When Wilderness Was King Part 10

"Why you bring them?" he asked hotly, designating our escort of Miamis, already shrinking from the taunts of the gathering braves. "They dog Indians, bad medicine; they run fast when Pottawattomie come."

"Don't be so certain about that, Topenebe," retorted Wells, shortly.

"But we cannot stop longer here; make way, that we may pa.s.s along, Jordan, push on with your advance through that rabble there."

The Indian chief drew his horse back beside the trail, and we moved slowly forward, our Indian guides slightly in advance, and exhibiting in every action the disinclination they felt to proceed, and their constantly increasing fear of the wild horde that now resorted to every means in their power, short of actual violence, to r.e.t.a.r.d their progress. As they closed in more closely around us, taunting the Miamis unmercifully, even shaking tomahawks in their faces, with fierce eyes full of hatred and murder, I drew back my horse until I ranged up beside Mademoiselle Antoinette, and thus we rode steadily onward through that frenzied, howling ma.s.s, the girl between De Croix and me, who thus protected her on either side.

It was truly a weary ride, full of insult, and perchance of grave peril had we faced that naked mob less resolutely. Doubtless the chiefs restrained their young men somewhat, but more than once we came within a hair's-breadth of serious conflict. They hemmed us in so tightly that we could only walk our horses; and twice they pressed upon Jordan so hard as to halt him altogether, bunching his cowardly Miamis, and even striking them contemptuously with their blackened sticks. The second time this occurred, Captain Wells rode forward to force a path, driving the spurs into his horse so quickly that the startled animal fairly cut a lane through the crowded savages before they could draw back. Naught restrained them from open violence but their knowledge of that stern-faced swarthy soldier who fronted them with such dauntless courage. Hundreds in that swarm had seen him before, when, as the adopted son of a great war-chief of the Miamis he had been at their side in many a wild foray along the border.

"Wau-mee-nuk, the white chief," pa.s.sed from lip to lip; and sullenly, slowly, reluctantly, the frenzied red circle fell back, as he pressed his rearing horse full against them.

How hideous their painted faces looked, as we slowly pushed past them, their lips shrieking insult, their sinewy hands gripping at our stirrups, their brandished weapons shaken in our faces. With firm-set lips and watchful eyes I rode, bent well forward, so as best to protect the girl, my rifle held across my saddle pommel. Twice some vengeful arm struck me a savage blow, and once a young devil with long matted hair hanging over his fierce eyes thrust a sharpened stake viciously at the girl's face. I struck with quick-clinched hand, and he reeled back into the ma.s.s with a sharp cry of pain. My eyes caught the sudden dazzle, as De Croix whipped out his rapier.

"Not that, Monsieur!" I cried hastily, across her horse's neck. "Use the hilt, not the blade, unless you wish to die."

He heard me above the clamor, and with a quick turn of the weapon struck fiercely at a scowling brave who grasped at his horse's rein.

He smiled pleasantly across at me, his fingers twisting his small mustache.

"'T is doubtless good advice, friend Wayland," he said, carelessly, "but these copper-colored devils are indeed most annoying upon this side, and I may lose my temper ere we reach the gate."

"For the sake of her who rides between us, I beg that you hold in hard, Monsieur," I answered. "'T would be overmuch to pay, I imagine, for a hot brain."

I glanced at her as I spoke, scarcely conscious even then that I had removed my eyes from the threatening mob that pressed me, though I know I must have done so, for I retain the picture of her yet. She rode facing me, although her saddle was of the old army type with merely a folded blanket to soften its sharp contours, and her foot could barely find firm support within the narrow strap above the wooden stirrup.

She sat erect and easily, swaying gently to the slow step of the horse.

Her face was pale, but there was no evidence of timidity in her dark eyes, and she smiled at me as our glances met.

"You are surely a brave girl, Mademoiselle!" I exclaimed, unable to restrain my admiration. "'T is a scene to try any nerves."

"Yet almost worth the danger," she returned softly, "to realize what men can be in such stress of need. You are the real--Beware of that half-breed, Monsieur!"

Her last words were a quick warning, yet my eyes were already upon the fellow, and as he dodged down, knife in hand, to aim a vicious lunge at the forward leg of her horse, I brought the stock of my rifle crunching against his shoulder. The next instant we had pa.s.sed over his naked body as he lay gasping in the trail.

