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White Crow’s Treachery
SOON after sunrise, as he had indicated, White Crow made his appearance at Dodge’s camp, accompanied by two of his foremost braves, both of them strong, sinewy warriors, armed with knife, hatchet and musket.
“It is good to see you, Kaukishkaka,” the Colonel cordially saluted them, through his mouthpiece, the young Pottawattomee. “You have kept your promise.”
“The White Crow does not speak with a forked tongue,” replied the Winnebago smoothly.
“Which way lies the trail?” went on Dodge, coming abruptly to the problem at hand. “My rangers are eager to strike the scent of the Sacs.”
“Straight toward the rising sun!” announced the Crow, pointing a bony finger eastward.
“Let us start at once!”
At Dodge’s command, the stirring notes of the trumpet sounded on the quiet morning air. Three hundred men quickly mounted and filed out on the trail, behind their coppery guides. As the Crow had stated, the path led straight to the east; and the trail, for some miles, was good, over an open, gently rolling country, interspersed here and there with groves of hardwood. The rangers, in a rather close group, followed the Indians, all of them looking attentively as they rode to saddle and girth, musket, pistol and knife.
For two days, travel was unbroken and uneventful. Camp was made that second night at a place where the aspect of the country was beginning to change. Vast marshlands could be seen ahead, from the summit of the low hill where the stop was ordered.
“Looks like we’re getting into the great swamps of the Koshkonong,” ventured Tom Gordon, as he appraised the region to the east.
“That we are, lad,” nodded Bill Brown. “From here to the Big Rapids o’ Rock River, much o’ the goin’ ’ll be slow an’ treach’rous.”
“Big Rapids of Rock River?” questioned Colonel Dodge surprisedly. “You seem to have an idea, Brown, just where we are heading.”
“I reckon I have, Colonel.”
“You’ve traversed this trail before?”
“Yep, goin’ from the Four Lakes to Mil-wa-ke.”
“And the swamps are very bad?”
“Powerful bad. Wust I ’bout ever seed.”
“To make it tougher,” pondered the officer, “this has been a wet year. Perhaps that confounded Crow is figuring to lure us into some impassable bog, where the Sac snakes can swallow us at leisure.”
“I’m afeared so, Colonel. The Injuns know this swamp country like you know the palm o’ yer hand. Ther’s many a likely place fer ambush.”
Dodge was silent for a few moments, watching the making of the camp. He called a subordinate and gave orders that double the usual number of sentinels be posted.
“Furthermore,” he said, gritting his big, white teeth, “I’m sending scouts ahead of the column, several miles ahead, unbeknown, of course, to the White Crow and his skins.”
“What the Crow don’t know, won’t hurt him,” grunted Bill.
“The Crow looks uncommon sharp, for all his one eye,” observed Ben Gordon. “He may notice that scouts are missing from the troop.”
“That’s so, boy,” Dodge admitted. “Hadn’t thought of that.”
“A couple o’ scouts ’ll do the trick, Colonel,” stated Brown, “an’ two ain’t apt to be missed. I volunteer fer one.”
“Good! I had you in mind.”
“Count me in,” added Tom Gordon quickly.
“Stout lad! This is going to be dangerous work.”
“That lets me out,” protested Ben.
“Me go!” chimed in Bright Star, nodding vigorously.
“No, two ’ll be enough, as Bill says. Anyway, I need the young chief at my side, for daily talks with the Crow. That Winnebago gibberish is all Greek to me. Then too, he is the only other redskin in camp, and the Crow’s men would be sure to note his absence.”
“Mebbe Ben is right,” mused Bill. “Even with three hundred men in the troop, the canny Crow may l’arn that Tom an’ me is away; an’ git to fussin’ ’bout it.”
“If he does,” declared Dodge, “I’ll have a story for him that you’ve gone southeast, to try to make contact with Atkinson’s forces.”
“That’s a corkin’ good ideer, Colonel,” nodded Bill. “It’ll fool ol’ one-eye good an’ proper. Matter o’ fack, the White Beaver can’t be too fer off. He was due to leave Dixon’s Ferry a week ago.”
