the sun was about to climb above the rim of the world. already the white dawn was silvering the grey mists that lay alike on plain and on river and half hid the mossy green boles of the trees that stood on the edge of the forest. from beneath it sounded the low murmur of the waters of the auglaize, toiling sluggishly through the timbers that choked its bed and gave it its indian name of cowthenake, fallen timber river. high about it whimpered the humming rush of wild ducks. from the black wall of the forest that led northward to the black swamp came the waking call of birds.
steadily the light grew. the first yellow shafts shimmered along the surface of the mist, stirring it to sudden life. out of the draperies of fog, points seemed to rise, black against the curtain of the dawn. to them the mists clung with moist tenacious fingers, resisting for a moment the call of the sun, then shimmering away, leaving only a trace of tears to sparkle in the sunlight.
steadily the sun mounted and steadily the mists shrank. the spectral points, first evidence that land and not water lay beneath the fog, broadened downward, here into tufts of hemlock, there into smoother, more regular shapes that spoke of human[32] workmanship. louder and louder grew the rippling of the river. then, abruptly, the carpet of mist rose in the air, shredding into a thousand wisps of white; for a moment it obscured the view, then it was gone, floating away toward the great forest, as if seeking sanctuary in its chilly depths. the black river was still half-veiled, but the land lay bare, sparkling with jewelled dew-drops.
close beside the river, on an elevation that rose, island like, above the surrounding plain, stood the indian village, row after row of cabins, strongly built of heavy logs, roofed with poles, and chinked with moss and clay. in and out among them moved half-wolfish dogs, that had crept from their lairs to welcome the rising of the sun.
no human being was visible, but an indistinct murmur, coming from nowhere and everywhere, mingled with the rush of the river and the whisper of the wind in the green rushes and the tall grass. the huts seemed to stir visibly; first from one and then from a score, men, women, and children bobbed out, some merrily, some grumpily, to stretch themselves in the sunshine and to breathe in the soft morning air before it began to quiver in the baking heat that would surely and swiftly come. for early june was no less hot in northern ohio in 1812, when the whole country was one vast alternation of swamp and forest, than it is a hundred years later when the land has been drained and the forest cut away.
[33]from the door of a cabin near the centre of the town emerged a girl sixteen or seventeen years of age, who stood still in the sunbeams, eyes fixed on the trail that led away through the breaks in the forest to the south. her features, browned as they were by the sun and concealed as they were by paint, yet plainly lacked the high cheek-bones, black eyes, and broad nostrils of the indians. some alien blood showed itself in the softness of her cheek, in the kindling color in her long dark hair, in the brown of her eyes. her graceful body had the straight slenderness that in the quick-maturing indian maids of her size and height had given place to the rounded curves of budding womanhood. her head, alertly poised above her strong throat, showed none of the marks of ancestral toil that had already begun to bow her companions. in dress alone was she like them, though even in this the unusual richness of her doeskin garb, belted at the hips with silver, marked her as one of prominence.
for a little longer the girl watched the southward trail; then her eyes roved westward, across the rippling waters of the auglaize, now veiled only by scattered wisps of mist, and across its border of sedgy grass, pale shimmering green in the mounting sun, and rested on a cabin that stood on the further bank, between an orchard and a small field of enormous corn. from this cabin two men were just emerging.
[34]they were too far away indeed for the average civilized man or woman to distinguish more than that they were men and were dressed as whites. the girl, however, was possessed of sight naturally strong and had been trained all her life amid surroundings where quickness of vision might easily mean the difference between life and death. she had seen the men before and she recognized them instantly.
one of them wore a red coat and carried himself with a ramrod-like erectness that bespoke the british officer; the girl knew that he was from canada, probably from the fort at malden, to which for three years the indians from a thousand square miles of american soil had been going by tens and hundreds to return laden with arms and ammunition and presents from his majesty, the king of great britain. the second was of medium height, shaggy, dressed in indian costume, with a handkerchief bound about his forehead in place of a hat. he could only be james girty, owner of the cabin, or his brother simon, of infamous memory—more probably the latter.
as the girl watched them an indian squaw crept out of a near-by cabin and came toward her.
