Chapter XIII. The Call of Duty

by Joseph A. Altsheler

　　They arrived at their valley and prepared for the second winterthere, returning to the place for several reasons, chief amongthem being the right of prescription, to which the other tribesyielded tacit consent. The Indian recks little of the future,but in his reversion to primitive type Henry had taken with himmuch of the acquired and modern knowledge of education. Helooked ahead, and, under his constant suggestion, advice andpressure they stored so much food for the winter that there wasno chance of another famine, whatever might happen to the game.

　　Before they went into winter quarters Henry clearly perceived onething, he was first in the little tribe; even Black Cloud, thechief, willingly took second place to him. He was first alike instrength and wisdom and it was patent to all. He was now,although only a boy in years, nearly at his full height, almost ahead above an ordinary warrior, with wonderfully keen eyes, setwide apart, and a square projecting chin, so firm that it seemedto be carved of brown marble. His shoulders were of greatbreadth, but his lean figure had all the graceful strength andcase of some wild animal native to the forest. He was scrupulousin his attire, and wore only the finest skins and furs that thevillage could furnish.

　　Henry felt the deference of the tribe and it pleased him. Heglided naturally into the place of leader, feeling theresponsibility and liking it. He was tactful, too, he would notpush Black Cloud from his old position, but merely remained athis right hand and ruled through him. The chief was soothed andflattered, and the arrangement worked to the pleasure of both,and to the great good of the village which now enjoyed a winterof prosperity hitherto unknown to such natives of the woods.Nobody had to go hungry, there was abundant provision against thecold. Henry, though not saying it, knew that with him the creditlay, and just now the world seemed very full. As human beings gohe was thoroughly happy; the life fitted him, satisfied all hiswants, and the memory of his own people became paler and moredistant; they could do very well without him; they were so many,one could be spared, And when the chance came he would send wordto them that he was alive and well, but that he would not comeback.

　　When the buds began to burst they traveled eastward, until theycame to the Mississippi. The sight of its stream brought back toHenry a thought of those with whom he had first seen it and hefelt a pang of remorse. But the pang was fleeting, and thememory too he resolutely put aside.

　　They crossed the Mississippi and advanced into the land of littleprairies, a green, rich region, pleasant to the eye and full ofgame. They wandered and hunted here, drifting slowly to theeastward, until they came upon a great encampment of the fierceand warlike nation, known as the Shawnees. The Shawnees were intheir war paint and were singing warlike songs. It was evidentto the most casual visitor that they were going forth to dobattle.

　　It was late in the afternoon when Henry, Black Cloud and twoothers came upon this encampment. His own band had pitched itslodges some miles behind, but the kinship of the forest and thepeace between them, made the four the guests of the Shawnee aslong as they chose to stay.

　　At least a thousand warriors were in all the hideous varieties ofwar paint, and the scene, in the waning light, was weird andominous even to Henry. The war songs in their very monotony werechilling, and full of ferocity, and in all the thousand faces wasnot one that shone with the light of kindness and mercy.

　　Long glances were cast at Henry, but even their keen eyes failedto notice that he was not an Indian, and he stood watching them,his face impassive, but his interest aroused. A dozen warriorsnaked to the waist and hideously painted were singing a war song,while they capered and jumped to its unrhythmic tune. Suddenlyone of them snatched something from his girdle and waved it aloftin triumph. Henry knew that it was a scalp, many of which he hadseen, and paid little attention, but the Indian came closer,singing and dancing, and waving his hideous trophy.

　　The scalp flashed before Henry's eyes, and it displayed not thecoarse black locks of the savage, but hair long, fine and yellowlike silk. He knew that it was the scalp of a white girl, and asudden, shuddering horror seized him. It had belonged to one ofhis own kind, to the race into which he had been born and withwhich he had passed his boyhood. His heart filled with hatred ofthese Shawnees, but the warriors of his own little tribe wouldtake scalps, if occasion came, the scalps of white people, yes,of white women and white girls! He tried to dismiss the thoughtor rather to crush it down, but it would not yield to his will;always it rose up again.

