Altsheler Joseph Alexander
The Border Watch: A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand
"Do you think them big guns will be of any use?" asked Shif'less Sol.
"Not at night," replied Henry, "but in the daytime if we come to close quarters they'll certainly say something worth hearing."
It was now nearly half way between midnight and morning when the vitality is lowest. Paul, as he lay among the pawpaws, was growing very sleepy. He had not moved for so long a time and the night was so warm that his eyes had an almost invincible tendency to close, but his will did not permit it. Despite the long silence he had no doubt that the attack would come. So he looked eagerly into the forest every time the lightning flashed, and always he strained his ears that he might hear, if anything was to be heard.
The melancholy wind died, and the air became close, hot and heavy. The leaves ceased to move, and there was no stir in the bushes, but Henry thought that he heard a faint sound. He made a warning gesture to his companions, and they, too, seemed to hear the same noise. All of Paul's sleepiness disappeared. He sat up, every nerve and muscle attuned for the crisis. Henry and he, at almost the same moment, saw the bushes move in front of them. Then they saw the bronze faces with the scalp lock above them, peering forth. The five sat perfectly silent for a few moments and more bronze faces appeared. The gaze of one of the Indians wandered toward the clump of pawpaws, and he saw there one of the five who had now risen a little higher than the rest to look. He knew that it was a white face, and, firing instantly at it, he uttered the long and thrilling war whoop. It was the opening cry of the battle.
The five at once returned the fire and with deadly effect. Two of the warriors fell, and the rest leaped back, still shouting their war cry, which was taken up and repeated in volume at a hundred points. Far above the forest it swelled, a terrible wolfish cry, fiercest of all on its dying note. From river and deep woods came the echo, and the warriors in multitudes rushed forward upon the camp.
Henry and his comrades when they discharged their rifles ran back toward the main force, reloading as they ran. The air was filled with terrible cries and behind them dark forms swarmed forward, running and bounding. From trees and underbrush came a hail of rifle bullets that whistled around the five, but which luckily did nothing save to clip their clothing and to sing an unpleasant song in their ears. Yet they had never run faster, not from fear, but because it was the proper thing to do. They had uncovered the enemy and their work as scouts was over.
They were back on the camp and among the frontiersmen, in less than a minute. Now they wheeled about, and, with rifles loaded freshly, faced the foe who pressed forward in a great horde, yelling and firing. Well it was for the white army that it was composed of veteran borderers. The sight was appalling to the last degree. The defenders were ringed around by flashes of fire, and hundreds of hideous forms leaped as if in the war dance, brandishing their tomahawks. But Colonel Clark was everywhere among his men, shouting to them to stand fast, not to be frightened by the war whoop, and that now was the time to win a victory. Boone, Abe Thomas and the five gave him great help.
The riflemen stood firm in their semicircle, each end of it resting upon the river. Most of them threw themselves upon the ground, and, while the bullets whistled over their heads, poured forth an answering fire that sent many a warrior to explore the great hereafter. Yet the tribes pressed in with uncommon courage, charging like white men, while their great chiefs Timmendiquas, Red Eagle, Black Panther, Moluntha, Captain Pipe and the others led them on. They rushed directly into the faces of the borderers, leaping forward in hundreds, shouting the war whoop and now and then cutting down a foe. The darkness was still heavy and close, but it was lit up by the incessant flashes of the rifles. The smoke from the firing, with no breeze to drive it away, hung low in a dense bank that stung the mouths and nostrils of the combatants.
"Keep low, Paul! Keep low!" cried Henry, dragging his young comrade down among some spicewood bushes. "If you are bound to stick your head up like that it will be stopping a tomahawk soon."
Paul did not have to wait for the truth of Henry's words, as a shining blade whizzed directly where his head had been, and, passing on, imbedded itself in the trunk of a mighty beech. Paul shuddered. It seemed to him that he felt a hot wind from the tomahawk as it flew by. In his zeal and excitement he had forgotten the danger for a moment or two, and once more Henry had saved his life.
"I wish it would grow lighter," muttered Shif'less Sol. "It's hard to tell your friends from your enemies on a black night like this, and we'll be all mixed up soon."
"We five at least must keep close together," said Henry.
