The Tree of Appomattox by Joseph A. Altsheler (novels for students .TXT) 📖

he had inherited a feeling for the wilderness. His own ancestor, Paul Cotter, had been a great woodsman too, and, as he drew on the buckskin gauntlets and wrapped the heavy cloak about his body, his second sensation was one of actual physical pleasure. Why should he regard the forest with a hostile eye? His ancestors had lived in it and often its darkness had saved them from death by torture.

He looked up at the dark slopes, but he could see only the black masses of foliage and the thin sheets of driven rain. For a little while, at least, his mind reproduced the wilderness. It was there in all its savage loneliness and majesty. He could readily imagine that the Indians were lurking in the brush, and that the bears and panthers were seeking shelter in their dens. But his own feeling of safety and of mental and physical pleasure in the face of obstacles deepened.

"I've been just that way myself," said Sergeant Whitley, who was riding beside him and who could both see and read his face. "On the plains when we were so well wrapped up that the icy winds whistling around us couldn't get at us then we felt all the better. But it was best when we were inside the fort and the winter blizzard was howling."

"A lot of us were talking a little while back about what they were going to do after the war. What's your plan, sergeant, if you have any?"

"I do have a plan, Mr. Mason. I was a lumberman, as you know, before I entered the regular army, and when the fighting's done I think I'll go back to it. I can swing an axe with the best of 'em, but I mean after a while to have others swinging axes for me. If I can I'm going to become a big lumberman. I'd rather be that than anything else."

"It's a just and fine ambition, sergeant, I feel sure that you're going to become a man of money and power. Mr. Warner means to become president of Harvard, twenty or twenty-five years from now, and my cousin Harry Kenton, a reconstructed rebel, is going to deliver an address there to the new president's young men, while Mr. Pennington and I, as the president's guests, are going to sit on the stage and smile. Right now, and with authority from Mr. Warner, I'm going to invite you as the lumber king of the Northwest to sit on the stage with us on that occasion, as the guest of President Warner, and smile with us."

"If I become what you predict I'll accept," said the sergeant.

The chances were a thousand to one against the prophecy, but it all came true, just as they wished.

The rain increased a little, although it was not yet able to penetrate Dick's heavy coat, but they were compelled to go more slowly on account of the thickening darkness. They reached very soon the crest of the pass and halted there a little while to see or hear any sign of a human being. But no sound came to them and they resumed the scout in the darkness, riding now down the slope which would end before long in a great valley.

The ground softened by the rain deadened the footsteps of their horses, and they made little noise as they rode down the narrow pass, examining as well as they could the dripping forest on either side of the road. Shepard was a bit ahead, and Dick and the sergeant, riding side by side, came next. Behind were the troopers, a small picked band, daring horsemen, used to every kind of danger.

They did not really anticipate the presence of an enemy in the pass. They knew that Colonel Talbot's command had turned toward the southwest. All the other Confederate forces must be gathering far up the valley to meet Sheridan, and the South was too much reduced to raise new men. Yet after a half hour's moderate riding down the slope Dick became sure that some one was in the narrow belt of forest on their right, where the slope was less steep than on their left.

At first it seemed to be an intuition, merely a feeling brought on waves of air that men, enemies, were in the wood. Then he knew that the feeling was due to sounds as of someone moving lightly through a wet thicket, but unable to keep the boughs from giving forth a rustle. He was about to call to Shepard, but before he could do so the spy stopped. Then all the others stopped also.

"Did you hear it?" Dick whispered to Sergeant Whitley.

"Yes," replied the sergeant. "Men are moving in the thicket on our right. I couldn't hear much, but they must be as numerous as we are. They're enemies or they'd have come out. They're on foot, too, as they couldn't manage horses in those deep woods. Likely they've left their mounts with a guard on top of a ridge, as men on foot wouldn't be abroad at such a time on such a night."

"Then it's an ambush!" said Dick, and he added in a sharp voice:

"Pull away to the left, men, under cover!"

Shepard was the first to turn and all the others followed instantly. Three jumps of the horses and they were among the bushes and trees on the left. It was lucky for them that they had heard the sound of the wet bushes rustling together, as a dozen rifles flashed in the dusk on the other side of the road. Bullets cut the leaves about them. Two or three buried themselves with a plunk in the trunks of trees, one killed a horse, the trooper springing clear without hurt, and one man was wounded slightly in the arm.

"Take cover," called Dick, "but don't lose your horses!"

They dismounted and concealed themselves behind the trunks of trees. Some hastily tethered their horses to bushes, but others hung the bridle over an arm. They knew that if a combat was to occur it must be fought on foot, but, for the present, they were compelled to wait. Yet if their enemy was hidden from them they also were hidden from him. All the conditions of an old Indian battle in darkness and ambush were reproduced, and Dick was deeply grateful that he had at his elbow two redoubtable champions like Whitley and Shepard. They were peculiarly fitted for such work as that which lay before them, and he was ready and willing to take advice from either.

