The Young Trailers: A Story of Early Kentucky by Joseph A. Altsheler (big ebook reader txt) 📖

Cotter turned upon him so fiercely that he took it back. The schoolmaster made no comment aloud, but to himself he said, "It was bound to come and perhaps it is no loss that it has come."

Meanwhile Henry Ware was tasting the fiercest and keenest joy of his life. The great forest seemed to reach out its boughs like kind arms to welcome and embrace. How cool was the shade! How the shafts of sunlight piercing the leaves fell like golden arrows on the ground! How the little brooks laughed and danced over the pebbles! This was his world and he had been too long away from it. Everything was friendly, the huge tree trunks were like old comrades, the air was fresher and keener than any that he had breathed in a long time, and was full of new life and zest. All his old wilderness love rushed back to him, and now after many months he felt at home.

Strong as he was already new strength flowed into his frame and he threw back his head, and laughed a low happy laugh. Then rifle at the trail he ran for miles among the trees from the pure happiness of living, but noting as he passed with wonderfully keen eyes every trail of a wild animal and all the forest signs that he knew so well. He ran many miles and he felt no weariness. Then he threw himself down on Mother Earth, and rejoiced at her embrace. He lay there a long time, staring up through the leaves and the shifting sunlight, and he was so still that a hare hopped through the undergrowth almost at his feet, never taking alarm. To Henry Ware then the world seemed grand and beautiful, and of all things in it God had made the wilderness the finest, lingering over every detail with a loving hand.

He watched the setting of the sun and the coming of the twilight. The sun was a great blazing ball and the western sky flowed away from it in circling waves of blue and pink and gold, then long shadows came over the forest, and the distant trees began to melt together into a gigantic dark wall. To the dweller in cities all this vast loneliness and desolation would have been dreary and weird beyond description; he would have shuddered with superstitious awe, starting in fear at the slightest sound, but there was no such quality in it for Henry Ware. He saw only comradeship and the friendly veil of the great creeping shadow. His eye could pierce the thickest night, and fear, either of the darkness or things physical, was not in him.

He rose after a while, when the last sign of day was gone, and walked on, though more slowly. He made no noise as he passed, stepping lightly, but with sure foot like one with both genius and training for the wilderness. He knelt at a little brook to slake his thirst, but did not stop long there. His happiness decreased in nowise. The familiar voices of the night were speaking to him. He heard the distant hoot of an owl, a deer rustled in the bush, a lizard scuttled over the leaves, and he rejoiced at the sounds. He did not think of hunger but toward midnight he raked some of last year's fallen leaves close to the trunk of a big tree, lay down upon them, and fell in a few moments into happy and dreamless sleep.

He awoke with the first rays of the dawn, shot a deer after an hour's search, and then cooked his breakfast by the side of one of the little brooks. It was the first food that had tasted just right to him in many weeks, and afterwards he lay by the camp fire awhile, and luxuriated. He had the most wonderful feeling of peace and ease; all the world was his to go where he chose and to do what he chose, and he began to think of an autumn camp, a tiny lodge in the deepest recess of the wilderness, where he could store spare ammunition, furs and skins and find a frequent refuge, when the time for storms and cold came. He would build at his ease—there was plenty of time and he would fill in the intervals with hunting and exploration.

He ranged that day toward the north and the west, moving with deliberation, and not until the third or the fourth day did he come to the place that he had in mind. In the triangle between the junction of two streams was a marshy area, thickly grown with bushes and slim trees, that thrust their roots deep down through the mire into more solid soil. The marsh was perhaps two acres in extent; right in the heart of it was a piece of firm earth about forty feet square and here Henry meant to build his lodge. He alone knew the path across the marsh over fallen logs lying near enough to each other to be reached by an agile man, and on the tiny island all his possessions would be safe.

He worked a week at his hut, and it was done, a little lean-to of bark and saplings, partly lined with skins, but proof against rain or snow. On the floor he spread the skins and furs of animals that he killed, and on the walls he hung trophies of the hunt.

Two weeks after his house was finished he used it at its full value. Summer was gone and autumn was coming, a great rain poured and the wind blew cold. Dead leaves fell in showers from the trees, and the boughs swaying before the gale creaked dismally against each other. But it all gave to Henry a supreme sense of physical comfort. He lay in his snug hut, and, pulling a little to one side the heavy buffalo robe that hung over the doorway, watched the storm rage through the wilderness. He had no sense of loneliness, his mind was in perfect tune with everything about him, and delighted in the triumphant manifestation of nature.

He stayed there all day, content to lie still and meditate vaguely of anything that came of its own accord into his mind. About the twilight hour he cooked some venison, ate it and then slept a dreamless sleep through the night.

