Chapter XV. The Siege

by Joseph A. Altsheler

　　It was not Lucy Upton alone who felt relief when the attack uponthe stockade came, hideous and terrifying though it might be; thesuspense so destructive of nerves and so hard to endure was at anend, and the men rushed gladly to meet the attack, while thewomen with almost equal joy reloaded empty rifles with theprecious powder made from the cave dust and passed them to thebrave defenders. The children, too small to take a part, coweredin the houses and listened to the sounds of battle, the lashingof the rifle fire, the fierce cry of the savages in the forest,and the answering defiance of the white men. Amid such scenes agreat state was founded and who can wonder that its defenderslearned to prize bravery first of all things?

　　The attack was in accordance with the savage nature, a dash,irregular volleys, shots from ambush, an endeavor to pick off thesettlers, whenever a head was shown, but no direct attempt tostorm the palisade, for which the Indian is unfitted. A bulletwould not reach from the forest, but from little hillocks andslight ridges in the open where a brown breast was pressed closeto the earth came the flash of rifles, some hidden by the dusk,but the flame showing in little points of fire that quickly wentout. The light of the moon failed somewhat, and the savages inambush were able to come nearer, but now and then a sharpshooterbehind the wall, firing at the flash of the concealed rifle,would hear an answering death cry.

　　Lucy Upton behind the barricade with other girls and women wasreloading rifles and passing them to her father and Paul Cotterwho stood in a little wooden embrasure like a sally port. For atime the fire of battle burned as fiercely in her veins as inthose of any man, but after a while she began to wonder what hadbecome of Henry Ware, and presently from some who passed sheheard comments upon him again; they found fault with his absence;he should have been there to take a part in the defense, andwhile she admitted that their criticisms bore the color of truth,she yet believed him to be away for some good purpose.

　　For two hours the wild battle in the dark went on, to the chorusof shouts from white man and red, the savages often coming closeto the walls, and seeking to find a shelter under them in thedark, but always driven back. Then it ceased so suddenly thatthe intense silence was more pregnant with terror than all thenoise that had gone before. Paul Cotter, looking over thepalisade, could see nothing. The forest rose up like a soliddark wall, and in the opening not a blade of grass stirred; thebattle, the savage army, all seemed to have gone like smokemelting into the air, and Paul was appalled, feeling that a magichand had abruptly swept everything out of existence.

　　"What do you see?" asked Lucy, upon whose ears the silence toowas heavy and painful.

　　"Nothing but darkness, and what it hides I cannot guess."

　　A report ran through the village that the savage army, beaten,had gone, and the women, and the men with little experience, gaveit currency, but the veterans rebuked such premature rejoicing;it was their part, they said, to watch with more vigilance thanever, and in nowise to relax their readiness.

　　Then the long hours began and those who could, slept. BraxtonWyatt and his friends again impeached the credit of Henry Ware,insinuating with sly smiles that he must be a renegade, as he hadtaken no part in the defense and must now be with his savagefriends. To the slur Paul Cotter fiercely replied that he hadwarned them of the attack; without him the station would havebeen taken by surprise, and that surely proved him to be notraitor.

　　The hours between midnight and day not only grew in length, butseemed to increase in number as well, doubling and tripling, asif they would never end for the watchers in the station. The menbehind the wooden walls and some of the women, too, intentlysearched the forest, seeking to discover movements there, butnothing appeared upon its solid black screen. Nor did any soundcome from it, save the occasional gentle moan of the wind; therewas no crackling of branches, no noise of footsteps, no rattle ofarms, but always the heavy silence which seemed so deadly, andwhich, by its monotony, was so painful to their ears.

　　Lucy Upton went into her father's house, ate a little and thenspreading over herself a buffalo robe tried to sleep. Slumberwas long in coming, for the disturbed nerves refused to settleinto peace, and the excited brain brought back to her eyesdistorted and over-colored visions of the night's events. Butyouth and weariness had their way and she slept at last, to findwhen she awakened that the dawn was coming in at the window, andthe east was ablaze with the splendid red and yellow light of thesun.

　　"Are they still there?" was her first question when she wentforth from her father's house, and the reply was uncertain; theymight or might not be there; the leaders had not allowed anyoneto go out to see, but the number who believed that the savageswere gone was growing; and also grew the number who believed thatHenry Ware was gone with them.

