Chapter 7: Alone in the Wilderness

When Henry looked back a third time and saw that no Wyandot had yet come into view, he made another spurt, one in which he taxed his power of muscle and lung to the utmost. He maintained his speed for a half mile and then slowed down. He had no doubt that he had increased his lead over them, and now he would use cunning in place of strength and speed. It was a country of springs and brooks, and he looked for one in order that he might use this common device of the border--wading in the water to hide his tracks. But he saw none. Here fortune was not kind, and he ran on in the long, easy stride like the gallop of a horse.

He still sought to keep a perfectly straight course toward the southeast. It would not permit that deadly half circle to close in, and it would carry him toward his friends and the fleet. He reached rougher ground, low hills with many outcroppings of stone, and he leaped lightly from rock to rock. His moccasined feet, for a space, left no traces, and when he came to the softer earth again he paused. They would certainly lose the trail at the hills, and it would take them five, perhaps ten, minutes to find it once more.

He leaned against a tree, drawing great breaths and relaxing his muscles. He permitted everything to give way for a minute or two, knowing that in such manner he would procure the most rest and resiliency. Meanwhile he listened with all the powers of those wonderful, forest-bred ears of his, but heard nothing save a far, faint call or two.

After about five minutes he resumed his flight, going at the long, easy frontier lope, and a little later he came to a great mass of tangled and fallen forest where a hurricane had passed. Fortune that had failed him with the brook served him with the trees, and he ran lightly along in the path of the hurricane, leaping from trunk to trunk. He had turned for the first time from his direct course, but now he could afford to do so. It would take the shrewdest of the Wyandot warriors some time to pick up a trail that was lost for a full quarter of a mile, and he did not leave the windrow until fully that distance was covered.

He passed some low hills again, and just beyond them he came to a large creek flowing between fairly high banks. This was better luck than he had hoped. The waters felt cool and fresh, and, hot from his long run, he drank eagerly. But the creek would serve another and better purpose, the hiding of his trail. It flowed in the very direction in which he was going, and he waded down stream for forty or fifty yards. Then he went over his head. The creek had suddenly deepened, but he came up promptly and swam easily with the current.

Swimming rested him in a way. A new set of muscles came into play, and he swam placidly for two or three hundred yards. Then he turned over on his back and floated as far again. Now, as he floated, he found time to take thought. He saw that the sun was still shining brilliantly overhead, and the forest grew in a dense green wall to the water’s edge on either side.

He had come so far. It seemed that he had made good his escape, but he was able for the first time to take a survey of his situation. He was alone in the wilderness and without arms. What a ship is to the sailor, so the rifle was to the borderer. It was his meat and drink, his defense, his armor, his truest and trustiest comrade; without it he must surely perish, unless some rare chance aided him, as once in a thousand times the shipwrecked sailor reaches the lone island.

Henry knew that he was a long distance from the Ohio, and it would be difficult to locate the fleet. It would have to move slowly, and it may have tied up several times for weather.

He floated two or three hundred yards further, and then at a dip in the bank he emerged, the water running in streams from his clothing. He stood there a minute or two, watching and listening, but nothing alarming came to his eye or ear. Perhaps he had shaken off the Wyandots, but he was far too well versed in forest cunning and patience to take it for granted. He was about to start again when he felt a little pain in his side. He remembered now the light impact as if a pebble had struck him, and he knew that the wound had been caused by a bullet. But no blood was there. It had all been washed away by the waters of the creek. The cold stream, moreover, had been good for the wound.

He lifted his wet clothing and examined his hurt critically. It might be serious. It would certainly weaken him after a few hours, although the bullet had passed through the flesh, and a few hours now were more precious to him than weeks later. But his pride and joy in life were not yet diminished. He was free and he would not be re-taken. The country around him was as beautiful as any that he had ever seen. The banks of the creek were high and rocky, and its waters were very clear. Splendid forests swept away from either side, and on one far horizon showed the faint line of blue hills. The sun was still shining bright and warm.

He re-entered the forest, continuing his flight toward the southeast, and swung along at a good pace. Exercise restored the warmth to his body and also brought with it now and then the little stitch in his side. His clothing gradually dried upon him, and he did not cease his long, easy trot until he noticed that the sun was far down in the west. It had already taken on the fiery red tint that marks it when it goes, and in the east gray shadows were coming.

Henry believed that he had shaken off the pursuit for good now, and he sat down upon a log to rest. Then a sudden great weakness came over him. The forest grew dim, the earth seemed to tip up, and there was a ringing sound in his ears. He looked at his hand and saw that it was shaking. It required a great effort of the will to clear his vision and steady the world about him. But he achieved it, and then he took thought of himself.

He knew very well what was the matter. His wound had begun to assert itself, and he knew that he could no longer refuse to listen to its will.

The sun sank in a sea of red and yellow fire, and the veil of darkness was drawn over the vast primeval wilderness. Henry welcomed the coming of the dusk. Night is kindly to those who flee. He left the log and walked slowly toward the horizon, on which he had seen the dim, blue line of the hills. He would be more likely to find there rude shelter of some sort.

