Part 5

“What of his brother who is sick?” asked Scarouady. “He is a chief?”

“He is a soldier captain, but he stays at home. He cannot travel,” said Christopher Gist. “There is another brother who stays at home upon his lands, also. This young Washington likewise has lands of his own, but he prefers the woods, that he may learn how to care for himself without help. He is a good hunter and trail finder. I look for him to be a great chief.”

“We shall see,” replied Scarouady. “He shows much sense.”

They marched on, into the north. Gist was sick and had to make stops. And one day Scarouady, leading, leaped back; at the same time Gist’s horse shied, almost throwing him. A man stood in the trail. Scarouady cried out:

“The Black Rifle!”

The man was the man that the Hunter remembered; a very large man, black in hair and in beard, and of eye blackly glowing and of skin dark; clad in leather he was like an Indian, with fur cap upon his head. He held his long rifle ready, but lifted his free hand in the talk sign.

“Who are you and what do you want?” he demanded of Gist.

“I am Christopher Gist from the Virginia settlements, and travel on the King’s business,” said Gist boldly. “Who are you?”

“Captain Jack of Pennsylvania. The Injuns know me as the ‘Black Rifle’ or the ‘Black Hunter.’ How many of the varmints with you?”

“You see two, a chief and a boy,” answered Gist. Now other men appeared, among the trees and bushes near――wild, eager men, poising their guns and searching with their eyes. “They guide me and are under my protection. You’re an Injun killer, I take it.”

“I am,” said the Black Rifle. “The Injuns killed mine, I kill them. Where are you going?”

“To talk with the Mingos and the tribes west as far as the Miami, and win them from the French. Do we pass on?”

“Yes,” said the Black Rifle, “you may pass on. These are Mingos. My war is with the Delawares and Shawnees; but keep your Injuns close, for all copper skins are apt to look alike over my rifle sights. Are the French seizing the river?”

“So they say.”

The Black Rifle laughed harshly as he stepped aside.

“Beware of the Injuns, then. They will talk fair, and then act as they please, for the sake of scalps and plunder. But go ahead; and when you have to fight the French and Injuns both, there will be need of the Black Hunter.”

He sprang backward, and was gone; gone were his men, and the forest was silent.

“Wah!” Scarouady exclaimed, breathing hard. “It was he, the killer of the trail. I thank my brother for sending him away.”

“The name of your father the King is powerful,” answered Gist. “He suffers no harm to come to his children the Indians.”

“Well,” uttered Scarouady, “let my father the King count his Injuns, then, and ask the Black Rifle what has become of those not found. There can be no peace while the trail is bloody.”

The year was late when they all toiled down the hills to old Shanopin’s-town beside the Allegheny River just above the Forks.

Here they heard news.

“The trader George Croghan and Sattelihu whom the English call Captain Montour have been here with presents and talk from the Governor of Pennsylvania,” said Scarouady. “I know there is jealousy between the men of Onas and the Long Knives of Assaragoa who rules Virginia. We will go ahead of Gist to Logstown and prepare the way.”

So they left Christopher Gist to talk with the Delawares of King Shanopin, and then to swim his horses through the swift, cold Allegheny; and they went on to Logstown.

Tanacharison was not here. He was still out hunting. Only White Thunder was here, and a few old men. The trader Croghan and Captain Montour whose Seneca name was Sattelihu had stopped, and gone into the west, bearing presents and peace belts from Pennsylvania to the Miamis of Ohio.

“You have been away a long time, Hunter,” Bright Lightning greeted Robert.

“I have been to the Americans,” said Robert.

“Who are they?”

“They are the people of the captain Washington, in the Long Knives’ country.”

“Wah!” Bright Lightning exclaimed. “What do they look like?”

“Like the English. They are white, too; but they differ like the Mohican differs from the Delaware.”

“Do the Washington Americans come to build a big house?”

“Not yet,” said Robert. “A man named Gist is come to open the trail and look upon the land for the Americans.”

“The men of Onas say that the Long Knives of Virginia are coming to settle upon the lands,” Bright Lightning informed. “We shall be driven off. The hearts of the people in Logstown are turning bad.”

