The Keepers of the Trail: A Story of the Great Woods

A long arm was suddenly thrust from the grass and a hand closing on the powder horn took it away. Henry felt that it was well filled and heavy and he glowed with triumph. The first link in his chain had been forged. He crept back into the bushes, and stopped there twice, lying very still. He saw the Indian sentinels moving about a little, but evidently they suspected nothing. They were merely changing positions and quickly relapsed into silence and stillness.

It was fully half an hour before Henry was back at his place opposite the swinging little canoe. Then he shook the powder horn triumphantly, put it down at the foot of a tree and covered it up with some leaves. As he did so he noticed that many of last year's leaves were quite dry and he remembered it.

Then he went back to forge the second link, which was not so difficult. The fire around which the white men and the chiefs had eaten their supper was a little distance back of the present camp, where he was quite sure that it was still smoldering, although deserted. He found a stick the end of which was yet a live coal, and circling a little wider on his return he came back to the powder horn.

Henry held the live point of the stick close to the ground where it could not cast a glow that the sentinels might see, and then waited a minute or so before taking any further action. Two links of the chain had been forged and he felt now that he would carry it to its full length and success. He had never been more skillful, never more in command of all his faculties, and they had never worked in more perfect coördination. There had never been a more perfect type of the human physical machine. Nature, in one of her happy moods, had lavished upon him all her gifts and now he was using them to the utmost, turning his ten talents into twenty.

The third link would be one of great difficulty, much harder than the bringing of the fire, and that was the reason why he was considering so well. He could discern the figures of three of the sentinels on land. Two of them were brawny warriors naked to the waist, and painted heavily. The third was quite young, younger than himself, a mere boy, perhaps on his first war path. Henry understood the feelings of hope and ambition that probably animated the Indian boy and he trusted that they would not come into conflict.

The sentinels were walking about, and when the one nearest him turned and moved away he gathered up quickly fallen brushwood which lay kiln-dry at the river's brink. Then he hid his rifle, other weapons and ammunition in the grass. For a brief space he must go unarmed, because he could not be cumbered in an effort to keep them dry.

Carrying the powder horn, the dry sticks and the one lighted at the end, he dropped silently into the water and managed with one arm to swim the few feet that separated him from the canoe. Then he passed around it, putting it between him and the land, and carefully lifted everything inside. He knew that the dry wood would burn fast when he placed the torch against it, and he put the horn full of powder very near.

Then he sank low in the water behind the canoe, and listened until he heard the faint sputter of the fire in the dry wood. Now new difficulties arose. He must time everything exactly, and for the sake of his enterprise and his own life he must keep the Indian alarm from coming too soon.

The sputtering was not yet loud enough for the warriors on the bank to hear it, and he ventured to rise high enough for another look over the edge of the canoe. In two minutes, he calculated, the fire would reach the powder horn. Then he drew from his belt his hunting knife, the only weapon that he had not discarded, and cut the withe that held the canoe.

Burying himself in the water to the nose he sent his fire ship down the stream toward the two scows intending for it to enter just between them. Now he needed all his skill and complete command over his will. The sputtering of the fire increased, and he knew that it was rapidly approaching the horn of powder. The flesh had an almost irresistible desire to draw away at once and swim for life, but an immense resolution held his body to its yet uncompleted task.

The canoe was moving with such a slight ripple that not an Indian sentinel had yet heard, but when it was within ten yards of its destination one happened to look over the river and see it moving. There would have been nothing curious in a canoe breaking its slender thong and floating with the current, but this one was floating against it. The Indian uttered a surprised exclamation and instantly called the attention of his comrades.

Henry knew that the supreme moment was at hand. The Indian warning had come, and the sputtering told him that the fire was almost at the powder horn. Giving his fire ship a mighty shove he sent it directly between the scows and then he made a great dive down and away. He swam under water as long as he could, and just as he was coming to the surface he heard and saw the explosion.

The two scows and the canoe seemed to leap into the air in the center of a volcano of light, and then all three came down in a rain of hissing and steaming fragments. The crash was stunning, and the light for a moment or two was intense. Then it sank almost as suddenly and again came the darkness, in which Henry heard the steaming of burning wood, the turmoil of riven waters and the shouts of warriors filled with surprise and alarm.

It was easy in all the confusion for him to reach the bank, recover his arms and speed into the forest. He had forged with complete success every link in his chain of destruction. The scows intended for the transportation of the cannon were blown to splinters, and while they might lash enough canoes together to sustain their weight, they must move slowly and at much risk.

Although he was dripping with water, Henry was supremely happy. When he undertook this feat he had believed that he would succeed, but looking back at it now it seemed almost incredible. But here he was, and the deed was done. He laughed to himself in silent pleasure. Wyatt, Blackstaffe and the others would undoubtedly trace it to him and his comrades, and he hoped they would. He was willing for them to know that the five were not only on watch but could act with terrific effect.

