Part 6

At last a man came, sent by the Governor of Virginia, to warn the French to stay back out of the country. His name was Captain William Trent. From Logstown he marched northwest, to find the French commander. But in a little time he was back again. When he had reached Pickawillanee he found only the French flag flying over the burned fort and houses, and his heart turned over. He did nothing at all.

“That man is a coward,” said Tanacharison. “He is afraid of the French, but I am not. I will go, myself, to the French at Lake Erie and find the head soldier, and tell him what he must do.”

Tanacharison was gone a month. Then he, too, came back. He had talked with the French chief, and had tried to return the peace belt which held the Mingos to the French. The French chief had laughed at him, and called him “child”――had thrown the belt in his face and ordered him home.

A Delaware who had been at Venango brought word to Logstown that the French were coming down in the spring; if the Indians meddled the Indians would be killed while the English were being conquered; and even if the English kept part of the lands, the other lands would go to the French and the Indians would have nothing. This was the warning sent by Captain Joncaire.

“If the English do not help us this fall, in the spring they will be too late,” said Tanacharison. “For in the spring when the waters are high the French will bring their canoes and men while the English are kept back by the snows in the mountains. Why do the men of Virginia sit with their hands between their knees?”

The Half-King sent a string of wampum to Trader Fraser’s house in the south on the Monongahela, and a speech for Assaragoa the Governor of Virginia, telling him that the Chippewas, the Ottawas and the Adirondacks of the north had taken up the hatchet for the French; he should hurry many men. Then, having done all that he could, the Half-King went hunting.

Scarouady stayed. If word came from the Governor, Robert was to carry it to Tanacharison at his hunting cabin.

Then, when Tanacharison had been gone only a few days, great news broke.

It was Robert who made the discovery. Early in the morning he had ridden up the Ohio, to hunt on the other side of the Meeting of the Waters. He kept a little canoe hidden in the bushes at the Forks, just for that purpose.

He passed King Shingis’s town, across the Ohio; and leaving his horse he was going for his canoe, when he saw two men among the trees of the bank opposite.

They were on horses, and so they were English; Indians travelled afoot. And he could see that they were white men, anyway. Thereupon the Hunter shoved right out and paddled over, and found George Washington waiting for him.

“Hallo!” Washington greeted. “It is the Hunter again. Welcome, Hunter.”

“Welcome, Washington,” Robert answered. “You build fort?”

The other man he did not know. That was a stout man, with a face like a wrinkled persimmon, and with red nose, very blue eyes, and the yellow hair of his chin cut to a point like a tuft of a lynx ear. He wore a uniform of old blue coat, buttoned tight, and pants tucked into boots.

Washington wore a three cornered hat, and a blue coat with white facings and bright buttons and tails turned back, tight breeches and boots. It looked like a soldier chief’s dress.

“This is a good place for a fort,” said Washington. “But I do not build it. I am going on.”

“You come Logstown with company?” asked the Hunter.

“Yes, to Logstown. Is the Half-King there?”

“Half-King gone hunting. He leave Scarouady and me to wait if any word come from English. You bring Long Knife Americans, Washington?”

“My men follow with a canoe so that we can cross,” said Washington.

“It iss a goot friend of yours, major?” spoke the stout, red-nosed man, in English hard to understand.

“He is the boy who showed me how to wade a stream by carrying a rock,” answered Washington. “Half-King is his father.”

Washington remembered. That had been several years ago; he seemed much older now, and the Hunter had grown, too. But he remembered.

Other men came. They were Christopher Gist and John Davidson the trader. They had left a third man to wait for the men bringing a canoe down from John Fraser’s place up the Monongahela.

Washington talked with Gist and Davidson. He had been looking at the land here in the Forks and had seen what Tanacharison had seen long ago――that it was the best place for a house with big guns.

“It lies high and level,” said Washington, “and commands the two rivers and the entrance to the Ohio. By the Monongahela we could travel to and from the Virginia outposts in the south, and no one from the north could pass out of the Allegheny.”

“Yah, it iss the proper meelitary situation,” said the red-nosed man. “Dere iss no better.”

