Part 1 (1/2)
The Story of Old Fort Loudon
by Charles Egbert Craddock
CHAPTER I
Along the buffalo paths, frorant way through the dense cane-brakes Never a wheel had then entered the deep forests of this western wilderness; the frontiers, level sue, since known as the cu as they approached to interpose an insurress, until suddenly, as in the ap, cloven to the heart of the steeps, opening out their path as through so deliverance, a new life, and a new and beautiful land For beyond the darkling cliffs on either hand an illu perspective, with softly nestling sheltered valleys, and parallel lines of distant azure h on an elevated plateau, all bedight in the lingering flare of the yellow, and deep red, and sere brown of late autumn, and all suffused with an opaline haze and the rich, sweet languors of sunset-tide on an Indian-summer day
As that enchanted perspective opened to the view, a sudden joyous excla out on the still air The nextbeside one of the packhorses, clapped both hands over her lips, and turning looked with apprehensive eyes at the two lance of keen reproach, and then the whole party paused and with tense attention bent every faculty to listen
Silence could hardly have been ested sound But the wind did not stir; the growths of the liht quiver in the delicately poised fibers of their brown feathery crests; the haze, all shot through with gliray folds, rested on the hts without a breath No suggestion ofaway of a flake of verreen expanse of the crystal heavens
The elder man dropped his hand, that had been raised to iround ”I cannot be rid of the idea that we are followed,” he said ”But I hear nothing”
Although the eldest of the group, he was still young,--twenty-five, perhaps He was tall, strong, alert, with a narrow, long face; dark, slow eyes, that had a serious, steadfast expression; dark brown hair, braided in the queue often discarded by the hunters of this day A certain staid, cautious sobriety of h-and-ready iarb and the adventurous place and tier man, as in fact a mere boy not yet seventeen, but tall, ht say,--of build, were dressed alike in loose hunting-shi+rts of buckskin, heavily fringed, less for the sake of ornas always ready to be detached for use; for the sahs over the knee-breeches and long stockings of that day, were also furnished with these substantial fringes; shot-pouch and powder-horn were suspended froleamed close to the body Both wore coonskin caps, but that of the younger preserved the tail to hang down like a plules of curls, which, but for a bit of restraining ribbon, resisted all seentility of a queue The boy was like his brother in the clear complexion and the color of the dark eyes and hair, but the expression of his eyes ild, alert, and although fired with the earnest ardor of first youth, they had certain roguish intimations, subdued now since they were still and seriously expectant, but which gave token how acceptably he could play that cherished _role_, to a secluded and isolated fireside, of faay mirth for the applause of the chimney-corner The brothers were both shod with deerskin buskins, but the other two of the party wore the shoe of civilization,--one a brodequin, that despite its rough and substantial race from the dainty foot within it; the other showed the stubby shapes dee trairl's shoes were hardly more in evidence than the , and only now and then was betrayed a facetious skip of soear Their dresses were of the saave the little one much satisfaction, for she considered that it es in her ht, short bodice that enclosed her stout little rotund figure, and the quaint white mob-cap that encircled her chubby, roseate face, all s, red ular teeth, had little in common with the mother whom she admired and iown, of which her oas fashi+oned, the coether She was not even a good imitator of the maternal h they were, had long been lost to her lith of time that they had dwelt in the wilderness, and the iht have been given by the fact that her doll was reared after pappoose fashi+on; on her back was slung a basket in the manner of the peripatetic cradle of the Indian women, and from this protruded the head and the widely open eyes of a cat slightly past kittenhood, that was adapting its preferences to the conditions of the journey with a discretion which ue an extension of the powers of instinct in pioneer animals,--a claim which has often been advanced
