The Reckoning Part 52

I had already deployed my right into line; the panic-stricken militia came heading on as we opened to let them through; then we closed up; a sheet of flame poured out into the very faces of Butler's Rangers; another, another!

Bolt upright in the stirrups, I lifted my smoking rifle: "Rangers!

Charge!"

Beneath my plunging horse a soldier in green went down screaming; an Indian darted past, falling to death under a dozen clubbed rifles; then a yelling ma.s.s of green-coated soldiers, forced and crushed back into the hedge, turned at bay; and into this writhing throng leaped my riflemen, hatchets flas.h.i.+ng.

"Hold that hedge, Captain Renault!" came a calm voice near me, and I saw Colonel Willett at my elbow, struggling with his frantic horse.

A mounted officer near him cried: "The rest of the militia on the right are wavering, Colonel!"

"Then stop them, Captain Zielie!" said Willett, dragging his horse to a stand. His voice was lost in the swelling roar of the fusillade where my Rangers were holding the hedge. On the extreme right, through an open field, I saw the militia scattering, darting about wildly. There came a flash, a roar, and the scene was blotted out in a huge fountain of flame and smoke.

"They've blown up the ammunition-wagon! Butler's men have taken our cannon!" yelled a soldier, swinging his arms frantically. "Oh, my G.o.d!

the militia are running from the field!"

It was true. One of those dreadful and unaccountable panics had seized the militia. Nothing could stop them. I saw Colonel Willett spur forward, sword flas.h.i.+ng; officers rode into the retreating lines, begging and imploring them to stand. The pressure on my riflemen was enormous, and I ordered them to fall back by squads in circles to the fringe of woods. They obeyed very coolly and in perfect order, retiring step by step, shot by shot.

Ma.s.sachusetts infantry were holding the same woods; a few Tryon militia rallied to us, and Colonel Gray took command. "For G.o.d's sake, Renault, go and help Willett stop the militia!" he begged. "I'll hold this corner till you can bring us aid!"

I peered about me through the smoke, gathered bridle, wheeled through the bushes into the open field, and hurled my horse forward along the line of retreat.

Never had I believed brave men could show such terror. n.o.body heeded me, n.o.body listened. At my voice they only ran the faster, I galloping alongside, beseeching them, and looking for Willett.

Straight into the streets of Johnstown fled the militia, crowding the town in mad and shameless panic, carrying with them their mounted officers, as a torrent hurls chips into a whirlpool.

"Halt! In Heaven's name, what is the matter? Why, you had them on the run, you men of Tryon, you Ulster men!" cried Colonel Willett.

A seething ma.s.s of fugitives was blocked at the old stone church. Into them plunged the officers, cursing, threatening, imploring, I among them, my horse almost swept from his legs in the rus.h.i.+ng panic.

"Don't run, lads," I said; "don't put us all to this shame! Why, what are you afraid of? I saw nothing to scare a child on the hill. And this is my first battle. I thought war was something to scare a man. But this is nothing. You wouldn't leave the Rangers there all alone, would you? They're up there drilling holes in the Indians who came to murder your wives and children. Come on, boys! You didn't mean it. We can't let those yagers and Greens take a cannon as easily as that!"

They were listening to Willett, too; here and there a sergeant took up the pleading. I found an exhausted drummer-boy sitting on the steps of the church, and induced him to stand up and beat the a.s.sembly. Officer after officer struggled through the mob, leading out handfuls of men; lines formed; I s.n.a.t.c.hed a flag from an ensign and displayed it; a company, at shoulder arms, headed by a drummer, emerged from the chaos, marching in fair alignment; another followed more steadily; line after line fell in and paraded; the fifes began to squeal, and the shrill quickstep set company after company in motion.

"It's all right, lads!" cried Willett cheerily, as he galloped forward.

"We are going back for that cannon we lost by mistake. Come on, you Tryon County men! Don't let the Rangers laugh at you!"

Then the first cheer broke out; mounted officers rode up, baring their swords, surrounding the Colonel. He gave me a calm and whimsical look, almost a smile:

"Scared, Carus?"

"No, sir."

