In Kentucky with Daniel Boone

THE GRAY LIZARD SPEAKS

Along
the trail which wound along the banks of the Yadkin, in North Carolina, rode a tall, sinewy man; he had a bronzed, resolute face, wore the hunting shirt, leggins and moccasins of the backwoods, and had hanging from one shoulder a long flint-locked rifle. A small buck, which this unerring weapon of the hunter had lately brought down, lay across his saddle bow.

Away along the trail, at a place where the river bent sharply, a cloud of dust arose in the trail; and as the hunter rode forward he kept his keen eyes upon this.

“Horsemen,” he told himself. “Two of them, I reckon, judging from the dust.”

Nearer and nearer rolled the cloud; at length the riders within it could be seen. One was a middle-aged man who rode a powerful black horse; the other was a boy of perhaps thirteen whose mount was a long-legged young horse, with a wild eye and ears that were never still.

Catching sight of the hunter, the man on the big black drew rein.

“What, Daniel!” cried he. “Well met!”

“How are you, Colonel Henderson?” replied the backwoodsman. “I didn’t calculate on seeing you to-day.”

“I rode over for the express purpose of having a talk with you,” said Colonel Henderson. “I was at your house, but they told me you’d gone away early this morning to try for some game.”

The hunter glanced down at the buck across his saddle. There was a discontented frown upon his brow.

“Yes, gone since early morning,” he said. “And this is all I got. The hunting ain’t so good in the Yadkin country as it was once. As a boy I’ve stood in the door of my father’s cabin and brought down deer big enough to be this one’s granddaddy.”

The boy on the long-legged horse bounced up and down in his saddle at this; the nag felt his excitement and began to rear and plunge.

“Steady, boy, steady,” said Colonel Henderson. “Hold him in.”

“It’s all right, uncle,” replied the lad. “He don’t mean anything by it.” Then to the hunter, as his mount became quiet: “That was good shooting, Mr. Boone, wasn’t it? And,” pointing to the carcass of the buck, “so was that. Right behind the left shoulder; and it left hardly a mark on him.”

Daniel Boone smiled.

“I always treat my old rifle well,” said he, humorously. “And she never goes back on me.”

“Some time ago I had a talk with John Finley,” said Colonel Henderson. “He told me wonderful tales of the hunting country beyond the Laurel Ridge.”
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Daniel Boone’s eyes went toward the northwest where the great mountain chain reared its peaks toward the sky until they were enveloped in a blue mist.

“Beyond the Laurel Ridge,” said he, “there is a country such as no man has ever seen before. Such hills and valleys, such forests and streams and plains can only be in one place in the world. And there are deer and bear and fur animals; and buffalo cover the plains. Also,” and a grim look came into his face, “there are redskins!”

There was a short silence; Colonel Henderson looked at the backwoodsman very thoughtfully.

“For some time,” said he, “it has seemed to me that these settlements are not what they should be. The laws enforced by the British governor Tryon, have sown discontent among the people. New emigrants go to other places where there are better laws and less taxes.”

Daniel Boone nodded.

“Tax gatherers, magistrates, lawyers and such like live like aristocrats,” said he, “and the farmers and other settlers are asked to support them. We are here in the settlements, it seems, for no other purpose than to give these fellows a soft living. And they take our money and treat us like servants. A peddler who hucksters among the Indians is thought a better man than the one who has cut a form out of the wilderness with his axe.”

There was a bitterness in the man’s tone which seemed to please the other.

“There are a great many who feel just as you do about it,” said he. “And it was this very thing that I rode over to speak about.”

Daniel Boone shook his head.

“Signing writings and sending them to Tryon will do no good,” said he. “He’s a tyrant and understands nothing but oppression.” Then in a longing tone, his eyes on the distant hills, “I wish I were away from the Yadkin for good and all. No man can be free here as long as we have public officers who think of nothing but plunder.”

