“Then, sir,” he said, addressing the commanding officer, “since we are to assist in cutting our own throats, it seems to me that the most prudent course to pursue will be to leave everything standing as it is, and allow the Indians to help themselves, while we march as rapidly as possible to our destination.”
“What! and without escort? That, indeed, would be madness,” exclaimed Captain Headley.
“It is from the escort we have most reason to apprehend danger,” returned the trader. “What say you, Winnebeg?”
“Winnebeg say, suppose him Gubbernor not stay fight him English—go directly. Leave him Ingin here divide him presents.”
Black Partridge and all the other chiefs, except Pee-to-tum, gave the same opinion.
Whether nettled at the support given to the proposition of Mr. McKenzie by Winnebeg, or more immediately influenced by his strict sense of obedience to the order he had received from General Hull, or by both motives, Captain Headley firmly repeated his determination to distribute everything, as he promised, on the following day. The hour of twelve was named, and the council broke up, the younger Indians leaping and shouting with joy as they separated in small parties, some yet lingering about the fort and glacis, but the main body moving off again to their encampment.
[CHAPTER XV.]
The remainder of the day passed heavily and gloomily. All felt there was a crisis at hand, and the insolent tone which the younger Indians had assumed, left little hope with any that the escort of their allies on the long and dreary route on which they were about to enter would bring with it anything but despair and disaster.
Captain Headley had exerted his prerogative. He had, as commanding officer, decided upon his course in opposition to the judgment even of his Indian counsellors; but he was not happy—he was not satisfied himself. On re-entering the fort, after the council had been broken up, he had felt it necessary to the maintenance of his own dignity to summon the subalterns before him, and read, or rather commence to read to them, a lecture on their disobedience of his command to them to follow him to the council; but, with strong evidence of contempt in their manner, they had turned on their heels and walked away without replying, leaving him deeply mortified at a want of respect for him, which was rendered the more bitter to his pride by a certain latent consciousness that it had not been wholly unmerited. On entering his apartment, he found his noble wife preparing at her leisure the private arrangements for departure, and calm and collected as if no circumstances of more than ordinary interest were agitating the general mind. He caught her in his arms; he sat upon the sofa, and drew her passionately to his heart. Never in the course of twenty years' marriage had he more fondly loved her. There was a luxury of endearment in that embrace that renewed all the earlier and more vivid recollection of their union, and for many minutes they remained thus, each wishing it could last for ever. When this full outpouring of their souls had subsided, their hearts beat lighter, felt freer, and there was less scruple in entering on the subject of the immediate future that awaited them.
While they thus sat conversing in a strain of confidence and tenderness, which the immediate trials to which they were about to be exposed rendered, more exquisitely keen, Mr. McKenzie and Winnebeg entered unannounced. At the sight of Captain Headley, hand in hand with his wife, who sat upon his knee, the former would have retired, but Mrs. Headley, without at all displacing herself or affecting a confusion she did not feel, begged him to remain, adding that, as she supposed Winnebeg and himself had important business with Captain Headley, she would retire into the adjoining room.