mm University of California Berkeley Gift of Jack M. Forcey i 1SBP PREFACE. CIVILIZATION is a war a war of light with darkness; of truth with falsehood ; of the illuminated intellect and the rectified heart with the barbarism of ignorance and the animalism of the savage. The present work portrays a single phase of this sublime conflict. It recounts one of the thousand campaigns of this war. It is an attempt to condense into a single volume, and give an adequate literary expression to, the thrilling history of the struggle between the White man and the Red man for the possession of this continent. It is also intended to be a memorial to a race of heroes. Other countries have esteemed their earliest heroes as worthy the song of the poet and the praise of the historian. With us, the deeds of our fathers are as yet unsung, and their very names are fading from our memory. This book is historical, but not history. That is to say, it is a truthful account of real events, gathered from a vast mass of authorities. Yet the design has been pictorial rather than geometrical. The author has sought rather to paint a picture than to make a map. In the execution of this pur pose he has been nobly seconded by the PUBLISHERS, who have spared neither trouble nor expense to procure for him rare n PREFACE. and valuable authorities. The large collections of the public libraries of the country were found inadequate, and book sellers from Boston to San Antonio have been called upon for books difficult of access. To the vast number of painstaking and truthful writers from whom the author has thus drawn his facts, and perchance even the expression of them, an obligation exists for which no adequate return can be made. The author also takes this opportunity to express his deep obligations to PROFESSOR JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, by whose polished pen and extensive and accurate acquaintance with American history many a defect in this book has been generously obviated. A similar recognition is due to HON. HENRY A. RATTERMANN, whose unequaled library of rare books on American Pioneer History, especially that part relating to the settlement of the Ohio Valley, has fur nished valuable data for this volume, without which much that is interesting would have been lost to these pages. The liberality of the PUBLISHERS has extended not merely to the procurement of literary materials, but has also enriched the book with a collection of artistic engravings every way worthy of the topic. Supplemented as his own efforts have been by these powerful and generous aids, it is not without confidence that the work is submitted to the public. A. L. M. DEER PARK, MARYLAND, Sept., 1883. I CONSENTS:! CHAPTER I. THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. Captain John Smith. His adventures in Turkey. Three single combats and as many victories. Prisoner of a princess. Her suspicious brother. Escape. The Jamestown Colony. Smith, sticking in a quagmire, is captured by Indians. Poca- hontas, the king's daughter. She saves Smith's life and makes a pet of him. Follies of the colony. Coronation of Powhatan. Smith's fight with the big Indian. Starvation. A meal of powdered wife. Betrayal and capture of Poca- hontas. Rolfe in love. The marriage and death of the Indian princess. Smith's hobbies. He dies neglected and in want, Pages 17-69 CHAPTER II. THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. The greatest French explorer. His saint-like predecessor, Marquette. A grave in a wilderness. La Salle's ambition. Life in the fort. Building The Griffin. Up the lakes. Loss of The Griffin. La Salle journeys on foot from the Illinois to Montreal. Bankruptcy and ruin. Tonty's six gifts, and their significance. The second attempt. Down the Mississippi. The fort on " Starved Rock." The simple ton of Versailles. French re-enforcements. Four vessels set sail from France for the Delta of the Mississippi. Shipwreck of them all. Lost in a Texan wilder ness. Suffering and treachery. La Salle attempts to reach the Illinois. His assassination, Pages 70-118 CHAPTER III. THE FATE OF PHILIP. The Pilgrim Fathers. Difficulties with the Indians. A hole in the ice, and a corpse in the hole. King Philip's war. Shot on the way from church. A brave servant-girl. Siege of a cabin. Burning of the towns. The fight at Hadley. Appearance of the Angel of the Lord. The great swamp fight. Firing of the Indian fort. Massacre of the savages. King Philip and Captain Church. Clos ing struggle of the two great antagonists. King Philip killed. The pleasures of peace, Pages 121-145 3 4 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. 4 THE LION AND THE LILIES. The old French war. Chopping a path through the forest for the British army. A lonely defile. Lurking foes. Ambuscade and massacre. The rout of Braddock. Ferocity of the savages. War horrors. Panic of the pioneers. Assas sination of the missionaries. Twelve reapers killed in a field. The odor of burnt flesh. One Indian takes nineteen scalps in a single day. The Wild Hunter of the Juniata. The fall of Quebec. The British Lion supplants the Lilies of France, ' Pages 146-173 CHAPTER V. ROGERS' s RANGERS. Captain Rogers. His fierce scouts. Their exploits on Lake George. English scalps worth sixty francs. The Rangers on skates give chase to nine sleds on the ice. A fearful race. The triumph of men over brutes. Fort William Henry. A debauch on Saint Patrick's Eve. Saved by the Rangers. Burning of the fort. An awful battle. Two-thirds of the Rangers killed. Rogers's leap. Lost in a wil derness of snow. An insane guide. The St. Francis expedition. A two hundred mile march. An Indian wedding feast. Destruction of the village, . Pages 174-198 CHAPTER VI. THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. Major Robert Stobo. Held as a hostage. In prison as a spy. Escape. Recap ture. Dungeon and chains. Another flight. Down the St. Lawrence. Compan ions in misery. Capture of a vessel. Liberty and life. Colonel James Smith. Captured by Indians. Life in a wigwam. A night in a hollow tree. A sweat- house. Escape and capture by the French. The Bard family. An assault on a cabin. Death and captivity. Briers in bare feet. Mrs. Bard scratched and beaten by the squaws. Her release purchased by her husband, ...... Pages 199-231 CHAPTER VII. THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. The mighty chieftain of the Ottawas. The conspiracy. Council of infernal peers. The plot at Detroit. Warned by an Indian girl. Guns hidden under blankets. Foiled. Presqu' Isle. An Indian mine. Fire and sword. Surrender of the haggard garrison. Michillimackinac. The game of ball. Success of the stratagem. Butchery of the garrison. The trader Henry's adventures. Hidden in a garret. Discovered. A friend in need. Carried away. The siege of Detroit. A vast fire-ship. A midnight sally. Attacked in a ravine. Bloody defeat. The fight around Campan's house. Retreat of the survivors. Boquet's expedition. The circular fight. Wreck of the Lake Erie expedition. The Paxton boys. A panic in Philadelphia Peace. Pontiac's death, Pages 232-298 CONTENTS. 5 CHAPTER VIII. JOSEPH BRANT AND THE MOHAWKS. An American castle. A symmetrical maiden. Sir William Johnson. The Five Nations. A terrible wrestling match. Conquests of the Iroquois. The Rev olution. Brant and the English landlord. A gay rider in the dust. Old Fort Schuyler. A faithful dog. The siege. Battle in the swamp. Brant's cruelties. Massacre of three hundred whites. Invasion of the Indian country. An ear of corn twenty-two inches long. Burning of Ellis's mills. Ah amour of a Dutch trader. Brant in old age, Pages 299-360 CHAPTER IX. THE ESCAPE OF TWO BOYS FROM CHAMBLEE. Jacob Sammons. Going for beer. The flight from prison. A pleasant woman and a jealous husband. Bitten by a rattlesnake. Frederick Sammons. Attacked by pleurisy. Fourteen days in the rain. Recaptured. Fetters which wear the flesh to the bone. The island prison. In the St. Lawrence, .... Pages 361-368 CHAPTER X. THE BLOODY YEAR OF THE THREE SEVENS. 1777 on the frontiers. An attack at milking-time. Cornstalk's faithfulness to the whites rewarded with assassination. The siege of Wheeling. A decoy. Eleven lives lost. An assault. The bravery of the women. A girlish heroine. The Fore man massacre. An old scout. A find in a forest. Death, Pages 369-387 CHAPTER XI. THE CONFLICT IN THE OHIO VALLEY. Transformation. The escape of McConnel. Capture. Sleeping in bonds. The knife. Killing his captors. A race for life. A fight in a fog. Old Morgan's strength. Biting off a finger. An American Meg Merrilles. The black horse. Through the wilderness. The great fight of Poe and Big Foot. Five Kentucky boys and their pluck. Drawing the claret. The boys kill their keepers and ^escape. A strange story. The first Chickamauga. The attack on Widow Scraggs's cabin. "Keep the door shut!" Driven out by the flames. Mrs. Merrill's brav ery. The sufferings of Massy Harbison. One hundred and fifty thorns in her feet and legs. The blood avenger. The wizard's punishment, Pages 388-442 CHAPTER XII. THE EXPLOITS OF WETZEL. | The Wetzel family. A tomahawk in a brain. A gleam of romance. Turkeys which turned out to be Indians. Lewis Wetzel. Lying in wait. The tragedy. Cornered in a shanty. In prison. " I have lived like a man, let me die like one." Liberty. Love. Two years in a Spanish dungeon, Pages 443-463 6 CONTENTS. CHAPTEE XIII. THE COURAGE OF KENTON. Simon Kenton. The tortures of love. Flight to the wilderness. Stealing horses from the Indians. Unable to ford the Ohio. Captured and whipped. Eight times exposed to the gauntlet. Three times tied to the stake. The burning- glass story. Old age and disappointment, Pages 464-479 CHAPTER XIV. BRADY THE BACKWOODSMAN. Father and son. A rum experience. Talking by the roadside. Three rifle shots. Scalped. Sam Brady. A dull Dutchman. Touching elbows. Brady's Leap, Pages 480-489 CHAPTER XV. THE DAYS OF DANIEL BOONE. Westward, ho ! A ruined cabin. Devoured by wolves. A flask of whisky. Thirsty squaws. Boone's family. Capture of the girls. The rescuing party. An uplifted tomahawk. Haggard with hunger. Siege of Boonesborough. Tracked by a blood-hound. Boone swallows a butcher-knife. Frightened women. Bringing in the water. The terrible battle of Blue Licks. Later years, Pages 490-51& CHAPTER XVI. GNADENHUTTEN AND THE MORAVIAN MASSACRE. The missionaries. Picturesque Bethlehem. A noted inn. Venison, partridges^ and poultry. Wine for the wicked. The Moravian Indians. No rest for the weary. Gnadenhutten. Driven from home. Hunger and hardship. Savage Christians. The awful massacre. The bloody mallet. Ninety crushed skulls. Defeat, Pages 517-541 CHAPTER XVII. THE CRUELTIES OF GIRTY. The renegade. Frightening the Moravians. The beautiful Katy Malot^-The attack on Dunlap's Station. Relief party from Cincinnati. Blind, drunken, and wretched, Pages 542-55a CHAPTER XVIII. THE DOOM OF CRAWFORD. The Sandusky expedition. The army on the march. A bad omen. A deserted village. Indian spies. The enemy in sight. The first day's battle. A hat for a CONTENTS. 1 water-bucket. The second day. The attack at nightfall. Rout of the whites in the grove. The fatal cranberry marsh. The retreat. Shot on the river bank. The poisoned kettle. A Russian noble. Slover and Paull. Painted black. The gauntlet. Tossed to the dogs. Sentenced to be burnt alive. Interruption by a thunder-storm. Miraculous escape. Naked and bleeding. Seventy-five miles in eleven hours. Dr. Knight. The foolish Tutelu. His lies. William Crawford. Stake and flames. "For God's sake, shoot me through the heart!" The spirit released, Pages 554-592 CHAPTER XIX. THE TROUBLES OF THE TENNESSEEANS. The massacre of Fort Louden. A hollow tree for a home. Half of a knife. The emigrants. Small-pox and Indians. Rocks in the channel. A child born during a battle. Colonel Brown's family. Treachery of the Indians. A head cut half off. Blood! Blood! Blood! Crushing the Indian power. A squaw's escape by swimming, Pages 593-612 CHAPTER XX. THE CAPTIVITY OF SPENCER. The 4th of July. Captured. Encounter with the wild-cat. Fight with an Indian boy. Liberation, Pages 613-617 CHAPTER XXI. THE ROMANCE OF RED EAGLE. The Emperor Alexander. Red Eagle as a boy. A rich man's home. The idol of the people. Tecumseh. A false prophet. Red Eagle's sweetheart. Love and War. The massacre of Fort Mims. Card playing and drinking among the garrison. The growing sand-heap. The attack. The hopeless defense. "To the bastion!" Red Eagle's nobility. Searching the heaps of corpses. The dog charge. Jackson's campaigns. Dale's famous canoe fight. Mutinies. The battle of the Horseshoe. Surrender of Red Eagle, Pages 618-648 CHAPTER XXII. THE TRUE STORY OF THE PROPHET. The change of name. Mythical ancestry. The good elder brother. White scoundrels. Red villains. The great conspiracy. The rogue of a prophet. His miracles. The sun darkened. Tecumseh's love for his sister. His ambition. The night before the battle. Tippecanoe. Harrison's victory. Tecumseh's rage. Battle of the Thames. Who killed Tecumseh? Pages 649-683 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIII. THE SORROWS OF THE SEMINOLES. The Seminole's curse. Blood-money. Exile or war. Massacred among the Palmetto trees. Reign of terror on the plantations. The " House of Blood." Scalped in a parlor. The tragedy in the flower garden. Thirty skeletons in a row . Fever, flood, and famine. The conspirators in the chief's wigwam. Knives glistening in the starlight. The flight. Osceola betrayed. "I feel choked; you must talk." The caged eagle. The squeeze through the embrasure. A fifty-foot leap. Osceola's dungeon. Despair. Death. Bloodhounds used in the war. Killed in a cupalo. Horrors of the Florida war. Coacoochee's capture. The departure into perpetual exile, Pages 684-723 CHAPTER XXIV. BLACK HAWK'S HUMILIATION. First chapter of an Indian Genesis. Battles of the gods. Tricked into a treaty. Willing to die for his brother." Move." Who is Black Hawk ? Stealing roast- ing-ears from one's own fields. A dog banquet. A squaw swims the Mississippi, carrying her child in her teeth. " Paint me as I am." The princely Keokuk Gall and wormwood, Pages 724-739 CHAPTER XXV. THE HISTORY OF KIT CARSON. The Carson family. An old mare for supper. Monsieur Le Beaver. A tail for a shovel. Political and domestic life of the smart animal. The great Kit. The trappers. Winter life in a trappers' tent. The ace of trumps. A fight in the snow. Two men in a fort. The dash for life. Twelve hundred dollar's worth of horses stolen. Carson's pursuit. Shot through the heart. Terrible fight with grizzly bears. The summer rendezvous. The duel with the bully. The "sur round." Othello's occupation gone. The angry trader. The Kansas border war. The deserted home. Fremont and Kit. Through the Mexican lines. Bleeding feet. The runner. General Carson. Last sickness. " Doctor, compadre, adios!". Pages 740-793 CHAPTER XXVI. THE TRAGEDY OF MINNESOTA. 'The Sioux. Blanket Indians vs. Pantaloon Indians. The riot at Yellow Medicine. Little Crow's frightful conspiracy. No suspicions aroused. August 17, 1862. The massacre begins. A headless corpse. Firing of the government build ings. Panic of the whites. Slaughter everywhere. Sufferings of the flying refu gees. Depopulation of the country. A charnal house." For God's sake, get your family, and fly !" No mercy for women or children. Boys brained while playing * CONTENTS. 9 marbles. Women butchered while making bread. The house of children. A night of agony. Flight of the little sufferers. Six weeks in the woods. Snakes and in sanity. The battle at New Ulm. The scene at St. Peter. The flying multitude. Arrival of troops. Execution of the conspirators. Two thousand persons massa cred and forty thousand rendered homeless, Pages 794-835 CHAPTER XXVII. JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN. The two problems. The pierced noses. A wild song. The council at Lap- wai. The killing begun." Hurry up ; hurry !" A knife in a neck. The soldiers. Over the mountains. White Bird Canon. The slaughter of the whites. A de serted inn. The pursuit of Joseph. "Indians! God!" Across the ranges. The hog-back. The battle. Joseph escapes once more. In the Yellowstone region. Caught at last ! Pages 836-860 CHAPTER XXVIII. HEROES OF THE LONE STAR STATE. NELSON LEE, THE TEXAN RANGER. A dollar a day to be shot at. Buckskin vs. Broadcloth. The Ranger's Horse. A "greeny's" first taste. Seven hundred Co- manches. Tomahawks rising and falling. A bullet in a bridle arm. Bitten by a rattlesnake. The noble Black Prince. The cunning ranchero. His successful strat agem. On to the Rio Grande. The surrender of the Rangers to Mexicans. Lee escapes through a garden. In the dark river. Steep and slippery banks. Lee forces two Mexicans to guide him. The purchase of the watch. The night attack. Won ders of the watch. A god or a devil which? The awful torture. An Indian sweetheart. In the bushes. Recaptured. Lamed for life. The Sleek Otter. Lee kills Rolling Thunder, and escapes, Pages 861-881 CHAPTER XXIX. HEROES OF THE LONE STAR STATE. CONTINUED. BIG FOOT WALLACE. The greatest living scout. Smeared with blood. " If I was your mammy, young man." Fat pecans. The camp. Big Foot takes a stroll. Indians. The race for life up the canon. Wallace kills his pursuer. Lost. A snug cave. The cur " Comanche." The sprained ankle. Weary weeks in the wilder ness. An old squaw with a face as wrinkled as a walnut. Captured, condemned, and reprieved. Black Wolfs legend. The spectral "Halloo-o-o!" An Indian Rip Van Winkle. The ghost. Attacked by wolves. All night in danger. The fight with the Indian. "Mr. Author." The adventures of a greenhorn. The rattlesnake joke. A gulp of pepper-sauce. Big Foot as he is. Bowie's fight. The treasure hunters. The fatal battle, Pages 882-915 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXX. HEROES OF THE LONE STAR STATE. CONTINUED. DAVID CROCKETT. The wretched home. Dodging a drunken father. A child alone in a wilderness. Twice married. Walks fifty miles in one day. The flames of fever. Frontier justice. The candidate. In the Legislature. Moves west. The bear hunt in the storm. The coat with two pockets. " Half horse, half alli gator." Elected to Congress, when he could neither read nor write. The dinner with the President. Three terms. Then defeat. To Texas. The siege of the Alamo. Crockett bravely meets death. THE FIGHTING PARSON. A young team ster. A successful preacher. In the confederate army. Attacked in the canon. Peaceful days, Pages 916-936 CHAPTER XXXI. WAYNE'S SCOUTS. Treaties with the Indians. Connecticut and Virginia cede their claims. North western Territory organized. Marietta settled. Territorial government inaugu rated. Exploit of Louisa St. Clair. Cincinnati founded. Settlements in Symme's purohase. Cincinnati takes precedence. Why. Thrilling adventure of two spies. Harmar's and St. Glair's defeats. Wayne's legion. Captain Wells, Robert and William McClellan, and other scouts. Their movements. Wayne's victory. Treaty at Greenville. Sad fate of Wells. The McClellans. Counties organized. Primi tive courts. Ohio admitted as a State, Pages 937-979 CHAPTER XXXII. THE RED MAN OF TO-DAY. Civilized savages. The Plains Indians. The sign language. Red babies. Girls and boys. Candidates for warriorship. Indian love-making. Mrs. Squaw frequently "goes off with a handsomer man." The custom of "roping." Life in the teepe. Indian cookery. Gormandizing. Fat puppy. " Par fleche." Dressing buffalo skins. The slaughter of the buffalo. Costume. A green feather and a pair of hoop-skirts. The unhappy Digger. The winter camp. Games and gam bling. Substitute for whisky. Racing. Victory of "the sheep." Songs and dances. The medicine dance. Scalp dance. Indian religion. The priest. Self- tortures. Burial spots. " I hope the good God will give us the white man's road." Ideas of value. A buffalo robe for a lump of sugar. Disease. Signal smokes. The famous medicine fight. Breech-loaders. The frontiersmen. The Indian question. Suggestions. Farewell, Pages 980-1032 INTRODUCTION. THE PIONEER was a rugged seer As he crossed the Western river, Where the Copper Man called the INDIAN Lay hid with his bow and quiver. As for the pioneer, his days are numbered. As for the Indian, there he stands, a specter on the horizon ! The conflict has been irrepressible. There could be no com promise ; the races were too unlike. The Red man had no beauty that our spirits could desire him. The verdict of civilization has been, that his room is better than his company. It is an edict issued from the court of Progress that ferocious Titan who strides from East to West -that the Indian shall disappear, shall be remanded to the past, shall evanish. In those great movements by which the populations of the world are transformed, History is blind, cruel, remorseless. She is the least sentimental of all the divinities. She neither smiles at human happiness, nor weeps at human sorrow; she merely attends to her syllogism. When she finds a tribe of nomads living in a valley adapted to the cultivation of corn, she sends the news to some corn-raising race, and leaves the rest to cupidity and the casuists. And the casuists make a muck of the whole business. They seek a design. They find it in this that the soil is intended for those who will cultivate it. They fix on this correlation. The hint of nature is, that the clover-field and the orchard must take the place of the brake and the wilderness. It is all very 11 12 INTRODUCTION. beautiful. The designated race comes in ; and the gray squirrel, after gibing at the business for a season, goes over the horizon followed by a bullet. But how about the other side of the question? It is well for the supplanters but the supplanted? The red deer is designed for the cane-brake, and the cane-brake for him. Both are designed for the hunter. Is Nature not as well pleased to be tracked by a buck of ten spikes, as to be wounded in the breast with a hoe ? In this world there is one law: the weakest goes to the watt. Men may as well expect a weight on the shorter arm of a lever to lift a greater weight on the longer, as to suppose a reversal of this law. There is such a thing as a science of Historical Physics, which it is time for thinkers to consider. The funda mental maxim in the dynamics of progress is, that the greater force overcomes the less. They who will, may complain of the result and try to explain it. The movement of civilization westward, from Babylon to Rome, from Rome to London, from London to San Francisco, has furnished a succession of eras in which the stronger, more highly developed races, have flung themselves in heavy masses upon the aboriginal populations. The latter have yielded, have perished, are perishing. In Greece, the Hellenes came upon the Pelasgians, and the latter were either exterminated or absorbed. Again, in Southern Italy, the (Enotrians were overwhelmed by the aggressive colonists of Magna Grsecia. The Gaulish and British Celts sank into the earth under the tremendous pressure of the Roman and the Saxon. The American aborigines, forced back from the seaboard through the passes of the Alleghanies, are swept across the great valley of the Mississippi, and thrown up like pebbles on the plains of the West. In the great march which has thus substituted the wheat- field for the cane-brake, and made the White man the extermi nator of the Red barbarian, there is this that is peculiar : in America the work has been done by a class of men unknown INTRODUCTION. 13 in Europe THE PIONEERS. Europe was peopled by large bodies of men moving from one country to another. In many regions the antiquarian finds the Age of Stone suddenly cut off by the Age of Bronze, without any intervening Age of Copper. This means that a bronze-bearing soldiery overwhelmed the people of the Stone Age before the latter had developed into a capa bility of working the metals. The Hellenes came from the east as migrating tribes. The original peoples of the peninsula were extinguished by the invaders. The Gaulish nations were trod den under foot by Caesar's armies. The followers of Hengist and Horsa, before w r hom the Celts of Britain perished, were an innumerable horde. Everywhere, except in our own country, the movement has been en masse. But in America the work has been accomplished by a different process. Here we have had the gradual approach of civilization, and the gradual reces sion of barbarism. Population has been flung westward in a spray, which has fallen far out beyond the actual line of the column. Hence the pioneers. It is surprising that no State of the great sisterhood, west of the influence of the Atlantic tides, has been colonized. Every commonwealth has been peopled by the scattered scouts of prog ress the pioneers. They have come by twos and threes. The individual, unable longer to endure the hardships of civilization, has moved out to find the comforts and conveniences of the wil derness. At the first he consisted of himself, his dog, and his gun. A little later he consisted of himself, several dogs, one wife, and many children. Afterwards he consisted of himself, with the concomitants last mentioned, and a neighbor of pre cisely the same definitions. We have thus had in America a race of men, sui generis the pioneers the hardiest breed of adventurers that ever fore ran the columns of civilization. They belonged, like other heroes, to the Epoch of the Dawn. The Old World knew them not. They are our own or were ; for the pioneer type is in process of extinction. Like the red tribes, pressed back by 14 INTRODUCTION. their energies, the rugged adventurers who made ourselves pos sible, are seen only in the glow of sun-down. The line of pio neer life has swept westward from the Connecticut to the Hud son; from the Delaware to the Ohio; from the Ohio to the Wabash, the Wisconsin, and the Illinois ; from the Father of Waters to the Rockies and the Plains. In a few more years there will be no place on the continent, or any continent, that can properly be called THE WEST. The pioneer has always lived in the West. He will disappear with his habitat, and never be seen more. The pioneers were a people of heroic virtues and no liter ature. The situation forbade it. The actual life of the men who made civilization possible in the larger part of the United States was remanded at their death to tradition. The pioneer bard starved. The pioneer annalist left his' note-book to his son, who lost it while moving further west. The next genera tion repeated the story of frontier life as it had been received from the fathers. A few wrote. From Canada to the lagoons of Louisiana a traditional lore gre.w up and was perpetuated. Then came books, most of them written with little skill and no dramatic quality, often garrulous, sometimes dull. In them, however, were portrayed the incidents and accidents of that daring life which was soon to sink behind the horizon. A few of these frontier books were written by the actors ; others, by those who had not participated in the scenes described ; most, by persons of little scholarship or wit. Until the present time few works on pioneer life and adventure have been pro duced which have exhibited artistic merit and literary ability. The flash of life through the cumbrous drama has been obscured by dull conception, coarse diction, ungainly style, and unnatural arrangement. It is important at the present epoch, when the sun of our heroes' fame is setting, but has not set, that a true and vivid picture should be preserved of the life which they led, and the deeds which they performed. As it respects this preservation for posterity of the annals INTRODUCTION. 15 of our Pioneer Age the story of our great adventurers and heroes -there is thus presented an alternative between the now and the never. What is not presently accomplished in the way of an authentic record of the daring exploits of the fathers will never be accomplished at all. It is a question of immediate photography. The pioneer may still be sketched ere the sun light fades into darkness; but the evening cometh, when no instrument, however delicate its lenses, can supply the want of a living subject for the picture. In another generation the sketch of the American adventurer will be but the reproduction of a wood-cut, instead of a photograph from nature. Whoever by genius and industry contributes to fix in our literature an adequate conception of the lives and deeds of our heroes, will make himself a favorite of the present and a friend of the coming generation. Such a work requires the skill of a dramatist. It is not enough that the story of the men, "who by their valor and war- craft beat back the savages from the borders of civilization, and gave the American forests to the plow and the sickle," should be told even passably well ; it must be told with the fervqr and living power of the drama. Shakespeare is now recognized as the prince of historians. If we would study the story of the struggles of York and Lancaster, we shall do better in the three Henrys and the two Richards than in the flat and lifeless pages of Hall and Hollinshed. It has remained for our times to dis cover that the historical imagination is better than the histori cal microscope. The former discovers men; the latter, insects. The former composes the Drama of Life ; the latter, the Farce of Particulars. The present work is a series of dramas in prose. It gathers and relates the exploits of our national heroes. The characters live and act. The material is gathered from the wild, but not extravagant, annals of frontier life. Every scene in this book is a true photograph from Man and Nature. The inci dents are real. They are sketched with a dramatic power 16 INTRODUCTION. which can be paralleled in no other book devoted to the romance and tragedy of American adventure. The author has precisely that kind of fervor which is requisite to make alive the very pages whereon his characters are marshaled for our interest. The book conforms emphatically to the prime conditions of nar rative : it is interesting and true. The interest is maintained by the vigor and enthusiasm of the treatment; the truth has been elicited by a careful culling and comparison of the various traditions, which are thus given a new lease of life. The book is a work of art. It is composed with a skill worthy of the highest species of literary eifort. The arrange ment of the several parts, and the adaptation of style to sub ject, show on the part of the author a rare combination of brilliant fancy and artistic taste. Mr. Mason has made the happy discovery that dullness in a book is never commended, except in the columns of a magazine called the Owls Own Quarterly. To all classes of people THE ROMANCE AND TKAGEDY OF PIONEER LIFE will recommend itself. The book will be read which is an important consideration in the premises. The Amer ican boy will take fire as he turns these pages. The mild- eyed youth in the bubble-stage of sentiment will wonder that such things could be and not o'ercome the actors. He who has reached the zone of apathy in the Middle Age of Man will find in these thrilling stories of the life that is setting a-west food to revive the adventurous spirit ; and the nonagenarian may chance to be re-warmed to hear again so graphically related the traditions that hovered about the fountains of his youth. .A book so well conceived and admirably executed so vivid in its delineations of the lives and deeds of our national heroes, and so picturesque in its contrasts and surprises can hardly fail of a hearty reception by the public. JOHN CLARK RIDPATH. ASBURY UNIVERSITY, SEPT. 1883. THE ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY OF PlONKKR LlFK. CHAPTER! THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. \HE age of Elizabeth was an age of wonders. The extension of commerce and the revival of learning, the reformation of religion and the revolution of science, the rise of civil liberty and the invention of negro slavery, the theory of the planets, the proof of the circulation of the blood, and the discoveries in the New World, all combined, at once, by their variety and oppo- giteness, to stimulate and astonish the minds of men. It was a dozen epochs crowded into one. The wildest romances were seriously believed, and the soberest facts laughed at as chimeras. Every thing which was simple and matter of fact was rejected. The more improbable a thing was, the more willingly men re ceived it as truth. At such a time the stories of the traveler found a ready audience. Captain John Smith, the historian of Powhatan and Poca- hontas, was a traveler who narrated his own adventures. As a story-teller he was a success. What he tells us of Powhatan and his amiable daughter, is told as an aside to the stirring drama of his own life. Left an orphan, in England, at fifteen, but with competent means, he was apprenticed to a trade, while his guardians appropriated his fortune to themselves. He had read books of romance and adventure enough to inspire him to 2 17 18 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. run away. But he was no ordinary boy. He rambled around over Europe, meeting with various adventures, taking part in the Continental wars until the peace of 1598. Being nineteen years old and eager for adventure, he enlisted in an army of mercenaries, employed in the war of the Netherlands. After a year or two of hacking at his fellow-men, he fell in with three rogues for companions, who robbed him and escaped. One of these gallants he afterward met, and ran through with his sword. Our hero next appears on a ship bound for Italy. Getting into a quarrel with the passengers over religion and politics, they settled the argument by pitching him overboard. But "God got him ashore on an island." He was picked up by a trading vessel, the Britaine, which seemed to have no particu lar destination, but lingered around for freight. The "freight" wanted was a Venetian merchant vessel, which no sooner " spoke " than the Britaine fired a broadside. A lively fight followed, but the merchant surrendered to the pirate. Of the spoils, Smith got "five hundred sequins, and a little box God sent him, worth as much more." His acknowledgments of Providence are touching. Having wandered around Italy till he was tired, Smith went to Vienna, and enlisted in the army of the Emperor Rudolph, in the war against the Turks. The Turks had shut up Lord Ebersbraught in the besieged town of Olumpagh. Smith had invented a system of signals, which he had once providen tially explained to Ebersbraught. Letters from A to L were represented by one torch displayed as many times as the letter was removed from A; letters from M to Z were represented by two torches, similarly displayed. Three torches signified the end of a word. Going upon a hill, Smith flashed his torches to the besieged, signaling that they would attack at midnight on the east. The garrison were to make a sortie at the same time. On the side opposite to that of the intended attack, Smith set up some stakes in the plain, and strung them with long lines of powder strings. At the moment of the attack these were touched off, resembling the flash of musketry, and the Turks prepared, THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 19 in force, to resist the attack from this quarter. Their mistake was discovered too late to prevent the rescue of the garrison. From this time on, Smith bore the rank of captain. Still more chivalric are his performances in another siege. During the slow toil of the besieging Christians in making trenches and fortifications, the Turks would frequently yell at thern, and ridicule their work. In order to pass away the time and "delight the ladies," the Turkish bashaw sent a challenge for single combat with any Christian. John Smith, aged twenty- three, accepted it. A theater was built, the armies drawn up, and the bashaw appeared to the sound of music. His capar isoned horse was led by two janizaries, and his lance was borne by a third. On his shoulders were a pair of silver wings, and his costume was ornamented with jeweled plumes. "This gor geous being Smith did not keep long in waiting. Accompanied by a single page, he took position, made a courteous salute, charged at the signal, and, before the bashaw could say ' Jack Robinson,' thrust his lance through the sight of his beaver, face, head, and all, threw him to the ground, and cut off his head." A friend of the bashaw's then challenged Smith. The fight was with pistols, the Englishman winning another head. Smith then became challenger. The combat was long and doubt ful. The weapons were battle-axes. Once Smith dropped his, and the Turks set up a great cheer, but "by his judgment and dexterity in such a business, by God's assistance, having drawn his fanchion, he pierced the Turk so under the culets, thorow backe and body." Smith was eventually taken prisoner, but only to meet with a new adventure. He was sent to be the slave of the beautiful Charatza Tragabigzanda at Constantinople. He was by no means ill-favored, and the tender passion soon inflamed the heart of the young mistress. But controlling herself, she sent him away to her brother Tymor, "to learn the language, till time made her mistress of herself." Smith thought he would, ere long, become her husband, but in an hour after his arrival the brother stripped 20 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. him naked, forged a great iron ring about his neck, with a bent stick attached to it, and set him about the vilest tasks. One day Tymor was alone with him in a field. Mad with rage, Smith sprang on him, beat out his brains, dressed himself in the dead man's clothes, and made his escape. After wandering several days in a desert, he found a kind-hearted man, who knocked off the iron, and helped him to a ship homeward bound. Such was the man who, in 1605, returned to smoky, pesti lential, and filthy London, a city without sidewalks or lighted streets, its houses, built of wood, vilely constructed and venti lated, one-half of its people religious bigots, the other half abandoned debauchees. The town was feverish with excitement over the stories of the great Virginia, where gold was as com mon as iron, where copper was dipped out of the rivers by the bowl full, where the inhabitants decked out in pearls as large as peas, supplied all visitors with the rarest fish and game and the finest fruits, " four times bigger than those in England." So, in 1606, when a charter was granted for a colony in Virginia, notwithstanding several previous ones had utterly failed, and left no monument but the story of their fate, Smith joined the expedition. Edward Wingfield was president. It is not won derful that this crowd of seventy-one persons soon fell to quar reling. They were from the slums of London thieves, plugs, cut-throats, idlers in search, not of glory, but of a country where money could be had without labor, men, as Smith said, " more fit to mar a state than to make one." Their settlement in Virginia was called Jamestown. Here they had a rough time. The engraving on the opposite page gives a faithful view of the first day's work in the wilderness. It was a struggle for existence rather than for wealth. Discipline there was none. The president was accused of keeping the choicest stores for himself. The men would not work, supplies ran low, dis ease and famine alike attacked the unhappy adventurers. One night they 'had an ugly row, in which all took part. Their preacher, Mr. Hunt, a good man, pacified them, and the next THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 23 day the crowd partook of the holy communion. All these colonial undertakings, no matter how abandoned the men, wore a cloak of religion. The ostensible aim, as expressed in the Jamestown charter was, " by the grace of Almighty God, to propagate the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of all true knowledge, and worship of God." But the quarrel was ever breaking out anew. Conspiracies to kill Smith, depose Wingfield, and escape to England in the pinnace were as thick as hops. Sometimes one faction had the upper hand, sometimes the other. The intelligent directors, safe at home, had instructed the colonists to search for a pas sage to the North Sea, and in exploring rivers, when they reached a fork to take the branch leading to the north-west as most likely to come out right. In obedience to this, Captain Newport, Smith, and others shortly ascended the river which the savages called POWHATAN. The country, too, bore the name, and the various tribes of Indians, whatever else they called themselves, were continually mentioning the same mysterious word. On their journey the explorers were hospitably treated, receiving presents of fruit, game, and vegetables, as well as a roast deer and baked cakes. They reached a wigwam village, governed by a king, the name of town and ruler both being Powhatan. This chief is supposed to have been a son of the great Powhatan. The natives made elaborate feasts, and in return their chief was entertained on the ship, where the En glish pork and peas and the liquors quite enraptured him. When the latter grew suspicious of a cross erected as a sign of English dominion, Newport told him the arms represented Pow hatan and himself, and the middle their united league. On the morning after the feast on shipboard, the noble red man found himself too sick to get up ; no doubt, the result of the hot drinks he had taken to so kindly. After a multi tude of feastings from other chiefs, the explorers returned to find that the colony had suffered a severe attack from savages. The 24 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. president was cursed to his face for his failure to erect fortifica tions. He was accused " of ingrissing to his private use oat- meale, sacke, oyle, aqua vitse, beef, and egges ;" while the others had only " a half pint of wheat, and as much barley boyled with water for a man a day, and this being fryed some twenty- six weeks in the ship's hold, contained as many wormes as graines." As a result of the quarrels, Wingfield was deposed and imprisoned. Wingfield denies embezzling the delicacies. " I never had but one squirrel roasted !" The colonists hung one of the council, and Smith himself came near it. The pious frauds had a church, however, with " Common Prayer morning and evening, every day two sermons, with an Homily on Sundaies." Smith seems to have been almost alone in his efforts to build up the colony. Every one else was crazy about gold. He made several short voyages, securing small amounts of corn from the Indians, which, with the swans, geese, and ducks on the rivers, wild " pumpkins and persimmons," made life quite tolerable, so that for a while the " tuftaffety " gentlemen of the colony quit wanting to return to England. Necessity, however, again drove Smith to make a more extended voyage up the Chickahominy. They proceeded up the river as far as possible with the pinnace. Then Smith took two of the crew, Robinson and Emry, ashore with him, where two Indians were hired to take them further in a canoe. The crowd in this canoe paddled some twenty miles. For convenience in getting supper, they pulled ashore. Leaving one Indian and the two Englishmen to " boyle the pott," Smith took the other Indian with him to look around in the neighborhood for game. He had gone some distance when cries and yells were heard from the canoe, and then all grew still. Smith rightly conjectured that the men had been attacked and killed. Seizing his guide, he bound him fast to his own arm with a garter, and made ready to fight. No Indians were yet in sight, but an arrow, winged by a hidden hand, struck Smith's thigh. Shortly a score of savages jumped from their THE LEGEND OF PO WHAT AN. 25 cover. Holding his terrified guide before him as a shield, Smith began a retreat to the boat. His pistol he fired as often as he could, and at every shot the savages fled. When the sound died away they would again appear and discharge their arrows, but the unlucky Indian tied to Smith's arm protected him well. But for an accident, the retreat would have been successful, and the story of Powhatan never have been set afloat in the current of history. While walking backwards, intent on his enemies, Smith fell into a quagmire, both his guide and himself sinking up to their breasts. To escape was out of the question. Almost dead with the cold, Smith threw away his weapons. The Indians then ran to him and pulled him out of the mud, built a fire, rubbed his benumbed limbs, and took him before their king, Ope- chancanough, a brother, as it transpired, of the great Powhatan. Smith was a man of resources. He drew out a compass, which greatly interested the savage, and then proceeded to " demonstrate by that globe-like Jewell, the roundness of the Earth and Skies the Spheare of the Sunne, Moone, and Starres, and how the Sunne did chase the night round about the world continually ; the greatness of the Land and See, the diversitie of Nations, varietie of Complexions, and how we are to them Antipodes." These wonderful qualities of a compass have, probably, never been made use of by any but our own Smith. The secret of his demonstration is lost to science. At any rate, it evidently impressed the savage, as it must the reader, with the ingenious intellect of the lecturer. The king saw his captive was an extraordinary man. Smith was placed under guard, and the Indians formed in procession to conduct him to Orapaka, a " Town and Seat much frequented by Powhatan and the Imperial Family." The king walked first, followed by poor Smith, held by three lusty savages. On either side walked a file of six more, with their arrows notched. The remainder followed in single file. The village celebrated the strange cap ture with games, dances, and feastings. Smith was placed in a long house, with forty savages for a guard. For supper he had 26 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. a quarter of venison and ten pounds of bread. Each morning three women brought him three great platters of fine bread and more venison than a dozen men could devour. In spite of the plenty, Smith's appetite was poor, as he thought they fed him highly in order to eat him. His captors were preparing to attack Jamestown, and Smith exerted himself to explain the terrible cannon, the mines with which the fort was, he said, surrounded, and the certain failure which would result from an attack. To prove it, and to procure some presents for the Indians, he asked the king to send messengers to the fort. This request was granted. Three naked savages set out through the snow and ice of winter on the trip. Smith took care to send a letter, scratched on some bark, telling the colonists that he was safe, and how to both treat the messengers well, yet to frighten them with the cannon, and to send him certain trinkets. When the messengers returned, great was the astonishment of the village that Smith had been able to talk so far to his friends, and that the messengers had brought what he predicted they would bring. After many days of delay and ceremony, the Indians decided to take Smith before their emperor, Powhatan, the Indian Caesar, who had conquered the entire region, to whom innumerable chiefs and tribes were subject. Such was the extent of his name that the English, understanding little of the language but hearing the word often repeated, by turns regarded it as we have seen, as the name of a river, of the country, of the people, of a town, and of the chief whom they met in their first voyage. This man had extended his dominions till they were many times the size of his original inheritance. The hereditary chiefs or " kings " of the subject tribes were permitted to rule their own tribes as before the conquest, and their local laws and customs were not interfered with, on condition of their paying annual tribute to Powhatan of " Skins, Beades, Copper, Pearl, Deare, Turkies, wild Beastes, and Corn," a system of govern ment strangely similar to that of the Roman Empire. His subjects THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 27 regarded him as half man and half God, a rather intimate union of church and state. When the dauntless Smith was presented to this important personage, he seemed about sixty years old, his hair was gray, his figure tall and majestic. He was reclining at the end of a long apartment, on a chair or couch of state, covered with great robes of furs, with a coronet of immense, gayly colored plumes on his head. At his head and feet sat two shapely young Indian girls, in scanty attire, his youngest and favorite wives. Behind him were grouped the rest of his wives, adorned with beads and decorated with the most gaudy paints. Around the room were arranged fifty of the tallest warriors in his domin ions. This " palace guard " was increased to two hundred from this time on account of the English. He is said to have lived " in great barbaric state and magnificence." At night a sentinel was posted on each corner of the house,who was required at cer tain intervals to give a signal to the guard in the house. If he slept or omitted the signal he received terrible punishment. Powhatan had a large number of towns or seats in which he, from time to time, made his residence, according to the season or the character of the game which each place afforded. On Smith's entrance into the dusky emperor's hall of state, a terrific shout was set up. The Queen of Appomattox (a name now familiar to every American), brought a copper basin of water, while her companion attended with a bunch of feathers on which to dry Smith's hands. The emperor, having assured himself that Smith's hands were clean, proceeded to ask him innumerable questions as to where he was from, where he was going, what brought the whites to his kingdom, what were their intentions, what kind of a country they lived in, and how many warriors they had. No doubt, the slayer of three Turkish bashaws, and the pet of the princess, Tragabigzanda, was equal to his opportunities. It is possible that the old savage regarded him as a liar, for after his questionings were over, Smith says, "a long consultation was held, but the conclusion was, two 28 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. great stones were brought before Powhatan; then as many savages as could, layd hands on him, dragged him to them, and theron laid his head," preparatory to beating out his precious brains with their war-clubs. By lucky accident Smith escaped the doom through the famous intercession of Pocahontas, " the king's dearest daughter, whom no entreaty could prevaile, but gat his head in her arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death," an incident which has been expanded, moral ized upon, and applauded in turn by a hundred historians. No doubt poor Smith received the caresses of the Indian maiden with a sensation rarely the lot of mortals to enjoy, for the stern old emperor looked at the scene for a moment, mut tered a few words in his strange tongue, and, with his own hand lifted the girl and Smith from the ground. Smith was still doubt ful of his fate for a day or two. During this time he busied himself carving wooden toys for Pocahontas, who had saved him by her intercession. These filled the childish hearts of herself and her companions with delight. While making himself pop ular with the young girls, Smith noticed with satisfaction that the chiefs still admired and wondered at the compass as much as ever. In the picture on the opposite page the wily English man is presenting Pocahontas with a wooden doll, which he has just manufactured. One day, old Powhatan laid aside his dignity, as most kings do at times, and disguising himself in the most horrible manner, with two hundred others, " as blacke as himselfe," hid behind a curtain in a large house, to which Smith was presently brought. He sat down by the fire, thinking the apartment otherwise unoc cupied, when with unearthly shrieks and a "hellishe noise," the savages jumped from their hiding-place, brandishing weapons, and making horrible contortions as they circled around him. He supposed his end was at hand. The affair was only a joke, though he was well-nigh dead with apprehension. There are still savages, white enough, who enjoy such jokes. Powhatan explained the matter with many grins, furnished him with CAPTAIN SMITH AMUSES POCAHONTAS WITH TOYS. THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 31 guides, and sent him back to Jamestown. Smith promised to send his liberator "two gunnes and a gryndestone." This promise he fulfilled by offering his guides two culverins and a mill-stone, which they could not possibly transport. He took care both to frighten by firing the culverins and to pacify them with many presents for Powhatan and his wives. Smith's life, however, was scarcely safer among the ruffians at the fort than among the savages. On the day of his return, his enemies, headed by Ratcliffe, the president, arrested him on the charge of murdering his two companions, Robinson and Emry, found him guilty, and sentenced him to be hung the next morning, a sentence of which the fulfillment was only prevented by the arrival of Newport, from England, the same evening. The affectionate Pocahontas and her father did not forget Smith. Two or three days after his return a fire broke out, destroying their buildings and supplies at the fort. Shortly afterward, Pocahontas, a perfectly nude maiden, appeared at the fort with a train of attendants such as herself, bringing presents of corn and game to Smith and his friends. This visit was only the first of a long series, in which Pocahontas came to the fort regu larly, at least twice a week, with abundant gifts. She was only eleven or twelve years old, evidently of a kind and generous nature, but full of the fun which belongs to youth. On the occasions of her visits to the fort, she became well acquainted with the men. Her sportiveness was manifested by " making cart wheeles," falling on her hands, " heeles upwards," and turn ing over and over around the fort. During Smith's seven weeks' captivity, which had been a great advantage in gaining the confidence and learning the lan guage of the Indians, he, in order to awe them, greatly bragged of the immense power and skill of Captain Newport. Though he secretly despised the man, Smith, priest-like, set up the bogus image before the worshiping multitude, and called it divine. Powhatan naturally had a great desire to see New port, and he was promised the pleasure. The new-comers on 32 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. the ship completely demoralized the prices in trade with the Indians. The sailors were foolishly granted the privilege of trading, and it soon took a pound of copper to buy the quantity of corn for which only an ounce of the metal had previously been required. Only such Indians as had his special license were allowed by Powhatan to visit the fort and trade. One poor redskin slipped in one day without license, and furtively sold a little basket of corn. For this offense the emperor had him killed. Newport sent forward to Powhatan presents, much too rich to be wise, and followed himself with Smith and forty men. When they arrived at Werowocomoco, the wary Newport declined going ashore, for fear of treachery, till Smith first examined the situation. Even Smith, before crossing the crazy traps, which bridged a network of creeks, required a large num ber of Indians to precede him, and retained others as hostages, lest the aifairs should be pitfalls. The village wore a holi day look. Fifty great platters of fine bread stood in front of Powhatan's lodge. The emperor received Smith with great state and display, caused him to sit on the right hand of his throne, and renewed the old acquaintance with friendly conver sation, in which Smith's joke about the " gunnes and grynde- stone" drew much loud laughter. Smith presented Powhatan with a suit of red cloth, a white greyhound, and a hat. He was lodged with Powhatan, and served by a young Indian woman, who was appointed to attend him, with an abundance of rich and various food. In the evening there was a feast, with songs, dances, and speeches. Next morning Newport came ashore, and was royally entertained for four days. Powhatan spared no effort to elaborate his hospitality, proclaiming death to any subject who offered any discourtesy to his guests. New port gave him a white boy, Thomas Savage, as a present. When they came to trade, Powhatan was much too crafty for Newport. He affected great dignity, said the great Pow hatan could not enter into a dicker. "Let Captain Newport lay down all his commodities. Such as Powhatan wants he will THE LEGEND OF PO WHAT AN. 33 take and then make such recompense as is right." Such was his speech. Newport fell into the trap. He received four bushels of corn when he should have had two hundred. Smith seeing this failure, apparently by accident glanced some blue beads, so that their glint caught the eye of the Indian, who at once became eager to see them. Smith denied having them, then protested he could not sell them, that they were made of the same stuff as the sky, and were only to be worn by the greatest kings on earth. All this inflamed the savage's anxi ety to the highest pitch, and he offered twenty, fifty, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred bushels of corn. Smith yielded to this last offer with great show of reluctance, took his corn, "and yet," he says, "parted good friends." The presence of Newport's ship at the colony was a constant demoralization. Such of the shoremen as had any thing of value whatever traded it to the sailors for liquor or ship stores, which were wasted in excesses. Smith wanted Newport to leave, but he caught the "gold fever," and remained fourteen weeks, diligently loading his vessel with river sand, in which were shining particles of mica, which he insisted were gold. The idle colonists gave up regular work, in spite of Smith's expostulations, and dreamed of fabulous wealth. The ship remained so long that its stores were exhausted, and instead of the colony receiving supplies from Newport, actually had to divide its meager store to revictual the ship for the return. Newport sailed proudly away with his cargo of dirt, but not without doing a mischief to the colony. Powhatan, with a motive clear as day to Smith, sent Newport twenty turkeys, asking for twenty swords in return, which the goose at once sent him. Soon afterward he sent a like present and message to Smith, but obtained no swords for his trouble, which angered him. Though professing friendship, the Indians began to give trouble with their thieving. Several men from the fort were waylaid in the forest and stripped of their weapons. Thus matters went on till Smith took several of the Indians prisoners, 34 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES, and by dint of threats and promises learned from them that the crafty Powhatan, seeing the superiority of English weapons, and designing to massacre the colony, had undertaken to trade for weapons with Newport and Smith, and, failing with the latter, to take them from the colonists whenever caught out alone. Another sign of hostility was the return