Rodney, the Ranger Part 12

"She would be like bear for cub, she would die for him. Would Little Knife do as much?"

This name the savage had lately given the boy. The Indians termed the Virginians "Long Knives," hence the name, "Little Knife," applied to the lad.

That winter several of the men relied upon for hunting visited a distant tribe, and meat grew scarce. Since the departure of Caughnega and Maman, Rodney went about more freely and the old chief loaned his rifle and allowed him to hunt. He and Conrad made several excursions together. On one of these trips they set out with but little food and wandered for several days, nearly starved and half frozen. On the third day Conrad, discovering a hole half way up the trunk of a big tree, stopped.

"Vat you tink?" asked Rodney, mimicking his companion's speech, for now they were excellent friends.

"I tink dat one goot hole for bear, ain't so?" was the reply.

"You suppose an old fellow has a nest in there?"

"I tink some look in be goot."

They cut down a sapling standing near, "lodging" it against the big tree. Then they built a fire and, collecting the tips of green boughs and long gra.s.s damp with frost, tied them into a bundle at the end of a pole. While Conrad "s.h.i.+nned" up the sapling till the pole would reach the hole, Rodney lighted the bundle which smoked like a "smudge." Conrad thrust the smoking bundle into the hole and, a minute later, a wheezing sound was heard. Bruin was there and was waking from his winter sleep!

Rodney seized the rifle while Conrad slid to the ground. But the bear looked out and made no effort to descend.

Conrad then relighted the torch and climbed up far enough to thrust it in the bear's face. This angered him and he began to back down the tree.

Unlike Rodney's first encounter with a bear, the lad now had ample time for taking steady aim and the brute fell mortally wounded.

How delicious the meal, which followed, tasted after their long fast!

Taking as much of the choicest cuts as they could carry, they returned to the encampment to find the Indians in a famished condition. Ahneota for the two previous days had given his allowance of food to the children.

The winter, what with hunting and trapping, pa.s.sed quickly. The wild, free life with all its hards.h.i.+ps and annoyances appealed to Rodney, and he came to understand how children taken captives by the Indians, and later returned to their parents, would occasionally run away and rejoin the red folk. His home ties were too strong, however, for him to entertain such a thought, and he lay awake many nights wondering how he might make his escape.

The severity of the winter had greatly weakened Ahneota. The skin was drawn over his cheekbones like parchment. He was so lame with rheumatism that he needed constant care and the boy served him in many ways.

The hunters, though few in number, had gathered a fine lot of furs, and, when the ice was breaking up in the streams, the sugar maples were tapped. Their implements for this purpose were crude. Their method consisted in cutting a gash through the bark with a tomahawk and into this driving a chip which served as a "spile" to conduct the dripping sap into the dishes of elm bark, from which it was taken and boiled into sugar. This sugar was often mixed with bear's fat and stored in sacks made of skins, a mixture much prized by the Indians.

A little later the tribe returned to the bluff where Rodney was first introduced to its life, there to plant the corn and tobacco.

Rumours of trouble with the whites increased. The latter part of May Francois returned, but without Maman and Louis, and he brought, to trade for the valuable furs, rifles and ammunition and brandy, and waxed rich, while the savages with their new implements of war became more restless.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BEGINNING OF WAR

From the history of those days one learns that there were white savages who compared unfavourably with the red ones.

Of such were those border ruffians who, tempting the family of a friendly Indian with liquor till they were stupefied with drink, murdered them.

The Indian chief returned to find them weltering in blood. He was an Iroquois who had moved his family from New York to the Ohio River.

His Indian name was Tahgahjute, but he was commonly called Logan from the fact that he had in early life lived with a white family of that name. Ever after he had been a staunch friend of the whites. Now he became almost insane in his natural anger, and went about among the various tribes calling on them to avenge his wrongs.

Had those border ruffians desired to bring on an Indian war they could not have so quickly done it in any other way. Soon, tales of pioneer families murdered by the Indians were brought over the mountains into Virginia. Logan's friends were seeking vengeance.

Undoubtedly the war would have broken out later had not Logan's family been murdered. The Indians believed they must fight or be overrun by the white immigrants pouring into the western country.

The royal governor appointed by the king over the colony of Virginia was, at this time, Lord Dunmore. He was an ardent loyalist, but he also is said to have been interested financially in some of the land ventures, concerning which there was much interest in the colony, also much speculation. Though Governor Dunmore knew that the policy of the English ministry at the time was conciliatory, he did not hesitate to prepare for a war which should bring the savages to submission.

Just why the English ministry tried to discourage immigration into the western country is not definitely known. Doubtless there were various reasons. England wanted peace with the savages. Only a few years before, her representative, Sir William Johnson, had made a treaty at Fort Stanwix with them and given them many presents. They had been told they should have, as their own, the country north of the Ohio.

