“get up!”
it was duff who spoke, and he accompanied the command with a volley of oaths.
in wonderfully quick time duff went through john’s pockets and the pouch which hung at his belt, taking everything he found, which, fortunately, was nothing more than a hunting knife and pistol.
“take his gun and push out fast, ahead, dexter. i’ll follow close behind, and you, young fellow, keep just behind your good friend here, and just ahead of me, and attempt no monkey business, or i’ll blow your brains out! now, march!”
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with a quick glance around to get his bearings, john walked off as dexter led the way. he noticed regretfully that it was now quite dark in the woods, and the wind was again blowing so hard that their tracks through the snow would be quickly obscured.
for hours, it seemed to john, the silent march continued. at first he knew just where he was, but as it became darker and wolves howled not only on one but on all sides, and the wind swirled and swept so in all directions that he could not keep his bearings, he lost all knowledge of his whereabouts except to know that he was in a very unpleasant predicament, to say the least, and he wished heartily that he was out of it.
244
it was almost midnight, as nearly as john could judge, when, after winding in and out for some time through dark ravines, whose rocky walls rose high above their heads, making the darkness so intense that they could scarcely see the snow at their feet, duff and dexter mounted to a rough ledge four or five feet above the level of the valley in which they were, and dragged their captive up after them. he knew at once, as he found a low, rocky roof above his head, that they were in the mouth of a cave of some sort.
“make a light,” commanded duff, and stepping forward he seized john’s arm, as if afraid the boy might attempt to escape.
dexter, obedient to his chief’s order, knelt in the darkness and by much puffing and blowing kindled a small fire from a few live coals remaining of a blaze the two men evidently had left when starting out.
“get something to eat,” was the next order of the captain, and dexter slunk away to another part of the cave.
245
while he waited by duff’s side john made as thorough an inspection of the cave as he could by the flickering firelight. it did not appear very deep though the roof was twice as high as a man, and its yawning mouth extended nearly its entire width of probably twenty feet. still comparatively little snow had drifted in and the floor was dry and hard. in one corner not far from the fire was a pile of leaves on which some skins and blankets were spread, while hanging on the forks of a sapling cut off half way up and now leaning against the wall, were a frying pan and other cooking utensils.
“kind of ghost-like around here,” the boy remarked, smiling grimly as the firelight cast spectral shadows in the deeper parts of the cavern and upon the rough walls. “seems to me i can see the ghosts of quilling and black eagle right now.”
“dry up! blast your noisy tongue, dry up!” growled duff beneath his breath, while involuntarily he shuddered and glanced around.
“oh, what a guilty conscience,” thought john, mentally resolving to make use of this discovery that his captor was afraid of ghosts, if the opportunity came to him.
246
their meager supper of venison over, dexter, at duff’s command—it seemed that the former was obliged to do all the physical labor—brought stout thongs of twisted buckskin and john was speedily bound hand and foot, and then pushed and thrown upon the bed of leaves and skins in the corner. duff and dexter also lay down, one on either side of the prisoner.
it was daylight when john awoke, the bonds upon his wrists and ankles instantly, painfully reminding him of where he was and bringing to his mind the unhappy recollection of all that had happened. neither duff nor dexter was on the bed beside him, and, rolling over, he looked around. there sat dexter on the log by the fire.
“hi, there!” called john.
“jest don’t you say nothin’. i’m to knock yer blasted brains out if ye holler, er say a word. them’s duff’s own words. lay still an’ don’t say nothin’ an’ i won’t do ye no harm, an’ i’ll git ye a bite to eat.”
so saying dexter sliced off a few cuts of meat from a nearly consumed fore quarter of a deer and prepared it for the prisoner.
247
“it was too bad quilling was killed the way he was,” said john, as he ate, wishing to appear friendly, for he believed dexter was not at heart nearly so villainous as his companion.
“bub, jest you shet up. ye ain’t allowed to say nothin’. them’s the orders.”
but after a pause of several minutes, dexter added: “duff didn’t say as i couldn’t talk none, though, an’ i kin say yes, ’twas too bad as quilling got killed. but it was his own fault. when duff goes to yer hut as an injun, plannin’ to get what he was after, an’ left me an’ quilling at the edge o’ the woods t’ help him if he needed it, or to draw you chaps out some way, an’ give him a better chance, if he didn’t come back by midnight, quilling an’ me stood under a tree with low limbs where we wouldn’t be seen by anybody. then quilling got scared—allus was a blamed baby anyhow,—an’ he begun to chatter an’ talk ’bout how he wished he had stayed to home. ‘an’ i’m goin’ to holler to duff this minute that i want t’ go home an’ he’s got t’ go with me,’ he says, speakin’ up loud. an’ with that he steps out into the clearin’, when ‘bang!’ he tumbled over like a rabbit, an’ in a jiffy there come pouncin’ onto him a devil of an injun that has been hangin’ round these parts a long time.
