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

by Joseph A. Altsheler

He sat on the log and concentrated his mind with great intensity upon the problem. He believed that the master mind in the council had been that of Timmendiquas. He also had inspired the change of route and perhaps Caldwell, Girty and Wyatt had tried to turn him back. Doubtless the course of Timmendiquas had been inspired by news from the South. Would the trail turn again?

He renewed the eager pursuit. He followed for a full day, but it still ran toward the east, and was growing fresher much faster than before. He argued from this fact that the speed of the army had slackened greatly. On the day after that, although the course of the main body was unchanged he saw where a considerable band had left it and gone northward. What did this mean? The band could not have numbered less than fifty. It must be making for some one of the great Indian towns, Chillicothe or Piqua. Once more the reader of the wilderness page translated. They had received news from the South, and it was not such as they wished. The Indian towns had been threatened by something, and the band had gone to protect or help them.

Shortly before nightfall he noticed another trail made by perhaps twenty warriors coming from the south and joining that of the main body. The briers and grass were tangled considerably, and, as he looked closely, his eyes caught a tint of red on the earth. It was only a spot, and once more the wilderness reader read what was printed in his book. This band had brought wounded men with it, and the tribes were not fighting among themselves. They had encountered the Kentuckians, hunters perhaps, or a larger force maybe, and they had not escaped without damage. Henry exulted, not because blood had been shed, but because some prowling band intent upon scalps had met a check.

He followed the ruddy trail until it emerged into the broader one and then to a point beside it, where a cluster of huge oaks flung a pleasant shade. Here the wounds of the warriors had been bandaged, as fragments of deerskin lay about. One of them had certainly suffered a broken arm or leg, because pieces of stout twigs with which they had made splints lay under one of the trees.

The next day he turned another page in his book, and read about the great feast the army had held. He reached one of the little prairies so common in that region. Not many days before it had been a great berry field, but now it was trampled, and stripped. Seven or eight hundred warriors had eaten of the berries and they had also eaten of much solid food. At the far edge of the prairie just within the shade of the forest he found the skeletons of three buffaloes and several deer, probably shot by the hunters on that very prairie. A brook of fine clear water flowed by, and both banks were lined with footsteps. Here the warriors after eating heavily had come to drink. Many of the trees near by contained the marks of hatchet strokes, and Henry read easily that the warriors had practiced there with their tomahawks, perhaps for prizes offered by their white leaders. Cut in the soft bark of a beech he read the words "Braxton Wyatt." So he had been at work with the clasp knife again, and Henry inferred that the young renegade was worried and nervous or he would not have such uneasy hands.

Most of the heavier footprints, those that turned out, were on one side of the camp and Henry read from this the fact that the English and Tories had drawn somewhat apart, and that the differences between them and the Indians had become greater. He concentrated his mind again upon the problem, and at length drew his conclusion from what he had read.

The doubts of Timmendiquas concerning his allies were growing stronger, so Henry construed. The great Wyandot chief had been induced with difficulty to believe that the soldiers of the British king would repay their red allies, and would defend the Indian villages if a large force from Kentucky were sent against them. The indications that such a force was moving or would move must be growing stronger. Doubtless the original turn to the eastward had been in order to deflect the attack against the settlements on the upper Ohio, most probably against Fort Henry. Now it was likely that the second plan had been abandoned for a third. What would that third be?

He slept that night in a dense covert about half a mile from the camp, and he was awakened once by the howling of wolves. He knew that they were prowling about the deserted camp in search of remnants of food, and he felt sure that others also were following close behind the Indian army, in order to obtain what they might leave at future camps. Perhaps they might trail him too, but he had his rifle and pistol and, unafraid, he went to sleep again.

The broad trail led the next day to a river which Henry reached about noon. It was fordable, but the army had not crossed. It had stopped abruptly at the brink and then had marched almost due north. Henry read this chapter easily and he read it joyfully. The dissatisfaction among the Indian chiefs had reached a climax, and the river, no real obstacle in itself, had served as the straw to turn them into a new course. Timmendiquas had boldly led the way northward and from Kentucky. He, Red Eagle, Yellow Panther and the rest were going to the Indian villages, and Caldwell and the other white men were forced either to go with them or return to Detroit. He followed the trail for a day and a half, saw it swing in toward the west, and theory became certainty. The army was marching toward Chillicothe and Piqua.

After this last great turn Henry studied the trail with the utmost care. He had read much there, but he intended to read every word that it said. He noticed that the division, the British and Tories on one side and the Indians on the other, continued, and he was quite sure now that he would soon come upon some important development.