CHAPTER XV.—Dorothy Again a Prisoner.
John, after eight months’ absence, was home again. The quiet of the valley was profound and satisfying. Though he brought back in money less than he had taken away, he had stored up much worldly wisdom and experience; and like all men had paid the price.
His guilelessness was gone; the old faith that he could love all men as he loved everything of the valley was no more. Before, he had looked out and seen that everything was good; now he knew that all were not good and that not every spoken word was true; and without ever having wronged any one, he had been forced to flee as a criminal. It made him morbid.
His heart overflowed with love for his mountains; for the deep silent forest and for the Pinnacle—from it he might look forth and see so much of nature’s pleasant face and feel the peace that reigned. How he loved the smell of the growing corn, the clover fragrance of the meadow and nature’s minor voices; of rippling waters, of summer breezes, of singing birds, of chirping crickets by night, of harvest flies and katydids by day, of summer daylight showers and on sultry nights the low distant thunder rumbling in the mountains.
How much purer life seemed, how much simpler than in the Settlements. Here, God in nature reigned; there, where man seemed master, the face of nature was defaced. It was a confusion of ugliness, of new cabins, brush heaps, stumps, the decaying skeletons of dead and belted trees; and the earth was barren and torn.
[pg 232] He would spend his whole life in the valley—if only Dorothy were here; * * * man must not live alone; * * * she alone were needed to make this as paradise, before the fall of man.
* * * What have you to do with fallen men? “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” * * * Not as you love the stars. Are you to remain here cradled in the lap of nature? A wood nymph of six feet two? Why your great strength?—your broad shoulders? Why a man that can discern? Why a voice? Why a soul?—and one that has visions of the glory of God. What use for a teacher in this solitude? What use for broad shoulders where burdens are light? What use for vision if you are not a prophet? Visions but beget broader vision. Are you not of those whose honors come after death? Since you first began to think and speak have you not thought and said: I will go forth to service, in order that the grain ripe for harvest may not perish from my neglect? Wouldst be questioned and commanded: Wist you not that you must be about the Master’s business? Go!
Through the last days of June and into July, John hoed and sweated in the corn; the weeds came thicker than the year before; the tares grew denser and closer—and whence the tares? And his mind was on the call to go to the Settlements to serve men—where Dorothy * * *
The corn was laid by, the days grew sultry and hot, it was early August. Then he went into the meadow; with each swing of the blade and each rasp of the whetstone he heard the call to service—or to Dorothy.
Each Sunday afternoon and when unfit weather made a holiday, he climbed to the Gap and the Pinnacle; and always his eyes were turned northward towards the Settlements; where the harvest was ripe and needed reapers and where Dorothy, if she were home again, * * * but [pg 233] why always was his call to service coupled with thoughts of Dorothy? Was it in truth a call—or did he merely wish to leave the valley to be with Dorothy?
This Sunday afternoon on the Pinnacle resolutely he turned his back to the Settlements, facing the unbroken forest of Powell’s Valley, saying: “I fought this out a year ago; my call comes first.”
His vision became fixed upon a fleecy cloud way to the southward or was it the smoke from a burning forest? Did he sleep; or did he see the misty filmy substance take shape? He never knew with certainty. In any event he saw a great river and floating upon it a large flat boat, such as river emigrants used. As he looked the boat rounded a great bend and approached the mouth of a smaller river emptying into it from the northward. Hid in the willows at the mouth of the smaller river, he counted, one by one, ten large war canoes filled with Indians waiting.
He recognized the location. It was the mouth of the Big Miami; where John Filson and Colonel Patterson, with their men, had held the pow-wow with the Indians, on their way up river to lay off Losanteville.
Two white men running along the bank of the Ohio, some distance above the willows, were calling to the boat: “Come ashore and take us aboard. We escaped from the Indians last night and shall be found and murdered.” They were the decoys of the war party.
The boat had heavy bulwarks and was heavily loaded; aboard were more than a dozen men and several women and children. On the deck fastened to a chain running between two heavy supports were eight horses and several cows.
The crew, confident of their strength, approached the shore though warned not to do so by Captain Fairfax, [pg 234] who with his daughter were passengers. The captain of the boat said: “They may be decoys as you say, but we will not land; merely go in close enough to ascertain who the men are and if they are in distress throw out a line, if they cannot swim to us. It seems hard to believe that white men could be found to decoy us; and if they are closely pursued and murdered in our sight or recaptured we would never forgive ourselves for not helping them. Several of you men have your rifles ready in case of attack. The beach is clear of undergrowth until we reach the willows and we will shove out again before we get that far.”
