The Free Rangers: A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi
The hymn died away in a last long echo, the red light was wholly gone, darkness was over everything, and they prepared for a long night of sleep. The next morning they started together, the big boat and the little canoe. Every one of the five offered to paddle the canoe for Father Montigny as far as they were going together, but he smilingly declined.
"No," he said, "my good canoe and I have been closely associated too long to be separated now, nor must I be spoiled. I see that you have put fresh stores in the canoe, and I accept them. You have good hearts, as I knew when I first saw you."
The five would not put up their sail while they were in company, and "The Galleon" and the canoe drifted together until they reached the mouth of the river up which the peaceful Indian village lay. There Father Montigny gave them his blessing and bade them farewell. They held their own boat in the current while they watched him paddle with strong arms up the tributary stream. He stopped at the first curve, lifted his paddle in a last salute, which they returned with their own lifted oars, and then he passed out of sight.
"We may never see him again," said Paul—but Paul could not read the future.
Then they set their sail, swung into the middle of the stream and swept forward on their great journey. But the meeting with the priest had a strong influence upon every one of them.
"He is sure to suffer a violent death some time or other," said Paul, "and he knows it, but it never mikes him gloomy. There are other French priests like him, too, boys, going thousands of miles, alone and unarmed, over this vast continent."
"'Pears to me that we are wrong when we talk about the French bein' dancin' masters an' sech like," said Shif'less Sol. "My father fit in the great French war up thar along the Canady line an' in Canady, an' he says the French wuz ez good fighters ez anybody. Besides, they took naterally to the woods, makin' fust rate scouts an' hunters, an' ef that ain't proof o' the stuff that's in people, nothin' is."
This day upon the waters was one of unbroken peace. The flood, as Henry had predicted, continued to rise, spreading far into the woods and out of sight. Now and then some portion of the shore, eaten into continually by the powerful stream, would give way and fall with a sticky sigh into the river. Uprooted trees floated in the current or became wedged in the forest. But the sunlight remained undimmed and they began to grow familiar with the river. It was a friend now, bearing them whither they would go.
About noon they saw two deer marooned on an island made by the flood, and they shot one of them for the sake of the fresh meat.
Now ensued a long journey, unbroken by danger, but full of interest. They came near enough once or twice to ascertain that the Spanish force was just ahead of them, but they saw no chance to secure the precious maps and plans or interfere in any other way with the dangerous project of Alvarez, and they waited patiently.
The flood began to subside, but it was a mighty river yet, and would still be so when all the flood was gone. They passed the mouths of great rivers to right and to left, but they did not know their names, nor whence they came. The air grew much warmer and they were very glad indeed now that they had the sail, which, allied with the current, carried them on as fast as they wished.
Shif'less Sol lay lazily under the sail, his limbs relaxed, and his face a picture of content.
"I could float on an' on forever," he said sleepily, "an' I don't care how long it takes to git to New Or-lee-yuns. I think I'm goin' to like that place. I saw a trapper once who had been thar, an' he said you could be jest ez lazy an' sleepy ez you wished an' nobody would blame you—they kinder look upon it ez the right thing, an' that suits me. He said them Spaniards an' French had orange trees about. You could lay in your bed, reach a han' out o' the window, pull an orange off the tree, suck it, an' then go back to sleep without ever havin' disturbed the cover. I never seed an orange, but I know it's nice."
The same day they rowed the boat a few miles up a small but deep and very clear river that emptied into the Mississippi from the east. Their object was to fish, the greater river itself being too muddy for the succulent kind that they wished. The incomparable "Galleon" had also been supplied with fishing tackle, and in a short time they caught a splendid supply of black bass and perch, which proved to be very fine and toothsome. As their boat floated back from the smaller stream into the Mississippi, Shif'less Sol heaved a deep sigh.
"What's the matter, Sol?" asked Paul.
"I wuz thinkin' o' Christopher Columbus," replied Shif'less Sol. "Ef it wuzn't that I'd be dead now, I wish I'd been with him. I do enjoy sailin' on an' discoverin' lands an' waters that ain't yet got no name to 'em. It looks funny to me that we wuzn't discovered sooner, when we've always been here, but Columbus has all my respeck an' admiration 'cause he done it when the others didn't."
