Chapter 17: The Road to Wareville

Henry made no mistake when he predicted that they would have the right of way to the Falls. Days passed and the broad river bore them peacefully onward, the wind blowing into ripples its yellow surface which the sunshine turned into deep gold. The woods still formed a solid bank of dark green on either shore, and they knew that warriors might be lurking in them, but they kept to the middle of the current, and the Ohio was so wide that they were fairly safe from sharpshooters. In addition to the caution, habitual to borderers, they usually kept pretty well sheltered behind the stout sides of their boat.

“Tain’t no use takin’ foolish risks,” said Shif’less Sol wisely. “A bullet that you ain’t lookin’ fur will hurt jest ez bad ez one that you’re expectin’, an’ the surprise gives a lot o’ pain, too.”

Hence they always anchored at night, far out in the water, put out all lights, and never failed to keep watch. Several times they detected signs of their wary enemy. Once they saw flames twinkling on the northern shore, and twice they heard signal cries in the southern woods. But the warriors did not make any nearer demonstration, and they went on, content to leave alone when they were left alone.

All were eager to see the new settlement at the Falls, of which reports had come to them through the woods, and they were particularly anxious to find it a tower of strength against the fresh Indian invasion. Their news concerning it was not yet definite, but they heard that the first blockhouse was built on an island. Hence every heart beat a little faster when they saw the low outline of a wooden island rising from the bosom of the Ohio.

“According to all we’ve heard,” said Henry, “that should be the place.”

“It shorely is,” said Shif’less Sol, “an’ besides I see smoke risin’ among them trees.”

“Yes, and I see smoke rising on the southern shore also,” said Henry.

“Which may mean that they’ve made a second settlement, one on the mainland,” said Paul.

As they drew nearer Henry sent a long quavering cry, the halloo of the woodsman, across the waters, and an answering cry came from the edge of the island. Then a boat containing two white men, clad in deerskin, put out and approached the five cautiously. Henry and Paul stood up to show that they were white and friends, and the boat then came swiftly.

“Who are you?” called one of the men.

Henry replied, giving their identity briefly, and the man said:

“My name is Charles Curd, and this is Henry Palmer. We live at Louisville and we are on the watch for friends and enemies alike. We’re glad to know that you’re the former.”

They escorted the five back to the island, and curious people came down to the beach to see the forest runners land. Henry and his comrades for their part were no less curious and soon they were inspecting this little settlement which for protection had been cast in a spot surrounded by the waters of the Ohio. They saw Corn Island, a low stretch of soil, somewhat sandy but originally covered with heavy forest, now partly cleared away. Yet the ax had left sycamores ten feet through and one hundred feet high.

The whole area of the island was only forty-three acres, but it already contained several fields in which fine corn and pumpkins were raised. On a slight rise was built the blockhouse in the form of an Egyptian cross, the blockhouse proper forming the body of the cross, while the cabins of the settlers constituted the arms. In addition to the sycamores, great cottonwoods had grown here, but nearly all of them had been cut down, and then had been split into rails and boards. Back of the field and at the western edge of the river, was a magnificent growth of cane, rising to a height of more than twenty feet.

This little settlement, destined to be one of the great cities of the West, had been founded by George Rogers Clark only two or three years before, and he had founded it in spite of himself. Starting from Redstone on the Monongahela with one hundred and fifty militia for the conquest of the Illinois country he had been accompanied by twenty pioneer families who absolutely refused to be turned back. Finding that they were bound to go with him Clark gave them his protection, but they stopped at Corn Island in the Ohio and there built their blockhouse. Now it was a most important frontier post, a stronghold against the Indians.

Before they ate of the food offered to them Henry looked inquiringly at the smoke on the southern shore. Curd said with some pride:

“We’re growing here. We spread to the mainland in a year. Part of our people have moved over there, and some new ones have come from Virginia. On the island and the mainland together, we’ve now got pretty nearly two hundred people and we’ve named our town Louisville in honor of King Louis of France who is helping us in the East. We’ve got history, too, or rather it was made before we came here. An old chief, whom the whites called Tobacco, told George Rogers Clark that the Alligewi, which is their name for the Mound Builders, made their last stand here against the Shawnees, Miamis and other Indians who now roam in this region. A great battle occurred on an island at the Falls and the Mound Builders were exterminated. As for myself, I know nothing about it, but it’s what Tobacco said.”

