Zane Grey (24 page)

The sun was just gilding the horizon when they rode out of the woods
into a wide plain. No living thing could be seen. Along the edge of
the forest the ground was level, and the horse traveled easily.
Several times during the morning Joe dismounted beside a pile of
stones or a fallen tree. The miles were traversed without serious
inconvenience to the invalid, except that he grew tired. Toward the
middle of the afternoon, when they had ridden perhaps twenty-five
miles, they crossed a swift, narrow brook. The water was a beautiful
clear brown. Joe made note of this, as it was an unusual
circumstance. Nearly all the streams, when not flooded, were green
in color. He remembered that during his wanderings with Wetzel they
had found one stream of this brown, copper-colored water. The lad
knew he must take a roundabout way to the village so that he might
avoid Indian runners or scouts, and he hoped this stream would prove
to be the one he had once camped upon.

As they were riding toward a gentle swell or knoll covered with
trees and shrubbery, Whispering Winds felt something warm on her
hand, and, looking, was horrified to find it covered with blood.
Joe's wound had opened. She told him they must dismount here, and
remain until he was stronger. The invalid himself thought this
conclusion was wise. They would be practically safe now, since they
must be out of the Indian path, and many miles from the encampment.
Accordingly he got off the horse, and sat down on a log, while
Whispering Winds searched for a suitable place in which to erect a
temporary shelter.

Joe's wandering gaze was arrested by a tree with a huge knotty
formation near the ground. It was like many trees, but this
peculiarity was not what struck Joe. He had seen it before. He never
forgot anything in the woods that once attracted his attention. He
looked around on all sides. Just behind him was an opening in the
clump of trees. Within this was a perpendicular stone covered with
moss and lichens; above it a beech tree spread long, graceful
branches. He thrilled with the remembrance these familiar marks
brought. This was Beautiful Spring, the place where Wetzel rescued
Nell, where he had killed the Indians in that night attack he would
never forget.

One evening a week or more after the disappearance of Jim and the
girls, George Young and David Edwards, the missionaries, sat on the
cabin steps, gazing disconsolately upon the forest scenery. Hard as
had been the ten years of their labor among the Indians, nothing had
shaken them as the loss of their young friends.

"Dave, I tell you your theory about seeing them again is absurd,"
asserted George. "I'll never forget that wretch, Girty, as he spoke
to Nell. Why, she just wilted like a flower blasted by fire. I can't
understand why he let me go, and kept Jim, unless the Shawnee had
something to do with it. I never wished until now that I was a
hunter. I'd go after Girty. You've heard as well as I of his many
atrocities. I'd rather have seen Kate and Nell dead than have them
fall into his power. I'd rather have killed them myself!"

Young had aged perceptibly in these last few days. The blue veins
showed at his temples; his face had become thinner and paler, his
eyes had a look of pain. The former expression of patience, which
had sat so well on him, was gone.

"George, I can't account for my fancies or feelings, else, perhaps,
I'd be easier in mind," answered Dave. His face, too, showed the
ravages of grief. "I've had queer thoughts lately, and dreams such
as I never had before. Perhaps it's this trouble which has made me
so nervous. I don't seem able to pull myself together. I can neither
preach nor work."

"Neither can I! This trouble has hit you as hard as it has me. But,
Dave, we've still our duty. To endure, to endure—that is our life.
Because a beam of sunshine brightened, for a brief time, the gray of
our lives, and then faded away, we must not shirk nor grow sour and
discontented."

"But how cruel is this border life!"

"Nature itself is brutal."

"Yes, I know, and we have elected to spend our lives here in the
midst of this ceaseless strife, to fare poorly, to have no pleasure,
never to feel the comfort of a woman's smiles, nor the joy of a
child's caress, all because out in the woods are ten or twenty or a
hundred savages we may convert."

"That is why, and it is enough. It is hard to give up the women you
love to a black-souled renegade, but that is not for my thought.
What kills me is the horror for her—for her."

"I, too, suffer with that thought; more than that, I am morbid and
depressed. I feel as if some calamity awaited us here. I have never
been superstitious, nor have I had presentiments, but of late there
are strange fears in my mind."

