everything at once. First, how about Washington? Washington surely
would be here, too, among the Long Knife Americans. But when Washington
appeared, he was in red uniform, riding upon a fine horse, into the
Indian camp. When he saw Scarouady and the Hunter and others that he
knew, his face lighted.
“Brudder,” Scarouady greeted. “We go to fight ’um French.”
They shook hands all around. Then Washington spoke to Robert, with his
brief smile:
“I thank you for the letter.” He was always very polite. “You did
bravely.”
“You heard?” Robert stammered.
“I heard. You were wounded; now you are well. That is good. And I hear
that Tanacharison is dead and Scarouady is Half-King.”
“Tanacharison no fight; heart get weak,” Scarouady grunted. “Me
Half-King. Me bring warriors to fight for English. Wah! See my brudder
in red, Long Knives in blue. My brudder no Long Knife?”
“I sit in the council of General Braddock who is the great chief
of all,” answered Washington. “But I will be in the fight when my
brothers and the Long Knives help the red-coat soldiers whip the French
out of Fort Duquesne.”
It took Croghan and Gist to explain, later, that Washington was an
aide, or assistant, to the great Chief Braddock, and marched by his
side: a high honor.
“His Excellency the General bids me to say to Scarouady that the Mingos
are welcome,” continued Washington, to Robert. “He has heard that they
are great warriors. They shall be well rewarded.”
“I am American. I stay with Washington,” Robert pleaded hopefully.
“No,” replied Washington. “I stay with the General, for he has asked me
to. You shall be American, if you like, and help show the way with Gist
and Scarouady and the Virginians. I’d rather do that myself,” he added
quickly.
After this there was much going on. General Braddock (who was a stout,
heavy, red-faced old man) invited Scarouady and White Thunder and other
chiefs to his tent. He gave presents and exchanged speeches, which
Andrew Montour translated.
He had the drums beat and the fifes play, and the great guns fired; and
sent a bullock to the camp, for a feast.
The Mingos invited the English to come over, and danced the war-dance
for them. The English, very stiff in their red coats with high collars,
and their white skin-tight breeches and their high, black hats, seemed
to think that the Mingos were funny, and stared at them through pieces
of glass fitted to one eye, and laughed and clapped their hands.
But the Mingos had only dressed for war, too. Their faces were painted
red and black and yellow, their heads were shaven clean except for the
tuft of greased scalp-lock, and their ears were hung with rings and
pendants of shells. They were no funnier than the English themselves.
King Shingis and King Beaver and Chief Killbuck of the Delawares came
in. They feasted, and talked with the General; and when they went away
again they had promised to meet the English on the march, with many
warriors. But Scarouady did not believe this.
“Their hearts are French,” he said. “Now they will go to Duquesne. We
should march fast, and strike.”
The General took a long time to get ready. Then, on a sudden, he said
that he could not feed so many warriors and women and children. Let ten
warriors stay, to help him find the enemy; the other Mingos must go
home.
When Croghan told Scarouady, Scarouady laughed.
“I think little of this old red-faced soldier chief,” he uttered. “He
has never been in the woods, and he listens to no advice from us who
have. While he is eating and drinking and making his stiff-coated men
walk about like bears on their hind legs, I could take my men and
Washington could take his men and we could capture the French. But
I will stay, for I wish to fight the French, and I will not desert
Washington. The rest may go home.”
Most of the Mingos did go home. The men were glad enough to do so; they
did not get along well with the English soldiers, who treated them like
children and seemed to have no manners; and besides, they heard that
Gist’s son had been sent to bring up the Cherokees and Catawbas, who
were enemies.
The women and children had been having a good time. Bright Lightning
had been having the best time of all, for she was pretty and smart and
was called a princess by the officers. But her father White Thunder
sent her home with the others.
“You stay?” she asked of Robert and the Buck.
“We stay.”
“Wah!” Bright Lightning laughed. “I would stay too if I were a warrior.
But maybe when you get into Fort Duquesne I will come and get you out.
The English chief thinks he can blind the French and Ottawa with his
red coats, but they will cut him into pieces like a snake.”
The Scarouady people went back to Aukwick. Those who did stay were
Scarouady, White Thunder, Aroas who was Silver Heels, Big Tree,
Cashuwayon or Captain Newcastle who was a Delaware and a son of old
Queen Allaquippa, Scarouady’s son-in-law Iagrea, Guyasuta the young
warrior, the Buck and Robert the Hunter.
