A loud whinny from Neb brought the pondering lad to the remembrance that he had much to do, and that already it was noon. Hurrying up the hill he obtained the shovel, fastened to Neb’s harness as a means of carrying it conveniently, and led the horse nearer the scene of his labors.
His first task would be to dig a grave; but a new problem appeared. Undoubtedly he must bury the body of Black Eagle as well as the bones of Nesbit. It seemed too dreadful to place them together—the remains of this white man who had killed the Indian’s son, and those of the Indian who had been revenged for the act, only to meet his own death after showing Palefaces, whom he believed to be friends, where the outlaw’s body lay.
“Yes, there will have to be two graves,” John decided, and a glance at the sun told him he must work hard if he was to return to the cabin before another day.
Fortunately the earth was not frozen beneath its thick covering of leaves, and except for the many roots he encountered, the lonely young sexton of the wilderness made rapid progress. One trench of sufficient length and depth for the purpose, at the foot of a large ash tree, which could be made to serve as a headstone, he had completed when a rustling of the leaves caused him to look quickly up. Duff, Dexter, and Quilling stood before him, the last named grinning wolfishly over John’s surprise.
“Who killed the Indian known as Black Eagle?” asked Duff, in cold accusing tone, pointing his finger at the boy, who had hastily thrown down his shovel and picked up his rifle, instead.
“That’s him,” chorused Dexter and Quilling, pointing their fingers also at John.
“Who saw him do it?”
“All three of us,” came the answer.
“You swear that this is true?”
“That’s what we do; we saw him shoot the Indian,” came the reply.
“Now, boy,” Duff began, calmly sitting down on a log, his rifle in both hands, while his eyes never left the face of the lad he so monstrously accused, “you heard what was said. They’ve hanged men for killing peaceable Redskins before now, and will do it again. Just let us tell what we know at Fort Pitt, and you are pretty likely to stretch a rope. You killed Black Eagle; we saw you do it—never mind, now! Let me talk! I say we saw you shoot the Indian down. We can set all the Mingoes west of the Ohio against you, or we can have you hanged. We haven’t just decided which we’d rather do.”
“Why, you—you black liar, what are you talking about?” cried John, succeeding at last in getting a word in, as Duff paused. “Do you suppose—”
“Never you mind what I suppose; but we can make you a heap of trouble, because, you know, we saw you kill the Indian—shoot him down in cold blood.”
And here a villainous smile flitted over the marked and loathsome face of the wretch; but he scarcely paused, and there was no suspicion of a smile in the cold harshness of his voice as he went on:
“We can make you and the pompous young gentleman you call Kingdom sweat blood, or hang your scalps on the belts of the Mingoes, without the least trouble to ourselves. But we don’t propose to do that. We have nothing against you young shavers, and don’t want to have. All we want is the paper writing you got from the body of Ichabod Nesbit. Oh yes, we know you got it. What were you coming here to bury the bones for, if you didn’t?”
As one who thinks he has asked a question which cannot be answered, Duff, squinting in a most horrid manner and shaking his finger viciously, paused for a reply.
John was thinking fast. He knew that the murderous trio who faced him would not hesitate to kill if they thought he had the missing half of the hidden fortune letter in his possession. He also knew from the words he had heard Duff use in speaking of Black Eagle, that he had at first believed the letter had fallen into the Quaker’s hands. Did he know where that gentleman then was? It was hardly likely.
In infinitely less time than the telling of it requires, the alert young pioneer thought of these things and without even seeming to hesitate, he answered:
“You’ll have to tell me what you are trying to get at; and for the matter of that, what are you doing here? What reason had you for killing Black Eagle the way you did, and he without even a hatchet to defend himself? You can’t put that wicked, cold-blooded murder onto me by lying, any more than you can fly. What’s more, you can’t scare me by saying you’ll swear I killed the Indian! So I tell you right here, Mr. Duff, that I want no more to do with you. You guessed right in thinking I came here to bury all that’s left of Ichabod Nesbit. It is because my partner and I have civilized feelings. Anything else you want to know you can ask about at the next house. What was Ichabod Nesbit to you, anyway? If you ever had any friendship for him, why shouldn’t you turn in here and help with his grave?”
