long before sunrise the “maison bondie” was awake and stirring. early hours were the rule for travellers in those days on the frontier. while yet the earth was shrouded in shadow and the mists were drifting along the broad ribbon of the river, the sleepers on the bar-room floor were rolling up their blankets and making their hasty toilets before scattering to feed the mules and hitch them to the wagons preparatory for a start to vincennes and the south. half an hour later they returned to the bar room to devour the hasty yet heavy meal spread for them.
jack and his party were astir as early as the rest—jack and cato because it was impossible to sleep later on the crowded floor, and alagwa because of her keen anticipation of the coming day. cato hurried out to see to the horses and to the mule that jack had bought for him the night before, and jack and alagwa foregathered at the wash basins beneath the shed. even earlier than the wagoners, they seated themselves at the rough table and hastily devoured the breakfast placed before them, impatient to be gone down the long trail that led to fort miami and to detroit.
[172]tom rogers was not to accompany them. in spite of colonel johnson’s assurances, jack was by no means certain that either alagwa or captain brito had left the vicinity of wapakoneta. he was going to detroit because that seemed the most promising thing to do, but he decided to send rogers back to wapakoneta to keep a sharp look-out for both the girl and the man.
“you’ll know what to do if you find the man,” he said, grimly, as he told rogers good-by. “war has begun, and captain brito has no right to be in this country. if you find the girl, take her to colonel johnson and then get word to me as quick as you can.”
amid many calls of adieu and bon voyage from the kindly french people the travellers set off. the sun was not yet up, but as the three cantered to the ford close beside the blockhouse, that frowned from the southwest corner of the fort, the morning gun boomed and the stars and stripes flung out to the breeze. an instant later, as the horses splashed through the shallow water, the sun thrust out through a gash in the clouds above the eastern forest, lighting up the snapping banner with its seventeen emblematic stars. a moment more, and the dew-studded fields began to glisten like diamonds, coruscating with many-colored fire, and the mists that lay along the river shredded and swirled in rainbow tints. the wind sprang up and the vast[173] arch of the heavens thummed with reverberant murmurs, inarticulate voices of a world new born, thrilling with the ever-fresh hopes with which it had thrilled since the morning of time.
for a few miles the road ran through open fields that stretched along the north bank of the maumee, a sunlit water strung with necklaces of bubbles that streamed away from the long grasses that lay upon its surface. a faint freshness rose like perfume from the stream, diffusing itself through the amber air. here and there limbs of sunken trees protruded from the water, token of the great trunks submerged beneath its flood; round them castles of foam swelled and sank, chuckling away into nothingness.
then came the forest, a mounting line stretching across the path. fragrant at first and warm with the morning sun it swiftly closed in, dim and moist and cool, arching above the road and the heads of the travellers.
side by side rode jack and alagwa. the girl’s heart was beating high, leaping in unison with the stride of the horse that bore her. gone were the fancies and questionings of the night. for good or for ill she had sent the message to tecumseh. she had kept faith with those who had cared for her for so many years. she had insured jack’s safety so long as she should remain with him. it was all done and could not be undone. some day, she knew,[174] she must pay for it all, pay to the uttermost, but that day was not yet. till it came she would forget. resolutely she put all fear of the future behind her, living only in and for the moment.
jack, too, was happy; the dawn worked its magic on him as it did the girl by his side. youth, strength, and health jumped together in his veins. he did not know why he was happy. he was not prone to analyze his sensations. if he had thought of the fact at all he would probably have imagined that he was happy because he was going to the seat of war and because he hoped to find there the girl in search of whom he had come so many miles. it would not have occurred to him that he was rejoicing less in the coming end of his journey than he was in the journey itself. nor would it have crossed his mind that he would have contemplated the journey itself with far less pleasure if he had been alone or had been accompanied only by cato. he rejoiced in the company of his new boy chum without knowing that he did so.
and he had not thought of sally habersham for more than twenty-four hours!
for a time neither spoke. the road was broader and better than that up the st. marys. for years it had been a thoroughfare along which indians, traders, and armies had moved in long procession; and it was well trampled, though it still required careful riding to prevent the horses stumbling.
