CHAPTER XVI
A GIRL'S WAY
Lucy left her father's house one of these dry mornings, and stood for afew moments in the grounds, inclosed by the palisade, gazing at the darkforest, outlined so sharply against the blue of the sky. She could seethe green of the forest beyond the fort, and she knew that in the openspaces, where the sun reached them, tiny wild flowers of pink andpurple, nestled low in the grass, were already in bloom. From the west awind sweet and soft was blowing, and, as she inhaled it, she wanted tolive, and she wanted all those about her to live. She wondered, if therewas not some way in which she could help.
The stout, double log cabins, rude, but full of comfort, stood in rows,with well-trodden streets, between, then a fringe of grass around all,and beyond that rose the palisade of stout stakes, driven deep into theground, and against each other. All was of the West and so was Lucy, atall, lithe young girl, her face tanned a healthy and becoming brown bythe sun, her clothing of home-woven red cloth, adorned at the wrists andaround the bottom of the skirt with many tiny beads of red and yellowand blue and green, which, when she moved, flashed in the brilliantlight, like the quivering colors of a prism. She had thrust in her haira tiny plume of the scarlet tanager, and it lay there, like a flash offlame, against the dark brown of her soft curls.
Where she stood she could see the water of the spring near the edge ofthe forest sparkling in the sunlight, as if it wished to tantalize her,but as she looked a thought came to her, and she acted upon it at once.She went to the little square, where her father, John Ware, Ross andothers were in conference.
"Father," she exclaimed, "I will show you how to get the water!"
Mr. Upton and the other men looked at her in so much astonishment thatnone of them replied, and Lucy used the opportunity.
"I know the way," she continued eagerly. "Open the gate, let the womentake the buckets--I will lead--and we can go to the spring and fill themwith water. Maybe the Indians won't fire on us!"
"Lucy, child!" exclaimed her father. "I cannot think of such a thing."
Then up spoke Tom Ross, wise in the ways of the wilderness.
"Mr. Upton," he said, "the girl is right. If the women are willing to goout it must be done. It looks like an awful thing, but--if they die weare here to avenge them and die with them, if they don't die we are allsaved because we can hold this fort, if we have water; without it everysoul here from the oldest man down to the littlest baby will be lost."
Mr. Upton covered his face with his hands.
"I do not like to think of it, Tom," he said.
The other men waited in silence.
Lucy looked appealingly at her father, but he turned his eyes away.
"See what the women say about it, Tom," he said at last.
The women thought well of it. There was not one border heroine, butmany; disregarding danger they prepared eagerly for the task, and soonthey were in line more than fifty, every one with a bucket or pail ineach hand. Henry Ware, looking on, said nothing. The intended actappealed to the nature within him that was growing wilder every day.
A sentinel, peeping over the palisade, reported that all was quiet inthe forest, though, as he knew, the warriors were none the lesswatchful.
"Open the gate," commanded Mr. Ware.
The heavy bars were quickly taken down, and the gate was swung wide.Then a slim, scarlet-clad figure took her place at the head of the line,and they passed out.
Lucy was borne on now by a great impulse, the desire to save the fortand all these people whom she knew and loved. It was she who hadsuggested the plan and she believed that it should be she who shouldlead the way, when it came to the doing of it.
She felt a tremor when she was outside the gate, but it came fromexcitement and not from fear--the exaltation of spirit would not permither to be afraid. She glanced at the forest, but it was only a blurbefore her.
The slim, scarlet-clad figure led on. Lucy glanced over her shoulder,and she saw the women following her in a double file, grave andresolute. She did not look back again, but marched on straight towardthe spring. She began to feel now what she was doing, that she wasmarching into the cannon's mouth, as truly as any soldier that ever leda forlorn hope against a battery. She knew that hundreds of keen eyesthere in the forest before her were watching her every step, and thatbehind her fathers and brothers and husbands were waiting, with ananxiety that none of them had ever known before.
She expected every moment to hear the sharp whiplike crack of the rifle,but there was no sound. The fort and all about it seemed to be inclosedin a deathly stillness. She looked again at the forest, trying to seethe ambushed figures, but again it was only a blur before her, seemingnow and then to float in a kind of mist. Her pulses were beating fast,she could hear the thump, thump in her temples, but the slim scarletfigure never wavered and behind, the double file of women followed,grave and silent.
"They will not fire until we reach the spring," thought Lucy, and nowshe could hear the bubble of the cool, clear water, as it gushed fromthe hillside. But still nothing stirred in the forest, no rifle cracked,there was no sound of moving men.
She reached the spring, bent down, filled both buckets at the pool, andpassing in a circle around it, turned her face toward the fort, and,after her, came the silent procession, each filling her buckets at thepool, passing around it and turning her face toward the fort as she haddone.
