Authors: The Last Trail
They emerged at length into a more open forest which skirted the
river. At a point still some distance ahead, but plainly in sight, two
small islands rose out of the water.
"Hist! What's that?" whispered Wetzel, slipping his hand in Jonathan's
arm.
A hundred yards beyond lay a long, dark figure stretched at full
length under one of the trees close to the bank.
"Looks like a man," said Jonathan.
"You've hit the mark. Take a good peep roun' now, Jack, fer we're
comin' somewhere near the trail we want."
Minutes passed while the patient bordermen searched the forest with
their eyes, seeking out every tree within rifle range, or surveyed the
level glades, scrutinized the hollows, and bent piercing eyes upon the
patches of ferns.
"If there's a redskin around he ain't big enough to hold a gun," said
Wetzel, moving forward again, yet still with that same stealthy step
and keen caution.
Finally they were gazing down upon the object which had attracted
Wetzel's attention.
"Will Sheppard!" cried Jonathan. "Is he dead? What's this mean?"
Wetzel leaned over the prostrate lad, and then quickly turned to his
companion.
"Get some water. Take his cap. No, he ain't even hurt bad, unless he's
got some wound as don't show."
Jonathan returned with the water, and Wetzel bathed the bloody face.
When the gash on Will's forehead was clean, it told the
bordermen much.
"Not an hour old, that blow," muttered Wetzel.
"He's comin' to," said Jonathan as Will stirred uneasily and moaned.
Presently the lad opened his eyes and sat bolt upright. He looked
bewildered for a moment, and felt of his head while gazing vaguely at
the bordermen. Suddenly he cried:
"I remember! We were captured, brought here, and I was struck down by
that villain Case."
"We? Who was with you?" asked Jonathan slowly.
"Helen. We came after flowers and leaves. While in full sight of the
fort I saw an Indian. We hurried back," he cried, and proceeded with
broken, panting voice to tell his story.
Jonathan Zane leaped to his feet with face deathly white and eyes
blue-black, like burning stars.
"Jack, study the trail while I get the lad acrost the river, an'
steered fer home," said Wetzel, and then he asked Will if he
could swim.
"Yes; but you will find a canoe there in those willows."
"Come, lad, we've no time to spare," added Wetzel, sliding down the
bank and entering the willows. He came out almost immediately with the
canoe which he launched.
Will turned that he might make a parting appeal to Jonathan to save
Helen; but could not speak. The expression on the borderman's face
frightened him.
Motionless and erect Jonathan stood, his arms folded and his white,
stern face distorted with the agony of remorse, fear, and anguish,
which, even as Will gazed, froze into an awful, deadly look of
fateful purpose.
Wetzel pushed the canoe off, and paddled with powerful strokes; he
left Will on the opposite bank, and returned as swiftly as he could
propel the light craft.
The bordermen met each other's glance, and had little need of words.
Wetzel's great shoulders began to sag slightly, and his head lowered
as his eyes sought the grass; a dark and gloomy shade overcast his
features. Thus he passed from borderman to Deathwind. The sough of the
wind overhead among the almost naked branches might well have warned
Indians and renegades that Deathwind was on the trail!
"Brandt's had a hand in this, an' the Englishman's a fool!" said
Wetzel.
"An hour ahead; can we come up with them before they join Brandt an'
Legget?"
"We can try, but like as not we'll fail. Legget's gang is thirteen
strong by now. I said it! Somethin' told me—a hard trail, a long
trail, an' our last trail."
"It's over thirty miles to Legget's camp. We know the woods, an' every
stream, an' every cover," hissed Jonathan Zane.
With no further words Wetzel took the trail on the run, and so plain
was it to his keen eyes that he did not relax his steady lope except
to stop and listen at regular intervals. Jonathan followed with easy
swing. Through forest and meadow, over hill and valley, they ran,
fleet and tireless. Once, with unerring instinct, they abruptly left
the broad trail and cut far across a wide and rugged ridge to come
again upon the tracks of the marching band. Then, in open country they
reduced their speed to a walk. Ahead, in a narrow valley, rose a
thicket of willows, yellow in the sunlight, and impenetrable to human
vision. Like huge snakes the bordermen crept into this copse, over the
sand, under the low branches, hard on the trail. Finally, in a light,
open space, where the sun shone through a network of yellow branches
and foliage, Wetzel's hand was laid upon Jonathan's shoulder.
"Listen! Hear that!" he whispered.
