"I think that most of us are," she replied. "We'll soon be a big town."

She glanced at the spreading settlement, and this launched Mr. Pennypacker upon a favorite theme of his. He liked to predict how the colony would grow, sowing new seed, and already he saw great cities to be. He found a ready listener in Lucy. This too appealed to her imagination at times, and if at other times interest was lacking, she was too fond of the old man to let him know it. Presently when she had finished she filled the pail and stood up, straight and strong.

"I will carry it for you," said the schoolmaster.

She laughed.

"Why should I let you?" she asked. "I am more able than you."

Most men would have taken it ill to have heard such words from a girl, but she was one among many, above the usual height for her years; she created at once the impression of great strength, both physical and mental; the heavy pail of water hung in her hand, as if it were a trifle that she did not notice. The master smiled and looked at her with eyes of fatherly admiration.

"I must admit that you tell the truth," he said. "This West of ours seems to suit you."

"It is my country now," she said, "and I do not care for any other."

"Since you will not let me carry the water you will at least let me walk with you?" he said.

She did not reply, and he was startled by the sudden change that came over her.

First a look of wonder showed on her face, then she turned white, every particle of color leaving her cheeks. The master could not tell what her expression meant, and he followed her eyes which were turned toward the wilderness.

From the forest came a figure very strange to Silas Pennypacker, a figure of barbaric splendor. It was a youth of great height and powerful frame, his face so brown that it might belong to either the white or the red race, but with fine clean features like those of a Greek god. He was clad in deerskins, ornamented with little colored beads and fringes of brilliant dyes. He carried a slender-barreled rifle over his shoulder, and he came forward with swift, soundless steps.

The master recoiled in alarm at the strange and ominous figure, but as the red flooded back into the girl's cheeks she put her hand upon his arm.

"It is he! I knew that he was not dead!" she said in an intense tremulous whisper. The words were indefinite, but the master knew whom she meant, and there was a surge of joy in his heart, to be followed the next moment by doubt and astonishment. It was Henry Ware who had come back, but not the same Henry Ware.

Henry was beside them in a moment and he seized their hands, first the hands of one and then of the other, calling them by name.

The master recovering from his momentary diffidence threw his arms around his former pupil, welcomed him with many words, and wanted to know where he had been so long.

"I shall tell you, but not now," replied Henry, "because there is no time to spare; you are threatened by a great danger. The Shawnees are coming with a thousand warriors and I have hastened ahead to warn you."

He hurried them inside the palisade, his manner tense, masterful and convincing, and there he met his mother, whose joy, deep and grateful, was expressed in few words after the stern Puritan code. The father and the brother and sister came next, but the younger people like Lucy felt a little fear of him, and his old comrade Paul Cotter scarcely knew him.

He told in a few words of his escape from a far Northwestern tribe, of the coming of the Shawnees, and of the need to take every precaution for defense.

"There is no time to spare," he said. "All must be called in at once."

A man with powerful lungs blew long on a cow's horn, those who were at work in the fields and the forest hastened in, the gates were barred, the best marksmen were sent to watch in the upper story of the blockhouses and at the palisade, and the women began to mold bullets.

Henry Ware was the pervading spirit through all the preparations. He knew everything and thought of everything, he told them the mode of Indian attack and how they could best meet it, he compelled them to strengthen the weak spots in the palisade, and he encouraged all those who were faint of heart and apprehensive.

Lucy's slight fear of him remained, but with it now came admiration. She saw that his was a soul fit to lead and command, the work that he was about to do he loved, his eyes were alight with the fire of battle; a certain joy was shining there, and all, feeling the strength of his spirit, obeyed him without asking why.

Only Braxton Wyatt uttered doubts with words and sneered with looks. He too had become a hunter of skill, and hence what he said might have some merit.

"It seems strange that Henry Ware should come so suddenly when he might have come before," he remarked with apparent carelessness to Lucy Upton.

She looked at him with sharp interest. The same thought had entered her mind, but she did not like to hear Braxton Wyatt utter it.

"At all events he is about to save us from a great danger," she said.

Wyatt laughed and his thin long features contracted in an ugly manner.

"It is a tale to impress us and perhaps to cover up something else," he replied. "There is not an Indian within two hundred miles of us. I know, I have been through the woods and there is no sign."

She turned away, liking his words little and his manner less. She stopped presently by a corner of one of the houses on a slight elevation whence she could see a long distance beyond the palisade. So far as seeming went Braxton Wyatt was certainly right. The spring day was full of golden sunshine, the fresh new green of the forest was unsullied, and it was hard to conjure up even the shadow of danger.

Wyatt might have ground for his suspicion, but why should Henry Ware sound a false alarm? The words "perhaps to cover up something else" returned to her mind, but she dismissed them angrily.

She went to the Ware house and rejoiced with Mrs. Ware, to whom a son had come back from the dead, and in whose joy there was no flaw. According to her mother's heart a wonder had been performed, and it had been done for her special benefit.

The village was in full posture of defense, all were inside the walls and every man had gone to his post. They now awaited the attack, and yet there was some distrust of Henry Ware. Braxton Wyatt, a clever youth, had insidiously sowed the seeds of suspicion, and already there was a crop of unbelief. By indirection he had called attention to the strange appearance of the returned wanderer, the Indianlike air that he had acquired, his new ways unlike their own, and his indifference to many things that he had formerly liked. He noticed the change in Henry Ware's nature and he brought it also to the notice of others.

It seemed as the brilliant day passed peacefully that Wyatt was right and Henry, for some hidden purpose of his own, perhaps to hide the secret of his long absence, had brought to them this sounding alarm. There was the sun beyond the zenith in the heavens, the shadows of afternoon were falling, and the yellow light over the forest softened into gray, but no sign of an enemy appeared.

If Henry Ware saw the discontent he did not show his knowledge; the light of the expected conflict was still in his eyes and his thoughts were chiefly of the great event to come; yet in an interval of waiting he went back to the house and told his mother of much that had befallen him during his long absence; he sought to persuade himself now that he could not have escaped earlier, and perhaps without intending it he created in her mind the impression that he sought to engrave upon his own; so she was fully satisfied, thankful for the great mercy of his return that had been given to her.

"Now mother!" he said at last, "I am going outside."

"Outside!" she cried aghast, "but you are safe here! Why not stay?"

He smiled and shook his head.

"I shall be safe out there, too," he said, "and it is best for us all that I go. Oh, I know the wilderness, mother, as you know the rooms of this house!"

He kissed her quickly and turned away. John Ware, who stood by, said nothing. He felt a certain fear of his son and did not yet know how to command him.

As Henry passed from the house into the little square Lucy Upton overtook him.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I think I can be of more help out there than in here," he replied pointing toward the forest.

"It would be better for you to stay," she said.

"I shall be in no danger."

"It is not that; do you know what some of them here are saying of you—that you are estranged from us, that there is some purpose in this, that no attack is coming! Your going now will confirm them in the belief."

His dark eyes flashed with a fierceness that startled her, and his whole frame seemed to draw up as if he were about to spring. But the emotion passed in a moment, and his face was a brown mask, saying nothing. He seemed indifferent to the public opinion of his little world.

"I am needed out there," he said, pointing again toward the dark line of the forest, "and I shall go. Whether I tell the truth or not will soon be known; they will have to wait only a little. But you believe me now, don't you?"

She looked deep into his calm eyes, and she read there only truth. But she knew even before she looked that Henry Ware was not one who would ever be guilty of falsehood or treachery.

"Oh yes I know it," she replied, "but I wish others to know it as well."

"They will," he said, and then taking her hand in his for one brief moment he was gone. His disappearance was so sudden and soundless that he seemed to her to melt away from her sight like a mist before the wind. She did not even know how he had passed through the palisade, but he was certainly outside and away. There was something weird about it and she felt a little fear, as if an event almost supernatural had occurred.

The sudden departure of Henry Ware to the forest started the slanderous tongues to wagging again, and they said it was a trap of some kind, though no one could tell how. A sly report was started that he had become that worst of all creatures in his time, a renegade, a white man who allied himself with the red to make war upon his own people. It came to the ears of Paul Cotter, and the heart of the loyal youth grew hot within him. Paul was not fond of war and strife, but he had an abounding courage, and he and Henry Ware had been through danger together.

"He is changed, I will admit," he said, "but if he says we are going to be attacked, we shall be. I wish that all of us were as true as he."

He touched his gun lock in a threatening manner, and Braxton Wyatt and the others who stood by said no more in his presence. Yet the course of the day was against Henry's assertion. The afternoon waned, the sun, a ball of copper, swung down into the west, long shadows fell and nothing happened.

The people moved and talked impatiently inside their wooden walls. They spoke of going about their regular pursuits, there was work that could be done on the outside in the twilight, and enough time had been lost already through a false alarm. But some of the older men, with cautious blood, advised them to wait and their counsel was taken. Night came, thick and black, and to the more timid full of omens and presages.

