the previous year, and the organized resistance the Cherokees had made
in the field of battle against Colonel Montgomerie, then commanding the
expeditionary forces, he had felt that the tribe's openly inimical
relations with the British government warranted him in coming boldly
forth from his retirement and competing for the honors of the present
campaign of 1761. His friends sought to dissuade him. The government had
had, as assurance of his death, the word of Atta-Kulla-Kulla, who might
yet insist that the pledge be made good. That chief, they urged, had a
delicate conscience, which is often an engine of disastrous efficiency
when exerted on the affairs of other people. Attusah was advised that he
had best stay dead. Although he finally agreed with this, he could not
stay still, and thus as he appeared in various skirmishes it became
gradually bruited abroad among the Cherokees that Attusah, the Northward
Warrior, was a great ada-wehi, a being of magical power, or a ghost as
it might be said, of special spectral distinctions. Thus he lived as
gayly yet as before the dismal day of his execution, always carefully,
however, avoiding the notice of Atta-Kulla-Kulla, whose word had been
solemnly accepted by the British government as the pledge of his death.
It is impossible to understand how a man like Digatiski of Eupharsee
could believe this,--so sage, despite his ignorance, so crafty, so
diplomatic and acute in subterfuge, yet he was sodden in superstition.
"Can you see Colonel Grant, the Barbarous?"[7] he asked suddenly,
lifting his head and gazing steadily at the young Indian's face, which
was outlined against the pallid neutral tint of the sky. The dark
topmost boughs of a balsam fir were just on a level with the clear
high-featured profile; a single star glittering beyond and above his
feathered crest looked as if it were an ornament of the headdress; the
red glow of the smouldering fire within, which had been carefully masked
in ashes as the darkness came on, that its sparkle might not betray
their presence here to any wandering band of troopers, still sufficed to
show the impostor's painted red cheek. He was armed with a tomahawk and
a pistol, without powder as useless as a toy, and a bow borne in default
of aught better lay on the floor beside him, while a gayly ornamented
quiver full of poisoned arrows swung over his shoulder.
"_Ha-tsida-wei-yu!_" he proclaimed. "I am a great ada-wehi! I see him!
Of a surety I see him!"
Attusah gazed at the sombre night with an expression as definitely
perceptive as if the figure in his thoughts were actually before his
eyes.
"And he is not dead?" cried Digatiski, in despair.
Some such wild rumor, as of hope gone mad, had pervaded the groups of
Cherokee fugitives.
"He would be if I could get close enough with a bare pinch of powder
that might charge my gun!" declared Attusah disconsolately. Then himself
again, "But I will tell you this! He is waiting for my poisoned arrow!
And when he dies he will come back no more. He is not like me."
He paused to throw out his hand with his splendid pompous gesture.
"_Akee-o-hoo-sa! Tsida-wei-yu!_" (I am dead! I am a great ada-wehi!)
Digatiski groaned. It mattered not to him whether Colonel Grant came
back or abode in his proper place when dead. The grievous dispensation
lay in the fact that he was here now, in the midst of the wreck he was
so zealously wreaking.
There were three women in the niche. One with her head muffled in her
mantle of fringed deerskin sat against the wall, silently weeping,
bemoaning her dead slain in the recent battle, or the national
calamities, or perhaps the mere personal afflictions of fatigue and fear
and hunger and suspense. Another crouched by the fire and gazed
dolorously upon it with dreary tear-filled eyes, and swollen, reddened
eyelids. The sorrowful aspect of a third was oddly incongruous with her
gay attire, a garb of scarlet cloth trimmed with silver tinsel tassels,
a fabric introduced among the Cherokees by an English trader of the name
of Jeffreys, and which met with great favor. Her anklets, garters, and
bracelets of silver "bell-buttons" tinkled merrily as she moved, for she
had postponed her tears in the effort to concoct some supper from the
various scraps left from the day's scanty food. The prefatory scraping
of the coals together caused a sudden babbling of pleasure to issue from
the wall, where, suspended on a projection of rock, was one of the
curious upright cradles of the people, from which a pappoose, stiff and
perpendicular, gazed down at the culinary preparations, evidently in the
habit of participating to a limited extent in the result, having
attained some ten months of age.
