Part 10

Suddenly the silence was broken by the hoot of an owl. Boone listened intently. In a few seconds the cry was repeated, as though by a bird at some distance from the first. Boone stretched forth his foot and touched the form of a sleeper upon the floor. In an instant Kenton was on his feet, and at the same moment the owl’s cry again floated over the night air to them.

“Injuns on the move, Kenton,” said Boone in low tones and without a trace of excitement in his voice. “Give Hardy a jolt. Now you two slip round the stockade in opposite directions. Have every man stand to his post as quietly as possible and wait for the signal from me. Not a shot, mind, till I fire, and then let them have it. Quick! They’re in the clearing already, if I’m not mistaken.”

When Kenton and Hardy had disappeared down the ladder, Boone took up his rifle and ran his hand over the flint-lock. Satisfied that it was ready for service, he stood it against the wall by his side and peered out of the port-hole. Hardly more than five minutes had elapsed when he imagined that he discerned a dark wall moving towards him. A minute later he was certain. The Indians were about eighty yards away and stealing forward as noiselessly as shadows. Without removing his eyes from the advancing foe, Boone slowly brought his rifle into position and dropped his right cheek upon the stock. When he judged the line of redskins to be fifty yards distant he pressed the trigger.

Boone’s signal shot had hardly sounded when seventy reports rang out almost in a volley. The Indians checked in surprise. Then with a yell they rushed forward, and again seventy trusty guns spoke with tongues of fire. Still the redskins came on, discharging their pieces as they ran. They were within a few paces of the stockade--some, indeed, had reached it--when once more the defenders fired into their ranks. Had they pushed the assault the savages might have carried the fort with their tomahawks, but they checked again and then fell back to reload.

Then occurred one of those strange lulls that commonly happen in fights and even in battles. No movement was detectable on either side and comparative silence prevailed. Suddenly Kenton’s voice was heard serenely singing the lines of a popular ballad of the time:

“If they hang poor Paddy for a thing like that, Whatever will they do with me?”

“That fellow will sing going to his own funeral,” muttered Boone, but he was pleased to hear the cheery laugh that ran round the stockade in response to Kenton’s song.

Anon the chiefs were heard exhorting their tribesmen to renewed efforts, and soon it was seen that they had kindled a fire. This was far enough back to be out of effective range from the fort. As soon as the flames sprang up, a long line of the redskins filed past the fire and each one of them ignited a resin-soaked torch. The defenders instantly divined the purport of this movement, and realized that they were about to be subjected to one of the most dreaded forms of attack. When employed determinedly, fire was the most effective auxiliary the Indians could enlist. Even though they failed to burn a breach in the defences, they gained the advantage of drawing a number of riflemen from the firing line to the task of fighting the flames.

The garrison had enjoyed but a brief respite when the Indians were again upon them. Just as the first gray tints of dawn appeared in the sky, and before Kenton had finished the third verse of his lyric, the ranks of dusky warriors began to advance in a wide crescent formation calculated to envelop three sides of the stockade. Interspersed through their line were some thirty or forty torch-bearers, who immediately became the marks of the riflemen. Many of the savages carried bundles of sticks and grass to be laid against the walls of the cabins and blockhouses and lighted. Boone was now in the square, where he could best direct operations against this new form of attack.

When they had come within one hundred yards of the palisades the Indians rushed forward with the most unearthly yells and whoops. The efforts of the defenders were chiefly directed towards preventing the men bearing torches and combustibles from approaching near enough to lay the latter or to throw the former on the roofs of the buildings. At the same time the horde of howling redskins had to be held back. Fierce fighting followed along every side of the stockade. Every man strove and strained for dear life. The women worked hard, loading spare rifles, of which there were fortunately a considerable number in hand. Here and there an Indian gained the top of the palisade, when a hand-to-hand struggle with tomahawks ensued. The din of musketry, the cries of the combatants, the howling of dogs, and the bellowing of cattle, created a veritable pandemonium.

Presently it was discovered that the roof of one of the cabins had ignited and was burning fiercely. Kenton and Hardy were the first at the spot.

“Give me a boost up, Hardy,” cried Kenton, standing with his face to the building and arms uplifted. Instead, Hardy took a flying leap upon his friend’s back and grasped the eaves of the cabin.

“Come off that!” shouted Kenton, trying to seize Hardy by the leg, but the youngster wriggled out of reach and gained a footing on the roof.

“How’s that for impudence, Captain?” said Kenton to Boone, who was now beside him. “Order him down, won’t you?”

“I’m all right, Dad! Hurry up the buckets!” shouted Hardy.

