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

CHAPTER XVIII

WHAT THE WAR­RIORS SAW

A few nights lat­er a strong band of war­riors left the Mi­ami vil­lage, led by the bold chief, Yel­low Pan­ther, and the rene­gade, Brax­ton Wy­att. The par­ty was about thir­ty in num­ber, and it in­clud­ed the most dar­ing spir­its among them. They were go­ing against the wish­es of the aged Gray Beaver, who fore­saw on­ly dis­as­ter from such a des­ecra­tion; but Yel­low Pan­ther fa­vored the ven­ture, and Brax­ton Wy­att had urged it for a long time.

Wy­att was no cow­ard, and he did not be­lieve in spir­its. They had seen tracks, white tracks, in the snow, and the sight con­firmed him in his sus­pi­cion that those whom he hat­ed were hid­ing on the is­land in the lake. He burned for re­venge up­on Hen­ry Ware and his friends, but he had to fight all the in­flu­ence of Gray Beaver and the pow­er of In­di­an su­per­sti­tion. He was about to de­spair of mov­ing them when they saw the tracks--tracks that led al­most to the edge of the wa­ter. He con­sid­ered this proof of his the­ory, and he urged it in­ces­sant­ly. He called at­ten­tion to the en­counter in the woods near the lake, and the lat­er af­fair with the belt bear­ers. The lat­ter had par­tic­ular weight, as enough mes­sen­gers had now passed be­tween the Mi­amis and Shawnees to show that both had been the vic­tims of a clever and dar­ing trick. Wy­att, there­fore, was re­in­stat­ed in the good graces of the sav­ages, and his words had mean­ing to them. At last, with the aid of Yel­low Pan­ther and the more dar­ing spir­its among the younger war­riors, he pre­vailed, and the ex­pe­di­tion start­ed.

It was a re­al­ly formidable war par­ty, thir­ty war­riors or more, all well armed with ri­fles and am­mu­ni­tion bought from the Cana­di­an traders, all hideous with paint, and all skilled in the lore and de­vices of the wilder­ness. Brax­ton Wy­att had talked to them so much, he had told them so of­ten that their su­per­sti­tions were mere moon­shine, that they be­gan to be­lieve, and they thrilled, more­over, with the hope of se­cur­ing white scalps.

The cold was in­tense, and the frozen sur­face of the snow was very smooth; but the war­riors, in thick moc­casins of buf­fa­lo hide, with the hair un­der­neath, sped with sure step to­ward the lake. As Hen­ry and Ross had done, they kept in the thick­est of the for­est, pass­ing from tree trunk to tree trunk, be­cause the In­di­an loves a sur­prise, an easy vic­to­ry be­ing the great­est of tri­umphs to him. It was such that they ex­pect­ed now, and the blood of ev­ery one of them was in­flamed by the log­ic and elo­quence of Brax­ton Wy­att and Yel­low Pan­ther.

They reached the shores of the lake when the twi­light had merged in­to the night and the dark­ness was deep. They had fore­seen that it would be such a night, oth­er­wise they would have wait­ed; but all seemed ad­mirably suit­ed now to their pur­pose. They paused on the bank, and gath­ered in a close group. Across the white gleam of the snow they could bare­ly see the dusky out­line of the is­land, and, de­spite the coura­geous frame of mind in­to which they had lashed them­selves, de­spite the bold­ness of their lead­ers, they felt a tremor. The sav­age mind is prone to su­per­sti­tions, and it is not easy to cure it of them. That dim, dark out­line out there in the mid­dle of the lake, now that they be­held it again with their own eyes, still had its un­known and mys­te­ri­ous ter­rors for them.

But Brax­ton Wy­att and Yel­low Pan­ther knew too well to let them hes­itate at the very mar­gin of their great ex­ploit. They urged them for­ward, and the two them­selves led the way, step­ping up­on the frozen sur­face of the lake, and ad­vanc­ing di­rect­ly to­ward the is­land. Then the war­riors came af­ter them in a close clus­ter, their fur-​shod feet mak­ing no sound, and their forms in­vis­ible thir­ty yards away. Be­fore them the black bulk of the is­land, with its great trees, now loomed more dis­tinct­ly, and they gath­ered courage as noth­ing hap­pened.

All knew that the an­cient bury­ing ground was on the north end of the is­land, and so Brax­ton Wy­att and Yel­low Pan­ther led the way to the south end, in­tend­ing to make a grad­ual ap­proach to the oth­er por­tion.

