The Scouts of the Valley
by Joseph A. Altsheler

CHAPTER I

THE LONE CANOE

A light canoe of bark, containing a single human figure, moved
swiftly up one of the twin streams that form the Ohio.  The
water, clear and deep, coming through rocky soil, babbled gently
at the edges, where it lapped the land, but in the center the
full current flowed steadily and without noise.

The thin shadows of early dusk were falling, casting a pallid
tint over the world, a tint touched here and there with living
fire from the sun, which was gone, though leaving burning embers
behind.  One glowing shaft, piercing straight through the heavy
forest that clothed either bank, fell directly upon the figure in
the boat, as a hidden light illuminates a great picture, while
the rest is left in shadow.  It was no common forest runner who
sat in the middle of the red beam.  Yet a boy, in nothing but
years, he swung the great paddle with an ease and vigor that the
strongest man in the West might have envied.  His rifle, with the
stock carved beautifully, and the long, slender blue barrel of
the border, lay by his side.  He could bring the paddle into the
boat, grasp the rifle, and carry it to his shoulder with a
single, continuous movement.

His most remarkable aspect, one that the casual observer even
would have noticed, was an extraordinary vitality.  He created in
the minds of those who saw him a feeling that he lived intensely
every moment of his life.  Born and-bred in the forest, he was
essentially its child, a perfect physical being, trained by the
utmost hardship and danger, and with every faculty, mental and
physical, in complete coordination.  It is only by a singular
combination of time and place, and only once in millions of
chances, that Nature produces such a being.

The canoe remained a few moments in the center of the red light,
and its occupant, with a slight swaying motion of the paddle,
held it steady in the current, while he listened.  Every feature
stood out in the glow, the firm chin, the straight strong nose,
the blue eyes, and the thick yellow hair.  The red blue, and
yellow beads on his dress of beautifully tanned deerskin flashed
in the brilliant rays.  He was the great picture of fact, not of
fancy, a human being animated by a living, dauntless soul.

He gave the paddle a single sweep and shot from the light into
the shadow.  His canoe did not stop until it grazed the northern
shore, where bushes and overhanging boughs made a deep shadow. 
It would have taken a keen eye now to have seen either the canoe
or its occupant, and Henry Ware paddled slowly and without noise
in the darkest heart of the shadow.

The sunlight lingered a little longer in the center of the
stream.  Then the red changed to pink.  The pink, in its turn,
faded, and the whole surface of the river was somber gray,
flowing between two lines of black forest.

The coming of the darkness did not stop the boy.  He swung a
little farther out into the stream, where the bushes and hanging
boughs would not get in his way, and continued his course with
some increase of speed.

The great paddle swung swiftly through the water, and the length
of stroke was amazing, but the boy's breath did not come faster,
and the muscles on his arms and shoulders rippled as if it were
the play of a child.  Henry was in waters unknown to him.  He had
nothing more than hearsay upon which to rely, and he used all the
wilderness caution that he had acquired through nature and
training.  He called into use every faculty of his perfect
physical being.  His trained eyes continually pierced the
darkness.  At times, he stopped and listened with ears that could
hear the footfall of the rabbit, but neither eye nor ear brought
report of anything unusual.  The river flowed with a soft,
sighing sound.  Now and then a wild creature stirred in the
forest, and once a deer came down to the margin to drink, but
this was the ordinary life of the woods, and he passed it by.

He went on, hour after hour.  The river narrowed.  The banks grew
higher and rockier, and the water, deep and silvery under the
moon, flowed in a somewhat swifter current.  Henry gave a little
stronger sweep to the paddle, and the speed of the canoe was
maintained.  He still kept within the shadow of the northern
bank.

He noticed after a while that fleecy vapor was floating before
the moon.  The night seemed to be darkening, and a rising wind
came out of the southwest.  The touch of  the air on, his face
was damp.  It was the token of rain, and he felt that it would
not be delayed long.

It was no part of his plan to be caught in a storm on the
Monongahela.  Besides the discomfort, heavy rain and wind might
sink his frail canoe, and he looked for a refuge.  The river was
widening again, and the banks sank down until they were but
little above the water.  Presently he saw a place that he knew
would be suitable, a stretch of thick bushes and weeds growing
into the very edge of the water, and extending a hundred yards or
more along the shore.

He pushed his canoe far into the undergrowth, and then stopped it
in shelter so close that, keen as his own eyes were, he could
scarcely see the main stream of the river.  The water where he
came to rest was not more than a foot deep, but he remained in
the canoe, half reclining and wrapping closely around himself and
his rifle a beautiful blanket woven of the tightest fiber.