A fierce yell of victory came from the southern side of the camp, a yell that was poured from Indian throats, and every one of the five felt apprehension. Could their line be driven in? Driven in it was! Fifty Wyandots and as many Shawnees under Moluntha, the most daring of their war chiefs, crashed suddenly against the weakest part of the half circle. Firing a heavy volley they had rushed in with the tomahawk, and the defenders, meeting them with clubbed rifles, were driven back by the fury of the attack and the weight of numbers. There was a confused and terrible medley of shouts and cries, of thudding tomahawks and rifle butts, of crashing brushwood and falling bodies. It was all in the hot dark, until the lightning suddenly flared with terrifying brightness. Then it disclosed the strained faces of white and red, the sweat standing out on tanned brows, and the bushes torn and trampled in the wild struggle. The red blaze passed and the night shot down in its place as thick and dark as ever. Neither red men nor white were able to drive back the others. In this bank of darkness the cries increased, and the cloud of smoke grew steadily.
It was not only well that these men were tried woodsmen, but it was equally well that they were led by a great wilderness chief. George Rogers Clark saw at once the point of extreme danger, and, summoning his best men, he rushed to the rescue. The five heard the call. Knowing its urgency, they left the spicewood and swept down with the helping band. Another flash of lightning showed where friends and foe fought face to face with tomahawk and clubbed rifle, and then Clark and the new force were upon the warriors. Paul, carried away by excitement, was shouting:
"Give it to 'em! Give it to 'em! Drive 'em back!"
But he did not know that he was uttering a word. He saw the high cheek bones and close-set eyes, and then he felt the shock as they struck the hostile line. Steel and clubbed rifle only were used first. They did not dare fire at such close quarters as friend and foe were mingled closely, but the warriors were pushed back by the new weight hurled upon them, and then the woodsmen, waiting until the next flash of lightning, sent in a volley that drove the Indians to the cover of the forest. The attack at that point had failed, and the white line was yet complete.
Once more the five threw themselves down gasping among the bushes, reloaded their rifles and waited. In front of them was silence. The enemy there had melted away without a sound, and he too lay hidden, but from left and right the firing and the shouting came with undiminished violence. Henry, also, at the same time heard in all the terrible uproar the distant and low muttering of the thunder, like a menacing under-note, more awful than the firing itself. The smoke reached them where they lay. It was floating now all through the forest, and not only stung the nostrils of the defenders, but heated their brains and made them more anxious for the combat.
"We were just in time," said Shif'less Sol. "Ef Colonel Clark hadn't led a hundred or so o' us on the run to this place the warriors would hev been right in the middle o' the camp, smashin' us to pieces. How they fight!"
"Their chiefs think this army must be destroyed and they're risking everything," said Henry. "Girty must be here, too, urging them on, although he's not likely to expose his own body much."
"But he's a real gen'ral an' a pow'ful help to the Injuns," said Tom Ross.
Clark's summons came again. The sound on the flank indicated that the line was being driven in at another point to the eastward, and the "chosen hundred," as the shiftless one called them, were hurled against the assailants, who were here mostly Miamis and Delawares. The Indians were driven back in turn, and the circle again curved over the ground that the defenders had held in the beginning. Jim Hart and Tom Ross were wounded slightly, but they hid their scratches from the rest, and went on with their part. A third attack in force at a third point was repulsed in the same manner, but only after the most desperate fighting. Each side suffered a heavy loss, but the Indians, nevertheless, were repulsed and the defenders once again lay down among the bushes, their pulses beating fast.
Then ensued the fiery ring. The white circle was complete, but the Indians formed another and greater one facing it. The warriors no longer tried to rush the camp, but flat on their stomachs among the bushes they crept silently forward, and fired at every white man who exposed a head or an arm or a hand.
They seemed to have eyes that pierced the dark, and, knowing where the target lay, they had an advantage over the defenders who could not tell from what point the next shot would come.
It was a sort of warfare, annoying and dangerous in the extreme, and Clark became alarmed. It got upon the nerves of the men. They were compelled to lie there and await this foe who stung and stung. He sought eagerly by the flashes of lightning to discover where they clustered in the greatest numbers, but they hugged the earth so close that he saw nothing, even when the lightning was so vivid that it cast a blood red tinge over both trees and bushes. He called Boone, Henry, Thomas and others, the best of the scouts, to him.
