The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 6, 1903, Page 3

meadow, other savages were hurrying to Join the wood carriers. So far as these hasting preliminaries applied to me, their meaning was not difficult to read. I was to be burned at the stake in proper savage fashion. But Richard Jennifer—what had become of bim? A sound, half sigh, half groan, told me where to look. Hard by, bound to & tree as I was, and 80 near that with & free hand I could have touched him, was my poor lad “Dick!” I cried. He turned his head as the close-drawn thongs permitted and gave me & smile as loving-tender 2 woman’s. “Aye, Jack; they have us hard and fast this time. I have been praying you'd never come alive epough to feel the fire” “We were taken together?” I dared ask. “In the same onset. “T'was but a ques- tion of clock ticks in that back-to-back business. But they paid scot and lot.” this with an inching nod toward a row of naked bodies propped sitting against a fallen tree; nine of them in all, one with its severed head between its knees, and three others showing the gaping hacks and bewings of the great broad- sword. “They’'ve fetched them here to see us burn,” he went on. “But by the gods, we have the warrant of two good blades and Ephraim Yeates' hunting knife that the only fires they’ll ever see are those of hell.” “Yeates?” I queried. “Then they have taken him and the Catawba, as well?” “Not alive, you may be sure, else we should have them for company. But it has & black look for our friends that the fiying column we met in the stream- 8o much cave came back so soon. More- over, the bodies of the thres peace-pipe smokers were found and brought in: that will be the Great Bear holding his head in his hands at the end of yonder bioody masquerade.” “I guessed as much. God rest our poor comrades!™ “Aye; and God help Madge! °'Tis no time for reproaches, but among us we have signed her death warrant with our bunglings.” “If it were only death!” I groaned. “'Tis just that, Jack,” said he; “no better, mayhap, but no worse. When we were downed by that screeching mob she wes out and on her knees to Falconnet, beseeching him to spare us. He put her off smoothly at first, saying ‘twas the § Indians’ affair—that they would not be balked of their vengeance by any inter- ference of his. But when she only beg- ged the more piteously he showed his true colors, rapping out hat we should have as swift a quittance as we had meant to give him, and fhat within the hour she should be the mistress of Ap- pleby and free to marry an English gen- tleman.” “Well?” said I, making sure that now at last he must know all. “At that she stood before him brave- -, and 1 saw that all the time she had 4 the Catawba's knife hidden in the folds of her gown. ‘You have spoken uth for once, Captain Falconnet; I shall be free,’ she added. ‘Come and tell me when you have added these to your other murders.” “And then?” ““Then she went back to her prison wig- wam, walking through the rabble of red- oats and redskins as proud as the Scot- tish Mary went to the block.” “She will do it, think you?” I queried, fearful that she would, but more fearful est her courage should fall at the pinch. “Never doubt it. Good Catholic as she is, there is martyr blood in her on her mother's side, and that will help her to die unsullled. And God nerve her to it, say L' 1 gaild “Amen” to that; and thereupon we both fell silent, watching as con- demned men on the gallows the busy preparations for our taking off. Again, as In the late battle, it was the trivial things that moved me most. Chief among them the grinning row of dead Indians propped against the fallen tree in the constant background for all the memory pictures of that waiting interval, and I can see those stiffening corpses new, some erect, as if defying us;. some lopping this way or that, as if thelr bones had gone to water at the touch of the steel. 1 know not why these poor relics of mortality should have held me fascinated as they did. Yet when I would look away, through the vista to where the light of the great fire in the savanna camp played luridly upon the Indian lodges, or, nearer at hand, upon the sav- ages gathering the wood to burn us with, this ghastly flle of the dead drew me firresistibly, and I must needs pass the fearsome figures in review again, marking the star- ing eyes and unnatural postures, and the circular blood-black patches on the heads of the three peacemen whom Yeates and the Catawba had scalped. While they were making ready for the burning. our executioners were strangely silent; but when the work was done they formed in & semicircle to front the row of corpses and set up a howling chant that would have put a band of Moham- medan dervishes to the blush. “'Tis the death song for the slain’™ said Richard; and while it lasted, this moving tableau of naked figures, keep- ing time in a weird stamping dance to the rising and falling ululation of the chant, held us spellbound. But we were not long suffered to be mere curious onlooRers. In its dismalest flight the death song ended in & shrill hubbub, and the dancers turned as one man to face us. I hope It may never be your lot, my @ears, 10 meet and endure such a horrid glare of human ferocity as that these ywrought up avengers of blood bent upon us. 