Chapter XVIII: Book III: The Red Head Chief (2)

John Marks, half-brother of Meriwether Lewis, went immediately to the scene of tragedy, but nothing more could be done or learned. Proceeding to St. Louis, the estate was settled.

When at last the trunks arrived at Washington they were found to contain the journals, papers on the protested bills, and the well-known spy-glass used by Lewis on the expedition. But there were no valuables or money.

Years after, Meriwether's sister and her husband unexpectedly met Pernia on the streets of Mobile, and Mary recognised in his possession the William Wirt watch and the gun of her brother. On demand they were promptly surrendered.

In the lonely heart of Lewis county, Tennessee, stands to-day a crumbling gray stone monument with a broken shaft of limestone erected by the State on the spot where, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, Meriwether Lewis met his death. In solitude and desolation, moss overlies his tomb, but his name lives on, brightening with the years.

IX

_TRADE FOLLOWS THE FLAG_

"_Bon jour_, Ms'ieu, you want to know where dat Captinne?" The polite Creole lifted his cap.

"'Pears now, maybe I heerd he wuz Guv'ner," said the keen-eyed trapper thoughtfully.

"Guff'ner Lewees ees det,--kilt heeself. Generale Clark leeves on de Rue Royale, next de Injun office."

In unkempt beard, hair shaggy as a horse's mane, and clothing all of leather, the stranger climbed the rocky path, using the stock of his gun for a staff.

It did not take long to find the Indian office. With a dozen lounging braves outside and a council within, sat William Clark, the Red Head Chief.

General Clark noted the shadow in the door that bright May morning. Not in vain had these men faced the West together.

"Bless me, it's Coalter! Where have you been? How did you come?"

From the mountains, three thousand miles in thirty days, in a small canoe, Coalter had come flying down the melting head-snows of the Rockies. He was haggard with hunger and loss of sleep.

Leading his old companion to the cottage, Clark soon had him surrounded with the comforts of a civilised meal. Refreshed, gradually the trapper unfolded his tale.

When John Coalter left Lewis and Clark at the Mandan towns and went back with Hancock and Dickson, in that Summer of 1806, they, the first of white men, entered the Yellowstone Park of to-day. In the Spring, separating from his companions, Coalter set out for St. Louis in a solitary canoe. At the mouth of the Platte he met Manuel Lisa and Drouillard coming up. And with them, John Potts, another of the Lewis and Clark soldiers. On the spot Coalter re-enlisted and returned a third time to the wilderness.

Such a man was invaluable to that first venture in the north. After Lisa had stockaded his fort at the mouth of the Bighorn, he sent Coalter to bring the Indians. Alone he set out with gun and knapsack, travelled five hundred miles, and brought in his friends the Crows. That laid the foundation of Lisa's fortune.

When Lisa came down with his furs in the Spring, Coalter and Potts with traps on their backs set out for the beaver-meadows of the Three Forks, the Madison, the Jefferson, and the Gallatin.

"We knew those Blackfoot sarpints would spare no chance to skelp us," said Coalter, "so we sot our traps by night an' tuk 'em afore daylight. Goin' up a creek six miles from the Jefferson, examinin' our traps one mornin', on a suddent we heerd a great noise. But the banks wuz high an' we cudn't see.

"'Blackfeet, Potts. Let's retreat,' sez I.

"'Blackfut nuthin'. Ye must be a coward. Thet's buffaloes,' sez Potts. An' we kep' on.

"In a few minutes five or six hunderd Injuns appeared on both sides uv the creek, beckonin' us ashore. I saw 't warnt no use an' turned the canoe head in.

"Ez we touched, an Injun seized Potts' rifle. I jumped an' grabbed an' handed it back to Potts in the canoe. He tuk it an' pushed off.

"An' Injun let fly an arrer. Jest ez I heard it whizz, Potts cried, 'Coalter, I'm wounded.'

"'Don't try to get off, Potts, come ashore,' I urged. But no, he levelled his rifle and shot a Blackfoot dead on the spot. Instanter they riddled Potts,--dead, he floated down stream.

"Then they seized and stripped me. I seed 'em consultin'.

"'Set 'im up fer a target,' said some. I knew ther lingo, lernt it 'mongst the Crows, raound Lisa's fort, at the Bighorn. But the chief asked me, 'Can ye run fast?'

"'No, very bad runner,' I answered."

Clark smiled. Well he remembered Coalter as the winner in many a racing bout.

"The chief led me aout on the prairie, 'Save yerself ef ye can.'

"Et thet instant I heerd, 'Whoop-ahahahahah-hooh!' like ten thousand divils, an' I _flew_.

"It wuz six miles to the Jefferson; the graound wuz stuck like a pinquishen with prickly-pear an' sand burrs, cuttin' my bare feet, but I wuz half acrosst before I ventured to look over the shoulder. The sarpints ware pantin' an' fallin' behind an' scatterin'. But one with a spear not more'n a hunderd yeards behind was gainin'.

"I made another bound,--blood gushed from my nostrils. Nearer, nearer I heerd his breath and steps, expectin' every minute to feel thet spear in my back.

"Agin I looked. Not twenty yeards behind he ran. On a suddint I stopped, turned, and spread my arms. The Blackfoot, astonished at the blood all over my front, perhaps, tried to stop but stumbled an' fell and broke his spear. I ran back, snatched the point, and pinned him to the earth.

"The rest set up a hidjus yell. While they stopped beside ther fallen comrade, almost faintin' I ran inter the cottonwoods on the borders uv the shore an' plunged ento the river.

"Diving under a raft of drift-timber agin the upper point of a little island, I held my head up in a little opening amongst the trunks of trees covered with limbs and brushwood.

"Screechin', yellin' like so many divils, they come onto the island. Thro' the chinks I seed 'em huntin', huntin', huntin', all day long. I only feared they might set the raft on fire.

