CHAPTER XVII.

Missed.

With Pow-wow, now before him, now behind him, trotting out many a short, irrelevant digression from their general course, Jervis Whitney, rifle on shoulder, came trudging cheerfully homeward, all unwitting of the young-feet that had met him, the young eyes that had seen him, the young ears that had heard him--heard the very rustling of his garments--far back yonder in the heart of the lonely forest! He was still a half mile or more from home--the bright June afternoon by this time wearing an evening cast--when from among the trees a little way off to one side, the voice of Elster reached his ear, calling Sprigg in a tone of anxiety and alarm. Surprised to find his wife so far from the house, and evidently in quest of their boy, Jervis, somewhat alarmed himself, hastened forward to meet her and inquire into the occasion of so unwonted a circ.u.mstance.

"Ah! dear Jervis!" cried she, with tearful eyes and tremulous voice, while yet her husband was coming, "You are returning, and our boy not with you! I was hoping he might have heard the report of your rifle or Pow-wow's bark and had gone forth to meet you, as he often delights in doing!" Then she went on to tell how Sprigg, about 1 o'clock, had left the house to fetch a pail of water from their favorite but more distant spring, down there in the edge of the woods. Her mind becoming wholly occupied with her work at the loom, she had quite lost sight of the little circ.u.mstance, when, all at once, it had struck her that it had now been several hours since Sprigg had left the house, nor had yet returned. Whereat she had left off her weaving and gone forth to see what had become of him. She had searched the clearing all around the house, and the woods all around the clearing; yet not a trace of him had she discovered, saving the empty bucket at the spring.

By the time the story was ended, which she told with many an anxious detail, they had pa.s.sed on by the house and reached the spring. In the course of the day's chase the hunter had come upon a fresh Indian trail, which made him at first apprehensive that the boy, while thus out of sight and hearing of home, might have been crept upon and captured by some lurking band of savages. But there were no traces at the spring, nor near it, to justify his apprehension; nor yet that of his having fallen a prey to wild beasts--the two sources of danger being, in those days, always coupled in the minds of our pioneer progenitors. The prints of the boy's bare feet were plainly enough to be seen in the path that led down the hill; but here, at the spring, without any sign of their having retraced themselves, they suddenly vanished. For once the hunter's clear-seeing eye and his dog's keen-scenting nose were utterly baffled. Those Manitou moccasins being, as you must remember, charmed, could be worn and leave no trace of their wearer behind them that sight of man or scent of dog could discern, be it footprint on the ground or odor in the air. What manner of disappearance might this be?

All in a state of wonderment now, as well as distress, they hastened back to the house, if, happily, some nook or corner had been overlooked, where the boy had lain down and fallen asleep. They were pursuing this forlorn hope, when Elster found herself standing, without any will or volition of her own, directly in front of the old show bill, with her eyes fixed upon it, as if it had been an object she had never seen there before. Then it all came back to her mind, how that picture of the Indian boy and his Shetland pony had charmed Sprigg's fancy and set him to dreaming about red moccasins, and how strangely the whim had possessed him to go to the settlement, where he might make a display of his fantastic finery. This she told Jervis, and together they ran to the chest to see if the moccasins were really playing a part in the mysterious matter.

Pale as death turned Jervis Whitney when he discovered they were gone.

Backward the strong man staggered some paces, as had he been struck on the breast by a heavy fist, and, sinking down upon an oaken settee, exclaimed in a voice of horrified astonishment:

"Oh, Nick of the Woods! Nick of the Woods!" That elfin scene in the forest had come flashing back to his memory, like a prophetic dream, the interpretation whereof was now to be looked for. "My son Manitou-Echo is burning to run a race with your son Sprigg." Thus had spoken the Manitou king; and fantastic as the words had seemed at the time, evident enough was it now that, couched in them, was a meaning or purpose deeper by far than the hunter had divined. Perhaps the trial of bodily strength, or moral virtue, or whatever it was, at which they hinted, had already begun; and their boy now the subject of some elfish freak for his follies, or the victim of some elfish retributions for his transgressions.

Elster stood gazing down on her husband, where, with his face buried in his hands, he sat, repeating the singular exclamation which had escaped him on finding the moccasins missing. As yet, for some whimsical, elf-prompted reason or other, Jervis had told her nothing of his interview with Nick of the Woods, and whenever she had questioned him touching the moccasins he had answered that they had been sent to their boy from Fairyland, thus dodging the truth by telling the literal fact, knowing that she would treat it as a pleasantry. She was beginning to fear that the stroke had proved too much for the poor man's strength of mind, when, after remaining quite silent for some moments, he raised his head, and looking at her sorrowfully but calmly enough, addressed her:

"Dear Elster, I have not broken my fast since morning. Let me have something to eat and I will set out for the fort at once. It is but four or five miles to the nearest house on the way, and you can easily walk with me that far, there to remain until my return. At present I see not what better course is left us to follow."

