The Forest Runners A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky

CHAPTER XIV

IN WIN­TER QUAR­TERS

The three walked slow­ly on for a long time, curv­ing about grad­ual­ly to the re­gion in which Paul and Jim Hart re­mained hid­den. They did not say much, but Shif'less Sol was slow­ly swelling with an ad­mi­ra­tion which was bound to find a vent some time or oth­er.

“Hen­ry,” he burst out at last, “this whole scheme o' yours has been worked in the most beau­ti­ful way, an' that last trick with Brax­ton Wy­att wuz the finest I ev­er saw.”

“There were three of us,” said Hen­ry briefly and mod­est­ly.

“It's a great thing to use your brain,” said the shift­less one sage­ly. “I'm thinkin' o' doin' it here­after my­self.”

Tom Ross laughed deeply and said:

“I'd make a be­gin­ning be­fore it wuz too late, ef I wuz you, Sol.”

“How long do you think it will take the Shawnees an' the Mi­amis to straight­en out that tan­gle about the great war trail?” asked the shift­less one of Hen­ry.

“Not be­fore snow flies,” replied the youth; “and then there will be so much mu­tu­al anger and dis­gust that they will not be able to get to­geth­er for months. But we must stop up here, Sol, and watch, and egg on the mis­un­der­stand­ing. Don't you think so, Tom?”

“Of course!” replied Ross briefly, but with em­pha­sis. “We've got to hang on the In­jun flanks.”

Late in the af­ter­noon they reached fa­mil­iar ground, or at least it was so to the sharp eyes of these three, al­though they had seen it but once. Here they had left Paul and Jim Hart, and they knew that they must be some­where near. Hen­ry gave forth the whip-​poor-​will cry--the long, wail­ing note, in­ex­press­ibly plain­tive and echo­ing far through the au­tumn woods. It was re­peat­ed once and twice, and present­ly came the an­swer­ing note.

The three walked with con­fi­dence to­ward the point from which the an­swer had come, and soon they saw Paul and Jim Hart ad­vanc­ing joy­ous­ly to meet them.

Paul lis­tened with amaze­ment to the sto­ry of their won­der­ful ad­ven­ture, told in a few brief phras­es. Not many words were need­ed for him. His vivid imag­ina­tion at once pic­tured it all--the dead­ly play of words in the Coun­cil House, the am­bush­ing of Brax­ton Wy­att, and the tri­umphant re­sult.

“That was diplo­ma­cy, states­man­ship, Hen­ry,” he said.

“We're go­ing to stay up here a while longer, Paul,” said Hen­ry. “We think our pres­ence is need­ed in these parts.”

“I'm will­ing,” said Paul, wish­ing to have as­sur­ances, “but what about the pow­der for Mar­lowe, and what will our peo­ple at Ware­ville think has be­come of us?”

“As long as we can keep back these tribes, Mar­lowe will not need the pow­der, and some of the buf­fa­lo hunters have tak­en word to Ware­ville that we have come in­to the North.”

“I pur­pose,” said Shif'less Sol, “that so long ez we're goin' to stay in these parts that we go back to the haunt­ed is­lan' in the lake. It's in the heart o' the In­jun coun­try, but it's the safest spot with­in five hun­dred miles o' us.”

“I think with Sol,” said Hen­ry. “We can pre­pare there for win­ter quar­ters. In fact, we've got a hut al­ready.”

“An' I won't have noth­in' to do,” said the shift­less one, “but lay aroun' an' hev Jim Hart cook fur me.”

“You'll hev to be run­nin' through the frozen woods all the time fur game fur me to cook, that's what you'll hev to do, Sol Hyde,” re­tort­ed Jim Hart.

