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

Shif'less Sol nodded. It was, in truth, just approaching its height as the two crept near. Four powerful warriors, naked except for the breech clout, were beating incessantly and monotonously upon the Indian drums. These drums (Ga-no-jo) were about a foot in height and the drummer used a single stick. The dance itself was called by the Shawnees, Sa-ma-no-o-no, which was the name bestowed upon this nation by the Senecas, although the Iroquois themselves called the dance Wa-ta-seh.

Few white men have looked upon such a spectacle at such a time, in the very deeps of the wilderness, under a night sky, heavy with drifting clouds. The whole civilized world had vanished, gone utterly like a wisp of vapor before a wind, and it was peopled only by these savage figures that danced in the dusk.

Near the trees stood a group of chiefs, among whom Henry recognized Yellow Panther, the Miami, and Red Eagle, the Shawnee, imposing men both, but not the equals of an extremely tall and powerful young chief, who was destined later to be an important figure in the life of Henry Ware. They stood silent, dignified, the presiding figures of the dance.

The war drums beat on, insistent and steady, like the rolling of water down a fall. The very monotony of the sound, the eternal harping upon one theme, contained power. Henry, susceptible to the impressions of the wilderness, began to feel that his own brain was being heated by it, and he saw as through a dim red mist. The silent and impassive figures of the chiefs seemed to grow in height and size. The bonfires blazed higher, and the monotonous wailing chant of the warriors was penetrated by a ferocious under note like the whine of some great beast. He glanced at the shiftless one and saw in his eyes the same intense awed look which he knew was in his own.

The mass of men who had been dancing stopped suddenly, and the chant stopped with them. The warriors gathered into two great masses, a lane between them. Save the chiefs, all were naked to the breech clout, and from perspiring bodies the odor of the wild arose.

The fires were blazing tremendously, sending off smoke, ashes and sparks that floated over the trees and were borne far by the wind. At intervals, prolonged war whoops were uttered, and, heavy with menace, they rang far through the woods, startling and distinct.

Then from the edge of the forest emerged about forty warriors painted and decorated in a wildly fantastic manner and wearing headdresses of feathers. The drums beat again, furiously now, and the men began to dance, swinging to and fro and writhing. At the same time they sang a war song of fierce, choppy words, and those who were not dancing sang with them.

The lane wound around and around, and, as the singers and dancers went forward they increased in vehemence. They were transported, like men who have taken some powerful drug, and their emotions were quickly communicated to all the rest of the band. Fierce howls rose above the chant of the war songs. Warriors leaping high in the air made the imaginary motions of killing and scalping an enemy. Then their long yells of triumph would swell above the universal chant.

All the while it was growing darker in the forest. The heavy drifting clouds completely hid the moon and stars. The sky was black and menacing, and the circular ring of woods looked solid like a wall. But within this ring the heat and fury grew. The violence and endurance of the dancers were incredible, and the shouting chant of the multitude urged them on.

Henry caught sight of a white figure near the chiefs, and he recognized the young renegade, Braxton Wyatt. Just behind him was another and older renegade named Blackstaffe, famed along the whole border for his cunning and cruelty. Then he saw men, a half-dozen of them, in the red uniforms of British officers, and behind them two monstrous dark shapes on wheels.

"Can those be cannon?" he whispered to Shif'less Sol.

"They kin be an' they are. I reckon the British allies o' the Injuns hev brought 'em from Detroit to batter down the palisades o' our little settlements."

Henry felt a thrill of horror. He knew that they were cannon, but he had hoped that the shiftless one would persuade him they were not. They were probably the first cannon ever seen in that wilderness, the sisters of those used later with success by the Indians under English leadership and with English cannoneers from Detroit against two little settlements in Kentucky.

But startled as Henry was, his attention turned back to the dancers. Old customs, the habits of far-off ancestors, slumbered in him, and despite himself something wild and fierce in his blood again responded to the primeval appeal the warriors were making. A red haze floated before his eyes. The tide of battle surged through his blood, and, then, with a fierce warning to himself, he stilled his quivering body and crouched low again.

A long time they watched. When a dancer fell exhausted another leaped gladly into his place. The unconscious man was dragged to one side, and left until he might recover.

"I think we've seen enough, don't you?" whispered Henry. "I'd feel better if I were further away."

"Stirs me like that too," said Shif'less Sol. "It ain't healthy fur us to stay here any longer. 'Sides, we know all we want to know. This is a big war party, mostly Miamis and Shawnees, with some Wyandots an' a few Iroquois and Delawares."

"And the English and the cannon."

"Yes, Henry, an' I don't like the looks o' them cannon, the first, I reckon, that ever come across the Ohio. Our palisades can turn the bullets easy 'nuff, but they'd fly like splinters before twelve pound round shot."

"Then," said Henry with sudden emphasis, "it's the business of us five to see that those two big guns never appear before Wareville or Marlowe, where I imagine they intend to take them!"

"Henry, you hit the nail squar' on the head the fust time. Ef we kin stop them two cannon it'll be ez much ez winnin' a campaign. I think we'd better go back now, an' j'in the others, don't you?"

