The effort it cost John Jerome to conceal his astonishment and his
chagrin as he encountered the savages hurrying toward the scene of the
explosion, from which he was hastening away, would be hard to describe.
But he controlled himself sufficiently to say:
"Hello, here, brothers! Don't go up there or you may get blown sky high!
My powder pouch fell into the' fire, and it tore things up to beat the
Dutch."
With this greeting and hastily given explanation of his being found
running away, the boy was starting on, thinking to be gone before the
Indians had recovered from their own surprise; but in this he was
disappointed. One fellow seized his hand, as if merely to shake it in
friendly salutation, but continued to hold it and would not let him take
it away. Quickly the other savages gathered near and, though but a few
seconds had passed, John saw that he was a prisoner and that his escape
was intentionally cut completely off.
The situation seemed to give the Indians vastly more pleasure than it
gave Jerome. Their amusement and delight made itself manifest in curious
ways. One, with a great show of interest, took the boy's rifle from him
and pretended to examine it as though it were some very rare specimen.
Another did likewise with his pistols, while a third bore off his powder
horn. Still others playfully rapped their victim's shins and head with
their gun barrels, driving him at last to such desperation that when one
particularly playful fellow pricked him suddenly from behind with a
knife-point, he wheeled and with clenched fist sent the redskin
sprawling among the leaves.
The savage retaliated with the butt of his rifle, but now the party
started on, two of them leading John between them, and for the time the
annoyances ceased. The Indians went at once to the spot where the
explosion had occurred, plainly marked in the gathering gloom by the
remnants of the campfire. They inspected the locality with considerable
interest. There was little to see, however, and in a short time they
were under way again. Their course, John was sorry to see, was in the
direction of the Delaware village on the lake.
Not until darkness made it quite impossible to go further did the
savages pause. They chose as a camping place a slight depression in the
ground, among some maples. The wind had gathered a deep drift of autumn
leaves here, and as the captive lay down between two of the captors, he
found his bed not otherwise uncomfortable. A long piece of untanned
buckskin had been tied about his waist, however, and as its loose ends
were tied to the waists of the Indians beside him, he realized that
escape would be all but impossible.
John had had abundant opportunity to study the Indians while on the
march, but the fading light had made it impossible to see them
distinctly. There were seven in the party, all young, active fellows,
and all strangers. They were Shawnees, John decided. Where they had
been, and whither they were going he could not guess. He did know that
it would be pleasanter lying between the two redskins who guarded him,
if they would but give him more room, and he knew that the paint
bedecking the band was no sign of good. Not wholly hopeless, however, he
fell asleep at last, wondering what Ree was doing.
With daylight's coming the Indians kindled a fire and broiled some
venison. They allowed their prisoner to eat all he wished, nor for the
present was he tortured further with such antics as had been indulged in
the night before. No haste was made to break camp and be on the move
again by the band, but to the contrary, they were very deliberate in all
they did. During the morning they held a council and, though they spoke
in guarded tones, John knew that he was the subject of their talk.
The captive was glad to believe that none of the Indians knew him. They
would be for taking him directly to the Delaware town, to place him at,
the mercy of Lone-Elk, if they were aware of the charge against him, he
was certain. If the savages asked him anything, he would in self-defense
be bound to deceive them. Thinking of this made John think of deceiving
the band still further. He would cause the savages to believe that he
was from Detroit, a British spy sent to ascertain the extent of Wayne's
forces, and, of course, friendly to the Indians.
The boy's opportunity to put his plan into practice came rather sooner
than he expected. Within a few minutes one of the redskins who had their
heads together in conference, came to him and asked in very fair English
who he was and what he was doing in the woods so far from the
settlements.
"It's about time you were finding out, I think," John answered, with a
show of injured innocence. "At Detroit we are taught to believe that the
English and the Indians are brothers. We both hate the Americans, who
are robbing all the tribes of the Northwest just as they robbed the
Eastern tribes long ago, yet when my chief sends me to find out what
moves the Americans are making to march into the forests of the Indians,
lo! a party of my red brothers seize me and treat me as a prisoner!"
The savage to whom John addressed his words of well-feigned righteous
wrath looked puzzled, then a grin spread itself slowly over his lips. He
summoned the other Indians and told them, in substance, what the captive
said. Then in a tongue John did not understand he added a few words
which made them all smile.
Very much afraid that in some way he had gotten himself into a
predicament, with his hastily concocted story, the lad felt at heart
that he might have fared as well if he had told the truth; but having
made a start upon a different road he was unwilling to turn back.
Even when one of the redskins began to question him as to when he had
left Detroit, and with whom and by what route he had traveled, he
maintained his air of offended friendship, and answered as best he
could. Asked the name of the person in command at Detroit at the time he
left, he promptly answered, "Col. John Jenkins, and you ought to know
it, if you know anything about Detroit at all."
