The Rangers; or, The Tory's Daughter Part 28

Before applying the oars, however, and while the canoe continued to move under the impulse it had thus received, its occupants employed themselves in bending their heads to the water, and listening for any sounds that might indicate the presence of others abroad on the pond.

The night, as it was yet moonless, and as the sky was overclouded, was consequently a dark one; and the adventurers could distinguish little else but the dark outlines of the Green Mountains, that rose high in the western heavens, casting, by their huge shadows, an impenetrable pall of darkness over the intervening s.p.a.ce beneath, from which not a sound rose to the ear, save an occasional short croak of some waterfowl, or the low, sullen dash of the waters along the sh.o.r.es.

"Nothing out on the pond, guess, but loons, ducks, and sich like,"

quietly observed Bart, raising himself from his listening att.i.tude; "nor can I make out any sounds from the nest of 'em you say there is over on the sh.o.r.e yonder. Ma'be they've pulled up stakes and are off with their traps, the wimin folks and all--shouldn't wonder, single bit."

"Now I reason a little ditter different," replied the sergeant. "They may be getting oneasy and suspicious, because their spies we took there at Coffin's don't return; and so keep still, and put out their fires, lest the absent ones be dogged back, and their rendezvous thus discovered; but I der don't believe the company would clear out till they knew what become of them. They are still there, I'm apt to think; so we will now put forward--first up north a piece, on this side, and then across and down to a little cove there is near their encampment."

So saying, Dunning took up one of the oars, and, with long vigorous, but noiseless strokes, sent the boat rapidly ahead; while the other took a position most favorable for a lookout. In this manner, and taking turns at the oar, they soon, by the course they had marked out for themselves, reached the western side of the pond, and, heading round, moved cautiously along the sh.o.r.e towards the hostile encampment.

"Ah! there! one--two--yes, three camp fires, T can der catch glimmers of occasionally," softly exclaimed Dunning, rising up in the boat, and peering ahead for observation. "I was right--the ditter rapscallions are there, snug in their quarters, but had wit enough to build their fires behind logs, or something, so as not to be seen from 'tother side. We are within the ditter matter of three hundred yards of 'em, now; so carefully, Bart, and don't let your oar graze the boat, or any thing, to give out the least sound; for they've ears, it's der probable, as well as we."

A short time now sufficed to bring them to the small cove, at which the hunter had proposed to land. Here, under the screen of an impervious tangle of brushwood and fallen tree tops, which intervened between them and the foe, they drew up their boat on to the sh.o.r.e.

They then, after taking off their shoes, which they left in the canoe, carefully crawled up the bank, pa.s.sed round the thicket, and paused to listen. The sounds of voices conversing in low tones in one spot, the slow steps of a sentinel in another, and the snoring of some hard sleeper in a third, were soon detected by the quick ears of the anxious listeners.

"As I thought," whispered Dunning, putting his mouth close to the ear of the other: "the head ones are ditter suspicious, and watchful; but we must try what can be done--at least to find the spot where they've put the gals. There's a ditter old shanty I used to camp in, about fifty yards ahead; and as that is probably the best they've got, I've been thinking they may have cooped 'em in there. Suppose you, who are lightest and smallest, creep forward to it, for ditter discoveries. I will follow half way, and wait."

Without demurring to the suggestion, Bart immediately set forward, on his hands and knees, in the direction indicated by his companion.

Carefully removing every dry twig and leaf from each place where he wished to bear his weight, and moving as noiselessly as the preying cat along the ground, he made his way onward till he had gone far enough, as he judged, to reach the expected shanty; when he paused to listen and reconnoitre. But now all seemed perfectly still. Not the slightest sound of any kind reached his ears; while it had, in some unaccountable manner, suddenly become so pitchy dark that he could not distinguish a single object before him. And he began to feel confused and doubtful about proceeding, when, by the action of those secret and undefinable sympathies, perhaps, by which, it is said, we sometimes become apprised of the presence of others before we are informed by the senses, he all at once became impressed with the idea that some person was near him. He therefore strained his senses to the utmost in trying to discover what objects might be before or around him; but all, for a while, to no purpose. In a short time, however, his ear caught the sound of a deep sigh, the softness of which told him it came from a female, within a few feet of him. With a palpitating heart, he now doubtfully attempted to move forward, when he suddenly perceived his head on the point of coming in contact with some broad, high obstacle, which seemed to rise like a wall before him, Surprised, and still more confused than before, he retreated a few paces, and looked upward, to try to make out the nature of the obstacle before him; when he discovered it to be the backside of the very shanty of which he was in search. The strange darkness, which had so suddenly overshadowed him, and which was caused by the obstruction of the skylight by this rude structure, being now explained, and every thing made clear to his mind, he cautiously moved round towards the front of the shanty, to find the entrance, no longer doubting that those he sought were within. On reaching the front corner, so as to enable him to peer round it on that side, he soon made out the entrance; but directly across it, to his disappointment, he discovered the half-rec.u.mbent form of a man, with a musket leaning on his shoulder.

