UNCLE AMASA’S NEWS
Brush College was having its long deferred holiday. The candy and
raisins had come from Marietta, and all the young people of the
settlement, as well as most of the older ones, had gathered to see the
ark off, and celebrate its departure with unusual festivities.
Uncle Amasa was not there. He had gone to join Jimmy at their little
cabin, a fortnight or so earlier, and had not yet returned. He was to
bring Jimmy with him. Marion had consented to take him on the ark.
Two bonfires gleamed ruddily on the creek bank, where a fiddle’s moving
strains rose and fell, blending to a chorus of joyous voices and much
laughter. Just within the mouth of Fish Creek, where the swollen current
of the Ohio “backs up” the smaller stream, lay the ark of 1803, laden
with everything which such craft carried, and ready to cast off in the
morning. The crew of seventeen hardy fellows had come together, young
frontiersmen, ready to brave all the perils and hardships of a voyage of
a hundred days, exposed every day of it to wreck and hostile bullet. New
Orleans was farther away to these pioneer youths of Ohio than is
Australia to us, and the voyage thither was subject to a hundred times
greater perils. Yet every year an increasing number of these unwieldy
arks made the long voyage, and the arksmen rendered a good account of
themselves against all enemies by the way, and steering warily past snag
and shoal, made the wished-for port, shrewdly trafficked their cargoes
and, late in the year, got back to Ohio, Kentucky or Pennsylvania, with
pockets well lined with Spanish gold, and packs replete with trinkets.
For then, as now, the settlers’ wives, daughters and sweethearts longed
for silk gowns and bonnets à la mode, laced kerchiefs and jeweled combs;
and much hard work at the pioneer clearings unquestionably earned them.
The Ohio was rising, steadily rising, much as it had risen every spring
for thousands of years previously, much as it has risen for a hundred
years since. Yet, how unlike the Ohio of the present day it was!
Only a few scattered clearings then notched the virgin forests that
stretched along its banks from Cairo to Pittsburgh. Cairo, in fact, did
not then exist. Louisville and Cincinnati were but two pioneer hamlets,
hardly known to each other.
No steamboat had as yet made the shores resound to its whistle; no
suspension bridges spanned the broad stream. Lurking parties of hostile
Indians lay in ambush at the narrower reaches of the channel; and, at
certain points, still-more-to-be-dreaded bands of white outlaws had
their haunts and lay in wait to rob the adventurous “arks” that floated
down the river to seek their distant and only market at the French city
of the Gulf.
The river craft of those days were indeed picturesque, and
characteristic, too, of Yankee skill and ingenuity.
The ark, also called the broadhorn, often of seventy or eighty tons
burden, a hundred feet in length, fifteen or sixteen feet of beam, was a
great rude, home-hewn craft, usually decked, generally roofed over, and
intended, as its name signified, to carry a little of everything.
There was also the “keel,”—a long, slim, graceful boat, of from fifteen
to thirty tons burden, steered by a rudder instead of the long “sweep”
of the ark, and often propelled up-stream by oars and poles.
And even when to these are added the barges, skiffs and ferry flats, but
an inadequate idea is gained of the number and variety of these craft;
for there were the horse-boats, having rude paddle-wheels propelled by
horse-power instead of steam, the cordelle-boats, the floating
“smithies,” or blacksmiths’ boats, the tinman’s boats, the floating
grist mills, the traveling drygoods stores, that regularly plied up and
down this great waterway, and lastly the brigs and ships, built at
Marietta, that carried cargoes down to New Orleans and thence passed out
to sea, bound for foreign ports.
Rhythmic waves from the turbid, mighty current, sweeping past the creek
mouth, beat into it at intervals, causing the heavy ark to rock slowly
at its moorings. Fitfully then could be heard the impatient trampling of
horses beneath the rough slab roof forward; a cow lowed for her calf,
and turkeys and chickens “quuttered” drowsily on their roosts.
