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

"I think we'd better turn here," he said, unconsciously assuming his natural position of leader. "It's not worth while to run ourselves to death. What we've got to do is to hide."

"Them's blessed words!" gasped Shif'less Sol. "I wuz never so tired in all my born days. Seems to me I've been chased by Shawnees all over this here continent of North Ameriky!"

Paul laughed low, from pure pleasure—pleasure at his escape and pleasure in the courage, loyalty, and skill of his comrades.

"You may be tired, Sol," he said, "but there was never a braver man than you."

"It ain't bravery," protested the shiftless one. "I get into these things afore I know it, an' then I've got to kick like a mule to get out o' 'em."

But Paul merely laughed low again.

Henry turned from the north to the west, and led now at a pace that was little more than a walk. Paul and Sol drew deep breaths, as they felt the heavenly air flowing back into their lungs and the spring returning to their muscles. They went in Indian file, five dusky figures in the shadow, a faint moonlight touching them but wanly, and all silent. Thus they marched until past midnight, and they heard nothing behind them. Then their leader stopped, and the others, without a word, stopped with him.

"I think we've shaken 'em off," said Henry, "and we'd better rest and sleep. Then we can make up our plans."

"Good enough," said Shif'less Sol. "An' ef any man wakes me up afore next week, I'll hev his scalp."

He sank down at once in his buckskins on a particularly soft piece of turf, and in an incredibly brief space of time he was sound asleep. Jim Hart, doubling up his long, thin figure like a jackknife, imitated him, and Paul was not long in following them to slumberland. Only Henry and Ross remained awake and watchful, and by and by the moonlight came out and silvered their keen and anxious faces.

THE ISLAND IN THE LAKE

When Paul awoke the others were munching the usual breakfast of dried venison, and Henry handed him a piece, which he ate voraciously. Henry was sitting on the ground, with his back against a fallen log, and he regarded Paul contemplatively.

"Paul," he said, in the dryest possible tones, "I don't see how you could have been so hard-hearted."

Paul looked at him, startled. "Why, what do you mean?"

"To tear yourself away, as you did, from a loving father and mother. Why, Sol, here, tells me that you actually threw your mother from you."

"Truth, Gospel truth," put in Shif'less Sol. "I never seen sech a cruel, keerless person. He gives her jest one fling into the south, an' then he bolts off into the north, like an arrow out o' the bow. I follows him lickety-split to bring him back, but he runs so fast I can't ketch him."

Paul smiled.

"I've one father and mother already," he said, "and so I have no use for two. Rather than cause embarrassment, I came away as quickly as I could."

"You did come fast," said Henry dryly.

"It was mighty fine of all of you to come after me," said Paul earnestly, "and to risk your lives to save me from the Shawnees. But I knew you'd do it."

"Uv course," said Tom Ross simply. "The rest uv our party would hev come, too, but they were needed back thar in Kentucky. Besides, we could spare 'em, ez it took cunnin' an' not numbers to do what we had to do."

"What's our next step?" asked Paul, who was in the highest of spirits—his imagination, with its usual vivid rebound, now painted everything in glowing colors.

"We are going northward," said Henry.

"Northward?"

"Yes, it's necessary. There's some great movement on foot among the tribes. It's not the Shawnees alone, but the Miamis and Wyandots and others as well, though the Shawnees are leaders. War belts are passing between all the tribes, and we think they are joining together to destroy all the white settlements in Kentucky."

"An' some renegades are helpin' 'em," said Tom Ross. "They may hev better luck than they did when they attacked Wareville."

"Yes, an' there's Braxton Wyatt," said Shif'less Sol sorrowfully, "He's cunnin' an' revengeful, an' he'll do us a power o' harm. Paul, you ought to a-let me put a knife in atween his ribs when I had the chance. I might a-saved some good lives an' a power o' sufferin'."

Paul did not reply, but he was not sorry that he had interfered. He could not see a bound youth killed.

"I think we'd better be goin' now," said Tom Ross. "We've got to keep to the north, to throw the Shawnees off the track, an' then we'll come back an' spy on 'em."

"An' me with only ten hours o' rest got to git up an' start to runnin' ag'in," said Shif'less Sol plaintively.

"Wa'al, no, you needn't run," said Tom Ross, grinning. "You can jest walk for about forty hours without stoppin'!"

Shif'less Sol heaved a deep sigh, but made ready. Jim Hart undoubled himself, cracked his joints, and said deliberately:

"Ef I wuz ez lazy ez Shif'less Sol Hyde, I'd a-stayed back thar in the East, whar a feller might jest sleep hisself to death, an' no Injuns to torment him."

"Ef I wuz es mean an' onchristian ez Jim Hart, I'd go an' join Braxton Wyatt an' become a renegade myself," rejoined Shif'less Sol.

Paul smiled. He enjoyed the little spats of Sol and Jim, but he knew that the two were as true as steel, and the best of friends to each other. Moreover, he was about to take up again the mission which Fate seemed so constantly to interrupt. The scene of action had been shifted to the great northern woods, and it now seemed to Paul that perhaps Fortune had been kind in bringing him there. If a league of the tribes were being attempted for a new attack upon the settlements, the powder for Marlowe might well rest, for the present, in its hiding-place in the woods, while his comrades and he undertook more important action elsewhere.