The forest sank away in the darkness, nothing was visible fifty yards from the palisade and in the log houses few lights burned. The little colony, but a pin point of light, was alone in the vast and circling wilderness. One of the greatest tests of courage to which the human race has ever been subjected was at hand. In all directions the forest curved away, hundreds of miles. It would be a journey of days to find any other of their own kind, they were hemmed in everywhere by silence and loneliness, whatever happened they must depend upon themselves, because there was none to bring help. They might perish, one and all, and the rest of the world not hear of it until long afterwards.

A moaning wind came up and sighed over the log houses, the younger children—and few were too young not to guess what was expected—fell asleep at last, but the older, those who had reached their thinking years could not find such solace. In this black darkness their fears became real; there was no false alarm, the forest around them hid their enemy, but only for the time.

There was little noise in the station. By the low fires in the houses the women steadily molded bullets, and seldom spoke to each other, as they poured the melted lead into the molds. By the walls the men too, rifle in hand, were silent, as they sought with intent eyes to mark what was passing in the forest.

Lucy Upton was molding bullets in her father's house and they were melting the lead at a bed of coals in the wide fireplace. None was steadier of hand or more expert than she. Her face was flushed as she bent over the fire and her sleeves were rolled back, showing her strong white arms. Her lips were compressed, but as the bullets shining like silver dropped from the mold they would part now and then in a slight smile. She too had in her the spirit of warlike ancestors and it was aroused now. Girl, though she was, she felt in her own veins a little of the thrill of coming conflict.

But her thoughts were not wholly of attack and defense; they followed as well him who had come back so suddenly and who was now gone again into the wilderness from which he had emerged. His appearance and manner had impressed her deeply. She wished to hear more from him of the strange wild life that he had led; she too felt, although in a more modified form, the spell of the primeval.

Her task finished she went to the door, and then drawn by curiosity she continued until her walk brought her near the palisade where she watched the men on guard, their dusky figures touched by the wan light that came from the slender crescent of a moon, and seeming altogether weird and unreal. Paul Cotter in one of his errands found her there.

"You had better go back," he said. "We may be attacked at any time, and a bullet or arrow could reach you here."

"So you believe with me that an attack will be made as he said!"

"Of course I do," replied Paul with emphasis. "Don't I know Henry Ware? Weren't he and I lost together? Wasn't he the truest of comrades?"

Several men, talking in low tones, approached them. Braxton Wyatt was with them and Lucy saw at once that it was a group of malcontents.

"It is nothing," said Seth Lowndes, a loud, arrogant man, the boaster of the colony. "There are no Indians in these parts and I'm going out there to prove it."

He stood in the center of a ray of moonlight, as he spoke, and it lighted up his red sneering face. Lucy and Paul could see him plainly and each felt a little shiver of aversion. But neither said anything and, in truth, standing in the dark by themselves they were not noticed by the others.

"I'm going outside," repeated Lowndes in a yet more noisy tone, "and if I run across anything more than a deer I'll be mighty badly fooled!"

One or two uttered words of protest, but it seemed to Lucy that Braxton Wyatt incited him to go on, joining him in words of contempt for the alleged danger.

Lowndes reached the palisade and climbed upon it by means of the cross pieces binding it together, and then he stood upon the topmost bar, where his head and all his body, above the knees, rose clear of the bulwark. He was outlined there sharply, a stout, puffy man, his face redder than ever from the effect of climbing, and his eyes gleaming triumphantly as, from his high perch, he looked toward the forest.

"I tell you there is not—" But the words were cut short, the gleam died from his eyes, the red fled from his face, and he whitened suddenly with terror. From the forest came a sharp report, echoing in the still night, and the puffy man, throwing up his arms, fell from the palisade back into the inclosure, dead before he touched the ground.

A fierce yell, the long ominous note of the war whoop burst from the forest, and its sound, so full of menace and fury, was more terrible than that of the rifle. Then came other shots, a rapid pattering volley, and bullets struck with a low sighing sound against the upper walls of the blockhouse. The long quavering cry, the Indian yell rose and died again and in the black forest, still for aught else, it was weird and unearthly.

Lucy stood like stone when the lifeless body of the boaster fell almost at her feet, and all the color was gone from her face. The terrible cry of the savages without was ringing in her ears, and it seemed to her, for a few moments, that she could not move. But Paul grasped her by the arm and drew her back.

"Go into your house!" he cried. "A bullet might reach you here!"

Obedient to his duty he hastened to the palisade to bear a valiant hand in the defense, and she, retreating a little, remained in the shadow of the houses that she might see how events would go. After the first shock of horror and surprise she was not greatly afraid, and she was conscious too of a certain feeling of relief. Henry Ware had told the truth, he knew of what he spoke when he brought his warning, and he had greatly served his own.



CHAPTER XV

THE SIEGE

It was not Lucy Upton alone who felt relief when the attack upon the stockade came, hideous and terrifying though it might be; the suspense so destructive of nerves and so hard to endure was at an end, and the men rushed gladly to meet the attack, while the women with almost equal joy reloaded empty rifles with the precious powder made from the cave dust and passed them to the brave defenders. The children, too small to take a part, cowered in the houses and listened to the sounds of battle, the lashing of the rifle fire, the fierce cry of the savages in the forest, and the answering defiance of the white men. Amid such scenes a great state was founded and who can wonder that its defenders learned to prize bravery first of all things?

The attack was in accordance with the savage nature, a dash, irregular volleys, shots from ambush, an endeavor to pick off the settlers, whenever a head was shown, but no direct attempt to storm the palisade, for which the Indian is unfitted. A bullet would not reach from the forest, but from little hillocks and slight ridges in the open where a brown breast was pressed close to the earth came the flash of rifles, some hidden by the dusk, but the flame showing in little points of fire that quickly went out. The light of the moon failed somewhat, and the savages in ambush were able to come nearer, but now and then a sharpshooter behind the wall, firing at the flash of the concealed rifle, would hear an answering death cry.

Lucy Upton behind the barricade with other girls and women was reloading rifles and passing them to her father and Paul Cotter who stood in a little wooden embrasure like a sally port. For a time the fire of battle burned as fiercely in her veins as in those of any man, but after a while she began to wonder what had become of Henry Ware, and presently from some who passed she heard comments upon him again; they found fault with his absence; he should have been there to take a part in the defense, and while she admitted that their criticisms bore the color of truth, she yet believed him to be away for some good purpose.

For two hours the wild battle in the dark went on, to the chorus of shouts from white man and red, the savages often coming close to the walls, and seeking to find a shelter under them in the dark, but always driven back. Then it ceased so suddenly that the intense silence was more pregnant with terror than all the noise that had gone before. Paul Cotter, looking over the palisade, could see nothing. The forest rose up like a solid dark wall, and in the opening not a blade of grass stirred; the battle, the savage army, all seemed to have gone like smoke melting into the air, and Paul was appalled, feeling that a magic hand had abruptly swept everything out of existence.

"What do you see?" asked Lucy, upon whose ears the silence too was heavy and painful.

"Nothing but darkness, and what it hides I cannot guess."

A report ran through the village that the savage army, beaten, had gone, and the women, and the men with little experience, gave it currency, but the veterans rebuked such premature rejoicing; it was their part, they said, to watch with more vigilance than ever, and in nowise to relax their readiness.

Then the long hours began and those who could, slept. Braxton Wyatt and his friends again impeached the credit of Henry Ware, insinuating with sly smiles that he must be a renegade, as he had taken no part in the defense and must now be with his savage friends. To the slur Paul Cotter fiercely replied that he had warned them of the attack; without him the station would have been taken by surprise, and that surely proved him to be no traitor.

The hours between midnight and day not only grew in length, but seemed to increase in number as well, doubling and tripling, as if they would never end for the watchers in the station. The men behind the wooden walls and some of the women, too, intently searched the forest, seeking to discover movements there, but nothing appeared upon its solid black screen. Nor did any sound come from it, save the occasional gentle moan of the wind; there was no crackling of branches, no noise of footsteps, no rattle of arms, but always the heavy silence which seemed so deadly, and which, by its monotony, was so painful to their ears.

Lucy Upton went into her father's house, ate a little and then spreading over herself a buffalo robe tried to sleep. Slumber was long in coming, for the disturbed nerves refused to settle into peace, and the excited brain brought back to her eyes distorted and overcolored visions of the night's events. But youth and weariness had their way and she slept at last, to find when she awakened that the dawn was coming in at the window, and the east was ablaze with the splendid red and yellow light of the sun.

"Are they still there?" was her first question when she went forth from her father's house, and the reply was uncertain; they might or might not be there; the leaders had not allowed anyone to go out to see, but the number who believed that the savages were gone was growing; and also grew the number who believed that Henry Ware was gone with them.

