The Phantom of the River — Story, Setting & Ideas

"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?"

"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."

"I should say he was--ruther," replied Kenton, with a grin over the surprise of his older companion. "That chap sneaked onto the boat last night, believing he had a chance to clean us all out. Of course, I knowed what was up, but The Panther made a powerful big mistake. He got mixed up with that darkey you seed--his name is Jethro Juggens--and you may shoot me if the darkey didn't throw him down and hold him fast till we made him prisoner."

Boone had heard something of this extraordinary exploit, but he looked questioningly at Kenton, as though he could hardly credit the fact.

"It's all as true as Gospel. We kept Wa-on-mon, which the same is The Panther, till late that night, when Mr. Ashbridge and Altman and me went over in a canoe to the other flatboat, which the Shawanoes had cleaned out, to even up accounts with 'em. Sime Girty was with 'em, but they left afore we got to the craft, and we sot it afire and come back."

"I seed the light last night, but didn't know what it was."

"While we was gone, Mr. Altman's darter, Agnes (she ain't much more than a child), felt so sorry for The Panther, thinking, too, that I meant to shove him under, that she cut the cords that bound him--"

"What a fool of a gal!"