“One clean cut settled him,” the borderer muttered, as his eyes fell upon the terrible gash on the head of the red chief, and from which the red life-blood was slowly ebbing. “I’ve seen it; thar’s no mistake. It’s either the devil or a near relation. I owe him something, though, for he’s got me out of the tightest place that this old carcass has been in for many a long day.”
Then the scout cast a stealthy glance around him. The clouds pushing over the moon still vailed the earth with darkness.
“I must git out of this hyer, quick, ef not quicker. I won’t give the red heathen another chance at my top-knot ef I kin help it. I wonder whar Kenton and Lark are? I s’pose they must be nigh the village, somewhar. Well, I’ve found out all that I wanted to know. The Injuns mean mischief—they’re mean enough for any thing—and Point Pleasant will receive the first blow. Now, I’d better be makin’ tracks for the settlement. Jerusalem! I hope I won’t meet that awful thing in the wood. Why, my very blood freezes when I think of it.” And the stout borderer shuddered as he spoke. Back to his mind came the likeness of the dark form that had freed him from his bonds in the Indian village; again he felt on his person the light touch of the hairy arm that bore such terrible nails.
“I ain’t afeard of any thing human, but I ain’t used to the critters from the other world. Now, to gain the shelter of the forest and then to carry the tidings of this attack to the settlement.”
Carefully the old scout proceeded on his dangerous path.
Leaving the dead Indian where he had fallen, Boone again sought the shelter of the river’s bank.
Fortune favored the adventurer. No hostile Indian barred his way. Unobserved he reached the friendly shadows cast by the forest monarchs.
On the borders of the wood Boone halted for a moment and looked back on the Indian village, that nestled so peacefully by the bank of the rolling Scioto, bathed in the soft moonlight.
“Who could guess that yonder village contained a thousand red-skins thirsting for blood and slaughter?” exclaimed the old hunter, communing with himself; his gaze resting upon the quiet scene before him. The embers of the fires cast a crimson light on the wigwams and played in fantastic shadows along the plain.
“I’d better be moving,” muttered Boone; “first for the hollow oak; there I’ll probably meet Lark and Kenton. I’ll bet a big drink of corn-juice that nary one on ’em has been as fur into the Injun village as I have. I reckon I’m not[24] over anxious to risk it ag’in. How the red devils would have danced around me ef they only got the opportunity to roast me a little.” And the old hunter chuckled at the thought. Yet even now he was far from being out of danger, but he thought not of it. In the forest, free, he thought himself a match for all the Shawnee nation.
With noiseless steps the hunter took his way through the wood.
Quickly, but carefully, he went onward. Not a stick cracked beneath his tread. A fox, intent on prey, could hardly have proceeded more noiselessly.
As the shadows of the forest deepened around the path of the woodman, he glanced nervously from side to side as if he expected that some hostile form would spring upon him from the darkness of the thicket; and yet it was no red warrior that he expected to see, no brawny chief, decked with the war-paint and wearing the moccasins of the Shawnee. No, the form he expected was that of a huge gray wolf that walked erect like a man, and carried in his paw the tomahawk of the Indian. A form more terrible than any feathered, tinctured chief; more to be dreaded than any red-skin who claimed the Ohio valley as his own.
On went the hunter, still glaring about him in the darkness; but the terrible Wolf Demon sprung not from the covert of the wood. If he lurked about the pathway of the scout, he kept himself concealed within the fastness of the forest.
Boone reached the hollow oak without seeing aught to make him apprehend danger. The forest was as quiet as if no deed of blood had ever occurred within its bounds. As silent as though the terrible form—the demon of the Indian and the phantom of the white—had never stricken unto death and sent to his long home the stout-limbed Shawnee warrior.
“Hullo! thar’s no one about,” Boone muttered, as he peered within the hollow of the oak.
“Boone!” cried a voice, low and cautiously from the thicket that fringed the little glade wherein stood the oak.
Then from the darkness, into the circle of light cast by the moonbeams, stepped Kenton.
“Top-knot all right, eh?” questioned Boone, clasping the hand of the other warmly within his own broad palm.
“Yes, but how long it will be all right is a riddle. The Injuns are ’round us thick as bees ’round a honeycomb.”
“Then you’ve seen the red heathen?”
“Yes, I scouted in right to the Injun village. But, as I lay in ambush, there was an awful row kicked up and I was afeard of being caught in a trap by the Injuns, so I jist retreated to safer quarters.”
“A row, eh?” said Boone, smiling.
