SIGHTING THE ENEMY
Like the slow lapping of black water the bands of creeping Indians
ebbed forward. Frank Lawrence held his rifle ready to fire at the word;
and as he stood waiting, he wondered why the command was not given.
But Jack Davis was observant; he had planned the direction of their
attempt with an eye to probabilities; and what he had figured upon
happening came about in due course. Upon this side of the knoll, but
some distance from it, there was a shallow ravine; when the Creeks on
this side advanced to the attack earlier in the day, they split their
forces at this ravine and came on in two separate bodies. The boy took
a desperate chance upon the same thing’s happening in the darkness,
and so had led the way, with the ravine directly ahead.
Slowly the creeping redskins moved forward up the knoll; they passed
within a dozen yards upon either side of the crouching group and
continued unaware of the situation. A minute passed, then another--and
when Frank had finally despaired, in the suspense, of Jack’s ever
giving the word to go on, it came. Cautiously they urged their animals
on down the slope; they were now behind the Creeks; ahead was the
whole wide wilderness. A hundred yards or more from the spot where the
savages passed them on the hillside, Jack whispered:
“Mount! But go slowly.”
They clambered into the saddle; Running Elk, who had clung to the
packhorse during all, kept the faithful beast beside his own horse as
they rode along. After having gone something less than a mile they
heard a yell, faint, but high pitched and exultant, from the distance;
rifles cracked and a flare of light lit the sky.
“They’ve reached the summit of the knoll,” spoke Jack. “And they’ve let
drive with everything they had.”
After the scattering of shots there was a short pause; a murmur, dull
and sustained, came from the direction of their late fort; then, as
though the Indians had just realized the escape of their intended
victims, a screech of rage, hate and disappointment swept the still
night with shuddering intensity.
“I’m as well satisfied that we didn’t fall into the hands of those
gentlemen,” observed Frank, as they rode away at a gallop. “I don’t
think they’d stop at much.”
“The Creeks are not the merciful kind,” said Jack. “And they seldom
take prisoners.”
“Creek burn and scalp,” stated Running Elk, calmly. “Him no good.”
They rode all that night in order to put as much distance between them
and the savage bands as possible; in the morning they had breakfast,
saw to their horses and rested for a few hours; then they were off
again.
During that day they came upon innumerable Indian signs; in the course
of the next they sighted a small party of Creeks headed through
the forest, and toward evening they all but stumbled upon a large
encampment.
“It looks as though they were gathering for trouble,” said Frank. “The
woods are alive with them.”
“Like as not runners have been sent out to the different villages that
the Prophet is here,” said Jack. “And, of course, they are all anxious
to see him and hear his medicine.”
“Much war,” said Running Elk, as they made away from the vicinity of
the savage camp. “Creeks and Shawnee burn blockhouse and white face
tepees.”
“Do you think they’ll start soon?” asked Jack.
“No.” The Cherokee hunter shook his head. “Not yet. After the snow’s
gone from hills. Tribes all join together. Heap fight.”
“That sounds like the facts,” nodded the young borderer to Frank.
“It’ll take some time for Tecumseh to get the tribes together for the
blow--if he can do it at all.”
“Next spring, then, a big outbreak may be expected?” said Frank.
“Maybe not so soon. But it will come, sooner or later, mark my words.
The Injuns are about ripe for it.”
That night they were unable to light a fire because of the closeness
of the Indian bands; and the greater part of the next day they were
forced to remain in hiding because of the parties of savages constantly
encountered. This went on for some days; they were unable to cook their
food the greater part of the time, and had little real rest, for it
was necessary to guard against surprise every moment.
After about a week of this sort of thing, Jack, one morning, said to
Frank:
“It doesn’t seem as though we were going to locate your father’s land
grant in a hurry, does it?”
Frank shook his head.
“No,” said he. “We’ll never be able to move in that direction now. It
must be alive with Indians.”
“Too bad,” said Jack. “And we were just on the edge of it, too.”
“What do you think we’d better do?” asked Frank.
“Well, we can’t go back to Tennessee,” replied the young borderer.
“That would be as dangerous as trying to locate the land marked on your
chart. About the only thing I can see for the present, at least, is to
make our way south to Mobile, and halt there for a while until this
excitement among the redskins dies out.”
“Good,” said Frank. And the Cherokee hunter grunted his approval.
So from that time on their attempt was not in the direction of
Tallapoosa, but toward the fort which stood overlooking the bay at
Mobile.
This they searched after a tremendous effort through the wild country;
and when they appeared at the stockade, they were stared at in
amazement.
“Well, youngsters,” greeted a bluff old officer, who seemed to be
in command, “where did you come from?” And when they told him, and
related some of their experiences, he and the group of soldiers and
frontiersmen who had grouped about opened their eyes still wider.
“Well,” said the commandant, shaking his head, “you’ve had great good
fortune, lads. The country you’ve just come out of must be as thick
with excited Injuns as a hive is with bees. I wouldn’t venture in there
with less than five hundred men.”
Mobile and the section thereabouts was fairly well defended, and had
little to fear from an uprising of the Indians alone.
“But the British are getting active,” the boys were told; “they are
sending in supplies to the redskins; and the Spaniards are helping
them.”
This condition of affairs held during the fall; the boys saw the winter
come and spring show itself in its thousands of green shoots and
blooms, and still they were forced to remain at Mobile.
The whole Indian country was surcharged with the madness excited in
the people by the religious frenzies of the Prophet, who in turn
was directed by the shrewd mind of Tecumseh. But some of the tribes
through whose country he passed, like the Cherokees, the Choctaws
and Chickasaws, turned a deaf ear to his plotting, for they had the
wisdom to see that his plans could not succeed. But the others gave the
Shawnees their attention, for with England’s aid they felt that they
could finally overthrow the other white men.
