CHAPTER IX. ON THE WILDERNESS TRAIL
And now we had our hands upon the latch, and God alone knew what wasbehind the gate. Toil, with a certainty, but our lives had known it.Death, perchance. But Death had been near to all of us, and his presencedid not frighten. As we climbed towards the Gap, I recalled with strangeaptness a quaint saying of my father’s that Kaintuckee was the Gardenof Eden, and that men were being justly punished with blood for theirpresumption.
As if to crown that judgment, the day was dark and lowering, withshowers of rain from time to time. And when we spoke,--Polly Ann andI,--it was in whispers. The trace was very narrow, with Daniel Boone’sblazes, two years old, upon the trees; but the way was not over steep.Cumberland Mountain was as silent and deserted as when the first man hadknown it.
Alas, for the vanity of human presage! We gained the top, and enteredunmolested. No Eden suddenly dazzled our eye, no splendor burst upon it.Nothing told us, as we halted in our weariness, that we had reached thePromised Land. The mists weighed heavily on the evergreens of the slopesand hid the ridges, and we passed that night in cold discomfort. It wasthe first of many without a fire.
The next day brought us to the Cumberland, tawny and swollen from therains, and here we had to stop to fell trees to make a raft on which toferry over our packs. We bound the logs together with grapevines, and aswe worked my imagination painted for me many a red face peering fromthe bushes on the farther shore. And when we got into the river and werecaught and spun by the hurrying stream, I hearkened for a shot fromthe farther bank. While Polly Ann and I were scrambling to get the raftlanded, Tom and Weldon swam over with the horses. And so we lay thesecond night dolefully in the rain. But not so much as a whimper escapedfrom Polly Ann. I have often told her since that the sorest trial shehad was the guard she kept on her tongue,--a hardship indeed for one ofIrish inheritance. Many a pull had she lightened for us by a flash ofhumor.
The next morning the sun relented, and the wine of his dawn was wineindeed to our flagging hopes. Going down to wash at the river’s brink,I heard a movement in the cane, and stood frozen and staring until agreat, bearded head, black as tar, was thrust out between the stalks andlooked at me with blinking red eyes. The next step revealed the humpof the beast, and the next his tasselled tail lashing his dirty brownquarters. I did not tarry longer, but ran to tell Tom. He made bold torisk a shot and light a fire, and thus we had buffalo meat for some daysafter.
We were still in the mountains. The trail led down the river for a bitthrough the worst of canebrakes, and every now and again we stoppedwhile Tom and Weldon scouted. Once the roan mare made a dash through thebrake, and, though Polly Ann burst through one way to head her off andI another, we reached the bank of Richland Creek in time to see her noseand the top of her pack above the brown water. There was nothing for itbut to swim after her, which I did, and caught her quietly feeding inthe cane on the other side. By great good fortune the other horse borethe powder.
“Drat you, Nancy,” said Polly Ann to the mare, as she handed me myclothes, “I’d sooner carry the pack myself than be bothered with you.”
“Hush,” said I, “the redskins will get us.”
Polly Ann regarded me scornfully as I stood bedraggled before her.
“Redskins!” she cried. “Nonsense! I reckon it’s all talk aboutredskins.”
But we had scarce caught up ere we saw Tom standing rigid with his handraised. Before him, on a mound bared of cane, were the charred remainsof a fire. The sight of them transformed Weldon. His eyes glared again,even as when we had first seen him, curses escaped under his breath, andhe would have darted into the cane had not Tom seized him sternly by theshoulder. As for me, my heart hammered against my ribs, and I grewsick with listening. It was at that instant that my admiration forTom McChesney burst bounds, and that I got some real inkling of whatwoodcraft might be. Stepping silently between the tree trunks, his eyesbent on the leafy loam, he found a footprint here and another there, andsuddenly he went into the cane with a sign to us to remain. It seemed anage before he returned. Then he began to rake the ashes, and, suddenlybending down, seized something in them,--the broken bowl of an Indianpipe.
“Shawnees!” he said; “I reckoned so.” It was at length the beseeching inPolly Ann’s eyes that he answered.
“A war party--tracks three days old. They took poplar.”
To take poplar was our backwoods expression for embarking in a canoe,the dugouts being fashioned from the great poplar trees.
