The Border Watch: A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand

by Joseph A. Altsheler

"Then I suggest," said Early, "that we turn back for a few miles. We can float with the current close up to the bank under the overhanging boughs, and, if hunters or scouts are following us, they'll soon wish they were somewhere else."

He laughed and Braxton Wyatt joined him in his savage mirth.

"Your idea is a good one," said Wyatt, "and we may catch a mouse or two in our trap."

He gave another signal and the Shawnees turned the boat about, permitting it to float back with the stream, but as Early had suggested, keeping it in the shadow. Despite his experience and the lack of proof that anyone else was near, Wyatt's heart began to beat fast. Suppose the game was really there, and it should prove to be of the kind that he wanted most to take! This would be indeed a triumph worth while, and he would neglect no precaution to achieve it. They had gone back about a mile now, and he signaled to the warriors to swing the boat yet a little closer to the bank. He still heard no sound, but the belief was once more strong upon him that the quarry was there. They drifted slowly and yet there was nothing. His eye alighted upon a great mass of bushes growing in the shallow water at the edge of the river. He told the paddlers to push the boat among them until it should be completely hidden and then he waited.

But time passed and nothing came. The sun dropped lower. The yellow light on the water turned to red, and the forest flamed under the setting sun. A light breeze sprang up and the foliage rustled under its touch. Braxton Wyatt, from his covert among the bushes, watched with anger gnawing at his heart. He had been wrong or whoever it was that followed had been too wary. He was crafty and had laid his trap well, but others were crafty, too, and would turn from the door of an open trap.

The sun sank further. The red in the west deepened but gray shadows were creeping over the east and the surface of the river began to darken. Nothing had come. Nothing was coming. Braxton Wyatt said reluctantly to himself that his instinct had been wrong. He gave the word to pull the boat from the canes, and to proceed up the stream again. He was annoyed. He had laid a useless trap and he had made himself look cheap before the Indians. So he said nothing for a long time, but allowed his anger to simmer. When it was fully dark they tied up the boat and camped on shore, in the bushes near the water.

Wyatt was too cautious to permit a fire, and they ate cold food in the darkness. After a while, all slept but two of the Shawnees who kept watch. Wyatt's slumbers were uneasy. About midnight he awoke, and he was oppressed by the same presentiment that had made him turn back the boat. He heard nothing and saw nothing save his own men, but his instinct was at work once more, and it told him that his party was watched. He lay in dark woods in a vast wilderness, but he felt in every bone that near them was an alien presence.

Wyatt raised himself upon his arm and looked at the two red sentinels. Not a muscle of either had stirred. They were so much carven bronze. Their rifles lay across their knees and they stared fixedly at the forest. But he knew that their eyes and ears were of the keenest and that but little could escape their attention. Yet they had not discovered the presence. He rose finally to his feet. The Indians heard the faint noise that he made and glanced at him. But he was their commander and they said nothing, resuming in an instant their watch of the forest.

Wyatt did not take his rifle. Instead, he kept his hand on the hilt of a fine double-barreled pistol in his belt. After some hesitation he walked to the river and looked at the boat. It was still there, tied securely. No one had meddled with it. The moon was obscured and the surface of the river looked black. No object upon it could be seen far away. He listened attentively and heard nothing. But he could not rid himself of the belief that they had been followed, that even now a foe was near. He walked back to the little camp and looked at Early who was sleeping soundly. He was impatient with himself because he could not do likewise, and then, shrugging his shoulders, he went further into the forest.

The trees grew closely where Wyatt stood and there were bushes everywhere. His concealment was good and he leaned against the trunk of a huge oak to listen. He could not see fifteen feet away, but he did not believe that any human being could pass near and escape his hearing. He stood thus in the darkness for a full ten minutes, and then he was quite sure that he did hear a sound as of a heavy body moving slightly. It was not instinct or prescience, the product of a vivid fancy, but a reality. He had been too long in the woods to mistake the fact. Something was stalking something else and undoubtedly the stalker was a man.