'Twas more unnerving than aught that had gone before; more terrible, I than sught that ocould come after. ‘et, as to this, you shall judge ‘or yourselves. The pause was brief, and when a lad up to cut the thongs that bound us rom the middle up, the torture play be- gan in deadly earnest. While the In- dian youth was slashing at the deerskin, Richard gave me my cue. “*Tis the knife and hatchet play; they are loosing us to give us freedom to shrink and dodge. Look straight before and never fiinch a halm as you would keep the life in you one minute to the next!” “Trust me” sald L “We must eke it out as long as we can to give our dear lady time for another prayer or two. Mayhap she will name us in them; God knows, our need is sore enough.” The lad ran back, and a warrior stood out, juggling his tomahawk in air. He made a feint to cast it at Richard, but instead sent it whizzing at me. That first missile was harder to face unfiinching than were all the oth€rs. I saw it leave the thrower's l;.nd];u"k" tlt coming straight, -as I would thinl 0 split x:y skull. LThe prompting to dodge was well-nigh masterful enough to over- ride the strongest will. Yet I did make shift to hold fast, and in mid flight the twirling ax veered aside to miss me by & hairsbreadth, gashing the tree at my ear when it struck. “Bravo! well met!” cried Richard; and then, betwixt his teetn: “Here comes mine.” As he spoke a second tomahawk was sped. I heard it strike with a dull crash that might have been on flesh and bone, or on oak bark—I could not tell. I dared not look aside till Richard's taunting laugh gave me leave to breathe again. The Indians answered the laugh with 2 yell; and now the marksmen stood out quickly ene after another and for a little space the air was full of hurtling missiles. You wyill read in the romances of the wondrous skill of these savages in such diversions as these; how they will pin the victim to a tree and never miss of sticking knife or hatchet within the thickness of the blade where they will. But you must take these tales with a dash of allowance for thejro- mancer's fancy. Truly, these Indi of ours threw well and skilifully; ‘tis a part of the only trade they know—the trade of war—to send a weapon true to the mark. None the less, some of the missiles flew wide; and now and then one would nip the cloth of sleeve or body covering—and the flesh beneath it, as well. Dick had more of the nippings than I; and though he kept up a running fire of taunts and gibing fings at the marks- men, I could hear the gritting oaths aside when they pinked him. Notwithstanding, the worst of these miscasts fell to my lot. A hatchet, sped by the clumsiest hand of all, missed its curving. turned, and the helve of it struck me fair in the stomach. Not all the parting pangs of death, as I fondly believe, will lay a heavier toll on forti- tude than did this griping-stroke which I must endure standing erect. 'Tis no figyre ot speech to say that I would have el the reversion of heaven, and a crown to boot, for leave to double over and groan out the agony of it. Happily for us, there wers no women with the band, so we were spared the crueler refinements of these ante-burning torments; the flaying alive by inch-bits, and the sticking of blazing splints of pitch wood in the flesh to make death a thing to be prayed for. There was naught of this; and tiring finally of the marksman play, the Indlans made ready to burn us. Some ran to recover the spent weapons; others made haste to heap the wood in a broad circle about our trees; and the chief, with three or four to help, renewed the deer-thong lashings. 'Twas in the rebinding that this head- man, & right kingly looking savage as these barbarians go, thrust a bit of pa- per into my hand, and gave me time to glance its message out by the light of the fire. 