WITH GEORGE WASHINGTON INTO
THE WILDERNESS
_The American Trail Blazers_
“THE STORY GRIPS AND THE HISTORY STICKS”
These books present in the form of vivid and fascinating fiction, the
early and adventurous phases of American history. Each volume deals
with the life and adventures of one of the great men who made that
history, or with some one great event in which, perhaps, several heroic
characters were involved. The stories, though based upon accurate
historical fact, are rich in color, full of dramatic action, and appeal
to the imagination of the red-blooded man or boy.
Each volume illustrated in color and black and white.
INTO MEXICO WITH GENERAL SCOTT
LOST WITH LIEUTENANT PIKE
GENERAL CROOK AND THE FIGHTING APACHES
OPENING THE WEST WITH LEWIS AND CLARK
WITH CARSON AND FREMONT
DANIEL BOONE: BACKWOODSMAN
BUFFALO BILL AND THE OVERLAND TRAIL
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH
DAVID CROCKETT: SCOUT
ON THE PLAINS WITH CUSTER
GOLD SEEKERS OF ’49
WITH SAM HOUSTON IN TEXAS
WITH GEORGE WASHINGTON INTO THE WILDERNESS
[Illustration: “MY NAME IS GEORGE WASHINGTON”]
WITH
GEORGE WASHINGTON
INTO THE WILDERNESS
THE ADVENTURES OF ROBERT THE HUNTER WHILE HE WAS
LEARNING TO BE A NEW AMERICAN UNDER THE YOUNG CHIEF,
GEORGE WASHINGTON, WHEN THE OHIO COUNTRY WAS GAINED
FOR THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE AND WASHINGTON HIMSELF
WON THE RIGHT TO HIGH COMMAND IN WAR AND PEACE
BY
EDWIN L. SABIN
AUTHOR OF “WITH CARSON AND FREMONT,” “BUFFALO
BILL AND THE OVERLAND TRAIL,” ETC.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY_
WILL THOMSON
_PORTRAIT AND MAP_
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1924
COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
TO THE
AMERICAN VOLUNTEER SOLDIER
WHO FROM THE DAYS OF THE “RAW
PROVINCIALS” TO THE DAYS OF THE
KHAKI “YANKS” HAS EMULATED THE
SPIRIT OF YOUNG GEORGE WASHINGTON
IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY
“I shall have the consolation of knowing that I have opened the way,
when the smallness of our numbers exposed us to the attacks of a
superior enemy; that I have hitherto stood the heat and brunt of the
day, and escaped untouched in time of extreme danger; and that I have
the thanks of my country, for the services I have rendered it.”
COLONEL GEORGE WASHINGTON,
November 15, 1754
PREFACE
This story centres upon the early frontier and military career of
George Washington, introducing him as the sixteen-year-old surveyor,
and closing when at the age of twenty-six he married and retired, for
a time, from public service. During that period, 1748–1758 inclusive,
the Ohio Country, that interior west of the Alleghany Mountains, was
wrested from France. The narrative deals with the youth Washington’s
trip through three hundred miles of wilderness to the French forts near
Lake Erie; his expedition to invest the Forks of the Ohio where the
French were establishing Fort Duquesne; his service with the Braddock
column; and his service under General Forbes when Fort Duquesne was
taken at last. His courage as commissioner to the French at Lake Erie,
his first victory, his defense of Fort Necessity, his performances upon
Braddock’s Field, his endurance and fine spirit, are featured. All
this was the training that demonstrated his fitness for command in the
War of Independence. His companion hero of the story is a boy, Robert
the Hunter, son of Mary Harris the White Woman and Feather Eagle a
Delaware, but adopted by Tanacharison the Half-King of the Mingos upon
the Ohio. Christopher Gist, the famous chief Scarouady, George Croghan,
Andrew Montour, Captain Joncaire, Captain Jack the Black Rifle, Shingis
the Delaware, Pontiac, and other historic border characters figure,
as well as Doctor Craik, old Lord Fairfax, Vanbraam, and others of
Washington’s personal confederates.
FOREWORD
George Washington did not spring into fame and success at one bound.
That which he won he deserved. He is most widely known as the patriotic
commander of the American armies in the War of Independence and as the
wise first President of the United States. But he was chosen because of
the things that he had already done.
If George Washington had not proved his character and his wisdom in his
early campaigns and councils it is likely that another man would have
been appointed commander-in-chief when the War of Independence opened;
and indeed history might have been much changed as to names and events.
Who may say? Washington, however, had an earned reputation; his work
in the wilderness had verified his courage, patience, unselfishness,
good sense and fine honor, and his military mettle. His companions upon
the trail and the soldiers in his companies had confidence in young
George Washington. The people saw that he was prepared for the greater
commands.