I did not reflect then, as I have since and often, how great was theknowledge and resource Tom practised that day. Our feeling for him(Polly Ann’s and mine) fell little short of worship. In company illat ease, in the forest he became silent and masterful--an unerringwoodsman, capable of meeting the Indian on his own footing. And,strangest thought of all, he and many I could name who went intoKentucky, had escaped, by a kind of strange fate, being born in thenorth of Ireland. This was so of Andrew Jackson himself.
The rest of the day he led us in silence down the trace, his eye alertto penetrate every corner of the forest, his hand near the triggerof his long Deckard. I followed in boylike imitation, searchingevery thicket for alien form and color, and yearning for stature andresponsibility. As for poor Weldon, he would stride for hours at a timewith eyes fixed ahead, a wild figure,--ragged and fringed. And we knewthat the soul within him was torn with thoughts of his dead wife andof his child in captivity. Again, when the trance left him, he was anaddition to our little party not to be despised.
At dark Polly Ann and I carried the packs across a creek on a fallentree, she taking one end and I the other. We camped there, where theloam was trampled and torn by countless herds of bison, and had onlyparched corn and the remains of a buffalo steak for supper, as the mealwas mouldy from its wetting, and running low. When Weldon had gone alittle distance up the creek to scout, Tom relented from the sternnesswhich his vigilance imposed and came and sat down on a log beside PollyAnn and me.
“‘Tis a hard journey, little girl,” he said, patting her; “I reckon Idone wrong to fetch you.”
I can see him now, as the twilight settled down over the wilderness,his honest face red and freckled, but aglow with the tenderness it hadhidden during the day, one big hand enfolding hers, and the other on myshoulder.
“Hark, Davy!” said Polly Ann, “he’s fair tired of us already. Davy, takeme back.”
“Hush, Polly Ann,” he answered, delighted at her raillery. “But I’ve aword to say to you. If we come on to the redskins, you and Davy make forthe cane as hard as you kin kilter. Keep out of sight.”
“As hard as we kin kilter!” exclaimed Polly Ann, indignantly. “I reckonnot, Tom McChesney. Davy taught me to shoot long ago, afore you made upyour mind to come back from Kaintuckee.”
Tom chuckled. “So Davy taught you to shoot,” he said, and checkedhimself. “He ain’t such a bad one with a pistol,”--and he pattedme,--“but I allow ye’d better hunt kiver just the same. And if theyketch ye, Polly Ann, just you go along and pretend to be happy, andtear off a snatch of your dress now and then, if you get a chance. Itwouldn’t take me but a little time to run into Harrodstown or Boone’sStation from here, and fetch a party to follow ye.”
Two days went by,--two days of strain in sunlight, and of watching andfitful sleep in darkness. But the Wilderness Trail was deserted. Hereand there a lean-to--silent remnant of the year gone by--spoke of thelittle bands of emigrants which had once made their way so cheerfully tothe new country. Again it was a child’s doll, the rags of it beatenby the weather to a rusty hue. Every hour that we progressed seemed tojustify the sagacity and boldness of Tom’s plan, nor did it appear tohave entered a painted skull that a white man would have the hardihoodto try the trail this year. There were neither signs nor sounds saveNature’s own, the hoot of the wood-owl, the distant bark of a mountainwolf, the whir of a partridge as she left her brood. At length we couldstand no more the repression that silence and watching put upon us, andwhen a rotten ba
nk gave way and flung Polly Ann and the sorrel mare intoa creek, even Weldon smiled as we pulled her, bedraggled and laughing,from the muddy water. This was after we had ferried the RockcastleRiver.
Our trace rose and fell over height and valley, until we knew that wewere come to a wonderland at last. We stood one evening on a spur as thesetting sun flooded the natural park below us with a crystal light and,striking a tall sycamore, turned its green to gold. We were now on thehills whence the water ran down to nourish the fat land, and I couldscarce believe that the garden spot on which our eyes feasted could bethe scene of the blood and suffering of which we had heard. Here at lastwas the fairyland of my childhood, the country beyond the Blue Wall.
