Chapter II. The First Great Exploit

by Joseph A. Altsheler

　　They found the valley everything in beauty, and fertility thatRoss had claimed for it, and above all it had small "openings,"that is, places where the trees did not grow. This was veryimportant to the travelers, as the labor of cutting down theforest was immense, and even Henry knew that they could not livewholly in the woods, as both children and crops must havesunshine to make them grow. The widest of these open spacesabout a half mile from the river, they selected as the site oftheir new city to which they gave the name of Wareville in honorof their leader. A fine brook flowed directly through theopening, but Ross said it would be a good place, too, to sink awell.

　　It was midsummer now and the period of dry weather had begun. Sothe travelers were very comfortable in their wagon camp whilethey were making their new town ready to be lived in. Both forthe sake of company and prudence they built the houses in a closecluster. First the men, and most of them were what would now becalled jacks-of-all-trades, felled trees, six or eight inches indiameter, and cut them into logs, some of which were split downthe center, making what are called puncheons; others were onlynicked at the ends, being left in the rough, that is, with thebark on.

　　The round logs made the walls of their houses. First, the placewhere the house was to be built was chosen. Next the turf wascut off and the ground smoothed away. Then they "raised" thelogs, the nicked ends fitting together at the corner, the wholeenclosing a square. Everybody helped "raise" each house in turn,the men singing "hip-hip-ho!" as they rolled the heavy logs intoposition.

　　A place was cut out for a window and fastened with a shutter anda larger space was provided in the same manner for a door. Theymade the floor out of the puncheons, turned with the smooth sideupward, and the roof out of rough boards, sawed from the trees.The chimney was built of earth and stones, and a great flat stoneserved as the fireplace. Some of the houses were large enough tohave two rooms, one for the grown folks and one for the children,and Mr. Ware's also had a little lean-to or shed which served asa kitchen.

　　It seemed at first to Henry, rejoicing then in the warm, sunnyweather, that they were building in a needlessly heavy and solidfashion. But when he thought over it a while he remembered whatRoss said about the winters and deep snows of this new land.Indeed the winters in Kentucky are often very cold and sometimesfor certain periods are quite as cold as those of New York or NewEngland.

　　When the little town was finished at last it looked bothpicturesque and comfortable, a group of about thirty log houses,covering perhaps an acre of ground. But the building labors ofthe pioneers did not stop here. Around all these houses they puta triple palisade, that is three rows of stout, sharpened stakes,driven deep into the ground and rising full six feet above it.At intervals in this palisade were circular holes large enough toadmit the muzzle of a rifle.

　　They built at each corner of the palisade the largest andstrongest of their houses, two-story structures of heavy logs,and Henry noticed that the second story projected over the first.Moreover, they made holes in the edge of the floor overhead sothat one could look down through them upon anybody who stood bythe outer wall. Ross went up into the second story of each ofthe four buildings, thrust the muzzle of his rifle into every oneof the holes in turn, and then looked satisfied. "It is welldone," he said. "Nobody can shelter himself against the wallfrom the fire of defenders up here."

　　These very strong buildings they called their blockhouses, andafter they finished them they dug a well in the corner of theinclosed ground, striking water at a depth of twenty feet. Thentheir main labors were finished, and each family now began tofurnish its house as it would or could.

　　It was not all work for Henry while this was going on, and someof the labor itself was just as good as play. He was allowed togo considerable distances with Ross, and these journeys were fullof novelty. He was a boy who came to places which no white boyhad ever seen before. It was hard for him to realize that it wasall so new. Behold a splendid grove of oaks! He was itsdiscoverer. Here the little river dropped over a cliff of tenfeet; his eyes were the first to see the waterfall. From thishigh hill the view was wonderful; he was the first to enjoy it.Forest, open and canebrake alike were swarming with game, and hesaw buffaloes, deer, wild turkeys, and multitudes of rabbits andsquirrels. Unaccustomed yet to man, they allowed the explorersto come near.

　　Ross and Henry were accompanied on many of these journeys byShif'less Sol Hyde. Sol was a young man without kith or kin inthe settlement, and so, having nobody but himself to take careof, he chose to roam the country a great portion of the time.

　　He was fast a acquiring a skill in forest life and knowledge ofits ways second only to that of Ross, the guide. Some of the mencalled Sol lazy, but he defended himself. "The good God madedifferent kinds of people and they live different kinds oflives," said he. "Mine suits me and harms nobody." Ross said hewas right, and Sol became a hunter and scout for the settlement.There was no lack of food. They yet had a good supply of theprovisions brought with them from the other side of themountains, but they saved them for a possible time of scarcity.Why should they use this store when they could kill all the gamethey needed within a mile of their own house smoke? Now Henrytasted the delights of buffalo tongue and beaver tail, venison,wild turkey, fried squirrel, wild goose, wild duck and a dozenkinds of fish. Never did a boy have more kinds of meat, morning,noon, and night. The forest was full of game, the fish were juststanding up in the river and crying to be caught, and the air wassometimes dark with wild fowl. Henry enjoyed it. He was alwayshungry. Working and walking so much, and living in the open airevery minute of his life, except when he was eating or sleeping,his young and growing frame demanded much nourishment, and it wasnot denied.

