第83章 THE HAIR BUYER TRAPPED(4)

The young men of the militia begged Clark to allow them to fight, and to keep them well affected he sent some here and there amongst our lines.For our Colonel's strength was not counted by rifles or men alone: he fought with his brain.As Hamilton, the Hair Buyer, made his rounds, he believed the town to be in possession of a horde of Kentuckians.Shouts, war-whoops, and bursts of laughter went up from behind the town.Surely a great force was there, a small part of which had been sent to play with him and his men.On the fighting line, when there was a lull, our backwoodsmen stood up behind their trees and cursed the enemy roundly, and often by these taunts persuaded the furious gunners to open their ports and fire their cannon.Woe be to him that showed an arm or a shoulder! Though a casement be lifted ever so warily, a dozen balls would fly into it.And at length, when some of the besieged had died in their anger, the ports were opened no more.It was then our sharpshooters crept up boldly to within thirty yards of them--nay, it seemed as if they lay under the very walls of the fort.

And through the night the figure of the Colonel himself was often seen amongst them, praising their markmanship, pleading with every man not to expose himself without cause.He spied me where I had wormed myself behind the foot-board of a picket fence beneath the cannon-port of a blockhouse.It was during one of the breathing spaces.

``What's this?'' said he to Cowan, sharply, feeling me with his foot.

``I reckon it's Davy, sir,'' said my friend, somewhat sheepishly.``We can't do nothin' with him.He's been up and down the line twenty times this night.''

``What doing?'' says the Colonel.

``Bread and powder and bullets,'' answered Bill.

``But that's all over,'' says Clark.

``He's the very devil to pry,'' answered Bill.``The first we know he'll be into the fort under the logs.''

``Or between them,'' says Clark, with a glance at the open palings.``Come here, Davy.''

I followed him, dodging between the houses, and when we had got off the line he took me by the two shoulders from behind.

``You little rascal,'' said he, shaking me, ``how am I to look out for an army and you besides? Have you had anything to eat?''

``Yes, sir,'' I answered.

We came to the fires, and Captain Bowman hurried up to meet him.

``We're piling up earthworks and barricades,'' said the Captain, ``for the fight to-morrow.My God! if the Willing would only come, we could put our cannon into them.''

Clark laughed.

``Bowman,'' said he, kindly, ``has Davy fed you yet?''

``No,'' says the Captain, surprised, ``I've had no time to eat.''

``He seems to have fed the whole army,'' said the Colonel.He paused.``Have they scented Lamothe or Maisonville?''

``Devil a scent!'' cried the Captain, ``and we've scoured wood and quagmire.They tell me that Lamothe has a very pretty force of redskins at his heels.''

``Let McChesney go,'' said Clark sharply, ``McChesney and Ray.I'll warrant they can find 'em.''

Now I knew that Maisonville had gone out a-chasing Captain Willing's brother,--he who had run into our arms.Lamothe was a noted Indian partisan and a dangerous man to be dogging our rear that night.Suddenly there came a thought that took my breath and set my heart a-hammering.When the Colonel's back was turned I slipped away beyond the range of the firelight, and Iwas soon on the prairie, stumbling over hummocks and floundering into ponds, yet going as quietly as I could, turning now and again to look back at the distant glow or to listen to the rifles popping around the fort.The night was cloudy and pitchy dark.Twice the whirring of startled waterfowl frightened me out of my senses, but ambition pricked me on in spite of fear.I may have gone a mile thus, perchance two or three, straining every sense, when a sound brought me to a stand.At first I could not distinguish it because of my heavy breathing, but presently I made sure that it was the low drone of human voices.Getting down on my hands and knees, I crept forward, and felt the ground rising.The voices had ceased.I gained the crest of a low ridge, and threw myself flat.A rattle of musketry set me shivering, and in an agony of fright I looked behind me to discover that Icould not be more than four hundred yards from the fort.

I had made a circle.I lay very still, my eyes watered with staring, and then--the droning began again.Iwent forward an inch, then another and another down the slope, and at last I could have sworn that I saw dark blurs against the ground.I put out my hand, my weight went after, and I had crashed through a coating of ice up to my elbow in a pool.There came a second of sheer terror, a hoarse challenge in French, and then I took to my heels and flew towards the fort at the top of my speed.

I heard them coming after me, leap and bound, and crying out to one another.Ahead of me there might have been a floor or a precipice, as the ground looks level at night.I hurt my foot cruelly on a frozen clod of earth, slid down the washed bank of a run into the Wabash, picked myself up, scrambled to the top of the far side, and had gotten away again when my pursuer shattered the ice behind me.A hundred yards more, two figures loomed up in front, and I was pulled up choking.

``Hang to him, Fletcher!'' said a voice.

``Great God!'' cried Fletcher, ``it's Davy.What are ye up to now?''

``Let me go!'' I cried, as soon as I had got my wind.

As luck would have it, I had run into a pair of daredevil young Kentuckians who had more than once tasted the severity of Clark's discipline,--Fletcher Blount and Jim Willis.They fairly shook out of me what had happened, and then dropped me with a war-whoop and started for the prairie, I after them, crying out to them to beware of the run.A man must indeed be fleet of foot to have escaped these young ruffians, and so it proved.When Ireached the hollow there were the two of them fighting with a man in the water, the ice jangling as they shifted their feet.

``What's yere name?'' said Fletcher, cuffing and kicking his prisoner until he cried out for mercy.