After a few hurried observations, in which he discovered, by the decaying fires before them several other shanties or tents among the trees, a few rods in front, Bart again slunk back to the spot he had just left, and was about to retrace his way to his companion, when a new thought occurred to him, and, moving up to the back of the shanty, which was formed by broad pieces of thick bark standing slantingly against a pole supported by crotches, and, placing his mouth to a crack, softly whispered the names of the captives, and turned his ear to the spot to catch the hoped-for response. For the first moment, all was still but the next, the catching of a long-suspended breath, and even, as he thought, the rapid beatings of a fluttering bosom, became audible. Presently a slight movement, as of a cautiously changed posture, was heard within; and the next instant a pair of soft lips came in contact with his ear at the crevice, articulating, in sounds scarcely above the slightest murmur of the air,--

"Who speaks my name?"

"Bart," replied the other. "You know what I'm after. Can one of the barks between us be removed without alarming your keeper?"

"I fear--but he seems asleep--try it," was the measured and hesitating reply.

After slightly essaying several of the pieces of the bark he wished to remove, he at length commenced operations at the bottom of one of them, and gently forcing it aside, inch by inch, in a short time effected an opening sufficient, as he judged, for the egress of the captives, and that too, he felt confident, without attracting the attention of the dozing guard.

"Now feel your way out; and, without stirring a twig or leaf creep on after me," whispered Bart.

And receding a few paces from the opening, he paused to await the result. In a moment he had the satisfaction of perceiving a female form slowly emerging from the narrow pa.s.sage into the open air without.

Supposing her companion to be immediately behind, he now, with a whispered word of encouragement, led the way from the spot. With frequent pauses, both to a.s.sure himself that he was followed by his charge, and to listen for any stir among the foe that should indicate a discovery of the escape, he continued to creep forward till he encountered Dunning, when, the latter taking the lead, they all moved on, one after another, in the same cautious manner as before, and soon reached the landing in safety; out as they emerged from the bushes, and the hunter turned to congratulate the ladies on their escape, it was now, for the first time, discovered that but one of them was present.

"Bart, how is this? ditter tell me--where is the other?" demanded Dunning, in a tone of disappointment and vexation.

But Bart, equally disappointed and perplexed, was mute; and the lady, who proved to be Miss Howard, replied,--

"Miss Haviland, if not retaken, is now wandering in the woods."

"Der wandering in ditter woods, and you not with her?" again demanded the former with an air of mingled surprise and reproach.

"Yes sir, but I did not intend to desert her," promptly replied the girl. "Perceiving we were not watched very closely by the man they put over us, she and I had thought of a plan of escaping into the woods and getting round into the road. And while he was talking with another, that he had stepped forward a little ways to meet, we slipped out undiscovered, and gained a thicket; when finding I had left my shawl, I, contrary to Miss Haviland's advice, I will own, ventured back to get it, and was detected, just as I was leaving the shanty a second time, and her absence discovered. This made a stir among them, and they ordered off scouts after her along the pond towards the road, which was the way I pointed when they were threatening me if I didn't tell. But she must have heard all and escaped."

"Escaped! ditter deuse of an escape that; for a woman to get out into a forest full of Indians in search of her," replied the still unreconciled hunter. "But what course has she der taken, think ye, gal?"

"The one we planned, likely; and that was, to take a wide sweep round their camp, gain the road, and make for the tavern, which she said was not far off," replied the other.