They came within a short distance of the shore, calling to the men to swim to them. One answered he could not swim and they ran along the shore abreast of the boat, all the while drawing near the willows. When the men reached a wash-out they dropped into it out of sight. At the same time the Indians dashed out in their canoes and the battle began.
The men at the sweeps were killed at the first volley; the boat drifted yet nearer the shore and the canoes were almost upon it.
The horses and cattle frightened by the firing and by the noise began to struggle and plunge and to crowd and push towards the off-shore or port side of the boat; which was tilted until the water flowed in and the overloaded boat sank in seven feet of water.
Some of the crew and passengers struggled in the water, the children were drowned in the cabin. Those yet on deck stood shoulder deep in the water but their rifles were useless; and the Indians coming very close, tomahawked and scalped the survivors.
John saw Captain Fairfax strike with his rifle barrel an Indian sitting in the bow of a canoe. Several Indians [pg 235] with the muzzles of their rifles within a foot of his face fired; he sank into the water, but reaching down they recovered his body and scalped him. Then he saw a young woman swimming from the sunken boat out into the river towards the swift running current, hoping thus to escape. She swam well, and for a while he thought she would escape; but one of the Indians pointed her out to those in his canoe and they gave chase. When almost near enough to strike, she dived and rose again twenty feet down the stream; but the canoe was also riding with the current and each time she rose it was near. She dived again and when she came up the Indian in the bow who had first seen her, caught her by the hair and hauled her into the canoe.
John saw her face. He had felt all the while it was Dorothy. The Indians were strangers to him and he grew sick with fear for her. They were from the headwaters of the Big Miami. For the first time in his life he was possessed with an overwhelming desire to kill.
The Indians again landed at the willows; removed from their canoes several of their dead and wounded and four captives, two men and two women. The men were bleeding from wounds and nearly drowned. A little later two canoes came ashore, leading by their halters three horses and two cows.
They bound the two half drowned men to stakes and built great fires about them. They killed the two cows and roasted the men and their meat in the same fires.
A few small pieces of drift and an upturned canoe marked the site of the battle; otherwise the bosom of the river was as placid as before. * * * And the vision faded.
John, as deeply moved as if he had been tied to a stake and helplessly witnessed it all, knew that the vision he [pg 236] had seen had just occurred as pictured, though he was more than two hundred miles from the mouth of the Big Miami.
He went home in a very frenzy of passion; ate his supper in silence and as his parents noticed in a sort of semi-consciousness; eating more than he habitually did.
After supper he told them of his dream, as he chose to call it, saying: “After I have rescued Dorothy I will take her to her mother; then I will attend a theological school for some months. After I have finished, I will come back here and help during the summer; then I shall give my whole time to preaching.”
He made hasty preparation to leave for the Miami country; knowing in an unaccountable way that Dorothy was yet alive. He went to bed and slept until the moon rose over the mountains, which gave sufficient light to travel, then set forth afoot, carrying only his girdle, a hunting knife, hatchet, blanket and several days’ rations of parched corn and jerked meat.
He took the Warrior’s Trail northward, traveling the first sixty miles in twenty hours, stopping only for a drink of water now and then, munching an occasional mouthful of parched corn or dried meat as he walked. Darkness having come again and, needing rest, he bathed in a small stream, and in a dry, sheltered spot under an overhanging cliff slept until the gray of morning; then he hurried on, breakfasting upon the corn and meat as he walked.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, he reached the south bank of the Ohio, opposite the mouth of the Miami, and could see the willows where the Indians had waited in their canoes. Walking up the stream to offset the distance the current would wash him down while swimming across, he selected from a pile of drift two small, dry [pg 237] cottonwood logs and lashed and launched them into the river; having tied his clothing on one end and holding to the other, he swam across, landing on the opposite shore at the mouth of the draw a few yards above the willows.
Having dressed again, he ate the last of his ration of corn and meat, which was supplemented by a few late dewberries which he found growing on the bluff. Then hiding in the willows at the mouth of the river, he spread his blanket on the soft white sand and almost immediately went to sleep.
Some hours later he was aroused by the grating of the prow of a canoe upon the sandy beach a few yards above him; then another landed. Though the sound may have been made by hostile Indians, it was a break in his loneliness; as since leaving home, he had not seen or heard a human being. It was too dark to see, but listening intently he was convinced his neighbors were Indians because they were stealthy of movement and talked in brief and subdued monotone.