We went down the river that led into it, with awe, as though we weretrespassers against God Himself,--as though He had made it too beautifuland too fruitful for the toilers of this earth. And you who read thisan hundred years hence may not believe the marvels of it to the pioneer,and in particular to one born and bred in the scanty, hard soil of themountains. Nature had made it for her park,--ay, and scented it with herown perfumes. Giant trees, which had watched generations come and go,some of which mayhap had been saplings when the Norman came to England,grew in groves,--the gnarled and twisted oak, and that godsend to thesettlers, the sugar-maple; the coffee tree with its drooping buds; themulberry, the cherry, and the plum; the sassafras and the pawpaw;the poplar and the sycamore, slender maidens of the forest, garbedin daintier colors,--ay, and that resplendent brunette with the whiteflowers, the magnolia; and all underneath, in the green shade, enamelledbanks which the birds themselves sought to rival.
At length, one afternoon, we came to the grove of wild apple trees solovingly spoken of by emigrants as the Crab Orchard, and where formerlythey had delighted to linger. The plain near by was flecked with thebrown backs of feeding buffalo, but we dared not stop, and pressed on tofind a camp in the forest. As we walked in the filtered sunlight we hada great fright, Polly Ann and I. Shrill, discordant cries suddenly burstfrom the branches above us, and a flock of strange, green birds fleckedwith red flew over our heads. Even Tom, intent upon the trail, turnedand laughed at Polly Ann as she stood clutching me.
“Shucks,” said he, “they’re only paroquets.”
We made our camp in a little dell where there was short green grass bythe brookside and steep banks overgrown with brambles on either hand.Tom knew the place, and declared that we were within thirty miles of thestation. A giant oak had blown down across the water, and, cutting outa few branches of this, we spread our blankets under it on the turf.Tethering our faithful beasts, and cutting a quantity of pea-vine fortheir night’s food, we lay down to sleep, Tom taking the first watch.
I had the second, for Tom trusted me now, and glorying in that trust Iwas alert and vigilant. A shy moon peeped at me between the trees, andwas fantastically reflected in the water. The creek rippled over thelimestone, and an elk screamed in the forest far beyond. When at lengthI had called Weldon to take the third watch, I lay down with a sense ofpeace, soothed by the sweet odors of the night.
I awoke suddenly. I had been dreaming of Nick Temple and Temple Bow, andmy father coming back to me there with a great gash in his shoulder likeWeldon’s. I lay for a moment dazed by the transition, staring throughthe gray light. Then I sat up, the soft stamping and snorting ofthe horses in my ears. The sorrel mare had her nose high, her tailtwitching, but there was no other sound in the leafy wilderness. Witha bound of returning sense I looked for Weldon. He had fallen asleep onthe bank above, his body dropped across the trunk of the oak. I leapedon the trunk and made my way along it, stepping over him, until Ireached and hid myself in the great roots of the tree on the bank above.The cold shiver of the dawn was in my body as I waited and listened.Should I wake Tom? The vast forest was silent, and yet in its shadowydepths my imagination drew moving forms. I hesitated.
The light grew: the boles of the trees came out, one by one, through thepurple. The tangled mass down the creek took on a shade of green, anda faint breath came from the southward. The sorrel mare sniffed it, andstamped. Then silence again,--a long silence. Could it be that the canemoved in the thicket? Or had my eyes deceived me? I stared so hard thatit seemed to rustle all over. Perhaps some deer were feeding there,for it was no unusual thing, when we rose in the morning, to hear thewhistle of a startled doe near our camping ground. I was thoroughlyfrightened now,--and yet I had the speculative Scotch mind. The thicketwas some one hundred and fifty yards above, and on the flooded landsat a bend. If there were Indians in it, they could not see the sleepingforms of our party under me because of a bend in the stream. They mighthave seen me, though I had kept very still in the twisted roots of theoak, and now I was cramped. If Indians were there, they could determineour position well enough by the occasional stamping and snorting of thehorses. And this made my fear more probable, for I had heard that horsesand cattle often warned pioneers of the presence of redskins.
Another thing: if they were a small party, they would probably seek tosurprise us by coming out of the cane into the creek bed above thebend, and stalk down the creek. If a large band, they would surround andoverpower us. I drew the conclusion that it must be a small party--if aparty at all. And I would have given a shot in the arm to be able to seeover the banks of the creek. Finally I decided to awake Tom.
