The Trail of the Seneca

by James A. Braden

Though he had but reluctantly agreed to Ree’s proposal, not wishing to leave his friend to face the situation alone, John found so much to think about in the prospect of spending the night—and it might be many nights and days—alone in the woods, that the reflection that he also would be in danger was almost comforting. He thought with dread of the long and lonely hours of darkness without even a camp-fire’s comfort, but somehow there was something quite interesting about it all, too. Perhaps it was the change and the excitement, as he planned how stealthily he would steal through the woods, that appealed to him. Certain it is that he found himself anxious to be gone, and watching the deepening shadows almost impatiently lest something happen to prevent his departure before thick darkness came. His greatest fear lay in the fact that on three sides at least the cabin was, in all probability, still surrounded by Indians. On the fourth or west side was the river. How was he to reach the open woods? How reach the rocky ledges to the north and east, among whose deep ravines and clefts and long, narrow passages and shallow caves he would remain until the rage of the savages had passed?

A bank of clouds, wide as the eye could see above the treetops, had come up out of the southwest to meet the sinking sun and, when at last the shadows had filled the valley, darkness came on rapidly. The wind rose, too, and quite before its approach was suspected, a drizzling fall rain had set in, which gave promise of continuing all night.

The cabin door had stood open all day, but Ree felt he could close it now without exciting the suspicions of those who watched. As he did so, John clambered quickly down from the low loft and slipped noiselessly through the low opening connecting the lean-to stable and the single room of the cabin itself. How well he remembered the good purpose the hole had served once before! He remarked to Ree about it with a nervous little laugh, recalling that lively battle of their early days in the woods and how nearly fatal to them both it had been. But Kingdom told him to make haste; that they could not know who was watching now, and in the darkness there might be Indians even within hearing of a whisper.

Ree had improved the opportunity before night came on to fill John’s powder horn and bullet pouch and to pack in the form of a knapsack for him a blanket and a supply of dried meat and bread. These, with Jerome’s rifle, he had previously passed through the “cat hole,” as it was called, into the stable; but now that John had followed them, he suddenly found himself wishing that he had planned otherwise. Yet confident all was for the best, though the wind never had had so much of awful homesickness in its mournful sounds before, though the rain never before had beaten with such seeming tearful sorrow upon the roof, he whispered hastily:

“Be careful, old boy. Look for news by the day after tomorrow if you hear nothing before, and be sure that everything will be all right in a few days at most.”

“And you come where I am the minute you’re in danger, mind,” John answered. “Good-bye, Ree, I’m going along the river’s edge. It’ll be easy to get past anybody or anything tonight. Good-bye.”

Ree would have whispered another word of caution and of farewell, but he realized that John was gone—felt it in his very bones that he was alone, alone; and the autumn wind blew more mournfully than ever; the patter of the raindrops sounded twice as melancholy as before.

For many minutes Kingdom intently listened, then throwing wide the cabin door, made a pretense of emptying just beyond the doorstep the wooden, trough-like bowl which did duty as a wash basin. Though he made a brave show of unconcern, his heart beat hard and fast. But he was glad to see how totally dark the night was. One must have been very close indeed if he had seen John emerge from the darkness of the lean-to into the equal blackness without, he thought. Surely the Indians, if still watching, would never suspect him going out that way, and not having seen him at all would be very certain that he had been gone for a full day at least, should they call at the cabin and still not discover him.

Despite the storm, the night was warm for so late in the season, and Kingdom was glad to have the door ajar while he waited for the first step which would tell him of the Indians’ coming. He had no doubt they would come, unless their general plan was quite different from what he supposed it to be. Still, time dragged on bringing no tidings—no sound but the drip, drip of the rain, the sad sighing of the wind and now and then the rattle of some loose puncheon on the roof, moved by a passing gust more lively than the rest.

Again and again Ree mentally computed the distance John had probably traveled in the time that he had been gone. “Now he must be just about at the foot of the bluff and creeping along the water’s edge, shielded by the higher bank of the river,” he thought at first. “Now he must be half-way to the woods. Now, if nothing has happened, he is past the worst of the danger and safe among the trees.”