“Davy, take care of my Tom,” cried Polly Ann.
I can see her now, standing among the women by the great hewn gateposts,
with little Tom in her arms, holding him out to us as we filed by. And
the vision of his little, round face haunted Tom and me for many weary
miles of our tramp through the wilderness. I have often thought since
that that march of the volunteer company to join Clark at the Falls of
the Ohio was a superb example of confidence in one man, and scarce to be
equalled in history.
In less than a week we of Captain Harrod’s little company stood on a
forest-clad bank, gazing spellbound at the troubled waters of a mighty
river. That river was the Ohio, and it divided us from the strange north
country whence the savages came. From below, the angry voice of
the Great Falls cried out to us unceasingly. Smoke rose through the
tree-tops of the island opposite, and through the new gaps of its forest
cabins could be seen. And presently, at a signal from us, a big flatboat
left its shore, swung out and circled on the polished current,
and grounded at length in the mud below us. A dozen tall boatmen,
buckskin-clad, dropped the big oars and leaped out on the bank with a
yell of greeting. At the head of them was a man of huge frame, and long,
light hair falling down over the collar of his hunting shirt. He wrung
Captain Harrod’s hand.
“That there’s Simon Kenton, Davy,” said Cowan, as we stood watching
them.
I ran forward for a better look at the backwoods Hercules, the tales
of whose prowess had helped to while away many a winter’s night in
Harrodstown Station. Big-featured and stern, yet he had the kindly eye
of the most indomitable of frontier fighters, and I doubted not
the truth of what was said of him--that he could kill any redskin
hand-to-hand.
“Clark’s thar,” he was saying to Captain Harrod. “God knows what his
pluck is. He ain’t said a word.”
“He doesn’t say whar he’s going?” said Harrod.
“Not a notion,” answered Kenton. “He’s the greatest man to keep his
mouth shut I ever saw. He kept at the governor of Virginny till he gave
him twelve hundred pounds in Continentals and power to raise troops.
Then Clark fetched a circle for Fort Pitt, raised some troops thar and
in Virginny and some about Red Stone, and come down the Ohio here with
‘em in a lot of flatboats. Now that ye’ve got here the Kentucky boys is
all in. I come over with Montgomery, and Dillard’s here from the Holston
country with a company.”
“Well,” said Captain Harrod, “I reckon we’ll report.”
I went among the first boat-load, and as the men strained against the
current, Kenton explained that Colonel Clark had brought a number of
emigrants down the river with him; that he purposed to leave them
on this island with a little force, that they might raise corn and
provisions during the summer; and that he had called the place Corn
Island.
“Sure, there’s the Colonel himself,” cried Terence McCann, who was
in the bow, and indeed I could pick out the familiar figure among
the hundred frontiersmen that gathered among the stumps at the
landing-place. As our keel scraped they gave a shout that rattled in the
forest behind them, and Clark came down to the waterside.
“I knew that Harrodstown wouldn’t fail me,” he said, and called every
man by name as we waded ashore. When I came splashing along after Tom he
pulled me from the water with his two hands.
“Colonel,” said Terence McCann, “we’ve brought ye a dhrummer b’y.”
“We’d have no luck at all without him,” said Cowan, and the men laughed.
“Can you walk an hundred miles without food, Davy?” asked Colonel Clark,
eying me gravely.
“Faith he’s lean as a wolf, and no stomach to hinder him,” said Terence,
seeing me look troubled. “I’ll not be missing the bit of food the likes
of him would eat.”
“And as for the heft of him,” added Cowan, “Mac and I’ll not feel it.”
Colonel Clark laughed. “Well, boys,” he said, “if you must have him, you
must. His Excellency gave me no instructions about a drummer, but we’ll
take you, Davy.”
In those days he was a man that wasted no time, was Colonel Clark, and
within the hour our little detachment had joined the others, felling
trees and shaping the log-ends for the cabins. That night, as Tom
and Cowan and McCann and James Ray lay around their fire, taking
a well-earned rest, a man broke excitedly into the light with a
kettle-shaped object balanced on his head, which he set down in front of
us. The man proved to be Swein Poulsson, and the object a big drum,
and he straightway began to beat upon it a tattoo with improvised
drumsticks.
“A Red Stone man,” he cried, “a Red Stone man, he have it in the
flatboat. It is for Tavy.”
