The Scouts of the Valley
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No one of the five had slept during the night. They did not feel the need of sleep, and they were upborne, too, by a great exaltation. They had saved the prisoners thus far from a horrible fate, and they were firmly resolved to reach, with them, some strong settlement and safety. They felt, too, a sense of exultation over Brant, Sangerachte, Hiokatoo, the Butlers, the Johnsons, Wyatt, and all the crew that had committed such terrible devastation in the Wyoming Valley and elsewhere.
The full day clothed the earth in a light that turned from silver to gold, and the woman and the children still slept. The five chewed some strips of venison, and looked rather lugubriously at the pieces they were saving for Mary Newton and the children.
“We ought to hev more’n that,” said Shif’less Sol. “Ef the worst comes to the worst, we’ve got to land somewhar an’ shoot a deer.”
“But not yet,” said Henry in a whisper, lest he wake the sleepers. “I think we’ll come into the Susquehanna pretty soon, and its width will be a good thing for us. I wish we were there now. I don’t like this narrow stream. Its narrowness affords too good an ambush.”
“Anyway, the creek is broadenin’ out fast,” said the shiftless one, “an’ that is a good sign. What’s that you see ahead, Henry—ain’t it a river?”
“It surely is,” replied Henry, who caught sight of a broad expanse of water, “and it’s the Susquehanna. Pull hard, Sol! In five more minutes we’ll be in the river.”
It was less than five when they turned into the current of the Susquehanna, and less than five more when they heard a shout behind them, and saw at least a dozen canoes following. The canoes were filled with Indians and Tories, and they had spied the fugitives.
“Keep the women and the children down, Paul,” cried Henry.
All knew that Henry and Shif’less Sol were the best shots, and, without a word, Long Jim and Tom, both powerful and skilled watermen, swung heavily on the oars, while Henry and Shif’less Sol sat in the rear with their rifles ready. Mary Newton awoke with a cry at the sound of the shots, and started to rise, but Paul pushed her down.
“We’re on the Susquehanna now, Mrs. Newton,” he said, “and we are pursued. The Indians and Tories have just seen us, but don’t be afraid. The two who are watching there are the best shots in the world.”
He looked significantly at Henry and Shif’less Sol, crouching in the stern of the boat like great warriors from some mighty past, kings of the forest whom no one could overcome, and her courage came back. The children, too, had awakened with frightened cries, but she and Paul quickly soothed them, and, obedient to commands, the four, and Mary Newton with them, lay flat upon the bottom of the boat, which was now being sent forward rapidly by Jim Hart and Tom. Paul took up his rifle and sat in a waiting attitude, either to relieve one of the men at the oars or to shoot if necessary.
The clear sun made forest and river vivid in its light. The Indians, after their first cry, made no sound, but so powerful were Long Jim and Tom that they were gaining but little, although some of the boats contained six or eight rowers.
As the light grew more intense Henry made out the two white faces in the first boat. One was that of Braxton Wyatt, and the other, he was quite sure, belonged to the infamous Walter Butler. Hot anger swept through all his veins, and the little pulses in his temples began to beat like trip hammers. Now the picture of Wyoming, the battle, the massacre, the torture, and Queen Esther wielding her great tomahawk on the bound captives, grew astonishingly vivid, and it was printed blood red on his brain. The spirit of anger and defiance, of a desire to taunt those who had done such things, leaped up in his heart.
“Are you there, Braxton Wyatt?” he called clearly across the intervening water. “Yes, I see that it is you, murderer of women and children, champion of the fire and stake, as savage as any of the savages. And it is you, too, Walter Butler, wickeder son of a wicked father. Come a little closer, won’t you? We’ve messengers here for both of you!”
He tapped lightly the barrel of his own rifle and that of Shif’less Sol, and repeated his request that they come a little closer.
They understood his words, and they understood, also, the significant gesture when he patted the barrel of the rifles. The hearts of both Butler and Wyatt were for the moment afraid, and their boat dropped back to third place. Henry laughed aloud when he saw. The Viking rage was still upon him. This was the primeval wilderness, and these were no common foes.
“I see that you don’t want to receive our little messengers,” he cried. “Why have you dropped back to third place in the line, Braxton Wyatt and Walter Butler, when you were first only a moment ago? Are you cowards as well as murderers of women and children?”
“That’s pow’ful good talk,” said Shif’less Sol admiringly. “Henry, you’re a real orator. Give it to ‘em, an’ mebbe I’ll get a chance at one o’ them renegades.”
