The Border Watch: A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand. Altsheler Joseph Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ and then he relapsed into silence. Holdsworth remained silent too and gazed into the fire, but Henry saw that his thoughts were elsewhere. A long time passed and no one spoke. The fire had certainly added much to the warmth and comfort of the old house. They were all tired with long marches, and the steady droning sound of the rain, which could not reach them, was wonderfully soothing. The figures against the bark walls relaxed, and, as far as the human eye could see, they dropped asleep one by one, the five on one side and the three on the other.

      The fire, well fed in the beginning, burned for two or three hours, but after awhile it begun to smolder, and sent up a long thin column of smoke. The rain came lighter and then ceased entirely. The clouds parted in the center as if they had been slashed across by a sword blade, and then rolled away to left and right. The heavens became a silky blue, and the stars sprang out in sparkling groups.

      It was past midnight when Holdsworth moved slightly, like one half awakening from a deep sleep. But his elbow touched the man Fowler, and he said a few words to him in a whisper. Then he sank back into his relaxed position, and apparently was asleep again. Fowler himself did not move for at least ten minutes. Then he arose, slipped out of the Council House, and returned with a great armful of wet leaves, which he put gently upon the fire. Quickly and quietly he sank back into his old position by the wall.

      Dense smoke came from the coals and heap of leaves, but it rose in a strong spire and passed out through the broken part of the roof, the great hole there creating a draught. It rose high and in the night, now clear and beautiful, it could be seen afar. Yet all the eight—five on one side and three on the other—seemed to be sound asleep once more.

      The column of smoke thickened and rose higher into the sky, and presently the man Fowler was at work again. Rising and stepping, with wonderful lightness for a thick-set heavy man, he spread his open blanket over the smoke, and then quickly drew it away. He repeated the operation at least twenty times and at least twenty great coiling rings of smoke arose, sailing far up into the blue sky, and then drifting away over the forest, until they were lost in the distance.

      Fowler folded the blanket again, but he did not resume his place against the wall. Holdsworth and Perley rose lightly and joined him. Then the three gazed intently at the five figures on the other side of the smoke. Not one of them stirred. So far as the three could see, the five were buried in the most profound slumber.

      Holdsworth made a signal and the three, their rifles in the hollows of their arms, glided from the Council House and into the forest.

      As soon as they were lost in the darkness, Henry Ware sprang to his feet, alive in every nerve and fiber, and tingling with eagerness.

      "Up; up, boys!" he cried. "Those three men are Tories or English, and they are coming back with the savages. The rings of smoke made the signal to their friends. But we'll beat them at their own trick."

      All were on their feet in an instant—in fact, only Jim Hart and Paul had fallen asleep—and they ran silently into the forest in a direction opposite to that which the three had chosen. But they did not go far. At Henry's whispered signal, they sank down among some dense bushes where they could lie hidden, and yet see all that passed at the Council House. The water from the bushes that they had moved dropped upon them, but they did not notice it. Nor did they care either that the spire of smoke still rose through the roof of the old Council House. Five pairs of uncommonly keen eyes were watching the forest to see their enemies come forth.

      "I saw the fellow make the big smoke," said Shif'less Sol, "but I knowed that you saw, too. So I jest waited till you give the word, Henry."

      "I wanted them to go through to the end with it," replied Henry. "If we had stopped the man when he was bringing in the leaves he might have made some sort of excuse, and we should have had no proof at all against them."

      "Them's false names they gave o' course."

      "Of course. It is likely that the man who called himself Holdsworth is somebody of importance. His manner indicated it. How ugly that harelipped fellow was!"

      "How long do you think it will be before they come back?" asked Shif'less Sol.

      "Not long. The Indian force could not have been more than a mile or so away, or they would not have relied on smoke signals in the night. It will be only a short wait, Sol, until we see something interesting. Now I wish I knew that harelipped man!"

      Henry and his comrades could have slipped away easily in the darkness, but they had no mind to do so. Theirs was a journey of discovery, and, since here was an opportunity to do what they wished, they would not avoid it, no matter how great the risk. So they waited patiently. The forest still dripped water, but they had seldom seen the skies a brighter blue at night. The spire of smoke showed against it sharp and clear, as if it had been day. In the brilliant moonlight the ruined village assumed another ghostly phase. All the rugged outlines of half-fallen tepees were silvered and softened. Henry, with that extraordinary sensitiveness of his to nature and the wilderness, felt again the mysticism and unreality of this place, once inhabited by man and now given back to the forest. In another season or two the last remnant of bark would disappear, the footpaths would be grown up with bushes, and the wild animals would roam there unafraid.

      All these thoughts passed like a succession of mental flashes through the mind of the forest dreamer—and a dreamer he was, a poet of the woods—as he waited there for what might be, and what probably would be, a tragedy. But as these visions flitted past there was no relaxation of his vigilance. It was he who first heard the slight swishing sound of the bushes on the far side of the Council House; it was he who first heard the light tread of an approaching moccasin, and it was he who first saw the ugly harelipped face of a white man appear at the forest edge. Then all saw, and slow, cold anger rose in five breasts at the treacherous trick.

      Behind the harelipped man appeared Perley and Fowler, and six savage warriors, armed fully, and coated thickly with war paint. Now Henry knew that the sinister effect of Holdsworth's face was not due wholly to his harelip, and the ugliness of all his features. He was glad in a way because he had not done the man injustice.

      The three white men and the six Indians waited a long time at the edge of the woods. They were using both eye and ear to tell if the five in the old Council House slept soundly. The fire now gave forth nothing but smoke, and they could not see clearly into the depths. They must come nearer if they would make sure of their victims. They advanced slowly across the open, their weapons ready. All the idealist was gone from Henry now. They had taken these three men into what was then their house; they had been warmed and dried by their fire, and now they came back to kill. He watched them slip across the open space, and he saw in the moonlight that their faces were murderous, the white as bad as the red.

      The band reached the end of the Council House and looked in, uttering low cries of disappointment when they saw nothing there. None of the five ever knew whether they had waited there for the purpose of giving battle to the raiding band, but at this moment Paul moved a little in order to get a better view, and a bush rustled under his incautious moccasin. One of the savages heard it, gave a warning cry, and in an instant the whole party threw themselves flat upon the earth, with the wall of the Council House between themselves and that point in the forest from which the sound had come. Silence and invisibility followed, yet the forest battle was on.

      CHAPTER VII

      THE TAKING OF HENRY

      "I'm sorry my foot slipped," whispered Paul.

      "Don't you worry, Paul," Henry whispered back. "We're as anxious to meet them as they are to meet us. If they are willing to stay and have the argument out, we're willing to give them something to think about."

      "An' I'd like to get a shot at that harelipped villain," interjected Shif'less Sol. СКАЧАТЬ