　　He walked back to the edge of the encampment, where some of thewarriors were yet singing the war songs that with all of theirmonotony were so weird and chilling. Twilight was over theforest, save in the west, where a blood-red tint from the sunkensun lingered on trunk and bough, and gleamed across the faces ofthe dancing warriors. In this lurid light Henry suddenly sawthem savage, inhuman, implacable. They were truly creatures ofthe wilderness, the lust of blood was upon them, and they wouldshed it for the pleasure of seeing it flow. Henry's primevalworld darkened as he looked upon them.

　　He was about to leave with Black Cloud and his friends when itoccurred to him to ask which way the war party was going and whowere the destined victims. He spoke to two or three warriorsuntil he came to one who understood the tongue of his littletribe.

　　The man waved his hand toward the south.

　　"Off there; far away," he said. " Beyond the great river."

　　Henry knew that in this case "great river meant the Ohio and hewas somewhat surprised; it was still a long journey from the Ohioto the land of the Cherokees, Chickasaws and Choctaws with whomthe Northern tribes sometimes fought, and he spoke of it to thewarrior, but the man shook his head, and said they were goingagainst the white people; there was a village of them in asheltered valley beside a little river, they had been there threeor four years and had flourished in peace; freedom so long fromdanger had made them careless, but the Shawnee scouts had lookedfrom the woods upon the settlement, and the war band would slayor take them all with ease.

　　The man had not spoken a half dozen words before Henry knew thatWareville was the place, upon which the doom was so soon to fall.The chill of horror that had seized him at sight of the yellowhaired scalp passed over him again, deeper, stronger and longerthan before. And the colony would fall! There could be no doubtof it! Nothing could save it! The hideous band, raging withtomahawk and knife, would dash without a word of warning, like abolt from the sky upon Wareville so long sheltered and peacefulin its valley. And he could see all the phases of the savagetriumph, the surprise, the triumphant and ferocious yells, therapid volleys of the rifles, the flashing of the blades, theburning buildings, the shouts, the cries, and men, women andchildren in one red slaughter. In another year the forest wouldbe springing up where Wareville had been, and the wolf and thefox would prowl among the charred timbers. And among thebleaching bones would be those of his own mother and sister andLucy Upton-if they were not taken away for a worse fate.

　　He endured the keenest thrill of agony that life had yet held forhim. All his old life, the dear familiar ties surged up, andwere hot upon his brain. His place was there! With them! Nothere! He had yielded too easily to the spell of the woods andthe call of the old primeval nature. He might have escaped longago, there had been many opportunities, but he could not seethem. His blindness had been willful, the child of his owndesires. He knew it too well now. He saw himself guilty andguilty he was.

　　But in that moment of agony and fear for his own he was payingthe price of his guilt. The sense of helplessness was crushing.In two hours the war party would start and it would flitsouthward like the wind, as silent but far more deadly. No,nothing could save the innocent people at Wareville; they were assurely doomed as if their destruction had already taken place.But not one of these emotions, so tense and so deep, was writtenon the face of him whom even the Shawnees did not know to bewhite. Not a feature changed, the Indian stoicism and calm, theproduct alike of his nature and cultivation, clung to him. Hiseyes were veiled and his movements had their habitual gravity anddignity.

　　He walked with Black Cloud to the edge of the encampment, saidfarewell to the Shawnees, and then, with a great surge of joy,his resolution came to him. It was so sudden, so transformingthat the whole world changed at once. The blood-red tint, thrownby the sunken sun, was gone from the forest, but instead thesilver sickle of the moon was rising and shed a radiant light ofhope.

　　He said nothing until they had gone a mile or so and then,drawing Black Cloud aside, spoke to him words full of firmness,but not without feeling. He made no secret of his purpose, andhe said that if Black Cloud and the others sought to stay himwith force with force he would reply. He must go, and he wouldgo at once.

　　Black Cloud was silent for a while, and Henry saw the faintestquiver in his eyes. He knew that he held a certain place in theaffections of the chief, not the place that he might hold in theregard of a white man, it was more limited and qualified, but itwas there, nevertheless.