The services that engaged him were also of deep importance. If the
present United States, west of the Alleghany Mountains of Western
Pennsylvania had remained French territory, the country facing the
Atlantic Ocean might have remained a colony of Great Britain instead of
expanding into the United States. At best, the Atlantic coast would
have been a small and weak nation. When France lost the interior to
England then the American colonies broadened and gained strength of
mind and means until they decided to shift for themselves.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
GEORGE WASHINGTON 15
I. ROBERT THE HUNTER MAKES DISCOVERIES 21
II. ALARM AT LOGSTOWN 40
III. THE MINGOS SEND FOR HELP 54
IV. ON THE TRAIL TO THE WEST 72
V. THE YOUNG CHIEF ARRIVES 88
VI. BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR 98
VII. ROBERT PROVES HIS VALOR 105
VIII. WASHINGTON MEETS THE FRENCH 114
IX. HALF-KING CAUSES TROUBLE 124
X. THE LONG DANGER MARCH 134
XI. FACING WINTER PERIL 149
XII. ROBERT CARRIES BAD NEWS 162
XIII. BATTLE AND VICTORY 175
XIV. BRIGHT LIGHTNING LENDS A HAND 189
XV. IN AND OUT OF FORT NECESSITY 198
XVI. IN AND OUT OF FORT DUQUESNE 214
XVII. SCOUTING FOR THE GRENADIERS 230
XVIII. A LITTLE BEAR IN A TREE 242
XIX. IN FORT DUQUESNE AGAIN 253
XX. THE BATTLE IN THE WOODS 262
XXI. A BUCKSKIN CORPORAL 277
XXII. THE FALL OF THE GREAT FORT 289
XXIII. COLONEL WASHINGTON RESTS 296
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
“My name is George Washington” _Frontispiece_
Washington at the age of twenty-five 15
Wilderness trails of young George Washington 21
Gist and John Davidson were the paddlers 134
Bright Lightning rode off astride 167
Washington was here, there, everywhere 270
[Illustration: WASHINGTON AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-FIVE]
GEORGE WASHINGTON
1732. Born about ten o’clock in the morning of February 22nd (by
the calendar of those days, February 11th), upon the old Washington
plantation of Wakefield bordering the Potomac River between Bridges’
and Pope’s Creek in Westmoreland County of the Colony of Virginia’s
“Northern Neck”――the peninsula formed by the Potomac and Rappahannock
Rivers. Father, Augustine Washington; mother, Mary Ball Washington,
second wife. The Washington family was of good English stock dating
back to the Thirteenth Century, and had a long roll of scholars
and valiant soldiers. George Washington’s great-grandfather, John
Washington, had settled here in Westmoreland County in 1657. When
George was born he had two half-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine. He
was followed by five brothers and sisters――Elizabeth, Samuel, John
Augustine, Charles and Mildred.
1735. The family moves to another plantation at Hunting Creek, fifty
miles northward up the Potomac. This plantation was called Washington,
and later was named Mount Vernon.
1739. When George is seven the family moves again, this time down to
Stafford along the east side of the Rappahannock River, opposite the
town of Fredericksburg.
1743. George’s father dies, aged forty-nine, when George is eleven. He
leaves a widow and seven children: George’s two elder half-brothers,
Lawrence and Augustine, and the younger sister and brothers――Betty,
Samuel, John Augustine and Charles. George is willed the Stafford
plantation; other plantations and properties are willed to the other
children. The mother is guardian.
1743–1745. George continues his schooling which first was under
the direction of a church sexton, Mr. Grove, whom the boys called
“Hobby,” at the Stafford plantation; and next under Mr. Williams,
near Wakefield where, after his father’s death, George lives for a
time with Augustine, its owner. By his mother he is taught religion
and courtesies. From his father, a very powerful man, he inherits
great strength, so that he is a leader in athletics. He is a fearless
horseback-rider and is fond of hunting and fishing and playing at
soldier. In mathematics he is good, in grammar and spelling and
language not good; but he pays much attention to copying business forms
and is neat in his papers. He likes the problems and out-door life of
land surveying.
1746. At fourteen he decides to go to sea and become a merchant captain
or an officer in the British Navy. But his mother opposes, and at the
last moment he yields to her. He attends school kept by the Reverend
James Marye, a Frenchman, in Fredericksburg.
1747. Leaving school he lives with his half-brother Lawrence upon the
Mount Vernon plantation. Lawrence had married a daughter of William
Fairfax of Belvoir, up-river from Mount Vernon. The Fairfax family was
distinguished in England and in Virginia. At Belvoir there was also
Lord Thomas Fairfax, elder brother of William Fairfax, recently arrived
from London to enjoy his vast estate of 5,700,000 acres of Virginia
lands. The boy George Washington is much at Belvoir, and Lord Fairfax
takes a great liking for him.
1748. In March, having just turned his seventeenth year, George is
appointed by Lord Fairfax to survey the immense tract of land which as
yet has scarcely been explored. He sets out with only George William
Fairfax, the twenty-two-year-old son of William Fairfax, and the two
spend a month in the Virginia wilderness.
1749. In July, George Washington, now seventeen years of age, is
appointed public surveyor of Virginia lands. This engages him through
two years; he is out for weeks at a time, in all kinds of weather, and
grows accustomed to hardships, woods lore and Indian ways. Between
whiles he is frequently at Greenway Court, Lord Fairfax’s residence
seat near Winchester, Frederick County, where he studies and hunts with
his old friend; he visits his brothers and his mother.
1751. At the age of nineteen he is commissioned by the Governor of
Virginia as an adjutant-general, with rank of Major, in charge of a
district of the Colonial Militia. His brother Lawrence, who had served
with a British regiment in the West Indies and the Spanish Main, and
was adjutant-general in Virginia, recommended him. This suits George.
He studies military science and fencing.
1751–1752. In September of 1751 Lawrence Washington sails for Barbadoes
of the British West Indies, to gain health. George, who loves him
dearly, goes with him. At Barbadoes George is stricken with the
smallpox, which scars his face. He returns in the winter to Virginia,
to escort his brother’s wife to the Bermudas in the spring and there
meet Lawrence. But Lawrence cannot wait, and comes home.
1752. This summer Lawrence dies at Mount Vernon. He wills the
plantation to his little daughter, and as executor of the estate George
remains there to oversee the business. Aged twenty, he is now appointed
by Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia as adjutant-general of the northern
military division which covers several counties.
