The Little Red Foot Part 50

Listen, John Drogue, This will happen, And it is well, Because I love you.

"Why do I love you?

Because you are a boy-chief, And we are both young, Thou and I.

Why do I love you?

Because you are my elder brother, And you speak to the Oneidas Very gently.

"I am a prophetess; I see events beforehand; This is my Karenna: Though we all die tonight, You shall survive in Scarlet: And this is well, Because I love you."

[Footnote 16:

_The Karenna of Thiohero_

Yi-ya-thon-dek, _John Drogue_, Da-ed-e-wenh-he-i, Engh-si-tsko-dak-i!

Yi-ya-thon-dek, _John Drogue_, Nenne-a-wenni Yo-ya-neri Kenonwes!]

So, crooning her prophecy, she lay flat in the wild gra.s.ses, cuddling the rifle-stock close to her shoulder; and her song's low cadence was like the burden of some cricket amid the herbage.

"Tharon alone knows all," I breathed in her ear.

"Neah!" she murmured; and touched her cheek against mine.

"Only G.o.d knows who shall survive tonight," I insisted.

"Onhteh. Ra-ko-wan-enh,"[17] she murmured. "But I have seen you, _niare_,[18] through a mist, coming from this place, O-ne-kwen-da-ri-en.[19] And dead bodies lay about. Do you believe me?"

[Footnote 17: Perhaps! He is Chief.]

[Footnote 18: Beforehand.]

[Footnote 19: Literally, in scarlet blood.]

I made no reply but lay motionless, watching the tamaracks, ghostly in their cerements of silver fog. And I heard, through the low rhythm of her song, owls howling far away amid those spectral wastes, and saw the Oneida Dancers,[20] very small and pale above the void.

[Footnote 20: The Pleiades.]

I stared with fierce satisfaction at Howell's house. There was no gleam of light visible behind the closed shutters; but I already had counted nine men who came creeping to that silent rendezvous. And now there arrived the tenth man, running and stooping low; and went in by the east side of the house.

I waited a full minute longer, then whistled the whitethroat's call.

"Now!" said I to Thiohero; and we rose and walked forward through the light mist which lay knee-deep over the ground.

We had not advanced ten paces when three men, whom I had not perceived, rose up on the ridge to our right.

One of these shouted and fired a gun, and all three dropped flat again before we could realize what they had been about.

But already, out of that shadowy house, armed men swarmed like black hornets from their nest, and we ran to cut them from the tamaracks, but could not mark their flight in the so great darkness.

Then Nick Stoner struck flint, and dropped his tinder upon the remnants of a hay-stack, where wisps of last year's marsh gra.s.s still littered the rick.

In the smoky glow which grew I saw that great villain, Simon Girty, fire his gun at us, then turn and run toward the water; and Dries Bowman took after him, shouting in his fear.

Very carefully I fired at Girty, but he was not scotched, and was lost in the dark with Dries.

Then, in the increasing glow of the marsh-hay afire, I saw and recognized Elias Cady, and his venomous son, Charlie; and called loudly upon them to halt.

But they plunged into the sh.o.r.e reeds; and John and Phil Helmer at their heels; and we fired our guns into the dark, but could not stop them or again even hope to glimpse them in their flight.

But the Oneidas had now arrived between the tamaracks and the log house, and my Rangers were swiftly closing in on the west and south, when suddenly a couple of loud musket shots came from the crescents in the bolted shutters, hiding the west window in a double cloud of smoke.

I called out, "Halt!" to my people, for it was death to cross that circle of light ahead while the marsh-hay burned.

There were at least five men now barricaded in Howell's house. I called to Tahioni, the Wolf, and he came crouching and all trembling with excitement and impatience, like a fierce hound restrained.

"Take your people," said I, "and follow those dirty cowards who are fleeing toward the tamaracks."

Instantly his terrific panther-cry shattered the silence, and the Oneidas' wild answer to his slogan hung quavering over the Drowned Lands like the melancholy pulsations of a bell.

The hay-rick burned less brightly now. I crept out to the dark edge of the wavering glare and called across to those in the log-house:

"If you will surrender I promise to send you to Johnstown and let a court judge you! If you refuse, we shall take you by storm, try you on the spot, and execute sentence upon you in that house! I allow you five minutes!"

At that, two of them fired in the direction from whence came my voice; and I heard their bullets pa.s.sing, aimed too high.

Then John Howell's voice bawls out, "I know you, Drogue; and so help me G.o.d, I shall cut your throat before this business ends!--you dirty renegade and traitor to your King!"

Such a rage possessed me that I scarce knew what I was about, and I ran across the gra.s.s to the bolted door of the house, and fell to slas.h.i.+ng at it with my hatchet like a madman.

They were firing now so rapidly that the smoke of their guns made a choking fog about the house; but the log cabin had no overhang, not being built for defense, and so they over-shot me whilst my hatchet battered splinters from the door and shook it almost from its hinges.

Some one was coughing in the thick, rifle-fog near me, and presently I heard Nick swearing and hammering at the door with his gun b.u.t.t.

The French trappers, not so rash as we, lay close in the darkness, shooting steadily into the shutters at short range.

Shutters and door, though splintering, held; the defenders fired at my men's rifle-flashes, or strove to shoot at Nick and me, where we crouched low in the sheltered doorway; but they could not sufficiently depress the muzzles of their guns to hit us.

Suddenly, from out of the night, came a fire-arrow, whistling, with dry moss all aflame, and lodged on the roof of Howell's house.

Quoth Nick: "Your Tree-eater is in action, John. G.o.d send that the fire catch!"

From the darkness, Silver called out to me that the marsh-hay had nearly burned out, and what were he and Joe to do? Then came a-whizzing another fire-arrow, and another, but whether the dew was too heavy on the roof or the moss too damp, I do not know; only that when at length the roof caught fire, it was but a tiny blaze and flickered feebly, eating a slow way along the edges of the eaves.

Nick, who had been wrenching at the imbedded door stone, finally freed and lifted it, and hurled it at the bolted shutters. In they crashed.

Then the door, too, burst open, and Tom Dawling rushed upon me with his rifle clubbed high above me.

"You d.a.m.ned Whig!" he shouted, "I'll knock your brains all over the gra.s.s!"

My hatchet in a measure fended the blow and eased its murderous force, but I stumbled to my knees under it; and Baltus Weed came to the window and shot me through the body.

At that, Gene Grinnis ran out o' the house to cut my throat, where like a crippled wild beast I floundered, a-kicking and striving to find my feet; and I saw Nick draw up and shoot Gene through the face, with a load of buck, so that where were his features suddenly became but a vast and raw hole.