Books: The Last Trail
Z >>
Zane Grey >> The Last Trail
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 | 16 |
17
CHAPTER XXIII
At daylight Jonathan Zane rolled from his snug bed of leaves under the
side of a log, and with the flint, steel and punk he always carried,
began building a fire. His actions were far from being hurried. They
were deliberate, and seemed strange on the part of a man whose stern
face suggested some dark business to be done. When his little fire had
been made, he warmed some slices of venison which had already been
cooked, and thus satisfied his hunger. Carefully extinguishing the
fire and looking to the priming of his rifle, he was ready for
the trail.
He stood near the edge of the cliff from which he could command a view
of the glen. The black, smoldering ruins of the burned cabins defaced
a picturesque scene.
"Brandt must have lit out last night, for I could have seen even a
rabbit hidin' in that laurel patch. He's gone, an' it's what I
wanted," thought the borderman.
He made his way slowly around the edge of the inclosure and clambered
down on the splintered cliff at the end of the gorge. A wide,
well-trodden trail extended into the forest below. Jonathan gave
scarcely a glance to the beaten path before him; but bent keen eyes to
the north, and carefully scrutinized the mossy stones along the brook.
Upon a little sand bar running out from the bank he found the light
imprint of a hand.
"It was a black night. He'd have to travel by the stars, an' north's
the only safe direction for him," muttered the borderman.
On the bank above he found oblong indentations in the grass, barely
perceptible, but owing to the peculiar position of the blades of
grass, easy for him to follow.
"He'd better have learned to walk light as an Injun before he took to
outlawin'," said the borderman in disdain. Then he returned to the
gorge and entered the inclosure. At the foot of the little rise of
ground where Wetzel had leaped upon his quarry, was one of the dead
Indians. Another lay partly submerged in the brown water.
Jonathan carried the weapons of the savages to a dry place under a
projecting ledge in the cliff. Passing on down the glen, he stopped a
moment where the cabins had stood. Not a log remained. The horses,
with the exception of two, were tethered in the copse of laurel. He
recognized Colonel Zane's thoroughbred, and Betty's pony. He cut them
loose, positive they would not stray from the glen, and might easily
be secured at another time.
He set out upon the trail of Brandt with a long, swinging stride. To
him the outcome of that pursuit was but a question of time. The
consciousness of superior endurance, speed, and craft, spoke in his
every movement. The consciousness of being in right, a factor so
powerfully potent for victory, spoke in the intrepid front with which
he faced the north.
It was a gloomy November day. Gray, steely clouds drifted overhead.
The wind wailed through the bare trees, sending dead leaves scurrying
and rustling over the brown earth.
The borderman advanced with a step that covered glade and glen, forest
and field, with astonishing swiftness. Long since he had seen that
Brandt was holding to the lowland. This did not strike him as singular
until for the third time he found the trail lead a short distance up
the side of a ridge, then descend, seeking a level. With this
discovery came the certainty that Brandt's pace was lessening. He had
set out with a hunter's stride, but it had begun to shorten. The
outlaw had shirked the hills, and shifted from his northern course.
Why? The man was weakening; he could not climb; he was favoring
a wound.
What seemed more serious for the outlaw, was the fact that he had left
a good trail, and entered the low, wild land north of the Ohio. Even
the Indians seldom penetrated this tangled belt of laurel and thorn.
Owing to the dry season the swamps were shallow, which was another
factor against Brandt. No doubt he had hoped to hide his trail by
wading, and here it showed up like the track of a bison.
Jonathan kept steadily on, knowing the farther Brandt penetrated into
this wilderness the worse off he would be. The outlaw dared not take
to the river until below Fort Henry, which was distant many a weary
mile. The trail grew more ragged as the afternoon wore away. When
twilight rendered further tracking impossible, the borderman built a
fire in a sheltered place, ate his supper, and went to sleep.
In the dim, gray morning light he awoke, fancying he had been startled
by a distant rifle shot. He roasted his strips of venison carefully,
and ate with a hungry hunter's appreciation, yet sparingly, as
befitted a borderman who knew how to keep up his strength upon a
long trail.
Hardly had he traveled a mile when Brandt's footprints covered
another's. Nothing surprised the borderman; but he had expected this
least of all. A hasty examination convinced him that Legget and his
Indian ally had fled this way with Wetzel in pursuit.
The morning passed slowly. The borderman kept to the trail like a
hound. The afternoon wore on. Over sandy reaches thick with willows,
and through long, matted, dried-out cranberry marshes and copses of
prickly thorn, the borderman hung to his purpose. His legs seemed
never to lose their spring, but his chest began to heave, his head
bent, and his face shone with sweat.