"We must clear those Indians out of the woods," he said, "or they will pick away at us until nothing is left to pick at. A charge with our best men will drive them off. What do you say, Mr. Boone?"
Daniel Boone shook his head, and his face expressed strong disapproval.
"We'd lose too many men, Colonel," he replied. "They're in greater numbers than we are, an' we drove them back when they charged. Now if we charged they'd shoot us to pieces before we got where we wanted to go."
"I suppose you're right," said Clark. "In fact, I know you are. Yes, we have to wait, but it's hard. Many of our men have been hit, and they can't stand this sort of thing forever."
"Suppose you send forward a hundred of the best woodsmen and sharpshooters," said Boone. "They can creep among the bushes an' maybe they can worry the Indians as much as the Indians are worrying us."
Colonel Clark considered. They were standing then near the center of the camp, and, from that point they could see through the foliage the dusky surface of the water, and when they looked in the other direction they saw puffs of fire as the rifles were discharged in the undergrowth.
"It's risky," he said at last, "but I don't see anything else for us to do. Be sure that you choose the best men, Mr. Boone."
Daniel Boone rapidly told off a hundred, all great marksmen and cautious woodsmen. Henry, Paul, Shif'less Sol, Long Jim and Tom Ross were among the first whom he chose. Then while the defenders increased their fire on the eastern side, he and his hundred, hugging the ground, began to creep toward the south. It was slow work for so large a body, and they had to be exceedingly careful. Boone wished to effect a surprise and to strike the foe so hard that he would be thrown into a panic. But Henry and Paul were glad to be moving. They had something now to which they could look forward. The two kept side by side, paying little attention to the firing which went on in unbroken volume on their left.
Boone moved toward a slight elevation about a hundred yards away. He believed that it was occupied by a small Indian force which his gallant hundred could easily brush aside, if they ever came into close contact. Amid so much confusion and darkness he could reach the desired place unless they were revealed by the lightning. There was not another flash until they were more than half way and then the hundred lay so low among the bushes that they remained hidden.
"We're beatin' the savages at their own game," said Shif'less Sol. "They are always bent on stalkin' us, but they don't 'pear to know now that we're stalkin' them. Keep your eye skinned, Henry; we don't want to run into 'em afore we expect it."
"I'm watching," replied Henry in the same tone, "but I don't think I'll have to watch much longer. In two or three minutes more they'll see us or we'll see them."
Fifty yards more and another red flash of lightning came. Henry saw a feathered head projecting over a log. At the same time the owner of the feathered head saw him, fired and leaped to his feet. Henry fired in return, and the next instant he and his comrades were upon the skirmishers, clearing them out of the bushes and sending them in headlong flight. They had been so long in the darkness now that their eyes had grown used to it, and they could see the fleeing forms. They sent a decimating volley after them, and then dropped down on the ridge that they had won. They meant to hold it, and they were fortunate enough to find there many fallen trees swept down by a tornado.
"We've cut their line," said Boone, "an' we must keep it cut. I've sent a messenger to tell Colonel Clark that we've taken the place, an' since we've broke their front they'll be mighty good men, Indians and renegades, if they're ever able to join it together again."
The warriors returned in great force to the attack. They appreciated the value of the position, but the sharpshooters fired from the shelter of the logs.
The five, following their long custom, kept close together, and when they threw themselves down behind the logs they took a rapid accounting. Paul was the only one who had escaped unhurt. A tomahawk, thrown at short range, had struck Henry on the side of the head, but only with the flat of the blade. His fur cap and thick hair saved him, but the force of the blow had made him reel for a minute, and a whole constellation of stars had danced before his eyes. Now his head still rung a little, but the pain was passing, and all his faculties were perfectly clear and keen. A bullet had nicked Tom Ross's wrist, but, cutting a piece of buckskin from his shirt, he tied it up well and gave it no further attention. Jim Hart and Shif'less Sol had received new scratches, but they were not advertising them.
They lay panting for a few minutes among the fallen trees, and all around them they heard the low words of the gallant hundred; though there were not really a hundred now. Boone was so near that Henry could see the outline of the great forest-fighter's figure.
