lines without being hailed and was at Washington’s tent.
Washington was talking with John Davidson the trader. He listened
gravely to the message from Tanacharison. Then his blue eyes glowed. He
seemed glad. He folded his letter and fastened it and called a soldier
and said: “Have this started to Governor Dinwiddie at once in the
morning.” And now, to Robert:
“Where is the Half-King?”
“At Big Rock. He waits for Washington.”
“And how far is Big Rock?”
“Not far. Half way to Gist’s place. One hour ride, two hour walk.”
“Do you know, Davidson?” Washington asked.
“Big Rock is an Injun camp spot near where the trail to Gist’s crosses
the crest of Laurel Hill, colonel,” said John Davidson. “About six
miles from here.”
“We could find it speedily?”
“Not till morning. The night’s pitch dark, the trail’s bad at its best
and by night in this weather is no trail at all. You can be sure that
the French will stay snug while you do the same.”
“Then all the more reason to move against them, sir,” Washington
answered. “They fancy themselves safe. I’ll not have our Indian allies
say that when they sent for us with urgent call we preferred comfort to
action. We will go at once.”
“I will show the way,” said Robert. “Maybe take a long time, but we
find Tanacharison.”
“Well spoken,” Washington praised. “The Hunter came, he can go back.”
“We’ll need Indian senses, that’s sure, colonel,” laughed John
Davidson. “You see the boy’s got his war paint on.”
“Maybe Injun now, but American too,” announced Robert.
Washington smiled.
“You may rest while the soldiers are getting ready. How many men has
Tanacharison?”
“Scarouady there; White Thunder, Guyasuta, Aroas, Buck, two-three more.”
It was an hour before they all set off――Washington himself, and forty
men, and Robert the Hunter as guide. Captain Vanbraam was left with the
other men to guard the camp, so that it should not be captured.
The blackness was now so thick that nobody could see where to set his
foot down. The rain poured, the wind blew, the men were constantly
blundering into trees, and falling down, and losing one another,
and voices were drowned. To follow a trail was impossible except by
crawling and feeling; and every few minutes a halt had to be made,
until the stragglers came in.
So that the six miles up-hill seemed sixty, and Robert the Hunter had
to confess that he was as blind as all the rest. Even Washington’s
compass was of no use.
They spent the night searching for the Big Rock. When in the first gray
of the morning they could see, and the Hunter knew where they were,
and they found the Rock, they were a sight――muddy and wan, and as wet
as muskrats. Seven men had been lost. But Washington had no notion of
giving up.
He and John Davidson and Tanacharison and Scarouady talked, while the
men shivered and recharged their guns with dry powder. Robert was so
tired that he dozed off. But he awakened. Scarouady and Half-King were
standing up, to shake hands with Washington.
“We go for a little bloodying of the hatchet, brothers,” Scarouady
said, with a fierce grin, to the soldiers and the warriors. That was
enough to arouse anybody.
The forest had grayed, the storm had lessened to a drizzle again and
all the dripping world was shrouded in a cold mist. Half-King led out
his Indians, Washington led out his Long Knife Americans; and when they
all came to the place in the trail where the two Frenchmen had crossed,
Guyasuta and the Buck ran ahead to back-trail again, and this time to
find the French camp.
They were not gone long. The French company were hidden down at the
foot of Laurel Hill, on the edge of the Great Meadows about one-half
mile east of the trail from Gist’s! Wah! Yes, they had built bark
lodges in a little hollow in the woods, under a ledge of rocks, and
were waiting to strike Washington’s camp.
“I will summon them to surrender,” said Washington to Lieutenant
Waggener. “But should they fire upon us I shall not hesitate to answer.”
Guyasuta remained to guide the Long Knives by the right; the Mingos
filed off by the left; and Robert the Hunter went with the Washington
Americans.
The French were astir; for within a short time the heavy air smelled of
smoke. The Americans spread out and advanced more cautiously, with guns
held so as to shield the locks from the wet. Guyasuta signed that the
ledge of rocks was close before. Nothing could be heard from the French
camp――the French had thought themselves so well hidden that they needed
nobody on watch.
Washington went forward, to peer; and Robert stole after, and the men
led by Lieutenant Waggener followed――all without a sound, for the
ground was soaked and soft. Somewhere to the left, likewise stealing
upon the French, were the Tanacharison party. The French could not
escape.
