Part 7

He did not have long to wait. First he heard a scratching, as though the inhabitants of the tree were growing uncomfortable. And on a sudden, with a plump, down dropped a big bunch of fur and rolled out; and instead of springing with his club the Hunter jumped back, to grab his bow and fit arrow to string. For the animal was a bear.

The bear, half-grown and fat, sat up whimpering crossly at having been disturbed; and rubbed its eyes and muzzle with its clumsy paws. The mark was a splendid mark; Robert drew arrow to its head――and did not let go. Instead, he lowered his bow, and laughed.

“I will not kill you, brother,” he said. “I am hungry, but I give you your life because your mother saved me from the Cherokee. Do not blame me for putting smoke into your eyes. You shall go back and sleep.”

The bear was still rubbing his eyes and complaining. The Hunter stole around him and scattered the smoking leaves.

“The way is clear, brother,” said the Hunter; and he went a little distance, and looked back, and saw the bear just disappearing into the hollow again.

“Wah!” Robert remarked. “He was fat meat, and we all are hungry, but maybe I will find something else.”

Prowling on he stopped next at a cave under a rock ledge, much like the place in which White Thunder and Aroas and he had slept when upon the march to the Delawares, only deeper.

Dusk was gathering in the forest. Peering into the cave he could see white bones; he also heard a faint rustle; but what made the rustle he could not see, for the cave was crooked. But something growled low, and that was not a bear.

The bones were not bones from a bear feast, either; clean picked they were, but were not crushed. The Hunter cautiously crawled in, stooping, his bow and arrow advanced ready to be drawn and loosed. His nose told him of animals. The rustling had ceased, but the growling announced that the animal was at home. The floor rose, so that the space between floor and roof grew narrower; and when he came to a black hole just about large enough for him, but not large enough to turn around in, he stopped. All the cave was humming with that growl.

“Whoever you are, you are not good eating,” said the Hunter. “Stay there, for I am going.”

Maybe the animal answered “Sour grapes” and maybe it only laughed. Anyway, Robert began to crawl backward; and then his feet twitched, and he felt like hurrying, for he heard another, louder growl behind him. Hurry he did, until he could twist about. And when he straightened up, at the threshold, he confronted the owner of the cave.

Not more than fifteen feet before him there crouched, upon the body of a yearling deer, a mother panther, returned (likewise in a hurry) with meat for her family.

The face of the cliff curved in two horns, so that the Hunter had little choice of directions. The panther squatted more flatly, her tail lashing, her long, sharp claws clutching and rasping upon the snow, her tremendous fangs bared to the red gums, while her growls rose to a scream. In the dusk her eyes shone greenly.

Watching her, the Hunter hesitated. To be sure, he might climb the cliff face, if he moved carefully and threatened her off. Then perhaps she would go inside. But Guyasuta would ask him why he had run away. Besides, here was a deer.

“Leave me that deer and you shall have your life,” spoke the Hunter. “I have not harmed your babies. You can get another deer. Wah! Out of the way!”

The panther screamed with cat scream, and quivered tensely. She was about to spring. The Hunter, standing stanchly, put one arrow between his teeth and drew the nocked arrow full to the head. He scarce had time――right into the air she launched herself, and he loosed and dodged, and slipped. Her leap was short; as she landed and struck and bit he glimpsed his arrow in her shoulder, but the claws of her sound forearm ripped through leggins and flesh to the bone.

He jumped aside, not to run but to shoot again. He was very quick, and she was quick too. This was a battle to the death. Snarling and tumbling and biting at the arrow she whirled for him; and poised firmly, waiting his chance, he loosed the second arrow just as she rose.

The bow twanged of itself, as it seemed to him; the arrow thudded; she barely had left the ground when she collapsed, for the arrow was buried to the feathers in her chest. She struggled but an instant, and surrendered.

The Hunter gave a scalp yell――“Wah hoo-oo-oo!” Not often did a boy with bow and arrow kill a panther in hand-to-hand battle. What a great beast this was――as large as himself! What teeth, what jaws, what claws! Now he was entitled to wear the panther claw necklace, token of a hunter and a warrior! And he had the deer.

