Erskine Dale—Pioneer

“You don’t know me?” Hugh bowed:

“Quite well.” The woodsman drew himself up with quick breath – paling without, flaming within – but before he could speak there was a quick step and an astonished cry within the hall and Harry sprang out.

“Erskine! Erskine!” he shouted, and he leaped down the steps with both hands outstretched. “You here! You – you old Indian – how did you get here?” He caught Erskine by both hands and then fell to shaking him by the shoulders. “Where’s your horse?” And then he noticed the boy’s pale and embarrassed face and his eyes shifting to Hugh, who stood, still cold, still courteous, and he checked some hot outburst at his lips.

“I’m glad you’ve come, and I’m glad you’ve come right now – where’s your horse?”

“I left him hitched at the landing,” Erskine had to answer, and Harry looked puzzled:

“The landing! Why, what – ” He wheeled and shouted to a darky:

“Put Master Erskine’s horse in the barn and feed him.” And he led Erskine within – to the same room where he had slept before, and poured out some water in a bowl.

“Take your time,” he said, and he went back to the porch. Erskine could hear and see him through the latticed blinds.

“Hugh,” said the lad in a low, cold voice, “I am host here, and if you don’t like this you can take that path.”

“You are right,” was the answer; “but you wait until Uncle Harry gets home.”

The matter was quite plain to Erskine within. The presence of Dane Grey made it plain, and as Erskine dipped both hands into the cold water he made up his mind to an understanding with that young gentleman that would be complete and final. And so he was ready when he and Harry were on the porch again and Barbara and Grey emerged from the rose-bushes and came slowly up the path. Harry looked worried, but Erskine sat still, with a faint smile at his mouth and in his eyes. Barbara saw him first and she did not rush forward. Instead she stopped, with wide eyes, a stifled cry, and a lifting of one hand toward her heart. Grey saw too, flushed rather painfully, and calmed himself. Erskine had sprung down the steps.

“Why, have I changed so much?” he cried. “Hugh didn’t seem to know me, either.” His voice was gay, friendly, even affectionate, but his eyes danced with strange lights that puzzled the girl.

“Of course I knew you,” she faltered, paling a little but gathering herself rather haughtily – a fact that Erskine seemed not to notice. “You took me by surprise and you have changed – but I don’t know how much.” The significance of this too seemed to pass Erskine by, for he bent over Barbara’s hand and kissed it.

“Never to you, my dear cousin,” he said gallantly, and then he bowed to Dane Grey, not offering to shake hands.

“Of course I know Mr. Grey.” To say that the gentleman was dumfounded is to put it mildly – this wild Indian playing the courtier with exquisite impudence and doing it well! Harry seemed like to burst with restrained merriment, and Barbara was sorely put to it to keep her poise. The great dinner-bell from behind the house boomed its summons to the woods and fields.

“Come on,” called Harry. “I imagine you’re hungry, cousin.”

“I am,” said Erskine. “I’ve had nothing to eat since – since early morn.” Barbara’s eyes flashed upward and Grey was plainly startled. Was there a slight stress on those two words? Erskine’s face was as expressionless as bronze. Harry had bolted into the hall.

Mrs. Dale was visiting down the river, so Barbara sat in her mother’s place, with Erskine at her right, Grey to her left, Hugh next to him, and Harry at the head. Harry did not wait long.

“Now, you White Arrow, you Big Chief, tell us the story. Where have you been, what have you been doing, and what do you mean to do? I’ve heard a good deal, but I want it all.”

Grey began to look uncomfortable, and so, in truth, did Barbara.

“What have you heard?” asked Erskine quietly.

“Never mind,” interposed Barbara quickly; “you tell us.”

“Well,” began Erskine slowly, “you remember that day we met some Indians who told me that old Kahtoo, my foster-father, was ill, and that he wanted to see me before he died? I went exactly as I would have gone had white men given the same message from Colonel Dale, and even for better reasons. A bad prophet was stirring up trouble in the tribe against the old chief. An enemy of mine, Crooked Lightning, was helping him. He wanted his son, Black Wolf, as chief, and the old chief wanted me. I heard the Indians were going to join the British. I didn’t want to be chief, but I did want influence in the tribe, so I stayed. There was a white woman in the camp and an Indian girl named Early Morn. I told the old chief that I would fight with the whites against the Indians and with the whites against them both. Crooked Lightning overheard me, and you can imagine what use he made of what I said. I took the wampum belt for the old chief to the powwow between the Indians and the British, and I found I could do nothing. I met Mr. Grey there.” He bowed slightly to Dane and then looked at him steadily. “I was told that he was there in the interest of an English fur company. When I found I could do nothing with the Indians, I told the council what I had told the old chief.” He paused. Barbara’s face was pale and she was breathing hard. She had not looked at Grey, but Harry had been watching him covertly and he did not look comfortable. Erskine paused.