Washington carried no gun, only a stick for a cane. He went around the
end of the ledge, as if to call out; then a Frenchman stepped from one
of the bark cabins, and saw the soldiers in the woods; he shouted and
fired his gun, the French rushed out, and what was said Robert could
not hear: both sides were shouting and shooting, and high and terrible
rose the Mingo warwhoops.
Several of the French had fallen down; the man who appeared to be their
captain was down flat; the French shot from behind their cabins and
the Long Knives from behind trees. Washington was standing in the open
where the bullets from both sides whizzed; he shouted: “Keep under
cover, men! Fire slowly.” Now Lieutenant Waggener came running, and he
said:
“You are exposed, colonel. Seek cover yourself.”
“Not for me, sir,” answered Washington. “Go back. I find the situation
charming.”
In a few minutes he cried out, and waved his stick――“Hold! Cease
firing! They ask quarter.” Down he rushed, for the French were running
here and there, and calling, and the Tanacharison party were into
them with the tomahawk, or chasing them through the woods. Scarouady,
Aroas, the Buck and the others charged, shrieking the scalp yells, and
“bloodying the hatchet.”
But Washington hurled them back and ordered them back; and Lieutenant
Waggener (who was wounded) and John Davidson and the soldiers
interfered; and soon the French were gathered into a bunch.
“Who commands here?” Washington demanded. He was breathless and
flushed, and spoke sternly.
The man La Force answered. He it was, and no other; the same cunning,
dark man who had made trouble on the trip to Fort Le Boeuf.
“You have killed my commander, the Sieur de Jumonville,” said La Force,
angrily. “I speak for Monsieur Druillon, next in command. We surrender
but you shall pay dearly for this attack upon a peaceful camp.”
“I deny your words, sir,” Washington replied, turning red. “If you
were bent upon peace, why did you hide here in his British Majesty’s
territory and spy upon us?”
“We came to treat with you and give you summons to withdraw your forces
before committing an act of war, as you have done. You refused to
listen to the Sieur de Jumonville, who called to you; but you shot him
down,” accused La Force. “For this you shall pay and pay dearly, sir.”
“I will hear no more of such lies,” Washington exclaimed. “The act
of war was committed when the fort being builded at the Forks in His
Majesty’s territory was seized by force of arms. You say you would
have summoned me. You knew where to find me and could have done so. I
would have summoned you, but I had no chance. You opened fire upon me
directly you saw me. You will now consider yourselves my prisoners, at
the disposal of the Governor of Virginia.”
The French had lost Captain de Jumonville and ten men killed, and one
man wounded; the prisoners unhurt were twenty-one, and one man had run
off. The Long Knife loss was one soldier killed and Lieutenant Waggener
and two men wounded.
It was easy to see that Washington was proud of his victory in the
first battle that he had ever fought. But the Half-King said:
“Had Washington left matters to us we would have killed them all,
for they are spies. But I will send off these few scalps to show the
Delaware and Shawnee that the English are in earnest.”
This day, which was May 28, 1754, they marched in triumph back to the
Great Meadows. Washington gave La Force and Ensign Druillon some of
his own clothes; then all the prisoners were sent as a present to the
Governor of Virginia.
Half-King at once dispatched a hatchet and a belt of black wampum to
King Shingis, bidding him come with his Delawares. Scarouady set out
with the scalps and four hatchets and more black wampum, to visit the
other Delawares, and the Shawnees, the Wyandots and the Miamis of the
Ohio country, and call them to help the English.
If Washington had had more soldiers and enough to eat, things would
have been better. But his men numbered only about one hundred,
now――without tents and without flour, and with scarcely any meat. And
when the French soldier who had escaped barefoot during the battle got
to the Forks, the commander there would be hot for revenge.
XIV
BRIGHT LIGHTNING LENDS A HAND
Several weeks had passed. On this day, after the middle of the month
called June, instead of being with the Washington Long Knives Robert
was perched in a tree and watching the great fort named Duquesne, of
the French.
This had come about through no other than Bright Lightning, as shall
now be told.
Since the battle, matters at Great Meadows had gone only fairly well.
Tanacharison had sent to the planting grounds and to Logstown for the
Mingo families, and Queen Allaquippa had moved in. But these were
the only Delawares, and they, like the Mingos, were mainly women and
children, and all had to be fed.