At dusk he tired. Crawling into a dry thicket, he ate his scanty meal
and fell asleep. When he awoke it was gray daylight. He was wet and
chilled. Again he kindled a fire, and sat over it while cooking
breakfast.
Suddenly he was brought to his feet by the sound of a rifle shot; then
two others followed in rapid succession. Though they were faint, and
far away to the west, Jonathan recognized the first, which could have
come only from Wetzel's weapon, and he felt reasonably certain of the
third, which was Brandt's. There might have been, he reflected grimly,
a good reason for Legget's not shooting. However, he knew that Wetzel
had rounded up the fugitives, and again he set out.
It was another dismal day, such a one as would be fitting for a dark
deed of border justice. A cold, drizzly rain blew from the northwest.
Jonathan wrapped a piece of oil-skin around his rifle-breech, and
faced the downfall. Soon he was wet to the skin. He kept on, but his
free stride had shortened. Even upon his iron muscles this soggy,
sticky ground had begun to tell.
The morning passed but the storm did not; the air grew colder and
darker. The short afternoon would afford him little time, especially
as the rain and running rills of water were obliterating the trail.
In the midst of a dense forest of great cottonwoods and sycamores he
came upon a little pond, hidden among the bushes, and shrouded in a
windy, wet gloom. Jonathan recognized the place. He had been there in
winter hunting bears when all the swampland was locked by ice.
The borderman searched along the banks for a time, then went back to
the trail, patiently following it. Around the pond it led to the side
of a great, shelving rock. He saw an Indian leaning against this, and
was about to throw forward his rifle when the strange, fixed, position
of the savage told of the tragedy. A wound extended from his shoulder
to his waist. Near by on the ground lay Legget. He, too, was dead. His
gigantic frame weltered in blood. His big feet were wide apart; his
arms spread, and from the middle of his chest protruded the haft of
a knife.
The level space surrounding the bodies showed evidence of a desperate
struggle. A bush had been rolled upon and crushed by heavy bodies. On
the ground was blood as on the stones and leaves. The blade Legget
still clutched was red, and the wrist of the hand which held it showed
a dark, discolored band, where it had felt the relentless grasp of
Wetzel's steel grip. The dead man's buckskin coat was cut into
ribbons. On his broad face a demoniacal expression had set in eternal
rigidity; the animal terror of death was frozen in his wide staring
eyes. The outlaw chief had died as he had lived, desperately.
Jonathan found Wetzel's trail leading directly toward the river, and
soon understood that the borderman was on the track of Brandt. The
borderman had surprised the worn, starved, sleepy fugitives in the
gray, misty dawn. The Indian, doubtless, was the sentinel, and had
fallen asleep at his post never to awaken. Legget and Brandt must have
discharged their weapons ineffectually. Zane could not understand why
his comrade had missed Brandt at a few rods' distance. Perhaps he had
wounded the younger outlaw; but certainly he had escaped while Wetzel
had closed in on Legget to meet the hardest battle of his career.
While going over his version of the attack, Jonathan followed Brandt's
trail, as had Wetzel, to where it ended in the river. The old
borderman had continued on down stream along the sandy shore. The
outlaw remained in the water to hide his trail.
At one point Wetzel turned north. This move puzzled Jonathan, as did
also the peculiar tracks. It was more perplexing because not far below
Zane discovered where the fugitive had left the water to get around a
ledge of rock.
The trail was approaching Fort Henry. Jonathan kept on down the river
until arriving at the head of the island which lay opposite the
settlement. Still no traces of Wetzel! Here Zane lost Brandt's trail
completely. He waded the first channel, which was shallow and narrow,
and hurried across the island. Walking out upon a sand-bar he signaled
with his well-known Indian cry. Almost immediately came an
answering shout.
While waiting he glanced at the sand, and there, pointing straight
toward the fort, he found Brandt's straggling trail!
CHAPTER XXIV
Colonel Zane paced to and fro on the porch. His genial smile had not
returned; he was grave and somber. Information had just reached him
that Jonathan had hailed from the island, and that one of the settlers
had started across the river in a boat.
Betty came out accompanied by Mrs. Zane.
"What's this I hear?" asked Betty, flashing an anxious glance toward
the river. "Has Jack really come in?"
"Yes," replied the colonel, pointing to a throng of men on the river
bank.
"Now there'll be trouble," said Mrs. Zane nervously. "I wish with all
my heart Brandt had not thrown himself, as he called it, on
your mercy."