He set to work at once, with his knife, skinning his enemy; and he cut and slashed rapidly for dusk was thickening, and the evening was cold. Very soon he had the pelt. His leg hurt furiously, but that should be looked at later. Then he dressed the deer carcass by removing its insides to make it lighter.

“Listen, brothers,” he called, into the cave mouth. “I am leaving you the meat of your mother and the insides of the deer. They will make you strong to hunt for yourselves.”

Then he set off, dragging the deer and carrying the panther pelt. The young panthers were large enough to eat meat; they would find rabbits and partridges, and would not starve.

So, well content, and wondering what Washington would say, he staggered along. The raw pelt was heavy, the deer carcass weighed not a little, the forest had waxed gloomy――and hark! Wolves howled! They were scenting his bloody trail!

Wah! He dared not stop, for his leg would stiffen. He had no mind to lose the pelt, or the deer. Ho! The camp could not be very far, but if he shouted he might attract French Indians in addition to the wolves. One never could tell. He knew a scheme, though. Thereupon he halted and peeled off his hunting shirt; he hung this upon a bit of brush over the deer carcass, to keep the suspicious wolves at a distance; he dragged the panther skin on, for another trail, then he wrapped the skin about his body for warmth, and with the long tail and the feet dangling he limped at best pace to reach the camp. Let the wolves follow.

After a time he smelled smoke. A fearsome sight he was when he hobbled in out of the darkness――a bare-headed brown boy clad from shoulders to ankles in a flapping panther hide, his bow in his hand and his arms smeared and his leg bloody. Wah!

“Wah!” uttered Tanacharison, and all. “The Hunter has taken a scalp! Good!”

“Well done,” said Washington. “A large panther. The boy is a hunter. But he is hurt. Sit down and let us look at that leg.”

“Where is the meat?” demanded Tanacharison.

“I left a deer in the brush, with my shirt on it to scare off the wolves,” panted Robert. “It should be brought quick.”

Guyasuta was here. He had returned with nothing. Now he sprang up and ran away, to back-trail to the deer carcass. The Hunter thankfully sat down by the fire; he was proud, but he did not show it――he only told about the fight, while they listened and John Davidson and Jacob Vanbraam, helped by Washington, dressed his wound.

“He iss a brave boy,” Jacob Vanbraam declared. “He will make a soldier. Yah! Now pretty soon coom a deer, an’ we eat.”

George Washington said little, but he nodded and gravely smiled.

VIII

WASHINGTON MEETS THE FRENCH

“The Hunter may ride my horse,” proposed Washington, in the morning――and that showed his kind heart.

“No,” Tanacharison replied. “It is not seemly. The English chief cannot march afoot in the mud. His feet will wear out. He is too heavy for his horse to bear double; he is a large man. If the boy cannot walk, we will make a litter for him; but I think that with a lift now and then he will suffer no harm. The wounds of the young heal quickly, and he must learn to endure like a warrior.”

It took five days to travel the seventy miles. In the afternoon of the fifth day, while they were following a trail up along the black Allegheny River, and the gaunt storm-drenched forest was darkening with early dusk, they came to the edge of the trees and Tanacharison, in the lead, said:

“Venango.”

“Gist, do you pitch camp in the cover of the woods,” Washington ordered, “whilst I go in with Vanbraam and find the commander. Keep the party together. We will spend the night here.” Then he looked at Robert and saw that the leg was swollen and painful; so he added: “The young Hunter with the panther-claw necklace shall come with me. These French may have good medicine for his leg.”

“He may go,” Tanacharison now responded, pleased. “The leg needs rest by a fire, indoors.” And he said to Robert, in Seneca: “You will stay with Washington and learn what is done, so as to tell me.”

For Juskakaka and White Thunder, and even Half-King, were still wondering what words Washington was bringing from the Governor of Virginia. Perhaps a bargain was proposed, and the French were to have one side of the Beautiful River and the English the other side, and the Indians would have nothing――just as Captain Joncaire had threatened.

Washington and Vanbraam left their horses and with Robert went afoot into the clearing. They saw before them a great log house, with smoke pouring from the chimney. Separated from it were bark and skin lodges of Delawares, Wyandots and French Indians who lived there. And beyond the house and the lodges was a creek flowing into the Allegheny River, both bordered by the stumps of the clearing.

