The Spirit of the Border: A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley

by Zane Grey

  Chapter XXI.

  "Jim, come out here," called Edwards at the window of Mr. Wells'cabin.

  The young man arose from the breakfast table, and when outside foundEdwards standing by the door with an Indian brave. He was a Wyandotlightly built, lithe and wiry, easily recognizable as an Indianrunner. When Jim appeared the man handed him a small packet. Heunwound a few folds of some oily skin to find a square piece ofbirch bark, upon which were scratched the following words:

  "Rev. J. Downs. Greeting.

  "Your brother is alive and safe. Whispering Winds rescued him bytaking him as her husband. Leave the Village of Peace. Pipe and HalfKing have been influenced by Girty.

  "Zane."

  "Now, what do you think of that?" exclaimed Jim, handing the messageto Edwards. "Thank Heaven, Joe was saved!"

  "Zane? That must be the Zane who married Tarhe's daughter," answeredEdwards, when he had read the note. "I'm rejoiced to hear of yourbrother."

  "Joe married to that beautiful Indian maiden! Well, of all wonderfulthings," mused Jim. "What will Nell say?"

  "We're getting warnings enough. Do you appreciate that?" askedEdwards. "'Pipe and Half King have been influenced by Girty.'Evidently the writer deemed that brief sentence of sufficientmeaning."

  "Edwards, we're preachers. We can't understand such things. I amlearning, at least something every day. Colonel Zane advised us notto come here. Wetzel said, 'Go back to Fort Henry.' Girty warned us,and now comes this peremptory order from Isaac Zane."

  "Well?"

  "It means that these border men see what we will not admit. Weministers have such hope and trust in God that we can not realizethe dangers of this life. I fear that our work has been in vain."

  "Never. We have already saved many souls. Do not be discouraged."

  All this time the runner had stood near at hand straight as anarrow. Presently Edwards suggested that the Wyandot was waiting tobe questioned, and accordingly he asked the Indian if he hadanything further to communicate.

  "Huron--go by--paleface." Here he held up both hands and shut hisfists several times, evidently enumerating how many white men he hadseen. "Here--when--high--sun."

  With that he bounded lightly past them, and loped off with an even,swinging stride.

  "What did he mean?" asked Jim, almost sure he had not heard therunner aright.

  "He meant that a party of white men are approaching, and will behere by noon. I never knew an Indian runner to carry unreliableinformation. We have joyful news, both in regard to your brother,and the Village of Peace. Let us go in to tell the others."

  The Huron runner's report proved to be correct. Shortly before noonsignals from Indian scouts proclaimed the approach of a band ofwhite men. Evidently Girty's forces had knowledge beforehand of theproximity of this band, for the signals created no excitement. TheIndians expressed only a lazy curiosity. Soon several Delawarescouts appeared, escorting a large party of frontiersmen.

  These men turned out to be Captain Williamson's force, which hadbeen out on an expedition after a marauding tribe of Chippewas. Thislast named tribe had recently harried the remote settlers, andcommitted depredations on the outskirts of the white settlementseastward. The company was composed of men who had served in thegarrison at Fort Pitt, and hunters and backwoodsmen from YellowCreek and Fort Henry. The captain himself was a typical borderman,rough and bluff, hardened by long years of border life, and, likemost pioneers, having no more use for an Indian than for a snake. Hehad led his party after the marauders, and surprised and slaughterednearly all of them. Returning eastward he had passed throughGoshocking, where he learned of the muttering storm rising over theVillage of Peace, and had come more out of curiosity than hope toavert misfortune.

  The advent of so many frontiersmen seemed a godsend to the perplexedand worried missionaries. They welcomed the newcomers most heartily.Beds were made in several of the newly erected cabins; the villagewas given over for the comfort of the frontiersmen. Edwardsconducted Captain Williamson through the shops and schools, and theold borderman's weather-beaten face expressed a comical surprise.

  "Wal, I'll be durned if I ever expected to see a redskin work," washis only comment on the industries.

  "We are greatly alarmed by the presence of Girty and his followers,"said Edwards. "We have been warned to leave, but have not beenactually threatened. What do you infer from the appearance here ofthese hostile savages?"