With such rapidity did John speak, his voice growing in vehemence as he continued, that Duff was bothered to find an immediate answer.
“Didn’t you see no Quaker feller ’round here, an’ ain’t he got no letter like Duff said?” squeaked Dexter, over Duff’s shoulder, in his peculiar gasping tones.
“Shut up, you!” commanded Duff, turning to his companion savagely. “Who said anything about a Quaker?” And then to John in the same tones: “Now we have no time for foolishness, bub! We want information and, by heaven, we propose to have it!”
As he spoke the hideous fellow leaped toward the boy as though to seize him.
“Stand back there!” the lad cried, clubbing his rifle, unwilling to shoot, much as he was inclined to do so, unless it were absolutely necessary.
“Grab him! Grab him, you blasted fools!” yelled Duff furiously, and Dexter and Quilling, who ran to their leader’s side, attempted to do so.
Dodging the fellows, John dealt a stunning blow on Duff’s head with the butt of his rifle, then, springing to one side, escaped the terrific lunge the brute made toward him, and in another second he had leaped upon Neb’s back, Dexter and Quilling being not five yards away. He seized the reins from the branch over which they were thrown, and a word was enough to set the horse off at a gallop.
A bullet whistled over John’s shoulder as he bent down to avoid the low limbs of the trees, and the terrible tones of Duff, as in the vilest language he cursed his companions for being too slow, rang in his ears.
One other shot was fired but it went wide. For five minutes he gave Neb free rein, then knowing that he was, for the time being, safe, he stopped, nervous and excited, and doubting if his conduct had been either brave or wise.
“But it was three against one and those fellows would have tried to make me tell all I know about that letter, and Duff’s temper is so awful! He would have killed me, like as not, if I would not tell him anything,” John reasoned, persuading himself that he had done well to escape.
What was next to be done? That was the all-important question, after all. Its answer, John decided, depended entirely on what Duff and his agreeable companions meant to do, and he resolved to ascertain their intentions.
Without further loss of time, therefore, the boy fastened Neb’s reins to a branch as he had done before, and with great caution hurried back along the trail. If he were being followed, he could soon find it out. If the murderers were gone, he might return and complete the task he had set out to perform.
Expecting to see Duff and the others coming toward him at any moment, John made haste slowly, and half an hour passed before he again came within sight of the little valley where the day’s terrible tragedy had been enacted. The three men were not there.
Where were they? To answer the question, the young man who asked it of himself continued on, going in the direction in which Quilling and Dexter had disappeared just after the murder of Black Eagle.
“They may have a camp near by,” John told himself as he hurried along, quietly as possible, though the leaves under his feet seemed to rustle loudly as though calling out that he was coming, adding to his fears.
But he was right. Not much more than a quarter of a mile away was a great tree, uprooted by the wind; and partially concealed by the branches of its top upon the ground, he discovered Duff, Dexter and Quilling. They were for the most part hidden by the limbs of the fallen oak and had not John been very watchful he would not have discovered them without being seen himself. As it was, he doubted his ability to approach nearer without revealing his presence to the fellows. That they were talking he knew by their gestures, but not a word could he hear.
Prudence prompted the boy to turn back and hurry home to tell Ree everything that had happened. Then he thought how anxious his chum would be to know what Duff’s plans were; and so, yielding to his own curiosity and a desire to obtain this information, he made a wide half-circle and approached the fallen tree, shielded from view by the mass of earth still clinging to its upturned roots. These very roots, however, which served him so well for the one purpose, entirely prevented his hearing what was being said by the men, though he was now quite near. With great care, then, he crept around to the trunk of the tree and keeping close beside it, on his hands and knees crawled forward. Now he could hear the conversation of the fellows, and under the protection of a great limb which projected from the trunk fifty feet from the tree’s base, he paused.
“It don’t noway stand to reason that the Quaker ain’t got the letter.”
John knew that it was Dexter who was talking, though he could not see. The wheezy voice could be no other’s.
“But where is he? That’s the point I’m getting at. We could fix him in short order, if we only knew that.”
These words, sharply spoken, were surely Duff’s.
“All I’ve got to say is, that I wish I was to home—I do, by gum!”
This was the landlord, tired, probably, of sleeping out at night, and working and walking by day. John knew his voice, also.
