The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 6, 1903, Page 1

[ 4 now of the whom Madge Stair nnifer, John Ireton ad fought ng . . on the of the romances that the the plane of superhuman g=l wit, never faltering in their lines nor betraying by slip or tongue-trip their kinship with common humankind. Being mere mortals, we were not so endowed; we were but four outwearied men, well spent In the long ieg among us fit to a decent wakeful So, as I have slept; would . I dare say, had the risk been twice as great We were astir at the earliest graying of the dawn, Ric! I and were the at that, since the 0ld hunter wis already-out and away and the Indiap /had kindled a fire and was grinding miore of the parched corn for the meal. Ephraim Yeates X urned with the hind- arling buck, fresh- lders. . we would think t of the dawn suffi- Seeing the deer's m the old hunter's ti clently accounted for; but when the cuts were a-broil- we were made to know that™ the buck was merel lucky incident in the early morning scouting. Taking time by the forelock, the old borderer had swept a cirele of reconnais- gance around our halting place, “to get the ‘p'ints of the compass,” as he would His first discovery was that the nt and his trace from er train had 0 mid-afternoon of y from this that the 2 band would be rt rch to the westward/ ex had pushed on to feel out the en- s positior For g mile or more beyond the ford he had trdiled the convoy easily. The Indian d by the nu- horses tream windings of the swift river straight Into the eye of the western mountains. But in the eye itself, a rocky defile where the s on each hand be- came frowning battlements to narrow val- ley and stream, the one to a darkling gorge, the other to a thundering torrent, the trail was lost as completely as if the Powder convoy had vanished into thin alr. Here was a fresh complication and one that called for instant action. We had counted upon a battle royal in any at- tempt to rescue the women, but that Fal- connet, impeded as he was by the slow cargo, could . was a contingency for which e wholly unprepared. So, as you would guess, the hunter breakfast was hurriedly dispatched, and by the time the sun was shoulder high over the eastern hills we had broken camp and crossed the river and were pressing forward to the gorge of disap- pearance. On each hand the mountalns rose pre- cipitous, the one on the left swelling un- broken to a bald and rounded summit, forest covered e for its tonsured head high in air, while that on the right steeper and lower, with a line of cliffs the top. As we fared on the valley nar- rowed to a mere chasm, with the river thundering along the base of the ton- sured mountain and the Indian path bugging the cliff on the right. In the gloomiest depths of this defile we camé upon the hunter's stumbling block. A tributary stream, issulng from a low cavern in the right-hand cliff, crossed the Indlan path and the chasm at a bound and plunged noisily into the flood of the larger river. On the hither side of this barrier stream the trail of the powder convoy led plainly down Into the water, and, so far as one might see, that was the end of it. As we made sure, we left no stone un- turned in the effort to solve the mystery. No horse, ridden or led, could have lived to cross the pouring torrent of the main river or to wade un or down its bed, and 1f the cavalcade had turned up the bar- rier stream its progress must have ended abruptly against the sheer wall of the cliff at the entrance of the low-arched cavern whence the tributary came into belng. But if Falconnet and his following had ridden nefther up nor down the bed of the barrier stream, it seemed equally certaln that no horse of the troop had crossed it. The Indian trace, which held straight on up the gorge and presently came out above Into a high upland valley, was unmarked by any hoof print, new or old. “Well, now, T'll be daddled if this here ain’t about the beatin'est thing I ever ° chugged up ag'inst,” was the 0ld borlerer's ocmment, when we had flogged our wits to small purpose for some clew to the mystery. “What's your mind about it, hey, chlef?” Uncanoola shook his head. *Heap plenty slick. No go up-stream, no go down, no ggoss over, no go back. Mebbe g0 up like smoke—w'at?” The hunter shook his head and would by no means admit the alternative. “Ez I allow, that waquld ax for a merricle, and I reckon ez how when the good Lord sends a chariot o’ fire after sech a clan- jamfrey as this'n o' the hoss-captain’s, 1t'11 be mighty dadblame’ apt to go down 3 of up.” !:'ladwere Zlandln‘ on the