“What!” shouted Harry. “You told both that you would fight with the whites against both! What’d they do to you?”

Erskine smiled.

“Well, here I am. I jumped over the heads of the outer ring and ran. Firefly heard me calling him. I had left his halter loose. He broke away. I jumped on him, and you know nothing can catch Firefly.”

“Didn’t they shoot at you?”

“Of course.” Again he paused.

“Well,” said Harry impatiently, “that isn’t the end.”

“I went back to the camp. Crooked Lightning followed me and they tied me and were going to burn me at the stake.”

“Good heavens!” breathed Barbara.

“How’d you get away?”

“The Indian girl, Early Morn, slipped under the tent and cut me loose. The white woman got my gun, and Firefly – you know nothing can catch Firefly.” The silence was intense. Hugh looked dazed, Barbara was on the point of tears, Harry was triumphant, and Grey was painfully flushed.

“And you want to know what I am going to do now?” Erskine went on. “I’m going with Captain George Rogers Clark – with what command are you, Mr. Grey?”

“That’s a secret,” he smiled coolly. “I’ll let you know later,” and Barbara, with an inward sigh of relief, rose quickly, but would not leave them behind.

“But the white woman?” questioned Harry. “Why doesn’t she leave the Indians?”

“Early Morn – a half-breed – is her daughter,” said Erskine simply.

“Oh!” and Harry questioned no further.

“Early Morn was the best-looking Indian girl I ever saw,” said Erskine, “and the bravest.” For the first time Grey glanced at Barbara. “She saved my life,” Erskine went on gravely, “and mine is hers whenever she needs it.” Harry reached over and gripped his hand.

As yet not one word had been said of Grey’s misdoing, but Barbara’s cool disdain made him shamed and hot, and in her eyes was the sorrow of her injustice to Erskine. In the hallway she excused herself with a courtesy, Hugh went to the stables, Harry disappeared for a moment, and the two were left alone. With smouldering fire Erskine turned to Grey.

“It seems you have been amusing yourself with my kinspeople at my expense.” Grey drew himself up in haughty silence. Erskine went on:

“I have known some liars who were not cowards.”

“You forget yourself.”

“No – nor you.”

“You remember a promise I made you once?”

“Twice,” corrected Erskine. Grey’s eyes flashed upward to the crossed rapiers on the wall.

“Precisely,” answered Erskine, “and when?”

“At the first opportunity.”

“From this moment I shall be waiting for nothing else.”

Barbara, reappearing, heard their last words, and she came forward pale and with piercing eyes:

“Cousin Erskine, I want to apologize to you for my little faith. I hope you will forgive me. Mr. Grey, your horse will be at the door at once. I wish you a safe journey – to your command.” Grey bowed and turned – furious.

Erskine was on the porch when Grey came out to mount his horse.

“You will want seconds?” asked Grey.

“They might try to stop us – no!”

“I shall ride slowly,” Grey said. Erskine bowed.

“I shall not.”

XVII

Nor did he. Within half an hour Barbara, passing through the hall, saw that the rapiers were gone from the wall and she stopped, with the color fled from her face and her hand on her heart. At that moment Ephraim dashed in from the kitchen.

“Miss Barbary, somebody gwine to git killed. I was wukkin’ in de ole field an’ Marse Grey rid by cussin’ to hisself. Jist now Marse Erskine went tearin’ by de landin’ wid a couple o’ swords under his arm.” His eyes too went to the wall. “Yes, bless Gawd, dey’s gone!” Barbara flew out the door.

In a few moments she had found Harry and Hugh. Even while their horses were being saddled her father rode up.

“It’s murder,” cried Harry, “and Grey knows it. Erskine knows nothing about a rapier.”

Without a word Colonel Dale wheeled his tired horse and soon Harry and Hugh dashed after him. Barbara walked back to the house, wringing her hands, but on the porch she sat quietly in the agony of waiting that was the rôle of women in those days.