1753. Major George Washington, aged twenty-one, is sent by Governor
Dinwiddie as a commissioner to inquire into the French invasion of
the Ohio River country in the northwest; for the French soldiers from
Canada were building a line of forts from Lake Erie down along the
Ohio River in territory claimed by Great Britain. Major Washington
was to travel almost 600 miles through the wilderness, and find the
French commander. He leaves Williamsburg, the Virginia capital, on the
last day of October. He takes with him Christopher Gist as guide, John
Davidson as Indian interpreter, Jacob Vanbraam, who had been a soldier
and was a fencing master, to speak French, and four others. After a
journey of forty-five days he arrives at the French headquarters post
fifteen miles south of Lake Erie. On the way he notes that the “Forks
of the Ohio,” where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers join in
present western Pennsylvania, is a fine site for a fort.
1754. In January Major George Washington is back to report to Governor
Dinwiddie at Williamsburg that the French refuse to withdraw from
their line of posts. An expedition is organized to build a British
post at the Forks of the Ohio. Major Washington is commissioned
lieutenant-colonel, as second in command. In April he marches with
three companies to support a detachment already gone. The detachment
is driven from the Forks by the French, and as commander in the field,
Lieutenant-Colonel Washington entrenches at Great Meadows, short of
the Forks. On May 28th he surprises a French and Indian detachment
and defeats it. This is his first battle; he is twenty-two years old.
Having been reinforced to 400 men, at Great Meadows he erects a log
fort named Fort Necessity, in order to hold fast, and on July 3rd is
attacked by 900 French and Indians. This night terms are made by which
the garrison should march out with the honors of war. On July 4th Fort
Necessity is abandoned to the French. The French build Fort Duquesne at
the Forks of the Ohio.
1755. After the affair at Great Meadows the Colonial troops lacked men
and supplies and money. Washington protests against another campaign
until strength and weather permit. This spring General Edward Braddock
of the British Regulars arrives to lead a force of Regulars and
Colonials against Fort Duquesne. George Washington is invited to join
him as aide, with rank of captain. The expedition is defeated by the
French and Indians near Fort Duquesne, July 9th, in a terrible battle.
General Braddock is fatally wounded, and Colonel George Washington
behaves “with the greatest courage and resolution;” has two horses shot
from under him and four balls through his coat.
1755–1757. Following the battle of Braddock’s Field, Colonel Washington
continues to live at beautiful Mount Vernon, to which he has fallen
heir. He is soon appointed by the Virginia legislature to the command
of all the Virginia militia. He is kept busy organizing the troops and
inspecting the outposts.
1758. Having recovered from a long illness extending into March,
in July he marches his Virginia regiments to take part in another
expedition, this time under General Forbes, against Fort Duquesne. He
leads the advance, but the fort is deserted by the enemy. The name is
changed to Fort Pitt, which becomes Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the
close of this year Washington again retires to private life.
1759. Not quite twenty-seven years old, he is married, January 6th, to
Mrs. Martha Custis, daughter of John Dandridge and widow of John Parke
Custis, with two children. She is three months younger than George
Washington, and wealthy in her own rights.
1759–1769. Having been elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, or
the Colonial legislature, Colonel Washington serves there. He resides
at Mount Vernon, and devotes his private life to the business of his
plantation, to hunting and riding, and to mingling in local society
and in that of Williamsburg the capital and Annapolis the capital of
Maryland. In business he is very strict, keeping full account of all
transactions and shipping his tobacco to England.
1770. This fall he makes a trip, horseback, to the Forks of the Ohio
again, where a few cabins around Fort Pitt mark the beginning of
Pittsburgh; thence down the Ohio for 255 miles by canoe, inspecting the
western lands granted to soldiers of the French and Indian War with
Great Britain.
1771–1774. The American Colonies have been protesting against the
Acts of the British Parliament which worked hardships upon them. In
September, 1774, George Washington, aged forty-two, is a delegate from
Virginia to a general Congress held at Philadelphia for the purpose
of drawing up petitions of rights. Patrick Henry says that in “solid
information and sound judgment” Colonel Washington was the greatest
man on the floor.
1775. War with Great Britain having commenced, on June 15th the Second
Continental Congress in session at Philadelphia appoints George
Washington commander-in-chief of the American military forces. He takes
command July 3rd, with rank of general.
1775–1782. Serves as commander-in-chief of the American army in the War
of the Revolution.
1783. In October General Washington issues his Farewell Address to the
army. December 4th he bids his officers goodby, in person, at Harlem,
New York. December 23rd he resigns his commission, in the temporary
Hall of Congress at Annapolis. December 24th he arrives home at Mount
Vernon, having been absent over eight years.
1784–1786. He declines to be paid for his expenses during the war,
and wishes no reward, but settles down to home and business life.
His advice is much sought. He entertains many visitors, among them
Lafayette; and makes a tour west to the Ohio River once more.
1787. In May he is a delegate from Virginia to the General Convention
in Philadelphia to draw up a Constitution of the United States; and is
chosen president of the convention.
1789. In February George Washington, aged fifty-seven, is unanimous
choice of the people for first President of the United States. On March
4th the election is ratified. He is at once notified by messenger from
Congress, and on March 6th he leaves Mount Vernon for New York, then
the seat of Congress. He takes oath of office April 30th, and delivers
his inaugural address. His mother, aged eighty-two years, dies in
August. This same year he suffers a serious illness from which he never
completely recovers.
