The Hunters of the Ozark

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

  CHAPTER XXV.

  THE SIGNAL FIRE.

  Deerfoot the Shawanoe remained in the vicinity of the Winnebago campuntil the warriors made their start at an early hour the followingmorning. He took more than one survey of the red men, who gathered aboutthe blazing fire and talked over the remarkable events of the night. Hecould easily have slain every one of the scouts whom they kept movingthrough the wood, but he had no wish to do so.

  He heard and saw enough to convince him that they intended to make anattack on the camp in the mountains, but he did not feel absolutely surethat they would not turn aside and follow in the path of the Wolf andWau-ko-mia-tan, until the party had advanced several miles to thesouthward along the Ozark trail.

  It seemed strange that the Winnebagos paid no attention to the twomissing warriors, and yet, after all, it was not singular. They knewthey were dead and it was therefore a waste of time to give heed tothem. If by any possibility they were alive, they must take care ofthemselves, just as all brave Indians did: if unable to do so, theconsequences must be on their own heads.

  So the ten Winnebagos, under the lead of the famous chieftain BlackBear, moved along the trail in the direction of the camp of the Huntersof the Ozark, and the expressions and words that had been overheard bythe watchful Shawanoe, left no doubt that by way of revenge they meantto slay the three trappers who had located there for the winter.

  The Winnebagos came from the north-east. Their lodges, villages andhunting grounds were many moons' travel away, and the section of countrythrough which they were journeying was so sparsely settled that they hadno fear of pursuit. Now, when you give an American Indian the chance tocommit some vicious mischief with no fear of being made to paytherefor, you may set it down as a truth that nine hundred andninety-nine out of every one thousand will commit that crime. It was amatter of indifference, in the first place, whether they harmed thehunters or not. Since the latter were removed some distance from theirpath, it is probable that they would not at that time have taken thetrouble to go in quest of them: it was the feeling of revenge that wasthe deciding weight in the scale.

  Let us recall the situation as it was on the second morning after FredLinden and Terry Clark left their homes in Greville. The boys themselveswere the furthest advanced along the trail to the mountains, while at aconsiderable distance behind, filed the ten Winnebago warriors, andhovering in the vicinity was Deerfoot the Shawanoe, watching everymovement with the vigilance of a lynx.

  Whenever he chose he could make a circuit around the Winnebagos, andjoining the boys beyond, hasten to the hunters' camp and apprise them oftheir danger; but there remained an abundance of time in which to dothat, and he did not wish to leave the vicinity of the enemies until hesaw a little more of them.

  It was evident that the Winnebagos were in no hurry. They must haveknown that two of the youths were following the trail in advance, forthe heavy shoes of the lads could not fail to leave their imprints inmany places; but, such being the case, the red men might ask in whatmanner they could know that a party of Winnebagos were following them,unless such knowledge came through Deerfoot the Shawanoe, who, whereverhe might be, certainly was not in front of them.

  When the Indians came to a stream of water, they did not rush in andwade or swim to the other side, as they would have done had there beenany call for haste, but like those who had gone before, they stoppedlong enough to make a raft on which they could float across. TheAmerican Indian is not as fond of water as he should be, and though theWinnebagos would have cared little for the chill of the stream, it wasmore pleasant for them to pass over dry shod; so they made their severalrafts and poled themselves to the opposite bank.

  You would not look for humor under such circumstances, and yet on one ofthe three rafts there was so much of it shown that even the grimShawanoe smiled.

  The structures on which the red men floated were, as a matter of course,of the frailest nature, intended as they were to last only long enoughto bear them to the other shore. With proper management, all would havedone this, but on one of the rafts holding four of the warriors, therewas an aboriginal wag. A single Indian managed the pole, while theothers squatted carefully in their respective positions and wereexpected to keep quiet, so as not to disintegrate the frail structure.

  The wag to whom I have referred, while sitting with an innocentexpression on his painted countenance, quietly loosened the two or threewithes, and gave the logs such an impetus that they separated like twobodies positively charged with electricity, when brought together. Thewarrior who handled the pole was standing with legs somewhat apart,resting on a different log, when they suddenly separated still more, andhe sat down with a splash in the water. Another log revolved backwards,as did the savage who was sitting on it, while the others were alsoplashing in the stream, which was not deep enough to make them swim,though it came to the neck of the shortest one. The four warriors wadedto shore amid the grins of the others, and with no suspicion of thecriminal that had played the trick upon them.

  The next stream was reached by the Indians a couple of hours later. Thiswas not as deep as the other and they did not stop to make rafts. Aftera little searching, they found a portion where the current did not comeabove their knees and they waded.

  In doing so, Black Bear took the lead, and, in accordance with a customuniversal among Indians, each warrior carefully stepped into thefootprints in front of him. The water was so limpid that the impressionmade by the chieftain's moccasin was plainly shown, so that there was nodifficulty in this respect. Had a person been trailing them, he wouldhave seen before him what seemed to be the footprints of a single man.There was but a slight variation near the further shore, where themoccasin of one of the Winnebagos had slid from a stone on which, likeall the others, it was placed. The brown stone was slippery with a faintcoating of slime, and the scrape of the deerskin down the side gave it awhite gleam like the belly of a fish. It was a "slip" in every sense,and, when the slight splash announced it, Black Bear at the head of theprocession turned about with his most impressive scowl.

