It was on a beautiful day in the early part of the month of April,
1812, that four persons were met in a rude farm-house, situated on the
Southern Branch of the Chicago river, and about four miles distant from
the fort of that name. They had just risen from their humble mid-day
meal, and three of them were now lingering near the fire-place, filled
with blazing logs, which, at that early season, diffused a warmth by no
means disagreeable, and gave an air of cheerfulness to the interior of
the smoke-discolored building.
He who appeared to be master of the establishment was a tall, good
looking man of about forty-five, who had, evidently, been long a denizen
of the forest, for his bronzed countenance bore traces of care and toil,
while his rugged, yet well-formed hands conveyed the impression of the
unceasing war he had waged against the gigantic trees of this Western
land. He was habited in a hunting-frock of grey homespun, reaching about
half way down to his knee, and trimmed with a full fringe of a somewhat
darker hue. His trowsers were of the same material, and both were girt
around his loins by a common belt of black leather, fastened by a plain
white buckle, into which was thrust a sheath of black leather also,
containing a large knife peculiar to the backwoodsmen of that day. His
feet were encased in moccasins, and on his head, covered with strong
dark hair, was carelessly donned a slouched hat of common black felt,
with several plaited folds of the sweet grass, of the adjoining prairie
for a band. He was seemingly a man of strong muscular power, while his
stern dark eye denoted firmness and daring.
The elder of the two men, to whom this individual stood, evidently,
in the character of a superior, was a short thick-set person of about
fifty, with huge whiskers that, originally black, had been slightly
grizzled by time. His eyebrows were bushy and overhanging, and almost
concealed the small, and twinkling eyes, which it required the beholder
to encounter more than once before he could decide their true color to
be a dark gray. A blanket coat that had once been white, but which
the action of some half dozen winters had changed into a dirty yellow,
enveloped his rather full form, around which it was confined by a coarse
worsted sash of mingled blue and red, thickly studded with minute white
beads. His trowsers, with broad seams, after the fashion of the Indian
legging, were of a dark crimson, approaching to a brick-dust color, and
on his feet he wore the stiff shoe-pack, which, with the bonnet bleu on
his grizzled head, and the other parts of his dress already described,
attested him to be what he was--a French Canadian. Close at his heels,
and moving as he moved, or squatted on his haunches, gazing into the
face of his master when stationary, was a large dog of the mongrel breed
peculiar to the country--evidently with wolf blood in his veins.
His companion was of a different style of figure and costume. He was a
thin, weak-looking man, of middle height, with a complexion that denoted
his Saxon origin. Very thin brows, retrousse nose, and a light gray
eye in which might be traced an expression half simple, half cunning,
completed the picture of this personage, whose lank body was encased in
an old American uniform of faded blue, so scanty in its proportions that
the wrists of the wearer wholly exposed themselves beneath the short,
narrow sleeves, while the skirts only “shadowed not concealed,” that
part of the body they had been originally intended to cover. A pair of
blue pantaloons, perfectly in keeping, on the score of scantiness and
age, with the coat, covered the attenuated lower limbs of the wearer,
on whose head, moreover, was stuck a conical cap that had all the
appearance of having been once a portion of the same uniform, and had
only undergone change in the loss of its peak. A small black leather,
narrow ridged stock was clasped around his thin, and scare-crow neck,
and that so tightly that it was the wonder of his companions how
strangulation had so long been avoided. A dirty, and very coarse linen
shirt, showed itself partially between the bottom of the stock, and the
uppermost button of the coat, which was carefully closed, while his feet
were protected from the friction of the stiff, though nearly worn out,
military shoes, by wisps of hay, that supplied the absence of the sock.
This man was about five and thirty.
The last of the little party was a boy. He was a raw-boned lad of about
fourteen years of age, and of fair complexion, with blue eyes, and an
immense head of bushy hair, of the same hue, which seemed never to have
known the use of the comb. His feet were naked, and his trowsers and
shirt, the only articles of dress upon him at the moment, were of a
homespun somewhat resembling in color the hunting frock of his master.
A thick black leather strap was also around his loins--evidently part of
an old bridle rein.
The two men first described, drew near the fire and lighted their pipes.
The ex-militaire thrust a quid of tobacco into his cheek, and taking
up a small piece of pine board that rested against the chimney corner,
split a portion off this with his jack-knife, and commenced whittling.
