CHAPTER X. HARRODSTOWN
The old forts like Harrodstown and Boonesboro and Logan’s at St. Asaph’shave long since passed away. It is many, many years since I livedthrough that summer of siege in Harrodstown, the horrors of it are fadedand dim, the discomforts lost to a boy thrilled with a new experience. Ihave read in my old age the books of travellers in Kentucky, English andFrench, who wrote much of squalor and strife and sin and little ofthose qualities that go to the conquest of an empire and the making of apeople. Perchance my own pages may be colored by gratitude and love forthe pioneers amongst whom I found myself, and thankfulness to God thatwe had reached them alive.
I know not how many had been cooped up in the little fort since theearly spring, awaiting the chance to go back to their weed-chokedclearings. The fort at Harrodstown was like an hundred others I havesince seen, but sufficiently surprising to me then. Imagine a greatparallelogram made of log cabins set end to end, their common outsidewall being the wall of the fort, and loopholed. At the four cornersof the parallelogram the cabins jutted out, with ports in the angle inorder to give a flanking fire in case the savages reached the palisade.And then there were huge log gates with watch-towers on either sidewhere sentries sat day and night scanning the forest line. Within thefort was a big common dotted with forest trees, where such cattle ashad been saved browsed on the scanty grass. There had been but the onescrawny horse before our arrival.
And the settlers! How shall I describe them as they crowded around usinside the gate? Some stared at us with sallow faces and eyes brightenedby the fever, yet others had the red glow of health. Many of the menwore rough beards, unkempt, and yellow, weather-worn hunting shirts,often stained with blood. The barefooted women wore sunbonnets and loosehomespun gowns, some of linen made from nettles, while the childrenswarmed here and there and everywhere in any costume that chance hadgiven them. All seemingly talking at once, they plied us with questionafter question of the trace, the Watauga settlements, the news in theCarolinys, and how the war went.
“A lad is it, this one,” said an Irish voice near me, “and a woman!The dear help us, and who’d ‘ave thought to see a woman come over themountain this year! Where did ye find them, Bill Cowan?”
“Near the Crab Orchard, and the lad killed and sculped a six-footbrave.”
“The saints save us! And what ‘ll be his name?”
“Davy,” said my friend.
“Is it Davy? Sure his namesake killed a giant, too.”
“And is he come along, also?” said another. His shy blue eyes and stiffblond hair gave him a strange appearance in a hunting shirt.
“Hist to him! Who will ye be talkin’ about, Poulsson? Is it King Davidye mane?”
There was a roar of laughter, and this was my introduction to TerenceMcCann and Swein Poulsson. The fort being crowded, we were put into acabin with Terence and Cowan and Cowan’s wife--a tall, gaunt woman witha sharp tongue and a kind heart--and her four brats, “All hugemsmugtogether,” as Cowan said. And that night we supped upon dried buffalomeat and boiled nettle-tops, for of such was the fare in Harrodstownthat summer.
“Tom McChesney kept his faith.” One other man was to keep his faithwith the little community--George Rogers Clark. And I soon learned thattrustworthiness is held in greater esteem in a border community thananywhere else. Of course, the love of the frontier was in the grain ofthese men. But what did they come back to? Day after day would the sunrise over the forest and beat down upon the little enclosure in which wewere penned. The row of cabins leaning against the stockade marked theboundaries of our diminutive world. Beyond them, invisible, lurked arelentless foe. Within, the greater souls alone were calm, and a man’sworth was set down to a hair’s breadth. Some were always to be foundsquatting on their door-steps cursing the hour which had seen themdepart for this land; some wrestled and fought on the common, for a fistfight with a fair field and no favor was a favorite amusement of thebackwoodsmen. My big friend, Cowan, was the champion of these, and oftenof an evening the whole of the inhabitants would gather near the springto see him fight those who had the courage to stand up to him. Hismuscles were like hickory wood, and I have known a man insensible fora quarter of an hour after one of his blows. Strangely enough, he neverfought in anger, and was the first to the spring for a gourd of waterafter the fight was over. But Tom McChesney was the best wrestler of thelot, and could make a wider leap than any other man in Harrodstown.