Boone loved the lad more than he had realized until he saw him in his present extremely perilous position. For an instant Boone hesitated, but only for an instant, before he answered the scout:

“Let him be, Kenton. He’s playing a man’s part and we haven’t the right to baulk him. Not water!” he cried to the women, who now arrived with several buckets of the fluid. “Not water! We shall need every drop we have. We must make sand serve, if it will. Hurry with some empty buckets.”

In the meanwhile, Hardy had sense enough not to expose himself unnecessarily but lay prone along the edge of the roof. In a few minutes half a dozen women were digging energetically in the sandy soil of the square and filling the buckets, which Boone and Kenton handed up to Hardy. The lad was now obliged to stand, and immediately his form, clearly outlined in the lurid light, became the target for a hundred rifles. A frontiersman would have brought him down in a minute, and although the Indians were poor shots, it was a miracle that he lived through the fusillade that they directed against him. At one time he felt a sudden stinging sensation in his right thigh and looked down to see if an ember had burned through his leggings. A little later, a hot iron seemed to sear his cheek, and when he put his hand to the place it came away covered with blood.

In hardly more than five minutes after the buckets began to come up Hardy had the fire out, and, shouting a warning to those below, dropped upon his stomach and slid off the roof into the arms of Kenton.

“That was well done, son,--very well done,” said Boone. “Now back to your post. The Injuns will draw off at daybreak, but they may come strong once again before that.”

The fire which Hardy had extinguished was the only one that got well under way, and the failure in that case seemed to discourage the Indians. The attack slackened perceptibly and soon they withdrew, carrying away their dead and wounded. When the defenders checked up their casualties it was found that only two men had been killed outright. A number had received more or less severe injuries, and among these was Hardy. His clothing had been pierced in four places. His hurts were slight. They consisted of a flesh wound in the thigh and an abrased cheek, and though the former incapacitated him during the remainder of the siege, it soon healed.

This attack, in which they lost heavily, thoroughly disheartened the Indians. The siege was maintained for nine days longer with almost constant fighting, but no such assault as that of the first night was again attempted. Occasionally small parties endeavored to set fires against the walls under cover of darkness, but they always found that a vigilant watch was maintained and no redskin could approach within a hundred yards of the fort except at the peril of his life.

During the day, the besiegers kept up a constant fire against the stockade, but did little damage. They wasted an enormous amount of ammunition, for after their departure the garrison gathered up over two thousand pounds of musket-balls in the vicinity, not to mention the number that were embedded in the walls of the stockade. The settlers, on the other hand, husbanded their resources and fired only when there was a good chance of doing execution. Men stood to the port-holes constantly, and an Indian could not show himself in the clearing during daylight but he immediately became the target of some sharpshooter.

A negro had escaped from the fort during the parley that preceded the attack which has been described, carrying with him a rifle and ammunition. This man took up his station in a tree, at a distance which he considered safe to himself but which rendered his fire practically harmless. He spent several days in shooting at the occupants of the stockade, but little attention was paid to him until one of his nearly spent bullets hit a woman on the hip, causing a painful contusion. Then some of the men tried to dislodge him. They had expended half a dozen or more charges without effect when Boone sauntered up to them.

“I’m afraid you’re using up a lot of good powder and shot needlessly, Aiken,” Boone said to one just about to aim.

“We’re trying to get the range, Captain,” replied the man.

“Well, let me see if I can get it for you.”

The head of the negro was presently seen as he peered out from between two forking branches of the tree. Boone’s eye ran over the ground in a calculation of the distance. Then he rested his rifle on a post and took a long, steady aim. There was a whip-like crack, and the body of the negro came hurtling to the ground. Afterwards it was found with a ball in the skull, the shot having been made at one hundred and seventy-five yards. The Indians who buried, or carried away, their own dead, would not touch the body of the negro.

The siege had continued for five or six days when Boone, from his lookout in the upper story of a blockhouse, noticed one morning that the water below the fort was muddy whilst that above ran clear as usual. The bank was high and nothing could be seen to account for the strange condition. Boone watched for several hours, during which time the phenomenon continued, and came to the conclusion that the Indians, directed by their white allies, were endeavoring to enter the fort by mining.

Having calculated with sufficient precision the direction of the tunnel under construction by the besiegers, Boone began counter-operations. He set men to work digging an underground passage from within the stockade. The earth that was excavated, he ordered to be thrown over the palisade as an intimation to the attackers of what he was about. This had the desired effect. The Indians realized that they were baulked, and on the following day abandoned their project.

On the twentieth day of August the discomfited chiefs, Blackfish and De Quindre, withdrew their forces and took the route to the Indian country. They left with a very wholesome opinion of the prowess of the backwoodsmen, and of the people of Boonesborough in particular. In fact, that place was never again directly attacked by the Indians, who seemed to accept the idea that it was impregnable.

