“There was not,” was the decided reply.
“But there is a large fire burning on the hearth now; how do you account for that? It’s a trick of the savages,” he muttered, as he put spurs to his steed; “and yet,” he added, “it is not like the Indians to go into a house and make a fire. If they had discovered our retreat, they would be 228 too cunning thus to let us know that they had found it out; we should see them prowling around as stealthily as so many panthers. Somebody’s alive and stirring there; who can it be?”
The singular incident served to heighten the anxiety of all, and stimulate the soldiers to make as good progress as they could without too greatly distressing the wounded man. Several times, in the dim light, the groaning and pallor of her husband led Mrs. Jones to fear he was dying, and, with Tom and Robert, she watched every change in his appearance, tenderly ministering to him. Fresh relays of men took the places of those who bore him, taking their turn at the litter with alacrity, for Tom’s dutiful and heroic conduct, and the mother’s loving gentleness and patient endurance, and the squatter’s stubborn defence of the lone cabin against such odds, had won the hearts of the soldiers, and they had resolved to see the family safe within the walls of the fortress, or, if attacked on the prairie, to defend them to the death.
“How did it happen,” asked Captain Manly, in a low voice, of the mother, “that your cabin was enclosed with those walls of heavy logs. Were you expecting an attack?”
“Long Hair gave us warning,” she replied; “and husband persuaded the settlers to cut down trees and build the walls.” 229
“And your husband directed the defence?”
“Yes,” said she, “and he made a sortie, and rescued a number of neighbors, who would otherwise have been murdered,–the very persons who afterwards deserted in the night, leaving, in their haste, the outer door wide open. We should all have been sacrificed before morning, had we not been startled at seeing Long Hair standing in the cabin. How he got in undiscovered through so many enemies, and notified us of our danger in so timely a manner, we could not conjecture. Husband secured the door again, and Long Hair vanished as he came, saying, ‘Long Hair go quick, get sojer, come right back bimeby, quick!’ that was, I suppose, when he came to the fort, as Tom told us about, and not succeeding in his errand, hurried to find Tom, to intercede with you for us.”
“You have had a hard time of it,” said the captain, “and your husband stood a siege before which a well-manned fort might have fallen. I only hope that the brave fellow’ll get well, and enjoy the fruits of his noble conduct. If I had a few hundred men like him, I could sweep the red-skins from the soil.”
But the jarring, and the motion, and the pain were proving too much for the wounded pioneer, and delirium setting in, he began to rave, speaking, however, slowly and distinctly, and without 230 a tinge of the squatter dialect, but in the purer English of his early days.
“There!” he exclaimed, pointing his finger, “you’ve come again. I knew you would not let me rest.”