It was no easy matter to get down to where he was without being seenby eyes in the cane. I clung to the under branches of the oak, finallyreached the shelving bank, and slid down slowly. I touched him on theshoulder. He awoke with a start, and by instinct seized the rifle lyingbeside him.
“What is it, Davy?” he whispered.
I told what had happened and my surmise. He glanced then at the restlesshorses and nodded, pointing up at the sleeping figure of Weldon, in fullsight on the log. The Indians must have seen him.
Tom picked up the spare rifle.
“Davy,” said he, “you stay here beside Polly Ann, behind the oak. Youkin shoot with a rest; but don’t shoot,” said he, earnestly, “for God’ssake don’t shoot unless you’re sure to kill.”
I nodded. For a moment he looked at the face of Polly Ann, sleepingpeacefully, and the fierce light faded from his eyes. He brushed her onthe cheek and she awoke and smiled at him, trustfully, lovingly. He puthis finger to his lips.
“Stay with Davy,” he said. Turning to me, he added: “When you wakeWeldon, wake him easy. So.” He put his hand in mine, and graduallytightened it. “Wake him that way, and he won’t jump.”
Polly Ann asked no questions. She looked at Tom, and her soul was inher face. She seized the pistol from the blanket. Then we watched himcreeping down the creek on his belly, close to the bank. Next we movedbehind the fallen tree, and I put my hand in Weldon’s. He woke with asigh, started, but we drew him down behind the log. Presently he climbedcautiously up the bank and took station in the muddy roots of the tree.Then we waited, watching Tom with a prayer in our hearts. Those who havenot felt it know not the fearfulness of waiting for an Indian attack.
At last Tom reached the bend in the bank, beside some red-bud bushes,and there he stayed. A level shaft of light shot through the forest. Thebirds, twittering, awoke. A great hawk soared high in the blue over ourheads. An hour passed. I had sighted the rifle among the yellow leavesof the fallen oak an hundred times. But Polly Ann looked not once tothe right or left. Her eyes and her prayers followed the form of herhusband.
Then, like the cracking of a great drover’s whip, a shot rang out in thestillness, and my hands tightened over the rifle-stock. A piece of barkstruck me in the face, and a dead leaf fluttered to the ground. Almostinstantly there was another shot, and a blue wisp of smoke rose from thered-bud bushes, where Tom was. The horses whinnied, there was a rustlein the cane, and silence. Weldon bent over.
“My God!” he whispered hoarsely, “he hit one. Tom hit one.”
I felt Polly Ann’s hand on my face.
“Davy dear,” she said, “are ye hurt?”
“No,�
�� said I, dazed, and wondering why Weldon had not been shot long agoas he slumbered. I was burning to climb the bank and ask him whether hehad seen the Indian fall.
Again there was silence,--a silence even more awful than before. Thesun crept higher, the magic of his rays turning the creek from black tocrystal, and the birds began to sing again. And still there was no signof the treacherous enemy that lurked about us. Could Tom get back? Iglanced at Polly Ann. The same question was written in her yearningeyes, staring at the spot where the gray of his hunting shirt showedthrough the bushes at the bend. Suddenly her hand tightened on mine. Thehunting shirt was gone!
After that, in the intervals when my terror left me, I tried tospeculate upon the plan of the savages. Their own numbers could notbe great, and yet they must have known from our trace how few wewere. Scanning the ground, I noted that the forest was fairly clean ofundergrowth on both sides of us. Below, the stream ran straight, butthere were growths of cane and briers. Looking up, I saw Weldon facedabout. It was the obvious move.
But where had Tom gone?
Next my eye was caught by a little run fringed with bushes that curvedaround the cane near the bend. I traced its course, unconsciously, bitby bit, until it reached the edge of a bank not fifty feet away.
All at once my breath left me. Through the tangle of bramble stems atthe mouth of the run, above naked brown shoulders there glared at me,hideously streaked with red, a face. Had my fancy lied? I stared againuntil my eyes were blurred, now tortured by doubt, now so completelyconvinced that my fingers almost released the trigger,--for I had thrownthe sights into line over the tree. I know not to this day whether Ishot from determination or nervousness. My shoulder bruised by the kick,the smoke like a veil before my face, it was some moments ere I knewthat the air was full of whistling bullets; and then the gun was tornfrom my hands, and I saw Polly Ann ramming in a new charge.
