Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  I said I would with pleasure, if free to do so, and we walked on through the glorious sunset light, past camp after camp, very smoky with green fires. And I saw three more block-houses being builded, and armed with cannon.

  The music of Colonel Proctor’s Artillery Regiment was playing “Yankee Doodle” near headquarters as we sighted the General’s marquee, and the martial sounds enthralled me.

  One of the General’s aides-de-camp, a certain Captain Dayton, met us most politely, detained my Indians with tobacco and pipes, and conducted me straight to the General, who, he assured me, happened to be alone. Having seen our General on various occasions, I recognized him at once, although he was in his banyan, having, I judged, been bathing himself in a small, wooden bowl full of warm water, which stood on the puncheon flooring near, very sloppy.

  He received me most civilly and listened to my report with interest and politeness, whilst I gave him what news I had of Clinton and how it was with us at the Lake, and all that had happened to my scout of six — the death of the St. Regis and the two Iroquois, the treachery of the Erie and his escape, the murder of the Stockbridge — and how we witnessed the defile of Indian Butler’s motley but sinister array headed northwest on the Great Warrior Trail. Also, I gave him as true and just an account as I could give of the number of soldiers, renegades, Indians, and batt-horses in that fantastic and infamous command.

  “Where are your Indians?” he asked bluntly.

  I informed him, and he sent his aide to fetch them.

  General Sullivan understood Indians; and I am not at all sure that my services as interpreter were necessary; but as he said nothing to the contrary, I played my part, presenting to him the stately Sagamore, then the Grey-Feather, then the young warrior, Tahoontowhee, who fairly quivered with pride as I mentioned the scalps he had taken on his first war-path.

  With each of my Indians the General shook hands, and on each was pleased to bestow a word of praise and a promise of reward. For a while, through medium of me, he conversed with them, and particularly with the Sagamore, concerning the trail to Catharines-town; and, seeming convinced and satisfied, dismissed us very graciously, telling an aide to place two bush-huts at our disposal, and otherwise see that we lacked nothing that could be obtained for our comfort and good cheer.

  As I saluted, he said in a low voice that he preferred I should remain with the Mohican and Oneidas until the evening meal was over. Which I took to indicate that any rum served to my Indians must be measured out by me.

  So that night I supped with my red comrades in front of our bush-huts, instead of joining Colonel Dearborn’s mess. And I was glad I did so; and I allowed them only a gill of rum. After penning my report by the light of a very vile torch, and filing it at headquarters, I was so tired that I could scarce muster courage to write in my diary. But I did, setting down the day’s events without shirking, though I yawned like a volcano at every pen-stroke.

  Captains Franklin and Buell, in high spirits, came just as I finished, desiring to learn what I had to say of the road to Otsego; but when I informed them they went away looking far more serious than when they arrived.

  A few minutes later I saw the scout march out, bound for Chemung — a small detachment of the 2nd Jersey, one Stockbridge Indian, and a Coureur-de-Bois in very elegant deerskin shirt and gorgeous leggins. Captain Cummins led them.

  As they left, Captain Dayton arrived to take me again to the General. There was a throng of officers in the marquee when I was announced, but evidently by some preconcerted understanding all retired as soon as I entered.

  When we were alone, the General very kindly pointed to a camp stool at his elbow and requested me to be seated; and for a little while he said nothing, but remained leaning with both elbows on his camp table, seeming to study space as though it were peopled with unpleasant pictures.

  However, presently his symmetrical features recovered pleasantly from abstraction, and he said:

  “Mr. Loskiel, it is said of you that, except for the Oneida Sachem, Spenser, you are perhaps the most accomplished interpreter Guy Johnson employed.”

  “No,” I said, “there are many better interpreters, my General, but few, perhaps, who understand the most intimate and social conditions of the Long House better than do I.”

  “You are modest in your great knowledge, Mr. Loskiel.”

  “No, General, only, knowing as much as I do, I also perceive how much more there is that I do not know. Which makes me wary of committing myself too confidently, and has taught me that to vaunt one’s knowledge is a dangerous folly.”