Jonathan heard the flapping of wings, and a low, hissing sound, not
unlike that made by a goose.
"Buzzards!" he said, with a dark, grim smile. "Mebbe Brandt has begun
our work. Come."
Out into the open they crawled to put to flight a flock of huge black
birds with grisly, naked necks, hooked beaks, and long, yellow claws.
Upon the green grass lay three half-naked men, ghastly, bloody, in
terribly limp and lifeless positions.
"Metzar's man Smith, Jenks, the outlaw, and Mordaunt!"
Jonathan Zane gazed darkly into the steely, sightless eyes of the
traitor. Death's awful calm had set the expression; but the man's
whole life was there, its better part sadly shining forth among the
cruel shadows.
His body was mutilated in a frightful manner. Cuts, stabs, and slashes
told the tale of a long encounter, brought to an end by one
clean stroke.
"Come here, Lew. You've seen men chopped up; but look at this dead
Englishman," called Zane.
Mordaunt lay weltering in a crimson tide. Strangely though, his face
was uninjured. A black bruise showed under his fair hair. The ghost of
a smile seemed to hover around his set lips, yet almost intangible
though it was, it showed that at last he had died a man. His left
shoulder, side and arm showed where the brunt of Brandt's attack
had fallen.
"How'd he ever fight so?" mused Jonathan.
"You never can tell," replied Wetzel. "Mebbe he killed this other
fellar, too; but I reckon not. Come, we must go slow now, fer Legget
is near at hand."
Jonathan brought huge, flat stones from the brook, and laid them over
Mordaunt; then, cautiously he left the glade on Wetzel's trail.
Five hundred yards farther on Wetzel had ceased following the outlaw's
tracks to cross the creek and climb a ridge. He was beginning his
favorite trick of making a wide detour. Jonathan hurried forward,
feeling he was safe from observation. Soon he distinguished the tall,
brown figure of his comrade gliding ahead from tree to tree, from
bush to bush.
"See them maples an' chestnuts down thar," said Wetzel when Jonathan
had come up, pointing through an opening in the foliage. "They've
stopped fer some reason."
On through the forest the bordermen glided. They kept near the summit
of the ridge, under the best cover they could find, and passed swiftly
over this half-circle. When beginning once more to draw toward the
open grove in the valley, they saw a long, irregular cliff, densely
wooded. They swerved a little, and made for this excellent covert.
They crawled the last hundred yards and never shook a fern, moved a
leaf, or broke a twig. Having reached the brink of the low precipice,
they saw the grassy meadow below, the straggling trees, the brook, the
group of Indians crowding round the white men.
"See that point of rock thar? It's better cover," whispered Wetzel.
Patiently, with no hurry or excitement, they slowly made their
difficult way among the rocks and ferns to the vantage point desired.
Taking a position like this was one the bordermen strongly favored.
They could see everywhere in front, and had the thick woods at
their backs.
"What are they up to?" whispered Jonathan, as he and Wetzel lay close
together under a mass of grapevine still tenacious of its
broad leaves.
"Dicin'," answered Wetzel. "I can see 'em throw; anyways, nothin' but
bettin' ever makes redskins act like that."
"Who's playin'? Where's Brandt?"
"I can make out Legget; see his shaggy head. The other must be Case.
Brandt ain't in sight. Nursin' a hurt perhaps. Ah! See thar! Over
under the big tree as stands dark-like agin the thicket. Thet's an
Injun, an' he looks too quiet an' keen to suit me. We'll have a
care of him."
"Must be playin' fer Mordaunt's gold."
"Like as not, for where'd them ruffians get any 'cept they stole it."
"Aha! They're gettin' up! See Legget walk away shakin' his big head.
He's mad. Mebbe he'll be madder presently," growled Jonathan.
"Case's left alone. He's countin' his winnin's. Jack, look out fer
more work took off our hands."
"By gum! See that Injun knock up a leveled rifle."
"I told you, an' thet redskin has his suspicions. He's seen us down
along ther ridge. There's Helen, sittin' behind the biggest tree. Thet
Injun guard, 'afore he moved, kept us from seein' her."
Jonathan made no answer to this; but his breath literally hissed
through his clenched teeth.
"Thar goes the other outlaw," whispered Wetzel, as if his comrade
could not see. "It's all up with Case. See the sneak bendin' down the
bank. Now, thet's a poor way. It'd better be done from the front,
walkin' up natural-like, instead of tryin' to cover thet wide stretch.