"That shorely wuz a man," said Tom Ross, his eyes lighting up. "I've heard the tale how he kep' tryin' an' tryin' to git a ship, an' couldn't, an' at last the Spanish lady pulled off her earrings an' finger rings an' bracelets an' said: 'Here, Chris, these, these are my jewels, take 'em, trade 'em fur the best ship thar is in the market, an' discover Ameriky.' An' then he got his ship, an' kep' sailin' on an' on, an' the sailors they began to git skeered an' then more skeered. They're afraid they're goin' to drop off on the other side uv the world an' they go to Chris an' say: 'Thar ain't no sech continent ez Ameriky an' we ain't goin' to discover it. We're goin' to turn right 'round an' go straight back to Spain.'
"Chris says in the knowin'est manner like a father talkin' to his child. 'Thar is sech a continent ez Ameriky, an' it's a big one, too. It's layin' over thar straight to the west, an' it's full uv big lakes an' big rivers an' big mountains an' red Injuns that fight with bows an' arrers, and b'ars an' buffalers an' deer an' panthers an' all things fine, jest waitin' fur us. Thar's whar we're goin'.' And the sailors say more uppish than ever: No, we ain't, we ain't goin' to discover Ameriky, thar ain't no sech place, we're goin' right back to Spain.' Then a kinder funny look comes into Chris's eye. He reaches fur his long rifle, an' he draws a bead on the foremost uv them sailors, the feller that speaks fur 'em all, an' he says, droppin' that fatherly manner an' speakin' up sharp an' snappy: 'I reckin we're either goin' to discover Ameriky, or go right back to Spain, which is it?'
"An' that foremost sailor, the one that speaks fur 'em all, sees the funny look in Chris's eye, an' he thinks, too, he kin see clean down the barrel uv that long rifle to whar the bullet is layin', an' he answers right off: 'We're goin' to discover Ameriky'; an' shore enough they did, this fine, big continent, full uv big lakes an' big rivers an' big mountains an' red Injuns that fight with bows an' arrers an' b'ars and buffalers an' deer an' panthers an' all things fine."
"I didn't know Tom Ross had sech a gift o' gab," said Shif'less Sol. "He stirs me all up, he makes me want to hev some lady buy a ship fur me an' start me out to discoverin' continents. Do you think, Paul, thar's any lady who would sell her earrings an' finger rings fur me ez that Spanish one did fur Columbus?"
"But think, Sol, what a chance you've got whether there is or not," said Henry Ware. "America is discovered but not much of it is explored. There's enough here to keep you roaming about for the next fifty or sixty years."
"That's so," said the shiftless one brightening up. "What am I growlin' about, when here's a river, mebbe ten thousand miles long that we know next to nothin' 'bout, an' buffalers an' b'ars an' panthers an' deer to shoot, an' red Injuns to fight ez long ez I live. After all, we're shorely mighty lucky to live at the time we do, ez I've said before. Do you think thar'll ever be any times hereafter as interestin' ez ourn, Paul?"
"I can't say," replied Paul with a smile, "but they're not likely to be as interesting to us."
They went on their way, and the air became still warmer. Moreover, it grew heavy and oppressive, and the spring rains were resumed with great violence. They had worked meanwhile on their tarpaulin, enlarging and strengthening it with skins which they had allowed to dry on the boat, and they rested, sheltered and secure, as they floated along.
Although Frenchmen had gone up and down the river long before, they felt like genuine explorers. So little was known of the mighty stream that they regarded every stretch and turn with keen interest. It was not beautiful now, a vast, brown flood flowing between low and changing shores, but in its size and loneliness it had a majesty peculiarly its own.
Wild geese and wild ducks flew over the river in abundance, and they were so little used to man that often they passed near "The Galleon." The fowling pieces proved useful again, as the five were able to sit in comfort on their boat and shoot geese and ducks for their needs. Some were of kinds that they had never seen before, but all proved to be good eating, and they were welcome.
Jim Hart also exercised his ingenuity in a very useful manner. In the prow of the boat, but under the tarpaulin, he spread a layer of mud about two inches thick. Protected from the rain, it soon dried, forming a hard, impervious, brick-like covering for the bottom of the boat, and upon this he built a small smothered fire of dry sticks, a supply of which they kept in the boat. Here Jim, with all the skill and delicacy of a gastronomic artist, would cook their wild ducks and wild geese, and, considering the limited area and resources for the exercise of his favorite occupation, he did extremely well. Nor was it any longer necessary for them to run in to the shore and worry in the dripping forest with wet wood.