The boy busied himself in clearing the table, throwing occasionally
scraps of bread and dried venison, which had constituted the chief
portion of the meal, to the dog, which, however, contrary to custom,
paid little attention to these marks of favor, but moved impatiently,
at intervals, to the door, then returning, squatted himself again on his
haunches, at a short distance from his master, and uttering a low sound
betwixt a whine and a growl, looked piteously up into his face.
“Vat the devil is de matter wid you, Loup Garou?” remarked the Canadian
at length, as, removing the pipe from his lips, he stretched his legs,
and poised himself in his low wood-bottomed chair, putting forth his
right hand at the same time to his canine follower. “You not eat, and
you make noise as if you wish me to see one racoon in de tree.”
“Loup Garou don't prate about coons I guess,” drawled the man in
the faded uniform, without, however, removing his eyes from the very
interesting occupation in which he was engaged. “That dog I take it, Le
Noir, means something else--something more than we human critters know.
By gosh, boss,” looking for the first time at him who stood in that
position to the rest of the party--“If WE can't smell the varmint, I
take it Loup Garou does.”
At this early period of civilization, in these remote countries, there
was little distinction of rank between the master and the man--the
employer and the employed. Indeed the one was distinguished from the
other only by the instructions given and received, in regard to certain
services to be performed. They labored together--took their meals
together--generally smoked together--drank together--conversed together,
and if they did not absolutely sleep together, often reposed in the same
room. There was, therefore, nothing extraordinary in the familiar tone
in which the ci-devant soldier now addressed him whose hired help he
was. The latter, however, was in an irritable mood, and he answered
sharply.
“What have you got into your foolish head now, Ephraim Giles? You do
nothing but prophesy evil. What varmint do you talk of, and what has
Loup Garou to do with it? Speak, what do you mean?--if you mean anything
at all.”
As he uttered this half rebuke, he rose abruptly from his chair, shook
the ashes from his pipe, and drew himself to his full height, with
his back to the fire. There had been nothing very remarkable in the
observation made by the man to whom he had addressed himself, but he was
in a peculiar state of mind, that gave undue importance to every word,
sounding, as it did, a vague presentiment of some coming evil, which the
very singular manner of the dog had created, although he would scarcely
acknowledge this to himself.
The man made no reply, but continued whittling, humming, at the same
time, the air of “Yankee Doodle.”
“Answer me, Ephraim Giles,” peremptorily resumed his master; “leave
off that eternal whittling of yours, if you can, and explain to me your
meaning.”
“Etarnal whittling! do you call it, Boss? I guess it's no such thing. No
man knows better nor you, that, if I can whittle the smallest stick in
creation, I can bring down the stoutest tree as well as ere a fellow
in Michigan. Work is work--play is play. It's only the difference, I
reckon, of the axe and the knife.”
“Will you answer my question like a man, and not like a fool, as you
are?” shouted the other, stooping, and extending his left hand, the
fingers of which he insinuated into the stock already described, while,
with a powerful jerk, he both brought the man to his feet, and the blood
into his usually cadaverous cheek.
Ephraim Giles, half-throttled, and writhing with pain, made a movement
as if he would have used the knife in a much less innocent manner
than whittling, but the quick, stern eye of his master, detected the
involuntary act, and his hand, suddenly relinquishing its hold of the
collar, grasped the wrist of the soldier with such a vice-like pressure,
that the fingers immediately opened, and the knife fell upon the hearth.
The violence of his own act, brought Mr. Heywood at once to a sense
of the undue severity he had exercised towards his servant, and he
immediately said, taking his hand:
“Ephraim Giles, forgive me, but it was not intended. Yet, I know not how
it is, the few words you spoke just now made me anxious to know what you
meant, and I could not repress my impatience to hear your explanation.”
The soldier had never before remarked so much dignity of manner
about his Boss, as he termed Mr. Heywood, and this fact, added to the
recollection of the severe handling he had just met with, caused him to
be a little more respectful in his address.
“Well, I reckon,” he said, picking up his knife, and resuming his
whittling, but in a less absorbed manner, “I meant no harm, but merely
that Loup Garou can nose an Injin better than ere a one of us.”
“Nose an Indian better than any one of us! Well, perhaps he can--he sees
them every day, but what has that to do with his whining and growling
just now?”
“Well, I'll tell you, Boss, what I mean, more plain-like. You know that
patch of wood borderin' on the prairie, where you set me to cut, t'other
day?”
“I do. What of that?”
