The Border Watch Part 25

I wish I wuz ez hungry ez I wuz a little while ago, an' could eat all over ag'in."

"We've been in big luck," said Henry. "If it hadn't been for this little island I believe we would have been wrecked. It's true, too, that we'll have to go around in our blankets for a while yet, because I don't believe those clothes of ours will dry before morning."

"Suits me," said Jim Hart, as with proverbial caution he put out the fire after finis.h.i.+ng cooking. "I wouldn't mind goin' 'roun' in a blanket in summer. Injuns do it an' they find it pow'ful healthy. Now the wind is dyin' an' the clouds are pa.s.sin' away, but it's goin' to be dark anyhow. Jedgin' from the looks uv things the night is right here."

The wind undoubtedly was sinking fast. The great storm was blowing itself away as rapidly as it had blown up. The trees ceased to shake and moan, and looking down the channel whence they had entered, the five saw that the high waves no longer rolled across the surface of the lake. In a few minutes more the last breath of the wind whistled off to eastward.

A cold twilight fell over the little isle of safety and the great lake, of whose rage they had been such vivid witnesses.

CHAPTER XIV

A TIMELY RESCUE

Jim Hart sat down in the boat, drew his legs up under his blanket, s.h.i.+vered as he took a long look down the channel at the cold gray lake, and said:

"Boys, you know how I wanted to see one of the great lakes; well, I hev saw, an' hevin' saw I think the look will last me a long time. I think Injuns wuz right when they put pow'ful spirits on these lakes, ready to make an end of anybody that come foolin' with thar region. The land fur me hereafter. Why, I wuz so skeered an' I had to work so hard I didn't hev time to git seasick."

"But we have to go on the lake again, Jim," said Henry. "This is an island."

Jim sighed.

Henry looked at the dense forest that enclosed the cove, and he thought once of exploring the islet even if it were in the night, but the woods were so thick and they still dripped so heavily with the rain, although the latter had ceased some time ago, that he resolved to remain by the boat. Besides it was only an islet anyway, and there was no probability that it was inhabited.

"I think," he said, "that we'd better fasten our clothes so tightly that they won't blow away, and sleep in the boat. Two will keep watch, and as I have had the most rest I'll be sentinel until about one in the morning, and then Tom can take my place."

The agreement was quickly made. They took down the sail and the wet blankets, spread them out to dry, while the four, disposing themselves as best they could, quickly went to sleep. Henry sat in the prow, rifle across his knees, and thought that, despite dangers pa.s.sed and dangers to come, Providence had been very kind to them.

The darkness thinned by and by and a fine moon came out. Beads of water still stood upon the leaves and boughs, and the moons.h.i.+ne turned them to silver. The bit of forest seemed to sparkle and in the blue heavens the great stars sprang out in cl.u.s.ters. The contrast between the night and the day was startling. Now everything seemed to breathe of peace, and of peace only. A light wind rose and then the silver beads disappeared from leaf and bough. But it was a friendly wind and it sang most pleasantly among the trees. Under its influence the garments of the five would dry fast, and as Henry looked at them and then down at his comrades, wrapped in their "togas" he felt an inclination to laugh. But this desire to laugh was only proof of his mental relaxation, of the ease and confidence that he felt after great dangers pa.s.sed.

Certainly his comrades were sleeping well. Not one of them moved, and he saw the blankets across their chests rising and falling with regularity.

Once he stepped out of the boat and walked down to the entrance of the channel, whence he looked out upon the surface of the lake. Save for the islet he saw land nowhere, north, south, east or west. The great lake stretched away before them apparently as vast as the sea, not gray now, but running away in little liquid waves of silver in the moonlight.

Henry felt its majesty as he had already felt its might. He had never before appreciated so keenly the power of nature and the elements.

Chance alone had put in their way this little island that had saved their lives.

He walked slowly back and resumed his place in the boat. That fine drying wind was still singing among the trees, making the leaves rustle softly together and filling Henry's mind with good thoughts. But these gave way after a while to feelings of suspicion. His was an exceedingly sensitive temperament. It often seemed to the others--and the wilderness begets such beliefs--that he received warnings through the air itself.

He could not tell why his nerves were affected in this manner, but he resolved that he would not relax his vigilance a particle, and when the time came for him to awaken Tom Ross he decided to continue on guard with him.

"'Tain't wuth while, Henry," remonstrated Ross. "Nothin's goin' to happen here on an islan' that ain't got no people but ourselves on it."

"Tom," replied Henry, "I've got a feeling that I'd like to explore this island."

"Mornin' will be time enough."

"No, I think I'll do it now. I ought to go all over it in an hour. Don't take me for an Indian when I'm coming back and shoot at me."

"I'd never mistake a Roman senator in his togy for an Injun," replied Tom Ross grinning.