Even in the brilliant daylight that sharpened and defined everything as with the etcher's point, they could see nothing save what had been before the savages came. Their eyes reached now into the forest, but as far as they ranged it was empty, there was no encampment, not a single warrior passed through the undergrowth. It seemed that the grumblers were right when they said the besieging army was gone.

Lucy Upton was walking toward the palisade where she saw Paul Cotter, when she heard a distant report and Paul's fur cap, pierced by a bullet, flew from his head to the earth. Paul himself stood in amaze, as if he did not know what had happened, and he did not move until Lucy shouted to him to drop to the ground. Then he crawled quickly away from the exposed spot, although two or three more bullets struck about him.

The station thrilled once more with excitement, but the new danger was of a kind that they did not know how to meet. It was evident that the firing came from a high point, one commanding a view inside the walls, and from marksmen located in such a manner the palisade offered no shelter. Bullets were pattering among the houses, and in the open spaces inclosed by the walls, two men were wounded already, and the threat had become formidable.

Ross and Shif'less Sol, the best of the woodsmen, soon decided that the shots came from a large tree at the edge of the forest northeast from the stockade, and they were sure that at least a half-dozen warriors were lying sheltered among its giant boughs, while they sent searching bullets into the inclosure. There had been some discussion about the tree at the time the settlement was built, but expert opinion held that the Indian weapons could not reach from so great a distance, and as the task of cutting so huge a trunk when time was needed, seemed too much they had left it, and now they saw their grievous and perhaps mortal error.

The side of the palisade facing the tree was untenable so long as the warriors held their position, and it was even dangerous to pass from one house to another. The terrors of the night, weighty because unknown, were gone, but the day had brought with it a more certain menace that all could see.

The leaders held a conference on the sheltered side of one of the houses, and their faces and their talk were full of gloom. The schoolmaster, Ross and Sol were there, and so were John Ware and Lucy's father. The schoolmaster, by nature and training a man of peace, was perhaps the most courageous of them all.

"It is evident that those savages have procured in some manner a number of our long-range Kentucky rifles," he said, "but they are no better than ours. Nor is it any farther from us to that tree than it is from that tree to us. Why can't our best marksmen pick them off?"

He looked with inquiry at Ross and Sol, who shook their heads and abated not a whit of their gloomy looks.

"They are too well sheltered there," replied Ross, "while we would not be if we should try to answer them. Our side would get killed while they wouldn't be hurt and we can't spare the men."

"But we must find a way out! We must get rid of them somehow!" exclaimed Mr. Ware.

"That's true," said Upton, and as he spoke they heard a bullet thud against the wall of the house. From the forest came a wild quavering yell of triumph, full of the most merciless menace. Mr. Ware and Mr. Upton shuddered. Each had a young daughter, and it was in the minds of each to slay her in the last resort if there should be no other way.

"If those fellows in the tree keep on driving us from the palisade," said Ross, setting his face in the grim manner of one who forces himself to tell the truth, "there's nothin' to prevent the main band from makin' an attack, and while the other fellows rain bullets on us they'll be inside the palisade."

They stared at each other in silent despair, and Ross going to the corner of the house, but keeping himself protected well, looked at the fatal tree. No one was firing, then, and he could see nothing among its branches. In the fresh green of its young foliage it looked like a huge cone set upon a giant stem, and Ross shook his fist at it in futile anger. Nor was a foe visible elsewhere. The entire savage army lay hidden in the forest and nothing fluttered or moved but the leaves and the grass.

The others, led by the same interest, followed Ross, and keeping to the safety of the walls, stole glances at the tree. As they looked they heard the faint report of a shot and a cry of death, and saw a brown body shoot down from the green cone of the tree to the ground, where it lay still.

"There is a marksman among us who can beat them at their own trick," cried the schoolmaster in exultation. "Who did it? Who fired that shot, Tom?"

Ross did not answer. First a look of wonder came upon his face, and then he began to study the forest, where all but nature was yet lifeless. The faint sound of a second shot came and what followed was a duplicate of the sequel to the first. Another brown body shot downward, and lay lifeless beside its fellow on the grass.

The master cried out once more in exultation, and wished to know why others within the palisade did not imitate the skillful sharpshooter. But Ross shook his head slowly and spoke these slow words:

"A great piece of luck has happened to us, Mr. Pennypacker, an' how it's happened I don't know, at least not yet. Them shots never come from any of our men. We've got a friend outside an' he's pickin' off them ambushed murderers one by one. The savages think we're doin' it, but they'll soon find out the difference."

There was a third shot and the tree ejected a third body.

"What wonderful shootin'!" exclaimed Ross in a tone of amazement. "Them shots come from a long distance, but all three of 'em plugged the mark to the center. Them savages was dead before they touched the ground. I never saw the like."

The others waited expectantly, as if he could give them an explanation, but if he had a thought in his mind he kept it to himself.

"There, they've found it out," he said, when a terrific yell full of anger came from the forest, "but they haven't got him, whoever he is. They'd shout in a different way if they had."

"Why do you say him?" asked Mr. Pennypacker. "Surely a single man has not been doing such daring and deadly work!"

"It's one man, because there are not two in all this wilderness who can shoot like that. I'd hate to be in the place of the savages left in that tree."

The wonder of the new and unknown ally soon spread through Wareville, and reached Lucy Upton as it reached others. A thought came to her and she was about to speak of it, but she stopped, fearing ridicule, and merely listened to the excited talk going on all about her.

An hour later a fourth Indian was shot from the tree, and less than fifteen minutes afterwards a fifth fell a victim to the terrible rifle. Then two, the only survivors, dropped from the boughs and ran for the forest. Ross, Sol and Paul Cotter were watching together and saw the flight.

"One of them brown rascals will never reach the woods," said Ross with the intuition of the borderer.

The foremost savage fell just at the edge of the forest, shot through the heart, and the other, the sole survivor of the tree, escaped behind the sheltering trunks.

The cry of the angry savages swelled into a terrible chorus and bullets beat upon the stockade, but the attack was quickly repulsed, and again quiet and treacherous peace settled down upon this little spot, this pin point in the mighty wilderness, whose struggle must be carried on unaided, and, in truth, unknown to all the rest of the world.

When the savages were driven back they melted again into the forest, and the old silence and peace laid hold of everything, the brilliant sunshine gilding every house, and dyeing into deeper colors the glowing tints of the wilderness. The huge tree, so fatal to those who had sought to use it, stood up, a great green cone, its branches waving softly before the wind.

In the little fortress the wonder and excitement yet prevailed, but mingled with it was a devout gratitude for this help from an unknown quarter which had been so timely and so effective. The spirits of the garrison, from the boldest ranger down to the most timid woman, took a sudden upward heave and they felt that they should surely repel every attack by the savage army.

The remainder of the day passed in silence and with the foe invisible, but the guard at the palisade, now safe from ambushed marksmen, relaxed its vigilance not at all. These men knew that they dealt with an enemy whose uncertainty made him all the more terrible, and they would not leave the issue to shifting chance.

The day waned, the night came, heavy and dark again, and full, as it was bound to be, of threats and omens for the beleaguered people. Lucy Upton with Mary Ware slipped to the little wooden embrasure where Paul Cotter was on watch.

They found Paul in the sheltered nook, watching the forest and the open, through the holes pierced for rifles, and he did not seek to hide his pleasure at seeing them. Two other men were there, but they were middle-aged and married, the fathers of increasing families, and they were not offended when Paul received a major share of attention.

He told them that all was quiet, his own eyes were keen, but they failed to mark anything unusual, and he believed that the savages, profiting by their costly experience, would make no new attempt yet a while. Then he spoke of the mysterious help that had come to them, and the same thought was in his mind and Lucy's, though neither spoke of it. They stood there a while, talking in low tones and looking for excuses to linger, when one of the older men moved a little and held up a warning hand. He had just taken his eyes from a loophole, and he whispered that he thought he had seen something pass in the shadow of the wall.

All in the embrasure became silent at once, and Lucy, brave as she was, could hear her heart beating. There was a slight noise on the outside of the wall, so faint that only keen ears could hear it, and then as they looked up they saw a hideous, painted face raised above the palisade.

One of the older men threw his rifle to his shoulder, but, quick as a flash, Paul struck his hand away from the trigger. He knew who had come, when he looked into the eyes that looked down at him, though he felt fear, too—he could not deny it—as he met their gaze, so fierce, so wild, so full of the primitive man.

"Don't you see?" he said, "it is Henry! Henry Ware!"

Even then Lucy Upton, intimate friend though she had been, scarcely saw, but laughing a low soft laugh of intense satisfaction, Henry dropped lightly among them. Good excuse had these men for not knowing him as his transformation was complete! He stood before them not a white man, but an Indian warrior, a prince of savages. His hair was drawn up in the defiant scalp lock, his face bore the war paint in all its variations and violent contrast of colors, the dark-green hunting shirt and leggings with their beaded decorations were gone, and in their place a red Indian blanket was wrapped around him, drooping in its graceful folds like a Roman toga.