Yes, the red-faced General seemed to be an unwise man. On the very day
before the start was made, who should come into camp but Captain Jack
the Black Rifle, leading thirty of his white warriors, all dressed
for war. Washington and Gist and others shook hands with him. He went
into the Braddock tent, and did not stay long. Soon he came out and he
motioned to his men, and they left in single file, to enter the forest
again.
Then Scarouady shouted: “Ho! Black Rifle!” He and Croghan ran after,
and so did the Buck and Robert, to hear.
“Listen!” exclaimed Scarouady. “You are men. We are brothers. Do the
Black Rifles and the Mingo scout together against the French and Ottawa
dogs? Good! Now I feel hope.”
“No,” said the Black Rifle. “The English chief sends us away. He has
soldiers in red to fight in the woods for him.” The Black Rifle men
hurried on.
Gist laughed angrily.
“Scarouady knows that the Black Rifle is worth five hundred red-coat
soldiers who have never fought in the woods. The Black Rifle offered to
serve without pay.”
“I see that the chief called Braddock is like a buffalo bull,” replied
Scarouady. “Where he looks, there he will go, without reason. He sends
away my fifty warriors; he sends away the Black Rifle. If he sends
away Washington and the Long Knives, we are lost, for in the woods his
red-coat soldiers will be like the gobbling turkey when the hunter
watches.”
After the long time getting prepared they all started to capture Fort
Duquesne. This day was the tenth day of June, in the year Seventeen
Hundred and Fifty-five. There were two thousand one hundred men. Six
hundred men with axes and provision wagons and cannon had been ordered
ahead to widen Washington’s road from Will’s Creek to Gist’s place. The
army followed, with Gist and Scarouady’s men scouting in advance.
The march was very slow, because of the baggage and the great guns.
The officers rode horses, and there was a small company of Long Knives
called “Light Horse;” the other soldiers walked. Sometimes only two or
three miles were covered in a day, and the line of men and wagons and
cannon and pack horses reached from camp to camp.
Looking back through clearings, the Buck and Robert could see the
march: a long, long column of wagons, cannon and horses, and on either
side the red coats, and the fewer blue coats, all toiling up hill and
down hill, through woods and bogs, with their weapons flashing and the
thickly clothed English soldiers sweating as they carried their heavy
muskets, knapsacks, cartridge boxes, tall hats and their stiff boots.
If their own scouts could see them so plainly, the enemy could see
them, too. This proved to be true. The Buck came running back one
evening and said that he and Scarouady had been seized by French and
Indians, but that he had escaped to bring the news.
Then Gist, White Thunder, Newcastle, Aroas and the Hunter all ran to
rescue poor Scarouady if they could. There he was, tied to a tree. He
said that the French were for killing him, but that Guyasuta had been
with the Ottawas, and they refused to use the hatchet on a great chief.
Guyasuta did not turn up again. He had gone over to the French.
After this many signs of the French and Indians were seen, in shape of
camp fires and of boasts written upon barked trees.
Still the column moved on, getting deeper and deeper into the
wilderness. In the many rough places it reached back four miles, along
the road only twelve feet wide. The soldiers from the King across the
water never had seen this kind of a country――so big, so lone, so wet,
so rocky, so dark with huge trees, so silent with watchful death. How
they toiled and sweated, those red-coats! The mosquitoes bit them, the
ticks burrowed into them, the rattlesnakes struck them, their feet
blistered with walking and their hands blistered with tugging at the
ropes and at the wagon and cannon wheels when the horses failed.
But at night they tried to be merry. Around their camp fires they sang
a song which Robert heard often enough to remember.
To arms, to arms! My jolly grenadiers!
Hark, how the drums do roll it along!
To horse, to horse, with valiant good cheer!
We’ll meet our proud foe, before it is long.
Let not your courage fail you:
Be valiant, stout and bold;
And it will soon avail you,
My loyal hearts of gold.
Huzzah, my valiant countrymen! Again I say huzzah!
’Tis nobly done――the day’s our own――huzzah, huzzah!
March on, march on, brave Braddock leads the foremost;
The battle is begun, as you may fairly see.
Stand firm, be bold, and it will soon be over;
We soon will gain the field from our proud enemy.
And so forth. A fine warrior song.
“They are foolish, but they are brave,” even Scarouady admitted. “The
woods are no place for them, just the same.”
