Chapter 4: The Shadow

After Col. Griscom had gone the council broke up into a confused debate. The men with families were in favor of staying at the fort until other emigrant trains arrived, when all might join and form a party strong enough to defy the Indians. Some of the others were in favor of pushing on and taking chances.

“Vat for we stay here!” exclaimed a little Frenchman named Pierre Bonneau, who had joined us at St Louis. “Vy we not go on: we came to find ze gold, and we not find it by staying here! I am a Frenchman and I am not afraid of ze Indian! Ze Frenchman always ready for ze fight! Sacré nom de Guerre! Mon Dieu! Vill not ze American dare to go vere ze Frenchman will lead?”

And little Bonneau jumped up and down in wrath, because no one answered him or paid any attention to him.

“What do you think about it?” asked Henry of me.

“Call Sam, and we’ll go out on the prairie away from all this noise and talk it over,” I said.

We walked beyond the gleam of the firelight and discussed the matter, somewhat moodily, too, it must be confessed, for we were bitterly disappointed at the wall that had been suddenly raised across our way. I believe that Henry and Starboard Sam were for going on immediately, but Sam was an illiterate old sailor, while Henry was very young. Therefore I looked upon myself as the leader, and thought that I should be cautious. Sam soon told what he thought about it. What were a few wild men to a crew of bold laddies who wanted to make a voyage; should the ship turn out of its course for them? That was not the way with the old Constitution, and he chanted the last verse of his favorite song:

Come, fill your glasses full, and we’ll drink to Capt. Hull! And so merrily well push about the brandy, oh! John Bull may toast his fill, let the world say what it will, But the Yankee boy for fighting is the dandy, oh!

“We are just as brave now as the Yankee boys were then!” exclaimed Henry, and the ever ready flash came into his eyes.

But I urged that we would be going into an unknown country to face dangers of which we knew nothing. It would be better to wait a little. We talked for some time and, absorbed in our subject, we walked a considerable distance from the fire. Then I proposed that we go back and take a good night’s sleep over the matter. My father used to say that a good sound nap was the best cure for indecision. Besides, I have noticed that things which have one look by night often have a different look by day.

Though we were beyond the lights of the camp and fort, there was a faint moon peeping through some clouds, and, looking back, I fancied I saw an indistinct figure behind us. It was some stroller from the camp, I supposed, but when I looked again the figure seemed to be following us. I told Henry and Sam, but they looked and said they saw nothing.

“Joe thinks the Indians are after him already!” said Henry, with a laugh.

“Not at all,” said I with some annoyance, for I did not relish the imputation upon my courage, joke though it was. “It is you who are burdened with too much imagination and are likely to see Indians where there are none.”

But we walked on, and when I looked back again the figure was still there, at the same distance behind us. I was sure now that some one was following us, and asking Henry and the sailor to go with me, I turned and walked back. But the figure melted away like a ghost in the shadows, and we found nothing.

I think that Henry intended to twit me about the power of my imagination, but probably he remembered my annoyance when he did it before, and on that account said nothing. We returned to the camp. On the way I thought much about the figure, which I was sure I had seen, and for a while the matter rested heavily on my mind. But when we came again within the cheerful circle of the firelight it passed away.