“Yes, a ’tarnal row; they just kicked up Old Scratch for a little while. I reckon it must have been a fight among the Shawnees,” Kenton replied.
“You’re right, Simon; it were a fight, and in that fight I was captivated.”
“Why, you don’t say so?” said Kenton, in wonder.
“Gospel truth,” replied Boone. “I scouted into the village, and camped down behind a log just as quiet as a mouse, and—would you believe it?—a squaw and her lover came and squatted down right onto the very log ahind which I lay! Then the Injun tried to kiss the gal, she wouldn’t let him, and the end of it was that both of ’em tumbled over on me, ker-chunk. I had a lively tussle with the heathen, but the other red devils came up, and thar were too many of ’em for me, and the end was that they took me into one of the wigwams, bound hand and foot.”
“But how did you manage to escape?” asked Kenton, in wonder.
“Well, now I’m going to tell you something that will make you open your eyes,” said Boone, impressively, and with an air of great mystery. “Mind you, I wouldn’t have believed this, if I hadn’t seen it. Ke-ne-ha-ha came to me in the wigwam and wanted me to become a white Injun. To gain time I asked till the morning to think over the matter. The chief consented and left me. Then, as I lay bound and helpless in the lodge, the fire burnt down so that I could hardly see, something cut a hole through the side of the wigwam and came in. I could just make out that it was a great black form, all muffled up in blankets. I knew that it was blankets, for a little while arter I had a chance to feel ’em. Well, this thing was a good deal bigger than I am—and thar ain’t many men in the Ohio valley that out-top me. This dark form cut the thongs that bound my legs and arms, gave me a blanket, and I followed it from the wigwam. Outside of the lodge this thing, that saved me, either went down into the earth or up into the air, for it vanished just like smoke disappears.”
Kenton listened with wonder to the strange tale.
“Then I sneaked along under the bank of the river, making my way to the cover of the wood,” continued Boone, “till I came to the hoss-path leading to the river, and thar in the path sat a cussed Shawnee. But as the moon was under a cloud, I thought I’d try to sneak round him on the prairie above. Just as I got about half-way, the moon came out ag’in and I hugged the yearth mighty close, I tell yer. Then I see’d a dark object a-creepin’ nigh to the Injun. A cloud came over the moon for a minute, so that I couldn’t see; but I heard a groan, though, and the sound of a blow. When the moon came out ag’in, the dark form had disappeared, and the Injun had been killed by a single tomahawk-dig in the skull, and on the breast of the chief were three knife-slashes, making a Red Arrow.”
“The Wolf Demon, by hokey!” cried Kenton, in astonishment.
“You’re right; but what on yearth is the critter?” said Boone, solemnly.
“I reckon it’s the devil,” replied Kenton, with a sober face.
“Well, devil or not, it saved me from the hands of the Shawnees,” said Boone. “The Injuns meant to roast me in the morning. But if this thing is the devil, thar’s some substance to it, ’cos I felt its arm, and it’s as hairy as a bear-skin. Besides, it’s got claws.”
“Of course; it’s the devil in the shape of a wolf.”
“Yes, but why should he trouble himself to save me from the Shawnees?” asked Boone.
“Well, thar’s whar you’ve got me,” replied Kenton, scratching his head, reflectively.
“He’s death on the Injuns, anyway,” said Boone. “Why, the feller he killed so easy would have given any man a hard tussle, ef he had half a chance.”
“It’s plain that he don’t want white blood, ’cos he wouldn’t have saved you.”
“Yes, that’s true. I don’t wonder that the red-skins are afeard of him; why, it makes my blood fairly run cold when I think about it.” And the sober look of the old scout told plainly that he spoke the truth.
“Have you seen Lark?” asked Kenton, suddenly.
“No, hain’t he come back?”
“Not yet.”
“Haven’t you seen him since we parted here?”
“No; have you?”
“Nary time,” Boone replied, laconically.
“Can he have been captivated by the Shawnees?”
“No, it is not likely,” Boone replied. “Ef he had been, I should have heard something of it. The Injuns would have been tickled to death to have been able to have told me that there was another white man to be burnt at my side for their amusement.”
“Did you learn anything about the attack?”
“Yes, all about it. The blow will fall on Point Pleasant first. Thar’ll be such a blaze along the Ohio that the smoke will almost hide the sun. Let’s go into the hollow of the oak, wait for Lark, and while we are waiting, I’ll tell you all about it.” Then the two sought shelter within the hollow tree.