It seemed that Henry’s words had an effect, because the boat of the renegades pulled up somewhat, although it did not regain first place. Thus the chase proceeded down the Susquehanna.
The Indian fleet was gaining a little, and Shif’less Sol called Henry’s attention to it.
“Don’t you think I’d better take a shot at one o’ them rowers in the first boat?” he said to Henry. “Wyatt an’ Butler are a leetle too fur away.”
“I think it would give them a good hint, Sol!” said Henry. “Take that fellow on the right who is pulling so hard.”
The shiftless one raised his rifle, lingered but a little over his aim, and pulled the trigger. The rower whom Henry had pointed out fell back in the boat, his hands slipping from the handles of his oars. The boat was thrown into confusion, and dropped back in the race. Scattering shots were fired in return, but all fell short, the water spurting up in little jets where they struck.
Henry, who had caught something of the Indian nature in his long stay among them in the northwest, laughed in loud irony.
“That was one of our little messengers, and it found a listener!” he shouted. “And I see that you are afraid, Braxton Wyatt and Walter Butler, murderers of women and children! Why don’t you keep your proper places in the front?”
“That’s the way to talk to ‘em,” whispered Shif’less Sol, as he reloaded. “Keep it up, an’ mebbe we kin git a chance at Braxton Wyatt hisself. Since Wyoming I’d never think o’ missin’ sech a chance.”
“Nor I, either,” said Henry, and he resumed in his powerful tones: “The place of a leader is in front, isn’t it? Then why don’t you come up?”
Braxton Wyatt and Walter Butler did not come up. They were not lacking in courage, but Wyatt knew what deadly marksmen the fugitive boat contained, and he had also told Butler. So they still hung back, although they raged at Henry Ware’s taunts, and permitted the Mohawks and Senecas to take the lead in the chase.
“They’re not going to give us a chance,” said Henry. “I’m satisfied of that. They’ll let redskins receive our bullets, though just now I’d rather it were the two white ones. What do you think, Sol, of that leading boat? Shouldn’t we give another hint?”
“I agree with you, Henry,” said the shiftless one. “They’re comin’ much too close fur people that ain’t properly interduced to us. This promiskus way o’ meetin’ up with strangers an’ lettin’ ‘em talk to you jest ez ef they’d knowed you all their lives hez got to be stopped. It’s your time, Henry, to give ‘em a polite hint, an’ I jest suggest that you take the big fellow in the front o’ the boat who looks like a Mohawk.”
Henry raised his rifle, fired, and the Mohawk would row no more. Again confusion prevailed in the pursuing fleet, and there was a decline of enthusiasm. Braxton Wyatt and Walter Butler raged and swore, but, as they showed no great zeal for the lead themselves, the Iroquois did not gain on the fugitive boat. They, too, were fast learning that the two who crouched there with their rifles ready were among the deadliest marksmen in existence. They fired a dozen shots, perhaps, but their rifles did not have the long range of the Kentucky weapons, and again the bullets fell short, causing little jets of water to spring up.
“They won’t come any nearer, at least not for the present,” said Henry, “but will hang back just out of rifle range, waiting for some chance to help them.”
Shif’less Sol looked the other way, down the Susquehanna, and announced that he could see no danger. There was probably no Indian fleet farther down the river than the one now pursuing them, and the danger was behind them, not before.
Throughout the firing, Silent Tom Ross and Long Jim Hart had not said a word, but they rowed with a steadiness and power that would have carried oarsmen of our day to many a victory. Moreover, they had the inducement not merely of a prize, but of life itself, to row and to row hard. They had rolled up their sleeves, and the mighty muscles on those arms of woven steel rose and fell as they sent the boat swiftly with the silver current of the Susquehanna.
Mary Newton still lay on the bottom of the boat. The children had cried out in fright once or twice at the sound of the firing, but she and Paul bad soothed them and kept them down. Somehow Mary Newton had become possessed of a great faith. She noticed the skill, speed, and success with which the five always worked, and, so long given up to despair, she now went to the other extreme. With such friends as these coming suddenly out of the void, everything must succeed. She had no doubt of it, but lay peacefully on the bottom of the boat, not at all disturbed by the sound of the shots.
Paul and Sol after a while relieved Long Jim and Tom at the oars. The Iroquois thought it a chance to creep up again, but they were driven back by a third bullet, and once more kept their distance. Shif’less Sol, while he pulled as powerfully as Tom Ross, whose place he had taken, nevertheless was not silent.
