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The Free Rangers by Joseph A. Altsheler

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"Tie up!" he shouted, and the boats were soon fastened to the bushes in
parallel rows on either side of the bayou. Then they hurried to make
shelter for themselves. The supplies were already covered. The skies were
now at the darkest, a solid circle of heavy black clouds. The lightning
and thunder alike ceased, and then, borne on the swift wind, came a mighty
rain. It was so heavy, so steady, and so searching that they were put to
their utmost labor and ingenuity to keep their precious cargo dry.

"If the rain were not so tremendously heavy I would look through the
forest to see if any enemies were about," said Henry to the leader.

Adam Colfax glanced up at the water which was falling in sheets and
laughed, a laugh of genuine relief from a great strain.

"Why, Henry," he said, "I don't believe that a man could keep his feet out
there in all that pelting flood long enough to go many miles. I wish I
was always as safe from attack as I feel now."

It was certainly far more comfortable in the boats than it could possibly
be in the sodden forest, where little lakes were already forming. In
addition, night, very dark, was coming on, and no cessation of the rain
was promised. It was useless, in the face of the deluge, to attempt to
build fires on the shore, and huddling in the boats under tarpaulins,
sails, and blankets, they ate cold food. But Adam Colfax, as a precaution,
allowed a little brandy to be served to every man.

"It's medicine in this case, boys," he said, "and you must look on it so.
I don't think you'll get any more."

Bye and bye the rain slackened a little. Some one began a line of a song,
but it did not catch. Nobody joined in, and the singer stopped. The
atmosphere was not favorable to any kind of music. The hours passed
slowly, but it was nearly midnight when the rain ceased, and a timid moon
came out to cast a few pale rays over a soaked and dripping forest. Most
of the men were now asleep under their covers, but not one of the five
slumbered, nor did Adam Colfax and a dozen others.

"Thank God, it's stopped at last!" said Adam Colfax devoutly--he was a
religious man, and his gratitude was not merely oral. "The clouds are
clearing away and I think we can soon see where we are."

"Yes, it will be much lighter soon," said Henry Ware, "but in the
meantime we are about to receive a visitor. Look!"

He pointed down the bayou toward the river. A light canoe was emerging
from the mists and shadows. It contained a single occupant, and came
straight on up the narrow channel.

The man who sat in the canoe was tall and thin and wrapped in a dripping
black robe. His head was bare and his gray hair fell in long, straight
locks. The moonlight fell directly upon his thin, ascetic face, and
something in the eyes that Adam Colfax saw, or thought he saw, sent a
thrill through him.

"Is it a ghost?" he asked of Henry Ware in an awed whisper.

At that moment the moonlight shifted and fell upon something metallic that
gleamed upon the breast of the mystic visitor.

"It is Father Montigny," said Henry. He, too, felt awe, not at any ghostly
apparition but because the priest had come suddenly at such a time.

"What does it portend?" was his silent thought.

Paddling with a strong hand the priest came straight toward them. The
moonlight continued to shine upon his face, and Henry thought that he read
there the impulse of a great mission.




CHAPTER XX

THE BATTLE OF THE BAYOU


The priest came directly to the boat, in which Henry Ware and Adam Colfax
were sitting--the remainder of the five were in the next boat--and held up
his hand as a sign of recognition and relief.

"Father Montigny!" said Henry.

"Yes, my son, it is I, and I give thanks to Heaven that I have found you
in time."

"What is it, father?" It seemed natural that at this moment Henry should
be the spokesman for the fleet.

"A great danger has closed upon you and all here."

"Alvarez?"

"Yes, he is the master spirit, but back of him are the allied tribes of
the south, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, even Osages from the west, and
others, and in addition there are two hundred desperate white men drawn
from all nations. Alvarez has promised to lead them to great spoil and
plunder. He is the buccaneer chief now and they will follow him. At
night-fall they surprised a French trading schooner tied to the shore for
safety, slaughtered those on board, and have now drawn the schooner
across the mouth of the bayou to shut you in. The vessel also carries four
bronze nine pounders which they will use against you. Outside in the
Mississippi is a great fleet of Indian war-canoes which has been above you
in the stream."

Adam Colfax paled a little.

"It seems," he said, "that when we thought we were pulling to safety we
were merely entering a trap."

"It was a trap," said Henry with energy, "but we're strong enough to break
any trap into which we may fall."