At this juncture Mr. Wells and Heckewelder came out of the adjoining
cabin.

"I had word from a trustworthy runner to-day. Girty and his captives
have not been seen in the Delaware towns," said Heckewelder.

"It is most unlikely that he will take them to the towns," replied
Edwards. "What do you make of his capturing Jim?"

"For Pipe, perhaps. The Delaware Wolf is snapping his teeth. Pipe is
particularly opposed to Christianity, and—what's that?"

A low whistle from the bushes near the creek bank attracted the
attention of all. The younger men got up to investigate, but
Heckewelder detained them.

"Wait," he added. "There is no telling what that signal may mean."

They waited with breathless interest. Presently the whistle was
repeated, and an instant later the tall figure of a man stepped from
behind a thicket. He was a white man, but not recognizable at that
distance, even if a friend. The stranger waved his hand as if asking
them to be cautious, and come to him.

They went toward the thicket, and when within a few paces of the man
Mr. Wells exclaimed:

"It's the man who guided my party to the village. It is Wetzel!"

The other missionaries had never seen the hunter though, of course,
they were familiar with his name, and looked at him with great
curiosity. The hunter's buckskin garments were wet, torn, and
covered with burrs. Dark spots, evidently blood stains, showed on
his hunting-shirt.

"Wetzel?" interrogated Heckewelder.

The hunter nodded, and took a step behind the bush. Bending over he
lifted something from the ground. It was a girl. It was Nell! She
was very white—but alive. A faint, glad smile lighted up her
features.

Not a word was spoken. With an expression of tender compassion Mr.
Wells received her into his arms. The four missionaries turned
fearful, questioning eyes upon the hunter, but they could not speak.

"She's well, an' unharmed," said Wetzel, reading their thoughts,
"only worn out. I've carried her these ten miles."

"God bless you, Wetzel!" exclaimed the old missionary. "Nellie,
Nellie, can you speak?"

"Uncle dear—I'm—all right," came the faint answer.

"Kate? What—of her?" whispered George Young with lips as dry as
corn husks.

"I did my best," said the hunter with a simple dignity. Nothing but
the agonized appeal in the young man's eyes could have made Wetzel
speak of his achievement.

"Tell us," broke in Heckewelder, seeing that fear had stricken
George dumb.

"We trailed 'em an' got away with the golden-haired lass. The last I
saw of Joe he was braced up agin a rock fightin' like a wildcat. I
tried to cut Jim loose as I was goin' by. I s'pect the wust fer the
brothers an' the other lass."

"Can we do nothing?" asked Mr. Wells.

"Nothin'!"

"Wetzel, has the capturing of James Downs any significance to you?"
inquired Heckewelder.

"I reckon so."

"What?"

"Pipe an' his white-redskin allies are agin Christianity."

"Do you think we are in danger?"

"I reckon so."

"What do you advise?"

"Pack up a few of your traps, take the lass, an' come with me. I'll
see you back in Fort Henry."

Heckewelder nervously walked up to the tree and back again. Young
and Edwards looked blankly at one another. They both remembered
Edward's presentiment. Mr. Wells uttered an angry exclamation.

"You ask us to fail in our duty? No, never! To go back to the white
settlements and acknowledge we were afraid to continue teaching the
Gospel to the Indians! You can not understand Christianity if you
advise that. You have no religion. You are a killer of Indians."

A shadow that might have been one of pain flitted over the hunter's
face.

"No, I ain't a Christian, an' I am a killer of Injuns," said Wetzel,
and his deep voice had a strange tremor. "I don't know nothin' much
'cept the woods an' fields, an' if there's a God fer me He's out
thar under the trees an' grass. Mr. Wells, you're the first man as
ever called me a coward, an' I overlook it because of your callin'.
I advise you to go back to Fort Henry, because if you don't go now
the chances are aginst your ever goin'. Christianity or no
Christianity, such men as you hev no bisness in these woods."

"I thank you for your advice, and bless you for your rescue of this
child; but I can not leave my work, nor can I understand why all
this good work we have done should be called useless. We have
converted Indians, saved their souls. Is that not being of some use,
of some good here?"

