CHAPTER I. THE RANGER’S RUSE.

A tall, muscular young fellow, dressed in hunter garb, came silently out of the woods from the north side of the Kentucky river, about a hundred years ago, and pausing by the bole of a gigantic beech tree, scanned the opposite shore with keen, silent attention.

There was a peculiar air of resolute fearless deviltry in the face of the young hunter, coupled with the piercing, roving glances of his intensely black eyes, that showed he was no novice to the trade of hunter and scout. He was in the midst of the hunting-grounds of Shawnee and Delaware, miles away from the then infant settlement of Boonesborough; and he was all alone with his rifle and knife, to take care of himself.

The look of his face abundantly evinced that he felt quite equal to the task, and only the acquired caution of his craft kept him from wading boldly into the river at once.

But as it was, he had learned the lesson of the successful Indian-slayer by hard experience. Therefore, now, it was with a long, deep scrutiny that he scanned the opposite banks, across the first open piece of landscape he had come on in a day’s travel. On the opposite bank all was still as death, save for the occasional note of a bird. It was late in May and the forest was all blinded with its canopy of leaves, while game was distant and hiding in the coverts.

As the young hunter looked, a black squirrel, shyest of all its kind, ran out on a limb of a tree on the other side of[10] the river, and stood, whisking its tail and chattering, before his eyes, above the stream.

“Wal,” muttered the young man, as he stepped boldly out, “thar kurn’t be much to be skeered on when you’re thar, my little kuss. Go ahead, Simon.”

Without further ado he descended the bank, deep, brown, and bare, for some sixty feet, and then ran quickly across a bed of sand into the shallow stream.

The Kentucky river, in winter a broad and powerful stream, had dwindled under the summer heats to a rivulet not more than two hundred feet across, running over a sandy rocky bed walled in by high banks.

Into this stream waded the hunter, and soon found himself midway between the banks and up to his armpits in water. He was obliged to lift up rifle and powder-horn over his head as he waded along, and every now and then he would stop to brace himself against the current, and glance anxiously up and down either side of the river, as if anticipating the presence of enemies, ready to take him at advantage.

At last the water began to sink below his arms; and slowly he emerged from the river, strode through the shallows, and stood on the opposite shore.

“By the holy poker!” he muttered, as he climbed the further bank, “that ar’s a bad scrape fur to ketch a kuss in. You’d best git to cover right smartly, Simon, ef you’re the spy you used to was. Git!”

And, as he spoke, he hurried up the bank into the woods, and threw himself down under a tree, completely hidden from sight. With the hunter’s instinct, he lay still as death, listening intently for sounds. The presence of the squirrel had assured him of the quiet of things before, or he would not have ventured where he did. But, the hunter knew too well that a very few minutes were able to change the whole current of events around him, and that the chance passing of a single Indian might render his own situation very perilous.

It was therefore with the keenest attention that he looked and listened in the woods all round, before going further.

Presently came the sweet pipe of a red-bird from a tree not far off, and the hunter muttered:

[11]

“All right on that side.”

He knew the note, as belonging to one of the most wary of birds. Then several other birds chirped at intervals, and he heard the tiny chatter of squirrels all round him.

“Simon, you blamed ornary kuss, I reckon you kin git,” said the hunter deliberately, and he rose to his feet.

Hardly had he done so, when he sunk down again as if shot, for the loud snap of a dry stick sounded plainly in the air, and it came from the further bank of the river.

“Follered, by the holy poker!” he ejaculated, in a low tone. “Now, who the Old Scratch kin that be?”

As he spoke he threw himself down behind the tree, and, bringing all his intelligence to bear on the north bank, which he had just left, awaited the advance of the stranger.

There was no more noise now. The other, whoever he was, had evidently been startled by his own carelessness. Apart from the snapping of that single stick, there was no further sign of human presence on the north bank.

The man on the south bank lay there watching silently and eagerly, but saw nothing. The usual noises of the woods kept on around him, and he could see squirrels moving on the other side of the river.

There was a small deserted space on either side of him, and a patch of the same breadth on the opposite side that showed him that the wild animals were shy of human creatures, and revealed to him the locality of his enemy.

In those two places all were still, and, as unerringly as if he had seen the strange hunter, Simon guessed that the latter had come to the identical tree by which himself had first scanned the river.

“And by the holy poker, ef that’s so, the kuss kin see my trail,” he grumbled, half aloud. “Simon, Simon, you orter be ashamed of yourself fur leavin’ them huff-tracks in the mud, when ye mout ’a’ jumped from stone to stone.”

Even while he grumbled, his eyes were fixed on the great beech tree, and the heavy Kentucky rifle he carried was trained on its bole, while he watched with intense gaze for a motion of the foe he guessed to be there.

Suddenly he shifted his gaze and aim to a point on one side of the tree, and fired at something moving there.

[12]

Leaping to one side out of the smoke, he distinctly beheld the splinters of bark fly where his bullet struck, and the next moment felt the stinging whiz of a bullet, that grazed his own side, as an answering puff of white smoke came from the other side of the tree, followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. The bullet stung him sharply, and he dropped to the earth, catching a glimpse of the vanishing figure of a man on the other side of the river, flitting from tree to tree.

“By the holy poker, that’s a right smart kuss, whoever he is,” muttered Simon, ruefully, as he rubbed his side, “Who’d ’a’ thunk he’d ’a’ fooled me as quick as that, and with sich an old trick. By the holy poker, Simon, you’d better go and soak your head ef you ain’t smarter than that kuss. But, I’ll get even with him. Darn me ef he shall fool me ag’in like that. No, sir. Mister stranger, be you white or red, runnygade or Shawnee, I’ll hev your skulp fur that ar’ shot, or my name ain’t Simon Kenton.”

And the renowned ranger darted from tree to tree on his passage up the river, following the shadowy form of his antagonist, as he caught occasional glimpses of it, and both tending toward a spot a mile further up the stream, where a wooded island reduced the danger of crossing to a less degree.

The two enemies raced for that island, loading as they ran.