Tom’s reputation did not end there, for he became one of the twobread-winners of the station. I would better have said meatwinners. Woebe to the incautious who, lulled by a week of fancied security, venturedout into the dishevelled field for a little food! In the early days ofthe siege man after man had gone forth for game, never to return. UntilTom came, one only had been successful,--that lad of seventeen, whoseachievements were the envy of my boyish soul, James Ray. He slept in thecabin next to Cowan’s, and long before the dawn had revealed the forestline had been wont to steal out of the gates on the one scrawny horsethe Indians had left them, gain the Salt River, and make his way thencethrough the water to some distant place where the listening savagescould not hear his shot. And now Tom took his turn. Often did I sit withPolly Ann till midnight in the sentry’s tower, straining my ears for theowl’s hoot that warned us of his coming. Sometimes he was empty-handed,but sometimes a deer hung limp and black across his saddle, or a pair ofturkeys swung from his shoulder.
“Arrah, darlin’,” said Terence to Polly Ann, “‘tis yer husband and Jamesis the jools av the fort. Sure I niver loved me father as I do thim.”
I would have given kingdoms in those days to have been seventeen andJames Ray. When he was in the fort I dogged his footsteps, and listenedwith a painful yearning to the stories of his escapes from the rovingbands. And as many a character is watered in its growth by hero-worship,so my own grew firmer in the contemplation of Ray’s resourcefulness. Mystrange life had far removed me from lads of my own age, and he took afancy to me, perhaps because of the very persistence of my devotion tohim. I cleaned his gun, filled his powder flask, and ran to do his everybidding.
I used in the hot summer days to lie under the elm tree and listen tothe settlers’ talk about a man named Henderson, who had bought a greatpart of Kentucky from the Indians, and had gone out with Boone to foundBoonesboro some two years before. They spoke of much that I did notunderstand concerning the discountenance by Virginia of these claims,speculating as to whether Henderson’s grants were good. For some ofthem held these grants, and others Virginia grants--a fruitful sourceof quarrel between them. Some spoke, too, of Washington and his raggedsoldiers going up and down the old colonies and fighting for a freedomwhich there seemed little chance of getting. But their anger seemedto blaze most fiercely when they spoke of a mysterious British generalnamed Hamilton, whom they called “the ha’r buyer,” and who from hisstronghold in the north country across the great Ohio sent down thesehordes of savages to harry us. I learned to hate Hamilton with the rest,and pictured him with the visage of a fiend. We laid at his door everyoutrage that had happened at the three stations, and put upon himthe blood of those who had been carried off to torture in the Indianvillages of the northern forests. And when--amidst great excitement--aspent runner would arrive from Boonesboro or St. Asaph’s and beg Mr.Clark for a squad, it was commonly with the first breath that came intohis body that he cursed Hamilton.
So the summer wore away, while we lived from hand to mouth on suchscanty fare as the two of them shot and what we could venture to gatherin the unkempt fields near the gates. A winter of famine lurked ahead,and men were goaded near to madness at the thought of clearings made andcorn planted in the spring within reach of their hands, as it were, andthey might not harvest it. At length, when a fortnight had passed, andTom and Ray had gone forth day after day without sight or fresh sign ofIndians, the weight lifted from our hearts. There were many thingsthat might yet be planted and come to maturity before the late Kentuckyfrosts.
The pressure within
the fort, like a flood, opened the gates of it,despite the sturdily disapproving figure of a young man who stood silentunder the sentry box, leaning on his Deckard. He was Colonel GeorgeRogers Clark,¹ Commander-in-chief of the backwoodsmen of Kentucky, whosepower was reënforced by that strange thing called an education. It wasthis, no doubt, gave him command of words when he chose to use them.¹ It appears that Mr. Clark had not yet received the title of Colonel,though he held command.--Editor.
“Faith,” said Terence, as we passed him, “‘tis a foine man he is, anda gintleman born. Wasn’t it him gathered the Convintion here inHarrodstown last year that chose him and another to go to the Virginialegislatoor? And him but a lad, ye might say. The divil fly away widhis caution! Sure the redskins is as toired as us, and gone home to thewives and childher, bad cess to thim.”
And so the first day the gates were opened we went into the fields alittle way; and the next day a little farther. They had once seemed tome an unexplored and forbidden country as I searched them with my eyesfrom the sentry boxes. And yet I felt a shame to go with Polly Ann andMrs. Cowan and the women while James Ray and Tom sat with the guard ofmen between us and the forest line. Like a child on a holiday, PollyAnn ran hither and thither among the stalks, her black hair flying and asong on her lips.