“We start tonight, sir?” asked Tom.
“By all means, if possible.”
“Reckon we kin,” opined Brown, gazing up at the clear, summer sky. “We’ll travel by starshine. Totherwise, it’d be too risky pokin’ ’round in them orful bogs come dark. Ther’s muck out yonder that’ll suck a man out o’ sight in three jerks of a lamb’s tail.”
“Whew!” exclaimed Dodge, “it’ll be a terrific chore getting the rangers through. The horses ’ll be belly-deep in mud half the time. We’ll be lucky to make five miles a day.”
At late evening, Bill and Tom prepared to leave Dodge’s tent, where there had been a last minute conference. The stalwart ranger gave a strong farewell clasp to the hand of each of the scouts.
“We’ll be back, Colonel, with a report,” said Brown confidently. “You kin count on that.”
He and Tom then bent low and passed through the sleeping camp. For a moment or so, they could see the vague shapes of the tents and picketed horses on the hill crown. Then all was lost in darkness.
“Footing is passable so far,” whispered Tom presently.
It wasn’t long, however, before they found the ground growing steadily more uncertain. They could get along only by stepping upon large hummocks of rank grass, little quaking islands in an ocean of mud, sticky, knee-deep mud. Worse still, they now came to a place where a gap of several feet intervened between them and the next hummock. This gap was filled by a forbidding slough, black and ominous.
“Nothin’ to do but jump fer it,” declared Bill.
By a vigorous exertion, coupled with a skillful bit of balancing, they managed to contrive the leap. Then they groped their way through a patch of swamp alder, where their travel was suddenly enlivened by scores of skin punctures, like sharp needles.
“Skeeters!” mourned Bill.
“Big as bumble-bees!” Tom complained, slapping himself busily.
An ominous humming rose from all about them. Myriads of the insects were rising in all directions from the slimy marshes, and swarming to the feast. The two scouts were fain to push ahead with all possible speed.
After emerging from this first patch of swamp, the pair rested on a fallen log for a few moments, just off the trail. Holding their rifles at an alert they listened intently, looking for enemies with eyes and ears trained by the wild life of the border. They heard low sounds, and then a pattering of light feet on the ground.
“Wild beasts!” murmured Tom.
“Foxes,” guessed Bill, “an’ mebbe a timber wolf er two. But don’t mind ’em, Tom. They won’t bother us. Jest watch out fer the pesky Sacs.”
“Look!” warned the boy, “there’s one now.”
About thirty yards to the east, coming noiselessly over the rim of a low ridge, was a dim figure. Swiftly, but stealthily, the two whites dropped behind the shelter of the log. They lay absolutely flat upon the ground, and the keenest eyes, even at close range, could hardly have detected them, two slightly darker blurs on the dark earth.
As the Indian shuffled by, the hidden scouts faintly saw the outline of his war-bonnet. The savage, however, saw nothing and passed on into the inky blackness of the swamp. After a moment, the whites got to their hands and knees and resumed their way, a slow, creeping advance up the gentle slope of the ridge.
Such a mode of travel was not only snail-like, but extremely tiring. When they reached the crown, they stopped again, lying as before prone on the earth, not only for the sake of rest but to spy out the area once more with eye and ear. They looked closely down the ridge toward the dismal swamp. It and everything in it were buried in darkness. It was still as the grave.
“Think that skin was a Sac, Bill?” whispered Tom.
“Aye, lad, I could tell by his bonnet.”
“Scouting the ranger camp, I reckon,” the boy observed.
“Yep, Tom, an’ now we do have to be keerful. Sac spy behint us, an’ the hull tribe ahead.”
“It won’t be any picnic, Bill.”
Resolutely they turned about and again took up the trail to the eastward. They had gone only a few steps, however, when there was a sudden growl and a furry form, shooting out of the darkness, leaped like an arrow at Tom. But big Bill Brown, reaching straight out with his brawny arms, grasped the creature by the throat and squeezed it hard with his powerful hands. Another growl had arisen in the beast’s mouth, but it died behind his teeth, as the fierce grip gradually choked the life from its body. It gave a last convulsive kick; then lay inert.
