Nick of the woods, or, The Jibbenainosay a tale of Kentucky |
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| 7. | CHAPTER VII. |
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 | CHAPTER VII. Nick of the woods, or, The Jibbenainosay |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
The morning-star, peeping into the hollow
den of the wanderers, was yet bright on the horizon,
when Roland was roused from his slumbers
by Nathan, who had already risen and prepared
a hasty meal resembling in all respects that of the
preceding evening. To this the soldier did better
justice than to the other; for although feeling sore
and stiff in every limb, he experienced none of the
feverish consequences Nathan had predicted from
his wounds; and his mind, invigorated by so many
hours of rest, was more tranquil and cheerful.
The confidence Nathan seemed to feel in the reasonableness
and practicability of their enterprise,
however wild and daring it might have seemed to
others, was his own best assurance of its success;
and hope thus enkindled and growing with his
growing strength, it required no laborious effort to
summon the spirits necessary to sustain him during
the coming trials.
This change for the better was not unnoticed
by Nathan, who exhorted him to eat freely, as a
necessary prelude to the labours of the day; and
the rude meal being quickly and satisfactorily despatched,
and little Peter receiving his due share,
the companions, without further delay, seized their
arms, and recommenced their journey. Crossing
the river at the buffalo-ford above, and exchanging
the road to which it led for wilder and lonelier
paths traced by smaller animals, they made their
speed, which was increased, as the warmth of
exercise gradually restored their native suppleness
to the soldier's limbs.
And now it was, that, as the opening of a
glorious dawn, flinging sunshine and life over the
whole wilderness, infused still brighter hopes into
his spirit, he began to divide his thoughts between
his kinswoman and his guide, bestowing more
upon the latter than he had previously found time
or inclination to do. His strange appearance, his
stranger character, his sudden metamorphosis from
a timid and somewhat over-conscientious professor
of the doctrines of peace and good-will, into a
highly energetic and unremorseful, not to say,
valiant, man of war, were all subjects to provoke
the soldier's curiosity; which was still further increased
when he pondered over the dismal story
Nathan had so imperfectly told him on the past
day. Of those dreadful calamities which, in Nathan's
own language, `had made him what he was,'
a houseless wanderer of the wilderness, the Virginian
would have gladly known more; but his
first allusion to the subject produced such evident
disorder in Nathan's mind, as if the recollection
were too harrowing to be borne, that the young
man immediately repressed his inquiries, and diverted
his guide's thoughts into another channel.
His imagination supplied the imperfect links in the
story: he could well believe that the same hands
which had shed the blood of every member of the
poor borderer's family, might have struck the
hatchet into the head of the resisting husband and
father; and that the effects of that blow, with the
desolation of heart and fortune which the heavier
ones, struck at the same time, had entailed, might
aimless, wanderer.
How far these causes might have operated in
leading Nathan into those late acts of blood which
were at such variance with his faith and professions,
it remained also for Roland to imagine; and,
in truth, he imagined they had operated deeply
and far; though nothing in Nathan's own admissions
could be found to sanction any belief, save
that they were the results partly of accident, and
partly of sudden and irresistible impulse.
At all events, it was plain that his warlike feats,
however they might at first have shocked his sense
of propriety, now sat but lightly on his conscience;
and, indeed, since his confession at the Piankeshaw
camp, he ceased even to talk of them, perhaps
resting upon that as an all-sufficient explanation
and apology. It is certain, from that moment he
bore himself more freely and boldly, entered no
protest whatever against being called on to do his
share of such fighting as might occur—a stipulation
made with such anxious forethought, when he
first consented to accompany the lost travellers—
nor betrayed any tenderness of invective against
the Indians, whom, having first spoke of them
only as `evil-minded poor Shawnee creatures,' he
now designated, conformably to established usage
among his neighbours of the Stations, as `thieves
and dogs,' `bloody villains, and rapscallions;' all
which expressions he bestowed with as much ease
and emphasis as if he had been accustomed to
use them all his life.