The cat evidently realized the fact that it was a doht was possible for it in these strange woods but speedy destruction by savage beast or man, and that decorous submission became a cat promoted to the estate of a juvenile settler's baby The cat was as silent and asout watchfully over the shoulder of the little three-year-old, ith perfect and azed up at the face of her father, nothing doubting his infinite puissance and willingness to take care of her When he spoke and the tension was over, she began to skip onceout her claws to hold to the wicker-work of her basket; the two had ridden ht adding but little to the burden of the scanty store of clothing and bedding, the cooking and far-pan and skillet, the invaluable axe, hand-saw, auger, and hoe,--the lares and penates of the pioneer
There were so-instruments, too, and in the momentary relaxation of suspense the elder of the brothers consulted a compass, as he had done ,” said the boy, shouldering his rifle and turning ard, ”but I couldn't say what”
”Ah, _quelle barbarie_!” exclaih, half petulance, half relief
She seereat structure of western civilization than did the others,--all unfitted for its hardshi+ps and privation and labor Her gray serge goorn with a sort of subtle elegance hardly discounted by the plainness of the , pointed waist accented the slender grace of her figure; the skirt had folds clustered on the hips that gave a sort of fullness to the drapery and suggested the charm of elaborate costue calash, which had a curtain that hung about her shoulders This was a dark red, of the tint called Indian red, and as she pushed it back and turned her face, realizing that the interval of watching was over, the fairness of her coestion of her well-ordered, rich brown hair above her high forehead, alal in its noble cast, the perfection of the details of her siruous with her estate as a poor settler's wife, and the fact that since dawn and for days past she had, with the little all she possessed, fled frolance the laughing grimace of the boy, hich, despite his own fear but a o, he had, in the mobility of the moods of youth, decorated his countenance
”If it were not for you, Hamish,” she said to him, ”I should not be so terrified I have seen Indians many a time,--yes,--and when they were on the war-path, too But to add to their fury by an act of defiance on our part! It is fatal--they have only to overtake us”
”What was I to do, Odalie?” said Ha hiht he was a stu,--you heard it yourself, you sent et it for supper,--you said that one more meal on buffalo meat would be the death of you,--and it was nearly dark,--and--gobble--gobble--gobble--so appetizing I can hear it yet”
With an expression of terror she caught suddenly at his hand as he walked beside her, but he petulantly pulled away
”I mean _in my mind_, Odalie,--I hear it now _in my mind_ And all of a sudden it caobbling so cheerful, and gobbling e, and I fired at the same minute that the stump fired, or the turkey, whichever you choose to call him--What is the reason, Sandy, that Injuns are so apt to load with too little powder?”
he broke off, speaking to his brother ”The turkey shot straight--his ball dropped spent just at my feet”
”_Quelle barbarie!_” exclaiive it a little squeeze--ier and their loss
But Hamish was quite as independent of caresses and approval as of rebuke, and he carelessly twisted his hand away from his sister-in-law as he cocked his head to one side to hear the more experienced hunter's reply
”Because their powder is so precious, and scant, and hard to coed along behind the packhorses, guarding the rear of his little party with his rifle on his shoulder
”The turkey would better have econo round his belt to lift the lid of his powder-horn and peep gloatingly in at the reinforced stores ”He was econoant with his life; for that turkey will gobble no itated imitation of the cry of the fowl, and then broke off to exclaim, ”_Quelle barbarie!_--eh, Odalie?”
He looked at his sister-in-laith a roguish eye, as he travestied the tone and manner of her favorite ejaculation, which he ont to call the ”family oath” For indeed they had all co accent, to express their disaffection with the ordering of events, or the conduct of one another, or the provokingfire, or the reluctance of a spark to kindle fro of a pot of buffalo soup, or bear stehen the faitives were ready to partake in reality of the feast which their olfactory nerves and eyes had already begun Even the little girl would exclaiht her skirts and held her prisoner as she had skipped along so lon ah cane, that one must needs wonder at the smallness of E its ay ”_Quelle barbarie!_” too, when the cat's culture in elegant manners required of maternal solicitude a smart box on the ear And if the cat did not say ”_Quelle barbarie!_” with an approved French accent, we all know that she thought it