“The spot where I was told to start a fort for the Ohio Company is yonder across the Monongahela, and two miles down the Ohio,” said Gist. “That’s where old Shingis of the Delawares lives, on the south bank. Do you wish to stop and see him, major?”

“Yes, we’ll stop and invite him to our council at Logstown,” replied Washington.

“How stands Shingis now? Is he friendly to the English?” asked John Davidson, in the Mingo, of Robert.

“The Delawares are of two minds,” answered Robert. “They wait. If the English are strong and give presents, Shingis will be English. If the French are strong and give presents, Shingis will be French. Let Washington talk with him. Who is that fat man with the red nose and the tight shirt? Is he American?”

“Ho ho!” laughed Davidson. “What is that word――American? You see Americans, but you see English, too. That man’s name is Jacob Vanbraam. He is a soldier captain from another white man’s country across the big water which they call Dutch Land. But now he is American-English. He teaches Washington to use the big knife which in English is sword; he speaks the French language and he goes with Washington to talk to the French in the north. We ask Tanacharison to help us on the trail.”

“Wah!” exclaimed the Hunter. “Is Washington a chief?”

“He is a major in the army of Virginia, and commands soldiers.”

“Wah!” uttered Robert. “That is good. He is a man. Tell him I will be a warrior under him, to fight the French. Now I go and tell Scarouady Washington is come against the French, and to make ready.”

Then the Hunter ran for his canoe. When he shoved out, the canoe from John Fraser’s, with two men in it, was coming in to meet Washington. The Hunter paddled across, and got on his horse and went at a gallop, full of news for Logstown.

First he saw Bright Lightning.

“What is it? The French?” she asked.

“It is Washington with men, for Logstown.”

“Many?”

“I saw six.”

“What can six do?” said Bright Lightning. “You are in a great hurry about one man and five! The French have a thousand. Your Long Knives are fools.”

The hunter next met old Juskakaka or Green Grasshopper, the principal councillor; and almost ran into him.

“What is this?” growled Juskakaka. “You are half white and have no manners.”

“Washington is come.”

“Where is he?”

“At Dekanawida. I saw him.”

“With men?”

“Five men.”

“Wah!” scoffed old Little Billy. “Does the Governor of Virginia sent a boy and five men to fight the French? It is true what the French say, that the English are blind and have no regard for the Indians.”

Next Robert found Scarouady, lying in his lodge.

“What do you want, entering a chief’s lodge this way?”

“The Americans are come. I have seen Washington.”

“How many?”

“Six, with Washington.”

“Where?”

“They are crossing the Forks, to visit King Shingis.”

“King Shingis? Don’t they know their way to the Mingo, where the head chief of all lives?”

“They come here, too.”

“What Washington?”

“The young Washington; the same we saw.”

“Wah!” grunted Scarouady. “What does he want?”

“He will talk with Tanacharison and then he goes to the French.”

“The Governor of Virginia sent one man to the French, and he grew afraid and ran home,” said Scarouady. “Now Assaragoa sends a boy. The French will laugh. The Mingo do not wish boys with speech belts; they wish men with big guns, to build a fort. But I will see this Washington again, and if it is worth while for Tanacharison to see him, we will send for Tanacharison.”

And――

“A boy with five men is very little,” agreed White Thunder. “Where is the company, to build the house we asked them to build?”

Washington and the others came at sunset, down the valley; and King Shingis was with them. The men set up a tent, while everybody watched curiously; but John Davidson inquired where Scarouady was, and he and Washington went to the lodge.

“Is that your Washington?” Bright Lightning asked of the Hunter.

“Yes.”

“Is he a chief?”

“He is a soldier major of the Long Knife army. The French send us only captains.”

“Well,” said Bright Lightning, “Old Juskakaka calls him a boy, but I can see that he is a man. The Governor of Virginia has not acted so foolishly after all.”

Scarouady and White Thunder and Juskakaka came to Washington’s tent, for presents of food. On the way Scarouady called to Robert.

“It is dark now, but in the morning you will go and bring Tanacharison. Tell him Major George Washington has come from Virginia to speak with the French, and wishes to hold council with the chiefs of the Ohio.”

