Marching on Niagara Part 5

"I know you wish to get home," panted Mrs. Risley, presently.

"But--but--I cannot go--go another step!" And with these words she pitched forward and would have gone in a heap had not their strong youthful arms supported her.

"She has fainted," said Henry, "and it is not to be wondered at. Come, here is something of a shelter in between the rocks and those trees. We may as well let her rest there, for we cannot carry her all the way home."

"But the delay--" began Dave.

"Surely you don't wish to leave her to her fate, Dave?"

"No! no! You know me better than that, Henry, but I was thinking of those left at home. They may be in trouble, too, and if so they will need us."

"I've been thinking of a plan. I'm stronger than you and perhaps I can get her along alone, after she recovers. Can you find the house from here?"

"I think I can. The creek is just beyond that next patch of timber, isn't it?"

"Yes, in that direction." Henry pointed with his hand. "If you find everything all right you might bring father back to help--if he isn't afraid the Indians will arrive in the meantime."

So it was arranged, and without loss of another moment Dave started on his solitary way through the somber woods, now as silent as the grave, for the wind had gone down and the last of the night birds had given their final calls.

Under ordinary circ.u.mstances Dave would have been sleepy, for the day's tramping had been sufficient to tire anybody, but now all thoughts of rest were banished and he was as alert as ever as he stole forward, gun before him, and his eyes s.h.i.+fting from one dark object to another, on the lookout for a possible enemy.

Dave was in the midst of the next patch of timber,--some beautiful walnuts and chestnuts,--when he saw something glimmer through the darkness far to his left. He was immediately interested, wondering what the light could be. He came to a halt and gazed attentively in the direction.

"It must be an Indian camp-fire," he mused. "What a lot of the redskins there must be in this vicinity!"

He was about to move on, giving the fire a wide berth, when something prompted him to turn toward it, to make sure that it was not the encampment of friends. It might possibly be Barringford or some other trapper in the woods, and if so to pa.s.s him by would be far from wise, since such a person might be able to afford just the a.s.sistance needed.

Careful of every footstep taken, Dave gradually drew close to the camp-fire. There was a small, dry clearing, fringed by a series of low rocks, and behind these rocks the young hunter crouched. The sight that met his gaze held him spell-bound.

The camp-fire in the center of the clearing was divided into two parts, one to the east and the other to the west. That in the east was beset with sharp stakes while its companion was being used for cooking purposes.

Around both camp-fires were fully thirty Indians; all more than ordinarily hideous in their daubs of red, blue, and yellow war paint, and their crowns of colored feathers and strings of animals' teeth and human scalps. The redmen had been marching around the camp-fires but now they halted and all sank cross-legged upon the soil.

Suddenly, after a second of silence, one Indian, tall and straight, leaped to his feet and holding his arms out at full length before him began to rock his body from side to side. Then he ran for one of the fires, and pulling a sharp stick from its place in the ground smote the burning end on his breast.

"This is the fear Spotted Wolf has for the English," he cried, in his native tongue. "Even as he has pulled this stake from the ground so will he pull the English from their cabins and burn them at the stake. The English shall flee at the sound of his war whoop, and the children of the English shall die of fright when he draws near. The French are our friends but the English will be our enemies so long as one of them is allowed to live. I will go forward to kill! Spotted Wolf has spoken."

He sat down, and immediately another warrior leaped up and with another burning stick went through the same performance. "I am called Black Eagle," he cried, "because I have eyes that never sleep and a strength handed down to me from Elk Heart, my father, and Jana.s.sarion, my grandfather, he who slew the mighty Little Thunder of the Delawares. Our medicine men have spoken and the English must be driven out like wolves in the winter season. If we allow them this land, and the French the land to the north and the west, where shall the Indian find his hunting ground when he would hunt, and where raise his wigwam when he would rest with his squaw and his children? I, too, will kill and burn until our land knows them no longer! I have the strength of ten white men and I will use it. Black Eagle has spoken."

He had not yet finished when two others sprang up, followed by others, until nearly all were again on their feet, talking of their alleged wrongs and boasting of their strength, and promising each other to do all in their power to wipe out all English settlers west of the Blue Ridge mountains. The bragging was often ludicrous, yet it was easy to see that the Indians were working themselves up into a state of mind where they would hesitate at nothing in order to accomplish their purpose.

