A \ B \ C \ D \ E \ F \ G \ H \ I \ J \ K \ L \ M \ N \ O \ P \ R \ S \ T \ U \ V \ W \Z

The Free Rangers by Joseph A. Altsheler

J >> Joseph A. Altsheler >> The Free Rangers




Many of the Indian canoes had been sunk by the explosion or the sweep of
the supply fleet, but it was easy for their occupants, if not seriously
wounded, to escape to the land, and they greatly increased the savage
swarm in the woods, chiefly on the north bank of the bayou. Henry and his
friends could hear their warning cries to one another, even their tread,
and they realized that their own skirmishers in the woods would be pressed
hard. Only a determined effort could hold back the horde long enough for
the men to reach the fleet.

While they stood there, seeking the best thing to do, two skirmishers
dashed up, breathless, both slightly wounded, and exclaiming that they
were pursued by a formidable force.

"Jump into the water!" cried Henry. "The boats are only a few yards away!
We'll hold back the savages!"

There were two plunks, as the skirmishers sprang into the Mississippi,
sinking a moment from sight, and then, as they reappeared, swimming
swiftly for the boats. Behind them came their pursuers in a swarm, but
they were driven back by the rifle fire of the little party from Kentucky.
Another skirmisher burst through the bushes, and, helped in the same way,
sprang into the Mississippi, swimming for the boats. Then came a fourth
and a fifth and everyone escaped as the others had done.

"It's well we came," said Henry. "This is not the least of our task. Lie
down, boys."

They stretched themselves on the damp earth, the great, yellow river close
behind them, and the forest in front swarming with the savage force. They
had expected other men who had landed to come to their aid, but the
parties had become separated in the darkness and confusion of the battle,
and they were left alone. Nevertheless a dauntless heart beat in every
breast, and they expected to hold that neck of land, which seemed to be a
channel for the pursued, until the last fugitive was safe.

Lying upon their faces, half supported by their elbows, they could load
and fire whenever they saw a hostile figure in front of them. Again and
again the pursuit of a skirmisher was driven back by these deadly
riflemen. Now and then a cannon shot fired from their own fleet whistled
over their heads and struck in the forest among their foes, but they paid
no attention to it. They were intent upon their own work and every faculty
was concentrated for the task.

They had the bayou on one side and a little bay of the river on the other,
and they could not be surrounded by land. The foe was always straight
before them, in a way, eye to eye, and there they sent bullets that rarely
missed.

A fever was in their blood, the long battle, its tremendous events, and
the new phase that it had now assumed, set every nerve to going. Certain
faculties useless for that crisis had become atrophied for the time. They
no longer heard the sounds of the cannon shots over their heads or the
shouts of the men on the boats, they saw and heard nothing but their own
battle and what lay directly in front of them.

The position was growing more dangerous. Their searching fire had drawn
upon them an enemy always increasing in numbers. The savages converged in
front of them in a semicircle, and their fire grew heavier and heavier.
Bullets whistled over them, struck the earth about them, or clipped their
clothing.

Another fugitive passed them and escaped, and then yet another. It was
evident that their task was not yet done, and they would not leave,
although the fire poured upon them, still increased in heat and the
bullets came in showers.

Presently the attack seemed to veer away from them somewhat, as if the
attention of the enemy were turned elsewhere, and Paul, who was at the end
of the line, crept forward a little in the thicket. The fever was still
burning in his veins and he was anxious to see what lay in front of him.
He did not hear the warning cries of his comrades, or, if hearing, he did
not heed them. He was still burning with the desire to see what lay there
in the depths of the forest. Paul, the scholar, the thinker, the future
statesman, had become transformed. In such a surcharged atmosphere he,
too, had turned into the primitive man, the fighter, the man who looks
upon every other man not proven a friend, as his natural enemy. The
bullets had ceased for the time being to whistle above his head and to
strike up the earth about him. He became conscious once more of the cannon
shots, shrieking over him, and the crash of the rifle fire came from right
and left.

