The Scouts of the ValleyAltsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
General
The Scouts of the Valley
Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
Chemung River Valley (N.Y. and Pa.) -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Wyoming Valley (Pa.) -- Fiction
It was now about four o'clock in the morning. The thunder and lightning
had ceased, but the soft rain was still falling. The Indians had lighted
fires some distance away. Several carried torches. Helped by these, and,
used so long to the night, the combatants saw distinctly. The five lay
behind a low embankment, and they paid their whole attention to the big
house that sheltered Wyatt and his men. On the sides and behind they
were protected by Heemskerk and others, who faced a coming swarm.
“Keep low, Paul,” said Henry, restraining his eager comrade. “Those
fellows in the house can shoot, and we don't want to lose you. There,
didn't I tell you!”
A bullet fired from the window passed through the top of Paul's cap, but
clipped only his hair. Before the flash from the window passed, Long Jim
fired in return, and something fell back inside. Bullets came from other
windows. Shif'less Sol fired, and a Seneca fell forward banging half out
of the window, his naked body a glistening brown in the firelight. But
he hung only a few seconds. Then he fell to the ground and lay still.
The five crouched low again, waiting a new opportunity. Behind them, and
on either side, they heard the crash of the new battle and challenging
cries.
Braxton Wyatt, Coleman, four more Tories, and six Indians were still
alive in the strong log house. Two or three were wounded, but they
scarcely noticed it in the passion of conflict. The house was a
veritable fortress, and the renegade's hopes rose high as he heard
the rifle fire from different parts of the town. His own band had been
annihilated by the riflemen, led by Henry Ware, but he had a sanguine
hope now that his enemies had rushed into a trap. The Iroquois would
turn back and destroy them.
Wyatt and his comrades presented a repellent sight as they crouched in
the room and fired from the two little windows. His clothes and those
of the white men had been torn by bushes and briars in their flight, and
their faces had been raked, too, until they bled, but they had paid
no attention to such wounds, and the blood was mingled with sweat and
powder smoke. The Indians, naked to the waist, daubed with vermilion,
and streaked, too, with blood, crouched upon the floor, with the
muz'zles of their rifles at the windows, seeking something human to
kill. One and all, red and white, they were now raging savages, There
was not one among them who did not have some foul murder of woman or
child to his credit.
Wyatt himself was mad for revenge. Every evil passion in him was up and
leaping. His eyes, more like those of a wild animal than a human being,
blazed out of a face, a mottled red and black. By the side of him the
dark Tory, Coleman, was driven by impulses fully as fierce.
“To think of it!” exclaimed Wyatt. “He led us directly into a trap, that
Ware! And here our band is destroyed! All the good men that we gathered
together, except these few, are killed!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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