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diff --git a/36390.txt b/36390.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b1aae9 --- /dev/null +++ b/36390.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5558 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Erskine Dale--Pioneer, by John Fox + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Erskine Dale--Pioneer + +Author: John Fox + +Illustrator: F. C. Yohn + +Release Date: June 12, 2011 [EBook #36390] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERSKINE DALE--PIONEER *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + ERSKINE DALE--PIONEER + + BY JOHN FOX, JR. + + ERSKINE DALE--PIONEER + THE HEART OF THE HILLS + THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE + THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME + CRITTENDEN. A Kentucky Story of Love and War + THE KENTUCKIANS AND A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND + A MOUNTAIN EUROPA AND A CUMBERLAND VENDETTA + CHRISTMAS EVE ON LONESOME, HELL-FER-SARTAIN AND IN HAPPY VALLEY + BLUE GRASS AND RHODODENDRON, Outdoor Life in Kentucky + + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + + + +[Illustration: The third stayed behind a moment, bowed over her hand, +and kissed it] + + + + + ERSKINE DALE + PIONEER + + BY + + JOHN FOX, JR. + + ILLUSTRATED BY F. C. YOHN + + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + NEW YORK 1920 + + + + + Copyright, 1919, 1920, by + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + Published September, 1920 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + The third stayed behind a moment, bowed over her hand, + and kissed it Frontispiece + + "The messenger is the son of a king" 36 + + "I don't want nobody to take up for me" 56 + + "Four more days," he cried, "and we'll be there!" 100 + + "That is Kahtoo's talk, but this is mine" 132 + + The sword blades clashed, Erskine whipping back and forth + in a way to make a swordsman groan 168 + + "Make no noise, and don't move" 238 + + To his bewilderment he found Barbara at his mother's bedside 256 + + + + +ERSKINE DALE--PIONEER + + + + +I + + +Streaks of red ran upward, and in answer the great gray eye of the +wilderness lifted its mist-fringed lid. From the green depths came the +fluting of a lone wood-thrush. Through them an owl flew on velvety wings +for his home in the heart of a primeval poplar. A cougar leaped from the +low limb of an oak, missed, and a shuddering deer streaked through a +forest aisle, bounded into a little clearing, stopped rigid, sniffed a +deadlier enemy, and whirled into the wilderness again. Still deeper in +the depths a boy with a bow and arrow and naked, except for scalp-lock +and breech-clout, sprang from sleep and again took flight along a +buffalo trail. Again, not far behind him, three grunting savages were +taking up the print of his moccasined feet. + +An hour before a red flare rose within the staked enclosure that was +reared in the centre of the little clearing, and above it smoke was soon +rising. Before the first glimmer of day the gates yawned a little and +three dim shapes appeared and moved leisurely for the woods--each man +with a long flintlock rifle in the hollow of his arm, a hunting-knife in +his belt, and a coonskin cap on his head. At either end of the stockade +a watchtower of oak became visible and in each a sleepy sentinel yawned +and sniffed the welcome smell of frying venison below him. In the pound +at one end of the fort, and close to the eastern side, a horse whinnied, +and a few minutes later when a boy slipped through the gates with feed +in his arms there was more whinnying and the stamping of impatient feet. + +"Gol darn ye!" the boy yelled, "can't ye wait till a feller gits _his_ +breakfast?" + +A voice deep, lazy, and resonant came from the watch-tower above: + +"Well, I'm purty hungry myself." + +"See any Injuns, Dave?" + +"Not more'n a thousand or two, I reckon." The boy laughed: + +"Well, I reckon you won't see any while I'm around--they're afeerd o' +_me_." + +"I don't blame 'em, Bud. I reckon that blunderbuss o' yours would come +might' nigh goin' through a pat o' butter at twenty yards." The sentinel +rose towering to the full of his stature, stretched his mighty arms with +a yawn, and lightly leaped, rifle in hand, into the enclosure. A girl +climbing the rude ladder to the tower stopped midway. + +"Mornin', Dave!" + +"Mornin', Polly!" + +"I was comin' to wake you up," she smiled. + +"I just waked up," he yawned, humoring the jest. + +"You don't seem to have much use for this ladder." + +"Not unless I'm goin' up; and I wouldn't then if I could jump as high as +I can fall." He went toward her to help her down. + +"I wouldn't climb very high," she said, and scorning his hand with a +tantalizing little grimace she leaped as lightly as had he to the +ground. Two older women who sat about a kettle of steaming clothes +watched her. + +"Look at Polly Conrad, won't ye? I declare that gal----" + +"Lyddy!" cried Polly, "bring Dave's breakfast!" + +At the door of each log cabin, as solidly built as a little fort, a +hunter was cleaning a long rifle. At the western angle two men were +strengthening the pickets of the palisade. About the fire two mothers +were suckling babes at naked breasts. A boy was stringing a bow, and +another was hurling a small tomahawk at an oaken post, while a third who +was carrying wood for the open fire cried hotly: + +"Come on here, you two, an' he'p me with this wood!" And grumbling they +came, for that fort harbored no idler, irrespective of age or sex. + +At the fire a tall girl rose, pushed a mass of sunburned hair from her +heated forehead, and a flush not from the fire fused with her smile. + +"I reckon Dave can walk this far--he don't look very puny." + +A voice vibrant with sarcasm rose from one of the women about the +steaming kettle. + +"Honor!" she cried, "Honor Sanders!" + +In a doorway near, a third girl was framed--deep-eyed, deep-breasted. + +"Honor!" cried the old woman, "stop wastin' yo' time with that weavin' +in thar an' come out here an' he'p these two gals to git Dave his +breakfast." Dave Yandell laughed loudly. + +"Come on, Honor," he called, but the girl turned and the whir of a loom +started again like the humming of bees. Lydia Noe handed the hunter a +pan of deer-meat and corn bread, and Polly poured him a cup of steaming +liquid made from sassafras leaves. Unheeding for a moment the food in +his lap, Dave looked up into Polly's black eyes, shifted to Lydia, +swerved to the door whence came the whir of the loom. + +"You are looking very handsome this morning, Polly," he said gravely, +"and Lydia is lovelier even than usual, and Honor is a woodland dream." +He shook his head. "No," he said, "I really couldn't." + +"Couldn't what?" asked Polly, though she knew some nonsense was coming. + +"Be happy even with two, if t'other were far away." + +"I reckon you'll have to try some day--with all of us far away," said the +gentle Lydia. + +"No doubt, no doubt." He fell upon his breakfast. + +"Purple, crimson, and gold--daughters of the sun--such are not for the +poor hunter--alack, alack!" + +"Poor boy!" said Lydia, and Polly looked at her with quickening wonder. +Rallying Dave with soft-voiced mockery was a new phase in Lydia. Dave +gave his hunting-knife a pathetic flourish. + +"And when the Virginia gallants come, where will poor Dave be?" + +Polly's answer cut with sarcasm, but not at Dave. + +"Dave will be busy cuttin' wood an' killin' food for 'em--an' keepin' 'em +from gettin' scalped by Indians." + +"I wonder," said Lydia, "if they'll have long hair like Dave?" Dave +shook his long locks with mock pride. + +"Yes, but it won't be their own an' it'll be _powdered_." + +"Lord, I'd like to see the first Indian who takes one of their scalps." +Polly laughed, but there was a shudder in Lydia's smile. Dave rose. + +"I'm goin' to sleep till dinner--don't let anybody wake me," he said, and +at once both the girls were serious and kind. + +"We won't, Dave." + +Cow-bells began to clang at the edge of the forest. + +"There they are," cried Polly. "Come on, Lyddy." + +The two girls picked up piggins and squeezed through the opening between +the heavy gates. The young hunter entered a door and within threw +himself across a rude bed, face down. + +"Honor!" cried one of the old women, "you go an' git a bucket o' water." +The whir stopped instantly, the girl stepped with a sort of slow majesty +from the cabin, and, entering the next, paused on the threshold as her +eyes caught the powerful figure stretched on the bed and already in +heavy sleep. As she stepped softly for the bucket she could not forbear +another shy swift glance; she felt the flush in her face and to conceal +it she turned her head angrily when she came out. A few minutes later +she was at the spring and ladling water into her pail with a gourd. Near +by the other two girls were milking--each with her forehead against the +soft flank of a dun-colored cow whose hoofs were stained with the juice +of wild strawberries. Honor dipped lazily. When her bucket was full she +fell a-dreaming, and when the girls were through with their task they +turned to find her with deep, unseeing eyes on the dark wilderness. + +"Boo!" cried Polly, startling her, and then teasingly: + +"Are you in love with Dave, too, Honor?" + +The girl reddened. + +"No," she whipped out, "an' I ain't goin' to be." And then she reddened +again angrily as Polly's hearty laugh told her she had given herself +away. For a moment the three stood like wood-nymphs about the spring, +vigorous, clear-eyed, richly dowered with health and color and body and +limb--typical mothers-to-be of a wilderness race. And as Honor turned +abruptly for the fort, a shot came from the woods followed by a +war-whoop that stopped the blood shuddering in their veins. + +"Oh, my God!" each cried, and catching at their wet skirts they fled in +terror through the long grass. They heard the quick commotion in the +fort, heard sharp commands, cries of warning, frantic calls for them to +hurry, saw strained faces at the gates, saw Dave bound through and rush +toward them. And from the forest there was nothing but its silence until +that was again broken--this time by a loud laugh--the laugh of a white +man. Then at the edge of the wilderness appeared--the fool. Behind him +followed the other two who had gone out that morning, one with a deer +swung about his shoulders, and all could hear the oaths of both as they +cursed the fool in front who had given shot and war-whoop to frighten +women and make them run. Dave stood still, but his lips, too, were busy +with curses, and from the fort came curses--an avalanche of them. The +sickly smile passed from the face of the fellow, shame took its place, +and when he fronted the terrible eyes of old Jerome Sanders at the gate, +that face grew white with fear. + +"Thar ain't an Injun in a hundred miles," he stammered, and then he +shrank down as though he were almost going to his knees, when suddenly +old Jerome slipped his long rifle from his shoulder and fired past the +fellow's head with a simultaneous roar of command: + +"Git in--ever'body--git in--quick!" + +From a watch-tower, too, a rifle had cracked. A naked savage had bounded +into a spot of sunlight that quivered on the buffalo trail a hundred +yards deep in the forest and leaped lithely aside into the bushes--both +rifles had missed. Deeper from the woods came two war-whoops--real +ones--and in the silence that followed the gates were swiftly closed and +barred, and a keen-eyed rifleman was at every port-hole in the fort. +From the tower old Jerome saw reeds begin to shake in a cane-brake to +the left of the spring. + +"Look thar!" he called, and three rifles, with his own, covered the +spot. A small brown arm was thrust above the shaking reeds, with the +palm of the hand toward the fort--the peace sign of the Indian--and a +moment later a naked boy sprang from the cane-brake and ran toward the +blockhouse, with a bow and arrow in his left hand and his right +stretched above his head, its pleading palm still outward. + +"Don't shoot!--don't nobody shoot!" shouted the old man. No shot came +from the fort, but from the woods came yells of rage, and as the boy +streaked through the clearing an arrow whistled past his head. + +"Let him in!" shouted Jerome, and as Dave opened the gates another arrow +hurtled between the boy's upraised arm and his body and stuck quivering +in one of its upright bars. The boy slid through and stood panting, +shrinking, wild-eyed. The arrow had grazed his skin, and when Dave +lifted his arm and looked at the oozing drops of blood he gave a +startled oath, for he saw a flash of white under the loosened +breech-clout below. The boy understood. Quickly he pushed the clout +aside on his thigh that all might see, nodded gravely, and proudly +tapped his breast. + +"Paleface!" he half grunted, "white man!" + +The wilds were quiet. The boy pointed to them and held up three fingers +to indicate that there were only three red men there, and shook his head +to say there would be no attack from them. Old Jerome studied the little +stranger closely, wondering what new trick those red devils were trying +now to play. Mother Sanders and Mother Noe, the boys of the fort, the +gigantic brothers to Lydia, Adam and Noel, the three girls had gathered +about him, as he stood with the innocence of Eden before the fall. + +"The fust thing to do," said Mother Sanders, "is to git some clothes for +the little heathen." Whereat Lydia flushed and Dave made an impatient +gesture for silence. + +"What's your name?" The boy shook his head and looked eagerly around. + +"Francais--French?" he asked, and in turn the big woodsman shook his +head--nobody there spoke French. However, Dave knew a little Shawnee, a +good deal of the sign-language, and the boy seemed to understand a good +many words in English; so that the big woodsman pieced out his story +with considerable accuracy, and turned to tell it to Jerome. The Indians +had crossed the Big River, were as many as the leaves, and meant to +attack the whites. For the first time they had allowed the boy to go on +a war-party. Some one had treated him badly--he pointed out the bruises +of cuffs and kicks on his body. The Indians called him White Arrow, and +he knew he was white from the girdle of untanned skin under his +breech-clout and because the Indian boys taunted him. Asked why he had +come to the fort, he pointed again to his bruises, put both hands +against his breast, and stretched them wide as though he would seek +shelter in the arms of his own race and take them to his heart; and for +the first time a smile came to his face that showed him plainly as a +curious product of his race and the savage forces that for years had +been moulding him. That smile could have never come to the face of an +Indian. No Indian would ever have so lost himself in his own emotions. +No white man would have used his gestures and the symbols of nature to +which he appealed. Only an Indian could have shown such a cruel, +vindictive, merciless fire in his eyes when he told of his wrongs, and +when he saw tears in Lydia's eyes, the first burning in his life came to +his own, and brushing across them with fierce shame he turned Indian +stoic again and stood with his arms folded over his bow and arrows at +his breast, looking neither to right nor left, as though he were waiting +for judgment at their hands and cared little what his fate might be, as +perfect from head to foot as a statue of the ancient little god, who, in +him, had forsaken the couches of love for the tents of war. + + + + +II + + +All turned now to the duties of the day--Honor to her loom, Polly to her +distaff, and Lydia to her spinning-wheel, for the clothes of the women +were home-spun, home-woven, home-made. Old Jerome and Dave and the older +men gathered in one corner of the stockade for a council of war. The boy +had made it plain that the attacking party was at least two days behind +the three Indians from whom he had escaped, so that there was no danger +that day, and they could wait until night to send messengers to warn the +settlers outside to seek safety within the fort. Meanwhile, Jerome would +despatch five men with Dave to scout for the three Indians who might be +near by in the woods, and the boy, who saw them slip out the rear gate +of the fort, at once knew their purpose, shook his head, and waved his +hand to say that his late friends were gone back to hurry on the big +war-party to the attack, now that the whites themselves knew their +danger. Old Jerome nodded that he understood, and nodded to others his +appreciation of the sense and keenness of the lad, but he let the men go +just the same. From cabin door to cabin door the boy went in +turn--peeking in, but showing no wonder, no surprise, and little interest +until Lydia again smiled at him. At her door he paused longest, and even +went within and bent his ear to the bee-like hum of the wheel. At the +port-holes in the logs he pointed and grunted his understanding and +appreciation, as he did when he climbed into a blockhouse and saw how +one story overlapped the other and how through an opening in the upper +floor the defenders in the tower might pour a destructive fire on +attackers breaking in below. When he came down three boys, brothers to +the three girls, Bud Sanders, Jack Conrad, and Harry Noe, were again +busy with their games. They had been shy with him as he with them, and +now he stood to one side while they, pretending to be unconscious of his +presence, watched with sidelong glances the effect on him of their +prowess. All three threw the tomahawk and shot arrows with great skill, +but they did not dent the impassive face of the little stranger. + +"Maybe he thinks he can do better," said Bud; "let's let him try it." + +And he held forth the tomahawk and motioned toward the post. The lad +took it gravely, gravely reached for the tomahawk of each of the other +two, and with slow dignity walked several yards farther away from the +mark. Then he wheeled with such ferocity in his face that the boys +shrank aside, clutching with some fear to one another's arms, and before +they could quite recover, they were gulping down wonder as the three +weapons whistled through the air and were quivering close, side by side, +in the post. + +"Gee!" they said. Again the lad's face turned impassive as he picked up +his bow and three arrows and slowly walked toward the wall of the +stockade so that he was the full width of the fort away. And then three +arrows hurtled past them in incredibly swift succession and thudded into +the post, each just above a tomahawk. This time the three onlookers were +quite speechless, though their mouths were open wide. Then they ran +toward him and had him show just how he held tomahawk and bow and arrow, +and all three did much better with the new points he gave them. +Wondering then whether they might not teach him something, Jack did a +standing broad jump and Bud a running broad jump and Harry a hop, skip, +and a jump. The young stranger shook his head but he tried and fell +short in each event and was greatly mortified. Again he shook his head +when Bud and Jack took backholds and had a wrestling-match, but he tried +with Jack and was thumped hard to the earth. He sprang to his feet +looking angry, but all were laughing, and he laughed too. + +"Me big fool," he said; and they showed him how to feint and trip, and +once he came near throwing Bud. At rifle-shooting, too, he was no match +for the young pioneers, but at last he led them with gestures and +unintelligible grunts to the far end of the stockade and indicated a +foot-race. The boy ran like one of his own arrows, but he beat Bud only +a few feet, and Bud cried: + +"I reckon if _I_ didn't have no clothes on, he couldn't 'a' done it"; +and on the word Mother Sanders appeared and cried to Bud to bring the +"Injun" to her cabin. She had been unearthing clothes for the "little +heathen," and Bud helped to put them on. In a few minutes the lad +reappeared in fringed hunting shirt and trousers, wriggling in them most +uncomfortably, for they made him itch, but at the same time wearing them +proudly. Mother Sanders approached with a hunting-knife. + +"I'm goin' to cut off that topknot so his hair can ketch up," she said, +but the boy scowled fearfully, turned, fled, and scaling the stockade as +nimbly as a squirrel, halted on top with one leg over the other side. + +"He thinks you air goin' to take his scalp," shouted Bud. The three boys +jumped up and down in their glee, and even Mother Sanders put her hands +on her broad hips and laughed with such loud heartiness that many came +to the cabin doors to see what the matter was. It was no use for the +boys to point to their own heads and finger their own shocks of hair, +for the lad shook his head, and outraged by their laughter kept his +place in sullen dignity a long while before he could be persuaded to +come down. + +On the mighty wilderness the sun sank slowly and old Jerome sat in the +western tower to watch alone. The silence out there was oppressive and +significant, for it meant that the boy's theory was right; the three +Indians had gone back for their fellows, and when darkness came the old +man sent runners to the outlying cabins to warn the inmates to take +refuge within the fort. There was no settler that was not accustomed to +a soft tapping on the wooden windows that startled him wide awake. Then +there was the noiseless awakening of the household, noiseless dressing +of the children--the mere whisper of "Indians" was enough to keep them +quiet--and the noiseless slipping through the wilderness for the +oak-picketed stockade. And the gathering-in was none too soon. The +hooting of owls started before dawn. A flaming arrow hissed from the +woods, thudded into the roof of one of the cabins, sputtered feebly on a +dew-drenched ridge-pole, and went out. Savage war-whoops rent the air, +and the battle was on. All day the fight went on. There were feints of +attack in front and rushes from the rear, and there were rushes from all +sides. The women loaded rifles and cooked and cared for the wounded. +Thrice an Indian reached the wall of the stockade and set a cabin on +fire, but no one of the three got back to the woods alive. The stranger +boy sat stoically in the centre of the enclosure watching everything, +and making no effort to take part, except twice when he saw a gigantic +Indian brandishing his rifle at the edge of the woods, encouraging his +companions behind, and each time he grunted and begged for a gun. And +Dave made out that the Indian was the one who had treated the boy +cruelly and that the lad was after a personal revenge. Late in the +afternoon the ammunition began to run low and the muddy discoloration of +the river showed that the red men had begun to tunnel under the walls of +the fort. And yet a last sally was made just before sunset. A body +pushed against Dave in the tower and Dave saw the stranger boy at his +side with his bow and arrow. A few minutes later he heard a yell from +the lad which rang high over the din, and he saw the feathered tip of an +arrow shaking in the breast of the big Indian who staggered and fell +behind a bush. Just at that moment there were yells from the woods +behind--the yells of white men that were answered by joyful yells within +the fort: + +"The Virginians! The Virginians!" And as the rescuers dashed into sight +on horse and afoot, Dave saw the lad leap the wall of the stockade and +disappear behind the fleeing Indians. + +"Gone back to 'em," he grunted to himself. The gates were thrown open. +Old Jerome and his men rushed out, and besieged and rescuers poured all +their fire after the running Indians, some of whom turned bravely to +empty their rifles once more. + +"Git in! Git in, quick!" yelled old Joel. He knew another volley would +come as soon as the Indians reached the cover of thick woods, and come +the volley did. Three men fell--one the leader of the Virginians, whose +head flopped forward as he entered the gate and was caught in old Joel's +arms. Not another sound came from the woods, but again Dave from the +tower saw the cane-brush rustle at the edge of a thicket, saw a hand +thrust upward with the palm of peace toward the fort, and again the +stranger boy emerged--this time with a bloody scalp dangling in his left +hand. Dave sprang down and met him at the gate. The boy shook his bow +and arrow proudly, pointed to a crisscross scar on the scalp, and Dave +made out from his explanation that once before the lad had tried to kill +his tormentor and that the scar was the sign. In the centre of the +enclosure the wounded Virginian lay, and when old Jerome stripped the +shirt from his breast he shook his head gravely. The wounded man opened +his eyes just in time to see and he smiled. + +"I know it," he said faintly, and then his eyes caught the boy with the +scalp, were fixed steadily and began to widen. + +"Who is that boy?" he asked sharply. + +"Never mind now," said old Joel soothingly, "you must keep still!" The +boy's eyes had begun to shift under the scrutiny and he started away. + +"Come back here!" commanded the wounded man, and still searching the lad +he said sharply again: + +"Who is that boy?" Nor would he have his wound dressed or even take the +cup of water handed to him until old Joel briefly told the story, when +he lay back on the ground and closed his eyes. + +Darkness fell. In each tower a watcher kept his eyes strained toward the +black, silent woods. The dying man was laid on a rude bed within one +cabin, and old Joel lay on the floor of it close to the door. The +stranger lad refused to sleep indoors and huddled himself in a blanket +on the ground in one corner of the stockade. Men, women, and children +fell to a deep and weary sleep. In the centre the fire burned and there +was no sound on the air but the crackle of its blazing. An hour later +the boy in the corner threw aside his blanket, and when, a moment later, +Lydia Noe, feverish and thirsty, rose from her bed to get a drink of +water outside her door, she stopped short on the threshold. The lad, +stark naked but for his breech-clout and swinging his bloody scalp over +his head, was stamping around the fire--dancing the scalp-dance of the +savage to a low, fierce, guttural song. The boy saw her, saw her face in +the blaze, stricken white with fright and horror, saw her too paralyzed +to move and he stopped, staring at her a moment with savage rage, and +went on again. Old Joel's body filled the next doorway. He called out +with a harsh oath, and again the boy stopped. With another oath and a +threatening gesture Joel motioned to the corner of the stockade, and +with a flare of defiance in his black eyes the lad stalked slowly and +proudly away. From behind him the voice of the wounded man called, and +old Joel turned. There was a ghastly smile on the Virginian's pallid +face. + +"I saw it," he said painfully. "That's--that's my son!" + + + + +III + + +From the sun-dial on the edge of the high bank, straight above the brim +of the majestic yellow James, a noble path of thick grass as broad as a +modern highway ran hundreds of yards between hedges of roses straight to +the open door of the great manor-house with its wide verandas and mighty +pillars set deep back from the river in a grove of ancient oaks. Behind +the house spread a little kingdom, divided into fields of grass, wheat, +tobacco, and corn, and dotted with whitewashed cabins filled with +slaves. Already the house had been built a hundred years of brick +brought from England in the builder's own ships, it was said, and the +second son of the reigning generation, one Colonel Dale, sat in the +veranda alone. He was a royalist officer, this second son, but his elder +brother had the spirit of daring and adventure that should have been +his, and he had been sitting there four years before when that elder +brother came home from his first pioneering trip into the wilds, to tell +that his wife was dead and their only son was a captive among the +Indians. Two years later still, word came that the father, too, had met +death from the savages, and the little kingdom passed into Colonel +Dale's hands. + +Indentured servants, as well as blacks from Africa, had labored on that +path in front of him; and up it had once stalked a deputation of the +great Powhatan's red tribes. Up that path had come the last of the early +colonial dames, in huge ruffs, high-heeled shoes, and short skirts, with +her husband, who was the "head of a hundred," with gold on his clothes, +and at once military commander, civil magistrate, judge, and executive +of the community; had come officers in gold lace, who had been rowed up +in barges from Jamestown; members of the worshipful House of Burgesses; +bluff planters in silk coats, the governor and members of the council; +distinguished visitors from England, colonial gentlemen and ladies. At +the manor they had got beef, bacon, brown loaves, Indian corn-cakes, +strong ales, and strong waters (but no tea or coffee), and "drunk" pipes +of tobacco from lily-pots--jars of white earth--lighted with splinters of +juniper, or coals of fire plucked from the fireplace with a pair of +silver tongs. And all was English still--books, clothes, plates, knives, +and forks; the church, the Church of England; the Governor, the +representative of the King; his Council, the English House of Lords; the +Burgesses, the English Parliament--socially aristocratic, politically +republican. For ancient usage held that all "freemen" should have a +voice in the elections, have equal right to say who the lawmakers and +what the law. The way was open as now. Any man could get two thousand +acres by service to the colony, could build, plough, reap, save, buy +servants, and roll in his own coach to sit as burgess. There was but one +seat of learning--at Williamsburg. What culture they had they brought +from England or got from parents or minister. And always they had seemed +to prefer sword and stump to the pen. They hated towns. At every wharf a +long shaky trestle ran from a warehouse out into the river to load ships +with tobacco for England and to get in return all conveniences and +luxuries, and that was enough. In towns men jostled and individual +freedom was lost, so, Ho! for the great sweeps of land and the sway of a +territorial lord! Englishmen they were of Shakespeare's time but living +in Virginia, and that is all they were--save that the flower of liberty +was growing faster in the new-world soil. + +The plantation went back to a patent from the king in 1617, and by the +grant the first stout captain was to "enjoy his landes in as large and +ample manner to all intentes and purposes as any Lord of any manours in +England doth hold his grounde." This gentleman was the only man after +the "Starving Time" to protest against the abandonment of Jamestown in +1610. When, two years later, he sent two henchmen as burgesses to the +first general assembly, that august body would not allow them to sit +unless the captain would relinquish certain high privileges in his +grant. + +"I hold my patent for service done," the captain answered +grandiloquently, "which