"See!" she cried, with eagerness. "The gates are opened!"

We were possibly a hundred yards from the southern front of the stockade, when I glanced forward and saw the level ground between a seething ma.s.s of savage forms, so densely wedged together as to block further progress. I could see hundreds of brown sinewy arms uplifted from a sea of faces to brandish weapons of every description, and marked how the Miamis cowered like whipped curs behind the protection of Wells's horse, while close beside him stood Jordan, erect and silent as it on parade, a rifle grasped in his hands, his head bare, a great welt showing redly across his white forehead.

A little party, hardly more than twenty infantry-men, marched steadily out from the open gateway of the Fort. The first file bore bayonets fixed upon their guns, and the naked savages fell slowly back before the polished steel. It was smartly done, and it thrilled my blood to note with what silent determination that small band of disciplined men pressed their way onward, pa.s.sing through the threatening ma.s.s of redskins as indifferently as if they had been forest trees. A young, smooth-faced fellow, wearing a new officer's uniform, led them, sword in hand, a smile of light contempt upon his lips.

"Clear the s.p.a.ce wider, Campbell!" he said sternly, to the big corporal at his side. "Swing your files to left and right, and push the rabble out of the way."

They did it with the b.u.t.ts of their guns, laughing at the brandished knives and tomahawks and the fierce painted faces that scowled at them, paying no apparent heed to the taunts and insults showered from every side. There were some stones thrown, a few blows were struck, but no rifle-shot broke the brief struggle. The young officer strode forward down the open s.p.a.ce, and fronted our advance.

"I presume this is Captain Wells, from Fort Wayne?" he said, lifting his cap as he spoke.

"It is," was the reply, "and I am very glad to find that you still hold Fort Dearborn."

The other's frank and boyish face darkened slightly, as if at an unpleasant memory.

"'T is no fault of some," he muttered hastily; then he checked himself.

"We are glad to greet you, Captain Wells," he added, in a more formal tone, glancing about upon us, "and your party. I am Ensign Ronan, of the garrison; and if you will kindly pa.s.s between my guard lines, you will find Captain Heald awaiting you within."

Thus we rode freely forward, with the guarding soldiery on either side of us, their faces to the howling savages; we pa.s.sed in at the great southern gate, and halted amid the buildings of old Fort Dearborn.

CHAPTER XI

OLD FORT DEARBORN

It makes my old head dizzy to recall the events of that hour across the years that have intervened. Possibly I, as I write these words, am the only person living who has looked upon that old stockade and taken part in its tragic history. What a marvellous change has less than a century witnessed! Once the outermost guard of our western frontier, it is now the site of one of the great cities of two continents. To me, who have seen these events and changes, it possesses more than the wonderment of a dream.

That day, as I rode forward, I saw but little of the Fort's formation, for my eyes and thoughts were so filled with those frenzied savages that hemmed us about, and the cool deployment of the few troops that guarded our pa.s.sage-way, that everything else made but a dim impression. Yet the glimpse I obtained, even at that exciting moment, together with the subsequent experiences that came to me, have indelibly impressed each detail of the rude Fort upon my memory.

It stands before me now, clear-cut and prominent, its outlines distinct against the background of blue water or green plains. In that early day the Fort was a fairly typical outpost of the border, like scores of others scattered at wide and irregular intervals from the Carolina mountains upon the south to the joining of the great lakes at the north, forming one link in the thin chain of frontier fortifications against Indian treachery and outbreak. It bore the distinction, among the others, of being the most advanced and exposed of all, and its small garrison was utterly isolated and alone, a forlorn hope in the heart of the great wilderness.

The Fort had been erected nine years before our arrival, upon the southern bank of a dull and sluggish stream, emptying into the Great Lake from the west, and known to the earlier French explorers as the river Chicagou. The spot selected was nearly that where an old-time French trading-post had stood, although the latter had been deserted for so long that no remnant of it yet lingered when the Americans first took possession, and its site remained only as a vague tradition of those Indian tribes whose representatives often visited these waters.

The earliest force despatched by the government to this frontier post erected here a simple stockade of logs. These were placed standing on end, firmly planted in the ground and extending upward some fifteen feet, their tops sharpened as an additional protection against savage a.s.sailants. This log stockade was built quite solid, save for one main entrance, facing to the south and secured by a heavy, iron-studded gate, with a subterranean or sunken pa.s.sage leading out beneath the north wall to the river, protected by a door which could be raised only from within.