"But at night they gave it up; the voices grew faint and fer away; I swam cautiously daown an' acrost, an' landin' travelled all night.

"But I wuz naked. The broilin' sun scorched my skin, my feet were filled with prickly-pears, an' I wuz hungry. Game, game plenty on the hills, but I hed no gun. It was seven days to Lisa's fort on the Bighorn.

"I remembered the Injun turnip that Sacajawea found in there, an' lived on it an' sheep sorrel until I reached Lisa's fort, blistered from head to heel."

As in a vision the General saw it all. Judy's eyes were filled with tears. Through the Gallatin, the Indian Valley of Flowers, where Bozeman stands to-day, the lonely trapper had toiled in the July sun and over the Bozeman Pass, whither Clark's cavalcade had ridden two summers before.

Six years now had Coalter been gone from civilisation, but he had discovered the Yellowstone Park. No one in St. Louis would believe his stories of hot water spouting in fountains, "Coalter's Hell," but William Clark traced his route on the map that he sent for publication.

John Coalter now received his delayed reward for the expedition,--double pay and three hundred acres of land,--and went up to find Boone at Charette.

"What! Pierre Menard!" Another boat had come out of the north. General Clark grasped the horny hand of the fur trader. "What luck?"

"Bad, bad," gloomily answered the trader with a shake of his flowing mane. "Drouillard is dead, and the rest are likely soon to be."

"What do you mean?"

"Blackfeet!"

Clark guessed all, even before he heard the full details behind locked doors of the Missouri Fur Company at the warehouse of Pierre Chouteau.

"As you knew," began Menard, "we spent last winter at Fort Lisa on the Bighorn. When Lisa started down here in March we packed our traps on horses, crossed to the Three Forks, and built a double stockade of logs at the confluence of the rivers. Every night the men came in with beaver, beaver, beaver. We confidently expected to bring down not less than three hundred packs this fall but that hope is shattered. On the 12th of April our men were ambuscaded by Blackfeet. Five were killed. All their furs, traps, horses, guns, and equipments are without doubt by this time at Fort Edmonton on the Saskatchewan."

"But you expected to visit the Snakes and Flatheads," suggested one to rouse the despondent trader from his revery.

"I did. And the object was to obtain a Blackfoot prisoner if possible in order to open communication with his tribe. They are the most unapproachable Indians we have known. They refuse all overtures.

"Just outside the fort Drouillard was killed. A high wind was blowing at the time, so he was not heard, but the scene of the conflict indicated a desperate defence.

"Despair seized our hunters. They refused to go out. Indeed, it was impossible to go except in numbers, so Henry and I concluded it was best to report. I set out by night, and here I am, with these men and thirty packs of beaver. God pity poor Henry at the Three Forks!"

Thus at one blow were shattered the high hopes of the Missouri Fur Company. All thought of Andrew Henry, tall, slender, blue-eyed, dark-haired, a man that spoke seldom, but of great deeds. Would he survive a winter among the Blackfeet?

But there was another cause of disquiet to the Missouri Fur Company.

"Have you heard of John Jacob Astor?"

"What?"

"He has gone with Wilson Price Hunt to Montreal to engage men for an expedition to the Columbia."

"What, Hunt who kept an Indian shop here on the Rue?" They all knew him. He had come to St. Louis in 1804 and become an adept in outfitting.

Two or three times Astor had offered to buy stock in the Missouri Fur Company but had been refused. Jefferson himself had recommended him to Lewis. Now he was carrying trade into the fur country over their heads. Already he had a great trade on the lakes, and to the headwaters of the Mississippi. He had profited by the surrender of Detroit and Mackinaw. Another stride took him to the Falls of St. Anthony; and now, along the trail of Lewis and Clark he planned to be first on the Pacific. With ships by sea and caravans by land, he could at last accomplish the wished-for trade to China.

"But I, too, planned the Pacific trade," said Manuel Lisa, coming down in the Autumn. There was some jealousy that a New York man should be first to follow the trail to the sea.

The winter was one of anxiety, for Astor's men had arrived in St. Louis and had gone up the Missouri to camp until Spring. Anxiety, too, for Andrew Henry, out there alone in the Blackfoot country.

Could they have been gifted with sufficient sight, the partners in St. Louis might even then have seen the brave Andrew Henry fighting for his life on that little tongue of land between the Madison and the Jefferson. No trapping could be done. It was dangerous to go any distance from the fort except in large parties. Fearing the entire destruction of his little band, Henry moved across the mountains into the Oregon country, and wintered on what is now Henry's Fork of the river Snake, the first American stronghold on the Columbia.

"We must exterminate Hunt's party," said Manuel Lisa.

"No," said Pierre Chouteau. "Next year he will send again and again, and in time will exterminate us. Your duty will be to protect his men on the water, and may God Almighty have mercy on them in the mountains, for they will never reach their destination."

From his new home at Charette John Coalter saw Astor's people going by, bound for the Columbia. To his surprise they inquired for him.

"General Clark told us you were the best informed man in the country."

Coalter told them of the hostility of the Blackfeet and the story of his escape. He longed to return with them to the mountains, but he had just married a squaw and he decided to stay. Moreover, a twinge in his limbs warned him that that plunge in the Jefferson had given him rheumatism for life.

Daniel Boone, standing on the bank at Charette when Hunt went by, came down and examined their outfit. "Jist returned from my traps on the Creek," he said, pointing to sixty beaver skins.

Tame beavers and otters, caught on an island opposite Charette Creek, were playing around his cabin. And his neighbours had elk and deer and buffalo, broken to the yoke.

Several seasons had Boone with his old friend Calloway trapped on the Kansas; now he longed for the mountains.

"Another year and I, too, will go to the Yellowstone," said Daniel Boone.

"Andrew Henry must be rescued. His situation is desperate. He may be dead," said General Clark, President of the Missouri Fur Company at St. Louis.