“Soon we’ll be having a little home of our own, Davy,” she cried; “Tomhas the place chose on a knoll by the river, and the land is rich withhickory and pawpaw. I reckon we may be going there next week.”
Caution being born into me with all the strength of a vice, I saidnothing. Whereupon she seized me in her strong hands and shook me.
“Ye little imp!” said she, while the women paused in their work to laughat us.
“The boy is right, Polly Ann,” said Mrs. Harrod, “and he’s got moresense than most of the men in the fort.”
“Ay, that he has,” the gaunt Mrs. Cowan put in, eying me fiercely, whileshe gave one of her own offsprings a slap that sent him spinning.
Whatever Polly Ann might have said would have been to the point, but itwas lost, for just then the sound of a shot came down the wind, and ahalf a score of women stampeded through the stalks, carrying me downlike a reed before them. When I staggered to my feet Polly Ann and Mrs.Cowan and Mrs. Harrod were standing alone. For there was little of fearin those three.
“Shucks!” said Mrs. Cowan, “I reckon it’s that Jim Ray shooting at amark,” and she began to pick nettles again.
“Vimmen is a shy critter,” remarked Swein Poulsson, coming up. I had ashrewd notion that he had run with the others.
“Wimmen!” Mrs. Cowan fairly roared. “Wimmen! Tell us how ye went inMarch with the boys to fight the varmints at the Sugar Orchard, Swein!”
We all laughed, for we loved him none the less. His little blue eyeswere perfectly solemn as he answered:--
“Ve send you fight Injuns mit your tongue, Mrs. Cowan. Then we haf nomore troubles.”
“Land of Canaan!” cried she, “I reckon I could do more harm with it thanyou with a gun.”
There were many such false alarms in the bright days following, andnever a bullet sped from the shadow of the forest. Each day we wentfarther afield, and each night trooped merrily in through the gates withhopes of homes and clearings rising in our hearts--until the motionlessfigure of the young Virginian met our eye. It was then that men beganto scoff at him behind his back, though some spoke with sufficientbackwoods bluntness to his face. And yet he gave no sign of anger orimpatience. Not so the other leaders. No sooner did the danger seem pastthan bitter strife sprang up within the walls. Even the two captainswere mortal enemies. One was Harrod, a tall, spare, dark-haired man ofgreat endurance,--a type of the best that conquered the land for thenation; the other, that Hugh McGary of whom I have spoken, coarse andbrutal, if you like, but fearless and a leader of men withal.
A certain Sunday morning, I remember, broke with a cloud-flecked sky,and as we were preparing to go afield with such ploughs as could be gottogether (we were to sow turnips) the loud sounds of a quarrel camefrom the elm at the spring. With one accord men and women and childrenflocked thither, and as we ran we heard McGary’s voice above the rest.Worming my way, boylike, through the crowd, I came upon McGary andHarrod glaring at each other in the centre of it.
“By Job! there’s no devil if I’ll stand back from my clearing and wastethe rest of the summer for the fears of a pack of cowards. I’ll takea posse and march to Shawanee Springs this day, and see any man a fairfight that tries to stop me.”
“And who’s in command here?” demanded Harrod.
“I am, for one,” said McGary, with an oath, “and my corn’s on the ear.I’ve held back long enough, I tell you, and I’ll starve this winter foryou nor any one else.”
Harrod turned.
“Where’s Clark?” he said to Bowman.
“Clark!” roared McGary, “Clark be d--d. Ye’d think he was a woman.” He strode up to Harrod until their faces almost touched, and his voiceshook with the intensity of his anger. “By G--d, you nor Clark nor anyone else will stop me, I say!” He swung around and faced the people.“Come on, boys! We’ll fetch that corn, or know the reason why.”
A responding murmur showed that the bulk of them were with him. Weary ofthe pent-up life, longing for action, and starved for a good meal, theanger of his many followers against Clark and Harrod was nigh as greatas his. He started roughly to shoulder his way out, and whether fromaccident or design Captain Harrod slipped in front of him, I never knew.The thing that followed happened quickly as the catching of my breath. Isaw McGary powdering his pan, and Harrod his, and felt the crowd givingback like buffalo. All at once the circle had vanished, and the two menwere standing not five paces apart with their rifles clutched acrosstheir bodies, each watching, catlike, for the other to level. It wasa cry that startled us--and them. There was a vision of a woman flyingacross the common, and we saw the dauntless Mrs. Harrod snatchingher husband’s gun from his resisting hands. So she saved his life andMcGary’s.
