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

In the dusk and the shadows they were a terrible company, gaunt and ghostly, gray and grim.

For a long time the wolves neither moved nor uttered a sound; they merely sat on their haunches and stared upward at the living prey that they felt would surely be theirs. The clouds, caught by wandering breezes, were stripped from the face of the sky, and the moonlight came out again, clear, and full, sheathing the scorched trunks once more in silver armor, and stretching great blankets of light on the burned and ashy earth. It fell too on the gaunt figures of the gray wolves, but the silent and deadly circle did not stir. In the moonlight they grew more terrible, the red eyes became more inflamed and angry, because they had to wait so long for what they considered theirs by right, the snarling lips were drawn back a little farther, and the sharp white teeth gleamed more cruelly.

Time passed again, dragging slowly and heavily for the besieged boys in the tree, but the wolves, though hungry, were patient. Strong in union they were lords of the forest, and they felt no fear. A shambling black bear, lumbering through the woods, suddenly threw up his nose in the wind, and catching the strong pungent odor, wheeled abruptly, lumbering off on another course. The wild cat did not come back, but crouched lower in his tree top; the timid things remained hidden deep in their nests and burrows.

It was a new kind of game that the wolves had scented and driven to the boughs, something that they had never seen before, but the odor was very sweet and pleasant in their nostrils. It was a tidbit that they must have, and, red-eyed, they stared at the two strange, toothsome creatures, who stirred now and then in the tree, and who made queer sounds to each other. When they heard these occasional noises the pack would reply with a long ferocious whine that seemed to double on itself and give back echoes from every point of the compass. In the still night it went far, and the timid things, when they heard it, trembled all over in their nests and burrows. Then the leader, the largest and most terrible of the pack would stretch himself upon the tree trunk, and claw at the scorched bark, but the food he craved was still out of reach.

They noticed that the strange creatures in the tree began to move oftener, and to draw their limbs up as if they were growing stiff, and then their long-drawn howl grew longer and more ferocious than ever; the game, tired out, would soon drop into their mouths. But it did not, the two creatures made sounds as if they were again encouraging each other, and the hearts of the wolves filled with rage and impatience that they should be cheated so long.

The night advanced; the moonlight faded again and the dark hours that come before the dawn were at hand. The forest became black and misty like a haunted wood, and the dim forms of the wolves were the ghosts that lived in it. But to their sharp red eyes the dark was nothing; they saw the two beings in the tree do a very queer thing; they tore strips from themselves, so it seemed to the wolves, from their clothing in fact, and wound it about their bodies and a bough of the tree against which they rested. But the wolves did not understand, only they knew that the creatures did not stir again or make any kind of noise for a long time.

When the darkness was thickest the wolves grew hot with impatience. Already they smelled the dawn and in the light their courage would ooze. Could it be that the food they coveted would not fall into their mouths? The dread suspicion filled every vein of the old leader with wrath, and he uttered a long terrible howl of doubt and anger; the pack took up the note and the lonely forest became alive with its echoes. But the creatures in the tree stirred only a little, and made very few sounds. They seemed to be safe and content, and the wolves raged back and forth, leaping and howling.

The old leader felt the dark thin and lighten, and the scent of the coming dawn became more oppressive to him. A little needle of fear shot into his heart, and his muscles began to grow weak. He saw afar in the east the first pale tinge, faint and gray, of the dreadful light that he feared and hated. His howl now was one of mingled anger and disappointment, and the pack imitated the note of the king.

The black veil over the forest gave way to one of gray. The dreadful bar of light in the east broadened and deepened, and became beaming, intense and brilliant. The needle of terror at the heart of the gray wolf stabbed and tore. His red eyes could not face the great red sun that swung now above the earth, shooting its fierce beams straight at him. The dark, so kindly and so encouraging, beloved of his kind, was gone, and the earth swam in a hideous light, every ray of which was hostile. His blood changed to water, his knees bent under him, and then, to turn fear to panic, came a powerful odor on the light, morning wind. It was like the scent of the two strange, succulent creatures in the tree, but it was the odor of many—many make strength he knew—and the great gray wolf was sore afraid.

The sun shot higher and the world was bathed in a luminous golden glow. The master-wolf cast one last, longing look at the lost food in the tree, and then, uttering a long quavering howl of terror, which the pack took up and carried in many echoes, fled headlong through the forest with his followers close behind, all running low and fast, and with terror hot at their heels. Their gaunt, gray bodies were gone in a moment, like ghosts that vanish at the coming of the day.

"Rouse up, Paul!" cried Henry. "They are gone, afraid of the sun, and it's safe for us now on the ground."

"And mighty glad I am!" said Paul. "The great Inn of Kaintuckee was not so hospitable after all, or at least some of our fellow guests were too hungry."

"It's because we were careless about our fire," said Henry. "If we had obeyed all the rules of the inn, we should have had no trouble. Jump down, Paul!"