The idea of go­ing in­to win­ter quar­ters on the is­land ap­pealed to Paul. He had grown at­tached to the lit­tle hol­low in which he and Jim Hart had built the hut, and he thought they could be very snug and warm. So he fa­vored Sol's propo­si­tion with ar­dor, and about twi­light they brought the hid­den ca­noe again from the bush­es, pad­dling bold­ly across the lake for the is­land. The place did not now have an un­can­ny look to Paul. In­stead, it bore cer­tain as­pects of home, and he for­got all about the mum­mies in the trees, which were their pro­tec­tion from in­va­sion.

“It's good to get back again,” he said.

They land­ed on the is­land, hid the ca­noe, and went straight to the hol­low, find­ing ev­ery­thing there ab­so­lute­ly undis­turbed.

“We'll sleep to-​night,” said Hen­ry, “and in the morn­ing we'll plan.”

Paul no­ticed, when he rose ear­ly the next day, that the whole earth was sil­ver with frost, and he felt they were par­tic­ular­ly for­tu­nate in hav­ing found some sort of shel­ter. The oth­ers shared his sat­is­fac­tion, and they worked all day, en­larg­ing the hut, and strength­en­ing it against the wind and cold with more bark and brush. At night Hen­ry and Ross took the ca­noe, went to the main­land, and came back with a deer. The next day Jim Hart and Shif'less Sol were busy dry­ing the veni­son, and Paul spent his time fish­ing with con­sid­er­able suc­cess.

Sev­er­al days passed thus, and they ac­cu­mu­lat­ed more meat and more skins. The lat­ter were par­tic­ular­ly valu­able for warmth. Paul draped them about their hut, ar­rang­ing them with an artis­tic eye, while Jim Hart and Shif'less Sol, with a sim­ilar sat­is­fac­tion, watched their larder grow.

“This is the finest win­ter camp in all the wilder­ness,” said Shif'less Sol.

“You couldn't beat it,” said Jim Hart.

These were hap­py days to Paul. Know­ing now that a mes­sage had been sent hack to Ware­ville, he was re­leased from wor­ry over the pos­si­ble anx­iety of his peo­ple on his ac­count, and he was liv­ing a life brim­ful of in­ter­est. Ev­ery­one fell al­most un­con­scious­ly in­to his place. Hen­ry Ware, Ross, and Shif'less Sol scout­ed and hunt­ed far and wide, and Paul and Jim Hart were fish­er­men, house builders, and, as Paul called it, “dec­ora­tors.”

The hut in the hol­low be­gan to have a cozy look. Hen­ry and Ross brought in three buf­fa­lo skins, which Jim prompt­ly tanned, and which Paul then used as wall cov­er­ings. Wolf­skins, deer­skins, and one beau­ti­ful pan­ther hide were spread up­on the floor. This floor was made main­ly of boughs, bro­ken up fine, and dead leaves, but it did not ad­mit wa­ter, and the furs and skins were warm. In one cor­ner of the place grew up a store of dried veni­son and buf­fa­lo meat, over which Jim Hart watched jeal­ous­ly.

All of the cook­ing was done at night, but in the open, in a kind of rude oven that Jim Hart built of loose stones, and nev­er did food taste bet­ter in the mouth of a hun­gry youth than it did in that of Paul. The air was grow­ing much cold­er. Paul, who was in the habit of tak­ing a dip in the lake ev­ery night, found the wa­ters so chill now that he could not stay in long, al­though the bath was won­der­ful­ly in­vig­orat­ing. When­ev­er the wind blew the dead leaves fell in show­ers, and Paul knew he would soon be deeply thank­ful they had the hut as a re­treat.

About ten days af­ter their re­turn Hen­ry came back from a scout around the Mi­ami vil­lage, and he brought news of in­ter­est.

“Brax­ton Wy­att is still there,” he said, “and he is so mixed up that he does not know just what to do for the present. Af­ter say­ing one thing and then deny­ing him­self, he is in the bad graces of both par­ties of the Mi­amis. For the same rea­son he doesn't dare to go back for a while to the Shawnees, so he is wait­ing for things to straight­en them­selves out, which they won't do for a long time. The Mi­ami belt bear­ers have not yet re­turned from the Shawnee vil­lage, and then belts will have to go back and forth a dozen times each be­fore ei­ther tribe can find out what the oth­er means.”

