“Good. They are gone.” He came over, with the scalp in his belt. “You
did well, Hunter. You are a warrior,” he said. “Wah! You have been
running far.”
“A Cherokee chased me; then I heard you shoot.”
“Where is he?”
“I left him with a bear,” said Robert; and explained.
“Ho, ho,” laughed Scarouady. “We will go and see.”
So he picked up his hatchet, and they back-tracked, and found the bear
place. But no bear was here, and no Cherokee. The ground was torn and
bloody. The bear might be dead, somewhere; and the Cherokee might be
badly hurt, somewhere. Anyway, both had had enough, according to the
signs.
“That was a smart trick, Hunter,” Scarouady praised. “After this you
must not kill a bear. The bear is good to you. Wah! The Cherokees
will go home lacking one man, maybe two. They thought to strike the
Delaware. Instead, they met the Mingo. Scarouady saw them. A man and a
boy drove them like deer. I have hidden a turkey that I killed with my
hatchet. We have a scalp. We will go on and find Washington.”
They travelled on, and camped that evening, and travelled again the
next day.
“Where does this Washington live?” Scarouady asked.
“I don’t know,” answered Robert. “He was at the River Potomac, marking
English lands.”
“Such a man will be known to others,” said Scarouady. “We are getting
near the Potomac. See? The English have been here. They have marked
the trees with hatchets. We will follow the hatchet marks and come to
somebody.”
The hatchet marks were new, marking a line along an old buffalo trail
that seemed to lead between the Potomac and the Monongahela in the west.
“There will be English at the other end,” said Scarouady. “Maybe
Washington himself. He is marking lands still.”
When they caught up with the tree markers, at a noon camp in the forest
beside a stream, there were two of them; one was an Indian and the
other was the trader Cresap.
That, however, was good. Scarouady knew the Indian, and Cresap knew
Washington.
Scarouady advanced straightway, and spoke:
“Hello, Nemacolin. Hello, brother.”
“Hello, Monacathuatha,” replied Nemacolin, in the Delaware. He was a
Delaware who lived at the Monongahela above Queen Allaquippa’s town.
“My brother is welcome.”
“Good,” said Scarouady. “What does my brother do here, far from home
and his hunting ground, marking trees with a white man?”
“We make a road for an English company to travel over from the Potomac
to the Monongahela,” said Nemacolin. “The English are blind, so I show
this man the way, for it is my road through the Little Meadows and the
Great Meadows and over the Laurel Hills to the Monongahela.”
“Wah!” exclaimed Scarouady. “An English company? That is the Washington
company?”
“I do not know,” replied Nemacolin. “It is an English company to build
a great house on my land and keep many goods there.”
“Wah!” again exclaimed Scarouady. “The Washington company. Who is this
white man?”
“He is named Cresap. He lives in the east, down the river Potomac.”
“Wah!” said Scarouady. And he bade of Robert: “Ask that man where we
find the young captain, Washington.”
“He will know,” Robert said eagerly. “It was at his place that I saw
Washington.” So he said, in English: “We look for Washington.”
The Englishman, who was burly and bearded, smiled.
“It is you, is it, young man? You want to see George Washington again?”
“We come to find Washington,” Robert the Hunter repeated. “At your
place?”
“No, George Washington doesn’t live at my place. That was a long
time ago. You travel east, down the Potomac, to Will’s Creek. Ask at
the Ohio Company’s house there, and they’ll tell you where to find
George Washington. He’s likely down south at Greenway Court, near the
Shenandoah, on the Lord Fairfax plantation. Or else in the woods,
surveying. Understand?”
Much of this was Greek to Robert. But he understood enough.
“We go to a house at Will’s Creek, in the east,” he said, to Scarouady.
“They will tell us.”
“Goodby,” uttered Scarouady; and he turned about and made off, and
Robert followed close.
So they left Nemacolin the Delaware from the Monongahela to guide
Colonel Thomas Cresap, blazing the trail known as Nemacolin’s Trail
from present Cumberland upon the upper Potomac at Will’s Creek in
northern Maryland to Redstone Creek of the Monongahela River far in the
west.
By this trail the Ohio Company of the Washingtons and others, settling
lands between the Alleghany Mountains and the Ohio River, intended
to take their goods. By this trail George Washington marched against
the French. By this trail General Braddock, with his aide George
Washington, marched his army across rivers and over the mountains,
to meet the French and Indians in battle near the Forks of the Ohio;
and it was named Braddock’s Road. And in due time the trail of
Nemacolin and the road of Braddock became the National Road of southern
Pennsylvania, for travel between the Potomac and the Monongahela, and
thence north to Pittsburgh.