'Twas a line from Margery; and this is what she said: “Dear Heart: Though you must needs believe my love is pledged to your good friend and mine, 'tis yours, and yours alone, my lion-hearted one. I am pray- ing the good God to give you dying grace, and me the courage to follow you quickly. MARGERY. “This by the hand of Tallachama.” For one brief instant & wave of joy caught and flung me upon its highest crest, and all these savage tormentors could do to me became as naught. Then the true meaning of this her brave Ave atque vale smote me like a space-flung meteor, and the joy-wave became an ocean of despair to engulf me in its blackest depths. The letter was never meant for me; ‘twas for Richard Jennifer, who, as she ‘would think, must know tHe story of her marriage to his friend and must beliave her love went with the giving of her hand. And she named him Lion Heart because he was brave and true and strong, like that first English Richard of the kingly line. T thrust the message back upon the bearer of it, begging him in dumb show to, give it quickly to my companion. I knew not at the time if he did it, being 80 crushed and blinded by this fresh mis- ery. But when the Indians drew off to ring us in a chanting circle for the final act, I would not let the lad see my face for fear he might fathom the heart- break i me and know the cause of it. 'Twas at this crisis, when all was ready and one had run to fetch the fire, that I heard a smothered oath from Dick and saw the Indian who was coming up to fire the wood heaps drop his brand and tread upon it. “Ecod,” sald a voice, courtier-like and smoothly modulated. “'Tis most devilish lucky I came, Captain Ireton. Another moment and they would have grilled you in the Xing’s uniform—a rank treason, to say naught of poor Jack Warden, left ‘without a clout to cover him."” It needed not the glance aside to name mine enemy. But I would not pleasure him with an answer. Neither would Richard Jennifer. He stood silent for a Tittle space, smiling and nursing his chin in one hand, as his habit was. Then he spoke again. “I came to bld you godspeed, gentle- men. You tumbled bravely into my lit- tle trap. I made no doubt you'd follow where the lady led, and so you did. But you'll turn back from this, I do assure you, If there be any virtue in an Indian barbecue.” At this Richard could hold in no longer. ““Curse you!” he gritted. “Do you mean that you kidnapped Mistress Stair to draw us out of hiding?"” “Truly,” gaid this arch flend, smiling again. “Most unluckily for you, you both stood in my way—you see I am speaking of it now as a thing of the past —and I chanced upon this thought of killing“two birds with the one stone; nay, three, 1 should say, if you count the lady in." “Have done!” choked Richard, in a voice thick with impotent rage. “Give place, you hound, and let your savages to their work)"” “At your pleasure, Mr. Jennifer. I have no fancy for funeral-baked meats, htt or cold, though they be made, as now, to furnish forth a marriage sup- per. I bid you good night, gentlemen. I'll go and make that call upon the lady which you were so rude as to Interrupt a little while ago,” And with that he turned his back upon us and strods away, forgetting to tell his redskinned myrmidons to strip me of that King's uniform he was so loath to have me burned in. The Cherokees waited until the master executioner was out of sight among the trees. Then they set up their infernal howlirg again, and the fire-lighter ran to fetch a fresh brand. “Courage, lad! 'twill soon be over THE SUNDAY CALL. now,” said I, hearing a grosn from my poor Dick. His reply was a chattering curse, not upon Falconnet or the Indians, but upon his malady, the tertian fever. “Now, by all the flends! I'm chilling again, Jack!" he gasped. “If these wooed-wolves mark it, they’ll set it down to woman cowardice and that will break my heart!” Again I bade him be of good courage, assuring him, not derisively, as it 1ooks when 'tis written out, that the fire would presently medicine the chilling. In the middle of the saying the lighted brand was fetched and thrust among our fagot- ings, and the upward-curling smoke wreaths made me gasp and strangle at the finish. For a little time after the l\ldl’ln‘ in of that first smoke-breath—nature’s ano- dyne for any one of her poor creatures doomed to die by fire—I saw and heard less clearly and suffered only by antici- pation. But to this day the smell of burning pine wood is like a sleeping po- tion to me; and the sleep it brings is full of dreams vaguely#troubled. So, while the Indians danced and leaped about us, brandishing their wea-" pons and chanting the captives’ death song, and while the 'blue and yellow tongues of flame mounted from twig to twig, climbing stealthily to flick at us like little vanishing demon whips, I saw and heard and felt as one remote from all the torture turmoil of the moment. Through the dimming haze of sleeping sensibility the dancing savages became marionettes in some cunning puppet ow; and “the blood-satined figures stiffening against their log took shapes less horrifying. 