noe newe or late comers can meritt or +challenge," and only with the greatest difficulty was he finally +persuaded to surrender his high authority. In that day the house was +built of wood, protected by a palisade, prescribed by law, and the +windows had stout shutters. Everything within it had come from England. +The books were ponderous folios, stout duodecimos encased in embossed +leather, and among them was a folio containing Master William +Shakespeare's dramas, collected by his fellow actors Heminge and +Condell. Later by many years a frame house supplanted this primitive, +fort-like homestead, and early in the eighteenth century, after several +generations had been educated in England, an heir built the noble manor +as it still stands--an accomplished gentleman with lace collar, slashed +doublet, and sable silvered hair, a combination of scholar, courtier, +and soldier. And such had been the master of the little kingdom ever +since. + +In the earliest days the highest and reddest cedars in the world rose +above the underbrush. The wild vines were so full of grape bunches that +the very turf overflowed with them. Deer, turkeys, and snow-white cranes +were in incredible abundance. The shores were fringed with verdure. The +Indians were a "kind, loving people." Englishmen called it the "Good +Land," and found it "most plentiful, sweet, wholesome, and fruitful of +all others." The east was the ocean; Florida was the south; the north +was Nova Francia, and the west unknown. Only the shores touched the +interior, which was an untravelled realm of fairer fruits and flowers +than in England; green shores, majestic forests, and blue mountains +filled with gold and jewels. Bright birds flitted, dusky maids danced +and beckoned, rivers ran over golden sand, and toward the South Sea was +the Fount of Youth, whose waters made the aged young again. Bermuda +Islands were an enchanted den full of furies and devils which all men +did shun as hell and perdition. And the feet of all who had made history +had trod that broad path to the owner's heart and home. + +Down it now came a little girl--the flower of all those dead and gone--and +her coming was just as though one of the flowers about her had stepped +from its gay company on one or the other side of the path to make +through them a dainty, triumphal march as the fairest of them all. At +the dial she paused and her impatient blue eyes turned to a bend of the +yellow river for the first glimpse of a gay barge that soon must come. +At the wharf the song of negroes rose as they unloaded the boat just +from Richmond. She would go and see if there was not a package for her +mother and perhaps a present for herself, so with another look to the +river bend she turned, but she moved no farther. Instead, she gave a +little gasp, in which there was no fear, though what she saw was surely +startling enough to have made her wheel in flight. Instead, she gazed +steadily into a pair of grave black eyes that were fixed on her from +under a green branch that overhung the footpath, and steadily she +searched the figure standing there, from the coonskin cap down the +fringed hunting-shirt and fringed breeches to the moccasined feet. And +still the strange figure stood arms folded, motionless and silent. +Neither the attitude nor the silence was quite pleasing, and the girl's +supple slenderness stiffened, her arms went rigidly to her sides, and a +haughty little snap sent her undimpled chin upward. + +"What do you want?" + +And still he looked, searching her in turn from head to foot, for he was +no more strange to her than she was to him. + +"Who are you and what do you want?" + +It was a new way for a woman to speak to a man; he in turn was not +pleased, and a gleam in his eyes showed it. + +"I am the son of a king." + +She started to laugh, but grew puzzled, for she had the blood of +Pocahontas herself. + +"You are an Indian?" + +He shook his head, scorning to explain, dropped his rifle to the hollow +of his arm, and, reaching for his belt where she saw the buckhorn handle +of a hunting-knife, came toward her, but she did not flinch. Drawing a +letter from the belt, he handed it to her. It was so worn and soiled +that she took it daintily and saw on it her father's name. The boy waved +his hand toward the house far up the path. + +"He live here?" + +"You wish to see him?" + +The boy grunted assent, and with a shock of resentment the little lady +started up the path with her head very high indeed. The boy slipped +noiselessly after her, his face unmoved, but his eyes were darting right +and left to the flowers, trees, and bushes, to every flitting, strange +bird, the gray streak of a scampering squirrel, and what he could not +see, his ears took in--the clanking chains of work-horses, the whir of a +quail, the screech of a peacock, the songs of negroes from far-off +fields. + +On the porch sat a gentleman in powdered wig and knee-breeches, who, +lifting his eyes from a copy of _The Spectator_ to give an order to a +negro servant, saw the two coming, and the first look of bewilderment on +his fine face gave way to a tolerant smile. A stray cat or dog, a +crippled chicken, a neighbor's child, or a pickaninny--all these his +little daughter had brought in at one time or another for a home, and +now she had a strange ward, indeed. He asked no question, for a purpose +very decided and definite was plainly bringing the little lady on, and +he would not have to question. Swiftly she ran up the steps, her mouth +primly set, and handed him a letter. + +[Illustration: "The messenger is the son of a king"] + +"The messenger is the son of a king." + +"A what?" + +"The son of a king," she repeated gravely. + +"Ah," said the gentleman, humoring her, "ask his highness to be seated." + +His highness was looking from one to the other gravely and keenly. He +did not quite understand, but he knew gentle fun was being poked at him, +and he dropped sullenly on the edge of the porch and stared in front of +him. The little girl saw that his moccasins were much worn and that in +one was a hole with the edge blood-stained. And then she began to watch +her father's face, which showed that the contents of the letter were +astounding him. He rose quickly when he had finished and put out his +hand to the stranger. + +"I am glad to see you, my boy," he said with great kindness. "Barbara, +this is a little kinsman of ours from Kentucky. He was the adopted son +of an Indian chief, but by blood he is your own cousin. His name is +Erskine Dale." + + + + +IV + + +The little girl rose startled, but her breeding was too fine for +betrayal, and she went to him with hand outstretched. The boy took it as +he had taken her father's, limply and without rising. The father frowned +and smiled--how could the lad have learned manners? And then he, too, saw +the hole in the moccasin through which the bleeding had started again. + +"You are hurt--you have walked a long way?" + +The lad shrugged his shoulders carelessly. + +"Three days--I had to shoot horse." + +"Take him into the kitchen, Barbara, and tell Hannah to wash his foot +and bandage it." + +The boy looked uncomfortable and shook his head, but the little girl was +smiling and she told him to come with such sweet imperiousness that he +rose helplessly. Old Hannah's eyes made a bewildered start! + +"You go on back an' wait for yo' company, little Miss; I'll 'tend to +_him_!" + +And when the boy still protested, she flared up: + +"Looky here, son, little Miss tell me to wash yo' foot, an' I'se gwinter +do it, ef I got to tie you fust; now you keep still. Whar you come +from?" + +His answer was a somewhat haughty grunt that at once touched the quick +instincts of the old negress and checked further question. Swiftly and +silently she bound his foot, and with great respect she led him to a +little room in one ell of the great house in which was a tub of warm +water. + +"Ole marster say you been travellin' an' mebbe you like to refresh +yo'self wid a hot bath. Dar's some o' little marster's clothes on de bed +dar, an' a pair o' his shoes, an' I know dey'll jus' fit you snug. +You'll find all de folks on de front po'ch when you git through." + +She closed the door. Once, winter and summer, the boy had daily plunged +into the river with his Indian companions, but he had never had a bath +in his life, and he did not know what the word meant; yet he had learned +so much at the fort that he had no trouble making out what the tub of +water was for. For the same reason he felt no surprise when he picked up +the clothes; he was only puzzled how to get into them. He tried, and +struggling with the breeches he threw one hand out to the wall to keep +from falling and caught a red cord with a bushy red tassel; whereat +there was a ringing that made him spring away from it. A moment later +there was a knock at his door. + +"Did you ring, suh?" asked a voice. What that meant he did not know, and +he made no answer. The door was opened slightly and a woolly head +appeared. + +"Do you want anything, suh?" + +"No." + +"Den I reckon hit was anudder bell--Yassuh." + +The boy began putting on his own clothes. + +Outside Colonel Dale and Barbara had strolled down the big path to the +sun-dial, the colonel telling the story of the little Kentucky +kinsman--the little girl listening and wide-eyed. + +"Is he going to live here with us, papa?" + +"Perhaps. You must be very nice to him. He has lived a rude, rough life, +but I can see he is very sensitive." + +At the bend of the river there was the flash of dripping oars, and the +song of the black oarsmen came across the yellow flood. + +"There they come!" cried Barbara. And from his window the little +Kentuckian saw the company coming up the path, brave with gay clothes +and smiles and gallantries. The colonel walked with a grand lady at the +head, behind were the belles and beaux, and bringing up the rear was +Barbara, escorted by a youth of his own age, who carried his hat under +his arm and bore himself as haughtily as his elders. No sooner did he +see them mounting to the porch than there was the sound of a horn in the +rear, and looking out of the other window the lad saw a coach and four +dash through the gate and swing around the road that encircled the great +trees, and up to the rear portico, where there was a joyous clamor of +greetings. Where did all those people come from? Were they going to stay +there and would he have to be among them? All the men were dressed alike +and not one was dressed like him. Panic assailed him, and once more he +looked at the clothes on the bed, and then without hesitation walked +through the hallway, and stopped on the threshold of the front door. A +quaint figure he made there, and for the moment the gay talk and +laughter quite ceased. The story of him already had been told, and +already was sweeping from cabin to cabin to the farthest edge of the +great plantation. Mrs. General Willoughby lifted her lorgnettes to study +him curiously, the young ladies turned a battery of searching but +friendly rays upon him, the young men regarded him with tolerance and +repressed amusement, and Barbara, already his champion, turned her eyes +from one to the other of them, but always seeing him. No son of Powhatan +could have stood there with more dignity, and young Harry Dale's face +broke into a smile of welcome. His father being indoors he went forward +with hand outstretched. + +"I am your cousin Harry," he said, and taking him by the arm he led him +on the round of presentation. + +"Mrs. Willoughby, may I present my cousin from Kentucky?" + +"This is your cousin, Miss Katherine Dale; another cousin, Miss Mary; +and this is your cousin Hugh." + +And the young ladies greeted him with frank, eager interest, and the +young gentlemen suddenly repressed patronizing smiles and gave him grave +greeting, for if ever a rapier flashed from a human head, it flashed +from the piercing black eye of that little Kentucky backwoodsman when +his cousin Hugh, with a rather whimsical smile, bowed with a politeness +that was a trifle too elaborate. Mrs. Willoughby still kept her +lorgnettes on him as he stood leaning against a pillar. She noted the +smallness of his hands and feet, the lithe, perfect body, the clean cut +of his face, and she breathed: + +"He is a Dale--and blood _does_ tell." + +Nobody, not even she, guessed how the lad's heart was thumping with the +effort to conceal his embarrassment, but when a tinge of color spread on +each side of his set mouth and his eyes began to waver uncertainly, Mrs. +Willoughby's intuition was quick and kind. + +"Barbara," she asked, "have you shown your cousin your ponies?" + +The little girl saw her motive and laughed merrily: + +"Why, I haven't had time to show him anything. Come on, cousin." + +The boy followed her down the steps in his noiseless moccasins, along a +grass path between hedges of ancient box, around an ell, and past the +kitchen and toward the stables. In and behind the kitchen negroes of all +ages and both sexes were hurrying or lazing around, and each turned to +stare wonderingly after the strange woodland figure of the little +hunter. Negroes were coming in from the fields with horses and mules, +negroes were chopping and carrying wood, there were negroes everywhere, +and the lad had never seen one before, but he showed no surprise. At a +gate the little girl called imperiously: + +"Ephraim, bring out my ponies!" + +And in a moment out came a sturdy little slave whose head was all black +skin, black wool, and white teeth, leading two creamy-white little +horses that shook the lad's composure at last, for he knew ponies as far +back as he could remember, but he had never seen the like of them. His +hand almost trembled when he ran it over their sleek coats, and +unconsciously he dropped into his Indian speech and did not know it +until the girl asked laughingly: + +"Why, what are you saying to my ponies?" + +And he blushed, for the little girl's artless prattling and friendliness +were already beginning to make him quite human. + +"That's Injun talk." + +"Can you talk Indian--but, of course, you can." + +"Better than English," he smiled. + +Hugh had followed them. + +"Barbara, your mother wants you," he said, and the little girl turned +toward the house. The stranger was ill at ease with Hugh and the latter +knew it. + +"It must be very exciting where you live." + +"How?" + +"Oh, fighting Indians and shooting deer and turkeys and buffalo. It must +be great fun." + +"Nobody does it for fun--it's mighty hard work." + +"My uncle--your father--used to tell us about his wonderful adventures out +there." + +"He had no chance to tell me." + +"But yours must have been more wonderful than his." + +The boy gave the little grunt that was a survival of his Indian life and +turned to go back to the house. + +"But all this, I suppose, is as strange to you." + +"More." + +Hugh was polite and apparently sincere in interest, but the lad was +vaguely disturbed and he quickened his step. The porch was empty when +they turned the corner of the house, but young Harry Dale came running +down the steps, his honest face alight, and caught the little Kentuckian +by the arm. + +"Get ready for supper, Hugh--come on, cousin," he said, and led the +stranger to his room and pointed to the clothes on the bed. + +"Don't they fit?" he asked smiling. + +"I don't know--I don't know how to git into 'em." + +Young Harry laughed joyously. + +"Of course not. I wouldn't know how to put yours on either. You just +wait," he cried, and disappeared to return quickly with an armful of +clothes. + +"Take off your war-dress," he said, "and I'll show you." + +With heart warming to such kindness, and helpless against it, the lad +obeyed like a child and was dressed like a child. + +"Now, I've got to hurry," said Harry. "I'll come back for you. Just look +at yourself," he called at the door. + +And the stranger did look at the wonderful vision that a great mirror as +tall as himself gave back. His eyes began to sting, and he rubbed them +with the back of his hand and looked at the hand curiously. It was +moist. He had seen tears in a woman's eyes, but he did not know that +they could come to a man, and he felt ashamed. + + + + +V + + +The boy stood at a window looking out into the gathering dusk. His eye +could catch the last red glow on the yellow river. Above that a purplish +light rested on the green expanse stretching westward--stretching on and +on through savage wilds to his own wilds beyond the lonely Cumberlands. +Outside the window the multitude of flowers was drinking in the dew and +drooping restfully to sleep. A multitude of strange birds called and +twittered from the trees. The neighing of horses, the lowing of cattle, +the piping of roosting turkeys and motherly clutter of roosting hens, +the weird songs of negroes, the sounds of busy preparation through the +house and from the kitchen--all were sounds of peace and plenty, security +and service. And over in his own wilds at that hour they were driving +cows and horses into the stockade. They were cooking their rude supper +in the open. A man had gone to each of the watch-towers. From the +blackening woods came the curdling cry of a panther and the hooting of +owls. Away on over the still westward wilds were the wigwams of squaws, +pappooses, braves, the red men--red in skin, in blood, in heart, and red +with hate against the whites. + +Perhaps they were circling a fire at that moment in a frenzied +war-dance--perhaps the hooting at that moment, from the woods around the +fort was not the hooting of owls at all. There all was hardship--danger; +here all was comfort and peace. If they could see him now! See his room, +his fire, his bed, his clothes! They had told him to come, and yet he +felt now the shame of desertion. He had come, but he would not stay long +away. The door opened, he turned, and Harry Dale came eagerly in. + +"Mother wants to see you." + +The two boys paused in the hall and Harry pointed to a pair of crossed +rapiers over the mantelpiece. + +"Those were your father's," he said; "he was a wonderful fencer." + +The lad shook his head in ignorance, and Harry smiled. + +"I'll show you to-morrow." + +At a door in the other ell Harry knocked gently, and a voice that was +low and sweet but vibrant with imperiousness called: + +"Come in!" + +"Here he is, mother." + +The lad stepped into warmth, subtle fragrance, and many candle lights. +The great lady was just rising from a chair in front of her mirror, +brocaded, powdered, and starred with jewels. So brilliant a vision +almost stunned the little stranger and it took an effort for him to lift +his eyes to hers. + +"Why, _this_ is not the lad you told me of," she said. "Come here! Both +of you." They came and the lady scrutinized them comparingly. + +"Actually you look alike--and, Harry, you have no advantage, even if you +are my own son. I am glad you are here," she said with sudden soberness, +and smiling tenderly she put both hands on his shoulders, drew him to +her and kissed him, and again he felt in his eyes that curious sting. + +"Come, Harry!" With a gallant bow Harry offered his left arm, and +gathering the little Kentuckian with her left, the regal lady swept out. +In the reception-room she kept the boy by her side. Every man who +approached bowed, and soon the lad was bowing, too. The ladies +courtesied, the room was soon filled, and amid the flash of smiles, +laughter, and gay banter the lad was much bewildered, but his face +showed it not at all. Barbara almost cried out her astonishment and +pleasure when she saw what a handsome figure he made in his new +clothing, and all her little friends were soon darting surreptitious +glances at him, and many whispered questions and pleasing comments were +passed around. From under Hugh's feet the ground for the moment was +quite taken away, so much to the eye, at least, do clothes make the man. +Just then General Willoughby bowed with noble dignity before Mrs. Dale, +and the two led the way to the dining-room. + +"Harry," she said, "you and Barbara take care of your cousin." + +And almost without knowing it the young Kentuckian bowed to Barbara, who +courtesied and took his arm. But for his own dignity and hers, she would +have liked to squeal her delight. The table flashed with silver and +crystal on snowy-white damask and was brilliant with colored candles. +The little woodsman saw the men draw back chairs for the ladies, and he +drew back Barbara's before Hugh, on the other side of her, could +forestall him. On his left was Harry, and Harry he watched keenly--but no +more keenly than Hugh watched him. Every now and then he would catch a +pair of interested eyes looking furtively at him, and he knew his story +was going the round of the table among those who were not guests in the +house. The boy had never seen so many and so mysterious-looking things +to eat and drink. One glass of wine he took, and the quick dizziness +that assailed him frightened him, and he did not touch it again. Beyond +Barbara, Hugh leaned forward and lifted his glass to him. He shook his +head and Hugh flushed. + +"Our Kentucky cousin is not very polite--he is something of a +barbarian--naturally." + +"He doesn't understand," said Barbara quickly, who had noted the +incident, and she turned to her cousin. + +"Papa says you _are_ going to live with us and you are going to study +with Harry under Mr. Brockton." + +"Our tutor," explained Harry; "there he is across there. He is an +Englishman." + +"Tutor?" questioned the boy. + +"School-teacher," laughed Harry. + +"Oh!" + +"Haven't you any school-teachers at home?" + +"No, I learned to read and write a little from Dave and Lyddy." + +And then he had to tell who they were, and he went on to tell them about +Mother Sanders and Honor and Bud and Jack and Polly Conrad and Lydia and +Dave, and all the frontier folk, and the life they led, and the Indian +fights which thrilled Barbara and Harry, and forced even Hugh to +listen--though once he laughed incredulously, and in a way that of a +sudden shut the boy's lips tight and made Barbara color and Harry look +grave. Hugh then turned to his wine and began soon to look more flushed +and sulky. Shortly after the ladies left, Hugh followed them, and Harry +and the Kentuckian moved toward the head of the table where the men had +gathered around Colonel Dale. + +"Yes," said General Willoughby, "it looks as though it might come." + +"With due deference to Mr. Brockton," said Colonel Dale, "it looks as +though his country would soon force us to some action." + +They were talking about impending war. Far away as his wilds were, the +boy had heard some talk of war in them, and he listened greedily to the +quick fire of question and argument directed to the Englishman, who held +his own with such sturdiness that Colonel Dale, fearing the heat might +become too great, laughed and skilfully shifted the theme. Through hall +and doorways came now merry sounds of fiddle and banjo. + +"Come on, cousin," said Harry; "can you dance?" + +"If your dances are as different as everything else, I reckon not, but I +can try." + +Near a doorway between parlor and hall sat the fiddlers three. Gallant +bows and dainty courtesyings and nimble feet were tripping measures +quite new to the backwoodsman. Barbara nodded, smiled, and after the +dance ran up to ask him to take part, but he shook his head. Hugh had +looked at him as from a superior height, and the boy noticed him +frowning while Barbara was challenging him to dance. The next dance was +even more of a mystery, for the dancers glided by in couples, Mr. +Byron's diatribe not having prevented the importation of the waltz to +the new world, but the next cleared his face and set his feet to keeping +time, for the square dance had, of course, reached the wilds. + +"I know that," he said to Harry, who told Barbara, and the little girl +went up to him again, and this time, flushing, he took place with her on +the floor. Hugh came up. + +"Cousin Barbara, this is our dance, I believe," he said a little +thickly. + +The girl took him aside and Hugh went surlily away. Harry saw the +incident and he looked after Hugh, frowning. The backwoodsman conducted +himself very well. He was lithe and graceful and at first very +dignified, but as he grew in confidence he began to execute steps that +were new to that polite land and rather boisterous, but Barbara looked +pleased and all onlookers seemed greatly amused--all except Hugh. And +when the old fiddler sang out sonorously: + +"Genelmen to right--cheat an' swing!" the boy cheated outrageously, +cheated all but his little partner, to whom each time he turned with +open loyalty, and Hugh was openly sneering now and genuinely angry. + +"You shall have the last dance," whispered Barbara, "the Virginia reel." + +"I know that dance," said the boy. + +And when that dance came and the dancers were drawn in two lines, the +boy who was third from the end heard Harry's low voice behind him: + +"He is my cousin and my guest and you will answer to me." + +The lad wheeled, saw Harry with Hugh, left his place, and went to them. +He spoke to Harry, but he looked at Hugh with a sword-flash in each +black eye: + +"I don't want nobody to take up for me." + +Again he wheeled and was in his place, but Barbara saw and looked +troubled, and so did Colonel Dale. He went over to the two boys and put +his arm around Hugh's shoulder. + +[Illustration: "I don't want nobody to take up for me"] + +"Tut, tut, my boys," he said, with pleasant firmness, and led Hugh away, +and when General Willoughby would have followed, the colonel nodded him +back with a smile, and Hugh was seen no more that night. The guests left +with gayety, smiles, and laughter, and every one gave the stranger a +kindly good-by. Again Harry went with him to his room and the lad +stopped again under the crossed swords. + +"You fight with 'em?" + +"Yes, and with pistols." + +"I've never had a pistol. I want to learn how to use _them_." + +Harry looked at him searchingly, but the boy's face gave hint of no more +purpose than when he first asked the same question. + +"All right," said Harry. + +The lad blew out his candle, but he went to his window instead of his +bed. The moonlight was brilliant--among the trees and on the sleeping +flowers and the slow run of the broad river, and it was very still out +there and very lovely, but he had no wish to be out there. With wind and +storm and sun, moon and stars, he had lived face to face all his life, +but here they were not the same. Trees, flowers, house, people had +reared some wall between him and them, and they seemed now to be very +far away. Everybody had been kind to him--all but Hugh. Veiled hostility +he had never known before and he could not understand. Everybody had +surely been kind, and yet--he turned to his bed, and all night his brain +was flashing to and fro between the reel of vivid pictures etched on it +in a day and the grim background that had hitherto been his life beyond +the hills. + + + + +VI + + +From pioneer habit he awoke before dawn, and for a moment the softness +where he lay puzzled him. There was no sound of anybody stirring and he +thought he must have waked up in the middle of the night, but he could +smell the dawn and he started to spring up. But there was nothing to be +done, nothing that he could do. He felt hot and stuffy, though Harry had +put up his windows, and he could not lie there wide awake. He could not +go out in the heavy dew in the gay clothes and fragile shoes he had +taken off, so he slid into his own buckskin clothes and moccasins and +out the still open front door and down the path toward the river. +Instinctively he had picked up his rifle, bullet-pouch, and powder-horn. +Up the river to the right he could faintly see dark woods, and he made +toward and plunged into them with his eyes on the ground for signs of +game, but he saw tracks only of coon and skunk and fox, and he grunted +his disgust and loped ahead for half an hour farther into the heart of +the woods. An hour later he loped back on his own tracks. The cabins +were awake now, and every pickaninny who saw him showed the whites of +his eyes in terror and fled back into his house. He came noiselessly +behind a negro woman at the kitchen-door and threw three squirrels on +the steps before her. She turned, saw him, and gave a shriek, but +recovered herself and picked them up. Her amazement grew as she looked +them over, for there was no sign of a bullet-wound, and she went in to +tell how the Injun boy must naturally just "charm 'em right out o' de +trees." + +At the front door Harry hailed him and Barbara came running out. + +"I forgot to get you another suit of clothes last night," he said, "and +we were scared this morning. We thought you had left us, and Barbara +there nearly cried." Barbara blushed now and did not deny. + +"Come to breakfast!" she cried. + +"Did you find anything to shoot?" Harry asked. + +"Nothin' but some squirrels," said the lad. + +Colonel Dale soon came in. + +"You've got the servants mystified," he said laughingly. "They think +you're a witch. How _did_ you kill those squirrels?" + +"I couldn't see their heads--so I barked 'em." + +"Barked?" + +"I shot between the bark and the limb right under the squirrel, an' the +shock kills 'em. Uncle Dan'l Boone showed me how to do that." + +"Daniel Boone!" breathed Harry. "Do you know Daniel Boone?" + +"Shucks, Dave can beat him shootin'." + +And then Hugh came in, pale of face and looking rather ashamed. He went +straight to the Kentuckian. + +"I was rude to you last night and I owe you an apology." + +He thrust out his hand and awkwardly the boy rose and took it. + +"And you'll forgive me, too, Barbara?" + +"Of course I will," she said happily, but holding up one finger of +warning--should he ever do it again. The rest of the guests trooped in +now, and some were going out on horseback, some for a sail, and some +visiting up the river in a barge, and all were paired off, even Harry. + +"I'm going to drive Cousin Erskine over the place with my ponies," said +Barbara, "and----" + +"I'm going back to bed," interrupted Hugh, "or read a little Latin and +Greek with Mr. Brockton." There was impudence as well as humor in this, +for the tutor had given up Hugh in despair long ago. + +Barbara shook her head. + +"You are going with us," she said. + +"I want Hugh to ride with me," said Colonel Dale, "and give Firefly a +little exercise. Nobody else can ride him." + +The Kentucky boy turned a challenging eye, as did every young man at the +table, and Hugh felt very comfortable. While every one was getting +ready, Harry brought out two foils and two masks on the porch a little +later. + +"We fight with those," he said, pointing to the crossed rapiers on the +wall, "but we practise with these. Hugh, there, is the champion fencer," +he said, "and he'll show you." + +Harry helped the Kentucky boy to mask and they crossed foils--Hugh giving +instructions all the time and nodding approval. + +"You'll learn--you'll learn fast," he said. And over his shoulder to +Harry: + +"Why, his wrist is as strong as mine now, and he's got an eye like a +weasel." + +With a twist he wrenched the foil from his antagonist's hand and +clattered it on the steps. The