  General Sullivan laughed that frank, manly, and very winning laugh of his. Then his features gradually became sombre again.

  “Colonel Broadhead, at Fortress Pitt, sent you a supposed Wyandotte who might have been your undoing,” he said abruptly. “He is a cautious officer, too, yet see how he was deceived! Are you also likely to be deceived in any of your Indians?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Oh! You are confident, then, in this matter!”

  “As far as concerns the Indians now under my command.”

  “You vouch for them?”

  “With my honour, General.”

  “Very well, sir.... And your Mohican Loup — he can perform what he has promised? Guide us straight to Catharines-town, I mean?”

  “He has said it.”

  “Aye — but what is your opinion of that promise?”

  “A Siwanois Sagamore never lies.”

  “You trust him?”

  “Perfectly. We are blood-brothers, he and I.”

  “Oho!” said the General, nodding. “That was cunningly done, sir.”

  “No, sir. The idea was his own.”

  General Sullivan laughed again, playing with the polished gorget at his throat.

  “Do you never take any credit for your accomplishments, Mr. Loskiel?” he inquired.

  “How can I claim credit for that which was not of my own and proper plotting, sir?”

  “Oh, it can be done,” said the General, laughing more heartily. “Ask some of our brigadiers and colonels, Mr. Loskiel, who desire advancement every time that heaven interposes to save them from their own stupidities! Well, well, let it go, sir! It is on a different matter that I have summoned you here — a very different business, Mr. Loskiel — one which I do not thoroughly comprehend.

  “All I know is this: that we Continentals are warring with Britain and her allies of the Long House, that our few Oneida and Stockbridge Indians are fighting with us. But it seems that between the Indians of King George and those who espouse our cause there is a deeper and bloodier and more mysterious feud.”

  “Yes, General.”

  “What is it?” he asked bluntly.

  “A religious feud — terrible, implacable. But this is only between the degraded and perverted priesthood of the Senecas and our Oneidas and Mohicans, whose Sachems and Sagamores have been outraged and affronted by the blasphemous mockeries of Amochol.”

  “I have heard something of this.”

  “No doubt, sir. And it is true. The Senecas are different. They belong not in the Long House. They are an alien people at heart, and seem more nearly akin to the Western Indians, save that they share with the Confederacy its common Huron-Iroquois speech. For although their ensigns sit at the most sacred rite of the Confederacy, perhaps not daring in Federal Council to reveal what they truly are, I am convinced, sir, that of the Seneca Sachems the majority are at heart pagans. I do not mean non-Christians, of course; they are that anyway; but I mean they are degenerated from the more noble faith of the Iroquois, who, after all, acknowledge one God as we do, and have become the brutally superstitious slaves of their vile and perverted priests.

  “It is the spawn of Frontenac that has done this. What the Wyoming Witch did at Wyoming her demons will do hereafter. Witchcraft, the frenzied worship of goblins, ghouls, and devils, the sacrifice to Biskoonah, all these have little by little taken the place of the grotesque but harmless ri
tes practiced at the Onon-hou-aroria. Amochol has made it sinister and terrible beyond words; and it is making of the Senecas a swarm of fiends from hell itself.

  “This, sir, is the truth. The orthodox priesthood of the Long House shudders and looks askance, but dares not interfere. As for Sir John, and Butler, and McDonald, what do they care as long as their Senecas are inflamed to fury, and fight the more ruthlessly? No, sir, only the priesthood of our own allies has dared to accept the challenge from Amochol and his People of the Cat. Between these it is now a war of utter extermination. And must be so until not one Erie survives, and until Amochol lies dead upon his proper altar!”

  The General said in a low voice:

  “I had not supposed that this business were so vital.”

  “Yes, sir, it is vital to the existence of the Iroquois as a federated people who shall remain harmless after we have subdued them, that Amochol and his acolytes die in the very ashes they have so horribly profaned. Amherst hung two of them. The nation lay stunned until he left this country. Had he remained and executed a dozen more Sachems with the rope, the world, I think, had never heard of Amochol.”