So they took the eastward trail, which wended through ravines, through
parks, dense forests, around hills, across creeks and over mountains
where snow had fallen, until the second evening they were almost in
sight of the Potomac of present Maryland.
“I smell smoke,” said Scarouady. “Somebody cooks meat.” Then they came
out into a clearing for a cabin with smoke curling from the mud chimney.
Children ran, a woman screamed, and a man working outside jumped for
his gun. But Scarouady shouted “Friend, No ’fraid,” and went in, with
Robert close at his heels.
“He has a scalp!” the woman cried; and the man still kept his gun
ready. Scarouady laughed.
“Mingo, friend of English. Cherokee scalp. Where Washington comp’ny?”
“Washington company?” uttered the man.
“Yep. Washington comp’ny. Will’s Creek. Where?”
“He means that Ohio Company that’s built a storehouse down near the
creek mouth, John, I reckon,” spoke the woman.
“Oh! Well, this here creek jines Will’s Creek. You foller down to the
river an’ ask at the big house there, if it’s the Ohio Company you’re
seekin’.”
“Goodby,” said Scarouady. He and the Hunter trotted away. Robert’s
moccasins were worn through and his feet were sore, and Scarouady
settled into a long wolf stride rather rapid for a boy’s tired legs.
“Now we catch Washington soon,” said Scarouady over his shoulder.
They could smell the river. It was the Potomac――smelling very different
from the creek that they followed. Within a short time they sighted
lights, glimmering through the darkness. The forest was dark and cold;
the lights were those of a house at the river――and of a camp fire,
nearer than the house.
The camp fire, in a sheltered hollow among the black trees, looked
inviting. They went down to it. There were horses; and men lying
wrapped in blankets, like Indians, their feet to the blaze; and in
front of a lean-to of boughs, fronting the fire, two other men,
sitting; a young man, in a match coat, or wool blanket-coat, putting
marks upon paper, and an older man, well muffled against the night air,
smoking a pipe and staring into the fire.
“Washington!” Robert whispered. “You see him!”
Scarouady hailed: “Hallo, English.”
One of the men lying down started up; but the old man sitting never
moved, and Washington only raised his head, and answered:
“Hallo. Come in, friends.”
Scarouady and Robert stepped forward into the fire circle. The old man
glanced at them; then he looked at Washington, as if curious to see
what Washington would do. He was a large old man, with a tired, thin
face, sharp beaked nose, and bulging gray eyes; and he was watching
Washington.
Washington sat calmly.
“Our brothers are welcome,” he said. The old man nodded as if
satisfied. Washington was larger and browner than before, and wore
Indian moccasins, leather trousers, and a deer-hide shirt underneath
his wool coat, and upon his head a fox-skin cap. This camp at the edge
of the thick, frosty forest might have been a thousand miles into the
wilderness, for it was a very simple camp――a regular woodsman’s camp.
Scarouady was eying Washington; and Scarouady, with his fierce visage,
his Oneida paint and his cheeks tattooed with bow-and-arrow, his head
shaven except for his scalp lock, and the Cherokee scalp stiff in his
belt, might easily have frightened these English.
“It is good,” he said. “I seek Washington.”
“By George, George!” crackled the old man. “He does? Who’s your friend?”
“I am George Washington,” said the young chief. “My brother has
travelled far. He is an Oneida. Let him sit down and eat and rest.” And
Washington made the sign for eating and resting.
“George, George!” laughed the old man. “You’re gettin’ on. Gist could
do no better.”
The Hunter saw that Washington had learned manners. The first time, he
had asked questions; now he asked no questions. Curiosity is impolite.
He used the sign language. He spoke to Scarouady the chief, he read
the Oneida paint, he did not appear to recognize Robert who was not a
warrior.
Scarouady and Robert sat down, and ate. Washington waited until they
were through; then he asked:
“My brother who comes with the Hunter wishes to see me?”
“The Hunter is a boy; be warrior some day. He has more English. He may
tell young captain,” directed Scarouady. “Speak.”
“We come from Tanacharison,” Robert explained. “He is Mingo Half-King,
on the Ohio. He send Scarouady to say for you to come quick, with
company, and build a house with guns to keep the French out.”
“George, George!” laughed the old man. “That’s what.”
