sprang for the lowest branch. The woods were echoing to the shouts.
He had hauled himself up and was about to turn and reach down for his
gun, when the shouts burst louder; the brush crackled――Gist passed,
running and darting, at one side, and while the Hunter held motionless,
waiting, two Ottawas sped like hounds right under the tree, eager to
cut the trail.
They did not see the gun, which was behind the tree trunk. Were more
Indians to follow? The Hunter gently tried for his gun, and could not
quite reach it. Listen! Would he have time to get down? No! He kicked
at the gun and it fell flat, to lie as if it had been dropped; and he
started to climb higher, out of sight, for there were Indians all about.
Then he stopped short, frozen where he was; for he heard the soft thud
of moccasins. He did not dare to turn his head and look. After a moment
the sound ceased. He could hear nothing, and he simply had to look.
Through the leaves and branches he could glimpse an Indian under the
tree. The Indian had discovered the gun, and was gazing about. Perhaps
he would go on. Robert certainly hoped so. The Indian’s eyes wandered
up into the tree. He did not appear to see anybody there. They swept
the ground again――hah! They began to read the prints there! They
travelled back to the tree trunk――they saw something――maybe a place
where the bark had been freshly torn by the gun-barrel, or by Robert’s
kicks when he climbed or knocked over the gun.
Ugh! The Indian gradually raised his face, his eyes travelled on up――he
made discovery again――his rifle pointed; and the Hunter found himself
gazing down into the muzzle and into the painted, wrinkled face behind
it of old King Shingis the Delaware.
Shingis knew him, and commenced to grin.
“Ho, little bear!” he chuckled. “Come down. Acorns not ripe yet.”
Well, Robert the Hunter came down. He thought it possible to land upon
his gun, but Shingis had quickly picked that up and knocked out the
flint.
“Ugh!” said Shingis, receiving him with a grip in his hair. “Fine
little bear. But tree a bad place. Many hunters around. Look for Mingo
bear. Better be Delaware bear. Go to fort with Shingis. Shingis got no
boy. Now he take care of this boy. Make him Delaware.”
So saying, Shingis gave a series of whoops; other Indians came
running――they laughed, and tying the Hunter’s arms hustled him on to
the fort.
The pursuit sounds had died away. Christopher Gist may have won free,
and so he had; for, as Robert afterward found out, Gist and Scarouady
and Aroas as well, got back to the column――Scarouady with the scalp of
a French officer whom he had shot in the woods.
XIX
IN FORT DUQUESNE AGAIN
This was tough. There was a lot of whooping and shouting when from the
edge of the clearing over which floated the white flag of France above
the log walls old Shingis uttered his prisoner yell; and there was a
lot of joking and laughing――and disappointment, too――when he marched
his prisoner in and they all saw that it was nobody but a boy.
But hold! What boy? Why, the boy who had run away last fall! Wah! Ugh!
Hurons and Pontiac’s Ottawas recognized this boy; and Pontiac himself
strode, scowling, to demand the prisoner of old Shingis.
Shingis and Pontiac had an argument about the matter. Then that seemed
settled. Pontiac called, the Indians ran about grabbing things, and
formed a long, double line, of men and women facing inward equipped
with clubs and switches. The double line extended like a living lane to
the fort gates.
The Hunter was to be punished by running the gantlet. He had to run
through that lane while everybody took a whack at him as he passed; but
when he came to the other end he was safe. Unless he was smart he would
be well beaten.
Old Shingis plucked knife and hatchet from him, and shoved him forward
to the entrance to the lane. Pontiac was watching.
“Now we see how fast a little bear runs,” said King Shingis. “Go in
Mingo; come out Delaware, get hurt no more. Run!” And with another
shove would have started him off.
But the Hunter had not waited to be shoved. In a great bound he had
torn free and had ducked past the first two or three double files, who
missed him entirely with their switches. On he sped, ducking, dodging,
diving――stung with switches and battered at by hasty clubs, amid wild
shouts and laughter.
He was more than half way when he dimly saw his chance. Just ahead an
old Indian was waiting straddled and bent over, to land a good blow
upon him. The Hunter suddenly ducked lower; right under between the
old Indian’s legs he dived――up rose the Indian, down he came, but the
Hunter was beyond, and outside the gantlet and scudding like a deer for
those gates.