His figure, erect in the moonlight, nearly a head above the others, had a certain savage majesty, and they gazed upon him in silence. He seemed to know what they felt and his eyes gleamed with pride out of his darkly painted face. He laughed again a low laugh, not like that of the white man, but the almost inaudible chuckle of the Indian.

"It had to be," he said, glancing down at his garb though not with shame. "To do what I wished to do, it was necessary to pass as an Indian, at least between times, and, as all the Shawnees do not know each other, this helped."

"It was you who shot the Indians in the tree; I knew it from the first," said the voice of the guide, Ross, over their shoulders. He had come so softly that they did not notice him before.

Henry did not reply, but laughed again the dry chuckle that made Lucy tremble she scarcely knew why, and ran his hand lovingly along the slender barrel of his rifle.

"At least you do not complain of it," he said presently.

"No, we do not," replied Ross, "an' I guess we won't. You saved us, that's sure. I've lived on the border all my life, but I never saw such shootin' before."

Then Henry gave some details of his work and Lucy Upton, watching him closely, saw how he had been engrossed by it. Paul Cotter too noticed, and feeling constraint, at least, demanded that Henry doff his savage disguise, put on white men's clothes and get something to eat.

He consented, though scarce seeing the necessity of it, but kept the Indian blanket close to hand, saying that he would soon need it again. But he was very gentle with his mother telling her that she need have no fear for him, that he knew all the wiles of the savage and more; they could never catch him and the outside was his place, as then he could be of far more service than if he were merely one of the garrison.

The news of Henry Ware's return was throughout the village in five minutes, and with it came the knowledge of his great deed. In the face of such a solid and valuable fact the vague charge that he was a renegade died. Even Braxton Wyatt did not dare to lift his voice to that effect again, but, with sly insinuation, he spoke of savages herding with savages, and of what might happen some day.

When night came Henry resuming his Indian garb and paint slipped out again, and so skillful was he that he seemed to melt away like a mist in the darkness.

The savage army beleaguering the colony now found that it was assailed by a mysterious enemy, one whom all their vigilance and skill could not catch. They lost warrior after warrior and many of them began to think Manitou hostile to them, but the leaders persisted with the siege. They wished to destroy utterly this white vanguard, and they would not return to their villages, far across the Ohio, until it was done.

They no longer made a direct attack upon the walls, but, forming a complete circle around, hung about at a convenient distance, waiting and hoping for thirst and famine to help them. The people believed themselves to have taken good precautions against these twin evils, but now a terrible misfortune befell them. No rain fell and the well inside the palisade ran dry. It was John Ware himself who first saw the coming of the danger and he tried to hide it, but it could not, from its very nature, be kept a secret long. The supply for each person was cut down one half and then one fourth, and that too would soon go, unless the welcome rains came; and the sky was without a cloud. Men who feared no physical danger saw those whom they loved growing pale and weak before their eyes, and they knew not what to do. It seemed that the place must fall without a blow from the enemy.



CHAPTER XVI

A GIRL'S WAY

Lucy left her father's house one of these dry mornings, and stood for a few moments in the grounds, inclosed by the palisade, gazing at the dark forest, outlined so sharply against the blue of the sky. She could see the green of the forest beyond the fort, and she knew that in the open spaces, where the sun reached them, tiny wild flowers of pink and purple, nestled low in the grass, were already in bloom. From the west a wind sweet and soft was blowing, and, as she inhaled it, she wanted to live, and she wanted all those about her to live. She wondered, if there was not some way in which she could help.

The stout, double log cabins, rude, but full of comfort, stood in rows, with well-trodden streets, between, then a fringe of grass around all, and beyond that rose the palisade of stout stakes, driven deep into the ground, and against each other. All was of the West and so was Lucy, a tall, lithe young girl, her face tanned a healthy and becoming brown by the sun, her clothing of home-woven red cloth, adorned at the wrists and around the bottom of the skirt with many tiny beads of red and yellow and blue and green, which, when she moved, flashed in the brilliant light, like the quivering colors of a prism. She had thrust in her hair a tiny plume of the scarlet tanager, and it lay there, like a flash of flame, against the dark brown of her soft curls.

Where she stood she could see the water of the spring near the edge of the forest sparkling in the sunlight, as if it wished to tantalize her, but as she looked a thought came to her, and she acted upon it at once. She went to the little square, where her father, John Ware, Ross and others were in conference.

"Father," she exclaimed, "I will show you how to get the water!"

Mr. Upton and the other men looked at her in so much astonishment that none of them replied, and Lucy used the opportunity.

"I know the way," she continued eagerly. "Open the gate, let the women take the buckets—I will lead—and we can go to the spring and fill them with water. Maybe the Indians won't fire on us!"

"Lucy, child!" exclaimed her father. "I cannot think of such a thing."

Then up spoke Tom Ross, wise in the ways of the wilderness.

"Mr. Upton," he said, "the girl is right. If the women are willing to go out it must be done. It looks like an awful thing, but—if they die we are here to avenge them and die with them, if they don't die we are all saved because we can hold this fort, if we have water; without it every soul here from the oldest man down to the littlest baby will be lost."

Mr. Upton covered his face with his hands.

"I do not like to think of it, Tom," he said.

The other men waited in silence.

Lucy looked appealingly at her father, but he turned his eyes away.

"See what the women say about it, Tom," he said at last.

The women thought well of it. There was not one border heroine, but many; disregarding danger they prepared eagerly for the task, and soon they were in line more than fifty, every one with a bucket or pail in each hand. Henry Ware, looking on, said nothing. The intended act appealed to the nature within him that was growing wilder every day.

A sentinel, peeping over the palisade, reported that all was quiet in the forest, though, as he knew, the warriors were none the less watchful.

"Open the gate," commanded Mr. Ware.

The heavy bars were quickly taken down, and the gate was swung wide. Then a slim, scarlet-clad figure took her place at the head of the line, and they passed out.

Lucy was borne on now by a great impulse, the desire to save the fort and all these people whom she knew and loved. It was she who had suggested the plan and she believed that it should be she who should lead the way, when it came to the doing of it.

She felt a tremor when she was outside the gate, but it came from excitement and not from fear—the exaltation of spirit would not permit her to be afraid. She glanced at the forest, but it was only a blur before her.

The slim, scarlet-clad figure led on. Lucy glanced over her shoulder, and she saw the women following her in a double file, grave and resolute. She did not look back again, but marched on straight toward the spring. She began to feel now what she was doing, that she was marching into the cannon's mouth, as truly as any soldier that ever led a forlorn hope against a battery. She knew that hundreds of keen eyes there in the forest before her were watching her every step, and that behind her fathers and brothers and husbands were waiting, with an anxiety that none of them had ever known before.

She expected every moment to hear the sharp whiplike crack of the rifle, but there was no sound. The fort and all about it seemed to be inclosed in a deathly stillness. She looked again at the forest, trying to see the ambushed figures, but again it was only a blur before her, seeming now and then to float in a kind of mist. Her pulses were beating fast, she could hear the thump, thump in her temples, but the slim scarlet figure never wavered and behind, the double file of women followed, grave and silent.

"They will not fire until we reach the spring," thought Lucy, and now she could hear the bubble of the cool, clear water, as it gushed from the hillside. But still nothing stirred in the forest, no rifle cracked, there was no sound of moving men.

She reached the spring, bent down, filled both buckets at the pool, and passing in a circle around it, turned her face toward the fort, and, after her, came the silent procession, each filling her buckets at the pool, passing around it and turning her face toward the fort as she had done.

Lucy now felt her greatest fear when she began the return journey and her back was toward the forest. There was in her something of the warrior; if the bullet was to find her she preferred to meet it, face to face. But she would not let her hands tremble, nor would she bend beneath the weight of the water. She held herself proudly erect and glanced at the wooden wall before her. It was lined with faces, brown, usually, but now with the pallor showing through the tan. She saw her father's among them and she smiled at him, because she was upheld by a great pride and exultation. It was she who had told them what to do, and it was she who led the way.

She reached the open gate again, but she did not hasten her footsteps. She walked sedately in, and behind her she heard only the regular tread of the long double file of women. The forest was as silent as ever.

The last woman passed in, the gate was slammed shut, the heavy bars were dropped into place, and Mr. Upton throwing his arms about Lucy exclaimed:

"Oh, my brave daughter!"

She sank against him trembling, her nerves weak after the long tension, but she felt a great pride nevertheless. She wished to show that a woman too could be physically brave in the face of the most terrible of all dangers, and she had triumphantly done so.

