The Master of Appleby Part 26

Ephraim Yeates lowered his weapon and released the pinched hand held fast by the gun-flint.

"Well, I'm daddled, fair and square, Cap'n d.i.c.k!" he declared. "Jest one more shake of a dead lamb's tail, and I'd 'a' had ye on my mind, sartain sure! I allowed ye knowed better than to come whammling down that-away behint a man whilst he's a-cooking his ven'son."

d.i.c.k laughed and called to me to follow as I could. And his answer to the old borderer was no answer at all.

"'Tis to be hoped you and the chief don't mean to be niddering with that deer's meat. We were guessing but a half-hour back, Captain Ireton and I, whether or no we'd have to take up belt-slack for our breakfast."

At the word the Catawba whipped out his knife and fell to work hospitably on the meat supply. Meanwhile I came upon the scene, something less hurriedly than Richard. Ephraim Yeates looked me up and down with a sniff for my foreign-cut coat, another for my queue, and a third for the German ritter-boots I wore.

"Umph!" said he. "Now if here ain't that there dad-blame' Turkey-fighter again! What almighty cur'is things the good Lord do let loose on a stiff-necked and rebellious gineration!" Then to me, most pointedly: "Say, Cap'n; the big woods ain't no fitting place for such as you, ez I allow. Ye mought be getting them purty boots o' your'n all tore up on the briars."

He ended with a dry little laugh not unlike Mr. Gilbert Stair's parchment crackle; and, being his guest for the nonce, I laughed with him.

"Have your joke and welcome, Mr. Yeates," said I. "I am too near famished to quarrel with my chance of breakfast."

Much to my astoundment he flung his racc.o.o.n-skin cap into the air, spat upon his hands and began that insane war-dance of his.

"Whoop!" he yelled. "No band-box dandy from the settlemints ever sot out to call me 'Mister' and got away alive to brag on't! Ketch hold, you infergotten, Turkey-fighting, silver-b.u.t.toned jack-a-dandy till I dip ye in the creek and soak a flour-ration 'r two out 'n that there pig-tail top-knot o' your'n! _Yip-pee!_"

By this Jennifer was trying, as well as a man bent double with laughter might, to interpose in the interest of peace and amity; and even the stoical Catawba was all a-grin. So, seeing I was like to lose countenance with all of them, I watched my chance, and closing with my capering ancient, gave him a hearty wrestler's hug.

For all he was so gaunt and thin, and full twenty years or more my senior, he was a pretty handful. 'Twas much like trying to catch a fall out of some piece of steel-wired mechanism. None the less, after some wild stampings and strivings in which the old man all but made good his promise to put me in the creek, I took him unawares with a Cornishman's trick--a cross-b.u.t.tock s.h.i.+fted suddenly to a shoulder-lift--which sent him flying overhead to land all abroad in the soft clay of the landslide.

The effect of this little triumph was magical and wholly unlooked for.

When he had gathered himself and set his limbs in order, Ephraim Yeates sat up and thrust out a claw-like hand.

"Put it there, stranger," he said. "I reckon ez how that settles it. Old Eph Yeates'll share fair, powder and lead, parched corn _and_ pan-meat with the man that can flop him that-away. Whilst ye're a-needing a friend in the big woods--a raw-meat-eating Injun-skinner that can jest or'narily whop his weight in wildcats--why, old Eph's your man; from now on, _if_ not sooner." And in this wise began an alliance the like of which, for true-blue loyalty on this old borderer's part, these colder-hearted times of yours, my dears, will never see.

As you would guess, I gripped the hand of pledging most heartily, pulling the old man to his feet and protesting it was but a trick he would never let another play on him. And then we four fell upon the deer's meat which was by this time--not cooked, to be sure, but seared a little on the outside in true hunter fas.h.i.+on.

