Into the clearing before them stepped a strange figure, rifle still covering the startled Audubon—a tall man clad in buckskin and coonskin cap, with, of course, moccasins. He was gaunt and huge-boned, grey hair falling over his shoulders and a grizzled red moustache and beard half-hiding his face. For all that, Norton was startled by the man's features.
They were anything but those of a riverman. True, the sunken grey eyes held a smouldering ferocity which was almost madness; but the high brow, fine nose, and shapely head, even the delicate lines of mouth and chin beneath the flowing beard—all these expressed a keen intelligence, almost a nobility, which was utterly astounding to Norton.
"What's this—what's this!" The stranger lowered his rifle suddenly as his eyes fell on Norton's features. Carefully uncocking the weapon, he stared at the two friends, an indescribable expression of chagrin overspreading his countenance. "Gentlemen, I must crave your pardon. From his moccasins I took this gentleman for an Indian,"—and he gravely indicated Norton—"for he is deeply browned and his features were all but hidden from me. God be thanked I did not shoot first!"
"Amen to that!" cried Norton feebly, essaying a faint smile. Audubon, no less astonished at the looks and speech of the stranger, made a slight bow, and spoke coldly:
"If your murderous impulse has quite abated, sir, pray lend this gentleman your aid. We are seeking the cabin of a man called Red Hugh. Do you know where it is?"
From what Boone had told him, and from the appearance and manner of the stranger, Norton had a very shrewd suspicion that this was no other than Red Hugh himself. Leaning on his long rifle, the man surveyed the two friends critically.
"Well," he returned at length, "I may say yes to that question, sir. But I will barter my information for yours. You, sir"—and he bent his sunken grey eyes on Norton—"are wearing a pair of Shawnee moccasins. As you probably know, the beads and quill-work on those moccasins are peculiar. In fact, there is only one man besides yourself in the Northwest who wears such moccasins, and he is an Indian—the only Indian I have ever held under my rifle and spared. Where did you get them?"
Norton sat up, fighting off the dizzy weakness that all but mastered him. The man's words sent eager curiosity through him.
"I had them from an Indian," he returned quickly, and gave a brief account of the two he had encountered. Before he finished, a fresh spasm of nausea overwhelmed him, and he sank back in Audubon's arms.
"Enough of this talk," cried the naturalist angrily. "If you will guide us to this Red Hugh, sir, pray do so at once. We come to him from Colonel Boone——"
"If you had said that before, you would have bettered matters," broke in the tall stranger. "I am he whom you seek. Come."
Norton had lost all interest in the proceedings, for he could no longer fight off the fever. Between them the other two got him to his feet and half-carried him along a faint trail indicated by Red Hugh. After what seemed centuries to the reeling Norton, they came to a cabin, and he dimly felt himself carried inside. He knew little of what happened next, save that he drank a bitter draught and fell asleep.
When he wakened, he stared around him with wondering eyes, trying to place himself. He tried to move, and found himself too weak to raise his arm; yet the terrible sickness had passed.
He was lying on a couch of skins, and by the deepness of the sun outside he guessed it was mid-afternoon. The cabin was a bare place enough save for the furs heaped around the floor, but directly opposite him, beside the hearth, was a strange contrivance made of a stretched elkskin almost covering the side wall. From where he lay he could see a row of words across the top of the big skin, clearly done in red paint as if with a brush:
WYANDOT—SHAWNEE—MIAMI—
CREEK—DELAWARE—POTT.—OTTAWA.
Under each tribal name was smaller writing which he could not read.
For a space he stared at the thing in wonder. Then, with a rush, he remembered that he lay in the cabin of Red Hugh, and all which had gone before. There was work to be done! Abel Grigg must be trailed to his meeting-place with the other pirates. Norton made a terrible effort to rise, but collapsed with a groan of despair.
At the sound, a figure darkened the doorway, and he looked up to see the tall form of Red Hugh bending over him. His head was lifted and a rolled skin set beneath it: then the old backwoodsman drew up a stool, fetched a bowl of hot broth from the fire, and set to work feeding him with a spoon.
"Talk later," he said gently. "First, you must eat. You have slept since yesterday, friend, and——"
Norton, feeling new strength with the first mouthful of broth, pushed the spoon away desperately. The words shocked him into energy, and again he tried to sit up.
"Since yesterday!" he exclaimed. "But Grigg must be followed——"
The iron hand of Red Hugh pushed him back.
