CHAPTER XIII
A MEETING IN THE WILDERNESS
Beverley set out on his mid-winter journey to Kaskaskia with a tempest
in his heart, and it was, perhaps, the storm's energy that gave
him the courage to face undaunted and undoubting what his experience
must have told him lay in his path. He was young and strong; that
meant a great deal; he had taken the desperate chances of Indian
warfare many times before this, and the danger counted as nothing,
save that it offered the possibility of preventing him from doing
the one thing in life he now cared to do. What meant suffering to
him, if he could but rescue Alice? And what were life should he
fail to rescue her? The old, old song hummed in his heart, every
phrase of it distinct above the tumult of the storm. Could cold
and hunger, swollen streams, ravenous wild beasts and scalp-hunting
savages baffle him? No, there is no barrier that can hinder love.
He said this over and over to himself after his rencounter with
the four Indian scouts on the Wabash. He repeated it with every
heart-beat until he fell in with some friendly red men, who took
him to their camp, where to his great surprise he met M. Roussillon.
It was his song when again he strode off toward the west on his
lonely way.
We need not follow him step by step; the monotony of the woods and
prairies, the cold rains, alternating with northerly winds and blinding
snow, the constant watchfulness necessary to guard against a meeting
with hostile savages, the tiresome tramping, wading and swimming,
the hunger, the broken and wretched sleep in frozen and scant wraps,--why
detail it all?
There was but one beautiful thing about it--the beauty of Alice
as she seemed to walk beside him and hover near him in his dreams.
He did not know that Long-Hair and his band were fast on his track;
but the knowledge could not have urged him to greater haste. He
strained every muscle to its utmost, kept every nerve to the highest
tension. Yonder towards the west was help for Alice; that was all
he cared for.
But if Long-Hair was pursuing him with relentless greed for the
reward offered by Hamilton, there were friendly footsteps still
nearer behind him; and one day at high noon, while he was bending
over a little fire, broiling some liberal cuts of venison, a finger
tapped him on the shoulder. He sprang up and grappled Oncle Jazon;
at the same time, standing near by, he saw Simon Kenton, his old-time
Kentucky friend. The pungled features of one and the fine, rugged
face of the other swam as in a mist before Beverley's eyes. Kenton
was laughing quietly, his strong, upright form shaking to the force
of his pleasure. He was in the early prime of a vigorous life, not
handsome, but strikingly attractive by reason of a certain glow
in his face and a kindly flash in his deep-set eyes.
"Well, well, my boy!" he exclaimed, laying his left hand
on Beverley's shoulder, while in the other he held a long, heavy
rifle. "I'm glad to see ye, glad to see
"Thought we was Injuns, eh?" said Oncle Jazon. "An'
ef we had 'a' been we'd 'a' been shore o' your scalp!" The
wizzened old creole cackled gleefully.
"And where are ye goin'?" demanded Kenton. "Ye're
making what lacks a heap o' bein' a bee-line for some place or other."
Beverley was dazed and vacant-minded; things seemed wavering and
dim. He pushed the two men from him and gazed at them without speaking.
Their presence and voices did not convince him.
"Yer meat's a burnin'," said Oncle Jazon, stooping to
turn it on the smouldering coals. "Ye must be hungry. Cookin'
enough for a regiment."
Kenton shook Beverley with rough familiarity, as if to rouse his
faculties.
"What's the matter? Fitz, my lad, don't ye know Si Kenton?
It's not so long since we were like brothers, and now ye don't speak
to me! Ye've not forgot me, Fitz!"
"Mebby he don't like ye as well as ye thought he did,"
drawled Oncle Jazon. "I HEV known o' fellers a bein' mistaken
jes' thet way."
Beverley got his wits together as best he could, taking in the situation
by such degrees as seemed at the time unduly slow, but which were
really mere momentary falterings.
"Why, Kenton! Jazon!" he presently exclaimed, a cordial
gladness blending with his surprise. "How did you get here?
Where did you come from?"
He looked from one to the other back and forth with a wondering
smile breaking over his bronzed and determined face.
"We've been hot on yer trail for thirty hours," said Kenton.
