The Free Rangers Part 11

The night was dark, like its predecessor. The moon's rays fell only in uneven streaks, and revealed a singular scene, a forest standing knee deep, as it were, in water.

s.h.i.+f'less Sol presently took one of the blankets and wrapped it around his shoulders. A cold damp pervaded the atmosphere, and a fog began to rise from the river. The s.h.i.+ftless one was a cautious man and he knew the danger of chills and fever. His comrades were already well wrapped, but he stepped softly over and drew Paul's blanket a little closer around his neck. Then he resumed his seat, maintaining his silence.

s.h.i.+f'less Sol did not like the rising of the river fog. It was thick and cold, it might be unhealthy, and it hid the view. His circle of vision steadily narrowed. Tree trunks became ghostly, and then were gone. The water, seen through the fog, had a pallid, unpleasant color. Eye became of little use, and it was ear upon which the sentinel must depend.

s.h.i.+f'less Sol judged that it was about midnight, and he became troubled.

The sixth sense, that comes of acute natural perceptions fortified by long habit, was giving him warning. It seemed to him that he felt the approach of something. He raised himself up a little higher and stared anxiously into the thick ma.s.s of white fog. He could make out nothing but a little patch of water and a few ghostly tree trunks near by. Even the stern of the boat was half hidden by the fog.

"Wa'al," thought the s.h.i.+ftless one philosophically, "ef it's hard fur me to find anything it'll be hard fur anything to find us."

But his troubled mind would not be quiet. Philosophy was not a sufficient reply to the warning of the sixth sense, and, leaning far over the edge of the boat, he listened with ears long trained to every sound of the wilderness. He heard only the stray murmur of the wind among the leaves--and was that a ripple in the water? He strained his ears and decided that it was either a ripple or the splash of a fish, and he sank back again in his seat.

Although he had resumed his old position, the s.h.i.+ftless one was not satisfied. The feeling of apprehension, like a mysterious mental signal, was not effaced. That thick, whitish fog was surcharged with an alien quality, and slowly he raised himself up once more. Hark! was it the ripple again? He rose half to his feet, and instantly his eye caught a glimpse of something brown upon the edge of the boat. It was a human hand, the brown, powerful hand of a savage.

The glance of s.h.i.+f'less Sol followed the hand and saw a brown face emerging from the water and fog. Quick as a flash he fired. There was a terrible, unearthly cry, the hand slipped from the boat and the head sank from view.

"Up! up! boys!" cried Sol in thunderous tones. "We're attacked by swimmin'

savages!"

He s.n.a.t.c.hed up one of the double-barreled pistols and fired at another head on the water. The others were awake in an instant and rose up, rifles in hand. But they saw only a splash of blood on the stream that was gone in a moment, then the thick, whitish fog closed in again, and after that silence! But they knew Sol too well to doubt him, and the momentary red splash would have converted even the ignorant.

"Lie low!" exclaimed Henry. "Everybody down behind the sides of the boat!

They may fire at any time!"

The boat was built of thick timber, through which no bullet of that time could go, and they crouched down, merely peeping over the edges and presenting scarcely any target. They had their own rifles and the extra fowling pieces and pistols were made ready, also.

But nothing came from the great pall of whitish fog, and the silence was chilly and heavy. It was the most uncanny thing in all Paul's experience.

Beyond a doubt they were surrounded by savage enemies, but from which side they would come, and when, n.o.body could tell until they were at the very side of the boat.

"How many did you see, Sol?" whispered Henry.

"Only two, but one of 'em won't ever attack us again."

"The others must be near by in their canoes, and the swimmers may have been scouts and skirmishers. They know where we are, but we don't know where they are."

"That's so," said s.h.i.+f'less Sol, "an' it gives 'em an advantage."

"Which, perhaps, we can take from 'em by moving our own boat."

Henry was about to put his plan into action, but they heard a light splash in the water to the west, and another to the north. Spots of piercing red light appeared in the fog, and many rifles cracked. Fortunately, all had thrown themselves down, and the bullets spent themselves in the wood of the boat's side. Henry and Sol and Tom fired back at the flashes, but more rifle shots came out of the fog, and those on the boat had no way of telling whether any of their bullets had hit.

"I think we'd better hold our fire," whispered Henry between rifle shots.

"It's wasting bullets to shoot at a fog."

The others nodded and waited. A long cry, quavering at first, and then rising to a fierce top note to die away later in a ferocious, wolfish whine came through the fog. It was uttered by many throats, and in the uncanny, whitish gloom it seemed to be on all sides of them. Then shouts and shots both ceased and the heavy silence came again.

"Now is our time," whispered Henry. "Paul, steer southward. Jim, you and Tom row, and Sol and I will be ready with the guns. Keep your heads down as low as you can."

Jim Hart and Tom Ross took the oars, pulling them through the water with extreme caution and slowness. All knew that sharp ears were listening in the flooded forest, and the splash of oars would bring the war canoes at once. But they were determined that the fog which was such a help to their enemies should be an equal help to them also.