With this singular friend and companion, Roland
pursued his way through the wilderness, committing
life, and the hopes that were dearer than
life, to his sole guidance and protection; nor did
zeal or ability of Nathan to conduct to a prosperous
issue the cause he had so freely and disinterestedly
espoused.
As they thridded the lonely forest-paths together,
Nathan explained at length the circumstances
upon which he founded his hopes of success in
their project; and in doing so, convinced the
soldier, not only that his sagacity was equal to the
enterprise, but that his acquaintance with the wilderness
was by no means confined to the region
south of the Ohio; the northern countries, then
wholly in the possession of the Indian tribes, appearing
to be just as well known to him, the Miami
country in particular, in which lay the village of
the Black-Vulture. How this knowledge had been
obtained was not so evident; for although he
averred he hunted the deer or trapped the beaver
on either side the river, as appeared to him most
agreeable, it was hardly to be supposed he could
carry on such operations in the heart of the Indian
nation. But it was enough for Roland that the
knowledge so essential to his own present plans,
was really possessed by his conductor, and he
cared not to question how it had been arrived at;
it was an augury of success, of which he felt the
full influence.
The evening of that day found him upon the
banks of the Kentucky, the wild and beautiful
river from which the wilderness around derived its
name; and the next morning, crossing it on a raft
of logs speedily constructed by Nathan, he trod
upon the soil of the North-side, famous even then
for its beauty and for the deeds of bloodshed
almost daily enacted among its scattered settlements,
and destined, unhappily, to be rendered still
more famous for a tragedy which that very day
Licking, where sixty of the District's best and
bravest sons fell the victims less of Indian subtlety
than of their own unparallelled rashness. But of
that bloody field the travellers were to hear thereafter:
the vultures were winging their flight
towards the fatal scene; but they alone could
snuff, in that silent desert, the scent of the battle
that vexed it.
Sleeping that night in the woods, the next day,
being the fourth since they left the Piankeshaw
camp, beheld the travellers upon the banks of the
Ohio; which, seen for the first time in the glory of
summer, its crystal waters wheeling placidly along
amid hills and forests, ever reflected in the bright
mirror below, and with the air of virgin solitude
which, through so many leagues of its course, it
still presents, never fails to fill the beholder's mind
with an enchanting sense of its loveliness.
Here a raft was again constructed; and the adventurers
pushing boldly across, were soon upon
the opposite shore. This feat accomplished, Nathan
took the precaution to lansh their frail float
adrift in the current, that no tell-tale memorial of
a white-man's visit should remain to be read by
returning warriors. The next moment, ascending
the bank of the river, he plunged with his companion
into a maze of brake and forest, neither of
them then dreaming that upon the very spot where
they toiled through the tangled labyrinths, a few
years should behold the magic spectacle of a fair
city, the Queen of the West, uprisen with the suddenness,
and almost the splendour of the Fata-Morgana,
though, happily, doomed to no such evanescent
existence. Then handling their arms, like men
who felt they were in a foeman's country, and
knew that every further step was to be taken in
such speed and vigour (for Roland's strength had
returned apace,) that at the close of the day, they
were, according to Nathan's account, scarce
twenty miles distant from the Black-Vulture's village,
which they might easily reach the following
day. On the following day, accordingly, they resumed
their march, avoiding all paths, and stealing
through the most unfrequented depths of the
woods, proceeding with a caution which was
every moment becoming more obviously necessary
to the success of their enterprise.
Up to this period, their journey had presented
nothing of interest, being a mere succession of
toil, privation, and occasional suffering, naturally
enough to be expected in such an undertaking;
but it was now about to be varied by an adventure
of no little interest in itself, and, in its consequences,
destined to exercise a powerful influence
on the prospects of the travellers.