'Twas Dick’s voice, coming, as it seemed, from a mighty distance, that broke the spell and brought me back to quickened agonies. He spoke in panting gasps, as the smoke would let him. “One word, Jack, before we go—g0 to our own place. He said—he said she would be free to—to marry him. Tell me * * * O Godinheaven!” His agony was a lash to cut me deep- er than any flicking demon whip of flame, yet I must needs add to it. “Aye, Richard, I have wronged you, ‘wronged you desperately; can you hear me yet? I say I have wronged you, and 1 shall dle the easier if you'll forgive—" Once more the smoke, rising again in denser clouds, cut me off, and through the blinding blue haze of it I saw the Indians_running up with green branches to beat Tt down lest it should spoll their wport oversoon by smothering us out of hand. . With the chance to gasp and breathe again I would have confessed in full to Richard Jennifer and had him shrive me if he would But when I called, he did not answer. His head was rolling from side fo side, and his handsome young face was all drawn and distorted as in the awful grimaces of the death throe. You will not wonder that I could not look at him; that I looked away for very pity's sake, praying that I might quickly breathe the flames, as I made sure he had, and so be the sooner past the an- guish crisis. There was good hope that the prayer would have a speedy answer. The fires were burning clearer now, leaping up in broad dragons’ tongues of flames from the outer edges of the fagot piles to curtain off all that lay beyond. Through the luminous flame vell the capering sav- feges took on shapes the most weird and ears he fought loose from the Indian and flung himself down, crying as if his heart ‘would break. “O God! ehe’s lost! she’s lost! And I have missed the chance to dle with her or for her!” CHAPTER XX HOW EPHRAIM YEATES PRAYED FOR HIS ENEMIES. However much or little the Catawba understpod of Richard Jennifer's grief or its cause, the faithful Indian had & thing. to do and he did It, loosing his grasp of -me to turn and fall upon Dick with pullings and haulings and buffet- ings, fit to bring & man allve out of & very stiffening rigor of despair. So, In a hand-space he had him up, and we were pressing on again, in mid- night darkpess once we had passed be- yond the light of our grilling fires. No word was spoken. Under the impatient urging of the Indian there was little breath to spare for speech. But when Richard's afterthought had set its fangs in him he called a halt and would not be denfed. “‘Go on, you two, If you are set upon it,” he sald. “I must go back. Bethink you, Jack, what'if she should be only maimed and not killed outright. "Tis too horrible I'm going back, I say. The Catawba grunted his disgust. “Captain Jennif" talk fas’; ° no run fas'. ‘What think? ‘White Bquaw yonder—no yonder,” pointing first forward and then back in the direc- tion of the stricken camp. / Richard spun around and gripped the Indian by the shoulders. “Then she is alive and safe?’ he burst out. “Speak, friend, while I leave the breath in you to do ftr “Ugh!"” sald the chief, in nowise moved either by Jennifer's violence or by the dog-like shake. “What for Captain Jen- nif’ think pappoose thinks 'bout the Gray ‘Wolf and poor Injun? Catch um white squaw firs’; then blow um up Chelakes camp and catch um Captain Jennif' and Captain Longknife if I can. Heap do firs’ thing fire’, and las’ thing las’. Wah!" It was the longest speech this devoted ally of ours was ever known to make; and having made it he went dumb again save for his urgings of us forward. But presently both he and I had our hands full with the poor lad. The swift transi- tion from despair to joy proved too much for Dick; and, besides, the fever was.in his blood and he was grievously burned. So when we went stumbling on through the cloud-darkened wood, locked arm in arm like three drunken men, trip- ping over snares and bramble nets spread for our feet, and getting well sprinkled by the dripping foliage. And at the last, when we reached the ravine ,At the valley's head, Dick was muttering in the fever delirium and we were well- nigh carrying him a dead weight be- tween us. 'Twas & most hedrt-breaking business, getting the poor lad up that rock ladder of escape in the darkness; for though I had come out of the fire with fewer burns than the roasting of me warrant- ed, the battle preceding it had opened the old sword wound in my shoulder. So, taking it all in all, I was but a short- breathed second to the faithful Catawba. None the less, we tugged it through after some laborious fashion, and were glad enough when the steep ascent gave place to leveler going, and we could sniff the fragrance of the plateau pines and feel their wire-like needles under foot. By this the shower cloud had passed and the stars were coming out, but it grotesque; and when I had a glimpse of .was still pitch black under the pines; so the dead men's row, each hideous face dark that I started like a nervous wo- in it seemed to wear a grin of leering triumph. g Thus far there had never been a puff of wind to fan the blaze. But now above the shrilling of the Indian chant and