During the fall while the boys were safe in Mobile, the news came that
Tecumseh and the Prophet had visited Toockabatcha, the great village
of the Creeks. There were fully five thousand warriors of that nation
assembled in the town; the Shawnee chief and the magician, painted and
bedecked with all the trappings of savage custom, made their last great
appeal. The British officers had told the Prophet that a comet was to
appear--giving him the exact time; and the wily savage now used this
information to good advantage. Rising before the assembled Creeks in
all the impressiveness of paint and ornaments, he proclaimed:
“The Great Spirit will give you a sign. And when that sign comes, the
Muscogee must take the war-path. You will see the arm of Tecumseh, the
great chief, in the sky. It will be of fire and will be held out to
destroy the paleface.”
This prediction made a great impression upon the superstitious Creeks.
A saying of Tecumseh, which that leader had probably not meant to be
taken literally, also caused great excitement among the savages. A
Creek chief known to the white settlers of Alabama as “Big Warrior” had
refused to believe that the Great Spirit had sent Tecumseh among them.
With upraised hand the Shawnee had said to him:
“You do not believe me, chief of the Muscogees; you think I speak with
a crooked tongue. But you shall believe. When I leave your country I
will go to Detroit; when I reach there I will stamp my foot upon the
earth; and the wigwams of this village will tremble.”
Unquestionably what Tecumseh meant was that the effects of the war
which would begin upon his reaching the region of the Great Lakes would
be felt as far as Toockabatcha; nevertheless a strange thing is said to
have happened. About the time in which he must have reached Detroit,
a sharp shock of earthquake shook almost the whole of the Creek
country; and the wigwams of Toockabatcha did, indeed, reel and tremble.
Instantly the Indians recalled the Shawnee’s words and were filled with
fear.
“Tecumseh has reached Detroit!” they cried. “He has struck the earth
with his foot and it has trembled.”
This was in December, 1812, and the entire Gulf region was affected by
this earth tremor. At about the same time the predicted comet appeared
in the sky; and the credulity of the Creeks at once saw in it the fiery
arm of Tecumseh.
“War with the white man!” ran through the nation of the Muscogee. “War!
The Great Spirit has commanded it!”
Through the remainder of the winter and the next spring, clashes
took place between the military and the Indians, who were preparing
for the war. Settlers were attacked, hunters were driven from their
trapping grounds. At Burnt Corn, a number of whites and half-breeds
were assembled for mutual protection; the Creeks attacked, defeated
and scattered them. Farms were abandoned, the settlers flocking to the
numerous stockades to await the expected onslaught.
Having remained idle, so far as their mission was concerned, through
the fall, the winter and the spring, Jack and Frank, together with
Running Elk, made up their minds that they could not afford to waste
any more time. So, in the month of July, in spite of the protests of
the friends they had made at Mobile, they took horse and rode into the
wilderness once more.
“It’s a risk,” admitted Jack to his comrades, “but, then, we can’t wait
forever.”
“I’d rather face the Creeks than the clock,” stated Frank. “They were
the longest hours I ever spent toward the last.”
As for the young Cherokee hunter, he seemed greatly pleased with the
venture; the danger, instead of being dreaded in his case, was welcomed.
“Brave must fight,” said he, elatedly. “Not like squaw or papoose.”
“Well, I’d just as leave dodge any fighting at the odds we’ll have
to give,” said Jack, drily. “But,” and there was a hopeful note in
his voice, “maybe we’ll not be molested much. You see,” to Frank,
“that section of the Alabama River where the triple oaks stand has
no white settlers; and the Indians at this time are mustering in the
neighborhoods they mean to attack. We might go through the entire grant
which you’re looking for and not see a single redskin.”
“I hope that turns out the case,” remarked Frank, though it was plain
he had no strong expectations of the affair’s proving so. “But let us
keep a good lookout, just the same. I haven’t had but a few brushes
with the Creeks, but I know they have a habit of turning up just at
the time you’re not expecting them.”
But it so happened Jack Davis’ judgment of the conditions of affairs
along that section of the river was quite correct. At most times it
would have been the region in which to find the Creeks the thickest;
but, save for a few villages occupied by old men, and women and
children, there were no braves to be seen. Signs were everywhere of
parties having passed that way; they came upon the blackened remains of
a half hundred camp-fires; but not a single eagle feather was visible
anywhere about; not a bow twanged, not a war cry sounded.
Jack Davis was greatly interested in the movements of the parties who
had camped on and moved across their track.
“Every one of them is headed for the settlements,” said he. “There must
be thousands of them.”
However, they knew that the uprising was expected, and felt that the
military authorities and backwoodsmen were alert; so they concerned
themselves with the object of their expedition alone. The triple oaks
were once more sighted; unmolested this time, they studied the chart
upon the deerskin scroll; one by one they located the landmarks set
down, blazed trees with their hatchets and explored. The result of five
days’ work was that the old grant was shown to be a splendidly located
one, having every natural advantage.
“It’s worth thousands,” said Jack, who had a fairly keen eye for such
things. “If the Injuns are ever brought to see things in the right
light, your father has a fortune here.”
With this fact greatly comforting him, Frank was willing to turn once
more toward the settlements; so after one night more in the river bank
camp, they took to the saddle and headed for the Tennessee line. After
the first day, unmistakable signs of Indians compelled them to change
their course somewhat; the twilight of the second day found them in the
forest amid a perfect maze of fresh trails.
“They seem to be all around us,” said Jack, as they brought up at last,
and sat their horses looking about them.
And he was right; for as the twilight deepened into dusk, and dusk into
night, they saw the red twinkle of Creek camp-fires on every hand.