The mother glanced up, and despite the tear stains about her eyes,
dimpled and laughed in response. Griefs may come and pleasures go,
nations rise and fall, the world wag on as it will, but this old joy of
mother and child, each in the other, is ever new and yet ever the same.
Resuming her occupation, the woman hesitated for a moment as she was
about to lay the meat on the coals, the half of a wood duck, fortunately
killed by an arrow, for larger game was not attainable, the wild beasts
of the country being in flight as never heretofore. The conflagration of
the towns of a whole district, the turmoils of the heady victorious
troops, hitherto held together, but now sent through the region in
separate detachments, each within reach of support, however, had
stripped the tribe of this last means of subsistence. Years and years
afterward the grim dismantled fragments of these buildings were still to
be seen, the charred walls and rafters mere skeletons against the sky,
standing, melancholy memorials of war, on the hillsides and in the
valleys, along the watercourses "transparent as glass," of that lovely
country where these pleasant homes had been.
The Indian woman doubted if the bit of fat could be spared; then poising
it in her hand under the watchful eyes of all, she flung it into the
fire, the essential burnt-offering according to their old religious
custom.
Digatiski, bowing his head still lower, once more groaned aloud. He
would not have stayed her hand,--but to hunger even for the offering to
the fire! The woman whose head was muffled had only to repeat her sobs
anew; she could not sorrow more! But the pappoose in its primitive
cradle on the wall babbled out its simple pleasure, and now and again
the tearful little mother must needs lift smiling eyes.
The great ada-wehi looked out at the night. On the whole he was glad he
was dead!
He took no bite, nor did Digatiski. The Indian men were accustomed to
long fasts in war and in hunting, and they left the trivial bits to the
women. The muffled figure of grief held out her hand blindly and munched
the share given her in the folds of her veil. Then, for tears are of no
nutritive value, she held out her hand again. Feeling it still empty,
she lifted the veil from a swollen tear-stained face to gaze aghast at
the others. They silently returned the gaze, aghast themselves, and then
all three women fell to sobbing once more. But the pappoose was crowing
convivially over a bone.
Hunger does not dispose to slumber, nor does war with the sight of a
dozen towns aflame. They slept, but in fitful starts, and the first gray
siftings of light through the desolate darkness found them all gazing
drearily at it, for what might a new day signify to them but new
dangers, fresh sorrows, and quickened fears.
A flush was presently in the east, albeit dusk lingered westward. The
wonderful crystalline white lustre of the morning star palpitated in the
amber sky, seeming the very essence of light, then gradually vanished in
a roseate haze. The black mountains grew purple, changing to a dark rich
green. The deep, cool valleys were dewy in the midst of a shadowy gray
vapor. The farthest ranges showed blue under a silver film, and suddenly
here were the rays of the sun shooting over all the world, aiming high
and far for the western hills.
And abruptly said the ada-wehi, as he still lay at length on the floor
of the niche,--
"_Skee_!" (Listen!)
Naught but the breeze of morning, delicately freighted with the breath
of balsams, the dew, the fragrance of the awakening of the wild flowers,
the indescribable matutinal freshness, the incense of a new day in June.
"_Skee_!"
Only the sound of the rippling Tennessee, so silver clear, beating and
beating against the vibrant rocks as its currents swirl round the bend
at the base of the cliff.
"_Skee_!"
The sudden fall of a fragment of rock from the face of the crag to the
ground far below!--the interval of time between the scraping dislodgment
and the impact with the clay beneath implies a proportional interval of
distance.
The conviction is the same in the mind of each. A living creature is
climbing the ascent! A bear, it may be. A great bird, an eagle, or one
of the hideous mountain vultures, very busy of late, alighting in quest
of food--which it might find in plenty elsewhere, in the track of the
invaders.
Attusah does not rely, however, on a facile hypothesis with a triumphant
enemy at hand, and a dozen towns charring to ashes in sight.
