Assaragoa sends us another boy without hair on his face. Where are the
great guns?”
“They will come,” said the Hunter.
“It is no use to build a fort without great guns,” declared Half-King.
“And spring is near. As soon as the waters are open the French will be
here in numbers like the wild geese. I will talk with this boy.”
Tanacharison talked with Ensign Ward, and liked him. Others from
Logstown, and men from Shanopin’s-town and from Shingis’s town and
from Allaquippa’s town spent a great deal of time watching the fort
grow; but it grew slowly.
John Davidson came from Will’s Creek. He said that Washington was
raising another company of soldiers, and would march as soon as they
were ready.
The waters had opened. The floating ice in the Allegheny had almost
cleared, and of the fort only a few log walls were up, to form a
storehouse for the trading goods, and buildings for the soldiers, when
close behind the ice there arrived the French.
They were four days distant, up river, when the first news of them was
heard; and it was bad news, for the French were many, in many boats
with cannon.
Ensign Ward sent a runner to tell Captain Trent at Will’s Creek; and he
sent the Hunter to bring Tanacharison and Scarouady for council.
“If you mean to fight off the French,” said Tanacharison, “you should
at once build a high fence, with a ditch, and stay behind it, where you
can move about. Else you will be shut up in these little houses and the
French will knock them to pieces over your heads with their great guns.
Where is Fraser? He has more experience than you.”
“I will get him,” answered Ward. So he went up to John Fraser’s trading
place, eight or ten miles south; and Lieutenant Fraser said he could
not leave his business――he knew that the French were near, and he did
not see that anything could be done.
“Then I will build a stockade and wait; for I think it a shame to draw
off before the French, as the rest of you have done,” Ward answered
angrily. “The Indians will think us cowards.”
The men worked very hard, building a stockade of sharpened pickets,
with a ditch inside it, in a good place. This last morning which was
the morning of April 17th, White Thunder’s pretty daughter Bright
Lightning borrowed Robert’s horse to ride up to Shanopin’s-town. Nobody
could refuse Bright Lightning anything.
“Maybe I will see the French,” she said. “These English see nothing.
They have no scouts out. I wish I were a warrior.”
“Well, you can marry a Delaware and perhaps some day you will be a
woman sachem like old Allaquippa, and smoke a pipe,” Robert teased.
“Wah!” exclaimed Bright Lightning. “She is ugly and fat. When I tell
you the French are coming, then I’ll know whether you and your Long
Knife Americans are warriors, yourselves.”
Bright Lightning rode off astride. She had been gone only two hours
when back she galloped――――
[Illustration: BRIGHT LIGHTNING RODE OFF ASTRIDE]
“I have seen the French! The army of Onontio is near, in boats.”
“Where?”
“Above Shanopin’s-town. The boats are like leaves upon a stream in
Falling Leaf month.”
“If she speaks the truth, we will see,” said Tanacharison. “If she does
not speak the truth, she shall be punished, but there is no harm in
finishing the stockade.”
The Ward men worked harder than ever. They had just put up the gate
that closed the last opening when, at noon, the French fleet did sweep
around the bend at Shanopin’s-town, two miles up the Allegheny.
It was the army from Fort Le Boeuf! Wah! How many? Almost four hundred
boats, small and large, blue with soldiers and bristling with muskets!
The French made a fine landing at the Forks and marched right in, to
halt beyond musket shot while an officer came on with a white flag and
two Indians. He wished to talk. Taking Tanacharison and the Hunter,
Ensign Ward went out from the stockade and met him.
The Indians were French Iroquois, named Owl and Two Drums. Owl spoke
English, so that Robert had only to listen and know that his words were
the true words.
“I am Captain de Mercier,” said the officer, through Owl. “My commander
the Chevalier de Contrecoeur directs that you retire at once with your
men from this land belonging to the King of France; and by this belt of
wampum he bids the Half-King, whom I see with you, do the same.”
“And what if we decline?” answered Ensign Ward, standing bravely.
“You will suffer the consequences of your rashness,” replied the French
officer. “We will take possession just the same.”
Looking past him they could see great guns being unloaded from the
large boats and dragged in shore.
“I must have a little time to think,” said Ensign Ward.
The French officer looked at his watch, and he said:
“It is near two o’clock. By three o’clock you must appear at my
commander’s camp with your reply in writing, or we shall proceed
against your works.”