　　Even in the brilliant daylight that sharpened and definedeverything as with the etcher's point, they could see nothingsave what had been before the savages came. Their eyes reachednow into the forest, but as far as they ranged it was empty,there was no encampment, not a single warrior passed through theundergrowth. It seemed that the grumblers were right when theysaid the besieging army was gone.

　　Lucy Upton was walking toward the palisade where she saw PaulCotter, when she heard a distant report and Paul's fur cap,pierced by a bullet, flew from his head to the earth. Paulhimself stood in amaze, as if he did not know what had happened,and he did not move until Lucy shouted to him to drop to theground. Then he crawled quickly away from the exposed spot,although two or three more bullets struck about him.

　　The station thrilled once more with excitement, but the newdanger was of a kind that they did not know how to meet. It wasevident that the firing came from a high point, one commanding aview inside the walls, and from marksmen located in such a mannerthe palisade offered no shelter. Bullets were pattering amongthe houses, and in the open spaces inclosed by the walls, two menwere wounded already, and the threat had become formidable.

　　Ross and Shif'less Sol, the best of the woodsmen, soon decidedthat the shots came from a large tree at the edge of the forestnortheast from the stockade, and they were sure that at least ahalf-dozen warriors were lying sheltered among its giant boughs,while they sent searching bullets into the enclosure. There hadbeen some discussion about the tree at the time the settlementwas built, but expert opinion held that the Indian weapons couldnot reach from so great a distance, and as the task of cutting sohuge a trunk when time was needed, seemed too much they had leftit, and now they saw their grievous and perhaps mortal error.

　　The side of the palisade facing the tree was untenable so long asthe warriors held their position, and it was even dangerous topass from one house to another. The terrors of the night,weighty because unknown, were gone, but the day had brought withit a more certain menace that all could see.

　　The leaders held a conference on the sheltered side of one of thehouses, and their faces and their talk were full of gloom. Theschoolmaster, Ross and Sol were there, and so were John Ware andLucy's father. The schoolmaster, by nature and training aman of peace, was perhaps the most courageous of them all.

　　"It is evident that those savages have procured in some manner anumber of our long-range Kentucky rifles," he said, "but they areno better than ours. Nor is it any farther from us to that treethan it is from that tree to us. Why can't our best marksmenpick them off?"

　　He looked with inquiry at Ross and Sol, who shook their heads andabated not a whit of their gloomy looks.

　　"They are too well sheltered there," replied Ross, "while wewould not be if we should try to answer them. Our side would getkilled while they wouldn't be hurt and we can't spare the men."

　　"But we must find a way out! We must get rid of them somehow!"exclaimed Mr. Ware.

　　"That's true," said Upton, and as he spoke they heard a bulletthud against the wall of the house. From the forest came a wildquavering yell of triumph, full of the most merciless menace.Mr. Ware and Mr. Upton shuddered. Each had a young daughter, andit was in the minds of each to slay her in the last resort ifthere should be no other way.

　　"If those fellows in the tree keep on driving us from thepalisade," said Ross, setting his face in the grim manner of onewho forces himself to tell the truth, "there's nothin' to preventthe main band from makin' an attack, and while the other fellowsrain bullets on us they'll be inside the palisade."

　　They stared at each other in silent despair, and Ross going tothe corner of the house, but keeping himself protected well,looked at the fatal tree. No one was firing, then, and he couldsee nothing among its branches. In the fresh green of its youngfoliage it looked like a huge cone set upon a giant stem, andRoss shook his fist at it in futile anger. Nor was a foe visibleelsewhere. The entire savage army lay hidden in the forest andnothing fluttered or moved but the leaves and the grass.

　　The others, led by the same interest, followed Ross, and keepingto the safety of the walls, stole glances at the tree. As theylooked they heard the faint report of a shot and a cry of death,and saw a brown body shoot down from the green cone of the treeto the ground, where it lay still.

　　"There is a marksman among us who can beat them at their owntrick," cried the schoolmaster in exultation. "Who did it? Whofired that shot, Tom?"

　　Ross did not answer. First a look of wonder came upon his face,and then he began to study the forest, where all but nature wasyet lifeless. The faint sound Of a second shot came and whatfollowed was a duplicate of the sequel to the first. Anotherbrown body shot downward, and lay lifeless beside its fellow onthe grass.

