CHAPTER V.
AMBUSHED

Priscilla Kent, spinster, sharp-visaged, old and eccentric, sat knitting by lamplight before the open Franklin stove at which she warmed her slippered toes. In its hanging cage an old green parrot slept fitfully, occasionally waking to roll a red eye at its mistress or to mutter fretfully like one disturbed by unpleasant dreams. Behind her back a small monkey had silently enlarged a rent in the haircloth covering of an old spring couch and was industriously extracting and curiously inspecting the packing with which the couch was stuffed. The hands of the old-fashioned clock upon the mantel pointed to eight thirty-five.

“Goodness!” said Miss Priscilla, after peering at the clock. “It’s goin’ on to nine, and Rod ain’t back yet. He said he was just goin’ down to the village to mail a letter. I’m afeared he’s gittin’ into the habit of keepin’ late hours. He takes his natteral reckless disposition from his father’s side, but I do hope the terrible misfortune that befell Oscar will be a lesson to him and teach him to shun bad company and curb his violent temper. If he don’t come purty soon I shall get real worried.”

Now Miss Priscilla, living as she did on the outskirts of the village in a small house reached only by a footpath from the main highway, might have worried indeed had she known that the darkness and the bushes bordering that path hid a trio of armed and desperate-looking savages who were lying in ambush. The faintest sort of a moon or even a few stars might have shed light sufficient to show that the ambuscaders were attired in fringed khaki garments and moccasins, and wore upon their heads bonnets adorned with feathers plucked from the tails of more than one unfortunate rooster. Even such a dim light would also have revealed that the papier-mache masks which hid their faces added in a degree to their make-up as Indians, while the red paint which stained the edges of their wooden tomahawks and scalping knives was certainly sufficient to produce a shudder. In the parade of “horribles,” on last Independence Day, these warriors had appeared for the amusement of the admiring populace of Oakdale, and now their carefully preserved disguises were again being put to use.

Even though they lurked in concealment so near the exposed and defenseless home of Miss Priscilla, the savages had no murderous designs upon the spinster. They were, however, as their guarded conversation indicated, lying in wait for some one whom they expected soon to return along that footpath, and protracted lingering in ambush upon a nipping November night was proving far from pleasant, as their chattering teeth and occasional fretful remarks plainly indicated.

“Ugh!” grunted one, whose voice sounded amazingly like that of Phil Springer. “I wonder why the hated pup-paleface does not appear?”

“Peace, noble Osceola,” said another, with a shivery chuckle that might have come from the lips of Chipper Cooper. “The hated enemy of our people will surely return in time to his wigwam. If he don’t I’ll be froze stiff; for, with only this feather headdress as protection, I can’t keep my own wig warm to-night.”

“Oh, say, King Philip,” drawled the third, “don’t increase our sufferin’s by any such cracks as that.”

“Enjoy you not my persiflage, Tecumpseh?” asked the one who had been addressed as the war chief of the Narragansetts. “’Tis thus by light and airy jesting we aid the leaden hours to pass on fleeting wings.”

“Heap bub-bad Injun lingo, King Philip,” criticized Osceola. “A real aborigine such as you impersonate wouldn’t talk about leaden hours. Cuc-cut it out.”

“Your slang, Osceola, is somewhat too modern. You don’t s’pose that sucker got onto our game and fooled us by sneaking back to his teepee by some other road, do you?”

“If he has,” growled Tecumpseh, “he’ll sartainly have the laugh on us. But, in that case, why hain’t we been informed by Girty, the renegade, who’s trailin’ him?”

“’Sh!” hissed King Philip suddenly. “I hear a signal. Muffle the chin-music and listen.”

A smothered, suppressed sound, like the faint-hearted hooting of an owl, drifted up the dark path, and instantly the three savages were palpitant with eagerness.

“It’s Hunk – I mean Girty,” spluttered Cooper, rising on his hands and knees. “Where’s the blanket? Get the blanket ready, fellows. Now don’t bungle this job.”

A sound of running feet grew more distinct, and a panting lad came hurrying up the path.

“Hey, Hunk – hey!” called Tecumpseh softly. “Here we be. Is he comin’?”

“Oh, here you are!” gasped the new arrival, as he plunged into the shelter of the pathside thicket and joined them. “Yep, he’s coming. I watched him till I saw him start, then I made a short cut by the footpath past Tige Fletcher’s, and got here first. He’ll be right along. I guess the fellers are getting the other end of the game fixed up all right, for I see Sleuth buying phosphorus at the drug store. Oh, say! we’ll scare that bragging coward to death to-night. After we catch him we’ve got to keep him till they get ready to work the rescue racket.”

“Oh, we’ll keep him all right if we catch him, and we’ll make it warm for him, too,” said King Philip. “Come on, Hunk – I mean Girty, – we’ll take the other side of the path, you and I. Osceola and Tecumpseh, have the blanket ready. Everybody jump at him all together; get him before he can scoot. Come on.”