the crackling of the flames a low growl of thunder trembled in the upper air, and a gentle breeze swept through the tree- tops. 8o now I would commend my soul to God, making sure that the breath he gave would go out on the wings of the first gust of wind that should come to drive the flery veil inward. But when the gust came it was from behind; a sweeping besom to beat down the leap- ing dragons’ tongues; a pouring flood of blessed coolness to turn the ebbing life tide and to set the duiled senses once more keenly alert. With the wind came the rain, a pass- ing summer night's shower of great drops spattering on the leaves above and dripping thence to fall hissing in the fires, Then the thunder growled again; and into the monotonous droning of the Indian chant, or rather rising sharp and clear above it, came a sudden rattling fire of musketry from the camp in the savanna—this, and the sharp skirling of the troop captaip's whistle shrilling the assembly. ‘While the flames lay flattened in the wind, I saw the Indians wheel and bound away to the rescue of their camp like a pack of hounds in full cry. In a trice they were wallowing through the stream at the foot of the powder boulder; and then, as the flames leaped up again, a dark form burst through the flery bar- rier, my bonds were cut, and a strong hand plucked me out of the scorching hell pit. If T did aught to help it was all me- chanical. I do remember dimly some flerce struggle to fres my legs from the blazing tangle; this, and the swelling sob of joy at the sight of the faithful Catawba hacking at Dick’s lashings and dragging him also free of the fire. And you may belleve the welcome tears came to ease the pain of my weared eyes when my poor lad—I had thought him gone past human help—took two staggering steps and flung his arms about my neck. Uncanoola gave us no time to come by easy stages to full-wit sanity. In a twinkling he had pounced upon us to crush us one upon the other behind the larger tree. And now I come upon an- other of those flitting Instants so crowd- ed with happenings that the swiftest pen must seem to make them lag. 'Twas all in a heart beat, as it were; the Catawba's freeing of us; his flinging us to earth behind the tree; a spurt of blinding yel- low flame from the foot of the powder cliff and a booming, jarring shock like that of an earthquake. The momentary glare of the yellow flash 1it up a scene most awe-inspiring. The gpouting fountain of fire at the base of the great powder rock was thick ‘with flying missiles; and on high the very Clff itself was tottering and crumbling. 8o much I saw; then the Catawba sprang up to haul us afoot by main strength, and to rush us, with an arm for each, headlong through the wood toward the valley head. But Dick hung back, and when the dull thunder of the falling rocks, the crash of the tumbling cliff and the shrill death yells of the doomed ones came to our man and went near to panioc when a horse snorted at my very ear, and a volice, bodiless, as it seemed, said: “Well, now; the Lord be pralsed! if here ain't the whole enduring—" ‘What Ephraim Yeates would have eaid, or did say, was lost upon me. For now my poor Dick’s strength was quite spent, and when the chief and I were easing him to lle at full length upon the ground there was a quick little cry out of the darkness, & swish of petticoats, and my lady darted in to fall upon Rich- ard in & very transport of pity. “Oh, my poor Dick! they have killed you!” she sobbed; “oh, cruel, cruell” Then she lashed out at us. “Why don’t you strike a light? How can I find and dress his hurts in the dark? “Your pardon, Mistress Margery,” "I sald; “’tis the fever has overcome him. He has no sore'hurts, as I belleve, save the fire scorching.” “A light!" she commanded; “I must have a light and see for myself.” We had to humor her, though it was something against prudence. Ephraim found dry punk in a rotten log, and fir- ing it with the flint and steel of a great king’s musket—one of his reavings from the enemy—soon had a pine-knot torch for her. She gave it over to the Cataw- ba to hold; and while she was cooing over her patient and binding up his burns {n some simples gathered near at hand by the Indian, I had the story of the double rescue from the old hunter. Set forth in brief, that which had come as a miracle to Dick and me fig- ured as a daring bit of strategy made possible by the emptying of the Indian camp at our torture spectacle. Yeates and the Catawba, following out the plan agreed upon, had come within spying distance while we were yet in the midst of that hopeless back-to-back bat- tle, and had most wisely held aloof. But later, wnen every Indian of the Cherokee band was busy at our torture trees, they set to work. With no watch to give the alarm, 'twas easy to rifle the Indian wigwams of the firearms and ammunition. The