"Roussillon put us on it back yonder. But what are ye up to?
Where are ye goin'?"
"I'm going to Clark at Kaskaskia to bring him yonder."
He waved his hand eastward. "I am going to take Vincennes and
kill Hamilton."
'Well, ye're taking a mighty queer course, my boy, if ye ever expect
to find Kaskaskia. Ye're already twenty miles too far south."
"Carryin' his gun on the same shoulder all the time,"
said Oncle Jazon, "has made 'im kind o' swing in a curve like.
'Tain't good luck no how to carry yer gun on yer lef' shoulder.
When you do it meks yer take a longer step with yer right foot than
ye do with yer lef' an' ye can't walk a straight line to save yer
liver. Ventreblue! La venaison brule encore! Look at that dasted
meat burnin' agin!"
He jumped back to the fire to turn the scorching cuts.
Beverley wrung Kenton's hand and looked into his eyes, as a man
does when an old friend comes suddenly out of the past, so to say,
and brings the freshness and comfort of a strong, true soul to brace
him in his hour of greatest need.
"Of all men in the world, Simon Kenton, you were the least
expected; but how glad I am! How thankful! Now I know I shall succeed.
We are going to capture Vincennes, Kenton, are we not? We shall,
sha'n't we, Jazon? Nothing, nothing can prevent us, can it?"
Kenton heartily returned the pressure of the young man's hand, while
Oncle Jazon looked up quizzically and said:
"We're a tol'ble 'spectable lot to prevent; but then we might
git pervented. I've seed better men an' us purty consid'ble pervented
lots o' times in my life."
In speaking the colloquial dialect of the American backwoodsmen,
Oncle Jazon, despite years of practice among them, gave to it a
creole lisp and some turns of pronunciation not to be indicated
by any form of spelling. It added to his talk a peculiar soft drollery.
When he spoke French it was mostly that of the COUREURS DE BOIS,
a PATOIS which still lingers in out-of-the-way nooks of Louisiana.
"For my part," said Kenton, "I am with ye, old boy,
in anything ye want to do. But now ye've got to tell me everything.
I see that ye're keeping something back. What is it?" He glanced
sidewise slyly at Oncle Jazon.
Beverley was frank to a fault; but somehow his heart tried to keep
Alice all to itself. He hesitated; then--
"I broke my parole with Governor Hamilton," he said. "He
forced me to do it. I feel altogether justified. I told him beforehand
that I should certainly leave Vincennes and go get a force to capture
and kill him; and I'll do it, Simon Kenton, I'll do it!"
"I see, I see," Kenton assented, "but what was the
row about? What did he do to excite ye--to make ye feel justified
in breakin' over yer parole in that high-handed way? Fitz, I know
ye too well to be fooled by ye--you've got somethin' in mind that
ye don't want to tell. Well, then don't tell it. Oncle Jazon and
I will go it blind, won't we, Jazon?"
"Blind as two moles," said the old man; "but as for
thet secret," he added, winking both eyes at once, "I
don't know as it's so mighty hard to guess. It's always safe to
'magine a woman in the case. It's mostly women 'at sends men a trottin'
off 'bout nothin', sort o' crazy like."
Beverley looked guilty and Oncle Jazon continued: "They's a
poo'ty gal at Vincennes, an' I see the young man a steppin' into
her house about fifteen times a day 'fore I lef' the place. Mebbe
she's tuck up wi' one o' them English officers. Gals is slippery
an' onsartin'."
"Jazon!" cried Beverley, "stop that instantly, or
I'll wring your old neck." His anger was real and he meant
what he said. He clenched his hands and glowered.
Oncle Jazon, who was still squatting by the little fire, tumbled
over backwards, as if Beverley had kicked him; and there he lay
on the ground with his slender legs quivering akimbo in the air,
while he laughed in a strained treble that sounded like the whining
of a screech-owl.
The old scamp did not know all the facts in Beverley's case, nor
did he even suspect what had happened; but he was aware of the young
man's tender feeling for Alice, and he did shrewdly conjecture that
she was a factor in the problem.