Kentuckian was bewildered and his face +flushed. He ran for the weapon. + +"You can't do that again." + +"I don't believe I can," laughed Hugh. + +"Will you learn me some more?" asked the boy eagerly. + +"I surely will." + +A little later Barbara and her cousin were trotting smartly along a +sandy road through the fields with the colonel and Hugh loping in front +of them. Firefly was a black mettlesome gelding. He had reared and +plunged when Hugh mounted, and even now he was champing his bit and +leaping playfully at times, but the lad sat him with an unconcern of his +capers that held the Kentucky boy's eyes. + +"Gosh," he said, "but Hugh can ride! I wonder if he could stay on him +bareback." + +"I suppose so," Barbara said; "Hugh can do anything." + +The summer fields of corn and grain waved away on each side under the +wind, innumerable negroes were at work and song on either side, great +barns and whitewashed cabins dotted the rich landscape which beyond the +plantation broke against woods of sombre pines. For an hour they drove, +the boy's bewildered eye missing few details and understanding few, so +foreign to him were all the changes wrought by the hand, and he could +hardly have believed that this country was once as wild as his own--that +this was to be impoverished and his own become even a richer land. Many +questions the little girl asked--and some of his answers made her +shudder. + +"Papa said last night that several of our kinsfolk spoke of going to +your country in a party, and Harry and Hugh are crazy to go with them. +Papa said people would be swarming over the Cumberland Mountains before +long." + +"I wish you'd come along." + +Barbara laughed. + +"I wouldn't like to lose my hair." + +"I'll watch out for that," said the boy with such confident gravity that +Barbara turned to look at him. + +"I believe you would," she murmured. And presently: + +"What did the Indians call you?" + +"White Arrow." + +"White Arrow. That's lovely. Why?" + +"I could outrun all the other boys." + +"Then you'll have to run to-morrow when we go to the fair at +Williamsburg." + +"The fair?" + +Barbara explained. + +For an hour or more they had driven and there was no end to the fields +of tobacco and grain. + +"Are we still on your land?" + +Barbara laughed. "Yes, we can't drive around the plantation and get back +for dinner. I think we'd better turn now." + +"Plan-ta-tion," said the lad. "What's that?" + +Barbara waved her whip. + +"Why, all this--the land--the farm." + +"Oh!" + +"It's called Red Oaks--from those big trees back of the house." + +"Oh. I know oaks--all of 'em." + +She wheeled the ponies and with fresh zest they scampered for home. She +even let them run for a while, laughing and chatting meanwhile, though +the light wagon swayed from side to side perilously as the boy thought, +and when, in his ignorance of the discourtesy involved, he was on the +point of reaching for the reins, she spoke to them and pulled them +gently into a swift trot. Everybody had gathered for the noonday dinner +when they swung around the great trees and up to the back porch. The +clamor of the great bell gave its summons and the guests began +straggling in by couples from the garden. Just as they were starting in +the Kentucky boy gave a cry and darted down the path. A towering figure +in coonskin cap and hunter's garb was halted at the sun-dial and looking +toward them. + +"Now, I wonder who _that_ is," said Colonel Dale. "Jupiter, but that boy +can run!" + +They saw the tall stranger stare wonderingly at the boy and throw back +his head and laugh. Then the two came on together. The boy was still +flushed but the hunter's face was grave. + +"This is Dave," said the boy simply. + +"Dave Yandell," added the stranger, smiling and taking off his cap. +"I've been at Williamsburg to register some lands and I thought I'd come +and see how this young man is getting along." + +Colonel Dale went quickly to meet him with outstretched hand. + +"I'm glad you did," he said heartily. "Erskine has already told us about +you. You are just in time for dinner." + +"That's mighty kind," said Dave. And the ladies, after he was presented, +still looked at him with much curiosity and great interest. Truly, +strange visitors were coming to Red Oaks these days. + +That night the subject of Hugh and Harry going back home with the two +Kentuckians was broached to Colonel Dale, and to the wondering delight +of the two boys both fathers seemed to consider it favorably. Mr. +Brockton was going to England for a visit, the summer was coming on, and +both fathers thought it would be a great benefit to their sons. Even +Mrs. Dale, on whom the hunter had made a most agreeable impression, +smiled and said she would already be willing to trust her son with their +new guest anywhere. + +"I shall take good care of him, madam," said Dave with a bow. + +Colonel Dale, too, was greatly taken with the stranger, and he asked +many questions of the new land beyond the mountains. There was dancing +again that night, and the hunter, towering a head above them all, looked +on with smiling interest. He even took part in a square dance with Miss +Jane Willoughby, handling his great bulk with astonishing grace and +lightness of foot. Then the elder gentlemen went into the drawing-room +to their port and pipes, and the boy Erskine slipped after them and +listened enthralled to the talk of the coming war. + +Colonel Dale had been in Hanover ten years before, when one Patrick +Henry voiced the first intimation of independence in Virginia; Henry, a +country storekeeper--bankrupt; farmer--bankrupt; storekeeper again, and +bankrupt again; an idler, hunter, fisher, and story-teller--even a +"barkeeper," as Mr. Jefferson once dubbed him, because Henry had once +helped his father-in-law to keep tavern. That far back Colonel Dale had +heard Henry denounce the clergy, stigmatize the king as a tyrant who had +forfeited all claim to obedience, and had seen the orator caught up on +the shoulders of the crowd and amidst shouts of applause borne around +the court-house green. He had seen the same Henry ride into Richmond two +years later on a lean horse: with papers in his saddle-pockets, his +expression grim, his tall figure stooping, a peculiar twinkle in his +small blue eyes, his brown wig without powder, his coat peach-blossom in +color, his knee-breeches of leather, and his stockings of yarn. The +speaker of the Burgesses was on a dais under a red canopy supported by +gilded rods, and the clerk sat beneath with a mace on the table before +him, but Henry cried for liberty or death, and the shouts of treason +failed then and there to save Virginia for the king. The lad's brain +whirled. What did all this mean? Who was this king and what had he done? +He had known but the one from whom he had run away. And this talk of +taxes and Stamp Acts; and where was that strange land, New England, +whose people had made tea of the salt water in Boston harbor? Until a +few days before he had never known what tea was, and he didn't like it. +When he got Dave alone he would learn and learn and learn--everything. +And then the young people came quietly in and sat down quietly, and +Colonel Dale, divining what they wanted, got Dave started on stories of +the wild wilderness that was his home--the first chapter in the Iliad of +Kentucky--the land of dark forests and cane thickets that separated +Catawbas, Creeks, and Cherokees on the south from Delawares, Wyandottes, +and Shawnees on the north, who fought one another, and all of whom the +whites must fight. How Boone came and stayed two years in the wilderness +alone, and when found by his brother was lying on his back in the woods +lustily singing hymns. How hunters and surveyors followed; how the first +fort was built, and the first women stood on the banks of the Kentucky +River. He told of the perils and hardships of the first journeys +thither--fights with wild beasts and wild men, chases, hand-to-hand +combats, escapes, and massacres--and only the breathing of his listeners +could be heard, save the sound of his own voice. And he came finally to +the story of the attack on the fort, the raising of a small hand above +the cane, palm outward, and the swift dash of a slender brown body into +the fort, and then, seeing the boy's face turn scarlet, he did not tell +how that same lad had slipped back into the woods even while the fight +was going on, and slipped back with the bloody scalp of his enemy, but +ended with the timely coming of the Virginians, led by the lad's father, +who got his death-wound at the very gate. The tense breathing of his +listeners culminated now in one general deep breath. + +Colonel Dale rose and turned to General Willoughby. + +"And _that's_ where he wants to take our boys." + +"Oh, it's much safer now," said the hunter. "We have had no trouble for +some time, and there's no danger inside the fort." + +"I can imagine you keeping those boys inside the fort when there's so +much going on outside. Still--" Colonel Dale stopped and the two boys +took heart again. The ladies rose to go to bed, and Mrs. Dale was +shaking her head very doubtfully, but she smiled up at the tall hunter +when she bade him good night. + +"I shall not take back what I said." + +"Thank you, madam," said Dave, and he bent his lips to her absurdly +little white hand. + +Colonel Dale escorted the boy and Dave to their room. Mr. Yandell must +go with them to the fair at Williamsburg next morning, and Mr. Yandell +would go gladly. They would spend the night there and go to the +Governor's Ball. The next day there was a county fair, and perhaps Mr. +Henry would speak again. Then Mr. Yandell must come back with them to +Red Oaks and pay them a visit--no, the colonel would accept no excuse +whatever. + +The boy plied Dave with questions about the people in the wilderness and +passed to sleep. Dave lay awake a long time thinking that war was sure +to come. They were Americans now, said Colonel Dale--not Virginians, just +as nearly a century later the same people were to say: + +"We are not Americans now--we are Virginians." + + + + +VII + + +It was a merry cavalcade that swung around the great oaks that spring +morning in 1774. Two coaches with outriders and postilions led the way +with their precious freight--the elder ladies in the first coach, and the +second blossoming with flower-like faces and starred with dancing eyes. +Booted and spurred, the gentlemen rode behind, and after them rolled the +baggage-wagons, drawn by mules in jingling harness. Harry on a chestnut +sorrel and the young Kentuckian on a high-stepping gray followed the +second coach--Hugh on Firefly champed the length of the column. Colonel +Dale and Dave brought up the rear. The road was of sand and there was +little sound of hoof or wheel--only the hum of voices, occasional sallies +when a neighbor joined them, and laughter from the second coach as happy +and care-free as the singing of birds from trees by the roadside. + +The capital had been moved from Jamestown to the spot where Bacon had +taken the oath against England--then called Middle-Plantation, and now +Williamsburg. The cavalcade wheeled into Gloucester Street, and Colonel +Dale pointed out to Dave the old capitol at one end and William and Mary +College at the other. Mr. Henry had thundered in the old capitol, the +Burgesses had their council-chamber there, and in the hall there would +be a ball that night. Near the street was a great building which the +colonel pointed out as the governor's palace, surrounded by +pleasure-grounds of full three hundred acres and planted thick with +linden-trees. My Lord Dunmore lived there. Back at the plantation Dave +had read in an old copy of _The Virginia Gazette_, amid advertisements +of shopkeepers, the arrival and departure of ships, and poetical bits +that sang of Myrtilla, Florella, and other colonial belles, how the town +had made an illumination in honor of the recent arrival of the elegant +Lady Dunmore and her three fine, sprightly daughters, from whose every +look flashed goodness of heart. For them the gentlemen of the Burgesses +were to give a ball the next night. At this season the planters came +with their families to the capitol, and the street was as brilliant as a +fancy-dress parade would be to us now. It was filled with coaches and +fours. Maidens moved daintily along in silk and lace, high-heeled shoes +and clocked stockings. Youths passed on spirited horses, college +students in academic dress swaggered through the throng, and from his +serene excellency's coach, drawn by six milk-white horses, my lord bowed +grimly to the grave lifting of hats on either side of the street. + +The cavalcade halted before a building with a leaden bust of Sir Walter +Raleigh over the main doorway, the old Raleigh Tavern, in the Apollo +Room of which Mr. Jefferson had rapturously danced with his Belinda, and +which was to become the Faneuil Hall of Virginia. Both coaches were +quickly surrounded by bowing gentlemen, young gallants, and frolicsome +students. Dave, the young Kentuckian, and Harry would be put up at the +tavern, and, for his own reasons, Hugh elected to stay with them. With +an _au revoir_ of white hands from the coaches, the rest went on to the +house of relatives and friends. + +Inside the tavern Hugh was soon surrounded by fellow students and boon +companions. He pressed Dave and the boy to drink with them, but Dave +laughingly declined and took the lad up to their room. Below they could +hear Hugh's merriment going on, and when he came up-stairs a while later +his face was flushed, he was in great spirits, and was full of +enthusiasm over a horserace and cock-fight that he had arranged for the +afternoon. With him came a youth of his own age with daredevil eyes and +a suave manner, one Dane Grey, to whom Harry gave scant greeting. One +patronizing look from the stranger toward the Kentucky boy and within +the latter a fire of antagonism was instantly kindled. With a word after +the two went out, Harry snorted his explanation: + +"Tory!" + +In the early afternoon coach and horsemen moved out to an "old field." +Hugh was missing from the Dale party, and General Willoughby frowned +when he noted his son's absence. When they arrived a most extraordinary +concert of sounds was filling the air. On a platform stood twenty +fiddlers in contest for a fiddle--each sawing away for dear life and each +playing a different tune--a custom that still survives in our own hills. +After this a "quire of ballads" was sung for. Then a crowd of boys +gathered to run one hundred and twelve yards for a hat worth twelve +shillings, and Dave nudged his young friend. A moment later Harry cried +to Barbara: + +"Look there!" + +There was their young Indian lining up with the runners, his face calm, +but an eager light in his eyes. At the word he started off almost +leisurely, until the whole crowd was nearly ten yards ahead of him, and +then a yell of astonishment rose from the crowd. The boy was skimming +the grounds on wings. Past one after another he flew, and laughing and +hardly out of breath he bounded over the finish, with the first of the +rest laboring with bursting lungs ten yards behind. Hugh and Dane Grey +had appeared arm in arm and were moving through the crowd with great +gayety and some boisterousness, and when the boy appeared with his hat +Grey shouted: + +"Good for the little savage!" Erskine wheeled furiously but Dave caught +him by the arm and led him back to Harry and Barbara, who looked so +pleased that the lad's ill-humor passed at once. + +"Whut you reckon I c'n do with this hat?" + +"Put it on!" smiled Barbara; but it was so ludicrous surmounting his +hunter's garb that she couldn't help laughing aloud. Harry looked +uneasy, but it was evident that the girl was the one person who could +laugh at the sensitive little woodsman with no offense. + +"I reckon you're right," he said, and gravely he handed it to Harry and +gravely Harry accepted it. Hugh and his friend had not approached them, +for Hugh had seen the frown on his father's face, but Erskine saw Grey +look long at Barbara, turn to question Hugh, and again he began to burn +within. + +The wrestlers had now stepped forth to battle for a pair of silver +buckles, and the boy in turn nudged Dave, but unavailingly. The +wrestling was good and Dave watched it with keen interest. One huge +bull-necked fellow was easily the winner, but when the silver buckles +were in his hand, he boastfully challenged anybody in the crowd. Dave +shouldered through the crowd and faced the victor. + +"I'll try you once," he said, and a shout of approval rose. + +The Dale party crowded close and my lord's coach appeared on the +outskirts and stopped. + +"Backholts or catch-as-catch-can?" asked the victor sneeringly. + +"As you please," said Dave. + +The bully rushed. Dave caught him around the neck with his left arm, his +right swinging low, the bully was lifted from the ground, crushed +against Dave's breast, the wind went out of him with a grunt, and Dave +with a smile began swinging him to and fro as though he were putting a +child to sleep. The spectators yelled their laughter and the bully +roared like a bull. Then Dave reached around with his left hand, caught +the bully's left wrist, pulled loose his hold, and with a leftward twist +of his own body tossed his antagonist some several feet away. The bully +turned once in the air and lighted resoundingly on his back. He got up +dazed and sullen, but breaking into a good-natured laugh, shook his head +and held forth the buckles to Dave. + +"You won 'em," Dave said. "They're yours. I wasn't wrastling for them. +You challenged. We'll shake hands." + +Then my Lord Dunmore sent for Dave and asked him where he was from. + +"And do you know the Indian country on this side of the Cumberland?" +asked his lordship. + +"Very well." + +His lordship smiled thoughtfully. + +"I may have need of you." + +Dave bowed: + +"I am an American, my lord." + +His lordship flamed, but he controlled himself. + +"You are at least an open enemy," he said, and gave orders to move on. + +The horse-race was now on, and meanwhile a pair of silk stockings, of +one pistol's value, was yet to be conferred. Colonel Dale had given Hugh +permission to ride Firefly in the race, but when he saw the lad's +condition he peremptorily refused. + +"And nobody else can ride him," he said, with much disappointment. + +"Let me try!" cried Erskine. + +"You!" Colonel Dale started to laugh, but he caught Dave's eye. + +"Surely," said Dave. The colonel hesitated. + +"Very well--I will." + +At once the three went to the horse, and the negro groom rolled his eyes +when he learned what his purpose was. + +"Dis hoss'll kill dat boy," he muttered, but the horse had already +submitted his haughty head to the lad's hand and was standing quietly. +Even Colonel Dale showed amazement and concern when the boy insisted +that the saddle be taken off, as he wanted to ride bareback, and again +Dave overcame his scruples with a word of full confidence. The boy had +been riding pony-races bareback, he explained, among the Indians, as +long as he had been able to sit a horse. The astonishment of the crowd +when they saw Colonel Dale's favorite horse enter the course with a +young Indian apparently on him bareback will have to be imagined, but +when they recognized the rider as the lad who had won the race, the +betting through psychological perversity was stronger than ever on +Firefly. Hugh even took an additional bet with his friend Grey, who was +quite openly scornful. + +"You bet on the horse now," he said. + +"On both," said Hugh. + +It was a pretty and a close race between Firefly and a white-starred bay +mare, and they came down the course neck and neck like two whirlwinds. A +war-whoop so Indian-like and curdling that it startled every old +frontiersman who heard it came suddenly from one of the riders. Then +Firefly stretched ahead inch by inch, and another triumphant savage yell +heralded victory as the black horse swept over the line a length ahead. +Dane Grey swore quite fearfully, for it was a bet that he could ill +afford to lose. He was talking with Barbara when the boy came back to +the Dales, and something he was saying made the girl color resentfully, +and the lad heard her say sharply: + +"He is my cousin," and she turned away from the young gallant and gave +the youthful winner a glad smile. Just then a group of four men stopped +near, looked closely at the little girl, and held a short consultation. +One of them came forward with a pair of silk stockings in his hand. + +"These are for the loveliest maiden present here. The committee chooses +you." + +And later he reported to his fellow members: + +"It was like a red rose courtesying and breathing thanks." + +Again Hugh and Dane Grey were missing when the party started back to the +town--they were gone to bet on "Bacon's Thunderbolts" in a cock-fight. +That night they still were missing when the party went to see the +Virginia Comedians in a play by one Mr. Congreve--they were gaming that +night--and next morning when the Kentucky lad rose, he and Dave through +his window saw the two young roisterers approaching the porch of the +hotel--much dishevelled and all but staggering with drink. + +"I don't like that young man," said Dave, "and he has a bad influence on +Hugh." + +That morning news came from New England that set the town a-quiver. +England's answer to the Boston tea-party had been the closing of Boston +harbor. In the House of Burgesses, the news was met with a burst of +indignation. The 1st of June was straight-way set apart as a day of +fasting, humiliation, and prayer that God would avert the calamity +threatening the civil rights of America. In the middle of the afternoon +my lord's coach and six white horses swung from his great yard and made +for the capitol--my lord sitting erect and haughty, his lips set with the +resolution to crush the spirit of the rebellion. It must have been a +notable scene, for Nicholas, Bland, Lee, Harrison, Pendleton, Henry, and +Jefferson, and perhaps Washington, were there. And my lord was far from +popular. He had hitherto girded himself with all the trappings of +etiquette, had a court herald prescribe rules for the guidance of +Virginians in approaching his excellency, had entertained little and, +unlike his predecessors, made no effort to establish cordial relations +with the people of the capitol. The Burgesses were to give a great ball +in his honor that very night, and now he was come to dissolve them. And +dissolve them he did. They bowed gravely and with no protest. Shaking +with anger my lord stalked to his coach and six while they repaired to +the Apollo Room to prohibit the use of tea and propose a general +congress of the colonies. And that ball came to pass. Haughty hosts +received their haughty guest with the finest and gravest courtesy, bent +low over my lady's hand, danced with her daughters, and wrung from my +lord's reluctant lips the one grudging word of comment: + +"Gentlemen!" + +And the ladies of his family bobbed their heads sadly in confirmation, +for the steel-like barrier between them was so palpable that it could +have been touched that night, it seemed, by the hand. + +The two backwoodsmen had been dazzled by the brilliance of it all, for +the boy had stood with Barbara, who had been allowed to look on for a +while. Again my lord had summoned Dave to him and asked many questions +about the wilderness beyond the Cumberland, and he even had the boy to +come up and shake hands, and asked him where he had learned to ride so +well. He lifted his eyebrows when Dave answered for him and murmured +with surprise and interest: + +"So--so!" + +Before Barbara was sent home Hugh and Dane Grey, dressed with great +care, came in, with an exaggeration of dignity and politeness that +fooled few others than themselves. Hugh, catching Barbara's sad and +reproachful glance, did not dare go near her, but Dane made straight for +her side when he entered the room--and bowed with great gallantry. To the +boy he paid no attention whatever, and the latter, fired with +indignation and hate, turned hastily away. But in a corner unseen he +could not withhold watching the two closely, and he felt vaguely that he +was watching a frightened bird and a snake. The little girl's +self-composure seemed quite to vanish, her face flushed, her eyes were +downcast, and her whole attitude had a mature embarrassment that was far +beyond her years. The lad wondered and was deeply disturbed. The half +overlooking and wholly contemptuous glance that Grey had shot over his +head had stung him like a knife-cut, so like an actual knife indeed that +without knowing it his right hand was then fumbling at his belt. Dave +too was noticing and so was Barbara's mother and her father, who knew +very well that this smooth, suave, bold, young daredevil was +deliberately leading Hugh into all the mischief he could find. Nor did +he leave the girl's side until she was taken home. Erskine, too, left +then and went back to the tavern and up to his room. Then with his knife +in his belt he went down again and waited on the porch. Already guests +were coming back from the party and it was not long before he saw Hugh +and Dane Grey half-stumbling up the steps. Erskine rose. Grey confronted +the lad dully for a moment and then straightened. + +"Here's anuzzer one wants to fight," he said thickly. "My young friend, +I will oblige you anywhere with anything, at any time--except to-night. +You must regard zhat as great honor, for I am not accustomed to fight +with savages." + +And he waved the boy away with such an insolent gesture that the lad, +knowing no other desire with an enemy than to kill in any way possible, +snatched his knife from his belt. He heard a cry of surprise and horror +from Hugh and a huge hand caught his upraised wrist. + +"Put it back!" said Dave sternly. + +The dazed boy obeyed and Dave led him up-stairs. + + + + +VIII + + +Dave talked to the lad about the enormity of his offense, but to Dave he +was inclined to defend himself and his action. Next morning, however, +when the party started back to Red Oaks, Erskine felt a difference in +the atmosphere that made him uneasy. Barbara alone seemed unchanged, and +he was quick to guess that she had not been told of the incident. Hugh +was distinctly distant and surly for another reason as well. He had +wanted to ask young Grey to become one of their party and his father had +decisively forbidden him--for another reason too than his influence over +Hugh: Grey and his family were Tories and in high favor with Lord +Dunmore. + +As yet Dave had made no explanation or excuse for his young friend, but +he soon made up his mind that it would be wise to offer the best +extenuation as soon as possible; which was simply that the lad knew no +better, had not yet had the chance to learn, and on the rage of impulse +had acted just as he would have done among the Indians, whose code alone +he knew. + +The matter came to a head shortly after their arrival at Red Oaks when +Colonel Dale, Harry, Hugh, and Dave were on the front porch. The boy was +standing behind the box-hedge near the steps and Barbara had just +appeared in the doorway. + +"Well, what was the trouble?" Colonel Dale had just asked. + +"He tried to stab Grey unarmed and without warning," said Hugh shortly. + +At the moment, the boy caught sight of Barbara. Her eyes, filled with +scorn, met his in one long, sad, withering look, and she turned +noiselessly back into the house. Noiselessly too he melted into the +garden, slipped down to the river-bank, and dropped to the ground. He +knew at last what he had done. Nothing was said to him when he came back +to the house and that night he scarcely opened his lips. In silence he +went to bed and next morning he was gone. + +The mystery was explained when Barbara told how the boy too must have +overheard Hugh. + +"He's hurt," said Dave, "and he's gone home." + +"On foot?" asked Colonel Dale incredulously. + +"He can trot all day and make almost as good time as a horse." + +"Why, he'll starve." + +Dave laughed: + +"He could get there on roots and herbs and wild honey, but he'll have +fresh meat every day. Still, I'll have to try to overtake him. I must +go, anyhow." + +And he asked for his horse and went to get ready for the journey. Ten +minutes later Hugh and Harry rushed joyously to his room. + +"We're going with you!" they cried, and Dave was greatly pleased. An +hour later all were ready, and at the last moment Firefly was led in, +saddled and bridled, and with a leading halter around his neck. + +"Harry," said Colonel Dale, "carry your cousin my apologies and give him +Firefly on condition that he ride him back some day. Tell him this home +is his"--the speaker halted, but went on gravely and firmly--"whenever he +pleases." + +"And give him my love," said Barbara, holding back her tears. + +At the river-gate they turned to wave a last good-by and disappeared in +the woods. At that hour the boy far over in the wilderness ahead of them +had cooked a squirrel that he had shot for his breakfast and was gnawing +it to the bones. Soon he rose and at a trot sped on toward his home +beyond the Cumberland. And with him, etched with acid on the steel of +his brain, sped two images--Barbara's face as he last saw it and the face +of young Dane Grey. + +The boy's tracks were easily to be seen in the sandy road, and from them +Dave judged that he must have left long before daylight. And he was +travelling rapidly. They too went as fast as they could, but Firefly led +badly and delayed them a good deal. Nobody whom they questioned had laid +eyes on the boy, and apparently he had been slipping into the bushes to +avoid being seen. At sunset Dave knew that they were not far behind him, +but when darkness hid the lad's tracks Dave stopped for the night. Again +Erskine had got the start by going on before day, and it was the middle +of the forenoon before Dave, missing the tracks for a hundred yards, +halted and turned back to where a little stream crossed the road and +dismounted leading his horse and scrutinizing the ground. + +"Ah," he said, "just what I expected. He turned off here to make a +bee-line for the fort. He's not far away now." An hour later he +dismounted again and smiled: "We're pretty close now." + +Meanwhile Harry and Hugh were getting little lessons in woodcraft. Dave +pointed out where the lad had broken a twig climbing over a log, where +the loose covering of another log had been detached when he leaped to +it, and where he had entered the creek, the toe of one moccasin pointing +down-stream. + +Then Dave laughed aloud: + +"He's seen us tracking him and he's doubled on us and is tracking us. I +expect he's looking at us from somewhere around here." And he hallooed +at the top of his voice, which rang down the forest aisles. A war-whoop +answered almost in their ears that made the blood leap in both the boys. +Even Dave wheeled with cocked rifle, and the lad stepped from behind a +bush scarcely ten feet behind them. + +"Well, by gum," shouted Dave, "fooled us, after all." + +A faint grin of triumph was on the lad's lips, but in his eyes was a +waiting inquiry directed at Harry and Hugh. They sprang forward, both of +them with their hands outstretched: + +"We're sorry!" + +A few minutes later Hugh was transferring his saddle from Firefly to his +own horse, which had gone a trifle lame. On Firefly, Harry buckled the +boy's saddle and motioned for him to climb up. The bewildered lad turned +to Dave, who laughed: + +"It's all right." + +"He's your horse, cousin," said Harry. "My father sent him to you and +says his home is yours whenever you please. And Barbara sent her love." + +At almost the same hour in the great house on the James the old negress +was carrying from the boy's room to Colonel Dale in the library a kingly +deed that the lad had left behind him. It was a rude scrawl on a sheet +of paper, signed by the boy's Indian name and his totem mark--a buffalo +pierced by an arrow. + +"It make me laugh. I have no use. I give hole dam plantashun Barbara." + +Thus read the scrawl! + + + + +IX + + +Led by Dave, sometimes by the boy, the four followed the course of +rivers, upward, always except when they descended some mountain which +they had to cross, and then it was soon upward again. The two Virginia +lads found themselves, much to their chagrin, as helpless as children, +but they were apt pupils and soon learned to make a fire with flint and +even with dry sticks of wood. On the second day Harry brought down a +buck, and the swiftness and skill with which Dave and the Kentucky boy +skinned and cleaned it greatly astonished the two young gentlemen from +the James. There Erskine had been helpless, here these two were, and +they were as modest over the transposition as was the Kentucky lad in +the environment he had just left. Once they saw a herd of buffalo and +they tied their horses and slipped toward them. In his excitement Harry +fired too soon and the frightened herd thundered toward them. + +"Climb a tree!" shouted Erskine dropping his rifle and skinning up a +young hickory. Like squirrels they obeyed and from their perches they +saw Dave in an open space ahead of them dart for a tree too late. + +The buffalo were making straight for them through no purpose but to get +away, and to their horror they saw the big hunter squeezing his huge +body sidewise against a small tree and the herd dashing under them and +past him. They could not see him for the shaggy bodies rushing by, but +when they passed, there was Dave unhurt, though the tree on both sides +of him had been skinned of its bark by their horns. + +"Don't do that again," said Dave, and then seeing the crestfallen terror +on Harry's face, he smiled and patted the boy on the shoulder: + +"You won't again. You didn't know. You will next time." + +Three days later they reached the broad, beautiful Holston River, +passing over the pine-crested, white-rocked summit of Clinch Mountain, +and came to the last outlying fort of the western frontier. Next day +they started on the long, long wilderness trail toward the Cumberland +range. In the lowland they found much holly and laurel and rhododendron. +Over Wallen's Ridge they followed a buffalo trail to a river that had +been called Beargrass because it was fringed with spikes of white +umbelliferous flowers four feet high that were laden with honey and +beloved by Bruin of the sweet tooth. The land was level down the valley. +On the third day therefrom the gray wall of the Cumberland that ran with +frowning inaccessibility on their right gathered its flanks into steep +gray cliffs and dipped suddenly into Cumberland Gap. Up this they +climbed. On the summit they went into camp, and next morning Dave swept +a long arm toward the wild expanse to the west. + +"Four more days," he cried, "and we'll be there!" + +The two boys looked with awe on the limitless stretch of wooded wilds. +It was still Virginia, to be sure, but they felt that once they started +down they would be leaving their own beloved State for a strange land of +unknown beasts and red men who peopled that "dark and bloody ground." + +Before sunrise next morning they were dropping down the steep and rocky +trail. Before noon they reached the beautiful Cumberland River, and Dave +told them that, below, it ran over a great rocky cliff, tumbling into +foam and spray over mighty boulders around which the Indians had to +carry their bark canoes. As they rode along the bank of the stream the +hills got lower and were densely thicketed with laurel and rhododendron, +and impenetrable masses of cane-brake filled every little valley curve. +That night they slept amid the rocky foot-hills of the range, and next +morning looked upon a vast wilderness stretch of woods that undulated to +the gentle slopes of the hills, and that night they were on the edge of +the blue-grass land. + +Toward sunset Dave, through a sixth sense, had the uneasy feeling that +he was not only being followed but watched from the cliffs alongside, +and he observed that Erskine too had more than once turned in his saddle +or lifted his eyes searchingly to the shaggy flanks of the hills. +Neither spoke to the other, but that night when the hoot of an owl +raised Dave from his blanket, Erskine too was upright with his rifle in +his hand. For half an hour they waited, and lay down again, only to be +awakened again by the snort of a horse, when both sprang to their feet +and crawled out toward the sound. But the heavy silence lay unbroken and +they brought the horses closer to the fire. + +[Illustration: "Four more days," he cried, "and we'll be there!"] + +"Now I _know_ it was Indians," said Dave; "that hoss o' mine can smell +one further'n a rattlesnake." The boy nodded and they took turns on +watch while the two boys slept on till daylight. The trail was broad +enough next morning for them to ride two abreast--Dave and Erskine in +advance. They had scarcely gone a hundred yards when an Indian stepped +into the path twenty yards ahead. Instinctively Dave threw his rifle up, +but Erskine caught his arm. The Indian had lifted his hand--palm upward. +"Shawnee!" said the lad, as two more appeared from the bushes. The eyes +of the two tidewater boys grew large, and both clinched their guns +convulsively. The Indian spokesman paid no heed except to Erskine--and +only from the lad's face, in which surprise was succeeded by sorrow and +then deep thoughtfulness, could they guess what the guttural speech +meant, until Erskine turned to them. + +They were not on the war-path against the whites, he explained. His +foster-father--Kahtoo, the big chief, the king--was very ill, and his +message, brought by them, was that Erskine should come back to the tribe +and become chief, as the chief's only daughter was dead and his only son +had been killed by the palefaces. They knew that in the fight at the +fort Erskine had killed the Shawnee, his tormentor, for they knew the +arrow, which Erskine had not had time to withdraw. The dead Shawnee's +brother--Crooked Lightning--was with them. He it was who had recognized +the boy the day before, and they had kept him from killing Erskine from +the bushes. At that moment a gigantic savage stepped from the brush. The +boy's frame quivered, straightened, grew rigid, but he met the +malevolent glare turned on him with emotionless face and himself quietly +began to speak while Harry and Hugh and even Dave watched him +enthralled; for the lad was Indian now and the old chief's mantle was +about his shoulders. He sat his horse like a king and spoke as a king. +He thanked them for holding back Crooked Lightning's evil hand, +but--contemptuously he spat toward the huge savage--he was not to die by +that hand. He was a paleface and the Indians had slain his white mother. +He had forgiven that, for he loved the old chief and his foster mother +and brother and sister, and the tribe had always been kind to him. Then +they had killed his white father and he had gone to visit his kindred by +the big waters, and now he loved _them_. He had fled from the Shawnees +because of the cruelty of Crooked Lightning's brother whom he had slain. +But if the Indians were falling into evil ways and following evil +counsels, his heart was sad. + +"I will come when the leaves fall," he concluded, "but Crooked Lightning +must pitch his lodge in the wilderness and be an outcast from the tribe +until he can show that his heart is good." And then with an imperious +gesture he waved his hand toward the west: + +"Now go!" + +It was hard even for Dave to realize that the lad, to all purposes, was +actually then the chief of a powerful tribe, and even he was a little +awed by the instant obedience of the savages, who, without a word, +melted into the bushes and disappeared. Harry wished that Barbara had +been there to see, and Hugh was open-mouthed with astonishment and +wonder, and Dave recovered himself with a little chuckle only when +without a word Erskine clucked Firefly forward, quite unconsciously +taking the lead. And Dave humored him; nor was it many hours before the +lad ceased to be chief, although he did not wholly become himself again +until they were near the fort. It was nearing sunset and from a little +hill Dave pointed to a thin blue wisp of smoke rising far ahead from the +green expanse. + +"There it is, boys!" he cried. All the horses were tired except Firefly +and with a whoop Erskine darted forward and disappeared. They followed +as fast as they could and they heard the report of the boy's rifle and +the series of war-whoops with which he was heralding his approach. +Nobody in the fort was fearful, for plainly it was no unfriendly coming. +All were gathered at the big gate and there were many yells and cries of +welcome and wonder when the boy swept into the clearing on a run, +brandishing his rifle above his head, and pulled his fiery black horse +up in front of them. + +"Whar'd you steal that hoss?" shouted Bud. + +"Look at them clothes!" cried Jack Sanders. And the women--Mother +Sanders, Mother Noe, and Lydia and Honor and Polly Conrad--gathered about +him, laughing, welcoming, shaking hands, and asking questions. + +"Where's Dave?" That was the chief question and asked by several voices +at the same time. The boy looked grave. + +"Dave ain't comin' back," he said, and then seeing the look on Lydia's +face, he smiled: "Dave--" He had no further to go, for Dave's rifle +cracked and his voice rose from the woods, and he and Harry and Hugh +galloped into the clearing. Then were there more whoopings and +greetings, and Lydia's starting tears turned to smiles. + +Healthy, husky, rude, and crude these people were, but hearty, kind, +wholesome, and hospitable to the last they had. Naturally the young +people and the two boys from the James were mutually shy, but it was +plain that the shyness would soon wear off. Before dark the men came in: +old Jerome and the Noe brothers and others who were strangers even to +Dave, for in his absence many adventurers had come along the wilderness +trail and were arriving all the time. Already Erskine and Bud had shown +the two stranger boys around the fort; had told them of the last fight +with the Indians, and pointed out the outer walls pockmarked with +bullet-holes. Supper was in the open--the women serving and the men +seated about on buffalo-skins and deer-hides. Several times Hugh or +Harry would spring up to help serve, until Polly turned on Hugh sharply: + +"You set still!" and then she smiled at him. + +"You'll spile us--but I know a lot o' folks that might learn manners from +you two boys." + +Both were embarrassed. Dave laughed, Bud Sanders grunted, and Erskine +paid no heed. All the time the interchange of news and experiences was +going on. Dave had to tell about his trip and Erskine's races--for the +lad would say nothing--and in turn followed stories of killing buffalo, +deer, panther, and wildcat during his absence. Early the women +disappeared, soon the men began to yawn and stretch, and the sentinels +went to the watch-towers, for there had been Indian signs that day. This +news thrilled the eastern lads, and they too turned into the same bed +built out from the wall of one of the cabins and covered with bearskins. +And Harry, just before his eyes closed, saw through the open door +Erskine seated alone by the dying fire in deep thought--Erskine, the +connecting-link between the tide-water aristocrats and these rude +pioneers, between these backwoodsmen and the savage enemies out in the +black encircling wilderness. And that boy's brain was in a turmoil--what +was to be his fate, there, here, or out there where he had promised to +go at the next falling of the leaves? + + + + +X + + +The green of the wilderness dulled and burst into the yellow of the +buckeye, the scarlet of maple, and the russet of oak. This glory in turn +dulled and the leaves, like petals of withered flowers, began to drift +to the earth. Through the shower of them went Erskine and Firefly, who +had become as used to the wilds as to the smiling banks of the far-away +James, for no longer did some strange scent make his nostrils quiver or +some strange sound point his beautiful ears and make him crouch and +shudder, or some shadow or shaft of light make him shy and leap like a +deer aside. And the two now were one in mutual affection and a mutual +understanding that was uncanny. A brave picture the lad made of those +lone forerunners whose tent was the wilderness and whose goal was the +Pacific slope. From his coonskin cap the bushy tail hung like a plume; +his deerskin hunting-shirt, made by old Mother Sanders, was beaded and +fringed--fringed across the breast, at the wrists, and at the hem, and +girded by a belt from which the horned handle of a scalping-knife showed +in front and the head of a tomahawk behind; his powder-horn swung under +one shoulder and his bullet-pouch, wadding, flint, and steel under the +other; his long rifle across his saddle-bow. And fringed too were his +breeches and beaded were his moccasins. Dave had laughed at him as a +backwoods dandy and then checked himself, so dignified was the boy and +grave; he was the son of a king again, and as such was on his way in +answer to the wish of a king. For food he carried only a little sack of +salt, for his rifle would bring him meat and the forest would give him +nuts and fruit. When the sun was nearing its highest, he "barked" a +squirrel from the trunk of a beech; toward sunset a fat pheasant +fluttered from the ground to a low limb and he shot its head off and +camped for the night. Hickory-nuts, walnuts, and chestnuts were +abundant. Persimmons and papaws were ripe, haws and huckleberries were +plentiful. There were wild cherries and even wild plums, and when he +wished he could pluck a handful of wild grapes from a vine by the trail +and munch them as he rode along. For something sweet he could go to the +pod of the honey-locust. + +On the second day he reached the broad buffalo trail that led to the +salt-licks and on to the river, and then memories came. He remembered a +place where the Indians had camped after they had captured himself and +his mother. In his mind was a faint picture of her sitting against a +tree and weeping and of an Indian striking her to make her stop and of +himself leaping at the savage like a little wildcat, whereat the others +laughed like children. Farther on, next day, was the spot where the +Indians had separated them and he saw his mother no more. They told him +that she had been taken back to the whites, but he was told later that +they had killed her because in their flight from the whites she was +holding them back too much. Farther on was a spot where they had hurried +from the trail and thrust him into a hollow log, barring the exit with +stones, and had left him for a day and a night. + +On the fourth day he reached the river and swam it holding rifle and +powder-horn above his head. On the seventh he was nearing the village +where the sick chief lay, and when he caught sight of the teepees in a +little creek bottom, he fired his rifle, and putting Firefly into a +gallop and with right hand high swept into the village. Several bucks +had caught up bow or rifle at the report of the gun and the clatter of +hoofs, but their hands relaxed when they saw his sign of peace. The +squaws gathered and there were grunts of recognition and greeting when +the boy pulled up in their midst. The flaps of the chief's tent parted +and his foster-mother started toward him with a sudden stream of tears +and turned quickly back. The old chief's keen black eyes were waiting +for her and he spoke before she could open her lips: + +"White Arrow! It is well. Here--at once!" + +Erskine had swung from his horse and followed. The old chief measured +him from head to foot slowly and his face grew content: + +"Show me the horse!" + +The boy threw back the flaps of the tent and with a gesture bade an +Indian to lead Firefly to and fro. The horse even thrust his beautiful +head over his master's shoulder and looked within, snorting gently. +Kahtoo waved dismissal: + +"You must ride north soon to carry the white wampum and a peace talk. +And when you go you must hurry back, for when the sun is highest on the +day after you return, my spirit will pass." + +And thereupon he turned his face and went back into sleep. Already his +foster-mother had unsaddled and tethered Firefly and given him a feed of +corn; and yet bucks, squaws, girls, and pappooses were still gathered +around him, for some had not seen his like before, and of the rest none +failed to feel the change that had taken place in him. Had the lad in +truth come to win and make good his chieftainship, he could not have +made a better beginning, and there was not a maid in camp in whose eyes +there was not far more than curiosity--young as he was. Just before +sunset rifle-shots sounded in the distance--the hunters were coming +in--and the accompanying whoops meant great success. Each of three bucks +carried a deer over his shoulders, and foremost of the three was Crooked +Lightning, who barely paused when he saw Erskine, and then with an +insolent glare and grunt passed him and tossed his deer at the feet of +the squaws. The boy's hand slipped toward the handle of his tomahawk, +but some swift instinct kept him still. The savage must have had good +reason for such open defiance, for the lad began to feel that many +others shared in his hostility and he began to wonder and speculate. + +Quickly the feast was prepared and the boy ate apart--his foster-mother +bringing him food--but he could hear the story of the day's hunting and +the allusions to the prowess of Crooked Lightning's son, Black Wolf, who +was Erskine's age, and he knew they were but slurs against himself. When +the dance began his mother pointed toward it, meaning that he should +take part, but he shook his head--and his thoughts went backward to his +friends at the fort and on back to the big house on the James, to Harry +and Hugh--and Barbara; and he wondered what they would think if they +could see him there; could see the gluttonous feast and those naked +savages stamping around the fire with barbaric grunts and cries to the +thumping of a drum. Where did he belong? + +Fresh wood was thrown on the fire, and as its light leaped upward the +lad saw an aged Indian emerge from one of two tents that sat apart on a +little rise--saw him lift both hands toward the stars for a moment and +then return within. + +"Who is that?" he asked. + +"The new prophet," said his mother. "He has been but one moon here and +has much power over our young men." + +An armful of pine fagots was tossed on the blaze, and in a whiter leap +of light he saw the face of a woman at the other tent--saw her face and +for a moment met her eyes before she shrank back--and neither face nor +eyes belonged to an Indian. Startled, he caught his mother by the wrist +and all but cried out: + +"And that?" The old woman hesitated and scowled: + +"A paleface. Kahtoo bought her and adopted her but"--the old woman gave a +little guttural cluck of triumph--"she dies to-morrow. Kahtoo will burn +her." + +"Burn her?" burst out the boy. + +"The palefaces have killed many of Kahtoo's kin!" + +A little later when he was passing near the white woman's tent a girl +sat in front of it pounding corn in a mortar. She looked up at him and, +staring, smiled. She had the skin of the half-breed, and he stopped, +startled by that fact and her beauty--and went quickly on. At old +Kahtoo's lodge he could not help turning to look at her again, and this +time she rose quickly and slipped within the tent. He turned to find his +foster-mother watching him. + +"Who is that girl?" The old woman looked displeased. + +"Daughter of the white woman." + +"Does she know?" + +"Neither knows." + +"What is her name?" + +"Early Morn." + +Early Morn and daughter of the white woman--he would like to know more of +those two, and he half turned, but the old Indian woman caught him by +the arm: + +"Do not go there--you will only make more trouble." + +He followed the flash of her eyes to the edge of the firelight where a +young Indian stood watching and scowling: + +"Who is that?" + +"Black Wolf, son of Crooked Lightning." + +"Ah!" thought Erskine. + +Within the old chief called faintly and the Indian woman motioned the +lad to go within. The old man's dim eyes had a new fire. + +"Talk!" he commanded and motioned to the ground, but the lad did not +squat Indian fashion, but stood straight with arms folded, and the chief +knew that a conflict was coming. Narrowly he watched White Arrow's face +and bearing--uneasily felt the strange new power of him. + +"I have been with my own people," said the lad simply, "the palefaces +who have come over the big mountains and have built forts and planted +corn, and they were kind to me. I went over those mountains, on and on +almost to the big waters. I found my kin. They are many and strong and +rich. They have big houses of stone such as I had never seen nor heard +of and they plant more corn than all the Shawnees and Iroquois. They, +too, were kind to me. I came because you had been kind and because you +were sick and because you had sent for me, and to keep my word. + +"I have seen Crooked Lightning. His heart is bad. I have seen the new +prophet. I do not like him. And I have seen the white woman that you are +to burn to-morrow." The lad stopped. His every word had been of defense +or indictment and more than once the old chief's eyes shifted uneasily. + +"Why did you leave us?" + +"To see my people and because of Crooked Lightning and his brother." + +"You fought us." + +"Only the brother, and I killed him." The dauntless mien of the boy, his +steady eyes, and his bold truthfulness, pleased the old man. The lad +must take his place as chief. Now White Arrow turned questioner: + +"I told you I would come when the leaves fell and I am here. Why is +Crooked Lightning here? Why is the new prophet? Who is the woman? What +has she done that she must die? What is the peace talk you wish me to +carry north?" + +The old man hesitated long with closed eyes. When he opened them the +fire was gone and they were dim again. + +"The story of the prophet and Crooked Lightning is too long," he said +wearily. "I will tell to-morrow. The woman must die because her people +have slain mine. Besides, she is growing blind and is a trouble. You +carry the white wampum to a council. The Shawnees may join the British +against our enemies--the palefaces." + +"I will wait," said the lad. "I will carry the white wampum. If you war +against the paleface on this side of the mountain--I am your enemy. If +you war with the British against them all--I am your enemy. And the woman +must not die." + +"I have spoken," said the old man. + +"_I_ have spoken," said the boy. He turned to lie down and went to +sleep. The old man sat on, staring out at the stars. + +Just outside the tent a figure slipped away as noiselessly as a snake. +When it rose and emerged from the shadows the firelight showed the +malignant, triumphant face of Crooked Lightning. + + + + +XI + + +The Indian boys were plunging into the river when Erskine appeared at +the opening of the old chief's tent next morning, and when they came out +icicles were clinging to their hair. He had forgotten the custom and he +shrugged his shoulders at his mother's inquiring look. But the next +morning when Crooked Lightning's son Black Wolf passed him with a +taunting smile he changed his mind. + +"Wait!" he said. He turned, stripped quickly to a breech-clout, pointed +to a beech down and across the river, challenging Black Wolf to a race. +Together they plunged in and the boy's white body clove through the +water like the arrow that he was. At the beech he whipped about to meet +the angry face of his competitor ten yards behind. Half-way back he was +more than twenty yards ahead when he heard a strangled cry. Perhaps it +was a ruse to cover the humiliation of defeat, but when he saw bucks +rushing for the river-bank he knew that the icy water had brought a +cramp to Black Wolf, so he turned, caught the lad by his topknot, towed +him shoreward, dropped him contemptuously, and stalked back to his tent. +The girl Early Morn stood smiling at her lodge and her eyes followed his +white figure until it disappeared. His mother had built a fire for him, +and the old chief looked pleased and proud. + +"My spirit shall not pass," he said, and straightway he rose and +dressed, and to the astonishment of the tribe emerged from his tent and +walked firmly about the village until he found Crooked Lightning. + +"You would have Black Wolf chief," he said. "Very well. We shall see who +can show the better right--your son or White Arrow"--a challenge that sent +Crooked Lightning to brood awhile in his tent, and then secretly to +consult the prophet. + +Later the old chief talked long to White Arrow. The prophet, he said, +had been with them but a little while. He claimed that the Great Spirit +had made revelations to him alone. What manner of man was he, questioned +the boy--did he have ponies and pelts and jerked meat? + +"He is poor," said the chief. "He has only a wife and children and the +tribe feeds him." + +White Arrow himself grunted--it was the first sign of his old life +stirring within him. + +"Why should the Great Spirit pick out such a man to favor?" he asked. +The chief shook his head. + +"He makes muzzi-neen for the young men, shows them where to find game +and they find it." + +"But game is plentiful," persisted the lad. + +"You will hear him drumming in the woods at night." + +"I heard him last night and I thought he was a fool to frighten the game +away." + +"Crooked Lightning has found much favor with him, and in turn with the +others, so that I have not thought it wise to tell Crooked Lightning +that he must go. He has stirred up the young men against me--and against +you. They were waiting for me to die." The boy looked thoughtful and the +chief waited. He had not reached the aim of his speech and there was no +need to put it in words, for White Arrow understood. + +"I will show them," he said quietly. + +When the two appeared outside, many braves had gathered, for the whole +village knew what was in the wind. Should it be a horse-race first? +Crooked Lightning looked at the boy's thoroughbred and shook his +head--Indian ponies would as well try to outrun an arrow, a bullet, a +hurricane. + +A foot-race? The old chief smiled when Crooked Lightning shook his head +again--no brave in the tribe even could match the speed that gave the lad +his name. The bow and arrow, the rifle, the tomahawk? Perhaps the +pole-dance of the Sioux? The last suggestion seemed to make Crooked +Lightning angry, for a rumor was that Crooked Lightning was a renegade +Sioux and had been shamed from the tribe because of his evasion of that +same pole-dance. Old Kahtoo had humor as well as sarcasm. Tomahawks and +bows and arrows were brought out. Black Wolf was half a head shorter, +but stocky and powerfully built. White Arrow's sinews had strengthened, +but he had scarcely used bow and tomahawk since he had left the tribe. +His tomahawk whistled more swiftly through the air and buried itself +deeper into the tree, and his arrows flashed faster and were harder to +pull out. He had the power but not the practice, and Black Wolf won with +great ease. When they came to the rifle, Black Wolf was out of the game, +for never a bull's-eye did White Arrow miss. + +"To-morrow," said the old chief, "they shall hunt. Each shall take his +bow and the same number of arrows at sunrise and return at sundown.... +The next day they shall do the same with the rifle. It is enough for +to-day." + +The first snow fell that night, and at dawn the two lads started +out--each with a bow and a dozen arrows. Erskine's woodcraft had not +suffered and the night's story of the wilderness was as plain to his +keen eyes as a printed page. Nothing escaped them, no matter how minute +the signs. Across the patch where corn had been planted, field-mice had +left tracks like stitched seams. Crows had been after crawfish along the +edge of the stream and a mink after minnows. A muskrat had crossed the +swamp beyond. In the woods, wind-blown leaves had dotted and dashed the +snow like a stenographer's notebook. Here a squirrel had leaped along, +his tail showing occasionally in the snow, and there was the +four-pointed, triangle-track of a cottontail. The wide-spreading toes of +a coon had made this tracery; moles had made these snowy ridges over +their galleries, and this long line of stitched tracks was the trail of +the fearless skunk which came to a sudden end in fur, feathers, and +bones where the great horned owl had swooped down on him, the only +creature that seems not to mind his smell. Here was the print of a +pheasant's wing, and buds and bits of twigs on the snow were the +scattered remnants of his breakfast. Here was the spring hole that never +freezes--the drinking-cup for the little folks of the woods. Here a hawk +had been after a rabbit, and the lengthening distance between his +triangles showed how he had speeded up in flight. He had scudded under +thick briers and probably had gotten away. But where was the big game? +For two hours he tramped swiftly, but never sign of deer, elk, bear, or +buffalo. + +And then an hour later he heard a snort from a thick copse and the crash +of an unseen body in flight through the brush, and he loped after its +tracks. + +Black Wolf came in at sunset with a bear cub which he had found feeding +apart from its mother. He was triumphant, and Crooked Lightning was +scornful when White Arrow appeared empty-handed. His left wrist was +bruised and swollen, and there was a gash the length of his forearm. + +"Follow my tracks back," he said, "until you come to the kill." With a +whoop two Indians bounded away and in an hour returned with a buck. + +"I ran him down," said White Arrow, "and killed him with the knife. He +horned me," and went into his tent. + +The bruised wrist and wounded forearm made no matter, for the rifle was +the weapon next day--but White Arrow went another way to look for game. +Each had twelve bullets. Black Wolf came in with a deer and one bullet. +White Arrow told them where they could find a deer, a bear, a buffalo, +and an elk, and he showed eight bullets in the palm of his hand. And he +noted now that the Indian girl was always an intent observer of each +contest, and that she always