The Keepers of the Trail: A Story of the Great Woods

by Joseph A. Altsheler

He had often asked himself the reason, and while he was asking it he came to a long low mound, covered with trees of smaller growth than those in the surrounding forest. At first he took it for a hill just like the others, but its shape did not seem natural, and, despite the importance of time he looked again, and once more. Then he walked a little way up the mound and his moccasined foot struck lightly against something hard. He stooped, and catching hold of the impediment pulled from the earth a broken piece of pottery.

It seemed old, very old, and wishing to rest a little, Henry sat down and gazed at it. The Indians of the present day could not possibly have made it, and it was impossible also that any white settler or hunter could have left it there. He dropped the fragment and rising, looked farther, finding two more pieces buried almost to the edge, but which his strong hands pulled out. They seemed to him of the same general workmanship as the others, and he surmised that the long mound upon which he was standing had been thrown up by the hand of man.

What was inside the mound? Perhaps the skeletons of men dead a thousand years or more, men more civilized than the Indians, but gone forever, and leaving no trace, save some broken pieces of pottery. Possibly the Indians themselves had destroyed these people, and they did not come here to live because they feared the ghosts of the slain. But it was no question that he could solve. He would talk about it later with Paul and meanwhile he must find some way to reach the others.

He threw down the pottery and left the hill, but, as he swung swiftly onward, the hill and its contents did not disappear from his mind. He had a strange sense of mystery. The new land about him might be an old, old land. He had never thought of it, except as forest and canebrake, in which the Indians had always roamed, but evidently it was not so. It was strange that races could disappear completely.

But as he raced on, the feeling for these things fell from him. He was not so much for the past as Paul was. He was essentially of the present, and, dealing with wild men in a wild country, he was again a wild man himself. Among the Indians at the great camp or about it there was not one in such close kinship with the forest as he. Despite danger and his anxiety to reach his comrades, he felt all its beauty and majesty, in truth fairly reveled in it.

He noticed the different trees, the oaks, the elms, the maples, the walnuts, the hickories, the sycamores, the willows at the edges of the stream, the dogwoods, and all the other kinds which made up the immeasurable forest. They were in the early but full foliage of spring, and the light wind brought odors that were like a perfumed breath.

It was past midnight, when he stopped to enjoy again the fine flavor of his kingdom. Then he suddenly lay flat among the dead leaves of the year before, and thrust forward the barrel of his rifle. He had heard a footfall, the footfall of a moccasin, not much heavier than the fall of a leaf, and every nerve and faculty within him was concentrated to meet the new danger.

The sound had come from his right, and raising his head just a little he looked, but saw nothing, that is nothing new in the waving forest. Yet Henry was sure that a man was there. His ear would not deceive him. Doubtless it was a stray hunter or scout from the bands, and, while he did not fear him, he was annoyed by the delay. It might keep him from reaching his comrades that night.

He waited a long time, using all the patience that he had learned, and he began to believe that his ear after all might have deceived him. Perhaps it had been merely a rabbit in the undergrowth, but while he was debating with himself he heard a faint stir in the bush, and he knew that it was made by a man seeking a new position.

Then his intuition, the power that came from an extreme development of the five senses, reinforced by will, gave him an idea. Still lying on his back he uttered the lonesome howl of the wolf, but very low. He waited a moment or two, eager to know if his intuition had told him truly, and back came the wolf's low but lone cry. He gave the second call and the cry of the wolf came in like answer.