As noiseless as a shadow, as swift, Attusah is on his feet. At the back
of the great niche, so high that none could conceive that it might
afford an exit, a fissure lets in a vague dreary blur of light from
spaces beyond. Leaping high into the air, the lithe young warrior fixes
his fingers on the ledge, crumbling at first, but holding firm under a
closer grasp. The elder man, understanding the ruse as if by instinct,
lays hold of the knees of the other, held out stiff and straight below.
Then by a mighty effort Attusah lifts the double weight into the
fissure, the elder Indian aiding the manoeuvre by walking up the wall,
as it were, with his feet successively braced against it.
Outside, now and again bits of rock continued to fall, seeming to herald
a cautious approach, for after each sound a considerable interval of
silence would ensue. So long continued was this silence at last that the
three women, now alone, began to deem the alarm of an intrusion vain and
fantastic. The elder of them motioned to one of the others to look out
and terminate the painful suspense.
The young squaw, brilliant in her scarlet dress and silver tassels, the
pappoose piously quiet in his perpendicular cradle on her back, slipped
with gingerly caution to the verge of the precipice and looked down.
Nothing she saw, and in turn she was invisible from without. She wheeled
around briskly to reassure the others, and at that moment a young
soldier of the battalion of Scotch Highlanders stepped from the
horizontal ledge alongside, which he had then gained, and into the
niche, bringing up short against the pappoose, stiff and erect in its
cradle.
"Hegh, sirs!" he cried in jocular surprise, happy to find naught more
formidable, perhaps, although a brave man, for he had volunteered to
examine the source of the smoke from this precarious perch,--which had
attracted the attention of the ensign commanding a little
detachment,--despite the fact that a Cherokee in his den and brought to
bay was likely to prove a dangerous beast.
The Highlander had a piece of bread in his hand, from which he had been
recklessly munching as he had stood for a moment's breathing spell on
the horizontal ledge beside the niche before venturing to enter, for the
command had broken camp with scant allowance of time for breakfast. With
a genial laugh he thrust a morsel into the pappoose's open mouth and put
the rest in its little fingers.
Perhaps it was because of his relief to find no bigger Cherokee man
stowed away here in ambush; perhaps because he was himself hearty and
well-fed and disposed to be gracious; perhaps because he had a
whole-souled gentle nature hardly consonant with the cruel arts of war
which he practiced,--at all events he was thoughtful enough of others to
mark the ravenous look which the women cast upon the food in the child's
hand.
"Gude guide us!" he exclaimed. "This is fearfu' wark! The hellicat
hempies are half starved!"
For if Colonel Grant compassionated the plight of the savages, as he has
recorded, and shrank from the ruin wrought in the discharge of his duty
of destroying their capacities for resistance and the maintenance of
existence other than as peaceful dependents of the British colonies, the
rank and file of his command, weighted with no such responsibilities,
may well have indulged now and then a qualm of pity.
The British soldier had been ordered to halloo for help should he
encounter armed resistance, but otherwise to rest a bit at the top of
the precipice before making the effort to descend, lest he become dizzy
from fatigue and the long strain upon his faculties, and fall; the
ensign added a pointed reminder that he had no means of transportation
for "fules with brucken craigs." The opportunity was propitious. The
Highlander utilized the interval to open his haversack and dispense such
portion of its contents as he could spare. While thus engaged he was
guilty of an oversight inexcusable in a soldier: the better to handle
and divide the food, he leaned his loaded gun against the wall.
A vague shadow flickered across the niche.
The young Highlander was a fine man physically, although there was no
great beauty in his long, thin, frank, freckled face, with its
dare-devil expression and bantering blue eyes. But he was tall, heavily
muscled, clean-limbed, of an admirable symmetry, and the smartest of
smart soldiers. His kilt and plaid swung and fluttered with martial
grace in his free, alert, military gait as he stepped about the
restricted space of the cavity, bestowing his bounty on all three women.
