Part 27 (1/2)

The boat seemed to quiver, and suddenly it leaped into the air. Then came a tremendous explosion and a gush of overpowering flame. Henry and his comrades dived instantly and swam as far as they could under water toward the eastern sh.o.r.e. When they came up again the flatboat and its terrible cannon were gone, heavy darkness again hung over land and water, and pieces of burning wood were falling with a hissing splash into the river. But they heard the voices of warriors calling to each other, organizing already for pursuit. Their expedition was a brilliant success, but Henry knew that it would be a hard task to regain Fort Prescott. Led by the renegades and driven on by their bitter chagrin, the Indians would swarm upon the river in their canoes, seeking for them everywhere with eyes used to darkness.

”Are you all here, boys?” he asked. He had been scorched on the shoulder by a burning fragment, but in the excitement he did not notice it. Two of the men were slightly wounded, but at that time they thought nothing of their hurts. All six were there, and at Henry's suggestion they dived again, floating down stream as long as they could hold their breath.

When they came up again the six heads were somewhat scattered, but Henry called to them softly, and they swam close together again. Then they floated upon their backs and held a council of war.

”It seems likely to me,” said Henry, ”that the Indian canoes will go straight across the stream after us, naturally thinking that we'll make at once for Fort Prescott.”

”I'm thinkin' that you're tellin' the truth,” said Seth Cole.

”Then we must drop down the stream, strike the bank, and come back up in the brush to the place where our rifles and clothes are hid.”

”Looks like the right thing to me,” said Tom Wilmore. ”I'll want my rifle back, but 'pears to me I'll want my clothes wuss. I'm a bashful man, I am. Look thar! they've got torches!”

Indians standing up in the canoes were sweeping the water with pine torches in the search for the fugitives, and Henry saw that they must hasten.

”We must make another dash for the bank,” he said. ”Keep your heads as low down on the water as you can.”

They swam fast, but the Indian canoes were spreading out, and one tall warrior who held a burning pine torch in his hand uttered a shout. He had seen the six dots on the stream.

”Dive for it again,” cried Henry, ”and turn your heads toward the land!”

He knew that the Indians would fire, and as he and his comrades went under he heard the spatter of bullets on the water. When they rose to the surface again they were where they could wade, and they ran toward the bank. They reached dry land, but even in the obscurity of the night their figures were outlined against the dark green bush, and the warriors from their canoes fired again. Henry heard near him a low cry, almost suppressed at the lips, and if it had not been for the red stain on Tom Wilmore's shoulder he would not have known who had been hit.

”Is it bad, Tom?” he exclaimed.

”Not very,” replied Wilmore, shutting his teeth hard. ”Go on. I can keep up.”

A boat suddenly shot out of the dusk very near. It contained four Indian warriors, two with paddles and two with upraised rifles. One of the rifles was aimed at Henry and the other at Seth Cole, and neither of them had a weapon with which to reply. Henry looked straight at the muzzle which bore upon him. It seemed to exercise a kind of terrible fascination for him, and he was quite confident that his time was at hand.

He saw the warrior who knelt in the canoe with the rifle aimed at him suddenly turn to an ashy paleness. A red spot appeared in his forehead.

The rifle dropped from his hands into the water, and the Indian himself, collapsing, slipped gently over the side and into the Ohio. The second Indian had fallen upon his back in the canoe, and only the paddlers remained.

Henry was conscious afterward that he had heard two shots, but at the time he did not notice them. The deliverance was so sudden, so opportune, that it was miraculous, and while the frightened paddlers sent their canoe flying away from the bank, Henry and his comrades darted into the thick bush that lined the cliff and were hidden from the sight of all who were on the river.

”Our clothes and our rifles,” whispered Henry. ”We must get them at once.”

”They fired from the fort just in time,” said Tom Wilmore.

Henry glanced upward. The palisade was at least three hundred yards away.

”Those bullets did not come from Fort Prescott,” he said. ”It's too far from us, and they were fired by better marksmen than any who are up there now.”

”I think so, too,” said Seth Cole, ”an' I'm wonderin' who pulled them triggers.”

s.h.i.+f'less Sol and Tom Ross were first in Henry's mind, but he knew that both had suffered wounds sufficient to keep them quiet for several days, and he believed that the timely shots were the work of other hands.

Whoever the strangers might be they had certainly proved themselves the best and most timely of friends.

They reached the thicket in which they had hidden their clothes and rifles, and found them untouched.

”Queer how much confidence clothes give to a feller!” exclaimed Seth Cole, as he slipped on his buckskins.