CHAPTER IV.
THE HAUNTED TRADER.
“Shall we give the red-livered dogs another volley?”
The questioner was a youth, apparently twenty years of age, and the looks which he threw upon the startled Indians was burdened with the consuming fire of hatred.
“No, Rob,” was the whispered rejoiner of a herculean man who lay behind the log at the young scout’s side. “Another volley would bring the hull ov the red devils down upon us before we could reload, an’ then thar’d be the very Old Harry to pay. They’ll not hunt for us as it is; they’re pickin’ up their dead now, an’ ar’ goin’ to break fur Cahokia. Wonder who dropped Segowatha?”
“And I wonder where my daughter—my Kate—is?”
It was Oliver Blount that spoke, and his face told of the fearful anxiety and doubting that gnawed at his heart. He was enduring the greatest anguish that can assail a father’s breast for the fate of his only child.
“The Lord only knows where she is, Oll,” responded the giant, in a sympathizing tone; “and, b’lieve me, He’s goin’ to take care o’ her until you see her again.”
A ray of hope lighted up Blount’s eyes, and he grasped Doc Bell’s hand.
“Then you think her living, Doc?”
“Why, in course she’s alive,” said the hunter and Indian-fighter, confidently. “Ef them red devils had cotched her, why she’d be with ’em now; but, you see, the only live thing they found in yer house war Pontiac, an’ I’ll bet my rifle that he let out some red hound’s blood afore he yelped fur the last time. Ha! jest as I told ye; they’re goin’.”
A smile played with the giant’s face as he saw the savages lift their dead from the ground, and move toward Cahokia Creek.
“Look yonder!” suddenly exclaimed Oliver Blount, his eyes riveted upon the Yellow Chief, who, with the assistance of two Miamis, regained his feet. “I know who the Yellow Chief is now—Jules Bardue.”
“That’s jest his name!” said Bell, “an’ a devil he is, too. Yer daughter did good work to-night, Oll, but she ought to hev finished the Creole.”
“But he will die,” said Rob Somerville, the young scout. “Look at his face; death is riding over it now.”
“No, he ain’t, boy,” said the giant. “To kill Jules Bardue you must send a bullet to his brain. I’ll never forget the night, near two years ago, when I met him near the ’Wattomie town, and hacked him to pieces with my knife. I made that scar over his left eye; I cut the thumb from his left hand, an’ four times I drove my blade between the scoundrel’s ribs. I left him for dead. I piled brush over ’im, an’ ran like oiled lightnin’. But as I live! a month arterwards I saw the Yellow Chief on Lake Michigan. Somehow or other he had come to life, an’ doctored himself up in the latest style. But, boys, the next time I’ll finish ’im; thar’s no remedy, you know, fur a bullet in the brain.”
When the hunter concluded, the savages were beyond sight, and after scouring the woods to see that none remained behind, the trio approached the blasted sight of Oliver Blount’s home.
“They shall pay for this!” hissed the fur-trader, through clenched teeth, and then he stopped before a ghastly object—the body of his faithful dog.
While he bent over it, stroking the bloody hair with the air and look of a grief-stricken man, the giant and his youthful protege returned from a scout around the cottage.
“Yer daughter is safe, Oll,” said Bell.
The trader started at the sound of the voice, for the two men had stolen up behind him.
“How do you know she’s safe?” he demanded.
“Because your boat is gone, an’ she an’ that young Peoria ar’ in it.”
“Gone down Cahokia right into the jaws of death.”
“Not much. Swamp Oak ain’t a durned fool if he is young. He’s gone up Cahokia, to his mysterious home.”
“Do you know where it is?” and Oliver Blount griped the hunter’s arm in his eagerness.
“Not exactly, but I kin tramp mighty nigh it. Ye see, that young red chap stole his wife, an’ he won’t tell anybody whar he keeps her. But we’ll hunt for the place, an’ we’ll begin right away. I’d give any thing fur a boat now.”
But no canoe was to be had, and the trio were obliged to set out on the hunt for Kate Blount on foot.
They had arrived too late to attack the Indians while they besieged the devoted pair in the cottage; but they reached the spot from whence they slew the three red-men in time to hear the oath which Segowatha imposed upon his followers.