His "bonnet cocked fu' sprash" revealed certain intimations in his
countenance of gentle nurture, no great pretensions truly, but
betokening a higher grade of man than is usually found in the rank and
file of an army. This fact resulted from the peculiar situation of the
Scotch insurgents toward government after the "Forty-Five," and the
consequent breaking up of the resources of many well-to-do middle-class
families as well as the leaders of great clans.
The Highlander hesitated after the first round of distribution, for
there would be no means of revictualing that haversack until the next
issuance of rations, and he was himself a "very valiant trencher-man."
Nevertheless their dire distress and necessity so urged his generosity
that he began his rounds anew.
Once more a shadow. Whence should a shadow fall? It flickered through
the niche.
The three women stood as mute as statues. The pappoose in its cradle on
its mother's back, its face turned ignominiously toward the wall, and
perhaps aware that something of interest in the commissariat department
was going forward, had begun to whimper in a very civilized manner, and
doubtless it was this trivial noise that deterred the young Scotchman
from hearing sounds of more moment, calculated to rouse his suspicions.
He had already added to the portions of the elder women and was
bestowing his donations upon the young mother, when suddenly the shadow
materialized and whisked past him.
It fell like a thunderbolt from above.
Bewildered, agitated, before he could turn, his gun was seized and
presented at his breast by a warrior who seemed to have fallen from the
sky. The soldier, nevertheless, instantly laid his hand on the great
basket-hilt of his claymore. Before he could draw the blade, the warrior
and the three women flung themselves upon him, their arms so closely
wound about him that his own arms were effectually pinioned to his
sides. With a violent effort he shook himself free from their grasp for
one moment; yet as the blade came glittering forth from the scabbard, a
sharp blow scientifically administered upon the wrist by the ada-wehi
almost broke the bone and sent the weapon flying from his hand and
clattering to the floor of the niche. The women had taken advantage of
the opportunity afforded by the struggle between the two men to
substitute the coils of a heavy hempen rope for the clasp of their arms,
and Attusah had only to give a final twist to the knots of their skilled
contriving, when the captive was disarmed and bound.
He had instantly bethought himself of his comrades and an appeal for
rescue, and sent forth a wild, hoarse yell, which, had it been heard,
must have apprised them of his plight. But as he had not at once given
the signal of danger agreed upon, they had naturally supposed the coast
clear, and while he rested presumably at the top of the precipice they
gave their attention to other details of their mission, firing several
houses at a little distance down the river. Therefore they would have
heard naught, even if Attusah had not precluded further efforts of his
captive to communicate with his comrades by swiftly fashioning a gag out
of the Highlander's bonnet and gloves.
Perhaps never was a brave man more dismayed and daunted. Not death
alone, but fire and torture menaced him. The shining liquid delight in
the eyes of the women reminded him of the strange fact that they were
ever the most forward in these cruel pleasures, for the ingenuity of
which the Cherokees were famous among all the tribes. Yet the
realization of his peril did not so diminish his scope of feeling as to
prevent him from inwardly upbraiding his ill-starred generosity as the
folly of a hopeless fool, more especially as the elder woman--she of the
many tears--held up the substantial gift of provisions, jeering at him
with a look in her face that did not need to be supplemented by the
scoffing of language.
"The auld randy besom!" the soldier commented within himself. "But eh, I
didna gie it to be thankit,--nae sic a fule as that comes to, neither!"
Hoping against hope, he thought that the length of his absence would
inevitably alarm the ensign for his scout's safety, when it should
attract attention, and induce the officer to send a party for his relief
and for further investigation of the precipice, whence the smoke
intimated an ambush of the enemy. This expectation had no sooner
suggested its solace and the exercise of patience in the certainty of
ultimate rescue, than the Highlander began to mark the preparations
among the Indians for a swift departure. But how? The precipice was a
sheer descent for eighty feet, the ruggedness of its face barely
affording foothold for a bird or a mountaineer; and at its base hovered
the ensign's party within striking distance. A resisting captive could
not be withdrawn by this perilous path. The soldier looked in doubt and
suspense about the restricted limits of the cavity in the great crag.
The mystery was soon solved.