"D'ye hear that firing to the left? Well, that's Rowley's flanking column of levies and the Ma.s.sachusetts men. Hark! Listen to that rifle music! Now we'll drive them! Now we've got them at last!"

I caught him by the sleeve, and bent forward from my saddle:

"Do you know that the woman I am to marry is with the enemy?" I demanded hoa.r.s.ely.

"No. Good G.o.d, Carus! Have they got her?"

His shocked face paled; he laid his hand on my shoulder, riding in silence as I told him what I knew.

"By Heaven!" he said, striking his gloved hands together, "we'll get her yet, Carus; I tell you, we'll get her safe and sound. Do you think I mean to let these mad wolves slink off this time and skulk away unpunished? Do you suppose I don't know that the time has come to purge this frontier for good and all of Walter Butler? You need not worry, Carus. It is true that G.o.d alone could have foreseen the strange panic that started these militiamen on a run, as though they had never smelled powder--as though they had not answered a hundred alarms from Oriskany to Currietown. I could not foresee that, but, by G.o.d, we've stopped it! And now I tell you we are going to deal Walter Butler a blow that will end his murdering career forever! Look sharp!"

A racket of rifle-fire broke out ahead; two men dropped.

We were in the smoke now. Indians rose from every thicket and leaped away in retreat; the column broke into a run, mounted officers trotting forward, pistol and sword in hand.

"Why, there's our cannon, boys!" cried Colonel Lewis excitedly.

A roar greeted the black Colonel's words; the entire line sprang forward; a file of Oneidas sped along our flanks, rifles a-trail.

Through the smoke I saw the Hall now, and in a field to the east of it a cannon which some Highlanders and soldiers in green uniforms were attempting to drag off.

At the view the yelling onset was loosed; the kilted troops and the green-coated soldiers took to their legs, and I saw our militia swarming around the field-piece, hugging it, patting it, embracing it, while from the woods beyond my Rangers cheered and cheered. Ah! now the militia were in it again; the hedge fence was carried with a rush, and all around us in the red sunset light shouting militia, Royal Greens, and naked, yelling Indians were locked in a death struggle, hatchet, knife, and rifle-b.u.t.t playing their silent and awful part.

An officer in a scarlet coat galloped at me full tilt, snapped his pistol as he pa.s.sed, wheeled, and attempted to ride me down at his sword's point, but Colonel Willett pistoled him as I parried his thrust with my rifle-barrel; and I saw his maddened horse bearing him away, he swaying horridly in his saddle, falling sidewise, and striking the ground, one spurred heel entangled in his stirrup.

Sickened, I turned away, and presently sounded the rally for my Rangers. For full twenty minutes militia and riflemen poured sheets of bullets into the Royal Greens from the hedge fence; their flank doubled, wavered, and broke as the roaring fire of Rowley's men drew nearer. Twilight fell; redder and redder leaped the rifle-flames through the smoky dusk. Suddenly their whole line gave way, and we broke through--riflemen, militia, Ma.s.sachusetts men--broke through with a terrific yell. And before us fled Indian and Tory, yager and renegade, Greens, Rangers, Highlanders, officers galloping madly, baggage-wagons smashed, horses down, camp trampled to tatters and splinters as the vengeance of Tryon County pa.s.sed in a tornado of fury that cleansed the land forever of Walter Butler and his demons of the North!

In that furious onslaught through the darkness and smoke, where prisoners were being taken, Indians and Greens chased and shot down, a steady flicker of rifle-fire marked the course of the disastrous rout, and the frenzied vengeance following--an awful vengeance now, for, in the blackness, a new and dreadful sound broke--the fiercely melancholy scalp-yell of my Oneidas!

Galloping across a swampy field, where the dead and scalped lay in the ooze, I shouted the Wolf Clan challenge; and a lone cry answered me, coming nearer, nearer, until in the smoke-shot darkness I saw the terrific painted shape of an Indian looming, saluting me with uplifted and reeking hatchet.

"Brother! brother!" I groaned, "by the Wolf whose sign we wear, and by the sign of Tharon, follow her who is to be my wife--follow by night, by day, through the haunts of men, through the still places! Go swiftly, O my brother the Otter--swiftly as hound on trail! I charge you by that life you owe, by that clan tie which breaks not when nations break, by the sign of Tharon, that floats among the stars forever, find me this woman whom I am to wed! Your life for hers, O brother! Go!"