　　At last the great day came when he was allowed to kill a deer ifhe could. Both Ross and Shif'less Sol had interceded for him."The boy's getting big and strong an' it's time he learned," saidRoss. "His hand's steady enough an' his eye's good enoughalready," said Shif'less Sol, and his father agreeing with themtold them to take him and teach him.

　　Two miles away, near the bank of the river, was a spring to whichthe game often came to drink, and for this spring they started alittle while before sundown, Henry carrying his rifle on hisshoulder, and his heart fluttering. He felt his years increasesuddenly and his figure expand with equal abruptness. He hadbecome a man and he was going forth to slay big game. Yetdespite his new manhood the blood would run to his head and hefelt his nerves trembling. He grasped his precious rifle morefirmly and stole a look out of the corner of his eye at itsbarrel as it lay across his left shoulder. Though a smallerweapon it was modeled after the famous Western rifle, which, withthe ax, won the wilderness. The stock was of hard maple wooddelicately carved, and the barrel was comparatively long,slender, and of blue steel. The sights were as finedrawn as ahair. When Henry stood the gun beside himself, it was just astall as he. He carried, too, a powderhorn, and the horn, whichwas as white as snow, was scraped so thin as to be transparent,thus enabling its owner to know just how much powder itcontained, without taking the trouble of pouring it out. Hisbullets and wadding he carried in a small leather pouch by hisside.

　　When they reached the spring the sun was still a half hour highand filled the west with a red glow. The forest there was tintedby it, and seen thus in the coming twilight with those weirdcrimsons and scarlets showing through it, the wilderness lookedvery lonely and desolate. An ordinary boy, at the coming ofnight would have been awed, if alone, by the stillness of thegreat unknown spaces, but it found an answering chord in Henry.

　　"Wind's blowin' from the west," said Sol, and so they went to theeastern side of the spring, where they lay down beside a fallenlog at a fair distance. There was another log, much closer tothe spring, but Ross conferring aside with Sol chose the fartherone. "We want to teach the boy how to shoot an' be of some use tohimself, not to slaughter," said Ross. Then the three remainedthere, a long time, and noiseless. Henry was learning early oneof the first great lessons of the forest, which is silence. Buthe knew that he could have learned this lesson alone. He alreadyfelt himself superior in some ways to Ross and Sol, but he likedthem too well to tell them so, or to affect even equality in thelore of the wilderness.

　　The sun went down behind the Western forest, and the night cameon, heavy and dark. A light wind began to moan among the trees.Henry heard the faint bubble of the water in the spring, and sawbeside him the forms of his two comrades. But they were so stillthat they might have been dead. An hour passed and his eyesgrowing more used to the dimness, he saw better. There was stillnothing at the spring, but by and by Ross put his hand gentlyupon his arm, and Henry, as if by instinct, looked in the rightdirection. There at the far edge of the forest was a deer, anoble stag, glancing warily about him.

　　The stag was a fine enough animal to Ross and Sol, but to Henry'sunaccustomed eyes he seemed gigantic, the mightiest of his kindthat ever walked the face of the earth.

　　The deer gazed cautiously, raising his great head, until hisantlers looked to Henry like the branching boughs of a tree. Thewind was blowing toward his hidden foes, and brought him no omenof coming danger. He stepped into the open and again glancedaround the circle. It seemed to Henry, that he was staringdirectly into the deer's eyes, and could see the fire shiningthere.

　　"Aim at that spot there by the shoulder, when he stoops down todrink," said Ross in the lowest of tones.

　　Satisfied now that no enemy was near, the stag walked to thespring. Then he began to lower slowly the great antlers, and hishead approached the water. Henry slipped the barrel of his rifleacross the log and looked down the sights. He was seized with atremor, but Ross and Shif'less Sol, with a magnanimity that 'didthem credit, pretended not to notice it. The boy soon masteredthe feeling, but then, to his great surprise, he was attacked byanother emotion. Suddenly he began to halve pity, and afellow-feeling for the stag. It, too, was in the greatwilderness, rejoicing in the woods and the grass and the runningstreams and had done no harm. It seemed sad that so fine a lifeshould end, without warning and for so little.

