We went back to Kaskaskia, Colonel Clark, Tom, and myself, and a great
weight was lifted from our hearts.
A peaceful autumn passed, and we were happy save when we thought of
those we had left at home. There is no space here to tell of many
incidents. Great chiefs who had not been to the council came hundreds of
leagues across wide rivers that they might see with their own eyes this
man who had made peace without gold, and these had to be amused and
entertained.
The apples ripened, and were shaken to the ground by the winds. The good
Father Gibault, true to his promise, strove to teach me French. Indeed,
I picked up much of that language in my intercourse with the inhabitants
of Kaskaskia. How well I recall that simple life,--its dances, its
songs, and the games with the laughing boys and girls on the common!
And the good people were very kind to the orphan that dwelt with Colonel
Clark, the drummer boy of his regiment.
But winter brought forebodings. When the garden patches grew bare and
brown, and the bleak winds from across the Mississippi swept over the
common, untoward tidings came like water dripping from a roof, bit by
bit. And day by day Colonel Clark looked graver. The messengers he had
sent to Vincennes came not back, and the coureurs and traders from time
to time brought rumors of a British force gathering like a thundercloud
in the northeast. Monsieur Vigo himself, who had gone to Vincennes on
his own business, did not return. As for the inhabitants, some of them
who had once bowed to us with a smile now passed with faces averted.
The cold set the miry roads like cement, in ruts and ridges. A flurry of
snow came and powdered the roofs even as the French loaves are powdered.
It was January. There was Colonel Clark on a runt of an Indian pony; Tom
McChesney on another, riding ahead, several French gentlemen seated on
stools in a two-wheeled cart, and myself. We were going to Cahokia,
and it was very cold, and when the tireless wheels bumped from ridge to
gully, the gentlemen grabbed each other as they slid about, and laughed.
All at once the merriment ceased, and looking forward we saw that Tom
had leaped from his saddle and was bending over something in the snow.
These chanced to be the footprints of some twenty men.
The immediate result of this alarming discovery was that Tom went on
express to warn Captain Bowman, and the rest of us returned to a painful
scene at Kaskaskia. We reached the village, the French gentlemen leaped
down from their stools in the cart, and in ten minutes the streets were
filled with frenzied, hooded figures. Hamilton, called the Hair Buyer,
was upon them with no less than six hundred, and he would hang them to
their own gateposts for listening to the Long Knives. These were but
a handful after all was said. There was Father Gibault, for example.
Father Gibault would doubtless be exposed to the crows in the belfry of
his own church because he had busied himself at Vincennes and with other
matters. Father Gibault was human, and therefore lovable. He bade
his parishioners a hasty and tearful farewell, and he made a cold and
painful journey to the territories of his Spanish Majesty across the
Mississippi.
Father Gibault looked back, and against the gray of the winter’s
twilight there were flames like red maple leaves. In the fort the men
stood to their guns, their faces flushed with staring at the burning
houses. Only a few were burned,--enough to give no cover for Hamilton
and his six hundred if they came.
But they did not come. The faithful Bowman and his men arrived instead,
with the news that there had been only a roving party of forty, and
these were now in full retreat.
Father Gibault came back. But where was Hamilton? This was the
disquieting thing.
One bitter day, when the sun smiled mockingly on the powdered common, a
horseman was perceived on the Fort Chartres road. It was Monsieur Vigo
returning from Vincennes, but he had been first to St. Louis by reason
of the value he set upon his head. Yes, Monsieur Vigo had been to
Vincennes, remaining a little longer than he expected, the guest of
Governor Hamilton. So Governor Hamilton had recaptured that place!
Monsieur Vigo was no spy, hence he had gone first to St. Louis. Governor
Hamilton was at Vincennes with much of King George’s gold, and many
supplies, and certain Indians who had not been at the council. Eight
hundred in all, said Monsieur Vigo, using his fingers. And it was
Governor Hamilton’s design to march upon Kaskaskia and Cahokia and
sweep over Kentucky; nay, he had already sent certain emissaries to
McGillivray and his Creeks and the Southern Indians with presents, and
these were to press forward on their side. The Governor could do
nothing now, but would move as soon as the rigors of winter had somewhat
relented. Monsieur Vigo shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. He
loved les Américains. What would Monsieur le Colonel do now?