"Well, we succeeded, did we not, Colonel Boone?" he said, giving him a title that had been conferred upon him a year or two before.
"We have so far," replied Boone, guardedly, "and this is a strong position. We couldn't have taken it if we hadn't been helped by surprise. I believe they'll make an effort to drive us out of this place. Timmendiquas and Girty know the need of it. Come with me, Mr. Ware, and see that all our men are ready."
Henry, very proud to serve as the lieutenant of such a man, rose from his log and the two went among the men. Everyone was ready with loaded weapons. Many had wounds, but they had tied them up, and, rejoicing now in their log fortifications, they waited with impatience the Indian onset. Henry returned to his place. A red flare of lightning showed his eager comrades all about him, their tanned faces, set and lean, every man watching the forest. But after the lightning, the night, heavy with clouds, swept down again, and it seemed to Henry that it was darker than ever. He longed for the dawn. With the daylight disclosing the enemy, and helping their own aim, their log fortress would be impregnable. Elsewhere the battle seemed to be dying. The shots came in irregular clusters, and the war whoop was heard only at intervals. Directly in front of them the silence was absolute and Henry's rapid mind divined the reason for all these things. Girty and Timmendiquas were assembling their main force there and they, too, would rely upon surprise and the irresistible rush of a great mass. He crawled over to Boone and told him his belief. Boone nodded.
"I think you are right," he said, "an' right now I'll send a messenger back to Colonel Clark to be ready with help. The attack will come soon, because inside of an hour you'll see dawn peeping over the eastern trees."
Henry crawled back to his comrades and lay down with them, waiting through that terrible period of suspense. Strain their ears as they would, they could hear nothing in front. If Timmendiquas and Girty were gathering their men there, they were doing it with the utmost skill and secrecy. Yet the watch was never relaxed for an instant. Every finger remained on the trigger and every figure was taut for instant action.
A half hour had passed. In another half hour the day would come, and they must fight when eyes could see. The lightning had ceased, but the wind was moaning its dirge among the leaves, and then to Henry's ears came the sound of a soft tread, of moccasined feet touching the earth ever so lightly.
"They are coming! They are coming!" he cried in a sharp, intense whisper, and the next instant the terrible war whoop, the fiercest of all human sounds, was poured from the hundreds of throats, and dusky figures seemed to rise from the earth directly in front of them, rushing upon them, seeking to close with the tomahawk before they could take aim with their rifles in the darkness. But these were chosen men, ready and wonderfully quick. Their rifles leaped to their shoulders and then they flashed all together, so close that few could miss. The front of the Indian mass was blown away, but the others were carried on by the impetus of their charge, and a confused, deadly struggle took place once more, now among the logs. Henry, wielding his clubbed rifle again, was sure that he heard the powerful voice of Timmendiquas urging on the warriors, but he was not able to see the tall figure of the great Wyandot chieftain.
"Why don't the help from Colonel Clark come?" panted Shif'less Sol. "If you don't get help when you want it, it needn't come at all."
But help was near. With a great shout more than two hundred men rushed to the rescue. Yet it was hard in the darkness to tell friend from enemy, and, taking advantage of it, the warriors yet held a place among the fallen trees. Now, as if by mutual consent, there was a lull in the battle, and there occurred something that both had forgotten in the fierce passions of the struggle. The dawn came. The sharp rays of the sun pierced the clouds of darkness and smoke, and disclosed the face of the combatants to one another.
Then the battle swelled afresh, and as the light swung higher and higher, showing all the forest, the Indian horde was driven back, giving ground at first slowly. Suddenly a powerful voice shouted a command and all the warriors who yet stood, disappeared among the trees, melting away as if they had been ghosts. They sent back no war cry, not another shot was fired, and the rising sun looked down upon a battlefield that was still, absolutely still. The wounded, stoics, both red and white, suppressed their groans, and Henry, looking from the shelter of the fallen tree, was awed as he had never been before by Indian combat.
The day was of uncommon splendor. The sun shot down sheaves of red gold, and lighted up all the forest, disclosing the dead, lying often in singular positions, and the wounded, seeking in silence to bind their wounds. The smoke, drifting about in coils and eddies, rose slowly above the trees and over everything was that menacing silence.