“Well, then, this mornin' I was cuttin' down as big an oak as ever grew
in Michigan, when, as it went thunderin' through the branches, with
noise enough to scare every buffalo within a day's hunt, up started, not
twenty yards from it's tip, ten or a dozen or so of Injins, all gruntin'
like pigs, and looking as fierce as so many red devils. They didn't look
quite pleasant, I calcilate.”
“Indeed,” remarked Mr. Heywood, musingly; “a party of Pottawattamies I
presume, from the Fort. We all know there is a large encampment of them
in the neighborhood, but they are our friends.”
“May-be so,” continued Ephraim Giles, “but these varmint didn't look
over friendly, and then I guess the Pottawattamies don't dress in war
paint, 'cept when they dance for liquor.”
“And are you quite sure these Indians were in their war paint?” asked
his master, with an ill-concealed look of anxiety.
“No mistake about it,” replied Giles, still whittling, “and I could
almost swear, short as the squint was I got of 'em, that they were part
of those who fought us on the Wabash, two years ago.”
“How so, den, you are here, Gile. If dey wicked Injin, how you keep your
funny little cap, an' your scalp under de cap?”
This question was asked by the Canadian, who had hitherto, while
puffing his pipe, listened indifferently to the conversation, but
whose attention had now become arrested, from the moment that his
fellow-laborer had spoken of the savages, so strangely disturbed by him.
“Well, I don't exactly know about that, myself,” returned the soldier,
slightly raising his cap and scratching his crown, as if in recollection
of some narrowly escaped danger. “I reckon, tho', when I see them slope
up like a covey of red-legged pattridges, my heart was in my mouth, for
I looked for nothin' else but that same operation: but I wur just as
well pleased, when, after talkin' their gibberish, and makin' all sorts
of signs among themselves, they made tracks towards the open prairie.”
“And why did you not name this, the instant you got home?” somewhat
sternly questioned Mr. Heywood.
“Where's the use of spilin' a good dinner?” returned the soldier. “It
was all smokin' hot when I came in from choppin', and I thought it best
for every man to tuck it in before I said a word about it. Besides, I
reckon I don't know as they meant any harm, seein' as how they never
carried off my top-knot;--only it was a little queer they were hid in
that way in the woods, and looked so fierce when they first jumped up in
their nasty paint.”
“Who knows,” remarked Mr. Heywood, taking down his rifle from the side
of the hut opposite to the chimney, and examining the priming, “but
these fellows may have tracked you back, and are even now, lurking near
us. Ephraim Giles, you should have told me of this before.”
“And so,” replied the soldier, “I was goin' to, when Loup Garou began
with his capers. Then it was I gave a parable like, about his scentin'
the varmint better nor we human critters could.”
“Ephraim Giles,” said Mr. Heywood, sharply, while he fixed his dark eye
upon him, as if he would have read his inmost soul, “you say that you
have been a soldier, and fought with our army on the Wabash. Why did you
leave the service?”
“Because,” drawled the ex-militaire, with a leering expression of
his eye, “my captin was a bad judge of good men when he had 'em, and
reckoned I was shammin' when I fell down rale sick, and was left behind
in a charge made on the Injins at Tippecanoe. I couldn't stand the abuse
he gave me for this, and so I left him.”
“Cool, indeed,” sneered Mr. Heywood; “now then, Ephraim Giles, hear my
opinion. Your captain thought you were a coward, for he judged you
from your conduct. I, too, judge you from your conduct, and have no
hesitation in pronouncing you to be a rogue or a fool.”
“Well, I want to know!” was the only rejoinder of the man, as he went on
unconcernedly with his whittling.
“Le Noir,” said his master to the Canadian, who, imitating his example,
had taken down a long duck gun from the same side of the hut, “take your
dog with you and reconnoitre in the neighborhood. You speak Indian, and
if any of these people are to be seen, ascertain who they are and why--”
Here he was interrupted by the gradually approaching sounds of rattling
deer hoofs, so well known as composing one of the lower ornaments of the
Indian war-dress, while, at the same moment, the wild moaning of Loup
Garou, then standing at the front door-way, was renewed even more
plaintively than before.