latter they threw into the stream; the muskets they loaded and trained over a fallen tree at the northern edge of the savanna, bringing them to bear point- blank upon the lighthorse guard gath- ered again around the great fire. The next step was the cutting out of the women; this was effected while the baronet-captain was paying his courtesy call on us. Like the looting of the In- dian camp, 'twas quickly planned and daringly done; it asked but the quieting of the two trooper guards on the forest side of the tepee lodge, a warning word to Margery and her woman, and a shadow-like flitting with tI over th dead bodies of their late jailers to the shelter of the wood. Once free of the camp, Yeates had hurried his charges to a place of tempo- rary safety farther up the valley, leav- ing the Catawba to cross the stream to lay a train of dampened powder to the ‘makeshift magazine. When he had led the women to a place of safety, the old man left them and ran back to his masked battery of loaded muskets. Here, at an owl-cry signal from Uncanoola, he opened fire upon the redcoats. The outworking of the coup de main was a triumph for the old borderer's shrewd generalship. At the death-deal- ing volley the Englishmen were thrown into confusion; while the Indians, sum- moned by the firing and the shrilling of the captain's whistle, dashed blindly into the trap. At the right moment Unca- noola touched off his powder train and cut in with a clear fleld for his rescue of Dick and me. Of the complete success of these various climaxings, Ephraim Yeates had his first assurance when we three came mafely to the rendesz- vous; for, after firing his masked battery, the old hunter lost no time in rejoining the women and in has- tening with them out of the valley. Had these three heen afoot we might have overtaken them; but Yeates had been lucky enough to stumble upon the black mare peacefully cropping the grass in a little glade; and with this mount for Margery and her tire-woman he had easily outpaced us. All this I had from Yeates what time Margery was pouring the wine and oll of womanly sympathy into Richard's ‘woundings; and I may confess that while the ear was listening to the hun- ter's tale, the eye was taking note of these her tender ministrations, ana the heart was setting them down to the score of a great love which would not be denjed. 'Twas altogether as I would have had it; and yet the thought came unbidden that she might spare & niggard moment and the breath to ask me how I did. And because she would not, I do think my burns smarted the crueler. It was to have surcease of these extra smartings that I turned my back upon the trio under the flaring torch and took up with Ephraim Yeates the pressing question of the moment. - “As I take it, we may not linger here,” 1 saild. “Have you marked out a line of retreat?” The old borderer was busied with his loot of the Indian camp—'twas not in his naturd to come off empty-handed, however hard pressed he had .been for time. In the raffle of it, guns and pis- tols, dressed skins and warrior finery, he came upon my good blade and Richard's great claymore—trophies claimed by the head men of the Cher8kees after our tak- ing, as we made no doubt. “Found 'em hanging in the lodge that usen to belong to the Great Bear,” said the hunter, and then with grim humor: “'Lowed to keep 'em to ricollect y8 by if 8o be ye was foreordained and predes- tinated to go up In a flery cthariot, like the good old Elijah.” The weapons dis- posed of, he made answer to my query. “Ez for making tracks immejitly, if not sooner, I allow there ain’t no two notions about that. But I'm dad-daddled if I know which-a-way to put out, Capn John, and that's the gospil fact.” “Why not strike for the Great Trace, and so go back the way the powder con- voy came?’ I asked. It could be done, he said, but the haz- ard was great. 'Twas out of all reason to hope that there were no survivors left in the sunken valley to carry the news of the earthquake massacre. That news once cried abroad in the near-by Cowee Towns, the entire Tuckasege nation ‘would turn out to run us down. More- over, the avengers would look to find us in the only practicable horse path lead- ing eastward. “Ez I'm telllng you right now, Cap'n John, we made one more blunder in this here onfall of our'n, owin’ to our having ne'er a seventh son of a seventh son among us to look a little ways ahead. Where we flashed in the pan was in not making our rendyvoo down yonder where you and Cap'n Dick got in. Ever’ last one of ‘em able to crawl |is a-making straight for that crivvis dodge-hole right now, and if we was there we could do ‘em like the Glleadites did the men o' Ephraim at the passages o' the Jordan.” Fregh as I was from the torture fire, I could not forbear a shudder at this old standing my point of view; and I let the matter