“The pistol, Davy,” she cried.
One torture was over, another on. Crack after crack sounded from theforest--from here and there and everywhere, it seemed--and with a songthat like a hurtling insect ran the scale of notes, the bullets buriedthemselves in the trunk of our oak with a chug. Once in a while I heardWeldon’s answering shot, but I remembered my promise to Tom not to wastepowder unless I were sure. The agony was the breathing space we hadwhile they crept nearer. Then we thought of Tom, and I dared not glanceat Polly Ann for fear that the sight of her face would unnerve me.
Then a longing to kill seized me, a longing so strange and fierce thatI could scarce be still. I know now that it comes in battle to all men,and with intensity to the hunted, and it explained to me more clearlywhat followed. I fairly prayed for the sight of a painted form, and timeafter time my fancy tricked me into the notion that I had one. And evenas I searched the brambles at the top of the run a puff of smoke roseout of them, a bullet burying itself in the roots near Weldon, who firedin return. I say that I have some notion of what possessed the man, forhe was crazed with passion at fighting the race which had so cruellywronged him. Horror-struck, I saw him swing down from the bank, splashthrough the water with raised tomahawk, and gain the top of the run.In less time than it takes me to write these words he had dragged ahideous, naked warrior out of the brambles, and with an avalanche ofcrumbling earth they slid into the waters of the creek. Polly Ann and Istared transfixed at the fearful fight that followed, nor can I give anyadequate description of it. Weldon had struck through the brambles, butthe savage had taken the blow on his gun-barrel and broken the handle ofthe tomahawk, and it was man to man as they rolled in the shallow water,locked in a death embrace. Neither might reach for his knife, neitherwas able to hold the other down, Weldon’s curses surcharged with hatred,the Indian straining silently save for a gasp or a guttural note,the white a bearded madman, the savage a devil with a glistening,paint-streaked body, his features now agonized as his muscles strainedand cracked, now lighted with a diabolical joy. But the pent-up rage ofmonths gave the white man strength.
Polly Ann and I were powerless for fear of shooting Weldon, and gazedabsorbed at the fiendish scene with eyes not to be withdrawn. Thetree-trunk shook. A long, bronze arm reached out from above, and apainted face glowered at us from the very roots where Weldon had lain.That moment I took to be my last, and in it I seemed to taste alleternity. I heard but faintly a noise beyond. It was the shock of theheavy Indian falling on Polly Ann and me as we cowered under the trunk,and even then there was an instant that we stood gazing at him as at aworm writhing in the clay. It was she who fired the pistol and madethe great hole in his head, and so he twitched and died. After that aconfusion of shots, war-whoops, a vision of two naked forms flying fromtree to tree towards the cane, and then--God be praised--Tom’s voiceshouting:--
“Polly Ann! Polly Ann!”
Before she had reached the top of the bank Tom had her in his arms,and a dozen tall gray figures leaped the six feet into the stream andstopped. My own eyes turned with theirs to see the body of poor Weldonlying face downward in the water. But beyond it a tragedy awaited me.Defiant, immovable, save for the heaving of his naked chest, the savagewho had killed him stood erect with folded arms facing us. The smokecleared away from a gleaming rifle-barrel, and the brave staggered andfell and died as silent as he stood, his feathers making ripples in thestream. It was cold-blooded, if you like, but war in those days was tothe death, and knew no mercy. The tall backwoodsman who had shot himwaded across the stream, and in the twinkling of an eye seized thescalp-lock and ran it round with his knife, holding up the bleedingtrophy with a shout. Staggering to my feet, I stretched myself, but Ihad been cramped so long that I tottered and would have fallen had notTom’s hand steadied me.
“Davy!” he cried. “Thank God, little Davy! the varmints didn’t get ye.”
“And you, Tom?” I answered, looking up at him, bewildered withhappiness.
“They was nearer than I suspicioned when I went off,” he said, andlooked at me curiously. “Drat the little deevil,” he saidaffectionately, and his voice trembled, “he took care of Polly Ann, I’llwarrant.”