John used the first name which came to him in replying to this question,
and he answered many others just as rashly. From appearing puzzled the
savages now seemed mightily amused. The prisoner noted the fact with
chagrin, but stuck resolutely to his original story. The climax came,
however, when he was asked if there had been much snow at Detroit when
he left.
"Why, no; not much to speak of," he promptly answered.
The Indians looked at one another and grinned. Then one of them turned
to him.
"Paleface heap big liar," he said.
"Why? Why am I? Because I said that there wasn't much snow? Well there
wasn't! Of course there was lots of snow, but it wasn't any seven or
eight feet deep!"
"One heap big fool liar," the redskin reiterated.
The Indians seemed to have satisfied themselves completely as to the
truthfulness of the prisoner. They gave his words no further attention,
and how bitterly crestfallen, and in his heart ashamed and disgraced, he
felt, no one knew so well as he, as they turned away to resume their
conference.
John realized that he had probably made bad matters worse. Seeing how
anxious he was to deceive them, the redskins would be more than
ordinarily distrustful of him and perhaps conclude that he was one who,
for some reason, was particularly hostile to them. They asked him no
more questions now, but appeared to guard him even more closely than
before.
John thought so, at least, for his mind was turning with increased
attentiveness to the possibility of escape. Not the slightest prospect
that a favorable opportunity would come to him did he see, however, and
when the Indians resumed their journey a little later, he was put
between the two most villainous looking fellows in the band.
The course the savages took, in starting off this time, was slightly
different from that pursued the night before. As nearly as John could
reckon it would, if continued, land them, at the end of two or three
days, at the "Crossing Place of the Muskingum," the point at which the
Great Trail from Pittsburg to Detroit crossed the Muskingum river. Where
this particular party of savages did eventually find themselves, though,
John Jerome never knew, nor did he ever learn definitely that they had
come from Detroit, as he suspected.
The reason for this presented itself the second day after the
cross-questioning of the prisoner and the wretched failure of his effort
to deceive. The Indians encamped at noon, after a leisurely journey
through a fine forest country, beside a little spring bubbling from
under the very trunk of a mammoth oak. They lingered here several hours
and while they waited a party of five bucks from Captain Pipe's town
chanced suddenly upon them.
John recognized the fellows immediately. He knew, too, that they
recognized him, though they did not at once pay any attention to him. It
was not until after quite extensive greetings between them and the seven
warriors in the Shawnee party, in fact, that they bestowed even a look
upon the prisoner. Then they turned toward him with grins of malicious
pleasure.
Having learned that their prisoner was none other than the "witch," of
whom they had heard as having been the cause of the death of that well
known warrior, Big Buffalo, the Shawnees plainly regarded him now as a
dangerous individual. A little later he was the subject of a long
conversation between the young Delawares and his captors and the
wretched boy quickly discovered that his worst fears were realized. For
the five from Pipe's town were anxious to have him taken to their
village, and the Shawnees appeared not to object.
At some length the Delawares told of the certain evidence Lone-Elk had
discovered--the hatchet found in the corn--the very hatchet with which
Big Buffalo was killed, and of the long and fruitless search that had
been made for the "witch." They urged the Shawnees to come and see the
Paleface burned, and the killing of one of the greatest warriors of the
Delawares avenged.
In turn the band into whose merciless hands poor John had fallen told of
the exciting times along the border, of burning and killing both by
night and by day. They told, too, of much powder and much lead which the
Indians could obtain at Detroit, and two of them exhibited brand new
rifles. While they were anxious to see the "witch" destroyed, they said,
they did not wish to go to Pipe's town as they were on their way to a
fruitful source of plunder.
As John heard and understood a considerable part of the conversation, a
determination to escape or die in the attempt rapidly grew within him.
And when he heard an agreement reached that he should be turned over to
the Delawares, while the Shawnees continued on their way, he set his
mind intently upon the problem of getting away, or making an effort at
least, let the cost be what it might.
The Shawnees turned John over to the Delawares, after binding him
securely, with many a kick and cuff. They particularly denounced him as
a "forked-tongued witch," and worked themselves into such passions of
hatred that the prisoner was in imminent danger of being killed then and
there.
With his hands tied behind him, and led and dragged by a long rope of
rawhide about his neck, the captive was taken in charge by the
Delawares, and the two Indian bands set off in different directions. The
mission of the Shawnees, as has been stated, John never learned; but he
well knew the destination of the five young Delawares, and a lump of
pain and bitterness grew big in his throat as he thought of the
cowardice and wretched injustice of it all.