Brax­ton Wy­att half ex­pect­ed, as he came near, that he might see a light among the trees. In weath­er so cold one must have a fire, and, re­ly­ing up­on the ghost­ly pro­tec­tion, Hen­ry Ware and his band would light it. But he saw noth­ing, and he be­gan to fear that he might be mis­tak­en. If there was no­body on the is­land his cred­it with the In­di­ans would be shak­en, and he was anx­ious to es­tab­lish his pow­er among his red friends. But he and Yel­low Pan­ther pressed bold­ly on, and they could now see dim­ly the out­lines of in­di­vid­ual tree trunks stand­ing up in rows.

The low shores of the is­land rose be­fore them on­ly thir­ty yards away, then twen­ty, then ten, then they were there. But an­oth­er mo­ment of hes­ita­tion came. Not in a gen­er­ation had a Mi­ami or any oth­er In­di­an, so far as they knew, set foot up­on this haunt­ed is­land, and the be­liefs of many years are not to be swept away in a breath.

It was Brax­ton Wy­att who took the lead again, and he bold­ly stepped up­on the haunt­ed soil. Then a ter­ri­ble thing hap­pened. Ev­ery war­rior all at once saw two white fig­ures perched up­on the low bough of an oak. They were shaped like men, but the out­lines of arms and legs could not be seen. Rather they were the bod­ies of war­riors com­plete­ly en­closed in buf­fa­lo robes or deer­skins for the grave, and these fig­ures, sway­ing back and forth in the moon­light, and bear­ing all the as­pects of su­per­nat­ural vis­itors, filled the su­per­sti­tious hearts of the Mi­amis with the ter­rors of the un­known and in­vin­ci­ble. The two shapes showed a ghost­ly white in the pale rays, and the Mi­amis, in fan­cy at least, saw fiery and ac­cus­ing eyes look­ing down at the sac­ri­le­gious men who had pre­sumed to put foot on the is­land ded­icat­ed to Man­itou and the de­part­ed.

A gen­tle wind brought a low groan to the ears of ev­ery man among them.

The blood of the war­riors chilled quick­ly in their veins. All their su­per­sti­tions, all the in­her­it­ed be­liefs of many gen­er­ations, all the lore of the old squaws, told about in­nu­mer­able camp fires, came crash­ing back up­on them as those two ghost­ly white shapes, hov­er­ing there in the dark­ness, con­tin­ued to trans­fix them with an ac­cus­ing gaze. There was an in­vol­un­tary shud­der, a sud­den clus­ter­ing to­geth­er of the whole par­ty, and then, with a si­mul­ta­ne­ous cry of hor­ror, they broke and fled in a wild pellmell far out up­on the icy sur­face of the lake, and then on, bear­ing with them in the rout both Yel­low Pan­ther and Brax­ton Wy­att. Nor did they dare to look back, be­cause they knew that the ter­ri­ble eyes of the long de­part­ed, up­on whose ter­ri­to­ry they had in­tend­ed to com­mit sac­ri­lege, were bor­ing in­to their backs. The is­land was haunt­ed, and would re­main so for many a year, de­spite all that Brax­ton Wy­att and Yel­low Pan­ther had said.

About the time the Mi­amis reached the main­land, and dart­ed among the trees in the race for their own vil­lage, Paul Cot­ter and Long Jim Hart leaped light­ly from the low bough of the oak, took off the en­fold­ing robes of white tanned deer­skin, with holes for the eyes.

“Je­hoshaphat!” said Long Jim, as he threw the robes on the ground, “I'm glad that's over. Bein' a ghost jest about a minute is enough fur me. I wuz scared to death lest I didn't groan good an' hor­ri­ble.”

“But you nev­er did a bet­ter job in your life, Jim,” said Hen­ry, as he came from be­hind a tree. “You and Paul were the finest ghosts I ev­er saw, and no In­di­an will dare to set foot on this is­land in the next hun­dred years.”

“It shore­ly was a sight to see them braves run,” said Shif'less Sol. “Thar's many a tired man in that lot now. I think some o' 'em didn't hit the ice an' snow more'n twice be­tween here an' the lan'.”

“Paul's made the is­lan' ez safe fur us ez a stone fort ez long ez we want to stay,” said Tom Ross.

“It was a great plan, well done,” said Hen­ry.

Paul's face shone with the most in­tense de­light. His imag­ina­tion, leap­ing for­ward to meet a cri­sis, had served them all great­ly, and he was hap­py. He had fought not with ri­fle and knife, but with the weapon of the in­tel­lect.

“Now that this job is over, an' we're the big win­ners,” said Shif'less Sol, “I'm goin' to do what a tired man ought to do: go to sleep, wrapped up in buf­fa­lo robes, an' sleep about forty hours.”

“We'll all sleep,” said Hen­ry. “As Tom says, we're as safe as if we were in a stone fort, and we don't need any guard.”

