CHAPTER XIV. THE BEAVERS' DAM 190

Creatures of the wild help to save a town.

AFTERWORD 221

ILLUSTRATIONS

"GOOD LUCK! GOOD LUCK!" SHOUTED DOBY. "I'VE FOUND THE

THING I MOST NEED" _Frontispiece_

THE BIRD JUMPED AT THE BOY. THE BOY STABBED AT THE

BIRD _Facing p._ 38

EACH SAVAGE GIBED AT THE BOY'S PAINTED TALISMAN, BUT

EACH OBEYED ITS MESSAGE " 74

DOBY WHIPPED OUT HIS KNIFE AND CUT THE THONGS " 116

FOREWORD

IN the very heart of our United States is a vast and wonderful valley.

Through the primeval hardwood forests of its hillsides, long ago, ran

the naked, rollicking boys of the Stone Age, choosing the best paths as

they hurried out to play, each one with his pet wolf puppy.

Afterward, in the rich alluvial soil of the bottom-lands, fur-clouted

lads of the Mound-Builders laid out good trails whereon every one could

drive tandem his team of captured fawns.

Later still, Indian striplings found the streams that might best bear,

with least portage, the birch-bark canoe in which, with his doeskin

blanket aflutter and his trained hawk on prow, many a one has shot the

rapids.

Then came the white men.

They discovered these routes and followed them.

Over the waterways, in the native canoes which he borrowed, sailed the

Jesuit missionary explorer with standard and altar; then the French

trading "voyageur" with bundles of skins and bead trinkets.

Through the old forest paths marched the scarlet-coated British soldier

and the ragged Continental volunteer who defied him.

By the trails advanced the best of all scouts, the backwoodsman. His

suit of fringed buckskin, with his 'coonskin cap and his moccasins,

made up the most artistic, the most serviceable, and the most

characteristic garb the New World has yet evolved. His vigorous

body, his keen intelligence, and his warm heart bespoke the true

American--the father of a mighty race.

Following fast upon the heels of these trooped the home-seekers, the

builders of a nation.

For picturesque effect and political significance, the groups who

floated down the Ohio River in home-made flatboats, and the families

who crossed overland through the romantic Cumberland Gap in their

wagon-trains, have never been excelled.

The saboted French, the wide-breeched Germans, the straw-crowned

Swiss, the beshawled Irish, the shad-coated New-Englander, the

gray-frocked Quaker, the sandy Scotch, all mingled in the brotherhood

of citizenship, while laughing black slaves looked on.

The wings of the air--geese, ducks, and songbirds; the hoofs of the

fields--deer, buffalo, and boar; the fins of the rivers--bass, trout,

and pickerel--all added to the zest of this new life, as did also the

luscious growth of plants and the odor of flowers.

One hundred years ago, this Middle West of ours had reached a most

interesting period. Never before and never since could there have been

more curious happenings than in those stirring times.

One boy, coming down the river then to seek his fortune, heard tales of

the past and hopes for the future from the people whom he met.

Strong Parson Cutler, quaint Johnny Appleseed, brave Simon Kenton,

Colonel Johnson's Long Hunters, pious Lorenzo Dow, the reformer Rapp,

the statesman Henry Clay, the legislator Jennings, and the boy Abraham

Lincoln were all his friends.

The strange stories about them in this book are _almost_ true! For that

boy told them to a person who told them to another person who told

them to me. In substance they are a faithful picture of the sort of

adventures that helped pioneer lads of the Great Valley to grow into

the full measure of men.

J. G.

INDIANA, 1917

STRANGE STORIES OF THE

GREAT VALLEY

STRANGE STORIES OF THE GREAT VALLEY

I

LONG, LONG AGO

_A Mound-Builder's Treasure-trove_

"O--YI--O! O--yi--o!" sang fifteen-year-old Obadiah Holman--called

Doby for short--as he tried to skip a flat stone across the big river.

"O--yi--o! O--yi--o!"

Dark clouds were tumbling up from the southwest, but March sunshine

still dimpled and danced and sparkled with the current.

"It _is_ pretty water. That's what the Indian name means, O--yi--o,

beautiful. A river beautiful," and he hopped about joyously, kicking

out another hatchet-shaped stone or two on the stream's edge of one

of the choice town lots of the O--hi--o river-port of Marietta in the

new farthest northwest State of Ohio, beyond whose small beginnings

of civilization lay the wilderness of the great Northwest Territory in

this year of 1816.

A flatboat made of green-oak planks, which held a family's household

goods and farming tools, was anchored 'longshore in a bayou that

promised safety from the coming storm.

The boxes and bales on it, made shipshape against wind and water, were

stacked in the form of a hollow square. They stood as walls to this

tiny floating fort. They protected the people and animals traveling on

it. The walls, in turn, were covered with branches of trees.

The boy's father was one of many pioneers, some from stony New England,

some from sandy eastern coasts, who had joined the crowds of emigrants

floating westward down the Ohio. Like most of the others, he was

searching for a place where he could afford to buy rich land on which

to build a homestead.

"I couldn't see our boat, 'though I was looking straight at it," the

boy said, proudly. "It is exactly like a piece of the river-bank."

"If the Indians cannot see it, or if they fail to shoot through the

barriers if they _do_ notice us as we drift down-stream, I, too, Doby,

will be pleased with our work on it," answered his father, as they

hurried up a hill before the wind toward Marietta's great stockade of

Campus Martius.

This fort was a hundred and eighty feet square and twenty feet high.

It was made of logs, each one flattened at the sides to fit snugly to

the next one, planted in the earth at the lower end and sharpened to a

point at the upper, like a huge picket fence without a crack in it, big

enough for a giant's dooryard. There were boxes for lookouts atop the

wall, blockhouses on its corners, and cabins inside its strong defenses.

Parson Cutler, at the head of the Ohio land company's New England

shareholders, had ceremoniously blessed this fort when it was completed

and ready to stand guard over the million and a half of their fertile

acres.

As he neared it Doby said, "Ma has already gone inside to the

schoolma'am's house."

"She means to get a book so she can give you a lesson every day as we

move. This town isn't quite thirty years old, yet it has had an academy

for twenty. 'Tis probably your ma's last chance to talk with scholars."

"I'll study the book," promised Doby. "I don't want to be a dunce like

the boys who can't spell their own names. Some cannot even cut their

initials on trees in the towns where we stop." And Doby sniffed with

scorn. "If I had a really good knife--a strong one--I could carve

better than I do now," he sighed, as he thought of his one great need.

"Piff! Puff!" the wind echoed his sigh. "Piff! Puff! Puff!"

Rain was close on their heels.

Mr. Holman pulled his 'coonskin cap down tight over his long hair,

girded up his fringed buckskin breeches, and ran for the fort, his

heavy boots clumping out a path through last year's weed-stalks.

Doby tucked his cap under his arm and let his tow thatch take the

breeze and, light as a ball in his moccasins, bounded along behind his

father.

They were not swift enough to gain the fort. As the downpour overtook

them they ducked underneath the branches of a gnarled and broken oak

and found good shelter.

"Much obliged, old tree," laughed Doby. "You've saved us a drenching."

He tried to girdle it with his arms. "I can't reach half-way. It's the

_biggest_ trunk!"

"This _is_ an old fellow. His crown has been twisted off by some

hurricane. There are lightning marks upon him. He feels his age. The

storm makes him shiver." And Mr. Holman placed an uneasy foot upon the

quaking roots.

"It's a big tree for such a little hill," was Doby's comment. "I never

did see so many funny little hills as are in this valley. Wasn't it

lucky there happened to be one over where the Muskingum River comes

into the Ohio? It is at the very best spot for Parson Cutler's settlers

to build their stockade."

Mr. Holman shook his head as they looked from their own small

oak-capped hill to the big one on which stood the fort defying the

lightning and wind of the storm quite as boldly as it had often done

the burning arrows and the wild rushes of Indian foes.

"That knoll did not _happen_ to be at the point of vantage," he said.

"It was built on purpose ages ago as a fort of earthwork to defend this

valley."

"Who did it?" asked Doby.

"I don't know. The folks who threw up that earthwork and the one over

there--and there--and there," and his father pointed out through the

broken curtain of the rain and sleet to a long rampart of earth, then

to another circle of low-lying, grass-grown walls, and afterward to

several small knobs, some with trees, some without. "The race who did

it could not have been white people, for they were all dead and gone

centuries before white men came to this continent."

"Maybe they were Indians," ventured Doby.

"Not like any Indians we know. For Indians roam over the country and

live by hunting and fishing. Indians never get to be as numerous as

these builders of mounds must have been. Only a great nation, somewhat

civilized, could put up the immense defenses they did. Each Indian

needs more acres than you can imagine to live on--"

"Savages don't work together. They quarrel and kill one another and

keep their numbers small," interrupted Doby.

"There may not be as many Indians in the State of Ohio now as there are

white people in the town of Pittsburg where we started our boat down

the river," his father continued.

Doby considered. "Wigwams and canoes are all that Indians build. These

people raised regular forts. Look at that plain! Even a storm like this

can't break those heavy banks. See the hail slide down them! It must

have taken lots of men with muscle to pile such heaps of dirt." Doby

spoke as one who knew what spading meant.

"Back from the river wherever settlers go they find these strange

earthworks in the valleys; huge masses for forts, fancy curves for

altars, and small piles for tombs. Walls surround what must have been

good-sized hamlets." As his father raised his voice to be heard against

the swish of the sleet Doby stared out over the plain with round eyes.

