jack’s relapse lasted longer than either the surgeon or alagwa had anticipated. when the emotions of the day cumulated in the rush of blood that ruptured anew the delicate half-healed membranes of his brain august lay hot upon the land. when he once more looked out upon the world with sane eyes september was far advanced. the autumn rains had transformed the hot, dry prairie into a fresh green carpet starred with late blossoms that would persist until frost. the winds were tearing the ripened leaves front the branches and heaping them in windrows of scarlet and gold; the rustling of their fall whispered through the air. from unseen pools along the maumee the ducks were rising.
many things had happened while jack lay unconscious. the siege of the fort had begun, had taken its toll of dead and wounded, and had ended with the arrival of general harrison and the troops from ohio and kentucky. the indians had fled down the maumee to meet the advancing british and warn them that “kentuck were coming as numerous as the trees.” harrison had destroyed the towns of the miamis and pottawatomies, had[259] turned the command over to general winchester, and had left for piqua. winchester had marched down the maumee and had built a new fort at the ruins of fort defiance. fort wayne itself was almost as it had been before the siege began, but the settlement around it had been burned to the ground.
in the three weeks that had elapsed jack had not regained consciousness sufficiently to understand that alagwa had left him. after he was better, cato, fearing the effect of the news, kept it back until his master’s insistence grew too great to be longer denied.
jack received the information in bewildered silence. he could not understand it. many of the happenings of that eventful evening had been blotted from his mind, but some of them remained fresh and clear. he remembered how the girl had fought against marrying him and how he had forced her to consent. but he remembered, too, that she had consented and had married him, irrevocably and forever. why, then, should she leave him an hour later? and whither had she gone?
vainly he questioned cato. the negro had grown confused with anxiety, responsibility, and the lapse of time. “deed i don’t know whar she went, an’ i don’t know why she went, mars’ jack,” he pleaded, “’c’epin’ it was somethin’ in the letter dat poor white trash read out to her.”
[260]jack turned his head slightly. “letter?” he echoed. “what letter? and who read it?”
“dat letter that mars’ rogers brought you from home. i don’t know who ’twas from but i reckons it was from ole marster. you was a-readin’ it when you dropped, and dat man williams picks it up, and he reads somethin’ outer it, and miss bob’s face gets white and her eyes sorter pops and her mouth trimbles. then she straightens up and turns her back on williams and says for me to help her get you to bed. then, after a couple of hours, when you’s restin’ sorter easy an’ the doctor done said you warn’t a-goin’ to be sick long she tells me she’s gwine away. she didn’t say whar she was gwine. she just went.”
jack had listened silently. he was still very weak. “what was it that williams read?” he asked.
cato fairly groaned with the effort to remember. “seems like i can’t exactly call it back, mars’ jack,” he confessed. “it was sumpin’ about somebody wanting you back home, but who ’twas i disremembers.”
“well, where is the letter?”
cato shook his head. “deed i don’t know. mars’ jack,” he answered. “i ain’t seed it since. i looked for it the next day but i couldn’t find it an’ i ax massa rogers, but he say he don’t know nothin’ about it. i reckon it’s done lost.”
[261]“go and find rogers and ask him to come here.”
while the negro was gone jack lay quivering with excitement. he could not even remember that he had received a letter, much less what it contained. cato’s words only added to his bewilderment. naturally his people would want him at home, but he could not conceive how any statement to that effect could have troubled alagwa, much less have caused her to leave him. the thought of sally habersham never once entered his mind.
rogers came after a while, but he brought no enlightenment. the old hunter had left the room after giving the letter to alagwa and had not been present when jack fainted. he knew only that the letter was from the south, presumably from jack’s home. nor did he know whither the girl had gone. he did not know that she had gone at all till nearly twenty-four hours after her departure, and then he with the others was shut up in the fort, unable to venture out. and long before the siege was over all record of her going had been blotted out.
later, major stickney, recovered from his fever, came to see jack, but he knew even less than rogers.
balked here, jack swallowed his pride and inquired for williams, only to learn that the trader had tramped away with general winchester’s army down the maumee. he inquired for fantine, but found that she and peter had gone south with the women and civilians an hour after his seizure; cato[262] thought she had gone before his “mist’ess” had. even mr. hibbs had gone, having resigned from the army as the sole way of escaping court-martial on charges of drunkenness, cowardice, and incompetence. every avenue of information seemed blocked.
driven back upon himself jack ate his heart out with vain questionings.
he did not distrust the girl. it did not even occur to him to question her conduct. what she had done she had done for some reason that had seemed good to her. he was sure of that. his little comrade had not lost her staunchness when she changed her seeming sex, nor when she became his wife.