of the boy Savage, with bag and baggage, to the fort. Learning that some of his people were prisoners, the emperor of Virginia sent the lovely Pocahontas, " who not only for feature, countenance, and pro portion, much exceedeth any of the rest of his people, but for wit and spirit the only nonpareil of his country," to Smith to deny hostile intentions and ask for the release of his men. Any favor asked by Pocahontas was certain to be granted, and after prayers, and a hearty meal, the warriors were given back their bows and arrows, and restored to liberty. Smith, who was never idle, one day went on an exploring trip around the Chesapeake Bay, on which he met with many adventures. Once he caught a fish on his sword, which in being taken oif thrust its " poysonne sting of two or three inches long, bearded like a saw," into his wrist. The arm quickly swelled to an enormous size, and the torment was so great that he gave up hope, and his friends prepared a grave under his directions. Luckily "it pleased God, by a precious oyle Dr. Russell applied to it, that his tormenting paine was so assuaged that he ate of that fish to his supper." Once he met the Susquehannock Indians, distinguished by their friendly disposi tion and enormous stature. Their tobacco pipes were three feet long, their voices "sounded from them as they were a great noyse in a vault or cave, as an ecco." The calf of the chief's leg "was three-quarters of a yard about," and his body of similar proportions. On September 10, 1608, Smith was made president of the colony. He at once stopped the erection of a pleasure house, which RatclifFe, who had succeeded Wingfield in the presidency, was having built for his own use, and set the men about useful THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 35 labor: Things had barely begun to run smoothly when the marplot Newport returned with several wild schemes. He brought with him orders for a coronation of Powhatan as emperor, together with elaborate presents for the old Indian. A more foolish thing was never perpetrated. The effect of the coronation was to increase Powhatan's notion of his own importance, and make it impossible to maintain friendly relations with him. Smith's hard sense protested against the folly, but finally he insisted on at least trying to get Powhatan to come to Jamestown for the ceremony. With this object he went to Powhatan's residence, but finding him away from home, was compelled to wait a day for his return. In the meantime Poca- hontas had some more of her fun. Smith and his men were sitting around a fire in the open air, when they were alarmed by the most frightful uproar in the surrounding woods. They seized their arms and thought they were betrayed. In a moment Pocahontas came running up to Smith, and told him he might kill her if any hurt was intended, and explained that it was only sport. At the head of her thirty young women, attired as we have intimated was their fashion, she led them in a wonderful " anticke," dancing, singing, crying, leaping, casting themselves in circles around the visitors, and " falling into their infernal passions." An hour was spent in this "mascarade." Then " they solemnly invited Smith to their lodgings, where he was no sooner in the house, but all these nymphs more tor mented him than ever, with crowding, pressing, hanging about him, most tediously crying, "Love you not me? Love you not me?" After this he was seated at the most elaborate banquet of savage dainties which the ingenuity of Pocahontas and her nymphs could devise. The feast at last broke up, and his dusky tormentors escorted him to his lodging with a fire-brand procession. In the morning, Smith, his head no doubt a little thick from the frolic, stated his wish to Powhatan, agreeing to assist him in a war against his enemies, the Monacans, if he would come 36 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. to Jamestown. But this proud representative in the American forest of the divine rights of kings, haughtily replied : . " If your king has sent me a present, I also am a king, and this is my land; eight days I will stay to receive them. Your father is to come to me, not I to him, nor yet to your fort; neither will I bite at such a bait; as for the Monacans, I can revenge my own injuries." "This was the lofty potentate," says a charming writer, "whom Smith could have tickled out of his senses with a glass bead, and who would infinitely have preferred a big shining copper kettle to the misplaced honor intended to be thrust upon him, but the offer of which puffed him up beyond the reach of negotiation." Smith returned with his message. If the mountain would not come to Mahomet, then Mahomet must go to the mountain. Smith describes with rare humor the ridiculous ceremony of the coronation, the last act of which shows that Powhatan him self must have seen the size of the joke. " The presents were brought him, his bason and ewer, bed and furniture set up, his scarlet cloke and apparel with much adoe put on him, being assured they would not hurt him. But a foule trouble there was to make him kneel to receive his crown; he not knowing the majesty, nor wearing of a crown, nor bending of the knee, endured so many persuasions, examples, and instructions as tyred them all. At last, by bearing hard on his shoulders, he, a little stooped, and three having the crown in their hands, put it on his head, when by the warning of a pistoll the boats were prepared with such a volley of shot, that the king started up in a horrible feare, till he saw all was well. Then remembering himself to congratulate their kindness, he gave his old shoes and his mantell to Capt. Newport ! " The mountain labored, and brought forth a mouse. This magnificent failure to get two ship loads of corn which Newport had promised, reduced the colonists almost to starva tion. Smith, finding no corn was to be procured peaceably v THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 37 from the Indians, began a more radical policy. Taking a strong force with him, he again sailed up the Chickahominy, and declaring his purpose to be to avenge his captivity and the murder of his men, he made war. It was not long before the Indians sued for peace, and paid one hundred bushels of corn, a serious inroad on a small harvest, for their crops had failed. Things went on poorly enough at the fort. Out of three hun dred axes, hoes and pick-axes, only twenty could be found, the thievish colonists having secretly traded them off to the Indians. The hundred bushels of corn were soon gone. In their extremity Powhatan sent word to Smith to visit him, send him men to build him a house, give him a grindstone, fifty swords, some big guns, a cock and hen, much copper and beads, and he would in.return load Smith's ship with corn. Unwilling to miss an opportunity, however slight, to procure supplies, Smith resolved to humor Powhatan by sending some workmen, among whom were two knavish Dutchmen, to build the house, and to follow with a force strong enough to take old Powhatan's corn by force if it could not be had peaceably. It was midwinter. A severe storm detained Smith and his men on the way, and compelled them to celebrate their Christ mas among some friendly Indians. While the winter storm raged without, the men were warmly lodged among the savages, and feasted around the roaring fires on splendid bread, fish, oysters, game, and wild fowl. Proceeding on their journey, their landing at Powhatan's residence had to be made by wading breast deep through the half frozen shallows and mire for a half mile. Powhatan sent down provisions for them, but pretended not to have sent for them at all. Smith reproached him with deceit and hostility. Powhatan replied by wordy evasions, and seemed coolly indif ferent about his new house. He demanded guns and swords in exchange for corn, which Smith refused. The old emperor then said he doubted the intentions of the English, for he had heard that they came not so much for trade as to invade and possess 38 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. his country. For what good purpose did Smith and his men carry arms, if they really came on an errand of peace? Let them leave their weapons in their vessel, in order that his people might not be afraid to bring in their corn, and as a proof that their intentions were peaceful. "Let us all be friends together and forever Powhatans." The secret of Powhatan's conduct lay in the fact, not entirely discovered by Smith for some months, that the two Dutchmen, yielding to the seductive influence of Powhatan's abundant table and comfortable quar ters, had betrayed the destitute condition of the colonists to him. At an interval in the dispute Smith managed to trade an old copper kettle to the emperor for eighty bushels of corn. Then the debate was renewed with the same vigor. Powhatan, liar that he was, said that he had lived to see the death of three generations of his people, and his experience taught him that peace was better than war. Why then would the English try to take by force what they could quickly have by love? Why would they destroy Powhatan and his people who provided them food? What could be gained by war? Powhatan in his old age could take his people, hide their corn, burn their lodges, fly to the forest, and live there in the cold, subsisting on acorns and roots. But this would not only make him and his people bit terly unhappy; the English themselves must starve if they destroyed the people who furnished them food. Powhatan and Captain Smith would alike end their lives in misery. He con cluded with an earnest appeal to Smith to have his men lay aside their guns and swords. But Smith was proof against this eloquence. Believing that Powhatan's purpose was to disarm the English and then mas sacre them, he ordered his men to break the ice and bring the vessel nearer shore. Then more men were to land and an attack was to be made. The intellect of the Indian and the white man were well matched in their insight into character and in craftiness. No diplomacy inferior to that of the Indian emperor could have so long retained the upper hand of Smith. THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 39 No leader of less courage and resources than John Smith could so long have maintained a starving colony in the hostile domin ions of the great Powhatan. In order to consummate the move ment by which his entire force should become available for action, Smith kept Powhatan engaged in a lengthy conversation. But the Indian outwitted him. Suspecting his motive, Pow hatan, skillfully excused himself for a moment, leaving three of his most entertaining wives to occupy Smith's attention, and passing through the rear of his bark dwelling, escaped to the forest, while the house was silently surrounded by his warriors. When Smith discovered his danger, he rushed boldly out, fired at the nearest Indian, and made his way unhurt to the shore. The English, then, with leveled muskets, forced the Indians to load the boat with corn. Night came on; the work was done, but the vessel could not sail till high tide. Smith and his men had to pass the night ashore. Powhatan designed to surprise them by an attack while at their supper. Once more the gentle Pocahontas saved Smith. Slipping into the camp, she took Smith aside, hurriedly told him that her father would shortly send down an abundant supper for the English, but, that while the latter were engaged in the meal, an attack would be made by her father, with all his warriors. Smith offered her handsome presents and rewards, but with tears run ning down her cheeks, she refused them all, saying, that if she were seen to have them, it would cost her her life. Once more urging Smith to depart, the affectionate girl turned from him and fled into the forest, the gloom of which was deepened by the thickening shadows of a winter twilight. Presently ten huge savages came, bearing a hot supper for the English, and urged them to eat. But Smith compelled the cooks first to taste their own broth as an assurance that it was not poisoned, The night was one of anxiety. Large numbers of savages could be seen lurking around. No one was permitted to sleep, but all were required to be prepared for a fight at any moment. Their vigilance saved them, and in the morning the homeward 40 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. trip was commenced. It was a dark prospect for the colonists. They had escaped this time, but could they always do as well? Where were their supplies to come from, if not from the Indians ? Meanwhile, the Dutch traitors made a trip overland to the fort, represented that Smith had sent them, and procured guns, ammunition, fifty swords, tools, and clothing. They also induced six " expert thieves " to desert with them to Powhatan. On the way back Smith had a thrilling adventure with Ope- chancanough, the savage to whom Smith had delivered his lec ture on astronomy. In the hope of securing corn, Smith took fifteen men and went up to the chief's house, where he found himself betrayed and surrounded by seven hundred armed sav ages. Smith spoke to his men, told them to follow his example and die fighting. He l^hen openly accused Opechancanough of an intent to murder him, and challenged him to single combat, the Indian to choose the weapons, and the victor to cut off the other's head and be lord over the countrymen of the vanquished. This the Indian refused, denied his hostile intention, and laid a handsome present just outside the door. Had Smith gone out side, he would have fallen, pierced by a hundred arrows. Seiz ing an opportunity, he rushed up to the king, grabbed him by the hair, placed a loaded pistol at his head, and marched him around, half dead with fright, before all his warriors. Looking on Smith as a god, the people threw down their arms. It was not long till they were trading in good style. Here Smith was overtaken by a messenger from the fort, who had gone to Pow- hatan's residence, seen great preparations for war, and only escaped alive through being concealed by Pocahontas in her lodge, and, having been furnished by her with provisions for his journey, safely conducted away at night. New disasters at the fort required Smith's presence. Beset by hostile savages along 'the river, he at last reached home, with five hundred bushels of corn as the result of this exhausting campaign in the dead of winter. New hardships beset the col- -ony, but were met with renewed energy on the part of Smith. B * BATTLE OF CAPTAIN SMITH AND THE INDIAN CHIEF. THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 43 The renegade Dutchmen managed through confederates in the gang of ruffians within the fort to continue the thefts of arms and ammunition. One day, Smith, while walking in the forest, encountered the gigantic king of Paspahey, and a terrible combat ensued. The savage, of great strength and stature, slowly forced Smith into the water, intending to drown him. But the Indian stum bled over a stone. To regain his balance he threw up his hands. At the same instant Smith's iron hand grasped his throat; with the other hand the Englishman whipped out his sword to kill his foe. But the Indian pleaded for his life. Smith was a kind-hearted fellow, and besides, full of vanity. The notion struck him that it would be a fine thing to take the big Indian prisoner to the fort as proof of his prowess. This he at once proceeded to do. Our artist has given us a vivid picture of the scene of the combat, just at the moment when Smith, clutching his adversary's throat, paused with sword in air. The Indian was taken safely to the fort and put in chains. He subsequently managed to escape, probably through the help of Smith's enemies. Shortly afterward, on a trip up the Pamunkey (now York) River, Smith was attacked by this king's people, but when they knew their foe, they threw down their arms, and their best ora tor addressed Smith, telling him that his ex-captive was there and proceeding to justify the escape. " Do you blame the fish for swimming, or the bird for flying? Then you should not blame my master for obeying the instinct of his nature to escape to the freedom of his forests. Why do you pursue us and force us at. too great loss to avenge the injuries we receive at your hands ? The red man is a savage ; he knows not the white man's God. But these are his rivers and forests. Here his people have hunted and fished, planted seed and gathered harvests, for many generations. Yet the white man seeks to take what is not his. If you succeed in conquering us, we will simply abandon the country of our fathers, and remove to a place where we will 44 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. be beyond the white man's reach. If that were done the English would gain nothing, but would lose the corn and fruit we are willing to sell them. Why not, then, let us enjoy our houses, and plant our fields in peace and security, seeing that you as well as we will be benefited by our toil?" The result of this speech was a friendship which lasted for many years. A singular incident at this time raised Smith's reputation to the highest pitch among the savages. Two of Powhatan's peo ple had stolen a pistol. Smith arrested them, threw one in the dungeon, and gave the other a certain time to produce the pistol, in default of which the prisoner should die. Smith, pitying the fellow in the dungeon, sent him some food and some charcoal for a fire. At midnight the other returned with the pistol, but his friend was found badly burned, and smothered to death with charcoal fumes. The grief of the poor fellow was so great that Smith said, if he would be quiet he would restore his compan ion to life. Little thinking a recovery would take place, Smith applied stimulants arid rubbed the Indian's body, when suddenly he sat up ! To the great sorrow of his friend the " dead " Indian was crazy. Smith, catching the spirit of the thing, told the other to be quiet, and he would restore reason to his friend also. The patient was laid by the fire and allowed to sleep, till morning. He awoke in his right senses. Thenceforth the Indians believed Smith could restore the dead to life. For three months, the colonists, through the iron discipline of Smith, enjoyed peace and prosperity. Twenty cabins were built at the fort; a block house erected for defense, through which lay the only entrance; a good well was dug, and a considerable quantity of tar and soap ashes manufactured. One day the unlucky colonists found that their abundant store of corn was eaten up by the rats, which, from the few brought over in the ship, had increased to thousands. With out corn for bread work had to be stopped. No provision, except wild roots and herbs, could be procured at that time of year. Eighty men were sent down the bay to live on oysters ; THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 45 twenty went up the river to subsist on fish. The Indians, to show their friendship, brought to the fort what game they could find. Sturgeon were abundant. Those of the colony who were not too lazy, dried the fish, pounded it to powder, mixed it with herbs, and made a very tolerable bread. The majority, however, would rather starve than work. They importuned and abused Smith because he refused to trade guns, swords, and ammunition for corn. He, at last, issued an order, reciting that every man able to work who failed to gather each day as much provision in a day as he himself did ? should be taken across the river, and left as a drone. Some of the vagabonds preferred to desert to the Indians, where they could partake of the abundance without labor. But Powhatan and his tributary chieftains imitated Smith, and all whites who refused to work were flogged and sent back to the fort. Meanwhile treachery was at work without and within. The villians at the fort plotted with Powhatan to betray it. The Indians were being taught that King James would kill Smith for his ill-treatment of them. Besides these obstacles, the Vir ginia Company was greatly dissatisfied. A considerable invest ment of money in the colony had brought no return. The North Sea was undiscovered. This was without excuse, argued the London magistrates, when only a little longer trip, twenty, thirty, or forty miles would, doubtless, have brought the colo nists to the other ocean. What want of courage and common sense was shown by not pushing the matter ! Besides, there were yet no cargoes of gold pigs or even copper pigs sent home. There must be gold there. Every one said there was. Prob ably Smith was amassing a fortune, and his colony rolling in a life of wealth and luxury, while he left the Honorable Board of Directors to hold the bag. No doubt there were mountain ranges of solid gold in Virginia, but the directors were not fault finding. A certain report of one single mountain, or even hill, of gold would be satisfactory. Even a very little hill, say two hundred feet high and tAVo thousand feet in circumference, if it 46 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. were not full of caves, would be quite comforting. Such a modest demand, they argued, ought to be complied with. Thus, at war with the Indians, betrayed by his own men, and misrepresented and abused by the English capitalists, Smith, no doubt, felt that, after all his hardships, his fall was at hand. Lord De La Ware and others obtained a new charter and commission from the English king. Preparations, more elaborate than for any previous expedition, were made. Sev eral ships in the fleet were wrecked in a storm. Those which reached Jamestown brought many enemies of Smith, and a great crowd of the London riff-raff. Smith, not yet formally superseded, continued to exert his authority. To relieve the Jamestown settlement somewhat of its unruly elements, Smith planned two new settlements, one under Cap tain West and one under Martin. Each, with its proportion of provisions, set out in high glee. Martin and his men went to Nausemon. The poor savages received him kindly, but the novice mistook their noisy mirth, as they celebrated his arrival, for hostility, and falling on the wretched Indians, captured their poor, naked king and his houses. The work of fortification was begun, and the savages, divining Martin's fear, attacked him, released their king, killed several men and captured a thousand bushels of corn which Martin had traded for. The other expedition pitched its settlement in low, swampy ground, liable to inundation, and well suited to breed fevers among the men. To remedy this mistake Smith, still the president, sent to Powhatan proposing to buy the town called Powhatan, for the new settlement. A treaty was at last made between them, by the terms of which Powhatan agreed to resign the town, its forts and houses, with the entire region thereabouts to the English. The latter, in return, were to defend him and his dominions from the Monacans, and to pay annually a certain proportion of copper. All thieves were to be promptly returned to their own people for punishment. Each house of Powhatan's was to annually furnish one bushel of corn THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 47 in exchange for a cubic inch of copper. When this treaty of trade and friendship was completed, the swaggerers and roust abouts of the settlement denied Smith's authority, and refused to stir an inch from their swamp. In attempting to quell the mutiny Smith barely escaped with his life. Well knowing the importance of keeping faith with Powhatan, he exerted all his skill to induce the men to take advantage of the treaty. But the settlement had the notion that the Monacan country was full of gold, that they could prevent any one else than them selves from visiting it, and that Smith's desire to remove them was prompted by his wish to secure access to the gold fields for himself. Meanwhile, Powhatan's people began to complain bitterly to Smith. The old emperor sent messengers, saying that those whom he had brought for their protectors were worse enemies than the Monacans themselves ; that these " protectors stole their corn, robbed their gardens, broke open their houses, beat them, and put many in prison ; that, heretofore, out of love for him, they had borne these wrongs, but after this they must defend themselves." The shrewd old diplomate also offered to fight with Smith against the settlement and quell the mutiny, which he was keen enough to perceive and understand. Failing in his well-meant efforts, Smith sailed away. Acci dents are sometimes fortunate. His ship ran aground. Mes sengers came running, begging him to return. In the brief interval since his departure, Powhatan's enraged people had made an Attack, killing many of the settlement. Smith returned, restored order, removed the colony to the town Pow- hatan, where they found a fort capable of defense against all the savages in Virginia, good warm and dry houses to live in, and two hundred acres of land ready for planting corn. This comfortable and secure place was called Non-such. Hardly were they well settled, when the old infatuation seized them. Mutiny broke out. Smith, seeing the mutineers bent on their own destruction, gave up in despair and left them forever. 48 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. They at once abandoned the eligible lodges and fort at Non such to return to the open air, and poisoned at that, of the old swamp. Misfortunes come not singly but in whole battalions. As Smith was returning to Jamestown, disgusted at the folly lie had witnessed, a bag of powder in the boat was accidentally fired, tearing the flesh from his body and thighs and inflicting terrible burns. In his agony he leaped into the river, and was barely saved from drowning. Lacking both doctor and nurse, flat on his back at the fort, suffering untold torments from the wounds, poor Smith succumbed at last. His enemies deposed him; a plot to murder him in his bed was almost consummated, an elab orate indictment for his misdeeds was drawn up, and on Septem ber 29, 1609, he sailed away from the inhospitable shores of Virginia to return no more "Ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms, O'ercame him quite." Powhatan at once commenced active hostilities. Henry Spelman was an English boy whom Smith had given to Powhatan in the trade for the town of the same name. He had afterwards left Powhatan and returned to the fort. Pow hatan sent Thomas Savage, the other boy whom Newport had given him, to Jamestown on an errand. Savage complained of loneliness, and easily persuaded Spelman to return with him. Powhatan now made use of him by sending word to the fort that he would sell them corn if they would come up for it. It may be easily believed that supplies were running low, now that Smith was no longer there to plan and execute methods for their procurement. An expedition of thirty-eight men set out at once. No suspicion of treachery was felt. As the boat landed, the Indians, who lay in ambush, sprang forth in over powering numbers and killed every man in the party except Spelman, who was returning with them. He fled through the woods, made known his distress to Pocahontas, whose tender THE LEGEND OF PO WHAT AN. 49 heart seems to have been ever responsive to misfortune. Through her help he was hidden for a while, furnished with provisions by her own hand, and then assisted to secret flight. Powhatan henceforth haughtily refused all trade. The forests were filled with lurking savages. Many a man went out from the fort to hunt game who never returned. Such food as they had on hand was consumed and wasted by the officers. The colonists bartered away their very swords and guns, with which alone corn could be procured. Of the five hun dred colonists at the time of Smith's departure there remained, at the end of six months, only sixty, and these subsisted chiefly on "roots, herbs, acorns, walnuts, and berries, and now and then a little fish." It is almost impossible to believe the stories of this " starving time." The corpses of two savages who had been killed, were seized by the poorer colonists, boiled with roots and herbs, and greedily devoured. " One among the rest did Ml his wife, powdered her, and had eaten part of her before it was known" This man was burned alive for his crime. Strange as this story is, it was reaffirmed in most particulars in the published report of an official investigation into the affairs of the colony by the London directors in the year 1610. These extremities were the result of sloth, vice, and crime as much as of the natural hardships of the situation. The colony was composed of the very offscourings of London. All planting and gathering of crops was abandoned, the houses decayed, the church became a tumbling ruin. They ate their fish raw rather than build a fire and cook it. When Somers and Gates, after terrible adventures, arrived with re-enforcements, they said the colony would have been extinct in ten days had not succor arrived. With wavering fortunes the colony continued to exist. We have little account of Powhatan, owing to the fact that his remorseless hostility cut off all intercourse with him. In 1613 the princess, Pocahontas, had developed into the maturer beauty of eighteen years. Captain Argall, Smith's ancient enemy, was 50 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. making a voyage in search of supplies, when he learned that Pocahontas, instead of being with her father, the emperor, was living with the King Potowomek's people. It is not certainly known why she was away from home. There are reasons for thinking that she went to Potowomek, partly because her father suspected her of friendship to the English, and desired to remove her from their vicinity, and partly, because she herself was glad to escape from the scenes of torture and butchery which took place on the occasion of every capture of an Englishman. Another account is, that she was making a friendly visit on the occasion of an Indian fair. Argall resolved to capture her if possible, and force Powhatan to ransom her by the release of his prisoners, the restoration of stolen property, and abundant gifts of corn. He resorted to a mean stratagem. Among the tribe whose guest she was, Argall found a low savage, named Jaba- zaws, to whom he offered the bribe of a copper kettle, to decoy her on board his ship. The scoundrel had a keen insight into his victim's character. Having no chance to play upon her curi osity, because Pocahontas had seen many larger vessels, he instructed his wife to pretend her great desire to see one. Carefully planning for Pocahontas to overhear them, the savage proceeded to beat his wife for her mock importunities. She cried lustily, and at last he told her that if Pocahontas would go aboard with her, she might go. The amiable girl, always glad to oblige others, fell into the snare. Once on board the ship, Argall decoyed her into the gun room, and locked her up, in order to conceal from her the treachery of her own people. Jabazaws and his wife gleefully received their reward. Then Argall told Pocahontas she was his prisoner, and must be the means of making peace between the English and her father. At this announcement the cheat, Jabazaws, and his wife, cried louder than poor Pocahontas herself, finally, with many tears and embracings, taking leave of her. The meanness of the man Argall, who could thus take advantage of a young girl, a barbarian, forsooth, whose very life she had THE LEGEND OF PO WHAT AN. 51 risked again and again to help the English, is almost beneath the whip of scorn. This gallant gentleman took his prize to Jamestown, which she looked upon for the first time since Smith's departure, four years before. Messengers were dispatched to Powhatan, announcing the capture of his daughter and the requisite ran som set on her head. English captives, stolen tools, captured guns, were to be restored, with much corn. Powhatan was greatly disturbed by this news. Pocahontas was still his favor ite daughter. But it was a great sacrifice to give up the English weapons. Besides she had always inclined to aid the English, which was wrong. Whatever were the thoughts of the white- haired emperor, as this new sorrow burdened his heart, it was three months before he responded to the message. This delay was singular, and is hard to account for. It may have been caused by the struggle between private affection for his daugh ter and public duty to his country and people. At the end of three months, he sent back seven of his English captives, each armed with an unserviceable musket, and promised, on the release of his daughter, to give five hundred bushels of corn. This was promptly declined, and a demand made for the return of every captive, gun, and sword. Powhatan was so angered at this reply that he was not heard from for a long time. In the following Spring, an expedition of one hundred and fifty men took Pocahontas, and went up to Powhatan's seat. The emperor refused to see their messengers. The English then told his people they had come to receive a ransom for Pocahon tas and restore her to liberty. To this the Indians replied with showers of arrows. A fight ensued. Forty houses were burned. Then a palaver was had, and a truce arranged till the following day. Meanwhile Pocahontas went ashore, and two of her brothers and some friends were permitted to see her. She welcomed them, but in a rather frigid way. She spoke little to any but her brothers, and told them plainly, that if her father loved her, he would not value her less than old 52 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. swords, axes, and guns; that for her part, she preferred to remain with her captors, who treated her more kindly than her father, unless he manifested his affection more actively. Her brothers were fond of her, and were glad to find her gently treated. They promised to persuade the emperor to make a peace. Two Englishmen, John Rolfe and one Sparkes, at once started to Powhatan's court to arrange a treaty. He haughtily refused to see them, but his brother, Opechancanough, intimated that a peace might be effected. But while these elaborate negotiations were working to patch up a cumbrous and probably short-lived treaty, another power, with more skillful hands, was knitting a surer alliance. Poca- hontas, whose gentle and refined nature from the first seemed to yearn toward the civilization of the English, had changed greatly during her residence with them. Her tears and entreat ies to be set free, at the time of her capture, are in marked con trast with her indifference, at the interview with her brothers, toward her own people, and her willingness to remain with the English. The real reason for this was known only to a single one of her captors, Mr. John Rolfe, a steady, industrious, and enterprising man, one of the best of the colony. He was a widower, his young wife having died. When he came in con tact with Pocahontas, her charms of person and graces of char acter filled him with an admiration tinged with emotion. Rolfe was a very religious fellow, and he made his Chris tian duty to the untutored maiden the excuse for frequent calls, long conversations, and earnest persuasions to renounce her idol atry, and adopt the true Christian religion. Love is a cunning fellow. He knows the foibles of human nature. He delights to masquerade long in the characters of duty, friendship, mutual improvement, pleasure, or religion, and then suddenly to throw aside his masque and startle his victims with the sight of his own true self. Thus it was that Master Rolfe kept assuring himself that his talks and persuasions with Pocahontas were merely done from a sense of duty ; and, as the girl slowly THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 53 yielded to his influence, until at last, just before her wedding, she renounced the religion of her fathers, and formally profess ing her adoption of Christianity, was baptized and re-christened by the name of Rebecca, she too persuaded herself that she was animated wholly by the strength of Master Rolfe's argu ments and the truth of his cause. When the expedition set out, of which the object was to restore Pocahontas to her people, Rolfe must have undergone great inward torment. He resolved to ask the governor, Sir Thomas Dale, for permission to marry Pocahontas. Instead of speaking to Dale, whom he saw every day. Rolfe drew up a long letter, a sort of theological treatise, to him, and when he set out to interview Powhatan on the subject of the peace, left this curious document with a faithful friend, who was to deliver it to the governor in the author's absence. The letter is a glorious illustration of the perfection of love's masquerade, his deft concealment of his real character from his victim. It began with solemn assertions that the writer was moved only by the Spirit of God; that he sought only to obey his conscience, as a preparation for the " dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all men's hearts shall be opened ;" that he was in no way led by " carnall affection," and that he sought only "for the good of this plantation, for the honor of our countrie, for the glory of God, for my owne salvation, and for the converting to the true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, an unbelieving creature, namely Pokahuntas." He went on to describe how long the subject had borne on his mind, how he had set before his mind the proneness of mankind to evil desires, how he had studied the rebukes of the Bible against marrying strange wives ; how the fearful struggle had kept up day and night between the powers of light and darkness ; how " besides the weary passions and suffering, he had daiely, hourely, yea, and in his sleep indured; even awaking him to astonish ment, taxing him with remissnesse, and carelessnesse, refusing and neglecting to perform the duteie of a good Christian, pulling 54 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. him by the eare and crying ; why dost thou not indeavor to make her a Christian?" Still he proceeded with his foolish delusion. He said that the Holy Spirit often demanded why he was created, if not to labor in the Lord's vineyard. Here was a good chance for him. Besides all which were her apparent love for him, her intelligence and desire to be taught, her willingness to receive good impressions, "and also the spirituall, besides her owne incitements stirring me up hereunto." That these " incitements " and the rest had great influence over the writer of this remarkable love-letter is plain. "Shall I be of so untoward a disposition as to refuse* to lead the blind in the right way ? Shall I be so unnatural as not to give bread to the hungrie, or uncharitable as not to cover the naked?" Such horrible wickedness was not to be thought of. He determined to sacrifice himself on the altar of duty. He could not close, however, without renewed protests that he was not influenced by his own desires or affections. In fact, one thinks he doth protest too much. He finishes, saying, "I will heartily accept of it as a godly taxe appointed me, and I will never cease (God assissting me) untill I have accomplished and brought to perfection so holy a worke, in which I will daily pray God to bless me, to mine and her eternal happiness." Governor Dale read this tedious missive, and no doubt saw the size of the joke. But, nevertheless, he could see the mar riage would be a good thing for the colony, and lay the founda tion for a lasting peace. He approved of it heartily, humoring Rolfe by giving his assent in the same style in which the let ter was written, and, so far as we are informed, without wound ing the susceptible heart of the. widower by any facetious reflection on his cant and self-delusion. Word was sent to Powhatan, and he, too, seemed to approve of it. He was growing conservative in his old age, and he saw in the marriage a career suited to the tastes of his daughter as well as an assurance of long continued peace for his weary people. The expedition returned to Jamestown, where Poca- THE LEGEND OF PO WHAT AN. 57 hontas, as before remarked, formally announced her conversion to Christianity. This was really a good joke on Rolfe, for it demolished at one blow the entire fabric of mock reasoning, by which he justified his desire to marry Pocahontas. However, the question was not sprung. Preparations for the wedding went on merrily. Powhatan shortly sent down an old uncle of Pocahontas to represent him at the wedding and give the bride away. The ceremony was performed in the Jamestown Church, about the 5th of April, 1614. This marriage is justly cele brated as being the basis for a peace with the Powhatans as long as Pocahontas lived. Other tribes, among them the Chickahominies, who are said to have had no king, but a rude sort of republican government, sent in their submission to this colony, which no longer had occasion for war. It is instructive 4 to notice that the colony at this time aban doned the communal system of property, because while all were fed out of the common store, some would shirk the labor, and even the most industrious would "scarcely work in a week so much as they would for themselves in a single day." The pros perity of the colony was assured. Communism is the very soul of barbarism; individual property the earliest sign of civilization. The first time a thing occurs it is remarkable. The wedding of Rolfe and Pocahontas, famous as the first marriage of a white man with an Indian woman on this continent, recalls an incident which had transpired twenty-seven years before. This was the birth of a little waif known to history as Virginia Dare, the first white child born in America. It took place in 1587, in the unhappy colony at Roanoke, Virginia, founded under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh, whose transcendent genius more nearly apprehended the glorious destiny of America than that of any other man of the age. This little maiden was baptized when she was a week or two old. The scene was one of thrilling interest to the anxious group of spectators. That ceremony performed over the unconscious babe has been described with touching interest by every historian of America. 58 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. Well might it be. What a world drama has been and will be enacted on the new continent between the births of the first white child and of the last white child in America! But the history of little Virginia Dare closes with her baptism. Shortly after, her father, leaving his wife and child behind, went to England for food and help. When he returned no trace was to be found of the colony, save the single word "CROATAN" carved on a tree. Historians have speculated upon the fate of the lost colony of Roanoke and of Virginia Dare, but no satisfactory solution has ever been given of the mystery. Such benefits had flowed from the marriage of Pocahontas that good Governor Dale piously ascribing it to the Divine approval which rested on the conversion of the heathen, and reflecting that another daughter of Powhatan would form an additional pledge of peace, sent Hamor and the interpreter, Thomas Savage, to Powhatan, for the purpose of securing another daughter for himself. At the town of Matchcat, farther up the river than Werowocomoco, from which the emperor had removed on account of the proximity of the English, the visitors were received. The emperor seemed glad to see Savage, and invited him to his house. After a pipe of tobacco had been passed around, Powhatan inquired anxiously about his daugh ter's welfare, " her marriage, his unknown son, and how they liked, lived, and loved together." Hamor answered that Rolfe was very well, and " his daughter so well content that she would not change her life to return and live with him, whereat he laughed heartily, and said he was very glad of it." Powhatan then desired to know the reason of the unex pected visit. Hamor said his message was private, and he desired no one to be present. The emperor at once ordered the room cleared of all except the inevitable pair of queens who sat on either side of the monarch. As a propitiatory introduction to the subject, Hamor delivered a message of " love and peace," supplementing it with presents of coffee, beads, combs, fish hooks, and knives, and a promise of the long-wished-for grind- THE LEGEND OF PO WHAT AN. 59 stone, whenever Powhatan would send for it. Hamor then pro ceeded to speak of the great reputation for beauty and attract iveness which Powhatan's youngest daughter bore, of the desire of Pocahontas to have her sister's companionship, of Governor Dale's intention to remain permanently in Virginia, and his desire, in case the young lady proved to be all that was reported of her, to make her his "nearest companion, wife, and bed fellow." Such an alliance, Hamor represented, would be an honor to all concerned, and would form a new bond of alliance and friendship. When Hamor had finished, the emperor gracefully acknowl edged the compliment, but protested that his daughter had been three days married to a certain one of his .kings. Hamor replied that this was nothing, that the groom would readily relinquish her for the ample presents which Governor Dale would make, and further, that the emperor might easily exert his authority to reclaim his daughter on some pretext. To this base proposition the old monarch made an answer, of which the nobility and purity might have put to shame the brazen Hamor. He confessed that his real objection was the love he bore to his daughter, who was dearer to him than his own life ; that though he had many children, none delighted him as much as she ; that he could not live unless he saw her every day during the few remaining years of his life, which he could not do if she went to live with the English, as he was resolved never to put himself in their power by visiting them. He desired no other pledge of friendship than the one already existing in the marriage of his Pocahontas, unless she should die, in which case he would give up another child. Finally, he urged with vehement and pathetic eloquence, " I hold it not a brotherly part for your king to endeavor to bereave me of my two darling children at once. Give him to understand that, if he had no pledge at all, he need not distrust any injury from me or my people. There hath been already too much of blood and war. Too many of my people and of his, have already fallen in our strife, and by 60 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. my occasion there shall never be any more. I, who have power to perform it, have said it ; no, not though I should have just occasion offered, for I am now grown old and would gladly end .my few remaining days in peace and quiet. Even if the English should offer me injury, I would not resent it. My country is large enough, and I would remove myself farther from you. I hope this will give satisfaction to your king. He can not have my daughter. If he is not satisfied, I will move three days' journey farther from him, and never see Englishmen more." His speech was ended. The barbarian's hall of state was silent. The council fire, unreplenished, had burned low during the interview, and the great, crackling logs lay reduced to a dull heap of embers, fit symbol of the aged monarch who had just spoken; within their midst still burned the glowing heart of fire, but more and more feebly, while over all the white and feathery ashes were weaving the shroud of death. Call him a savage, but remember that his shining love for his daughter only throws into darker shadow the infamous proposition of the civilized Englishman to tear away the three days' bride from the arms of her Indian lover, and give her to a man who had already a wife in England. Call him a barbarian, but forget not that, when his enemies hungered he had given them food. When his people were robbed, whipped, and imprisoned by the invaders of his country, he had only retaliated, and had never failed to buy the peace, to which he was entitled without money and without price. Call him a heathen, but do not deny that when he said that, if the English should do him an injury, he would not resent it, but only move farther from them, he more nearly followed the rule of the Master, of whom he was ignorant, than did the faithless, pilfering adventurers at the fort, who rolled their eyes heavenward and called themselves CHRISTIANS. In 1616 John Rolfe and Pocahontas went to England, taking several Indians with them. Here Rolfe well-nigh got \ i \ THE LEGEND OF PO WHAT AN. 61 into trouble over his marriage. The intelligent King James, the same who wanted his minister to procure him a flying- squirrel, because he was " so well affected to such toys," took it into his limited head that Rolfe, a private gentleman, by marrying into the imperial family of Powhatan, had committed high treason. The " anointed " pedant was deeply offended, and insisted that Rolfe meant to claim the Virginia dominion as his wife's heritage, and have the crown descend to his pos terity. His counselors succeeded with difficulty in showing him how far-fetched the notion was. The Lady Rebecca, as Pocahontas was called in England, received, for a little while, considerable attention. The aristocracy ventured to patronize her slightly on account of her rank. She was received by the king and queen, taken to the theaters, and called on by several of the nobility. Captain Smith, busy with other mat ters, did not see her for some time, but either to help Pocahon tas or draw attention to himself, wrote the queen a letter, in which he gave a brief and spirited account of the many kind nesses which Pocahontas had bestowed on the colony, and earnestly requesting that she receive the royal favor and atten tion while in England. In a little while, however, Pocahontas seems to have been neglected. The novelty wore off. After the first weeks of her visit she was no longer spoken of as the wife of Rolfe at all. Either on account of the London smoke or the neglect of the Virginia company, she was staying at Branford. Smith relates the story of a singular interview which he had with her here. After a modest salutation, she, without a word, turned her back to him, and passionately buried her face in her hands. At length she broke forth with pathetic reproaches, recalling the old scenes at the colony, and her sacrifices for the English, how he had called Powhatan "father" when he was a stranger in a strange land, yet how, now that their positions were reversed, he neglected her and objected to her calling him " father." She said that after his departure the English always 62 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. told her he was dead, yet Powhatan had commanded those of her people that were with her to search for Smith, and find out whether he was living, "because your countriemen will lie much." The rea son of her conduct is obscure. Many have thought that Rolfe had told her Smith was dead, because she was resolved never to marry to any one as long as he was alive. It is not im possible that she had loved him, and was deeply grieved to find the trick which had been played U p 0n her. More likely she was homesick, and, grieved to find the English no longer paid her any attention, was deeply sensitive to Smith's neglect, in not visiting her earlier and renewing their old acquaintance. Among the Indians who accompanied Pocahontas was Toco- moco, her brother-in-law, who was sent by Powhatan to take the number of people in England, and bring an account of their strength and resources. When he arrived at Plymouth he got him a long stick, and began to cut a notch in it for every person he met. But he soon wearied of the endless task, and threw away the stick. When he was asked by Powhatan on his return, how many Englishmen there were, he said: "Count the stars in the sky, the leaves on the trees, and the sand on the sea-shore ; for such is the number of people in England." CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 63 This same savage accidentally met Captain Smith in London, where their old acquaintance was renewed. He at once begged Smith to show him his God, king, queen, and prince, about whom Smith had told him so much. Smith put him off the best he could about showing his God, but told him he had already seen the king, and the others he should see when he liked. The Indian stoutly denied having seen the king, James not coming up to his notion of the ruler of such a people. When convinced that he had really seen the king, he said, with a melancholy countenance : " You gave Powhatan a white dog, which he fed as himself; but your king has given me not a mouthful nor a present; yet I am better than your white dog." In May, 1617, Rolfe, who had been appointed secretary of Virginia, with his wife and child, prepared to return to America. They were on board their ship, which was detained a few days in the Thames by contrary winds. During this delay the lovely Pocahontas was taken ill, and, after an illness of three days, died, in a stranger's land. Thus ends one of the briefest and loveliest romances to be found in all literature. Amid the darkness of baii)arism and savagery, bloomed the rare and delicate nature of Pocahontas, a wild rose in the rocky cleft of black precipices and gloomy mountains. She seemed born for a different sphere than that in which she was placed. The brutality of her people was wholly absent from her affectionate heart. She took naturally to the civilization which she so little understood. Whatever motives may have influenced her in her adoption of Christianity, it is on record that she "lived civilly and lovingly" with her husband. From the first she had no fear of the English, going freely to their fort and on board their ships. Nearly every one in the colony had some favor, bestowed in the days of her frolicsome visits to Jamestown, for which to remember her. On all occasions she was their friend, supplying them with pro visions, concealing them from her father, and aiding them to escape. Her influence over her father was unceasingly exerted 64 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. in behalf of the strangers. Modern criticism has regarded some of the stories told of her as romances. But after disentangling the flower from all the weeds and mosses of legend which may have sprung up around it, the beautiful, affectionate nature, the refined manners, and apt in telligence of the Indian prin cess, remain in all their lily- like freshness and fragrance. Her early death, though sad enough, was perhaps fortu nate, both for her and for her II history. As to herself, had f. she lived, her keen intelli gence would have learned to understand more and more fully the difference between, her people and the English, a knowledge which would have brought only pain and sorrow to her loving heart. And as for her history, her early death has left us only her portrait in the perfect bloom of youth, a youth which has been made immortal by the pens of countless historians. In 1618 died the great Powhatan, "full of years and satiated with fightings and the delights of savage life." He is a prominent character in the early history of our country, and well does he deserve it. In his prime he had been proportion ally to his surroundings, as ambitious as Julius Caesar, and not less successful. He had enlarged his dominions by conquest to many times their original size, and had spread the terror of his arms over a vast extent of country. He had many towns and residences, and over a hundred wives. In his government he was despotic and cruel. Offenders were beaten to death before him, or tied to trees and torn limb from limb, or broiled to death on red-hot coals. POCAHONTAS. THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 65 His people had a sort of religion, with priests, temples, and images, but " the ceremonies seemed not worship, but propitia tions against evil," and they appear to have had no conception of an overruling power or of an immortal life. Their notions of personal adornment were very decided, if not pleasing. Oil and paints were daubed all over the person. Their ears had large holes bored in them, in which were hung bones, claws, beads, "and some of their men there be who will weare in these holes a small greene-and-yellow coloured live snake, neere half a yard in length, which crawling and lapping itself about his neck, oftentimes familiarly he suffreeth to kiss his lips. Others wear a dead ratt tyed by the tayle." In his last days Powhatan much feared a conspiracy, between his brother Opechancanough and the English, to overthrow his government, to prevent which his diplomacy was carefully exer cised. There is much that is pathetic in the close of his career, his dominions overrun with strangers, his well-beloved daughter sleeping her last sleep in a foreign land, and himself,' no longer opposing armed resistance to the English, which he was shrewd enough to see must in the long run result in the extermination of his people, but simply " moving farther from them." It would be unjust to the man, to whom we are indebted for the story of Powhatan and his lovely daughter, to close this account without referring briefly to his career after leaving Vir ginia. He was forever after a hobbyist on America. He was always laboring to get up new expeditions, of which he should have command. Once he did go to New England, and as usual, met with thrilling adventures. But he was pursued by the same ill luck which had been his evil star. His ambitious plans were^ never fulfilled, or, if he did get men to invest in his enterprises, they always met with disaster and ruin. Smith had the great good fortune to be his own historian. He took care to tell his own story, and he told it well, making himself the center of every scene. He was a graphic writer, full of wit, and his pages, though crude in style and bungled in arrangement, are the most interesting chronicles of his time. 66 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. Smith was a prolific author. His first work was " The True Relation," written by him, while in America, narrating the history and condition of the colony, published in London, 1608. In 1612 he published his " Map of Virginia and Description of the Coun try." This map shows that he had a fine eye for topographical outline. Other works were "A Description of New England," 1616; "New England's Trials," 1620; "The General Historic," 1624, with three later editions. He wrote also "A Sea Gram mar" and several other books, which went over the same ground of his own adventures and the history of the Jamestown colony. These books were written and published by him at his own expense. He distributed them gratuitously in large numbers, solely with a view to exciting interest about America, and help ing him in working up his plans. Reading between the lines, we see a man of strong nature, full of conceit, of manners disagreeable because egotistical, impa tient of opposition, and insufferably fond of talking about and magnifying his own adventures. Yet he was no ordinary char acter. The very rashness and impulsiveness which he mani fested in England made him fertile in expedients in fighting Powhatan. The very strength of his dictator-like intellect, which gained him the hate of the Jamestown colonists, whether of lower or equal rank, caused him to achieve success with the savages and keep the storehouse of the fort full of corn. His great energy expending itself on the one hobby of working up expeditions to America, no doubt, made him to some extent a nuisance in England, after he was discountenanced and insulted by the Virginia company. But that Smith was a smart man, of rare force and ingenuity, far ahead of his age in foreseeing the future greatness of America, and possessing executive ability of a high order, must be conceded. He came, in time, to regard him self as the originator of all the discoveries and colonizations of his busy age, mentioning the Virginia colony as "my colony," and in relating the story of an expedition, of which he was only a private in the rear rank, saying, "/ took ten men and THE LEGEND OF POWHATAN. 