The laws which governed the province of Quebec, recently captured from the French, were to be applied to the western country, a plan which did not meet with the approval of the colonists who wanted laws of an English character.

There were influential men in England who were interested in the fur trade with the Indians, which would be seriously injured if the country were opened up to settlers. Besides, the colonies of Virginia and Pennsylvania made conflicting claims to the new land and each had friends in England.

Many of the colonists declared that England feared to have the powerful colonies increase in power with new territory, and wished to confine them to the seaboard. Be that as it may, Dunmore resolved on establis.h.i.+ng Virginia's claims by prompt and effectual warfare.

Perhaps he thought to divert the colonists' minds from the increasing hostility to England. Instead he was to take the first step toward securing that rich land to the United States of America.

This is but one of many instances when the plans of supposed wise men result in the opposite to that intended.

The a.s.sembling for this war might be likened to a swarming of bees and hornets, the one for the sweets of fertile lands and adventure, the other for vengeance on account of wrongs received at the hands of the Indians.

There came a British officer, pompous and resplendent in scarlet and gold; the British soldier for his first experience in border warfare; the trapper with his long rifle and frontier garb; the st.u.r.dy settler in homespun. Nor were the camp followers altogether absent, those who hang about for pickings and have little intention of fighting.

One heard the polite accent of culture, the soft spoken Southerner, the dialects of Scotch and Irish and the gutturals of the German.

About them were the green woods and filtering through the leaves overhead the hot suns.h.i.+ne of summer.

Early in the season that already famous frontiersman, Daniel Boone, had been sent to the Falls of the Ohio to lead back to the settlements a party of surveyors. He did it, for in the ways of the wilderness no savage was his equal.

Governor Dunmore, on July 12, 1774, ordered General Andrew Lewis, who twenty years before had been with Was.h.i.+ngton at Fort Necessity, to raise four regiments of volunteers and, going down the Great Kanawha River, to cross the Ohio River and march against the Shawnees on the Scioto. In this expedition was David Allison.

Another expedition was to meet near Wheeling to a.s.sist General Lewis.

For this purpose Major Angus McDonald marched seven hundred militia and frontiersmen over the mountains in the latter part of June. Daniel Morgan a.s.sisted in raising a part of this little army from among his neighbours and acquaintances, which were many, for he had served in the two previous wars with French and Indians and was a natural leader of men.

Under the supervision of George Rogers Clark, none other than "Cap'n"

Clark who had induced David Allison to try his fortunes on the Kanawha, Fort Fincastle was built. In the latter part of July these troops moved down the Ohio River to Fish Creek and started on a raid against the Indian villages on the Muskingum River, which is fed by the creeks that flow through the country where Rodney Allison had been pa.s.sing his months of captivity, one of them the creek overlooking which stood the lodge of Ahneota.

Of this motley army some were in canoes, some in pirogues and others in batteaux. In a large canoe, third back from the prow, sat a fine-looking man, distinguishable from his a.s.sociates in more ways than may be easily described. His clothes were such as one would see on the well-dressed man about the streets of Philadelphia; his companions were in the garb of the frontier. He was broad of shoulder with erect, military figure; while they were lithe and sinewy. His features bore marks of good breeding and his voice and language were those of a man of the world.

His companions had discovered that he knew nothing of woodcraft, but much of military matters. Just where Morgan found him or he Morgan does not yet appear. On the day the militia a.s.sembled Ezekiel Holden of Boston had given him a name. Ezekiel was a character, Yankee to the backbone. He had found his way to Norfolk on a coasting vessel a few months before and was "lookin' araoun a leetle." "Zeke" was fond of argument and delighted in arguing with Virginians about what he considered the superiority of New Englanders. He was for liberty and "pop'lar rights," "first, last an' all the time," and the rich Virginians he looked upon as part of the English aristocracy, descendants of those who had fought for King Charles, while "Zeke"

wished it understood his forebears fought under Cromwell.

When he saw this man he was in the midst of his pet argument and exclaimed: "There's one o' them chevaliers naow," meaning cavalier, but p.r.o.nouncing it "s.h.i.+verleer." From that moment the rather distinguished looking recruit was known among his fellows as "Chevalier," and in truth the name fitted his manner excellently.

Furthermore he appeared to like the nickname and to take delight in letting his companions know that he considered himself their superior, though, be it said, this was in a spirit of humour rather than of conceit, and he was ready to share toil or rations with his mates. Yet this air did not please them and there was consequently much chaffing.

The afternoon was hot and the men tired, just the moment when a little inspiration was needed. One of the men said to his fellow in the prow of the canoe, "Nick, ah reckon it's about time fer you to lead off with a tune, one we kin hit the paddles to," and this was Nick's response:

"The only good Injun, he died long ago.

Shove her along, boy, shove her along.

An' thar's nary one left on the O-hi-o.

Push her along, boy, push her along."