[175]alagwa, in particular, was silent because she was puzzling over a question that the events of the last evening had made pressing.
if she was ever to find out beyond a doubt the reason why jack came to ohio to search for her she must find it out at once. she did not know, could not know, how long her opportunity to question would continue. fantine had detected her secret and had kept it. at any moment another might detect it and might be less kindly.
besides, fantine had spoken as if she was doing wrong in travelling with jack, even though he thought her a boy. alagwa wondered at this, for no such conventions held among the indians, among whom in early days unchastity was so rare that a woman had better be dead than guilty of it.
jack noticed the girl’s abstraction and rode silently, waiting on her mood. at last he grew impatient. “a penny for your thoughts, youngster,” he offered, smiling.
alagwa started. then she met his eyes gravely. “i wonder much,” she said. “the thoughts of the indian are simple, but those of the white men are forked, and i can not read them. you have come by dim trails over miles of hill and forest to find this girl whom you know never. and the captain brito, the chief in the red coat, he also come far, by land and by sea, to seek her. why do you come? i do not understand.”
[176]“why do i come?” jack echoed the words, smilingly. “well! let’s see! i come for several reasons—partly because tecumseh sent me a belt asking me to come and partly because i was in the mood for adventure, but mostly because the girl is my cousin and because she needs help. i told you all this before, didn’t i?”
“yes! but is not the count brito ready to help? why do you not let him?”
jack laughed. “i reckon he is,” he confessed. “and, so far as i know, he might have been able to make her quite as happy as my people can. i don’t really know anything against brito. his reputation isn’t very good, but, lord! whose is?”
“if he found her, what would he do with her?” alagwa knew she was on perilous ground, but she went on, nevertheless.
“he’d marry her out of hand, of course. that would give him the telfair estates, you see. he’s said to be heavily in debt, and the money would be a godsend to him. after that a lot would depend on the girl. if she happened to take his fancy he might be very decent to her. and there’s no denying that she might like the life he would give her. but the chances are against it, and it’s my duty to see that she isn’t tricked into it blindfolded. here in this forest she couldn’t possibly understand, any more than you can, what a wonderful thing it is to be mistress of the telfair estates. if she marries[177] brito she gives up everything without having known that she had it.”
alagwa was listening earnestly, trying hard to comprehend the new unthought-of phase of life that jack was discussing. one thing, however, she fastened on.
“but if she refuse to marry him?” she questioned. “if she say she will not make his moccasins nor pound his corn?”
“she wouldn’t refuse. what! an indian-bred girl, ignorant of everything outside these ohio forests, refuse to marry a british officer, who came to her with his hands full of gifts? refusal isn’t worth considering. and if she really should be stubborn he could easily ruin her reputation——”
“reputation? what is that?”
“it’s—it’s—i’ll be hanged if i know exactly how to explain it so that you can understand. i reckon the indians don’t bother about it. but in civilization, among white people, a girl can’t travel alone with a man without getting talked about. brito wouldn’t be likely to stop at trifles. he’d contrive it so that the girl would be compromised and then she’d have to marry him.” jack stopped; he was a clean-mouthed, clean-hearted young fellow, but he was no prude and he could not understand why he should find it so hard to explain matters to the boy at his side. nevertheless, when he met alagwa’s[178] wide, innocent eyes, he stopped in despair, tongue-tied and flushing.
alagwa was clearly startled. “you mean that if a white girl take the long trail with a man she is comprom—compromised—and that she must marry him or that the sachems and the braves will drive her from the council fires?” she questioned.
“well—something like that. this girl, in her ignorance, would lose her reputation before she knew she had one. and she’d have to marry him to get it back!”
“but—but if he refuse to marry her. if a man travel with a girl and then not marry her?” a deep red had rushed to alagwa’s cheeks; she bent down her head to hide it.
jack shrugged his shoulders. “brito wouldn’t refuse!” he declared.
“i mean not brito only. i mean any man who had—had compromise a girl. suppose he refuse to take her to his lodge in honor?”
“any man who did that would be a scoundrel. the girl’s father or brother or friend would call him out and kill him. but, as i say, brito would marry estelle, of course. and he wouldn’t need to do anything to compel her. she’d marry him willingly enough. you know it.”
alagwa did not deny it. jack’s assertion was correct; no indian girl would refuse to marry a redcoat[179] chief. but his earlier assertion concerning the loss of reputation gave her food for thought.
