Wetzel’s moccasin pressed softly against Jonathan’s head. The first signal!
Jonathan crawled forward, and slightly raised himself.
He was on a rock. The trees were thick and gloomy. Below, the little hollow was almost in the wan moonbeams. Dark figures lay close together. Two savages paced noiselessly to and fro. A slight form rolled in a blanket lay against a tree.
Jonathan felt his arm gently squeezed.
The second signal!
Slowly he thrust forward his rifle, and raised it in unison with Wetzel’s. Slowly he rose to his feet as if the same muscles guided them both.
Over his head a twig snapped. In the darkness he had not seen a low branch.
The Indian guards stopped suddenly, and became motionless as stone.
They had heard; but too late.
With the blended roar of the rifles both dropped, lifeless.
Almost under the spouting flame and white cloud of smoke, Jonathan leaped behind Wetzel, over the bank. His yells were mingled with Wetzel’s vengeful cry. Like leaping shadows the bordermen were upon their foes.
An Indian sprang up, raised a weapon, and fell beneath Jonathan’s savage blow, to rise no more. Over his prostrate body the borderman bounded. A dark, nimble form darted upon the captive. He swung high a blade that shone like silver in the moonlight. His shrill war-cry of death rang out with Helen’s scream of despair. Even as he swung back her head with one hand in her long hair, his arm descended; but it fell upon the borderman’s body. Jonathan and the Indian rolled upon the moss. There was a terrific struggle, a whirling blade, a dull blow which silenced the yell, and the borderman rose alone.
He lifted Helen as if she were a child, leaped the brook, and plunged into the thicket.
The noise of the fearful conflict he left behind, swelled high and hideously on the night air. Above the shrill cries of the Indians, and the furious yells of Legget, rose the mad, booming roar of Wetzel. No rifle cracked; but sodden blows, the clash of steel, the threshing of struggling men, told of the dreadful strife.
Jonathan gained the woods, sped through the moonlit glades, and far on under light and shadow.
The shrill cries ceased; only the hoarse yells and the mad roar could be heard. Gradually these also died away, and the forest was still.
CHAPTER XXI
Next morning, when the mist was breaking and rolling away under the warm rays of the Indian-summer sun, Jonathan Zane beached his canoe on the steep bank before Fort Henry. A pioneer, attracted by the borderman’s halloo, ran to the bluff and sounded the alarm with shrill whoops. Among the hurrying, brown-clad figures that answered this summons, was Colonel Zane.
“It’s Jack, kurnel, an’ he’s got her!” cried one.
The doughty colonel gained the bluff to see his brother climbing the bank with a white-faced girl in his arms.
“Well?” he asked, looking darkly at Jonathan. Nothing kindly or genial was visible in his manner now; rather grim and forbidding he seemed, thus showing he had the same blood in his veins as the borderman.
“Lend a hand,” said Jonathan. “As far as I know she’s not hurt.”
They carried Helen toward Colonel Zane’s cabin. Many women of the settlement saw them as they passed, and looked gravely at one another, but none spoke. This return of an abducted girl was by no means a strange event.
“Somebody run for Sheppard,” ordered Colonel Zane, as they entered his cabin.
Betty, who was in the sitting-room, sprang up and cried: “Oh! Eb! Eb! Don’t say she’s—”
“No, no, Betts, she’s all right. Where’s my wife? Ah! Bess, here, get to work.”
The colonel left Helen in the tender, skilful hands of his wife and sister, and followed Jonathan into the kitchen.
“I was just ready for breakfast when I heard someone yell,” said he. “Come, Jack, eat something.”
They ate in silence. From the sitting-room came excited whispers, a joyous cry from Betty, and a faint voice. Then heavy, hurrying footsteps, followed by Sheppard’s words of thanks-giving.
“Where’s Wetzel?” began Colonel Zane.
The borderman shook his head gloomily.
“Where did you leave him?”
“We jumped Legget’s bunch last night, when the moon was about an hour high. I reckon about fifteen miles northeast. I got away with the lass.”
“Ah! Left Lew fighting?”
The borderman answered the question with bowed head.
“You got off well. Not a hurt that I can see, and more than lucky to save Helen. Well, Jack, what do you think about Lew?”
“I’m goin’ back,” replied Jonathan.
“No! no!”
The door opened to admit Mrs. Zane. She looked bright and cheerful, “Hello, Jack; glad you’re home. Helen’s all right, only faint from hunger and over-exertion. I want something for her to eat—well! you men didn’t leave much.”
Colonel Zane went into the sitting-room. Sheppard sat beside the couch where Helen lay, white and wan. Betty and Nell were looking on with their hearts in their eyes. Silas Zane was there, and his wife, with several women neighbors.
“Betty, go fetch Jack in here,” whispered the colonel in his sister’s ear. “Drag him, if you have to,” he added fiercely.
The young woman left the room, to reappear directly with her brother. He came in reluctantly.
As the stern-faced borderman crossed the threshold a smile, beautiful to see, dawned in Helen’s eyes.
“I’m glad to see you’re comin’ round,” said Jonathan, but he spoke dully as if his mind was on other things.
“She’s a little flighty; but a night’s sleep will cure that,” cried Mrs. Zane from the kitchen.
“What do you think?” interrupted the colonel. “Jack’s not satisfied to get back with Helen unharmed, and a whole skin himself; but he’s going on the trail again.”
“No, Jack, no, no!” cried Betty.
“What’s that I hear?” asked Mrs. Zane as she came in. “Jack’s going out again? Well, all I want to say is that he’s as mad as a March hare.”
“Jonathan, look here,” said Silas seriously. “Can’t you stay home now?”
“Jack, listen,” whispered Betty, going close to him. “Not one of us ever expected to see either you or Helen again, and oh! we are so happy. Do not go away again. You are a man; you do not know, you cannot understand all a woman feels. She must sit and wait, and hope, and pray for the safe return of husband or brother or sweetheart. The long days! Oh, the long sleepless nights, with the wail of the wind in the pines, and the rain on the roof! It is maddening. Do not leave us! Do not leave me! Do not leave Helen! Say you will not, Jack.”
To these entreaties the borderman remained silent. He stood leaning on his rifle, a tall, dark, strangely sad and stern man.
“Helen, beg him to stay!” implored Betty.
Colonel Zane took Helen’s hand, and stroked it. “Yes,” he said, “you ask him, lass. I’m sure you can persuade him to stay.”
Helen raised her head. “Is Brandt dead?” she whispered faintly.
Still the borderman failed to speak, but his silence was not an affirmative.
“You said you loved me,” she cried wildly. “You said you loved me, yet you didn’t kill that monster!”