Something in Scarouady’s tone told the Hunter that George Washington had proved to be strong.

VI

BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR

Tanacharison’s hunting cabin was on Little Beaver Creek, fifteen miles down the Ohio. When the Hunter found him in the morning, he was in no hurry to meet Washington.

“Instead of sending us a principal man,” he said, “the Governor of Virginia sends a boy without experience to talk with chiefs. I am Half-King and wish to talk with Assaragoa himself. He rules Virginia, and I rule my country. It is not dignified for me to run at the call of a boy. But I will go up during the day, when I have finished my business here.”

So it was not until the middle of the afternoon that Tanacharison arrived in Logstown. He went to his own house, to change his clothes. But George Washington acted sensibly. Pretty soon he came to the house with John Davidson, who spoke Iroquois dialects, and after greeting Tanacharison he said:

“I am arrived at Logstown from your brother the Governor of Virginia, to talk with the Mingo, the Delaware, the Shawnee, the Wyandot. If Tanacharison, who is Half-King, will come to my tent, we can speak there in private away from the ears of women and children.”

Tanacharison looked Washington up and down.

“That is well said,” he answered. “You are young, but you have wisdom. This boy may come, to be present in case I do not understand. You know him. He is my son.”

Therefore the Hunter went with Tanacharison and Washington to Washington’s tent, and they sat down.

“I am told,” said Washington, “that you went, yourself, to the French chief at the Lakes, and commanded him to leave. As I am going there too, I should like to know what your words were to him and what his words were to you, and what the distance is, so that I may know how to act.”

“When I went, the distance was shorter,” replied the Half-King. “You are too late in the year to get there easily. The snows and rains have swollen the rivers and made many great bogs. The first fort is at least six nights’ sleeps by best travel.”

“Nevertheless, I am going,” said Washington. “Those are my orders from the Governor.”

“Me the French insulted. You they will laugh at, and think to fool, because you have no beard,” objected Tanacharison.

“If they think I am not worthy of notice,” Washington said quietly, “then they will not watch me and I can look about and see what they have.”

“Wah!” Half-King uttered. “The other man was a coward. You are no coward. I see you will go to the French chief.”

“If my brother will tell me what he said to the French chief and what the French chief answered, I will listen,” Washington prompted.

“The French chief treated me like a dog,” declared Tanacharison, growing angry. “He has since died; now there is another, and what his mind is I do not know. I went alone to see the first, who commanded last summer. I took the speech belt of friendship left us by Captain Joncaire. Instead of being polite and receiving me like a chief, the Frenchman sat down while I stood and he asked me who I was and what was my business there. I said to him:

“‘Father, a long time ago you set before the Six Nations a basin with the leg of a beaver, and bade us eat in peace and plenty; and if any person disturbed us, we should drive him out.’

“‘Now, father it is you who are disturbing us, by coming and building on our lands, and taking it away.’

“‘Father,’ I said, ‘a long time ago we kindled a fire for you at a place called Montreal, where you were to stay. I now ask you to go to that place, for this is our land and not yours.’

“‘Father,’ I said, ‘if you had come peaceably, like our brothers the English, you could have traded with us like they do. But to come and build houses without our permission and take our land by force we cannot allow.’

“‘Father,’ I said, ‘you and the English are white. We live in a country between; the land does not belong to either of you. Now I ask you to go out. I am saying the same to our brothers the English, and we will see which of you will pay attention and deserve sharing with us. I am here to say this to you, for I am not afraid to order you off our land.’ Then I handed the wampum belt to him, that he might know we were done with him.”

“Those were good words,” Washington nodded gravely. “What did he reply?”

“He said to me, speaking very rudely: ‘My child, I do not know this wampum with which you order me away. You need not speak, for I will not hear you. I am not afraid of flies or mosquitoes, such as Indians are. Down the river I will go and build upon it. If the river is blocked I am strong enough to burst it open and tread everybody under my feet.’

