CHAPTER XIII. KASKASKIA
For one more day we floated downward on the face of the waters betweenthe forest walls of the wilderness, and at length we landed in a littlegully on the north shore of the river, and there we hid our boats.
“Davy,” said Colonel Clark, “let’s walk about a bit. Tell me where youlearned to be so silent?”
“My father did not like to be talked to,” I answered, “except when hewas drinking.”
He gave me a strange look. Many the stroll I took with him afterwards,when he sought to relax himself from the cares which the campaign hadput upon him. This night was still and clear, the west all yellow withthe departing light, and the mists coming on the river. And presently,as we strayed down the shore we came upon a strange sight, the samebeing a huge fort rising from the waterside, all overgrown with brushand saplings and tall weeds. The palisades that held its earthenworkwere rotten and crumbling, and the mighty bastions of its cornerssliding away. Behind the fort, at the end farthest from the river, wecame upon gravelled walks hidden by the rank growth, where the soldiersof his most Christian Majesty once paraded. Lost in thought, Clark stoodon the parapet, watching the water gliding by until the darkness hidit,--nay, until the stars came and made golden dimples upon its surface.But as we went back to the camp again he told me how the French hadtried once to conquer this vast country and failed, leaving to theSpaniards the endless stretch beyond the Mississippi called Louisiana,and this part to the English. And he told me likewise that this fortin the days of its glory had been called Massacre, from a bloody eventwhich had happened there more than threescore years before.
“Threescore years!” I exclaimed, longing to see the men of this racewhich had set up these monuments only to abandon them.
“Ay, lad,” he answered, “before you or I were born, and before ourfathers were born, the French missionaries and soldiers threadedthis wilderness. And they called this river ‘La Belle Rivière,’--theBeautiful River.”
“And shall I see that race at Kaskaskia?” I asked, wondering.
“That you shall,” he cried, with a force that left no doubt in my mind.
In the morning we broke camp and started off for the strange place whichwe hoped to capture. A hundred miles it was across the trackless wilds,and each man was ordered to carry on his back provisions for four daysonly.
“Herr Gott!” cried Swein Poulsson, from the bottom of a flatboat, whencehe was tossing out venison flitches, “four day, und vat is it ve eatthen?”
“Frenchies, sure,” said Terence; “there’ll be plenty av thim for aseason. Faith, I do hear they’re tinder as lambs.”
“You’ll no set tooth in the Frenchies,” the pessimistic McAndrew put in,“wi’ five thousand redskins aboot, and they lying in wait. The Colonel’sno vera mindful of that, I’m thinking.”
“Will ye hush, ye ill-omened hound!” cried Cowan, angrily. “Pitch him inthe crick, Mac!”
Tom was diverted from this duty by a loud quarrel between Captain Harrodand five men of the company who wanted scout duty, and on the heels ofthat came another turmoil occasioned by Cowan’s dropping my drum intothe water. While he and McCann and Tom were fishing it out, ColonelClark himself appeared, quelled the mutiny that Harrod had on his hands,and bade the men sternly to get into ranks.
“What foolishness is this?” he said, eying the dripping drum.
“Sure, Colonel,” said McCann, swinging it on his back, “we’d have noheart in us at Kaskasky widout the rattle of it in our ears. Bill Cowanand me will not be feeling the heft of it bechune us.”
“Get into ranks,” said the Colonel, amusement struggling with the angerin his face as he turned on his heel. His wisdom well knew when to humora man, and when to chastise.
“Arrah,” said Terence, as he took his place, “I’d as soon l’ave me gunbehind as Davy and the dhrum.”