Meanwhile, at a swift gallop Firefly was skimming along the river road. Grey had kept his word and more: he had not only ridden slowly but he had stopped and was waiting at an oak-tree that was a corner-stone between two plantations.

“That I may not kill you on your own land,” he said.

Erskine started. “The consideration is deeper than you know.”

They hitched their horses, and Erskine followed into a pleasant glade – a grassy glade through which murmured a little stream. Erskine dropped the rapiers on the sward.

“Take your choice,” he said.

“There is none,” said Grey, picking up the one nearer to him. “I know them both.” Grey took off his coat while Erskine waited. Grey made the usual moves of courtesy and still Erskine waited, wonderingly, with the point of the rapier on the ground.

“When you are ready,” he said, “will you please let me know?”

“Ready!” answered Grey, and he lunged forward. Erskine merely whipped at his blade so that the clang of it whined on the air to the breaking-point and sprang backward. He was as quick as an eyelash and lithe as a panther, and yet Grey almost laughed aloud. All Erskine did was to whip the thrusting blade aside and leap out of danger like a flash of light. It was like an inexpert boxer flailing according to rules unknown – and Grey’s face flamed and actually turned anxious. Then, as a kindly fate would have it, Erskine’s blade caught in Grey’s guard by accident, and the powerful wrist behind it seeking merely to wrench the weapon loose tore Grey’s rapier from his grasp and hurled it ten feet away. There is no greater humiliation for the expert swordsman, and not for nothing had Erskine suffered the shame of that long-ago day when a primitive instinct had led him to thrusting his knife into this same enemy’s breast. Now, with his sword’s point on the earth, he waited courteously for Grey to recover his weapon.

Again a kindly fate intervened. Even as Grey rushed for his sword, Erskine heard the beat of horses’ hoofs. As he snatched it from the ground and turned, with a wicked smile over his grinding teeth, came Harry’s shout, and as he rushed for Erskine, Colonel Dale swung from his horse. The sword-blades clashed, Erskine whipping back and forth in a way to make a swordsman groan – and Colonel Dale had Erskine by the wrist and was between them.

“How dare you, sir?” cried Grey hotly.

“Just a moment, young gentleman,” said Colonel Dale calmly.

“Let us alone, Uncle Harry – I – ”

“Just a moment,” repeated the colonel sternly. “Mr. Grey, do you think it quite fair that you with your skill should fight a man who knows nothing about foils?”

“There was no other way,” Grey said sullenly.

“And you could not wait, I presume?” Grey did not answer.

“Now, hear what I have to say, and if you both do not agree, the matter will be arranged to your entire satisfaction, Mr. Grey. I have but one question to ask. Your country is at war. She needs every man for her defense. Do you not both think your lives belong to your country and that it is selfish and unpatriotic just now to risk them in any other cause?” He waited for his meaning to sink in, and sink it did.

“Colonel Dale, your nephew grossly insulted me, and your daughter showed me the door. I made no defense to him nor to her, but I will to you. I merely repeated what I had been told and I believed it true. Now that I hear it is not true, I agree with you, sir, and I am willing to express my regrets and apologies.”

“That is better,” said Colonel Dale heartily, and he turned to Erskine, but Erskine was crying hotly:

“And I express neither.”

“Very well,” sneered Grey coldly. “Perhaps we may meet when your relatives are not present to protect you.”

“Uncle Harry – ” Erskine implored, but Grey was turning toward his horse.

“After all, Colonel Dale is right.”

“Yes,” assented Erskine helplessly, and then – “it is possible that we shall not always be on the same side.”

“So I thought,” returned Grey with lifted eyebrows, “when I heard what I did about you!” Both Harry and Hugh had to catch Erskine by an arm then, and they led him struggling away. Grey mounted his horse, lifted his hat, and was gone. Colonel Dale picked up the swords.

“Now,” he said, “enough, of all this – let it be forgotten.”

And he laughed.

“You’ll have to confess, Erskine – he has a quick tongue and you must think only of his temptation to use it.”

Erskine did not answer.

As they rode back Colonel Dale spoke of the war. It was about to move into Virginia, he said, and when it did – Both Harry and Hugh interrupted him with a glad shout:

“We can go!” Colonel Dale nodded sadly.

Suddenly all pulled their horses in simultaneously and raised their eyes, for all heard the coming of a horse in a dead run. Around a thicketed curve of the road came Barbara, with her face white and her hair streaming behind her. She pulled her pony in but a few feet in front of them, with her burning eyes on Erskine alone.