"Those walls where the trees are swaying so are as high as Cutler's

stockade. There is some timber-work, but no masonry in any of them.

They inclose half a hundred acres."

"What are those long ditches?" queried Doby, catching sleet on his

eyebrows as he leaned forward to look.

"They must have been canals full of water leading from one walled town

to another. 'Tis trade and commerce on short cuts that made it possible

to keep up such thickly populated villages as the Mound-Builders must

have had." Gusts of wind were fanning his words away, but Mr. Holman

was determined to tell Doby all he could, so he added: "Rivers are big

highways. Canals are smaller ones. A country thrives when its citizens

can trade with one another by easy routes. The new towns that settlers

are building in Ohio need just such waterways to make the bartering

good." Here he became emphatic. "If these old canals are mended or new

ones built--as the State is planning to do--then the countryside will

again be full of rich towns." Suddenly they both had to hang on to the

tree for safety.

"Whew! What a blast!" cried Doby. "See the trees go down!"

"Watch out!" yelled his father. Leaping to one side, he caught Doby's

hand and fled down the hill with the boy like a living kite on short

tether waving behind him.

There was roaring--grinding--snapping--crashing. Then came showers of

branches--leaves--bark--clods.

Doby had done a series of flipflaps. He was dizzy and confused, but he

lent a hand to his father, who was flat on the ground.

The uproar deepened. Then it shrilled away. In another moment the sleet

was gone, the sun was bright, the storm had passed.

The oak was standing on its head, kicking its heels in the air. The

mound was a lopsided dirt-pile.

Already dozens of excited men were pouring out of the stockade. They

ran with shovels and rakes and sticks to poke about in the cavity which

the capsized oak's roots had torn through the mound.

The genial parson came with them and looked on laughingly, to see fair

play at the digging. This Dr. Mannassah Cutler was one of the big men

of his time. He held the standard of his town so high that each of the

other Ohio settlements had to set its best foot forward to keep up with

Marietta's march of progress. He had a scholar's interest in mounds.

He ordered them preserved. He had an explorer's interest in their

treasures. He examined them scientifically. He had a leader's interest

in his people. He made them play fair. He was their court of last

resort.

In spite of the desperate curiosity driving him, Doby had not the

weight to hold his own at the front of this line of human gophers. He

was forced back to a spot where he could use nothing but his ears.

For two or three hours all he got out of the hole was some scraps of

conversation like this:

"Any gold?"

"Never _is_ any gold."

"Any money?"

"Never _is_ any money."

"Any jewelry?"

"Copper bracelets. Who wants copper bracelets?"

"Pearl beads, gone dull."

"Fine cloth wrappings--coarse cloth--all rotted through."

"Clay pots, every one broken."

"Bones, bones, bones. Ashes, ashes, ashes."

"The oak must be five or six, perhaps seven or eight hundred years old."

"Stuff buried when it was an acorn isn't much account now."

Not until after dark did the greedy crowd give up searching or cease to

hope for hidden treasure where so much else was buried.

"No luck in this mound. Nothing but boys buried here."

Curled in his sleeping-blanket within the fort walls, Doby gave

himself up to thoughts of the boys whose bones were once clothed with

plumpness like his own. "I wonder if those boys started the fires in

the earthwork watch-towers on the highest hills, where deep ashes show

that countless fires have flashed in signal warning to other far-away

towers."

In his dreams, he found himself running with the horde of young

barbarians into a walled town. With them slamming shut great gates,

heaving the bars in place, racing across the moat, hoisting aloft

the drawbridge, barricading the second set of gates, covering stores

of corn, herding women and children in huts of sod, catching blazing

arrows. In scant fur garments, wild of hair, jingling his copper

anklets, armed with spears and shouting an uncouth language, he

pranced along the top of mountain mounds and defied a besieging enemy.

After such activity further sleep was impossible. Doby sat up, tied a

knot in the corner of his blanket, and just before dawn mounted the

sentry's ladder, wedged the knot in the slot between pickets, and

lowered himself to the outside world.

Still under the spell of his fancies, he declared to himself, "Those

boys would not vanish without leaving me something. They liked me first

rate, even if they did all have to turn to bones. I'll go back where

they are and do some digging."

He ran to the mound, seized one of the abandoned shovels, and dug and

dug. The spectral light o' day gave him a chill sensation. The six

or eight hundred years of weird memories grinning at him from the

skulls in this desecrated tomb filled him with awe. But he was more

inquisitive than he was nervous, so he made the shovel fly. In the

loosened dirt, he used his fingers as a rake and dragged out funny old

tobacco-pipes well worth the trouble of burrowing.

As the light grew stronger his fingers struck something different--the

promise of a big find. He could not pull it out. He dared not use

the clumsy shovel. He went through his pockets and found one of the

hatchet-shaped stones he had picked up at the river's brink. He used it

as a lever and gently pried out a knife. It was long and sharp and just

the right weight for his hand.

Here was treasure indeed. Beautifully shaped, double-edged, an ancient

poniard, a knife of flint!

"Good luck! Good luck!" shouted Doby, not at all surprised to see that

his father and the parson had followed him and were now near enough to

ask, "What are you up to?"

"I've found the thing I most need--a really good knife. Bring on a

pie! I can cut it. Or I can skin a rabbit. I can whittle anything." He

looked at the parson. "Do you suppose that it will be right for me to

keep this knife?"

The parson reassured him. "Although the laws of treasure-trove are

complicated, I am glad to be able to tell you that in this case--in

most cases like yours--finding is keeping."

"I suppose that is because there are no Mound-Builders left," reasoned

Doby, trying the edge of his knife on his thumb. "What became of them?"

Doctor Cutler answered: "Perhaps some powerful enemy came along and

killed them all. Perhaps some dreadful disease overtook them and they

perished. Perhaps they were akin to the southern people--Aztecs and

others--whom the Spaniards discovered in the tropics. They may have

heard about their own kin far away. And then they may in time have

gathered their goods together and floated down the river."

"Ha!" cried Doby, "that was sensible. If they were clever enough to

build all those fine mounds, I know they were adventurous and emigrated

down the river beautiful. I hope that is what they did. I'm glad they

left this knife for me." Then he turned over his digging-stone. "This

little hatchet they might have made also."

The parson shook his head. "No; you must have pried that out of the

river mouth. Those stone hatchets were made by prehistoric men who

lived ages before the Mound-Builders' time."

"O--oh!" gasped Doby, "o--oh! the stone-hatchet men lived a long, long

time before the Mound-Builders came. The Mound-Builders lived a long,

long time before the Indians came. The Indians were here a long, long

time before we came. Everything is so old--old--old--that I can't

think _how_ old. If this country is so old--old--old, why do we call it

the new West?"

"Because it is new to us. The West is new in the same way that this

day is new. It is full of fresh promise for you and for me and for our

race. Some day this will be the very heart of America!"

II

TAMING THE WILD

_The Fairy Isle in Burr's Conspiracy_

"LET'S pretend, Doby, that I'm an Indian," whispered Obadiah Holman to

himself, as he slipped along, pigeon-toed and silent, in his moccasins,

"and I'll sneak up on that buck and give it a scare."

The white flag of the buck's tail had caught Doby's eye. His keen sight

made out the dun form under the antlers. He advanced slowly through the

undergrowth, knowing that the wind blew toward him--that the buck could

not catch his scent.

He hoped to have a good view of it. Then he meant to give a great shout

to startle it, just for the fun of seeing it flee, crashing through the

forest.

His father's flatboat was tied to a tree on the lee shore of an island

which was sometimes called the Fairy Isle and sometimes the Haunted

Isle. Near by, across the Ohio River, was the settlement of Belpre.

Mr. Holman, on trading bent, had taken his scow to Belpre, while his

wife watched the flatboat and Doby went hunting for fresh meat in the

safety of the Haunted Isle.

It was secure from the ordinary dangers of the river, for Indians

and renegades alike avoided this place. They feared the ghost of a

beautiful scarlet-cloaked lady, the ghost of a magnificent velvet-clad

gentleman, and the ghosts of liveried servants wandering there.

Once upon a time the common people of Belpre and the soldiery of her

army post would scull across the river to catch envious glimpses of the

island's house of brick and stone, so different from their own wooden

cabins, and to stare open-mouthed at fine folk arrayed in satins and

laces, living so elegantly just beyond the frontier's workaday world.

Then on an evil day the gallant family on the island had been arrested

and marched away and exiled as criminals. The house had been burned to

warn other offenders against the Republic.

And ever since, on chill and foggy days, when the mists hung over

the river, ghosts walked in the ruins of the splendid mansion hidden

among the flowering trees of the Fairy Isle. They drifted through the

desolation where once sweet gardens bloomed. They danced with the wind

in weird couples on the forsaken lawns. And when the broken moonlight

came it showed them huddled in gray, fantastic groups along the shore.

The shuddering boatmen hugged the opposite bank and turned away their

faces that they might not see too plainly the beckoning fingers of

vapor, the foggy hair, and the trailing robes of cloud, so unreal, so

full of romance, and so disquieting to all who knew the story of this

place.

Doby was not to be startled by ghosts; at least he said he wasn't.

Though ghosts and goblins were merely names to him, he liked the idea

of a Fairy Isle.

Few boys could carry the heavy guns of that day for any distance. Doby

did not try to do so. His plan was to get what game he could with snare

and knife. He was bidden to keep within running distance of the boat,

and he set rabbit-traps in the brier patches.

