The Keepers of the Trail: A Story of the Great Woods

"You're as bad in your way as the Indians are in theirs. Why, the fellow would be superhuman!"

"That would not keep it from being true."

Alloway knew from Wyatt's tone that he meant what he said.

"We must hunt down this forest rover!" he exclaimed. "I can see that he is striking a heavy blow at the Indians through their superstitions."

"No doubt of that, sir."

"Tell the chiefs for me that we must send out a half dozen trailers while the rest of us remain here. I'm not as used as you are to midnight marches in the forest, and every bone in me aches."

Wyatt translated and Yellow Panther and Red Eagle consented. A half-dozen of the best trailers slipped away in different directions in the forest, and the rest sat down in a group. They waited a long time and heard nothing. The owl did not cry, nor did any human shout come from the haunted depths of the wilderness.

"At least they've driven him away," said Alloway to Cartwright.

"I think so, sir."

Out of the forest, low at first, but swelling on a long triumphant note, came the solemn voice of the owl. Alloway, despite himself, shuddered. The sinister cry expressed victory. His own mind, like those of the Indians, had become attuned to the superstitions and fears bred of ignorance and the dark. His heart paused, and when it began its work again the beat was heavy.

A darker blot appeared on the darkness and two warriors, bearing a third, came through the bushes. The man whom they bore was a dark-browed, cruel savage who had carried the scalp of a white woman at his belt. But he would hunt or scalp no more. He had been cloven from brow to chin with the blow of a tomahawk wielded by an arm mighty like that of Hercules. Colonel Alloway looked upon the slain savage and shuddered again.

"Ask them how it happened," he said to Wyatt.

The young renegade, after speaking with the Indians, replied:

"Black Fox, the dead warrior, turned aside to look into a willow thicket. The others heard the beginning of a cry, that is one that was checked suddenly, and the sound of a blow. Then they found Black Fox as you see him there."

"And the one who struck him down?"

"There was no trace of him, but I, at least, have no doubt about him. Colonel Alloway, sir, I tell you he is the greatest forester that ever lived. He has all the different kinds of strength of the red man and the white man united, and something more, a power which I once heard a learned man say must have belonged to people when they had no weapons but clubs, and beasts far bigger than any of our time roamed the woods. It must have been a sort of feeling or sense that we can't understand, like the nose of a hound, and this Ware has it."

"Pshaw! Pshaw! Pshaw!" exclaimed Alloway violently. But Wyatt saw that his violence of speech was assumed to hide his own growing belief. The two chiefs beckoned to him, and he talked with them briefly. Then he turned to Alloway.

"Red Eagle and Yellow Panther ask me to say to you, sir, that they'll send no more warriors into the forest. The Evil Spirit is there and while they're ready to fight men they will not fight devils."

"I don't blame 'em," said Alloway reluctantly. "We've been outwitted and made fools of, and the best thing we can do is to get back to the great camp as soon as we can. Tell the chiefs we're ready to march."

But the way was long and the night was still black. The cry of the owl came several times, first on the right and then on the left. Every time he heard it the heart of the colonel beat with anger, tinged with awe. It was a strange world into which he had come, and while he would not have acknowledged it to another, he knew that he was afraid. And afraid of what? Of a single figure, lurking somewhere in the dusk, that seemed able to strike at any moment wherever and whenever it wished.

The band, with its chiefs, its white men and its renegades marched on, the two English officers panting from such unusual exertion, and tripping often as they grew weaker. It hurt Alloway to ask them to stop and let him rest, and he put off the evil moment as long as he could, but at last, as his breath became shorter and shorter, he was compelled to do so.

The chiefs acquiesced silently and the whole band stopped. Alloway sat down on one of those fallen logs to be found everywhere in the primeval forest, and his breath came in long painful sobs. He was just a little too stout for wilderness work, that is for the marching part of it, and he was hurt cruelly in both body and spirit. As his general weakness grew, the cry of the owl directly in their path and not far away was like fire touched to an open wound.

"Can't some of the warriors go forward, ambush and shoot that fiend?" he exclaimed in desperation to Blackstaffe.

"You saw what happened when we tried it an hour ago," replied the renegade. "In the darkness one man has an opportunity over many. He knows that all are his enemies, and he can shoot the moment he hears a sound or sees a rustle in the bush. Besides, sir, we are confronted, as Wyatt has told you, by the one foe who is the most dangerous in all the world to us. There is something about him that passes almost beyond belief. I'm not a coward, as these Indians will tell you, but nothing could induce me to go into the forest in search of him."

Alloway made no reply, but he took off a cocked hat that he wore even in the wilderness, and began to fan his heated face. A rifle cracked suddenly, and the hat flew from his hand into the air. The Indians uttered a long wailing cry like the Seneca "Oonah," but did not move from their places or show any sign that they wished to pursue.

The colonel's empty hand remained poised in the air, and he gazed with mingled anger and wonder at his hat, lying upon the ground, and perforated neatly by a bullet. Wyatt, Blackstaffe and Cartwright looked at him but said nothing. Even Wyatt felt a thrill of awe.

"That, sir, was a warning," he said at last. "He could have shot you as easily."

"But why don't the warriors pursue? He could not have been much more than a hundred yards away!"