Laying their plans so as to reach the Indian
village only about nightfall, and travelling but
slowly, and with great circumspection, they had
not at mid-day accomplished much more than half
the distance; when they came to a halt in a little
dell, extremely wild and sequestered, where Nathan
proposed to rest a few hours, and recruit their
strength with a warm dinner,—a luxury they had
not enjoyed for the last two days, during which
they had subsisted upon the corn and dried meat
from the Indian wallets. Accident had a few
moments before provided them materials for a
more palatable meal. They had stumbled upon a
deer that had just fallen under the attack of a
catamount; which, easily driven from its yet warm
and palpitating quarry, surrendered the feast to its
unwelcome visiters. An inspection of the carcass
the bullet of some wandering Indian hunter,—a
discovery that somewhat concerned Nathan, until,
after a more careful examination of the wound,
which seemed neither severe nor mortal, he was
convinced the poor beast had run many long miles,
until, in fact, wholly exhausted, before the panther
had finished the work of the huntsman. This circumstance
removing his uneasiness, he helped
himself to the choicest portion of the animal, amputated
a hind leg without stopping to flay it, and
clapping this upon his shoulder in a very businesslike
way, left the remainder of the carcass to be
despatched by the wild-cat at her leisure.
The little dell, in which Nathan proposed to
cook and enjoy his savoury treasure, at ease and
in safety, was enclosed by hills; of which the one
by which they descended into it, fell down in a
rolling slope densely covered with trees; while the
other, rocky, barren, and almost naked, rose precipitously
up, a grim picture of solitude and desolation.
A scanty brook, oozing along through the
swampy bottom of the hollow, and supplied by a
spring near its head, at which the two friends
halted, to prepare their meal, ran meandering
away among alders and other swampy plants, to
find exit into a larger vale that opened below,
though hidden from the travellers by the winding
of the rocky ridge before them.
In this lonely den, Nathan and Roland began
straightway to disencumber themselves of arms
and provisions, seeming well satisfied with its convenience.
But not so little Peter; who, having
faithfully accompanied them so far, now following
humbly at his master's heels, and now, in periods
of alarm or doubt, taking post in front, the leader
of the party, uplifted his nose, and fell to snuffing
notice. Smelling first around the spring, and
then giving a look both up and down the glen, as
if to satisfy himself there was nothing wrong in
either of those quarters, he finally began to ascend
the rocky ridge, snuffing as he went, and
ever and anon looking back to his master, and soliciting
his attention by a wag of his tail.
“Truly, thee did once wag to me in vain!” said
Nathan, snatching up his gun, and looking volumes
of sagacious response at his brute ally, “but thee
won't catch me napping again; though, truly,
what thee can smell here, where is neither track
of man nor print of beast, truly, Peter, I have no
idea!”
With these words, he crept up the hill himself,
following in little Peter's wake; and Roland, who
also grasped his rifle, as Nathan had done, though
without perhaps attaching the same importance
to Peter's note of warning, thought fit to imitate
his example.
In this manner, cautiously crawling up, the two
friends reached the crest of the hill; and peering
over a precipice of fifty or more feet sheer descent,
with which it suddenly dipped into a wild but beautiful
little valley below, beheld a scene that, besides
startling them somewhat out of their tranquillity,
caused both to bless their good fortune they had
not neglected the warning of their brute confederate.
The vale below, like that they had left, opened
into a wider bottom-land, the bed of a creek,
which they could see shining among the trees
that overshadowed the rich alluvion; and into
this poured a rivulet that chattered along through
the glen, at their feet, in which it had its sources.
The hill on the other side of the little vale, which
rough and precipitous, like that on which they
lay; but the two uniting above, bounded the head
of the vale with a long, bushy, sweeping slope—
a fragment of a natural amphitheatre—which
was evidently of easy ascent, though abrupt and
steep. The valley thus circumscribed, though
broken, and here and there deeply furrowed by
the water-course, was nearly destitute of trees,
except at its head, where a few young beeches
flung their silver boughs and rich green foliage
abroad over the grassy knolls, and patches of papaws
drooped their loose leaves and swelling
fruit over the stream. It was in this part of the
valley, at the distance of three or four hundred
paces from them, that the eyes of the two adventurers,
directed by the sound of voices, which
they had heard the instant they reached the crest
of the ridge, fell, first, upon the smoke of a huge
fire curling merrily up into the air, and then upon
the bodies of no less than five Indian warriors,
all zealously and uproariously engaged in an
amusement highly characteristic of their race.
