THE FOREST VILLAGE
They traveled another day and another, always rapidly. Henry continued
his policy and asked no questions. He divined, however, that the
Wyandots were on the way to a village of theirs, either permanent or
temporary, probably the latter, as they were far west of the country
conceded by the other Indians to be Wyandot.
He surmised, also, that the red alliance against the white vanguard had
been enlarged until it included all the tribes of the Ohio Valley north
of the river. He knew very well how all these tribes were situated,
their great villages at Chillicothe, Piqua, and other places, whence it
was easy for them to make raids upon the settlements south of the Ohio
and then retreat into the vast wilderness north of it, where it was
exceedingly dangerous to follow them. Should he escape, he would not be
sorry to have been a prisoner, since he might learn all their plans,
knowledge as precious as diamonds.
On the fourth day they checked their speed, and a lithe young Indian
whom Henry heard called Thraintonto, which means in Wyandot The Fox,
stripped himself of his breech clout, gave his long and defiant scalp
lock a somewhat fiercer curl, and darted ahead of the band.
He was the swiftest runner in the war party, chosen specially by
Timmendiquas for an important duty, and Henry knew very well the nature
of his errand. The Wyandot village now lay not far away, and Thraintonto
sped ahead, a messenger, to tell that the war party had achieved
victory, and was approaching with the proof of it.
He watched the figure of Thraintonto dart away and then disappear, a
flash of brown in the green wilderness. He knew that The Fox was filled
with the importance of his mission. None could be more welcome to an
Indian.
The band resumed its march after the brief stop, now proceeding in
leisurely fashion through a beautiful country, magnificently wooded and
abounding in game. Little brooks of clear fresh water, the
characteristic of the Ohio Valley, abounded everywhere. They were never
a half mile from one, and now and then they came to a large creek. Henry
was quite sure that they would soon reach the river that received all
these creeks.
They stopped two or three hours later, and went through a solemn rite.
Brushes and paint were produced--everything had been arranged for in
advance--and all the members of the band were painted grotesquely. Red,
blue, and yellow figures were depicted upon their faces, shoulders, and
chests. Not a square inch of exposed skin was left without its pictorial
treatment. Then every man put on a beautiful headdress of white feathers
taken from different birds, and, when all was done, they formed in
single file again, with Timmendiquas, in place of Anue, now at their
head. The chief himself would lead the victorious band to the village,
which was certainly near at hand.
The advance was resumed. It was not merely a return. It partook in its
nature of a triumphal progress, like some old festival of the Greeks or
Ph[oe]nicians. They came presently to a cedar tree, and from this White
Lightning broke a branch, upon which he hung the two scalps that they
had taken. Then, bearing the branch conspicuously in his right hand, he
advanced and began a slow monotonous chant. All the warriors took up the
chant, which had little change save the rising and falling of the note,
and which, like most songs of savages, was plaintive and melancholy.
Henry, who, as usual, followed the broad brown back of Hainteroh,
observed everything with the keenest attention. He was all eyes and
ears, knowing that any detail learned now might be of value to him
later.
They crossed the crest of a low hill, and he caught sight of lodges, a
hundred perhaps in number, set in a warm valley, by the side of the
small clear river that he had surmised was near. The lodges of buffalo
or deerskin stood in a cluster, and, as it was a full quarter mile on
every side to the woods, there was no chance for a lurking foe to lie in
ambush. Henry noticed at once that there were no fields for maize or
beans, and he was confirmed in his opinion that the village was
temporary. He noticed, too, that the site of the place was chosen with
great judgment. It lay in the angle of the river, which formed an elbow
here, flowing between high banks, and on the other two sides rows of
fallen logs formed an admirable defense in forest warfare.
The band paused a few moments at the crest of the hill, and began to
chant more loudly. In front of the village was a concourse of warriors,
women, and children, who joined in the song, and who opened out to
receive the victors as they came marching on.
