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

began to talk and, although only an occasional word reached the watching three, they knew too well their subject of converse. It was the great conspiracy to draw the Spanish from Louisiana into an attack upon the infant settlements, upon the ground that they were or would be interlopers. It was cannon that the assailants needed to smash the block houses, and cannon in abundance could be brought on the great rivers from New Orleans.

The watchers presently saw Braxton Wyatt take a small parcel from the inside of his deerskin hunting shirt. He unfolded the parcel and the watchers could see that it consisted of large pieces of the finest, tanned deerskin.

"Maps," said Paul intuitively. "That scoundrel, Braxton Wyatt, has made them for the aid of the Spanish, and to disclose all our weak points!"

The fire blazed higher and they could see that on the white deerskin were drawn lines in colored pigment, and the rest they guessed. It was true enough. Braxton Wyatt, no mean draughtsman, had drawn, with the most elaborate care and attention to detail, maps on a large scale of every one of the infant settlements. There was nothing about Wareville in particular that he did not show, and he also designated all the rivers, hills, and valleys as far as they were known. With such aid a Spanish force, backed by cannon and the warriors, must triumph over every post in Kentucky.

"I never thought of this," whispered Paul. Henry merely pressed his shoulder again to indicate that they were ready to deal with it, if man could.

The three watchers remained there more than an hour, and Alvarez, Wyatt, and the chiefs still discussed the maps with every appearance of agreement, bending their heads over them, and now and then disclosing eager faces, as they lifted them in the firelight.

"Alvarez wants to help them," whispered Paul. "He hates us, and, if he can, he will commit the Governor of Louisiana to the Indian alliance."

"Beyond a doubt," replied Henry, "and so it's not worth while for us to wait here any longer."

They slid away in the dark and returned to their own camp. There Long Jim and Tom Ross were placidly awaiting them, and they were not at all surprised at the news. Then the five held another of their conferences.

"I think it likely," said Paul, "that Alvarez will go back at once to New Orleans. He will tell the Governor there that armed bands of Americans are trespassing upon Spanish territory and that they must be driven off. He will come back with cannon and a powerful force to do the driving. That means war, of course, and an attack upon us in Kentucky. How will the Governor of New Orleans know whether the fighting is on Spanish territory or not? And even if Alvarez overstepped the limits he could say that he was attacked first."

"Of course," said Henry, "and it means that we must follow Alvarez all the way to New Orleans if necessary, and it may be that we shall have to carry the message of the Kentuckians to Bernardo Galvez, the Spanish Governor General himself."

"We're ready," said Shif'less Sol lazily. "I wouldn't mind seein' that furrin town. I saw a town once when I wuz a little boy. It wuz Baltimore, an' a pow'ful big place it wuz, most nigh set my head to swimmin'. I heard tell that ez many ez eight or ten thousand people lived thar. Sounds impossible but some o' 'em swore it wuz true."

"We'll prepare at once for the journey," said Henry.

All set to work.

CHAPTER IV TAKING A "GALLEON"

Henry and Shif'less Sol spied upon the Spanish camp again the next day, and returned with news that the two chiefs had departed, but that Braxton Wyatt had remained, evidently intending to accompany Alvarez to New Orleans, where they were sure the Spanish leader now intended going.

"I think, too," said Henry, "that they will break up camp in the morning and march. I believe that they came up on the Mississippi, and will return the same way."

"Then they have boats," said Paul in dismay, "and we have none."

"But we can get one," said Henry significantly.

"If you want a thing, jest go an' git it," said Shif'less Sol. "I remember once when I wuz a leetle bit o' a boy back in the East, I hankered terribly after some hickory nuts that I knowed wuz in a grove about a mile from our house. I suffered days an' days o' anguish fur them hickory nuts, wishin' mighty bad all the time that I had 'em. At the end o' two weeks I walked over an' got 'em, an' my sufferin' stopped off short."

"That's just what we mean to do about our boat, step over and get it," said Henry laughing. But he did not divulge his plan and the others were content to wait for the event.

As Henry had predicted, the Spanish camp broke up the following morning, and Alvarez and his force took up a march almost due eastward. They traveled in an easy fashion, and showed no signs of apprehension, Alvarez deeming that fifty well-armed men were not in any danger from wandering tribes. He did not know that five resolute borderers were following closely behind him, even looking into his camp at night, and knowing every important thing that he did. Braxton Wyatt may have suspected it, but he said nothing, aware that it could not be prevented.

The five were well prepared. They carried a large supply of ammunition, a blanket each, and jerked meat. If their food supplies gave out there was the forest swarming with game, and they knew that it swarmed in the same fashion all the way down to New Orleans. They would camp at sunset three or four miles from the Spaniards, keeping watch the night through, and in the morning it was easy enough to take up the trail of Alvarez and his men, which, to their experienced eyes, was like a high road leading through the forest.

One evening just as the sun was setting Henry parted some twining bushes and looked over a cliff. The others came to his side and they, too, looked as he was looking.

