XXI
HOW WE KEPT LENTEN VIGILS IN TRINITYTIDE
'Twould weary you beyond the limit of good-nature were I to try topicture out at large the varied haps and hazards of our wanderings inthe savage wilderness. For the actors in any play the trivial detailshave their place and meaning momentous enough, it may be; yet these areoften wearisome to the box or stall yawning impatiently for the climax.
So, if you please, you are to conceive us four, the strangestill-assorted company on the footstool, pushing on from day to day deeperand ever deeper into the pathless forest solitudes, yet always with theplain-marked trail to guide us.
At times the march measured a full day's length amid the columned aislesof the forest temple through lush green glades dank and steaming in theAugust heat, or over hillsides slippery with the fallen leaves of thepine-trees. Anon it traced the crooked windings of some brawlingmountain stream through thicket tangles where, you would think, nowoman-ridden horse could penetrate.
One day the sun would shine resplendent and all the columned distanceswould fill with soft suffusings of the gray and green and gold, withhere and there a dusky flame where the sweet-gum heralded the autumn,whilst overhead the leafy arches were fine-lined traceries andarabesques against the blue. But in the night, mayhap, a dismal rainwould come, chill with the breath of the nearing mountains; and then thetrees turned into dripping sprinkling-pots to drench us where we lay,sodden already with the heaviness of exhaustion.
Since the hasting pursuit was a thing to tap the very fountain-head offortitude and endurance, we fared on silent for the better part; and ina little time the hush of the solitudes laid fast hold of us, scantingus of speech and bidding us go softly. And after this the march became asoundless shadow-flitting, and we a straggling file of voicelessmechanisms wound up and set to measure off the miles till famine orexhaustion should thrust a finger in among the wheels and bid them stopforever.
This was the loom on which we wove the backward-reaching web ofstrenuous onpressing. But through that web the scarlet thread of famineshuttled in and out, and hunger came and marched with us till all thedays and nights were filled with cravings, and we recked little of fairskies or dripping clouds, or aught besides save this ever-presentspecter of starvation.
You will not think it strange that I should have but dim and mistymemories of this fainting time. Of all privations famine soonest bluntsthe senses, making a man oblivious of all save that which drives himonward. The happenings that I remember clearest are those which turnedupon some temporary bridging of the hunger gulf. One was Yeates'skilling of a milch doe which, with her fawn, ran across our path when wehad fasted two whole days. By this, a capital crime in any hunter'scode, you may guess how cruelly we were nipped in the hunger vise. Also,I remember this: as if to mock us all the glades and openings on thehillsides were thicketed with berry bushes, long past bearing. And,being too late for these, we were as much too early for the nuts of thehickory and chestnut and black walnut that pelted us in passing.
The doe's meat, coming at a time of sharpest need, set us two daysfarther on the march; and when that was spent or spoiled we did as wecould, being never comfortably filled, I think, and oftener haggard andenfeebled for the want of food. Since we dared not stop to go aside forgame, the Catawba would set over-night snares for rabbits; and foranother shift we cut knobbed sticks for throwing and ran keen-eyed alongthe trace, alert to murder anything alive and fit to eat. In thishaphazard hunting nothing ever fell to Jennifer's skilless clubbing, orto mine; but the old borderer and the Indian were better marksmen, andnow and then some bird or squirrel or rabbit sitting on its form came tothe pot, though never enough of all or any to more than sharpen thefamine edge of hunger.
For all the sharp privations of the forced march there was no hint onany lip of turning back. With Margery's desperate need to key us to theunflinching pitch, Richard and I would go on while there was strength toset one foot before the other. But for the old borderer and the Indianthere was no such bellows to blow the fire of perseverance. None theless, these two did more than second us; they set the strenuous pace andheld us to it; the Catawba Spartan-proud and uncomplaining; the oldhunter no whit less tireless and enduring. At this far-distant day I canclose my eyes and see the gaunt, leather-clad figure of Ephraim Yeates,striding on always in the lead and ever pressing forward, tough, wiryand iron to endure, and yet withal so elastic that the shrewdestdiscouragement served only to make him rebound and strike the harder.Good stuff and true there was in that old man; and had Richard or I beenless determined, his fine and noble heroism in a cause which was not hisown would have shamed us into following where he led.
