Erskine Dale—Pioneer

“Sh-h-h! It is not wise. Are you not known?”

Erskine hesitated.

Earlier that morning he had seen three officers riding in. Following was a youth not in uniform though he carried a sword. On the contrary, he was dressed like an English dandy, and then he found himself face to face with Dane Grey. With no sign of recognition the boy had met his eyes squarely and passed on.

“There is but one man who does know me and he did not recognize me. His name is Dane Grey. I am wondering what he is doing here. Can you find out for me and let me know?” The old priest nodded and Erskine slipped back to the woods.

At sunrise the great council began. On his way Erskine met Grey, who apparently was leaving with a band of traders for Detroit. Again Erskine met his eyes and this time Grey smiled:

“Aren’t you White Arrow?” Somehow the tone with which he spoke the name was an insult.

“Yes.”

“Then it’s true. We heard that you had left your friends at the fort and become an Indian again.”

“Yes?”

“So you are not only going to fight with the Indians against the whites, but with the British against America?”

“What I am going to do is no business of yours,” Erskine said quietly, “but I hope we shall not be on the same side. We may meet again.”

Grey’s face was already red with drink and it turned purple with anger.

“When you tried to stab me do you remember what I said?” Erskine nodded contemptuously.

“Well, I repeat it. Whatever the side, I’ll fight you anywhere at any time and in any way you please.”

“Why not now?”

“This is not the time for private quarrels and you know it.”

Erskine bowed slightly – an act that came oddly from an Indian head-dress.

“I can wait – and I shall not forget. The day will come.”

The old priest touched Erskine’s shoulder as the angry youth rode away.

“I cannot make it out,” he said. “He claims to represent an English fur company. His talk is British but he told one man – last night when he was drunk – that he could have a commission in the American army.”

The council-fire was built, the flames crackled and the smoke rolled upward and swept through the leafless trees. Three British agents sat on blankets and around them the chiefs were ringed. All day the powwow lasted. Each agent spoke and the burden of his talk varied very little.

The American palefaces had driven the Indian over the great wall. They were killing his deer, buffalo, and elk, robbing him of his land and pushing him ever backward. They were many and they would become more. The British were the Indian’s friends – the Americans were his enemies and theirs; could they choose to fight with their enemies rather than with their friends? Each chief answered in turn, and each cast forward his wampum until only Erskine, who had sat silent, remained, and Pontiac himself turned to him.

“What says the son of Kahtoo?”

Even as he rose the lad saw creeping to the outer ring his enemy Crooked Lightning, but he appeared not to see. The whites looked surprised when his boyish figure stood straight, and they were amazed when he addressed the traders in French, the agents in English, and spoke to the feathered chiefs in their own tongue. He cast the belt forward.

“That is Kahtoo’s talk, but this is mine.”

Who had driven the Indian from the great waters to the great wall? The British. Who were the Americans until now? British. Why were the Americans fighting now? Because the British, their kinsmen, would not give them their rights. If the British would drive the Indian to the great wall, would they not go on doing what they charged the Americans with doing now? If the Indians must fight, why fight with the British to beat the Americans, and then have to fight both a later day? If the British would not treat their own kinsmen fairly, was it likely that they would treat the Indian fairly? They had never done so yet. Would it not be better for the Indian to make the white man on his own land a friend rather than the white man who lived more than a moon away across the big seas? Only one gesture the lad made. He lifted his hand high and paused. Crooked Lightning had sprung to his feet with a hoarse cry. Already the white men had grown uneasy, for the chiefs had turned to the boy with startled interest at his first sentence and they could not know what he was saying. But they looked relieved when Crooked Lightning rose, for his was the only face in the assembly that was hostile to the boy. With a gesture Pontiac bade Crooked Lightning speak.

