The Phantom of the River   By: Edward Sylvester Ellis (1840-1916)

THE PHANTOM OF THE RIVER

A SEQUEL TO "SHOD WITH SILENCE"

BY EDWARD S. ELLIS

AUTHOR OF "THE LOG CABIN SERIES," "DEERFOOT SERIES," "WYOMING SERIES," ETC.

PHILADELPHIA HENRY T. COATES & CO. COPYRIGHT, 1896,

[Illustration: BOONE AND KENTON.]

CONTENTS.

I. LONGING FOR NIGHT

II. THE CAWING OF A CROW

III. THE HALT IN THE WOODS

IV. ON THE EDGE OF THE CLEARING

V. DARING AND DELICATE WORK

VI. THE RIGHT OF EMINENT DOMAIN

VII. A QUESTION OF OWNERSHIP

VIII. BY THE WAY

IX. THE "ACCIDENT"

X. AT RATTLESNAKE GULCH

XI. WATCHING AND WAITING

XII. CARRYING THE WAR INTO AFRICA

XIII. UNKIND FATE

XIV. THE INTRUDER

XV. A DARK PROSPECT

XVI. SIMON KENTON IN A PANIC

XVII. A RUN OF GOOD FORTUNE

XVIII. "IT'S AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NOBODY ANY GOOD"

XIX. A FELLOW PASSENGER

XX. WAR'S STRATEGY

XXI. THE PHANTOM OF THE RIVER

XXII. PUTTING OUT FROM SHORE

XXIII. THE SHAWANOE CAMP

XXIV. THE FORLORN HOPE

XXV. FACE TO FACE

XXVI. IN THE LION'S DEN

XXVII. THE LAST RECOURSE

XXVIII. THE RETURN

XXIX. SQUARING ACCOUNTS

XXX. CONCLUSION

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

BOONE AND KENTON.

JETHRO IN TROUBLE.

THE PHANTOM BOAT.

THE MISSIONARY'S TRIUMPH.

PHANTOM OF THE RIVER.

CHAPTER I.

LONGING FOR NIGHT.

"I think there's trouble ahead, Dan'l."

"There isn't any doubt of it, Simon."

The first remark was made by the famous pioneer ranger, Simon Kenton, and the second fell from the lips of the more famous Daniel Boone.

It was at the close of a warm day in August, more than a century ago, that these veterans of the woods came together for the purpose of consultation. They had threaded their way along parallel lines, separated by hardly a furlong, for a mile from their starting point, when the above interchange of views took place.

Boone had kept close to the Ohio while stealthily moving eastward, while Kenton took the same course, gliding more deeply among the shadows of the Kentucky forest until, disturbed by the evidence of danger, he trended to the left and met Boone near the river.

The two sat down on a fallen tree, side by side, and, while talking in low tones, did not for a moment forget their surroundings. They had lived too long in the perilous wilderness to forget that there was never a moment when a pioneer was absolutely safe from the fierce or stealthy red man.

"Dan'l," said Kenton, in that low, musical voice which was one of his most marked characteristics, "this 'ere bus'ness has took the qu'arest shape of anything that you or me have been mixed up in."

"I haven't been mixed up in it, Simon," corrected Boone, turning his somewhat narrow, but clean shaven face upon the other, and smiling gently in a way that brought the wrinkles around a pair of eyes as blue as those of Kenton himself.

"Not yet, but you're powerful sartin to be afore them folks reach the block house."

Boone nodded his head to signify that he agreed with his friend.

"You wasn't at the block house, Dan'l, when the flatboat stopped there?"

"No."

"Neither was I; I was tramping through the woods on my way to make a call on Mr. Ashbridge."

"That's the man who put up the cabin a mile back down the river?"

"Yes; you see Norman Ashbridge or his son George and the same is a powerful likely younker come down the Ohio last spring in their flatboat, and stopped at the clearing a mile below us, where they put up a tidy cabin. A few weeks ago the father started east to bring down his family in another flatboat. George, the younker, got tired of waiting and set out to meet 'em; him and me come together in the woods, and had a scrimmage with the varmints afore we got on the boat with 'em. Things were purty warm on the way down the river, for The Panther made matters warm for us."

"The Panther!" repeated Boone, turning toward his friend; "I was afraid he was mixed up in this."