“I wish to goodness you were!” came the voice of Duff, disgustedly, “but all the miserable, sneaking robbing of travelers’ clothes at night, that you ever did wouldn’t be a drop in the bucket beside this buried fortune if we can only get hold of it. No man knows better than me what a lot of wealth that chest has in it—unless it be that Quaker, blast him!”
“Well, we might go back to Fort Pitt for a spell, anyhow, an’ rest up,” suggested Quilling.
“Not by a jugful!” Duff answered. “We’ll follow those blasted youngsters up, and find out what they know. Like as not they, and not the Quaker, have got that letter. They’re a blamed sight sharper than you give ’em credit for, and the next time you let one of ’em get away from you, I’ll boot you seven ways for Sunday, see if I don’t!”
Duff’s tones were full of emphasis, and it was all very interesting to the boy concealed behind the tree trunk and the giant limb. But he heard no more; for with, “So, now, stir yourselves,” the chief of the conspirators walked out from the tree-top. He went toward a small beech in which John now noticed that the quarters of a deer had been hung, beyond the reach of wolves.
The fellow’s course took him within a few yards of the hidden boy, but he passed on, unconscious of the eyes which watched him.
Knowing that in returning to the camp with the deer Duff would be almost certain to see him, John waited only till the man’s back was toward him, then leaped to his feet and ran.
Now it happened that Hank Quilling, the tavern keeper, was gazing straight toward the spot where John was concealed at the moment the boy sprang up, as if out of the earth. The surprise that the fellow suffered as he saw the lad so upset him that he could do nothing but yell, and yell lustily he did:
“There he goes, Duff! There he goes! Stop him, Duff, stop him!”
Duff, likewise taken by surprise, and being under the impression at first, as he heard the leaves rustle under the flying boy’s feet, and saw a shadow streaking among the trees, that an Indian was after him, was given such a scare to begin with, and was so chagrined directly afterward, when he discovered what had taken place, that his wrath rose in a mighty storm.
Quilling’s yelling at him, instead of pursuing or shooting at the boy himself directed Duff’s rage toward the former landlord. Paying no attention to John, he rushed madly up to Quilling. With the most frightful curses he called the old fellow “a driveling idiot” and worse names, and ended by slapping him full in the face.
Even this vile insult, however, served only to make the erstwhile tavern keeper beg the more piteously for mercy, and try the harder to excuse himself to the man he feared. Never was there a more abject coward.
Considerably astonished that he was not pursued, though he heard the epithets Duff rained upon Quilling, John soon slackened his pace to a brisk walk, and looked about to get his bearings. He had lost sight of the trail when approaching the fallen tree, and in his haste to flee from the spot when discovery was no longer to be escaped, he had run in the wrong direction. The position of the sun, however, and the mossy bark on the north side of the trees, aided him in soon finding the right course, and in due time he reached Neb. Then he remembered that his shovel had been left in the grave intended for Ichabod Nesbit, and rode back for it.
The short afternoon was nearly gone, and it was likely that at any moment Duff and his two choice friends would come upon the scene. Still John resolved to try to complete the work of burying Nesbit’s remains. He stooped and picked up the shovel.
Bang—splank! A bullet shattered the handle of the tool and knocked it from the lad’s hands. At the same instant he saw Duff and Dexter running toward him, Quilling bringing up the rear.
In a trice John was mounted and away amid the frantic yells of Quilling and the harsh curses of Duff, and though Dexter took aim at him, he did not fire.
“It’s the charm—it’s the charm!” cried Quilling tremblingly. “Three times that pesky young rooster has got away from us this day! It’s bad luck—bad luck to follow him now!”
John heard the cry as he sped up the hill, but he knew Duff would ignore it, and feeling sure that he would be followed clear to the cabin, sooner or later, he lost no more time in hurrying toward home. He did not even stop in the gully to hitch Neb to the abandoned cart, as he had planned, but hurried by. It was now so late that he would not reach the cabin until after dark at best, and to try to thread the uncertain trail with the cart after darkness came was out of the question, even should he encounter no wolves, which animals were not unlikely to attack him if given half an opportunity after nightfall.
