The Keepers of the Trail Part 10

Henry saw Alloway emerge from the forest and come back to the scene of ruin. He had taken off his coat before he lay down, but only fragments of it remained now. He was red with anger and he swore violently. Yellow Panther and Red Eagle had lost their blankets, but, whatever they felt, they kept it to themselves. They looked upon the trodden camp, but they did not lose their dignity.

"What is this? What is this? What is this?" stuttered Alloway in his wrath.

"We seem, sir, to have been run over by a herd of buffaloes," said Wyatt, smoothly.

"And does this sort of thing happen often in these woods?"

"I can't say that I've heard of such a case before, but even if it's a single instance we're the victims of it."

Alloway glared at Wyatt, but he knew that he could not afford to quarrel with the young renegade, who had great influence with the tribes. He picked up the fragments of his red coat and looked at them ruefully.

"I didn't know that the herds were ever so large in this forest country," he said to Blackstaffe.

"It's seldom so," said the older renegade.

"Is it their habit to rise up at midnight and gallop over men's camps?"

"It is not."

"Then how do you account for such behavior?"

Blackstaffe shrugged his shoulders and spoke a few words in their own tongue to the chiefs. Then he turned back to Colonel Alloway.

"The chiefs tell me," he said, "that the buffaloes were driven by a demon, an immense figure, preceded by whirling circles of fire. The evil spirit, they say, is upon them."

"And do you believe such nonsense?"

"A continuous life in the deep woods gives one new beliefs. I thought I caught a glimpse of such a figure, but when I tried for a second look it was gone. But whether right or wrong you can see what has happened. Our camp has been destroyed and with it most of the canoes. We have lost much, and the Indians are greatly alarmed. It is superst.i.tion, not fear, that has affected them."

"In my opinion," said Braxton Wyatt, "it was a trick of Henry Ware's. He drove those buffaloes down upon us."

"Very likely," said Blackstaffe, "but you can't persuade the Indians so."

"Nor me either," said Alloway gruffly. "You can't tell me that a backwoods youth can do so much."

"But," said Blackstaffe, "our scows were blown up, our lashed canoes were sunk, and now the buffaloes have been driven over us. It couldn't be chance. I think with Wyatt that it was Ware, but the chiefs are not willing to stay here longer. They demand that we return to the great camp in the morning, and that we abandon the attempt to take the cannon up the river."

"Which means an infinite amount of work with the ax," growled Alloway.

"Well, let it be so, if it must, but I will not move tonight for anything. At least gra.s.s and trees are left, and I can sleep on one and under the other."

The chiefs, Yellow Panther and Red Eagle, thought they ought to march at once, but they yielded to Alloway who was master of the great guns with which they hoped to smash the palisades around the settlements. Complete cooperation between white man and red man was necessary for the success of the expedition, and sometimes it was necessary for one to placate the other.

They chose places anew upon ground that looked like a lost field of battle. The buffaloes had practically trampled the camp into the earth.

The Indians had lost most of their blankets and in taking the canoes from the river and putting them upon the bank to escape one form of destruction they had merely met another. But they did the best they could, seeking the most comfortable places for sleep, and resolved to secure rest for the remainder of the night.

But Red Eagle and Yellow Panther, great chiefs though they were, were troubled by bad dreams which came straight from Ha-nis-ja-o-no-geh, the dwelling place of the Evil Minded. An enemy whom they could not see or hear, but whose presence they felt, was near. He had brought misfortune upon them and he would bring more. They awoke from their dreams and sat up. The white men were sleeping heavily, but then white men were often foolish in the forest.

Everything that stirred in the wilderness had a voice for the Indian.

North wind or south wind, east wind or west wind all said something to him. The flowing of the river, and the sounds made by animals in the darkness had their meaning. Yellow Panther and Red Eagle were great chiefs, mighty on the war path, filled with the lore of their tribes, and they knew that Manitou expressed himself in many ways. They spoke together and when they compared their bad dreams straight from Ha-nis-ja-o-no-geh they felt apprehension. The wind was blowing from the northwest, and its voice was a threat. Then came the weird cry of an owl from a point north of them, and they did not know whether it was a real owl or the same evil spirit that had sent the bad dreams.

