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

Paul, "I don't think we have anything to fear."

Henry shook his head somewhat doubtfully, but he said nothing more on the subject at that time, and the fleet moved steadily on without event. Adam Colfax exercised a stern discipline. There were wild men in his fleet, adventurers, fellows who had floated about the world, but he was a match for any of them, and those who did not respect his voice feared his ready hand. But even these were animated by the great purpose and the thrill of a two-thousand mile journey on unknown rivers through a vast wilderness.

Half of the men slept ashore every night. They would build great fires, cook their suppers, and then sit around awhile talking. Some one would sing, and others would play strange, old tunes on accordion or guitar. Paul heard many a snatch of song in Spanish or French or Portuguese, and the wilderness would lend an additional charm to the melody. Adam Colfax, stern ruler that he was, never forbade these amusements.

"It isn't well to stop up things too tight," he would say. "Children have got to make noise, and men are a good deal the same way. If you seal 'em up they'll bust."

These evening scenes always made a deep impression upon Paul. There were the cheerful fires, lighted for cooking, and now dying down to great beds of coals, the surrounding darkness seeming to come closer and closer, but within it a wide circle of light in which many men sat or reclined at ease, smoking or talking, or doing both. All were good-natured, the weather was fair so far, the journey easy, the work not excessively hard, and the hunters brought in fresh game in plenty.

They passed the mouth of the bayou near which the Chateau of Beaulieu stood, and Henry and Shif'less Sol went to see it. They found a small detachment of Spanish soldiers sent by Bernardo Galvez in possession, but the followers of Alvarez had disappeared. The place seemed lonely and deserted, as the soldiers of Galvez kept close to the house, as if they were afraid of the wilderness.

Henry and Shif'less Sol sped back through the forest toward the river.

"Now I wonder," said Shif'less Sol, "what could hev become o' that Spanish feller. He wuz jest the kind, so proud he wuz, an' thinkin' so much o' himself, to be burnin' up with hate over what has happened."

"He has made himself an outlaw," said Henry, "and it's my opinion, Sol, that he's somewhere in these regions. And Braxton Wyatt is with him, too. That fellow will never rest in his plots against us. We'll hear from them both again. They'll try for some sort of revenge."

They rejoined the boats at noon, and three or four hours later they saw a canoe ahead of them upon the water. It contained two occupants who graded their speed to that of the fleet, keeping well out of rifle-shot.

"What do you take them to be?" called out Adam Colfax to Henry.

"Indians, I know, and spies, I think," replied Henry.

Several of the more powerful boats moved ahead of the fleet and endeavored to overtake the canoe, but they could not. The two Indians who occupied it evidently had skill and powerful arms, as they maintained the distance between themselves and their pursuers. Henry and Paul, stirred by the interest of the chase, also seized oars and pulled hard, but the canoe presently turned up a small tributary river, where they did not have time to follow it, and they saw it no more.

It was something that many might have passed as a mere incident of the river, but Henry did not forget it. His sixth sense, the sense of danger, as it were, had received a definite impression, and he paid heed to the warning.

That afternoon clouds came up for the first time. It had been very warm on the river, but the heat and closeness did not develop into a rapid storm of thunder and lightning as so often happens in the Mississippi valley. Instead, the air turned colder, and a raw, drizzling rain set it. It was then that they appreciated the comfort of their well-equipped boats. Everybody was wrapped up and protected, and they moved steadily on.

Henry and Shif'less Sol, as usual, went ashore later on to seek a landing place, and a site suitable for a camp, as it was considered wise always to give the men warm food. Presently they found a fairly well sheltered spot near the shore, a slope surrounded by high trees, and when Adam Colfax received the word the boats were tied to the bank. Some tents were pitched in the opening, and with considerable difficulty the fires were lighted. A drizzling rain still fell, but the fires finally triumphed over it, and blazed and crackled merrily. Nevertheless, this lightness and merriment were not communicated to the men, who shivered in the wet, drew close to the flames, and had downcast faces. All the five were ashore and in the shadow of the woods they held a little conference of their own, talking with great earnestness.

"I think," said Henry, "that we're being watched and that there is danger, great danger. One never knows what the wilderness contains."

"Suppose that all of us watch the night through," said Paul.

"No," said Henry, "I think, Paul, that you ought to sleep and Long Jim should do so, too. There are enough without you. To-morrow night will be your turn. We shouldn't waste our resources."

This satisfied Paul and Jim, and soon they were asleep in one of the tents, but Henry, Shif'less Sol, and Tom Ross were in the dripping forest outside Adam Colfax's own line of sentinels, seeking the hidden danger. The three remained together, and they looked everywhere. They were on the east bank and there was nothing but forest. The moon lay behind sodden clouds, and the trees were dark and shadowy. Now and then the wind swept a dash of rain in their faces, and the air remained raw and chill. Sharp as were their eyes, they could not see very far into the forest, but they could see behind them the flame of their own camp fires, a core of light in the wilderness.