The lane scattered. A few of the Indians ran to head him off and hit
him. These he dodged; they and the other Indians were not much in
earnest now, anyway; he tore through a little knot of men at the gate
and was inside. He had gained sanctuary, but when he stopped for breath
he felt that he had been given a sound thrashing just the same, and had
twisted his ankle. Maybe Pontiac would be satisfied with all that.
French officers were saying: “Smart little boy! Brave leetle fellow,”
in French and English. Then he heard another voice in English:
“Hurt you?”
He looked. This was a white boy, about his size but maybe somewhat
older, rather battered up and limping with a stick.
“No,” Robert answered.
“Come along with me. I’ll fix you,” the white boy bade.
He took the Hunter (hobbling proudly) to a house where there were
medicines and a French doctor. The house was called a hospital. Here
the few cuts from the clubs and switches were greased, but the cuts did
not amount to much. He said nothing about his ankle.
The white boy’s name was James Smith. He too had been captured――had
been captured in the woods of Pennsylvania and brought here; had had to
run the gantlet, but had not got off so easily as Robert.
Now for a second time Robert found himself in Fort Duquesne of the
French, and wondering how he was to get out. Nobody appeared to pay much
attention to him, but the whole place was much excited, as if not
knowing what to do. The army of English and Long Knives was coming.
The French and the Indians of course knew this. Spies were keeping
watch; Indians were constantly passing in through the gates, with word
of the English, and French parties hastened out to scout the trails.
For the Hunter to get back to Gist and Scarouady and Washington might
be difficult.
He saw Guyasuta, but Guyasuta pretended not to notice him and he put in
most of the daytime with James Smith. James had been here for a week
and more and had picked up much information.
The French officers were not the same as last fall. Contrecoeur who had
driven Ward away was still commander; his captains were now men named
Beaujeu, Dumas, and Ligneris. Langlade, the half-Ottawa, was here too;
while inside and outside the fort there were the Indians――more kinds
than the Hunter had ever seen together before.
A great many from the Big Lakes of the north――French Iroquois, the
Hurons, Potawatomis, Ojibwas and Ottawas; besides Wyandots and
Delawares and Shawnees and Mingos from the Ohio Country; all in their
best costumes of bright blankets, fringed leggins, and beaded or
quilled moccasins, and red, yellow and blue paint, with strips of black
also.
Black Hoof of the Shawnees was here; Shingis, Beaver and Killbuck
of the Delawares; Pontiac, the war chief of the Ottawas, and old
Nissowaquet, head chief of all the Ottawas, whose sister was Langlade’s
wife; Anastase, head chief of the Hurons; oh, a score of famous chiefs,
all helping the French.
Outside there were games and feasting and much loafing about; inside,
the French soldiers drilled and stood guard and loafed, as though the
English army was not feared. Nevertheless it was feared.
“These French know they can’t fight off Braddock’s men and cannon,”
said James Smith. “I’ve guessed that. They’re layin’ low and foxin’ so
the Injuns won’t run away. The Injuns are scared, you bet.”
He was glad to learn from Robert that the army was indeed very strong.
This evening there was a council of the French and the Indians, to talk
things over. On his way to the council Shingis passed the Hunter and
James. He grinned, and he said:
“Ugh! Pretty soon English come. March like fools, all togedder. Easy
see ’um. French an’ Injun shoot ’um all down like one pigeon. What
white boy an’ leetle Delaware think of that; huh?”
That did not sound good. But in the morning it looked as if the council
had not agreed, for the French did not march out, and neither did the
Indians. They still waited, and the French officers acted rather glum.
Captain Beaujeu (who was a handsome young man, slim and pink-cheeked)
spent considerable time among the chiefs. He appeared to be arguing
with them, and talking with Langlade.
This afternoon, when James Smith was sleeping and Robert was sitting
alone, trying to figure upon getting away, Guyasuta came at last and
sat beside him.
“Too bad you here,” said Guyasuta in the Seneca. “Maybe you want to go.”
“You fight the English, Guyasuta?” the Hunter asked.
“I fight the English,” said Guyasuta. “That big red-coat general does
not know how to treat Indians. He sends for us, then he sends us away.
He treats us like children, and so do his red-coat soldiers. I will
not march around by his orders. But I do not fight Washington and
Scarouady. They are my brothers. You can tell them so.”
“That is good, but how can I tell them?” answered Robert――with
excellent reason.
“Yes,” said Guyasuta; “you ran off from here once and the Ottawa are
mad. Now Shingis would make you his son. You are Delaware. You will
have hard work to run off again. Wait and we will see.”