Monsieur le Colonel was grave, but this was his usual manner. He did not
tear his hair, but the ways of the Long Knives were past understanding.
He asked many questions. How was it with the garrison at Vincennes?
Monsieur Vigo was exact, as a business man should be. They were now
reduced to eighty men, and five hundred savages had gone out to ravage.
There was no chance, then, of Hamilton moving at present? Monsieur
Vigo threw up his hands. Never had he made such a trip, and he had been
forced to come back by a northern route. The Wabash was as the Great
Lakes, and the forests grew out of the water. A fox could not go to
Vincennes in this weather. A fish? Monsieur Vigo laughed heartily. Yes,
a fish might.
“Then,” said Colonel Clark, “we will be fish.”
Monsieur Vigo stared, and passed his hand from his forehead backwards
over his long hair. I leaned forward in my corner by the hickory fire.
“Then we will be fish,” said Colonel Clark. “Better that than food for
the crows. For, if we stay here, we shall be caught like bears in a
trap, and Kentucky will be at Hamilton’s mercy.”
“Sacré!” exclaimed Monsieur Vigo, “you are mad, mon ami. I know what
this country is, and you cannot get to Vincennes.”
“I will get to Vincennes,” said Colonel Clark, so gently that Monsieur
Vigo knew he meant it. “I will swim to Vincennes.”
Monsieur Vigo raised his hands to heaven. The three of us went out of
the door and walked. There was a snowy place in front of the church all
party-colored like a clown’s coat,--scarlet capotes, yellow capotes,
and blue capotes, and bright silk handkerchiefs. They surrounded the
Colonel. Pardieu, what was he to do now? For the British governor
and his savages were coming to take revenge on them because, in their
necessity, they had declared for Congress. Colonel Clark went silently
on his way to the gate; but Monsieur Vigo stopped, and Kaskaskia heard,
with a shock, that this man of iron was to march against Vincennes.
The gates of the fort were shut, and the captains summoned. Undaunted
woodsmen as they were, they were lukewarm, at first, at the idea of
this march through the floods. Who can blame them? They had, indeed,
sacrificed much. But in ten minutes they had caught his enthusiasm
(which is one of the mysteries of genius). And the men paraded in the
snow likewise caught it, and swung their hats at the notion of taking
the Hair Buyer.
“‘Tis no news to me,” said Terence, stamping his feet on the flinty
ground; “wasn’t it Davy that pointed him out to us and the hair liftin’
from his head six months since?”
“Und you like schwimmin’, yes?” said Swein Poulsson, his face like the
rising sun with the cold.
“Swimmin’, is it?” said Terence; “sure, the divil made worse things than
wather. And Hamilton’s beyant.”
“I reckon that’ll fetch us through,” Bill Cowan put in grimly.
It was a blessed thing that none of us had a bird’s-eye view of that
same water. No man of force will listen when his mind is made up, and
perhaps it is just as well. For in that way things are accomplished.
Clark would not listen to Monsieur Vigo, and hence the financier had,
perforce, to listen to Clark. There were several miracles before we
left. Monsieur Vigo, for instance, agreed to pay the expenses of the
expedition, though in his heart he thought we should never get to
Vincennes. Incidentally, he was never repaid. Then there were the
French--yesterday, running hither and thither in paroxysms of fear;
to-day, enlisting in whole companies, though it were easier to get to
the wild geese of the swamps than to Hamilton. Their ladies stitched
colors day and night, and presented them with simple confidence to the
Colonel in the church. Twenty stands of colors for 170 men, counting
those who had come from Cahokia. Think of the industry of it, of the
enthusiasm behind it! Twenty stands of colors! Clark took them all,
and in due time it will be told how the colors took Vincennes. This was
because Colonel Clark was a man of destiny.
Furthermore, Colonel Clark was off the next morning at dawn to buy a
Mississippi keel-boat. He had her rigged up with two four-pounders and
four swivels, filled her with provisions, and called her the Willing.