Case'll see him or hear him sure. Thar, he's up now, an' crawlin'.
He's too slow, too slow. Aha! I knew it—Case turns. Look at the
outlaw spring! Well, did you see thet little cuss whip his knife? One
more less fer us to quiet. Thet makes four, Jack, an' mebbe, soon,
it'll be five."
"They're holdin' a council," said Jonathan.
"I see two Injuns sneakin' off into the woods, an' here comes thet
guard. He's a keen redskin, Jack, fer we did come light through the
brush. Mebbe it'd be well to stop his scoutin'."
"Lew, that villain Case is bullyin' Helen!" cried Jonathan.
"Sh-sh-h," whispered Wetzel.
"See! He's pulled her to her feet. Oh! He struck her! Oh!"
Jonathan leveled his rifle and would have fired, but for the iron
grasp on his wrist.
"Hev you lost yer senses? It's full two hundred paces, an' too far fer
your piece," said Wetzel in a whisper. "An' it ain't sense to try
from here."
"Lend me your gun! Lend me your gun!"
Silently Wetzel handed him the long, black rifle.
Jonathan raised it, but trembled so violently that the barrel wavered
like a leaf in the breeze,
"Take it, I can't cover him," groaned Jonathan. "This is new to me. I
ain't myself. God! Lew, he struck her again!
Again!
He's tryin' to
kiss her! Wetzel, if you're my friend, kill him!"
"Jack, it'd be better to wait, an'—"
"I love her," breathed Jonathan.
The long, black barrel swept up to a level and stopped. White smoke
belched from among the green leaves; the report rang throughout
the forest.
"Ah! I saw him stop an' pause," hissed Jonathan. "He stands, he sways,
he falls! Death for yours, you sailor-beast!"
The bordermen watched Legget and his band disappear into the thicket
adjoining the grove. When the last dark, lithe form glided out of
sight among the yellowing copse, Jonathan leaped from the low cliff,
and had hardly reached the ground before Wetzel dashed down to the
grassy turf.
Again they followed the outlaw's trail darker-faced, fiercer-visaged
than ever, with cocked, tightly-gripped rifles thrust well before
them, and light feet that scarcely brushed the leaves.
Wetzel halted after a long tramp up and down the ridges, and surveyed
with keen intent the lay of the land ahead.
"Sooner or later we'll hear from that redskin as discovered us a ways
back," whispered he. "I wish we might get a crack at him afore he
hinders us bad. I ain't seen many keener Injuns. It's lucky we fixed
ther arrow-shootin' Shawnee. We'd never hev beat thet combination. An'
fer all of thet I'm worrin' some about the goin' ahead."
"Ambush?" Jonathan asked.
"Like as not. Legget'll send thet Injun back, an' mebbe more'n him.
Jack, see them little footprints? They're Helen's. Look how she's
draggin' along. Almost tuckered out. Legget can't travel many more
miles to-day. He'll make a stand somewheres, an' lose all his redskins
afore he gives up the lass."
"I'll never live through to-night with her in that gang. She'll be
saved, or dead, before the stars pale in the light of the moon."
"I reckon we're nigh the end for some of us. It'll be moonlight an
hour arter dusk, an' now it's only the middle of the arternoon; we've
time enough fer anythin'. Now, Jack, let's not tackle the trail
straight. We'll split, an' go round to head 'em off. See thet dead
white oak standin' high over thar?"
Jonathan looked out between the spreading branches of a beech, and
saw, far over a low meadow, luxuriant with grasses and rushes and
bright with sparkling ponds and streams, a dense wood out of which
towered a bare, bleached tree-top.
"You slip around along the right side of this meader, an' I'll take
the left side. Go slow, an' hev yer eyes open. We'll meet under thet
big dead tree. I allow we can see it from anywhere around. We'll leave
the trail here, an' take it up farther on. Legget's goin' straight
for his camp; he ain't losin' an inch. He wants to get in that rocky
hole of his'n."
Wetzel stepped off the trail, glided into the woods, and vanished.
Jonathan turned to the right, traversed the summit of the ridge,
softly traveled down its slope, and, after crossing a slow, eddying,
quiet stream, gained the edge of the forest on that side of the swamp.
A fringe of briars and prickly thorns bordered this wood affording an
excellent cover. On the right the land rose rather abruptly. He saw
that by walking up a few paces he could command a view of the entire
swamp, as well as the ridge beyond, which contained Wetzel, and,
probably, the outlaw and his band.