Show OLIVER LIVBSATJSP STRATAGE1I I StlATAGEJI Ion o Clever Ijticl Savcal Fort Hniitcr From in Indian JSInssncre About sunrise of a crisp October mor i ninjj in the year 175G Oliver Lindsay a slim sunburned ladj of 15 was standing on the platform A the Fort Hunter stockade looking very discontentedly at the autumn landscape As far ai he I could see russet and gold tinted mountains I moun-tains sloped to the shores of the broad Susuehanna Below him and a few I feet to one side a stolidlooking sentry paced before the wide open gates From j I I face of Peters Mountain droppped Into I j the Susquehanna and he could see the I very clump of trees behind which the I home clearing stood He remeirtbera that in the hasty preparation for flight he had concealed his fowling bpat under bushes at the mouth of the run What was to prevent his getting it now and paddling down the river to the fort There was no obstacle Us far as Oliver could see A short tramp through the forest would bring him to his home and the river was close by I was far quicker and easier to return by that route than by the way he had come Danger from Indians did not occur to I him The more he thought of the plan the more he liked i He felt a strong desire to see how the place looked after a week of solitude Perhaps the chickens and i ducks had not been able to scratch a I living for themselves and were dying of starvation or Brown Bess the cow which his father had driven far into the I woods had returned to the empty stable and had missed the companionship of the two horses who by this time had carried i i I I delphia car-ried Mr Lindsay and his wife to Phila j From pimply wishing Oliver easily persuaded per-suaded himself that it was his bounden duty to visit the settlement when so convenient an opportunity < offered With a glance at the hazy sun he scrambled scram-bled down the slope to the heavy forest I below and struck briskly off in a beeline bee-line for Peters Mountain Before long he recognized familiar spots Here was the pool of the brook I where he had snared the big trout and thpe the clump of hazel bushes in which t he had roused and shot his first pheasant yHt 4 t i i f 1 L a = c I S = a HE UTTERED A GUI OF FEIGNED AGONY the low log structure of the fort proper behind the lad came the eager prattle pratte of children the shril voices of women and the rattle of tinware In the yard a few scattered groups of soldiers were lighting their after breakfast pipes or polishing muskets and cleaning their flintlock It was more than a year after Brad docks disastrous defeat near Fort Duq uesne and the murderous Shawnees and Delawares in their slow and unopposed advance with scalping knife and tomahawk toma-hawk had penetrated to this part of the Province of Pennsylvania At least they had been in the vicinity of Shamokin a a week before at which time the scattered scat-tered settlers had flocked in haste tothe recently constructed forts along the riverA river-A dozen families niere tinder the protection pro-tection of Fort Hunter which was garrisoned gar-risoned by two sergeants and thirty four privates 11 Lindsay with his wife had gone on to Philadelphia to urge the need of more efficient protection upon up-on the Assembly leaving Oliver in care of neighbors at the fort I was a dull and monotonous experience for the lad and he heartily wished himself back at his cosy home near the base of Peters mountain All through the summer he had looked forward to the joys of October Oct-ober Now instead of gathering nuts for winter or tracking deer and smaller I game he was a prisoner behind the tall stockade He could better haVe stood danger and excitement but there was not even that to relieve the irksonieness of life at the fort No Indian atrocities had occurred within thirty miles and the scouts who went out daily reported no signs of savages sav-ages The settlors themselves were discontented dis-contented and Imitted that they had their homes been hasty in abandoning while the fat thit the gates were left whie open by day shoWed plainly what the soldiers thought of the situation Id like to stretch my legs on the Id lke mountain and pick up a few chestnuts Oliver remarked to the sentry below Olver Theyre just dropping out of the burrs now I wonder if theres any danger Private Gideon Gimble having an exalted ex-alted idea of his own dignity and of the rigid duties of his post frowned slightly by dutes replj But Sergeant Piper who champfl to he passing along overheard over-heard the latter part of Olivers remark Dont IJ afraid sonny he said reassuringly re-assuringly Your hair aint in any danger oV bein fled Why Id make my afterdavit there aint a redskin within with-in forty miles They know better than to meddle with provincial troops an as long as you people stay in this ort youre safe I didnt mean that Oliver tegan indignantly out the acri nr hd already indignanty ready paced ou of hoaring and was re gotiating a loan of tobacco from his fellow officer I ofce A moment later Oliver jumped down from the platform and thoughtfully crossed the yard Sergeant Piper says theres no danger he reflected and he ought to know 1m just ravenous lor chestnuts I neednt go far und can easily be back before Im missed He entered the blockhouse and when he came out the rear door two minutes af 4 I jc I I I I I I fIbd J 4 t i He flair the Last of the Imlirus Just