The ward of Tecumseh

by Crittenden Marriott

Abruptly the underbrush ended and he came out into a park-like open space that stretched far into the distance. On the right the gleam of water showed where the Thames wandered sluggishly to Lake St. Clair. Cautiously he followed it till his road forked. One branch, broad and deep, trampled and showing marks of heavy wheels, ran on up the river; the other, marked only by trampled grass, turned off to the left. Jack took the second, for he was looking for the Indians rather than for the British. He followed it through a belt of swamp, in which he sank nearly to the knees, then came out upon a second clearing, across which, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, he saw a light flashing close to the ground.

With tightening pulses he advanced. Soon he saw leaping flames, crisscrossed by the black branches of the trees. Then they vanished, but their glow on the overreaching trees persisted, showing that they had been merely obscured and not extinguished. A few yards farther, and the screen that had cut off the light resolved itself into men thickly ranked. Jack knew that Indians, most of all Indians upon the warpath, build only tiny fires for cooking, for warmth, or for company; for council alone did they build great fires like this. Half by luck and half by effort he had found his way to the spot he most desired—to the council fire of the savages.

Now or never. Boldly he strode forward, like one who expects no challenge. The clearing ended, giving way to undergrowth, beyond which rose thicker forest. The ground underfoot again grew spongy and he knew he was entering a second swamp. A guard of Indians, squatting at the edge of what was evidently the camp, stared at him as he passed but made no move to stay him. Further on, here and there, a warrior glanced at him carelessly. Jack did not heed them; he well knew that to hesitate would be fatal; deliberately he advanced to the ring of savages and pushed his way through them.

Within, a ring of sitting men—redcoats and red men—were ranged in an ellipse in whose center burned the fire that he had seen from afar off. At one end, a little in advance of the line, sat an Indian clad in the red coat and shoulder straps of a British officer. Jack recognized him instantly as the chief who had visited him upon the far-away Tallapoosa and realized that he must be Tecumseh himself—Tecumseh, who had been made a major-general by the British king. At the other end of the ellipse, also in advance of the line, sat a British officer, evidently of high rank. Jack guessed that he was General Proctor. Round the circuit of the ellipse were ranged officers wearing the uniforms of the British and of the Canadian militia, interspersed with Indians, sachems of many tribes—Pottawatomies, Shawnees, Miamis, and others—representatives of the nations that the British had roused to murder and massacre. Only the Wyandottes were absent; foreseeing the vengeance that was about to fall, they had that morning fled and offered their services to General Harrison, only to be sent to the rear with the curt announcement that Americans did not enlist savages in warfare against white men.

Close to Jack a gap showed in the circuit of the ellipse. He stepped forward deliberately and seated himself in it.

No one said him nay. All who noticed him seemed to take him at his own appraisal. His uniform was a passport, and doubtless none dreamed that an enemy would dare to so beard death in his very lair. None challenged him, and when he looked about him no suspicious eyes burned into his.

In the middle of the cleared space blazed the fire, its dancing flames flickering on the bare overhanging boughs and on the ghastly painted faces of the savages. At one side of it rose a cross, from whose arms hung the creamy-white bodies of two dogs bound in ribbons of white and scarlet. They bore no scar; so deftly had they been strangled that not a single hair had been disturbed. At the other side of the fire a warrior painted like death, beat a drum monotonously, tump-a-tump, tump-a-tump.

Into the ellipse a stately figure abruptly advanced. He faced the fire and the cross and raised his hands. At the sign two young warriors slipped out of the circle of braves and lifted down the dogs from the cross and held them out. The priest received them with reverence and laid them on the fire.

For an instant the smell of burning hair filled the glades; then it was swallowed up in the stronger odor of the dried herbs which the priest sprinkled upon the flames.

Then he began to chant, and the encircling braves took up the refrain, rolling it skyward till the bare branches overhead quivered and the water quaked among the mosskegs of the swamp.