　　The master cried out once more in exultation, and wished to knowwhy others within the palisade did not imitate the skillfulsharpshooter. But Ross shook his head slowly and spoke theseslow words:

　　"A great piece of luck has happened to us, Mr. Pennypacker, an'how it's happened I don't know, at least not yet. Them shotsnever come from any of our men. We've got a friend outside an'he's pickin' off them ambushed murderers one by one. The savagesthink we're doin' it, but they'll soon find out the difference."

　　There was a third shot and the tree ejected a third body.

　　"What wonderful shootin'," exclaimed Ross in a tone of amazement." Them shots come from a long distance, but all three of 'emplugged the mark to the center. Them savages was dead beforethey touched the ground. I never saw the like."

　　The others waited expectantly, as if he could give them anexplanation, but if he had a thought in his mind he kept it tohimself.

　　"There, they've found it out," he said, when a terrific yell fullof anger came from the forest, "but they haven't got him, whoeverhe is. They'd shout in a different way if they had."

　　"Why do you say him?" asked Mr. Pennypacker. "Surely a singleman has not been doing such daring and deadly work!"

　　"It's one man, because there are not two in all this wildernesswho can shoot like that. I'd hate to be in the place of thesavages left in that tree."

　　The wonder of the new and unknown ally soon spread throughWareville, and reached Lucy Upton as it reached others. Athought came to her and she was about to speak of it, but shestopped, fearing ridicule, and merely listened to the excitedtalk going on all about her.

　　An hour later a fourth Indian was shot from the tree, and lessthan fifteen minutes afterwards a fifth fell a victim to theterrible rifle. Then two, the only survivors, dropped from theboughs and ran for the forest. Ross, Sol and Paul Cotter werewatching together and saw the flight.

　　"One of them brown rascals will never reach the woods,", saidRoss with the intuition of the borderer.

　　The foremost savage fell just at the edge of the forest, shotthrough the heart, and the other, the sole survivor of the tree,escaped behind the sheltering trunks.

　　The cry of the angry savages swelled into a terrible chorus andbullets beat upon the stockade, but the attack was quicklyrepulsed, and again quiet and treacherous peace settled down uponthis little spot, this pin point in the mighty wilderness, whosestruggle must be carried on unaided, and, in truth, unknown toall the rest of the world.

　　When the savages were driven back they melted again into theforest, and the old silence and peace laid hold of everything,the brilliant sunshine gilding every house, and dyeing intodeeper colors the glowing tints of the wilderness. The hugetree, so fatal to those who had sought to use it, stood up, agreat green cone, its branches waving softly before the wind.

　　In the little fortress the wonder and excitement yet prevailed,but mingled with it was a devout gratitude for this help from anunknown quarter which had been so timely and so effective. Thespirits of the garrison, from the boldest ranger down to the mosttimid woman, took a sudden upward heave and they felt that theyshould surely repel every attack by the savage army.

　　The remainder of the day passed in silence and with the foeinvisible, but the guard at the palisade, now safe from ambushedmarksmen, relaxed its vigilance not at all. These men knew thatthey dealt with an enemy whose uncertainty made him all the moreterrible, and they would not leave the issue to shifting chance.

　　The day waned, the night came, heavy and dark again, and full, asit was bound to be, of threats and omens for the beleagueredpeople. Lucy Upton with Mary Ware slipped to the little woodenembrasure where Paul Cotter was on watch.

　　They found Paul in the sheltered nook, watching the forest andthe open, through the holes pierced for rifles, and he did notseek to hide his pleasure at seeing them. Two other men werethere, but they were middle-aged and married, the fathers ofincreasing families, and they were not off ended when Paulreceived a major share of attention.

　　He told them that all was quiet, his own eyes were keen, but theyfailed to mark anything unusual, and he believed that thesavages, profiting by their costly experience, would make no newattempt yet a while. Then he spoke of the mysterious help thathad come to them, and the same thought was in his mind andLucy's, though neither spoke of it. They stood there a while,talking in low tones and looking for excuses to linger, when oneof the older men moved a little and held up a warning hand. Hehad just taken his eyes from a loophole, and he whispered that hethought he had seen something pass in the shadow of the wall.