69 went ashore," "/ ordered the boats to be lowered," and so forth. His swaggering rhetoric brings a smile to the face of the reader. His latest and best biographer says : " If Shakespeare had known him, as he might have done, he would have had a character ready to his hand that would have added one of the most amus ing and interesting portraits to his gallery. He faintly suggests a moral Falstaff, if we can imagine a Falstaff without vices." Smith was not only a good Churchman, but a good man. His private life, passed amid the roughest characters and surround ings, was upright and pure. He was never heard to use an oath. In spite of his incessant efforts, by writing books, making speeches, and addressing letters with offers of his services, to colonization societies, Smith was compelled to remain a mere spectator of the rapid settlement of the New World. Though out of money and out of reputation, his buoyant spirits never sunk. He was a Micawber, always expecting something to turn up, or better yet, a Colonel Mulberry Sellers, who was never without a scheme with " millions in it." Hardship and disap pointment made him prematurely old, if it did not make him unhappy. His last years were spent in poverty-stricken seclu sion, a "prince's mind imprisoned in a pauper's purse," as was said of him by a friend. Fed by his "great expectations," he held up his head to the end. Almost his last act was to make his will in due form, pompously disposing to Thomas Parker, Esq., of "all my .houses, lands, tenements, and hereditaments whatsoever." They were located only in his fancy. When the instrument was duly drawn, he, who had written so many books, could only make his mark. The end had come. On June 21, 1631, being fifty-two years old, he passed away. He lived and died a bachelor. He was wedded to his love of adventure. While there is much about him at which to laugh, there is more which begets admiration and sympathy for him who called him self, on the title-pages of his books, the " sometime Governor of Virginia and Admiral of New England." 70 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. CHAPTEE II. THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. OBERT CAVALIER DE LA SALLE is one of the loneliest characters of history. His life was a struggle between Will and Fate. He was a Frenchman, the descendant of a wealthy family of Rouen. While but a child his love of study, his dislike of amusements, his serious energy, caused his family to select for him a career in the Church. His education was care fully attended to by the great " Society of Jesus," of which he became a member. But while La Salle was at first attracted to the Jesuits by their marvelous discipline, their concentrated power, their unequaled organization, his strong nature, as he approached manhood, rebelled at the vast machine of which he was only a part. He found himself, not at the center, but at the circumference of power. He left them. By the laws of the order, the fortune left him by his father had become the property of the " Society." Impoverished, but ambitious, La Salle, a young man of twenty-three years, in 1666, turned his back on the splendors and achievements of France in the reign of Le Grand Monarque, to seek his fortune among the wilder nesses of America. His destination was Montreal. An association of priests called the Seminary of St. Sulpice, were the feudal proprietors of the entire region. The priests were granting out their lands on easy terms to any who would form a settlement. La Salle at once arranged for a large tract of land, eight miles above THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 71 Montreal, at the place now called La Chine. The location was exposed and dangerous, but eligible for the fur trade. Here he marked out a palisaded village, platted the land within the pali sade into lots containing a third of an acre each, and without the palisade into forty-acre fields. These tracts he rented out for a small, annual rent to tenants. He built a comfortable house for himself, and a small fort. The little settlement of which he was the feudal lord grew and flourished. At evening La Salle would look out over the tranquil waters of Lake St. Louis, and as his imagination dwelt on the lonely world stretching ever toward the sunset, the great purpose of its exploration took shape in his mind. The Indians who came to trade with him told him of a great river in the West, but of its destination they were ignorant. The dream of the age, a passage to the South Sea, was realized, if this river emptied into the Southern or Pacific Ocean. So the restless La Salle sold his seignory back to the priests of St. Sulpice, and with the money bought canoes and supplies for an expedition. The Sulpitians were envious of their more famous .rivals, the Jesuits. The latter had long excluded every rival from missionary labors among the Indians. They threaded forests, swam rivers, endured hunger, cold, and disease to follow the Indian to his wigwam. With deathless pertinacity, they learned hideous languages, lived on nauseous food, and dared the flames of torture, to tell the story of their religion. No sacrifice was too great, no enterprise too hazardous, no suffering too severe to deter them from their great object the conversion of the sav ages. Everywhere these heroic priests had preceded the march of civilization. Twenty years before the saintly Marquette floated down the Mississippi, a Jesuit establishment was located on its banks. When the Hurons, among which they labored so long, were driven from their homes by the resistless arms of the Five Nations, the priests shared their sufferings and exile. Long before any other white men, they had traversed the great lakes and unfurled the banner of the cross on their farthest shores. 72 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. For all this wasted heroism the rewards seem meager enough. Now and then a savage, attracted by some beads, would allow himself to be baptized ; but, as one chronicler says, " an Indian would be baptized ten times a day for a pint of brandy." Sometimes the priests were edified by seeing a war rior throw a piece of tobacco at the foot of the cross as a sym bol of worship. " I have been amply rewarded," says one of these fathers, after being fed by his hosts for six days on some nauseous, boiled lichen and a piece of old moccasin, " for all my sufferings. I have this day rescued from the -burning a dying infant, to whom its mother allowed me to administer the sacred rites of baptism, and who is now, thank God, safe from that dreadful destiny which befalls those who die without the pale of our most holy Church." The Sulpitians, envying the Jesuits, aided La Salle in his efforts, and also fitted out an expedition of their own to join him, hoping to find fields for their own missionary zeal. This double-headed expedition was ill-suited to the imperious will of La Salle. After weeks of travel the priests resolved to direct their course to Lake Superior. La Salle warned them that they would find the field preoccupied by the Jesuits. La Salle's goal was the Ohio, which his Indian friends had confounded with the Mississippi. The two expeditions separated. The priests traversed the great lakes, and met with many hardships, only to find La Salle's prediction true. One night a storm swept their baggage, containing their altar service, into the lake. This they took to be the work of the Devil, to prevent their having mass. Soon afterward they found a stone idol in the forest, which inspired their highest resentment. Hungry and petulant, they attacked the thing with fury, broke it up, and dumped the fragments in the lake. This pious exploit was, as they said, divinely rewarded by a bear and a deer, killed the same day. They returned to Montreal without having made a convert or a discovery. La Salle's men had mostly deserted him, and returning to STARVING INDIANS AT THE STOCKADE OF QUEBEC. THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 75 his old settlement, called it La Chine in derision of his phantom idea of a passage to China. With one companion, he pushed on to the south, discovered the Ohio River, and descended it to the falls at Louisville, Kentucky. Here his guide deserted him, and La Salle made his way back to Montreal alone. In the following year he made a similar trip to Lake Michigan, and discovered the Illinois River. The information gained on these trips and from the Indians, together with vague rumors among the Jesuits, gradually cre ated a belief by La Salle, that the Mississippi flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. His fertile mind mapped out the vast scheme of discovery and conquest, to the accomplishment of which he devoted the remainder of his life. History has no parallel for his labors. His idea was to explore the Mississippi, build a chain of French forts from the Lakes to the Gulf, command the mouth of the Mississippi with a fortress which should be the key to the continent. The great river should be open only to the navies of France. The vast interior domain of the conti nent should become a new empire for Louis XIV to govern. England should be confined to the strip of sea coast east of the Alleghanies ; Spain to Florida, Mexico, and South America. The trade with Indians for furs and hides, opened up through the whole interior of the continent, from the base line of the Mississippi and the chain of forts, would enrich France beyond the scope of the imagination; and this was but the prelude to the great empire which La Salle foresaw was destined to flourish between the Alleghanies and the Rockies, the Lakes and the Gulf. The Jesuits might hold undisputed sway in frozen Canada. It was for him to discover and control the rich and beautiful Mississippi valley. In 1672 the Count de Frontenac became governor of New France. He was a bold and ambitious man, with many points of resemblance to La Salle. The latter, nursing his mighty dream in the secrecy of his own brain, saw that Canada must be the basis for the fabric. From there he must start, from 76 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. there receive supplies and men. Nor could he stir without the permission of the government. Frontenac became the friend of the youthful, but stern, and self-poised adventurer. A plan was formed between them, to build a fort at the spot now occupied by Kingston, near the junction of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The ostensible reason was defense against the Iroquois. But Frontenac saw in it a monopoly of trade and La Salle regarded it as the first link in the chain which was to bind America to the throne of France. The location chosen was the territory of the Iroquois, the dreaded Five Nations. This league of Indians, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, embraced the most intelligent, powerful, and warlike races on the continent. Orig inally occupying about what is now New York State, they had extended their all-conquering arms over Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois, and much of Canada. A thou sand miles from their council fires were brave but subjugated peoples, who held their lands at the pleasure of their conquer ors, paid annual tribute, and prostrated themselves before embas sies of Iroquois, who called them dogs and spat in the faces of their proudest chieftains. The Iroquois hated the French, who had helped their Cana dian neighbors to defend themselves from the scourge. More over, the English and Dutch furnished them arms, and made them a sort of police over other tribes. Many a party of Indians from the Lake Superior region, with its fleet of fur- laden canoes, was waylaid by the Iroquois on the way to Mon treal, and either plundered or forced to trade with the English and Dutch. La Salle was dispatched to Onondaga, where the council- house of the confederacy was located, to invite them to a con ference at the site of the proposed fort. On the appointed day, Frontenac, in glittering armor, with a brilliant and formidable force of French soldiery, met the assembled hosts of the Iro quois. By means of alternate threats, persuasions, and presents, THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 77 he obtained their consent to build the fort, which was named in honor of himself. The next step in La Salle's course was to erect a fort at the mouth of the Niagara River. But it was indispensable to obtain the sanction of the French Government. Fort Frontenac had been built without any authority. Already strong influences were at work to have Louis XIV order it to be torn down. First, was the political party in Canada, who had supported the former governor, and who became the mortal enemies of Fron tenac when he supplanted his predecessor. The political ani mosities of Frenchmen are the most bitter and far reaching of any people. When they hate, they hate. Another group of formidable enemies were the merchants of Montreal and Quebec. They saw that Frontenac and La Salle, with their fort so much nearer the lakes, the great avenue of Indian traffic, would have a practical monopoly of the fur trade. The last, but by no means least, of the enemies of the governor and the dauntless La Salle, were the Jesuits. La Salle was a zealous Catholic, but he despised the Jesuits. The latter, who had long had a monopoly of New France, were already losing it in Lower Can ada. They therefore watched their western missions with the greatest jealousy, and resented every movement which tended to open up the great lakes to their rivals. The first attack of these dangerous enemies on La Salle was an attempt to secure the destruction of Fort Frontenac. La Salle was arranging to return to France in the fall of 1674, in order to lay his projects before the king, and resist these intrigues, when his ambition received a powerful stimulus from the report of Joliet, who in the spring of 1673 had set out with Father Marquette, and five boatmen, to explore the Miss issippi, and carry the Gospel to the countless tribes along its banks. Marquette was the child of an illustrious family of the French nobility. Inspired solely by a sense of religious duty, he had bidden farewell to the splendors of the baronial castle in 5 78 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. which he was born, to dwell among the Indians. Slowly the little party made their way through the lakes, up Green Bay and Fox River, thence by many weary portages on to the Missis sippi. The simple and inoffensive savages, perhaps drawn more by the gentle and saint-like spirit of Marquette than by his explanations of the atonement, received the strangers kindly, pressed on them their best hospitality, and after many solicita tions for them to remain, helped them on their weary way. At the village of the Illinois the two unarmed Frenchmen were treated to a great feast. The first course was Indian meal, boiled in grease, which their host fed them with a spoon. This was followed by a vast platter of fish. The host carefully picked the bones from each mouthful, cooled it by blowing, and tucked it in their mouths with his fingers. This excessive politeness seemed to destroy the Frenchmen's appetites, either from embarrassment or other causes, as the remaining courses of baked dog and buffalo were hardly tasted. Day after day the voyagers floated down the majestic river, into the ever-opening landscape. Now their eye swept over boundless prairies ; now they peered into the perennial gloom of mighty forests; now they shuddered with alarm at the imaginary dangers of red and green dragons and scaly monsters, painted by some Indian artist on the dark background of the overhanging bluffs; now they struggled with a more real danger in the mighty torrent from the Missouri River, which hurled its masses of mud and uprooted trees far out into the transparent depths of the Mississippi. As they proceeded southward the sun became warmer, the vegetation denser, the flowers more luxuriant. Every evening, after hauling their canoes ashore, Marquette, with clasped hands, would kneel before the "Father of Waters," and pour out his soul in prayer to the Infinite. As he prayed, a mild supernatural radiance would illumine his delicate and scholarly features. The spoken words would often cease, but still the slender black-gowned figure, with hands lifted, arid face turned toward the crimson glories of the dying day, con- ' ' : ' ' ' THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 81 tinued kneeling till the black bannered armies of night darkened all the air. Seven hundred miles from the mouth of the Mississippi the voyagers commenced to retrace their lonely way. After weeks of toil, they made their way back to the Green Bay mission. Here Marquette, sick and exhausted from the toils of the expe dition, was compelled to stop, while Joliet carried to Montreal the news of the discovery, and of their firm belief that the Mississippi flowed, not into the Pacific Ocean, but the Gulf of Mexico. Marquette, though feeble in health, after a long repose, determined to return to the Illinois Indians, among whom he had promised to found a mission. Taking two boatmen, Pierre and Jaques, he started on the slow journey. Overtaken by winter and renewed sickness, the gentle father was compelled to pass the winter in a rude hut on the shores of Lake Michigan. Some branches from the trees formed his bed, a log his pillow. His earthly companions were filthy savages, but he had con stantly present with him a divine Companion. Urged on by love and pity, he set out amid the sleet and rain of early spring toward his destination. He was received by the Illinois at their great village, near the site of the present town of Utica, La Salle County, Illinois. Here, every morning, in a vast wigwam, he told his breathless auditors the story of the cross. At last his failing health forced him to leave his sorrowful Indian friends. Slowly and wearily, he set out with his two faithful boatmen on the return trip. During the day he reclined on a rude pallet in the canoe, his face turned toward the skies he was so soon to inhabit. At night his two com panions would hastily build a shelter, gently lift and carry him from the boat, and then prepare the rough dish of Indian meal, so ill suited to the sufferer. One evening Marquette pointed to a lonely eminence on the lake shore : " That is the spot for my last repose." The encampment was made earlier than usual. It was well. In the darkness of the night, with a crucifix in his 82 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. hand and a prayer on his lips, the gentle spirit of Marquette exhaled to the skies, amid the sobs of his heart-broken com panions. There in the wilderness they laid him to rest. Though always called Father Marquette, he was just thirty- eight years old. We turn abruptly from this angelic nature to the iron figure of La Salle. When Joliet arrived at Montreal with the news of his discovery, La Salle found all of his beliefs as to the course of the Mississippi confirmed. He at once sailed for France, it being the fall of 1674. His tireless energy and address secured him an audience with the great French monarch himself. In strong, clear statements he explained the necessity of the forts. His effort was successful. The king granted him the fort and a large tract of land. He was to pay back what the fort had cost the king, and rebuild it in stone. His friends, anxious to share his prosperity, loaned him money to pay the king. La Salle returned to Canada with his grant in his pocket. From this moment he was encircled by enemies who shadowed him to his grave. The merchants and traders of Canada organ ized into a league to oppose him. The country became a hornet-nest for him. Every weapon which malice could wield or ingenuity invent was employed to strike him. The Jesuits procured an order from France forbidding his traders to go out among the Indians. La Salle formed an Iroquois settlement around his fort, so that the Indians thereafter came to him. When he was at Quebec, the wife of his host undertook to play the part of Potiphar's wife. La Salle quickly left the room to find the hall filled with spies, who had expected to catch him in the baited trap. Reports were sent to his brother, the Abbe Cavalier, a Sulpitian priest, to the effect that La Salle had seduced a young girl, and was living in gross immorality. His excommunication might have taken place, had not his brother visited him, only to find him presiding over a most exemplary household. A servant was hired to put poison in his food. THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 83 La Salle ate of the dish, and was taken dangerously ill, but finally recovered. Emissaries were sent out among the bloody Iroquois, telling them that the fort was designed to aid in mak ing war on them. On the other hand, word was sent through many channels to La Salle that the Iroquois intended a massacre, and Frontenac was urged to raise a force and attack them. It was with great difficulty that the Indians were quieted. In spite of these villainous machinations, La Salle's inflex ible will was victorious. By the help of Indians, Fort Fronte- riac was rebuilt of stone. Within its walls were substantial barracks, a guard house, an officer's house, a forge, a well, a mill, and a bakery. Nine small cannon peeped through the walls. A dozen soldiers formed the garrison, and three times as many laborers and canoe men were also inhabitants of the fort. Outside were a French settlement, an Iroquois village, a chapel and priest's house, a hundred acres of cleared land, and a comfortable lot of live stock. Four forty- ton vessels and a fleet of canoes were built for navigating the lakes. Here in this solitude, a week's journey from the nearest settlement, La Salle reigned with absolute power and rapidly increasing wealth. But La Salle's ambition was not gain, but glory. In the autumn of 1677 he again sailed for France. His enemies, growing more numerous and bitter all the time, were ahead of him, and denounced hyn to the government as a fool and madman. This was embarrassing. The scheme he was about to propose was so vast as to inspire distrust of his sanity. In his memorial to the king, La Salle recited his discoveries, described the great Mississippi valley, predicted its future, unfolded its immense value to France, enumerated the enormous difficulties which would attend its conquest, pointed out the anx iety of the English to possess it, outlined the plan of securing it by a vast chain of forts, artfully hinted at a chance to wrest Mexico from Spain, declared -that it was as a basis for this enterprise that he had built Fort Frontenac, and asked similar privileges for another fort at the mouth of the Niagara the 84 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. key to Lake Erie. The statesmen of France gave La Salle an attentive audience. They granted him a royal patent allow ing him to build as many forts as he chose on the same terms as Fort Frontenac, gave him a monopoly of the trade in buffalo hides, and as a crumb of comfort for the Jesuits, forbade him to trade in Upper Canada or the great lakes. This patent says nothing of colonies. Louis XIV was always opposed to them. But a military dominion over the wilderness, and a path for the invasion of Mexico, suited him well. For the accomplishment of this Titanic labor he gave La Salle five years ! La Salle's imperative need was money. This he borrowed in large sums at ruinous interest. These creditors lived to change from wealthy friends to bankrupted enemies. The exploration of America cost untold fortunes, thousands of heroic lives, and centuries of unrequited toil and hardships. Our debt to the past is beyond computation. La Salle was joined by the valued and trusted Henri de Tonty, a son of an Italian banker, who invented Tontine insurance. Tonty had lost a hand in battle. He was the only one of all his followers in whom La Salle could place complete confidence. On his arrival in Canada, although it was in the dead of winter, La Salle pushed forward his enterprise. Father Henne- pin, a Ricollet friar, and La Motte, another ally, who had joined La Salle in France, with sixteen men were dispatched from Fort Frontenac across the chopping waves of Erie as an advance party. After breasting the fierce December storms, they disem barked in the snow at the mouth of the Niagara River, and commenced to erect a fortified house. The ground was thawed with hot water. Little progress was made before it became evident that the consent of the Iroquois must be obtained. La Motte failed in this, but La Salle, following with supplies and re-enforcements, appeared before the solemn council of the Five Nations. Forty- two stately chiefs, arrayed in robes of black squirrel skin, listened to him and received his presents. " The senators of Venice," wrote Hennepin, " do not look more grave THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 85 or speak more deliberately than the counselors of the Iroquois." La Salle's dexterity won their permission to erect a fortified warehouse at the mouth of the Niagara River and to build a ship above the Falls. This was a triumph over the Jesuits, two of whom he found at the Iroquois capital, who spared no effort to thwart his proceeding. But La Salle's enemies were just beginning to show their hand. He made his way to the camp on the Niagara River, only to find that the pilot, to whom he had intrusted the nav igation of his vessel, laden with costly supplies, tools, and materials for building the ship above the Falls, had wrecked her on the rocks, and of all her precious cargo nothing but the anchors and cables for the new vessel had been saved. This disaster was appalling and irreparable, and, as Hennepin says, "would have made any one but La Salle give up the enterprise." It became evident, too, that others of his party, besides the pilot, had been tampered with. They were a motley crew of French, Flemings, and Italians, quarrelsome, discontented, and insubordinate. La Salle, inflexible and silent, ordered an advance. Formed in single file, every man heavily burdened with materials and supplies for the new ship, the priest, Hennepin, with his altar on his back, the procession stumbled through the deep snow, and up the steep heights above Lewiston. Six miles above the Falls, in spite of the terrible cold, the ship was begun. Food was scarce. The Iroquois acted suspiciously. A squaw told the French that they intended to burn the vessel on the stocks. No corn could be bought. Leaving the energetic Tonty in com mand, La Salle returned to the mouth of the river, marked out the foundations for the new fort, and tluen set out on foot, with two companions, for Fort Frontenac, two hundred and fifty miles away, a trip made necessary by the loss of his supply vessel. It was a bitter February. His path lay through the country of the treacherous Iroquois, among whom the Jesuits were intrigu ing for his destruction. For food he had a small bag of parched 86 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. corn. Though a long way from the fort, the bag was growing very light. Their rations were reduced one-half. This did not suffice. They again reduced them one-half. One night they ate the last handful. Then they did without eating. La Salle arrived at the fort to find himself ruined. His enemies had circulated reports that he was gone on a hare brained adventure. Though his property at Fort Frontenac was ample security for his Canada creditors, they had seized all his property of furs, ships, and corn, wherever found. The blow was terrific and beyond remedy. La Salle simply hard ened himself to the shock. If any thing, his step was more haughty, and his mouth more stern. But he could not allow his foes to triumph by giving up his enterprise. In August he reappeared on the Niagara River. He had contrived to get a few supplies in spite of the vigilance of his creditors, and he brought three more friars. Though he -hated Jesuitism, he was zealous for the faith. Tonty had long since completed the Griffin, as the new ship was called. It swung easily at anchor, so near the shore that Hennepin preached from its deck to the Indians. On the seventh day of August, 1679, amid the chant of Te Deums and the booming of cannon, the Griffin spread her snowy canvas, and sped out over the blue depths of Lake Erie. The first few days were lovely. The rippling water sparkled in the sunlight; the distant shore seemed like a delicate blue penciling upon the cloudless horizon; the bulwarks of the Griffin were decorated with splendid game. On up the Detroit River and Lake St. Glair into Lake Huron, which spread before them like a sea, the voyagers held their way. Suddenly a terrific storm arose. The vessel shook like a leaf before the fury of the bil lows. La Salle and his company cried aloud to all the saints, some one of whom it is presumed heard their cries, as the storm passed away and the vessel found refuge behind Point St. Ignace. La Salle lingered here at the Jesuit mission to find his ever present enemies still bent on his destruction. He had THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 87 expected to have the expedition proceed from this point in canoes, while he returned in the Griffin with a cargo of furs to appease his creditors. Such signs of disloyalty appeared that he sent the Griffin back without him. It proved to be a most disastrous determination. The fleet of deep-laden canoes were soon caught in another storm. With great difficulty and danger the explorers reached the shore, where they remained a week, drenched by incessant sleet and rain. As the tempest raged on the lake, La Salle trembled for the Griffin. Though sorely pressed for food, he dared not camp near Indians, for fear some of his men would steal his goods and desert to them. The hardships were intol erable. Overhead great rain clouds swept across the sky; beneath raged an angry turmoil of tossing waves. At night the heavy canoes had to be dragged by the exhausted and hungry men through the breakers and up the steep shores. One morning foot-prints were seen in the soft mud and a coat was missing. La Salle knew that the theft must be punished. A stray Indian was made prisoner, and La Salle went to his peo ple and told them he would be killed unless the coat was returned. This was embarrassing. The coat had been cut up and divided among the Indians. It was a fight or a compro mise. The latter was effected by paying for the coat in corn. La Salle made his way to the mouth of the St. Joseph River. Here he was to meet Tonty, coming along the east shore of the lake from Michillimackinac. The spot was wrapped in its primeval solitude. To wait for Tonty was dangerous. Win ter was setting in ; the men were restless ; yet La Salle said he would wait, if it was by himself. In three weeks Tonty arrived. One of his canoes with guns, baggage and provisions had been swamped. Part of his men had deserted. For many days their only food had been acorns. It was time for the Griffin to have made her trip to Niagara and back again. Day after day La Salle scanned the horizon, with anxious eye. No sail ap peared. To delay longer was impossible. Two men were sent to 88 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. meet it, while the remainder, thirty-three in all, began to force their canoes up the St. Joseph River. They looked eagerly for the trail which led to the great village of the Illinois. Nowhere could it be found. La Salle went ashore to search for it. Night came with thick falling snow, but La Salle returned not. The suspense of the party was intolerable. It was four o'clock the next day before he came in sight. He had lost his way, In the night he saw the gleam of a fire through the forest. Hastening to it, he found, not his camp, but a spot warm from the body of a man who had evidently fled. Calling loudly and getting no answer, La Salle coolly lay down and slept till morn ing. On his return he was greatly exhausted from his exposure, and slept in a hut close to the camp-fire. During the night the hut caught fire, and he narrowly escaped the flames. When at last the Illinois trail was found, the party shoul dered canoes and baggage for the tramp. One of the men, enraged at his hardships, raised his gun to shoot La Salle through the back, but was prevented from doing so. The great Indian town of five hundred enormous lodges was reached, but every wigwam was silent and empty; and the ashes of every camp-fire cold. The people were absent on their great hunt. Abundant stores of corn were found, but it was a terrible offense to touch it. La Salle felt that he must have the friend ship of the Indians at any cost. The Jesuit emissaries were busy among the Iroquois, inciting them to make war on the distant Illinois, hoping by this means that La Salle and his for lorn companions might be massacred, or at least forced to aban don their enterprise. One morning, as the little flotilla of canoes drifted down the Illinois River, the Indians of the deserted vil lage came in sight. They received the strangers as friends, providing food, and rubbing their feet with bear's grease. La Salle made them a speech, told them he came to protect them against the Iroquois, and intended to build a great wooden canoe with which to descend the Mississippi and bring them the merchandise they so much wanted. THE SECRET NOCTURNAL COUNCIL. THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 91 One would think that La Salle, in this wilderness, far remote from the dwellings of men, would have been free from the pur suit of his enemies. Not so. Hate, like love, laughs at dis tance and difficulties. That very night a Jesuit emiss-ary reached the Indian camp. A secret nocturnal council was held. The stranger warned the Illinois that La Salle was their enemy, an Iroquois spy, soon to be followed by the Iroquois themselves in all their blood-thirstiness. After this speech he disappeared in the forest. In the morning La Salle noticed the change in his hosts. Distrust and malignity were depicted on every savage face. Adroitly learning the facts from an Indian to whom he had given a hatchet, he made a bold speech, denying the slander, and challenging them to set him face to face with his traducer. The speech restored general confidence. If oratory is the art of persuading men and swaying an audience, La Salle was a great orator. One morning, La Salle found six of his men, including two of his best shipbuilders, had deserted. It cut him to the quick. But this was not all. A treacherous hand again placed poison in his food. His life hung in the balance for hours, but an antidote given by the faithful Tonty turned the wavering scale. Worse than all, it was evident that the Griffin , the main stay of the whole enterprise, was lost. Nothing was ever heard of her again. Two men sent to search for her, reported that they had made the circuit of the lakes and found her not. La Salle afterwards found evidence of her having been deliberately sunk by the pilot, at the instance of his enemies. The loss of the Griffin was the severest blow yet. She carried anchors, cables, and equipment for the new boat he was to build on the Mississippi, as well as costly supplies. The mountain of dis asters was enough to break a heart of stone. Did La Salle give up ? No ! He mocked at despair, and instead of yielding, built a strong permanent fort, which he called Fort Orevecoeur, or "Broken-hearted," in very irony at his misfortunes. He also commenced the great task of building 92 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. a forty-ton ship for the river. Trees had to be felled and laboriously sawed into plank by hand. Yet in six weeks the hull was completed by men who were not carpenters. La Salle induced Father Hennepin to give up his preaching, and render some reluctant service by exploring the Illinois River to its mouth. Hennepin, who was a great boaster but poor worker, tried to shirk the enterprise, but at last, with two companions and a canoe well filled with hatchets, beads, and other presents for the Indians, supplied at La Salle's own cost, started on his trip. He descended the Illinois to its mouth, and then ascended the Mississippi, was taken prisoner by the Sioux, and after many adventures made his way back to Montreal, and thence to Europe. He at once published an account of his travels, laying no claim to having discovered the mouth of the Mississippi. Fifteen years later, La Salle being long since dead, Hennepin rivaled our friend Captain John Smith by pub lishing a new story of his travels, in which he claims to have traversed the entire Mississippi, and thus anticipated La Salle in his chief work. The falsehoods and exaggerations of the book have long since been exposed. La Salle's exploration could advance no farther until the precious articles for the new ship, lost in the Griffin, could be replaced. The expedition was eating itself up with expense. Its chief determined to make his way on foot through the vast and gloomy wildernesses which lay between him and Montreal, in one last effort to replace the loss. It was equal to one of the labors of Hercules a journey of twelve hundred miles, through a country which was the perpetual battle-ground of hostile and cruel savages, without food, sleeping on the open ground, watching by night and marching by day, carrying a heavy load of blanket, gun, ammunition, hatchet, kettle, and a sack of parched corn. Sometimes pushing through thickets, sometimes climbing rocks covered with ice and snow, with clothing constantly wet from swimming a dozen rivers a day, and wading for hours at a time waist or even neck deep in THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 93 marshes, exposed continually to attack from ravenous beasts, and to a thousand other hardships, toils, and dangers. In all the journey there was not a gleam of light from a single cabin window to welcome the weary travelers at night-fall, not a white man's face to cheer them amid the frightful and gloomy solitudes of unending forests. La Salle's companions were a Mohegan hunter, who had followed him with ceaseless fidelity, and four Frenchmen. Two of the latter left the party at the point nearest Michillimackinac. The terrible exposures impaired the health of the party. The Mohegan and one Frenchmen were taken ill, and were spitting blood. This left La Salle and one man in health. They had to provide for the additional burden of the sick men. But we may not linger over the tragic story. After sixty- five days of unparalleled sufferings, the stone bastions of Fort Frontenac rose before their weary eyes. The unconquerable will and iron frame of La Salle, who had been reared in delicate luxury, a scholar, whose career had been marked out to be that of a gentle parish priest for some rural flock in France, had achieved the impossible. Poor La Salle had reached his goal, but his long journey had but brought him to new grief. It is almost too cruel to record. Within a week he had, by extraordinary effort, in spite of his bankruptcy and misfortunes, collected the needed supplies. He was on the point of setting out on the return trip to his forlorn colony on the Illinois, when two messengers from Fort Crevecoeur arrived with a letter from Tonty. He reported to his stricken chief that, after his departure, the men had mutinied, blown up the fort, plundered its stores, throwing into the river all they could not carry off, and then deserted. All was lost. His mighty effort was spent. Yet he gave not an hour to his grief. Whatever was the inward conflict, no human eye could pierce beneath the iron mask of his features. He chose nine trusty and well-armed men and went to meet the mutineers. Two canoes surrendered at once. The third showed 94 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. fight. Two of the villains were killed. The remainder were safely lodged in the dungeon of the fort, to await the coming of Count Frontenac. La Salle's enemies used the killing of the two mutineers as a basis for a charge of murder. After all his toil, the mighty dream of the interior empire seemed wrecked forever. But La Salle was incapable of retreat. He seemed impelled by an inward force, as resistless as his fate was remorseless. On the 10th of August, 1680, he embarked again with his succor for Tonty. If the latter could keep his foothold on the Illinois, success might yet be wrested from adversity. Through Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Michigan, up the St. Joseph River, and down the Kankakee, he once more took his way. At every step he found the Indians prejudiced against him by the Jesuits. When, at last, they drew near the meadows on which had stood the great village of the Illinois, with its population of eight thousand souls, their horror-stricken gaze met a scene of utter desolation. Where once was heard the busy hum of human life, no sound, save their own footsteps, broke a silence as of the grave. The plain was covered with heaps of ashes and charred poles. Hundreds of human bodies, hideous souve nirs of battle, half-eaten by wolves and birds of prey, filled the air with pollution. With but one thought, La Salle searched the blackened and bloody field of death, with sleepless anxiety, for traces of the fate of Tonty. That the Iroquois had wrought the work of ruin was clear. That Tonty had been burned alive, or taken prisoner, he thought he read in some charcoal drawings on some stakes. Taking four men with him, La Salle pushed on to Fort Crevecoeur. Hope was dead in his breast, and dark despair floated on raven plume, like a bird of ill-omen, in ever-narrowing circles above his dauntless form. The fort was destroyed. On the stocks stood the hull of the half-finished vessel, with every nail and spike withdrawn. In charcoal letters La Salle read, " Nous sommes tons sauvages : ce 15, 1680," inscription by the mutineers. Even here he found THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 95 bodies lashed to stakes and half-consumed by the torturing flames. Down the Illinois he floated, till he saw before his eyes the mighty river of the Mississippi. It was the source and object of all his vast ambitions and incomparable efforts. But its charms were unheeded by his anxious eye. No trace of Tonty could be found. Tonty, after the mutiny, lived in the Illinois village, a weak, one-handed soldier of fortune, yet, withal, a courtly gentleman, amid his savage companions; one who would have graced any court in Europe. One evening word was brought that the Iro- quois were coming. The same messenger said La Salle was with them; hence, Tonty must be a traitor. The excited savages threw his precious forge and tools into the river. He was in the utmost peril. All night the warriors sang, danced, painted their bodies, and worked themselves into a frenzy to raise their courage. Tonty resorted to a desperate expedient. He went unarmed into the Iroquois camp, bearing a belt of wampum. By exaggerating the numbers of the Illinois and threat ening future vengeance from the French, he patched up a peace. Scarcely was it made before being broken. In six days the Iroquois chieftains summoned Tonty to meet them. An orator presented him with six packs of beaver skins. The first two, he said, signified that the children of Frontenac, that is, the Illinois, should not be eaten ; the next was a plaster to heal Tonty's wound ; the next was oil to anoint himself, that he might not be fatigued in traveling ; the fifth signified that the sun was bright; the sixth required him to pack up and go back to Canada forthwith. Sadly he called his five faithful compan ions together and started on foot for Green Bay Mission. La Salle, failing to find his friend, retraced his steps to the fort on the St. Joseph River. Here he located for the winter. Instead of being crushed by the cruel aggregation of disasters and defeats, he modified his plans and mapped out in his own secretive mind a new plan for the pursuit of the great enter prise, from which he never took his eye. His notion was to 96 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. induce the Western tribes of Indians to unite in a defensive league against the Iroquois, with himself at its head. He worked incessantly, traveling far and near. As has been said, he was a great orator with the Indians. He punctuated his sentences with presents of hatchets and kettles, and emphasized his words with red blankets. Such eloquence was irresistible. Besides, the Indian knows a hero by instinct. He recognizes a true leader at sight. Everywhere the Indians from innumer able tribes lent their aid to the enterprise. La Salle was to protect them against the Iroquois, and French traders were to bring to them all the articles they needed, in ships which would sail up the Mississippi. Things looked promising. To discover the mouth of the Mississippi was of the first importance. For this a trip to Can ada was again necessary. On his way back, La Salle, to his infinite joy, found Tonty at Michillimackinac. Each told his tale of disaster. The new scheme and its signs of promise were laid before Tonty. Arrived at Montreal, La Salle made a last effort to appease his creditors and procure a new equipment. Once more he set out for the Illinois, by the same dreary route, so 'full of suggestions of wasted wealth, disappointed ambitions, and fruitless toil. The past was a failure. Would the future prove brighter? The plan of building a large vessel for the journey down the Mississippi, if consummated, would have enabled La Salle to gather quantities of furs, and pay the cost of the expedition. Disaster had forced him to abandon the plan and the trip was made in canoes. The Indians along the river proved to be friendly, intelligent, and polite. Concerning the Arkansas tribe, one of the party writes : " They are gay, civil, and free-hearted. The young men, though alert and spirited, are so modest that not one of them would take the liberty to enter our hut, but all stood quietly at the door. We greatly admired their form and beauty. We did not lose the value of a pin while among them." At the principal town of the Taensas, the travelers were dum- LA SALLE PROCLAIMING THE FRENCH EMPIRE IN AMERICA. THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 99 founded to find large square dwellings, built of mud, straw, and cane, arched over with dome-shaped roofs. In one of these buildings, in a room forty feet square, sat the king on a chair of state ; three wives were at his side, and ranged around him sat sixty old men, wrapped in white cloaks, woven of mulberry bark. When he spoke his wives howled. His death would be celebrated with the death of one hundred victims. Another building formed the temple. In the center was an altar on which burned a perpetual fire. Around the room were ranged long rows of grinning skulls from the victims sacrificed to the Sun. The king was frightfully solemn. No smile had ever flitted across his cast-iron countenance. But if he failed to appreciate a joke, he liked presents and visited La Salle at his camp. On this important occasion the solemn old savage advanced in his white robes, preceded by two men with large white fans, while a third bore an enormous disc of burn ished copper, representing the Sun, which was the king's ances tor. At each spot that he visited, La Salle erected a cross with the arms of France, as an emblem of her dominion. On the 6th of April they reached a point where the river divided into three channels. It was the Delta. It was not long till the heavy current bore the voyagers out into the lonely gulf. For a thousand years its tossing waves had in that mighty solitude striven to rise above themselves ; for a thousand years they had fallen back, broken and sullen, to their own level fit emblems of human ambition. Gathering on the shore, the little group of weather-beaten men erected a column and a cross, with the insignia of the French people. Then La Salle proclaimed aloud the French dominion. " On that day," says Francis Parkman, " the realm of France received on parchment a stupendous accession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of the gulf; from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks of the Rocky Mountains a region of savannahs and forests, sun- 6 100 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. cracked deserts, and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers, ranged by a thousand warlike tribes, passed beneath the scepter of the sultan of Versailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice inaudible at half a mile." The new domain was called Louisiana, in honor of its king. Henceforth the name of La Salle was a part of history. But his labors were only begun. Impatiently he urged his little fleet of canoes upward against the heavy current. His way seemed clear now for the execution of his original plan, to abandon the difficult and roundabout route through frozen Canada, the great lakes and the Kankakee swamps, to plant a fort at the mouth of the Mississippi, and thus monopolize the magnificent natural pathway to the interior of the continent. On his way back, La Salle was stricken down with a deadly fever. Against this foe his stubborn will was powerless. He could not. proceed to Canada to announce his discovery, nor to France to raise means for carrying out his splendid plans, nor even to the Illinois to commence his fort. While La Salle lay in a hut on the banks of the Mississippi, the fever of ambition and impatience uniting with that of disease, Tonty pressed on to Canada with the glorious news of the discovery. By December Tonty and La Salle were once more together on the Illinois River, busy with perfecting the great Indian league. Overhanging the river, La Salle had previously noticed a great rock, one hundred and twenty-five feet high, inaccessible on all sides except by a difficult footpath in the rear. Its top was about an acre in extent. This rock, properly fortified, could be defended by a score of men against hosts of savages. It is now called "Starved Rock." It is six miles below the town of Ottawa, Illinois. On the top of this rock La Salle and Tonty made a clearing, and built a palisade, lodges, store houses. It was named Fort St. Louis. The league grew and strengthened. Every day brought re-enforcements. Around the fort a hundred tribes took up their dwelling, inspired with the idea of being protected by La Salle THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 101 from the terrible Iroquois. They came from the Kankakee, from the Ohio, even from Maine. Among the promiscuous throng of lodges were those of some discomfited warriors of Philip of Mount Hope, who had for a while spread terror and despair through the Puritan settlements of New England. La Salle's diplomacy had achieved a wonderful success. Twenty thousand savages plante'd their wigwams upon the plains, over which he looked from his castle in the air. Of all men the Indian is the most unstable. La Salle under stood the Indian character thoroughly. His mushroom colony could only live by his fulfilling his promises to protect it from the Iroquois, and bring Frenchmen to exchange commodities for their furs. To achieve these things he needed help. Fron- tenac was no longer governor of Canada. His successor, La Barre, belonged to the political faction composed of La Salle's enemies. These last were not asleep. The news of his dis covery and his mammoth Indian town teased their jealousy and hate into a perfect frenzy. Their emissaries worked inces santly to induce the Iroquois to make war and destroy La Salle, who, they said, was combining the western Indians against the Five Nations. On the other hand, they spread rumors through the excitable throngs around Fort St. Louis that La Salle was keeping them there for the Iroquois to destroy them all at once. Reports were frequent that the Iroquois were coming. La Salle's situation was full of peril. He dared not leave Fort St. Louis to carry out his plans for traffic on the Missis sippi, for if an attack should be made in his absence he would be denounced as the instigator of the Iroquois war. Yet the necessity for his departure grew stronger each day. No one but he could arrange to build the fort at the mouth of the Mississippi, and bring vessels from France laden with articles of traffic for his savage allies. To meet the emergency, he sent letters to France, imploring assistance. They were never heard from. He begged La Barre to send him supplies and re-enforce ments. No answers were ever received. He weakened his 102 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. little colony by sending messengers to Montreal to procure supplies and bring them by canoes. The messengers were plundered of their cargoes by the Canadian governor and thrown into prison. La Salle, in the depths of the wilderness, was unaware of the governor's enmity. Again and again he wrote, describing the situation, and imploring that bis men might be allowed to return with supplies. The only response was angry letters from his creditors, accusing him of every crime under heaven. There remained but a hundred pounds of powder in the fort. Should the Iroquois come, strong resistance was impossible. On receipt of La Salle's letters, La Barre wrote to the government of France that La Salle was a crack-brained adven turer, bent on involving the Canadian colonies in a war with the Iroquois ; that he had set himself up as king ; that he had robbed his creditors only to waste the ill-gotten gain in riotous living and in debauching the Indians ; that so far from serving the king, his sole object was private gain. These slanders reached the mark. The king wrote back that " the discovery of La Salle is utterly useless, and such enterprises should, in the future, be prevented." What a prophet was Louis XIV concerning the future of America ! Had he but known bet ter, his " New " France was most speedily to far surpass his " Old " France. La Barre, emboldened by the king's letter, seized all of La Salle's property, declared his privileges for feited, and dispatched an officer to supersede him at Fort St. Louis. He found only Tonty. La Salle had started for France. It was an opportune moment for La Salle when he appeared before the gold and ivory chair of state in which sat the small specimen of humanity, in high-heeled shoes and gaudy attire, who represented the sovereignty of France. A war with Spain was in progress. La Salle was smart. His great object was to get a fort and colony on the Mississippi. Instead of dwell ing on its use in controlling and developing traffic with the vast THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 103 interior, he held out the more glittering, but far less substantial, allurement that such a fort would be a basis for a descent on Mexico and the Spanish dominion. His geographical notions were wrong. Mexico was much farther off than he thought. But the king knew no better. The idea of wresting Mexico, with its rich mines of silver and gold from the indolent Span iards who guarded it, caught his eye. Feeling exerts a power ful influence on conduct. He hated Spain. Any plan to hurt her was grateful to him. So La Salle was granted more than he asked. La Forest, La Salle's lieutenant, was dispatched to Canada with a royal reprimand for La Barre. He w r as also to resume possession of Fort Frontenac and Fort St. Louis. He was further ordered to march the four thousand warriors at the latter place, to the mouth of the Mississippi, to co-operate with La Salle in an invasion of Mexico. When his lieutenant received this latter order from La Salle, the latter must have nearly burst with inward laughter. It is the solitary joke in his stern career. It gives him a rank among the funny men of all ages. Gulli ver's exploits are nothing in comparison with marching four thousand wild Indians, as unstable as water, belonging to a hun dred wandering tribes, two thousand miles from their hunting- grounds; their women and children left behind at the mercy of savage foes ; their numbers so great that, without any pro vision for supplies, they must starve on the way ; with no arms but bows and arrows, and no object but to invade a country of which they had never heard. But the wise simpleton of Ver sailles saw nothing of the joke. What could be more natural ? The idea delighted him. He gave La Salle four ships instead of one. Of these the Joly was the largest. A hundred soldiers, thirty gentlemen, a number of mechan ics, besides the wives of some and a few girls who saw a cer tain prospect of matrimony, embarked on this last expedition of Robert Cavalier De La Salle. The command was divided. Beaujeu, a high-tempered, but old and experienced naval officer, 104 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. was to command the ships at sea; La Salle was to have entire control on land. This two-headed arrangement gave rise to no end of trouble. La Salle, always suspicious and secretive, found out that Beaujeu's wife was devoted to the Jesuits. His cold, impenetrable manner, confiding in none, counseling with none, haughty and reserved, would have exasperated a far less testy and excitable man than old Beaujeu. As it was, La Salle's colleague sputtered over with fury. Before they were out of the harbor, La Salle believed that Beaujeu was a traitor, in connivance with his enemies to ruin the expe dition. Old Beaujeu, on his part, was furious that he, an experienced naval officer of high rank, should divide command with a man " who has no experience of war except with sav ages, who has no rank, and never commanded any body but school boys " a thrust at La Salle's school-teaching days, when he was with the Jesuits. Beaujeu wrote letters continually to the government, complaining of his ignominy. To these ebullitions of age, vanity, and temper the answers were curt enough. The two leaders quarreled about the stowage of the cargo, about the amount of provision to be taken on board, about the destination of the expedition. Beaujeu believed that La Salle was not a sane man. It is not impossible that his terrible exposures and sufferings, his ceaseless struggles with his cred itors and enemies, his crushing disappointments had affected the poise of La Salle's mind. His universal distrust included even the faithful Tonty. On July 24, 1684, the little fleet spread its canvas. On the