brink of the barrier stream no more than a fisher- man’s cast from the black rock-mouth that _spewed it up from its underground maw. ° While the hunter was speaking the Catawba had lapsed into statue-like listlebsness, his gaze fixed upon the eddy- ing floed which held the secret of the vanished cavalcade. Suddenly he came alive w.th a bound and made a quick dash into the water. What he retrieved was only a small plece of wood, charred at one end. But Ephralm Yeates caught at it eagerly. “Now the Lord be praised for all His marcles!” he exclaimed. “It do take an Injun to come a-running whenst ever’- body is plumb beat out! Ne'eranotherone of us had an eye sharp enough to ketch that bit o' sign a-floating past. What say, Cap’'n Joha hook my head, seeing no spectal sig- ance An the token, and Dick asked, that it will it bc.’_Ephralm. now dullard wit, and then set @ molety of it in words. Weil, well, now: I'm fair ashamed of yve! What all d'ye reckon blackened the end o' this bit o' pine brapch?” “Why, fire,” says Richard,” beginning, as 1 did, to see some glimmering of light. n course. And it came from yonaer, didn’t it?"" pointing to the cavern under the cliff. “More than that, ‘twas cut wi’ a hatchet—this fresh end of it—no longer than last night, at the furdest; the pitch that the fire fried out'n it is all soft ‘and Gentlemen all, whenst we s here creek comes out into ain we're a-going to find the 1 and the whole enduring p: sel o' redskins and redcoats, immejitly, if not sooner!" What comment this startiing announce- ment would have evoked I know net, for at the moment of its utterance the Ca- tawba went flat.upon the ground, making most urgent signs for us to do likewise. What he had seen we all saw a flitting instant later—the vainted face of a Chero- kee warrior as a setting for a pair of fierce basilisk eyes peering out of the low-arched cavern whence the stream is- sued, an apparition looking for ali the world like a dismembered head floating on the surface of the outgushing flood. ‘Twas the old bordgrer who tcok the in- itiative in the swift retreat, and we fol lowed his lead like well-drilled soldiers. A crook in the stream and the thickset underwood screened us for the moment lisk eyes, and In a twinkling ed one after another into the mimic torrent and were quickly swept down to its mouth. Here death lay in wait for us in the mad plungings of the main river, but we made shift to catch at the overhanging branches of the willows in passing, to draw ourselves out, to scramble up the gorge and to gain a great boulder on the mountalnside whence we could look down upon the scene of our late surprisal. By this we saw, from the wings, as it were, the setting of the stage for a trag- edy which migit baVe been ours. One by one a scofe of heads with painted ces floated sitently out of the spewing -mouth. One by one the glistening, bronze-red bodies appertaining thereto emerged from the water, each to take its place in an ambuscade inclosing the stream-crossing of the Indian path in a pocketlike line of crouching figures, with the mouth of the pocket open toward the lower valley. Ephraim Yeates chuckled under his breath and smote softly upon his thigh. ““They tell ez how the good Lord has a mighty tend:r care for chillern and sim- ples,” he whispered. “Whenst we was a-coming a-rampaging up the trace a hour 'r two ago I saw the moccasin track o' that there spy, and was too <iad-blame’ Liggity in my own consate to ax what it mought mean. h: back from here ‘twixt dawn and day- break, to be sure. He waited till we broke camp and then took cut up here ahead of us to tell his chief 'twas e’na’most time to set the trap for three white simples and a red one. Friends, I'm a-telling ye plain that the sperrit's a-moving me mighty powerful to git down on. my hunkers and—" For heaven's sake, don't do it here and no gasped Dick. “Let's get out of this spider’'s web while we may.” The old hunter postpoped his prayerful motion, most reluctantly, as it would seem, and led the way in a silent with- drawal from the dangerous neighborhood of the ambushment. When we had pushed on somewhat higher up the gorge and stood on the confines of the upland val- ley for which it served as the approach there was a hait for a council of war. Stzce it was now evident that the pow- der convey was encamped in some hidden gorge or vailey to which the cavern of the underground stream was one of the approaches, ’twas plain that we must cliimb to some height whence we could command a wider view. We were all agreed that the cavern en- trance ‘could not have