She was the first gunboat on the Western waters. A great fear came into
my heart, and at dusk I stole back to the Colonel’s house alone. The
snow had turned to rain, and Terence stood guard within the doorway.
“Arrah,” he said, “what ails ye, darlin’?”
I gulped and the tears sprang into my eyes; whereupon Terence, in
defiance of all military laws, laid his gun against the doorpost and
put his arms around me, and I confided my fears. It was at this critical
juncture that the door opened and Colonel Clark came out.
“What’s to do here?” he demanded, gazing at us sternly.
“Savin’ your Honor’s prisence,” said Terence, “he’s afeard your Honor
will be sending him on the boat. Sure, he wants to go swimmin’ with the
rest of us.”
Colonel Clark frowned, bit his lip, and Terence seized his gun and stood
to attention.
“It were right to leave you in Kaskaskia,” said the Colonel; “the water
will be over your head.”
“The King’s drum would be floatin’ the likes of him,” said the
irrepressible Terence, “and the b’ys would be that lonesome.”
The Colonel walked away without a word. In an hour’s time he came back
to find me cleaning his accoutrements by the fire. For a while he did
not speak, but busied himself with his papers, I having lighted the
candles for him. Presently he spoke my name, and I stood before him.
“I will give you a piece of advice, Davy,” said he. “If you want a
thing, go straight to the man that has it. McChesney has spoken to me
about this wild notion of yours of going to Vincennes, and Cowan and
McCann and Ray and a dozen others have dogged my footsteps.”
“I only spoke to Terence because he asked me, sir,” I answered. “I said
nothing to any one else.”
He laid down his pen and looked at me with an odd expression.
“What a weird little piece you are,” he exclaimed; “you seem to have
wormed your way into the hearts of these men. Do you know that you will
probably never get to Vincennes alive?”
“I don’t care, sir,” I said. A happy thought struck me. “If they see a
boy going through the water, sir--” I hesitated, abashed.
“What then?” said Clark, shortly.
“It may keep some from going back,” I finished.
At that he gave a sort of gasp, and stared at me the more.
“Egad,” he said, “I believe the good Lord launched you wrong end to.
Perchance you will be a child when you are fifty.”
He was silent a long time, and fell to musing. And I thought he had
forgotten.
“May I go, sir?” I asked at length.
He started.
“Come here,” said he. But when I was close to him he merely laid his
hand on my shoulder. “Yes, you may go, Davy.”
He sighed, and presently turned to his writing again, and I went back
joyfully to my cleaning.
On a certain dark 4th of February, picture the village of Kaskaskia
assembled on the river-bank in capote and hood. Ropes are cast off, the
keel-boat pushes her blunt nose through the cold, muddy water, the oars
churn up dirty, yellow foam, and cheers shake the sodden air. So the
Willing left on her long journey: down the Kaskaskia, into the flood of
the Mississippi, against many weary leagues of the Ohio’s current, and
up the swollen Wabash until they were to come to the mouth of the White
River near Vincennes. There they were to await us.
Should we ever see them again? I think that this was the unspoken
question in the hearts of the many who were to go by land.
The 5th was a mild, gray day, with the melting snow lying in patches on
the brown bluff, and the sun making shift to pierce here and there. We
formed the regiment in the fort,--backwoodsman and Creole now to fight
for their common country, Jacques and Pierre and Alphonse; and mother
and father, sweetheart and wife, waiting to wave a last good-by. Bravely
we marched out of the gate and into the church for Father Gibault’s
blessing. And then, forming once more, we filed away on the road leading
northward to the ferry, our colors flying, leaving the weeping, cheering
crowd behind. In front of the tall men of the column was a wizened
figure, beating madly on a drum, stepping proudly with head thrown back.
It was Cowan’s voice that snapped the strain.
“Go it, Davy, my little gamecock!” he cried, and the men laughed and
cheered. And so we came to the bleak ferry landing where we had crossed
on that hot July night six months before.