The sparks pouring out of the great chimney of the cabin and the light shining through the chinks here and there, giving promise of a warm fire and supper awaiting him, were a most pleasant sight to John as he galloped into the clearing and across the little valley to his home, in the early twilight. The night had come on cold and raw, with every indication of a considerable snowfall and an end of the bright days of autumn weather which had extended into December.
Ree came quickly out of the cabin as he heard John’s approach.
“Trot along in, old boy, and warm yourself, I’ll look after Neb,” he said, wondering why John had not brought the old cart home, but waiting for another time to ask questions, for he knew his chum must be cold.
Ah, how pleasant it was to be snug and comfortable and safe once more, and with his mind chuck-full of interesting things to tell Ree, thought John, when he had washed his hands and face and spoken a pleasant word to the quiet Quaker sitting in a big, easy chair the boys had rigged up for him, with the half of a large hollow block of wood for a back. There was the delicious smell of fresh bear steaks to sharpen his appetite, too, and a crisp, brown johnny-cake still smoking hot on the table. A little bark basket of hickory nuts, to be cracked afterward as a relish and to help pass the time pleasantly, was on the rude chimney mantel. Only one thing marred his happiness. It was the thought of the awful murder of Black Eagle and of the Indian’s body lying cold and still in the dark forest.
“Yes, sir, I guess it does feel good to be back again,” said John most heartily, in reply to a remark the Quaker made, and soon Ree came in and supper was ready at once.
Theodore Hatch was helped up to the table, easy chair and all, and the two boys seated themselves on three-legged stools, of their own manufacture.
“I’ve got a heap to tell,” said John, brimming over with anxiety to impart his information, but giving Ree a wink to signify that he could not tell all in the presence of the Quaker without letting the latter know the object of his journey.
“Go ahead; let’s hear the whole story,” said Ree. “Mr. Hatch knows where you went, and why. For, you see, he made a discovery to-day, and then I told him where Ichabod Nesbit was killed, and that you had gone to give his bones a respectable burial.”
The gravity of Ree’s tone caused John to ask, with some concern:
“A discovery?”
“Yes; he was robbed at the Eagle tavern of the half of a letter telling the location of a fortune hidden in the ground somewhere near Philadelphia. Now, don’t open your eyes so. We should have guessed as much after seeing the letter those men, Duff and Dexter, and the landlord, had. The fact is, Mr. Hatch has not told his story more than what I have told you, but waited until you should be here to hear it.”
“But tell thy own story first, friend. Mine can wait,” the Quaker said.
“Well, Black Eagle’s dead, and Duff and Dexter killed him. I saw Duff shoot him down. They might have killed me, but I got away from them. Quilling, the landlord at the Eagle tavern, is with them, and—”
Really enjoying the sensation he had caused, John paused and looked at Ree, who was staring at him in astonishment, and at the Quaker, who was wringing his hands, greatly distressed, as he always was when he heard of the killing of human beings, or of any act of cruelty.
“The poor Indian! Father in heaven, forgive the slayers of so good a man as Black Eagle!” came prayerfully from the Quaker’s lips.
“Did you know him—Black Eagle, I mean?” asked John in some surprise.
The Quaker nodded, and Ree, recovering from the depths of thought into which his mind had sunk, quickly said:
“Now, John, do tell all that happened! Begin at the time you left here! You saw three fellows and—”
“Just wait a jiffy,” John interrupted. “I didn’t see those fellows when I left here, any such thing!”
Ree smiled and allowed his friend to begin all over again and tell the story in his own way. This John did to the satisfaction of both his hearers, when once fairly started, and long before he had finished they were forgetting their supper, growing cold before them as they listened.
“Those chaps will be here, sooner or later. We’ve got to watch out for them,” said Ree decisively, when John concluded. “What a horrible fellow that Duff is!”
“Such greed for gold—such greed for gold!” murmured Theodore Hatch sorrowfully. “Better, my dear, kind aunt, hadst thou thrown thy riches and thy jewels to the flames!”
“Does Mr. Hatch know we have the half of the letter which Ichabod Nesbit had?” John asked, in the midst of the questions Ree put to him, and the exclamation of the Quaker.
“I know thou hast the writing, friend. I know that, and promise me that Duff shall never have it!”