"Eat!" And the deep command forced him to obey. "You lack only strength, Norton, and that will come in a few days. Now, to relieve your anxiety, your friend Audubon told me all that had passed. We tried to trail Grigg, but the scoundrel had covered his tracks like an Indian and I feared to leave you alone here. So Audubon went back to Louisville to confer with Ayres, and for the present matters must be left as they are."
"Then you know my errand?"
"Yes. Audubon told me the whole affair. Now finish this broth.”
Leaning back, Norton obeyed, in a mingling of disappointment and content. It was hard that Grigg should have escaped, yet this Red Hugh seemed a capable person to trust in. Norton could not but wonder at the man. According to Boone, Red Hugh had spent the past twenty years here on the border, yet his manners and speech were those of a cultivated gentleman—and Norton could not understand the incongruity of it.
The rich broth gave him new life. When the last drop was gone, Red Hugh proceeded to cram an ancient pipe with tobacco, sternly denying the luxury to his guest, and settled himself beside the couch.
"Shawnee moccasins! Shawnee moccasins!" he muttered slowly, then brought his keen eyes to Norton's face. "Audubon said you were from New Orleans?"
"Yes," returned the Louisianian, with curiosity again stirring in him. "You seemed to recognize those moccasins, sir—how shall I call you?"
"Call me by my name—Red Hugh," said the other gruffly. "That is all the name I have held these twenty years, and it is good enough to die under. As to those moccasins, sir, you seem to have entertained an angel and a devil unawares."
"Those two Indians?" demanded Norton eagerly. "Who were they, then?"
"He with one eye is called the Prophet," puffed Red Hugh slowly. "The bitterest-hearted devil unhung! The other, his brother, is the finest man on the border to-day, the one redskin I am proud to call friend. He has sat here where you now lie, telling me of his dream; he has built a town on the Wabash, not far from Vincennes, where he hopes to gather all the Indian tribes in peace, teaching them to lay aside the rifle and till the soil. Neither he nor his followers touch liquor—sir, God will punish our race for the evils we have brought upon these Indians! The man of whom I speak is a Shawnee, humbly born yet recognized as chieftain by a dozen tribes. His name is Tecumthe, or as the border makes it, Tecumsey."
The amazed Norton listened to this speech in blank astonishment. He had heard little of the two Indians in the South, and only on his Northern trip had he learned much of Tecumthe or his famous brother, the Prophet. Along the border they were hated bitterly, and that he had himself aided the two was no small surprise.
Even more amazing, however, was the way in which Red Hugh spoke. From Boone, Norton had understood that the man hunted Indians, as more than one frontiersman did, like wild animals.
"Tell me this," he asked, bewildered. "I thought you hated all redskins, Hugh? If that is true, what care you for the evil we have brought upon them, and why do you think so highly of Tecumthe?"
The other puffed in silence for a moment, his face set like stone.
"Look at that elk-hide yonder," he said, at length, gesturing with his pipe toward the stretched skin, his voice deeply stirred. "Norton, that skin bears record of a hundred and a score Indians I have slain. Twenty years ago a band of red devils murdered my whole family, my wife, my children, killed my dearest friend, left me for dead——"
He paused, and after a space continued, his voice firmer.
"I recovered, and having naught to live for save vengeance, I took vengeance. Every redskin I have slain has been a warrior under arms, and I have hunted them without pity or mercy, even as they have hunted me. This man Tecumthe is different. His heart is white, Norton. While the Prophet is stirring up war, Tecumthe is urging peace; he has a great vision of uplifting his race—but he cannot do it. His men are murdered along the frontier and he can get no justice. His lands are stolen, and Harrison will do nothing. If he loses the Wabash Valley, the Shawnees will be thrown back on the Sioux and Blackfeet, their mortal enemies. Well, let us get off this subject, Norton. You know who I am, and that is enough. We have to deal, not with Indians, but with men worse than Indians."
"Yes," said Norton bitterly. "This gang of river-pirates has murdered more men within the last year or two than have all all the Indians since Fallen Timbers. Too bad Grigg escaped you; we had the whole gang under our hand right there, could we have trapped him."
Red Hugh laid aside his pipe and fell to stroking his grizzled beard as they discussed what was to be done. Norton was dismayed to find that he would be unable to get around for several days, though Red Hugh promised him a complete cure from his fever and wounds.