The two chiefs, wary and brave, were troubled. They could fight the seen, but the unseen was a foe whom no warrior knew how to meet. Then they heard the owl again, but from another point, farther to the west, and after a while the cry came from a point almost due west.

They sent the boldest and most skillful warrior to scout the forest in that direction and they waited long for his return, but he never came back. When the second hour after his departure had been completed the chiefs awakened all the others and announced that they would start at once for the great camp.

Alloway growled and cursed under his breath.

"What is it?" he said to Braxton Wyatt, who had been talking with Red Eagle and Yellow Panther. "Can't we finish in peace what's left of the night?"

"We must yield to the chiefs, sir," said Wyatt. "If we don't there will be trouble, and the whole expedition will fail before it's fairly started. While we were asleep they heard an owl hoot from several different points of the compa.s.s, and they think it an omen of evil. They may be right, because a scout, a man of uncommon skill, whom they sent out two hours ago with instructions to return in an hour or less, has not come back. If you consider the misfortunes that have befallen us tonight, you can't blame 'em."

The hoot of the owl, much nearer, came suddenly through the forest. To the chiefs and to the white men as well it had a long menacing note. It was an omen of ill and it came from the Place of Evil Dreams. Yellow Panther and Red Eagle, great chiefs, victors in many a forest foray, shuddered. Fear struck like daggers at their hearts.

"Gray Beaver, our scout, will never come back," said Yellow Panther, and Red Eagle nodded.

The surcharged air affected Alloway and the other white men also. The obvious fears of the chiefs and the black wilderness about him created an atmosphere that the colonel could not resist. He glanced at the dark files of the trees and listened to the low moaning of the river as it flowed past. Then from a point in the south came that warning, plangent cry of the evil bird. Perspiration stood out on the brows of the chiefs and Alloway himself was shaken. Superst.i.tion and fears bred of the wilderness and its darkness entered into his own soul. The place suddenly became hateful to him.

"Let us go," he said. "Perhaps it is better that we rejoin the main force."

Braxton Wyatt had his own opinion, but he was as willing as the others to depart. He felt that on this expedition he would be safer with the warriors all about him. He had saved his own rifle from the rush of the herd, and putting it on his shoulder he fell in behind the chiefs.

The whole party started, but they found that although they had left an evil place they had also begun an evil march. The owl, which the Indians were quite sure contained the soul of some great dead warrior, followed and continually menaced them. Its cry was heard from one side and then from the other. Colonel Alloway, a brave man, though choleric and cruel, was exasperated beyond endurance. He raged and swore as they marched through the dark thickets, the Indians moving lightly and surely, while he often stumbled. He insisted at last that they stop and take action.

"Do you think this is a real owl following us?" he said to Wyatt, whom he invariably used as an interpreter.

"I think it is Ware, of whom I told you."

"You're as bad in your way as the Indians are in theirs. Why, the fellow would be superhuman!"

"That would not keep it from being true."

Alloway knew from Wyatt's tone that he meant what he said.

"We must hunt down this forest rover!" he exclaimed. "I can see that he is striking a heavy blow at the Indians through their superst.i.tions."

"No doubt of that, sir."

"Tell the chiefs for me that we must send out a half dozen trailers while the rest of us remain here. I'm not as used as you are to midnight marches in the forest, and every bone in me aches."

Wyatt translated and Yellow Panther and Red Eagle consented. A half-dozen of the best trailers slipped away in different directions in the forest, and the rest sat down in a group. They waited a long time and heard nothing. The owl did not cry, nor did any human shout come from the haunted depths of the wilderness.

"At least they've driven him away," said Alloway to Cartwright.

"I think so, sir."

Out of the forest, low at first, but swelling on a long triumphant note, came the solemn voice of the owl. Alloway, despite himself, shuddered.

The sinister cry expressed victory. His own mind, like those of the Indians, had become attuned to the superst.i.tions and fears bred of ignorance and the dark. His heart paused, and when it began its work again the beat was heavy.

A darker blot appeared on the darkness and two warriors, bearing a third, came through the bushes. The man whom they bore was a dark-browed, cruel savage who had carried the scalp of a white woman at his belt. But he would hunt or scalp no more. He had been cloven from brow to chin with the blow of a tomahawk wielded by an arm mighty like that of Hercules. Colonel Alloway looked upon the slain savage and shuddered again.