  The party made a halt on the other bank. It was considerably past noon,and, while some busied themselves in starting a fire, and a couple beganfishing in the stream, two others going into the woods with their guns,Deerfoot was quite sure that they had decided to spend an hour or so fordinner. He concluded, however, to follow the two who went into thewoods, and it was fortunate that he did so.

  The first surprise that came to him was when the Winnebagos had gonenearly an eighth of a mile from camp. All this time they were makingtheir way up quite a steep slope, so that they were close to the top ofa high, wooded ridge.

  The Shawanoe might well wonder why they had taken such a course, butwhen two frightened deer burst through the undergrowth and dashed by atfull speed, within easy gun shot, and the Winnebagos looked at themwithout raising their guns to fire, then it was that Deerfoot wasgenuinely astonished.

  The conclusion was inevitable that these red men were not looking forgame.

  With a suspicion of their real errand (and that caused anothersurprise), Deerfoot stealthily followed the Winnebagos until they pausedon the highest part of the ridge. He was not long kept in doubt as totheir business.

  The top of the ridge was almost bare. There were a few stunted trees, anumber of bowlders and rocks, and here and there, patches of scragglygrass. From this elevation, however, a magnificent view opened out onevery hand before the spectator. To the north stretched the undulatingcountry covered with prairie, stream, valley and forest, the lastbrilliant with all the gorgeous hues that come with the frosts ofautumn.

  These flaming colors were visible in whatever direction the eye turned,and the same varied surface was seen everywhere, but to the southward,the Ozark Mountains had a faint bluish tinge, like a mass of cloudsresting in the horizon. It was in that direction that the camp of thehunters lay, and thither the footsteps of pale face and redskin weredirected.

  The two Winnebagos spent only a minute or so in scanning
the surroundingcountry, when they began gathering wood, until they had quite a pile. Aquantity of leaves, some of which were damp, was mixed among the twigs,so that when with a little trouble they were fired by means of the flintand steel in the hands of one of the red men, the fuel did not burnclearly but gave off considerable dark smoke, which was what theWinnebagos wanted.

  As soon as the fire was fairly burning, one of the Indians flung hisblanket over it, his friend seizing the other part, while both held itthus until it was in danger of taking fire or smothering the flames. Hadthe coarse cloth been a little more cleanly it is likely that it wouldhave been burned, but as it was it strangled the blaze until it may besaid there were several bushels of smoke gathered beneath and the emberswere at their last gasp.

  At that moment, the Indians raised the blanket so that they stoodupright, and plenty of fresh air was allowed to feed the blaze. Thenthey slowly waved the blanket between them, sometimes lowering it untilit was scorched by the sleepy flames, and then elevating it above theirheads. All the time, they manipulated the blanket, sometimes straight upand down, sometimes diagonally, and indeed, in every possible way.

  The result of all this varied swinging was that the black column ofvapor which slowly climbed the sky, was broken into circles, spiralcurves, and all sorts of odd-shaped figures, which did not dissolve forseveral minutes in the clear air above.

  I need not tell you what this meant, for in another place I havedescribed the same thing. It was a signal fire intended by theWinnebagos for the eyes of a party of friends who were too far off to bereached in any other way. Deerfoot had seen such telegraphy many a timeand oft, and more than once he had used it. He could interpret such asignal when made by a Shawanoe, Wyandotte, Sauk or Fox, but he had neverlearned the code in use by the Winnebago military authorities.

  However, it was not possible that there was any very fine shade ofmeaning in the various manipulations of the two warriors. Keen brainedas is the American Indian, he is unable to do a great many things withwhich he is credited: one of these is to do more than telegraph thesimplest messages by means of fire, though it is beyond question thatimportant tidings has been flashed hundreds of miles in a single night,from mountain top to mountain top, by means of the signal fires of theIndians.

  What disturbed Deerfoot was this proof that there was a second party ofWinnebagos in that section of the country. He had not dreamed of such athing, and it might well cause him alarm, that is, for the three men whowere so intent on gathering their furs comparatively a short distanceaway.

  Carefully screening himself from observation, the Shawanoe lookedintently in the direction of the gaze of the Winnebagos. He saw thatthey were not peering at any other ridge, but at the broad low valley tothe north-west. They had not long to look when they detected a thinbluish column of smoke creeping upward among the tree tops anddissolving in the clear air above.

  Deerfoot also saw it, and he knew that it was a reply to the firstsignal. There was another party of Winnebagos in the neighborhood; theywould soon join Black Bear's party, and there was no time for delay.Indeed, but for the discovery he had made, the Shawanoe would have feltthat he had tarried too long already.

  It was not far now to the camp of the Hunters of the Ozark, and it wasperilous to wait to warn them. Every hour counted. Not only that, but,as you can readily see, Fred Linden and Terry Clark were in stillgreater danger.