Vanishing I i I terward he had an empty powder bag stuffed into his pocket A glance around satisfied him that the coast was clear He mounted the stockade on the river side climbed over and dropped lightly down into thegras From the bluff on which the fort stood the lad descended to the ravine of the creek and after following this for half i a mile he struck across the thick timber 1 i tim-ber to the first mountain The chestnuts chest-nuts were not so plentiful as he had expected < i ex-pected and he trudged up one side of i the mountain and down the other He i sorely wished that he had his gun along i i for quail and turkeys constantly strt < dup d-up before him and once he caught a distant glimpse of a deer I Beguiled by the beauty of the day and toy the intoxication of his freedom oliver strayed across the valley to what was I known as Little Mountain where ho filled his bag with chestnuts In n short time I was now long pait noon and he ruefully discovered that he Was hUh fuIj gry and a good distance from the forf AS he lay stretched on the sunny slope ot a rock partly up the mountain moun-tain a bright idea occitrrcd ta hlm Qnly a mile and a half away the sharp o r I At last he broke from the shadowy I oak and chestnut timber into the meagre clearing where stood the log house and I stable As he Paused with a natural instinct I in-stinct of caution he felt a sharp pang at the contrast betwen his life here pang at I the fort lfe All seemed quiet and peacful so he I crossed a field of corn stubble to the I stable The door was still closed and m there was no sign of Brown Bess The I chickens were scratching about as calmly as though they had not been at the mercy of fourfooted prowlers for a week past and the occasional quack I of a happy duck came from the hidden channel of the run at the foot of the clearing I A few steps farther brought Oliver to I Olver I the house and he opened the door and entered He glanced carelessly through I I the two lower rooms noting that what furniture had been too heavy to take to the fort was undisturbed Next he climbed the rickety steps to the loft overhead where he knew that some maple sugar was stored in a cranny of the rafters He easily found i and was I rolling a delicious morsel in his mouth I when a noise outside stiffened his limbs I I with terror stffened lmbs I He heard footsteps on the frosty 1 ground the cackling of frightened and fleeing fowls and the gutteral tones of several human voices Then the in I j I truders came into the house and moc I I casined feet shuffled softly over the floor II I I Indians of course was Olivers instant I In-stant conviction For a minute he simply sim-ply could not move from fright and his throbbing heart seemed to come clear up I into his mouth A resistless fascination kept his eyes on the opening at the head I of the steps where he expected an In dians scalp lock to appear every second At the same time he could see the out lines of one shuttered window of the j loft but he dared not stir to reach i nor could he have opened the shutter I without a noisy creaking of the rusty hinges When the suspense was more than the I lad could endure and no prying feet had yet been planted on the steps he noiselessly noise-lessly lowered himself to his hands and laces let go of the bag of nuts and crept a few inches to a spacious crack in the floor He looked timidly down and saw enough to make his blood run cold Directly beneath him and close to the kitchen chimney stood seven Indians both Delawares and Shawanees They were armed with muskets and toma urme hawks and their brutal faces were hideously hide-ously streaked with red and yellow ochre One had a reeking scalp dangling from his belt and several wore faded and greasy red coats that evidently belonged to some of Braddocks illfated soldiers Another to whose face a broken nose lent a most ferocious aspect held in n01e hand a pair of plump hens which he had I captured and killed outside From his words and gestures he seemed anxious to I make a fire In the chimney and cook the I fowls To this the others plainly objected and after they had talked for awhile in low and broken English Oliver suddenly I discovered that they were on tneir way to attack Fort Hunter The lad now almost forgot his own peril as he listened keenly for lurther information informa-tion and before long his patience was amply rewarded He learned that the Indians In-dians below him were the advance guard of a larger force which thev expected to join shortly at the foot of Peters Mountain Moun-tain Then they planned to push on to Fort Hunter reach it before sunset and For through the gates I appeared that scouts had apprised them of how easily the fort could be taken by surprise and of the feeling of confidence and security that prevailed there Though Oliver knew that his situation was still very critical the uppermost sti ver thought in his mind was to thwart the threatened attack and he saw pretty clearly how It could he done prwided the opportunity was given hIm Hurry up and go you painted fiends he whispered whis-pered under his breath Then well spe who gets to the fort first Oh but youll suffer for all the settlers youve murdered mur-dered However the Indians were provokingly slow about going They kept talking and gesturing and all the time Oliver shivered shiv-ered and perspired for fear they would take a notion