1790. By his advice the present District of Columbia is selected as the
site of the National Capital. He is again ill. While President he keeps
close track of his plantation interests and is a student of farming
methods. He looks forward to retiring to his beloved Mount Vernon.
1791. He defines the site and marks the boundaries of the new National
Capital district, ten miles square, to be named Washington.
1793. The welfare of the nation demands that he remain President, and
on March 4th he enters upon his second term of office.
1793–1797. Washington continues as wise and able President. In 1796
Lafayette’s son, George Washington Lafayette, comes to the United
States and for a year and a half is a member of Washington’s household.
1797. Having declined nomination to a third term of office, and having,
on September 15, 1796, issued a Farewell Address to the people of
the United States, on March 4th, 1797, Washington retires from the
Presidency and is succeeded by Thomas Jefferson[see Tr. Notes].
1798. At Mount Vernon Washington has been following the peaceful
routine of a farmer. War with France threatens, and in July he is
nominated lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief of an army to be
raised. He accepts and applies himself to organizing the army.
1799. December 12 he is wet and chilled with snow while riding over
his land. After only twenty-four hours in bed he dies between ten and
eleven o’clock at night, December 14th. December 18th he is laid to
rest in the family vault at Mount Vernon. His age was sixty-seven years
and ten months lacking a week.
’Tis nobly done――the day’s our own――huzzah, huzzah!
[Illustration: WILDERNESS TRAILS OF YOUNG GEORGE WASHINGTON]
WITH GEORGE WASHINGTON INTO THE WILDERNESS
I
ROBERT THE HUNTER MAKES DISCOVERIES
It had been raining with a cold spring rain for two days, and the vast
forest here in southern Pennsylvania of 1748 was dripping and soggy.
The Indians did not mind; they were well greased with bear’s grease and
well painted, and their skin scarcely felt the wet. Besides, they were
in a hurry.
Robert, whose Seneca name was the Hunter, did not mind it either. He
also was Indian. To be sure, his mother was called the White Woman.
But she had been captured forty years ago, when a little girl, by the
Mohawks of the French from the north, and had been traded south, and
had become the wife to Chief Feather Eagle of the Delawares in the Ohio
Country.
So Robert had been brought up as an Indian boy. When his father had
died the great Tan-a-char-i-son, head chief of all the Mingo Iroquois
and known as Half-King, passing by White Woman’s Creek on return home
from a visit to the Shawnees in the west, had taken him to train him as
a warrior.
To a warrior there is no weather. Heat and cold, dry and wet, they are
the same to a warrior, especially a Mingo warrior of the Six Nations
who have council-seats in the Long House of the proud Iroquois.
Less than a moon ago, at Logstown which was the principal village of
the Mingos, upon the Ohio River, Half-King had said to Robert the
Hunter:
“Listen: Tomorrow White Thunder bears a speech belt to our brothers the
Delawares near the Susquehanna and I wish you to go with him. You will
learn much; and if you are to be a warrior it is well that you should
know your way through the woods and across the mountains.”
From that Logstown upon the north bank of the upper Ohio――the
Ohion-hiio or Beautiful River――seventeen or eighteen miles down from
where Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, now stands, Robert had set out with
White Thunder the Keeper of the Mingo wampum belts, and with Aroas or
Silver Heels the warrior, to travel afoot eastward through the forests
and mountains for the Delawares of central Pennsylvania.
The Mingos were those Oneidas, Senecas and others of the Iroquois Six
Nations who had moved from New York into Western Pennsylvania which
the Iroquois claimed to have conquered. They thought little of the
Delawares. The Iroquois had claimed to have conquered the Delawares
also, and called them “women.” But all the Indian peoples――Iroquois,
Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots, Miamis――had been invited to meet the
English in council at Albany, the capital of New York, this coming
June, to talk peace again. Therefore Half-King Tanacharison wisely
wished to learn what the Delawares to the east of him were going to do.
Now this was no small journey, although, of course, it was nothing to
an Indian. Nobody except Indians and birds and beasts lived in that
country, and the only white persons to cross it were the traders. But
the game such as bear, deer and turkeys was plentiful, and the three
travellers from Logstown had meat at every camp.
Little happened during the first half of the trip. Then, on a sudden in
a cloudy day, Aroas, who was leading with gun in hand, stopped short.
“Wah!” he said, to White Thunder. “This is it.”
“Yes,” replied White Thunder, stopping also. “This is it. It is alive?”
“Men have passed,” said Silver Heels. “And not long ago.”
They both studied the trail. The trail was a narrow one, wending right
on amid the great trees of the silent, sunless forest. Something about
the trail, and the manner with which Aroas and White Thunder held back
from it struck the Hunter like a sensation of lurking death.
They two were bending forward, reading the trail. The Hunter himself
could see that there were tracks in it――moccasin tracks lightly printed
upon the soft soil and pressing twigs into the mud and leaves.
“Do we fear the Delaware?” he asked.
“No,” answered White Thunder. “This is not their land. The land once
given to them by the Iroquois has flowed through their stomachs, for
they sold it to the English for rum. They wear petticoats. Here is a
danger trail.”
“What is that?”
“It is the Catawba Trail. Be silent.”
The Catawba Trail! There was war between the Catawbas and the
Pennsylvania Indians. The fierce Catawbas lived in the south, near
the Cherokees. They were not many, but they sent warriors from South
Carolina up through Virginia and Maryland into Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
clear into New York to attack the Shawnees, the Wyandots, the Delawares
and the Iroquois.
This much Robert the Hunter knew. Evidently Catawbas had passed here.
