Part 28 (2/2)
Cousin drew away from the end of the Granville cabin and was risking the second and last gap. I hurried a bit, fearing more arrows. As I came abreast of the door I wondered what had become of the Englishman. Either the night was playing a trick, or else the door was partly open. I reached out my hand to learn the truth, and touched a cold hand hanging limply over the threshold.
My nerves jumped, but I mastered them by reasoning that the Englishman had been shot by a chance ball and had attempted to leave the cabin, thinking to gain our shelter and to die there. Death had overtaken him as he was opening the door. That it was the Englishman's hand I had touched was evidenced by the s.h.i.+rt-sleeve, puckered in at the wrist.
I released the poor hand and was resuming my way when a slight sound caused me to hold my breath. Then a heavy weight landed on my back, knocking the breath from my lungs with an explosive grunt. Next, the night was ripped from horizon to horizon with a jagged streak of red.
CHAPTER IX
DALE ESCAPES
When I recovered my senses I was being dragged over the ground by means of a cord around my chest and under my arms. My wrists were lashed together and my ankles were likewise secured. The first thing my eyes beheld were the red loopholes and window of the lower cabin, and the flames crawling through the two holes I had made in the roof.
My capture had revealed our desertion of the cabin, and the Indians had lost no time in entering and firing it. Smoke and flames were pouring from the end window of the Granville cabin also. As the red tongues licked across the top of the doorway they threw into relief the arm and hand of the old Englishman still hanging over the threshold.
My head felt as though it was cracked wide open and it throbbed most sickeningly. I managed to lift it a bit to escape further bruises as my captor roughly hauled me to the forest. The third cabin, the one occupied by the Dales, burst into flames as I was being yanked into the first fringe of bushes. The valley was now brightly lighted, and my last view of it included the lick-block. One phase of a successful Indian raid was missing; there were no warriors madly dancing about the burning homes. Far up the ridge rang out the infuriated cry of a panther, and I knew it was fear of young Cousin's deadly rifle that was keeping the savages under cover.
”Let me stand up and walk,” I said in Shawnee.
”Alive are you?” growled a white man's voice in English.
”You'll be John Ward,” I said as some one lifted me to my feet.
”I am Red Arrow, a Shawnee. And don't you forget it.”
”Where are the Dales?” I asked.
”Keep your mouth shut!” he ordered.
They untied my hands only to fasten them behind me. They s.h.i.+fted the waist-cord to my neck, and then released my feet. Some one walked ahead, pulling on the cord, and I followed as best I could to escape being strangled. On each side of me walked a warrior, invisible except as when we crossed a glade where the starlight filtered down. Ward walked behind me, and warned:
”Any tricks and you'll get my ax.”
”You were in the cabin with the dead Englishman?”
He chuckled softly and boasted:
”I killed him. When you two were fighting fire I got my chance to steal down to the Dale cabin. Then it was easy to make the Granville cabin. The old fool thought I was one of you when he heard my voice, and drew the bar. I was inside and had his life before he knew he had made a mistake. I waited. Then you crawled along. Curse that d.a.m.ned young devil who yells like a panther! He was the one I wanted. I'd give a thousand of such as you to get his hair! But he got by the door without my hearing him. A little more, and you'd have pa.s.sed, too.”
There was much cras.h.i.+ng and running through the bushes behind us, and occasionally I could make out dark shapes hurrying by. These were the warriors who had fired the cabins, and now they were in haste to leave the spot. Owing to their fear of Cousin they dared not leave the valley except as they did so under cover. We made good time through the woods, however, although more than once my gasping cry warned Ward, or one of the savages at my side, that I was being choked to death.
As a premature demise was not on their program the cord was quickly loosened each time, and the man ahead warned to be more careful. These partial strangulations resulted from the fellow's anxiety to escape from the neighborhood of the double-barrel rifle. On reaching the Bluestone we halted while the savages collected their horses. From the few words exchanged I estimated that half the band was mounted. Without building a fire or eating we started up the Bluestone. Neither Black Hoof nor the Dales were with our party when we halted at daybreak. We paused only long enough to bolt some half-cooked deer-meat. I asked for the trader and his daughter, and Ward laughed and shook before my face the scalps he had taken in the Granville cabin. Two of them were pitiably small.
”You scalp other men's kills,” I observed.
”You'll not say that when I scalp you.”
”What does Dale now think of his Indian friends?”
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