The Story of Old Fort Loudon

by Charles Egbert Craddock

With a great effort Hamish dragged O'Flynn, who was a heavy, muscular fellow, out of the reach of the wolf. Fortunately there chanced to be a spring branch near at hand, and the ice-cold water hurriedly dashed into the corporal's face, together with an earnest reminder of the hideous danger of death and torture by the Indians, and a sense of the possibility of escape, served to sufficiently restore him to enable him to get upon his feet, unsteadily enough, however, and with Hamish's help make his way toward the fort at a pretty fair speed. He fainted after they crossed the ditch, and the great gates closed. These two were the last of the hunters who found rescue; the others who had straggled in previously, reported having been fired upon by Indians, and that several dead soldiers were left upon the ground.

The parade was a scene of wild turmoil, far different from its usual orderly military aspect. The settlers and their families, alarmed at last, had fled for refuge to the fort, bringing only a small portion of their scanty possessions. Women were weeping in agitation and terror of the dangers passed, and in despair because of the loss of their little homes, which the Indians were even now pillaging; children were clinging about their mothers and peevishly plaining, their nerves unstrung by the rush and commotion, and the unaccustomed aspect of the place; bundles of clothing and bedding lay about on the ground; the pioneers moved hither and thither, now seeking to adjust discomforts and clear the domestic atmosphere, now aiding in the preparations for an expected attack.

Odalie, who had braced up her heart, found little to encourage her as she went from one to another of the matrons and sought to comfort them with the reflection that it might have been worse. "For my own part," she declared, "I think of what might have been. If my household gear were not sacrificed we should have been at home last night when the Indians came and found us gone and sacked and fired the house. And such a little thing to save us—Fifine's talk of seeing Willinawaugh."

"Him top-feathers, him head, an' him ugly mouf," reiterated Fifine, who had become impressed with the belief that she had done something very clever indeed, and was enchanted to hear it celebrated.

Odalie's exertions were more appreciated at the hospital, where she assisted in dressing the wounds and caring for the comfort of the soldiers who had been shot. Afterward, still determined to make the best of things and to help all she could, she discovered a mission to tax her powers in offering to assist in what manner she might the quarter-master-sergeant. That functionary looked as if the conundrum of the created world had suddenly been propounded to him. He was a short, square, red-faced man, with light, staring, gray eyes, and they seemed about to pop out of his head whenever the finding of quarters for another family was required of him.

"Why couldn't they have brought some conveniences, such as knives and forks and cups and platters, instead of fool trifles?" he demanded fiercely, aside, as he turned away from one group who were as destitute of all appliances as if they had expected to peck off the ground, or drink out of the bubbles of the spring branch. "I have got none to spare except those of the poor fellows who were killed and Corporal O'Flynn's, for he will be equal to nothing but spoon-meat for one while."

"Oh, the poor settlers,—I pity them,—and poor Mr. Green,—I feel very guilty, for I came here just such a charge on the resources of the fort, myself."

He paused pudgily, as if he were mentally in full run and had brought up with a short stop.

"Oh, you—" he exclaimed, in the tone of making an exception, "you are you."

He felt equal to any arrangements for merely military mortals, but the "squaw question," as he mentally called it, overwhelmed him. With a lot of anxious, troubled, houseless women and querulous, distraught, frightened children, and difficult half-grown boys,—and the commandant's general orders to quarter them all to their satisfaction and to furnish whatever was necessary,—the strain might have proved too great for the old bustling sergeant, and like undue pressure on the boiler of one of our modern locomotives, which he much resembled, as he went back and forth puffingly, might have exploded his valuable faculties, but for Odalie's well-meant hints.