A half-mile away from the river and he heard a long fierce yell, uttered by many voices in unison. He knew they had picked up at the edge of the stream the tale that he had not sought to hide, and were hoping now for revenge upon the one who had cost them so much. But he laughed once more back of his teeth. In the darkness they might as well try to follow a bird of the air. He curved away, reached one of the numerous brooks intersecting the stream, and ran for a long time in its bed. Then he emerged, passed into a dense canebrake and stopped, where he took off his wet clothing and spread it out in the dark to dry. The blanket which he had left on the bank with his arms was warm and dry and he wrapped it around his body. Then he lay down with his weapons by his side.

The satisfied blood ran swiftly and proudly in the veins of the great forest runner. He had done other deeds as bold, but perhaps none as delicate as this. It had demanded a complete combination of courage and dexterity and perfect timing. A second more or less might have ruined everything. He could imagine the chagrin of the choleric colonel. Unless Wyatt and Blackstaffe restrained him he might break forth into complaints and abuse and charge the Indians with negligence, a charge that the haughty chiefs would repudiate at once and with anger. Then a break might follow.

Whether the break came or not he had insured a delay, and since the cannon could not yet be put upon the river he might find a way to get at them. He rolled on one side, made himself comfortable on the dead leaves and then heard the wind blowing a song of triumph through the cane. He fell asleep to the musical note, but awoke at dawn.

His clothing was dry, and, unwrapping himself from the tight folds of the blanket, he dressed. Then, stretching his muscles a little, to remove all stiffness or soreness he emerged from the canebrake. After examining a circle of the forest with both eye and ear to see that no warrior was near, he climbed a tree and looked over a sea of forest.

To the north where the great camp lay he saw spires of smoke rising, and to the east, where a detachment guarded the boats in the river, another column of smoke floated off into the blue dawn. So he inferred that they were yet uncertain about their campaign and that their forces would remain stationary for a little while. But he was sure that warriors were ranging the forest in search of him. Red Eagle and Yellow Panther would not let such an insult and loss pass without many attempts at revenge.

He descended and ate the last of his venison. He would have returned at once to his comrades, but he believed that many warriors were in between and he did not wish to draw danger either upon them or himself. He began another of his great curves and it took him away from the refuge in the cliff, coming back in two or three hours to the stream that bore the little Indian fleet. His triumph of the night before increased his boldness, and he resolved to return the following night and annoy further the detachment by the river. It would serve his cause, and it would be a pleasure to vex the dogmatic European colonel.

Weather was a great factor in the operation he was carrying on, and the coming night, fortunately for his purpose, promised to be dark. Spring is fickle in the valley of the Ohio, and toward evening clouds gathered, although there was not a sufficient closeness of the air to indicate rain. But the moon was feeble and by and by went away altogether. Then the stars followed, leaving only a black sky which hid Henry well, but which did not hide the smaller camp by the river from him.

Watchers had been spread out in a wider circle, but he had no difficulty in approaching the fire, built on the bank of the river, around which sat the two chiefs, the renegades and the British officers. Henry saw that the faces of all of them expressed deep discontent, and he enjoyed the joke, because joke it was to him. He understood the depths of their chagrin.

"We'll have to carry the cannon on the canoes, and maybe they'll fall into the river," said Alloway querulously. "How in thunder the blowing up of those scows was managed I don't understand!"

"Several of the warriors saw a canoe floating down, sir, just before the explosion," said Cartwright, "and it must have been no illusion, as a canoe is gone."

Cartwright had missed his horn of powder after the excitement from the explosion was over, but he supposed some Indian had used the opportunity to steal it, and he said nothing about his loss from fear of creating a breach.

"In my opinion, sir," said Braxton Wyatt, smoothly but with just a trace of irony, "it was done by Ware and his comrades."

"Impossible! Impossible!" said Alloway, testily. "The careless Indians left powder in the scows and in some manner equally careless it's been exploded. The tale of the canoe that floated upstream of its own accord was an invention to cover up their neglect."

"Do you wish us to translate for you and to state that opinion to the chiefs?" asked Blackstaffe.

Alloway gave him an angry glance, but he had prudence enough to say:

"No, of course not. After all, there may have been a canoe. But whatever it was it was most unfortunate. It delays us greatly, and it preys upon the superstitions of the warriors."

"They are very susceptible, sir, to such things," said Wyatt. "They dread the unknown, and this event has affected them unpleasantly. But I'm quite sure it was done by Ware, although I don't know how."

"Ware! Ware!" exclaimed Alloway, impatiently. "Why should a force like ours dread a single person?"

"Because, sir, he does things that are to be dreaded."

Yellow Panther, who had been sitting in silence, his arms folded across his great bare chest, arose and raised his hand. Braxton Wyatt turned toward him respectfully and then said to Colonel Alloway:

"The head chief of the Miamis wishes to speak, sir, and if you will pardon me for saying so, it will be wise for us to listen."

"Very well," said Alloway. "Tell us what he says."

Thus spoke Yellow Panther, head chief of the Miamis, veteran of many wars, through the medium of Braxton Wyatt:

"We and our brethren, the Shawnees, have come with many warriors upon a long war path. Our friends, the white men whom the mighty King George has sent across the seas to help us, have brought with them the great cannon which will batter down the forts of the Long Knives in Kaintuckee. But the signs are bad. The boats which were to carry the cannon on the river have been blown up. An enemy stands across our path and before we go farther we must hunt him down. If we cannot do it then Manitou has turned his face away from us."