The Master of Appleby Part 28

So now, though the hoof prints grew hourly fresher, and we were at last so close upon the heels of the kidnappers that their night camp-fires were scarcely cold when we came upon them, we ran no longer--could hardly keep a dogged foot-pace for the hunger pains that griped and bent us double.

The tenth day, as I well remember, was furnace-hot, as were all the fair-weather days of that never-to-be-forgotten summer, with a still air in the forest that hung thick and lifeless like the atmosphere of an oven; this though we were well among the mountains and rising higher with every added mile of westering.

The sun had pa.s.sed the meridian, and we were toiling, sweaty-weak, up a rock-strewn mountain side, when a thing occurred to rouse us roughly from the famine stupor and set us watchfully alert. In the steepest part of the ascent where the wood, scanted of rooting ground by the thickly sown strewing of boulders, was open and free of undergrowth, Ephraim Yeates halted suddenly, signed to us with upflung hand, and dropped behind a tree as one shot; and in the same breath the Catawba, running at Yeates's heels, lurched aside and vanished as if the earth had gaped and swallowed him.

A moment later the tw.a.n.g of a bow-string buzzed upon the breathless noontide stillness, and Jennifer clutched and dragged me down in good time to let the arrow whistle harmless over us. Then, like a distorted echo of the buzzing bow-string, the sharp crack of the old borderer's rifle rang out smartly, setting the cliff-crowned mountain side all a-clamor with mocking repet.i.tions.

"Missed him, slick and clean, by the eternal c.o.o.n-skin!" growled the marksman, sitting up behind his tree to reload. "That there's what comes o' being so dad-blame' hongry that ye can't squinch fair atween the gun-sights. I reckon ez how ye'd better hunker down and lie clost, you two. 'Twouldn't s'prise me none if that redskin had a wheen more o' them sharp-p'inted sticks in his--The Lord be praised for all His marcies!

the chief's got him!"

But Uncanoola had not. He came in presently, his black eyes snapping with disappointment, saying in answer to Yeates's question that the yell had been his own; that his tomahawk had sped no truer than the old borderer's bullet.

"Chelakee snake heap slick: heap quick dodge," was all we could get out of him; and when that was said he squatted calmly on a flat stone and fell to work grinding the nick out of the edge of the mis-sped hatchet.

This incident told us plainly enough that the kidnappers were now but a little way ahead, and that their rear-guard scouts were holding us well in hand. So from that on we went as men whose lives are held in p.a.w.n by a hidden foe, looking at every turn for an ambushment. Nevertheless, we were not waylaid again; and when at length the long hot afternoon drew to its close with the mountain of peril well behind us, we had neither seen nor heard aught else of the Cherokees.

That night we camped, fireless and foodless, on the banks of a swift-flowing stream in a valley between two great mountains. We reached this stream a little before dark, and since the trail led straight into the water, we would have put this obstacle behind us if we could. But though the little river was not above five or six poles in width it was exceeding swift and deep; so impa.s.sable, in truth, that we were moved to wonder how the captive party had made s.h.i.+ft to cross.

We guessed at it a while, Richard and I, and then gave it up until we might have the help of better daylight. But the old borderer's curiosity was not so readily postponed. Cutting a slim pole from a sapling thicket, he waded in cautiously, anchoring himself by the drooping branches of the willows whilst he prodded and sounded and proved beyond a doubt that the current was over man-head deep, and far too rapid for swimming.

Satisfied of this, he came out, dripping, and with a monitory word to us to keep a sharp lookout, disappeared up-stream in the growing dusk, his long rifle at the trail, and his body bent to bring his keen old eyes the nearer to the ground.

XXII

HOW THE FATES GAVE LARGESS OF DESPAIR

Ephraim Yeates was gone a full hour. When he returned he gave us cause to wonder at his lack of caution, since he filled his earthen Indian pipe and coolly struck a light wherewith to fire it. But when the pipe was aglow he told us of his findings.