We were soon on the prairies, and in the misty rain that fell and fell
they seemed to melt afar into a gray and cheerless ocean. The sodden
grass was matted now and unkempt. Lifeless lakes filled the depressions,
and through them we waded mile after mile ankle-deep. There was a little
cavalcade mounted on the tiny French ponies, and sometimes I rode with
these; but oftenest Cowan or Tom would fling me, drum and all, on his
shoulder. For we had reached the forest swamps where the water is the
color of the Creole coffee. And day after day as we marched, the soft
rain came out of the east and wet us to the skin.
It was a journey of torments, and even that first part of it was enough
to discourage the most resolute spirit. Men might be led through it, but
never driven. It is ever the mind which suffers through the monotonies
of bodily discomfort, and none knew this better than Clark himself.
Every morning as we set out with the wet hide chafing our skin, the
Colonel would run the length of the regiment, crying:--
“Who gives the feast to-night, boys?”
Now it was Bowman’s company, now McCarty’s, now Bayley’s. How the
hunters vied with each other to supply the best, and spent the days
stalking the deer cowering in the wet thickets. We crossed the Saline,
and on the plains beyond was a great black patch, a herd of buffalo.
A party of chosen men headed by Tom McChesney was sent after them, and
never shall I forget the sight of the mad beasts charging through the
water.
That night, when our chilled feet could bear no more, we sought out a
patch of raised ground a little firmer than a quagmire, and heaped
up the beginnings of a fire with such brush as could be made to burn,
robbing the naked thickets. Saddle and steak sizzled, leather steamed
and stiffened, hearts and bodies thawed; grievances that men had nursed
over miles of water melted. Courage sits best on a full stomach, and as
they ate they cared not whether the Atlantic had opened between them
and Vincennes. An hour agone, and there were twenty cursing laggards,
counting the leagues back to Kaskaskia. Now:--
“C’était un vieux sauvage
Tout noir, tour barbouilla,
Ouich’ ka!
Avec sa vieill’ couverte
Et son sac à tabac.
Ouich’ ka!
Ah! ah! tenaouich’ tenaga,
Tenaouich’ tenaga, ouich’ ka!”
So sang Antoine, dit le Gris, in the pulsing red light. And when,
between the verses, he went through the agonies of a Huron war-dance,
the assembled regiment howled with delight. Some men know cities and
those who dwell in the quarters of cities. But grizzled Antoine knew
the half of a continent, and the manners of trading and killing of the
tribes thereof.
And after Antoine came Gabriel, a marked contrast--Gabriel, five feet
six, and the glare showing but a faint dark line on his quivering lip.
Gabriel was a patriot,--a tribute we must pay to all of those brave
Frenchmen who went with us. Nay, Gabriel had left at home on his little
farm near the village a young wife of a fortnight. And so his lip
quivered as he sang:--
“Petit Rocher de la Haute Montagne,
Je vien finir ici cette campagne!
Ah! doux échos, entendez mes soupirs;
En languissant je vais bientôt mouir!”
We had need of gayety after that, and so Bill Cowan sang “Billy of the
Wild Wood,” and Terence McCann wailed an Irish jig, stamping the
water out of the spongy ground amidst storms of mirth. As he desisted,
breathless and panting, he flung me up in the firelight before the eyes
of them all, crying:--
“It’s Davy can bate me!”
“Ay, Davy, Davy!” they shouted, for they were in the mood for anything.
There stood Colonel Clark in the dimmer light of the background. “We
must keep ‘em screwed up, Davy,” he had said that very day.
There came to me on the instant a wild song that my father had taught
me when the liquor held him in dominance. Exhilarated, I sprang from
Terence’s arms to the sodden, bared space, and methinks I yet hear my
shrill, piping note, and see my legs kicking in the fling of it. There
was an uproar, a deeper voice chimed in, and here was McAndrew flinging
his legs with mine:--
“I’ve faught on land, I’ve faught at sea,
At hame I faught my aunty, O;
But I met the deevil and Dundee
On the braes o’ Killiecrankie, O.
An’ ye had been where I had been,
Ye wad na be sae cantie, O;
An’ ye had seen what I ha’e seen,
On the braes o’ Killiecrankie, O.”