“But why does he send to me?” Washington asked.
“Trader says Washington is captain of a company making ready to march
and build houses at the Ohio. Tanacharison says for you to come with
big guns and he will show you where to build.”
“Are the French there now?”
“French been, gone, come again,” grunted Scarouady. “Next time come,
find big house with guns. Boom!”
“Gad! It’s true, then,” spoke the old Englishman. “The frontier pot’s
boilin’; eh, Gist?”
The third man, who was a stout, gray-eyed, red-faced man weathered by
sun and wind, heat and cold, nodded.
“Yes, my lord. ’Tis high time for action, or we lose the west and are
penned in like sheep.”
“French come with soldiers. Bury plates to make the land theirs, and
order English out,” said Robert. And he insisted: “Washington march his
company and stay.”
“Tanacharison does not understand,” said Washington, gravely. “He has
heard of the Ohio Company. That is not my company. I have no company.
I am George Washington. It is my brother Lawrence Washington who is
head of the company.”
“Huh!” said Scarouady. “He chief?”
“A soldier chief. Older than I am.”
“Wah!” Scarouady grunted. “Too many Washington. Where he?”
“He is far,” replied George Washington, with the sign. “But the company
is coming to the Ohio. It is making ready. You tell him, Chris.
It’s well we’ve camped here. This man,” he added, to Scarouady, “is
Christopher Gist, a great trader and hunter.”
“Brother,” spoke Christopher Gist, in the Mingo dialect, which was
a sort of trade tongue used among all the Indians. “I see you are a
chief.”
“Wah!” said Scarouady.
“You have a Cherokee scalp at your belt. I am from the south.”
Christopher Gist used signs as well as words. “You are from the north.
The Cherokee are wolves that travel between. They are to be struck, so
that the road shall be kept open to brothers.”
“Wah!” said Scarouady. “It is said. I have heard of my brother. He is
called Gist, and the Cherokee fear him. Has he changed his hunting
ground?”
“I live upon the river called Yadkin, in the land called North
Carolina,” said Christopher Gist. “Now I am coming to the Mingo.”
“Wah!” exclaimed Scarouady surprised. “Will my brother live among the
Mingo?”
“He thinks to do so,” said Christopher Gist. “He is coming now to speak
with the Mingo for the Washington company?”
“Wah!” Scarouady exclaimed again. “Does Washington come too?”
“Listen, brother,” continued Christopher Gist: “You say the French of
Onontio are spying out that land and claiming it. We know it is not
French land, but Indian land and English land. The Washington Company
will march into it and build houses along the Ohio to keep the French
out. But first they send me, to learn the trail and to look upon the
land and to sit in council with the Mingo so that the Long House of the
Iroquois will know the talk.”
“Why does not Washington come?” asked Scarouady.
“This Washington does not speak the Indian tongue.”
“What does he do here, then?”
“He and that old man have marched with me a little way, to see me
start.”
“Who is that old man with the hawk nose and glass eyes?”
“He is a great English chief. His English name is Lord Fairfax. He owns
all this land to the Shenandoah――the Daughter of the Stars.”
“Does he own that house with the lights in it, by the river?” asked
Scarouady.
“No. You see the house. That is the great storehouse of the company. It
is full of goods for Indian brothers at the Ohio. The company has come
this far and only waits for me to mark the trail and open the road to
the Ohio.”
“Why does not the company send its chief to talk with chiefs?” demanded
Scarouady. “Where is the chief Washington?”
“The chief Washington is sick. He cannot travel. But he is this young
chief’s brother, and he has sent his brother with me to the beginning
of the road. His brother that you see is young, but he is wise.”
“Well,” said Scarouady, “if that is the house of the Washington company
and this Washington is here for his brother who is the chief, why does
he not sleep in the warm house instead of out here in the cold and dark
like a squirrel?”
“Because he does not fear the cold and dark,” said Christopher Gist.
“His heart is strong. In marking out lands he lives besides the trail
and the forest is his house.”
Scarouady nodded.
“Wah! That is good. He is a warrior. Do you come, Gist, and open the
road to the English and close the road to the French.”
“Onondago will permit?” inquired Christopher Gist.
As everybody knew, or should know, the Grand Council of the Six Nations
of the Iroquois, at Onondago in New York, would expect to be asked
about this matter of white men building houses in the Ohio Country.
Scarouady stood up and made a speech.
