Part 10 (1/2)
”I'll die trying rather than waiting,” said the boy to himself. He hastened to his wigwam, and taking some dried meat and parched corn, arming himself with knife and hatchet, also bow and arrows, he stole un.o.bserved out of the village and into the woods.
Most Indians of that day had become unaccustomed to the use of bow and arrow, and were dependent on the whites to furnish them with guns and ammunition. This was a fact which the old chief bemoaned. Rodney, being deprived of the use of a rifle, shrewdly induced the old Indian to show him how to make a bow and arrows and how to use them and he already had acquired considerable skill.
A little distance away in the forest stood a large tree with a hollow trunk, inside which a tall man might stand up straight, though the opening was small. Once he and Louis had made a sort of perch in the upper part to which a boy might crawl and be safe from observation, unless one went to the trouble of crawling into the hollow and looking up.
Rodney made his way to the tree as best he might in the gathering dusk and hid himself on the perch. There he remained throughout the night, with dismal thoughts for companions and the cries of the night hawk to cheer him. Toward morning he fell asleep. He was awakened by a slight noise and, looking down, saw the face of Caughnega peering in!
Fortunately for both, the savage did not see the perch and went away.
Later, Rodney, cramped and sore, crept out in quest of a drink of water. On his return a sound inside attracted his notice and listening, he heard sobbing. It was Louis. With a cry of joy the little fellow threw himself into Rodney's arms, saying, ”I thought you had run away. Caughnega said you had. He was hunting for you last night, and this morning I told him about this place but he came back and said you were not here.”
”Don't you ever tell him where I am when he's hunting for me. He hates me and would like to kill me. But how came you here?”
”Maman was cross like a bear and Francois whipped me.”
”And she let him do it?”
”Non, but she was so cross I wouldn't tell her. Francois was tipsy.”
”The drunken dog! I'd like to horsewhip him. Well, you run back, and when Ahneota is sober tell him I've not run away but will come back when the carousal is ended. Don't say anything to any one else about me. If Francois beats you again tell Maman.”
Louis turned back toward the village and, at a turn in the path, met the tipsy Francois. Rodney saw the meeting, and concealed himself behind a tree.
The voyageur had no arms other than the knife in his belt. When he saw Louis he cried, ”_He bien! Tiens! prends cela_,” slapping the little fellow's face and knocking him down.
Seeing this Rodney was infuriated and forgot all caution. In a few bounds he reached the voyageur and, as the latter turned, hit him a stinging blow on the nose, following it with a well directed one on the Frenchman's chin. The fellow went down like a log and Rodney on top of him. He rolled the dazed man on to his face and bound his arms behind his back with a leather thong he carried.
”I'll fix you if you ever strike Louis again. You get back to the village and, if you want to live, you behave yourself.”
Francois was a sorry sight with the blood streaming from his nose. He was sobered and scared but he was to have revenge.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”HE ROLLED THE DAZED MAN ON TO HIS FACE AND BOUND HIS ARMS BEHIND HIS BACK.”]
CHAPTER XI
FATHER MOURNING FOR SON
What of David Allison's fortunes? Weeks had lengthened into months and no word had come back to Charlottesville from the man whom the great woods had swallowed.
After several weeks of weary travel, through forest and by river, the party had reached the location they sought. It was one that would attract even the most practical and stolid of frontiersmen: a plain of several hundred acres surrounded by the forest, a detached part of those great plains farther west, which stretched hundreds of miles with scarcely a tree to dot the expanse.
Along each of two sides of the plain a small stream ran, the two uniting in quite a respectable little river that joined the Great Kanawha River a few miles distant. Through the tall gra.s.s of this little prairie were great ”traces” or paths beaten by the feet of pa.s.sing buffalo, elk and deer. Fish swam in the streams and the wild turkey's call was heard in the forest.
”The Garden of Eden with a redskin for sarpint,” was the remark of weather-beaten d.i.c.k Saunders, when first he looked upon it.
”We'll do him no ill an' consider weel before taking his advice aboot forbidden fruit,” replied David Allison.
On the eastern side of the little prairie, near the forest, a stockade was built of big logs, sharpened at both ends and set close together in the ground, enclosing about an acre in the form of a rectangle, on one side of which, and forming part of the stockade, were several cabins.
The work of construction was arduous and occupied the greater part of the summer but when completed it afforded a wall of protection, and a place where, another year, such cattle as they might be able to drive over the mountains could be sheltered from Indians.