“The tongue of White Arrow is forked. I have heard him say he would fight with the Long Knives against the British and he would fight with them even against his own tribe.” One grunt of rage ran the round of three circles and yet Pontiac stopped Crooked Lightning and turned to the lad. Slowly the boy’s uplifted hand came down. With a bound he leaped through the head-dress of a chief in the outer ring and sped away through the village. Some started on foot after him, some rushed to their ponies, and some sent arrows and bullets after him. At the edge of the village the boy gave a loud, clear call and then another as he ran. Something black sprang snorting from the edge of the woods with pointed ears and searching eyes. Another call came and like the swirling edge of a hurricane-driven thunder-cloud Firefly swept after his master. The boy ran to meet him, caught one hand in his mane before he stopped, swung himself up, and in a hail of arrows and bullets swept out of sight.

XIII

The sound of pursuit soon died away, but Erskine kept Firefly at his best, for he knew that Crooked Lightning would be quick and fast on his trail. He guessed, too, that Crooked Lightning had already told the tribe what he had just told the council, and that he and the prophet had already made all use of the boy’s threat to Kahtoo in the Shawnee town. He knew even that it might cost him his life if he went back there, and once or twice he started to turn through the wilderness and go back to the fort. Winter was on, and he had neither saddle nor bridle, but neither fact bothered him. It was the thought of the white woman who was to be burned that kept him going and sent him openly and fearlessly into the town. He knew from the sullen looks that met him, from the fear in the faces of his foster-mother and the white woman who peered blindly from her lodge, and from the triumphant leer of the prophet that his every suspicion was true, but all the more leisurely did he swing from his horse, all the more haughtily stalk to Kahtoo’s tent. And the old chief looked very grave when the lad told the story of the council and all that he had said and done.

“The people are angry. They say you are a traitor and a spy. They say you must die. And I cannot help you. I am too old and the prophet is too strong.”

“And the white woman?”

“She will not burn. Some fur traders have been here. The white chief McGee sent me a wampum belt and a talk. His messenger brought much fire-water and he gave me that” – he pointed to a silver-mounted rifle – “and I promised that she should live. But I cannot help you.” Erskine thought quickly. He laid his rifle down, stepped slowly outside, and stretched his arms with a yawn. Then still leisurely he moved toward his horse as though to take care of it. But the braves were too keen and watchful and they were not fooled by the fact that he had left his rifle behind. Before he was close enough to leap for Firefly’s back, three bucks darted from behind a lodge and threw themselves upon him. In a moment he was face down on the ground, his hands were tied behind his back, and when turned over he looked up into the grinning face of Black Wolf, who with the help of another brave dragged him to a lodge and roughly threw him within, and left him alone. On the way he saw his foster-mother’s eyes flashing helplessly, saw the girl Early Morn indignantly telling her mother what was going on, and the white woman’s face was wet with tears. He turned over so that he could look through the tent-flaps. Two bucks were driving a stake in the centre of the space around which the lodges were ringed. Two more were bringing fagots of wood and it was plain what was going to become of him. His foster-mother, who was fiercely haranguing one of the chiefs, turned angrily into Kahtoo’s lodge and he could see the white woman rocking her body and wringing her hands. Then the old chief appeared and lifted his hands.

“Crooked Lightning will be very angry. The prisoner is his – not yours. It is for him to say what the punishment shall be – not for you. Wait for him! Hold a council and if you decide against him, though he is my son – he shall die.” For a moment the preparations ceased and all turned to the prophet, who had appeared before his lodge.

“Kahtoo is right,” he said. “The Great Spirit will not approve if White Arrow die except by the will of the council – and Crooked Lightning will be angry.” There was a chorus of protesting grunts, but the preparations ceased. The boy could feel the malevolence in the prophet’s tone and he knew that the impostor wanted to curry further favor with Crooked Lightning and not rob him of the joy of watching his victim’s torture. So the braves went back to their fire-water, and soon the boy’s foster-mother brought him something to eat, but she could say nothing, for Black Wolf had appointed himself sentinel and sat rifle in hand at the door of the lodge.