From the briers he had sighted the buck. It was all aquiver, snorting

and twitching its ears. Doby hid behind a buckeye and softly shinned

into the first crotch lest the restless beast should turn and charge in

his direction.

"I'd like to know what is the matter with the buck," thought Doby. "It

is watching something that makes it half curious and half afraid."

The boy stared into the glen before him until his eyes became

accustomed to the shadows--until he saw what the buck saw. When he did

see he almost fell out of the tree with astonishment. He looked again.

He shut his eyes; he opened them; stared some more; he blinked; then he

gazed fixedly.

"No wonder the buck is nervous," gasped Doby. "I'm s'prised myself,"

and still he looked and could not believe that he saw what he really

did see.

For there on a log, in the shade of an elm, sat a gnome--a big gnome.

Doby was perfectly willing to be entertained by ghosts and fairies in

the gossip of the river towns. He liked such stories. But he knew, of

course, that there are no such things as wraiths and sprites. Even on a

fairy isle there could not possibly be a gnome.

"I feel dreadfully queer to be looking at him when I know he isn't

there," and something inside of Doby began to turn round and round.

The gnome, all of a faded bark color like the earth he grubbed in, sat

with his feet crossed, his thin arms akimbo, his beard hanging in a

point down his breast, and his hair tied in a wad on his head so that

it had a shape something of a peaked-cap style.

He was motionless. He was not a crooked stump. He was not a gnarled

branch. He was alive! Laughter was running out of his mouth like cider

gurgling from a jug. Between chuckles, his soft, clear voice was

scolding the buck.

"Now, Mr. Red Deer," he was saying, "this is the third time I have

caught you trying to break down the brush barricade and nipping at my

seedling apple-trees. Don't you know that seedlings can never grow up

to be trees and bear fruit if you tear the fence and reach over and

bite their heads off?"

The deer was so inquisitive about the quaint, still figure with the

soothing voice, that it advanced and retreated as if in fascination,

while the voice flowed on: "How can you be so greedy, Mr. Deer? I'm

ashamed of you. I'll have to carry away the seedlings so you can't get

them. I'll plant them in neat orchard rows for a farmer I know."

Doby craned forward, his mouth agape. He must watch this thing through,

no matter what happened.

"If I were you," continued the gnome, "I'd be a good stag and run along

home, before some boy with a stone knife speared at me." Here the

unbelievable gnome stared straight across the glade into Doby's face

and winked. Winked!

This was too much! With a thump Doby tumbled from the tree. With a leap

the deer vanished from the glen.

Doby thought, "This is the queerest dream I've ever had. I know I'll be

all right as soon as I wake up."

He did not wake up. He was picked up--by the gnome!

Gentle hands helped him. A friendly face looked into his. A musical

voice said, "I reckon you're not hurt a mite. That was no bump for a

boy. I was wishing I had some one to help me; so you are in time to

give Johnny a boost with his apple seedlings."

Johnny! Apple seedlings!

"O--o--h!" Doby regarded the gnome with a different interest.

"O--o--h! Are you Johnny Appleseed? The man who is traveling over this

countryside, gathering up apple seeds from the cider presses, cleaning

and sprouting and transplanting them for the farmers who don't know how

to do it for themselves? Starting orchards for settlers? Teaching 'em

how to make trees grow?"

"Yes, I'm Jonathan Chapman, the nurseryman."

"Coming down the river, we talked about you. I heard about these secret

seedling-pens where you hid people while the War of 1812 was going on.

Those folks must have been much obliged to you for saving their scalps

from the British Indians."

Modest Johnny nodded. Then, "Take your knife, son," he said. "It looks

like a good flint. I'll show you how to prune these little trees as we

handle and move them. Now is your chance to learn spring planting."

Doby rolled up his sleeves, spat on his hands, dug his soft-shod toes

into the ground, and went at it. His teacher was the wisest grower in

the Ohio Valley.

This eerie companion told him: "Our native fruits, cherries, plums,

haws, crabapples, pawpaws, huckleberries, gooseberries, and grapes, all

reached perfection in the magic gardens of this isle, where once the

owners of this fine estate helped me with my experiments in raising

plants. I find that they need only a little cultivation to make them

hang heavy with harvest around every barren frontier home."

Doby licked his lips. "I suppose you know how to gather sugar from

maple-tree sap and when to pick honey from bee-trees!" He was sure

that, "Fruit does make corn bread and bacon taste better."

"Wild roses, honeysuckle, goldenrod, and clematis would nod a glad

'Good morning' at the door of every lonesome cabin if we welcomed them

with care," continued Johnny, hoping to interest the boy.

The idea of spreading healthfulness through a fruit diet and joy by way

of flower-gardens was part of Johnny's self-sacrificing religion. He

preached it with ardor to every listener.

For more than a hundred years his words and his plants have borne fruit

through these valleys.

Doby stopped work from time to time to ramble and root about the

wreckage of the fine house. He asked, "Wasn't that grand Irish

gentleman, Mr. Blennerhasset, who bought this island home, a friend of

Aaron Burr's when Burr was Vice-President of the United States?"

"He was a friend and a welcome guest here," Johnny answered.

"If Mr. Blennerhasset and other friends of Aaron Burr wanted to give

him ships from the boat-builders in Marietta and hire him men from

the idlers in the West, why shouldn't they be allowed to do so? Why

shouldn't they man a fleet for him? If Aaron Burr wished to help free

Mexico from the Spanish, why wasn't it right for him to try it? Mexico

is always out of luck."

Johnny's face grew sad. "Many good people, like the Blennerhassets,

thought it right to help free Mexico. But our Government learned that

Burr had plans to take a piece of our Western country, to organize it

into a separate state, to join it to Mexico and perhaps to rule it all

himself."

"To split off a part of his own country and make himself a king! Gold

crowns and scepters--oh--fine!" cried Doby, sarcastically. "That's why

they call him a traitor, and no wonder. The people who helped him to

break up our independent nation ought to be punished, even if they were

innocent of his motive. No good comes of treason."

Johnny brightened up. "Perhaps great good may, after all, grow out of

the sad mistake of Burr's conspiracy. It has made the Government think

that if the East and West had been better acquainted, if the people of

both sections had been able to travel back and forth and had come to

think of themselves as all belonging to the same United States, the

idea of separating under Burr would never have occurred to them. So

now, to guard against any more such treason, it is going to build a

fine road straight 'cross country, from East to West, so that the two

sections will be tied together with a bond which all can understand."

Doby studied over the idea. "'Twill stir up commerce and patriotism and

loyalty. All travelers, all farmers, all dealers, even you and I will

be glad to have a great highway--a big national pike."

He picked up an arm-load of trees to lug them toward the shore. Johnny

told him to look back. "The buck may follow us," he said.

Doby was sure that its antlers showed among the brush. "I'll have pa

shoot it when he comes back. If I don't get a rabbit we will need

venison."

"Don't," begged Johnny. "I can't bear to see anything shot. I want to

be a brother to dumb animals as well as to men and to plants."

"What if the buck chews these trees?" asked the boy. "What if it gets

dangerous?"

The gentle answer was: "Be more careful of the trees. Take heed for

yourself. Never hurt any living thing. Let that pretty creature be.

Some day I may be able to domesticate the deer and the buffalo as I am

doing now with our wild plants."

Quite to himself, hungry Doby gave an impatient sniff. He was thinking,

"I don't intend to abuse anything; likewise I don't intend to let

anything abuse me--not an old bobtailed thief of a buck, anyway."

His mother climbed a stool and peeped over the high wall of baggage on

the flatboat to smile at him and his new friend, as he took his spade

and tried to keep pace with Johnny in digging a series of deep holes.

The nurseryman said, "I intend to plant mulberry-trees in this sunny

spot."

"I know," cried Doby. "This hole grows to grow a tree to grow a leaf to

grow a worm to grow a silk frock to grow a fine lady," and he returned

his mother's smile.

Behind them the silent buck had ventured up to take a browse at the

seedlings. Doby foolishly ran toward it to drive it off. Angrily it

rose on its hind legs to strike him.

Horrified Johnny felt that death was coming in that brutal downward cut

of hoof. Instantly, desperately, he flung his spade at the deer. The

metal clanged on its antlers. The deer turned aside. Doby vaulted to

the top of the boat's barricade, yelling for Johnny to follow him.

Johnny had seized the other spade and had thrown it in his own defense.

It hit the deer on the flank. Doby and his mother shrieked like mad.

Startled and confused by the attack and the noise, the buck took flight.

Whirling about wildly, it chose the one dangerous direction--straight

away, over the sunny open space where the digging had been done. Its

forelegs went down in one hole, its head seemed to light in another,

and the flying brute turned a complete somersault. Leaves and grass and

dirt filled the air.

Doby's screams redoubled. Johnny gained the boat's wall. He knew they

were out of danger's reach, should the buck turn back to rend them, for

the baggage stockade would protect them.

But he was shaken by their peril. While getting his breath and calming

Doby and his mother, he watched uneasily for the next movement of the

irate beast.

After many minutes of waiting he knew that it would never move again.

Its neck was broken.

Then Johnny Appleseed leaned his bark-colored form back against the

woodsy setting of the leaf-covered boat wall, crossed his feet, set

his arms akimbo--the kindest gnome who ever lived, the good spirit

of the Fairy Isle, the best-known and most-beloved character on the

frontier--and murmured to Doby:

"Now that the deer has done the killing himself, you might as well have

some fresh venison to eat before we go on with our work."

