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Title: Buckskin Brigade
Author: Kjelgaard, James Arthur (1910-1959)
Illustrator: Ray, Ralph, Jr. (1920-1952)
Date of first publication: 1947
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Holiday House
   [seventh printing]
Date first posted: 4 January 2012
Date last updated: 4 January 2012
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #901

This ebook was produced by
David T. Jones, Mary Meehan, Greg Weeks
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






    _From the Gulf of St. Lawrence
    to the Golden Gate, America's
    destiny followed trails blazed
    by forgotten heroes--lonely figures
    in homespun and buckskin.
    This book tells the stories of
    some of those daring men of the
           BUCKSKIN BRIGADE_




                         _BY JIM KJELGAARD_

                          BUCKSKIN BRIGADE

    _Illustrated by Ralph Ray, Jr._

    [Illustration]

    HOLIDAY HOUSE, NEW YORK

    SEVENTH PRINTING

    _Copyright, 1947, by Jim Kjelgaard_




FOREWORD


_This book is a tribute to daring men whose names are forgotten, but
whose deeds and spirit illuminate every page of American history. As the
westward march of civilization made its slow way over and through
successive barriers of forest and prairie and mountain until it had
spanned three thousand miles from ocean to ocean, it followed the
moccasined paths of nameless men in buckskin. Always, beyond the towns,
the settlements, the log-cabin clearings, were "the adventurers of the
far side of the hill."_

_Woods runners, rivermen, long hunters, scouts, fur traders, and
mountain men, these trail blazers were bound by no frontiers and limited
by no horizons. Let the homesteader and land speculator and politician
follow them; their world was illimitable and their only law the law of
survival. By moccasin and snowshoe, by canoe and horse, protected only
by their wits and their long rifles, they led the way into the unknown.
They starved, froze, drowned, and were murdered by beast and Indian. But
they lifted the veil of secrecy from the North American continent and
showed other men the way to security, wealth, and fame._

_The chief characters in these stories are real, although few will be
familiar. Each one is representative of a period and a type--if such
rugged individualists can be typed. Known facts have been used wherever
possible, and the fiction which supplements and gives life to those
facts has always been governed by a sense of probability. The stories
have been arranged chronologically, and historical perspective
maintained by brief factual introductions._




CONTENTS


1506       _THE TREE_                         1

1588       _CROATAN_                         33

1615       _THE MEDICINE BAG_                63

1661       _SAVAGE TREK_                     91

1753       _THE OPENING GATE_               125

1780       _WILDERNESS ROAD_                161

1791       _CAP GITCHIE'S ROOSTER_          183

1808       _THE FIFTH FRIEND_               213

1833       _FREIGHT FOR SANTA FE_           243

1844       _END OF THE TRAIL_               281




[Illustration]


THE TREE

1506

_The importance of John Cabot's explorations in 1497 was not the
discovery of a "New Found Land," but his report of seeing vast numbers
of cod in the region now known as the Grand Banks. Fish were a staple
article of food in the Catholic countries of Europe, and French,
Portuguese, and Basque fishermen lost no time in tapping this new source
of supply. Within ten years the sturdy little craft from the French
channel ports and the Bay of Biscay were making regular runs across the
dangerous North Atlantic, and bringing back more and more reports of the
lands that lay about and beyond their fishing grounds. Hardy Breton and
Norman seafarers established a proprietary interest in these distant
shores that lasted for a hundred years. It is singularly fitting that
the oldest surviving European name on the Atlantic coast of North
America is Cape Breton Island._


Thomas Aubert relaxed on the coil of rope, contemptuously watching fussy
little Captain LeJeune. Nobody but a Basque from St. Jean de Luz would
stand at the prow of a ship, holding a glass to his eye and trying to
peer through a fog that you couldn't cut with a scaling knife. But what
could you expect from a Basque, anyway? God knew that the only true
sailors, those really weaned on salt spray, were Bretons--preferably
from St. Malo. No doubt Captain LeJeune and his five funny sailors were
very good oyster shuckers, and certainly they were unexcelled as garlic
eaters. But it took men from St. Malo to sail a ship.

Aubert cast his eye down the deck to where Baptiste LeGare and Hyperion
Talon, two other St. Malo men crazy enough to sail under a Basque
captain, were standing unconcernedly. They, too, had known for some days
that the _Jeanne_ was off her course. But, naturally, Captain LeJeune
knew everything and certainly didn't intend to take the advice of any
St. Malo men. They recognized none of this sea. Thirty-two days out of
St. Malo, they should have been on the Grand Banks six days ago. But
where were the hordes of waterfowl that hovered over the Banks? Where
were....

Aubert braced himself instinctively, anticipating the shock a second
before it came. Out of the sea loomed a great, shapeless mass, and the
_Jeanne_ quivered like a woman in pain. There was a tortured scream,
and the crack of rending timbers. Aubert saw Hyperion Talon go down, and
shook his head angrily. If there was one floating object in all the
North Atlantic, you could trust a Basque captain to find and hit it.

Then the floating iceberg passed on and the _Jeanne_ righted herself.
But there was a dangerous list to starboard, and with that innate
knowledge of ships which generations of seafaring ancestors had
instilled in him, Aubert knew that she was mortally wounded. He made his
way toward the stern, and bent over the recumbent Talon.

"Are you badly injured?" he asked.

Hyperion shrugged. "I have a pain in the side. It will pass."

"Wait here," Aubert commanded. "I will return."

He joined Baptiste LeGare, who was scornfully watching the frantic
efforts of Captain LeJeune and his five men. You could rely on Basques
to panic every time. They were acting as though they had less than half
a minute to launch their fool boat, when, as a matter of fact, they had
a full half hour. Maybe more. The _Jeanne_ was a stout little craft, and
would take a lot of water in her hold before she finally settled.

The boat struck the water, and the five Basque sailors pushed into it.
Captain LeJeune sputtered at them and ran back into the cabin. He
emerged a moment later with the ship's log under his arm. Aubert's
brown eyes twinkled, the wind-etched wrinkles in his face deepened, and
his black beard jerked as he suppressed a chuckle. LeJeune had launched
a boat without water, without food, without anything except oars. But he
had to save his precious log. Aubert laughed outright.

"What's so funny?" Baptiste LeGare demanded.

"The little captain," Aubert grinned. "He has taken his log with him.
Can you not imagine it, Baptiste? One hour from now, if it has also
occurred to him to take a goose quill and ink, he will be making some
such entry as, 'June 5, 1506: The _Jeanne_, somewhere off the Grand
Banks of the New Land, struck an uncharted reef and foundered. The three
men from St. Malo were carried overboard by heavy seas.' Bah! Basque
sailors!"

Lying prone on the deck, his head pillowed on his sea cloak, Hyperion
Talon turned his head to look.

"Where are we, Thomas?" he inquired.

Aubert shrugged. "In the Atlantic Ocean, Hyperion. And that, in truth,
is all I know. How is your side?"

"It has felt better; it could feel worse. Are the fools from St. Jean de
Luz gone?"

"They are gone."

Aubert gravely regarded his fellow townsman and shipmate. There was
blood on Hyperion's mouth. Aubert liked neither the look of his eyes
nor the pallor of his face. He raised his head and watched the little
boat, whose sailors were frantically pulling away into the mist.
Apparently they were going in no special direction. Well, they'd end up
somewhere, if only at the bottom of the sea.

Aubert said, "Our turn, Baptiste."

LeGare followed him, and they broke out the little twelve-foot dinghy
that was roped to the side of the cabin. Aubert regarded the dinghy
fondly. It was a St. Malo boat; he'd made it himself. He knew what had
gone into it and what it would stand. After Captain LeJeune and his men
had capsized in their clumsy Biscayan lifeboat, the dinghy would still
be floating. Grasping either end, he and LeGare carried it to the
settling stern of the _Jeanne_, over which waves were beginning to
break.

"Put in three casks of water and a keg of biscuit," Aubert instructed.
"We'll need adzes, chisels, knives, mallets--you know the tools she'll
hold. One musket, with plenty of powder and shot, should be enough. Also
a coil of rope and a pulley."

LeGare began to load the dinghy while Aubert went below. The hold was
gloomy and foul smelling from the countless tons of fish the _Jeanne_
had carried during her many trips to the Newfoundland Banks. Aubert
looked at the soggy heap of salt that was supposed to be thrown over the
fish they took this trip, and at the little stack of chests loaded with
trade goods for the savages who were sometimes encountered when a
fishing boat put into a New Land harbor for water and fresh meat.

Aubert shook his head disapprovingly. He hadn't liked it when they left
St. Malo. He didn't like it now, this idea of a captain taking along
trade goods to feather his own nest while he was catching cod for the
ship's owners. To be sure, there was money to be made so doing. He had
known the savages to trade as many as ten fine fox pelts for one tin
plate and a few trinkets. But a fishing boat should do nothing except
fish, and if anybody wanted to send a trading boat over here it should
do nothing but trade. However, there really were not enough of the New
Land savages, nor did they have sufficient furs, to justify anyone's
sending a ship over just to trade for them. The captains got what there
were. But to mix fishing and trading was a breach of propriety that
somehow was sure to bring bad luck. Still....

On sudden impulse Aubert caught up a small chest of trade goods and
carried it with him when he went on deck. He cast an expert eye the
length of the _Jeanne_. She had settled perceptibly since he went below.
Aubert stowed the little chest in the dinghy. LeGare stood by, the oars
in his hands, staring into the mist-wreathed sea. Aubert inclined his
head toward Hyperion Talon.

The injured man groaned when they lifted him, and bright blood bubbled
from his mouth. They laid him in the dinghy, with his head on a cloak
and another over him. Aubert held a bottle of brandy to his lips. The
half-conscious sailor took a feeble gulp, and smiled wanly. For a moment
Aubert stood over the dinghy, checking its contents. But LeGare had done
a good job, both in selecting and packing. Aubert returned, wrenched the
compass from its stand by the tiller, and carried it to the dinghy. He
and LeGare took their seats.

A few minutes later the _Jeanne's_ stern went under and the little
dinghy floated free. With a half-dozen lusty strokes of the oars Aubert
sent it clear of the deck. He and LeGare turned around. Talon weakly
raised his head. There was a swirl of water and for a moment the
_Jeanne_ stood upward, her bowsprit in the air as though beseeching aid.

The fog closed in.

       *       *       *       *       *

_It was very thick_, a sinuously undulating cloud that sent clammy
fingers into every nook and corner of the dinghy and touched the backs
of the men with cold hands. Aubert raised the compass, gripped it
between his knees, took a bearing, and swung the dinghy. Talon had
fallen asleep, the cloak pulled up to his eyes and one hand peacefully
upraised. LeGare, a mist-shrouded figure on the stern seat, hunched
his shoulders.

[Illustration]

"What course?" he asked.

"West."

There was a thoughtful silence as LeGare digested this information. A
lone gull squawked out in the fog and Aubert stopped rowing to listen.
You couldn't tell much about gulls. They might be anywhere. Some
followed the fishing boats clear from France. Some, apparently, lived in
the middle of the sea. There was one chance in a million that this one
presaged the nearness of another ship. Aubert shrugged. It would be
impossible to find another ship in this fog, anyway.

LeGare spoke again. "It is a wise plan, Thomas, one that I would expect
you to conceive. By going west we encounter a fishing boat on the Banks,
eh?"

"We are not on the Banks."

"But we cannot return to St. Malo by going west."

"Consider, Baptiste. Could we reach St. Malo in a twelve-foot dinghy,
even this one?"

The gull squawked again, faintly, then only the fog was left. The sea
heaved a little, lapped at the prow of the dinghy. A wave splashed over
it and Talon muttered sleepily as spray blew in his face. LeGare looked
at the injured man as he replied.

"Of a certainty, Thomas, we cannot reach St. Malo. But what lies to the
west?"

"I do not know. I have heard men say that the shores of China lie in
that direction."

"A long way, my friend, is it not?"

"Perhaps. But which is better, Baptiste? We know that we cannot return
to St. Malo. We may reach whatever lies ahead, and if we do we shall
find means to survive. Meanwhile, we are on the sea, and what man of St.
Malo hopes to die in bed?"

"You are right," LeGare said philosophically. "We may trust the sea."

Talon sat up, and Aubert turned in his seat to look at him. The injured
man's face was no longer gray, but red. His eyes were bloodshot, his
smile forced. Aubert dropped the oars, broached a cask of water, poured
some into a tin dish, and passed it back. Talon drank thirstily, fell
back into the bottom of the dinghy, and coughed. Aubert crossed himself,
and looked gravely at LeGare as he picked up the oars. He rowed
strongly, evenly, taking long sweeps that produced a maximum of forward
effort with a minimum of exhaustion.

After three hours LeGare said thoughtfully, "You remember Basil LeSeur,
the old man who hung around the docks at St. Malo? He has been to the
Grand Banks and the New Land many times, and he himself told me that he
thought the New Land might be an island, perhaps many islands. He said
he thought there might be other land not far from it. Perhaps, after
all, we shall come to the coast of China."

"Perhaps we shall."

He rowed on into the mist, pushing the little dinghy forward with
powerful sweeps that curled the water at her prow and left a wake
behind. Reason told him that theirs was a very serious predicament.

But something else within him stirred, something that, had it not been
tempered by Talon's suffering, would have been only delight. Starting
when he was thirteen, he had come six seasons to the Grand Banks and had
helped catch great numbers of fish to take back to a Catholic Europe.
Now, at nineteen, the Grand Banks and the bleak New Land had lost their
charm, and the long trip from St. Malo had become dreary routine rather
than high adventure. But Aubert had looked at the uninviting New Land,
and yearned toward what lay beyond. Certainly the fabled Orient must be
somewhere to the west. Now, at last, he was going toward it. Even though
he had only a dinghy, and probably would never get there, at least he
was trying to do so. If he could change his own fate now, he would not.

A wind stirred and the mist lifted for a little while to reveal a gray
sea. LeGare took the oars, and night closed in. Aubert slept, with his
head pillowed on his knees, and it was still night when LeGare awakened
him to resume rowing. Talon muttered in delirium. Little wavelets rose,
and when morning came the fog had again closed in. Talon sat up, and
gripped the side of the dinghy with the great strength that sometimes
comes to dying men.

"Tell Catherine Minot," he gasped, "that she should not weep for me.
There are other good men in St. Malo."

Talon collapsed limply, and his suddenly pain-free eyes seemed to be
staring at some happy thing that only he saw. The sea was about to claim
another St. Malo sailor. Aubert crossed himself, and in the stern seat
LeGare followed suit. But LeGare's simple face reflected fear and doubt.

"How shall we administer the last rites?" he whispered.

"We cannot, Baptiste. We are no priests."

"Well then, how shall we bury him?"

"In the sea."

"But the sea monsters?"

"Fear not, Baptiste. The good God, who marks the sparrow's fall, will
let Hyperion be claimed by neither the devil nor a sea monster."

"That is so," LeGare answered doubtfully. "We must have faith."

Aubert turned around, for a moment cradled Talon's limp body in his
arms, and slid it over the side. He was no priest, but he murmured a
prayer as the gray sea closed in about his comrade and took him to its
bosom. Aubert resumed rowing, averting his eyes from his companion's.
This was the way things had to be; the living could neither help nor
harm the dead. For a long way he rowed furiously, seeking in hard
physical labor surcease from mental anguish. Then he changed seats with
LeGare, and sat huddled in the stern while the stout little dinghy plied
westward. Night came again.

Morning followed it, and another night and another morning until Aubert
lost count. They were rowing mechanically now, robot men in an unreal
boat on an endless ocean. For days they had not spoken. Exhaustion had
laid its heavy hand on LeGare's face. When he rowed, his head drooped,
and when he rested, he dozed fitfully. All day the mist followed them,
and the nights brought no stars. LeGare held the last water cask up, and
the few spoonfuls remaining within it gurgled. He offered it to Aubert,
who shook his head and rowed on while he licked parched lips. LeGare
looked longingly at the cask, corked it, and put it back of him, out of
sight.

Aubert thought that it was about the middle of the night when something
grasped the oars. He tried to wrench them away, and could not. All about
were splashings and disturbances in the water. Aubert gave all his
strength to the oars, and moved them slightly. His hoarse voice cried
out, "Baptiste!"

But LeGare was lying in the dinghy, snoring sonorously. Aubert groped
for the musket, was unable to reach it. A strong, heavy odor pervaded
the air, and the splashings in the water came nearer the dinghy. A loud
bell seemed to be ringing in Aubert's ears, red fire danced before his
eyes. They seemed to be moving, either in a westward current, or else
whatever had gripped the oars was pulling them along. Again Aubert tried
to reach the musket, and at last got it in his hands. But he could see
nothing, and it would be senseless to waste a shot unless there was
something at which to shoot. But when he tried to stand up he stumbled
forward in the dinghy. Again and again he tried to rise, and see. But at
last he lay still.

He awoke to a hot sun streaming out of a cloudless sky, and looked
around in bewilderment. A great herd of dolphins was playing about the
dinghy, splashing and diving as they went northward. Aubert blinked, and
stared wonderingly at his hands. The dolphins--a good omen for
fishermen--were what he had heard last night. There had been nothing on
the oars. His hands and his strength had failed him, that was all.
Aubert looked behind, and a hoarse shout broke from his parched lips.

"Baptiste!"

LeGare awoke grudgingly, rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands.
Both men stared, fascinated, at a spit that jutted out from a great
expanse of land.

In the very center of the spit, a mighty pine stood majestically in the
morning sunshine.

       *       *       *       *       *

_A half hour later_ Aubert beached the dinghy on the stone-studded flank
of the narrow spit and stepped into shallow water to pull the little
boat farther up. LeGare joined him. The two staggered forward, unable
instantly to adjust themselves to the feel of solid earth beneath their
cramped legs. Lush green grass covered the point, and ripe strawberries
gleamed redly through it. Aubert looked at them, and licked his lips. He
glanced at LeGare, who was staring in fascination at the berries' rich
redness. Aubert dropped to his knees, solemnly plucked a berry, crushed
it between his fingers, and let the red juice stain his hands. He
plucked another, almost reverently placed it in his mouth, and very
slowly ate it. Then, with LeGare beside him, able to think of nothing
else, he ate berries. An hour elapsed before they arose to look about
them.

About a quarter of a mile long, the spit jutted from a dark green
forest. On the other side was a sheltered bay. At its edge, a number of
moose were feeding in the shallow water. Across the gulf, very far away,
was the dim outline of more forested land.

"This is not the New Land!" LeGare breathed. "It has no such great
beasts as those. _Sacr Dieu!_ It must be China!"

"Perhaps, although I have seen such beasts in Norway. But I never saw
them enter salt water."

"Then we cannot be in Norway. But consider the size of those horns!"

[Illustration]

Aubert picked up the musket and led the way down the point. The
strawberries crushed under their feet. A flock of partridges that had
been eating them walked indifferently out of the way. An otter climbed
out on the spit, looked at them with beady eyes, and dived back into the
water, startling a flock of ducks into flight. A cow moose raised its
mulish head and swung to face them. Aubert marvelled. Wherever they had
come to, it was a very rich land, indeed. And there was something about
it.... He turned to look again at the enticing horizon across the gulf.
If men had ever been here, he had not heard of it.

They reached the mainland, and circled the bay to come upon a sparkling
little river. A huge trout broke the surface and settled lazily back to
lie fanning its fins. Aubert and LeGare threw themselves prone by the
river to drink, and rose to smile at each other. A yearling moose, its
neck out-stretched, snuffled toward them. Back in the forest a slim doe
stamped its foot, uncertainly.

"This is an unviolated land!" Aubert said wonderingly. "No man has yet
taken toll from it!"

He squatted beside the bay, looking over the water spread before him.
What was the great gulf that met his vision? Did it lap the shores of
another New Land, one upon which no man had yet placed foot? Was there a
passage or strait that led through it to the fabled shores of China? He
had to know, but how was he going to find out? If only the _Jeanne_ were
here, instead of at the bottom of the Atlantic where the blundering
Captain LeJeune had sent her! If only he could explore this gulf, know
what lay in it instead of tormenting himself with thoughts of what might
be!

His glance roved back to the spit of land, and the great pine in its
center. It was a huge tree, tall as any he had seen in Norway, and its
massive trunk probably could not be encircled by the combined span of
his and LeGare's arms. Aubert leaped erect.

"Baptiste, we shall make a ship!"

"You are mad!"

"No! There is our ship! That pine! We have adzes, chisels, saws,
augurs!"

"It will take years!"

"What of it? What is time to us now? See, beasts that will scarcely move
aside to let us pass, fish and birds in vast abundance. Can even a lazy
man starve here? Can he freeze, with unlimited quantities of wood to
burn? We shall start our ship now, and when the season changes build a
house!"

"But...!"

"We must gain knowledge of this land, much knowledge, and then...."

"But one cannot build a ship on an empty belly," grinned the practical
LeGare. "Let us eat first, my friend."

They unloaded the dinghy. LeGare had forgotten nothing. There were most
of the tools that a fishing boat carried, as well as fish-lines, hooks,
flint and steel, and even tin plates. They dragged their dinghy up on
the spit, upended it, propped the end with a cairn of rocks, and
carefully placed their supplies beneath. Aubert attached a hook to a
line, weighed it with a pebble, and experimentally whirled it about his
head.

"We saw many fat fish in the river," he said. "They should be honored to
provide a feast for men of St. Malo. Build a fire, Baptiste, and your
greedy belly shall be filled."

Aubert walked back to the forest, a little faster now and not stopping
to look at anything else. Hunger, he reflected, was a demanding master.
It was indeed an honor to set foot where no man had ever trod before,
but LeGare was right. A fish still in a river took precedence over a
tree on the shore. He overturned a rock, plucked a fat cricket from
beneath it, and impaled it on the hook. Swinging the line about his
head, he cast far out into the river, and almost at once was fast to a
fighting trout. Aubert hauled it in, rebaited his hook and cast again.
He caught another trout, and another, and marvelled. Even in virgin
Norway it was impossible to catch big trout so fast. He carried the fish
back on the point, watched LeGare split and clean them, and set them to
broiling over the fire he had built. When they were cooked both men ate
prodigiously, and Aubert sighed. Certainly whatever coast they had come
to was a fine place to be. His curiosity returned.

"There are many duck's nests along the river," he said. "The eggs should
be fine eating."

LeGare took the hint and departed. No sooner had he left than Aubert
took an adze, stood beside the huge pine, and swung at it. The outer
bark chipped away, revealing the orange-yellow inner bark. Sweat began
to stream down his forehead as the sun shone hotly. He removed his
shirt, laid it on the ground beside him, and continued to work on the
tree. Baptiste had been right. It was going to take a very long time
just to fell the tree, much longer to fashion a ship. But certainly they
were going nowhere without a ship.

LeGare returned, his doublet laden with duck's eggs. He pierced their
ends and put them in the fire to bake while he went about arranging the
camp. Aubert continued to work. By nightfall the huge pine that for
hundreds of years had stood its lonely guard was well girdled. White
chips littered the earth about it. But it was after nightfall when
Aubert ceased his labors and crept under the dinghy to sleep.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Aubert was awake_ very early. Light mist blanketed the bay, lazy smoke
rolled from the ash-banked fire. The moose had not yet come to the mouth
of the river, but twenty curious deer stood on the spit, watching. A doe
stamped her foot and advanced to within a few feet as she smelled at the
chips from the pine. Aubert studied her. When cold weather brought
assurance that meat would not spoil, he and LeGare must take a number of
deer, and perhaps a few moose. Also, when the work of chopping down the
pine and fashioning a ship from its trunk became too wearisome, they
could catch and dry a number of fish. In the act of prodding the ashes
to stir up the fire, Aubert stopped suddenly.

The lightening of the mist under the rising sun revealed a birch-bark
canoe with six paddlers coming down the bay. Aubert crawled under the
dinghy and shook LeGare's shoulder. LeGare came awake, and sat up
slowly.

"Savages approach," Aubert whispered. "They look not unlike those who
visited our ships when we anchored off the New Land. Take up an adze,
and stand ready to repel them if they are hostile."

Aubert picked up the musket, put a horn of powder and a pouch of shot
beside him, and sat in the grass awaiting the canoe. The paddlers were
all men, with well-developed arms and shoulders, and Aubert noted
approvingly that they handled their frail craft with ease and grace.
Apparently these savages were seamen, not afraid of the water. Their
heads were shaven save for a long strip, oddly like a horse's tail, down
the center. Their cheeks were painted with some sort of roan pigment.

LeGare, standing beside him with the adze, whispered, "They are not
wholly like the savages of the New Land."

"No. Their hair is of a different arrangement. Let us see what they
want."

As the canoe hove to in shallow water, the Indians stepped out and waded
ashore. A breechcloth flapped about the waist of each, and each had a
stone axe and knife thrust into a buckskin belt. Five of them wore
moccasins fashioned of deerskin and decorated with stained porcupine
quills, the sixth was barefooted. A hawk's wing was thrust into the
pierced ear of one, while the rest wore the skins of crows suspended
from their belts. He of the hawk's wing, apparently the chief, held up
his hand with the palm out.

"The peace sign," Aubert murmured. "They do not have hostile
intentions."

Aubert stood up, showed his palm and walked three paces forward. The
Indian grinned, childishly pleased, and with his five solemn followers
trooping behind him stalked up the bank. They squatted down by the
dinghy, and broke into an unintelligible gibberish as they poked
inquiring fingers into its side. The chief reached for the musket, and
when Aubert snatched it aside, drew sullenly back.

"Break open the chest," Aubert instructed LeGare. "It is well not to
anger them. We cannot fight them off if they come in sufficient numbers,
and angry. Presents may pacify them."

LeGare opened the chest of trade goods, revealing the shiny red ribbon,
beads, cheap little knives, needles, and other knicknacks within.
Gravely Aubert picked up a handful of red beads, gave two to each of the
men, and four to the chief. Smiles lighted their faces and chuckles
rolled from their throats. A tall Indian with two ugly scars running the
length of his ribs laid his beads on the grass and watched in childish
delight as the sun's ray glanced from them. The chief held his in the
palm of his hand, his awed eyes staring from them back to the chest. He
gestured toward it.

"Close the chest," Aubert ordered. "We may have much need of what is
there."

LeGare slammed the lid down, and the six Indians sat looking from the
treasures in their hands to the incalculably greater amount still in the
chest. No one spoke. A flight of ducks glided out of the sky, and came
to rest on the placid bay. Aubert looked at the sullen savages, now
beginning to mutter among themselves. What if they decided to take the
chest? Out of the corner of his eye, Aubert saw the ducks, scarcely a
stone's throw away. Wheeling suddenly, he levelled the musket and shot
over the heads of the Indians. Out on the bay eight ducks either lay
quietly or beat the water with dying wings, while the rest of the flock
paddled about in confusion. The chief fell backward, and rose to clench
his hands to his breast while he looked at the gun with frightened eyes.
The rest ran to the water and splashed to their canoe. The chief ran
after them, and paddles flashed furiously as the canoe sped up the bay.
Aubert gazed thoughtfully after them.

"They have never seen white men nor heard guns," he said. "I did not
like to waste the shot, but it is well to have them know that we can
protect ourselves."

"They are like children!" LeGare exclaimed. "They are more simple than
children! Excited over red beads!"

"Well, they are gone. And I am going to fell this tree."

He picked up the adze and resumed his place beside the mighty pine,
patiently hacking out chips, enlarging his cut as it was required to let
the adze bite deeper. LeGare removed his clothing, and swam out to
retrieve the dead ducks. He carried them up on the spit, and set about
skinning them while Aubert continued to hack at the pine. The mysterious
horizon across the bay beckoned, and the rippling waters in the great
gulf called in a thousand different ways. Aubert swung the adze
furiously. It was a hard thing, now that he had at last found some place
he really wanted to go, to wait years to get there. But, no matter how
many years it took, get there he would. The chopped wedge in the pine's
trunk deepened, and chips piled thickly about his feet as he worked on.
LeGare rolled the ducks in wet clay, and buried them beneath the fire.
Then he went to the river and returned with the water cask filled.
Aubert drank deeply, and went on felling the pine.

The sun had passed its zenith and was sinking toward the west when
LeGare swung suddenly to look out on the bay. A startled exclamation
broke from his lips. "They come again!"

Aubert dropped his adze to look. Eight canoes, manned by from four to
six men each, were coming down the bay. Wet paddles flashed in the sun.
The paddlers strained forward, as though each were striving to outdo the
rest and get there first. An excited, happy yell echoed over the water.
LeGare turned questioning eyes on Aubert.

"They are very many this time. What shall we do?"

Aubert studied the advancing canoes, listening to the shouting of the
men in them. Men bent on war did not come that way, or openly, but in
the dead of night and silently. Beyond a doubt their first visitors had
carried word of the strange interlopers back to whatever village they
had come from.

"Give me the musket," Aubert said. "We cannot do other than let them
come. But I do not believe that they come for war."

Out on the bay one canoe gained a long lead on the rest, and its
paddlers hurled taunts and jibes over their shoulders as they sent their
flying craft toward the spit of land. But the rest were deliberately
holding back, Aubert saw. Not believing all they had been told, they
were waiting to see what fortune or misfortune befell those in the
leading craft before they themselves came in. The first canoe hove to.
The chief with the hawk's wing in his ear stepped into shallow water and
stood with his arms folded across his breast while he stared fixedly at
Aubert. The paddlers hovered nervously in the canoe, their upraised
paddles ready to dip into the water.

"Why do they wait?" the puzzled LeGare inquired.

"They fear the musket," Aubert guessed.

He laid it on the grass before him, and a friendly smile split the
chief's face. He waded back to the canoe, bent over it and lifted out a
bundle of furs strung on a buckskin thong. Aubert gasped. They were
glossy, shining sables, so many of them that the dangling string reached
from the chief's shoulders to the earth. The chief climbed up the bank,
a wild, stark figure against the bay. He looked suddenly down at the
gun, and stopped in his tracks. Aubert nodded, understanding. The
musket's power had been demonstrated, and to this ignorant forest prince
of whatever land they were in, it was mighty power indeed. Aubert put
the gun back under the dinghy, and the chief threw his string of sables
on the ground. Aubert looked at them, marvelling. Furs such as these
were not known in Europe. Even the fishermen from the New Land brought
back nothing like them. The Indians pointed at the chest of trade goods,
nodded vigorously, and again spoke in his own dialect.

"He wants to trade!" LeGare blurted.

Aubert shook his head dubiously. "Not for anything in our chest,
Baptiste. Even a savage would not do that. Furs so magnificent for
trinkets so cheap? He wants another present."

Aubert opened the chest, took out a spool of red ribbon, cut from it a
foot-long strip, and gravely gave it to the Indian. The chief snatched
at it, muttered in delight, tied it around his left bicep, and stretched
his arm to admire the shining cloth. He nudged the furs with his foot,
picked up the thong that bound them and placed it in Aubert's hand.
Aubert stared, dumbfounded, at LeGare.

"He did want to trade!"

The seven other canoes had arrived during this parley. Now the Indians
scrambled out of them, splashing through the water and climbing up the
bank as though each had to be first. Every one bore a string of furs:
sable, ermine, otter, mink, beaver, lynx, fox. Gravely Aubert snipped
off a twelve-inch length of ribbon for each offering, and the spool was
scarcely half emptied when all the furs were piled about him. A huge
Indian with a scarred face laughed, evidently displaying his contempt of
the fools who would trade priceless ribbon for worthless furs that were
to be had in endless amounts. Two Indians, with ribbons exactly
identical, gravely effected a trade. Finally all sat down in a pleased
semi-circle, admiring the bits of ribbon on their own arms and those on
the arms of their companions. LeGare stared with unbelieving eyes.

"Thomas, we're rich!"

"True," Aubert agreed soberly. "A king's ransom."

"But what are we going to do with them here?"

Aubert shrugged. "Sleep on them, Baptiste. A ship would be worth a
thousand such piles of peltry to us now. I'm still going to fell the
tree."

He took the musket from beneath the dinghy and laid it on the grass. The
chief pointed to it, and guttural speech rolled from his throat as he
spoke excitedly to his assembled comrades. A few of the Indians rose to
go farther back on the spit, but most drew their feet a little farther
beneath them and remained. Aubert watched closely, and finally turned
away satisfied. The Indians were afraid of the gun. Aubert took up his
adze and resumed chopping at the pine.

In the background the assembled Indians murmured pleasantly, and
exchanged comments as they kept their eyes on this fascinating spectacle
of a white man chopping down a tree with a strange instrument of metal.
Aubert worked furiously, sinking his adze into the cut and drawing it
out for another blow. The chief rose, made a wide circle around the gun,
and watched from the other side. Half his warriors followed. A great
cloud of waterfowl squawked overhead, and settled down to ride the
little waves that a slight wind was kicking up on the bay. The sun, a
blazing red ball, hung sleepily over its couch in the west. And it was
just at that moment that the tree fell.

A shudder ran the length of its mighty frame, and there was a sudden
rending of fibers. The top of the pine swayed toward the water, and the
Indians on that side scrambled to get out of the way. A mighty splash of
water erupted from the bay as the upper half of the giant fell into it.

For a few minutes more the Indians stood about, greatly admiring this
white man who could bring down so mighty a tree for no apparent reason.
One by one they took to their canoes and faded into the twilight that
hovered over the bay. When the last one had gone, LeGare dug into the
pit he had made beneath the fire and brought out the roasted ducks.
These they ate with wild strawberries, then for a long while lay
watching the dark and silent gulf. The Indians knew some of it, but
certainly a frail birch-bark canoe had never sailed clear around any
water so vast. Only a ship could do that.

It was very late when Aubert finally fell asleep.

       *       *       *       *       *

_He was awakened_ the next morning by a shout, and lay still, doubting
his ears. But the shout was repeated, and this time it came very clearly
to him.

"Ahoy the shore!"

Aubert scrambled from beneath the dinghy and looked out on the bay, now
doubting his eyes. There was a ship out there, a channel fisherman,
riding at anchor with furled sails! Aubert rubbed his eyes and looked
again. There was no mistake. It was the _Pensee_ out of Honfleur,
commanded by Jean Denys. Aubert threw back his head and a great,
bull-like roar burst from his lungs.

"Jean!"

"Thomas!"

Aubert watched a boat lowered from the _Pensee_, saw the bearded figure
of Jean Denys in the prow. LeGare crawled from beneath the dinghy,
clapped happy hands, and laughed. The _Pensee's_ boat bumped the spit of
land. Jean Denys stepped ashore, grinning.

"You Bretons get lost in strange places, eh? And, of course, Normans
have to find them. What are you doing here, my friend?"

Aubert grinned back. "Showing the way to the men of Normandy. Welcome to
Cape Breton!"

Denys laughed. "A good name, I admit. But where is your ship?"

"Foundered. It was a Basque ship, so no matter. _Our_ ship is there,"
and he pointed to the great trunk of the pine. "True, it is not quite
finished."

Jean Denys whistled in admiration. "It has already earned your passage
to St. Malo," he said soberly. "We were about to turn back last night.
But I was looking through the glass and saw a tree fall. Such a tree
does not fall by itself. _Voil._ I am here."

"But this is not the New Found Land. What were you doing here?"

"Exploring. Ship's owners gave me permission to spend four weeks doing
it and see if I could find new fishing grounds."

Aubert's eyes glowed, but he tried to make his voice casual. "What did
you find?"

"It's a vast gulf, Thomas." He swung suddenly to look Aubert squarely in
the eyes. "That horizon you see over there is an island. Beyond it is a
great expanse of water to a forested shore. And, Thomas, at the far
western end of the gulf there is a passage through the land!"

"No!"

"Yes! And who knows where that leads to?"

Their eyes met, understandingly, and together they swung to face the
enticing, unknown west.




[Illustration]

CROATAN

1588

_Thomas Aubert did come back. Two years later he sailed part way up the
St. Lawrence, and thus pointed the way for his fellow Breton, Jacques
Cartier, a generation later. New France had begun._

_But during the Sixteenth Century England was too busy watching the
rival power of Spain to worry much about the activities of a few French
fishermen and fur traders who had capitalized on the English-sponsored
expeditions of the Cabots. Not until the end of the century did Sir
Walter Raleigh undertake his two ill-fated experiments in colonization,
and then he chose a region far south of the St. Lawrence, on the more
temperate shores of the Carolinas._

_The lost colony of Roanoke was, and remains, the most famous mystery in
American history. It was also a complete failure. But it showed the
shape of things to come, for its purpose was neither trade nor
conversion, like the French settlements to the north, but_ colonization.
_It was to be a new home for Englishmen, and it was no accident that an
English child was born on Roanoke Island thirty years before the first
French woman sailed up the St. Lawrence._


Flight after flight of little green-winged teal dipped out of the sky to
settle on the slough. Their flapping wings churned the water into a
froth, and those already on the slough scarcely moved aside as others
sought to enter. It seemed, Tom Weston thought, that there was no water
at all, but only successive layers of teal, with the final row of
bobbing heads and restlessly moving wings on top. But newcomers always
found a place.

The teal were harbingers of cold weather. Last year their vanguard had
arrived on the fifteenth of October, two months after Governor White had
sailed to England--supposedly to return within nine months with more
people and more things for them to work with. Not that there was any
real need of that. If a hundred men and a dozen women couldn't support
themselves on an island like this, then only the Lord could help them.

When the colonists had first arrived, they had expected both to be
welcomed and to find plentiful stores waiting. But the savages who
inhabited this Roanoke Island--or at least came to it whenever they
aroused enough ambition to paddle--had destroyed or carried off the
stores and killed the fifteen men left to guard them. That had been an
unpleasant shock to the men and women who had landed on this island
fifteen months ago, in the year of Our Lord, 1587. And that shock was
their principal trouble.

Well, maybe it wasn't. Most of them had listened to glowing tales of
great wealth and easy living when they had embarked for this new colony
of Virginia. Everything, they had been told, would be waiting for them
and they had only to lift a hand now and again in order to ensure
themselves a richer and finer life than they had ever known before.
Because nothing had been waiting for them, and there had been no one to
tell them exactly what to do, they didn't even want to lift that hand.

A great horde of teal swooped down and somehow crowded in among those on
the slough. There was a mighty quacking gabbling, and Tom rose suddenly
from the log behind which he had been crouching. As he did so his right
hand was whirling a crude, homemade bolo--four buckskin thongs attached
to holes in pierced shells. There was a deafening roar of wings, and an
immense splashing of the water. The bolo sailed into a veritable horde
of ducks, and when it dropped to the slough five of the little teal were
entangled in its serpentine coils. Tom waded out to retrieve his kill,
dropped them behind the log on top of the twenty-three he had already
captured, and again concealed himself until the settling teal came in
closer.