The rude jest at her expense did not seem to his withered and toughened
taste in the least out of the way. Indeed it was a delectable bit
of humor from Oncle Jazon's point of view.
"Don't get mad at the old man," said Kenton, plucking
Beverley aside. "He's yer friend from his heels to his old
scalped crown. Let him have his fun." Then lowering his voice
almost to a whisper he continued:
"I was in Vincennes for two days and nights spyin' around.
Madame Godere hid me in her house when there was need of it. I know
how it is with ye; I got all the gossip about ye and the young lady,
as well as all the information about Hamilton and his forces that
Colonel Clark wants. I'm goin' to Kaskaskia; but I think it quite
possible that Clark will be on his march to Vincennes before we
get there; for Vigo has taken him full particulars as to the fort
and its garrison, and I know that he's determined to capture the
whole thing or die tryin'."
Beverley felt his heart swell and his blood leap strong in his veins
at these words.
"I saw ye while I was in Vincennes," Kenton added, "but
I never let ye see me. Ye were a prisoner, and I had no business
with ye while your parole held. I felt that it was best not to tempt
ye to give me aid, or to let ye have knowledge of me while I was
a spy. I left two days before ye did, and should have been at Kaskaskia
by this time if I hadn't run across Jazon, who detained me. He wanted
to go with me, and I waited for him to repair the stock of his old
gun. He tinkered at it 'tween meals and showers for half a week
at the Indian village back yonder before he got it just to suit
him. But I tell ye he's wo'th waiting for any length of time, and
I was glad to let him have his way."
Kenton, who was still a young man in his early thirties, respected
Beverley's reticence on the subject uppermost in his mind. Madame
Godere had told the whole story with flamboyant embellishments;
Kenton tiad seen Alice, and, inspired with the gossip and a surreptitious
glimpse of her beauty, he felt perfectly familiar with Beverley's
condition. He was himself a victim of the tender passion to the
extent of being an exile from his Virginia home, which he had left
on account of dangerously wounding a rival. But he was well touched
with the backwoodsman's taste for joke and banter. He and Oncle
Jazon, therefore, knowing the main feature of Beverley's predicament,
enjoyed making the most of their opportunity in their rude but perfectly
generous and kindly way.
By indirection and impersonal details, as regarded his feelings
toward Alice, Beverley in due time made his friends understand that
his whole ambition was centered in rescuing her. Nor did the motive
fail to enlist their sympathy to the utmost. If all the world loves
a lover, all men having the best virile instinct will fight for
a lover's cause. Both Kenton and Oncle Jazon were enthusiastic;
they wanted nothing better than an opportunity to aid in rescuing
any girl who had shown so much patriotism and pluck. But Oncle Jazon
was fond of Alice, and Beverley's story affected him peculiarly
on her account.
"They's one question I'm a goin' to put to ye, young man,"
he said, after he had heard everything and they had talked it all
over, "an' I want ye to answer it straight as a bullet f'om
yer gun."
"Of course, Jazon, go ahead," said Beverley. "I shall
be glad to answer." But his mind was far away with the gold-haired
maiden in Hamilton's prison. He scarcely knew what he was saying.
"Air ye expectin' to marry Alice Roussillon?"
The three men were at the moment eating the well broiled venison.
Oncle Jazon's puckered lips and chin were dripping with the fragrant
grease and juice, which also flowed down his sinewy, claw-like fingers.
Overhead in the bare tops of the scrub oaks that covered the prairie
oasis, the February wind sang a shrill and doleful song.
Beverley started as if a blow had been aimed at him. Oncle Jazon's
question, indeed, was a blow as unexpected as it was direct and
powerful.
"I know it's poo'ty p'inted," the old man added after
a short pause, "an' ye may think 'at I ain't got no business
askin' it; but I have. That leetle gal's a pet o' mine, an' I'm
a lookin' after her, an' expectin' to see 'at she's not bothered
by nobody who's not goin' to do right by her. Marryin' is a mighty
good thing, but--"
"What do ye know about matrimony, ye old raw-headed bachelor?"
demanded Kenton, who felt impelled to relieve Beverley of the embarrassment
of an answer. "Ye wouldn't know a wife from a sack o' meal!"
