A Volunteer with Pike / The True Narrative of One Dr. John Robinson and of His Love for the Fair Señorita Vallois

by Robert Ames Bennet

Thanks to a large hostler-fee, my horse came from the stable after his day of rest as fresh as when we left Washington, and hardened by the trip. He had need for all the endurance within his nature. Before dawn his hoofs were clattering across the great new bridge over the Schuylkill.

In the dense night of the bridge's enclosed roof and sides, it was like riding through a hall of vast length, with no guidance other than the faint starlight at the far end. The thought struck me that this was apt symbol of my love-quest. The darkness was as the night of my lady's fathomless eyes, through which in the uncertain distance I could no more than fancy a dim starlight of hope.

Musing on the conceit, I continued the allegory as we left the bridge and splattered away on the old colonial road to the Monongahela, with the fancy that in spirit, as in body, I had passed from the shut-in blackness out into the openness of space, and that before me was promise of fair dawn.

The day's dawn came as promised, bringing me still greater elevation of spirit. And within the mile a mischievous farmer's brat by the wayside tumbled me from heaven to muddy earth by howling in a voice of lively concern that my horse had lost his tail. So near does the ridiculous skirt the sublime! I had begun my journey on the Day of All Fools.

Perish superstition! Who but the ignorant believes in signs and omens? And if mine was in truth a wild-goose chase, the sooner I reached the end of my running the better. I neither would nor could have checked myself had the thought come to me to turn back.

A journey tedious enough in the best of seasons is not improved by April rains and boggy roads. On the other hand, I had that drawing me Westward which would have spurred the tortoise into striving for the hare's leap. It is sufficient evidence of my haste to state that, for all the condition of the roads, I made in fifteen days the trip which is considered well covered if ridden in nineteen.

Let me hasten to add that this was not done on one nag. Even had not my love of man's second friend served to prevent so brutal an attempt, failure would have been inevitable. With the best of roads, not a horse in the Republic could have carried through a man of my weight in the time. The attempt was not necessary. Thanks to a kindly acquaintance here and there along my route and to a sufficiency of silver in my saddlebags, I managed to obtain a fresh mount on an average of twice in every three days. With such relays, I was able to ride post-haste, yet leave behind me each horse, in turn, none the worse for his part in the race.

Up hill and down dale, pound, splatter, and chug, I pushed my mounts to their best pace, along the old Philadelphia road. In other circumstances and under clearer skies I might have paused now and again to enjoy the pleasant aspect of the Alleghany scenery,—its winding rivers and brooks, its romantic heights and budding woods. But from the first my thoughts were ever flying ahead to the Monongahela, and the sole interest I turned to my surroundings was centred upon such urgent matters as food, lodging, and fresh mounts.

At the end of the journey I found myself in clear memory of but three incidents,—a tavern brawl with a dozen or more carousing young farmers, who chose to consider themselves insulted by my refusal to take more than one glass of their raw whiskey; the swimming of the Susquehanna River, because of a disablement of the ferry; and a brush with a trio of highwaymen at nightfall in the thick of a dense wood. The rascals did not catch me with damp priming. When they sprang out at me, I knocked over the foremost, as he reached for the bridle, with a thrust of my rifle muzzle, and swung the barrel around in time to shatter the shoulder of the second fellow with a shot fired from the hip. The third would have done for me had not his priming flashed in the pan. He turned and leaped back into the thicket, while I was quite content to clap spurs to my horse and gallop on up the road.

But even this last adventure failed to hold a place in my thoughts when at last, near mid-afternoon of the fifteenth day, I came in view of Elizabethtown on the Monongahela. Here it was I had reason to hope that I might overtake Señor Vallois and his party. With roads so difficult, it was more to be expected that he would take boat from this lively little shipping point than rag on through the mire to Pittsburg.