We will rear new trees under homes that
glow
As if gems were the frontage of every bough;
O’er our white walls we will train the vine,
And sit in its shadow at day’s decline,
And watch our herds as they range at will
Through the green savannas, all bright and still.
MRS.
HEMANS.
The incident narrated in the preceding
chapter occurred one autumn, many years ago.
In the spring succeeding this autumn, a company of
settlers, with their loaded teams, and unwieldy baggage,
were making their slow way through the labyrinths
of an Ohio forest to a sparse settlement buried many
miles further in the wilderness.
At that day, so comparatively recent,
such a sight was rarely witnessed in this section,
as a deep-rooted hostility existed between the settlers
and Indians, and an undertaking like the present was
attended with too great danger for it to be often
repeated. The rut of a single wagon, half obliterated
by accumulated leaves and rankly-growing grass, showed
that this route had been traveled over but once before,
and that on the preceding season. At regular
intervals, trees were passed with chips hacked from
their sides, the track having first been “blazed”
before being passed over.
Like the emigrant-party which had
preceded it, the present one possessed but a single
wagon, drawn by two pair of slow but powerful oxen.
It had a substantial cover, beneath which were stowed
an immense quantity of baggage and some six or eight
children, including also four women, two of whom were
married and two unmarried. At the side of the
front oxen walked the driver, whose whole attention
was devoted to their direction. Several yards
in advance rode two horsemen, and beside them three
men plodded forward on foot. In the rear, scarcely
a yard behind the lumbering wagon, walked “old
Caleb Smith,” and his two overgrown sons, as
proud of them as was any monarch of his favorite generals.
In addition to the men enumerated, there were three
more-who may properly be called the scouts
of the party. One of these was a couple of hundred
yards in advance, stealing his way along, as carefully
as if pursued by an unrelenting foe, his whole soul
occupied in watching for signs of the dusky red-men
of the woods. At a somewhat less distance on
either side of the road, and in such a position as
to be opposite the wagon, was one of the remaining
scouts, as watchful, vigilant and skillful as the
one referred to. Thus the party progressed, neglecting
no precaution that could make their safety more secure,
and although numerically small, still far more powerful
than were many emigrant-parties who had preceded them
in penetrating other portions of the Great West.
One of the young women, that we have
mentioned as being in the wagon, was Edith Sudbury,
the heroine of the preceding chapter. She had
not a single relation among all those around her,
and it was certainly singular that she should have
united her destinies with those who, several months
before, were entirely unknown to her. But, though
not related, every one was her friend. Her amiable
disposition, her grace and beauty of manners, her
own prepossessing appearance, and above all, her unremitting
kindness to every one with whom she came in contact,
had won upon the hearts of all. Old Smith’s
two sons, Jim and Harry, one eighteen the other twenty,
both over six feet in height, looked upon “little
Edith” as nothing more than a baby, and woe betide
the one who dared to offer her harm or insult in their
presence!
“I say, father, how much further
ahead is that creek we’ve got to cross?”
asked Jim, in a free and easy manner, as he would have
spoken to an equal.
“Well, sonny, it must be nigh on to ten mile.”
“Won’t get over afore morning then?”
“Don’t expect to, as you see it’s
well along in the after noon.”
“Let’s see-we’ve come
over forty mile, hain’t we?”
“Yes, Jim, nearer fifty.”
“Well, we’re that much
nearer the settlement, that’s certain.
If we get over the creek without much trouble with
the oxen, we may fetch up there by sundown, eh?”
“That’s the expectation, I believe.”
“Provided, of course, the Injins don’t
make trouble.”
“Sh! not so loud, Jim,”
continued Harry. “They might hear us in
the wagon, and I don’t s’pose you’d
want to scare Edith, when there’s no need of
it.”
“I should like to see any one
try that same thing on ’em. They’d
be somebody else scared, I reckon. But, father,”
asked Jim, in an earnest whisper, “how is it
about the Injins? We haven’t seen a sign
of one yet, and that’s what gets me.”
The parent and his children fell a
few yards further behind, and commenced conversing
together in suppressed voices.
“I tell you what, boys,”
said the father, “it won’t do to expect
to get through without hot work. I’ve been
talking with the scouts, and they think the same.
I believe a number are following us, and waiting only
for the proper place to come in upon us.”
“Where do you suppose that will be?”
“The creek!”
“Shouldn’t wonder if ’twas,”
said Harry, in a matter-of-fact tone; “if we
only had the women-folks out the way, we might count
on some tall fun. I wish Edith was taken care
of.”
“That’s the deuce of it.
I should think she got enough of the imps last autumn,
when the Riflemen left her at our house; but that’s
the Injin, especially the Shawnee part of it.
