Chapter 8: The Shadow in the Water

Henry Ware and the Wyandot warrior were clasped so tightly in each other’s arms that their hold was not broken as they fell. They whirled over and over, rolling among the short bushes on the steep slope, and then they dropped a clear fifteen feet or more, striking the hard earth below with a sickening impact.

Both lay still a half minute, and then Henry rose unsteadily to his feet. Fortune had turned her face toward him and away from the Wyandot. The warrior had been beneath when they struck, and in losing his life had saved that of his enemy. Henry had suffered no broken bones, nothing more than bruises, and he was recovering rapidly from the dizziness caused by his fall. But the warrior’s neck was broken, and he was stone dead.

Henry, as his eyes cleared and his strength returned, looked down at the Indian, a single glance being sufficient to tell what had happened. The warrior could trouble him no more. He shook himself and felt carefully of his limbs. He had been saved miraculously, and he breathed a little prayer of thankfulness to the God of the white man, the Manitou of the red man.

He did not like to look at the fallen warrior. He did not blame the Wyandot for pursuing him. It was what his religion and training both had taught him to do, and Henry was really his enemy. Moreover, he had made a good fight, and the victor respected the vanquished.

It was his first impulse to plunge at once into the forest and hasten away, but it got no further than an impulse, His was the greatest victory that one could win. He had not only disposed of his foe; he had gained much beside.

He climbed back up the hill and took the gun from the bushes where it had fallen. He had expected a musket, or, at best, a short army rifle bought at some far Northern British post, and his joy was great when he found, instead, a beautiful Kentucky rifle with a long, slender barrel, a silver-mounted piece of the finest make. He handled it with delight, observing its fine points, and he was sure that it had been taken from some slain countryman of his.

He recovered the knife, too, and then descended the hill again. He did not like to touch the dead warrior, but it was no time for squeamishness, and he took from him a horn, nearly full of powder, and a pouch containing at least two hundred bullets to fit the rifle. He looked for something else which he knew the Indian invariably carried--flint and steel--and he found it in a pocket of his hunting shirt. He transferred the flint and steel to his own pocket, put the tomahawk in his belt beside the knife, and turned away, rifle on shoulder.

He stood a few moments at the edge of the forest, listening. It seemed to him that he heard a far, faint signal cry and then another in answer, but the sound was so low, not above a whisper of the wind, that he was not sure.

Whether a signal cry or not, he cared little. The last half hour had put him through a wonderful transformation. Life once more flowed high in every vein never higher. He, an unarmed fugitive whom even the timid rabbits did not fear, he, who had been for a little while the most helpless of the forest creatures, had suddenly become the king of them all. He stood up, strong, powerful, the reloaded rifle in his hands, and looked and listened attentively for the foe, who could come if he chose. His little wound was forgotten. He was a truly formidable figure now, whom the bravest of Indian warriors, even a Wyandot, might shun.

Still hearing and seeing nothing that told of pursuit, he entered the forest and sped on light foot on the journey that always led to the southeast. The low rolling hills came again, and they were covered densely with forest, not an opening anywhere. The foliage, not yet touched with brown, was dark green and thick, forming a cool canopy overhead. Tiny brooks of clear water wandered through the mass and among the tree trunks. Many birds of brilliant plumage flew among the boughs and sang inspiringly to the youth as he passed.

It was the great, cool woods of the north, the woods that Long Jim Hart had once lamented so honestly to his comrades when they were in the far south. Henry smiled at the memory. Long Jim had said that in these woods a man knew his enemies; the Indians did not pretend to be anything else. Jim was right, as he had just proved. The Wyandots had never claimed to be anything but his enemies, and, although they had treated him well for a time, they had acted thus when the time again came.

Henry smiled once more. He had an overwhelming and just sense of triumph. He had defeated the Wyandots, the bravest and most skillful of all the Western tribes. He had slipped through the hundred hands that sought to hold him, and he was going back to his own, strong and armed. The rifle was certainly a splendid trophy. Long, slender, and silver mounted, he had never seen a finer, and his critical eye assured him that its quality would be equal to its appearance.

He did not stop running while he examined the rifle, and when he put it back on his shoulder the wind began to blow. Hark! There was the song among the leaves again, and now it told not merely of hope, but of victory achieved and danger passed. Henry was sure that he heard it. He had an imaginative mind like all forest-dwellers, like the Indians themselves, and he personified everything. The wind was a living, breathing thing.

He stopped at the end of two or three hours. The sun was sailing high in the heavens, and he had come at last to a little prairie. Game, it was likely, would be here, and he meant now to have food, not blackberries, but the nutritious flesh that his strong body craved. He could easily secure it now, and he stroked the beautiful rifle joyously.