A cold supper was set before him at once. While he was eating it Elster went and busied herself about the house, preparatory to their departure.

The meal was soon dispatched, and when he had looked carefully to his rifle and hunting accoutrements, to rea.s.sure himself that all was in good order for service, Jervis went to a.s.sist his wife in making such disposition of their little household concerns as their absence should render necessary. To his surprise, he found her preparing to accompany him all the way.

"Hardly, dear Elster!" said he. "The horses have leaped the fence and strayed out into the woods, so that I shall be obliged to go afoot, and for you to walk with me is quite out of the question. Twenty long miles--many of them rough and steep, all of them dark and dangerous! You could hardly endure it to the end."

"If the child has walked it," rejoined Elster, "so may the mother; and if he has not, and is lost to us forever, then this lonely house is our home no longer! I return to it no more."

Though of a gentle and yielding nature under ordinary circ.u.mstances, Elster could meet a great trial, like the present one, with a spirit firm and courageous enough; and knowing this, her husband forbore any further remonstrance to her determination. The sun had set and the moon was rising, when, having made their solitary dwelling as secure as possible, they set out on their melancholy journey. In those days the buffalo traces, as they were called, formed the only highways of the wilderness, and the one our poor friends were now following led, for the greater part of the way, through a dense and tangled forest, where the moonlight showed itself only in straggling beams and shed but a ghostly glimmer. At intervals the sombre wildness of the scene would be relieved by a bluegra.s.s glade, all agleam with moonbeams and glistering dew drops, saving where flecked with the shadows of clumped or scattered trees. Pleasing, however, as was the contrast they presented to the savage solitudes around them, these bright spots left upon the spirit an impression of sadness quite peculiar. Each had so much the appearance of a well kept park or woodland pasture that the lonely wayfarers would sometimes find themselves all but expecting that the next turn of the road would bring them in sight of the stately mansion or comfortable farmhouse to which these beautiful grounds pertained. Nothing of the kind appearing there, the spot, from the very suggestiveness of the homelike, would seem to them more desolate than the most unhomelike parts of the forest.

Often would they pause and call out loudly the name of their boy; the bare possibility that he might be near and hear them seemed too precious to be slighted. Saving this, and, from time to time, an inquiry of affectionate solicitude on the part of the husband, with the wife's answer of patient rea.s.surance that she was not weary, the two poor hearts pursued their way in silence. In the course of every four or five miles they would come to a solitary cabin home like their own, where they would stop and rouse the sleeping inmates, to inquire if aught had been seen there of their boy. Twice or thrice they heard, a far way off in the darkness, sounds that came to their troubled ears like the cries of a child in distress or terror. But when they had paused to listen, and had sent the name of their loved one ringing far and wide, naught had heard they, but the screaming of a night bird wheeling high aloft, or, peradventure, the distant howling of a wolf abroad on his nightly foray. At such times, with a look of dumb, distressed perplexity, first up into their faces, then all around him, old Pow-wow would give a plaintive whine, as if fully conscious that all was not going well with his human friends, and that this unwonted journey had a sad reference, in some way, to his little master. Sometimes dropping down upon his haunches in the path, some distance in advance, and turning his muzzle pitifully up to the moon, the affectionate old fellow would howl outright, long and loud, nor leaving off until his master and mistress were well up with him again. Thus, in his poor, dumb way, would Pow-wow testify that he was their fellow-sufferer, grieving and sympathizing with them and longing so earnestly to do something to help and comfort them--only but show poor dog how he might set about it.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Pow-Wow Finds Him.

The gray dawn was beginning to take the sun-red glow of morning, when, quite worn out with so long a walk, the anxious parents arrived at the stockade station--the center and rallying point of the settlements in that quarter of Kentucky. They had been indulging themselves in the forlorn hope that their boy, by some strange chance, might possibly have found his way to that place; but this vanished with the first look of wondering-inquiry that greeted their coming. Though no tongue could give them any tidings of the lost one, kind and sympathetic hearts were there for comfort, with willing hands and swift feet for help. Among the latter were several hunters, cunning in woodcraft, who could follow a trail, whether of man or beast, the livelong day; and over ground where nothing might be distinguished by the inexperienced eye but gra.s.s or leaves, sand, pebbles or solid rock.