Henry looked at his clothes, but despite the drying wind they were still wet.

"I'll have to go as a Roman after all," he said.

He fastened the blanket tightly about his body in the Indian fas.h.i.+on, secured his belt with pistol, tomahawk and knife around his waist, and then, rifle in hand, he stepped from the boat into the forest.

"Watch good, Tom," he said. "I may be gone some time."

"You'll find nothin'."

"Maybe so; maybe not."

The woods through which Henry now pa.s.sed were yet wet, and every time he touched a bough or a sapling showers of little drops fell upon him. The patch of forest was dense and the trees large. The trees also grew straight upward, and Henry concluded at once that he would find a little distance ahead a ridge that sheltered this portion of the island from the cruel north and northwest winds.

His belief was verified as the rise began within three hundred yards. It ascended rather abruptly, having a total height of seventy or eighty feet, and seeming to cross the island from east to west. Standing under the shadow of a great oak Henry looked down upon the northern half of the island, which was quite different in its characteristics from the southern half. A portion of it was covered with dwarfed vegetation, but the rest was bare rock and sand. There were two or three inlets or landing places on the low sh.o.r.e. As the moonlight was now good, Henry saw all over this portion of the island, but he could not detect any sign of human habitation.

"I suppose Tom is right," he said to himself, "and that there is nothing to be seen."

But he had no idea of going back without exploring thoroughly, and he descended the slope toward the north. The way led for a little distance among the shrub bushes from which the raindrops still fell upon him as he pa.s.sed, and then he came into an open s.p.a.ce almost circular in shape and perhaps thirty yards in diameter. Almost in the center of the rock a spring spouted and flowed away through a narrow channel to the lake. On the far side of the spring rose four upright stakes in a row about six feet apart. Henry wondered what they meant and he approached cautiously, knowing that they had been put there by human hands.

Some drifting clouds now pa.s.sed and the moonlight shone with a sudden burst of splendor. Henry was close to the stakes and suddenly he shuddered in every vein. They were about as high as a man's head, firmly fastened in the ground, and all of them were blackened and charred somewhat by fire, although their strength was not impaired. At the base of every one lay hideous relics. Henry s.h.i.+vered again. He knew. Here Indians brought their captives and burned them to death, partly for the sake of their own vengeance and partly to propitiate the mighty spirits that had their abode in the depths of the great lakes. He was sure that his comrades and he had landed upon a sacrificial island, and he resolved that they should depart at the very first light in the morning.

This island which had seemed so fine and beautiful to him suddenly became ghastly and repellent, but his second thought told him that they had nothing to fear at present. It was not inhabited. The warriors merely came here for the burnings, and then it was quite likely that they departed at once.

Henry examined further. On the bushes beyond the stakes he found amulets and charms of bone or wood, evidently hung there to ward off evil spirits, and among these bushes he saw more bones of victims. Then he noticed two paths leading away from the place, each to a small inlet, where the boats landed. Calculating by the moon and stars he could now obtain a general idea of the direction in which they had come and he was sure that the nearest part of the mainland lay to the west. He saw a dark line there, and he could not tell whether it was the sh.o.r.e or a low bank of mist.

Then he made a diligent exploration of all this part of the island, a.s.suring himself further that it had never been occupied permanently. He saw at one place the ruins of a temporary brush shelter, used probably during a period of storm like that of the night before, and on the beach he found the shattered remains of a large canoe. Henry looked down at the broken canoe thoughtfully. It may have been wrecked while on its way with a victim for the stake, and if the warriors had perished it might have been due to the wrath of the Great Spirit.

He walked slowly back over the ridge through the forest and down to the boat. Tom saw him coming but said nothing until he stepped into the boat beside him.

"You stayed a long time," he said, "but I see you've brought nothing back with you."

"It's true that I've brought nothing with me, but I've found a lot."

"What did you find, Henry?"

"I found many bones, the bones of human beings."

"Men's bones?"

"Yes. I'm sure that it is an island to which Indiana come to burn their prisoners, and although none are here now--I've looked it all over--I don't like it. There's something uncanny about it."

"An' yet it's a pretty little islan', too," said Tom Ross, thoughtfully, "an' mighty glad we wuz to see it yes'day, when we wuz druv before that howlin' an' roarin' storm, with but one chance in a hundred uv livin'."

"That's so," said Henry. "We owe the island a debt of grat.i.tude if others don't. I've no doubt that if it were not for this little piece of land we should have been drowned. Still, the sooner we get away the better. How have the others been getting on, Tom?"

"Sleepin' ez reg'lar an' steady ez clocks. It's wuth while to see fellers snoozin' away so happy."

Henry smiled. The three, as they lay in the boat, breathing deeply and unconscious of everything, were certainly a picture of rest.