Tanacharison broke into a rage and threw the wampum belt upon the
ground.
“You tell your captain chief I do not know him. There is his belt. He
has no rights here, to order me or the English what to do. This is not
French land. It is Iroquois land, and my land. I invited the English to
come upon it; I ordered a fort to be built and I laid the first log.”
But the officer only turned upon his heel and strode away, together
with Owl and Two Drums.
Ensign Ward, very red and walking stiffly, went back to the little
stockade, where the men had been watching and waiting. It was plain
to be seen that he did not know what reply to make. He showed good
sense, though, for he held council with Tanacharison and Scarouady and
White Thunder, who were older than he. The Hunter and John Davidson
translated such words as might not be understood.
“I wish to know what you would do if you were in my place,” he said,
to Tanacharison. “I am alone here, with only forty men, of whom but
thirty-three are armed. I have no cannon, and but little provisions for
a long fight.”
“The French number a thousand, with great guns,” Half-King answered.
“Where is your captain, with guns and men, that he does not come to
help you?”
“I sent word to him four days ago,” said Ensign Ward. “I know nothing
about him.”
“It is a strange thing in Assaragoa to put a handful of men under
somebody of no experience in the midst of the woods and leave them to
the French,” declared White Thunder. “Where is Washington? He does not
fear the French, but that man Trent has gone home a second time without
even seeing the French.”
“Do the Mingos tell me to fight the French, and that they will help?”
Ensign Ward asked quickly.
“What does Scarouady say?” said Tanacharison.
“Wah!” replied Scarouady――he of the tattooed chest and cheeks. “Were we
to fight the French we should have fought them on the river where they
could not use their great guns. Then they would have turned back. To
fight them now requires a council, and plans; and they have Iroquois
brothers with them. That is how it seems to me.”
“Listen,” bade Half-King; and he spoke wisely: “The French may not
wish to fight. If they fire and kill men, that means war with the King
across the water. This is not Onontio’s land; it is land given to the
English for a fort, and the English are here first. To drive them off
is war, but to talk is not war. Now I think that Ward should say to the
French: ‘I am only a small chief, put here to build a trading house
upon land given by the Iroquois, and I know nothing of any wrong in the
matter. So I cannot make answer without orders from my captain chief.
But my captain chief will be here within a day or two, and he will talk
with the French captain.’
“That is how Washington and I were treated at Venango and Fort
Buffalo,” continued Half-King. “The French will see that you are
speaking the truth; and while they are waiting Washington will be
coming, and he will attack them from behind while you fight them from
in front.”
“That’s good sense,” approved John Davidson.
This answer Ensign Ward decided to make, when the hour was up. Then
Tanacharison took the Hunter aside.
“Quick!” he said. “We cannot depend on that man Trent. Do you set out
on foot so you will not be seen; find Washington and give him this
belt, and say to him: ‘Your brother cries to you from the depths of his
heart and bids you come at once to his assistance or we all are lost
and may never meet again.’ Tell that to Washington and to no other. He
shall be our hope.”
Robert the Hunter turned around and ran through the stockade, to get
out by the back. Men would stop him with questions but he paid no heed,
for the words of Tanacharison were repeating in his mind. He dived past
the gate sentinel, and was outside, when somebody called. It was Bright
Lightning running after.
“Wait! You are running away, Hunter?”
“Think so if you like,” he answered. “Goodby.”
“No,” panted Bright Lightning. “You do not run away. You go to bring
Washington. I guessed. Take this, for the long trail.” And she handed
him a piece of dried venison and a little bag of parched corn. “Hurry!”
And he hurried on, feeling grateful to Bright Lightning. She was a good
girl. He would not tease her any more.
At first chance he plunged into the forest, upon shortest trail
to Washington. Whether the French would let Ward stay, he did not
know. Perhaps the Long Knives and the Mingos would try to fight the
French――he could see that Tanacharison was much worried. This he did
know: he had more than one hundred miles to travel, and the piece of
meat and the parched corn would help him a great deal.
When on the evening of the fourth day from the Forks the Hunter
trotted afoot down to the mouth of Will’s Creek he was very tired and
the belt about his stomach was very small; for he had slept little and
his meat and parched corn were gone. He had stopped only to rest, and
not to hunt. But that which he now saw gladdened his eyes.
Around the Ohio Company’s log storehouse in the clearing along the
Potomac where Will’s Creek entered there were a large number of
tents, and many men were moving about. It looked as though he had met
Washington.