There was among them a white-man, an unfortunate
prisoner, as was seen at a glance, whom
they had bound by the legs to a tree; around
which the savages danced and leaped, yelling now
with rage, now in merriment, but all the while belabouring
the poor wretch with rods and switches,
which, at every turn round the tree, they laid
about his head and shoulders with uncommon energy
and zest. This was a species of diversion
better relished, as it seemed, by the captors than
their captive; who, infuriated by his pangs, and
perhaps desiring, in the desperation of the moment,
to provoke them to end his sufferings with
the hatchet, retaliated with his fists, which were
and once with such effect as to tumble one of the
tormentors to the earth,—a catastrophe, however,
that the others rewarded with roars of approving
laughter, though without for a moment intermitting
their own cruelties.
This spectacle, it may be well supposed, produced
a strong effect upon the minds of the travellers,
who, not without alarm on their own
account at the discovery of such dangerous neighbours,
could not view without emotion a fellow
white-man and countryman helpless in their hands,
and enduring tortures perhaps preliminary to the
more dreadful one of the stake. They looked one
another in the face: the Virginian's eyes sparkled
with a meaning which Nathan could not misunderstand;
and clutching his rifle tighter in his
hands, and eyeing the young man with an ominous
stare, he muttered,—“Speak, friend,—thee
is a man and a soldier—what does thee think, in
the case made and provided?”
“We are but two men, and they five,” replied
Roland, firmly, though in the lowest voice; and
then repeated, in the same energetic whisper,—
“we are but two men, Nathan; but there is no
kinswoman now to unman me!”
Nathan took another peep at the savages, before
speaking. Then looking upon the young man
with an uneasy countenance, he said,—“We are
but two men, as thee says, and they five; and,
truly, to do what thee thinks of, in open day, is a
thing not to be thought on by men that have soft
places in their bosoms. Nevertheless, I think,
according to thee own opinion, we being strong
men that have the wind of the villains, and a good
cause to help us, truly, we might snap the poor
man they have captivated out of their hands, with
the murdering rapscallions!—But, friend,” he added,
seeing Roland give way to his eagerness,—
“thee spoke of the fair maid, thee cousin—If thee
fights this battle, truly, thee may never see her
more.”
“If I fall,” said Roland,—but he was interrupted
by Nathan:
“It is not that thee is to think of. Truly,
friend, thee may fight these savages, and thee
may vanquish them; but unless thee believes in
thee conscience thee can kill them every one—
truly, friend, thee can hardly expect it?”
“And why should we? It is enough if we can
rescue the prisoner.”
“Friend, thee is mistaken. If thee attacks the
villains, and but one of them escapes alive to the
village, sounding the alarm, thee will never enter
the same in search of the maid, thee kinswoman.
Thee sees the case: thee must choose between
the captive there and thee cousin!”
This was a view of the case, and as Roland
felt, a just one, well calculated to stagger his resolutions,
if not entirely to abate his sympathy
for the unknown sufferer. As his hopes of success
in the enterprise for which he had already
dared and endured so much, evidently depended
upon his ability to approach the Indian village
without awakening suspicion, it was undeniable
that an attack upon the party in the vale, unless
resulting in its complete destruction, must cause
to be borne to the Black-Vulture's town, and on
the wings of the wind, the alarm of white men
in the woods; and thus not only cut him off from
it, but actually bring upon himself all the fighting-men
who might be remaining in the village.
