In Kentucky with Daniel Boone

As the ring of the rifle died away, the little band in the hut reached for their fire-arms; with pieces cocked and ready, they stole out and crouched close to the ground, silently waiting. But nothing followed; whoever fired the shot was a long distance away and the firing of the shot had nothing to do with them.

“It may have been a signal,” said Boone, as he arose on one knee, his keen eyes searching the great shafts of gray moonlight which lay trailing on the mountain-side. “But it’s not likely. If we’ve enemies hereabouts they’d not take that way of getting news of us to each other. For one thing, we’d hear it; for another, powder is a hard thing for a redskin to get, at best, and I reckon they’re not in a hurry to waste any of it.”

“Must have been a shot by some red hunter to stop a catamount that had come to his camp,” said Finley. “This looks to be a likely country for critters of that kind.”

The shot, so surprising and unexpected, formed a subject for conversation during the remainder of the evening; then, posting a guard outside the hut, the explorers rolled themselves in their blankets and went quietly to sleep.

After a breakfast of broiled squirrel next morning, Boone, Finley and Stuart started out, their muskets across their shoulders, to examine the aspect of the surrounding country. If what they had come through in crossing the ridge had seemed trackless, this was infinitely more so; there were myriads of small animals and birds; the deer seemed merely wondering and possessed no fear of them. Near by was one of the northern branches of the Louisa, and this they followed for miles; each day was given to a venture, during the entire summer and the ensuing fall. Always some of the party remained at the hut in the gorge, while the others took the buffalo paths in search of new discoveries.

November came with its chilly nights; then fell December with its sudden frosts, its flurries of snow and its long nights; and it was in that same month of December that the first mishap befell them.

It was but a few days before Christmas that Boone and Stuart started off in a direction seldom taken on former occasions. There was a light snow upon the ground—not enough to impede their progress—but sufficient to plainly show the tracks of anything that had passed that way. The timber wolves had grown especially numerous since the winter had set in, and their prints were scattered all about in the cane-brakes and through the woods. Once they came upon the clear trace of a catamount, and nothing would have pleased them better than to have followed the beast and tried their rifles upon it; however, they were in the wilderness for more important things than mere hunting, so they passed the tempting trail and pushed on, intent upon the lay of the ground, the quality of the soil, the timber and the natural drainage.

They had gone on for some hours in this way when Stuart heard Boone, who was some yards in advance, give an exclamation of surprise. The backwoodsman had paused and was bending over, studying something intently.

“What is it?” asked Stuart, as he hastened forward.

Silently Boone pointed at the snow; there, distinctly printed, was the trail of many moccasined feet.

“Injuns!” said Stuart, astonished.

Strange as it might seem, the little band of adventurers had not caught sight of a red man since they had started out in the previous spring; and this had, somehow, caused the idea to grow among them that this particular region was being avoided by the Indian hunting parties, at any rate for the time being.

Closely Boone studied the trail; some peculiarity of the moccasin imprints struck him.

“They are Shawnees,” said he; “and as far as I can make out, there must be a score of them.”

“That many, at least,” spoke Stuart, his eyes also examining the trail. “A hunting party pushing toward the river; maybe in search of fur.”

Boone nodded, but somewhat dubiously. The sudden appearance of a large band of savages at that precise time disquieted him; he felt in it the promise of future danger.

CLOSELY BOONE STUDIED THE TRAIL

“They’ve found meat scarce, I suppose,” suggested Stuart, as they went on through the forest, “and so they had to go farther away from home.”

“It would have pleased me just as well if they’d taken another direction, then,” said Boone. “We’re getting on too well with our work to be disturbed just now.”

Ahead was a dense clump of dark, gloomy pine woods, on the edge of which was a fringe of dwarf oaks. A heavy growth of bush and climbing thorns had sprung up among these last; and as the two whites came to this, their long rifles in the hollow of their arms, there came a sudden rush, a fierce yell of exultation, and they found themselves borne to the ground, disarmed and bound with leather thongs.

