for nearly a month jack telfair, with black cato at his heels, had been riding northward through a country recently reclaimed from the wilderness and reduced to civilization. day after day he passed over broad well-beaten roads from village to village and from farmstead to farmstead, where clucking hens and lowing cattle had taken the place of indian, bear, and wildcat. between, he rode through long stretches of wilderness, where the settlements lay farther and farther apart and the ill-kept way grew more and more rugged and silver-frosted boulders glistened underfoot in the dawn.
the route lay wholly west of the alleghenies and the travellers had to climb no such mighty barrier as that which stretched between the atlantic and the west. but the land steadily rose, and day by day the sunset burned across increasing hills. the two passed nashville—a thriving town growing like a weed—and came at last to the kentucky border and the crest of the watershed between the cumberland and the green river. here, cutting across the headwaters of a deep, narrow creek, ice cold and crystal clear, filled with the dusky shadows of darting trout, they stumbled into the deep-cut trail[48] travelled for centuries by indian warriors bound south from beyond the ohio to wage war on tribes living along the atlantic and the gulf. this trail was nearly a thousand miles long; one branch started from the mouth of the mississippi and the other from the virginia seaboard, and the two met in southern kentucky, crossed the ohio, and followed the miami toward the western end of lake erie. jack had only to follow it to reach his destination.
like all indian pathways, the trail clung to the highest ground, following the route that was driest in rain, clearest of snow in winter and of brush and leaves in summer, and least subject to forest fires. much of it was originally lined out by buffalo, which found the way of least resistance as instinctively as the red men, but long stretches of it had been made by the indians alone. the buffalo trail was broad and deep and was worn five or six feet into the soil; the indian trail was in few places more than a foot deep and was so narrow that it was impossible to see more than a rod along it. no one could traverse it without breaking the twigs and branches of the dense bushes that overhung it on either side, leaving a record that to the keen eye of the savage and of the woodsman was eloquent to the number who had passed and the time of their passage. no one who once travelled its vistaless stretches could fail to understand the ease with which ambushes and surprises could be effected.
[49]though the trail clung to high ground the exigencies of destination compelled it in places to go down into the valleys. it had to descend to cross the kentucky river and to descend again into the valley of the licking as it approached the ohio at cincinnati. in such places it had often been overflowed and obliterated and its route was far less definite. however, this no longer mattered, for in all such parts it had long been incorporated into the white man’s road. much of it, however, still endured and was to endure for more than a hundred years. beyond the ohio it climbed once more and followed the crest of the divide between great and little miami rivers to dayton, piqua, and wapakoneta.
thirty years before men had fought their way over every inch of that trail, dying by scores along it from the arrow, the tomahawk, and the bullet. but that had been thirty years before. for twenty years the trail had been safe as far as the ohio; for ten it had been measurably safe halfway up the state, to the edge of the indian country.
throughout the journey jack tried hard to be mournful. every dawn as he opened his eyes on a world new created, vivid, baptized with the consecration of the dew, he reminded himself that life could hold no happiness for him—since sally habersham had given her hand to another. every noontide as he saw the fields swelling with the growing[50] grain, the apples shaping themselves out of the air, the vagrant butterflies seeking their painted mates above the deep, moist, clover-carpeted meadows, he told himself that for him alone all the vast processes of nature had ceased. every evening, when the landscape smouldered in the setting sun, when the red lights burned across the tips of the waving grasses, when the burnished pines pointed aspiringly higher, when the rushing rapids on the chance streams glittered in sparkling points of multi-colored fire, he assured himself that to himself there remained only the hard, straight path of duty.
yet, in spite of himself, the edge of his grief grew slowly but surely dull. the bourgeoning forests, the swelling mountains, the vast stretches of solitude were all so many veils stretched between him and the past. his love for sally habersham did not lessen, perhaps, but it became unreal, like the memory of a dear, dead dream that held no bitterness. it was hard to brood on the life of gallant and lady, of silver and damask, of polished floors and stately minuets, when his every waking minute had to be spent in meeting the intensely practical problems that beset the pioneers. it was hard to assure himself that he would live and die virgin and that his house should die with him, when, as often as not, he dropped off to sleep in the same house, if not the same room, with a dozen or more sturdy boys and girls that were being raised by one[51] of those same pioneers and his no less vigorous wife.
besides, cato would not let him brood. cato had feminine problems of his own which he insisted on submitting to his master’s judgment. when rebuffed, he preserved an injured silence till he judged that jack’s mood had softened and then returned blandly to the charge. very early on the trip jack gave up in despair all attempts to check his menial’s tongue; he realized that nothing short of death would do this, and he could not afford to murder his only companion, though he often felt as if he would like to do it.