his wife! the words thrilled him. day by day his mind wandered back over the events of the weeks that had passed since he came to ohio. day by day the portrait he carried in his mind changed, alagwa’s boyish figure and boyish features melting slowly into the softer outlines of womanhood. day by day he called back all that she had said and done until his heart glowed within him. how sweet she was! how dear! and how roughly he had used her, treating her as a mere boy instead of throning her as a queen. he ought to have guessed long before, he told himself. he ought to have known that no boy could be so gentle, so tender, so long-suffering. with shame he reconstructed the events of that last afternoon beneath the great tree when he[263] had spoken of the “sweet, gentle lady” whom he might some day wed and had laughed at the suggestion that he might mate with a wild-wood lass like his boy friend. how could he have spoken as he did? sally habersham had been in his mind, of course. but sally habersham—sally habersham was not fit to tie the shoe of his little comrade; she was a mere ghost flitting through the corridors of a shadowy half-forgotten world, a million miles removed from that in which he dwelt. fantine was right. what a man needed—on the frontier or off it—was not a fair face and a knowledge of the mazes of the minuet, but a staunch comrade, one who would grow into one’s life and would share the bitter and the sweet. few men could win such a prize, and he—he had thought to do so carelessly, casually, by arguments that to his quickened consciousness seemed little better than insults. how had he ever dreamed that one so tender, so true, so loving, would accept his hand without his heart. she had called him a coward when he forced her to marry him. well, he had been a coward; with shame he admitted it. no wonder she had fled from him. but he would find her and would tell her all the new-found love that welled in his heart. and she would believe him, for he would be speaking the truth.
but how was he to find her?
[264]at last, when he was despairing, father francisco came to his aid.
“my son,” said the priest. “i know not why your wife has left you——”
“i don’t either.” jack wrung his hands. “they tell me that it was something in a letter—a letter i can not even remember receiving. but i don’t believe it. i don’t believe it! she loved me! i am sure she loved me. and she would not have left me willingly.”
keenly the priest looked into the lad’s face. “do you love her?” he asked gently.
jack paled, but his eyes met the other’s squarely. “by heaven, i do,” he swore. “i did not know it. i married her for her honor’s sake. but now—now—i love her! i love her! for me there is no other woman in all the world and never shall be.”
“and never was?” asked the priest gently.
jack colored. “i won’t say that,” he admitted. “i—i thought i was in love once. good heavens! i didn’t know what love was then.” he laughed bitterly. “but i’ve found out now. oh! yes! i’ve found out now.”
father francisco’s eyes had never left the lad’s face. but at the last words he nodded. “i believe you, my son,” he said. “we men are poor creatures at best. i come to bring you a crumb of news—only a crumb, but still, news. your wife did not go south. she went down the maumee with[265] a party of pottawatomies. i think she must have intended to go back to the shawnees with whom she had lived so many years.”
jack clambered to his feet. “down the maumee?” he echoed. “i’ll start after her at once.”
but the priest shook his head. “no!” he said. “you must get well and strong first. if you start now you will kill yourself and you will not find your wife. she is in no danger. wherever she went, she went of her own accord. she is perfectly safe. if you really want to find her you will control yourself and get well.”
jack set his teeth hard. the advice was good and he knew that he must follow it. but still he protested. “if you knew,” he began,——
“i do know.” the priest spoke gently. “years ago i myself—but that is long past. let it lie! you must not start for at least two weeks.”
“all right.” jack spoke reluctantly. “and, thank you, father!”
the priest rose. “no thanks are necessary,” he said. “the church frowns on the separation of husbands and wives, and i only did my duty in telling you as soon as i knew.”
jack lay back on his couch rejoicing. the veil was still before his eyes, but it was no longer black. light had dawned behind it. it would brighten, brighten, till——
[266]when rogers heard the news he nodded sagely. “i reckoned so all along,” he asserted. “i reckoned she’d gone back to those injun friends of hers. but i kinder hated to say so. most injun-bred youngsters does when they gets an excuse. maybe that there letter gave her a jolt and——”
jack sat up. “williams is down the maumee,” he gritted. “if i find him——”
“of course! of course! but of course he’d lie. an’ maybe there’s an easier way. it’ll take a week or two for you to get well enough to start. whyn’t you let me go to piqua and find peter bondie an’——”
“will you?” jack was growing more and more excited. “when can you start?”
“right away. i——”
“all right. go! go! find peter and tell him all that has happened. ask him if he can give me any help, any clue, however small. he had friends near fort malden. he got news from these. find out who they are. they may know something. find out what it was that williams read aloud—what it was that made my little comrade leave me. and”—jack hesitated and flushed painfully—“see colonel johnson and find out whether he has heard anything of miss estelle, my cousin whom i came here to seek. good god! when i think how i have failed——” the boy’s voice died away.
rogers looked at him queerly. “i been a-thinkin’[267] about that gal,” he said. “i got an idea that——”
jack interrupted. jack had gotten used to interrupting rogers, having found that that was the only way to get a word in when the old man held the floor. “hurry back,” he said. “no! hold on! i won’t wait for you to come back here. cut across the black swamp and join me at fort defiance or wherever general winchester and the army may be. i’ll go there and wait for you.”
the old hunter got up. “i sure will,” he assented, with alacrity. “i’ll start right away. i reckon, though, i’ll get more from madame fantine than i will from peter.”
jack’s excitement lessened. a quizzical light came into his eyes. rogers’s liking for fantine was no secret to him. “maybe you will,” he conceded. “fantine is very kind hearted. it’s a great pity”—meditatively—“that she talks so much.”
a faint color tinged the old hunter’s leathery cheeks. “who? her?” he mumbled. “she—she—well? what in thunder do you expect a woman to do? ain’t a woman got a tongue? why shouldn’t she use it. what i hate is to hear men talking so much. anybody that cooks like madame fantine sure has got a right to talk. but, all right. laugh if you want to. i’ll be right off and i’ll join you as quick as the lord’ll let me.” allowing no chance for reply the old man hastened nimbly from the room.