Followed by the one called Girty, who was disguised in rough, loose fitting clothes, a slouch hat and a hideous white-face mask, King Philip hustled across the path and ensconced himself close beside a low clump of cedars. Silence followed, broken presently by the faint, clear sound of a whistled tune, becoming more and more distinct as the whistler drew near. Their muscles taut, their nerves strung high, the three redskins and the renegade crouched for the attack upon their chosen victim, who, wholly unsuspecting, sauntered heedlessly into the trap.

Out from cover leaped the quartet, flinging themselves upon the paleface, whose whistled tune was actually cut short by the muffling folds of the blanket cast over his head and twisted tight. Nevertheless, although his feet were kicked from beneath him and all four united in the effort to subdue him, the boy from Texas, squirming, twisting, kicking, fighting desperately to fling off the blanket, gave them a lively time of it for several minutes. At last, however, smothered and crushed, he began to weaken, and presently his hands were twisted round behind his back and tied there with a stout piece of rope produced from a pocket of King Philip’s khaki war-suit.

“Got him now!” grated Girty viciously, as he gave the captive a punch in the ribs. “Confound him! he kicked me one in the breadbasket that near knocked the wind out of me.”

“Stop that!” commanded King Philip authoritatively. “He will pay the bitter penalty when we put him to the torture. Come on, let’s hit the high places.”

Still keeping the blanket wrapped about the head and shoulders of the victim, they lifted him to his feet, held him fast, plunged through the bushes, and struck out across a rough open field in the direction of Turkey Hill. The captive staggered as he was forced along, but their firm hands sustained him, and they paid no heed to the muffled gasping and groaning which came from beneath the blanket. Over a fence and across a stone wall he was pushed and dragged, and finally the woods at the eastern base of Turkey Hill were reached. A short distance into the blackest of the night-shrouded timber they penetrated, halting at last in a small glade near a bubbling spring.

“This is the place,” whispered King Philip. “We agreed to have him here at the spring. We’ll have some fun with him while we’re waiting for the other fellers to come.”

“I guess we’d better give him a chance to git a breath,” observed Tecumpseh, who was supporting the captive with both arms. “He’s limp as a dish-rag. I cal-late he’s purty near done up.”

In truth, Rodney Grant was nearly smothered, and when the blanket was removed he lay gasping painfully upon the cold ground.

“Guard the paleface dog, Osceola,” commanded King Philip. “If he attempts to escape, crack his skull with your trusty tomahawk and lift his topknot with your gory scalping knife. Girty, build a fire, and fear not; for neither Daniel Boone nor Simon Kenton are nearer to-night than the Dark and Bloody Ground.”

Girty promptly gathered some sticks of wood, scraped together a mass of dry fallen leaves, and applied a lighted match. A blaze sprang up at once, illuminating the whole glade.

“My brothers,” said King Philip, “we will now hold a council of war to decide the fate of this wretched paleface captive. As the war chief of the Narragansetts, hunted in the swamps like a wild beast, my spirit cries out for vengeance. The most frightful torture we can inflict upon this wretch will but poorly atone for the suffering he has caused our people; for has he not with his own lips boasted that he tortured three noble warriors to death by tickling them on the bottoms of their bare feet with feathers? What torture can we devise that will serve as sufficient retaliation? I would listen to the wisdom from the lips of the great Seminole, Osceola.”

“It is my idea,” said Osceola, “that we ought to soak it to him heap much. I’m in favor of skinning him alive.”

“What do you propose, Tecumpseh?”

“I would hang him by the heels over a slow fire. I guess that would warm him up some.”

“Simon Girty, even though your skin is the color of the despised paleface, you have renounced your people and become one of us. You are even more bloodthirsty and cruel than the bloodiest warrior that roams the primeval forest. What say you? Spit it out.”

“Burn him to the stake,” growled Girty.

“Good! It shall be done. Lift him and tie him, standing, with his back to a stout sapling. Here’s another hunk of rope.”

The captive, although somewhat recovered, made resistance when they raised him from the ground and dragged him to the sapling.

“Go ahead with your funny business, you onery coyotes!” he exclaimed. “I opine I know you all, in spite of your rigs; and when I promise to get even a plenty I certain mean it.”

Scoffing at him, they tied him fast, and then piled in a circle about his feet a mass of dry leaves and broken branches, taking care, however, that this combustible material did not touch him by a foot or more.

“We’ll toast him gently at first,” chuckled King Philip. “When a victim is too quickly burned at the stake it is a sad mistake, for it ends our fiendish joys all too soon. Apply the torch.”

Girty seized a burning stick of wood and touched it to the leaves near the prisoner’s feet. The fire blazed up and began creeping round the circle of combustible material. The heat of the flames reached the helpless boy’s face and hands, while the smoke filled his eyes and nostrils, making him choke and gasp. In a moment King Philip, Tecumpseh, Osceola, and Girty, the renegade, were dancing and whooping around Rod Grant, flourishing their tomahawks and knives.

From the midst of the enveloping mass of smoke and sparks came a harsh voice, vibrant with intense rage:

“Whoop it up, you skunks! You’d better carry the game through and finish me, for if you don’t I’ll make every one of you dance a different jig before long!”