"Boy my prisoner; make no noise," he heard as the iron grip loosened. It was the voice of Black Partridge, who, an unwilling actor in the tragedy, had by his craft, as afterwards turned out, saved several lives on this occasion. Mr. Kinzie, Captain Heald, and another officer, with their wives and a few others, had escaped the slaughter, and were captives. As for the rest, their mutilated bodies lay dead on the sands down to the very water's brink, where their road had been.
"Perhaps not able to save Harold, for boy kill warriors," continued the friendly chief. "Better crawl through grass like Indian back to fort, and hide in cellar till dark; then swim cross to Kinzie's." So he led his charge to the edge of the rank prairie-grass with, "See Black Partridge bym-by."
Bending in his covert, Harold retreated stealthily as a coyote to the empty fort. As he passed through the gate into the dismal solitude, with all its suggestions of recent life and cheer, his heart quivered afresh with the sense of what it all meant. He knew the subterranean secrets of the fort well; and knew, too, that some of the Indians were likely to stray back at any time. Both block-houses of the post had deep stoned cellars, from which were exits into the underground sally-port opening on the river bank. He could easily hide himself here among the rubbish and lumber, and perhaps find something to eat. He did indeed discover some scraps of bread and bacon, and, better yet, a retreat to elude the keenest eye down in that dusky cavern. As the day waxed the heat grew stifling, but there was a well in the cellar which relieved his thirst. In fumbling about the place for the pump-handle, he found several barrels apparently undisturbed. He marvelled what they could be, and by some blind instinct did not make his hiding-place here, but selected a spot protected by a mound of empty boxes close to a little timber gate which opened into the sally-port.
He heard the yells and shouts of the Indians outside and above as they roamed about everywhere, searching for the "fire-water," which they loved so well. They had indeed been doubly infuriated because the commandant had ordered the destruction of the whiskey and the powder. They fancied that some might have escaped, and were hunting for it like hounds on the scent. Harold could now and then construe an Indian word, and he thought of the barrels so near at hand. He had felt a broken candle in one of the boxes where he hid, and this he now lit from his flint and steel. As he groped his way, peering at the cellar bottom, he perceived several black trails converging toward the heap of casks. He blew out his light with a gasp, and a breath of ice stirred the roots of his hair and chilled his marrow as the truth flashed on him. Some of the soldiers had left full powder-barrels and a train to destroy the careless savages, if possible, should they go down with lighted candle or torch. Harold crawled back to his ambush, and tugged with all his might at the little timber gate; but the bolts were rusty with damp and disuse.
While he struggled he heard the outcries of the Indians nearer and nearer, and their thick tongues showed they had already found whiskey, a beginning which promised the ransacking of every rat-hole in the fort for more. With the strength of despair he struggled with the obstinate bolts, and, just as they began to creak a little in their rusty sockets, a dozen savages, doubly intoxicated with liquor and with the slaughter of the inhabitants of the fort, tumbled down the stone stairs at the other end of the cellar. With candles flaming in their hands, with faces and bodies hideously painted, and with eyes glowing in the flare of the lights like live coals, they looked like nothing less than the demons which Harold remembered to have seen in some of the Bible picture-books of that period.
HAROLD'S ESCAPE INTO THE TUNNEL.
The boy's only thought now was to force the gate, escape into the tunnel, and close the mouth again behind him. That was his one chance of escape. The maddened red-skins, their eyes glittering in the weird light, waving their glittering candles from which smoulders of burnt wick were dropping, chanting some sort of exultant song, ran about the cellar as if they were the figures of a monstrous nightmare. Their eyes at last fell on the pyramid of barrels, and they darted at the expected treasure-trove. Harold had never ceased tugging frantically at the gate, and when the bolts jangled back and he slid the barrier, it seemed his dangerous companions must have heard. Luckily the blissful thought of "fire-water" made them blind and deaf to all else. He passed the portal, softly closed it again, and sped with whirling senses up the dark passage. But the strain had been too great, and he collapsed in a dead faint, with a crash in his ears as if the earth had been shattered to its core.
When Harold recovered his senses a disk of light in front marked the outlet to sunshine, but in the rear the tunnel was choked, and his legs were tangled fast in a mass of earth and débris. He extricated himself and made his way to the entrance, sore but sound of bone. One of the block-houses had been blown to fragments, and the other partly tumbled into ruins, while about fifty of the savages had been slain or terribly maimed. Groups of Indians stood in the distance sobered and awe-stricken. When he crossed to the Kinzie mansion after dark, he found the captives there under guard, but the captors altered into a merciful mood. Black Partridge had improved the occasion to impress on their minds that the awful catastrophe was a divine punishment for their treachery.