Ned in the Block-House: A Tale of Early Days in the West

  CHAPTER XIII.

  SHADOWY VISITORS.

  When the eye gazes steadily at the Pleiades, in the midnight splendorof the starlit sky, one of the blazing orbs shrinks modestly from viewand only six remain to be admired by the wondering gazer below: it isthe quick, casual glance that catches the brilliant sister unawares,before she can hide her face.

  So, when the pioneers within the block-house looked intently at thestockade, they saw nothing but the wall of shadow and the outline ofthe sharp pickets above; but, as their vision flitted along the front,they caught the faint suggestions of the figures of men standing erectand doubtless intently watching the block-house, from which the riflesof the Kentuckians had flashed but a short time before.

  Whenever the moon's light was obscured, nothing but blank darkness metthe eye, the line of stockades themselves vanishing from sight. Onceone of the warriors moved a few steps to the left, and Jo Stinger andNed Preston detected it.

  "Why not try another shot?" asked the Colonel, when the matter wasreferred to.

  "It is too much guess-work: nobody can take any sort of aim, when itis so dark in the block-house."

  "I wonder what their purpose can be," muttered the Colonel, speakingas much to himself as to those near him.

  "I knows what it am," said Blossom Brown, who had been drawn to thespot by the firing and the words he had overheard.

  "You do, eh?" remarked the Colonel, looking toward him in thedarkness; "what is it?"

  "Dey're comin' to steal de well."

  "What will they do with it, after they steal it?"

  "Take it off in de woods and hide it, I s'pose."

  "They won't have any trouble in preventing _us_ from stealingit,--that is certain," observed the Colonel, bitterly.

  "Why can't we dig the well inside the block-house, as you intended?"asked Ned; "there are shovels, spades and picks, and I don't supposeit would take us a great while."

  "If we are driven to it, we will make the attempt; but there is nolikelihood that we will have a chance. All our attention will berequired by the Indians."

  "You can set Blossom to work if you wish to," said Ned Preston; "he isgood for little except to cut wood and dig. If he worked steadily fortwo or three days, he might reach water."

  Ned was in earnest with this proposition, and he volunteered to takehis turn with his servant and the others; but the scheme filledBlossom with dismay.

  "I neber dugged a well," he said, with a contemptuous sniff; "if Ishould undertook it, de well would cave in on me, and den all youfolks would hab to stop fightin' de Injines and go to diggin' me outagin."

  Colonel Preston did not consider the project feasible just then, andBlossom Brown was relieved from an anticipation which was anything butpleasant.

  Jo Stinger was attentively watching the stockade where the figures ofthe Wyandot warriors were faintly seen. He was greatly mystified tounderstand what their object could be in exposing themselves to suchrisk, when, so far as he could judge, there was nothing to be gainedby so doing; but none knew better than did the veteran that, brave aswere these red men, they were not the ones to face a danger withoutthe reasonable certainty of acquiring some advantage over an enemy.

  "I will risk a shot anyway," he thought; "for, though I can't makemuch of an aim, there is a chance of doing something. As soon as themoon comes out, I will see how the varmints will stand a bullet ortwo."

  So he waited "till the clouds rolled by," but, as he feared, thestraining eye could not catch the faintest suggestion of a warrior,where several were visible only a short time before.

  They had vanished as silently as the shadows of the clouds sweptacross the clearing.

  The action of the Indians in this respect was the cause of all kindsof conjectures and theories, none of the garrison being able to offerone that satisfied the others.

  Megill believed it was a diversion intended to cover up some design inanother direction. He was sure that, when the Wyandots made ademonstration, it would come from some other point altogether. He,therefore, gave his attention mainly to the cabins and the clearing infront.

  Turner suspected they meant to destroy the well by filling it up, sothat it would be useless when the supply of water within theblock-house should become exhausted. Precisely how this filling up wasto be done, and wherein the necessity existed (since the Wyandotscould command the approaches to the water day and night), were beyondthe explanation of the settler.