Three weeks behind Hunt, Lisa set out in a swift barge propelled by twenty oars, with a swivel on the bow and two blunderbusses in the cabin. Lisa had been a sea-captain,--he rigged his boat with a good mast, mainsail and topsail, and led his men with a ringing boat-song.

Then followed a keelboat race of a thousand miles up the Missouri. June 2 Lisa caught up with Hunt near the present Bismarck, and met Andrew Henry coming down with forty packs of beaver.

To avoid the hostile Blackfeet, Hunt bought horses and crossed through the Yellowstone-Crow country to the abandoned fort of Henry on the Snake, and on to the Columbia.

Aboard that barge with Lisa went Sacajawea. True to her word, she had brought the little Touissant down to St. Louis, where Clark placed him with the Catholic sisters to be trained for an interpreter. Sacajawea was dressed as a white woman; she had quickly adopted their manners and language; but, in the words of a chronicler who saw her there, "she had become sickly, and longed to revisit her native country. Her husband also had become wearied of civilised life."

So back they went to the Minnetarees, bearing pipes from Clark to the chiefs. Five hundred dollars a year Charboneau now received as Indian agent for the United States. For more than thirty years he held his post, and to this day his name may be traced in the land of Dakota.

We can see Sacajawea now, startled and expectant, her heart beating like a trip-hammer under her bodice, looking at Julia! No dreams of her mountains had ever shown such sunny hair, such fluffs of curls, like moonrise on the water. And that diaphanous cloud,--was it a dress? No Shoshone girl ever saw such buckskin, finer than blossom of the bitter-root.

"I am come," said Sacajawea.

A whole year she had tarried among the whites, quickly accommodating herself to their ways. But in the level St. Louis she dreamed of her northland, and now she was going home!

X

_TECUMSEH_

"It is madness to contend against the whites," said Black Hoof, chief of the Shawnees. "The more we fight the more they come."

He had led raids against Boonsboro, watched the Ohio, and sold scalps at Detroit. Three times his town was burnt behind him, twice by Clark and once by Wayne. Then he gave up, signed the treaty at Greenville, and for ever after kept the peace. Now he was living with a band of Shawnees at Cape Girardeau, and made frequent visits to his old friend, Daniel Boone.

Indian Phillips was with those who besieged Boonsboro. Phillips was a white man stolen as a child who had always lived with the Shawnees. To him Daniel Boone was the closest of friends. They hunted together and slept together. Boone took Phillips' bearskins and sold them with his own in St. Louis.

"If I should die while I am out with you, Phillips, you must mark my grave and tell the folks so they can carry me home."

Long after those Indians in the West had welcomed Boone's sons, an old squaw said, "I was an adopted sister during his captivity with the Ohio Indians."

Sometimes Boone went over to Cape Girardeau, and sat with his friends talking over old times.

"Do you remember, Dan," Phillips would say, "when we had you prisoner at Detroit? You remember the British traders gave you a horse and saddle and Black Fish adopted you, and you and he made an agreement you would lead him to Boonsboro and make them surrender and bury the tomahawk, and live like brothers and sisters?"

"Yes, I remember," said Boone, smiling at the recollection of those arts of subterfuge.

"Do you remember one warm day when Black Fish said, 'Dan, the corn is in good roasting ears. I would like to have your horse and mine in good condition before we start to Boonsboro. We need a trough to feed them in. I will show you a big log that you can dig out.' Black Fish led you to a big walnut log. You worked a while and then lay down. Black Fish came and said, 'Well, Dan, you haven't done much.'

"'No,' you answered, 'you and your squaw call me your son, but you don't love me much. When I am at home I don't work this way,--I have negroes to work for me.'

"'Well,' said Black Fish, 'come to camp and stay with your brothers.'"

Quietly the two old men chuckled together. Boone always called Black Fish, father, and when he went hunting brought the choicest bit to the chief.

But now Boone's visits to Girardeau were made with a purpose.

"What is Tecumseh doing?"

"Tecumseh? He says no tribe can sell our lands. He refuses to move out of Ohio."

Old Black Hoof had pulled away from Tecumseh. The Shooting Star refused to attend Wayne's treaty at Greenville. In 1805 he styled himself a chief, and organised the young blood of the Shawnees into a personal band.

About this time Tecumseh met Rebecca Galloway, whose father, James Galloway, had moved over from Kentucky to settle near Old Chillicothe. At the Galloway hearth Tecumseh was ever a welcome guest.

"Teach me to read the white man's book," said Tecumseh to the fair Rebecca.

With wonderful speed the young chief picked up the English alphabet. Hungry for knowledge, he read and read and Rebecca read to him. Thereafter in his wonderful war and peace orations, Tecumseh used the language of his beloved Rebecca. For, human-like, the young chief lost his heart to the white girl. Days went by, dangerous days, while Rebecca was correcting Tecumseh's speech, enlarging his English vocabulary, and reading to him from the Bible.

"Promise me, Tecumseh, never, never will you permit the massacre of helpless women and children after capture." Tecumseh promised.

"And be kind to the poor surrendered prisoner."

"I will be kind," said Tecumseh.

But time was fleeting,--game was disappearing,--Tecumseh was an Indian. His lands were slipping from under his feet.

It was useless to speak to the fair Rebecca. Terrified at the fire she had kindled, she saw him no more. Enraged, wrathful, he returned to his band. Tecumseh never loved any Indian woman. A wife or two he tried, then bade them "Begone!"

When Lewis and Clark returned from the West, Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet, were already planning a vast confederation to wipe out the whites.

Jefferson heard of these things.

"He is visionary," said the President, and let him go on unmolested.

"The Seventeen Fires are cheating us!" exclaimed Tecumseh. "The Delawares, Miamis, and Pottawattamies have sold their lands! The Great Spirit gave the land to all the Indians. No tribe can sell without the consent of all. The whites have driven us from the sea-coast,--they will shortly push us into the Lakes."

