and looked very cosy; but they could not stay beside it. It was only a
blind. So Washington read his compass, and took direction, and he led;
then he struck flint and steel, to take direction again, and by the
compass Gist led. In this way they travelled, southeast for the Forks
of the Ohio, while the stars glittered and the branches snapped with
the frost, and the wolves howled, until daylight.
But they had left a plain trail in the snow; and now by daylight the
enemy would follow at full speed; so they three did not dare to camp.
They ate bread and meat while they walked. Gist said that a little
creek here ought to flow into the Allegheny. Down along the creek they
plodded, all this day, without sleep. Surely Washington and Gist were
strong men. Robert resolved that Tanacharison should hear about this
march.
“We can go no further,” gasped Christopher Gist, at dusk. “We’ll camp
where we are. I think we’re safe until morning.”
“And where are we?” George Washington queried.
“The creek has broadened. The Allegheny’s within easy distance. We’ll
strike it at daybreak and cross on the ice.”
“Once across, we’ll soon be at Fraser’s house and get horses,”
Washington planned. “Then I can make quick time to Will’s Creek and on
to the settlements.”
They slept this night under a lean-to of boughs, their feet to a little
fire. To sleep was very good. Never in his life had the Hunter been so
fagged. They had walked with scarcely a pause a half day, a night and a
day, through snow and upon ice, in sun, darkness and cold, up hill and
down, ever in a wilderness.
Washington and Gist were astir early, ere the sky had lightened. Truly,
Indians who would catch these two men should travel like the elk.
“Forward, march!” bade Major Washington. “Come, Hunter. We cross the
river.”
He hobbled, Gist hobbled, and Robert the Hunter hobbled after.
It was not far to the river. Robert had fallen a little behind when
Washington, in the lead, halted stock still in the fringe of the woods.
His voice carried clearly through the dawn light:
“Here’s the river, Gist; but we’re cut off. The channel’s open.”
XI
FACING WINTER PERIL
Christopher Gist hurried on. When the Hunter arrived, the two were
gazing perplexed; and no wonder.
Here lay the swift Allegheny River, a quarter of a mile wide, but it
was not frozen over. It was frozen for only fifty paces out from either
bank. All the space between the borders was black current, in which
great ice cakes, borne rapidly, churned and swirled on their way to the
Forks below.
As far up and down as they could see there was no ice bridge――no way to
cross afoot. To leap from floe to floe amid that mad race of tilting,
spinning cakes, some thick, some thin, at intervals irregular, was
impossible. And to swim through was impossible.
“Pshaw!” Gist uttered. “Who’d ha’ thought this? In all reason the pesky
river should be frozen clean across. We’re cut short, major.”
“Just where are we?” asked Washington.
“Maybe the boy knows better than we do.”
“Shanopin-town across about two miles down,” said Robert. “Forks
another two miles.”
“We’ll have to go down stream, major,” spoke Gist. “Until we come to an
ice jam that will bear us, or can signal from opposite Shanopin’s-town.
The Injuns might be able to get a canoe to us. We’ll find food and
proper rest, too.”
“No,” said Washington. “The French spies are probably ahead of us. I’ll
not risk interference from Shanopin’s-town――I must get to the Governor
at all hazard. The less we see of Indians, the better. I have no time
to take my ease. Cross here I shall.”
“How so, then?” Gist asked.
“By raft. We’ll make a raft and chance it.”
Christopher Gist exclaimed:
“What! You mean to chance a raft in that ice, major? We’re like to be
swamped.”
“It can be done, Gist. It’s got to be done. Let’s set to work.”
“And that’s a job, too,” quoth Gist; “with only my hatchet and our
hunting knives to shape the timber. But if you say so, I’m not the man
to back out. Grant that the Injuns give us time.”
“To work, then,” bade Washington. “Keep an eye on our back trail and
our guns ready. All I ask is time to cross.”
They fell to, the three of them; and a job that was, to make a raft
that would hold together and bear three persons. Saplings had to be
cut down and trimmed with the one small hatchet; driftwood had to be
gathered from along the steep, high banks; and all had to be laid
closely and bound by poles fastened with wooden pegs.
Washington chopped, Gist hacked and laid and bound, the Hunter hauled
and dragged; and while they toiled and sweated the sun rose higher
until it marked noon.
The raft was not half completed. The driftwood was frozen and heavy,
the saplings rang under the hatchet strokes. Gist had much difficulty
in driving the pins that held the binders. They all needs must cast
many an anxious glance upon the back trail, and upon the country up
stream and down stream and across. Ever the floes whirled past, with
no sign of lessening, nor of jamming.