“I will be among the last men to leave the Ohio,” Washington had
said. While waiting for help he proceeded to build a fort of logs and
pickets. That was slow work; the soldiers were thin and weak. Then,
before much had been done, another company of Long Knives arrived.
Their chief captain was an old soldier named Muse――Major Muse, whom
Washington seemed delighted to see. Colonel Fry had died from an
accident at Will’s Creek, and now Washington was colonel in command of
all the Virginia Americans.
Major Muse had brought nine cannon, in wagons, but little food. A
Captain James Mackaye was following with a company of soldiers from
South Carolina; and Colonel Innes, another old soldier, would come
with three hundred and fifty men from North Carolina.
A merry, red-headed young Long Knife doctor named James Craik, whom
Washington especially welcomed as a brother, had marched with that
other old friend Major Muse, to attend to the sick and wounded.
And Andrew Montour the white Seneca, and Trader George Croghan of
Pennsylvania, were here. And sometimes Christopher Gist.
Andrew Montour had brought wampum and medals from Assaragoa the
Governor, for the Indian chiefs; and one medal for Washington himself.
At a council the oldest son of Queen Allaquippa had been given a
medal and the English name Colonel Fairfax (who was the odd old man
in Virginia). Half-King had been given a medal and the English name
Dinwiddie, which was the name of Assaragoa the Governor also, and meant
Head of All.
Washington was given the Indian name Connotaucarius or Devourer of
Lands. He liked that, but he did not like the pipe that he was obliged
to smoke.
Captain Mackaye arrived with his South Carolina company of one hundred
men, with sixty cows, but scarcely any ammunition or flour. The South
Carolina men would not work on the fort or at cleaning brush unless
they were paid extra. They said they were soldiers in the service of
the King and not of Virginia; and Captain Mackaye said that they did
not have to obey Washington, who commanded only the Virginia Volunteers.
So the Captain Mackaye King’s soldiers sat idly, which displeased
Tanacharison.
“Washington is too good-natured,” he complained. “These men of Mackaye
should be made to work or else sent to fight. We stay here from one
full moon to another and nothing is done except to start this little
thing called a fort, in the open meadow, as if the French would march
out of the woods against it and be killed. Meanwhile the French are
growing and care nothing about the fort. Why do not the English march
on and shut the French up? Where are the other soldiers whom Assaragoa
is sending?”
But the Half-King kept scouts out; they brought word that the French
at the Forks were growing indeed. Scarouady was still absent with his
hatchets and scalps and wampum. The Shingis Delawares had not come in,
neither had the Shawnees or Miamis or Wyandots. Scarouady, however,
sent the message that certain chiefs would join Washington at Redstone
Creek. He asked Washington not to attack the French fort until he
should be back.
There now were four hundred men at the Great Meadows. Washington,
too, was tired of waiting. No other companies showed up. So he left
the Mackaye soldiers to guard the half-completed fort; and he took
his three hundred Long Knives, to cut a road to the mouth of Redstone
Creek, at the Monongahela, and build another fort there, nearer to the
Forks.
Gist’s place, thirteen miles beyond the Laurel Hills, was to be the
first stop. And they all had been on the way a week, making only a mile
a day in order to open a road through the forest and a rocky gorge, in
order that the wagons and the cannon might be hauled; and the war paint
of Robert the Hunter had been washed off by sweat and rain; and as
tired as the tiredest he was trying to rest, this evening, when he felt
a pebble strike his cheek.
He looked aside, and what should he see, in the dusk, but the face
of Bright Lightning, White Thunder’s daughter, twinkling at him from
behind a tree. She beckoned to him to come.
Wah! This was no place for women or girls. The Mingo women and children
had stayed down at the Great Meadows, where they would be safe. But
Bright Lightning was pretty and spoiled, and usually did as she chose.
Thereupon he got up and followed her into the shadows.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “You’d better go home.”
“Listen, Hunter,” she said: “Do you want to be a warrior?”
“I am a warrior,” he answered. “I do not talk with girls.”
“Just because you wear panther claws!” Bright Lightning laughed. “Where
is your war paint? I know you did find your way through the dark and
you saw scalps taken, but now you cut trees like the white people. You
have turned white. All right; be a tree cutter if you like, but I am
going to find the French.”
“Where?”
“At their great house in the Forks, of course.”