Doc Bell and young Somerville had lately left Fort Chartres for the purpose of conducting the Blount family to a place of safety, or to defend them should the father still persist in his refusal to move. To warn the trader of his danger, and to tell him that they would soon be with him, they had dispatched Swamp Oak, the Peoria, before them; and, as the reader has seen, the Indian reached the doomed cottage in time to render valuable assistance to its beautiful tenant.
A short distance from Fort Chartres the twain encountered Indians, and accidentally ran across a young Delaware brave, with whom a meeting, in his own country, some years prior to the date of our romance, had placed Bell on friendly terms. The Delaware told them of the presence of the avengers; that that night the blow was to be struck, and that the home of every backwoods English settler would be in ashes before dawn.
This startling intelligence impelled our two friends forward faster than ever, and when they struck the trail leading from Cahokia to the trader’s house, they encountered Oliver flying to the protection of his loved daughter. He had been detained in Cahokia beyond his time, and he had much to relate about the bursting of the storm of massacre. His path had been illuminated by the light of happy homes, and he had had several narrow escapes while on his homeward journey.
From the destroyed cottage the trio proceeded to the scene of the struggle between Swamp Oak and the Yellow Chief; and, with Doc Bell in advance, struck up the creek.
“I tell you what,” said the giant, “we’re in an uncommon delicate pickle jest now. Thar’s a wall ov red meat all around us, an’ unless we kin break through it, the circle will narrow down to a point so fine as to be extremely disagreeable.”
“But, with Kate, we’re going to break through it!” said Blount, with determination.
“That’s jest what’s the matter,” responded the hunter. “The red devils may surround me in a ten-acre woods, an’ ef I don’t get out all right, they may marry me to the ugliest squaw they’ve got. Bob an’ me’s been in tight places afore.”
“And so have I,” said Blount; “and we’re going to get out of this. But we’ll be hunted like deers. When the Red Avengers deliver Segowatha to the rest of the tribe, they’ll return and hunt us down.”
“You’re right thar, Blount, an’ ef they catch any ov us they’ll sarve us like they sarved poor John Senior, on the shores of Huron.”
“How was that?” asked Blount.
“They made him eat his ears, an’ then, with dull knives, they skinned him alive.”
Despite his manhood, Oliver Blount shuddered.
“I saw that done,” continued Bell, “an’ the hellion who proposed it swore this night to hunt us down.”
“I know who you mean—Jules Bardue.”
“Yes, it was he.”
The thought of ‘Jack’ Senior’s fate, and their own peril caused the trio to drop the unpalatable conversation, and for a long time they skirted the shores of Cahokia creek in silence. Far above them the stars twinkled with a dimmed luster, as if they were sorrowing for the work falling from the hands of the demon Devastation, stalking over the Eden land of the Illinois.
Oliver Blount walked along with bowed head—repenting, when too late, of his stubbornness. Had he listened to reason at that hour he and his daughter might have been safe behind the protecting walls of Fort Chartres; but now she was a fugitive from Indian vengeance, and he rushing to death in the attempt to save her young life. He trusted to his more watchful companions to warn him of the presence of foes, and suddenly that warning came in the click of their rifles.
“What is it?” he asked in a whisper.
“Down!” returned the giant.
They crouched in the weeds that lined the bank of the little stream, and the footsteps of a single person approached them from the recesses of the forest.
“He’s making for the creek,” whispered Somerville. “If an Indian, we’ll finish him.”
“It’s a pale-face,” said Bell. “Listen again, Bob. Does he run like an Injun?”
The young man did not reply, and presently the new-comer crossed an open spot in which the trio caught a glimpse of his figure. He was a tall man, clad in the garb of the English fur trader, and bore a long rifle at his side. His haggard face told of a terror-stricken heart; and it was not difficult for the trio to tell that he was flying from the blood-dyed tomahawk of Pontiac’s avengers.
He paused on the bank of the stream, and resting his sharply defined chin upon his shoulder, listened for the footsteps of his pursuers.
The three hunters could almost have touched him with their gun-barrels.
They watched him narrowly, and when he seemed about to plunge into the stream, and break his trail by water, Doc Bell spoke:
“Williamson?”