The Governor-General of Canada encouraged him. Then came rumours of Indian activity. Like the Hermit of old, Tecumseh went out to rouse the redmen in a crusade against the whites. Still Jefferson paid no heed.

About the time that Clark and his bride came down the Ohio, the distracted Indians were swarming on Tippecanoe Creek, a hundred miles from Fort Dearborn, the future Chicago. All Summer, whisperings came into St. Louis, "Tecumseh is persuading the Sacs, Foxes, and Osages to war."

"I will meet the Sacs and Foxes," said Lewis.

Clark went out and quieted the Osages. Boone's son and Auguste Chouteau went with him.

"The Great Spirit bids you destroy Vincennes and sweep the Ohio to the mouth," was the Prophet's reported advice to the Chippewas.

"Give up our land and buy no more, and I will ally with the United States," said Tecumseh to General Harrison at Vincennes, in August of 1809.

"It cannot be," said Harrison.

"Then I will make war and ally with England," retorted the defiant chieftain.

The frontier had much to fear from an Indian war. More and more vagrant red men hovered around St. Louis,--Sacs, Foxes, Osages, who had seen Tecumseh. The Illinois country opposite swarmed with them, making raids on the farmers, killing stock, stealing horses. Massacres and depredations began.

"'Tis time to fortify," said Daniel Boone to his sons and neighbours.

In a little while nine forts had been erected in St. Charles county alone, and every cabin was stockaded. The five stockades at Boone's Lick met frequent assaults. Black Hawk was there, the trusted lieutenant of Tecumseh. The whole frontier became alarmed.

Then Manuel Lisa came down the river.

"The British are sending wampum to the Sioux. All the Missouri nations are urged to join the confederacy."

In fact, the Prophet with his mystery fire was visiting all the northwest tribes, even the Blackfeet. Ten thousand Indians promised to follow him back. Dressed in white buckskin, with eagle feathers in his hair, Tecumseh, on a spirited black pony, came to Gomo and Black Partridge on Peoria Lake in the summer of 1810.

"I cannot join you," said Black Partridge, the Pottawattamie, holding up a silver medal. "This token was given to me at Greenville by the great chief [Wayne]. On it you see the face of our father at Washington. As long as this hangs on my neck I can never raise my tomahawk against the whites."

Gomo refused. "Long ago the Big Knife [George Rogers Clark] came to Kaskaskia and sent for the chiefs of this river. We went. He desired us to remain still in our own villages, saying that the Americans were able, of themselves, to fight the British."

"Will anything short of the complete conquest of the Canadas enable us to prevent their influence on our Indians?" asked Governor Edwards of Illinois. Edwards and Clark planned together for the protection of the frontier.

In July, 1811, Tecumseh went to Vincennes and held a last stormy interview with Harrison without avail. Immediately he turned south to the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles. They watched him with kindling eyes.

"Brothers, you do not mean to fight!" thundered Tecumseh to the hesitating Creeks. "You do not believe the Great Spirit has sent me. You shall know. From here I go straight to Detroit. When I arrive there I shall stamp on the ground, and shake down every house in this village."

As Tecumseh strode into the forest the terrified Creeks watched. They counted the days. Then came the awful quaking and shaking of the New Madrid earthquake.

"Tecumseh has reached Detroit! Tecumseh has reached Detroit!" cried the frantic Creeks, as their wigwams tumbled about them.

Tecumseh was coming leisurely up among the tribes of Missouri, haranguing Black Hoof at Cape Girardeau, Osages, and Kickapoos, and Iowas at Des Moines.

But Tippecanoe had been fought and lost.

"There is to be an attack," said George Rogers Clark Floyd, tapping at the door of Harrison's tent at three o'clock in the morning of November 7, 1811. Harrison sprang to his horse and with him George Croghan and John O'Fallon.

It was a battle for possession. Every Indian trained by Tecumseh knew his country depended upon it. Every white knew he must win or the log cabin must go. In the darkness and rain the combatants locked in the death struggle of savagery against civilisation. Tecumseh reached the Wabash to find the wreck of Tippecanoe.

"Wretch!" he cried to his brother, "you have ruined all!" Seizing the Prophet by the hair, Tecumseh shook him and beat him and cuffed him and almost killed him, then dashed away to Canada and offered his tomahawk to Great Britain.

"The danger is not over," said Clark after Harrison's battle.

To save as many Indians as possible from the machinations of Tecumseh, immediately after Tippecanoe Clark summoned the neighbouring tribes to a council at St. Louis. Over the winter snows the runners sped, calling them in for a trip to Washington.

It was May of 1812 when Clark got together his chiefs of the Great and Little Osages, Sacs, Foxes, Shawnees, and Delawares.

"Ahaha! Great Medicine!" whispered the Indians, when General Clark discovered their wily plans.

Nothing could be hid from the Red Head Chief. Feared and beloved, none other could better have handled the inflammable tribes at that moment. Old chiefs among them remembered his brother of the Long Knives, and looked upon this Clark as his natural successor. And the General took care not to dispel this fancy, but on every occasion strengthened and deepened it.

Never before in St. Louis had Indians been watched so strenuously. Moody, taciturn, repelling familiarity, they bore the faces of men who knew secrets. Tecumseh had whispered in their ear. "Shall we listen to Tecumseh?" They were wavering.

Cold, impassively stoic, they heeded no question when citizens impelled by curiosity or friendly feeling endeavoured to draw them into conversation. If pressed too closely, the straight forms lifted still more loftily, and wrapping their blankets closer about them the council chiefs strode contemptuously away.

But if Clark spoke, every eye was attention.

"Before we go," said Clark, "I advise you to make peace with one another and bury the hatchet."

They did, and for the most part kept it for ever.

