Erskine Dale—Pioneer

by Jr. John Fox

“Why,” interrupted Erskine, “they must have been the same traders who came to the Shawnee town and brought whiskey.”

“That’s what the feller said and why folks here believed him.”

“Who was he?” demanded Erskine.

“You know him—Dane Grey.”

All tried to make amends straightway for the injustice they had done him, but the boy’s heart remained sore that their trust was so little. Then, when they gathered all settlers within the fort and made all preparations and no Indians came, many seemed again to get distrustful and the lad was not happy. The winter was long and hard. A blizzard had driven the game west and south and the garrison was hard put to it for food. Every day that the hunters went forth the boy was among them and he did far more than his share in the killing of game. But when winter was breaking, more news came in of the war. The flag that had been fashioned of a soldier’s white shirt, an old blue army coat, and a red petticoat was now the Stars and Stripes of the American cause. Burgoyne had not cut off New England, that “head of the rebellion,” from the other colonies. On the contrary, the Americans had beaten him at Saratoga and marched his army off under those same Stars and Stripes, and for the first time Erskine heard of gallant Lafayette—how he had run to Washington with the portentous news from his king—that beautiful, passionate France would now stretch forth her helping hand. And Erskine learned what that news meant to Washington’s “naked and starving” soldiers dying on the frozen hillsides of Valley Forge. Then George Rogers Clark had passed the fort on his way to Williamsburg to get money and men for his great venture in the Northwest, and Erskine got a ready permission to accompany him as soldier and guide. After Clark was gone the lad got restless; and one morning when the first breath of spring came he mounted his horse, in spite of arguments and protestations, and set forth for Virginia on the wilderness trail. He was going to join Clark, he said, but more than Clark and the war were drawing him to the outer world. What it was he hardly knew, for he was not yet much given to searching his heart or mind. He did know, however, that some strange force had long been working within him that was steadily growing stronger, was surging now like a flame and swinging him between strange moods of depression and exultation. Perhaps it was but the spirit of spring in his heart, but with his mind’s eye he was ever seeing at the end of his journey the face of his little cousin Barbara Dale.

XV

A striking figure the lad made riding into the old capital one afternoon just before the sun sank behind the western woods. Had it been dusk he might have been thought to be an Indian sprung magically from the wilds and riding into civilization on a stolen thoroughbred. Students no longer wandered through the campus of William and Mary College. Only an occasional maid in silk and lace tripped along the street in high-heeled shoes and clocked stockings, and no coach and four was in sight. The governor’s palace, in its great yard amid linden-trees, was closed and deserted. My Lord Dunmore was long in sad flight, as Erskine later learned, and not in his coach with its six milk-white horses. But there was the bust of Sir Walter in front of Raleigh Tavern, and there he drew up, before the steps where he was once nigh to taking Dane Grey’s life. A negro servant came forward to care for his horse, but a coal-black young giant leaped around the corner and seized the bridle with a welcoming cry:

“Marse Erskine! But I knowed Firefly fust.” It was Ephraim, the groom who had brought out Barbara’s ponies, who had turned the horse over to him for the race at the fair.

“I come frum de plantation fer ole marse,” the boy explained. The host of the tavern heard and came down to give his welcome, for any Dale, no matter what his garb, could always have the best in that tavern. More than that, a bewigged solicitor, learning his name, presented himself with the cheerful news that he had quite a little sum of money that had been confided to his keeping by Colonel Dale for his nephew Erskine. A strange deference seemed to be paid him by everybody, which was a grateful change from the suspicion he had left among his pioneer friends. The little tavern was thronged and the air charged with the spirit of war. Indeed, nothing else was talked. My Lord Dunmore had come to a sad and unbemoaned end. He had stayed afar from the battle-field of Point Pleasant and had left stalwart General Lewis to fight Cornstalk and his braves alone. Later my Lady Dunmore and her sprightly daughters took refuge on a man-of-war—whither my lord soon followed them. His fleet ravaged the banks of the rivers and committed every outrage. His marines set fire to Norfolk, which was in ashes when he weighed anchor and sailed away to more depredations. When he intrenched himself on Gwynn’s Island, that same stalwart Lewis opened a heavy cannonade on fleet and island, and sent a ball through the indignant nobleman’s flag-ship. Next day he saw a force making for the island in boats, and my lord spread all sail; and so back to merry England, and to Virginia no more. Meanwhile, Mr. Washington had reached Boston and started his duties under the Cambridge elm. Several times during the talk Erskine had heard mentioned the name of Dane Grey. Young Grey had been with Dunmore and not with Lewis at Point Pleasant, and had been conspicuous at the palace through much of the succeeding turmoil—the hint being his devotion to one of the daughters, since he was now an unquestioned loyalist.

Next morning Erskine rode forth along a sandy road, amidst the singing of birds and through a forest of tiny upshooting leaves, for Red Oaks on the James. He had forsworn Colonel Dale to secrecy as to the note he had left behind giving his birthright to his little cousin Barbara, and he knew the confidence would be kept inviolate. He could recall the road—every turn of it, for the woodsman’s memory is faultless—and he could see the merry cavalcade and hear the gay quips and laughter of that other spring day long ago, for to youth even the space of a year is very long ago. But among the faces that blossomed within the old coach, and nodded and danced like flowers in a wind, his mind’s eye was fixed on one alone. At the boat-landing he hitched his horse to the low-swung branch of an oak and took the path through tangled rose-bushes and undergrowth along the bank of the river, halting where it would give him forth on the great, broad, grassy way that led to the house among the oaks. There was the sun-dial that had marked every sunny hour since he had been away. For a moment he stood there, and when he stepped into the open he shrank back hastily—a girl was coming through the opening of boxwood from the house—coming slowly, bareheaded, her hands clasped behind her, her eyes downward. His heart throbbed as he waited, throbbed the more when his ears caught even the soft tread of her little feet, and seemed to stop when she paused at the sun-dial, and as before searched the river with her eyes. And as before the song of negro oarsmen came over the yellow flood, growing stronger as they neared. Soon the girl fluttered a handkerchief and from the single passenger in the stern came an answering flutter of white and a glad cry. At the bend of the river the boat disappeared from Erskine’s sight under the bank, and he watched the girl. How she had grown! Her slim figure had rounded and shot upward, and her white gown had dropped to her dainty ankles. Now her face was flushed and her eye flashed with excitement—it was no mere kinsman in that boat, and the boy’s heart began to throb again—throb fiercely and with racking emotions that he had never known before. A fiery-looking youth sprang up the landing-steps, bowed gallantly over the girl’s hand, and the two turned up the path, the girl rosy with smiles and the youth bending over her with a most protecting and tender air. It was Dane Grey, and the heart of the watcher turned mortal sick.