The hunted man started, and a low cry of despair parted his ashen lips. Our friends heard the click, click of his long weapon, and his fiery, blood-shot eyes seemed to pierce their covert.
“Come on!” he hissed. “John Williamson never surrenders. For three weeks I’ve been the most wretched man on earth. Awake or asleep, I’ve been hunted by the ghost of that mighty chief whose life I purchased for a barrel of rum. I want to die, and now come on, and let me take to Hades with me a dozen red demons.”
“We don’t want your life, John Williamson, though I could take it without a guilty conscience,” said Oliver Blount, who recognized the man who had precipitated the bloody war upon the country, by compassing the death of the great conspirator, Pontiac.
The haunted trader recognized Blount’s voice, and a moment later he stood before the three men.
“Will you not save me?” he pleaded, suddenly discovering that he was not so eager to die as he seemed to be a moment since.
“I thought you wanted to die!” said the giant with a sneer. “Williamson, you deserve to perish like a dog—you the devil whose hate of a noble Injun is deluging the Illinois in innocent blood. But they’ll catch you yet, an’ then you’ll experience what Jack Senior did.”
The terrible doom of Senior was known throughout the length and breadth of the Illinois country.
“No, no,” groaned Williamson, his knees smiting one another. “I’ll cut my throat first.”
“They’ll never give you that chance,” put in Somerville, who smiled to see the terror of the justly haunted wretch.
“We’re huntin’ a gal—Kate Blount,” said Doc Bell, addressing the cowardly trader, “an’ we’ll take you with us if you promise to behave decently.”
“I’ll do that,” was the response, “and, sirs, I’ll fight like a lion, when it comes to that.”
“Well, it’s coming to that,” said the giant, “and then—”
“Hark!” whispered the youth, clutching his companion’s arm.
The quartette listened, and heard footsteps in the forest.
“The Illinois is full of fiends,” whispered Blount.
“And they’re coming up the creek!” groaned the haunted trader, audibly.
“Speak above a whisper again, John Williamson, an’ I’ll toss you into the red-skins’ arms,” said the giant, as he laid his hand upon the trader’s shoulder.
The sounds increased, and indicated the approach of a large body of Indians. They were advancing up the opposite side of the stream, and to our friends’ surprise halted almost directly opposite their covert.
The starlight enabled our friends to arrive at their number, and they concluded that they were advancing against a somewhat exposed village of the Peorias not many miles distant. Immediately after kindling a fire, which they did upon halting, the chiefs came together for counsel, and Oliver Blount and the two hunters watched them with anxiety and interest. They dared not move, for the least movement might reach their enemies’ ears, and, in a moment, two hundred avengers would be upon them.
Therefore, they resolved to remain where they were until the conclusion of the council, which they knew would transpire before dawn.
Wearied with his long tramp—tired of flying, no doubt, from an imaginary foe, the haunted trader dropped into a fitful slumber, while his companions watched the council.
Suddenly they were startled by a most unearthly cry.
“Avaunt! avaunt! I didn’t kill Pontiac! Hellions, away! away!”
The trio were on their feet in an instant, and beheld John Williamson with frantic gestures trying to beat back the phantoms that haunted him.
His aspect was enough to frighten the spectators; but their peril and rage drove every thing else from their minds.
The trader’s tone had reached the Indian camp. The council was breaking, and swarms of painted braves were rushing to the stream with their eyes fastened upon the spot where stood the seemingly doomed scouts.
Doc Bell, the giant, realizing the danger, with a dreadful anathema, sprung upon the dreamer like a tiger.
“Curse you!” he hissed, as he clutched the haunted trader’s throat, and threw him above his head as though he were as light as a child. “You’ll never dream of your victim again—John Williamson—never!”
He sprung to the edge of the cliff, and at a glance saw every Indian in the water below.
“My God! He’s going to kill John!” cried Oliver Blount, as he darted toward the giant.
“Spare him, Doc!”
“Never!” and with his word he hurled the body out into the air, and it fell among the savages below, with a rushing sound.
“Now!” yelled the backwoods Ajax, turning suddenly upon his companions. “For your lives, run!”
The next moment they bounded into the grayish forest, with a hundred fiends yelling at their heels!