Chapter 13: On the Great Trail

Red Eagle and Blackstaffe were talking in Shawnee, every word of which Henry heard and understood. They sat in Turkish fashion upon the ground, on the same side of the fire, and the blaze flickered redly over the face of each. They were strong faces, primitive, fierce and cunning, but in different ways. The evil fame of Moses Blackstaffe, second only to that of Simon Girty, had been won by many a ruthless deed and undoubted skill and cunning. Yet he was a white man who had departed from the white man’s ways.

Red Eagle, the great Shawnee chief, was older, past fifty, and his bronzed face was lined deeply. His broad brow and the eyes set wide apart, expressed intellect--the Indian often had intellect in a high degree. He too was cruel, able to look upon the unmentionable tortures of his foes with pleasure, but it was a cruelty that was a part of his inheritance, the common practices of all the tribes, bred into the blood, through untold generations of forest life.

Henry felt a certain respect for Red Eagle, but none at all for Blackstaffe. Him he hated, with that fierceness of the forest, some of which had crept into his blood, and if he met him in battle he would gladly send a bullet through his heart. The man’s face, burnt almost as dark as that of an Indian, showed now in its most sinister aspect. He was suffering from chagrin, and he did not take the trouble to hide it, even from so great a man as Red Eagle, head chief of the Shawnees.

They were talking of Wyatt and the band they had left behind for the siege, and Henry, with a touch of forest humor, enjoyed himself as he listened.

“We did not see well those with whom we fought tonight and who escaped us,” said Red Eagle, “but they showed themselves to be warriors, great white warriors. They were more than a match for my young men.”

“It is true,” said Blackstaffe. “I didn’t see them at all, but only the five whom we left besieged in the cave could do what they did.”

“But Wyatt and good warriors hold them there.”

“So they hoped, but do they, Red Eagle? The manner in which those scouts escaped from our circle makes me believe their leader could have been none but this Henry Ware.”

“One of them was outside the cave. He may have come through the forest and have met other white men.”

“It might be so, but I’m afraid it isn’t. They have broken the siege in some manner and have eluded Wyatt. I had hoped that if he could not kill or capture them he would at least hold them there. It is not well for us to have them hanging upon our army and ambushing the warriors.”

“You speak wisely, Blackstaffe. The one they call Ware is only a youth, but he is full of wisdom and bravery. There was an affair of the belt bearers, in which he tricked even Yellow Panther and myself. If we could capture him and make him become one of us, a red warrior to fight the white people to whom he once belonged, he would add much to our strength in war.”

Blackstaffe shook his head most emphatically.

“Don’t think of that again, great chief,” he said. “It is a waste of time. He would endure the most terrible of all our tortures first. Think instead of his scalp hanging in your wigwam.”

The eyes of Red Eagle glistened.

“It would be a great triumph,” he said, “but our young men have chased him many times, and always he is gone like the deer. We have set the trap for him often, but when it falls he is away. None shoots so quickly or so true as he, and if one of our young men meets him alone in the forest it is the Shawnee over whom the birds sing the death song.”

“It’s not his scalp that we want merely for the scalp’s sake. You are a brave and great chief, O Red Eagle, and you know that Ware and his comrades are scouts, spies and messengers. It’s not so much the warriors whom we lose at their hands, but they’re the eyes of the woods. They always tell the settlements of our coming, and bring the white forces together. We must trap them on this march, if we have to spread out a belt of a hundred warriors to do it.”

“I hope the net won’t have any holes in it. We overtake the great band tomorrow, and then you’ll have all the warriors you need. They can be spread out on the flank as we march. Hark, Red Eagle, what was that?”

Henry himself in his covert started a little, as the long whine of a wolf came from a point far behind them. One of the warriors on the other side of the fire returned the cry, so piercing and ferocious in its note that Henry started again. But as the chief, the renegade and all the warriors rose to their feet, he withdrew somewhat further into the thicket, yet remaining where he could see all that might pass.

