The Forest Runners: A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky by Altsheler (books for 20 year olds .TXT) 📗

like you," said Shif'less Sol, "but I suppose you can't any more help bein' mean, Jim, than I can help bein' tired."

Jim shrugged his shoulders and returned to his cooking, his tall, lean form bent over like a hoop. Paul slept peacefully on the blanket, but the others talked much and earnestly. Henry, as he ate of the buffalo meat, told them all that had happened to him and Paul in that brief period which yet looked so long. That the band would pick up the trail, daylight now come, and follow on, he did not doubt. There he stopped, and left the conclusion to the others. Shif'less Sol was the first to speak.

"This gang," he said, "come out to hunt buffalo, an', accordin' to what Henry says, a war party—he don't know how big—is comin' this way huntin' him an' Paul. Well, ef it keeps on huntin' him an' Paul, it's bound to run up agin us, because Paul an' Henry are now a part o' our gang. Ez fur me, I've done a lot o' trampin' after buffalo, an' I feel too tired to run, I jest do."

"I ain't seen no better place for cookin' than this," said Jim Hart, undoubling himself, "an' I like the looks o' the country round here pow'ful well. I'd hate to leave it before I got ready,"

"'Tain't healthy to run afore you're ready," said Ike Stebbins, a short, extremely thick man. "It ain't good for the stomach. Pumps the blood right up to the heart, an' I ain't feelin' very good just now, noway. Can't afford to take no more risks to my health."

A slight smile passed over the stern, bronzed face of Tom Ross.

"I expected to hear you talk that way, boys," he said, "it's in your blood; but thar's a better reason still for our not goin'. If this war band stays around here, it'll be pickin' off settlers, an' it's fur us to stop it. Now, them Shawnees are comin' a-huntin' us. I jest wish to say that we don't mean to be the hunted; we're to be the hunters ourselves."

Sharp exclamations of approval broke from all these fierce spirits of the border. But the deepest and most dangerous gleam of all was in the eyes of Henry Ware. All his primeval instincts were alive, and foremost among them was the desire to fight. He was tired of running, of seeking to escape, and his warlike blood was up and leaping. Two more men who had been out ranging the woods for buffalo, or any other worthy game that might happen in their way, came in presently, and the little army, with the addition of the two boys, was now raised to the number of ten. And a real little army it was, fortified with indomitable hearts and all the skill and knowledge of the wilderness.

When Paul awoke beneath the pressure of Henry's hand on his shoulder, the sun was much higher, and the forest swam in limpid light. He noticed at once that the fire was out, trampled under strong heels, and that all the men looked as if ready for instant conflict. He rubbed his eyes and sprang to his feet, half in shame that he should have slept while others watched. It was Shif'less Sol who came to his rescue.

"It's all right, Paul," he drawled. "We all know you were pow'ful tired, an' I'd have slept, too, ef them fellows hadn't been mean enough to keep me from it. You wuz just nacherally overpowered, an' you had to do it."

Paul looked around at the little group, and he read the meaning in the eye of every man.

"You are going to fight that war band?" he said.

"It 'pears to me that it's a sight less tirin' than runnin' away," replied Shif'less Sol, "though we hate to drag you, Paul, into such a fracas."

The blood flushed into Paul's face.

"I'm ready for it!" he exclaimed. "I'm as ready as any of you! Do you think I want to run away?"

"We know, Paul, that you've got ez much grit ez anybody in the world," said Tom Ross kindly; "but Sol maybe didn't think a boy that's a big scholar, an' that kin read an' understand anything, would he as much interested in a real hair-raisin' fight as the rest o' us."

Paul was mollified. He knew their minds now, and in a way it was an unconscious tribute that these wild borderers paid to him.

"I'm with you to the end of it," he said. And they, too, were satisfied. Then the entire party moved forward into the deep woods, watching and listening for the slightest sign of the Shawnee advance. Tom Ross naturally took command, but Henry Ware, as always, was first scout. No other eye was so keen as his, nor any other ear. All knew it, and all admitted it willingly. His form expanded again, and fierce joy surged up in his heart. As Ross truly said, the hunted had turned into the hunter.

It was the purpose of the men to circle to the east, and to strike the war party on the Hank. They knew that the Shawnees had already discovered the junction of the fugitives with a larger force, but the warriors could not yet know that the new party intended to stand and fight. Ross, therefore, like the general of a great army going into battle, intended to seek the best possible position for his force.

They traveled in a half circle for perhaps two hours, and then Henry struck a trail, calling at once to Ross. They examined it carefully, and judged that it had been made by a force of about twenty warriors, undoubtedly the band that was following Henry and Paul.

"We're behind 'em now," said Henry.

"But they'll soon be coming back on our trail," said Ross. "They know that they are more than two to one, and they will follow hard."

"I'm gittin' mighty tired ag'in," said Shif'less Sol. "It 'pears to me thar's a pow'ful good place fur us to rest over thar among all them big trees on that little hill."

Ross and Henry examined the hill, which was not very high, but small, and crowned with mighty beeches. The great tree-trunks would offer admirable cover for the wilderness fighter.