The chant swelled in volume, and its joyous note was now marked. But not
one of the marching warriors relaxed a particle from his dignity. White
Lightning strode majestically, a magnificent figure of savage man, and
led the way to a war pole in the center of the village, in front of a
council house built of poles. Near the foot of this pole a fire was
burning.
Henry stepped from the line when they came to the war pole, and the
warriors, secretly admiring their splendid trophy, closed in about him,
cutting off all chance of escape, should he try it. But he had no
thought of making such an attempt. His attention was centered now on the
ceremonies.
The war band formed in a group, the war pole in the center. Then two
warriors fastened two blocks of wood on a kind of rude ark that lay near
the war pole. This wooden ark, carved like a totem, was the most sacred
of all objects to the Wyandots.
All the returned warriors sat down upon the ground, and the great young
chief, Timmendiquas, inquired gravely whether his lodge was ready for
him. An old man replied that it had been swept clean and prepared by the
women, and Timmendiquas and his warriors, rising from the ground,
uttered a tremendous whoop. Then they marched gravely in a circle about
the pole, after which they took up the ark and carried it solemnly to
the council house. When they entered the council house, bearing the ark
with them, they closed the door behind them.
The whole population of the village was packed densely in front of the
council house, and when the door was shut upon the victorious war band
all the female kin of the warriors within, except those too young or too
old to take part, advanced, while the crowd swung back to give them
room, and arranged themselves in two parallel lines, facing each other
on either side of the door of the council house.
These women were dressed in all their barbaric finery. They wore
beautiful headdresses of feathers, red and white and blue and yellow.
Their faces were painted, but not so glaringly as those of the warriors.
Even here in the wilderness woman's taste, to a certain extent,
prevailed. They wore tunics of finely dressed deerskins, or, in some
cases, bright red and blue shawls, bought at British posts, deerskin
leggings, and moccasins. Much work had been lavished upon the moccasins,
which were of the finest skin, delicately tanned and ornamented with
hundreds of little beads, red, yellow, blue, green and every other
color.
Many of the younger women, not yet wrinkled or bent by hard work, were
quite pretty. They were slim and graceful, and they had the lightness
and freedom of wild things. Henry was impressed by the open and bold
bearing of them all, women as well as men. He had heard much of the
Wyandots, the flower of all the western tribes, and now at close range
he saw that all he had heard was true, and more.
As soon as the two lines were formed, and they were arranged with the
greatest exactitude and evenness, the women, as they faced one another,
began a slow monotonous chant, which, however, lasted only a minute. At
the end of this minute there was profound silence for ten minutes. The
women, trained for these ceremonies, stood so perfectly still that Henry
could not see a body quiver. At the end of the ten minutes there was
another minute of chanting, and then ten more minutes of silence, and
thus, in this proportion of ten minutes of silence to one minute of
song, the alternation would be kept up all day and all night.
Once every three hours Timmendiquas would come forth at the head of his
warriors, raise the war whoop, pass around the war pole, bearing aloft a
branch of cedar, and then return to the council house, closing the door
firmly as before.
Meanwhile Henry's attention was taken from the ceremonies by a most
significant thing. He had been conscious for a while that some one in
the closely packed ring of Wyandot spectators was watching him. He had a
sort of feeling as of cold upon the back of his neck, and he shivered a
little. He knew, therefore, that the look directed upon him was evil,
but pride kept him from showing undue curiosity before the Wyandots, who
were trained to repress every emotion. He too, had, in these respects,
instincts kindred with those of the Wyandots.
Presently he turned slowly and carelessly, and found that he was looking
into the savage, sneering eyes of Braxton Wyatt, the young renegade, who
more than once had sought the destruction of Henry and his comrades.
Although they could not find his body, he had hoped that Wyatt had
perished in the great battle on the Lower Mississippi, because it might
save the border much, but, now that he was alive and here, Henry refused
to show surprise, alarm, or any other emotion. He merely shrugged his
shoulders ever so slightly, and his glance passed on. But he knew that
Braxton Wyatt was swelling with malignant triumph. Fortune had changed
her face, and it was his day to smile. Henry Ware was there, a prisoner
among the Wyandots--and a prisoner of the Wyandots seldom escaped--while
he, Braxton Wyatt, could exult over him and see him die. Truly, it was
an amazing turn of the wheel, and Henry felt all the bitterness of it,
although his expression did not alter a particle.
