The Shadow of Victory: A Romance of Fort Dearborn

"I wouldn't," returned Forsyth.

"Why not?" demanded the other. "What do you know about women?"

"Not very much," admitted Robert, laughing; "but we're all at sea there, I fancy."

Gradually Ronald's temper improved, and in a short time he was his sunny self again. Peace dwelt in the woods along the river, and where the young officer stretched himself full length under an overhanging willow, the quiet coolness of the unsunned spaces put an end, insensibly, to his irritation.

"Say," he said, "did you ever write poetry?"

Forsyth smiled, remembering certain callow attempts in his college days. "Yes, I called it that."

"Then you're the very man for me," announced George, "for I'm going to write a poem!"

"What about?"

"Oh – er – anything. Poems don't have to be about anything, do they? It's to go with a present – a birthday present, you know."

"To a girl?"

Ronald laughed long and loud. "No," he cried; "of course not! It's a little tribute of affection for the Captain! Lord, but you're green!"

"How can I help you with it if I don't know the circumstances?" demanded Forsyth. "What is the present?"

"The present isn't much – the poem is the main part of it. It's an Indian basket that Mrs. B. P. made for me in return for two fists of beads." Ronald took off his cap, felt around carefully inside of it, and at length produced a slip of paper, much worn. "I've got some of it," he said, "and I thought if I kept it on my head it might stimulate thought, but it hasn't."

"Let's hear it."

The poet cleared his throat and read proudly:

"Lovely lady, take this basket;'Tis your willing slave who asks it."

Robert bit his lips, but managed to turn a serious face toward Ronald. "Is that all you've got?"

"That's all, so far. I thought myself into a headache about it, but I couldn't write any more. What shall I put in next?"

"I don't want to seem critical," observed Forsyth; "but you've got a false rhyme there."

"What's a 'false rhyme'?"

"'Basket' and asks it' – 'ask it' would be all right."

"It doesn't fit. We'll leave that just as it is – nobody but you would notice it, and you're not getting the present."

"What do you want to say next?"

"Well, I don't know, exactly," replied Ronald, confidentially. "Of course, I want it to be personal in a way, with a delicate reminder of my affection at the end of it."

"You've got a 'delicate reminder,' as you call it, in the second line."

"Never mind that; go to work."

"Lovely lady, take this basket;'T is your willing slave who asks it,"

repeated Robert, thoughtfully. "It was made by an Indian maiden – how would that do?"

"That's all right, only it was a squaw."

"It was made by an Indian squaw, then," continued Robert. "What rhymes with squaw?"

"Dunno."

"Paw," said Forsyth.

"It was made by an Indian squawWith a dark and greasy paw."

"Shut up!" said Ronald. "She'd throw it out of the window if she thought it wasn't clean. Call her a maiden if you like."

"It was made by an Indian maiden – there isn't any rhyme for 'maiden.'"

"Laden," suggested George, after long and painful thought.

"That's good, if we can work it in."

"It was made by an Indian maiden —With my love it now goes laden.

"How's that?"

"Fine!" beamed Ronald. "Say, I didn't know you were a poet!"

"Neither did I," replied Forsyth, modestly.

"Lovely lady, take this basket:'Tis your willing slave who asks it.It was made by an Indian maiden —With my love it now goes laden."

"That's simply magnificent!" said Ronald. "We ought to write another verse, hadn't we?"

"As you say."

"If we can do another one as good as that, it'll be a masterpiece. My name ought to come in at the end, hadn't it?"

"Nothing rhymes with 'Ronald,' does it?"

"I didn't mean that – I meant my front name."

"Oh," said Forsyth. He was wondering how the girl in Fort Wayne would like the poem, and longed to ask questions about her, but felt that it would be improper.

"'Forge' is the only thing I can think of for a rhyme," said the Ensign, at length; "that wouldn't do, would it?"

"My heart is burning like a forge,All because I love you – George."

"How's that?"

Ronald's delight knew no bounds. "The very thing!" he shouted. "Now, all we have to do is to put two lines above it and it will be done. That's the end of the verse, you know."

"Might put her name in," suggested Robert, not without guile.

Ronald appeared to consider it carefully. "No," he said, "that wouldn't do. One name is enough to have in it. Something ought to go in about her looks, don't you think so – eyes, or mouth, or skin?"