been used by the entire company—this though the conclu- sion left the vanishing trail an unsolved riddle. For if thie women could have been dragged through the low-springing arch of the waterway, we knew the horses could not—to say nothing of the certain destruction of the powder cargo in such & passage. Eo we addressed ourselves to the ascent of the northern mountain, though Rich- erd and I would first beg a little space in which to drain the water from our boots, and to wring some pounds’ weight of it from our clothes. That done we fell in line once more, and being so for- tunate as to hit upon a ravine which led to the cliff-crowned summit, the climb was shorn of half of its tofl and dif- culty. Nevertheless, by the sun’s height it was well on In the forencon before we came out, perspiring llke sappers in a steam bath, upon the mountain top. As Yeates had guessed, this northern mountain ‘proved to be a lofty table-land. So far as could be seen the summit was an undulating plain, less densely forested ‘than the valley, but with a thick sprink- ling of pines to make the still, hot air heavy with their resinous fragrance, As it chanced, our ravine of ascent headed well back from the cliff edge, so we must needs fetch a compass through the pine groves before we could win out to any commanding point of view. The old borderer took his bearings by the sun and laid the course of quartering to bring us out as near as might be on the heights above the gorge. But when we 'had gene a little way a thinning of the wood ahead warned us that we were ap- !wrogchinz some nearer break in the table- land. Five minutes later we four stood on the brink of a precipicé, looking abroad upon one of nature’'s most singular caprices. Conceive if you can a segment of the ta- ble-land, in shape like a broad-bliged man o' war, sunk to a depth of mayhap iX or seven hundred feet below the gen- il level of the plateau. Give this ship- shaped chasm a longer dimension of two miles or more and a breadth of somewhat less than half its length; bound it with & wall-like line of clifts falling sheer to steep, forested slopes below; prick out a silver ribbon of a stream winding through grassy savannas and well-set groves of lordly trees from end to end of ‘the sunken valley, and you will have some pleture of" the scene we looked upon. But what concerned us most was a sight to make us crouch quickly lest sharp eyes below should descry us on the sky-line of the cliff. Pitched on one of the grassy savannas by the stream, So fairly beneath us that the smallest can- non. planted on our cliff could have dropped a shot into it, was the camp of the powder train, CHAPTER XXV. HOW UNCANOOLA TRAPPED THE GREAT BEAR. 'Twas . Richard Jennifer who first broke the noontide silence of the moun- tain top, voicing the query which was thrusting sharp at all of us. “Now, how in the name of all the fiends did they make shift to burrow from yonder bag-bottom into this?” he would say. “Ez I allow, that's jest what the good Lord fotched us here for—to find out,” was Yecates’ rejoinder. “Do you and the chief, Cap'n John, circumambylate this here pitfall yon way, whilst Cap'n Dick and I go t'other way 'round. By time we've made the circut and j'ined com- pany again, I reckon we'll know for sar- tain whether 'r no they climm’ the mounting to get in.” So when we had breathed us a little the circuiting was begun, Ephraim Yeates and Jennifer going toward the lower end of the sink, and the Catawba and I in the opposite direction. Since we must examine closely every rift and crevice in the boundary cliff, it was 2 most tedlous undertaking and I do remember how my great trooper boots, sun-drying on my feet, made every step a wincing agony. They say an army Zoes upon its belly, but an old campaign- er will tell you that you can march a sol- dier till he be too thin to cast a shadow if cnly he hath ease of his footgear. Taking it all in all, it proved a slow business, this looping of the sunken val- ley and when we had worked around to the eastern cliff and to a meeting point with the old hunter and Richard Jenni- fer, the sun was level in our faces and the day wes waning. Coming together again, we made haste to compare notes.. There was little enough to add to the common fund of in- formation, and the mystery of the lost trail remained a mystery. True, we, the Indian and I had foupd-a ravine at the extreme upper end of the valley through which, we thought, a sure-footed horse might be led at a pinch, up or down, but this ravine had not been. used by the powder frain, and apart from it there