He lay indolently, letting the sun caress his back and warm his legs. Of
course that warm sun wouldn't last very long; frost would follow the
teal within six weeks. When the great, black-necked, white-throated
geese appeared you could be certain that frost would come almost within
a day. It didn't make much difference. There were no crops to kill
because those who should have been planting had instead passed their
time on the shore watching for the ship from England. When that came
there would be no need of crops because there would be food in plenty.

What the colonists should have known, but did not, was that the ship
wasn't coming. It was impossible to look across the Atlantic Ocean and
see that Elizabeth's England was again at war with Spain. John White had
said that he would be back and the colonists had been watching for him
since spring. Now it was October, and the earliest a ship could come was
next April or May. No captain cared to risk his sailing vessel in the
Atlantic while it was lashed by storms.

If only the colonists would work, and look to that which was all about
them for their own salvation! But they would not, and now their
confusion and hopelessness would be multiplied tenfold. Ananias Dare,
son-in-law of John White, husband of Eleanor, and acting governor of the
colony while John White was away, had died yesterday. He had done as
well as he could, but Ananias had been ailing for the past six months
and a sick man could not carry out his own orders. Now that he was gone,
and no authority reigned, there was bound to be bickering. All most of
the colonists could think of was getting back to England, and the fool
ideas they had for getting there....

Tom rose to throw his bolo again, and added three more ducks to his
catch. He could stay here all day, and all tomorrow, and the colony
could still eat all the ducks he was able to catch. But somebody had to
hunt, and they depended on him because he was better equipped than any
other to get along in this new land. He had been self-supporting since
he was eight, when his father had been cast into debtor's prison. Some
of the methods he had employed in order to eat had proved useful, if not
lawful. He had poached many a rabbit and grouse from manor estates and
taken many a trout from the gentry's streams. He'd been tinker, pedlar,
and vagabond, by turn. But fortunately he had become a cobbler's
apprentice in London when John White stopped in to be fitted for a new
pair of boots. Tom had listened, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, while White
spoke of the second Virginia colony that Sir Walter Raleigh was
organizing. Offered an opportunity to join, Tom had signed on two
minutes later.

And, somehow, the land was all John White had said it was and very much
more. Where, in England, could you stop at a slough and kill as many
ducks as you wished? Where in England, outside your own guild and
social circle, could you consider yourself equal to any other man? Where
could you walk anywhere at all, and be warned away by no keeper or
bailiff? This Virginia had something England never would have. An
unclothed man here, with no possessions other than those to be found at
hand, was better off than--well, at least better than a cobbler's
apprentice in London. Tom grinned wryly. He had been on the verge of
thinking himself better off than an English lord, but he had no basis of
comparison for that. Anyhow, under no conditions, was he going back. He
must have been born to live a life like this. Maybe he was half savage.

But the savages got along all right. Only the wealthiest Englishmen ate
as sumptuously as they did, and no Englishman was more free. The savages
had the right idea. They worked when they felt like it, and loafed when
they didn't. And nobody was more stealthy in a forest or more quiet in a
thicket. They killed their deer, caught their fish, and even tilled
their fields after a fashion. But certainly no savage would work in a
London cobbler's shop from the first light of day until the last of
night. That sort of life was fit only for those who liked it; probably
almost any man on Roanoke would choose it in preference to what he had.
But not Tom Weston.

He threw his bolo again, and retrieved the ducks entangled in it.
Snatches of a hymn drifted to his ears. The colonists should be
finished with the burial by this time, and Ananias Dare resting in his
forest grave.

He, the hunter, would probably be branded a heretic and a hopeless
savage for not attending the funeral. But he was a heretic anyway for
counselling that the colonists get busy and help themselves. And it was
far more important to help those living than to attend the funeral of
even a man like Ananias Dare. Tom knelt, and slipped the heads of the
teal through loops on a buckskin thong. Two of the fattest he separated
from the pile, and tucked inside his leather jerkin.

He started toward the settlement.

       *       *       *       *       *

_He broke out_ of the forest into a small natural clearing that swept to
the sea. The huge, unwieldy skeleton of a quarter-finished sloop, made
of adze-hewn timbers, was as prominent as a beacon fire on the east side
of the island. Tom regarded it caustically. Simon Fernando, the pilot
who had brought them over, was supervising the building of that sloop.
Most of the men in the colony, who looked upon it as a means of going
somewhere else--preferably back to England, but anywhere so long as they
didn't have to remain here--worked on it from time to time. Tom sniffed
audibly. Simon Fernando was a Spaniard and a Papist, and the fact that
Englishmen would listen to his plans at all was an indication of the low
estate to which the colony had fallen.

[Illustration]

Smoke from a lackadaisical fire drifted up through a wooden rack and
curled lazily around three huge fish that somebody had caught. Beside
them was a great pile of wild grapes, drying in the sun. Still
desperately hoping that a ship from England would come, at least some of
the colonists were awakening to the probability that it would not, and
were starting out to gather a reserve of food.

They should have started in the spring. But better late than never. And
nobody was going to starve anyway. Fish were easy to catch, there would
be geese and some species of ducks all winter, and they still had three
guns with which to bring down deer and bear. There were only half a
dozen charges for each gun, but they could fashion bows and arrows when
that was gone. The Indians killed big game with such tackle, and
anything an Indian could do a white man could do better.

Tom dropped his string of ducks in the center of the square formed by
the bark-thatched huts. A fresh-faced young woman wearing clothes that
she had patiently fashioned from deer skins looked up from her cooking
fire and smiled at him.

"Fresh barley bread and greens for a brace of those fowl, young
huntsman," she called. "Is it a trade?"

"It is that, Molly." Tom's white teeth flashed in a smile. "Here's two
of the best for you and your John."

Clutching the two teal, Molly Gibbes disappeared into her hut. Other
colonists gathered around. Old Granny Desmond, who at seventy-one still
hadn't been too old to try something new, hobbled over and held up a
pewter mug in her stained hands.

"Tom Weston, you've been gone since afore dawn!" she scolded. "Huntin'
for idle folk too lazy to work! Here's summat to drink. The juice o'
wild grapes won't touch a pint of English ale, but 'twill serve, if a
body's thirsty. I've been pressin' it out all day."

"Thank'ee, Granny. And here's a duck for you. A fat one, too."

"Give it to those in need of it," Granny Desmond sniffed disdainfully.

"I'll give them where I please, you toothless old dame," Tom answered
with a grin. "Don't worry, Granny; it will eat as tender as any sucking
pig."

Molly Gibbes had come out of her hut and was staring at the sea. She
took a tentative step toward the sloop, then walked up to touch Tom's
elbow.

"There's trouble afoot, Tom, and I fear my John's temper. Look yonder."

Tom swung on his heel to stare at the little knot of men clustered about
the sloop. John Gibbes, a square-jawed farmer who was one of Tom's few
friends in the colony, was backed against the skeleton of the ship.
Simon Fernando, his head belligerently lowered and his expressive Latin
hands gesturing, stood directly in front of him.

Dropping the ducks, Tom strode hurriedly down to the sloop. At a softly
spoken word from one of the men behind him, Fernando turned away from
John Gibbes. The slow-thinking, slow-talking farmer's face was red with
anger, and his thick forefinger trembled as he pointed it at the
Spaniard.

"I am a freeman here, and till my land at no man's order. No Spanish
sailor will provision his ship with _my_ grain, governor or no!

"And why not?" Simon Fernando purred. "Was I not chosen your new leader
this very day? Will not my ship provide passage for all who have--how
you say--cooperated?"

"No," Tom interrupted. "Firstly, if by chance this ship is finished, I
doubt it will float. Secondly, it would hold but a score of souls. You
delude the rest with false promises. You know full well our labor were
better spent in making needful preparations against the winter."

Practical and true as they were, his words only angered the little group
behind Simon Fernando. All of them wanted to go back to England, and
they'd have been loyal to anything that promised even a faint hope of
getting there. They believed in Fernando because they wished to. Even
though only a dozen people might go in his sloop, those nearest Simon
would be among them. But here were two who would not.

Side by side, they walked back to the village, the ex-poacher who had
found a free hunter's paradise, and the former leaseholder whose only
landlord now was nature. John Gibbes was a stolid, unimaginative farmer,
whose only loves had been his wife and the soil that his ancestors had
tilled for countless generations. But he had found a new soil with
neither rents nor restrictions, poor and unproductive though it was, and
the harvest he had coaxed from it with patient skill he regarded as his
rightful possession.

"So you would cling to your rocky fields, John?" Tom asked. "I could
make you a hunter, if you would but try."

"Farming is in my blood," the older man replied. "'Tis all I know. Poor
as this soil is, I would not change my lot."

Tom stopped suddenly. "This little island will soon become too small for
Fernando's unruly crew and us. I have a plan. Meet me tonight at the
little bay on the west shore. It's the bay with the three big sycamores
in a line. Tell Molly I have asked you to hunt with me tomorrow."

Before the mystified Gibbes could answer, Tom turned on his heel and
left him.

He walked to the last building, knocked softly, and when a feminine
voice answered, he rolled the skin door aside and entered. Light
streamed through the unglassed windows to reveal in soft outline the
neat interior. There were joint-stools and a carved chest from England,
and English pots and kettles hung from hooks set in the stone fireplace.
Fresh rushes had been strewn on the smooth earthen floor. There were
traces of tears in the eyes of the young woman who knelt before the
hearth. She rose to her feet.

"Oh, it's you, Mr. Weston."

"Yes, Mrs. Dare. I--I just stopped by."

"You are always welcome."

"I'm sorry about Ananias," Tom mumbled. "It was not right that he had to
be taken."

"It was God's will," Eleanor Dare said softly. "How are the rest
accepting it?"

Tom hesitated, then said bluntly, "They have chosen Simon Fernando in
your husband's place."

Eleanor Dare nodded. "'Tis no surprise. Is there anything I can do for
you, Mr. Weston?"

"Could I--er--see the baby?"

"Mr. Weston! You, the woods-runner, to take an interest in my babe! How
long has this affair of the heart been in progress?"

"Since she was born."

"Virginia should be flattered!" Eleanor Dare laughed. "How many English
girls, think you, have an admirer when they're scarce a twelvemonth
old?"

She went to the rear of the room, bent over a crude, homemade trundle
bed, and lifted a golden-haired chubby-cheeked child from its feather
mattress. Tom shrank away.

"What! Afraid to touch her?" Eleanor Dare smiled. She held out the baby
toward him.

"Uh-oh, no," Tom said lamely. "I just wanted to look at her. And to give
her--you, that is--these birds." He pulled the two teal from his jerkin
and laid them on the hearth. "And if there's aught I can do, if you need
help...."

"I won't forget," Eleanor Dare said soberly. "And thank you, Mr.
Weston."

       *       *       *       *       *

_A round_, yellow-orange moon rose to shine through the tall trees. The
quavering whicker of a raccoon floated softly as the call of a ghost
through the darkness. From somewhere out in the forest came a shrill
scream. Tom walked on, unheeding and unafraid. The night woods were no
more dangerous than those of the day, and when a grouse clucked sleepily
in a tree he paused with one hand on the hilt of his knife. Slowly he
walked two steps backward, his head bent. But he had to dodge and twist
about, stepping from place to place, before he saw the grouse that had
clucked and seven others silhouetted against the moon on the limb of a
gum tree. Cautiously he withdrew the knife from its belt sheath, and
poised, grasping its tip with thumb and forefinger.

But he slid the knife back into its sheath. He had no other, and there
was too much danger of loss involved in throwing it at night. Very
slowly, making no noise, he withdrew the bolo. He threw that, and when
it dropped to earth there was a sodden thud and a frantic beating of
wings as a grouse dropped with it.

Tom picked up his game. Grouse were fine eating, much better than teal,
and for a moment he thought of Eleanor Dare and her baby. But it was too
late to return to the settlement now. He hadn't spent a night there in
six months, anyway, because he liked the forest better. It was good to
be away from people who seemed always at cross purposes and never
satisfied.

Suddenly he stepped out of the trees onto a beach. The shining moon
danced on the water, painting it with rich gold that little waves were
trying to wash away. A raft of ducks--not teal but bigger, ocean-faring
ducks--cast a shadow as they drifted across a patch of moonlight.

Tom walked to the base of a huge tree whose low-sweeping branches almost
touched the water, and stooped to lift long streamers of moss from a
canoe. Moss was a much better covering than almost anything else
because it stayed green. Withered foliage was a certain give-away to
anyone who knew what should and should not be. Carefully he laid the
moss at the side of his canoe, noting each piece so that it could be
replaced, and examined the little craft that had taken so many painful
days of labor.

Sixteen feet long, the canoe was fashioned from a single tree trunk, the
ends of which had been shaped with adze and knife. The inside of the log
had been burned out, and then scraped clean with the adze, to form a
heavy but serviceable craft. An outrigger, a piece of buoyant dead log
supported on green sticks, prevented the canoe's tipping even in rough
water. A paddle lay under it.

Satisfied, Tom re-covered the canoe, then gathered a pile of tinder and
struck a spark into it with his flint and steel. The tinder glowed,
sparkled, and climbed into leaping flame. Tom added more wood. When the
fire was blazing he dressed his grouse, rolled the unplucked bird in wet
mud, plastered more mud about it with his fingers, and buried it in the
fire to cook. When it was done the feathers would come away with the mud
pack.

For half an hour he fed the fire, then suddenly stiffened in the act of
adding more wood. Somebody was coming. Silently he stepped away from the
fire and slunk behind the bole of a tree. His fingers curled about the
hilt of his knife.

But it was John Gibbes who, a moment later, broke out of the trees and
stood peering about in the light of the fire. His russet doublet,
leather breeches, and coarse kersey stockings looked oddly out of place
in such wild surroundings. Tom grinned in the darkness.

"It's a poor hunter you'd make, John, with those great boots of yours.
You sound like a west-country ox."

The farmer started, then smiled his slow smile. "That's as may be. But
I've brought a loaf of my goodwife's bread, and a bit of souse. You'd
hunt a long time in your plagued woods to find the like."

"Molly's bread is more than welcome, but here's something better than
pickled fish."

Tom raked the grouse from the fire, cracked the mud packing from it, and
broke the steaming bird in half. He laid both halves on the projecting
root of a tree, and when they had cooled gave one to John Gibbes. They
ate in silence, and after they had finished Tom sat staring over the
moon-dappled sea at the dark, mysterious mainland. There was a great
swamp just across the water over which he gazed. But what was beyond the
swamp? Well, he was ready to find out at last.

"John," he asked suddenly. "What does England have that you miss here?"

"Well," John Gibbes said ponderously, "well, kindred souls, you might
say, for one. A mug of ale at the ordinary, now, and friends to drink it
with! There's farmers enough on this island, but the land is poor, and
that Spaniard fellow has made 'em shiftless. There's not a real
husbandman left in the lot."

"But suppose there were a thousand farmers here?"

"They could never live on this godforsaken land," the practical Gibbes
replied.

"But there's more land beyond."

"Aye, a wilderness."

[Illustration]

"It may be," Tom admitted. "And if it were, I would not care. But you
are a tiller of the soil, and want your neighbor to be, likewise.
Suppose your neighbors had red skins?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that these savages on the mainland cannot live wholly by
hunting. I know not where they get their crops. But they must have
some."

"Do you mean there may be farmers yonder?" John Gibbes asked, and for
the first time there was a note of enthusiasm in his voice.

"I warrant there are. At least, I have fashioned a canoe, and mean to
find out. Will you go with me?"

       *       *       *       *       *

_The sun broke_ over the trees, poured itself down on the water, and
broke into a thousand little shimmering jewels as a breeze danced across
the river in front of them. With John Gibbes, an apprehensive but
stalwart passenger, Tom had paddled his dugout canoe over the water
separating Roanoke from the swamp land and turned north along the
swamp's borders. It had still been dark when he entered the mouth of
what he had known was either a lagoon or river. Now, when he scooped up
water in his hand and tasted it, he knew they had come into a river.

He drove the crude craft toward the bank, where they could be ready to
disembark and run into the shelter of the trees if anything happened
which made such a course necessary. But it was a peaceful river, a wild
and primitive place which, judging by outward appearances, had not been
disturbed since the beginning of time. Trees crowded to its very edge,
and trailing vines interlaced them to dangle their ends in the water. A
pair of cranes, snow-white save for a smooth red crest, lumbered
awkwardly out of the water and flapped slowly away.

"Tom, look you there! What is that ugly thing?"

There was a note of amazement and incredulity in John Gibbes' voice, but
no fear. Tom looked at the fourteen-foot, greenish-black creature that
floated on top of the river. It submerged until only its little balls of
eyes showed above the water. Involuntarily Tom reached for his knife,
then let the puny weapon slide back into the sheath. John White, who had
sailed along the borders of this land--Croatan, he had called it--had
said that many strange things inhabited it. He had spoken truly!

Tom drove the dugout forward, cleaving the water with long, clean
strokes of his paddle, and watching the dark, tree-fringed shore on
either side. Ahead of them a little sand spit jutted into the river, and
on it a herd of deer stood gazing curiously at the dugout. Their heads
outthrust and their long ears alert, they stamped their feet as though
in cadence to the rippling wake that curled from the stern of the canoe.
A million birds seemed to call among the trees, and an unconcerned black
bear watched the dugout slide past. This was a forgotten land of
unimaginable plenty, a place where a man might find anything, and live
forever without need, fear, or restraint.

"Tom, do you note the blackness of the soil, and how lush the
vegetation? 'Tis the richness of the river silt, I reckon."

With a jerk Tom's thoughts were dragged out of the clouds and back to
the passenger in his dugout. He saw unfettered opportunity, John Gibbes
saw fertile land. But that was the way it should be. This land had
everything to offer. It was a challenge to the man who had never known
contentment elsewhere, and a promise to him who wished only to till its
soil. Neither Roanoke nor England itself had that.

The river narrowed, and Tom edged the canoe away from the bank. Nothing
had appeared to dispute their way. It was almost inconceivable that, in
so wealthy a land, there should be no one to enjoy it. He drove the
canoe around a bend in the river, and almost before he was aware of it
the trees to his left gave way to a big clearing.

In the center of the clearing was a small village of bark-thatched huts,
surrounded by fields of standing corn. Pumpkins yellowed on the vine
among the cornstalks. Nearer the huts were other fields that bore, Tom
guessed, the new world crop which Ananias Dare had described as
potatoes.

Not until then did he notice the half-dozen men who had been sitting
indolently on the bank of the river. Almost imperceptibly, dipping his
paddle as lightly as possible, Tom edged the canoe toward the center of
the river. Attired only in breechcloths, moccasins, and necklaces or
armbands, the savages had risen to stare curiously. One turned to
gesture toward the village. More men and boys, even women with babies
tied to their backs, streamed down to the river's edge.

"Let us land," said John Gibbes in sudden excitement. "They do not
appear unfriendly."

Tom swung the canoe around cautiously. You never could tell about new
people. There was always the possibility of a trick, and he had no wish
to step into a trap. But none of the Indians were armed, and who gained
anything without venturing? Tom hesitated another second, and then drove
the canoe toward shore with long, deep strokes of his paddle.

The dugout grated softly on the river bank. John Gibbes stepped out, and
without hesitation started toward a group of squaws who had stopped work
in the cornfield to stare at the strange visitors. Tom followed, and the
remainder of the village's population trooped amicably by his side.

Gibbes turned to him, held out a handful of the rich, black earth, and
crumbled it between his fingers.

"There's naught like this in all England," he said reverently.

Tom turned to look at the forests that hemmed in the little clearing,
and his own excitement leaped higher. This, assuredly, was the place for
a man. He could go as far as his own strength and courage would take
him, the only obstacle his own indolence. This was an unbelievable land.
Probably not even Governor White had known of its existence. If the
Roanoke colonists had only been brought here, instead of being settled
on a tiny island shut in by salt water!

Gibbes had been kneeling in the dirt, his stolid face red from
excitement and the unaccustomed effort of trying to express himself by
signs. Suddenly he leaped to his feet, the mouldy remnants of a fish
skeleton in his hands.

"Tom," he exclaimed, "I do believe these benighted heathens are real
farmers. Look! They must fertilize with dead fish; there's a skeleton in
every hill of this turkey-wheat."

Tom laughed. "As I live, the savages think you're hungry! See, they wish
us to go to their huts."

John Gibbes was still looking back over his shoulder as the Indians led
them away. Bearskin mats were spread before the largest hut, and as they
sat down, an old squaw brought bark slabs on which lay sizzling hot
venison steaks. Smaller dishes contained fish, potatoes, a mixture of
beans and corn, and fresh berries. The white men, sitting cross-legged
like their hosts, gorged themselves until they could eat no more.

"Well, friend Gibbes," said Tom at last, "what think you of this land of
Croatan?"

"If I could but find a way, I'd move here tomorrow."

"Would Molly come?"

"She goes where I go, and gladly, too."

"Yes," said Tom thoughtfully, "and Granny Desmond would come. If
Mistress Dare would listen to us, mayhap some of the fools who now think
of naught but England could be persuaded, too...."

       *       *       *       *       *

_It was mid-afternoon_ when they again reached Roanoke Island. It had
been a hard crossing, for even on the inland side of the island there
had been a nasty little cross-chop to the waves, and an uneasy swell on
the normally placid water. As they beached the dugout and pulled it up
to its hiding place, Tom noted a thin, thread-like V-line of geese
winging its way southward. The coming of the geese meant that storm or
cold, or both, were on the way.

As they approached the settlement, a man's voice, frantic with
excitement, carried to them.

"A ship! A ship! At last a ship!"

Tom stopped, felt John Gibbes stop behind him, and for a brief space
stood perfectly still. The rattling hammer of a woodpecker seemed
unnaturally loud. Then, again, came a joyous shout.

"She's heaving to! She's heaving to!"

On the dead run, they broke into the clearing, to see a knot of
colonists gathered on the beach, staring out to sea. Sure enough, there
was a ship out there, a great, war-rigged ship with furling sails. The
sun winked from the brass culverins on her main deck, and the polished
rail on the poop. But the flag restlessly snapping in the rising wind
was the red and yellow banner of Spain!

       *       *       *       *       *

_Tom knocked softly_ on the door of the hut.

"Who is there?"

"Tom Weston."

"Come in."

Tom stooped to enter, and dropped the deerskin covering in place behind
him. Eleanor Dare was sitting before the fire, with the baby on her lap.
The child stretched its arms toward Tom, and gurgled. There was a
muffled shouting from those gathered on the beach. Eleanor Dare spoke
almost gaily.

"Well, Mr. Weston, which shall it be now: more colonists to hunt for, or
a return to England?"

"Neither, I think," Tom said bluntly. "That ship flies the Spanish
flag."

Eleanor Dare looked searchingly at him, and then glanced down at her
baby. For a moment she was silent.

"I can only suspect what that means," she said at last. "But I think a
Spanish ship would not dare approach an English colony unless something
were amiss."

"I'll not be a prisoner of Spain, Mistress," Tom said hotly.

"No more will I," was the cool reply. "But what can we do? This little
settlement is helpless."

"John Gibbes and I have just returned from a land across the water--the
place that your father called Croatan. There is safety there for us. If
I send Granny Desmond and Molly Gibbes here to you, will you take all
the guns and whatever else you can carry, and meet John Gibbes at the
north path? He knows where my canoe is. Hold it in readiness. If the
Spaniards mean trouble, John will take you to the place we found
yesterday, where friendly savages will give you shelter. Will you trust
us?"

"I trust you," Eleanor Dare said. "But what of yourself?"

"I propose to talk with the others; perchance I can persuade them to
hide on the island until the Spaniards go."

Tom stepped from the hut and walked slowly down to the beach. Granny
Desmond hobbled to his side and spoke soberly in his ear.

"What d'ye make of it, Tom?"

"Little enough, Granny. Take Molly Gibbes and go to Mistress Dare's. She
will tell you what's to be done."

The waves were crashing up on the beach now, showing their white teeth
and falling back again like angry dogs. Tom walked up to Simon Fernando.
The big, bearded man looked at him with malice.

"So," he said, "the Adam of our little island paradise! I regret you
have no Eve to stay with you, Master Weston. Naturally, one who loves
this place so much will not choose to leave it, eh?"

"Fernando, listen to me."

"Listen to you! For more than a twelvemonth we have heard you sing the
praises of this Roanoke. Sing them to yourself henceforth, and be damned
to you!"

Tom mastered his temper with difficulty. "That's a Spanish ship," he
said loudly, for all to hear. "Who knows whether it comes in peace or
war? Better to hide until we are sure, than be prisoners of the Papist
Dons."

Simon Fernando lashed out with his fist and caught Tom a tremendous blow
on the cheek. Tom staggered backward, and tasted the blood that oozed
from a cut lip. He looked toward the sea, and saw small boats putting
out from the ship.

Without a backward glance he walked toward the forest. At the beginning
of the north path he met Eleanor Dare, who carried a gun in her hands.

"You should not be here," he cried fiercely.

"I am not accustomed to being ordered about, Mr. Weston," she said with
composure. "And, if need be, two can fight better than one. Granny
Desmond and Molly are watching my babe, and I have been watching you.
Your venture met with ill success, I fear."

The ship's boats touched land, and the murmur of many voices came from
the beach. A voice spoke loudly and authoritatively in Spanish.

"He called them English pigs and commanded them to silence," Eleanor
Dare translated in a whisper. Her eyes flashed. "Spain and England are
at war, and he says their great armada has already destroyed the English
fleet. He lies, the rogue! Hawkins and Drake and Raleigh defeated by
those lisping lapdogs? Never!"

They slipped back into the forest as a detachment of Spanish marines
marched up toward the settlement and began to attack the huts with the
colonists' own mattocks and adzes. There came the sound of rending bark
and falling timbers. A man yelled. Another voice--a strangely familiar
one--spoke in Spanish. There was a reply in the same tongue.

"That was Simon Fernando!" Eleanor Dare said contemptuously. "He said
others remained on the island, and was told they could starve here. The
ship must get off ere the storm strikes."

       *       *       *       *       *

_An hour later_, when they dared come out of their hiding place, they
found the huts in ruins and the beach deserted. The Spanish ship was
already a spread of white sails putting out to sea. As they watched, a
powerful gust of wind swept across her, and she heeled dangerously.

"There goes my lord Raleigh's second venture," said Eleanor Dare sadly.
"Would you still have us go, too?"

"We must wait for the storm to pass," Tom replied, "and gather whate'er
we can from these ruins. Next time, the Spaniards will not find us so
easily."

"True, Mr. Weston." Eleanor Dare's eyes were clouded. "But could an
English ship find us, either? God send there may be one, some day."

Tom looked to the westward, the unbounded land where there were none but
them to carry Raleigh's dream.

"I can promise only this," he said gently. "There will be some to follow
us, and we can point the way."

He stepped to a tree and with the point of his knife carved one word:

     CROATAN




[Illustration]

THE MEDICINE BAG

1615

_The beginning of the Seventeenth Century saw the French firmly
established on the St. Lawrence. Shrewd Breton and Norman merchants had
realized that if New World fish furnished a livelihood for their
grandfathers, New World furs would provide a fortune for themselves,
under the guiding hand of the great Champlain. In 1611 they built an
advance trading post where Montreal now stands, for it was here that the
Ottawa River emptied its waters into the mighty St. Lawrence. The Ottawa
was the highway of the fur-trading Hurons, who lived on the shores of
the great inland seas of Georgian Bay and Lake Huron._

_If furs could come down the river, faith could go up. France not only
wanted furs, but she was eager to give Christianity as well as trade
goods for them. So the Ottawa became as familiar to missionaries as to
merchants. In fact, the first white man to make the arduous and
dangerous trip to Lake Huron was neither a trader nor a soldier, but a
humble priest whose zeal lighted a path for more famous men to
follow--Father Joseph LeCaron._


Father LeCaron rose from his knees and stood looking down at the covered
form of the dead Huron. He had saved his first soul from pagan savagery
and committed it to God's mercy. In this strange, wild country of New
France, it was a comfort to know that in his last extremity, deserted by
all his fellows, one simple savage had listened to and believed the
Truth. The priest uttered a final prayer over the body of the Huron,
then gathered his gray robe about him to walk through the long lodge--a
building so cunningly joined and covered with bark that neither wind nor
rain nor snow could penetrate it.

The other Indians in the lodge looked respectfully at him as he walked
by. But Joseph LeCaron's mind and thoughts were still occupied with the
dead warrior whom he had comforted throughout the night. Yesterday
morning the warrior had been borne down the river to the village by six
of his fellows, and left in the priest's care. Father LeCaron tried to
tell himself that they had done so because they loved and respected the
word of God. But in his heart he knew that none had wanted to bother
with the wounded man, who, as anyone could see, was as good as dead.

The savages had been much more interested in the two Iroquois scalps
which the war party had also brought. In a most heathenish and unseemly
manner they had exulted over their grisly trophies. Indeed, the whole
Indian village had joined the wild party that celebrated both the
killing of the Iroquois and the arrival of Samuel de Champlain, who was
going to help them fight their mortal enemies. The savages' was an
un-Christian faith, so far removed from the True Belief that, in moments
of extreme discouragement, Father LeCaron had wondered if they would
ever be converted. His heart sat heavily within him. His task seemed too
great.

But, when he walked out the door of the lodge, and lifted his eyes to
the sun on Mont Royal, his doubt departed. Could one see for himself
that the Supreme Being had seen fit to lift the sun on another day and,
witnessing that miracle, still doubt? Father LeCaron smiled. He had
known, when he left the Rcollet convent at Brouage to answer
Champlain's plea for friars to work among the savages of the New World,
that his would not be a simple nor an easy lot. Arriving at Quebec with
three brother friars at the end of May, 1615, Father LeCaron had been
assigned to work among the Hurons, and he had hurried up the great river
to the Indian village here at Place Royale, where Champlain had set up a
trading post four years before.

Father LeCaron walked through the village, his thick wooden sandals
making a strange "clop-clop" on the ground where, for the most part,
only moccasined or bare feet had trod. He watched two Indians with
necklaces of bear claws about their necks hurry toward the council
lodge. Later in the morning, in order to plan the war party that he
would lead against the Iroquois, the Hurons would have a meeting with
Champlain. There would be endless talk, and much argument about
preparations: who was to go and where the war party would strike. They
would need to go up the Ottawa River, to recruit warriors from the Huron
tribes who lived on the unknown inland sea. That much even the unworldly
priest knew, for it was obvious that this trading settlement was far too
small to make a large-scale raid on the bloodthirsty Iroquois of the
Five Nations.

Father LeCaron paused a moment, as two Indian curs started to snarl over
a bone at his feet. More curs appeared, seeming to slink from nowhere,
and within seconds had become a snarling, yelping tangle. A ring of
Indian children gathered, and excitedly screeched encouragement to the
dogs. An old squaw with a stick in her hand appeared, went methodically
among the seething pack, and struck right and left until they had slunk
away.

Father LeCaron watched without seeing, because it seemed that suddenly
he had received the revelation for which he had been praying. Since he
had known in his heart that his true mission in life lay among the
savages of the New World he had been eager to arrive among them. Coming
to Quebec, he had been restless until he had been able to push on to
this outpost at the mouth of the Ottawa. But even here the turbulence
within himself had not abated. These savages were unenlightened souls
who needed guidance. But other priests were coming to them, and what of
the savages farther back in the wilderness, on the inland sea of the
Hurons? No light had entered their heathen world, and certainly light
would glow most brightly in the darkest places.

His mind made up, Father LeCaron walked happily away from the bark
lodges that made up the Indian village, and through the stockade gate
toward Champlain's tent.

"Has the Sieur de Champlain arisen yet?" he asked the soldier who stood
guard.

"Yes, Father, he is at breakfast," the soldier replied.

The priest entered the tent to come face to face with Samuel de
Champlain, who was breakfasting on venison, wild strawberries, and good
French bread. Of medium stature, he had about him a dynamic quality that
had nothing to do with dimensions, a forceful, indefinable aura that
made him a man apart. The hand of destiny, brushing its careless way
among men, had paused to leave its imprint here. He rose.

"This is indeed an honor," he said graciously. "Will you breakfast with
me, Father?"

"No, thank you," the priest answered. "My hunger is only of the spirit.
I have come to request a favor."

"Yes?"

"I have not found my true mission here. I wish to go deeper into the
wilderness."

"Most certainly. I am going there myself to lead an expedition against
the Iroquois. If these warlike tribes to the south are not kept in
check, there will be no peace for your work or mine. As soon as I have
gone to Quebec, and returned with more supplies, you shall go with me."

Father LeCaron said gently, "It is not seemly for a man in the service
of the Prince of Peace to travel with a party serving the god of war. I
wish to go now."

Champlain looked down at his plate, and lost himself in thought. When he
raised his head, his face was grave.

"I would advise against your going," he said. "The country of the Hurons
is many days' journey up the Ottawa. I myself have explored this river
only part way, but I can assure you that it is not the broad St.
Lawrence. It is swift and dangerous, with many rapids and portages.
Moreover, the Iroquois make constant raids on the friendly savages who
travel it to trade with us. Even the Nipissings, who, I am told, inhabit
a lake along the upper reaches, are thieving and hostile."

"Mine is the Greatest Protector of all," replied the priest firmly. "I
am not afraid. And what are privations and hardships to him whose life
is devoted to poverty?"

Samuel de Champlain sighed. "Must you go now?"

"Yes. I would mingle with the Indians, study their customs, and try to
teach them the Word of God, before you arrive and turn their hearts to
war."

"You will not be dissuaded?"

"I cannot be," Father LeCaron said simply.

"Well, if you must go ..." He rose and called out, "Find Francois
Grellon and send him in here." Champlain sat down, his eyes still grave.
"I insist on sending my best canoeman with you. My conscience will
permit no less."

Father LeCaron smiled. "I shall concede that much."

A moment later the tent flaps rustled and a stocky little
French-Canadian entered. He stood silently while Champlain addressed
him.

"Francois, you are to select the proper equipment, crew, and guides, and
conduct Father LeCaron up the river as far as the Huron country on the
inland sea. I will follow as soon as may be."

"But Sire!" Francois Grellon's liquid black eyes were filled with doubt
and misgiving.

"You have your orders."

"_Oui, M'sieu._"

Grellon left the tent. But the disapproval still lingered in his eyes.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Eleven days out_, as he washed his face this morning, Father LeCaron
hummed a gay _voyageur's_ tune. His washing finished, he bent over the
river's edge and gravely regarded the image that stared up at him. His
thin face was already showing the effects of insects and briers and
scanty food. Curly black hair tumbled halfway to his shoulders, and
water dripped from it. But his eyes best expressed him as he was. They
were clear and black, with depths of wisdom and understanding far beyond
his twenty-seven years. Some of that understanding had come very
recently.

The priest grimaced at himself, and rose to his knees. Vanity was a sin,
and it was just as well that none of the _voyageurs_ should see him
staring at his own image. But he had only wanted to see if some of the
wonderful happiness that filled him showed in his eyes. Father LeCaron
turned his face toward the sky and uttered a prayer of thanksgiving. He
was on his way to do his work for the Cross and the good God would watch
over them, as He had done thus far.

At a barely perceptible motion from up-river, Father LeCaron looked in
that direction. The Cat, one of the two Huron guides accompanying them,
broke out of the forest and walked on silent feet down to where the rest
of the party was gathered in the overnight camping place. The Cat,
Father LeCaron supposed, had been out on a scouting trip. He stooped to
talk with Francois Grellon, and Father LeCaron rose to his feet.

He picked up the bag that had lain beside him while he washed. It was a
commodious leather bag, worked especially for him by some of the skilled
leather craftsmen among the Rcollet friars at Brouage, and the one bit
of luggage which Father LeCaron retained at all times in his personal
possession. Not that he had so very much luggage: only his books and
some simple utensils. A man who would keep a pure spirit had little time
for seeking luxuries of the body.

He slung the bag across his shoulder and walked up the river to where
they had encamped. Anchored with slender sticks tied to the gunwales and
to the bank, the two canoes in which they were travelling rode easily on
the river's surface. The paddlers, Henri and Honore Armand, Pierre
Latour, Baptiste LeGrand, Denis Fourmand, and Simon and Georges Lordez,
were squatting around the fire, waiting for their breakfast of mush to
cook. The Cat left Francois Grellon's side when the priest approached,
and padded silently over to join the other Huron guide, the hulking,
amiable man known only as The Little. Father LeCaron threw himself down
beside Grellon.

"It is obvious that your scout doesn't trust me," he said in quiet
amusement.

Francois Grellon shrugged. "That Cat, he trusts nobody but himself, and
not himself half the time."

"What does he seek?"

"Iroquois."

"But I thought we had reached the country of the friendly Ottawa
savages."

Francois Grellon took his knife from its sheath and a small, smooth
stone from his pouch. Methodically, with a rolling motion of his
fingers, he began to work the stone up and down the blade of the knife.
The plaintive little "weet, weet, weet" of the honing stone sang out on
the morning air and seemed, Father LeCaron thought, curiously like the
song of a small but sinister bird. The woodsman tried the edge of the
blade on his thumb, and grunted.

"Iroquois don't care whose country it is. If they want to come, they
come. They sneak through Huron country if they're a small party, fight
through if they're big. The Nipissings are too poor to bother with, and
the Ottawas are just old women to Iroquois."

"But surely we French have nothing to fear from these tribal disputes."

"No?" Grellon looked pityingly at the priest. "I will tell you. Six
years ago twelve Frenchmen and many Hurons raided the Iroquois. I,
Francois Grellon, was one, and the great Champlain himself led us. Why?
I do not know. I myself say it was a bad mistake. By boat and canoe, we
travelled many leagues south of Mont Royal, to the Lake of the
Iroquois, and killed some of them. Not many. But Iroquois do not
forget." He ran his knife around an imaginary scalp-lock, and grinned
mirthlessly.

Father LeCaron sighed. He was only a simple priest, and it was not his
place to question the deeds of Samuel de Champlain, founder of Quebec
and leader of New France. No man was without sin, and surely Champlain's
good deeds overbalanced his evil ones, if evil they were. Had he not
seen the need of missionaries to go among the Indians? Was not he
himself, because of Champlain, the first priest to journey up this wild,
spruce-lined waterway to the inland sea?

Denis Fourmand, stirring the kettle, took a bit on the end of his
finger, tasted it, and pronounced it done. The hungry _voyageurs_ filled
their tin plates, dipped their fingers into the steaming brew, and
licked them off. Gathering his gray robe about him, Father LeCaron
joined the group and ladled his own share of the pounded corn boiled in
water from the common kettle.