"It ain't like that stove we built the time we wuz on the ha'nted islan'," Long Jim would say, "but it's a heap sight better than nothin."
"It shorely is," said Shif'less Sol. "You ain't much account for anything, Jim, but you kin cook a leetle bit."
Long Jim smiled contentedly.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CHATEAU OF BEAULIEU
They noticed one day a high bluff shooting up on the eastern bank and running along for some distance. It was clothed in dense green forest, and it was rather a welcome break in the monotony of the low shores.
"A big city will be built there some day," said the prophetic Paul.2
"Now, Paul, why in tarnation do you say that?" exclaimed Tom Ross.
"Why, because it's such a good place. It's a high hill on a great river so well suited to navigation, and it has a vast, rich country behind it."
But Tom Ross shook his head.
"Seems to me, Paul," he said, "that you're bitin' off a lot more'n you can chaw. Things that are to happen a hundred years from now ain't never happenin' fur me."
But Paul merely smiled and held to his opinion.
On the following day they tied up at a point, where the river began a sharp and wide curve around a long, narrow peninsula. It was just about dark when they stopped and, as usual, they were able to run the boat into dense foliage at the margin, where not even the keenest eye could see it.
"We've got plenty of goose and duck left over from dinner," said Henry, "so I'm thinking, Jim, that you'd better not light the fire on your bricks to-night."
"All right," replied Jim, "I don't mind restin'. I feel about ez lazy ez Sol Hyde looks."
But Henry Ware had another and more important thing in mind. His was the keenest eye of them all, and just before landing he had noticed to the southward and on the other side of the peninsula a faint, dark line against the edge of the sunset. Few, even with an eye good enough to see it, would have taken it for anything but a wisp of cloud, but the physical sense of Henry Ware, so acute that it bordered upon intuition, was not deceived.
"Sol," he said after they had eaten a little, "let's walk across this neck of land and explore a bit."
"It's a dark night to be traveling," said Paul. But Henry only laughed. Tom Ross may have had his suspicions, but he did not deem it worth while to say anything. He knew that Henry and Shif'less Sol were quite competent to achieve any task that they might be undertaking.
Henry and Sol strolled carelessly into the bush, but before they had gone a dozen steps their whole manner changed. Each became eager and alert.
"What is it, Henry?" asked Shif'less Sol. "What have you seed?"
"Smoke! the smoke of a camp fire and it's on the other side of this neck. I think it's the camp of Alvarez. He must have been going more slowly than we thought."
"We'll soon find out," said Shif'less Sol, as they advanced.
But the task was not as easy as they had thought. The peninsula was very low and the greater part of it had been overflowed recently. Their feet, no matter how lightly they stepped, sank in the mire, and when they pulled them out again the mud emitted a sticky sigh. An owl perched in a tree, high above the marsh, began to hoot dismally, and Shif'less Sol uttered a growl.
"I wish we had the big, dry woods o' Kentucky to go through," he whispered to Henry. "I ain't much o' a mud-crawler."
"But as we haven't got those big, dry woods," Henry whispered back, "we'll have to crawl, creep, or walk through the mud."
It was about two miles across the neck, and as they went very slowly for fear of making noise, it took them a full hour to reach the other side, or to come near enough to see what might be there. Then they found that Henry's belief, or rather intuition, was right.
They could see quite well from the dense covert. All the Spanish boats were tied up at the shore and two or three fires had been built for the purposes of cooking. The soldiers in their picturesque costumes lounged about. The hum of conversation and now and then a laugh arose.
Henry soon marked Francisco Alvarez. The Spanish leader sat on a little heap of boughs on the highest and dryest spot in the camp, and all who approached him did so with every sign of respect—if they spoke it was hat in hand.
The firelight fell in a red blaze across the face of Francisco Alvarez and revealed every feature in minute detail to the keen eyes in the covert. It was a thin, haughty face, clear-cut and cruel, but just now it's air was that of satisfaction, as if in the opinion of Francisco Alvarez all things were going well with his plans. Henry believed that he could guess his thoughts. "He thinks that the Spanish are already committed against us and that he and Braxton Wyatt with a force of Spaniards and the tribes will yet destroy our settlements in Kentucky."