Lucy now felt her greatest fear when she began the return journey andher back was toward the forest. There was in her something of thewarrior; if the bullet was to find her she preferred to meet it, face toface. But she would not let her hands tremble, nor would she bendbeneath the weight of the water. She held herself proudly erect andglanced at the wooden wall before her. It was lined with faces, brown,usually, but now with the pallor showing through the tan. She saw herfather's among them and she smiled at him, because she was upheld by agreat pride and exultation. It was she who had told them what to do, andit was she who led the way.
She reached the open gate again, but she did not hasten her footsteps.She walked sedately in, and behind her she heard only the regular treadof the long double file of women. The forest was as silent as ever.
The last woman passed in, the gate was slammed shut, the heavy bars weredropped into place, and Mr. Upton throwing his arms about Lucyexclaimed:
"Oh, my brave daughter!"
She sank against him trembling, her nerves weak after the long tension,but she felt a great pride nevertheless. She wished to show that a womantoo could be physically brave in the face of the most terrible of alldangers, and she had triumphantly done so.
The bringing of the water, or rather the courage that inspired the act,heartened the garrison anew, and color came back to men's faces. Theschoolmaster discussed the incident with Tom Ross, and wondered why theIndians who were not in the habit of sparing women had not fired.
"Sometimes a man or a crowd of men won't do a thing that they would doat any other time," said Ross, "maybe they thought they could get us allin a bunch by waitin' an' maybe way down at the bottom of their savagesouls, was a spark of generosity that lighted up for just this once.We'll never know."
Henry Ware went out that night, and returning before dawn with the samefacility that marked all his movements in the wilderness, reported thatthe savage army was troubled. All such forces are loose and irregular,with little cohesive power, and they will not bear disappointment andwaiting. Moreover the warriors having lost many men, with nothing inrepayment were grumbling and saying that the face of Manitou was setagainst them. They were confirmed too in this belief by the presence ofthe mysterious foe who had slain the warriors in the tree, and who hadsince given other unmistakable signs of his presence.
"They will have more discouragement soon," he said, "because it is goingto rain to-day."
He had read the signs aright, as the sun came up amid the mists andvapors, and the gentle wind was damp to the face; then dark cloudsspread across the western heavens, like a vast carpet unr
olled by agiant hand, and the wilderness began to moan. Low thunder muttered onthe horizon, and the somber sky was cut by vivid strokes of lightning.
Nature took on an ominous and threatening hue but within the villagethere was only joy; the coming storm would remove their greatest danger,the well would fill up again, and behind the wooden walls they coulddefy the savage foe.
The sky was cut across by a flash of lightning so bright that it dazzledthem, the thunder burst with a terrible crash directly overhead, andthen the rain came in a perfect wall of water. It poured for hours outof a sky that was made of unbroken clouds, deluging the earth, swellingthe river to a roaring flood, and rising higher in the well than everbefore. The forest about them was almost hidden by the torrents of rainand they did not forget to be thankful.
Toward afternoon the fall abated somewhat in violence, but became asteady downpour out of sodden skies, and the air turned raw and chill.Those who were not sheltered shivered, as if it were winter. The nightcame on as dark as a well, and Henry Ware went out again. When he cameback he said tersely to his father:
"They are gone."
"Gone?" exclaimed Mr. Ware scarcely able to believe in the reality ofsuch good news.
"Yes; the storm broke their backs. Even Indians can't stand an all-daywetting especially when they are already tired. They think they cannever have any luck here, and they are going toward the Ohio at thisminute. The storm has saved us now just as it saved our band in theflight from the salt works."
They had such faith in his forest skill that no one doubted his word andthe village burst into joy. Women, for they were the worst sufferersgave thanks, both silently and aloud. Henry took Ross, Sol and others tothe valley in the forest, where the savages had kept their war camp.Here they had soaked in the mire during the storm, and all about weresigns of their hasty flight, the ground being littered with bones ofdeer, elk and buffalo.
"They won't come again soon," said Henry, "because they believe that theManitou will not give them any luck here, but it is well to be always onthe watch."
After the first outburst of gratitude the people talked little of theattack and repulse; they felt too deeply, they realized too much thegreatness of the danger they had escaped to put it into idle words. Butnearly all attributed their final rescue to Henry Ware though some sawthe hand of God in the storm which had intervened a second time for theprotection of the whites. Braxton Wyatt and his friends dared saynothing now, at least openly against Henry, although those who loved himmost were bound to confess that there was something alien about him,something in which he differed from the rest of them.
But Henry thought little of the opinion, good or bad in which he washeld, because his heart was turning again to the wilderness, and he andRoss went forth again to scout on the rear of the Indian force.