The rain ceased the next day but the air became crisp and cold, and autumn was fully come. In a week the forest was dyed into the most glowing colors, red and yellow and brown, and the shades between. The heavens were pure blue and gold, and it was a poignant delight to breathe the keen air. Again he ranged far and rejoiced in the hunting. His infallible rifle never missed, and in the little hut in the marsh the stock of furs and skins grew so fast that scarcely room for himself was left. He hid a fresh store at another place in the forest, and then he returned to Wareville for a day. His father greeted him with some constraint, not with coldness exactly, but with lack of understanding. His mother and his sister wept with joy and Mrs. Ware said: "I was expecting you about this time and you have not disappointed me."

He stayed two days and his keen eyes, so observant of material matters, noted that the colony was not doing well for the time, the drought having almost ruined the crops and there was full promise of scanty food and a hard winter. Now came his opportunity. He had looked upon his month in the forest as in part a holiday, and he never intended to throw aside all responsibility for others, roving the wilderness absolutely free from care. He knew that he would have work to do, he felt that he should have it, and now he saw the way to do the kind of work that he loved to do.

He replenished his supply of ammunition, took up his rifle again and returned to the forest. Now he used all his surpassing knowledge and skill in the chase, and game began to pour into the colony, bear, deer, buffalo and the smaller animals, until he alone seemed able to feed the entire settlement through the winter.

He experienced a new thrill keener and more delightful than any that had gone before; he was doing for others and the knowledge was most pleasant. Winter came on, fierce and unyielding with almost continuous snow and ice, and Henry Ware was the chief support of that little village in the wilderness. The game wandering with its fancy, or perhaps taking alarm at the new settlement had drifted far, and he alone of all the hunters could find it. The voices that had been raised against him a second time were stilled again, because no one dared to accuse when his single figure stood between them and starvation.

He took Paul Cotter with him on some of his hunts, but never even to Paul did he tell the secret of his hut in the morass; that was to be guarded for himself alone. He was fond of Paul, but Paul able though he was fell far behind Henry in the forest.

The debt of Wareville to him grew and none felt privileged to criticise him now, as he appeared from the forest and disappeared into it again on his self-chosen tasks.

The winter broke up at last, but with the spring came a new and more formidable danger. Small parties of Indians, not strong enough to attack Wareville itself but sufficient for forest ambush, began to appear in the country, and two or three lives that could be ill spared were lost. Now Henry Ware showed his supreme value; he was a match and more than a match for the savages at all their own tricks, and he became the ranger for the settlement, its champion against a wild and treacherous foe.

The tales of his skill and prowess spread far through the wilderness. Single handed he would not hesitate in the depths of the forest to attack war parties of half a dozen, and while suffering heavily themselves they could never catch their daring tormentor. These tales even spread across the Ohio to the Indian villages, where they told of a blond and giant white youth in the South who was the spirit of death, whom no runner could overtake, whom no bullet could slay and who raged against the red man with an invincible wrath.

As his single hand had fed them through the winter so his single hand protected them from death in the spring. He seemed to know by instinct when the war parties were coming and where they would appear. Always he confronted them with some devious attack that they did not know how to meet, and Wareville remained inviolate.

Then, in the summer, when the war bands were all gone he came back to Wareville to stay a while, although, everyone, himself included, knew that he would always remain a son of the wilderness, spending but part of his time in the houses of men.

CHAPTER XIX AN ERRAND AND A FRIEND

Two stalwart lads were marching steadily through the deep woods, some months later. They were boys in years, but in size, strength, alertness and knowledge of the forest far beyond their age. One, in particular, would have drawn the immediate and admiring glance of every keen-eyed frontiersman, so powerful was he, and yet so light and quick of movement. His wary glance seemed to read every secret of tree, bush and grass, and his head, crowned by a great mass of thick, yellow hair, rose several inches above that of his comrade, who would have been called by most people a tall boy.

The two youths were dressed almost alike. Each wore a cap of raccoon fur, with the short tail hanging from the back of it as a decoration. Their bodies were clad in hunting shirts, made of the skin of the deer, softly and beautifully tanned and dyed green. The fine fringe of the shirt hung almost to the knees, and below it were leggings also of deerskin, beaded at the seams. The feet were inclosed in deerskin moccasins, fitting tightly, but very soft and light. A rifle, a tomahawk, and a useful knife at the belt completed the equipment.

They were walking, but each boy led a stout horse, and on the back of this horse was a great brown sack that hung down, puffy, on either side. The sacks were filled with gunpowder made from cave-dust and the two boys, Henry Ware and Paul Cotter, were carrying it to a distant village that had exhausted its supply, but which, hearing of the strange new way in which Wareville obtained it, had sent begging for a loan of this commodity, more precious