If there’s any chance to get scalps with long
hair, they’re bound to do it. However, boys,
it won’t do to lose heart.”
“That’s the fact, father,
and I reckon none of this crowd intend to do that
thing just now. Sam, in front, isn’t likely
to get asleep, is he?”
“No danger of him. They
say he never shuts both eyes at the same time.”
“I’ll answer for them
on the sides of the road,” added Harry.
“If there’s a greasy Shawnee in a mile,
Jake Laughlin will scent him. You mind the time,
Jim, when he went with us over into Kentucky, and he
saved us from running into that ambush?”
“’Tain’t likely
I’ll ever forget it, being I got my arm bored
with some of their lead.”
“Well, that affair satisfied
me that Jake Laughlin understands as much as it is
worth while to understand about Injin deviltries, and
that he ain’t likely to be blind when there’s
so much to practice eyesight on.”
“I’d give our yoke of
oxen this minute, if I could only set eyes on Lew
Dernor and his boys, the Riflemen of the Miami,”
said the parent. “They’ve been long
together, as I s’pose, and have been in more
Injin fights and scrimmages than any men living, and
yet not one of them has been grazed by a bullet.
There’s Tom O’Hara, whose legs are so short
that he’s about as tall when he sits down as
he is when he stands up, and yet, I’ll be hanged
if he isn’t the luckiest one of the lot.
They’re a wonderful set of boys, are those Riflemen.”
“Father,” said son Jim,
with a meaning smile, “you remember the night
that Lew brought Edith to our house?”
“Of course I do.”
“Didn’t it strike you that he acted queerly
then?”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand
you. I noticed nothing.”
“I did. I saw how he watched
Edith, and I made up my mind that he was in love
with her! Since then I’ve found out
it was so!”
“Why, Jim, I never dreamed of
such a thing. He hasn’t been to our house
since to see her.”
“Just because he is in
love! I’ve met him in the woods a dozen
times since, and by the way in which he questioned
me, I’d been a downright fool if I hadn’t
understood him.”
This avowal seemed to trouble the
father, as he bent his head; and, for a while, nothing
further was said. But Jim, who had little reverence
for sentiment or romance, added, in a meaning voice:
“That isn’t all, father.”
“What else have you to tell?”
“That Edith loves him!”
“Thunder! I don’t believe it.”
“Well, I can’t say positively
that she does; but I know she likes him, and
if Lew Dernor has a mind he can get her. You don’t
appear to like it, father.”
“I don’t care much, but
the gal seems so like my own da’ter, being I
never had any, that I should hate despritly to lose
her.”
“Fudge! it’s got to come
to that sooner or later, and who could she get better
than Lew Dernor, the leader of the Miami Riflemen?”
“None, that’s the fact, but -”
A footstep attracted their attention,
and looking up, they saw Jake Laughlin step into view.
He raised his hand, as if to command silence, jerking
his thumb at the same time significantly toward the
wagon and the rest of the settlers. He stepped
carefully into the wagon-track, and the father and
sons halted.
“It’s so,” said he, nodding his
head several times.
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve seen sign a half-dozen times since
noon.”
“Shawnees, I s’pose?”
“Yes. There are plenty of them in the woods.”
“What are they waiting for?”
“The chance. There ain’t
enough, and we’re too wide awake to allow them
to attack us at present. They’re waiting
to take us off our guard or to get us at disadvantage.
I’ve an idée where that’ll be.”
“The creek?”
“Most certainly. There’s
where the tug of war will come, and I think if we
should encamp to-night without a guard there would
be no danger of attack from the Shawnees.”
“Are you going to warn others?”
“Not until night, I think, as there is no necessity
for it.”
“Well, we don’t need to
tell you to be on the look-out. You know we’ve
got a lot of women-folks to take care of.”
“Never fear.”
With this, Laughlin stole back into
the wood, as cautiously as he had emerged from it,
and the father and his sons quickened their pace in
order to gain the ground they had lost. As they
resumed their places in the rear of the wagon, no
one would have suspected from their actions and appearance,
that they had been conversing upon a subject so important
to all.
It was about the middle of the afternoon,
and the emigrant-party plodded patiently forward,
chatting and conversing upon ordinary topics with
such pleasantry and zest that no one would have suspected
the least thought of danger had entered their heads.
So long as the silence of the scouts continued, the
emigrants knew there was no cause for alarm.
Should danger threaten, they would be warned in time.
An hour later, as they were proceeding
quietly along, the near report of a rifle broke upon
their ears. Every face blanched, and every heart
beat faster at the startling signal of danger.
This it meant, and nothing else; and the members of
the company instinctively halted, and made a partial
preparation for an attack. They had scarcely done
so, when Laughlin, with his cat-like tread, stepped
in among them.