"They're afraid, sir, and I don't blame 'em."

Wyatt himself showed apprehension. He knew the bitter hatred the borderers felt toward all renegades. The name of Girty was already one of loathing. Blackstaffe was another who could expect little mercy, if he ever fell into their hands, and Wyatt himself knew that he had fully earned the Kentucky bullet. He did not feel the superstition of the warrior, but he regarded the gloomy depths of the forest with just as much terror. There was no reason why the silent marksman who hung upon them should not pick him out for a target.

They came to a creek running three feet deep, but they waded it and then stood for a minute or two on the bank, wringing the water out of their clothing. Colonel Alloway still cursed under his breath, and bemoaned the fate that had befallen him. It seemed a cruel jest that he, who had served in Flanders and Germany, in open country that had been civilized many centuries, should be sent from Detroit to march as an ally of savages in that enormous and unknown wilderness.

The cry of the owl came from a point straight ahead, and not more than four hundred yards away. Not a savage moved. But Alloway's whole frame shook with furious anger. It was preposterous that they should be harried so on their march by a single enemy. Once more he turned to Wyatt and said:

"Can't we spread out in some manner and catch this impudent fellow? Are thirty men to be driven all night through the woods by a single border rover?"

"I can put your question to the chiefs," Wyatt replied, "but I doubt whether anything will come of it."

He talked a little with Yellow Panther and Red Eagle and found that they were willing to try again. They were pursued by a devil, but, mysterious as he was, they would send forth the warriors, and perhaps they might trap him. They gave the signal and a dozen savages plunged at once into the bush, spreading out like a fan, and advancing toward the point from which the owl had sent his haunting cry.

The others waited a long time by the creek, and Alloway's rage still burned. It was past endurance that a gentleman and an officer should be hunted through the woods in such a manner, insulted even by a bullet through his fine cocked hat, and hope being the father of belief, he was sure that the warriors would finish him this time.

He heard a sudden sharp report in the woods behind them, on the other side of the creek that they had crossed, and a bullet buried itself in the tree against which he was leaning, not very far from his face. He uttered a deep oath, but Yellow Panther and Red Eagle signaled to their forces to take the trail once more. The one in whom the Evil Spirit dwelled and who had come to mock them could not be caught. They would waste no more time, but would march as fast as they could to the main camp. They sent out cries that called in the warriors and then they set off at a great pace.

But all through the remainder of the night the Evil Spirit hung upon them, sometimes beside them, and sometimes behind them, and the terror of the warriors grew. Upon more than one face the war paint was damp with perspiration, and Colonel Alloway, his red face dripping, was forced to keep up with them, stride for stride.

Their terror did not diminish at all until the daylight came. Red Eagle and Yellow Panther, great chiefs, were glad to see the glow over the eastern forest that told of the rising sun. Even then they did not stop, but kept on at high speed, until the morning was flooded with light, when they stopped for fresh breath.

The English officers threw themselves upon the ground and gasped. They were not ashamed to show now to the Indians that they were weary almost to death.

"I think I left at least twenty pounds in that cursed forest," said Alloway.

"I'm not anxious for another such march," said Cartwright with sympathy. "But, sir, you can see a big smoke rising not more than a mile ahead. That must be the main camp."

"It is," said Braxton Wyatt, "and there are some of the scouts coming to meet us."

Far behind them rose the long hoot of the owl, but Wyatt knew that they would hear it no more that day. He regarded the English officers grimly. They had patronized him and Blackstaffe, and now they made the poorest showing of all. In the woods they were lost.

Alloway and Cartwright rose after a long rest and limped into the camp. The colonel reflected that he had lost prestige but there were the cannon. The warriors could not afford to march against Kentucky without them, and only he and his men knew how to use them. In a huge camp, with a brilliant sun driving away many of the fancies that night and the forest brought, his full sense of importance returned. He began to talk now of pushing forward at once with the guns, in order that they might strike before the settlers were aware.

CHAPTER VI

THE KING WOLF

When the two chiefs, Alloway and the smaller force, were driven into the great camp, Henry turned aside into the forest and felt that he had done well. All the fanciful spirit of the younger world created by the Greeks had been alive in him that night. He had been a young Hercules at play and he had enjoyed his grim jokes. He was not only a young Hercules, he was a primeval son of the forest to whom the wilderness was a book in which he read.

He went back a little on their path, and he marked where the European leader had fallen twice through sheer weariness or because he could not see well enough in the dusk to evade trailing vines. A red thread or two on a bush showed that he had torn his uniform in falling, and the young woods rover laughed. He could not recall another such gratifying night, one in which he had served his own people and also had annoyed the enemy beyond endurance.

He went deep into the forest, hiding his trail as usual, and lay down in a covert to rest, while he ate some of the venison that he had left. Here he saw again his friends of the little trails, with which he was so familiar. The shy rabbits were creeping through the bushes and instinctively they seemed to have no fear of him. Two little birds not ten feet over his head were singing in intense rivalry. Their tiny throats swelled out as they poured forth a brilliant volume of song, and Henry, lying perfectly still, looked up at them and admired them. It would have required keen eyes like his to have picked them out, each of whom a green leaf would have covered, but he saw them and recognized them as friends of his. He did not know them personally, but since all their tribe were his comrades they must be so too.