第90章 IN THE CABIN(2)

``Howdy, Davy,'' he said; ``ye've growed some sence ye've ben with Clark.'' He paused, and then continued in the same strain: `` 'Tis the same at Boonesboro and up thar at the Falls settlement.The critters is everywhar, robbin' men of their claims.Davy,'' said Mr.Boone, earnestly, ``you know that I come into Kaintuckee when it waren't nothin' but wilderness, and resked my life time and again.Them varmints is wuss'n redskins,--they've robbed me already of half my claims.''

``Robbed you!'' I exclaimed, indignant that he, of all men, should suffer.

``Ay,'' he said, ``robbed me.They've took one claim after another, tracts that I staked out long afore they heerd of Kaintuckee.'' He rubbed his rifle barrel with his buckskin sleeve.``I get a little for my skins, and a little by surveyin'.But when the game goes I reckon I'll go after it.''

``Where, Mr.Boone?'' I asked.

``Whar? whar the varmints cyant foller.Acrost the Mississippi into the Spanish wilderness.''

``And leave Kentucky?'' I cried.

``Davy,'' he answered sadly, ``you kin cope with 'em.

They tell me you're buildin' a mill up at McChesney's, and I reckon you're as cute as any of 'em.They beat me.

I'm good for nothin' but shootin' and explorin'.''

We stood silent for a while, our attention caught by a quarrel which had suddenly come out of the doorway.

One of the men was Jim Willis,--my friend of Clark's campaign,--who had a Henderson claim near Shawanee Springs.The other was the hawk-eyed man of whom Mr.Boone had spoken, and fragments of their curses reached us where we stood.The hunting shirts surged around them, alert now at the prospect of a fight; men came running in from all directions, and shouts of ``Hang him! Tomahawk him!'' were heard on every side.Mr.

Boone did not move.It was a common enough spectacle for him, and he was not excitable.Moreover, he knew that the death of one extortioner more or less would have no effect on the system.They had become as the fowls of the air.

``I was acrost the mountain last month,'' said Mr.

Boone, presently, ``and one of them skunks had stole Campbell's silver spoons at Abingdon.Campbell was out arter him for a week with a coil of rope on his saddle.

But the varmint got to cover.''

Mr.Boone wished me luck in my new enterprise, bade me good-by, and set out for Redstone, where he was to measure a tract for a Revolutioner.The speculator having been rescued from Jim Willis's clutches by the sheriff, the crowd good-naturedly helped us load our stones between pack-horses, and some of them followed us all the way home that they might see the grinding.Half of McAfee's new station had heard the news, and came over likewise.And from that day we ground as much corn as could be brought to us from miles around.

Polly Ann and I ran the mill and kept the accounts.

Often of a crisp autumn morning we heard a gobble-gobble above the tumbling of the water and found a wild turkey perched on top of the hopper, eating his fill.

Some of our meat we got that way.As for Tom, he was off and on.When the roving spirit seized him he made journeys to the westward with Cowan and Ray.Generally they returned with packs of skins.But sometimes soberly, thanking Heaven that their hair was left growing on their heads.This, and patrolling the Wilderness Road and other militia duties, made up Tom's life.No sooner was the mill fairly started than off he went to the Cumberland.I mention this, not alone because I remember well the day of his return, but because of a certain happening then that had a heavy influence on my after life.

The episode deals with an easy-mannered gentleman named Potts, who was the agent for a certain Major Colfax of Virginia.Tom owned under a Henderson grant; the Major had been given this and other lands for his services in the war.Mr.Potts arrived one rainy afternoon and found me standing alone under the little lean-to that covered the hopper.How we served him, with the aid of McCann and Cowan and other neighbors, and how we were near getting into trouble because of the prank, will be seen later.The next morning I rode into Harrodstown not wholly easy in my mind concerning the wisdom of the thing I had done.There was no one to advise me, for Colonel Clark was far away, building a fort on the banks of the Mississippi.Tom had laughed at the consequences; he cared little about his land, and was for moving into the Wilderness again.But for Polly Ann's sake I wished that we had treated the land agent less cavalierly.I was soon distracted from these thoughts by the sight of Harrodstown itself.

I had no sooner ridden out of the forest shade when Isaw that the place was in an uproar, men and women gathering in groups and running here and there between the cabins.Urging on the mare, I cantered across the fields, and the first person I met was James Ray.

``What's the matter?'' I asked.

``Matter enough! An army of redskins has crossed the Ohio, and not a man to take command.My God,'' cried Ray, pointing angrily at the swarms about the land office, ``what trash we have got this last year! Kentucky can go to the devil, half the stations be wiped out, and not a thrip do they care.''

``Have you sent word to the Colonel?'' I asked.

``If he was here,'' said Ray, bitterly, ``he'd have half of 'em swinging inside of an hour.I'll warrant he'd send 'em to the right-about.''

I rode on into the town, Potts gone out of my mind.

Apart from the land-office crowds, and looking on in silent rage, stood a group of the old settlers,--tall, lean, powerful, yet impotent for lack of a leader.A contrast they were, these buckskin-clad pioneers, to the ill-assorted humanity they watched, absorbed in struggles for the very lands they had won.

``By the eternal!'' said Jack Terrell, ``if the yea'th was ter swaller 'em up, they'd keep on a-dickerin in hell.''

``Something's got to be done,'' Captain Harrod put in gloomily; ``the red varmints'll be on us in another day.

In God's name, whar is Clark?''

``Hold!'' cried Fletcher Blount, ``what's that?''