But the log house was the main thing. Washington said suddenly:

“There’s a sight to heat the blood, Vanbraam.”

The wind, blowing gustily so that the forest moaned, had whipped a flag, hoisted over the house, into plain sight, flat against the dun sky. It was the flag of France.

“That’s likely the trading house Fraser built, and was driven from,” continued Washington. “They’re bold fellows, those French, to fly their flag in the territory of the King in America, and drive out his American subjects.”

This was how it seemed to Robert also, limping on. The French were bold; they travelled far through the woods, and paddled down the rivers and up the rivers, and made merry. Nothing daunted them. And while, of course, he was their enemy, he hoped that they would let him and Washington and Captain Vanbraam in, for his leg was hurting cruelly.

Scarcely any sign of life, except the smoke, appeared in the clearing. But now the Indian dogs began to bark, and evidently they three, maybe all the party, had been seen; for when they were nearing the log house, with Washington ahead, three men stepped out and came a little way to meet them.

The three were French――French officers, by their laced uniform coats, their swords and cocked hats. The first one, lean and active, and dark, Robert knew at a glance.

Then Washington lifted his hat, and Captain Vanbraam stiffly lifted his hat, and the three Frenchmen lifted their hats, so that the chief bared his gray hair.

“I am Major George Washington of his Britannic Majesty’s Colony of Virginia,” Washington said, for Captain Vanbraam to translate into French. “Will you do me the honor to direct me to the commander of this post.”

Bowing and smiling, the gray-haired, wiry man answered, in French that Robert partially understood, because his mother spoke both English and French:

“I have the great pleasure of presenting in myself Captain Chabert de Joncaire, appointed to command for the King of France in the country of the River Ohio.”

“Then I have a letter for you, as commander, from the Governor of Virginia, sir,” announced Washington. “When I have delivered it at the proper place, I am bidden to wait for an answer.”

“Oh, pardon, monsieur,” Captain Joncaire smiled. “How is the letter addressed?”

“To the commander of the French forces upon the Ohio, sir.”

“Ah,” said Captain Joncaire. “It is official. In that case, monsieur, I think it would better be delivered to the Chevalier Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, my superior officer, at Fort le Boeuf.”

“And where is that, sir?”

“It is sixty miles to the north, up this Buffalo Creek which we call French Creek, monsieur. A very bad trail. You should not try without resting. You have come a long way to deliver a letter. The letter is important?”

“It is important, sir.”

“Tomorrow, then, to Fort Buffalo, if you wish,” said Captain Joncaire. “What terrible weather! And now will you and your companion do me the honor to have supper with us. We have little――it is the fare of a soldier, monsieur; but you are a soldier, so why do I apologize?”

“I accept with great pleasure, sir,” replied Washington. He introduced Jacob Vanbraam, and Captain Joncaire introduced his two officers, and there was much bowing and saluting and smiling on the part of the three Frenchmen, Captain Joncaire in particular.

Captain Joncaire looked sharply at Robert.

“And who is this?” he inquired.

“An Indian boy whom I have with me,” said Washington. “His leg is hurt, as you see, and I am trusting to get it freshly dressed by some of your people.”

“He may go to the other Indians in those lodges yonder,” said Captain Joncaire. “The Delaware women will dress it.”

“Your pardon, sir,” objected Washington. “I am responsible for him, and as he is a boy I thought that he might have a corner near me in quarters somewhat warmer than an Indian lodge.”

Captain Joncaire shrugged his shoulders and made a little grimace.

“Very well, Monsieur the Major. He may have his corner. But the place for Indians and dogs is out of doors.”

That, coming from Captain Joncaire, who was part Indian himself, sounded rather airy.

Now they all proceeded to the large log house. Once the Hunter had thought Captain Joncaire, and Andrew Montour also, to be wonderful persons. But beside Washington, dignified even in his soaked and ragged clothes, and over-topping the three French by a full head, Captain Joncaire and his officers looked small.

A huge fire was blazing hotly in the large main room of the old trading house. There were benches, and a plank table set for supper. A Delaware woman was sent for, and came and dressed Robert’s leg. Then at a signal from Captain Joncaire and a nod from Washington he lay down out of the way, upon a bear-skin, near the fire.