Mr. Heywood's cheek blanched. It was not with fear, for he was a
man incapable of fear in the common acceptation of the word, but
independently of certain vague apprehensions for others, his mind had
been in a great degree unhinged by an unaccountable presentiment of
evil, which instinctively had come over it that day. It was this, that,
inducing a certain irresoluteness of thought and action, had led him
into a manifestation of peevish contradiction in his address to Ephraim
Giles. There are moments, when, without knowing why, the nerves of
the strongest--the purposes of the wisest, are unstrung--and when it
requires all our tact and self-possession to conceal from others, the
momentary weakness we almost blush to admit to ourselves.
But there was no time for reflection. The approach to the door was
suddenly shaded, and in the next instant the dark forms of three or
four savages, speedily followed by others, amounting in all to twelve,
besides their chief, who was in the advance, crossed the threshold,
and, without uttering a word, either of anger or salutation, squatted
themselves upon the floor. They were stout, athletic warriors, the
perfect symmetry of whose persons could not be concealed even by the
hideous war-paint with which they were thickly streaked--inspiring
anything but confidence in the honesty or friendliness of their
intentions. The head of each was shaved and painted as well as his
person, and only on the extreme crown had been left a tuft of hair,
to which were attached feathers, and small bones, and other fantastic
ornaments peculiar to their race--a few of them carried American
rifles--the majority, the common gun periodically dealt out to the
several tribes, as presents from the British Government, while all
had in addition to their pipe-tomahawks the formidable and polished
war-club.
Such visitors, and so armed, were not of a description to remove the
apprehensions of the little party in the farm-house. Their very silence,
added to their dark and threatening looks, created more than mere
suspicion--a certainty of evil design--and deeply did Mr. Heywood
deplore the folly of Ephraim Giles in failing to apprise him of his
meeting with these people, at the earliest moment after his return.
Had he done so, there might have been a chance, nay, every assurance
of relief, for he knew that a party from the fort, consisting of a
non-commissioned officer and six men, were even now fishing not more
than two miles higher up the river. He was aware that the boy, Wilton,
was an excellent runner, and that within an hour, at least, he could
have reached and brought down that party, who, as was their wont, when
absenting themselves on these fishing excursions, were provided with
their arms. However, it might not yet be too late, and he determined to
make the attempt. To call and speak to the boy aside, would, he was
well aware, excite the suspicions of his unwelcome guests, while it was
possible that, as they did not understand English, (so at least he took
it for granted) a communication made to him boldly in their presence,
would be construed into some domestic order.
“Wilton,” he said calmly to the boy, who stood near the doorway with
alarm visibly depicted on his countenance, and looking as if he would
eagerly seize a favorable opportunity of escape, “make all haste to the
fishing party, and tell Corporal Nixon who commands it, to lose no time
in pulling down the stream. You will come back with them. Quick, lose
not a moment.”
Delighted at the order, the boy made no answer, but hatless--shoeless as
he was, disappeared round the corner of the house. Strange to say, the
Indians, although they had seemingly listened with attention to Mr.
Heywood while issuing these directions, did not make the slightest
movement to arrest the departure of the boy, or even to remark upon
it--merely turning to their chief, who uttered a sharp and satisfied
“ugh.”
During all this time, Mr. Heywood and Le Noir stood at some little
distance from the Indians, and nearly on the spot they had occupied at
their entrance, the one holding his rifle, the other his duck-gun,
the butts of both, resting on the floor. At each moment their anxiety
increased, and it seemed an age before the succor they had sent
for could arrive. How long, moreover, would these taciturn and
forbidding-mannered savages wait before they gave some indication of
overt hostility, and even if nothing were done prior to the arrival of
the fishing party, would these latter be in sufficient force to awe them
into a pacific departure? The Indians were twelve in number, exclusive
of their chief, all fierce and determined. They, with the soldiers,
nine; for neither Mr. Heywood nor Le Noir seemed disposed to count
upon any efficient aid from Ephraim Giles, who, during this dumb
scene, continued whittling before the Indians, apparently as cool and
indifferent to their presence, as if he had conceived them to be the
most peaceably disposed persons in the world. He had, however, listened
attentively to the order given to Wilton by his master, and had not
failed to remark that the Indians had not, in any way, attempted to
impede his departure.
“What do you think of these people, Le Noir,” at length asked Mr.
Heywood, without, however removing his gaze from his visitors. “Can they
be friendly Pottawattamies?”
“Friendly Pottawattamies! no, sare,” returned the Canadian seriously,
and shrugging up his shoulders. “Dey no dress, no paint like de
Pottawattamie, and I not like der black look--no, sare, dey Winnebago.”