We had been ten days in this starving wilderness, driving onward at thepace that kills and making the most of every hour of daylight, beforeYeates and the Indian began to give us hope that we were finally closingin upon our quarry.
The dragging length of the chase grew upon two conditions. From thebeginning the kidnappers were able to increase their lead by stretchingout the days and borrowing from the nights; also, they were doubtlesswell provisioned, and they had horses for the captives and theirimpedimenta. But as for us, we could follow only while the daylight letus see the trail; and though we ran well at first, the lack of properfood soon took toll of speed.
So now, though the hoof prints grew hourly fresher, and we were at lastso close upon the heels of the kidnappers that their night camp-fireswere scarcely cold when we came upon them, we ran no longer--couldhardly keep a dogged foot-pace for the hunger pains that griped and bentus double.
The tenth day, as I well remember, was furnace-hot, as were all thefair-weather days of that never-to-be-forgotten summer, with a still airin the forest that hung thick and lifeless like the atmosphere of anoven; this though we were well among the mountains and rising higherwith every added mile of westering.
The sun had passed the meridian, and we were toiling, sweaty-weak, up arock-strewn mountain side, when a thing occurred to rouse us roughlyfrom the famine stupor and set us watchfully alert. In the steepest partof the ascent where the wood, scanted of rooting ground by the thicklysown strewing of boulders, was open and free of undergrowth, EphraimYeates halted suddenly, signed to us with upflung hand, and droppedbehind a tree as one shot; and in the same breath the Catawba, runningat Yeates's heels, lurched aside and vanished as if the earth had gapedand swallowed him.
A moment later the twang of a bow-string buzzed upon the breathlessnoontide stillness, and Jennifer clutched and dragged me down in goodtime to let the arrow whistle harmless over us. Then, like a distortedecho of the buzzing bow-string, the sharp crack of the old borderer'srifle rang out smartly, setting the cliff-crowned mountain side alla-clamor with mocking repetitions.
"Missed him, slick and clean, by the eternal coon-skin!" growled themarksman, sitting up behind his tree to reload. "That there's what comeso' being so dad-blame' hongry that ye can't squinch fair atween thegun-sights. I reckon ez how ye'd better hunker down and lie clost, youtwo. 'Twouldn't s'prise me none if that redskin had a wheen more o' themsharp-p'inted sticks in his--The Lord be praised for all His marcies!the chief's got him!"
But Uncanoola had not. He came in presently, his black eyes snappingwith disappointment, saying in answer to Yeates's question that the yellhad been his own; that his tomahawk had sped no truer than the oldborderer's bullet.
"Chelakee snake heap slick: heap quick dodge," was all we could get outof him; and when that was said he squatted calmly on a flat stone andfell to work grinding the nick out of the edge of the mis-sped hatchet.
This incident told us plainly enough that the kidnappers were now but alittle way ahead, and that their rear-guard scouts were holding us wellin hand. So from that on we went as men whose lives are held in pawn bya hidden foe, looking at every turn for an ambushment. Nevertheless, wewere not waylaid again; and when at length the long hot afternoon drewto its close with the mountain of peril well behind us, we had neitherseen nor heard aught else of the Cherokees.
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That night we camped, fireless and foodless, on the banks of aswift-flowing stream in a valley between two great mountains. We reachedthis stream a little before dark, and since the trail led straight intothe water, we would have put this obstacle behind us if we could. Butthough the little river was not above five or six poles in width it wasexceeding swift and deep; so impassable, in truth, that we were moved towonder how the captive party had made shift to cross.
We guessed at it a while, Richard and I, and then gave it up until wemight have the help of better daylight. But the old borderer's curiositywas not so readily postponed. Cutting a slim pole from a saplingthicket, he waded in cautiously, anchoring himself by the droopingbranches of the willows whilst he prodded and sounded and proved beyonda doubt that the current was over man-head deep, and far too rapid forswimming.
Satisfied of this, he came out, dripping, and with a monitory word to usto keep a sharp lookout, disappeared up-stream in the growing dusk, hislong rifle at the trail, and his body bent to bring his keen old eyesthe nearer to the ground.
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