The far wolf howled again, and the near wolf replied. After that followed a long silence, with the renegade, Red Eagle and his men, standing waiting and eager. The signals showed that friends were coming to join friends, and Henry was as eager as they to see the arrivals. Yet he had a shrewd suspicion of their identity.

Dusky figures showed presently among the trees, as a silent line came on. Red Eagle and Blackstaffe were standing side by side, and the renegade broke into a low laugh.

“So Wyatt comes with his men, or most of them,” he said.

“I see,” said the chief in a tone of chagrin.

“And he comes without any prisoners.”

“But perhaps he brings scalps.”

“I see no sign of them.”

“It is yet too far.”

“If they came bearing scalps they would raise the shout of victory.”

Red Eagle, great chief of the Shawnees, shook his head sadly.

“It is sure that those whom we pursued in vain tonight were those whom we left besieged in the cave.”

“I fear that you speak the truth. They bring no scalps, nor any prisoners to walk on red hot coals.”

He spoke sadly and Henry noted a certain grim pathos in his words, which were the words of a savage. Yet the attitude of Red Eagle was dignified and majestic as he waited.

The file came on fast, Braxton Wyatt at its head. When the younger renegade reached the fire, he flung himself down beside it, seized a piece of deer meat, just cooked, and began to eat.

“I’m famished and worn out,” he said.

“What did you do with the scalps, Braxton?” asked Blackstaffe, in silky tones--it may be that he thought the younger renegade assumed too much at times.

“They’re on the heads of their owners,” growled Wyatt.

“And how did that happen? You had them securely blockaded in a hole in a stone wall. I thought you had nothing to do but wait and take them.”

“See here, Blackstaffe, I don’t care for your taunting. They slipped out, although we kept the closest watch possible, and as they passed they slew one of our best warriors. I don’t know how it was managed, but I think it was some infernal trick of that fellow Ware. Anyway, we were left with an empty cave, and then we came on as fast as we could. We did our best, and I’ve no excuses to make.”

“I do not mock you,” said Red Eagle gravely. “I have been tricked by the fox, Ware, myself, and so has Yellow Panther, the head chief of the Miamis. But we will catch him yet.”

“It seems that we have not yet made any net that will hold him,” said Blackstaffe with grim irony. Since it was not he directly, but Red Eagle and Wyatt who had failed, he found a malicious humor in taunting them. “It is the general belief that it was this same youth, Ware, who blew up the scows on which we were to carry our cannon, and then sank the lashed canoes. He seems to be uncommonly efficient.”

Among the broken men and criminals who fled into the woods joining the Indians and making war upon their own kind, Moses Blackstaffe was an outstanding character. He was a man of education and subtle mind. It was understood that he came from one of the oldest of the eastern provinces, and that there was innocent blood on his hands before he fled. But now he was high in the councils of the Indian nations, and, like the white man of his type who turns savage, he had become more cruel than the savages themselves.

His gaze as he turned it upon Braxton Wyatt was lightly ironical, and his tone had been the same. Again the younger renegade flushed through his tan.

“I have never denied to him wonderful knowledge and skill,” he said. “I have warned you all that he was the obstacle most to be dreaded. He has just proved it. Had he not been there to help ‘em at the cave we should have got ‘em all.”

“And they are giving the laurels of Shif’less Sol to me,” said Henry to himself in the thicket. “I shall have to hand them over to him when we go back.”

But the great Shawnee chief, Red Eagle, had heard enough talk between the two white men. He was full of the wisdom of his race, and he did not intend that Blackstaffe and Wyatt should impair their value to the tribes by creating ill feeling against each other.

“Peace, my sons,” he said in his grave and dignified manner. “It is not well for those who march with us to taunt each other. Words that may be light in the village, breed ill will on the war path. As head chief of the Shawnees it is for me to say these things to you.”

