CHAPTER XXII
THE LAST STAND
Every one of the five felt an immense exhilaration as they drove the Indians back into the town. They were not cruel. They did not wish to exult over a defeated enemy, but they had witnessed the terrible suffering of the border, and they knew from the testimony of their own eyes what awful cruelties a savage enemy in triumph could inflict. Now Clark and the Kentuckians had struck directly at the heart of the Indian power in the West. Chillicothe was destroyed and Piqua was taken. The arms and ammunition sent to them by the power, seated in Canada, had not availed them.
Henry did not know until much later that it was the cunning and crafty Girty who had given up first. He had suddenly announced to those near him that Piqua could not be defended against the American army. Then he had precipitately retreated to the other side of the town followed by Braxton Wyatt, Blackstaffe and all the renegades. The Indians were shaken by this retreat because they had great confidence in Girty. The Delawares gave up, then the Ottawas and Illinois, the Wyandots, Shawnees, Miamis and the little detachment of Mohawks, as usual, stood to the bitter last. At the very edge of the village the great war chiefs, Yellow Panther, the Miami, and Red Eagle, the Shawnee, fell almost side by side, and went to the happy hunting grounds together. Moluntha, the other famous Shawnee chief, received two wounds, but lived to secure a momentary revenge at the great Indian victory of the Blue Licks, two years later. Timmendiquas would have died in the defense, but a half dozen of his faithful warriors fairly dragged him beyond the range of the Kentucky rifles.
Yet Timmendiquas, although the Kentuckians were in the town, did not cease to fight. He and a hundred of the warriors threw themselves into the strongest of the houses, those built of timber, and opened a dangerous fire from doors and windows. The woodsmen were ordered to charge and to take every house by assault, no matter what the loss, but Clark, always resourceful, sternly ordered a halt.
"You forget our cannon," he said. "Logan, do you, Floyd and Harrod keep the riflemen back, and we'll drive the enemy out of these houses without losing a single man on our side."
"Thar speaks wisdom," said Shif'less Sol to the other. "Now in all the excitement I had clean forgot that we could blow them houses to pieces, but the Colonel didn't forget it."
"No, he didn't," replied Henry. "Stand back and we'll see the fun. A lot of destruction will be done soon."
The twilight had not yet come, although the sun was slowly dimming in the East. A great cloud of smoke from the firing hung over Piqua and the bordering fields that had witnessed so fierce a combat. The smoke and the burned gunpowder made a bitter odor. Flashes of firing from the strong houses, and from ambushed Indians here and there pierced the smoke. Then came a tremendous report and a twelve-pound cannon ball smashed through a wooden house. Another and another and it was demolished. The defenders fled for their lives. Every other house that could be used for shelter was served in the same way. The last ambushed foe was swept from his covert, and when the twilight fell Piqua, throughout its whole length of three miles along Mad River, was held by the Kentuckians.
The Indian women and children had fled already to the forest, and there they were slowly followed by the warriors, their hearts filled with rage and despair. Beaten on ground of their own choosing, and not even able to bring away their dead, they saw their power crumbling. Fierce words passed between Timmendiquas and Simon Girty. The Wyandot chieftain upbraided the renegade. He charged him with giving up too soon, but Girty, suave and diplomatic, said, after his first wrath was over, that he had not yielded until it was obvious that they were beaten. Instead of a fruitless defense it was better to save their warriors for another campaign. They could yet regain all that they had lost. There was some truth in Girty's words. Blue Lick and St. Clair's terrible defeat were yet to come, but Clark's blow had destroyed the very nerve-center of the Indian confederacy. The Kentuckians had shown that not only could they fight successfully on the defensive, but they could also cross the Ohio and shatter the Indian power on its own chosen ground. Neither the valor of the warriors, nor the great aid that they received from their white allies could save them from ultimate defeat.
Henry, Paul, the officers, and many others felt these things as the night came down, and as they roamed through Piqua, now deserted by the enemy. Paul and Jim Hart went in one direction to look at the big Council House, but Henry, the shiftless one, and Tom Ross remained with Colonel Clark.