“ever the heart of alagwa (the star) turns toward the white men,” said she, harshly.
the girl started, the swift blood leaping to her[35] cheeks. “nay!” she said. “these white men have red hearts. they are the friends of the indian. katepakomen (girty) is an indian; his white blood has been washed from his veins even as my own!”
“your own!” the old woman laughed scornfully. “not so! your heart is not red. it is white.”
alagwa’s was not the indian stoicism that meets all attacks with immobility. her lip quivered and her eyes filled with tears. “i am not white,” she quavered. “i am red, red.”
the old woman hesitated. she knew that between equals what she had said would have been all but unforgiveable. alagwa had been adopted into the tribe years before in the place of another alagwa who had died. she had been “raised up” in place of her. theoretically all white blood had been washed out of her. she was the dead. to remind her of her other life and ancestry was the worst insult imaginable. the old woman knew that tecumseh would be very angry if he heard it. but she had an object to gain and went on.
“then why does alagwa refuse my son?” she said. “why does she defy the customs of her people—if they are her people. the council of women have decreed that she shall wed wilwiloway. if her heart is red why does she not obey?”
the girl hung her head. “i—i am too young to wed,” she protested.
[36]“bah!” the old woman spat upon the ground. “alagwa has seen seventeen summers. other girls wed at fifteen. why should alagwa scorn my son. is he not straight and tall? is he not first among the warriors in war and in chase? has he not brought back many scalps? alagwa’s heart is white—not red.”
“but——”
“were wilwiloway other than he is, he would long ago have taken alagwa to his hut. but he will not. his heart, too, is white. he says alagwa must come to him willingly or not at all. he will not let us compel her. he——” the old woman broke off with a catch in her voice—“he loves alagwa truly,” she pleaded, wistfully. “will not alagwa make his moccasins and pound his corn!”
the girl, who had slowly straightened up under the assault of the old woman, weakened before the sudden change of tone.
“oh!” she cried. “i will try. truly! i will try. wilwiloway is good and kind and brave. i am proud that he has chosen me. i wish i could love him. but—but i do not, and i must love before i give myself. i am bad! wicked! i know it. yes! i have a white heart. but i will pray to mishemanitou, the great god, to make it red.”
the old woman caught the sobbing girl to her heart. “do not weep!” she said, gently. “see! the sun burns red through the trees; it is the answer[37] of manitou, the mighty. he sends it as a message that your heart shall turn from white to red. there! it is changed! look up, alagwa, and be glad.”
the girl raised her head and stared at the line of trees that curled away in a great crescent toward the east and the west. the sun did indeed burn red through them. could it be an omen? as she stared the squaw slipped silently away.
alagwa’s heart was burning hot within her. the squaw’s accusation that her heart was white had cut deep. all her remembered life she had been taught to hate and fear the white men. white men were the source of all evil that had befallen her. they had driven her and her people back, back, ever back, forcing them to give up one home after another. white men had slain her friends; never did she inquire for some dear one who was missing but to be told that he had been killed by the white men. again and again in her baby ears had rung the cries of the squaws, weeping for the dead who would return no more. of the other side of the picture she knew nothing. of the red rapine the shawnee braves had wrought for miles and miles to the south she had heard, but it was to her only a name, not the awful fact that it had been to its victims. to her the whites were aggressors, robbers, murderers, who were slowly but surely crushing her indian friends.
[38]only the year before they had destroyed her home at tippecanoe on the banks of the wabash. well she remembered their advance, their fair speaking that concealed their implacable purpose to destroy her people. well she remembered the great indian council that debated whether to fight or to yield, the promises of the prophet that his medicine would shield the indians against the white men’s bullets, the night attack, the repulse, the flight across miles of prairie to the ancestral home at wapakoneta. she remembered tecumseh’s return—too late. here, also, she knew nothing of the other side—of the absolute military necessity that the headquarters from which tecumseh was preparing to sweep the frontier should be destroyed and its menace ended. it was she and her friends who had suffered and it was she and her friends who had fled, half starved, across those perilous miles of swamp and morass. it was the white men who had triumphed; and she hated them, hated them, hated them. the memory of it all was bitter.