“and you?” she asked. “if you find her what will you do?”
“i? i’d take her home.”
“and would it not compromise her to travel so long and dim a trail with you?”
jack flushed. “it isn’t exactly the same thing,” he answered at last, hesitatingly. “this is america and we are not so censorious. europe is very different. over here we think people are all right till we are forced to think otherwise. in europe they think them bad from the start. and, of course, i’d protect her all i could. brito wouldn’t. he’d be trying to make her marry him, you see, and i shouldn’t.”
the girl straightened suddenly in her saddle. “you—you do not want to marry her?” she faltered.
a cloud came over jack’s face. “no!” he said, slowly. “no! i don’t want to marry her. i shall never marry anybody.”
startled, the girl looked at him. then her eyes dropped and for a little she rode silent. when the talk was resumed it was on other subjects.
all that day and all the next the three rode beneath great trees that rose fifty feet from the ground without branch or leaf, and that stood so close together that no ray of sun came through their[180] arching branches. it was nearly sunset on the second day when they came to the fort built by general anthony wayne nearly twenty years before at the junction of the maumee and the auglaize—the fort which he had named defiance, because he declared that he defied “all english, all indians, and all the devils in hell to take it.” from it he and his army had sallied out to meet and crush the miamis at the battle of the fallen timbers.
the ruins of the fort stood ten feet above the water, on the high point between the maumee and the auglaize. mounting the gentle slope that led upward from the west the travellers descended into a wide half-filled ditch and then climbed a steep glacis of sloping earth that had encircled the ancient palisades. the logs and fascines that had held the ramparts in place had long since rotted away and most of the inner lines of palisades had disappeared. within their former bounds a few scorched and blackened logs marked where the four blockhouses had stood. the narrow ditch that cut the eastern wall and ran down to the edge of the river—the ditch dug to enable wayne’s soldiers to get water unseen by lurking foes—was half filled by sliding earth. mounting the crumbling ramparts jack and alagwa stood and stared, striving to picture the scene as it was in the days already ancient when the united states flag had flown for the first time in the valley of the maumee.
[181]for two or three hundred yards on all sides the forest trees had been cut away and their places had been taken by a light growth of maple and scrub oak. on the south, on the west bank of the auglaize, a single mighty oak towered heavenward—the council tree of all the northern tribes, the tree beneath which fifty years before pontiac had mustered the greatest indian council known in all america and had welded the tribes together for his desperate but vain assault upon the growing power of the white men—an assault which tecumseh was even then striving to emulate.
beyond the council oak, southward along the auglaize, stretched an apple orchard planted years before by the indefatigable “appleseed johnny.” to the north, beyond the maumee, stood a single apple tree, a mammoth of its kind, ancient already and destined to live and bear for eighty years to come. to the west, along the road down which the three had come, black spots showed where george ironside’s store had stood, where perault, the baker, had baked and traded, where mckenzie, the scot, had made silver ornaments at a stiff price for the aborigines, where henry ball and his wife, taken prisoners at st. claire’s defeat, had won their captors’ good will and saved their lives by working, he as a boatman and she by washing and sewing. near at hand, but out of sight from the fort, was the house of james girty, brother of simon, where[182] british agents from canada had continually come to fan the discontent of the indians against the americans. up and down the rivers stretches of weeds and underbrush choked the ground where wayne had found vast fields of enormous corn. alagwa’s heart burned hotly as she remembered that her people and those of kindred tribes had tilled those fields for centuries before the white man had come into the ohio country. the fortunes of war had laid them waste. silently she prayed that the fortunes of war might yet restore them!
camp was rapidly pitched, the horses fed and picketed for the night, and supper prepared and eaten. by the time it was finished darkness had closed in. the moon was not yet up, though promise of it was silvering the unquiet tops of the eastern forest. but on the exposed point the glimmer of the blazing stars gave light enough to see.
jack stood up. “the first watch is yours, cato,” he said. “call me about midnight.” “bob,” he turned to the girl, “as you want to watch so badly, i’ll call you about two o’clock. i needn’t caution you both to be careful.”