The bringing of the water, or rather the courage that inspired the act, heartened the garrison anew, and color came back to men's faces. The schoolmaster discussed the incident with Tom Ross, and wondered why the Indians who were not in the habit of sparing women had not fired.

"Sometimes a man or a crowd of men won't do a thing that they would do at any other time," said Ross, "maybe they thought they could get us all in a bunch by waitin' an' maybe way down at the bottom of their savage souls, was a spark of generosity that lighted up for just this once. We'll never know."

Henry Ware went out that night, and returning before dawn with the same facility that marked all his movements in the wilderness, reported that the savage army was troubled. All such forces are loose and irregular, with little cohesive power, and they will not bear disappointment and waiting. Moreover the warriors having lost many men, with nothing in repayment were grumbling and saying that the face of Manitou was set against them. They were confirmed too in this belief by the presence of the mysterious foe who had slain the warriors in the tree, and who had since given other unmistakable signs of his presence.

"They will have more discouragement soon," he said, "because it is going to rain to-day."

He had read the signs aright, as the sun came up amid the mists and vapors, and the gentle wind was damp to the face; then dark clouds spread across the western heavens, like a vast carpet unrolled by a giant hand, and the wilderness began to moan. Low thunder muttered on the horizon, and the somber sky was cut by vivid strokes of lightning.

Nature took on an ominous and threatening hue but within the village there was only joy; the coming storm would remove their greatest danger, the well would fill up again, and behind the wooden walls they could defy the savage foe.

The sky was cut across by a flash of lightning so bright that it dazzled them, the thunder burst with a terrible crash directly overhead, and then the rain came in a perfect wall of water. It poured for hours out of a sky that was made of unbroken clouds, deluging the earth, swelling the river to a roaring flood, and rising higher in the well than ever before. The forest about them was almost hidden by the torrents of rain and they did not forget to be thankful.

Toward afternoon the fall abated somewhat in violence, but became a steady downpour out of sodden skies, and the air turned raw and chill. Those who were not sheltered shivered, as if it were winter. The night came on as dark as a well, and Henry Ware went out again. When he came back he said tersely to his father:

"They are gone."

"Gone?" exclaimed Mr. Ware scarcely able to believe in the reality of such good news.

"Yes; the storm broke their backs. Even Indians can't stand an all-day wetting especially when they are already tired. They think they can never have any luck here, and they are going toward the Ohio at this minute. The storm has saved us now just as it saved our band in the flight from the salt works."

They had such faith in his forest skill that no one doubted his word and the village burst into joy. Women, for they were the worst sufferers gave thanks, both silently and aloud. Henry took Ross, Sol and others to the valley in the forest, where the savages had kept their war camp. Here they had soaked in the mire during the storm, and all about were signs of their hasty flight, the ground being littered with bones of deer, elk and buffalo.

"They won't come again soon," said Henry, "because they believe that the Manitou will not give them any luck here, but it is well to be always on the watch."

After the first outburst of gratitude the people talked little of the attack and repulse; they felt too deeply, they realized too much the greatness of the danger they had escaped to put it into idle words. But nearly all attributed their final rescue to Henry Ware though some saw the hand of God in the storm which had intervened a second time for the protection of the whites. Braxton Wyatt and his friends dared say nothing now, at least openly against Henry, although those who loved him most were bound to confess that there was something alien about him, something in which he differed from the rest of them.

But Henry thought little of the opinion, good or bad in which he was held, because his heart was turning again to the wilderness, and he and Ross went forth again to scout on the rear of the Indian force.



CHAPTER XVII

THE BATTLE IN THE FOREST

Henry and Ross after their second scouting expedition reported that the great war band of the Shawnees was retreating slowly, in fact would linger by the way, and might destroy one or two smaller stations recently founded farther north. Instantly a new impulse flamed up among the pioneers of Wareville. The feeling of union was strong among all these early settlements, and they believed it their duty to protect their weaker brethren. They would send hastily to Marlowe the nearest and largest settlement for help, follow on the trail of the warriors and destroy them. Such a blow, as they might inflict, would spread terror among all the northwestern tribes and save Kentucky from many another raid.

Ross who was present in the council when the eager cry was raised shook his head and looked more than doubtful.

"They outnumber us four or five to one," he said, "an' when we go out in the woods against 'em we give up our advantage, our wooden walls. They can ambush us out there, an' surround us."

Mr. Ware added his cautious words to those of Ross, in whom he had great confidence. He believed it better to let the savage army go. Discouraged by its defeat before the palisades of Wareville it would withdraw beyond the Ohio, and, under any circumstances, a pursuit with greatly inferior numbers, would be most dangerous.

These were grave words, but they fell on ears that did not wish to listen. They were an impulsive people and a generous chord in their natures was touched, the desire to defend those weaker than themselves. A good-hearted but hot-headed man named Clinton made a fiery speech. He said that now was the time to strike a crushing blow at the Indian power, and he thought all brave men would take advantage of it.

That expression "brave men" settled the question; no one could afford to be considered aught else, and a little army poured forth from Wareville, Mr. Ware nominally in command, and Henry, Paul, Ross, Sol, and all the others there. Henry saw his mother and sister weeping at the palisade, and Lucy Upton standing beside them. His mother's face was the last that he saw when he plunged into the forest. Then he was again the hunter, the trailer and the slayer of men.

While they considered whether or not to pursue, Henry Ware had said nothing; but all the primitive impulses of man handed down from lost ages of ceaseless battle were alive within him; he wished them to go, he would show the way, the savage army would make a trail through the forest as plain to him as a turnpike to the modern dweller in a civilized land, and his heart throbbed with fierce exultation, when the decision to follow was at last given. In the forest now he was again at home, more so than he had been inside the palisade. Around him were all the familiar sights and sounds, the little noises of the wilderness that only the trained ear hears, the fall of a leaf, or the wind in the grass, and the odor of a wild flower or a bruised bough.

Brain and mind alike expanded. Instinctively he took the lead, not from ambition, but because it was natural; he read all the signs and he led on with a certainty to which neither Ross nor Shif'less Sol pretended to aspire. The two guides and hunters were near each other, and a look passed between them.

"I knew it," said Ross; "I knew from the first that he had in him the making of a great woodsman. You an' I, Sol, by the side of him, are just beginners."

Shif'less Sol nodded in assent.

"It's so," he said. "It suits me to follow where he leads, an' since we are goin' after them warriors, which I can't think a wise thing, I'm mighty glad he's with us."

Yet to one experienced in the ways of the wilderness the little army though it numbered less than a hundred men would have seemed formidable enough. Many youths were there, mere boys they would have been back in some safer land, but hardened here by exposure into the strength and courage of men. Nearly all were dressed in finely tanned deerskin, hunting shirt, leggings and moccasins, fringes on hunting shirt and leggings, and beads on moccasins. The sun glinted on the long slender, blue steel barrel of the Western rifle, carried in the hand of every man. At the belt swung knife and hatchet, and the eyes of all, now that the pursuit had begun, were intense, eager and fierce.

The sounds made by the little Western army, hid under the leafy boughs of the forest, gradually died away to almost nothing. No one spoke, save at rare intervals. The moccasins were soundless on the soft turf, and there was no rattle of arms, although arms were always ready. In front was Henry Ware, scanning the trail, telling with an infallible eye how old it was, where the enemy had lingered, and where he had hastened.

Mr. Pennypacker was there beside Paul Cotter. A man of peace he was, but when war came he never failed to take his part in it.

"Do you know him?" he asked of Paul, nodding toward Henry.

Paul understood.

"No," he replied, "I do not. He used to be my old partner, Henry Ware, but he's another now."

"Yes, he's changed," said the master, "but I am not surprised. I foresaw it long ago, if the circumstances came right."

On the second morning they were joined by the men from Marlowe who had been traveling up one side of a triangle, while the men of Wareville had been traveling up the other side, until they met at the point. Their members were now raised to a hundred and fifty, and, uttering one shout of joy, the united forces plunged forward on the trail with renewed zeal.

They were in dense forest, in a region scarcely known even to the hunters, full of little valleys and narrow deep streams. The Indian force had suddenly taken a sharp turn to the westward, and the knowledge of it filled the minds of Ross and Sol with misgivings.

"Maybe they know we're following 'em," said Ross; "an' for that reason they're turnin' into this rough country, which is just full of ambushes. If it wasn't for bein' called a coward by them hot-heads I'd say it was time for us to wheel right about on our own tracks, an' go home."

"You can't do nothin' with 'em," said Sol, "they wouldn't stand without hitchin', an' we ain't got any way to hitch 'em. There's goin' to be a scrimmage that people'll talk about for twenty years, an' the best you an' me can do, Tom, is to be sure to keep steady an' to aim true."

Ross nodded sadly and said no more. He looked down at the trail, which was growing fresher and fresher.

"They're slowin' up, Sol," he said at last, "I think they're waitin' for us. You spread out to the right and I'll go to the left to watch ag'in ambush. That boy, Henry Ware'll see everything in front."