  Jo Stinger, the veteran of the company, scouted these theories, as hedid that of the Colonel that it was a mere reconnoissance, but hewould not venture any guess further than that the mischief was muchdeeper than any believed, and that never was there more necessity ofthe most unremitting vigilance.

  Megill asserted that some scheme was brewing in the cabin from whichthe two warriors emerged, when they sought to cut off the boys intheir run to the block-house. He had seen lights moving about, thoughthe ones who carried the torches took care not to expose themselves toany shot from the station.

  The silence lasted two hours longer without the slightest evidencethat a living person was within a mile of the block-house. During thatperiod, not a glimmer of a light could be detected in the cabin, therewas not a single burning arrow, nor did so much as a war-whoop orsignal pass the lips of one of the Wyandots.

  The keen eyes of Jo Stinger and Ned Preston failed to catch a glimpseof the shadowy figures at which they discharged their rifles, andwhich caused them so much wonderment and speculation.

  But the keen scrutiny that seized every favoring moment and roamedalong the lines of stockades, further than the ordinary eye couldfollow, discovered a thing or two which were not without theirsignificance.

  On the northern and eastern sides a number of pickets had beenremoved, leaving several gaps wide enough to admit the passage of aperson. This required a great deal of hard work, for the pickets hadbeen driven deep into the earth and were well secured and braced fromthe inside.

  "They needed men on both sides of the stockade to do that," saidColonel Preston, "and those whom we saw, climbed over, so as to giveassistance."

  "That's the most sensible idee that's been put forward," replied JoStinger, "and I shouldn't be s'prised if you was right; but somehow orother----"

  "By gracious! I smell smoke sure as yo's bo'n!"

  Blossom Brown gave several vigorous sniffs before uttering thisalarming exclamation, but the words had no more than passed his lips,when every man knew he spoke the truth.

  There was smoke in the upper part of the block-house, and though itcould not be seen in the darkness, yet it was perceptible to the senseof smell.

  Consternation reigned for a few minutes among the garrison, and therewas hurrying to and fro in the effort to learn the cause of theburning near them.

  The most terrifying cry that can strike the ears of the sailor orpassenger at sea is that of fire, but no such person could hold thecry in greater dread than did the garrison, shut in the block-houseand surrounded by fierce American Indians.

  The first supposition of Colonel Preston was that it came from theroof, and springing upon a chair, he shoved up the trap-doors, oneafter the other, to a dangerously high extent. But whatever might havehappened to the other portions of the structure, the roof wascertainly intact.

  The next natural belief was that it was caused by the fire on thehearth in the lower story, and Colonel Preston and Blossom Brown madeall haste down the ladder. Blossom, indeed, was too hasty, for hemissed one of the rounds and went bumping and tumbling to the floor,where he set up a terrific cry, to which no attention was paid amidthe general excitement.

  "Here it is! Here's the fire!" suddenly shouted Ned Preston, in avoice which instantly brought the others around him.

  Ned had done that wise thing to which we have all been urged many atime and oft: he had "followed his nose" to the north-east corner ofthe block-house, where the vapor was so dense that he knew the causemust be very near.

  It so happened that this very nook was the
least guarded of all.Looking directly downward through the holes cut in the projectingfloor, his eyes smarted so much from the ascending vapor that he wasforced to rub them vigorously that he might be able to see.

  He could detect nothing but smoke for a minute or so, and that, ofcourse, made itself manifest to the sense of smell and touch ratherthan to that of sight; but he soon observed, directly beneath hisfeet, the red glow of fire itself. Then it was he uttered thestartling cry, which awoke Mrs. Preston and brought the rest aroundhim.

  Despite the care and skill with which the station had been guarded bythe garrison, all of whom possessed a certain experience infrontier-life, the wily Wyandots had not only crept up to theblock-house itself without discovery, but they had brought sticks, hadpiled them against the north-east corner, had set fire to them, andhad skulked away without being suspected by any one of the sentinels.

  The fact seemed incredible, and yet there was the most convincingevidence before or rather under their eyes. Jo Stinger gave utteranceto several emphatic expressions, as he made a dash for the barrel ofwater, and he was entirely willing to admit that of all idiots whohad ever pretended to be a sensible man, he was the chief.