“A wolf!” exclaimed Tom excitedly. “You saved my hide that time, Bill.”
“Naw, it ain’t a wolf,” the scout said, peering closely at the still form.
“Well, what in thunder is it?”
“An Injun cur.”
“Hm!” mused Tom. “Suppose it was following that lone brave?”
“Mos’ likely.”
“Which would seem to indicate,” went on the boy, “that the Sac encampment may be considerably nearer than we thought.”
“Good reasonin’, Tom. Prob’ly ain’t more’n a few mile. Let’s git on.”
At the foot of the ridge they found a second swamp, almost as difficult of passage as the first. And for the next few miles it was pretty much the same story, first a low ridge, then a stretch of black swamp. They were wet and mud-caked to their knees, and itched like fire in every exposed place, from the unending assaults of the eager mosquitoes.
“Hungriest skeeters I ’bout ever seed,” averred Bill savagely. “Guess the pesky critters ain’t had a square meal in weeks.”
They blundered on, however, and in the east came a faint dawn, a few fingers of pale gray.
“Look!” cried Tom, pointing to a feeble light on the crest of a low hill that lay some distance ahead.
“Injun campfire!” exclaimed Bill, carefully examining the pin-point of flame.
As they crept warily forward, there came a dash of scarlet in the east, harbinger of the summer sun. Then the dash of scarlet grew to a blaze, and the wilderness turned from dark to daylight, swiftly and vividly. Swamp and hill were suffused with a red glow, wonderful to behold. By this time, the scouts had reached a clump of thick-growing willows that gave them an excellent point of vantage to scan the hill-top ahead.
“Lucifer!” gasped Bill, “what a spot fer an ambush!”
The cunning Sacs had indeed chosen a spot well-suited for ambuscade. Before reaching the rocky, U-shaped hill on which the Indians had taken position, the narrow trail passed between two impassable bogs that stretched away for a mile or more on either hand. Doubtless, the Sac strategy would be to let a part of the rangers pass through the swamp-gap unmolested. Then, from front and sides of the U-shaped hill, the bronze sharpshooters would pour in a withering fire of musket and rifle; and safely hidden themselves among the rocky coverts, they bade fair to annihilate the white detachment with paltry loss in their own ranks. Their savage hearts sang as they dreamed of a feast of scalps.
“It’d be a death-trap!” said Tom.
“The White Crow was leadin’ us like lambs to the slaughter!” grated Bill wrathily.
“Just as you warned the Colonel, Bill. The Crow’s really hand in glove with Black Hawk.”
“Course he is; so let’s git back to the rangers, fast as we kin leg it.”
They had gone perhaps two miles on the back trail, when Tom Gordon came to a quick halt, at the edge of a wide, dangerous patch of morass.
“Bill,” he burst out, “that Sac scout! the one we passed in the night!”
“Thunderation, lad! the red rascal plumb slipped my mind. What a numbskull! It might’ve cost us our hair.”
“Well, hadn’t we better—?”
Tom broke off abruptly. A scream, wild and horrid, issued from the depths of the swamp ahead. As the two scouts froze in their tracks, it came again, agonized and unearthly; but this time trailing off into a choking, muffled gasp. Then all was ghastly silence.
“Merciful Providence!” muttered the shaken boy, “what was that?”
“Come,” said Bill Brown grimly, “we’ll find out.”
But when they had picked their way through the awful bog, peering closely to right and left, their puzzlement grew. Neither on the trail, nor in the slimy marshes on either hand, had they noted a sign of life. The fearsome swamp was silent as the tomb, refusing to yield up the secret of the blood-chilling screams.
“I have it, Bill!” said Tom suddenly.
“You’ve solved the myst’ry?”
“Yes, that was the death-cry of the Sac scout!”
“Great Jupiter, do you think so?”
“Aye, Bill. He was sucked to his doom in the deadly mud, a victim of the black swamps of the Koshkonong.”