"So do I," declared Colonel Zane.
"What will be done?" she asked. "There! that's Jack! Silas has hold of
his arm."
"He's lame. He has been hurt," replied her husband.
A little procession of men and boys followed the borderman from the
river, and from the cabins appeared the settlers and their wives. But
there was no excitement except among the children. The crowd filed
into the colonel's yard behind Jonathan and Silas.
Colonel Zane silently greeted his brother with an iron grip of the
hand which was more expressive than words. No unusual sight was it to
see the borderman wet, ragged, bloody, worn with long marches,
hollow-eyed and gloomy; yet he had never before presented such an
appearance at Fort Henry. Betty ran forward, and, though she clasped
his arm, shrank back. There was that in the borderman's presence to
cause fear.
"Wetzel?" Jonathan cried sharply.
The colonel raised both hands, palms open, and returned his brother's
keen glance. Then he spoke. "Lew hasn't come in. He chased Brandt
across the river. That's all I know."
"Brandt's here, then?" hissed the borderman.
The colonel nodded gloomily.
"Where?"
"In the long room over the fort. I locked him in there."
"Why did he come here?"
Colonel Zane shrugged his shoulders. "It's beyond me. He said he'd
rather place himself in my hands than be run down by Wetzel or you. He
didn't crawl; I'll say that for him. He just said, 'I'm your
prisoner.' He's in pretty bad shape; barked over the temple, lame in
one foot, cut under the arm, starved and worn out."
"Take me to him," said the borderman, and he threw his rifle on a
bench.
"Very well. Come along," replied the colonel. He frowned at those
following them. "Here, you women, clear out!" But they did not
obey him.
It was a sober-faced group that marched in through the big stockade
gate, under the huge, bulging front of the fort, and up the rough
stairway. Colonel Zane removed a heavy bar from before a door, and
thrust it open with his foot. The long guardroom brilliantly lighted
by sunshine coming through the portholes, was empty save for a ragged
man lying on a bench.
The noise aroused him; he sat up, and then slowly labored to his feet.
It was the same flaring, wild-eyed Brandt, only fiercer and more
haggard. He wore a bloody bandage round his head. When he saw the
borderman he backed, with involuntary, instinctive action, against the
wall, yet showed no fear.
In the dark glance Jonathan shot at Brandt shone a pitiless
implacability; no scorn, nor hate, nor passion, but something which,
had it not been so terrible, might have been justice.
"I think Wetzel was hurt in the fight with Legget," said Jonathan
deliberately, "an' ask if you know?"
"I believe he was," replied Brandt readily. "I was asleep when he
jumped us, and was awakened by the Indian's yell. Wetzel must have
taken a snap shot at me as I was getting up, which accounts, probably,
for my being alive. I fell, but did not lose consciousness. I heard
Wetzel and Legget fighting, and at last struggled to my feet. Although
dizzy and bewildered, I could see to shoot; but missed. For a long
time, it seemed to me, I watched that terrible fight, and then ran,
finally reaching the river, where I recovered somewhat."
"Did you see Wetzel again?"
"Once, about a quarter of a mile behind me. He was staggering along on
my trail."
At this juncture there was a commotion among the settlers crowding
behind Colonel Zane and Jonathan, and Helen Sheppard appeared, white,
with her big eyes strangely dilated.
"Oh!" she cried breathlessly, clasping both hands around Jonathan's
arm. "I'm not too late? You're not going to----"
"Helen, this is no place for you," said Colonel Zane sternly. "This is
business for men. You must not interfere."
Helen gazed at him, at Brandt, and then up at the borderman. She did
not loose his arm.
"Outside some one told me you intended to shoot him. Is it true?"
Colonel Zane evaded the searching gaze of those strained, brilliant
eyes. Nor did he answer.
As Helen stepped slowly back a hush fell upon the crowd. The
whispering, the nervous coughing, and shuffling of feet, ceased.
In those around her Helen saw the spirit of the border. Colonel Zane
and Silas wore the same look, cold, hard, almost brutal. The women
were strangely grave. Nellie Douns' sweet face seemed changed; there
was pity, even suffering on it, but no relenting. Even Betty's face,
always so warm, piquant, and wholesome, had taken on a shade of doubt,
of gloom, of something almost sullen, which blighted its dark beauty.
What hurt Helen most cruelly was the borderman's glittering eyes.
She fought against a shuddering weakness which threatened to overcome
her.
"Whose prisoner is Brandt?" she asked of Colonel Zane.