With their rifles, hatchets and hunting knives in the possession of their captors, and their hands firmly secured behind their backs, they were permitted to rise, and found themselves looking into a circle of grim, copper-colored faces, and being examined by narrow, threatening eyes.

It was a party of Shawnees, and evidently the same whose tracks they had come across a short time before. The braves were in their full panoply of war; they carried bows and scalping knives, quivers of arrows were on their backs, tomahawks were in their belts; a few ancient looking rifles were the only fire-arms to be seen among them, however, and the powder-horns and bullet-pouches were fewer still.

A powerful looking savage, evidently a chief, and the leader of the band, now spoke.

“The white faces hunt in the hunting-grounds of the Shawnee,” said he, in very bad English.

But Boone looked at him with cool, humorous eye.

“The great chief is mistaken,” said he. “The white man would not so wrong his red brother.”

The Shawnee chief said something to his followers, no doubt interpreting the saying of the backwoodsman; there came a series of grunts and ejaculations from them; their copper-colored faces grew grimmer still, their eyes even more threatening than before.

“Yesterday we heard the rifle of the white face,” spoke the Shawnee leader, turning again to Boone; “to-day we have heard it. We have seen the remains of deer and buffalo which he has killed; we have seen his beaver traps in the streams.” There was a moment’s pause, then the savage added: “What has the white face to say?”

“You might have heard our rifles speak for many days, if you had been here,” replied Boone. “And that you have seen the carcasses of deer and other animals which we have killed is quite likely. But what of that? The country is open to hunters, is it not? Do not the Chickasaws and the Cherokees hunt their meat and fur in these woods and mountains? Why, then, do the Shawnees claim it as their own?”

“The Chickasaws and the Cherokees are thieves!” pronounced the Shawnee chief. “We have taken the war-path against them; we will make a wailing in their lodges, an emptiness in their villages.”

“You treat your white brother with injustice when you ambush him and take away his arms. You have suffered no wrong at his hands,” maintained Boone.

Again the chief translated to his braves, and again came the grunts and ejaculations. But in spite of the threatening looks and the tightening of the savage circle, the backwoodsman proceeded fearlessly.

“If any one hunts in this region without right, it is the red man,” declared he. “The whole of the country below the great river belongs to the white face. Many moons ago, at the great council at Fort Stanwix, the league of the Iroquois turned over this land to the colonists. Does the red brother deny this? Does he not mean to keep faith?”

What Boone said was true, and the Shawnee knew it, but in the southern tribes the right of the league to cede the territory had always been denied. So the chief regarded Boone with fierce-eyed anger.

“The white face is as cunning as the snake,” said he, “and his tongue is as crooked.”

Then turning away from them he gave a signal; the band at once started off, the two captives in their midst, guarded by a half dozen lean, hawk-like braves. Some miles away among the hills was the Shawnee camp, a dozen or more deerskin lodges erected in a sheltered place. Fires were burning outside the tepees; several young men were cooking strips of meat upon pointed sticks.

The whites were bound to heavy stakes driven firmly into the ground; then the band gathered about the fires, and when the meat was cooked began to eat it in silence.

“Well,” said Stuart, who had said very little since their capture, “it has a bad look.”

“It might be worse,” replied Boone, coolly, his calm eyes studying the Shawnees at the camp-fires. “There is a good chance for us yet.”

“To escape?”

Boone nodded.

“But how?”

The calm eyes twinkled as they turned upon the speaker.

“Don’t offer me any puzzles to answer,” said Boone. “I have no more notion ‘how’ than you have. But the chance will come in some way; and it will be for us to be ready to take hold of it.”

Though Boone had never been taken captive by the Indians before, he knew, from talks with those who had, and from his knowledge of savage ceremony, that in cases like their own, a certain form was always gone through before torture and death were resorted to.

