Joe Napyank; or, The River Rifles

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

Just before him, as motionless as a rock, rested the hulk of the sunken flat-boat. The soft ripple of the Ohio against the sand at his feet, that deep hollow murmur of the great wilderness were the only sounds that reached his ear; and these from their monotonous continuity, seemed silence itself. The moon was nearly over head, shining in that peculiar manner, that the river seemed to reflect more light than it received. A few straggling clouds as white as snow-drifts, now and then floated before the moon, and huge grotesque shadows glided over the island, across the stream and into the wood like phantoms. On either side the frowning forest rose like a wall of blackness, and seemed to close the whites in an impregnable prison.

It was no wonder that the young adventurer felt gloomy and despairing. It could not be otherwise than this, while within a dozen miles of the settlement, and in the most dangerous portion of the river, an accident should place himself and his friends in imminent peril, and make the escape of all of them in it seemed to him, an utter impossibility. He was in the midst of these gloomy forebodings, when the sound of a light footstep startled him, and looking around, he turned to greet his friends.

“Well, what have you discovered?” he added. “Are we alone in the island?”

To his surprise he received no reply.

“What are our prospects of getting over to the mainland?”

As quick as lightning young Smith’s rifle was at his shoulder, and one of the approaching Indians was shot through the breast. With a wild yell he sprang high in the air and fell dead upon the sand. At the same moment the white man saw something flash and heard a rushing sound close to his face, followed by the splash of the tomahawk in the water behind him. Clubbing his rifle he stood on the defensive, when he noted that neither of the savages possessed a rifle, and conscious that he was more than a match for the surviving one he made a rush at him.

The Indian turned to flee, and Smith had hardly started in pursuit, when the report of a second rifle was heard among the trees, followed by a series of whoops and yells as if a legion of demons had suddenly been loosed. With a rare presence of mind the young man comprehended his critical situation in an instant. The wood was swarming with Indians. If he went a rod further his own destruction would be inevitable.

Wheeling around with such celerity that his momentum carried him nearly off his feet, he flung his gun from him and ran for his life to the flat-boat. Stepping one foot into the water he made a tremendous bound and alighted upon the gunwale, the same as a bird would have done; and then tearing his hat from his head, he concentrated all his energies in the one effort and sprang full a dozen feet out into the river.

The instant he came to the surface he gasped for breath and dove again, swimming while beneath the surface, as far out toward the Kentucky shore as possible, repeating the manoeuvre several times, until believing that he was at a safe distance from the island, he swam sideways and anxiously surveyed it.

So prompt and rapid had been his movements, that he had not been seen, and his own escape, if he chose to improve the opportunity given him, was at least insured; but he would rather have been smitten by instant annihilation rather than desert those he had left behind him. The thought had never once entered his head.