was no practicable horse path leading down from the plateau. As for the hunter and Richard, they had made a discovery which might stand for what it was worth. At its lower ex- tremity the sunken valley was separated from the great gorge without only by a ridge which was no more than a huge dam and this diking ridge was evidently tunueled by the stream, since the latter had no visible outlet. Inasmuch as the most favorable point of espial upon the camp below was the cliff whence we had first looked down into the sink, we-harked back thither, passing around the lower end of the val- ley and along the barrier ridge. Plan we had none as yet, for the preliminary to any attempt at a rescue must be some better knowledge of the way Into and out hold. True, we might win in and out again by the ravine which the chiet and I had explored at the upper , and Dick was for trying this when the night should give us the curtain of darkness for a shield. But the old hunter would hold this forlorn hope in reserve as a last resort. 5 ayBort 3 out_for yourself, Cap'n Dick,” e argued. * lever we make- wtwdo—tm!nult’mmm - ——— whole enduring army o’ theirn-—has got to be dona on the keen jump, with a toler'ble plain hoss-road for the skimper- scamper race when it is done. For, look- Ing it up and down and side to side, we've got to have hosses—some o' their horses, at that. I jing! If we could jest make out somehow 'r other to lay our claws on the beasteses aforehand—" ‘We had reached the cliff and were once more peering down at the enemy’'s camp. Though for the cliff-shadowed valley it was long past sunset and all the depths ‘were blue and purple in the changing baif-lights of the hour, the shadow vell ‘was but a gause of color, softening the detalls without obscuring them. 8o, we could mark well the metes and boundh of the camp and prick In all the items. . ‘The camp fleld was the largest of the esavannas or natural clearings. On the margin of the stream the Indian lodges were pitched In a semicircle to face the water. Farther back Falconnet's troop was hutted in rough-and-ready shelters made of pine boughs—these disposed to and between the camp of the Cherokees and the tepee-lodge of the captive women, which stood among the trees in that edge of the forest hemming the slope ‘which buttressed our cliff of observation. At first we sought in vain for the stor- ing-place of the powder. It was the sharp eyes of the Catawba that flnally descried it. A rude housing of pine boughs, like the huts of the troopers, had been built at the base of a large boulder on the opposite bank of the stream; and here was the lading of the powder train. From what could be seen ‘twas clear that the camp was no mere bivouac for the day; indeed, the Englishmen were still working upon their pine-bough shel- ters, building themselves in as if for a stay indefinite. “'Tis a rest camp,” quoth Dick, “though why they should break the march here is more than I can g r “No,” said Ephraim Yeates. Jest rightly a rest camp, ez Itakeit. Ez I ‘was a-saying last night, thi asege country, and we ain't no furder than a day’s running from the Cowee Towns. Now the Tuckasegesand the over- mounting Cherckees ain’t always on the best o' tarms, and I was a-worfdering If the hoss-captain hadn’'t sot down here to wait whilst he could send a peace- offer’ o’ powder and lead on to the Cowee chiefs to sort o' smooth the way.” “No- send him_yet; going to send.” was_ Uncanola's amendment. “Look seé, Chelakee braves make haste for load horses down yonder now!” Again the sharp eyes of the Catawba had come in play. At the foot of the great boulder some half-dozen of the Cherokees were busy with the powder cargo, lashing pack loads of it upon two horses. One of the group, who ap- peared to be directing the labor of the others. stood apart, holding the bridle relus ;af thfee other. horses caparisoned db-for’a jo¥rney. ‘When the loading was ‘gécompljshed to the satisfaction of the horse-holding chieftain, he and two oth- ers mounted, took the burdened animals in tow, and the small cavalcade filed off down the stream toward the apparent cul de sac at the lower end of the val- ley. Ephraim Yeates was up ip a twinklir dragging us ba from the “Up with " he cried. chance to Kkill two pa'tridges with one stone! If we can make out tg get down into t'other valley in time to see how them varmints come out, we'll know the way in. More'n thdt, we can ambush 'em and so make sartain sure o' five o the six, hosses we're a-going to need, come night. But we've got to leg for it like Ahimaaz the son of Zadok.” Thus