"'Skin,'" repeated Robert, laughing; "girls never have 'skin.' They call it their 'complexion.'"

"Thought you didn't know anything about women," George said, looking at him narrowly.

"Oh, come now, I can't help knowing that – any fool knows that!"

"Except me," put in the Ensign, pointedly. "However, I'll let the insult pass for the sake of the poem. Put in something about her mouth, can't you?"

The vision of Beatrice's scarlet, parted lips, with their dangerous curves, came before Robert.

"Reddest roses of the SouthAre not sweeter than your mouth,"

he suggested.

"Man," said Ronald, soberly, "you're a genius. Write it down quick before it gets away. Now I'll read the whole thing:

"Lovely lady, take this basket;'T is your willing slave who asks it.It was made by an Indian maiden —With my love it now goes laden."Reddest roses of the SouthAre not sweeter than your mouth;My heart is burning like a forge,All because I love you – George.

"Sounds like Shakespeare, doesn't it?"

"I wouldn't say that," answered Forsyth, with proper modesty.

"Got any good paper to write it on?"

"Only a little, but you're welcome to it."

"All right, let's go back and get it. Say, do you think she'll be pleased?"

"She can't help being pleased," Robert assured him.

"I'm ever so much obliged," said Ronald diffidently. "I never could have done it so well alone."

When they reached Mackenzie's, Beatrice came out on the piazza as Robert went in after the paper, and she was evidently inclined to conversation.

"Where have you been?" she asked sweetly.

"Oh, just up-stream a little ways," replied Ronald, carelessly.

"Have you had Queen out this morning?"

"Yes, I rode her half-way to Fort Wayne and back. She got pretty well used up, but it did her good."

"How dare you!" flamed Beatrice, stamping her foot.

Ronald laughed and leaned easily against the side of the house while she stormed at him. Even Robert's appearance did not have any effect upon her wrath.

"Say, Rob," said the Ensign, when she paused to take breath, "your cousin here doesn't seem to know a joke when she sees it. She thinks I'd ride that old gun-carriage she keeps in the garrison stables. Calm her down a bit, will you? Bye-bye!"

The fire died out of the girl's eyes and her lips quivered. Her breast was heaving, but she kept herself in check till Ronald slammed the gate, then her shoulders shook with sobs.

"Bee!" cried Robert. "Don't, dear!"

Instinctively he put his arm around her, and she leaned against his shoulder, sobbing helplessly, her self-control quite gone. Ronald was untying a pirogue at the landing, when he looked back and saw the inspiring tableau.

"Good Lord!" he said, under his breath, as Robert, with his arm still around her, led Beatrice into the house.

Later in the week, as Robert was on his way to breakfast, he met Maria Indiana in the long, narrow passage back of the living-rooms. "What have you there, baby?" he asked.

Maria Indiana held out a small Indian basket of wonderful workmanship, filled with berries, fresh and fragrant, with the dew still on them. Tucked in at one side was a note, written upon his own stationery, as he could not help seeing. "It's for Tuzzin Bee!" lisped the child. "Misser George said nobody mus' see!"

The little feet pattered down the passage, but Robert stood still for a moment, as if he had turned to stone. Then wild unrest possessed him and stabs of pain pierced his consciousness. "Fool that I was!" he said to himself, bitterly; "blind, cursed fool!"

All at once he knew that he loved Beatrice with every fibre of his being – that she held his heart in the hollow of her hand, to crush or hurt as she pleased. He was shaken like an aspen in a storm – this, then, was why her flower-like face had haunted his dreams.

Swiftly upon the knowledge came a great uplifting, such as Love brings to the man whose life has been clean. It was a proud heart yielding only to the keeper of its keys – the absolute surrender of a kingdom to its queen.

Beatrice was late to breakfast, as usual; and Robert, acutely self-conscious, could not meet her eyes. She brought the basket with her and offered the berries as her contribution to the morning meal. Between gasps of laughter she read the poem, thereby causing mixed emotions in Forsyth. "Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous?" she asked, wiping the tears of mirth from her eyes.

Robert wished that the giver might see the rare pleasure his gift had brought to the recipient, but swiftly reproached himself for the ungenerous thought.

"It was nice of him to remember your birthday, Bee," said Mrs. Mackenzie, who was always ready to defend Ronald.

"How did he know it was my birthday?" demanded Beatrice.

