THE EMPTY NEST.
The scene described in the foregoing chapter transpired on the left
bank of the Maumee, almost directly opposite the mouth of the Little
Turkey Creek, one of its insignificant tributaries, and between that
stream and the present town of Napoleon, in Henry county, Ohio.
Joe Girty was obliged to cross the Maumee to reach the Ottawa village,
which was situated near the river-bank, still nearer the site of the
town just mentioned.
The evening of the Girl Avenger’s capture was an auspicious one in
the eye of the red-men of Northern Ohio. Mad Anthony Wayne, with the
butchery of St. Clair’s gallant troops fresh in his mind, had reached
Greenville, and was preparing to punish the red nomads of the forests,
for their bloody deeds.
The secret agents of Great Britain moved among the savages, and stirred
them up to still more bitter hatred against the Americans. There were
Capt. McKee, Elliot, Simon Girty, and other renegades equally as
infamous, who whispered into the red-man’s ears, until he threw back,
with a bundle of arrows, into Wayne’s teeth, the peace conditions his
country had told him to offer.
On the night of the She-wolf’s capture, a hundred renowned warriors
from each of the allied nations, had assembled at a grand council
of war in the Ottawa village. There congregated Ottawas, Shawnees,
Delawares, Miamis, Wyandots, Iowas and Chippewas.
To accommodate so large a throng, the council-house had been enlarged,
and even then many could not force themselves beneath the birchen roof.
It was settled that Wayne was to be met with determined resistance, and
the savages were sanguine of success.
British muskets had been freely distributed from Fort Miami by McKee
and Elliot, whose faces, in the broad glare of the council-fires,
glowed with triumph. It was mainly their work, for their bitter
speeches carried the day when clear-minded chiefs advocated peace,
without the needless effusion of blood.
Joe Girty reached the Ottawa town a short time after nightfall, and
instead of making his way directly to the council-house, he sought
his own lodge, a substantial wooden structure that stood in the outer
circle of wigwams. He had slightly altered his mind regarding the
immediate disposition of Nanette Froisart--for such was the name of his
fair young prisoner. Were he to bear her into the council, unannounced
to the assembled braves, she might be torn from his arms by the
furious bands, and undergo a comparatively painless death. When, on the
other hand, if he would leave her in his lodge, while he announced her
capture, she would stand a fairer chance of being burned alive.
The last course he determined to pursue.
He reached his wigwam without being seen, for the women were
congregated at the council-house, and hailing with loud acclamations
the hot speeches of the younger braves.
The heavy door of the lodge was closed, and the renegade thundered a
series of loud blows upon it with his coarse boot.
At length the portal yielded, and a hideous hag, about the renegade’s
own age, greeted his flashing eyes.
“Was ye asleep, ye old lynx?” cried Girty, almost crunching her
shoulder in his giant fist. “No! ye was at the bottle, durn ye!” and he
shook his Indian wife till her teeth chattered as though ague-stricken.
“Now, mind ye; touch that bottle ag’in to-night, and Joe Girty ’l be
a widderer ’ginst day, cursed if he won’t. Where’s ’Watha? At the
council, hey! Good place for the white spawn! See here, old woman,
I’ve brought ye the devil’s progeny,” and he held his little captive
up before the squaw. “Ah, ye know who she is!” he cried with delight,
as he noticed the flash of recognition that darted from the hag’s
bloodshot eyes. “Ha! we’ll have a big burnin’ spree, mebbe to-night
yit. Now see hyar. Come, shake off that drunken fit, what’s comin’ on
ye, fur ye’ve got to do guard duty fur a short time,” he shook her
again. “I’m going down to the council, an’ tell the red devils I’ve
catched the young She-wolf. Now ye’ve got to watch her till I come
back, and, mind ye, Loosa, ef she tries to get away,” and he glanced
at Nanette, “send the contents of that pistol through her head. Do ye
hear, old lynx?”
“The white Ottawa shall be obeyed,” stammered the hag, glad to get rid
of her brute of a master. “My eyes shall never sleep.”
“They won’t if ye hain’t got too much whisky in ye,” returned Girty,
“an’ afore I go I’ll jest guard against that.”
As he finished, he threw the captive to his mistress, and jerked a jug
from one corner of the cabin.
It was uncorked, and weighing it on his broad palm, he remarked:
“Ye’ve taken a pretty ginteel swag, my red panther, and for fear you’ll
go to sleep while I’m gone, I’ll dispose of the remainder.”
With great gusto he elevated the vessel, and for several seconds it
remained poised above his lips. He drank deeply--he drank the jug empty!
Then he drew a bunch of sinews from his pocket, drew them around
Nanette’s wrists, until the thongs cut into the flesh, and retied her
ankles. The last operation accomplished to his inhuman satisfaction, he
tossed his captive to a couch in one corner of the apartment. She fell
upon her face on the one thickness of bear-skin, and lay motionless.
“Now watch her well,” said the renegade, thrusting into the squaw’s
hands a silver-mounted cavalry pistol, a relic of St. Clair’s ill-fated
campaign. “If she’s gone when we come fur her, why, ’ooman, we’ll cut
ye to pieces. I’m a white devil, as you know, and by my sinful soul, if
she gits away from you, I’ll tear your lying tongue out.”
With this he opened the door, and saw Loosa seat herself beside
Nanette, with ready pistol, before he slammed the portal, and bounded
toward the council.