It was May 5 when Clark started with his embassy of ninety chiefs to see their "Great God, the President," as they called Madison, following the old trail to Vincennes, Louisville, and Pittsburg. Along with them went a body-guard of soldiers, and also Mrs. Clark, her maids, and the two little boys, on the way to Fincastle. Mrs. Clark's especial escort was John O'Fallon, nineteen years of age, aide to Harrison at Tippecanoe, who had come to his uncle at St. Louis immediately after the battle.

In their best necklaces of bears' claws the chiefs arrived at Washington. War had been declared against Great Britain. There was a consultation with the President.

"We, too, have declared war," announced the redmen, as they strode with Clark from the White House. But Black Hawk of the Rock River Sacs was not there. He had followed Tecumseh.

About the same time, on the eastern bank of the Detroit river Tecumseh was met by anxious Ohio chiefs who remembered Wayne.

"Let us remain neutral," they pleaded. "This is the white man's war."

Tecumseh shook his tomahawk above the Detroit. "My bones shall bleach on this shore before I will join in any council of neutrality."

"The Great Father over the Big Water will never bury his war-club until he quiets these troublers of the earth," said General Brock to Tecumseh's redmen. Then came larger gifts than ever from "their British Father."

"War is declared! Go," said Tecumseh, "cut off Fort Dearborn before they hear the news!" Two emissaries from Tecumseh came flying into the Illinois.

That night the Indians started for Chicago on her lonely lake. Black Partridge mounted his pony and tried to dissuade them. He could not. Then spurring he reached Fort Dearborn first. With tears he threw down his medal before the astonished commander.

"My young men have gone on the warpath. Here is your medal. I will not wear an emblem of friendship when I am compelled to act as an enemy."

Before the sun went down the shores of Lake Michigan were red with the blood of men, women, and children. Like the Rhine of old France, the lakes were still the fighting border.

President Madison felt grateful to Clark for the step he had taken with the Indians.

"Will you command the army at Detroit?"

"I can do more for my country by attending to the Indians," was the General's modest reply.

The country waited to hear that Hull had taken Upper Canada. Instead the shocked nation heard, "_Hull has surrendered_!"

"Hull has surrendered!"

Runners flew among the Indians to the remotest border,--the Creeks heard it before their white neighbours. Little Crow and his Sioux snatched up the war hatchet. Detroit had fallen with Tecumseh and Brock at the head of the Anglo-Indian army.

"We shall drive these Americans back across the Ohio," said General Brock.

At this, the old and popular wish of the Lake Indians, large numbers threw aside their scruples and joined in the war that followed.

In December General Clark was appointed Governor of the newly organised territory of Missouri.

Meanwhile in the buff and blue stage coach, a huge box mounted on springs, Julia and her children were swinging toward Fotheringay. The air was hot and dusty, the leather curtains were rolled up to catch the slightest breeze, and the happy though weary occupants looked out on the Valley of Virginia.

Forty miles a day the coach horses travelled, leaving them each evening a little nearer their destination. The small wayside inns lacked comforts, but such as they were our travellers accepted thankfully. Now and then the post-rider blew his horn and dashed by them, or in the heat of the day rode leisurely in the shade of poplars along the road, furtively reading the letters of his pack as he paced in the dust.

And still over the mountains were pouring white-topped Conestoga waggons, careening down like boats at sea, laden with cargoes of colonial ware, pewter, and mahogany. The golden age of coaching times had come, and magnificent horses, dappled grays and bays in scarlet-fringed housings and jingling bells, seemed bearing away the world on wheels.

To the new home Julia was coming, at Fotheringay.

Before the coach stopped Julia perceived through enshrining trees Black Granny standing in the wide hallway. Throwing up her apron over her woolly head to hide the tears of joy,--

"Laws a-honey! Miss Judy done come hum!"

"Fotheringay!" sang out the dusty driver with an unusual flourish of whip-lash and echo-waking blast of the postillion's horn. In a trice the steps were down, and surrounded by babies and bandboxes, brass nail-studded hair trunks and portmanteaus of pigskin, "Miss Judy" was greeted by the entire sable population of Fotheringay. Light-footed as a girl she ran forward to greet her father, Colonel Hancock. The Colonel hastened to his daughter,--

"Hull has surrendered," he said.

XI

_CLARK GUARDS THE FRONTIER_

The Indian hunt was over; they were done making their sugar; the women were planting corn. The warriors hid in the thick foliage of the river borders, preparing for war.

"Madison has declared war against England!"

The news was hailed with delight. Now would end this frightful suspense. In Illinois alone, fifteen hundred savages under foreign machinations held in terror forty thousand white people,--officers and soldiers of George Rogers Clark and others who had settled on the undefended prairies.

"Detroit has fallen!"

"Mackinac is gone!"

"The savages have massacred the garrison at Fort Dearborn!"

"They are planning to attack the settlements on the Mississippi. If the Sioux join the confederacy--" cheeks paled at the possibility.

The greatest body of Indians in America resided on the Mississippi. Who could say at what hour the waters would resound with their whoops? Thousands of them could reach St. Louis or Cahokia from their homes in five or six days. Immense quantities of British gifts were coming from the Lakes to the Indians at Peoria, Rock Island, Des Moines.

"Yes, we shall attack when the corn is ripe," said the Indians at Fort Madison.

"Unless I hear shortly of more assistance than a few rangers I shall bury my papers in the ground, send my family off, and fight as long as possible," said Edwards, the Governor of Illinois.

In Missouri, surrounded by Pottawattamies, champion horsethieves of the frontier, and warlike Foxes, Iowas, and Kickapoos, the settlers ploughed their fields with sentinels on guard. Horns hung at their belts to blow as a signal of danger. In the quiet hour by the fireside, an Indian would steal into the postern gate and shoot the father at the hearth, the mother at her evening task.

Presently the settlers withdrew into the forts, unable to raise crops. With corn in the cabin loft, the bear hunt in the fall, the turkey hunt at Christmas, and venison hams kept over from last year, still there was plenty.