went swiftly back to her tent to tell his +deeds to the white woman within. + +There was a feast and a dance that night, and Kahtoo could have gone to +his fathers and left the lad, young as he was, as chief, but not yet was +he ready, and Crooked Lightning, too, bided his time. + + + + +XII + + +Dressed as an Indian, Erskine rode forth next morning with a wampum belt +and a talk for the council north where the British were to meet Shawnee, +Iroquois, and Algonquin, and urge them to enter the great war that was +just breaking forth. There was open and angry protest against sending so +young a lad on so great a mission, but the old chief haughtily brushed +it aside: + +"He is young but his feet are swift, his arm is strong, his heart good, +and his head is old. He speaks the tongue of the paleface. Besides, he +is my son." + +One question the boy asked as he made ready: + +"The white woman must not be burned while I am gone?" + +"No," promised the old chief. And so White Arrow fared forth. Four days +he rode through the north woods, and on the fifth he strode through the +streets of a town that was yet filled with great forest trees: a town at +which he had spent three winters when the game was scarce and the tribe +had moved north for good. He lodged with no chief but slept in the woods +with his feet to the fire. The next night he slipped to the house of the +old priest, Father Andre, who had taught him some religion and a little +French, and the old man welcomed him as a son, though he noted sadly his +Indian dress and was distressed when he heard the lad's mission. He was +quickly relieved. + +"I am no royalist," he said. + +"Nor am I," said Erskine. "I came because Kahtoo, who seemed nigh to +death, begged me to come. There is much intrigue about him, and he could +trust no other. I am only a messenger and I shall speak his talk; but my +heart is with the Americans and I shall fight with them." The old priest +put his fingers to his lips: + +"Sh-h-h! It is not wise. Are you not known?" + +Erskine hesitated. + +Earlier that morning he had seen three officers riding in. Following was +a youth not in uniform though he carried a sword. On the contrary, he +was dressed like an English dandy, and then he found himself face to +face with Dane Grey. With no sign of recognition the boy had met his +eyes squarely and passed on. + +"There is but one man who does know me and he did not recognize me. His +name is Dane Grey. I am wondering what he is doing here. Can you find +out for me and let me know?" The old priest nodded and Erskine slipped +back to the woods. + +At sunrise the great council began. On his way Erskine met Grey, who +apparently was leaving with a band of traders for Detroit. Again Erskine +met his eyes and this time Grey smiled: + +"Aren't you White Arrow?" Somehow the tone with which he spoke the name +was an insult. + +"Yes." + +"Then it's true. We heard that you had left your friends at the fort and +become an Indian again." + +"Yes?" + +"So you are not only going to fight with the Indians against the whites, +but with the British against America?" + +"What I am going to do is no business of yours," Erskine said quietly, +"but I hope we shall not be on the same side. We may meet again." + +Grey's face was already red with drink and it turned purple with anger. + +"When you tried to stab me do you remember what I said?" Erskine nodded +contemptuously. + +"Well, I repeat it. Whatever the side, I'll fight you anywhere at any +time and in any way you please." + +"Why not now?" + +"This is not the time for private quarrels and you know it." + +Erskine bowed slightly--an act that came oddly from an Indian head-dress. + +"I can wait--and I shall not forget. The day will come." + +The old priest touched Erskine's shoulder as the angry youth rode away. + +"I cannot make it out," he said. "He claims to represent an English fur +company. His talk is British but he told one man--last night when he was +drunk--that he could have a commission in the American army." + +The council-fire was built, the flames crackled and the smoke rolled +upward and swept through the leafless trees. Three British agents sat on +blankets and around them the chiefs were ringed. All day the powwow +lasted. Each agent spoke and the burden of his talk varied very little. + +The American palefaces had driven the Indian over the great wall. They +were killing his deer, buffalo, and elk, robbing him of his land and +pushing him ever backward. They were many and they would become more. +The British were the Indian's friends--the Americans were his enemies and +theirs; could they choose to fight with their enemies rather than with +their friends? Each chief answered in turn, and each cast forward his +wampum until only Erskine, who had sat silent, remained, and Pontiac +himself turned to him. + +"What says the son of Kahtoo?" + +Even as he rose the lad saw creeping to the outer ring his enemy Crooked +Lightning, but he appeared not to see. The whites looked surprised when +his boyish figure stood straight, and they were amazed when he addressed +the traders in French, the agents in English, and spoke to the feathered +chiefs in their own tongue. He cast the belt forward. + +"That is Kahtoo's talk, but this is mine." + +Who had driven the Indian from the great waters to the great wall? The +British. Who were the Americans until now? British. Why were the +Americans fighting now? Because the British, their kinsmen, would not +give them their rights. If the British would drive the Indian to the +great wall, would they not go on doing what they charged the Americans +with doing now? If the Indians must fight, why fight with the British to +beat the Americans, and then have to fight both a later day? If the +British would not treat their own kinsmen fairly, was it likely that +they would treat the Indian fairly? They had never done so yet. Would it +not be better for the Indian to make the white man on his own land a +friend rather than the white man who lived more than a moon away across +the big seas? Only one gesture the lad made. He lifted his hand high and +paused. Crooked Lightning had sprung to his feet with a hoarse cry. +Already the white men had grown uneasy, for the chiefs had turned to the +boy with startled interest at his first sentence and they could not know +what he was saying. But they looked relieved when Crooked Lightning +rose, for his was the only face in the assembly that was hostile to the +boy. With a gesture Pontiac bade Crooked Lightning speak. + +[Illustration: "That is Kahtoo's talk, but this is mine"] + +"The tongue of White Arrow is forked. I have heard him say he would +fight with the Long Knives against the British and he would fight with +them even against his own tribe." One grunt of rage ran the round of +three circles and yet Pontiac stopped Crooked Lightning and turned to +the lad. Slowly the boy's uplifted hand came down. With a bound he +leaped through the head-dress of a chief in the outer ring and sped away +through the village. Some started on foot after him, some rushed to +their ponies, and some sent arrows and bullets after him. At the edge of +the village the boy gave a loud, clear call and then another as he ran. +Something black sprang snorting from the edge of the woods with pointed +ears and searching eyes. Another call came and like the swirling edge of +a hurricane-driven thunder-cloud Firefly swept after his master. The boy +ran to meet him, caught one hand in his mane before he stopped, swung +himself up, and in a hail of arrows and bullets swept out of sight. + + + + +XIII + + +The sound of pursuit soon died away, but Erskine kept Firefly at his +best, for he knew that Crooked Lightning would be quick and fast on his +trail. He guessed, too, that Crooked Lightning had already told the +tribe what he had just told the council, and that he and the prophet had +already made all use of the boy's threat to Kahtoo in the Shawnee town. +He knew even that it might cost him his life if he went back there, and +once or twice he started to turn through the wilderness and go back to +the fort. Winter was on, and he had neither saddle nor bridle, but +neither fact bothered him. It was the thought of the white woman who was +to be burned that kept him going and sent him openly and fearlessly into +the town. He knew from the sullen looks that met him, from the fear in +the faces of his foster-mother and the white woman who peered blindly +from her lodge, and from the triumphant leer of the prophet that his +every suspicion was true, but all the more leisurely did he swing from +his horse, all the more haughtily stalk to Kahtoo's tent. And the old +chief looked very grave when the lad told the story of the council and +all that he had said and done. + +"The people are angry. They say you are a traitor and a spy. They say +you must die. And I cannot help you. I am too old and the prophet is too +strong." + +"And the white woman?" + +"She will not burn. Some fur traders have been here. The white chief +McGee sent me a wampum belt and a talk. His messenger brought much +fire-water and he gave me that"--he pointed to a silver-mounted +rifle--"and I promised that she should live. But I cannot help you." +Erskine thought quickly. He laid his rifle down, stepped slowly outside, +and stretched his arms with a yawn. Then still leisurely he moved toward +his horse as though to take care of it. But the braves were too keen and +watchful and they were not fooled by the fact that he had left his rifle +behind. Before he was close enough to leap for Firefly's back, three +bucks darted from behind a lodge and threw themselves upon him. In a +moment he was face down on the ground, his hands were tied behind his +back, and when turned over he looked up into the grinning face of Black +Wolf, who with the help of another brave dragged him to a lodge and +roughly threw him within, and left him alone. On the way he saw his +foster-mother's eyes flashing helplessly, saw the girl Early Morn +indignantly telling her mother what was going on, and the white woman's +face was wet with tears. He turned over so that he could look through +the tent-flaps. Two bucks were driving a stake in the centre of the +space around which the lodges were ringed. Two more were bringing fagots +of wood and it was plain what was going to become of him. His +foster-mother, who was fiercely haranguing one of the chiefs, turned +angrily into Kahtoo's lodge and he could see the white woman rocking her +body and wringing her hands. Then the old chief appeared and lifted his +hands. + +"Crooked Lightning will be very angry. The prisoner is his--not yours. It +is for him to say what the punishment shall be--not for you. Wait for +him! Hold a council and if you decide against him, though he is my +son--he shall die." For a moment the preparations ceased and all turned +to the prophet, who had appeared before his lodge. + +"Kahtoo is right," he said. "The Great Spirit will not approve if White +Arrow die except by the will of the council--and Crooked Lightning will +be angry." There was a chorus of protesting grunts, but the preparations +ceased. The boy could feel the malevolence in the prophet's tone and he +knew that the impostor wanted to curry further favor with Crooked +Lightning and not rob him of the joy of watching his victim's torture. +So the braves went back to their fire-water, and soon the boy's +foster-mother brought him something to eat, but she could say nothing, +for Black Wolf had appointed himself sentinel and sat rifle in hand at +the door of the lodge. + +Night came on. A wildcat screeched, a panther screamed, and an elk +bugled far away. The drinking became more furious and once Erskine saw a +pale-brown arm thrust from behind the lodge and place a jug at the feet +of Black Wolf, who grunted and drank deep. The stars mounted into a +clear sky and the wind rose and made much noise in the trees overhead. +One by one the braves went to drunken sleep about the fire. The fire +died down and by the last flickering flame the lad saw Black Wolf's chin +sinking sleepily to his chest. There was the slightest rustle behind the +tent. He felt something groping for his hands and feet, felt the point +of a knife graze the skin of his wrist and ankles--felt the thongs loosen +and drop apart. Noiselessly, inch by inch, he crept to the wall of the +tent, which was carefully lifted for him. Outside he rose and waited. +Like a shadow the girl Early Morn stole before him and like a shadow he +followed. The loose snow muffled their feet as the noise of the wind had +muffled his escape from the lodge, and in a few minutes they were by the +riverbank, away from the town. The moon rose and from the shadow of a +beech the white woman stepped forth with his rifle and powder-horn and +bullet-pouch and some food. She pointed to his horse a little farther +down. He looked long and silently into the Indian girl's eyes and took +the white woman's shaking hand. Once he looked back. The Indian girl was +stoic as stone. A bar of moonlight showed the white woman's face wet +with tears. + + * * * * * + +Again Dave Yandell from a watch-tower saw a topknot rise above a patch +of cane now leafless and winter-bitten--saw a hand lifted high above it +with a palm of peace toward him. And again an Indian youth emerged, this +time leading a black horse with a drooping head. Both came painfully on, +staggering, it seemed, from wounds or weakness, and Dave sprang from the +tower and rushed with others to the gate. He knew the horse and there +was dread in his heart; perhaps the approaching Indian had slain the +boy, had stolen the horse, and was innocently coming there for food. +Well, he thought grimly, revenge would be swift. Still, fearing some +trick, he would let no one outside, but himself stood waiting with the +gate a little ajar. So gaunt were boy and beast that it was plain that +both were starving. The boy's face was torn with briers and pinched with +hunger and cold, but a faint smile came from it. + +"Don't you know me, Dave?" he asked weakly. + +"My God! It's White Arrow!" + + + + +XIV + + +Straightway the lad sensed a curious change in the attitude of the +garrison. The old warmth was absent. The atmosphere was charged with +suspicion, hostility. Old Jerome was surly, his old playmates were +distant. Only Dave, Mother Sanders, and Lydia were unchanged. The +predominant note was curiosity, and they started to ply him with +questions, but Dave took him to a cabin, and Mother Sanders brought him +something to eat. + +"Had a purty hard time," stated Dave. The boy nodded. + +"I had only three bullets. Firefly went lame and I had to lead him. I +couldn't eat cane and Firefly couldn't eat pheasant. I got one from a +hawk," he explained. "What's the matter out there?" + +"Nothin'," said Dave gruffly and he made the boy go to sleep. His story +came when all were around the fire at supper, and was listened to with +eagerness. Again the boy felt the hostility and it made him resentful +and haughty and his story brief and terse. Most fluid and sensitive +natures have a chameleon quality, no matter what stratum of adamant be +beneath. The boy was dressed like an Indian, he looked like one, and he +had brought back, it seemed, the bearing of an Indian--his wildness and +stoicism. He spoke like a chief in a council, and even in English his +phrasing and metaphors belonged to the red man. No wonder they believed +the stories they had heard of him--but there was shame in many faces and +little doubt in any save one before he finished. + +He had gone to see his foster-mother and his foster-father--old chief +Kahtoo, the Shawnee--because he had given his word. Kahtoo thought he was +dying and wanted him to be chief when the Great Spirit called. Kahtoo +had once saved his life, had been kind, and made him a son. That he +could not forget. An evil prophet had come to the tribe and through his +enemies, Crooked Lightning and Black Wolf, had gained much influence. +They were to burn a captive white woman as a sacrifice. He had stayed to +save her, to argue with old Kahtoo, and carry the wampum and a talk to a +big council with the British. He had made his talk and--escaped. He had +gone back to his tribe, had been tied, and was to be burned at the +stake. Again he had escaped with the help of the white woman and her +daughter. The tribes had joined the British and even then they were +planning an early attack on this very fort and all others. + +The interest was tense and every face was startled at this calm +statement of their immediate danger. Dave and Lydia looked triumphant at +this proof of their trust, but old Jerome burst out: + +"Why did you have to escape from the council--and from the Shawnees?" The +boy felt the open distrust and he rose proudly. + +"At the council I told the Indians that they should be friends, not +enemies, of the Americans, and Crooked Lightning called me a traitor. He +had overheard my talk with Kahtoo." + +"What was that?" asked Dave quickly. + +"I told Kahtoo I would fight with the Americans against the British and +Indians; and with _you_ against _him_!" And he turned away and went back +to the cabin. + +"What'd I tell ye!" cried Dave indignantly and he followed the boy, who +had gone to his bunk, and put one big hand on his shoulder. + +"They thought you'd turned Injun agin," he said, "but it's all right +now." + +"I know," said the lad and with a muffled sound that was half the grunt +of an Indian and half the sob of a white man turned his face away. + +Again Dave reached for the lad's shoulder. + +"Don't blame 'em too much. I'll tell you now. Some fur traders came by +here, and one of 'em said you was goin' to marry an Injun girl named +Early Morn; that you was goin' to stay with 'em and fight with 'em +alongside the British. Of course I knowed better but----" + +"Why," interrupted Erskine, "they must have been the same traders who +came to the Shawnee town and brought whiskey." + +"That's what the feller said and why folks here believed him." + +"Who was he?" demanded Erskine. + +"You know him--Dane Grey." + +All tried to make amends straightway for the injustice they had done +him, but the boy's heart remained sore that their trust was so little. +Then, when they gathered all settlers within the fort and made all +preparations and no Indians came, many seemed again to get distrustful +and the lad was not happy. The winter was long and hard. A blizzard had +driven the game west and south and the garrison was hard put to it for +food. Every day that the hunters went forth the boy was among them and +he did far more than his share in the killing of game. But when winter +was breaking, more news came in of the war. The flag that had been +fashioned of a soldier's white shirt, an old blue army coat, and a red +petticoat was now the Stars and Stripes of the American cause. Burgoyne +had not cut off New England, that "head of the rebellion," from the +other colonies. On the contrary, the Americans had beaten him at +Saratoga and marched his army off under those same Stars and Stripes, +and for the first time Erskine heard of gallant Lafayette--how he had run +to Washington with the portentous news from his king--that beautiful, +passionate France would now stretch forth her helping hand. And Erskine +learned what that news meant to Washington's "naked and starving" +soldiers dying on the frozen hillsides of Valley Forge. Then George +Rogers Clark had passed the fort on his way to Williamsburg to get money +and men for his great venture in the Northwest, and Erskine got a ready +permission to accompany him as soldier and guide. After Clark was gone +the lad got restless; and one morning when the first breath of spring +came he mounted his horse, in spite of arguments and protestations, and +set forth for Virginia on the wilderness trail. He was going to join +Clark, he said, but more than Clark and the war were drawing him to the +outer world. What it was he hardly knew, for he was not yet much given +to searching his heart or mind. He did know, however, that some strange +force had long been working within him that was steadily growing +stronger, was surging now like a flame and swinging him between strange +moods of depression and exultation. Perhaps it was but the spirit of +spring in his heart, but with his mind's eye he was ever seeing at the +end of his journey the face of his little cousin Barbara Dale. + + + + +XV + + +A striking figure the lad made riding into the old capital one afternoon +just before the sun sank behind the western woods. Had it been dusk he +might have been thought to be an Indian sprung magically from the wilds +and riding into civilization on a stolen thoroughbred. Students no +longer wandered through the campus of William and Mary College. Only an +occasional maid in silk and lace tripped along the street in high-heeled +shoes and clocked stockings, and no coach and four was in sight. The +governor's palace, in its great yard amid linden-trees, was closed and +deserted. My Lord Dunmore was long in sad flight, as Erskine later +learned, and not in his coach with its six milk-white horses. But there +was the bust of Sir Walter in front of Raleigh Tavern, and there he drew +up, before the steps where he was once nigh to taking Dane Grey's life. +A negro servant came forward to care for his horse, but a coal-black +young giant leaped around the corner and seized the bridle with a +welcoming cry: + +"Marse Erskine! But I knowed Firefly fust." It was Ephraim, the groom +who had brought out Barbara's ponies, who had turned the horse over to +him for the race at the fair. + +"I come frum de plantation fer ole marse," the boy explained. The host +of the tavern heard and came down to give his welcome, for any Dale, no +matter what his garb, could always have the best in that tavern. More +than that, a bewigged solicitor, learning his name, presented himself +with the cheerful news that he had quite a little sum of money that had +been confided to his keeping by Colonel Dale for his nephew Erskine. A +strange deference seemed to be paid him by everybody, which was a +grateful change from the suspicion he had left among his pioneer +friends. The little tavern was thronged and the air charged with the +spirit of war. Indeed, nothing else was talked. My Lord Dunmore had come +to a sad and unbemoaned end. He had stayed afar from the battle-field of +Point Pleasant and had left stalwart General Lewis to fight Cornstalk +and his braves alone. Later my Lady Dunmore and her sprightly daughters +took refuge on a man-of-war--whither my lord soon followed them. His +fleet ravaged the banks of the rivers and committed every outrage. His +marines set fire to Norfolk, which was in ashes when he weighed anchor +and sailed away to more depredations. When he intrenched himself on +Gwynn's Island, that same stalwart Lewis opened a heavy cannonade on +fleet and island, and sent a ball through the indignant nobleman's +flag-ship. Next day he saw a force making for the island in boats, and +my lord spread all sail; and so back to merry England, and to Virginia +no more. Meanwhile, Mr. Washington had reached Boston and started his +duties under the Cambridge elm. Several times during the talk Erskine +had heard mentioned the name of Dane Grey. Young Grey had been with +Dunmore and not with Lewis at Point Pleasant, and had been conspicuous +at the palace through much of the succeeding turmoil--the hint being his +devotion to one of the daughters, since he was now an unquestioned +loyalist. + +Next morning Erskine rode forth along a sandy road, amidst the singing +of birds and through a forest of tiny upshooting leaves, for Red Oaks on +the James. He had forsworn Colonel Dale to secrecy as to the note he had +left behind giving his birthright to his little cousin Barbara, and he +knew the confidence would be kept inviolate. He could recall the +road--every turn of it, for the woodsman's memory is faultless--and he +could see the merry cavalcade and hear the gay quips and laughter of +that other spring day long ago, for to youth even the space of a year is +very long ago. But among the faces that blossomed within the old coach, +and nodded and danced like flowers in a wind, his mind's eye was fixed +on one alone. At the boat-landing he hitched his horse to the low-swung +branch of an oak and took the path through tangled rose-bushes and +undergrowth along the bank of the river, halting where it would give him +forth on the great, broad, grassy way that led to the house among the +oaks. There was the sun-dial that had marked every sunny hour since he +had been away. For a moment he stood there, and when he stepped into the +open he shrank back hastily--a girl was coming through the opening of +boxwood from the house--coming slowly, bareheaded, her hands clasped +behind her, her eyes downward. His heart throbbed as he waited, throbbed +the more when his ears caught even the soft tread of her little feet, +and seemed to stop when she paused at the sun-dial, and as before +searched the river with her eyes. And as before the song of negro +oarsmen came over the yellow flood, growing stronger as they neared. +Soon the girl fluttered a handkerchief and from the single passenger in +the stern came an answering flutter of white and a glad cry. At the bend +of the river the boat disappeared from Erskine's sight under the bank, +and he watched the girl. How she had grown! Her slim figure had rounded +and shot upward, and her white gown had dropped to her dainty ankles. +Now her face was flushed and her eye flashed with excitement--it was no +mere kinsman in that boat, and the boy's heart began to throb +again--throb fiercely and with racking emotions that he had never known +before. A fiery-looking youth sprang up the landing-steps, bowed +gallantly over the girl's hand, and the two turned up the path, the girl +rosy with smiles and the youth bending over her with a most protecting +and tender air. It was Dane Grey, and the heart of the watcher turned +mortal sick. + + + + +XVI + + +A long time Erskine sat motionless, wondering what ailed him. He had +never liked nor trusted Grey; he believed he would have trouble with him +some day, but he had other enemies and he did not feel toward them as he +did toward this dandy mincing up that beautiful broad path. With a +little grunt he turned back along the path. Firefly whinnied to him and +nipped at him with playful restlessness as though eager to be on his way +to the barn, and he stood awhile with one arm across his saddle. Once he +reached upward to untie the reins, and with another grunt strode back +and went rapidly up the path. Grey and Barbara had disappeared, but a +tall youth who sat behind one of the big pillars saw him coming and +rose, bewildered, but not for long. Each recognized the other swiftly, +and Hugh came with stiff courtesy forward. Erskine smiled: + +"You don't know me?" Hugh bowed: + +"Quite well." The woodsman drew himself up with quick breath--paling +without, flaming within--but before he could speak there was a quick step +and an astonished cry within the hall and Harry sprang out. + +"Erskine! Erskine!" he shouted, and he leaped down the steps with both +hands outstretched. "You here! You--you old Indian--how did you get here?" +He caught Erskine by both hands and then fell to shaking him by the +shoulders. "Where's your horse?" And then he noticed the boy's pale and +embarrassed face and his eyes shifting to Hugh, who stood, still cold, +still courteous, and he checked some hot outburst at his lips. + +"I'm glad you've come, and I'm glad you've come right now--where's your +horse?" + +"I left him hitched at the landing," Erskine had to answer, and Harry +looked puzzled: + +"The landing! Why, what----" He wheeled and shouted to a darky: + +"Put Master Erskine's horse in the barn and feed him." And he led +Erskine within--to the same room where he had slept before, and poured +out some water in a bowl. + +"Take your time," he said, and he went back to the porch. Erskine could +hear and see him through the latticed blinds. + +"Hugh," said the lad in a low, cold voice, "I am host here, and if you +don't like this you can take that path." + +"You are right," was the answer; "but you wait until Uncle Harry gets +home." + +The matter was quite plain to Erskine within. The presence of Dane Grey +made it plain, and as Erskine dipped both hands into the cold water he +made up his mind to an understanding with that young gentleman that +would be complete and final. And so he was ready when he and Harry were +on the porch again and Barbara and Grey emerged from the rose-bushes and +came slowly up the path. Harry looked worried, but Erskine sat still, +with a faint smile at his mouth and in his eyes. Barbara saw him first +and she did not rush forward. Instead she stopped, with wide eyes, a +stifled cry, and a lifting of one hand toward her heart. Grey saw too, +flushed rather painfully, and calmed himself. Erskine had sprung down +the steps. + +"Why, have I changed so much?" he cried. "Hugh didn't seem to know me, +either." His voice was gay, friendly, even affectionate, but his eyes +danced with strange lights that puzzled the girl. + +"Of course I knew you," she faltered, paling a little but gathering +herself rather haughtily--a fact that Erskine seemed not to notice. "You +took me by surprise and you have changed--but I don't know how much." The +significance of this too seemed to pass Erskine by, for he bent over +Barbara's hand and kissed it. + +"Never to you, my dear cousin," he said gallantly, and then he bowed to +Dane Grey, not offering to shake hands. + +"Of course I know Mr. Grey." To say that the gentleman was dumfounded is +to put it mildly--this wild Indian playing the courtier with exquisite +impudence and doing it well! Harry seemed like to burst with restrained +merriment, and Barbara was sorely put to it to keep her poise. The great +dinner-bell from behind the house boomed its summons to the woods and +fields. + +"Come on," called Harry. "I imagine you're hungry, cousin." + +"I am," said Erskine. "I've had nothing to eat since--since early morn." +Barbara's eyes flashed upward and Grey was plainly startled. Was there a +slight stress on those two words? Erskine's face was as expressionless +as bronze. Harry had bolted into the hall. + +Mrs. Dale was visiting down the river, so Barbara sat in her mother's +place, with Erskine at her right, Grey to her left, Hugh next to him, +and Harry at the head. Harry did not wait long. + +"Now, you White Arrow, you Big Chief, tell us the story. Where have you +been, what have you been doing, and what do you mean to do? I've heard a +good deal, but I want it all." + +Grey began to look uncomfortable, and so, in truth, did Barbara. + +"What have you heard?" asked Erskine quietly. + +"Never mind," interposed Barbara quickly; "you tell us." + +"Well," began Erskine slowly, "you remember that day we met some Indians +who told me that old Kahtoo, my foster-father, was ill, and that he +wanted to see me before he died? I went exactly as I would have gone had +white men given the same message from Colonel Dale, and even for better +reasons. A bad prophet was stirring up trouble in the tribe against the +old chief. An enemy of mine, Crooked Lightning, was