He panted in among the tents. The soldiers and other men, most of
them poorly dressed and doing nothing, stared at him or laughed as if
they thought him only an Indian boy coming to beg. And then he espied
somebody he knew.
It was the fat Captain Vanbraam, of Dutch Land, who had been left
behind on the trail from Venango last winter.
“Ho,” cried Robert. “Vanbraam! See me.”
“What iss?” answered Jacob Vanbraam. “Oh! Eh? Yah! It is our Injun boy
again. Where you come from now? You want me?”
“I want Washington. Where is Washington?”
“Yes; Washington, of coorse. He is not to be boddered. Eh? What? You
tired? Hungry? Somebody chase you?”
“I bring words,” said Robert. “From Tanacharison. Where is Washington?”
“Oho!” quoth Jacob Vanbraam. “Den come along. I take you.”
Captain Vanbraam strutted off with Robert at his heels; and saluting
at the open flaps of a tent guarded by a soldier, said:
“Here is one to see you, colonel.”
George Washington replied:
“Let him come in.”
Washington, in red uniform, was sitting upon a stool at a little table,
writing in the dusk; when he saw the Hunter he stood up――his eye was
quick, he knew that something was the matter, for with tired face
suddenly made hard and sharp he uttered:
“The Hunter! You’ve been travelling――you bring news?”
“Tanacharison says to Washington: ‘Your brother cries from his heart to
you to come quick and help us or all is lost and he may never see you
again.’”
“What?” exclaimed Washington. “How’s that? Where are you from?”
“The Forks. The French come, one thousand. Tanacharison send me for
Washington.”
“What did the French do? Where is Ensign Ward, who builds the fort?”
“Ward there. French there. Mebbe fight, mebbe not. French tell Ward to
get out. Tanacharison say wait.”
“Hah!” exclaimed Washington. “You hear, Vanbraam?”
“Yes; and two days ago we hear dat Captain Trent and all was captured
by the French. Den when we arrive we find Trent at dis Will’s Creek,
and he knows nodding about it. He says he left Ward safe, and has no
news. So what to belief? Mebbe all a scare.”
“I trust this boy, sir,” replied Washington.
“The word is true word,” said Robert. “I see the French. They are
there, Washington.”
“When was it?” asked Jacob Vanbraam.
“Four days. I came straight.”
“Impossible. It is one hoonderd and fifty miles, by bad trail in bad
wedder,” scoffed Jacob Vanbraam.
“I make own trail,” said Robert.
“You look it. You are tired, hungry too,” said Washington. “I thank the
Hunter. Was the fort finished? Is it fallen?”
“Not finished. French say to go away in one hour. Tanacharison tell
Ward to say he must wait for his chief.”
“Summon the officers for a council in my tent immediately, captain,”
ordered Washington, of Vanbraam. “If the fort has surrendered we may
expect Ward himself soon. The boy has evidently beaten any other
messenger.”
Then he called in a black servant, and the Hunter ate, and answered
more questions, and lay down to sleep in George Washington’s tent.
XIII
BATTLE AND VICTORY
Washington was going! Everybody soon believed the Hunter’s story, for
Ensign Ward himself and his men came in. The French captain had not
allowed him to wait, but had again ordered him off.
Tanacharison had sent Scarouady’s son the Buck, and Guyasuta the
warrior with Ward, bearing another cry for help. The Buck had gone on
with Ward, to the Governor; and Guyasuta had travelled back to the
Half-King with an answer from Washington.
“We thank you for your friendship and your wise counsels,” Washington
had said. “This young man will tell you that a small part of our army
is marching toward you, clearing the road for our great guns and our
supplies. I hope that you and Scarouady will meet me on the road as
soon as possible to aid me with your advice. This string of wampum will
remind you how much I am your brother and friend.”
The French at the Forks numbered one thousand, by best count; Guyasuta
asserted that six hundred Chippewas and Ottawas were marching south
through the Miami country, to join another army of French coming up the
Ohio River.
Washington had been waiting here at Will’s Creek for pack horses that
had been promised him. He ordered out sixty of his men to be widening
and smoothing the Nemacolin Trail so that he could travel rapidly. But
no pack horses were given him; so he found what wagons he could, and a
few horses to draw them, and with the rest of his men, one hundred, he
started. The Trent men would not march again, and had gone home.
