CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH SIMON GLASS MAKES A VERY STRANGE REMARK

Little wonder that the lad shivered; that cold sweat started on cheeks and brow; that, at first, he knew not whether he was awake or dreaming! For the face in the moonlight was Godfrey Spencer's, and so were the step and figure as the intruder crept stealthily nearer.

The camp was in deep shadow, and Nathan himself could not be seen. For a few seconds he watched and trembled in mute horror, unable to utter a sound. "I am not asleep," he decided, feeling the night breeze on his hot temples. "Am I going mad? That can't be Godfrey. Yes, it is--"

Just then the spell was broken by the snap of a dry twig under the supposed Godfrey's tread. He slipped to one side of the glade, showing a short, thick-set man behind him, and both darted back into the shadow as Nathan sprang up with a cry that echoed far through the forest. At the same instant the missing sentry scrambled to his feet from the left of the camp, where he had fallen asleep, and down he went again, almost as quickly, as a musket-shot rang out of the darkness. Barnabas and his companions, now fully roused, ran this way and that in confusion, inquiring the cause of the alarm. "They're gone now," exclaimed Nathan, and he briefly told what he had seen.

There was a rush to the spot where the sentry had fallen. Robert Lindsay, who had taken the second watch, lay dead with a bullet through his heart. A clay pipe, long since cold, was still clutched between his teeth, and near by a little patch of dry grass and pine-needles was burnt close to the ground. A shuddering fear fell on the men as they looked at the body of their comrade and fierce were the threats of vengeance.

"It's plain as daylight what happened," said the keen-witted Barnabas. "The British have a camp over yonder by the bridle-road," pointing northward. "They traveled slow yesterday, an' we just about caught up with 'em at midnight. Then poor Lindsay here lights his pipe for a smoke, and sets fire to the grass. Before he kin outen it the enemy see the blaze an' come creepin' over. By that time Lindsay had fell asleep, an' small blame to him arter the march we made."

"He was sort of drowsy when I roused him for his turn," said Atwood. "I wish I'd let him sleep."

"He's sleepin' now," Abel Cutbush answered, softly, "and I reckon right here will have to be his grave for the present. We couldn't bury him in this hard ground, even if we had the tools."

"Or the time," said Barnabas, "which we can't spare. He was a brave soldier an' a true friend, an' I say it who knows. God rest his soul!"

"We'd better be seeking his murderer," grumbled Collum McNicol, and the rest approved warmly.

"Have a bit of patience, men," replied Barnabas. "It's no use to pursue now." Turning to Nathan he added: "The little man was surely Simon Glass, lad. Are you certain about the other?"

"The one in front was Godfrey Spencer," declared Nathan.

"The fellow who looks summat like you?" asked Barnabas. "I seen him at De Vries's house two years ago, when I brought a letter from your father."

"Yes," replied Nathan. "He's a lieutenant in the British army now, and I believe he is attached to Major Langdon's staff."

"Major Langdon?" exclaimed Barnabas. "That's the name of the prisoner I lost! I wonder if he is with the party."

"Very likely, since Godfrey is here," Nathan suggested.

Barnabas scratched his head thoughtfully for a moment, seeing in this affair a relation to certain other things that had puzzled him considerably of late.

"I'm forgetting my duty," he said. "It ain't safe to stay here a minute longer. Forward, now, an' make no noise."

With loaded muskets, the men fell in behind their leader, leaving the body of poor Lindsay to stiffen on the grass. Barnabas led the party about a hundred yards to the northeast and halted them in a cluster of pine trees.

"You're safe from attack here," he said. "Don't stir till I come back. I'm going forward a bit to reconnoiter."

Several volunteered for this duty, but Barnabas knew that he was best fitted for it, and he had his way. He crept off as noiselessly as a serpent, and the shadows hid him from view.

Nathan and his companions waited anxiously in the dark cover, not daring to speak above a whisper, and expecting at any moment to hear a shot. Fully half an hour elapsed, and dawn was beginning to break when Barnabas returned.

"I've been to the enemy's camp," he announced, eagerly. "They're less than a mile due north from here, across a creek that flows through a deep an' narrow ravine. An' just on the other side of the creek an' the camp is the bridle-road. There's a big pine tree fell across the chasm, formin' a natural bridge from bank to bank, an' I crept over that to peek an' listen."

"Are they going to attack us?" asked Reuben Atwood.

"They're thinkin' more of gettin' away," replied Barnabas. "From what I kin make out they're in a hurry to reach Wyoming, an' they propose to start as soon as they've had breakfast. They're at the cookin' now, just as though we wasn't in the neighborhood to be reckoned with. The spies didn't learn our strength a bit ago, an' that's why they're doubtful about attackin'."

"Is Major Langdon there?" inquired Nathan.

"No, lad, he ain't; but unless my ears deceived me, it was him give the party their orders. I seen young Godfrey Spencer sittin' by the fire. An' Simon Glass was there, as big as life, waitin' for the bullet that's in my pouch to reach his black heart. There's nine in the party--all British cavalrymen, except Glass--but they're wearin' plain clothes instead of uniforms. The horses are the same way--no brass nor polished leather fixin's."

