more soldiers and supplies or else march to meet the soldiers and
supplies. The wagon horses had given out entirely, with sore feet. So
the officers’ saddle horses and even Robert’s horse were loaded with
the ammunition and the scanty camp supplies; Washington left his own
baggage, the other officers did the same, when they saw; the soldiers
carried what they could upon their backs, and the Long Knife men
dragged the nine cannon by hand.
The weather was warm, with heavy thunder storms. Wah, how they all
panted and sweat, through the rain and the heat! But in the third day
they toiled across the Great Meadows, to the half-finished fort; and
this was the first day of July.
The Tanacharison party had beaten the soldiers and were camped with
other Mingos, waiting. Then, as the soldiers staggered on to the fort,
Washington trudging beside the first file with Robert the Hunter close
to him, two figures in breech-clouts and of painted skin strode through
the trampled, wet grass to meet them.
One was Scarouady; the other was his son the Buck, a fine young
warrior. Scarouady stepped to Washington, and he said, clapping his
rifle with his open hand:
“Ho, brother! I am here.”
“I am glad to see my brother,” Washington answered. “Does he bring
news?”
“I bring my son, to fight for Washington,” said Scarouady. “We have
seen the French upon the war trail, to eat up the English.”
“Where?”
“They were yesterday at Redstone Creek. It is well my brother did not
go there. They land from canoes paddled up the Monongahela, and march
into the woods.”
“How many?” Washington asked.
“As many hundreds as the fingers of my hands,” said Scarouady.
“One-third Indians, two-thirds French. They should be here in two more
days. What does my brother plan to do?”
“I will receive them here,” replied Washington. “My soldiers are tired
and hungry. They cannot travel. If we go on we shall be caught on the
road and cut to pieces. Now we will face the French. I see no Indians
to help me, but my men are brave.”
“You speak well,” Scarouady approved. “Chiefs promised to come and
help, but they lied. I and my son will help. We have run all the way to
find you; now we will run back and watch the French. Let Washington be
getting ready with his soldiers and great guns.”
Away went the loyal Scarouady and the Buck. Washington trudged on, his
gaunt face anxious, to where the men were falling down to rest and
eat. Doctor Craik hurried about, giving medicine to those who were
sick. Christopher Gist set out for Will’s Creek to hasten supplies and
the soldier companies that were still there doing nothing, as far as
anybody knew.
“Should you communicate with the Governor, tell him we have been
without bread for eight days and have no salt with which to preserve
our meat,” Washington said to Gist. “But if we are provisioned and the
French prove no better than they did before, we can hold out.”
Washington did not rest. He walked about, with Captain Robert Strobo
and Captain Vanbraam the Dutchman (who was stout no longer) and Major
Muse, and Captain Mackaye, planning how to complete the fort.
Then the sun sank into the thunder clouds of the west, and night flowed
in, and amid the darkness the tired guards walked their beats where,
any moment, an Indian might spring with the hatchet.
Nothing happened this night. Early in the morning all the Long Knife
Americans who could stand were set at work digging ditches and chopping
trees and hauling logs, while the Mackaye soldiers kept guard.
Washington himself, Vanbraam, Muse and other officers seized axes and
helped; and young Captain Robert Strobo (a slender, lively, handsome
man with round brown face and bright dark eyes) showed where the
ditches and the walls should be put.
The old ditch with dirt thrown up was changed until it formed a
triangle about thirty paces on a side, and the logs were laid on top
of the dirt. On two of the sides another ditch was dug, a little way
in front. The place was the best possible, on a piece of level ground
two hundred and fifty paces wide, between hills, with a creek running
through, for water――although there was to be water in plenty without
it, they were to find out.
The nearest trees where an enemy could hide were on a point sixty paces
distant, and these trees were being cut as fast as possible and used
for logs.
This digging, chopping, hauling and piling was hard work for worn-out
men. The Tanacharison people did not seem to think much of the fort,
which Half-King called a “little thing,” not large enough to stay
in――saying that Washington was foolish to expect the French to march
down to it and be killed.
However, what better could be done, now? By sunset the outer ditch was
only knee-deep, and the dirt of the entrenchment had been raised by
only one or two logs. Then in the dusk Scarouady’s son came running.
The French, in great number, were at Gist’s place, looking for
Washington. They had fired upon Gist’s place before they had learned
that nobody was there. Scarouady had stayed to watch them.