He waited while Aroas and White Thunder, speaking low, discussed
matters.
“Catawba moccasins. I think not many,” said Aroas.
“They stepped each in the other’s track, but the tracks are not deep,”
White Thunder agreed. “The leaves and twigs are still flat; the break
in this piece of rotten wood is fresh. The Catawba passed an hour ago.”
“Wah!” said Aroas. “That is good. Come.”
He leaped over the trail; White Thunder leaped; and the Hunter, without
asking why that was done, also leaped. Now Aroas again led through the
forest, travelling rapidly so that Robert, at the end of the single
file, was kept at a little trot.
All the afternoon they hurried, hurried, without speaking, through the
dense forest, into ravines and out, up hill and down, until at dusk
Silver Heels halted, with hand raised. He went forward alone, and bent
to examine the ground. He came back.
“We are ahead,” he said.
“The trail is empty?”
“Yes.”
“Good!” exclaimed White Thunder. “This is the place. We will stay.”
The “place” proved to be a nearby ledge of rock. It overhung at one
side, making a roof; beneath the roof the ground was dry and soft with
leaves blown in, and leaves were massed into a bed as though a panther
or other wild animal had lain upon them.
In here they three could sit. They did sit, and munched cold deer meat
and corn cake, while in the dark forest wolves began to howl and many
things rustled.
Neither Silver Heels nor White Thunder made a fire, by which the Hunter
understood that enemies might be near.
“Let us drink,” said White Thunder. “Then sleep. We must be up before
daylight.” And he added, to Robert, “Follow Aroas and do as he does.”
A little stream sounded not far away, in the night. Silver Heels went
out, on a half circle, to the stream; and lying down drank, and the
Hunter drank beside him. Ah, but that cold water was good, for they had
not drunk since noon.
They met White Thunder, coming to drink. Then they rolled in their
blankets, upon the leaves of the shallow cave, to sleep. But White
Thunder spoke:
“The boy should know, so that he will wake and be ready for the thing
that will happen.”
“That is right,” replied Aroas. “You should tell him about the Catawba.
Some day he will fight the Catawba.”
“Listen, boy,” said White Thunder: “Now we sleep beside the Catawba
Trail. We left the trail, and we have come to it again. First the
Catawba were ahead of us; now they are behind us. Since the day of the
first man and woman the Catawba and Cherokee have fought us who live
in the north. This trail is the great war trail upon which the Catawba
travel. I will tell you why we did not follow it, but jumped across it
and went around.
“A long time ago the Catawba marched into the country of the Delaware.
They found a Delaware camp. They tied buffalo hoofs to their feet and
made buffalo tracks in the snow. Then in the morning the Delaware saw
the buffalo tracks, and followed to hunt meat. The Catawba surprised
them, and killed many and ran off with the scalps. The Delaware from
the camp gave chase, for the trail was plain. But the Catawba had set
sharp splinters dipped in snake poison in the trail, and the Delaware
stepped on these and were made sick. Then the Catawba turned about and
caught the Delaware and killed more.
“The Catawba are cunning. Their minds are full of evil tricks. To hunt
the Catawba is more dangerous than hunting the panther or the mother
bear. When you see a Catawba trail, be very careful of it. Now in the
morning we rise early, to be ready. The Catawba are not many. They
shall run home weeping.”
By his snores Silver Heels was asleep before White Thunder had
finished. White Thunder himself went to sleep right away. And the
Hunter, with White Thunder’s words in his mind, fell asleep too, and
dreamed of the dread Catawba from the south.
Aroas and White Thunder were up early, when the birds were first
twittering and the wolves were slinking to their dens after the night’s
hunt.
“Wake. You may come,” said White Thunder to Robert the Hunter, shaking
him by the shoulder. “It is time.”
They crawled out of their own den, and climbed on top of the ledge.
The top was flat and screened by low bushes. Here they lay, with the
Hunter just behind.
The gloom of the forest gradually thinned. Birds began to flit.
A raccoon passed, humping to his hollow tree. The dawn swiftly
brightened. Squirrels chattered. Then one discovered the three persons
upon the top of the ledge. He sat upon a branch and scolded angrily.
“Brother!” Aroas hissed. “Go! We mean you no harm.”
The squirrel only whisked hither and thither, still scolding, so that
he disturbed the forest. White Thunder spoke to Robert.
“That squirrel is a fool. He must be silenced. Shoot him.”
The Hunter strung his bow and fitted an arrow to the string. Sitting up
he drew and aimed; he loosed. The bow twanged, the blunt arrow streaked
through the air and with a thud knocked the squirrel far.
“Wah!” uttered Aroas. “That was well done.”
The sun was about to rise. Peering ahead, as Silver Heels and White
Thunder were peering, Robert could see the Catawba Trail which opened
clearly and crossed the stream down there in front of the ledge. Now
a doe came, mincing and craning, through the trees. She did not smell
them, for she paused at the stream, and drank. Suddenly she lifted her
head, with long ears set forward, and sniffed. She wheeled about and
away she leaped, and was gone.
“They come,” whispered White Thunder to Aroas. The two cocked their
muskets, and settled motionless; and behind them Robert the Hunter
glued more flatly, his heart beating.
Nothing was to be heard, for a few minutes. Then around a curve of the
narrow trail a warrior trotted, and another and another. The Catawbas!
There were six dark, round-faced men, in red-fringed buckskin, with
turkey-feathered head-dresses and with guns. This was the first time
that the Hunter had seen a Catawba.