"That's so," said Adam Colfax.

"You may ask me how I knew all this," continued the priest. "I tell you
not what I have heard, but what I have seen. I was with the Choctaws, and
I sought to dissuade them from this campaign upon which they were
marching. I told them that Alvarez was mad with ambition and
disappointment, that he had rebelled against lawful authority, that he was
an outlaw and buccaneer, and that he could not keep his promises. My words
availed nothing. I continued with them, hoping still to dissuade them and
the other bands that met them, but still I failed.

"I was yet with the tribe when they met Alvarez and the wicked renegade,
the one Wyatt, and their men. Alvarez would have used force, he would have
driven me from the camp with heavy blows; even this, the white man who has
inherited Holy Church would have done, but the red men, born savages,
would not let him. Although they would not listen to me they let me stay,
unharmed. I witnessed, or rather heard, their attack upon you last night,
and their repulse has made them only the more eager for your destruction.
It has also united them the more firmly."

"When do you think they will attack us, Father Montigny?" asked Henry.

"That I cannot tell. I heard their plans, and I deemed it my duty to warn
you. A guard, one whom I have converted to our faith, let me slip away and
here I am."

"And our debt to you is still growing," said Henry. "As for myself, I
think the attack will come to-night, when they deem us disorganized and
beaten down by the storm."

"And so do I," said Adam Colfax. "We have no time to waste."

"May God preserve you," said the priest. "I have no desire to witness
scenes of slaughter but I trust, for the sake of yourselves, for the sake
of Bernardo Galvez, the good Governor General of Louisiana, and for the
welfare of this region, that you may beat them off. But the contest will
be fierce and bloody."

A young man, at the order of Adam Colfax, sounded a trumpet, a low
thrilling call that aroused the men from their brief sleep, and the word
was quickly passed that they were blockaded in the bayou, and that the
hordes were advancing to a new attack. They grumbled less now than at the
storm. Here was a danger that they knew how to meet. Battle had been a
part of all their lives, and they did not fear it.

The moonlight increased, the forest was dripping, but there was a noise
now of bullet clinking against bullet, of the ramrod sent home in the
rifle barrel, and of men talking low.

Adam Colfax called a conference in his boat. His best lieutenants and the
five were present. Should they await the attack or advance to meet it? In
any event, the fleet must escape from the bayou, and the nearer they were
to the river when the battle occurred the better it would be for them.

"Ef we know thar's a danger," said Tom Ross, "the best thing fur us to do
is to go to it, an' lay hold uv it."

The vote on Tom's suggestion was unanimous in its favor, and the fleet
once more began to move. A small force of riflemen marched on either bank
in order to uncover possible skirmishers.

The advance was very slow and in silence save for the dip of the oars and
the paddles. The moonlight grew stronger and stronger, and they could now
see a good distance on the deep, still bayou.

The five had remained in the leading boats and they watched closely for
sight or sound of the hostile force, but as yet eye and ear told nothing.
The trees now grew close to the water's edge and, looped heavily with
trailing vines, they presented a black wall on either side. But they had
no fear of shots from such a source, as they knew that the trusty
riflemen going in advance would clear out any skirmishers who might have
hidden themselves there.

Paul was beside Henry. Near him was Long Jim and in the boat next to them
was Shif'less Sol and Tom Ross. At this moment, which they felt to be
heavy with import, it was good to be together. Paul in particular, Paul,
the impressionable and imaginative, looked around at the familiar figures
in the clearing moonlight, and drew strength and comfort from their near
presence.

The dark fleet moved slowly on, cutting the deep still waters of the bayou
with almost noiseless keel. The men had ceased whispering. Now and then an
oar splashed or the water gave back the echo of a paddle's dip, but little
else was heard. All looked straight ahead.

Suddenly they saw in the middle of the bayou, about a hundred yards before
them, a small, black shape, so low that it seemed to blend with the water.
It was an Indian canoe, the first outpost of the savage force, and its
occupant, promptly firing a rifle, raised a long, warning shout. In an
instant the woods on either side began to crackle with rifle-fire.
Skirmishers had met skirmishers, and the battle of the bayou had begun.