In view of the freshening trail Mr. Ware ordered the little army to stop for a few moments and consider, and all, except the scouts on the flanks and in front, gathered in council. Before them and all around them lay the hills, steep and rocky but clothed from base to crest with dense forest and undergrowth. Farther on were other and higher hills, and in the distance the forests looked blue. Nothing about them stirred. They had sighted no game as they passed; the deer had already fled before the Indian army. The skies, bright and blue in the morning, were now overcast, a dull, somber, threatening gray.

"Men," said Mr. Ware, and there was a deep gravity in his tone, as became a general on the eve of conflict, "I think we shall be on the enemy soon or he will be on us. There were many among us who did not approve of this pursuit, but here we are. It is not necessary to say that we should bear ourselves bravely. If we fail and fall, our women and children are back there, and nothing will stand between them and savages who know no mercy. That is all you have to remember."

And then a little silence fell upon everyone. Suddenly the hot-heads realized what they had done. They had gone away from their wooden walls, deep into the unknown wilderness, to meet an enemy four or five times their numbers, and skilled in all the wiles and tricks of the forest. Every face was grave, but the knowledge of danger only strengthened them for the conflict. Hot blood became cool and cautious, and wary eyes searched the thickets everywhere. Rash and impetuous they may have been; but they were ready now to redeem themselves, with the valor, without which the border could not have been won.

Henry Ware had suddenly gone forward from the others, and the green forest swallowed him up, but every nerve and muscle of him was now ready and alert. He felt, rather than saw, that the enemy was at hand; and in his green buckskin he blended so completely with the forest that only the keenest sight could have picked him from the mass of foliage. His general's eye told him, too, that the place before them was made for a conflict which would favor the superior numbers. They had been coming up a gorge, and if beaten they would be crowded back in it upon each other, hindering the escape of one another, until they were cut to pieces.

The wild youth smiled; he knew the bravery of the men with him, and now their dire necessity and the thought of those left behind in the two villages would nerve them to fight. In his daring mind the battle was not yet lost.

A faint, indefinable odor met his nostrils, and he knew it to be the oil and paint of Indian braves. A deep red flushed through the brown of either cheek. Returning now to his own kind he was its more ardent partisan because of the revulsion, and the Indian scent offended him. He looked down and saw a bit of feather, dropped no doubt from some defiant scalp lock. He picked it up, held it to his nose a moment, and then, when the offensive odor assailed him again, he cast it away.

Another dozen steps forward, and he sank down in a clump of grass, blending perfectly with the green, and absolutely motionless. Thirty yards away two Shawnee warriors in all the savage glory of their war paint, naked save for breechcloths, were passing, examining the woods with careful eye. Yet they did not see Henry Ware, and, when they turned and went back, he followed noiselessly after them, his figure still hidden in the green wood.

The two Shawnees, walking lightly, went on up the valley which broadened out as they advanced, but which was still thickly clothed in forest and undergrowth. Skilled as they were in the forest, they probably never dreamed of the enemy who hung on their trail with a skill surpassing their own.

Henry followed them for a full two miles, and then he saw them join a group of Indians under the trees, whom he knew by their dress and bearing to be chiefs. They were tall, middle-aged, and they wore blankets of green or dark blue, probably bought at the British outposts. Behind them, almost hidden in the forest, Henry saw many other dark faces, eager, intense, waiting to be let loose on the foe, whom they regarded as already in the trap.

Henry waited, while the two scouts whom he had followed so well, delivered to the chief their message. He saw them beckon to the warriors behind them, speak a few words to them, and then he saw two savage forces slip off in the forest, one to the right and one to the left. On the instant he divined their purpose. They were to flank the little white army, while another division stood ready to attack in front. Then the ambush would be complete, and Henry saw the skill of the savage general whoever he might be.

The plan must be frustrated at once, and Henry Ware never hesitated. He must bring on the battle, before his own people were surrounded, and raising his rifle he fired with deadly aim at one of the chiefs who fell on the grass. Then the youth raised the wild and thrilling cry, which he had learned from the savages themselves, and sped back toward the white force.

The death cry of the Shawnee and the hostile war whoop rang together filling the forest and telling that the end of stealth and cunning, and the beginning of open battle were at hand.

Henry Ware was hidden in an instant by the green foliage from the sight of the Shawnees. Keen as were their eyes, trained as they were to noticing everything that moved in the forest, he had vanished from them like a ghost. But they knew that the enemy whom they had sought to draw into their snare had slipped his head out of it before the snare could be sprung. Their long piercing yell rose again and then died away in a frightful quaver. As the last terrible note sank the whole savage army rushed forward to destroy its foe.

As Henry Ware ran swiftly back to his friends he met both Ross and Sol, drawn by the shot and the shouts.

"It was you who fired?" asked Ross.

"Yes," replied Henry, "they meant to lay an ambush, but they will not have time for it now."

The three stood for a few moments under the boughs of a tree, three types of the daring men who guided and protected the van of the white movement into the wilderness. They were eager, intent, listening, bent slightly forward, their rifles lying in the hollow of their arms, ready for instant use.

After the second long cry the savage army gave voice no more. In all the dense thickets a deadly silence reigned, save for the trained ear. But to the acute hearing of the three under the tree came sounds that they knew; sounds as light as the patter of falling nuts, no more, perhaps, than the rustle of dead leaves driven against each other by a wind; but they knew.

"They are coming, and coming fast," said Henry. "We must join the main force now."

"They ought to be ready. That warning of yours was enough," said Ross.

Without another word they turned again, darted among the trees, and in a few moments reached the little white force. Mr. Ware, the nominal leader, taking alarm from the shot and cries, was already disposing his men in a long, scattering line behind hillocks, tree trunks, brushwood and every protection that the ground offered.

"Good!" exclaimed Ross, when he saw, "but we must make our line longer and thinner, we must never let them get around us, an' it's lucky now we've got steep hills on either side."

To be flanked in Indian battle by superior numbers was the most terrible thing that could happen to the pioneers, and Mr. Ware stretched out his line longer and longer, and thinner and thinner. Paul Cotter was full of excitement; he had been in deadly conflict once before, but his was a most sensitive temperament, terribly stirred by a foe whom he could yet neither see nor hear. Almost unconsciously, he placed himself by the side of Henry Ware, his old partner, to whom he now looked up as a son of battle and the very personification of forest skill.

"Are they really there, Henry?" he asked. "I see nothing and hear nothing."

"Yes," replied Henry, "they are in front of us scarcely a rifle shot away, five to our one."

Paul strained his eyes, but still he could see nothing, only the green waving forest, the patches of undergrowth, the rocks on the steep hills to right and left, and the placid blue sky overhead. It did not seem possible to him that they were about to enter into a struggle for life and for those dearer than life.

"Don't shoot wild, Paul," said Henry. "Don't pull the trigger, until you can look down the sights at a vital spot."

A few feet away from them, peering over a log and with his rifle ever thrust forward was Mr. Pennypacker, a schoolmaster, a graduate of a college, an educated and refined man, but bearing his part in the dark and terrible wilderness conflict that often left no wounded.

The stillness was now so deep that even the scouts could hear no sound in front. The savage army seemed to have melted away, into the air itself, and for full five minutes they lay, waiting, waiting, always waiting for something that they knew would come. Then rose the fierce quavering war cry poured from hundreds of throats, and the savage horde, springing out of the forests and thickets, rushed upon them.

Dark faces showed in the sunlight, brown figures, naked save for the breechcloth, horribly painted, muscles tense, flashed through the undergrowth. The wild yell that rose and fell without ceasing ran off in distant echoes among the hills. The riflemen of Kentucky, lying behind trees and hillocks, began to fire, not in volleys, not by order, but each man according to his judgment and his aim, and many a bullet flew true.

A sharp crackling sound, ominous and deadly, ran back and forth in the forest. Little spurts of fire burned for a moment against the green, and then went out, to give place to others. Jets of white smoke rose languidly and floated up among the trees, gathering by and by into a cloud, shot through with blue and yellow tints from sky and sun.

Henry Ware fired with deadly aim and reloaded with astonishing speed. Paul Cotter, by his side, was as steady as a rock, now that the suspense was over, and the battle upon them. The schoolmaster resting on one elbow was firing across his log.

But it is not Indian tactics to charge home, unless the enemy is frightened into flight by the war whoop and the first rush. The men of Wareville and Marlowe did not run, but stood fast, sending the bullets straight to the mark; and suddenly the Shawnees dropped down among the trees and undergrowth, their bodies hidden, and began to creep forward, firing like sharpshooters. It was now a test of skill, of eyesight, of hearing and of aim.