fourth day out the Joly broke a bowsprit. La Salle believed it to have happened by design. The ships put back to Rochelle to repair the damage. The wretched voyage lasted two months. La Salle was in miserable health. The disagreements between him and Beau jeu grew continually worse. La Salle desired to put in at Port de Paix. Here he was to receive supplies and information from the French governor, w r ho had orders to render all possible assist ance to the expedition. Beaujeu, boiling with rage, managed to THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 105 run by the place at night and insisted on landing at a different place, Petit Gouare. No supplies were to be had here. Many of the men were sick from the intense heat and close confinement on shipboard. The smallest vessel, the one laden with stores, tools, and ammunition, had fallen behind. Two days* passed, and instead of* her arrival, word was brought that she had been cap tured by pirates. The blow w r as terrific, and could not have fallen, had Beaujeu put in at Port de Paix. La Salle, eaten up with anxiety, became dangerously ill and delirious. In the extremity, Joutel, a gardener, who had joined the expedition, was his main reliance, and continued so till the end. He became the historian of the enterprise. While lying at this port, freed from the restraint of their leader's eye, the men engaged in the worst debauchery, contracting diseases which brought many to their graves. The captain of the Aimable gave La Salle great uneasiness. To prevent treachery, he went on board the vessel himself. It was near New Year's, when, having entered the Gulf of Mexico, they discovered land. Every eye was strained to detect the mouth of the great river. At this point La Salle committed a fatal blunder. Having heard that the currents of the gulf set strongly to the eastward, he supposed he had not reached the Mississippi. In fact he had passed it. Day after day they sailed slowly to the west. No sign of the river appeared. A halt was called. The weather was stormy ; the coast unknown and dangerous. The men were rapidly consuming the provisions. Beaujeu was irritable. Joutel says La Salle requested him to sail back in search of the river and that the naval commander refused to do it. Impatient of the restraint and anxious to assume the sole command, La Salle deter mined to land his soldiers on the swampy shores and send them to search for the river by land. Joutel was placed in command. For three days the detachment pushed their way north eastward through tropical forests and across lagoons. The men were constructing a raft to cross Matagorda Bay, when they dis- 106 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. covered the ships which had been following along the coast. La Salle came ashore, and announced that this was the western mouth of the Mississippi. He ordered the ships to enter the narrow harbor. The Aimable came first. La Salle was watch ing her. Suddenly some men came running in from the forest reporting that two of their number had been carried off by the Indians. La Salle ordered instant pursuit. With a last anxious look at the Aimable, which was steering in the wrong direction to be safe, he started after the Indians. He had just come in sight of them when the report of a cannon was heard from the bay. The savages fell prostrate with fright. But the chill of a more deadly fear froze the blood in La Salle's veins. The gun was a signal of distress. The Aimable ', with her cargo of stores and utensils for the colony, had struck the cruel reef. Securing his men from the Indians, La Salle hastened back to the scene of either accident or treachery to save, if possible, the cargo. The small boat of the vessel was found to have been staved in. This looked suspicious and caused delay. A boat was sent from the Joly. Some gunpowder and flour had been landed, when the wind rose. The breakers came rolling in, lifting the doomed vessel and hurling her, again and again, upon the rocks. The greedy waves were strewn with her treasures. La Salle's heart must have been broken. The circumstantial evidence that the captain of the Aimable had wrecked his vessel on purpose was of the strongest character. The wretched com pany encamped near the wreck behind a rough pile of boxes, bales, driftwood, and spars. The Indians were unmistakably hostile. They plundered the camp, fired the woods, and even killed two men. The colonists were nearly all sick. Five or six were dying every day. Beaujeu having accomplished his mission and landed La Salle at what he declared was the mouth of the Mississippi, set sail for France. Toward the last, the testy old sea-captain sympathized with La Salle. He, at least, had not proved treacherous, and they parted friends. The col onists were left to their misery. It is to be remembered that CAMP OF LA SAUvE NEAR MATAGORDA 3AY THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 109 in the unhappy company were women and girls. The colony lived in constant fear of the Spanish, who were patrolling the gulf in search of them. Two of the men deserted. Another was hung for crime. One of the best of the company was bitten by a snake and died. The most serious thing, however, which befell the colony was the discovery by La Salle that he was not at the mouth of the Mississippi. He knew not where he was, only not on the river which was the source and object of all his Titanic toil. Unless the river could be found, and that speedily, his mighty undertaking was utterly and forever ruined. If it could be found, a good fort built, and communications established with Fort St. Louis, on the Illinois, something might yet be accom plished. Unless this was done, La Salle felt that all his Her culean labors were wasted, his life a ruin, and his dream of empire a bitter folly. The future was as black as midnight. A single star beam shone through the darkness. The little frigate Belle, a gift from the king to La Salle, was still safe. If the Mississippi could be found, this vessel might convey the colony and such stores as they had left to its banks. A spot was sought where protection could be had from the scorching sun. The industrious toiled. The friars got out their battered altar and crosses. A fort was built. The stoutest sank under this labor. Numbers also were being slowly consumed by diseases brought with them. La Salle's company was not the "flower of France." Many of his men had been professional street beggars. On the walls of the new " Fort St. Louis," as La Salle called it, were planted eight cannon. In the absence of balls, they were loaded with stones and bags of bullets. When the wretched colonists were thus located, La Salle started on a journey of exploration. He was still dauntless, self-contained, energetic. His mighty sorrows may have shat tered him. In his extremity his fierce temper only became more fractious, his suspicion more dark. He treated his men 110 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. with more and more rigor and hauteur. He kept his own counsel more obstinately than ever. He was made of iron. He bent not one inch to the storm. His invincible intellect refused to bow to defeat. It insulted Fate, and hurled defiance at all the powers of destiny and hell. The day of his departure was the last of October, 1685. His brother, Abbe Cavalier, just recovered from a long illness, accompanied him with fifty men. It was March before they returned. They told a tale of suffering and disappointment. Some of the men had deserted, some were drowned, some snake bitten, some killed by Indians. The Mississippi had not been found. This was not the worst. The Belle had been ordered to follow them along the coast. At a certain point in the journey La Salle lost sight of her. Men were sent to search. They brought back no tidings. The day after La Salle reached the fort the last one of these detachments arrived. They had been more successful. The pilot of the Belle, while on shore, had been killed by Indians. Soon after this the crew got drunk. A wind arose ; the vessel was clumsily handled ; in five minutes all that was left of her was a mass of spars and splinters hang ing on the rock-bound coast. In all his troubled career, the unfortunate La Salle had never met with a disaster so utterly overwhelming and irretrievable as this. With the loss of the Belle was lost the only means of returning to France, or of planting a colony on the Mississippi. There was no longer any use to hunt for the river. If it were found the colony could never get there. To transport their cannon, forges, tools, and stores by land was preposterous. A man could not carry enough food to take him half-way. La Salle broke down. He was taken with another terrible attack of fever. For months he fought this foe as he had every other. His sublime will rose superior to difficulty. His mind once more cleared. He determined to make his way to the Mississippi, force his canoe upward against its current to the Illinois; thence from Fort St. Louis again to Canada and to France, where he THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE, 111 would obtain succor. It was a journey of seven thousand miles. The imagination fails to compass the immensity of the undertaking. It surpassed the labors of Hercules. One April day, after mass and prayer, a little handful of men, with hatchets, kettles, guns, corn, and presents for the Indians, strapped to their backs, set out over the prairie on the mighty undertaking. La Salle alone knew its extent. He kept the secret locked in his own breast, or not a man would Jiave accompanied him. The trusty Joutel remained in command at the fort. The strictest discipline was enforced. This was to divert the minds of the colonists from their terrible situation. Every one was compelled to work. Joutel says: "We did what we could to amuse ourselves, and drive away care. I encouraged our people to dance and sing in the evenings, for when M. de La Salle was among us pleasure was often banished. I tried to keep the people as busy as possible. I set them to making a small cellar to keep meat fresh in hot weather; but when M. de La Salle came back he said it was too small. As he always wanted to do every thing on a large scale, he prepared to make a large one, and marked out the plan." Like poor La Salle's other plans, the one for this cellar proved too large to be prac ticable. So it was never built at all. The situation of the colonists was practically hopeless. There was not one chance in a thousand that La Salle 'could really make his way across the wilderness of a continent inhab ited by sleepless and bloodthirsty savages, to Montreal, and thence to France. Even if he reached France, from what resources could the disappointed and ruined adventurer draw the large sums necessary to equip a vessel and conie to their relief? It was now nearly two years since they left Rochelle. La Salle had promised to conquer Mexico in a year! Yet La Salle's trip to France was their only hope. Located at the mouth of a Texan river, no ship would ever pass that way, unless some Spanish cruiser, seeking whom it might destroy. Still, that the colonists were not overwhelmed with despair, 112 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. is shown by one Barbiers, who asked leave to marry one of the girls. Joutel held a solemn consultation with the friars, and the two lovers were united. Shortly afterward a marquis begged the same privilege concerning another girl. Joutel, the young gardener, concerned at such an abasement of nobility, refused, and deprived the lovers of all communication with each other. Meanwhile great discontent became manifest. Duhant, the greatest villain in the company, declared that La Salle had left them to their fate, and would never return. One night a knocking was heard at the gate. It was La Salle. Out of twenty men only eight had lived to return. They had journeyed far, incurring almost every peril and dis aster of which one can conceive. At last La Salle took sick. This delayed them two months, and by exhausting their ammunition and strength, forced them to return to the fort. The colonists, of whom only forty-five remained, murmured loudly. La Salle had a heavy task to make them contented with the dreary weather-beaten palisade and fort. He was about to renew his effort to reach Canada, when he was attacked with hernia. His constitution seemed badly shattered. It was in January, 1687, before the start could be made. Joutel this time was to accompany his chief. La Salle made a farewell address, in an unusually kind, winning and hopeful manner. With heavy hearts, both of those going and those remaining, the little band took up its slow march, followed by straining eyes, until it disappeared from view forever. The company was full of discord. Liotal, the surgeon, had sworn revenge on La Salle for having on one occasion sent his brother on a trip, during which he was killed by Indians. Duhaut had long hated La Salle, and both men alike despised Moranget, La Salle's nephew. Several quarrels took place. One day Duhaut, Liotal, Hiens, a buccaneer, Teissier, FArcheveque, and Nika and Saget, two Indian servants of La Salle, were out hunting buffalo. Having killed some, they sent word to the camp. Moranget and DeMarle were dispatched with horses, THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 113 which had been bought of Indians, to bring in the meat. When Moranget arrived he abused the men violently because the meat was not smoked properly, and quarreled fiercely with Duhaut because he claimed the marrow bones. Moranget ended by seizing them. It was too much. The men who might in France have lived and died respected citizens, embittered by disappointment, and crushed by disaster, were no longer men. They were wild beasts. That evening Duhaut and Liotal took counsel with Hiens, Teissier, and I'Archeveque. A bloody plot was laid. The supper over, the pipes smoked, each man rolled himself in his blanket. Then the conspirators arose. Duhaut and Hiens stood with guns cocked, to shoot any who might resist. The surgeon stole forward, and, with hurried blows from an axe, clove the skulls of the sleeping Moranget, Nika, and Saget, the nephew, the friend, and the servant of La Salle. It was quickly done. Their victims lay weltering in pools of blood, while the night wind sighed through the lonely forest. The red demon of murder, which had entered the hearts of the conspirators, pointed with bloody finger at La Salle, six miles away. Hatred and self-preservation alike demanded his death. That evening Moranget had not returned, and La Salle seemed to have a presentiment of evil. He questioned Joutel closely as to whether Duhaut had any bad designs. Joutel knew nothing except that he had complained about being found fault with so much. La Salle passed an uneasy night. In the morning he borrowed the best gun in the party, and taking a friar for a companion and an Indian for his guide, started in search of the missing men. As he walked, he talked with the good friar, only "of piety, grace, and predestination; enlarging on the debt he owed God, who had saved him from so many perils, during more than twenty years of travel in America." "Suddenly," says the friar, "I saw him overwhelmed with a profound sadness, for which himself Could not account. He was so moved I scarcely knew him." His approach was 114 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. perceived by the murderers. Duhaut and the surgeon, crouched in the long grass, with guns cocked. L'Archeveque remained in sight. La Salle called to him, asking where was Moranget. The man replied in a tone agitated but insolent, that he was strolling around somewhere. La Salle rebuked him, and con tinued to advance. At that moment two shots were fired from the grass, and the great La Salle, the hero of a thousand exploits, dropped dead with a bullet in his brain. The toiler had found rest at last. The toilworn body was rudely thrown into the bushes, and became the food of vultures and of wolves. Thus, at forty-three years of age, fell one of the greatest explorers of all time. That he had grave faults is most true. He was often impractical. His movements seem sometimes the result of hasty and inconsiderate resolve. His fierce temper, and gloomy, unsocial nature brought on him the dislike of his men. He attempted too much. Yet, it is clear that he far surpassed his age in his foresight of the future of the Mis sissippi valley. His dream of the interior empire was to what has really come to pass, as the first faint blush of dawn in eastern skies is to the blazing radiance of noon. If his material resources were too small for his vast undertaking, he possessed a will like that of* a god. The vast and continuous stream of energy, proceeding for twenty years from the brain of La Salle, was superhuman. His sensibilities were weak or wholly wanting. His intellect and will place his name above that of every other explorer. It is impossible to find anywhere an equal for La Salle's undertakings and efforts, his sufferings and toils. Yet for it all he received no reward save the bullet of an assassin. Like many another hero, La Salle was ignored and cast out by man kind. Unfortunate in life, he was still unfortunate in death. His countless throng of enemies each made a stab at his mem ory. The only thing we, who enjoy the fruits of his terrific toil, can do for La Salle, is to accord him the praise of history. MURDER OF LA SALLE IN TEXAS. THE TRIALS OF LA SALLE. 117 We have said he was one of history's loneliest characters. It is true. He was and is a solitary of the solitaries. In life his lonely, retiring, secretive nature forced him, as he himself said, to abandon various employments in which, without it, he would have succeeded, and to choose a life more suited to his solitary disposition. We see him driven to the wilderness by his own solitariness. Still he was not enough alone. He shut out from his confidence even the handful of men with whom he traversed the silent and uninhabited forests of America. His was the solitude of genius. " Buzzing insects fly in swarms ; the lion stalks alone." He was separated from his nearest friend by fathomless abysses. Solitary in life, he is also solitary in his tory. He can not be classed with nor compared to any other. His name is a star which belongs to no constellation. The Chevalier de La Salle is like no one but himself. His very greatness makes it so. After the murders, Joutel, and one or two companions, who had been faithful to their leader, expected nothing but death. The conspirators would never allow the witnesses of their crime to reach the settlements alive. But the way was strangely cleared. The murderers fell out among themselves, and Hiens and his friends deliberately shot and killed Duhaut and Liotal. Thus these heralds of civilization instructed the savages in its lessons. Joutel and his friends were allowed to depart on condition of giving the murderers certificates of their innocence of the crime. They made their way to Fort St. Louis, on the Illinois, where the brave Tonty still held his own, and thence to Canada and France. When Tonty had learned that La Salle had landed on the shores of the gulf, he had gone to meet him. But though he explored the coast for sixty miles from the mouth, failed to find him. La Salle, at that moment, was seeking the fatal river in the plains of Texas. The brave Tonty remained for some years at Fort St. Louis trading in furs. The king finally ordered the post to be abandoned, and his subsequent career is unknown. 118 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. The colony on the gulf was left to its fate by Louis XIV. In his gorgeous palaces at Versailles, he turned an ear of stone to the account of Joutel concerning the unfortunates left behind. One day a Spanish ship, guided by one of La Salle's deserters, sought out the spot where the colony had been, intent on its destruction. But the destroyers found the place as silent as death. The weather-beaten palisade was out of repair. The roof of the store-house had tumbled in. The dismounted can non lay scattered around in the mire. The whole place had fallen into decay. Looking a little farther, the fierce Spaniards found a cluster of human skeletons, lying as if they had fallen there in death. Around the .bony finger of one was a little ring. Its possessor had been a woman. Awed by the mystery of the place, the strangers were about leaving, when two men, apparently Indians, came up. They said the colony had been attacked by small-pox. Many had died. The rest were mur dered by the Indians. The speakers were 1'Archeveque and Grallet. They alone remained to tell the tale. They were made prisoners of war, and sentenced to a life imprisonment in a Spanish dungeon. The last of La Salle's colonies had disap peared from the face of the earth ! DISCOVERY OF I. A SALLE'S RUINED SETTLEMENT, 119 THE FATE OF PHILIP. 121 CHAPTER III. THE FATE OF PHILIP. [HE Pilgrim Fathers are immortal! No hand can snatch the laurel from their brows. For two hundred and fifty years their fame has steadily grown. Their history has been written with faithful accuracy and elaborate detail. It is a part of our common knowledge, our uni versal heritage. We see them as they were. In the dark and narrow cabin of the May flower, as it passes the farthest reach of human laws, we see them calmly signing a compact to make and keep laws for themselves. We see them, men, women, and children, in an open shallop, pelted by storms of sleet and hail, their clothing stiff with frozen spray, beating their way through the wintry tempest to the bleak and rocky New England shore. A narrow street of log dwellings arises in the wilderness. Some have exchanged luxury and elegance for these humble homes. We see them struggling with starvation, disease, and death. The little graveyard swiftly grows, until, before the flowers of spring, the number of the dead exceeds that of the living. For lib erty of opinion they lay down their lives. When all but eight men are stricken down, these few toil day and night in service for the sick, refusing no task, however mean. We see them daily in dread of an attack from brutal savages. Yet in the midst of these toils and dangers, they are prayer ful and contented. In spite of the demoralizations of a life in 122 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. the wilderness, their conduct is as correct as the law itself; their moral principles as rigid as iron; their hearts as loyal as love. Though starving to death, they will not trade for an ounce of the corn which some Indians bring, because it is the Sabbath day. We see them for weeks at a time with nothing but a few clams and some cold water to place before them selves at meals, yet giving thanks in prayer to God that they "could suck of the abundance of the seas, and of the treasures hid in the sands." For a while the daily allowance of corn is five kernels to the person. These kernels are carefully parched, a blessing pronounced over them with all solemnity, thanking God for his abundant mercy, and then they are eaten with cheerful hearts. All this they endured, and infinitely more. Yet not one person gave up and went back to England. They came to stay. The pure and lofty character of the Plymouth colonists is in marked contrast with that of the thieves and cut-throats of many another colony. We have seen how the English robbed and murdered Pow- hatan's people, and abducted his daughter. The Puritans, in spite of their more fearful hardships, took nothing, not a bushel of corn, not an acre of land, without making compensa tion. The Indians immediately surrounding them were ruled by Massasoit. With him the Pilgrims made a treaty, and by him it was faithfully kept for forty years. This treaty, though carefully regarded in letter and spirit by the Pilgrims themselves, was not so well kept by their descendants. They gradually narrowed Massasoit's territory and encroached on his rights. He had formally submitted to the English king and laws. Every time a horse was stolen or a hen-roost pilfered, every time an Indian boy got into a quar rel with his white playmates, old Massasoit was summoned to Plymouth to be tried in court for breach of faith. To these things he had submitted quietly, and his prestige and influence which had kept loyal his own subject tribes, gradually waned. PEALING OUT THE FIVE KERNELS OF CORN. THE FATE OF PHILIP. 125 In 1661 Massasoit was gathered to his fathers. His two sons, Alexander and Philip, had been deeply impressed by the decline of their father's power and the alarming increase of the English. They represented the younger and more radical ele ment of their people. Alexander succeeded to the sachemship. The colonists were shrewd enough to see the change in the Wampanoags. They detected a more independent air in the braves, and a less friendly disposition in their chief. It was decided to summon Alexander before the Plymouth court to answer charges of plotting against the colony. The young chief refused to come. Greatly excited, the English sent an armed force to arrest him. He was marched to Plymouth with the muzzle of a gun against his head. His rage knew no bounds. The indignity offered him crushed his kingly spirit. He was taken alarmingly ill, the effect of his fury- and his grief. The Indians begged to take him home. The privilege was granted, but he never reached Mount Hope. While on the way his brief and bitter reign was ended by death. This event filled the hearts of his people with sullen hate. They believed him to have been poisoned by the English. Philip of Mount Hope, one of the few Indians who is acknowledged by the white men to have been truly great, suc ceeded his brother. His determination was made to have revenge and drive the English from the country. But this great scheme required time. He renewed the treaty with the English and sought in every way to allay their suspicion. It was a work of years to restore to his people their supremacy and power, but in time his superior diplomacy placed him at the head of nearly all the tribes of New England. The Mohegans alone remained faithful to the English. Philip exerted every effort to accumulate guns and ammunition for his warriors. His men became expert marksmen, and con tinually practiced athletic exercises, all in pursuit of their com mon purpose. So carefully were these preparations concealed that the colonists did not suspect Philip until 1671. At that 126 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. time the frequent assemblies of Indians, their incessant grinding of hatchets, the mysterious threats and insolent manners of the savages, who had for sixty years lived as the colonists' neigh bors and friends, were too plain to be misunderstood. Philip was summoned to explain his conduct. He refused to come unless accompanied by his men. The conference took place in the meeting-house at Taunton. On one side of the house were ranged Philip's ferocious warriors. Their long black hair, their eyes glittering with treachery and hate, their fan tastic plumes and decorations contrasted strangely with the prim and austere Puritans, with plain garb, close-cut hair, and solemn countenances, as they ranged themselves on the opposite side of the church. Philip claimed that his military prepara tions were for war with the Narragansetts. Evidence was at hand, hoVever, to show that he was on better terms with their people than ever before, and had been planning an attack on the colony. His plans were by no means ripe, and he denied any hostile purposes, signed a new treaty, and agreed to surrender all his guns. He is said to have been frightened into this agree ment, but his history is written only by his foes. Seventy guns were given up at once, but the summer wore away without any more being surrendered. At last Philip was notified from Plymouth that, unless the arms were given' up by September 13th, resort would be had to force to compel the act. Messengers were also dispatched to the great and wealthy Massachusetts colony, at Boston, to secure its co-operation. Philip, shrewd enough to have per ceived the jealousy and rivalry between the two colonies, set off at once to Boston. With the rarest diplomacy he flattered the Massachusetts colony by certain territorial concessions, and made such an adroit statement of his case, representing that Plymouth had encroached on the other colonies by summoning him for trial before her own court, and virtually declaring war without consulting them, that the Bostonians not only refused to help Plymouth, but coolly criticised her action as wrong and THE FATE OF PHILIP. 127 unwarrantable. The dispute was referred to mediators. Philip, bent on gaining further time for his plans and preparations, signed a new treaty, and for three years nothing further occurred to bring on a collision. The three years were used by the sachem to concert a most elaborate plan for the extermination of the English. Ancient enmities were forgotten. All New England tribes were to unite in a confederacy of which Philip was to be the chief. The Nar- ragansetts alone were to furnish four thousand warriors. The spring of 1676 was fixed for the destruction of the colonists. But an accident brought on the war at an earlier date, and before Philip's arrangements were complete. Among the "praying Indians," converts of the Rev. John Elliot, was a savage named Sassamon, who had received an English education, and acted for a while as a teacher. Philip, needing a secretary to write his letters, employed Sassamon, who was thus admitted to the confidence of the sachem, and learned his bloody plans. Partly owing to Elliot's persuasions to resume Christianity, from which he had apostatized while with Philip, partly from a quarrel with his chief, Sassamon resigned his position and informed the colonists of the conspir acy. Although secrecy was pledged, the wily Philip found out the betrayal. One winter morning Sassamon was missing. His hat and gun were found near a hole in the ice on a deep pond. His body was recovered and exhibited marks of violence. Three Indians were arrested as the murderers. Guilty or innocent, the three wretches were hung. Philip continued to organize his army. Strange Indians enlisted by hundreds. When the colonists mildly remonstrated he replied with insults. Awashonks, the squaw sachem or queen of one of the tribes, sent word to Plymouth that Philip wanted her to unite in a war. Philip himself had, for several weeks, been holding a war-dance at Mount Hope. Its length indicated the greatness of the conflict. The women and chil- 128 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. dren of his tribe were sent away to be cared for by the Narra- gansetts. Just before the outbreak, John Borden, a Rhode Island man, and a great friend of Philip, tried to dissuade the Indian monarch from war. His reply is remarkable : "The English who came first to this country were but a handful of people, forlorn, poor, and distressed. My father did all in his power to serve them. Others came. Their numbers increased. My father's counselors were alarmed. They urged him to destroy the English before they became strong enough to give law to the Indians and take away their country. My father was also the father to the English. He remained their friend. Experience shows that his counselors were right. The English disarmed my people. They tried them by their own laws, and assessed damages my people could not pay. Some times the cattle of the English would come into the cornfields of my people, for they did not make fences like the English. I must then be seized and confined till I sold another tract of my country for damages and costs. Thus tract after tract is gone. But a small part of the dominion of my ances tors remains. I am determined not to live till I have no country." " This," says a writer, " is a declaration of war more strik ing in its origin, more true in its statements, than any with which we are acquainted. It is the mournful summary of accu mulated wrongs that cry aloud for battle, not for revenge alone, but for the very existence of the oppressed. It is the sad note of preparation sounded by a royal leader that summons to their last conflict the aboriginal lords of New England." These burning words were followed by burning deeds. The pent-up fury of his people could no longer be restrained. The 20th of June, 1675, was Sunday. Eight Indians, bent on mis chief, entered the little settlement of Swanzey, ransacked a house, and shot the peaceful cattle pasturing on the green. In trying to prevent them from forcing their way into his house, a settler fired at and wounded one of the savages, who went sul- THE FATE OF PHILIP. 129 lenly away with bloody threats. In view of the alarming state of affairs, messengers were dispatched to Boston and Plymouth. Thursday, the 24th, was appointed as a day of fasting and prayer. On that day the village wore the stillness of a Sabbath. The pious colonists were returning with thoughtful faces from the log church. The rough street, filled with stumps, wound past the cabins with their little clearings and through the noon day shadows of the primeval forests. Suddenly the glint of a gun-barrel shone through the thicket two puffs of smoke, two sharp reports, and two manly forms, clad in their sober gray, lay prostrate forever. The Puritans were dumb with horror. Two of the party started to run for a surgeon/ At the bend of the road each fell dead with a ball in his heart. In a moment red flames burst through the roofs of a dozen cabins. Leaving their slain in the street, sixteen men and fifty-four women and children fled to a large house, where they prepared for defense. Others were killed in attempting to reach a place of safety. One story comes to us of a servant girl in a cabin, who hid two little children under a brass kettle, fired at an Indian entering the house, and, failing to kill him, beat him off by throwing live coals in his face, so that he was found in the woods dead from his wounds. As the terrible news spread like wildfire through the colo nies, little companies of men were quickly raised. The houseful of people at Swanzey was relieved. From every direction came news of other outrages. In a day or two the force at Swanzey numbered over a hundred. An expedition set out for Mount Hope to attack Philip. On the way were seen the ashes of many a cabin, with the heads and hands of the family placed in front on sharp stakes. Philip, fearing a trap, had withdrawn from the little peninsula of Mount Hope, and the expedition was a failure. The war quickly became general. The Indians appeared at various points at once. Isolated cabins were fired and their 130 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. occupants murdered. Men were shot from thickets as they galloped along the highway. Women were killed as they went to draw water from the well or gather green corn in the fields. Everywhere was terror and apprehension. The colonial forces fought to little advantage. The Massa chusetts and Plymouth troops, under different commanders, failed to co-operate. The mode of Indian warfare, or indeed, of any kind, was ill understood. One company insisted on ransacking a large tract of country in which there was not a sign of an Indian. Another little detachment was bent on building a fort at Mount Hope. Captain Benjamin Church alone seems to have had a genius for warfare. With sixteen men he successfully resisted for six hours one hundred and fifty savages. He ridiculed the notion of a fort, and laughed away the fears of his undisciplined men. The great difficulty was to meet the Indians in force and strike a decisive blow. A deserting Indian offered to conduct the Ply mouth troops to a place where a large body of his people were . encamped. They had proceeded about two miles when their gallant captain called a halt, and wanted to know of Church what certainty there was that the Indians had not already left the camp. Church told him the thing, though not impossible, was unlikely, and urged an advance. " If I was sure of kill ing all the enemy, and knew that I must lose the life of one of my men in this action, I would not attempt it," said the chicken-hearted commander. " Then," said Church, " take your men to the windmill in Rhode Island, where they will be out of danger and be far less trouble to feed." Church, with a small detachment of men, succeeded in maneuvering Philip into the great Pocasset swamp. The Mas sachusetts troops had pushed into the Narragansett country, and with great show of force concluded a treaty with the Nar- ragansetts, which they observed faithfully so long as their ene mies were in sight. The united forces then marched on Philip, who still lurked in the great swamp. THE FATE OF PHILIP. 131 FIRST SCENE OF PHIMP'S WAR. The English supposed that, three sides of the swamp being surrounded with water, if they guarded the land side, when his provisions ran out, Philip would be forced to surrender. So they built a fort and waited, One fine morning they discovered that the game had fled. Leaving his M , ES 10 , . 30 40 50 *> starving women and children to fall into the hands of the En glish, Philip and his warriors, under cover of night, had es caped by swimming the river, and were on their way north. Wetamoo, the widow of his brother Alexander, who was ever at Philip's side, had es caped with him. One incident of this period of the war was the capture of one hundred and sixty Indians, and their sale into perpetual slavery by the Plymouth colony. Strange inconsistency in men whose fathers had suffered so much for liberty! A force of Massachusetts troops were in pursuit of Philip, but for some reason were recalled and disbanded. It is more than hinted that this failure to pursue Philip, while in his enfeebled condi tion, grew out of a jealousy of the Plymouth colony, and a desire in the Massachusetts colony to magnify her own services to Plymouth by letting Philip annoy her longer. The history of colonial jealousies is a monumental proof of the value of the nation. The policy of Massachusetts was a mistake. She sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind. The war was transferred to her own borders. A thousand happy homes were destroyed from the face of the earth by the avenging foe. Brookfield, an exposed settlement of twenty families, suf fered first. Twenty horsemen, coming to its defense, were ambushed in a deep gully through which their road ran, and 132 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. eleven killed. Frenzied by this success, three hundred In dians rushed into the settlement. The frightened people gath ered for defense in one house. From the window they saw the torch applied to their homes, rude, but dear to every heart. In an hour, every cabin, with all its precious little col lection of household furniture, all the more prized because brought over from the old home in England, was a heap of smoldering embers. The Indians then besieged the only remaining house, the one in which the people were gathered. Inside, the women fastened feather-beds to the walls for protection. Outside, the savages exerted their infernal ingenuity to fire the building. Long torches and brands were thrown on the roof. One night a fire was built against the very door, and the colonists had to rush out to a well for water to quench the flames. A cart was filled w.ith hemp and combustibles, fired, and pushed against the house, but a heavy rain saved it. At the end of two days, the besieged were relieved by a force of fifty men from Boston. One Englishman and eighty Indians had been killed. This sol itary house was garrisoned for a while, and then the settlement was abandoned. Its site again became a part of the surround ing wilderness. Major Willard, who had marched to the assistance and res cue of the people, suffered military censure and disgrace for having gone there instead of remaining at Hadley, where there were no Indians. The poor man died of a broken heart. The fate of Brookfield was also the fate of Hatfield, Deer- field, Northfield, North Hampton, Springfield, and Worcester. In one battle, one hundred of the picked soldiers of Massachu setts were slain. The attack on Hadley, on September 1st, affords a curious illustration of the superstition of the times. This town had three organized companies for defense. But the attack took place during public worship on Sabbath morning, and the panic- stricken people started to fly in the wildest confusion. Sud- GOFFK RALLYING THE MEN OF HADLEV. 133 THE FATE OF PHILIP. 135 SECOND SCENE OF PHILIP'S WAR. denly, a stranger of immense stature, with flowing white hair, and commanding voice, appeared in their midst, with a rallying cry. His strange aspect and authoritative manner quickly rallied the frightened colonists. They believed him to be an angel of the Lord. Men fought under his leadership with the wildes.t cour age, and after a bloody battle the savages gradually retreated from the place. When the colonists turned to look for their benefactor, he had disappeared. That he was a supernatural visitor no one doubted. It. was a part of the age to believe it. It is to be remembered that the colonists believed in witchcraft, and burnt many a man and woman at the stake for it. They had sentenced an Indian to death for killing Sassamon, on the testimony of a man, that when the corpse of four days was approached by the Indian, its wounds commenced bleeding afresh. They believed in haunted houses, in legerdemain, in spooks. No story of an old woman riding through the sky on a broomstick, or of an Indian with bow and arrows, in the moon, was too much for their credulous imaginations. Six years after the attack on Hadley, when a great comet appeared in the heavens, the whole population of New England abandoned the usual tasks of life, and passed their days and nights in horrified prayer, regarding the wild visitor, with his flaming tail reaching half across the sky, if not as a portent of the end of the world, at least, as one of wars, famine, and the plague. The dark, but romantic genius of our Hawthorne has caught the gloomy tints of early New England superstition, and woven them into the strange web of his thrilling romances. So the story of the angel of the Lord, who had saved Had ley, passed into the traditions of the place. Years afterward, it was discovered that the stranger was one of Cromwell's soldiers, a regicide judge, who had aided in condemning Charles I to the 136 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. scaffold. He had lived for many years, during the Restoration of the Stuarts, concealed in the house of the minister of Had- ley, unknown to his nearest neighbors. The truth was scarcely less strange than the fiction. But when once the mind has clasped a slimy superstition to its bosom no logic can avail to loosen the embrace. The good people of Hadley continued to believe the myth. Hitherto the colonies had acted independently of each other. Their only hope to avoid utter destruction lay in UNION. Commissioners were appointed from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, to form a confederation, and concert united action. They called for a thousand troops. Each colony quickly raised her quota. No uniform and epaulets were necessary. Every man with a gun and a blanket was equipped. Though it was the dead of winter, it was determined to attack the Narragansetts in their winter quarters, where four thousand warriors Avere preparing to join Philip in the spring. "Not a Wampanoag nor the paring of a Wampanoag's nail shall be delivered up," had been the answer of their haughty sachem, Canonchet, to the demand for a surrender, in accordance with the treaty, of some of Philip's men, who were with him. About the middle of December the expedition of twelve hundred men, under General Winslow, set out through the snow for Narragansett. It was about one o'clock on Sunday after noon, that they came in sight of the Narragansett fort. It was on high ground, in the center of an immense swamp, and covered five acres. The walls were an impenetrable hedge, with pali sades and breastworks. Within THIRD SCENE OF PHILIP ' S WAR " this inclosure were five hundred solid bullet-proof log houses. The whole plan of the place was an admirable proof of Philip's genius for war. THE FATE OF PHILIP. 137 The only entrance was by a bridge, consisting of the trunk of an immense tree thrown across deep water, along which persons were forced to walk in single file. This bridge was flanked by a block-house. As the English charged on the entrance the deadly fire from the block-house again and again repulsed them. Some crossed the tree and reached the inclosure, only to fall pierced by a dozen balls from the shrieking savages within. At last Church, with thirty picked men, gained a foothold behind some logs near the palisade, and rushed into the inclosure. In a moment they were supported by hundreds more. Once within the fort, the struggle was but commenced. The shrieks of the savages mingled with- the roar of the musketry. The living made barricades of their own dead. It was the great struggle of New England. On the one hand, fought three thousand Indian warriors, inspired by every feeling of patri otism, hatred, revenge, the sense of oppression, and love for their families. They fought for their native land. On the other, were the colonists, the offspring of an age of intolerance and fanaticism, of war and revolution. Exiled from their native land, these men of iron had wrought out for themselves rude homes in the wilderness. Unless they could maintain their settlements in New England against the savages, there was no place under the bending sky where they might live in liberty and peace. The inhospitable earth would disown her children. So they fought, nerved by thought of wife and child, by the memory of the past, by the hopes of the future. The ground within the palisade was red with bloody mire. For three hours the conflict raged without decisive result. The slaughter on both sides was immense. The English could not be driven from the fort, nor could they dislodge their foes. At this point a battle which had also been raging without the fort turned in favor of the English. The victors pursued their foes within the palisade. The ammunition of the Indians ran low. A cry arose among the English to fire the wigwams. 138 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. The scene was terrific. To the din of battle were added the dull and thunderous roar of the flames, and the shrieks and wailings of old men, women, and children, who, unable to escape through the murderous volleys of the English, were driven back to be roasted alive in the fiery furnaces. Wilder and wilder grew the conflict. The combatants no longer fought as men but as demoniacs. Quarter was neither asked nor given. Corpses were piled up in vast heaps. Little by little the English advanced. Little by little the Indian fire slackened. When night closed in with a heavy snow storm, the English were left masters of the fort. The savages retreated to the gloomy and smoky depths of the swamp, where many perished with the cold. The colonists had since day-break marched sixteen miles, and fought a terrible battle, all without a mouthful of food. But they had yet to retrace their steps, in the darkness, through a dense forest, a deep snow beneath their feet, and a December storm roaring through the leafless trees. By the glare of five hundred smoldering wigwams, they collected their dead and wounded, and wearily trudged away into the forest. As the exhausted men stumbled along over the rough ground, bearing their slain, many a brave comrade sank down by the way to rise no more. Soon after the colonial army dispersed. It was too soon to have disbanded. The power of the Narragansetts was broken, but the master spirit of Philip still survived. The course of the war was hardly checked by the great swamp fight. In the early spring Philip swept the coun try from one end to the other with resistless fury. Lancaster, Medfield, Weymouth, Groton, Seekonk, Providence, and Sud- bury were plundered and burnt. In one action, every man in a company of seventy picked men from Plymouth was killed. It was no longer a war of conquest. It was a war of exter mination. Once a colonist was on one side of a rock, an Indian on the other, watching their opportunities to kill each other. The colo- THE FATE OF PHILIP. 139 nist put his hat on the end of his gun and carefully raised it a little above the top of the rock. The Indian, thinking it was the head of his foe, instantly fired at the object. In a moment the colonist left his hiding-place, and shot the Indian who had uselessly emptied his gun. Another time an Indian was sepa rated from his white antagonist by the upturned roots and clinging earth of a fallen tree. The savage cautiously dug a little hole through the mass of earth, presented the muzzle of his gun, and shot his antagonist dead. The prospects of the colonies had never seemed so dark. From every direction came reports of disaster and defeat. A new call for men was made. The settlements were literally drained of their defenders. A happy stroke turned the tide somewhat- in their favor. Canonchet, the great chief of the Narragansetts, Philip's principal captain and a masterful war rior, was surprised and captured by a party of English. He was offered his life on condition of bringing about a peace, but the suggestion was scornfully rejected. When informed that he must die, he made this memorable answer: "/ like it well: 1 shall die before my heart is soft, or I have said any thing unworthy of myself T Because he had refused to violate the laws of hos pitality by surrendering his friends, the Wampanoags, his father had been murdered, his warriors slain by the hundred, his women and children burnt alive in the flaming wigwams of the fort. Yet for all this he uttered not a word of reproach. Scorning to save his life by the submission of his people to such conquerors, he calmly folded his arms across his kingly breast, and with head erect and cheek unblanched, received the fatal bullets to his heart. In all the lore of chivalry and war there can be found no more heroic soul. % As the summer wore on, though the ferocity of the Indian ravages was not abated, yet influences were at work which were surely undermining the power of Philip. Having had their stored corn destroyed by the English, and being prevented from planting new crops by the desolation of war, his warriors, to escape star- 140 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. vation, had changed their diet almost entirely to meat. This caused many to fall a prey to disease. The allied tribes mur mured loudly, saying that Philip had promised them much plun der; but, instead, they had gained nothing by this war, save hardship and suffering and the enmity of the English. Philip's foresight of the future of his people, unless the encroachments of the English were forever stopped, was not shared by the common Indian. It was not the first nor the last time that a blind mob rejected the wisdom of leaders*. These murmurings soon blazed into open quarrels. Nothing fails like failure. The fights began to result favorably for the colonists. Offers of peace were made to all who would submit, and various bands of Indians began to accept these offers. The English were about to succeed in spite of their own folly. Their troops were without discipline, and openly threatened their inefficient commanders. Church, who had inspired every success ful movement, had been deposed from command and dismissed from the service, for opposing the sale of Indians into slavery. He was recalled, however, in June, and went alone to Awas- honks, queen of the Saconets, and negotiated a treaty of peace. Not only this, but the Saconets entered the English army, and fought faithfully till the close of the war. This, and several other distinguished successes, forced the jealous colonists to enlarge the powers of Captain Church, giving him authority to raise men and make peace or levy war, just as he thought best. With a large force of Indians and a few whites, Church toiled day and night, now surprising and capturing a large force of Philip's warriors, now making peace with his allies, now squarely whipping them in open fight. The English method of warfare was abandoned. He fought the Indians with their own methods. On a half dozen different occa sions he made captures of over two hundred men. Once he was unable to leave a guard for his prisoners while he went into battle. He told them that, if they attempted flight, he would shortly recapture them, and inflict severe punishment ; but if THE FATE OF PHILIP. 141 they would follow him and not run off, they should be well treated. Such was his power over them that, after the fight, every Indian voluntarily surrendered again as a prisoner. These repeated blows hurried on the final crisis. Philip, with a broken and disheartened remnant of his own people, retired to a swamp near his old home of Mount Hope. To Church was allotted the closing act in the tragedy. Philip was encamped on a little knoll in the swamp. Church, foreseeing that flight would be attempted, silently posted his men in the swamp, so as to completely encircle the knoll. Philip was sitting on a log, relating to a friend a troubled dream which he had had, omen of his approaching fate. At the first fire the Indians fled. Philip ran right towards an ambush of the English. A Saconet Indian fired. With a terrific leap in the air, the great captain of Mount Hope fell dead, a fulfillment of the, prophecy of his people that Meta- comet should never fall by English hands. The corpse was dragged out of the swamp; the head sent to Plymouth, where it was set up on a gibbet for twenty years; the body quartered and nailed to four trees, a terrible exhibition of the barbarism of the age. All of Philip's principal friends were executed or sold into slavery, and shipped to the West Indies. This last was the fate of young Metacomet, Philip's only son. "Such," said Edward Everett, "was the fate of Philip. He had fought a relentless war, but he fought for his native land, for the mound that covered the bones of his parents; he fought for his squaw and papoose; no I will not defraud them of the sacred names which our hearts understand; he fought for his wife and child." Philip of Mount Hope was a great man. He proved him self so, both in diplomacy and war. He foresaw the dark destiny of his people, and held himself completely aloof from the insinuating influence of the English, who had so infatuated his father. Before the war, Rev. John Elliot, of the Massa chusetts colony, the great apostle to the Indians, made the 8 142 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. most persistent efforts to induce Philip to embrace Christianity. The courtly savage had always received his arguments and persuasions politely, but without other effect. One day he took hold of a button on Elliot's threadbare coat, and said : " I care no more for your religion than I do for that old button. Let me hear no more about it." The Puritan imagination pictured Philip and his warriors as infernal fiends. But fifty years later the descendants of those who nailed his quartered corpse to trees, and sold his child into burning slavery, learned to understand him better. He was a hero, a patriot, who suffered much. His people were destroyed. A handful of his warriors escaped to the far West, and joined La Salle at Fort St. Louis. But the proud name of the Wampanoags was buried in oblivion. With the close of the war, the bruised and bleeding colonies began to survey the extent of their sufferings. Between fifteen and twenty towns had been destroyed from the face of the earth by the swift and terrible vengeance of Philip. A few charred timbers, and a heap of ashes marked the site of many a lonely farm house. Among the ashes often lay the bleaching bones of its defenders. The mangled remains of the little herd of cattle lay scattered about the pasture, while overhead slowly circled on wide extended pinions, the black and ominous birds of prey. Now and then a bedraggled and sickly chicken, weak ened by starvation, sole survivor of the desolation, tottered feebly around the yard, listening, waiting for the kindly call to feasts of yellow grain that never came. The fields so hardly won by cruel toil and valiant struggle from the unwilling forest, lay desolate and abandoned. Hardly a family was there in all the colonies from which a father or a son had not gone out to battle to return no more forever. There were few cripples. Their enemy had seldom wounded except unto death. The war had been a destroyer, with one exception. In that it was a creator. It had created for the colonies a debt of half a million dollars. DEATH OF KING PHILIP. THE FATE OF PHIL I P. 145 "New England had suffered terribly. Six hundred men, the flower and pride of the country, had fallen in the field. Hun dreds of families had been butchered in cold blood. Gray- haired sire, mother, and babe, had sunk together, under the vengeful blow of the red man's gory tomahawk. Now there was peace again. The Indian race was swept out of New England. The tribes beyond the Connecticut came humbly submissive, and pleaded for their lives. The colonists returned to their desolated farms and villages to build new homes in the ashes of old ruins." But the vitality of the colonies was inexhaustible. The ordinary tasks of life, sowing and reaping, bartering and manu facturing, were resumed with tireless zeal and vigor. In a few years the crimson footprints of the war were effaced, and peace and prosperity smiled throughout the land. SCENE OF PHILIP'S OPERATIONS IN NEW ENGLAND. 146 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. CHAPTER IV. THE LION AND THE LILIES. HE British Lion and the Lilies of France ! Such were the emblems of the two terrible antago nists on either side of the English channel, who were to contend for the incomparable prize of the North American continent. Through cent uries of hate their armies had fought on the blood-soaked soil of Europe. When the hardy English colonies took root along the narrow fringe of coast between the Alleghanies and the sea, France, planting herself on the discoveries of La Salle, silently stretched out the rod of empire over the vast American interior. The old feud had fastened its fangs upon the New World. The difference between the two nations was strikingly mani fest in America. The English colonies were, from the first, neg lected by their government and thrown on their own resources. The French were supported by royal bounty, and nourished with grants of power. The English founded free institutions ; every man owned his own cabin and plat of ground; their gov ernment was of the people and by the people. The French transplanted the coarsest feudalism ; a few nobles owned the soil, while the remainder of the population were mere tenants. The principal occupation of the Englishman was agriculture, keep ing him closely at home, while the Frenchman relied mainly on the fur trade, and with his articles of traffic traversed the rivers and forests of the entire continent. The English ministers THE LION AND THE LILIES. 