At this point Colonel Clark was seen coming from the gate. When he gotto Harrod and McGary the quarrel blazed up again, but now it was betweenthe three of them, and Clark took Harrod’s rifle from Mrs. Harrod andheld it. However, it was presently decided that McGary should wait onemore day before going to his clearing; whereupon the gates were opened,the picked men going ahead to take station as a guard, and soon we werehard at work, ploughing here and mowing there, and in another placeputting seed in the ground: in the cheer of the work hardships wereforgotten, and we paused now and again to laugh at some sally ofTerence McCann’s or odd word of Swein Poulsson’s. As the day wore onto afternoon a blue haze--harbinger of autumn--settled over fort andforest. Bees hummed in the air as they searched hither and thitheramongst the flowers, or shot straight as a bullet for a distant hive.But presently a rifle cracked, and we raised our heads.
“Hist!” said Terence, “the bhoys on watch is that warlike! Whin there’sno redskins to kill they must be wastin’ good powdher on a three.”
I leaped upon a stump and scanned the line of sentries between usand the woods; only their heads and shoulders appeared above the rankgrowth. I saw them looking from one to another questioningly, someshouting words I could not hear. Then I saw some running; and next, asI stood there wondering, came another crack, and then a volley like thenoise of a great fire licking into dry wood, and things that werenot bees humming round about. A distant man in a yellow hunting shirtstumbled, and was drowned in the tangle as in water. Around me mendropped plough-handles and women baskets, and as we ran our legs grewnumb and our bodies cold at a sound which had haunted us in dreams bynight--the war-whoop. The deep and guttural song of it rose and fellwith a horrid fierceness. An agonized voice was in my ears, and Ihalted, ashamed. It was Polly Ann’s.
“Davy!” she cried, “Davy, have ye seen Tom?”
Two men dashed by. I seized one by the fringe of his shirt, and he flungme from my feet. The other leaped me as I knelt.
“Run, ye
fools!” he shouted. But we stood still, with yearning eyesstaring back through the frantic forms for a sight of Tom’s.
“I’ll go back!” I cried, “I’ll go back for him. Do you run to the fort.” For suddenly I seemed to forget my fear, nor did even the hideous notesof the scalp halloo disturb me. Before Polly Ann could catch me Ihad turned and started, stumbled,--I thought on a stump,--and fallenheadlong among the nettles with a stinging pain in my leg. Staggering tomy feet, I tried to run on, fell again, and putting down my hand foundit smeared with blood. A man came by, paused an instant while his eyecaught me, and ran on again. I shall remember his face and name to mydying day; but there is no reason to put it down here. In a few seconds’space as I lay I suffered all the pains of captivity and of death bytorture, that cry of savage man an hundred times more frightful thansavage beast sounding in my ears, and plainly nearer now by half thefirst distance. Nearer, and nearer yet--and then I heard my name called.I was lifted from the ground, and found myself in the lithe arms ofPolly Ann.
“Set me down!” I screamed, “set me down!” and must have added some ofthe curses I had heard in the fort. But she clutched me tightly (Godbless the memory of those frontier women!), and flew like a deer towardthe gates. Over her shoulder I glanced back. A spare three hundred yardsaway in a ragged line a hundred red devils were bounding after us withfeathers flying and mouths open as they yelled. Again I cried to herto set me down; but though her heart beat faster and her breath cameshorter, she held me the tighter. Second by second they gained onus, relentlessly. Were we near the fort? Hoarse shouts answered thequestion, but they seemed distant--too distant. The savages weregaining, and Polly Ann’s breath quicker still. She staggered, but thebrave soul had no thought of faltering. I had a sight of a man on aplough horse with dangling harness coming up from somewhere, of the manleaping off, of ourselves being pitched on the animal’s bony backand clinging there at the gallop, the man running at the side. Shotswhistled over our heads, and here was the brown fort. Its big gatesswung together as we dashed through the narrowed opening. Then, as helifted us off, I knew that the man who had saved us was Tom himself. Thegates closed with a bang, and a patter of bullets beat against them likerain.
