第54章

"Can any of you hear anything?" asked Henry."Nothin'," replied Shif'less Sol, after a little wait, "nothin' from the women goin', an' nothin' from the Iroquois comin'.""We'll just lie close," said Henry."This hard spot of ground isn't more than thirty or forty feet each way, and nobody can get on it without our knowing it."The others did not reply.All lay motionless upon their sides, with their shoulders raised a little, in order that they might take instant aim when the time came.Some rays of the sun penetrated the canopy of pines, and fell across the brown, determined faces and the lean brown hands that grasped the long, slender-barreled Kentucky rifles.Another snake slipped from the ground into the black water and swam away.Some water animal made a light splash as he, too, swam from the presence of these strange intruders.Then they beard a sighing sound, as of a foot drawn from mud, and they knew that the Iroquois were approaching, savages in war, whatever they might be otherwise, and expecting an easy prey.Five brown thumbs cocked their rifles, and five brown forefingers rested upon the triggers.The eyes of woodsmen who seldom missed looked down the sights.

The sound of feet in the mud came many times.The enemy was evidently drawing near.

"How many do you think are out thar?" whispered Shif'less Sol to Henry.

"Twenty, at least, it seems to me by the sounds." "I s'pose the best thing for us to do is to shoot at the first head we see.""Yes, but we mustn't all fire at the same man."It was suggested that Henry call off the turns of the marksmen, and he agreed to do so.Shif'less Sol was to fire first.The sounds now ceased.The Iroquois evidently had some feeling or instinct that they were approaching an enemy who was to be feared, not weak and unarmed women and children.

The five were absolutely motionless, finger on trigger.The American wilderness had heroes without number.It was Horatius Cocles five times over, ready to defend the bridge with life.

Over the marsh rose the weird cry of an owl, and some water birds called in lonely fashion.

Henry judged that the fugitives were now three quarters of a mile away, out of the sound of rifle shot.He had urged Carpenter to marshal them on as far as be could.But the silence endured yet a while longer.In the dull gray light of the somber day and the waning afternoon the marsh was increasingly dreary and mournful.

It seemed that it must always be the abode of dead or dying things.

The wet grass, forty yards away, moved a little, and between the boughs appeared the segment of a hideous dark face, the painted brow, the savage black eyes, and the hooked nose of the Mohawk.

Only Henry saw it, but with fierce joy-the tortures at Wyoming leaped up before him-he fired at the painted brow.The Mohawk uttered his death cry and fell back with a splash into the mud and water of the swamp.A half dozen bullets were instantly fired at the base of the smoke that came from Henry's rifle, but the youth and his comrades lay close and were unharmed.

Shif'less Sol and Tom were quick enough to catch glimpses of brown forms, at which they fired, and the cries coming back told that they had hit.

"That's something," said Henry."One or two Iroquois at least will not wear the scalp of white woman or child at their belts.""Wish they'd try to rush us," said Shif'less Sol."I never felt so full of fight in my life before.""They may try it," said Henry."I understand that at the big battle of the Oriskany, farther up in the North, the Iroquois would wait until a white man behind a tree would fire, then they would rush up and tomahawk him before he could reload.""They don't know how fast we kin reload," said Long Jim, "an'

they don't know that we've got these double-barreled pistols, either.""No, they don't," said Henry, "and it's a great thing for us to have them.Suppose we spread out a little.So long as we keep them from getting a lodging on the solid earth we hold them at a great disadvantage."Henry and Paul moved off a little toward the right, and the others toward the left.They still had good cover, as fallen timber was scattered all over the oasis, and they were quite sure that another attack would be made soon.It came in about fifteen minutes.The Iroquois suddenly fired a volley at the logs and brush, and when the five returned the fire, but with more deadly effect, they leaped forward in the mud and attempted to rush the oasis, tomahawk in hand.

But the five reloaded so quickly that they were able to send in a second volley before the foremost of the Iroquois could touch foot on solid earth.Then the double barreled pistols came into play.The bullets sent from short range drove back the savages, who were amazed at such a deadly and continued fire.Henry caught sight of a white face among these assailants, and he knew it to be that of Braxton Wyatt.Singularly enough he was not amazed to see it there.Wyatt, sinking deeper and deeper into savagery and cruelty, was just the one to lead the Iroquois in such a pursuit.He was a fit match for Walter Butler, the infamous son of the Indian leader, who was soon to prove himself worse than the worst of the savages, as Thayendanegea himself has written.

Henry drew a bead once on Braxton Wyatt-he had no scruples now about shooting him-but just as he was about to pull the trigger Wyatt darted behind a bush, and a Seneca instead received the bullet.He also saw the renegade, Blackstaffe, but he was not able to secure a shot at him, either.Nevertheless, the Iroquois attack was beaten back.It was a foregone conclusion that the result would be so, unless the force was in great numbers.It is likely, also, that the Iroquois at first had thought only a single man was with the fugitives, not knowing that the five had joined them later.