The boy's eyes roamed back again, and he saw that Braxton Wyatt's was
not the only white face in the crowd. Five men stood near him, and,
tanned and browned as they were, it was obvious that they belonged to
the white race. He surmised readily by their air of perfect confidence
and freedom that they were renegades, also, and he was not wrong. As he
was soon to learn, they were Simon Girty, name of incredible infamy on
the border, Moses Blackstaffe, but little his inferior in cunning and
cruelty, and McKee, Eliot and Quarles. So Braxton Wyatt, white youth
among the Indians, was not alone. He had found men of his race as bad as
himself, and Henry knew that he would thrive in such company.
Henry guessed that the renegade who stood a little in front of the
others, who seemed by his manner and bearing to consider himself their
leader, was the terrible Girty, a man who left behind him an almost
unbelievable record for cruelty and treachery to his own race. He was
partly in Indian, partly in white dress, and when his glance fell upon
Henry it was full of most inhuman mockery. The boy's wrath flamed up. He
did not seek now to practice the Indian stoicism and repress his
feelings. His eyes, blazing with indignation, looked straight into those
of Girty, with a gaze so stern and accusing and so full of contempt that
the renegade, unable to withstand it, lowered his own eyes.
Braxton Wyatt had seen this little passage, and Henry's triumph of the
moment increased his hatred. He longed to say something, to taunt him
with his position, something that his ignoble soul was not above, but he
did not dare to do it just then. He and his fellow renegades wished to
sway the Wyandots to a purpose of theirs, and any interruption now of
the ceremonies, which, in fact, were a sacred rite, would bring fierce
anger down upon his head.
Henry remained about four hours in the crowd, and then, an old man,
whose dignity and bearing showed that he held a chief's rank, tapped him
on the shoulder.
"Come," he said in fair English, "I am Heno, and you are our prisoner."
Henry had learned already that Heno in Wyandot meant Thunder, and he
answered cheerfully.
"Very well, my good Thunder, lead on, and I'll follow."
The old chief gravely led the way, and the throng opened out to let them
pass. Henry glanced back at the two swaying lines of women, now engaged
in one of their minute-long chants, and he wondered at the illimitable
patience of the red race, to whom time seemed nothing.
Unless some great movement, like a sudden attack by an enemy or the
necessity of a forced march, interfered, the warriors would go in and
out of the council house for three days, when all except the leader and
one attendant warrior would go forth to their lodges, which would be
swept clean for them, and which would be decorated with twigs of cedar
or pieces of scalps to satisfy the ghosts of departed friends. But
Timmendiquas and his attendant would remain three more days and nights
in the council house to complete their purification. When they emerged
the medicine bag would be hung before the lodge door of Timmendiquas.
Unless the village was removed, it would hang there a month, and the
people would sing and dance before it at intervals.
As Henry passed through the throng, following close behind old Heno,
many admiring glances were bent upon him by the great little red nation
of the Wyandots. These children of the wilderness knew the value of a
tall, straight figure, powerful shoulders, a splendid chest and limbs
that seemed to be made of woven wire. Here was one, already mighty among
his kind, although but a boy.
Heno led the way to a bark lodge in the center of the village, and
motioned to Henry to enter.
"I must bind you," he said, "because if I did not you are so strong and
so swift that you might escape from us. If you will not suffer me to tie
the cords I shall call the help of other warriors."
"There is no need of a fight about it, Thunder," said Henry genially. "I
know you can bring in enough warriors to overpower anybody, so go
ahead."
He held out his hands, and the old chief looked somewhat embarrassed at
the willingness and cheerfulness of the captive. Nevertheless, he
produced deerskin cords and bound the boy's wrists, not so tightly that
the cords hurt, but with ingenious lacings that Henry knew he could
neither slip nor break. Then, as the captive sat down on a rush mat and
leaned against the bark wall of the lodge, old Heno regarded him
attentively.
