LITTLE sleep was there for any one in the Shawnee camp that night.
Hour after hour the witchdrums boomed and the leaping ghost fires
flamed to the far-off blinking stars. Hour after hour the thunderous
chanting of the braves shivered through the forest, waking the resting
birds and scaring the four-footed prowlers of the night. Hour after
hour the chiefs debated peace and war, now listening to the words of
the redcoat emissary of the British king, now hearkening to Tecumseh,
now turning ear to Catahecasa (Black Hoof) or to Wathethewela (Bright
Horn), as they spoke for peace, declaring that the British would fight
for a time and then go away, but that the Long Knives from the south
would stay forever. Hour after hour the wheeling stars, a silver dust
behind the chariot of the moon, rose, passed, and sank. Hour after hour
the mounting mists of the Black Swamp wavered and fell back, driven
away by the heat of the fires and the hot breaths of the warriors.
Dawn was breaking in the east as Tecumseh and his devoted few struck
their hatchets into the war post and left the council to prepare for
their northward venture, leaving the bulk of the Shawnees loyal to the
Seventeen Fires.
Long before this, Alagwa had sought Wabetha, wife of Tecumseh, and had
told her the will of the great chief. In the privacy of the lodge she
had dropped her Indian garments from her one by one, till she stood
revealed in the firelight, a slender shape amazingly fair compared
to the red tints of the Indians. Wabetha, softly marvelling over the
ever-new wonder of her white beauty, had hacked at the two heavy
plaits of burnished hair till they fell like two great snakes to the
trampled clay of the floor, leaving the girl bare indeed. Then, one by
one, she had clothed her in the unfamiliar garments of the whites, the
strong calico shirt, the deerskin knee breeches, the leggings wrapped
about each slender limb and bound at the top and at the bottom with
pliant thongs, the high moccasins padded as a protection against the
snakes that infested the whole region. When the squaw placed on her
head the inevitable coonskin cap of the white hunter, it would have
taken a sharp eye to suspect the sex of this Indian-trained daughter
of the Huguenots. Straight as a fir and supple as a willow, retaining
longer than most of her sex the slender lines of childhood, she hid all
feminine curves beneath the loose garb of the woodsman.
When, with the first peep of dawn Wilwiloway came slipping through the
rolling mists to scratch at the cabin door, she was ready, her good-bys
said. Without a word she fell in at his heels and together they took
the long trail south, the trail whose only end, so far as known to her,
would be beneath alien stars at the borders of a sea unknown.
Wilwiloway moved cautiously. No sign of danger was visible, but he was
too well versed in the war trail not to know that the unseen danger is
ever the deadliest. Alagwa followed, also cautiously, not because she
feared, for she did not, but because she had been trained to obey the
will of the leaders. Close at Wilwiloway’s heels she trod, putting her
feet carefully into his footprints. Only once she paused, at the edge
of the clearing, and looked backward at the vast wavering draperies of
mist that hid the only home she could remember. Her eyes were dim and
her cheeks wet, not merely from the clinging fingers of the fog, as she
strove to penetrate the blanket of mist that hung before her. For a
moment she gazed, then, with a choking sob, she hurried on.
Hour after hour the two sped southward. Neither spoke. Wilwiloway, at
his great leader’s command, was giving up the hope of his life, and was
giving it up silently and stolidly, with Indian stoicism. Alagwa was
giving up all she had known, all her friends, all the familiar scenes
of her childhood.
And yet, after the first pang, her thoughts went forward, not backward,
ranging into the strange new world into which she was hurrying. Alagwa
was skilled in all forms of woodcraft; she could make fire where a
white man would freeze; catch game where he would starve; sleep warm
and snug where he would shiver and rack with wet and fever and ague.
She knew the forest trails, knew the rocks on which the rattlesnake
sunned and the tufts of grass beneath which the copperhead lurked,
knew the verdure that hid the quagmire, the firm-appearing ice that
splintered at a touch, the tottering tree that dealt ruin at a breath.
But of the white man’s ways she knew almost nothing. Before her
father died he had taught her to speak French, but in the years that
had passed since then she had nearly forgotten it. From one source
or another, from Colonel Johnson and his family, from two or three
prisoners, she had learned English--enough to understand if not enough
to speak fluently. But other than this she knew nothing--except that
there was a world of things to be known.
Much she wondered concerning the strange new life into which she was
hurrying. Her woman’s heart quaked at the dangers she must face, but
her woman’s soul, burning high with zeal to serve her people, bore her
on. If for a moment the thought that she was to play a treacherous
part, to worm her way into the Americans’ confidence in order to betray
them, came to vex her she drove it back. For years the Long Knives had
cheated her people, had lied to them, had despoiled them, had slain
them. Treaty after treaty they had made, determining boundaries which
they swore not to cross; and then, the moment they grew strong enough
to take another forward step, they had broken their pledges and had
surged forward, driving her people back. Treachery for treachery.
Against such shameless foes all things were fair. If she could requite
them some small proportion of the woe they had dealt out to her and
hers she would glory in the deed. Afterwards, if they detected her they
might slay her as they pleased--burn her at the stake if they would.
She would show them how a Shawnee could die.
Concerning the man in the red coat she thought very little. She might
have to think of him again at some time in the future, but for the
moment he was one of the things she was leaving behind. He was an
Englishman and therefore her ally, but he was her father’s foe and
therefore hers. After she had done her duty, after these shameless
Americans had been driven back, after the hatchet had been buried in
victory for her tribe, she would consider what he had offered. For the
moment she merely wondered idly whether he had come to America really
desirous of putting her in her place across the water or whether he
had come in order to kill her and take her estates. Either alternative
seemed entirely possible to Alagwa’s Indian-trained mind. He was of her
clan and therefore bound to aid her loyally. But he was her father’s
foe and therefore was free to kill her and take her property. She would
be slow to trust him. Fortunately she did not have to trust him now. It
never once crossed the girl’s mind that Captain Count Brito might wish
to wed her rather than kill her or that by so doing he could easily get
possession of her property. Among the Indians the lover gave presents
to the father of his bride; he did not receive them with her.