  "It hardly 'pears to me they'll bother you preachers. They're aginthe Christian redskins, that's plain."

  "Why have we been warned to go?"

  "That's natural, seein' they're agin the preachin'."

  "What will they do with the converted Indians?"

  "Mighty onsartin. They might let them go back to the tribes, but'pears to me these good Injuns won't go. Another thing, Girty isafeered of the spread of Christianity."

  "Then you think our Christians will be made prisoners?"

  "'Pears likely."

  "And you, also, think we'd do well to leave here."

  "I do, sartin. We're startin' for Fort Henry soon. You'd better comealong with us."

  "Captain Williamson, we're going to stick it out, Girty or noGirty."

  "You can't do no good stayin' here. Pipe and Half King won't standfor the singin', prayin' redskins, especially when they've got allthese cattle and fields of grain."

  "Wetzel said the same."

  "Hev you seen Wetzel?"

  "Yes; he rescued a girl from Jim Girty, and returned her to us."

  "That so? I met Wetzel and Jack Zane back a few miles in the woods.They're layin' for somebody, because when I asked them to come alongthey refused, sayin' they had work as must be done. They looked likeit, too. I never hern tell of Wetzel advisin' any one before; butI'll say if he told me to do a thing, by Gosh! I'd do it."

  "As men, we might very well take the advice given us, but aspreachers we must stay here to do all we can for these ChristianIndians. One thing more: will you help us?"

  "I reckon I'll stay here to see the thing out," answered Williamson.Edwards made a mental note of the frontiersman's evasive answer.

  Jim had, meanwhile, made the acquaintance of a young minister, JohnChristy by name, who had lost his sweetheart in one of the Chippewaraids, and had accompanied the Williamson expedition in the hope hemight rescue her.

  "How long have you been out?" asked Jim.

  "About four weeks now," answered Christy. "My betrothed was capturedfive weeks ago yesterday. I joined Williamson's band, which made upat Short Creek to take the trail of the flying Chippewas, in thehope I might find her. But not a trace! The expedition fell upon aband of redskins over on the Walhonding, and killed nearly all ofthem. I learned from a wounded Indian that a renegade had made offwith a white girl about a week previous. Perhaps it was poor Lucy."

  Jim related the circumstances of his own capture by Jim Girty, therescue of Nell, and Kate's sad fate.

  "Could Jim Girty have gotten your girl?" inquired Jim, inconclusion.

  "It's fairly probable. The description doesn't tally with Girty's.This renegade was short and heavy, and noted especially for hisstrength. Of course, an Indian would first speak of some suchdistinguishing feature. There are, however, ten or twelve renegadeson the border, and, excepting Jim Girty, one's as bad as another."

  "Then it's a common occurrence, this abducting girls from thesettlements?"

  "Yes, and the strange thing is that one never hears of such doingsuntil he gets out on the frontier."

  "For that matter, you don't hear much of anything, except of thewonderful richness and promise of the western country."

  "You're right. Rumors of fat, fertile lands induce the colonist tobecome a pioneer. He comes west with his family; two out of everyten lose their scalps, and in some places the average is muchgreater. The wives, daughters and children are carried off intocaptivity. I have been on the border two years, and know that therescue of any captive, as Wetzel rescued your friend, is aremarkable exception."

&n
bsp; "If you have so little hope of recovering your sweetheart, what thenis your motive for accompanying this band of hunters?"

  "Revenge!"

  "And you are a preacher?" Jim's voice did not disguise hisastonishment.