The fiddle was still going merrily; yet all the while a sharp-eyed old
hunter stood a little apart from the dancers, watchful as a sentinel in
war time; and within the ring of the firelight were stacked a dozen or
more well-oiled flint-lock rifles, where they could be seized at a
moment’s notice; for an attack by the Indians was still among the
possibilities of an evening gathering.
There were other cares, however, and other hopes of a more personal
nature; for ere long the tall young frontiersman whom the others called
“captain,” and who seemed to be the leading spirit of the gathering,
drew apart from the others, perhaps to look to the hawsers that held the
ark, for he approached and tried their tension.
Very soon, however, he was joined by the handsome girl with whom he had
led the Virginia Reel, and standing in the flickering shadows of the
great trees down the bank, Marion Royce and Milly Ayer conversed long
and earnestly.
The youthful arksman was a good type of that hardy generation of a
century ago, that laid the foundation for the present greatness of the
middle West. He was the offspring of pioneer stock from Virginia and New
England, inured to labor, accustomed to danger, strong of arm, quick of
eye, rough and ready in action, but manly and honest of heart.
Not yet twenty-two, he had already made three voyages to New Orleans.
The long and turbid river-way, with its thousand perils, had grown
familiar to him. Not his courage alone, but his coolness in danger and
his wary carefulness, day and night, had led his fellows to choose him
leader and captain for this fourth voyage on which these pioneer
families had staked so much.
[Illustration:
“YOU WILL SURELY COME BACK THEN?”]
“It will be a long summer,” said Milly, soberly. “We shall not hear from
you, perhaps, in all that time. But by September, Marion,—you will
surely come back then?”
“Perhaps, if all goes well”, replied he, gravely. “But no one at home
need fret if it is October or November. So many things may hold us
back—head winds on the river, leaks, lending a hand with other boats;
and then the delays of making our market at New Orleans.”
“And what if it is true that the Spanish governor will not let you land
there?” Milly questioned. “The men on that Marietta keel that went up
last night told father so. They said the dons had mounted a twelve-gun
battery on the levee and would sink the first Yankee boat that comes
down.”
“That may not be true,” replied Marion, doubtfully. “But let them try
that if they dare. New Orleans is the front door of this whole great
country, and woe be to those who try shut it in our faces.”
“But, if there is fighting, do try to keep out of it, Marion!” exclaimed
the girl.
“The fighting would be short,” said the young man. “Don’t you worry
about that, Milly. They do say Thomas Jefferson is figuring to buy up
that whole country down there and send the Spaniards home.”
“But, father says that savage man, Napoleon Bonaparte, means to seize
this whole country up the Mississippi for France. Father says that a
French fleet may be at New Orleans before you get down there, and that’s
the real reason,” Milly continued, lowering her voice, “why father
wouldn’t send Jerry with the other horses. He is afraid you will lose
them all. And Aunt Betty Lord is only sending half her winter’s spinning
of yarn—she’s so afraid the French will get it!”
Marion laughed. “There’s cargo enough without Aunt Betty’s yarn,” said
he. “We’ve never sent so much before, even though we don’t carry those
twenty barrels of Claiborne peach brandy and whisky. I’m worried about
Uncle Amasa. He ought to have been back. I’d hate to have to go without
Jimmy, now that everything’s straightened out.”
“What did Master Hempstead tell you, Marion?”
For she knew that the schoolmaster had had a long talk with the young
captain on the day following the fire.
“Why,” said Marion, “he said that he was on his way to take toll of the
peach brandy in the shed, when he saw that the shed was on fire, and he
heard the hoofs of a horse being ridden away at a gallop. Then Jimmy
Claiborne came along and accused him of trying to steal their whisky,
and they began fighting. When the master fell, Jimmy ran away, probably
afraid that he’d killed him. Then, probably, he saw from the woods that
the fire was destroying everything, and he came back to help.
“Master Hempstead said he expected to be discharged. He felt more
humiliated at having been a disgrace to a noble profession than from any
personal loss of dignity.”
“And you persuaded the Committee to keep him? Oh, Marion, I know you
did. It is just like you,” said Milly.
