the drama of the war was unfolding. the first act was filled with martial music and with the tramp of armed men marching northward to wrest from the british king the remainder of his great american empire and to extend the bounds of the united states to the foot of the aurora borealis. war had been declared in the middle of june and the late summer of 1812 saw three armies afoot, one at the western end of lake erie, one at niagara, and one on lake champlain.
the first clash of arms came in the west. burning with zeal, general hull and his soldiers cut a road through the black swamp, occupied detroit, and early in july crossed into canada. the country rang with the news of their triumphant advance. the country did not realize, though it was soon to do so, that for years the british in canada had been providing against this very eventuality, and had been building a red bulwark against attack. for years they had been winning the good will of the indians with presents, had been cajoling them with soft words, and had been providing them with arms and ammunition. and when the war came they had their reward. while hull was marching so gaily forward thousands of savages were closing in behind[210] him, surrounding him with a red cordon that he was never to break. at first they moved slowly, lacking a white leader. soon they were to find one in general brock and the americans were to realize too late that they had to meet not merely a handful of british and canadians but a horde of the fiercest foes that any land could produce, some of whom, like tecumseh, hoped to establish an indian kingdom whose barriers would hold back the americans forever, but most of whom fought merely for the spoils of war, secure in the british promise to give them a free hand and to protect them against any ultimate vengeance like that which had befallen them when they had risen in the past.
all this, however, lay in the womb of the future in july and early august, when jack was slowly fighting his way back to health. the wound on his head healed rapidly, disappearing even before that on cato’s thick skull, and by the first of august he had recovered much of his physical strength though little of his mental powers. one day he would look out upon the world with sane eyes, gladdening alagwa’s sore heart with the hope that her vigil was nearing its end; the next day some trifle, some slight excitement, even some memory, would strike him down, and for days he would toss in delirium or lie in a state of coma that seemed like death itself. it needed all the cheeriness that fantine could muster and all the assurances that major[211] stickney and captain wells could offer to sustain the girl’s hope that he would ever be himself again.
meanwhile information that the war was not going well for the americans began to trickle in to fort wayne or, rather, to the white men adjacent to it who enjoyed the confidence of the indians.
owing to his miami wife, peter bondie’s affiliations with the indians were close and he received early news of all that took place at the front. before any one else at fort wayne he knew that hull had been driven back from canada to detroit. he learned almost instantly when hull’s lines of communication were broken and the small force that was bringing cattle and other food to his aid was halted at the river raisin, and he was kept well informed as the lines about hull himself grew closer and closer. lieutenant hibbs and the garrison at the fort, meanwhile, seemed to dwell in a fool’s paradise.
the first publicly admitted news that all was not going well was that of the surrender of the fifty-seven men who garrisoned fort michilimackinac, far to the northward. this, however, made little impression. fort michilimackinac was unimportant and was isolated; its surrender amounted to nothing. the next day, however, word was received from general hull that fort dearborn, one hundred and fifty miles to the west, on the site where chicago now stands, was to be evacuated.[212] lieutenant hibbs was instructed to consult with major stickney and captain wells and to devise some means by which the order could be safely transmitted and the garrison safely withdrawn. the next day captain wells, with one white man and thirty-five supposedly friendly miami indians, set out for fort dearborn to carry the orders. even this, however, did not disturb the optimism that ruled in the fort. dearborn, like michilimackinac, was isolated and unimportant.
the first news of the british and indian successes, slight though they were, bewildered alagwa. in vain she assured herself that she ought to rejoice. her friends were winning. they were driving back the braggart americans. they were regaining all that the slow years had stolen from them. tecumseh’s drama of a great indian kingdom would come true. she ought to be glad! glad! glad!
nevertheless, her heart sank lower and lower. she could not understand why this should be so. she was no friend to the americans, she told herself. she loved jack, but she hated his people. she was still an ally to the shawnees and to the british. she hoped, hoped, hoped that they would overwhelm the americans and drive them back forever. but still the pain at her heart grew sharper and sharper.
moreover her own actions began to trouble her. no longer could she keep up the fiction that she[213] was a prisoner. prisoners do not bring their captors back to the jail from which they have escaped. moreover she had conspired against this very fort, under whose protecting walls she had sought refuge for herself and jack. gloze the fact over as she might she could not wholly put away the thought that her acts were both treacherous and ungrateful. throughout july she had seen nothing of the runner and had heard no word to tell that tecumseh had received her message or had acted upon it. none of the miamis, who lived in the vicinity, had approached her with any word from the shawnee chieftain. early in august, however, metea, chief of the pottawatomies, who lived a little to the west, sought her out and gave her to understand that he knew who she was and to assure her that any message she wished to send to tecumseh would be transmitted.
