Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters Part 17

it was a wide, gra.s.sy, forest-dotted country strange to the Long Knives. Few of them, not even the Zanes and the Wetzels and their like, had ever been here except as prisoners. They did not know, John Slover did not know, that only eleven miles to the east was the eager village of Chief Pipe and his Delawares; that only eighteen miles north was the princ.i.p.al village of Chief Half King and his painted Hurons: and that six hundred warriors of the two nations had come together, with guns loaded and hatchets sharpened, to await the Shawnees, the Miamis and the British Rangers guided by Matthew Elliott, and wipe the Americans from the trail.

The Long Knives moved fearfully on. To them, the air was full of threat. The Delawares and Hurons met them, and held them in check.

June 5 the Shawnees, Miamis and the Rangers tore in. Matthew Elliott, in his brilliant uniform, had taken command; his comrade renegade, Simon Girty, as his lieutenant raged hither-thither on a white horse.

Beset amidst the timber islands and the cranberry swamps the Long Knives broke in retreat. Their horses mired. The best efforts of Jonathan Zane, Lewis Wetzel, brave Colonel Crawford the Continental, other men and officers, availed little.

Four hundred and eighty, the flower of the border, were over-matched by one thousand, the full strength of the Northern Confederacy.

The battle ended on the night of June 6. Three hundred of the Long Knives remained together, and reached the Ohio. By ones and twos and threes others straggled in. But many did not come. Among them were Colonel Crawford, his son John Crawford, Major John McClelland of a famous border family, Dr. Knight, John Slover, young James Paull--and he, and he, and he, a score of them whose fate might be guessed at only with a shudder.

Of these, few ever did return. The n.o.ble Colonel Crawford had been captured. He was the "Big Captain"--he must die, and Chief Pipe, another "Big Captain," ordered him to terrible torture. Boyish John Crawford and Major McClelland also were killed in the Indian way. But little Doctor Knight the surgeon, Guide John Slover and young James Paull finally turned up, at home, with remarkable stories now to be told.

Doctor Knight had been taken, along with his colonel and several comrades. They were eleven in number, prisoners to the Delawares.

Captain Pipe had marched them to his own town. Their hopes had been flickering, they thought that Simon Girty might help them, but on the way Chief Pipe and Chief Wingenund had painted them black. Then nine of them were killed by a mob. And at Pipe's Town Doctor Knight had sickened in watching his colonel burned before his eyes. That was an afternoon and night of horror.

"You," said Chief Pipe to him, "will be taken to the Shawnee towns to see your friends."

To see his friends! Doctor Knight did not know whether this meant his "friends" the Shawnees, or his other friends who had been tortured like Colonel Crawford. It all amounted to the same thing. He resolved to escape or die while trying. Already he had been given a broken jaw.

In the morning he was painted black again, and sent away afoot in charge of a large Shawnee, who drove him with a hickory whip. They were bound for the Shawnee towns, forty miles southwest--probably to Wakatomica. The doctor, who was not much over five feet tall and weighed scarcely more than one hundred and twenty, trotted valiantly, glad that he had not been tied by a rope. But because he was so small, and was not a warrior, the Shawnee seemed to think him harmless.

A warrior armed with gun and hatchet and knife should have no fear of a midget white man who had been well beaten.

"There lie the bones of your Big Captain," the Shawnee jeered, when they pa.s.sed the charred Crawford stake.

The doctor only smiled as well as he could, with such a jaw. He showed no fear. He pretended to feel safe, for he was going "to see his friends." He began to make up to his guard, whose name was Tutelu.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Fight of the Privates.]

For all his surly looks Tutelu proved to be good-natured. He and the doctor proceeded to fool each other.

"When we reach the Shawnee towns, you and I will live together in the same cabin, as brothers," the doctor proposed.

Tutelu grinned. He grinned to think that this white man was so simple, and he grinned to think that this white man wished to live with him.

"Yes," he said. "You make good cabin? Know how?"

"I will build us such a great cabin that the council-house will look small," a.s.sured the doctor.

"Heap cabin maker, huh!" answered Tutelu, much impressed. "See, to-morrow." And they journeyed on like friends, except for the whip.

But the wool was not yet pulled over Tutelu's eyes. In camp to-night he tied his prisoner; and whenever the doctor stirred, to loosen the knots, Tutelu's gaze glowed upon him, through the darkness. There was no chance to do a thing.

"Reach Shawnee town to-morrow when sun is high," Tutelu had announced, before lying down. And all night the doctor thought and thought, and worked vainly at his knots.

When at daybreak his keeper untied him, he determined that he would attempt escape, somehow, at once. The Shawnees should not torture him as all the rest had been tortured.

They did not start immediately. Tutelu squatted, to renew the fire, in order to get breakfast. The mosquitoes and gnats were very bad; they hovered in clouds, lit upon his naked back and bit him severely. With one hand he poked the fire, with the other he slapped and scratched, while grunting angrily about the pests.

"Brother, I will make a smoke behind you," spoke the doctor, who had a desperate idea. "Then we can sit between two smokes and be at peace."

"All right," Tutelu grunted.

There was a little stick near at hand. It was a dogwood stick, only eighteen inches long and not thicker than two fingers--not much of a weapon. But the doctor was desperate. He picked it up, rolled a coal upon it, held the coal in place with a smaller stick, and walked around behind Tutelu, as if to start another fire. He laid down the coal, and drew long breath. It was now or perhaps never. Suddenly he turned, and half rising struck with all his strength. The dog-wood fork fairly bounced upon the Indian's head.