To attack the party with the expectation of wholly
But to desert a wretched prisoner whom he had
it perhaps in his power to rescue from captivity,
and from a fate still more dreadful, was a dereliction
of duty, of honour, of common humanity,
of which he could scarce persuade himself
to be guilty. He cast his eyes up the
glen, and once more looked upon the captive,
who had sunk to the ground as if from exhaustion,
and whom the savages, after beating him
awhile longer, as if to force him again on his feet,
that they might enjoy their amusement awhile
longer, now fell to securing with thongs. As Roland
looked, he remembered his own night of captivity,
and hesitated no longer. Turning to Nathan,
who had been earnestly reading the struggles of
his mind, as revealed in his face, he said, and
with unfaltering resolution,—“You say we can
rescue that man.—I was a prisoner, like him,
bound too,—a helpless, hopeless, captive,—three
Indians to guard me, and but one friend to look
upon me: yet did not that friend abandon me to
my fate.—God will protect my poor cousin—we
must rescue him!”
“Thee is a man, every inch of thee!” said Nathan,
with a look of uncommon satisfaction and
fire: “thee shall have thee will, in the matter of
these murdering Shawnee dogs; and, it may be,
it will be none the worse for thee kinswoman.”
With that, he motioned Roland to creep with
him beyond the crest of the hill, where they
straightway held a hurried consultation of war
to determine upon the plan of proceedings in
the prosecution of an adventure so wild and
perilous.
The soldier, burning with fierce ardour, proposed
that they should take post respectively the
vale, and creeping as nigh the enemy as they
could, deliver their fire, and then rushing on, before
the savages could recover from their surprise,
do their best to finish the affair with their
hatchets,—a plan, which, as he justly said, offered
the only prospect of cutting off the retreat of
those who might survive the fire. But Nathan
had already schemed the matter otherwise: he
had remarked the impossibility of approaching
the enemy from below, the valley offering no
concealment which would make an advance in
that quarter practicable; whereas the bushes on
the slope, where the two walls of the glen united,
afforded the most inviting opportunity to creep on
the foe without fear of detection. “Truly,” said
he, “we will get us as nigh the assassin thieves as
we can; and, truly, it may be our luck, each of
us, to get a brace of them in range together, and
so bang them beautiful!”—an idea that was manifestly
highly agreeable to his imagination, from
which he seemed to have utterly banished all
those disgusts and gaingivings on the subject of
fighting, which had formerly afflicted it; “or perhaps,
if we can do nothing better,” he continued,
“we may catch the vagabonds wandering from
their guns, to pick up sticks for their fire; in
which case, friend, truly, it may be our luck to
help them to a second volley out of their own
pieces: or, if the worst must come, truly then,
I do know of a device that may help the
villains into our hands, even to their own undoing!”
With these words, having first examined his
own and Roland's arms, to see that all were in
proper battle condition, and then directed little
Peter to ensconce in a bush, wherein little Peter
with an alacrity of motion and ardour of look
that indicated any thing rather than distaste to
the murderous work in hand, led the way along
the ridge, until he had reached the place where it
dipped down to the valley, covered with the bushes
through which he expected to advance to a desirable
position undiscovered.
But a better auxiliary even than the bushes
was soon discovered by the two friends. A deep
gully, washed in the side of the hill by the rains,
was here found running obliquely from its top to
the bottom, affording a covered way, by which,
as they saw at a glance, they could approach
within twenty or thirty yards of the foe entirely
unseen; and, to add to its advantages, it was the
bed of a little water-course, whose murmurs, as
it leaped from rock to rock, assured them they
could as certainly approach unheard.
“Truly,” muttered Nathan, with a grim chuckle,
as he looked, first, at the friendly ravine, and then
at the savages below, “the Philistine rascals is in
our hands, and we will smite them hip and
thigh!”
With this inspiring assurance, he crept into
the ravine; and Roland following, they were
soon in possession of a post commanding, not
only the spot occupied by the enemy, but the
whole valley.
