The Free Rangers: A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi, Altsheler [great novels of all time TXT] 📗

of Louisiana. And it was not absolutely necessary to be Spanish-born to become in time a Governor General himself.

Time passed. It was very quiet within the belt of magnolias and cypresses and orange trees and but little noise came from the town, the stray shout of a reveler, a snatch of a song, and then nothing more.

Braxton Wyatt, still filled with his dreams, arose and stepped down from the piazza. The happy future promoted in him a certain physical activity, and he wanted to walk among the trees. He stepped into their shadow, strolled a rod or so, and then stopped. His acute, forest-bred ear had brought to him a sound which was not that of the wind nor any echo of a gay reveler's song.

The renegade stopped. It was very dark among the trees. He could see neither the house behind, nor the city before him. He did not hear the sound again, but he was troubled. His pleasant thoughts were disturbed. It was like waking from a happy dream. He turned to go back to the house and then he saw a flitting shadow. The wicked heart of Braxton Wyatt stood still. If he had not known that Henry Ware was safely in the military prison he would have taken the terrible shadow for him. He knew too well the great height, the broad shoulders, and the fierce accusing countenance. Once he had laughed at the Shawnees and Miamis because they had believed in ghosts. But could it be true?

Braxton Wyatt turned back toward the house, where he might renew his interrupted and pleasant dream, but the next instant the terrible shadow turned itself into a reality more terrible.

A powerful form hurled itself upon him, and he was thrown to the ground. He looked up and met the eyes of Henry Ware, who knelt upon him. No, it was certainly not a shadow but the most unpleasant of all facts!

Braxton Wyatt was at first paralyzed by terror and the suddenness of the attack. When he recovered, one hand of Henry pressed heavily upon his mouth, while the other felt rapidly through his clothing. "Look for any unusual thickness in his waistcoat; that is probably the place," Oliver Pollock had said. Henry's hand in a few moments ran upon something folded between the cloth and lining of the waistcoat. He snatched out his knife, cut them apart and out fell several folds of fine, thin deerskin. He knew that the prize had been secured, and he meant to keep it.

Henry thrust the folds of deerskin in his pocket and sprang to his feet.

"Now, you scoundrel!" he exclaimed, "tell what tale you please and we will prove another!"

Then the terrible reality resolved itself back into a shadow, and was gone. Braxton Wyatt sprang to his feet, clapped his hand to his mangled waistcoat where the precious package had been, and uttered a strangled cry. Then he ran through the trees to the house of Alvarez.

A quarter of an hour later Oliver Pollock was sitting at his own window in the little office and his thoughts were not happy. He wished his fleet of supply canoes to start on the great river journey at once, but it could not depart while such storms were threatening. Alvarez was too serious a danger, and he must be removed. But the merchant realized that he had made little progress. Alvarez seemed to be secure in his plot.

There came a knock at his door, and in reply to his request to enter, a clerk said that the young man, Mr. Ware, had returned. Mr. Pollock rose to his feet as Henry came in. Henry carefully closed the door behind him, advanced, and put a small package in Mr. Pollock's hand.

"There they are!" he said, "the maps drawn up by Braxton Wyatt, and with notes on them in handwriting, which I take to be that of Francisco Alvarez."

The merchant stared at first in astonishment and delight. Then he ran to the lamp and spread out the sheets of fine, thin deerskin. He looked at them, one by one, and laughed with delight.

"Yes," he said, "the notes are in the handwriting of Francisco Alvarez! I know it—I have seen it often enough—and Bernardo Galvez will know it, too! Oh, it is a great find! a great find! It is not conclusive proof, but it will go far toward swaying belief! How did you get them?"

Henry had recovered from all signs of his struggle with the renegade, and was now sitting placidly in a chair.

"I took them," he said. "I found Braxton Wyatt in the grove around the house of Alvarez, and I seized him. I found these in the lining of his waistcoat."

"You did not kill him?"

"Oh, no. He is not hurt."

"It is well. I did not wish any unnecessary violence, but we had a right to seize these documents which mean so much to us and Bernardo Galvez. You will leave them with me."

"Of course," said Henry. "And now that this task is finished, I'll go back to prison with my comrades."

"It's unnecessary for you to join them there," said the merchant still laughing in his pleasure. "I'll have them out to join you, and that speedily, too. Go into the next room and sleep. You've earned the right to it."

The five, reduced to four, were sitting in their prison the next afternoon chafing more than ever. It seemed to every one of them that those walls, already so narrow, were still contracting. They did not even like to look out of the window. The contrast was too painful, and they did not wish to increase their sorrow.

"Jim," said Shif'less Sol in plaintive tones to Long Jim Hart, "won't you please come here, an' hold up my head?"

"Now, Sol Hyde," said Long Jim, "what do you want me to come thar an' hold up your head fur? Are you too lazy to hold it up fur yourself?"

"No, Jim, I ain't too lazy to hold it up fur myself, I'm jest too weak. Lack o' exercise an' fresh air, an' elbow room hev done fur poor Sol Hyde at last. I'm pinin' away. Tell Henry when he comes back, ef he ever does, that I fell into a decline. I done my best to b'ar up, but my best wuzn't good enough."