　　The feeling was that of a young boy, the instinct of one who hadnot learned to kill, and he suppressed it. Men had not yetthought to spare the wild animals, or to consider them part of agreat brotherhood, least of all on the border, where the killingof game was a necessity. And so Henry, after a moment'shesitation, the cause of which he himself scarcely knew, pickedthe spot near the shoulder that Ross had mentioned, and pulledthe trigger.

　　The stag stood for a moment or two as if dazed, then leaped intothe air and ran to the edge of the woods, where he pitched downhead foremost. His body quivered for a little while and then laystill.

　　Henry was proud of his marksmanship, but he felt some remorse,too, when he looked upon his victim. Yet he was eager to tellhis father and his young sister and brother of his success. Theytook off the pelt and cut up the deer. A part of the haunchHenry ate for dinner and the antlers were fastened over thefireplace, as the first important hunting trophy won by theeldest son of the house.

　　Henry did not boast much of his triumph, although he noticed withsecret pride the awe of the children. His best friend, PaulCotter, openly expressed his admiration, but Braxton Wyatt, a boyof his own age, whom he did not like, sneered and counted it asnothing. He even cast doubt upon the reality of the deed,intimating that perhaps Ross or Sol had fired the shot, and hadallowed Henry to claim the credit.

　　Henry now felt incessantly the longing for the wilderness, but,for the present, he helped his father furnish their house. Itwas too late to plant crops that year, nor were the qualities ofthe soil yet altogether known. It was rich beyond a doubt, butthey could learn only by trial what sort of seed suited it best.So they let that wait a while, and continued the work of makingthemselves tight and warm for the winter.

　　The skins of deer and buffalo and beaver, slain by the hunters,were dried in the sun, and they hung some of the finer ones onthe walls of the rooms to make them look more cozy andpicturesque. Mrs. Ware also put two or three on the floors,though the border women generally scorned them for such uses,thinking them in the way. Henry also helped his father makestools and chairs, the former a very simple task, consisting of aflat piece of wood, chopped or sawed out, in which three holeswere bored to receive the legs, the latter made of a section ofsapling, an inch or so in diameter. But the baskets requiredlonger and more tedious work. They cut green withes, split theminto strips and then plaiting them together formed the basket.In this Mrs. Ware and even the little girl helped. They alsomade tables and a small stone furnace or bake-oven for thekitchen.

　　Their chief room now looked very cozy. In one comer stood abedstead with low, square posts, the bed covered with a purewhite counterpane. At the foot of the bedstead was a large heavychest, which served as bureau, sofa and dressing case. In thecenter of the room stood a big walnut table, on the top of whichrested a nest of wooden trays, flanked, on one side, by a nicelyfolded tablecloth, and on the other by a butcher knife and aBible. In a corner was a cupboard consisting of a set of shelvesset into the logs, and on these shelves were the blue-edgedplates and yellow-figured teacups and blue teapot that Mrs. Warehad received long ago from her mother. The furniture in theremainder of the house followed this pattern.

　　The heaviest labor of all was to extend the "clearing"; that is,to cut down trees and get the ground ready for planting the cropsnext spring, and in this Henry helped, for he was able to wieldan ax blow for blow with a grown man. When he did not have towork he went often to the river, which was within sight ofWareville, and caught fish. Nobody except the men, who werealways armed, and who knew how to take care of themselves, wasallowed to go more than a mile from the palisade, but Henry wastrusted as far as the river; then the watchman in the lookout ontop of the highest blockhouse could see him or any who mightcome, and there, too, he often lingered.

　　He did not hate his work, yet he could not say that he liked it,and, although he did not know it, the love of the wild man's wayswas creeping into his blood. The influence of the great forests,of the vast unknown spaces, was upon him. He could liepeacefully in the shade of a tree for an hour at a time, dreamingof rivers and mountains farther on in the depths of thewilderness. He felt a kinship with the wild things, and once ashe lay perfectly still with his eyes almost closed, a stag,perhaps the brother to the one that he had killed, came andlooked at him out of great soft eyes. It did not seem odd at thetime to Henry that the stag should do so; he took it then as afriendly act, and lest he should alarm this new comrade of thewoods he did not stir or even raise his eyelids. The stag gazedat him a few moments, and then, tossing his great antlers, turnedand walked off in a graceful and dignified way through the woods.Henry wondered where the deer would go, and if it would be far.He wished that he, too, could roam the wilderness so lightly,wandering where he wished, having no cares and beholding newscenes every day. That would be a life worth living.

　　The next morning his mother said to his father:

　　"John, the boy is growing wild."

　　"Yes," replied the father. "They say it often happens with thosewho are taken young into the wilderness. The forest lays a spellupon them when they are easy to receive impressions."

　　The mother looked troubled, but Mr. Ware laughed."Don't bother about it," he said. "It can be cured. We havemerely to teach him the sense of responsibility."

　　This they proceeded to do.