"Wagh!" gasped Tutelu. He had been knocked forward, so that he fell with his two hands and almost with his face into his fire. Instantly he was up, before the doctor might strike again. He ran howling, with his head b.l.o.o.d.y. He had no stomach for another blow. His prisoner had changed to a demon.

The doctor sprang for the rifle. He must kill, or else the alarm would be spread. But he was so excited that in c.o.c.king the rifle he broke the lock. Tutelu feared a bullet. As he still ran, howling, he dodged and doubled like a rabbit, until he had disappeared in the timber and his howls soon died away.

Now the doctor worked fast. He grabbed up Tutelu's powder-horn and bullet-pouch, blanket and moccasins, and ran, too.

In about an hour he came to the open prairie. He did not dare to cross it in the daytime, so he hid in the edge of it. That night he traveled by the north star, gained the other side by morning, and kept on until late in the afternoon.

He was no woodsman. He could not fix the gun, and finally threw it away. He could not chew, but he knew the herbs and weeds that were good to eat, and he sucked on these. He found plenty of green gooseberries; they upset his stomach, and he relieved himself with wild ginger. He ate three fledgling black-birds, from a nest; and he ate the soft parts of a land tortoise, torn apart with his fingers and sticks, because he had no knife.

After wandering twenty-one days he reached Fort McIntosh on the Ohio below Pittsburgh.

What of the cowardly Tutelu? Tutelu, still in great terror, arrived at Wakatomica. He panted in with a big story. He showed his head. It was laid open, four inches long, to the bone! He showed his feet.

They were filled with thorns. He said that his prisoner had been a giant, with the strength of a buffalo. While they had been talking together, the giant had pulled up a young tree and battered him first on one side of the head and then on the other. They had tussled. He had stabbed the giant twice, in the belly and in the back, and had left him for dead. At least, the fellow would die soon, for he had not been able to pursue.

But a white man was here in Wakatomica. He was John Slover; he spoke three Indian languages--Miami, Shawnee and Huron; and when he heard Tutelu's wonderful tale, he laughed. He told the other Indians the truth: that the prisoner was a little doctor and not a warrior--only five feet and a half tall and weighing no more than a boy! The Indians laughed long and loud. They bombarded Tutelu with broad jokes, and the best he could do was to go off to get his head dressed.

John Slover had been captured. He and James Paull and four others were threading homeward from the battle trail when several Indians had ambushed them; with one volley killed two, then had summoned the rest to surrender.

He and young James were the only men with guns. John Slover leveled his from behind a tree, to fight; but the leader of the Indians had called: "No shoot, no hurt. Treat good." Therefore he and two others had yielded. James Paull dived aside into the brush and ran. It seemed as though he got away.

One of the Indians was an old Miami who had helped to make prisoner of John Slover when a boy twenty-two years before. He knew him at once--called him by his Indian name Man-nuch-cothe, and scolded him for "bearing arms against his brothers." That was hard luck. Scout Slover saw himself trapped, and could not reply. He figured that unless he could explain matters he was in for a bad time.

The Indians took the three of them to Wakatomica; painted the oldest man black and made them all run the gauntlet; killed the man who had been painted for death, but let John and the other man reach the posts of the council-house. Then the other man was led away, to another town; he never appeared again, and John Slover was left alone in Wakatomica.

He was rather blue when Tutelu had come in. He had found some friends, but he had more enemies. The worst was James Girty, a brother to Simon Girty.

James Girty told the Indians that he had asked Man-nuch-cothe how he would like to live with old friends again; and Man-nuch-cothe had laughed and said: "I will live here long enough to take a scalp. Then I will steal a horse and go back to the whites."

This enraged the town. A grand council was held, to decide about John Slover. It lasted fifteen days. John spoke in his own defence, in the Shawnee tongue. He knew many of the chiefs by name. They knew him.

He spoke well.

"I am here. I am not ashamed. I lived with you twelve years. You treated me kindly. On my part I never tried to escape. You gave me many chances, but I was red. Your cabins were my home. You were my fathers and brothers. When I left, I did not run away. I had found my own blood. It called to me. I said good-by, and shook your hands.

You were willing. It was done in the open, there at Fort Pitt. That was a peace council. You had no thought of war again. I had no thought of war again between the red people and the white people. We all were to be brothers. When I lived with you, I would have helped you fight your enemies. That was my duty. A warrior's duty is to serve his country. Your country was then my country. When I went to live with the whites, I became a warrior there. Their country was my country. If you think I deserve death for acting like a warrior, you may kill me. I am in your power. I am alone. As for the words of James Girty, they are lies. I have not spoken with him. You know me.

Do you take me for a child? I am not a child; I am a man. If I had thought such a thing that he says, would I have been foolish enough to say it to him? No. He is an enemy to all whites. Everybody knows that. Then why should I have told my thoughts to him, as he says? He lies, in order to kill me. I am done."

The council listened keenly. Some of the chiefs believed, and softened. The speech rang true; it came from the heart. The sentence was postponed and John Slover was released and kindly treated. He took up quarters with an old squaw, who called him her son. He went to the dances. He was an Indian again. All this might mean little, but he took hope.

The town was eager for news of the war between their British father across the water, and the Long Knives.

"The war is over," John explained. "A great British general and all his army have surrendered to the Long Knives of Was.h.i.+ngton. His name is Cornwallis. He surrendered many moons ago. There is peace talk.

Are your ears stopped up, that you have not heard!"

"We have not heard," they answered, astonished. "No one has told us.

We will ask if it is true."