  The General looked hard at me:

  “Can you reach Amochol, Mr. Loskiel?”

  “That is what I would say to you, sir. I think I can reach him at Catharines-town with my Indians and a detachment from my own regiment, and crush him before he is alarmed by the advance of this army. I have spoken with my Indians, and they believe this can be accomplished, because we have learned that on the last day of this month the secret and debased rites of the Onon-hou-aroria will be practiced at Catharines-town; and every Sorcerer will be there.”

  “Do you propose to go out in advance on this business?”

  “It must be done that way, sir, if we can hope to destroy this Sorcerer. The Seneca scouts most certainly watch this encampment from every hilltop. And the day this army stirs on its march to Catharines-town and Kendaia, the news will run into the North like lightning. You, sir, can hope to encounter no armed resistance as you march northward burning town after town, save only if Butler makes a stand or attempts an ambuscade in force.

  “Otherwise, no Seneca will await your coming — I mean there will be no considerable force of Senecas to oppose you in their towns, only the usual scalping parties hanging just outside the smoke veil. All will retire before you. And how is Amochol to be destroyed at Catharines-town unless he be struck at secretly before your advance is near enough to frighten him?”

  “What people would you take with you?”

  “My Indians, Lieutenant Boyd, and thirty riflemen.”

  “Is that not too few?”

  “In all swift and secret marches, sir, a few do better service than many — as you have taught your own people many a time.”

  “That is quite true. But they never seem to learn the lesson. I am somewhat astonished that you have seemed to learn it, and lay it practically to heart.” He smiled, drummed on the table with a Faber pencil, then, knitting his brows, drew to him a sheet of paper and wrote on it slowly, pausing from time to time in troubled reflection. Once he glanced up at me coldly, and:

  “Who is to lead this expedition?” he asked bluntly.

  “Why, Lieutenant Boyd, sir,” said I, wondering.

  “Oh! You have no ambitions then?”

  “Mr. Boyd ranks me,” I said, smiling. “Who else should lead?”

  “I see. Well, sir, you understand that a new commission lies all neatly folded for you in Catharines-town. Even such a modest man as you, Mr. Loskiel, could scarce doubt that,” he added laughingly.

  “No, sir, I do not doubt it.”

  “That is well, then. Orders will be sent you in due time — not until General Clinton’s army arrives, however.”

  He looked at me pleasantly: “I have robbed you of the sleep most justly due you. But I think perhaps you may not regret this conference. Good-night, sir.”

  I saluted and went out. An orderly with a torch lighted me to my quarters. Inside the bush-hut assigned to the Mohican and myself, the red torch-light flickered over the recumbent Sagamore, swathed in his blanket, motionless. But even as I looked one of his eyes opened a little way, glimmering like a jewel in the ruddy darkness, then closed again.

  So I stretched myself out in my blanket beside the Sagamore, and, thinking of Lois, fell presently into a sweet and dreamless sleep.

  At six o’clock the morning gun awoke me with its startling and annoying thunder. The Sagamore sat up in his blanket, wearing that half-irritated, half-shamed expression always to be seen on an Indian’s countenance when cannon are fired. An Indian has no stomach for artillery, and hates sight and sound of the metal monsters.

  For a few moments I bantered him sleepily, then dropped back into my blanket. What cared I for their insolent morning gun! I snapped my fingers at it.

  And so I lolled on my back, half asleep, yet not wholly, and soon tired of this, and, wrapping me in my blanket and drawing on ankle moccasins, went down to the Chemung where its crystal current clattered over the stones, and found me a clear, deep pool to flounder in.

  Before I plunged, noticing several fine trout lying there, I played a scurvy trick on them, tickling three big ones; and had a fourth out of water, but was careless, and he slipped back.

  Some Continental soldiers who had been watching me, mouths agape, went to another pool to try their skill; but while I would not boast, it is not everybody who can tickle a speckled trout; and after my bath the soldiers were still at it, and damning their eyes, their luck, and the pretty fish which so saucily flouted them.