The settlers were now justified in the belief that they would be left in peace for some months at least. Small bodies of marauding redskins might molest isolated individuals and families, but after such a crushing defeat as they had experienced the chiefs would not be willing to plant the war-post again for some time. Gladly the backwoodsmen, who detested confinement, went out to their clearings. There they found things in a sorry state. The Indians had burned the cabins, killed the cattle, and destroyed the growing crops. But these incidents the hardy frontiersmen accepted as part of the necessary conditions of their adventurous lives, and they set cheerfully about repairing the damage.

Shortly after the siege the trial by court-martial, from which Boone emerged so triumphantly, took place. At its conclusion he set out alone upon the long journey to the Yadkin, with a view to bringing his family back to Kentucky. We may imagine the joy of the wife and children upon being reunited to the beloved one whom they had mourned as dead.

XIV.

KENTON’S STORY

Simon Kenton’s boyhood--His fight for a sweetheart--His defeat and his victory--Flight into the wilderness--Three adventures in Kentucky--Attack by the Indians and the death of Strader--A terrible journey and a timely rescue--Kenton is captured by the Indians--He is tortured and made to run the gauntlet--He is sentenced to be burned at the stake--Girty saves his old comrade’s life--Kenton is sent to Logan’s village and befriended by the great chief--Again he is doomed to death by torture--And finds a new friend in a British agent--He goes to Detroit a prisoner of war--Escapes with the aid of a trader’s wife--And at last finds himself safe in Kentucky.

During Boone’s captivity Hardy had attached himself to Kenton, and when the former went upon his journey to North Carolina these two became inseparable companions. Neither had any work to do at Boonesborough. Hardy was too young to take up land and Kenton lacked the desire to do so. His occupation was scouting. When Indians were in the country he went out and watched their movements, warning the settlements of impending attack. When an expedition into the Indian territory was contemplated, he went in advance and ascertained the state of the intervening country and the condition of the town against which the movement was directed. He preceded armed bodies on the march and guarded them against surprise and ambush. He conducted settlers from one point to another and performed many other services of a similar nature. Kenton was one of a number of scouts whose names are perpetuated in the stories of border adventure. The vocation demanded qualities of the highest order. In order to follow it with success, a man needed to be fearless, vigorous, a good shot, a master of woodcraft; to be familiar with the country over which his operations extended, and to have a thorough knowledge of the Indian character and customs. The scouts were regularly attached to the military establishment, received pay from the authorities, and were amenable to their orders. The militia officers frequently took counsel with them and sometimes entrusted to them important details in the arrangement of an expedition. The calling of scout was a highly responsible and honorable one.

After the Indians retired from Boonesborough Kenton trailed them back to their own country, and returned to report that they had dispersed to their several villages and would probably not be heard from again until after the winter. When Boone went away Kenton and Hardy started upon a long hunt and scout in the country lying south of the Ohio. Now and again they crossed the river and made short excursions into the region inhabited by the redskins. November was drawing to a close when they reappeared at Boonesborough.

The two friends took up their abode in Boone’s cabin for the winter. In the long nights, when the wind whistled around the walls and the wolves howled in the neighboring forest, they sat for hours before the great log fire and exchanged experiences. The scout was glad to learn what Hardy could tell of life in England, and in turn told the story of his adventures. It was a wonderful tale, considering that Kenton was but twenty-three years of age in this year 1778. It was related piecemeal and at many sittings, so that we must be content with a brief _résumé_ of it.

Simon Kenton was a born backwoodsman. He first saw the light of day in a little cabin on the borders of Virginia. His boyhood was that common to frontier children--a little schooling, a good deal of hard work, and a fair admixture of adventure. When only sixteen years old he was attracted by the charms of a young girl in the settlement. This aroused the resentment of a youth several years older than Kenton, who imagined that he had engaged the affections of the backwoods maiden, although she would not admit as much. As Kenton declined to abandon his suit, the rivals determined to settle the matter by one of the fist fights that were not uncommon incidents of border life.

The encounter took place in the presence of the assembled settlers, as was usual. Kenton made a plucky stand, but in the end was beaten by the man, who had immeasurably the advantage of him in physical development. He accepted his defeat cheerfully but a year later, when he had grown into a muscular giant of six feet, he challenged his former antagonist to try conclusions once more. The other was a powerful man and readily accepted the cartel.

These backwoods fights were often terrible affairs. Everything short of the use of weapons was permissible, and the participants were frequently seriously injured. In this instance, the former victor was fired by intense hatred for Kenton, who was determined on this occasion to win. The conflict which ensued was terrifically fierce. At first the younger man got the worst of it and was severely hurt, but his courage continued unabated. He renewed the struggle, and in the end so beat his antagonist that he lay unconscious.