"If it were not for those men out there," said Paul, "it would all be like a dream, a nightmare, driven away by the day."
"It's no dream," said Henry; "we've repulsed the Indians twice, but they're going to try to hold us here. They'll surround us with hundreds of sharpshooters, and every man who tries to go a hundred yards from the rest of us will get a bullet. I wish I knew where Logan's force is or what has become of it."
"That's a mighty important thing to us," said Boone, "an' it'll grow more important every hour. I guess Logan has been attacked too, but he and Clark have got to unite or this campaign can't go on."
Henry said nothing but he was very thoughtful. A plan was forming already in his mind. Yet it was one that compelled waiting. The day deepened and the Indian force was silent and invisible. The inexperienced would have thought that it was gone, but these borderers knew well enough that it was lying there in the deep woods not a quarter of a mile away, and as eager as ever for their destruction. Colonel Clark reënforced the detachment among the fallen trees, recognizing the great strength of the position, and he spoke many words of praise.
"I'll send food to you," he said, "and meat and drink in plenty. After a night such as we have had refresh yourselves as much as you can."
They had an abundance of stores in the boats, and the men were not stinted. Nor did they confine themselves to cold food. Fires were lighted in the woods nearest to the river, and they cooked beef, venison, pork and buffalo meat. Coffee was boiled in great cans of sheet iron, and breakfast was served first to the gallant hundred.
Shif'less Sol, as he lay behind his tree, murmured words of great content. "It's a black night that don't end," he said, "an' I like fur mine to end jest this way. Provided I don't get hurt bad I'm willin' to fight my way to hot coffee an' rich buff'ler steak. This coffee makes me feel good right down to my toes, though I will say that there is a long-legged ornery creatur that kin make it even better than this. Hey, thar, Saplin'!"
Long Jim Hart's mouth opened in a chasm of a grin.
"I confess," he said, "I'm a purty good cook, ef I do tell it myself. But what are we goin' to do now, Henry?"
"That's for Colonel Clark to say, and I don't think he'll say anything just yet."
"Nice day," said Tom Ross, looking about approvingly.
All the others laughed, yet Tom told the truth. The clouds were gone and the air had turned cooler. The forest looked splendid in its foliage, and off to the south they could see wild flowers.
"Nothin' goin' to happen for some time," said Shif'less Sol, "an' me bein' a lazy man an' proud o' the fact, I think I'll go to sleep."
Nobody said anything against it, and stretching himself out among the bushes which shaded his face, he was sleeping peacefully in a few minutes. Paul looked at him, and the impression which the slumbering man made upon him was so strong that his own eyelids drooped.
"You go to sleep, too," said Henry. "You'll have nothing to do for hours, and sleep will bring back your strength."
Paul had eaten a heavy breakfast, and he needed nothing more than Henry's words. He lay down by the side of his comrade, and soon he too was slumbering as soundly as Shif'less Sol. Several hours passed. The sun moved on in its regular course toward the zenith. Paul and the shiftless one still slept. Toward the eastern end of the camp someone ventured a little distance from the others, and received a bullet in his shoulder. A scout fired at the figure of an Indian that he saw for a moment leaping from one tree to another, but he could not tell whether he hit anything. At the other end of the camp there were occasional shots, but Paul and the shiftless one slept on.
Henry glanced at the sleepers now and then and was pleased to see that they rested so well. He suggested to Jim Hart that he join them, and Jim promptly traveled to the same blissful country. Henry himself did not care to go to sleep. He was still meditating. All this sharpshooting by the two sides meant nothing. It was more an expression of restlessness than of any serious purpose, and he paid it no attention. Silent Tom noticed the corrugation of his brow, and he said:
"Thinkin' hard, Henry?"
"Yes; that is, I'm trying," replied Henry.
Tom, his curiosity satisfied, relapsed into silence. He, too, cared little for the casual shots, but he was convinced that Henry had a plan which he would reveal in good time.