Forth on the humane errand they sped them, one and all, some to the northward, some to the southward; many to the eastward, but none to the westward. The little runaway's starting point had been in the East; he might have strayed away toward the North or toward the South, but it seemed hardly possible that he could have pa.s.sed on by toward the West.

They little imagined how far the wayward young feet had followed the setting sun!

All day long they beat the tangled wilds. Of savage beasts, traces, more than enough, could they find, turn whither they might; and of savage men, two or three recent trails, one of them leading directly across the buffalo highway that traversed the forest between the settlements and Whitney's distant cabin. Late in the afternoon the questers began returning to the fort, dropping in, weary and disheartened, one after one. Some had pushed the search to the very threshold of the deserted home, and had observed how the boy's footprints, after tracing themselves along the path down the hillside, suddenly vanished, there at the spring, and never a sign anear the spot of living things besides, which could suggest an explanation of the mystery. What manner of disappearance might this be?

That morning, after having s.n.a.t.c.hed a brief repose from the fatigues of a day's chase and a night's journey, Jervis Whitney had started forth for a few hours after the rest to renew the search, taking leave of Elster at the fort gate. At sunset he returned, purposing that, if no tidings had been gathered, to beat the forest toward the West until dark. He found his wife where he had left her--where, indeed, she had remained through all the weary, dreary intervening hours--waiting and watching for his return. As the questers had come dropping in, she had read in each dejected face the answer to the question which her own had ceased to ask. She hastened forth to meet her husband, and as he sadly, tenderly folded her in his arms, she laid her head upon his rugged breast, and gave her pent-up sorrow relief in tears. But scarcely had her tears begun to flow, when suddenly she checked them, and with singular decision in manner and voice, exclaimed:

"Come, Jervis! Come!"

"Whither, dear Elster?"

"I know not," replied she. "I have heard no voice, yet I feel that we are called! Come!"

They went at once, as in obedience to a summons, which must be answered then or never. They went as led by a hand, which, to resist, were to tempt their own destruction. They saw themselves drawing--felt themselves drawn toward that side of the hill where, not a stone's throw in the rear of the fort, it abruptly ended in the lofty precipice, before mentioned. A few steps more and their feet had been on the very verge, when, between it and themselves, rang out a cry of thrilling horror, followed by peals of wild, unearthly laughter, which, beginning at the brow of the steep, swiftly descended along its sides, till in the edge of the forest, afar down there, they subsided into a wild, unearthly wail. Then in a moment all was still--not a tell-tale echo awaking to help the listening ear to determine what manner of sounds had broken the silence.

Harrowed with horror and anguish, Jervis and Elster stood, and with no more power to move from the spot than the senseless stones that lay around them. Not a sign of life had they seen, where sounds of life they had heard. It was as if the vacant air had cried; then laughed, to mock itself for crying; then wailed, to chide itself for laughing.

Old Pow-wow had followed cowering behind them. Now he bounded forward, and straight came bounding back again, with something in his mouth, which he laid at their feet. Pitiful heavens! The little c.o.o.nskin cap!

The next instant the dog had flung him sheer over the brink of the steep, and now, in a succession of huge leaps from ledge to ledge, was making his zig-zag way adown its sides, till, in the forest shadows far below, he disappeared. One moment more and his bark came ringing joyfully up to his friends--the sweetest, welcomest sound that had ever greeted their ears.

"Pow-wow has found him! Wait here, Elster!"

So saying, and moved by a will, not all his own, and sustained by a power, no more his own than had he been a child in his father's arms, the father followed the dog, making his way in the same zig-zag manner adown the perilous hill, till, in the dusky shadows at its base, he, too, had plunged. A few long, rapid strides, and he was at the spot whence Pow-wow's joyful barks had continued to resound. What found he there? The body, indeed, of his child; but whether as a waif unto life, or as a prize unto death--it were hard to tell. Stretched out on the ground, all ghastly it lay; the head toward him, and just beyond the naked feet--adjusted side by side, with their old air of easy self-a.s.surance, the Manitou moccasins. As the father approached, the elfish little horrors, fetching a summerset aloft, as he had seen them do the time before, plumped themselves directly between him and his child, though vanishing the moment they touched the ground. But, with the vanishing, came a voice of more than mortal tenderness, and with the voice a perfume of more than earthly sweetness.

"Jervis Whitney--

Whom we lend our moccasins red, Them we show how the erring are sped.