But, concerning the young chief from the south of whom Tecumseh had
spoken, she did think long and dubiously. Would she meet him among the
whites to whom she was going and would she know him if she did meet
him? Had he come to Ohio at all, or had his heart failed him as he
faced the long trail to the north? Had he, like all other Americans,
spoken with a forked tongue when he promised to come? Had he scorned
his Indian-bred cousin, as she knew his people scorned the Indians?
And what was he like? Tecumseh had said that he was young, big, strong,
and fair-haired. Methoataske, mother of Tecumseh, had spoken--Alagwa
remembered it dimly--of a youth whom she had adopted into the Panther
clan far away to the south at the edge of the Big Sea Water--a youth
with blue eyes and yellow hair. Alagwa formed a picture in her mind.
Then she caught herself up angrily. After all, what did it matter.
She was not going to meet this youth. Rather she would avoid him. His
people were at war with hers. He was her enemy. She would think of him
no more.
Abruptly Wilwiloway halted, stiffening like a hunting dog. Behind him
Alagwa stopped in her tracks, poising as motionless as some wild thing
of the forest, listening to a rattling and clinking that came from the
narrow, vistaless road that stretched before her.
In a moment Wilwiloway turned his head. “White men come in wagon,” he
said. “Squaw stop here. Wilwiloway go see.” He slipped into the bushes
and was gone.
Alagwa, with the obedience ingrained into her since childhood, waited
where she stood, peering through the green foliage that laced across
her eyes.
Soon a wagon drawn by two mules clattered into the field of her vision.
On the box sat a white man, driving, with a rifle across his knees.
Beside the wagon walked another white man, with a rifle in the hollow
of his arm. A little behind rode two other men; one, marvel of marvels,
was neither red nor white, but black; the other--Alagwa caught her
breath--was young and big and fair-haired.
Abruptly she saw Wilwiloway step into the road and throw up his hand.
“Peace,” he called. The young man on horseback behind threw up his
right palm in answer. “Peace,” he answered, in the Shawnee tongue,
smilingly.
But as he spoke Alagwa saw the white man on the box throw up his rifle
with a meaning not to be mistaken. His action swept away her Indian
training in a breath and she sprang forward with a shriek of warning.
Too late! The rifle spoke and Wilwiloway reeled backward, clutching at
the air. Against a tree trunk he fell and held himself up, a dark stain
widening swiftly upon the white of his shirt.
Alagwa saw red. Wilwiloway was her friend; all her life she had known
him; he had loved her; he was being foully murdered. With a scream she
snatched her hunting knife from her belt and dashed to his aid.
The man in the road saw her coming and fired. Alagwa knew that he had
fired at her, but she did not mind. What she did mind was that she had
stumbled on something, stumbled so violently that the shock sent her
staggering backward. As she reeled, she saw the young man on the horse
spurring forward.
Wilwiloway was still clinging to the tree. He saw the girl totter and
the sight seemed to give him strength. With a yell of fury he leaped
upon the man in the road, tore from his hands the yet smoking rifle,
and struck with it once--a mighty blow that sent the man crashing to
the ground, a crimson furrow across his shattered skull.
Wilwiloway did not pause. Over the dead form of his enemy he sprang,
leaping upward at the man on the box, to meet a crashing blow that
hurled him backward and downward into the dust of the road.
With a whoop the man on the box sprang to the ground, knife in hand. An
instant later he was up, waving a bloody trophy. He saw the girl still
clutching at the air and rushed toward her.
Alagwa saw it all. Wilwiloway was dead, and she was at the mercy of her
enemies. She could not even move; her legs had grown strangely heavy.
But her spirit rose indomitably. Forgotten was her white ancestry; once
more she was an Indian, trained in Indian ideals. Steadily she drew
herself up, folded her arms across her breast, and stared unflinchingly
at the coming death. She would show them how a Shawnee could die.
Deliberately she began to sing the Shawnee death chant:
Behold, the water covers now our feet:
Rivers must we cross; deep waters must we pass.
Oh Kawas, hear: To thee we call. Oh come and aid us.
Help us through the stream to pass and forward go.
Here is the place we seek; here is our journey’s end.
Here have we come; here is our journey’s end.
Her sight was failing, but she sang on. Dimly she saw the white man
with the hunting knife and behind him the young white chief on his
horse coming like a thunderbolt. She did not heed them. Round her cool
green waves were rising; the forest was stretching out its arms to
pillow her.
Then came a shock. The young white chief had driven his horse against
the man on the ground, hurling him backward. “Stop! you d--d butcher,”
he yelled. “Don’t you see it’s a white boy!” He leaped from his horse
and caught the girl as she fell.
The touch roused Alagwa to sudden blind terror and she began to
struggle furiously, striking with soft, harmless hands. Then abruptly
a voice sounded in her ear--a voice gentle yet strong, whimsical yet
comforting.
“It’s all right, youngster,” it said. “It’s all right. Nobody’s going
to hurt you. We’re white men--friends! friends! There now, boy, be
still!”
The girl’s eyes lifted to the face that hung above her. Feverishly
they roved over the broad brow, the fair curling hair, the whimsical
blue eyes, the smiling yet pitiful mouth. As she read their message
terror slipped from her, her strained limbs relaxed, a sense of peace
and safety came over her, and she drifted away on a sea of blessed
unconsciousness.
[Illustration: ALAGWA, BEING WOUNDED, IS RESCUED BY JACK TELFAIR]