AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
It must be confessed that Dave was both startled and dismayed by the
sudden turn affairs had taken. He had not wished to quarrel with Turtle
Foot from the start, but the half drunken Indian was one of those
persistent fellows who could not be avoided.
“Put down that knife!” he said, in as steady a voice as he could
command. “Put it down!” And then he caught hold of the red man’s
wrist and held on with all his strength. At once the fellow began to
struggle, and Indian and boy swayed back and forth in front of the
trading-post. The other Indians looked on in expectancy, but nobody
tried to stop Turtle Foot in his evil intention to injure the youth.
Strange as it may appear, Dave did not think to cry out until it was
too late, and even if he had done so, it is doubtful if he would have
been heard above the general uproar the Indians were making. He felt
himself pressed back against a stockade and then his foot slipped in a
puddle of water and he went down on his knees. Instantly the Indian’s
hand left his arm and glided to his throat and the red man held the
knife aloft in front of his eyes.
“Consarn you!”
The exclamation came very much in the nature of an explosion, and was
followed by the leap of a white man directly behind the Indian. Like a
flash Turtle Foot was yanked backward by his hair and his hunting knife
twisted from his grasp. Then the newcomer raised the Indian bodily over
his head, rushed across the roadway, and threw the fellow into a ditch,
where he went to the bottom with a loud splash.
“Thar, you miserable critter, lie thar and cool off! If you ever dare
to tech this lad ag’in I’ll split your wizen fer you! The idee of you
a-coming to the post to git rum and then cutting up sech a shindy as
this! Clar out with you afore I kick you so full of holes your own
squaw won’t know you! And you other redskins, you behave yourselves, or
I’ll cut loose, and thar will be some tall shooting and knifing going
on, I’ll warrant you!” And the speaker ended with a fist shaking that
made the Indians retreat in all directions. They knew the man who spoke
and knew he meant all that he said.
“Sam Barringford!” ejaculated Dave, joyfully, as he arose to his feet.
“I’m mighty glad you came.”
[Illustration: Like a flash Turtle Foot was yanked backward.--_Page
42._]
“I’m glad myself, Dave,” returned the old hunter. “But tell me, what
made him so sot ag’in you?”
“He got mad because I wouldn’t drink with him.”
“Did, hey? Wall, Turtle Foot always was a fool, and he’s a heap
wuss when he’s in liquor.” Sam Barringford looked over to where the
Indian was extricating himself from the mud. “Mind what I told you!”
he shouted. “Git right away from here! You can come back for your
knife to-morrow. I’ll leave it with Seth Crosby!” And not daring
to remonstrate Turtle Foot limped down the trail away from the
trading-post.
Sam Barringford was a typical hunter and trapper of that period, and
well known throughout the whole of the Virginia valley, both to the
whites and the red men. He was a man of fifty, tall, broad-shouldered,
and with muscles of iron. His hair was long, as was his beard, and from
under a shaggy pair of eyebrows peered a pair of black eyes as sharp
as those of some wild beast. The look of his face was one of decision,
yet not unpleasant, and his voice had a peculiar drawl to it that was
whimsical in the extreme.
The hunter was dressed in buckskin, with a wide fringe to his leggings.
On his feet he wore a pair of Indian moccasins, and on his head rested
a coonskin cap with the tail falling over his back. Around his waist
was a broad belt containing a hunting knife and a horn of powder, shot
and ball, and across his back was slung a rifle which he had nicknamed
Old Trusty, as good a piece of firearm as to be found anywhere.
“The Injuns are as foolish as some white folks when it comes to rum,”
was Barringford’s comment, as he and Dave walked to where the horses
were tied up. “They know it hurts ’em, and yet they won’t leave it
alone. Ain’t here alone, are you?”
“No, Uncle Joe is inside the post. He left me to watch the horses. We
are on our way to Annapolis to buy some things for father.”
“Then he’s settled on the Kinotah? I’m glad to hear of that, lad. He
ought to do well. I shall hunt him up the next time I git out to that
region. Took Tony and Putty with him, I understand.”
“Yes.”
“Them twins is all right and rattlin’ good shots to boot. He’ll do well
if he treats the Injuns half right--and I know he will.”
“But what do you think of the French, Sam?”
The old hunter shook his head slowly. “Ain’t no telling what them
garlic eaters will do--their mind ain’t the same two days. I’ve heard
tell they claim the whole Ohio valley. But they might as well claim the
whole airth and done with it.”