Slowly the heavy boat crept through the water. Paul, at the tiller, steered with judgment and craft, and his was no light task. Now and then low boughs were lapped in the water and bushes submerged to their tops grew in the way. To become tangled in them might be fatal and to sc.r.a.pe against them would be a signal to their enemies, but Paul steered clear every time.

They had gone perhaps fifty yards when Henry gave a signal to stop and Jim and Tom rested on their oars. Then they heard a burst of firing behind them, and a smile of saturnine triumph spread slowly but completely over the face of s.h.i.+f'less Sol.

"They're shootin' at the place whar we wuz, an' whar we ain't now," he whispered to Henry.

"Yes," Henry whispered back, "they haven't found out yet that we've left, but they are likely to do it pretty soon. I hope now that this fog will hang on just as thick as it can. Start up again, boys."

"'Twould be funny," whispered Sol, "ef the savages should find us an'

chase us right into the bosoms o' the Spaniards."

"Yes," replied Henry, "and for that reason I think we'd better bend around a circle and then go up stream. I'll tell Paul to steer that way."

They went on again, creeping through the white darkness; fifty yards or so at a time, and then a pause to listen. Henry judged that they were about a half mile from their original anchorage, when the solemn note of an owl arose, to be answered by a similar note from another point.

"They've discovered our departure," he whispered, "and they're telling it to each other. I imagine that their war canoes will now come in a kind of half circle toward the center of the river. They'll guess that we won't retreat toward the land, because then we might be hemmed in."

"No doubt of it," replied Sol, "and I think we'd better pull off toward the north now. Mebbe we kin give 'em the slip."

Henry gave the word and Paul steered the boat in the chosen course. The forest grew thinner, showing that they were approaching the true stream, but the fog held fast. After a hundred yards or so they stopped again, and then they distinctly heard the sound of paddles to their right. It was not a great splash, but they knew it well. Paul, at the tiller, fancied that he could see the faces of the savages bending over their paddles. They were eager, he knew, for their prey, and either chance or instinct had brought them through the white pall in the right course.

The uncertainty, the fog, and the great mysterious river weighed upon Paul. He wished, for a moment, that the vapors might lift, and then they could fight their enemies face to face. He glanced at his own comrades and they had taken on an unearthly look. Their forms became gigantic and unreal in the white darkness. As Henry leaned forward to listen better his figure was distorted like that of a misshapen giant.

"Steer straight toward the north, Paul," he whispered. "We must shake them off somehow or other."

Silently the boat slid through the water but they heard again those signal cries, the hoots of the owl and now they were much nearer.

"They must have guessed our course," whispered Henry, "or perhaps they have heard the splash of an oar now and then. Stop, boys, and let's see if we can hear their canoes."

Their boat lay under the thick, spreading boughs of some oaks. Paul could see the branches and twigs showing overhead through the white fog like lace work, but everything else was invisible twenty feet away. All heard, however, now and then the faint splash, splash of paddles, perhaps a hundred yards distant. Henry tried to tell from the sounds how many war canoes might be in the party, and he hazarded a wild guess of twenty. As he listened, the splash grew a little louder. Obviously the canoes were keeping on the right course. s.h.i.+f'less Sol wet his finger and held it up.

When he took it down he whispered in some alarm to Henry:

"The wind has begun to blow, an' it's sh.o.r.e to rise. It'll blow the fog away, an' we'll lay in plain sight o' all o' them savages."

Henry's instinct for generals.h.i.+p rose at once and he saw a plan.

"We must keep on for midstream," he said. "We know what direction that is, and, out in open water, we'd have one advantage even over their numbers. Theirs are only light canoes, while ours is a big strong boat that will shelter us from any bullet. Pull away, boys! I'll help Sol keep up the watch."

The boat once more resumed its progress toward the main current. The wind, as Sol had predicted, rapidly grew stronger. The deep curtain of fog began to thin and lighten. Suddenly a canoe appeared through it and then a second.

A bullet, fired from the first canoe, whizzed dangerously near the head of s.h.i.+f'less Sol. He replied instantly, but the light was so uncertain and tricky that he missed the savage at whom he had aimed. The heavy bullet instead ploughed through the side and bottom of the bark canoe, which rapidly filled and sank, leaving its occupants struggling in the water. A bullet had come from the second canoe, also, but it flew wild, and then the whitish fog, thick and impenetrable, caught by a contrary current of wind, closed in again.

"Did you hit anything, Sol?" asked Henry.

"Only a canoe, but I busted it all up, an' they're swimmin' from tree to tree until they get to the bank."

"Now, boys, pull with all your might!" exclaimed Henry, "and, Paul, you steer us clear of trees, brush, logs, and snags. They know where we are and we must get out into the stream, where there's a chance for our escape."

Then ensued a flight and running combat in a tricky fog that lifted and closed down over and over again. Henry put down his oars presently and took up his rifle, but Jim Hart and Tom Ross continued to pull, and Paul kept a steady hand on the tiller.