Methinks I can see now, as I write, the long file of woodsmen with theirswinging stride, planting one foot before the other, even as the Indianhimself threaded the wilderness. Though my legs were short, I had bothsinew and training, and now I was at one end of the line and now atthe other. And often with a laugh some giant would hand his gun to aneighbor, swing me to his shoulder, and so give me a lift for a wearymile or two; and perchance whisper to me to put down my hand into thewallet of his shirt, where I would find a choice morsel which he hadsaved for his supper. Sometimes I trotted beside the Colonel himself,listening as he talked to this man or that, and thus I got the gravestnotion of the daring of this undertaking, and of the dangers ahead ofus. This north country was infested with Indians, allies of the Englishand friends of the French their subjects; and the fact was never for aninstant absent from our minds that our little band might at any momentrun into a thousand warriors, be overpowered and massacred; or, worst ofall, that our coming might have been heralded to Kaskaskia.
For three days we marched in the green shade of the primeval wood, norsaw the sky save in blue patches here and there. Again we toiled forhours through the coffee-colored waters of the swamps. But the third daybrought us to the first of those strange clearings which the French callprairies, where the long grass ripples like a lake in the summer wind.Here we first knew raging thirst, and longed for the loam-specked waterwe had scorned, as our tired feet tore through the grass. For Saunders,our guide, took a line across the open in plain sight of any eye thatmight be watching from the forest cover. But at length our columnwavered and halted by reason of some disturbance at the head of it.Conjectures in our company, the rear guard, became rife at once.
“Run, Davy darlin,’ an’ see what the throuble is,” said Terence.
Nothing loath, I made my way to the head of the column, where Bowman’scompany had broken ranks and stood in a ring up to their thighs in thegrass. In the centre of the ring, standing on one foot before our angryColonel, was Saunders.
“Now, what does this mean?” demanded Clark; “my eye is on you, andyou’ve boxed the compass in this last hour.”
Saunders’ jaw dropped.
“I’m guiding you right,” he answered, with that sullenness which comesto his kind from fear, “but a man will slip his bearings sometimes inthis country.”
Clark’s eyes shot fire, and he brought down the stock of his rifle witha thud.
“By the eternal God!” he cried, “I believe you are a traitor. I’ve beenwatching you every step, and you’ve acted strangely this morning.”
“Ay, ay,” came from the men round him.
“Silence!” cried Clark, and turned again to the cowering Saunders. “Youpretend to know the way to Kaskaskia, you bring us to the middle of theIndian country where we may be wiped out at any time, and now you havethe damned effrontery to tell me that you have lost your way. I am a manof my word,” he added with a vibrant intensity, and pointed to the limbsof a giant tree which stood at the edge of the distant forest. “I willgive you half an hour, but as I live, I will leave you hanging there.”
The man’s brown hand trembled as he clutched his rifle barrel.
“‘Tis a hard country, sir,” he said. “I’m lost. I swear it on theevangels.”
“A hard country!” cried Clark. “A man would have to walk over it butonce to know it. I believe you are a damned traitor and perjurer,--inspite of your oath, a British spy.”
Saunders wiped the sweat from his brow on his buckskin sleeve.
“I reckon I could get the trace, Colonel, if you’d let me go a littleway into the prairie.”
“Half an hour,” said Clark, “and you’ll not go alone.” Sweeping his eyeover Bowman’s company, he picked out a man here and a man there to gowith Saunders. Then his eye lighted on me. “Where’s McChesney?” he said.“Fetch McChesney.”
I ran to get Tom, and seven of them went away, with Saunders in themiddle, Clark watching them like a hawk, while the men sat down in thegrass to wait. Fifteen minutes went by, and twenty, and twenty-five, andClark was calling for a rope, when some one caught sight of the squad inthe distance re
turning at a run. And when they came within hail it wasSaunders’ voice we heard, shouting brokenly:--
“I’ve struck it, Colonel, I’ve struck the trace. There’s a pecan at theedge of the bottom with my own blaze on it.”
“May you never be as near death again,” said the Colonel, grimly, as hegave the order to march.