“I will wait till the English and the Long Knives come to take the
fort; and that won’t be long,” replied Robert. “Then the French and
their Indians will run, themselves.”
“Wah!” said Guyasuta. “Maybe. It is a great army, with big guns. I
know, because I saw it; everybody knows. The council hasn’t decided
what to do. There is another council tonight. The French are too few
yet. The Indians ask the French captain how he expects their eight
hundred men to whip four thousand with great guns. You must not try to
run off. You had better wait. And I ask you not to tell that white boy
that you have seen me. If I am known to be your friend then you will be
shut up.”
“He goes with me,” said Robert, at once.
“Then you would be caught sure,” replied Guyasuta. “He is white, and he
is too lame to run. Besides, he will be well treated. The Delaware keep
him to adopt him, for they like him.”
Another council was held this night. The English army had been sighted
nearer, and the excitement in the fort had increased. From the council
room there sounded loud speeches, by the French and by the chiefs.
“What do you make of it, Rob?” Jim asked. “Is that war? You’re part
Injun――you ought to know.”
“I don’t think so,” Robert answered. “Sounds like two minds, one yes,
one no. Injuns are scared.”
When the council had quit there still were no signs of getting ready
to fight: no running about inside; no war dances outside in the Indian
camp.
After sunrise still another council was held, this time upon the ground
not far from the very gates. Beaujeu the Canadian Ranger was there; and
Langlade, Pontiac, Black Hoof, Killbuck, Beaver, Shingis and Anastase
who had been chosen head chief of all. The warriors crowded forward,
to listen; words rose high. Beaujeu and Langlade pleaded, but the
Ottawas, the Hurons, the Delawares, the Iroquois, even the Shawnees,
held back.
Anastase finally stood, and dropped his blanket again.
“No,” he cried to Beaujeu. “We have told you that Onontio ought not to
ask his children to die for him. Does my young father wish to die? It
is not the part of wise men to fight four thousand with a few hundred.
We know that the Mingos do not want this fort here, so why should we
uselessly try to hold it for the French? We shall not march to certain
death. The French should have brought more men.”
“Ugh! Look!”
A runner was pelting down from the woods for the fort. He came on
across the cleared ground――he came with news and he arrived sweaty and
panting.
The English army had forded a bend of the Monongahela below the old
Fraser trading house! They were marching through the bend, to ford
again above, near Fraser’s, only ten miles from the fort. They would be
here soon, with all their soldiers and their great guns.
The council broke into a tumult and a hurrying about. No one seemed to
know what to do. Then up sprang Beaujeu――and a gallant young figure he
was, too, his head bare, his yellow hair floating, his eyes very blue
and his face flushed.
“Listen!” he shouted. “Are you women? Do I see you afraid? The English
are at the river. Now is the time. Let us meet them on our own ground,
where one man can stop twenty. Listen! I am resolved to meet them. It
shames me to stay here. What! Will you let your father go alone against
the enemy? Come, for he is certain of success.”
Those were the right words at the right moment. Who could resist the
brave Beaujeu? A great yell answered him. Chief after chief shook his
hand.
“Only wait. We will follow our father.”
Beaujeu ran inside. Soldiers hurried out, rolling barrels of powder and
casks of bullets, and knocked the heads in, before the gates. Chiefs
and warriors were painting; they paused only long enough to cluster
around the barrels and casks and to scoop their powder flasks and
bullet pouches full. Inside, orders were being shouted, and soldiers
were lining up. It was to be war in the woods.
With James Smith, Robert the Hunter had been looking down upon this
scene from the top of the palisade wall near the gates. Here they two
clung; and in the excitement he had forgotten Jim, but now he heard him.
“They’re going to attack!”
“Yes. Surprise.”
“Where, you think?”
“Maybe at second ford. Good place, where army crosses second time, to
get on this side.”
“How far?”
“Maybe ten mile, by trail to Fraser place.”
“You know?”
Robert nodded.
“Then you run, Rob. Tell ’em.”
“Leave you, Jim?”
“Yes. I’ve got to stay. I’m lame. Couldn’t get away anyhow. But you can
look like an Injun.”
Just then Robert heard a hiss. Guyasuta had passed along under him. And
he saw that Jim was very white, and weak, and had hard work even to
hang to the palings. Washington must be warned! Guyasuta had signalled;
so the Hunter only said “goodbye” and he dropped down and followed
Guyasuta.