"'Twas about ez I reckoned; them varmints waded in the shallows a spell to throw us off, and then came out and forded higher up."

"That will be a shrewd guess of yours, I take it, Ephraim?" said I; for the night was black as Erebus.

"Ne'er a guess at all; I've had 'em fair at eyeholts," this as calmly as if we had not been for ten long days pinning our faith to an ill-defined trace of foot-prints. "Ez I was a-going on to say, they're incamped on t'other bank ruther eenside o' two sights and a horn-blow from this. I saw 'em and counted 'em: seven redskins and the two gals."

"Thank G.o.d!" says Richard, as fervently as if our rescue of the women were already a thing accomplished. Then he fell upon the scout with an eager question: "How does she look, Ephraim?--tell me how she looks!"

"Listen at him!" said the old man, cackling his dry little laugh. "How in tarnation am I going to know which 'she' he's a-stewing about?

There's a pair of 'em, and they both look like wimmin ez have been dragged hilter-skilter through the big woods for some better 'n a week.

Natheless, they're fitting to set up and take their nourishment, both on 'em. They was perching on a log afore the fire, with ever' last idintical one o' them redskins a-waiting on 'em like they was a couple of Injun queens. I reckon ez how the hoss-captain gave them varmints their orders, partic'lar."

d.i.c.k was upon his feet, lugging out the great broadsword.

"Show us the way, Eph Yeates!" he burst out impatiently. "We are wasting a deal of precious time!"

But the old man only puffed the more placidly at his pipe, making no move to head a sortie.

"Fair and easy, Cap'n d.i.c.k; fair and easy. There ain't no manner o'

hurry, ez I allow. Whenst I've got to tussle with a wheen o' full redskins, and me with my stummick growed fast to my backbone, I jest ez soon wait till them same redskins are asleep. Bime-by they'll settle down for the night, and then we'll go up yonder and pizen 'em immejitly, _if_ not sooner. But there ain't no kind o' use to spile it all by rampaging 'round too soon."

There was wisdom undeniable in this, and, accordingly, we waited, taking turns at the hunter's terrible pipe in lieu of supper, and laying our plan of attack. This last was simple enough, as our resources, or rather our lack of them, would make it. At midnight we would move upon the enemy, feeling our way along the river till we should discover the ford by which the captive party had crossed. The stream safely pa.s.sed, we would deploy and surround the camp of the Indians, and at the signal, which was to be the report of Yeates's rifle, we were to close in and smite, giving no quarter.

The old borderer dwelt at length upon the need for this severity, saying that a single Cherokee escaping would bring the warriors of the Erati tribe down upon us to cut off all chance of our retreat with the women.

"Onless I'm mightily out o' my reckoning, this here spot we're a-setting on ain't more than a day's Injun-running from the Tuckasege Towns. With them gals to hender us we ain't a-going to be in no fettle for a skimper-scamper race with a fresh wheen o' the redskins. Therefore and wherefore, says I, make them chopping-knives o' your'n cut and come again, even to the dividing erpart of soul and marrer."

d.i.c.k laughed, and, speaking for both of us, said between his teeth that we were not like to be over-merciful.

But now the old wolf of the border gave us a glimpse of an unsuspected side of him, taking Jennifer sharply to task and reading him a homily on the sin of vengeance for vengeance's sake. In this harangue he evinced a most astonis.h.i.+ng tongue-grasp of Scripture, and for a good half-hour the air was thick with texts. And to cap the climax, when the sermon paused he laid his pipe aside, doffed his cap, and went upon his knees to pour forth such a militant prayer as brought my father's stories of the grim old fighting Roundheads most vividly to mind.

Here, being as good a place as any, I may say frankly that I never fully understood this side of Ephraim Yeates. Like all the hardy borderers, he was a fighter by instinct and inclination; and I can bear him witness that when he smote the "Amalekites," as he would call them--red skin or red coat--he smote them hip and thigh, and was as ruthless as that British Captain Turnbull who slew the wounded. Yet withal, on the very edge of battle, or mayhap fair in the midst of it, he was like to fall upon his knees to pray most fervently; though, as I have hinted, his prayers were like his blows--of the biting sort, full of Scriptural anathema upon the enemy.