In the morning Clark himself would be the first off through the gray
rain, laughing and shouting and waving his sword in the air, and I after
him as hard as I could pelt through the mud, beating the charge on my
drum until the war-cries of the regiment drowned the sound of it. For we
were upon a pleasure trip--lest any man forget,--a pleasure trip amidst
stark woods and brown plains flecked with ponds. So we followed him
until we came to a place where, in summer, two quiet rivers flowed
through green forests--the little Wabashes. And now! Now hickory and
maple, oak and cottonwood, stood shivering in three feet of water on
what had been a league of dry land. We stood dismayed at the crumbling
edge of the hill, and one hundred and seventy pairs of eyes were turned
on Clark. With a mere glance at the running stream high on the bank and
the drowned forest beyond, he turned and faced them.
“I reckon you’ve earned a rest, boys,” he said. “We’ll have games
to-day.”
There were some dozen of the unflinching who needed not to be amused.
Choosing a great poplar, these he set to hollowing out a pirogue, and
himself came among the others and played leap-frog and the Indian game
of ball until night fell. And these, instead of moping and quarrelling,
forgot. That night, as I cooked him a buffalo steak, he drew near the
fire with Bowman.
“For the love of God keep up their spirits, Bowman,” said the Colonel;
“keep up their spirits until we get them across. Once on the farther
hills, they cannot go back.”
Here was a different being from the shouting boy who had led the games
and the war-dance that night in the circle of the blaze. Tired out, we
went to sleep with the ring of the axes in our ears, and in the morning
there were more games while the squad crossed the river to the drowned
neck, built a rough scaffold there, and notched a trail across it; to
the scaffold the baggage was ferried, and the next morning, bit by bit,
the regiment. Even now the pains shoot through my body when I think
of how man after man plunged waist-deep into the icy water toward the
farther branch. The pirogue was filled with the weak, and in the end of
it I was curled up with my drum.
Heroism is a many-sided thing. It is one matter to fight and finish,
another to endure hell’s tortures hour after hour. All day they waded
with numbed feet vainly searching for a footing in the slime. Truly, the
agony of a brave man is among the greatest of the world’s tragedies to
see. As they splashed onward through the tree-trunks, many a joke went
forth, though lips were drawn and teeth pounded together. I have not
the heart to recall these jokes,--it would seem a sacrilege. There were
quarrels, too, the men striving to push one another from the easier
paths; and deeds sublime when some straggler clutched at the bole of
a tree for support, and was helped onward through excruciating ways.
A dozen held tremblingly to the pirogue’s gunwale, lest they fall
and drown. One walked ahead with a smile, or else fell back to lend a
helping shoulder to a fainting man.
And there was Tom McChesney. All day long I watched him, and thanked God
that Polly Ann could not see him thus. And yet, how the pride would have
leaped within her! Humor came not easily to him, but charity and courage
and unselfishness he had in abundance. What he suffered none knew; but
through those awful hours he was always among the stragglers, helping
the weak and despairing when his strength might have taken him far
ahead toward comfort and safety. “I’m all right, Davy,” he would say, in
answer to my look as he passed me. But on his face was written something
that I did not understand.
How the Creole farmers and traders, unused even to the common ways of
woodcraft, endured that fearful day and others that followed, I know
not. And when a tardy justice shall arise and compel the people of this
land to raise a shaft in memory of Clark and those who followed him, let
not the loyalty of the French be forgotten, though it be not understood.
At eventide came to lurid and disordered brains the knowledge that the
other branch was here. And, mercifully, it was shallower than the first.
Holding his rifle high, with a war-whoop Bill Cowan plunged into the
stream. Unable to contain myself more, I flung my drum overboard and
went after it, and amid shouts and laughter I was towed across by James
Ray.
Colonel Clark stood watching from the bank above, and it was he who
pulled me, bedraggled, to dry land. I ran away to help gather brush for
a fire. As I was heaping this in a pile I heard something that I should
not have heard. Nor ought I to repeat it now, though I did not need the
flames to send the blood tingling through my body.