And that was so. When Christopher Gist drove his pack horses down the valley to Logstown he was met with black looks and mutterings.

“You will never get home safe,” said Delawares and Shawnees, and even some of the Mingos. “You are here to spy upon the land, and steal it with settlers.”

The Pennsylvania traders stationed here laughed, and encouraged the talk. But Gist acted boldly.

“I am come with a message from the great King across the water,” he answered. “He has sent me to his children. I visit all the Indians to bid them to a great council with their other father, the Governor of Virginia, at Logstown this next spring.”

“I think you had better go on,” Scarouady said to Gist. “Your words shall be spoken by me to Tanacharison, but the forest is better for you than Logstown.”

“I think so, myself,” replied Gist. “I will catch up with Croghan.”

“The Miami have sent a peace belt to the Governor of Pennsylvania, and have told him that their friendship for the English will last while the sun and moon run round the world,” stated Scarouady. “Croghan and his men are safe. You should be safe, for you bear peace words from the King our father and from the Governor of Virginia. But to make you safe I will send with you this boy, whose name is the Hunter. Tanacharison is his father. When the Wyandot and the Shawnee and the Miami see that Tanacharison has lent his son to you they will not dare to harm you. Besides, the boy was born in that country. He knows the trails and maybe he will see his mother again on White Woman’s Creek. A warrior should not forget his mother.”

To protect Christopher Gist and to show him the way, Robert the Hunter rode beside him southward down the wintry Ohio Valley. Soon they cut west across the country for the town of the Wyandots or Little Mingos, on the upper Muskingum River which means Elk’s Eye.

Here they caught George Croghan and Captain Andrew Montour, who had been giving out presents. The Wyandots were many. They numbered one hundred families, so that Muskingum of eastern Ohio was larger than Logstown.

The English traders were gathering here. The French Ottawas to the north had captured three traders and sent them to Canada. Part of the Wyandots had been in favor of the French of Onontio, but now George Croghan laughed gaily when he shook hands with Christopher Gist.

“Unpack,” he said. “We are brothers. I have raised the flag over my house and over the house of the chief. The Wyandots say that the French have spread evil in the land with their lead plates and are trying to drive out the traders. We are to hold a council soon. After that we will travel together.”

The Wyandots crowded forward to shake hands also with Gist.

“The French of Onontio have broken the chain of friendship,” they said. “Let the English come and live with us. Bring great guns and make a fort.”

When the council was held Christopher Gist and George Croghan and Captain Montour dressed in their best. Captain Montour was as famous as Captain Joncaire, but was better looking. His mother was half French and half Indian, his father was a Seneca; and he stood high in the councils of the Iroquois. He spoke well in the Iroquois tongues, and was white of skin.

At the council he wore a long coat of reddish cloth, a red vest of satin, a white shirt outside his trousers, which were tucked into his shoes and stockings; around his neck a black tie with silver stars, upon his head a tall, hard hat, in his ears brass wire rings plaited like a basket handle; and his face was painted with a broad circle of bear’s grease and blue clay.

He spoke the words of George Croghan, and the Hunter spoke the words of Christopher Gist; and the Wyandots listened.

“We accept the wampum of our brothers from the English of Pennsylvania and of Virginia,” they said. “The French have soiled the peace path.”

“Your father of Virginia asks you to visit him and receive presents sent by your great father across the water.”

“That,” the Wyandots answered, “cannot be decided until after the big council at Logstown in the spring.”

“We will go on to the Shawnee,” said George Croghan.

That pleased Robert. The trail to the Shawnees led across White Woman’s Creek, where his mother lived among the Delawares. He found her there, and well.

“What are you doing, travelling with white people?” she asked.

“I am the mouth and ears of Captain Gist who brings peace belts from the Governor of Virginia,” he said proudly. “He is a good man.”