An hour lat­er all of the valiant five were slum­ber­ing peace­ful­ly with­in their warm walls, and when they ate a good hot break­fast the next morn­ing, cooked in Jim Hart's best fash­ion, they laughed hearti­ly and of­ten over the night's great event.

“I guess Mr. Brax­ton Wy­att will hev to work hard ag'in to prove to them sav­ages that he's re­al smart,” said Shif'less Sol. “This is an­oth­er time that he's led 'em right out o' the lit­tle end o' the horn.”

They lux­uri­at­ed that day, rest­ing most of the time In the hut, but on the fol­low­ing day Hen­ry and Ross went on a longer scout­ing ex­pe­di­tion than usu­al, this time in the di­rec­tion of the Shawnee vil­lages. The three who were left be­hind broke fresh holes in the thick ice, and by the use of much pa­tience suc­ceed­ed in catch­ing sev­er­al fine fish, which made a pleas­ant ad­di­tion to their dai­ly di­et.

Hen­ry and Ross were gone near­ly a week, but their com­rades did not be­come alarmed over their long ab­sence. When they re­turned they brought with them a bud­get of news from the Shawnee vil­lages. Brax­ton Wy­att had re­turned to the Shawnees, much dis­gust­ed with his stay among the Mi­amis, but still re­solved to form the great In­di­an al­liance, and send it in the spring against the white set­tle­ments in Ken­tucky.

“It's too late for them to do any­thing this win­ter,” said Hen­ry, and a lit­tle ex­ul­ta­tion showed in his tone, “we've put that spoke in their wheel; but they mean to hit us a ter­ri­ble blow on the flank when warm weath­er comes.”

“What do you mean by 'on the flank'?” asked Paul.

“They've learned in some man­ner, maybe by way of Cana­da, that a big wag­on train is com­ing up through the Wilder­ness Road in the spring, to join our set­tle­ments. If it gets there it will dou­ble our strength, but the In­di­ans mean to make a great curve to the south and east and strike it just as it leaves the moun­tains.”

“They're smart in that,” said Shif'less Sol. “They'd be sure to hit them wag­ons when they ain't ex­pect­ed.”

“Yes,” said Hen­ry Ware, “if the train is not warned.”

Paul looked at him and saw that his eyes were full of mean­ing.

“Then we are to warn that train,” said Paul.

“Yes, when the time comes.”

“It's the great­est work that we can do,” said Paul, with em­pha­sis, and the oth­ers nod­ded their agree­ment. It was all that was need­ed to bind the five to­geth­er in the mighty task that they had be­gun.

Noth­ing more was said up­on the sub­ject for days, but Paul's mind was full of it. His com­rades and he had im­ped­ed the mak­ing of the great war trail, and now they were to see that reen­force­ments safe­ly reached their own. It was a con­tin­uing task, and it ap­pealed pow­er­ful­ly to the states­man so strong in Paul.

A very cold win­ter moved slow­ly along, and they re­mained on the is­land, though Hen­ry and Ross ranged far and wide. On one of these ex­pe­di­tions the two scouts met a wan­der­ing trap­per, by whom they sent word again to their peo­ple in the south that they were safe.

Hen­ry and Ross al­so learned that Yel­low Pan­ther would lead the Mi­amis, Red Ea­gle the Shawnees, and there would be de­tach­ments of Wyan­dots and oth­ers. They would fall like a thun­der­bolt up­on the wag­on train, and de­stroy it ut­ter­ly.

“And Brax­ton Wy­att will be with them?” said Paul in­dig­nant­ly.

“Of course,” replied Hen­ry.

“Hen­ry, we've got to save that wag­on train, if ev­ery one of us dies try­ing!” ex­claimed Paul, with the great­est pos­si­ble em­pha­sis.

“Of course,” said Hen­ry again, qui­et­ly, but with the stern de­ter­mi­na­tion that meant with him do or die.

“It's a part o' our job,” drawled Shif'less Sol, “but it must be nigh a thou­sand miles to the place whar the Wilder­ness Road comes out o' the moun­tains. I see a ter­ri­ble long jour­ney ahead fur a tired man.”

Hen­ry smiled. They all knew that none would be more zeal­ous on the march, none more li­on-​heart­ed in bat­tle, than this same Solomon Hyde, nick­named the shift­less one.

“When do we start?” asked Jim Hart.

“Not be­fore the cold weath­er pass­es,” replied Hen­ry. “It wouldn't be worth while. The em­igrant train won't come through the moun­tains un­til spring, and we can do bet­ter work here, watch­ing the sav­ages.”