said the old borderer, and being only too eager to come ‘to handgrips with the enemy we were up and running faster than ever Joab's messenger long before the old man finished with his Scriptyral simile. Not to take the risk of delay on ary unexplored short cut we made straight for the ravine of our ascent, found it as by unerring instinct, and were presently racing down to‘the Indlan trace in the little upland valley above the gorge. For all the helter-skelter - haste I found time to remember that the gorge as we had last seen it had been well besprinkled with armed Cherokees lying in wait for us. If they were still there we should be likely to have a hot wel- come; and some -reminder of this I gasped out to Yeates ‘in‘mid-flight “Ne'm mind that; if we run up ag’ ‘em anywhere, 'twon't be there-a They've took the hint and quit; scat- tered out to hunt us long ago,” was his answer, jerked out between bounds. And after I had loosed the Ferrara in its sheath and saved my breath as I might for the killing business of the moment. 'Twas a sharp disappointment that. for all the haste of our mad scramble dewn the mountain we were too late to sur- prise the secret of the enemy’s strong- hold. The Catawba was leading when we dashed down into the valley, and one glance sent him flying back to stop us short with a dumb show purporting that the quarry was already out of the defile and coming up the Indian path. Richard swore grievously, but the old backwoodsman took the checkmate pla- cldly and began to set the pieces for the second game in which the horses were the stake, hiding his useless rifle in a hollow tree—his powder had been soaked and spoiled in the early morning plunge for life—and drawing his hunting knife to feel its edge and point. “Ez 1 allow, that fotches us to the hoss- lifting,” he said. in his siow arawl. Then he laid his commands upon us. “Ord’ly and in sojer-fashion, now no whooping and yelling. If the hoss-captain's got scouts out a-s'arching for us, one good screech from these here varmints we're a-going to put outn their mis'ry 'u'd fix our flints for kingdom come. I ain't none afeard o' pour nerve'—this to Richard and me—"leastwise, not when it comes to fair and square sojer-fighting. But this here onfall has got to W6 like the smiting o' the ’Malekites—root and branch; and if ye're tempted to be any- ‘wise marciful, jest ricollect that for the folks we've got st You are not to suppose that he was holding us inactive while he thus ex- horted us. On the contrary, he was post- -ing us skillfully beside the trace like the shrewa old Indian fighter that he was, with a rare and practiced eye to the miaximum of cover with the mini- mum of thicket tangle to Impede the rush or to shorten the sword swing. But when all was done we were at this disadvantage—that since the enemy was close at hand we dared not cross the path to give our trap a jaw on efther side. To offset this, the Catawba dropped out of ling and disappeared; and when the Cherokees were no more than a hun- dred yards away, Uncancola came in sight a like distance in the opposits di- rection, running easily down the path to meet the upcoming riders. Richard let slip an admiration eath under his breath. “There’s & fine bit of strategy for you!" he .whispered “That wily Jack-at-a-pinch of ours will beloof them Into believing that he is a runner from the Cowee Towns. ‘Tis our cue to lie close; he will halt them just here, and thers will be roving eyes in the heads of the two wio have not to talk” We had not long to wait. Our cun- ning ally timed his haltingof the emis- saries to a nicety, and when the thres Cherokees drew rein they were within easy blade's reach. The powwow, len ened by Uncancola till we were near, bursting with impatience, was spum out wordily, and presently we saw the point- ing of it. The Catawba was affecting to doubt the protests of the emissaries and would have them dismount and prove their good faitn by smoking the peace-pipe with him. I give you fair warning, my dears, that you may turn the page here and skip what follows if you are fain to be tender-hearted on the score of these savage enemles of ours. It was in the very summer solstice of the year of violence; a time when he who took the sword was lfke to perish with the sword; and we thought of little save that Mar- gery and her handmalden were in dead- lest peril, and that these Indians had five horses which we must have. And as for my own part in the fray, when I recognized in the five-feathered chieftain of the three that copper-hued imp of Satan who had been the merciless master