Thinking of Braxton Wyatt he looked for him and, as he looked, the renegade came from a point near the shore toward the commander. It was evident that Wyatt had been faring well. His frontier dress had been partly replaced with gay Spanish garments. He now wore a cap with a feather in it, and a velvet doublet. He, too, had a most complacent look.
Wyatt approached Alvarez and the commander courteously invited him to a seat on the hillock near him. When he took the seat a soldier brought the renegade a cup of wine, and he drank, first lifting the cup toward Alvarez as if he drank a toast to the success of the alliance. There could be no doubt about the perfect understanding of the two; and Henry's anger rose. It was impossible to set a limit to what a ruthless and determined man like Francisco Alvarez might do.
Wyatt rose presently after a nod to the commander and walked among the soldiers. He seemed to have no particular object in view and his strollings brought him near to the edge of the swampy forest.
"Perhaps he's spying about, and will come into the woods where we are," whispered Henry. "Maybe he has those maps and plans upon him, and it would be a great thing to get them. I don't believe he could make a new set soon."
"It's a risky thing to try," said Shif'less Sol, "but ef he comes in here, an' you think it the best thing to do, I'm ready to help."
The two crouched a little lower and remained breathless. Braxton Wyatt strolled on. He was making a sort of vague inspection of the camp, but he was really thinking more about the great triumph that he saw ahead. Since he had turned renegade, leaving his own white race to join the Indians, a thing that was sometimes done, he had been stung by many defeats and he wished a great revenge that would pour oil upon all these wounds.
A bad nature grows worse with failure. Seeking to injure his former people and failing at every turn, Braxton Wyatt hated them more and more all the time. His wrath was particularly directed against the five who had been such great instruments in sending his careful plans astray. His scheme with the Indian league had failed chiefly through them, but he felt that he could now come with a Spanish force that would prove irresistible. That was why he glowed with internal warmth and pride. The settlements would be destroyed and he, in fact, would be the destroyer.
Braxton Wyatt entered the edge of the woods, still occupied with the cruel triumph that was to be his. He did not notice that the foliage was gradually shutting out the firelight. Presently he saw, or believed that he saw, a shadowy but terrible figure. It was the figure of the one whom he dreaded most on earth.
It was but a glimpse of a form, seen through the bushes, but Wyatt's blood turned cold in every vein. He uttered a half-choked cry, and running back through the bushes, sprang into the firelight. Two or three Spanish soldiers looked at him in amazement, but he was not a coward, and he had pride of a kind. As soon as he leaped back into the firelight he felt that he had made a fool of himself. Henry Ware could not have been there—he and his comrades had been left behind long ago. Coming suddenly out of his thoughts, he had been deceived in the dark by a bush and imagination had done the rest. Yes, it was only fancy!
"A rattlesnake! I nearly trod on him," he said in broken Spanish words that he had picked up, and then walked in as careless a manner as he could assume toward the mound where Francisco Alvarez sat. But he could not wholly control himself—the shock had been too great—and his body yet trembled. He did not know it, but the pallor of his face showed through the tan, and Alvarez noticed it.
"You have had a fright, Señor Wyatt," he said in his precise, cold English. "What is it?"
"Not a fright," replied Wyatt in tones that he sought to make indifferent, "but a start. I nearly trod on a rattlesnake that lay coiled ready to strike, and I got away just in time."
The Spaniard regarded him with a penetrating look, but the chilly blue eyes expressed nothing. Yet Francisco Alvarez thought that a bold woodsman like Braxton Wyatt would not show so much fear after a harmless passage with any kind of a snake.
"Do you think the five, the party that you said were so much to be dreaded, are still following us?" he asked presently.
The pallor showed again for a moment through the tan in Braxton Wyatt's face, but he answered again as carelessly as he could:
"It may be. I hate them, but I do not deny that they are bold and resourceful. They have a good boat, and they may follow; but what harm could they do?"