The sun was sinking into the red west. A whole long day had been spent
when Gist said, straightening to ease his tired back:
“She’ll do, I think. It’s the best we can manage, anyway; if we’re
going to cross before dark we’ll have to make the try, major, or will
you wait ’till morning?”
“We’ll cross at once,” declared Washington, “and be ready to march. We
can sleep on the other side as well as on this side. Don’t forget the
setting poles. Here they are. Now to launch the thing.”
The cumbersome raft weighed tremendously. They all bent to, and
shoving, tugging, hoisting, they got it down a shelving place of the
bank and upon the ice.
The ice creaked warningly, but held. The sun had sunk into the western
forest. The air chilled suddenly and their sweat froze. The night was
going to be clear and very cold.
To drag the raft over the snowy ice took time, for the footing was
slippery to smooth moccasins. But at last the black water, washing
the ragged ice fringe, was close before. One more shove――heave-o! The
current and the speeding floes made a dizzy sight――the ice under sole
cracked――the raft slid to the edge, and hung, half in, half out――――
“Aboard with the Hunter!” cried Washington. “Quick!”
And Robert, his heart thumping, was alone, crouched upon the canted
raft.
“Together, now, Gist! Jump as she enters.”
They two strained――the raft slid in――Gist sprang――with final shove
Washington gave a running jump, and landed; Gist thrust with his
setting pole and out they went, careening into the wild mill.
There was one breathless moment; but the raft held, while the water
seeped up through the crevices. It began to drift down stream at
astonishing pace. Now Washington and Gist worked desperately with their
setting poles, pushing the cakes aside, forcing the raft ahead, making
way through the labyrinth that constantly closed and opened.
The drift was alarmingly rapid. Huge cakes blocked the trail, and
others rammed them, threatening to bear them under. But they were
creeping on, creeping on; they were half way. And now another floe
swung athwart the course, and hung, so that the raft tilted while the
current dragged at it.
Washington panted:
“Wait, Gist, till I pry off.”
He bent to his setting pole, buried almost to the hand-hold in the
water, to thrust the raft free. Then Gist cried out:
“Take care, major! No! He’s gone!”
The raft had moved, the pole had been whipped from Washington’s grasp,
and losing balance he had plunged head first into the icy depths.
Gist sprang, Robert the Hunter sprang. An instant more, and
Washington’s head appeared just below the raft.
“Here, major!”
The water there was clear of floes. He swam a few strokes, and managed
to grab the edge of the raft. With the raft canted dangerously again
they hauled at him and he kicked and scrambled, and dripping wet he
came aboard. Wah, but that had been a narrow escape!
“I lost my pole,” he gasped.
“No matter,” said Gist. “Thank Heaven you got out. But we can’t make it
tonight, major. We’ll be wedged fast, and freeze to death. The best we
can do is to land on that little island right ahead and build a fire.”
Already they had been carried down stream a mile; in the gloom a bare
little island, cloaked with only a few trees, cut them off from the
farther shore. The raft drifted in to it, while Gist worked with his
pole.
“When it touches, jump,” he bade. “I can’t hold it long.”
The raft grated against the edge of the ice that bordered the island;
pitching their packs out they all followed, leaping over the piled-up
cakes; and away floated the raft. They were prisoners, but they had
escaped the greedy river.
Nevertheless, it was a bad fix. The first thing to do was to build a
rousing fire. Washington’s teeth chattered and his clothing rasped as
he moved briskly, to keep from freezing. The night was due to be the
coldest yet.
It proved a bare little island indeed, of scarcely any brush, and with
only two or three trees, and the highest part was not much above the
river.
“There should be drift wood lodged at the upper end,” said Washington.
So he and Robert went seeking, while Gist started a fire of twigs.
Luckily they found drift wood in plenty heaped against the island’s
head.
They lugged back snags and bark, to where Gist was blowing at his
smudge. It seemed as though the fire would never burst into steady
blaze, so damp was the wood, soaked with frost. Meanwhile Washington
stamped and thrashed, but complained by not a word, save to say:
“We should have been across, except for my clumsiness. With two poles
we would have forced passage.”
“Not so, major,” replied Gist. “Rather, be thankful that we escaped
with your life. I confess I’d rather be upon the shore, myself. We’re
within rifle shot of it, without cover; and by daylight anybody could
make things lively for us.”