The fourth day passed, and we left behind us the patches of forest andcame into the open prairie,--as far as the eye could reach a long, levelsea of waving green. The scanty provisions ran out, hunger was added tothe pangs of thirst and weariness, and here and there in the stragglingfile discontent smouldered and angry undertone was heard. Kaskaskia wassomewhere to the west and north; but how far? Clark had misled them. Andin addition it were foolish to believe that the garrison had not beenwarned. English soldiers and French militia and Indian allies stoodready for our reception. Of such was the talk as we lay down in thegrass under the stars on the fifth night. For in the rank and file anempty stomach is not hopeful.
The next morning we took up our march silently with the dawn, theprairie grouse whirring ahead of us. At last, as afternoon drew on, adark line of green edged the prairie to the westward, and our spiritsrose. From mouth to mouth ran the word that these were the woods whichfringed the bluff above Kaskaskia itself. We pressed ahead, and thedestiny of the new Republic for which we had fought made us walk unseen.Excitement keyed us high; we reached the shade, plunged into it, andpresently came out staring at the bastioned corners of a fort which rosefrom the centre of a clearing. It had once defended the place, but nowstood abandoned and dismantled. Beyond it, at the edge of the bluff, wehalted, astonished. The sun was falling in the west, and below us wasthe goal for the sight of which we had suffered so much. At our feet,across the wooded bottom, was the Kaskaskia River, and beyond, thepeaceful little French village with its low houses and orchards andgardens colored by the touch of the evening light. In the centre of itstood a stone church with its belfry; but our searching eyes alighted onthe spot to the southward of it, near the river. There stood a ramblingstone building with the shingles of its roof weathered black, and allaround it a palisade of pointed sticks thrust in the ground, and with apair of gates and watch-towers. Drooping on its staff was the standardof England. North and south of the village the emerald common gleamed inthe slanting light, speckled red and white and black by grazing cattle.Here and there, in untidy brown patches, were Indian settlements, andfar away to the westward the tawny Father of Waters gleamed through thecottonwoods.
Through the waning day the men lay resting under the trees, talking inundertones. Some cleaned their rifles, and others lost themselves inconjectures of the attack. But Clark himself, tireless, stood withfolded arms gazing at the scene below, and the sunlight on his faceillumined him (to the lad standing at his side) as the servant ofdestiny. At length, at eventide, the sweet-toned bell of the littlecathedral rang to vespers,--a gentle message of peace to war. ColonelClark looked into my upturned face.
“Davy, do you know what day this is?” he asked.
“No, sir,” I answered.
“Two years have gone since the bells pealed for the birth of a newnation--your nation, Davy, and mine--the nation that is to be the refugeof the oppressed of this earth--the nation which is to be made of allpeoples, out of all time. And this land for which you and I shall fightto-night will belong to it, and the lands beyond,” he pointed to thewest, “until the sun sets on the sea again.” He put his hand on my head.“You will remember this when I am dead and gone,” he said.
I was silent, awed by the power of his words.
Darkness fell, and still we waited, impatient for the order. And when atlast it came the men bustled hither and thither to find their commands,and we picked our way on the unseen road that led down the bluff, ourhearts thumping. The lights of the village twinkled at our feet, andnow and then a voice from below was caught and borne upward to us. Onceanother noise startled us, followed by an exclamation, “Donnerblitzen” and a volley of low curses from the company. Poor Swein Poulsson hadloosed a stone, which had taken a reverberating flight riverward.
We reached the bottom, and the long file turned and hurried silentlynorthward, searching for a crossing. I try to recall my feelings as Itrotted beside the tall forms that loomed above me in the night. Thesense of protection they gave me stripped me of fear, and I was nottroubled with that. My thoughts were chiefly on Polly Ann and the childwe had left in the fort now so far to the south of us, and in my fancyI saw her cheerful, ever helpful to those around her, despite the loadthat must rest on her heart. I saw her simple joy at our return. Butshould we return? My chest tightened, and I sped along the ranks toHarrod’s company and caught Tom by the wrist.