rest. He was of those who slay and spare not where an enemy is con- cerned. ; But when we came to consider it there seemed to be no alternative to the eastward flitting by way of the Great Trace. To the west and south there was only the trackless wilderness; and to the north no white settlement nearer than that of the over-mountain folk on the Watauga. I asked if we might hope to reach this. “'Tis a long fifty mile ez the crow files, over e'enabout the mountainousest patch o land that ever laid out o’ doors,” was the hunter’s reply. “And there ain’t ne'er & deer track, ez I knows on, to p'int the way.” “Then we must ride eastward and run the risk of pursuit by the Tuckaseges,” said I “Ez I reckon, that's about the long and short of it. And I do everlastedly de- spise to make that poor little gal jump her hoss and ride skimper-scamper again, when she's been falr living a- horseback for a fortnight.” “She will not fail you,” I ventured to say, adding: “But Jennifer is in poor fettle for making speed.” “It's ride or be skulped for him, and I allow he’ll ride,” quoth the old hunter, hastening his preparations for the start. “Reckon we can get him on a hoss right now.” 1 went to sea, Margery rose at my approach, and even in the poor light I could see her draw herself up as if she would hold me at my proper distance. “Your patlent, Mistress Margery—we must mount and ride at once. Is he fit?" “No.* “But we must be far to the eastward before daybreak.” “I cannot help it. If you make him ride to-night you will finish what those cruel savages begar, Captain Ireton.” “We have little choice—none, I should say.” “Oh, you are bitter hard!” she cried, though wherein my offending lay just then I was wholly at & loss to know. “'Tis your privilege to say so,” I re- joined. “But as for making Dick ride, that will be but the kindest cruelty. We are only a little way from the nearest Indian towns, and if the daylight find us’ here—" “Spare me,” she broke in; and with that she turned shortly and asked Ephratm Yeates to but her in her sadd¥e. Richard was still in the fever stupor, but he roused himself at my urging and let us set him upon his best. Once safe In the saddle, we lashed him fast llke a prisoner, with a forked tree branch at his back to hold bhim erect. This last was the old hunter's invention and 'twas most ingenious. The forked Umb, in shape like a Y, was set astride the cantle, with the lower ends thonged stoutly to Dick’s legs and to the girths. Thus the upright stem of the in- verted Y became an easy back rest for the sick man: and when he was securely lashed thereto there was little danger for him save in some stumbling of the beast he rode. B ‘When all was ready we had first to find our way down from the mountain top; and now even the old borderer and the Indian confessed their inability fo do aught but retrace their steps by the only route they knew: namely, by that ravine which we had twice traversed in da light, and up which they had led t captured horses in the dusk. This route promised all the perils of a gauntlet-running, since by it wemust taks the risk of meeting the fleeing fugitives from the convoy camp, If the explosion had spared any fit to lift and carry the vengeance cry. But here again there was no alternative, and we set us in order for the descent, with Yeates and the Catawba shead, the women and Dick in the midst, and her Apostolic Majesty’s late captain of hussars, masquerading as a British trooper, to bring on the rear. Once in motion beneath the blue-black shadows of the pines, I quickly lost all sense of direction. After we had ridden in wordless silence a short half hour or less, and I supposed we shquld be nearing the head of our descending ravine, our little cavalcade was halted suddenly in a thickset grove of the pines, and Eph- raim Yeates appeared at my stirrup to say: “H’'ist ye off your nag, Cap’'n John, and let's take a far'well squinch at the inimy whilst we can.” “Where? what enemy?" I would ask, slipping from the saddle at his ‘word. “Why, the hoss captain’'s varmints, to be sure; or what-all the abomination o’ desolation has left of ‘em. We aln't more than a cat’s jump from the edge o’ the blg rock where we first sot eyes on ‘em this morning.” I saw not what was to be gained by any such long-range esplal in the dark- ness. None the less, I followed the old man to the cliff's edge. He was wiser in his forecastings than I was in mine. There was a thing to look at. and light enough to see it by. One of the missile stones, it seems, had crashed into the great fire, scattering the brands in all directions. The pine-bough troop shelters were ablaze, and creeping serpents of fire were worming their way hither and yon over the year-old leaf beds In the wood. Ever and anon some pine sap- ling in the path of these flery serpents would go up in a torchlike