"Yes, I don't see that we can do anything at present. But Sol, we must stop those cannon some way or other. We beat off a great attack at Wareville once, but we couldn't stand half a day before the big guns. How are we to do it? Tell me, Sol, how are we to do it?"

"I don't know, Henry, but we kin hang on. You know we've always hung on, an' by hangin' on we gen'rally win. It's a long way to Wareville, an' while red warriors kin travel fast cannon can't get through a country covered ez thick with woods an' bushes ez this is. They'll hev to cut a road fur 'em nigh all the way."

"That's so," said Henry more hopefully. "They'll have to go mighty slow with those big guns through the forests and thickets and canebrake, and across so many rivers and creeks. We'll hang on, as you say, and it may give us a chance to act. I feel better already."

"They ain't likely to move fur a day or two, Henry. After the dances an' the big eatin' they'll lay 'roun' 'till they've slep' it all off, an' nobody kin move 'em 'till they git ready, even if them British officers talk 'till their heads ache. They're goin' on with the dancin' too. Hear them whoops."

The long shrill cries uttered by the warriors still reached them, as they stole away. Henry passed his hand across his forehead. All that strange influence was gone now. He no longer saw the red mist, and his heart ceased to beat like a hammer. The healthy normal forest was around him, full of dangers, it was true, but of dangers that he could meet with decision and judgment.

They returned rapidly, but occasionally they looked back at the red glare showing above the trees, and for most of the way the faint echoes of the whoops came to them. When they approached the bushes in which they had left the others Henry uttered a low whistle which was promptly answered in like fashion by Silent Tom.

"What did you see?" asked Paul, as they emerged from their hiding place.

"Nigh on to a thousand warriors," replied Shif'less Sol, "an' it was a mighty fine comp'ny too. We saw two chiefs, Yellow Panther, the Miami, an' Red Eagle, the Shawnee, that we've had dealin's with before, an' our old friend Braxton Wyatt, an' the big renegade Blackstaffe, an' British officers."

"British officers!" exclaimed Paul. "What are they doing there?"

"You know that our people in the East are at war with Britain," said Henry, "and I suppose these officers and some men too have come from Detroit to help the warriors wipe us out in Kentucky. They've brought with them also two very formidable allies, the like of which were never seen in these woods before."

"Two new and strange allies, Henry?" said Paul. "What do you mean?"

"Something that rolls along on wheels, and that speaks with a voice like thunder."

"I don't understand yet."

"And when it speaks it hurls forth a missile that can smash through a palisade like a stone through glass."

"It must be cannon. You surely don't mean cannon, Henry?"

"I do. The big guns have crossed the Ohio. The Indians or rather the English with 'em, mean to use 'em against us. It's our business to destroy 'em. Sol and I have agreed on that, and you are with us, are you not?"

"O' course!" said Tom Ross.

"Uv course!" said Long Jim.

"Through everything," said Paul.

"What do you think we'd better do right now?" asked Ross.

"Go back to the cup and sleep," replied Henry. "It'll be safe. The Indians will be so gorged from their orgie, and will feel so secure from attack that they'll hardly have a scout in the forest tomorrow."

"Good plan," said the shiftless one. "I expect to be in that shady little place in a half-hour. Long Jim here, havin' nothin' else to do, will watch over me all through the rest of the night, an' tomorrow when the sun comes out bright, he'll be settin' by my side keepin' the flies off me, an' me still sleepin' ez innercent ez a baby."

"That won't happen in the next thousand years," said Long Jim. "Ef thar's anything fannin' you tomorrow, when you wake up, a Shawnee or a Miami warrior will be doin' it with a tomahawk."

They quickly retraced their course to the cup, being extremely careful to leave no trail, and were about to make ready for the night. Every one of them carried a light blanket, but very closely woven and warm, upon which he usually slept, drawing a fold over him. The dry leaves and the blankets would make a bed good enough for any forest rover at that time of the year, but Henry noticed a stone outcrop in a hill above them and concluded to look farther.

"Wait till I come back," he said, and he pushed his way through the bushes.

The outcrop was of the crumbling limestone that imparts inexhaustible fertility to the soil of a great region in Kentucky. It is this decaying stone or a stone closely akin which makes it the most wonderful cave region in the world.

Higher up the slope Henry found deep alcoves in the stone, most of them containing leaves, and also a strong animal odor, which showed that in the winter they had been occupied as lairs by wild animals, probably bears.

Looking a little farther he found one that penetrated deeper than the rest. It might almost have been called a cave. It was so placed that at that time of night the opening faced a bit of the moon that had made a way through the clouds, and, Henry peering into the dusky interior, judged that it ran back about twenty feet. There was no odor to suggest that it had been used as a lair, perhaps because the animals liked the alcoves better.

He threw in some twigs, but, no growl coming forth, he entered boldly through an aperture about three feet across and perhaps five feet high. He stepped on smooth stone, but as soon as he was inside he stopped and listened intently. He heard a faint trickling sound, evidently from the far side of the cave, which appeared to be both deeper and wider than he had thought.