He laid a strong emphasis on the last word, and as he expected, a
general “ugh” among the party attested that he had correctly named their
tribe.
While they were thus expressing their conjectures in regard to the
character and intentions of their guests, and inwardly determining to
sell their lives as dearly as possible if attacked. Ephraim Giles had
risen from his seat in the corner of the chimney, and with his eyes
fixed on the stick he was whittling, walked coolly out of the door,
and sauntered down the pathway leading to the river. But if he had
calculated on the same indifference to his actions that the Indians had
manifested towards the boy, he was mistaken. They all watched him keenly
as he slowly sauntered towards the water, and then, when he had
got about half way, the chief suddenly springing to his feet, and
brandishing his tomahawk demanded in broken, but perfectly intelligible
English, where he was going.
“Well, I want to know,” exclaimed the soldier, turning round, and in a
tone indicating surprise that he had thus been questioned--“only goin
over thar,” he continued, pointing to the haystacks on the opposite side
of the river, around which stood many cattle, “goin I guess to give out
some grub to the beasts, and I'll he back in no time, to give you
out some whisky.” Then, resuming his course, he went on whittling as
unconcernedly as before.
The chief turned to his followers, and a low, yet eager conversation
ensued. Whether it was that the seeming indifference of the man, or
his promise of the whisky on his return, or that some other motive
influenced them, they contented themselves with keeping a vigilant watch
upon his movements.
Mr. Heywood and the Frenchman exchanged looks of surprise; they could
not account for the action of Ephraim Giles, for although it was his
office to cross the river daily for the purpose he had named, it had
never been at that period of the day. How the Indians could suffer his
departure, if their intentions were really hostile, it was moreover
impossible for them to comprehend; and in proportion as the hopes of
the one were raised by this circumstance, so were those of the other
depressed.
Mr. Heywood began to think that the suspicions of the Canadian were
unfounded, and that their guests were, after all, but a party of
warriors on their way to the Fort, either for purposes of traffic with
the only merchant residing in its vicinity, or of business with the
officer commanding. It was not likely, he reasoned, that men coming with
hostile designs, would have suffered first the boy to be despatched on
a mission which, obscurely as he had worded his directions, must in
some measure have been understood by the chief; and, secondly, permitted
Ephraim Giles to leave the house in the manner just seen--particularly
when the suspicion entertained by him as well as by Le Noir and himself,
must have been apparent.
But the Canadian drew no such inference from these facts. Although he
could not speak the Winnebago language, he was too conversant with the
customs of the Indians, to perceive, in what they permitted in this
seeming confidence, anything but guile. He felt assured they had allowed
the boy to depart on his errand SOLELY that they might have a greater
number of victims in their power. Nothing was more easy, numerous as
they were, than to despatch THEM, and then, lying in ambush among the
trees that skirted the banks, to shoot down every one in the fishing
boat before a landing could be effected, and preparations made for
defence; while, in the indifference of their conduct in regard to the
departure of Ephraim Giles, he saw but a design to disarm suspicion,
and thus induce them to lay by their arms, the reports of which would
necessarily alarm the party expected, and so far put them on their
guard as to defeat their plans. The very appearance of Giles, moreover,
crossing the water, if seen by the descending boat would, he thought
they imagined, be a means of lulling the party into security, and thus
rendering them a more easy prey.
While the master and the servant were thus indulging their opposite
reflections, without, however, making any intercommunication of them,
Ephraim Giles, who had now thrust his knife and stick into the pocket
of his short skirt, shoved off the only canoe that was to be seen, and
stepping into it, and seizing the paddle, urged it slowly, and without
the slightest appearance of hurry, to the opposite bank, where, within
less than ten minutes, he had again hauled it up. Then, as coolly
ascending the bank, he approached one of the haystacks, and drew from it
a few handfuls of fodder which he spread upon the ground, continuing to
do so, as the cattle assembled around, until he had gained the outermost
haystack bordering immediately upon the wood. This reached, he gave a
loud yell, which was promptly answered by the Indians, who had continued
to watch his movements up to the very moment of his disappearance; and
darting along a narrow path which skirted the wood, ran with all his
speed towards the Fort. His flight had not lasted five minutes, when the
reports of several guns, fired from the direction he had just quitted,
met his ear, and urged him to even greater exertion, until at length,
haggard and breathless, he gained his destination, and made his way
to the commanding officer, to whom he briefly detailed the startling
occurrences he had witnessed.