of ceremonies at the torturing of my poor black Tomas, the decent meed of mercy which even a seasoned soldier may cherish died within me, and I made sure the steel would find its mark. So, when Uncanoola drew forth hi tobacco pipe and made the three doome: ones sit with him in the path to smoke the peace whiff all around we picked out each his man and smote to slay. The scythe-like sweep of Jennifer's mighty claymore left the five-feathered chief- tain the shorter by a head in the same pulsebeat that the Ferrara scanted a sec- ond of the breath to yell with; though now I recall it, the gurgling death cry of the poor wretch with the steel in his throat was more terrtble to hear than any warwhoop. As for the old borderer, he was more deliberate. Being fair be- hind and within arm’s reach of his man, he seized him by the scalplock, bent the head backward across his =xnee—but, faugh! these are the merest butcher de- tails, and I would spare you—and my- self, as well. While yet this most merciless deed was a-doing. the Catawba bounded to his feet and made sure of the horses, which were rearing and snorting with affright. That done, he must needs gloat, Indian- wise, over his fallen adversary, turning the headless body with his foot and gid- ing at 1t “Wah! Call hisself the Great Bear, hey? Heap lie; heap no bear; heap noth- ing, now. Papoose bear no tet nisseif be trap’ that way. No smoke peace-pipe—" But now Ephraim Yeates, standing ear a-cock and motionless, like some grim old statue done in leather, cut him short with a sudden “Hist, will ye!" and a twinkling instant later we had other work to do. “Onto the hosses with this here In- dian meat, ez quick ez the loving Lerd'll let " was the sharp comman ye! “There’s a whole clanamfrey o the va: mints a-coming down the trace, and I reckon ez how we'd better scratch gravel immejitly, if not soone: CHAPTER XXVL WE TAKE THE CHARRED STICK FOR A GUIDE. Luckily for us the new danger was ap- proaching from the westward. So, by dint of the maddest hurryings we got the bodies of the three Cherokees hoist upon the horses, and were able to efface in part the signs of the late encounter before the band of riders coming down the Indian path was upon us. But there Wwas no time to make an orderly retreat. At most we could only withdraw a little way into the waod, halting when we wers well In cover. and hastily stripping coats and walstcoats to muffle the heads of the horses. So you are to conceive us waiting with nerves upstrung, ready for fight or flight, as the event should decide, stifiing in such pent-up suspense as any or all of us would gladly have exchanged for the flercest battle. Happily, thé breath-seant- scanting interval was short. From be- hind our thicket screen we presently saw a file of Indian horsemen riding at a leisurely footpace down the path. Ephratm Yeates quickly named these newcomers for us. “'Tis about ez I allowed—some o’ the Tuckaseges a-scoliting down to hold a powwow with the hoss-captain. Now, then, if them sharp-nosed - ponies o their'n don’t happen to sniff the blood—" The hove was dashed on the instant by the sudden snorting and shying of two or three of the horses in passing. and we lald hold of our weapons, keying our- selves to the fighting pitch. But, curi- ously enough, the riders made no move to pry into the cause. So far from It, they flogged the shying ponles into line and rode on stolldly: and thus In a little time that danger was overpast and the evening silence of the mighty forest was ours to keep or break as we chose. The old frontlersman was the first to speak. “Well, friends, I reckon ez how we mought ez well thank the good Lord for all his marcies afore we go any furder,” he would say, and he doffed his cap and did 1t forthwith. . It was as grim a picture as any limner of the weird could wish to look upon. The twilight shadows were empurpling the mountains and gathering In dusky pools here and there where the trees stood thickest in the valley. The hush of nature’s mystic hour was abread, and even the swiftly flowing river, rushing sullenly along its rocky bed no more than stone’s cast beyond the Indian path, seemed to intermit its low thunderings. ‘There was never a breath of air astir in all the wood, and the leaves of the silver poplar that will twinkle and ripple in the lightest zeohyr hung stark and motion- less. Barring the old borderer, who had gone upon his knees, we stood as we wers; the Catawba holding the pack horses Jennifer and [ the three that bore ghastly burdens of mortality. The of the slain had been flung across ghet] o