Night came on. A wildcat screeched, a panther screamed, and an elk bugled far away. The drinking became more furious and once Erskine saw a pale-brown arm thrust from behind the lodge and place a jug at the feet of Black Wolf, who grunted and drank deep. The stars mounted into a clear sky and the wind rose and made much noise in the trees overhead. One by one the braves went to drunken sleep about the fire. The fire died down and by the last flickering flame the lad saw Black Wolf’s chin sinking sleepily to his chest. There was the slightest rustle behind the tent. He felt something groping for his hands and feet, felt the point of a knife graze the skin of his wrist and ankles – felt the thongs loosen and drop apart. Noiselessly, inch by inch, he crept to the wall of the tent, which was carefully lifted for him. Outside he rose and waited. Like a shadow the girl Early Morn stole before him and like a shadow he followed. The loose snow muffled their feet as the noise of the wind had muffled his escape from the lodge, and in a few minutes they were by the riverbank, away from the town. The moon rose and from the shadow of a beech the white woman stepped forth with his rifle and powder-horn and bullet-pouch and some food. She pointed to his horse a little farther down. He looked long and silently into the Indian girl’s eyes and took the white woman’s shaking hand. Once he looked back. The Indian girl was stoic as stone. A bar of moonlight showed the white woman’s face wet with tears.

Again Dave Yandell from a watch-tower saw a topknot rise above a patch of cane now leafless and winter-bitten – saw a hand lifted high above it with a palm of peace toward him. And again an Indian youth emerged, this time leading a black horse with a drooping head. Both came painfully on, staggering, it seemed, from wounds or weakness, and Dave sprang from the tower and rushed with others to the gate. He knew the horse and there was dread in his heart; perhaps the approaching Indian had slain the boy, had stolen the horse, and was innocently coming there for food. Well, he thought grimly, revenge would be swift. Still, fearing some trick, he would let no one outside, but himself stood waiting with the gate a little ajar. So gaunt were boy and beast that it was plain that both were starving. The boy’s face was torn with briers and pinched with hunger and cold, but a faint smile came from it.

“Don’t you know me, Dave?” he asked weakly.

“My God! It’s White Arrow!”

XIV

Straightway the lad sensed a curious change in the attitude of the garrison. The old warmth was absent. The atmosphere was charged with suspicion, hostility. Old Jerome was surly, his old playmates were distant. Only Dave, Mother Sanders, and Lydia were unchanged. The predominant note was curiosity, and they started to ply him with questions, but Dave took him to a cabin, and Mother Sanders brought him something to eat.

“Had a purty hard time,” stated Dave. The boy nodded.

“I had only three bullets. Firefly went lame and I had to lead him. I couldn’t eat cane and Firefly couldn’t eat pheasant. I got one from a hawk,” he explained. “What’s the matter out there?”

“Nothin’,” said Dave gruffly and he made the boy go to sleep. His story came when all were around the fire at supper, and was listened to with eagerness. Again the boy felt the hostility and it made him resentful and haughty and his story brief and terse. Most fluid and sensitive natures have a chameleon quality, no matter what stratum of adamant be beneath. The boy was dressed like an Indian, he looked like one, and he had brought back, it seemed, the bearing of an Indian – his wildness and stoicism. He spoke like a chief in a council, and even in English his phrasing and metaphors belonged to the red man. No wonder they believed the stories they had heard of him – but there was shame in many faces and little doubt in any save one before he finished.

He had gone to see his foster-mother and his foster-father – old chief Kahtoo, the Shawnee – because he had given his word. Kahtoo thought he was dying and wanted him to be chief when the Great Spirit called. Kahtoo had once saved his life, had been kind, and made him a son. That he could not forget. An evil prophet had come to the tribe and through his enemies, Crooked Lightning and Black Wolf, had gained much influence. They were to burn a captive white woman as a sacrifice. He had stayed to save her, to argue with old Kahtoo, and carry the wampum and a talk to a big council with the British. He had made his talk and – escaped. He had gone back to his tribe, had been tied, and was to be burned at the stake. Again he had escaped with the help of the white woman and her daughter. The tribes had joined the British and even then they were planning an early attack on this very fort and all others.

The interest was tense and every face was startled at this calm statement of their immediate danger. Dave and Lydia looked triumphant at this proof of their trust, but old Jerome burst out:

“Why did you have to escape from the council – and from the Shawnees?” The boy felt the open distrust and he rose proudly.

“At the council I told the Indians that they should be friends, not enemies, of the Americans, and Crooked Lightning called me a traitor. He had overheard my talk with Kahtoo.”