“Davy,” he murmured, and, seizing my hand in his strong grip, pulled mealong with him. For it was not given to him to say what he felt; butas I hurried to keep pace with his stride, Polly Ann’s words rang in myears, “Davy, take care of my Tom,” and I knew that he, too, was thinkingof her.
A hail aroused me, the sound of a loud rapping, and I saw in blackrelief a cabin ahead. The door opened, a man came out with a horde ofchildren cowering at his heels, a volley of frightened words pouringfrom his mouth in a strange tongue. John Duff was plying him withquestions in French, and presently the man became calmer and lapsed intobroken English.
“Kaskaskia--yes, she is prepare. Many spy is gone out--cross la rivière.But now they all sleep.”
Even as he spoke a shout came faintly from the distant town.
“What is that?” demanded Clark, sharply.
The man shrugged his shoulders. “Une fête des nègres, peut-être,--thenegro, he dance maybe.”
“Are you the ferryman?” said Clark.
“Oui--I have some boat.”
We crossed the hundred and fifty yards of sluggish water, squad bysquad, and in the silence of the night stood gathered, expectant, on thefarther bank. Midnight was at hand. Commands were passed about, and menran this way and that, jostling one another to find their places in anew order. But at length our little force stood in three detachmentson the river’s bank, their captains repeating again and again the partwhich each was to play, that none might mistake his duty. The two largerones were to surround the town, while the picked force under SimonKenton himself was to storm the fort. Should he gain it by surprise andwithout battle, three shots were to be fired in quick succession, theother detachments were to start the war-whoop, while Duff and some witha smattering of French were to run up and down the streets proclaimingthat every habitan who left his house would be shot. No provision beingmade for the drummer boy (I had left my drum on the heights above), Ichose the favored column, at the head of which Tom and Cowan and Rayand McCann were striding behind Kenton and Colonel Clark. Not a wordwas spoken. There was a kind of cow-path that rose and fell and twistedalong the river-bank. This we followed, and in ten minutes we musthave covered the mile to the now darkened village. The starlight aloneoutlined against the sky the houses of it as we climbed the bank. Thenwe halted, breathless, in a street, but there was no sound save thatof the crickets and the frogs. Forward again, and twisting a corner,we beheld the indented edge of the stockade. Still no hail, nor had ourmoccasined feet betrayed us as we sought the river side of the fortand drew up before the big river gates of it. Simon Kenton bore againstthem, and tried the little postern that was set there, but both werefast. The spikes towered a dozen feet overhead.
“Quick!” muttered Clark, “a light man to go over and open the postern.”
Before I guessed what was in his mind, Cowan seized me.
“Send the lad, Colonel,” said he.
“Ay, ay,” said Simon Kenton, hoarsely.
In a second Tom was on Kenton’s shoulders, and they passed me up withas little trouble as though I had been my own drum. Feverishly searchingwith my foot for Tom’s shoulder, I seized the spikes at the top,clambered over them, paused, surveyed the empty area below me,destitute even of a sentry, and then let myself down with the a
id of thecross-bars inside. As I was feeling vainly for the bolt of the postern,rays of light suddenly shot my shadow against the door. And next, asI got my hand on the bolt-head, I felt the weight of another on myshoulder, and a voice behind me said in English:--
“In the devil’s name!”
I gave the one frantic pull, the bolt slipped, and caught again. ThenColonel Clark’s voice rang out in the night:--
“Open the gate! Open the gate in the name of Virginia and theContinental Congress!”
Before I could cry out the man gave a grunt, leaned his gun against thegate, and tore my fingers from the bolt-handle. Astonishment robbed meof breath as he threw open the postern.
“In the name of the Continental Congress,” he cried, and seized his gun.Clark and Kenton stepped in instantly, no doubt as astounded as I, andhad the man in their grasp.
“Who are you?” said Clark.
“Name o’ Skene, from Pennsylvanya,” said the man, “and by the Lord Godye shall have the fort.”
“You looked for us?” said Clark.