"I reckon they want to pass for Americans," said Evan Jones.

"That's just it," assented Barnabas. "An' now look to your flints, men, an' your powder an' ball. I'm going to lead you straight agin' the enemy. We'll shin over the tree, and fall on 'em by surprise. If they expect us at all, they're countin' on our comin' round to the bridle-road by the ford, which is five hundred yards further up the creek."

"We're six to nine, Barnabas," McNicol suggested in a dubious tone.

"We're worth a dozen Britishers, man," stoutly declared Barnabas. "We'll have the first fire, an' that ought to drop five or six of the enemy. The rest will run--if I knows 'em right--and then we'll grab the horses. It's the horses we want most. They'll take us gallopin' over the bridle-road, and into Wyoming early in the morning."

Barnabas had struck the right chord. The hope of reaching their imperiled families within a few hours was a stronger inducement to the men than vengeance for poor Lindsay. Without a dissenting voice they approved their leader's plan, and examined their loadings and flints. Five minutes later they were following Barnabas in single file through the thick wood, now cold and gray in the breaking light of dawn.

Nathan alone was gloomy and sad. At every step he saw before his eyes a mental picture that made him shudder. "Godfrey will be there," he reflected. "He may kill me, or I may have to fire at him. Somebody else will likely shoot him if I don't. He is a Tory and an enemy, and he betrayed me that night in Philadelphia; but I can't forget that we were old friends. I must do my duty, though. And I will do it, come what may."

He compressed his lips, and marched on resolutely.

With a warning gesture Barnabas halted; and the men behind him, half hidden in the laurel scrub, shifted their muskets noiselessly, and peered past their leader with strained, intent faces.

There was danger in the still air. Tragedy and death brooded over this dense woody spot in the mountainous solitudes of Pennsylvania. The brink of the chasm was three yards away--a chasm that dropped seventy feet, between narrow, hollowed-out walls of rock, to the deep and sluggish waters of the creek. Through the vistas of foliage and timber could be seen the trunk of the fallen pine, with many a bushy offshoot, that spanned the gorge from bank to bank. But there was no sound of enemy's voices on the farther side; no evidence of the camp save a curl of gray smoke drifting upward to the blue sky, now rosy-flushed with the first light of day.

"Looks like they'd finished their breakfast an' gone," Barnabas said, in a low voice; "but then, ag'in, they may be layin' a trap fur us. It ain't safe ter calkerlate when Simon Glass is around."

"We'll do no good tarrying here, man," grumbled McNicol. "Yonder's the tree, and we're ready to follow."

Barnabas thought of poor Lindsay and then of the horses, and suddenly flung prudence to the winds. "Forward!" he whispered, and starting quickly through the scrub he planted his feet on the fallen pine. Nathan followed with a beating heart, and the next man had just stepped out when a musket-barrel was poked from the bushes across the chasm.

"Back, men," roared Barnabas. "Get to cover," and as he turned around and gained the rear bank by an agile spring, a thunderous report woke the echoes of the gorge.

Nathan tried to leap also, but it was too late. He saw the flash and the puff and felt a stinging pain on the right side of his head. All grew dark before him. He tottered, lost his balance, and fell. His hands, clutching at the empty air, caught a projecting limb, and he held to it with desperate strength. As he hung dangling over the gulf, dizzy and stupefied, he heard a harsh voice above cry out: "You fired too soon, you fool. Let the rebels have it now, men. Blaze away at the bushes."

A straggling discharge of musketry followed the words, and then Nathan's fingers slipped. He shot downward forty feet to the bushy top of a tree that grew slantwise from the wall of the gorge. This broke the violence of his fall, but it did not stop him. He bounded from branch to branch, and fell the remaining distance to the creek, plunging head first beneath the surface.

The instinct of life was strong within the lad, and his struggles soon brought him to the surface, choking and gasping. He was too bruised and stunned to swim a fair stroke, but by feeble paddling he managed to keep his head above water.

That was all he thought about in his dazed condition, and without making an attempt to reach either shore he drifted with the sluggish current for twenty yards or so. Then he saw a conical rock close ahead, rising several feet out of mid-stream, and by an effort he reached it and clasped both arms around the top.

There he clung for fully five minutes, while strength returned and his mind cleared. He had not heard a sound since he fell, and he wondered if all his companions were dead. He listened in vain, looking up at the distant blue vault of the sky. The silence of death rested on wood and stream.

A sharp pain suddenly recalled the fact that he had been shot, and he put one hand to his head in a fever of apprehension. His fingers were red with blood when he looked at them, but his fear was gone. The bullet had merely grazed his brow, leaving a narrow skin wound.

This discovery put new life into Nathan, and he determined to get to shore and search for his friends, if they were still alive. But as he was about to let go of the rock he heard a noise from the north bank, in which direction he was facing. Here the slope was less precipitous than above, and was heavily timbered.

Some person was descending toward the stream at a recklessly rapid speed. Loosened stones rolled down to the water with a splash. Here and there amid the trees and bushes a dark form showed at intervals. Was it friend or foe? Nathan asked himself, and all too soon the question was answered.

The noise suddenly ceased, and from out the fringe of laurel at the base of the slope peered a man's face--a hideous countenance with but one eye, and with skin like wrinkled parchment slashed by a quillful of purple ink. It needed not a glimpse of a dingy buckskin jacket with horn buttons to tell Nathan that this was the terrible Simon Glass.

The face was followed by a long-barrelled musket, but the ruffian did not at once raise it to his shoulder. He stared keenly at the lad for a moment, and then grinned like a fiend.

"No mistake about it, that's him," he muttered aloud. "Die, you dirty rebel," he added, levelling the gun and squinting along the tube with his one eye.

Nathan heard the first words so indistinctly that they caused him no wonder, but the sentence that followed chilled his very blood. He could neither move nor utter a sound as he faced the death that seemed certain. A spell was upon him. He was charmed into helplessness by the musket's black mouth--by the ghastly grin on the one-eyed Tory's face.

A few seconds slipped by, and they were like so many minutes to the tortured lad. Then, just as Glass pressed the trigger, a fusillade of musketry rang out from some point up the bluff. Bang! went the Tory's gun, but the surprise of the shooting overhead had fortunately spoilt his aim. The bullet hit the rock within two inches of Nathan's face, and a shower of splintered chips flew around him.

Crack!--crack!--crack!--crack!--crack! The muskets were blazing merrily, and there was a din of yells and cheers. Nathan looked up, and saw two figures dart across the pine-tree bridge. A third had gained the centre when a bullet sent him plunging down to the creek.

The lad let go of the rock, dived, and came to the surface. Over on the bank Simon Glass was reloading. He had driven the powder in, when the firing suddenly ceased, and now he seemed to hesitate.

"Help! help!" Nathan yelled loudly. There was an answering shout from the summit of the gorge, and then a crashing noise. The Tory glanced above him, tossed his partly loaded musket over his shoulder, and ran swiftly down the edge of the stream. He was soon hidden from sight in the bushes.

"That you, Nathan?" called a familiar voice. Nathan answered lustily, and a dozen strokes brought him to shore just as Barnabas Otter reached the foot of the bluff.

"Thank God! lad," cried the old man. "I gave you up for dead when you fell off the tree."

When Nathan had told his story, Barnabas declared that it would be both useless and perilous to pursue Simon Glass. "We'll settle with the ruffian another time," he said. "To think of his creepin' down here to make sure you was dead! But that's jist like him. An' now, if you're able, we'll be gettin' back to the party."

Nathan was all right except for a slight weakness, and with a little assistance he made fair progress up the bank. As they climbed, Barnabas told what had happened. "We got under cover too quick for the enemy," he explained, "an' while they thought we was hiding in the wood we were making for the ford on a trot. It was round a bend of the creek, and luckily we got across without bein' seen. Then we circled around to the camp, and surprised the British from the rear as they were getting to saddle. We dropped three in their tracks, an' shot another on the bridge, an' the rest cut an' run fur life. It's a pity Simon Glass wasn't there then."

"Any of our men killed?" asked Nathan.

"Evan Jones," Barnabas answered, soberly. "He was shot by a little chap that fired as he run."

By this time they were at the captured camp, and Nathan was warmly greeted. He examined the four dead dragoons, but Godfrey was not among them.

"What did the man look like who was shot on the tree?" he asked.

"He was my age, and had a heavy mustache," replied Reuben Atwood; and the lad's mind was relieved.

It was considered expedient to start while the five survivors of the enemy were scattered, and before they could get together. Three horses had been killed in the assault--they being in direct range--and a fourth was so badly crippled as to be useless. The five that remained were just enough for the party, now reduced by two.

While the men gathered up what muskets, ammunition, and other stuff had fallen into their hands, Barnabas dressed Nathan's skin-wound and squeezed his clothes partly dry. Once in the saddle the lad felt quite himself again, though he shuddered frequently to think of his narrow escape.

The victory was not without its sting. Poor Lindsay and Jones had answered their last summons, and the bodies had to be left where they had fallen. Their comrades would gladly have buried them, but duty to the imperiled settlers at Wyoming forbade a moment's delay.

The sun was just peeping above the horizon when the little band mounted the captured horses and rode away from the scene of death and bloodshed. For the first two miles they kept close watch as they trotted along the bridle-road, and then, the chance of a surprise being now past, they urged their steeds to a gallop.

But the country was very rugged, and the road winding, and it was necessary to walk or trot the horses much of the way. So it was close to nine o'clock of the morning when the travelers rode out on the elevated crest of the mountainous plateau, and beheld the lovely Wyoming Valley spread out before them in the soft July sunlight.

Here was the Susquehanna winding in a silver loop from mountain gap to mountain gap. There, a little to the westward, the hamlet of Wilkesbarre nestled at the base of the hills. Farther east the stockade of Forty Fort rose from the opposite lying bank of the river, and the flag was still fluttering from its staff.