He finally made out they were Mingoes; and thought he recognized one by his voice as Deer Runner; one of the Indians who had been with him at Jenkins’ Station the year before.
Greeting them as friends, he called the name of this Indian and announced his own. There was a moment of absolute silence; then he asked about the Prophet and several others of his friends. Then he heard one say to his companions: “It is Chief Cross-Bearer, the strong armed. Let us light a fire so we can see his face and cook something. I am hungry.” Then he came over to where John sat, and for an Indian, greeted him cordially; the others followed.
[pg 238] He told them the cause of his journey; and in turn was informed that two white women who had been taken from a boat on the Ohio, were held prisoners at an Indian town about fifty miles up the Miami.
Convinced that Dorothy was one of them he asked Deer Runner to take him in the small canoe to the village and ordered the other four Indians to hasten to Shauane-Town, and tell the Prophet of Dorothy’s capture and ask his assistance.
At daylight he and Deer Runner left for the village in the small canoe, while the others were yet making preparations to continue up the Ohio to the mouth of the Scioto, the Mingo country.
Just before sundown, John and Deer Runner beached their canoe at the Indian village; while the Indians in sullen, almost hostile, silence watched them. The tribe at the time was at war with the whites and they resented and were curious to know the purpose of this unarmed white man who dared to come among them.
John would have been made prisoner and tortured except for his adoption and rank as a Mingo chieftain; which was satisfactorily established by the girdle and the tattoo marks on his chest, both of which he was forced to exhibit. When it was understood that by adoption he was a brother of Tecumseh and the Prophet, he was assigned a lodge and given food.
When he asked to talk with the white prisoners the request was denied; though the chief took him so near that he and Dorothy recognized and waved a greeting to each other. He was told that the following morning a council would be called and he would be given an opportunity to explain why he had visited their village, after which he might be permitted to confer with the prisoners.
[pg 239] He lay down on the deer skins over which he had spread his blanket and slept through the night. Dorothy was alive and well; and he was near to protect her; and friends would soon arrive to help in her rescue.
When he awoke the sun was filling the valley with its first light; the dew sparkled on the leaves and grass; his morning prayer was a song of praise; his heart was so full of the love of life that he felt attuned with and understood as his own tongue the songs of the birds that warbled so sweetly in the tree tops along the river.
Walking up the river beyond sight of the village, he undressed on a bar of white sand and swam across and back again; then returned to the village, where he found Deer Runner waiting to begin their breakfast of meat, green corn and potatoes, all of which had been cooked together with some seasoning herbs by an old woman, who had been assigned as their servant.
On the way to the council hall he passed near Dorothy, who waved a good morning; and entered, feeling fit to plead with confidence even so momentous a cause as involved her freedom—and his happiness.
The chief asked that he explain in the Mingo dialect, which all understood, being members of the Confederacy, the purpose of his visit to their village.
“As you saw, I came among you unarmed, showing that my mission was one of peace. I am a man of peace and have never yet shed blood of or wronged either Indian or Long Knife. Before coming to Kentucke I lived in the Jackson River Country and my father’s lodge was the stopping place of all Indians. They were not only entertained as guests but treated as friends.
“When a little boy I was taken prisoner by Logan, who driven to violence by the murder of all his kindred, thought for a while to even scores; but he learned before [pg 240] his death that an act of violence following another in retaliation, neither righted wrong nor salved injury.
“He brought me to Shauane-Town on the Scioto. I was adopted into the family of Tecumseh and the Prophet, in place of Tecumseh’s twin brother who had died. While they are warriors, I belong to the priesthood; and my body, which no Indian at peace with the Mingoes dare mutilate, bears the marks of dedication to the Great Spirit.
“When I was taken prisoner, a little girl, now a grown woman and your prisoner, was carried off and she by adoption is a Mingo; the daughter of Logan, himself an adopted chief of the Sciotha tribe. He was murdered at Detroit as you have heard.
“Are you at peace with the Mingoes? If so, what right have you to hold the daughter of Logan a prisoner? Does she not speak the Mingo tongue? Is that acquired in a day? Has she not told you she is the daughter of Logan? As I now say and as Deer Runner will tell you.
“Her white father was aboard the boat and was shot and scalped by you; but his daughter did not fight, she killed no one; her hands are not stained by blood. She merely sought to escape as the wild duck flees from the eagle; swimming way out into the river, she was pursued by Gray Wolf and his men in a canoe and taken prisoner. By the law between allies, and you are allies of the Mingoes, you cannot hold her prisoner unless she has killed one of your people and then her fate is fixed by the family of whom the one killed was a member. Only three of your warriors were killed in the battle, a fourth has since died. None of these were kindred of Gray Wolf, nor was he even wounded. What right has he to hold this woman prisoner?”