“Faith, never less,” said the Pennsylvanian. “The one sentry is at themain gate.”
“And the governor?”
“Rocheblave?” said the Pennsylvanian. “He sleeps yonder in the oldJesuit house in the middle.”
Clark turned to Tom McChesney, who was at his elbow.
“Corporal!” said he, swiftly, “secure the sentry at the main gate! You,” he added, turning to the Pennsylvanian, “lead us to the governor. Butmind, if you betray me, I’ll be the first to blow out your brains.”
The man seized a lantern and made swiftly over the level ground untilthe rubble-work of the old Jesuit house showed in the light, nor Clarknor any of them stopped to think of the danger our little handful ranat the mercy of a stranger. The house was silent. We halted, and Clarkthrew himself against the rude panels of the door, which gave to inwardblackness. Our men filled the little passage, and suddenly we foundourselves in a low-ceiled room in front of a great four-poster bed. Andin it, upright, blinking at the light, were two odd Frenchified figuresin tasselled nightcaps. Astonishment and anger and fear struggled in thefaces of Monsieur de Rocheblave and his lady. A regard for truthcompels me to admit that it was madame who first found her voice, and nouncertain one it was.
First came a shriek that might have roused the garrison.
“Villains! Murderers! Outragers of decency!” she cried with spirit,pouring a heap of invectives, now in French, now in English, much to thediscomfiture of our backwoodsmen, who peered at her helplessly.
“Nom du diable!” cried the commandant, when his lady’s breath was gone,“what does this mean?”
“It means, sir,” answered Clark, promptly, “that you are my prisoner.”
“And who are you?” gasped the commandant.
“George Rogers Clark, Colonel in the service of the Commonwealth ofVirginia.” He held out his hand restrainingly, for the furious MonsieurRocheblave made an attempt to rise. “You will oblige me by remaining inbed, sir, for a moment.”
“Coquins! Canailles! Cochons!” shrieked the lady.
“Madame,” said Colonel Clark, politely, “the necessities of war areoften cruel.”
He made a bow, and paying no further attention to the torrent of herreproaches or the threats of the helpless commandant, he calmly searchedthe room with the lantern, and finally pulled out from under the bed ametal despatch box. Then he lighted a candle in a brass candlestickthat stood on the simple walnut dresser, and bowed again to the outragedcouple in the four-poster.
“Now, sir,” he said, “you may dress. We will retire.”
“Pardieu!” said the commandant in French, “a hundred thousand thanks.”
We had scarcely closed the bedroom door when three shots were heard.
“The signal!” exclaimed Clark.
Immediately a pandemonium broke on the silence of the night that musthave struck cold terror in the hearts of the poor Creoles sleeping intheir beds. The war-whoop, the scalp halloo in the dead of the morning,with the hideous winding notes of them that reached the bluff beyondand echoed back, were enough to frighten a man from his senses. In theintervals, in backwoods French, John Duff and his companions were heardin terrifying tones crying out to the habitans to venture out at theperil of their lives. Within the fort a score of lights flew up and downlike will-o’-the-wisps, and Colonel Clark, standing on the steps of thegovernor’s house, gave out his orders and despatched his messengers. Mehe sent speeding through the village to tell Captain Bowman to patrolthe outskirts of the town, that no runner might get through to warn FortChartres and Cohos, as some called Cahokia. None stirred save the fewIndians left in the place, and these were brought before Clark inthe fort, sullen and defiant, and put in the guard-house there. AndRocheblave, when he appeared, was no better, and was put back in hishouse under guard.
As for the papers in the despatch box, they revealed I know not whatbriberies of the savage nations and plans of the English. But ofother papers we found none, though there must have been more. MadameRocheblave was suspected of having hidden some in the inviolableportions of her dress.
