Chapter 8: The Wild Turkey’s Gobble

Henry had conducted himself so well on his first scout and, had shown such signs of efficiency that Ross concluded to take him again the next day. Henry’s heart swelled with pride, and he was no longer worried about Paul, because he saw that the latter’s interest and ambitions were not exactly the same as his own. Henry could not have any innate respect for heaps of “old bones,” but if Paul and the master found them worthy of such close attention, they must be right.

Henry and Ross slipped away into the undergrowth, and Henry soon noticed that the guide’s face, which was tense and preoccupied, seemed graver than usual. The boy was too wise to ask questions, but after they had searched through the forest for several hours Ross remarked in the most casual way:

“I heard the gobble of a wild turkey away off last night.”

“Yes,” said Henry, “there are lots of ‘em about here. You remember the one I shot Tuesday?”

Ross did not reply just then, but in about five minutes he vouchsafed:

“I’m looking for the particular wild turkey I heard last night.”

“Why that one, when there are so many, and how would you know him from the others if you found him?” asked Henry quickly, and then a deep burning flush of shame broke through the tan of his cheeks. He, Henry Ware, a rover of the wilderness to ask such foolish questions! A child of the towns would have shown as much sense. Ross who was looking covertly at him, out of the corner of his eye, saw the mounting blush, and was pleased. The boy had spoken impulsively, but he knew better.

“You understand, I guess,” said Ross.

“Yes,” replied Henry, “I know why you want to find that wild turkey, and I know why you said last night we ought to leave the salt springs just as soon as we can.”

The smile on the face of the scout brightened. Here was the most promising pupil who had ever sat at his feet for instruction; and now they redoubled their caution, as their soundless bodies slipped through the undergrowth. Everywhere they looked for the trail of that wild turkey. It may be said that a turkey can and does fly in the air and leaves no trail, but Henry knew that the one for which they looked might leave no trail, but it did not fly in the air.

Time passed; noon and part of the afternoon were gone, and they were still curving in a great circle about the camp, when Ross, suddenly stopped beside a little brook, or branch, as he and his comrades always called them, and pointed to the soft soil at the edge of the water. Henry followed the long finger and saw the outline of a footstep.

“Our turkey has passed here.”

The guide nodded.

“Most likely,” he said, “and if not ours, then one of the same flock. But that footprint is three or four hours old. Come on, we’ll follow this trail until it grows too warm.”

The footsteps led down the side of the brook, and when they curved away from it Ross was able to trace them on the turf and through the undergrowth. A half mile from the start other footsteps joined them, and these were obviously made by many men, perhaps a score of warriors.

“You see,” said Ross, “I guess they’ve just come across the Ohio or we wouldn’t be left all these days b’il’n salt so peaceful, like as if there wasn’t an Indian in the whole world.”

Henry drew a deep breath. Like all who ventured into the West he expected some day to be exposed to Indian danger and attack, but it had been a vague thought. Even when they came north to the Big Bone Lick it was still a dim far-away affair, but now he stood almost in its presence. The Shawnees, whose name was a name of terror to the new settlements, were probably not a mile away. He felt tremors but they were not tremors of fear. Courage was an instinctive quality in him. Nature had put it there, when she fashioned him somewhat in the mold of the primitive man.

“Step lighter than you ever did afore in your life,” said Ross, “an’ bend low an’ follow me. But don’t you let a single twig nor nothin’ snap as you pass.”

He spoke in a sharp, emphatic whisper, and Henry knew that he considered the enemy near. But there was no need to caution the boy, in whom the primal man was already awakened. Henry bent far down, and holding his rifle before him in such a position that it could be used at a moment’s warning, was following behind Ross so silently that the guide, hearing no sound, took an instant’s backward glance. When he saw the boy he permitted another faint smile of approval to pass over his face.

They advanced about three-quarters of a mile and then at the crest of a hill thickly clothed in tall undergrowth the guide sank down and pointed with a long ominous forefinger.

“Look,” he said.

Henry looked through the interlacing bushes and, for the second time in his life, gazed upon a band of red men. And as he looked, his blood for a moment turned cold. Perhaps thirty in number, they were sitting in a glade about a little fire. All of them had blankets of red or blue about them and they carried rifles. Their faces were hideous with war paint and their coarse black hair rose in the defiant scalp lock.

“Maybe they don’t know that our men are at the Lick,” said Ross, “or if they do they don’t think we know they’ve come, an’ they’re planning for an attack to-night, when they could slip up on us sleepin’.”

The guide’s theory seemed plausible to Henry, but he said nothing. It did not become him to venture opinions before one who knew so much of the wilderness.

“It can’t be more’n two o’clock,” whispered Ross, “an’ they’d attack about midnight. That gives us ten hours. Henry, the Lord is with us. Come.”

He slid away through the bushes and Henry followed him. When they were a half mile from the Indian camp they increased their speed to an astonishing gait and in a half hour were at the Big Bone Lick.

“Have ‘em to load up all the salt at once,” said Ross to Shif’less Sol, “an’ we must go kitin’ back to Wareville as if our feet was greased.”

Shif’less Sol shot him a single look of comprehension and Ross nodded. Then the shiftless one went to work with extraordinary diligence and the others imitated his speed. To the schoolmaster Ross breathed the one word “Shawnees,” and Henry in a few sentences told Paul what he had seen.

Fortunately the precious salt was packed--they had no intention of deserting it, however close the danger--and it was quickly transferred to the backs of the horses along with the food for the way. In a little more than a half hour they were all ready and then they fled southward, Shif’less Sol, this time, leading the way, the guide Ross at the rear, eye and ear noticing everything, and every nerve attuned to danger.