Thunder, old but brave warrior of the Wyandots, was a judge of promising
youth, and he thought that in his sixty years of life he had never seen
another so satisfactory as this prisoner, save perhaps the mighty young
chief, known to his own people as Timmendiquas and to the settlers as
White Lightning. He looked at the length of limb and the grand
development of shoulders and chest, and he sighed ever so gently. He
sighed because in his opinion Manitou should have bestowed such great
gifts upon a Wyandot, and not upon a member of the white race. Yet Heno
did not actually hate the prisoner. Coiled at the bottom of his heart,
like a tiny spring in a watch, was a little hope, and this little hope,
like the tiny spring, set all the machinery of his mind in motion.
"You no like being captive, held in lodge, with arms tied?" he said
gently.
Henry smiled.
"No, I don't enjoy it," he replied. "It's not the situation that I
should choose for myself."
"You like to be free," continued old Heno with the same gentle gravity.
"You like to be out in the forest with Whoraminta?"
"Yes," replied Henry, "I'd like to be free, and I'd like to be out in
the forest, but I don't know about Whoraminta. I'm not acquainted with
him, and he might not be a pleasant comrade."
"Whoraminta! Whoraminta!" repeated Heno. "Cannot think of your word for
it. It is this!"
He threw himself into a firm attitude, held out one hand far, extended
the other about half so far, shut his left eye, and looked with the
right intently along the level of his two hands. Henry understood the
pantomime perfectly.
"I know," he said. "Whoraminta is a rifle. You're right, Thunder, I'd
like mighty well to be out in the forest with my Whoraminta, one of the
trustiest and best comrades I ever had."
Heno's smile answered that of the captive.
"And with plenty of Teghsto?" he said.
"Teghsto?" said Henry. "That's new to me. Can't you think of the English
word for it?"
Heno shook his head, but closed his right hand until it formed
approximately the shape of a horn, then elevated it and held it as if he
were pouring something into the open palm of his left hand.
"Use in Whoraminta," he said.
"That's not hard," said Henry. "Powder you mean."
"That right," said Heno, smiling again. "Teghsto go in Whoraminta, and
Yeatara go in Whoraminta, too. You want plenty of Yeatara."
"Lead! bullets!" said Henry at a guess.
"Yes. That it. Yeatara is lead, and you snap with Taweghskera; fire
spark jump out flash! bang! You want Taweghskera, too."
"Taweghskera must be flint," said Henry, and old Heno nodded. "Yes,
Thunder, I'd want the flint, too, or I couldn't do anything at all with
Whoraminta, Teghsto and Yeatara. I'll remember those words, my friend.
Thanks for your free teaching."
"You learn fast. You make good Wyandot," said Heno in the most friendly
manner. "You have your arms, your feet free, Whoraminta with you, you go
with the warriors on great hunt, you gone many moons, you kill the deer,
buffalo, bear, panther, you have no care, no sorrow, you live. I, too,
was a young hunter and warrior once."
Old Heno slowly drew his figure up at the glorious picture that he had
painted. His nostrils were distended, and the fire of his youth came
back into his eyes. He saw the buffaloes trampling down the grass, and
heard the shout of his enemies in the forest combat.
"I'm thinking, Heno," said Henry sincerely, "that you're yet a good deal
of a young hunter and warrior."
"You not only make good warrior, but you make good chief, too. You know
how to talk," said Heno.
Nevertheless, he was pleased, and he was still smiling when he left a
few moments later. Nobody else came for a day and night, old Heno
bringing him his food and water. He did not suffer any actual physical
pain, as his bonds permitted him to move a little and the circulation
was not impeded, but he chafed terribly. The picture that Heno had drawn
of the great forest and the great hunt was most alluring. He longed for
freedom and his "Whoraminta."