CHAPTER XV

BUTLER'S FORD

For four breathless days the broad, raw trail of a thousand men in headlong flight was the trampled path we traveled. Smas.h.i.+ng straight through the northern wilderness, our enemy with horses, wagons, batmen, soldiers, Indians burst into the forest, tearing saplings, thickets, underbrush aside in their mad northward rush for the safety of the Canadas and the shelter denied them here. Threescore Oneida hatchets glittered in their rear; four hundred rifles followed; for the Red Beast was in flight at last, stricken, turning now and again to snarl when the tireless, stern-faced trackers drew too near, then running on again, growling, impotent. And the Red Beast must be done to death.

What fitter place to end him than here in the wild twilight of s.h.a.ggy depths, unlighted by the sun or moon?--here where the cold, brawling streams smoked in the rank air; where black crags crouched, watching the hunting--here in these awful deeps, shunned by the deer, unhaunted by wolf and panther--depths fit only for the monstrous terror that came out of them, and now, wounded, and cold heart pulsing terror, was scrambling back again into the dense and dreadful twilight of eternal shadow-land.

One by one their pack-laden horses fell out exhausted; and we found them, heads hanging, quivering and panting beside the reeking trail; one by one their gaunt cattle, mired in bog and swamp, entangled in windfalls, greeted us, bellowing piteously as we pa.s.sed. The forest itself fought for us, reaching out to jerk wheels from axle, bringing wagon and team down cras.h.i.+ng. Their dead lay everywhere uncared for, even unscalped and unrobbed in the bruised and trampled path of flight; clothing, arms, provisions were scattered pell-mell on every side; and now at length, hour after hour, as we headed them back from trail and highway, and blocked them from their boats at Oneida Lake, driving, forcing, scourging them straight into the black jaws of a hungry wilderness, we began to pa.s.s their wounded--ghastly, b.l.o.o.d.y, ragged things, scarce animate, save for the dying brilliancy of their hollowed eyes.

On, on, hotfoot through the rain along the smoking trail; twilight by day, depthless darkness by night, where we lay panting in starless obscurity, listening to the giant winds of the wilderness--vast, resistless, illimitable winds flowing steadily through the unseen and naked crests of forests, colder and ever colder they blew, heralding the trampling blasts of winter, charging us from the north.

On the fifth day it began to snow at dawn. Little ragged flakes winnowed through the cl.u.s.ters of scarlet maple-leaves, sifted among the black pines, coming faster and thicker, driving in slanting, whirling flight across the trail. In an hour the moss was white; crimson sprays of moose-bush bent, weighted with snow and scarlet berries; the hurrying streams ran dark and somber in their channels between dead-white banks; swamps turned blacker for the silvery setting; the flakes grew larger, pelting in steady, thickening torrents from the clouds as we came into a clearing called Jerseyfield, on the north side of Canada Creek; and here at last we were met by a crackling roar from a hundred rifles.

The Red Beast was at bay!

Up and down, through the dense snowy veil descending, the orange-tinted rifle-flames flashed and sparkled and flickered; all around us a shower of twigs and branches descended in a steady rain. Then our brown rifles blazed their deadly answer. Splas.h.!.+ spatter! splas.h.!.+ their dead dropped into the stream; and, following, dying and living took to the dark water, thras.h.i.+ng across through snowy obscurity. I heard their horses wallowing through the fords, iron hoofs frantically battering the rocky, shelving banks for foothold; I heard them shriek when the Oneida tigers leaped upon them; I heard their wounded battling and screaming as they drowned in the swollen waters!

We lay and fired at their phantom lines, now attempting to retreat at a dog-trot in single file; and as we knocked man after man from the plodding rank the others leaped over their writhing, fallen comrades, neither turning nor pausing in their dogged flight. The snow slackened, falling more thinly to the west; and, as the dazzling curtain grew transparent, a ma.s.s of men in green suddenly rose from the whitened hemlock-scrub and fired at our riflemen arriving in column.