“The saints be good to us,” said Terence, “if it isn’t the King’s own
drum he has.” And sure enough, on the head of it gleamed the royal arms
of England, and on the other side, as we turned it over, the device of a
regiment. They flung the sling about my neck, and the next day, when the
little army drew up for parade among the stumps, there I was at the end
of the line, and prouder than any man in the ranks. And Colonel Clark
coming to my end of the line paused and smiled and patted me kindly on
the cheek.
“Have you put this man on the roll, Harrod?” says he.
“No, Colonel,” answers Captain Harrod, amid the laughter of the men at
my end.
“What!” says the Colonel, “what an oversight! From this day he is
drummer boy and orderly to the Commander-in-chief. Beat the retreat, my
man.”
I did my best, and as the men broke ranks they crowded around me,
laughing and joking, and Cowan picked me up, drum and all, and carried
me off, I rapping furiously the while.
And so I became a kind of handy boy for the whole regiment from the
Colonel down, for I was willing and glad to work. I cooked the Colonel’s
meals, roasting the turkey breasts and saddles of venison that the
hunters brought in from the mainland, and even made him journey-cake, a
trick which Polly Ann had taught me. And when I went about the island,
if a man were loafing, he would seize his axe and cry, “Here’s Davy,
he’ll tell the Colonel on me.” Thanks to the jokes of Terence McCann,
I gained an owl-like reputation for wisdom amongst these superstitious
backwoodsmen, and they came verily to believe that upon my existence
depended the success of the campaign. But day after day passed, and no
sign from Colonel Clark of his intentions.
“There’s a good lad,” said Terence. “He’ll be telling us where we’re
going.”
I was asked the same question by a score or more, but Colonel Clark
kept his own counsel. He himself was everywhere during the days that
followed, superintending the work on the blockhouse we were building,
and eying the men. Rumor had it that he was sorting out the sheep from
the goats, silently choosing those who were to remain on the island and
those who were to take part in the campaign.
At length the blockhouse stood finished amid the yellow stumps of the
great trees, the trunks of which were in its walls. And suddenly the
order went forth for the men to draw up in front of it by companies,
with the families of the emigrants behind them. It was a picture to fix
itself in a boy’s mind, and one that I have never forgotten. The line of
backwoodsmen, as fine a lot of men as I ever wish to see, bronzed by the
June sun, strong and tireless as the wild animals of the forest, stood
expectant with rifles grounded. And beside the tallest, at the end of
the line, was a diminutive figure with a drum hung in front of it. The
early summer wind rustled in the forest, and the never ending song
of the Great Falls sounded from afar. Apart, square-shouldered and
indomitable, stood a young man of twenty-six.
“My friends and neighbors,” he said in a firm voice, “there is scarce
a man standing among you to-day who has not suffered at the hands of
savages. Some of you have seen wives and children killed before your
eyes--or dragged into captivity. None of you can to-day call the home
for which he has risked so much his own. And who, I ask you, is to blame
for this hideous war? Whose gold is it that buys guns and powder and
lead to send the Shawnee and the Iroquois and Algonquin on the warpath?”
He paused, and a hoarse murmur of anger ran along the ranks.
“Whose gold but George’s, by the grace of God King of Great Britain and
Ireland? And what minions distribute it? Abbott at Kaskaskia, for one,
and Hamilton at Detroit, the Hair Buyer, for another!”
When he spoke Hamilton’s name his voice was nearly drowned by
imprecations.
“Silence!” cried Clark, sternly, and they were silent. “My friends,
the best way for a man to defend himself is to maim his enemy. One year
since, when you did me the honor to choose me Commander-in-chief of your
militia in Kentucky, I sent two scouts to Kaskaskia. A dozen years
ago the French owned that place, and St. Vincent, and Detroit, and the
people there are still French. My men brought back word that the French
feared the Long Knives, as the Indians call us. On the first of October
I went to Virginia, and some of you thought again that I had deserted
you. I went to Williamsburg and wrestled with Governor Patrick Henry and
his council, with Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Mason and Mr. Wythe. Virginia
had no troops to send us, and her men were fighting barefoot with
Washington against the armies of the British king. But the governor gave
me twelve hundred pounds in paper, and with it I have raised the
little force that we have here. And with it we will carry the war into
Hamilton’s country. On the swift waters of this great river which
flows past us have come tidings to-day, and God Himself has sent them.