"Now don't git too peart an' fast, Si Kenton," cried Oncle
Jazon, glaring truculently at his friend, but at the same time showing
a dry smile that seemed to be hopelessly entangled in criss-cross
wrinkles. "Who told ye I was a bach'lor? Not by a big jump.
I've been married mighty nigh on to twenty times in my day. Mos'ly
Injuns, o' course; but a squaw's a wife w'en ye marries her, an'
I know how it hurts a gal to be dis'p'inted in sich a matter. That's
w'y I put the question I did. I'm not goin' to let no man give sorry
to that little Roussillon gal; an' so ye've got my say. Ye seed
her raise thet flag on the fort, Lieutenant Beverley, an' ye seed
her take it down an' git away wi' it. You know 'at she deserves
nothin' but the best; an' by the Holy Virgin, she's got to have
it, or I'm a goin' to know several reasons why. Thet's what made
me put the question straight to ye, young man, an' I expects a straight
answer."
Beverley's face paled; but not with anger. He grasped one of Oncle
Jazon's greasy hands and gave it such a squeeze that the old fellow
grimaced painfully.
"Thank you, Oncle Jazon, thank you!" he said, with a peculiar
husky burr in his voice. "Alice will never suffer if I can
help it. Let the subject drop now, my friend, until we have saved
her from the hands of Hamilton." In the power of his emotion
he continued to grip the old man's hand with increasing severity
of pressure.
"Ventrebleu! let go! Needn't smash a feller's fingers 'bout
it!" screeched Oncle Jazon. "I can't shoot wo'th a cent,
nohow, an' ef ye cripple up my trigger-finger--"
Kenton had been peeping under the low-hanging scrub-oak boughs while
Oncle Jazon was speaking these last words; and now he suddenly interrupted:
"The devil! look yonder!" he growled out in startling
tone. "Injuns!"
It was a sharp snap of the conversation's thread, and at the same
time our three friends realized that they had been careless in not
keeping a better look-out. They let fall the meat they had not yet
finished eating and seized their guns.
Five or six dark forms were moving toward them across a little point
of the prairie that cut into the wood a quarter of a mile distant.
"Yander's more of 'em," said Oncle Jazon, as if not in
the least concerned, wagging his head in an opposite direction,
from which another squad was approaching.
That he duly appreciated the situation appeared only in the celerity
with which he acted.
Kenton at once assumed command, and his companions felt his perfect
fitness. There was no doubt from the first as to what the Indians
meant; but even if there had been it would have soon vanished; for
in less than three minutes twenty-one savages were swiftly and silently
forming a circle inclosing the spot where the three white men, who
had covered themselves as best they could with trees, waited in
grim steadiness for the worst.
Quite beyond gunshot range, but near enough for Oncle Jazon to recognize
Long-Hair as their leader, the Indians halted and began making signs
to one another all round the line. Evidently they dreaded to test
the marksmanship of such riflemen as they knew most border men to
be. Indeed, Long-Hair had personal knowledge of what might certainly
be expected from both Kenton and Oncle Jazon; they were terrible
when out for fight; the red warriors from Georgia to the great lakes
had heard of them; their names smacked of tragedy. Nor was Beverley
without fame among Long-Hair's followers, who had listened to the
story of his fighting qualities, brought to Vincennes by the two
survivors of the scouting party so cleverly defeated by him.
"The liver-colored cowards," said Kenton, "are afeared
of us in a shootin'-match; they know that a lot of 'em would have
to die if they should undertake an open fight with us. It's some
sort of a sneakin' game they are studyin' about just now."
"I'm a gittin' mos' too ole to shoot wo'th a cent," said
Oncle Jazon, "but I'd give half o' my scalp ef thet Long-Hair
would come clost enough fo' me to git a bead onto his lef' eye.
It's tol'ble plain 'at we're gone goslins this time, I'm thinkin';
still it'd be mighty satisfyin' if I could plug out a lef' eye or
two 'fore I go."