“An' if we kin keep 'em mis­un­der­standin' each oth­er,” said Shif'less Sol, “they can't make any at­tack on the white set­tle­ments un­til away next spring, an' by that time a lot more white peo­ple will ar­rive from over the moun­tains. We'll be at least twice ez strong then.”

“That's so,” said Hen­ry; “and the great­est work we five can do is to stay here and put as many spokes as we can in the In­di­an al­liance.”

“And I am glad to be here with all of you,” said Paul earnest­ly. It seemed to him the great­est work in the world, this hold­ing back of the tribes un­til their in­tend­ed vic­tim should ac­quire strength to beat them off, and his eyes shone. Be­sides the mere phys­ical hap­pi­ness that he felt, there was a great men­tal ex­hil­ara­tion, an ex­al­ta­tion, even, and he looked for­ward to the win­ter of a war­rior and a states­man.

Paul's body flour­ished apace in the cold, nip­ping air and the wild life. There were dis­com­forts, it is true, but he did not think of them. He looked on­ly at the com­forts and the joys. He knew that his mus­cles were grow­ing and hard­en­ing, that eye, ear, all the five sens­es, in truth, were grow­ing keen­er, and he felt with­in him a courage that could dare any­thing.

Hen­ry made an­oth­er ex­pe­di­tion, to dis­cov­er, if he could, whether the Mi­amis sus­pect­ed that the haunt­ed is­land har­bored their foes. They did not ask him what means he used, how he dis­guised him­self anew, or whether he dis­guised him­self at all, but he re­turned with the news that they had no sus­pi­cion. The is­land was still sa­cred to the spir­its--a place where they dare not land. This was sat­is­fy­ing news to all, and they rest­ed for a while.

Three or four days af­ter Hen­ry's re­turn a strong wind stripped the last leaves from the trees. All the reds and yel­lows and browns were gone, and the gusts whis­tled fierce­ly among the gray branch­es. The sur­face of the lake was bro­ken in­to cold waves, that chased each oth­er un­til they died away at the shore.

The next day heavy rolling clouds were drawn across the sky, and all the world was somber and dark. Paul stood at the en­trance to the hut, and now, in­deed, he was thank­ful that they had that shel­ter, and that they had furs and skins to re­in­force their cloth­ing. As he looked, some­thing cold and wet came out of the sky and struck him up­on the face. An­oth­er came, and then an­oth­er, and in a few mo­ments the air was full of flakes whirled by the wind.

“The first snow,” said Paul.

“Yes,” said Hen­ry, “and let us pray for snows--many, hard, and deep. The fiercer the win­ter the eas­ier it will be to hold back the al­lied tribes.”

It was not a heavy snow, but it gave an earnest of what might come. The bare boughs were whipped about in the gale, and creaked dis­mal­ly. The ground was cov­ered with white to the depth of about two inch­es, and dark, rolling waves, look­ing very chill, chased one an­oth­er across the lake. Jim Hart and Paul had man­aged to build of stones, in one cor­ner of their hut, a rude oven or fur­nace, with an ex­te­ri­or vent. They had plas­tered the stones to­geth­er with mud, which hard­ened in­to a sort of ce­ment, and in this fur­nace they kin­dled a lit­tle fire. They did not dare to make it large, be­cause of the smoke, but they had enough coals to give out a warm and pleas­ant glow.