"I told him," replied Mrs. Mackenzie. "He asked me, long ago, to find out when it was and to let him know."

"Clever of him," commented Beatrice, somewhat mollified. "Why didn't you get something for my birthday, Cousin Rob?" she asked, with a winning smile.

"Perhaps I did," he answered; "the day is still young."

He had already decided what to give her, and knew that his offering would not suffer by comparison with Ronald's, even though no poem went with it; but when he went to his room to look in his box for the moccasins he had bought so long ago, he was astonished to find that they were gone.

He ransacked the room thoroughly, but without success. He could not even remember when he had seen them last, though he knew he had taken them down from the wall of his room and put them away. Still, he was not greatly concerned, for he was sure that he could go to the Indian camp and find another pair.

After school he started off on a long, lonely tramp, and returned at sunset, empty handed and exasperated. Beatrice had on her pink calico gown, and was sitting demurely upon the piazza – alone. She seemed like a rose to her lover, and he was about to tell her so, but she forestalled him.

"Where's my birthday present?" she asked, sweetly; "I've been looking for it all day!"

Then he told her about the moccasins he had for her, though he failed to mention the fact that he had bought them for her long before she came to Fort Dearborn. "When I went after them this morning," he said, "I discovered that they had been stolen. I've been out now to see if I couldn't get another pair, but I couldn't even find a squaw who was willing to make them. You don't know how sorry I am!"

"Never mind," she said soothingly, "it's no matter. Of course, I'd love to have the moccasins, but it's the thought, rather than the gift, and I'd rather know that you found out from Aunt Eleanor when my birthday was, and tried to give me pleasure, than to have the pleasure itself."

The colour mounted to Robert's temples, but he could not speak. He felt that his silence was a lie, and a cowardly one at that, but he was helpless before the girl's smile.

"What's that?" asked Beatrice, suddenly, pointing across the river.

There was a stir at the Fort. Men ran in and out, evidently under stress of great excitement, then a tall and stately being, resplendent in a new uniform, came out and turned a handspring on the esplanade.

"What's up?" shouted Robert.

Ronald turned another handspring and threw his cap high in the air before he condescended to answer. "Bully!" he roared; "we're going to fight! War is declared against England!"

CHAPTER XIV

HEART'S DESIRE

Those who had complained of Captain Franklin's lax methods were silent now. The fortifications were strengthened at every possible point and pickets were stationed in the woods, at points on the lake shore, along the Fort Wayne trail, and at various places on the prairie. There was no target practice for fear of a scarcity of ammunition; but the women were taught to handle the pistols, muskets, and even the cannon in the blockhouses.

Mackenzie, Forsyth, and Chandonnais divided the night watch at the trading station. At the first sound of a warning gun, the women and children were to be taken to the Fort. As before, Beatrice was to go to Captain Franklin's, Mrs. Mackenzie and the children to Lieutenant Howard's, and the men to barracks.

"I guess I'll move over anyway," said Beatrice. "I wouldn't care to make the trip in the night. I'll sleep at the Captain's and eat wherever I happen to be."

Mrs. Franklin was not told of the plan until Beatrice and Robert appeared at her door with the enterprising young woman's possessions, but she made her guest very welcome.

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming?" she asked.

"What would be the use of telling you?" inquired Beatrice. "You'd be obliged to say you wanted me, so I just came."

The Captain's wife was genuinely glad, for of late she had been very lonely. Franklin was always more or less absorbed in his own affairs, and the feeling between Lieutenant Howard and his superior officer did not tend to promote friendly relations between the women. There had been no open break, but each felt that there might be one at any time.

Ronald was in high spirits. Since he had given Beatrice the basket she had treated him more kindly, and he led Queen twenty times around the Fort every day for exercise, without a murmur of complaint. Beatrice stood at the gate and kept count; while, across the river, Forsyth sat on the piazza and envied the Ensign, even during his monotonous daily round.

Among the officers at the Fort the declaration of war had not been altogether unexpected, for vague rumours of England's arrogance upon the high seas had reached the western limits of civilisation, but the situation was covered only by general orders from the War Department.

For once, Lieutenant Howard agreed with the Captain, in that there seemed to be no great possibility of a British attack. However valiantly defended, the Fort could not be held long in the face of a vigorous assault from the enemy, since the fighting force numbered less than sixty men, but England would have nothing to gain from that quarter. Other points were far more important than Fort Dearborn, but the garrison was ready to fight, nevertheless.