“McChesney,” said the Colonel, “we must thank our stars that we brought
the boy along. He has grit, and as good a head as any of us. I reckon if
it hadn’t been for him some of them would have turned back long ago.”
I saw Tom grinning at the Colonel as gratefully as though he himself had
been praised.
The blaze started, and soon we had a bonfire. Some had not the strength
to hold out the buffalo meat to the fire. Even the grumblers and
mutineers were silent, owing to the ordeal they had gone through. But
presently, when they began to be warmed and fed, they talked of other
trials to be borne. The Embarrass and the big Wabash, for example. These
must be like the sea itself.
“Take the back trail, if ye like,” said Bill Cowan, with a loud laugh.
“I reckon the rest of us kin float to Vincennes on Davy’s drum.”
But there was no taking the back trail now; and well they knew it. The
games began, the unwilling being forced to play, and before they fell
asleep that night they had taken Vincennes, scalped the Hair Buyer, and
were far on the march to Detroit.
Mercifully, now that their stomachs were full, they had no worries. Few
knew the danger we were in of being cut off by Hamilton’s roving bands
of Indians. There would be no retreat, no escape, but a fight to the
death. And I heard this, and much more that was spoken of in low tones
at the Colonel’s fire far into the night, of which I never told the rank
and file,--not even Tom McChesney.
On and on, through rain and water, we marched until we drew near to the
river Embarrass. Drew near, did I say? “Sure, darlin’,” said Terence,
staring comically over the gray waste, “we’ve been in it since
Choosd’y.” There was small exaggeration in it. In vain did our feet seek
the deeper water. It would go no higher than our knees, and the sound
which the regiment made in marching was like that of a great flatboat
going against the current. It had been a sad, lavender-colored day, and
now that the gloom of the night was setting in, and not so much as a
hummock showed itself above the surface, the Creoles began to murmur.
And small wonder! Where was this man leading them, this Clark who had
come amongst them from the skies, as it were? Did he know, himself?
Night fell as though a blanket had been spread over the tree-tops, and
above the dreary splashing men could be heard calling to one another in
the darkness. Nor was there any supper ahead. For our food was gone,
and no game was to be shot over this watery waste. A cold like that of
eternal space settled in our bones. Even Terence McCann grumbled.
“Begob,” said he, “‘tis fine weather for fishes, and the birrds are that
comfortable in the threes. ‘Tis no place for a baste at all, at all.”
Sometime in the night there was a cry. Ray had found the water falling
from an oozy bank, and there we dozed fitfully until we were startled by
a distant boom.
It was Governor Hamilton’s morning gun at Fort Sackville, Vincennes.
There was no breakfast. How we made our way, benumbed with hunger and
cold, to the banks of the Wabash, I know not. Captain McCarty’s company
was set to making canoes, and the rest of us looked on apathetically
as the huge trees staggered and fell amidst a fountain of spray in the
shallow water. We were but three leagues from Vincennes. A raft was
bound together, and Tom McChesney and three other scouts sent on a
desperate journey across the river in search of boats and provisions,
lest we starve and fall and die on the wet flats. Before he left Tom
came to me, and the remembrance of his gaunt face haunted me for many
years after. He drew something from his bosom and held it out to me, and
I saw that it was a bit of buffalo steak which he had saved. I shook my
head, and the tears came into my eyes.
“Come, Davy,” he said, “ye’re so little, and I beant hungry.”
Again I shook my head, and for the life of me I could say nothing.
“I reckon Polly Ann’d never forgive me if anything was to happen to
you,” said he.
At that I grew strangely angry.
“It’s you who need it,” I cried, “it’s you that has to do the work. And
she told me to take care of you.”
The big fellow grinned sheepishly, as was his wont.
“‘Tis only a bite,” he pleaded, “‘twouldn’t only make me hungry,
and”--he looked hard at me--“and it might be the savin’ of you. Ye’ll
not eat it for Polly Ann’s sake?” he asked coaxingly.
“‘Twould not be serving her,” I answered indignantly.
“Ye’re an obstinate little deevil!” he cried, and, dropping the morsel
on the freshly cut stump, he stalked away. I ran after him, crying out,
but he leaped on the raft that was already in the stream and began to
pole across. I slipped the piece into my own hunting shirt.