A stick broke under Paul and he heard a shout in front of him. The shout
was so fierce, so fully charged with malice, that he sprang to his feet as
if he had been propelled by an electric shock. He stood face to face with
Don Francisco Alvarez, the plotter, the rebel, and leader of the attacking
army, a wild and terrible figure, clothes torn, bleeding from wounds, but
animated now by a savage joy. His pistol was leveled at the surprised
youth, and the next moment the deadly bullet would have been sped, but a
tall black-robed figure rose up from the bushes and threw Alvarez back.

"Francisco Alvarez, thou hast done crime enough already!" exclaimed the
priest.

Alvarez regained his balance, cast one look of hate at the man who had
intervened, and cried:

"Ha! it is you, priest, who have come in my way once more! Then go the way
of martyrdom!"

Turning his pistol he fired the bullet full into the black-robed chest,
and Father Montigny fell dying.

Paul stood still, unable to move. Every muscle in him was paralyzed by
this deed which seemed to him not murder alone, but sacrilege. Of all the
events of that terrible night this was the worst. But a man behind Paul,
retained every faculty, alive and alert. Up rose Shif'less Sol, his honest
face ablaze with wrath. His rifle flew to his shoulder, his finger pressed
the trigger, and the soul of Don Francisco Alvarez, grandee of Spain, sped
to judgment from the darkness and obscurity of the North American
wilderness.

"Come back, Paul! Come back!" cried Shif'less Sol, seizing the youth by
the shoulder.

"But Father Montigny is dying!" cried Paul, falling upon his knees beside
the priest. The tears ran down his cheeks and fell upon the pale face of
the dying man.

Paul and Father Montigny, Protestant and Catholic, young man and old, were
kindred spirits, and each had felt it from the first. In the soul of each
was the same mysticism, the same imaginative quality, the same spiritual
eye always looking into the future. It had occurred more than once to the
priest that, if he had remained outside the cloth, and had lived as other
men lived, he would have wished such a son as Paul.

Now he smiled and opened his eyes as he saw this beloved youth of his
later days weeping over him, as he lay in the forest with his death wound.
The one face that he wished most to see beside him, as he drew his last
breath, was there.

"Paul!" he said, "Paul, my son! Do not weep. It is the fate--in one form
or another--of all who travel in these woods--on such missions as mine. I
have long expected it--and I have often wondered that it has been delayed
so long. I escape, too, the torture--that more than one of my brethren has
suffered."

He reached out one hand, and put it lightly upon Paul's bare head. There
it lay and Paul felt it grow cold upon him.

"Come away, Paul," said the shiftless one gently. "The good priest is
dead. It's the livin' that need our help."

Bullets began to whistle from the thickets. The battle converged toward
them again, and Paul knew that he was needed to help the others hold the
little neck of land so important to all. A cannon shot shrieked over his
head, and then another. Once more they were the focus of the combat. The
forest in front of them sparkled as rapidly as before with beads of
flame.

Paul rose reluctantly and turned away. The priest lay on his back, his
face, pale and perfectly peaceful, upturned to the skies. Alvarez was a
dozen yards away, but his figure, still forever, was motionless in the
shadows. Paul did not bestow a glance upon him, but he gave Father
Montigny a last long look of affection and sorrow as he turned away.

"Down, Paul, down!" cried Henry, when Paul and Shif'less Sol reached the
others. "We saw what happened! You cannot do anything for him now!"

He dragged Paul down, and in an instant all of them turned their full
energy to the defense. The attack upon them was renewed with uncommon fire
and fury. The Indians and desperadoes wished to pass that particular neck
of land in order that they might pour a storm of bullets upon the crippled
fleet and the skirmishers who were yet coming in; but the little band,
headed by Henry Ware, still held them back.

Henry looked once or twice toward the river and saw the boats hovering far
out in the stream. He judged that, in the darkness and confusion, Adam
Colfax no longer knew where the Kentuckians lay, and it was even possible
that he might lose them entirely; but the fact did not shake Henry's
resolve. It was vital that they should hold the neck, and he intended to
do it. He and his comrades, lying close together, replied rapidly and with
deadly aim to the fire in front of them, forming a compact little body,
with blazing rifles, which the savage army was not yet able to displace.