The forest on either side was filled with creeping forms, white or red, men with burning eyes seeking to slay each other, meeting in strife more terrible than that of foes who encounter each other in open conflict. There was something snakelike in their deadly creeping, only the moving grass to tell where they passed and sometimes where both white and red died, locked fast in the grip of one another. Everywhere it was a combat, confused, dreadful, man to man, and with no shouting now, only the crack of the rifle shot, the whiz of the tomahawk, the thud of the knife, and choked cries.

Like breeds like, and the white men came down to the level of the red. Knowing that they would receive no quarter they gave none. The white face expressed all the cunning, and all the deadly animosity of the red. Led by Henry Ware, Ross and Sol they practiced every device of forest warfare known to the Shawnees, and their line, which extended across the valley from hill to hill, spurted death from tree, bush, and rock.

To Paul Cotter it was all a nightmare, a foul dream, unreal. He obeyed his comrade's injunctions, he lay close to the earth, and he did not fire until he could draw a bead on a bare breast, but the work became mechanical with him. He was a high-strung lad of delicate sensibilities. There was in his temperament something of the poet and the artist, and nothing of the soldier who fights for the sake of mere fighting. The wilderness appealed to him, because of its glory, but the savage appealed to him not at all. In Henry's bosom there was respect for his red foes from whom he had learned so many useful lessons, and his heart beat faster with the thrill of strenuous conflict, but Paul was anxious for the end of it all. The sight of dead faces near him, not the lack of courage, more than once made him faint and dizzy.

Twice and thrice the Shawnees tried to scale the steep hillsides, and with their superior numbers swing around behind the enemy, but the lines of the borderers were always extended to meet them, and the bullets from the long-barreled rifles cut down everyone who tried to pass. It was always Henry Ware who was first to see a new movement, his eyes read every new motion in the grass, and foliage swaying in a new direction would always tell him what it meant. More than one of his comrades muttered to himself that he was worth a dozen men that day.

So fierce were the combatants, so eager were they for each other's blood that they did not notice that the sky, gray in the morning, then blue at the opening of battle, had now grown leaden and somber again. The leaves above them were motionless and then began to rustle dully in a raw wet wind out of the north. The sun was quite gone behind the clouds and drops of cold rain began to fall, falling on the upturned faces of the dead, red and white alike with just impartiality, the wind rose, whistled, and drove the cold drops before it like hail. But the combat still swayed back and forth in the leaden forest, and neither side took notice.

Mr. Ware remained near the center of the white line, and retained command, although he gave but few orders, every man fighting for himself and giving his own orders. But from time to time Ross and Sol or Henry brought him news of the conflict, perhaps how they had been driven back a little at one point, and perhaps how they gained a little at another point. He, too, a man of fifty and the head of a community, shared the emotions of those around him, and was filled with a furious zeal for the conflict.

The clouds thickened and darkened, and the cold drops were driven upon them by the wind, the rifle smoke, held down by the rain, made sodden banks of vapor among the trees; but through all the clouds of vapor burst flashes of fire, and the occasional triumphant shout or death cry of the white man or the savage.

Henry Ware looked up and he became conscious that not only clouds above were bringing the darkness, but that the day was waning. In the west a faint tint of red and yellow, barely discernible through the grayness, marked the sinking sun, and in the east the blackness of night was still advancing. Yet the conflict, as important to those engaged in it, as a great battle between civilized foes, a hundred thousand on a side, and far more fierce, yet hung on an even chance. The white men still stood where they had stood when the forest battle began, and the red men who had not been able to advance would not retreat.

Henry's heart sank a little at the signs that night was coming; it would be harder in the darkness to keep their forces in touch, and the superior numbers of the Shawnees would swarm all about them. It seemed to him that it would be best to withdraw a little to more open ground; but he waited a while, because he did not wish any of their movements to have the color of retreat. Moreover, the activity of the Shawnees rose just then to a higher pitch.

Figures were now invisible in the chill, wet dusk, fifty or sixty yards away, and the two lines came closer. The keenest eye could see nothing save flitting forms like phantoms, but the riflemen, trained to quickness, fired at them and more than once sent a fatal bullet. There were two lines of fire facing each other in the dark wood. The flashes showed red or yellow in the twilight or the falling rain, and the Indian yell of triumph whenever it arose, echoed, weird and terrible, through the dripping forest.

Henry stole to the side of his father.

"We must fall back," he said, "or in the darkness or the night, they will be sure to surround us and crush us."

Ross was an able second to this advice, and reluctantly Mr. Ware passed along the word to retreat. "Be sure to bring off all the wounded," was the order. "The dead, alas! must be abandoned to nameless indignities!"

The little white army left thirty dead in the dripping forest, and, as many more carried wounds, the most of which were curable, but it was as full of fight as ever. It merely drew back to protect itself against being flanked in the forest, and the faces of the borderers, sullen and determined, were still turned to the enemy.

Yet the line of fire was visibly retreating, and, when the Shawnee forces saw it, a triumphant yell was poured from hundreds of throats. They rushed forward, only to be driven back again by the hail of bullets, and Ross said to Mr. Ware: "I guess we burned their faces then."

"Look to the wounded! look to the wounded!" repeated Mr. Ware. "See that no man too weak is left to help himself."

They had gone half a mile when Henry glanced around for Paul. His eyes, trained to the darkness, ran over the dim forms about him. Many were limping and others already had arms in slings made from their hunting shirts, but Henry nowhere saw the figure of his old comrade. A fever of fear assailed him. One of two things had happened. Paul was either killed or too badly wounded to walk, and somehow in the darkness they had missed him. The schoolmaster's face blanched at the news. Paul had been his favorite pupil.

"My God!" he groaned, "to think of the poor lad in the hands of those devils!"

Henry Ware stood beside the master, when he uttered these words, wrenched by despair from the very bottom of his chest. Pain shot through his own heart, as if it had been touched by a knife. Paul, the well-beloved comrade of his youth, captured and subjected to the torture! His blood turned to ice in his veins. How could they ever have missed the boy? Paul now seemed to Henry at least ten years younger than himself. It was not merely the fault of a single man, it was the fault of them all. He stared back into the thickening darkness, where the flashes of flame burst now and then, and, in an instant, he had taken his resolve.

"I do not know where Paul is," he said, "but I shall find him."

"Henry! Henry! what are you going to do?" cried his father in alarm.

"I'm going back after him," replied his son.

"But you can do nothing! It is sure death! Have we just found you to lose you again?"

Henry touched his father's hand. It was an act of tenderness, coming from his stoical nature, and the next instant he was gone, amid the smoke and the vapors and the darkness, toward the Indian army.

Mr. Ware put his face in his hands and groaned, but the hand of Ross fell upon his shoulder.

"The boy will come back, Mr. Ware," said the guide, "an' will bring the other with him, too. God has given him a woods cunnin' that none of us can match."

Mr. Ware let his hands fall, and became the man again. The retreating force still fell back slowly, firing steadily by the flashes at the pursuing foe.

Henry Ware had not gone more than fifty yards before he was completely hidden from his friends. Then he turned to a savage, at least in appearance. He threw off the raccoon-skin cap and hunting shirt, drew up his hair in the scalp lock, tying it there with a piece of fringe from his discarded hunting shirt, and then turned off at an angle into the woods. Presently he beheld the dark figures of the Shawnees, springing from tree to tree or bent low in the undergrowth, but all following eagerly. When he saw them he too bent over and fired toward his own comrades, then he whirled again to the right, and sprang about as if he were seeking another target. To all appearances, he was, in the darkness and driving rain, a true Shawnee, and the manner and gesture of an Indian were second nature to him.

But he had little fear of being discovered at such a time. His sole thought was to find his comrade. All the old days of boyish companionship rushed upon him, with their memories. The tenderness in his nature was the stronger, because of its long repression. He would find him and if he were alive, he would save him; moreover he had what he thought was a clew. He had remembered seeing Paul crouched behind a log, firing at the enemy, and no one had seen him afterwards. He believed that the boy was lying there yet, slain, or, if fate were kinder, too badly wounded to move. The line of retreat had slanted somewhat from the spot, and the savages might well have passed, in the dark, without noticing the boy's fallen body.

His own sense of direction was perfect, and he edged swiftly away toward the fallen log, behind which Paul had lain. Many dark forms passed him, but none sought to stop him; the counterfeit was too good; all thought him one of themselves.

Presently Henry passed no more of the flitting warriors. The battle was moving on toward the south and was now behind him. He looked back and saw the flashes growing fainter and heard the scattering rifle shots, deadened somewhat by the distance. Around him was the beat of the rain on the leaves and the sodden earth, and he looked up at a sky, wholly hidden by black clouds. He would need all his forest lore, and all the primitive instincts, handed down from far-off ancestors. But never were they more keenly alive than on this night.

