The Phantom of the River - Edward Sylvester Ellis (book club books txt) 📗

orb would reach within an hour after rising. "Wa-on-mon will come back, bringing the scalp of the white hunter with him. If he is still absent when the sun is there, the missionary may take the hand of the captive and go back to his people. The Shawanoe warriors will not stand in his way."

It would be vain to attempt to depict the anguish of the dreadful minutes that followed. Missionary Finley underwent a struggle that was the keenest agony he had ever known. Most of the warriors dropped off in slumber. Included with these were those who had been wounded, and who seemed to have the faculty of overcoming their sufferings to a remarkable degree.

Three remained awake to attend the fire and guard the camp. Little Mabel Ashbridge slept on in blissful ignorance of the awful fate impending over her childish head. Only the good man himself suffered a torture beyond the power of words to describe.

He glanced upward through the leaves continually. At the very moment the sun reached the point indicated by Wa-on-mon, the undergrowth parted and the chieftain himself strode forward. And as he did so the missionary saw on his countenance an expression that he had never noted before.


CHAPTER XXIX.

SQUARING ACCOUNTS.

When Simon Kenton was left alone by the missionary, who had been the means of bringing about this hostile meeting, he knew that a full hour must pass before his mortal enemy, The Panther, would reach the spot. The ranger was in need of sleep, and he did a thing which, while the most sensible act he could perform under the circumstances, was certainly extraordinary; he sat down on the ground, with his back against a tree, closed his eyes in slumber, and did not open them again until the hour had passed. He possessed that ability, which almost any one can acquire, of awaking at any time previously fixed upon.

Day was breaking, its light steadily spreading and diffusing itself through the surrounding forest and filling the summer sky with an increasing glow. Kenton deliberately arose, drank from the neighboring river, bathing his hands and face in it, and then sauntered to the spot where he expected to meet the dusky miscreant who was equally eager to cross weapons with him. Leaning his rifle against a tree, the ranger took a position and attitude in which nothing could approach or pass without being noted by him.

"The parson is the best man in the world," he mused; "there ain't another white man that dare go visitin' 'mong the varmints like him, for they trust him just as his own kith and kin do.

"When I seed him walk out of the wood, right by them other varmints and straight up to The Panther, I was sartin it was all over with him, and he was in for his last sickness sure. The Panther had just had things slip up on him in a way that must have made him mad enough to bite off his own head, but the parson fixed it, and The Panther and me are bound to meet this time.

"There must be something in that thing which he preaches," continued the ranger, musingly, "which ain't like other things. What he says hits one so powerful hard that it makes me feel quar. It makes him love the varmints, the black people and the white all alike; it makes him leave his home and spend days or weeks in the wood, just as Boone done afore he brought his family to Kentucky.

"What did the missionary mean by tellin' me a brave man is merciful? I wonder whether he had any talk with The Panther? It would be just like him to do so, but it was time throwed away. Howsumever, his words to me stick in my ears, and keep going back and forth as nothin' that was ever said to me afore has done.

"The Panther is full of grit; when he comes I'll make him b'leve I think he was scared and run off. That'll make him so mad, he'll fight harder than ever, which is what I want.

"But he'll fight like a wounded catamount, He is sure he'll wipe me out and send me under this time, and that he can go on shootin' settlers in the back, tomahawking women and children without stoppin' to bother with me. Somehow or other I don't feel as sartin in this matter as afore, but I wouldn't let this chance of closing accounts with The Panther pass by for the whole of Kentucky--sh! there he comes!"

A rustle, such as a quail might have made in walking over the leaves, caused the ranger to turn his head like a flash. The undergrowth parted, and Wa-on-mon, chief of the Shawanoes, stepped into full view hardly ten feet distant, with his glittering eyes fixed upon the face of the ranger.

The coarse black hair dangled about the shoulders, with a couple of strands hanging loosely over the chest. Three stained eagle feathers projected backward from the crown, where the hair was stained with several hues of paint. The hard, sinister features displayed the same fantastic daubs that marked them when The Panther was a prisoner on the flatboat, the white cross showing on the forehead, with streakings of red and black on the cheeks and chin. The coppery chest was bare to the waist, where reposed the single weapon of the chieftain--his formidable hunting knife, which had committed many a dark deed when wielded in the vicious grip of the dusky miscreant.