To-morrow would have been too late. The ships and armies of the French
king are on their way across the ocean to help us fight the tyrant, and
this is the news that we bear to the Kaskaskias. When they hear this,
the French of those towns will not fight against us. My friends, we are
going to conquer an empire for liberty, and I can look onward,” he cried
in a burst of inspired eloquence, sweeping his arm to the northward
toward the forests on the far side of the Ohio, “I can look onward
to the day when these lands will be filled with the cities of a Great
Republic. And who among you will falter at such a call?”
There was a brief silence, and then a shout went up from the ranks that
drowned the noise of the Falls, and many fell into antics, some throwing
their coonskin hats in the air, and others cursing and scalping Hamilton
in mockery, while I pounded on the drum with all my might. But when we
had broken ranks the rumor was whispered about that the Holston company
had not cheered, and indeed the rest of the day these men went about
plainly morose and discontented,--some saying openly (and with much
justice, though we failed to see it then) that they had their own
families and settlements to defend from the Southern Indians and
Chickamauga bandits, and could not undertake Kentucky’s fight at that
time. And when the enthusiasm had burned away a little the disaffection
spread, and some even of the Kentuckians began to murmur against Clark,
for faith or genius was needful to inspire men to his plan. One of the
malcontents from Boonesboro came to our fire to argue.
“He’s mad as a medicine man, is Clark, to go into that country with less
than two hundred rifles. And he’ll force us, will he? I’d as lief have
the King for a master.”
He brought every man in our circle to his feet,--Ray, McCann, Cowan, and
Tom. But Tom was nearest, and words not coming easily to him he fell on
the Boonesboro man instead, and they fought it out for ten minutes in
the firelight with half the regiment around them. At the end of it, when
the malcontents were carrying their champion away, they were stopped
suddenly at the sight of one bursting through the circle into the light,
and a hush fell upon the quarrel. It was Colonel Clark.
“Are you hurt, McChesney?” he demanded.
“I reckon not much, Colonel,” said Tom, grinning, as he wiped his face.
“If any man deserts this camp to-night,” cried Colonel Clark, swinging
around, “I swear by God to have him chased and brought back and punished
as he deserves. Captain Harrod, set a guard.”
I pass quickly over the rest of the incident. How the Holston men and
some others escaped in the night in spite of our guard, and swam the
river on logs. How at dawn we found them gone, and Kenton and Harrod and
brave Captain Montgomery set out in pursuit, with Cowan and Tom and Ray.
All day they rode, relentless, and the next evening returned with but
eight weary and sullen fugitives of all those who had deserted.
The next day the sun rose on a smiling world, the polished reaches of
the river golden mirrors reflecting the forest’s green. And we were
astir with the light, preparing for our journey into the unknown
country. At seven we embarked by companies in the flatboats, waving
a farewell to those who were to be left behind. Some stayed through
inclination and disaffection: others because Colonel Clark did not
deem them equal to the task. But Swein Poulsson came. With tears in his
little blue eyes he had begged the Colonel to take him, and I remember
him well on that June morning, his red face perspiring under the white
bristles of his hair as he strained at the big oar. For we must needs
pull a mile up the stream ere we could reach the passage in which to
shoot downward to the Falls. Suddenly Poulsson dropped his handle,
causing the boat to swing round in the stream, while the men damned him.
Paying them no attention, he stood pointing into the blinding disk of
the sun. Across the edge of it a piece was bitten out in blackness.
“Mein Gott!” he cried, “the world is being ended just now.”
“The holy saints remember us this day!” said McCann, missing a stroke to
cross himself. “Will ye pull, ye damned Dutchman? Or we’ll be the first
to slide into hell. This is no kind of a place at all at all.”
By this time the men all along the line of boats had seen it, and many
faltered. Clark’s voice could be heard across the waters urging them
to pull, while the bows swept across the current. They obeyed him,
but steadily the blackness ate out the light, and a weird gloaming
overspread the scene. River and forest became stern, the men silent. The
more ignorant were in fear of a cataclysm, the others taking it for an
omen.
“Shucks!” said Tom, when appealed to, “I’ve seed it afore, and it come
all right again.”
Clark’s boat rounded the shoal: next our turn came, and then the whole
line was gliding down the river, the rising roar of the angry waters
with which we were soon to grapple coming to us with an added grimness.
And now but a faint rim of light saved us from utter darkness. Big Bill
Cowan, undaunted in war, stared at me with fright written on his face.
“And what ‘ll ye think of it, Davy?” he said.
I glanced at the figure of our commander in the boat ahead, and took
courage.