　　"I am the captive of the tribe I know," said Henry. "It has mademe its son, but my white blood is not changed and I must save mypeople. The Shawnees march south to-night against them, and I goto give warning. It is better that I go in peace."

　　He spoke simply, but with dignity, and looked straight into theeyes of the chief, where he saw that slight pathetic quiver comeagain.

　　"I cannot keep you now if you would go," said Black Cloud, "butit may be when you are far away that the forest and we with whomyou have lived and hunted so many seasons will call to you again,in a voice to which you must listen."

　　Henry was moved; perhaps the chief was telling the truth. He sawthe hardships and bareness of the wilderness but the life thereappealed to him and satisfied the stronger wants of his nature;he seemed to be the reincarnation of some old forest dwellerbelonging to a time thousands of years ago, yet the voice ofduty, which was in this case also the voice of love, called to,him, too, and now with the louder voice. He would go, and theremust be no delay in his going.

　　"Farewell, Black Cloud," he said with the same simplicity. "Iwill think often of you who have been good to me."

　　The chief called the other warriors and told them their comradewas going far to the south, and they might never see him again.Their faces expressed nothing, whatever they may have felt.Henry repeated the farewell, hesitated no longer and plunged intothe forest. But he stopped when he was thirty or forty yardsaway and looked back. The chief and the warriors stood side byside as he had left them, motionless and gazing after him. Itwas night now and to eyes less keen than Henry's their formswould have melted into the dusk, but he saw every outlinedistinctly, the lean brown features and the black shining eyes.He waved his hands to them-a white man's action-and resumed hisflight, not looking back again.

　　It was a dark night and the forest stretched on, black andendless, the trunks of the trees standing in rows like phantomsof the dusk. Henry looked up at the moon and the few stars, andreckoned his course. Wareville lay many hundred miles away,chiefly to the south, and he had a general idea of the direction,but the war party would know exactly, and its advantage therewould perhaps be compensation for the superior speed of one man.But Henry, for the present, would not think of such a disaster asfailure; on the contrary he reckoned with nothing but success,and he felt a marvelous elation.

　　The decision once taken, the rebound had come with great force,and he felt that he was now about to make atonement for his longneglect, and more than neglect. Perhaps it had been ordainedlong ago that he should be there at the critical moment, see thedanger and bring them the warning that would save. There wasconsolation in the thought.

　　He increased his pace and sped southward in the easy trot that hehad learned from his red friends, a gait that he could maintainindefinitely, and with which he could put ground behind him at aremarkable rate. His rifle he carried at the trail, his head wasbent slightly forward, and he listened intently to every sound ofthe forest as he passed; nothing escaped his ear, whether it wasa raccoon stirring among the branches, a deer startled from itscovert, or merely the wind rustling the leaves. Instinct alsotold him that the forest was at peace.

　　To the ordinary man the night with its dusk, the wilderness withits ghostly tree trunks, and the silence would have been full ofweirdness and awe, black with omens and presages. Few would nothave chilled to the marrow to be alone there, but to Henry itbrought only hope and the thrill of exultation. He had no senseof loneliness, the forest hid no secrets for him; this was homeand he merely passed through it on a great quest.

　　He looked up at the moon and stars, and confirmed himself in hiscourse, though he never slackened speed as he looked. He cameout of the forest upon a prairie, and here the moonlight wasbrighter, touching the crests of the swells with silver spearpoints. A dozen buffaloes rose up and snorted as he flitted by,but he scarcely bestowed a passing glance upon the black bulk ofthe animals. The prairie was only two or three miles across, andat the far edge flowed a shallow creek which he crossed at fullspeed, and entered the forest again. Now he came to roughcountry, steep little hills, and a dense undergrowth ofinterlacing bushes, and twining thorny vines. But he made hisway through them in a manner that only one forest-bred couldcompass, and pressed on with speed but little slackened.

　　When the night became darkest, in the forest just before morninghe lay down in the deepest shadow of a thicket, his hand upon hisrifle, and in a few minutes was sleeping soundly. It was amatter of training with him to sleep whenever sleep was neededand he had no nerves. He knew, too, despite his haste that hemust save his strength, and he did not hesitate to follow thecounsels of prudence.