III

GOBBLE! GOBBLE!

_Hard Times on the French Grant_

"IT is, 'Doby, do this,' and, 'Doby, do that,' from morning to night.

I've worked and worked and wor-r-rked," groaned Obadiah Holman, "'til

both of my heels are stone-bruised and I have a rag on every toe."

The expression of his face showed that he held strong feelings on the

subject of child labor and that those feelings were all against it.

Chore-boys did not get together and organize themselves in the olden

days. Protests against overtime jobs received so little attention that

Doby grumbled: "No use to sputter. S'pose I'll have to keep right on

quarryin'."

He had dropped his task to glance about the town of Gallipolis. It was

a lean and wizened, yet quaint and romantic settlement of Old World

Frenchmen. The log cabins were the same cubes of houses that pioneers

were everywhere building. But the town had a different air from

bustling Pittsburg or dignified Marietta. He examined one home after

another.

In the tiny holes of windows hung beribboned curtains of white. Never

before had he seen frilled curtains; never before a curtain in a cabin

window where there was neither sash nor glass.

Under the windows were crocuses and daffodils and leaf points of the

lilies-of-France showing gaily. Beside each door were sociable little

benches inviting the passer-by to stop and chat. Under the eaves hung

tambourines ready for a moment's playtime.

Doby wondered over these attempts at refinement of living in a land

where as yet the bare living itself was not quite certain. "This is a

brave little town," he decided.

Half a dozen years later there was born near here, at Point Pleasant,

that Ulysses S. Grant, whose soldierly courage under difficulties, and

whose steadfast purpose to make the best of national disaster, should

forever remain a watchword for those struggling to win success.

His achievements were brilliant and worldwide. Those of his neighbors

were smaller but happily complete; for in a few years more they, too,

overcame their handicaps.

Warned by rumors of Indians down the river, Doby's father had tied up

his flatboat at this hamlet and had brought his wife and son ashore

until the waterway became safe again.

To return the rather meager hospitality of Ol' Pap Soisson, a French

bachelor, who had offered them half of his cabin, Mr. Holman was taking

some round stones from the wash of the creek and was building for his

host a safe cobblestone chimney.

Most of the settlers had chimneys woven like birds' nests, of sticks

plastered together with mud, inside and out. When they dried out they

became dangerous. A stone one was fire-proof. It could hold the heat,

could reflect it into the room, and could cook food better than the

plastered one.

In the business of piling up masonry for the chimney Doby was first

assistant. Ol' Pap Soisson was a poor second. Doby was an unwilling

worker, but the bachelor useless. He was too small, too weak, too old.

As he himself explained to Doby, "It is of a certainty that I have

never yet had enough of the food to make a growth or a strength." His

bright eyes measured the boy as if to guess how stocky he himself might

become if fed aright. "Greed possesses me when I sit at the savory

meals prepared by that so accomplished madam, your mother."

He chuckled comfortably as he recalled the breakfasts, the dinners, and

the suppers which she had given him. The thought of them helped him

to roll up a big stone. Exhausted, but triumphant, he sat upon it and

became sociable.

"Once I lived in Paris. To me, at my trade of wigmaker, comes the man

Duer, of the Scioto Company, dealers in land American. I am then of the

restlessness of youth. To work at a living is a matter uninteresting.

That horror of all horrors--the Reign of Terror--approaches." He glared

fiercely and made a gesture of cutting his throat. "To escape its mad

mob of hungry-driven guillotinists I seek a land where successful

revolutionists like the Americans enjoy liberty restrained." His whole

quivering body expressed utter fear resulting from the "freedom" of the

French Revolution. "When the Scioto Company's agent offers us land in

this saner Republic so prosperous, scores of us small tradesmen give

him our savings in exchange for paper titles to New World estates.

Gladly we leave that disturbed kingdom. Gladly we come to this." Here

the little man danced a few steps of derision, jeered at his own cabin,

and snapped his fingers at the landscape.

"Land is a good thing," declared practical Doby. "You got land, didn't

you?"

"By the truth, no! Our titles, you understand, are of a badness

unbelievable. We are ruined. Swindle is the name of it. Voyaging

through discomforts numerous and cuisine scant, by ocean, by forest,

by mountain, by stream, in that long ago, we have arrived." He raised

his eyebrows in a grimace. "The land is not ours, but that of another.

Like lambs we are shorn by that Duer American. We cannot pluck sugar

from the trees of maple as is promised us. We cannot light the candles

of the barberry-bush as is also promised. To live we must have

agriculture. Agriculture is an art. We know it not. For me, I am a

wigmaker. That is my art. Behold!" He threw out ten fingers to cover

the case. "In ignorance of agriculture we starve; we freeze. Some die.

Some wander away."

Doby sat down beside him to express sympathy. Mr. Holman gave his whole

attention to the tale.

"Seeing us about to perish, the United States, in pity, gives us this

land. It is the French Grant, in that year of the famine which is worse

than all other bad times, of the date 1790."

"How many acres?" asked Doby, who every day talked about land values

with all sorts of emigrants.

"Of the number of forty thousand."

"Forty thousand acres make a big grant," cried Doby, much relieved by

his country's bit of justice toward these men. "A large colony can live

well on that much land."

"Ha!" shrugged Ol' Pap Soisson. "With that we take courage. By day

we learn the so necessary agriculture. By night we fiddle, step to

measure, sing the 'Marseillaise.' On Sunday, to preserve respect to

ourselves and to honor the Virgin, we say a mass and make a toilette of

fashionable attire."

Doby stared. "Do you mean to tell me that you dressed up in your city

wigs and furbelows? In the wilderness?" he demanded.

"Of a certainty, yes! We love the good appearance. We want the laughter

and the social life. Arrayed, I promenade the street for pleasure. A

wild red heathen with a hatchet comes from behind and scalps me of my

holiday wig, my best one!"

"No!" cried Doby. "No!"

"Yes! Yes!" bobbing his head a dozen times, the Frenchman insisted.

"Yes! Yes!" He added: "The land is full of game. To pursue it is to

live well. But see! for a quarter of a century I run from bear, from

deer, from charging buffalo. Never do I pursue. Ever I am the pursued

one. Of meat I taste little; of game nothing." He shook his head.

"Now--have the young men of our kind learned the pioneering. We old

mastered it not."

Doby was shocked. Such robbery and disappointment worried him. He

looked to his father to say something cheery to the plucky little man.

Mr. Holman, big and brawny, equal to any demand of frontier life, gazed

kindly at Ol' Pap Soisson, who had found its trials almost too much for

him. "We will give you a taste of game to-day. Go, Doby, and shoot that

gobbler we have been hearing."

"But, pa," protested Doby, "wild turkey isn't good in the spring.

Nobody eats it."

"It _will_ be good if your ma cooks it. I know some one who can eat

it," and he smiled at the Frenchman.

Ol' Pap Soisson flashed thirty-two white teeth in assent.

Stone-bruised heels were forgotten. Rags were torn from Doby's toes.

They did not hurt--much. He slipped on his moccasins, not because his

bare feet minded the March rime of frost, but just because all hunters

did wear moccasins.

He carried bow and arrows. Pioneer boys were clever with these, for

they were easy to pack about. Early guns were heavy.

"Wild turkeys are hard to shoot," he remembered as he trotted along

the edge of the wood. "If I can't get that gobbler, I'll bring home

something to cook in the new oven. Ol' Pap Soisson deserves a square

meal."

His father had pointed out the probable turkey-run. Doby had expected

to discover tracks at once, but he had to keep on and on, still in

sight of the cabin, until, when at last he did find fresh traces, he

must have been all of four miles away. But what are four miles to a

hunter? Mere detail!

He hid himself in the heart of a sycamore and waited for game to pass.

Sitting astride a limb in a rough old tree is much easier than lugging

stone for an oven, especially if it is one of those big outdoor affairs

fastened to the chimney.

His father would build a vent to make the draught strong. Then a

fire would have to burn for hours in the oven until the stones were

scorching. The coals would then be raked out and the turkey--_if Doby

got it_--would be shut in the hot empty oven to let the reflected,

heat roast it.

"If I were to tell that bony bachelor about the apple turnovers and

rabbit pie, the gingerbread and quail dumplings, the baked beans and

mince tarts, the succotash and blackberry short-cake, the whole shoats

and cinnamon buns, the halved squash pudding and caraway cookies that

ma can bake in such an oven, the poor fellow would lick his chops and

fall sick from in-di-ges-tion of the im-ag-i-na-tion!"

From some source Doby had learned that, in the Old World, every plant

and animal which is good to eat had been discovered and used by men

centuries before people had begun to write down any sort of history.

In the New World of the Americas, the natives had long ago found out

what was good to eat on their continent, and could show the immigrating

white man delicious foods which he had never before tasted--the golden

maize, the bison, and the turkey. Doby felt that a personal experience

of some of these dainties would make Ol' Pap Soisson joyous. So he kept

his eye out for the turkey.

He was hidden where he could not be seen by any man. He fancied that he

could not be noticed by any wild creature and that he himself could

see everything about him. Deluded hunter! If he had been clever enough

to peer more closely into the weeds below him, what trouble he might

have saved!

Soon, along the run far to the north, there was a stir. He could not

make it out. To the south was other movement.

"Doby, 'tend to business," he cautioned himself.

From the north came a turkey--a gobbler--_the_ gobbler. This _was_

luck. Doby fitted an arrow.

From the south came a boy--a big boy--an Indian. This was not so lucky.