The enclosure thus formed was sufficiently large to contain a somewhat restricted parade-ground, about which were grouped the necessary buildings of the garrison, the quarters for the officers, the soldiers'

barracks, the commandant's office, the guardhouse, and the magazine.

These rude structures were built in frontier style, of cleaved logs, and with one exception were but a single story in height, so that their roofs of rived s.h.i.+ngles were well below the protection of the palisade of logs.

Besides these interior buildings, two block-houses were built, each constructed so that the second story overhung the first, one of them, standing at the southeast and one at the northwest corner of the palisaded walls. A narrow wooden support, or walk, accessible only from one or the other of these block-houses, enabled its defenders to stand within the enclosure and look out over the row of sharpened logs.

At the time of our arrival the protective armament of this primitive Fort, besides the small-arms of the garrison, consisted of three pieces of light artillery, bra.s.s six-pounders of antique pattern, relics of the Revolution. Outside the Fort enclosure, only a few yards to the west along the river bank, stood the agency building, or, as it was often termed, "goods factory," built for purposes of trading with the Indians, so that it would not be necessary to open the Fort to them. This agency building was a rather large two-story log house, not erected for any purposes of defence. Along the southern side of the stream, in both directions, the soldiers had excavated numerous root-houses, or cellars, in which to store the products of their summer gardens,--these excavations fairly honeycombing the bank.

Such was Fort Dearborn in August of the fatal year 1812. It stood ugly, rude, isolated, afar from any help in time of need. Its nearest military neighbor lay directly across the waters of the Great Lake, where a small detachment of troops, scarcely less isolated than itself, garrisoned a similar stockade near the mouth of the river Saint Joseph. To the westward, the vast plains, as yet scarce pressed by the adventurous feet of white explorers, faded away into a mysterious unknown country, roamed over by countless tribes of savages; to the northward lay an unbroken wilderness for hundreds of leagues, save for a few scattered traders at Green Bay, until the military outpost at Mackinac was reached; to the eastward rolled the waters of the Great Lake, storm-swept and unvexed by keel of s.h.i.+p, an almost unsurpa.s.sable barrier, along whose sh.o.r.e adventurous voyagers crept in log and bark canoes; while to the southward alternating prairie and timber-land stretched away for unnumbered leagues the Indian hunting-grounds,--broken only by a few scattered settlements of French half-breeds.

From the walls of the Fort the eye ranged over a dull and monotonous landscape, nowhere broken by signs of advancing civilization or even of human presence. A few hundred yards to the east the waves of Lake Michigan broke upon the wide, sandy beach, whence the tossing waters stretched away in tumultuous loneliness to their blending with the distant sky. Southward, along the sh.o.r.e of the lake, the nearly level plain, brown and sun-parched, soon merged into rounded heaps of wind-drifted sand, barely diversified by a few straggling groups of cottonwoods. To the westward extended the boundless prairie, flat and bare as a floor, except where the southern fork of the little river cut its way through the soft loam, and gave rise to a scrubby growth of cottonwood and willow; while northward, across the main body of the river, the land appeared more rugged and broken, and somewhat heavily wooded with oak and other forest trees, but equally devoid of evidences of habitation.

In all this wide survey from the little knoll on which the Fort stood, five houses only were visible. These were built roughly of logs in the most primitive style of the frontier, and, with a single exception, were now deserted by their occupants, who had retreated for safety to the stockade of the Fort. The single exception was the larger and more ambitious dwelling standing on the north bank of the river, occupied by John Kinzie and his family, himself an old-time Indian trader, whose honesty and long dealing with the savages had made him confident of their friends.h.i.+p and fidelity. At one time, however, so threatening had become the strange bands that flocked in toward Dearborn, as crows to a feast, he also deserted his home, and, with those dependent upon him, sought refuge within the Fort walls; but, influenced by the pledge of the Pottawattomies, and believing that safety lay in trusting to their friends.h.i.+p, they had returned to their own house. The other cabins were scattered to the westward of the stockade, close to the river bank.

These dwellings had been occupied by the families of Ouilmette, Burns, and Lee, respectively; while the last named owned a second cabin, built some distance up the south branch of the river, and occupied by a tenant named Liberty White.

