Indians were not an entirely new sight to George, but the few who
occasionally came to Greenway were quite different from the thriftless,
lazy, peaceable individuals and remnants of tribes that remained in
remote parts of lower Virginia. There was an Indian village of forty
or fifty in a piece of wild country about ten miles from Ferry Farm,
but they were not dangerous, except to hen-roosts and pigsties;
and although the men talked grandiloquently of the time when their
forefathers owned the land and lived by hunting, they seemed perfectly
satisfied themselves to sit and bask in the sun, smoking tobacco of the
squaws’ raising, and living upon grain raised by the same hard-working
squaws.
But the first Indian that he saw at Greenway was altogether unlike
these, and in George’s eyes vastly more respectable. He came one
morning, just as George and Lord Fairfax had walked out on the porch
after breakfast. He strode up the path carrying on his shoulder the
dressed carcass of a deer. He was of medium height, but so superbly
made and muscular that the heavy carcass seemed as light as a feather.
He stalked up to the porch, and, throwing the carcass down, folded his
arms with an air of supreme indifference, and waited to be addressed.
“For sale?” asked the earl.
The Indian nodded his head without speaking. Lord Fairfax called
to Lance to bring his purse. Lance in a few minutes appeared, and
the instant his eyes fell upon the Indian his countenance changed.
Not so the Indian’s, who stood looking him squarely in the eye with
characteristic stolidity.
The earl counted out some money and offered it to the Indian, who took
it with a grunt of satisfaction.
“Now,” said the earl, “take the carcass to the kitchen, where you will
find something to eat if you wish.”
The Indian showed his familiarity with English by picking up the
carcass and disappearing around the corner with it. As soon as he was
out of hearing Lance said to the earl:
“If you please, sir, that Injun, who pretends to be a squaw man, is
no less than Black Bear, one of the most bloodthirsty devils I ever
knew. He was in the thick of the last attack they made on us, and
I’ll warrant, sir, if I could turn his blanket back from his right
shoulder I would find a hole made by a musket-ball I sent at him. It
disabled him, but I can see the rascal now walking away just as coolly
as if I had tickled him with a feather instead of hitting him with
a lead bullet. He never in the world brought that carcass over the
mountains; that is not in his line. There are more of Black Bear’s sort
hereabouts, you may depend on it, sir.”
Lord Fairfax shrugged his shoulders.
“We are prepared for defence if they come at us, but I shall have to
depend upon you, Lance, to give us warning.” And the earl went quietly
back to his library.
Not so George. He had an intense desire to know more of Black Bear, and
went with Lance around to the back of the house.
“You won’t find that Injun eating, sir; he don’t want anything to eat.
He wants to sneak into the house and see what sort of a place it is,”
said Lance.
Sure enough, when they reached the kitchen there was nothing to be seen
of Black Bear, although the deer’s carcass was hung up on a nail high
above the ground, out of reach of the dogs. Cæsar, the cook--a fat,
jolly negro, with a great white apron on--was standing in the kitchen
door looking around.
“Where is the Injun who brought that deer meat here?” asked Lance.
“I’se lookin’ fur him now,” responded Cæsar. “I didn’ heah no soun’,
an’ when I tu’n roun’ d’yar was de carkiss hangin’ ’n de nail. Dem
Injuns is slicker ’n cats when dey move.”
Lance, followed by George, passed into the kitchen and through a short
covered way which led to the lower part of the house. The covered way
and the kitchen too were of the same rough stone half-way up. A few
steps at the end of the covered way led down into the cellars where
the arms and provisions were stored. It was quite dark down there, and
Lance struck his flint and made a light. They had not gone far in the
underground passage when George instinctively felt some one stealing by
him. He turned quickly, and in a moment Black Bear was pinioned to the
wall.
“What are you doing here?” asked Lance, gruffly.
The Indian, remaining perfectly still, said, “White man’s house like
rabbit-burrow. Injun get lost in it.”
George, at a sign from Lance, let the Indian go, and he stalked
solemnly out in front of them. Around outside, Lance said:
“What is your name?”
“Squaw man,” was the Indian’s laconic answer, and as the squaw men had
no distinctive names it was answer enough. But Lance grinned openly at
this.
“You don’t look like a squaw man, but a warrior, and your name, if I
know it, is Black Bear. Now, if you are a squaw man, show me how that
carcass ought to be cut up; and here is some money for you if you do it
right.” Black Bear looked longingly at the money, but he was evidently
not used to cutting up dressed meat, and he made no attempt at it. He
grunted out something, and then strode off in the direction of the path
up the mountain.
“There you go,” apostrophized Lance, “and we shall see you before long
with a firelock and a hatchet, and with a lot of other savages of your
own kidney.”
At dinner that day George told Lord Fairfax about finding the Indian
prowling about the cellar, and Lance’s suspicions.
