A FOREST PAGE
When the survivors of the band of Wyoming fugitives that the five had helped were behind the walls of Fort Penn, securing the food and rest they needed so greatly, Henry Ware and his comrades felt themselves relieved of a great responsibility.They were also aware how much they owed to Timmendiquas, because few of the Indians and renegades would have been so forbearing.
Thayendanegea seemed to them inferior to the great Wyandot.
Often when Brant could prevent the torture of the prisoners and the slaughter of women and children, he did not do it.The five could never forget these things in after life, when Brant was glorified as a great warrior and leader.Their minds always turned to Timmendiquas as the highest and finest of Indian types.
While they were at Fort Penn two other parties came, in a fearful state of exhaustion, and also having paid the usual toll of death on the way.Other groups reached the Moravian towns, where they were received with all kindness by the German settlers.The five were able to give some help to several of these parties, but the beautiful Wyoming Valley lay utterly in ruins.The ruthless fury of the savages and of many of the Tories, Canadians, and Englishmen, can scarcely be told.Everything was slaughtered or burned.As a habitation of human beings or of anything pertaining to human beings, the valley for a time ceased to be.
An entire population was either annihilated or driven out, and finally Butler's army, finding that nothing more was left to be destroyed, gathered in its war parties and marched northward with a vast store of spoils, in which scalps were conspicuous.When they repassed Tioga Point, Timmendiquas and his Wyandots were still with them.Thayendanegea was also with them here, and so was Walter Butler, who was destined shortly to make a reputation equaling that of his father, "Indian" Butler.Nor had the terrible Queen Esther ever left them.She marched at the head of the army, singing, horrid chants of victory, and swinging the great war tomahawk, which did not often leave her hand.
The whole force was re-embarked upon the Susquehanna, and it was still full of the impulse of savage triumph.Wild Indian songs floated along the stream or through the meadows, which were quiet now.They advanced at their ease, knowing that there was nobody to attack them, but they were watched by five woodsmen, two of whom were boys.Meanwhile the story of Wyoming, to an extent that neither Indians nor woodsmen themselves suspected, was spreading from town to town in the East, to invade thence the whole civilized world, and to stir up an indignation and horror that would make the name Wyoming long memorable.Wyoming had been a victory for the flag under which the invaders fought, but it sadly tarnished the cause of that flag, and the consequences were to be seen soon.
Henry Ware, Paul Cotter, Sol Hyde, Tom Ross, and Jim Hart were thinking little of distant consequences, but they were eager for the present punishment of these men who had committed so much cruelty.From the bushes they could easily follow the canoes, and could recognize some of their occupants.In one of the rear boats sat Braxton Wyatt and a young man whom they knew to be Walter Butler, a pallid young man, animated by the most savage ferocity against the patriots.He and Wyatt seemed to be on the best of terms, and faint echoes of their laughter came to the five who were watching among the bushes on the river bank.
Certainly Braxton Wyatt and he were a pair well met.
"Henry," said Shif'less Sol longingly, "I think I could jest about reach Braxton Wyatt with a bullet from here.I ain't over fond o' shootin' from ambush, but I done got over all scruples so fur ez he's concerned.Jest one bullet, one little bullet, Henry, an' ef I miss I won't ask fur a second chance.""No, Sol, it won't do," said Henry."They'd get off to hunt us.
The whole fleet would be stopped, and we want 'em to go on as fast as possible.""I s'pose you're right, Henry," said the shiftless one sadly, "but I'd jest like to try it once.I'd give a month's good huntin' for that single trial."After watching the British-Indian fleet passing up the river, they turned back to the site of the Wyoming fort and the houses near it.Here everything had been destroyed.It was about dusk when they approached the battlefield, and they heard a dreadful howling, chiefly that of wolves.
I think we'd better turn away," said Henry." We couldn't do anything with so many."They agreed with him, and, going back, followed the Indians up the Susquehanna.A light rain fell that night, but they slept under a little shed, once attached to a house which had been destroyed by fire.In some way the shed had escaped the flames, and it now came into timely use.The five, cunning in forest practice, drew up brush on the sides, and half-burned timber also, and, spreading their blankets on ashes which had not long been cold, lay well sheltered from the drizzling rain, although they did not sleep for a long time.
It was the hottest period of the year in America, but the night had come on cool, and the rain made it cooler.The five, profiting by experience, often carried with them two light blankets instead of one heavy one.With one blanket beneath the body they could keep warmer in case the weather was cold.
Now they lay in a row against the standing wall of the old outhouse, protected by a six- or seven-foot slant of board roof.
They had eaten of a deer that they had shot in the morning, and they had a sense of comfort and rest that none of them had known before in many days.Henry's feelings were much like those that he had experienced when he lay in the bushes in the little canoe, wrapped up from the storm and hidden from the Iroquois.But here there was an important increase of pleasure, the pattering of the rain on the board roof, a pleasant, soothing sound to which millions of boys, many of them afterwards great men, have listened in America.
