Major Taylor was a man rather inclined to corpulency, with a red face, Roman nose and eagle eye that seemed to penetrate everything at which it glanced. He was very affable and social, a great favorite among all his acquaintances, especially the female portion, who always felt safe in his presence. His men, nearly all of whom had served under him in the Revolution, trusted implicitly in him.
“Friends, you are welcome, doubly welcome to this boat,” said he, raising his hat and saluting Rosalind with all the stately politeness of a gentleman of the old school. “I trust your stay upon it will be as prolonged as our own, who, in all probability, will be the last passengers it will ever carry.”
Leslie related in a few words the main facts concerning the burning of Leland’s home, the capture and subsequent escape of himself and sister, and finally of their desire to reach the upper settlements. The commiserations of all were given them. For Rosalind especially they seemed unable to do enough. She was taken within their cabin, where everything that was possible was done for her comfort.
“I must now insist that you remain with us,” said Major Taylor. “Now that you have no home to which to return, you must accompany us and build a new one. If the red-skins take our homes from us they are welcome to do so; but when they undertake it, I suspect they will find they are troubling a set of men that know a trick or two as well as themselves. We’ve all seen service among the dogs.”
“Do you think, Cap’n, there’s likely to be a scrimmage where you drive your stakes?” inquired Kent, with a considerable degree of curiosity.
“I am sure I cannot tell,” replied Major Taylor. “It certainly seems probable, but why do you ask?”
“’Cause if there’s any likelibility of it, I’ll agree to accept your invite and go with you.”
“Well, well, my good man, you will go with us anyway, and take the chances of a brush with them. You strike me as a man who has seen considerable of the woods.”
“He has indeed,” said Leslie. “Under heaven, our safety is owing to his experience and sagacity. He has spent a lifetime in the woods, and I can honestly say he will be a valuable acquisition to your party.”
“Come, none of that now, or I’ll leave you!” said the hunter, in a warning tone to his young friend.
“I have no doubt of it—no doubt of it in the least. We need him, and if he will only go with us, I think I can promise that he will occasionally see the service for which his soul longs. But, you have not given us your decision.”
“We are very grateful for your offer,” said Leland; “we have indeed no other refuge to which we can go. The house which has sheltered my sister and myself since infancy is swept away by those whom we had learned to look upon as our friends and protectors. I think when we see men at your age beginning life again, we can afford to do it ourselves.”
“Of course you can—of course you can,” replied the officer, in his hearty manner. “We’ll start a settlement on a grand scale. One of our men once took orders, and is licensed to marry, so that if either of you gentlemen should need his services at any time, you will always find him at hand.”
“There is a servant—a negro, who was taken at the same time with my sister. I feel as though some effort should be made to recover him,” added Leland, a few minutes later. “We shall be in a situation to do that by accompanying you, or, at least, we shall be more likely to find some means of doing so, than if we followed out the idea, entertained some time ago, of leaving the country altogether.”
“I am decidedly of the opinion—”
The officer was interrupted by a man at the front of the boat, calling out his name. He instantly hastened beside him, and demanded what he wanted.
“Yonder is something approaching, and I cannot satisfy myself as to what it is. What do you make of it?” he asked.
Major Taylor bent his sharp gaze upon the object in question for a moment, and then replied:
“It looks like the head of a person, and yet it is certainly an odd-looking head. We will call this hunter that has just come on board. Undoubtedly he can assist us.”
In answer to the summons, Kent approached the bow of the boat, rifle in hand. He peered across the water, but for a time, failed to identify the thing.
“Stand back a little, and I’ll give it a shot. I’ll graze it at first, so as to be sure of what I am going to hit when I shoot next time.”
The hunter raised his rifle, and holding it a second, fired. At the same instant the unknown object disappeared.
“I think you struck it!” remarked Leland.
“I didn’t aim at it, and consequently it ain’t been hit,” returned Kent, with an air of assurance.
“Yonder it is this moment!”
As these words were uttered, it again appeared, and to the amazement of all, called out to them:
“Gorra! what you wastin’ your bullets on dis negro’s head for? Reckoned Kent knowed better.”
The hunter seemed on the point of falling from laughter.
“Who’d a thought it was Zeb! Where has he come from? He beats all in Kentuck for adventures and walloping lies.”
A few minutes later the negro was received upon the flat-boat. It is scarcely necessary to say that his friends all experienced unfeigned joy at his return. He was as jubilant and reckless of the truth as ever, and it was a long time before they got at the truth regarding his escape from the Shawnees.
The flight of Leland, under Providence, was really the means of liberating the negro. The confusion occasioned by the escape of the former was so great, that the savages imagined he also had fled with him. Understanding that it was “do or die” with him, he tugged and struggled at his bonds with the strength of desperation. Being secured to a tree as usual, at some distance from the center of confusion, he escaped observation for a few moments. It is doubtful, however, whether he would have succeeded in freeing himself, had he not been covertly assisted by some unknown friend. Who this personage could be, was never known; perhaps some Indian who had been befriended by the Leland family, and who experienced some compunctions of honor (not of conscience) at the situation of the poor negro.