The captain laughed. “Where do you think we would find another Oxford
graduate to teach in this wilderness? Would you like to know the quaint
way in which he vindicated himself? He quoted from Sophocles: ‘He who
surpasses his fellow citizens in wisdom is no longer a member of the
city. Its laws are not for him, since he is a law unto himself.’”
Milly laughed. “And, meanwhile, the mystery of who set the fire remains
a mystery?”
“It remains a mystery,—look yonder, Milly!” he exclaimed. “If that isn’t
Uncle Amasa! and he’s alone!”
They ran back to the scene of the merrymaking. The dancers had stopped,
and were clustering three deep around the old pioneer. As Milly and
Marion joined the crowd the fiddles were silenced by a lifted hand.
“Jimmy’s gone!” whispered the listeners, looking at one another with
awed faces. “Gone—no one knows where. Uncle Amasa’s spent all this time
searching among the settlements. He found where Jimmy had passed through
on horseback, with another man, but he never caught up with them, and
he’s given up hope. Jimmy left a word on the wall of the cabin saying
that he’d _gone to find his father_!”
As this message passed among the settlers, their faces grew sober in the
firelight. There was not a soul among them but believed that Jimmy’s
father had been killed by the Indians, and the message sounded like an
ill omen. Gravely, almost solemnly, the party broke up.
“Don’t worry, Uncle Amasa,” said Marion, moving away with the old man.
“Jimmy can take care of himself. He’s made for the wilderness. He’ll
come back, or we may pick him up in some town along the way. He is in no
danger that you haven’t been in and come out of—remember that.”
“I know,” said Uncle Amasa. “I know; but I’d ruther he had taken his
chances along with ye, and seen some of the doin’s down to New Orleans.
It would have been a sight safer. There’s been treachery in this,
Marion; there’s been treachery, or the boy wouldn’t have written that
message. It’s uncanny. The lad is being led to his death.”
“No such thing,” said Marion, stoutly. But his heart misgave him, and he
determined to watch closely, as he went down the river, for the runaway.
* * * * *
Daybreak saw the clumsy craft with its heterogeneous cargo float slowly
forth from the shadows of the creek mouth to the tune of a mighty
creaking of its great sweeps, till it was caught by the river current
outside, and the long trip of two thousand miles began.
With the river running five or six miles an hour, it would seem that a
hundred miles a day might be made; but snags and shifting mud banks
rendered it hazardous to float by night, save when the moon was full.
Slack water, too, at the numerous bends, and the necessity of frequently
crossing over to avoid islands and rafts of drift, consumed much time,
so that often twenty miles in a day was as much as could be accomplished
with a due regard for safety.
They tied up the first night in a creek mouth on the Virginia bank,
fifteen miles below Blennerhassett’s Island, having spent an hour there,
viewing the mansion and the flower gardens.
For this beautiful island, so sadly associated with the early history of
the Ohio, was then in the heyday of its prosperity. Harman
Blennerhassett and his accomplished wife had come there five years
previously, and wonderful accounts of their luxurious home, their wealth
and culture had spread up and down the two great rivers, from Pittsburgh
to New Orleans.
The ark made good progress during the next day and the day following. By
three o’clock of this third afternoon it reached Letart’s “Falls.” Here
the sweeps were double-manned, and the boat was about to run down this
bit of quick water when the sudden onset of a thunder-squall led Marion
Royce to countermand his order, and pole the ark to the shelter of the
trees on an island just above the rapids.
The delay bade fair to be brief, but it was fraught with grave
consequences. While lying-by there, waiting for the gust of rain to
spend itself, Shadwell Lincoln espied a new barge on rough timber ways,
masked by cedar shrubbery, upon the Virginia side of the river. The wind
and rain, waving the cedar aside, gave them glimpses of it, otherwise it
would have escaped notice.
They hailed it, but received no answer. Moses Ayer then fired his rifle
to attract the attention of those ashore. At the report a flock of
buzzards rose from close by the barge.
“That’s queer,” said Lewis Hoyt. “Let’s have a look at that barge,
Cap’n.”