Before they arrived at the stream they stopped. They seemed to suspect
the ledge as an ambush place. But Aroas gave the call of a blue-jay, as
if the blue-jay were seeing the Catawbas and was giving an alarm. The
jay had not cried before. The Catawbas would think they were the only
strangers here. They came on.
The muskets of White Thunder and Silver Heels had been thrust forward.
The first Catawba stooped, to drink at the stream, when with a terrible
whoop White Thunder fired. Aroas whooped and fired. Robert the Hunter
whooped and sent an arrow whizzing. All the forest echoed to the whoops
and the shots, as if a dozen men had attacked; and still whooping while
they reloaded in a jiffy, drawing their hatchets White Thunder and
Aroas ran boldly down. But the Catawbas had vanished; the last of them
could just be heard bolting through the brush up the trail. The warrior
at whom White Thunder had fired lay at the edge of the stream; the
warrior at whom Aroas had fired had left blood.
“Wah!” exclaimed Aroas. “Let him go.”
“And we will go, too, before they stop to think,” said White Thunder.
So he took the scalp of the dead Catawba. Then, they hurried on, and
travelled all day without a stop.
White Thunder delivered the wampum belt to the Delawares of the
Susquehanna. They promised to join the Mingos in the march to the
Albany council. This promise was made quickly, for the trophy of the
Catawba scalp spread excitement. As soon as the Delawares learned that
the Catawbas were in the country they made ready to pursue, on the war
trail.
Big Bear commanded the Delawares. The Mingos were invited to join, and
travel home that way. So they all set out, to see what had become of
the Catawbas.
The forest seemed peaceful again. It was hard to believe that danger
lurked among the trees, but the scalp at White Thunder’s belt showed
what might happen at any moment.
In the second night the rain commenced; and when they wakened at
daybreak they were wet and the forest was wet and soon the trails would
be washed bare.
“This is bad,” said Big Bear. “But we will go on and maybe the rain
will stop. If it doesn’t, our guns will be wet and we will be blind,
and the Catawba will get away.”
The rain did not stop. At noon they halted, to talk.
“I feel that somebody is following us,” said Aroas, to Big Bear. “We
should be careful.”
“The Mingo is thinking of his wife and a lodge fire,” answered Big
Bear. “He hears the rain drip and it sounds to him like the feet of a
Catawba. But the Delaware mean to strike the Catawba.”
“Just the same,” insisted Aroas, “there are enemy near. The Delaware
have seen that the Mingo are not afraid, but these woods are full of
evil.”
And even while he was speaking a gun cracked and with a screech a
Delaware warrior sprang high and fell flat. In an instant everybody
had dived behind a tree. From his tree trunk the Hunter, squatting low
like a partridge, listened breathlessly. A Delaware, peeking, suddenly
pointed his gun, and fired――and in the same moment a gun answered him
and he dropped, shot through the head. A man yelled loudly, and darted
backward into the brush. Robert glimpsed him――a large man, with long
black hair and dark skin, in leggins and hunting shirt and fur cap.
That was not an Indian. Big Bear leaped forward, and his gun only
snapped upon the flint, for the priming was wet.
He stopped and ducked just in time; a bullet must have sped over him.
Now the Delawares were crying――“The Black Rifle! It is death! Run!” Run
they did, Big Bear the same as the others, and the Mingos and Robert
following.
They ran helter skelter, much as the Catawbas had run when surprised.
At last they stopped, and gathered again.
“You said truly, brother,” Big Bear panted, to Aroas. “The Black Rifle
was upon our trail. Now we have lost two warriors. Wah! But he is not a
man; he is a demon.”
“We have heard of the Black Hunter,” said White Thunder. “He is like
death on the trail of the Indian. He strikes to kill, like the wounded
bear. The Delaware have lost many warriors to the Black Hunter of the
Juniata.”
And Robert himself had heard of Captain Jack, the giant settler who
roamed the Pennsylvania woods, killing Indians in revenge for his
family whom Indians had killed. The “Black Rifle” and the “Black
Hunter” were the names given him. He feared nothing, no bullet could
hurt him; he always struck before he was seen. It was small wonder that
the Delawares ran to save their lives.
“The way home is closed,” Big Bear was saying. “But there will be
English in the south, and blood shall pay for blood.”
“No. Your talk is wild talk,” White Thunder opposed. “You will do
foolish to go against the English, and break the chain of friendship.”
“The Black Rifle is English, and two fresh Delaware scalps are hanging
at his belt,” Big Bear retorted. “Why should we not kill the English?”
“The Black Rifle did it; not the English. He is a mad dog. The English
are friends of the Mingo. They are welcome at Logstown. They will help
us against the French who claim the country of the Ohio.”
“The English are driving the Delaware from the land granted them by
the first father called Penn,” Big Bear answered. “Soon there will be
only the Ohio Country in the west for the Delaware. The Delaware would
rather have the French. The French do not take land; they give it. The
English build forts and houses and clear off the land and there is no
game, no place for the Indian. They shoot us. They call the Indians,
dogs. The French leave things as they are; they ask the Indian to live
near and hunt; they call the Indian, brother.”
“The friendship chain between the English and the Six Nations is
strong,” said White Thunder. “The men of Onontio (which was the name
for the French governor of Canada) are not wanted on the Ohio. The
English bring us goods and that is enough.”
“We hear that the English claim all the land on one side of the Ohio
and the French claim all the land on the other side,” replied Big Bear.
“Then where does the Indian’s land lie? But seeing you will not strike
the English with us, we will all go on to the trading house of the
Englishman Cresap on the River Potomac. He will give us presents and
fire-water to keep out the wet.”