Beverley was silent; the words of his companions were heard by him,
but not noticed. Nothing interested him save the thought of escaping
and making his way to Clark. To fail meant infinitely more than
death, of which he had as small fear as most brave men, and to succeed
meant everything that life could offer. So, in the unlimited selfishness
of love, he did not take his companions into account.
The three stood in a close-set clump of four or five scrub oaks
at the highest point of a thinly wooded knoll that sloped down in
all directions to the prairie. Their view was wide, but in places
obstructed by the trees.
"Men," said Kenton, after a thoughtful and watchful silence,
"the thing looks kind o' squally for us. I don't see much of
a chance to get out of this alive; but we've got to try."
He showed by the density of his voice and a certain gray film in
his face that he felt the awful gravity of the situation; but he
was calm and not a muscle quivered.
"They's jes' two chances for us," said Oncle Jazon, "an'
them's as slim as a broom straw. We've got to stan' here an' fight
it out, or wait till night an' sneak through atween 'em an' run
for it."
"I don't see any hope o' sneakin' through the line," observed
Kenton. "It's not goin' to be dark tonight."
"Wa-a-l," Oncle Jazon drawled nonchalantly while he took
in a quid of tobacco, "I've been into tighter squeezes 'an
this, many a time, an' I got out, too."
"Likely enough," said Kenton, still reflecting while his
eyes roamed around the circle of savages.
"I fit the skunks in Ferginny 'fore you's thought of, Si Kenton,
an' down in Car'lina in them hills. If ye think I'm a goin' to be
scalped where they ain't no scalp, 'ithout tryin' a few dodges,
yer a dad dasteder fool an' I used to think ye was, an' that's makin'
a big compliment to ye."
"Well, we don't have to argy this question, Oncle Jazon; they're
a gittin' ready to run in upon us, and we've got to fight. I say,
Beverley, are ye ready for fast shootin'? Have ye got a plenty of
bullets?"
"Yes, Roussillon gave me a hundred. Do you think--"
He was interrupted by a yell that leaped from savage mouth to mouth
all round the circle, and then the charge began.
"Steady, now," growled Kenton, "let's not be in a
hurry. Wait till they come nigh enough to hit 'em before we shoot."
The time was short; for the Indians came on at almost race-horse
speed.
Oncle Jazon fired first, the long, keen crack of his small-bore
rifle splitting the air with a suggestion of vicious energy, and
a lithe young warrior, who was outstripping all his fellows, leaped
high and fell paralyzed.
"Can't shoot wo'th a cent," muttered the old man, deftly
beginning to reload his gun the while; "but I jes' happened
to hit that buck. He'll never git my scalp, thet's sartin an' sure."
Beverley and Kenton each likewise dropped an Indian; but the shots
did not even check the rush. Long-Hair had planned to capture his
prey, not kill it. Every savage had his orders to take the white
men alive; Hamilton's larger reward depended on this.
Right on they came, as fast as their nimble legs could carry them,
yelling like demons; and they reached the grove before the three
white men could reload their guns. Then every warrior took cover
behind a tree and began scrambling forward from bole to bole, thus
approaching rapidly without much exposure.
"Our 'taters is roasted brown," muttered Oncle Jazon.
He crossed himself. Possibly he prayed; but he was priming his old
gun the next instant.
Kenton fired again, making a hurried and ineffectual attempt to
stop the nearest warrior, who saved himself by quickly skipping
behind a tree. Beverley's gun snapped, the flint failing to make
fire; but Oncle Jazon bored a little hole through the head of the
Indian nearest him; and then the final rush was made from every
direction.
A struggle ensued, which for desperate energy has probably never
been surpassed. Like three lions at bay, the white men met the shock,
and lion-like they fought in the midst of seventeen stalwart and
determined savages.
"Don't kill them, take them alive; throw them down and hold
them!" was Long-Hair's order loudly shouted in the tongue of
his tribe.
Both Kenton and Jazon understood every word and knew the significance
of such a command from the leader. It naturally came into Kenton's
mind that Hamilton had been informed of his visit to Vincennes and
had offered a reward for his capture. This being true, death as
a spy would be the certain result if he were taken back. He might
as well die now. As for Beverley, he thought only of Alice, yonder
as he had left her, a prisoner in Hamilton's hands, Oncle Jazon,
if he thought at all, probably considered nothing but present escape,
though he prayed audibly to the Blessed Virgin, even while he lay
helpless upon the ground, pinned down by the weight of an enormous
Indian. He could not move any part of himself, save his lips, and
these mechanically put forth the wheezing supplication.