149 preached the Gospel only to the savages within call of their colonies; but the burning zeal of the Catholic Jesuit carried him to the remotest forests. The English were acquainted only with the Indians of their immediate neighborhood, while the Frenchmen insinuated themselves into the wigwams of every tribe from the lakes to the gulf. On summer evenings they danced with the squaws who visited their posts at Vincennes and elsewhere, and made the places ring with their merriment. The English aimed only at making for themselves and their children comfortable homes of liberty and peace, and held them selves sternly aloof from the natives. The French ambition was military empire. To achieve this they spared no effort and neglected no art to win the love and alliance of the red men. The great question of the boundaries of the respective dominions was enough to have brought on war of itself, with out the help of immemorial hostility and the essential antag onism of opposite institutions and religions. In the numerous wars between France and England these questions had, up to 1753, never been settled. France claimed the right to all the territory west of the ridges of the Alleghanies. The English colonies, on the other hand, claimed that their territories reached between the same parallels of latitude which they occupied on the Atlantic coast, westward to the Mississippi River. In the actual military occupation of the territory, the French were far ahead of their slower and less ambitious rivals. They had dotted the wilderness with log forts before the English turned their heavy eyes to the fair domain beyond the mountains. When in 1754 came the shock of battle, the Indians, with few exceptions,' were the allies of France. A large number of Scotch, Irish, Germans, and English had from time to time pushed the line of settlements into the fertile valleys of the Alleghanies, and even beyond the mountains. A young Virginian, George Washington, making an explor ing tour, found French forts frowning with cannon, and was informed that France proposed to seize every settler west of 150 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. the mountains. On hearing this, Virginia placed this explorer at the head of a hundred and fifty undisciplined men who were to protect the settlers, and in particular kill every Frenchman who interfered with the new fort, which an English company was building at the forks of the Ohio. Before Washington reached there, a force of French and Indians had captured the unfinished fort, completed it for themselves, and named it Fort du Quesne. A force was dis patched against the approaching band of Englishmen, who were intrenched at Fort Necessity. When the enemy was discovered Washington gave the command "Fire!" That word kindled the world into a flame. "Thus began that memorable 120 150 'JOT 210 240 FIRST SCENE OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. war," writes an eloquent historian, " which, kindling among the wild forests of America, scattered its fires over the kingdoms of Europe, and the sultry empire of the Great Mogul ; the war made glorious by the heroic death of Wolfe, the victories of Frederic, and the marvelous exploits of Clive ; the war, which controlled the destinies of America, and was first in the chain of events which led her on to revo lution, with all its vast and undeveloped consequences. On the old battle-ground of Europe, the struggle bore the same familiar features of violence and horror which had marked the strife of former generations. But in America war assumed a new and striking aspect. A wilderness was its sublime arena. Army met army under the shadows of primeval woods, their cannon resounded over wastes unknown to civilized man. And before the hostile powers could join in battle, endless forests must be traversed and morasses passed, and everywhere the axe of the pioneer must hew a path for the bayonet of the soldier." THE LION AND THE LILIES. 151 Washington and his little band were driven out of the coun try in short order. When heavy sail vessels carried the news to London and Paris, each government dispatched troops to their respective colonies. In the spring of 1755 General Braddock set out with an army of several thousand men for the conquest of Fort du Quesne. The army was composed of a force of British regulars, in their scarlet uniforms and gay trappings, and of levies of raw troops from the colonies. It was a great event to the settlers. From far and near they flocked to see the redcoats. Every colonist along the route who possessed a wagon was pressed into the service of hauling provisions for the mighty host which, with glittering banners, wound slowly through the forests. Settlers who had no wagons served as axemen to blaze a road for the army. Every neighborhood sent its company. Hundreds of men, in advance of the army, toiled day and night, felling trees, burning thickets, leveling molehills, and bridging streams, preparing a way for the soldiery, the long line of wagons, and the ponderous cannon. It was a Herculean task. The veteran troops were soon worn out in this new mode of warfare. Many a redcoat fell dead in the ranks, pierced by a ball from an unseen weapon. The raw yeomanry in advance of the army suffered heavily. In a company of three hundred, raised in one neighborhood, there were only thirty old-fashioned guns. Many a man, busily swinging his ax, and left behind somewhat by his com panions, was snatched away into the forest by swarthy foes. Among these was James Smith, of whose adventures more here after. The slow advance of the heavy column made it neces sary for twelve hundred picked troops, with light equipment, to press on, leaving the rest to follow more slowly. At Fort du Quesne were a small number of Frenchmen and a multitude of Indians gathered from far and near. On the 9th of July Indian scouts reported the near approach of the British. Instantly the fort became a pandemonium. The Indian allies 152 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. Prenc v English SCENE OF BRADUOCK'S DEFEAT. stamping, yelling, smearing their bodies with grease and gaudy paint, were harangued by their chiefs, and wrought into a delirium of courage and fury. Great barrels of powder, bullets, and flints were hurriedly rolled into the parade-ground and knocked open, while the frantic _ throng helped themselves to what ever they wanted. Shortly, at the word " March," there formed in sin gle file and issued from the fort, two hundred white men and eight hundred Indians. Seven miles from the fort, the narrow road along which the British were approaching, wound through a dark and dangerous defile into which opened two ravines. Here their foes hid in deadly ambush. When the splendid column of British regulars, with scarlet coats and gleaming gun-barrels, entered the defile to the sound of drums and the blare of trumpets, followed by the less regular ranks of ununiformed colonists, not a soul suspected that, behind every tree and fallen log, in the thick underbrush and in the shadow of mossy rocks, lurked deadly and terrible enemies. Suddenly a volley of shots, followed by a wild, discordant clamor, was heard at the front. Quickly a hundred commands of " Halt," were shouted along the line. The troops, far ahead in the ravine, were seen to fire. In a moment, the Indians on either side of the column throughout its entire length, poured in a deadly fire at point-blank range. Not an enemy could be seen, though the forest resounded with their yells, and every bush and tree blazed with the flash of their weapons. The troops, insane with panic, fired wildly in the air. The narrow defile was choked with their slain. Vainly the heroic officers sought to rally their men. Again and again they endeavored to DEATH OF BRADDOCK THE LION AND THE LILIES. 155 get them to form in small detachments and drive the enemy from the woods. But the brave young officers would advance but a few steps at their head to find themselves forsaken by their men. Almost two hours the conflict raged. Steadily the Indians kept up their fire till seven hundred out of the army of twelve hundred men were slain. Then the remainder turned and fled, leaving their dead and all their splendid equipment of cannon, small arms, wagons, tents, and clothing piled in bloody ruin in the defile. Here General Braddock was mortally wounded, and here his aid-de-camp, George Washington, calm amid the storm of death and disaster, won that reputation which afterward caused him to be appointed commander-in-chief of the armies of the Revolution. When the British fled, the Indians sprang wildly from. their ambush to feast upon the banquet of blood. Like fiends, like monsters, like wild beasts, like incarnations of all the raging and hellish passions of the human heart, they leaped upon the slain. They scalped the corpses, crushed in their skulls with toma hawks, jumped on the breasts and stamped in the ribs, tore out the vitals, and wrenched limb from limb and member from mem ber. Their uproar was different from the yells of battle. The forest resounded, but it was to a guttural roar, several notes below the war-whoop. It was the savage fury and satisfaction of wild beasts as they tear and mangle their bleeding prey. At last the shades of night drew their curtain around the* fearful scene. At last the gorge of blood was ended. At last the horrid appetites were appeased. Smeared from head to foot with the gore of their enemies, decked out in the gay uniforms of the soldiery, carrying the guns which had so lately been aimed against them, and dangling the reeking scalps of their foes from their belts, the Indian warriors, with eye-balls still blood-shot with the frenzy of battle and voices still raised in boasts and frantic screams, picked their reluctant way, one by one, over the mountains to their expectant squaws. Just seven Indians and 156 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. four Frenchmen had been slain. That night unwonted fires blazed on the banks of the Alleghany River opposite Fort du Quesne. The groans of the shrieking victims, who had fallen alive into the hands of the Indians, pierced the night and, rising above the moan of the wind and the roar of the rushing river, penetrated even to the fort, as the torturing flames leaped up and walled them in. The traveler through Pennsylvania looks out upon the prettiest scenery in the world. Seated in the palace-car of a lightning-express train, his fascinated eye never wearies of the swift and brilliant panorama which paints itself in changing splendors on the plate-glass window. At one moment he looks with awe on yawning precipices and rugged mountain steeps, in some cleft of which stands a little house, with difficulty kept from tumbling down the abyss. Now he beholds some lovely valley, decked out with all the beauties of the changing seasons. In this warm and fertile spot, hemmed in by lofty mount ains, are smiling farms and happy homes. Sleek cattle graze peacefully in pastures green, and far below him, looking like a toy, stands the husbandman, with plow and team afield, pausing in his toil to watch the smoking dragon of the distant train in its splendid flight. Far as the traveler's eye can reach white villages dot the sequestered vale, each with its quiet church and noisy school, through which the throngs of merry children troop all day. Anon he glides along the shore of the lovely Susquehanna, whose placid surface mirrors sky and land scape with such perplexing accuracy that the line of the oppo site shore, where the water ends and the land begins, is indistinguishable. At the time of Braddock's defeat the country was by no means so different from the above as one might think. To be sure, the railroads and bridges, the busy factory towns, and the perfectly cultivated farms are the magical handiwork of a later day. But at that time the mountains were as picturesque, the skies as blue, the valleys as fertile, the streams as crystalline, THE LION AND THE LILIES. 157 the climate as delightful as they are to-day. For all these natural endowments the colonist had an eager eye. For fifty years the settlers had been, to some extent, pass ing by the more crowded and sterile shores of the ocean for this splendid interior country. In 1755 the population was sparse and unequally distributed, but already the fertile parts of eastern and, to some extent, central Pennsylvania were occu pied by thousands of settlers. The houses were but cabins, often five miles apart. A town consisted of little more than a grist-mill, a blacksmith shop, and a meeting-house, all of logs. But for the sake of the advantages of the region, the coura geous race of hardy pioneers had left their more cautious brethren behind and braved the dangers of the treacherous Indian and the ravenous beast. The same state of affairs existed in Virginia and Maryland. The country was full of Indians, who still roamed through it in quest of game, but these were gradually withdrawing toward the west, and those who remained gave little trouble to the pioneers. No danger had been experienced or apprehended for many years, and the settlers made and cultivated their farms without means of defense, or fears of interruption. The arts of the French, however, had, as we have said, grad ually won the Indians to their support. All through this mag nificent region, as well as among the ferocious tribes of the great west, the stolid countenances and indifferent manners of the red men concealed a bitter jealousy and hatred of the English, who were driving the game from their forests and crowding the red men off of their ancestral domain. The defeat of Braddock opened the flood-gates of fury. The last obstacle was removed. The red tide of blood rolled in crimson torrents, unchecked, over the fair domain of which we write. The true history of the time has never been written. The general historian passes it over with a few lines, stating that for three years the whole region was desolated by Indian warfare. Nothing more. The panics, the massacres, the burnings, 158 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. the tortures, the prayers for mercy, the uplifted tomahawks, the crushing skulls, all these are omitted. The farmer plowing in his fields, the wife singing over her household tasks, the red-cheeked, laughing children romping through the orchard, these were the victims of a war whose ferocity and desolation are hardly equaled in history. War is the most terrible of all experiences. But there are varieties of war. The conflict of armies is grand. The carnage of the battle is awful. But the war which has for its object, not the destruc tion of a military force, but the desolation of the fireside, the outrage of womanhood, the embitterment of childhood, is worse. It is harming the harmless. It is wreaking vengeance upon innocence. It is the infinitude of wickedness. Measure, if you can, the frantic, maddening grief of one hus band, returning at sunset from his toil in the forest, to find the little cabin home a heap of embers, and his precious wife a mu tilated corpse. Conceive, if you can, the heart-breaking anguish of one mother, as she sees the yelling fiends sink the tomahawk into the skull of her sleeping infant, or worse yet, sees her children, the joy and pride of all her life, torn from her arms, and carried captive to the distant wigwams of the west. Imagine, if it be possible, the tearful sorrow, the blighting loneliness of one childish heart, as the little fellow, running in glee to call his father to the evening meal, finds the fond form stretched beside the half-chopped log, stilled forever into the unresponsive hush of death. Take such things as these. Sound with line and plummet the black waves of agony which beat in restless surge within a single human heart. Then multiply this by all the thousands who suffered thus, at the time of which we write. The awful sum of sorrow will reach the stars ! So complete was the work of the savages, as for three years they roamed at will through Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Vir ginia, that few were left alive to tell the story. The greater part of all the suffering and desolation never became known to history. The sufferers died, carrying the secret of their fate THE LION AND THE LILIES. 159 with them into oblivion. Yet in spite of this, the busy voice of tradition whispers a thousand tales of horror. If we descend from the stately narrative of the general his torian to the local traditions and histories of counties and neigh borhoods, we find every one rich with gloomy traditions of the past. Each smiling valley has its stories of horror ; each moun tain its thrilling legends. Not a rippling stream is there whose waters have not been reddened with the tide of massacre ; not a lonely dell from which the moaning wind has not carried the shrieks and pleadings of suffering ones. Within two months after Braddock's defeat, the work of slaughter began. The frontiers were open and defenseless. The Indians in great force appeared suddenly in Cumberland county. From this point their detachments swept the entire country with fire and sword. The inhabitants fell by hundreds, easy victims to savage atrocities. The people, living in the greatest dread, besought the government at Philadelphia to protect them. On October 29th, 1755, John Harris, the founder of Harrisburg, a trader of great energy and ability, wrote as follows to the governor : " We expect the enemy upon us every day, and the inhabi tants 'are abandoning their plantations, being greatly discouraged at the approach of such a number of cruel savages, and no sign of assistance. The Indians are cutting us off every day, and I had a certain account of about fifteen hundred Indians, besides French, being on their march against us and Virginia, and now close on our borders, their scouts scalping our families on our frontiers daily. . . " . Consider our terrible situation, and rouse your people downwards, and not let about fifteen hundred villains distress such a number of inhabitants as is in Pennsyl vania. They now have many thousands of bushels of our corn and wheat in possession already." In response to this and a hundred similar appeals, the Legis lature was convened, but the Quakers who composed it declared themselves opposed to war, and refused to do any thing. Mean- 160 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. while the work of fire and slaughter went on. In Berks County hundreds of houses were laid in ashes, hundreds of persons scalped and slain, and many, without distinction of age or sex, taken captive and subjected to frightful tortures. Says one letter of the time, " The county is in a most dismal condition. It can 't hold out long. Help for God's sake. Consternation, poverty, and confusion everywhere." An assault was made on a settlement of twenty-five persons at the mouth of Penn's Creek, on the Susquehanna, from which not one escaped. The only history of the bloody deed is that given by neighbors who came to bury the dead. "We found but thirteen, who were men and elderly women. The children, we suppose to be carried away prisoners. The house where we suppose they finished the murder we found burnt up ; the man of it, Jacob King, lying just by it. He lay on his back, barbarously burnt, and two tomahawks sticking in his fore head. . . . Terror has driven away almost all the inhabit ants, except a few of us who are willing to stay and defend the land. But as we are not at all able to defend it for want of guns and ammunition, and are few in numbers, without assist ance, we must flee and leave the country to the mercy of the enemy." By the dark waters of the Lehigh, in what is now Carbon county, the Moravian Brethren had founded a settlement of Christian Indians, called Gnadenhutten. A half mile off they laid out a farm, built a mill, a blacksmith's shop, a meeting house, and a dwelling. This latter settlement was called Maho- ning. On an evening in November the white brethren were at supper. The dark night and the roaring of the wintry blast through the valley, stripping the trees of their last brown leaves, made the little band of devoted people all the more thankful for the warm fire and smoking meal. Suddenly the dogs set up a loud barking. Some one went out to see what was the matter. A shot was heard. Every one rushed to open the door. As the light streamed out the THE LION AND THE LILIES. 161 yard was seen to be alive with savages, who instantly fired, killing two persons. The remainder fled to the garret, heavily barricading the door. After vain efforts to burst open the door, the Indians fired the house. Three persons escaped by jumping from the flaming building. The rest, seven men, three women, and one child, were shot in the attempt or burned alive. The settlement was plundered and destroyed, while the neighbors at Gnadenhutten fled through the night to Bethlehem, thirty miles away. This dreadful work was but the first act in the drama of destruction in this neighborhood. Seven settlements were in turn destroyed. The whole population of the country fled, and a region of settled farms, a hundred miles wide, was left with out a single white inhabitant. The interior towns were choked and crowded with these wretched refugees, who poured into them, destitute of food, clothing, or means, and overwhelmed with the great sorrow which had visited them. A letter, written to Benjamin Franklin, from Easton, Penn sylvania, which must have been a hundred or more miles from the border settlements, says : " The settlers on this side of the mountain are actually removed and we are now the frontier. Our poor people of this town have quite expended their little sub stance and are wearied out with watching. Seeing themselves neglected they are moving away as fast as they can. Pray do something for our speedy relief or the whole country will be entirely ruined. All this part of the country is now entirely lost, and the enemy are penetrating further and further, and if immediate measures are not taken, they will soon be in sight of Philadelphia. The whole country is flying before them." The slaughter was by no means confined to this section of the state. The same state of affairs existed everywhere, even to Greene county in the extreme south-west. Still the Quaker Legislature refused to help. Popular indignation knew no bounds. The bodies of the dead and mangled were sent to Philadelphia, hauled around the streets in public view, and 162 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. placarded "THESE ARE THE VICTIMS OF THE QUAKER POLICY OF NON-RESISTANCE !" A vast mob assembled around the House of Assembly, piled the corpses in the doorway, and demanded that instant action be taken. At last, with great reluctance, the Assembly ordered the erection of a chain of stockade forts at the mountain passes from Easton to Bedford, a line of two hundred and fifty miles, at a cost of half a million dollars. These forts varied in size, but were much alike in structure. The stockade included from a half to two acres, and consisted of logs set close together in the ground and extending twelve feet above. Another row inside made it a double stockade. At the corners were projec tions, and within the inclosure were log barracks and a maga zine. Occasionally the fort was merely a block-house. This was a solid log building, generally octagonal in form, of which the upper story projected about three feet beyond the lower to enable the defenders to fire on the enemy beneath, and prevent fires from being built against the walls, which were appropri ately pierced with port-holes. Although this line of forts had been begun, the year 1756 only brought new horrors. The first region to suffer was what is now Franklin county. The savages remained there a month. Two brothers, named Craig, were captured on their way to McDowell's mill. Sixty men started in pursuit. A sharp fight resulted in favor of the savages. An attempt made by the latter to surprise the fort resulted in another desperate encounter in a thicket near its walls. The attempt to surprise the fort at McDowell's was foiled. But Indians are tireless. Defeated at one point, they will strike at another. When a man named Barr was fired at and escaped, they went and burned his and all the neighbors' houses. When defeated at McDowell's, they went to Mc- Cord's fort. Here they were in luck. They burned the fort in process of construction. They killed twenty-seven of its defenders. William Mitchell had collected a dozen reapers to THE LION AND THE LILIES. 165 cut his grain. Being cautious, they took their guns into the harvest field. But a man can not carry a gun and wield a scythe at the same time. Nor can a reaper stand all the time in one place. So the men laid down their weapons. The Indians waited. In two hours the reapers had mowed so much that they were two hundred yards from their guns. It is unnecessary to tell what followed. The Indians somehow carried away twelve more guns than they brought. They also left twelve corpses in the field. The Great Reaper had gathered the little reapers. These massacres were not all. The Conococheague is a creek. On its banks was a settlement. It was composed of brave men, hard-working women, and laughing children. One day there was a war-whoop in the forest. There were some shots, some shrieks, some gasps. Suddenly the Conoco cheague, which is naturally as clear as crystal, became ruddy. This unusual color proceeded from the wounds in thirty-nine bodies which were thrown into its current. Thirty-nine had been the exact number of living souls in the settlement. Without salt, life is unbearable. John Grey and Robert Innis went to Carlisle to purchase it. The providences of God are inscrutable. On the return, while descending the mount ains, a bear ran across the path, frightening Grey's horse, which threw him off and ran away. Innis was anxious to get home. He left his companion behind. It took the latter all day to catch his horse and readjust his pack. This made him lose his temper. It also saved his life. When he reached the fort, where he lived, its logs were well burned. Every occupant of it, including Innis, had been killed or taken prisoner. Failing to find the remains of his wife and daughter, Grey rightly con cluded they had been taken prisoner. They had been carried to Canada. Poor Grey, after every effort to hear of their whereabouts, died of a broken heart. His will divided his little farm equally between wife and daughter. If the daughter did not return, 9 166 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. her share was to go to a sister. The widow returned in a year, proved the will, and received her half. Her daughter was still captive. In 1764, all Indian captives, by terms of the peace, were brought to Philadelphia. Mrs. Grey failed to find her daughter, but, in order to get the daughter's share of the prop erty, claimed another child as her own. The stratagem suc ceeded for the time. But as years rolled on, the spurious heir developed coarse features, loose morals, and vile manners. The heirs of the sister brought suit, and, in 1836, it was decided that the supposed heir was not Grey's child. At the time of Mrs. Grey's capture, other bands of Indians were doing similar things in other places. In what is Lehigh county, there were a few settlers who still dared to remain. It was folly. As the family of Frederick Reichelsderfer sat down to breakfast, they were fired upon from a window and every one killed. At the house of Jacob Gerhart all were killed outright, except two children. These little fellows had crawled under the bed. This, however, reserved them for a worse fate. They were burned alive. These instances are selected at random from a hundred others. But how about other places ? Mifflin county is one hundred miles west of Lehigh. Fort Granville had a strong garrison. The settlers, crowded into the stockade for safety, asked to have a part of the troops act as guards while they reaped their harvest. Unless grain could be had, starvation would ensue. Only twenty-four men remained in the fort. That night the Indians attacked it, and set it on fire. Besides the garrison, three women and six children were captured. The prisoners were hurried away. In the morning they were treated to a rare sight. A soldier, named Turner, was tied to a stake. Some gun-barrels were heated red-hot and run through his body. The sickening odor of burnt flesh was delicious to the Indians. After three hours Turner no longer cried. This spoiled the fun. An Indian boy of eight years was held up in the arms of its proud father, with a tomahawk THE LION AND THE LILIES. 167 in the boy's hand. The cherub took careful aim. He split Turner's head open at one stroke. This feat so delighted the fond parent that he gave the infant prodigy a bow and arrows. About this time the Quakers in Philadelphia formed a "Peace Association." The association at once bought a large number of splendid presents and sent them to the Indians, to " propitiate " them. It was a bold step, so bold that one laughs right out at it. On August 24, 1756, another desperate plea for help was sent to Philadelphia, " begging, for God's sake," as it reads, " that you may take pity on our poor families." There were reasons for this outcry. A band of Indians had spread new desolation in the neighborhood in which lived the petitioners. Among this band an Indian named Cotties wanted to be made chief or captain. The warriors laughed at him. " Where are the scalps of the enemies you claim to have killed ? You are but a squaw !" That night Cotties and an Indian boy disappeared from the camp. The reproach stung him. Rivalry in slaughter, competition in destruction such a contest is ter rible. Cotties determined to compete with the entire band of sixty Indians in the red tournament. At Sherman's Creek lived William Sheridan with his family. On a fashionable city street, as many as two children in one family are unusual. On the frontier it is different./ Population is needed. William Sheridan had ( thirteen children. Cotties hid himself in the bushes. When Sheridan came out after fire-wood, Cotties buried a knife in his heart. Presently the oldest son came out to look for his father, and was similarly treated. In half an hour Cotties had sixteen scalps at his belt. Half a m-ie down the creek, buried in a deep wood, stood a solitary cabin, occupied by two old men and one woman. Thither proceeded the terrible Cotties. He entered the dark wood. In an hour he emerged. It could be seen that he carried nineteen scalps instead of sixteen. The three new ones came from the three old people. When Cotties returned to his camp, the braves threw down their weapons. Nineteen scalps in one day! ,The 168 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. whole band had only taken eighteen in the same time. They begged the redoutable Cotties to become their chief. Such a hero was little short of a demi-god. Sometimes luck was against the Indians. James Bell, while out hunting for deer, discovered three savages. One of them he fired at and wounded. From the shots of the others he protected himself by a large tree. But a tree is a protec tion only on one side. There were two Indians. They moved in opposite directions to checkmate Bell. This would have succeeded if Bell had not shot and killed one of them. The third turned to fly, taking the dead savage on his back. Bell fired. His ball passed through the corpse and lodged in the living body. One evening a settler came in from the forest and found his cabin burnt, and his wife and children murdered. As he looked on the ruin, a tempest of fire swept through his being. In a moment the waving foliage of hopes and loves, of sympathies and compassions were burnt out, leaving his nature like the charred trunks of trees through which has passed the roaring forest fire. A demon entered into and possessed him. As he walked to and fro before the heap of ashes which had borne the precious name of home, his clenched fist was shaken at the surrounding forest. His teeth were gnashed together. A storm came up. The rains of heaven beat down unnoticed upon his unprotected head. The crack of the thunderbolt, the flash of the forked lightning alike failed to attract his attention. It was midnight. By the dull glow of the cabin embers the man could be seen, still walking backward and forward. The storm ceased, but not the walker. At last morning dawned. A bird caroled its early song from the leafy branches of a mighty tree. The man .paused. He looked around with a bewildered air. At a distance, in a puddle of water, lay his hat, where it had fallen the night before. He picked it up. As he did so his eye fell upon the corpse of his child. He started. He had been living over his entire life. He recollected him- THE LION AND THE LILIES. 169 self. With heavy heart he dug a grave and reverently laid away to rest the bodies of the dead. One mighty burst of tears, one last look at the little homestead, and he was gone. Hence forth all aims and ambitions, all hopes and affections were fused into one overmastering passion REVENGE. Caves and moun tains became his dwelling-place. Before this calamity he had not been known to a half dozen men. They soon forgot him. The pioneers found corpses of Indians in the forest, half devoured by birds of prey. When they saw it they said, " He has been here." They heard the crack of a rifle at midnight in the mountains, and said, "It is he." One night a settler hearing a shot near by, threw open his door. A dead savage lay before it, and a voice called out from the woods, "I have saved your lives." That was all. He was the protector of the settlers. Though they knew not his name, he was well known. He was spoken of as " Captain Jack," "The Black Rifle," "Half Indian," and "The Wild Hunter of the Juniata." At one time he had about him a band of men as formidable as himself. At last he disappeared. The grateful settlers perpetuated his memory. They said that every night at midnight, he revisited, in spirit form, a favorite spring, drank from its clear depths, and then vanished. Who is there that can say it was not so ? Kittanning was an Indian village on the Alleghany River, the stronghold of Jacobs and Shingas, the most ferocious and bloodthirsty of the Indian chiefs. From this point were sent out many of those terrible war parties, which swept the defense less frontier with desolation and destruction. On the 30th of August, 1756, Colonel John Armstrong, with a band of three hundred brave frontiersmen, set out to attack this nest of thun derbolts. A journey of seven days brought them within six miles of the village. At this point, a half dozen Indians were found sitting around a fire in the woods. As Armstrong's plan was to surprise the town, these fellows were left in peace for the time being, a dozen men under Lieutenant Hogg, remaining 170 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. to watch them, while the main body made a detour and pushed on to the village. The attack was made at sunrise, through a cornfield which concealed their approach. A desperate fight ensued. The houses were fired. Again and again the Indians were called on to surrender. But the offer was invariably refused. They defended their houses with desperate courage. Jacobs, the chief, was shot in getting out of a window. As the flames walled in many for whom escape was impossible, they set up the death song, which rose in wild and plaintive notes above the din of the conflict. The store of powder in each house, which the Indians had boasted was sufficient for ten years' war, exploded with terrific force, flinging many an unfortunate high in air. Eleven captives were rescued; the village and great stores of provisions were destroyed, and forty warriors killed, the major ity escaping by flight. Only the night before, an advance party of twenty-four Indians had gone out on an expedition against the frontier. Lieutenant Hogg attacked these, but was defeated, after losing several of his best men. He, himself, though badly wounded, was overlooked by the enemy, and lay in the forest, helpless and hopeless, until he was fortunately discovered and rescued by the victorious army on its return march. For this valiant service, the city of Philadelphia presented Armstrong with a memorial medal. Yet the Indian ravages were unchecked. The line of forts, the heroic efforts of the settlers, were nothing. When the third year after Braddock's defeat rolled round, the boundless brutal ities of the Indians, instead of being checked, were more con stant, more wide-spread, and more terrible than ever before. What at the beginning of the war had been the interior, in which danger was never apprehended, became in turn the front ier. The country was absolutely depopulated. The territory now forming many counties, which, in 1755, was tolerably set tled, became a howling wilderness, and was abandoned to sav- THE LION AND THE LILIES. 171 ages and wild beasts. The bold invaders pushed farther and farther to the east. One day Philadelphia learned that a band of warriors had sacked and pillaged the country and massacred the inhabitants, only thirty miles away. The instances we have given are only a few drops from a mighty flood, only a few dead coals raked from the embers of a tremendous conflagration. There is enough of insecurity, of transitoriness in life at best. The universal tragedy goes on around us perpetually. Each of us comes to take his turn in the last sad act of the dreadful drama. Yet to all this, for the pioneers of Pennsylvania and of all new countries, were added the horrors of border warfare. As the family huddled around the fire-place at evening, they felt that each rattle of the shutter in the wintry blast might be the work of a savage hand. The rustling leaves of the forest might only conceal the stealthy approach of moccasined feet. Each trip to the well after nightfall for a bucket of water was like a sally from a beleaguered fort. Every shadow might hide a dusky form. Behind every tree might lurk a murderous enemy. The bark of the dogs, or the querulous cacklings of the sleepy hens, might be the warning of the approach of an Indian war party. Life had no security. The regularity of toil, the pur suit of ambitions, the routine of the family, the quiet succession of tasks in the respective seasons all this was broken into and interrupted. But why not fly ? Why wait until the crimsoned tomahawk was raised in air, and the little cabin crackled in the flames ? It is easy to answer. To fly was to lose home and all means of subsistence, and become homeless refugees, starving wanderers, pensioners on a cold and reluctant charity. Added to the real dangers of the situation were the fantastic horrors of the imag ination. In such a community wild rumors filled every breeze. Hardly a day passed that some messenger of alarm did not dash past the cabin on flying steed. A hundred times a year the settlers took refuge in the forts from imaginary enemies. 172 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. In such sorrows did the rivalries of France and England involve the innocent settlers of distant Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. In this way did the arts of the Frenchman turn the rage of the Indian against the English in favor of himself. Yet it was useless. England, defeated and humiliated on every battle-field, whether in Europe or America, called to her help a single man, an invalid, without fortune, family, or party. That man was William Pitt. With the voice of an archangel he roused the States of Protestantism to wage a war for mastery against the despotic monarchy and the institutions of the Middle Ages, and to secure to humanity its futurity of freedom. The mighty alliance which he created humbled the haughty mon arch of the French and changed the destinies of mankind. In 1758 three great military expeditions were fitted out by the English in America. One of these achieved the conquest of Louisburg; another that of Fort Frontenac. A third was dis- .patched, under General Forbes, to attack Fort du Quesne, and if possible, drive the savages from the country. It was success ful. The fort at the junction of the Alleghany and Mononga- hela rivers once more passed into the hands of the English. With unanimous voice the new fort, rising on the ruins of the old was named FORT PITT, in honor of the great statesman, whose genius was overwhelming the enemies of England. " Pittsburg," says Bancroft, " is the most enduring trophy of the glory of William Pitt. Long as the Monongahela and the Alleghany shall flow to form the Ohio, long as the English tongue shall be the language of freedom in the boundless val ley which their waters traverse, his name shall stand inscribed on the Gateway of the West." The year 1759 witnessed another series of victories planned by Pitt. Among these was the memorable and dramatic fall of Quebec. These successes continued without interruption, until, on September 8, 1760, the French surrendered all of Canada to the English. Everywhere the Lilies of France were supplanted by the British Lion. THE LION AND THE LILIES. 173 So far as France was concerned, the peace, which had come to the bruised and bleeding pioneers of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland, on the fall of Fort du Quesne, and which was now re-enforced by the surrender of Canada and all French forts, was permanent. Such the settlers believed it to be. Unfor tunately, France, in winning the Indians to her cause, and deluging in blood the country of their enemies, had evoked a spirit which would not down at her bidding. 1 .-3 174 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. OHAPTEE V. ROGERS'S RANGERS. iMONG the colonial recruits raised for the Brit ish army in the year 1755, after the awful defeat of Braddock, was Captain Robert Rogers, who was at the head of a small company of rough fellows from New Hampshire. He was over six feet high, physically the most pow erful man in the army. He had been virtually brought up in a hunter's camp. From boy hood he had, with gun, blanket, and kettle, some ammunition, and a little sack of parched corn, ranged the untrodden forests of New England and Canada in search of furs and game. He had slept with the savages in their wigwams, wrestled and gambled with their warriors, ogled their squaws, shot the rapids with them in their frail bark canoes, until the Indian character and methods hid no secret from him. When the recruits assembled at Albany, New York, General Johnson, knowing Rogers by reputation, employed him from time to time on important scouts. His head-quarters were at Fort William Henry, a new fort erected by the British at the southern extremity of Lake George. Taking four or five trusty men with him, he would proceed up the lake to a convenient point, hide the canoe in the rushes, and push his way through the forest, penetrating the sentry lines to the very camp of the enemy. At Crown Point, one of the French forts, his men, under cover of night, concealed ROGERS' S RANGERS. 175 themselves in the willows only three hundred yards from the fort. When morning dawned, Rogers, holding some bushes in his hand, crawled nearer. While making his reconnoissance, numbers of soldiers and Indians came out of the fort and engaged in drilling or shooting at marks so near that Rogers could not rejoin his men, nor could the latter retreat without discovery. . As he lay behind a small log, a Frenchman left his companions and walked directly toward the spot of con cealment. Rogers sprang at him with his gun, offering quarter. The stranger, instead of submitting, whipped out a dirk, and made a quick lunge at Rogers, but the latter shot him dead. The report instantly gave the alarm. The Frenchmen ran to the spot where lay the bleeding corpse, but no sign was there of the hand which had done the deed. If Rogers and his men had suddenly evaporated, the mystery, understood only by themselves, could not have been more perfect. Soon after their safe return, with information of the enemy gained on the above scout, Rogers took thirty men and two small cannon in four bateaux, and, pushing down the lake, discovered the enemy in an open camp in the forest. Runners bore the information to Fort Henry asking for re-enforcements. The delay caused them to be discovered. The British moved forward to surprise the French, when they perceived a fleet of hostile canoes coming down the lake. No doubt a similar force was advancing by land to catch the British between two fires. Rogers at once threw fifteen men into canoes to decoy the French within range of the two cannon. He steered as if mean ing to escape. The French at once headed diagonally toward the shore, to cut him off. The stratagem succeeded. Two cannon shots sunk as many canoes, and the remainder fled, pursued unsuccessfully by the entire force of British, who had swiftly embarked for the chase. In another scout, toward Fort Ticonderoga, Rogers and two companions were discovered on the lake by the enemy. Deter mined not to retreat, the scouts quickly assumed the guise of 176 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. VICINITY OF LAKE GJEOKGE. fishermen. All day they coolly floated within gunshot of the French, dropping hook and line into the placid lake, and at even ing actually sold their catch to the French. When night came on the adventurers pushed on toward their destination. Their reconnoissance at Ticonderoga, rendered diffi cult by the intense cold, was about completed, except as to capturing a prisoner, when a snow began to fall. No art could conceal their trail, if they lingered till the snowfall ceased. So the return trip was hastily begun. By Christmas Lake George was entirely frozen from shore to shore. But Rogers and his tireless woodsmen, instead of remaining idly in the warm quarters at the fort, equipped themselves with skates, and braved the win try tempest in many an expedition. Their success was unvarying. Taking a force of from ten to fifty men, on skates, Rogers would skim along the icy floor of the lake surface to a point opposite Ticonderoga or Crown Point, order his men to change their skates for snow-shoes, and move swiftly to some ambush along the roads leading to the fort. Here they would lie in the snow, exposed to the bitter cold, sometimes for two or three days, with no shelter but a few pine boughs has tily thrown together, and without a spark of fire, the smoke of which would instantly reveal them to the neigboring fort. Here they intercepted the sledges carrying fresh beef, venison, and corn to the fort, captured the drivers, and appropriated the provision. When they had caught several prisoners, they would glide into the French settlement, cut the throats of the cattle, set fire to the barns full of grain and to the houses of the villagers, and just as the red flames shot upward into the winter night, throwing their angry glare far across the whitened landscape, the mysterious and deadly Rangers would disappear in the forest as suddenly as they came. So valuable were the services of Rogers and his hardy ROGERS'S RANGERS. 177 woodsmen, that, in the spring of 1756, he received a special commission from the commander-in-chief to raise an independ ent corps of experienced foresters, men whom he was to choose himself, of the most approved courage and fidelity, and of the greatest physical inurement to exposure. The corps was to be known as ROGERS'S RANGERS, the men receiving the pay of regular soldiers, but carrying on warfare as scouts in their own brave fashion. This famous corps became the right arm of the British troops. Their official instructions were " to use their best endeavors to distress the French and their allies, by sacking, burning, and destroying their houses, barns, barracks, canoes, bateaux, etc., and by killing their cattle of every kind ; and at all times to endeavor to destroy their convoys of provis ion, by land and water, in every part of the country." OH the way to Fort Henry, with his new Rangers, Rogers made an elaborate scout around Crown Point. After killing large numbers of cattle, the tongues of which were carefully removed for the Rangers' use, they were discovered and closely pursued by an overwhelming force of French and Indians. In this emergency, Rogers executed a masterly maneuver. Appoint ing a rendezvous at a distant point on the lake shore, the Ran gers suddenly separated, every man taking his own course. Where there had been five minutes before a stout body of men, the enemy found no one. The Rangers had dispersed and left only thin air. From this point on, their history is a succession of thrilling and successful exploits, of which we may only take an occasional glimpse. Not a week passed without some daring scout or victory. The Rangers only had to go out in order to catch a net full of birds, as they called their prisoners. These Rogers would examine separately and with great care, to see if their stories agreed, concerning the strength, movements, plans, supplies, and situation of the enemy. Keen and saga cious in these examinations, able at a glance to separate the truth from falsehood, and wonderfully skillful in reading character, Rogers kept the British head-quarters more accurately posted 178 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. with regard to the enemy than were the French and Indian commanders themselves. From time to time, during the war, the "Rangers" were gradually increased from their original strength of sixty-two men, to more than a thousand. One night in July, 1756, while on a lengthy scout, the Rangers prepared to attack a French schooner, lying one mile from the lake shore. Just then two lighters, laden with pro vision and strongly guarded, came in sight, and made for the shore as if to encamp, it being about ten o'clock at night. As they drew close to land, the Rangers fired from the forest, and Rogers offered quarter to the enemy. The latter, however, put about, and made every effort to reach the opposite shore. Before they reached it the terrible Rangers had made prisoners of the entire party, and sunk and destroyed both cargoes, con sisting of wheat, flour, wine and brandy. At this time the French were offering the Indians sixty francs for every English scalp, and prisoners were sold in Canada for sixty crowds. Rogers's first-lieutenant was John Stark, afterwards major-gea- eral of the American army in the Revolution. The fall and winter of 1756 were busily employed in harass ing the enemy in the neighborhood of Lake George. On the 21st of January, 1757, Rogers had a company of eighty men with him, equipped with skates and snow-shoes. They were encamped three miles from the lake, on elevated ground, near Ticonderoga, from which they commanded a view of the snowy landscape for many miles. Far off on the glittering ice, they saw a small object moving across the lake. The keen eye of Rogers pronounced it to be a sled laden with provision. Lieu tenant Stark set out with ten men to head it off, while Rogers and the others moved swiftly to intercept the retreat. Soon after Stark had departed, Rogers detected ten other sleds following the first. It was too late to warn Stark of the fact. The latter struck out for the first sled, and the other sleds, still at a distance, discovering him, instantly put about. Pursuit was the only thing possible. The sleds were ROGERS'S RANGERS. 179 made of a long board, turned up in front, and with high racks at the side and end to hold the load. They were as light as egg-shells, and drawn each by two horses, rough shod, and, urged to the top of their speed by relentless drivers, sped over the ice with the velocity of the wind. Quick as thought, Rogers's men clapped on their skates and began the chase. The nearest sleds were a half a mile away. It was a race between swift and powerful horses and the swiftest skaters in the world. On flew the foaming horses, their manes flying and eyeballs strained, scattering showers of ice as their ponderous feet dug into the glittering surface. Wildly the hoarse drivers shouted and plied their rawhide lashes upon the reeking steeds. Behind them came the shaggy and powerful Rangers, seeming as they whirled over the ringing ice like superhuman creatures. The pursuers had the shorter path. The sleds must cross it. Whoever reached the intersection first would win the deadly race. As the steel of the pursuers' skate's flashed in the sunlight, it could be seen that they were gaining. Stark and his men had overtaken the rear sled, but the other Rangers paused not in their impetuous career. Still, it was evident, that some of the sleds would escape. One after another of those farthest in advance crossed the point where met the paths of pursuer and pursued. All but two of the sleds had passed the line of safety. Suddenly Rogers, who was six yards ahead of the nearest Ran ger, was seen to unsling his gun. Without slackening his ter rific speed, or removing his eye from the enemy for a moment, just as the second sled from the rear crossed his path he threw his gun to his shoulder and fired. The nearest horse was seen to lunge forward and fall, thrown by his momentum, a hundred feet along the ice. His mate, frightened and entangled, lost her footing. In a- moment the Rangers were upon their foes. The last sled fell an easy victim. The race between man and brute had been won by man. It was evident that the sleds which had escaped would carry the news to the fort, and rouse instant pursuit. Rogers ordered 180 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. his men to take the seven prisoners, and return at once to the camp fires they had left three hours before. So sudden had been their departure, that the men had not removed the priming in their guns since the previous day. Every thing was made ready for a fight, and a retreat commenced. They had just crossed a little valley, and were nearing the opposite ridge, when the woods blazed with a deadly volley of bullets. Several Rangers fell dead, Rogers himself being wounded in the head. The Rangers retreated to the opposite ridge, where, sheltered by trees, they were enabled to fight to advantage. From two o'clock till sunset the battle raged. Three times the French and Indians tried to flank the British, but as many times were driven back. Rogers received a wound in his wrist, and many of his brave men, scorning the idea of a surrender, lay helpless and bleeding in the snow. At dark the enemy withdrew. Worn out with the exciting events of the day, many of their number badly wounded, the exhausted Rangers still felt it necessary to retreat farther from the enemy's neighboring fort. For six weary miles they groped their way through the forest. Once they caught sight of a camp fire, and made a wide detour for fear of Indians. At last, a comfortless camp was pitched for the night. In the morning the wounded were unable to proceed farther without assistance. Lieutenant Stark offered to go to the fort on snow-shoes, a distance of forty long miles, and procure sleighs for them. In spite of the many difficulties and hardships of the way, he traversed the entire forty miles by sundown, and dispatched a relief party with sleighs for the wounded, so that they reached the suffering men before morning. Just as the sleighs arrived the Rangers perceived a black object, at a great distance, crawl ing over the ice. Supposing it to be one of their stragglers, a sleigh was sent to investigate. It proved to be Joshua Martin, who had been shot through the hips. He had been left for dead on the field of battle, but managed to crawl back into the woods and build the fire which his companions saw and avoided. ROGERS'S RANGERS. 181 Feebly and with great pain, crawling . through the snow, he fol lowed their track to the lake, and then moved along the ice. When relief reached him he fainted away, but afterward recov ered and fought all through the war. The French made several attempts to capture Fort Henry, but as long as the Rangers were there these efforts failed. Rogers, suffering greatly from his wounds, had gone to Albany for surgical aid, soon after the events last recorded. While there he was attacked with the small-pox, that scourge alike of the wilderness and of the city. So it happened that on the 16th of March, 1757, Stark was acting commander of the Rangers at Fort Henry. On that evening, as he made his round of inspection, he noticed the men standing in little knots, engaged in busy conversation, interrupted with many laughs. It was the eve of St. Patrick's day. These lonely fellows were planning their celebration. Stark at once gave orders to the sutler to issue no rum to his men without written permission from him. The men, not to be foiled, at once applied to him for it, but Stark put them off, on the ground that his hand was lame and he could not write. The Rangers were not in the best of humors, when they saw the Irish troops, who composed the remainder of the garrison, freely filling their bumpers with fiery draughts in honor of St. Patrick's wife, and making the fort ring with their hilarious songs and carousals. That night the French, knowing the habit of the Irishmen, to celebrate the occasion, made a terrific attack on the fort. But instead of surprising a set of intoxicated fellows,, they were met at the first onslaught by the cool and invincible Rangers. These men bravely fought the enemy hand to hand, repelling assault after assault, until their drunken companions could come to their senses. The Rangers had saved the fort. In May the Rangers were ordered to Halifax, to join in an expedition against Louisburg. Their versatile talents were employed during harvest, while the preparations for the expe dition were going on, in making hay for the horses. The expe- 10 182 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. dition was afterwards abandoned and the Rangers ordered to Fort Edward. On the 18th of December, 1757, Rogers led his men on a lengthy scout. On their way, they for the first time since their previous departure in April looked on Fort William Henry. Then it had been a solid log structure, occupied by a large gar rison, and supplied, as Rogers says, "with every thing they could desire for their comfort and convenience." We smile at a rough Ranger's notion of " comfort and con venience." It was filled by a rude frontier fort, with its long barrack rooms, the walls of logs, the floor of puncheon ; no ceil ing but a smoky thatch, the cracks stuffed with mud and straw to keep out the winter ; no windows except openings, closed with heavy shutters ; no light or fire except from an immense fire-place at one end, from which the heat was dissipated long before it reached the frosty region at the opposite end; no fare but salt pork, soup, and black bread, eaten at greasy log tables, twenty inches wide, set with a gloomy array of battered iron plates and cups. Yet to the Ranger, accustomed as he was to sleep often in the snow, and pass days and nights without fire or shelter, the rough fort, with its rougher company, was "every thing he could desire for comfort and convenience." Looking back to the luxury of their life in Fort William Henry, it was with keen regrets that the Rangers now beheld it, a deserted ruin, covered with half-burnt rafters and fragments of exploded cannon. With a British army of six thousand men only fifteen miles away, the French had, in the previous August, while the Rangers were away, been allowed to besiege Fort Henry. After a brave defense of six days, during which time the steady can nonade from the besiegers' batteries had dismounted their guns and rendered the place no longer tenable, its defenders had sur rendered on condition of quarter. Whatever may have been the wishes of the French commander, the Indian allies, of whom was composed the principal part of his army, could not be restrained from violating the condition. Many prisoners were ROGERS' S RANGERS. 