"Der Frenchman, too," spoke up Corlaer behind me.
I turned in mingled amusement and surprise. It was seldom he used more than monosyllables.
"Ja," he continued, "der Englishman, he takes in all, Dutch, Swede, Cherman, Frenchman. But der Frenchman, he is der Frenchman. Der Englishman he comes on top. He-mixes. Ja."
CHAPTER III
THE SHAWNEE SCALP-HUNTER
Day after day we descended the broadening river. Once a floating snag ripped our bottom out, and we swam to shore, pushing the sodden craft ahead of us. Tawannears cut bark strips, melted pitch I collected from the pine trees, and salvaged the sinews of a deer he shot with the bow and arrow he carried for hunting game. With these he mended the hole and made it water-tight, and after two days' delay we continued our journey, thankful to have escaped attack whilst we tarried in this situation, for our spare powder had been wetted.
Treacherous channels and difficult portages hindered us further, but each day saw some advance to our credit, and at last we came to the place which Tawannears called the Meeting of the Waters. We were swept by a rapid current around the shoulder of a point just before sunset, and there opened before us two other watery prospects. At our left another stream, the Monongahela, poured in from the south to join its flow with the Allegheny, and the two united to form the great Ohio.
'Twas a matchless situation. North, south and west ran the three rivers, roads already laid to tap the resources of the wilderness. At their confluence was the ideal site for the erection of a fortress to command their courses and dominate the wilderness for miles around. Indeed, I remember long years afterward—I think it was in the year '60—young Colonel Washington of Virginia, when he was in New York in attendance on General Amherst, told me 'twas here the great French General Montcalm settled to build Fort Duquesne, which was one of the causes of the last struggle for the wilderness land. I remember, too, he said in his grave, simple way, that it should yet be the site of a prosperous town.
We camped that night on the point, the murmur of the waters in Spring freshet loud in our ears, and in the morning we allowed our canoe to be carried into the brawling current of the Ohio. So swift flowed this mighty stream that we had no necessity to use our paddles, save to guide the canoe from rocks and maintain it in the safest channel. We traveled as far that day as we often had in two days on the Allegheny's more tortuous reaches. But there came days when we must be at pains to avoid hidden dangers; when the waters foamed with rocks and submerged bars, and immense trees were hurled along like battering-rams to sink the over-confident. Sometimes we were fain to avoid over-dangerous bits, and stumbled along the shore-line in shallow water, the canoe on our shoulders.
I marveled that we saw so little human life. Occasionally a canoe would dart into the bank at sight of our approach, its occupant seeking shelter in the undergrowth. Twice an attempt was made by other canoes to overhaul us, but I was able now to lend my arms to assist Tawannears and Peter, and we left the pursuers far behind. Again, where the Scioto falls into the Ohio from the north, we encountered a party of Miamis bound south on an impartial hunt for scalps and buffalo robes. They knew Tawannears, and treated us with all respect. But for the most part the river flowed undisturbed on its majestic way to mingle with the Father of Waters.