　　All in the embrasure became silent at once, and Lucy, brave asshe was, could hear her heart beating. There was a slight noiseon the outside of the wall, so faint that only keen ears couldhear it, and then as they looked up they saw a hideous, paintedface raised above the palisade.

　　One of the older men threw his rifle to his shoulder, but, quickas a flash, Paul struck his hand away from the trigger. He knewwho had come, when he looked into the eyes that looked down athim, though he felt fear, too-he could not deny it-as he mettheir gaze, so fierce, so wild, so full of the primitive man.

　　"Don't you see?" he said,"it is Henry! Henry Ware!"

　　Even then Lucy Upton, intimate friend though she had been,scarcely saw, but laughing a low soft laugh of intensesatisfaction, Henry dropped lightly among them. Good excuse hadthese men for not knowing him as his transformation was complete!He stood before them not a white man, but an Indian warrior, aprince of savages. His hair was drawn up in the defiant scalplock, his face bore the war paint in all its variations andviolent contrast of colors, the dark-green hunting shirt andleggings with their beaded decorations were gone, and in theirplace a red Indian blanket was wrapped around him, drooping inits graceful folds like a Roman toga.

　　His figure, erect in the moonlight, nearly a head above theothers, had a certain savage majesty, and they gazed upon him insilence. He seemed to know what they felt and his eyes gleamedwith pride out of his darkly painted face. He laughed again alow laugh, not like that of the white man, but the almostinaudible chuckle of the Indian.

　　"It had to be," he said, glancing down at his garb though notwith shame. " To do what I wished to do, it was necessary topass as an Indian, at least between times, and, as all theShawnees do not know each other, this helped."

　　"It was you who shot the Indians in the tree; I knew it from thefirst," said the voice of the guide, Ross, over their shoulders.He had come so softly that they did not notice him before.

　　Henry did not reply, but laughed again the dry chuckle that madeLucy tremble she scarcely knew why, and ran his hand lovinglyalong the slender barrel of his rifle.

　　"At least you do not complain of it," he said presently.

　　"No, we do not," replied Ross, "an' I guess we won't. You savedus, that's sure. I've lived on the border all my life, but Inever saw such shootin' before."

　　Then Henry gave some details of his work and Lucy Upton, watchinghim closely, saw how he had been engrossed by it. Paul Cottertoo noticed, and feeling constraint, at least, demanded thatHenry doff his savage disguise, put on white men's clothes andget something to eat.

　　He consented, though scarce seeing the necessity of it, but keptthe Indian blanket close to hand, saying that he would soon needit again. But he was very gentle with his mother telling herthat she need have no fear for him, that he knew all the wiles ofthe savage and more; they could never catch him and the outsidewas his place, as then he could be of far more service than if hewere merely one of the garrison.

　　The news of Henry Ware's return was throughout the village infive minutes, and with it came the knowledge of his great deed.In the face of such a solid and valuable fact the vague chargethat he was a renegade died. Even Braxton Wyatt did not dare tolift his voice to that effect again, but, with sly insinuation,he spoke of savages herding with savages, and of what mighthappen some day.

　　When night came Henry resuming his Indian garb and paint slippedout again, and so skillful was he that he seemed to melt awaylike a mist in the darkness.

　　The savage army beleaguering the colony now, found it wasassailed by a mysterious enemy, one whom all their vigilance andskill could not catch. They lost warrior after warrior and manyof them began to think Manitou hostile to them, but the leaderspersisted with the siege. They wished to destroy utterly thiswhite vanguard, and they would not return to their villages, faracross the Ohio, until it was done.

　　They no longer made a direct attack upon the walls, but, forminga complete circle around, hung about at a convenient distance,waiting and hoping for thirst and famine to help them. Thepeople believed themselves to have taken good precautions againstthese twin evils, but now a terrible misfortune befell them. Norain fell and the well inside the palisade ran dry. It was JohnWare himself who first saw the coming of the danger and he triedto hide it, but it could not, from its very nature, be kept asecret long. The supply for each person was cut down one halfand then one fourth, and that too would soon go, unless thewelcome rains came; and the sky was without a cloud. Men whofeared no physical danger saw those whom they loved growing paleand weak before their eyes, and they knew not what to do. Itseemed that the place must fall without a blow from the enemy.