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

He held up the hind quarter of a bear that had been cooked to a turn over a bed of coals.

"I haven't tasted it yet," he said, "but jest smell it! Did sech an odor ever afore tickle your nose? Did your mouth ever afore water so much? Here, Henry, fall on!"

He took out his knife, cut off a big piece and handed it to Henry, who began to eat eagerly. Then the shiftless one fell to in like fashion.

"How did you manage it?" he asked.

The shiftless one grinned.

"Didn't I tell you that the sudden darkness wuz a sign favorin' me?" he said. "Paul is always tellin' about them old Greeks an' Romans not goin' into battle till they had talked with the omens, mostly the insides o' cows an' sheep. I believe in signs too. Mine wuz a lot better, an' it worked. I found that they hed jest finished roastin' the bear on the coals, after hevin' dressed him an' cut him into four quarters. 'Pears that most o' 'em hed gone deeper into the woods to look fur somethin'. I come close up in the bushes, an' began a terrible snarlin' an' yelpin' like a hull pack o' wolves. The three that wuz left, the cooks, took torches from the fire, an' run in after me. But I hed flew like lightnin' 'roun' to the other side, jumped in, grabbed up one o' the quarters by the leg, an' wuz away afore they could fairly see what had happened, an' who had made it happen. Then they set up one yell, which I guess you heard, but I kept on flyin' through the woods to the north, curved about, came over the mud flats whar no trail kin last a minute, an' here I am with our bear, or ez much of it ez we want o' him."

"You've done a great deed, Sol. I didn't think you could go through with it, but you have, and this bear is mighty fine."

"He wuz ourn, an' I wuz bound to hev a part o' him."

"We'll put the rest in our knapsacks and there ought to be enough for two days more. It relieves us of a great anxiety, because we couldn't go without food, and we really needed it badly."

"I'm feelin' like two men already. I wonder what the boys are doin' up thar in the holler? A-layin' 'roun' on the stone floor, I s'pose, eatin', drinkin' cold water, an' hevin' a good time."

"But remember their anxiety about us."

"I do. They shorely must hev worried a lot, seein' that we've been gone so long a time. Them are three fine fellers, Henry, Paul with all his learnin' an' his quiet ways, an' Long Jim, with whom I like so pow'ful well to argy an' who likes so pow'ful well to argy with me, ez good a feller ez ever breathed, an' Tom Ross, who don't talk none, givin' all his time to me, but who knows such a tremenjeous lot. We've got to git back to 'em soon, Henry."

Henry agreed with him, and then, having eaten heartily they took turn and turn in sleeping. Their clothing had dried on them, but their blankets had escaped a wetting entirely, and they were able to make themselves comfortable.

In the morning Henry saw that the larger column of smoke was gone, but that the smaller remained, and the fact aroused his curiosity.

"What do you make of it?" he asked Shif'less Sol.

"I draws from it the opinion that the main band with the cannon hez started off into the south, but that part o' the warriors hev stayed behind fur some purpose or other."

"My opinion, too. But why has the big force gone and the small one remained?"

"I can't say. It's too much fur me."

Henry had an idea, but hoping that he was mistaken he did not utter it just then.

"If the big band has started south again," he said, "and the absence of the column of smoke indicates it, then all the Indians in this part of the forest have been drawn off. They've long since lost us, and they wouldn't linger here in the hope of running across us by chance, when the great expedition was already on its way."

"That's sound argument, an' so we'll leave our islan' an' make fur the boys."

They picked a path across the mud flats, recrossed the creek and entered the deep forest, where the two felt as if they had come back to their true home. The wonderful breeze, fresh with a thousand odors of spring in the wilderness, was blowing. It did not come across mud flats, but it came through a thousand miles of dark green foliage, the leaves rippling like the waters of the sea.

"The woods fur me," said Shif'less Sol, speaking in a whisper, with instinctive caution. "I like 'em, even when they're full o' warriors lookin' fur my scalp."

