two Shawnees, walking lightly, went on up the valley which broadened out as they advanced, but which was still thickly clothed in forest and undergrowth. Skilled as they were in the forest, they probably never dreamed of the enemy who hung on their trail with a skill surpassing their own.
Henry followed them for a full two miles, and then he saw them join a group of Indians under the trees, whom he knew by their dress and bearing to be chiefs. They were tall, middle-aged, and they wore blankets of green or dark blue, probably bought at the British outposts. Behind them, almost hidden in the forest, Henry saw many other dark faces, eager, intense, waiting to be let loose on the foe, whom they regarded as already in the trap.
Henry waited, while the two scouts whom he had followed so well, delivered to the chief their message. He saw them beckon to the warriors behind them, speak a few words to them, and then he saw two savage forces slip off in the forest, one to the right and one to the left. On the instant he divined their purpose. They were to flank the little white army, while another division stood ready to attack in front. Then the ambush would be complete, and Henry saw the skill of the savage general whoever he might be.
The plan must be frustrated at once, and Henry Ware never hesitated. He must bring on the battle, before his own people were surrounded, and raising his rifle he fired with deadly aim at one of the chiefs who fell on the grass. Then the youth raised the wild and thrilling cry, which he had learned from the savages themselves, and sped back toward the white force.
The death cry of the Shawnee and the hostile war whoop rang together filling the forest and telling that the end of stealth and cunning, and the beginning of open battle were at hand.
Henry Ware was hidden in an instant by the green foliage from the sight of the Shawnees. Keen as were their eyes, trained as they were to noticing everything that moved in the forest, he had vanished from them like a ghost. But they knew that the enemy whom they had sought to draw into their snare had slipped his head out of it before the snare could be sprung. Their long piercing yell rose again and then died away in a frightful quaver. As the last terrible note sank the whole savage army rushed forward to destroy its foe.
As Henry Ware ran swiftly back to his friends he met both Ross and Sol, drawn by the shot and the shouts.
"It was you who fired?" asked Ross.
"Yes," replied Henry, "they meant to lay an ambush, but they will not have time for it now."
The three stood for a few moments under the boughs of a tree, three types of the daring men who guided and protected the van of the white movement into the wilderness. They were eager, intent, listening, bent slightly forward, their rifles lying in the hollow of their arms, ready for instant use.
After the second long cry the savage army gave voice no more. In all the dense thickets a deadly silence reigned, save for the trained ear. But to the acute hearing of the three under the tree came sounds that they knew; sounds as light as the patter of falling nuts, no more, perhaps, than the rustle of dead leaves driven against each other by a wind; but they knew.
"They are coming, and coming fast," said Henry. "We must join the main force now."
"They ought to be ready. That warning of yours was enough," said Ross.
Without another word they turned again, darted among the trees, and in a few moments reached the little white force. Mr. Ware, the nominal leader, taking alarm from the shot and cries, was already disposing his men in a long, scattering line behind hillocks, tree trunks, brushwood and every protection that the ground offered.
"Good!" exclaimed Ross, when he saw, "but we must make our line longer and thinner, we must never let them get around us, an' it's lucky now we've got steep hills on either side."
To be flanked in Indian battle by superior numbers was the most terrible thing that could happen to the pioneers, and Mr. Ware stretched out his line longer and longer, and thinner and thinner. Paul Cotter was full of excitement; he had been in deadly conflict once before, but his was a most sensitive temperament, terribly stirred by a foe whom he could yet neither see nor hear. Almost unconsciously, he placed himself by the side of Henry Ware, his old partner, to whom he now looked up as a son of battle and the very personification of forest skill.
"Are they really there, Henry?" he asked. "I see nothing and hear nothing."
"Yes," replied Henry, "they are in front of us scarcely a rifle shot away, five to our one."
Paul strained his eyes, but still he could see nothing, only the green waving forest, the patches of undergrowth, the rocks on the steep hills to right and left, and the placid blue sky overhead. It did not seem possible to him that they were about to enter into a struggle for life and for those dearer than life.
"Don't shoot wild, Paul," said Henry. "Don't pull the trigger, until you can look down the sights at a vital spot."
A few feet away from them, peering over a log and with his rifle ever thrust forward was Mr. Pennypacker, a schoolmaster, a graduate of a college, an educated and refined man, but bearing his part in the dark and terrible wilderness conflict that often left no wounded.
The stillness was now so deep that even the scouts could hear no sound in front. The savage army seemed to have melted away, into the air itself, and for full five minutes they lay, waiting, waiting, always waiting for something that they knew would come. Then rose the fierce quavering war cry poured from hundreds of throats, and the savage horde, springing out of the forests and thickets, rushed upon them.
Dark faces showed in the sunlight, brown figures, naked save for the breechcloth, horribly painted, muscles tense, flashed through the undergrowth. The wild yell that rose and fell without ceasing ran off in distant echoes among the hills. The riflemen of Kentucky, lying behind trees and hillocks, began to fire, not in volleys, not by order, but each man according to his judgment and his aim, and many a bullet flew true.
A sharp crackling sound, ominous and deadly, ran back and forth in the forest. Little spurts of fire burned for a moment against the green, and then went out, to give place to others. Jets of white smoke rose languidly and floated up among the trees, gathering by and by into a cloud, shot through with blue and yellow tints from sky and sun.
Henry Ware fired with deadly aim and reloaded with astonishing speed. Paul Cotter, by his side, was as steady as a rock, now that the suspense was over, and the battle upon them. The schoolmaster resting on one elbow was firing across his log.
But it is not Indian tactics to charge home, unless the enemy is frightened into flight by the war whoop and the first rush. The men of Wareville and Marlowe did not run, but stood fast, sending the bullets straight to the mark; and suddenly the Shawnees dropped down among the trees and undergrowth, their bodies hidden, and began to creep forward, firing like sharpshooters. It was now a test of skill, of eyesight, of hearing and of aim.
The forest on either side was filled with creeping forms, white or red, men with burning eyes seeking to slay each other, meeting in strife more terrible than that of foes who encounter each other in open conflict. There was something snakelike in their deadly creeping, only the moving grass to tell where they passed and sometimes where both white and red died, locked fast in the grip of one another. Everywhere it was a combat, confused, dreadful, man to man, and with no shouting now, only the crack of the rifle shot, the whiz of the tomahawk, the thud of the knife, and choked cries.
Like breeds like, and the white men came down to the level of the red. Knowing that they would receive no quarter they gave none. The white face expressed all the cunning, and all the deadly animosity of the red. Led by Henry Ware, Ross and Sol they practiced every device of forest warfare known to the Shawnees, and their line, which extended across the valley from hill to hill, spurted death from tree, bush, and rock.
To Paul Cotter it was all a nightmare, a foul dream, unreal. He obeyed his comrade's injunctions, he lay close to the earth, and he did not fire until he could draw a bead on a bare breast, but the work became mechanical with him. He was a high-strung lad of delicate sensibilities. There was in his temperament something of the poet and the artist, and nothing of the soldier who fights for the sake of mere fighting. The wilderness appealed to him, because of its