Zeb had learned enough by this time to exercise a little common sense. Accordingly, when he found himself free, he made the best use of his feet and wits, and used every effort to reach the Ohio river. According to his own narration, he overcame all manner of perils before succeeding. Undoubtedly he incurred great risk in the undertaking, and finally succeeded.
He was trudging wearily along the river margin, listening for some sound of his relentless enemies, who, he doubted not, were upon his trail, when he caught sight of the flat-boat. Although he did not identify it at once, he understood from its size and formation that the hand of the white man alone was concerned in its structure. He immediately plunged into the river, reaching it in due time, as we have already shown.
At last the pioneers reached their destination, and began a settlement which, at this day, is not a town merely but a flourishing city. As we have hinted in another place, their experience of frontier life and the sagacity and foresight of their nominal head, saved them from the misfortunes and sufferings that often befall settlers in the new country. It is true the red wave of the dreadful war in the West surged to their very doors; but they saw far away in the heavens the portentous signs, and so prepared that they passed through it unscathed.
* * * *
The passing years touched lightly the heads of Roland and Rosalind Leslie. As the palmy days of peace settled upon them, an old hunter frequently spent days and weeks at their house. At such times, he took the children upon his knees, and told them of the hardships and suffering their parents had endured, and recounted many of his own adventures to them. Old Kent was a universal favorite in the settlement. As he became too old to spend his time entirely in the woods, he joined the boys in their hunts, and there was not one who would not have braved death in his defense. He died peacefully and happily, under the roof of those whom he had served so
well, and was given a burial, at his own request, in the grand old woods which had ever been his delight and enjoyment.
The wife of Leland survived all of those who have figured in these pages; but she too has been laid in the valley. Their descendants are now a numerous and influential family, proud of their ancestry, and enthusiastic over the deeds of The Ranger.
THE HUGE HUNTER
or, The Steam Man of the Prairies
CHAPTER I
The Terror of the Prairies
“Howly vargin! What is that?” exclaimed Mickey McSquizzle, with something like horrified amazement.
“By the Jumping Jehosiphat, naow if that don’t, beat all natur’!”
“It’s the divil, broke loose, wid full steam on!”
There was good cause for these exclamations upon the part of the Yankee and Irishman, as they stood on the margin of Wolf Ravine, and gazed off over the prairie. Several miles to the north, something like a gigantic man could be seen approaching, apparently at a rapid gait for a few seconds, when it slackened its speed, until it scarcely moved.
Occasionally it changed its course, so that it went nearly at right angles. At such times, its colossal proportions were brought out in full relief, looking like some Titan as it took its giant strides over the prairie.
The distance was too great to scrutinize the phenomenon closely; but they could see that a black volume of smoke issued either from its mouth or the top of its head, while it was drawing behind it a sort of carriage, in which a single man was seated, who appeared to control the movements of the extraordinary being in front of him.
No wonder that something like superstitious have filled the breasts of the two men who had ceased hunting for gold, for a few minutes, to view the singular apparition; for such a thing had scarcely been dreamed of at that day, by the most imaginative philosophers; much less had it ever entered the head of these two men on the western prairies.
“Begorrah, but it’s the ould divil, hitched to his throttin’ waging, wid his ould wife howlding the reins!” exclaimed Mickey, who had scarcely removed his eyes from the singular object.
“That there critter in the wagon is a man,” said Hopkins, looking as intently in the same direction. “It seems to me,” he added, a moment later, “that there’s somebody else a-sit-ting alongside of him, either a dog or a boy. Wal, naow, ain’t that queer?”
“Begorrah! begorrah! do ye hear that? What shall we do?”
At that instant, a shriek like that of some agonized giant came home to them across the plains, and both looked around, as if about to flee in terror; but the curiosity of the Yankee restrained him. His practical eye saw that whatever it might be, it was a human contrivance, and there could be nothing supernatural about it.
“Look!”
Just after giving its ear-splitting screech, it turned straight toward the two men, and with the black smoke rapidly puffing from the top of its head, came tearing along at a tremendous rate.
Mickey manifested some nervousness, but he was restrained by the coolness of Ethan, who kept his position with his eye fixed keenly upon it.
Coming at such a railroad speed, it was not long in passing the intervening space. It was yet several hundred yards distant, when Ethan Hopkins gave Mickey a ringing slap upon the shoulder.
“Jerusalem! who do ye s’pose naow, that man is sitting in the carriage and holding the reins?”
“Worrah, worrah! why do you ax me, whin I’m so frightened entirely that I don’t know who I am myself?”
“Its Baldy.”
“Git out!” replied the Irishman, but added the next moment, “am I shlaping or dhraming? It’s Baldy or his ghost.”
It certainly was no ghost, judging from the manner in which it acted; for he sat with his hat cocked on one side, a pipe in his mouth, and the two reins in his hands, just as the skillful driver controls the mettlesome horses and keeps them well in hand.
He was seated upon a large pile of wood, while near nestled a little hump-backed, bright-eyed boy, whose eyes sparkled with delight at the performance of the strange machine.