All of them re­treat­ed for a while to the “man­sion,” as Paul rather proud­ly called it, and Hen­ry. Ross, and Shif'less Sol bus­ied them­selves with mak­ing new and stout moc­casins of deer­skin, fas­tened with sinews and lined with fur. Shif'less Sol was es­pe­cial­ly skill­ful at this work; in fact, the shift­less one was a won­der­ful­ly handy man at any sort of task, and with on­ly his hunt­ing knife, a wood­en nee­dle of his own man­ufac­ture, and deer sinews, he ac­tu­al­ly made Paul a fur-​lined hunt­ing shirt, which seemed to the boy's imag­ina­tive fan­cy about the finest gar­ment ev­er worn in the wilder­ness. All of them al­so put fur flaps on their rac­coon-​skin caps, and Shif'less Sol even man­aged to fash­ion an im­ita­tion of gloves out of deer­skin.

“I wouldn't ad­vise you to try to use your hands much with these gloves on,” he said; “least­ways, not to shoot at any­thing till you took 'em off; but I do say that so long ez your hands are idle, they'll be pow'ful warmin' to the fin­gers.”

“We don't have to go out very much just now,” said Paul, “and if we on­ly had two or three books here, we could pass the time very pleas­ant­ly.”

“That's so,” said Shif'less Sol mus­ing­ly. “You an' me, Paul, wuz in­tend­ed to be ed­di­cat­ed men. Ez fur Jim Hart here, he's that dull he'd take more pride in cookin' in a stone fur­nace than in writin' the finest book in the world.”

“When I cook I git's some­thin' that I kin see,” said Jim Hart. “I nev­er read but one book in my life, an' I didn't find it very sus­tain­in'. I guess if you wuz starvin' to death here in the wilder­ness, you'd ruther hev a hot hoe cake than all the books in the world.”

“'Tain't worth while, Paul, to talk to Jim Hart,” said Shif'less Sol sad­ly. “He ain't got no soul above a hoe cake. I've al­lus told you, Paul, that you an' me wuz su­pe­ri­or to our sur­round­ings. Ef Jim Hart wuz locked up in a school­house all his life he'd nev­er be an ed­di­cat­ed man, while ez fur me, I'm one with­out ev­er git­tin' a chance, jest be­cause it's in my natur'.”

Paul laughed at them both, and drew a lit­tle clos­er to the bed of red coals. The warmth with­in and the cold with­out ap­pealed to all the el­ements of his vivid and imag­ina­tive na­ture. Not for worlds would he have missed be­ing on this great ad­ven­ture with these dar­ing men.

“I'm a-​thinkin',” said Ross, as he lift­ed the buf­fa­lo robe over their door and looked out, “that ez soon ez the wind dies the lake will freeze over.”

“An' it will be hard­er than ev­er then,” said Paul, “to catch fish.”

“I guess we kin do about ez well through holes in the ice,” said Ross.

Ross's pre­dic­tion soon came true. When they awoke on the morn­ing two days af­ter­wards the lake curved about them in a white and glit­ter­ing sheet, re­flect­ing back a bril­liant sun in a mil­lion daz­zling rays.

“I'm glad all of our par­ty are here on the is­land to­geth­er,” said Hen­ry, “be­cause the ice isn't thick enough to sup­port a man's weight, and it isn't thin enough to let a ca­noe be pushed through it. We're clean cut off from the world for a lit­tle while.”

“An' this is whar poor old Long Jim be­comes the most vally­ble uv us all,” said Jim Hart. “It's a lucky thing that I've got a kind uv stove an' buf­fa­lo meat an' veni­son an' oth­er kinds uv game. I'm jest will­in' to bet that you four hulkin' fellers will want to lay aroun' an' eat all the time.”

“I wouldn't be sur­prised, Jim, if we didn't get hun­gry once in a while,” said Hen­ry, with a smile.

Two more days passed, and the ice on the lake nei­ther melt­ed nor grew thick­er, and they were as well shut in and oth­ers were as well shut out as if they had been on a lone is­land in the Pa­cif­ic Ocean. Once they saw a thin col­umn of smoke, on­ly a faint blue spire very far away, which Hen­ry said rose from an In­di­an camp fire.