“there ain’t no use a-talkin’, marse jack,” cato observed one day. “the onliest way to git along with a woman is to keep her a-guessin’. jes’ so long as she don’ know whar you is or what you’s a-thinkin’, you’s all right. but the minute she finds out whar you is, then whar is you? dat’s what i ax you, marse jack?”
jack shook his head abstractedly. “i’m sure i don’t know, cato,” he said. “where are you?”
“you ain’ nowhar, that’s what you is. dar was colonel jackson’s gal sue. mumumph! couldn’t dat gal make de beatenest waffles! an’ didn’t she make ’em foh me for most fo’ months till i done ax her to marry me! an’ didn’t she stop makin’ ’em right spang off? an’ didn’t she keep on stoppin’ till i tuk up with sophy? an’ then didn’t she begin again? yes, suh; it’s jes’ like i’m tellin’ you. jes’[52] as long as a woman thinks she’s got you, you ain’t nobody; and the minute she thinks some other gal’s got you, then you’s everything. talk to me about love! gals don’t know what love is. all they wants is to spite the other gals.”
“well! how did you make out, cato. did you fix on sue or sophy?”
“now, marse jack, you know i ain’t a-goin’ to throw myself away on none of them black nigger gals. i’se too light complected to do that, suh. besides, sue and sophy done disappointed me. they pointedly did, suh. jes’ as i was a-makin’ up my mind to marry mandy—mandy is dat yaller gal of major habersham’s; i done met her when you was co’ting miss sally—sue and sophy got together and went to massa telfair and tole him about it and massa telfair say i done got to marry one of them two inside a week, an’ if you hadn’t done start off so sudden i reckon’s i’d a been married and done foh befo’ now, suh. massa telfair’s plumb sot in his ways, suh.”
jack was tired of the talk. “oh! well! i reckon mandy’ll be waiting for you when you get back,” he answered, idly.
cato smiled broadly. “ain’t dat de trufe?” he chuckled, delightedly. “i ain’t ax mandy yit, but she ’spec’s me to. i tell you, marse jack, you got to keep ’em guessin’, yes, you is, suh. jes’ as long as you does you got ’em.”
[53]cato rung the changes on his tale with infinite variations. jack heard about sue and sophonia and mandy from alabama to ohio, from the tallapoosa to the miami. it was only when he reached dayton that the loves of his henchman were pushed into the background by more urgent affairs.
dayton was alive with the war fever. governor hull, of michigan, who had been appointed a brigadier general, had started north from there nearly a month before with thirty-five hundred volunteers and regulars and was now one hundred miles to the north, cutting his way laboriously through the vast forest of the black swamp. at last reports he had reached blanchard river, and had built a fort which he called fort findlay. so far as ohio knew war had not yet been declared, but news that it had been was expected daily. the whole state awaited it in apprehension, not from fear of the british, but from terror of their ruthless red allies.
not a man or woman in all ohio but knew what indian warfare meant. not one but could remember the silent midnight attack on the sleeping farmhouse, the blazing rooftree, the stark, gashed forms that had once been men and women and little children, the wiping out of the labor of years in a single hour.
every sight and sound of forest and of prairie mimicked the clash. the hammering of the woodpecker was the pattering of bullets, the thump of[54] the beaver was the thud of the tomahawk, the scream of the fishhawk the shriek of dying women, the scolding of the chipmunks in the long grass the chatter of the squaws around the torture post, the red reflection of the setting sun the gleam of blazing rooftrees.
ah! yes! ohio knew what indian war meant.
and cato, for the first time, realized whither he was going. he ceased to talk of his sweethearts and began to pray for his soul.
at last jack came to piqua. piqua stood close to the boundary of the indian country, which then spread over the whole northwestern quarter of ohio. north of it lay the great black swamp, through which roved thousands of indians, nominally peaceful, but potentially dangerous. at piqua, too, dwelt colonel john johnson, the united states indian agent, whose business it was to keep them quiet.
as jack rode into the outskirts of the tiny scattered village, a middle-aged man with long, gray whiskers, skull cap, and buckskin trousers came up to him.