Whom we lend our coronals green, Them we show how the erring are seen, When the right begins to fall, Hearts must bleed or lost is all."

They who watched from above--for, by this time, many were there with Elster--had scarcely drawn the long, full breath, which follows a moment of breathless suspense, when the father, bearing a burden in his arms, reappeared at the base of the precipice. They called to him and pointed to the path that led obliquely around the hill, as being that by which he should ascend. A moment he paused and ran his eye along the circuitous way; but looking upward again to the group above him, and seeing Elster leaning over the dizzy brink, with arms outstretched, in piteous eagerness to clasp their loved one again to her heart, he paused no longer. To their unspeakable amazement, right up that huge and difficult steep, all burdened as he was, came the bold, strong man, with steps so light and swift that his ascent appeared as smooth and uninterrupted as the gliding shadow of a flying bird. Bold and strong, indeed, but that were a feat, if not beyond all human courage to dare, at least beyond all human strength to perform.

"Oh! G.o.d of Love!" exclaimed the mother, as the father gained the summit. "But our child is dead! Our child is dead!"

And with a piteous moan, the poor heart swooned away. Kind hands stayed her fall, and taking her up and bearing her into the fort, there laid her on a bed in grandpap's house. The same kind hands took the boy, whom, up to this moment, the father had held tenderly clasped to his rugged breast; took and laid him beside his senseless mother, his garments all torn to tatters and red with blood, which still trickled from many a wound.

"After all, the child may not be dead," said a kind voice--young Ben Logan's mother. "See how he bleeds." And she laid her hand upon the unheaving breast, in the forlorn hope of finding the heart still beating. Then, after a moment of suspense, came the joyful announcement: "It beats! It beats! The child still lives!"

The cry aroused the mother to consciousness. Clasping her child to her bosom, in an agony of pitying love and hopeless sorrow, again and again she cried: "Oh! G.o.d of Love! But our child is dead!"

"No, Elster, dear, your darling is not dead," said another kind voice--little Bertha Bryant's mother. "Give him to us and we will wash and lave his wounds and bind them up with healing salves. See how freely they bleed. That could not be the case if he were dead."

She suffered them to take him and do with him as they would; for herself, she still believed him dead. At the end of half an hour Jervis, who had gone with the women to a.s.sist in the work of resuscitation, returned to her and bade her be of good cheer; that the wounds, though many and grievous enough, did not seem to be deep and dangerous, and the signs of reviving life were growing every moment more and more apparent.

Thus rea.s.sured, Elster arose, and from that time forward performed her part as beseemed the mother of the sufferer.

CHAPTER XIX.

Young Ben Logan.

That morning, when the quest had begun, foremost of all the questers had gone forth young Ben Logan. Throughout the anxious day no one, saving the father of the lost boy, had shown such unremitting, unwearied diligence in the search as Ben, and that he had desisted at all was because the gathering shadows of evening had rendered further efforts unavailing.

Young Ben Logan, it will be remembered, was the boy to whom poor Sprigg had been so eager to make a display of his red moccasins, even while confident that their glitter and gleam would set his young friend--the best young friend he had in the world--to dying of envy the moment they met his dazzled eyes. Ben was a big-bodied, soft-hearted, slow-thoughted lad, about sixteen years of age; bigger already, indeed, and stronger than the majority of grown-up men. He could handle a rifle like a veteran marksman, and, in the ways of forest life, could make himself as completely at home as a young Indian. He was greatly attached to Sprigg, and although the older by three or four years, considered his little friend as, in every way, his equal, excepting as regarded size, marksmanship and woodcraft. In return, Sprigg loved Ben as much as a boy so humored and spoilt, and, consequently, so wayward and selfish, was capable of loving anybody not exactly necessary to make Number One all comfortable and snug. He was perfectly aware of the high esteem in which his mental parts were held by his big chum and master's every look, word and act told you over and over that he was exactly of the same opinion, if not more so. Nor can we ourselves deny, having had frequent occasion to note the fact, that our hero was a boy of uncommon sprightliness of mind and liveliness of imagination, while Ben was somewhat heavy and slow in all his ways, except when all agog in the chase, and then he was as light and elastic as an Indian bow; as quick and keen as an Indian arrow. Such being the difference between them, the two cronies chimed as smoothly together as a pair of well agreeing fiddles, each, in turn, taking the lead of the other--Ben, when they were roaming the perilous solitudes of the forest; Sprigg, when they were besporting themselves within the safe precincts of the fort.