The night darkened, there were signs of rain, induced perhaps, by so much
firing; the moon was completely hidden by gathering clouds; the river
became a black, flowing mass and the boats upon it blurred with its
surface, save when they leaped into the light in the blaze of a cannon
shot. The woods, too, seemed a solid, black wall, along the front of which
rifle shots sparkled in clusters.

"Good boys! good boys!" exclaimed Henry in low tones, surcharged with
excitement. He, too, had the mounting blood hot in his brain. All the old
primeval passion was flaming in him. But the fire of the enemy converged
nearer and nearer, and the bullets sang a ceaseless little song in his
ears as they passed. "Ah!" he exclaimed as one struck him in the arm. But
that was all he said. He went on with his loading and firing.

"Are you hit, Henry?" asked Shif'less Sol.

"A scratch! Nothing more! Look how Long Jim fights!"

Long Jim was almost flat upon his face, but the man, usually so mild and
good tempered, was now wholly possessed by the rage of combat. His long
thin figure fitted around the sinuosities of the earth, and he seemed to
have a curious gliding motion, sliding forward slowly to meet the enemy.
The darkness was nothing now to his accustomed eyes, and he sent his
bullets with sure aim toward the shadowy forms in the bushes in front of
them.

Long Jim forgot everything now but his rifle and the enemy there in the
thicket. He slid further and further, still drawing himself over the
ground in that terrible semblance of a serpent. Paul, seeing his face, was
frightened. "Jim! Jim!" he cried. "Stop!" But Long Jim slid slowly on. Tom
Ross said something, but it was lost in the whistling of a cannon shot
overhead.

They saw Long Jim stop the next moment, and Paul believed that he heard
him utter a little sigh. Long Jim's limbs contracted and straightened out
again with a jerk. Then he turned slowly over on his side and lay still, a
moment or two, after which he began to writhe violently. At the same time
he clapped his hand to his head and it came back red.

"Sol sometimes says I've a thick skull, an' 'ef so it's a good thing," he
muttered to himself.

He shook his head again and again, as if to clear it, and crept back to
his friends. There he tore off a portion of his deerskin hunting shirt,
tied it tightly around the wound, and went on with his firing.

"Don't be too enthusiastic, Jim," said Henry.

"I won't," replied Long Jim, "I'm cured."

Lower crouched the five, taking advantage of the bushes and little
hillocks, and sending a bullet every time they saw a flitting figure in
the forest in front of them. Behind them they could still hear the roar of
the combat on the river. The crackle of the rifles and the muskets was
steady in their ears, while now and then the note of a cannon boomed above
it, and a solid shot, curving over their heads, whizzed into the
thickets. But they paid little attention to the main battle; it was
merely a chorus, a background, as it were, for their own corner of the
struggle, which absorbed all their energies.

Their fire was so incessant, it was so well aimed, and it stung the allied
army so severely, that an increasing force was steadily concentrating in
front of them. Nor did they escape wholly unhurt. A bullet grazed Henry's
arm and another did the same for Shif'less Sol's shoulder; but neither
paid any attention to his wounds, loading and reloading, facing the enemy
with undiminished zeal and courage.

Its whole aspect was now a phantom battle to them all. The incessant crash
and roaring in their ears, and the smoke and vapor in their nostrils,
heated their brains and made everything look unreal. They were but
phantoms themselves, and the foes who leaped about in the forest were
phantoms, too. Darker and darker the clouds rolled up and the smoke and
vapors thickened in the forest, but through the blackness the lines of
flame still replied to each other.

Paul's excitement was so great that he could not keep himself down. He was
burning with fever, but passion seemed to be departing from him. He
thought that, if they were all to die, it was a privilege to die together.
He saw now the deep cool woods, a beautiful lake, and an island enclosed
within it, like a green gem in a blue setting. Paul's thoughts, and his
vision with them, were wandering into the past.

"Steady, Paul, steady!" said Henry. But Paul saw nothing now. A bullet,
singing merrily, gave him a leaden kiss, and he sank down very gently,
lying upon one arm, the red fast dyeing his buckskin hunting shirt.