"Press on! Press on! We must cut through somehow!" cried Adam Colfax, and
the American fleet moved steadily and unfalteringly on toward its goal.
They came now to the narrowest part of the bayou, and stretched across it
they saw a dark line of canoes, all crowded with Indians and the
desperadoes of Alvarez. Behind them heaved up the dark bulk of the
captured schooner.

The battle blazed in an instant into volume and fury. Two lines of fire
facing each other were formed across the bayou, one bent upon pushing
forward, the other bent upon holding it back. These lines, moreover,
stretched far into the woods on either bank, where sharpshooters lay, and
both sides shouted at intervals as the blood in their veins grew hot.

The dark hulk of the schooner suddenly burst into spots of flame, and the
woods and waters echoed with heavy reports. The captured nine pounders
were now helping to block the passage, but the brass twelve pounders on
the supply fleet replied. Steadily the fire of both sides grew in volume
and the lines came closer and closer together.

The moonlight faded again and little clouds of smoke began to rise. These
clouds gradually grew bigger, then united into one heavy opaque mass that
hung over the combatants. Strips of vapor were detached from it and
floated off into the forest. A sharp, pungent odor, the smell of burnt
gunpowder, filled the nostrils of the men and added to the fire that
burned in their veins.

This, the largest battle yet fought in the southern woods, had a somber
and unreal aspect to Paul. All around them now was the encircling
darkness. Only the area in which the battle was fought showed any light,
but here the flashes of the firing were continuous and intense. The crash
of the rifles never ceased. Now and then it rose to greater volume and
then fell again, but rising or falling it always went on, while over it
boomed the big guns answering one another in defiant notes of thunder.

The schooner was the most formidable obstacle to the passage. It lay full
length across the narrow bayou and, even if the boats of the supply fleet
should reach it, there was little room to pass on either side. From its
decks the nine pounders were fired fast and often with precision, and the
majority of the Spaniard's desperate band found shelter there also, firing
with rifles, muskets, and pistols. Others sent bullets, also, from the
comparative security of port holes. The possession of the schooner gave
them a great advantage and they did not neglect it. Now and then they sent
up fierce yells, the war-cries of the West Indian pirates, and their
Indian allies answered them with their own long-drawn, high pitched whoop,
so full of ferocity and menace. Both looked forward to nothing less than
complete triumph.

The space between the combatants was lighted up by the incessant flash of
the firing. Little jets of water where a missent bullet struck were
continually spouting up, and then would come a bigger one when a cannon
ball plunged into the depths of the bayou.

Paul suddenly heard a heavy impact, a crash, as of ripping wood, and a
cry. A canoe near them had been struck by a cannon ball, and practically
broken in half. It sank in an instant, and one of the men in it, wounded
in the arm, and crippled, was sinking a second time, when Paul sprang
into the water and helped him into their own boat. But not all the wounded
were so fortunate. Some sank, to stay, and the dark night battle, far more
deadly than that of the night before, reeled to and fro.

The combat at first had been more of a spectacle than anything else to
Paul. The extraordinary play of light and darkness, the innumerable
shadows and flashes on the surface of the bayou, the black tracery of the
forest on either bank, the red beads of flame from the rifle fire
appearing and re-appearing, made of it all a vast panorama for him. There
were the sounds, too, the piratical shout, hoarse and menacing, the Indian
whoop, shriller and with more of the wild beast's whine in it, the fierce,
sharp note of the rifle fire, steady, insistent, and full of threat, and
over it the heavy thudding of the great guns.

It was Paul's eye and ear at first that received the deep impression, but
now the aspect of a panorama passed away and his soul was stirred with a
fierce desire to get on, to cut through the hostile line, to crush down
the opposition, and to reach the full freedom of the wide river. He began
to hate those men who opposed them, the fire of passion that battle breeds
was surely mounting to his head. Unconsciously, Paul, the scholar and
coming statesman, the grave quiet youth, began to shout and to hurl
invectives at those who presumed to hold them back. The barrel of his
rifle grew hot in his hand with constant loading and firing, but he did
not notice it. He still, at imminent risk to himself, sent his bullets
toward the dark line of Indian canoes and the flashing hulk of the ship
behind them.

The supply fleet was beginning to suffer severely. A number of boats and
canoes had been sunk and nearly a score of men had been killed. Many more
were wounded and, despite all this loss, they had made no progress. The
fire from the bank, moreover, was beginning to sting them and to stop it
Adam Colfax landed more men. The increased force of the Americans on the
shore served the purpose but they were still unable to force the mouth of
the bayou. The schooner seemed to be fixed there and she never ceased to
send a storm of bullets and cannon balls at them.