Servants began to add dishes and jugs and bottles to the other things upon the table, and brought in roasts of bear, deer and turkeys, a pudding, and heaps of little cakes, and jars of preserves――many things that were strange to Robert, but all looking mighty good.

Candles in brackets were placed upon the table, and the glasses and the dishes shone brightly. Washington and Jacob Vanbraam had removed their heavy coats, and had washed. All sat down at the table. It was to be a feast. Servants passed dishes to them, with meat that had been cut. Never in his life had Robert the Hunter been so hungry. Then Captain Joncaire, with a little cry――“Here, child!”――tossed him a meaty bone to gnaw. But Washington said, politely: “With your permission, monsieur,” and got up and coming with his own piled-up plate handed it to the Hunter.

“This is yours, my brave boy,” he said. “I know what hunger is, myself.”

The Frenchmen stared as if they could scarcely believe their eyes. Captain Joncaire laughed gaily.

“My word, monsieur!” he exclaimed in the French. “You have the grand manner to an Indian whelp. But you omit. I, Captain, Chabert de Joncaire, will supply. Here, Jacques――” and he filled a tumbler with wine and passed it to a servant: “This for the young seigneur in the corner, that he may drink to His Gracious Majesty the King of France.”

Washington stretched out his arm and stopped the servant, and set the glass upon the table again.

“No, monsieur, if you please,” he said. He gazed straight at Captain Joncaire. “Water is the sufficient drink, as I have found, myself; and I would not wish to heat his blood.”

Again Captain Joncaire laughed. He and the two other French, and Captain Vanbraam, touched water scarcely at all. They drank repeatedly of wine and of brandy, while they ate; but Washington, the Hunter saw, scarcely wet his lips except with water.

After a time the chatter had increased. The meats were removed, but the liquors remained, and the cakes were passed. The three French were red of face, and bright of eye; Jacob Vanbraam was a little flushed, but not much so. Washington sat quietly, letting Vanbraam and the French do most of the talking, and mainly bowing reply to a question or a salute.

He spoke no French; Jacob Vanbraam, however, spoke the French. Every little while he uttered a sentence or two in English, that Washington should know what was being said.

The Hunter was sleepy; but Tanacharison had bidden him keep his ears open, so he only pretended to sleep.

The French were getting drunk and boastful. They talked rapidly, sometimes all together, and Captain Vanbraam made them laugh with his poor French, and they thought him drunk, too, and let him say to Washington whatever he pleased.

“Down we go, in the spring,” bragged Captain Joncaire. “Down to the Beautiful River. The English will be too late. They are slow. When they would move their settlers in, they will be stopped by French forts. They can do nothing. They have yet to cross the mountains, and we have only to go down the rivers.”

“Yes, yes; but by what right do you enter the country of the Ohio, gentlemen?” stammered Jacob Vanbraam.

“By the discovery by our great La Salle sixty years ago,” they babbled. “The Mississippi is ours and all the land watered by the rivers flowing into it. Huzzah! And what have the English? Nothing but their little colonies along the sea, bounded by the mountains. All west of the mountains, French.”

“So you deny their claim to land west of the mountains?” Jacob Vanbraam queried.

“Yes, yes. What claim? A treaty with those Iroquois dogs who never owned the land to give; and who besides are rightful subjects of France and not of England! No, Monsieur the Captain――and you, Monsieur the Major: the banner of France is to float over all the country of the Ohio, and one year shall see it done, before you slow English in America can cut your trails.”

“That will take many men, gentlemen.”

“Bah! Fifteen hundred. They are waiting. We have a line of forts connecting us with Montreal, and supplies in store. We will meet our men and supplies coming up from New Orleans, and thus we will possess all the Ohio and the Mississippi. The Indians are joining France. You English cannot win the Indians. Already the Miami have sued for friendship.”

“How is that?” Washington asked, through Captain Vanbraam.