“Wah!” exclaimed the Hunter. “You’re a girl. Who sent you? What can you
do? You’re speaking foolish.”
“I can count them,” declared Bright Lightning.
“That is man’s work. Guyasuta and Buck and others are spying,” said
Robert. “They bring word.”
“What word?” Bright Lightning answered scornfully. “One day one thing,
one day another. The French are giving presents; they buy the Indians
and send out lies to Washington. Even the heart of Tanacharison is
getting weak. Yes, I am a girl, but I can go inside the French house,
and see, and nobody will mind; then I can come out and tell you. You
will tell Washington the truth.”
“Wah!” the Hunter exclaimed. “I?”
“Yes.” Bright Lightning continued breathlessly. “I have your horse. He
will carry us to the Forks. Then you will hide outside and I will go
inside, and you shall wait. So if you want to play warrior, come, or I
go alone. But two are better than one.”
“Good!” said the Hunter. Now he was tired no longer; he was all on fire
with the scheme. It was true that many of the Indians who came with
word of the French were probably spies, with forked tongues. The French
were strong and clever, and gave more presents than the English. But
Bright Lightning was smart, too; and women and girls could go in and
out of places and not be noticed.
Maybe he should tell Washington first. No! This was Indian work, again.
He might not be missed at all; Indians came and went and Washington was
busy with the Long Knives, making the road.
So he said only: “Wait.” And he ran and got his blanket. He had carried
his gun with him from his bed. One did not stir from camp without one’s
gun.
He joined Bright Lightning. She guided him to the horse, and he mounted
and she mounted behind him, and they rode north for the Forks, to
learn what the French were doing at their great house named Fort
Duquesne.
It was the second morning when they arrived. Over the point of land and
over the two rivers that made it, and over the Ohio beyond, there lay
a white fog. That was lucky. Out of the fog sounds floated――distant
voices of persons and dogs, as if a large village were waking.
“Wah! To go in would be easy for even you,” said Bright Lightning. “But
you might not get out again. I will go in. When I come out I will meet
you here.”
So she hurried down into the fog blanket, and left the Hunter here upon
the hill above it. The horse had been hidden in a leafy hollow near a
spring. Robert promptly climbed into a tree, for the sun was rising and
the fog would soon break.
What an amazing sight that was, below, as the fog blanket presently
vanished in rifts and tatters! He saw the blue Monongahela and the
blue Allegheny and the blue Ohio――all like a forked stick open toward
him; and in the fork the strong fort of the French from Onontio, upon
the very spot where he had met Washington and Gist bound for Logstown
and Venango and Fort Le Boeuf, and from which Lieutenant Ward had been
driven.
His hill was an excellent spying spot; from his tree he could look
down upon that land, not more than one whoop away. The French had done
wonders. They had built a fort shaped like a star; with a high fence of
log pickets on the river sides, and a high wall of logs on the other
sides, and a wide ditch with the dirt thrown up, surrounding on all the
sides. The fence and the walls were pierced for cannon and muskets.
Within the fence and walls there were many log houses and many people
moving about. The forest had been cut down everywhere within gunshot;
upon Robert’s side, which was the land side, an enormous cornfield
extended from the Monongahela around to the Allegheny; and between the
cornfield and the fort ditch a great number of Indians were camped.
Well, Bright Lightning could go through the cornfield and come out
among the Indians; and no doubt that was what she was doing. Nobody
would care. She was only a girl, and pretty, and the Delawares would be
glad to see her.
The point was a busy spot. Robert the Hunter had a view into the fort,
where Indians and blue-uniformed soldiers swarmed, and much went on.
Indians were constantly coming and going, in canoes or afoot; soldiers
were marched out, and were marched in again. Why, Washington had not
been told all lies. There were a thousand and more French and Indians
here; and what could four hundred half-starved Americans do?
No one bothered him, on his hill. He stayed in the tree most of the
day, waiting for Bright Lightning and watching people of the fort. As
Bright Lightning did not come back, he knew that she was down there,
using her wits while she visited.
This night there was a war-dance by some of the Indians in the camp.
The inside of the fort was noisy, too, with lights carried here and
there, as though the soldiers were getting ready for a march. Evidently
something had been planned.
But in the morning Bright Lightning had not turned up. Inside the fort
soldiers had been formed, and Indians in war paint had gathered.