Henry dropped lightly and cheerfully to the ground. As usual he let the past and its dangers slip, forgotten, behind him. Paul alighted beside him and the wilderness witnessed the strange sight of two stout boys, running up and down, pounding and rubbing their hands and arms, uttering little cries of pain, as the blood flowed at first slowly and with difficulty in their cramped limbs, and then of delight, as the circulation became free and easy.

"Now for breakfast," said Henry. "It will be easy, as Mr. Landlord has kept the venison hanging on the tree there for us."

Henry was breathing the fresh morning air, and rejoicing in the sunlight. His wonderful physical nature had cast away all thought of fear, but Paul, who had the sensitive mind and delicate fancy, was still troubled.

"Henry," he said, "I'm not willing to stay here, even to eat the deer meat. All through those hours we were up there it was a haunted forest for me. I don't want to see this spot any more, and I'd like to get away from it just as soon as I can."

Was it some instinct? or an unseen warning given to Paul, and registered on his sensitive mind, as a photographic plate takes light? To the keen nose of the old wolf leader an alarming odor had come with the dawn! Was a kindred signal sent to Paul?

Henry stared at his comrade in surprise, but he knew that he and Paul were different, and he respected those differences which might be either strength or weakness.

"All right, if you wish it, Paul," he said, lightly. "There are many rooms in the Kaintuckee Inn, and if the one we have doesn't suit us we'll just take another. Wait till I cut this venison down, and we'll move without paying our score."

"I guess we paid that to the wolves," said Paul, smiling a little.

Henry detached the venison and divided it. Then each took his share, and they moved swiftly away among the trees, still keeping to the general course of the river. They came presently to a large area of unburned forest, thick with foliage and undergrowth and, without hesitation, they plunged into it. Henry was in front and suddenly to his keen ears came a sound which he knew was not one of the natural noises of the forest. He listened and it continued, a beat, faint but regular and steady. He knew that it was made by footfalls, and he knew, too, that in the wilderness everyone is an enemy until he is proved to be a friend. They were in the densest of the undergrowth, and thought and action came to him on the heels of each other, swift as lightning.

"Sink down, Paul! Sink down!" he cried, and grasping his comrade by the shoulder he bore him down among the thick bushes, going down with him.

"Don't move for your life!" he whispered. "Men are about to pass and they cannot be our kind!"

Paul at once became as still as death. He too under the strain of the wilderness life and the need of caring for oneself was becoming wonderfully acute of the senses and ready of action. The two boys crouched close together, their heads below the tops of the bushes, although they could see between the leaves and twigs, and neither moved a hair.

Almost hidden in the foliage a line of Indian warriors, like dusky phantoms, passed, in single file, and apparently stepping in one another's tracks. Well for the boys that Paul had felt his impulse to leave the vicinity of the besieged tree, because the course of the warriors would carry them very near it, and they could not fail to detect the alien presence. But no such suspicion seemed to enter their minds now, and, like the wolves, they were traveling fast, but southward.

The boys stared through the leaves and twigs, afraid but fascinated. They were fourteen in all—Henry counted them—but never a warrior spoke a word, and the grim line was seen but a moment and then gone, though their dark painted faces long remained engraved, like pictures, on the minds of both. But to Paul it was, for the instant, like a dream. He saw them, and then he did not. The leaves of the bushes rustled a little when they passed, and then were still.

"They must be Southern Indians," whispered Henry. "Cherokees most likely. They come up here now and then to hunt, but they seldom stay long, for fear of the more warlike and powerful Northern Indians, who come down to Kaintuckee for the same purpose, at least that's what I heard Ross and Sol say."

"Well, they did seem to be traveling fast," breathed Paul, "and I'm mighty glad of it. Do you think, Henry, they could have done any harm at Wareville?"

Henry shook his head.

"I have no such fear," he said. "We are a good long distance from home, and they've probably gone by without ever hearing of the place. Ross has always said that no danger was to be dreaded from the south."

"I guess it's so," said Paul with deep relief, "but I think, Henry, that you and I ought to go down to the river's bank, and build that raft as soon as we can."

"All right," said Henry calmly. "But we'll first eat our venison."

They quickly did as they agreed, and felt greatly strengthened and encouraged after a hearty breakfast. Then with bold hearts and quick hands they began their task.

CHAPTER V AFLOAT

The boys began at once the work on their raft, a rude structure of a few fallen logs, fastened together with bark and brush, but simple, strong and safe. They finished it in two days, existing meanwhile on the deer meat, and early the morning afterwards, the clumsy craft, bearing the two navigators, was duly intrusted to the mercy of the unknown river. Each of the boys carried a slender hickory pole with which to steer, and they also fastened securely to the raft the remainder of their deer, their most precious possession.

They pushed off with the poles, and the current catching their craft, carried it gently along. It was a fine little river, running in a deep channel, and Henry became more sure than ever that it was the