Scooping up the last morsel with his horn spoon--it was really amazing
how such fare could give one strength--the priest looked up to see the
canoemen still squatting in a circle, their eyes fixed on his leathern
bag. He smiled inwardly. Since the start of the journey that bag had
been the subject of intense curiosity which he would have liked to
gratify. But what the bag contained was, and must remain, his secret.
If, at the proper time, it proved of any value, of course he would tell
them. But until he had proven its worth or worthlessness, the contents
of the bag must be disclosed to no one, lest his holy calling be exposed
to ridicule through fault wholly his own.

Again sure, as they had been every morning, that he would not open the
bag, the _voyageurs_ packed their canoes. All stood on the river bank
while Father LeCaron asked a blessing on this day's journey. It was
exactly like any other embarkation--except that each man kept his musket
within instant reach.

       *       *       *       *       *

_During his rest period_ from the paddling, Father LeCaron was sitting
comfortably in the center of the canoe piloted by Francois Grellon,
writing a letter to Father Monet, back at Brouage. It might be a year or
more before it reached the convent, but impressions of this vast new
country must be put down while they were fresh, so that those who came
after would know exactly what to expect. The priest held the strip of
white birch-bark steady on his knees, and traced the letters carefully:

     It would be hard to tell you how tired I am with paddling all day,
     with all my strength; wading the rivers a hundred times and more,
     through the mud and over the sharp rocks that cut my feet; carrying
     the canoes and luggage through the woods to avoid the rapids and
     frightful cataracts; and hungry at all times, for our only food is
     sagamite, a sort of porridge made of pounded corn and water, of
     which we have a small allowance every night and morning. But I find
     abundant consolation under all my troubles; for when one sees so
     many infidels needing nothing but a drop of water to make them
     children of God, one feels an inexpressible ardor to labor for
     their conversion....

"Iroquois!"

Francois Grellon's musket banged over his head, and the startled priest
just had time to glimpse a strange canoe full of painted figures when
the foremost Indian toppled into the water, overturning the frail craft.
Their own canoes shot forward, propelled by the redoubled efforts of
their paddlers. Looking back, Father LeCaron could see a few dark heads
on the water, heading for the overturned canoe. There were two more
shots, this time at the canoe itself. Gaping holes appeared in the bark
hull as the heavy shot ripped clean through.

The Huron guide known as The Cat deserted that night.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Five days later_, they were well past Allumette Island, the farthest
spot reached by Champlain, and in the upper reaches, watching for the
outlet of the river that would lead them to the Lake of the Nipissings.
They had seen no more Iroquois, and the few Ottawa villages they had
visited had shown only a friendly interest in the bearded white men and
the gray-robed priest. If the Nipissings did not prove hostile, they
should have no further obstacles than the ever-present dangers of travel
on a wild and unknown river.

Father LeCaron had had much time for meditation these last few days. He
had achieved a cleared and truer picture of this untamed, endless
wilderness into which he had come. He wasted no speculation on his own
place in it, because that had been decided even before he had left
France. But even the most complete accounts that he had read conveyed
only a very sketchy idea of the immensity of the New World. Only
personal contact with it revealed the truth, and then not all the truth.
Probably years would not bring that. But one who saw it knew that it was
an incredibly wealthy world, remote and uncivilized though it was.

He looked at the smoothly straining backs and rhythmically swinging arms
of the men ahead of him. Profound indeed were the ways of God. Without
their even suspecting it, He had chosen such men to be His instruments
in penetrating this world and in doing His will there. And, as always,
He had chosen wisely. Francois Grellon knew a waterway as well as he did
the palm of his own hand. He had an instinctive feel for lakes and
rivers, and could handle himself on unknown water as easily as he could
on lakes and rivers that he had travelled a hundred times.

Up in the prow of the canoe, Grellon was shading his eyes with his hands
and staring at the river. Father LeCaron followed his gaze. Up ahead,
about three hundred yards away, white water shot through a dim,
high-walled canyon. But Grellon would know whether to portage, or
whether to try to pole up through the rapids. He made his decision.

"Land by the leaning spruce," he called back. "We portage."

The canoe hove to. Father LeCaron stepped carefully out of it and waded
ashore. His face expressionless, the Huron known as The Little cast up
and down the bank, a short gun in his hands. Father LeCaron watched with
interest. Suddenly The Little grunted with satisfaction, and pulled
aside a low-hanging branch of spruce, to reveal a plainly marked portage
trail. It was amazing, reflected the priest, this instinct woodsmen and
savages had for water and wilderness ways. Certainly Grellon had never
been this way before. Just the same, when he had looked up the white
water--in outward appearance like many rapids they had poled up--he had
known that they must portage around it.

The paddlers stepped from the canoe, waded ashore, and made packs of
their food and cooking utensils. Boastfully Georges Lordez hoisted an
enormous load, at least two hundred pounds, to his shoulders. The rest
divided what remained, and murmured among themselves in imitation-woman
voices while they looked at Lordez in feigned amazement. Father LeCaron
turned his head to hide his smile. Canoemen were little more than
children, and took a child's pride in outdoing each other. At the last
portage Honore Armand had seized most of the load and walked fastest
with it.

Two men took each canoe, overturned it, and balanced it on their heads
and shoulders while they walked up the portage trail. But each man kept
one free hand on his musket. Simon Lordez padded ahead, alert and
watchful, while Grellon brought up the rear, in order that none of their
precious equipment might be dropped or thrown away by a tired canoeman.
Cautiously as a lynx, The Little beat back and forth on either side of
the trail. He came to the rim of the canyon wall, looked carefully up
and down the river, then disappeared in the undergrowth. Father LeCaron
shouldered his heavy bag, and began to trudge up the steep, rocky path.

Suddenly there was the twang of a bowstring, and Simon Lordez dropped
his rifle, to clutch at the shaft of an arrow that had gone clear
through his neck. He staggered backward and plunged into the river.
Looking down where he had fallen, the priest had one fleeting glimpse of
the body as the rapids sucked it under and whirled it away.

Father LeCaron felt himself seized by the legs. Thrown off balance, he
landed heavily on the stone-studded ground, to be pulled unceremoniously
behind a canoe. He looked around at the face of Francois Grellon.

"I do not like to lay rough hands upon you," Grellon apologized dryly.
"But can one name the place from which the next arrow may come?"

"Do you think there will be more?"

"Of a certainty. One savage, alone, would not attack eleven men."

"I see no more."

"You do not see them. You are aware of their presence only when their
arrows fly. Stay behind the canoe."

"Are they Iroquois?"

"Nipissings, I think, but I do not know."

[Illustration]

Father LeCaron marvelled. Of all the foes that one might battle,
certainly the savages were the strangest. They were invisible as the
wind, and as deadly silent as night itself. But the canoemen had shown
themselves to be as adept at battling savages as they were at handling
their canoes. The four men carrying the frail craft had thrown them down
on the bare ground, prows touching and keels to the forest, and all
crouched behind them. Out in the forest another bowstring twanged, and
an arrow sang from the trees to thud into a canoe and through it to the
ground. It was a chopping, harsh music, Father LeCaron thought. It sang
of death and things that should not be.

Francois Grellon raised over the canoe to fire his musket, and Father
LeCaron closed his eyes. But he recovered himself swiftly. This was what
he had expected when he entered the wilderness. If brotherhood of man
existed in this place there would be neither need of nor work for him.
But the thud of an arrow and the report of a gun, fired in anger at
other men, were the most terrible sounds he had ever heard. However, he
must face it and there would be no more moments of weakness.

At one end of the canoe Georges Lordez, brother of the slain Simon, was
lying on his back working with his gun. He emptied the powder from it,
and carefully re-charged it. Then he drew his long knife from its
sheath, and clasped it between his teeth. His face was set and furious,
his black eyes smouldered.

He rose to his feet and called insultingly, "Here I am, _Messieurs les
sauvages_. Shoot _me_!"

A tree wriggled slightly. As though the gun were merely an extension of
his own arm, Georges raised it and shot. There was the sickening sound
of a bullet striking flesh, and the tree that had wriggled shook
convulsively. With the knife in his hand, Georges sprang over the canoe.
A long shrill yell pealed from his throat. The twang of a bowstring
seemed to punctuate it, and, an arrow flew out of the trees to bury
itself to the feathers in his chest. As though the arrow were not there,
Georges ran straight into the spruces. There was another yell, a
rattling groan, and he ran out again, red blood dripping from his knife.
Almost at once he ran back into the spruces. There was another yell,
which ended in a choking gurgle.

Then all was silent. Father LeCaron crossed himself, breathing a prayer
for the soul of Georges Lordez and one for the savages who might have
died under his knife or gun.

"Simon can rest in peace now," said Grellon's voice in his ear. "Georges
got one for him, and at least one for himself."

As though the words were a signal, a very rain of arrows soared out of
the spruces to chop through the canoes. Father LeCaron looked
unflinchingly up, then crawled the length of the canoes to where Honore
Armand lay with his head on his arms. Father LeCaron looked at the arrow
that had gone through the dying man's side, and lifted the rosary from
about his own neck. He pressed it into Honore's hand, and the stricken
canoeman smiled wanly at him. Father LeCaron bent very close to
Honore's lips, but no words came forth. The canoeman sprawled on the
ground, clutching the crucifix as though all his fading strength had
been transferred to his hand, and he could not let go. The priest smiled
through the tears that clouded his eyes. No man was without sin. But so
long as all in extremity turned to the Cross with reverence and faith,
humanity was not lost. As he administered the last rites, Honore
collapsed, and even in death it seemed that his slowly unfolding hand
was reluctant to let the crucifix go. Leaving Honore where he lay,
Father LeCaron crawled back to Francois Grellon.

"Is he mortally hurt?" Francois asked, without taking his eyes from the
forest.

"Honore is dead."

Grellon shook his head. "The rest of us soon will be. There's too many
devils and the sons of devils out there. I'm sorry you had to be caught
in this."

"This is my place," Father LeCaron said softly.

Francois Grellon looked curiously at him, and the priest returned his
gaze, steadily.

"What do you mean?" the canoeman asked.

"Because I have consecrated my life to preparing men for death. And it
is inspiring to see how well they die. I am ever more certain that death
is not the end."

"I'm just a canoeman," Francois Grellon said. "I haven't thought much
about such things."

His glance fell to the leather bag still slung from Father LeCaron's
shoulder. The priest's thin face flushed at the unspoken question. He
turned to unbuckle the leather straps that closed his bag. But just then
something struck him beside the head and the world went black.

When Father LeCaron regained consciousness, he did so slowly and
reluctantly, aware of a great pain in his limbs and an uncomfortable
chill throughout his body. He raised his aching head, but promptly
lowered it because it seemed that the world upon which he gazed was an
entirely unreal place, one that he had never seen before and in which he
should not be. With a prodigious effort he again drew his head up and
kept it there. He fought to bring clarity of thought to his numbed
brain, and at length the distorted vision before his eyes assumed shape
and form.

The sun had not yet risen in the early morning sky. But a gray dawn
revealed an Indian village, a collection of fourteen bark-thatched huts.
Slender poles were erected before all of them, and a varying number of
scalps fluttered from the poles. To one side was a cleared space where
fields begged mutely for the crops that should have enriched them. The
butchered carcass of a dog hung before one of the huts but, strangely,
no dogs barked or growled. A small child emerged from a hut to stare
curiously at the priest.

Except for a breechcloth that encircled the child's middle, he was
naked. Black hair strayed in a snarled tangle down the sides of his head
and into his eyes. The child reached stolidly up to brush it away.
Father LeCaron stared back at the youngster, and it seemed to him that
at once his own sufferings were less.

His robe was torn, and stained with his own blood. One arm was numb.
But, by some miracle, the leather bag was still suspended from his
shoulder. He attempted to move his hands, and discovered that they were
bound to a post set upright in the earth. His feet were likewise bound,
so tightly that the thongs cut deeply into the flesh. He turned his
head.

Francois Grellon was there, similarly bound to a post inserted in the
earth. His head slumped forward, and even while Father LeCaron watched
he made a feeble effort to raise it. Beyond were three more posts, and
even though Father LeCaron could not turn his head far enough for a
clear view, he thought that Henri Armand, Baptiste LeGrand, and Pierre
Latour, were tied to them. There were, then, five remaining out of what
had been twelve.

"They came from the river bank," mumbled the voice of Francois Grellon
suddenly. "There must be a ledge there and they knew how to walk on it.
We fought them. But they got us."

"What will they do?"

"Turn us over to their women--the heathen devils! Taunt them into
killing you if you can."

"Do not despair," replied the priest. "They can hurt only our bodies."

A great sadness swept through him. Men were sinners, and must do penance
for their sins. But, perhaps, when the final ends and reasons were
understood none sinned willingly. If only there were some way to get
word back to his brother friars!

Father LeCaron looked again at the thin, nearly naked little boy, and
then out over the fallow fields. Just at that moment two women emerged
from the nearest lodge and came toward him. Their stringy black hair was
plastered to their heads with the grease of some forest beast. They
carried short knives in their hands. Hate was the most ignoble of
passions, and even now he could not find it within him to hate these
fellow-humans who shortly were to cut his living body to pieces. But
prayer might help. Father LeCaron closed his eyes.

"Forgive them, Father," he murmured. "They know not what they do."

He opened his eyes to see the women very near him now. The venom that
had taken possession of their souls showed in their snapping black eyes.
One of them spat squarely in his face. Father LeCaron smiled at her.

Even now hope lived within him. It was not hope for his own flesh,
because that meant nothing in God's work. But he had come to bring
salvation to these people, and there was still hope that he might do
that. The priest inclined his head toward the leather bag at his
shoulder and said, "It is for you."

[Illustration]

The women drew back. Hate still flared in their eyes, now deepened by
suspicion. Father LeCaron waited patiently. He did not know why the bag
remained on his shoulder. Perhaps, when they had carried him here, the
Nipissings had been in too much of a hurry to remove it, and, last
night, in the darkness, it had remained unnoticed. But now the women saw
it. One stepped forward, cut the strap with her knife, and sliced the
top from the bag. She looked within. The other woman looked, and they
clucked together. At a swift little trot they went back into the
village.

When they again emerged, they were followed by nearly a hundred Indians.
Save for the women, who still carried their knives, they were
weaponless. One of the squaws walked to the back of Father LeCaron's
post, slashed the thongs which bound him to it, and eased him gently to
the ground. One by one the rest of the prisoners were cut free from
their bonds. Francois Grellon shook a bewildered head, and stared
fixedly at Father LeCaron. A warrior spoke in his own dialect, and the
_voyageur_ stared at the Indian in amazement.

"He says they will take care of us, and when we are all able to travel
they will send us back down the river," Grellon translated. "I don't
understand it."

"Look about you," Father LeCaron said. "Perhaps then you will
understand. And I am not going back down the river. My work is in the
wilderness."

Realizing that one of the white men could understand him a little, the
warrior spoke again, illustrating his words with sign language.

"What does he say?" the priest asked eagerly.

"He says they had a very harsh winter," Grellon went on. "They had to
eat whatever there was, even their dogs. They thought that in this
coming winter they would all starve. But now, thanks to the magic of
your medicine bag, they will not. They're sorry they killed some of us.
But they had bad hearts because starvation faced them. Father LeCaron,
what did you have in that bag?"

The priest looked again at the brown fields, that even now should have
been green with growing corn. But the season was early, there was still
time to plant. And God had abided both by himself and by this tribe of
woodland dwellers who had shown need of His care. Father LeCaron smiled
happily, certain now that a great and infallible hand was guiding him.

"I am a man of God," he said simply, "but I have also been trained in
husbandry. The bag was filled to the brim with seeds."




[Illustration]

SAVAGE TREK

1661

_In the years following Father LeCaron's voyage, Jesuit priests set up
mission after mission in the Huron country lying east of Lake Huron and
north of Lake Ontario, and with amazing perseverance converted the
entire nation. But the great Champlain had made one irreparable
mistake--alienating the Iroquois of the Five Nations. Not only did these
fierce warriors keep the French from expanding south of the St.
Lawrence, and thus give the English colonies time to establish
themselves, they also, in 1649, exterminated the Hurons in a bloody war,
and wiped out the missions. Thereafter, the Ottawa River was a dangerous
highway. Only the bravest Frenchmen dared travel it in quest of furs
from the western tribes. These hardy souls were known as_ coureurs de
bois, _"runners of the woods," and they became as crafty, ruthless, and
woods-wise as the Indians themselves._

_Two of the bravest, and certainly the most important, were Pierre
Esprit Radisson and his brother-in-law, Medard Chouart, Sieur des
Groseilliers. Their "savage trek" was one of the most thrilling and
far-reaching exploits in American history._


Governor D'Avaugour, newly appointed ruler of New France in the name of
his majesty King Louis XIV, looked up with curiosity as his two visitors
were ushered in. Even during his short term at Quebec, he had heard of
this strange pair who had only the year before returned from the
wilderness with a small fortune in furs. The Governor indolently flicked
back the lace from the sleeves of his velvet robe, and touched the tips
of plump, white fingers together. But there was nothing indolent about
the eyes or the features that he turned toward the two.

"I presume you are Medard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers, and captain
of militia at Three Rivers," he said, glancing at the older man's
uniform. "And this wild man dressed in skins--would he be the celebrated
Radisson?"

The lean features of the man in buckskin darkened, but before he could
reply his companion spoke for him.

"Pierre Esprit Radisson is my brother-in-law, Sire," Chouart replied
stiffly. "He is a man who has lived much in the wilderness, and now
wishes to return in a further search for furs. He has asked me to
accompany him, and for that reason we have requested this audience with
you."

"So." The Governor eyed them speculatively. "I have already authorized
an expedition up the Saguenay, to Lake St. John. Perhaps, upon its
return----"

"The Saguenay!" Radisson interrupted contemptuously. "The best furs were
trapped out of there in Champlain's day. We propose to go a thousand
miles to the west, to the country of the Chippewas, which no white man
except me, Pierre Radisson, has seen."

"It is quite true, Your Excellency," added Medard Chouart eagerly. "As a
lay brother at the Jesuit missions, I myself heard of these lands, and
also of a great sea to the north of them."

Governor D'Avaugour tapped his fingertips gently together. "Possibly it
could be arranged," he said thoughtfully, "provided that you go as my
agents, and that I have adequate assurance that half the furs will be
turned over to me."

Radisson's hard face showed no expression, because his own decision had
been made before he had ever seen the Governor. But Chouart could not
repress a gasp of dismay.

"But, Sire," he protested, "surely the value of our explorations and our
contact with the Indians should be of sufficient value----"

"This is 1661," said the Governor sharply, "and high time you _coureurs
de bois_ learned that this is royal domain, ruled by the King's
representative. If you wish to trade for furs, it will be on my terms.
Furthermore, two of my men are to accompany you."

"To watch us," Radisson added pleasantly, but with a glitter in his eye.
Suddenly he was aware of the pressure of Medard's foot on his moccasin,
and subsided, to stare woodenly at the Governor's tapping fingers.
Unconsciously, he rubbed his own calloused forefinger against his
scarred thumb. As a prisoner of the Iroquois, he had once had a red-hot
coal pressed against the ball of his thumb, until the nail on the other
side was as red as the coal. How would this laced and scented courtier
have liked that? The Governor was no fool, of a certainty, but Quebec
was a long way from Paris, and he had many things to learn about this
New France. By virtue of his royal appointment he claimed and ruled for
the King vast territories that neither he nor his soldiers had ever seen
or ever would see. This fat pig, Radisson reflected angrily, who didn't
know a beaver from a rabbit, but thought he could put his greedy fingers
into more piles of money if other men brought in enough pelts, had
forbidden them to go trading unless they went in his service! It was an
outrage, and under no circumstances was it to be endured.

"... final decision," the Governor was saying. "If my instructions are
disobeyed, your furs will be confiscated. You are dismissed."

       *       *       *       *       *

_The two walked_ through the streets of Quebec in silence, Chouart sunk
in gloomy despondency, Radisson grim and stony faced.

"It is intolerable, Pierre," Chouart broke out at last. "Half the furs,
and two spies to watch us!"

"The spies will not watch us," replied Radisson calmly, "because they
are not going. Besides," he added slyly, "if they did go, they could not
last a month. You would not have their deaths on your conscience?"

"I don't know," answered Groseilliers doubtfully. "It seems unwise to
defy the Governor's orders. Suppose our furs are confiscated on our
return? To go into the wilderness for two or three years, then to risk
losing everything--it's not good business."

"That is the chance we take. But consider, Medard. That fat fool of a
Governor may not last until we return. If he does, he should have
learned not to steal the goods of better men than he. Nor would he dare,
when our reports are made known." Radisson's eyes lighted up. "There are
rivers and lakes back there in which no white man has dipped a paddle.
There are forests so vast that one can never come to their end. There
are Indian tribes whose presence no one suspects. Think of it! We shall
be the first to go into that unknown land, where we may live like men,
and return like kings." He glanced sideways at Chouart. "Sieur des
Groseilliers! You would not be Lord of the Gooseberries the rest of your
life? Think of what an estate three hundred canoe loads of furs would
buy!"

"Three hundred canoe loads! You are mad! No such fortune has ever come
down the river."

"You have been in the wilderness with me. You have seen creeks choked
with beaver lodges, you have seen countless otter, fox, sable, ermine.
You have seen dogs in Indian villages sleeping on furs the like of which
King Louis himself does not possess. The last time we had only one canoe
loaded with trade goods. This time we'll have eight, and Chippewas for
paddlers and guides."

"What Chippewas?" demanded Groseilliers suspiciously.

Radisson grinned. "Did I not tell you, Medard? Seven canoes have come
all the way from Sault Ste. Marie, to beg us to return with them. They
are waiting for us now, above Three Rivers, at Lake St. Peter."

The older man's lips twitched in a faint smile. "An amazing coincidence,
is it not? Well, there will be no trouble from the authorities at Three
Rivers, for I am still captain of militia. But trade goods and supplies
must be loaded at once, and secretly."

"It has already been done," Radisson replied calmly. "I took the goods
to the chief, Clacte, last week, and they should be ready to start. We
can leave tomorrow."

Chouart snapped his fingers, as if to dispel his last doubts. "So be it;
it is a good omen. Let the Governor D'Avaugour sit on his fat rump in
Quebec and wait for us. Radisson and Groseilliers will play for all or
none!"

[Illustration]

       *       *       *       *       *

_As their canoe_ glided up the St. Lawrence through darkness that
gathered like a slow-falling black mist, they glanced back once toward
the dim lights of Three Rivers. Groseilliers had been right; his
sentries had bade them Godspeed, then turned their backs so they could
truthfully report that they had seen no one leave.

Pierre Radisson flexed his muscles and dug his paddle deeper. It was
good to be leaving the cramped and confining life of the village. Around
Three Rivers a man could scarcely stretch his arms without bumping into
a peasant, or a lumbering ox, or a grunting pig. Once more to hear the
drumming of a partridge, and not the crow of a cock! To listen to the
snort of a stag, and not the neigh of a horse! To know that one could
sleep where one pleased, and go where one pleased, and not be subject to
constant bickering and petty restrictions! The wilderness was where he
belonged. A warm house, a wife, and a sufficient supply of food were all
very well, but what donkey, in its own way, did not possess as much?
Men, if they were men, needed more, and what pleasure could equal that
of launching your canoe on some untravelled lake or river, and wondering
what your eyes would encounter within the next mile, or ten, or a
hundred?

And no man could ask for a better companion in adventure than his
brother-in-law. Although ten years older, and a cautious trader at
heart, Groseilliers was woods-wise and tireless, with a bold and
fearless spirit. Once committed to an enterprise, he would recognize no
obstacles.

There was the soft swirl of a paddle beside them, and a low-pitched
voice spoke out of the darkness.

Radisson's hand stole down to his gun. He lifted it softly, and held his
thumb on the hammer.

"Clacte?" he asked guardedly.

The voice spoke a few words in Chippewa, and Radisson answered in the
same tongue.

"Fall in behind us. We paddle all night, and meet at dawn at the foot of
the long carry, above Montreal."

       *       *       *       *       *

_They were far up_ the Ottawa when Chouart sat stiffly up in the bow of
their canoe. Radisson snatched up his rifle, and the seven canoes of the
Chippewas drew in beside them. The smell of smoke drifted to their
nostrils.

"Paddle toward the north bank," Radisson whispered.

They slipped in behind a small island, and Radisson made his way up its
green length to the head of it. He peered from behind a sheltering clump
of willows, and saw ten war canoes drawn up on the opposite bank. Half a
hundred Indians sat or sprawled on the sloping bank. Fish were broiling
on a wooden rack over a few small fires, and an Indian with a long green
stick in his hand lackadaisically turned them. Radisson crawled back
through the brush.

"A war party of Iroquois," he announced. "We'll have to get past them
somehow." For a moment he lost himself in thought, then spoke rapidly.
"Medard, listen carefully. Take two canoes and go to the head of the
island, where they can see you. Go around the island and down the other
side. As soon as you get back here, build a line of fires clear across
the foot of the island."

"Do we outnumber them?"

"They're triple our strength, but we can make them believe they're
outnumbered. Clacte, as soon as the canoes round the head of the island,
take the rest and follow them. Then, Medard, you take a different
number of canoes, with a varying number of men, and go around again. Do
this three or four times, and make it fast. Better hold off with your
fires until the last group of canoes has started around. Then, as soon
as they've come to the foot, make a lot of noise. Yell, as though more
canoes are coming and you're telling them to land because the Iroquois
are ahead."

Chouart chuckled at the ingenuity of the scheme. "And you?"

"I'll be watching the Iroquois."

Radisson slunk back through the brush, and lay behind the same willow
clump, watching Medard and his paddlers come around the island. The
Iroquois set up a yell, and rushed to their canoes. But they were just
launching them when Clacte and his five canoes appeared. The Iroquois on
the far bank hesitated. Presently Chouart appeared again, with one canoe
and six men. Chouart fired a wild shot across the river, and the
Iroquois hastily began to cut trees and gather rocks. Radisson grinned.
They were going to build a fort.

Four more canoes came, then two. Down at the far end of the island smoke
arose, and Clacte could be heard shouting in Chippewa.

"Land here! Land here! There is room for twenty more canoes. Make ready
to attack the Iroquois!"

With the first shades of evening Radisson stole back to the foot of the
island. Their canoes were in the water, ready for instant flight should
that be necessary. The fires were burning merrily. Chouart stood with
his rifle ready.

"What now?" he asked. "The Iroquois are no fools. As soon as it gets a
little darker they'll send scouts."

"True," Radisson admitted, "but I have an idea that should delay them."

He waded out to the moored canoes and from one took a small cask of
powder. He poured a pewter cup three-quarters full of the black grains,
then broke a candle and thrust the extracted wick into the cup. The
remainder of the cup he filled with dry, crumpled birch bark, packing it
as tightly as he could. Finally he rolled his improvised bomb in bark,
and tied a buckskin thong around it.

"We must gain time," he explained as he worked. "Even otter do not slip
unnoticed past the Iroquois. I'm going to swim the river and toss this
into their fort. Medard, when you hear the horned owl cry three times,
start up the river with all the canoes. I'll be on the south bank, four
hundred yards above the Iroquois camp."

"It's a dangerous scheme, Pierre."

"But a good one. I can carry it off."

Radisson removed his leather shirt and trousers. Retaining only his
moccasins and pouch, and holding the bomb in his teeth, he waded into
the Ottawa and swam across. An inch at a time, he slunk toward the
fort. If he should be caught, he knew that the best he could hope for
was instant death. But the trick lay in not being caught. Ten yards from
the fort he put his hand over his mouth and three times imitated the cry
of the great horned owl. Then he lit the fuse on his bomb, threw it, and
began to run.

Ten seconds later there was a blinding flash, and the exploding bomb
flared in the night. Radisson ran upstream, and waded up to his neck in
the cool water. A single canoe cut from the flotilla of eight that was
paddling upriver, and Radisson climbed aboard.

Ten minutes later, down at the embattled Iroquois camp, a lone figure
stole silently away, launched a small canoe, and began to paddle
upriver.

       *       *       *       *       *

_They left the Ottawa_ by the familiar portage to Lake Nipissing, and
thence through French River to Georgian Bay. Once on the lake, there was
little danger of being overtaken by the Iroquois war party they had
outwitted. Nevertheless, Radisson continued to drive his Indians
steadily on. Following the island-studded northern shore of Lake Huron,
they became lean as wolves and lithe as panthers while they wielded
their paddles ceaselessly. Although every day brought them nearer home,
the easy-going Chippewas began to grumble.

"What's driving you, Pierre?" Chouart asked one morning. "You go on like
a crazy man. No war party could catch us in this maze of islands,
anyway."

Radisson grunted and shifted his paddle, while he peered through the
overcast that had settled on what had been a bright day. A sudden blast
of wind struck, and one of a line of waves smashed against the side of
the canoe. It rocked dangerously, and settled into the following trough.
Almost as one the rest of the paddlers turned their craft, and the
little fleet made for the distant shore. The wind was howling now,
screaming its rage at the water it had battled for centuries. The first
trailing sheets of rain swept over the lake. Radisson guided the
thin-skinned canoe around a headland, and into a tiny bay which was
stirred only by echoing ripples of the holocaust that raged across the
lake. After they had beached their canoes, Clacte and his Indians spread
a deer-skin shelter, whittled away the outer parts of a dead stick,
shaved tinder from the dry inner part, and started a fire.

Meantime, Radisson sat at the lake's edge, oblivious to the pouring
rain, and stared out at the storm-lashed water. He turned his gaze to
the west and north, in response to the mysterious magnet that seemed set
beyond the horizon there. Suddenly Chouart squatted beside him and
gripped his arm.

Radisson peered through the seething sheets of rain, pouring so thickly
now that it was as though the surface of the lake had erupted in a fine
mist of lashing water. Monstrous waves tossed and tumbled, crowding
eagerly on the heels of each other. But there was something else out
there, a tiny speck in the lashing inferno of a Great Lakes storm.

"It's a canoe!" Chouart exclaimed in amazement. "A little canoe with one
man in it!"

The tiny craft bore on, sometimes lost in the troughs of the great waves
or obscured by the sheets of rain, but always bobbing up again. Radisson
watched it idly, interested in the progress of the little craft only
because it was still afloat. It was a foregone conclusion that it would
capsize and its paddler drown. The largest and finest of birch-bark
craft could not live in that storm.

But still the little canoe fought on, meeting each wave in precisely the
right fashion and slowly drawing nearer. Radisson craned his neck,
fascinated now by the superb lakemanship of the paddler. Obviously he
knew everything there was to know, both about big water and about
handling a canoe. There was a grunt beside Radisson, and he turned to
see Clacte with a tomahawk in his hand. In these waters a stranger was
someone to kill as speedily as possible. There were no friends; anyone
was an enemy.

"Let him land," Radisson ordered.

Anger flashed in Clacte's eyes, but he sheathed his tomahawk. The
stranger turned his canoe to meet a huge wave, and rode in on its
crest. He was paddling furiously now, driving his little craft with
swift and sure strokes toward the haven offered by shallow water. He
reached it, leaped out, and began to drag his canoe ashore.

Radisson strode forward, and they met at that point where the water
lapped the land. The stranger was a short man, stockier than any Indian
Radisson had seen, and his black hair was not cut in the scalp lock. His
right thumb was gone, and a terrible, recent scar disfigured his cheek.
Radisson spoke to him in the Iroquois dialect.

"Why did you follow us here?"

"Not follow," the Indian answered haltingly, but with quiet dignity.
"Storm come; I land."

"Where are you going?"

"Home." The Indian gestured north and west.

"Where did you come from?"

"Iroquois capture me. Make me slave. Big noise and fire at night. I get
away."

Radisson frowned. If one Indian from the Iroquois camp had overtaken
them, so might the others. And from his own experience, he knew how
relentless they were in pursuing escaped prisoners.

"Is your tribe at war with the Iroquois?"

The Indian said simply, "Crees do not make war."

Radisson looked at the canoe again. It was an absurdly small thing in
which to brave the waters of Lake Huron, even when there were no
storms. But there were more lakes to the west, and no doubt this Cree's
tribe lived along one of them. Obviously he was a past master of big
water.

"Where did you learn canoeing?" Radisson asked.

The Cree gestured vaguely north, and a puzzled frown creased Radisson's
brow. There were rumors of vast inland lakes to the north and west, but
not in the direction indicated by the Cree.

"Is it a lake?" he asked.

"It is a sea," the Indian said proudly. "It is mightier than any lake.
Long ago, when my grandfather was young, ships with white sails entered
it."

Chouart leaned forward, his intake of breath sharply audible. "Ships
with white sails? Sailing on a sea to the north? Are you sure?"

The Indian nodded.

"Pierre, did you hear?" Chouart cried. "Up there to the north is an
inland sea, one ships may enter! If we can find it, we can tap an entire
new land. What an opportunity for trading!"

"Don't fall into the lake, Medard," Radisson admonished. "Are there furs
about this sea?"

"Hunt two days--skins for whole winter."

"Pierre," the frantic Chouart said, "we must go!"

"We'll go," Radisson promised. "What's your name, Cree?"

"Stemaw."

"Can you take us to this mighty sea, Stemaw?"

"If you come in peace."

"We not only come in peace, but"--Radisson indicated his gun--"we have
these to protect you."

"Then I take you."

Clacte stepped up to the little group, and stood glaring at the Cree. He
turned sullenly to Radisson.

"You said you would trade in our village if we came to help you."

Radisson faced him coldly. "Have you ever known me to break a promise?"

"No."

"Do you think me a woman, one who cannot make up his own mind? We will
trade in your village. We will also visit this inland sea, if there is
one."

The Chippewa looked at the ground, and shuffled his feet uneasily. He
turned to glance at his warriors, who stood in stony silence, then faced
Radisson.

"I believe you," he said. "But I do not like this stranger from the
north who does not fear the Storm God. It is a bad omen."

       *       *       *       *       *

_The nine canoes_ wound their way through the narrow Sault Ste. Marie,
paddling where they could, portaging where the angry water lashed its
boiling self over rapids and falls, until they finally reached the
mightiest of all the mighty inland lakes--Lake Superior. Along its
southern shore they pursued their steady westward course toward the
Chippewa villages. They marvelled at the grotesque shapes and colors of
the Pictured Rocks. They found great chunks of almost pure copper
glistening in the sun. It was a wild and entrancing land, and they were
tempted to stop and investigate its wonders. But the lodestar still
gleamed in the north and west. Somewhere up there was a great inland
sea, pounding its waves against a land where Cree hunters had to seek
only two days for enough pelts to last a whole village through the long,
cruel winter.

As they travelled, they lived richly. Great lumbering moose stood in the
shallow bays and inlets, and raised their ponderous heads to watch the
canoes pass. Deer were never out of sight, and black bears were common.
To drop a hook any place was to catch fish, some of which were savage,
saw-toothed pike with bodies almost as long as a man's.

Then, one morning, white frost glittered on all the leaves and brush,
and with that a subtle change crept over the whole land. There had
always been an abundance of waterfowl paddling about and attending to
their usually serene business. Now their serenity had departed. A flight
of green-winged teal, thousands upon thousands of the little birds,
skittered out of the sky to alight on the water in front of them. Almost
immediately, with a flutter of wings and a mighty splashing, they rose
to speed swiftly southward. Mallards, redheads, canvasbacks, all were
coming down from the north. High in the air, an immense flock of
whistling swans serenaded themselves on their long journey to the south.
Flying lower, but just as swiftly, a flock of trumpeter swans set the
heavens ringing with their harsh, unmusical notes. The squirrels in the
forest were bustling about, laying up their winter stores of fruit,
seeds, and nuts, and the black bears were adding layers of fat to that
which already cloaked their bodies, so they would be prepared for their
long winter's sleep. Cold weather was coming, and the forest creatures
knew it. The wind blew almost constantly from the north, and made the
lake pitch restlessly.

Guided by the Chippewas, they came at last to a long point of land
jutting out into the lake. But instead of starting around it, the
Indians landed and prepared to portage, explaining that a series of
trails and streams cut across the base of the peninsula. This was
welcome news to the Frenchmen, for already shell ice was beginning to
form in the lake shallows, and they had no desire to cache their trade
goods so far from the Chippewa villages.

When they had reached the end of the portage and were again launching
their canoes in the lake, Stemaw beckoned to Radisson, and pointed
north.

"Big island there," the Indian announced.

[Illustration]

Shading his eyes, Radisson gazed intently over the sparkling water, but
could see nothing.

"Is that the way to the inland sea?" he asked.

The Cree nodded. "For me, but not for you, with loaded canoe."

"Then how can we get there?"

The Indian pointed to the Chippewas, then swung his arm in a half
circle, first west, then north. "Go with them. Beyond their country,
lake shore turns north. Follow shore to river opposite big island. My
people winter there. I go now. When snow melts and ice goes, you come to
river. I meet you there. Take you to inland sea."

Without another word, or a backward glance, the Cree launched his tiny
canoe and started paddling straight out into the lake. Radisson and
Groseilliers looked on, frankly admiring the audacity of a man who would
set out for land they could not even see.

Clacte joined them, nodding his head in satisfaction. "Now I believe
you. The man from the north has gone without trade goods. Now we go to
my village."

       *       *       *       *       *

_They paddled on_, and snow appeared in the air for a few minutes at
noon. Nor was there any clearing of the sky when the snow stopped. A
belated flock of five geese beat hasty wings southward, and a limp
kingfisher on a dead tree stared forlornly at them as they passed. The
snow started again that night, and toward the end of the next day three
inches of it lay on the ground. Radisson, handling the stern paddle in
their own canoe, looked at the forested shore and worried. Winter struck
with varying degrees of suddenness and harshness in this north country,
and obviously this season it was going to come early and stay late. He
voiced his thoughts to Chouart.

"I don't think we'll get to the Chippewa villages with anything except a
small part of our goods."

"I agree, Pierre. Snow's going to stop us. We'll have to cache them."

"How about that southern bay Clacte spoke of, where we have to leave our
canoes? But I want a secret cache. These Chippewas might never disturb
it, but I haven't seen these goods come all the way from Three Rivers
just to have them stolen."

"You'll have to explain that to Clacte."

"I'll explain it. I'll just tell him that we're going to cache some of
the goods, and why. We can carry some, and I'll tell him that you and I
will be back to trade the rest after we've visited this northern sea.
That'll serve a good purpose. If they know what awaits them, the
Chippewas will be anxious to get out and trap furs. But how to send them
away while we make our cache...?"

"Tell them to go out and hunt."