  But the danger was averted without difficulty. Two pails of water werecarefully poured through the openings in the floor of the projectingroof, and every spark of fire was extinguished.

  The water added to the density of the vapor. It set all the inmatescoughing and caused considerable annoyance; but it soon passed away,and, after a time, the air became comparatively pure again.

  Megill complimented the cunning of the Wyandots, but Jo insisted thatthey had shown no special skill at all: it was the utter stupidity ofhimself and friends who had allowed such a thing to be done undertheir very noses.

  "And, if it hadn't been for that darkey there," said he, with all theseverity he could command, "we wouldn't have found it out till thisold place was burned down, and we was scootin' across the clearin'with the varmints crackin' away at us."

  "De gemman is right," assented Blossom, as he stopped rubbing thebruises he received from tumbling through the ladder; "you'll finddat it's allers me dat wokes folks up when de lightnin' am gwine tostrike somewhar 'bout yar."

  "We won't deny you proper credit," said Colonel Preston, "though Jo isa little wild in his statements----"

  The unimportant remark of Colonel Preston was bisected by the sharpreport of Jo Stinger's rifle, followed on the instant by a piercingshriek from some point near the block-house, within the stockade.

  "I peppered him _that_ time!" exclaimed the veteran; "it's all wellenough to crawl into yer winder, gather all the furniture together andset fire to it, and then creep out agin, but when it comes to stealin'the flint and tinder out of your pocket to do it with, then I'm goingto get mad."

  When the scout had regained something of his usual good nature, heexplained that he had scarcely turned to look out, when he actuallysaw two of the Wyandots walking directly toward the heap of smokingbrush, as though they intended to renew the fire. The sight heconsidered one of the grossest insults ever offered his intelligence,and he fired, without waiting till some one could arrange to shoot thesecond red man.

  With a daring that was scarcely to be wondered at, the warrior who wasunhurt threw his arm about his smitten companion and hurried to one ofthe openings in the stockade, through which he made his way.

  This slight check would doubtless cause the red men to be more guardedin their movements against the garrison.

  "It has teached them," said the hunter, with something of his grimhumor, "that accidents may happen, and some of 'em mought get hurt ifthey go to looking down the muzzles of our guns."

  All noticed a rather curious change in the weather. The sky, which hadbeen quite clear early in the evening, was becoming overcast, and theclouds hid the moon most of the time. It remained cold and chilly, andmore than one of the garrison wrapped a blanket around him, whiledoing duty at the loopholes.

  The cloudiness became so marked, after a brief while, that the viewwas much shortened in every direction. Those at the front of theblock-house could not see the edge of the clearing, where the Lickingflowed calmly on its way to the Ohio. Those on the north saw firstthe line of stockades dissolve into darkness, and then the well-curb(consisting of a rickety crank and windlass), grew indistinct untilits outlines faded from sight.

  The two cabins to the south loomed up in the gloom as the hulls ofships are sometimes seen in the night-time at sea, but the blacknesswas so profound, it became oppressive. Within the block-house, wherethere was no light of any kind burning, it was like that of ancientEgypt.

  Colonel Preston could not avoid a certain nervousness over the attemptof the Wyandots to fire the building, and, though it failed, he halfsuspected it would be repeated.

  He descended the ladder and made as careful an examination aspossible, but failed to find anything to add to his alarm andmisgiving. Everything seemed to be secure: the fastenings of the doorswere such that they might be considered almost as firm as the solidlogs themselves.

  While he was thus engaged, he heard some one coming down the ladder."Who's there?" he asked in an undertone.

  "It's Jo--don't be scart."

  "I'm not scared; I only wanted to know who it is; what are you after?"

  "I'm going out-doors, right among the varmints."

  "What has put that idea in your head?"

  "They've been playing their tricks on us long enough, and now I'mgoing to show them that Jo Stinger knows a thing or two as well asthem."

  Colonel Preston would have sought to dissuade the veteran from therash proceeding, had he not known that it was useless to do so.