helping him. He +wanted his son, Black Wolf, as chief, and the old chief wanted me. I +heard the Indians were going to join the British. I didn't want to be +chief, but I did want influence in the tribe, so I stayed. There was a +white woman in the camp and an Indian girl named Early Morn. I told the +old chief that I would fight with the whites against the Indians and +with the whites against them both. Crooked Lightning overheard me, and +you can imagine what use he made of what I said. I took the wampum belt +for the old chief to the powwow between the Indians and the British, and +I found I could do nothing. I met Mr. Grey there." He bowed slightly to +Dane and then looked at him steadily. "I was told that he was there in +the interest of an English fur company. When I found I could do nothing +with the Indians, I told the council what I had told the old chief." He +paused. Barbara's face was pale and she was breathing hard. She had not +looked at Grey, but Harry had been watching him covertly and he did not +look comfortable. Erskine paused. + +"What!" shouted Harry. "You told both that you would fight with the +whites against both! What'd they do to you?" + +Erskine smiled. + +"Well, here I am. I jumped over the heads of the outer ring and ran. +Firefly heard me calling him. I had left his halter loose. He broke +away. I jumped on him, and you know nothing can catch Firefly." + +"Didn't they shoot at you?" + +"Of course." Again he paused. + +"Well," said Harry impatiently, "that isn't the end." + +"I went back to the camp. Crooked Lightning followed me and they tied me +and were going to burn me at the stake." + +"Good heavens!" breathed Barbara. + +"How'd you get away?" + +"The Indian girl, Early Morn, slipped under the tent and cut me loose. +The white woman got my gun, and Firefly--you know nothing can catch +Firefly." The silence was intense. Hugh looked dazed, Barbara was on the +point of tears, Harry was triumphant, and Grey was painfully flushed. + +"And you want to know what I am going to do now?" Erskine went on. "I'm +going with Captain George Rogers Clark--with what command are you, Mr. +Grey?" + +"That's a secret," he smiled coolly. "I'll let you know later," and +Barbara, with an inward sigh of relief, rose quickly, but would not +leave them behind. + +"But the white woman?" questioned Harry. "Why doesn't she leave the +Indians?" + +"Early Morn--a half-breed--is her daughter," said Erskine simply. + +"Oh!" and Harry questioned no further. + +"Early Morn was the best-looking Indian girl I ever saw," said Erskine, +"and the bravest." For the first time Grey glanced at Barbara. "She +saved my life," Erskine went on gravely, "and mine is hers whenever she +needs it." Harry reached over and gripped his hand. + +As yet not one word had been said of Grey's misdoing, but Barbara's cool +disdain made him shamed and hot, and in her eyes was the sorrow of her +injustice to Erskine. In the hallway she excused herself with a +courtesy, Hugh went to the stables, Harry disappeared for a moment, and +the two were left alone. With smouldering fire Erskine turned to Grey. + +"It seems you have been amusing yourself with my kinspeople at my +expense." Grey drew himself up in haughty silence. Erskine went on: + +"I have known some liars who were not cowards." + +"You forget yourself." + +"No--nor you." + +"You remember a promise I made you once?" + +"Twice," corrected Erskine. Grey's eyes flashed upward to the crossed +rapiers on the wall. + +"Precisely," answered Erskine, "and when?" + +"At the first opportunity." + +"From this moment I shall be waiting for nothing else." + +Barbara, reappearing, heard their last words, and she came forward pale +and with piercing eyes: + +"Cousin Erskine, I want to apologize to you for my little faith. I hope +you will forgive me. Mr. Grey, your horse will be at the door at once. I +wish you a safe journey--to your command." Grey bowed and turned--furious. + +Erskine was on the porch when Grey came out to mount his horse. + +"You will want seconds?" asked Grey. + +"They might try to stop us--no!" + +"I shall ride slowly," Grey said. Erskine bowed. + +"I shall not." + + + + +XVII + + +Nor did he. Within half an hour Barbara, passing through the hall, saw +that the rapiers were gone from the wall and she stopped, with the color +fled from her face and her hand on her heart. At that moment Ephraim +dashed in from the kitchen. + +"Miss Barbary, somebody gwine to git killed. I was wukkin' in de ole +field an' Marse Grey rid by cussin' to hisself. Jist now Marse Erskine +went tearin' by de landin' wid a couple o' swords under his arm." His +eyes too went to the wall. "Yes, bless Gawd, dey's gone!" Barbara flew +out the door. + +In a few moments she had found Harry and Hugh. Even while their horses +were being saddled her father rode up. + +"It's murder," cried Harry, "and Grey knows it. Erskine knows nothing +about a rapier." + +Without a word Colonel Dale wheeled his tired horse and soon Harry and +Hugh dashed after him. Barbara walked back to the house, wringing her +hands, but on the porch she sat quietly in the agony of waiting that was +the role of women in those days. + +Meanwhile, at a swift gallop Firefly was skimming along the river road. +Grey had kept his word and more: he had not only ridden slowly but he +had stopped and was waiting at an oak-tree that was a corner-stone +between two plantations. + +"That I may not kill you on your own land," he said. + +Erskine started. "The consideration is deeper than you know." + +They hitched their horses, and Erskine followed into a pleasant glade--a +grassy glade through which murmured a little stream. Erskine dropped the +rapiers on the sward. + +"Take your choice," he said. + +"There is none," said Grey, picking up the one nearer to him. "I know +them both." Grey took off his coat while Erskine waited. Grey made the +usual moves of courtesy and still Erskine waited, wonderingly, with the +point of the rapier on the ground. + +"When you are ready," he said, "will you please let me know?" + +"Ready!" answered Grey, and he lunged forward. Erskine merely whipped at +his blade so that the clang of it whined on the air to the +breaking-point and sprang backward. He was as quick as an eyelash and +lithe as a panther, and yet Grey almost laughed aloud. All Erskine did +was to whip the thrusting blade aside and leap out of danger like a +flash of light. It was like an inexpert boxer flailing according to +rules unknown--and Grey's face flamed and actually turned anxious. Then, +as a kindly fate would have it, Erskine's blade caught in Grey's guard +by accident, and the powerful wrist behind it seeking merely to wrench +the weapon loose tore Grey's rapier from his grasp and hurled it ten +feet away. There is no greater humiliation for the expert swordsman, and +not for nothing had Erskine suffered the shame of that long-ago day when +a primitive instinct had led him to thrusting his knife into this same +enemy's breast. Now, with his sword's point on the earth, he waited +courteously for Grey to recover his weapon. + +Again a kindly fate intervened. Even as Grey rushed for his sword, +Erskine heard the beat of horses' hoofs. As he snatched it from the +ground and turned, with a wicked smile over his grinding teeth, came +Harry's shout, and as he rushed for Erskine, Colonel Dale swung from his +horse. The sword-blades clashed, Erskine whipping back and forth in a +way to make a swordsman groan--and Colonel Dale had Erskine by the wrist +and was between them. + +"How dare you, sir?" cried Grey hotly. + +"Just a moment, young gentleman," said Colonel Dale calmly. + +"Let us alone, Uncle Harry--I----" + +"Just a moment," repeated the colonel sternly. "Mr. Grey, do you think +it quite fair that you with your skill should fight a man who knows +nothing about foils?" + +"There was no other way," Grey said sullenly. + +"And you could not wait, I presume?" Grey did not answer. + +"Now, hear what I have to say, and if you both do not agree, the matter +will be arranged to your entire satisfaction, Mr. Grey. I have but one +question to ask. Your country is at war. She needs every man for her +defense. Do you not both think your lives belong to your country and +that it is selfish and unpatriotic just now to risk them in any other +cause?" He waited for his meaning to sink in, and sink it did. + +[Illustration: The sword blades clashed, Erskine whipping back and +forth in a way to make a swordsman groan] + +"Colonel Dale, your nephew grossly insulted me, and your daughter showed +me the door. I made no defense to him nor to her, but I will to you. I +merely repeated what I had been told and I believed it true. Now that I +hear it is not true, I agree with you, sir, and I am willing to express +my regrets and apologies." + +"That is better," said Colonel Dale heartily, and he turned to Erskine, +but Erskine was crying hotly: + +"And I express neither." + +"Very well," sneered Grey coldly. "Perhaps we may meet when your +relatives are not present to protect you." + +"Uncle Harry----" Erskine implored, but Grey was turning toward his horse. + +"After all, Colonel Dale is right." + +"Yes," assented Erskine helplessly, and then--"it is possible that we +shall not always be on the same side." + +"So I thought," returned Grey with lifted eyebrows, "when I heard what I +did about you!" Both Harry and Hugh had to catch Erskine by an arm then, +and they led him struggling away. Grey mounted his horse, lifted his +hat, and was gone. Colonel Dale picked up the swords. + +"Now," he said, "enough, of all this--let it be forgotten." + +And he laughed. + +"You'll have to confess, Erskine--he has a quick tongue and you must +think only of his temptation to use it." + +Erskine did not answer. + +As they rode back Colonel Dale spoke of the war. It was about to move +into Virginia, he said, and when it did---- Both Harry and Hugh +interrupted him with a glad shout: + +"We can go!" Colonel Dale nodded sadly. + +Suddenly all pulled their horses in simultaneously and raised their +eyes, for all heard the coming of a horse in a dead run. Around a +thicketed curve of the road came Barbara, with her face white and her +hair streaming behind her. She pulled her pony in but a few feet in +front of them, with her burning eyes on Erskine alone. + +"Have you killed him--have you killed him? If you have--" She stopped +helpless, and all were so amazed that none could answer. Erskine shook +his head. There was a flash of relief in the girl's white face, its +recklessness gave way to sudden shame, and, without a word, she wheeled +and was away again--Harry flying after her. No one spoke. Colonel Dale +looked aghast and Erskine's heart again turned sick. + + + + +XVIII + + +The sun was close to the uneven sweep of the wilderness. Through its +slanting rays the river poured like a flood of gold. The negroes were on +the way singing from the fields. Cries, chaffing, and the musical +clanking of trace-chains came from the barnyard. Hungry cattle were +lowing and full-uddered mothers were mooing answers to bawling calves. A +peacock screamed from a distant tree and sailed forth, full-spread--a +great gleaming winged jewel of the air. In crises the nerves tighten +like violin strings, the memory-plates turn abnormally sensitive--and +Erskine was not to forget that hour. + +The house was still and not a soul was in sight as the three, still +silent, walked up the great path. When they were near the portico Harry +came out. He looked worried and anxious. + +"Where's Barbara?" asked her father. + +"Locked in her room." + +"Let her alone," said Colonel Dale gently. Like brother and cousin, +Harry and Hugh were merely irritated by the late revelation, but the +father was shocked that his child was no longer a child. Erskine +remembered the girl as she waited for Grey's coming at the sun-dial, her +face as she walked with him up the path. For a moment the two boys stood +in moody silence. Harry took the rapiers in and put them in their place +on the wall. Hugh quietly disappeared. Erskine, with a word of apology, +went to his room, and Colonel Dale sat down on the porch alone. + +As the dusk gathered, Erskine, looking gloomily through his window, saw +the girl flutter like a white moth past the box-hedge and down the path. +A moment later he saw the tall form of Colonel Dale follow her--and both +passed from sight. On the thick turf the colonel's feet too were +noiseless, and when Barbara stopped at the sun-dial he too paused. Her +hands were caught tight and her drawn young face was lifted to the +yellow disk just rising from the far forest gloom. She was unhappy, and +the colonel's heart ached sorely, for any unhappiness of hers always +trebled his own. + +"Little girl!" he called, and no lover's voice could have been more +gentle. "Come here!" + +She turned and saw him, with arms outstretched, the low moon lighting +all the tenderness in his fine old face, and she flew to him and fell to +weeping on his breast. In wise silence he stroked her hair until she +grew a little calmer. + +"What's the matter, little daughter?" + +"I--I--don't know." + +"I understand. You were quite right to send him away, but you did not +want him harmed." + +"I--I--didn't want anybody harmed." + +"I know. It's too bad, but none of us seem quite to trust him." + +"That's it," she sobbed; "I don't either, and yet----" + +"I know. I know. My little girl must be wise and brave, and maybe it +will all pass and she will be glad. But she must be brave. Mother is not +well and she must not be made unhappy too. She must not know. Can't my +little girl come back to the house now? She must be hostess and this is +Erskine's last night." She looked up, brushing away her tears. + +"His last night?" Ah, wise old colonel! + +"Yes--he goes to-morrow to join Captain Clark at Williamsburg on his +foolish campaign in the Northwest. We might never see him again." + +"Oh, father!" + +"Well, it isn't that bad, but my little girl must be very nice to him. +He seems to be very unhappy, too." + +Barbara looked thoughtful, but there was no pretense of not +understanding. + +"I'm sorry," she said. She took her father's arm, and when they reached +the steps Erskine saw her smiling. And smiling, almost gay, she was at +supper, sitting with exquisite dignity in her mother's place. Harry and +Hugh looked amazed, and her father, who knew the bit of tempered steel +she was, smiled his encouragement proudly. Of Erskine, who sat at her +right, she asked many questions about the coming campaign. Captain Clark +had said he would go with a hundred men if he could get no more. The +rallying-point would be the fort in Kentucky where he had first come +back to his own people, and Dave Yandell would be captain of a company. +He himself was going as guide, though he hoped to act as soldier as +well. Perhaps they might bring back the Hair-Buyer, General Hamilton, a +prisoner to Williamsburg, and then he would join Harry and Hugh in the +militia if the war came south and Virginia were invaded, as some +prophesied, by Tarleton's White Rangers, who had been ravaging the +Carolinas. After supper the little lady excused herself with a smiling +courtesy to go to her mother, and Erskine found himself in the moonlight +on the big portico with Colonel Dale alone. + +"Erskine," he said, "you make it very difficult for me to keep your +secret. Hugh alone seems to suspect--he must have got the idea from Grey, +but I have warned him to say nothing. The others seem not to have +thought of the matter at all. It was a boyish impulse of generosity +which you may regret----" + +"Never," interrupted the boy. "I have no use--less than ever now." + +"Nevertheless," the colonel went on, "I regard myself as merely your +steward, and I must tell you one thing. Mr. Jefferson, as you know, is +always at open war with people like us. His hand is against coach and +four, silver plate, and aristocrat. He is fighting now against the law +that gives property to the eldest son, and he will pass the bill. His +argument is rather amusing. He says if you will show him that the eldest +son eats more, wears more, and does more work than his brothers, he will +grant that that son is entitled to more. He wants to blot out all +distinctions of class. He can't do that, but he will pass this bill." + +"I hope he will," muttered Erskine. + +"Barbara would not accept your sacrifice nor would any of us, and it is +only fair that I should warn you that some day, if you should change +your mind, and I were no longer living, you might be too late." + +"Please don't, Uncle Harry. It is done--done. Of course, it wasn't fair +for me to consider Barbara alone, but she will be fair and you +understand. I wish you would regard the whole matter as though I didn't +exist." + +"I can't do that, my boy. I am your steward and when you want anything +you have only to let me know!" Erskine shook his head. + +"I don't want anything--I need very little, and when I'm in the woods, as +I expect to be most of the time, I need nothing at all." Colonel Dale +rose. + +"I wish you would go to college at Williamsburg for a year or two to +better fit yourself--in case----" + +"I'd like to go--to learn to fence," smiled the boy, and the colonel +smiled too. + +"You'll certainly need to know that, if you are going to be as reckless +as you were today." Erskine's eyes darkened. + +"Uncle Harry, you may think me foolish, but I don't like or trust Grey. +What was he doing with those British traders out in the Northwest?--he +was not buying furs. It's absurd. Why was he hand in glove with Lord +Dunmore?" + +"Lord Dunmore had a daughter," was the dry reply, and Erskine flung out +a gesture that made words unnecessary. Colonel Dale crossed the porch +and put his hand on the lad's shoulders. + +"Erskine," he said, "don't worry--and--don't give up hope. Be patient, +wait, come back to us. Go to William and Mary. Fit yourself to be one of +us in all ways. Then everything may yet come out in the only way that +would be fitting and right." The boy blushed, and the colonel went on +earnestly: + +"I can think of nothing in the world that would make me quite so happy." + +"It's no use," the boy said tremblingly, "but I'll never forget what you +have just said as long as I live, and, no matter what becomes of me, +I'll love Barbara as long as I live. But, even if things were otherwise, +I'd never risk making her unhappy even by trying. I'm not fit for her +nor for this life. I'll never forget the goodness of all of you to me--I +can't explain--but I can't get over my life in the woods and among the +Indians. Why, but for all of you I might have gone back to them--I would +yet. I can't explain, but I get choked and I can't breathe--such a +longing for the woods comes over me and I can't help me. I must _go_--and +nothing can hold me." + +"Your father was that way," said Colonel Dale sadly. "You may get over +it, but he never did. And it must be harder for you because of your +early associations. Blow out the lights in the hall. You needn't bolt +the door. Good night, and God bless you." And the kindly gentleman was +gone. + +Erskine sat where he was. The house was still and there were no noises +from the horses and cattle in the barn--none from roosting peacock, +turkey, and hen. From the far-away quarters came faintly the merry, +mellow notes of a fiddle, and farther still the song of some courting +negro returning home. A drowsy bird twittered in an ancient elm at the +corner of the house. The flowers drooped in the moonlight which bathed +the great path, streamed across the great river, and on up to its source +in the great yellow disk floating in majestic serenity high in the +cloudless sky. And that path, those flowers, that house, the barn, the +cattle, sheep, and hogs, those grain-fields and grassy acres, even those +singing black folk, were all--all his if he but said the words. The +thought was no temptation--it was a mighty wonder that such a thing could +be. And that was all it was--a wonder--to him, but to them it was the +world. Without it all, what would they do? Perhaps Mr. Jefferson might +soon solve the problem for him. Perhaps he might not return from that +wild campaign against the British and the Indians--he might get killed. +And then a thought gripped him and held him fast--_he need not come +back_. That mighty wilderness beyond the mountains was his real home--out +there was his real life. He need not come back, and they would never +know. Then came a thought that almost made him groan. There was a light +step in the hall, and Barbara came swiftly out and dropped on the +topmost step with her chin in both hands. Almost at once she seemed to +feel his presence, for she turned her head quickly. + +"Erskine!" As quickly he rose, embarrassed beyond speech. + +"Come here! Why, you look guilty--what have you been thinking?" He was +startled by her intuition, but he recovered himself swiftly. + +"I suppose I will always feel guilty if I have made you unhappy." + +"You haven't made me unhappy. I don't know what you have made me. Papa +says a girl does not understand and no man can, but he does better than +anybody. You saw how I felt if you had killed him, but you don't know +how I would have felt if he had killed you. I don't myself." + +She began patting her hands gently and helplessly together, and again +she dropped her chin into them with her eyes lifted to the moon. + +"I shall be very unhappy when you are gone. I wish you were not going, +but I know that you are--you can't help it." Again he was startled. + +"Whenever you look at that moon over in that dark wilderness, I wish you +would please think of your little cousin--will you?" She turned eagerly +and he was too moved to speak--he only bowed his head as for a prayer or +a benediction. + +"You don't know how often our thoughts will cross, and that will be a +great comfort to me. Sometimes I am afraid. There is a wild strain on my +mother's side, and it is in me. Papa knows it and he is wise--so wise--I +am afraid I may sometimes do something very foolish, and it won't be +_me_ at all. It will be somebody that died long ago." She put both her +hands over both his and held them tight. + +"I never, never distrusted you. I trust you more than anybody else in +the whole world except my father, and he might be away or"--she gave a +little sob--"he might get killed. I want you to make me a promise." + +"Anything," said the boy huskily. + +"I want you to promise me that, no matter when, no matter where you are, +if I need you and send for you you will come." And Indian-like he put +his forehead on both her little hands. + +"Thank you. I must go now." Bewildered and dazed, the boy rose and +awkwardly put out his hand. + +"Kiss me good-by." She put her arms about his neck, and for the first +time in his life the boy's lips met a woman's. For a moment she put her +face against his and at his ear was a whisper. + +"Good-by, Erskine!" And she was gone--swiftly--leaving the boy in a dizzy +world of falling stars through which a white light leaped to heights his +soul had never dreamed. + + + + +XIX + + +With the head of that column of stalwart backwoodsmen went Dave Yandell +and Erskine Dale. A hunting-party of four Shawnees heard their coming +through the woods, and, lying like snakes in the undergrowth, peered out +and saw them pass. Then they rose, and Crooked Lightning looked at Black +Wolf and, with a grunt of angry satisfaction, led the way homeward. And +to the village they bore the news that White Arrow had made good his +word and, side by side with the big chief of the Long Knives, was +leading a war-party against his tribe and kinsmen. And Early Morn +carried the news to her mother, who lay sick in a wigwam. + +The miracle went swiftly, and Kaskaskia fell. Stealthily a cordon of +hunters surrounded the little town. The rest stole to the walls of the +fort. Lights flickered from within, the sounds of violins and dancing +feet came through crevice and window. Clark's tall figure stole +noiselessly into the great hall, where the Creoles were making merry and +leaned silently with folded arms against the doorpost, looking on at the +revels with a grave smile. The light from the torches flickered across +his face, and an Indian lying on the floor sprang to his feet with a +curdling war-whoop. Women screamed and men rushed toward the door. The +stranger stood motionless and his grim smile was unchanged. + +"Dance on!" he commanded courteously, "but remember," he added sternly, +"you dance under Virginia and not Great Britain!" + +There was a great noise behind him. Men dashed into the fort, and +Rocheblave and his officers were prisoners. By daylight Clark had the +town disarmed. The French, Clark said next day, could take the oath of +allegiance to the Republic, or depart with their families in peace. As +for their church, he had nothing to do with any church save to protect +it from insult. So that the people who had heard terrible stories of the +wild woodsmen and who expected to be killed or made slaves, joyfully +became Americans. They even gave Clark a volunteer company to march with +him upon Cahokia, and that village, too, soon became American. Father +Gibault volunteered to go to Vincennes. Vincennes gathered in the church +to hear him, and then flung the Stars and Stripes to the winds of +freedom above the fort. Clark sent one captain there to take command. +With a handful of hardy men who could have been controlled only by him, +the dauntless one had conquered a land as big as any European kingdom. +Now he had to govern and protect it. He had to keep loyal an alien race +and hold his own against the British and numerous tribes of Indians, +bloodthirsty, treacherous, and deeply embittered against all Americans. +He was hundreds of miles from any American troops; farther still from +the seat of government, and could get no advice or help for perhaps a +year. + +And those Indians poured into Cahokia--a horde of them from every tribe +between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi--chiefs and warriors of every +importance; but not before Clark had formed and drilled four companies +of volunteer Creoles. + +"Watch him!" said Dave, and Erskine did, marvelling at the man's +knowledge of the Indian. He did not live in the fort, but always on +guard, always seemingly confident, stayed openly in town while the +savages, sullen and grotesque, strutted in full war panoply through the +straggling streets, inquisitive and insolent, their eyes burning with +the lust of plunder and murder. For days he sat in the midst of the +ringed warriors and listened. On the second day Erskine saw Kahtoo in +the throng and Crooked Lightning and Black Wolf. After dusk that day he +felt the fringe of his hunting-shirt plucked, and an Indian, with face +hidden in a blanket, whispered as he passed. + +"Tell the big chief," he said in Shawnee, "to be on guard to-morrow +night." He knew it was some kindly tribesman, and he wheeled and went to +Clark, who smiled. Already the big chief had guards concealed in his +little house, who seized the attacking Indians, while two minutes later +the townspeople were under arms. The captives were put in irons, and +Erskine saw among them the crestfallen faces of Black Wolf and Crooked +Lightning. The Indians pleaded that they were trying to test the +friendship of the French for Clark, but Clark, refusing all requests for +their release, remained silent, haughty, indifferent, fearless. He still +refused to take refuge in the fort, and called in a number of ladies and +gentlemen to his house, where they danced all night amid the +council-fires of the bewildered savages. Next morning he stood in the +centre of their ringed warriors with the tasselled shirts of his +riflemen massed behind him, released the captive chiefs, and handed them +the bloody war belt of wampum. + +"I scorn your hostility and treachery. You deserve death but you shall +leave in safety. In three days I shall begin war on you. If you Indians +do not want your women and children killed--stop killing ours. We shall +see who can make that war belt the most bloody. While you have been in +my camp you have had food and fire-water, but now that I have finished, +you must depart speedily." + +The captive chief spoke and so did old Kahtoo, with his eyes fixed sadly +but proudly on his adopted son. They had listened to bad birds and been +led astray by the British--henceforth they would be friendly with the +Americans. But Clark was not satisfied. + +"I come as a warrior," he said haughtily; "I shall be a friend to the +friendly. If you choose war I shall send so many warriors from the +Thirteen Council-Fires that your land shall be darkened and you shall +hear no sounds but that of the birds who live on blood." And then he +handed forth two belts of peace and war, and they eagerly took the belt +of peace. The treaty followed next day and Clark insisted that two of +the prisoners should be put to death; and as the two selected came +forward Erskine saw Black Wolf was one. He whispered with Clark and +Kahtoo, and Crooked Lightning saw the big chief with his hand on +Erskine's shoulder and heard him forgive the two and tell them to +depart. And thus peace was won. + +Straightway old Kahtoo pushed through the warriors and, plucking the big +chief by the sleeve, pointed to Erskine. + +"That is my son," he said, "and I want him to go home with me." + +"He shall go," said Clark quickly, "but he shall return, whenever it +pleases him, to me." + +And so Erskine went forth one morning at dawn, and his coming into the +Shawnee camp was like the coming of a king. Early Morn greeted him with +glowing eyes, his foster-mother brought him food, looking proudly upon +him, and old Kahtoo harangued his braves around the council-pole, while +the prophet and Crooked Lightning sulked in their tents. + +"My son spoke words of truth," he proclaimed sonorously. "He warned us +against the king over the waters and told us to make friends with the +Americans. We did not heed his words, and so he brought the great chief +of the Long Knives, who stood without fear among warriors more numerous +than leaves and spoke the same words to all. We are friends of the Long +Knives. My son is the true prophet. Bring out the false one and Crooked +Lightning and Black Wolf, whose life my son saved though the two were +enemies. My son shall do with them as he pleases." + +Many young braves sprang willingly forward and the three were haled +before Erskine. Old Kahtoo waved his hand toward them and sat down. +Erskine rose and fixed his eyes sternly on the cowering prophet: + +"He shall go forth from the village and shall never return. For his +words work mischief, he does foolish things, and his drumming frightens +the game. He is a false prophet and he must go." He turned to Crooked +Lightning: + +"The Indians have made peace with the Long Knives and White Arrow would +make peace with any Indian, though an enemy. Crooked Lightning shall go +or stay, as he pleases. Black Wolf shall stay, for the tribe will need +him as a hunter and a warrior against the English foes of the Long +Knives. White Arrow does not ask another to spare an enemy's life and +then take it away himself." + +The braves grunted approval. Black Wolf