"It might work," Radisson said thoughtfully. "On the other hand, they
might hide and watch to see what we're doing. I think it's better to
play on their superstitions. I'll go through some kind of ceremony, and
when the Indians want to know what I'm doing, you say that I'm calling
down a spirit to watch our goods. Say it will blind anybody who looks at
it unless they know the right magic."

Snow fell sporadically, hissing into the water and piling up on the
land. By the time they reached the southern end of Chequamegon Bay there
was a foot or more on the exposed beach, and the spruce branches were
heavily laden. This was the end of their water route, and they had
reached it none too soon.

Winking at Groseilliers, Radisson stepped out of the canoe and walked
solemnly up on the beach. Uncorking his powder horn, he sprinkled a few
of the black grains on the snow, then lay flat on his back, and began to
whisper into the horn. The Chippewas watched this strange performance
with awe. Holding them back with outspread arms, Chouart spoke to the
Indians, and the Chippewas looked at each other uneasily. Then they ran
hastily toward the sheltering trees, and disappeared from sight.

Chouart walked over and looked down on the grinning Radisson. "Get up,
you fool, or you'll scare them away for good," the older man smiled. "I
told them nobody would be safe around here for many hours, but that the
spirit would be gone by twilight, and it would be safe to camp then.
Pierre, had you thought that these goods will be handy in the spring,
just in case we want to take some among the Crees?"

"I'd thought of that. But we can't take all this stuff to the Crees, and
we're going to need these Chippewas, and anybody else we can get, to
help us carry furs back to Quebec. Let's get to work."

They cut spruce branches, and in a sheltered spot well up from the beach
swept the snow away. Fortunately, its protecting blanket had kept the
ground from freezing. They dug a deep hole with an iron mattock, and
dumped the loose dirt into the bay. When the hole was deep enough, they
lined it with spruce boughs and withered grasses that thrust above the
snow. Then they piled in most of the trade goods, covering them with
more grass and branches and finally with dirt. When they were finished
Radisson wiped his face on his sleeve.

"I hope it snows," he said. "If a winter's snow lies on this place, not
even an Indian could tell there's anything buried here."

As though answering his wish, a light wind swept across the lake and
drove a flurry of big flakes before it. While Chouart built a fire,
Radisson went into the spruces with his gun. But there was little game,
and it was only after hunting for an hour that he shot a small doe. He
dragged it back to the beach, and was skinning it when the Chippewas
began to straggle timidly into camp.

That night the wind screamed across the lake, and the heavy clouds that
tumbled in the sky belched heavy loads of snow. It was still snowing
when, guided by the Chippewas, each carrying a small load of trade
goods, they struck south, up the course of a small creek. In the middle
of the next day they came to Clacte's village, a collection of forty
lodges huddled close together beside the frozen lake in which the stream
had its source. The chief left them, and went forward to speak to an old
man who stood on the bank. After a moment Clacte returned, his face
thunderously dark.

"Remember that we helped you, white man!" he said. "While we were gone,
a war party from the Tribe of the West came here. Lacking enough
warriors to beat them back, my village had no choice but to surrender
all the food in its possession."

Radisson walked slowly forward. "We could not stop this thing, Clacte.
But it is done. Wailing or anger will not get you more food. Let your
warriors hunt, and we will hunt with them."

The two Frenchmen took their rifles and entered the surrounding forest.
There was not much game. But there had to be some. They walked
cautiously on, probing the deepest thickets and heaviest stands of
trees. Game did not like to move on winter days such as this. Finally a
deer stirred, got up from its bed, and walked a little way, to stand
looking back over its shoulder. Radisson shot, and the deer fell, to lie
for a moment kicking its legs. It was all they could find. They looped a
buckskin thong over the buck's antlers, and dragged the whole carcass
back to the village. It was going to be a hard winter for them all, and
even those portions of animals which were ordinarily thrown away had now
better be saved.

That night more snow fell, and the wind that howled out of the north
brought cruel frost with it. With morning Radisson and Groseilliers
threw off the robes that covered them and again started out to hunt,
accompanied by a few half-hearted braves. In a good many ways, Indians
were like children. When there was plenty of game, and it could be
easily had, whatever spirit watched over them was benign and smiling.
When there was no game, or a time of crisis arose, the spirit was angry,
and an Indian felt there was no use in combatting the will of the
spirit. That day Radisson shot two wolves, and came back to camp to find
Chouart with a small doe. The Indians killed a fox and a few rabbits.
But it was all food.

Every day, and all day, wearing crude snowshoes which they had fashioned
themselves, the two white men went into the forest with their rifles.
There were days at a time when the village had no meat at all, and one
orgy of feasting when the two hunters found five moose in a yard they
had trampled, and shot them all. Radisson and Chouart grew lean as
weeds, and hunger gnawed constantly at their bellies. But, in the entire
village, only two old people died.

Then one day a shivering robin perched on the wind-swung branch of a
tree, and the wind blew from the south instead of the north. Almost
magically, the breeze seemed to bring the game back out of its retreats.
Soft grass shoots began to show in sheltered places. Where there had
been one deer, herds of them now frolicked over the flat land. The
lean-waking she bear led her cubs out of the den where they had passed
the winter, and took them down to water. Grouse sported in the thickets,
rabbits played in the grassy openings. The village grew fat.

On a bright day in early April, sixteen tall warriors filed out of the
forest, over the remnants of dirty snow. Armed with strung bows,
tomahawks, and knives, the hawks' wings in their hair swaying
arrogantly, they stalked into the village.

"Who are they?" Radisson asked Clacte.

"They are Sioux, from the Tribe of the West," the Indian scowled. "They
have heard that we have men with white skins, and hair on their faces,
here in the village. They are mighty warriors, but with your help we
could defeat them."

"There will be no fighting," said Radisson sharply. "We have trade
goods for many tribes, but only those who live in peace. Ask them where
they come from."

Clacte reluctantly interpreted the Frenchman's words. The Sioux warriors
listened impassively, then their chief replied in a strange tongue.

"He says," Clacte translated, "that their hunting grounds extend from
the land of a thousand lakes to the great water----"

"What great water?" interrupted Chouart. "Is it a lake or a sea?"

"It is a river--a mighty river that flows to the south. He also says
that their country has many furs, but I do not believe him."

Radisson ignored the Chippewa's belittling words. "Tell him," he
commanded, "that we would see this country of his, but we will do so
only if he leaves your tribe in peace." He tapped the stock of his
rifle. "Tell him we have powerful magic to enforce peace. Tell him this
magic kept your village from starving during the winter. Tell him to go
back and make his people collect furs against the time of our visit.
Tell him we will give him knives, axes, beads, cloth, for these furs.
But there must be no war."

Deliberately turning their backs on Sioux and Chippewa alike, the two
Frenchmen stalked regally away and entered the lodge where they had
lived throughout the winter. As soon as they were inside, safe from
prying eyes, Radisson turned to Chouart.

"Well, Medard, an inland sea to the north, a thousand lakes to the west,
and a great river to the south--which shall it be?"

"And a greedy governor back in Quebec," added Groseilliers dryly.
"Perhaps we should go back and ask him."

"Of a certainty, we must visit this Tribe of the West," said Radisson
thoughtfully. "But the Cree promised to wait for us. If we do not find
him this spring...."

Just at that moment a line of Canada geese flew over the village,
gabbling and honking to each other as they made their steady way
northward. Radisson and Groseilliers looked at each other in silence,
and there rose within both a vision of a great inland sea, and the long
way they had come toward it. Each knew what was in the other's mind. The
geese were an omen. North it would be.

A week later, having bartered what goods they had, and having exchanged
solemn promises with the Chippewas for their return, they left the
Indian village and returned to the lake shore where they had cached
their canoe and trade goods. New bark was cut for the frame, laced on
with the long, flexible roots of the spruce tree, and sealed with spruce
gum. The Frenchmen loaded the canoe with as many trade goods as it would
comfortably hold, and struck out along the lake shore toward the river
to which Stemaw had directed them. On the afternoon of the fourth day
they reached it, to find a small village of bark huts on the farther
bank. But there was no smoke from cooking fires, no barking dogs, no
canoes.

"Deserted!" exclaimed Radisson bitterly.

"No," said Chouart. "That lodge under the big pine. See the smoke?"

At their shout, a lone figure came out and advanced to the river's edge.
It was Stemaw.

"My people go," said the Cree simply. "I wait."

       *       *       *       *       *

_They abandoned_ their canoe toward the head-waters of a little stream
that flowed into a big lake, and made packs of their trade goods. There
were so many beaver dams above that point that it was hardly possible to
paddle twenty feet without portaging. The Cree, guiding himself with the
sure instinct of any half-wild thing, took them steadily overland.

Now that they were at last travelling toward the fabulous inland sea,
the Frenchmen's unrestrained eagerness began to be tempered by anxiety.
They were by turns moody and ecstatic. The fur was here, all the Cree
had promised and more. They crossed swamps, lakes, and creeks in
countless numbers, each fairly alive with beaver, mink, muskrat, and
otter The flat, wooded plains were thick with game and valuable
fur-bearing animals--ermine, marten, red, white, and black foxes. It was
a trapper's paradise. But down in Quebec a governor of absolute power
still sat in his state house, and furs were of no value until they
reached Quebec. What would be the outcome? Would D'Avaugour have been
replaced, or would he still be there, waiting to carry out his threat of
confiscation?

At last, they came to the banks of a sizeable river, and the Cree turned
to them.

"This flows to the great sea," he announced.

Their packs lightened by excitement, they followed the banks of the
sluggish river for three days. On the fourth, they saw motion
downstream, and five warriors with drawn bows appeared, to stand
watching them silently. Stemaw shouted happily. Running down the river
bank, he embraced one of the warriors. The five braves were with him
when Stemaw came back. He indicated the one he had embraced.

"My father," the Cree said proudly. "He is chief. He says you are
welcome."

The chief was looking curiously at the rifles. Carefully, he touched the
barrel, stock, and trigger of Radisson's gun.

"Stemaw must have told him about our guns," said Chouart. "Fire it and
show them our magic."

Radisson raised the gun and fired at the dead trunk of a big hemlock.
The heavy ball smashed into the smooth surface. From the Crees' lack of
astonishment, the Frenchmen concluded that Stemaw had described their
weapons well. The Indians examined the mark, huddling together so that
all could see. When they returned there was childish pleasure on
Stemaw's face.

"My father says it is good medicine," he explained. "Same mark as on old
spirit house."

Radisson and Groseilliers looked at each other, puzzled. Old house?
Bullet marks? Could they mean there were, or had been, white men living
here?

"Where is this old house?" Radisson asked. "Will you take us there?"

Stemaw nodded. "But all dead, many years. Only spirit live there now."

Three days later they stood on the shores of the inland sea, and gazed
out on its storm-tossed expanse. There was no sign of a far shore, so
they had no way of telling how large it might be. On an impulse,
Radisson scooped up a little water and tasted it. Salt! Before he could
speak, Chouart cried out in sudden excitement.

"Look! Over there, on the point!"

On a bleak and treeless little promontory stood the ruins of a small
building built of hewn timbers which no Cree would possess the tools for
working. On a dead run the two Frenchmen raced out to the point. The
door had long since fallen off, but the stout walls and part of the
roof still stood. Awed, but consumed with curiosity, they stepped into
the dimly lighted interior. There was nothing there save a crude table,
a bed, a crumbling fireplace. But, roughly cut into the timbers on the
far side, over the bed, was an inscription: 'Hendryck Hudson, 1611.'

Chouart placed a trembling hand on Radisson's shoulder. "Hudson's Bay!"
he breathed. "It is not a new discovery, only a lost one! There _is_ an
outlet to the Atlantic!"

"So...?" Radisson left the question in the air, and turned his restless
eyes to the west. In memory he retraced their long, arduous journey:
through forest and swamp, across frozen ponds and along the shores of
vast, storm-tossed lakes, down spruce-lined rivers and around leaping
cataracts--two thousand miles back to Governor D'Avaugour's state house
in Quebec. D'Avaugour! Would the spiteful, greedy little man dare to
carry out his threat now?

The lean, hard face turned toward Groseilliers. "Medard, it will be a
year, maybe two, before we can get our furs back to Quebec. But I tell
you this, now: we have found a fortune and an empire. If D'Avaugour
steals one, we will sell the other to the English!"




[Illustration]

THE OPENING GATE

1753

_Radisson and Groseilliers returned to Montreal with a fortune in furs,
only to have most of it confiscated by the Governor. True to their
threat, they_ did _go to the English, with the far-reaching result that
the Hudson Bay Company was chartered in 1670. Although a private
company, it was English to the core, and became the top half of a
pincers that was to squeeze France out of America._

_The other half of the pincers--westward expansion of the English
seaboard colonies--was slower in forming. Almost too slow, for the
French, operating on the interior line of the St. Lawrence, gained
control of the Mississippi. The link connecting the two was the Ohio
River, and by the middle of the Eighteenth Century the French were ready
to weld that link into a chain that would hold the English on the
eastern seaboard. It was a tense moment in American history, although
few knew it._

_One who did was Christopher Gist, a strangely forgotten frontiersman
who explored Ohio and Kentucky a generation before Daniel Boone. Through
his reports he influenced Virginia to send young George Washington in
1753 on his first mission of importance, guided by the veteran Gist.
This is the true story of that mission, which led directly to the French
and Indian wars._



Barney Curran and William MacGuire left Stony Run just before nightfall,
padded silently through the short stretch of forest to Wills Creek, and
waded across the Potomac. Ahead was a high bank, above which they could
just see the blockhouses surmounting the stockade of the Ohio Company's
fort. This fortified trading post on the upper Potomac was the
westernmost outpost of English civilization.

Holding his long Pennsylvania rifle in one hand, Barney Curran stooped
to squeeze the water out of his leather leggings.

"Well, here we are," he said. "Wonder what Christopher's up to?"

MacGuire, who was already climbing the bank, made no answer. Suddenly he
stopped. He turned around, a broad grin splitting his leathery face, and
beckoned silently. Curran joined him, cautiously thrusting his head over
the top of the bank.

Directly before them were three log warehouses, with short connecting
wings running from the walls of the outer two to the west blockhouses on
either end of the main stockade. The tops of the other two blockhouses
showed above the nine-foot walls, as did the roofs of the scattered
buildings within the stockade.

But the two woodsmen were not looking at the fort. Their eyes were fixed
on a lackadaisical, pimply faced youth who stood an indifferent guard by
the stockade gate. MacGuire nudged his companion, and gestured with his
free hand. Curran winked and nodded.

Separating, the woodsmen crawled quietly over the lip of the bank and
wriggled forward without a sound. Curran made his way into a low-hanging
clump of laurel, waited until MacGuire had completed a longer circuit to
get behind the sentry, then whistled softly.

The sentry came to with a start, and peered sharply in the direction of
the noise. As he did so, MacGuire rose soundlessly to his feet behind
him, and twitched the sentry's gun from his terrified fingers.

"Tsk! Tsk!" the hunter said plaintively. "Imagine fallin' fer an old
trick like that! It's a good thing the Injuns are friendly, ain't it,
Barney?"

Guffawing, Curran crawled out of the laurels. "Jest a little free
eddication, sonny, fer your own good. Where's Christopher Gist?"

"In his cabin, natur'lly." The pimply youth sullenly jerked his thumb
toward the stockade gate.

As Curran and MacGuire entered the Company agent's cabin, a tall, lean
man whose black hair was tinged with grey at the temples arose from the
table where he had been writing. A smile of pleasure wrinkled the
corners of his piercing black eyes.

"I see Tampaloosa found you!" he exclaimed.

"Yup," the loquacious Curran asserted, "and jest in time, too. Bill and
me was headin' back into the Ohio. What's up, Christopher?"

"I want you to go with me."

"Sure. Where we goin'?"

For a moment Christopher Gist stared thoughtfully at the opposite wall,
where a map of his own making was fastened. When he spoke, he chose his
words carefully.

"You know I explored the Ohio country two years ago, and reported to
Governor Dinwiddie that unless Virginia got busy, the French would beat
us into the valley?"

"Sure do," said Curran. "And the Injuns told us last month that the
Frenchies had grabbed Frazier's cabin and were goin' to make it into a
fort. What about it?"

"Just this. There is a Major Washington being sent here by Governor
Dinwiddie. I'm to guide him to the French forts, and I want you two and
Stewart and Jenkins to go along----"

"Good!" Barney Curran exclaimed. "So we're goin' up and run them
Frenchies clean back into Canada! I'll need an extry horse jest to carry
my bullets and powder, Christopher! When we----"

"Wait a minute, Barney. France and England aren't at war. This is a
diplomatic mission. Major Washington's merely going to tell the French
that they'll have to abandon their forts and get out of the upper
Allegheny, because it's English territory."

"Well of all the fool ideas! He's goin' to tell the Frenchies to run, is
he, and he expects they'll do it! I--uh--I ain't so sure I kin go,
Christopher. I got a little business to do on my own hook, and--uh--you
know how it is. Mebbe France and England ain't at war, but the Frenchies
and me are!"

"I understand," Christopher Gist said with a smile, "and I'm sorry I
sent an Indian runner to fetch you in, Barney. Of course, this
expedition may have many sides. I, too, do not believe that the French
will pack up and go when we give them Dinwiddie's order. But we can't
tell what's going to happen. Suppose Washington's the right sort?
Suppose he sees the necessity of action in this Ohio country, and takes
that news back with him? What I'd really hoped to have, Barney, was a
few men who could judge the strength of the French, see how much
influence they're having over the Indians, and sort of look around and
see how big an army we'll need to throw 'em out."

"Wal, that's more like it!" Barney chortled. "Whyn't you say that in the
fust place?"

Gist eyed the taciturn MacGuire. "Will you go too, Bill?"

"If you say so."

"All right. Find yourselves a place to sleep, and draw what supplies you
need. Major Washington should be here any day now."

After the two had gone, Christopher Gist sat down at the table, and
prepared to resume work on his accounts. But he could not. Staring at
his map on the wall opposite, he seemed to see a picture of the lush,
wonderful wilderness over the mountains. He had been there two years
ago, in 1751, on a surveying and exploring trip for the Ohio Land
Company, which hoped to settle the region with emigrants from Virginia.
As a reward for his services, he had been made the Company's agent at
this trading post on Wills Creek. But he had little liking for it, and
felt himself constantly pulled by the rich, unspoiled land to the west.
No other Englishman knew the upper Ohio valley as he did, nor the
importance of its settlement before the French should push down from the
St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. The English _had_ to have it, unless
they were to be forever closed in on a narrow strip of land between the
Appalachian Mountains and the sea. But how to explain to the English
authorities the importance of taking that land at any cost...? He shook
his head. Action was needed. Much depended on this expedition he was to
guide, and on what kind of report Governor Dinwiddie's emissary took
back with him. It was nearly midnight when he finally blew out his
candle.

The morning mists that rose from Wills Creek still hung over the fort
when Gist was awakened by a loud pounding on the door. A true woodsman,
he was instantly awake, with no interval of half-consciousness between
deep sleep and full wakefulness.

"What do you want?" he called.

"Mr. Gist," came the answer, "this is the sentry, Willis. Two men have
just come who say they've got to see you."

Slipping on his clothes, he went out into the cold dawn of a November
day, to find two travel-stained men mounted on tired, steaming horses.
His heart sank. The two men were obviously no frontiersmen. The older
one, who looked like a merchant, reeled with fatigue. The other, dressed
in the uniform of a major of Colonial militia, could not be more than
twenty or twenty-one years old.

"Mr. Gist?" asked the younger man. "Forgive our awakening you, but we
have ridden all night to get here. This is Mr. Jacob Vanbraam, our
French interpreter. My name is George Washington."

"Come in," Christopher Gist directed. "I've been expecting you, Major."

He followed the two into his own quarters. Jacob Vanbraam gave a tired
smile and tried to stifle a yawn. But his young companion, seemingly
unaffected by the night's ride and its difficulties, removed his cloak
and looked about the room with interest.

"You'll find a bed in the next room," Gist suggested. "Would you like to
use it?"

"I would indeed," Vanbraam said decidedly. "Anyone who tries to keep
pace with this sprig has a right to be weary."

As he disappeared through the door, the young officer looked indulgently
after him.

"I should not have pushed him so hard," he explained. "But I considered
it necessary to get here as soon as possible. Do you understand my
mission, Mr. Gist?"

"Yes, and I think it's a futile one."

"Why do you say that? Are the French not trespassing on English
territory?"

"We say it is English because of treaties with the Indians; the French
claim it on the basis of LaSalle's and Bienville's explorations. But let
me remind you, young sir, that the wilderness is not Williamsburg, with
robed and wigged judges haggling over a point of law. The Ohio country
will belong to those who can take and hold it."

"You are a realist, Mr. Gist. But, for the present, my mission is purely
a diplomatic one, and time is getting short. This is the fourteenth of
November. When do we start?"

Christopher Gist looked at him in surprise. True, this George Washington
was a young man. But even so, he had not expected a militia officer,
after riding all night, to be ready to start on such an expedition
without resting.

"It is for you to say," the frontiersman answered quietly. "The men and
horses are all ready now."

"Then, suppose we allow Jacob four hours of sleep? In the meantime, if
you'll be so kind, I'd like to have you instruct me in some of the
details of this Ohio country into which we are going. There are many
things I must learn, and Governor Dinwiddie told me that there's no
better teacher than yourself."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Christopher Gist_ had long ago learned that he who spoke little had the
best chance of hearing a great deal. And often what a man heard, if
correctly pieced together, would open the door to important knowledge.
But, though he had listened carefully to every word spoken by George
Washington, Gist was still not able to figure out just how much
responsibility had been placed by Governor Dinwiddie in this Virginia
gentleman who held the rank of Major in the Colonial militia. He had
watched the young man all the way from Wills Creek to Gist's own
wilderness cabin on the Youghiogheny, from there to Frazier's, on the
Monongahela, and he was still watching him this morning, as they neared
the junction of the Monongahela and Allegheny that marked the beginning
of the Ohio River proper. Despite the rain, wind, cold, and snow they
had encountered, none of the journey so far could have been called
uncommonly hard. But it had been hard enough to prove that the Major
was not a tenderfoot playing soldier. Every night he was the last to
seek his blankets and every morning he was the first to leave them. He
seemed to be impelled by a great restlessness and an insatiable
curiosity. Not a stream, a valley, or a pass through the hills escaped
his notice. But was it the interest of a responsible official, or only
youthful curiosity?

[Illustration]

They rode out of the forest in a thin flurry of snowflakes, and saw
ahead of them the wooded point where the two rivers met. A sudden gust
from the northeast momentarily lifted the flakes, and the low ridges at
the intersection of the rivers came into sharp focus. Gist noted with
satisfaction that Stewart and Jenkins were camped on the point with
Frazier's canoe and their extra baggage. Without hesitation he rode his
horse into the icy water and swam him across. When the rest of the party
had grouped themselves around the fire by the canoe, Christopher Gist
drew Washington aside.

"This is it, Major. This is the proper, and the only proper place for a
fort."

George Washington frowned. "I had understood that the Ohio Company was
to build its fort below here, at Shurtee's Creek."

"That was the plan," the older man replied, "but its location was chosen
by somebody who had never been over the mountains. Let me show you."

He broke a twig from a tree, scuffed the snow away with the heel of his
moccasin, and with the stick traced a map on the bare ground.

"This gives you the idea," he explained, pointing with the stick. "Here
is the Monongahela, down which we have come. You see that it flows
north, from the English settlements. It's a navigable stream, and the
natural English waterway into the Ohio. Here, where we are now, it is
joined by the Allegheny, to form the Ohio. The Allegheny flows south,
from the French settlements, and this northwest branch, French Creek,
reaches nearly to Lake Erie. Do you see my point?"

"I do!" Washington's eyes were alight with excitement. "You have made it
very plain, Mr. Gist. Who controls these forks controls all the Ohio
country!"

"Exactly! That's it exactly! And we _must_ have the Ohio country! It's
fine, rich, level land, with all the resources an indulgent God ever
bestowed upon earth. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in Virginia
that excels it! But we're going to lose everything to the French unless
we can stop this wrangling and get busy. Petty politics in both
Pennsylvania and Virginia is robbing us of an empire."

Washington nodded thoughtfully. "Unfortunately, both provinces claim
this Ohio country. Neither wishes to appropriate money for its
settlement and fortification so long as the claim is in dispute."

"Yes," Christopher Gist scoffed, "and while addlepated legislators
wrangle over a few thousand pounds, and wonder if a neighboring province
might possibly get a few acres they have developed, the French are
taking it all!" He jabbed the stick viciously into the ground. "Look
here! The French have fortified Presqu'Isle, on Lake Erie. From there
they have built a road to their second fort, on French Creek. According
to the best information I have received, they have descended from there
to the junction of French Creek and the Allegheny, and have there
fortified an English trading post which they have illegally seized. What
does that mean to you, Major?"

"It means," George Washington said with quiet decision, "that the French
are following their natural route of expansion. They're coming down the
Allegheny to the Ohio, and up from the Mississippi. A chain of forts
across the country will cut it in two."

"And do you think they're going to give up those plans and go back to
Canada because you order it?"

"Mr. Gist," said Washington quietly, "aren't you forgetting that my rank
is that of Major? A Major takes orders, too. Were I the Governor, and
knew what you have just made so clear, rather than go one step farther
I'd return and try to recruit an army to fortify and hold this spot. But
I am not the Governor; I am a young officer on my first mission of
importance. Shall we be on our way, Mr. Gist?"

A slow, satisfied smile spread across the frontiersman's face as he rose
and scuffed out the map. To outward appearances he again became the
matter-of-fact guide.

"From here we go to the Indian villages at Logstown to see Tanacharison,
the Half-King. He has already warned the French to come no deeper into
Indian country, and has promised to fight them if they do come. He'll
give us guides to the French forts, and possibly come along himself."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Legardeur de Saint-Pierre_, commandant at Fort Le Boeuf, was sitting
down at supper with his staff. The cold December wind, screeching out of
the north across Lake Erie, down into the forests about French Creek,
whistled through the cracks of the blockhouses, reddened the faces of
the sentry detail, and chilled the unheated barracks of the soldiers.
But a great fire roared in the fireplace of the commandant's dining
room, and its companionable glow was reflected in the faces of the men
about the table. Saint-Pierre sat at the head, flanked by his staff
officers in order of rank.

The table itself was fashioned of the materials to be found in the
forest. But it was covered with a fine damask cloth, and carved silver
candelabra held real wax tapers. A haunch of roasted venison and one of
black bear occupied silver platters. A heaping mountain of roasted
grouse was on another platter, and there were steaming dishes of Indian
corn and pumpkin. Bottles and decanters of wines and brandies
represented France's finest cellars.

Saint-Pierre raised his glass. "Gentlemen, to the English! May they
continue to slumber and bicker, until we have secured New France from
Montreal to New Orleans!"

"To the English!" came the chorus. "The bovine English, who've eaten so
much beef they've got it between the ears!"

They drank, and fell to the feast, while serving orderlies moved
unobtrusively about.

"I cannot but admit that I am disappointed," said a rapier-slim captain
of infantry, as he helped himself to a great slice of venison and two
grouse. "I had hoped we'd have at least one good battle with the English
before winter set in."

"Listen to Croecoeur," a major jibed. "Have you forgotten so soon last
summer's trip to the Wyandotte village? Who was it climbed a tree, and
ripped the seat out of his best military breeches, when the Wyandottes'
dogs came barking at us?"

A laugh went around the table, and for a few moments all devoted
themselves to eating. Then a young lieutenant at the end of the table, a
newcomer to the Canadian service, cleared his throat.

"If I may speak, sirs," he said, "I think it reflects a great deal of
credit upon the military men who planned this venture, when their
accomplishments are considered. To move fifteen hundred men across Lake
Erie, build two forts and begin a third, and cut a road twenty miles
through the forests, is, to me, a miraculous achievement."

"You are right, Lieutenant Manot," Captain Croecoeur agreed. "Much has
been accomplished in one short season, even though the fortified trading
post at Venango can scarcely be called a fort. And we cannot regard our
achievements as being exclusively confined to building forts. The Miamis
and the Wyandottes have been definitely weaned away from the English,
and both tribes are good fighters."

"Even the Iroquois and Shawnees are beginning to see that the English
cannot prevail against us," Major du Chesne pointed out. "Wait until our
two hundred canoes arrive at the junction of the Allegheny and
Monongahela rivers next spring. Do you not think, Colonel Guideau, that
such a fleet will impress every tribe on the upper Ohio?"

"I think that you underestimate the English," the scholarly looking
Colonel said quietly. "Very much has been done, but it is merely a
start. And you gentlemen seem to forget that, owing to scurvy and fever,
we have only a fifth of our original complement on this side of the
lake. Should the English attack in force, we will almost certainly be
badly defeated."

"Will you tell me, sir," Saint-Pierre inquired, "how the English can
attack at this juncture? France and England are at peace. Furthermore,
winter is our ally. Their last outpost of any strength is at Wills
Creek. How, think you, can they send a sizeable force four hundred miles
through winter-bound woods?"

"I did not say that they would," Colonel Guideau pointed out. "But I
still think that the English will fight for the Ohio country."

There was a knock at the door, and one of the orderlies moved to open
it. A red-faced lieutenant, bulky in his greatcoat, entered and saluted.

"Lieutenant De Pere reporting, sir. I was detailed by Captain Joncaire,
senior officer at Fort Venango, to escort a party of seven Englishmen
and four savages to you."

"Who are they, Lieutenant?" demanded the commandant.

"Two gentlemen, a Major George Washington, of Virginia, and a Monsieur
Christopher Gist. There is an interpreter, Jacob Vanbraam, and four
woodsmen. Of the savages, one is the Half-King."

"The Half-King! What's the matter with you fellows at Venango? Couldn't
you detain him there, and win him over to our side?"

"We tried, sir. But the Half-King refused to accept our gifts."

"Show the gentlemen, their interpreter, and the Half-King in,
Lieutenant," Saint-Pierre said quickly. "Lieutenant Manot, will you ask
the Sergeant of the Guard to see that the beasts are cared for, and that
the servants get the best possible food and quarters? Make the savages
with the Half-King your own special charges, and spare no effort to
please and impress them."

"Yes, sir."

Major Washington, Christopher Gist, Jacob Vanbraam, and the Half-King
entered the room. The assembled officers rose and bowed.

"Welcome, gentlemen, welcome!" cried Saint-Pierre. "You must be cold,
hungry, and tired. So shall we, for the time being, forget the business
that brought you here? Come, refresh yourselves!"

       *       *       *       *       *

_To Christopher Gist_, walking with Washington around the parade ground
at Fort Le Boeuf, had come a great confidence. On the long, thirty-four
day journey up here he had come to feel a warm regard for the young
Virginian, and that had ripened into the deepest friendship. The young
officer was only twenty-one years old, but within him was a perception
and a maturity of judgment that would befit a man twice his age. Also,
he had a quality that Gist found it hard to define. It was not something
that appeared on the surface, or was evident at first sight, but a
deep-hidden intensity that at times seemed to glow like a light. George
Washington had met the polished, urbane Saint-Pierre with equal
suavity--and firmness. He had presented Dinwiddie's letter without being
either tricked or forced into revealing anything that he did not want to
reveal.

Captain Croecoeur passed them, and saluted.

"I wonder if the French really think that we're walking out here for
exercise alone?" Gist observed with a smile.

"It is very doubtful, Mr. Gist," Washington smiled back. "They are no
fools. Evidently they think we'd never be able to send an army this far,
and they don't care whether or not we see the fort. Are you carrying a
good image of it in your mind?"

"I could map every log, every cannon, and every loophole."

"Excellent! The map we shall make may be very helpful some day."

"You are, then, agreed that----"

"Answer that with your own good opinion, Mr. Gist. But you know the
answer. You knew it before I saw this country. And I might say that I
have concurred with every one of your ideas. More than that, I have been
much influenced by your judgment. You have been a most valuable guide in
every sense of the word."

"Thank you, Major. When is Saint-Pierre going to give his answer?"

"He has promised it as soon as he has deliberated sufficiently. But
there can be only one answer. Saint-Pierre is a soldier who was ordered
to erect this fort and then hold it. As a soldier he must continue to do
so until he receives contrary orders."

"Then this delay is for only one purpose. Saint-Pierre wants time to
lure the Half-King over to the French!"

"I have protested his attempt to do so," George Washington said angrily,
"and I was received with the customary evasion."

The older man stopped and laid his hand on his companion's arm. "Give
Saint-Pierre the delay he wants, Major. The Half-King has always been
loyal to the English. The time may come when we shall have to stake
everything on that loyalty. If the French can win him away, now is the
time to find it out."

Washington considered. "I think you are right, as usual, and I bow to
your knowledge of the Indians. Very well, we shall wait and see how the
wind blows."

Gist looked out toward the forest, through the swirling snowflakes. "A
lot of wind is going to blow, too. The snow will be deep by the time
Saint-Pierre gets through deliberating. What would you think of sending
the woodsmen back to Venango with the horses?"

"An excellent suggestion. They will be rested when we arrive, and we can
set out on our return journey at once."

Jacob Vanbraam approached, and said that Saint-Pierre wished to see
them. Evidently he had his answer ready. The three Englishmen entered
the commandant's quarters, took seats, and waited expectantly.
Saint-Pierre cleared his throat and spoke slowly, giving Vanbraam time
to translate at the end of each sentence.

"Gentlemen, to review the contents of the letter from your Governor
Dinwiddie: he asserts that the lands of the Ohio belong to the crown of
Great Britain, he expresses surprise that the French have trespassed,
demands to know by whose authority an armed force has crossed the lakes,
and urges a speedy and peaceful departure. I deeply appreciate that he
has sent a diplomatic mission instead of force, but I regret that his
mission was not sent directly to the Marquis Duquesne, the Governor of
Canada. Your letter will have to be forwarded to him for consideration.
I have consulted with the commandant at Presqu'Isle, and he agrees with
me that we cannot comply with the summons to withdraw, without
authorization from the Marquis."

As Vanbraam finished translating, George Washington bowed gravely. "Tell
him," he instructed the interpreter, "that I will so inform Governor
Dinwiddie. We appreciate his courtesy, and now, with his permission, we
shall start our return journey."

"There is no need for haste," Saint-Pierre smiled. "Remain as my guests
for a few days more. I shall be happy to furnish you with canoes for the
trip to Venango."

"You are very kind. In that case, we shall send our horses on ahead, and
accept your most hospitable offer."

On the morning of the third day, the Half-King stalked into their
quarters and contemptuously threw a string of wampum on the floor.

"Twice I offered it back to the Frenchmen to show that I wished no
friendship with them," he said darkly. "And twice they refused it,
offering to send presents and trade to our villages." He ground the
wampum belt into bits with the heel of his moccasin. "The canoes are
ready. Brothers, let us go."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Six days later_, after following the hundred and thirty winding miles
of French Creek, they arrived at Venango. By Saint-Pierre's order, the
canoes had been stocked with the finest foods and liquors Fort Le Boeuf
could provide. But winter had descended with snarling force. Snow lay
deep in the forest, and a dozen times, while coming down the creek,
those in the canoes had been forced to get out and wade through icy
shallows. There had been one exhausting portage, where the ice was too
thick to break, and when they disembarked at Venango Christopher Gist
looked with concern at Washington's drawn, weary face.

"Perhaps," he suggested, "we should rest for a few days here at Venango.
Captain Joncaire will afford quarters for us. The least you can say
about the French is that they're courteous."

George Washington shook his head. "No. Saint-Pierre's answer must be in
Governor Dinwiddie's hands at the earliest possible moment."

The Half-King and his warriors stepped out of their canoe, caught up
their packs, and waded ashore. The Half-King turned, raised his hand in
salute, and without looking back, he and his little band marched
silently into the forest. That part of their mission, at least, had been
successful.

Barney Curran came running to the landing. "Wallopin' leprechauns!" he
exclaimed. "You finally got here! We was jest about to come up and shoot
the pants off them Frenchies so's we could git you out."

"How are the horses, Barney?" Gist asked.

The hunter shook his head. "Poorly, Christopher, poorly. Only a couple
of 'em kin carry a man, and most kin carry only half packs."

Curran was right. They were scarcely out of sight of Venango when the
horses began to falter in the deep snow. For three days they fought
their way southward, battling the drifts that blocked their path, and,
at night, huddling close to the fires for the warmth they offered. Small
creeks were frozen hard, and tortured trees snapped and crackled under
the intense cold that crept into their seams. Almost by the hour, the
horses, which found little forage, grew more feeble.

On the evening of the third day George Washington sat for a long time
staring into the fire. He looked up.

"Mr. Gist, I must have a swifter mode of travel."

"There is none."

"But there is. Suppose we leave Mr. Vanbraam and the woodsmen in charge
of the horses, with instructions to come on as best they can. You and I
will carry packs and proceed on foot."

"You are not used to foot travel in the wilderness, Major," Gist said
bluntly. "It is both difficult and dangerous in the winter."

Washington spoke with quiet authority. "Mr. Gist, you realize as well as
I the importance of the Ohio country. You know the necessity of moving
quickly. I propose to put the knowledge I have in Governor Dinwiddie's
hands as soon as may be. A week, even a day, might make a great
difference."

Gist reluctantly consented, and they started at dawn the next morning,
each carrying a small pack in which was necessary food and important
papers, and their rifles. They swung away from the Indian trace they had
been following, cutting through the woods toward the Allegheny. Although
the frontiersmen purposely shortened his customary, mile-eating stride,
they made eighteen miles before dusk forced them to camp in the lee of a
little grove of trees. After they had eaten, George Washington sought
his blankets and immediately sank into deep sleep. Before stretching
himself out by the fire, Gist sat staring moodily at the drawn face of
the sleeping man. He shook his head uneasily....

The next morning they went on, breaking through the snowdrifts that
opposed them, and moving steadily toward the Allegheny. They had reached
Beaver Creek, near the Indian summer settlement of Murdering Town, and
were breaking through the ice for drinking water, when Gist suddenly
snatched up his rifle. An Indian was approaching.

In the deep recesses of the frontiersman's brain half-forgotten memories
began to awaken. It paid to remember faces; where had he seen this one
before? Logstown? Fort Venango? He shook his head irritably. He couldn't
remember.

"Why are you on foot?" the Indian asked in the Algonquin tongue.

"We choose to travel that way," Gist said shortly.

"But you had horses?"

"We had them." So the Indian knew the party had split, did he? That
probably meant he was one of the French Delawares from Venango.

"When will they arrive here?"

"Soon," Gist evaded. "They are following us."

"Ask him," the impatient Washington interrupted, "if he knows the
nearest way to the forks of the Ohio."

The frontiersman put the question, and the Indian replied, "Yes, I know
an easy way. I will show you." He nodded his head at Washington. "That
man is very tired. I will take his pack."