alagwa was tired and she slept deeply and dreamlessly. she did not share jack’s fears. even though she knew her message could not yet have reached tecumseh, she felt secure under the aegis of his protection. nevertheless, when jack waked her and she saw the low moon staring at her along[183] the western water, she went to her post at the edge of the rampart determined to keep good watch and make sure that no wanderer of the night should creep upon the camp unawares.
from where she sat she could see along both rivers—down the maumee to the east and up the auglaize to the south. up the latter, lay her home at wapakoneta, a scant twenty miles away. all her travels for the past few days had been west and east again, westward out one leg of a triangle, and then eastward down the other leg, and the net gain of one hundred and fifty miles march, west and east, had been only a score of miles north.
toward wapakoneta she strained her eyes, not solely because it was her home, but because if danger came at all it would come from its direction. tecumseh and his braves had come down the auglaize less than a week before and laggards might follow him at any time. or, perhaps, captain brito might come north; alagwa knew that jack doubted his having left the country.
the dawn was beginning to break. the boles of the trees began to stand separately out; the leaves took on a tinge of green. over all reigned silence. no faintest sound gave warning of approaching enemies. but the girl well knew that silence did not mean safety. too often had she heard the shawnee braves boast of how they crept on their sleeping enemies in the dawn. with renewed determination[184] she thrust forward her heavy rifle and strained her eyes and ears anew. jack had trusted her; she must not fail him.
suddenly she started. was something moving beside the great council oak or was it a mere figment of her overstrained nerves. the horses were moving uneasily; now and then they snorted. did they scent something? alagwa remembered that more than once she had heard the shawnee braves complain that the sleeping whites had been awakened by their uneasy horses.
abruptly anger swelled in the girl’s heart. the braves had no right to attack jack’s party. she had sent word to tecumseh that it must be protected. true, tecumseh could not yet have received her message, much less have sent word to respect it. any indians who were creeping upon the camp could only be a party of late recruits from wapakoneta, bound north to join tecumseh and the british. nevertheless, they were acting counter to the orders that tecumseh would surely give. alagwa knew that her anger was illogical, but she let it flame higher and higher as she watched. if the shawnees dared to attack——
again she set herself to listen. she must not rouse the camp without cause. jack would laugh at her if she were frightened so easily. no! he would not laugh! he was too kind to laugh. but he would despise her. she must remember that she[185] was playing the man; she must show no weakness. nothing had moved amid the tree trunks; she had only imagined it. with a sigh of relief she lowered her rifle.
simultaneously came a crash. a bullet drove the earth from the rampart into her face, filling her eyes and mouth with its spatter. then from every tree, from every rock, forms, half naked, horrible, painted, came leaping. bullets whistled before them, rending the tortured air. as they topped the ramparts one, wearing a woodsman’s garb, caught his foot and fell forward, sprawling; the others hurled themselves toward jack and cato. alagwa did not stop to think that these were her people, her friends. instinctively the muzzle of her rifle found the naked breast of the warrior who was springing at jack, and instinctively she pressed the trigger. then, heedless of the kick of the heavy rifle, and of the blinding smoke that curled from its barrel, and reckless of the pulsing bullets she threw herself forward. “stop!” she shrieked, in the shawnee tongue. “stop! tecumseh commands it.”
the braves did not stop. relentlessly they came on. one of them sprang at cato; his tomahawk flashed in the dawn and the negro went down, sprawling upon the ground. but jack was up now; his rifle spoke and the indian who had felled cato crashed across his body. as jack turned, a whirling[186] hatchet struck him in the chest and he staggered backward. but as the man who had thrown it whooped with triumph, alagwa’s pistol barked and he fell. from beneath him jack rolled to cato’s side and caught up the rifle that had fallen from the negro’s flaccid fingers. as he renewed the spilled priming, alagwa, weaponless, heard a shot and felt her cap fly from her head and go fluttering to the ground. then jack marked the man who had fired upon her and shot him down.
dazed, alagwa staggered back. for a moment she saw the battlefield, photographed indelibly upon the retinas of her eyes; saw the man at whom jack had fired clutching at the air as he fell; saw the sole remaining foe, the man who had tripped at the rampart, a huge man, broad and tall, leap at jack. then sight and sound were blotted out together.