“I’d like to know the feelin’s o’ Braxton Wyatt an’ that feller Butler,” he said. “Must be powerful tantalizin’ to them to see us here, almost where they could stretch out their hands an’ put ‘em on us. Like reachn’ fur ripe, rich fruit, an’ failin’ to git it by half a finger’s length.”
“They are certainly not pleased,” said Henry, “but this must end some way or other, you know.”
“I say so, too, now that I’m a-rowin’,” rejoined the shiftless one, “but when my turn at the oars is finished I wouldn’t care. Ez I’ve said more’n once before, floatin’ down a river with somebody else pullin’ at the oars is the life jest suited to me.”
Henry looked up. “A summer thunderstorm is coming,” he said, “and from the look of things it’s going to be pretty black. Then’s when we must dodge ‘em.”
He was a good weather prophet. In a half hour the sky began to darken rapidly. There was a great deal of thunder and lightning, but when the rain came the air was almost as dark as night. Mary Newton and her children were covered as much as possible with the blankets, and then they swung the boat rapidly toward the eastern shore. They had already lost sight of their pursuers in the darkness, and as they coasted along the shore they found a large creek flowing into the river from the east.
They ran up the creek, and were a full mile from its mouth when the rain ceased. Then the sun came out bright and warm, quickly drying everything.
They pulled about ten miles farther, until the creek grew too shallow for them, when they hid the boat among bushes and took to the land. Two days later they arrived at a strong fort and settlement, where Mary Newton and her four children, safe and well, were welcomed by relatives who had mourned them as dead.
CHAPTER XV. “THE ALCOVE”
They arrived at the fort as evening was coming on, and as soon as food was served to them the five sought sleep. The frontiersmen usually slept soundly and for a long time after prodigious exertions, and Henry and his comrades were too wise to make an exception. They secured a single room inside the fort, one given to them gladly, because Mary Newton had already spread the fame of their exploits, and, laying aside their hunting shirts and leggins, prepared for rest.
“Jim,” said Shif’less Sol, pointing to a low piece of furniture, flat and broad, in one corner of the room, “that’s a bed. Mebbe you don’t think it, but people lay on top o’ that an’ sleep thar.”
Long Jim grinned.
“Mebbe you’re right, Sol,” he said. “I hev seen sech things ez that, an’ mebbe I’ve slep’ on ‘em, but in all them gran’ old tales Paul tells us about I never heard uv no big heroes sleepin’ in beds. I guess the ground wuz good ‘nough for A-killus, Hector, Richard-Kur-de-Leong, an’ all the rest uv that fightin’ crowd, an’ ez I’m that sort uv a man myself I’ll jest roll down here on the floor. Bein’ as you’re tender, Sol Hyde, an’ not used to hard life in the woods, you kin take that bed yourself, an’ in the mornin’ your wally will be here with hot water in a silver mug an’ a razor to shave you, an’ he’ll dress you in a ruffled red silk shirt an’ a blue satin waistcoat, an’ green satin breeches jest comin’ to the knee, where they meet yellow silk stockin’s risin’ out uv purple satin slippers, an’ then he’ll clap on your head a big wig uv snow-white hair, fallin’ all about your shoulders an’ he’ll buckle a silver sword to your side, an’ he’ll say: ‘Gentlemen, him that hez long been known ez Shif’less Sol, an’ desarvin’ the name, but who in reality is the King o’ France, is now before you. Down on your knees an’ say your prayers!’”
Shif’less Sol stared in astonishment.
“You say a wally will do all that fur me, Jim? Now, what under the sun is a wally?”
“I heard all about ‘em from Paul,” replied Long Jim in a tone of intense satisfaction. “A wally is a man what does fur you what you ought to do fur yourself.”
“Then I want one,” said Shif’less Sol emphatically. “He’d jest suit a lazy man like me. An’ ez fur your makin’ me the King o’ France, mebbe you’re more’n half right about that without knowin’ it. I hev all the instincts uv a king. I like to be waited on, I like to eat when I’m hungry, I like to drink when I’m thirsty, I like to rest when I’m tired, an’ I like to sleep when I’m sleepy. You’ve heard o’ children changed at birth by fairies an’ sech like. Mebbe I’m the real King o’ France, after all, an’ my instincts are handed down to me from a thousand royal ancestors.”
“Mebbe it’s so,” rejoined Long Jim. “I’ve heard that thar hev been a pow’ful lot uv foolish kings.”