“Then he threw the speech belt in my face, and he said, laughing at me:

“‘Child, you talk foolish. You say this land belongs to you, but there is not so much as the black of your nail yours. I saw that land before the Six Nations took it from the Shawnees. With lead I went down and took possession of that river. It is my land and I will have it, no matter who tries to stand against me. If you will be ruled by me you will get kindness, but not otherwise.’

“He spoke angrily, with a red face,” Tanacharison continued. “So I took the speech belt and came home. You had better think a while before you go, for you will be treated with rudeness.”

“My chief the Governor of Virginia has ordered me to travel straight to the French and give the French chief a letter,” said Washington. “There I will go!”

“What is in the letter?” Tanacharison asked.

“It is a letter of much importance to us all,” said Washington. “And by this string of wampum Assaragoa asks you, his brothers, for young men who will go with me by the shortest road, and hunt for meat, and help me against the French Indians who have taken up the hatchet.”

“All this must come before the council tomorrow,” answered Tanacharison, “when the chiefs of the Shawnee and the Delaware will be present. But we should like to know your business with the French chief, and what the English intend to do. Do the English claim this land north of the river?”

“The first thing to do is to get rid of the French,” said Washington.

“That is so,” agreed Tanacharison, growing angry again. “Now I will show you where those French forts are.”

Then Tanacharison took a bit of charcoal from the fire, and a strip of bark from a log, and drew pictures.

“The trail to the north is this way,” he said. “In so many sleeps,” and he six times made the motion of drawing a blanket over his face, “we come to this place named Venango. It stands where the River of the Buffalo empties into the River Allegheny. The French under Captain Joncaire have seized it. And by six more sleeps, up at the other end of the River of the Buffalo, is the second French fort, where the head captain lives. There is a third fort farther on, at the Lake Erie, but you will not need to go to it, I think.”

The council with Washington was held the next morning, and much was said. But this did not finish matters. The Mingo speech belt from the French was down at Tanacharison’s hunting cabin. The Shawnees had a speech belt and so had the Delawares, and these were to be thrown at the French. Besides, the Shawnee chiefs from Sonnioto down the river had not yet come for council; they would not arrive until after two days.

“This cannot be done in a hurry,” the Half-King said to Washington. “I have sent to the Shawnees, for their belt and two young men to go with you. I have ordered Shingis to his town, to bring the Delaware belt and two young men to go with you. When the French see that you have Mingo, Shawnee and Delaware with you, they will know who are your friends.”

But King Shingis did not come back. He pretended that his wife was sick, and that all his young men were out hunting. The Delaware speech belt, he said, was up at Venango, with the Delawares there; and he sent a string of wampum which would order the Venango Delaware chief to take the belt on to the principal French fort.

Scarouady declared that old Shingis was afraid. The Delawares all were suspicious yet. The Shawnees stayed away. The Wyandots said:

“Where are the presents the Ohio Company should send us, if we are to help fight the French? If the French are driven off who will protect us from the English?”

And the Mingos said:

“We do not know what this Washington wishes with the French. What will the English of Virginia do? They can build a trading house with guns, but we will not have our lands stolen from us.”

Washington had been in Logstown seven days. Then Tanacharison decided not to wait any longer for the Shawnees and the Delawares. This night he said to Washington:

“We will start for the French fort in the morning, two hours after sunrise. I will go, and we will take Juskakaka to speak for us, and White Thunder who is Keeper of the Wampum; and of all my young men I can find only Guyasuta. But he is active and a brave warrior. Scarouady will stay here to command in my absence.”

Then Washington said, through John Davidson:

“I hear your boy is rightly named the Hunter. He looks like a strong boy, and I see he is a smart boy. It is well that he learn what he can, in the company of chiefs. Let us take him to find the game.”

“Wah!” uttered Tanacharison, as if pleased. “Yes, he is a fine hunter. There is no better. He also knows the English tongue and the French tongue, and may be useful. We will take him.”

When Robert heard this from Christopher Gist, he, too, was pleased. He felt warmly toward George Washington the American.