The master cast back one regretful glance at his beloved giant bones, and then, with resignation, turned his face permanently toward the south and the line of retreat.

“O Henry,” whispered Paul, half in delight, half in terror, “did you really see them?”

“Yes,” replied Henry, “twenty or more of ‘em, and an ugly lot they were, too, I can tell you, Paul. I believe we could whip ‘em in a stand-up fight, though they are three to our one, but they know more of these woods than we do and then there’s the salt; we’ve got to save what we’ve come for.”

He sighed a little. He did not wholly like the idea of running away, even from a foe thrice as strong. Yet he could not question the wisdom of Ross and Shif’less Sol, and he made no protest.

The men looked after the heavily laden horses--nobody could ride except as a last resort--and southward they went in Indian file as they had come. Henry glanced around him and saw nothing that promised danger. It was only another beautiful afternoon in early spring. The forest glowed in the tender green of the young buds, and, above them arched the sky a brilliant sheet of unbroken blue. Never did a world look more attractive, more harmless, and it seemed incredible that these woods should contain men who were thirsting for the lives of other men. But he had seen; he knew; he could not forget that hideous circle of painted faces in the glade, upon which he and Ross had looked from the safe covert of the undergrowth.

“Do you think they’ll follow us, Henry?” asked Paul.

“I don’t know,” replied Henry, “but it’s mighty likely. They’ll hang on our trail for a long time anyway.”

“And if they overtake us, there’ll be a fight?”

“Of course.”

Henry, watching Paul keenly, saw him grow pale. But his lips did not tremble and that passing pallor failed to lower Paul in Henry’s esteem. The bigger and stronger boy knew his comrade’s courage and tenacity, and he respected him all the more for it, because he was perhaps less fitted than some others for the wild and dangerous life of the border.

After these few words they sank again into silence, and to Paul and the master the sun grew very hot. It was poised now at a convenient angle in the heavens, and poured sheaves of fiery rays directly upon them. Mr. Pennypacker began to gasp. He was a man of dignity, a teacher of youth, and it did not become him to run so fast from something that he could not see. Ross’s keen eye fell upon him.

“I think you’d better mount one of the horses,” he said; “the big bay there can carry his salt and you too for a while until you are rested.”

“What! I ride, when everybody else is afoot!” exclaimed Mr. Pennypacker, indignantly.

“You’re the only schoolmaster we have and we can’t afford to lose you,” said Ross without the suspicion of a grin.

Mr. Pennypacker looked at him, but he could not detect any change of countenance.

“Hop up,” continued Ross, “it ain’t any time to be bashful. Others of us may have to do it afore long.”

Mr. Pennypacker yielded with a sigh, sprang lightly upon the horse, and then when he enjoyed the luxury of rest was glad that he had yielded. Paul, and one or two others took to the horses’ backs later on, but Henry continued the march on foot with long easy strides, and no sign of weakening. Ross noticed him more than once but he never made any suggestion to Henry that he ride; instead the faint smile of approval appeared once more on the guide’s face.

The sun began to sink, the twilight came, and then night. Ross called a halt, and, clustered in the thickest shadows of the forest, they ate their supper and rested their tired limbs. No fire was lighted, but they sat there under the trees, hungrily eating their venison, and talking in the lowest of whispers.

Mr. Pennypacker was much dissatisfied. He had been troubled by the hasty flight and his dignity suffered.

“It is not becoming that white men should run away from an inferior race,” he said.

“Maybe it ain’t becomin’, but it’s safe,” said Ross.

“At least we are far enough away now,” continued the master, “and we might rest here comfortably until dawn. We haven’t seen or heard a sign of pursuit.”

“You don’t know the natur’ of the red warriors, Mr. Pennypacker,” said the leader deferentially but firmly, “when they make the least noise then they’re most dangerous. Now I’m certain sure that they struck our trail not long after we left Big Bone Lick, an’ in these woods the man that takes the fewest risks is the one that lives the longest.”

It was a final statement. In the present emergency the leader’s authority was supreme. They rested about an hour with no sound save the shuffling feet of the horses which could not be kept wholly quiet; and then they started on again, not going so quickly now, because the night was dark, and they wished to make as little noise as possible, threshing about in the undergrowth.

Paul pressed up by the side of Henry.

“Do you think we shall have to go on all night, this way?” he asked. “Wasn’t Mr. Pennypacker right, when he said we were out of danger?”

“No, the schoolmaster was wrong,” replied Henry. “Tom Ross knows more about the woods and what is likely to happen in them than Mr. Pennypacker could know in all his life, if he were to live a thousand years. It’s every man to his own trade, and it’s Tom’s trade that we need now.”

After hearing these sage words of youth Paul asked no more questions, but he and Henry kept side by side throughout the night, that is, when neither of them was riding, because Henry, like all the others, now took turns on horseback. Twice they crossed small streams and once a larger one, where they exercised the utmost caution to keep their precious salt from getting wet. Fortunately the great pack saddles were a protection, and they emerged on the other side with both salt and powder dry.

When the night was thickest, in the long, dark hour just before the dawn, Henry and Paul, who were again side by side, heard a faint, distant cry. It was a low, wailing note that was not unpleasant, softened by the spaces over which it came. It seemed to be far behind them, but inclining to the right, and after a few moments there came another faint cry just like it, also behind them, but far to the left. Despite the soft, wailing note both Henry and Paul felt a shiver run through them. The strange low sound, coming in the utter silence of the night, had in it something ominous.