Henry gave a cry when he saw Paul fall, and bent anxiously over his
friend. The light was faint, but the bullet seemed to have gone entirely
through the youth. Henry put his ear to his chest, and could hear his
heart still beating, though faintly.

"Hold 'em back!" he shouted to his friends, "and I'll help Paul!"

Shif'less Sol, Tom, and Long Jim, although overwhelmed with anxiety for
their young comrade, steadily turned their faces toward the foe, and
replied to his fire. Henry, while the bullets whistled above his head,
bent down and cut away Paul's hunting shirt. Yes, the bullet had gone
entirely through his body and it was lucky for Paul that it had done so.
No need now of the surgeon's probe. Henry bound up the wound tightly and
stopped the bleeding. Then he undertook to lift the lad; but Paul,
although still unconscious and a dead weight in his arms, groaned with
pain. Henry laid him gently back on the ground.

"Boys," he said, "Paul is too weak to be moved, and we've got to hold this
place until help comes or the enemy quits."

"I think the last skirmisher has escaped now," said Shif'less Sol, "but
here we stay."

He spoke for them all, and Henry, unable to do anything more for Paul,
turned his attention anew to the enemy. There was a sudden increase of the
firing in front. The clouds and vapors rolled back, and the dancing
figures in the thickets took on more semblance of reality. Suddenly Henry
uttered a cry. His eyes of almost preternatural keenness had recognized
one of the figures.

"What is it, Henry?" asked Shif'less Sol.

"Braxton Wyatt. He's in the thicket. I saw him a moment ago. I know his
face and figure too well to be mistaken."

"I saw him, too," replied the shiftless one. "O' course he's escaped the
bullets so fur. It's jest his luck."

"I think he knows we're here," said Henry, "and he's leading the attack on
us. But we'll never yield this ground and Paul to such a fellow."

"No!" said the others with one voice.

The clouds and vapors closed in again. The darkness rolled up in wave
after wave, and the renegade, leading on outlaw and red man, pressed the
attack; but the four met them with courage and spirit unshaken.

The clouds and vapors rolled over attack and defense, but through the
darkness fire answered fire. After a while the forest and the bayou, which
had witnessed such a desperate display of human energy, sank into darkness
and silence. The clouds, now in the zenith, began to give forth rain, but
it was a gentle, beneficent rain, and it fell silently on the faces of the
living and the dead alike.




CHAPTER XXII

THE CHOSEN TASK


Adam Colfax had gone through the battle unharmed, but that terrible night
left new gray in his hair. He was a religious man, and, when the rifle
fire died down in the forest and then went out, he uttered a devout prayer
of thankfulness. He and his train, on the whole, had come through better
than he had expected. There had been moments in the bayou when he thought
no mortal strength or skill could break the chain that bound them. But the
savage army and navy had been beaten off, and the core of his fleet was
saved. He could still go on to Pittsburgh with his precious cargo.

The trumpet was sounded again, and the boats, drawing together, began to
count their losses. It was a long sad count, but those who survived were
elated over their great victory.

It was then that Adam Colfax discovered the loss of the five who had
helped him so much. Some one had seen them spring ashore to protect the
escape of the skirmishers, and he ordered the fleet at once toward the
land to save them, or, if too late, to bring their bodies to the boat.

A dozen boats swung in toward the bank and that of Adam Colfax was
foremost. He was not conscious of the gentle rain, save that it felt
cooling and pleasant on his face after the heat and smoke of the battle.
Yet the brain of the stern New Hampshire man was still fevered, too. The
battle had ceased, but the roar of the cannon-shots and the crash of the
rifles yet echoed in his ears. The black forest that came down to the
water's edge, was full of mystery and terror, and his was no timid heart.
Smoke of the battle drifted among the trees or over the river, and the
rain did not drive it all away. In the far distance low thunder muttered,
and now and then flashes of heat lightning drew a belt of coppery red
along the dark horizon.

Adam Colfax, stern man that he was, shuddered. But he would not flinch. He
was the first to spring ashore. The forest assumed its most somber aspect.
The trees were weird and ghostly, and there was no sound at all but the
gentle drip, drip of the rain. Here the vapors and mists seemed to be
imprisoned by the boughs and foliage, and the odors were heavy and acrid.

