Wayne’s staff of loyal scouts and trained woodsmen were likewise alert. Every day they gathered from one source or another some news of the preparations all the northwest tribes were making for a fight, which, they told one another, would sicken the Palefaces more than the defeat of St. Clair had done, and check the advance of the settlers upon their forest lands forever.
Unfortunately for Fishing Bird, it so happened that, just at the time he and his friends were spying about in the vicinity of the white army, Gen. Wayne ordered that some Indian from the interior be brought in and questioned. Six men went out to find and capture such a redskin.
They came upon the little party of Delawares, encamped several miles from the river, just at daybreak. All were sleeping, but they heard the white men stealing upon them, and dashed into the woods without firing a shot. Three made their escape. One was caught and the unhappy Fishing Bird was he.
Matters were made worse for the captive, too, by the redskins who had eluded capture returning and firing upon the white scouts. They intended, no doubt, to assist Fishing Bird to get away. But they caused him only so much the more trouble; for his captors made him bear the brunt of the wrath the hostile act excited in their minds. The still further result was that Fishing Bird, being mistreated, became ugly and obstinate. He refused to talk. He would tell the Palefaces nothing. Let them beat him, abuse and torture him as they would, he bore it all in sullen, defiant silence.
“Chuck him in the guard-house! Starve him! Let him know that he’s got to talk or die! Hang all the rascals, anyhow!” a captain had exclaimed, and the unoffending Delaware was hustled off in no very tender manner.
Gen. Wayne soon learned of what had taken place and caused Fishing Bird to be brought to his own cabin. He talked kindly to the Indian, but the latter was still smarting physically from the injuries, and smarting still more mentally from the bitter injustice of the punishment he had received, and remained obstinate.
“He evidently knows something. If he had nothing to tell he would be talkative enough,” “Mad Anthony” thought, and ordered Fishing Bird taken back to the guard-house. “Let him understand that he will not be harmed if he’ll tell the truth,” he said, “but if he won’t talk—”
In a short time the peaceable redskins in the vicinity learned what had been done with the Delaware and so before a great while the information reached the three warriors who had been his companions. Immediately they carried word to Captain Pipe. The latter was too proud to call upon Return Kingdom to exert himself in Fishing Bird’s behalf, after the manner in which he had allowed the white boy to be treated, but Gentle Maiden did not hesitate. She sent Long-Hair and Little Wolf to the cabin at once.
None of the Indians really knew, however, the many reasons Kingdom had for showing his friendship for Fishing Bird in the latter’s hour of need. They may have known that the two were more than usually friendly, but they did not guess how the young white settlers had often been assisted by the Delaware; nor did anyone besides Ree and John and Fishing Bird himself know of the terrible struggle in the woods that night two years ago, when Kingdom was so near to killing the young savage.
The circumstances of the capture and detention of Fishing Bird were not, of course, known to Kingdom until he reached Wayne’s camp. Indeed, he puzzled his mind a great deal with the subject, as he traveled rapidly along the old trail to the east. Sometimes at a gallop, sometimes at a walk, he kept to the course, but wherever the path would permit of it, he let Phoebe take her fastest gait and urged the docile and only too willing mare on and on.