“Liveliness would do us no harm,” laughed Washington. “It would warm us
up. A possible skirmish bothers me less than the thought of delay. The
Governor is waiting to hear of my trip. He sent me, instead of an older
man, and he was criticized for it; so I would show that I am not one to
fail.”
The fire increased, lighting the island with its ruddy flare; but the
cold increased, too, so that while they toasted one side of themselves,
the other side chilled and stiffened.
“We dare not lie down, major,” said Gist. “I can see you’re ready to
drop, and so is the boy; but if we lie down we’ll sleep, and if we
sleep we’ll freeze to death. We must keep each other awake, and moving.”
“Do you and the Hunter lie down, and I will watch and tend the fire,”
proposed Washington.
“No, sir,” Gist objected. “You might drowse off――’twould be only human
nature to drowse off. Then, who would wake _you_? The boy may sleep,
but we’ll have to rouse him often or he’ll be frostbitten.”
“I am a warrior,” declared the Hunter. “I will stay awake, and bring
wood.”
What a night that was! A still, stinging, cold night, while amid the
stillness the ice boomed, the floes ground upon each other in the
current, the forest cracked, the wet wood of the fire hissed, and
overhead the million stars glittered in the black sky.
Now and then they three sat at the fire, or standing turned about to
baste their backs; and to keep awake. Gist told stories of bears and
Indians, and Robert told of his bear and the Cherokee, and Washington
told of his plantation and of things to be seen among the Long Knives
of the American settlements. When anybody felt drowsy he was made to
walk, and rub his hands and cheeks with snow, or fetch more wood; and
sometimes they roamed over the island.
“There’s one advantage in this cold,” said Gist: “The Injuns aren’t
likely to stir abroad before sun-up. But we may catch it if we’re found
here by the Ottawas.”
“So you say,” replied Washington. “You forget another advantage. The
cold may bridge the stream for us, and we’ll get off.”
He was always hopeful, that man Washington.
Robert wearily trudged out again, for more wood from the drift
pile. When he reached the spot, he stared, surprised. There, in the
star-light, a log upon which he had stood high and dry, the last time,
was being lapped by water. Wah! He ran back with the bad news.
“Washington! River comes up!”
The two men exclaimed.
“What? No!” “You can see.”
And leaving the fire, see they did, at the drift pile, and also along
the island edges. They set a stake and watched that; and the water
crept higher.
“Either a gorge above has broken, or one has formed just below,” said
Washington.
“’Twill take little more rise to flood us off,” remarked Gist. “I say
things can’t be worse.”
“If they can’t be worse they’re ripe to mend,” Washington answered
steadily. “When we can’t stay on the island we’ll swim ashore, for
we’ll have to do something.”
They all watched the stake. After midnight, by the stars, the water
stopped, short of the fire, but the drift-wood pile was out of reach,
except by wading. And that fear of being swept away by the black flood
in the night was terrible――although it did not seem to worry Washington.
The stars slowly paled, and the east grew red. Washington returned from
another trip to look at the channel between the island and the shore.
“The ice has packed, Gist!” he almost shouted. “Huzzah! We’ll be able
to cross. Thanks for the cold, after all.”
His haggard face beamed.
“Aye,” said Gist. “Then we’ll make over as soon as we can, major, for I
don’t like these winter quarters. I’ve frozen all my fingers and some
of my toes during the night.”
“They should be tended to, sir.”
“And so they will be, but you should deliver your message to the
Governor. That is of first importance. Will the ice bear us?”
“We can try. Follow us, Hunter. If it bears us it will bear you.”
They shouldered their stiff packs again, and rifles in hand went
hopping swiftly but gingerly from stationary floe to stationary floe;
and sprang to snowy land.
Thus ended the dreadful night.
The morning was steely cold, as yet. Once safe from pursuit, in the
forest of this the east side of the Allegheny they stopped and made
another fire, and ate, and each slept an hour while the two others fed
the fire.
Now it was queer how comfortable and happy they felt, although it still
was one hundred and forty miles to Will’s Creek, and one hundred more
to the place Washington called “home.” But they had conquered.
Robert the Hunter decided that Indians, even Scarouady and Tanacharison,
would not have tried to cross that river. They would have waited. Upon
that island Indians would have given up and have died. Gist himself, a
strong man, had stopped at the river, and had wished to turn down. But
George Washington had said: “We will cross,” and cross they did, and
here they were.
“You will never have tighter squeezes for life, major,” Christopher
Gist declared, as they all travelled on. “Bullet, drowning and
freezing――I tell you, you narrowly escaped. You’re reserved for better
fate.”