His position, with his head resting on the edge of the canoe and
his shoulder pressed against the side, was full of comfort to
him, and he awaited calmly whatever might come.  Here and there
were little spaces among the leaves overhead, and through them he
saw a moon, now almost hidden by thick and rolling vapors, and a
sky that had grown dark and somber.  The last timid star had
ceased to twinkle, and the rising wind was wet and cold.  He was
glad of the blanket, and, skilled forest runner that he was, he
never traveled without it.  Henry remained perfectly still.  The
light canoe did not move beneath his weight the fraction of an
inch.  His upturned eyes saw the little cubes of sky that showed
through the leaves grow darker and darker.  The bushes about him
were now bending before the wind, which blew steadily from the
south, and presently drops of rain began to fall lightly on the
water.

The boy, alone in the midst of all that vast wilderness,
surrounded by danger in its most cruel forms, and with a black
midnight sky above him, felt neither fear nor awe.  Being what
nature and circumstance had made him, he was conscious, instead,
of a deep sense of peace and comfort.  He was at ease, in a nest
for the night, and there was only the remotest possibility that
the prying eye of an enemy would see him.  The leaves directly
over his head were so thick that they formed a canopy, and, as he
heard the drops fall upon them, it was like the rain on a roof,
that soothes the one beneath its shelter.

Distant lightning flared once or twice, and low thunder rolled
along the southern horizon, but both soon ceased, and then a
rain, not hard, but cold and persistent, began to fall, coming
straight down.  Henry saw that it might last all night, but he
merely eased himself a little in the canoe, drew the edges of the
blanket around his chin, and let his eyelids droop.

The rain was now seeping through the leafy canopy of green, but
he did not care.  It could not penetrate the close fiber of the
blanket, and the fur cap drawn far down on his head met the
blanket.  Only his face was uncovered, and when a cold drop fell
upon it, it was to him, hardened by forest life, cool and
pleasant to the touch.

Although the eyelids still drooped, he did not yet feel the
tendency to sleep.  It was merely a deep, luxurious rest, with
the body completely relaxed, but with the senses alert.  The wind
ceased to blow, and the rain came down straight with an even beat
that was not unmusical.  No other sound was heard in the forest,
as the ripple of the river at the edges was merged into it. 
Henry began to feel the desire for sleep by and by, and, laying
the paddle across the boat in such a way that it sheltered his
face, he closed his eyes.  In five minutes he would have been
sleeping as soundly as a man in a warm bed under a roof, but with
a quick motion he suddenly put the paddle aside and raised
himself a little in the canoe, while one hand slipped down under
the folds of the blanket to the hammer of his rifle.

His ear had told him in time that there was a new sound on the
river.  He heard it faintly above the even beat of the rain, a
soft sound, long and sighing, but regular.  He listened, and then
he knew it.  It was made by oars, many of them swung in unison,
keeping admirable time.

Henry did not yet feel fear, although it must be a long boat full
of Indian warriors, as it was not likely, that anybody else would
be abroad upon these waters at such a time.  He made no attempt
to move.  Where he lay it was black as the darkest cave, and his
cool judgment told him that there was no need of flight.  

The regular rhythmic beat of the oars came nearer, and presently
as he looked through the covert of leaves the dusky outline of a
great war canoe came into view.  It contained at least twenty
warriors, of what tribe he could not tell, but they were wet, and
they looked cold and miserable.  Soon they were opposite him, and
he saw the outline of every figure.  Scalp locks drooped in the
rain, and he knew that the warriors, hardy as they might be, were
suffering.         

Henry expected to see the long boat pass on, but it was turned
toward a shelving bank fifty or sixty yards below, and they
beached it there.  Then all sprang out, drew it up on the land,
and, after turning it over, propped it up at an angle.  When this
was done they sat under it in a close group, sheltered from the
rain.  They were using their great canoe as a roof, after the
habit of Shawnees and Wyandots.

The boy watched them for a long time through one of the little
openings in the bushes, and he believed that they would remain as
they were all night, but presently he saw a movement among them,
and a little flash of light.  He understood it.  They were trying
to kindle a fire-with flint and steel, under the shelter of the
boat.  He continued to watch them 'lazily and without alarm.

Their fire, if they succeeded in making it, would cast no light
upon him in the dense covert, but they would be outlined against