Daniel Boone, the patriarch of about forty families, ever on the lookout with his long thin eagle face, ruled by advice and example. The once light flaxen hair was gray, but even yet Boone's step was springy as the Indian's, as gun in hand he watched around the forts.

Maine, Montana, each has known it all, the same running fights of Kentucky and Oregon. Woe to the little children playing outside the forted village,--woe to the lad driving home the cows,--woe to the maid at milking time.

The alarm was swelled by Quas-qua-ma, a chief of the Sacs, a very pacific Indian and friend of the whites, who came by night to bring warning and consult Clark. In his search Quas-qua-ma tip-toed from porch to porch. Frightened habitants peered through the shutters.

"What ees wanted?"

"The Red Head Chief."

But Clark had not arrived.

"We must take this matter into our own hands," said the people. "British and Indians came once from Mackinac. They may again."

"Mackinac? They are at Fort Madison now, murdering our regulars and rangers. How long since they burned our boats and cargoes at Fort Bellevue? Any day they may drop down on St. Louis."

"We must fortify."

"The old bastions may be made available for service."

"The old Spanish garrison tower must be refitted for the women and children."

Such were the universal conclusions. Men went up the river to the islands to bring down logs. Another party set to work to dig a wide, deep ditch for a regular stockade.

When Clark arrived to begin his duties as Territorial Governor he found St. Louis bordering on a state of panic. There was the cloud-shadow of the north. Below, one thousand Indians, Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Catawbas on a branch of the Arkansas within three days' journey of Saint Genevieve were crossing the river at Chickasaw Bluffs. Tecumseh's belts of wampum were flying everywhere.

In their best necklaces of bears' claws Clark's ninety chiefs came home, laden with tokens of esteem. Civilised military dress had succeeded the blanket; the wild fierce air was gone.

"We have declared war against Kinchotch [King George]," said the proud chiefs, taking boat to keep their tribes quiet along the west.

A sense of security returned to St. Louis. Would they not act as a barrier to tribes more remote? The plan for local fortification was abandoned, but a cordon of family blockhouses was built from Bellefontaine to Kaskaskia, a line seventy-five miles in length, along which the rangers rode daily, watching the red marauders of Illinois. The Mississippi was picketed with gunboats.

"Whoever holds Prairie du Chien holds the Upper Mississippi," said Governor Clark. "I will go there and break up that rendezvous of British and Indians."

Who better than Clark knew the border and the Indian? He could ply the oar, or level the rifle, or sleep at night on gravel stones.

"It requires time and a little smoking with Indians if you wish to have peace with them."

As soon as possible a gunboat, the _Governor Clark_, and several smaller boats, manned with one hundred and fifty volunteers and sixty regular troops, went up into the hostile country. Fierce Sacs glared from Rock Island, Foxes paused in their lead digging at Dubuque's mines,--lead for British cannon.

Although on Missouri territory, Prairie du Chien was still occupied by Indians and traders to the exclusion of Americans. Six hundred, seven hundred miles above St. Louis, a little red bird whispered up the Mississippi, "Long Knives coming!" The traders retired.

"Whoever enjoys the trade of the Indians will have control of their affections and power," said Clark. "Too long have we left this point unfortified."

A great impression had been made on the savages by the liberality of the British traders. Their brilliant red coats--"Eenah! eenah! eenamah!" exclaimed the Sioux.

But now the Long Knives! Wabasha, son of Wabasha of the Revolution, remembered the Long Knives. When Clark arrived at Prairie du Chien Wabasha refused to fight him. Red Wing came down to the council. Upon his bosom Rising Moose proudly exhibited a medal given him by Captain Pike in 1805. The Indians nicknamed him "Tammaha, the Pike."

Twenty-five leagues above Tammaha's village lived Wabasha, and twenty-five above Wabasha, the Red Wing, all great chiefs of the Sioux, all very friendly now to the Long Knife who had come up in his gunboat.

Since time immemorial Wabasha had been a friend of the British, twice had he, the son of Wabasha I., been to Quebec and received flags and medals. But now he remembered Captain Pike who visited their northern waters while Lewis and Clark were away at the west. Grasping the hand of Clark,--

"We have the greatest friendship for the United States," said the chiefs,--all except Little Crow. He was leading a war party to the Lakes.

Leaving troops to erect a fort and maintain a garrison at the old French Prairie du Chien, Governor Clark returned to his necessary duties at St. Louis. Behind on the river remained the gunboat to guard the builders.

"A fort at the Prairie?" cried the British traders at Mackinac. "That cuts off our Dakota trade." And forthwith an expedition was raised to capture the garrison.

Barely was the rude fortification completed before a force of British and Chippewas were marching upon it.

"I will not fight the Big Knives any more," said Red Wing.

"Why?" asked the traders.

"The lion and the eagle fight. Then the lion will go home and leave us to the eagle." Red Wing was famed for foretelling events at Prairie du Chien.

In June Manuel Lisa came down the Missouri.

"De Arrapahoe, Arikara, Gros Ventre, and Crow are at war wit' de American. De British Nort'west traders embroil our people wit' de sauvages to cut dem off!"

"We must extend the posts of St. Louis to the British border," cautioned Clark to Lisa. "And if necessary arm the Yanktons and Omahas against the Sacs and Iowas. I herewith commission you, Lisa, my especial sub-agent among the nations of the Missouri to keep them at peace."

Very well Clark knew whom he was trusting. Now that war had crippled the Missouri Fur Company, Lisa alone represented them in the field. Familiar with the fashions of Indians, the size and colour of the favourite blanket, the shape and length of tomahawks, no trader was more a favourite than Manuel Lisa. Besides, he still maintained the company's posts,--Council Bluffs with the Omahas, six hundred miles up the Missouri, and another at the Sioux, six hundred miles further still, with two hundred hunters in his employ. Here was a force not to be despised.