183 massacred outright. Others were led away to suffer the exquisite agonies of the stake. Worse and more horrible still, an Indian tribe called the Cold Country 'Cannibals, who were present at the siege, roasted their prisoners and ate them. For this state ment there is unquestionable authority. In spite of these terrible associations, the sturdy Rangers entered the ruin, scraped away the heavy snow, and built fires in the partial shelter of a corner which was yet standing, and passed the night "comfortably," as Rogers says. As they con tinued their scout, the Rangers met with fine success, and on their return to Fort Edward, December 27th, they were enabled to present the commandant with a fine Christmas gift of several prisoners, who gave full and accurate information of the enemy. During this winter a company of regular soldiers were placed in Rogers's hands to learn Ranger tactics. For their benefit he drew up a written code, which was published with his memoirs. On the 10th of March, 1758, Rogers received orders to march with one hundred and eighty Rangers to the neighbor hood of Ticonderoga. He protested that the force was too small, and asked to be allowed to take four hundred men, but his requests were refused. The march was made along the solid ice of the lake, the party lying concealed on shore during the day and marching by night. Since the capture of Fort Henry, the enemy had been exceedingly active, strong forces of Indians scouring the country in every direction. The nights were as dark as pitch, and while fifteen Rangers on skates acted as an advance guard, the main body marched as closely together as possible, to avoid separation. When within eight miles of the French army, an advanced guardsman skated swiftly to the rear with word to halt. The men were instantly ordered to sit down on the ice. Rogers went forward. The advance guard were called in, and thought they had seen a fire on the east shore. The sleighs and baggage were hastily pulled ashore, guards posted, and the main body marched swiftly for ward to attack the supposed camp. No light was to be seen. 184 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. At last, concluding that the guard had mistaken a patch of snow or some rotten wood, which in the night has a phosphorescent glow, for a hostile camp fire, the Rangers returned to their packs, and passed the night on shore, without fire. The truth was, the guard had seen a real camp fire, which had been extin guished on the approach of the Rangers, and a hasty message sent to the fort of their presence. In the morning it was thought best to push on by land with snow-shoes, the snow being now four feet deep. Toward night word was brought that a band of ninety- six Indians was approaching. On the left of the line of march, was a small rivulet, and on the right a steep mountain. The Rangers extended their line, and at the first fire killed fifty Indians. Supposing this to be the entire force of the enemy, the Rangers pressed on in pursuit, when suddenly they were attacked by over six hundred well armed Indians and Cana dians, who on receipt of the news of the Rangers' approach had set out to attack them. Rogers shouted to his men to fall back quickly to their former ground, but before they reached it the life-blood of fifty gallant Rangers reddened the snow where they had fallen. With cool desperation they continued to fight for an hour, against the overwhelming numbers of the foe. Small detach ments were thrown out on the right and left to prevent flank ing. But the contest was too unequal. One hundred and eight out of the one hundred and eighty Rangers were killed on the spot. Of these, ten men under Lieutenant Phillips, on the left flank, had been surrounded and captured. They were tied to trees in sight of their friends, and deliberately hacked to pieces by the savages. At last, Rogers cried to his men to fly, every one for him self. Rogers himself, with twenty men, rushed to an icy preci pice, over a hundred feet high, which sloped abruptly down to the lake. Turning and firing on their pursuers, Rogers and his followers deliberately jumped over the perilous precipice and KOGERS'S RANGERS. 185 slid down to the lake with terrific force. The spot is still pointed out as "Rogers's Leap." By this exploit, these men, though severely injured, escaped alive, one of their number making his way to Fort Edward, and sending out a relief party with sleighs and blankets. But others were not so fortunate. Accompanying the Rangers had been two British officers, Captains Creed and Kent, who had gone out to study their mode of warfare. At the beginning of the fight Rogers had advised them to retire, but being unused to travel on snow-shoes, ignorant of the country, and seeing their friends attacked by such a multitude of yelling savages, painted in the most gaudy colors, they chose like brave men to remain and fight. At the retreat, Rogers shouted to them to fly with him, but in their efforts to escape their snow- shoes came off, and the poor fellows sunk breast deep in the soft surface. By the strangest good fortune the savages over looked them in the fury of their pursuit after Rogers. Not till the moon arose did they venture to stir. Then with fluttering hearts they stole through the forest, knowing nothing of their course, but hoping that it took them farther from the Indians. When morning dawned, it found them still struggling on through the snow, along the shore of some body of water. As the fear of savages departed, another dreadful apprehen sion laid hold of them. Which way was the fort? The dangers of death from exposure or starvation stared them in the face. Suddenly they saw a man. He came towards them. He proved to be a servant of Rogers, and claimed to know their where abouts and the way to the fort. He affirmed that they were on South Bay and not Lake George. All day they followed their guide, at first on the ice and then on foot, through the slavish snow. At night they halted. Creed and Kent had thrown off their coats and fur caps in the battle, and had on only their vests. Over their heads they tied handkerchiefs. For a single blanket they would have given worlds. The third day the guide prom- 186 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. ised that the fort would be reached. But at sunset their weary eyes beheld nothing but the same vast expanse of whiteness. The fourth day he said it would be impossible to fail, but the day passed with the prophecy unfulfilled. Again and again their snow-shoes broke. Again and again, with benumbed fin gers they tried to tie and patch them up. Every few paces they sank up to the breast in the snow. The hardships were intolerable. They scrambled up mountains full of dangerous chasms and hidden holes. They made detours to avoid impas sable forests of fallen timber, prostrated by some tornado. At the outset their entire stock of food had been a link of bologna sausage and a little ginger. This had long since been exhausted, and for two days they had lived on some frozen berries and water. Their nights had been passed without cover, and with tlie scantiest fires ; for without a hatchet, by their utmost efforts, they could only wrench a few twigs from the frozen trees for fuel. During the fifth day they struggled along a dreadful road in the mountains, with only one snow- shoe apiece. Towards noon on the sixth day they came once more to the ice. At a single glance the unfortunate men perceived it to be the same spot which they had left four days before. This terrible dis covery paralyzed them with horror. Their only chance was to throw themselves into the hands of the French at Fort Carillon. All day and night the wind blew hard, and a freezing rain incrusted their clothes with ice. The remainder of the sad story we give in Captain Creed's own words. "We traveled a few miles, but the snow driving full in our faces, made every thing appear as dark as the fog upon the banks of Newfoundland. As the storm cleared up we looked in vain for the fort. Proceeding onward by land we came to a large waterfall. I attempted to ford the stream above it, and had almost gained the opposite shore where the water reached my breast, when the rapidity of the stream hurried me off the slippery rocks and plunged me under water. I lost my fusee, ROGERS'S RANGERS. 187 and narrowly escaped being carried over the fall. Mr. Kent and the guide fared no better, but the hopes of reaching a fire made us think lightly of the matter. "As night approached we labored through the snow, being now certain that the fort was near ; but our guide now con fessed for the first time that he was at a loss. We plainly per ceived that his brain was affected ; he saw Indians all around him, and, though we have since learned that we had every thing to fear from them, yet that was a danger we did not think of. We even shouted to give notice where we were, but could neither see nor hear of any one to lead us right. If we halted we became pillars of ice. We therefore resolved to make a fire, though the danger was apparent. We had one dry cartridge on hand, but in trying to catch a fire with a little of it, by means of my pistol, Mr. Kent held the cartridge so near as to have it blow up in our faces, almost blinding him and causing great pain. This appeared to be the last stroke of fortune. " We had now no hopes of fire and were not anxious for life, but wished to carry the scene out in a manner becoming to sol diers. We made a path round a tree and there exercised all night, though scarcely able to stand or to prevent each other from sleeping. Our guide, notwithstanding repeated cautions, strayed from us, sat down, and died immediately. On the morning of the 20th we saw the fort, and approached it with a white flag. The officers ran violently toward us, and we were saved from a danger we did not apprehend, for we were informed that if the Indians, who were close after them, had seized us first, it would not have been in the power of the French, to have prevented our being hurried to the camp, and perhaps the next day to Montreal, or killed for not being able to march." The prisoners were afterwards exchanged by the French. From this time on in the war the Rangers operated in larger bodies and in more important movements. All the companies were concentrated at Fort Edward. Rogers was raised to the rank of major. Their history during the years of 1758 and 1759 is 188 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. full of romance, adventure, and excitement. When we pass it over, we leave out their heroic service in the fatal attack of the British on Fort Ticonderoga, from which the army retreated, leaving two thousand of their number slain. We omit, too, the thrilling story of their exploits in the triumphant expedition against Crown Point. In these movements the Rangers formed a part of the general army, whose defeats and victories are a part of history. When the British occupied Crown Point, they dispatched a messenger with a flag of truce and proposals of peace to the St. Francis Indians. They dwelt in the heart of Canada, mid way between Montreal and Quebec, at a point three miles from the St. Lawrence River. They were notoriously attached to the French, and no other six tribes of Indians combined had done the English more injury than the single one of St. Fran cis. Their unspeakable ferocity, their exhaustless hatred and malicious industry, had resulted in the murder of over six hun dred colonists during the years of the war. On the 13th of September the commandant of Crown Point learned that his messenger, bearing the flag of truce, had been coolly taken prisoner and subjected to insult and indignity. Shortly after receipt of this news an orderly handed Major Rogers the following : " You are this night to take a detachment of two hundred picked Rangers and proceed to Missisqui Bay, from which you will proceed to attack the .enemy at the settlements of the St. Francis Indians, on the south side of the St. Lawrence River, in 'such a manner as shall most effectually disgrace and injure the enemy and redound to the honor and success of his maj esty's arms. Remember the barbarities committed by the enemy's Indian scoundrels on every occasion where they have had opportunities of showing their infamous cruelties toward his majesty's subjects. Take your revenge, but remember that, although the villains have promiscuously murdered women and children of all ages, it is my order that no women or chil- ROGERS' S RANGERS. 189 dren should be killed or hurt. When you have performed this service, you will again join the army, wherever it may be. "Yours, etc., JEFF. AMHERST. " Camp at Crown Point, Sept. 13, 1759. "To MAJOR ROGERS." What a commission ! Two hundred men ordered to make a journey of more than three hundred miles, through a country barren of provisions, and occupied by the whole French and Indian army of fifteen thousand men; when at that distance from support and their base of supplies, to attack and destroy by stealth a powerful tribe of Indians, which had been a terror through the whole war, and after all this to effect a retreat by the same tremendous journey, only through a hostile country aroused by a knowledge of their presence, and exerting every effort to destroy them. That night as the moon arose the little band sallied from the fort, and, with firm tread and rigid countenances, swiftly embarked in a fleet of canoes. Their progress down the lake was itself one of difficulty and danger. Its waters were patrolled incessantly by hostile schooners, armed with cannon, and other mischievous engines of war, for the discovery and destruction of the English. By night only did the Rangers advance. On the fifth day a keg of gunpowder exploded in their camp, injuring a number of men, who, together with some sick, were forced to return to Crown Point, making a defection of forty-four men, one-fourth of the entire company. At the end of ten days, Rogers, having successfully eluded the enemy, landed at Missisqui Bay. Here he stored the boats and provi sions enough to take the Rangers back to Crown Point. Two trusty Indians were left in charge, with orders to remain until their return, unless the enemy should discover the boats and strike the trail of the Rangers. In this case the two guards were to follow the Rangers at the top of their speed, bringing the fatal news. 190 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. On the evening of the second day, as the Rangers went into camp, the two Indians left behind came running in, breath less and excited. Four hundred French and Indians had dis covered the boats and destroyed them, and two hundred of them were now in pursuit of the Rangers. "This," says the dauntless Rogers, " caused us some uneasiness. Should the enemy overtake us, and we have the advantage in an encounter, they would be immediately re-enforced, while we could expect no assistance, being so far advanced beyond our military posts ; and our boats and provision likewise being taken, cut off all hope of retreat by the route we came." A hurried council of war was held. The situation was des perate. But the motto of Rogers was, " In boldness lies safety." It was determined to push on to their destination, at the high est possible speed, avoiding an encounter, simply by out-march ing their pursuers, strike their blow at the St. Francis settle ments, and retreat quickly. The survivors were to make their way back by the roundabout route of the Connecticut River. Lieutenant McMullen was dispatched to Crown Point, to inform General Amherst of the disaster, and have him send relief and provisions at the Ammonoosuck River, " that being the way we should return, if we ever did return at all." These arrangements were quickly made. McMullen, with a small sack of food, started back on his lonely journey to Crown Point ; the others hurriedly prepared for the race with their pursuers. No sleep that night; the sunrise must find them many a mile on their way. Much of the time they advanced in double quick time, the hardy Rangers' being able to run for hours in a sort of dog-trot. After the first night's march they uniformly began their day's advance one hour before dawn, and continued it without halt, their meals being eaten as they marched, until one hour after dark. Nine days they marched through a spruce bog, where the ground was low and swampy, the greater part being covered with water a foot deep. When the weary Rangers encamped ROGER&S RANGERS. 191 at night, it was necessary to go into the darkened forest and cut boughs from the trees and construct a kind of hammock to protect themselves from the water. The day before their des tination was reached, they came upon the St. Francis River, with its swift current. Placing the tallest men up stream, and joining hands in a single line, the entire company passed the ford in safety. Their only loss was a few guns, which were recovered by diving to the bottom of the river. Towards even ing of the twenty-second day from their departure from Crown Point, when the scout, as usual, climbed a tall tree for recon- noissance, he saw at a distance of three miles the unconscious village of the St. Francis Indians, over which hung the light ning-charged clouds of doom. The Rangers were ordered to refresh themselves, and pre pare for action on the following morning. Every gun was carefully dried and freshly loaded; ammunition bags were replenished, and such readjustment of clothing made as was possible. While the men rolled themselves in their blankets for a sound sleep, Rogers and two trusty companions stole out under the starry sky towards the fated settlement. As they drew softly near, wild shouts of merriment issued from the wigwams. Around enormous fires were dancing in frantic glee hilarious circles of warriors and maidens. It was a wedding dance. These wild Indians had turned aside, for the moment, from thoughts of war and bloodshed to the mild gentleness of love. A noble brave had chosen to himself a dusky bride. The chord of sentiment touched at the incident still trembled respon sive in the savage breasts. Their festivities were bright, inno cent, and happy, shining like a star in the midst of all the gloom and blackness of their lives. All unconscious of their danger, the dance went on, each moment with madder, merrier glee. The squaws ran about, serving to all who wished the rare bounties of the wedding feast. The old men stood apart from the revelers, smoking their pipes. Ever and anon their stately dignity gave way to 192 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. unwonted outbursts of hideous laughter. Within the wigwam of the bride and groom, was dispensed with careless hand the blazing draughts of rum to the happy throng. At last these potations began to have their effect. One after another of the braves staggered to his wigwam, and sunk into drunken slumber. The fires burned lower. The circle of dan cers grew smaller, until only a handful of uproarious fellows and their girls kept up their shrieking orgies. At two o'clock in the morning Rogers and his companions returned quickly to their camp. A shake of the shoulder and a whispered command roused each sleeping Ranger to his feet. Blankets were hastily rolled up, packs adjusted, and guns examined. A frugal meal was eaten standing. By three o'clock the Rangers were in motion for the village. With stealthy step they advanced to within a quarter of a mile. Another halt was made. Rogers crawled forward to make another reconnoissance. Meanwhile the men lay flat on their faces. At five o'clock Rogers returned. The feast had ended. The last reveler was wrapped in oblivion, and the entire settle ment was asleep. The Rangers were disencumbered of all their packs. Weapons formed their only load. The men were formed in three columns. They were to fall on the settlement on three sides at once. The first faint flush of dawn reddening the east had only obscured a few stars as the men moved rapidly forward through the frosty air. When the settlement was reached each man knew his work. The nearest wigwams were entered. In a moment the throat of every sleeping warrior was cut from ear to ear. The knife only was used as yet. No guns were fired. In this way the deadly Rangers had massacred two-thirds of the warriors in the settlement before a single note of alarm. Many children and squaws, who slept soundly, were left undis turbed. Such was the case with the new bride, whom they found locked in her husband's arms. Poor sleeper; too soon, alas, too soon, would she awaken to find all joy, all light, all ROGER&S RANGERS. 195 love, gone out from life. If, perchance, a child's wide wonder ing eyes opened as the glittering knife swept across its father's throat, it was the work of an instant to gag its mouth and hand it over as a prisoner. At last, the groans of some dying brave, or the screams of an awakened squaw, gave the alarm. Small time was there for the warriors to reach for weapons. Their only safety lay in flight. Only one side lay open ; that was the river. But as the canoes of the frightened savages pushed out into the cur rent, the swift messengers of lead sped from the gun of the destroyers and stilled every noble form in death. Five English captives were found and rescued. The scalps of more than six hundred murdered white men hung from the wigwam poles. These sights were not unnoticed by the Rangers. SnatcKing brands from the smouldering embers of the wedding fires, the wigwams were ignited. Black volumes of smoke, pierced by forked tongues of flame, rolled upward to the peaceful sky of the morning, and draped its blue canopy with the mournful color which all the world has chosen for the sign of sorrow. By seven o'clock, with the exception of three wigwams, pre served for their own shelter, the Rangers had utterly destroyed the village and its inhabitants. Two hundred wariors had been slain, while of their own number but one had been killed and two or three wounded. From their prisoners, who, excepting two Indian boys and three girls, were shortly set at liberty, Rogers learned that his pursuers had missed him; but that their messengers had sent word of his approach ; that only four miles down the river were a force of five hundred French and Indians, waiting at a settlement which was supposed to be Rogers's destination, instead of the St. Francis settlement. While this examination took place, the Rangers supplied them selves with corn from the granaries of the village. A council of war determined that instant retreat by way of the Connecticut River and Number Four must be begun. The hardships of the retreat far exceeded those of the 196 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. advance. The way led over barren mountains and through endless swamps. In one of these morasses, trusting an Indian squaw for guidance, they were led about three days, and brought back to their own tracks, to gain time for their pursuers. After eight days' travel, provisions gave out, and the Rangers divided into small companies of eight or ten each, for procuring sub sistence from roots and berries. One of these detachments, lingering behind the rest, was surprised by the enemy, and seven of their men taken prisoner. Two other detachments, similarly attacked, had nearly all their number slain. Some of the men, being still in fair condition, preferred to make their way directly to Crown Point. The bulk of the company, however, was to rendezvous at the mouth of the Ammonoosuck River, a hundred miles above Number Four (now Charleston, New Hampshire), where Rogers con fidently expected provisions and relief, in accordance with the message sent to Crown Point by McMullen, after the news of the destruction of their boats. When at last the straggling companies of wretched men reached the rendezvous, they found camp fires still burning, but no succor. They fired their guns, and shouted for help, but only the mocking echoes of the forest answered them. Not till some time later did they learn that in accordance with McMullen's message provisions had been sent to this spot in charge of a Lieutenant Stevens. Arriving there and not find ing Rogers, the fellow thought proper, after waiting only two days, to return, taking his provisions with him. His departure took place just two hours before the exhausted and famished Rangers arrived. The signal guns fired by the latter were heard by Stevens, but only served to hasten his march, as he believed them to be fired by Indians. The disappointment was cruel. It was evident that the men who, nerved by the hope of succor, had exhausted all their little remaining strength to reach this point, could proceed no farther. Relief must be had, or the whole party die in the ROGERS 1 S RANGERS. 197 wilderness. "In this emergency," says Rogers, "I resolved to make the best of my way to Number Four, leaving the remainder of the party, now unable to proceed any farther, to obtain such wretched subsistence as the wilderness afforded, until I could relieve them, which I promised to do in ten days. Captain Ogden, myself, and a captive Indian boy, embarked upon a raft of dry pine trees. The current carried us down the stream in the middle of the river, where we kept our miserable vessel with such paddles as could be split and hewn with small hatchets. "The second day we reached White River Falls, and very narrowly escaped running over them. The raft went over, and was lost, but our remaining strength enabled us to land and march by the falls. At the foot of them Captain Ogden and the Ranger killed some red squirrels, and also a partridge, while I attempted to construct another raft. Not being able to cut the trees, I burnt them down, and burnt them at proper lengths. This was our third day's work after leaving our companions. " The next day we floated down to Nattoquichie Falls, which are about fifty yards in length. Here we landed, and Captain Ogden held the raft by a withe of hazel bushes, while I went below the falls to swim in, board, and paddle it ashore; this being our only hope for life, as we had not strength sufficient to make a new raft should this be lost. I succeeded in secur ing it, and next morning we floated down within a short di^- tance of Number Four. Here we found several men cuttfets timber, who relieved and assisted us to the fort. A cit oi was immediatly dispatched up the river with provu reached the men at Coos in four days after, whljy^^T which my agreement, was the tenth after I left t^Taccording to afterwards I went up the river with two oth^ em - Two da J s others of my party who might be coming/ 1 " canoes to relieve Relief parties were also sent out in (f^at way. up stragglers. Slowly the haggard mA ther directions to hunt fort at Number Four. It was two fer were gathered at the recovered sufficiently to proceed to C/ jnths before the 7 had jwn Point. 198 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. With this story of the unfortunate expedition against the St. Francis Indians, a military exploit which, for boldness and dexterity, is hardly equaled in the history of our country, our recital of the story of Rogers's Rangers must close. They continued their operations until the close of the war in 1760, when they were directed to take formal possession of all the French forts west of the Alleghanies, in accordance with their surrender by France. After performing this duty with approved success, Major Rogers went to England, where he resided till the opening of the Revolutionary War. -He then returned to America, and visited the American camp, but was refused admission by Gen eral Washington, who suspected him as a British spy. Rogers was, however, visited by Colonel Stark, and other old Kangers, who had since enlisted in the cause of the colonies. He seemed greatly chagrined by Washington's treatment, and soon after joined Lord Howe, who commanded the British army. In a short time, however, he returned to England, and never again visited the land in which he had won undying fame. It was the opinion of General Stark, and other friends, that Washing ton misjudged Rogers, and that he would have proved a true and valuable soldier in the American army had he not been tmis trusted. He was denounced as a Tory before he had declared Mis principles. chai THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 199 CHAPTER YI. THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. t j.T is only adventurers who have adventures. Quiet men have quiet lives. It is the dare devil who is the hero of thrilling exploits and startling situations. The dangers of frontier life attract only the boldest spirits. For these reasons it is, that early American history con tains more romance, more adventure and more excitement than the annals of any other period or place. The colonies were populated with brave, adventurous men, the most daring spirits of the age. Such men as these were sure to find themselves in exciting situ ations and to perform heroic deeds. Other countries and peoples than ours have had to gratify the appetite for adventure with fictitious exploits and imagi nary heroes. The French feast on such unsubstantial banquets as the wild and improbable feats of the mysterious Count of Monte Christo, and the feverish tragedy of the Wandering Jew. Englishmen revel in the romance of chivalry and of the Middle Ages, as pictured in "Ivanhoe," "The Black Dwarf," and the " Idyls of the King." America, however, has within her reach, not only the brilliant literature of fancy, but the equally thril ling and far more substantial stories of the feats of our fathers upon the frontier. The personal characters of these dauntless men, their inex haustible resources, their marvelous facility of adaptation, is 11 200 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. nowhere better shown than in the stories of their captivities. To give just a taste of this racy food, we present the stories* of three of them, taken prisoner at different times and under dif ferent circumstances, during the French and Indian war. MAJOE ROBERT STOBO, a brave and generous Scotchman, was appointed one of the officers in the little company with which George Washington, in 1754, attempted to protect the fort at the forks of the Ohio. He traveled in great style, in a covered wagon with a dozen servants, and keeping a sumptuous table, adorned with spark ling wines and smoking dishes of game. When Washington was surrounded at Fort Necessity, he negotiated a surrender, by the terms of which his men were allowed to retreat unharmed from the Ohio valley, and certain French captives were to be restored. As a guarantee for the latter condition, our gallant Stobo was handed over as a hostage to the French at Fort du Quesne. The governor of Virginia refused to carry out Washington's promises, and one pleasant morning Stobo found himself a gen uine prisoner. McKnight furnishes us with a graphic outline of his adventures, which we use with slight abridgment or change. Stobo at once began to reflect how he could throw Fort du Quesne into the hands of the English. He wrote let ters to Washington, giving a full plan of the fort, information as to its garrison, and urging in the most strenuous manner that an expedition be fitted out at once for the capture of the fort. These letters he intrusted to Indian messengers, staking his life on their fidelity. The messengers kept faith. The letters reached Washington all right, but no expedition could be fitted out that year. Meanwhile Stobo was sent to Quebec. Although a prisoner, Stobo's gay and popular manners, his genial nature and his society accomplishments secured him every privilege. He was the boon companion of the army officers, and the favored gallant of every lovely lady in Quebec. Care- THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 201 less and gay, he determined to add to his accomplishments a knowledge of the French language. At this announcement all the salons of the city applauded. Stobo reigned without a rival. But a change came o'er the spirit of his dreams. Braddock had marched to the forks of the Ohio, carrying with him Stobo's letters, as a guide in the attack. By strange fatuity, these com promising epistles, which had escaped falling into the hands of the French when it might have been expected, now that their writer was seven hundred miles away, and had forgotten all about them, were left among the baggage piled helter-skelter in the bloody defile, where Braddock's army was destroyed. Here they were found by the victors. Stobo took no more lessons in French from his amorous lady loves. He was clapped into prison as a spy, and notified that he would be tried for his life. He effected his escape from prison, but a reward of six thousand livres, offered to any who would bring him in alive or dead, filled the woods with thousands of eager persons, and he was soon caught and thrust into a black, horrible dungeon. He found nothing but cold stone to sit or lie on, and on the floor was daily placed an earthen pan with bread and water for his sustenance. In this dark and dismal dungeon his eyes soon acquired such power that he could discern a rat running over the floor, a feat for which his opportunities were ample. In November our hero was brought before the military court, and after a brief, stern trial, sentenced to death. The day for his execution was fixed, and he was remanded to prison. But his indomitable heart was yet unshaken, and he busied himself meditating over plans of escape. The judgment of the court, however, was not approved by King Louis, and the dungeon was exchanged for a jail, with two vigilant sentinels at the door, and two below the single window. Many were his plans for 'escape. The window offered him the best chance. He found it firmly barred with iron up and 202 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. down, but not across. He must cut a groove in the hard stone, so as to throw one of the bars aside. He had but a sorry knife, round at the point, and as it would imperil all to make a noise, his business must be done by careful, silent rubbing. The work went slowly on. Meanwhile, he must gather provisions for his long journey. He managed to secrete a sort of knapsack, and on the stove he parched grain to carry with him. His room was always open to his jailers, and he had to fill the groove as fast as he made it by stuffing it with chewed bread, which was then covered with sand or ashes. Sometimes the grating noise would bring in the jailer, but the groove was so neatly con cealed and the major was generally found sitting so calmly, walking, smoking, or reading, that, after peering around the room with jealous eye, the jailer was fain to depart with shaking head. At length the groove was done ; the bar had room to play, but being short and fast at top, the Major could not bend it. Tying his handkerchief around the two bars, he inserted a stick, and by twisting it about had leverage enough to bring the bars together. The knapsack was now stored with over thirty pounds of various kinds of provisions, which he had managed to secrete, and all was ready for the escape. The 30th of April was a horrible day of wind and rain and hail. The night was no better. The sleepy sentries, suspecting naught, sought favorable shelter from the wretched weather. Stobo's eyes were on guard, and as soon as he saw the place deserted he knew his time had come. Hurriedly tying about him his knapsack and applying the handkerchief tourniquet, a passage was soon opened, and down he jumped into the mud below, and disappeared in the night. Far above the town he took refuge in a farmer's outhouse and anxiously awaited the chance for escape. His flight was at once detected ; again six thousand livres were offered for his arrest, and the whole town turned out for the search. For two days the major lay snug. At midnight he stole stealthily out, and made straight for THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 203 Charles River, crossed it with knapsack on his head, the water coming up to his chin. He had proceeded to a point eight miles below Quebec, when just as he had set foot on the great road, he spied some gentlemen riding towards him, who unfor tunately were just as quick in spying him, and made hard after him. He was caught and dragged back to prison. His biographer thus quaintly laments this sad relapse into captivity : " Ill-used before, better could not be hoped for ; he sickens at the thought of his sad fate ; a dreary while for him to linger out in sad despondency, well barred and bolted in with treble vigilance. A long, long summer and a dismal winter were to come, and these, for what he knew, might be repeated, if life so long would stay. He could not stand the thought, his spirits failed him, his looks grew pale j corroding, pensive thought sat brooding on his forehead, and left it all in wrinkles ; his long, black hair grows like a badger gray, his body to a shadow wastes, and ere the winter came with her keen edge of hardened cold, his health was gone ; yet he must struggle still with the remaining span of life, for out he must not come, and he's given up for dead. " There dwelt, by lucky fate, in this strong capital, a lady fair, of chaste renown ; of manners sweet, and gentle soul ; long had her heart confessed for this poor prisoner a flame, best suited with the spirit of the times to smother, whose tender heart felt double smart at this his deep affliction, which threat ened certain death; her kindred was confessed, and influence, too, well known with Vaudreuil, and, strange speech of love, thus she accosts the proud Canadian viceroy," etc. We need not give this tender love song, but the burden of it was an urgent appeal to change the major's prison, and give him exercise and good air, and so a chance for his life. The prayer prevailed. The wan and wasted prisoner was allowed to 'walk the ramparts. By the care of this kind lady and her daughter, the major's health recovered by degrees, and he became very watchful and studious to disarm all suspicion. 204 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. The months passed on, and Stobo made the acquaintance of some English prisoners brought in, among others a Scotchman, by the name of Clarke, a ship carpenter by trade, who, by a facile and timely change of religion, was released, and was soon employed at work in the ship-yard. With this man and another prisoner, by the name of Ste venson, he concocted a new scheme. In order to dismiss his kind lady attendant, he feigned illness. Instead of going to bed, however, he dressed in a plain, coarse workman's dress, incased his head in a thick worsted wig, and quietly stole down the stairs, past the rooms of the family that had been so kind to him, out into the garden, and leaped the wall. No sooner out of town than he quickened his pace and made his way to a little windmill on the river, which was fixed as the rendezvous for the whole escaping party. He found them all there, with guns, ammunition, and provisions. March was the word, and Stobo, as leader of this gallant little band of five, moved along the river for a couple of miles, hoping to find some vessel by which to escape. At length they came across a large birch canoe, which they carried to the water, and all safely embarked. With nimble hands they plied the paddles and flew down the strong current of the St. Lawrence. By daylight Quebec was left far behind, and they sought the protection of the woods, carrying their canoe with them. As before, the major's flight was early discovered. This time the search was fruitless. The little party lay by quietly during each day, but as night came on they would again launch their bark upon the river. On the eleventh night, as they paddled out into the broad St. Lawrence, they encountered a violent storm. The canoe filled with water, and they tried in vain to make the shore, but passed the night, tossed like a cork upon the waters, and only saved from wreck by tfnintermitting bailing. A pierc ing cold now set in, freezing their drenched clothes to their backs. By morning they succeeded in again reaching shore, THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 205 but in a most sorry plight. Their frozen garments rattled like coats of mail, scarce one could lift a limb, and a mother and children, who formed part of their crew, were almost dead. Two of the men, going out for game, soon ran back, frightened by the appearance of two armed savages. Stobo reassured them, and demanded to be led to a sight of them, thinking that if they were scouts for a larger party, it might be nec essary to cut them off. They soon came upon the two unsus pecting savages, when Stobo broke out into a French cantata, and saluting the savages in French, seized the gun of one, while Stevenson grappled him and Clarke the other. Stobo then said they were Frenchmen, but in search of English pris oners who had escaped, and that he must be sure who they were. They were much alarmed, and offered to lead the way to their tent and to the fire, of which they were the guardians, so that the whole country might be alarmed at the advance up the river of any hostile British fleet. These fires, they said, were placed at regular distances from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to Quebec, so that news could be speedily carried of any hostile invasion. The wigwam was found full of furs, wild duck, and maple sugar, and the major's party began to rifle it. The Indians now realized their mistake, and the one Stevenson held gave a back ward spring and set up a dreadful yell. To prevent any further noise, Stevenson had to shoot his man, and his comrade was soon made to share his fate. The camp again reached, Stobo thought it was imprudent to leave the bodies unburied, and sent back Clarke and another to inter them, which they did by fast ening a heavy stone to the feet of each, and, having carefully removed the scalps, shoving them into a deep, black pool of water. Their poor, faithful dog, which sat howling on the margin of the pool, was also shot. They now saw out in the river a fleet of French transports, with a convoy, ferrying their slow way up to Quebec. One ship in the rear, judged by her size to be that of the commodore of 206 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. the fleet, was lying to. Stobo concluded that she had seen their smoke and had sent her boat ashore to learn the meaning of it. The fire, therefore, was put out, and the canoe and bag gage moved off into the woods, and then a roundabout course taken to the river again. They now espied a large four-oared bateau rowing for the shore and no ship in view. "Courage, my lads !" cried the fearless Stobo. " I hope, by your assist ance and God's blessing on our arms, this prize shall be our own ; these men our prisoners, too, and they shall lessen your fatigue and row for us ; observe but what I order, and leave the rest to me." Stobo's party now lay closely concealed among some rocks while the boat's crew pulled briskly in. Scarce had the prow bumped the beach when a volley was sent in among them, by which two were wounded. The astonished Frenchmen at once cried out for quarter. The major and his companions rushed down from the rocks, and ordered out the whole five. A rever end old gentleman, who was steering, stepped out with a polite bow of submission, and very naturally asked whose prisoner he was. The major answered in French that they were British subjects, who had been prisoners in Canada, and told them that they and their boat must aid their escape. To this the old Frenchman replied, he had been a long distance down the river, and was returning with his boat laden with wheat; that he was the Chevalier La Darante, and sole owner of the Camaraski Isles, and that, in addition to all this, he was old and feeble, and, therefore, should well be excused from being compelled to row his enemies. To all which the major answered that if he were King Louis himself, and each of his crew a peer of the realm, he would have to row them. This ended the matter. As the shallop was too deep-laden for expedition, much of the wheat was cast out, and, all hands embarking, the boat left the shore, the faith ful canoe dragging astern. Thus doubly manned, they could relieve the oars as well as attend the sail, which was now set THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 207 to a favoring gale, and away they sped again down the St. Lawrence. Finding the canoe impeding the shallop's speed, it was cut loose and turned adrift. To lie by in the day was now impossible, neither did the major like much to trust his prisoners ashore. About noon they noted a lofty frigate, which had been convoy to the fleet of transports. This sudden and dreadful apparition gave no small alarm. Since they could not stand a fight, a run was resolved upon. Stobo took the helm, and ordered all to pull hard and to spread the sail, so as to pass the frigate's stern. The usual signal to heave to came from the frigate, but the party paid it no attention; a second followed, which was like wise disregarded. The third report came accompanied by a shot which whizzed over their heads uncomfortably near. Then followed shot after shot, as long as the boat was in sight. The boat flew along, continuing on its course all night. The old Chevalier's remonstrance as to the hardships and indignities he was compelled to undergo passed unheeded. "II est fortune de guerre, monsieur" was all the reply vouchsafed by the major. Days sped on. Capes, islands, and mountains were passed, one by one, but fortunately no sail was met. At length, a boat was found upon the beach, and Stobo told the Chevalier that he would let him go. All things being ready, the two parties took separate ways. Stobo's boat continued along all night. With the morning they espied abreast of them a ship at anchor, and heard the signal to heave to. This they declined, when a swivel, loaded with grape, opened fire, and after that another, completely riddling their sail, but doing no further damage. On they pushed, all that day and the next, but after that they were not quite so fortunate. Toward evening a dreadful storm arose. At the point they now were, the St. Lawrence was very broad, and the waves ran as high as upon the ocean, while the surf was quite as loud and dangerous. To beach the boat, however, was the only salvation for them, and straight to shore they let 208 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. her drive. Near the shore she came upon a rock with a dread ful shock, bursting open the boat's bows and filling her with water. The boat was completely demolished. Soaking as they were, a wet and dreary night was passed. Next morning the boat's wreck was hauled ashore, and all, under the direction of Clarke, the ship carpenter, set to work to make it sea-worthy again. With wistful search they scanned the shore for nails and pieces of board to patch the old hulk. Eight days were spent in this tedious and disheartening work, and the stock of provisions was getting fearfully low. At length the boat was ready for the first pitch and oakum, carefully gath ered from sticks found along many miles of shore. Stockings, handkerchiefs, and other articles of dress were used to stuif the joints, and the frail cutter was ready for launching. Just as this interesting ceremony was about to be performed, two sails were seen standing down the river, and, finally, their anchors were dropped right off the point where the crazy vessel sat upon the stocks. At this crisis Stobo conceived a desperate scheme. . Order ing his companions to lie still, he ran forward to the shore, fired his gun and waved his handkerchief. The signal was answered from the ship, a* boat was lowered, and manned by two men and a" boy, rowed within a short distance of the shore. One of the men asked what was wanted. Stobo answered, in good French, that he was on the king's errand, and wanted passage down the river, for which he would pay well, and that if they would come ashore he had a bottle of choice rum which he would be glad to offer. This proved too much for their prudence. In three minutes they were ashore guzzling the liquor. When well under its spell, it was a quick task to make them prisoners. Stobo then offered them life on condition of their giving true information of the numbers on board the ships. He said he would examine them separately, and if they dis agreed, all would be killed. Their accounts agreed. It was now night. The two men were bound to a tree, and THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 211 the one woman, with drawn tomahawk, left to guard them. The boy was taken into the boat, to pilot them. Two rowed, while two were busy bailing out the leaky craft. Swiftly they pulled alongside the dark hull of the French sloop. No watch was kept. Stobo and his little company climbed quickly on board. Some unavoidable noise aroused the crew. The first man who came on deck was shot. A short struggle over powered the crew, who fought at great disadvantage. Stobo found, to his joy, that the sloop was well armed, while the other vessel, the schooner, had no cannon. The two vessels were carrying provisions for a party of three hundred Indians at Quebec. Stobo instantly ordered his men to put the sloop under way, and run up the British flag. In a few minutes the sloop was laid right alongside the schooner, and without a note of warning, a heavy volley of balls swept the deck of the schooner, killing every man in sight. The Indians on board sprang into the water. The whites cried for quarter. Stobo and his men, having boarded the prize, stood, with cocked muskets at the companion door; boldly ordered down the prisoners, one by one from the sloop ; removed every thing valuable from the latter and smaller vessel ; trans- 'ferred the swivels, and then deliberately set fire to the sloop, which lighted up the whole heavens with a lurid glare. All this time the poor woman stood trembling on the shore, keeping guard over the first two prisoners. When the thunder of the broadside was heard, the noise went to her heart like death's last summons. She was sure the guns were fired at Stobo and the rest, since she knew they had no guns. She was just about to surrender herself to her own two prisoners, and to entreat them to save her and her children, when she saw the vessel on fire. With fear and wonder, she kept her own thoughts. Stobo selected two of his best men and two prison ers and sent them ashore for the company there. They brought all safely on board. The hatches being closed on no less than eighteen prisoners, which was too many to be safe, they were 212 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. ordered up by ones, and eight were sent adrift in a small boat with provisions plenty, a musket and shot, and fishing-tackle, while the French schooner sailed away under British colors. The small boat's party made straight to shore, and thence to the nearest military post, and told all that had happened. The officer, having heard of Stobo's escape from Quebec and the munificent prize offered for his capture, at once raised every man that could be spared, armed a suitable vessel, and made chase after the schooner. Too late ! by this time Stobo was far ahead, and kept steadily on his course for several days, until the Island of St. John's appeared. By scudding along on one side of the isle, they chanced to miss a British fleet which was passing toward the river by the other channel. The armed sloop in pursuit of them, however, had no such good luck, for she was captured by the British. At length our adventurous party sighted Cape Breton, away across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and soon gained the British fortified port of Louisburg, having been full thirty-eight days making the voyage from Quebec. The news of this wonderful and gallant escape flew from mouth to mouth, and the whole place was in a ferment of excitement. Stobo was for a time the observed of all observers. The schooner, with its valuable furs and other goods, was sold, and Stobo gave all his own share of the proceeds to the poor woman and her children who had so long been his patient companions. Within two days Stobo set out to join Wolfe in his great expedition against Quebec. He is said to have been the man who pointed out the path up the steep cliffs by which the final assault was made. On the fall of the great citadel of Canada, Stobo was ordered to carry the dispatches to General Amherst, at Boston. On the way, the vessel he sailed in was attacked and captured by a French privateer. Stobo managed to pass as a common sailor, and was set adrift in a boat with one day's pro visions. After four days of anxious toil at the oars, he reached Halifax, and thence made his way on foot to Boston. THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 213 On a November day in the year 1759, Stobo appeared among his old friends in Virginia. He was hailed as one risen from the dead. The Virginia Assembly presented him with one thousand pounds, and passed a resolution in praise of his hero ism. He was also granted a year's leave of absence from his regiment on full pay. He went to England, and was honored by an interview with Pitt himself. At this point history loses sight of him. This shining portion of his career is known to all the world, but the fate of the man who accomplished such remarkable feats is unknown. COLONEL JAMES SMITH was, in May, 1755, a boy of eighteen years. . He was one of the many settlers who went out to clear a path for the passage of Braddock's army through the wilderness. One morning he was ordered to go several miles to the rear to hurry up the pro vision wagons. On his return trip he was ambushed and cap tured by Indians. With a savage grasping either arm, he was forced to run over broken and rocky ground for fifteen miles. After a halt for the night, his captors pushed on to Fort du Quesne. On the journey, Smith received his share of moldy biscuit, roast venison, and wild turkey, faring comfortably, till he reached the neighborhood of the fort, where he was forced to run the gauntlet. In this little amusement the poor fellow was badly hurt, but, through the ministration of a French physi cian at the fort, he recovered. After the terrible rout of Braddock's army the painted allies of the French began to withdraw from the fort, to return to their own people. Smith's captors took him with them to a town on the Muskingum river. He describes the novel recep tion given him. " On my arrival at the aforesaid town, a number of Indians collected about me, and one of them began to pull the hair out of my head. He had some ashes on a piece of bark, in which he frequently dipped his fingers, in order to take the firmer 214 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. hold ; and so he went on as if he had been plucking a turkey, until he had all the hair out of my head, except a small spot three or four inches square on my crown ; this they cut off with a pair of scissors, excepting three locks, which they dressed up with ornaments. After this they bored my nose and ears, and fixed me off with ear-rings and nose jewels ; then they ordered me to strip off my clothes and put on a breech-clout, which I did. I made no doubt but they were about putting me to death. " The old chief, holding me by the hand, made a long speech, very loud, and when he had done he handed me to three young squaws, who led me by the hand down the bank, into the river, until the water was up to our middle. The squaws then made signs to me to plunge myself into the water, but I did not un derstand them I thought that the result of the council was that I should be drowned, and that these young ladies were to be the executioners. They all three laid violent hold of me, and I for some time opposed them with all my might, which occasioned loud laughter by the multitude that were on the bank of the river. At length one of the squaws made out to speak a little English (for I believe they began to be afraid of me), and said ' no hurt you / on this I gave myself up to their ladyships, who were as good as their word ; for, though they plunged me under water, and washed and rubbed me severely, yet I could not say they hurt me much. "These young women then led me up to the council house, where some of the tribe were ready with new clothes for me. They gave me a new ruffled shirt, which I put on ; also a pair of leggins done off with ribbons and beads; likewise a pair of moccasins, and garters dressed with beads, porcupine quills, and red hair; also a tinsel laced cappo. They again painted my head and face with various colors, and tied a bunch of red feathers to one of those locks they had left on the crown of my head, which stood up five or six inches. They seated me on a bearskin, and gave me a pipe, tomahawk, and polecat-skin pouch, which had been skinned pocket fashion, and contained tobacco, spunk, THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 215 flint, and steel. When I was thus seated, the Indians came in, dressed and painted in their grandest manner. As they came in they took their seats, and for a considerable time there was a profound silence every one was smoking ; but not a word was spoken among them." At length an old chief made a lengthy harangue, informing Smith that by this ceremony he had been adopted into the tribe. " From that day to this," said he, after a captivity of many years, "I never knew them to make any distinction be tween me and themselves, in any respect whatever." That evening a band of braves, who were about to go on the war-path, collected together for the war-dance. An old In dian began to sing and beat time on a rude drum. " Each warrior had a tomahawk, spear, or war-mallet in his hand, and they all moved regularly toward the east, or the way they in tended to go to war. At length they all stretched their toma hawks toward the Potomac, and giving a hideous shout or yell, they wheeled quick about, and danced in the same manner back. "Each warrior then sung a war-song, and, striking a post with his tomahawk, in a loud voice told what warlike exploits he had done, and what he now intended to do, which were an swered by the other warriors with loud shouts of applause. Some who had not before intended to go to war, at this time were so animated by this performance that they took up the tomahawk, and sung the war-song, .which was answered with shouts of joy, as they were then initiated into the present marching company. "The next morning