All this night it rained――and a miserable night that was. Early in the
morning the men got up, and in the rain ate what could be eaten; guards
were posted far out to give warning should the French be near; and
Washington and Captain Strobo decided that more trees upon the wooded
point should be cut down. Most of the Tanacharison people were leaving
into the woods where the women and children would be safer than in the
fort which had no roof and was too small.
The tree chopping went on slowly. Then, in the rain, who should come,
from the other end of the meadow, but Bright Lightning! Yes, it was
she, and by the way she hurried she was very tired. Robert seemed to be
the one who saw her first――a weary little figure. He ran to meet her.
“Ho, Hunter!” she gasped. “Tell Washington the French are less than
four miles off. Nine times one hundred, with many Indians in front.
They come.”
And Bright Lightning sank down. Her feet were bare and bleeding; her
deer-skin dress was torn. She had been a long time out.
Robert made haste to tell Washington that the French were on this
side of the Laurel Hills. He had not got to where Washington was
helping chop the trees, when he heard a gun-shot in the forest in that
direction. Next a soldier staggered down the slope there.
“Injuns!” he shouted. “The enemy!”
He was one of the out-post sentinels; an Indian had fired upon him and
wounded him.
All the sentries were running in now. The tree chopping ceased; the
officers began to form their companies at the fort. And next another
figure appeared bounding down into the meadow――and Robert heard the
scalp halloo of Scarouady.
Here came Scarouady, with a dripping scalp in one hand and his rifle in
the other. Huzzah! He had avenged the wounded soldier. And he cried,
panting in:
“The French soldiers one short mile; the woods are full of Ottawa and
Huron. I have struck the Ottawa. Make ready, Long Knives.”
Although the Mingos of Tanacharison had proved weak, and the Delawares
and the Shawnees were not helping, it was good to have Scarouady and
his son and the brave little Bright Lightning faithful.
Pretty soon figures of both Indians and French soldiers could be seen
moving among the trees of a hill in the northwest a quarter of a mile
away; and on a sudden a great smoke gushed and a tremendous volley
rolled across the meadow. But never a ball dropped anywhere near.
The Long Knives and the Mackaye company stood in line in the open
meadow in front of the ditches, with Washington walking up and down
before them. The blue flag of Virginia drooped over the centre of the
Washington men, and the red flag of the King drooped over the centre of
the fort.
“Do not answer,” Washington ordered. “They cannot harm us from that
distance. They only seek to draw us from our position. Wait them here,
and when they descend, fire at close quarters. They cannot stand
against our balls well delivered.”
But the French did not come out of the woods. They fired another volley
or two, their Indians screeched; and seeing that Washington stood firm,
waiting them, they began to march about. A stirring sight they made,
from the glimpses of them: part of them in regular uniform, and part in
rangers’ hunting shirts, and the Indians scuttling painted for war.
By this day the men of Washington who were able to fight had shrunk to
about three hundred and fifty, including the Mackaye company.
It wasn’t long before shots commenced to pepper from the point where
trees had been left, and from another slope a little farther. That was
killing range.
“The rascals will not show themselves,” said Washington, to Major Muse.
“Do you ask Captain Mackaye to station his men within the log trenches,
and my rangers will hold the outside ditches. Then if that tempts those
fellows to assault, let them come.”
This was quickly done. The Captain Mackaye King’s soldiers knelt behind
the log-capped breastworks, ready to serve their muskets and the
cannon; and the Long Knife soldiers knelt in the ditches in front.
The French and Indian fire increased, so that the balls whistled
thickly. The French soldiers were covered by the trees of the point
and the slope sixty yards and one hundred yards away; the Indians
climbed into the trees themselves; and from above the fort they all
could shoot down into it. Then the Virginians and the Mackaye men began
to answer with muskets and cannon, so that the ground and the air
shook, and one could scarcely see through the smoke.
The battle lasted all the rest of the day. The cows ran hither and
thither, and the French Indians shot them. In the ditches and in the
fort itself men were being struck. Ensign Peyroney was badly wounded.
The cannon had been placed upon dirt platforms to shoot over the logs,
but the gunners were picked off when they reloaded and aimed. The
dirt of the breastworks got soft from the rain, and flowed down into
the trenches. Much of this the Hunter learned a little later, for now
he was out in the ditches with the Long Knives, who shot well. Every
little while an Indian fell from a tree, or a French soldier sprang up
and toppled down.
