Part 86 (2/2)

We left the road but scouted eastward along its edge, I desiring to learn more of it; for it seemed to bear toward Wood Creek; and if there were enemy batteaux to be seen I wished to count them.

Suddenly Thiohero touched my arm,--caught my sleeve convulsively.

”Hahyion--Royaneh--my elder brother--O my white Captain!” she stammered, clinging to me in her excitement, ”here is the _place_! Here is the place I saw in my vision! Here I saw strange uniforms and cannon smoke--and a strange white shape--and you--O Hahyion--my Captain!----”

I looked around me, suddenly chilled and s.h.i.+vering in spite of the heat of a summer afternoon. But I perceived n.o.body except my Oneidas. We were on a long, spa.r.s.ely-wooded hillock where juniper spread waist high.

Below I could see the new road curving sharply to the eastward. But n.o.body moved down there; there was not a sound to be heard, not a movement in the forest. All around us was still as death.

Something about the abrupt bend in the empty road below me attracted my attention. I examined it intently for a while, then, cautioning my Indians, I ventured to move forward and around the south slope of the hillock, wading waist-deep in juniper, in order to get a look at what might lie behind the bend in this road of mystery.

The road appeared to end abruptly just around the curve, as though it had been opened only so far and then abandoned. This first amazed me and then alarmed me, because I knew it could not be so as I had seen on the roadbed evidences of recent and heavy travel.

I stood peering down at it where it seemed to stop short against the green and tangled barrier of the woods which blocked it like a living abattis----

G.o.d! It _was_ an abattis!--a mask!

As I realized this I saw a man in a strange, outlandish uniform run out from the green and living barrier, look up at me where I stood in the juniper, shout out something _in German_, and stand pointing up at me while a score of soldiers, all in this same outlandish uniform, swarmed out upon the road and started running toward where I stood.

Then I came to my senses, clapped my rifle to my cheek and fired, stopping one of these strange soldiers and curing him of his running habits forever.

To me arrived swiftly my Oneidas, and dropped in the juniper, kneeling and firing upon the soldiers below. Two among them fell down flat on the road, and then the others turned and fled straight into their green barrier of branches. From there they fired at us wildly, keeping up a strange, hoa.r.s.e shouting.

”Hessian cha.s.seurs!” I exclaimed. ”These troops can be no other than the filthy Germans hired by King George to come here and cut our throats!”

”_Those men wear the uniform I saw in my vision of this place!_”

whispered Thiohero, quietly reloading her rifle. ”I think that this is truly your battle, my Captain.”

Then, as her prophecy of cannon came into my mind, there was a blinding flash from that green barrier below; a vast cloud blotted it from view; the pine beside which I stood s.h.i.+vered as though thunder-smitten; and the entire top of it crashed down upon us, burying us all in las.h.i.+ng, writhing branches.

So stunned and stupefied was I that I lay for an instant without motion, my ears still deafened by that clap of thunder.

But now I floundered to my feet amid the pine-top's debris; around me rose my terrified Oneidas, nearly paralyzed with fright.

”Come,” said I, ”we should pull foot ere they blow us into pieces with their d.a.m.ned artillery. Thiohero, where are you?”

”I come, Royaneh!”

”Tahioni! Kwiyeh! Hanatoh!” I called anxiously.

Then I saw them all creeping like weasels from under the green debris.

”Hasten,” I muttered, ”for we shall have all the Iroquois in North America on our backs in another moment.”

As we started to retreat, the Germans emptied their muskets after us; but I did not think anybody had been hit.

We now were running in single file, our rifles a-trail, Tahioni leading, and I some distance in the rear, turning my head over my shoulder from moment to moment to see if we were followed.

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