Before they started, Henry and Ross took stock of their ammunition, of which they had a plentiful supply, replenished more than once from their enemies, and also gave an abundance to Paul. The extra rifle given to him, one of those taken from the two warriors that Henry had slain, was a fine weapon, carrying far and true, and he was perfectly satisfied with it.

Then they started, and they traveled all day northward, through a fine rolling country, with little prairies and great quantities of game. It was fully equal to Kentucky, but Paul knew they were in the heart of the chosen home of the northern Indians, and it behooved them to be cautious. But there were no signs of pursuit, and they went on all day undisturbed.

Late in the afternoon they entered a dense forest, and walked through it about two hours, when Paul saw an opening among the trees. It was a great flash of silver that all at once greeted his eyes. But as he looked it turned to gold under the late sun.

"Another of those little prairies," he said.

Henry laughed.

"No, Paul," he said, "that's not a prairie. The sun and the sky together have fooled you. It's a lake, and we're going to live in it for a little while."

"A lake," echoed Paul, "and we're going to live in it? Come on, I want to see it!"

Kentucky was not a country of lakes, and Paul did not know much about them. Hence, as he hastened forward, he was thinking more of the lake itself than of Henry's somewhat enigmatic words, "We're going to live in it."

They soon reached its margin, and Paul uttered a little cry of delight. It was a splendid sheet of water, shaped like a half moon, seven miles long, perhaps, and two miles across at the center. But at the widest part stood a gem of a wooded island, covered with giant trees. High hills, clothed with magnificent forest, rose all around the lake.

The beauty of the scene penetrated the souls of all. Uneducated men like Shif'less Sol and Jim Hart felt it as well as Paul. The five stood in silence, gazing at the lake and the gem of a wooded island. The light from the sinking sun gleamed in red and gold flame across the silver waters, and on the wooded island the boughs of the trees seemed to be touched with fire.

"That's where we are to stay," said Henry, pointing to the little island. "No Indian will ever trouble us there."

"Why?" asked Paul, looking at him questioningly.

"Wait and you'll see," replied Henry.

Henry led the way along the shore, and from a dense thicket at the water's edge he took a light canoe.

"I captured this once," he said; "brought it across the woods and hid it here, thinking it might be useful some day, and now you see I am right. Get in! Light as it is, it will hold us all."

Henry and Ross took the paddles, and they pushed out into the lake. Shif'less Sol uttered a long and deep sigh of satisfaction.

"Now, this jest suits a tired man," he said. "Henry, you an' Tom can paddle jest ez long ez you please. I'd like to do all my travelin' this way."

"An' you'd get so lazy you'd want somebody to come an' feed you with a spoon," said Jim Hart.

"An' it would jest suit me to have you do it. That's jest the kind uv a job you're fit fur, Jim Hart."

"Shet up, you two," said Ross. "You hurt my ears, a-buzzin' an' a-buzzin'."

Shif'less Sol sank back a little and closed his eyes. An expression of heavenly luxury and ease came over his face, but it could not last long because in a few minutes the boat reached the wooded island. Shif'less Sol opened his eyes, to find that the sun was almost gone, and that the shadows had come among the great trees.

"Cur'us kind o' place," he said. "Gives me a sort o' shiver."

Paul had felt the same sensation, but he said nothing. Before them lay the little island, a solid, black blot, its trees blended together, and behind them the lake shone somberly in the growing darkness.

"All out!" said Henry cheerfully. "This is home for a while, and we need rest."

They sprang upon the narrow beach, and Henry and Ross dragged the canoe into some thick bushes, where they hid it artfully. Paul meanwhile was looking about him, and trying to keep down the ghostly feeling that would assail him at times. The island, so far as he could judge, was perhaps two hundred yards long, half as broad, and thickly covered with forest. But he could see nothing of the interior.

"Come," said Henry Ware, in the same tone of cheerful confidence, as he led the way.

The others followed, stepping lightly among the great tree trunks, and Henry did not stop until he came to a small, open space in the very center of the island, where a spring bubbled up among some rocks, and flowed away in a tiny brook in a narrow channel to the lake. The open space was almost circular, and the great trees grew so thickly around that they looked like a wall.

"Here is the place to rest," said Henry. "There is no need for anybody to watch."

They lay down upon the ground, disposing themselves on the softest spots that they could find. Paul stared up for a few moments at the great circular wall of trees, and the weird, chilly sensation came again, but he was too tired and sleepy to think about it long. In fifteen minutes he slumbered soundly, and so did all the others. They lay with their faces showing but faintly in the dusk, and as they lay in the sheltered cove a soft wind breathed gently over them.

All were up early in the morning, and Paul was surprised to see Henry lighting a fire with flint and steel.

"Why do you do that, Henry?" he said. "Will not the smoke give warning to our enemies that we are here?"

"We shall send up but little smoke," replied Henry; "but if they should see it, they will not come."

He went on with the fire, and Paul, although mystified, would not ask anything more, too proud to show ignorance, and confident that anyhow he would soon learn the cause of these strange proceedings. The fire was lighted, and burned brightly, but cast off little smoke. Then Henry turned to Paul.

"Let's go up to the north end of the island," he said.

It was a walk of but a few minutes, and Henry, stopping before they reached