Through the shouting and confusion came a cry in a voice I knew, nowpleading, now commanding.
“Open, open! For God’s sake open!”
“It’s Ray! Open for Ray! Ray’s out!”
Some were seizing the bar to thrust it back when the heavy figure ofMcGary crushed into the crowd beside it.
“By Job, I’ll shoot the man that touches it!” he shouted, as he torethem away. But the sturdiest of them went again to it, and cursed him.And while they fought backward and forward, the lad’s mother, Mrs. Ray,cried out to them to open in tones to rend their hearts. But McGary hadgained the bar and swore (perhaps wisely) that he would not sacrificethe station for one man. Where was Ray?
Where was Ray, indeed? It seemed as if no man might live in the hellishstorm that raged without the walls: as if the very impetus of hate andfury would carry the savages over the stockade to murder us. Into theturmoil at the gate came Colonel Clark, sending the disputants this wayand that to defend the fort, McGary to command one quarter, Harrod andBowman another, and every man that could be found to a loophole, whileMrs. Ray continued to run up and down, wringing her hands, now facingone man, now another. Some of her words came to me, shrilly, above thenoise.
“He fed you--he fed you. Oh, my God, and you are grateful--grateful!When you were starving he risked his life--”
Torn by anxiety for my friend, I dragged myself into the nearest cabin,and a man was fighting there in the half-light at the port. The hugefigure I knew to be my friend Cowan’s, and when he drew back to load Iseized his arm, shouting Ray’s name. Although the lead was patteringon the other side of the logs, Cowan lifted me to the port. And there,stretched on the ground behind a stump, within twenty feet of the walls,was James. Even as I looked the puffs of dust at his side showed thatthe savages knew his refuge. I saw him level and fire, and then BillCowan set me down and began to ram in a charge with tremendous energy.
Was there no way to save Ray? I stood turning this problem in my mind,subconsciously aware of Cowan’s movements: of his yells when he thoughthe had made a shot, when Polly Ann appeared at the doorway. Darting in,she fairly hauled me to the shake-down in the far corner.
“Will ye bleed to death, Davy?” she cried, as she slipped off my leggingand bent over the wound. Her eye lighting on a gourdful of water on thepuncheon table, she tore a strip from her dress and washed and bound medeftly. The bullet was in the flesh, and gave me no great pain.
“Lie there, ye imp!” she commanded, when she had finished.
“Some one’s under the bed,” said I, for I had heard a movement.
In an instant we were down on our knees on the hard dirt floor, andthere was a man’s foot in a moccasin! We both grabbed it and pulled,bringing to life a person with little blue eyes and stiff blond hair.
“Swein Poulsson!” exclaimed Polly Ann, giving him an involuntary kick,“may the devil give ye shame!”
Swein Poulsson rose to a sitting position and clasped his knees in hishands.
“I haf one great fright,” said he.
“Send him into the common with the women in yere place, Mis’ McChesney,” growled Cowan, who was loading.
“By tam!” said Swein Poulsson, leaping to his feet, “I vill stay hereund fight. I am prave once again.” Stooping down, he searched under thebed, pulled out his rifle, powdered the pan, and flying to the otherport, fired. At that Cowan left his post and snatched the rifle fromPoulsson’s hands.
“Ye’re but wasting powder,” he cried angrily.
“Then, by tam, I am as vell under the bed,” said Poulsson. “Vat can Ido?”
I had it.
“Dig!” I shouted; and seizing the astonished Cowan’s tomahawk from hisbelt I set to work furiously chopping at the dirt beneath the log wall.“Dig, so that James can get under.”
Cowan gave me the one look, swore a mighty oath, and leaping to the portshouted to Ray in a thundering voice what we were doing.
“Dig!” roared Cowan. “Dig, for the love of God, for he can’t hear me.”
The three of us set to work with all our might, Poulsson making greatholes in the ground at every stroke, Polly Ann scraping at the dirt withthe gourd. Two feet below the surface we struck the edge of the lowestlog, and then it was Poulsson who got into the hole with his huntingknife--perspiring, muttering to himself, working as one possessed witha fury, while we scraped out the dirt from under him. At length, afterwhat seemed an age of staring at his legs, the ground caved on him,and he would have smothered if we had not dragged him out by the heels,sputtering and all powdered brown. But there was the daylight under thelog.