this company all collected at one place, with their heads and faces painted with various colors, and packs upon their backs. They marched off, all silent except the com mander, who, in the front, sung the traveling song. Just as the rear passed the end of the town, they began to fire in their slow manner, from the front to the rear, which was accompanied with shouts and yells from all quarters." Smith's first hunting expedition resulted disastrously to his 216 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. reputation. He was out with a party on a six weeks' hunt. One day his Indian friends gave him a gun, and told him to take the dogs, go down the creek, and try to kill some turkeys. He was further cautioned not to get lost. When some distance from camp, he found some buffalo tracks. Instantly all thought of such small game as turkeys vanished. The young hunter became fired with ambition to kill a buffalo. All day he followed the trail. At nightfall he found himself without turkeys, and much less buffalo. Worse than this, he was completely lost. He fired his gun, and halloed, but met no response. The next morning the Indians hunted him up by his tracks. "On my return to camp," says he, " they took my gun from me, and for this rash step, I was reduced to bow and arrows for near two years." One day he displeased the Indians in some way, and the next morning found they erected a large frame-work, which he concluded was a gallows, on which he was to be hung. The structure proved, however, to have no more dangerous purpose than to serve as a drying rack for skins. His first winter was spent with his adopted brother, Tonti- leaugo, and a small company of Indians, in a cabin, which they erected near the shores of Lake Erie. Though warm and com fortable, they were in great distress for want of food. There were only two men in the camp besides Smith. These had to provide food for several families of squaws and children. The crust on the snow would break through at every step, alarming the deer at the hunter's approach, and reducing them to the single chance of hunting bear holes. This became their daily occupation. Sometimes they drove the bear out of the hollow trees, with smoke and fire-brands ; at other times, Smith and Tontileaugo would chop the tree down with their tomahawks. On these hunts they would build a little bark shelter for them selves, where, as Smith says, " we were quite snug." In the month of February, the squaws went to work to make maple sugar, collecting the water in bark vessels, holding a hundred THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 217 gallons, and boiling it in two large brass kettles. Towards spring, they also made vessels of dried deer skin, in which they stored the oil rendered out by frying bear's fat. While out on a hunt with Tontileaugo, Smith one day renr ined in the little camp, while his companion went out after gan e. A Wyandotte came to the camp, and begged for some food. Smith gave him a shoulder of roasted venison, for which he was very thankful. That night Smith related the circum stance to Tontileaugo, who said that was right, but that of course Smith gave him sugar and bear's oil to eat his venison with. Smith said he had not. This answer angered the Indian greatly. "You have behaved just like a Dutchman. Do you not know that when strangers come to our camp, we ought always to give them the best we have?" The next winter Smith was invited by a visiting chief, named Tecaughretanego, to go with him to another part of the country. Smith hesitated to leave his old friends, but Tontileaugo said that his new friend was a greater man than he was, and rather advised him to go. The region to which Smith went was north western Ohio and eastern Michigan. Game was tolerably abundant, and the Indians had many apples stored up. Here too, Smith saw for the first time, cranberries, which grew in swamps, and were gathered by the Indians when the swamp was frozen. "These berries," Smith remarks, "were about as large as rifle bullets, of a bright red color, an agreeable sour, though rather too sour of themselves, but when mixed with sugar had a very agreeable taste." Smith met with a thrilling adventure this winter, which he relates as follows : " I went out with Tecaughretanego and some others a beaver hunting; but we did not succeed, and on our return we saw where several raccoons had passed while the snow was soft, though there was now a crust upon it. We all made a halt, looking at the raccoon tracks. As they saw a tree with a hole in it, they told me to go and see if they had gone in thereat; and if they had to halloo, and they would come and take them 12 218 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. out. When I went to that tree, I found they had gone past; but I saw another the way they had gone, and proceeded to examine that, and found they had gone up it. I then began to halloo, but could have no answer. "As it began to snow and blow most violently, I returned, and proceeded after my company, and for some time could see their tracks ; but the old snow being only about three inches deep, and a crust upon it, the present driving snow soon filled up the tracks. As I had only a bow, arrows, and tomahawk with me, and no way to strike fire, I appeared to be in a dismal situa tion, and as the air was dark with snow, I had little more pros pect of steering my course than I would in the night. At length I came to a hollow tree, with a hole at one side that I could go in at. I went in, and found that it was a dry place, and the hollow about three feet diameter, and high enough for me to stand in. I found that there was also a considerable quantity of soft, dry, rotten wood around this hollow. I there fore concluded that I would lodge here, and that I would go to work and stop up the door of my house. I stripped off my blanket (which was all the clothes that I had, excepting breech- clout, leggins, and moccasins), and with my tomahawk fell to chopping at the top of a fallen tree that lay near, and carried wood and set it up on end against the door, until I had it three or four feet thick, all around, excepting a hole I had left to creep in at. I had a block prepared that I could haul after me, to stop this hole ; and before I went in I put in a number of small sticks, that I might more effectually stop it on the inside. "When I went in I took my tomahawk and cut down all the dry, rotten wood I could get, and beat it small. With it I made a bed like a goose-nest or hog-bed, and with the small sticks stopped every hole, until my house was almost dark. I stripped off my moccasins, and danced in the center of my bed for about half an hour, in order to warm myself. In this time my feet and whole body were agreeably warmed. The snow, in the meanwhile, had stopped all the holes, so that my house THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 219 was as dark as a dungeon; though I knew that it could not be dark out of doors. I then coiled myself up in my blanket, lay down in my little round bed, and had a tolerable night's lodging. " When I awoke, all was dark not the least glimmering of light was to be seen. Immediately I recollected that I was not to expect light in this new habitation, as there was neither door or window in it. As I could hear the storm raging, and did not suffer much cold as I was then situated, I concluded I would stay in my nest until I was certain it was day. When I had reason to conclude that it surely was day, I arose and put on my moccasins, which I had lain under my head to keep from freezing. I then endeavored to find the door, and had to do all by the sense of feeling, which took me some time. At length I found the block, but it being heavy, and a large quantity of snow having fallen on it, at the first attempt I did not move it. I then felt terrified. Among all the hardships I had sus tained, I never knew before what it was to be thus deprived of light. This, with the other circumstances attending it, appeared grievous. " I went straightway to bed again, wrapped my blanket round me, and lay and mused awhile, and then prayed to Almighty God to direct and protect me, as he had done heretofore. I once again attempted to move away the block, which proved successful; it moved about nine inches. With this a consider able quantity of snow fell in from above, and I immediately received light; so that I found a very great snow had fallen, above what I had ever seen in one night. I then knew why I * could not easily move the block, and I was so rejoiced at obtain ing the light, that all my other difficulties seemed to vanish. I then turned into my cell, and returned God thanks for having once more received the light of heaven. At length I belted my blanket about me, got my tomahawk, bow and arrows, and went out of my den. " I was now in tolerable high spirits, though the snow had fallen above three feet deep, in addition to what was on the 220 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. ground before ; and the only imperfect guide I had, in order to steer my course to camp, was the trees, as the moss generally grows on the north-west side of them, if they are straight. I proceeded on, wading through the snow, and about twelve o'clock (as it appeared afterwards, from that time to night, for it was yet cloudy), I came upon the creek that our camp was on, about half a mile below the camp ; and when I came in sight of the camp, I found that there was great joy, by the shouts and yell ing of the boys." This and another somewhat similar adventure so improved Smith's reputation that, soon after, the Indians went to Detroit and bought him a fine new gun. At the time of this purchase, the Indians, having a large surplus of beaver skins, resolved to expend them for brandy. Those who were to get drunk invited Smith to join in the revel, but he preferred to remain with the sober party, whose duty it was to prevent the debauchees from hurting themselves and one another. This dangerous task met with only partial success during the several days of the drunk, which lasted till the beaver skins were exhausted. " When the brandy was gone, and the drinking club sober, they appeared much dejected. Some of them were crippled, others badly wounded, a number of their fine new shirts tore, and several blankets were burned. A number of squaws were also in this club, and neglected their corn-planting. We could now hear the effects of the brandy in the Ottawa town. They were singing and yelling in the most hideous manner, both night and day ; but their frolic ended worse than ours : five Ottawas were killed and a great many wounded." One night a squaw reported that the dreaded Mohawks were in the vicinity. Every one at once took to the bushes, except Manetohcoa, the conjurer, who placed himself before the fire, to exercise his magic. Among his implements were dyed feathers, and the shoulder-blade of a wild-cat. After many incantations and performances, he called loudly for the rest to come back. Breathless with awe, his audience listened while he announced THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 221 that, instead of a number of Mohawks appearing on the flat- bone, the pictures of two wolves had come, and that no enemy- was near. Upon this assurance the whole camp went to sleep at once. In the morning his magic was verified by the presence of wolf- tracks, and the entire absence of moccasin prints. Smith writes : " If there is any such thing as a wizard, I think Manetohcoa was as likely to be one as any man, as he was a professed worshiper of the devil. But let him be a con jurer or not, I am persuaded that the Indians believed what he told them upon this occasion, as well as if it had come from an infallible oracle, or they would not, after such an alarm as this, go all to sleep in an unconcerned manner." Tecaughretanego was an Indian of unusual intelligence. He had lofty opinions and original ideas on every subject with which he had opportunity to become acquainted. Smith said that he was. the best reasoner he ever saw, and, as compared with other Indians, was as Socrates among the common Athen ians. But the old chief was no longer influential or active. He was sixty years of age, and was so disabled by rheumatism as to be confined to his wigwam. It happened that one win ter Smith found himself encamped alone with the old chief and his young son, Murganey, at a great distance from any other Indians. Here the old Indian was attacked by rheumatism, and so lamed and disabled that a removal was out of the question. On Smith's exertions the three depended to be kept from starv ation. The story of the time is preserved in Smith's narrative. " Though Tecaughretanego endured much pain and misery, yet he bore it all with wonderful patience, and would often endeavor to entertain me with cheerful conversation. Some times he would applaud me for my diligence, skill, and activity; and at other times he would take great care in giving me instructions concerning the hunting and trapping business. He would also tell me that if I failed of success we would suffer very much, as we were about forty miles from any one living, that we knew of; yet he would not intimate that he appre- 222 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. hended we were in any danger, but still supposed that I was fully adequate to the task. " From Christmas until some time in February we had always plenty of bear meat and venison. During this time I killed much more than we could use, but having no horses to carry in what I killed, I left part of it in the woods. In February, there came a snow, with a crust which made a great noise when walk ing on it, and frightened away the deer; and as bear and beaver were scarce here, we got entirely out of provision. After I had hunted two days without eating any thing, and had very short allowance for some days before, I returned late in the evening, faint and weary. "When I came into our hut. Tecaughretanego asked what success. I told him not any. He asked me if I was not very hungry. I replied that the keen appetite seemed to be in some measure removed, but I was both faint and weary. He com manded Nunganey, his little son, to bring me something to eat, and he brought me a kettle with some bones and broth. After eating a few mouthfuls, my appetite violently returned, and I thought the victuals had a most agreeable relish, though it was only fox and wild-cat bones which lay about Jie camp, which the ravens and turkey-buzzards had picked ; these Nunganey had collected and boiled, until the sinews that remained on the bones would strip off. " I speedily finished my allowance, such as it was, and when I had ended my sweet repast, Tecaughretanego asked me how I felt. I told him that I was much refreshed. He then handed me his pipe and pouch, and told me to take a smoke. I did so. He then said he had something of importance to tell me, if I was now composed and ready to hear it. I told him that I was ready to hear him. He said the reason why he deferred his speech till now was because few men are in a right humor to hear good talk when they are extremely hungry, as they are then generally fretful and discomposed, 'but as you appear now to enjoy calmness and serenity of mind, I will now communicate THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 223 to you the thoughts of my heart, and those things that I know to be true. " ' Brother As you have lived with the white people, you have not had the same advantage of knowing that the great Being above feeds his people, and gives them their meat in due season, as we Indians have, who are frequently out of provisions, and yet are wonderfully supplied, and that so frequently, that it is evidently the hand of the great Owaneeyo * that doth this. Whereas the white people have commonly large stocks of tame cattle that they can kill when they please, and also their barns and cribs filled with grain, and therefore have not the same opportunity of seeing and knowing that they are supported by the Ruler of heaven and earth. I know that you are now afraid that we will all perish with hunger, but you have no just reason to fear this. I have been young, but am now old; I have been frequently under the like circumstances that we now are, and that some time or other in almost every year of my life; yet I have hitherto been supported, and my wants sup plied in time of need. Owaneeyo sometimes suffers us to be in want, in order to teach us our dependence upon him, and to let us know that we are to love and serve him ; and likewise to know the worth of the favors that we receive, and to make us more thankful. Be assured that you will be supplied with food, and that just in the right time ; but you must continue diligent in the use of means. Go to sleep, and rise early in the morning, and go a hunting; be strong, and exert yourself like a man, and the Great Spirit will direct your way.' "The next morning I went out, and steered about an east course. I proceeded on slowly for about five miles, and saw deer frequently; but as the crust on the snow made a great noise, they were always running before I spied them, so that I could not get a shot. A violent appetite returned, and I became in tolerably hungry. It was now that I concluded I would run * This is the name of God, in their tongue, and signifies the owner and ruler of all things. 224 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. off to Pennsylvania, my native country. As the snow was on the ground, and Indian hunters almost the whole of the way before nre ? I had but a poor prospect of making my escape, but my case appeared desperate. If I stayed here, I thought I would perish with hunger, and if I met with Indians, they could but kill me. "I then proceeded on as fast as I could walk, and when I got about ten or twelve miles from our hut, I came upon fresh buffalo tracks ; I pursued after, and in a short time came in sight of them as they were passing through a small glade. I ran with all my might and headed them, where I lay in ambush, and killed a very large cow. I immediately kindled a fire, and began to roast the meat, but could not wait till it was done; I ate it almost raw. When hunger was abated, I began to be tenderly concerned for my old Indian brother and the little boy I had left in a perishing condition. I made haste and packed up what meat I could carry, secured what I left from the wolves, and returned homeward. "I scarcely thought on the old man's speech, while I was almost distracted with hunger, but on my return was much affected with it, reflected on myself for my hard-heartedness and ingratitude in attempting to run off and leave the venerable old man and little boy to perish with hunger. I also considered how remarkably the old man's speech had been verified in our providentially obtaining a supply. I thought also of that part of his speech which treated of the fractious dispositions of hungry people, which was the only excuse I had for my base inhumanity in attempting to leave them in the most deplorable situation. "As it was moonlight, I got home to our hut, and found the old man in his usual good humor. He thanked me for my exertion, and bid me sit down, as I must certainly be fatigued, and he commanded Nunganey to make haste and cook. I told him I would cook for him, and let the boy lay some meat on the coals for himself; which he did, but ate it almost raw, as I THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 225 had done. I immediately hung on the kettle, with some water, and cut the beef in thin slices, and put them in. When it had boiled awhile, I proposed taking it off the fire, but the old man replied, 'let it be done enough." This he said in as patient and unconcerned a manner as if he had not wanted one single meal. He commanded Nunganey to eat no more beef at that time, lest he might hurt himself, but told him to sit down, and after some time he might sup some broth; this command he reluc tantly obeyed. "When we were all refreshed, Tecaughretanego delivered a speech upon the necessity and pleasure of receiving the neces sary supports of life with thankfulness, knowing that Owaneeyo is the great giver." It was April before the old chief could be removed. The river being low, he said that he would pray for rain. " Tecau ghretanego made himself a sweat-house, which he did by stick ing a number of hoops in the ground, each hoop forming a semi circle ; this he covered all round with blankets and skins. He then prepared hot stones, which he rolled into this hut, and then went into it himself with a little kettle of water in his hand, mixed with a variety of herbs, which he had formerly cured, and had now with him in his pack ; they afforded an odoriferous perfume. When he was in, he told me to pull down the blankets behind him, and cover all up close, which I did, and then he began to pour water upon the hot stones, and to sing aloud. He continued in this vehement hot place about fifteen minutes. All this he did in order to purify himself before he would address the Supreme Being." When he came out of his sweat-house, he began to burn tobacco and pray in the following manner : " i Great Being ! I thank thee that I have obtained the use of my legs again; that I am now able to walk about and kill turkeys, etc., with out feeling exquisite pain and misery. I know that thou art a hearer and a helper, and therefore I will call upon thee. Grant that my knees and ankles may be right well, and that I may 226 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. be able, not only to walk, but to run and to jump logs, as I did last fall. Grant that on this voyage we may frequently kill bears, as they may be crossing the Scioto and Sandusky. Grant that we may kill plenty of turkeys along the banks, to stew with our fat bear meat. Grant that rain may come to raise the Ollentangy about two or three feet, that we may cross in safety down to Scioto, without danger of our canoe being wrecked on the rocks. And now, Great Being ! thou know- est how matters stand ; thou knowest that I am a great lover of tobacco, and though I know not when I may get any more, I now make a present of the last I have unto thee, as a free burnt offering; therefore, I expect thou wilt hear and grant these requests, and I, thy servant, will return thee thanks, and love thee for thy gifts.' " While the old chieftain went through his devotions with the most profound solemnity, the irreverent Smith, greatly amused to see him waste all his tobacco, unfortunately laughed at him. The savage paid no attention to it at the time, but when the ceremony was over he scolded Smith roundly. The latter apologized, smoked some dried willow bark with him, the tobacco being all gone, and to patch up matters told him a good deal about Christianity. " I told him something of the method of reconciliation with an offended God, as revealed in my Bible. He said that he liked my story better than that of the French priests, but he thought that he was now too old to begin to learn a new religion, therefore he should continue to worship God in the way that he had been taught, and that if future happiness was to be had in his way of worship, he expected he would obtain it, and if it was inconsistent with the honor of the Great Spirit to accept of him in his own way of wor ship, he hoped that Owaneeyo would accept of him in the way I had mentioned, or in some other way, though he might now be ignorant of the channel through which mercy might be con veyed. He said that he believed that Owaneeyo would hear and help every one that sincerely waited upon him." THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 227 In a few days the rains descended and the floods came, and the chief, duly reminding Smith that it was in answer to his prayer, said that they might now embark for their people. Smith remained with the Indians till the summer of 1759, when his tribe happened to be near Montreal. Here he heard of a French ship which had on board English prisoners to be taken across the sea and exchanged for Frenchmen. His res olution was made up. He managed to be taken captive by the French as a means for getting away from the Indians. After some months in prison he was exchanged, and in 1760, made his way back to his Pennsylvania home, where he was joyfully received. His parents had never known whether he had been killed or taken prisoner. One sorrow awaited him. His sweet heart was married to another man. Smith took a very prominent part in Indian wars from this time forth. He was a colonel in the Revolutionary war, and in 1788 removed to Bourbon county, Kentucky. Here he became a prominent man, being a member of the legislature for many years. In his later years he wrote a narrative of his adven tures among the Indians, which is, by far, the best specimen of that kind of literature extant. It has been called the American Robinson Crusoe. The quotations we have made show its interesting and graphic style. THE BARD FAMILY. Among the stories of Indian captivities which are in existence is one which purports to have been prepared by Archibald Bard, a son of the persons figuring in the narrative. Richard Bard owned, in 1758, a small grist-mill in York county, Pennsylvania. One morning in April, a band of Indians surrounded the mill and cabin. The doors were closed, but the Indians pre pared to fire the house, and the inmates chose to surrender. These were Mr. Bard and his wife, a servant-girl and boy, and a Lieutenant Potter. The savages also captured a lad named 228 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. White, who was bringing a bag of corn to the mill to be ground, and two men named Hunter and McManimy, who were at work in a neighboring field. At a short distance from the house the Indians deliberately tomahawked Potter and Hunter. The remaining captives were hurried on at a break-neck speed over the mountains. On the fifth day Mr. Bard received a severe beating with the club of a gun, almost disabling him. One-half of his head had been painted red. This indicated that one-half of the council were in favor of putting him to death, and the other half opposed to it. Bard's thoughts were busy with plans for escape, but he was not allowed to communicate with his wife. At last they were ordered to dress some turkeys. Dur ing the labor, the wretched husband and wife signalled that, if possible, each should escape separately at the first oppor tunity, and if only one got away, that every effort should be made to secure the release of the other. Bard's chance came. He was ordered to bring water from a spring twenty yards away. Mrs. Bard engaged the attention of the Indians at the moment, and instead of stopping at the spring, her husband bounded away into the forest. The Indians soon missed him, and gave chase. Bard, being so lame that he could not run far, crawled into a hollow log, where he lay till his pursuers had passed him, and then started in a different direction. Bruised, footsore, and famished, he pressed on all that day and the next, hardly daring to look behind him, much less to stop. " Towards the close of the second day," says the . narrator, "he came to a mountain four miles across, and at the top covered with snow. By this time he was almost exhausted, having traveled nearly constantly for two days and nights, and being without food, except a few buds plucked from the trees as he went along ; his shoes were worn out, and the country he traveled through being extremely rough and in many places covered with briers of a poisonous nature, his feet were very THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 229 much lacerated and swollen. To add to his difficulties, the mountain was overgrown with laurel, and the snow lodged upon its leaves so bent it down that he was unable, in many places, to get along in his weak condition, except by creeping upon his hands and knees under the branches. " Three days had now elapsed since his escape ; and, although he feared that the Indians were still in pursuit of him, and that by traveling along the mountain they would find his tracks -in the snow, and by that means be led to his place of concealment, yet he found himself so lame that he could proceed no further. His hands, also, by crawling upon them in the snow, became almost as much swollen as his feet. He was therefore compelled to lie by, without much prospect, indeed, of ever proceeding any farther on his journey. Besides the danger of being overtaken by his savage pursuers, he was, in fact, in a starving condition, not having tasted food since his escape, except the buds already mentioned, plucked, as he journeyed on, from the bean-wood, or red-bud tree, as it is called. " On the fifth day, however, as he was creeping on his hands and knees (not being able yet to walk) in search of buds or herbs to appease his hunger, he was fortunate enough to see a rattlesnake, which he killed and ate raw. After lying by three or four days, he allayed the swelling of his feet by puncturing the festered parts with a thorn; he then tore up his breeches, and with the pieces bound up his feet as well as he could. Thus prepared, he again set out upon his journey, limping along with great pain; but he had no other alternative, except to remain where he was and die. He had gone but a few miles when, from a hill he had just ascended, he was startled by the wel come sound of a drum; he called as loud as he could, but there was no one to answer ; it was but a delusion of the imagination. "On the eighth day he crossed the Juniata by wading it, which, on account of his lameness, he accomplished with great difficulty. Shivering in his wet clothes, he luckily caught sight of a camp-fire left by some hunters. Here he passed the night 230 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. in comparative comfort. In the morning he was horrified to come suddenly upon three Indians, probably the builders of the camp-fire. They proved, however, to be friendly, and assisted him to Fort Littleton, where he obtained food and rest." To return to the other captives. Shortly after her husband's escape, Mrs. Bard received a terrible beating from a squaw. When the party prepared to move on, the wretched woman pleaded to be left where she was. The answer was that she might, if she preferred to be tomahawked rather than proceed. One day the party arrived at an Indian town. McManimy was detained outside the squalid village, while the rest were taken in; Mrs. Bard receiving a terrible scratching from the long nails of the squaws. Poor McManimy met with a worse fate. A circle of Indians formed around him, and commenced beating him. A stake was meanwhile driven in the ground, to which he was then bound. The scene of torture then commenced. Some threw shovelfuls of hot coals on him. Others heated gun-barrels red-hot, and seared his flesh, until the sickening odor polluted the air. The wretched man was at last released from his sufferings by death. Soon after this, Mrs. Bard was separated from the other captives, and saw them no more. The only comfort she had was some information from a white woman, who had been taken captive years before, and had taken an Indian husband. This woman told her that the belt of wampum around her neck indicated that she was not to be put to death, but was designed to be the wife of some warrior. She added that, as soon as captive women could speak the Indian tongue, they were forced to take an Indian husband or be put to death. Mrs. Bard took the hint, and during the whole time of her captivity, two years and a half, she never uttered a single word in the In dian tongue. During this time she was treated by the family in which she lived with marked kindness. They removed, soon after her arrival, to the head-waters of the Susquehanna. The fatigues of this journey, following so closely on the other, THE ADVENTURES OF THREE CAPTIVES. 231 brought on a dangerous illness, confining her for sev.eral months. In spite of the rough fare, and rougher accommodations, she re covered, and lived both to hope for liberty and receive it. When Mr. Bard was partially recovered, at Fort Littleton, his anxiety for his wife impelled him to leave his bed and start to Fort Pitt. Arriving there, he found some Indians arranging for a peace. He visited their camp across the river, and recog nizing some of his old captors, questioned them eagerly about his wife. They told him to come back the next day. That night a young man who had been taken captive in childhood, and had been adopted into the tribe, crossed to the fort and warned Bard not to come, as he had promised, the next day, as a plot was perfected to kill him. From this time the disappointed man never ceased to search for his wife. Her removal to the Susquehanna threw him com pletely in the dark as to her whereabouts. At last, he obtained a clue, and wrote her a letter, telling her to promise her captors forty pounds for her release. But the plan failed, either through the non-delivery of the letter, or the distrust of the Indians. Among other schemes, he hired an Indian to steal his wife, but at the last moment the fellow refused to go on such a dangerous and doubtful errand. At last, peace having been made, Bard determined at every hazard to go for his wife himself. He did so, found her, and succeeded in purchasing her release. A tragic incident occurred in connection with Mrs. Bard's return home. Among the Indians was an adopted brother, who had been kind to her, and Mr. Bard invited him to come and see him some time. It was not long before the Indian accepted the invitation. While on his visit, the poor red man got drunk at a neighboring tavern, and received a dangerous stab in a quarrel. Mr. Bard cared for the wounded Indian in the most attentive manner, and he recovered. On his return to his peo ple, the savage was accused of disloyalty, and of having become a white man. A council of braves was held, his death decreed, and the same day the fiat was put into execution. 232 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. CHAPTER VIZ i THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. |HE web of history is woven from the countless threads of individual lives. Its pattern is con trolled by the genius of great men. Pontiac was the chief of the mighty con federacy of the Ottowas, the Ojibwas, and the Pottawotamies, which had its center of power in what is now the State of Michigan. But the genius of the mighty chief had spread his fame and influence, not merely through the confederacy, nor yet alone to the surrounding tribes, but over the greater part of the continent. On the east his name was respectfully mentioned among the Indians of the Mohawk Valley as that of their greatest foe. Far to the South, the wandering tribes of Florida and Louisiana, had heard of the unapproachable prowess of Pontiac, and looked up to him as the greatest of all the Alg'onquin chiefs. His intellect was broad, powerful, and far-seeing. In him were combined the qualities of a great leader, a great war rior, and a great statesman. His plans continually reached out beyond the narrow limits of his tribe. His ambitions vaulted far beyond the scope of those of common chieftains. His under standing rose to higher generalizations, broader comprehensions, than those of any other Indian mind. In 1760 he was fifty years old, just at the meridian of all his splendid powers. Great minds require great opportunities. The world is full of wasted genius. "Hands that the rod of empire migfit hrve , THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 235 swayed," are to be found holding the plow-handle and the plane. Cromwell without the English Revolution, Washington without the Revolutionary war, Grant without the Civil war, would have been indistinguishable from the common throng of men. Pontiac was great. He also had great opportunities. Let us take a survey. The English had conquered America. The French, the idols of the Indian heart, to support whose cause the remotest tribes of the north and west had furnished quotas of warriors, trav eling hundreds upon hundreds of miles to strike a blow at the English, were humiliated, driven from the continent. From the small and widely separated forts along the lakes and in the interior the red men had, with sorrow and anger, seen the fleur-de-lis disappear and the cross of St. George take its place. This took place, although the Indian power was unbroken. Toward the intruders, victors over their friends, patrons, and allies, the Indians maintained a stubborn resent ment and hostility. We have already noticed the difference ,in the policies of the French and English. The abundant supplies of rifles, blankets, gunpowder, beads, pipes, and brandy, which had for so many years been dispensed from the forts with lavish hand, were abruptly stopped. When the Indians visited the forts, instead of being treated with politic attention and politeness, they were received gruffly, subjected to indignities, and not infrequently helped out of the fort with the butt of a sentry's musket or a vigorous kick from an officer. In addition to these things the wilderness was overrun with brutal English traders, who plundered, cheated and cursed the warriors, dishonored their squaws, and indulged in every form of profligacy. The best settlers tried to break this up, some times stopping a mad revel by force of arms. Such a scene is presented in the opposite picture. Meanwhile France, still smarting under her defeats, dispatched emissaries to almost 13 236 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. every council house and wigwam from the lakes to the gulf, saying that French armies were already on their way to drive out the English, and inciting the Indians to inflict swift and bloody revenge upon the foes of France. Lashed almost into frenzy by these agencies, still another disturbing influence appeared in a great Indian prophet, who arose among the Delawares, preaching the recovery of the Indian's hunting grounds from the white man, and claiming to have received a revelation from God. Vast throngs listened to his wild eloquence, his audience containing hearers who had come from distant regions to hear him. The white man was driving the Indians from their country, he said, and unless the Indians obeyed the Great Spirit, and destroyed the white man, then the latter would destroy them. This was the state of affairs among the Indians in 1761 and 1762. Everywhere was discontent, sullen hatred, and explosive passion. The shadows of the forest were not blacker than the ominous darkness which pervaded the Indian breast. This was not local, but was far more nearly universal, spreading from the lakes to the gulf, than any other Indian disturbance before or since. It is impossible to say how much of this state of affairs was due to Pontiac's designing intrigue and instigation, and how much of it arose spontaneously. We can not tell whether Pon- tiac made it, or whether it made Pontiac. Certain it is that Pontiac maintained close relations with the great Shawanese prophet. However this may be, we are certain of two things, that it constituted Pontiac's opportunity, and that but for his genius the whole mighty ferment would have evaporated in a few scattering Indian raids. While these things moved the common Indian, the vision of the great and wise Pontiac took a wider scope, and was inspired by loftier notions than a mere resentment at the failure of the presents and the summary treatment of idle loungers about the forts. He saw that as long as France and England had been THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 237 opposed to each other in America, the Indians had held the bal ance of power, and received the treatment which their impor tance merited. But now that England had no longer a rival, the Indians were spurned and crowded to the wall. This he saw must result in the destruction of the race, unless France could regain her foothold on the continent. This became his ambi tion. To this end he conceived and concerted the most won derful conspiracy, taking into view the surroundings and cir cumstances, upon which the historian's toil has shed the light of day. Toward the close of 1762, dark messengers from Pontiac, bearing the war belt of wampum, broad and ,long as the import ance of the occasion demanded, threaded their way through the forest to the farthest shores of Lake Superior, and the distant delta of the Mississippi. On the arrival of these ambassadors among a tribe, the chief warriors would assemble in the council house. Then the orator, flinging down the red-stained toma hawk before his audience, would deliver, with energetic emphasis and action, the message from his lord. The keynote was WAR ! On a certain day in May, after so many moons, the Indians from lakes to gulf, were to take the war-path simultaneously, destroy the English fort nearest them, and then throw them selves on the unprotected frontier. The bugle call of such a mighty leader as Pontiac roused the remotest tribes. Everywhere they joined the conspiracy, and sent lofty messages to Pontiac of the deeds they would per form. The ordinary pursuits of life were given up. The war riors danced the war-dance for weeks at a time. Squaws were set to sharpening knives, moulding bullets, and mixing war-paint. Children caught the fever, and practiced incessantly with bows and arrows. For the one time in their history, a thousand wild and rest less tribes were animated by a single inspiration am} purpose. That which was incapable of union, united. Conjurors practiced their arts. Magicians consulted their oracles. Prophets avowed 238 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. revelations from the Most High. Warriors withdrew to caves and fastnesses, where, with fasting and self-torture, they wrought themselves into more fearful excitement and mania. Young men sought to raise their courage by eating raw flesh and drinking hot blood. Tall chieftains, crowned with nodding plumes, ha rangued their followers nightly, striking every chord of revenge, glory, avarice, pride, patriotism, and love, which trembled in the savage breast. As the orator approached his climax, he would leap into the air, brandishing his hatchet as if rushing upon an enemy, yell ing the war-whoop, throwing himself into a thousand postures, his eyes aflame, his muscles strained and knotted, his face a thunderstorm of passion, as if in the actual struggle. At last, with a triumphant shout, he brandishes aloft the scalp of the imaginary victim. His eloquence is irresistible. His audience is convulsed with passionate interest, and sways like trees tossed in the tempest. At last, the whole assembly, fired with uncon trollable frenzy, rush together in the ring, leaping, stamping, yell ing, brandishing knives and hatchets in the firelight, hacking and stabbing the air, until the lonely midnight forest is transformed into a howling pandemonium of devils, from whose fearful uproar the startled animals, miles away, flee frightened into remoter lairs. The time for the bursting of the storm drew near. Yet at only one place on the frontier was there the least suspicion of Indian disturbance. The garrisons of the exposed forts reposed in fancied security. The arch conspirator, Pontiac, had breathed the breath of life into a vast conspiracy, whose ramifications spread their network over a region of country of which the north-western and south-eastern extremities were nearly two thousand miles apart. Yet the traders, hunters, scouts, and trappers who were right among the Indians, and were versed in the signs of approaching trouble, suspected nothing wrong. Colossal conspiracy! Stupendous deceit! On the 27th of April, 1763, Pontiac met the chiefs of the 'THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 239 allied tribes, from far and near, in a grand war council, on the banks of the little river, Etorces, not far from Detroit. Park- man gives a vivid picture of the assembly, as band after band came straggling in before the appointed time. " Here were idle warriors, smoking and laughing in groups, or beguiling the lazy hours with gambling, with feasting, or with doubtful stories of their own exploits in war. Here were youthful gallants, bediz ened with all the foppery of beads, feathers, and hawks' bills, but held, as yet, in light esteem, since they had slain no enemy, and taken no scalp. Here also were young damsels, radiant with bears' oil, ruddy with vermilion, and versed in all the arts of forest coquetry; shriveled hags, with limbs of wire, and voices like those of the screech owls ; and troops of naked children, with small, black, mischievous eyes, roaming the outskirts of the woods. "On the long expected morning, heralds passed from one group of lodges to another, calling the warriors in loud voice to attend the great council before Pontiac. In accordance with the summons they came issuing from their wigwams the tall, naked figures of the wild Ojibwas, with quivers slung at their backs, and light war-clubs resting in the hollow of their arms ; Otta- was, wrapped close in their gaudy blankets ; Wyandots, flutter ing in painted shirts, their heads adorned with feathers, and their leggins garnished with bells. All were soon seated in a wide circle upon the grass, row within row, a grave and silent assembly. Each savage countenance seemed carved in wood, and none could have detected the deep and fiery passions hid den beneath that immovable exterior. >c Then Pontiac rose. According to tradition, not above mid dle height, his muscular figure was cast in a mould of remark able symmetry and vigor. His complexion was darker than is usual with his race, and his features, though by no means regular, had a bold and stern expression, while his habitual bearing was imperious and peremptory, like that of a man accustomed to sweep away all opposition by the force of his 240 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. impetuous will. His ordinary attire was that of the primitive savage, a scanty cincture girt about his loins, and his long black hair flowing loosely at his back; but on occasions like this he was wont to appear as befitted his power and character, and he stood before the council, plumed and painted in the full costume of war. Looking round upon his wild auditors, he began to speak, with fierce gesture and loud impassioned voice." Parkman's story of the council reminds one of the council of infernal peers in Pandemonium, as described by Milton. One naturally expects Pontiac, this Moloch of the forest, to begin, "My sentence is for open war," and the expectation is fulfilled. He inveighed against the arrogance, rapacity, and injustice of the English, and contrasted them with the French, whom they had driven from the soil. He recounted the neglect, the insults, the outrages, which he and his braves had suffered at their hands. He pointed out how the English, no longer having the French to contend with, had not only ceased to treat the Indians with respect, but had stolen their hunting-grounds, and awaited only a chance to destroy them. Next he showed them an immense belt of wampum, saying that he had received it from the French king, whose armies and war-canoes were already on the way to sail up the St. Lawrence, and retake the forts from the English. The Indians and their French brothers would again fight side by side against the common foe, whose waving banners had long, long ago been trailed in the bloody mire of defeat on the Monongahela. The orator having lashed his audience into fury, quickly soothed them with the story of a Delaware Indian, probably the prophet before mentioned, who had had a dream, in which it was revealed to him that, by traveling in a certain direction, he would at length reach the abode of the Great Spirit. After many days of journeying, full of strange incidents, he saw before him a vast mountain of dazzling whiteness, so pre cipitous that he was about to turn back in despair when a beautiful woman, arrayed in white, appeared to him, and 'told THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 241 him that, in order to proceed he must throw away his gun, ammunition, provision and clothing, and wash in a stream of crystalline purity, flowing near by. He obeyed, but again failed to climb the mountain, when the vision reappeared and told him he must climb with one hand and foot. So doing, he succeeded, and at last came to a city of splendid dwellings. Hesitating which to enter, a man, gorgeously attired, took him by the hand, and led him into the largest one, where, astonished by the unspeakable splendor which surrounded him, the poor Delaware found himself in the presence of the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit bade him to be seated, and addressed him, saying that he was the Maker of heaven and earth, that he had made this country for the Indian, and not for the white man ; that as for the English, " these dogs dressed in red," the Indians must lift the hatchet against them, and destroy them from the face of the earth. Many other things did the Great Spirit say to the Delaware before the latter found his way back to his brothers. Pontiac next told the wide-laid plans for the outbreak during the next moon, urged his auditors to go to war, and, finally, laid before the vast council a stratagem for the capture of Detroit. He ended. A deep roar of applause burst forth. No one was hardy enough to venture opposition to the proposal of their great leader. Chief after chief arose, and with solemn empha sis, entered his approval of the great Pontiac's conspiracy. " The bold design Pleased highly those infernal states, and joy Sparkled in all their eyes. With full assent They vote." "With this conclusion the assembly dissolved, and all the evening the women were busily employed in loading the canoes, which were drawn up on the bank of the stream. The encamp ments broke up at so early an hour, that when the sun rose, the swarm had melted away, the secluded scene was restored to its wonted silence and solitude, and nothing remained but the slen- 242 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. der frame-work of several hundred cabins, with fragments of broken utensils, pieces of cloth, and scraps of hide, scattered over the trampled grass, while the smoldering embers of num berless fires mingled their dark smoke with the white mist which rose from the little river." In 1763, the site of the city of Detroit, Michigan, was oc cupied by a settlement of some twenty-five hundred people. In the center of the long line of dwellings, with their little gardens, straggling along the river shore for several miles, stood what was known as the Fort. It was, in fact, a fortified part of the town. It consisted of a palisade twenty-five feet high, with a bastion at each corner, and block-houses over the gates. Within this palisade were crowded a hundred small, wooden, straw-thatched dwellings, crowded closely together, along narrow streets. Be sides these incommodious dwellings, there was a little church, a council-house, and a well-built range of barracks. A wide roadway separated the houses from the palisade. The garrison of the fort consisted of one hundred and twenty English soldiers, under Major Gladwyn. Besides these, were forty fur-traders, and the ordinary Canadian residents of the fort. Several light pieces of artillery peeped out from the bastions, and two armed schooners, the Beaver and the Gladivyn, stood motionless in the stream. The settlement outside the fort, stretching out more than eight miles along both sides of the river, consisted of the dwellings of Canadians, and three Indian villages. It was the afternoon of the 5th of May. A Canadian woman from the fort crossed the river to the Ottawa village, to buy some maple sugar and venison. She noticed some warriors in a strange occupation. They were filing off their gun-barrels. This left the entire weapon, stock and all, only a yard in length. Such a weapon could easily be hid under a blanket. That night the woman mentioned it to a neighbor. " Oh," said he, " that explains it." " Explains what ? " " The reason why so many Indians have lately wanted to borrow my files." THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 243 He was a blacksmith. No more attention was paid to either circumstance. The next afternoon a plump and pretty Ojibwa maid came to the fort. She was Gladwyn's mistress. But this time Cath erine's eyes no longer sparkled with pleasure and excitement. Her face was anxious, and her look furtive. She lingered long at the gate till she could speak to Gladwyn alone. The major at once saw that the girl knew something which she feared, yet longed to tell. He caressed her, and sought to CATHERINE REVEALS THE CONSPIRACY TO GLADWYN. win her secret, but it was not for a long while, and under sol emn promises that she should not be betrayed, that the dusky sweetheart spoke. She said that on the morrow Pontiac would come to the fort with sixty chiefs, and demand a council. Each would be armed with a gun, cut short and hidden under his blanket. When all were assembled in the council-house, at a given signal from Pontiac, the chiefs would fire on the officers, then rush out and massacre the garrison. Gladwyn believed the maid. She went back to her people. The guards that night were doubled. At times the watchers on the walls heard unwonted 244 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. sounds, borne to them on the night wind from the distant vil lages of the Indians. They were the steady beat of the Indian drum, and the shrill choruses of the war-dance. At the expected hour, Pontiac came, followed in single file by his sixty chiefs. Each was wrapped to the throat in his gaudy blanket, his face smeared with paint, and his head adorned with nodding plumes. The leader started as he saw the soldiers drawn up in line, and heard the ominous tap of the drum. The council took place, but under the encircling guns of the soldiers. Pontiac saw that the plot was discovered. The signal for attack was not given. After a short and uneasy sitting, he and his chiefs withdrew with marked discomfiture and appre hension. Better far had it been if Gladwyn had made prisoners of the chiefs of the conspiracy. But he knew nothing of the extent of the plot. He supposed it to be a fit of bad temper. He allowed his enemies, and the arch-conspirator, Pontiac, to slip through his fingers. Enraged at his defeat, and shrewdly perceiving Gladwyn's ignorance of the real situation, Pontiac returned the next day, to remove the suspicions of the garrison by smoking the pipe of peace. On the 9th of May a great throng of Indians appeared before the fort. Pontiac was told that he might enter, but his company must be excluded. Instantly the savage threw off the mask of deceit he had worn so long, and, casting one look of unspeakable rage and hate at the fort, he strode away across the plain. At his approach, the whole horde of savages rushed to an exposed cabin, where lived an old English woman and her family. The doors were beaten in, and the inmates tomahawked. On a neighboring island lived an Englishman named Fisher. In a few moments he, too, was murdered. That night, while the garrison watched with sleepless appre hension, the whole Ottawa village was removed to that side of the river on which stood the fort. "We will be nearer them," said Pontiac. A messenger arrived at the fort with news. Two THE AMBITION OF PONT I AC. 245 Englishmen had been murdered on Lake St. Glair, and Pontiac had been re-enforced by the whole war strength of the Ojibwas. The garrison passed the night in feverish anxiety. Not till the blush of dawn tinged the eastern sky did the fierce In dians, yelling with infernal power, come bounding naked to the assault; but when they came it was not the Ottawas alone, but the Wyandots, the Pottawattamies and Ojibwas as well. For six hours the cautious Indians, from behind trees, logs, and cabins, showered their rifle-balls upon the fort with slight effect; and for the same time the garrison ineffectually returned the compliment. When the disappointed savages withdrew, Glad- wyn, believing the affair ended, dispatched La Butte, a neutral interpreter, accompanied by two old Canadians, to open negoti- tions. Numbers of the Canadian inhabitants took this oppor tunity of leaving the place. Pontiac received the three ambassadors politely, and heard their offers of peace with apparent acquiescence. La Butte hastened back to the fort, reporting that a few presents would fix up the difficulty, but when he returned to Pontiac he found the negotiation had made no progress. After a consultation with his chiefs, the treacherous Pontiac said that he desired Major Campbell, the veteran soldier, second in command at the fort, to come. When the word reached Campbell, he prepared at once to go, in spite of Grladwyn's fear of treachery. The officer's companion was Lieutenant McDougal. A Canadian met them, and warned them that they were advancing into the lion's jaws, but the brave officers refused to turn back. As they entered the camp, a howling mob, armed with clubs and rocks, surrounded them, but Pontiac quelled the tumult, and conducted them to the council-house, where they were sur rounded by sinister faces. Campbell made his speech. There was no reply. For an hour he waited in dead silence before the steady gaze of his dark-browed enemies. Not a chief deigned to open his mouth. At last Campbell rose to go. Pontiac made an imperious 246 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. gesture for him to resume his seat. " My father/' said the wily traitor, " will sleep to-night in the lodges of his red children." Campbell expostulated, he argued the matter to Pontiac with enforced calmness. Useless he was a captive. Late that night La Butte returned with anxious face to the fort. Some of the officers suspected him, no doubt unjustly, of a share in the treachery. Feeling the suspicion, he stood in the narrow street, gloomy and silent, refusing all efforts at conversation. Pontiac proceeded to redistribute his forces. One band hid in ambush along the river below the fort. Others surrounded the fort on the land side. The garrison had only three weeks' provisions. The Indians intended that this stock should not be replenished. Every house in the fort was searched for grease, tallow, or whatever would serve for food. Whatever was found was placed in the public storehouse. The Indians, unused to protracted sieges, also suffered from want of provisions. The Canadian settlers were ruthlessly despoiled of their stores. Aggravated beyond endurance, they complained to Pontiac. He heard them. After that, each set tler was required to contribute a certain quantity of food daily to the Indians, but it was to be deposited in a certain place. If any Indian entered a Canadian's premises, he was shot. These dispositions on the part of Pontiac reveal his genius for command. He was an Indian Napoleon. He did another thing. After he had visited the house of each Canadian, examined the property, and assigned the amount of provision to be fur nished by the owner, he found he had nothing with which to pay for it. In this emergency he hit upon a remarkable expedient. He issued promissory notes, drawn upon birch bark, and signed with