There had not been much opportunity to see Washington. He had given up
his best horse to be used as a pack horse. Gist said that Washington,
too, was worried over the long line that the French might cut to
pieces, and over the slow march. He wished to speak to the General
about hurrying.
He must have done so, for at the Little Meadows, about twenty-five
miles from Will’s Creek, a man named Colonel Dunbar was left with part
of the heavy baggage and provisions and about one thousand men. Taking
twelve hundred of the best men, and twenty cannon, and thirty wagons,
General Braddock pushed on. Four hundred of these men were kept to the
front, making the trail.
After another long time they all came to the Great Meadows; but they
did not stop to look at Fort Necessity. They camped on the other side,
and then marched up the Laurel Hills and camped near the Rock Fort
where Washington and Tanacharison had met to attack Jumonville.
Robert remembered that night very well; so did Scarouady and so did
Washington, probably――but Washington was not here now. He was sick and
unable to travel.
That was bad. Washington was behind, with Colonel Dunbar. Still Gist
had said:
“Have no fear. He stays to get well for the fight, by the General’s
orders. The General thinks so much of him that he promises to wait for
him before striking the French.”
The next camp was at Gist’s place. The mountains had been crossed, but
the forests were as dense as ever. The soldiers began to get nervous.
They heard strange sounds at night; by day men straggling aside to pick
berries were killed and scalped.
When the march was within twenty-five or thirty miles of Fort Duquesne
by trail, and only thirteen by straight line, the Buck was killed also.
XVIII
A LITTLE BEAR IN A TREE
Scarouady, White Thunder, Aroas, the Buck and Robert had been scouting
in front. They had to be very careful. It was near evening, and they
had turned back, when White Thunder saw figures stealing through the
trees of a little dip.
“Hist!” he said. “There are Ottawa!”
And they, too, stole rapidly to head the Ottawa off. Then when they
were running among the trees, here came soldiers, running too; and the
soldiers halted and leveled their guns.
“Ho!” cried Scarouady. He stopped short and stood out and grounded his
gun and held up a leafy bough that he tore from a bush. This was the
sign agreed upon between the scouts and the soldiers, as a friend sign.
But the soldiers were excited. They paid no attention to the sign;
their guns spoke, the bullets spatted, and the Buck fell. The soldiers
saw their mistake too late. They saw it when Scarouady ran with a wild
shout and looked at the Buck, and sat beside him with his hands over
his face.
In a moment he uncovered his face. He drew his paint from his belt
pouch and by the time the soldiers had come in he had painted his face
black. That was the mourning color.
The soldiers were sorry and tried to explain, but this was no time
to listen to them. As for Robert, he felt cold and sick. Instead of
scolding the soldiers Scarouady uttered no word; he let them lift the
Buck and carry him back to the camp. He and White Thunder, Aroas and
the Hunter trod after.
Washington had just arrived at the camp, in a wagon. Thin and pale he
was from his sickness. The wagon trip must have hurt him, but evidently
he had been determined not to miss a battle.
His eyes saw the procession as it wended through among the soldiers; he
read Scarouady’s paint; and he hurried upon unsteady legs.
“What, brother! You wear the death paint!” he exclaimed.
“You see my son. He is dead by soldier bullets,” said Scarouady.
“How is that? Where is he?”
“He is with my people,” said Scarouady. “I go to ask the great chief
why he kills my son. Now I have no more to live for.”
“What happened?” Washington asked of George Croghan, whom Scarouady had
sent for.
Croghan told him. Washington closed his lips firmly, but he, too, made
no complaint.
“Do you and Scarouady come with me,” he uttered. “I will take you,
myself, to General Braddock. It is unfortunate, unfortunate.” And he
added, to Scarouady: “Be brave, my brother. The Buck died as a warrior,
serving our country.”
Scarouady did not answer; he only followed after Washington and Croghan.
When he returned to where the rest of them were sitting with Gist,
while Iagrea beat the deerskin drum and sang praises of the warrior
Buck, he seemed to feel better.
“Is it well with you, Monacathuatha?” Gist asked, using Scarouady’s
other name as Half-King.
“One chief has talked to another,” said Scarouady. “I have heard good
words.”
Then came Croghan and a squad of red-coat soldiers, under an officer,
with a litter. They took the Buck to a tent, and put him in it on a
bed, and a guard of soldiers walked before it.