That was plain to the Hunter’s keen eyes. What was to happen? He
wished that he knew. Then, about four hours after sunrise, a great
yelling was heard, from up the Allegheny; and the Indians of the
fort yelled; and looking, he saw a fleet of canoes and wooden boats,
bristling with Indians, dash down from the north. They beached amid a
tremendous hooting and cheering; a French officer sprang out, and the
Indians followed; they seemed to be more Hurons and French Iroquois;
the Delawares and Shawnees and Wyandots greeted them, and the French
officer was taken into the fort.
Now what? The soldiers broke ranks, but there was much excitement. The
excitement continued all day; late in the afternoon French officers
spoke to a great council inside the fort. Their voices reached Robert,
but he could not hear what was said. He had begun to be angry with
Bright Lightning when she came hurrying through the dusk――
“Quick!” she panted. “Go to Washington, Hunter. Tell him the French
march with soldiers and Indians to attack him.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow, maybe. That is what they say. I could not come before;
now I am glad, because I heard the council. They were getting ready
yesterday――five hundred French and a few Miami. The Delaware would not
go. You saw those boats. Well, those were all French Indians, sent by
Onontio, and that white man named Villiers. Jumonville that Washington
and Tanacharison killed was his half-brother. He will lead with his
Ottawa and Huron and Iroquois, to take revenge. The French captain
chief in the fort spoke hot words in the council. Now the King Shingis
and the King Beaver Delaware have accepted the black wampum and the
French hatchet, and they are all willing to go to fight the English.”
“How many?”
“They are like the corn in the field,” said Bright Lightning. “Wah! Do
you hurry?”
“Come,” exclaimed the Hunter.
“No,” replied Bright Lightning. “I am only a girl; you are a warrior
and must ride fast. If anybody has followed me, to catch me, that
doesn’t matter, but no one should catch you. You go to Gist’s place
quick, on the horse; I am not afraid.”
She spoke sense. Robert turned and ran. He knew that Bright Lightning
could take care of herself.
XV
IN AND OUT OF FORT NECESSITY
It was a long way, by day and by night, through the woods and over the
hills and across the streams, to Gist’s. When he came into sight of
the spot he saw that the Washington men had reached it also, and were
throwing up a dirt fort.
He rode down upon a lame horse. The Mackaye men were here too, on
guard while the Long Knives worked, and Tanacharison had camped near
by. Instead of marching on to the mouth of Redstone Creek at the
Monongahela in the west, they acted as though they all were getting
ready to fight off the French. Maybe they had heard that the French
were coming.
So they had, but they had not heard the worst. He found Washington,
muddy and hollow-cheeked and stern, wallowing about in the mire, and
encouraging his thin, sweat-soaked men. Washington looked at him rather
dully――as if maybe he had not missed him; but he said:
“What now? I see the Hunter has been on a journey.”
“I come quick from Fort Duquesne to tell of the French,” Robert burst
out. Tell he did, as fast as he could talk, while several other
officers drew near, and Washington’s face grew graver.
“Bright Lightning was in the fort?” he asked.
“She counted, and she heard,” Robert asserted. “She does not lie. And I
saw. The French are more than one thousand. The Indians are half one
thousand. The Delaware have taken up the hatchet. They march to catch
Washington.”
“You have heard, gentlemen,” said Washington. “We can believe this
boy. The French have received reinforcements again, and I fear are too
strong for us in our condition. Peyroney, you will please to summon the
officers in council of war to be held immediately in Mr. Gist’s house.”
And he added, to Robert: “I thank the Hunter, and I will thank Bright
Lightning. You have done good service.”
While the council was being held Robert sat with Tanacharison. The
Half-King was glum.
“Washington is a good man but he gets no help,” he complained.
“Assaragoa leaves him out in the woods with just a few soldiers and no
food. If I could promise presents I could get him plenty of Indians,
but he has no presents. He cannot expect the Indians to starve with
him and be killed by the French, when Onontio is rich and gives them
anything they ask. I will stay and see what happens, but the French
are owning the Ohio, with big forts, and the English have nothing.
Washington should have moved fast, with many men, and built a great
house like I told him to do. But Assaragoa does not listen to my
advice. I shall not risk losing my family without any good coming from
it. If Washington has sense he will go out from here, which is close to
the hills and a very poor place to fight from.”
Washington was of the same opinion; for as soon as the council broke up
everybody hustled to move away.