“What made you fire, Jake?”
asked Dravoond, one of the leaders of the party.
“Me fire? I haven’t
pulled trigger since I shot the wild turkey yesterday.
It must have been Sam or Myrick.”
As he spoke, the latter two, who were
the other scouts, also made their appearance, when,
to the surprise of all, it was discovered that neither
of them had fired the alarming shot. Consequently,
it must have been done by a stranger. The moment
this fact became known, the scouts separated and resumed
their duties, while the emigrants, after a short consultation,
moved on again, more slowly and carefully than before.
On the whole, although the report
of the rifle could not be explained by any of the
emigrants, the majority were disposed to take it rather
as a favorable sign than otherwise. If made by
an Indian, it could not have been done accidentally,
for such a thing rarely if ever was known among them;
and, as it could not have been fired by an enemy, with
the full knowledge of the vicinity of the emigrants,
the savages, if savages they were, must either be
unaware of the latter fact, or else the strange shot
came from a white man.
If there were lurking Indians in the
wood, ignorant of the presence of the whites, they
were soon apprised, for both of the leading oxen, who
had not done such a thing for days, now paused and
bellowed terrifically for several moments. The
driver endeavored to check their dreadful noise by
whacking them over the heads, but it availed nothing.
They were determined, and continued the clamor, pausing
now and then, as though pleased with the echo, which
could be heard rolling through the woods for over
a mile distant. Having finished, they resumed
their progress, as if satisfied with what they had
done.
“Father, them’s our oxen,”
said Jim, “and, by thunder, if they bawl out
that way agin I’ll shoot ’em both.
How far did you say the settlement is off?”
“Forty or fifty miles. Why do you ask again?”
“Nothin’, only if they’ve
put any of their babies asleep to-day, them oxen have
set them all to squalling agin.”
The sun was getting well down toward
the horizon, and the dim twilight was wrapping the
woods in its mantle, when the teamster halted the
oxen, and the emigrants commenced their preparations
for the encampment. The wagon was left standing
in its tracks, the oxen simply unfastened, and with
their yokes on, led to where some bundles of hay were
spread upon the ground. A large fire was soon
blazing and crackling a short distance away, around
which the women were engaged in preparing the evening
meal, while the men, who wandered hither and thither
apparently without any definite object, neglected no
precaution which could insure them against attack
through the night. The three scouts had extended
their beats several hundred yards, and completely
reconnoitered the ground intervening between them and
the camp-fire, so that they felt some assurance of
safety as they joined their friends in the evening
meal.
Just as they all had finished partaking
of this, a second rifle report, as near to them as
was the first, broke the stillness. The men started
to their feet and grasped their weapons. They
gazed all around them, as if expecting the appearance
of some one, but failing to see any thing, commenced
speculating upon the cause of this singular repetition
of what had puzzled them so at first.
“It beats my larning to explain it,” said
old Smith.
“I tell you what it is,”
said son Harry, “that ain’t an Injin’s
piece, nohow you can fix it.”
“How do you know that?” queried brother
Jim.
“It’s the same gun we
heard this afternoon, and when you see a Shawnee do
that I’ll believe our oxen don’t know how
to beller.”
“We must be ready, my friends,
for the worst,” said one of the emigrants, who,
up to this time, had not referred to the danger at
all.
Another reconnoissance was made by
the scouts, but with no better success than before.
The darkness of the wood was such that they labored
at great disadvantage, and it would have been no difficult
matter for a single person to have remained concealed
within a short distance of the whites.
As the night progressed, the females
and children retired to the wagon, and the men chose
their stations around it. The oxen, one by one,
sunk heavily to the earth, contentedly chewing their
cuds, and a stillness as profound as that of the tomb
settled upon the forest. The fire had smouldered
to a few embers, which glowed with a dim redness through
the ashes, and occasionally disclosed a shadowy form
as it hurried by.
Several of the men were sleeping soundly,
for enough were on duty as sentinels to make them
feel as much ease as it was possible to feel where
they could never be assured of perfect safety.
Two of the most faithful sentinels were Jim and Harry
Smith, who were stationed within a few feet of each
other. Now and then they exchanged a word or two,
but the risk was too great to attempt any thing like
a continued conversation.
Three separate times Jim was sure
he heard a footstep near him, and as often did he
turn his head and fail to discover the meaning of it.
Finally, he caught a glimpse of some one as he brushed
hurriedly by and disappeared in the darkness.
He raised his gun, and was on the point of firing,
when he lowered it again. The thought that probably
it was a white man, and a dislike to give the camp
a groundless alarm, was the cause of this failure
to fire.