The reflex from long and strenuous action both physical and mental--no one fights for anything else as he does for his life--had come, and his body relaxed. The dizziness returned at times, and he knew that he must have rest.

He was aware, too, that he needed food, but it was no time to hunt for it. That must be done on the morrow, and intense longing for his rifle assailed him again. It would be more precious to him now than gold or diamonds.

A melancholy note came lonesomely through the forest and the twilight. It was the cry of the whippoorwill, inexpressibly mournful, and Henry listened to it a minute or two. He thought at first that it might be a signal cry of the Wyandots, but when it was twice repeated he knew that it was real. He banished it from his mind and went on.

A gobble came from a tree near by. He caught the bronze gleam of the wild turkeys sitting high on the branches. They may have seen him or heard him, but they did not stir. Something sprang up in the bushes, ran a little way and stopped, regarding him with great lustrous eyes. It was a deer, but it was unafraid. The behavior of deer and turkey was so unusual that a curious idea gripped Henry. They knew that he was unarmed, and therefore they did not feel the need to run.

He always felt a close kinship with the wild things, and he could not put aside this idea that they knew him as he now was, a helpless wanderer. It humiliated him. He had been a lord of creation, and now he was the weakest of them all. They could find their food and shelter with ease, but only luck would bring him either. He felt discouragement because he had suddenly sunk to the lowest place among living things, and that stitch in his side began to grow stronger. It did not come now at intervals but stayed, and soon he must lie down and rest if he had nothing more than the shelter of a tree’s outspread boughs.

But he came to the hills and, after some hunting, found a rocky alcove, which he half filled with the dead leaves of last year. There he lay down and drew some of the leaves over him. It was wonderfully soothing and peaceful, and the stitch in his side became much easier. As his nerves resumed their normal state, he grew very hungry. But he would have to endure it, and he tried to think of other things.

It was quite dark now, but he heard noises about him. He knew that it was the night prowlers, and some of them came very near. It was true that they knew him to be unarmed. In some mysterious way the word had been passed among them that their greatest enemy, man, could do them no harm, and Henry saw bright little eyes looking at him curiously through the darkness.

The boy felt deeply his sense of helplessness. Small shadowy forms hopped about through the thickets. He fancied that they were rabbits, and they came very near in the most reckless and abandoned fashion. He was overwhelmed with shame. That a little rabbit eight inches long and weighing only two or three pounds should defy him who had slain bears and buffaloes, and who had fought victoriously with the most powerful and cunning of Indian warriors, was not to be endured. He raised himself up a little and threw a stone at them. They disappeared with a faint noise of light, leaping feet, but in a few moments they came back again. If he frightened them it was only for an instant, and it took an effort of his will to prevent an unreasoning anger toward the most timid and innocent of forest creatures.

The night now was well advanced, but full of dusky beauty. The stars were coming out, bright and confident, and their silvery twinkle lighted up the heavens. Henry looked up at them. They would have been to most people mere meaningless points in the vast, cold void, but they made him neither lonely nor afraid. The feeling of weakness was what troubled him. He knew that he ought to sleep, but his nerves were not yet in the perfect accord that produces rest.

He resolutely shut his eyes and kept them shut for five minutes. Then he opened them again because he felt a larger presence than that of the rabbits. He saw another half circle of bright eyes, but these were much higher above the ground, and presently he made out the lean forms, the sharp noses, and the cruel white teeth of wolves. Still he was not afraid. They did not seem to be above four or five in number, and he knew that they would not attack him unless they were a large pack, but he felt the insult of their presence. He hated wolves. He respected a bear and he admired a buffalo, but a wolf, although in his way cunning and skillful beyond compare, did not seem to him to be a noble animal.

Such contempt for him, a hunter and a warrior, who could slay at two hundred yards, given his rifle, must be avenged, and he felt around at the edge of the hollow until his hand closed upon a stone nearly as large as his fist. Then he closed his eyes all but a tiny corner of the right one and lay so still that even a wolf, with all his wolfish knowledge and caution, might think him asleep. By the faint beam of light that entered the tiny corner of his right eye he saw the wolves drawing nearer, and he marked their leader, an inquiring old fellow who stood three or four inches taller than the others, and who was a foot in advance.

The wolves approached slowly and with many a little pause or withdrawal, but the youth was fully as patient. He had learned his lessons from the forest and its creatures, and on this night nothing was cheaper to him than time. It was another proof of natural power and of the effect of long training that he did not move at all for a quarter of an hour. The old wolf, the leader, who stood high in the wolf tribe, who had won his position by genuine wolfish wisdom and prowess, could not tell whether this specimen of man was alive or dead. He inclined to the opinion that he was dead. Certainly he did not move, he could not see a quiver of the eyelash, and he noticed no rising and falling of the chest under the buckskin hunting shirt. A doubled up hand--the one that enclosed the stone--lay pallid and limp upon the leaves, and it encouraged the wise old leader to come closer. He had seen a dead warrior in his time, and that warrior’s hand had lain upon the grass in just such a way.