"It does kinder invite us," said Ross meaningly, "so we'll jest go over thar, Sol, an' set a while longer."

A few minutes later they were on the hill, each man lying behind a tree of his own selection. Shif'less Sol had chosen a particularly large one, and luckily there was some soft turf growing over its roots. He stretched himself out luxuriously.

"Now, this jest suits an easy-goin' man like me," he said. "I could lay here all day jest a-dreamin', never disturbin' nobody, an' nobody disturbin' me. Paul, you and me ain't got no business here. We wuz cut out fur scholars, we wuz."

Nevertheless, lazy and luxurious as he looked, Shif'less Sol watched the forest with eyes that missed nothing. His rifle lay in such a position that he could take aim almost instantly.

There was a long and tense silence, full of strangeness to Paul. He could never get used to these extraordinary situations. When preparing for combat, as well as in it, the world seemed unreal to him. He did not see why men should fly at each other's throats; but the fact was before him, and he could not escape it.

The little hill was so situated that they could see to a considerable distance at all points of the compass, but they yet saw nothing. Shif'less Sol stretched himself in a new position and grumbled.

"The wust thing about this bed o' mine here," he said to Paul, "is that sooner or later I'll be disturbed in it. A fellow never kin make people let him alone. It's the way here, an' it's the way back in the East, too, I reckon. Now, I'm only occupyin' a place six feet by two, with the land rollin' away thousands o' miles on every side; but it's this very spot, six feet by two, that the Shawnees are a-lookin' fur."

Paul laughed at the shiftless one's complaint, and the laugh greatly relieved his tension. Fortunately his tree was very close to Sol's, and they could carry on a whispered conversation.

"Do you think the Shawnees will really come?" asked Paul, who was always incredulous when the forest was so silent.

"Come! Of course they will!" replied Shif'less Sol. "If for no other reason, they'll do it jest to make me trouble. I ought to be back thar in the East, teachin' school or makin' laws fur somebody."

Paul's eyes wandered from Sol to his comrade, and he saw Henry suddenly move, ever so little, then fix his gaze on a point in the forest, three or four hundred yards away. Paul looked, too, and saw nothing, but he knew well enough that Henry's keener gaze had detected an alien presence in the bushes.

Henry whispered something to Ross, who followed his glance and then nodded in assent. The others, too, soon looked at the same point, Jim Hart craning his long neck until it arched like a bow. Presently from a dense clump of bushes came a little puff of white smoke, and then the stillness was broken by the report of a rifle. A bullet buried itself in one of the trees on the hill, and Shif'less Sol turned over with a sniff of contempt.

"If they don't shoot better'n that," he said, "I might ez well go to sleep."

But the forest duel had begun, and it was a contest of skill against skill, of craft against craft. Every device of wilderness warfare known to the red men was practiced, too, by the white men who confronted them.

Paul at first felt an intense excitement, but it was soothed by the calm words of Shif'less Sol.

"I'd be easy about it, Paul," said the shiftless one. "That wuz jest a feeler. They've found out that we're ready for 'em. There ain't no chance of a surprise, an' they shot that bullet merely as a sort o' way o' tellin' us that they had come. Things won't be movin' fur some time yet."

Paul found that Shif'less Sol was right. The long waiting customary in such forest combats endured, but he was now becoming more of a stoic, and he used the time, at least in part, for rest, although every nerve and muscle was keyed to attention. It was fully an hour later when a shot came from behind a tree much nearer to them, and a bullet cut a fragment of bark from the gigantic beech that sheltered Shif'less Sol. There was a second report before the sound of the first had died away, and a Shawnee, uttering a smothered cry, fell forward from his shelter, and lay upon the ground, quite still. Paul could see the brown figure, and he knew that the man was dead.

"It was Tom Ross who did that," said Shif'less Sol. "The savage leaned too fur forward when he fired at me, an' exposed hisself. Served him right fur tryin' to hurt me."

Then Sol, who had raised himself up a little, lay down again in his comfortable position. He did not seem disturbed at all, but Paul kept gazing at the figure of the dead warrior. Once more his spirit recoiled at the need of taking life. Presently came a spatter of rifle fire—a dozen shots, perhaps—and bullets clipped turf and trees. The Shawnees had crept much nearer, and were in a wide semicircle, hoping thus to uncover their foes, at least in part, and they had a little success, as one man, named Brewer, was hit in the fleshy part of the arm.

Paul saw nothing but the smoke and the flashes of fire, and he was wise enough to save his own ammunition—he had long since learned the border maxim, never to shoot until you saw something to shoot at.

But the enemy was creeping closer, hiding among rocks and bushes, and a second and longer spatter of rifle fire began. One man was hit badly, and then the borderers began to seek targets of their own. Their long, slender-barreled rifles flashed again and again, and more than one bullet went straight to the mark. The plumes of white smoke grew more numerous, united sometimes, and floated away in little clouds among the trees.

Paul saw that his comrades were firing slowly, but with terrible effect, as five or six still, brown figures now lay in the open. Shif'less Sol, at the next tree, only four feet away, was stretched almost perfectly flat on his face on the ground, and every movement he made seemed to be slow and deliberate. Yet no one was firing faster or with surer aim than he,