Ronald was more sanguine, and lived in hourly hope of hearing the signal of the enemy's approach. He sharpened the edge of his sword to the keen thinness of a knife blade, and slept with one hand upon his pistol. Doctor Norton, too, was making elaborate preparations in the way of lint and bandages, and Ronald helped him make stretchers enough to last during a lifetime of war.

But the days passed peacefully, and there were no signs of fighting. The Indians were particularly lawless, but confined their violence to their own people, though they had lost, in a great measure, their wholesome fear of the soldiers at the Fort.

"The devils are insolent because they think there's going to be trouble, and in the general confusion it will escape notice," remarked Ronald, as he sat in the shade of Lieutenant Howard's piazza. "I'm in favour of stringing up a few of 'em by way of example to the rest."

"Yes," replied Howard, twisting his mustache, "and in a few minutes we'd have the entire Pottawattomie tribe upon us. You don't seem to understand that they knew war had been declared long before we did, and that even now, in all probability, they are in league with the enemy. No people on earth are too low down for England to ally herself with when she wants territory."

"True," answered Ronald; "but I'm not afraid of England. She's had one good lesson, and we'll give her another any time she wants it."

"We've got enough on our hands right here," sighed the Lieutenant, "without any more foreign wars. We've got to have it out with the Indians yet, and fight our way step by step. The trail of blood began at Plymouth and will end – God knows where. England is more or less civilised, but she isn't above setting the Indians upon us to serve her own ends."

"What are you talking about?" asked Beatrice, coming across from Captain Franklin's.

"Yes, do tell us," said Katherine, from the doorway.

"Affairs of state," answered the Lieutenant, easily.

"Any British in sight?" inquired Beatrice.

"Not yet," replied Ronald; "but the entire army is likely to drop on us at any minute."

"What would you do?" she asked curiously.

"Do?" repeated Ronald, striding up and down in front of the house; "we'd call in the pickets, bar the gates, man the guns, and send the women and children into the Captain's cellar."

"Could Queen go, too?"

"Can Queen go down a ladder?"

"She never has," answered Beatrice; "but she could if she wanted to – I'm sure of it."

"If that's the case," said Lieutenant Howard, "we'd better offer her to the British officers as a trick horse and buy off the attack."

"If they come in the daytime," continued Beatrice, ignoring the suggestion, "I will go out to meet them all by myself. I'll put on my pink dress and my best apron, and carry a white flag in one hand and the United States flag in the other. When the British captain comes running up to me to see what I want, I'll say: 'Captain, you are late, and to be late to dinner is a sin. We have been looking for you for some time, but we will forgive you if you will come now. The invitation includes the ladies of your party and all the officers.' They never could shoot after that."

Katherine joined in the laugh that followed, but her heart was uneasy, none the less. Like Ronald, she was continually expecting an attack and knew there could be but one result. She believed that the Indians and the British would make common cause against them, when the time came to strike.

"I'll tell you what," said Ronald, "some of us ought to go out and drag in Mad Margaret. If we stood her up on the stockade, there isn't an Indian in the tribe who would dare to aim an arrow or throw a tomahawk toward the Fort."

"I've never seen her," said Beatrice, thoughtfully.

"I hope you never will," answered Ronald, quickly. "She's crazy, of course; but she has an uncanny way about her that a sensitive person would consider disturbing. She pranced into the Fort on a Winter afternoon two years ago and prophesied a flood, followed by a terribly hot Summer, and no crops. When the Spring rains came, the river spread on all sides, and, sure enough, there were no crops that year."

"Was it hot, too?"

"Oh, Lord! Was it hot? If hell is any hotter I don't care to go to it."

"You talk as if that was your final destination," observed Katherine.

"That's as it may be," returned the Ensign. "I've often been invited to go, and several times I've been told that it was a fitting place of residence for such as I."

"I didn't know about that," said the Lieutenant, thoughtfully, referring to the fulfilment of the prophecy.

"You weren't here," explained Ronald. "It was before you came – in 1810, I think."

"Cousin Rob told me about her," said Beatrice. "He said she came to Uncle John's the same day he did, and he's seen her once or twice since. She always says that she sees much blood, then fire, and afterward peace."

"Yes," growled the Ensign; "she's for ever harping on blood. She stuck her claws into me that night, I remember – told me I should never have my heart's desire."