Marion nodded. Lewis and Moses Ayer climbed into the small skiff, which
the ark towed astern, and pulled into the bank, distant no more than a
hundred yards. Landing a little above the barge, they pushed through a
tangled thicket of cedar and wild grape-vines, and disappeared from
view; but Moses soon came off again in haste.
“’Tis a new fifty-foot barge,” he exclaimed, “and four men have been at
work on her—but they will never do any more work!”
“Why not?” said the captain.
“’Cause they’re dead and scalped!” replied the boy, his dark young eyes
dilating with suppressed excitement.
“Redskins!” muttered several of the crew.
“But, how long ago?” questioned Marion.
“Just done!” cried Moses.
Captain Royce cast a hasty glance alongshore, and then toward the thick
trees of the island, in the shadow of which they were lying.
“Are you sure? The rain would freshen the signs,” he said. “Are you very
sure—and why did not Lewis come off with you?”
“He’s watching!” exclaimed Mose. “He said he would watch while I came
off to tell you. There’s a path leads back from the barge to three
cabins and a clearing. We smelled smoke from the cabins. Lewis said he
would watch them.”
“But if redskins are about they heard you fire”, said Marion. “Stand by,
to pole off, men.”
Then, after another searching glance alongshore, he jumped into the
skiff himself and rowed hurriedly to the shore to fetch Lewis aboard. He
knew Indians well, and feared that they were lying in wait to capture
the ark.
As the skiff touched the bank he whistled twice, the signal for calling
a man ashore. Apparently Lewis did not hear. After waiting a minute or
two, Captain Royce landed cautiously, to see for himself how recently
the attack had been made, but had scarcely forced his way through the
cedar to the little yard of chips and hewings about the barge, when he
heard a shot close at hand, and thought also that he heard Lewis
running.
The echoes of the shot had hardly ceased from the wooded side of the
opposite island, however, when a volley appeared to be fired over there,
and was followed by the peculiar quavering yell of the Shawnees!
A skulking war party had surprised the unfortunate builders of the
barge. Beyond doubt, too, the Indians had seen the ark crossing over,
and all through the shower had been lying in wait in the woods on the
island.
Caught at such a disadvantage, Marion Royce justified his reputation for
coolness in danger and good judgment. His first anxiety was for his ark
and crew. Bounding through the cedar and vines, he hailed the startled
crew, calling sharply to them to shove off instantly and not wait for
him.
“You, Merrick, Lincoln, Gist, shove off! Get her into the current!” he
shouted. “I’ll catch you in the skiff! Shove off!”
The Indians were firing shot after shot; and five or six of the savages,
hideously painted, dashed out from the bank through the shallows, to
board the ark. Gist fell overboard, shot while pushing hard with his
pole. Merrick was also slightly wounded. But the boat was off, and
immediately the strong current that made round the foot of the island
bore the heavy craft away and into the rapids below.
As soon as they were afloat the arksmen dropped to cover behind the
thick planks of the rail, and crawling to the gun-room amidships,
secured their rifles. Moses Ayer and Shadwell Lincoln stood by the
sweeps to keep her head with the stream.
The ark was now out of danger of capture; and, observing this, her
plucky young captain took thought for his own safety and that of Lewis
Hoyt. Twice he shouted to the boy, but the only answer was several rifle
bullets from the redskins on the island. Three canoes put out, noticing
which, Marion was constrained to ply his oars to escape down the rapids.
By dint of vigorous exertion he overtook the ark two miles below. It was
not till he had got on board that he learned of the loss of Gist, whom
none of the crew expected ever to see again.
Lewis was running down the Virginia shore, keeping the ark in sight. The
boy hailed them from the bank about a mile below, and was taken aboard
in the skiff. He had been fired at, but was unhurt. Gist, they had
little doubt, had been killed or was drowned.
In a profound gloom for his loss, the arksmen continued their voyage.
What they did not know, and could not guess, was that they left behind
them another member of the crew.
Jimmy Claiborne had been floating down the river in a canoe, waiting to
be picked up by the ark, when he had been captured by these same
Shawnees.
------------------------------------------------------------------------