“They’ll keep us,” he told Stuart, “and try to get us to come into the tribe. It’s a strange kink in their natures that though they hate the white, they seldom fail to try to make him one of them by adoption if they have the chance.”

“You think they’ll try and make Shawnees of us?”

“It’s like as not,” answered Boone.

“Before I’ll be a renegade, I’ll die,” said Stuart, stoutly.

Boone nodded.

“I don’t know as I blame you in that,” spoke he. “A renegade is as mean a critter as walks the earth. But it’d be just as well if we kept our feelings on that point from the Shawnees.”

“You mean——”

“That if we’re asked to join the tribe, we’d better not refuse. It’s life if we can deceive them, and death by horrible torture if we refuse.”

“I don’t like the notion of even seeming to be an Injun,” spoke Stuart, who was a brave man and stubborn in his courage. “But whatever you think best, that I will do.”

That night they were given a couple of bearskins to lie upon, and their bonds were looked to with much care. They slept fairly well but were awake at dawn when the savages began to stir about the camp. Some meat and a sort of porridge made of Indian corn, crushed between two smooth stones, was given to them; and after they had eaten, the Shawnee chief approached, followed by the eldest of his warriors. Silently they sat before their prisoners, seeming to study them with the utmost attention. After a space the chief spoke.

“The white faces are prisoners; they were taken in war by Black Wolf and his braves; they are without arms, they are helpless.”

Neither Stuart nor Boone made any reply to this; but the warriors, upon the words of Black Wolf being interpreted to them, expressed their approval by nods and throaty murmurs.

“Far away, toward the rising sun, are the friends of the white face, far away where the morning first touches the forest are his lodges. Neither friends nor lodges will he ever see again.”

There was another pause; Black Wolf studied the expressions of their faces intently. But still they made no reply. The chief then resumed:

“You have killed in the hunting-grounds of the Shawnees, and for this your lives belong to Black Wolf and his braves. But the chief would spare you; he does not wish to see you die. Rather would he see you, his brothers, living in the wigwams of the Shawnees and taking to the war-path against his people’s foes.”

This being repeated in the Shawnee tongue to the elder warriors, was greeted with a chorus of approving grunts. And then Black Wolf asked:

“What does the white face say?”

“The Shawnee chief is a noble hunter and a warrior whose fame runs beyond the blue ridge,” said Daniel Boone. “And his words are as straight as the young birch by the waterside. It is true that the pale-face’s friends are far away, and that his lodge is many days across the hills; and for both of these his heart is sore. But he would not lose his life. Other friends he can make; other lodges he can build; but he has one life only, and when that is gone he cannot call it back.”

Black Wolf repeated this to his counselors and again came the chorus of grunted approval.

“It is well spoken,” praised the Shawnee chief. “Do you, then, give up your people and will you go to the villages of the Shawnee and make them your home?”

“To save my life—yes.”

“And you?” asked Black Wolf, his eyes going to Stuart.

“I say the same,” replied that worthy.

“It is well,” said the chief.

He arose, and the elder braves did likewise; turning to them he spoke briefly and to what he said they apparently agreed with readiness. One of the warriors took out his knife, approached the captives and severed the thongs which bound them.

Black Wolf signed for them to get up.

“My young men are about to start upon a hunt,” said he. “It were well if the white brothers went with them.”

The hunting party was already making ready; and in half an hour or so it filed out of the camp and along a buffalo track which led toward the west. The two white men trudged along the track, Boone whistling a snatch of an old English air, Stuart morose and heavy of brow.

Finally the latter spoke.

“Why are we taken out with a hunting party and provided with no weapons? It hasn’t a reasonable look!”

Boone stopped his whistling.

“The whole idea of this party is just a little game of the redskins. It’s not their purpose to hunt,” said he.

“Not their purpose to hunt?” echoed the other.

Boone nodded.