and Crooked Lightning averted +their faces and the prophet shambled uneasily away. Again old Kahtoo +proclaimed sonorously, "It is well!" and went back with Erskine to his +tent. There he sank wearily on a buffalo-skin and plead with the boy to +stay with them as chief in his stead. He was very old, and now that +peace was made with the Long Knives he was willing to die. If Erskine +would but give his promise, he would never rise again from where he lay. + +Erskine shook his head and the old man sorrowfully turned his face. + + + + +XX + + +And yet Erskine lingered on and on at the village. Of the white woman he +had learned little other than that she had been bought from another +tribe and adopted by old Kahtoo; but it was plain that since the +threatened burning of her she had been held in high respect by the whole +tribe. He began to wonder about her and whether she might not wish to go +back to her own people. He had never talked with her, but he never moved +about the camp that he did not feel her eyes upon him. And Early Morn's +big soft eyes, too, never seemed to leave him. She brought him food, she +sat at the door of his tent, she followed him about the village and bore +herself openly as his slave. At last old Kahtoo, who would not give up +his great hope, plead with him to marry her, and while he was talking +the girl stood at the door of the tent and interrupted them. Her +mother's eyes were growing dim, she said. Her mother wanted to talk with +White Arrow and look upon his face before her sight should altogether +pass. Nor could Erskine know that the white woman wanted to look into +the eyes of the man she hoped would become her daughter's husband, but +Kahtoo did, and he bade Erskine go. His foster-mother, coming upon the +scene, scowled, but Erskine rose and went to the white woman's tent. She +sat just inside the opening, with a blanket across the lower half of her +face, nor did she look at him. Instead she plied him with questions, and +listened eagerly to his every word, and drew from him every detail of +his life as far back as he could remember. Poor soul, it was the first +opportunity for many years that she had had to talk with any white +person who had been in the Eastern world, and freely and frankly he held +nothing back. She had drawn her blanket close across her face while he +was telling of his capture by the Indians and his life among them, his +escape and the death of his father, and she was crying when he finished. +He even told her a little of Barbara, and when in turn he questioned +her, she told little, and his own native delicacy made him understand. +She, too, had been captured with a son who would have been about +Erskine's age, but her boy and her husband had been killed. She had been +made a slave and--now she drew the blanket across her eyes--after the +birth of her daughter she felt she could never go back to her own +people. Then her Indian husband had been killed and old Kahtoo had +bought and adopted her, and she had not been forced to marry again. Now +it was too late to leave the Indians. She loved her daughter; she would +not subject her or herself to humiliation among the whites, and, anyhow, +there was no one to whom she could go. And Erskine read deep into the +woman's heart and his own was made sad. Her concern was with her +daughter--what would become of her? Many a young brave, besides Black +Wolf, had put his heart at her little feet, but she would have none of +them. And so Erskine was the heaven-sent answer to the mother's +prayers--that was the thought behind her mournful eyes. + +All the while the girl had crouched near, looking at Erskine with +doglike eyes, and when he rose to go the woman dropped the blanket from +her face and got to her feet. Shyly she lifted her hands, took his face +between them, bent close, and studied it searchingly: + +"What is your name?" + +"Erskine Dale." + +Without a word she turned back into her tent. + +At dusk Erskine stood by the river's brim, with his eyes lifted to a +rising moon and his thoughts with Barbara on the bank of the James. +Behind him he heard a rustle and, turning, he saw the girl, her breast +throbbing and her eyes burning with a light he had never seen before. + +"Black Wolf will kill you," she whispered. "Black Wolf wants Early Morn +and he knows that Early Morn wants White Arrow." Erskine put both hands +on her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. She trembled, and when +his arms went about her she surged closer to him and the touch of her +warm, supple body went through him like fire. And then with a triumphant +smile she sprang back. + +"Black Wolf will see," she whispered, and fled. Erskine sank to the +ground, with his head in his hands. The girl ran back to her tent, and +the mother, peering at the flushed face and shining eyes, clove to the +truth. She said nothing, but when the girl was asleep and faintly +smiling, the white woman sat staring out into the moonlit woods, softly +beating her breast. + + + + +XXI + + +Erskine had given Black Wolf his life, and the young brave had accepted +the debt and fretted under it sorely. Erskine knew it, and all his +kindness had been of little avail, for Black Wolf sulked sullenly by the +fire or at his wigwam door. And when Erskine had begun to show some heed +to Early Morn a fierce jealousy seized the savage, and his old hatred +was reborn a thousandfold more strong--and that, too, Erskine now knew. +Meat ran low and a hunting-party went abroad. Game was scarce and only +after the second day was there a kill. Erskine had sighted a huge buck, +had fired quickly and at close range. Wounded, the buck had charged, +Erskine's knife was twisted in his belt, and the buck was upon him +before he could get it out. He tried to dart for a tree, stumbled, +turned, and caught the infuriated beast by the horns. He uttered no cry, +but the angry bellow of the stag reached the ears of Black Wolf through +the woods, and he darted toward the sound. And he came none too soon. +Erskine heard the crack of a rifle, the stag toppled over, and he saw +Black Wolf standing over him with a curiously triumphant look on his +saturnine face. In Erskine, when he rose, the white man was predominant, +and he thrust out his hand, but Black Wolf ignored it. + +"White Arrow gave Black Wolf his life. The debt is paid." + +Erskine looked at his enemy, nodded, and the two bore the stag away. + +Instantly a marked change was plain in Black Wolf. He told the story of +the fight with the buck to all. Boldly he threw off the mantle of shame, +stalked haughtily through the village, and went back to open enmity with +Erskine. At dusk a day or two later, when he was coming down the path +from the white woman's wigwam, Black Wolf confronted him, scowling. + +"Early Morn shall belong to Black Wolf," he said insolently. Erskine met +his baleful, half-drunken eyes scornfully. + +"We will leave that to Early Morn," he said coolly, and then thundered +suddenly: + +"Out of my way!" + +Black Wolf hesitated and gave way, but ever thereafter Erskine was on +guard. + +In the white woman, too, Erskine now saw a change. Once she had +encouraged him to stay with the Indians; now she lost no opportunity to +urge against it. She had heard that Hamilton would try to retake +Vincennes, that he was forming a great force with which to march south, +sweep through Kentucky, batter down the wooden forts, and force the +Kentuckians behind the great mountain wall. Erskine would be needed by +the whites, who would never understand or trust him if he should stay +with the Indians. All this she spoke one day when Erskine came to her +tent to talk. Her face had blanched, she had argued passionately that he +must go, and Erskine was sorely puzzled. The girl, too, had grown +rebellious and disobedient, for the change in her mother was plain also +to her, and she could not understand. Moreover, Erskine's stubbornness +grew, and he began to flame within at the stalking insolence of Black +Wolf, who slipped through the shadows of day and the dusk to spy on the +two whereever they came together. And one day when the sun was midway, +and in the open of the village, the clash came. Black Wolf darted forth +from his wigwam, his eyes bloodshot with rage and drink, and his +hunting-knife in his hand. A cry from Early Morn warned Erskine and he +wheeled. As Black Wolf made a vicious slash at him he sprang aside, and +with his fist caught the savage in the jaw. Black Wolf fell heavily and +Erskine was upon him with his own knife at his enemy's throat. + +"Stop them!" old Kahtoo cried sternly, but it was the terrified shriek +of the white woman that stayed Erskine's hand. Two young braves disarmed +the fallen Indian, and Kahtoo looked inquiringly at his adopted son. + +"Turn him loose!" Erskine scorned. "I have no fear of him. He is a woman +and drunk, but next time I shall kill him." + +The white woman had run down, caught Early Morn, and was leading her +back to her tent. From inside presently came low, passionate pleading +from the woman and an occasional sob from the girl. And when an hour +later, at dusk, Erskine turned upward toward the tent, the girl gave a +horrified cry, flashed from the tent, and darted for the high cliff over +the river. + +"Catch her!" cried the mother. "Quick!" Erskine fled after her, overtook +her with her hands upraised for the plunge on the very edge of the +cliff, and half carried her, struggling and sobbing, back to the tent. +Within the girl dropped in a weeping heap, and with her face covered, +and the woman turned to Erskine, agonized. + +"I told her," she whispered, "and she was going to kill herself. You are +my son!" + + * * * * * + +Still sleepless at dawn, the boy rode Firefly into the woods. At sunset +he came in, gaunt with brooding and hunger. His foster-mother brought +him food, but he would not touch it. The Indian woman stared at him with +keen suspicion, and presently old Kahtoo, passing slowly, bent on him +the same look, but asked no question. Erskine gave no heed to either, +but his mother, watching from her wigwam, understood and grew fearful. +Quickly she stepped outside and called him, and he rose and went to her +bewildered; she was smiling. + +"They are watching," she said, and Erskine, too, understood, and kept +his back toward the watchers. + +"I have decided," he said. "You and _she_ must leave here and go with +me." + +His mother pretended much displeasure. "She will not leave, and I will +not leave her"--her lips trembled--"and I would have gone long ago but----" + +"I understand," interrupted Erskine, "but you will go now with your +son." + +The poor woman had to scowl. + +"No, and you must not tell them. They will never let me go, and they +will use me to keep you here. _You_ must go at once. She will never +leave this tent as long as you are here, and if you stay she will die, +or kill herself. Some day----" She turned abruptly and went back into her +tent. Erskine wheeled and went to old Kahtoo. + +"You want Early Morn?" asked the old man. "You shall have her." + +"No," said the boy, "I am going back to the big chief." + +"You are my son and I am old and weak." + +"I am a soldier and must obey the big chief's commands, as must you." + +"I shall live," said the old man wearily, "until you come again." + +Erskine nodded and went for his horse. Black Wolf watched him with +malignant satisfaction, but said nothing--nor did Crooked Lightning. +Erskine turned once as he rode away. His mother was standing outside her +wigwam. Mournfully she waved her hand. Behind her and within the tent he +could see Early Morn with both hands at her breast. + + + + +XXII + + +Dawned 1781. + +The war was coming into Virginia at last. Virginia falling would thrust +a great wedge through the centre of the Confederacy, feed the British +armies and end the fight. Cornwallis was to drive the wedge, and never +had the opening seemed easier. Virginia was drained of her fighting men, +and south of the mountains was protected only by a militia, for the most +part, of old men and boys. North and South ran despair. The soldiers had +no pay, little food, and only old worn-out coats, tattered linen +overalls, and one blanket between three men, to protect them from +drifting snow and icy wind. Even the great Washington was near despair, +and in foreign help his sole hope lay. Already the traitor, Arnold, had +taken Richmond, burned warehouses, and returned, but little harassed, to +Portsmouth. + +In April, "the proudest man," as Mr. Jefferson said, "of the proudest +nation on earth," one General Phillips, marching northward, paused +opposite Richmond, and looked with amaze at the troop-crowned hills +north of the river. Up there was a beardless French youth of +twenty-three, with the epaulets of a major-general. + +"He will not cross--hein?" said the Marquis de Lafayette. "Very well!" +And they had a race for Petersburg, which the Britisher reached first, +and straightway fell ill of a fever at "Bollingbrook." A cannonade from +the Appomattox hills saluted him. + +"They will not let me die in peace," said General Phillips, but he +passed, let us hope, to it, and Benedict Arnold succeeded him. + +Cornwallis was coming on. Tarleton's white rangers were bedevilling the +land, and it was at this time that Erskine Dale once more rode Firefly +to the river James. + +The boy had been two years in the wilds. When he left the Shawnee camp +winter was setting in, that terrible winter of '79--of deep snow and +hunger and cold. When he reached Kaskaskia, Captain Clark had gone to +Kentucky, and Erskine found bad news. Hamilton and Hay had taken +Vincennes. There Captain Helm's Creoles, as soon as they saw the +redcoats, slipped away from him to surrender their arms to the British, +and thus deserted by all, he and the two or three Americans with him had +to give up the fort. The French reswore allegiance to Britain. Hamilton +confiscated their liquor and broke up their billiard-tables. He let his +Indians scatter to their villages, and with his regulars, volunteers, +white Indian leaders, and red auxiliaries went into winter quarters. One +band of Shawnees he sent to Ohio to scout and take scalps in the +settlements. In the spring he would sweep Kentucky and destroy all the +settlements west of the Alleghanies. So Erskine and Dave went for Clark; +and that trip neither ever forgot. Storms had followed each other since +late November and the snow lay deep. Cattle and horses perished, deer +and elk were found dead in the woods, and buffalo came at nightfall to +old Jerome Sanders's fort for food and companionship with his starving +herd. Corn gave out and no johnny-cakes were baked on long boards in +front of the fire. There was no salt or vegetable food; nothing but the +flesh of lean wild game. The only fat was with the bears in the hollows +of trees, and every hunter was searching hollow trees. The breast of the +wild turkey served for bread. Yet, while the frontiersmen remained +crowded in the stockades and the men hunted and the women made clothes +of tanned deer-hides, buffalo-wool cloth, and nettle-bark linen, and +both hollowed "noggins" out of the knot of a tree, Clark made his +amazing march to Vincennes, recaptured it by the end of February, and +sent Hamilton to Williamsburg a prisoner. Erskine plead to be allowed to +take him there, but Clark would not let him go. Permanent garrisons were +placed at Vincennes and Cahokia, and at Kaskaskia. Erskine stayed to +help make peace with the Indians, punish marauders and hunting bands, so +that by the end of the year Clark might sit at the Falls of the Ohio as +a shield for the west and a sure guarantee that the whites would never +be forced to abandon wild Kentucky. + +The two years in the wilderness had left their mark on Erskine. He was +tall, lean, swarthy, gaunt, and yet he was not all woodsman, for his +born inheritance as gentleman had been more than emphasized by his +association with Clark and certain Creole officers in the Northwest, who +had improved his French and gratified one pet wish of his life since his +last visit to the James--they had taught him to fence. His mother he had +not seen again, but he had learned that she was alive and not yet blind. +Of Early Morn he had heard nothing at all. Once a traveller had brought +word of Dane Grey. Grey was in Philadelphia and prominent in the gay +doings of that city. He had taken part in a brilliant pageant called the +"Mischianza," which was staged by Andre, and was reported a close friend +of that ill-fated young gentleman. + +After the fight at Piqua, with Clark Erskine put forth for old Jerome +Sanders's fort. He found the hard days of want over. There was not only +corn in plenty but wheat, potatoes, pumpkins, turnips, melons. They +tapped maple-trees for sugar and had sown flax. Game was plentiful, and +cattle, horses, and hogs had multiplied on cane and buffalo clover. +Indeed, it was a comparatively peaceful fall, and though Clark plead +with him, Erskine stubbornly set his face for Virginia. + +Honor Sanders and Polly Conrad had married, but Lydia Noe was still firm +against the wooing of every young woodsman who came to the fort; and +when Erskine bade her good-by and she told him to carry her love to Dave +Yandell, he knew for whom she would wait forever if need be. + +There were many, many travellers on the Wilderness Road now, and Colonel +Dale's prophecy was coming true. The settlers were pouring in and the +long, long trail was now no lonesome way. + +At Williamsburg Erskine learned many things. Colonel Dale, now a +general, was still with Washington and Harry was with him. Hugh was with +the Virginia militia and Dave with Lafayette. + +Tarleton's legion of rangers in their white uniforms were scourging +Virginia as they had scourged the Carolinas. Through the James River +country they had gone with fire and sword, burning houses, carrying off +horses, destroying crops, burning grain in the mills, laying plantations +to waste. Barbara's mother was dead. Her neighbors had moved to safety, +but Barbara, he heard, still lived with old Mammy and Ephraim at Red +Oaks, unless that, too, had been recently put to the torch. Where, then, +would he find her? + + + + +XXIII + + +Down the river Erskine rode with a sad heart. At the place where he had +fought with Grey he pulled Firefly to a sudden halt. There was the +boundary of Red Oaks and there started a desolation that ran as far as +his eye could reach. Red Oaks had not been spared, and he put Firefly to +a fast gallop, with eyes strained far ahead and his heart beating with +agonized foreboding and savage rage. Soon over a distant clump of trees +he could see the chimneys of Barbara's home--his home, he thought +helplessly--and perhaps those chimneys were all that was left. And then +he saw the roof and the upper windows and the cap of the big columns +unharmed, untouched, and he pulled Firefly in again, with overwhelming +relief, and wondered at the miracle. Again he started and again pulled +in when he caught sight of three horses hitched near the stiles. Turning +quickly from the road, he hid Firefly in the underbrush. Very quietly he +slipped along the path by the river, and, pushing aside through the +rose-bushes, lay down where unseen he could peer through the closely +matted hedge. He had not long to wait. A white uniform issued from the +great hall door and another and another--and after them Barbara--smiling. +The boy's blood ran hot--smiling at her enemies. Two officers bowed, +Barbara courtesied, and they wheeled on their heels and descended the +steps. The third stayed behind a moment, bowed over her hand and kissed +it. The watcher's blood turned then to liquid fire. Great God, at what +price was that noble old house left standing? Grimly, swiftly Erskine +turned, sliding through the bushes like a snake to the edge of the road +along which they must pass. He would fight the three, for his life was +worth nothing now. He heard them laughing, talking at the stiles. He +heard them speak Barbara's name, and two seemed to be bantering the +third, whose answering laugh seemed acquiescent and triumphant. They +were coming now. The boy had his pistols out, primed and cocked. He was +rising on his knees, just about to leap to his feet and out into the +road, when he fell back into a startled, paralyzed, inactive heap. +Glimpsed through an opening in the bushes, the leading trooper in the +uniform of Tarleton's legion was none other than Dane Grey, and +Erskine's brain had worked quicker than his angry heart. This was a +mystery that must be solved before his pistols spoke. He rose crouching +as the troopers rode away. At the bend of the road he saw Grey turn with +a gallant sweep of his tricornered hat, and, swerving his head +cautiously, he saw Barbara answer with a wave of her handkerchief. If +Tarleton's men were around he would better leave Firefly where he was in +the woods for a while. A jay-bird gave out a flutelike note above his +head; Erskine never saw a jay-bird perched cockily on a branch that he +did not think of Grey; but Grey was brave--so, too, was a jay-bird. A +startled gasp behind him made him wheel, pistol once more in hand, to +find a negro, mouth wide open and staring at him from the road. + +"Marse Erskine!" he gasped. It was Ephraim, the boy who had led +Barbara's white ponies out long, long ago, now a tall, muscular lad with +an ebony face and dazzling teeth. "Whut you doin' hyeh, suh? Whar' yo' +hoss? Gawd, I'se sutn'ly glad to see yuh." Erskine pointed to an oak. + +"Right by that tree. Put him in the stable and feed him." + +The negro shook his head. + +"No, suh. I'll take de feed down to him. Too many redcoats messin' round +heah. You bettah go in de back way--dey might see yuh." + +"How is Miss Barbara?" + +The negro's eyes shifted. + +"She's well. Yassuh, she's well as common." + +"Wasn't one of those soldiers who just rode away Mr. Dane Grey?" + +The negro hesitated. + +"Yassuh." + +"What's he doing in a British uniform?" + +The boy shifted his great shoulders uneasily and looked aside. + +"I don't know, suh--I don't know nuttin'." + +Erskine knew he was lying, but respected his loyalty. + +"Go tell Miss Barbara I'm here and then feed my horse." + +"Yassuh." + +Ephraim went swiftly and Erskine followed along the hedge and through +the rose-bushes to the kitchen door, where Barbara's faithful old Mammy +was waiting for him with a smile of welcome but with deep trouble in her +eyes. + +"I done tol' Miss Barbary, suh. She's waitin' fer yuh in de hall." + +Barbara, standing in the hall doorway, heard his step. + +"Erskine!" she cried softly, and she came to meet him, with both hands +outstretched, and raised her lovely face to be kissed. "What are you +doing here?" + +"I am on my way to join General Lafayette." + +"But you will be captured. It is dangerous. The country is full of +British soldiers." + +"So I know," Erskine said dryly. + +"When did you get here?" + +"Twenty minutes ago. I would not have been welcome just then. I waited +in the hedge. I saw you had company." + +"Did you see them?" she faltered. + +"I even recognized one of them." Barbara sank into a chair, her elbow on +one arm, her chin in her hand, her face turned, her eyes looking +outdoors. She said nothing, but the toe of her slipper began to tap the +floor gently. There was no further use for indirection or concealment. + +"Barbara," Erskine said with some sternness, and his tone quickened the +tapping of the slipper and made her little mouth tighten, "what does all +this mean?" + +"Did you see," she answered, without looking at him, "that the crops +were all destroyed and the cattle and horses were all gone?" + +"Why did they spare the house?" The girl's bosom rose with one quick, +defiant intake of breath, and for a moment she held it. + +"Dane Grey saved our home." + +"How?" + +"He had known Colonel Tarleton in London and had done something for him +over there." + +"How did he get in communication with Colonel Tarleton when he was an +officer in the American army?" The girl would not answer. + +"Was he taken prisoner?" Still she was silent, for the sarcasm in +Erskine's voice was angering her. + +"He fought once under Benedict Arnold--perhaps he is fighting with him +now." + +"No!" she cried hotly. + +"Then he must be a----" + +She did not allow him to utter the word. + +"Why Mr. Grey is in British uniform is his secret--not mine." + +"And why he is here is--yours." + +"Exactly!" she flamed. "You are a soldier. Learn what you want to know +from him. You are my cousin, but you are going beyond the rights of +blood. I won't stand it--I won't stand it--from anybody." + +"I don't understand you, Barbara--I don't know you. That last time it was +Grey, you--and now--" He paused and, in spite of herself, her eyes flashed +toward the door. Erskine saw it, drew himself erect, bowed and strode +straight out. Nor did the irony of the situation so much as cross his +mind--that he should be turned from his own home by the woman he loved +and to whom he had given that home. Nor did he look back--else he might +have seen her sink, sobbing, to the floor. + + * * * * * + +When he turned the corner of the house old Mammy and Ephraim were +waiting for him at the kitchen door. + +"Get Firefly, Ephraim!" he said sharply. + +"Yassuh!" + +At the first sight of his face Mammy had caught her hands together at +her breast. + +"You ain't gwine, Marse Erskine," she said tremulously. "You ain't gwine +away?" + +"Yes, Mammy--I must." + +"You an' Miss Barbary been quoilin', Marse Erskine--you been +quoilin'"--and without waiting for an answer she went on passionately: +"Ole Marse an' young Marse an' Marse Hugh done gone, de niggahs all +gone, an' nobody lef' but me an' Ephraim--nobody lef' but me an' +Ephraim--to give dat little chile one crumb o' comfort. Nobody come to de +house but de redcoats an' dat mean Dane Grey, an' ev'y time he come he +leave Miss Barbary cryin' her little heart out. 'Tain't Miss Barbary in +dar--hit's some other pusson. She ain't de same pusson--no, suh. An' lemme +tell yu--lemme tell yu--ef some o' de men folks doan come back heah +somehow an' look out fer dat little gal--she's a-gwine to run away wid +dat mean low-down man whut just rid away from heah in a white uniform." +She had startled Erskine now and she knew it. + +"Dat man has got little Missus plum' witched, I tell ye--plum' witched. +Hit's jes like a snake wid a catbird." + +"Men have to fight, Mammy----" + +"I doan keer nothin' 'bout de war." + +"I'd be captured if I stayed here----" + +"All I keer 'bout is my chile in dar----" + +"But we'll drive out the redcoats and the whitecoats and I'll come +straight here----" + +"An' all de men folks leavin' her heah wid nobody but black Ephraim an' +her ole Mammy." The old woman stopped her fiery harangue to listen: + +"Dar now, heah dat? My chile hollerin' fer her ole Mammy." She turned +her unwieldy body toward the faint cry that Erskine's heart heard better +than his ears, and Erskine hurried away. + +"Ephraim," he said as he swung upon Firefly, "you and Mammy keep a close +watch, and if I'm needed here, come for me yourself and come fast." + +"Yassuh. Marse Grey is sutn'ly up to some devilmint no which side he +fightin' fer. I got a gal oveh on the aige o' de Grey plantation an' she +tel' me dat Marse Dane Grey don't wear dat white uniform all de time." + +"What's that--what's that?" asked Erskine. + +"No, suh. She say he got an udder uniform, same as yose, an' he keeps it +at her uncle Sam's cabin an' she's seed him go dar in white an' come out +in our uniform, an' al'ays at night, Marse Erskine--al'ays at night." + +The negro cocked his ear suddenly: + +"Take to de woods quick, Marse Erskine. Horses comin' down the road." + +But the sound of coming hoof-beats had reached the woodsman's ears some +seconds before the black man heard them, and already Erskine had wheeled +away. And Ephraim saw Firefly skim along the edge of a blackened meadow +behind its hedge of low trees. + +"Gawd!" said the black boy, and he stood watching the road. A band of +white-coated troopers was coming in a cloud of dust, and at the head of +them rode Dane Grey. + +"Has Captain Erskine Dale been here?" he demanded. + +Ephraim had his own reason for being on the good side of the questioner, +and did not even hesitate. + +"Yassuh--he jes' lef'! Dar he goes now!" With a curse Grey wheeled his +troopers. At that moment Firefly, with something like the waving flight +of a bluebird, was leaping the meadow fence into the woods. The black +boy looked after the troopers' dust. + +"Gawd!" he said again, with a grin that showed every magnificent tooth +in his head. "Jest as well try to ketch a streak o' lightning." And +quite undisturbed he turned to tell the news to old Mammy. + + + + +XXIV + + +Up the James rode Erskine, hiding in the woods by day and slipping +cautiously along the sandy road by night, circling about Tarleton's +camp-fires, or dashing at full speed past some careless sentinel. Often +he was fired at, often chased, but with a clear road in front of him he +had no fear of capture. On the third morning he came upon a ragged +sentinel--an American. Ten minutes later he got his first glimpse of +Lafayette, and then he was hailed joyfully by none other than Dave +Yandell, Captain Dave Yandell, shorn of his woodsman's dress and +panoplied in the trappings of war. + + * * * * * + +Cornwallis was coming on. The boy, he wrote, cannot escape me. But the +boy--Lafayette--did, and in time pursued and forced the Englishman into a +_cul-de-sac_. "I have given his lordship the disgrace of a retreat," +said Lafayette. And so--Yorktown! + +Late in August came the message that put Washington's great "soul in +arms." Rochambeau had landed six thousand soldiers in Connecticut, and +now Count de Grasse and a French fleet had sailed for the Chesapeake. +General Washington at once resorted to camouflage. He laid out camps +ostentatiously opposite New York and in plain sight of the enemy. He +made a feigned attack on their posts. Rochambeau moved south and reached +the Delaware before the British grasped the Yankee trick. Then it was +too late. The windows of Philadelphia were filled with ladies waving +handkerchiefs and crying bravoes when the tattered Continentals, their +clothes thick with dust but hats plumed with sprigs of green, marched +through amid their torn battle-flags and rumbling cannon. Behind +followed the French in "gay white uniforms faced with green," and +martial music throbbed the air. Not since poor Andre had devised the +"Mischianza" festival had Philadelphia seen such a pageant. Down the +Chesapeake they went in transports and were concentrated at Williamsburg +before the close of September. Cornwallis had erected works against the +boy, for he knew nothing of Washington and Count de Grasse, nor Mad +Anthony and General Nelson, who were south of the James to prevent +escape into North Carolina. + +"To your goodness," the boy wrote to Washington, "I am owning the most +beautiful prospect I may ever behold." + +Then came de Grasse, who drove off the British fleet, and the mouth of +the net was closed. + +Cornwallis heard the cannon and sent Clinton to appeal for help, but the +answer was Washington himself at the head of his army. And