As Red Eagle stood up with his arms folded across his broad breast and his scarlet blanket hooked over his shoulder, he looked like a forest Roman. Henry thought him an impressive figure and such a thought, too, was most likely in the mind of Blackstaffe, as he said:

“The words of the chief are wise, and I obey. Red Eagle has proved many and many a time that he is the best fitted of all men to be the head chief of the Shawnees. Wyatt, I was only jesting. You and I must be good comrades here.”

He held out his hand and as Wyatt took it, his face cleared. Then the three turned to animated talk about their plans. It was agreed that they should push on in the morning at all speed, and join the main band and the artillery. Dangerous as these cannon were, Henry saw that the Indians gave them almost magic powers. They would completely blow away the settlements, and the forests would soon grow again, where the white man had cut a little open place for himself with the ax.

The conference over, Red Eagle wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down with his feet toward the fire. Again Henry felt an impulse of respect for him. He was true to his race and his inheritance, while the renegades were false in everything to theirs. He did not depart from the customs and thoughts bred into him by many generations, but the renegades violated every teaching of their own race that had brought civilization to the world, and he hated and despised them.

He saw Blackstaffe and Wyatt wrap themselves in their blankets and also lie down with their feet to the fire. All the Indians were at rest save two sentinels. Henry watched this strange scene a few minutes longer. The coals were dying fast and now he saw but indistinctly the figures of white men and red men, joined in a compact to destroy his people utterly, from the oldest man and woman to the youngest child.

Henry did not know it, but he was as much a knight of chivalry and romance as any mailed figure that ever rode with glittering lance. Beneath the buckskin hunting shirt beat a heart as dauntless as that of Amadis of Gaul or Palmerin of England, although there were no bards in the great forest to sing of his deeds and of the deeds of those like him.

He intended to stay only two or three minutes longer, but he lingered nevertheless. The Indian campfire gave forth hardly a glimmer. The figures save those of the sentinels became invisible. The wind blew gently and sang among the leaves, as if the forest were always a forest of peace, although from time immemorial, throughout the world, it had been stained by bloodshed. But the forest spell which came over him at times was upon him now. The rippling of the leaves under the wind he translated into words, and once more they sang to him the song of success.

This new task of his, straight through the heart of danger, had been achieved, and in his modesty, which was a modesty of thought as well as word, he did not ascribe it to any strength or skill in himself, but to the fact that a Supreme Being had chosen him for a time as an instrument, and was working through him. Like nearly all who live in the forest and spend most of their lives in the presence of nature, he invariably felt the power of invisible forces, directed by an omniscient and omnipotent mind, which the Indian has crystallized into the name Manitou, the same as God to Henry.

For that reason this forest spell was also the spirit of thankfulness. He had been guided and directed so far, and he felt that the guidance and direction would continue. All the omens and prophecies remained good, and, with the wind in the leaves still singing the song of victory in his ears, he silently crept away, inch by inch, even as he had come. Well beyond the Indian ear, he rose and returned swiftly to his comrades.

Ross was still on guard and the others sleeping when Henry’s figure appeared through the dusk, but they awoke and sat up when he called, low, to them.

“What are you wakin’ us up fur, Henry?” asked the shiftless one, as he rubbed a sleepy eye. “Are the warriors comin’? Ef so, I’d like to put on my silk knee breeches, an’ my bee-yu-ti-ful new silk stockin’s an’ my new shoes with the big silver buckles, afore I run through the forest fur my life.”

“No, they’re not coming, Sol,” said Henry. “They’re asleep off there and tomorrow morning Blackstaffe, Braxton Wyatt, Red Eagle and the others hurry on to join the main band.”

“How do you know that, Henry?”

“They told me.”

“You’ve been settin’ laughin’ an’ talkin’ with ‘em, right merry, I reckon.”

“They told me, just as I said. They told me their plan in good plain Shawnee.”

“An’ how come Braxton Wyatt with Red Eagle and Blackstaffe?”

“Leaving a fruitless quest, he overtook them. I was lying in the thicket, in hearing distance, when Wyatt came up with his men, joined Blackstaffe and Red Eagle, and had to tell them of his failure.”