“metea goes to yondotia (detroit),” he said. “even now his moccasins are on his feet and his tomahawk in his belt. has the white maiden any word to send.”
his words struck alagwa with a panic which she found herself unable to conceal. falteringly she declared that she had no word to send other than that she was faithful to the redmen’s cause and would help it all she could. she did not repeat her message about the scarcity of powder at the fort. when metea had gone she hid herself and wept.
[214]the next day, however, jack took a sudden turn for the better, and the girl’s joy in his improvement drove all misgivings from her mind.
once it had begun jack’s improvement grew apace. a week went by without sign of relapse. his eyes shone with the light of reason; his voice grew smooth; his figure straightened; almost he seemed himself again. the surgeon from the fort, however, still counselled caution.
with returning strength the lad began to fret about the failure of his mission to the northwest and to declare that he must be off to detroit in search of his cousin. in vain alagwa urged upon him that he must be fully restored to health before he attempted to exert himself, and in vain the surgeon warned him that any sudden stress, either mental or physical, was likely to bring about a relapse. jack felt well and strong and chafed bitterly at his inaction.
one day, a little past the middle of august, he and alagwa (with cato hovering in the background) sought temporary refuge from the heat beneath the great tree before the door of the hotel—the tree whence alagwa had sounded the call of the whip-poor-will on that june night nearly two months before.
august had worked its merciless will on the land. the bare ground was baked and hard beaten and the turf was dry as powder. the brooks that had[215] wandered across the prairie to join the maumee were all waterless. the air was heavy; not a breath of wind was stirring. overhead the sky quivered, glittering like a great brazen bowl. inside the hotel the heat was unbearable, but beneath the tree some respite could be gained.
jack was talking of the one topic that engrossed his thoughts in those days.
“think of myself!” he echoed, to alagwa’s pleadings. “i’ve thought of myself too long! i’ve got to think of that poor girl now. what in god’s name has become of her while i have been chasing shadows. first i let williams make a fool of me and lead me out of my way. then i make a fool of myself by camping for the night in the most dangerous place in all the northwest—and get my silly head beaten in to pay for it. and now i’m lying here idle while she—good god! where is she and what is she doing?”
alagwa said nothing. she knew that by one word she could end jack’s anxiety, and again and again she had tried to utter it. but always it died unspoken upon her lips. if jack persisted in periling his life by starting out too soon, and if she could stop him only by confessing her secret, she would confess it. but she would not do so till the last possible moment.
jack jumped to his feet. “and where’s rogers?” he demanded. “what’s become of him? i told him[216] to report to me from time to time. by heavens, i won’t wait here much longer! i’m well now, and if that fool doctor doesn’t pretty soon say i can start, i’ll start without his permission. he didn’t do anything for me, anyhow. it was you who saved my life”—he turned on the girl—“it was you. you bully little pal, you.”
alagwa looked down. jack’s voice had a note of tenderness that she had not heard before.
“yes! it was you,” he went on. “you’re a hero, whether you know it or not. you won’t tell me much about what happened after brito struck me down, but cato’s told me a lot. and apart from that you’ve nursed me like a little brick. no woman could have been more tender. and i won’t forget it.”
alagwa’s heart was singing. she dared not raise her head, lest jack should see the love light shining in her eyes and guess her secret. persistently she looked down.
then suddenly she heard jack’s voice, in quite a new note. “by george!” he cried. “there comes rogers.”
over the dusty road from the fort the old man came trotting. when he saw the light of reason in jack’s eyes his own lighted. “dog my cats!” he cried. “but i’m plumb glad to see you, jack. i been a-lookin’ for you all up and down the maumee and i never got a smell of you till i met that skunk[217] williams just now and he told me you was plumb crazy. lord! lord! how people do like to lie. if they wouldn’t talk so much they wouldn’t lie so much and——”
jack interrupted. he was eager to divert the old man to the missing girl.
rogers was entirely willing to be diverted. he did not care what he talked about so long as he talked.