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“an’ this injun ain’t no nat’ral critter at all. he comes an’ goes too quick fer that. he’s a injun witch, that’s what he is, an’ ’fore i knew it i was yellin’ ‘help,’ an’ hootin’ like a owl, which was the sign agreed on to call duff out if we had to have him; an’ then i goes racin’ into the woods like all get out. duff comes runnin’ after me, cursin’ awful, he was that mad. but he knew quilling was a goner an’ we—we jest lit out fer our cave here. we was watchin’ from the woods when you an’ the quaker chap started out to the injun town an’ then it was that duff says we would ketch ye, an’ we did, an’ what’s next to be did is fer me to know an’ you to find out, as the sayin’ is.”
249
john, it is sure, was greatly interested in what he had heard. and now, as dexter showed no signs of speaking further, though he seemed to like to hear his own tongue going, the captive tried hard to think of some seemingly innocent question or remark which would start the fellow talking once more. at last he said:
“honest truth, mr. dexter, i was not spying on you that night away back at the eagle tavern when i went for a drink of water and found you and duff and quilling reading a letter.”
250
“young feller, you keep still. don’t you say nothin’; that’s what! but ye needn’t think duff lays it up ag’in ye that ye came onto us sudden-like that night at quilling’s place. he don’t remember nothin’ about it, i don’t s’pose. why, him an’ me had only got to quilling’s that same night; an’ of course we didn’t know what quilling wanted till we got there. he was jest a-goin’ to show us that letter or piece o’ one, when you chaps come along. quilling didn’t know himself jest what the thing meant, but he knew it told about money buried in the ground an’ he knew that this chap nesbit had done good business liftin’ jew’lry an’ coin from folks along the roads an’ places. he knew enough to guess pretty straight as how duff would be the man to help find the other part of the letter, ’cause he had seen nesbit have it, an’ he sent fer him, an’ duff an’ me went together. but while yer talkin’, boy, only ye ain’t allowed to talk none, an’ i’ll knock yer blasted brains out if ye do, this here ain’t my reg’lar trade, an’ i vow, if there’s much more killin’ an’ slavin’ fer duff, i’m a-goin’ t’ quit it.”
dexter paused and put a few sticks of wood on the fire.
251
“it’s ’bout time duff was comin’ back,” he said, as he sat down again. “duff’s gone to hunt yer pardner an’ if he don’t give him what he wants, he’s goin’ to knock yer blasted brains out an’ scalp ye jest the same as though that injun witch had did it, an’ it’ll be laid onto the injun. duff’s wrote a letter on bark with charcoal that says that, an’ now ye know what yer chances be.”
john was far from comfortable as he learned duff’s monstrous plan. he could not believe that ree would surrender the letter, which was not his property, but the property of theodore hatch, without a struggle, and he knew that duff would not hesitate to kill. the result, it was all too likely, would be that duff, in one of his furious passions would commit murder and john jerome would never greet his friends again.
“ye see i was jest a farm hand an’ never was in the line as duff was in, until he got me into this one, sayin’ it would only be a job of findin’ a box o’ gold buried in the ground, an’ i could handle a spade so good,” dexter continued, talking as though to himself. “but it ain’t been like he said. i ain’t no coward like quilling, but if this here scheme duff’s now workin’ don’t do the business, i’m goin’ to quit—i’m goin’ to quit.”
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dexter shook his head gloomily. it was undoubtedly a “blue” day for him. he rose and walked out just beyond the mouth of the cave.
“i’m goin’ to quit,” the fellow murmured despondently again, and his words were as a prophecy.
from a clump of bushes above, at the top of the steep hill across the ravine, clearly visible through the bare, gray trees, there came a puff of smoke; a rifle sounded, and dexter, shading his eyes with one hand, looking down the valley in search of duff, whom he would see never again, sprang high into the air. as though it were some inanimate thing his body fell backward at full length upon the ground, and from his temple trickled a tiny stream of crimson, staining the snow.
so ended the life of dexter. if the thrilling adventures that awaited john jerome, his prisoner, and return kingdom on the edge of civilization urge you to further reading, turn with me the pages of “the lone indian” that together we may learn the full history of the little cabin on the banks of the cuyahoga.
w. b. c.