Paul’s curiosity was aroused instantly and he made a mental note to investigate the story, when he found an opportunity, but he was never able to get any further than the Indian legend which most likely had a basis of truth. For the present, he and his comrades were content with the welcome which the people on Corn Island gave them, a welcome full of warmth and good cheer. Their hosts put before them water cooled in gourds, cakes of Indian meal, pies of pumpkin, all kinds of game, and beef and pork besides. While they ate and drank Henry, who as usual was spokesman, told what had occurred at Detroit, further details of the successful advance of the Indians and English under Bird, of which they had already heard, and the much greater but postponed scheme of destruction planned by Timmendiquas, de Peyster, Girty and their associates. Curd, Palmer and the others paled a little under their tan as they listened, but their courage came back swiftly.

“At any rate,” said Curd, “we’ve got a man to lead us against them, a man who strikes fast, sure and hard, George Rogers Clark, the hero of Vincennes and Kaskaskia, the greatest leader in all the West.”

“Why, is he here?” exclaimed Henry in surprise. “I thought he was farther East.”

“You’ll see him inside of half an hour. He was at the other blockhouse on the southern shore, and we sent up a signal that strangers were here. There he comes now.”

A boat had put out from the southern bank. It contained three men, two of whom were rowing, while the third sat upright in a military fashion. All his body beneath his shoulders was hidden by the boat’s sides, but his coat was of the Continental buff and blue, while a border cap of raccoon skin crowned his round head. Such incongruous attire detracted nothing from the man’s dignity and presence. Henry saw that his face was open, his gaze direct, and that he was quite young. He was looking straight toward the five who had come with their new friends down to the river’s edge, and, when he sprang lightly upon the sand, he gave them a military salute. They returned it in like manner, while they looked with intense curiosity at the famous leader of the border forces. Clark turned to Henry, whose figure and bearing indicated the chief.

“You come from the North, from the depths of the Indian country, I take it,” he said.

“From the very heart of it,” replied the youth. “I was a prisoner at Detroit, and my comrades were near by outside the walls. We have also seen Bird returning from his raid with his prisoners and we know that Timmendiquas, de Peyster, Girty, Caldwell, and the others are going to make a supreme effort to destroy every settlement west of the Alleghanies. A great force under Timmendiquas, Caldwell and Girty came part of the way but turned back, partly, I think, because of divisions among themselves and partly because they heard of your projected advance. But it will come again.”

The shoulders in the military coat seemed to stiffen and the eyes under the raccoon skin cap flashed.

“I did want to go back to Virginia,” said Clark, “but I’m glad that I’m here. Mr. Ware, young as you are, you’ve seen a lot of forest work, I take it, and so I ask you what is the best way to meet an attack?”

“To attack first.”

“Good! good! That was my plan! Report spoke true! We’ll strike first. We’ll show these officers and chiefs that we’re not the men to sit idly and wait for our foe. We’ll go to meet him. Nay more, we’ll find him in his home and destroy him. Doesn’t that appeal to you, my lads?”

“It does,” said five voices, emphatic and all together, and then Henry added, speaking he knew for his comrades as well as himself:

“Colonel Clark, we wish to volunteer for the campaign that we know you have planned. Besides the work that we have done here in the West, we have seen service in the East. We were at Wyoming when the terrible massacre occurred, and we were with General Sullivan when he destroyed the Iroquois power. But, sir, I wish to say that we do best in an independent capacity, as scouts, skirmishers, in fact as a sort of vanguard.”

Clark laughed and clapped a sinewy hand upon Henry’s shoulder.

“I see,” he said. “You wish to go with me to war, but you wish at the same time to be your own masters. It might be an unreasonable request from some people, but, judging from what I see of you and what I have heard of you and your comrades, it is just the thing. You are to watch as well as fight for me. Were you not the eyes of the fleet that Adam Colfax brought up the Ohio?”

Henry blushed and hesitated, but Clark exclaimed heartily:

“Nay, do not be too modest, my lad! We are far apart here in the woods, but news spreads, nevertheless, and I remember sitting one afternoon and listening to an old friend, Major George Augustus Braithwaite, tell a tale of gallant deeds by river and forest, and how a fort and fleet were saved largely through the efforts of five forest runners, two of whom were yet boys. Major Braithwaite gave me detailed descriptions of the five, and they answer so exactly to the appearance of you and your comrades that I am convinced you are the same. Since you are so modest, I will tell you to your face that I’d rather have you five than fifty ordinary men. Now, young sir, blush again and make the most of it!”