　　It was his will that he should sleep about four hours, and, hissystem obeying the wish, he awoke at the appointed time. The sunwas rising over the vast, green wilderness, lighting up a worldseemingly as lonely and deserted as it had been the night before.The unbroken forest, touched with the tender tints of youngspring and bathed in the pure light of the first dawn, bentgently to a west wind that breathed only of peace.

　　Henry stood up and inhaled the odorous air. He was a strikingfigure, yet a few yards away he would have been visible only tothe trained eye; his half savage garb of tanned deerskin, stainedgreen and trimmed at the edges with green beads and little greenfeathers, blended with the colors of the forest and merely made aharmonious note in the whole. His figure compact, powerful andalways poised as if ready for a spring swayed slightly, while hiseyes that missed nothing searched every nook in the circlingwoods. He was then neither the savage nor the civilized man, buthe had many of the qualities of both.

　　The slight swaying motion of his body ceased suddenly and heremained as still as a rock. He seemed to be a part of the greenbushes that grew around him, yet he was never more watchful,never more alert. The indefinable sixth sense, developed in himby the wilderness, had taken alarm; there was a presence in theforest, foreign in its nature; it was not sight nor hearing noryet smell that told him so, but a feeling or rather a sort ofprescience. Then an extraordinary thrill ran through him; it wasan emotion partaking in its nature of joy and anticipation; hewas about to be confronted by some danger, perhaps a crisis, andthe physical faculties, handed down by a far-off ancestorexpanded to meet it. He knew that he would conquer, and he feltalready the glow of triumph.

　　Presently he sank down in the undergrowth so gently that not abush rustled; there was no displacement of nature, the grass andthe foliage were just as they had been, but the figure, visiblebefore to the trained eye at a dozen paces, could not have beenseen now at all. Then he began to creep through the grass with aswift easy gliding motion like that of a serpent, moving at aspeed remarkable in such a position and quite soundless. He wenta full half mile before he stopped and rose to his knees, andthen his face was hidden by the bushes, although the eyes stillsearched every part of the forest.

　　His look was now wholly changed. He might be the hunted, but hebore himself as the hunter. All vestige of the civilized man,trained to humanity and mercy, was gone. Those who wished tokill were seeking him and he would kill in return. The thin lipswere slightly drawn back, showing the line of white teeth, theeyes were narrowed and in them was the cold glitter of expectedconflict. Brown hands, lean but big-boned and powerful, claspeda rifle having a long slender barrel and a beautifully carvedstock. It was a figure, terrible alike in its manifestation ofphysical power and readiness, and in the fierce eye that toldwhat quality of mind lay behind it.

　　He sank down again and moved in a small circle to the right. Hisoriginal thrill of joy was now a permanent emotion; he was likesome one playing an exciting game into which no thought of dangerentered. He stopped behind a large tree, and sheltering himselfriveted his eyes on a spot in the forest about fifty yards away.No one else could have found there anything suspicious, anythingto tell of an alien presence, but he no longer doubted.

　　At the detected point a leaf moved, but not in the way it shouldhave swayed before the gentle wind, and there was a passing spotof brown in the green of the bushes. It was visible only for amoment, but it was sufficient for the attuned mind and body ofHenry Ware. Every part of him responded to the call. The riflesprang to his shoulder and before the passing spot of brown wasgone, a stream of fire spurted from its slender muzzle, and itssharp cracking report like the lashing of a whip was blended withthe long-drawn howl, so terrible in its note, that is the deathcry of a savage.

　　The bullet had scarcely left his gun before he fell back almostflat, and the answering shot sped over his head. It was for thisthat he sank down, and before the second shot died he sprang tohis feet and rushed forward, drawing his tomahawk and uttering ashout that rolled away in fierce echoes through the forest.

　　He knew that his enemies were but two; in his eccentric coursethrough the forest he had passed directly over their trail, andhe had read the signs with an infallible eye. Now one was deadand the other like himself had an unloaded gun. The rest of hisdeed would be a mere matter of detail.