"Well," said Dunning, in a more mollified tone, "though der dogs is in the luck, to be sure, yet half a loaf is better than none. We must save what we have got; so into the canoe there with ye, gal; and you, Bart, take her across, der find Harry, whom I'd ditter rather you would meet first, and tell him you have left me this side to go in search of the other, who, if found, can most likely be got to the road as well the way she set out as this, in the shape things now stand."

Although this conversation scarcely occupied a minute, and although, while the hunter was yet speaking, Bart and his fair friend were in their respective positions in the boat, which instantly shot out silently and swiftly into the pond, under the vigorous push given it by the former, yet the event showed that they had been none too speedy in their movements; for, at that instant, a sudden bustle in the tory encampment, which was quickly followed by the confused sounds of voices making rapid inquiries and giving orders, together with the stealthy tread of approaching footsteps, apprised the fugitives that not only was their escape discovered, but probably also the direction they had taken.

"Der narve it, narve it, Bart! The ditter divils are after ye!"

shouted the hunter, hastily retreating from the sh.o.r.e and disappearing in the nearest thicket.

And scarcely had he gained a covert before his place was occupied by four or five of the enemy, who came rus.h.i.+ng down to the water; when, discovering the receding boat, then not fifty yards distant, the acting leader of the band fiercely exclaimed "Put about there instantly, and come ash.o.r.e, or we'll fire and kill every person in the boat!"

"O, but you'll kill us if we come back," replied Bart, splas.h.i.+ng round his oar as if turning the boat, which in fact was going swiftly ahead.

"No, we won't," responded the leader, deceived by the apparent simplicity of the reply; "but be quick, or we fire!"

"Well, seeing you aint going to hurt us," said the former, carelessly while at the same time directing, in a whisper, the girl to throw herself close on the bottom of the canoe, he silently, but with all his might, bent himself to the oar.

"Why," said the leader, after a short and doubtful pause, as he peered out in the darkness at the dimly-seen boat--"why, aint the fellow still moving ahead? He is, confound him: fire!"

"Let drive, then!" sung out Bart, with the greatest _sang froid_, as he hastily cast himself down in the boat.

The next instant several bullets struck the boat, or whistled over it, as the fierce flas.h.i.+ngs and deafening reports of as many exploding muskets burst from the sh.o.r.e with startling effect on the darkness and silence of night.

"I vown! but that an't so bad shooting as might be, in the dark so,"

exclaimed Bart, hastily springing up and seizing his oar. "They are more at the business than I thought 'em; and we may as well be a little further off afore they have time to load and fire agin, guess,"

he added, suddenly changing the direction of the beat from the course it had been taking, and plying the oar with an energy which showed rather less indifference to his proximity to the hostile marksmen behind him than his words might seem to imply.

The tories, in the mean while, who had foolishly all discharged their pieces at once, fell to loading again as fast as was possible for them to do in the dark. But before any of them was ready to fire, the last traces of the fugitive boat had vanished from their view.

They were, however, after giving vent to their vexation in a volley of curses upon the fellow who had thus outwitted them, in getting beyond controlling distance, preparing to fire again, at random, in the direction in which the canoe was last seen moving, when their attention was suddenly arrested by firing in the woods a short distance to the south, which seemed to be an exchange of shots between their pickets and some enemy a.s.sailing them from that direction. They therefore hurried back to their companions, and with them rallied to make a stand against the force which all supposed was about to storm their encampment. But to their agreeable disappointment, though an occasional shot continued to be directed towards them by persons who seemed to be lurking in the distant thickets, no tangible force made its appearance for the firing which had so alarmed them, and caused them to call in all their scouts within hearing, and make every preparation for a desperate resistance, was, as the reader will have already imagined, but the feint made by Woodburn's party, who, hearing the reports of the guns discharged at the escaping canoe, and partly divining the cause, had advanced from their concealment, and begun to make the diversion agreed on at the outset. But not receiving the signal promised, in case help was needed, and feeling doubtful how to act, most of them fell back, and ceased operations, till Bart, who had, in the mean time, reached the sh.o.r.e, and, with the fearless girl he had released, hastened round to their post, arrived and informed them of all that had occurred. On receiving this aggravating intelligence, Woodburn, now almost frantic with disappointment and anxiety, instantly withdrew to the road with all his band, except two left to keep the enemy in a state of alarm; when they all, including even the heroic Vine Howard, immediately scattered in different directions through the dark forest in anxious search for the luckless Miss Haviland, to whom we will now return, for the purpose of following her in the wild and perillous adventures she was destined to encounter on that eventful night.