Below the breech-clout the iron limbs were encased in leggings and the small feet were covered with moccasins, now faded and worn by hard usage. The Panther paused, with his left foot in advance, his right hand grasping the hilt of his knife at his waist, and his shoulders and head thrust forward, the attitude of the body being that of an athlete with his muscles concentrated for a leap across a chasm that yawns in front of him.

The pose of Kenton was dissimilar, and yet showed some points of resemblance. In accordance with the custom of his people, he carried his knife, in a small scabbard, by a string over his left breast. He grasped the handle, ready to whip it out on the first need. He did not mean that his antagonist should "get the drop" on him.

Kenton stood with his feet well together, but separated enough to give his attitude grace and strength. His coonskin cap, fringed hunting shirt, leggings and shoes were such as were commonly worn by people of his calling. He was taller, more sinewy and equally active with the Shawanoe, upon whom his blue eyes were fixed with burning intensity and a glow that was the "light of battle" itself.

The Panther had brought no weapon except his knife with him. The rifle of the ranger rested against a tree several paces away, and as near the Indian as the white man. It was a strange position for two mortal enemies, thoroughly distrusting each other, but in neither case did it imply a lessening of that distrust; it simply attested the faith of the two in a third person--Missionary Finley. He had arranged this meeting, and both believed in him.

A scornful smile lit up the thin, smooth, handsome face of Kenton, who, with his fingers still clasping the haft of the weapon at his breast, said in the Shawanoe tongue:

"The Panther meets his enemy at last, but does he bring no warriors with him to hide among the trees and rush forward when he begs for mercy from the white man?"

This question was meant for the cutting taunt it proved to be, for it was a strange fashion on the frontier, when two enemies came face to face in deadly encounter, for each to try to goad the other to the point of what may be termed nervousness before the critical assault took place.

"The Panther needs no one to help him bring the dog of a white man to his knees," replied Wa-on-mon, holding his passion well in hand.

"Then why, Shawanoe, did you run away when a short time since you promised to meet me by the splintered tree near the clearing?"

"The dog of a white man speaks as a fool! He knows that Wa-on-mon hastened to find his brave warriors, that the pale-faces should not be allowed to make their way to the fort. He found them, and they shall never get there."

"The Shawanoes have tried to stop them, but could not; they tried last night, and more than one of the dogs were brought low. The gun that leans against the tree there did its part, as it shall continue to do. The Shawanoes fled as children, and I leaped ashore and chased them, but they ran too fast for me to catch them."

This was drawing it with a long bow, but as we have intimated, it was in accordance with the fashion of the times. The chieftain restrained his temper better than would have been expected, for the reason that he understood the motive of his enemy; it was the contest preliminary to the decisive one.

"Why did not the white dogs all come ashore and chase the Shawanoes?" he asked, with little appearance of passion in voice or manner.

"One of them did--a little child--you, dog of a Shawanoe, made captive the child and strode back among your warriors, proud and boastful because it was the first prisoner you ever took. Oh, brave Shawanoe! Oh, mighty chieftain!"

While uttering these taunts, Kenton did not permit the slightest "sign" to escape him. He saw he was fast goading his foe to the resistless point, the object he had in view. There was an almost insensible tightening of the muscles of the fingers closing around the handle of the knife, the faintest possible quiver passed through the thighs, or showed in a single twitch of the toes of the left foot, which inched forward. The Panther gave a quick inhalation, and while the words recorded were in the mouth of Kenton, he hissed:

"Die, dog of a pale-face!"

At the same time he bounded forward, as does the animal whose name he bore when leaping upon his prostrate foe. The intervening space was cleared at the single leap, and the knife, whipped from the girdle at the instant of starting, made a fierce sweep through the air, almost too quick for the eye to follow, and shot like the head of a rattlesnake at the breast of the ranger.

Nevertheless, it clove through vacancy, for Kenton recoiled a single step, the hundredth part of a second before the weapon flashed in front of his face, and struck with equal power and swiftness at the crouching demon while yet in mid-air; but nothing could have surpassed the dexterity of The Panther, who, by a flirt of the head, dodged the blow, and dropping like a cat upon his feet, not only endeavored to strike the white man in the back, but came within a hair of succeeding. It need hardly be said that had he done so, the conflict would have been over on the instant.

But Kenton saved himself, and faced about to receive the assault from the opposite direction.

Instead of following up the slight and yet possibly fatal advantage thus obtained, The Panther became more guarded in his attack. The opening bout made both more cautious; their respect for each other's prowess was increased.

Neither uttered a syllable; the taunts had ended; there was no call to goad each other to fury, for the highest