The old gentleman’s eager earnestness was most intense. As he spoke he rose partially to his feet, leaning heavily on the table. His movement was so sudden, his manner so keenly earnest, that both Ree and John involuntarily started back in surprise, the Quaker bending toward them. As for an instant all paused in these attitudes, the hickory bark torch on the mantel and the blaze of the fire casting a flickering, ruddy glow upon them, a most dramatic picture was presented.
“Sit down, Mr. Hatch,” said Ree quietly, hesitating but a moment. “Duff shall not have that portion of the letter which we found. It is your own, and we shall help you to prevent his getting it, if he tries.”
“What we want to do,” said John bluntly, “is to get hold of the part of the letter that Duff has.”
“That depends on what Mr. Hatch says,” Ree answered.
“It was my poor, dear aunt’s money. It was to be Ichabod’s and mine. Now Ichabod’s gone, and—”
“All the money is yours,” John put in as the Quaker hesitated.
“I wish very much to get it—it is all mine—I wish I could remember the wording of the part of the letter stolen from me. Alas, I cannot—and the half of the writing which Ichabod had, and for which I undertook so much, is now of no use to me. If Mr. Duff comes here, as you say he may, I shall ask him to give me the paper they took from my saddle-bags. I shall insist; for the writing can be of no use to him without that which goes with it.”
“Of course not,” said John, smiling at the old gentleman’s simplicity.
“But tell your story now, Mr. Hatch, if you are not too tired,” Ree urged. “Yet you must not over-estimate your strength, you know.”
“To be sure,” John quickly added, “I’ve been wanting for a long time to know about that hidden treasure, and who hid it, and what for. Why, Ree and I talked about it many times, before we knew anything more about it than was in the letter which Nesbit had—”
“It is not much of a story,” said the Quaker sadly, as John left the sentence unfinished, “but I will tell thee all I know and should have told thee long before but wished to be sure that I could trust thee.”
“That was when you thought that your half of the fortune letter was in your saddle-bags,” put in John slyly, while Ree could not but smile at the odd mixture of cupidity and simplicity which Mr. Hatch displayed, and his chum’s gentle insinuation that the Quaker would not trust them until he found his much-prized letter missing.
“Yea, verily, I thought the letter was in my saddle-bags, and watched them so closely, fearing some one would suspect my secret. I could not endure to have them out of my sight, but never once did I doubt that the paper was safely inside the little pocket I had made for it. And lo, it had been taken out far back at the Eagle tavern! Verily, it is in heaven that we should lay up golden treasure, where moth and rust cannot corrupt. But we must try to obtain the paper which was taken from me; aye, we must not fail to do that! Yet there must be no bloodshed—no fighting!”
Seeing how his chance remark had switched the Quaker from his story, John resolved to interrupt no more, nor did he. Mr. Hatch’s mind, however, was apparently so divided between the thought of his loss and the narrative he was trying to relate that his progress was tediously slow. Not once did the boys suspect, however, that he was not telling the absolute truth.
The old gentleman explained to the two friends that when he first discovered that the letter had been removed from his saddle-bags, he suspected them of taking it; but when he had told Ree that the paper was missing and the latter at once remembered the writing in the hands of Duff, Dexter and Quilling at the Eagle tavern, and the peculiar circumstances connecting Ichabod Nesbit’s name with matter, and informed him of this, he knew his young hosts were innocent, and blamed himself harshly for doubting them.
The Quaker’s story was a long one, and may be summed up substantially as follows:
He and Ichabod Nesbit, he stated, were half-brothers. Ichabod being the younger by nearly twenty years, there had never been much companionship between them, and they drifted farther and farther apart after the death of their mother. She had been an English girl and her first husband, Mr. Hatch’s father, was an Englishman. With the family lived the mother’s sister, whom they called “Aunt Harriet.” A good many years after Mr. Hatch’s father died, his mother had been married a second time to John Nesbit. Of this union Ichabod was born. At the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, Ichabod was a wild, worthless young fellow and left home presumably to become a soldier, and Theodore Hatch, having become a Quaker, meanwhile, remained in Pennsylvania and saw his brother no more.
Time passed and the mother of the two half-brothers died. It then developed that property she had had in her own name had all been spent by her second husband, now deceased, and by Ichabod. But her sister, “Aunt Harriet,” was still possessed of means, through fortunate investments in Philadelphia.