After supper the Buck was buried by soldiers. Many officers shook
Scarouady’s hand; General Braddock was there, and Washington, and
the other head men. When the Buck had been covered up soldiers fired
volleys over him――to drive off the evil spirits, said White Thunder,
but Croghan explained that the guns were soldier honors, announcing the
burial of a brave warrior.
This camp was named Monacathuatha, in Scarouady’s honor, and should
always be known as such. All that pleased Scarouady.
“I can see that the Buffalo (who was Braddock) has a good heart,” he
said, after everything had been done. “But he should not send his
red-coat men alone into the woods. They have no eyes. Now my son is
lost to me. The Washington men would have looked before they shot.”
Pretty soon Washington came with Andrew Montour and Doctor Craik to sit
by the fire. Washington had put off his red coat and was in buckskin
hunting-shirt, like a Long Knife Ranger.
“Wah!” Scarouady approved. “My brudder no turkey gobbler on bare limb.
He a panther in the bushes.”
“You are feeling stronger, colonel?” Gist asked. “We rejoice to have
you at the front again.”
“Somewhat stronger,” Washington answered. “I would not for five hundred
pounds have missed a battle, so I travelled up by wagon as I found
myself unable to sit a horse.”
“He should be in bed,” said Doctor Craik. “But I can do nothing with
him.” Then the merry doctor laughed. “Nor he with Braddock. I should
hate to have two such patients.”
“You find the General difficult to advise, I take it, colonel,” said
Gist. “Since you have been behind we have moved on like a tortoise――as
you know. At this gait I feared we would spend the rest of our life in
the woods.”
“The General has stopped to bridge every little stream and level every
mole-hill, despite the danger that the French might be reinforced
meantime,” said Washington. “But it has not been my place to advise
unless requested; my rank as captain does not entitle me to that, and I
am only a Provincial.”
“But with experience in this kind of country, and against that kind of
enemy, colonel,” Croghan retorted. “You have taken matters into your
own hand and changed your garb, at least, I see.”
“Yes,” said Washington. “I did go so far as to suggest to my friends
among the officers that we all adopt woodsman clothes instead of the
flaming red, as less easier targets; and reminded them of Mr. Benjamin
Franklin’s remark, when at Fort Cumberland: ‘The finer the feathers,
the better for the fowler.’ But they assured me that the General would
never permit it――he would call it unworthy of the King’s soldiers. I
have been no little jeered at for my own prudence, but I see no virtue
in needless exposure either of men or armies.”
“By that token, then, His Excellency will still insist upon beating up
the enemy with his red-coat Regulars who can be seen for five miles,
rather than use the Virginia woodsmen,” Gist grumbled.
“As we will soon be within touch of the fort,” replied Washington,
“and are liable to surprise, for our approach is surely known, I did
make bold to suggest to the General that he now permit me to take my
Virginia Rangers and scout well to the fore. And I explained to him
that these men were accustomed to the Indian mode of warfare and would
be of utmost service in protecting his advance column from ambush. But
this idea of relying upon what he was pleased to term ‘half-drilled
farmers’ to protect the King’s Regulars appeared to anger him, so
I said no more. Besides, he was so good as to state for my further
understanding that Lieutenant-Colonel Gage has been promised the honor
of the advance, with a detachment of picked grenadiers and one company
of the New York Regulars and would probably resent being displaced by
raw Provincials.”
“Then what use is to be made of the Rangers, I wonder?” said Gist.
“They are to be employed as a rear guard, to protect the baggage, I
believe.”
“And I believe, that unless you would be consigned to the rear guard
yourself, colonel, you should go to bed at once and gain strength,”
laughed Doctor Craik. “Now, sir! Are you one to take advice or not?”
“As I have no mind to be anywhere near the rear in time of action――good
night, gentlemen,” Washington said promptly. He rose. “I have talked
only as among friends, with no thought of criticizing His Excellency
General Braddock. He is an experienced soldier, of distinguished
record――――”
“But not in our style of fighting, colonel,” put in Gist. “This is not
settled Europe; it is the American wilderness, as you know.”
“Nevertheless he is trained to arms, and is of great courage, and
will fight. He is certain that the French Indians will not face our
cannon and the bayonets of the British Regulars; and neither will
the few French. We have not been attacked as yet, and here we are,
almost within striking distance. In fact, very likely our showing will
induce the fort to surrender without a blow. I wish the neighborhood
of the fort had been a little better scouted upon, and so does he; but
I realize the difficulty of anyone leaving the column without being
observed by spies and cut off.”