and it was no less bitter because revenge seemed hopeless. tecumseh was planning revenge, she knew, but he no longer found the support he had gained a year before. his own people, the shawnees, implacable fighters as they had been, had wearied of war at last. black wolf, the chief at wapakoneta, himself once a great warrior and a[39] bitter foe of the whites, now preached that further resistance was vain—that it meant only death. many of the tribe sided with him, for the indian, no more than the white man, unless maddened by long tyranny, cares to engage in a contest where triumph is hopeless. the only hope lay in the redcoats, soldiers of the great king across the water. they were planning war against the long knives. if they should make common cause with the red men, revenge might yet be won. if she could do anything to help!
a footstep startled her and she flashed about to find simon girty and the tall man in the red coat almost upon her. while she had dreamed of the return of tecumseh they had crossed the auglaize river and had come upon her unawares.
girty was as she had many times remembered him—a deeply-tanned man perhaps forty years of age, with gray, sunken eyes, thin and compressed lips, hyena chin, and dark shaggy hair bound with a handkerchief above a low forehead, across which stretched a ghastly half-healed wound. in his arms he carried a great bale, carefully wrapped.
the other—alagwa had never seen his like before—was tall and powerful looking. his carriage was graceful and easy. his dark face, handsome in a way though plainly not so handsome as it had been some years before, was characterized by a powerful[40] jaw that diverted attention from his strong mouth and aquiline nose. he was regarding the girl with an expression evidently intended to be friendly, but which somehow grated. it seemed at once condescending, appraising, and insolent.
all this alagwa took in at a glance as she shrank backward, intent on flight. but before she could move girty’s voice broke in.
“stop!” he ordered, sharply, in the shawnee tongue. “the white chief from afar would speak with the star maiden.”
alagwa paused, looking fearfully backward. but she did not speak and girty went on.
“the white chief is of the house of alagwa,” he declared. “his heart is warm toward her. he brings good news and many presents to lay at her feet.” he laid down the bale.
alagwa looked from it to the man and back again. “let him speak,” she said, in somewhat halting english.
at the sound of his own tongue the englishman’s face lighted up and he took an impulsive step forward. “you speak english?” he exclaimed, with a note of wonder in his voice. “why did nobody tell me that? how did you learn?” his surprise did not seem altogether complimentary.
alagwa was studying him shyly. she found his pink and white complexion very pleasing after the[41] coppery skins of the indians and the no less swarthy faces of most of the white men she had seen. besides, this man wore a red coat and the redcoats were the friends of tecumseh. “i speak it a little,” she said, hesitatingly. as a matter of fact she spoke it rather well, having picked up much from time to time from colonel johnson, the indian agent, from two or three white prisoners, and from tecumseh himself.
“that’s lucky. if i’d known that i’d have spoken to you before and settled the business out of hand. you wouldn’t guess it, of course, little forest maiden that you are, but you are a cousin of mine?”
“a cousin? i?” startled, palpitating, alagwa leaned forward, staring with wide eyes. no white man except her father had ever claimed kin with her. what did it mean, this sudden appearance of one of her blood?
“yes! you’re my cousin and, egad, you’ll do the family honor! i’m captain count brito telfair, you know, and you are the lady estelle telfair. your father was my kinsman. i never met him, for he and his people lived in france, and i and my people lived in england. your uncle was the count telfair. he died not long ago. he had neglected you shamefully, but when he died it became my duty as head of the house to come over here and fetch you back to france and give you everything you want. do you understand?”
[42]alagwa did not understand wholly. not only the words but the ideas were new to her. but she gathered that she had white kinspeople, that they had not altogether forgotten her, and that the speaker had come to bring her gifts from them. doubtfully she nodded.
“i saw tecumseh two months ago,” went on captain brito, “and i saw you, too.” he smiled engagingly. “you were outside tecumseh’s lodge as i came out and i remember wishing that my new cousin might prove to be half as charming. of course i did not know you. tecumseh told me that he knew where delaroche’s daughter was, but he refused to tell me anything more. he said he would produce her in two months.” captain brito’s face darkened. “these indians are very insolent, but—well, i waited for a time, but when tecumseh went away i made inquiries, and girty here found you for me. i can’t tell you how delighted i am to find that you and the charming little girl i saw outside the lodge are one and the same. it makes everything delightful.”
alagwa’s head was whirling. for ten years, practically all of her life that she could remember, she had lived the life of an indian with no thought outside of the indians. she had rejoiced with their joys, and grieved with their woes. like them she had hated the americans from the south and had looked upon the english on the north as her friends.
