.

"Don't you know me, Mr. Gardner? I'm Harry Kenton, come back from Charleston! Bill Skelly and fifty of his men have ridden down from the mountains and are besieging us in our house, intending to rob and kill! The constable is there and so are Judge Kendrick, Senator Culver, and a few others, but we need help and I've come for it!"

He spoke in such a rapid, tense manner that every word carried conviction.

"Excuse me for not knowing you, Harry," Gardner said, "but you're calling at a rather unusual time in a rather unusual manner, and you have the most thorough mask of mud I ever saw on anybody. Wait a minute and I'll be with you."

He returned in half the time, and the two of them soon had the town up and stirring. Pendleton was largely Southern in sympathy, and even those who held other views did not wholly relish an attack upon one of its prominent men by a band of uncla.s.sified mountaineers. Lights sprang up all over the town. Men poured from the houses and there was no house then that did not contain at least one rifle.

In a half hour sixty or seventy men, well armed with rifles and pistols, were on their way to Colonel Kenton's house. Only a few drops of rain were falling now, and the thin edge of the moon appeared between clouds. There was a little light. The relieving party advanced swiftly and without noise. They were all accustomed to outdoor life and the use of weapons, and they needed few commands. Gardner came nearer than anyone else to being the leader, although Harry kept by his side.

They went on Harry's own trail, pa.s.sing through the garden and hurrying toward the house. Three or four dim figures fled before them, running between the rows of vines. The Pendleton men fired at them, and then raised a great shout, as they rushed for the lawn. The mountaineers took to instant flight, making for the woods, where they had left their horses.