“I’ve been talking with Uncle Joe about it and he is afraid the peace
won’t last. Nothing was said about Lake Erie or the Ohio valley in the
treaty.”
“Then the French will make trouble, if they can git the Injuns to side
with them--and I suppose they can, or, at least, they can git some of
them--those up around the lakes. You see the Frenchman is the slickest
talker on airth and he can make the redskin believe a whole lot what
ain’t so.”
The old hunter and Dave continued to discuss the subject for a while
longer, and then Joseph Morris came out of the trading-post in a hurry,
having just heard that an Indian had attacked his nephew.
“What was it all about?” he questioned, and when told showed how much
he was disturbed. “The rascal! He ought not to be allowed near the
post! He might have killed you had not Sam come up. Sam, I owe you one
for that,” he went on, warmly, catching the trapper by the hands.
“I suppose Turtle Foot will remember me, if ever we meet again,” said
Dave.
“No doubt on that, lad,” answered Barringford. “But when you do meet
him put on a bold front, and my word on it, he’ll sneak in double-quick
order.”
The frolics of the Indians had now been resumed, and a number of
backwoodsmen had come in to have a good time also. Some of these
fellows were half-breeds and many wore the dress of their red
brethren. They were a wild, lawless crowd and, on the whole, more to be
feared than the Indians themselves. Soon the liquor was flowing freely,
the Indians were dancing and whooping madly, and the backwoodsmen
were shouting themselves hoarse and shooting their firearms into the
night air. This orgy kept up until two o’clock in the morning, when it
died away gradually, the Indians slinking off into the woods and the
backwoodsmen dropping wherever it was convenient in drunken slumber.
Joseph Morris had secured accommodations for himself and Dave at a
cabin close to the post, and hither they retired, leaving their horses
in care of Sam Barringford, who tethered them to a tree in the woods
and went to sleep beside them as innocently and as free from care as a
child. When the carousal in the village broke up some of the Indians
came toward Barringford, but as soon as they recognized the old hunter
they took great pains to leave him undisturbed.
Dave slept but little that night previous to the end of the noise, and
he sat for a long while at the cabin window looking at what was going
on in the moonlight. He had witnessed such a scene before, when a white
man and an Indian had been seriously hurt, and he anticipated similar
results now. But this anticipation was not fulfilled, for with all
the shooting, leaping, shoving and wrestling nobody was injured, and
the most that anybody suffered was the tearing of his clothing. One
backwoodsman who had refused to pay for liquor for his friends was
ridden on a sharp rail, but this act was carried out more in fun than
as a punishment.
When Dave came out in the morning and walked toward the trading-post
and around it he felt somewhat astonished at the turn affairs had
taken. One backwoodsman had aroused another, and all had stolen off as
meekly and quietly as had the red men several hours before. The post
was almost deserted in consequence and appeared more lonely than ever.
“It’s a way those fellows have,” said one of the traders to Dave. “They
go out into the woods for weeks at a time and you never see hide nor
hair of ’em. Then of a sudden the Indians come in and the half-breeds
and the rest follow, and they kick up such a shindy as you saw. It
seems they have got to break loose--they jest can’t help themselves.
And they don’t mean no harm by it neither--at least the most of ’em
don’t. That Turtle Foot is an exception, and if he don’t look out he’ll
get a knife in his back some day.”
Sam Barringford was bound for the home of Lord Fairfax, but had
business at Winchester which would keep him at the post for a day
longer, so he had to part with the Morrises when they resumed their
journey, much as he would like to have accompanied them, for he was
strongly attached to Dave.
“Lord Fairfax is a great hunter, you know,” he explained. “But his
style is the English one--behind the hounds. Now he wants to git right
out in the woods after big game, and he’s offered me a pistole a day
for my services, and I’ve closed with him for a month. It’s not bad
pay in these times, and he says he may make it more, if I show him
something worth bringing down, and I think I can.” And Joseph Morris
agreed that it was a good offer, for a pistole in those days was worth
about three dollars and sixty cents.
“Is Lord Fairfax going alone?” asked Dave.
“No, he is going to take Lawrence Washington and several others with
him. I am calculating on a fine time, for my lord is a good liver and
has the finest horses in this section of the country.”
“I know he has a fine estate,” put in Joseph Morris.