XX
THE BATTLE IN THE WOODS
Guyasuta led right on to an inside angle of the log walls, and there he
stopped, behind a building where few could see.
“Now!” he said, when Robert joined him; and he opened a little package
that he took from his pouch. “I will make a French Mohawk of you. You
can march with them who do not know you in the Mohawk paint. Then maybe
you can get ahead of the ambush and find Washington and Scarouady.”
“What do you do?” asked the Hunter.
“I war with the English. If the red-coats caught me now they would kill
me. But you can tell Washington and Scarouady to look out.”
With his sharp knife Guyasuta slashed off Robert’s brown hair close to
the head and left only a Mohawk scalp-lock. He rubbed reddish grease
into the fuzzy crown and daubed the scalp-lock black and red so that it
lay stiffly; and he rapidly painted Robert’s face with red and black;
and when Robert had slipped off his buckskin shirt he painted his brown
chest and arms.
“Here are hatchet and knife, and powder flask and bullet pouch,” said
Guyasuta. “You will find plenty gun outside. Go quickly. I do this
because my heart is good toward Washington and Scarouady, and you and I
are brothers too.”
“Wah!” uttered the Hunter. “I go.”
Then looking like a young Mohawk warrior, for he was straight and well
formed, Robert the Hunter boldly ran to the gate and went out among the
other Indians bustling to and fro.
All were still painting and arming――jostling to seize the guns piled
ready for the taking, and to fill up with powder and lead.
Robert glanced at the top of the wall near the gate. He saw Jim there,
clinging fast; and Jim looked down upon him and did not recognize him!
Nobody paid any attention to him amid the excitement.
Within the fort drums had been rolling, commands were being shouted.
Soldiers stood in line. Here came Beaujeu, in Indian buckskin shirt
and leggins and moccasins, upon his head a soft, black hat with brim
fastened up at one side by an eagle feather, upon his chest a dangling
silver brooch as sign that he was an officer. He was to lead.
The Hunter kept away from the Delawares and the Pontiac Ottawas. His
heart beat high, for he yet might be known through his paint. Where
were the Mohawks? There they were, getting together, with the French
Iroquois their brothers; and he hastened over and sat down, to wait the
signal of the chiefs.
Ho! There went Beaujeu, turning with a shout――“Here, my children!”――and
with gallant wave of hat. After him trotted the Anastase Hurons. The
Mohawk and Caugh-na-wa-ga chiefs cried: “Quick! Or the Hurons shame
us!” and with a great yell the jealous Mohawks and other Iroquois
leaped to join the van before the Ottawas and Shawnees beat them.
The Delawares and Mingos had stood aside. They were not yet decided;
and they stayed at the fort.
Seemingly as eager as any, Robert trotted with the Mohawks. Nobody
had eyes for him; he was a warrior in full paint, like the rest of
them. The Hurons travelled rapidly, taking a long, single file when
they entered the woods; the Mohawks and Caugh-na-wa-gas also travelled
rapidly, taking to single file. By the yells behind, the other bands
were following. Then the forest swallowed the noise.
Pat-pat, scuff-scuff, sounded the moccasins. The attack from ambush
along the trail of the English and Long Knives had started into motion.
Robert the Hunter, in Mohawk paint, wondered how he was to get out of
the scrape in time to find the red-coat column――but it would be better
first to find Scarouady, or Gist, or the Virginians, and send word to
Washington.
By the talk, now and then, the English were to be attacked at the
second ford of the Monongahela. That was ten miles by rough trail. Wah!
He did not know whether he could keep up this pace, for his strained
ankle was hurting cruelly. If he could drop out, some way, and cut
across, he could shorten the distance; and he’d have to wash off that
paint or he’d be shot on sight by an English bullet.
Ho! And ever pat-pat, scuff-scuff, on the way to surprise Washington!
Ho! He could make good use of that ankle. He began to limp more than
necessary; and soon the Mohawk next behind him said:
“My young brother is lame. Let me go ahead.”
“Pebble in my moccasin,” Robert replied gladly. So he fell out and sat
down, to rid himself of that pebble. While he was pretending to take
his moccasin off the file passed.
“Wah! My brother will be late for scalps,” said the last Caugh-na-wa-ga.
“I will catch up,” answered Robert, still fussing. And the trotting
file disappeared around a bend. Now Robert sprang to his feet, cast one
glance to see that the coast was clear, and dived into the brush.