“hello, stranger!” he bawled. “what’s the news?”
jack reined in. “sorry, but i haven’t any,” he replied.
“whar you from?”
“from dayton and the south.”
“sho! ain’t congress declared war yet?”
[55]“not that i know of. the last news from washington was that they were still debating.”
“debatin’? well! i just reckon they are debatin’. lord sakes, stranger, don’t it make you sick and tired to hear a lot of full grown men a-talkin’ and a-talkin’ like a pack of women. just say what you got to say and stop; that’s my motto. and here’s congress a-talkin’ and a-talkin’ and a-wastin’ time while the injuns are fillin’ up with fire-water and sharpenin’ their tomahawks and the country’s going to the devil. strike first, and talk afterwards, say i. but then i never was much of one to talk. i guess livin’ in the woods makes you kinder silent, and——”
“what’s the news from the north?” hopeless of a pause in the old man’s garrulity jack broke in.
the old man accepted the interruption with entire good humor if not with pleasure, and straightway started on a new discourse. “bad, bad, mighty bad, stranger,” he declared. “that red devil, tecumseh, has been a-traveling about the country but he’s back now and the injuns are getting ready to play thunder with everybody. colonel johnson says you ought to treat ’em kind and honeyswoggle ’em all the time, but that ain’t my way, and it ain’t the way of nobody that knows injuns. how far north is you aimin’ to go, stranger?”
“to wapakoneta, i think.”
“then i reckon you’ll have to see colonel johnson.[56] what did you say your name was? mine’s rogers—tom rogers.”
jack grinned. “i didn’t say,” he answered. “but it’s jack telfair.”
“telfair! telfair! seems to me i kinder remember hearin’ of somebody of that name. but it’s mighty long ago. let’s see, now, i wonder could it ha’ been that fellow that we whipped for stealin’—pshaw, no, that was a fellow named helden. he was——”
“where’ll i find colonel johnson,” demanded jack, in despair.
“well, now, that’s mighty hard to tell. colonel johnson sloshes round a whole lot. maybe you’ll find him at john manning’s mill up at the bend here or maybe you’ll have to go to his place at upper piqua or maybe you’ll have to go further. i reckon you didn’t stop at stanton as you come along, did you? colonel johnson’s mighty thick with levy martin down there, and he’s liable to be at his house, or at peter felix’s store.”
jack shook his head. “no, i didn’t come by stanton.”
by this time a number of other white men had come up. the old hunter insisted on making jack known to all of them. jack heard the names of sam hilliard, job garrard, andrew dye, joshua robbins, daniel cox, and several others. all of them were anxious for news in regard to the coming[57] war, and all shook their heads dubiously when they heard that jack proposed to go further north.
“it’s taking your life in your hands these days, youngster,” remarked andrew dye, a patriarchal-looking old man. “there’s ten thousand injuns pretendin’ to be tame between here and wapakoneta and the devil only knows how many more there are north of it. tecumseh’s sort of civilized, but his shawnees ain’t tecumseh by a long shot. and them d— british are stirrin’ ’em up. course you may get there all right, but when you go trampin’ in where angels are ’fraid to, you’re mighty apt to get turned into an angel yourself.”
“i guess i’ve got to go,” said jack. “i want to get somebody who knows the country to go along with me.”
“what’s the matter with me?” broke in rogers. “i ain’t a-pining to lose my scalp, but i reckon if i won’t go nobody will. and i don’t want no big pay neither. you and me’ll agree on terms mighty easy. i can take you anywhere. i know all the injuns. why! lord! they call me——”
job garrard laughed. “yes,” he said. “tom can take you anywhere. tom’s always willing to stick in. he stuck in on judge blank’s court down in dayton the other day, didn’t you, tom? haw! haw! haw!”
a burst of laughter ran round the group. everybody laughed indeed, except tom himself. “you[58] boys think you’re blamed funny,” he tried to interpose.
but the others would not hear him.