　　The second savage uttered his war cry and sprang forward from thebushes. He might well have recoiled at the terrible figure thatrushed to meet him; in all his wild life of risks he had neverbefore been confronted by anything so instinct with terror, soominous of death. But he did not have time to take thoughtbefore he was overwhelmed by his resistless enemy.

　　It was an affair of but a few moments. The Indian threw histomahawk but Henry parried the blade upon the barrel of his riflewhich he still carried in his left hand, and his own tomahawk waswhirled in a glittering curve about his head. Now it waslaunched with mighty force and the savage, cloven to the chin,sank soundless to the earth; he had been smitten down by a forceso sudden and absolute that he died instantly.

　　The victor, elated though he was, paused, and quickly reloadedhis rifle-wilderness caution would allow nothing else-andafterwards advancing looked first at the savage whom he had slainin the open and then at the other in the bushes. There was nopity in him, his only emotion was a great sense of power; theyhad hunted him, two to one, and they born in the woods, but hehad outwitted and slain them both. He could have escaped, hecould have easily left them far behind when he first discoveredthat they were stalking him, but he had felt that they should bepunished and now the event justified his faith.

　　It was not his first taking of human life, and while he wouldhave shuddered at the deed a year ago he felt no such sensationnow; they were merely dangerous wild animals that had crossed hispath, and he had put them out of it in the proper way; hisfeeling was that of the hunter who slays a grizzly bear or alion, only he had slain two.

　　He stood looking at them, and save for the rustling of the younggrass under the gentle western wind the wilderness was silent andat peace. The sun was shooting up higher and higher and a vastgolden light hung over the forest, gilding every leaf and twig.Henry Ware turned at last and sped swiftly and silently to thesouth, still thrilling with exultation over his deed, and thesequel that he knew would quickly come. But in the few briefminutes his nature had reverted another and further step towardthe primitive.

　　When he had gone a half mile in his noiseless flight he stopped,and, listening intently, heard the faint echo of a long-drawn,whining cry. After that came silence, heavy and ominous. ButHenry only laughed in noiseless mirth. All this he had expected.He knew that the larger party to which the two warriors belongedwould find the bodies, with hasty pursuit to follow after thesingle cry. That was why he lingered. He wanted them to pursue,to hang upon his trail in the vain hope that they could catchhim; he would play with them, he would enjoy the game leadingthem on until they were exhausted, and then, laughing, he wouldgo on to the south at his utmost speed.

　　A new impulse drove him to another step in the and, raising hishead, he uttered his own long piercing shout that died indistance at once a defiance, and an invitation to them where theymight find him, and then, mirth in his eyes, he resumed hisflight, although, for the present, he chose to keep an unchangingdistance between his pursuers and himself.

　　That party of warriors may have pursued many a man before and mayhave caught most of them, but the greatest veteran of them allhad never hung on the trail of such another annoying fugitive.All day, he led them in swift flight toward the south, and at notime was he more than a little beyond their reach; often theythought their hands were about to close down upon him, that soonthey would enjoy the sight of his writhings under the fagot andthe stake, but always he slipped away at the fatal moment, andtheir savage hearts were filled with bitterness that a lonefugitive should taunt them so. His footsteps were those of thewhite man, but his wile and cunning were those of the red, andcuriosity was added to the other motives that drew them on.

　　At the coming of the twilight one of their best warriors whopursued at some distance from the main band was slain by a rifleshot from the bushes, then came that defiant war cry again,faint, but full of irony and challenge, and then the trail grewcold before them. He whom they pursued was going now with aspeed that none of them could equal, and the darkness itself,thick and heavy, soon covered all sign of his flight.

　　Henry Ware's expectations of joy had been fulfilled and more; itwas the keenest delight that had yet come into his life. At alltimes he had been master of the situation, and as he drew themsouthward, he fulfilled his duty at the same time and enjoyed hissport. Everything hid fallen out as he planned, and now, withthe night at hand, he shook them off.

　　Through the day he had eaten dried venison from his pouch as heran, and he felt no need to stop for food. So, he did not ceasethe flight until after midnight when he lay down again in athicket and slept soundly until daylight. He rose again,refreshed, and faster than ever sped on his swift way towardWareville.