Again Cowan shouted at Ray, and again, but he did not understand. It wasthen the miracle happened. I have seen brave men and cowards since, andI am as far as ever from distinguishing them. Before we knew it Poulssonwas in the hole once more--had wriggled out of it on the other side, andwas squirming in a hail of bullets towards Ray. There was a full minuteof suspense--perhaps two--during which the very rifles of the fort weresilent (though the popping in the weeds was redoubled), and then thebarrel of a Deckard was poked through the hole. After it came JamesRay himself, and lastly Poulsson, and a great shout went out from theloopholes and was taken up by the women in the common.
Swein Poulsson had become a hero, nor was he willing to lose any of theglamour which was a hero’s right. As the Indians’ fire slackened, hewent from cabin to cabin, and if its occupants failed to mention theexploit (some did fail so to do, out of mischief), Swein would say:--
“You did not see me safe James, no? I vill tell you joost how.”
It never leaked out that Swein was first of all under the bed, for PollyAnn and Bill Cowan and myself swore to keep the secret. But theytold how I had thought of digging the hole under the logs--a happycircumstance which got
me a reputation for wisdom beyond my years. Therewas a certain Scotchman at Harrodstown called McAndrew, and it washe gave me the nickname “Canny Davy,” and I grew to have a sort ofprecocious fame in the station. Often Captain Harrod or Bowman or someof the others would pause in their arguments and say gravely, “What doesDavy think of it?” This was not good for a boy, and the wonder of it isthat it did not make me altogether insupportable. One effect it had onme--to make me long even more earnestly to be a man.
The impulse of my reputation led me farther. A fortnight of moreinactivity followed, and then we ventured out into the fields once more.But I went with the guard this time, not with the women,--thanks to awhim the men had for humoring me.
“Arrah, and beant he a man all but two feet,” said Terence, “wid morebrain than me an’ Bill Cowan and Poulsson togither? ‘Tis a fox’s noseDavy has for the divils, Bill. Sure he can smell thim the same as youan’ me kin see the red paint on their faces.”
“I reckon that’s true,” said Bill Cowan, with solemnity, and so hecarried me off.
At length the cattle were turned out to browse greedily through theclearing, while we lay in the woods by the forest and listened to thesound of their bells, but when they strayed too far, I was often sent todrive them back. Once when this happened I followed them to the shade atthe edge of the woods, for it was noon, and the sun beat down fiercely.And there I sat for some time watching them as they lashed their sideswith their tails and pawed the ground, for experience is a good master.Whether or not the flies were all that troubled them I could not tell,and no sound save the tinkle of their bells broke the noonday stillness.Making a circle I drove them back toward the fort, much troubled inmind. I told Cowan, but he laughed and said it was the flies. Yet I wasnot satisfied, and finally stole back again to the place where Ihad found them. I sat a long time hidden at the edge of the forest,listening until my imagination tricked me into hearing those noiseswhich I feared and yet longed for. Trembling, I stole a little fartherin the shade of the woods, and then a little farther still. The leavesrustled in the summer’s breeze, patches of sunlight flickered on themould, the birds twittered, and the squirrels scolded. A chipmunkfrightened me as he flew chattering along a log. And yet I went on. Icame to the creek as it flowed silently in the shade, stepped in, andmade my way slowly down it, I know not how far, walking in the water, myeye alert to every movement about me. At length I stopped and caught mybreath. Before me, in a glade opening out under great trees, what seemeda myriad of forked sticks were piled against one another, three bythree, and it struck me all in a heap that I had come upon a greatencampment. But the skeletons of the pyramid tents alone remained. Wherewere the skins? Was the camp deserted?
For a while I stared through the brier leaves, then I took a venture,pushed on, and found myself in the midst of the place. It must have heldnear a thousand warriors. All about me were gray heaps of ashes, andbones of deer and elk and buffalo scattered, some picked clean,some with the meat and hide sticking to them. Impelled by a strongfascination, I went hither and thither until a sound brought me to astand--the echoing crack of a distant rifle. On the heels of it cameanother, then several together, and a faint shouting borne on the lightwind. Terrorized, I sought for shelter. A pile of brush underlain byashes was by, and I crept into that. The sounds continued, but seemed tocome no nearer, and my courage returning, I got out again and ran wildlythrough the camp toward the briers on the creek, expecting every momentto be tumbled headlong by a bullet. And when I reached the briers, whatbetween panting and the thumping of my heart I could for a few momentshear nothing. Then I ran on again up the creek, heedless of cover,stumbling over logs and trailing vines, when all at once a dozen bronzeforms glided with the speed of deer across my path ahead. They splashedover the creek and were gone. Bewildered with fear, I dropped under afallen tree. Shouts were in my ears, and the noise of men running. Istood up, and there, not twenty paces away, was Colonel Clark himselfrushing toward me. He halted with a cry, raised his rifle, and droppedit at the sight of my queer little figure covered with ashes.