  "I was a preacher, and now I am thirsting for vengeance," answeredChristy, his face clouding darkly. "Wait until you learn whatfrontier life means. You are young here yet; you are flushed withthe success of your teaching; you have lived a short time in thisquiet village, where, until the last few days, all has been serene.You know nothing of the strife, of the necessity of fighting, of thecruelty which makes up this border existence. Only two years havehardened me so that I actually pant for the blood of the renegadewho has robbed me. A frontiersman must take his choice of succumbingor cutting his way through flesh and bone. Blood will be spilled; ifnot yours, then your foe's. The pioneers run from the plow to thefight; they halt in the cutting of corn to defend themselves, and inwinter must battle against cold and hardship, which would be lesscruel if there was time in summer to prepare for winter, for thesavages leave them hardly an opportunity to plant crops. How manypioneers have given up, and gone back east? Find me any who wouldnot return home to-morrow, if they could. All that brings them outhere is the chance for a home, and all that keeps them out here isthe poor hope of finally attaining their object. Always there is apossibility of future prosperity. But this generation, if itsurvives, will never see prosperity and happiness. What does thisborder life engender in a pioneer who holds his own in it? Of allthings, not Christianity. He becomes a fighter, keen as the redskinwho steals through the coverts."

  * * *

  The serene days of the Village of Peace had passed into history.Soon that depraved vagabond, the French trader, with cheap trinketsand vile whisky, made his appearance. This was all that was neededto inflame the visitors. Where they had been only bold and impudent,they became insulting and abusive. They execrated the Christianindians for their neutrality; scorned them for worshiping thisunknown God, and denounced a religion which made women of strongmen.

  The slaughtering of cattle commenced; the despoiling of maizefields, and robbing of corn-cribs began with the drunkenness.

  All this time it was seen that Girty and Elliott consulted oftenwith Pipe and Half King. The latter was the only Huron chief opposedto neutrality toward the Village of Peace, and he was, if possible,more fierce in his hatred than Pipe. The future of the Christiansettlement rested with these two chiefs. Girty and Elliott,evidently, were the designing schemers, and they worked diligentlyon the passions of these simple-minded, but fierce, warlike chiefs.

  Greatly to the relief of the distracted missionaries, Heckewelderreturned to the village. Jaded and haggard, he presented atravel-worn appearance. He made the astonishing assertions that hehad been thrice waylaid and assaulted on his way to Goshocking; thendetained by a roving band of Chippewas, and soon after his arrivalat their camping ground a renegade had run off with a white womancaptive, while the Indians west of the village were in an uproar.Zeisberger, however, was safe in the Moravian town of Salem, somemiles west of Goshocking. Heckewelder had expected to find the samecondition of affairs as existed in the Village of Peace; but he wasbewildered by the great array of hostile Indians. Chiefs who hadonce extended friendly hands to him, now drew back coldly, as theysaid:

  "Washington is dead. The American armies are cut to pieces. The fewthousands who had escaped the British are collecting at Fort Pitt tosteal the Indian's land."

  Heckewelder vigorously denied all these assertions, knowing they hadbeen invented by Girty and Elliott. He exhausted all his skill andpatience in the vain endeavor to show Pipe where he was wrong. HalfKing had been so well coached by the renegades that he refused tolisten. The other chiefs maintained a cold reserve that was bafflingand exasperating. Wingenund took no active part in the councils; buthis presence apparently denoted that he had sided with the others.The outlook was altogether discouraging.

  "I'm completely fagged out," declared Heckewelder, that night whenhe returned to Edwards' cabin. He dropped into a chair as one whosestrength is entirely spent, whose indomitable spirit has at lastbeen broken.

  "Lie down to rest," said Edwards.

  "Oh, I can't. Matters look so black."

  "You're tired out and discouraged. You'll feel better to-morrow. Thesituation is not, perhaps, so hopeless. The presence of thesefrontiersmen should encourage us."

  "What will they do? What can they do?" cried Heckewelder, bitterly."I tell you never before have I encountered such gloomy, stonyIndians. It seems to me that they are in no vacillating state. Theyact like men whose course is already decided upon, and who are onlywaiting."

  "For what?" asked Jim, after a long silence.

  "God only knows! Perhaps for a time; possibly for a final decision,and, it may be, for a reason, the very thought of which makes mefaint."

  "Tell us," said Edwards, speaking quietly, for he had ever been thecalmest of the missionaries.

  "Never mind. Perhaps it's only my nerves. I'm all unstrung, andcould suspect anything to-night."

  "Heckewelder, tell us?" Jim asked, earnestly.

  "My friends, I pray I am wrong. God help us if my fears are correct.I believe the Indians are waiting for Jim Girty."