“What was that?” asked Dave quickly.

“I told Kahtoo I would fight with the Americans against the British and Indians; and with you against him!” And he turned away and went back to the cabin.

“What’d I tell ye!” cried Dave indignantly and he followed the boy, who had gone to his bunk, and put one big hand on his shoulder.

“They thought you’d turned Injun agin,” he said, “but it’s all right now.”

“I know,” said the lad and with a muffled sound that was half the grunt of an Indian and half the sob of a white man turned his face away.

Again Dave reached for the lad’s shoulder.

“Don’t blame ’em too much. I’ll tell you now. Some fur traders came by here, and one of ’em said you was goin’ to marry an Injun girl named Early Morn; that you was goin’ to stay with ’em and fight with ’em alongside the British. Of course I knowed better but – ”

“Why,” interrupted Erskine, “they must have been the same traders who came to the Shawnee town and brought whiskey.”

“That’s what the feller said and why folks here believed him.”

“Who was he?” demanded Erskine.

“You know him – Dane Grey.”

All tried to make amends straightway for the injustice they had done him, but the boy’s heart remained sore that their trust was so little. Then, when they gathered all settlers within the fort and made all preparations and no Indians came, many seemed again to get distrustful and the lad was not happy. The winter was long and hard. A blizzard had driven the game west and south and the garrison was hard put to it for food. Every day that the hunters went forth the boy was among them and he did far more than his share in the killing of game. But when winter was breaking, more news came in of the war. The flag that had been fashioned of a soldier’s white shirt, an old blue army coat, and a red petticoat was now the Stars and Stripes of the American cause. Burgoyne had not cut off New England, that “head of the rebellion,” from the other colonies. On the contrary, the Americans had beaten him at Saratoga and marched his army off under those same Stars and Stripes, and for the first time Erskine heard of gallant Lafayette – how he had run to Washington with the portentous news from his king – that beautiful, passionate France would now stretch forth her helping hand. And Erskine learned what that news meant to Washington’s “naked and starving” soldiers dying on the frozen hillsides of Valley Forge. Then George Rogers Clark had passed the fort on his way to Williamsburg to get money and men for his great venture in the Northwest, and Erskine got a ready permission to accompany him as soldier and guide. After Clark was gone the lad got restless; and one morning when the first breath of spring came he mounted his horse, in spite of arguments and protestations, and set forth for Virginia on the wilderness trail. He was going to join Clark, he said, but more than Clark and the war were drawing him to the outer world. What it was he hardly knew, for he was not yet much given to searching his heart or mind. He did know, however, that some strange force had long been working within him that was steadily growing stronger, was surging now like a flame and swinging him between strange moods of depression and exultation. Perhaps it was but the spirit of spring in his heart, but with his mind’s eye he was ever seeing at the end of his journey the face of his little cousin Barbara Dale.

XV

A striking figure the lad made riding into the old capital one afternoon just before the sun sank behind the western woods. Had it been dusk he might have been thought to be an Indian sprung magically from the wilds and riding into civilization on a stolen thoroughbred. Students no longer wandered through the campus of William and Mary College. Only an occasional maid in silk and lace tripped along the street in high-heeled shoes and clocked stockings, and no coach and four was in sight. The governor’s palace, in its great yard amid linden-trees, was closed and deserted. My Lord Dunmore was long in sad flight, as Erskine later learned, and not in his coach with its six milk-white horses. But there was the bust of Sir Walter in front of Raleigh Tavern, and there he drew up, before the steps where he was once nigh to taking Dane Grey’s life. A negro servant came forward to care for his horse, but a coal-black young giant leaped around the corner and seized the bridle with a welcoming cry:

“Marse Erskine! But I knowed Firefly fust.” It was Ephraim, the groom who had brought out Barbara’s ponies, who had turned the horse over to him for the race at the fair.