“Have you killed him – have you killed him? If you have – ” She stopped helpless, and all were so amazed that none could answer. Erskine shook his head. There was a flash of relief in the girl’s white face, its recklessness gave way to sudden shame, and, without a word, she wheeled and was away again – Harry flying after her. No one spoke. Colonel Dale looked aghast and Erskine’s heart again turned sick.

XVIII

The sun was close to the uneven sweep of the wilderness. Through its slanting rays the river poured like a flood of gold. The negroes were on the way singing from the fields. Cries, chaffing, and the musical clanking of trace-chains came from the barnyard. Hungry cattle were lowing and full-uddered mothers were mooing answers to bawling calves. A peacock screamed from a distant tree and sailed forth, full-spread – a great gleaming winged jewel of the air. In crises the nerves tighten like violin strings, the memory-plates turn abnormally sensitive – and Erskine was not to forget that hour.

The house was still and not a soul was in sight as the three, still silent, walked up the great path. When they were near the portico Harry came out. He looked worried and anxious.

“Where’s Barbara?” asked her father.

“Locked in her room.”

“Let her alone,” said Colonel Dale gently. Like brother and cousin, Harry and Hugh were merely irritated by the late revelation, but the father was shocked that his child was no longer a child. Erskine remembered the girl as she waited for Grey’s coming at the sun-dial, her face as she walked with him up the path. For a moment the two boys stood in moody silence. Harry took the rapiers in and put them in their place on the wall. Hugh quietly disappeared. Erskine, with a word of apology, went to his room, and Colonel Dale sat down on the porch alone.

As the dusk gathered, Erskine, looking gloomily through his window, saw the girl flutter like a white moth past the box-hedge and down the path. A moment later he saw the tall form of Colonel Dale follow her – and both passed from sight. On the thick turf the colonel’s feet too were noiseless, and when Barbara stopped at the sun-dial he too paused. Her hands were caught tight and her drawn young face was lifted to the yellow disk just rising from the far forest gloom. She was unhappy, and the colonel’s heart ached sorely, for any unhappiness of hers always trebled his own.

“Little girl!” he called, and no lover’s voice could have been more gentle. “Come here!”

She turned and saw him, with arms outstretched, the low moon lighting all the tenderness in his fine old face, and she flew to him and fell to weeping on his breast. In wise silence he stroked her hair until she grew a little calmer.

“What’s the matter, little daughter?”

“I – I – don’t know.”

“I understand. You were quite right to send him away, but you did not want him harmed.”

“I – I – didn’t want anybody harmed.”

“I know. It’s too bad, but none of us seem quite to trust him.”

“That’s it,” she sobbed; “I don’t either, and yet – ”

“I know. I know. My little girl must be wise and brave, and maybe it will all pass and she will be glad. But she must be brave. Mother is not well and she must not be made unhappy too. She must not know. Can’t my little girl come back to the house now? She must be hostess and this is Erskine’s last night.” She looked up, brushing away her tears.

“His last night?” Ah, wise old colonel!

“Yes – he goes to-morrow to join Captain Clark at Williamsburg on his foolish campaign in the Northwest. We might never see him again.”

“Oh, father!”

“Well, it isn’t that bad, but my little girl must be very nice to him. He seems to be very unhappy, too.”

Barbara looked thoughtful, but there was no pretense of not understanding.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She took her father’s arm, and when they reached the steps Erskine saw her smiling. And smiling, almost gay, she was at supper, sitting with exquisite dignity in her mother’s place. Harry and Hugh looked amazed, and her father, who knew the bit of tempered steel she was, smiled his encouragement proudly. Of Erskine, who sat at her right, she asked many questions about the coming campaign. Captain Clark had said he would go with a hundred men if he could get no more. The rallying-point would be the fort in Kentucky where he had first come back to his own people, and Dave Yandell would be captain of a company. He himself was going as guide, though he hoped to act as soldier as well. Perhaps they might bring back the Hair-Buyer, General Hamilton, a prisoner to Williamsburg, and then he would join Harry and Hugh in the militia if the war came south and Virginia were invaded, as some prophesied, by Tarleton’s White Rangers, who had been ravaging the Carolinas. After supper the little lady excused herself with a smiling courtesy to go to her mother, and Erskine found himself in the moonlight on the big portico with Colonel Dale alone.