He could not nurse his ankle any more. But he had left the trail to
Fraser’s and the river, and the going was worse.
Viny ravines blocked him, and tangled or rocky slopes slowed him;
and what with his hurry and his many detours he almost lost his way.
Besides, his ankle did hurt, whether he minded or not. Then he came to
a spring, and he stopped just long enough to scrub the paint from his
face and chest with wet clay. Then he ran on, feeling better. He was no
French Mohawk now; he was a Washington man.
Wah! He had washed off his paint too soon! What was that? He heard
voices――he had approached the trail again; no, this was a little side
trail, and all around him lay a park which he dared not cross while
those voices were so near. He acted as quick as thought――he thrust his
gun under a log and shinned full speed into a tree. He scarcely had
climbed well up, and held rigid, when more Indians arrived.
They were Ottawas, trotting like wolves, with Pontiac leading; after
them came the Potawatomis under Langlade, and the Ojibwas, and the
Shawnees of Black Hoof; and after these came the woodsmen Rangers in
their hunting clothes, and a company of French regular soldiers in
blue and white. Who next? The Hunter figured that he had seen over six
hundred Indians and almost three hundred French upon the march to war.
While he hung in his tree he looked abroad to figure just where he was.
It was a fine big tree upon a hill. He could see the Monongahela, down
toward Fraser’s; not very far, either, by air line――and the bend of the
river flashed back at him with moving figures.
The English army was crossing! Ho, what a sight through the sunshine!
In solid red line it was crossing, and the flags flew, and by the
glitter of the instruments the bands were making music――he could see
even the white cross-belts of the grenadiers, beneath the tall, peaked,
black-leather hats; the officers rode alongside their companies, and
their swords glanced brightly when they waved orders.
The cannon were tugged through; and the wagons and the cattle and
the pack horses splashed high; and the Long Knife Americans marched,
in their buckskins and their blue, guarding the rear. There were
scouts out, too, up stream and down stream――grenadiers. And at
last――huzzah!――the whole army was across. The French and Indians were
too late to stop it there!
As nobody came, Robert dropped out of his tree, and grabbed up his gun
and ran again. He might yet be in time, while Beaujeu was planning
another ambush.
He went scudding on, down hill and up, on short cut once more, to reach
Washington and tell him; he had gone maybe half way from the tree to
Fraser’s near the river when “Crack! Crack! Crackity-crack crack! Bang!
Bangity bang! Bang-bang-bang! Bang-g-g-g!” the woods shook! The battle!
He himself was too late.
Just how Robert arrived at the scene he did not know. He must have
run very fast, for the first thing he did know he was right into the
yelling and the shooting and the smoke――and the French Indians!
These were the Hurons, hiding behind trees and logs and bushes, or
darting around from cover to cover, while they shot. He just saw
Beaujeu, leaping like a deer and cheering in French while he waved to
the Canadian Rangers to come on. And on before, through the trees,
there showed a mass of red――the coats of the English, who stood in
the trail. Then from the red there belched a great cloud, and another
thunderous volley, crashing through the woods. The bullets whined among
the branches, as if the English were aiming too high; but down fell
Beaujeu, and down sprawled several Hurons, dead.
A cry rose from the French Rangers. They were running away, crying:
“Save yourself! Save yourself!” But another French officer sprang out,
calling them back. The English in red coats were pressing on, through
the narrow trail of freshly felled trees, and what they cried was:
“Huzzah! Huzzah! God save the King!”
Then the English column parted, two cannon spoke with tremendous noise,
and a storm of bullets rushed through the trees, splintering the bark
and cutting off branches. At that terrible thunder and lightning
the Indians ran also, to one side and another; and Robert likewise
scuttled, for the cannons were to speak again, this time into the face
of a great volley from more French soldiers who had come on.
More red-coats were coming, too, at the double-quick, from down the
slope. But the Indians had not run far. They were spread on both sides
of the narrow road: they were hiding in hollows and ravines, where the
pea-vines grew thickly and the trees clustered, and were shooting and
yelling.
Next, Robert found himself among the Potawatomis. And still he edged
along, seeking to get around and find a way in to Washington.
The woods all about him were full of darting, crawling, shrieking
painted figures, scarcely to be seen amid the brush and the smoke.
The noise was dreadful, while the English volleys answered the French
volleys, and the great guns boomed, and the muskets and rifles of the
Indians whanged without a pause.