  So I flung ’em a big trout and went back to camp whistling, and there found that my Indians had fed and were now gravely renewing their paint.

  Tahoontowhee dressed and cooked my fish for me, each in a bass-wood leaf, and when they were done and smelling most fragrant, we all made a delicious feast, with corn bread from the ovens and salt pork and a great jug of milk from the army’s herd.

  At eight o’clock another gun was fired. This was the daily signal, I learned, to stack tents and load pack-horses. And another gun fired at ten o’clock meant “March.” With all these guns, and a fourth at sundown, I saw an unhappy time ahead for my Indians. Truly, I think the sound makes them sick. They all pulled wry faces now, and I had my jest at their expense, ours being a most happy little family, so amiably did the Mohican and Oneidas foregather; and also, there being among them a Sagamore and a Chief of the noble Oneida clan, I could meet them on an equality of footing which infringed nothing on military etiquette. There were doubtless many interpreters in camp, but few, if any, I suppose, who had had the advantage of such training as I under Guy Johnson, who himself, after Sir William’s death, was appointed Indian Superintendent under the Crown for all North America, Guy Johnson knew the Iroquois. And if he lacked the character, personal charm, and knowledge that Sir William possessed, yet in the politics and diplomacy of Indian affairs his knowledge and practice were vast, and his services most valuable to his King.

  Under him I had been schooled, and also under the veteran deputies, Colonel Croghan, Colonel Butler, and Colonel Claus; and had learned much from old Cadwallader Colden, too, who came often to Guy Park, as did our good General Philip Schuyler in these peaceful days.

  So I knew how to treat any Indian I had ever seen, save only the outlandish creatures of the Senecas. Else, perhaps, I had sooner penetrated the villainy of the Erie. Yet, even my own Indians had not been altogether certain of the traitor’s identity until almost at the very end.

  At ten another gun was fired, but only a small detachment of infantry marched, the other regiments unpacking and pitching tents again, and the usual routine of camp life, with its multitudinous duties and details, was resumed.

  I reported at headquarters, to which my guides were now attached, and there were orders for me to hold myself and Indians in readiness for a night march to Chemung.

  All that day I spent in acquainting myself with the camp which had be
en pitched, as I say, on the neck of land bounded by the Susquehanna and the Chemung, with a small creek, called Cayuga by some, Seneca Creek by others, intersecting it and flowing south into the Susquehanna. It was but a trout brook.

  This site of the old Indian town of Tioga seemed to me very lovely. The waters were silvery and sweet, the flats composed of rich, dark soil, the forests beautiful with a great variety of noble and gigantic trees — white pines on the hills; on the level country enormous black-walnuts, oaks, button-woods, and nut trees of many species, growing wide apart, yet so roofing the forest with foliage that very little sunlight penetrated, and only the flats were open and bright with waving Indian grass, now so ripe that our sheep, cattle, and horses found in it a nourishment scarcely sufficient for beasts so exercised and driven.

  That day, as I say, I walked about the camp and adjacent river-country, seeking out my friends in the various regiments to gossip with them. And was invited to a Rum Punch given by all the officers at the Artillery Lines to celebrate the victory of General Wayne at Stony Point.

  Colonel Proctor’s artillery band discoursed most noble music for us; and there was much hilarity and cheering, and many very boisterous.

  These social parties in our army, where rum-punch was the favourite beverage, were gay and lively; but there was a headache in every cup of it, they say. I, being an interpreter, held aloof because I must ever set an example to my red comrades. And this day had all I could do to confine them to proper rations. For all spirit is a very poison to any Indian. And of all the crimes of which men of my colour stand attainted, the offering of this death-cup to our red brothers is, I think, the wickedest and the most contemptible.

  For when we white men become merely exhilarated in the performance of such social usages as politeness requires of us, the Indian becomes murderous. And I remember at this Artillery Punch many officers danced a Shawanese dance, and General Hand, of the Light Troops, did lead this war-dance, which caused me discomfiture, I not at all pleased to see officers who ranked me cut school-boy capers ‘round a midday fire.