He carried me to the top of the bank, where we were surrounded by thewhole band of backwoodsmen.
“That he did!” cried Polly Ann, “and fetched a redskin yonder as cleanas you could have done it, Tom.”
“The little deevil!” exclaimed Tom again.
I looked up, burning with this praise from Tom (for I had never thoughtof praise nor of anything save his happiness and Polly Ann’s). I lookedup, and my eyes were caught and held with a strange fascination byfearless blue ones that gazed down into them. I give you but a poordescription of the owner of these blue eyes, for personal magnetismsprings not from one feature or another. He was a young man,--perhapsfive and twenty as I now know age,--woodsman-clad, square-built,sun-reddened. His hair might have been orange in one light andsand-colored in another. With a boy’s sense of such things I knew thatthe other woodsmen were waiting for him to speak, for they glanced athim expectantly.
“You had a near call, McChesney,” said he, at length; “fortunate for youwe were after this band,--shot some of it to pieces yesterday morning.” He paused, looking at Tom with that quality of tribute which comesnaturally to a leader of men. “By God,” he said, “I didn’t think you’dtry it.”
“My word is good, Colonel Clark,” answered Tom, simply.
Young Colonel Clark glanced at the lithe figure of Polly Ann. Heseemed a man of few words, for he did not add to his praise of Tom’sachievement by complimenting her as Captain Sevier had done. In fact,he said nothing more, but leaped down the bank and strode into the waterwhere the body of Weldon lay, and dragged it out himself. We gatheredaround it silently, and two great tears rolled down Polly Ann’s cheeksas she parted the hair with tenderness and loosened the clenched hands.Nor did any of the tall woodsmen speak. Poor Weldon! The tragedy of hislife and death was the tragedy of Kentucky herself. They buried him bythe waterside, where he had fallen.
But there was little time for mourning
on the border. The burialfinished, the Kentuckians splashed across the creek, and one of them,stooping with a shout at the mouth of the run, lifted out of thebrambles a painted body with drooping head and feathers trailing.
“Ay, Mac,” he cried, “here’s a sculp for ye.”
“It’s Davy’s,” exclaimed Polly Ann from the top of the bank; “Davy shotthat one.”
“Hooray for Davy,” cried a huge, strapping backwoodsman who stood besideher, and the others laughingly took up the shout. “Hooray for Davy.Bring him over, Cowan.” The giant threw me on his shoulder as thoughI had been a fox, leaped down, and took the stream in two strides. Ilittle thought how often he was to carry me in days to come, but I felta great awe at the strength of him, as I stared into his rough featuresand his veined and weathered skin. He stood me down beside the Indian’sbody, smiled as he whipped my hunting knife from my belt, and said,“Now, Davy, take the sculp.”
Nothing loath, I seized the Indian by the long scalp-lock, while my bigfriend guided my hand, and amid laughter and cheers I cut off my firsttrophy of war. Nor did I have any other feeling than fierce hatred ofthe race which had killed my father.
Those who have known armies in their discipline will find it difficultto understand the leadership of the border. Such leadership was grantedonly to those whose force and individuality compelled men to obey them.I had my first glimpse of it that day. This Colonel Clark to whom Tomdelivered Mr. Robertson’s letter was perchance the youngest man in thecompany that had rescued us, saving only a slim lad of seventeen whomI noticed and envied, and whose name was James Ray. Colonel Clark, soI was told by my friend Cowan, held that title in Kentucky by reason ofhis prowess.
Clark had been standing quietly on the bank while I had scalped my firstredskin. Then he called Tom McChesney to him and questioned him closelyabout our journey, the signs we had seen, and, finally, the news in theWatauga settlements. While this was going on the others gathered roundthem.
“What now?” asked Cowan, when he had finished.
“Back to Harrodstown,” answered the Colonel, shortly.
There was a brief silence, followed by a hoarse murmur from a thick-setman at the edge of the crowd, who shouldered his way to the centre ofit.
“We set out to hunt a fight, and my pluck is to clean up. We ain’tfinished ‘em yet.”
The man had a deep, coarse voice that was a piece with his roughness.
“I reckon this band ain’t a-goin’ to harry the station any more,McGary,” cried Cowan.
