The Zane Grey Megapack. Zane Grey
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and never a sweetheart, be flattered? No, most decidedly he wouldn’t. He never looked at me. I don’t think I expected that; I’m sure I didn’t want it; but still he might have—Oh! what am I thinking, and he a stranger?”
Before Helen lost herself in slumber on that eventful evening, she vowed to ignore the borderman; assured herself that she did not want to see him again, and, rather inconsistently, that she would cure him of his indifference.
* * * *
When Colonel Zane’s guests had retired, and the villagers were gone to their homes, he was free to consult with Jonathan.
“Well, Jack,” he said, “I’m ready to hear about the horse thieves.”
“Wetzel makes it out the man who’s runnin’ this hoss-stealin’ is located right here in Fort Henry,” answered the borderman.
The colonel had lived too long on the frontier to show surprise; he hummed a tune while the genial expression faded slowly from his face.
“Last count there were one hundred and ten men at the fort,” he replied thoughtfully. “I know over a hundred, and can trust them. There are some new fellows on the boats, and several strangers hanging round Metzar’s.”
“’Pears to Lew an’ me that this fellar is a slick customer, an’ one who’s been here long enough to know our hosses an’ where we keep them.”
“I see. Like Miller, who fooled us all, even Betty, when he stole our powder and then sold us to Girty,” rejoined Colonel Zane grimly.
“Exactly, only this fellar is slicker an’ more desperate than Miller.”
“Right you are, Jack, for the man who is trusted and betrays us, must be desperate. Does he realize what he’ll get if we ever find out, or is he underrating us?”
“He knows all right, an’ is matchin’ his cunnin’ against our’n.”
“Tell me what you and Wetzel learned.”
The borderman proceeded to relate the events that had occurred during a recent tramp in the forest with Wetzel. While returning from a hunt in a swamp several miles over the ridge, back of Fort Henry, they ran across the trail of three Indians. They followed this until darkness set in, when both laid down to rest and wait for the early dawn, that time most propitious for taking the savage by surprise. On resuming the trail they found that other Indians had joined the party they were tracking. To the bordermen this was significant of some unusual activity directed toward the settlement. Unable to learn anything definite from the moccasin traces, they hurried up on the trail to find that the Indians had halted.
Wetzel and Jonathan saw from their covert that the savages had a woman prisoner. A singular feature about it all was that the Indians remained in the same place all day, did not light a camp-fire, and kept a sharp lookout. The bordermen crept up as close as safe, and remained on watch during the day and night.
Early next morning, when the air was fading from black to gray, the silence was broken by the snapping of twigs and a tremor of the ground. The bordermen believed another company of Indians was approaching; but they soon saw it was a single white man leading a number of horses. He departed before daybreak. Wetzel and Jonathan could not get a clear view of him owing to the dim light; but they heard his voice, and afterwards found the imprint of his moccasins. They did, however, recognize the six horses as belonging to settlers in Yellow Creek.
While Jonathan and Wetzel were consulting as to what it was best to do, the party of Indians divided, four going directly west, and the others north. Wetzel immediately took the trail of the larger party with the prisoner and four of the horses. Jonathan caught two of the animals which the Indians had turned loose, and tied them in the forest. He then started after the three Indians who had gone northward.
“Well?” Colonel Zane said impatiently, when Jonathan hesitated in his story.
“One got away,” he said reluctantly. “I barked him as he was runnin’ like a streak through the bushes, an’ judged that he was hard hit. I got the hosses, an’ turned back on the trail of the white man.”
“Where did it end?”
“In that hard-packed path near the blacksmith shop. An’ the fellar steps as light as an Injun.”
“He’s here, then, sure as you’re born. We’ve lost no horses yet, but last week old Sam heard a noise in the barn, and on going there found Betty’s mare out of her stall.”
“Some one as knows the lay of the land had been after her,” suggested Jonathan.
“You can bet on that. We’ve got to find him before we lose all the fine horse-flesh we own. Where do these stolen animals go? Indians would steal any kind; but this thief takes only the best.”
“I’m to meet Wetzel on the ridge soon, an’ then we’ll know, for he’s goin’ to find out where the hosses are taken.”
“That’ll help some. On the way back you found where the white girl had been taken from. Murdered father, burned cabin, the usual deviltry.”
“Exactly.”
“Poor Mabel! Do you think this white thief had anything to do with carrying her away?”
“No. Wetzel says that’s Bing Legget’s work. The Shawnees were members of his gang.”
“Well, Jack, what’ll I do?”
“Keep quiet an’ wait,” was the borderman’s answer.
Colonel Zane, old pioneer and frontiersman though he was, shuddered as he went to his room. His brother’s dark look, and his deadly calmness, were significant.
CHAPTER IV
To those few who saw Jonathan Zane in the village, it seemed as if he was in his usual quiet and dreamy state. The people were accustomed to his silence, and long since learned that what little time he spent in the settlement was not given to sociability. In the morning he sometimes lay with Colonel Zane’s dog, Chief, by the side of a spring under an elm tree, and in the afternoon strolled aimlessly along the river bluff, or on the hillside. At night he sat on his brother’s porch smoking a long Indian pipe. Since that day, now a week past, when he had returned with the stolen horses, his movements and habits were precisely what would have been expected of an unsuspicious borderman.
In reality, however, Jonathan was not what he seemed. He knew all that was going on in the settlement. Hardly a bird could have entered the clearing unobserved.
At night, after all the villagers were in bed, he stole cautiously about the stockade, silencing with familiar word the bristling watch-hounds, and went from barn to barn, ending his stealthy tramp at the corral where Colonel Zane kept his thoroughbreds.
But all this scouting by night availed nothing. No unusual event occurred, not even the barking of a dog, a suspicious rustling among the thickets, or whistling of a night-hawk had been heard.
Vainly the borderman strained ears to catch some low night-signal given by waiting Indians to the white traitor within the settlement. By day there was even less to attract the sharp-eyed watcher. The clumsy river boats, half raft, half sawn lumber, drifted down the Ohio on their first and last voyage, discharged their cargoes of grain, liquor, or merchandise, and were broken up. Their crews came back on the long overland journey to Fort Pitt, there to man another craft. The garrison at the fort performed their customary duties; the pioneers tilled the fields; the blacksmith scattered sparks, the wheelwright worked industriously at his bench, and the housewives attended to their many cares. No strangers arrived at Fort Henry. The quiet life of the village was uninterrupted.
Near sunset of a long day Jonathan strolled down the sandy, well-trodden path toward Metzar’s inn. He did not drink, and consequently seldom visited the rude, dark, ill-smelling bar-room. When occasion demanded his presence there, he was evidently not welcome. The original owner, a sturdy soldier and pioneer, came to Fort Henry when Colonel Zane founded the settlement, and had been killed during Girty’s last attack.