They started out, under a lowering, leaden sky and interminable flurries
of snow. Although relieved of his pack, Washington was plodding now,
shuffling his military boots wearily forward through the snow. His foot
came down on a snow-hidden log, and he winced sharply. The Indian turned
to Gist.

"He is very tired," he said. "Let me carry his gun, too."

"We'll carry our own guns," Gist said sharply. "But we'll camp soon."

The Indian shook his head. "There are Ottawas in these woods. They will
kill you. I have a cabin only a little way farther. It is safe there."

Gist nodded, and squinted at the sky. There was nothing to give a sense
of direction, but his woodsman's intuition told him something was wrong.
He dropped back, surreptitiously slipped from his pocket the surveyor's
compass that he always carried, and took a bearing. He looked to the
priming of his rifle, and shifted it from his left hand to his right.

"We will camp at the next water, if we do not reach your cabin by then."
As he spoke, he quickened his pace.

They came to a natural open meadow, and the Indian suddenly whirled
about. Gist snapped his rifle up, and pulled back the hammer with his
thumb. He saw the Indian start, shoot wildly toward them, then dodge
behind a huge oak. Gist ran forward, raising his cocked rifle. As he
passed Washington, the young Virginian touched his arm.

"No."

"He tried to kill us, Major."

"We cannot afford to antagonize any Indians. Do not shoot, Mr. Gist. It
is an order."

The frontiersman reluctantly lowered his rifle, and did some quick
thinking. Then he called to the Indian, still hidden behind the tree.

"Did you shoot to let the people in your cabin know you were coming?"

"Yes," said the Indian sullenly, cautiously coming into sight.

"My friend is too tired to go there tonight. You leave his pack here and
go on. In the morning, when we have rested, we will follow your tracks
to your cabin."

The mystified Indian lost no time in disappearing into the gathering
dusk. Telling his companion to rest there, the frontiersman silently
followed their treacherous guide, calling into play all the Indian lore
that years spent among them had taught. When he was satisfied that the
Indian had really gone, Gist returned to the exhausted young man who sat
with his back to the great oak.

"I was suspicious when I found he was taking us too much north and
east," the woodsman said grimly. "And I think that Saint-Pierre or
Joncaire, who don't like to have us know too much about their forts,
could explain why he tried to kill us. I'm sorry, Major Washington, but
we'll have to travel all night. Those Delawares will be on our track as
soon as they can see it. If you're able to travel we should reach the
Allegheny before they can catch us, and cross it on the ice. I doubt if
they will pursue us farther."

"I can travel," said Washington gamely. "Lead on, Mr. Gist."

In the morning they were at the head of Piney Creek, down whose frozen
length they travelled all day, without one word of complaint from the
indomitable Washington. But at dusk the next night, when they finally
reached the Allegheny, they looked out to see ice formed for only a few
feet along either bank, and a ragged mass of great ice cakes floating
down the swift center.

       *       *       *       *       *

_The night shadows lengthened_, crawling one into the other like
sinuously undulating scraps of gauze which had neither a beginning nor
an end. Christopher Gist sat on the banks of the Allegheny, staring
across the black river and hearing the mighty cakes of ice grind their
cold teeth. But his ears were attuned to anything that might come out of
the darkness. His rifle, knife, and tomahawk were ready. Near him,
stretched on the bank and covered with all the blankets, George
Washington slept the sleep of utter exhaustion. Back in the forest a
feeding deer rustled the brush; the watcher relaxed a little. There was
good forage for deer in there, and this one would feed for some time. If
an enemy approached, the deer would run and he'd hear it.

A melancholy rain, that changed to a harsh mixture of sleet and snow,
rattled through the trees. Christopher Gist shivered, and huddled a
little nearer the small fire they had built in the lee of the bank. The
endless night crawled on, until at last the first streak of mournful
gray showed very faintly in the storm-ridden sky, and George Washington
sat up.

"You have stood sentry duty all night!" he exclaimed indignantly. "Why
didn't you waken me?"

"Because we'll need you rested." The woodsman yawned and stretched.
"Well, are you ready?"

"By all means. What do we do?"

"Make a raft, and try a crossing on it."

After a quick breakfast of cold hoecake and cured venison, they fell to
work with Gist's tomahawk, cutting dead trees into ten-foot lengths.
Lacking an axe, it was slow, wearing work, and it made more noise than
Gist liked. Fortunately, it had snowed all the previous day, and he was
sure that the Delawares had lost their trail. But there might be other
Indians about. Noon came and went. At last they had a dozen lengths, and
while Washington dragged them down to the river's edge, Gist walked up
the creek bank, and searched the trees on either side. When he saw the
vine he wanted, he cut it down with his knife and worked it through his
hands until it was pliable. Returning to the logs, he bound them firmly
to the cross pieces of the raft. It was late afternoon before the craft
was ready for launching.

They cut two ten-foot setting poles, and stood for a moment watching the
ice cakes move downstream--white, tumbling blocks in the black water.
Then, without looking again at the river, Gist put the end of his
setting pole under the raft and used it as a lever. The bindings on the
raft strained, and one piece in the center buckled. It settled back
again. Washington, beside him, slid his setting pole in, and between
them they moved the raft out to the very edge of the formed ice, where
it tilted precariously.

Thrusting their rifles under the lashings, Gist walked to the edge of
the ice, mounted the raft, and with a heave of his pole pushed it into
the river. Quickly sliding his pole over the raft to the bottom of the
river, he held the clumsy craft in place while Washington stepped on the
back end. They started across.

[Illustration]

A cake of ice heaved itself like a seal over a corner of the raft and
was gone again. The current gnashed white teeth at them, and a little
cascade of water surged around their feet. But they were almost halfway
across, approaching a small, treeless island that from shore had
appeared to be a large ice floe. Then, upriver, a great mass of ice
blocks separated and swept down on them. They both strove frantically to
steady the raft with their setting poles. But the ice heaved all about
them now, gnawing at the logs and ripping the bark away. Out of the
corner of his eye, Gist saw the younger man's pole, caught in the ice's
inexorable jaws, snap straight up. There was a lurch to the raft, a
splash, and Washington was in the river. He disappeared from sight.

But almost instantly he was up again, gasping with cold, clinging
desperately with all his strength to the raft. The next cake would crush
him. Gist clambered frantically over the ice that had slid up on the
raft, reached down, and pulled him aboard. But the raft was dangerously
tilted now, with ice below and under it. Footing was precarious, and any
sudden movement would throw them both into the water.

For a moment, clear black water showed between them and the island.
Gist's decision was instantaneous. With one arm around Washington's
shoulders, he slid from the end of the raft into four feet of ice water,
and began to push his numb companion toward the island. The water
shoaled beneath their feet, and they climbed up on the barren, treeless
island. Washington slumped forward, then caught himself and struggled to
his feet.

"Keep moving," Gist said sharply. "Stamp your feet. Run around. Keep
warm."

"I am warm," Washington mumbled drowsily. "Only tired."

"Listen to me!" Gist said harshly. "Keep moving, or you'll freeze to
death. Keep moving, I say!"

"I'll try," said a voice that seemed to come from very far off, from
some warm haven that only the speaker knew. "I'll try."

With his own numb hands, Gist beat Washington's already freezing
clothing. He pounded the young man's chest, his back, his arms--and kept
him walking. His own hands, striking the icy clothing, soon lost all
feeling, and he knew his fingers were frozen. But within him rose a fear
that dwarfed frozen fingers. Providing they survived the night, could
they reach the other side of the river when morning came? To try to swim
was death. But, if no other avenue of escape opened, they must try to
swim. As if to mock him, the ice cakes, on their way downstream, gritted
their frigid, monotonous tune as they scraped past the island.

All night they walked, with only short periods of rest. And to keep them
both awake, Christopher Gist talked as he had never talked before. As
they kept their lonely vigil with the cold, the hardy frontiersman told
of his early years in Virginia and Maryland, of his life on Wills Creek,
of his wilderness cabin on Chestnut Ridge, of experiences with the
Indians--how they lived and hunted and fought. He described his trip
down the Ohio to the mouth of the Scioto, his visit to Pickawillany on
the upper waters of the Miami, his return through Kaintuck, over the
mountains to the Kanawha, and hence to Roanoke with his report.

"You should know this Ohio country, Major," he said insistently. "There
has never been a fairer land. When I was there I saw the marvels it
contains. Would you believe that there are innumerable natural open
meadows where the settler need not even clear the land for farming? It
is rich and level, well-watered with small streams and well-timbered
with walnut, ash, and sugar trees. In the meadows, wild rye, blue grass,
and clover. There are turkeys, deer, elk in profusion, and I have even
seen the great, shaggy oxen they call buffalo, thirty or forty in a
single herd."

He felt the young man beside him stir, as though magic new life had been
injected into him.

"Tell me more," he said weakly.

"I shall need the night just to begin. To know what manner of beasts, or
men, inhabited that land before the Indians were there opens a whole
mysterious realm. There are salt licks where prehistoric beasts have
died. I found rib bones eleven feet long, skulls six feet wide. One
tooth, which I brought back with me, weighed four pounds.

"And the wild pigeons are there in such numbers," he continued, "that
their flights darken the sky ..."

Christopher Gist was no longer marooned on an island in the Allegheny
River. He had gone back into the Ohio country with George Washington, a
young man whose eager intelligence and sharp mind had to drink in every
drop of knowledge. He was showing this tidewater Virginian the buffalo
and elk that roamed the Kentucky meadows, the lumbering bears that
prowled through the endless forests.

"There is ample room there for thousands, yes, for hundreds of thousands
of people. There they may live in peace, without crowding, and enjoy
plenty such as people have never before known on the face of this
earth."

A sharp little blast of wind cut across the river, and the walkers
turned their heads in surprise. It did not seem that they had walked so
very long, or talked so very much. But dawn had come. As they stood,
side by side, the east reddened as the sun prepared to shine on the
first fair day in many. And at their feet, frozen from bank to bank, lay
the dark river, a highway that stretched away to the forks of the
Ohio--the Gateway to the West.




[Illustration]

WILDERNESS ROAD

1780

_The British attempt to seize the Forks of the Ohio--known to history as
Braddock's defeat--was the beginning of the French and Indian Wars,
which resulted in the French hold on North America being forever broken.
By the treaty of peace in 1763, England gained possession of Canada,
Florida, and all the territory from the Atlantic to the Mississippi.
Louisiana went to Spain. New France had ceased to exist._

_But the English did not enjoy this vast colonial empire long. The
struggle that began at Lexington and ended at Yorktown created a new
owner of the middle kingdom--the United States of America._

_Through both wars the original inhabitants--the Indians--waged a
bitter, bloody, hopeless struggle to preserve their ancient hunting
grounds. In western New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and
particularly in Kentucky, they fought their losing fight with a craft,
stealth, and cruelty matched only by that of the white settlers who
pushed them ever westward. They taught their wilderness skills to the
white man, and by so doing hastened their own doom._


Crawling Cat stood beside a huge live oak, his long rifle leaning
against the tree. The Indian looked down at the quiet stream whose dark
waters purled near the base of the great oak, and was satisfied with the
warrior's image that stared back at him. Turning his head, he looked
toward the village, where thirteen of his finest young braves were
whirling in the wild gyrations of the war dance. It was time for him to
join them.

There was a shade of melancholy in Crawling Cat's eyes as he watched the
scene. Those lithe, hard young men, the proudest warriors left in this
Shawnee village, thought war was a game, a delightful adventure wherein
one crawled through the forest, made a proper ambush, killed his enemy,
and forever afterward basked in endless glory. But the entire war
experience of most of those young braves had consisted of an occasional
brush with the Iroquois, and they were not going to fight Iroquois on
this war path. They would fight warriors whose cunning and courage were
fully a match for the Shawnees' own, and whose equipment was far better.
Some of those bold dancers would never see their village again. Still,
war was a warrior's business. When the time came that a brave must be
struck down, it was well to be conquered by a worthy foe.

There was a light tread beside him, and Crawling Cat turned to face the
slender young woman who had approached from the village. Her
raven-black hair was bound with a leather thong, her soft doeskin
clothing fell gracefully about her. Crawling Cat turned away, a frown on
his face.

"Why does a woman bother a warrior on the hour of his departure for
battle?" he demanded.

The creek's black water dimpled as a fish rose from the depths to pluck
a floating fly from the surface. The widening circle of ripples crawled
across to the opposite shore. The young woman, Crawling Cat's wife of
one year, slipped her arm through his and laid her small face against
his shoulder.

"I do not wish you to go," she whispered.

"I am a warrior, a chief of warriors."

"You are also a husband and a father," she answered softly.

Crawling Cat glanced toward the dancers and the villagers watching them.
All were absorbed in the dance. He turned to face his wife, looking
silently into the dark, worried eyes.

"That is why I am going," he said at length.

She seized eagerly on the opening he had left. "You do not have to go.
You could go with me to the west, my husband. We may return, with our
son, to that village from which you brought me here."

Crawling Cat thrust her from him, ashamed of his moment of weakness.

"Yes," he said scornfully. "We could go. But this is the country of the
Shawnees. The Shawnees will defend it."

"My father, the Chief, would welcome us," she pleaded desperately.

"Your father, the Chief, would also know that Crawling Cat is a coward,
who dared not join Blackfish and help drive the white men out of
Kentucky."

"Is not our country big enough for both white man and Indian?"

"No," he said bluntly. "You are a woman; these things are not for you.
But since I may not come back, I will tell you. Twenty-five years ago,
when I was a boy of ten, the first white men came to Kentucky. My
father, who had gone there on a hunting party, met them. They were
harmless. Then came other white men, until finally hunters led by the
one they call Boone brought their horses to Kentucky, and killed more
deer in one season than this village would use in ten. Now they have
built their forts. Soon they will be so strong that they will drive us
out."

"Are these white men good warriors?"

"The best. They have fine rifles and much powder, and they laugh when
they fight. But the white men now fight with their brothers across the
sea, and it is a good time to drive them out."

"Must you take all our young men to fight, also?"

"I have accepted the war belt from Blackfish. Would you have a chief not
keep his promise?"

"No," she said dully. "Go, Crawling Cat! And you shall not have the
memory of a woman's tears to weaken you in battle. Go, warrior! Fight
for your wife and son!"

[Illustration]

She turned, hiding her face, and ran from him. For a moment Crawling Cat
looked after her. Then he picked up his gun, strode over to the wildly
leaping dancers, and joined the circle. The sure, solid rhythm of the
war drums fired his martial spirit.

Twenty minutes later, as though by a prearranged signal, the fourteen
warriors seized their weapons and disappeared into the dark, brooding
forest.

       *       *       *       *       *

_There was a path_, a beaten, well-marked path floored with brown earth
and strangely out of place among the nodding trees and thick brush that
lined it on either side. Yet the path was older than most of the trees
that hemmed it in. For a thousand years before the _Pinta_, the _Nina_,
and the _Santa Maria_ had ever set sail from Spain, warriors who pitched
their lodges or built their bark huts beside the Ohio had trod down it
to hunt in the fabled land of Kentucky. It was the tribal wonderland, an
age-old hunting paradise, with so much history that the mind of one man,
or one generation, could not begin to know all the things that had taken
place in it. Now, though nominally controlled by the Iroquois, it was a
great larder for all the tribes who lived on or near its borders.
Settled by no Indians, it was used by all who came along its ancient
paths to replenish their food stocks from the countless buffalo, deer,
bear, and elk that roamed its forest glades.

Crawling Cat led his warriors single file down the path, while he
listened to and interpreted the voices of the forest. That blasting
whistle was the snort of a white-tailed buck, disturbed at its browsing
and resentful of those who had broken its peace. The shrieking in the
trees ahead was a flock of parakeets, crying their jealousy of each
other while they fed on wild grapes that had crawled up the highest
trees to find a place in the sun. That sudden alarmed chatter was a
squirrel which, surprised at its daily affairs, scampered to safety and
spat invective at those who dared disturb it.

Crawling Cat recognized all, but stopped to investigate none. This was
a war party, not a hunting trip, and only a portion of dried corn filled
the pouch slung at each warrior's side. Corn was not as succulent as the
meat of any of the animals sheltered by this great forest through which
they travelled, but warriors going out to fight must travel light. There
was strength in dried corn, and endurance. Corn gave to those who ate it
part of the hot sun and rich earth from which its own nourishment was
drawn. It had within it cooling rain, and soft, heavy dew. No man who
carried corn needed to stop and hunt.

That was well, for to the north and to the south, on every little
faintly marked path that fed this winding warrior's trace, more braves
were on the march. Blackfish, the great chief of the Shawnees, had sent
his bloody wampum belt to every village. All knew what it meant. Where
the warrior's trace led past the great sycamore, so old and gnarled that
it was venerated by all passing Indians, there was a natural clearing in
the woods. Blackfish would be waiting there with his private council,
and there the warriors who had run down their narrow, gloomy little
paths would assemble in a mighty show of strength.

The little party led by Crawling Cat travelled far into the night, and
only the eerie crying of the screech owls in the branches overhead could
be heard when they finally turned aside to hide themselves in the forest
and sleep. For a long while Crawling Cat remained awake, listening to
the screech owls' senseless clamor, and thinking about the wife and son
he had left back on the Ohio. Now he was possessed by a great hatred, a
mighty yearning to come to grips with the white men who would take the
Indians' hunting grounds. Dawn had not yet spread its pale fingers
across the sky when he roused his band and went on. The third day after
leaving the Ohio they came to the great assembly of Shawnees.

The clearing, one of those natural open spaces which exist in the
thickest of forests, was two hundred and twenty steps beyond the old
sycamore. Crawling Cat hesitated, taking a step, a half step, as he
approached. The thirteen warriors who followed imitated him, perfect
images of the leader who must go first and encounter any danger that
might present itself. Crawling Cat stopped, peering through the sun
streaks that stole down through the leaves. Then, unhesitatingly, he
went forward.

He saw the warriors arrayed before him, and a proud light shone in his
eyes. Usually, when either hunting or war parties went down into
Kentucky, there were not more than a dozen men at the most. Here there
were almost two hundred. They lined both sides and the center of the
clearing, lurked in the forest, sat wherever there was room. Perhaps
half of them had guns. The rest were armed with bows and arrows. All
carried tomahawks and knives, and every one of the warriors was a man
in the physical prime of life.

Crawling Cat's little band dispersed among the braves already there,
while their chief stalked regally forward to meet the man who sat in a
leafy bower at the head of the clearing. His mantle was the finest of
doeskin. A spotless rifle leaned beside him, powder horn and bullet
pouch dangled from his belt. The knife and tomahawk he bore were of
iron, the equal of the finest boasted by any white man. Deep,
intelligent eyes glowed fiercely in the dark face beneath the scalp
lock. There were bitter lines around his mouth, and hatred in the grim
set of his jaw.

Crawling Cat faced him eye to eye, as befitted a proven chief.

"We have come, Blackfish," he announced.

"I see you, Crawling Cat. What strength have you brought from your
village?"

"Fourteen braves, including myself."

"It is well." Blackfish nodded his satisfaction. He swept his hand
around the clearing. "You know why we have gathered?"

"I know."

Blackfish turned toward the forest, as though the wind-rustled leaves
could tell him something that he did not know. But he was the leader,
the chief of all the Shawnees, and it was up to him to carry out the
plans that had been made in council.

"Tonight, when the moon is high," he said, "depart with those warriors
who came with you. We go from here in small parties, to burn scattered
cabins and kill all those who dwell in them. In six days we meet at the
fort the white men call Boonesborough. We shall burn the fort and kill
all its defenders--all!"

       *       *       *       *       *

_Far off in the night woods_ a wolf howled. Another answered it, and the
fear-maddened stag, on whose hot trail the wolves were closing, plunged
through the moon-sprayed Kentucky forest. Crawling Cat, swinging down
the warrior's trace with his thirteen men, gave himself over to thinking
about the chase.

The wolves were not howling now. They were racing through the forest
side by side, while the reeking scent of the buck they pursued floated
up from the earth to tantalize their nostrils. The stag would make a
mighty leap from some little hillock. Scarcely breaking stride, the
wolves would gather themselves and leap after him. Then would come the
final wild, fierce struggle in the night. The stag would turn, try
desperately to defend himself with sweeps and thrusts of his craggy
antlers, and strike with his front hooves. The wolves would dart and
slash, panting in their eagerness to bring down the exhausted quarry.
Finally they would do it.

Crawling Cat tore his thoughts away from the wolf chase and forced them
back to the business at hand. It was a simple business. There were no
complex problems to be solved; Blackfish himself had said that. They
would all meet at the gates of Boonesborough, and reduce that white
man's settlement to ashes. The white men themselves would burn in the
flames that consumed their fortress. Then, after Harrodsburg and Saint
Asaph had also been burned and their defenders killed, the Shawnees
could go home to live in peace again. That was the way Blackfish had
planned it.

As he walked through the night, he became lost in admiration for the
plan the chief of the Shawnees had conceived. A lesser chief would have
kept all the warriors together, and if they were attacked they would all
be surprised. But Blackfish had broken his band into small groups. If
the leading party should be attacked, those coming behind could always
surprise the attackers. More reinforcements would be steadily arriving.
Also, small, scattered war parties could destroy more isolated cabins
than one large one.

Dawn was already in the sky when Crawling Cat led his warriors off the
trace they had followed, and into the woods. Now he was possessed by a
great eagerness to push on faster. He knew this country, through which
he had often hunted, as well as he did the beaten earth before the door
of his own lodge. Just ahead should be a small creek whose snake-like
course wound southeast. By following that, and then heading east where
it made a sharp U bend, they should come out almost at the very doors of
Boonesborough. Furthermore, they would be the first ones there. It would
not, of course, be wise for fourteen men to attack the fort, nor even
give away the presence of such a large war party. They would lie in the
trees and brush, and ambush anyone who came out. To them, and their
village, would go the honor of first blood. They slept, ate of their
parched corn, and started down the winding creek. Forty-eight hours
later they broke over a ridge and saw the cabin.

       *       *       *       *       *

_It was a small cabin_, made of the usual logs chinked with clay, and it
was built almost in the center of a ragged clearing from which the owner
had laboriously removed the trees. The remains of their trunks and
branches lay, a heap of blackened ashes, on one side of the clearing. A
black cow with a white face was tied to one of the stumps that rose like
broken hafts of lances. Crawling Cat nodded to two of his warriors, who
slipped away from the band. They wriggled like snakes through the
forest, slipping from tree to tree and working their way around the
clearing toward the cow. Five minutes later, as though she had been
struck by some invisible force, the cow's legs buckled and she went
down in a twitching heap. Crawling Cat nodded in satisfaction. He
himself, watching closely, had barely seen a warrior rise and swing his
tomahawk.

Exactly at that second the sharp crack of a long rifle blasted the
stillness in the clearing, and almost at once another followed it. One
of the warriors by the cow leaped crazily into the air, and came down to
roll spasmodically about. The other took a few staggering steps toward
the forest, then collapsed in an inert heap.

Crawling Cat turned his eyes toward the cabin, hatred for all white men
plain in his face. His tongue licked out over dry lips, and his hard
black eyes took flame from that hatred. At the same time, he did nothing
rash, for he recognized a well-planned and finely executed maneuver. The
white men in the cabin should not have known that enemies were about.
They had known it, and had held their fire until they were sure of
killing. They would be difficult to deal with.

But they could be dealt with. There were twelve warriors and two, or at
the most, three white men. The odds were all against the cabin's
defenders, although the Indians had only five guns among them. They
would soon have more.

Crawling Cat spoke softly over his shoulder, and four of the warriors
slipped back down the ridge. They would go around to the trees at the
rear of the cabin, and cut off retreat. Then, if the white men could not
safely be approached and killed by day, they might easily be had under
the protecting cloak of night. The warrior lying beside Crawling Cat
grunted and raised his gun. He was too late.

A white man, a lanky, bearded white man carrying a long rifle and
wearing buckskin clothing, had dashed out of the cabin door and run
around to the rear. The warrior beside Crawling Cat grunted again, and
raised his head out of the grass, waiting for the man to reappear. From
the cabin door another rifle cracked, and the bullet plowed a bloody
furrow along the warrior's head. He clapped his hand to his temple, and
dropped back into the grass.

Crawling Cat gritted his teeth, but kept his eyes on the cabin door. At
least one white man remained within, and one had gone out. They must
join each other if they were going to make any effective defense.
Crawling Cat trained his rifle on the door, and when he pulled the
trigger a moment later he saw the white man who had run almost straight
into his line of fire flinch and stagger. But he kept running, while two
badly aimed arrows from other warriors thudded into the wall beside him.
The white man disappeared behind the cabin.

Crawling Cat waited, watching to see if any more riflemen should appear,
while shame enveloped him in a surging flood. Thirteen warriors, led by
himself, had attacked two lone white men. Two of his young braves lay
dead and a third was wounded. The best they'd been able to do was wound
one of the cabin's defenders. That insult must be wiped out.

The white men could not stay in the clearing or behind the cabin, for
they now knew that there were enough Indians to encircle it. They must
run into the forest, and forest fighting was made for the Shawnees.

Retreating below the rim of the hill, Crawling Cat ran halfway around
the clearing. He looked behind him, and nodded in satisfaction when he
saw that three of his warriors had followed. That was right. Four here,
three back where he had left them, and four who should by now be in the
rear of the clearing. They would know what to do.

From far off in the forest, behind the clearing, came a quick shot and a
high-pitched scream. Crawling Cat started toward the noise, slipping
from tree trunk to tree trunk and travelling as softly as the shadows
that flitted beside him. He came to the place where the trees grew
sparsely, and squatted down to watch.

Just ahead, a huge tree trunk sheltered one of his own warriors. The man
was carefully poised, all his eager attention straining toward a bit of
brush and something he saw there. Crawling Cat followed his eyes, and
saw the brown shape that belonged to no animal or bird. It was only a
small patch, perhaps two inches square, but it certainly belonged to
one of the two white men. He had thought to hide there. The warrior
behind the tree trunk drew his knife, and hurled it straight to the
mark. Just then, from a wholly different quarter of the forest, a rifle
cracked like a whiplash and the warrior slumped to the ground. Still
looking at the brush, Crawling Cat saw the piece of leather hunting
shirt fall away. The white man had placed it there as a decoy, to make
one of the Shawnees betray himself. And he had done so.

Crawling Cat had definitely located the source of the shot now, and he
wriggled toward it, his eyes glittering. An inch at a time, he slunk
around the trees and through the brush that hemmed them in. He was
Crawling Cat, the warrior who could approach and kill an enemy before
that enemy was aware of danger. He saw the white man. Stretched out full
length behind a log, he was reloading his rifle. Sticky wet blood made a
great stain on the back of his shirt. Three times he tried to ram home
the patch on top of his bullet, and three times the ramrod fell from his
trembling hand. Crawling Cat levelled his rifle and pressed the trigger.
There was a hollow click. The gun had missed fire.

The white man heard it, and turned on his side, trying once more to ram
the patch down his gun. Failing, he cast the useless weapon from him and
fought to stand. He clawed against the log, drew himself over to a
sapling, and pulled himself erect. Snarling laughter came from his drawn
lips as he drew a knife and awaited the Indian's coming. Crawling Cat
felt the blade bite deeply into his thigh, as the white man stumbled and
fell even as he was struck. Crawling Cat had swung his tomahawk only
once.

He stood over the body of his enemy, looking down upon it, then knelt
and sliced off the scalp with one deft motion of his knife. A warrior
appeared, and another, and another, until eight were beside him.
Crawling Cat looked up inquiringly.

"The other has gone," a warrior said. "We cannot find him."

"He fought well," Crawling Cat said savagely. "He fought better than we
did. They were two against fourteen. They killed four of us and wounded
one. Then, at the last, this wounded man stayed to fight so his
companion might escape."

"White men are devils," said a young warrior.

Crawling Cat did not answer. Silently he picked up the white man's rifle
and led his braves toward Boonesborough.

       *       *       *       *       *

_The great, craggy-horned buck_ that stood beside the warrior's trace
and pulled at the tender branches of a maple sapling could understand
only the forest things about him. Nothing could tell him that white
men and red had fought great battles at Boonesborough, at Harrodsburg,
and at Saint Asaph, or that, inside their stockades, the white men had
beaten back every attack the red ones made. All the buck saw of that
mighty test of strength were the five braves who walked back up the
warrior's trace.

[Illustration]

Crawling Cat, bearing a fresh bullet wound in his shoulder and a
scarcely healed knife wound in his thigh, led the way. Behind came two
more warriors, and between them they supported a third who could no
longer walk by himself. The fifth brave trailed far behind, and sat down
to rest frequently.

Crawling Cat remained ahead of his warriors as they came to the Ohio, as
they approached the village from which fourteen able-bodied men had
departed. The five beaten warriors reached the last little creek between
themselves and their clearing, and forded it. Crawling Cat's walk became
a little more sprightly. He had left his village as a chief. As a chief
who had won honor in battle--the scalp of a white man dangled from his
belt--he was coming back. He arranged his weapons as befitted a chief,
and gave the cry that announced his return with a scalp. Suddenly the
sound was throttled in his throat.

On lazy wings, two sinister black objects were purposefully floating
high over the clearing. At the same moment the stench of stale ashes
became evident. Crawling Cat held up a warning hand. The two warriors
who supported a third took him to the side of the trail, eased him down
in a thicket, and themselves sought places of concealment. The one who
had lagged behind found a fallen log and sank down on it, grateful for
anything that would offer him rest. Crawling Cat went forward alone; if
he led no men at all, it was still a chief's business to know what lay
ahead.

Cautiously entering the clearing, he looked about. For a moment he
turned his eyes away. Then he looked again.

The scorched leaves of the trees around the clearing bore mute testimony
to the fire that had raged there. The lodges lay in cold ashes from
which all flame had long since departed. Fire had spread through the
fields of standing corn, and scorched the pumpkins that had once colored
the ground. A black vulture with a naked head and neck sat on a
fire-killed tree and surveyed the ruins of which he alone was now
monarch. He flapped away on lazy wings when Crawling Cat walked slowly
into the clearing. The chief's face was expressionless, but his head
drooped.

He jerked himself erect as he saw a woman with a child in her arms
timidly emerge from the unburned forest on the other side of the
clearing. She came slowly, leaving her moccasin tracks clearly imprinted
in the black ruin that had been a thriving village. She stopped before
Crawling Cat.

"I am glad that you have returned, my husband. There was no minute you
were away that my thoughts were not with you."

Crawling Cat asked stonily, "Who did this?"

"The white men," his wife said. "They came in the early morning, with
blazing guns and swinging hatchets. I had risen before dawn, and taken
our son to pluck the mushrooms that must be gathered before the sun is
upon them. We alone escaped. We waited for you."

Crawling Cat turned his head toward the east, where the undermanned
forts of the white men were still standing, after the fiercest attacks
of the Shawnees. His wife followed his gaze.

"Do not go back!" she pleaded. "We cannot fight white men! Let us take
our son, let us go west, to the village where my father is still chief.
He cannot call you coward now."

Crawling Cat's gaze swept around the clearing, lingered on the forest
that rolled away over the ancient hunting ground of Kentucky. In his
mind's eye he saw its endless acres, broken only by the warrior's trace
of the red man and the cabin clearings of the white. He spoke sadly,
half to himself, half to the woman who stood there.

"My fathers' fathers lived and hunted in this green land, and it was
good to them. But now it is a dark and bloody ground. Yes, we will go to
the west."




[Illustration]

CAP GITCHIE'S ROOSTER

1791

_There was to be no rest for the Indians. The trickle of pioneers that
was crossing the mountains at the beginning of the Revolution reached
full flood after peace assured a new nation. From New England settlers
poured into the region north of the Ohio and east of the
Mississippi--the Northwest Territory. Likewise, the region south of the
Ohio rapidly became a promised land for homesteaders. By 1790 Kentucky
and Tennessee--not yet states--boasted a hundred thousand new
inhabitants._

_Their highway was the Ohio River, their trade outlet the Mississippi
and its Gulf port of New Orleans. But New Orleans, and all the land west
of the Mississippi, was Spanish, and Spain levied a high duty on all
goods passing through its great port. But not for long. The traders and
keelboatmen who ran the river traffic were a rugged, fiercely
independent lot. In loud voices and explosive action they called
attention to their plight, and by so doing paved the way for the
Louisiana Purchase._

_The characters in this story are a fictional synthesis of the breed._


Cap Gitchie came out of the Kentucky woods three miles ahead of the
posse that was chasing him. As he approached the huts, cabins, and
houses that sheltered the inhabitants of Louisville, he slowed down to a
leisurely walk, and strolled down to take a look at the river. The sun
had not yet climbed over the eastern horizon, and a fine mist hovered
over the famous falls, where the Ohio River dropped twenty-two feet in
two miles. But, at this flood season, no white water boiled and
thundered over the cataract. Disappointed, Cap walked down to Bear Grass
Creek, where the keel and flatboats were tied. From the bow of the
biggest flatboat--fourteen feet wide by fifty long--a black and white
dog rose from the coil of rope where it had been sleeping, and growled
at him. The dog's ruff bristled, and it began to bark in a loud and
irritating voice.

Cap Gitchie drew back his right foot, the one that had kicked many a
clamoring dog from his path, and experimentally snapped it forward. A
wide grin split his mouth, and raised the ends of his straggling
mustache. He had travelled something over a hundred miles in two days,
and there had not been much time for sleeping or resting. But there was
enough power left in his foot to take care of any flatboat cur. Cap
shifted the long rifle, a bare ten inches shorter than his own six feet
three, from his right hand to his left. The movement woke up the rooster
on his shoulder.

It was a small rooster that could not have weighed more than four or
four and a half pounds. But its sweeping length, that started in a slim,
snake-like, combless head, and ended in a long, gracefully curved sickle
of tail feathers, lent an impression of much greater size. The rooster's
legs were long and trim, and his spurs were sharp. But it was his
fierce, intelligent eyes that set him apart from the ordinary rooster
found prowling about the barns and manure piles of the settlers along
the Ohio. They were the eyes of a thoroughbred game cock.

When the rooster came awake it flapped its wings. Standing erect on its
owner's shoulder, it sent its challenging crow echoing over the river.
From one of the moored flatboats another rooster answered. The red cock
preened itself, turning its head from side to side and blinking in the
half-light of early morning, while it sought the exact source from which
its invitation to battle had been accepted. It clucked throatily, and
made ready to crow again. Cap Gitchie reached up with his right hand,
and twined his fingers softly about the red rooster's throat.

"Suppose," he suggested, "that you shut up. Ain't you got me in enough
trouble already?" And as though suddenly remembering, he glanced back at
the dark forest out of which he had come.

It was just about a year and a half ago that he had landed in America,
at Baltimore. His arrival had not been wholly orthodox. But, on the
other hand, it hadn't been exactly jumping ship, either, because to go
back on the _St. John_ would only have meant to be clapped in irons
while the vessel sailed back to England. Captain Marritt, of the _St.
John_, was a hard driver of men. But it had been a mistake when he
chose, after the anchorage in Chesapeake Bay, to use his lash on Cap
Gitchie. After the fight started, Captain Marritt had even used a
belaying pin. But he hadn't used it well enough, and he had been lying
on the deck in an undetermined state of disrepair when Cap Gitchie took
a hasty departure.

Ashore, Cap had seen the red rooster scratching about a refuse heap on
the water front. A man had to eat, and chicken was mighty tasty.
Snatching up the rooster, Cap had resumed his journey. Ten miles out of
Baltimore, with every intention of wringing its neck, he had taken the
red rooster from his shirt and had had his hand soundly pecked. A man
just couldn't eat a spunky rooster like that, especially after it
climbed to his shoulder and seemed entirely content to ride there. He
was in a strange land, where a man needed a good friend, and the rooster
had amply proven his friendship in Pittsburgh, where, in less than a
minute, he had whipped to a standstill the gray rooster that a
Pittsburgh merchant brought against him. So doing, he had also enriched
Cap's purse by two pounds five shillings. But, after he had defeated
the town's champion, it was impossible to get any more fights in
Pittsburgh--for the rooster.

By slow stages, sleeping where night overtook him if he happened to be
in wild country, and sleeping between blankets when he came across an
inn, Cap and his rooster had fought their way down the Ohio. Two of a
kind, they had accepted and defeated all comers. But it was not until
they had reached Limestone, a raw Ohio River frontier town, that they
had met with real trouble. Cap had wagered all the money he had picked
up since Baltimore--twenty-five pounds--that his red rooster was better
than Limestone's best blue cock. And it had been.

But how was he, Cap Gitchie, to know that Limestoners were hard losers,
or that, without settling their bets, they'd threaten him with a long
rifle and order him to leave town? And how was he to know that, after
he'd taken the rifle away from the man who held it, and collected his
winnings, he'd have to race into the southern forest with a posse of
Limestoners on his heels? A man couldn't guess such things in advance.
All he could do was run--fast.

The rooster crowed again, flapped his wings, and a second time sent his
ringing crow rolling over the assembled keel and flatboats. There was a
sudden motion on a keelboat anchored to some willows a bare twenty feet
from where Cap was standing. A brisk little man dressed in a suit of
almost-white woolen underwear emerged from the cabin and blinked his
eyes sleepily. A fringe of gray hair clung precariously to the sides of
his otherwise bald head, and his chin was adorned with a matted beard
that resembled nothing so much as a handful of gray-colored straw.

"Now who might ye be?" he demanded snappishly.

Cap Gitchie folded his long arms, cradling the rifle in the crook of his
right elbow.

"Might be George Washington, or the King of France. But I ain't."

"Where ye from?"

"From every place but here, and I'll soon be from here."

The little man stamped to the bow of his keelboat, and surveyed Cap from
top to toe.

"How old are ye, mister?"

"Old enough"--Cap was twenty-four--"to mind my own business."

The little man suddenly smiled. "Ye talk like a boatman. Moreover, ye
talk like a keelboatman. Ever been to New Orleans?"

"Now what would I be doin' in New Orleans?"

"Talkative cuss, ain't ye?" the bearded man snapped. "How should I know
what ye'd be doin' there? All I want to know is do ye want to go? If ye
do, I can use another boatman--fifteen dollars and found for the trip.
If so be ye can ever make up yer mind, come and see me--Abijah Ezekiel
Primpton Crabbe, owner and cap'n of the _River Belle_, cargoes to and
from New Orleans, and tradin' done to order."

Cap Gitchie wandered back into Louisville, and the rooster flew from his
shoulder to scratch about in a patch of green grass. He industriously
swallowed bugs and worms, while Cap stood gazing at an inn, thinking of
his own breakfast. It was too early for the inn to open, but he was
hungry. A kick on the door might awaken the proprietor, and Cap was
ready to deliver that kick when motion back at the edge of the forest
caught his eye. Eight tall buckskinned men broke out of the woods, and
with long rifles held ready marched grimly into town.