“maybe you heard something about it as you come through dayton, stranger!” said dye. “tom tromped right into court and he heard the judge dressin’ down two young lawyers that had got to fussin’. i reckon tom had been a-practicin’ at another bar, for he yells out: ‘give it to ’em, old gimlet eyes.’ the judge stops short. ‘who’s that?’ he asked. tom thinks he’s going to ask him upon the bench or something and he steps out an’ says: ‘it’s this yer old hoss!’ the judge he looks at him for a minute an’ then he calls the sheriff and says, ‘sheriff, take this old hoss out and put him in a stall and lock the stable up and see that he don’t get stole before tomorrow mornin’.’ and the sheriff done it, too. haw! haw! haw!”
the laughter was interrupted by the appearance of a wagon drawn by mules and driven by a man who looked neither to the right nor to the left.
rogers, glad of any change of subject, jumped forward. “hey!” he yelled. “what’s the news?”
the driver paid no attention to the call. his companion on the box, however, leaned out. “go to h—l, you old grand-daddy long legs,” he yelled.
the old hunter’s leathery cheek reddened. but before he could retort a horseman appeared in the[59] road in front of the wagon and threw up his hand.
“hold on, boys,” he called. “hold on! i want to speak to you.”
the driver hesitated; then, compelled by something in the eyes of the man, he sulkily reined in. as he did so jack and the little crowd about him moved over to the wagon.
“i’m tom rich, deputy of colonel johnson, the indian agent up here,” the horseman was explaining, peaceably. “colonel johnson’s away just now and i’ve got to see everybody that goes north to trade with the injuns.”
“we ain’t going to trade with no injuns,” said the man who appeared to be the leader. “we’re taking supplies to fort wayne for the government. i reckon you ain’t got no call to stop us.”
“not a bit of it, boys. not a bit of it. just let me see your papers and you can go right along.”
the man sought in his pockets and finally extracted a paper which he passed to rich, who scanned it carefully. “your name’s david wolf, is it?” he questioned, “and your friend’s name is henry williams?”
“that’s right and we ain’t got no time to waste. there ain’t no tellin’ when war’ll be declared an’——”
“no! there’s no telling. you can go along if you want to, but i’ve got to warn you—warn all of you.” rich’s eye swept the group. “we got news[60] this morning that there was a big council at wapakoneta last night. there was a british officer there in uniform and he and tecumseh tried to get the shawnees to go north. black hoof (catahecasa) stood out against them, and our news is that less than two hundred braves went. still, there’s no telling, and the country’s dangerous. colonel johnson’s at wapakoneta now. better wait till he gets back.”
“wait nothin’.” wolf spat loudly into the road. “general hull rushed us here with supplies for fort wayne and we’re going through. if any darned injun gets in our way he won’t stay in it long. my pluck is to shoot first and question after.”
the deputy’s brow grew stern. “you’ll be very careful who you shoot and when,” he ordered, sternly. “a single indian murdered by a white man might set the border in flames and turn thousands of friendly indians against us. i’ll let you go through, but i warn you that if you shoot any indians without due cause colonel johnson will see that you hang for it. we’ve got the safety of hundreds of white people to consider and we’re not going to have them endangered by any recklessness of yours. you understand?”
wolf shrugged his shoulders. “i reckon so,” he muttered.
“all right, see that you heed.” rich turned[61] away from the men and greeted jack. “and where are you bound, sir?” he asked smilingly.
“i’m looking for colonel johnson,” returned jack. “i’m looking for a young lady who was to have been left in his care. have you heard anything about her.”
“a young lady?” the deputy stared; then he laughed. “no! i’m not young enough,” he remarked, cryptically.
“then, with your permission i’ll just tag along after our crusty friends in the wagon.”
the deputy hesitated. “i have no power to stop you,” he said. “but you’d better wait here for colonel johnson.”
“i can’t. the matter is urgent. come, cato! so long, boys!” jack nodded to the group around him, shook his bridle and cantered off after the wagon, which had just vanished among the trees.