"What is your heart's desire?" asked Beatrice, lightly.

The Summer faded and another day came back. Once again he sat before the roaring fire at the trading station, with Forsyth, Mackenzie, and Chandonnais grouped around him, while phantoms of snow drifted by and sleet beat against the window panes. Then the door seemed to open softly and Mad Margaret made her way into the circle. Chandonnais' wild music sounded again in his ears, then he felt the thin, claw-like hands upon him and heard the high, tremulous voice saying, "You shall never have your heart's desire"; and, in answer to his question, "It has not come, but you will know it soon."

The blood beat in his ears, but he heard Beatrice say, once more, "What is your heart's desire?"

A flash of inward light revealed it – the girl who stood before him, with the sunlight on her hair, and her scarlet lips parted; strong and self-reliant, yet wholly womanly.

Ronald cleared his throat. "You shouldn't ask me such questions," he said, trying to speak lightly, "when all these people are around."

"We'd better go, Kit," remarked the Lieutenant; "we seem to be in the way."

"Anything to please," murmured Mrs. Howard, as they went into the house.

Ronald was looking at Beatrice, with all his soul in his eyes. "I – I must go," she stammered. "Aunt Eleanor will want me."

"Don't – dear!" The boyishness was all gone, and it was the voice of a man in pain. The deep crimson flamed into her face and dyed the whiteness of her neck just below the turn of her cheek. She did not dare to look at him, but fled ignominiously.

He did not follow her, but she heard him laugh – a hollow, mirthless laugh, with a catch in it that sounded like a sob. She never knew how she crossed the river, but she was surprised to find Forsyth waiting for her. As he helped her out of the pirogue, he said; "I was just going after you – we feared we had lost you."

"I'm not lost," she said shortly, "and I don't want people running around after me!"

The shadow that crossed his face haunted her, even while he sat opposite her at dinner and laughed and joked with her as usual. When Mrs. Mackenzie took the baby away for his afternoon nap, with Maria Indiana wailing sleepily at her skirts, Beatrice went to her own room, fearing to be alone with Robert. She was strangely restless, and something seemed to hang over her like an indefinite, threatening fate.

Outside was the drowsy hum of midsummer, where the fairy folk of the fields rubbed their wings together in the grass and the sun transformed the river to a sheet of shining silver. Ronald came out, took the good boat which belonged to the Fort, and pulled down-stream with long, steady strokes. The river was low, but he passed the bar with little difficulty and went on out into the lake.

Beatrice heard Robert singing happily to himself, but she could not stay any longer where she was. She gathered up her sewing and climbed out of the window, ungracefully but effectively, and went back to the Fort.

Katherine saw her coming and smiled. That morning, with quick intuition, she had read the secret in Ronald's heart, and suddenly knew how much she cared for the boy who teased and tormented, but never failed her if she needed him. In her own mind, she had written down Beatrice as an unsparing coquette, and determined to take up the cudgels in behalf of her victim.

The girl sewed nervously, breaking her thread frequently, but she kept at it until Katherine said, very gently, "Bee, George cares for you."

"I know!" snapped Beatrice. Her thread broke again, and her hands trembled so she could scarcely knot it.

"And Robert, too," said Katherine, presently.

"I know!"

"Well, dear, what are you going to do about it?"

"Cousin Kit," said the girl, angrily, "if you're going to lecture me, I'm going back home." She folded up her work, but Mrs. Howard put a restraining hand upon her arm.

"Don't, Bee. You know we talked about my trouble together – why can't we talk about yours?"

"I haven't any trouble!" Beatrice's face was flushed, but her voice was softer, and she seemed willing to stay.

"What are you going to do about it?" asked Katherine, once more.

"What can I do about it?" cried Beatrice, in a high key – "why, that's simple, I'm sure! I can go to Mr. Ronald and say, 'Please, Mr. Ronald, don't ask me to marry you, because I'm going to marry Cousin Rob. He doesn't know it yet; in fact, he hasn't even asked me, but I'm going to do it just the same.' Or, I might go to Cousin Rob and say, 'My dear Mr. Forsyth, I hope you won't ask me to marry you, because I'm going to marry Mr. Ronald, who hasn't asked me as yet. In fact," she continued, with her temper rising, "I've about concluded that I won't marry anybody!"