While we ate, Richard spoke freely of our intendings; and in return Ephraim Yeates was able to confirm Mr. Gilbert Stair's war news to the letter. For all his Tory bias and prejudice, it seemed that Margery's father had spoken by the book. Gates' army was crushed and scattered to the four winds; Thomas Sumter's free-lances had been attacked, worsted and driven, with the leader himself so sorely wounded that he was carried from the field in a blanket slung between the horses of two of his men; and, as was to be expected, the Tories were up and arming in all the north country. Truly, the prospect was most gloomy and the outlook for the patriot cause was to the full as desperate as King George himself could wish.

"But you, Ephraim, and the chief, here; are you two running away like all the others?" Richard would ask.

The old hunter growled his denial between the mouthfuls of scarce-warmed meat. "I reckon ez how 'tis t'other way 'round; we're sort o' camping on the redcoats' trail, ez I allow. Ain't we, Chief, hey?"

The Catawba's a.s.sent was a guttural "Wah!" and Ephraim Yeates went on to explain.

"Ye see, 'tis this-away. You took a laugh out'n me, Cap'n d.i.c.k, for spying 'round on that there Britisher hoss-captain and his redskins; but 'long to'ards the last I met up with a thing 'r two wo'th knowing. 'Twas a powder and lead cargo they was a-waiting for; and they're allowing to sneak it through the mountings to the overhill Cherokees."

"Well?" says d.i.c.k.

The old man cut another slice of the venison and took his time to impale it on the forked toasting stick.

"Well, then I says to the chief, here, says I, 'Chief, this here's our A-number-one chance to spile the 'Gyptians; get heap gun, heap powder, heap lead, heap scalp.' The chief, he says, 'Wah!'--which is good Injun-talk for anything ye like,--and so here we are, hot-foot on the trail o' that there hoss-captain and his powder varmints."

"Alone?" said I, in sheer amazement at the brazen effrontery of this chase of half a hundred well-armed men by two.

The old hunter chuckled his dry little laugh. "We ain't sich tarnation big fools ez we look, Cap'n John. There's a good plenty of 'em to wallop us, ez I'll allow, if it come to fighting 'em fair and square. But there'll be some dark night 'r other whenst we can slip up on 'em and raise a scalp 'r two and lift what plunder we can tote; hey, Chief?"

But now Richard would inquire what time in the night the powder convoy left Appleby Hundred, and if Gilbert Stair's York District guests had traveled with it. To these askings Yeates made answer that Falconnet and his troop, with the Cherokee contingent, had taken the road at midnight, or thereabouts; and that the Witherbys, with Mistress Margery riding her own black mare, and her maid on a pillion behind a negro groom, had pa.s.sed some two hours later.

This was as we had hoped it might be; but when d.i.c.k's satisfaction would have set itself in words, the old hunter made a sudden sign for silence and quickly flung himself full length to lay his ear to the ground. Whereat we all began likewise to listen, but I, for one, heard nothing till Yeates said: "A hoss; a-taking the back track like old Jehu the son of Nims.h.i.+ was a-giving him the whip and spur," and then we all marked the distant drumming of hoofbeats.

The old borderer sprang afoot, kicked the fire into the stream, and caught up his rifle. "Let's be a-moving," he said. "We must make out to stop that there hoss-galloper at the ford and find out what-all he's a rip-snorting that-away for."

The road crossing of the stream was but a little way above our breakfast camp; and we were out of the thicket in time to see the horseman, a negro clinging with locked arms to the neck of his mount, come tearing down to the ford. At sight of us, or else because he would not take the water at full speed, the horse reared, pawed the air, and fell clumsily, carrying his skilless rider with him.

We picked the black up and soused him in the stream till he found his tongue; and the first wagging of that useful member gave us news to fire the blood in our veins--in Jennifer's and mine, at any rate.

"Yah!" he screamed, choking out the muddy creek water that had well-nigh strangled him. "Yah! red debbil Injins kill ebberybody and tote off Mistis Marg'y and dat Jeanne 'ooman! Dat's what dey done!"

XX

IN WHICH WE STRIVE AS MEN TO RUN A RACE

It was some time before the affrighted black could give us any connected account of what had befallen; and when at length the story was told, all save the princ.i.p.al fact of the carrying off of Mistress Margery and her maid was hazy enough.