With that he put his two blankets upon the floor, lay down upon them, and was sound asleep in five minutes. But Shif’less Sol beat him to slumberland by at least a minute, and the others were not more than two minutes behind Sol.
Henry was the first up the next morning. A strong voice shouted in his ear: “Henry Ware, by all that’s glorious,” and a hand pressed his fingers together in an iron grasp. Henry beheld the tall, thin figure and smiling brown face of Adam Colfax, with whom he had made that adventurous journey up the Mississippi and Ohio.
“And the others?” was the first question of Adam Colfax.
“They’re all here asleep inside. We’ve been through a lot of things, but we’re as sound as ever.”
“That’s always a safe prediction to make,” said Adam Colfax, smiling. “I never saw five other human beings with such a capacity for getting out of danger.”
“We were all at Wyoming, and we all still live.”
The face of the New Englander darkened.
“Wyoming!” he exclaimed. “I cannot hear of it without every vein growing hot within me.”
“We saw things done there,” said Henry gravely, “the telling of which few men can bear to hear.”
“I know! I know!” exclaimed Adam Colfax. “The news of it has spread everywhere!”
“What we want,” said Henry, “is revenge. It is a case in which we must strike back, and strike hard. If this thing goes on, not a white life will be safe on the whole border from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi.”
“It is true,” said Adam Colfax, “and we would send an army now against the Iroquois and their allies, but, Henry, my lad, our fortunes are at their lowest there in the East, where the big armies are fighting. That is the reason why nobody has been sent to protect our rear guard, which has suffered so terribly. You may be sure, too, that the Iroquois will strike in this region again as often and as hard as they can. I make more than half a guess that you and your comrades are here because you know this.”
He looked shrewdly at the boy.
“Yes,” said Henry, “that is so. Somehow we were drawn into it, but being here we are glad to stay. Timmendiquas, the great chief who fought us so fiercely on the Ohio, is with the Iroquois, with a detachment of his Wyandots, and while he, as I know, frowns on the Wyoming massacre, he means to help Thayendanegea to the end.”
Adam Colfax looked graver than ever.
“That is bad,” he said. “Timmendiquas is a mighty warrior and leader, but there is also another way of looking at it. His presence here will relieve somewhat the pressure on Kentucky. I ought to tell you, Henry, that we got through safely with our supplies to the Continental army, and they could not possibly have been more welcome. They arrived just in time.”
The others came forth presently and were greeted with the same warmth by Adam Colfax.
“It is shore mighty good for the eyes to see you, Mr. Colfax,” said Shif’less Sol, “an’ it’s a good sign. Our people won when you were on the Mississippi an’ the Ohio’—an’ now that you’re here, they’re goin’ to win again.”
“I think we are going to win here and everywhere,” said Adam Colfax, “but it is not because there is any omen in my presence. It is because our people will not give up, and because our quarrel is just.”
The stanch New Englander left on the following day for points farther east, planning and carrying out some new scheme to aid the patriot cause, and the five, on the day after that, received a message written on a piece of paper which was found fastened to a tree on the outskirts of the settlement. It was addressed to “Henry Ware and Those with Him,” and it read:
“You need not think because you escaped us at Wyoming and on the Susquehanna that you will ever get back to Kentucky. There is amighty league now on the whole border between the Indians and the soldiers of the king. You have seen at Wyoming what we can do, and you will see at other places and on a greater scale what we will do.
“I find my own position perfect. It is true that Timmendiquas does not like me, but he is not king here. I am the friend of the great Brant; and Hiokatoo, Sangerachte, Hahiron, and the other chiefs esteem me. I am thick with Colonel John Butler, the victor of Wyoming; his son, the valiant and worthy Walter Butler; Sir John Johnson, Colonel Guy Johnson, Colonel Daniel Claus, and many other eminent men and brave soldiers.
“I write these words, Henry Ware, both to you and your comrades, to tell you that our cause will prevail over yours. I do not doubt that when you read this you will try to escape to Kentucky, but when we have destroyed everything along the eastern border, as we have at Wyoming, we shall come to Kentucky, and not a rebel face will be left there.
“I am sending this to tell you that there is no hole in which you can hide where we cannot reach you. With my respects, BRAXTON WYATT.”
Henry regarded the letter with contempt.
“A renegade catches something of the Indian nature,” he said, “and always likes to threaten and boast.”
But Shif’less Sol was highly indignant.