Nor could he obtain the information for which he had hoped, from this strange character. Red Hugh, who seemed well educated and only a trifle "touched" on the subject of killing Indians, had a supreme contempt for the settlers along the river, in the main. He had been only once to Louisville, and had lived his solitary life as far as might be without concerning himself with settlements. He knew nothing of the Blacknose gang, though he stated bluntly that once he and Norton set themselves to hunt down the pirates, it would be a matter of short accomplishment.
So with that small ray of comfort, Norton went about his recovery, impatiently enough. When three days had passed, he felt nearly himself once more; but in that space of time he had discovered many things.
In the first place, he was forced to reverse his earlier impressions of Red Hugh. While he was ill, the man took a lively interest in caring for him; no sooner was Norton on his feet, than Red Hugh relapsed into a brooding morose individual who refused to talk about himself or his doings and only betrayed interest in Blacknose. Studying the man, Norton concluded that he had been a gentleman and a man of some consequence, but since the destruction of his family had devoted his whole life to revenge with a consequent loss of sanity on other topics.
He seemed to have absolutely no other business in life than killing Indians, for a living was easily gained by hunting. He had never troubled to take up land, and since there were no settlements in the vicinity, no one interfered with his squatting. All his vivacity and gentle care vanished as soon as Norton regained strength, and with this interest gone, he would sit and stare by the hour at his terrible elkskin.
This Norton also found of keen interest, for every "hunt" had been carefully set down as to date and result. When they took the field against Blacknose, he conjectured shrewdly that Red Hugh would re-awaken once more, for judging by the elk-skin he was possessed of considerable prowess in the man-hunt. He must have gone about his revenge with a terrible skill; more than once the painted record showed that parties of two and three Indians had fallen to his rifle.
John Norton was in no sense horrified, though not at all in sympathy with the old man. There were many like him along the border. The settlers conceived and treated the red men as beasts, which too often they were, and no man was ever brought to justice for killing an Indian. Red Hugh's grievances were purely personal, however, and more than once Norton recalled Boone's words—"God ain't softened his heart yet, though He will some day, I reckon." That day, it seemed to Norton, was very far distant.
Only once, after that first talk with the man, did he ever refer to his slain family. He had been examining Norton's moccasins, on the third evening, and suddenly he favoured the Louisianian with one of his searching looks.
"If you were up in the Shawnee country," he said abruptly, "these leathers would either get you killed or crowned, Norton! Any Indian across the Ohio would recognize them instantly. Well—well——"
He stared into the fireplace, puffing at his pipe. After a moment he continued slowly as if musing to himself:
"They were Wyandots, a big war-party of them, and their chief wore moccasins with split soles. They killed us all, women and children alike—and after I recovered I went straight into the Wyandot country. I found that chief, a year later, and shot him in the midst of his own village; old Simon Kenton was with me, and we had a hard fight before we got away. Well, I had my revenge, but it did not bring back the dead wife and the little ones—the little ones——"
Upon that he strode from the cabin suddenly, and Norton never referred to his own similar story, deeming it best to keep Red Hugh's mind as far as possible from Indian atrocities. The man seemed no more than sixty years old, and save for that one topic his brain was as vigorous as that of Norton himself.
By the fourth evening the Louisianian was nearly himself again. Red Hugh's knowledge of herbs had rid him of the fever almost at once, and strength came back to him surely and swiftly. Burning with anxiety to waste no time, yet conscious of the necessity of regaining his strength, he had forced himself to bide in the idleness of recuperation, but now he could do so no longer. There was work to be done, and he was bent upon keeping control of things—for his own career lay in the balance. He had not resigned his commission in mad haste, but after much deliberation; did he succeed in eliminating the Blacknose gang, New Orleans and the Government had promised great things.
More than this, however, he had Kitty Grigg in mind. Once the present affair was concluded he promised himself a trip to Cincinnati, where many of the original members of the famous Order had settled. It should not be difficult to make inquiries and perhaps gain a clue to the girl's real family, he thought. So, calling Red Hugh into a gloomy consideration of the problem immediately at hand, he announced his intention of beginning work next day.
"The first thing is to go to Blue River and get word from Elisha Ayres," he said thoughtfully. "I can't go back to Louisville unless that murder charge is cleared up, which should have been done by this time. If not, we'll have to go on a thorough scout of the river, because Grigg and his band of pirates are somewhere down-stream."
Red Hugh nodded.
"Where are you going to meet the messenger from Ayres?"
"At Dodd's Tavern—Kentucky side."