"As I told you, they might go before Bernardo Galvez, our Governor General at New Orleans, and spoil the pretty plan that you and I have formed. Galvez is—as he calls himself—a Liberal. He would help these rebels and fight England. How can a Spaniard lend himself to the cause of Republican rebels and injure monarchy? Cannot he foresee, cannot he look ahead a little and tell what rebel success means? It would in the end be as great a blow to Spain as to England. If Kaintock is permitted to grow she will threaten Louisiana. These men in their buckskins are daring and dangerous and we must attend to them!"
The Spaniard clenched his hands in anger, and the blue light of his eyes was singularly cruel.
"Galvez is a fool," he continued. "He is not allowing the English to trade at New Orleans, but he is giving the American rebels full chance. He his allowed one, Pollock, Oliver Pollock, to establish a base there. This Pollock has formed a company of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston merchants, and they are sending arms and ammunition in fleets of canoes up the Mississippi and then up the Ohio to Fort Pitt, where they are unloaded and then taken eastward by land for the use of the rebels. A fleet of these canoes is to start about the time we arrive in New Orleans."
"We might meet it," suggested Braxton Wyatt, "and say that it attacked us."
The Spaniard smiled.
"The idea is not bad," he said, "and it could be done. We could sink their whole fleet of canoes with the pretty little cannon that we carry, and we could prove that they began the attack. But I do not choose to run the risk of compromising myself just yet. There is a more glorious enterprise afoot. Hark you, Señor Wyatt."
Braxton Wyatt leaned forward and listened attentively. Francisco Alvarez had drank of wine that evening, and his blood was warm. He, too, dreamed a great dream.
"You are a man of discretion and you have helped me. I speak to you as one devoted to my cause. If you should but breathe what I say to another I would first swear that it was a lie, and then deliver you to these five gentlemen, former friends of yours, who would tear you in pieces."
Braxton Wyatt shivered again, and the Spaniard, seeing the shiver, laughed and was convinced.
"Why should I betray you?" said the renegade. "I have no motive to do so and every possible motive to keep faith."
"I know it," replied Alvarez, "and that is why I speak. It is to your interest to be faithful to me and when my enterprise succeeds, as it certainly will, you shall have your proper share of the reward. Bernardo Galvez, as you know, is the Governor General of Louisiana, and his father is the Viceroy of Mexico. They are powerful, very powerful, and I am only a commander of troops under the son, but I, too, am powerful. My family is one of the first in Spain. It sits upon the very steps of the throne and more than once royal blood has entered our veins. I was a favorite at the court and I have many friends there. The King might be persuaded that Bernardo Galvez is not a fit representative of the royal interests in Louisiana."
Francisco Alvarez leaned a little forward and his blue eyes, usually so chill, sparkled now with fire. He was speaking of what lay next to his heart. Braxton Wyatt, full of shrewdness and perception, understood at once.
"Bernardo Galvez might give way as Governor General of Louisiana," said the renegade, "to be succeeded by a better man, one who had the real interests of Spain at heart, one who would refuse to give the slightest aid to rebels, rebels who would strike against a throne!"
The Spaniard looked pleased.
"I see that you are a man of penetration, Señor Wyatt," he said, "and I am fortunate in having you as a lieutenant. You have divined my thought. I work, not for the interests of a man whose name has been mentioned by neither of us, but for the true interests of Spain and the divine right of kings. What is this miserable Kaintock which is springing up? We will crush it out as you would have crushed the rattlesnake! The people of New Orleans and Louisiana hate rebels! Why should they not? It is the rebels who in time will take Louisiana from us if they can, not England."
Braxton Wyatt smiled. He was delighted to the very center of his cunning heart. His plans and those of Alvarez marched well together. Each strengthened the other.
"I am with you to the end," he said.
"The end will be a glorious triumph," said the Spaniard in emphatic tones.
Meanwhile Henry and Shif'less Sol still lay in the thicket. Their project to seize Braxton Wyatt and strip him of the maps and plans had been defeated. Henry knew that the renegade had caught a glimpse of him in the dusk and among the thick bushes and he expected an immediate alarm. But when Wyatt raised none, he and Sol lingered. They saw the renegade go to the Spaniard's side on the little mound, and they saw the two talk long and earnestly, but, of course, they could not understand a word of what was said.
"They look mighty pleased with one another," whispered Shif'less Sol, "so it's bound to mean that they're up to the worst sort o' mischief."