“For many years, and before I was born,” he said, “the Iroquois have
been friends of the English. The first French of Onontio helped the
Huron dogs against the Iroquois. The hatchets of the Iroquois have
not forgotten. The Iroquois have conquered from the big water to the
setting sun, they own the country where the Beautiful River flows, and
they give the land beyond the mountains to the English. Scarouady and
Gist will set out in the morning to open a short road and carry the
word that the English are coming with horses and great guns.”
Scarouady suddenly held out his hand to George Washington, who took it,
and Scarouady tested his grip.
“Wah! I have heard the truth,” Scarouady uttered. “Strong hand, strong
heart. My young brother is not a squirrel, he is a bear. If his brother
is sick, let him himself go upon the road to the Ohio. He has this old
hawk for councillor. Now I will sleep.”
So he lay down, and likewise did Robert, with their feet to the fire.
But the three white men sat up for some time, talking in English.
They talked of the French who threatened to come down from Canada
and seize the Ohio Country, beyond the Alleghany Mountains; of the
necessity of holding the country for the English King across the
water; of the big tracts of lands west of the mountains and along the
Ohio, that had been granted by the King to the Ohio Company; of what
Christopher Gist should say to the Mingos, the Delawares, the Wyandots,
the Shawnees and the Miamis, to win their friendship; and of the chance
of war between the English and the French, to see which should keep the
country that both claimed.
“You colonists are like a bullock. You have yet to find out your own
strength,” said the old man.
“That will be found, if France undertakes to drive us. We cannot suffer
our traders to be mistreated, sir,” said George Washington, “and our
trade with the Indians to be cut off.”
“Aye,” laughed the old man. “You are slow, and stubborn, like English,
and admit no attack upon your liberties. I sometimes think that the
best part of England has come over here. And out of this war there will
arise, I also think, a new race of peoples by a new name.”
“And what will that be, my lord?” Christopher Gist inquired.
“Americans, by George.”
“How so, sir?” Washington asked.
“You are already Americans in some of your notions,” said the old man.
“You wish to grow, and you desire to think as you please. That is why
you came here. It is your weakness now, for you do not act together.
You cannot bring France to terms of yourselves. You will need help from
the King, and helped by the King you will learn to use your strength.
France certainly will lose. She cannot hold this remote Ohio country,
and she will lose her Canada. You colonists will then be free to
expand, without a rival shutting you in. An empire lies west of you.
You will grow out of your English clothes, and when England tries to
remind you that you owe her your humble duty and must pay for her
expenses, you will fight.”
“Would you think us so ungrateful, sir?” said Washington.
“Ha ha!” the old man chuckled. “One may be thankful for being set up
in business, and then object to turning the business over to outside
hands. You Americans are born of freedom, and freedom of action by your
own vote you will have.”
And that proved true; for when these American colonies had grown
large and were self-supporting, and England would have taxed their
prosperity, without giving them a vote, they did object.
Much of the talk, however, Robert the Hunter, rather sleepy, did not
understand. “Americans!” That was something new. Washington was an
American. This perhaps explained why he was so different from the
traders whom the Indians called English.
He saw that the old man and Christopher Gist talked with George
Washington as though he were a man; he had seen that Washington pleased
Scarouady; and he felt satisfied and happy. Tanacharison would find
that his word about George Washington the American had been true word.
IV
ON THE TRAIL TO THE WEST
Early in the morning they said goodby to George Washington and the old
man his friend, and with Christopher Gist took the long back trail for
Logstown again.
“Let Gist follow me,” Scarouady directed. “Nemacolin’s road is one
road, but it goes first to his camp and crosses swift waters. We will
go straighter by the Warrior Path along Warrior Ridge, and have only
one deep water to cross.”
They continued by Nemacolin’s road a little way; then they left this
road into the west for the Monongahela River, and turned north for
the Allegheny River above Dekanawida, the Forks of the Ohio where
the Monongahela and the Allegheny joined. There they would have the
Allegheny to cross with the pack horses, and then they would be on the
north or Logstown side of the Ohio.
Christopher Gist had several men and two pack horses. There was snow
upon the Great Mountains――the rocky Alleghany Mountains; the footing
was bad for horse and man. The forest was getting wintry; cold rains
washed the last of the leaves from the trees, and the wolves howled in
the night, and the bear and the turkey were fat with acorns.
“Will you speak well of Washington?” the Hunter asked of Scarouady
while they travelled.