Beverley and Kenton, being young and powerful, were not so easily
mastered. For a while, indeed, they appeared to be more than holding
their own. They time and time again scattered the entire crowd by
the violence of their muscular efforts; and after it had finally
closed in upon them in a solid body they swayed and swung it back
and forth and round and round until the writhing, savage mass looked
as if caught in the vortex of a whirlwind. But such tremendous exertion
could not last long. Eight to one made too great a difference between
the contending parties, and the only possible conclusion of the
struggle soon came. Seized upon by desperate, clinging, wolf-like
assailants, the white men felt their arms, legs and bodies weighted
down and their strength fast going.
Kenton fell next after Oncle Jazon, and was soon tightly bound with
rawhide thongs. He lay on his back panting and utterly exhausted,
while Beverley still kept up the unequal fight.
Long-Hair sprang in at the last moment to make doubly certain the
securing of his most important captive. He flung his long and powerful
arms around Beverley from behind and made a great effort to throw
him upon the ground. The young man, feeling this fresh and vigorous
clasp, turned himself about to put forth one more mighty spurt of
power. He lifted the stalwart Indian bodily and dashed him headlong
against the buttressed root of a tree half a rod distant, breaking
the smaller bone of his left fore-arm and well-nigh knocking him
senseless.
It was a fine exhibition of manly strength; but there could be nothing
gained by it. A blow on the back of his head the next instant stretched
Beverley face downward and unconscious on the ground. The savages
turned him over and looked satisfied when they found that he was
not dead. They bound him with even greater care than they had shown
in securing the others, while Long-Hair stood by stolidly looking
on, meantime supporting his broken fore-arm in his hand.
"Ugh! dog!" he grunted, and gave Beverley a kick in the
side. Then turning a fiendish stare upon Oncle Jazon he proceeded
to deliver against his old, dry ribs three or four like contributions
with resounding effect. "Polecat! Little old greasy woman!"
he snarled, "make good fire for warrior to dance by!"
Kenton also received his full share of the kicks and verbal abuse,
after which Long-Hair gave orders for fires to be built. Then he
looked to his hurt arm and had the bone set and bandaged, never
so much as wincing the while.
It was soon apparent that the Indians purposed to celebrate their
successful enterprise with a feast. They cooked a large amount of
buffalo steak; then, each with his hands full of the savory meat,
they began to dance around the fires, droning meantime an atrociously
repellant chant.
"They're a 'spectin' to hev a leetle bit o' fun outen us,"
muttered Oncle Jazon to Beverley, who lay near him. "I onderstan'
what they're up to, dad dast 'em! More'n forty years ago, in Ca'lina,
they put me an' Jim Hipes through the ga'ntlet, an' arter thet,
in Kaintuck, me an' Si Kenton tuck the run. Hi, there, Si! where
air ye?"
"Shut yer fool mouth," Kenton growled under his breath.
"Ye'll have that Injun a kickin' our lights out of us again."
Oncle Jazon winked at the gray sky and puckered his mouth so that
it looked like a nutgall on an old, dry leaf.
"What's the diff'ence?" he demanded. "I'd jest as
soon be kicked now as arter while; it's got to come anyhow."
Kenton made no response. The thongs were torturing his arms and
legs. Beverley was silent, but consciousness had returned, and with
it a sense of despair. All three of the prisoners lay face upward
quite unable to move, knowing full well that a terrible ordeal awaited
them. Oncle Jazon's grim humor could not be quenched, even by the
galling agony of the thongs that buried themselves in the flesh,
and the anticipation of torture beside which death would seem a
luxury.
"Yap! Long-Hair, how's yer arm?" he called jeeringly.
"Feels pooty good, hay?"
Long-Hair, who was not joining in the dance and song, turned when
he heard these taunting words, and mistaking whence they came, went
to Beverley's side and kicked him again and again.