“Sometimes I think,” he said, “that the invention o’ writin’ wuz a mistake. You kin send a man a letter an’ call him names an’ talk mighty big when he’s a hundred miles away, but when you’ve got to stan’ up to him face to face an’ say it, wa’al, you change your tune an’ sing a pow’ful sight milder. You ain’t gen’ally any roarin’ lion then.”
“I think I’ll keep this letter,” said Henry, “an’ we five will give an answer to it later on.”
He tapped the muzzle of his rifle, and every one of the four gravely tapped the muzzle of his own rifle after him. It was a significant action. Nothing more was needed.
The next morning they bade farewell to the grateful Mary Newton and her children, and with fresh supplies of food and ammunition, chiefly ammunition, left the fort, plunging once more into the deep forest. It was their intention to do as much damage as they could to the Iroquois, until some great force, capable of dealing with the whole Six Nations, was assembled. Meanwhile, five redoubtable and determined borderers could achieve something.
It was about the first of August, and they were in the midst of the great heats. But it was a period favoring Indian activity, which was now at its highest pitch. Since Wyoming, loaded with scalps, flushed with victory, and aided by the king’s men, they felt equal to anything. Only the strongest of the border settlements could hold them back. The colonists here were so much reduced, and so little help could be sent them from the East, that the Iroquois were able to divide into innumerable small parties and rake the country as with a fine tooth comb. They never missed a lone farmhouse, and rarely was any fugitive in the woods able to evade them. And they were constantly fed from the North with arms, ammunition, rewards for scalps, bounties, and great promises.
But toward the close of August the Iroquois began to hear of a silent and invisible foe, an evil spirit that struck them, and that struck hard. There were battles of small forces in which sometimes not a single Iroquois escaped. Captives were retaken in a half-dozen instances, and the warriors who escaped reported that their assailants were of uncommon size and power. They had all the cunning of the Indian and more, and they carried rifles that slew at a range double that of those served to them at the British posts. It was a certainty that they were guided by the evil spirit, because every attempt to capture them failed miserably. No one could find where they slept, unless it was those who never came back again.
The Iroquois raged, and so did the Butlers and the Johnsons and Braxton Wyatt. This was a flaw in their triumph, and the British and Tories saw, also, that it was beginning to affect the superstitions of their red allies. Braxton Wyatt made a shrewd guess as to the identity of the raiders, but he kept quiet. It is likely, also, that Timmendiquas knew, but be, too, said nothing. So the influence of the raiders grew. While their acts were great, superstition exaggerated them and their powers manifold. And it is true that their deeds were extraordinary. They were heard of on the Susquehanna, then on the Delaware and its branches, on the Chemung and the Chenango, as far south as Lackawaxen Creek, and as far north as Oneida Lake. It is likely that nobody ever accomplished more for a defense than did those five in the waning months of the summer. Late in September the most significant of all these events occurred. A party of eight Tories, who had borne a terrible part in the Wyoming affair, was attacked on the shores of Otsego Lake with such deadly fierceness that only two escaped alive to the camp of Sir John Johnson. Brant sent out six war parties, composed of not less than twenty warriors apiece, to seek revenge, but they found nothing.
Henry and his comrades had found a remarkable camp at the edge of one of the beautiful small lakes in which the region abounds. The cliff at that point was high, but a creek entered into it through a ravine. At the entrance of the creek into the river they found a deep alcove, or, rather, cave in the rock. It ran so far back that it afforded ample shelter from the rain, and that was all they wanted. It was about halfway between the top and bottom of the cliff, and was difficult of approach both from below and above. Unless completely surprised-a very unlikely thing with them-the five could hold it against any force as long as their provisions lasted. They also built a boat large enough for five, which they hid among the bushes at the lake’s edge. They were thus provided with a possible means of escape across the water in case of the last emergency.
Jim and Paul, who, as usual, filled the role of housekeepers, took great delight in fitting up this forest home, which the fittingly called “The Alcove.” The floor of solid stone was almost smooth, and with the aid of other heavy stones they broke off all projections, until one could walk over it in the dark in perfect comfort. They hung the walls with skins of deer which they killed in the adjacent woods, and these walls furnished many nooks and crannies for the storing of necessities. They also, with much hard effort, brought many loads of firewood, which Long Jim was to use for his cooking. He built his little fireplace of stones so near the mouth of “The Alcove” that the smoke would pass out and be lost in the thick forest all about. If the wind happened to be blowing toward the inside of the cave, the smoke, of course, would come in on them all, but Jim would not be cooking then.