SCOUTING THROUGH A WILDERNESS
"FELLERS," said Skinny, panting and wetting his lips with his tongue.
"We've done it this time. We've killed somebody."
"Killed nothin'!" Bill told him. "Didn't you hear her holler?"
"She's running, too," said Benny. "Killed folks don't run, especially
girls."
We could hear a crashing through the bushes beyond, and knew that what
Benny said was true.
"Let's sneak back and get our arrows, anyhow," said Skinny, when the
noise had stopped.
So we crept back again, ready to run if any one should come, but there
was nobody in sight. One arrow was lying on the ground where the girl
had been standing when we took her for a bear. It was Skinny's; we could
tell by the way it was painted.
It made him real chesty, after he had found out that we had not killed
anybody.
"Didn't I tell you, Bill," said he, "that I'd show you whether I could
hit a bear or not? It must have struck a button or something, or whoever
it was would have bit the dust, and don't you forget it."
While we were standing there talking about it, a man burst through the
bushes, followed by a girl, about eighteen years old, I guess.
"Are these your Injuns?" he asked, before we had time to run. Then he
burst out laughing in such a way that we were not afraid to stay.
In a minute we had found out all about it. They were fern gatherers and
Benny had taken them for bears. A lot of people go up on the mountain in
August, picking what they call Boston ferns to sell to florists. They
put them in cold storage and keep them a long time. There is a crazy
little railroad at the foot of the mountain, on the east side, that
carries whole train loads of those ferns to Hoosac Tunnel station, and
afterward they are shipped all over the country to be put in bouquets.
Skinny's arrow had struck the girl and hurt her a little, but not much.
She was scared half to death.
Mr. Norton had a fine supper ready when we reached the camp again, and
we ate until we couldn't eat any longer.
"You boys ought to know what you are doing every minute you are in the
woods," he told us, after he had heard about the scare. "Suppose that
Gabriel had been carrying a gun, as he wanted to, instead of a bow and
arrows. Just think what would have happened. Hundreds of people have
been killed in exactly that way. Careless hunters have mistaken them for
bear or deer or some other game. You ought to have known what you were
shooting at. It was a foolish thing to do, anyway. I don't believe there
can be any bears around where so many people are looking for ferns and
berries. We'll see dozens of pickers on the other side of the mountain,
probably. If there ever were any bears they have been frightened away
long before this. But suppose that had been a bear. For a bunch of boys
to attack a bear with bows and arrows isn't bravery. It is foolishness.
I am ashamed of you."
We didn't feel quite so chesty when Mr. Norton had finished talking to
us.
"Well, I am not going to spoil the day by scolding," he went on, after
we'd had time to think it over a little. "You can see the folly of it as
well as I. Let us sit here and watch the sun go down behind the west
mountains. Did you ever see such glory? Then, when it grows dark, we'll
build a campfire and I'll tell you about a great scout and a trip he
once made through a wilderness."
It was fine sitting there, watching the sun sink into a golden sea
behind the mountains, while the valley below was already in the shadow
and the dark was creeping up the hillsides.
We sat there a long time without speaking, until finally the golden sea
faded into a streak of gray, and up and down the valley we could see the
twinkling lights of a half dozen towns and the farmhouses between.
Then Mr. Norton threw an armful of brush on the coals, and in the light
of the blaze, which made the shadows dance like ghosts of Indian braves,
he began his story.
"Some of you boys went out to Illinois, last summer," said he, "and I
know from what you have told me that you learned much about the great
French scout, LaSalle; how he explored the Ohio River and went up and
down the Mississippi, taking possession of the country in the name of
the king of France. We already have had one story which grew out of
those early explorations. The Lewis and Clark Expedition through the
Northwest, which I told you about, can be traced back to those scouting
trips of LaSalle and the others, on account of which France claimed the
country.
"This story is of another scouting trip, long after LaSalle's time and
before Lewis and Clark were born, probably. It took place even before
the United States was born, but, in a way, it grew out of those same
trips of LaSalle and Tonty, Marquette and Joliet, the French explorers
of the seventeenth century."
"Was this scout a Frenchman, then?" asked Benny.
"No, he was of English parentage, one of the finest English country
gentlemen who ever lived, but born in America, and one of the greatest
American scouts.