There was a lull in the nocturnal proceedings when the renegade reached
the outer circles of warriors.
Turkey-foot, the Shawnee, had just delivered a bitter speech,
burdened with able warlike counsel, and the other chiefs were timid
in following such a distinguished speaker immediately. It was in
deference to Turkey-foot that the silence--an opportune moment for Joe
Girty--reigned.
“Now’s my time,” he muttered, pushing his way through the circle. “I’ll
have every Injun yellin’ within three minutes.”
A moment later, he sprung into the glare of the six council-fires.
His presence, entirely unexpected at that hour--though none could
divine the purport of his absence--was greeted with shouts, and some
of the delegates whom he had known, in past and bloody days, sprung
forward to welcome his return.
But he waved them back imperiously, and sprung to the large mat in the
center of the structure, from which the chiefs were wont to deliver
their outbursts of Indian eloquence.
A murmur ran around the circle, and as the renegade glanced at Simon
and the group of British emissaries to his left, he shouted:
“Silence!”
Instantly every sound was hushed.
“I come to gladden the hearts of the assembled chiefs with good news!”
he continued. “I am just from the banks of the Nomee,[2] where my hands
closed upon the bitterest enemy the red-man possesses.”
Every head was shot forward to hear the name of the renegade’s captive.
“He’s caught one of Mad Ant’ony’s spies--perhaps Wells?” whispered
Simon Girty to McKee. “It’ll be a jolly time for the red devils.”
“I saw my captive send a bullet to the heart of Jaguar-tail,” continued
Joe Girty, after a moment’s pause. “I saw her stoop to mark his bloody
brow--and then--then she became mine.”
Simon Girty gripped McKee’s arm, and threw a look of triumph into the
agent’s face.
“Snakes! he’s caught _her_.”
“Who?”
“The young She-wolf.”
“Impossible.”
“Listen! Joe’s going to speak,” said Simon.
At that moment the younger renegade brother sent an electric thrill
through every heart beneath the council-roof.
“Yes, I caught _her_,” he yelled, “_her_--the young She-wolf!”
Simon Girty bounded to his brother’s side, while, with a pandemonium of
yells, the savages were springing from their seats.
Tomahawks and knives flashed above the warriors’ heads.
“Where’s the young She-wolf?” was the universal cry that assailed the
renegade. “We will tear her fangs from her head, and her yellow scalp
shall dangle from an Indian’s belt. Where lies the slayer whom the
red-man has dreaded so long? Show us to her, white Ottawa, that our
knives may drink her blood.”
“Calm the howling devils first, Simon,” said Joe Girty. “We don’t want
the hull of them to cut the gal to pieces. When they come to their
senses they’ll burn her decently. Ye kin holler louder than I. Git up
an’ pacify the brutes an’ then I’ll tell them where the gal is.”
Simon Girty turned to do his brother’s bidding, and at length silenced
the Bedlamite uproar.
“She’s in my lodge!” cried Joe Girty, “an’ I want ye to act like men,
an’ don’t go an’ kill the gal so quickly that she won’t know what
hurt her. She’s killed too many of my red brothers to die easily. Now
set yer brains to work, an’ see who can conjure up the right kind of
torture.”
Deliberation upon the death of their deadliest enemy--one who had
entered their villages and shot their braves dead before their wigwams,
whose dread presence had made the forests shunned places--was far from
the minds of the Indians.
Turkey-foot, whose eldest son, a chief of promise, had fallen beneath
the bullet of the Girl Avenger, sprung toward the renegade’s lodge.
“Shall the braves think, while, perhaps, the She-wolf gnaws her bonds
asunder?” he cried. “They who think are squaws; who act, men. Come!
we will tear the heart from her body, and burn it over red coals.
Turkey-foot’s son wears her moon-mark; the father will slay the young
She-wolf!”
Joe Girty tried to arrest the progress of the infuriated Shawnees. As
well might he have tried to stem the overpowering avalanche.
Toward his lodge dashed the mad Indians, headed by the avenging father.
“We’ll see the thing done, anyhow,” cried the renegade, and away he
darted with the avenging band.
It was common cause, for the bravest of each tribe had worn the
She-wolf’s fatal mark--a bloody crescent on the brow!
Scores of the warriors bore torches, which flashed a lurid light far in
advance.
The door of the renegade’s lodge stood open.
This was strange; he had closed it, and the wind could not hurl it wide.
By the side of Turkey-foot he crossed the threshold.
No voice greeted him, and the fire had gone out.
But the Shawnee’s torch lit up the small apartment, and revealed the
single occupant of which it boasted.
That occupant was the renegade’s Indian wife, and the blood that oozed
from a hole over her heart declared her dead!
The young She-wolf was gone!
Turkey-foot stared into Girty’s face so thoroughly astounded as to be
unable to utter a word.
Without the cabin, yells of rage and disappointment burst from the
Indians’ throats.
When the renegade recovered from his astonishment he rushed from the
structure.
“I’ll have her heart’s blood for this if it takes me a lifetime!” he
cried. “Where’s ’Watha?” and his eyes wandered inquiringly around the
throng. “Where’s the White Fox? Kenowatha! Kenowatha!”
He shouted at the top of his voice; but no Kenowatha answered him.
Where was his adopted boy--his “pale spawn” as he, in his angry
moments, was wont to call him?
[2] An Indian name for the Maumee.