However, she was also possessed of a stern, Loyalist spirit, and though she privately admitted that King George III. was a “sap-head,” in her own language, she strongly insisted that no matter who or what the king was, his subjects should be loyal. She resolved to return to England, and secretly disposed of her property, though at great sacrifice. She would not, however, take with her to England the wealth she had acquired in the Colonies whose rebel spirit she hated.
What was to be done? She determined to give all that she left behind to her nephews, Theodore Hatch and Ichabod Nesbit. But as both were absent, she hit upon the plan of hiding her fortune, and then, after writing a careful description of the location of the hiding place, cut the writing in two, sending one-half to one nephew, the other to the other; and sending to each, also, a long letter explaining her plan and urging them to be more brotherly—Ichabod to be a better man and Theodore to be more charitable toward him.
To obtain her fortune they would thus be obliged to meet and put together the two halves of the written description of the spot where the money and valuables were secreted, or they could not find that hiding place. Well pleased with her novel scheme, the old lady bade the half-brothers an affectionate farewell in the letters which she wrote, and at the earliest opportunity departed for England, never to return.
Nearly a year passed, the Quaker stated, before the lawyer to whom the secret letters were entrusted found Theodore Hatch and delivered his letter to him. The lawyer knew nothing of the letter’s contents, and when the Quaker inquired of him concerning Ichabod Nesbit, he could give no information save that Ichabod had been in Philadelphia expecting to find his aunt and get some money; but she was gone, and he got instead the letter left for him.
“You can tell that pious half-brother o’ mine that if he wants to do business with me he can hunt me up. I ain’t goin’ to look fer him.”
This was the message Ichabod left for the Quaker, the latter said, but the lawyer, not knowing what the words meant, gave them no particular thought.
“Thus thou knowest that much time passed ere I made any effort to find Ichabod,” the Quaker concluded. “I did at last hear that he was living in Connecticut, and had settled down to peaceable pursuits. So, in the course of time, I set out to find him, and having no family and no kin, save Ichabod, I proposed to give all my time to it. With all my earthly possessions in my saddle-bags, therefore, I mounted my dearly beloved mare and set out. I have been traveling ever since. In time I learned of Ichabod’s death. It was at the Eagle tavern that I heard of it. Friend Quilling there knew of the half-letter which Ichabod had, and knew of what I was in search, as soon as I inquired for Brother Nesbit. For Mr. Quilling and Ichabod were very friendly.
“I lodged at the Eagle tavern that night and from there set out to find the Indian, Black Eagle, and in a few weeks I located him. But he had taken nothing from the body of Ichabod Nesbit, for killing whom I took him sharply to task; for, though Ichabod was no credit to me, he was yet my half-brother, as I have said. Having learned from Black Eagle where Ichabod’s body lay, beneath the stones along the trail at the foot of the hill, near where a giant tree was shattered by lightning, I went again to the Eagle tavern to get further information.
“I wished to know if Ichabod had any family or other relations of whom I might be ignorant. I found that he had none. And it was that night, as I lay at Mr. Quilling’s establishment, that my letter was taken from my saddle-bags, though they were in my room, and the greater wonder is that nothing else was stolen. Not—not that I have anything of great value about me! Indeed, no!”
So did the Quaker finish his story, and neither of the lads who heard it for a moment thought he had not spoken the truth.
“It must have been soon afterward that we chanced to stop at the Eagle,” said Ree, thoughtfully. “Quilling, being somewhat of a coward, and wanting help, took Duff and Dexter into his confidence, hoping to secure the other half of the fortune letter. They found Black Eagle and persuaded him to accompany them into this wilderness to find Nesbit’s body, believing either that they would reach the spot ahead of you, Mr. Hatch, or that you would be unable to find where Nesbit was killed—at any rate, that they would get his half of the letter, and, already having yours, secure the fortune.”
“Nay, they did not know I was coming to these desolate wilds,” the Quaker answered. “Not that I would intentionally deceive—oh, no! but fearing that rough persons along the road might molest me, should my mission be known, I caused Friend Quilling to believe (without staining my lips with lies, however) that I would be going back to Philadelphia, which I fervently hope I may yet do. But, oh, how sadly disfigured! Yet I shall not appear to disadvantage when my hat is on. That will cover the disfigurement then. No one will know my scalp is gone.”