"Now you shut up, Sol Hyde," said Jim Hart, "or you'll hev me down real sick with your foolish talk, ez I jest can't stand it."

They stopped because at that moment there came unto them Lieutenant Diégo Bernal, fresh, chipper, with a few additional flounces and ruffles added to his jaunty uniform, and a smile upon his dark, pleasant face.

"Ah, my gallant four, who were once my gallant five," he said as he stroked his little mustache, "I have news for you, important news. You are even to be summoned again to the presence of His Excellency, Bernardo Galvez, the Governor General of Louisiana, and that summons is immediate. I have an impression, though my impressions are usually false and my memory always weak, that the large youth, the strong youth, the splendid youth, surnamed the Ware, who was released for the time at the intercession of Señor Pollock, has been achieving something. This, I think, is the reason of the sudden call to the audience with His Excellency."

Paul was all life at once. He sprang up, his eyes sparkling and the flush of anticipation coming into his face.

"Henry has succeeded!" he cried. "He has done something big! I knew he would! He has defeated Alvarez and that wretch Wyatt!"

The Catalan regarded Paul with admiration. He liked this enthusiasm, this infinite trust in a comrade. The five and their faith in one another continued to make the strongest of appeals to him.

"I think it is even so," he said. "The young giant surnamed the Ware, must have done a great deed, because Don Francisco Alvarez, is summoned, at the same time, to the presence of His Excellency, the Governor General, Bernardo Galvez, and I hear that he is in no pleasant frame of mind because of it. Come!"

The four went forth joyfully. Shif'less Sol was the first to put foot on Mother Earth, and he stopped, raised his head, and opened his mouth to its widest extent.

"Jim," he said to Long Jim Hart, "I want to breathe it in, this outdoors an' fresh air an' freedom, everywhar I kin, at my mouth, nose, ears, an' eyes, too, ef they're any good at that sort o' business."

"An' at the pores, too, Sol," said Paul.

"What's pores?"

"Millions and millions of fine little holes all over you."

"Wa'll, I ain't ever seed any o' them holes, or felt 'em, but ef they're in me I hope they're all workin' right now, drawin' the good fresh air."

Lieutenant Diégo Bernal led the way rapidly to the house of the Governor General, and four soldiers closed up by the side of them as an escort and guard. But the four had no thought of attempting escape. Their minds were wholly occupied with what might occur when they were a second time in the presence of the Governor General.

They were taken through the anteroom and then into the large hall of audience where the Governor General sat, as before, in the great chair with his secretary at the little table at his right. At one side of the room were Francisco Alvarez, and Braxton Wyatt, both frowning, and at the other side were Oliver Pollock and Henry Ware, neither frowning at all. Henry came forward and shook hands warmly with his comrades.

"What is it, Henry?" whispered Paul. "What has happened?"

"Wait," replied Henry in a similar whisper. "We must see what Bernardo Galvez is going to do."

The Governor General motioned the four, now the five once more, to seats, and they noticed that the audience was marked by unusual state. Two soldiers, as a guard, stood near one of the windows, and the secretary was ready with his ink and goose quills to write down whatever he might be ordered to write. Alvarez and Braxton Wyatt were visibly uneasy. Bernardo Galvez sat upright, his face stern, his look commanding. He was every inch of him a Governor General.

"Gentlemen," he said speaking in precise English, "a charge was made in this chamber some days since, a charge involving the integrity and loyalty of a high officer in the service of Spain, Don Francisco Alvarez. This charge was made by five men and youths from the new region called by themselves Kentucky and known here as Kaintock, but they brought little proof to support it."

Francisco Alvarez moved his chair, and a look of relief came over his face. The opening promised well. The expressions of Henry Ware and Oliver Pollock did not change, and Bernardo Galvez continued:

"I could not hold an officer of Spain, one high in the service, upon such charges, when they were without sufficient support, and hence, as these five men and boys had committed acts of violence upon Spanish soil and against Spanish subjects, I sent them to a military prison, pending further disclosures if there should be any, and I have held Don Francisco Alvarez in New Orleans in order that he might clear his good name of these charges and of certain talk that has been afloat concerning him."

Alvarez stirred again and his expression changed slightly. The continuation was not quite as good as the beginning. Did he not detect a slight undertone of irony or satire in the voice of Bernardo Galvez? But neither Henry Ware nor Oliver Pollock moved a particle. The four looked curiously from one to another of the actors in this tense scene.

"It was my object," resumed Bernardo Galvez, and now his tone had a curious hard quality like steel, "to find the truth. Only in that way could justice be done. Now I have to say that proof of these charges, not conclusive, but incriminating nevertheless, has been found, and is in my possession."

Alvarez leaped from his chair. He felt as if he had received a blow of a hammer on his temple, but he cried out:

"It is not true! there can be no such proof!"

"It is true," said Bernardo Galvez sternly and accusingly, "because I hold this evidence here in my hand. The war-maps which you are charged with having, drawn by the one Wyatt, the friend of the Indians, and annotated in your hand, are here."

He opened his palm and laid the strips of deerskin upon the table. Alvarez staggered back and looked savagely at Braxton Wyatt.

"It is true," stammered the renegade in a whisper. "I was set upon last night by Ware! He took me by surprise and robbed me of them! I could not help it, but I was afraid to tell you then."

"I