The boy did not veer from the way, but merely by the sense of direction took a straight path toward the fallen log that he remembered. The din of battle still rolled slowly off toward the south, and, for the moment, he forgot it. He came to the log, bent down and touched a cold face. It was Paul. Instinctively his hand moved toward the boy's head and when it touched the thick brown hair and nothing else, he uttered a little shuddering sigh of relief. Dead or alive, the hideous Indian trophy had not been taken. Then he found the boy's wrist and his pulse, which was still beating faintly. The deft hands moved on, and touched the wound, made by a bullet that had passed entirely through his shoulder. Paul had fainted from loss of blood, and without the coming of help would surely have been dead in another hour.

The boy lay on his side, and, in some convulsion as he lost consciousness, he had drawn his arm about his head. Henry turned him over until the cold reviving rain fell full upon his face, and then, raising himself again, he listened intently. The battle was still moving on to the southward, but very slowly, and stray warriors might yet pass and see them. The tie of friendship is strong, and as he had come to save Paul and as he had found him too, he did not mean to be stopped now.

He stooped down and chafed the wounded youth's wrists and temples, while the rain with its vivifying touch still drove upon his face. Paul stirred and his pulse grew stronger. He opened his eyes catching one vague glimpse of the anxious face above him, but he was so feeble that the lids closed down again. But Henry was cheered. Paul was not only alive, he was growing stronger, and, bending down, he lifted him in his powerful arms. Then he strode away in the darkness, intending to pass in a curve around the hostile army. Despite Paul's weight he was able also to keep his rifle ready, because none knew better than he that all the chances favored his meeting with one warrior or more before the curve was made. But he was instinct with strength both mental and physical, he was the true type of the borderer, the men who faced with sturdy heart the vast dangers of the wilderness, the known and the unknown. At that moment he was at his highest pitch of courage and skill, alone in the darkness and storm, surrounded by the danger of death and worse, yet ready to risk everything for the sake of the boy with whom he had played.

He heard nothing but the patter of the distant firing, and all around him was the gloom, of a night, dark to intensity. The rain poured steadily out of a sky that did not contain a single star. Paul stirred occasionally on his shoulder, as he advanced, swiftly, picking his way through the forest and the undergrowth. A half mile forward and his ears caught a light footstep. In an instant he sank down with his burden, and as he did so he caught sight of an Indian warrior, not twenty feet away. The Shawnee saw him at the same time, and he, too, dropped down in the undergrowth.

Henry did not then feel the lust of blood. He would have been willing to pass on, and leave the Shawnee to himself; but he knew that the Shawnee would not leave him. He laid Paul upon his back, in order that the rain might beat upon his face, and then crouched beside him, absolutely motionless, but missing nothing that the keenest eye or ear might detect. It was a contest of patience, and the white youth brought to bear upon it both the red man's training and his own.

A half hour passed, and within that small area there was no sound but the beat of the rain on the leaves and the sticky earth. Perhaps the warrior thought he had been deceived; it was merely an illusion of the night that he thought he saw; or if he had seen anyone the man was now gone, creeping away through the undergrowth. He stirred among his own bushes, raised up a little to see, and gave his enemy a passing glimpse of his face. But it was enough; a rifle bullet struck him between the eyes and the wilderness fighter lay dead in the forest.

Henry bestowed not a thought on the slain warrior, but, lifting up Paul once more, continued on his wide curve, as if nothing had happened. No one interrupted him again, and after a while he was parallel with the line of fire. Then he passed around it and came to rocky ground, where he laid Paul down and chafed his hands and face. The wounded boy opened his eyes again, and, with returning strength, was now able to keep them open.

"Henry!" he said in a vague whisper.

"Yes, Paul, it is I," Henry replied quietly.

Paul lay still and struggled with memory. The rain was now ceasing, and a few shafts of moonlight, piercing through the clouds, threw silver rays on the dripping forest.

"The battle!" said Paul at last. "I was firing and something struck me. That was the last I remember."

He paused and his face suddenly brightened. He cast a look of gratitude at his comrade.

"You came for me?" he said.

"Yes," replied Henry, "I came for you, and I brought you here."

Paul closed his eyes, lay still, and then at a ghastly thought, opened his eyes again.

"Are only we two left?" he asked. "Are all the others killed? Is that why we are hiding here in the forest?"

"No," replied Henry, "we are holding them off, but we decided that it was wiser to retreat. We shall join our own people in the morning."

Paul said no more, and Henry sheltered him as best he could under the trees. The wet clothing he could not replace, and that would have to be endured. But he rubbed his body to keep him warm and to induce circulation. The night was now far advanced, and the distant firing became spasmodic and faint. After a while it ceased, and the weary combatants lay on their arms in the thickets.

The clouds began to float off to the eastward. By and by all went down under the horizon, and the sky sprang out, a solid dome of calm, untroubled blue, in which the stars in myriads twinkled and shone. A moon of unusual splendor bathed the wet forest in a silver dew.

Henry sat in the moonlight, watching beside Paul, who dozed or fell into a stupor. The moonlight passed, the darkest hours came and then up shot the dawn, bathing a green world in the mingled glory of red and gold. Henry raised Paul again, and started with him toward the thickets, where he knew the little white army lay.

* * * * *

John Ware had borne himself that night like a man, else he would not have been in the place that he held. But his heart had followed his son, when he turned back toward the savage army, and, despite the reassuring words of Ross, he already mourned him as one dead. Yet he was faithful to his greater duty, remembering the little force that he led and the women and children back there, of whom they were the chief and almost the sole defenders. But if he reached Wareville again how could he tell the tale of his loss? There was one to whom no excuse would seem good. Often Mr. Pennypacker was by his side, and when the darkness began to thin away before the moonlight these two men exchanged sad glances. Each understood what was in the heart of the other, but neither spoke.

The hours of night and combat dragged heavily. When the waning fire of the savages ceased they let their own cease also, and then sought ground upon which they might resist any new attack, made in the daylight. They found it at last in a rocky region that doubled the powers of the defense. Ross was openly exultant.

"We scorched 'em good yesterday an' to-night," he said, "an' if they come again in the day we'll just burn their faces away."

Most of the men, worn to the bone, sank down to sleep on the wet ground in their wet clothes, while the others watched, and the few hours, left before the morning, passed peacefully away.

At the first sunlight the men were awakened, and all ate cold food which they carried in their knapsacks. Mr. Ware and the schoolmaster sat apart. Mr. Ware looked steadily at the ground and the schoolmaster, whose heart was wrenched both with his own grief and his friend's, knew not what to say. Neither did Ross nor Sol disturb them for the moment, but busied themselves with preparations for the new defense.

Mr. Pennypacker was gazing toward the southwest and suddenly on the crest of a low ridge a black and formless object appeared between him and the sun. At first he thought it was a mote in his eye, and he rubbed the pupils but the mote grew larger, and then he looked with a new and stronger interest. It was a man; no, two men, one carrying the other, and the motion of the man who bore the other seemed familiar. The master's heart sprang up in his throat, and the blood swelled in a new tide in his veins. His hand fell heavily, but with joy, on the shoulder of Mr. Ware.

"Look up! Look up!" he cried, "and see who is coming!"

Mr. Ware looked up and saw his son, with the wounded Paul Cotter on his shoulder, walking into camp. Then—the borderers were a pious people—he fell upon his knees and gave thanks. Two hours later the Shawnees in full force made a last and desperate attack upon the little white army. They ventured into the open, as venture they must to reach the defenders, and they were met by the terrible fire that never missed. At no time could they pass the deadly hail of bullets, and at last, leaving the ground strewed with their dead, they fell back into the forest, and then, breaking into a panic, did not cease fleeing until they had crossed the Ohio. Throughout the morning Henry Ware was one of the deadliest sharpshooters of them all, while Paul Cotter lay safely in the rear, and fretted because his wound would not let him do his part.

The great victory won, it was agreed that Henry Ware had done the best of them all, but they spent little time in congratulations. They preferred the sacred duty of burying the dead, even seeking those who had fallen in the forest the night before; and then they began their march southward, the more severely wounded carried on rude litters at first, but as they gained strength after a while walking, though lamely. Paul recovered fast, and when he heard the story, he looked upon Henry as a knight, the equal of any who ever rode down the pages of chivalry.

But all alike carried in their hearts the consciousness that they had struck a mighty blow that would grant life to the growing settlements, and, despite their sadly thinned ranks, they were full of a pride that needed no words. The men of Wareville and the men of Marlowe parted at the appointed place, and then each force went home with the news of victory.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE TEST

The people of Wareville had good reason alike for pride and for sorrow, pride for victory, and sorrow for the fallen, but they spent no time in either, at least openly, resuming at once the task of founding a new state.

Henry Ware, the hero of the hour and the savior of the village, laid aside his wild garb and took a place in his father's fields. The work was heavy, the Indian corn was planted, but trees were to be felled, fences were to be cut down, and as he was so strong a larger share than usual was expected of him. His own father appreciated these hopes and was resolved that his son should do his full duty.