"He was a friend of yours, too, Skinny," he added, laughing to himself.
"Not me," Skinny told him, shaking his head. "I think a lot more of
England than I did, on account of General Baden-Powell and the Boy Scout
business, but I don't know this feller."
"That is strange. It seems to me that I have heard you remark something
about his being able to lick Napoleon Bonaparte with one hand tied
behind his back."
"George Washington!" shouted Skinny. "The Father of his Country. First
in----"
"Say, who's tellin' this story, anyhow?" said Bill, pulling Skinny over
and sitting on him.
"Yes, George Washington, who, it seems to me, would have made the finest
kind of a Boy Scout in his younger days--a scout worthy of membership
in Raven Patrol. He seems to have had all of the Scout virtues. He was
trustworthy, loyal to his home and his native land; he was thrifty; he
was brave; he was reverent."
"I'll bet he couldn't bandage a broken leg like we can," Benny told him.
"Maybe not, but he could find his way through the forest and he didn't
go around shooting at girls, thinking that they were bears. He liked
girls too well for that. I believe he liked the girls better, even, than
our patrol leader does."
We set up a yell at that.
"Aw, I ain't stuck on no girls," said Skinny. "I just rescue 'em, that's
all."
"It's all right," Mr. Norton told him. "A girl is the greatest thing in
the world, unless it is a boy. Anyhow, George Washington was a splendid
type of American boyhood and he surely liked the girls; used to write
poetry about them when he was your age."
I don't know why, but somehow we seemed to think more of Washington
after we had heard that. It seemed to bring him closer to us and make
him a real person, instead of a picture on the wall, praying at Valley
Forge or crossing the Delaware. Most always Washington is crossing the
Delaware when you see him.
"He was a big fellow in the first place, while Napoleon was small. Size
of body doesn't always count. Some of the greatest men the world has
produced have been small of stature. But George Washington was a big
fellow. Like Lincoln, he could outwrestle, outthrow, and outjump any of
his mates. They still show a spot down in Fredericksburg where he stood
and threw a stone across the Rappahannock River. He didn't seem to know
the meaning of fear. From his early youth he was a fine horseman, taming
and riding horses that nobody else could manage."
"Did his mother call him Georgie?" asked Benny, before we could stop
him.
"Perhaps she did, although I hardly can imagine it. At the age of
fourteen George wanted to enter the English navy and he came pretty near
doing it. If he had, perhaps he would have become a great admiral
instead of the father of his country. Who knows?
"A midshipman's warrant was obtained for him, so the story goes, and his
clothes actually had been sent aboard a man-of-war. Then, at the last
minute, his mother found that she could not give up her oldest boy and
she withdrew her consent. It was a great disappointment to the boy, but
like the good Scout that he was he obeyed his mother and went back to
school. He learned to be a surveyor.
"Boys matured earlier in those days when the country was new. When
Washington was only sixteen he set out on horseback through the Blue
Ridge Mountains on a surveying trip. A year afterward he was given
command of the militia in a Virginia district, with the rank of major."
"I don't see what LaSalle had to do with all that," said Harry.
"He didn't have anything to do with it, but he had something to do with
the scouting trip which came later. You see, France and England each had
obtained a strong foothold in this country; France, along the Great
Lakes and Mississippi River; England, along the Atlantic Coast. Between
the Mississippi and the coast stretched a beautiful and fertile country,
the valley of the Ohio. When LaSalle made his explorations he took
possession of the Mississippi in the name of the king of France. On that
account France claimed to own all the land along the Mississippi and
along all the rivers which flowed into the Mississippi. That took in a
great part of the continent."
"I don't see how because LaSalle stood on a rock and hollered out some
words," Hank told him, "that made the whole country belong to France."
"England couldn't see it. Still, the English claim was not much better.
Commissioners from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia made a treaty
with the Iroquois Indians in 1741. By the terms of that treaty, for
something like $2,000, the Indians gave up all right and title to all
the land west of the Alleghany Mountains, clear to the Mississippi
River. There were all kinds of Indians living in the Ohio Valley but,
according to the traditions of the Iroquois Indians, their forefathers
once upon a time had conquered it."
"It looks like six of one and half a dozen of the other," I said.