"It might be better to put out all those fires," said Henry, "but I don't believe Captain Colfax would hear to it. He thinks we're too strong to fear any serious attack."

"No," said Shif'less Sol, "he wouldn't do it, an' the men would grumble, too. We've got to be the outside guard ourselves."

The three kept together, continuing their steady patrol in a semi-circle about the camp, the side of the river being guarded by the boats themselves. The rain died to a drizzle, but the clouds remained, and the skies were dark. Hours passed, and nearly everybody slept soundly by the fires, but the faithful three, gliding among the wet trees and bushes, still watched.

They heard faint noises in the forest, the passage of the wind, or the stir of a wild animal, and after a while they heard the long, plaintive and weird note, with which they were so familiar, the howl of the wolf.

It was characteristic of the three that when this faint note, almost like the sigh of the wind among the wet trees, reached their ears, they said nothing, but merely stopped and in the obscurity glanced at one another with eyes of understanding. They listened patiently, and the low, plaintive howl came again and then once more, all from different points of the compass. There had been a time when Henry Ware was deceived for a moment by these cries, but it was not possible now.

"It must be a gathering of the southern tribes," he said, "and I imagine that Braxton Wyatt is with them, giving them advice. Sol, suppose that you go to the right and Tom to the left. I'll stay in the center, and if any one of us sees an enemy he's to shoot at it and rouse the camp."

The two were gone in an instant, and Henry was left alone. That instant all the old, primeval instincts, so powerful in him, were aroused. His sixth sense, the sense of danger, was speaking to him in a voice that he could not but hear. There, too, was the quaver of the wolf. All the signals of alarm were set, and he resolved that he should be the first to see danger when It showed its head.

The clouds piled in heavier masses in the sky, and the darkness thickened. The wind blew lightly and its sound among the boughs and leaves was a long, plaintive sigh that had in it a tone like the cry of a woman. The rain came only in gusts, but when it struck it was sharp and cold. The trees stood out, black and ill-defined, like skeletons. But the forest, its wet, its chill, and its loneliness, had no effect upon the attuned mind of Henry Ware. He was in his native element, and every nerve in him thrilled with the knowledge that he would rise to meet the crisis, whatever it might be.

He was crouched by the side of a great oak, his form blurring with its trunk, his eyes, now used to the darkness, searching every covert in front—he knew that Shif'less Sol and Tom Ross would watch to right and left.

The cry of the wolf did not come again, save for a lone note, now much nearer. But when its sound passed through the forest, Henry Ware's form seemed to become a little more taut and he leaned a little further forward. Beyond the slight bending motion he did not stir.

He still saw nothing and heard nothing, but that voice which was his sixth sense was calling to him more loudly than ever, and he was ready to respond.

In front of him, thirty yards away, lay a thicket or undergrowth, and he watched it incessantly. It seemed to him now that he knew every bush and briar and vine. Presently a briar moved, and then a bush, and then a vine, but they moved against the wind, and the sharp eyes of the watcher saw it. He sank a little lower and the muzzle of his rifle stole forward. He made not the slightest sound, and good eyes, only a few yards away, could not have separated his dark figure from that of the tree trunk.

The same briar and bush moved a third time, and, as before, against the wind. It did not escape the notice of Henry Ware. Now he saw a sharp, red nose appear, and then the shaggy head behind it.

The nose remained—projected and lifted in the air, a-sniff to catch the fleeting scent of an enemy. Fancy could readily paint the ugly head of the lank body behind it. But Henry Ware was not deceived for an instant. The muzzle of the rifle that had been thrust forward, was raised now, and taking swift aim, he fired.

A wild and terrible cry swelled through the forest. An Indian warrior sprang to his feet, casting off his guise of a wolfskin, stood perfectly still for a moment, and then fell headlong among the wet bushes. The cry came back in many real echoes, the shouts of the warriors who knew now that there was to be no surprise for them. Their battle cry swelled in volume, fierce with anger, but Henry, Shif'less Sol, and Tom Ross were already running back upon the camp, sounding the alarm, and the men, roused from sleep, were springing to arms.

CHAPTER XIX THE BATTLE OF THE BANK

"What is it? what is it?" cried Adam Colfax, as the three sentinels, who were worth all the others combined, dashed into the camp.

"An Indian army!" replied Henry Ware. "We do not yet know how strong, but we have seen their scouts! hark to them!"

The fierce war whoop rose and swelled through all the forest, died away, then swelled and died again. From the dark wall of the trees came the crackling fire of rifles. No one could be in doubt now.

"Out with the fires! Scatter them, trample them down!" exclaimed Henry.

He set the example, kicking the wood and embers in every direction. Adam Colfax was not one to resent such a sudden assumption of authority, when he saw that it meant the saving of human lives. He repeated the order and joined in the work himself. Fortunately the fires had burned low and the task was soon done, but not before two or three men had been hit by bullets from the surrounding darkness.

"Lie down, everybody!" cried Henry, and the order was obeyed at once. Then the strange night battle in the heart of the wilderness began. The savages, after their first