"It's a small party," whispered Shepard, "probably not much larger than ours. They must have expected to make a complete ambush, but we heard them too soon."

"It's surely not a part of Colonel Talbot's command," said Dick. "If so, Harry Kenton and his friends would certainly be there and I shouldn't like to be in battle with them again."

"Never a fear of that," said Sergeant Whitley. "It's more likely to be some guerrilla band, roaming around as it pleases. The condition of the country and these mountains give such fellows a chance. I'm going to lie down and creep forward as we used to do on the plains. I want to get a sight of those fellows, that is, if you say so, sir."

"Of course," said Dick, "but don't take too big risks, sergeant. We can't afford to let you be shot."

"Never fear," said the sergeant, dropping almost flat upon his face, and creeping slowly forward.

The dusky figure worming itself through the bushes heightened the illusion of an old Indian combat. The sergeant was a scout and trailer feeling for the enemy and he reminded Dick of his famous ancestor, Paul Cotter. Several more shots were fired by the foe, but they did not hurt anybody, all of them flying overhead. Dick's men were anxious to send random bullets in reply into the thickets, but he restrained them. It would be only a waste, and while it was annoying to be held there, it could not be helped. Some of the horses reared and plunged with fright at the shots, but silence soon came.

Dick still watched the sergeant as he edged forward, inch by inch. Had not his eyes been following the dusky figure he could not have picked it out from the general darkness. But he still saw it faintly, a darker blur against the dark earth. Yielding a little to his own anxiety, he handed the bridle of his horse to his orderly, and moved toward the edge of the woodland strip, bending low, and using the tree trunks for shelter.

At the last tree he knelt and looked for those on the other side. The sergeant was already beyond cover, but he lay so low in the grass that Dick himself could scarcely discern him.

The wind was still driving the thin sheets of rain before it, and was keeping up a howling and whistling in the pass, a most sinister sound to one not used to the forest and darkness, although Dick paid no attention to it.

Twice the clouds parted slightly and showed a bit of moonlight, but the gleam was so brief that it was gone in a second or two. Nevertheless at the second ray Dick saw crouched beside a tree at the far side of the road a small hunched figure holding a rifle, the head crowned by an enormous flap-brimmed hat. His imagination also made him see small, close-set, menacing red eyes, and he knew at once that it was Slade, the same guerrilla leader who had once pursued him with such deadly vindictiveness through the Mississippi forest and swamps. He had heard that he had come farther north and had united his band with that of Skelly, who pretended to be on the other side. But one could never tell about these outlaws. When they were distant from the regular armies nobody was safe from them.

"Did you see?" whispered Dick to the sergeant who had crept to his side.

"Yes, I caught a glimpse of him. It was Slade, who tried so hard to kill you down there in the Vicksburg campaign. If we get another ray of the moonlight I'll pick him off, that is if you say so, sir."

"I've no objection, sergeant. Such a man as Slade cumbers the earth. Besides, he'll do everything he can now to kill us."

The sergeant knelt, carbine raised, and waited for the ray of moonlight. He was a dead shot, and he believed that he would not miss, but when the ray came at last Slade was not there. Whitley uttered a low exclamation of disgust.

"A good chance gone," he said, "and it may never come again. I'd have saved the lives of a lot of good men."

But a flash came from the thicket, and the sergeant from the grass replied. A cry followed his shot, showing that some one had received his bullet, but Dick knew instinctively that it was not Slade, the crafty leader he was sure now being safe behind the trunk of a tree.

Presently the sergeant fired from another point, and then crept hastily away lest the flash of his rifle betray him. A dozen shots were fired by Slade's band, but no harm was done, and then, the sergeant coming back, Dick held a consultation with his two lieutenants and advisers.

"Perhaps we may flank them," he said. "We can divide our force, and taking them by surprise drive them out of the wood."

But Sergeant Whitley, wary and weatherwise, was against it.

"The risk would be too great, sir," he said. "We can afford to wait while they can't. Our whole column will be up in time, while it's not likely that anybody can come to help Slade. It's true too, sir, that this rain is going to stop. The clouds are beginning to clear away, and when there's light we'll have a fair chance at 'em."

"I think," said Dick, "that it will be best for Mr. Shepard to return and hurry up a relieving column. What do you say?"

"I think so too, sir," said Shepard. "I can lead my horse back some distance through the forest, then mount and gallop up the road. They may be gone before I come again, but if they are not we can soon drive them away."

"We'll cover you with our rifles against any rush made by Slade's men," said Dick.

But it did not become necessary to fire. Shepard