His great guns had not come, either. The chief of all the Long Knife
army being raised was Colonel Joshua Fry――the man who had talked for
Virginia at the big council in Logstown summoned by Christopher Gist.
Washington was second in command, and now Fry would follow with more
men and the great guns. It seemed to Robert that for Washington to go
against those many French and Indians in the woods, with only a company
and a half, mostly ragged traders and settlers called “raw” (whatever
that meant) by Jacob Vanbraam, was foolish.
But they were Long Knife Americans, and good shots, and Washington
commanded. He had with him Jacob Vanbraam, and one Peyroney a French
American, and several others who looked to be skilled warriors, for his
officers; and with Tanacharison’s help maybe everything would be all
right.
Anyway, he was going first to the mouth of Redstone Creek, where at the
end of Nemacolin’s Trail the Trent men had built the trading house,
and he would wait there for Colonel Fry and the great guns, before
attacking the French.
Now again it was a hard march over the Savage Mountains, and over the
Alleghany or Great Mountains, and across the Youghiogheny or Four
Streams-in-One River, and through the Great Meadows and over the Laurel
Hills, and past Gist’s place, to Redstone Creek at the Monongahela.
The sixty men sent ahead had been able to do little with the road; the
horses for the baggage wagons soon gave out, and the men had to drag
the wagons, themselves; so that after a week Washington was no further
than Little Meadows, twenty or twenty-five miles from Will’s Creek.
The news was bad, brought by traders driven out by the French. The
French had built a strong fort at the Forks. They had increased by
eight hundred soldiers, and six hundred more soldiers were coming up
the Ohio! One trader had met the French officer La Force and four
French soldiers, from the Forks, scouting around Gist’s place and
spying out the country. The French were buying the Delawares, Shawnees
and Mingos with presents. But Tanacharison, said the trader, was
marching with fifty warriors to join Washington; and that was good news.
As he marched, Washington left behind him a road smoothed for wheels,
so that the great guns could be brought on swiftly. Therefore his march
was slow. When he was forty miles from Will’s Creek the Buck met him,
with fresh word from Tanacharison.
“The French army is coming to find Washington,” were the words now
carried by the Buck. “Let Washington be on his guard against them. They
intend to strike the first English that they meet. They have been on
the march two days, but I do not know their number. I and my chiefs
will be with Washington in five days.”
“Where is Half-King?” Washington asked.
“He is watching the French until his people get their corn planted.”
“What are the French at the Forks doing, then? Is it true that more men
come in to them?”
“No,” said the Buck. “They are the same that made my brother the
soldier Ward go away. But they have raised a fort with walls as thick
as a man is tall, and have pointed their great guns at the woods and
the river.”
“I ask you to go back and tell Half-King that you saw me,” said
Washington. “I shall march on to the Great Meadows, and build a little
fort, and wait the French. Tanacharison will find me there.”
The Great Meadows were eleven miles on across the swift Youghiogheny.
The Washington men began to clear away the bushes and dig a ditch, and
scouting parties searched about for the French.
“I t’ink dere is no French,” said Jacob Vanbraam. “Except at the Forks,
where by most reliable report dey haf no more dan fife hoonderd to
eight hoonderd men. Bah! Are we children, to be frightened by big talk?”
Then, late in the morning, Christopher Gist rode into camp from his
place twelve or thirteen miles north, beyond the Laurel Hills. He must
have had fresh news of the French, for very soon half the men, led by
Ensign Peyroney, hastened out, as to war; and next Washington’s soldier
messenger told the Hunter to come to Washington, quick.
“Listen, Hunter,” spoke Washington: “You shall find Tanacharison, who
is coming, near Gist’s place, and bring him to me. But tell him to be
very careful, for the French are at hand. Gist says the man La Force
and fifty French were at his house yesterday while he was gone, and
today he saw their tracks made in the night five miles from his place.
I have sent men to chase these French; and if Tanacharison will come
maybe we shall catch them. Do you be careful, too, that they don’t
catch you.”
“They not catch me,” declared Robert. “I will be Indian.”
The day was rainy and dark. Robert the Hunter hastened out, to find
Tanacharison. It would not do to take the little trader’s trail leading
northeast over the Laurel Hills, for no doubt the French spies were
lurking along it. Besides, Tanacharison, ’twas said, had moved from
Logstown to the Monongahela south of the Forks, to plant corn in a
place safe from the French soldiers.