“I come frum de plantation fer ole marse,” the boy explained. The host of the tavern heard and came down to give his welcome, for any Dale, no matter what his garb, could always have the best in that tavern. More than that, a bewigged solicitor, learning his name, presented himself with the cheerful news that he had quite a little sum of money that had been confided to his keeping by Colonel Dale for his nephew Erskine. A strange deference seemed to be paid him by everybody, which was a grateful change from the suspicion he had left among his pioneer friends. The little tavern was thronged and the air charged with the spirit of war. Indeed, nothing else was talked. My Lord Dunmore had come to a sad and unbemoaned end. He had stayed afar from the battle-field of Point Pleasant and had left stalwart General Lewis to fight Cornstalk and his braves alone. Later my Lady Dunmore and her sprightly daughters took refuge on a man-of-war – whither my lord soon followed them. His fleet ravaged the banks of the rivers and committed every outrage. His marines set fire to Norfolk, which was in ashes when he weighed anchor and sailed away to more depredations. When he intrenched himself on Gwynn’s Island, that same stalwart Lewis opened a heavy cannonade on fleet and island, and sent a ball through the indignant nobleman’s flag-ship. Next day he saw a force making for the island in boats, and my lord spread all sail; and so back to merry England, and to Virginia no more. Meanwhile, Mr. Washington had reached Boston and started his duties under the Cambridge elm. Several times during the talk Erskine had heard mentioned the name of Dane Grey. Young Grey had been with Dunmore and not with Lewis at Point Pleasant, and had been conspicuous at the palace through much of the succeeding turmoil – the hint being his devotion to one of the daughters, since he was now an unquestioned loyalist.

Next morning Erskine rode forth along a sandy road, amidst the singing of birds and through a forest of tiny upshooting leaves, for Red Oaks on the James. He had forsworn Colonel Dale to secrecy as to the note he had left behind giving his birthright to his little cousin Barbara, and he knew the confidence would be kept inviolate. He could recall the road – every turn of it, for the woodsman’s memory is faultless – and he could see the merry cavalcade and hear the gay quips and laughter of that other spring day long ago, for to youth even the space of a year is very long ago. But among the faces that blossomed within the old coach, and nodded and danced like flowers in a wind, his mind’s eye was fixed on one alone. At the boat-landing he hitched his horse to the low-swung branch of an oak and took the path through tangled rose-bushes and undergrowth along the bank of the river, halting where it would give him forth on the great, broad, grassy way that led to the house among the oaks. There was the sun-dial that had marked every sunny hour since he had been away. For a moment he stood there, and when he stepped into the open he shrank back hastily – a girl was coming through the opening of boxwood from the house – coming slowly, bareheaded, her hands clasped behind her, her eyes downward. His heart throbbed as he waited, throbbed the more when his ears caught even the soft tread of her little feet, and seemed to stop when she paused at the sun-dial, and as before searched the river with her eyes. And as before the song of negro oarsmen came over the yellow flood, growing stronger as they neared. Soon the girl fluttered a handkerchief and from the single passenger in the stern came an answering flutter of white and a glad cry. At the bend of the river the boat disappeared from Erskine’s sight under the bank, and he watched the girl. How she had grown! Her slim figure had rounded and shot upward, and her white gown had dropped to her dainty ankles. Now her face was flushed and her eye flashed with excitement – it was no mere kinsman in that boat, and the boy’s heart began to throb again – throb fiercely and with racking emotions that he had never known before. A fiery-looking youth sprang up the landing-steps, bowed gallantly over the girl’s hand, and the two turned up the path, the girl rosy with smiles and the youth bending over her with a most protecting and tender air. It was Dane Grey, and the heart of the watcher turned mortal sick.

XVI

A long time Erskine sat motionless, wondering what ailed him. He had never liked nor trusted Grey; he believed he would have trouble with him some day, but he had other enemies and he did not feel toward them as he did toward this dandy mincing up that beautiful broad path. With a little grunt he turned back along the path. Firefly whinnied to him and nipped at him with playful restlessness as though eager to be on his way to the barn, and he stood awhile with one arm across his saddle. Once he reached upward to untie the reins, and with another grunt strode back and went rapidly up the path. Grey and Barbara had disappeared, but a tall youth who sat behind one of the big pillars saw him coming and rose, bewildered, but not for long. Each recognized the other swiftly, and Hugh came with stiff courtesy forward. Erskine smiled:

“You don’t know me?” Hugh bowed: