CHAPTER XV.

AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.

Jo Stinger had decided to venture out from the block-house, at a time when the Wyandots were on every side, and when many of them were within the stockade and close to the building itself It was a perilous act, but the veteran had what he deemed good grounds for undertaking it.

In the first place, the darkness had deepened to that extent, within the last few hours, that he believed he could move about without being suspected: he was confident indeed that he could stay out as long as he chose and return in safety.

He still felt chagrined over the audacity of the Wyandots, which came so near success, and longed to turn the tables upon them.

But Jo Stinger had too much sense to leave the garrison and run into great peril without the prospect of accomplishing some good thereby. He knew the Wyandots were completing preparations to burn the block-house. He believed it would be attempted before morning, and, if not detected by him, would succeed. He had strong hope that, by venturing outside, he could learn the nature of the plan against which it would therefore be possible to make some preparation.

Colonel Preston was not without misgiving when he drew the ponderous bolts, but he gave no expression to his thoughts. All was blank darkness, but, when the door was drawn inward, he felt several cold specks on his hand, from which he knew it was snowing.

The flakes were very fine and few, but they were likely to increase before morning, by which time the ground might be covered.

"When shall I look for your return?" asked the Colonel, but, to his surprise, there was no answer. Jo had moved away, and was gone without exchanging another word with the commandant.

The latter refastened the door at once. He could not but regard the action of the most valuable man of his garrison as without excuse: at the same time he reflected that his own title could not have been more empty, for no one of the three men accepted his orders when they conflicted with his personal views.

In the meantime Jo Stinger, finding himself on the outside of the block-house, was in a situation where every sense needed to be on the alert, and none knew it better than he.

The door which Colonel Preston opened was the front one, being that which the scout passed through the previous night, and which opened on the clearing along the river. He was afraid that, if he emerged from the other entrance, he would step among the Wyandots and be recognized before he could take his bearings.

But Jo felt that he had entered on an enterprise in which the chances were against success, and in which he could accomplish nothing except by the greatest risk to himself. The listening Colonel fancied he heard the sound of his stealthy footstep, as the hunter moved from the door of the block-house. He listened a few minutes longer, but all was still except the soft sifting of the snow against the door, like the finest particles of sand and dust filtering through the tree-tops.

The Colonel passed to the narrow window at the side and looked out. It had become like the blackness of darkness, and several of the whirling snow-flakes struck his face.

"The Wyandots are concocting some mischief, and there's no telling what shape it will take until it comes. I don't believe Jo will do anything that will help us."

And with a sigh the speaker climbed the ladder again and told his friends how rash the pioneer had been.

"I wouldn't have allowed him to go," said Ned Preston.

"There's no stopping him when he has made up his mind to do anything."

"Why didn't you took him by de collar," asked Blossom Brown, "and slam him down on de floor? Dat's what I'd done, and, if he'd said anyting, den I'd took him by de heels and banged his head agin de door till he'd be glad to sot down and behave himself."

"Jo is a skilled frontiersman," said the Colonel, who felt that it was time he rallied to the defence of the scout; "he has tramped hundreds of miles with Simon Kenton and Daniel Boone, and, if his gun hadn't flashed fire one dark night last winter, he would have ended the career of Simon Girty."

"How was that?"

"Simon Girty and Kenton served together as spies in Dunmore's expedition in 1774, and up to that time Girty was a good soldier, who risked much for his country. He was badly used by General Lewis, and became the greatest scourge we have had on the frontier. I don't suppose he ever has such an emotion as pity in his breast, and there is no cruelty that he wouldn't be glad to inflict on the whites. He and Jo know and hate each other worse than poison. Last winter, Jo crept into one of the Shawanoe towns one dark night, and when only a hundred feet away, aimed straight at Girty, who sat on a log, smoking his pipe, and talking to several warriors. Jo was so angered when his gun flashed in the pan, that he threw it upon the ground and barely saved himself by dashing out of the camp at the top of his speed. Jo has been in a great many perilous situations," added Colonel Preston, "and he can tell of many a thrilling encounter in the depths of the silent forest and on the banks of the lonely streams, where no other human eyes saw him and his foe."

"No doubt of all that," replied Ned, who knew that he was speaking the sentiments of his uncle, "but it seems to me he is running a great deal more risk than he ought to."

"I agree with you, but we have been greatly favored so far, and we will continue to hope for the best."

The long spell of quiet which had followed the attempt to fire the block-house, permitted the children to sleep, and their mother, upon the urgency of her husband, had lain down beside them and was sinking into a refreshing slumber.

Megill and Turner kept their places at the loopholes, watching for the signs of danger with as vigilant interest as though it was the first hour of the alarm. They were inclined to commend the course of Jo Stinger, despite the great peril involved.

The Wyandots, beyond question, were perfecting some scheme of attack, which most likely could be foiled only by previous knowledge on the part of the garrison. The profound darkness and the skill of the hunter would enable him to do all that could be done by any one, under the circumstances.

There came seconds, and sometimes minutes, when no one spoke, and the silence within the block-house was so profound that the faint sifting of the snow on the roof was heard. Then an eddy of wind would whirl some of the sand-like particles through the loopholes into the eyes and faces of those who were peering out. Men and boys gathered their blankets closer about their shoulders, and set their muskets down beside them, where they could be caught up the instant needed, while they carefully warmed their benumbed fingers by rubbing and striking the palms together.

All senses were concentrated in the one of listening, for no other faculty was of avail at such a time. Nerves were strung to the highest point, because there was not one who did not feel certain they were on the eve of events which were to decide the fate of the little company huddled together in Fort Bridgman.

This stillness was at its profoundest depth, the soft rustling of the snowflakes seemed to have ceased, and not a whisper was on the lips of one of the garrison, when there suddenly rang out on the night a shriek like that of some strong man caught in the crush of death. It was so piercing that it seemed almost to sound from the center of the room, and certainly must have been very close to the block-house itself.

"That was the voice of Jo!" said Colonel Preston, in a terrified undertone, after a minute's silence; "he has met his fate."

"You are mistaken," Megill hastened to say; "I have been with Jo too often, and I know his voice too well to be deceived."

"It sounded marvelously like his."

"It did not to me, though it may have been so to you."

"If it was not Jo, then it must have been one of the Wyandots."

"That follows, as a matter of course; in spite of all of Jo's care, he has run against one of their men, or one of them has run against him. The only way to settle it then was in the hurricane order, and Jo has done it that promptly that the other has just had time to work in a first-class yell like that."

"I'm greatly relieved to hear you take such a view," said Colonel Preston, who, like the rest, was most agreeably disappointed to hear Megill speak so confidently, his brother-in-law adding his testimony to the same effect.

"Directly after that shriek," said Turner, "I'm sure there was the tramping of feet, as if some one was running very fast: it passed under the stockade and out toward the well."

"I heard the footsteps too," added Ned Preston.

"So did I," chimed in Blossom Brown, feeling it his duty to say something to help the others along; "but I'm suah dat de footsteps dat I heerd war on de roof. Some onrespectful Wyamdot hab crawled up dar, and I bet am lookin' down de chimbley dis minute."

"It seems to me," observed Ned to his uncle, "that Jo will want to come back pretty soon."

"I think so too," replied his uncle, "I will go down-stairs and wait for him."

With these words he descended the rounds of the ladder and moved softly across the lower floor to the door, where he paused, with his hands on one of the heavy bars which held the structure in place.

While crossing the room he looked toward the fire-place. Among the ashes he caught the sullen red of a single point of fire, like the glowering eye of some ogre, watching him in the darkness.

Beside the huge latch, there were three ponderous pieces of timber which spanned the inner side of the door, the ends dropping into massive sockets strong enough to hold the puncheon slabs against prodigious pressure from the outside.

Colonel Preston carefully lifted the upper one out of place and then did the same with the lowest. Then he placed his hand on the middle bar and held his ear close to the jamb, so that he might catch the first signal from the scout, whose return was due every minute.

The listening ear caught the silken sifting of the particles of snow, which insinuated themselves into and through the smallest crevices, and a slight shiver passed through the frame of the pioneer, who had thrown his blanket off his shoulders so that he might have his arms free to use the instant it should become necessary.

Colonel Preston had stood thus only a few minutes, when he fancied he heard some one on the outside. The noise was very slight and much as if a dog was scratching with his paw. Knowing that wood is a better conductor of sound than air, he pressed his ear against the door.

To his astonishment he then heard nothing except the snowflakes, which sounded like the tapping of multitudinous fairies, as they romped back and forth and up and down the door.

"That's strange," thought he, after listening a few minutes; "there's something unusual out there, and I don't know whether it is Jo or not. I'm afraid the poor fellow has been hurt and is afraid to make himself known."

The words were yet in his mouth, when he caught a faint tapping outside, as if made by the bill of a bird.

"That's Jo!" he exclaimed, immediately raising the end of the middle bar from its socket; "he must be hurt, or he is afraid to signal me, lest he be recognized."

At the moment the fastenings were removed, and Colonel Preston was about drawing the door inward, he stayed his hand, prompted so to do by the faintest suspicion that something was amiss.

"Jo! is that you?" he asked in a whisper.

"_Sh! Sh!_"

He caught the warning, almost inaudible as it was, and instantly drew the door inward six or eight inches.

"Quick, Jo! the way is open!"

Even then a vague suspicion that all was not right led Colonel Preston to step back a single step, and, though he had no weapons, he clenched his fist and braced himself for an assault which he did not expect.

The darkness was too complete for him to see anything, while the faint ember, smouldering in the fire-place, threw no reflection on the figure of the pioneer, so as to reveal his precise position.

It was a providential instinct that led Colonel Preston to take this precaution, for as he recoiled some one struck a venomous blow at him with a knife, under the supposition that he was standing on the same spot where he stood at the moment the door was opened. Had he been there, he would have been killed with the suddenness almost of the lightning stroke.

The pioneer could not see, and he heard nothing except a sudden expiration of the breath, which accompanied the fierce blow into vacancy, but he knew like a flash that, instead of Jo, it was a Wyandot Indian who was in the act of making a rush to open the way for the other warriors behind him.

The right fist shot forward, with all the power Colonel Preston could throw into it. He was an athlete and a good boxer. As he struck, he hurled his body with the fist, so that all the momentum possible went with it. Fortunately for the pioneer the blow landed on the forehead of the unprepared warrior, throwing him violently backward against his comrades, who were in the act of rushing forward to follow in his wake.

But for them he would have been flung prostrate full a dozen feet distant.

The instant the blow was delivered, Colonel Preston sprang back, shoved the door to and caught up the middle bar. At such crises it seems as if fate throws every obstruction in the way, and his agony was indescribable, while desperately trying to get the bar in place.

Only a few seconds were occupied in doing so, but those seconds were frightful ones to him. He was sure the entire war party would swarm into the block-house, before he could shut them out.

The Indians, who were forced backward by the impetus of the smitten leader, understood the need of haste. They knew that, unless they recovered their ground immediately, their golden opportunity was gone.

Suppressing all outcry, for they had no wish to draw the fire from the loopholes above, they precipitated themselves against the door, as though each one was the carved head of a catapult, equal to the task of bursting through any obstacle in its path.

Thank Heaven! In the very nick of time Colonel Preston got the middle bar into its socket. This held the door so securely that the other two were added without trouble, and he then breathed freely.

Drops of cold perspiration stood on his forehead, and he felt so faint that he groped about for a stool, on which he dropped until he could recover.