[268]after rogers had gone the days passed slowly, while jack gathered strength and made ready to be gone. his horses had vanished—commandeered for the use of the army—and no others were to be had. winter, however, was at hand and he set himself to follow the custom of the country and to learn to use both skates and snowshoes.
cato had learned also, at first with many protests, but later with mounting delight. “lord, mars’ jack,” he said, one day. “i sutinly do wish mandy could see me on these yere things. i lay she’d cook me the bestest dinner i ever seed.”
jack nodded. “i reckon she would, cato!” he agreed. “but you want to be mighty careful. we’re going a good many miles on the ice and if you fell and hit your head——”
“my head!” cato looked bewildered. “lord, mars’ jack, if dat injun couldn’t hurt my head with that axe of his’n, how you figger out i gwine to hurt it on the ice?”
jack grinned. “of course you wouldn’t hurt your head,” he agreed. “but the ice isn’t more than a foot thick and if you hit it with your head you’d probably knock a hole in it and we’d both go through and be drowned.”
as jack’s skill in skating grew, his impatience to be gone increased, the more so as the seat of war, after centering for a time at fort defiance (where a new fort, fort winchester, had been built to defend[269] the frontier against the hordes of savages that hung along the frontier), had begun to move down the river. when jack heard that general winchester in command had boasted that he would take fort malden in thirty days he refused to delay longer.
when he started out january had come. snow wrapped the earth and loaded the branches of the trees, clinging even to the sides of the mighty trunks that soared skyward. the road down the maumee, well-travelled as it was, was hidden beneath drifts. only the river itself was bare, swept clear by the icy wind.
down it jack and cato sped, their skates ringing on the steel-cased coils of the winding pathway. for four days they travelled, passing fort defiance and fort deposit, and coming at last to the mouth of the river. a few hours more upon the ice along the shores of the lake brought them to the american camp at frenchtown on the raisin river.
here rogers was waiting them at the outposts. “i reckoned you’d be along soon,” he said, “an’ i been watching. i’ve got news that you’d ought to know quick. first place, williams is here! no! i ain’t seen him, but he’s here. he’s on outpost duty an’ you can see him tonight if you want to. but i reckon you ain’t got time to fool with the skunk now. i’ve got bigger news. i didn’t see madame fantine; she’d gone to cincinnati to get some goods[270] to restock their store that was burned. but i saw peter. neither of ’em knew that miss bob had left you. peter didn’t know nothin’ about the letter. but he knew something else. and i saw colonel johnson and he knew something else, too. who you reckon miss bob really is?”
jack clutched the old man by the arm. an idea was dawning in his mind. “who? who?” he chattered. “not—not——”
“she’s the gal you was lookin’ for—the gal that tecumseh brought up. alagwa means ‘the star,’ an’ they tell me her right name, estelle, means star, too. i dunno why she fooled you. women is durned curious critters an’——”
the old man babbled on, but jack did not hear him. the explanation of many things had rushed upon him. but the main fact stood overwhelming and clarifying out.
bob was alagwa, the girl of whom he was in search, the daughter of m. delaroche. and she was his wife. once he knew the truth he could not understand why he had not guessed long before.
in truth, however, his dullness was not strange. no doubt, if he had known from the first that his little comrade was a girl he would have quickly guessed that she was the girl of whom he was in search. but so long as he thought her a boy he could not guess; and since he had known her sex his thoughts had been engrossed with other matters.
[271]when his thoughts came back to earth, rogers was still talking. “peter was mighty sorry she’d left you,” he said. “he reckoned she’d gone back to tecumseh. and he says for you to see his friend, jean beaubien, at frenchtown, and——”
“at frenchtown? that’s here!”
“yes. an’ i’ve seen beaubien! he knows all about miss bob. she’s living at amherstburg, with white people. tecumseh’s having her taught things.”
“at amherstburg!” jack gasped. “why! that’s at fort malden, only fifteen miles away, across the river!” he turned to cato. “cato,” he directed, “you stay here with rogers till i get back. if i don’t come back——”
“hold your horses!” the old hunter fairly shouted the words. “you ain’t plumb crazy, are you. you can’t go to fort malden ’less’n you want to lose your hair. there’s seven thousand indians there.”
jack set his teeth. “i’ll go if there are seven thousand devils from h—l there,” he gritted.
“same thing!” assented rogers, cheerfully. “all right! if you feel that way about it, i reckon i’ll have to go along. but there ain’t no use of being any crazier than we got to be. if we start at dark we’ll git there just about the best time.”