Ten months in the year Lisa was buried in the wilderness, hid in the forest and the prairie, far from his wife in St. Louis. Wily, winning, and strategic, no trader knew Indians better.

"And," continued the Governor, "I offer you five hundred dollars for sub-agent's salary."

"A poor five hundred tollar!" laughed Lisa. "Eet will not buy te tobacco which I give annually to dose who call me Fader. But Lisa will go. His interests and dose of de Government are one."

Then after a moment's frowning reflection,--"I haf suffered enough," almost wailed Lisa, "I haf suffered enough in person and in property under a different government, to know how to appreciate de one under w'ich I now live."

Even while they were consulting, "Here is your friend, de Rising Moose!" announced old Antoine Le Claire.

"Rising Moose?" Governor Clark started to his feet as one of the Prairie du Chien chiefs came striding through the door.

"The fort is taken, but I will not fight the Long Knife. Tammaha is an American."

All the way down on the gunboat riddled with bullets, Tammaha had come with the fleeing soldiers to offer his tomahawk to Governor Clark. The guns were not yet in when the enemy swept down on the fort at Prairie du Chien.

"Prairie du Chien lost? It shall be recovered. Wait until Spring."

And the British, too, said, "Wait until Spring and we will take St. Louis." But they feared the gunboats.

Governor Clark accepted Tammaha's service, commissioning him a chief of the Red Wing band of Sioux. "Wait and go up with Lisa. Tell your people the Long Knife counsels them to remain quiet."

When Lisa set out for the north as agent of both the fur business and that of the Government, he carried with him mementoes and friendly reminders to all the principal chiefs of the northern tribes.

Big Elk of the Omahas, Black Cat and Big White of the Mandans, Le Borgne of the Minnetarees, even the chiefs of the dreaded Teton Sioux were not forgotten. The Red Head had been there, had visited their country. He was the son of their Great Father,--they would listen to the Red Head Chief.

At this particular juncture of our national history, Clark the Red Head and Manuel Lisa the trader formed a fortunate combination for the interests of the United States. Their words to the northern chiefs were weighty. Their gifts were continued pledges of sacred friendship. While the eyes of the nation were rivetted on the conflict in the East and on the ocean, Clark held the trans-Mississippi with even a stronger grip than his illustrious brother had held the trans-Alleghany thirty years before.

Along with Lisa up the Missouri to the Dakotas went Tammaha, the Rising Moose, and crossed to Prairie du Chien.

"Where do you come from and what business have you here?" cried the British commander, rudely jerking Tammaha's bundle from his back and examining it for letters.

"I come from St. Louis," answered the Moose. "I promised the Long Knife I would come to Prairie du Chien and here I am."

"Lock him in the guard house. He ought to be shot!" roared the officer.

"I am ready for death if you choose to kill me," answered Rising Moose.

At last in the depth of winter they sent him away.

Determined now, the old chief set out in the snows to turn all his energy against the British.

"The Old Priest," said some of the Indians, "Tammaha talks too much!"

All along the Missouri, from St. Louis to the Mandans, Lisa held councils with the Indians with wonderful success. But the Mississippi tribes, nearer to Canada, were for the most part won over to Great Britain.

In other directions Governor Clark sent out for reports from the tribes. The answer was appalling. As if all were at war, a cordon of foes stretched from the St. Lawrence to the Arkansas and Alabama.

Even Black Partridge,--at the Fort Dearborn massacre he had snatched Mrs. Helm from the tomahawk and held her in the lake to save her life. Late that night at an Indian camp a friendly squaw-mother dressed her wounds. Black Partridge loved that girl.

"Lieutenant Helm is a prisoner among the Indians," said agent Forsythe at Peoria. "Here are presents, Black Partridge. Go ransom him. Here is a written order on General Clark for one hundred dollars when you bring him to the Red Head Chief."

Black Partridge rode to the Kankakee village and spread out his presents. "And you shall have one huntret tollars when you bring him to te Red Head Chief."

"Not enough! Not enough!" cried the Indians.

"Here, then, take my pony, my rifle, my ring," said the Partridge, unhooking the hoop of gold from his nose. The bargain was made. The man was ransomed, and mounted on ponies all started for St. Louis. Lieutenant Helm was saved.

Late at night, tired and hungry, the rain falling in torrents, without pony or gun, Black Partridge arrived at his village on Peoria Lake. His village? It was gone. Black embers smouldered there.

Wrapped in his blanket, Black Partridge sat on the ground to await the revelation of dawn. Wolves howled a mournful wail in his superstitious ear. Day dawned. There lay the carnage of slaughter,--his daughter, his grandchild, his neighbours, dead. The rangers had burnt his town.

Breathing vengeance, "I will go on the war path," said Black Partridge, the Pottawattamie.

Two hundred warriors went from the wigwams of Illinois under Black Partridge, Shequenebec sent a hundred from his stronghold at the head of Peoria Lake, Mittitass led a hundred from his village at the portage on the Rivière des Plaines. Painted black they came, inveterate since Tippecanoe.

"Look out for squalls," wrote John O'Fallon from St. Louis to his mother at Louisville. "An express arrived from Fort Madison yesterday informing that the sentinels had been obliged to fire upon the Indians almost every night to keep them at their distance. Indians are discovered some nights within several feet of the pickets."

Black Hawk was there. Very angry was Black Hawk at the building of Fort Madison at the foot of Des Moines rapids.

While Lewis and Clark were gone in 1804, William Henry Harrison, directed by Jefferson, made a treaty with the Sacs and Foxes by which they gave up fifty millions of acres. Gratiot, Vigo, the Chouteaus, and officers of the state and army, Quasquama and four other chiefs, attached their names to that treaty in the presence of Major Stoddard.

"I deny its validity!" cried Black Hawk. "I never gave up my land."

Now Black Hawk was plotting and planning and attacking Fort Madison, until early in September a panting express arrived at St. Louis.

"Fort Madison is burned, Your Excellency."