Oncle Jazon heard the loud blows, and considered the incident a
remarkably good joke.
"He, he, he!" he snickered, as soon as Long-Hair walked
away again. "I does the talkin' an' somebody else gits the
thumpin'! He, he, he! I always was devilish lucky. Them kicks was
good solid jolts, wasn't they, Lieutenant? Sounded like they was.
He, he, he!"
Beverley gave no heed to Oncle Jazon's exasperating pleasantry;
but Kenton, sorely chafing under the pressure of his bonds, could
not refrain from making retort in kind.
"I'd give ye one poundin' that ye'd remember, Emile Jazon,
if I could get to ye, ye old twisted-face, peeled-headed, crooked-
mouthed, aggravatin' scamp!" he exclaimed, not thinking how
high his naturally strong voice was lifted. "I can stand any
fool but a damn fool!"
Long-Hair heard the concluding epithet and understood its meaning.
Moreover, he thought himself the target at which it was so energetically
launched. Wherefore he promptly turned back and gave Kenton a kicking
that made his body resound not unlike a drum.
And here it was that Oncle Jazon overreached himself. He was so
delighted at Kenton's luck that he broke forth giggling and thereby
drew against his own ribs a considerable improvement of Long-Hair's
pedal applications.
"Ventrebleu!" whined the old man, when the Indian had
gone away again. "Holy Mary! Jee-ru-sa-lem! They's nary bone
o' me left 'at's not splintered as fine as toothpickers! S'pose
yer satisfied now, ain't ye, Si Kenton? Ef ye ain't I'm shore to
satisfy ye the fust time I git a chance at ye, ye blab-mouthed eejit!"
Before this conversation was ended a rain began to fall, and it
rapidly thickened from a desultory shower to a roaring downpour
that effectually quenched not only the fires around which the savages
were dancing, but the enthusiasm of the dancers as well. During
the rest of the afternoon and all night long the fall was incessant,
accompanied by a cold, panting, wailing southwest wind.
Beverley lay on the ground, face upward, the rawhide strings torturing
his limbs, the chill of cold water searching his bones. He could
see nothing but the dim, strange canopy of flying rain, against
which the bare boughs of the scrub oaks were vaguely outlined; he
could hear nothing but the cry of the wind and the swash of the
water which fell upon him and ran under him, bubbling and gurgling
as if fiendishly exultant.
The night dragged on through its terrible length, dealing out its
indescribable horrors, and at last morning arrived, with a stingy
and uncertain gift of light slowly increasing until the dripping
trees appeared forlornly gray and brown against clouds now breaking
into masses that gave but little rain.
Beverley lived through the awful trial and even had the hardihood
to brighten inwardly with the first flash of sunlight that shot
through a cloud-crack on the eastern horizon. He thought of Alice,
as he had done all night; but now the thought partook somehow of
the glow yonder above old Vincennes, although he could only see
its reflection.
There was great stir among the Indians. Long-Hair stalked about
scrutinizing the ground. Beverley saw him come near time and again
with a hideous, inquiring scowl on his face. Grunts and laconic
exclamations passed from mouth to mouth, and presently the import
of it all could not be mistaken. Kenton and Jazon were gone--had
escaped during the night--and the rain had completely obliterated
their tracks.
The Indians were furious. Long-Hair sent out picked parties of his
best scouts with orders to scour the country in all directions,
keeping with himself a few of the older warriors. Beverley was fed
what he would eat of venison, and Long-Hair made him understand
that he would have to suffer some terrible punishment on account
of the action of his companions.
Late in the day the scouts straggled back with the report that no
track or sign of the fugitives had been discovered, and immediately
a consultation was held. Most of the warriors, including all of
the young bucks, demanded a torture entertainment as compensation
for their exertions and the unexpected loss of their own prisoners;
for it had been agreed that Beverley belonged exclusively to Long-Hair,
who objected to anything which might deprive him of the great reward
offered by Hamilton for the prisoner if brought to him alive.
In the end it was agreed that Beverley should be made to run the
gauntlet, provided that no deadly weapons were used upon him during
the ordeal.