"It's accordin' to how you look at it. Now I know the bark of an oak
is different accordin' to the side we see from. I'll allow, hatin'
Injuns as I do, is no reason you oughtn't to try an' convert 'em.
But you're bringin' on a war. These Injuns won't allow this Village
of Peace here with its big fields of corn, an' shops an' workin'
redskins. It's agin their nature. You're only sacrificin' your
Christian Injuns."

"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Wells, startled by Wetzel's words.

"Enough. I'm ready to guide you to Fort Henry."

"I'll never go."

Wetzel looked at the other men. No one would have doubted him. No
one could have failed to see he knew that some terrible anger
hovered over the Village of Peace.

"I believe you, Wetzel, but I can not go," said Heckewelder, with
white face.

"I will stay," said George, steadily.

"And I," said Dave.

Wetzel nodded, and turned to depart when George grasped his arm. The
young missionary's face was drawn and haggard; he fixed an intense
gaze upon the hunter.

"Wetzel, listen;" his voice was low and shaken with deep feeling. "I
am a teacher of God's word, and I am as earnest in that purpose as
you are in your life-work. I shall die here; I shall fill an
unmarked grave; but I shall have done the best I could. This is the
life destiny has marked out for me, and I will live it as best I
may; but in this moment, preacher as I am, I would give all I have
or hope to have, all the little good I may have done, all my life,
to be such a man as you. For I would avenge the woman I loved. To
torture, to kill Girty! I am only a poor, weak fellow who would be
lost a mile from this village, and if not, would fall before the
youngest brave. But you with your glorious strength, your
incomparable woodcraft, you are the man to kill Girty. Rid the
frontier of this fiend. Kill him! Wetzel, kill him! I beseech you
for the sake of some sweet girl who even now may be on her way to
this terrible country, and who may fall into Girty's power—for her
sake, Wetzel, kill him. Trail him like a bloodhound, and when you
find him remember my broken heart, remember Nell, remember, oh, God!
remember poor Kate!"

Young's voice broke into dry sobs. He had completely exhausted
himself, so that he was forced to lean against the tree for support.

Wetzel spoke never a word. He stretched out his long, brawny arm and
gripped the young missionary's shoulder. His fingers clasped hard.
Simple, without words as the action was, it could not have been more
potent. And then, as he stood, the softer look faded slowly from his
face. A ripple seemed to run over his features, which froze, as it
subsided, into a cold, stone rigidity.

His arm dropped; he stepped past the tree, and, bounding lightly as
a deer, cleared the creek and disappeared in the bushes.

Mr. Wells carried Nell to his cabin where she lay for hours with wan
face and listless languor. She swallowed the nourishing drink an old
Indian nurse forced between her teeth; she even smiled weakly when
the missionaries spoke to her; but she said nothing nor seemed to
rally from her terrible shock. A dark shadow lay always before her,
conscious of nothing present, living over again her frightful
experience. Again she seemed sunk in dull apathy.

"Dave, we're going to loose Nell. She's fading slowly," said George,
one evening, several days after the girl's return. "Wetzel said she
was unharmed, yet she seems to have received a hurt more fatal than
a physical one. It's her mind—her mind. If we cannot brighten her
up to make her forget, she'll die."

"We've done all within our power. If she could only be brought out
of this trance! She lies there all day long with those staring eyes.
I can't look into them. They are the eyes of a child who has seen
murder."

"We must try in some way to get her out of this stupor, and I have
an idea. Have you noticed that Mr. Wells has failed very much in the
last few weeks?"

"Indeed I have, and I'm afraid he's breaking down. He has grown so
thin, eats very little, and doesn't sleep. He is old, you know, and,
despite his zeal, this border life is telling on him."

"Dave, I believe he knows it. Poor, earnest old man! He never says a
word about himself, yet he must know he is going down hill. Well, we
all begin, sooner or later, that descent which ends in the grave. I
believe we might stir Nellie by telling her Mr. Wells' health is
breaking."

"Let us try."

A hurried knock on the door interrupted their conversation.