The Border Watch: A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand

by Joseph A. Altsheler

These were signs that spoke to Henry as plainly as if the words themselves were uttered. A great wilderness army had passed that way and for a while he was in doubt. Was it the force of Bird coming back to the North? But it was undoubtedly a trail several weeks old. Everything indicated it. The bones had been bleached by the sun, the feather was beaten partly into the earth by rain, and the tattered old blanket had been pawed and torn still further by wolves. But none of these things told what army it might be. He hunted, instead, for some low place that might have been soft and marshy when the warriors passed, and which, when it dried, would preserve the outline of a footstep. He advanced a full mile, following the broad trail which was like an open road to him until he came to such a place. Then he kneeled and examined it critically. In a half dozen places he saw held in the hard earth the outline of footsteps. They would have been traces of footsteps to most people and nothing more, but he knew that every one of them pointed to the south. A mile further on and in another low place he had full verification of that, which, in fact, he already knew. Here the prints were numerous. Chance had brought him upon the trail of Timmendiquas, and he resolved, for the present, to follow it.

Henry came to this determination because it was extremely important to know the location and plans of the invading army. More news of an attack would not be nearly so valuable as the time and place at which the attack was to be delivered. The course seemed plain to him and he followed the broad trail with speed and ardor, noting all along the indications that the army took no care to conceal itself or hide its trail. Why should it? There was nothing in these woods powerful enough to meet the Anglo-Indian combination.

For four days and for a part of every night he followed without a break. He saw the trail grow fresher, and he judged that he was moving at least twice as fast as the army. He could see where English or Tory boots had crushed down the grass and he saw also the lighter imprints of moccasins. He passed numerous camps marked by ashes, bones of deer, buffalo, bear and smaller animals, and fragments of old worn-out garments, such as an army casts away as it goes along. He read in these things unlimited confidence on the part of both Indians and white men.

An unusually large camp had been made at one place and some bark shelters had been thrown up. Henry inferred that the army had spent two or three days here, and he could account for the fact only on the ground that some division of counsels had occurred. Perhaps the weather had been stormy meanwhile, and the bark shelters had been constructed for the officers and chiefs.

He spent a night in this camp and used one of the shelters, as it began to rain heavily just after dark. It was a little place, but it kept him dry and he watched with interest as the wind and rain drove across the opening and through the forest. He was as close and snug as a bear in its lair, but the storm was heavy with thunder and vivid with lightning. The lightning was uncommonly bright. Frequently the wet boughs and trees stood out in the glare like so much carving, and Henry was forced to shut his dazzled eyes. But he was neither lonely nor afraid. He recognized the tremendous power of nature, but it seemed to him that he had his part here, and the whole was to him a majestic and beautiful panorama.

Henry remembered the fight that he and his comrades had had at the deserted village, and he found some similarity in his present situation, but he did not anticipate the coming of another enemy, and, secure in the belief, he slept while the storm still blew. When morning came, the rain had ceased. He replenished his food supplies with a deer that he had shot by the way and he cooked a little on one of the heaps of stones that the Indians had used for the same purpose. When he had eaten he glanced at the other bark shelters and he saw the name of Braxton Wyatt cut on one of them. Henry shuddered with aversion. He had seen so much of death and torture done on the border that he could not understand how Simon Girty, Braxton Wyatt and their like could do such deeds upon their own countrymen. But he felt that the day was coming fast when many of them would be punished.

He began the great trail anew upon turf, now soft and springy from the rain, and, refreshed by the long night's sleep in the bark shelter, he went rapidly. Eight or ten miles beyond the camp the trail made an abrupt curve to the eastward. Perhaps they were coming to some large river of which the Indian scouts knew and the turn was made in order to reach a ford, but he followed it another hour and there was no river. The nature of the country also indicated that no great stream could be at hand, and Henry believed that it signified a change of plan, a belief strengthened by a continuation of the trail toward the east as he followed it hour by hour. What did it mean? Undoubtedly it was something of great significance to his enterprise, but now he grew more wary. Since the course of the army was changed bands of Indians might be loitering behind, and he must take every precaution lest he run into one of them. He noticed from time to time small trails coming into the larger one, and he inferred that they were hunting parties sent off from the main body and now returning.

The trail maintained the change and still bore toward the east. It had been obliterated to some extent by the rains, but it was as wide as ever, and Henry knew that no division had taken place. But he was yet convinced that some subject of great importance had been debated at the place of the long camp. On the following day he saw two warriors, and he lay in the bush while they passed only twenty yards away, close enough for him to see that they were Miamis. They were proceeding leisurely, perhaps on a hunting expedition, and it was well for them that they did not search at this point for any enemy. The most formidable figure on all the border lay in the thicket with both rifle and pistol ready. Henry heard them talking, but he had no wish for an encounter even with the advantage of ambush and surprise on his side. He was concerned with far more important business.

The two Indians looked at the broad trail, but evidently they knew all about it, as it did not claim more than a half minute's attention. Then they went northward, and when Henry was sure that they were a mile or two away, he resumed his pursuit, a single man following an army. Now all his wonderful skill and knowledge and developed power of intuition came into play. Soon he passed the point where the trail had been made fainter by the latest rains, and now it became to his eyes broad and deep. He came to a place where many fires had been built obviously for cooking, and the ashes of the largest fires were near the center of the camp. A half circle of unburned logs lay around these ashes. As the logs were not sunk in the ground at all they had evidently been drawn there recently, and Henry, sitting down on one of them, began to study the problem.

On the other side of the ashes where no logs lay were slight traces in the earth. It seemed to him that they had been made by heels, and he also saw at one place a pinch of brown ashes unlike the white ashes left by the fire. He went over, knelt down and smelled of the brown pinch. The odor was faint, very faint, but it was enough to tell him that it had been made by tobacco. A pipe had been smoked here, not to soothe the mind or body, but for a political purpose. At once his knowledge and vivid imagination reconstructed the whole scene. An important council had been held. The logs had been drawn up as seats for the British and Tory officers. Opposite them on the bare ground the chiefs, after their custom, had sat in Turkish fashion, and the pipe had been passed from one to another until the circle was complete. It must have been a most vital question or they would not have smoked the pipe. He came back to the logs and found in one of them a cut recently made. Someone had been indulging in the western custom of whittling with a strong clasp knife and he had no doubt that it was Braxton Wyatt who had cut his name with the same knife on the bark shelter. It would take one whittling casually a long time to make so deep a cut. Then they had debated there for two or three hours. This meant that the leaders were in doubt. Perhaps Timmendiquas and Caldwell had disagreed. If it could only be true! Then the little stations would have time to renew their breath and strength before another great attack could be made.