“And when those fellows discovered,” said John, “that some one had reached Nesbit’s grave ahead of them, and Duff found out that Black Eagle had directed you to the place, saying nothing to them of having done so, he deliberately killed the Indian. Now, what I was going to say is just this:—Duff will kill any one of us if he gets a chance, if he thinks he can get hold of that piece of paper by doing so! What we ought to do is to go straight to those robbers and compel them to give up the letter they stole from Mr. Hatch.”
This suggestion gave the Quaker great uneasiness.
“No, no—we must not go near them! We must keep away from them—oh dear, oh dear!”
All in all Mr. Hatch was so distressed and it was now so late, that without more ado, Ree drew in the latch-string, a signal that it was bed time.
The hickory bark torch had long since burned out. The fire was low and the interior of the cabin almost dark. Confident, therefore, that no one without would notice his action, even though watching the cabin, Ree next opened loop holes on all sides and he and John carefully looked out.
All was still and calm save for the usual sounds of animals in the surrounding forest and the blowing of the wind, swirling fine dry snow, with which the air was filled in all directions, even under the door of the cabin.
“Ring will wake us up if any one comes prowling around the cabin,” said Ree, “and those chaps won’t do more than try to steal that letter. Moreover, they cannot be sure that we have it. They naturally suppose that Mr. Hatch got it, and it is not likely they are sure he is with us, or that we ever saw him, even. Their scheme will be to spy around and learn all they can before they begin to fight. As for their trying to swear upon us the killing of Black Eagle, I don’t fear that a particle.”
John acknowledged that Ree’s thoughts were probably correct, and neither lad felt any alarm as they went to bed; and as for Theodore Hatch, he was already snoring.
The snow was several inches deep and the air biting cold when the pioneer boys arose in the morning, but they welcomed the change for two reasons: first, it gave them better success in hunting and trapping, by reason of their being able to track the game; and in the second place they would be able, by reason of the snow, speedily to discover the fact if human prowlers were about; for there are times when footprints tell as much as words could do.
It was a matter of regret to both the boys, however, now that the hunting was so good, that they could not go together on account of the necessity of one remaining with Mr. Hatch. The Quaker was well and strong enough that he could have been left alone, but he was so afraid, and there really was such danger that Duff and his party would visit the cabin, that the lads deemed it unwise to take any chances.
The absence of the Indians—the warriors and hunters—was noticeable in the success the young Palefaces had with their traps and shooting; but it was also no less noticeable in the lack of business they had as traders, and to keep their store of furs piling up they hunted a great deal.
It was not an uncommon thing during the fine winter days which followed this first hard snow storm for John to go many miles from home in quest of game, while Ree devoted the day to chopping wood and clearing the land near the cabin, taking his turn at hunting the next day; but neither boy saw anything of Duff, Dexter or Quilling.
Occasionally wandering Indians came to the cabin, but they reported, when questioned, that they had observed no Paleface strangers anywhere about. So a feeling of greater security from molestation by either white or red men came to the occupants of the little log house beside the river; and about this time, too, a discovery was made which afforded a new subject for thought and conversation.
Ree was hunting one day some distance from home in the direction of the town of the Delawares upon the lake, and came upon the tracks of a young bear, which for some reason had left its winter quarters or had failed to find any. He followed the trail of the cub to a large oak, and discovered the animal quietly resting in a fork of the tree, twenty feet from the ground. At one shot he brought the bear down, and, securing the pelt, it occurred to him to take the best portions of the meat to the Delaware town as a good-will offering to the old men and squaws there. He would inquire what had been heard of Captain Pipe, and might also get news of Duff’s party, or of the lone Indian, who had not been seen for a long time.
Within an hour of the time the thought came to him, Ree was at the Delaware village. He could not but notice how lonely an air it had. Even the dogs seemed not to bark so vigorously as usual, but sniffed hungrily, leaping up at the bear meat upon his shoulder.
“How, neighbors and friends,” called Ree, as the noise of the dogs brought the Indians, Gentle Maiden among the rest, from the cabins, and stepping up to the daughter of Captain Pipe, he said:
“Gentle Maiden, I shot a young bear near by, and I have brought some fresh meat for you and your people, if you care for it; and if you do not, the dogs may be glad of it.”
