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too.
The sun was not yet up when I awoke. For a moment I lay still, listening to
the forest sounds, identifying each as my ears came upon it. Rising, I went to
the edge of the bench where we had slept and looked all around. A moment, and
then as I started to turn, I heard the faintest clink of metal on metal.
My breath caught and held; then slowly I exhaled and looked in the
direction of the sound. There not thirty yards away was a camp! And in the
camp, striking flint against steel, was Vern, about to light a fire!
CHAPTER VIII
Very, very carefully I stepped back. When out of sight, I turned swiftly
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and awakened Yance. Accustomed to trouble and knowing me, he was instantly
awake and alert. He moved to awaken Henry, and I went to the girls.
Gently I touched Diana's shoulder and put a finger across my lips. Her eyes
flared open; there was an instant until she realized, and then she moved
quietly to awaken Carrie. My gestures toward the enemy camp were enough to
warn her. Swiftly, quietly we moved away through the woods, going directly
away from their camp. Somehow we made it, or seemed to.
The leaves were wet with dew, or perhaps there had been a whisper of rain
during the night, but there was no sound as we moved quickly along. That they
would find our camp was without question, for once they started to look about
for dry wood, they would undoubtedly come upon it. The first problem was
distance, the second to leave no trail, yet it was distance of which I thought
at first.
Max Bauer had not seemed to be with them, so perhaps the two groups had not
come together. Or it might be that Bauer was too shrewd to allow himself to be
found with the men who had actually been holding the girls. And it was he who
worried me most, for I doubted the tracking skill of Lashan or Vern.
"If aught goes amiss," I warned Diana, "go at once to Samuel Maverick. From
what you have said, he seems a good man and a solid one. Go to him, tell him
all, and trust to his judgment. If he knows your father, he will get word to
him."
The war party of Indians, I believed, had gone off to the north of us,
raiding some other Indian people, I suspected. Bauer should be close by, but I
suspected he was now behind us, as was Lashan. With luck and mentally I
crossed my fingers we should have a clear way to Shawmut.
We moved well through the long morning, and when it came to high sun, we
were upon the banks of a goodly stream, one flowing north into that great
river that I assumed to be what the Indians called the Merrimack or something
of the sound.
"This must be that river called the Musketaquid," Diana said. "Father came
once to its shores and fished here while with other men who looked for land
for the future."
The river worried me. It was a good hundred yards wide and perhaps more,
and we had to cross it. Yance and I could swim, and no doubt Henry could, but
I doubted the girls could, for it was not often a woman has the chance to
learn, and Carrie was young.
Leaving Henry with them, Yance went downstream, and I turned up, for well
we knew that Indians often conceal their canoes along the banks after
traveling, hiding them against the next crossing. There were places where
canoes were left for years, used by whoever came and left hidden on one side
or the other.
We found no boat, it not being our lucky day, but Yance came upon several
logs lying partly in and out of the water. They were of modest size, and there
were others nearby.
Choosing dry logs, we found several of the proper length and bound them
together with vines. The river moved with incredible slowness, and while we
worked, we studied what currents we could see so as to know how best to
control our crossing. Meanwhile, the girls ate huckleberries picked from
bushes along the shore.
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When the raft was complete, and a pitifully small thing it was, we had the
two girls climb aboard, and with them we put our muskets and powder horns.
Henry came suddenly from the woods. "They come now!" he said.
"Yance?" He looked up at my question. "You and Henry. Get on with it. I'll
wait a bit."
I kept one pistol with an extra charge of powder and ball laid out close to
hand. And I had the bow and the arrows. They shoved off. Yance being a
powerful swimmer, I knew he'd do his part, but Henry proved just as good, and
the two of them, with tow lines, started swimming for the far bank, letting
what little current there was help them along.
They weren't more than a dozen yards out when somebody yelled, and I heard
crashing in the brush. The first one I sighted was the fat one, and he slid to
a halt and lifted his musket to fire. It was no more than thirty yards, and I
wasted no lead on him but put an arrow into his brisket.
His musket went off as he staggered, the ball going into the air, and he
lost hold on his musket and grabbed the arrow. It was buried deep, and I saw
him tugging as he fell.
Slinging my quiver to my back, I took up the pistol. There was more
crashing in the brush, and somebody called a question. The fat man had fallen
out of sight behind some brush, but I could hear him groaning there.
Suddenly a tall, thin man appeared in view, looking about. I lifted the
pistol, but he saw me and dropped from sight. A quick glance showed me the
raft was a good sixty yards into the stream and no longer a very good target,
as the girls were lying flat, and you could see nothing of Yance or Henry but
their heads and occasionally the flash of an arm.
There was more movement in the brush, and I took a chance and fired at the
sound, knowing I'd best get going. Then I hastily reloaded, and taking the
pistol in hand, ran along the shore until I reached a bend large enough to
give me some cover. Then I tied my pistol to me and went into the water. When
I was a dozen yards out, I went under and swam some twenty good strokes before
coming up for air.
I was downstream of them, and I heard a shot but no other sound, and when I
cleared water again, I turned my head for a look back, and there were three
men on the shore, two of them getting ready to swim and a third running along
the bank looking for me. He spotted me just as I took a breath and went under,
but I changed direction and went downstream and swam a good thirty strokes
before I came up again, just shy of midstream.
Looking back, I could just barely see what I believed was the raft, and it
was close to shore. I swam toward the bank then and came out on the bank among
some deadfalls. There was no sign of the raft or of my people, but I could see
at least two men swimming.
Shaking the water off my pistol, I swore softly, bitterly. I had no more
powder with me, and my bowstring was wet. All that remained was my tomahawk
and knife.
Taking a quick look along the shore again, I went into the trees and
started toward where my path should join theirs. There was a thick stand of
maple with occasional oak and in spots a pine tree or two. Nobody looked to
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have wandered these woods, but there was not too much brush, and I moved
quickly, running through the trees.
My one thought was to rejoin Yance and the rest, and what followed was
brought on by pure carelessness. I jumped a deadfall, leaped up to another,
and ran along the top of it for thirty feet or so, then dropped to the earth
and broke through the brush and found myself looking into the end of a musket
held by a grinning redheaded man with a scar across his nose.
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