Therefore the Hunter made his own trail; and travelling his best he
struck the Monongahela, flowing leaden under the leaden sky; and after
a long time he discovered the new and muddy cornfields of the Mingos,
skirted by rude shelters from the weather.
Now it was afternoon, but no Tanacharison was here, nor was anybody
here except women and a guard of a few old men.
“Tanacharison is gone,” they said. They were in bad humor. “What do you
want of Tanacharison, boy? If you pretend to be a warrior instead of a
white runaway you can follow his tracks and find him, but our business
is to plant corn so we won’t starve while the French and the English
are fighting.”
Old Juskakaka or Green Grasshopper was lying in his brush hut, sore
with rheumatism. He scowled.
“Tanacharison is spying on the French,” said Juskakaka. “He took men
and marched east this morning. He will do better to let the French
alone and stay friends with them. The French are fortifying everywhere;
the woods are full of their soldiers; and when they have whipped the
English they will not bother the Mingo. You will be wise to wait for
Tanacharison here. He may not thank you for chasing him up with
trouble words from Washington who has only a few men and knows little
of fighting.”
“I shall find Tanacharison,” said the Hunter, much to old Green
Grasshopper’s disgust.
He circled out, like a dog, searching the ground; and finally he did
come upon a warrior trail washed by the day’s rain. Wah! That was it.
It pointed east, into the forest; and into the forest again plunged
Robert the Hunter, using all his wits. He had been sent to find
Tanacharison.
Now the trail proved to be long, as if the warriors had travelled
rapidly; and it was cold and thin and hard to see; and the gloomy
forest darkened with drizzle and early night, and the Hunter was tired
and hungry when suddenly an Indian sprang up beside him.
And that was Scarouady. Ho!
Scarouady, in full war paint, had been lying like a panther beside the
trail. He said severely:
“What do you do here alone in the woods, carrying your scalp in your
hand?”
“I bear word from Washington to Tanacharison,” panted Robert. “The
French are near.”
“That is no news,” Scarouady grumbled. “But come. The trail needs no
more watching.”
The Hunter did not know where he was, exactly, until he had followed
Scarouady to the warrior camp. This was in the lee of Big Rock――a high
ledge upon the south slope of Laurel Hill. He had circled almost back
to the Great Meadows.
Tanacharison and five or six Mingo warriors were sitting around a
little fire that hissed in the pelting rain. The night promised to be
bad.
Half-King listened to the word from Washington.
“Very well,” he said. “Maybe the English are going to do something at
last. You wait here and eat and rest. The Buck and Guyasuta are out
upon the fresh tracks of two French. We want to hear what they have to
say.”
It was a miserable wait. The rain grew worse, the wind moaned, and the
fire against the rock flared and sputtered. There were French somewhere
near, preparing to attack Washington. Everybody knew that. Whether they
would move in the rain, or would try to hide, had to be found out.
Half-King, and White Thunder (who was here) and the others, were in
Mingo war-paint, like Scarouady. That looked serious. Sitting, the
Hunter fished into the little hide sack that he carried inside his
shirt, and he, too, daubed his cheeks with vermilion. He had told
Washington that he would be Indian again; and now Indian he was.
Then, after what seemed like another long time, without any warning
sound two figures suddenly stepped from the dark into the fire-light.
They were the Buck and Guyasuta, with rain-water running down their
painted faces.
They sat. Pretty soon Half-King said:
“Guyasuta may tell us what he and the Buck found.”
“We followed the back trail of the two men and found where they came
from,” reported Guyasuta. “They came from a company. The company will
be camped not far away. We think it is the same company that was spying
near Gist’s place.”
Tanacharison did not speak, for a minute. He was making up his mind.
Then he said:
“You are right. The two men are going to the fort at the Forks. The
company will wait till they return. If the English wish to fight, now
is the time.” And he said to Robert: “You go back to Washington. Tell
him his brothers the Mingo know where fifty of the French are, getting
ready to strike him. Let him come here at once, with his men. We will
show him how to surprise the French before they grow greater in number,
for they have sent off two men whose tracks we have seen.”
Out went Robert, into the dark and rain. The camp of Washington in the
Great Meadows was no distance at all, by day; he should have reached it
in an hour; but to find it tonight was a very different matter. Before
he saw its candles glimmer through the wet blackness he feared that he
had lost it.