Doby slackened his bowstring.

The savage had already seen the turkey. Silent and shadowy, he crept

from tree to tree toward the stately bird. His stalk was a model of

woodcraft.

What chance had Doby against such skill--against any grown boy? Very

little. Against a wild Indian he had none at all.

The dismayed Holman sat so still that he could hear his own ribs creak.

This was no longer his game. The hunter Doby was in danger of becoming

the hunted Doby. He lost all appetite for turkey.

The wise gobbler--he was neither young nor tender--kept a sharp

outlook on the shadows, an alert regard for his own giblets. He was

watching the Indian quite as closely as the Indian was watching him,

and with as much anxiety as Doby was watching them both. Then with a

strategic side-step he scuttled into the weeds near the foot of Doby's

tree and was off at a tangent.

Instantly the Indian let fly one arrow, then a second one. Both whizzed

in the same direction and at the same mark. There followed a great

squawk and flutter. A turkey with an arrow through its neck flopped

into sight and went scurrying north over the run. The Indian was in hot

pursuit.

When the quarry and the chase were out of sight Doby noticed--oh,

dull-eyed white man!--what he should have observed at first, that a

turkey hen must have been waiting all this time in the weeds for that

gobbler to come along.

The Indian's first arrow had pinned the gobbler to the ground. There

he still was, lying flat. By accident, the second arrow had struck the

hidden hen. Perhaps because the gobbler had fallen out of his sight,

perhaps because the flight of the hen deceived and confused him, the

Indian had followed the wounded turkey and Doby was left behind with

the dead one.

[Illustration: THE BIRD JUMPED AT THE BOY. THE BOY STABBED AT THE BIRD]

All this action had been so quick that Doby could do nothing. Now

he slung his bow and arrows out of the way, got down, and drew his

precious stone knife to cut the gobbler loose. He meant to hasten away

south toward home with the prize.

He pulled the arrow from the ground, then out through the bird's thigh

and wing.

Ignorant Doby! Foolish boy! Not to know what playing 'possum is!

The gobbler sprang to life. Did he run? Not he! A turkey cock is a

fighting cock. He whetted his spurs. His crest rose in menace. His

wattles blazed scarlet. He flew at Doby in a fury.

Taken by surprise, the boy covered his face with his hand and began

blindly to lunge and to fend with his knife every time the gobbler

struck at him. The bird jumped at the boy. The boy stabbed at the bird.

The battle grew. The gobbler would not run. Doby could not.

He never knew how long he fought. But he did fight and fight hard. The

gobbler fought and fought harder. Doby was knocked down.

After a while, a long while, he opened his eyes and sat up. He feebly

gazed around him. He stared at his foe. They had fought to a finish.

The boy was almost finished. The gobbler lying beside him was quite

finished.

Hours and hours later, Ol' Pap Soisson, keeping an excited lookout,

went running to meet Doby. The boy's feet were a mass of blisters. His

clothes were a tattered ruin from the spurs of the vanquished. His arms

were numb with lugging the fifteen-pound turkey over those four long

miles. His hands were swollen. His head was tied up.

The astonishment and delight of the little Frenchman pleased Doby. His

compliments, so spattered with exclamation points, were praises most

agreeable to the hunter.

What are a few scratches and bumps? What are bruises and cuts? Taken in

a good cause, they are nothing. Simply nothing!

Any boy would have agreed with Doby when he said, sincerely, as he

at last sat down to watch the first fire crackle in the new oven, "A

fellow feels all good and rested when he can quit work and take a

little time off for some lively sport which will fill the larder and

feed the hungry."

IV

MAKING A SCOUT

_Cincinnati's Early Days_

"THIS rise of land is a hill. Why do they call it a 'knob,' I wonder?

While I am in Cincinnati I want to act as much like city folks as I

can, so I'll try to remember to say 'knob' whenever I mean hill," and

Obadiah Holman sat down on the knob and looked at the city.

His far-sighted blue eyes were trained for the open, not for roofs and

walls, so they passed over brick and stone architecture, well worth

noting in this new land of log and plank buildings, to watch a bit of

greensward near the edge of the knob where some form of animal life was

stirring.

He was instantly ready for lively observation. "I believe that's a dog.

Two dogs! They must be having a race. The yellow pup is the faster."

Leaping up, Doby put his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly,

hoping to change the direction of the run. He would like to see two

dogs at play, even if they were strange dogs.

They did not hear him. They were far away and they disappeared from his

sight in a flash.

He sat down again. He was disappointed. Their passing had given him

a singularly deserted feeling. "I wish they had come up here to be

company for me. A whole cityful," thought Doby, remembering the

three thousand inhabitants of Cincinnati, "is such a crowd of people

that a boy emigrant doesn't know any person and he feels left out of

everything and--anyway--no boy can have a really good time without a

dog."

Doby had another reason for being forlorn. He had been rejected by a

group of men whom he wanted to join on an expedition into Kentucky.

No one likes to be snubbed. He was trying to forget the uncomfortable

experience by visiting all the points of interest in the city and

then by climbing to the top of the knob where he could get a high and

impersonal glimpse of things.

Opposite him was the mouth of the Licking River as it flowed north into

the Ohio. Half a dozen miles east was the Little Miami. A score or so

to the west was the Big Miami.

All low grounds about these river mouths were flooded in spring by

what the astonished emigrants called "amazing high freshets," and the

towns which the promoters began on them had to be abandoned by "the

respectable public" whom their advertisements had drawn there.

But the knob was above the reach of backwater and higher than any

rising ague fog.

Three wise men thought it the best place for a city. One, Denman, who

was rich, paid two hundred and fifty dollars for the eight hundred

acres on the knob. Another, Colonel Patterson, who was influential, had

an army post for protection built here. And the third, Filson, who was

clever, surveyed the lands and made most valuable maps of the regions

round about. The irate Indians scalped Filson for his pains, but the

other two waxed prosperous with the growth of their city.

Doby had seen some of Filson's drawings of the surrounding trails.

Particularly was he entranced by the map of Kentucky. "Every time

I look at that dotted line of the great Clark War Road stretching

alongside the Kentucky River away into the wilderness, I want to go

down it." His thoughts kept coming back to his grievance like a cat

to an empty house. "There is no good reason why a boy shouldn't travel

that road any more than there is an excuse for a boy not having a dog."

He felt dreadfully sorry for himself. "Perhaps if I had a dog--a fine

tracking-hound or a fierce watch-dog--the scouts might need the dog and

take me along with it. But I haven't one thing that they want and I

can't go."

Up the road of Doby's desire, while it was yet a trail, had come the

Indians to the broad plateau of the knob. Long before Filson's time

these savages had seen the value of such a lookout. They made it a

stopping-place because it could so well be guarded against surprise.

Their signal-fires upon it could be seen by all surrounding tribes.

Even a smoke message could warn three valleys.

"'Twas such a safe place," thought Doby, whimsically, "that the Miamis

had to fight all the time to keep it from other Indians who also wanted

to be secure upon it. Constant battles here have given it the name of

the 'Miami slaughter-house.'"

George Rogers Clark, the Virginian, a Revolutionary hero, who came

across Kentucky hot on the track of the Miamis, used the savage trail

to such quick and victorious service against the British, making it

part of his route to his renowned conquest of the Northwest, that it

had taken his name. He built a sturdy little blockhouse for a fort and

supply station on the knob in 1780 as a half-way station between his

Kentucky outposts and the forts on the Wabash and the Great Lakes. And

there it still stood, like one of Clark's chunky soldiers who was said

to sink deeper into the ground every time the enemy charged him and who

had no intention of giving up, no matter how many times he was licked.

Cincinnati was founded by Revolutionary soldiers who were paid for

their services by grants of land in this neighborhood. Two companies of

regular troops in Fort Washington guarded them as they returned to the

plow and used their trusty swords to make their little pigs into famous

Queen City sausages.

Doby munched on a sweet, lumpy souvenir of his visit to the

sugar-factory as he gazed at the glass factory, the furniture-factory,

the cotton and hemp spinning and weaving mills, the flour-mills,

the tanneries, all the big city buildings where the newly invented

steam-engine was beginning to make for the pioneers all the things that

they had been obliged to do for themselves by hand.

"Ma will be glad to hear of the machine that can make cloth as fast

as I wear it out," and the boy examined the inside of his much-used

knife-pocket at a patch which needed a patch itself, although it was

already a patch upon another patch.

But all this machinery made his head tired. So did the smoke and the

smells and the confusion of streets.

Some rural path--preferably in Kentucky--was the only thing he could

think of that would rest him and entertain him when he had no person to

talk to and no pet to play with.

So he sat upon the knob and kicked his heels to cool his restless feet.

His eyes turned from the city's buildings to its fringe of green. They

wandered again to the spot where he had seen the most satisfactory

thing of the whole day--those passing dogs.

There was a bunch of tawny leaves blowing along the hillside. He stared

at it idly. No, it was not leaves, that patch of uncertain color. It

was something living, something leaping.

How uncertainly it moved! How wabbly it was! Doby sat up sharply and

peered. He stood up and leaned forward. He shut his eyes for a better

long-distance focus and squinted.

"It is the yellow dog again. Dog? No! Fox? It can't be a fox! It surely

is a fox." Behind the fox a dog was running. A long chase had tired

them both. Their pace was dragging.

"It is the same dog, I do believe, and the same fox that I saw before.

What a big circle they must be running!"

All alert now, Doby measured their speed. If he ran forward in quick

time at right angles to it, their course would pass quite close to him.

