Beyond the sunset

by Arthur D. Howden Smith

For days and days we saw no other men. Not even a spiral of smoke rose from the dark forests that marched unbroken down to the shelving banks or the bluffs and hills that elsewhere rimmed the channel.

Then, without warning, came the attack.

The stream had narrowed between low banks, and a riffle of rocks on the north side compelled us to follow the southern margin.

A shot boomed from the southern bank, and I heard it whistle by my head. Other shots echoed it. We all looked around. Puffs of smoke were blowing from the underbrush. The shrill howl of the warwhoop soared in quavering accents above the babble of the river. Painted men, feathers raking from their half-shaven heads, broke cover and ran along after us, firing and yelling. Two long canoes shoved off from the bank, and churned the water with four paddles apiece. In the bow of each knelt a savage whose one object was to shoot us down. Bullets phutted through the frail bark sides of the canoe and splashed the water all around us.

"Shawnees!" exclaimed Tawannears. "For your lives, brothers!"

We drove our paddles into the water, but our handicap was that we could not veer more than just so far toward the northern bank until we had passed the string of rocks that barred it. We were still some distance above the termination of the obstruction when a jagged slug of lead tore into the canoe between Tawannears and me, glanced from a hickory thwart, and sliced a long, curving slit in the side below the water-line; I dropped my paddle, and clutched the lips of the cut with both hands, one outside and one inside the canoe, striving to hold them together as best I could. The water trickled in, of course, and as the canoe sank under its growing weight it became increasingly difficult to control the leak; but at least we were able to make some progress.

"Good, brother!" panted Tawannears, seeing what I was doing. "A few feet more!"

The Shawnees howled with satisfaction as they perceived our plight. Their canoes shot after us at twice our speed, and some of the warriors on the southern bank plunged into the river where it was narrowest, and swam for the rock-ledge, whence they could wade to the northern bank. But Tawannears and Corlaer kept us afloat until we were almost past the rock-ledge. 'Twas I saw the wavelet that would swamp us, and I shouted a warning to the others. We held powder-horns and rifles aloft and sprang for the nearest rocks.

I went head under and barely saved my powder from a second wetting. Tawannears and Peter found footing at once, and the huge Dutchman helped me up beside them. Then we stumbled through the water as fast as the hazardous rocks permitted, zigzagging and stooping low to disconcert the enemies who fired on us from the opposite bank and the two canoes, which drove on downstream to seek a favorable landing-place. The Shawnees who had undertaken to swim the river were already ashore several hundred yards upstream and running towards us along the bank, and it was at them that we fired as soon as we had gained the first trees of the forest.

We were panting from our efforts, but Tawannears hit a man in the leg. Corlaer drilled his target through the chest. I missed. But our firing had the effect of confusing the pursuit. Instead of charging in the open, they dived into the forest in an attempt to work down on us from behind. But we sensed their purpose, and tarried only long enough to reload. With Tawannears in the lead, we set off northward, making no attempt to conceal our trail, for we had no time for niceties. The whoops of the swimmers could be heard on our right rear, and answering calls came from the warriors who had debarked from the canoes on our left. Through the tree-trunks we could see some ten or a dozen more taking to the water from the south bank.