Adam Colfax had a slight wound in the arm, but his slow cold blood was now
at the boiling point.

"We've got to force that schooner!" he cried. "We've got to take her, if
it has to be done with boarders! We can never get by unless we do it!"

But the loss of life even if the attempt were a success, would be
terrible. That was apparent to everybody and Henry made a suggestion.

"Let's concentrate our whole fire upon the ship," he said. "Mass the
cannon and the rest of us will back them up with our rifles. Maybe we can
silence her, and if we do then's the time to take her by storm."

The supply fleet drew back and its fire died. It seemed, in truth, as if
it were beaten and that, hemmed in by fire, as it were in the narrow
bayou, it must surrender. A tremendous shout of triumph burst forth from
the men on the schooner, and the Indians took it up in a vast and shriller
but more terrible chorus.

Then came one of those sudden and ominous silences that sometimes occur in
a battle. The fire of the Americans ceasing, that of their enemies ceased
for the moment also. But the pause was more deadly and menacing in its
stillness than all the thunder and shouting of the combat had been. It
seemed unnatural to hear again the sighing of the wind through the forest
and the quiet lap of water against the shore. The bank of smoke, no longer
increased from below, lifted, thinned, broke up into patches, and began to
float away. The moon's rays shot through the mists and vapors once more,
and lighted up the watery battlefield of the night, the schooner, the
desperate men on it, the swarms of canoes, the coppery, high-cheeked faces
of the Indians, the supply fleet packed now in a rather close mass, the
tanned faces of the men on board it, animated by the high spirit of daring
and enterprise, the wounded lying silent in the boats, and the wreckage
floating on the bayou.

But the stillness endured for only a few moments. It was broken by the
American fleet, which seemed to draw itself together into closer and more
compact form. An order in a low tone, but sharp and precise, was carried
from boat to boat, and it seemed to strengthen the men anew, heart and
body. They straightened up, signs of exhaustion passed from their faces,
and every one made ready all the arms that he had.

Paul, like the others, had felt the sudden silence, but perhaps most
acutely of all. His whole imaginative temperament was on fire. He knew--he
would have known, even had he not heard--that the sudden cessation of the
firing was merely preliminary, a fresh drawing of the breath as it were
for another and supreme effort. He clasped his hands to his temples, where
the pulses were beating rapidly and heavily, and his face burned as if in
a fever. But it was a fever of the mind not of the body.

"It's a big battle, Paul," said Shif'less Sol, who had come with Tom Ross
into their boat, "but it's wuth it. The arms and other things that we
carry in these boats may be wuth millions an' millions to the people who
come after us."

"Do you think we'll ever break through, Sol?" asked Paul.

"Shorely," replied the shiftless one. "Henry's got the plan, and we're
goin' to cut through like a wedge druv through a log. Something's got to
give. Up, Paul, with your gun! Here she goes ag'in!"

The battle suddenly burst forth afresh and with greater violence. All the
American twelve pounders were now in a row at the head of the fleet, and
one after another, from right to left and then from left to right and over
and over again, they began to fire with tremendous rapidity and accuracy
at the schooner. All the best gunners were around the twelve pounders. If
one fell, another took his place. Many of them were stripped to the waist,
and their own fire lighted up their tan faces and their brown sinewy arms
as they handled rammer and cannon shot.

The fire of the cannon was supported by that of scores and scores of
rifles, and the enemy replied with furious energy. But the supply fleet
was animated now by a single purpose. The shiftless one's simile of a
wedge driven into a log was true. No attention was paid to anybody in the
hostile boats and canoes. They could fire unheeded. Every American cannon
and rifle sent its load straight at the schooner. All the upper works of
the vessel were shot away. The men of Alvarez could not live upon its
decks; they were even slain at the port holes by the terrific rifle fire;
cannon shot, grape shot, and rifle bullets searched every nook and corner
of the vessel, and her desperate crew, one by one, began to leap into the
water and make for the shores.

A shout of exultation rose from the supply fleet, which was now slowly
moving forward. Flames suddenly burst from the schooner and ran up the
stumps of her masts and spars, reaching out long arms and laying hold at
new points. The cannon shots had also reached the inside of the ship as
fire began to spout from the port holes, and there was a steady stream of
men leaping from the schooner into the water of the bayou and making for
the land.