"He gave himself up to me, naturally, as I am in authority here,"
replied the colonel. "But that signifies little. I can do no less than
abide by Jonathan's decree, which, after all, is the decree of
the border."
"And that is?"
"Death to outlaws and renegades."
"But cannot you spare him?" implored Helen. "I know he is a bad man;
but he might become a better one. It seems like murder to me. To kill
him in cold blood, wounded, suffering as he is, when he claimed your
mercy. Oh! it is dreadful!"
The usually kind-hearted colonel, soft as wax in the hands of a girl,
was now colder and harder than flint.
"It is useless," he replied curtly. "I am sorry for you. We all
understand your feelings, that yours are not the principles of the
border. If you had lived long here you could appreciate what these
outlaws and renegades have done to us. This man is a hardened
criminal; he is a thief, a murderer."
"He did not kill Mordaunt," replied Helen quickly. "I saw him draw
first and attack Brandt."
"No matter. Come, Helen, cease. No more of this," Colonel Zane cried
with impatience.
"But I will not!" exclaimed Helen, with ringing voice and flashing
eye. She turned to her girl friends and besought them to intercede for
the outlaw. But Nell only looked sorrowfully on, while Betty met her
appealing glance with a fire in her eyes that was no dim reflection of
her brother's.
"Then I must make my appeal to you," said Helen, facing the borderman.
There could be no mistaking how she regarded him. Respect, honor and
love breathed from every line of her beautiful face.
"Why do you want him to go free?" demanded Jonathan. "You told me to
kill him."
"Oh, I know. But I was not in my right mind. Listen to me, please. He
must have been very different once; perhaps had sisters. For their
sake give him another chance. I know he has a better nature. I feared
him, hated him, scorned him, as if he were a snake, yet he saved me
from that monster Legget!"
"For himself!"
"Well, yes, I can't deny that. But he could have ruined me, wrecked
me, yet he did not. At least, he meant marriage by me. He said if I
would marry him he would flee over the border and be an honest man."
"Have you no other reason?"
"Yes." Helen's bosom swelled and a glory shone in her splendid eyes.
"The other reason is, my own happiness!"
Plain to all, if not through her words, from the light in her eyes,
that she could not love a man who was a party to what she considered
injustice.
The borderman's white face became flaming red.
It was difficult to refuse this glorious girl any sacrifice she
demanded for the sake of the love so openly avowed.
Sweetly and pityingly she turned to Brandt: "Will not you help me?"
"Lass, if it were for me you were asking my life I'd swear it yours
for always, and I'd be a man," he replied with bitterness; "but not to
save my soul would I ask anything of him."
The giant passions, hate and jealousy, flamed in his gray eyes.
"If I persuade them to release you, will you go away, leave this
country, and never come back?"
"I'll promise that, lass, and honestly," he replied.
She wheeled toward Jonathan, and now the rosy color chased the pallor
from her cheeks.
"Jack, do you remember when we parted at my home; when you left on
this terrible trail, now ended, thank God! Do you remember what an
ordeal that was for me? Must I go through it again?"
Bewitchingly sweet she was then, with the girlish charm of coquetry
almost lost in the deeper, stranger power of the woman.
The borderman drew his breath sharply; then he wrapped his long arms
closely round her. She, understanding that victory was hers, sank
weeping upon his breast. For a moment he bowed his face over her, and
when he lifted it the dark and terrible gloom had gone.
"Eb, let him go, an' at once," ordered Jonathan. "Give him a rifle,
some meat, an' a canoe, for he can't travel, an' turn him loose. Only
be quick about it, because if Wetzel comes in, God himself couldn't
save the outlaw."
It was an indescribable glance that Brandt cast upon the tearful face
of the girl who had saved his life. But without a word he followed
Colonel Zane from the room.
The crowd slowly filed down the steps. Betty and Nell lingered behind,
their eyes beaming through happy tears. Jonathan, long so cold, showed
evidence of becoming as quick and passionate a lover as he had been a
borderman. At least, Helen had to release herself from his embrace,
and it was a blushing, tear-stained face she turned to her friends.
When they reached the stockade gate Colonel Zane was hurrying toward
the river with a bag in one hand, and a rifle and a paddle in the
other. Brandt limped along after him, the two disappearing over the
river bank.
Betty, Nell, and the lovers went to the edge of the bluff.
They saw Colonel Zane choose a canoe from among a number on the beach.
He launched it, deposited the bag in the bottom, handed the rifle and
paddle to Brandt, and wheeled about.