CHAPTER VII.

"Unshrinking from the storm, Well have ye borne your part, With woman's fragile form, But more than manhood's heart"--_Whittier_

The observation is no less true than trite, that no one knows till he has tried it, what he can do or endure. And as just as is the remark in a general application, it is, we apprehend, more strikingly so when applied to the gentler s.e.x; for, from the position they occupy in social life, their powers of action or endurance are so seldom fully put to the test, that they are generally far less conscious than men of what deeds they might accomplish or what degree of suffering they might endure, in emergencies calculated to call forth the highest energies of their physical and moral natures. And if there be any disparity between the number of heroes and heroines in the world, such emergencies as we have named are only wanting, we believe, to make up any deficiency that may be found in the latter.

When Miss Haviland ascertained that her too venturous companion had been intercepted and retaken, in the manner mentioned in the preceding chapter, she for a moment greatly hesitated whether to return and yield herself again to her captors, or persevere in her attempt to escape. But, beginning to suspect the true source of the present misfortune, which, if her suspicions were just, pointed only at herself, and thinking that her escape would soon lead to the voluntary release of her companion, she quickly decided on the latter alternative, and glided noiselessly away into the depths of the forest.

After proceeding in a direct course from the camp to such a distance as should preclude the possibility that any ordinary sound made in walking through the woods would reach her captors, unless they were in actual pursuit behind, of which her often strained senses had as yet given her no evidence, she turned short to the south, and, in pursuance of the hasty plan formed by herself and companion at the outset, now made her way, as fast as the darkness and the usual obstacles of the woods would permit, towards the road, her only guide being the parallel swells of land, which, running north and south, rose, as she had luckily noticed before dark, in successive lifts up the mountain to the west. Still hearing no sounds of pursuit, she began to entertain strong hopes that she should be permitted to reach the road unmolested. In this, however, she was doomed to be disappointed; for, in a short time, a cracking, as of dry twigs under the tread of some one stealthily advancing, arrested her attention, and brought her to a stand. Fortunately, no part of her dress was sufficiently light-colored to betray her. And, having nothing to fear from this, and believing that, by placing herself in close contact with some natural object, she might still have a good chance to be pa.s.sed undetected, she glided to the nearest tree, and, placing her back to the side opposite to the suspected foe, awaited his approach in breathless silence. Presently he came up, and, after pausing a moment within a few yards of her, apparently to listen and reconnoitre, he pa.s.sed by so near as to graze the bark of the tree behind which she stood, and moved carelessly on some distance before again pausing to repeat his _reconnoissance_.

She drew a long breath; but, before she dared move from her stand, the sounds of other approaching feet reached her ears. And soon two more men, evidently on the same search, pa.s.sed by her, at different distances to the east, and, like the first one, bent their courses northward. After waiting till all sound of their receding steps had wholly died away, she again moved forward, and soon had the satisfaction of finding herself in the road, but a short distance from the spot where, a few hours before, she and her attendant had been captured. It remained now to get beyond the tory encampment. Could she be permitted to pa.s.s down the mountain, in the road, but a half mile, she might then consider the danger mostly over, and proceed on to the tavern in comparative safety. And, though aware that this portion of the way might be scarcely less dangerous than any she had pa.s.sed over, yet, tempted by the facility with which it could be accomplished in the road, she resolved to make the attempt, and accordingly, with a guarded but rapid step, began to move down the sloping way before her.