[43]and now abruptly another life had opened before her. a redcoat officer had claimed her as kinswoman. the easy, casual, semi-contemptuous air with which he spoke scarcely affected her, for she had been used to concede the supremacy of man. she did not know what this claim might portend, but it made her happy. no thought that she might have to leave her indian home had yet crossed her mind. brito’s assertion that he had come to take her to france had not yet seeped into her understanding. to her france and england were little more than words.
uncertainly she smiled. “i am glad,” she murmured.
captain brito took her hand and raised it to his lips. “you will be more than glad when you understand,” he declared, patronizingly. “of course you can’t realize what a change this means for you.” he glanced round and shuddered. “after this—ugh—england and france will be paradise to you. get ready and as soon as tecumseh comes back and gives me the proofs of your identity i’ll take you to canada and then on to england.”
alagwa shrank back. “i? to england?” she gasped.
“of course.” captain brito smiled. “all of your house are loyal englishmen and you must be a loyal englishwoman. you really don’t know what[44] a wonderful country england is. it’s not a bit like this swampy, forest-covered ohio. and the people—oh! well! you’ll find them very different from the indians and from the bullying murdering americans. you’ll learn to be a great lady in england, you know.”
a shadow fell between the two, and an indian, naked save for a breech-clout and for the eagle feathers rising from his scalp-lock, thrust himself between the girl and the intruders.
“white men go!” he ordered, in shawnee. “take presents and go!”
brito’s face flushed brick-red. he did not understand the words, but he could not mistake the tone. his hand fell to his sword hilt. instantly, however, girty stepped between. “why does the chief wilwiloway interfere?” he demanded.
wilwiloway leaned forward, his fierce eyes glittering into those of the renegade. “tecumseh say white men no speak to alagwa. white men go!” he ordered again. his words came like a low growl.
for a moment the others hesitated. then brito nodded and said something to girty and the latter drew back, snarling but yielding. brito himself turned to alagwa. “good-by, cousin,” he called. “since this—er—gentleman objects i have to go. with your permission i’ll return later—when tecumseh is back.” with a smile and a bow he[45] turned away. he knew he could not afford to quarrel with tecumseh until he had secured the proofs of the girl’s identity.
wilwiloway called girty back. “take presents,” he ordered, pointing; and with a savage curse the man obeyed.
wilwiloway watched them go. then he turned to alagwa and his face softened. “they are bad men,” he said, gently. “their words are forked. tecumseh commands that alagwa shall not speak with them.”
the girl did not look altogether submissive. nevertheless she nodded. “alagwa will remember,” she promised. “yet surely tecumseh is deceived. the white man speaks with a straight tongue. he brings alagwa great tidings. and the redcoats are the friends of the shawnees.”
the indian shrugged his shoulders. “tecumseh speaks; alagwa must obey!” he declared, bluntly. then he turned away, leaving the girl to wonder—quite as mightily as if she had lived all her life among her civilized sisters.
how long she stood and wondered she never knew. abruptly she was roused by a sound of voices from the direction of the southern outposts. steadily the sound grew, deepening into a many-throated chant—the chant of welcome to those returning from a journey—the chant of thanksgiving that those[46] arriving have passed safely over all the perils of the way:
greatly startled now have i been today
by your voice coming through the woods to this clearing;
with a troubled mind have you come
through obstacles of every kind.
great thanks, therefore, we give, that safely
you have arrived. now then, together,
let both of us smoke. for all around indeed
are hostile powers—
alagwa spun round. she knew what the song meant—tecumseh was returning.
a moment later he passed her, striding onward to his lodge. his face was stern—the face of one who goes to face the great crisis of his life. behind him came chief after chief, warrior after warrior, members of many tribes. versed in indian heraldry as she was, alagwa could not read half the ensigns there foregathered.