[pg 241] (The Chief) “How do you know all this?”
“I saw the battle from the Pinnacle at Cumberland Gap, more than two hundred miles away. If any doubt, let him ask what occurred and I will tell him.”
(Gray Wolf) “How many braves were in the canoe when we took the woman? And if any here were present point them out.”
“Five, you sat in the bow, and after the woman had dived three times, she came up within reach, when you caught her by the hair and pulled her aboard. You and the brave on your left held her until you came ashore. The fourth one from you on the right was with you and the seventh. The fifth man is not here; he has gone up the river.”
(The Chief) “Who has told Cross-Bearer these things? Have any of you gossipped like old women, either with him or with Deer Runner?”
“No one has spoken. I saw it as it has been told. If Gray Wolf refuses to release the prisoner, he will die tonight by his own hand; it is the will of the Great Spirit. My brother, the Prophet, comes tomorrow. He loves you people, but he loves his brother more; nor will he permit a woman of his tribe to be held a prisoner without cause. Let there be peace. Let the prisoner go. I have no right to demand the release of the other prisoner. You are at war with the whites. She was taken in battle; she is an enemy, not an ally; but as your friend I would advise you not to war upon women and children.”
(The Chief) “Chief Cross-Bearer is right; the woman who is the daughter of Logan must be released. It is the law of the Confederacy.”
(Gray Wolf) “I will not be frightened into releasing the woman. Chief Cross-Bearer has spoken. He has told of strange things; but he may have learned them [pg 242] from the prisoner. I have heard of but never seen a person who could see where others were blind and who could foretell what was to happen on the morrow. He claims to know too much when he says I shall die tonight unless the prisoner is released. What is to be will happen. It is not in his power to know the time of my death. Gray Wolf, though he has no cause to kill himself, is not afraid to die. The woman shall go free at the rising of the sun but not before. Gray Wolf will not then release her because of threats but because she is the daughter of Logan. I have spoken.”
He was next in authority to the chief; and as all thought no harm could come of the woman remaining a prisoner over night the council adjourned without further comment.
Gray Wolf, about four months before, leading a war party had attacked a flat boat floating down the Ohio. After killing all the crew he had boarded it and found a small shepherd puppy aboard which he had brought back with him. The now half grown dog was his constant companion and his most prized possession.
In the afternoon, while John, the chief and several of the braves, were seated under a great elm near the river, the dog came near them and before lying down on an absolutely bare spot, turned about many times tramping with his feet as though to crush down a heavy growth of grass. This started a discussion of the hereditary or birthmark traits of birds, animals and men, which lasted some time. The dog, his nap over, left them and began playing in the open some distance from Gray Wolf’s lodge. He gave a yelp of terror, just as a great bald eagle, dropping as it seemed from the sky, caught him in her talons and flew away. The weight and struggles of the dog caused the bird to light after a flight of a hundred yards; [pg 243] and Gray Wolf, snatching up his rifle, started running for the spot. Intent to reach the eagle which was tearing the life out of his dog, he carelessly stumbled over a bramble. His rifle was thrown from his hand and, striking a stone, was discharged, the bullet passing through his chest. They carried him into his lodge and laid him upon a pallet of skins. Two hours after sunset he choked to death, from the accumulation of blood in his lungs.
A few minutes before his death he asked for Chief Cross-Bearer and when he came near, in a choking voice said: “You are a true prophet—the prisoner is yours. Take her and go. You will have peace and she will be your wife.”
When he came out the chief met him and calling two of his braves directed them to place food and some deer skins in the Mingo canoe, then turning to John said: “We wish you to leave at once. Take both women. The Great Spirit is offended and may punish others than Gray Wolf.”
John, the two women and Deer Runner departed within the hour.
Near daylight, they came within sight of the willows. On the beach a camp fire blazed and beside it by its light they recognized the Prophet and some thirty of his warriors, who were just breaking camp, on their way to demand the release of Dorothy.
They paddled to the shore and after greetings were asked to land and rest; but Dorothy said no. She wished to leave the place at the earliest moment.
Their belongings were transferred to a large canoe, then they climbed in followed by four Indians, who paddled lustily and silently down stream, while their passengers slept; Dorothy beside John with her head pillowed on his arm.
[pg 244]