“He is not the Washington of the company. His brother who is sick is
captain of the company,” said Scarouady. “This Washington is young,
but I can see that he says little, and when he speaks he speaks like a
man.”
“If his brother is sick, this Washington may be sent to build the big
house.”
“A treaty must be made with the Onondago council,” said Scarouady. “If
the French own the lakes they own the waters that flow into the lakes,
but the Iroquois and the English own the waters of the Ohio. That has
been agreed. The English may build their big houses, with guns, there,
and trade, but they may not settle the lands, for the Indians wish to
live on the lands.”
And neither Scarouady nor Robert knew that the Ohio Company of Virginia
and England had been given by the King five hundred thousand acres
of lands upon the Ohio, to settle with families. Of this Christopher
Gist said nothing. His business now was to examine the lands and bear
messages of friendship from Virginia to the Indians.
“What of the Washington I have seen?” Scarouady asked Gist, as still
they travelled. “You know him?”
“I know him,” Christopher Gist answered. “In years he is a youth, in
mind a man. His home is in the woods. For three years he has been
traveling about, marking lands. He is the son of a widow.”
“Was his father a chief?”
“His father was not a chief, I think; but was a warrior very strong.
Now this youth is being taught by that old man Fairfax, who is a great
chief and councillor.”
“What of his brother who is sick?” asked Scarouady. “He is a chief?”
“He is a soldier captain, but he stays at home. He cannot travel,” said
Christopher Gist. “There is another brother who stays at home upon his
lands, also. This young Washington likewise has lands of his own, but
he prefers the woods, that he may learn how to care for himself without
help. He is a good hunter and trail finder. I look for him to be a
great chief.”
“We shall see,” replied Scarouady. “He shows much sense.”
They marched on, into the north. Gist was sick and had to make stops.
And one day Scarouady, leading, leaped back; at the same time Gist’s
horse shied, almost throwing him. A man stood in the trail. Scarouady
cried out:
“The Black Rifle!”
The man was the man that the Hunter remembered; a very large man, black
in hair and in beard, and of eye blackly glowing and of skin dark; clad
in leather he was like an Indian, with fur cap upon his head. He held
his long rifle ready, but lifted his free hand in the talk sign.
“Who are you and what do you want?” he demanded of Gist.
“I am Christopher Gist from the Virginia settlements, and travel on the
King’s business,” said Gist boldly. “Who are you?”
“Captain Jack of Pennsylvania. The Injuns know me as the ‘Black Rifle’
or the ‘Black Hunter.’ How many of the varmints with you?”
“You see two, a chief and a boy,” answered Gist. Now other men
appeared, among the trees and bushes near――wild, eager men, poising
their guns and searching with their eyes. “They guide me and are under
my protection. You’re an Injun killer, I take it.”
“I am,” said the Black Rifle. “The Injuns killed mine, I kill them.
Where are you going?”
“To talk with the Mingos and the tribes west as far as the Miami, and
win them from the French. Do we pass on?”
“Yes,” said the Black Rifle, “you may pass on. These are Mingos. My war
is with the Delawares and Shawnees; but keep your Injuns close, for all
copper skins are apt to look alike over my rifle sights. Are the French
seizing the river?”
“So they say.”
The Black Rifle laughed harshly as he stepped aside.
“Beware of the Injuns, then. They will talk fair, and then act as they
please, for the sake of scalps and plunder. But go ahead; and when you
have to fight the French and Injuns both, there will be need of the
Black Hunter.”
He sprang backward, and was gone; gone were his men, and the forest was
silent.
“Wah!” Scarouady exclaimed, breathing hard. “It was he, the killer of
the trail. I thank my brother for sending him away.”
“The name of your father the King is powerful,” answered Gist. “He
suffers no harm to come to his children the Indians.”
“Well,” uttered Scarouady, “let my father the King count his Injuns,
then, and ask the Black Rifle what has become of those not found. There
can be no peace while the trail is bloody.”
The year was late when they all toiled down the hills to old
Shanopin’s-town beside the Allegheny River just above the Forks.
Here they heard news.
“The trader George Croghan and Sattelihu whom the English call Captain
Montour have been here with presents and talk from the Governor of
Pennsylvania,” said Scarouady. “I know there is jealousy between the
men of Onas and the Long Knives of Assaragoa who rules Virginia. We
will go ahead of Gist to Logstown and prepare the way.”
So they left Christopher Gist to talk with the Delawares of King
Shanopin, and then to swim his horses through the swift, cold
Allegheny; and they went on to Logstown.