But she had proceeded but a short distance, when she was startled by the loud report of firearms in the direction of the tory encampment, which, as already described, were, just at that moment, being discharged at the escaping canoe. While pausing in doubt at the meaning of this unexpected outbreak, the random firing of Woodburn's party which we noted as soon following that of the tories, now burst from the forest a little before her on the left, and greatly in creased her perplexity. Suddenly conceiving the idea, from these circ.u.mstances, that the tories had been a.s.sailed in their rear, and were now retreating towards her, and this notion being the next moment confirmed by the glimpses she caught of a dark form emerging from the bushes on the left, whom she mistook for a foe, she hastily turned and fled, in agitation and alarm, into the opposite forest bordering the road on the south, having thus approached within a few rods of the very men who were in search of her, and thus unconsciously eluded their friendly grasp. Though intending soon to turn her course eastward, so as to come out again into the road at such a point as should place her beyond any danger of a recapture, yet, urged by her fears lest her foes should cross the road and overtake her, she pressed on so far into the depths of the woods, that when she paused to change her course, she became confused and doubtful respecting the direction she should take to regain the road in the manner she had proposed. She had now no further knowledge of the make of the land, or the situation of the hills, by which she could be guided. But at length, fixing on a course which she thought most likely to be the right one, she again set forward, slowly picking her way through the swampy and tangled tract of forest into which she seemed now to have entered. In this manner she pursued her dubious course onward nearly an hour, every moment expecting that the next would bring her out into the road. At length she fell in with a small stream, which she rightly judged to be one of the brooks running into Black River, and which, from what she knew of the course of that river, she supposed would lead nearly in the direction she sought to go. But on stooping down to feel the current, she, to her great surprise, found it running in a course directly opposite from what she expected. Scarcely knowing now which way to direct her steps, she pa.s.sed over the stream, and, with a sense of desolation, growing out of the thought that she was lost in the depths of the wilderness, which she had never before experienced, wandered on, and on, for several of the successive hours of that dark and dismal night. At last she came to the top of a high swell, where, the new aspect presented in the slope of the forest before her naturally causing her to pause, she dropped down upon an old mossy log to rest her worn and wearied frame, and try to collect her confused and scattered faculties. While here endeavoring to rally her sinking spirits, and compose her thoughts so as to look more coolly on her situation, she began to discern, through the openings of the foliage, the dark outlines of a high mountain, rising, at the distance of two or three miles, directly in front of her. It now occurred to her that, like other persons lost in the woods, of whom she had heard, she might have been, all this time, wandering in a circle, and that the mountain before her might be the very one she supposed she had left far behind her, west of the tory encampment. If this supposition should prove correct, the long-sought road must lie somewhere between her and the mountain in view, and a little more perseverance in that direction would consequently put an end to those perplexities which were now becoming more painful and dread than any sensations she had experienced from the pursuit of her enemies. Encouraged by the gleam of hope which this thought imparted to her almost despairing mind, she started up, and again nerved herself for the task of meeting the many difficulties which she knew, at the best, yet remained to be overcome.

It had, by this time, in consequence of a scattering of the clouds, or the rising of a waning moon, become perceptibly lighter, and, for the next hour, her progress was much more direct and easy. By this time, she came to a spot in the forest which was sufficiently open to give her another and fairer view of the mountain she had been approaching.

She looked upon its dark sides a moment, and the pleasant delusion under which she had been laboring wholly vanished from her mind. She saw it could not be the mountain she had hoped to find it, nor indeed any she had ever seen; and she again gave herself up as lost, perhaps, irretrievably lost, far away and deep in the dark recesses of a howling wilderness, from which she might never be extricated. And yet her usual firmness did not wholly forsake her. "_Is not your life of more value than many sparrows_ in the sight of Him who careth for all?" she mentally exclaimed; and she was calmed and comforted by the ready affirmative which her faith responded.

While casting about her in doubt respecting the next step to be taken, she discovered traces of what was evidently once an imperfect road, or path, which seemed to extend through a partial opening towards the mountain. Thinking it might possibly lead to some human habitation, or at least to some place preferable to the open forest for rest and shelter till the return of daylight, she resolved to follow it. As she proceeded on, she began to detect marks of the woodman's or hunter's axe in the trees, here entirely cut down, and there girdled, or denuded of their bark as high as the hand could reach. These indications of the former presence of men appeared to grow more frequent as she went on; and at length she came out into a small opening in the forest in the midst of which stood a roughly-constructed log-house, or shanty, with a regularly-formed bark roof still standing.

The remains of smaller and less durable shanties were also visible in the vicinity of the former. [Footnote: Colonel Hawks, while traversing the wilderness of Vermont, in the French wars, with a regular force, among whom was the then Captain John Stark, once encamped near the foot of the mountain, in the south part of Cavendish, where the incident we are narrating is supposed to have occurred. The mountain still bears the name of Hawks's Mountain, and the traces of the encampment, it is said are still visible.]