to explore the loft But finally after ransacking a chest of drawers and slashing i with their tomahawks toma-hawks the whole party slouched out of the door and their soft tread faded from hearing Doubtless mere curiosity hid drawn them to the house pr the nope that it WIC still inhabited Oliver did not dare to stir for several Olver seveal minutes though I seemed a much longer time thnn that owing to his excited stnte of mind Then he rose stretched his cramped legs n bit and cautiously ile sended the steps to the lower floor The house stood near the southwest corner cor-ner of the clearing and looked toward the river From the door a narrow rod with bushes on each side led straight for fifty yards to the thick chestnut timber several sev-eral hundred yards to the right lay the base of the mountain and a short distance dis-tance to the left the clearing was bounded bound-ed by the channel of the run i Oliver hurried first to the righthind end of the house and peening through a I crevice of the logs saw tne last or the Indians oa r1i OfnsaJc rockv thickets of the mountain He waited a little longer long-er to better his chances of escaping observation obser-vation and then crawled on hands and knees out of the door He rose to his ret as soon PS he was fairly started down the I road and stooping low he ran swiftly between be-tween the bushes and tall grass I 1 He was close to the shelter of the trees when the steht of a copnercoorpd snake squirming across the path causd him tot to-t rt back and spring pn > ct Instantly but too late he repented his imnrudenre hut cracked sharnly his A musket sharly on right and he felt a bullet whistle bv his ear Oliver was badlv frlghtfned but he had his share of the pluck and grit that nmle the settlers of those early jlavs what they were As he plunged into the timb ° r a second report rang out and a bunch of leaves was nipped from a sapling at his Hide He sped on like a deer wisely keeping keep-ing to the road where he roulcl make the be3t arced He now heard no sound of Yurault but well he knew that the crafty savages were coming swiftly and silently on lila track Faster and faster the lnl ran V hat if hatit the boat should be gotH The thougijt struck a chill of gODi his he thouJt that event all hope of life vas gone as t = well On the boat hung his only chance of escaping tha tomahawlciof savlnc the occupants of thE fort fronj a like tai The remembrance < that other lives than his own were at stake kept UP his courage cour-age and strength but he was badly winded ly ed when he came to where the road swerved to ford the run Here he took to the shallow channel leaping rocks ant logs and splashing through pools At last ne caught a glimmer of the broad river ahead and an instant later he eagerly tore apart a clump of water plrcnes He uttered a low cry of delight for there was the boat just as he had left I the paddle stll lying on the bottom Oliver quickly dragged the light craft over sand and gravel and launched it on the swift gvel the river He tum bled in and began to paddle with all his might for midstream Hope thrilled his heart as he glanced back between the strokes The shore was thirty yards be hind forty fifty Ah there they were Out from the bushes leapt I the painted savages and a bloodcurdling whoop echoed from moun echoe tain to mountain Two muskets cracked but still the darin lad paddled on hoping to increase the distance before droppuig under cover But a third shot tore the paddle from his grasp and then quickly a clever ruse flashed into his mind He ut tered a cry of feigned agony tossed up his arms and fell limply to the bottom of the boat There was silence for a moment and then the bullets began to whistle Some flew overhead ahd some spatterd the water wa-ter roundabout half a dozen pierced the sdes of the boat but luckily did not harm the prostrate lad Finally the fusillade ended and not a scund was heard but the riDDlinc of the current The Indians clearly believed that the fugitive was dead and not worth the waste of more powder and ball The boat drifted on and on now pitch ing and tossing amid rapids now grinding on submerged rocks and grassbars Oliver ver did not dare to rise He knew that the current trended toward midstream and in this thought there was comfort and cheer For fully half an hour he lay on his back gazing up at the blue October sky Then satisfied that the danger was past he sat up and looked about Peters fountain was hidden by a bend of the river and there was no trace of the Indians In-dians on the shore With part of his shirt he plugged up several of the bulletholes that were leaking and then started to paddle lustily In a little less than an hour Oliver landed land-ed under the stockade of Fort Hunger and walked calmly through the open gate There had been considerable anxiety anxie-ty over his absence but no one had a word of reproof for the brave Ia when he had related his thrilling adventurer At sunset the Indians arrived doubtless disappointed to find the gates closed The watchful seiftries discovered them lurkihg in the timber and they were greeted with so hot and scattering a fire that they retreated re-treated in haste leaving three dead behind be-hind During the perilous week that followed fol-lowed Fort Hunter was not molested and In time the settlers went safely back to rebuild on the charred embers of their homes JL G |