CHAPTER XXVI

THE RISING

"All parts resound with tumults, plaints and fears; And grisly death in sundry shapes appears."

--_Dryden_.

There was great excitement in Burgtown. The old tavern keeper had found three horses without his door, standing there jaded, tired, in the early dawn. He recognised them as the animals of the pilot and the two prospectors. Around the tavern's long porch were assembled Professor Bill Banks, the town citizens, and several outside squatters, a motley assemblage, listening to old Burke's recital. The tavern keeper was filled with importance, for once he was the centre of attraction and seemed like a Fourth of July orator, so breathless did all seem to hang upon his words. His round body was swelled to greater proportions as he proceeded, in a roundabout way, to narrate what he knew of the affair.

"It war this way. The pilot, Hugh Lark, he kem a-riding up about dark last night and asked fer the strangers, whether they was to home in the tavern. He seemed powerful anxious to have them right away. 'Going rafting, Hugh?' sez I, social-like. 'No,' sez he; 'air Mr. Ande and Mr. Dick in?' 'Been rafting?' sez I. Then he fired up, mad-like, and talked about the grey mare of hisn being able to pull a oar as good as any raftsman. I had my doubts of that, though the mare has a heap of sense. But I thought he war joking, and I guess he war. About that time I up and asked whether he war a-going a-hunting for the mine. You see the strangers air pros--whatever it is--I mean they war miners, and we uns had the idee that they were a-searching for something of that kind. He up and sez, short-like, that he warn't and that they war just going hunting. 'Bout this time Mr. Ande and Mr. Dick come out, and their hosses were brought around, and they jumped on, and then I thought I would ask Mr. Ande, being as he war allers social-like. 'Air ye going to find thet mine, Mr. Ande?' sez I. Then he up, and in high larndt langwidge, told we uns about their going after some kind of fishes, but I ne'er hearn tell of a man going fishin' without hooks and with a gun and----"

"Come, cut it short," said Professor Bill, impatiently. "At what hour did they go?"

"'Bout seven o'clock last night, and----"

"And when did the horses return?"

"Well, if I do hev to say it----"

"Come," said Bill, with the authority of a leader, "when did they return?"

"Well--I kalkilate 'bout five o'clock in the morning, leastways they were here when we uns got up."

"And which way did they go?"

"Well, ye see, Mr. Ande, who is a great scholard and high larndt, he----"

"Egregious dolt! Vociferous driveller!" exclaimed Bill, in exasperation, "can't you say which way they went."

"Gosh, what langwidge!" murmured the tavern keeper in excessive admiration of Bill's explosion, but seeing that Bill was getting angry he answered quickly: "As I live, Bill, I think they went down creek to old Hunter Tom's, seein' as Hugh war fond of Tom. Leastways they went that way and----"

Old Burke's words were drowned in the commands of Bill.

"Every man get his horse and gun and we'll start in five minutes. Others can follow. We go to Hunter Tom's place. Perhaps some accident has happened. Fetch me some brandy, Burke; if they are hurt they may need it."

Rapidly the men collected, and under the able generalship of Professor Bill Banks forth they sallied. The tavern keeper watched them gallop down the town road and thunder over the lower bridge, and when they had disappeared among the trees of the farther shore he entered the tavern.

"Wot a scholard Bill is," he murmured as he endeavoured to write down his learned words. "Egg--egg--" he murmured, and then he slowly allowed his tongue to follow the twisting, uncertain movements of his quill pen. "It's no use," he said, as he flung down the quill; "Bill will hev to write her down fer me. Wot a scholard! He'll be a Congressman yit."

Bill and his men in a short time reached the hunter's cabin in the Loop. Tom, hearing the shout of familiar voices, flung open the door, and in a few, brief words narrated the adventures of the night. They had been up the creek, he said, and had been attacked by Shawnese. About the object of their night expedition he was silent.

The news of the presence of Indians in the neighbourhood was new to all but two of the party, who had seen them as the pilot had seen them on the former day. Bill, with the skill of a general, divided his forces. Two he told to remain with Ande in the cabin; some were sent down the river in search of the pilot and Dick; the remainder and greater number, with the hunter in their midst, were to take the trail up stream to avenge themselves on the remaining Shawnese. According to the hunter's account but half a dozen at the most remained. Tom was in little hopes of finding them, as by this time they had made good their escape; but Professor Bill was inflexible, and forth up the creek trail they started. Part of the expedition went in Tom's canoe and the rest, leaving their horses in Tom's clearing, started forth on foot. The place of the battle was reached after an hour or so, but little was to be learned. At the landing, with the exception of trampled ground and a few pools of blood, nothing could be seen. The bodies of the slain Shawnese were either buried or consigned to the flood. The neighbourhood was thoroughly searched, the woods and hills beaten by the scattering settlers, but Shawnese, living and dead, and even Dick's broken rifle, had disappeared. Expecting the rising of the settlers they had decamped in haste. Disappointed in their quest they returned to the Loop.