“By Job, what did we come out for? Who’ll take the trail with me?”
There were some who answered him, and straightway they began to quarrelamong themselves, filling the woods with a babel of voices. While Istood listening to these disputes with a boy’s awe of a man’s quarrel,what was my astonishment to feel a hand on my shoulder. It was ColonelClark’s, and he was not paying the least attention to the dispute.
“Davy,” said he, “you look as if you could make a fire.”
“Yes, sir,” I answered, gasping.
“Well,” said he, “make one.”
I lighted a piece of punk with the flint, and, wrapping it up in somedry brush, soon had a blaze started. Looking up, I caught his eye on meagain.
“Mrs. McChesney,” said Colonel Clark to Polly Ann, “you look as if youcould make johnny-cake. Have you any meal?”
“That I have,” cried Polly Ann, “though it’s fair mouldy. Davy, run andfetch it.”
I ran to the pack on the sorrel mare. When I returned Mr. Clark said:--
“That seems a handy boy, Mrs. McChesney.”
“Handy!” cried Polly Ann, “I reckon he’s more than handy. Didn’t he savemy life twice on our way out here?”
“And how was that?” said the Colonel.
“Run and fetch some water, Davy,” said Polly Ann, and straightwaylaunched forth into a vivid description of my exploits, as she mixedthe meal. Nay, she went so far as to tell how she came by me. The youngColonel listened gravely, though with a gleam now and then in his blueeyes. Leaning on his long rifle, he paid no manner of attention tothe angry voices near by,--which conduct to me was little short of themarvellous.
“Now, Davy,” said he, at length, “the rest of your history.”
“There is little of it, sir,” I answered. “I was born in the Yadkincountry, lived alone with my father, who was a Scotchman. He hated a mannamed Cameron, took me to Charlestown, and left me with some kin of hiswho had a place called Temple Bow, and went off to fight Cameron and theCherokees.” There I gulped. “He was killed at Cherokee Ford, and--and Iran away from Temple Bow, and found Polly Ann.”
This time I caught something of surprise on the Colonel’s face.
“By thunder, Davy,” said he, “but you have a clean gift for briefnarrative. Where did you learn it?”
“My father was a gentleman once, and taught me to speak and read,” Ianswered, as I brought a flat piece of limestone for Polly Ann’s baking.
“And what would you like best to be when you grow up, Davy?” he asked.
“Six feet,” said I, so promptly that he laughed.
“Faith,” said Polly Ann, looking at me comically, “he may be manythings, but I’ll warrant he’ll never be that.”
I have often thought since that young Mr. Clark showed much of thewisdom of the famous king of Israel on that day. Polly Ann cooked apiece of a deer which one of the woodsmen had with him, and the quarreldied of itself when we sat down to this and the johnny-cake. By noon wehad taken up the trace for Harrodstown, marching with scouts ahead andbehind. Mr. Clark walked mostly alone, seemingly wrapped in thought.At times he had short talks with different men, oftenest--I noted withpride--with Tom McChesney. And more than once when he halted he calledme to him, my answers to his questions seeming to amuse him. Indeed, Ibecame a kind of pet with the backwoodsmen, Cowan often flinging me tohis shoulder as he swung along. The pack was taken from the sorrel mareand divided among the party, and Polly Ann made to ride that we mightmove the faster.
It must have been the next afternoon, about four, that the roughstockade of Harrodstown greeted our eyes as we stole cautiously to theedge of the forest. And the sight of no roofs and spires could havebeen more welcome than that of these logs and cabins, broiling in themidsummer sun. At a little distance from the fort, a silent testimonyof siege, the stumpy, cleared fields were overgrown with weeds, talland rank, the corn choked. Nearer the stockade, where the keepers of thefort might venture out at times, a more orderly growth met the eye. Itwas young James Ray whom Colonel Clark singled to creep with our messageto the gates. At six, when the smoke was rising from the stone chimneysbehind the palisades, Ray came back to say that all was well. Then wewent forward quickly, hands waved a welcome above the logs, the greatwooden gates swung open, and at last we had reached the haven for whichwe had suffered so much. Mangy dogs barked at our feet, men and womenran forward joyfully to seize our hands and greet us.
And so we came to Kaintuckee.
The Crossing Page 4