Cap snatched up the rooster and raced toward the river. He paused
momentarily before the _River Belle_, then leaped from the bank and
landed on the deck. Almost instantly he was confronted by Abijah Crabbe
and a big flintlock pistol. Cap smiled pleasantly.

"I decided to take your offer," he said, "if my rooster gets passage and
found too."

"That'll cost ye a dollar," Abijah Crabbe said.

"And we'll have to get off right away."

The little man glanced toward the shore. He'd had previous experience
with men who suddenly made up their minds to go keelboating in a hurry.

"That'll be four dollars extry," he snapped.

Cap sighed dolefully. "A third of my wages gone, and we ain't even
started yet. Let's move."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Cap Gitchie_ took his place at one of the two starboard oars and timed
his stroke to that of the blithe and carefree Irishman ahead of him.
Directly across, on the other side of the same seat, sat a lanky
Kentuckian with a solemn face and brown eyes as sad and mournful as a
spaniel's. The fourth oarsman was a lithe Creole who moved like a cat,
and even purred like one when he talked. Cap'n Abijah Crabbe stood on
top of the cabin with the handle of the long steering sweep in his
hands. From this post of vantage he could keep one eye on the oarsmen
and the other alert for obstructions in the water ahead. Navigating the
clumsy, forty-foot craft among the other boats in the narrow creek was a
job that called for a sure hand.

As they moved steadily down the creek and out into the Ohio, Cap
suddenly ducked his head. The eight armed Limestoners had appeared at
the river's edge and were closely scanning the boat. Without seeming to
notice them, Abijah touched the steering sweep and swung the boat so the
starboard oarsmen were hidden by the cabin.

"They must be lookin' fer somebody," he said.

"Could be," Cap agreed. "There's a lot of scoundrels back in the woods."

"Not near as many as there is on this here river," the Kentuckian said.
"And the Spanish is the biggest scoundr'ls of 'em all."

"How do you make that out?"

"I don't make it out. It jest is. The Ohio's crowded with all the
settlers as has been comin' sinst the war ended. And what kin they use
fer a road? The old Mrs. Sippi, in course. And what is their market?
N'Yurlens, in course. And who owns N'Yurlens? The Spanish, in course.
And what do the Spanish do? Charge a high duty fer everything goin'
through. They make this law, and they make that law, and a boat can't
sell its cargo without it's at their prices. Or they keep it waitin' so
long that the owner's profits is all eat up."

Cap Gitchie had been hired to help take a boat down the river, not to
worry about what happened to its cargo after it got there. But talking
with the pessimistic Kentuckian helped pass the time.

"Well," he said, "if there's so many settlers along these rivers, whyn't
they march down to New Orleans, and tell the Spanish where to head in?"

"Heh, heh," the Kentuckian laughed dryly. "The Spanish is scairt lest
we're goin' to try jest that. That's why they let Wilkinson's boats by
with light duty."

"Who's Wilkinson?"

"Prob'bly the worst of the scoundr'ls. He went down to N'Yurlens four
years ago, in '87, with a ladin' of terbaccy. The Spanish confiscated
it, and Wilkinson dared 'em to keep it. Said he was a gen'ral in the
American army, and he'd like 'em to keep his boat and cargo on account
that would give him an excuse fer gettin' his army and cleanin' up
every greasy Spaniard. Anyhow, he scairt 'em and they says, 'Well,
Wilkinson, we got each other where the hair's short. S'pose we talk
turkey? You do what you kin fer us, and we'll do what we kin fer you.
You swear allegiance to Spain, and go back up the river. Tell everybody
who wants to bring a boat down, that if they swear allegiance to Spain,
they kin get by fer fifteen per cent duty 'stead of twenty-five. Tell
anybody as wants to settle on Spanish land that they kin do it.' Lemme
tell you, them Spanish is scairt. They're scairt we're goin' to come
down and kick 'em out."

"And did Wilkinson swear allegiance to Spain?"

"Sure. Most people as goes down the river does."

"What about the United States?"

The Kentuckian shrugged. "That's a long haul away from N'Yurlens.
Besides, you don't have to stay Spanish. If'n you take a flatboat down
the river, nacher'lly you can't row it back up on account flatboats
don't row up-current. So you sell or give the boat away after you've
sold the cargo, and walk up the Natchez Trace, back into the States.
If'n you go down in a keelboat, you row back up. You kin allus unswear
after you're out of Spanish country."

Cap Gitchie chuckled. The situation was not too full of either ideals or
ethics, but it did have its practical side.

Abijah Crabbe scowled. "It's no laughin' matter, mister. This country
has got to have a free and open river, clear to the Gulf!"

"Well, I sure hope you get it," said Cap amiably. He turned to the
Kentuckian again. "Are there any fightin' roosters down the river?"

"Sometimes you'd think there wasn't nothin' but," replied the Kentuckian
dolefully. "All them Spanish got 'em, and most of the settlers. Kin your
rooster fight?"

"Can he fight! He's the red-roarin'est, peel-haulin'est, scrappin'est,
maddest, fastest, fightin'est thing that ever grew feathers! He can lick
his weight in hound dogs, wild cats, and Spaniards."

"We'll have fun," the Kentuckian said, as though that were a very dismal
prospect.

The red rooster walked nonchalantly around the deck, peered into the
cabin, and experimentally pecked at the Irishman's moccasins. Then he
flew up to the cabin roof, cocked a bright eye at Abijah Crabbe, and
flew down to cuddle up beside his owner. The feline Creole followed his
every move, his eyes reflecting the love of a good fighting cock that
had been born in his heart. He turned to smile at Cap Gitchie.

"That ees fine bird," he purred. "I, Baptiste Amante, say so."

The Irishman nodded. "Me old man told me when I left Dublin, 'Mike,
never bet on cock fights; they'll ruin ye.' Up to now, he's been right.
But I have a feelin' that red bird will bring us luck."

"Bad luck," the Kentuckian said gloomily.

The Irishman laughed, and struck up a song:

    The boatman is a lucky man,
    No one can do as the boatman can,
    The boatmen dance and the boatmen sing,
    The boatman is up to everything.

    Hi-ho, away we go,
    Floating down the O-hi-o.

They anchored that night to some willows below an outjutting headland.
They rowed the boat up to the trees, made it fast, then paid off line
until they floated free in the current, far enough out so a sudden fall
of water would not leave them stranded. While the Creole cooked a savory
gumbo over an open fire in a sand-filled box, the Irishman sang songs of
the old country. The night was warm, and they slept on deck, under the
stars, while the river gurgled and rolled steadily past them.

       *       *       *       *       *

_They rowed on_ day after day, passing more cumbersome flatboats and
barges on the way, and waving to the settlers who had built their
rough-hewn homes on both sides of the river. There was scarcely a day
when they did not see some kind of settlement, and often plowed fields
gleamed richly black among the stumps of trees. Still the settlers came,
having started from as far away as Olean, New York, guiding their craft
down the Allegheny to enter the Ohio at Pittsburgh. Men, women,
children, horses, cattle, hogs, chickens, and farm implements occupied
these floating arks impartially, and all used the river to arrive in
this promised land to which they were journeying. But the _River Belle_
was a fast boat, bound for New Orleans with a cargo of furs, and could
not tarry long for visits.

They were many days out of Louisville, and well below the settlements,
gliding between high stone cliffs that bordered both sides of the river,
when Abijah Crabbe left his place at the steering sweep to place an
extra horn of powder and pouch of bullets beside each man.

"What's comin'?" Cap Gitchie asked curiously.

"Cave-in-Rock," the gloomy Kentuckian asserted, as though that in itself
was sufficient explanation.

Abijah climbed back to the top of the cabin, and guided the _River
Belle_ out to the center of the river. The mystified Cap continued to
pull on his oar, until from the western bank floated an agonized appeal.

"Help! For God's sake, help!"

Cap turned his head, to see a white man running frantically along the
river bank. His buckskin clothing hung in ragged shreds from his gaunt
frame. A breechcloth was draped about his thighs, and his beard
fluttered as he ran along the bank, parallel to the keelboat. Again the
agonized, heart-wringing cry floated out over the water.

"Help! Help me! Take me on board! I've just escaped from the Indians."

Without flicking an eyelid or changing his melancholy expression, the
Kentuckian let his oar rest in its lock, picked up the rifle that lay
beside him, took careful aim over the rail, and squeezed the trigger.
The pleading man on the bank took two more running steps, then two slow
ones. His knees buckled, and he pitched forward, to lie motionless on
the shore. Cap rose in his seat, hot anger inflaming his face.

"Why, you----"

"Sit down!" came Abijah Crabbe's commanding voice from over his head.

There was a wild yell from the bank. A long canoe with twelve Indians in
it put out from the cove where it had been hidden, and bore down on the
_River Belle_. Sitting calmly on top of the cabin, for he could not
desert the steering sweep, Abijah Crabbe picked up a musket and shot.
The foremost Indian dropped his paddle to slump backward against the
next man. A rattle of rifle fire came from the canoe, but the bullets
thudded against the stout hull of the _River Belle_ or splashed in the
water nearby. No longer in doubt, Cap knelt beside the rail, sighted on
another Indian, and saw him drop. He was aware of other rifles cracking
beside him. The canoe hesitated, then put back toward shore. Just at
that moment, the red rooster, excited by the noise and confusion,
flapped his wings and crowed.

"You!" Abijah Crabbe called imperiously. "You, rooster man! Come on up
here!"

Cap rose, and climbed the ladder leading to the cabin roof. The little
captain's beard worked up and down in indignation. His mild blue eyes
glowed.

"Is this yer first trip down the river?" he demanded.

"Yup."

"I thought so!" Abijah Crabbe sputtered. "Let me tell ye something,
mister----"

"Could you sort of gentle yourself down before you tell it? I never did
like being hollered at."

The captain calmed down. "It wa'nt yer fault. Ye didn't know any better.
But that white man was a renegade. He wanted to toll us into the bank
so's those Indians could climb our hump for us. They try the same thing
every time we pass Cave-in-Rock, and other places, too. Don't ever pick
up anybody who hollers at ye from this river bank, and don't stop a man
who knows what he's doin' better'n ye do."

"I won't," Cap said mildly. "But it don't do any harm to give a man a
little warnin'. What's Cave-in-Rock?"

"It's a big natural cave where river pirates--renegades and Cherokees,
mostly--meet and store the plunder they've taken from simple folks who
believe all they hear. Ye got to go down river a couple of times before
ye get on to all the dodges--like tollin' boats in to the bank. They get
lots of 'em, too."

"I reckon so," Cap said, abashed.

He returned to his seat to find the red rooster standing on its edge,
clucking to himself. The panther-like Creole was gazing at him in frank
admiration.

"It ees lucky rooster," he said softly. "Nev-aire before have I pass
Cave-in-Rock without somebody killed or wounded."

Cap Gitchie swept his oar back, while a happy little grin lighted his
face. He seldom had much of an idea where he was going next, or what he
was going to do after he got there. But this river life was not a bad
one, at all. A man didn't have to wear the seat of his pants out on some
office stool, or wonder too much about where his next excitement was
coming from.

"What else is on the river?" he asked the Kentuckian.

"Everything," was the gloomy reply. "Pirates, and war parties, and
snags, and sand bars, and ignor'nt young fellers that jump up and holler
in keelboats. It's a wicked river."

The rooster perched contentedly beside him, and the Kentuckian eyed him
thoughtfully. There were such things as good and bad omens. Hadn't he
himself, while crossing Kentucky two years before, seen a good omen when
the crescent moon had pointed exactly toward Louisville? He had gone
there, instead of pursuing his plan of heading down to Eddyville, on the
Cumberland. Had he gone to Eddyville, he would have run square into a
big war party, and no doubt by this time his scalp would be waving
before the lodge of some dusky forest prince.

"I dunno but what I'm glad you've got the bird, son," he admitted almost
cheerfully.

Cap grinned.

Two nights later they anchored in a quiet little eddy below another
point of land. Flatboats and keelboats of every description--some of the
latter going up the river instead of down--were met there. Cap counted
twenty-one craft, and gazed curiously at the crowd that had gathered on
the shore. The passengers of all the boats were intermingling freely
around the cooking fires, and men, women, and children were dancing to
the music a bearded, one-eyed giant who looked like a pirate was coaxing
from a violin. A tall backwoodsman made his way up the bank and stepped
on board the _River Belle_. He eyed the red rooster appraisingly.

"Who owns that thar fowl?" he demanded.

"I do," Cap said proudly.

[Illustration]

"I'll bet," the backwoodsman stated, "that he ain't as good as my
dominicker."

"How much you want to bet?"

"A cask of terbaccy, ten beaver pelts, and a ham."

The red rooster was better than the dominicker.

       *       *       *       *       *

_The weather became hot_, and the river dropped a little. The banks that
it had flooded bore mute testimony to all the cargo besides boats that
this mighty water carried. Trees, wrecked boats, buffalo carcasses,
great fish, small fish, drowned deer and elk, and all the other flotsam
that a river will carry lay drying on the muddy, cracking banks.
Watching it, the Kentuckian's gloom deepened.

"You'll see many a thing cast up there," he said prophetically. "Mebbe,
before it's finished, all the men and women who've come to settle above
us will be there, too."

"Don't be so happy about things," Cap Gitchie admonished. "You're such a
gol-darn optimist, Kentucky, that a man would think nothing bad ever
happened to you."

The Irishman guffawed and the Creole chuckled, while up on the cabin
roof, even Abijah Crabbe smiled to himself as he stood with the steering
sweep in his hands and studied the river ahead. He had been down it many
times, but it was never the same river twice in succession. There were
always new islands born where none had been before, and islands swept
away that had stood for years. It was a changeable river, a restless and
ever-searching one that was continually trying new patterns and new
directions. It was as changeable as life itself, thought Abijah. And,
while he stood on top of the cabin, steering the _River Belle_, he
reflected on the course of his own life.

Back in Philadelphia, so many years ago that it now seemed as though it
never could have been, he had been a school teacher. Before the war, his
world had been a safe, well-ordered place wherein he had made the sons
and daughters of the well-to-do ready to further their education in
England or France. Every morning he had started out from his own modest
little home, and every night he had returned to find his wife and three
children awaiting him there. But that had been before the plague....

Then had come the war for independence, but he had seen little of it.
With his family gone, he had had to go. He could not stay in any place
that reminded him of what had been. The frontier, a whole world away
from Philadelphia, was where he had found forgetfulness. And there
seemed to be nothing taken away without at least partial compensation.
In the years he had been travelling up and down the western rivers, he
had seen a continent come to life.

First there had been silent, buckskinned men who would never even
venture out the door without their long rifles. Then had come wild and
roaring men, sober and industrious men, shiftless men, men with
initiative, men stained with every crime in the calendar. But regardless
of their other characteristics, the men who had opened this raw western
country had had one thing in common--the courage to try something new.
And they were not only trying it, but were doing it. They raised their
crops, and gathered their fruits, and trapped their furs, and sent them
down the broad rivers, down to New Orleans. Down there the Spanish sat
across their outlet to the sea, but if they tried to impose too many
restrictions.... The river would have to be open and free to all men.
And it would be, sooner or later. He had even heard that there were
already negotiations between Gayoso, the Spanish Governor, and the
infant government of the United States.

Abijah Crabbe looked down at his crew, his lined face softening. If the
men who came here were courageous and daring, they were also simple.
That youngster with the game cock who had been in such a hurry to get
away from Louisville, the glum Kentuckian, the easy-going Creole, the
gay Irishman ... their fetish was a red rooster, their aim to see what
happened when and if they reached New Orleans. The day was the thing,
and so long as the sun rose, all was well.

Yes, they were a simple breed of people, these folks who had gathered
from every corner of the earth to make a highway of this broad river.
The wilderness had never seen their like, and probably never would
again. Simple they were, but they still had their smoldering passions
that a careless word or gesture could fan into leaping fire. Then God
help whomever or whatever got in their way. They stood by themselves,
and never dreamed of asking anyone else to help them. And, if they
wanted something, they would never count the cost of getting it.

[Illustration]

A smile twitched the corners of his lips as he listened to their heated
discussion of the rooster's good and bad points. No doubt the bird would
fight again at New Madrid, and at Chickasaw Bluffs, and at Walnut Hills,
and at Natchez, and at whatever settlers' cabins were near where they
tied up. If he won all these fights, he would become a mighty creature,
part of the river tradition, and boatmen would boast about his prowess
as long as any of them might live.

The rooster did fight, and win, until Abijah Crabbe steered his craft
into the bustling port of Natchez. He saw the Governor's ornate barge
anchored beside a heavily armed gunboat and two supply ships. A small
boat with Spanish soldiers in it put out from the barge and came toward
the _River Belle_. Five uniformed dragoons and a dapper young officer
boarded the keelboat to look over her papers and cargo.

       *       *       *       *       *

_With only a cursory glance_ at the Spanish ships, Cap Gitchie had
repaired to the _River Belle's_ cabin to sleep as soon as they tied up
at Natchez. The cabin was musty with the odor of baled furs, and the
aroma of the previous cargoes it had held still mingled faintly with
this newer, stronger one. Cap stretched out in a cleared space, and
drowsily listened to the Spanish soldiers board the boat. For a moment
he hovered halfway between sleep and wakefulness, wondering if it would
be worth his while to go out for another look. But the soldiers would be
there in the morning, and the _River Belle_ was going to New Orleans
anyhow. There he would see more than enough of Spanish soldiers. He
dropped off into dreamless and untroubled sleep.

When he awoke it was dark, and he went on deck to see the lamps of
Natchez shining palely in the distance. Tonight he would go into town
with his red rooster and let him fight the best the Spanish, or the
French, or whoever was in control, had to offer. His eyes sought the
stern of the _River Belle_, where the Kentuckian, the Creole, the
Irishman, and Abijah Crabbe were gathered about the cooking pot that
hung over the sand-heaped fire box. Cap walked toward them.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Ain't there any inns in this Natchez,
where we can get a civilized meal for once?"

"Ho, ho," the Creole said softly. "You are indeed _l'enfant_, my
friend."

"He jest don't know about Natchez," the glum Kentuckian amended. "Sure,
we could find a place to eat. And they'd bring us a stinkin' mess of
slumgullion a dog wouldn't eat. Then they'd say, 'Twenty reales,
see-nyors,'--that's what they call folks down in this neck o' the
woods--and when we wouldn't pay it they'd call their sojers to have us
thrown in jail."

"Well ..." Cap looked wistfully toward the shore. "There's five of us,
ain't there?"

"I've got a cargo of fur to look out for," Abijah Crabbe said sharply.
"I can't risk it."

"All right, cap'n. But I'm goin' to take the rooster over there tonight
and see what we can stir up."

The Creole's white teeth flashed in the darkness, and the Irishman
chuckled with anticipation. Cap walked over to his shipped oar, upon the
handle of which the rooster had been in the habit of spending the night,
and reached down in the darkness so the bird could step onto his hand.
Nothing moved. The customary little rustle of feathers was missing.
Surprised, Cap straightened up, then tried the handles of the other
oars, one by one. He walked back to the cooking fire.

"What happened to the rooster?" he demanded.

The Kentuckian, noisily chewing a succulent bit of meat, stopped eating,
his mouth half open. The four boatmen looked at each other, the ruddy
glow cast by the fire outlining in sharp relief the hard, intent
features. The Irishman spoke up.

"I ain't seen the bird since the Spaniards left. I thought he was with
you."

Cap Gitchie stood still in the darkness, while anger crawled the length
of his spine. He looked at the Governor's barge, riding softly at anchor
while wavelets lapped her heavy hull. Without a word he entered the
cabin to pick up his tomahawk, and when he came out the Kentuckian, the
Creole, and the Irishman gathered about him. Abijah Crabbe looked
steadily over the rail. He turned once, but did not speak when the four
men drew the _River Belle_ in to the bank and stepped ashore. Nothing
that he could say or do would hold them now. Their luck had gone.

For a moment they stood on the dark shore, looking vengefully toward the
Governor's barge, then started down the river bank to where half a dozen
pirogues were drawn up. Slowly, so as to make no noise, they launched
one and climbed in. The Creole, handling the stern paddle, dipped it as
softly as a cat flicking out a sheathed claw to catch a mouse. The dark
mass of the Governor's barge loomed above them, and a sharp, Spanish
voice broke the silence.

"Hola?"

The Creole worked the pirogue up to the bow of the barge, keeping in the
shadow of the hull. Cap silently climbed up the anchor chain and peeped
over the deck. Just before him, scarcely a yard away, a uniformed sentry
stood with one hand on his cutlass, peering toward the dark stern. The
night was hot, and he had taken off his helmet. Cap swung the flat of
his tomahawk, and with a soft little thud the sentry melted down to
mingle with the shadows on the deck.

From the other end of the barge a questioning voice demanded, "Juan!
What is happening?"

Running softly on moccasined feet, the four intruders entered the dimly
lighted cabin and swung the door shut behind them. The Creole dropped
the heavy latch into place, and stood with his ear to the door, an
excited grin on his dark face. The Kentuckian wrapped his long arms
about another soldier who suddenly appeared before them, then released
his captive quickly, and swung a fist to his jaw. The Spaniard bounced
back, then his sword licked forth and blood stained the Kentuckian's
shirt. The Irishman swung the flat of his tomahawk, and the soldier
dropped heavily. They raced through the cabin into a larger one with a
closed door at the far end. Before they could reach it, five soldiers
rose from their card game, reaching wildly for weapons. Cap jumped on
the nearest man....

       *       *       *       *       *

_Inside that closed door_, Governor Gayoso had for the past hour been in
conference with four of his staff officers, and was just finishing a
speech.

"The interests of Spain must at all times be nearest my heart. But how
shall those interests best be served? Seor Pinckney, of the United
States Government, has lately sent a courier to me, saying that he
upholds the claim of the American settlers on the upper river for an
open, duty-free port in New Orleans. He insists that the traders who
bring goods down must have whatever rights of trans-shipment they
desire. Acceding to his wishes would deprive Spain of much revenue, and
I do not think this infant American government is prepared to use force.
I do not greatly fear the United States, nor anything they may do. The
real problem is, if we continue to operate this port as a source of
royal revenue, and charge such duties as we see fit, will those
half-civilized frontiersmen on the upper river take matters into their
own hands?"

"They would not dare," a bulky, scar-faced Colonel of Guards said
contemptuously. "But suppose they do? We'll drive them back soon
enough."

"My good Colonel Perez," Gayoso said, "have you ever fought
Kentuckians?"

The Colonel's face flushed. "No. But it would be a pleasure to----"

At that moment the thudding of the gun butts of those soldiers who were
trying to break down the outer door rumbled through the room. An excited
voice shouted in Spanish, "Open up! I command you." A second later four
blood-streaked Americans with tomahawks in their hands burst through the
door of the conference room. As one man, the assembled officers rose and
drew their swords.

"Keep your shirt on, Governor," said the tallest of the Americans, "and
tell your pals to do likewise. There ain't any sense in gettin'
yourselves massacreed."

"This is an outrage!" Gayoso sputtered.

"So's stealin' roosters!" Cap Gitchie snarled. "Do I get him back? Or do
we bust up your meat house?"

"Do you get what back?"

"My red rooster. The one one of your tin-horn soldiers swiped off the
_River Belle_ this afternoon."

"Do I understand that one of the Spanish soldiers who boarded your boat
today stole from you?"

"Yup. Make up your mind, Governor. We ain't got all night."

"Lieutenant Montez," Gayoso directed, "investigate the boarding parties
who were out this afternoon. Find the soldier who stole this man's
property. Have it returned, and see that the soldier is punished."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Governor Gayoso_ sat for a long while after the boatmen had gone. It
had taken him some little time to reassure himself that this was not the
long-feared attack by the backwoodsmen. For it had seemed scarcely
credible that four madmen, alone, would dare board the state barge of
the Governor of Louisiana. But four men had done it, and if an army
composed of similar men ever came....

In his mind he began to construct phrases for an official report to be
sent to His Majesty Charles IV: "In the light of recent first-hand
observations ... it is my considered opinion ... for the promotion of
friendly relations ... recommendation for free trade along the lower
Mississippi, and the opening of the port of New Orleans ..."

Cap Gitchie's rooster had won another fight.




[Illustration]

THE FIFTH FRIEND

1808

_By 1800 the new country had reached the Mississippi, and controlled it.
Then came the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, adding an unknown section so
vast it doubled the size of the nation. The Lewis and Clark expedition
of 1805-6 reported that it was a great, treeless, rolling plain, cut by
mighty rivers and bounded on the west by tremendous mountains._

_That sounded like furs, and the free trappers plunged into the
unknown--tough, fearless, far-ranging men to whom distance and hardship
meant nothing. In no time they had penetrated clear to the foothills of
the Rockies, and their furs were coming down the Mississippi's western
tributaries to the raw, roaring, frontier boom town of St. Louis._

_Typical of these indestructible trappers was John Colter, whose
exploits are an American saga. A Virginian, better educated than most of
his fellows, he fortunately left a first-hand account of his greatest
experience, which is presented here as he lived it, virtually
unadorned._


A storm was gathering over the valley of the Big Horn. The black clouds
that rolled up in the sky nudged and shoved one another as each sought
for a place of precedence, and all mingled in a great, threatening mass
of thunderheads. A streak of lightning flashed like a crooked sword
blade beneath them, and a rolling peal of thunder rumbled through the
sky. A herd of buffalo outside Fort Raymond began to mill about,
snuffling uneasily, and formed a circle with their heads pointing toward
its center. The two men who were riding brown and white Indian ponies
over the plain spurred their mounts, and the little horses broke into a
mile-eating gallop. The buffalo separated to let them run through, and a
few seconds later the rain fell.

It came down in great, misty sheets, hurling itself at the short prairie
grass as though it were an enemy upon which the rain had to pour down
its pent-up vengeance once and for all. Depressions and buffalo wallows
filled with a sluggish, roily flood. One of the horses slipped and
almost went down, but the superb horsemanship of its rider averted
catastrophe. Looking sullenly back over its shoulder, a drenched coyote
slunk from beneath the bit of brush where it had found partial shelter.
The coyote crouched low to the earth, waiting until the horsemen had
gone by. Then it crept back to the brush and began to smooth its wet
fur.

Side by side, the horsemen rode into Fort Raymond and pulled sharply on
the single reins that ended in a loop through their mounts' jaws. As
they dismounted, they drew their rifles from the buffalo-skin scabbards
that covered them and examined the priming. As indifferent to their own
soaked condition as they were careful of their powder's, they
rein-haltered their horses, and strode toward a long, squat building
whose door was surmounted by a bleached buffalo skull and horns of
enormous size. Flinging open the door, they brushed past the clerk at
the counter, and disappeared into a room at the rear.

The little clerk eyed the retreating backs and the wet trail of moccasin
tracks with frank disapproval. He had come out to this God-forsaken Fort
Raymond from a good position in St. Louis, only because Manuel Lisa had
offered him four times the wages he had been earning there. But he did
not have to like either the place or the people living in it. St. Louis
had been civilized, at least, although in the five years since the
Louisiana Purchase there had been more and more of these wild trappers
fighting and carousing in its streets.

But at this desolate juncture of the Big Horn and the Yellowstone, where
Manuel Lisa had built his trading post, there was _nothing_ but trappers
and Indians and buffalo. And the two men who had gone in to see Lisa
were the wildest of them all--little better than savages. The clerk
sniffed. Perhaps it was true that these men had accompanied Lewis and
Clark on the expedition people said had crossed the mountains to the
Pacific. Almost anything could be expected of men who seemed to prefer
the wilderness to civilization. For himself, he wanted no part of it.
When he had saved enough to go back to St. Louis, ruffians like John
Colter and John Potts could have this wild, barren land, for all of him.

The clerk resumed his entries in the big ledger, and when they were
finished, he ran his goose quill down the double column of figures.
Seventy bales of beaver pelts had been brought in, as had a variety of
fox, deer, bear, wolf, and sable skins. Trade goods had gone out to pay
for them, and the books must balance exactly. Manuel Lisa, the trading
prince of this western fur empire, had as keen an eye for trade goods as
he had for sighting his long rifle. A half-pound of blue beads, over or
under what should be, would not escape detection. The clerk
triple-checked his entries, sighed, and with the ledger under his arm
walked to the small door at the rear which had been so unceremoniously
opened by Colter and Potts. He knocked, then waited until a soft,
Latin-accented voice spoke.

"Come een."

The clerk entered, and with an outward show of respect stood silently
waiting, while he looked at the three men in the office. Manuel Lisa,
his Spanish employer, sat behind a heavy desk, his dark face an
impassive setting for bright, businesslike eyes. The other two men had
about them a certain cramped look, as though the small office was an
uncomfortable and unfamiliar place. Their long rifles leaned against the
wall, their knives and tomahawks lay on the desk. Their soft buckskin
clothing, still damp, outlined lean, hard figures.

"The accounts of the shipment for St. Louis are ready, sir," said the
clerk.

Manuel Lisa swung around and extended his hand for the ledger. The clerk
gave it to him, and Lisa ran his eye down the columns of figures.
Without speaking, he handed the ledger back. The clerk stood
irresolutely, and flushed when he caught John Potts' amused eye. Lisa
said, "That ees all," and the clerk gladly left the room.

John Potts jerked his thumb at the closing door. "He'd make a good pet
for a Blackfoot squaw, Manuel."

Manuel Lisa shrugged, and his lips parted in a white-toothed smile.
"Were there none to keep track of the furs you wild men bring in," he
said, "trading would be an es-sorry tangle. What? So my leetle pet ees
necessary."

"There's all kinds of buffalo in a herd, I reckon," said the other man
in buckskin.

[Illustration]

Lisa swung to face him. "Now then, my frien', tell me more."

"It's simple enough," replied John Colter. "We're aimin' to go up the
Yellowstone to where it makes the big bend to the south. Then we'll hit
overland to the three forks of the Missouri--I got a couple of canoes
hid there. There's a million little cricks in that country around the
Jefferson, and none but what's got its beaver lodges. It's Blackfoot
country, but the Flatheads and Crows is already tradin' into here from
when you sent me out last summer. Mebbe we can open this country, too.
That's all."

"That ees all, eh?" said the Latin trader. "Do you forget that you'll be
three hundred miles from the nearest white man and the help he can give
you?"

Colter shrugged. "If there was white men there wouldn't be fur. And we
don't need help."

"That may be so." Manuel Lisa's eyes sought the floor. "But the las'
time you went out you joined the Crows in a fight against the Blackfeet.
Blackfeet do not forget, my frien'."

"We'll travel at night."

"And run your traps, and do your cooking and hunting at night?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"Well, eef you want to be crazee----" Lisa shook his head hopelessly.

"Then we can draw on you for the stores we need?"

"That was never the question," the trader said with quiet dignity. "Eef
you wanted to set traps for El Diablo himself, you could draw on my
stores. You come back, you pay me. You don' come back ..." He spread his
hands expressively. "... Manuel Lisa don' lose so much as you. But the
point ees--we want trade, not war. I do not trust thees Blackfeet. But
you find a really good fur country and we build a fort in it, eh?"

"We'll look around some," promised John Colter. He rose, thrust his
knife and tomahawk into his belt, and held out his hand. "So long,
Manuel. Be seein' you."

"Adios, my frien'. Don' eat any Blackfeet."

"Jest a couple of small ones," grinned Potts. He picked up his rifle and
walked out of the room, pausing to grip the trader's hand as he went by.

Manuel Lisa walked with them to the door. A smile was on his lips, but
at the same time a sadness lingered in his eyes. He had seen many go out
thus, and a great many had never returned. But it was men like these who
would make his dream possible. As he looked out over the rolling prairie
to where the Big Horn curved to meet the Yellowstone, his mind's eye
could see that watery highway carrying his flatboats and keelboats,
loaded with furs, on past the Milk, the Cheyenne, the Platte, on and on,
fifteen hundred miles to St. Louis, the heart of the new American
trading empire. This was 1808, only two years after Lewis and Clark had
brought back word of this region, and he, Manuel Lisa, already had a
trading post in operation. In another two years ...

       *       *       *       *       *

_John Colter_ stood for a moment beside the river, looking back at Fort
Raymond and mentally checking their preparations. Unconsciously, his
hand strayed to his belt to check the knife and tomahawk hanging there.
A man had five good friends when he went into the wilderness beyond the
point where other men ventured, and three of them were his rifle, knife,
and tomahawk. The fourth was whoever travelled with him. But the fifth,
and the one upon which he could depend to the greatest possible extent,
was himself. A man might lose his rifle, axe, and knife. There might be
no one willing or able to stand by his side just when he most needed
someone there. But no matter what happened, or what desperate
extremities he might encounter, ultimate reliance would have to be on
that fifth friend.

Potts was stowing their beaver traps in the canoe, being careful that
they laid on a bed roll so that their sharp corners and protruding edges
would not puncture the fragile bark covering. John Colter steadied the
craft, and cast an expert eye over the various goods within it. But they
were arranged all right. Potts was a good man in a canoe, and as much
at home in the wilderness as Colter himself. But he was also possessed
of a quality that would be anything but an asset should the wrong set of
circumstances arise. He had a fiery temper that was aroused to fever
pitch for the slightest reason. Only three days before he had nearly
killed another trapper in a knife fight that had been stopped only by
Manuel Lisa's interference.

But this trip did not promise anything unusual, and there should be no
reason for Potts to become aroused. They were going only a few hundred
miles, and that was a mere excursion. Of course there were Blackfeet
there. Colter grinned faintly, remembering Lisa's fears that the
Blackfeet were ready to kill any white man who ventured into their
country. True, there seldom was a time when the Blackfeet weren't at
war, and Blackfoot country was any place at all where they had a war
party consisting of as many as four men--though of course the tribe did
have its regular hunting grounds and villages.

Potts straightened up and squinted his eyes at the sun. "Time's
a-wastin'."

"Yup."

Potts stepped into the canoe, settled himself in the bow, and picked up
a paddle. John Colter took his place in the stern, and they dug their
paddles deeply in unison. The little craft shot smoothly into the
sluggish current and turned upstream. They had turned their backs on
civilization.

They paddled steadily up the Yellowstone, hour after hour, through
country as open as the palms of their hands. From time to time flocks of
ducks took to the wing at their approach, and a diving muskrat or
jumping fish would occasionally ripple the water ahead of them. Once the
body of a big pike, white belly up, floated by, and they could see the
huge gashes torn in its side by some rapacious bird that had been unable
to lift its victim. But they saw no sign of men, red or white, although
they kept a sharp watch on the treeless banks between which they were
passing. Not that they could tell too much by looking at the banks, or
noting the actions of the animals along them. Animals might act any way
at all, and the fact that they were peacefully grazing or resting did
not necessarily indicate that there were no Indians about. An Indian
could crawl right in among a herd of buffalo before they even knew he
was around, and antelope might start at anything at all. They were
flighty beasts.

But even Indians were not infallible, and to keen eyes they were bound
to leave some sign of their passing wherever they went. A buckskin
thong, a broken paddle, or almost anything on the river that did not
belong there would be ample evidence that Indians were upstream. They
were past masters at hiding their tracks, but hiding tracks was a real
job, even for Blackfeet, and they seldom bothered to do it unless they
knew enemies were around. And it was just as well to see Blackfeet
before they saw you, if you valued your scalp.

Toward late afternoon John Colter said, "Do you reckon it would be all
right to build a fire tonight?"

"Reckon it would," his companion answered. "We ain't seen a thing all
day."

"It won't be all right tomorrow night. And mebbe we'd best be careful
how and where we shoot after this. But we could cook a passel of buffalo
meat tonight, and eat it until we get out on the cricks."

"Pshaw!" Potts scoffed. "You're scarin' yourself jest thinkin' of them
Blackfeet!"

"I've fought agin the Blackfeet," John Colter said soberly, "and I ain't
scared of 'em. But neither are they scared of me. It's best to take no
chances."

"Think they'll be any Blackfeet along these cricks of yourn?"

"There's no tellin' where they'll be. I even saw signs of 'em around the
lake this river rises in--a hundred miles south of the big bend."

Potts snorted. "You mean the lake where you said the water shoots up
outa holes? I suppose the Blackfeet was takin' baths in them boilin'
springs you told about!"

"I've been there," Colter replied calmly, "and you ain't. What's more,
those hot springs soaked the soreness out of the leg wound I got in that
fight between the Crows and the Blackfeet, and it's as good as it ever
was."

Potts grunted incredulously. "Did the Blackfeet have guns in that
fight?"

"Jest a few. There ain't been any tradin' with 'em so far, and they've
jest picked up a few from the Flatheads and Crows. But they sure know
how to shoot them bows and arrers."

"They won't shoot far's a gun."

"They kill jest as dead."

A half hour before sunset they swung in to the bank, and landed in the
shelter of some low-hanging willows. Potts stayed with the canoe,
gathering dry sticks for a fire, while his companion stalked cautiously
up the bank. He halted just within the screening willows and looked all
about. Nothing showed except a half dozen antelope and a herd of stolid
buffalo that were bedding down for the night near a clump of
cottonwoods. Colter slunk back into the willows and threaded his way
upstream through them. When he emerged he was within a hundred feet of
the buffalo herd. Taking aim at a fat cow, he squeezed the trigger and
watched her thump heavily to the ground. The rest milled curiously
about, but raised their tails and stamped stiff-leggedly away when the
hunter approached.

He cut the succulent hump from the cow's back, and left the rest for the
wolves and coyotes.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Fourteen days_ out of Fort Raymond they came into the maze of little
creeks that formed the head-waters of the Missouri. After careful
exploration Colter found the nameless, deep little stream where he had
concealed a canoe on his previous trip with the Crows. The canoe was
intact, and apparently undisturbed. It was no wonder, for the country
was a dense labyrinth. Low hills that supported a thick growth of aspens
hemmed in the stream, and feeding into it, within easy trapping
distance, were a dozen or more smaller creeks, all of which were choked
with beaver dams. The region was a trapper's paradise, but a nightmare
for anyone trying to cross it in a hurry. The only practicable route was
down the little stream, which pursued a long course before it emptied
into the Jefferson, one of the three forks of the Missouri. Farther
downstream, the hills were mere scantily forested knolls that were
covered with prickly pear, and gave way in many places to open, level
stretches.

