The Hunters of the Ozark Read online

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  "Terry heard distinctly the footsteps of the warrior."]

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  THEHUNTERS OF THE OZARK.

  BYEDWARD S. ELLIS

  Author Of "Young Pioneer Series," "Log Cabin Series,""Great River Series," Etc., Etc.

  Philadelphia:Henry T. Coates & Co.

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  Copyright, 1887,byPORTER & COATES.

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  CONTENTS.

  CHAPTER. PAGE.

  I.--AN ESTRAY, 5 II.--THE TINKLE OF A BELL, 15 III.--AN ABORIGINAL PLOT, 25 IV.--A PARTY OF THE THIRD PART, 34 V.--A FRIEND IN NEED, 44 VI.--FRED LINDEN RECEIVES A MESSAGE FROM THE OZARK CAMP, 54 VII.--THE HUNTERS OF OZARK, 64 VIII.--A WELCOME ACQUAINTANCE, 74 IX.--A MISHAP, 84 X.--A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE, 94 XI.--TRAMPING SOUTHWARD, 104 XII.--A STRANGE ANIMAL, 114 XIII.--A TROUBLESOME VISITOR, 124 XIV.--A WELCOME ALLY, 134 XV.--"DEERFOOT WILL BE SENTINEL TO-NIGHT," 144 XVI.--AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE, 154 XVII.--A SUSPICIOUS SOUND, 164 XVIII.--LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT, 174 XIX.--SHAWANOE AND WINNEBAGO, 185 XX.--ANOTHER NIGHT VISITOR, 195 XXI.--THE CAMP OF THE WINNEBAGOS, 205 XXII.--"KEEP TO THE TRAIL," 215 XXIII.--AN INFURIATE SHAWANOE, 225 XXIV.--THE DEFIANCE, 236 XXV.--THE SIGNAL FIRE, 245 XXVI.--ON THE EDGE OF THE PRAIRIE, 257 XXVII.--A MORNING MEAL, 269 XXVIII.--A STRANGE RIDE, 281 XXIX.--A YOUNG HUNTER'S STRATEGY, 293 XXX.--TERRY FINISHES HIS RIDE, 305 XXXI.--THE DEVIL'S PUNCH BOWL, 316 XXXII.--THE TERROR IN THE AIR, 328 XXXIII.--FRED LINDEN AWAKENS TO AN ALARMING FACT, 340 XXXIV.--THE CANOE, 352 XXXV.--AMERICA VERSUS IRELAND, 364 XXXVI.--AMERICA VERSUS AMERICA, 376 XXXVII.--THE LAST CAMP-FIRE, 388 XXXVIII.--CONCLUSION, 400

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  THE HUNTERS OF THE OZARK.

  CHAPTER I.

  AN ESTRAY.

  One day in the autumn Terence Clark came to the house of FrederickLinden and urged him to join in a hunt for a cow that had been missingsince the night before. The latter got the consent of his mother and thetwo lads started on a search that proved to be the most eventful onethey had ever known.

  A few words in the way of explanation must be given at this point. Thedate of the events I have set out to tell was toward the close of thelast century, and the scene the south-western part of the present Stateof Missouri, but which was then a part of the vast territory known asLouisiana. Though the town of St. Louis had been settled a good manyyears before, there were only a few pioneers scattered through thealmost limitless region that stretched in every direction from theMississippi. Here and there the hunters and trappers were often absentfrom their homes for months at a time, during which they suffered muchexposure and hardship. They slept for weeks in the open woods, or whenthe severity of the weather would not allow this, they found refuge incaves or hollow trees. Then, when enough skins had been gathered to loadtheir pack-horses they started on the long tramps to the French tradingpost on the Mississippi. They followed faintly marked paths or trailsthat converged from a score or hundred different points until theyreached the Father of Waters, where the peltries were soon sold and theproceeds, too often, squandered within the succeeding few hours.

  At the date of which I am speaking, a small settlement known as Grevillestood in the south-western section of the large State of Missouri, as itis now known. The first cabins were put up only a few years before, andthe settlers, including men, women and children, numbered about twohundred. Near the center of the straggling settlement stood a rude butstrong blockhouse to be used for refuge in the event of an attack byIndians. As yet this emergency had not arisen, for the red men in thatsection were far less warlike and hostile than those in Ohio andKentucky.

  The father of Fred Linden was one of the hunters and trappers who maderegular visits to the wild section near the Ozark Mountains for thepurpose of gathering furs. He never had less than two companions, andsometimes the number was half a dozen. As you are well aware, the fursof all animals are in the finest condition in wintry weather, sincenature does her best to guard their bodies from the effects of cold.Thus it came about that the party of hunters, of whom I shall have moreto say further on, left Greville in the autumn of the year, and as arule were not seen again until spring. Since they entered a fine,fur-bearing country, these trips generally paid well. One conveniencewas that the hunters were not obliged to go to St. Louis to sell them.An agent of the great fur company that made its headquarters at thatpost, came regularly to Greville with his pack-horses and gave the sameprice for the peltries that he would have given had they been brought tothe factory, hundreds of miles away. He was glad to do this, for thefurs that George Linden and his brother hunters brought in were notsurpassed in glossiness and fineness by any of the thousands gatheredfrom the four points of the compass.