"H'm!" The other frowned. "I haven't been there for two years, Norton, but I don't recall any tavern or settler of that name at either of the Blue River settlements. However, your friend doubtless knew what he was talking about."
"He seemed to," said Norton drily. "Blue River is only about twelve miles from here——"
"I have a canoe down on the shore. Feel strong enough to paddle?"
"Quite. If we find no word from Ayres, we can go on below Henderson and spend a couple of weeks scouting through the woods. The gang must have some sort of a rendezvous, Hugh, and it certainly has a cache of the stolen goods, for Grigg has to be careful in disposing of them. Which side of the river would you search?"
Red Hugh stared at his elk-hide, tugging at his grizzled beard.
"Well," he returned slowly, his deep-set eyes flaming a little, "they'd be like to use either side, Norton. If we skirmished around on the Indiana side around the Wabash, we might strike one or two Indian parties——"
"None of that," broke in Norton, understanding that ominous flame in the man's eye. "We're after Blacknose, not after scalps. Just impress that on your mind and save further trouble. If you give me your help in this thing, there'll be no Indian hunting."
The big man turned his slow gaze to Norton's face, and for a moment the Louisianian expected trouble. Red Hugh stared at him; Norton met the look firmly, resolved not to compromise this matter, much as he needed the man's help and advice. At length Red Hugh nodded, reluctantly.
"I like you, Norton," he said, his grim visage softening strangely. "You're a man. You're like another Norton I once knew—well, best not to speak of that. Now as to hunting this Blacknose gang: we are more like to find them on the Indiana side. If aught went wrong with their plans, they could escape to the Indian country, or else lay the blame for their crimes on the Shawnees. There are several bands of Miamis along there, also. It may well be that through some Indians we can get trace of the gang, if naught else serves."
Upon this, they made ready to set forth at dawn. Norton discarded his own battered powderhorn for the fine red-streaked one which the assassin Tobin had formerly carried—an act which was destined to bring dire results upon himself before the game was played out. He forgot the fact that this red-streaked horn was distinguished by its very oddness and beauty.
With the dawn they set forth for the blazed cottonwood and the Ohio, carrying their rifles and a quarter of venison. Upon reaching the bluff over the river, Red Hugh turned abruptly aside and led Norton down to the wooded banks, where he presently fished out an Indian birch canoe and paddles from a clump of dense bushes. Two canoes were paddling upstream along the opposite shore, and when these were past, they put their craft in the water and started for Blue River.
The river hills ran close to the stream on each side, and except for the little group of cabins under the high rocky cliff opposite them the banks were unsettled as far as Blue River. Norton paddled easily, drinking in fresh strength with the sun-bright morning air, and could scarce realize their journey was nearly done when Red Hugh pointed to Blue River ahead. They had passed Indian Creek and two islands without sight of other river-craft, and now held in to the Kentucky shore.
"Colonel Boone's brother, Squire, began that settlement"—and Red Hugh pointed across to the clustering cabins opposite. "Now if you can see any signs of a tavern over here, you beat me."
In truth, Norton gazed at the Kentucky settlement which they were approaching, and his heart sank. Ayres must have made some mistake—yet the schoolmaster had been very explicit in his directions. The settlement consisted of two cabins, one of them fast falling to ruin; a few tobacco-drying sheds; a small section of cleared land; and a half-naked woman staring hard at them. Two or three entirely naked children appeared as they paddled in, and as the slatternly woman raised her voice, a still more slatternly man came slouching from the tobacco-sheds, rifle in hand. There was no sign of any road or ferry, and this was most certainly no tavern. Norton landed with some dismay.
"Is this the Kentucky Blue River settlement?" he inquired of the suspicious man—a loose-jawed, fever-smitten person who lacked all interest in life.
"I reckon they call it that, stranger. Who be ye?"
"We're looking for Dodd's Tavern," returned Norton quietly. "If you can tell——"
"Eh? Dodd's Tavern? Well, by gum!" The man stared at him, then turned to the woman behind him. "Go git that gal."
The woman went to the house. Red Hugh drew up his canoe and joined Norton, and together they waited for what was evidently to happen. The woman reappeared from the cabin, nodded, and fell to staring. A moment later Kitty Grigg emerged, and came forward with a glad, eager little cry at sight of Norton.
"Captain Norton! Oh, I'm so glad you've come—I had almost given you up!"
"You!" Norton grasped her hand, thunder-struck. "Why, girl—what does this mean? How came you here?"
"By boat," she laughed. "And I have news from Mr. Ayres.”