All day the men who were too weak to swing axes sat listless on the
bank, watching in vain for some sight of the Willing. They saw a canoe
rounding the bend instead, with a single occupant paddling madly. And
who should this be but Captain Willing’s own brother, escaped from
the fort, where he had been a prisoner. He told us that a man named
Maisonville, with a party of Indians, was in pursuit of him, and the
next piece of news he had was in the way of raising our despair a
little. Governor Hamilton’s astonishment at seeing this force here and
now would be as great as his own. Governor Hamilton had said, indeed,
that only a navy could take Vincennes this year. Unfortunately, Mr.
Willing brought no food. Next in order came five Frenchmen, trapped by
our scouts, nor had they any provisions. But as long as I live I shall
never forget how Tom McChesney returned at nightfall, the hero of the
hour. He had shot a deer; and never did wolves pick an animal cleaner.
They pressed on me a choice piece of it, these great-hearted men who
were willing to go hungry for the sake of a child, and when I refused it
they would have forced it down my throat. Swein Poulsson, he that once
hid under the bed, deserves a special tablet to his memory. He was for
giving me all he had, though his little eyes were unnaturally bright and
the red had left his cheeks now.
“He haf no belly, only a leedle on his backbone!” he cried.
“Begob, thin, he has the backbone,” said Terence.
“I have a piece,” said I, and drew forth that which Tom had given me.
They brought a quarter of a saddle to Colonel Clark, but he smiled at
them kindly and told them to divide it amongst the weak. He looked at me
as I sat with my feet crossed on the stump.
“I will follow Davy’s example,” said he.
At length the canoes were finished and we crossed the river, swimming
over the few miserable skeletons of the French ponies we had brought
along. We came to a sugar camp, and beyond it, stretching between us and
Vincennes, was a sea of water. Here we made our camp, if camp it could
be called. There was no fire, no food, and the water seeped out of the
ground on which we lay. Some of those even who had not yet spoken now
openly said that we could go no farther. For the wind had shifted into
the northwest, and, for the first time since we had left Kaskaskia we
saw the stars gleaming like scattered diamonds in the sky. Bit by bit
the ground hardened, and if by chance we dozed we stuck to it. Morning
found the men huddled like sheep, their hunting shirts hard as boards,
and long before Hamilton’s gun we were up and stamping. Antoine poked
the butt of his rifle through the ice of the lake in front of us.
“I think we not get to Vincennes this day,” he said.
Colonel Clark, who heard him, turned to me.
“Fetch McChesney here, Davy,” he said. Tom came.
“McChesney,” said he, “when I give the word, take Davy and his drum on
your shoulders and follow me. And Davy, do you think you can sing that
song you gave us the other night?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” I answered.
Without more ado the Colonel broke the skim of ice, and, taking some of
the water in his hand, poured powder from his flask into it and rubbed
it on his face until he was the color of an Indian. Stepping back, he
raised his sword high in the air, and, shouting the Shawanee war-whoop,
took a flying leap up to his thighs in the water. Tom swung me instantly
to his shoulder and followed, I beating the charge with all my might,
though my hands were so numb that I could scarce hold the sticks.
Strangest of all, to a man they came shouting after us.
“Now, Davy!” said the Colonel.
“I’ve faught on land, I’ve faught at sea,
At hame I faught my aunty, O;
But I met the deevil and Dundee
On the braes o’ Killiecrankie, O.”
I piped it at the top of my voice, and sure enough the regiment took up
the chorus, for it had a famous swing.
“An’ ye had been where I had been,
Ye wad na be sae cantie, O;
An’ ye had seen what I ha’e seen’
On the braes o’ Killiecrankie, O.”
When their breath was gone we heard Cowan shout that he had found a
path under his feet,--a path that was on dry land in the summer-time. We
followed it, feeling carefully, and at length, when we had suffered all
that we could bear, we stumbled on to a dry ridge. Here we spent another
night of torture, with a second backwater facing us coated with a full
inch of ice.
And still there was nothing to eat.