But the weather fought against Washington. He sought no cover――he moved
along, behind his men, encouraging them, and so did Doctor Craik,
seeking the wounded. In the afternoon another thunder storm broke; the
rain poured in sheets, the men could not fire their muskets, and the
ditch was almost level with water.
Washington gave orders and they all went back to crowd into the
trenches of the fort, which were not much better. After the thunder
storm the sky cleared somewhat. The fight opened again. The Washington
men could not get out, the French dared not come in.
“If we can hold till morning, I think we have them whipped,” said
Washington to Major Muse.
“That, if our ammunition holds out also,” said Major Muse. “The men
have scarce a handful of bullets and a dozen charges of powder apiece;
the guns are fouled and no way of cleaning them.”
“The French may be in worse shape, sir,” Washington declared.
Now it was getting too dark to shoot. The little fort was littered with
dead and wounded; one-third of all the Long Knives and the Mackaye
soldiers were out of action. But, as Washington had said, the French
might be no better off.
Then from the dusk on the edge of the nearest woods somebody called in
French:
“Hallo, Messieurs the English!”
“Hallo!” shouted Washington.
“I would come in. We offer a parley to save the English further loss of
life.”
Vanbraam translated.
“Tell him to keep away,” Washington directed. “We wish no parley.
Besides,” he added, “the French are weakening and to let them see our
condition would encourage them.”
So Vanbraam told the man to keep away. Then pretty soon the man called
again. He asked that an officer be sent out to talk. Washington
consented to this. Ensign Peyroney spoke good French, but he was too
sorely wounded to move. Accordingly Captain Jacob Vanbraam went out to
the French and the Indians.
He was gone a long time. When at last he came back he brought a paper
that made terms. He read the paper by light of a candle to Washington,
and Washington shook his head.
“We will never agree to terms so dishonorable,” he said. “The only
thing to which I will consent is the privilege of marching out with
all our forces and property, and of retiring unmolested. Captain de
Villiers may then have the fort, such as it is.”
Captain Jacob Vanbraam made several trips back and forth, in the dark;
and each time the paper was changed by the French captain, and was
reread by Vanbraam by the light of the flickering candle held under a
cloak spread over it.
Then while Robert was squatting among the weary men who waited
anxiously Scarouady’s son, the Buck, touched him on the shoulder.
So Robert rose, and followed the Buck out of the fort, and around to
where Half-King was camped at a little distance, on high ground among
some trees.
Scarouady and Aroas and Fairfax, the son of Queen Allaquippa, were here
sitting beside Half-King who was lying down wrapped in a blanket.
“You have been listening to the talk between Washington and the French
captain,” said Tanacharison. “What is going on down there? Do the
English surrender?”
“Washington says the French will have to let him march away or he will
fight,” the Hunter answered.
“Wah!” grumbled Tanacharison. “That is right. The French have had
enough. They are cowards and hide in the woods, but the English are
fools and do nothing at all. I lent you to Washington to learn the
white ways. Now it seems to me the Indian ways are better. The Mingos
are going to Aukwick to live till the French and English are done
fighting. I wish you to come with me.”
But Aukwick, which in the Mohawk tongue was Oquaga or Place of Wild
Grapes, was an old Iroquois town far away, upon the Susquehanna River
in New York; and Robert’s heart sank.
“I am Washington’s man,” he said. “I cannot leave Washington.”
“You are not his son; you are mine,” replied Tanacharison. “Now the
French have bewitched me for having killed the Jumonville men and I am
sick. I will go where the French cannot reach me. You will be of no use
to Washington, for the French have driven him out. I need you more than
he does. Those are my words.”
Half-King did indeed appear sick. After staying for a time the Hunter
went back, down to the fort. It was midnight, and Washington and
Captain Mackaye were just signing the French paper.
Evidently they had got good terms. The French did not know, but there
were thirty dead and seventy wounded, and little powder and ball, and
less than two days’ food.
The dead had to be buried and the wounded cared for. Just how to tell
Washington that Tanacharison had taken him away Robert could not
figure; but of course tell Washington he should. And finally he found a
chance.
Washington, who was tired out and looked sad, nodded gravely.
