“Say, Cap, who made this gun I’m using?”
Resenting such a breach of naval decorum in a marine, Barney answered him roughly, ignoring the question. But as it was again asked, he sharply inquired his reason for wanting to know.
“W-a-al,” replied the man, with the drawl peculiar to the mountaineers, “this ’ere bit of iron is jes’ the best smoothbore I ever fired in my life.” With the mountaineers’ independence, Andrew Jackson had strenuous dealings before the end of the Creek War.
[VI.]
FOLLOWING INDIANS
Scouting in the Cherokee country—The Red Sticks on the move—A scared darky comes into camp on the run—Davy makes a sixty-mile ride—Colonel Coffee shows scant appreciation of Davy’s efforts—Old Hickory in command of a hungry army—Burning Black Warrior’s town—The cane-brake and the hogs—More news of the Red Sticks—The Battle of Tallushatchee—One hundred and eighty-five Indians slain—A squaw kills Lieutenant Moore with an arrow.
Evidently in those days there was no superstition about the number 13, for the party with which Davy set out the next morning was of thirteen men, including Major Gibson. The first day they reached and crossed the Tennessee at Ditto’s Landing, and camped seven miles south, guided by an Indian trader. The next day the Major took seven of the men, giving Davy charge of those remaining, with orders to meet him at night fifteen miles beyond the house of a Cherokee named Brown. On the way Davy induced a half-breed, Jack Thompson, to follow the party and come to the place where the Major was to meet them. They travelled through a rather barren country, sometimes across prairie-like land where wild flowers were abundant and beautiful. In the low places were cane-brakes, often fifteen to twenty feet high. The scouts avoided the open spaces, fearing both Indians and snakes, which sometimes crippled or killed a horse.
Night came on without the Major appearing, and Crockett’s squad camped among the trees, away from the Indian trail. The hoot of an owl came floating through the silence of the evening, and was at once answered by Davy. It was the signal of the half-breed, who soon afterward came into the gleam of their fire. The morning broke, and there was still no news of the other party of scouts. As usual, Davy decided to go ahead, and passed through a Cherokee village, twenty miles farther south, reaching the house of a squaw-man, named Radcliff, in time for dinner. This man they found badly scared. He told them that ten painted Creeks had left the place during the forenoon; if they learned that he had fed the scouts, they would kill his whole family and burn the house. When dinner was over, Davy found that a few of his men wanted to turn back; they said that the party was too small to venture into the Creek country, just before them. But Davy knew that some of the men would stand by him, and he determined to go ahead. When he started on the whole party went along, for the few who wished to go back were afraid to do so alone. Soon after dark they reached a camp of some friendly Creeks. It was a strange condition of affairs, when some of the Indians of this tribe could be trusted, while others were slinking through the woods, smeared from head to foot with vermilion, and fierce for blood.
The moon was at its full, and for a while Davy and his men tried their skill with the bows and arrows of the Indian boys. While they were doing this, a scared negro who had joined them during the day warned them that the Red Sticks were likely to surprise them, but they made light of his fears. They tied their horses ready to mount at a second’s notice, and lay with their guns by their sides. They had scarcely dozed when a cry like that of an angry panther rang through the night. The negro shouted that the Red Sticks were coming, and every one stood at bay. Then an Indian appeared in the bright moonlight, with the news that the war party had been crossing the Coosa all day at the Ten Islands, on their way to fight Jackson’s army, then gathering at Fayetteville, in Tennessee.