“I do not know him, but I know this Croghan,” she answered. “He is filling the country with his traders who feed the Indians rum against the law. I remember when I was a girl not as old as you I lived among the white people and they were good. They prayed much and did right. I have seen that as soon as they get into the woods they turn about and cheat and lie and do wrong. I would rather have you stay with Tanacharison, or else come home.”

“But all the English are not bad,” said Robert. And he had much to tell her, of Washington the American, and the old man, and Christopher Gist. But she would not believe, for through forty years she had seen only the rough traders.

The principal town of the terrible Shawnees, who were light of skin, red of heart, and looked upon the Delawares as grand-fathers, lay in the southwest, at the mouth of the river Sciota in southern Ohio. The Shawnees, like the Delawares, hated the Iroquois who had driven them and the Delawares out of their Pennsylvania homes.

The Shawnees, too, had heard that the French were taking the English traders away from the Indians of the Ohio. They held council with Captain Croghan and Christopher Gist in the great council house ninety feet long and roofed with bark, on the north side of the Ohio, here at Sonnioto.

“The French came, claiming the land,” they said. “We shot bullets through their flag. We threatened Captain Joncaire with fire. We would not give up the English traders to them, for the English traders furnish us with plenty of powder. Were it not for the English we would be poor. You may stay among us, and in the spring we will go with you to the big council at Logstown.”

But the Miamis were yet to be visited. Their principal town was two hundred miles northward; and they had sent friendship belts to Onas the Governor of Pennsylvania.

The Shawnees pointed out the way, and George Croghan led into the unknown.

The season was early spring. The country was fresh and beautiful, rich with deer and buffalo and turkeys, and grass and noble trees.

After a time they came to the upper Miami River, and they saw upon the west side the great town Pickawillanee of the Miami nation, where today is Piqua, Ohio.

So they made a raft of logs and branches, and loaded it with the presents and the saddles, and drove their horses into the river. The white men and Captain Montour crossed on the raft, but Robert the Hunter swam with the horses, to keep them going.

The Miamis came out with the peace pipe to meet George Croghan and Christopher Gist. Then under the flag of the English they entered the town, while the warriors fired salutes.

The flag was hoisted over the chief’s house. A powerful people, were these Twightwees or Miamis, forming a league as strong as the league of the Iroquois, and ruling all this country clear to the Mississippi. They were haughty, but polite, and swift of foot.

Pickawillanee contained four hundred houses, and many English traders, who had built a fort against the French. The chief was Old Britain of the Piankashaw tribe. The French of Captain Céleron had been here; and as answer to his threats Old Britain had asked the traders to build that fort.

This very afternoon a council was held in the Long House with the messengers from Pennsylvania and Virginia. Captain Montour said, for Croghan and Gist:

“Brothers the Twightwees, we give you two strings of wampum to remove the trouble from your hearts and to clear your eyes to the sunshine. Your brothers the Wyandot and Delaware and Shawnee in the south send you these four strings of wampum and ask you to take care of us.”

“Yo ho!” the Miamis grunted, in approval.

“Your brother the Governor of Pennsylvania has heard you speak to him, and he sees that his traders are safe among you,” said Captain Montour. “We come with news of great importance, and we hope that you have among you somebody who knows the Mingo tongue, so that we are being understood.”

“Yo ho!” the Miamis grunted.

“You see this man Gist, from the Long Knives of the country of Virginia,” said Captain Montour. “Tanacharison who is Half-King of the Mingo upon the Ohio, your brothers to the east, out of love has given his son to him, to travel with him and sit beside him. This man also has news for you from your brother the Governor of Virginia.”

“Yo ho!” the Miamis grunted.

But not all the Miami tribes were here. The principal men of the Weas and the Piankashaws who lived farther west in Indiana and Illinois had to be sent for.

So another council was set. Gist and Croghan dealt out paint and colored shirts, that the chiefs and councillors might dress for the great event. Robert the Hunter, from Logstown of the Mingo, roaming about Pickawillanee with its bark houses and swarm of Miamis, never before had seen so many Indians together.