“It’s Hamilton’s scalp hanging by a lock,” I answered, pointing to what
was left of the sun. “Soon it will be off, and then we’ll have light
again.”
To my surprise he snatched me from the thwart and held me up with a
shout, and I saw Colonel Clark turn and look back.
“Davy says the Ha’r Buyer’s sculp hangs by the lock, boys,” he shouted,
pointing at the sun.
The word was cried from boat to boat, and we could see the men pointing
upwards and laughing. And then, as the light began to grow, we were in
the midst of the tumbling waters, the steersmen straining now right, now
left, to keep the prows in the smooth reaches between rock and bar. We
gained the still pools below, the sun came out once more and smiled on
the landscape, and the spirits of the men, reviving, burst all bounds.
Thus I earned my reputation as a prophet.
Four days and nights we rowed down the great river, our oars
double-manned, for fear that our coming might be heralded to the French
towns. We made our first camp on a green little island at the mouth of
the Cherokee, as we then called the Tennessee, and there I set about
cooking a turkey for Colonel Clark, which Ray had shot. Chancing to look
up, I saw the Colonel himself watching me.
“How is this, Davy?” said he. “I hear that you have saved my army for me
before we have met the enemy.”
“I did not know it, sir,” I answered.
“Well,” said he, “if you have learned to turn an evil omen into a good
sign, you know more than some generals. What ails you now?”
“There’s a pirogue, sir,” I cried, staring and pointing.
“Where?” said he, alert all at once. “Here, McChesney, take a crew and
put out after them.”
He had scarcely spoken ere Tom and his men were rowing into the sunset,
the whole of our little army watching from the bank. Presently the other
boat was seen coming back with ours, and five strange woodsmen stepped
ashore, our men pressing around them. But Clark flew to the spot, the
men giving back.
“Who’s the leader here?” he demanded.
A tall man stepped forward.
“I am,” said he, bewildered but defiant.
“Your name?”
“John Duff,” he answered, as though against his will.
“Your business?”
“Hunters,” said Duff; “and I reckon we’re in our rights.”
“I’ll judge of that,” said our Colonel. “Where are you from?”
“That’s no secret, neither. Kaskasky, ten days gone.”
At that there was a murmur of surprise from our companies. Clark turned.
“Get your men back,” he said to the captains, who stood about them. And
all of them not moving: “Get your men back, I say. I’ll have it known
who’s in command here.”
At that the men retired. “Who commands at Kaskaskia?” he demanded of
Duff.
“Monseer Rocheblave, a Frenchy holding a British commission,” said Duff.
“And the British Governor Abbott has left Post St. Vincent and gone to
Detroit. Who be you?” he added suspiciously. “Be you Rebels?”
“Colonel Clark is my name, and I am in the service of the Commonwealth
of Virginia.”
Duff uttered an exclamatory oath and his manner changed. “Be you Clark?”
he said with respect. “And you’re going after Kaskasky? Wal, the mility
is prime, and the Injun scouts is keeping a good lookout. But, Colonel,
I’ll tell ye something: the Frenchies is etarnal afeard of the Long
Knives. My God! they’ve got the notion that if you ketch ‘em you’ll burn
and scalp ‘em same as the Red Sticks.”
“Good,” was all that Clark answered.
“I reckon I don’t know much about what the Rebels is fighting for,” said
John Duff; “but I like your looks, Colonel, and wharever you’re going
there’ll be a fight. Me and my boys would kinder like to go along.”
Clark did not answer at once, but looked John Duff and his men over
carefully.
“Will you take the oath of allegiance to Virginia and the Continental
Congress?” he asked at length.
“I reckon it won’t pizen us,” said John Duff.
“Hold up your hands,” said Clark, and they took the oath. “Now, my men,”
said he, “you will be assigned to companies. Does any one among you know
the old French trail from Massacre to Kaskaskia?”
“Why,” exclaimed John Duff, “why, Johnny Saunders here can tread it in
the dark like the road to the grogshop.”
John Saunders, loose limbed, grinning sheepishly, shuffled forward, and
Clark shot a dozen questions at him one after another. Yes, the trail
had been blazed the Lord knew how long ago by the French, and given up
when they left Massacre.
“Look you,” said Clark to him, “I am not a man to stand trifling. If
there is any deception in this, you will be shot without mercy.”
“And good riddance,” said John Duff. “Boys, we’re Rebels now. Steer
clear of the Ha’r Buyer.”