Peeping through the fringe of shrubs that rose,
a verdant parapet, on the brink of the gully, they
looked down upon the savage party, now less
than forty paces from the muzzles of their guns,
and wholly unaware of the fate preparing for
them. The scene of diversion and torment was
over: the prisoner, a man of powerful frame but
squalid appearance, whose hat,—a thing of shreds
the Indians, while his coat, equally rusty and tattered,
hung from the shoulders of a second, lay
bound under a tree, but so nigh that they could
mark the laborious heavings of his chest. Two
of the Indians sat near him on the grass keeping
watch, their hatchets in their hands, their guns
resting within reach against the trunk of a tree,
overthrown by some hurricane of former years,
and now mouldering away. A third was engaged
with his tomahawk, lopping away the few dry
boughs that remained on the trunk. Squatting at
the fire, which the third was thus labouring to replenish
with fuel, were the two remaining savages;
who, holding their rifles in their own hands,
divided their attention betwixt a shoulder of venison
roasting on a stick in the fire, and the captive,
whom they seemed to regard as destined to be
sooner or later disposed of in a similar manner.
The position of the parties precluded the hope
Nathan had ventured to entertain of getting them
in a cluster, and so doing double execution with
each bullet; but the disappointment neither chilled
his ardour nor embarrassed his plans. His scheme
of attack had been framed to embrace all contingencies;
and he wasted no further time in deliberation.
A few whispered words conveyed his last
instructions to the soldier; who, reflecting that he
was fighting in the cause of humanity, remembering
his own heavy wrongs, and marking the fiery
eagerness that flamed from Nathan's visage, banished
from his mind whatever disinclination he
might have felt at beginning the fray in a mode so
seemingly treacherous and ignoble. He laid his
axe on the brink of the gully at his side, together
with his foraging cap; and, then, thrusting his
rifle through the bushes, took aim at one of the
against the other. Both of them presented the
fairest marks, as they sat wholly unconscious of
their danger, enjoying in imagination the tortures
yet to be inflicted on the prisoner. But a noise
in the gully,—the falling of a stone loosened by
the soldier's foot, or a louder than usual plash of
water,—suddenly roused them from their dreams:
they started up, and turned their eyes towards the
hill.—“Now, friend!” whispered Nathan;—“if
thee misses, thee loses thee maiden and thee life
into the bargain.—Is thee ready?”
“Ready,” was the reply.
“Right, then, through the dog's brain,—fire!”
The crash of the pieces, and the fall of the two
victims, both marked by a fatal aim, and both
pierced through the brain, were the first announcement
of peril to their companions; who, springing
up, with yells of fear and astonishment, and
snatching at their arms, looked wildly around
them for the unseen foe. The prisoner also, astounded
out of his despair, raised his head from
the grass, and glared around. The wreaths of
smoke curling over the bushes on the hill-side,
betrayed the lurking-place of the assailants; and
savages and prisoner turning together, they all
beheld at once the spectacle of two human heads,
—or, to speak more correctly, two human caps,
for the heads were far below them,—rising in the
smoke, and peering over the bushes, as if to mark
the result of the volley. Loud, furious, and exulting
were the screams of the Indians, as with
the speed of thought, seduced by a stratagem
often practised among the wild heroes of the
border, they raised and discharged their pieces
against the imaginary foes so incautiously exposed
to their vengeance. The caps fell, and with them
and the voice of Nathan thundered through the
glen, as he grasped his tomahawk and sprang
from the ditch,—“Now, friend! up with thee
axe, and do thee duty!”
With these words, the two assailants at once
leaped into view, and with a bold hurrah, and
bolder hearts, rushed towards the fire, where lay
the undischarged rifles of their first victims. The
savages yelled also in reply, and two of them
bounded forward to dispute the prize. The third,
staggered into momentary inaction by the suddenness
and amazement of the attack, rushed
forward but a step; but a whoop of exultation
was on his lips, as he raised the rifle which he
had not yet discharged, full against the breast of
Bloody Nathan. But his triumph was short-lived;
the blow, so fatal as it must have proved to the
life of Nathan, was averted by an unexpected incident.
The prisoner, near whom he stood, putting
all his vigour into one tremendous effort,
burst his bonds, and, with a yell ten times louder
and fiercer than had been yet uttered, added
himself to the combatants. With a furious cry
of encouragement to his rescuers,—“Hurrah for
Kentucky!—give it to 'em good!” he threw himself
upon the savage, beat the gun from his hands,
and grasping him in his brawny arms, hurled him
to the earth, where, rolling over and over in mortal
struggle, growling and whooping, and rending
one another like wild beasts, the two, still
locked in furious embrace, suddenly tumbled
down the banks of the brook, there high and
steep, and were immediately lost to sight.