“Erskine,” he said, “you make it very difficult for me to keep your secret. Hugh alone seems to suspect – he must have got the idea from Grey, but I have warned him to say nothing. The others seem not to have thought of the matter at all. It was a boyish impulse of generosity which you may regret – ”

“Never,” interrupted the boy. “I have no use – less than ever now.”

“Nevertheless,” the colonel went on, “I regard myself as merely your steward, and I must tell you one thing. Mr. Jefferson, as you know, is always at open war with people like us. His hand is against coach and four, silver plate, and aristocrat. He is fighting now against the law that gives property to the eldest son, and he will pass the bill. His argument is rather amusing. He says if you will show him that the eldest son eats more, wears more, and does more work than his brothers, he will grant that that son is entitled to more. He wants to blot out all distinctions of class. He can’t do that, but he will pass this bill.”

“I hope he will,” muttered Erskine.

“Barbara would not accept your sacrifice nor would any of us, and it is only fair that I should warn you that some day, if you should change your mind, and I were no longer living, you might be too late.”

“Please don’t, Uncle Harry. It is done – done. Of course, it wasn’t fair for me to consider Barbara alone, but she will be fair and you understand. I wish you would regard the whole matter as though I didn’t exist.”

“I can’t do that, my boy. I am your steward and when you want anything you have only to let me know!” Erskine shook his head.

“I don’t want anything – I need very little, and when I’m in the woods, as I expect to be most of the time, I need nothing at all.” Colonel Dale rose.

“I wish you would go to college at Williamsburg for a year or two to better fit yourself – in case – ”

“I’d like to go – to learn to fence,” smiled the boy, and the colonel smiled too.

“You’ll certainly need to know that, if you are going to be as reckless as you were today.” Erskine’s eyes darkened.

“Uncle Harry, you may think me foolish, but I don’t like or trust Grey. What was he doing with those British traders out in the Northwest? – he was not buying furs. It’s absurd. Why was he hand in glove with Lord Dunmore?”

“Lord Dunmore had a daughter,” was the dry reply, and Erskine flung out a gesture that made words unnecessary. Colonel Dale crossed the porch and put his hand on the lad’s shoulders.

“Erskine,” he said, “don’t worry – and – don’t give up hope. Be patient, wait, come back to us. Go to William and Mary. Fit yourself to be one of us in all ways. Then everything may yet come out in the only way that would be fitting and right.” The boy blushed, and the colonel went on earnestly:

“I can think of nothing in the world that would make me quite so happy.”

“It’s no use,” the boy said tremblingly, “but I’ll never forget what you have just said as long as I live, and, no matter what becomes of me, I’ll love Barbara as long as I live. But, even if things were otherwise, I’d never risk making her unhappy even by trying. I’m not fit for her nor for this life. I’ll never forget the goodness of all of you to me – I can’t explain – but I can’t get over my life in the woods and among the Indians. Why, but for all of you I might have gone back to them – I would yet. I can’t explain, but I get choked and I can’t breathe – such a longing for the woods comes over me and I can’t help me. I must go– and nothing can hold me.”

“Your father was that way,” said Colonel Dale sadly. “You may get over it, but he never did. And it must be harder for you because of your early associations. Blow out the lights in the hall. You needn’t bolt the door. Good night, and God bless you.” And the kindly gentleman was gone.

Erskine sat where he was. The house was still and there were no noises from the horses and cattle in the barn – none from roosting peacock, turkey, and hen. From the far-away quarters came faintly the merry, mellow notes of a fiddle, and farther still the song of some courting negro returning home. A drowsy bird twittered in an ancient elm at the corner of the house. The flowers drooped in the moonlight which bathed the great path, streamed across the great river, and on up to its source in the great yellow disk floating in majestic serenity high in the cloudless sky. And that path, those flowers, that house, the barn, the cattle, sheep, and hogs, those grain-fields and grassy acres, even those singing black folk, were all – all his if he but said the words. The thought was no temptation – it was a mighty wonder that such a thing could be. And that was all it was – a wonder – to him, but to them it was the world. Without it all, what would they do? Perhaps Mr. Jefferson might soon solve the problem for him. Perhaps he might not return from that wild campaign against the British and the Indians – he might get killed. And then a thought gripped him and held him fast —he need not come back. That mighty wilderness beyond the mountains was his real home – out there was his real life. He need not come back, and they would never know. Then came a thought that almost made him groan. There was a light step in the hall, and Barbara came swiftly out and dropped on the topmost step with her chin in both hands. Almost at once she seemed to feel his presence, for she turned her head quickly.