To the west and north the hills were higher, and the winds that blew
from them down into the valleys carried tidings of the cold weather that
would soon come to lock this region in winter's grip. But they should
get out, with a good load of pelts, before freeze-up. They could divide
whatever their catch brought in, pay Manuel Lisa back, and have a tidy
sum left over. Then they could go trapping again; there was a lot of the
western country that they had never seen, and the first-comer got the
best pelts, as they knew from experience.

Although they had neither seen nor heard any Indians, they had travelled
by night since leaving the Yellowstone to make the last, overland leg of
their journey. By the light of a waning moon they had found Colter's
cached canoe, and were now surveying the neighborhood before launching
it. Pale moonlight, slanting down into the valley, struck the face of a
stone ledge, exposed and vertically split by some mighty upheaval of
past ages. A small evergreen grew directly in front of the three-foot
crevice, and John Colter parted its branches to reveal a spacious cavern
that extended back into the heart of the rock. He spoke softly.

"A Crow showed it to me the last time we were here. He says the
Blackfeet don't know about it. What do you think about keepin' our
plunder here?"

"Looks like a bad place to be caught in," Potts said doubtfully. "I'd
rather sleep back in the brush, myself."

"So would I. And we'll have to keep the canoe out, too. But we can stow
our grub in here, and our pelts."

They carried the blocks of pemmican, and the flour and salt, to which
Manuel Lisa had staked them, into the cavern. And, with each trip they
made, they carefully crawled under the branches of the little evergreen,
so that no breaks or marks would show. Prowling Indians needed no more
than a broken twig to tell them that enemies or strangers were near.
But, after they had cached their food, no eye could have told that
anything foreign was in the cave. Lastly, with a dead branch they
brushed over the path they had made.

"Now let's go set a few traps," Potts said impatiently. "Them beaver
ought to be thick enough to walk on."

"Good idea."

They launched the canoe, and paddled downstream to where a trickling
little rill emptied its waters into the stream. Twenty feet back from
its mouth, the streamlet pitched over a beaver dam that stretched across
it. While Potts handled the canoe, Colter waded ashore, three of their
twelve traps in his hand. He set one at the foot of the little path made
by beaver coming down the side of the dam, and two at freshly worn
trails near the edge of the water. Going on down the stream, they
spotted the rest of their traps in three other little rills that
dribbled into it. Beaver did not seek big water. Even if it was only a
foot-wide trickle, so long as it was suitable for a dam and there was
food about, beaver would live in it.

As they paddled away from their last set, they saw the dark shape of a
swimming beaver, and the curling V-line it left as it started for the
safety of a burrow under the bank.

"Bank beaver!" Potts jeered. "All these dams around, but he has to be
different! He has to live in a bank!"

"Beaver do what they dang please," John Colter observed quietly. "Looks
like our traps will be full afore mornin'. But keep your voice down!"

"Aw, there ain't any Blackfeet around here. What are you so nervous
about?"

"I'm aimin' to keep my hair a spell longer," replied Colter, "and
there's only one way to be sure of doin' it. Let's go. We ain't finished
yet."

He put the canoe in toward a thick clump of young willows, and Potts
waded ashore to make his way to the center of the thicket. He cut a
dozen long, lithe shoots, trimmed the twigs from them, and carefully
shoved all the cut wood under the roots of another willow. With no
Indians about, it seemed a senseless precaution, but he knew that Colter
would insist that nothing at all should appear out of place. He returned
to the canoe with the trimmed shoots, and they started back upstream,
toward their traps.

The moon was low, but dawn would soon be sending its stealthy light
creeping down the little, shadowed valleys. A deer on the bank of the
stream snorted, and plunged into the underbrush. A bull elk, surprised
at its morning drink, lifted its head to stare, and stamped its forefoot
threateningly. Out in the forest an awakening flicker rattled a sleepy
song.

They stopped at the first dam, and took two big beaver out of the traps
they had set there. Passing between high, rock-studded banks, they came
to the next dam, and found two more. By the time they got back to the
cavern there were seven beaver in the canoe.

Potts skinned them, cutting them up the belly and peeling the skins off
over legs and tail. Then he bent the lithe willows so that their ends
met and formed a circle. Piercing the edges of the beaver pelts with his
knife, he laced them to the willow hoops and put them in the cave. They
would be dry within a few days. Then they could be taken off the
stretching hoops and baled.

Meantime Colter had been building a cairn of rocks in the shallow water
at the edge of the stream. As soon as it extended above the surface of
the water he built a fire on it and roasted the fattest beavers' hind
quarters. They ate, chewing the stringy flesh with all the gusto of
hungry men, and then carried the rest of the beaver carcasses five
hundred feet back into the sheltering trees, where they would be
nothing but picked bones in a few hours. They lifted the canoe out of
the water, carried it into the forest, and cached it where it had been
hidden before. Lifting the rocks on which they had built their fire,
they dropped them back into the creek, smoked side down. Separating,
careful to leave no tracks, they went into the woods and slept all day.

That night they went down to the stream again and set traps in the
tributary creeks just below the ones they had worked the night before.
Night after night they followed the same procedure, trapping down the
stream until they began to work into more open country. The pile of
pelts in the cavern grew steadily higher.

One morning the first gray streaks of dawn were again appearing in the
sky when they started back upstream. A light mist was rising from the
water, curling its tenuous fingers toward the tops of the trees. Out in
the forest a great horned owl sent its fierce hunting cry rolling over
the still reaches. Far away a gray wolf howled. The whistling snort of a
buck sounded from the bank. A fox yelped, and then yelped again.

Suddenly John Colter tensed. From somewhere upstream had come a faint
sound that did not blend in. Silently rocking the canoe in warning, he
dug his paddle deeply into the water and with a dozen powerful strokes
sent the canoe shooting from between high banks that might conceal an
enemy into a stretch where they could see better.

The east bank was covered by a horde of blanketed Blackfeet!

Before they could turn, more Indians appeared behind them, with drawn
bows. There was no escape. Colter saw an eagle-feathered warrior
motioning for them to land, and put in to the bank. As he stepped out of
the canoe, he heard a bowstring twang, and looked around to see an arrow
slither through the loose part of Potts' shirt.

"Don't shoot!" he cried warningly.

But Potts' face was livid with rage. He raised his rifle, took
point-blank aim at the brave who had loosed the arrow, and fired. Almost
before the Indian fell, fifty bowstrings snapped, fifty arrows hissed
through the air.

The canoe drifted slowly down the stream, its dead occupant pierced by
so many arrows that he was almost hidden by the feathered ends.

       *       *       *       *       *

_The Indians_ watched it go, standing ominously quiet until the drifting
canoe had passed between the high banks and out of sight. Then, at a
guttural command from the warrior who wore the eagle feathers, evidently
a chief, there was movement among the Indians downstream. Colter guessed
that orders had been given to bring in Potts' scalp and the two rifles
in the canoe. At the same time, his own knife and tomahawk were plucked
from his belt and thrown on the ground.

Knowing that any sudden move would mean instant death, he stood
silently, without expression, while his thoughts worked for him. He was
surrounded by a horde of Blackfeet, who had only hatred of white men
written on their scowling faces. He had lost his rifle, tomahawk, and
knife, and the friend who would have stood beside him. But in the last
resort and desperate extremity he always had himself. A man could never
abandon himself until death stole in to take all.

A young, hawk-nosed warrior came up to stand before the white man, and
to spit squarely in his face. A brave with a swinging tomahawk slashed
it viciously down, and the flat of the blade brushed John Colter's nose.
He took half a step backward, and immediately felt the keen point of a
knife bite through his clothing into his back. He stood still and
studied the Indian who had spit at him. A man could not rightly call
himself dead until he _was_ dead, and if by some miracle he escaped from
this, there was a young Blackfoot he wanted to remember. Some time he
might see him over the sights of a rifle. He didn't have Potts' fiery
temper, but he had a long memory.

A battle-scarred veteran who had been standing beside the dead
Blackfoot stooped and picked up Colter's knife from the ground. His lips
were a tight line across his face, and venom glowed in his eyes as, with
slow and purposeful tread, he approached the captive. He raised the
knife, but almost instantly another warrior struck it down. They began
to quarrel back and forth, and John Colter's tongue licked out over dry
lips. Half a dozen more warriors joined the argument, their voices heavy
with anger.

The white man looked once more at the little stream, down which the
canoe had carried Potts' body. Potts, the ready fighter! If all the
Indians west of the Mississippi gathered together, and one shot an arrow
at him, Potts would have to shoot back. But it had not been good sense.
Had he submitted, and let himself be taken prisoner, they might have
gained a little time, or even have talked the Blackfeet into a friendly
attitude. But now there was no chance. The braves were arguing as to who
should have the privilege of first striking down the victim. Three more
warriors joined the argument.

A coyote slunk through the brush behind them, and crouched very low to
the earth while he fixed his eyes on the scene ahead. The coyote licked
his chops, and waited patiently. He had followed war parties of the
Blackfeet before, and seen them take prisoners. There was always much
for him to feast on when the warriors finally departed.

The chief with the eagle feathers strode to the center of the quarreling
group and let his blanket fall about his hips. He pointed to the east,
and spoke firmly and rapidly. A delighted chuckle rose from the rest,
and spread to the outer circle as the word was passed on.

John Colter folded his arms across his chest and stood very still. The
Blackfeet were past masters at hatching up hellish schemes, and no doubt
were now in the process of evolving another one. He would know in time,
and if they were planning to take him anywhere, which he doubted, there
was always the hope of escape.

The chief stopped talking, and a slim warrior with a long, ragged scar
across his chest began to guffaw, until he was so overcome by his own
merriment that he rolled helplessly on the ground. A brave with a
steel-tipped lance in his hand, and a red blanket over his shoulders,
walked in front of the victim. He let the blanket drop to the ground,
pointed with obvious pride to his long, well-muscled legs, then gestured
at Colter with his spear. Two of the Blackfeet closed in from either
side, and threw the white man to the ground. He was aware of the point
of the ripping knife that sliced away his clothing, and felt the knife
slide into the side of his foot when the Indians cut off his moccasins.

When they let him up he was naked, and the morning wind from the little
stream cut icily about him. As though it had been prearranged, those
Indians standing in front of him drew back to form an open lane. The
captive looked that way, across the prickly-pear flats, toward the
Jefferson, five or six miles away.

[Illustration]

The chief came to his side. He pointed across the flats, then at
Colter's legs, and grunted inquiringly.

Now, at last, the victim understood, and the tip of his tongue scraped
against the dry roof of his mouth. The warriors could not agree as to
who was to have the honor of killing him, so the chief had decided for
them. He was to be turned loose, naked and weaponless, and the first
brave to run him down could claim him as a rightful quarry. He thought
fast.

The chief was still pointing at his legs. Colter shook his head, showed
the cut in his naked foot, and indicated the angry red welt on his leg
that marked the arrow-wound he had received from the Blackfeet the year
before. He put his weight on that leg, and let it buckle slightly.
Actually, there was nothing wrong with his leg, and he could outrun any
white man west of St. Louis. But a little false confidence on the part
of the Blackfeet might give him a chance.

An impatient, bloodthirsty murmur came from the waiting Indians. The
chief grunted again, and pushed Colter toward the open lane. He walked
slowly forward, carefully limping a little, trying to breathe softly and
deeply, to pull as much air as possible into his lungs. He kept his eyes
straight ahead, his ears alert for the first sounds of beginning
pursuit.

No doubt the savage who killed him would go back to whatever lousy lodge
he had come from, there to render a suitably embellished story of the
white man who had tried to escape him. Probably the feat would be
inscribed in paint on the sides of the tepee, blessed by the medicine
man, and the victor from that time on would be known by some name that
would forever call to mind his remarkable run. Well, if they'd give him
a start, the brave who caught him would have something to boast of.

The autumn wind played coldly across his naked body as he walked through
the lane and out toward the flats. He did not look back, and only
slightly increased his pace. This was a game, all the rules of which
were made by the more powerful players. But anyone in any game had at
least a chance of winning.

He did not begin to run until he heard the war cry burst from a hundred
throats. Then he drew a tremendous breath, and leaped into action. Even
so, he ran easily, saving his strength, trying to pay no attention to
the sharp prickly-pear thorns that entered his feet. He would challenge
any Indian to any race if he were wearing moccasins. But he was not
wearing moccasins, or anything else, and blood was spurting from his cut
foot.

He sped over a little hillock and down the other side, and when he
passed a wide-trunked cottonwood he dodged behind it so that it was
between himself and his pursuers. He was running well. He knew that. But
he had to run well, because death was the penalty for doing otherwise.
With that certain knowledge he knew also that he could not permit one
split second of hesitation or panic. He still did not look back, because
there was no use in looking back. A man could, for a flicker of time,
feel the slash of the arrow or the thrust of the lance that cut into his
back, but there was no point in looking around to see if it was coming.
He had been given his chance, the only one he could hope for, and every
desperate faculty must be devoted to making the most of it.

A medley of disappointed yells came to him as the slower and more easily
outdistanced of the Blackfeet dropped behind, where all they could do
was watch the finish of the race. But as the panting minutes went past,
a sense of utter futility and helplessness overcame him. It seemed that
his straining lungs could not admit another breath of air, his pounding
heart must burst. Blood was flowing from his nose and he could taste it
in his mouth. Every step on his bleeding, thorn-filled feet was agony.
Despairingly, he turned his head for one fleeting glimpse over his
shoulder.

Still racing on his trail, a dozen of the Blackfeet stretched for half a
mile behind him. Far behind them the rest of the tribe were trotting
slowly along, without hope of the kill but wishing to be in on it. There
was only one very close pursuer. Twenty yards behind, the Indian with
the long slim legs, who had dropped his blanket but was holding his
spear ready, pounded desperately in pursuit. The brave increased his
speed, closing the gap to fifteen yards. It was about over. When the
Blackfoot thought to throw away his spear, he could close the distance.

Colter stopped suddenly, whirling in his tracks and throwing out both
hands. It was a ruse, a last, desperate gamble tried more through
instinct than reason. But it worked. The Indian tried to stop and dodge,
involuntarily reacting to the impulse that bade him watch out for the
weapon that might be cast by this unarmed, naked white man. He stumbled,
tripped on his spear, and fell jerkily to the earth. The spear's wooden
handle splintered. The white man raced toward the fallen brave, snatched
up the broken lance, jabbed it into his pursuer, pulled it out, and
turned to run on.

He had counted on distraction here, and he received it. The following
warriors paused for an instant by the side of their wounded comrade, and
when they resumed the race, Colter was only a few hundred yards from the
Jefferson River. Before they could close with him, he had reached the
bank.

Ahead of him was a small island, whose upper end had caught and held a
tangled debris of floating tree trunks, branches, and weeds. Drawing one
last agonizing breath, he dove into the icy water, and came up beneath
the tumbled mass of driftwood. He clawed his way up through the center
of the wood until he could breathe again, and waited.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Stark naked_, carrying the broken half of spear, John Colter walked
into Fort Raymond eight days later. He paused by the staring clerk, and
gravely dropped the broken spear across the ledger. "Souvenir, Junior,"
he said, and walked on into Lisa's office.

"Hello, Manuel," he croaked. He dropped into the same chair he had
occupied the day they had planned the ill-fated expedition.

Manuel Lisa's questioning black eyes gave the only evidence of his
astonishment. He went to a cupboard and poured out a stiff drink of
brandy. Colter sipped it slowly, feeling warmth flow back into his numb,
stiff body.

"You guessed it, Manuel," he said. "The Blackfeet caught us. Potts is
dead, and all I got left is what you see." He finished the brandy. "But
there's lots of beaver on those little cricks--more'n I thought."

"So-o? And what would you suggest, my frien'?"

"That I go back," John Colter replied shortly. "There's a pile of pelts
cached up there, and plenty more to be took. But we need a fort, I
reckon." Then, as though it were an afterthought, he added, "Some of
them Blackfeet are a mite unfriendly."




[Illustration]

FREIGHT FOR SANTA FE

1833

_While the fur trappers were busy pushing the northwestern frontier
steadily back, and paving the way for the Oregon pioneers who were to
follow them a generation later, an equally hardy breed was performing a
similar service in the southwest. These men were the bullwhackers,
muleteers, and traders who slogged the eight hundred weary miles of the
Santa Fe Trail._

_In the 1820's and 1830's, St. Louis was still the great western trading
center. But steamboats had pushed west, across what is now Missouri, to
the spot where the Missouri River makes its big bend to the north. Here
Independence was built, as the eastern terminus of the Santa Fe trade.
Cotton goods and hardware from New England, brought down the Ohio and up
the Missouri, were freighted by wagon train to the Mexican city of Santa
Fe. Mexico had thrown off the yoke of Spain in 1821, and welcomed both
American trade and settlers to its provinces of New Mexico and Texas.
Thanks to the brawny, sweating bullwhackers who cursed their stubborn
teams over the Santa Fe Trail, the Southwest inevitably became part of
the United States._


A bright, deep-yellow moon hung in the sky, painting roofs of the
scattered houses a startling, unreal silver, and dimming the few oil
lamps that still glowed within the windows. Independence, Missouri, the
terminal point from which the Mexican Santa Fe trade started, was a raw,
sprawling, frontier town, and law-abiding citizens shut themselves in
early.

Ryder Jackson strolled down the board walk that ran along the side of
the dirt road that served as the main street. Moonlight revealed in soft
outline the heavy black hair that covered his head like a mat, the
strong face and square jaw beneath it, the deep chest, and the slim
waist and hips.

"Independence, Missouri," he murmured to himself. "Well, here I am."

The town wasn't much to look at, but at least it lacked the placid,
rural atmosphere of Red Branch, Illinois, the place from which he had
started two months ago. Red Branch was a little country community, where
the farmers came in every Saturday to smoke their pipes and sit on the
steps of the country store. It was all right for those who liked it, but
Ryder Jackson had decided that he didn't. You could hardly turn around
there in these settled times of 1833 without kicking some neighbor's pig
out of the way, or way-ing his cow back home. So he'd sold his farm and
dairy cattle for five hundred dollars in gold, shaken the dust of
Illinois from his restless feet, and hit the trail west. Now here he
was, at the end of the line. He still had his money, but not much idea
of what to do with it, or himself.

He stopped suddenly. Just ahead, in the semi-darkness, a bull whip had
snapped like a pistol shot. An angry yell rolled down the street. Ryder
Jackson edged cautiously forward, letting his jacket fall back so his
knife and revolver would be immediately available. A happy grin played
across his lips. He knew a man was a fool to break in on somebody else's
fight, especially in a strange town. But that was the next best thing if
he couldn't start one of his own. He came to a road that slanted across
the one he was walking, and stopped again.

The bright moon sprayed down into the middle of the dusty road, and its
light at the intersection almost matched that of day. In the center
stood an old man dressed in baggy trousers and a flannel vest. A flowing
beard hung from his cheeks and chin, and uncut hair dangled below his
shoulders. He was short and fat, but when he moved he did so swiftly and
silently. Five other men, gliding shadows in the semigloom that
surrounded the bright patch of moonlight, moved cautiously about the
embattled figure. The old man raised his hand, the long bull whip
cracked again, and one of the lurking men yelled in pain.

Ryder Jackson's grin widened. He always enjoyed watching a real expert
work, and obviously the old codger was a past master of the bull whip.

"Drop the whip, Grandpa!" one of the waiting men yelled. "Drop it and
fight like a man!"

"Come git me, you scum!" the old man rumbled.

"Grandpa Dancer don't dast fight man to man!" another called.

The old man braced his feet and shifted his hold on the whip stock. The
men in the shadows retreated a little, but continued to yell taunts.
Ryder Jackson's eyes narrowed. There was purpose in their retreat, and
in their yelling. While four continued to hold the old man's attention,
another of their number had slipped around and was approaching from
behind. A short knife gleamed in his hand. Jackson made a swift little
run forward, curled an arm about the neck of the knife-wielder, and spun
him about. He cracked his fist against the man's jaw, and watched him
stagger back into the darkness.

Just then, a big collie dog glided in from the shadows to stand beside
the owner of the bull whip.

"Where you been, Alec?" The old man said plaintively to the dog. "Chase
'em out of here!"

The big collie snarled understandingly, and stalked stiffly forward with
his teeth bared. The five men grouped to meet him, then thought better
of it, and melted silently away. Curling the lash of his bull whip, and
catching it in his hand, the old man called back the dog, then turned
to face Ryder Jackson.

"Why horn in on my fight, stranger?" he asked.

"Why--uh--I figure five against one's too many, especially when the
one's an old man----"

"Who you callin' an old man?" the grizzled bullwhacker snapped. "I'll
have you know that Joab Dancer kin fight twenty times as many prairie
dogs as that, even if he is sixty-eight years old."

"My mistake, Grandpa," Jackson said soothingly. "Sorry I spoiled your
fight."

"Pshaw!" Joab Dancer snorted. "'Twouldn't of been much of a fight. But
them scum thought I had tradin' money on me, I reckon."

"Why didn't you tell 'em different?"

"And admit I was scared of 'em? Not me! Say, you're a likely enough
young feller. Where'd you come from, anyhow?"

"Illinois."

"Ow-w!" the old man growled. "You younguns are all fools! I know your
story; you had a good job in Illinois, but it wan't enough for you. You
had to go some place else. I bet you're thinkin' of tradin' into Santy
Fe?"

"Maybe."

"Well, forgit it, and go back to Illinois. Nobody but a be-danged fool
would hit the Santy Fe Trail."

"What do you know about it?"

"What don't I? I started as a bullwhacker four years ago. Now I own two
teams, and am takin' my own wagon this trip, soon's I git goods to fill
it. What's your name, anyhow?"

"Ryder Jackson."

"From now on, you're Ride. Now, Ride, you go back to Illinois, where you
belong."

"Did you ever milk cows?"

"Not me!" Joab Dancer snapped. "And nary I will. Milkin' cows would be
even wuss than whackin' bulls!"

"That's what I think. And I aim to see this Santa Fe Trail. What's wrong
with it?"

"Ain't nothin' right about it," the old man grumbled.

"You made money, didn't you?"

"Yeah, even after the Mexicans has took their hunnert per cent duty, you
kin make six times what you start with. But you earn it, by the time you
chivy a team of oxen eight hunnert miles. Then you come back to
Ind'pendence and start all over agin. You git in a rut. This is my last
trip. Me and my grandson are goin' to buy steers in Santy Fe, and move
to Texas, where we kin jest sit and watch 'em grow."

"I'm still going to do it."

"Now I know you're crazy!" Joab Dancer groaned. "Where's your team and
wagon?"

"Thought I'd buy 'em here."

"You'll buy 'em _here_? What you'll buy is a set of foot-sore oxen, or
wind-broke mules, that couldn't walk from here to Council Grove! And,
when you're done, you won't have the price of trade goods left." The old
man squinted at him thoughtfully. "You got money, eh?"

"Some."

"Whyn't you say so! Well, if you're idjit enough to throw it away, mebbe
I kin help you do it. Least-ways, I won't rob you--much!" Joab cackled
silently, then grew serious. "Looka here. I got a wagon and teams, but I
ain't got enough money for all the trade goods I kin haul. Come along
and bunk down in the wagon. We'll see if we can't make a dicker."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Ryder Jackson_ awoke in the soft light of early dawn. The first thing
of which he became conscious was the white tops of the prairie wagons
that were scattered through a grove of young trees just outside the
town. He sat up and counted them. There were sixty or seventy of the big
cargo wagons and a sprinkling of smaller carts. A few early rising men,
wearing everything from the corduroy coats of city-bred merchants to the
linsey jackets of farmers and the leather hunting shirts of
frontiersmen, walked among the wagons or squatted by cooking fires. The
cool morning breeze brought the smell of smoke and the fragrance of
boiling coffee.

A bull-necked, red-faced man wearing blue jeans crawled out of the back
of the next wagon and bellowed out, "Gus! Gus! Where the blazes is that
man? Hey you, Gus! Come 'er! Who taught you to load a wagon, anyhow? The
way you got it piled, these goods will be a mess afore we git to Council
Grove. Can'cha do nothin' right?"

A squawking rooster leaped from the seat of another wagon and flapped
across the prairie. A lean man dressed only in red underwear set out
after him, and the early risers dropped everything to watch and offer
sarcastic comment.

"Yip-ee!" shouted a frontiersman with a long rifle. "I'll bet twenty
dollars on the rooster!"

"Whyn't you let him go, Red?" a burly bullwhacker shouted. "You
shouldn't ought to steal chickens in Ind'pendence, anyway."

A small brown mustang, with Joab's collie frisking happily beside it,
drew up by the Dancer wagon. The rider was about twenty-three, Jackson's
own age. He was tall and supple, with the softest brown eyes Ryder
Jackson had ever seen on a man. The whimsical curve of his mouth,
beneath the drooping, silken mustache, matched the gentleness of his
eyes. This man seemed as far removed from the hard-bitten bullwhackers
as Red Bank was from Independence. But beneath his gentle appearance was
both physical and mental hardness; he looked as if he could hold his
own. As he swung from his saddle the little brown mustang nibbled his
arm with soft lips.

"You're Ride, aren't you?" he asked in a soft and musical voice.

"That's right."

"Grandpa said to look for you. I'm Carson Dancer."

"Glad to know you. Where is Grandpa?"

"You'd better not call him that," Carson Dancer admonished with a smile.
"I can, because I'm his grandson, but he won't take it from anybody
else. He's gone to Independence to buy goods."

"But I thought he was going to buy _my_ goods this morning."

"He is. He took your money."

Ryder Jackson's hand went to where his money belt had been, and touched
nothing. His face flushed angrily, then a sheepish grin spread over his
face.

"Joab's got light fingers, I'll say that," he admitted ruefully.

"I know you mean no offense," young Dancer laughed. "So I'll take none.
Grandpa figured he'd do better alone. The dealers know better than to
try to cheat him. You haven't got a horse, have you?"

"No. I came by steamboat from St. Louis."

"Grandpa'll get you one. Well, I've got to bring in the stock. You might
be starting breakfast. Grandpa will want to load your stuff as soon as
we eat."

He mounted the little mustang and, with the collie dashing beside him,
rode away. Eight or ten other men were headed in the same direction,
toward the grazing teams. The wagoneers waited expectantly, eating
breakfast or making last-minute inspections and adjustments of their
equipment.

As Ride busied himself with breakfast preparations, a youth with a
scatter gun held awkwardly in his hand strolled slowly past. Jackson
turned to take another look at this tired-looking young man who was
wearing a tall silk hat and a corduroy business suit. His face was thin
and pale, his arms and legs seemed pitifully inadequate to the task of
supporting and assisting the body of a man.

"My name's Dorrance Crispell," the stranger remarked. "You're new here,
aren't you?"

"Just arrived," Jackson grunted. He began to shave kindling with his
knife. "You a preacher?"

Dorrance Crispell shook his head. "Up until a little while ago I was a
school teacher. But my good doctor has exhausted all his resources. He
said that if I cared to live beyond thirty, I'd have to try another
cure. Life on the prairies was recommended."

"I didn't know sick men travelled with caravans."

"There's more than one of us with this one. I have already met and
talked with five who are making the trip, in hopes of ridding themselves
of mortal ills."

"Well, I hope you do it." As he dumped coffee in the pot, Ryder Jackson
reflected that the Santa Fe Trail would be strong medicine for this
frail youth.

Dorrance Crispell shrugged. "It's a last chance. And, even if we gain no
benefits, this will be a last adventure in living. I've read all
available records of the Santa Fe trade, and it really is adventurous.
Did you know that Captain Zebulon Pike visited both Taos and Santa Fe
over twenty-five years ago, and that his excited reports of possible
trade with the Spaniards really started all this?"

Ride began to slice bacon. "No. I thought it began after Mexico threw
out the Spanish."

"It's true that it didn't amount to much until then. Spain didn't
encourage it, and the first traders were even jailed--for nine years.
But after Mexico declared its independence, in 1821, Captain Becknell
blazed the route directly across the desert, and thirst killed nearly
all his party. It's still very dangerous in spots, I believe."

"Is it true that the Mexicans will give land in Texas to the Americans?"

Crispell nodded. "The Mexicans want both American trade and settlers.
They passed an act in 1825, giving acreage and other privileges to
Americans who want to settle. It's said that there are at least twenty
thousand Americans there now, and that Mexico is beginning to regret its
offers."

"How's that?"

"The settlers do not look kindly upon Mexican rulers, and there's even
talk that they may try to throw off Mexico, as Mexico threw off Spain."

"Do you think they will?"

Dorrance Crispell shrugged. "I do not pretend to wear a prophet's cap.
But Texas is not dependent on Mexico. Almost everything the colonists
need--or Mexico itself needs, for that matter--comes from the States.
Texas is a vast country, hard to govern. Mexico is weak ..." He gave a
tired smile. "Two and two usually make four."

He wandered off, leaving the dissatisfied Illinois farmer staring into
space. Texas was vast ... no neighbors crowding you. Trade already
established with the States ... a market for beef cattle, that didn't
have to be milked, or babied ...

"Here come the bulls!"

Ryder Jackson turned to see a great herd of milling, lowing oxen
approach the wagons. The horsemen rode among them, breaking the herd
into small groups and in turn breaking those up. Some of the oxen,
trained, submitted without protest to the yoke, and within twenty
minutes after the herd first appeared two lumbering wagons were already
rolling westward. But at least half the herd were either untrained or
unsubmissive. Sweating, swearing bullwhackers went among them, and the
cracking of their whips sounded constantly as they sought out the
animals that belonged to them.

One by one the big wagons trundled off across the prairie. They would
all stop at Council Grove, some ten or eleven days' journey to the west,
and the caravan would organize there. No hostile Indians ever came
farther east than Council Grove, and until they passed that point it was
not necessary for the wagons to band together for protection.

Driving sixteen huge black oxen, Carson Dancer came up on his brown
mustang. As he swung off his horse, the biggest ox, evidently the leader
of the group, broke back through the trees. The rest began to follow.

"Get 'em, Alec," Carson ordered.

The big collie's tail streamed behind him as he leaped happily away to
the head of the fleeing animals. He jumped at the nose of the lead ox,
and snapped his teeth together. The ox halted, head down and front hoof
pawing the earth as he rumbled angrily. Alec dashed around and nipped
his heels. The ox turned, and started running again. But always the
trained dog was at his head or heels, barking, nipping, and worrying.
Finally the sixteen bewildered oxen were brought into a compact little
herd.

"Hold 'em, Alec."

Ryder Jackson looked at the animals with an expert's eye. All were big,
strong, and in the best of condition. He said so, admiringly.

"None better," Carson agreed. "Most of them have made the trip
before ... Here's Grandpa now."

Joab Dancer was riding a big-boned bay. Tied by the bridle reins, a neat
little black mare walked behind it. The old man drew up beside them, and
indicated the extra mount.

"She's yours, Ride. Let's see you live up to your name." He winked at
his grandson.

Ryder Jackson swung into the saddle, and the little mare went into a
vicious pitch that almost unseated him. But he rode her to a sweating
standstill, and the Dancers looked at each other with approval.

       *       *       *       *       *

_They started west_ in company with four other wagons, three of which
were drawn by oxen and one by mules. Some of the loose stock, which
would be called into service when those pulling the wagons became
footsore, tired, or lost, had gone on in a herd attended by four riders.
But some wagons preferred to take their alternate stock with them. The
watchful Alec was herding their own oxen and two extra saddle horses.

Mounting the little mare, Ryder Jackson rode ahead up the trail. He
overtook a few wagons, whose drivers waved at him as he rode by. But
there was, so far, nothing of interest to be seen, and after a couple of
hours he rode back. Carson Dancer had tied his brown mustang to the
tailboard and was sleeping inside the wagon. With his bull whip
cracking at regular intervals, old Joab was walking beside the placid
oxen. Ryder dismounted, looped the little mare's reins over his
shoulder, and walked along beside Joab.

"Nothing much up the trail," he reported.

"You'll git used to that," the old man grunted. "Ain't nothin' much
'twixt here and Santy Fe, neither--barrin' buffalo wallows, dust,
rivers, snakes, mudholes, stampedes, rain, hail----"

"Hail, on the prairie?"

"Big as eggs. And I forgot lightnin'. Why, when you git a real prairie
storm, with rain comin' down like a solid thing, and lightnin' strikin'
all around, you don't dast to stand up for fear of gittin' hit by
lightnin', and you don't dast to lie down for fear of gettin' drownded."

"How about Indians?"

"They ain't nothin' much. Oh, now'n agin you'll meet a party of Pawnees,
or Gros Ventres, or some other heathen tribe. But it's skassly ever they
fight, 'specially if you let 'em know you're ready for 'em. I suspicion
there ain't been a dozen men kilt by Injuns on this trail in the last
two-three years."

"Not much excitement, eh?"

"Naw. Same old thing year after year. Like I told you, this is my last
trip; then I'm headin' for the Texas country. There's grass down there
as is greener than green. A man could stake out a little piece, say as
much as he could ride across in a couple or four days, get hisself a
passel of cattle, and really start livin'. And, when I do git down
there, I ain't never gonna look at another ox as long as I live."

"Why don't you drive mules, if you don't like oxen?"

"One's bad as 'tother," Joab answered sourly. "Four span of oxen'll pull
heavier loads than four of mules, and they'll eat forage mules won't
touch, once the grass gits high enough for 'em to git aholt of. But
they're tarnal slow, and they got no sense, and they git sore feet easy.
Both oxen and mules must of been put on earth 'specially to plague
anybody fool enough to try to drive 'em. It's a bothersome business!
Until we git in buffalo country we won't even be able to eat nothin' but
dry grub."

"What supplies are we carrying?"

"For you, Carson, and me, there's a hunnert and fifty pounds of flour,
the same of bacon, thirty of coffee, 'bout fifty of sugar, and a sack of
salt. Some people takes real delicate stuff like crackers and beans. But
they ain't fitten for a freighter's stummak. Sowbelly and biscuit's what
his innards is used to."

The whip cracked, expertly flicking into the side of the off lead ox.
Without changing pace, the lumbering beast strained a little harder into
its yoke. Joab's forceful words, expressly designed for oxen, followed
the crack of the whip. The team pulled harder.

They camped that night near the upper reaches of Cedar Creek. A man
named Slaughter, who had volunteered as cook, stirred up a savory mess
of bacon, flour, and a few pounds of beans that somebody threw into the
pot. Each man scooped a skillet full and sat on the grass while he ate
with his fingers. The simple meal was washed down with numerous cups of
scalding black coffee.

After supper a drizzling, cold rain started. The stock, turned loose to
graze, struck toward a distant grove of trees. Old Joab Dancer watched
them contemptuously.

"Goldarn critters allus do that," he observed in disgust. "They ain't
got the sense of a bumblebee--at least a bee knows enough to come home
once in a while. We'll have to be out a couple of weeks afore them fool
things learn to stick near the wagons. Then you can't chase 'em off.
Well, let's git under cover--we won't need a night watch until we git to
Council Grove."

They crawled under the wagon's hood, spread their blankets on top of the
trade goods, and listened to the steady patter of the rain. As usual,
Joab was pessimistic.

"Hope this rain stops," he grumbled. "If it don't, somebody's sure to
git bogged down in Cedar Crick." He tossed and turned, trying to make
himself comfortable. "Doggone it, Carson, you put all the cotton goods
on your side, and packed the tinware right where I got to lie on it.
What do them Mexicans do with all these pots and pans, anyway?"

"Don't worry, Grandpa," came the gentle voice. "The first time the team
runs away, they'll shake it down for you."

Ryder Jackson smiled to himself in the darkness. He'd left Red Branch
because it was too crowded, and now he was jammed in an oversize
peddler's cart, like a doll in a bureau drawer ...

       *       *       *       *       *

_In the cold_, dim light of early morning the wagon rolled on, past the
trees known as the Round Grove, and into the bottom land of Cedar Creek.
Slaughter, driving the lead wagon, came back along the line, snapping
the lash of his whip in the air as he walked.

"Bogged down in a right smart way," he announced cheerfully. "How about
double-teamin'?"

"I told you," Joab groaned, stopping his team.

Ryder Jackson looped the reins of his black mare over a peg on the
tailboard and walked up to the mired wagon. It was in to the hubs.
Slaughter's oxen were blowing and heaving from the mighty efforts they
had made to drag it out, and Slaughter himself was mud to his knees.
Joab Dancer drove his eight big blacks in ahead of the bogged team,
hitched them, and stood back. He cracked his bull whip.

"Hi! Gee up!"

The ponderous beasts strained against the yokes, almost sinking to their
knees as they strove with every ounce of brawn and muscle to move the
wagon. It rolled forward, then settled back. Jackson waded into the
mudhole, grasped two spokes of a hind wheel, and strove to turn it
forward. Carson Dancer took the other hind wheel, and Slaughter and a
man named Maloney were on the front. The whip cracked again.

"Gee up there! Move that wagon! Step into those yokes! Buck! Bright!
Dandy! Black!"

Again the linked teams strove, but the wagon barely moved. The popping
of Joab's whip sounded constantly, and the oxen tossed their heads and
thrust their tongues out. With a sudden, lunging heave the wagon came
out of the mud and rolled onto dry, firm ground. But one of the
following wagons had to be doubled through, and a mile farther on was
another quagmire where three teams had to be used. On they went,
crossing streams, mudholes, and endless rolling hillocks. On the
eleventh day they came to Council Grove.

Some of the wagons, drawn by fleet mules, had been there several days,
and their owners had established comfortable camps among the rich
groves lining the creek bottom. As the late-comers arrived, those with
faster wagons lined up to offer unsolicited advice.

"Well, well! Do you s'pose he could be goin' to Santy Fe?"

"I dunno. If he figgers on gittin' there, he better put them little
oxies in the wagon and pull it hisself!"

And, as the late arrivals came, they in turn jeered at those who were
even later. It was evening of the following day before the final wagon,
drawn by eight already footsore oxen, came in to camp. The
red-underweared man who had chased the rooster back at Independence went
about taking count.

"Where's Otterson?" he demanded of the last arrival.

"Why, does he owe you money?" the weary driver inquired tartly.

"Don't git smart! As probable captain of this caravan I won't put up
with it. I'll have you know----"

"You ain't been elected yet," the driver said sourly. "And, when you
might be, you kin take a long jump into the clostest dust pile, far's I
care. But if it's goin' to make you sleep any better, Otterson's turned
back. He's goin' to sell his team, wagon, and load to the next damn fool
who wants to go tradin', and head for Texas on horseback. Wish I could!"

Ryder and Carson had unyoked the oxen, turning the big black beasts out
with the grazing herd. Alec would watch his charges critically, and it
was quicker to let him cut out the team than it was to try to do it with
a horse. The Dancer stock always grazed with one eye ready for the
collie, and started for the wagon as soon as he appeared. But many of
the oxen were grazing yoked together. They were the wild ones, those
which even yet had not been broken. It was far easier to leave the yokes
on them than it was to beat the big brutes into submission every time
they were needed.