Pruned down to the simple statement of the fact, and with all the foolish terror chatterings weeded out, his news came to this: the party of homing revelers had been ambushed and waylaid at the fording of a creek some miles to the southward, and in the mellay the young mistress and her tire-woman had been captured.

So far as any actual witness of the eye went, the negro had seen nothing. There had been a volley fire from the thicket-belly of black darkness, a swarming attack to a chorus of Indian yells, shouts from the men, shrieks from the women, confusion worse confounded in which the newsbearer himself had been unhorsed and trodden under foot. After which he knew no more till some one--his master, as he thought--kicked him alive and bade him mount and ride post-haste on the backward track to Appleby Hundred, crying the news as he went that Mistress Margery Stair and her maid had been kidnapped by the Indians.

Pinned to the mark and questioned afresh, the slave could not affirm of his own knowledge that any one had been killed outright. Pinned again, it proved to be only a guess of his that the one who had given him his orders was his master. In the darkness and confusion he could make sure of nothing; had made sure of nothing save his own frenzy of terror and the wording of the message he carried.

When we had quizzed him empty we hoisted him upon his beast and sent him once more a-gallop on the road to Appleby Hundred. That done, a hurried council of war was held in which we four fell apart, three against one.

Jennifer was for instant pursuit, afoot and at top speed; and Ephraim Yeates and the Catawba, abandoning their own emprise apparently without a second thought, sided indifferently with him. For my part, I was for going back to prepare in decent order for a campaign which should promise something more hopeful than the probability of speedy exhaustion, starvation and failure.

We grew hot upon it, Richard and I; he with a young lover's unrecking rashness, and I with an old campaigner's foresight to make me stubborn; and Ephraim Yeates and the Catawba drew aside and let us have it out.

d.i.c.k argued angrily that time was the all-important item, and was not above taunting me bitterly, flinging the reproach of cold-blooded age in my face and swearing hotly that I knew not so much as the alphabet of love.

The taunts were pa.s.sed in silence, since I would set them over against the irrevocable wrong I had done him, saying in my heart that nothing he could say or do should again tempt me to give place to the devil of jealous wrath.

But when he would give me s.p.a.ce I set the hopelessness of pursuit, all unprepared as we were, in plainest speech. The chase might well be a long one, and we were but scantily armed and without provisions. The hunter's rifle must be our sole dependence for food, and in the summer heat we would be forced to kill daily. On the other hand, with horses, a bag of corn apiece, firearms and ammunition, we should be in some more hopeful case; and, notwithstanding the delay in starting, could make far better speed.

For all the good it did I might have spared my pains and saved my breath. Jennifer broke me in the midst, crying out that I was even now killing the precious minutes; and so our ill-starred venture had its launching in the frenzied haste that seldom makes for speed. One small concession I wrung out of his impatience--this with the help of Yeates and the Catawba. We went back to the breakfast camp, rekindled the fire, and cooked what we could keep and carry of the venison.

In spite of this delay it was yet early in the forenoon of that memorable Sunday, the twentieth of August, when we set our faces southward and took up the line of march to the ford of the ambushment.

By now the sky was wholly overcast, and the wind was blowing fresher in the tree-tops; but though as yet the storm held off, the air was the cooler for the threatened rain and this was truly a blessing, since the old hunter put us keen upon our mettle to keep pace with him.

We marched in Indian file, Ephraim Yeates in the lead, Uncanoola at his heels, and the two of us heavier-footed ones bringing up the rear.

Knowing the wooded wilderness by length and breadth, the old man held on through thick and thin, straight as an arrow to the mark; and so we had never a sight of the road again till we came out upon it suddenly at the ford of violence.

Here I should have been in despair for the lack of any intelligible hint to point the way; and I think not even Jennifer, with all his woodcraft, could have read the record of the onfall as Yeates and the Catawba did.

But for all the overlapping tangle of moccasin and hoof prints neither of these men of the forest was at fault, though ten minutes later even their skill must have been baffled, inasmuch as the first few spitting raindrops were pattering in the tree-tops when we came upon the ground.