The prospect was in truth depressing to one accustomed to other and more civilized surroundings. A spirit of loneliness, of fearful isolation, seemed to hover over the restless waters upon the one hand, and those vast silent plains on the other; sea and sky, sky and sand, met the wearied eye wherever it wandered. The scene was unspeakably solemn in its immensity and loneliness; while irresistibly the thought would wander over those fateful leagues of prairie and forest that stretched unbrokenly between this far frontier and the few scattered and remote settlements that were its nearest neighbors.

It was not until some time later that these sombre reflections pressed upon me with all their force. After the excitement of our first boisterous greeting was over, and I found opportunity to lean across the top of the guarded stockade and gaze alone over the desolate spectacle I have endeavored to describe, I could feel more acutely the hopelessness of our situation and the danger threatening us from every side. But at the moment of our entrance, all my interest and attention had been centred upon the scenes and persons immediately about me. It was my first experience within the stockaded walls of an armed government post.

The scene was new to my young senses, and, in spite of the excitement that still heated my blood, I looked upon it with such absorbing interest as to be forgetful for the moment even of the fair girl who rode in at my side.

The dull clang of the heavy iron-bound gate behind us was a welcome sound after the fierce buffetings of our perilous pa.s.sage; yet it only partially shut off the savage howlings, while above the hideous uproar came the sharp reports of several guns. But the instant bustle and confusion within scarcely allowed opportunity to notice this disorder; moreover, there had come to us a sense of safety and security,--we were at last within the barriers we had struggled so long to gain. However the savage hordes might rage without, we were now beyond their reach, and might take breath again.

Our little party, closely bunched together, with Wells and the timorous Miamis at its head, surged quickly through between the bars, and came to a halt in an open s.p.a.ce, evidently the parade-ground of the garrison, the bare earth worn smooth and hard by the trampling of many feet. A tall flag-pole rose near the centre, and the wavering shadow of the banner at its top extended to the eastern edge of the enclosure. Out from the log-houses which bordered this enclosure there came a group of people to welcome us,--officers and soldiers, women neatly dressed and with bright intelligent faces, women of rougher mould attired in calico or deerskin, hardy-looking men in rude hunter's garb, picturesque French voyageurs wiry of limb and dark of skin, an Indian or two, silent, grave, emotionless, a single negro, and trailing behind them a number of dirty, delighted children, and dogs of every breed and degree. It was a motley gathering, and appeared almost like a mult.i.tude as it hurried forth into the open parade-ground, and surged joyfully about us, all eager to welcome us to Dearborn, and hopeful that we brought them encouragement and relief. We were of their own race, a link between them and the far-distant East; and our coming told them they were not forgotten.

The odd commingling of tongues, the constant crowding and sc.r.a.ps of conversation, the volley of questioning from every side, was confusing and unintelligible. I could gain only glimpses here and there of what was going on; nor was I able to judge with any accuracy of the number of those present. I looked down upon their appealing, anxious faces, with a sad heart. In some way the sight of them brought back thoughts of the savage, howling mob without, clamoring for blood, through which we had won our pa.s.sage by sheer good-fortune; of those leagues of untracked forest amid whose glooms we had ploughed our way. I thought of these things as I gazed upon the helpless women and children thronging about me, and my heart sank as I realized how great indeed was the burden resting upon us all, how frail the hope of safety. Death, savage, relentless, inhuman death in its most frightful guise with torture and agony unspeakable, lurked along every mile of our possible retreat; nor could I conceive how its grim coming might long be delayed by that palisade of logs. We were hopeless of rescue. We were alone, deserted, the merest handful amid the unnumbered hordes of the vast West. Swift and terrible as this conception was when it swept upon me, it grew deeper as I learned more fully the details of our situation.

Just in front of where I lingered in my saddle, the crush slightly parted, and I noticed a tall man step forward,--a fair man, having a light beard slightly tinged with gray, and wearing the undress uniform of a captain of infantry. A lady, several years his junior, stood at his side, her eyes bright with expectancy. At sight of them, Captain Wells instantly sprang from his horse and hastened forward, his dark face lighted by one of his rare smiles.

"Captain," he exclaimed, clasping the officers hand warmly, and extending his other hand in greeting to the lady, "I am glad indeed to have reached you in time to be of service; and you, my own dear niece,--may we yet be permitted to bring you safely back to G.o.d's country."

I was unable to catch the reply of either; but I noted that the lady flung her arms about the speaker's neck and kissed his swarthy cheek.