  Among the daring little band that made these regular visits to the Ozarkregion was an Irishman named Michael Clark, who had had considerableexperience in gathering furs along the Mississippi. It was at hissuggestion that Greville was founded, and one-half of their periodicaljourneys thus cut off. On the year following, Clark was shot and killedby a prowling Indian. Since his wife had been dead a long time, the onlychild, Terence, was thus left an orphan. The lad was a bright,good-natured fellow, liked by every one, and he made his home with thefamily of one of the other hunters named Rufus MacClaskey. The boy wasfifteen years old on the very day that he walked over to the cabin ofFred Linden and asked him to help him hunt for the missing cow.

  The family of George Linden, while he was away, consisted of his wife,his daughter Edith, fourteen, and his son Fred, sixteen years old. Allwere ruddy cheeked, strong and vigorous, and among the best to do of thethirty-odd families that made up the population of Greville.

  "Has the cow ever been lost before?" asked Fred, as he and the Irish ladswung along beside each other, neither thinking it worth while to burdenhimself with a rifle.

  "Niver that I knows of, and I would know the same if she had been lost;we're onaisy about the cow, for you see that if this kaaps on and shedoesn't come back I'll have to live on something else than bread andmilk and praties."

  "Our cow came back just at sunset last night."

  "And so did them all, exciptin' our own, which makes me more onwillin'to accipt any excuse she may have to give."

  "Let me see, Terry;
Brindle wore a bell round her neck, didn't she?"

  "That she did, and she seemed quite proud of the same."

  "Did you make hunt for her last night?"

  "I hunted as long as I could see to hunt; she wasn't missed, that istill after they got home. Whin I found that I didn't find her I startedto find her; but I hadn't time to hunt very long whin it got dark and Ihad to give it up."

  "And didn't you hear any thing of the bell?"

  "Do ye think that if I heard the bell I wouldn't have found the cow? Whywas the bell put round her neck if it wasn't to guide friends? Ilistened many a time after it got dark, but niver a tinkle did I hear."

  "That is queer," said Fred half to himself; "for, when no wind isblowing and it is calm, you can hear that bell a long ways; father hascaught the sound in the woods, when the Brindle was all of a mile off. Iwonder whether she could have lost the bell."

  "I've thought of that, and said to meself that it might be also that shehad become lost herself in trying to find it."

  Fred laughed.

  "She hardly knows enough for _that_; and, if she found the bell shewouldn't know what to do with it; but if that leathern string around herneck had broken, it may be that she is close by. A cow after losing onemilking is apt to feel so uncomfortable that she hurries home to berelieved; but what's the use of talking?" added Fred, throwing up hishead and stepping off at a more lively pace; "we've started out to findher and that's all we have to do."

  Perhaps a dozen acres had been cleared around the little town ofGreville. This had been planted with corn, potatoes and grain, thoughscores of unsightly stumps were left and interfered with the cultivationof the soil. Beyond this clearing or open space extended the immenseforests which at one time covered almost the entire face of our country.On the south side of the town and distant a furlong wound a creek, whichafter many shiftings and turnings found its way into the Mississippi andso at last into the Gulf of Mexico. The course of this stream was sowinding that it extended on two sides of the town and ran in a westerlydirection, exactly the opposite of that it finally had to take in orderto reach its outlet.

  As a rule, it was about twenty feet wide with a depth of from one or twoto six feet. It was subject to tremendous overflows which sometimestripled its volume and increased its width to that of a river. At suchtimes a series of enormous rocks through which the creek at "low tide"lazily wound its way, lashed the turbid current into a fury somewhatlike that seen in the "whirlpool" below Niagara. Could you have stood onthe shore and looked at the furiously struggling waters, you would havebeen sure that even if a man were headed up in a barrel, he could nothave lived to pass through the hundred yards of rapids, though there wasreason to believe that more than one Indian had shot them in his canoe.

  Terry Clark told his friend that his search of the night before and ofthe morning following had been to the north and west of the settlement,so that it was hardly worth while to continue the hunt in thatdirection. The cows sometimes stood in the water, where so muchswitching of their tails was not needed to keep away the flies, and,though there was quite a growth of succulent grass on the clearing, theanimals often crossed the creek and browsed through the woods andundergrowth on the other side.

  The boys were inclined to think that the brindle had taken that courseduring the afternoon and had actually gone astray,--something which aquadruped is less likely to do than a biped, though the former willsometimes make the blunder. There was nothing unreasonable in the theorythat the bell had fallen from her neck and that the owner thereforemight be not far away.

  At intervals, Terry shouted "_Bos! bos! bos!_" the Latin call which thecow sometimes recognized, though she generally paid no attention to it.It was the same now, possibly due to the fact that she did not hear thecall.

  Reaching the edge of the stream, the boys began walking along the banktoward the left and scrutinizing the spongy earth close to the water.If the missing animal had crossed the creek she could not have failed toleave distinct footprints.