“As I said before,” said Colonel Henderson, in a satisfied tone, “there are a great many others who are of the same way of thinking as you. But they have nowhere to go; if a new country was opened for them, they would sell their farms, pack their goods upon their horses’ backs and be gone.”

There was something in the speaker’s tone that took the attention of the backwoodsman. His keen eyes studied Colonel Henderson’s face; but he said nothing.

“Ever since I heard Finley talk of the country beyond the ridge,” said the colonel, resuming after a moment, “I’ve felt that such a rare region should be opened up for settlement.”

“Right!” cried Daniel Boone and his eyes began to glow.

“But,” said the colonel, “I’ve also felt that it should not be done until the country was explored further—until it had been penetrated to its interior, until its streams were worked out on a chart, a trail made for the passage of emigrants and the most promising places fixed upon for settlements.”

“Right again,” said Daniel Boone. “I’ve been in the country and so have Finley and some others; but none of us has studied it. To do that would take a year or more; and to live a year so far from the settlements a man would have to make up his mind to troubles from the Indians.”

“The Shawnees claim it,” said the colonel. “If it is what I want, I will buy it from them.”

“It’s a hunting-ground for Cherokees, Shawnees and Chickasaws,” said Boone, and he shook his head as he spoke. “So far as I could see, it belonged to all of them. And it’s a fighting place; when two hunting parties meet, the hatchet, knife and arrow begin their work.”

Once more the colonel regarded the backwoodsman attentively.

“I never knew the prospect of danger or hard work to hold you back in anything you wanted to do,” he said.

Boone laughed.

“I’ve always tried not to let them, I reckon,” said he.

“This fall,” and the colonel spoke slowly, “I am going to send an exploring party into the northwest country; and later, if it’s what I think it is, I’ll want a party of trail makers and a man to treat with the Shawnees. How would you like to take charge of this matter for me?”

For a moment Boone sat his horse, staring at the speaker.

“You mean it?” he said, at last.

“I do.”

The backwoodsman held out a strong brown hand; Colonel Henderson gripped it.

“I’m with you,” said Boone, in a tone of deep satisfaction. “It’s a thing I’ve been sort of dreaming of for years. That great region, now given over to the Indian hunters and wild beasts, is calling the white man. I heard its voice as I stood among the lonely hills, in the forests, and upon the banks of its rivers. Once there with their families, their plows and their horses, their cabins built, the settler will meet——”

“Death!” said a strange voice; and, startled, both Boone and Colonel Henderson turned their eyes in the direction from which it came.

An Indian stood there—an ancient savage, clad in skins upon which were painted queer symbols. Strings of amulets, bears’ claws and the teeth of foxes and wolves hung about him; his face was lined with the deep wrinkles of great age, his eyes were small, black, and glittered coldly like those of a snake.

“What, Gray Lizard!” said Boone, in surprise. “Are you here?”

The old Indian advanced a step or two, supporting himself by a long staff. Keenly the serpent eyes gazed at the three whites.

“Death will meet the paleface,” said he. “He will never build his lodge in the country beyond the mountains. Let him once pass the great gap, and he is no more.”

Boone laughed.

“I’ve been through the gap, Gray Lizard,” he said, good-naturedly; “and so have other white men. And we still live.”

The cold eyes fixed themselves upon the resolute face; one skinny finger was lifted until it pointed at Boone’s breast.

“You have,” said Gray Lizard. “You have, and you are marked. Let your rifle once more break the silence of the hills or ring over the waters of the red man’s rivers, and your death song is sung.”

Then he turned to Colonel Henderson, and continued:

“And you, white chief, take care! The Gray Lizard has known these many moons of what you mean to do, and now he warns you. If you love your friends, do not send them beyond the Laurel Ridge. For in the wilderness their fate awaits them at the hands of the Shawnees.”

He turned and was about to go; then he paused, and added:

“The Gray Lizard is old. He has seen many things. He knew the Yadkin when the white man was a stranger on its banks. Take warning by his words: do not venture beyond the blue hills.”

Then, his long staff ringing on the stones, he went limping down the trail.