At a late hour next day Kaskaskia presented a strange sight. Not a
single house was open, every window and door was closely fastened, the
very beasts remained bolted in their stables, and a grim-looking patrol
of mounted borderers rode up and down the echoing streets, with cocked
rifles.
A town of fifteen hundred inhabitants was trembling with abject terror
before a force of some two hundred resolute men, who had captured it
without shedding a drop of blood, by the pure moral influence of fear.
The main body of the invaders lay at the edge of the town, by their
bivouac fires, which burned brightly at the expense of all the
neighboring fences. There was bluff Simon Kenton, who had left his
old friend Boone in Kentucky, to share the perils and glories of the
Kaskaskia expedition, and who was lolling on his back, laughing over
the night’s adventures to a group of borderers.
“Golly, Bill,” said he, to Harrod, who was devouring a huge chunk of
corn-bread with great relish, “how them French Britishers do skeer, to
_be_ sure! I b’lieve ef we’d axed them fur all thar money last night,
instead of their shootin’-irons, they’d ’a’ guv it jest as easy.”
“Don’t you b’lieve it, Sime,” said Harrod, dryly. “It takes a powerful
skeer to git a feller’s money. But, Gosh, boys, that thar little cuss
of a adjutant of ours, he did fly round amazin’ last night. Jest like a
bug on a hot griddle, he war. And ef it hadn’t b’en fur him, Lord knows
ef we’d ’a’ tuk the fort at all.”
“Who is that adjutant?” inquired Major Bowman, who was sitting close by
them, in republican simplicity, guiltless of military etiquette when
off duty. “I never saw him in Kentucky; but he seems to be a great
favorite with Clark.”
“He’s some relation of Governor Henry’s,” said Captain Helm, a stout,
jolly, red-faced officer from Virginia. “Clark told me he brought a
letter from Henry to him, which asked him, as a personal favor, to make
Frank his adjutant. The colonel hesitated, on account of the lad’s
being so young, but I must say, gentlemen, I don’t ever remember seeing
a smarter officer of his inches.”
“Thar’s the little cuss now,” cried Harrod, laughing, as the little
officer rode out of a by street and came up to the bivouac. “I tell
_you_, gentlemen, he are gritty, if he are small. Don’t he sit his
hoss pritty? Gosh, if he war only a gal, wouldn’t he make a reg’lar
ringtailed snorter! I c’u’d hug him myself.”
“He are pretty ’nuff fur a gal, that’s as true as Gospel, boys,” said
Kenton, meditatively. “But, no gal c’u’d dash around the way he does;
and he’s got the grit of a dozen wildcats.”
Here little Frank galloped up, on a very handsome mustang, which he
rode in among the recumbent borderers with delicious coolness, causing
them to tumble out of the way in a terrible hurry.
Had any one else in the command done such a thing, he would have been
plucked off his animal and soundly beaten in a twinkling; but the
little adjutant and his pony were general favorites, and seemed able
to go anywhere, without offense.
“Well, Bowman,” cried the youngster, gayly, “your men are not good for
much to search for arms, after all. Here’s a building, not fifty feet
from your bivouac, with twelve Indians in it, every man fully armed and
in his war-paint.”
“Oh, nonsense, Frank,” said the major, disbelieving him; “how could
that be, and we not know it?”
“Ah, major, you’re not supposed to know every thing,” said the boy,
saucily. “I heard all about it last night, but I didn’t want our
stupid-heads to know it; for you couldn’t disarm those fellows in a
hurry.”
“Are you serious, Frank?”
“Never more so.”
The adjutant pointed to a large building near the government house,
the identical one in which Ruby Roland and her red escort had been
quartered the night before. The doors and windows were shut, and there
was no appearance that the place was tenanted.
“There they are,” said the boy; “and with them a great Indian princess,
who came to the Governor with a message from Tobacco, head chief and
Grand Door of the Wabash. I heard all about it last night, when I was
spying about the town.”
“How did you get in, adjutant?” asked Helm, curiously. “You’re not a
Frenchman, are you?”
“I’m a little of every thing,” said the boy, laughing. “At all events,
I can talk French well enough to fool a _habitan_. And I can fool an
Indian, too. What will you bet I don’t send the whole lot, princess and
all, out of that building, before your eyes, in twenty minutes?”
“A hundred dollars, even, you don’t,” said Helm, eagerly. He was a
skilled Indian-trader and interpreter, himself, and thought he knew all
about Indians.
“Done!” said Frank, promptly.
He rode up the steps of the house he had indicated, and knocked loudly
at the door with the butt of a pistol.
Immediately it was flung open, and a stately Indian chief, in scarlet
blanket, was revealed to the doubting gaze of the officers. As coolly
as if doing a commonplace thing, the little adjutant rode straight
into the house, the door clanged to, and all was again still and silent.
“Wal,” exclaimed Kenton, rubbing his eyes, “that ’ar little cuss do
beat the deuce, I sw’ar. How did he know them Injuns was thar?”
“Why, of course, some of the townspeople told him,” said Helm, in a
snappish tone. “Perhaps the Governor let it out to Clark. I suppose
these fellows are there on some embassy. I wonder where the colonel is?”
“Quartered at Rocheblave’s,” said Bowman. “What do you want?”
“I want to know what we ought to do about these savages,” said Helm.
“They may murder that boy, in there, and it’s not safe to leave them
the way they’re left now.”
“Oh, nonsense, Helm; that youngster’s able to take care of himself.
You’re bound to wait your twenty minutes, you know, on account of your
bet.”
“Well, if he doesn’t come out then, I’m going in after him,” said Helm,
firmly. “I fear the lad’s run into a trap.”
“All right, when the time’s up,” said Bowman; “but I don’t believe that
boy’s born to be murdered.”
They continued gazing at the mysterious building in deep doubt for
some time, till, just as Helm’s patience was exhausted, the big door
flew open once more, and forth rode, in all the splendor of an Indian
princess, Ruby Roland, bewildering in her beauty, and, wheeling her
horse sharp round to the right, galloped off up the street, followed
by her retinue of chiefs, among whom the little adjutant could be
seen, with a tall chief on each side of him, as the cavalcade dashed
out of the hall and down the steps, all mounted as they were, like a
whirlwind. Up the street they went, toward the government house, ere
Helm had fully recovered from his amazement.
Then the party could be seen dismounting and entering the government
house, when Bowman said:
“By Jove, gentlemen, one thing’s certain. Frank’s found an angel for
us. That girl is a perfect Algonquin Venus.”
And plain Captain Bill Harrod said:
“Gosh, Bowman, don’t be flingin’ dictionaries at us. What in Old
Scratch is a Algonquin Venus?”
Says Simon Kenton:
“It’s Latin for a nice little gal, sweet as maple-syrup. And by Gosh,
boys, I’d give a hull farm to hug that gal.”
To which Bill elegantly replied:
“She wouldn’t look at sich a ornary cuss as you. Go ’way, Sime. She
don’t know you.”
Simon jumped up excitedly.
“And by Gosh, I’ll bet my rifle ag’in’ your’n that I know her, and
that she knows me. That gal’s Ruby Roland, darter of old Tobacco; and
you may jist bet she knows me and Cunnel Boone like a book, you ornary
squirrel-picker. So thar.”