The speed of the steam man gradually slackened, until it came opposite the men, when it came to a dead halt, and the grinning “Baldy,” as he was called, (from his having lost his scalp several years before, by the Indians), tipped his hat and said:
“Glad to see you hain’t gone under yit. How’d you git along while I was gone?”
But the men were hardly able to answer any questions yet, until they had learned something more about the strange creation before them. Mickey shied away, as the timid steed does at first sight of the locomotive, observing which, the boy (at a suggestion from Baldy), gave a string in his hand a twitch, whereupon the nose of the wonderful thing threw out a jet of steam with the sharp screech of the locomotive whistle. Mickey sprung a half dozen feet backward, and would have run off at full speed down the ravine, had not Ethan Hopkins caught his arm.
“What’s the matter, Mickey, naow! Hain’t you ever heard anything like a locomotive whistle?”
“Worrah, worrah, now, but is that the way the crather blows its nose? It must have a beautiful voice when it shnores at night.”
Perhaps at this point a description of the singular mechanism should be given. It was about ten feet in hight, measuring to the top of the “stove-pipe hat,” which was fashioned after the common order of felt coverings, with a broad brim, all painted a shiny black. The face was made of iron, painted a black color, with a pair of fearful eves, and a tremendous grinning mouth. A whistle-like contrivance was trade to answer for the nose. The steam chest proper and boiler, were where the chest in a human being is generally supposed to be, extending also into a large knapsack arrangement over the shoulders and back. A pair of arms, like projections, held the shafts, and the broad flat feet were covered with sharp spikes, as though he were the monarch of base-ball players. The legs were quite long, and the step was natural, except when running, at which time, the bolt uprightness in the figure showed different from a human being.
In the knapsack were the valves, by which the steam or water was examined. In front was a painted imitation of a vest, in which a door opened to receive the fuel, which, together with the water, was carried in the wagon, a pipe running along the shaft and connecting with the boiler.
The lines which the driver held controlled the course of the steam man; thus, by pulling the strap on the right, a deflection was caused which turned it in that direction, and the same acted on the other side. A small rod, which ran along the right shaft, let out or shut off the steam, as was desired, while a cord, running along the left, controlled the whistle at the nose.
The legs of this extraordinary mechanism were fully a yard apart, so as to avoid the danger of its upsetting, and at the same time, there was given more room for the play of the delicate machinery within. Long, sharp, spike-like projections adorned those toes of the immense feet, so that there was little danger of its slipping, while the length of the legs showed that, under favorable circumstances, the steam man must be capable of very great speed.
After Ethan Hopkins had some what familiarized himself with the external appearance of this piece of mechanism, he ventured upon a more critical examination.
The door being opened in front, showed a mass of glowing coals lying in the capacious abdomen of the giant; the hissing valves in the knapsack made themselves apparent, and the top of the hat or smoke-stack had a sieve-like arrangement, such as is frequently seen on the locomotive.
There were other little conveniences in the way of creating a draft, and of shutting it off when too great, which could scarcely be understood without a scrutiny of the figure itself.
The steam man was a frightful looking object, being painted of a glossy black, with a pair of white stripes down its legs, and with a face which was intended to be of a flesh color, but, which was really a fearful red.
To give the machinery an abundance of room, the steam man was exceedingly corpulent, swelling out to alderm
anic proportions, which, after all, was little out of harmony with its immense hight.
The wagon dragged behind was an ordinary four-wheeled vehicle, with springs, and very strong wheels, a framework being arranged, so that when necessary it could be securely covered. To guard against the danger of upsetting it was very broad, with low wheels, which it may be safely said were made to “hum” when the gentleman got fairly under way.
Such is a brief and Imperfect description of this wonderful steam man, as it appeared on its first visit to the Western prairies.
CHAPTER II
“Handle Me Gently.”
When Ethan Hopkins had surveyed the steam man fully, he drew a long sigh and exclaimed:
“Wal, naow, that’s too had!”
“What’s that?” inquired Bicknell, who had been not a little amused at his open-mouthed amazement.
“Do you know I’ve been thinking of that thing for ten years, ever since I went through Colt’s pistol factory in Hartford, when I was a youngster?”
“Did you ever think of any plan!”
“I never got it quite right, but I intended to do it after we got through digging for gold. The thing was just taking shape in my head. See here, naow, ain’t you going to give a fellow a ride?”
“Jis’ what I wanted; shall I run it for you?”
“No, I see how it works; them ’ere thingumbobs and gimcracks do it all.”
“Johnny, hyar, will tell yer ’bout it.”
The little humpback sprung nimbly down, and ran around the man, explaining as well as he could in a few moments the manner of controlling its movements. The Yankee felt some sensitiveness in being instructed by such a tiny specimen, and springing into the wagon, exclaimed:
“Git eout! tryin’ to teach yer uncle! I knowed how the thing would work before you were born!”
Perching himself on the top of the wood which was heaped up in the wagon, the enthusiastic New Englander carefully looked over the prairie to see that the way was clear, and was about to “let on steam,” when he turned toward the Irishman.
The Edward S. Ellis Megapack Page 69