At the grand council in the Miami Long House Captain Montour wore his tall hat and his reddish coat and his spangled neckerchief. Sitting in a circle the chiefs and old men and the messengers from the English each took one puff of the great calumet or peace pipe. Then there were speeches. Then the Miami delegates, two from each tribe, signed a treaty with the Governor of Pennsylvania. Old Britain promised Christopher Gist that the Miami should come to the Logstown council and get their presents from the Governor of Virginia.

Then a herald hurried in to say that peace messengers from the French of Onontio were waiting outside.

The Miami shouted in anger; but King Britain stood up beside the English flag and called:

“Silence! This is no way in which to receive messengers. Let those men be admitted and we will hear what they have to say. Then we shall know what to answer.”

The messengers came in. They were four Ottawas from the north. The head Ottawa strode proudly through, with the French flag.

“Brothers the Miami,” he said, “we are come with the flag of Onontio and with words to strengthen the chain of friendship between the Miami and their French brothers. Onontio wishes to speak through our lips.”

“The messenger from Onontio may speak,” answered King Britain; so he took the flag and planted it beside the English flag.

“Your father, the French King,” the Ottawa said, “remembers his children in the Ohio country, and sends them two kegs of milk and this tobacco for their pipes.” The other Ottawas laid down two kegs of brandy and the roll of tobacco. “Your father has, by these, made a clean road for you to come and see him and his officers,” the head Ottawa went on; “and he urges you to come, assuring you that all past differences will be forgotten.”

But King Britain replied sternly:

“It is true that your French father has sent for us several times, and has said the road to him is clear. But the road is not clear; it is foul and bloody and the French have made it so. We have cleared a road for our brothers the English; now your fathers have made it bad and have taken some of our brothers prisoners. This we look upon as done to ourselves.”

With that, King Britain turned his back upon the Ottawas and strode out of the Long House.

The Ottawas pretended to weep.

“We see our brothers the Miami dead,” they howled. “The French of our father are like the leaves of the forest, but who are the English? When your father learns of your reply, he will send soldiers with whips to drive you from his land. Woe, woe! All the land will be red, and there will be only widows and small children. The name Miami will be known no more. We weep for the Miami.”

The Miamis did not mind; and George Croghan and Christopher Gist laughed. The chief orator of the Miami stood up. He said, to the English:

“You have taken us by the hand into the great chain of friendship. Therefore we give you this bundle of skins, to make shoes for your people, and this pipe to smoke in, to let you know that our hearts are good toward you, our brothers. As for these foolish messengers, they may go back where they came from.”

War Chief Whooping Crane stood up:

“French fathers,” he called, looking north as if he were speaking to Canada, “you have wished us to go home to you, but I tell you it is not our home. We have made a path to the sun-rising, and have been taken by the hand by our brothers the English, and in that road we shall go. As you threaten us with war in the spring, we tell you, if you are angry we are ready for you, and we will die here before we will go to you. That you may know this is our mind we send you this string of black wampum.”

Then he said to the Ottawas:

“Brothers, the Ottawas, you hear what I say. Tell that to your fathers the French, for it is our mind, and we speak it from our hearts.”

While the Miamis hooted and defied, the Ottawas were given back their flag and their kegs of “milk” and their tobacco; and still weeping and howling they started off for the French at the Great Lakes. That seemed to settle the French.

The next day there was a grand Feather Dance, most remarkable. Three chief dancers, painted all over, pretended to be birds and jumped about inside a circle, to the beats of a drum, and waved feathered sticks. Warriors struck the post with their hatchets and sang of their great deeds, and threw gifts. The dance lasted half a day.

Then Christopher Gist and the Hunter left George Croghan and Andrew Montour, and the Miamis of Pickawillanee, and started home.

“Tell the Governor of Virginia that our friendship for the English shall stand like the loftiest mountain. We give no heed to the French,” Old Britain bade.

So having crossed the river again with Gist, Robert the Hunter rode south, through the rich prairies of Ohio, the two hundred miles to Shawnee town.

“You will have good word for the Washington company,” he said. Everything seemed to have turned out well.

“Yes,” said Gist.

“Now the French will see they cannot come in, and the Washington company will build their big houses.”