At length the cocks crowing for day proclaimed the morning, and whileyet the blue shadow of the bluff was on the town, Colonel Clark salliedout of the gate and walked abroad. Strange it seemed that war had cometo this village, so peaceful and remote. And even stranger it seemed tome to see these Arcadian homes in the midst of the fierce wilderness.The little houses with their sloping roofs and wide porches, the gardensablaze with color, the neat palings,--all were a restful sight for ourweary eyes. And now I scarcely knew our commander. For we had not gonefar ere, timidly, a door opened and a mild-visaged man, in the simpleworkaday smock that the French wore, stood, hesitating, on the steps.The odd thing was that he should have bowed to Clark, who was dressedno differently from Bowman and Harrod and Duff; and the man’s voicetrembled piteously as he spoke. It needed not John Duff to tell us thathe was pleading for the lives of his family.
“He will sell himself as a slave if your Excellency will spare them,”said Duff, translating.
But Clark stared at the man sternly.
“I will tell them my plans at the proper time,” he said and when Duffhad translated this the man turned and went silently into his houseagain, closing the door behind him. And before we had traversed thevillage the same thing had happened many times. We gained the fortagain, I wondering greatly why he had not reassured these simple people.It was Bowman who asked this question, he being closer to Clark than anyof the other captains. Clark said nothing then, and began to give outdirections for the day. But presently he called the Captain aside.
“Bowman,” I heard him say, “we have one hundred and fifty men to holda province bigger than the whole of France, and filled with treacheroustribes in the King’s pay. I must work out the problem for myself.”
Bowman was silent. Clark, with that touch which made men love him anddie for him, laid his hand on the Captain’s shoulder.
“Have the men called in by detachments,” he said, “and fed. God knowsthey must be hungry,--and you.”
Suddenly I remembered that he himself had had nothing. Running aroundthe commandant’s house to the kitchen door, I came unexpectedly uponSwein Poulsson, who was face to face with the linsey-woolsey-clad figureof Monsieur Rocheblave’s negro cook. The early sun cast long shadows ofthem on the ground.
“By tam,” my friend was saying, “so I vill eat. I am choost like an oxfor three days, und chew grass. Prairie grass, is it?”
“Mo pas capab’, Michié,” said the cook, with a terrified roll of hiswhite eyes.
“Herr Gott!” cried Swein Poulsson, “I am red face. Aber Herr Gott,I thank thee I am not a nigger. Und my hair is bristles, yes. Davy”(spying me), “I thank Herr Gott it is not vool. Let us in the kitchengo.”
“I am come to get something for the Colonel’s breakfast,” said I,pushing past the slave, through the open doorway. Swein Poulssonfollowed, and here I s
truck another contradiction in his strange nature.He helped me light the fire in the great stone chimney-place, and wesoon had a pot of hominy on the crane, and turning on the spit a pieceof buffalo steak which we found in the larder. Nor did a mouthful passhis lips until I had sped away with a steaming portion to find theColonel. By this time the men had broken into the storehouse, and theopen place was dotted with their breakfast fires. Clark was standingalone by the flagstaff, his face careworn. But he smiled as he saw mecoming.
“What’s this?” says he.
“Your breakfast, sir,” I answered. I set down the plate and the potbefore him and pressed the pewter spoon into his hand.
“Davy,” said he.
“Sir?” said I.
“What did you have for your breakfast?”
My lip trembled, for I was very hungry, and the rich steam from thehominy was as much as I could stand. Then the Colonel took me by thearms, as gently as a woman might, set me down on the ground beside him,and taking a spoonful of the hominy forced it between my lips. I wasnear to fainting at the taste of it. Then he took a bit himself,and divided the buffalo steak with his own hands. And when from thecamp-fires they perceived the Colonel and the drummer boy eatingtogether in plain sight of all, they gave a rousing cheer.
“Swein Poulsson helped get your breakfast, sir, and would eat nothingeither,” I ventured.
“Davy,” said Colonel Clark, gravely, “I hope you will be younger whenyou are twenty.”
“I hope I shall be bigger, sir,” I answered gravely.