“Well, we will do our duty and hope for the best,” said Doctor Craik.
“And if there’s no work for the surgeon, here’s one who will be
satisfied. Now, colonel, my duty is to place you in bed.”
With that, he put his arm through Washington’s and led him away.
Captain Montour, Croghan and Gist talked together. The red-coat
soldiers were singing again, around their fires:
See how, see how, they break and fly before us!
See how they are scattered over all the plain!
Now, now――now, now, our country will adore us!
In peace and in triumph, boys, when we return again!
And the chorus, with everybody joining in:
Huzzah, my valiant countrymen! Again I say huzzah!
’Tis nobly done――the day’s our own――huzzah, huzzah!
“Wah!” said Scarouady. “They sing to the woods, and the woods have
ears. Braddock does not send the Long Knives on the scout, though they
are many. He sends us, who are few; and he sends his red-coat bears,
who shoot us. He asks us to go closer to the French fort, and spy; and
then we will have the French and Ottawa and Huron all around us and the
red-coat fools behind us. Very well; early in the morning I will take
Aroas and go to spy on the French fort. I will show him that my heart
is good toward him, for he has taken me by the hand like a man. I will
show him and Washington that Scarouady can be strong in sorrow. When I
have washed off my mourning paint with scalps I shall feel better.”
So saying, Scarouady drew his blanket over his head, and lay down as if
to sleep.
Pretty soon the others went to sleep, although Robert stayed awake a
little time thinking of the Buck. He was going to miss the Buck, who
had been like a brother to him. But if Scarouady could face the grief,
he ought to, also. Scarouady certainly was a fine man.
The Hunter dozed off; he slept――and he was awakened by Gist’s hand upon
his shoulder and Gist’s voice in his ear.
“Come.”
“Where?”
“We are going on a scout, too. Scarouady and Aroas are already gone.”
Robert threw off his blanket and sat up and grabbed his gun.
“To the French fort?”
“Yes. Or as near as we can get. They two, now we two.”
Wah! That promised sport. He and Gist were to see if they could not
find out more than Scarouady and Aroas could. So he sprang to his feet
and followed Christopher Gist out of the sleeping group. A sentry
muffled in a great-coat and looking like a bear indeed leveled his gun
and said something; Gist answered with a word, and they passed on into
the woods.
The sky was not yet gray, but the air seemed to have thinned a little,
so that morning was not far removed. Gist trotted rapidly, munching a
piece of meat; and Robert trotted in his steps, munching likewise.
It was a good hour. The woods were silent. The Forks of the Ohio where
the French fort lay were only thirteen miles across country; and Gist
knew the way as well as Robert did. By daylight they should be near
enough to it to use their eyes; then if the coast were clear they could
hide, and go on in the evening, and spy again in the early morning, and
get back.
So they trotted rapidly. After a time the dusk had paled and birds were
twittering. They kept on. The sun rose, and still they kept on. They
had seen nobody and nobody had seen them. It looked as though they
might get almost to the fort――maybe they could see it.
The fort now could not be far ahead. Robert thought that he heard axes
chopping, away, ’way before. Sounds carried a long distance. They two
stole forward, more cautiously. Yes, those were axes; and that was a
faint shout.
Surely the French at the fort feared nothing. Where were their scouts?
Then, just as they two were topping a hill from which they ought to
look down upon the Forks, sharp and swift there broke the crack of a
rifle, ringing through the woods.
Gist halted. He knew that rifle-crack; so did the Hunter.
“That’s Scaddy’s barker; I can tell it among a thousand,” said Gist.
“He’s after a scalp. Pshaw! Is he crazy? Now the woods will be alive.
You wait here. I’ll spy ahead and see what’s what. If I’m chased, never
mind me; take care of yourself, and go back to the camp.”
On went Gist, and disappeared in the timber at the top of the hill. Now
the air beyond, toward the fort, was tremulous with yells. Scarouady
had waked the enemy; the Ottawas and Hurons were pouring out. The
Hunter stood listening. Where was Gist? He had no notion of going back
without Christopher Gist; but this place was rather open to wait in.
He was near a big white-oak tree. Why not climb into that? Then he
would be off the ground, and he might see around better. Wah! Hark!
Those were pursuit whoops! The French Indians were upon a warm trail!
They seemed to be coming, too!