"There wasn't a white settlement in the whole territory. Some hardy fur
traders from Pennsylvania had made trips into the valley and this led to
the formation of the Ohio Company of Virginia, with the object of
getting ahead of the French and colonizing the lands. Then the French
began to get busy. France owned Canada at that time, you know. In 1749
the French Governor of Canada sent three hundred men to the banks of the
Ohio River with presents for the Indians. They ordered the English
traders out of the country and nailed lead plates to trees, telling
everybody that the land belonged to France. The Indians liked the
presents well enough, but the lead plates made them mad, when they found
out their meaning. One old chief exclaimed:
"'The French claim all the land on one side of the Ohio; the English
claim all the land on the other. Now, where does the Indian land lie?'
"I have gone into this explanation in order to make it clear to you why
Washington was sent on his scouting trip. Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia
wanted to send some one whom he could trust to the French commander, to
protest against the French coming into the country. At the same time, he
thought the messenger would be able to find out how strong the French
were, how many canoes they had, and all that. It was a perilous mission
to undertake through an unknown wilderness, with winter coming on. Young
Washington was only twenty-two years old, but he was selected as the one
to make the dangerous trip.
"Major Washington started from Williamsburg, October 31, 1753. On the
frontier he procured horses, tents, etc. Later he was joined by a famous
woodsman, named Christopher Gist. They took along a white man to act as
interpreter and some Indian guides. Chief White Thunder was one. Another
was known as the Half King. His friendship was very important to the
English.
"I imagine that the mountains which they went through were much like
these, except that rains and snow had made them almost impassable. The
party pushed on, however, and early in December arrived at the first
French outpost. The French captain gave a feast in their honor, in the
course of which he drank so much wine that it made him talkative. He
began to brag of what the French were going to do. He said that they
were going to take possession of the entire Ohio Valley. The young
American scout kept his head clear and afterward wrote down in a book
all that he had heard.
"Then Washington set out again, and after four more days of weary travel
they came to the French fort on the west fork of French Creek, about
fifteen miles south of Lake Erie. There he delivered his message, and
after a great deal of delay received a sealed reply.
"While pretending to be friendly, the French did their best to win the
Indian guides away from Washington. They plied them with liquor and with
presents, so much so that the young scout had a hard time in starting
them toward home. He succeeded finally in getting away. They first went
up the creek in boats as far as an Indian village, called Venango; then
set out by land. Soon their pack horses became so jaded that Washington
used his saddle horse for a pack horse and walked. After three days of
that, he and Gist took their packs on their shoulders, their guns in
their hands, and started out alone, on a short cut to the Ohio River.
"You will find the story in any history. At one time a treacherous
Indian guide wheeled suddenly and shot at Washington, but did not hit
him. The two men quickly overpowered the savage, and Gist was for
killing him. Young Washington would not permit that, so they did the
next best thing. They took his gun away and sent him home, making him
think that they would follow in the morning. Instead of that, they left
their campfire burning and traveled all night and all the next day, to
get as far away from the spot as possible. At last they reached the
Alleghany River, which they hoped to find frozen. There was open water,
however, and they were forced to build a raft. All they had to work with
was one hatchet, like Skinny's, I mean Gabriel's. On the way across, a
cake of ice struck the raft and threw Washington into the river."
"Gee, I'll bet that it was cold," said Skinny.
"It was, but Washington clung to the raft and finally, in a half-frozen
condition, drifted against an island, where the two men camped that
night. In the morning they found ice cakes so wedged in that they were
able to walk ashore.
"January 16, in the dead of winter, Washington succeeded in reaching
Williamsburg, and delivered the French commander's letter to Governor
Dinwiddie. Soon after that came the French and Indian war, which I am
sure you know all about, in which France lost all her American
possessions except the great tract west of the Mississippi, which
Napoleon later sold to President Jefferson.
"You see, being a scout in those days wasn't all play. It brought many
hardships that we know little about, but, after all, it called for the
same kind of boy. Washington was brave and true, helpful, kind, and
clean, and he was prepared. When the time came, his preparedness put him
in command of the American forces and afterward made him the first
President of the United States."
"Washington was great stuff, all right," said Skinny, shaking his head
sadly, "but everything has been discovered now, and explored, and Injuns
ain't much good outside a show. There ain't anything for a feller to do
any more."