Richard Jennifer, carelessly profane as all men were in that most G.o.dless day, would say 'twas the old borderer's way of swearing; that since he left out the oaths in common speech,--as, truly, he did,--he would fetch up the arrears and wipe out the score in one fell blast upon his knees. Be this as it may, he was a good man and a true, as I have said; and his warlike supplication that our blades should be as the sword of the Lord and of Gideon in the coming onfall was no whit out of place.

It wanted yet a full hour of midnight when Richard began again to plead piteously for instant action. Yeates thought it still over-early; but when Jennifer pressed him hard the old borderer left the casting vote to me.

"What say ye, Cap'n John? Your'n will be the next oldest head, and I reckon it hain't been turned plumb foolish rampaging crazy by this here purty gal o' Gilbert Stair's."

Now you have read thus far in my poor tale to little purpose if you have not yet discovered the major weakness of an old campaigner, which is to weigh and measure all the chances, holding it to the full as culpable to strike too soon as too late. This weakness was mine, and in that evil moment I gave my vote for further waiting, arguing sapiently that my old field-marshal would never set a night a.s.sault afoot till well on toward the dawn.

Jennifer heard me through and yielded, perforce, though with little good-will.

"I can not compa.s.s it alone, or, by the G.o.ds, I'd go!" he a.s.serted, angrily. "Mark you, John Ireton, this delay is a thing you'll rue whilst you live. Your cold-cut pros and cons mouth well enough, and I'm no soldier-lawyer to argue them down. But something better than your d.a.m.nable reasons tells me that the hour has struck--that these very present seconds are priceless." Whereupon he flung himself face down in the gra.s.s and would not speak again until the waiting time was fully over and Yeates gave the word to fall in line for the advance.

Having learned the lay of the land in his earlier reconnaissance, the old borderer shortened the distance for us by guiding us across the neck of a horseshoe bend in the stream; and a half-hour's blind groping through the forest fetched us out upon the river bank again, this time precisely opposite the Indians' lodge fire on the other side.

Here there was a little pause for three of us while Ephraim Yeates crept down the bank to try with his sounding-pole what chance we had of crossing.

Measured by what could be seen from our covert, the narrow width of quick water seemed the last of the many obstacles.

Lulled to security, as we guessed, by the apparent success of their ruse to throw us off the scent, six of the Cherokees were lying feet to fire like the spokes of a wheel for which the fitful blaze was the hub. The seventh man was squatted before a small tepee-lodge of dressed skins, which, as we took it, would be the sleeping quarters of the captives.

Whilst all the others lay stiff and stark as if wrapped in soundest sleep, this sentry guard, too, it seemed, was scarcely more than half awake, for as we looked, his gun was slipping from the hollow of his arm and he was nodding to forgetfulness.

Richard was a-crouch beside me in this peeping reconnaissance, and I could feel him trembling in impatient eagerness.

"It should be easy enough--what think you?" he whispered; and then, with a sudden grasp upon my wrist: "You are cool and steady-nerved, John Ireton; I swear you do not love her as I do!"

"Nay, I grant you that, d.i.c.k," said I, making sure that his excitement would obscure the double meaning in the admission. And then I added, sincerely enough: "She has never given me the right to love her at all."

"G.o.d help her at this pa.s.s!" he said, more to himself than to me; and then he would go in a breath from blessing Margery to cursing Ephraim Yeates for this fresh delay.

It was Uncanoola who broke in upon the muttered malediction.

"Wah! Captain Jennif' cuss plenty heap, like missionary medicine-man.

Look-see! Uncanoola no can find white squaw horse yonder. Mebbe Captain Jennif' see 'um, hey?"