The outlaw stepped aboard, and, pushing off slowly, drifted down and
out toward mid-stream. When about fifty yards from shore he gave a
quick glance around, and ceased paddling. His face gleamed white, and
his eyes glinted like bits of steel in the sun.
Suddenly he grasped the rifle, and, leveling it with the swiftness of
thought, fired at Jonathan.
The borderman saw the act, even from the beginning, and must have read
the outlaw's motive, for as the weapon flashed he dropped flat on the
bank. The bullet sang harmlessly over him, imbedding itself in the
stockade fence with a distinct thud.
The girls were so numb with horror that they could not even scream.
Colonel Zane swore lustily. "Where's my gun? Get me a gun. Oh! What
did I tell you?"
"Look!" cried Jonathan as he rose to his feet.
Upon the sand-bar opposite stood a tall, dark, familiar figure.
"By all that's holy, Wetzel!" exclaimed Colonel Zane.
They saw the giant borderman raise a long, black rifle, which wavered
and fell, and rose again. A little puff of white smoke leaped out,
accompanied by a clear, stinging report.
Brandt dropped the paddle he had hurriedly begun plying after his
traitor's act. His white face was turned toward the shore as it sank
forward to rest at last upon the gunwale of the canoe. Then his body
slowly settled, as if seeking repose. His hand trailed outside in the
water, drooping inert and lifeless. The little craft drifted
down stream.
"You see, Helen, it had to be," said Colonel Zane gently. "What a
dastard! A long shot, Jack! Fate itself must have glanced down the
sights of Wetzel's rifle."
CHAPTER XXV
A year rolled round; once again Indian summer veiled the golden fields
and forests in a soft, smoky haze. Once more from the opal-blue sky of
autumn nights, shone the great white stars, and nature seemed wrapped
in a melancholy hush.
November the third was the anniversary of a memorable event on the
frontier--the marriage of the younger borderman.
Colonel Zane gave it the name of "Independence Day," and arranged a
holiday, a feast and dance where all the settlement might meet in
joyful thankfulness for the first year of freedom on the border.
With the wiping out of Legget's fierce band, the yoke of the renegades
and outlaws was thrown off forever. Simon Girty migrated to Canada and
lived with a few Indians who remained true to him. His confederates
slowly sank into oblivion. The Shawnee tribe sullenly retreated
westward, far into the interior of Ohio; the Delawares buried the war
hatchet, and smoked the pipe of peace they had ever before refused.
For them the dark, mysterious, fatal wind had ceased to moan along the
trails, or sigh through tree-tops over lonely Indian camp-fires.
The beautiful Ohio valley had been wrested from the savages and from
those parasites who for years had hung around the necks of the
red men.
This day was the happiest of Colonel Zane's life. The task he had set
himself, and which he had hardly ever hoped to see completed, was
ended. The West had been won. What Boone achieved in Kentucky he had
accomplished in Ohio and West Virginia.
The feast was spread on the colonel's lawn. Every man, woman and child
in the settlement was there. Isaac Zane, with his Indian wife and
child, had come from the far-off Huron town. Pioneers from Yellow
Creek and eastward to Fort Pitt attended. The spirit of the occasion
manifested itself in such joyousness as had never before been
experienced in Fort Henry. The great feast was equal to the event.
Choice cuts of beef and venison, savory viands, wonderful loaves of
bread and great plump pies, sweet cider and old wine, delighted the
merry party.
"Friends, neighbors, dear ones," said Colonel Zane, "my heart is
almost too full for speech. This occasion, commemorating the day of
our freedom on the border, is the beginning of the reward for stern
labor, hardship, silenced hearths of long, relentless years. I did not
think I'd live to see it. The seed we have sown has taken root; in
years to come, perhaps, a great people will grow up on these farms we
call our homes. And as we hope those coming afterward will remember
us, we should stop a moment to think of the heroes who have gone
before. Many there are whose names will never be written on the roll
of fame, whose graves will be unmarked in history. But we who worked,
fought, bled beside them, who saw them die for those they left behind,
will render them all justice, honor and love. To them we give the
victory. They were true; then let us, who begin to enjoy the freedom,
happiness and prosperity they won with their lives, likewise be true
in memory of them, in deed to ourselves, and in grace to God."
By no means the least of the pleasant features of this pleasant day
was the fact that three couples blushingly presented themselves before
the colonel, and confided to him their sudden conclusions in regard
to the felicitousness of the moment. The happy colonel raced around
until he discovered Jim Douns, the minister, and there amid the merry
throng he gave the brides away, being the first to kiss them.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 | 16 |
17