Dave could understand only a few words of what was said, yet, from having such scenes described to him by his father and Sam Barringford, he knew that this was a "big war talk," as White Buffalo called them.

Once he fancied he heard his Uncle Joe's name mentioned and his heart almost stopped beating. Surely they must be planning an attack on his home, and that for very soon!

"I must get back and give the warning!" he told himself. "Henry will have to do the best he can with Mrs. Risley. If they get to the cabin and kill Uncle Joe, what will become of Rodney, Aunt Lucy and little Nell? Oh, I must get back!"

Turning, he crawled from the spot with care, and once back into the timber, commenced to run, with his gun slung over his shoulder and his hands held out before him, to keep from running afoul of any obstruction. More than once he b.u.mped into a tree or fell sprawling over some exposed roots, knocking the wind out of him. But he always picked himself up and went on again with undiminished speed. Indeed, the nearer he got to home the greater was his fear that something might have happened in his absence and finally he fairly flew, when he reached familiar ground.

"Hi! who goes there?"

It was a call from close at hand and it made Dave jump as though stung by a snake. He whirled around, to behold a man behind a tree, a leveled gun in his hands.

"Don't shoot!" he called out, for he fancied he knew the voice. "Is that you, Mr. Risley?"

"Yes. Dave Morris, is it not?"

"Yes." Dave ran to meet the Englishman. "Tell me quickly is everything all right over to our house?"

"It was all right when I left, an hour or so ago, lad. But your uncle had been talking to Hans Lomann and said the German had heard of something of an Indian uprising."

At this Dave gave a sigh of relief. But immediately his heart sank, at the thought of the news he had to impart to his friend.

"The Indians are rising, all over this section of the country. They attacked your cabin."

"My cabin!" The Englishman could scarcely utter the words. "Davy, is it the truth? And what of my wife--tell me quickly!"

"Your wife is safe, although she got an arrow through the shoulder. The redskins attacked the cabin and set fire to it. She leaped out of a rear window and hid in the milk-house. Henry and I came up just in time to get her into the woods. We ran as far as we could and then she fainted.

Henry said he would stay with her and told me to come on and give the alarm. We were afraid the Indians had attacked our place, although we didn't hear any shooting or see any fire."

"Then the cabin is destroyed? But never mind that. You are sure the wound wasn't fatal?"

"Quite sure, for Henry dressed it as well as he could. But she was very weak from having been in the water under the milk-house floor so long."

"And where are they now?"

"About a mile or more from here--in that direction. But you want to be careful. There are Indians all around here--one band is over yonder holding a war talk--and I'm sure they'll show you no mercy if they catch you."

The Englishman nodded his head half a dozen times. "I know it, lad, I know it. They are a bloodthirsty set. Sometimes I am sorry I came to this country to settle among them. But times were bad with us in old England, and we had to do something. But you'll take me to my wife, won't you, that's a brave lad."

"I--I don't know," faltered Dave. He was still anxious to go home.

"Perhaps you can find them alone."

"I'm not equal to it, lad--the forest is almost as much of a mystery to me as the day I landed here. Do come, and then we can all go back to your home with all possible speed."

The young hunter could see that Uriah Risley was sorely distressed, and unwilling to add to the man's misery, he consented to go back, although he knew the way was full of ever-increasing perils. Soon they were on the way, and tired as he was Dave set a pace that caused the settler to puff and blow to keep up with him.

CHAPTER VI

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF HENRY

It must be confessed that though he walked swiftly, Dave's heart was anything but light. Turn the subject as he might he felt it "in his bones," as he afterward declared, that a big uprising was close at hand and that this might mean the wiping out of every pioneer for scores of miles around.

"The soldiers at Will's Creek fort and at Winchester ought to know of this," he observed to Uriah Risley. "Someone will have to carry the news."

"Perhaps someone has already done so," was the Englishman's answer. He heaved a sigh. "So the cabin is to the ground. Alack! it was a sorry day when I pushed to the front instead of taking up ground close to Winchester, as the good housewife wanted me to." And he shook his head dolefully.