Away he flew.

He was thinking, "That fox is exhausted. It can hardly get along. The

hunt has been an all-day one. The dog--ah, the poor brave doggie!--is

worse off than the fox. He will never catch it. What a fine dog! What

a game dog, not to give up when he is outrun! He is my kind of a dog.

I'll help him."

Doby rushed down the hill to head off the fox. At most times it would

have been a silly and a useless thing to do. But now the spent fox was

not equal to any of its sly dodges.

It saw the man creature--that cruel enemy of all wild life--and for one

second it paused. On the instant the persistent dog also saw the man

creature--that kind friend of all tame brutes--and, reinforced by his

presence, leaped with a last bit of strength for the quarry.

Doby was in at the death. He cut the brush. It was a splendid trophy.

Then he gave his whole attention to the dog, who had fallen over on one

side and lay prone.

"Poor doggie, he looks as though he were going to die!" quavered Doby.

"Poor doggie! Come, doggie! I'll carry you to our flatboat and tend

you."

So over the hillside and down the terraces and through the unheeding

city streets he lugged the limp dog to the landing at the water's edge

and into the flatboat and on to a cushion.

"That dog seems to have a little of every kind of breed, so we will

call him a foxhound, for short," was Mr. Holman's comment, as Doby bent

anxiously over his find with water and milk and bread and meat. "But if

you want to do so, you may keep him for your own," he promised, as he

always did on every one of those numerous occasions when Doby adopted

some hapless stray and wistfully begged to be allowed to take care of

it and train it.

Thus, by chance, Doby had within an hour acquired a dog at a time when

he fancied that he needed it most.

What a good thing a reliable dog would be to a party of scouts, if the

boy who had him could go along to make him do his doggie best! These

were Doby's reflections as he watched the fagged one, bit by bit, grow

strong and lively.

He proved to be a grateful brute and an affectionate one. He answered

Doby's endearments most ardently. But, alas! as he recovered he grew

restless. He wanted to be off again.

Now around this dog's neck was a band of leather, the only kind of

collar that pioneer puppies knew. Mr. Holman had glanced at this

collar. He knew what it meant, but he did not say a word about it. Doby

also knew what it meant, but he did not speak of it, either. He sat and

stared at it by the hour together.

The collar had been made and fastened on the dog by some other boy. The

dog was some other boy's dog. He was a pet dog. If he was set free he

might return to some far-away home--to that other boy.

At this moment he was looking at Doby with adoring eyes, as that

uncomfortable boy thought, "If I keep him a long time, keep him shut up

and well fed, he will finally like me best and be my pet, for I saved

his life." The dog wagged a hearty assent to this; and to all Doby's

claims to loyalty he pounded his tail thankfully on the resounding

floor of the flatboat.

"The scouts would listen to me and take me along, almost surely take

me along, if I could show them a good tracking-hound," he argued.

"It is my one chance to get in with them." He was more miserable now

with the dog than he had ever been without it--well--because he kept

thinking.

The dog licked Doby's hands and reached for his face with a moist and

loving tongue. "I believe they would take me if he went, too." The dog

begged for a joyous tussle. He was the greatest fun to play with.

"You want to stay with me, don't you?" Doby asked of the completely

restored and lively hound, flushed and happy as they paused in a romp.

But the dog was already beginning to pace back and forth inside the

barricaded boat. He whined at every crack. He brought pleading sniffs

to Doby's feet.

The boy stood and thought. He must decide what to do about another

man's property. The more he thought, the deeper he frowned. His face

was a tangled hard knot of lines when, after a long inner struggle, he

finally got out his knife to cut a strip of bark from a slippery-elm

tree, stopping frequently to sigh over the hard task he had given

himself.

On the plain white inner side of the bark his stone knife carved

plainly, THE FOX TAIL IS ON HOLMAN'S FLATBOAT IN CINCINNATI HE IS A

FINE DOG WE HELPED HIM OBADIAH HOLMAN. Carefully rolling and tying it,

he fastened it inside the dog's collar as messages were sometimes sent.

He carried the dog ashore and released him. He was sure that all his

hopes for going with the scouts vanished with the dog.

A strange feeling of being grown up came over him. "After this when I

ought to do a thing, I'll just go ahead and do it, and not hesitate so

long about the deed I know is right."

Acting on this decision, he was silent and showed no childish regrets,

when the scouts, gathering on the dock the next afternoon, made ready

for their start. They never noticed him. Their thoughts were on Simon

Kenton, who was to direct them. He was the pioneer's ideal. He had once

saved the life of Daniel Boone, that most famous of all the patriotic

Kentucky rangers, and had become his fast friend in consequence.

Kenton's services as an Indian-fighter had given him a name that filled

the Middle West. He was brave beyond belief. The number of times that

he had been captured and the great difficulties of his escapes never

prevented him from offering his help wherever his woodcraft could lead

soldiers to victory through savage-infested country.

Half a dozen times and more he had run the gauntlet. Three times he is

said to have been tied to the stake for torture and burning. During

several periods of captivity he was most brutally treated. Yet in every

important battle with the redskins in his own State and out of it he

was one of the directing powers. Between-times he was a matchless spy

and a fearless ranger. Even now, although he was past middle age, he

had a splendid body, a tireless mind, and a dauntless courage.

"If any one can rescue the besieged wagon-train from the Indians,

this is the scout who will do it," said Mr. Holman. And they all rose

respectfully as the gray-eyed giant came among them.

They knew him to be fond of animals and kind to pets, so there was no

surprise that a dog should be hanging on his heels. The wonder was that

this should chance to be Doby's dog--the so-called foxhound. In noisy

recognition the happy pup leaped upon the boy, licked his face, knocked

him over backward, and tried to eat him up.

"Oh, you bad bow-bow," laughed Doby, returning the embrace.

"Wow-wow," answered the hound, rolling over on his back in an ecstasy

of delight at the meeting.

Simon Kenton's speech was as old-fashioned as his big brave heart. He

asked the boy, "Be ye Obadiah Holman?"

Doby nodded with something like a bow. "Well, then, I'm huntin' for

ye. I want a boy to go with us into Kentucky. Git ready to start

instanter." On Kenton's arm was hanging a small suit of fringed

buckskin. "Put these duds on. They'll fit well enough. When I found the

note in the collar I reckoned on ye bein' young," and the tall scout

smiled down on the boy. "I fetched a leetle rifle for ye."

The other men objected in chorus: "He's nothing but a boy. He can't go.

We can't take a boy and we can't take a dog."

"Don't want to take the dog; never do take the dog," was the easy

answer.

"The boy is too small," was the second chorus.

The bright gray eyes ran over Doby from his eager face to his

moccasined toes. Then Simon Kenton said "He is big enough for me. I

can use him on this ventur'. I've taken chances afore on folks that

befriended my dog. Nary chance did I ever lose."

Without more ado he took command of the expedition. He showed each man

his duty. Then he said to Doby: "I'll trust ye. Climb into yer new

suit, son, and scoot along. Show us yer ready for business. I reckon

ye'll never be anybody's small boy again. When ye made up yer mind to

give a man the things that belonged to him--the minute ye wrote that

note--w'y, just that minute ye growed into a first-class scout!"

V

BLUE-JAY FEATHERS

_An Indian Talisman on Clark's Kentucky War Road_

"I LOOK so grand that I want to say, 'Sir,' every time I speak to

myself," and Obadiah Holman swaggered a little as he donned his

equipment.

His coonskin cap was set atilt. Its short ringed tail was a tassel

bobbing over his left ear. He wore a man's suit of fringed buckskin.

He had shortened his "galluses" and hitched up his breeches to a very

comfortable fit. Leggings added a picturesque touch to them. His shirt,

which was worn outside like a coat, had a belt to hold in the fullness.

Cut off a little at the bottom and fringed anew, and treated the same

way at the cuffs, it had become exactly his size. Best of all, it was

_not_ new.

When he appeared among the other scouts, his clothes had the same worn

effect of a serviceable uniform that theirs did.

Doby glowed with pride when he considered the company he kept. What

patriotic duties had not these scouts been in? What good work had not

these uniforms seen?

He resolved with all the best that was in him to be worthy of the place

Simon Kenton had given him with Johnson's Long Hunters--the Kentucky

cavalrymen.

The War of 1812 was now all over. But who could forget the services of

these men through that trying time? For the grizzled veterans all about

him were Col. Richard Johnson's troopers, the bravest and boldest men

in the West.

When William Henry Harrison, the governor of the Northwest Territory,

the man who had won the battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, against the

Indians, and so saved the Northwest to civilization, had later, in

1813, become so hard pressed in his struggle against Tecumseh's forces

allied with that Indian's British friends, farther east near Detroit,

it was the Kentucky regiment of Johnson's men whose furious valor broke

the stout line of British regulars on the Thames River and who kept the

Middle West from the clutches of old England.

A grateful country afterward made Colonel Johnson Vice-President of the

United States.

Boys and men cheered the doughty Kentuckians wherever they appeared.

Said one of them to Doby: "That Indian chief Tecumseh was a smart man.

He had more sense than most white men. He was a king, if ever a man

was. When the natives in his absence ceded to the whites so much of

the land around Fort Wayne, he was angry. He organized all the Western

Indians into a confederacy whose plan was to drive the Americans out

of the country. For he understood very soon the thing that it took the

other Indians a long time to learn. That was, the English and American

way of buying land."