That was all right. The Delawares and the Mingos with Robert the Hunter
marched on through the rain. The Black Rifle and the rain had spoiled
the war trail and the hearts of the Delawares were heavy.
The law of the forest seemed to be tit for tat. The Indians killed
other Indians and white persons; the white men killed Indians. As to
the French, Robert knew little, except he had heard that the French,
who lived in the north, would shut the English traders from the Ohio
Country.
They hastened southward, and the next noon a scout came back with word
that he had seen a company of English. In these years before the War of
the Revolution all the white men of the Colonies were English to the
Indian, for America was a British province.
“How many?” asked Big Bear.
“The fingers of two hands.”
“What are they doing?”
“They are camped in the rain above the house of the Englishman Cresap.”
“Our guns are wet,” Big Bear said. “It is a bad time to fight. Let us
go in to them. We will tell them we are poor and they will give us food
and drink.”
They went on. The rain stopped. In the middle of the afternoon they
sighted the Englishmen’s camp in a clearing of the forest upon the
north bank of the upper Potomac of northern Maryland.
Then they whooped the scalp whoop and ran in. The English were eight
Long Knives of Virginia, and stayed firm. Trader Cresap was here; two
of the others were young; and when Big Bear asked who was the captain,
Trader Cresap pointed to the younger of the two.
This captain appeared to be few in years, but was large and well
formed, and had the grave air of a chief.
“Wah! A boy!” White Thunder grunted.
Big Bear shook hands with the boy, intending to grip him hard and make
him cry out, which was an Indian joke. Instead it was Big Bear who
cried out, astonished, for the young Englishman had gripped him first
and had squeezed his hand so that the bones were almost crushed.
“Ugh!” Big Bear exclaimed. “A strong boy. As strong as a man.”
After they had shown the Catawba scalp and had received presents, Big
Bear ordered a war dance, to celebrate the scalp. They built a large
fire and all sat around while Big Bear made a speech, telling of the
deeds of the Delawares and of the love they had for the English. Then
the dance began, and so did the music. One warrior thumped a deer hide
stretched tightly over a pot half full of water; and another shook a
rattle, of a dry gourd with shot inside it and a horse tail tied to
it. The other Delawares, and Silver Heels, pranced around the fire,
whooping.
White Thunder and Robert the Hunter looked on, with the English. The
English, especially the young captain, were much pleased, for it was a
fine dance.
After a time the young captain moved and sat beside White Thunder and
Robert, as if curious to ask questions. The friend whom he had left
was slender and tall and handsome, in three-cornered hat and red wool
blanket-coat and decorated leather belt and deerskin trousers and knee
boots. His name was Fairfax. The young captain himself was not so
handsome; but he had steady blue eyes and large, straight nose, and a
kind, but sober face tanned brown; and he was as heavy and as muscular
as White Thunder.
He wore three-cornered hat, deer-hide shirt and cloth trousers and
moccasins. Like his friend he was very different from the English
traders who came with pack horse and canoe to Logstown of the Mingos.
He kept glancing at Robert. What he saw was a hard, wiry boy, in beaded
hunting-shirt and leggins and moccasins, with bow and otter-skin
quiver, and black eyes and long brown hair and skin as brown as an
Indian’s, and both cheeks painted with a red dot in a blue circle――a
Mingo sign that Robert thought very becoming.
“Your boy?” the young captain asked of White Thunder.
And White Thunder, the Keeper of Wampum, who spoke English, said:
“No. Belong Tanacharison, Half-King.”
“Delaware?”
“No! Seneca. No Delaware. Seneca.”
“Where are you from?”
“Shenango, what English call Logstown, ’way off beyond mountains, on
Beautiful River.”
“The Ohio?”
“Yes. What you do here?”
“We make lands,” said the young captain.
“Injun lands?”
“No. English lands.”
“You walk heap ’round?” For that had been the way: to take as much land
as one could walk around in a day, and the Indians had lost much land
because the white men had cleared a path beforehand and had sent their
fastest walkers.
“No,” the young chief answered. “We measure with a steel rope and
spy-glass. I am a surveyor.”
“Humph!” said White Thunder. “Pretty soon mebbe you come with spy-glass
to make English lands of Injun lands other side mountains.”
“That too is the country of the great king across the water,” answered
the young captain. And he asked of Robert, very gravely: “You are
Indian?”
“His father Injun, he Injun,” said White Thunder. “Some day he great
warrior.”
“What is your name?”
“The Hunter,” said Robert.
“You’re not all Indian. You have white boy’s hair.”
“My mother called the White Woman. But me Injun; Seneca. My father
Tanacharison, Half-King. He chief of all the Mingo,” Robert asserted
proudly. His father really was not Tanacharison. Tanacharison had only
adopted him, but there was no use in saying that.
“Where does your mother live?”
“White Woman Creek, in Shawnee country. I live Logstown with Half-King.
Learn to be warrior; then follow war trail.”
“Against the English?”
“No. English are brothers of the Mingo.”
“Are the French not brothers?”
“No,” said Robert the Hunter. “Do not want French.”
“There are English in Logstown?”
“Many. Traders.”
“How old are you?”
“Ten summers.”
“I am sixteen,” said the young English captain. “My name is George
Washington. Perhaps some day I will be a warrior.”
“You come to your brothers the Mingo?” proposed Robert.
“Maybe I shall,” agreed George Washington. “Wouldn’t you like to stay
here and be English?”
“No,” said Robert. “Me Seneca.”