“Yes,” said Gist. “But the French are quick. They can travel down the rivers again while the men of Virginia are breaking through the mountains.”

“Long Knife Americans must get there first and block the road,” said the Hunter.

“Americans? Where did you learn that word?” asked Gist.

“I heard. Washington is American; you are American. Mebbe many Americans in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Not the same as English of the King across the water. Mebbe if you act quick you beat the French.”

“Your ears are big. You should be called the Rabbit,” laughed Christopher Gist. “Methinks the French are quick and brave, like the eagle; the English are slower, but also brave, and hard to turn when once they have started, like the buffalo. If we Americans, such as you call Washington, are free to act, we may partake of the qualities of both the French and English; but now we are children of the King. Well, from this Shawnee town I go down river to see more country. You will go up river, and tell Tanacharison what we have done. You have been a good boy; the horse you ride is yours.”

Then Gist travelled for the south, and Robert turned around and rode home alone, to report to Tanacharison and Scarouady.

He had left Logstown in the last week of November; he arrived at the beginning of the last week of March, having been gone four months.

V

THE YOUNG CHIEF ARRIVES

The French were coming! The great council of Mingos, Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots and Miamis had been held at Logstown. Christopher Gist was there and a man named Captain Joseph Fry to sign for Virginia. Washington had stayed home. Gist said that Washington’s brother, the sick chief, had died, and Washington was needed to comfort the widow.

The Iroquois from Onondago the council seat did not come.

“We do not meet to talk of business in the woods and weeds,” they sent word. “But the English have our permission to use land southeast of the Ohio. We do not give title to that land. The lands of Virginia stop on the sunrise side of the Alleghany Mountains.”

So a treaty of friendship was signed with Virginia. Tanacharison himself said, to Gist and Fry:

“Be quick to build us a big fort at the Forks of the Ohio, that will keep the French back. If the chief Washington is dead, let the young Washington bring in the men and build the fort.”

But the French were coming. The council had been ended a little time when runners from the west arrived with bad news. Two hundred and fifty Ottawas and Ojibwas of the French, led by Charles Langlade the bold French ranger, had attacked Pickawillanee of the Miamis, and taken it and its English traders, and the Ottawas had eaten old Chief Britain of the Piankashaws!

“Now we see that the French of Onontio are strong,” said the King Shingis of the Delawares. “They have conquered the Miami, but the English have done nothing. We had better wait and see.”

For the French were coming. Christopher Gist was laying out a town fifty miles southeast of the Forks, near a place called Great Meadows; but the Ohio company were still sitting in their storehouse at Will’s Creek on the Potomac, one hundred and fifty miles by trail from the Forks of the Ohio.

And the French were coming. Runners from Onondago arrived. Mohawks had seen a great fleet of French canoes loaded with soldiers making south upon the Great Lakes, to enter the Ohio Country.

The water was covered with boats, said the runners, and the boats bore six thousand soldiers and Indians, to drive the English out of the Ohio country.

Next, the French had landed and had built a fort on the southeastern shore of Lake Erie, from which they could march by land and river to the head of the Allegheny River. And from this place they cut a road through the woods to the River of Buffalo, which emptied into the Allegheny. Here they built another fort; and they would paddle down Buffalo River into the Allegheny, and down the Allegheny to the Forks of the Ohio. They sent men forward under Captain Joncaire to the Seneca and Delaware town of Venango at the mouth of the Buffalo River, and drove Trader John Fraser from his house and took it. Fraser had run away, to live in another house at the Monongahela, south of the Forks.

Now Venango was French; the French were as close as the head of the Allegheny, sixty miles from Logstown, and the American-English of Virginia and of Pennsylvania had not paid any attention, except with words, to the Mingo wampum belts summoning aid.

“The French will build a line of forts all down the Ohio, and shut us from the English traders,” said Tanacharison. “Where is that Ohio Company, who have permission to build a fort for us? If we go to war with the French we lose our lands.”

And many of the Delawares and Mingos and Shawnees began to think that the English of Virginia and Pennsylvania were weak.