He had landed upon a little neck of land, and some one remarked: "It was
here that the Kentuckians landed." But there was no sound in the forest
and the scouts had reported already that the enemy had gone away. A great
fear gripped at the heart of Adam Colfax. "They are all dead," he thought.

Men brought torches, as they no longer had any fear of sharpshooters; and
Adam Colfax, followed by twenty others, entered the forest. The wind rose
slightly and whipped the rain in his face, but he stepped into the
deepest shadow, and, taking a torch from one of the men, held it aloft
with his own hand. The light fell upon a little open space and, despite
himself, Adam Colfax uttered a cry.

A figure lay outstretched under the shelter of arching boughs and bushes,
and four more beside it were still and silent, leaning against a fallen
log. There was such an absolute lack of motion, that Colfax at first
thought that the soul of every one was sped.

"Good God! Dead! All dead!" he exclaimed.

But a great figure quickly uprose.

"No," said Henry Ware, a fine smile passing over his boyish face. "We beat
them off, and we're just resting and waiting. Only Paul is seriously hurt,
and so far we've been afraid to move him."

Shif'less Sol, Jim Hart, and Tom Ross rose, too, and shook the raindrops
from their clothes.

"We didn't have good shelter here," said Shif'less Sol, "but I think the
rain and its coolness have helped Paul."

Adam Colfax bent over the boy and, in the dawning light, made a critical
examination.

"He will live," he said. "We'd have come to your relief long ago, had we
known you were here."

"It was Braxton Wyatt who led the last attack against us," said Henry,
"and as usual, he has had the good luck to escape. At least, we can't find
his body here, and I haven't the slightest doubt that he's living to do
more mischief and that we'll meet him again."

It was true, and a diligent search revealed no trace of Wyatt. He had
escaped, fleeing North after the battle, to rejoin his old friends, the
Shawnees and Miamis.

Paul was lifted gently, after receiving treatment from the surgeon of the
fleet, and carried to a boat, where he regained consciousness. His wound
was severe, but his blood was so healthy that he would recover, according
to the surgeon, with great rapidity.

When all five were together, Adam Colfax said to them collectively:

"You did the most of all to save the fleet."

That was enough reward for them.

The body of Father Montigny was buried in the forest, and a little wooden
cross was put at his head, Christian burial was given to the body of
Alvarez, too, and the supply fleet prepared for a new start.

* * * * *

The fleet, two weeks later, was making its slow progress northward on the
Mississippi. The great river was in an uncommonly friendly mood. Its usual
yellow seemed silver in the brilliant morning light. Heavy masses of green
fringed either low shore, and keen pleasant odors came from the
wilderness.

Oliver Pollock, hearing of the battle of the bayou, had sent a second
detachment from New Orleans to replace the men and boats lost and the
ammunition shot away by the first, and now, stronger than ever, it
continued under the brave and skillful leadership of Adam Colfax, on its
great mission.

The five sat in the end of one of the largest boats, under the shade of a
sail. Paul's strength was fast coming back; he would not suffer the
slightest harm, and they were happy.

"This is jest the life fur a lazy man like me," said Shif'less Sol.
"Nothin' to do but go on an' on, with people to wait on you, an' say you
hev already done your part."

"We have had a wonderful escape," said Paul.

The face of the shiftless one became grave, even reverent.

"So we hev, Paul," he said. "Seems to me sometimes that we wuz spared fur
a purpose. We wouldn't hev come alive, every one of us, through all that,
ef it hadn't been intended that we should go on with the work that we are
doin', helpin' and defendin' our people the best we kin. I think we've
been chose."

"I think so, too," said Paul, "and here and now we should devote ourselves
to it, as long as it is needed. I want to do so. Are the rest of you
willing?"

"I am," said Henry with emphasis.

"And I!" said the shiftless one.

"And I!" said Tom Ross.

"And I!" said Long Jim.

"Amen!" said Paul.


THE END

Copyright (c) 2007. bestextbooks.com. All rights reserved.

Charles Major - "Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall"

Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841"

Nathaniel Hawthorne - "True Stories from History and Biography"

Stephen Field; George C. Gorham - "Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State"