“It's sev­er­al miles from here,” he said, “and it's just chance that they are there. They don't dream that we are here.”

Nev­er­the­less, they did not light the fire in their fur­nace again for two days. Then, when the skies grew too dark and somber for a faint smoke to show against its back­ground, they kin­dled it up again, and once more en­joyed warm food.

“Ef I jest had a lit­tle cof­fee, an' some­thin' to b'il it in, I'd be pow'ful hap­py,” said Jim Hart. “I'd jest en­joy b'ilin' a gal­lon or two apiece fur you fellers an' me.”

“Wa'al, ez you ain't got any cof­fee an' you ain't got any­thin' to b'il it in, I reck­on we'll hev to be jest ez hap­py with­out it,” said Shif'less Sol.

The night af­ter this con­ver­sa­tion Paul was awak­ened by a pat­ter up­on their skin and thatch roof. It must have been two or three o'clock in the morn­ing, and he had been sleep­ing very com­fort­ably. He lay on furs, and the soft side of a buf­fa­lo robe was wrapped close about him. He could not re­mem­ber any time in his life when he felt snug­ger, and he want­ed to go back to sleep, but that pat­ter up­on the roof was in­sis­tent. He raised him­self up a lit­tle, and he heard along with the pat­ter the breath­ing of his four com­rades. But it was pitch dark in the hut, and, rolling over to the door­way, he pulled aside a few inch­es the stout buf­fa­lo hide that cov­ered it. Some­thing hard and white struck him in the face and stung like shot.

It was hail­ing, pour­ing hard and driv­en fierce­ly by the wind. More­over, it was bit­ter­ly cold, and Paul quick­ly shut down the buf­fa­lo flap, fas­ten­ing it tight­ly. “We're snowed in and hailed in, too,” he mur­mured to him­self. Then he drew his buf­fa­lo robe around his body more close­ly than ev­er, and went back to sleep. The next morn­ing it rained on top of the hail for about an hour, but af­ter that it quick­ly froze again, the air turn­ing in­tense­ly cold. Then Paul be­held the whole world sheathed in glit­ter­ing ice. The sight was so daz­zling that his eyes were al­most blind­ed, but it was won­der­ful­ly beau­ti­ful, too. The frozen sur­face of the lake threw back the light in myr­iads of gold­en sheaves, and ev­ery tree, down to the last twig, gleamed in a sil­very pol­ished sheath.

“It 'pears to me,” said Shif'less Sol lazi­ly, “that we ain't on an is­lan' no longer. The Su­pe­ri­or Pow­ers hev built a draw­bridge, on which any­thing can pass.”

“That's so,” said Paul. “The ice must be thick enough now to bear a war par­ty.”

“Ef that war par­ty didn't slip up an' break its neck,” said Shif less Sol. “All that meltin' stuff froze hard, an' it's like glass now. Jest you try it, Paul.”

Paul went out in the hol­low, and at his very first step his feet flew from un­der him and he land­ed on his back. Ev­ery­where it was the same way--ice like glass, that no one could tread on and yet feel se­cure.

“We have our draw­bridge,” said Paul, “but it doesn't seem to me to be very safe walk­ing on it.”

Nev­er­the­less, Hen­ry and Ross slipped away two nights lat­er, and were gone all the next day and an­oth­er night. When they re­turned they re­port­ed that the Mi­ami vil­lage was pret­ty well snowed up, and that the hunters even were not out. Brax­ton Wy­att was still there, and they be­lieved he would soon be up to some sort of mis­chief--it was im­pos­si­ble for him to re­main qui­et and be­have him­self very long.

“Mean­while what are we to do?” asked Paul.

“Just stay qui­et,” said Hen­ry. “We'll wait for Brax­ton and his sav­ages to act first.”

But the ice did not re­main long, all melt­ing away as the fick­le north­west­ern weath­er turned com­par­ative­ly warm again, and the five once more be­gan to move about freely.