At their very feet lay the mighty Mississippi. They had seen it before, but it was never so impressive as now. Great at any time it was in spring flood, rolling a vast, yellow current down toward the Gulf. The waters overflowed on the low, eastern shore, and it was so far across that they could not see the further bank in the shadowed evening. The setting sun, nevertheless, lighted up the middle of the current with blood-red gleams, and the five gazed with a certain awe at the mighty stream, as it flowed ever onward. It was the highly imaginative Paul who was impressed the most.

"We know where it goes to," he said, "but I wonder where it comes from."

Henry waved his hand vaguely toward the North.

"Up there somewhere," he said, "a thousand miles from here, or maybe two thousand. Nobody can tell."

Paul did not say anything more, but continued to gaze at the vast, yellow current of the Mississippi, coming out of the unknown regions of the far north and flowing into lands of the far south, almost as mysterious and, vague, once belonging to France but now owning the lordship of Spain. It was the homely language of Shif'less Sol that recalled him from his dreams.

"It's purty big out thar, an' looks ez if you couldn't tamper with it—this here river stands no foolin'—but do you know, Paul, water's pow'ful friendly. It's always travelin' about, always on the move. Land stands still, it's always thar, an' never sees nothin' new, but water jest keeps a' movin', seein' new countries, here to-day, somewhar else to-morrow, lavin' new banks, breathin' new air, floatin' peacefully on to new people, gatherin' in their talk an' ways.

"Jest think! This river comes out o' we don't know whar, sees all the wilderness, whispers to the bars and buffaloes an' Injun tribes ez it goes by, takes a look at us standin' here on the bank, an', after wonderin' what we're about, slips on down hundreds o' miles to Louisianny, gazin' at the French thar on the bank at New Orleans, an' then shoots out into the sea."

"Thar to be lost," said the unpoetical Long Jim.

"Not to be lost, never to be lost, Jim," said Shif'less Sol earnestly. "That Missip. water is still thar in the sea, an' it goes slippin' an' slidin' along with the salt clean to all them old continents. It takes a look in at England, that's fightin' us in the East, an' if the English could understand the water's language it might tell 'em a lot o' things that wuz wuth their knowin'. An' then it goes on to Spain an' France an' Germany, whar they talk all them useless tongues, an' after a while it takes a whirl clean 'roun' Africa an' Asia, an' sees goodness knows what, an' then goes slippin' off to see islands in oceans that I ain't ever heard tell on. Jumpin' Jehoshaphat but ain't that a movin' an' stirrin' life fur ye!"

Sol drew a deep breath and Paul looked at him with shining eyes.

"You've said a good deal of what I was thinking, Sol," he said, "but for which I couldn't find words."

"We're likely to travel with the river for a while," said Tom Ross, "an' we must purvide a way."

"We'll do it soon," said Henry.

They camped that night in a dense grove near the bank but they built no fire. After midnight Henry and Shif'less Sol slipped away and went northward.

"'Bout four miles on we'll strike them Spaniards," said the shiftless one.

It was a close calculation, as at the end of the four miles they saw the light of a fire flaring through the trees and bushes and knew that they had come upon Alvarez and his men. Their camp lay on rather low ground beside a little bay of the Mississippi, and the keen eyes of the two woodsmen saw at once that the force of Alvarez had been increased.

"He's got about seventy men whar he had about fifty afore," said Shif'less Sol as they crept nearer.

"They came on boats as I thought," replied Henry, "and he left a detachment here with the boats, while he went across country. Maybe he was on an exploring expedition or something of that kind, when Braxton Wyatt overtook him with his proposition."

Sol looked at Henry and Henry looked at Sol. A ray of moonlight fell upon their tanned and stern faces. Then as they looked a twinkle appeared in the eye of each. The twinkle deepened and the two broke simultaneously into a soundless laugh.

"We want one of those boats," said Henry.

"We shorely do," said Shif'less Sol.

"We need it in the course of our duty," said Henry.

"We jest can't git along without it," said Shif'less Sol.

"It will be much easier floating down the middle of the Mississippi in a boat than it will be walking along the bank all the way."

"It will shorely save the feet, an' give a feller time to think, while the current's doin' the work. It jest suits a lazy man like me."

Again they broke simultaneously into a laugh that contained no sound, but which was full of mirth.

"It's taking what doesn't belong to us, and we are not at war with the Spanish," said Henry.

"They tried to hold Paul a prisoner, and they're not at war with us," rejoined Sol. "We've got a right to hit back. Besides, we're doin' it to save a war, and we're only borrowin' their boat fur their own good."

The two, without further ado, made a circuit around the Spanish camp, coming down on the northern side. There fortunately for them the trees and bushes were thick to the water's edge, and the shore was very low. In fact, the river, owing to the flood, overlapped the bushes.

They redoubled their caution, using every art and device of woodcraft to approach without noise. They could see the flare of the camp fire beyond the bushes, and now and then they caught sight of a sentinel's head. They felt amply justified in this attempt, for Alvarez had not only held Paul a prisoner, but was plotting with the Indian chiefs to slay all the white people in Kentucky.

"Here are the boats," whispered Henry.

There they were, eight in number, large, strong boats, every one with several pairs of oars, and tied with ropes to the bushes.

The eyes of Shif'less Sol watered as he gazed.

"They look pow'ful good to a lazy man," he said, "I could shorely sleep mighty comf'table in one o' them while Jim Hart wuz pullin' at the