Henry did blush, and said that the Colonel gave them far too much credit, but at heart he, like the other four, felt a great swell of pride. Their deeds in behalf of the border were recognized by the great leader, and surely it was legitimate to feel that one had not toiled and fought in vain for one’s people.

A few minutes later they sat down with Clark and some of the others under the boughs of the big sycamore, and gave a detailed account of their adventures, including all that they had seen from the time they had left for New Orleans until the present moment.

“A great tale! a great tale!” said Clark, meditatively, “and I wish to add, Mr. Ware, an illuminating one also. It throws light upon forest councils and forest plans. Besides your service in battle, you bring us news that shows us how to meet our enemy and nothing could be of greater value. Now, I wish to say to you that it will take us many weeks to collect the needful force, and that will give you two lads ample time, if you wish, to visit your home in Wareville, taking with you the worthy schoolmaster whom you have rescued so happily.”

Henry and Paul decided at once to accept the suggestion. Both felt the great pulses leap at mention of Wareville and home. They had not seen their people for nearly two years, although they had sent word several times that they were well. Now they felt an overwhelming desire to see once again their parents and the neat little village by the river, enclosed within its strong palisades. Yet they delayed a few days longer to attend to necessary preliminaries of the coming campaign. Among other things they went the following morning to see the overflow settlement on the south shore, now but a year old.

This seed of a great city was yet faint and small. The previous winter had been a terrible one for the immigrants. The Ohio had been covered with thick ice from shore to shore. Most of their horses and cattle had frozen to death. Nevertheless they had no thought of going away, and there were many things to encourage the brave. They had a good harbor on the river at the mouth of a fine creek, that they named Beargrass, and back of them was a magnificent forest of gum, buckeye, cherry, sycamore, maple and giant poplars. It had been proved that the soil was extremely fertile, and they were too staunch to give up so fair a place. They also had a strong fort overlooking the river, and, with Clark among them, they were ready to defy any Indian force that might come.

But the time passed quickly, and Henry and Paul and the schoolmaster were ready for the last stage of their journey, deciding, in order that they might save their strength, to risk once more the dangers of the water passage. They would go in a canoe until they came to the mouth of the river that flowed by Wareville and then row up the current of the latter until they reached home. Shif’less Sol, Jim and Tom were going to remain with Clark until their return. But these three gave them hand-clasps of steel when they departed.

“Don’t you get trapped by wanderin’ Indians, Henry,” said the shiftless one. “We couldn’t get along very well without you fellers. Do most o’ your rowin’ at night an’ lay by under overhangin’ boughs in the day. You know more’n I do, Henry, but I’m so anxious about you I can’t keep from givin’ advice.”

“Don’t any of you do too much talkin’,” said Silent Tom. “Injuns hear pow’ful well, an’ many a feller hez been caught in an ambush, an’ hez lost his scalp jest ‘cause he would go along sayin’ idle words that told the Injuns whar he wuz, when he might hev walked away safe without thar ever knowin’ he wuz within a thousand miles uv them.”

“An’ be mighty particular about your cookin’,” said Long Jim. “Many a good man hez fell sick an’ died, jest ‘cause his grub wuzn’t fixed eggzackly right. An’ when you light your fires fur ven’son an’ buffalo steaks be shore thar ain’t too much smoke. More than once smoke hez brought the savages down on people. Cookin’ here in the woods is not cookin’ only, it’s also a delicate an’ bee-yu-ti-ful art that saves men’s lives when it’s done right, by not leadin’ Shawnees, Wyandots an’ other ferocious warriors down upon ‘em.”

Henry promised every one of the three to follow his advice religiously, and there was moisture in his and Paul’s eyes when they caught the last view of them standing upon the bank and waving farewell. The next instant they were hidden by a curve of the shore, and then Henry said:

“It’s almost like losing one’s right arm to leave those three behind. I don’t feel complete without them.”

“Nor do I,” said Paul. “I believe they were giving us all that advice partly to hide their emotion.”

“Undoubtedly they were,” said Mr. Pennypacker in a judicial tone, “and I wish to add that I do not know three finer characters, somewhat eccentric perhaps, but with hearts in the right place, and with sound heads on strong shoulders. They are like some ancient classic figures of whom I have read, and they are fortunate, too, to live in the right time and right place for them.”