The sniping went on all day long. Not a great deal of damage was done but it was sufficient to show to Colonel Clark that his men must lie close in camp. If the white army assumed the offensive, the great Indian force from the shelter of trees and bushes would annihilate it. And throughout the day he was tormented by fears about Logan. That leader was coming up the Licking with only three or four hundred men, and already they might have been destroyed. If so, he must forego the expedition against Chillicothe and the other Indian towns. It was a terrible dilemma, and the heart of the stout leader sank. Now and then he went along the semicircle, but he found that the Indians were always on watch. If a head were exposed, somebody sent a bullet at it. More than once he considered the need of a charge, but the deep woods forbade it. He was a man of great courage and many resources, but as he sat under the beech tree he could think of nothing to do.
The day—one of many alarms and scattered firing—drew to its close. The setting sun tinted river and woods with red, and Colonel Clark, still sitting under his tree and ransacking every corner of his brain, could not yet see a way. While he sat there, Henry Ware came to him, and taking off his hat, announced that he wished to make a proposition.
"Well, Henry, my lad," said the Colonel, kindly, "what is it that you have to say? As for me, I confess I don't know what to do."
"Somebody must go down the Licking and communicate with Colonel Logan," replied the youth. "I feel sure that he has not come up yet, and that he has not been in contact with the Indians. If his force could break through and join us, we could drive the Indians out of our path."
"Your argument is good as far as it goes," said Colonel Clark somewhat sadly, "but how are we to communicate with Logan? We are surrounded by a ring of fire. Not a man of ours dare go a hundred yards from camp. What way is there to reach Logan?"
"By water."
"By water? What do you mean?"
"Down the Ohio and up the Licking."
Colonel Clark stared at Henry.
"That's an easy thing to talk about," he said, "but who's going down the Ohio and then up the Licking for Logan?"
"I—with your permission."
Colonel Clark stared still harder, and his eyes widened a little with appreciation, but he shook his head.
"It's a patriotic and daring thing for you to propose, my boy," he said, "but it is impossible. You could never reach the mouth of the Licking even, and yours is too valuable a life to be thrown away in a wild attempt."
But Henry was not daunted. He had thought over his plan long and well, and he believed that he could succeed.
"I have been along the Ohio before, and I have also been down the Licking," he said. "The night promises to be cloudy and dark like last night and I feel sure that I can get through. I have thought out everything, and I wish to try. Say that you are willing for me to go, Colonel."
Colonel Clark hesitated. He had formed a strong liking for the tall youth before him, and he did not wish to see his life wasted, but the great earnestness of Henry's manner impressed him. The youth's quiet tone expressed conviction, and expressed it so strongly that Colonel Clark, in his turn, felt it.
"What is your plan?" he asked.
"When the night reaches its darkest I will start with a little raft, only four or five planks fastened together. I do not want a canoe. I want something that blends with the surface of the water. I'll swim, pushing it before me until I am tired, and then I'll rest upon it. Then I'll swim again."
"Do you really think you can get through?" asked the Colonel.
"I'm sure of it."
Colonel Clark paced back and forth for a minute or two.
"It looks terribly dangerous," he said at last, "but from all I have heard you've done some wonderful things, and if you can reach Logan in time, it will relieve us from this coil."
"I can do it! I can do it!" said Henry eagerly.
Colonel Clark looked at him long and scrutinizingly. He noted his height, his powerful figure, the wonderful elasticity that showed with every step he took, and his firm and resourceful gaze.
"Well, go," he said, "and God be with you."
"I shall start the moment full darkness comes," said Henry.
"But we must arrange a signal in case you get through to Logan," said Colonel Clark. "He has a twelve pound bronze gun. I know positively that he left Lexington with it. Now if he approaches, have him fire a shot. We will reply with two shots from our guns, you answer with another from yours, and the signal will be complete. Then Logan is to attack the Indian ring from the outside with all his might, and, at the same moment and at the same point, we will attack from the inside with all of ours. Then, in truth, it will be strange if we do not win the victory."
Henry returned to his comrades and told them the plan. They were loth to see him go, but they knew that attempts to dissuade him would be useless. Nevertheless, Shif'less Sol had an amendment.
"Let me go with you, Henry," he said. "Two are better than one."
"No," replied Henry, "I must go alone, Sol. In this case the smaller the party the less likely it is to be seen. I'll try, and then if I fail, it will be your time."