With a graceful courtesy, which may have been all her own, or taught her, more likely, by the Moravian missionaries, of whom, as a child, she had learned to speak English, the Indian girl accepted the gift, saying most earnestly, as the other Indians, half clad, wrapped in skins and worn blankets, crowded near:
“Truly the Great Spirit has sent you—the Great Spirit of the Red Children of the forests, or the God of the Palefaces—has sent you and this food. For days and nights—more than on the fingers of both my hands could be told—my father’s people have had no meat—only the flesh of the dogs we killed.”
Ree would have interrupted the girl to tell his regret that he and John had not known their needs to have helped them before, but she would not permit it; for Gentle Maiden, now really a young woman, though girlish in appearance in her short skirt and embroidered leggins, continued:
“Very little corn have we left, and of beans none; and no powder here for the one gun left with us by my father’s warriors. Yet come, rest, and eat of what we have and our people shall prepare more.”
Giving the bear meat to some squaws to be quickly cooked, Gentle Maiden and her mother led the way to the cabin of Captain Pipe, somewhat better than the others, though poor enough and now half filled with smoke from the fire built in the center of the earthen floor, beneath a hole in the roof.
“I had hoped to find Chief Hopocon (Captain Pipe) back from his fighting expedition,” said Ree, pretending to eat of the scanty quantity of parched corn placed before him, for hospitality’s sake, a courtesy the Indians never forgot.
“No, the fighting may not be over. There may be another great battle,” said the girl.
“Another battle?” the boy ejaculated. “Has there been one, then?”
“Has the white brother not heard?—a great battle, in which my father’s warriors and many more drove the soldiers of the Long-knives even as scared birds before a mighty storm, and—”
It was in the mind of Gentle Maiden to complete the sentence by saying, “and took many, many scalps,” but she wished to spare the white boy’s feelings, and hesitated.
“How do you know this?” Ree questioned, quickly guessing the words left unsaid.
“A runner came to tell of the mighty battle and to call all the people to be ready to drive every Paleface from our lands.”
“Tell me more of the battle,” Ree said, quietly. “Was it long ago? And where was the fighting?”
“There,” answered Gentle Maiden in a hushed but still slightly triumphant tone, pointing to the westward, “a journey of seven suns, it may be, near the river called Wabash. The Paleface chief Sain Clair (General St. Clair) and many soldiers had come into the land of my father’s people and his friends to build their forts and to drive the Indians from their homes. It was at the coming of day that the battle began and the white soldiers and the warriors were many as the trees of the forest. Hard and long was the fighting, but before the sun was in the middle of the sky our warriors had conquered—our warriors had driven the white chief Sain Clair and all the soldiers from their camps, and they fled before my father’s people even as leaves when the winds blow hard.”
“Were many killed?”
Ree asked the question calmly, though he could hardly restrain his feelings or keep from showing the resentment in his heart that the Indian girl should seem to boast of the victory over the white men. And yet he knew that the savages had been abused and imposed upon. He knew that their children were taught to look upon the whites as their enemies and as people of “two tongues,” who would deceive and cheat and steal. Especially was this true in this land of the Ohio, where the awful massacre of nearly a hundred peaceable Indians by white soldiers was still fresh in the minds of the savages.
Gentle Maiden did not at once answer the question, for in her heart she felt that Ree, who had been her father’s friend, was angered by the news she told him and by her tone.
“Many will rise only in the spirit world,” she said at last, “many Palefaces and many warriors. Never has my father told me of any battle where the ground was so covered by the killed.”
“It is too bad, Gentle Maiden,” the white boy returned thoughtfully, and then, thinking suddenly of that unknown, lone Indian of whom he had seen or heard nothing for some time, he remarked:
“Perhaps the Indian who has been fighting the white men alone in these forests here was also in the battle. I have not seen him for a long time.”
“He was not in the battle, but a new scalp hangs at his belt.”
“Have you seen him? Has he been here?”
“He has not been here. The runner I told you of saw him; and a white hunter lies dead by the stream named the White Woman. It is his own battle the red brother fights, and he will go to war in no other way.”
“Who is he, Gentle Maiden?”