There they waited the return of the party down stream while they listened to Hunter Tom's cursory narrative of the battle and the chief events. He told how they were surprised, but not for what purpose they had journeyed to that locality; how the pilot fought and slew a couple of the foe and afterward, rushing into the flood to reach the canoe, was shot down by an Indian bullet; how Dick, "the giant," as he was sometimes called by the settlers, towered a head and shoulders o'er the enemy.

"I'll wager he knocked them down like nine-pins," said Professor Bill Banks.

"Aye," said the hunter, "he did that; he handled his rifle like a farmer's flail, and every time he struck he threshed their top-knots out. Then, when I caught up the lad in yonder and took him back to the canoe, he cleared a wider circle for himself and leaped like a kangaroo toward shore."

"And they didn't dare stop him?" asked one.

"Not they? They couldn't. Aye, there were two fellows, one a stout one, good-sized, that did hedge in to cut him off, but one was shot down and the other----" The old man allowed his weather-beaten face to relax into a grim smile of humour as the scene arose before him in mind.

"And the other?"

"Well, the other come too nigh to Mr. Dick's big fist, and he went down in a heap with the most astonishing look on his countenance that I ever saw on the face of any one. It makes me smile now when I think of it. Then Mr. Dick came leaping and pushing through the water. I had pushed out a little from shore and had my knife ready to cut the rope as soon as he could reach the canoe, when a hailstorm of bullets skipped across the water and Dick plunged under and I saw him no more. The rest of the tale you know."

The narrative was finished, but it was noticed by several that the old hunter spoke very little of his own achievements in that battle. And yet they knew that he had not been idle.

"And did Mr. Ande do much fighting?" asked Professor Bill.

"Fighting? Aye, he fought like an old Indian fighter. In all my experience with Indians, I have come across none who put up a braver battle than the young lion cub in yonder; aye, and fighting wounded at that, for he carries a wound in the chest that would have killed an ordinary man, and a wound in the leg, and another in the arm that would have made many a stout heart give in, but he fought on until he received that blow on the head that rendered him unconscious. Brave--very brave."

"And how about yourself, Tom?" asked one of the settlers.

"Oh, I killed a few," said the old hunter, simply.

There was a shout from down the creek trail, and the sound of horses' hoofs, and proceeding as rapidly as possible over the uncertain trail the band from down stream entered the clearing.

"What news?" asked Professor Bill, rising from his recumbent position.

"We found the pilot and he's living, but pretty badly hurt. He was pulled on a raft by the Pegleg pilot, and they put him off at a tavern further down stream."

A cheer went up from all the assembled settlers, and the wildwood rang with their voices again and again, and then when silence had come there were various comments.

"I thought the pilot was too tough to be put out by a single bullet," said one.

"I knew that ye couldn't drown an old water dog like him," said another.

"Did they get a doctor," said Professor Bill.

"Yaas," drawled one of the returned expedition, "they got a doctor and he fixed him up, but he can't be moved yet for some time, but he'll pull through, he said. We didn't have much time fer to talk with Hugh, for we uns wanted to see about the tother fellow and the Shawnese. We went all the way to the mouth of the creek, and there we learned thet five Indians were seen crossing the river in a canoe some hours before. Now, I remembers it, some of the fellows at the mouth said they seemed in a powerful hurry, and passed over the river in the early dawn, and were making their way toward Michigan."

"And Mr. Dick?" asked the Professor.

"Nawthing was seen of him at all. He must be drowned by this time."

There was a little conference between Professor Bill and the hunter about moving Ande to Burgtown, but the old man strenuously opposed it, and Bill acquiesced in his plan of leaving him at the Loop until he should recover. The setting sun saw all of the expedition trotting homeward to Burgtown, where the events of the day were gone over again and again for the benefit of Peter Burke, tavern keeper. In the mind of that worthy they were tabulated and placed on the same shelf in his memory as the records of Reverend Burg.