They made a safe passage over a stretch of the Ohio and then turned up the tributary river, rowing mostly, as Shif’less Sol had suggested, by night, and hiding their canoe and themselves by day. It was not difficult to find a covert as the banks along the smaller river were nearly always overhung by dense foliage, and often thick cane and bushes grew well into the water’s edge. Here they would stop when the sun was brightest, and sometimes the heat was so great that not refuge from danger alone made them glad to lie by when the golden rays came vertically. Then they would make themselves as comfortable as possible in the boat and bearing Silent Tom’s injunction in mind, talk in very low tones, if they talked at all. But oftenest two of them slept while the third watched.

They had been three days upon the tributary when it was Henry who happened to be watching. Both Paul and the teacher slumbered very soundly. Paul lay at the stern of the boat and Mr. Pennypacker in the middle. Henry was in the prow, sitting at ease with his rifle across his knees. The boat was amid a tall growth of canes, the stalks and blades rising a full ten feet above their heads, and hiding them completely. Henry had been watching the surface of the river, but at last the action grew wholly mechanical. Had anything appeared there he would have seen it, but his thoughts were elsewhere. His whole life, since he had arrived, a boy of fifteen, in the Kentucky wilderness, was passing before him in a series of pictures, vivid and wonderful, standing out like reality itself. He was in a sort of twilight midway between the daylight and a dream, and it seemed to him once more that Providence had kept a special watch over his comrades and himself. How else could they have escaped so many dangers? How else could fortune have turned to their side, when the last chance seemed gone? No skill, even when it seemed almost superhuman, could have dragged them back from the pit of death. He felt with all the power of conviction that a great mission had been given to them, and that they had been spared again and again that they might complete it.

While he yet watched and saw, he visited a misty world. The wind had risen and out of the dense foliage above him came its song upon the stalks and blades of the cane. A low note at first, it swelled into triumph, and it sounded clearly in his ear, bar on bar. He did not have the power to move, as he listened then to the hidden voice. His blood leaped and a deep sense of awe, and of the power of the unknown swept over him. But he was not afraid. Rather he shared in the triumph that was expressed so clearly in the mystic song.

The note swelled, touched upon its highest note and then died slowly away in fall after fall, until it came in a soft echo and then the echo itself was still. Henry returned to the world of reality with every sense vivid and alert. He heard the wind blowing in the cane and nothing more. The surface of the river rippled lightly in the breeze, but neither friend nor enemy passed there. The stream was as lonely and desolate as if man had never come. He shook himself a little, but the spiritual exaltation, born of the song and the misty region that he had visited, remained.

“A sign, a prophecy!” he murmured. His heart swelled. The new task would be achieved as the others had been. It did not matter whether he had heard or had dreamed. His confidence in the result was absolute. He sat a long time looking out upon the water, but never moving. Anyone observing him would have concluded after a while that he was no human being, merely an image. It would not have seemed possible that any living organism could have remained as still as a stone so many hours.

When the sun showed that it was well past noon, Paul awoke. He glanced at Henry, who nodded. The nod meant that all was well. By and by Mr. Pennypacker, also, awoke and then Henry in his turn went to sleep so easily and readily that it seemed a mere matter of will. The schoolmaster glanced at him and whispered to Paul:

“A great youth, Paul! Truly a great youth! It is far from old Greece to this forest of Kaintuckee, but he makes me think of the mighty heroes who are enshrined in the ancient legends and stories.”

“That thought has come to me, too,” Paul whispered back. “I like to picture him as Hector, but Hector with a better fate. I don’t think Henry was born for any untimely end.”

“No, that could not be,” said the schoolmaster with conviction.

Then they relapsed into silence and just about the time the first shadow betokened the coming twilight Paul heard a faint gurgling sound which he was sure was made by oars. He touched the schoolmaster and whispered to him to listen. Then he pulled Henry’s shoulder slightly, and instantly the great youth sat up, wide awake.

“Someone is near,” whispered Paul. “Listen!”

Henry bent his head close to the water and distinctly heard the swishing of paddles, coming in the direction that they had followed in the night. It was a deliberate sound and Henry inferred at once that those who approached were in no hurry and feared no enemy. Then he drew the second inference that it was Indians. White men would know that danger was always about them in these woods.

“We have nothing to do but lie here and see them as they pass,” he whispered to his companions. “We are really as safe among these dense canes as if we were a hundred miles away, provided we make no noise.”

There was no danger that any of them would make a noise. They lay so still that their boat never moved a hair and not even the wariest savage on the river would have thought that one of their most formidable enemies and two of his friends lay hidden in the canes so near.