The forest here was very dense, and also was heavy with undergrowth which suited their purpose, as they would be able to approach the hollow, unseen and unheard. Henry still did not like the presence of the smaller column of smoke, and when he reached the crest of their first hill he saw that it was yet rising.

"You had a sign last night, and it was a good one," he said to Shif'less Sol, "but I see one now, and I think it is a bad one."

"We'll go on an' find it."

They approached the hollow rapidly, the forest everywhere being extremely dense, but when they were within less than a mile of it both stopped short and looked at each other.

"You heard it?" said Henry.

"Yes, I heard it."

"It wasn't much louder than the dropping of an acorn, but it was a rifle shot."

"O' course it wuz a rifle shot. Neither you nor I could be mistook about that."

"And you noticed where it came from?"

"Straight from the place where Paul and Tom and Long Jim Hart are."

"Which may mean that their presence has been discovered and that they are besieged."

"That's the way I look at it."

"And we must make a rescue."

"That's true, an' we've got to be so mighty keerful about it that we ain't took an' scalped and burned by the savages, afore we've had a single chance at makin' a rescue."

The thought in the minds of the two was the same. They were sure now from the absence of the larger smoke column that the main force had gone south, but that the smaller had remained to take their comrades, whose presence, by some chance, they had discovered. They lay closely hidden for a while, and they heard the report of a second shot, followed by a mere shred of sound which they took to be an Indian yell, although they were not sure.

"Ef the boys are besieged, an' we think they are," said the shiftless one, "they kin hold out quite a while even without our help. So I think, Henry, we'd better go an' see whether the main camp has broke up an' the cannon gone south. It won't be so hard to find out that, an' then we kin tell better what we want to do."

"You're right, of course," replied Henry. "We'll have to leave our comrades for the time and go to the big camp."

They curved again toward the south and west, keeping to the thickest part of the forest and using every possible device to hide their trail, knowing its full necessity, as the day was brilliant and one, unless under cover, could be seen from afar. Game started up in their path and Henry took it as new proof that the main body of the Indians had gone. Deer, scared away by the hunters, were so plentiful that they would return soon after the danger for them departed. Nevertheless both he and the shiftless one were apprehensive of wandering warriors who might see them from some covert, and their progress, of necessity, was slow.

They came to several grassy openings, in one of which the buffalo were feeding, but Henry and his comrade always passed around such exposed places, even at the cost of greatly lengthening their journey. At one point they heard a slight sound in the forest, and being uncertain whether it was made by an enemy they remained crouched in the thicket at least a half-hour. Then they heard another faint report in the north and their keen ears told them it came from a point near the rocky hollow.

"I can't make anything of it," whispered Henry, "except that the boys are besieged as we feared. I've tried to believe that the shots were fired by Indians at game, but I can't force my belief. The reports all come from the same place, and they mean exactly what we wish they didn't mean."

"But they mean too," said the shiftless one, courageously, "that so long as we hear 'em the boys are holdin' out. The warriors wouldn't be shootin' off their guns fur nothin'."

"That's true. Now, we haven't heard that sound again. It must have been made by a wildcat or a wolf or something of the kind. So let's press on."

The great curve through the forest took them late in the afternoon to the site of the big camp. They were sure, long before they reached it that it had been abandoned. They approached very carefully through the dense woods, and they heard no sound whatever. It was true that a little smoke floated about among the dense leaves, but both were certain that it came from dying fires, abandoned many hours ago.

"You don't hear anything, do you?" asked Henry.

"Not a sound."

"Then they're gone."

Rising from the undergrowth they boldly entered the camp, where perhaps a thousand warriors had danced and sung and feasted and slept for days. Now the last man was gone, but they had left ample trace of their presence. In the wide open space lay the charred coals of many fires, and everywhere were heaps of bones of buffalo, bear, dear and wild turkey. Feathers and an occasional paint box were scattered about.