then the +joyous march. + +"'Tis our first campaign!" cried the French gayly, and the Continentals +joyfully answered: + +"'Tis our last!" + + * * * * * + +At Williamsburg the allies gathered, and with Washington's army came +Colonel Dale, now a general, and young Captain Harry Dale, who had +brought news from Philadelphia that was of great interest to Erskine +Dale. In that town Dane Grey had been a close intimate of Andre, and +that intimacy had been the cause of much speculation since. He had told +Dave of his mother and Early Morn, and Dave had told him gravely that he +must go get them after the campaign was over and bring them to the fort +in Kentucky. If Early Morn still refused to come, then he must bring his +mother, and he reckoned grimly that no mouth would open in a word that +could offend her. Erskine also told of Red Oaks and Dane Grey, but Dave +must tell nothing to the Dales--not yet, if ever. + +In mid-September Washington came, and General Dale had but one chance to +visit Barbara. General Dale was still weak from a wound and Barbara +tried unavailingly to keep him at home. Erskine's plea that he was too +busy to go with them aroused Harry's suspicions, that were confirmed by +Barbara's manner and reticence, and he went bluntly to the point: + +"What is the trouble, cousin, between you and Barbara?" + +"Trouble?" + +"Yes. You wouldn't go to Red Oaks and Barbara did not seem surprised. Is +Dane Grey concerned?" + +"Yes." + +Harry looked searchingly at his cousin: + +"I pray to God that I may soon meet him face to face." + +"And I," said Erskine quietly, "pray to God that you do not--not until +after I have met him first." Barbara had not told, he thought, nor +should he--not yet. And Harry, after a searching look at his cousin, +turned away. + +They marched next morning at daybreak. At sunset of the second day they +bivouacked within two miles of Yorktown and the siege began. The allied +line was a crescent, with each tip resting on the water--Lafayette +commanding the Americans on the right, the French on the left under +Rochambeau. De Grasse, with his fleet, was in the bay to cut off +approach by water. Washington himself put the match to the first gun, +and the mutual cannonade of three or four days began. The scene was +"sublime and stupendous." + +Bombshells were seen "crossing each other's path in the air, and were +visible in the form of a black ball by day, but in the night they +appeared like a fiery meteor, with a blazing tail most beautifully +brilliant. They ascended majestically from the mortar to a certain +altitude and gradually descended to the spot where they were destined to +execute their work of destruction. When a shell fell it wheeled around, +burrowed, and excavated the earth to a considerable extent and, +bursting, made dreadful havoc around. When they fell in the river they +threw up columns of water like spouting monsters of the deep. Two +British men-of-war lying in the river were struck with hot shot and set +on fire, and the result was full of terrible grandeur. The sails caught +and the flames ran to the tops of the masts, resembling immense torches. +One fled like a mountain of fire toward the bay and was burned to the +water's edge." + +General Nelson, observing that the gunners were not shooting at Nelson +House because it was his own, got off his horse and directed a gun at it +with his own hand. And at Washington's headquarters appeared the +venerable Secretary Nelson, who had left the town with the permission of +Cornwallis and now "related with a serene visage what had been the +effect of our batteries." It was nearly the middle of October that the +two redoubts projecting beyond the British lines and enfilading the +American intrenchments were taken by storm. One redoubt was left to +Lafayette and his Americans, the other to Baron de Viomenil, who claimed +that his grenadiers were the men for the matter in hand. Lafayette +stoutly argued the superiority of his Americans, who, led by Hamilton, +carried their redoubt first with the bayonet, and sent the Frenchman an +offer of help. The answer was: + +"I will be in mine in five minutes." And he was, Washington watching the +attack anxiously: + +"The work is done and well done." + +And then the surrender: + +The day was the 19th of October. The victors were drawn up in two lines +a mile long on the right and left of a road that ran through the autumn +fields south of Yorktown. Washington stood at the head of his army on +the right, Rochambeau at the head of the French on the left. Behind on +both sides was a great crowd of people to watch the ceremony. Slowly out +of Yorktown marched the British colors, cased drums beating a +significant English air: + +"The world turned topsyturvy." + +Lord Cornwallis was sick. General O'Hara bore my lord's sword. As he +approached, Washington saluted and pointed to General Lincoln, who had +been treated with indignity at Charleston. O'Hara handed the sword to +Lincoln. Lincoln at once handed it back and the surrender was over. +Between the lines the British marched on and stacked arms in a near-by +field. Some of them threw their muskets on the ground, and a British +colonel bit the hilt of his sword from rage. + +As Tarleton's legion went by, three pairs of eyes watched eagerly for +one face, but neither Harry nor Captain Dave Yandell saw Dane Grey--nor +did Erskine Dale. + + + + +XXV + + +To Harry and Dave, Dane Grey's absence was merely a mystery--to Erskine +it brought foreboding and sickening fear. General Dale's wound having +opened afresh, made travelling impossible, and Harry had a slight +bayonet-thrust in the shoulder. Erskine determined to save them all the +worry possible and to act now as the head of the family himself. He +announced that he must go straight back at once to Kentucky and Captain +Clark. Harry stormed unavailingly and General Dale pleaded with him to +stay, but gave reluctant leave. To Dave he told his fears and Dave +vehemently declared he, too, would go along, but Erskine would not hear +of it and set forth alone. + +Slowly enough he started, but with every mile suspicion and fear grew +the faster and he quickened Firefly's pace. The distance to Williamsburg +was soon covered, and skirting the town, he went on swiftly for Red +Oaks. + +Suppose he were too late, but even if he were not too late, what should +he do, what could he do? Firefly was sweeping into a little hollow now, +and above the beating of her hoofs in the sandy road, a clink of metal +reached his ears beyond the low hill ahead, and Erskine swerved aside +into the bushes. Some one was coming, and apparently out of the red ball +of the sun hanging over that hill sprang a horseman at a dead run--black +Ephraim on the horse he had saved from Tarleton's men. Erskine pushed +quickly out into the road. + +"Stop!" he cried, but the negro came thundering blindly on, as though he +meant to ride down anything in his way. Firefly swerved aside, and +Ephraim shot by, pulling in with both hands and shouting: + +"Marse Erskine! Yassuh, yassuh! Thank Gawd you'se come." When he wheeled +he came back at a gallop--nor did he stop. + +"Come on, Marse Erskine!" he cried. "No time to waste. Come on, suh!" + +With a few leaps Firefly was abreast, and neck and neck they ran, while +the darky's every word confirmed the instinct and reason that had led +Erskine where he was. + +"Yassuh, Miss Barbary gwine to run away wid dat mean white man. Yassuh, +dis very night." + +"When did he get here?" + +"Dis mawnin'. He been pesterin' her an' pleadin' wid her all day an' she +been cryin' her heart out, but Mammy say she's gwine wid him. 'Pears +like she can't he'p herse'f." + +"Is he alone?" + +"No, suh, he got an orficer an' four sojers wid him." + +"How did they get away?" + +"He say as how dey was on a scoutin' party an' 'scaped." + +"Does he know that Cornwallis has surrendered?" + +"Oh, yassuh, he tol' Miss Barbary dat. Dat's why he says he got to git +away right now an' she got to go wid him right now." + +"Did he say anything about General Dale and Mr. Harry?" + +"Yassuh, he say dat dey's all right an' dat dey an' you will be hot on +his tracks. Dat's why Mammy tol' me to ride like de debbil an' hurry you +on, suh." And Ephraim had ridden like the devil, for his horse was +lathered with foam and both were riding that way now, for the negro was +no mean horseman and the horse he had saved was a thoroughbred. + +"Dis arternoon," the negro went on, "he went ovah to dat cabin I tol' +you 'bout an' got dat American uniform. He gwine to tell folks on de way +dat dem udders is his prisoners an' he takin' dem to Richmond. Den dey +gwine to sep'rate an' he an' Miss Barbary gwine to git married somewhur +on de way an' dey goin' on an' sail fer England, fer he say if he git +captured folks'll won't let him be prisoner o' war--dey'll jes up an' +shoot him. An' dat skeer Miss Barbary mos' to death an' he'p make her go +wid him. Mammy heah'd ever' word dey say." + +Erskine's brain was working fast, but no plan would come. They would be +six against him, but no matter--he urged Firefly on. The red ball from +which Ephraim had leaped had gone down now. The chill autumn darkness +was settling, but the moon was rising full and glorious over the black +expanse of trees when the lights of Red Oaks first twinkled ahead. +Erskine pulled in. + +"Ephraim!" + +"Yassuh. You lemme go ahead. You jest wait in dat thicket next to de +corner o' de big gyarden. I'll ride aroun' through de fields an' come +into the barnyard by de back gate. Dey won't know I been gone. Den I'll +come to de thicket an' tell you de whole lay o' de land." + +Erskine nodded. + +"Hurry!" + +"Yassuh." + +The negro turned from the road through a gate, and Erskine heard the +thud of his horse's hoofs across the meadow turf. He rode on slowly, +hitched Firefly as close to the edge of the road as was safe, and crept +to the edge of the garden, where he could peer through the hedge. The +hall-door was open and the hallway lighted; so was the dining-room; and +there were lights in Barbara's room. There were no noises, not even of +animal life, and no figures moving about or in the house. What could he +do? One thing at least, no matter what happened to him--he could number +Dane Grey's days and make this night his last on earth. It would +probably be his own last night, too. Impatiently he crawled back to the +edge of the road. More quickly than he expected, he saw Ephraim's figure +slipping through the shadows toward him. + +"Dey's jus' through supper," he reported. "Miss Barbary didn't eat wid +'em. She's up in her room. Dat udder orficer been stormin' at Marse Grey +an' hurryin' him up. Mammy been holdin' de little Missus back all she +can. She say she got to make like she heppin' her pack. De sojers down +dar by de wharf playin' cards an' drinkin'. Dat udder man been drinkin' +hard. He got his head on de table now an' look like he gone to sleep." + +"Ephraim," said Erskine quickly, "go tell Mr. Grey that one of his men +wants to see him right away at the sun-dial. Tell him the man wouldn't +come to the house because he didn't want the others to know--that he has +something important to tell him. When he starts down the path you run +around the hedge and be on hand in the bushes." + +"Yassuh," and the boy showed his teeth in a comprehending smile. It was +not long before he saw Grey's tall figure easily emerge from the +hall-door and stop full in the light. He saw Ephraim slip around the +corner and Grey move to the end of the porch, doubtless in answer to the +black boy's whispered summons. For a moment the two figures were +motionless and then Erskine began to tingle acutely from head to foot. +Grey came swiftly down the great path, which was radiant with moonlight. +As Grey neared the dial Erskine moved toward him, keeping in a dark +shadow, but Grey saw him and called in a low tone but sharply: + +"Well, what is it?" With two paces more Erskine stepped out into the +moonlight with his cocked pistol at Grey's breast. + +"This," he said quietly. "Make no noise--and don't move." Grey was +startled, but he caught his control instantly and without fear. + +"You are a brave man, Mr. Grey, and so, for that matter, is--Benedict +Arnold." + +"Captain Grey," corrected Grey insolently. + +"I do not recognize your rank. To me you are merely Traitor Grey." + +"You are entitled to unusual freedom of speech--under the circumstances." + +[Illustration: "Make no noise, and don't move"] + +"I shall grant you the same freedom," Erskine replied quickly--"in a +moment. You are my prisoner, Mr. Grey. I could lead you to your proper +place at the end of a rope, but I have in mind another fate for you +which perhaps will be preferable to you and maybe one or two others. Mr. +Grey, I tried once to stab you--I knew no better and have been sorry ever +since. You once tried to murder me in the duel and you did know better. +Doubtless you have been sorry ever since--that you didn't succeed. Twice +you have said that you would fight me with anything, any time, any +place." Grey bowed slightly. "I shall ask you to make those words good +and I shall accordingly choose the weapons." Grey bowed again. +"Ephraim!" The boy stepped from the thicket. + +"Ah," breathed Grey, "that black devil!" + +"Ain' you gwine to shoot him, Marse Erskine?" + +"Ephraim!" said Erskine, "slip into the hall very quietly and bring me +the two rapiers on the wall." Grey's face lighted up. + +"And, Ephraim," he called, "slip into the dining-room and fill Captain +Kilburn's glass." He turned with a wicked smile. + +"Another glass and he will be less likely to interrupt. Believe me, +Captain Dale, I shall take even more care now than you that we shall not +be disturbed. I am delighted." And now Erskine bowed. + +"I know more of your career than you think, Grey. You have been a spy as +well as a traitor. And now you are crowning your infamy by weaving some +spell over my cousin and trying to carry her away in the absence of her +father and brother, to what unhappiness God only can know. I can hardly +hope that you appreciate the honor I am doing you." + +"Not as much as I appreciate your courage and the risk you are taking." + +Erskine smiled. + +"The risk is perhaps less than you think." + +"You have not been idle?" + +"I have learned more of my father's swords than I knew when we used them +last." + +"I am glad--it will be more interesting." Erskine looked toward the house +and moved impatiently. + +"My brother officer has dined too well," noted Grey placidly, "and the +rest of my--er--retinue are gambling. We are quite secure." + +"Ah!" Erskine breathed--he had seen the black boy run down the steps with +something under one arm and presently Ephraim was in the shadow of the +thicket: + +"Give one to Mr. Grey, Ephraim, and the other to me. I believe you said +on that other occasion that there was no choice of blades?" + +"Quite right," Grey answered, skilfully testing his bit of steel. + +"Keep well out of the way, Ephraim," warned Erskine, "and take this +pistol. You may need it, if I am worsted, to protect yourself." + +"Indeed, yes," returned Grey, "and kindly instruct him not to use it to +protect _you_." For answer Erskine sprang from the shadow--discarding +formal courtesies. + +"_En garde!_" he called sternly. + +The two shining blades clashed lightly and quivered against each other +in the moonlight like running drops of quicksilver. + +Grey was cautious at first, trying out his opponent's increase in skill: + +"You have made marked improvement." + +"Thank you," smiled Erskine. + +"Your wrist is much stronger." + +"Naturally." Grey leaped backward and parried just in time a vicious +thrust that was like a dart of lightning. + +"Ah! A Frenchman taught you that." + +"A Frenchman taught me all the little I know." + +"I wonder if he taught you how to meet this." + +"He did," answered Erskine, parrying easily and with an answering thrust +that turned Grey suddenly anxious. Constantly Grey manoeuvred to keep his +back to the moon, and just as constantly Erskine easily kept him where +the light shone fairly on both. Grey began to breathe heavily. + +"I think, too," said Erskine, "that my wind is a little better than +yours--would you like a short resting-spell?" + +From the shadow Ephraim chuckled, and Grey snapped: + +"Make that black devil----" + +"Keep quiet, Ephraim!" broke in Erskine sternly. Again Grey manoeuvred +for the moon, to no avail, and Erskine gave warning: + +"Try that again and I will put that moon in your eyes and keep it +there." Grey was getting angry now and was beginning to pant. + +"Your wind _is_ short," said Erskine with mock compassion. "I will give +you a little breathing-spell presently." + +Grey was not wasting his precious breath now and he made no answer. + +"Now!" said Erskine sharply, and Grey's blade flew from his hand and lay +like a streak of silver on the dewy grass. Grey rushed for it. + +"Damn you!" he raged, and wheeled furiously--patience, humor, and caution +quite gone--and they fought now in deadly silence. Ephraim saw the +British officer appear in the hall and walk unsteadily down the steps as +though he were coming down the path, but he dared not open his lips. +There was the sound of voices, and it was evident that the game had +ended in a quarrel and the players were coming up the river-bank toward +them. Erskine heard, but if Grey did he at first gave no sign--he was too +much concerned with the death that faced him. Suddenly Erskine knew that +Grey had heard, for the fear in his face gave way to a diabolic grin of +triumph and he lashed suddenly into defense--if he could protect himself +only a little longer! Erskine had delayed the finishing-stroke too long +and he must make it now. Grey gave way step by step--parrying only. The +blades flashed like tiny bits of lightning. Erskine's face, grim and +inexorable, brought the sick fear back into Grey's, and Erskine saw his +enemy's lips open. He lunged then, his blade went true, sank to the +hilt, and Grey's warped soul started on its way with a craven cry for +help. Erskine sprang back into the shadows and snatched his pistol from +Ephraim's hand: + +"Get out of the way now. Tell them I did it." + +Once he looked back. He saw Barbara at the hall-door with old Mammy +behind her. With a running leap he vaulted the hedge, and, hidden in the +bushes, Ephraim heard Firefly's hoofs beating ever more faintly the +sandy road. + + + + +XXVI + + +Yorktown broke the British heart, and General Dale, still weak from +wounds, went home to Red Oaks. It was not long before, with gentle +inquiry, he had pieced out the full story of Barbara and Erskine and +Dane Grey, and wisely he waited his chance with each phase of the +situation. Frankly he told her first of Grey's dark treachery, and the +girl listened with horrified silence, for she would as soon have +distrusted that beloved father as the heavenly Father in her prayers. +She left him when he finished the story and he let her go without +another word. All day she was in her room and at sunset she gave him her +answer, for she came to him dressed in white, knelt by his chair, and +put her head in his lap. And there was a rose in her hair. + +"I have never understood about myself and--and that man," she said, "and +I never will." + +"I do," said the general gently, "and I understand you through my sister +who was so like you. Erskine's father was as indignant as Harry is now, +and I am trying to act toward you as my father did toward her." The girl +pressed her lips to one of his hands. + +"I think I'd better tell you the whole story now," said General Dale, +and he told of Erskine's father, his wildness and his wanderings, his +marriage, and the capture of his wife and the little son by the Indians, +all of which she knew, and the girl wondered why he should be telling +her again. The general paused: + +"You know Erskine's mother was not killed. He found her." The girl +looked up amazed and incredulous. + +"Yes," he went on, "the white woman whom he found in the Indian village +was his mother." + +"Father!" She lifted her head quickly, leaned back with hands caught +tight in front of her, looked up into his face--her own crimsoning and +paling as she took in the full meaning of it all. Her eyes dropped. + +"Then," she said slowly, "that Indian girl--Early Morn--is his +half-sister. Oh, oh!" A great pity flooded her heart and eyes. "Why +didn't Erskine take them away from the Indians?" + +"His mother wouldn't leave them." And Barbara understood. + +"Poor thing--poor thing!" + +"I think Erskine is going to try now." + +"Did you tell him to bring them here?" The general put his hand on her +head. + +"I hoped you would say that. I did, but he shook his head." + +"Poor Erskine!" she whispered, and her tears came. Her father leaned +back and for a moment closed his eyes. + +"There is more," he said finally. "Erskine's father was the eldest +brother--and Red Oaks----" + +The girl sprang to her feet, startled, agonized, shamed: "Belongs to +Erskine," she finished with her face in her hands. "God pity me," she +whispered, "I drove him from his own home." + +"No," said the old general with a gentle smile. He was driving the barb +deep, but sooner or later it had to be done. + +"Look here!" He pulled an old piece of paper from his pocket and handed +it to her. Her wide eyes fell upon a rude boyish scrawl and a rude +drawing of a buffalo pierced by an arrow: + +"It make me laugh. I have no use. I give hole dam plantashun Barbara." + +"Oh!" gasped the girl and then--"where is he?" + +"Waiting at Williamsburg to get his discharge." She rushed swiftly down +the steps, calling: + +"Ephraim! Ephraim!" + +And ten minutes later the happy, grinning Ephraim, mounted on the +thoroughbred, was speeding ahead of a whirlwind of dust with a little +scented note in his battered slouch hat: + + "You said you would come whenever I wanted you. I want you to come + now. + + "Barbara." + +The girl would not go to bed, and the old general from his window saw +her like some white spirit of the night motionless on the porch. And +there through the long hours she sat. Once she rose and started down the +great path toward the sun-dial, moving slowly through the flowers and +moonlight until she was opposite a giant magnolia. Where the shadow of +it touched the light on the grass, she had last seen Grey's white face +and scarlet breast. With a shudder she turned back. The night whitened. +A catbird started the morning chorus. The dawn came and with it Ephraim. +The girl waited where she was. Ephraim took off his battered hat. + +"Marse Erskine done gone, Miss Barbary," he said brokenly. "He done gone +two days." + +The girl said nothing, and there the old general found her still +motionless--the torn bits of her own note and the torn bits of Erskine's +scrawling deed scattered about her feet. + + + + +XXVII + + +On the summit of Cumberland Gap Erskine Dale faced Firefly to the east +and looked his last on the forests that swept unbroken back to the river +James. It was all over for him back there and he turned to the wilder +depths, those endless leagues of shadowy woodlands, that he would never +leave again. Before him was one vast forest. The trees ran from +mountain-crest to river-bed, they filled valley and rolling plain, and +swept on in sombre and melancholy wastes to the Mississippi. Around him +were birches, pines, hemlocks, and balsam firs. He dropped down into +solemn, mysterious depths filled with oaks, chestnuts, hickories, +maples, beeches, walnuts, and gigantic poplars. The sun could not +penetrate the leafy-roofed archway of that desolate world. The tops of +the mighty trees merged overhead in a mass of tent-like foliage and the +spaces between the trunks were choked with underbrush. And he rode on +and on through the gray aisles of the forest in a dim light that was +like twilight at high noon. + +At Boonesborough he learned from the old ferryman that, while the war +might be coming to an end in Virginia, it was raging worse than ever in +Kentucky. There had been bloody Indian forays, bloody white reprisals, +fierce private wars, and even then the whole border was in a flame. +Forts had been pushed westward even beyond Lexington, and 1782 had been +Kentucky's year of blood. Erskine pushed on, and ever grew his +hopelessness. The British had drawn all the savages of the Northwest +into the war. As soon as the snow was off the ground the forays had +begun. Horses were stolen, cabins burned, and women and children were +carried off captive. The pioneers had been confined to their stockaded +forts, and only small bands of riflemen sallied out to patrol the +country. Old Jerome Sanders's fort was deserted. Old Jerome had been +killed. Twenty-three widows were at Harrodsburg filing the claims of +dead husbands, and among them were Polly Conrad and Honor Sanders. The +people were expecting an attack in great force from the Indians led by +the British. At the Blue Licks there had been a successful ambush by the +Indians and the whites had lost half their number, among them many brave +men and natural leaders of the settlements. Captain Clark was at the +mouth of Licking River and about to set out on an expedition and needed +men. + +Erskine, sure of a welcome, joined him and again rode forth with Clark +through the northern wilderness, and this time a thousand mounted +riflemen followed them. Clark had been stirred at last from his lethargy +by the tragedy of the Blue Licks and this expedition was one of reprisal +and revenge; and it was to be the last. The time was autumn and the corn +was ripe. The triumphant savages rested in their villages unsuspecting +and unafraid, and Clark fell upon them like a whirl-wind. Taken by +surprise, and startled and dismayed by such evidence of the quick +rebirth of power in the beaten whites, the Indians of every village fled +at their approach, and Clark put the torch not only to cabin and wigwam +but to the fields of standing corn. As winter was coming on, this would +be a sad blow, as Clark intended, to the savages. + +Erskine had told the big chief of his mother, and every man knew the +story and was on guard that she should come to no harm. A captured +Shawnee told them that the Shawnees had got word that the whites were +coming, and their women and old men had fled or were fleeing, all, +except in a village he had just left--he paused and pointed toward the +east where a few wisps of smoke were rising. Erskine turned: "Do you +know Kahtoo?" + +"He is in that village." + +Erskine hesitated: "And the white woman--Gray Dove?" + +"She, too, is there." + +"And Early Morn?" + +"Yes," grunted the savage. + +"What does he say?" asked Clark. + +"There is a white woman and her daughter in a village, there," said +Erskine, pointing in the direction of the smoke. + +Clark's voice was announcing the fact to his men. Hastily he selected +twenty. "See that no harm comes to them," he cried, and dashed forward. +Erskine in advance saw Black Wolf and a few bucks covering the retreat +of some fleeing women. They made a feeble resistance of a volley and +they too turned to flee. A white woman emerged from a tent and with +great dignity stood, peering with dim eyes. To Clark's amazement Erskine +rushed forward and took her in his arms. A moment later Erskine cried: + +"My sister, where is she?" + +The white woman's trembling lips opened, but before she could answer, a +harsh, angry voice broke in haughtily, and Erskine turned to see Black +Wolf stalking in, a prisoner between two stalwart woodsmen. + +"Early Morn is Black Wolf's squaw. She is gone--" He waved one hand +toward the forest. + +The insolence of the savage angered Clark, and not understanding what he +said, he asked angrily: + +"Who is this fellow?" + +"He is the husband of my half-sister," answered Erskine gravely. + +Clark looked dazed and uncomprehending: + +"And that woman?" + +"My mother," said Erskine gently. + +"Good God!" breathed Clark. He turned quickly and waved the open-mouthed +woodsmen away, and Erskine and his mother were left alone. A feeble +voice called from a tent near by. + +"Old Kahtoo!" said Erskine's mother. "He is dying and he talks of +nothing but you--go to him!" And Erskine went. The old man lay trembling +with palsy on a buffalo-robe, but the incredible spirit in his wasted +body was still burning in his eyes. + +"My son," said he, "I knew your voice. I said I should not die until I +had seen you again. It is well ... it is well," he repeated, and wearily +his eyes closed. And thus Erskine knew it would be. + + + + +XXVIII + + +That winter Erskine made his clearing on the land that Dave Yandell had +picked out for him, and in the centre of it threw up a rude log hut in +which to house his mother, for his remembrance of her made him believe +that she would prefer to live alone. He told his plans to none. + +In the early spring, when he brought his mother home, she said that +Black Wolf had escaped and gone farther into the wilderness--that Early +Morn had gone with him. His mother seemed ill and unhappy. Erskine, not +knowing that Barbara was on her way to find him, started on a +hunting-trip. In a few days Barbara arrived and found his mother unable +to leave her bed, and Lydia Noe sitting beside her. Harry had just been +there to say good-by before going to Virginia. + +[Illustration: To his bewilderment he found Barbara at his mother's +bedside] + + +Barbara was dismayed by Erskine's absence and his mother's look of +suffering and extreme weakness, and the touch of her cold fingers. There +was no way of reaching her son, she said--he did not know of her illness. +Barbara told her of Erskine's giving her his inheritance, and that she +had come to return it. Meanwhile Erskine, haunted by his mother's sad +face, had turned homeward. To his bewilderment, he found Barbara at his +mother's bedside. A glance at their faces told him that death was near. +His mother held out her hand to him while still holding Barbara's. As in +a dream, he bent over to kiss her, and with a last effort she joined +their hands, clasping both. A great peace transformed her face as she +slowly looked at Barbara and then up at Erskine. With a sigh her head +sank lower, and her lovely dimming eyes passed into the final dark. + +Two days later they were married. The woodsmen, old friends of +Erskine's, were awed by Barbara's daintiness, and there were none of the +rude jests they usually flung back and forth. With hearty handshakes +they said good-by and disappeared into the mighty forest. In the silence +that fell, Erskine spoke of the life before them, of its hardships and +dangers, and then of the safety and comfort of Virginia. Barbara smiled: + +"You choose the wilderness, and your choice is mine. We will leave the +same choice...." She flushed suddenly and bent her head. + +"To those who come after us," finished Erskine. + + + The End. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Erskine Dale--Pioneer, by John Fox + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERSKINE DALE--PIONEER *** + +***** This file should be named 36390.txt or 36390.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/3/9/36390/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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