"You see, the French, who came here first, met the Indians on terms

of friendly equality. The Indians responded to this by offering

hospitality. The French accepted it gratefully. The Indians passed

the peace pipes and said: 'Our Great Spirit tells us to welcome

our pale-face brothers. Our hunting-grounds are his.' And the

happy-go-lucky Frenchmen made their best society bows and said, 'After

you, kind friends, we will use them.' And they got along together first

rate."

"Our folks don't want to share and share alike with savages," declared

Doby. "We want to buy the land outright."

"That's what makes the trouble," answered the old Indian-fighter,

"savages do not know what buying land means. They never get our point

of view. When we give an Indian 'fire-water' and a disgracefully small

piece of money for his land, he thinks it is a present because we thank

him for the chance to hunt on that land. He fully expects us to buy it

again the next day and the next and the next. He thinks it is still his

after all this so-called buying."

"He gives us a deed to it," said Doby. "Anybody can understand what a

land title is."

"An Indian cannot. One day a white man, all smiles, comes to an

Indian's land, gives him a tawdry present, juggles a piece of

parchment, and shows the Indian how to make his mark among printed

words which he cannot read. Next day, the white man, all frowns, says

to the Indian, 'What d'you mean, making yourself to hum on my ground?

Git out!' and he kicks him off. It makes the Indian mad."

The veteran wagged his beard and his sweeping curly hair like an old

lion shaking his mane. "That's the real cause of the Indian uprisings.

General Harrison, who is a just and far-seeing ruler, has done his

best to compel fair play on both sides. Between the greed of the whites

and the treachery of the savages he hasn't had much luck."

"You fought with the other Long Hunters at New Orleans, didn't you?"

asked Doby.

"At that battle we licked the British again. The treaty of peace had

been signed, but word hadn't reached the South and we went at it

and hammered the beef-eaters fair and hard. Ah, those were the good

old times. Nothin' like it nowadays. Nothin' but a few odd jobs of

rescue-work like this one we are on. No real fightin'."

Doby looked in true respect at his friends of many scars. His hand went

up to his cap. He took it off in the presence of these patriots.

The Kentucky settlers called these men "Long Hunters" because they

could stay out more weeks on hunting-trips than less stalwart

backwoodsmen. "Long Knives" was the name the Indians gave them on

account of the ferocious dirks they carried. Even Doby sported his

stone knife in a formidable sheath.

Soft-hearted Simon Kenton had taken Doby along for a "lucky penny" or

"pocket-piece" as a later time would have taken some entertaining child

for a "mascot."

Like the other two dozen men in the group, Doby boasted a tomahawk

swung on his hip.

"A tomahawk is wild and savage-looking," laughed one of the men, seeing

how gingerly Doby handled the murderous thing, "but this one has been

tamed. It will be used to chop kindling-wood and to cut brush, unless

we get into a brash with redskins and you want to try its edge on a

scalp."

Also Doby had a powder-horn swung over his shoulder. In the hollow of

his left arm was as light a flintlock as that day afforded. It was

possible for him to carry the weight of this weapon because, oh, joy of

joys! between his knees was a Kentucky thoroughbred!

"No old nag to bring up the cows"--Doby was almost bursting with

pride--"will do for a fellow who is going West to fight Indians. He

needs a fast horse. This is one of the blue-grass best."

Every scout's saddle-bags carried rations for several days. They would

not use their rifles for game, nor would they build a fire except at

some station. They were traveling as light as possible, as fast as

their mounts would allow, and with as little noise as they could.

"Boonesboro'll keep the wagon-train as long as the grub holds out. The

pesky redskins 'ain't got a thing to do but to lay round an' besiege

the stockade 'til the buffaler come. When the herds git here the

redskins will follow the game north and the wagon-train can move again.

Trouble is that folks in stockades can't git along without eatin', and

these are plumb out o' vittles." And Simon Kenton, who had often gone

hungry in the Indian country, gave a little sigh of sympathy. "It ain't

likely that we will have a brash with Injuns hereabouts." Yet these

sagacious scouts slept in their clothes, had no fires, and took turns,

two at a time, doing sentinel duty. They rode, always, with guns primed

and loaded and ready under their trigger fingers.

Their plan was to add their force to the small number of men in the

train at Boonesboro and with a little food to bring them out to within

reach of game and to escort them north to Cincinnati. The Indians

generally fell back from any "Long Knives" train.

The scouts had crossed the Ohio River at Cincinnati, coming down,

gathering a few more fighters as they went. Doby's father, a seasoned

frontiersman, had gone with them because he was anxious to learn the

prospects for buying farming land in this richest soil of all the

States.

Now they were whirling down toward the Salt Lick Springs on the old

Clark War Road of Indian raids. At first the famous path led them to

the southwest.

Doby had ridden bareback from babyhood. He could "break" a colt or

subdue a "fractious" mare, but never had he gone down any pike at the

pace these Kentuckians set him as they tore away on their errand of

mercy.

His legs clung to the saddle, his moccasins stuck to the stirrups, his

hands grasped the bridle-rein as they flew. The scrambling up-hill

over rough ground, the breakneck sliding down into valleys, were his

delight. But when he saw the swollen Kentucky River that he must plunge

into for the first of several times on its winding course, he could

have screamed with hysterical excitement. He had no choice whether to

go or to stay. His horse carried him with the others on a rush into the

turbulent stream. The shock of the water and the sensation of leaving

solid earth for this swirling danger shook his chest with heavy sobs.

There is a contagion of courage as well as of fear. He caught the

spirit of his companions. By imitating them he was able to hold his

horse's head at an acute angle to the bank, so that the constant

up-stream effort kept the swimming animal from being swept down. He

stayed abreast of the others and landed with them at the road on the

opposite shore.

Then magnificent forests and open glades spun by them. They entered

canebrakes, those bottom-land stretches of succulent sugar-bearing

canes where wild turkeys scuttled in flocks before the sound of hoofs.

Simon Kenton smiled at Doby: "There ye be! Cane! Turkey! Kain tu'key!

There's where we git our name."

One night when they stopped to rest, Doby discovered on a flat-faced

boulder some crude outline pictures like the childish cartoons

of first-reader pupils. There were round turtles, square horses,

spindle-legged boys, moon faces, pigs with curly tails; just such

things as he had drawn on his slate many a time. All had been cut or

scraped in with a sharp point of stone or metal.

What boy could resist such a challenge? "Must be some sort of a

wilderness school near here," Doby thought as he whipped out his too

ready knife. Using the tip of the hilt, for he dare not risk the

precious point, he scratched a bird, to face another bird, something

like a blue jay which was already drawn to perch in this menagerie.

"I'll have to do something to tell what my bird and the other fellow's

bird are called," and he picked up a couple of fallen blue-jay

feathers. With a paste of mud he added them, one to each bird, for a

flaunting tail, grinning to think how surprised the children would be

when they noticed this addition to their art-gallery.

Simon Kenton, coming up, seemed to regard this as a serious matter.

"That pictur' is Injun writin'; lots of it hereabouts; every line and

dot means somethin'; can't tell what the varmints'll think of your

sign," and he shook his head dubiously; but he would not let the boy

try to erase it. "Better quit foolin' with it."

Doby was rather dismayed by this bit of indiscretion on his part. But

in the rapid going of the next few hours and in the flurry of the

wild-pig hunt which they allowed themselves when they came within hail

of the station, he forgot his regrets.

At this station they gave themselves a hot pork supper and a good rest.

A Kentucky station was from the first settlement of that coveted State

a spot full of romance, of danger, and of delight.

So fair was Kentucky, so rich, so promising, that native red men and

immigrating white men were ever ready to fight for a piece of her

fertile soil. Never was she more beautiful than in those days when

numerous battles caused her to be named the "dark and bloody ground."

Her stations, far apart, were built of log houses set in a hollow

square to form a solid wall toward the open country. Tiny loopholes

for rifles were the only windows on the outside walls. At each corner

was a two-story blockhouse, or "flanker," set up in such a way with

loopholes that the men inside could see and could cover with guns the

outside fort walls without themselves being seen by the Indians. There

were huge gates to these forts. They could defy and they did defy many

a savage attack. They were snug places for emigrants to stop.

Doby employed his idle hour making a "shrieker." First he cut a willow

whistle. On it he fastened the bladder of the slaughtered pig. Then

he took an immense breath, blew into the whistle, and filled the

bladder with air. When he could blow no longer he jerked it out of his

mouth. The air from the bladder rushed back through the whistle with a

hair-raising squeal.

Doby hopped in glee. But he dared not use it when they started again on

the dangerous War Road. There was always the chance of attracting some

foe.

"When we get inside the next station I'm going to give it one good

blow, Injuns or no Injuns," he declared.

So far had they now come by the road southwest, south, southeast, and

south again, that they were in the heart of Kentucky and approaching

Harrod's station not far distant from Boonesboro.

At Harrod's they had meant to eat hot game and save their full

saddle-bags for the wagon-train. But the sight of an Indian trading

at the post made them pause and go into a consultation with the

storekeeper.

A general store was kept in each of these stations. It dealt in every

article a settler could want. Here a trapper, red or white, who never

had any money could "swap" his furs for powder and coffee with a

storekeeper who never had any money, either. Though powder and coffee

were each a dollar a pound, neither the buyer nor the seller ever saw

that dollar. Trading was the rule.