“Nothing finer. I read some of the reports that young George Washington
brought in--you know he surveyed the tract for Lord Fairfax. He noted
down all about the soil and the timber, and the water power and all. I
can tell you that young fellow is a smart one. I don’t wonder that they
have made him a public surveyor. Lord Fairfax is sure a surveyor from
England couldn’t have been more accurate.”
“I should like to see a surveyor at work,” said Dave. “It’s always been
a good deal of a mystery to me how they measured land, especially from
one hill or mountain to another.”
“Perhaps you’ll meet Washington on your way to Annapolis, lad; he’s
out somewhere in the neighborhood of the Shenandoah, surveying a grant
of land for a man named Burger. The north end of the grant lies at
Heckwell’s Creek.”
“We intended to cross near Heckwell’s,” said Joseph Morris. “How is the
river?”
“Very low now and you’ll have no trouble;” and after a few words more
the friends parted, and the Morrises continued on their journey.
The route was now directly eastward, across the broad and fertile
valley of the beautiful Shenandoah, the name of which, in the Indian
tongue, means, “Daughter of the Stars.” Here the forests were still
immense, but broken by wide patches of luxuriant grass and “islands” of
wild flowers, some of which were still in bloom. The scene was truly
entrancing, and often Joseph Morris would call a halt and point out
one object or another of special interest.
“How people can box themselves up in a city when they might come forth
to enjoy something like this is past my understanding,” he said once.
“Was ever air purer or sweeter, or music more full of melody than that
which yonder birds are giving us? And listen to the murmur of that
brook as it trickles along through the brush and over the rocks; it is
a psalm in itself.”
“It certainly is grand, Uncle Joe. If only a painter could set it all
down on canvas and show it to the folks that live in such a city as
London!”
“Aye, but he couldn’t, for the breath of the life that is here would
be missing. To me every tree and bush, and patch of grass, can talk as
well as can yonder brook and the birds. And what painter could put that
talk in his picture, or that feeling that comes over one as he stands
here under such a blue sky? No, it’s not possible, and painters must
know it, unless they be truly conceited.”
At midday they came to a halt under the wide-spreading branches of
a gigantic oak, a veritable monarch of the forest, standing like a
sentinel on a grassy knoll overlooking a wide creek flowing into the
Shenandoah several miles beyond. For the last hour the trail had been
uncertain, with many wet and slippery spots to avoid, and they had
moved forward slowly and with care.
Both felt like eating something warm, and while Mr. Morris got out the
provisions, Dave stirred round with a hatchet with which to cut some
firewood. There was little on the knoll and he descended and walked
over an opening to where grew some brush. Here lay a fallen tree with
several dry branches well suited to his purpose.
Dave was hard at work chopping off one of the branches when a noise
coming from the woods beyond the brush attracted his attention. There
was a cry and then a thrashing around of a human being.
“Hullo, what’s up there?” he called out, and leaving the fallen tree,
started in the direction from whence the sounds proceeded. Running
through a strip of the woods, he reached a series of rocks where there
was another open patch with a spring.
Just as Dave came to the opening a gun went off, and as the smoke
cleared away the first thing he saw was a snake twirling and twisting
on the ground in its death agonies. Several other snakes were close by,
and in their midst was a young man who was doing his best to get away
from the reptiles.
Dave had often encountered snakes on the farm, so he was not as
frightened as he might otherwise have been. As the young man started
to club one of the reptiles with the stock of his gun, Dave aimed a
blow with his hatchet at another, and in a few seconds two more of the
snakes were put in a condition where they could do no further harm.
Then the young man and the boy attacked the remaining snakes, but these
glided away between the rocks, and in less than five minutes after it
had begun the battle was over and the snakes had departed to return no
more.
“That was warm work,” remarked Dave, as he wiped the bloody hatchet on
the grass. “Did that first snake bite you?”
“He struck at my boot, but the leather was too thick for him,” was the
answer, delivered in quite a cool tone considering the excitement which
had just passed. “I must thank you for coming to my assistance.”
“You were lucky to escape so easily. I know a man who got in a nest of
snakes like that and was bitten three times.”
“I was somewhat on my guard, as it happens. I imagined there might be
snakes around these rocks. But I had to come here.”
“Had to come here?”
“Yes. You see, I am surveying this tract of land.”
“Oh, then you are Mr. George Washington, the public surveyor?” cried
Dave.
“I am.”