“You must go with the Half-King,” he said. “He is sick and needs you.
I do not need you. Tell him I call him brother and he must not fight
against the English, for the French cannot keep this country.”
“When you come again I will help you, Washington,” said the Hunter. “I
am American.”
Scarouady had returned. He stepped forward; and he said:
“Half-King old and sick, Connotaucarius. No fight um French, no fight
um English. Me, Scarouady, brudder to English, fight um French. Me
watch um. Next time you come, send for Scarouady.”
Then he shook hands with Washington and patted him on the back. The
Hunter followed him and the Buck, to sleep upon the hill.
Early in the morning they all were up, to see what was going to happen.
The fort had been busy much of the night by the light of fires; and
it was still busy with men getting ready to march away. Some of the
French were there waiting. Pretty soon the Washington soldiers, and the
Mackaye soldiers started carrying a flag and beating their drums. Upon
their backs or in litters of blankets they bore wounded men while other
wounded men hobbled after. But they moved bravely, without fear of the
French and Indians looking on.
It was a long file. Before it all had left the fort Tanacharison said:
“I have seen enough. Washington is not a man to give up easily, but now
the French are here. Let us go too, or they will make me so I cannot
travel.”
They set out. The Half-King was in pain from his sickness, but when by
a roundabout way they reached Gist’s place, in the afternoon, he felt
better and they stopped again to rest. Gist’s was deserted. After they
had rested for a time the Buck came in from his look-out on the trail.
“What is it?” Tanacharison asked.
“The French are coming. They will be here soon,” the Buck reported.
Tanacharison groaned.
“I feel sick. If I stay I shall die or else lose my mind to the French.
We will put distance between us and them, and get out of their evil
power.”
The Buck and Robert had followed only a little way when in the woods
the Buck spoke into Robert’s ear.
“Wah! We will not run off. We are warriors. Let us turn back and see
what these French are going to do.”
The Buck was a fine young man, not much older than Robert. No one could
ask for a better partner. His words sounded good. Therefore the Hunter
dropped back with him; and they two lay in the brush where they could
watch the French come into Gist’s.
Presently the column descended from the road through the woods into
the flat where Gist’s houses were and where Washington had made his
ditches. Ottawa and Huron scouts led, walking swiftly; then came the
French commanders, and the soldiers and Canadian rangers, and more
Indians: all merry, and many loaded with plunder from the Great Meadows.
But see! Who were those? Amid the blue and white uniforms of the French
there was a flash of red: the English color!
“Wah!” uttered the Buck. “They have prisoners.”
Robert’s heart sank again. One of the prisoners was tall. The French
had kept Washington! Washington would be a great prize. Those were
either Long Knife officers, or else Mackaye men, for the Long Knife
soldiers themselves had been poorly dressed in all kinds of clothes.
The French marched down to Gist’s; the Indians ran about, among the
houses; the soldiers helped, and soon the buildings were burning and
the ditch was being filled up. The two men with red coats and trousers
sat apart, with French officers.
“They are being saved for torture,” said the Buck. “The Ottawa will eat
them, to be made brave with their flesh.”
“No!” Robert cried. “One of them looks like Washington. I am going in.”
“What good will that do?”
“I will find out who they are. They will know me. You will run and tell
Scarouady to come and help.”
“Ho!” Buck answered. “That will do no good either. They are being taken
to the French big house first, as a show, and will be well watched.
Nobody from the outside can help them.”
“I will go in and let them see me,” said the Hunter. “Then they will
know that help is coming. I am American.”
“You can do no good, and the French will keep you and send you to
Onontio; or else the Huron will eat you.”
“I go,” repeated the Hunter. “You can wait here and see what happens,
and then you can tell Scarouady.”
The Buck laughed.
“Wah! You are a boy but you are brave. You speak my own mind. We will
go in together. We are Mingo, and the French try to make friends of the
Mingo. They and the Ottawa and Huron will pretend to be glad to see us.
Let us wipe off our paint. Come, and we shall fool them.”
The Buck stood up, and with Robert at his heels went right down for the
enemy camp.
XVI
IN AND OUT OF FORT DUQUESNE
Huzzah! Neither of the two red-coated men was Washington. The tall
one who might have been Washington was the young Long Knife captain
named Strobo, who had planned Fort Necessity. And the other, short and
square, was Captain Jacob Vanbraam of Dutch Land.