The morning had been bright, but it grew so cold and snowy towards the
afternoon that Lord Fairfax remained at home, and George took his ride
alone. He had not gone but a few miles along the rugged mountain road
when a furious snow-storm set in, and he quickly retraced his steps. It
grew suddenly dark, but his horse was sure of foot, and George himself
knew the way home perfectly. He galloped along through the darkness and
the fast-falling snow, which deadened the sound of his horse’s hoofs.
He was surprised, though, to see a number of tracks in the snow as he
passed along. He instantly recognized moccasin tracks, and remembered
Lance’s prediction that the alleged squaw man had some companions
with him. At one point on the road George was convinced that he heard
a low whistle. He stopped his horse and turned in his saddle, but
there was no sound except the crackling of the trees as the wind swept
through their bare branches, and the faint sound of falling water in
the distance. As he sat his horse, a perfect picture of young manhood,
two stealthy eyes were fixed on him, and Black Bear, concealed behind
a huge mountain-ash, noiselessly and rapidly raising a firelock, took
direct aim at him. The horse, which had stood perfectly still, suddenly
started as a shot rang out, and a bullet whizzed past George so close
that he felt the current of air it made.
George was too astounded to move for a moment, but not more astounded
than was Black Bear. Never in his life had the Indian made such a miss.
Half a dozen pairs of beady black eyes had seen it, and the concealed
Indians made a sign to each other in dumb-show signifying that the
white youth had a charmed life.
In another moment the horse, of its own will, as if flying from danger,
started down the rocky road. George let him go on unchecked. He did not
think the bullet came from the piece of a sportsman, and he had not
forgotten Lance’s warning.
When he reached the house he looked about for Lance, whom he found in
the armory, carefully examining the muskets on the rack. Lance listened
to George’s story of the shot very attentively.
“As sure as you live, Mr. Washington, there were some red devils
skulking about, and when they get a firelock in their hands the first
thing they want to do is to kill a white man. The Frenchmen sell them
muskets, and give them firewater, and set them against us. I knew,
the minute I put my eyes on that copper-colored rascal, that he had
murder and arson in his heart; but we’ll be able to keep them off, Mr.
Washington.”
“Why is it that you think they want to capture this house?” asked
George, thoughtfully.
“Because we have a plenty of arms and ammunition here. It is hard to
get either over the mountains, and it would be a small fortune to any
Indian to get a musket and a powder-horn. Then we have dried provisions
in plenty--enough to last us six months if we get nothing from the
outside--and dried provisions is what the Indians fancy. And my lord is
opposed to the French, and no doubt they have set the Indians against
us; and then the Indians like the killing, just for the fun of the
thing. I think I shall sleep with one eye open until I hear that Mr.
Black Bear and his friends are no longer in this neighborhood.”
That night, after supper, George and the earl talked over Lance’s
suspicions. Lord Fairfax thought they were not ill founded, but he
was not a man to excite himself over possibilities. The talk drifted
towards marksmanship, and the earl, who was an excellent shot, brought
out a pair of silver-mounted pistols, small for the time. He had some
bullets made of composition, which flattened out against the rough
cast wall without making an indentation. George drew a target on the
wall, and the earl, standing at the end of the great, low-ceiled hall,
made some wonderful shots. George then took the pistols, and fairly
surpassed him. The earl taught him to snuff a candle at twenty paces,
and other tricks of the kind. So absorbed were they in their pastime
that it was nearly midnight before they parted.
When George went to his room Billy was not to be seen; but when he
was called a woolly head was poked out from under the valance of the
high-post bed, and Billy chirped out:
“I’se gwi’ sleep under de baid ter-night, Marse George. Mr. Lance, he
talk ’bout Injuns, an’ ef dey come, I ain’ gwi’ gin ’em no chance fer
to meek a hole in dis heah nigger’s skin. An’ I got de dog wid me, an’
ef he start ter bark, I kin choke him, so dey ain’ never know dee is a
dog heah.”
George laughed and went to bed, but it was not to sleep. He was
excited, and lay awake for what seemed hours to him. At last,
about three o’clock, he noticed by the moonlight that stole in his
shutterless window that the snow-storm had ceased, and the moon was
shining brilliantly. He got up and looked out. The ground was covered
with snow, and the radiance of the great full moon made the whole
landscape of a dazzling white; the tall peaks, which reared their heads
into the sky, shone like burnished silver, and seemed almost touching
the vast dome of heaven. George gazed for a long time, entranced at the
scene, until the moving of a faint shadow under the trees attracted
his attention. His eyes were keen at all times, and particularly so
that night. He waited until he became convinced that there were Indian
forms flitting about under the trees; then, slipping on his clothes and
carrying his shoes in his hand, he noiselessly opened the door and went
into the hall. As he opened the door he met Lance face to face.