A visitor came on the second morning. The lodge door was opened and a
thick figure filled it a moment as a man entered. Henry was sitting on a
mat at the farthest part of the lodge, and he could see the man very
clearly. The stranger was young, twenty-seven or twenty-eight perhaps,
thick set and powerful, tanned to the brownness of an Indian by sun,
wind and rain, but the features obviously were those of the white race.
It was an evil face, but a strong one. Henry felt a shiver of repulsion.
He felt that something demoniac had entered the lodge, because he knew
that this was Simon Girty, the terrible renegade, now fully launched
upon the career that made his name infamous throughout the Ohio Valley
to this day.
But after the little shiver, Henry was without motion of expression.
Show apprehension in the presence of such a man! He would rather die.
Girty laughed and sat down on the mat on the other side of the lodge.
But it was a small lodge, and their faces were not more than four feet
apart. Henry read in the eyes of Girty a satisfaction that he did not
seek to conceal.
"It isn't so pleasant to be trussed up in that fashion, is it?" he
asked.
Henry refused to answer.
Girty laughed again.
"You needn't speak unless you feel like it," he said. "I can do the
talking for both of us. You're tied up, it's true, but you're treated
better than most prisoners. I've been hearing a good deal about you. A
particular friend of yours, one Braxton Wyatt, a most promising lad, has
told me a lot of stories in which you have a part."
"I know Braxton Wyatt very well," said Henry, "and I'm glad to say that
I've helped to defeat some of his designs. He has a great ambition."
"What is that?" asked Girty.
"To become as bad a man as you are."
But Girty was not taken aback at all. His lips twisted into a peculiar
grin of cruel satisfaction.
"They do fear me," he said, "and they'll fear me more before long. I've
joined the Indians, I like them and their ways, and I'm going to make
myself a great man among them."
"At the expense of your own kind?"
"Of course. What is that to me. I'm going to get all the tribes
together, and sweep the whites out of the Ohio Valley forever."
"I've heard that these same Indians with whom you're so thick burned
your step-father at the stake?" said Henry.
"That's true," replied the renegade without the slightest feeling. "That
was when I was a little child, and they captured our family. But they
didn't burn me. So what have I to complain of?"
Henry could not repress a shudder, but Girty remained as cool as ice.
"Why shouldn't I be a great man among the Indians?" he said. "I know the
tricks of both white and red now. The Continentals, as they call
themselves--rebels I call them--held McKee, Eliot and myself prisoners
at Fort Pitt, the place they call Pittsburgh, but we escaped and here we
are. We've been joined by Blackstaffe, Quarles, and the boy, Braxton
Wyatt. The Indians trust us and listen to us; we're going to draw all
the valley Indians together--Shawnees, Miamis, Wyandots, Ottawas,
Delawares and Illinois--and we'll light such a flame on both sides of
the river that no white man will ever be able to put it out."
"You've got to reckon with some brave men first," said Henry.
"Yes, I know that the settlers have good woodsmen, Boone and
Kenton--Simon Kenton was my comrade once--but they are too few, and as
for this expedition to which you belonged, that is coming up the river,
we're going to cut that off, too, not only because we'll be glad to wipe
out those people, but because we want the rifles, the ammunition, the
stores, and, above all, the cannon that your fleet carries. What will
the wooden walls in Kentucky be to us when we get those big guns?"
"When you get them!" said Henry defiantly. This man inspired increasing
horror and repulsion. The exulting way in which he talked of destroying
his own people would have been incredible, had Henry merely heard of it
from others. But the man was here before his face, glorying in the deeds
that he expected to commit.
"Oh, we'll get them," said Girty confidently. "You think you can help to
keep us from it, but you won't be there when it's done. Two things are
going to be offered to you, and you'll have to choose between them."
"What are they?" asked Henry, who had resumed his calm, at least, so far
as looks went.
"It's what I mainly came here to talk to you about. Timmendiquas is
young, but he's a mighty man among the Wyandots. All the older chiefs
are willing to step aside in his favor, and when men do that without
being made to do it, there's something great in the one that's favored,
something that everybody is bound to see. He's first among the Wyandots,
and you know what that means when I tell you that the last of the
Wyandots are as good as the first of most people."