Before this catastrophe occurred, the other Indians
and the assailants met at the fire; and each
singling out his opponent, and thinking no more
was to kill, or to die. With his axe flourished
over his head, Nathan rushed against the tallest
and foremost enemy, who, as he advanced,
swung his tomahawk, in the act of throwing it.
Their weapons parted from their hands at the
same moment, and with perhaps equal accuracy
of aim; but meeting with a crash in the air, they
fell together to the earth, doing no harm to either.
The Indian stooped to recover his weapon; but
it was too late: the hand of Nathan was already
upon his shoulder: a single effort of his vast
strength sufficed to stretch the savage at his feet;
and holding him down with knee and hand, Nathan
snatched up the nearest axe. “If the life of
thee tribe was in thee bosom,” he cried with a
look of unrelenting fury, of hatred deep and ineffaceable,
“thee should die the dog's death, as
thee does!” And with a blow furiously struck,
and thrice repeated, he despatched the struggling
savage as he lay.
He rose, brandishing the bloody hatchet, and
looked for his companion. He found him upon
the earth, lying upon the breast of his antagonist,
whom it had been his good fortune to overmaster.
Both had thrown their hatchets, and both without
effect, Roland because skill was wanting, and the
Shawnee because, in the act of throwing, he had
stumbled over the body of one of his comrades,
so as to disorder his aim, and even to deprive
him of his footing. Before he could recover himself,
Roland imitated Nathan's example, and threw
himself upon the unlucky Indian,—a youth, as it
appeared, whose strength, perhaps at no moment
equal to his own, had been reduced by recent
wounds,—and found that he had him entirely at
his mercy. This circumstance, and the knowledge
softened the soldier's wrath; and when Nathan,
rushing to assist him, cried aloud to him to
move aside, that he might `knock the assassin
knave's brains out,' Roland replied by begging
Nathan to spare his life. “I have disarmed him,”
he cried—“he resists no more—Don't kill him.”
“To the last man of his tribe!” cried Nathan
with unexampled ferocity; and, without another
word, drove the hatchet into the wretch's brain.
The victors now leaping to their feet, looked
round for the fifth savage and the prisoner; and
directed by a horrible din under the bank of the
stream, which was resounding with curses, groans,
heavy blows, and the plashing of water, ran to
the spot; where the last incident of battle was
revealed to them in a spectacle as novel as it was
shocking. The Indian lay on his back suffocating
in mire and water; while astride his body
sat the late prisoner, covered from head to foot
with mud and gore, furiously plying his fists, for
he had no other weapons, about the head and face
of his foe, his blows falling like sledge-hammers
or battering-rams, with such strength and fury,
that it seemed impossible any one of them could
fail to crush the skull to atoms; and all the while
garnishing them with a running accompaniment
of oaths and maledictions little less emphatic and
overwhelming. “You switches gentlemen, do you,
you exflunctified, perditioned rascal? Ar'n't you
got it, you niggur-in-law to old Sattan? you 'tarnal
half-imp, you? H'yar's for you, you dog, and
thar's for you, dog's dog! H'yar's the way I pay
you in a small-change of sogdologers!”
And thus he cried, until Roland and Nathan
seizing him by the shoulders, dragged him by
main force from the Indian, whom, as was found
he had actually pommelled to death, the skull having
been beaten in as with bludgeons.—The victor
sprang upon his feet, and roared his triumph
aloud;—“Ar'n't I lick'd him handsome!—Hurrah
for Kentucky and old Salt—Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
And with that, turning to his deliverers, he displayed
to their astonished eyes, though disfigured
by blood and mire, the never-to-be-forgotten features
of the captain of horse-thieves, Roaring
Ralph Stackpole.
| CHAPTER VII. Nick of the woods, or, The Jibbenainosay | |