the figure of an otter, the totem to which he belonged. These notes were afterwards faithfully redeemed. This incident is wonderful. The whole principle of paper money, the great resource of modern statesmanship, was utilized by this savage. It was an issue of greenbacks a war measure. Pontiac kept two secretaries, one to write letters, one to read MAJOR CAMPBELL ARGUING WITH PONTIAC. THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 249 those received. Neither secretary knew what the other trans acted. It is to be remembered that Pontiac maintained his ascendancy among the Indians by the sheer force of his genius. Accident, birth, fortune, laws, institutions, the power of the government all these things which make and help the leaders in a civilized country, were wanting. One day a bottle of whisky was sent Pontiac as a present by our old friend, Rogers, of Rogers's Rangers, who was in the fort. His counselors urged him to let it alone, for fear of poison, As usual, he listened respectfully to them. Then he at once drank a large cupful, saying the man had no power to kill him. Weeks rolled by with no change in the situation. Unawares of any trouble at Detroit, the British commander-in-chief at New York, had, as usual in the spring, sent a detachment up the lakes with food, ammunition, and re-enforcements for the forts along the lakes. In order to hasten this flotilla the schooner Gladwyn was dispatched down the river. On the 30th of May some faint specks appeared on the watery horizon. They grew larger and blacker. The sentry in the bastion called aloud to the officers, who eagerly ran to look with spy-glasses. They recognized the banner of St. George, under cover of which advanced the expected fleet of canoes. Quick, joyous com mands were given for a salute of welcome. When the sound of the booming cannon of the fort died away, every ear was strained to catch the response. It came, faint but unmistakable a war-whoop, and not a salvo of artillery. The faces of the watchers grew pale. The approach ing flotilla was watched with breathless anxiety. When it was well in view, a number of dark and savage forms rose up in the leading canoe. The truth was manifest. The flotilla was in the hands of the Indians. In the foremost of the eighteen canoes, there were four prisoners and only three Indians. In each of the others there were more savages than white men. These latter were forced to row. Just as the leading canoe was opposite the small schooner, 250 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. which lay at anchor before the fort, one of the white men was seen to seize the first savage by the hair and throw him over board. The Indian clutched his adversary's clothes, and stabbing him again and again, dragged him into the river, and locked in a death embrace, the two floated down the stream. The two remaining Indians jumped overboard, while the prisoners pulled desperately toward the schooner, which they succeded in reach ing, amid showers of bullets from the pursuing canoes. The poor fellows told the story of their misfortune. After coasting for days, without seeing a sign of life, the soldiers had landed for a night encampment, when they were surrounded by savages, and, after a desperate fight, overpowered. As was afterwards discovered, only three, including the commander, Lieutenant Cuyler, escaped. The Indians besieging Detroit now had two causes for rejoicing. One was the whisky of which the canoes, among other supplies, of course, brought large quantities for the garri sons. The other source of pleasure was the captives. Every Indian took his choice, either to become drunk with liquor or intoxicated with the fiercer frenzy of massacre. It was a puzzling alternative. Many chose the latter. After every species of torture and butchery, the poor, mutilated corpses were thrown into the river, with knives sticking in their hearts. Floating past the fort, they were seen by its defenders. The gloom of despair settled upon them. At any time the slender palisade might be cut or burned through, and then ! Throngs of Indians, having proceeded to get blindly drunk on whisky, sought consolation for their sorrow at not being participants in the massacre. This they found in biting off each other's noses, a cheerful and amusing sport, But even this hilarious fun grew monotonous. Then they organized a massacre of their own. Having no captives to kill, they killed each other. One afternoon the famished and anxious garrison heard the dismal death-cry. A line of naked warriors extended across the THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 251 plain. Each savage was painted black, and carried a pole. At the end of the poles were small, fluttering pennants. An officer ran for a spy-glass. The pennants were discovered to be the scalps of white men. What had happened ? That night a Canadian crossed the river to the fort, bearing the tidings. Fort Sandusky was about seventy miles south east of Detroit. Its garrison was commanded by Ensign Paully. About dark, on the evening of May 16th, there had been a knocking at the gates. It proved to be a few Indians. It was a time of peace. The Indians were well known to Paully. What was more natural than to admit them ? The dark visitors were seated in a circle in the council-house. The pipe of peace was being handed from mouth to mouth. Suddenly the guests sprang up, and in a hand to hand conflict butchered or over powered the garrison. As the commander was hurried away in a canoe, he saw the fort wrapped in flames, where he had, fifteen minutes before, commanded in as he supposed monotonous security. Twenty-five miles south of the present town of Erie, then Presqu 'Isle, stood a heavy block-house, known as Fort Le Bceuf. Simultaneously with the treachery at Sandusky, a multitude of howling savages surrounded the little post. By means of blaz ing arrows the roof was fired. As the flames swept through the structure, the savages poured in a continuous storm of balls, expecting each moment that the garrison must be driven from the building. The brave men, however, chopped a hole through the heavy logs in the rear of the building, and escaped, while the Indians were still covering the doors and windows with their guns. The refugees made their way to Fort Venango, to find only a heap of red-hot coals. Of this post, not a single white man survived to tellthe story of its fate. Overcome with suffering and starva tion, most of the desolate band from Le Boeuf perished. Only seven haggard and weary men succeeded in reaching Fort Pitt. The magnitude of the Pontiac conspiracy and the powers 252 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. of combination which its creator possessed are demonstrated by the widely separated points at which the smoldering flames of Indian hostility simultaneously burst through the thin crust of peace. Fort St. Joseph stood on the river of that name near the southern shore of Lake Michigan. Here the priests of the Roman Catholic Church had, for many years, maintained^ rude temple of worship. Here, in the solitude of the wilderness, the toil-worn fathers labored, without recompense, to plant in the savage heart the germ of Christian faith. One May morning a crowd of Indians pushed their way into the fort under various pretexts. At a sudden signal, they ran to the gates, tomahawked the sentinels, and threw them open to a host of savages without. The little baud of fourteen soldiers made a fluttering attempt to rally, but in less than two minutes, as an eye-witness says, eleven of them were corpses, and the re maining three made captives. Everywhere the Indian attack was made by stratagem and treachery. Everywhere their devilish ingenuity was successful. Fort Ouatanon, situated on the Wabash river, a short distance below the present flourishing and aristocratic city of Lafayette, was captured in this way. The, Indians, however, did not massacre the garrison. They were merely made captives. About midway between Sandusky, St. Joseph, and Ouatanon, that is, about one hundred and twenty-five or fifty miles from each of them, on the Maumee river, stood another one of these lonely and isolated wilderness posts Fort Miami. One morning an Indian girl, a favorite of the commanding officer, Holmes, came to the fort. Unlike the Ojibwa maid at Detroit, this girl came to lure her lover into a trap. An old squaw, she said, was lying sick in a wigwam, a short distance from the fort, and she begged Holmes to come and see if he could do any thing for her. The unsuspecting officer yielded to the request. As he entered the lodge where the sick squaw was supposed to lie, a dozen rifles were discharged, and he fell dead. A sergeant, hearing the shots, ran out of the fort to see* what THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 253 was the matter, and met a similar fate. The panic-stricken gar rison, possessing no longer a leader, threw open the gates and surrendered. The news of these disasters poured in thick and fast upon the horror-stricken garrison at Detroit. It seemed to them that the whole fabric of English supremacy in the wilderness was falling around them. In the great San Domingo insurrection of slaves, Toussaint L'Ouverture, their great leader, took a cup full of gunpowder, and placed a few grains of rice on top. Showing it to his officers, he said : " The black grains of powder are the multitudes of negroes on the island. The few white grains of rice on top are the few white men who are our masters." Shaking the cup, the rice was quickly overwhelmed and covered by the powder. " This," said he, " is the negro rebellion." The illustration applies equally to the situation of the defenders of Detroit ' at the time of which we write. But the worst news was yet to come. Fort Presqu 'Isle, standing near the present site of Erie, was constructed on the lake shore, at the mouth of a small brook. At one angle of the fort was a heavy block-house. Its roof was of bark, and easily fired, but on the comb was an opening, with a small bulwark of plank, where the guard could, from behind this partial protection, pour water on the flames. One lovely June morning, just as the rising sun shot his hori zontal rays far across the blue expanse of Erie, tipping each wave with gold, hideous yells broke the silence of the lonely spot. The soldiers, catching the alarm, ran to the block-house. Two hundred Indians had surrounded the post, and from be hind some neighboring ridges of land discharged their guns at every opening visible in the walls of the block-house. In a short time fire arrows were showered on the roof. Again and again it burst into flames. Again and again they were extin guished. The tireless savages rolled logs to the summit of the ridges, and from these loftier barricades were enabled to com mand every point in the parade ground. Hour after hour the 14 254 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. soldiers returned the shots of the savages. About two o'clock the besiegers could be seen throwing up vast heaps of earth and stone behind their breastworks. What did it mean? A mine? The garrison had no time to speculate on this problem. A more pressing danger was at hand. It was no longer possible to procure water from the well in the parade ground. The water barrels in the block-house were almost empty. Yet almost every moment the flames curled upward from the bark roof. The only resource was to dig a well in the block-house. While a part of the men discharged their heated muskets from the port-holes, the rest, with a strength inspired by the emer gency, dug a hole in the ground. Before the well was finished the last drop of water was poured on the roof. It caught again. A soldier said, " I will put it out." He crawled out on the roof, amid a storm of balls, and tore the blazing shingle from its place. Night came, but it brought little respite for the worn men. Some slept, while the others watched. All night long the flash of the enemy's guns startled the darkness. By morning the well was finished. It was fortunate! The savages had dug a mine to the commandant's cabin, which stood in the parade-ground. The building was fired. So close did it stand to the block house, that the walls of the latter scorched, blackened, then burst into flames. Still the men passed water up from the well, and choked and blinded with the hot, sulphurous air of their wooden redoubt, fought with all the fury of the first repulse. All day the storm raged, and nightfall brought no interrup tion. At midnight there was a sudden lull in the Indian fire. In a moment a voice was heard from the breastworks, calling for a surrender, saying that the speaker was an Englishman, who had been taken captive in childhood, and. had espoused the Indian cause; that the besiegers had now completed a mine to the block-house itself, making its destruction certain ; that a surren der would save the garrison's lives, while further resistance THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 255 would result in certain death. At daybreak, the pale and hag gard defenders of the block-house looking, after their fiery ordeal, almost like blackened specters, marched out and surren dered. They were made captive, but not massacred. The news at Detroit of the fall of Presqu 'Isle was only surpassed in tragic importance by that of the fall of Michilli- mackinac. The pleasure seeker who spends a summer on the lovely Island of Mackinaw, with its white cliffs, its piny woods, its " Tower Rock," and " Devil's Kitchen," its old fort and venera ble hotels, its meandering drives, and all the quiet scenes which go to make up the Mackinaw of to-day, is impressed with a sense of its antiquity. The prevailing air of decay, the old- time buildings of the Old Mission and Island House hotels, the quaint manners of the resident population, the rotting sail boats, which lie at abandoned wharves, all tend to make this impression. The old fort looks as if it had been built in some remote age. Every thing is antique, quiet, un-American. Our summer traveler is completely shut in from the roar and bustle of the busy world. Mails come twice a week, or rather did a year or two ago, when the writer spent a summer there. The only event of the day is the arrival of some steamer. One feels as if the clock had been turned back a hundred years. Drinking in the pure and bracing atmosphere, indulging in such quiet sports as the place affords, he soon learns to love the island. Sometimes he spends a day in fishing. More often he wanders with some friends through the woods. Now he joins his lady friends, and visiting the few little stores, inspects the stocks of Indian ware. Birch bark canoes, from six inches to three feet long, pipes, bows and arrows, birch baskets, all these he finds in immense quantities. Lower down on the island he will find the shanties of the Indians who manufacture these articles. Stolid, copper-colored men, with straight, black hair, everlastingly smoking tobacco pipes, lounge around on benches in the open air on a summer 256 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. day. Now and then a grunt or a guttural ejaculation breaks the silence. That is all. They look sullen and sad. Too infinitely lazy to do any work, they seem simply to be waiting, waiting the extinction of their race. Yet these are the descend ants of the fierce Ojibwas, whose principal village occupied the Island of Mackinaw in the year 1763. So the air of antiquity which hangs about Mackinaw is an illusion. In 1763 no white man resided on the island. It was the home of the terrible Ojibwa chief. Fifteen miles to the south, across the beautiful straits, in which the blue waters of Michigan meet and mingle with the fresh tides of Huron, near the site of old Mackinaw, stood the fort of Michillimackinac, at the time of which we write. This post was in 1763 nearly a hundred years old, while the Island of Mackinaw was yet only the seat of an Indian town. Parkman describes the post as it was on the eventful morning of June 4, 1763. The houses and barracks, containing thirty families, and a garrison of thirty-five men, were arranged in a square, inclosing a considerable area. Outside of this square was a larger one, formed by the high palisades. "In the vacant space inclosed by the houses, appeared the red uniforms of British soldiers, the gray coats of Canadians, and the gaudy blankets of Indians, mingled in picturesque confusion. Women and children were moving about the doors; knots of Canadian voyagers reclined on the ground, smoking and conversing; soldiers were lounging listlessly at the doors and windows of the barracks, or strolling in undress about the area." There was absolutely no suspicion of danger. Yet the gar rison had had warnings plain enough to put the British on their guard. Several Canadians had warned them that the Indians were plotting their destruction. The commander of the fort, Captain Etherington, did not overlook these warnings. He threatened to send the next alarmist in chains to Detroit ! Only the day before the tragic fourth of June an .Indian named Wawatam, who had taken a fancy to Alexander Henry, a trader, THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 257 who was in the fort, came . over and first advised, then urged, and finally begged Henry, on his knees, to leave the fort that night. In vain ! All that day unusual throngs of Indians had visited the fort. Their special demand was for guns, hatchets, and knives. Valuable articles of jewelry were also called for, the place of their keeping carefully marked, and then the treacherous customers would leave, saying, "We will call to-morrow." This remark was deeply significant. What was the real state of affairs? The news of Pontiac's attack on Detroit, at the head of the Ottawas and their neighbors, had inflamed the Ojibwas of Mack inaw. With the exception of the tribes around Detroit, the State of Michigan was occupied by the Ottawas and . Ojibwas. Their territory was separated about equally by a line running south from Michillimackinac. The western, or Ottawa, tribe had their principal village, L'Arbre Croche, on what is now Little Traverse Bay. At the head of this lovely inlet now stands the bustling town of Petosky, while a pocket in the shore of the bay forms a quiet harbor which the wildest storm scarcely ripples. The spot where now stands the microscopic settlement of Harbor Springs was once occupied by the popu lous lodges of the Ottawas. The original plan was for the warriors of L'Arbre Croche to unite with the Ojibwas of Mackinaw in the attack on the fort. But so jealous were the latter that they resolved on carrying out the plot without telling their neighbors. The scene outside the fort on the morning of June 4, 1763, was quite different from that we have described within the palisade. The plain in front was covered by throngs of Indians engaged in ball playing. The gates of the palisade were wide open. Groups of soldiers stood in the shade of the palisade looking at the sport. Most of them were without their arms. Sober Indian chiefs stood as if intently watching the fortunes of the game. In fact, however, their thoughts were far other wise employed. Large numbers of squaws also mingled in the 258 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. throng, collecting chiefly near the open gates. In spite of the warm day they were wrapped to the throat in blankets. The game of ball or baggattaway was between the Ojibwas and the neighboring Sacs. At either extremity of the open ground stood a post, which constituted the station of one of the parties. Except that the ball was smaller and that a bat much like those used in lawn tennis served instead of the kick, the game was identical with our well known foot-ball. The ball was started from the middle of the ground, and the game was for each side to keep it from touching their own post, and drive it against that of their adversaries. The game was played on this morning with unprecedented fury and abandon. Hundreds of naked Indians were running, jumping, bounding over each other, turning hand-springs, executing aerial somer saults, striking with the bats, tripping each other up, every way, any way, to get at the ball and foil the adversary. Now they surged together in a knotted mass, struggling furiously for the ball; now the sphere rose high in air, with the players bounding after it like hounds, with hilarious uproar. Suddenly the ball rose high, and descending in a wide curve, fell near the gate. It was no chance stroke. The players instantly bounded toward the ball, but just as they reached the neighborhood of the gates the shouts of sport changed suddenly to the ominous war-whoop. The squaws threw open their blankets, and withdrawing therefrom guns, hatchets, and knives, the players instantly flung away their bats, seized the weapons, and fell upon the defenseless garrison and traders. Fifteen of the garrison were butchered outright. The story of Alexander Henry, the trader, is full of interest. At the time the war-whoop was raised, he was in his room writ ing letters. " Going instantly to my window, I saw a crowd of Indians within the fort, furiously cutting down and scalping every Englishman they found. "I had in the room in which I was a fowling-piece, loaded THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 259 with swan-shot. This I immediately seized, and held it for a few minutes, waiting to hear the drum beat to arms. In this dreadful interval I saw several of my countrymen fall, and more than one struggling between the knees of an Indian, who, hold ing him in this manner, scalped him while yet living. "At length, disappointed in the hope of seeing resistance made to the enemy, and sensible, of course, that no effort of my own unassisted arm could avail against four hundred Indians, I thought only of seeking shelter. Amid the slaughter which was raging, I observed many of the Canadian inhabitants of the fort calmly looking on, neither opposing the Indians, nor suffer ing injury; and from this circumstance I conceived a hope of finding security in their houses. "Between the yard-door of my own house and that of M. Langlade, my next neighbor, there was only a low fence, over which I easily climbed. At my entrance I found the whole family at the windows, gazing at the scene of blood before them. I addressed myself immediately to M. Langlade, begging that he would put me into some place of safety, until the heat of the affair should be over, an act of charity by which he might perhaps preserve me from the general massacre ; but while I uttered my petition, M. Langlade, who had looked for a moment at me, turned again to the window, shrugging his shoulders, and intimating that he could do nothing for me, 'Que voudriez-vous que fen ferais ? "This was a moment for despair; but the next, a Pani woman,* a slave of M. Langlade's, beckoned to me to follow her. She brought me to a door, which she opened, desiring me to enter, and telling me that it led to the garret, where I must go and conceal myself. I joyfully obeyed her directions ; and she, having followed me up to the garret-door, locked it after me, and with great presence of mind took away the key. "This shelter obtained, if shelter I could hope to find it, I * Usually written Pawnee. This tribe lived west of the Mississippi, and was frequently at war with the northern nations. This woman was a captive of war. 260 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. was naturally anxious to know what might still be passing with out. Through an aperture, which afforded me a view of the area of the fort, I beheld, in shapes the foulest and most ter rible, the ferocious triumphs of barbarian conquerors. " The dead were scalped and mangled ; the dying were writh ing and shrieking under the unsatiated knife and -tomahawk; and from the bodies of some, ripped open, their butchers were drinking the blood, scooped up in the hollow of joined hands, and quaffed amid shouts of rage and victory. I was shaken not only with horror, but with fear. The sufferings which I wit nessed, I seemed on the point of experiencing. No long time elapsed before, every one being destroyed who could be found, there was a general cry of 'All is finished !' At the same instant I heard some of the Indians enter the house in which I was. "The garret was separated from the room below only by a layer of single boards, at once the flboring of the one and the ceiling of the other. I could therefore hear every thing that passed; and the Indians no sooner came in than they inquired whether or not any Englishmen were in the house. M. Lang-' lade replied that 'he could not say; he did not know of any;' answers in which he did not exceed the truth ; for the Pani woman had not only hidden me by stealth, but kept my secret and her own. M. Langlade was therefore, as I presume, as far from a wish to destroy me as he was careless about saving me, when he 'added to these answers, that ' they might examine for themselves, and would soon be satisfied as to the object of their question.' Saying this, he brought them to the garret-door. " The state of my mind will be imagined. Arrived at the door, some delay was occasioned by the absence of the key, and a few moments were thus allowed me in which to look around for a hiding-place. In one corner of the garret was a heap of those vessels of birch-bark, used in maple-sugar making, as I have recently described. "The door was unlocked and opening, and the Indians THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 261 ascending the stairs, before I had completely crept into a small opening which presented itself at one end of the heap. An instant after, four Indians entered the room, all armed with tomahawks, and all besmeared with blood upon every part of their bodies. " The die appeared to be cast. I could scarcely breathe ; but I thought that the throbbing of my heart occasioned a noise loud enough to betray me. The Indians walked in every direc tion about the garret, and one of them approached me so closely that at a particular moment, had he put forth his hand, he must have touched me. Still I remained undiscovered ; a circum stance to which the dark color of my clothes, and the want of light in a room which had no window, and in the corner in which I was, must have contributed. In a word, after taking several turns in the room, during which they told M. Langlade how many they had killed, and how many scalps they had taken, they returned down stairs, and I, with sensations not to be expressed, heard the door, which was the barrier between me and my fate, locked for the second time. " There was a feather-bed on the floor ; and on this, exhausted as I was by the agitation of my mind, I threw myself down and fell asleep. In this state I remained till the dusk of the even ing, when I was awakened by a second opening of the door. The person that now entered was M. Langlade's wife, who was much surprised at finding me, but advised me not to be uneasy, observing that the Indians had killed most of the English, but that she hoped I might myself escape. A shower of rain hav ing begun to fall, she had come to stop a hole in the roof. On her going away, I begged her to send me a little water to drink, which she did. "As night was now advancing, I continued to lie on the bed, ruminating on my condition, but unable to discover a resource from which I could hope for life. A flight to Detroit had no probable chance of success. The distance from Michillimacki- nac was four hundred miles; I was without provisions; and the 262 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. whole length of the road lay through Indian countries, countries of an enemy in arms, where the first man whom I should meet would kill- me. To stay where I was, threatened nearly the same issue. As before, fatigue of mind, and not tranquillity, suspended my cares, and procured me further sleep, " The respite which sleep afforded me during the night was put an end to by the return of morning. I was again on the rack of apprehension. At sunrise I heard the family stirring, and presently after Indian voices, informing M. Langlade that they had not found my hapless self among the dead, and that they supposed me to be somewhere concealed. M. Langlade appeared, from what followed, to be by this time acquainted with the place of my retreat, of which, no doubt, he had been informed by his wife. The poor woman, as soon as the Indians mentioned me, declared to her husband, in the French tongue, that he should no longer keep me in his house, but deliver me up to my pursuers ; giving as a reason for this measure, that, should the Indians discover his instrumentality in my conceal ment, they might revenge it on her children, and that it was better that I should die than they. " M. Langlade resisted at first this sentence of his wife's, but soon suffered 'her to prevail, informing the Indians that he had been told I was in his house, that I had come there without his knowledge, and that he would put me into their hands. This was no sooner expressed than he began to ascend the stairs, the Indians following upon his heels. " I now resigned myself to the fate with which I was men aced, and regarding every attempt at concealment as vain, I arose from the bed, and presented myself full in view to the Indians who were entering the room. They were all in a state of intoxication, and entirely naked, except about the middle. " One of them, named Wenniway, whom I had previously known, and who was upward of six feet in height, had his entire face and body entirely covered with charcoal and grease, THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 263 only that a white spot, of two inches in diameter, encircled either eye. This man, walking up to me, seized me with one hand by the collar of the coat, while, in the other, he held a large carving-knife, as if to plunge it into my breast. His eyes, meanwhile, were fixed steadfastly on mine. At length, after some seconds of the most anxious suspense, he dropped his arm, saying, ' I won't kill you !' To this he added that he had been frequently engaged in wars against the English, and had brought away many scalps ; that on a certain occasion he had lost a brother, whose name was Musinigon, and that I should be called after him. "A reprieve upon any terms placed me among the living, and gave me back the sustaining voice of hope ; but Wenniway ordered me down stairs, and there informing me that I was to be taken to his cabin, where, and indeed everywhere else, the Indians were all mad with liquor, death again was threatened, and not as possible only, but as certain. I mentioned my fears on this subject to M. Langlade, begging him to represent the danger to my master. M. Langlade, in this instance, did not withhold his compassion, and Wenniway immediately consented that I should remain where I was, until he found another oppor tunity to take me away. Thus far secure, I re-ascended my garret-stairs, in order to place myself the farthest possible out of the reach of drunken Indians." In an hour a rough voice again summoned Henry from his hiding-place. The savage ordered him to strip, and then follow him. The fellow owed Henry for some goods, and as he carried a dangerous knife, Henry feared that he was to be murdered. The Indian conducted his prisoner some distance, when Henry, finding that their way led to a lonely and hidden spot behind some sandhills, stopped and told the Indian he believed it was a plot to murder him. The savage coolly replied that it was, and raising his knife, was about to suit the action to the word, when Henry turned and ran with all his might to the fort. The savage followed with uplifted knife, but the 264 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. trader regained the house from which he had been taken, and the pursuit was abandoned. The next morning Henry, with two other prisoners, was placed in a canoe, to be taken by several Indians to the Isles du Castor. When well out of the straits and into Lake Mich igan, a heavy fog and stormy weather caused them to hug the gloomy coast. When within twenty miles of L'Arbre Croche, a hundred Indians suddenly jumped out of the woods into the surf, dragged the canoe ashore, and while making captives of the guards, explained to the three Englishmen that their lives had been saved by the Ottawas, as the Ojibwas were going to eat them. In a short time the Ottawas embarked for the fort, and Henry started back, arriving at Michillimackinac, the Ottawas coolly took possession of the fort and proceeded to abuse the Ojibwas for springing the trap without notifying their brothers. Henry hoped to be freed, but the two tribes patched up the quarrel, and he again found himself a prisoner of the Ojibwas. The latter removed the disappointed man to a neighbor town. Here, by strange good fortune, the trader met his friend Wawatam, who had given the unheeded warning. The Indian possessed more than the ordinary nobility of the human heart. He at once asked the council to set his friend free, and his elo quent appeal was emphasized at every pause by presents, which literally impoverished the savage. His request was granted, and Henry found himself established in an Indian family, on the footing of a brother of Wawatam. On the morning following his release, Henry, whose fears were by no means quieted, was alarmed by a noise in the prison lodge from which he had been removed. "Looking through the openings of the lodge in which I was, I saw seven dead bodies of white men dragged forth. Upon my inquiry into the occasion, I was informed that a certain chief, called by the Canadians Le Grand Sable, had not long before arrived from his winter's hunt; and that he, having been absent when the war began, THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 265 and being now desirous of manifesting to the Indians at large his hearty concurrence in what they had done, had gone into the prison-lodge, and there with his knife put the seven men whose bodies I had seen, to death. " Shortly after, two of the Indians took one of the dead bodies, which they chose as being the fattest, cut off the head, and divided the whole into five parts, one of which was put into each of five kettles, hung over as many fires, kindled for this purpose, at the door of the prison-lodge. Soon after things were so far prepared, a message came to our lodge, with an invi tation to Wawatam to assist at the feast. An invitation to a feast is given by him who is the master of it. Small cuttings of cedar wood, of about four inches in length, supply the place of cards; and the bearer by word of mouth states the particulars. "Wawatam obeyed the summons, taking with him, as is usual, to the place of entertainment, his dish and spoon. "After an absence of about half an hour, he returned, bring ing in his dish a human hand, and a large piece of flesh. He did not appear to relish the repast, but told me that it was then and always had been the custom among all the Indian nations, when returning from war, or on overcoming their enemies, to make a war-feast from among the slain. This he said inspired the warrior with courage in attack, and bred him to meet death with fearlessness." Soon after this agreeable information, Henry learned that the Indians were going to remove to the Island of Mackinaw, which was accordingly done. One day the Indians captured a couple of canoes from Montreal, carrying a quantity of liquor. The savages began to drink heavily, a proceeding full of danger to every one near. Wawatam told Henry that he was bound to get drunk, and that it would not be safe for the Englishman to remain where he was during the debauch. Wawatam therefor conducted him to a cave in the center of the island, where he was to hide himself until the liquor was all gone. Henry broke some branches from the trees, and spreading 266 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. them down in a corner of the cave for a bed, went to sleep. During the night he felt some hard substance under him, and groping for it, seized some kind of a bone, and threw it away. Not till morning did he discover that "he was lying on nothing less than a heap of human bones and skulls, which covered all the floor." He remained in this cheerful apartment a day or two without food, until Mr. Wawatam, with swollen eyes and thick utterance, staggered up to the cave, and told him the drunk was over. For more than a year Henry lived with his protector, Wawatam, hunting through the gloomy forests of Michigan, before he finally succeeded in making his way to Montreal. When Henry had met with his friend Wawatam, and been adopted into his family, the other survivors of the massacre were still kept by the Ottawas at Fort Michillimackinac, whence they were removed to L'Arbre Croche. Captain Etherington dispatched a letter to Lieutenant Gorell, the commander of the little post of Green Bay. The latter was requested to bring all his force to the relief of the prisoners. Gorell was on the point of obeying and abandoning his post, when the neighboring Indians intimated that his departure would be prevented. The threat might have been carried out had not a messenger from the terrible Dakota nation, with its thirty thousand braves, arrived with words of loyalty to the English, and denouncing with threatenings and slaughter, every tribe which was unfaith ful to them. This sentiment must be attributed to no loftier source than the ancient hostility of the Dakotas to the Ojibwas. Gorell was now allowed to depart, and making his way to the Ottawa village, negotiated the release of the prisoners. On July 18, 1763, they embarked in their canoes for Mon treal, reaching there more than a year sooner than Henry. With the fall of Michillimackinac, and the abandonment of Green Bay, the Detroit garrison found itself left alone in the wilder ness. There was not a British soldier west of Fort Niagara, except those behind the palisades of Detroit. THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 267 We have wandered far from the story of the defenders of Detroit. The news of the disasters which we have related was received by the despairing garrison with sad punctuality. Meanwhile, though we have neglected to follow their fortunes or misfortunes, events crowded each other in this remarkable siege. One night some friendly Canadians, from the other side of the river, reported at the fort that there were rumors among the Indians that the schooner Gladwyn was coming up the river. This vessel had gone down to hasten Cuyler's ill-fated expedi tion. Having passed the flotilla, which was yet voyaging pros perously, she held on her way to Niagara. She was still riding at anchor in the smooth river above the falls, at the time when Cuyler and two companions, haggard and exhausted, reached the fort with the story of the disaster, and of themselves alone being left to tell the tale. A force of sixty men was at once placed on board the schooner, with such ammunition and supplies as could be spared from the fort. She had made her way up the river, and was about to undertake the few dangerous miles which separated her from the fort. The garrison fired two guns to let the crew know that the fort still held out. This done, they waited. The schooner, meanwhile, weighed anchor and started up the narrow channel between the shore and Fighting Island. Just as she reached the narrowest part, the afternoon breeze grew more and more gentle, and at last died away, leaving the white sails drooping idly in the air. Nothing is so absolutely helpless as a sail-vessel without a favoring wind. It is hardly possible to understand how the commerce of the globe was car ried on entirely by means of them until within the present cen tury. The anchor chain rattled off rapidly from the capstan. The great iron fluke disappeared in the water, and energetically grabbed the bottom of the river. The vessel was standing still, within gunshot of an Indian ambush. As the sun sank to rest in his couch of flame, the guards on board the vessel were doubled. Hour after hour their 268 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. strained eyes sought to penetrate the darkness. At last, the plash of muffled oars was heard. Dark objects came mov ing swiftly down the river toward the vessel. Every man was silently summoned on deck. A blow of a hammer on the mast was to be the signal for firing. The long black canoes approached the dark and silent schooner. The Indians thought the prize was theirs. At last the hammer struck the mast. The slumber ing vessel burst into a blaze of cannon and musketry. The hostile fleet was demoralized. Many Indians were killed. Some canoes were sunk outright. As the enemy opened fire from their barricade, the schooner weighed anchor, and, drifting with the river's tide, floated down out of danger. The following day the passage was again attempted, this time with success. The beleaguered garrison received the much- needed supplies of men, ammunition, and provision. Pontiac was disappointed. Everywhere success had crowned the conspiracy except that part of it which he superintended himself. For forty days his genius and resolution had held his restless followers to the dull monotony of the siege. How much longer could he do it? His uneasiness manifested itself. One thing which showed it was his attempt to force the neighboring Canadians to lend active assistance. He called them together in council, made a long speech, told them that he fought for the king of France, their sovereign ; that if they were loyal French men they must lend their help ; that if they were friendly to the English, and would not join in the war against them, then he would make war on them as enemies of France. All men can, on occasion, be hypocrites. Some of the Cana dians pretended to take up the hatchet and join in the siege. This accession required a celebration. Pontiac ordered a feast of dogs. In every one of all the numberless wigwams which formed the besieging lines, a dog was slain, and the flesh eaten. If an Indian happened to dislike the dish, it was so much the worse for him. An enormous piece of the delicacy was placed before him. By all the laws of Indian society and etiquette, THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 269 he was not allowed to rise from the repast till he had eaten every bit of the meat. Another incident revealed Pontiac's rage. It is hard even for a great leader to hide his real feelings from his followers. At first he had protected Major Campbell from Indian cruelty. But his red retainers now read a new lesson in his imperious eye. The captive was murdered in his prison. The two schooners in the bay were regarded by the Indians with mingled rage and superstition. The broadsides with which their camps were bombarded, the white wings which they spread, the mysterious control of their movements by the sailors, the knowledge that the schooners served to connect the other wise isolated garrison with the rest of the world, inspired the savages with apprehension and fury. One night in July, the lookout on one of the schooners saw a glowing speck of flame far up the river. It came nearer, growing brighter and brighter as it approached. The white beach along the river front, the dark pine trees in the background, were lit up by the illumination, revealing dense throngs of Indians crowded along the water's edge. The pali sades of the fort, and the spars and rigging of the vessels, glowed like fire itself. Far across the harbor the waves were reddened with the light. The anxious soldiers of the garrison could be seen, watching with anxiety the singular apparition. As the flaming object came nearer, it was discovered to be a fire-raft. The inventive genius of Pontiac had caused a number of canoes to be lashed together, and a vast quantity of com bustibles to be piled on the structure. A torch was applied, and the thing of destruction was pushed off into the current. . But fortune or providence protected the schooners. The blazing monster, sending up vast volumes of roaring flames, missed them by a hundred feet, and floated harmlessly down the river, consuming nothing but itself. As the relieved soldiers and sailors watched it receding into the night, the light grew fainter and fainter, until, at last, with a mighty hiss, the demon 15 270 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. of fire plunged into the watery depths, as if to drown its sor row at the wretched failure. This attempt was made again and again, but the crews of the vessel arranged a barricade of boats and chains, which foiled every effort. Unknown to the garrison, Captain Dalzell was on his way to Detroit with two barges, two hundred and eighty men, several small cannon, and a fresh supply of provision and ammunition. Under cover of night and fog, they reached the fort in safety, having been attacked only once, a conflict which, however, resulted in the loss of fifteen men. Boat after boat discharged its loads on shore amid the cheers of the soldiers and the booming of cannon. Among the arrivals was Major Rogers, of Rogers's Rangers, with twenty of his old followers. Captain Dalzell, on the day of his arrival, much against Gladwyn's advice, insisted on attacking the Indians. These had been forced, by the cannonading from the schooners, to remove their camp to the rear of a great marsh, several miles from the fort. At two o'clock on the morning of July 31st, the gates of the palisades were noiselessly opened, and two hundred and fifty men marched down the road along the river shore. Not a sound was heard in the still night but the muffled footfalls of the soldiery and the occasional rattle of an officer's sword. Close to the river shore, keeping pace with the troops, two bateaux, each carrying a swivel gun, were rowed with stealthy stroke. The starlit sky was moonless. But for the fresh lake breeze, which sighed among the foliage of the overhanging forest, the midsummer night would have been intolerably sultry. On the right of the winding road lay the river, with its dark and restless tide ; on the left, the houses and farms of Canadian settlers. A mile and a half from the fort the road wound over a narrow, wooden bridge which spanned a small stream, and then crossed a succession of ridges lying parallel with the rivulet. These ridges were crowned with low barricades. The spot had ARRIVAL OF DALZELL WITH SUPPLIES. THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 273 been Pontiac's old camp. On either side of the road were vast piles of firewood, cut by the Canadians, and stumps of trees from which the fuel had been cut. Here was a long line of heavy picket fence, inclosing several orchards. There, on rising ground, stood the house of a Canadian named Meloche. Over it all hung the pall of darkness and mist from the river which made the various objects indistinct. The soldiers supposed their attack would be a complete sur prise to Pontiac. Yet, in spite of this, the men shuddered as they filed down the descent which led across the narrow, wooden bridge. The ravine looked lonely and suspicious. The spot seemed fit for a massacre. The advance guard had proceeded half-way across the bridge. Suddenly there was a wild war-whoop in the darkness, and the ridges, the intrenchments, the orchard fence, the black wood piles, the half-chopped logs, whatever could afford. a shelter to a savage, burst into flame. Half the advanced guard fell at the first fire. The unhurt men fled to the rear, and in a moment the whole column wavered. Dalzell dashed to the front. His clear voice rang out above the infernal din. The men rallied, and in a spasm of rage, charged across the bridge and up the opposite slope. It was sad folly. Before one-third of the way up the slope, every howling Indian had fled to another spot, from which he could fire upon the English. The latter pushed on with the courage of insanity. The charge which they main tained so stubbornly was a bloody mockery. The lines were broken and entangled in a labyrinth of fences, outhouses, trees, and woodpiles, from behind which the red foes kept up a murderous fire. To advance was madness. To halt was folly. To retreat was a necessity. One company, under Captain Grant, hurried back across the bridge, and taking possession of the road pre pared to cover the retreat. The two bateaux had been rowed up the creek to the bridge, and the dead and wounded were hurriedly placed on board. A heavy fire was poured in upon 274 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. the English during this last office of friendship. All at once a concentrated volley was received from another direction. The men of Grant's company turned to find a body of Indians strongly posted on their left flank about the house of Meloche and the neighboring orchards. To stop the deadly cross-fire, Grant's men charged up the hill, and, at the point of the bayo net, drove the savages from the orchards and house. In the latter were two Canadians. They said the English should retreat at once to the fort, as large numbers of Indians had posted themselves on the road in the rear. The situation was critical. The men retreated rapidly and without serious opposition for a half mile. At this spot the road again ran through a region thickly planted with houses and fences. Here, also, was a newly dug cellar for a house. This pit was near the road. It was full of Indians. As the center of the column arrived opposite the ambuscade, a heavy volley of balls was discharged at the soldiers. Already unnerved by the disaster at the bridge, the men were well-nigh panic-stricken at this new surprise. They started down the road in wild confusion, breaking ranks, tram pling on each other, throwing away their weapons, any way, every way, to fly from the storm of bullets. Dalzell, with drawn sword, shouted at the men, and forced some to stop. Others he seized by the shoulders and held. He was twice wounded, but paused not till his panic-stricken command was rallied. It was almost daybreak. But a dense fog from the river, illuminated by incessant flashes from the enemy's guns, never theless concealed the enemy. Finally it grew light enough to discern the shadowy outline of a house, of which the Indians had taken possession, and from the windows of which they poured murderous volleys upon the little band of Englishmen. This house commanded the road along which the men must pass to reach the fort. Major Rogers, with his handful of Hangers, burst in the door of the house with an ax, and, in a THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 275 fearful hand-to-hand conflict, killed every Indian in the house who did not fly. Another detachment charged a line of fences behind which the savages were concealed. This, too, was in the main successful. In the lull that ensued after these two advantages, Dalzell at once ordered the retreat to recommence. The column had not moved twenty feet when the Indians came running from every direction with wild yells, and fell upon their rear and flank. Dalzell was shot and killed. The loss of their leader threatened the battered and unnerved command with total destruction. In the crisis Major Rogers and his Rangers took possession of another house which commanded the road. Some of the terrified regulars followed him, in frantic eagerness to gain shelter from the tempest of destruction without. The building was large and strong. The Canadian women and children of the neighborhood had already fled to it for refuge. They were crowded into the cellar. As the Rangers entered the building, its owner, an old man named Campan, resolutely planted himself on the trap-door leading to the cellar, and thrust back every soldier who sought to lift it. No time was to be lost. Rogers's stentorian voice shouted to the men to barricade the windows. In a moment the yells of two hundred Indians, surrounding the house, mingled with the shrieks and cries of the half-stifled women and children in the cellar. With skilled hands, the Rangers piled the windows full of furs, bedding, clothes, whatever would serve to shelter them from the bullets of the savages, which now rattled against the building like the roar of a hailstorm. While Rogers and his men boldly risked their lives to cover the retreat of the others, Captain Grant hurried forward for another half mile, and posted a squad of men in a strong situa tion, from which base of operations he sent forward other de tachments, as they came up, to occupy other points along the road within supporting distance of each other, until by these 276 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. tactics he had a complete line of communication with the fort. Each squad in turn, commencing with the farthest, then guard edly retreated to the fort, till all were in. The gallant Rogers and his handful of Rangers, who had by their courage saved the command from complete destruction, were yet defending themselves in Campan's house against a vast multitude of savages, who had concentrated their force upon this isolated band of heroes. To relieve these brave fellows from their imminent peril, Grant ordered the bateaux to ascend the river to a point opposite the house. The swivel-guns were brought to bear, and in a short time the assailants were driven to the rear of the house. Rogers and his men seized the op portunity to rush out, just as the savages burst in at the rear door. Under cover of the cannonade, the Rangers made their way to the fort. At eight o'clock in the morning, after six hours of fighting, the last man entered the sheltering palisade. The fight at Bloody Run, as the creek was known from that time, had cost the English a loss of fifty-nine men. The news of the Indian victory spread far and wide through the north, and bands of painted warriors arrived daily to re-en force the besiegers. The siege resumed its old monotony, which was at last disturbed by a thrilling attack on the schooner Gladwyn. This vessel, the smaller of the two, was returning from a trip to Niagara. She had on board ten sailors and six Iroquois, who were supposed to support the cause of the English. One morning these wily children of the forest asked to be put ashore. In a moment of folly the request was complied with. That they repaired at once to Pontiac with reports of the weakness of the crew, there can be no doubt. That night the schooner attempted the narrow river channel below the fort, but was caught midway in a dead calm. The pitchy darkness concealed from the eyes of the anxious look outs a fleet of canoes, with three hundred and fifty Indians, which floated unobserved to within a few yards of the schooner. One cannon-shot was fired, but before its echoes had ceased the THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 277 savages swarmed over the sides of the vessel by scores. A fearful hand to hand conflict ensued. But resistance was useless. Ten or fifteen savages sur rounded each sailor. Just as all was about over the mate shouted, " Boys, fire the magazine, and blow her up ! " A mo ment more and the vessel would have been a dismantled wreck. But some Wyandots understood the words. With a wild cry of alarm the Indians leaped from the vessel into the water, swimming away at the top of their speed. The deck was cleared instantaneously. The astonished crew found not an In dian on board, where a minute before they had been by scores. The savages ventured no more near the vessel. The next morn ing a stiff breeze filled the languid sails, and the plucky little schooner made her way safely to the fort. We can not follow the detailed story of the siege further, but turn to view other fields which the ambition of Pontiac desolated with the horrors of war. When the weak line of frontier forts was overwhelmed, the news of the successive dis asters was carried, not alone to the starving garrison of Detroit, and the great chieftain who sat watching it like an Evil Grenius, but the same tidings spread like wild-fire along the defenseless frontiers, and among the wild Indians of the west, who yet hesitated to take up the hatchet. Venango, Sandusky, Le Boeuf, St. Joseph, Miami, Ouatanon, Michillimackinac, Presqu' Isle, these were the fated names which flashed over the frontiers, carrying dread and terror to every cabin. It is to be remembered that the defenseless frontiers of Vir ginia and Pennsylvania bore the recent scars of the fearful desolation of the French and Indian War, which ensued after Braddock's defeat. Their sufferings were recent. The memory of the mighty panic which desolated vast stretches of settled country, and of the awful fate of hundreds and thousands of settlers, who, with dogged courage, faced the savage hordes, was fresh and vivid. The imaginations of the terror-stricken pioneers dilated with 278 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES. horror as the black-winged rumors flew from cabin to cabin, and from settlement to settlement. Nor were these apprehen sions untimely. The very worst came to pass. The most exag gerated fears were those which most nearly foretold the truth. The war-parties of savages, with reddened tomahawk and flaming torch, followed swiftly after the tidings of the fall of the forts. It was the French and Indian war over again. This state ment must be received with some qualifications. It was more extended. It was bloodier. It was more sudden. It was more fearful in its details. In these respects the war of Pontiac was worse than that of the French and Indians. From the tall Creeks, who dwelt among the palms and magnolias of the sunny south, to the wiry! savages who shivered around frosty Halifax, the war-cry resounded through the unending forests, and the tomahawk was uplifted by cruel hands. The details of the fearful conflict may not be followed in this place. Only a few of the most striking incidents can be mentioned. In three months more than two thousand families were driven from their homes in Pennsylvania and Virginia to the settlements and cities of the east, and more than a thou sand persons were massacred or taken captive. As in the former war, vast sweeps of settled country were absolutely abandoned by the flying inhabitants. As before, the multitudes of unhappy refugees were crowded together in the towns to which they had hurried, seeking shelter in barns, hovels, -and temporary huts of bark, where they were confronted by all the horrors of penury and famine. As before, the Quaker govern ment sat with folded hands, extending to the bleeding frontiers no comfort but counsels to non-resistance, and no aid but pious maxims. From every valley of the Alleghanies rose black columns of smoke from burning cabins and blazing hay-stacks. The commander-in-chief of the British army was reluctantly forced to believe in a wide-spread Indian insurrection. From the meager resources at his command, two relief expeditions THE AMBITION OF PONTIAC. 279 were organized for the two posts, which were thought to be in imminent peril. The story of the one designed for Detroit, under the brave but incautious Dalzell, we have already traced. The other expedition, under Henry Bouquet, consisting of five hundred emaciated and feeble regulars from the West Indias, was designed for Fort Pitt. Day after day the weak, little band pressed on their errand