Kenton looked down at the prostrate form in horror, fully believing it to be that of a dead man. Then he turned and fled with all the speed possible, stopping only to snatch up his rifle and ammunition from the stump upon which they lay. So convinced was he that the sheriff with a posse would shortly be in pursuit of him that he continued his flight with little cessation for two days.

On the third day Kenton, still apprehensive and downcast, was traversing the forest in an unsettled part of the country when his eye was suddenly gladdened by the sight of a man upon the trail ahead of him. The stranger proved to be a wanderer named Johnson, as homeless and as careless of his destination as was Kenton. Each man was glad of the prospect of company and after a brief comparison of notes they agreed to become partners, as they say in the West.

These two travelled in company for some weeks and until they reached a settlement on the Monongahela, where Kenton decided to stop. This decision was prompted by learning that two young men at the place, named Strader and Yager, contemplated a journey into Kentucky and were willing that he should join them. The three set out shortly afterwards and for a year or more they lived in the wilderness, hunting and trapping, and selling their peltries to traders at Fort Pitt.

They had not been troubled by Indians, and had come to consider themselves safe from their attacks. Of this belief, however, they were rudely disabused one evening in March, 1773. As they sat in their “open-face” cabin, utterly unmindful of danger, a volley was suddenly fired at them from the surrounding thicket. Strader, who was the most exposed, instantly fell dead, riddled with bullets. The other two leaped to their feet and dashed into the neighboring cover without even taking time to pick up their rifles.

The dusk and heavy undergrowth aided their escape and they were soon beyond the reach of their pursuers. But, though the immediate prospect of death had been averted, these men found themselves in the most perilous situation. The onslaught had happened at a time when their belts and weapons were laid aside. They had now nothing with which to defend themselves against the possible attacks of Indians or wild beasts. They lacked provisions and blankets, and had not even a tinder-box with which to make a fire.

They did not, however, abandon themselves to despair, but struck out in the direction of the Ohio, hoping to reach a settlement before their strength should give out. For days they subsisted upon roots and the bark of trees, and at night huddled together in the brush with shaking limbs, for the weather was unusually cold. Gradually weakness stole upon them and on the third day both were seized with violent cramps and nausea, probably in consequence of having swallowed some poisonous substance. Before the close of the fourth day they fell exhausted to the ground and for the first time despaired of going farther, but with the dawn of the morrow their strength and spirits were sufficiently revived to enable them to make another effort. With slow and trembling steps they painfully pursued the way and in a few hours’ time came upon a party of traders.

This experience decided Yager to return to civilization, but Kenton, as soon as he had recovered his strength and had secured a rifle and ammunition, bade the party farewell and plunged again into the recesses of the wilderness. The next year he spent, for the most part alone, hunting and exploring the country. In the spring, Dunmore’s War broke out and Kenton performed valuable services as a scout, this being his first employment in that capacity. It was during this campaign that he became acquainted with Simon Girty, the notorious renegade, and rendered him a signal service. Girty professed the greatest friendship for Kenton and his after conduct proved the sincerity of his declaration.

Upon his return from a reconnoissance in the Indian country, Kenton, when about to cross the Ohio into Kentucky, was captured by a band that had suffered recent defeat by the whites and was consequently in a ferocious mood. Their temper was not improved by the severe injuries that the scout inflicted on some of their number before he could be subdued. Few men on the frontier could command the cool common-sense that unfailingly characterized Boone in a critical situation. He would fight against the heaviest odds whilst any hope of success existed, but once convinced of the futility of resistance, he avoided creating unnecessary rancor by continuing it. Kenton on this occasion fought like a catamount and so aroused the resentment of his assailants that when they had disarmed him they continued to lay on their clubs and tomahawks until he lapsed into unconsciousness.

When the scout came to his senses, he found himself “spread-eagled,” face downwards upon the earth. His arms and legs had been extended and pegged down so that the body lay in the form of a Maltese cross. The position did not permit of any movement save that of slightly raising the head. As time wore on the body became filled with excruciating pains and Kenton passed the night in intense suffering. He did not doubt that he was reserved for worse tortures. Otherwise the Indians would have vented their anger by killing him.

In the morning the party took up the march after strapping Kenton along the bare back of an unbroken horse. All day his limbs were racked by the fresh pains of this cruel mode of progression, and at night he was crucified as before. This march, with its unceasingly attendant agonies, continued for three days and nights. On the fourth the Indians arrived at the village of Chillicothe. By this time Kenton would have welcomed death, but he was to endure much more.