"Why do you talk to me about Timmendiquas?" asked Henry. "I've seen him,
I've been with him for days, I know what he is."
"I'm coming to it. Timmendiquas likes you. He thinks you're fitted for
the forest and a life like the one he leads. Other Wyandots who have
observed you agree with him, and to tell you the truth I think so, too,
myself."
"Well!" said Henry. He now divined what Girty was going to reveal, but
he wished the renegade to tell it himself.
"Timmendiquas will be in the council house several days longer,
purifying himself, but when he does come out, they'll say to you: 'Be a
Wyandot or die.' They'll put it to you plain, just as it has been put to
white men before you."
Henry stirred a little. Certainly he did not wish to die, nor did he
expect to die, but he would risk the alternative.
"Girty," he said, slowly, "an offer something like this was made to me
once before. It was made by a Spaniard far down in the south. You never
knew him--he's dead now--but your friend, Braxton Wyatt did--but the
other thing wasn't death, nor did he ask me, if I took his offer, to
make war upon the settlements in Kentucky. Before I'd turn Indian like
you and Braxton Wyatt and the others, and murder my own people, you
infamous renegade, I'd be torn to pieces or burned at the stake a dozen
times over!"
The words were hurled out by passion and feeling as the flash of powder
sends forth the bullet. The renegade shrank back, and rose to his feet,
his eyes aflame, but in a moment or two he sank down again, laughing a
little.
"That's what I knew you'd say," he said, "and I came here to hear you
say it. I wanted to force the hand of Timmendiquas, and I've done it. I
don't want you to join us, and I'll tell you why. I intend to be first
here, first among the white leaders of the Indians, but if you were to
come with us you'd be first yourself in three or four years, and I'd be
only second. See how much I think of your powers."
"I don't thank you for your compliment," said Henry boldly, "but I'll
thank you if you'll get out of this lodge. I think you're the worst man
I've ever seen."
Simon Girty frowned again, and raised his hand as if to strike the bound
youth, but refrained.
"We don't see things alike," he said, and abruptly left the lodge.
Henry felt his evil presence long after he had gone, as if some foul
animal had entered the lodge, and presently, when old Heno came, he
asked him as a great favor to leave the door open for a while. When the
cool, fresh air rushed in he breathed it in great draughts and felt
relieved. He admired Timmendiquas. He respected the Wyandots. He could
not blame the Indian who fought for his hunting grounds, but, with all
the strength of his strong nature, he despised and hated every renegade.
That evening, after old Heno had gone, he sought for the first time to
slip or break his bonds. He wanted to get away. He wanted to rejoin his
comrades and the fleet. He wanted to help them prepare for the new
dangers. But strain as he might with all his great strength, and twist
as he would with all his ingenuity, he could not get free. He gave it up
after a while and lay on his rush mat in a state of deep depression. It
seemed that the Wyandots, cunning and agile, flower of the red men,
would give him no chance.
He had asked Heno to leave the door of the lodge partly open a while
longer that he might have plenty of fresh air, and the old warrior had
done so. He heard faint noises from the village, but bye and bye they
ceased, and Henry at last fell asleep.
Deep in the night he heard a musical sound, a small note but clear and
sweet. It reached him easily, although it seemed to come from the forest
four or five hundred yards away, and it spoke in almost audible tones,
telling him to be of good faith, that what he wished would come to pass.
It was the wind among the leaves again, something mystical but almost
human to him. It was the third time that it had sung to him, once in
warning, twice in hope, and the depression that he had felt when he laid
down vanished utterly. A deep sense of peace and content pervaded his
whole being. It was a peace of the senses and mind alike, driving away
all trouble either for the present or the future.
He was called to deeper rest. The voice of the forest still sang to him,
becoming softer and softer and fainter and fainter, and the feeling of
absolute content was overwhelming. He did not seek to move, but
permitted himself, as if under an opiate, to drift away into a far
slumberland, while the note from the forest sank to nothing.
When he awoke the next morning he did not know whether he had really
heard or had merely dreamed.