“Just keep your eye peeled,” spoke he. “Do you see how the varmints go along—careless and never noticing us? Never a look do they give us, so far as I can see. But,” and he covertly clutched his companion’s arm in his strong grip, “they’re noticing us, never fear. They see everything we do, every look we give away from the track we’re following. This is not a hunt, comrade; it’s a test of our intentions. They are trying us. And the trial will go on in different ways for days. Some one will always be watching us; to try and escape will mean death for us.”

“A pleasant outlook,” said Stuart, gloomily.

“But don’t forget,” said Boone, “that this watch upon us will not last always. Let us make it seem as if we were contented enough. If they lay little traps for us to fall into, let us step over them. No matter how good the chance seems for a while, we must not try to get away; for it will only win us a dozen or so arrows in our backs. After a little while they’ll grow slack in their watching. If they see us living quietly as they live, doing the things they do, they’ll come to trust us more and more. And then our chance will come—and we’ll make the best of it.”

Keeping up an intent observation of the savages, Stuart gradually came to the conclusion that what Boone said was true. Not a moment passed but they found themselves closely watched by the Shawnees. And so he came to see that his friend’s plan was the solution of their situation. The gloomy look vanished and the frowns followed; his manner grew as care-free as could well be imagined; he also whistled a catch now and then; and more than once he laughed light-heartedly over some small incident of the march, a thing which was not thrown away upon their red brothers.

That night they spent in a lodge which Black Wolf gave up to them; as before, they were not bound and apparently were unguarded. But both knew that the sharp eyes of the bronze warriors were peering at the lodge, that lurking forms hung silently in the shadows, and swift-winged arrows were ready to sing their death song should they make an attempt to escape.

And so it went one day after another until a full week had passed. Adventure after adventure did the Shawnees take them upon; at times they were left apparently alone for hours in the forest; the temptation was great, but they conquered it; and always were they glad they had done so, for it was shown afterward that in each case the savages had been at no great distance, and that the thing had been one of the traps which Boone had foretold.

Little by little, in the face of this plainly shown content of the white brothers for their lot, the Shawnees became lax in their vigilance, and finally upon the seventh night of their captivity, the active-minded Boone saw their first real chance of escape. All was still in the redskin camp; the fires smouldered under coverings of ash; a pale, wintry moon looked down upon the wilderness. It had been an active day for the savages; it had been thought that a party of Cherokees had entered the region, and all the warriors of Black Wolf’s band had been ranging the woods searching for their trail. And so these braves, whose duty it was to keep a careful eye upon the adopted whites, grew heavy eyed as the night wore on; their deep breathing told the wide-awake Boone that all were asleep.

Stuart, also, was asleep; carefully Boone awoke him.

“The time’s come,” he whispered in the ear of the surprised backwoodsman. “Make no noise; all the critters are as sound as rocks.”

Softly they crept through the opening in the lodge; like cats they moved among the other wigwams until they gained the shadows. Then Boone halted.

“What now?” asked Stuart, in a whisper.

“We’ve left our rifles behind. Wait here.”

“You don’t mean to go back!” Stuart was amazed.

“I must. Do you realize what it would mean to be away here in the wilderness without the means of getting game for food? Man, we’d die.”

Seeing the force of this, Stuart released the hold he had taken upon Boone’s shoulder. Back into the Indian encampment stole Daniel Boone; straight to the tepee of Black Wolf he went, and, from his place in the shadows, Stuart saw the brave pioneer stoop and enter. Then followed a long pause. The waiting man could hear the heavy throbs of his own heart. Each moment he expected to hear the war-whoop of the Shawnee, and to see the camp spring into activity.

But fortune smiled upon the daring Boone, for after a time he appeared, the two rifles in his hands, and their powder-horns and bullet-pouches slung upon his shoulders. Silently he recrossed into the shadows; quietly he gave Stuart his own piece, his own horn and pouch; then creeping like wild things of the wilderness, they stole away into the depths where the night would hide them from all hostile eyes.