And it seemed to him that to be a Seneca was the best thing in the
world, for the Senecas were of the Six Nations and had a council seat
in the Long House of the Iroquois. But if the English were like this
young chief they were not so bad, either.
The dance was slackening. The young captain moved away to his
companions. After the dance the Indians ate and drank again, and made
camp in the dusk.
The next day the English broke camp, and marched up river, to cross
over. The Indians followed, to watch and to get last presents. George
Washington waded far out, driving his horse before him, to swim it. The
current tugged at him, and Robert the Hunter brought him a large rock.
“Carry this, to keep feet down,” he said to George Washington. “That
Injun way.”
George Washington thanked him politely, and carried the rock. Thus a
Seneca boy had showed a white boy what an Indian could do better.
The English all crossed. The Delawares went on, and the Mingos turned
for home. And this was the first meeting of Robert the Hunter, whose
mother was Mary Harris of White Woman Creek, and of George Washington,
the surveyor. But they were to meet again.
“He is a strong young man,” said White Thunder, speaking of Washington.
“He will be a chief. He is now marking off lands for the English to
live on. Some day he will mark off lands clear to the Ohio. The English
will live there, the Injuns will live on the other side, and there will
be no place for the French. That is good. When white men fight over
Injun land the Injun gets the blows.”
They travelled rapidly into the west; and in due time were at Logstown,
where Tanacharison the Half-King heard from White Thunder and from
Robert of their adventures.
“What you say of this Washington sounds well,” he uttered, to the
Hunter, that night. “But he is only a boy, and so are you. When he
grows to a warrior, then let him come to Logstown. Meanwhile the
English should send a captain chief with men and big guns to build
a great house on the Ohio so that we may trade with them and not be
bothered by the French.”
“Why should the French try to drive out the English?” Robert asked.
“Because they also wish the Indian furs. And they wish the Beautiful
River and all the land that it waters, from the Great Lakes to the big
water south of the home of the Creeks.”
“Did they conquer it?” asked Robert.
“No, the Iroquois have conquered it by conquering the people. The
French say that a captain of theirs, many years ago, discovered it by
floating down the River Mississippi in the west, in a canoe. He took
it for the King of France. But the Indians owned it; they were here
first; the French have not conquered the Indians. The Iroquois are the
conquerors, and they say that their brothers the English shall trade in
this land and that their enemies the French shall stay out. The French
have their own country. The Indians and the English have theirs. We are
children of the British father, who treats us well. We cannot share our
lands with two white nations or pretty soon we shall have nothing. I am
telling you these things so that you may understand, and not listen to
the foolish words of the Delawares.”
Robert continued to think a great deal about that other boy, George
Washington, who asked questions like a boy but acted like a man. If
the Long Knife and the Pennsylvania boys were that kind of a boy, so
strong and steady, the English beyond the mountains were going to be
very powerful when the boys grew up.
George Croghan the trader, and Andrew Montour who spoke for Onas the
governor of Pennsylvania, and gay Captain Joncaire of the French, were
fine men; but somehow George Washington was different, like a young
eagle among hawks, or a young oak in a clearing.
II
ALARM AT LOGSTOWN
Logstown, or Shenango, the head village of the Mingos, was nicely
located in a clearing of the forest upon the high north bank of
the Ohio River, a half day’s travel below De-ka-na-wi-da――the
two-rivers-flowing-together place. This place, where the Monongahela
River from the southward and the Allegheny River from the northward
joined to form the Ohio or Beautiful River, the English traders called
the Forks.
Logstown contained some fifty log cabins and skin and bark lodges and
almost three hundred people. Fifteen miles east up the Ohio, on the
south bank near the Forks, there was the Delaware village of fiery old
King Shingis, sachem of the Delawares. On the Monongahela south of the
Forks there was the village of fat old Queen Allaquippa, a woman sachem
of the Delawares. Up the Allegheny, on the east bank just north of
the Forks there was the village Shanopin’s-town of old King Shanopin,
another Delaware sachem. And further north up the Allegheny there was
Kittanning, where more Mingos and Delawares lived under command of the
Delaware chief named Captain Jacobs.
West from Logstown, down along the Ohio by the Shawnee Trail there were
the Delawares of King Beaver, and the Wyandots or Little Mingos of
Muskingum, and the Shawnees and Delawares of White Woman’s Creek which
was the home of Robert’s mother, and the Shawnees of Sonnioto or Scioto.
All, all this country of the Ohio River was Indian country. But to
Robert the Hunter the Logstown of the Mingos was the most important
place. He rather doubted whether the Englishmen’s Albany or
Philadelphia could equal it.
Tanacharison was the chief man in Logstown. He was about fifty years
old, and wise. The Grand Council of the Six Nations, sitting at
Onondaga, New York, had appointed him head of the Mingos of the Ohio
River country, therefore he ranked as a Half-King among the Iroquois.
Next to him there was Scarouady, or Beyond-the-sky, a chief and
orator of the Oneida Mingos. In the Delaware tongue his name was
Mona-cath-u-atha, which was the name given to the Half-King also;
but he was better known as Scarouady. The English traders called him
“Scaddy.”
Anybody who looked upon Scarouady saw a warrior and chief indeed. He
was over six feet tall, and straight and sinewy and active. Already he
had fought in more than twenty-five battles, so that his leggins and
his hunting shirt were fringed with scalp hair. His head was shaven
except for the long braided scalp lock, to be taken by the hand that
could take it; the chief’s sign, a tail plume of the bald eagle, was
thrust through the base of the scalp lock, and the braid was decorated
with blue-jay feathers.