Doby paid little heed to anything except the Indian, who stood

motionless beside a pile of 'coonskins which he had laid on a tobacco

bale. Any boy would have known that Indian for a warrior. He wore a

plain blanket. There were no feathers and no paint to be seen upon

him, yet he looked the wild fighting-man. He was tall and straight,

haughty of bearing, cruelly beautiful. He ignored the hunters with

royal indifference while he waited for his goods to be packed.

As Doby eyed the savage he thought: "How handsome he is and how

powerful! Perhaps Tecumseh had the same appearance."

Under the boy's admiring stare the Indian stood absolutely and

perfectly still, minute after minute, minute after minute, until Doby

became possessed of an impulse to test that stolidity, to shock that

dignity. So he impishly blew into the pig's-bladder whistle. Its blast

rent the air.

With snake-like quickness the Indian's hand shot out. He grabbed the

whistle and hid it in his blanket. He offered a blue-jay feather in

exchange. Doby felt indignant at this sort of trading and showed that

he did, whereupon the Indian, who certainly had seemed to have neither

paint nor feathers upon him, stuck the first feather and then a second

one in the front of Doby's cap. In so doing he left a streak of paint

on the boy's forehead. It was of the same shape and color as the

feather.

The boy's face flamed with anger, but when the watching Kenton said,

"Make your manners, bub," Doby thrust his hand into the Indian's palm

and said, "How?"

The Indian answered, "How?"

These two words were considered to be a complete conversation of the

friendliest sort between any two members of the white and red races.

Calmly and instantly Kenton pushed the boy from the store into the

midst of the hunters, who were hurriedly up and away. Night was closing

in, but they increased their pace. Kenton told Doby: "Under his blanket

that chief is rigged up for battle. He is buying guns and ammunition."

"A storekeeper will sell any Indian any amount of bullets to shoot

any number of settlers, if the savage merely says he wants 'em for

buffalo," thought Doby, in bitter contempt of that thing we call

commercialism, which allows one man to sacrifice others for his own

mercenary profit.

"To git through the varmints' stampin'-ground, we must use this dark

night for to cover us," and Kenton glanced at the black clouds and at

the occasional flashes of lightning. He listened to the wind in the

trees. He stopped to consult the others and laid his ear to the ground,

"for buffaler," he said.

For here the War Road, the Indian trail, and the Buffalo trace all

coincided to run through a very long, narrow ravine.

They decided to risk the trip through the ravine. The byways were long

and difficult. In the ravine there was danger of Indians in ambush,

danger of a cloudburst, and danger of meeting the buffalo herds almost

due on their annual migration north. But where was there not danger?

To these hardy soldiers danger was their bread and meat and they

rejoiced in it. So when they felt no quake of earth from moving hoofs,

they took the ravine at a run. They knew it was the sort of night

when the war of fire and water in the air might frighten buffalo into

a stampede; and Doby, blinking in the lightning, listened between

thunderclaps for other noises.

They were nearing the southern end of the ravine, too far from the

northern entrance to turn back, when they caught the far-away rumble

of myriad pounding hoofs. They spurred ahead. If they could reach the

plain and turn aside before the oncoming herds entered the ravine they

were safe. Kenton put his hand on Doby's bridle and they ran for their

lives straight toward the buffalo, which they could not see, but which

they could hear plainer and plainer with every hurrying second.

The rangers ahead yelled triumphantly as one by one they gained the

open and swerved in safety around to the east. Their shouts were

drowned in a vast bellowing that grew so near it roared in their ears

like heavy surf.

Kenton and Doby were bringing up the rear. Kenton's horse stepped into

a hole and went down heavily. Doby's leaped ahead. After a few jumps

he was able to check it. He wheeled and came back. Kenton had gained

his feet, but his mount was doomed--a broken leg. There was no help for

the poor brute but a merciful bullet. To this sad use unhappy Doby put

his proud flintlock. To Kenton, who was badly jarred, he reached a firm

hand and took him up behind.

Too late now to gain the plain, impossible to face the flying,

panic-stricken hordes, there was nothing for it but to flee straight

back over the course they had come.

To be overtaken was to be trampled down to earth, ground into fragments

and totally destroyed. Oh, the irony of traveling for days and days

through a country where the buffalo would have been harmless and then

to meet them in the one hour and the one place where they meant death

to man!

Kenton, recovering himself under the prick of their danger, watched

by the lightning flashes for an opening in the sides of the ravine.

He soon saw a tiny brook trickling from a cleft. They bolted from the

trace and stopped in it. Although it was only a tiny pocket set back

and up from the sides of the bluff, it was enough to shelter them and

their horse. In less than two minutes the herd came sweeping past below

them.

All night long, under a stormy sky, they huddled in their covert and

saw and heard and smelled the buffalo as they galloped past. All day

long, through the clearing weather, they watched more buffalo and more

buffalo--walking now. All night long again, under clear skies and

brilliant stars, they listened to the stragglers sedately following

behind.

The man and boy had food in their saddle-bags and water at their feet.

The horse drank and helped himself to green stuff.

Kenton said: "Give the Injuns followin' the herds time to vamoose. Then

we go on. Our folks won't hunt for us, 'cause they think we're wiped

out."

"If we trail alone, do you suppose the Indians will scalp us--you

and me?" quavered Doby. His bright dreams had been to win glory by

defeating Indians in open battle. Never at any time had he planned to

have them destroy _him_ on the sly.

"Think likely--yes," drawled Kenton. "Ye must git used to close calls.

I've had 'em many and many a time. Don't wash yer face. That's yer big

chance."

"Don't wash my face?" repeated Doby. "Don't wash my face!"

"The chief marked that paint daub an' set the feathers on ye for some

reason. He liked that noisy whistle. 'Tis Injun nature to return a

favor. Likely he stalked us when ye drew that pictur'. Blue jays may be

his totem."

"O-oh!" breathed Doby. "O-oh! Will this mark save me? Will it save you?"

"Perhaps. Two guns won't amount to much if there 're Injuns in the

ravine or the canebrake. We are in plain sight here; no use to try to

hide."

They could not stay longer where they were in the cramped little

hollow. They must follow the trace. There was no other way out. The

doubly loaded horse stepped into the road; but he was uneasy. He

snorted and backed about.

"Hold your face so the light will strike it. Turn from side to side so

the blue in your cap will show," commanded Kenton.

Crows on a dead tree above the ravine shrieked something at them. Doby

clutched the rein, for the bushes on the opposite bank had parted ever

so little. Red of nostril, white of eye, the horse stood still and

twitched his sensitive ears.

The crows called again. They circled widely. They returned to chatter a

warning.

Kenton, who never was known to lose his self-control, said, calmly: "Go

on. My gray curls will make a purtier scalp than your hank o' tow; 'f I

don't fret, you needn't."

Doby went on. The horse needed constant petting and coaxing. The crows

flapped and cawed, following a hiding something--an evil something

moving near the trail. The horse quivered and shied at the unseen peril

stalking him.

They reached the end of the ravine and descended into the canebrake of

the bottom-land which led to the Kentucky River. Far away on the other

side of the river they could see the stockade of Boonesboro.

"Could we signal the stockade?" faltered Doby.

"We'll be made into broth if we do," was the quiet reply.

Some Indians were cannibals. At this reminder, Doby's spine turned to

water and he slumped into a heap. But Kenton caught him up and shook

him forcibly with the words: "I once felt that-a-way myself. Ye can git

used to 't. Keep right on. The cane's full of the pesky redskins."

"I don't see any," gasped Doby, in forlorn hope.

"Nary glimpse. Watch the crows. Show yer passport. They're there,"

declared Kenton.

When the horse found that he could not hang back, he bolted. Wilder and

wilder his pace grew. Fear had seized him past all control.

Ever the canes, before, beside, behind their mad flight wavered for a

wicked pursuing foe who peeped and ran.

Ever the crows in dread curiosity beat the air and croaked in

apprehension.

Ever the boy, with his blue-jay feathers upright, clung to the saddle

and lifted his white face so plainly marked, with an attempt at bravado.

As the ford came in sight and the trampled clearing at its edge showed

an open space of ground they knew that the crisis was near.

[Illustration: EACH SAVAGE GIBED AT THE BOY'S PAINTED TALISMAN, BUT

EACH OBEYED ITS MESSAGE]

What was that sound? Shrill and weird, cutting their ears, they caught

the note of the pig's-bladder "shrieker"--Doby's whistle!

"Don't shoot," said Kenton. "Whatever happens--don't shoot--mind

that--don't shoot!"

Then--from the canebrake on three sides of the clearing sprang the

nimble-footed savages who had teased and outrun their horse. The

painted bodies closed across the entrance to the ford. Paralyzed with

fear, the sweating horse crouched.

The ears of Kenton and Doby were deafened with war-whoops, their

nostrils sickened by dangling scalps. A horrid threatening dance swung

round them. Tomahawks hurled past them. Color and noise, stench and

motion, caught them in a hideous vortex. Each savage gibed at the boy's

painted talisman, but each obeyed its message. They did not touch him.

Doby did not scream--he could not. Kenton never moved, resistance was

futile. In a great swoop the Indians bore down upon them. They were

covered with a shower of blue-jay feathers thrown by murderous fingers

as with wild gestures and wilder laughter the Indians vanished into the

canebrake to follow the buffalo north for more profitable hunting.

Surprised Boonesboro did not know what to make of the flurry. The

sentries halloed from the "flankers," and the Long Hunters, who had

never thought to see them again, swung wide the gates, and Kenton and

Doby swam across to Boonesboro--the end of their trail.

VI

LEFT HIND FOOT

_A First Survey for the Underground Railway_