“i ain’t got any news of her,” he declared. “she’s plumb disappeared. she ain’t nowhere about wapakoneta; that’s certain. i reckon she’s gone north, and if you ask me i reckon she’s gone with that big cuss in the red coat. he’s the sort that takes the eyes of the girls. you were right in ’s’posing that he didn’t go north as soon as colonel johnson thought he did. he didn’t go till a day or two before i got to girty’s town, an’ maybe he didn’t go then. but he’s gone now.”
rogers stopped to take breath and jack nodded. in telling the tale of the attack at fort defiance alagwa had said nothing about brito or his part in the fight, and jack had followed her example. after all, the affair was a family one and he saw no need of taking the people at fort wayne into his confidence. even now he merely accepted rogers’s opinion and did not inform him that he knew very well indeed the time at which brito had left the headwaters of the auglaize.
[218]rogers, indeed, gave him little chance to say anything. vigorously he rattled on. “there’s a letter coming from piqua for you,” he said. “i reckon it’s from your home folks. i saw it there and i’d a-brung it, but i wasn’t certain that i was coming here when i left. i guess it’ll get here tonight on a wagon that’s coming. i guess it’s from your sweetheart.”
jack’s face had lighted up at the old man’s mention of a letter, but it clouded slightly at his last words. “not from a sweetheart, no,” he declared. “i have no sweetheart. i shall never marry!”
“sho! you don’t tell me!” rogers’s eyes twinkled incredulously. “well! you got time enough to change your mind. you ain’t like me. i got to hurry. i don’t want to deceive you none, so i’ll own up that i ain’t as young as i was once.” he glanced out of the corners of his eyes and saw fantine coming from the hotel toward the party. instantly he raised his voice and went on.
“if i could find a nice woman, somebody that’s big enough to balance a little shaver like me, i reckon i’d fall plumb hard in love with her,” he declared. “you don’t know no such a woman round about here, do you now, jack?”
jack did not answer, for fantine had come up. “bon jour, m. rogers,” she cried. “you have been away long, n’est ce pas? what do you talk about, eh?”
[219]rogers grinned at her. “oh! we was talking about gettin’ married,” he declared brazenly. “jack here was saying he was never goin’ to marry.”
fantine glanced swiftly at jack. then out of the corner of her eye she searched alagwa’s face. “oh! la! la!” she cried. “these men! truly they all of a muchness. when they are young they all run after a pretty face and if they lose it they think the world stops. later they know better. m. jack will seek a bride some day. and when you do, m. jack, see that you choose one who will stand at your side when you face the peril, one who will draw the sword and pistol to defend you. do not choose some fair lady who will faint at the sight of blood and leave you to your foes. that goes not on the frontier. do i not know it, me?”
jack stared. there was a note in the voice of the light-hearted french woman that he had never heard before. for a moment it bewildered him. then he laughed.
“oh! no! no!” he cried. “i want no such bride as that. you have described a friend, a comrade—yes, that’s it, a good comrade—like my little bob here.” he glanced at alagwa affectionately, but she had bowed her face, and he could not see it. “but i would not choose such a one for a bride,” he went on. “i would never marry such a comrade, brave and helpful though she might be.[220] if i ever marry, i shall marry some sweet gentle lady who never saw the frontier, who knows nothing of war, who has tread no rougher measures than those of the minuet. i want a bride whom i can shield from the world, not a mannish creature who can protect me. i want—good lord! what’s the matter?”
alagwa had sprung to her feet, gasping. for a moment she stood; then she turned and fled to the house. fantine glared at jack; her lips moved but no sound came from them. for once, the situation was beyond her. with a hopeless gesture she followed the girl. rogers stood staring.
jack caught at cato’s shoulder and scrambled to his feet, his face was white. “what—what—what”—he babbled. “good lord! what——”
half way to the hotel fantine turned. she had remembered jack’s condition. “nom d’un nom!” she cried. “sit you down, m. jack. it is nothing, nothing. it—is the heat. never have i seen its like. the boy is overwrought. i will calm him. sit you down! do you want to fall ill again?”
jack sat down, not because fantine’s words satisfied him, but because his strength was failing. he leaned against the tree, staring at the house into which alagwa had disappeared.
at last he looked up at rogers and cato. “i don’t understand,” he muttered. “i’ve hurt bob[221] some way. but how? i wouldn’t hurt him for the world. how did i do it? how did i do it?” heedless of the others’ bewildered answers he babbled on, wonderingly.
after a while he got up and went slowly to his room and lay down. an hour later, when alagwa remorsefully sought him, he was sleeping heavily. frightened lest this might mean a relapse, but not daring to awake him, the girl stole out of the room and joined the others at the table.