They were not tied, but this counted nothing, because they could
not run away. Captain Vanbraam seemed to be sputtering in his funny
French with the French officers, while the handsome Captain Strobo
sat silently, sending his brown eyes roving about. And whether he saw
Robert, Robert did not know; but of course it would not do to take any
notice of him or Vanbraam.
So they two went straight in, with the Hunter’s heart beating a little
swiftly at the sight of the sleek Ottawas and bristle-headed Hurons, of
the French north, painted for war. First a sharp-eyed Ottawa gave an
alarm call, then a French sentry shouted; and soldiers sprang to arms
and the Ottawas and Hurons raced with their guns.
But when they all saw only two boys, they waited in silence, until the
Ottawas and Hurons cried:
“Mingo!”
Then Ottawas and Hurons met them, and grabbed them and jostled them,
seized their guns and, threatening them with the hatchet, marched them
to the French captains.
The French captain who was chief called:
“Enough, my children! These are friends.”
Thereupon the Ottawas and Hurons stood aside, while the captain
smilingly questioned by the mouth of a darker, wiry man who spoke in
the Iroquois and wore gay buckskin beaded with the Ottawa chief-sign.
“My young brothers are from our friends the Mingo?”
“I am Oneida; he Seneca,” replied the Buck. “Mingo.”
“The children of Onontio welcome the Mingo. My young brothers have come
on a visit?”
“We wish to see the French and rest at their fire,” said the Buck.
“That is good. My young brothers are alone?”
“Yes. We are hunting, and are tired and hungry,” said the Buck.
“Very good. My young brothers shall rest and eat. By what name shall we
know our brothers?”
“I am Deer-With-Horns, he is Panther-Killer,” said the Buck.
The captain chief smiled and gave smooth words.
“Let Deer-With-Horns and Panther-Killer rest and eat with their
brothers of Onontio who owns this country. When they wish to leave
they will go to tell the Mingo that the French father is generous
and strong. He invites all the Mingo to come in to the big house at
Dekanawida and receive presents. For now the English have been driven
away forever. Your brothers from the north will tell you so.”
With that, the Ottawas and Hurons who had been listening were about
to step forward and bid to a feast, and the Buck and the Hunter might
have moved about freely, and everything would have gone off well, had
not Jacob Vanbraam suddenly sprang up and hailed Robert with stupid
greeting.
“It is the Hoonter! Yah! Now I know him. Goot boy. Maybe you been from
Washington, eh? You coom to see how we get along, eh?” And he grasped
the Hunter’s hand and shook it.
“Wah!” grunted the Buck, turning away quickly. “He is drunk.”
That was so, but made no difference. All had heard; and whether the
words were understood or not, all had seen, too, and knew that the man
in the red coat and the Hunter had been together before.
The French officers exchanged glances. Captain Strobo sat flushing as
if vexed. Vanbraam gabbled in broken French and English, and patted the
Hunter’s shoulder and called him “goot boy,” and Strobo called sharply
to him.
The French laughed. The captain chief and another captain who was the
same Mercier that had summoned Ensign Ward to surrender talked together
rapidly; then the interpreter mingled with the Ottawa and Huron,
passing word to them.
“Go with your brothers of Onontio,” said the French captain, now. “Sit
by their fires and eat.”
This time he spoke in French; for the tipsy Jacob Vanbraam was babbling
in spite of the angry Strobo:
“He iss a goot boy. He iss a smart boy. He speak English and a leetle
French, and why not should I talk with him. Mebbe he coom from
Washington. I am no prisoner. We but stay a leetle while and den we go
home. Yah! He shall tell Washington we all right.”
That had finished things for the Buck and Robert. They were taken away
by the French Indians, to a fire, and given food; but while they ate
they knew that they were under suspicion.
The interpreter came and sat with them; and a haughty, piercing-eyed
Ottawa chief, plainly a great warrior, but not of councillor age yet,
put shrewd questions to them.
“My young warrior brothers are from the English?”
“No,” said the Buck. “We have heard the French are strong and wish to
see them.”
“My young brothers have been in war paint,” said the Ottawa chief. Yes,
his eyes were quick eyes. “Do they wear war paint for the French or for
the English?”
Ho! This was a poser.