VII

ROBERT PROVES HIS VALOR

So they all set out, this morning of the day that the English called the last day of November. There were Washington, Christopher Gist, John Davidson the trader who spoke Mingo, the funny, fat Jacob Vanbraam of Dutch Land who spoke French and poor English, Tanacharison the Half-King of the Mingos, old Juskakaka the councillor, White Thunder the Wampum Keeper, young Guyasuta or Standing Cross the first-class warrior, Robert the Hunter and four white men to drive the pack-horses and make camps.

The white men all rode, but the Indians marched afoot, and Robert left his horse at Logstown. In the woods one could hunt more easily afoot than ahorse.

That was indeed a tough journey. Venango, Tanacharison said, was sixty miles by summer trail but was farther now, by winter trail. Already the trees and meadows were white, and the nights were freezing cold. The weather seemed to get angry again, as if trying to close the road for Washington; it had been angry ever since he had started, he said.

On the day after the first camp out from Logstown the sleety rain began to fall, and clear to Venango they scarcely glimpsed the sun or the stars. The creeks were swollen, the trail was slippery, dry wood for burning was hard to find.

But Washington made no complaint. At night in his tent by the light of his smoky fire he put marks upon paper in a little book that he carried. After talking a while and listening to stories in Mingo and sign language by Tanacharison and old Juskakaka and White Thunder, he and Gist and Jacob Vanbraam rolled in their blankets inside the tent. The others slept outside under brush lean-tos covered with blankets.

“The Hunter is young. He may sleep in the tent and be warm between us,” Washington had invited. But Tanacharison answered:

“No. The boy is of warrior age. He shall sleep like an Indian, for he cannot carry a tent with him on the war trail. It is proper that you, the white chief, shall keep your message safe in your lodge. We know that you are strong.”

“If we meet with the French Indians, do we fight?” Guyasuta had asked.

“It seems to me a poor plan to lose scalps for these English when we don’t know what is going to happen,” said old Juskakaka.

“Those are small words,” Tanacharison reproved. “Washington is not a man to turn back. I see that. We have come to protect him and to show him the road. The French dogs must get out of the way. The war belt has been passed from the Mingo to Onondago of the Six Nations Council, and if the French refuse to quit the land, there is war. Pickawillanee of our brothers the Miami has been destroyed by the French. Already the Miami have taken Ottawa scalps, and the Wyandot have eaten ten white French and two French black men. If Washington fights we will fight, and show him we are standing with him and the English.”

Those were lean marches. The rain spoiled the food in the packs and drove the game to cover. It wet the guns and loosened Robert’s sinew bow-string; and two deer were all that he and Guyasuta were able to get. What were two deer among twelve men and an empty boy?

So the third evening’s camp was a hungry one. The rain had changed to snow, and leaving early after the halt Guyasuta went one way and the Hunter another, to find meat.

The Hunter prowled some little distance, through the snowy forest, seeking fresh tracks or a moving animal. The snow had covered all the old tracks and trails, the great forest seemed lifeless. Now if he only could find a turkeys’ roost――! But he saw no turkeys in the bare trees, and he saw no glint of deer, and he heard no sound except a squawking jay who told the forest that a hunter was abroad. Even the squirrels were in bed.

Then after a time he came to a large tree, with its inside hollowed out, for it had a hole wide enough for a boy, at its base. Whether anything had gone into that hole he could not tell, because of the snow, but sometimes wild animals lived in such places.

At any rate, nothing had gone in recently; the new snow was unmarked. Then he stooped, to try to see up into the hollow; he could not see far, for the hollow was dark and extended a long way; but he _smelt_――and the hollow smelled of warm fur.

Wah! The Hunter sprang backward, and eyed the tree. The tree was breathing! From a knothole high up where a branch had once joined the trunk a thin waft of vapor like steam was floating out into the cold air. This tree was inhabited. That vapor came from live animals.

Wah! And again――Wah! Raccoons! Likely enough a family of raccoons; and fat coons were not to be despised by hungry people. Whereupon the Hunter went to work. He raked together the few dry leaves and the damp leaves, in the hollow, and with flint and steel he started his smudge. The draught took the smoke inside and up through the shell of the trunk and it poured out of the knothole. He stood ready with a branch for a club; there was no use in fooling with bow and arrow.