Washington was striding briskly, as if tired not a whit.
“Whether for better or worse I hope to be equal to it,” he said. “But I
never feared for a moment that we would not get through.”
They reached Trader John Fraser’s house beside the Monongahela, this
evening.
“Hah,” spoke Gist. “Indians, major.”
“Mingo!” cried Robert. “I see somebody.” And he ran aside, while
Washington and Gist went into the house.
A party of Indians were gathered at the edge of the woods near the
house. He had recognized the tall form of Scarouady.
“Hallo, Scarouady.”
Scarouady looked him over.
“I see the Hunter. But the Hunter is thin and hard. He is no longer a
boy; he carries a gun and wears the panther claws of a warrior. Wah!”
“I have been far,” said the Hunter.
“To the French.”
“Yes.”
“Where do you go now?”
“I go with Washington,” Robert explained proudly. “I am a Washington
man and go with him to the Washington Americans.”
“Tell me,” Scarouady bade. “I will listen.”
When the Hunter had finished, Scarouady nodded gravely.
“Wah! You have done well. I see that Washington is a travelling
buffalo, whom nothing stops. His name truly is Connotaucarius, the
Eater of Land. The Great Spirit protects him so that he may lead the
Long Knife Americans upon the war trail. It is time that the great
house with guns and goods be built at the Forks of the Ohio, for the
French will come soon. You tell Washington that when he marches against
the French, Scarouady will bring warriors and help. Goodby.”
“You are going?” asked the Hunter.
“We stay tonight at Queen Allaquippa’s town. Tomorrow I will talk with
Tanacharison at Logstown and learn what he knows.”
“Where have you been, Scarouady?”
“To get scalps in the Catawba and Cherokee country. When we were part
way we found five Englishmen and two English women lying dead in some
houses. The tracks were Ottawa tracks; but for fear the English would
think we had done it and would attack us we turned back, to tell
Fraser.”
Scarouady and his nineteen warriors left, up river to visit Queen
Allaquippa’s town, three miles away. Wah! So the Ottawas of the French
were raiding even far into the south! Washington had struck to the
eastward none too rapidly.
Now the road to Assaragoa the Governor of Virginia was open, although
still long. While John Fraser was trying to find horses, Washington
wrote his travel story in his book.
Queen Allaquippa sent word that she was offended because Washington did
not visit her. They went to see her, the next day, and he gave her his
red blanket-coat, which pleased her.
“I heard you passed me by once, which was impolite,” said old
Allaquippa, woman sachem of the Delawares, who was fat and wrinkled and
smoked a pipe. “You probably were in a hurry. But now I think well of
you. I am a lonely widow with two sons, and should have a husband to
protect me from the French. Is Washington supplied with wives?”
“Hah! She wishes to marry you, major,” Gist chuckled.
Major Washington turned red, and soon left as if he were glad to get
away.
“That is your fourth narrow escape,” Gist laughed again.
“Yes,” Washington replied soberly. “A wife with a tomahawk at her belt
is scarce to my liking.”
Trader Fraser could find no horses. On this day called New Year’s
Day, of January 1, 1754, they three set out once more, on foot, for
Christopher Gist’s new place, southeast upon the way to Will’s Creek.
There they got horses.
“Within one week we shall be at the frontier of Will’s Creek; in
another week I shall be reporting to the Governor,” said Washington, as
from Gist’s place they jogged on, in the rain, following Nemacolin’s
Trail through forest and mountains, with Will’s Creek and the Ohio
Company’s store-house at the Potomac seventy miles distant.
“You will urge him to fortify the Ohio at once, before the French
descend in the Spring?” Gist asked.
“I shall press upon him the instant need of a fort and trading-house
in the Forks; the place that I am recommending in my report,” answered
Washington.
They made what haste they might, again, upon poor horses, in bad
weather, over a heavy trail. Washington was eager to report to
Assaragoa and have the French stopped; Gist’s fingers and toes demanded
medicines; and Robert the Hunter looked forward to strange sights in
the towns of the Long Knives――he had been promised that he should
shake the hand of the Long Knife Governor himself.
They had been travelling four days and were within one day’s journey of
Will’s Creek, when they heard shouts and snappings. Then at a turn of
the blazed trail they were face to face with a line of white men, a few
ahorse and the others afoot, driving pack animals.
“Ho!” uttered Washington. “Whither bound?”
“To the Forks of the Ohio, sir.”