flare; and so, as I say, there was light enough. What we looked down upon was no¥ inaptly pictured out by Ephraim Yeates Scripture phrase, the abomination of desolation. Every vestige of the camp save the glowing skeletons of the troop shelters had disappeared, and the swarded savanna was bDecome a black- ened chaos-blot on the fair woodland scene. I have said that the powder shel- tering bowlder was a cliff for size; the mighty upheaval of the egplosion had toppled it in ruins into the stream and huge fragments the bigness of a wine- butt had been hurled with the storm of lighter debris broadcast upon the camp. At first we saw no sign of life in all the firelit space. But a moment later when three or four of the sapling torches blazed up together we made out some half dozen figures of human beings— whether red or white we could not tell— stumbling and reeling about among the rocks like blind men drunken. At sight of these the old hunter doffed his _cap and fell upon his knees with hands uplifted to pour out his zealot's soul In the awful sentences of the Psalmist's imprecation. “‘Let God arise and let his inimies be scattered; let them also that hate him flee before him, like as the smoke van- isheth, so shalt thou drive them away, and like as the wax melteth at the fire, 80 let the ungodly perish at the presence e @d o ¢ *" XXXI IN WHICH WE MAKEH A FORCED MARCH. It could have been but little short of midnight when we came down into the Great Trace near the ambush ground where we had set our trap for the peace, men. The night had cleared most beauti- fully, and overhead the stars were burn- ing like points of white fire in the black dome of the heavens. As often happens after a shower, the night shriliings of the forest were in_ fullest tide, and a whip-will's-widow, disturbed at our ap- proach, fluttered to a higher perch and set up his plaintive protest. As our turning eastward on the trace, the old hunter massed our lttle com- pany as compactly as the path allowed, and giving us the word to follow cau- tiously, tossed his bridle rein to the Catawba and went on ahead to feel out the wa This rearrangement set me to ride abreast with Margery. and for the first time since that fateful night in the up- per room at Appleby Hundred we were together and measurably alone. Since death might be lying in wait for us at any turn in the winding bridle- path I had no mind to break the strained silence. But, womanlike, she would not miss the chance to thrust at me. “Are you not afire with shame, Cap- tain Ireton?” she said, bitterly, and then, “How you must despise me!” *"I knew not what she meant, but be- ing most anxious for her n!etf. 1 begged her not to talk, putting it all upon the risk we ran in passing the outlet of the sunken valley. Now, as you have long since learned, my tongue was but a skilless servant, and though I sought to make the command the gentlest plea, she took instant umbrage and struck back smartly. » “You need not make the danger an ex- cuse. I will be still, and when I speak to you again {ou will pe willing enough to_Dear me, T promise you! “Nay, then, dear ]‘3' you must not take it sol” I protested’ “'Tis my mis- fortune to be ever Blung.flnl 3 But to this she gave me all, and barring & worg or two of heart- ening to her serving Wwoman, she never opened her lips again throughcut the pcglou- passage. 2 Yy good hap we came to the crossing of the cavern' stream without meeting any foeman, and on the farther side of the shallow ford we found the old bor- derer awaiting us. “Ez 1 allow, we've smelt the bait in the trap and come off with whole bones, llke Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,” he said, mixing metaphor, Scripture phrase and frontier idiom as was his wont. Then he put a leg over his horse and ive the stirrup word: *“From now on, old Jehu, the son o’ Nimshi, is the hoss-whipper we've got to beat. Get yo behind, Cap'n John, and give the hoss th‘-tLlagl & half-inch 'r so of your sword- Pint.” Then and there began a night flight long to be remembered. Down the val- ley of the swift ri’ to the ford where Yeates and I had crossed after the mock rescue of. Margery the night before, we let the horses pick the way as they could. But once beyond the ford, where the trace was wider and the footing less precarious we glled ‘whip and spur. push- ing the saddle- its for every stride we could get out of them in the blind race. I have marveled often that we came not to grief in all this long night gallop through the darkness. There was every chance for it. The overarching trees of the great forest shut out all the star- light, and the trace was no more than a bridle-path, rougher tfan any cart road. Yet we held the b pace steadily, save for the time it took to thread some steep deflle to a stream crossing or to scramble up its fellow on R, - | ! L7 i > e = e k-