Several times again through the night
did he detect a foot-fall, but he was not able to
catch sight of the stranger. Shortly after midnight
the evidences of his visit ceased, and Jim concluded
that he had withdrawn so as to be beyond sight when
daylight broke.
What was his surprise, therefore,
when he saw, as the gray light of morning stole through
the wood, the form of a man seated on the ground,
with his head reclining against a tree and sound asleep.
If this surprise was great, it became absolute amazement
when he examined his features, and saw that the man
was no other than Lewis Dernor, the leader of the
Riflemen of the Miami! Jim could scarce believe
his senses as he walked forward and shook the sleeper
by the shoulder.
“I should as soon have expected
to see Mad Anthony himself as to see you, Lew Dernor,
sitting here sound asleep,” said he, as the Rifleman
opened his eyes and looked about him. A smile
crossed his handsome countenance as he replied:
“I believe I have been sleeping.”
“I believe you have, too. Have you been
hanging around here all night?”
“Yes, and all day, too.”
“And was it you who fired those shots?”
“I fired my rifle once or twice, I believe.”
“Good! Well, Lew, we’re
glad to see you, and we would be a deuced sight gladder
if we could see the rest of the Riflemen. Where
are they?”
“Up the Miami, I suppose. At any rate,
that’s where I left them.”
“Well, I’m afraid we’re
getting into hot water here, Lew, to tell the truth,
and there’s no one whose face would be more welcome
just now than yours. I see they are beginning
to wake up and show themselves. Gavoon has started
the fire, so s’pose we go in and you make yourself
known.”
The hunter followed young Smith to
the camp, where, in a short time, he met and shook
hands with most of the settlers, who were indeed glad
enough to see him; and this gladness was increased
to delight when he expressed his willingness to accompany
them across the dreaded creek. In the course
of a half-hour the females began to make their appearance.
Near by was a small stream where they performed their
ablutions, which finished, they gathered around the
camp-fire, and busied themselves with preparing the
breakfast of the party.
Dernor, the Rifleman, was conversing
with one of the settlers, when some one touched him
on the shoulder. Looking around, he encountered
his friend, Jim Smith.
“Here’s a person I s’pose
you’ve no objection to see,” said he, with
a light laugh.
The bronzed face of the hunter deepened
its hue as he saw Edith Sudbury approaching, and although
gifted with a natural grace of manner, he displayed
some embarrassment as he advanced to greet her.
Her conduct, too, was not without its suspicious air.
Rosy and fresh as the flowers of the green woods around,
perhaps the carnation of her cheeks was caused only
by the morning exercise. Jim noticed these manifestations,
and quietly smiled, but said nothing.
In regard to the Rifleman, at least,
he was right. As that brave and gallant-hearted
ranger wandered through the grand old forests of Ohio,
and the cane-brakes of the “Dark and Bloody Ground,”
a fair face had haunted his waking and dreaming hours.
As he knelt beside the sparkling brook to slake his
thirst, he beheld the same features reflected beside
his own in its mirror-like surface. As alone he
threaded his way through the labyrinths of those dim
solitudes, he had a fairy companion as faithful to
him as his own shadow. And when with his tried
and faithful followers, it was the same. Only
in the excitement of the fight, or the moments when
his strategic skill was in rivalry with that of his
dusky enemies, did this shadowy being cease to haunt
him. Night and day, it was the same-and
now he had met the reality, and was conversing
with her.
The conversation lasted but a few
minutes. The services of Edith were needed, and
she tripped away to assist the others at their duties.
As she disappeared, Jim came up and laughingly remarked
to the Rifleman:
“A fine girl that, Lewis.”
“Indeed she is. I never
have heard her name-that is, nothing more
than Edith. What is the rest?”
“Sudbury-Edith Sudbury.”
The hunter started, as if bitten by
a rattlesnake, and turned as pale as death. Young
Smith noticed his emotion, and asked, with some alarm:
“What’s the matter, Lew?
What is there about that name that so troubles you?”
“Never mind, Jim. I did not think it was
her!”
Smith had too much natural kindness
of heart to refer to a subject so painful to the hunter,
although his curiosity was great to know what could
possibly have affected him so strangely. As nothing
further was said by Dernor, this curiosity remained
unsatisfied for a long time.
The emigrant-party shortly after was
under way. When within a mile or so of the creek
to which we have referred, one of the scouts reconnoitered
it, and came in with the report that quite a body of
Shawnees were on its banks, and beyond a doubt were
waiting for the company to come up. Dernor coincided
in this opinion, and held a consultation with the
male members of the party. The result of this
consultation was a determination on his part to make
all haste to the rendezvous of the Riflemen of the
Miami, and bring them hither, the settlers agreeing
to halt and await their arrival. The danger that
menaced them was certainly great to make this step
necessary.