XII
ROBERT CARRIES BAD NEWS
He was a fresh-complexioned young man in red uniform coat and red
trousers buttoned into gaiters at the calf, and cocked hat, and wore a
sword, like a soldier.
“On what business? I am Major George Washington of the Virginia
militia.”
“Your servant, sir,” said the young man. “I am Ensign Edward Ward of
Captain William Trent’s company from the frontier, to establish a fort
in our Ohio country beyond the Great Mountains. You are safe returned,
Major Washington? What of the French? They will advance?”
“You will be first, sir, if you act boldly,” Washington replied. “Is
this a movement by the militia?”
“We are Independents, sent to protect the holdings of the Ohio Company
along the Ohio.”
“Where is Captain Trent?”
“Enlisting other men, to follow with cannon and powder. How far to the
Forks, sir? You have been there?”
“I, and also Mr. Gist, whom you see. The Forks are one hundred and
forty miles, by slow trail. But the principal fort should be located
there, at all hazards,” asserted Washington. “Spend no time in looking
elsewhere. I am hurrying to the Governor with that advice.”
“The Indians are to be friendly?” Ensign Ward queried. “Settlers are
only one day behind me, to take up company land at the Monongahela.”
“You have an interpreter with you?”
“Not yet, sir. We hope to meet up with the trader John Davidson, and
employ him. But where, I do not know.”
Washington replied quickly:
“He is coming with Captain Vanbraam and my pack horses, but their
whereabouts are uncertain. An interpreter you should have. This boy
will serve you. He is the adopted son of the Mingo Half-King at
Logstown, and I vouch for him. He speaks English, and understands a
little French. He will be of great help to you. His name is the Hunter,
and a hunter he is, and knows the country. He has been all the way to
the French with me, and has borne himself bravely.”
Washington turned to Robert.
“I wish you to go with these men,” he said gravely. “You are willing?”
A lump had risen in the Hunter’s throat. He had travelled far, he
had had a hard time, he was almost at the end of the trail in the
comfortable country of Washington’s Americans where he was to learn to
be white――! So he hesitated for just a moment. Then he said:
“I will go. I am American.”
“Bravo!” smiled Washington. “It is the part of an American to serve his
country.”
The Hunter gulped.
“You will come, Washington?”
“If I am honored with an appointment to the wilderness again, I will
come.”
“All right,” said the Hunter. “I go to help keep the French out.”
Washington and Gist rode on. Robert turned around, for the trail back
to Dekanawida, and the Mingos and Delawares, and perhaps that Logstown
which was nothing like the white towns described by Washington.
Tanacharison would be surprised.
There were thirty men, and seventeen pack horses loaded with
fort-building material and trading-house goods. The men did not look
to be the equal of the French; they were not all soldiers――they seemed
more to be traders and woodsmen, and were poor and ragged, and badly
armed. The soldier captain, Ensign Ward, appeared to be not much older
than Washington, but he was younger acting――he talked more and as they
travelled he asked many questions of the Hunter, and often laughed.
They were a long time in getting the pack horses over the rough,
narrow trail; across the Savage Mountains, and the Great or Alleghany
Mountains, and the swollen, icy Youghiogheny or Four-Streams-in-One
River, and through the Great Meadows, and across the Laurel Ridge to
Gist’s Place, and then on west to the Monongahela River at the mouth of
Redstone Creek, where Nemacolin’s Trail ended.
Here they had to stay and build the first storehouse for the Ohio
Company. Captain William Trent (the same man who had failed to reach
the French, before Washington was sent) arrived with more men, dressed
in red, and with ten cannon in carts, and eighty barrels of powder and
muskets.
It was the middle of February when the storehouse was finished. Trader
John Fraser had come in and had been made a lieutenant; but he said
that he would not act unless he had permission to attend to his
trading business too. Then Captain Trent left, to go back to Will’s
Creek. A number of the men went, also, for they had grown tired.
Lieutenant Fraser and Ensign Ward were told to march on and build the
fort at the Forks, forty miles down the Monongahela. But Fraser stopped
at his trading house, and after that they saw little of him; and when
Ensign Ward reached the Forks he had only about forty men, and no great
guns or powder.
While they were looking about for a good place for the fort,
Tanacharison and White Thunder came up, to talk.
“I thought you were with Washington,” Half-King said to the Hunter.
“I went with Washington nearly to the Long Knife settlements; then
he ordered me back to talk for this man who is to build the fort,”
answered Robert.
“Who is this young man?”
“His name is Ward. He is the captain here.”