"How did it happen?" inquired the Governor.

"Besieged until the garrison was reduced to potatoes alone, we decided to evacuate. Digging a tunnel from the southeast blockhouse to the river, boats were made ready. Slipping out at night, crowding through the tunnel on hands and knees, our last man set fire to Fort Madison. Like tinder the stockade blazed, kissing the heavens. Indians leaped and yelled with tomahawks, expecting our exit. At their backs, under cover of darkness, we escaped down the Mississippi."

XII

_THE STORY OF A SWORD_

"Show me what kind of country we have to march through," said the British General to Tecumseh, after Detroit had fallen.

Taking a roll of elm-bark Tecumseh drew his scalping knife and etched upon it the rivers, hills, and woods he knew so well. And the march began,--to be checked at Fort Stephenson by a boy of twenty-one.

It was the dream and hope of the British Fur Companies to extend their territory as far within the American border as possible. The whole War of 1812 was a traders' war. Commerce, commerce, for which the world is battling still, was the motive power on land and sea.

At the Lakes now, the British fur traders waved their flags again above the ramparts of Detroit. "We must hold this post,--its loss too seriously deranges our plans."

Smouldering, the old Revolutionary fires had burst anew. Did George III. still hope to conquer America?

"Hull surrendered?" America groaned at the stain, the stigma, the national disgrace! In a day regiments leaped to fill the breach. "Detroit must be re-taken!"

Along the Lakes battle succeeded battle in swift succession.

At Louisville two mothers, Lucy and Fanny, were anxious for their boys. Both George Croghan and John O'Fallon had been with Harrison at Tippecanoe. Both had been promoted. Then came the call for swords.

"Get me a sword in Philadelphia," wrote O'Fallon to his mother.

"Send me a sword to Cincinnati," begged Croghan.

Sitting under the trees at Locust Grove the sisters were discussing the fall of Detroit. Fanny had John O'Fallon's letter announcing the burning of Fort Madison. Lucy was devouring the last impatient scrawl from her fiery, ambitious son, George Croghan, now caged in an obscure fort on Sandusky River near Lake Erie.

"The General little knows me," wrote Croghan. "To assist his cause, to promote in any way his welfare, I would bravely sacrifice my best and fondest hopes. I am resolved on quitting the army as soon as I am relieved of the command of this post."

Scarcely had the two mothers finished reading when a shout rang through the streets of Louisville.

"Hurrah for Croghan! Croghan! Croghan!"

"Why, what is the matter?"

Pale with anxiety Lucy ran to the gate. The whole street was filled with people coming that way. In a few hurried words she heard the story from several lips at once.

"Why, you see, Madam, General Harrison was afraid Tecumseh would make a flank attack on Fort Stephenson, in charge of George Croghan, and so ordered him to abandon and burn it. But no,--he sent the General word, 'We are determined to hold this place, and by heaven we will!'

"That night George hastily cut a ditch and raised a stockade. Then along came Proctor and Tecumseh with a thousand British and Indians, and summoned him to surrender.

"The boy had only one hundred and sixty inexperienced men and a single six-pounder, but he sent back answer: 'The fort will be defended to the last extremity. No force, however great, can induce us to surrender. We are resolved to hold this post or bury ourselves in its ruins.'"

Tears ran down Lucy's cheeks as she listened,--she caught at the gate to keep from falling. Before her arose the picture of that son with red hair flying, and fine thin face like a blooded warhorse,--she knew that look.

"Again Proctor sent his flag demanding surrender to avoid a terrible massacre.

"'When this fort is taken there will be none to massacre,' answered the boy, 'for it will not be given up while a man is left to resist!'

"The enemy advanced, and when close at hand, Croghan unmasked his solitary cannon and swept them down. Again Proctor advanced, and again the rifle of every man and the masked cannon met them. Falling back, Proctor and Tecumseh retreated, abandoning a boatload of military stores on the bank."

"Hurrah for Croghan! Croghan! Croghan!" again rang down the streets of Louisville. The bells rang out a peal as the Stars and Stripes ran up the flag-staff.

"The little game cock, he shall have my sword," said George Rogers Clark, living again his own great days.

And with that sword there was a story.

When Tippecanoe was won and the world was ringing with "Harrison!" men recalled another hero who "with no provisions, no munitions, no cannon, no shoes, almost without an army," had held these same redmen at bay.

"And does he yet live?"

"He lives, an exile and a hermit on a Point of Rock on the Indiana shore above the Falls of the Ohio."

"Has he no recognition?"

Men whispered the story of the sword.

When John Rogers went back from victorious Vincennes with Hamilton a prisoner-of-war, the grateful Virginian Assembly voted George Rogers Clark a sword.

"And you, Captain Rogers, may present it."

The sword was ready, time passed, difficulties multiplied. Clark presented his bill to the Virginia Legislature. To his amazement and mortification the House of Delegates refused to allow his claim.

Clark went home, sold his bounty lands, and ruined himself to pay for the bread and meat of his army.

And then it was rumoured, "To-day a sword will be presented to George Rogers Clark."

All the countryside gathered, pioneers and veterans, with the civic and military display of that rude age to see their hero honoured. The commissioner for Virginia appeared, and in formal and complimentary address delivered the sword. The General received it; then drawing the long blade from its scabbard, plunged it into the earth and broke it off at the hilt. Turning to the commissioner, he said, "Captain Rogers, return to your State and tell her for me first to be just before she is generous."

For years those old veterans had related to their children and grandchildren the story of that tragic day when Clark, the hero, broke the sword Virginia gave him.

But a new time had come and new appreciation. While the smoke of Tippecanoe was rolling away a member of the Virginia Legislature related anew the story of that earlier Vincennes and of the sword that Clark, "with haughty sense of wounded pride and feeling had broken and cast away." With unanimous voice Virginia voted a new sword and the half-pay of a colonel for the remainder of his life.