The American shout of exultation was repeated, and the forest gave back
the echo. The Indians answered it with a fierce yell of defiance, and the
forest gave back that, too.

But Adam Colfax had been watching shrewdly.

In his daring life he had been in more than one naval battle, and when he
saw the schooner wrapped and re-wrapped in great coils and ribbons of
flame he knew what was due. Suddenly he shouted in a voice that could be
heard above the roar of the battle:

"Back! Back, all! Back for your lives!"

It reached the ears of everybody in the American fleet, and whether he
understood its words or not every man understood its tone. There was an
involuntary movement common to all. The fleet stopped its slow advance,
seemed to sway in another direction, and then to sit still on the water.
But all were looking at the schooner with an intense, fascinated, yet
horrified gaze.

Nobody was left on the deck of the vessel but the dead. The huge,
intertwining coil of fiery ribbons seemed suddenly to unite in one great
glowing mass, out of which flames shot high, sputtering and crackling.
Then came an awful moment of silence, the vessel trembled, leaped from the
water, turned into a volcano of fire and with a tremendous crash blew up.

The report was so great that it came rolling back in echo after echo, but
for a few moments there was no other sound save the echo. Then followed a
rain of burning wood, many pieces falling in the supply fleet, burning and
scorching, while others fell hissing in the forest on either shore.
Darkness, too, came over land and water. All the firing had ceased as if
by preconcerted signal, though the combatants on either side were awed by
the fate of the vessel. The smoke bank came back, too, thicker and heavier
than before, and the air was filled with the strong, pungent odor of
burnt gunpowder.

But the schooner that had blocked the mouth of the bayou was gone forever
and the way lay open before them. Adam Colfax recovered from the shock of
the explosion.

"On, men! On!" he roared, and the whole fleet, animated by a single
impulse, sprang forward toward the mouth of the bayou, the cannon blazing
anew the path, the gunners loading and firing, as fast as they could. But
the simile of the shiftless one had come true. The wedge, driven by
tremendous strokes, had cleft the log.

The Indian fleet, many of the boats containing white men, too, closed in
and sought to bar the way, but they were daunted somewhat by their great
disaster, and in an instant the American fleet was upon them cutting a
path through to the free river. Boat often smashed into boat, and the
weaker, or the one with less impulse, went down. Now and then white and
red reached over and grasped each other in deadly struggle, but, whatever
happened, the supply fleet moved steadily on.

It was to Paul a confused combat, a wild and terrible struggle, the climax
of the night-battle. White and red faces mingled before him in a blur, the
water seemed to flow in narrow, black streams between the boats and the
pall of smoke was ever growing thicker. It hung over them, black and
charged now with gases. Paul coughed violently, but he was not conscious
of it. He fired his rifle until it was too hot to hold. Then he laid it
down, and seizing an oar pulled with the energy of fever.

When the boats containing the cannon were through and into the river, they
faced about and began firing over the heads of the others into the huddled
mass of the enemy behind. But it was only for a minute or two. Then the
last of the supply fleet; that is, the last afloat, came through, and the
gap that they had made was closed up at once by the enemy, who still hung
on their rear and who were yet shouting and firing.

The Americans gave a great cheer, deep and full throated, but they did not
pause in their great effort. Boats swung off toward either bank of the
bayou's mouth. The skirmishers in the bushes who had done such useful work
must be taken on board. Theirs was now the most dangerous position of all,
pursued as they certainly would be by the horde of Indians and outlaws,
bent upon revenge.

The boat containing the five was among those that touched the northern
side of the bayou's mouth, and everyone of them, rifle in hand, instantly
sprang ashore.




CHAPTER XXI

THE DEFENSE OF THE FIVE


Henry Ware was the first on land, Shif'less Sol came just behind him, and
then the other three. The boat from which they had leaped, and which now
contained but two oarsmen, swung back a little into the stream, and in a
moment the darkness, closing down, shut it from view. They stood in a
patch of undergrowth and the battle still flamed around them on the bayou,
on the river, and in the woods. It was now fiercest in the forest, which
crackled with the rifle shots and the sound of singing bullets.
Innumerable jets of flame sparkled here and there, and then went out, to
be succeeded instantly by others.

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