“Certainly,” prated Captain Joncaire. “The Miami have sent me two English scalps and a belt of wampum, for their French father, as token of their love. They see the strength of the French. The Delaware and Shawnee and even your Mingo Iroquois of the Allegheny have come to our camps and offered to help us march. The Sac, Potawatomi and Ojibwa are enrolled on our side. Just previous to your arrival here a band of Ottawa passed through with eight English scalps from below, for my commander their father. Oh, you can do nothing with the Indians. They are ours.”

That was stunning news. The Miamis first had vowed friendship to Virginia and Pennsylvania; and now had turned around. Delawares, Shawnees, and even some of the Mingos (said Joncaire) were helping the French. And the Ottawas were on the war trail.

“But you are not drinking, Monsieur the Major,” Joncaire continued. “The liquor of France is not to your liking?”

“The liquor may be excellent of the kind,” Washington answered. “But I find the water excellent also.”

Then one of the two other officers said something quickly, and Jacob Vanbraam as quickly translated again:

“He says you are too young and green to sit with men. You are a dolt.”

But Washington made no reply.

So the others chattered again, and drank, and laughed, their tongues wagged, the smoke from their pipes formed a cloud; and amid the smoke, the chatter and the warmth the Hunter, well fed, dozed upon his bear-skin.

He roused, wakened by the scraping of the benches. This had signalled to him that Washington was going. The candles were low in their sockets, and the French and Washington and Jacob Vanbraam were upon their feet――the French swaying foolishly. Up scrambled Robert himself, throwing off his sleep.

“My thanks to you,” Washington was saying, for Jacob Vanbraam to translate, “and my humble services. But I will sleep with my own men in my own camp, as befits a commander. I already have fared better than they.” He turned about, and saw the Hunter. “You may stay and sleep by the fire, on account of your leg,” he bade, with a sign.

“Yes, yes. Certainly,” smiled Captain Joncaire, understanding the sign. And he said to Robert in French: “The poor little boy shall stay with his French brothers.”

Robert shook his head. He was afraid of these French, so polite and so sure of themselves.

“I will go with Washington,” he announced in English. “He is my captain.”

When Vanbraam translated, the French laughed more loudly than ever, and Washington gravely smiled; and Robert followed him out into the cold blackness, for the camp in the woods.

IX

HALF-KING CAUSES TROUBLE

Things were going badly for Washington. This second day at Venango the rain poured down, so that the company could not start on. Tanacharison had learned from the Hunter all that had been said and done in Captain Joncaire’s house. He and Juskakaka and White Thunder and Guyasuta were much impressed.

“The French,” said White Thunder, “know what they are about. They are not afraid to talk right into the faces of the English. Now if they put the English out of the land, and we have helped the English, we shall have to pay.”

“That is how it seems to me,” said Green Grasshopper. “I am old, I have seen many things happen, and when the Indian helps in a quarrel he does well to help the stronger side. The white men are many. Let them fight, and we should wait till we know what to do. All we want is our land.”

“The Governor of Virginia asked us to go with this Washington and we have come,” said Tanacharison. “We made up our minds to give the speech belts back to the French who have treated us like bad children. We will do as we engaged to do. But I think it poor of Joncaire, who pretends to be our brother, to leave us in the woods and never send us anything to warm our stomachs. We are chiefs, as well as Washington who sits at the feast table while we stay in the rain with our speech belt. Washington says for us to beware of the French and their cunning words. But we are not children, we are men.”

Washington had gone over to the house again, with Gist and Vanbraam. Pretty soon there came to the camp a lieutenant from Captain Joncaire. His name was La Force. He was a very lean, hungry-looking man, with yellow skin and staring, sly black eyes. He asked for the Half-King, and shook hands with him and Juskakaka, White Thunder and Guyasuta; and said to them, in their language:

“Captain Joncaire your brother is much hurt that you stay away from him. He has just heard that his brothers are here in the rain. He sends me at once to beg that his brothers will come in to his fire.”

“Wah!” Half-King approved. “We will come.”

So they all went with La Force; which was bad, too. Captain Joncaire gave them such a welcome, with his strong liquors, that they were made drunk, and did not return to camp this night.

Washington was disgusted. The French had them. But in the morning Tanacharison appeared, very sorry, when the camp was packing up.

“Now I am in my senses again,” he said to Washington. “Wait a little, while I give the speech belt to these French.”