Hope and Have Part 21

"There's the t'other hoss!" replied Ethan. "They've got both on 'em."

"Where could they get them?" said f.a.n.n.y, who regarded the fact indicated by her companion as sufficiently ominous to excite her alarm.

"That's what I'd like to hev some 'un tell me. f.a.n.n.y, I tell you sunthin' hes happened."

At this moment a shrill and terrible scream was heard in the direction of the house, followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. Ethan and f.a.n.n.y, appalled by the sounds, looked towards the house. They saw Mrs. Grant rush from the back door, and then fall upon the ground. Two or three Indians followed her, in one of whom f.a.n.n.y recognized Lean Bear, the stalwart chief she had endeavored to conciliate. He bent over the prostrate form of the woman, was seen to strike several blows with his tomahawk, and then to use his terrible scalping-knife.

At the sound of the rifle, which seemed to be a signal for the purpose, the savages who had grouped together outside of the house rushed in, yelling and hooting like demons.

"Creation hokee!" gasped Ethan, his face as nearly white as its sun-browned hue would permit.

f.a.n.n.y's blood was chilled in her veins; she could not speak, and her limbs seemed to be paralyzed. And now in the distance harsh and discordant sounds rose on the still morning air. They came from the direction of the other portions of the settlement. The shrill screams of women, the hoa.r.s.e cries of men, and the unearthly yells of the savages, mingled in horrible confusion. It was evident to the appalled listeners that a fearful Indian ma.s.sacre had commenced. They had seen Mrs. Grant fall; had seen the fierce Lean Bear tomahawk and scalp her.

It was madness to stand still in the midst of so much peril, but both Ethan and f.a.n.n.y seemed to be chained to the spot where they stood, fascinated, as it were, by the anguished cries of agony and death that were borne to their revolting senses by the airs of that summer morning. The savages were at that moment busy in ransacking and plundering the house, but f.a.n.n.y realized that she might be the next victim; that the tomahawk of the terrible Lean Bear might be glaring above her head in a few moments more. She trembled like an aspen leaf in the extremity of her terror, as she heard the terrific cries uttered by the mangled, mutilated, dying men, women, and children, far enough off to be but faintly heard, yet near enough to be horribly distinct.

"It's time sunthin' was did," said Ethan, with quivering lips.

"What can we do?" asked f.a.n.n.y, in a husky whisper.

"We must git out of sight fust. Come along with me, f.a.n.n.y," added Ethan, as he led the way into the barn.

"They will find us here," said f.a.n.n.y.

"P'rhaps they will; but there ain't nowhere else to go to."

"Why not run away as fast as we can?"

"We kin run, but I reckon bullets will travel faster 'n we kin."

Ethan went up a ladder to the top of the hay-mow, and f.a.n.n.y followed him. He carried up with him a small hay-fork, with which he went vigorously to work in burrowing out a hole in the hay. f.a.n.n.y a.s.sisted him with her hands, and in a few moments they had made an aperture deep enough to accommodate them. This hiding-place had been made in the back part of the mow, next to the side of the barn, where there were wide cracks between the boards, through which they could receive air enough to prevent them from being stifled.

"Now, you get in, f.a.n.n.y, and I'll fix the hay so I kin tumble it all down on top on us, and bury us up."

"Suppose they should set the barn afire," suggested f.a.n.n.y.

"Then they will; we must take our chances, such as they be. We hain't got much chance nohow."

f.a.n.n.y stepped down into the hole; Ethan followed her, and pulled the ma.s.s of hay over so that it fell upon them. They were four or five feet below the surface of the hay.

"I would rather be killed by a bullet than burned to death in the fire," said f.a.n.n.y, with a shudder, when her companion had adjusted the hay so as to afford them the best possible means of concealment.

"P'rhaps they wouldn't kill you with a bullet. Them redskins is awful creeturs. They might hack you all to pieces with their knives and tomahawks," whispered Ethan.

"It's horrible!" added f.a.n.n.y, quivering with emotion.

"I've hearn tell that there was some trouble with the redskins up on to the reserves; and I knowed sunthin' had happened when I see them two hosses. I was kind o' skeery when the varmints rid up to the house."

"Do you suppose they have killed my uncle?" asked f.a.n.n.y, sick at heart.

"I s'pose they hev," answered Ethan, gloomily. "I reckon we'd better keep still, and not say nothin'. Some o' the redskins may be lookin'

for us. They're pesky cunnin'."

This was good advice, and f.a.n.n.y needed no persuasion to induce her to follow it. Through the cracks in the side of the barn she could see a few houses of the settlement; and through these apertures came also the hideous sounds which denoted the progress of the ma.s.sacre. Great piles of curling smoke were rising from the burning buildings of the devoted settlers, and the work of murder and pillage still continued, as the relentless savages pa.s.sed from place to place in the execution of their diabolical mission.

The greater part of the detachment which had halted at the house of Mr.

Grant had now departed, though the sounds which came from the dwelling indicated that the rest were still there. Lean Bear knew the members of Mr. Grant's household. With his own hand he had slain the woman who had so often fed him, and ministered to his necessities, thus belying the traditional character of his race; and it was not probable that he would abandon his object without a diligent search for the missing members of the family.

f.a.n.n.y was safe for the present moment, but the next instant might doom her to a violent death, to cruel torture, or to a captivity more to be dreaded than either death or torture. She trembled with mortal fear, and dreaded the revelations of each new second of time with an intensity of horror which cannot be understood or described.

"They are comin' out of the house," said Ethan, in a tremulous whisper.

"There's seven on 'em."

"Are they coming this way?"

"No; they are lookin' round arter us. They are going down to the lake."

"I hope they won't come here."

"But they will kim here, as sure as you live."

"Do you ever pray, Ethan?" asked f.a.n.n.y, impressively.

"Not much," replied he, evasively.

"Let us pray to G.o.d. He can help us, and He will, if we ask Him in the right spirit."

"I dunno how," added Ethan.

"I will pray for both of us. The Indians can't hear us now, but G.o.d can."

f.a.n.n.y, in a whisper, uttered a brief and heart-felt prayer for protection and safety from the savage monsters who were thirsting for their blood. She prayed earnestly, and never before had her supplications come so directly from her heart. She pleaded for herself and for her companion, and the good Father seemed to be very near to her as she poured forth her simple pet.i.tion.

"Thy will, not ours, be done," she murmured, as she thought that it might not be the purpose of "Him who doeth all things well" to save them from the tomahawk of the Indians. If it was not His will that they should pa.s.s in safety through this ordeal of blood, she asked that they might be happy in death, or submissive to whatever fate was in store for them.

Ethan listened to the prayer, and seemed to join earnestly in the pet.i.tions it contained. With his more devout companion, he felt that G.o.d was able to save them, to blunt the edges of the weapons raised to destroy them, or to transform their savage and bitter foes into the warmest and truest of friends.

"I feel better," said f.a.n.n.y, after a moment of silence at the conclusion of the prayer.

"So do I," replied Ethan, whose altered look and more resolute tones confirmed his words. "I feel like I could fight some o' them Injins."

"We can do nothing by resistance."

"I dunno; if they don't burn the house, I reckon I know whar to find some shootin' fixin's."

"Where?"

"Mr. Grant sort o' hid his rifle and things, for fear some un might steal 'em, I s'pose. I know where they be; and I reckon them redskins won't find 'em."

"Let us not think of resistance. There must be hundreds of Indians at the settlement."