The position of all had changed in the struggle, and from where Kenneth
MacVintie now stood he noted a scant suggestion of light flickering down
from a black fissure in the roof of the cavity, and instantly realized
that it must give an exit upon the mountain slope beyond. The agility
with which Attusah of Kanootare sprang up and leaped into it was
admirable to behold, but MacVintie did not believe that, although
knotted up as he was in his own plaid passed under his arms and around
his waist for the purpose, he could be lifted by the ends of the fabric
through that aperture by the strength of any one man. Naturally he
himself would make no effort to facilitate the enterprise. On the
contrary, such inertness as the sheer exercise of will could compass was
added to his dead weight. Nevertheless he rose slowly, slowly through
the air. As he was finally dragged through the rift in the rocks, his
first feeling was one of gratification to perceive that no one man could
so handle him. The feat had required the utmost exertions of two
athletic Indians pulling strenuously at the ends of the plaid passed
over a projection of rock, thus acting pulley-wise, and the good Glasgow
weave was shedding its frayed fragments through all the place by reason
of the strain it had sustained.
The next moment more serious considerations claimed his thoughts. He saw
that two men, fully armed, for Digatiski had secured ammunition for his
own gun from the cartouch-box of the soldier, could force his
withdrawal, bound as he was, farther and farther from the ensign and his
party, whose attention had been temporarily diverted from the scout's
delay in returning by signs of the enemy ambushed in another direction.
MacVintie still struggled, albeit he knew that it was vain to resist,
more especially when another Cherokee joined the party and dedicated
himself solely to the enterprise of pushing and haling the captive over
the rugged way,--often at as fair a speed as if his good will had been
enlisted in the endeavor. Now and again, however, the Highlander
contrived to throw himself prone upon the ground, thus effectually
hampering their progress and requiring the utmost exertions of all three
to lift his great frame. The patience of the Indians seemed illimitable;
again and again they performed this feat, only to renew it at the
distance of a few hundred yards.
At length the fact was divined by MacVintie. More than the ordinary fear
of capture animated Attusah of Kanootare. Colonel Grant's treatment of
his prisoners was humane as the laws of war require. Moreover, his
authority, heavily reinforced by threats of pains and penalties, had
sufficed, except in a few instances, to restrain the Chickasaw allies of
the British from wreaking their vengeance on the captive Cherokees in
the usual tribal method of fire and torture. The inference was obvious.
Attusah of Kanootare was particularly obnoxious to the British
government, the civil as well as the military authorities, and fleeing
from death himself, he intended at all hazards to prevent the escape of
his prisoner, who would give the alarm, and inaugurate pursuit from the
party of the ensign.
In this connection a new development attracted the attention of
MacVintie. As they advanced deeper and deeper into the Cherokee country
and the signs and sights of war grew remote,--no sounds of volleys nor
even distant dropping shots clanging from the echoes, no wreaths of
smoke floating among the hills, no flare of flames flinging crude red
and yellow streaks across the luminous velvet azure of distant mountains
with their silver haze, viewed through vistas of craggy chasms near at
hand,--he observed a lessening of cordiality in the manner of the other
two Indians toward the Northward Warrior, and a frequency on his part to
protest that he was a great ada-wehi, and was dead although he appeared
alive. The truth soon dawned upon the shrewd Scotchman, albeit he
understood only so much Cherokee as he had chanced to catch up in his
previous campaign in this region with Montgomerie and the present
expedition. Attusah was for some reason obnoxious to his own people as
well as to the British, and was in effect a fugitive from both factions.
Indeed, the other two Indians presently manifested a disposition to
avoid him. After much wrangling and obvious discontent and smouldering
suspicion, one lagged systematically, and, the pace being speedy,
contrived to fairly quit the party. Digatiski accompanied them two more
days, then, openly avowing his intent, fell away from the line of march.
It was instantly diverted toward the Little Tennessee River, on the
western side of the Great Smoky Mountains; and as Attusah realized that
without his connivance his captive's escape had become impossible,
MacVintie found himself unbound, ungagged, and the society of the
ada-wehi as pleasant as that of a savage ghost can well be.