“My God!” he cried, “it’s Davy.”
“They crossed the creek,” I shouted, pointing the way, “they crossed thecreek, some twelve of them.”
“Ay,” he said, staring at me, and by this time the rest of the guardwere come up. They too stared, with different exclamations on theirlips,--Cowan and Bowman and Tom McChesney and Terence McCann in front.
“And there’s a great camp below,” I went on, “deserted, where a thousandmen have been.”
“A camp--deserted?” said Clark, quickly.
“Yes,” I said, “yes.” But he had already started forward and seized meby the arm.
“Lead on,” he cried, “show it to us.” He went ahead with me, travellingso fast that I must needs run to keep up, and fairly lifting me over thelogs. But when we came in sight of the place he darted forward aloneand went through it like a hound on the trail. The others followedhim, crying out at the size of the place and poking among the ashes. Atlength they all took up the trail for a way down the creek. PresentlyClark called a halt.
“I reckon that they’ve made for the Ohio,” he said. And at this judgmentfrom him the guard gave a cheer that might almost have been heard inthe fields around the fort. The terror that had hovered over us all thatlong summer was lifted at last.
You may be sure that Cowan carried me back to the station. “To think itwas Davy that found it!” he cried again and again, “to think it was Davyfound it!”
“And wasn’t it me that said he could smell the divils,” said Terence, ashe circled around us in a mimic war dance. And when from the fort theysaw us coming across the fields they opened the gates in astonishment,and on hearing the news gave themselves over to the wildest rejoicing.For the backwoodsmen were children of nature. Bill Cowan ran for thefiddle which he had carried so carefully over the mountain, and thatnight we had jigs and reels on the common while the big fellow played“Billy of the Wild Woods” and “Jump Juba,” with all his might, andthe pine knots threw their fitful, red light on the wild scenes ofmerriment. I must have cut a queer little figure as I sat between Cowanand Tom watching the dance, for presently Colonel Clark came up to us,laughing in his quiet way.
“Davy,” said he, “there is another great man here who would like tosee you,” and led me away wondering. I went with him toward the gate,burning all over with pride at this attention, and beside a torch therea broad-shouldered figure was standing, at sight of whom I had a startof remembrance.
“Do you know who that is, Davy?” said Colonel Clark.
“It’s Mr. Daniel Boone,” said I.
“By thunder,” said Clark, “I believe the boy is a wizard,” while Mr.Boone’s broad mouth was creased into a smile, and there was a trace ofastonishment, too, in his kindly eye.
“Mr. Boone came to my father’s cabin on the Yadkin once,” I said; “hetaught me to skin a deer.”
“Ay, that I did,” exclaimed Mr. Boone, “and I said ye’d make a woodsmansometime.”
Mr. Boone, it seemed, had come over from Boonesboro to consult withColonel Clark on certain matters, and had but just arrived. But somodest was he that he would not let it be known that he was in thestation, for fear of interrupting the pleasure. He was much the same asI had known him, only grown older and his reputation now increased tovastness. He and Clark sat on a door log talking for a long timeon Kentucky matters, the strength of the forts, the prospect of newsettlers that autumn, of the British policy, and finally of a journeywhich Colonel Clark was soon to make back to Virginia across themountains. They seemed not to mind my presence. At length Colonel Clarkturned to me with that quiet, jocose way he had when relaxed.
“Davy,” said he, “we’ll see how much of a general you are. What wouldyou do if a scoundrel named Hamilton far away at Detroit was bribing allthe redskins he could find north of the Ohio to come down and scalp yourmen?”
“I’d go for Hamilton,” I answered.
“By
God!” exclaimed Clark, striking Mr. Boone on the knee, “that’s whatI’d do.”
The Crossing Page 5