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

"Remember your word."

The English youth nodded again, gurgled two or three times, and rubbed his throat:

"'Twas a mighty grip you had upon me. Who are you?"

"The owners of this forest, and we've jest been tellin' you that you've no business here on our grounds," said the shiftless one.

The boy—he was nothing more—stared at them in astonishment. It was obvious to the two forest runners that he had little acquaintance with the woods. His eyes filled with wonder as he gazed upon the two fierce faces, and the two powerful figures, arrayed in buckskin.

"Your forest?" he said.

"Yes," replied Henry quietly, "and bear in mind that I held your life in my hands. Had you been an Indian you would be dead now."

"I won't forget it," said the youth, who seemed honest enough, "and I'm not going to cry out and bring the warriors down upon you for two very good reasons—because I've promised not to do so, and if I did, I know that your comrade there would shoot me down the next instant."

"I shorely would," said Shif'less Sol, grimly.

"And now," said Henry, "what is your name and what are you doing here?"

"My name is Roderick Cawthorne, I'm a subaltern in the British army, and I came over to help put down the rebels, in accordance with my duty to my king and country. All this land is under our rule."

"Do you think so?" asked Henry. "Do you think that this wilderness, which extends a thousand miles in every direction, is under your rule?"

The young subaltern looked around at the dark forest and shivered a little.

"Technically, yes," he replied, "but it's a long way from Eton."

"What's Eton?"

"Eton is a school in England, a school for the sons of gentlemen."

"I see. And would I be considered the son of a gentleman?"

Young Cawthorne looked up at the tanned and powerful face bent over him. He had already noted Henry's good English, and, feeling the compelling gaze of one who was born to be a master, he replied, sincerely and cheerfully:

"Yes, the son of a gentleman, and a gentleman yourself."

"An' I'm a gentleman too," said Shif'less Sol. "My good rifle says so every time."

"It was the power of earlier weapons that started the line of gentlemen," said Cawthorne. "Now what do you two gentlemen propose to do with me?"

"Do you know what would be done with us if things were changed about?" asked Henry, "and we were the prisoners of you and the colonel and the red men with whom you travel?"

"No. What would it be?"

"You'd have the pleasure of standing by and seeing the two of us burned alive at the stake. We wouldn't be burned quickly. It can be protracted for hours, and it's often done to our people by your allies."

The young Englishman paled.

"Surely it can't be so!" he said.

"But surely it is so!" said the young forester fiercely.

"I'm at your mercy."

"We ain't goin' to burn you now," said Shif'less Sol. "We can't afford to set up a big torch in the forest, with our enemies so near."

Cawthorne shivered.

"Do you still feel," asked Henry, "that you're the ruler over the wilderness here, five thousand miles from London?"

"Technically only. At the present time I'm making no boasts."

"Now, you go back to your colonel and the renegades and the red chiefs and tell them they'll find no thoroughfare to the white settlements."

"So, you don't mean to kill me?"

"No, we don't do that sort of thing. Since we can't hold you a prisoner now, we release you. It's likely that you don't know your way to your own camp, but your red comrade here will guide you. My friend didn't break his skull, when he struck him with the butt of his rifle, though it was a shrewd blow. He's coming to."

Cawthorne looked down at the reviving savage, and then looked up to thank the foresters, but they were gone. They had vanished so quickly and silently that he had not heard them going. Had it not been for the savage who was now sitting up he would not have believed that it was real.

Henry and the shiftless one had dropped down in the bushes only a little distance away, and, by the moonlight, they saw the look of bewilderment on the face of the young Englishman.

"It don't hardly look fair to our people that we should let him go," said the shiftless one.

"But we had to," Henry whispered back. "It was either kill him or let him go, and neither you nor I, Sol, could kill him. You know that."

"Yes, I know it."

"Now, the warrior has all his senses back, though his head is likely to ache for a couple of days. We don't lose anything by letting them have their lives, Sol. The talk of their encounter with us will grow mightily as they go back to the Indian army. The warrior scarcely caught a glimpse of us, and he's likely to say that he was struck down by an evil spirit. Cawthorne's account of his talk with us will not weaken him in his belief. Instead it will make him sure that we're demons who spared them in order that they might carry a warning to their comrades."

"I see it, Henry. It's boun' to be the way you say it is, an' our luck is still workin' fur us."

They saw the English lad and the warrior turn back toward the camp, and then they rose, going away swiftly at a right angle from their original course. After pursuing it a while, they curved in again toward the camp.

In a half-hour they saw the distant flare of lights, and knew that they were close to the Indian army. They were able by stalking, carried on with infinite pains and skill, to approach so near that they could see into the open, where the fires were burning, but not near enough to achieve anything of use.

Alloway, Cartwright, the renegades and the chiefs stood together, and Cawthorne, and the warrior who had been with him, stood before them. Evidently they had just got back, and were telling their tale. Both of the foresters laughed inwardly. Their achievement gave them much pleasure, and they felt that they were making progress toward forging the new link in the chain.

"Can you see the cannon?" whispered Shif'less Sol.

"Over there at the far edge. The ammunition wagons carrying the powder and the balls and the grapeshot are drawn up between them. But we can't get at 'em, Sol. Not now, at least."

"No, but see, Henry, a lot of them warriors are beginnin' to dance, an' thar are two medicine men among 'em. They've overheard the news o' what we've done, an' they're gittin' excited. They're shore now the evil sperrits are all 'roun' 'em."

"Looks like it, Sol, and those medicine men are not afraid of Alloway, the renegades, the chiefs or anybody else. They're encouraging the dancing."

Henry and the shiftless one saw the medicine men through the glow of the lofty flames, and they looked strange and sinister to the last degree. One was wrapped in a buffalo hide with the head and horns over his own head, the other was made up as a bear. The glare through which they were seen, magnified them to twice or thrice their size, and gave them a tint of blood. They looked like two monsters walking back and forth before the warriors.