“Have you seen them?” asked George, in a whisper.
“No,” replied Lance; “but I wakened up just now, and something, I know
not what, told me to go over the house and see if everything was all
right.”
George drew him to the outer door, and pointed to one of the little
eye-holes. Lance peered through anxiously.
“I can’t see anything, Mr. Washington; but your eyes are better than
mine, and if you say there are Injuns out there I’ll take your word for
it.”
At that moment George, who was watching at another eye-hole, saw in
a corner near the house a fire smouldering on the ground. A dozen
blanketed figures were crouching around it. Presently they rose, and,
carrying each a long and heavy fence-rail blazing at the end, made a
rush around the back of the house, and, with a thundering crash and a
succession of terrific whoops, pounded the stout oaken door of the
kitchen with the burning rails. It was as if that barbaric yell in one
instant wakened the house and converted it into a fortress. Lights
shone at every window, the negroes appearing as if by magic, and Lord
Fairfax in a dressing-gown, but with a musket in his hand, opening
his door. Lance and George had made a rush for the armory, and each
seized an armful of muskets. The negroes were each given a musket, and
stationed at an eye-hole. Meanwhile the pounding at the kitchen door
continued, and shook the house from end to end. Stout as the oaken
planking was, it seemed impossible that it could long withstand such
assaults.
“It is the first time the red rascals have ever had sense enough to try
and batter that door down. Before this they have tried the front door,”
said Lance, as he and George took their station at the end of the short
covered way that led to the kitchen.
The earl by this time had put on his clothes and had joined Lance and
George.
“I think the door is giving way, sir,” said George, quietly, to Lord
Fairfax, as the sound of breaking timbers mingled with the screech of
the savages.
“I know it, sir,” added Lance, grimly. “We can keep the scoundrels out
of the front door by stationing men in the half-story above; but there
is no way of defending the kitchen door from the inside.”
“How many Indians do you think you saw, George?” asked Lord Fairfax, as
coolly as if he were asking the number of cabbages in a garden.
“At least a dozen, sir.”
“Then if you saw a dozen there were certainly fifty,” was the earl’s
remark. The next moment a louder crash than before showed the door
had given way, and in another instant the narrow passageway swarmed
with Indians. George, mechanically following Lance’s movements, raised
his musket and fired straight at the incoming mob, the first hostile
shot of his life. He felt a strange quiver and tremor, and an acute
sensitiveness to everything that was happening around him. He stood
shoulder to shoulder with Lance, and Lord Fairfax quietly moved in
front of him, which he thought strange.
[Illustration: THE FIGHT IN THE KITCHEN PASSAGE]
“Kneel down,” said Lance, in quite his ordinary voice, kneeling
himself so that the armed negroes behind him could fire over his
head. Lord Fairfax and George did likewise. The perfect coolness and
self-possession of Lance and Lord Fairfax amazed George. He had never
seen old soldiers under fire before. For himself, he felt wildly
excited, and was conscious that his features were working convulsively,
and his heart thumped so loudly against his ribs that he heard it over
the crashing of the musket-balls. It flashed before his mind that any
and every moment might be his last, and he thought of his mother and
Betty; he thought of everything, in fact, except one: that he might run
away. He stood as if nailed to the ground, loading and firing faster
than he ever did in his life, and so accurately that both the earl
and Lance had time to be astonished; but it was merely the habit of
doing things quickly and accurately which kept his hands and brain at
work automatically, while his nerves were being racked as those of all
creatures are when brought face to face with the red death. He saw the
Indians swarming into the narrow passageway, and recognized Black Bear
at their head. They had tomahawks as well as muskets, but they did not
get near enough to use their hatchets. The steady fusillade checked
their advance after the first onset, and they fell back a little,
leaving one gaunt body upon the ground.
All at once George’s senses seemed to return to him, and he felt as
calm and unshaken as either the earl or Lance. He turned to the earl
and said:
“The two swivels are in the cellar directly back of us, and on a level
with us. If we had one we could command this passage.”
“Get it,” replied the earl, laconically. “Take Cæsar with you--it is on
wheels, you know.”
George darted into the cellar, and directly the rumbling of a small gun
upon a rude carriage, with the wheels cut from solid logs of wood, was
heard. Cæsar was dragging the swivel out, while George followed with
the powder and shot. There was now not a single Indian in the narrow
passage except one lying stark before them. Without a moment’s thought,
George darted forward to drag the prostrate form out of the way of the
gun, lest, if the Indian were dead, it might mutilate him, and if only
wounded it might kill him.
As George stooped forward to lift him the Indian, who was bleeding
profusely from a wounded leg, suddenly threw his left arm around
George’s neck, and with the other hand drew a tomahawk from under him.
But George was too quick for him, and, catching his arm, lifted him
bodily, and carried him back into the large passageway where they stood.
