Marching on Niagara: or, The Soldier Boys of the Old Frontier

Once again he led the way, slowly and cautiously, flitting from one tree to another in absolute silence. The fire was now at its height, lighting up the sky for a long distance around. The sparks were blowing in their direction, but the light fall of snow had wet the trees and brushwood, so no harm was done.

Presently they found themselves again close to the brook, which at this point crossed a garden patch that Uriah Risley had gotten into shape the season before. At the side of the brook was a roughly constructed milk-house, made of large stones for walls and untrimmed timbers for a roof. Behind this the boys crouched, to take another view of what was going on in the center of the clearing.

The Indians who had been drinking from the demijohn were growing hilarious and their wild whooping could be heard for a long distance. At the start of the fire some furniture had been hauled forth, a chest of drawers and a bureau, and now some of the redmen set to work to break open both articles, to see what they contained.

"They are after everything of value they can lay hands on," muttered Dave. "What a shame! Do you see anything of – ?"

The young hunter broke off short, for at that instant came a low moan of pain from the interior of the milk-house.

"Are you – you white people!" came in a gasp. "If you are, for the love of heaven – sa – save me!"

"It's Mrs. Risley!" burst out Dave, for he remembered that voice well. He raised his head up to a crack in the rude planking. "Mrs. Risley, are you alone?" he questioned. "It is I, Dave Morris, who is speaking."

"Dave Morris!" A groan followed. "Oh, Davy, lad, save me, won't you? I am almost dead!"

"I'll do what I can for you, Mrs. Risley. My cousin Henry is with me. We were out hunting when the Indians almost captured us. The woods are full of them. Is Mr. Risley around?"

"No, he went to Will's Creek on business. I saw the Indians coming and I tried to run away. But they shot at me with their arrows and one passed through my left shoulder. Then I pretended to go into the house and hide, and when they came in I leaped through a back window and ran for this place. I got into the water up to my shoulders and pulled a bit of a board over my head, to keep out of sight. They came down here and I thought sure they'd find me, but they did not. But I am nearly perished with the cold, and the wound from the arrow has made me very faint. You will help me, won't you?"

"To be sure we'll help you," put in Henry. "But all we can do at present is to lead you into the woods, and you can have my dry jacket if you want it. We had better start directly for our house."

"I see a glare of a fire. Have they – they – ?" The poor woman could not finish.

"Yes, I am sorry to say the cabin is about burnt up," said Dave. "But come, if your husband isn't around, we had better not waste time here. We may be needed at home. It may be just as bad there, you know."

Both of the young hunters crawled around to the milk-house door and went inside. The board was quickly raised and they helped Mrs. Risley from the watery hole in which she had been squatting with her chin resting on her knees. She was so chilled and stiff, and so weak from her wound, she could scarcely stand, and they had literally to carry her into the timber whence they had come.

CHAPTER V

UPRISING OF THE INDIANS

Supporting Mrs. Risley between them, the two youths did not stop until they had passed into the timber for a distance of five or six rods. They had crossed the stream once more and now reached a slight knoll from which they could see the cabin, which still blazed away, although the roof and one side had fallen in.

The faint light from the conflagration, sifting through the bare tree branches, was the only light they had, and by this they set the sufferer down and proceeded to make her as comfortable as possible. As fortune would have it, Dave wore two jackets, both somewhat thin. One of these he gave to Henry, who in turn gave his thick jacket to Mrs. Risley.

"You – you are quite sure you can spare it?" she asked.

"Yes, yes," answered Henry. "I am sorry I can't give you something to put over your dress, but I haven't anything. Before you put on the jacket let me bind up that arrow wound."

There was now no time to stand upon ceremony and she allowed him to dress the wound with all the skill he could muster, Dave in the meantime keeping watch, that the Indians might not surprise them. Fortunately Henry, having suffered similarly himself, knew what to do, and after he had finished Mrs. Risley announced that the sore place felt greatly relieved.

"But I don't see how I can travel far," she said, trying to stand up. "My limbs are all in a tremble under me."

"We will help you along," said Henry, sympathetically, and Dave echoed the words.

With the wounded woman between them, it was no easy matter to pick their way through the black forest and more than once one or another stumbled over a tree root or into a hole. Looking back, they saw that the fire was now dying down. The whooping of the redmen also lessened and finally ceased altogether.

"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 circumstances 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 shifting 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 pass him by would be far from wise, since such a person might be able to afford just the assistance 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 Janassarion, 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 bumped 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?"