Except for the great villages at Chillicothe, Piqua, and a few other places, the Indians shifted their homes often, leaving one region that the game might increase in it again, until such time as they wished to come back, and Henry judged that the country in which he now was had been abandoned for a while. If so, the game should be plentiful and not shy.

The prairie was perhaps a mile in length, and at its far edge two deer were grazing. It was not difficult to stalk them, and Henry, choosing the doe, brought her down with an easy shot. He carried the body into the woods, skinned it, cut off the tenderer portions, and prepared for a solid dinner. With his food now before him, he realized how very hungry he was. Yet he was fastidious, and, as usual, he insisted upon doing all things in season, and properly.

He brought forth the Indian’s flint and steel--he was very glad now that he had had the forethought to take them--and after much effort set about kindling a fire. Flint and steel are not such easy things to use, and it took Henry five minutes to light the blaze, but five minutes later he was broiling tender, juicy slices of deer meat on the end of a twig, and then eating them one by one. He ate deliberately, but he ate a great many, and when he was satisfied he put out the fire. He crushed the coals into the earth with his heels and covered them with leaves, instinctive caution making him do it. Then he went deep into the forest, and, lying down in a thicket, rested a long time.

He knew that the Indian tribes intended to gather at Tuentahahewaghta (the site of Cincinnati), the place where the waters of the Licking, coming out of the wild Kentucky woods, joined the Ohio, and he believed that the best thing for him to do was to go to that point. He calculated that, despite his long delay at the Wyandot village, he could yet arrive there ahead of the fleet, and after seeing the Indian mobilization, he could go back to warn it. Only one thing worried him much now. Had his four faithful comrades taken his advice and stayed with the fleet, or were they now in the forest seeking him? He well knew their temper, and he feared that they had not remained with the boats after his absence became long.

But these comrades of his were resourceful, and he was presently able to dismiss the question from his mind. He had acquired with the patience of the Indian another of his virtues, an ability to dismiss all worries, sit perfectly still, and be completely happy. This quality may have had its basis originally in physical content, the satisfaction that came to the savage when he had eaten all he wished, when no enemy was present, and he could lie at ease on a soft couch. But in Henry it was higher, and was founded chiefly on the knowledge of a deed well done and absolute confidence in the future, although the physical quality was not lacking.

He felt an immense peace. Nothing was wrong. The day was just right, neither too hot nor too cool. The blaze of the brilliant skies and of the great golden sun was pleasantly shaded from his eyes by the green veil of the leaves. Those surely were the finest deer steaks that he had ever eaten! There could not be such another wilderness as this on the face of the earth! And he, Henry Ware, was one of the luckiest of human beings!

He lay a full two hours wrapped in content. He did not move arm or leg. Nothing but his long, deep breathing and his bright blue eyes, shaded by half-fallen lashes, told that he lived. Every muscle was relaxed. There was absolutely no effort, either physical or mental.

Yet the word passed by the forest creatures to one another was entirely different from the word that had been passed the night before. The slackened human figure that never moved was dangerous, it was once more the king of the wilderness, and the four-footed kind, after looking once and fearfully upon it, must steal in terror away.

The wolf felt it. Slinking through the thicket, he measured the great length of the recumbent shape, observed the half-opened eye, and departed in speed and silence; a yellow puma smelt the human odor, thought at first that the youth was dead, but, after a single look, followed the wolf, his heart quaking within him. A foolish bear, also, shambled into the thicket, but he was not too foolish, after he saw Henry, to shamble quickly away.

When Henry rose he was as thoroughly refreshed and restored as if he had never run a gantlet, made a flight of a night and a day, and fought with a Wyandot for his life. The very completeness of it had made him rest as much in two hours as another would have rested in six. He resumed his flight, taking with him venison steaks that he had cooked before he put out his fire, and he did not stop until the night was well advanced and the stars had sprung out in a dusky sky. Then he chose another dense thicket and, lying down in it, was quickly asleep.

He awoke about midnight and saw a faint light shining through the woods. He judged that it was a long distance away, but he resolved to see what made it, being sure in advance that it was the glow of an Indian camp fire.

He approached cautiously, looked from the crest of a low hill into a snug little valley, and saw that his surmise was true.

About fifty warriors sat or lay around a smouldering fire, and he inferred from their dress and paint that they were Shawnees. Four who sat together were talking earnestly, and he knew them to be chiefs. It was impossible to hear what they said, but he believed this to be a party on the way to the great meeting at the mouth of Licking. It was evident that he had not escaped too soon, and he withdrew as cautiously as he had approached.