It was Black Bear.
“_You_ a squaw man,” was Lance’s comment.
Black Bear said no word, but, raising himself from the ground,
produced a leather thong, which he tied around his bleeding leg, rudely
but not unskilfully checking the flow of blood, after which Lance tied
him securely and put him in a corner.
There was now a brief pause, and the guns were reloaded, and all
were prepared for a second assault, while the swivel commanded the
passageway thoroughly.
“They know what is going on here,” said the earl, “and their next
attack will be by the front entrance.”
“True, sir,” responded Lance.
“Shall we leave Mr. Washington here while we reconnoitre the front of
the house?” asked Lord Fairfax of Lance, who was the actual commandant
of the garrison.
“I think so, sir--with Cæsar and one or two others. But keep your eye
on Black Bear, Mr. Washington,” said Lance, “as well as this passage.”
Just then the noise of an assault on the other part of the house was
heard, and the whole force went over on that side, leaving George, and
Cæsar the cook, and Jake the scullion, to watch the passageway.
Occasionally they could see, by the dim light of a lantern hung to the
wall, a figure passing to and fro in the kitchen, and the shattered
timbers of the door, through which a white light was visible on the
kitchen floor. As this part of the building was of stone, it could not
be fired, so that the savages were powerless unless they could force
their way in by the passage, and that they had tried unsuccessfully to
do.
George remembered to have heard that wounded men suffer fearfully from
thirst. There was a cedar bucket full of water on a shelf in the larger
passage, with a gourd hanging by it. He told Jake to put the bucket
by Black Bear, and although the Indian had sat perfectly still, not
showing, even by a contraction of the brows, the agony he was suffering
from his wound, he gulped the water down eagerly.
The crack of musket-shots on the other side of the house could now be
heard, and it was evident that the fight was renewed, but at the same
time dark faces appeared at the opening into the covered way. George,
loading the swivel himself, pointed it, and, by way of a salutary
warning, sent a four-pound shot screaming through the kitchen. Not an
Indian showed himself after that. They had met resistance on the other
side of the house too, and as the moon went slowly down the horizon
in the pale gray of dawn the watchers from the eye-holes saw them
draw off and take their way rapidly across the white ground into the
mountains. The snow was blood-stained in many places, showing that the
musketry fire had been very effective; but the Indians were so skilful
in concealing their losses, and so stoical in regard to their wounds,
that it was hard to tell exactly how they had fared, except that they
had been driven off.
Just as day was breaking Lord Fairfax came to George.
“You have had your first taste of ball-cartridges,” said he, smiling.
“What do you think of it?”
George hesitated and remained silent for a moment.
“At first,” he said, “I hardly knew what I was doing. Afterwards, it
seemed to me, I had never thought so quickly in my life.”
“Witness the dragging out of the swivel,” continued Lord Fairfax; “and
let me tell you this--the difference between an ordinary general and a
great general is that the ordinary man cannot think in a hurry and in
the midst of terrible emergencies, but the great man thinks the better
for the very things that shake and disconcert an every-day man. You may
some day prove a great general, George.”
The boy blushed, but said nothing. Lance had then come up. “Shall I
have the carpenters go to work directly, sir, replacing that door? By
night we can have as strong a one made and hung as the one they burst
in,” he said.
“Certainly,” replied Lord Fairfax. “Have them go all over the house and
repair the damages. But first let them have breakfast, for fighting
always makes men hungry. And look after that wounded man over yonder.”
Lance, who had some experience in gunshot wounds, went over and
examined Black Bear’s injured leg carefully. He then ordered water
brought, with some simple dressing, and washed and dressed the wound.
Black Bear, through it all, maintained his stolid silence. When,
however, Lance had him picked up by two stalwart negroes and carried
into their quarters, where a fire was burning, the Indian could not
banish a faint expression of surprise from his countenance. He had
heard that the white men treated prisoners well, but he had no correct
idea of what good treatment to prisoners meant. He was given a good
breakfast, at which he was utterly astounded, but which he ate with a
true Indian appetite. He gave no sign of feeling, however, except a
grunt of approval.
When George was relieved from his post he went to his room. As soon as
he entered he saw Billy’s ashy face, with his eyes nearly popping out
of his head, emerging from under the bed, while Rattler gave a yelp of
delight.
“Lord a’mighty, Marse George, I never tho’t ter see you ag’in!”
exclaimed Billy, fervently. “All de time dem balls was poppin’ me an’
Rattler was thinkin’ ’bout you, an’ when I hear one big gun a-gwine off
I jest holler out loud, ‘Marse George done daid--I know he done daid!’”
“I might have been dead a good many times for any help I had from you,
you lazy scamp,” responded George, severely, at which Billy burst into
tears, and wailed until “Marse George” condescended to be mollified.