So they abode long in the hut on the haunt­ed is­land, and had food and warmth in plen­ty. But in the In­di­an vil­lages there was the stir of prepa­ra­tion for the great war trail in the spring, and al­so the sense of mys­tery and op­pres­sion. Yel­low Pan­ther, the Mi­ami, and Red Ea­gle, the Shawnee, both felt in some strange, un­ac­count­able way that they were watched. Half-​lost tracks of un­known feet were seen in the snow; strange trails that end­ed nowhere were struck; three war­riors, ev­ery one at a dif­fer­ent time, claimed to have seen a gi­gan­tic fig­ure speed­ing in a pale moon­light through the leaf­less for­est; one of the bravest of the Shawnee war­riors was found dead, his head cleft so deep that they knew a mighty hand, one of al­most mar­velous strength, had wield­ed the tom­ahawk. There were signs of a ter­ri­ble strug­gle in the snow, but who had at­tacked and who de­fend­ed they did not know, and the trail of the sur­vivor was soon lost. A mys­te­ri­ous dread filled both Shawnees and Mi­amis.

Brax­ton Wy­att raged at heart in the Shawnee vil­lage, and had the­ories of his own, but he dared not tell them. It was known there that it was he who had led the Mi­amis in­to the sac­ri­le­gious in­va­sion of the haunt­ed is­land, and it would take his cred­it some time to re­cov­er from such a blow. To reestab­lish him­self thor­ough­ly he must do valu­able work for his red friends on the com­ing great war trail. So he re­mained dis­creet­ly silent about the haunt­ed is­land, and told all he knew of the white set­tle­ments, the Wilder­ness Road, and the way to trap the em­igrant train. Here he could re­al­ly be of great as­sis­tance to the al­liance, and he told the chiefs all about the em­igrants, how they marched, and how they would be en­cum­bered with wom­en and chil­dren.

Mean­while, the five nev­er ceased their vig­ilance. Hen­ry and Ross bought a large quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion from a Cana­di­an trad­er whom they met on a trip far to the north, and how­ev­er much they used in the win­ter, they were now as­sured of an abun­dance when they start­ed south­east in the spring.

The win­ter was long and very cold. One snow fell up­on an­oth­er; one freeze af­ter an­oth­er thick­ened the ice up­on the lake; and when the wind blew, it had the edge of a knife. But this could not last for­ev­er. One day the wind shift­ed around and blew from the south. Paul, who was out­side the hut help­ing Jim Hart, felt a soft, warm breath on his face.

“Why, Jim!” he said, “the cold seems to be go­ing away.”

“So it is,” said Jim Hart, “or at least it's git­tin' ready. Spring ain't far off, an' I'm glad, Paul. I'm tired uv win­ter, an' I want to be strikin' out on the great war trail.”

“So do I,” said Paul.

“Wa'al, fur the mat­ter o' that,” said Shif'less Sol, “we've been on the great war trail fur three or four months now. There ain't to be no change ex­cept in the shiftin' o' the trail.”

The warm wind con­tin­ued to blow for days, the sur­face of the ice on the lake soft­ened, and the snow be­gan to melt. Still it blew, and the melt­ed snow ran in rivers, the ice broke up in­to great sheets and chunks, and these, too, rapid­ly dis­solved. Then a warm rain came, pour­ing for a day and a night, and the ice and snow were swept away en­tire­ly. But the whole earth ran wa­ter. Lakes stood in the for­est, and ev­ery brook and creek, rush­ing in tor­rents, leaped its banks.

The five had re­mained in their hut when the rain came down, but two days lat­er Hen­ry and Ross were rowed over in the ca­noe, and went away to spy out the coun­try. When they re­turned they said that the great war par­ty of the al­lied tribes would soon be in mo­tion, and it was time for the five to take their flight.

A warm sun had been shin­ing for days, and the earth had dried again. The tur­bu­lent brooks and creeks had with­drawn to their ac­cus­tomed beds, and faint touch­es of green were be­gin­ning to show in the wilder­ness.

“We'll leave our house just as we have built it,” said Hen­ry.

“Un­less a white man should come wan­der­ing here, and that isn't like­ly, it won't be dis­turbed. It's been a good place for us.”

“Yes,” said Paul, “it has been a good home to us. I've spent a hap­py win­ter here, and I want to see it again.”

But they had lit­tle time for sen­ti­ment. They were mak­ing the fast touch­es of prepa­ra­tion for the sec­ond stage of the great war trail--ar­rang­ing cloth­ing, light sup­plies of food, and, above all, am­mu­ni­tion. Then they left at night in their ca­noe. As they ap­proached the main­land, all, as if by in­vol­un­tary im­pulse, looked back at the haunt­ed is­land, loom­ing dark­ly in the night.

“It was no haunt­ed is­land for us,” said Paul.

“No,” said Hen­ry.

They land­ed, hid the ca­noe, and then, plung­ing in­to the for­est, sped far to the south and east on tire­less feet.