Carson Dancer climbed into the wagon, and emerged with two axes and an
adze. He held one out.

"Come on, Ride."

"What's up?"

"There's no more wood fit for wagon repairs between here and Santa Fe.
We always cut it at Council Grove, and carry it along with us. Of
course, Grandpa gets out of the axe work whenever he can. He claims it's
squaw work, but I think he's just lazy." He looked straight at old Joab,
sitting comfortably in the shade of the wagon, and grinned.

"Git that wood cut, you young whippersnappers!" old Joab growled. "And
see that there ain't no knots in it!"

They went down to the creek bottom, where other men were at work, and
felled a tall, straight tree. After trimming the branches, they cut the
trunk into two equal lengths, and squared them with the adze.

A blue-denimed ex-farmer nearby eyed them approvingly. "Ye can use an
axe," he admitted, with a nasal New England twang. "There's no sense
catchin' up a team to drag your logs, boys. I got a span of mules here,
all harnessed."

"Thanks," said Carson gratefully. "I'll remember this, when we get to
buffalo country."

The team of mules was hitched to the logs, and they were dragged to the
Dancer wagon. With one lifting on either end, they hoisted the logs into
place and chained them underneath the wagon. They might ride all the way
to Santa Fe without being needed. But they would be worth their weight
in trade goods if an axle or whiffletree cracked. A broken wagon
couldn't travel.

The sudden rattle of a stick beating on a tin pan sounded above the
noises of the camp, and they looked toward the source, to see the
red-underweared man standing on the tailboard of his wagon.

"Come close!" he bellowed. "Come up real close! We got to organize!"

Slowly, drawn by the magnet of the summoning voice, the wagoneers
drifted in. For a moment no one spoke, and the red-underweared man
smiled ingratiatingly. He cleared his throat.

"Now, what about the captain of this here caravan----?"

"Not you!" a weather-beaten bullwhacker snorted. "You couldn't be cap'n
of a toy boat!"

"Is that so?" The red-underweared man's voice rose to a high pitch.
"I'll have you know I've----"

The stocky bullwhacker mounted the wagon, unceremoniously thrust the
other aside, and looked around. He pointed the stock of his whip at old
Joab Dancer.

"How about it, Joab?"

"I ain't honin' to be cap'n," the old man said positively. "Take it
yourself, Billy Marsh."

"I don't want it neither."

"Aw, come on, Bill," a mule driver said, and others picked up the cry.
"Come on, Bill, we want you." "Take it, Bill."

The weather-beaten bullwhacker looked around, an expression of distaste
on his face. "Wal, somebody's gotta be it. Anybody as don't want me fer
cap'n, speak up now."

Nobody spoke. The bullwhacker sighed, and pulled at his whiskers.

"All right; I'm cap'n. As usual, we'll have four parts to this here
wagon train. You, Joab Dancer--an' I don't give a hoot if you don't like
it--are in charge of them sixteen wagons nearest you. You, Tommy Malone,
Greg Hartman, an' Al Garbaugh, take the wagons nearest you an' make up
your sections. Everybody with a wagon list the men an' goods you carry
with your lieutenant. Two men in each section to roussle the guards out.
Everybody does guard duty, turn an' turn about, beginnin' tomorra night.
In the mornin' we'll leave in this order: first, Al's section, then
Joab's, then Tommy's, then Greg's. Git some sleep."

As usual on clear nights, they slept under the wagon. They were awake in
the first dim, wan light of early morning, and gathered at the cooking
pot which the tireless Slaughter had ready. They had scarcely finished
breakfast when the call came from the captain's wagon, "Catch up!"

"Go get 'em, Alec," Joab ordered.

The big collie raced happily off, and returned driving the black oxen
ahead of him. A cursing muleteer, struggling with a stubborn brute that
braced its feet and refused to move, looked enviously at him.

"I'll trade a good span of mules for that dog," he offered.

"Huh," Joab Dancer snorted. "You could toss in your wagon and its load,
and still not have enough."

Other teamsters were pursuing running beasts through the camp, swearing,
sweating, and yelling. The jingle of harness chains mingled with the
rattle of yokes and the creak of wagons, all punctuated by constant
shouts. Finally the last vicious mule and the final stubborn ox had been
subdued, and the caravan was ready to start.

"All set?" came the call from the captain's wagon.

"All set!" the various section leaders bellowed back.

"Stretch out fer Santy Fe!"

       *       *       *       *       *

_By the time_ they had reached the Arkansas River, their most difficult
crossing, the caravan was well organized. Since they were now in Indian
country, the long, snake-like line of the wagon train had been broken
into a more compact arrangement of four parallel columns, one section to
a column. To equalize the hardships of plodding through dust clouds or
mudholes churned up by the wagons ahead, the lead wagon for each day
dropped to the rear of the column the next day, to work its slow way up
through the procession again. Every night, the wagons were drawn up in a
protective square, and the section leaders appointed night watches, turn
and turn about.

Late in the afternoon they drew up at the north bank of the Arkansas,
and after consultation with his lieutenants, Captain Marsh decided to
make the crossing that night. There was not only the danger of a night
rain swelling the river, but teams always pulled better when they were
warmed up. If they waited until morning, the wagons would have to take a
turn around the prairie, to give the teams a "hot collar" before
crossing, which would waste time.

The river was here about half a mile wide, with a sandy bottom and a
broad, smoothly flowing current. Its brown surface was broken by sand
bars and low, reed-covered islands, but the flowing water was so full of
sand and silt that the bottom could nowhere be seen. While loads were
readjusted to keep perishable goods high in the wagons, horsemen were
sent ahead to test the ford for quicksand, and to stick willow poles in
the sand bars that marked the best route.

"Lock your wheels goin' down the high banks," Marsh told his
lieutenants, "an' double-team the heaviest wagons. We'll start here, an'
quarter downstream, so's the wagons won't git hit broadside by the
current. Watch out fer quicksand--_an' keep the wagons movin'_!"

Ryder Jackson watched the leading wagon, drawn by six span of tough,
wiry mules, slide down the five-foot bank. As it plunged into the river,
the wheel span was pulled under the water. But the four leading span had
found firm footing, and the wagon lurched ahead, the wheel mules blowing
and thrashing as they came to the surface. One by one the following
wagons bumped and splashed after them, until a long, irregular line
stretched diagonally across the river. Horsemen rode or swam back and
forth, shouting, cursing, prodding, encouraging. Several wagons were
caught in quicksand, but only one could not be extricated. As its
short-legged oxen gave up the struggle one after another, team and wagon
sank from sight inch by inch, while horsemen and wagoneers milled
helplessly about. Half a dozen wagons were overturned, and much of their
precious cargo swept downstream. But the Dancer wagon, thanks to old
Joab's expert handling and the power of his big blacks, came through
without a mishap.

[Illustration]

As the wagons straggled up the south bank, the first section drew up at
right angles to the line of march. The next section continued straight,
but stopped to make a long wing on the wagons already halted. The third
division swung to form another wing, and the final wagons closed the
gap. When finished, the "formed" wagons made a rectangular enclosure
which might be defended in the event of an Indian attack. The oxen and
mules, some of which were still yoked, were permitted to graze for a
while on the open prairie, then driven into the enclosure through an
opening left at one corner. But nothing was heard that night except the
heavy breathing of exhausted animals, the snores of tired men, and the
distant howling of wolves.

They went on the next day, trundling over the flat plains, and the
constant popping of rifles and pistols bespoke the efforts of those up
ahead who were trying to clear rattlesnakes out of the line of march. It
was shortly after eleven o'clock when Carson Dancer rode up on his brown
mustang, much excited, and pointed across the prairie.

Ryder Jackson followed his gaze. There, about a quarter of a mile away,
a hundred or more buffalo were grazing on the short prairie grass. Ryder
stole a glance at Carson Dancer. The other's eyes were alight, and his
face glowing with excitement.

"Buffalo!" he said. "Now we'll have some fun!"

Riding up to the rear of the wagon, he reached in and pulled his rifle
from its resting place under the bows of the hood. Then he touched his
heels to the brown mustang's side, and the little horse was away. Almost
at the same moment, four other riders cut from the caravan and bore down
on the lumbering, shaggy beasts.

Ryder loosened his pistol in its holster and galloped after him. The
wind fanned his cheek, and a surge of pure delight travelled up and down
his spine. This was life. This was excitement. This, as Carson Dancer
had said, was the best part of trading into Santa Fe. Another rider on a
steel-gray horse drew up beside him, and stayed there. But Jackson was
watching Carson Dancer, the buffalo hunter.

Joab's grandson clung to the brown mustang's back so closely and so
tightly that horseman and mount seemed one. Far ahead of the rest, they
pressed close on the heels of the running buffalo. There came the faint
crack of a rifle, and for a moment a swirl of dust hid the hunter. Ryder
spurred his mare.

The dust lifted, and he saw that Carson had turned the running buffalo.
The big beasts were quartering across the other horsemen now, running
fast, with heads low and tails erect. But beside the leaders was the
brown mustang, running with free reins while his owner held his rifle
ready.

Ryder Jackson was vaguely aware of the man on the steel-gray horse,
still beside him. He spurred the little black mare, and drew the pistol
from its holster.

Suddenly a single tremendous bull cut from the herd, shaggy head
swinging and red eyes rolling. Head down, he charged straight at the two
horsemen. The steel-gray squealed and reared, while its rider fought
desperately with both hands to control it. Wild with fright, the horse
plunged and bucked. The shaggy bull was almost upon it now, preparing
for the upward thrust that would disembowel the horse.

[Illustration]

Ryder Jackson spurred the mare around to the side and shot once. The
buffalo seemed to hesitate and change pace, then bored in again. At that
moment Carson's mustang streaked past the mare, and Ryder heard the
crack of a rifle and the flat slap of a bullet striking flesh. The
buffalo took two staggering steps, its legs buckled, and it rolled
completely over by its own momentum.

The steel-gray calmed down, and for the first time Jackson looked at the
lean, tanned man who rode it. It was Dorrance Crispell, the former
invalid. He grinned across at Ryder.

"Nice shot," he said.

The brown mustang was already closing in on the herd again.

       *       *       *       *       *

_The caravan went on_, day after day, into the country that was
variously called New Mexico or Texas. Double or even triple-teaming,
they crossed more rivers and flooded creeks and stretches filled with
treacherous buffalo wallows. They plodded over the hot, dry desert. They
rolled over endless green hillocks splashed with mountain pink,
spiderwort, and larkspur. They fought their way mile by mile over the
plains, disturbing the buffalo, wild mustangs, prairie dogs, antelope,
and rattlesnakes which, until white men saw fit to come this way, had
held undisputed sway over these wild regions. Stopping two or three
hours at midday to let the animals graze, forming their protective
square at night, they travelled steadily southwest.

Ryder Jackson became bored by the slow monotony of the creaking wagons,
but as day followed day in endless procession, the land laid its spell
on him. The empty green earth and the empty blue sky satisfied a craving
for spacious freedom that he had never fully understood before. At
night, even the stars seemed bigger and more widely spaced. Room ...
room ... limitless room ...

       *       *       *       *       *

_They were in_ the rolling hill country of the upper Pecos River when
the Dancers' off lead ox was bitten by a rattler and had to be shot.

"Golblamed things!" old Joab sputtered, his face purple. "They ain't got
no sense. Allus breakin' a leg or runnin' away or gittin' bit! Golblamed
things!"

He strode up and down beside the dead ox, snapping his whip viciously.

"Now, Grandpa," said Carson mildly, "that's the first ox we've lost, and
you know it. I'll go cut another from the loose stock, and we'll be
hitched in no time."

He did, but by the time the substitution had been made, the last wagon
of the caravan was a mile ahead. It was then that Ryder Jackson saw the
Indians.

Apparently rising from the ground, they came flowing over a little
hillock, leaning over their horses' necks as they swept forward.

Joab cracked the bull whip again and again, sending the long lash
flicking sharply into the backs of the oxen as he strove to make them
run. At the same time Carson pulled his rifle from the wagon and fired a
hasty shot. The Indians were too far away to hit, but the report might
warn the wagon train.

The Indians swerved, breaking their tight formation and racing along on
a course parallel to the wagon's. An arrow soared out, imbedded itself
in the rump of an ox, and the wounded animal lunged forward. Then the
team really began to run. From his jouncing, swaying wagon seat, Joab
used his whip continuously on the straining oxen. Ryder and Carson rode
alongside, prodding the beasts into still greater activity.

The Indians changed their tactics again, rushing closer now and
shooting. Arrows thudded into the side of the wagon, and another ox was
hit. If they were able to cripple the team before it could reach the
safety of the wagon train, they could loot the wagon. But they would
have to work fast. The caravan had formed up, and the Dancer wagon was
travelling as fast as sixteen terrified oxen could run.

Carson's rifle cracked again, and an Indian's horse crumpled, throwing
its rider twenty feet through the air.

"Keep workin' 'em!" he shouted to Joab. "We're nearly there!"

The old man needed no urging. He was standing up now, wielding his whip
like a Roman chariot driver. The running oxen reached the square, and
raced into the hole that had been left open for them. As they went
through, the left hind wheel hooked into the next wagon, tearing off the
wheel and dropping the wagon box to the ground so hard that Joab was
thrown off his precarious perch. But the off-balance wagon slowed the
oxen, and brawny wagoneers had them under control before the old man
could catch his breath enough to curse.

Then another horde of mounted Indians, so many that they seemed to pop
up like blades of grass, swept over the rise. A few rifles cracked from
among them, and a volley of misdirected arrows fell far short. The word
of the wagon train's captain was passed down the line.

"Shoot when I give the order!"

But nobody paid any attention to him. They were hard-headed men, rugged
individuals, each of whom had property to defend and each of whom was
capable of defending it. And, to every wagoneer, his own method was by
far the best. A variety of conflicting orders went down the line.

"Let 'em have it!" "Hold your fire!" "Charge 'em!" "Stay here!" A
nervous trader fired, and a scattered volley of shots followed.

The advancing Indians stopped short, then began to retreat. A few
lingered within sight of the caravan, but the majority disappeared as
suddenly as they had come.

Inside the formed square a tethered horse snorted, and pulled back on
its tie-rope. The rest of the animals were uneasy, milling about within
the enclosure. One sweating teamster grasped the tether rope trailing
from the bridle of a wheel mule and yanked it up short. The mule braced
its feet, and strained in the other direction. A passing bullwhacker
lashed the stubborn beast's rump with his whip, and the mule's heels
flew into the air. Rearing and bucking, he was finally led to the wagon
and harnessed. Similar scenes were taking place all through the
embattled square. A horse screamed. There sounded the steady thud-thud
of the frightened mule's hooves as it steadily kicked the wagon to which
it was tied. But several minutes passed before someone shouted, "I smell
smoke! They're goin' to burn us out!"

Ryder Jackson became vaguely conscious of smoke in his nostrils, and he
squinted against the breeze as he strove to see it. Then it appeared, a
light blue, snake-like thing that curled above the top of the hill and
slowly crept down it.

The oxen stood stupidly, with hanging heads. But the horses and mules
were panicky now, rearing and plunging as they sought to get away from
this unknown new terror that was stalking them. Men ran among them,
catching tie-ropes and snubbing them short to wagon wheels.

"Who's got plows?" the captain's voice bellowed above the confusion.
"Git 'em out an' git a trench dug! Garbaugh, your section back-fire this
side of the trench. Hartman's section, look after the stock. The rest of
you stand guard right here!"

In spite of the initial attitude of every man for himself, the weeks of
organization and the captain's bull-like voice had their effect. The
steadiest mules were hitched to bright new trade plows, and driven
through holes in the defensive square. Back and forth, through the
approaching smoke, they made a widening path of turned earth. On the
near side of the path fires were started and allowed to burn over small,
controlled areas. By the time the prairie fire reached the plowed safety
strip, plowmen and firemen were back in the square, on the alert. But no
Indians were to be seen except a few disappointed watchers in the
distance.

Smoke was everywhere now, and the rearing, kicking animals needed
constant attention. There was a moment's searing heat, then a great
crackling and hissing as the fire reached the plowed furrows and burned
itself out.

Through the settling smoke, Ryder Jackson saw three mounted Indians
riding over the horizon. But in his mind's eye the horsemen were not
red, but white, and he was one of them. Carson and Joab Dancer and Ride
Jackson had hit the long, hard trail to Santa Fe, had put up with and
conquered everything that had tried to stop them. In a few days the
wagon train would reach Santa Fe, and trade its goods. And then...?

Then three would ride to Texas.




[Illustration]

END OF THE TRAIL

1844

_While Texas was winning her freedom and becoming a state, Independence
had become the terminus of another great overland route. In 1841 the
first wagon train of emigrants set out over the Oregon Trail. From
Independence this trail led up the North Platte, crossed the mountains
through South Pass, and wound on to the Snake River in what is now
Idaho. Here it split, northwest for Oregon, southwest for California._

_The "Great Emigration" of the 1840's was made possible by the fur
traders and trappers who had first blazed the trails and then, when
beaver hats went out of fashion and the demand for furs fell off, turned
guides for the wagon trains. These mountain men--Kit Carson, Jim
Bridger, Jedediah Smith, Tom Fitzpatrick, Jim Clyman, and the rest--were
the last great group of Americans who lived their lives in the
wilderness. Their knowledge and resourcefulness completed the long trek
from ocean to ocean. The job was done. They had come to the end of the
trail._

_So, in 1844, twenty years after he and Jed Smith and Tom Fitzpatrick
had first discovered South Pass, old Jim Clyman saddled his horse at
Fort Bridger and set out for the west again...._


They lay together by the trail, a broken axle, a dead ox, and an
elaborately carved chest of drawers filled with household goods. Jim
Clyman swung off his horse to examine them. The little brown dog that
had been running beside him edged curiously up to sniff at the ox, and
the horse blew through its nostrils. Jim Clyman reached up with his left
hand to scratch the gray stubble on his chin. He looked westward, where
the ominous spears that were the peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains
arched endlessly to reach the sky, and studied the nest of clouds that
were gathering over them. A broken axle, a dead ox, and a chest of
drawers.... The little brown dog wagged up to him, and Jim Clyman spoke
as he would have to a man.

"There's gonna be trouble ahead, Bub."

The brown spaniel reared with both front paws against his master's
thigh, and shoved his nose into the cupped hand. The old mountain man
stroked the dog's ears absently, and spat into the rutted trail. There
was going to be trouble, sure enough, although not this time from the
Indians. The Arikaras, Arapahoes, and Blackfeet had been tamed back in
the early twenties, when the mountain men and the trappers had been the
only ones to hit the trails west of the Missouri. Tenderfeet now
travelled those paths which the feet--and the blood--of the mountain men
had marked. Now tenderfeet needn't fear the Indians--anyhow, not very
much. But they didn't take into proper account the much more savage
enemies of mountains and distance and weather with which they had to
cope in this year of 1844, when every tenderfoot, all his brothers and
sisters, sons and daughters, uncles, aunts, and grandparents seemed to
be either on the way to California or Oregon, or obsessed with the idea
that they must soon start.

A broken axle, a dead ox, and a chest of drawers filled with household
goods....

Jim Clyman spat again into the rut, and did some thinking. There had
been six wagons in this party ahead of him when he left Fort Bridger,
back in Wyoming. Their trail had freshened considerably just after he
left the Humboldt Sink. Now five of them had gone on, and might already
be over the divide above Truckee Lake. The sixth had broken down, its
occupants had taken time out to make another axle, and the cow that had
been tied to the back of the wagon had been yoked in to take the dead
ox's place. The team that now pulled this wagon was a very tired one.
Women, Jim Clyman reflected, would hang on to their household goods
until the last gasp. They'd keep the chest unless it just had to be
thrown out so the wagon could be lightened and half-dead cattle could
still stagger on toward the land of promise, the milk-and-honey land of
California.

The old mountain man looped the horse's reins over his arm and started
to walk along the trail, his eyes on the ground. Trotting placidly
beside him, the little brown dog waved his tail and gave all his
attention to snuffling through the rut in which he walked.

The long trail to the promised land, Jim Clyman thought, was surely
marked with heartache. The path taken by these people was strewn with
dead oxen, and graves, and broken wagons, and chests and tools, clear
back to the old homes from which they had come. Why did they start? Why
did they get themselves a yoke of oxen or a team of mules and a covered
wagon, cast everything else aside, and hit the long stretch clear to the
west? Jim Clyman answered his own question aloud.

"I know why, Bub," he said to the dog.

Back in New England homesteads, while battling their way through drifts
to feed cattle, men thought of perpetually green fields where cattle
could graze all winter. Or, while guiding a plow through stubborn,
rock-strewn earth, they dreamed of soft black soil where plows never
bucked. Or women in storm-lashed prairie huts conjured up images of
flowers blooming at Christmas, of zephyr-soft breezes instead of
blizzards. The west was a rich and sunny land where every woman was a
queen and every man a king. It was thus that these people had talked to
themselves and, talking, convinced themselves that they should go to
Oregon or California. But they were deluding themselves and they knew
it. Deep in their hearts they were aware that they had to go west for
the same reason that Columbus had to sail for America. All about was
sameness, and unchanging ideas, and routine, and satisfied people who
were content to cope with the world they knew. But if there was
something new to discover, an opportunity to be seized, a challenge to
be met, _they_ wanted to do it.

"That's the answer, Bub," Jim Clyman said.

He sighed and mounted his horse. People who blindly obeyed a beckoning
finger that bent in their direction were always getting into messes, and
this was going to be a bad one if somebody didn't come along to get them
out. There were two men, a woman, and two children with the wagon ahead,
and they were walking. He had found out that much while he studied their
trail. Again he looked at the piled masses of clouds over the mountains,
and shook his head.

It was a long, cruel trail that the immigrants had followed. Along it
many a man, woman, and child, bereft of their own horses or wagon, had
been refused permission to use someone else's. They had had to walk, and
it was a singular thing that they had nearly always walked toward the
magic lodestone that drew them to the west. They had walked until they
died--except for those very few who had walked clear to California. But
all the luck in the world had been on the side of those who had finally
made it.

And the cruellest part of the entire trail was the divide above Truckee
Lake. It was only a year ago that Jim Clyman had helped another train of
six wagons get over it. They had hitched four span of oxen to a single
wagon, and they had strained up the slope until some of them had died
from the terrific strain. Other oxen had been brought to replace the
dead ones, and behind the wagon men and women had pushed. But that had
been a train with oxen to spare, and no snow had yet fallen on the
slopes.

Jim Clyman spurred his horse, and the animal broke into a little trot.
His old friend, Caleb Greenwood, had been guiding that other train. Most
of the mountain men, now that it was no longer profitable to trap
beaver, guided immigrants on the California or Oregon Trail. Caleb had
been seventy-nine last year, but after they had finally come down from
the mountains he had taken his gun and gone back up to get himself a
mess of bear meat. The mush-and-milk food of the wagons, he had said,
had run him down seriously. Jim Clyman smiled in recollection.

A day and a half later he rode his horse into Truckee Meadows and saw
what he had known he would see there.

       *       *       *       *       *

_A fifteen-year-old boy_, dressed in homespun and carrying a rifle,
turned to stand beside the trail when he heard the horse. The little
brown spaniel padded forward to meet him, and the boy stretched out a
hand to stroke the dog's ears. The mountain man reined in his horse and
dismounted.

"Howdy, Son. My name's Jim Clyman."

The boy tossed back his head, to fling the long, straight hair out of
his eyes, and continued to tickle the dog's ears.

"I'm Nathan Parker," he said. "I'm afraid you're in a bad way, Mr.
Clyman."

"So?"

"You can't get over the divide. We tried it. We drove the three oxen and
the cow up ahead of us to break a path. But the snow's too deep to go
on. We stayed on the slope all night, and it snowed. The next morning we
couldn't go on at all. We had to come back down and build a camp to
spend the winter in."

"What happened to the oxen and cow?"

"We got the cow back down--she hadn't been hitched for a long pull. But
the oxen died right there in the snow, and are all covered up now."

Jim Clyman writhed inwardly. You could always trust a tenderfoot to get
himself into trouble, and then to make it worse with his own
foolishness. A mountain man, knowing the divide to be snowed under,
never would have taken the oxen up in the first place. A party aiming to
winter had to have food, and the weather-wise game had already gone
from these heights. Three oxen would have lasted five people for a long
time. But they were gone, and there was only the cow left.

"Got any grub in your wagon, Nate?" he asked.

"Not very much." The boy flushed with pleasure. A man, evidently one who
understood this country, had called him Nate and was asking him
questions. "All we got is just a little flour and beans, and Mr.
Cressman's got those."

"Who's Mr. Cressman?"

"The man travellin' with us. It was really his flour. He owns the cow,
too."

"Looks like Mr. Cressman aims to have vittles for a spell," Jim Clyman
muttered. "Who else is along?"

"My Uncle George and Aunt Kate--their name's Parker, too. Uncle George
is out huntin'. Then there's my little cousin, Ann. She's almost four.
Are you goin' to stay with us?"

"I dunno just what's to be done, Sonny. S'pose we toss a stick in the
air and see how she lands? I got a few blocks of pemmican in my saddle
bags, and it looks like we're goin' to need 'em."

They walked together up the trail, the little brown dog frisking ahead
of them. A cold blast of air surged down from the top of the mountains.
A few scattered flakes of snow trailed on the wings of the wind, and the
angry brood of clouds glowered at them. Jim Clyman smelled wood smoke,
and a moment later they came within sight of a broken-down wagon and
two brush tepees built at the base of a huge pine. Beside one of the
shelters hung the freshly butchered carcass of the cow.

"I'll bet that'll be Cressman's dugout," Clyman grunted.

"Yep. He won't----"

Nate was interrupted by a woman who came out of the other shelter. She
was tall, with clear blue eyes that were set far apart. The little girl
who clung to her skirt was a tiny image of her mother. Jim Clyman nodded
respectfully.

"Howdy, ma'am."

"Oh--hello. I had hardly expected----"

Nathan Parker said, "It's Mr. Jim Clyman, Aunt Kate. I found him riding
up the trail. Uncle George get anything to eat?"

"He's not back yet." The woman looked questioningly at him, then down at
the little girl. She hesitated.

Jim Clyman understood. On the road to California you were always welcome
at any camp--so long as there was plenty of food in it. He reached into
his saddle bag, got one of the pemmican blocks, and cut it in two with
his knife. Half of it, and the three remaining blocks, he slipped into
the spacious pocket of his jacket. The little dog looked pleadingly up,
but his owner looked away from him, at the woman.

"I'm right glad to know you, ma'am. Here. There's a lot of git in
pemmican. Why don't you sort of cook up a meal for the little girl and
yourself?"

The woman looked down again, and when she raised her head, tears brimmed
in her eyes. Clyman looked away, pretending not to hear the thanks that
she called after him, and walked over to the tree where the butchered
cow hung. As he reached up his knife for a piece of the meat, a warning
voice came from the other shelter.

"Leave it alone."

The little dog backed against his legs, growling, and Jim Clyman
stopped, knife in hand, to look at the stocky, dark-haired man who
emerged from the other shelter.

"I'll bet you're Cressman."

"I'm Cressman, and that's my beef. Leave it alone."

Without seeming to move fast, the mountain man took three steps forward
and dug the point of the knife into Cressman's pudgy stomach. His voice
was mild but steady.

"It's camp meat and I'm takin' charge of it. I'm takin' the flour, too."

"You are not!"

"If you want to argue the point, we'll fight it out here and now, and
see who's gonna be boss."

Cressman muttered belligerently, but without looking at him again Jim
Clyman cut off a piece of the beef, walked past the other into the brush
shelter, and picked up the small keg with the few pounds of flour in
it. Nathan Parker padded beside him as he strode away.

"He'll be mad at you!" he said in an awed voice.

"Well dog-gone, I've went and made somebody mad! Take this meat and
flour in to your Aunt Kate. The flour's for whoever needs it most, and
I'm sayin' who needs it. Tell her to have a good hot stew ready for your
uncle when he comes back."

The boy disappeared in the shelter, and Clyman unsaddled his horse. He
rubbed the animal's nose a moment, then stood back and shot it through
the head. An almost inaudible sigh escaped him. It had been a good
horse, a faithful and intelligent horse. But when people's lives were in
the balance a horse didn't count.

He sighed again. Of all the dang fools ever created, a mountain man was
probably the dangdest. He and the horse and the dog could have gone over
the divide. But only the most abysmal fool would think of coming into a
camp of stranded immigrants, taking charge of it, and trying to take
them over, too.

He had butchered the horse, and was hanging it up, when he saw a man
emerge from the pine trees and walk through the steadily falling snow.
Except for his rifle, he was empty handed. Clyman pretended not to see,
until a voice spoke from behind him.

"Hello, stranger."

"Why, howdy," Clyman said, turning as if in surprise. "You must be
George Parker."

"That's right."

He was a thin man with pale blond hair and a hesitant manner. The
mountain man's heart sank. It was certainly going to be a mismated crew
that left this camp to go over the divide. Kate and George Parker, two
sensitive, high-strung people with a fine native courage but no
experience. Cressman, a selfish man ready to turn beast whenever that
was expedient. A little girl who, at the best, would be an encumbrance,
and a fifteen-year-old boy. He looked again at the blond man. George
Parker seemed as though he'd be all right so long as he didn't have to
face any difficult decisions, and then make them himself.

"Say, George," he said, "bring your wife, Nate, Cressman, and the little
girl out here, will you? We got to have a powwow."

He stood near the place where he had butchered the horse, and the little
brown dog came up to nuzzle his hand. He waited until the stranded
wagoneers were gathered about him, then addressed himself to George
Parker.

"How'd the huntin' go, George?"

Parker flushed. "I guess I'm not very good. I couldn't even see any
game."

The mountain man shook his head grimly. "There ain't any to see; it's
all gone down inta the valleys, where food's easier to get. So we'd
starve to death if we tried to winter here. We got to go over the
divide."

For a moment there was silence, as each in turn pondered this
information.

"What assurance is there that we can do it?" Kate Parker asked.

"None. None a'tall. The only sure thing is we'll starve if we don't do
it."

He saw that pronouncement hit home with all the impact of a bullet.
These tenderfeet wanted to go to California, not to starve. And they'd
follow anybody who talked as though he were able to take them there,
even though they had never seen him before today.

"I'm ready," Cressman growled.

"Well," George Parker said, looking at his wife, "well, I guess we'd
better try."

"It looks," Clyman said deliberately, "like there ain't a vote ag'in it.
We got more meat here than we can carry, and I want everybody to eat's
much as they can before we start. Even if you got to stuff it down, do
that. Mrs. Parker, save most of the flour for the little girl. George,
I'll want your wagon spokes."

"What for?"

"For snowshoes. Spokes are good frames, and I'll lace 'em with hide. You
and Cressman get in all the wood you can and take a big passel of meat
inta the shelters. This snow's gonna fall hard, and we can't start 'til
it's over."

       *       *       *       *       *

_It snowed hard_ for eight days, at first soft, feathery flakes, and
then hard, crystalline ones that piled on top of the shelters and
dribbled through the cracks in them until more snow added itself to that
already there and stopped up the cracks. It piled up on the pine
branches until they became overloaded and spilled their burdens. Driven
by the wind, it formed long, curling drifts against every obstruction.
And, when the storm finally passed, threatening clouds still hung over
the divide.

During those eight days Jim Clyman, Nate, and the two Parkers had worked
shaping the wheel spokes into snowshoe frames, scraping the hair from
the horse and cow hides, slicing them into thin strips, drying these
before the fire, and lacing the dried strips across the frames. Snow was
piled high about the shelter, but the fire lit the interior, and sent
its blue smoke climbing up through the smoke hole in the roof, that was
kept open by poking a long stick up through it. The kettle bubbled
constantly, melting snow for drinking water and simmering endless stews.
Meal-time was any time anyone felt like eating. They could afford to be
prodigal with their food when they could not possibly carry all of it
with them, and every ounce they ate now added to their strength.

On the morning of the ninth day, probing through the smoke hole with his
stick and finding no snow to push away, Jim Clyman took the shovel that
he had brought in from the wagon, and began to dig. The snow, eight
feet of which had fallen in eight days, was almost even with the top of
the rude shelter. Working the point of his shovel up along the side of
the door, he pushed the snow aside, and blinked in the unaccustomed
flood of light. He continued to dig, enlarging the hole. Then, cutting
steps as he went, he dug upward and outward, and emerged into a white,
silent world. To one side, the shelter in which Cressman had crouched
alone for eight days was only a soft mound on top of the snow blanket.

Jim Clyman slipped his feet into the harnesses of the home-made
snowshoes and walked over to Cressman's shelter. He shovelled a hole
down to the door, shouted, and when muffled sounds emerged, dropped the
shovel down. Cressman had survived, and could dig himself out.

Young Nate Parker, who had come out of the shelter to try his first
experimental steps on snowshoes, floundered over.

"Say, is this snow ever deep!" he panted.

The little brown dog frisked happily about, his big paws better support
on the crystalline crust than the snowshoes of the heavier humans. The
mountain man watched thoughtfully, his lips pursed. A dog was really
something to have when a man was out this way. The least you could say
about them was that they never worried. But then, neither did
young'uns--all Nate Parker could think about was the wonderful depth of
the snow. But he could take care of himself. Ann couldn't, and it was
going to be a mite of a problem to get the little tike over the divide
and down the other slope.

[Illustration]

He reached over to slash the thong that bore a twenty-pound chunk of
horse meat aloft on a pine branch, and caught it in his hands as it
fell.

"Take this inside, will you, Nate?" he called.

The boy carried the frozen chunk of meat into the tepee, and a moment
later his uncle and aunt came out. They glanced at the shelter where
Cressman had cleared a hole for himself and was working to shovel his
way to the top of the snow, then set to work helping carry the rest of
the meat into their shelter. With the axe, Clyman began chopping the
frozen stuff into thin slices, then used his knife to pare the rest of
it from the bones. He had begun to make up four packs when Cressman
came down into the shelter, and stood sullenly watching him.

"Where's the fifth one?" Cressman demanded.

Jim Clyman said reasonably, "I figger we men can pack mebbe thirty-five
pounds each up the slope. Nate's takin' twenty-five."

"What about her?"

"The little girl can't wear snowshoes, so somebody's got to help her all
the time, and carry her some of the time. We'll take turns."

Cressman sputtered belligerently. "You know we ain't got much chance of
gettin' out of here unless we haul every ounce of food we can!"

"We're takin' four packs." Clyman's voice was smooth. "I told you before
I'm big buck at this lick."

Cressman subsided, and Jim Clyman went on making up the packs. He folded
a portion of the meat in a square torn from the wagon cover, and formed
broad shoulder straps with more of the same material. A blanket was tied
to each pack, and two to his own. The little remaining flour he wrapped
in a strip of buckskin and put in his own pack. Finally he hung his
powder horn at his belt and put half a dozen bullets in his pocket. One
rifle was enough. More would be extra weight. He rose.

"Cressman, you carry the axe."

"I'll carry it," Nate Parker offered.

"Cressman will."

He climbed up the steps he had chopped and stood for a moment in the
snow on top of them. The little dog crowded close to his heels and
squatted down on the tails of his snowshoes while he waited for the rest
to join him. They started west toward the slope, Kate Parker and Ann
behind Clyman, then Cressman, with George and Nate Parker bringing up
the rear. Jim Clyman walked a quarter of a mile and turned around. Kate
Parker smiled at him. But there was sweat on her face and she was
breathing heavily.

The mountain man went on without slowing his pace. It was a right long
way over the pass and down the opposite slope, and they'd better push it
hard while they were well-fed and rested. When, and if, they got out of
these mountains, they might be crawling on their hands and knees. He
studied the clouds that hung low over the mountain peaks, and pushed on
another mile before stopping. Then he waited for Kate Parker to close
the gap that had imperceptibly widened between them. She was now
carrying Ann.

"That little mite you got there," he said, "could rest easy as nothin'
on top of my own pack for a spell."


"I'll carry her, Mr. Clyman," the mother said with quiet dignity.

Clyman turned and went on. Immigrants bound for California might be
senseless folks who hadn't the least idea of how to take care of
themselves. But there was no denying that some of them possessed
courage of a sort to brighten the eye of the doughtiest mountain man.
Kate Parker's baby was going over the divide with her. She might have to
pant to hold up her end. But her baby was still going with her.

       *       *       *       *       *

_The next day_ they struck the steepest part of the slope and began to
claw and fight their way up it. Storm clouds milled angrily above them,
and it was bitingly cold. Jim Clyman stopped to turn and look back
through the half-gloom, and his brown dog gladly sat down in the tracks
he had made. One by one the rest struggled up and stood panting near
him. The mountain man measured with his eye the distance to the top of
the divide, and anxiously studied the clouds. A rising gust of wind blew
a whirling line of snow around them. Not seeming to hurry, but still
moving purposefully, Jim Clyman paused behind each pack-laden man and
cut the blanket from his back. He spread two of them on the snow.

"We ain't goin' to make it," he said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Sit in
a circle on these blankets, and I'll put the others over us. Every
person's responsible for holdin' down his part. The baby goes in the
middle. We ain't gonna freeze if we do it right. It's an old mountain
man's trick."

They sat down on the blankets obediently enough. Clyman pulled the rest
over them, tucking them in closely. He closed the last gap with his own
body as the storm began to rage down in full fury. Dry snow piled on top
of the improvised tent. The little dog whimpered in the darkness, and
the child talked baby gibberish. All that night, all the next day, and
all the next night, nibbling at the pemmican that they carried, they
crouched under the blankets and kept each other warm with body heat.
Then they pushed the snow from the blankets and, rising like specters,
floundered on their way through the soft snow.

That day they got over the divide. Jim Clyman stood at the top of it,
waiting for the rest to straggle up. First Cressman came. Then Nathan
Parker appeared and, finally, George and Kate Parker, the father
carrying Ann. The mountain man stared at them silently. Coming up that
murderous, snow-filled slope, George Parker had thrown his food pack
away to help his wife and baby. Jim Clyman could not find the heart to
reproach him. He turned to start down the slope.

"I was wrong about him, Bub," he muttered to the tired little dog. "He
_can_ make up his own mind."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Two days later_ Jim Clyman turned off the trail into the forest. With
the axe that he had taken from Cressman he chopped down four small
trees. He trimmed the branches from them, and cut the trunks in half.
Then he arranged the logs on the ten feet of snow that lay there, made a
little pile of shaven pitch-pine sticks, and poured a pinch of powder
from his powder horn. He struck a spark into the powder, and the fire
flared up. The little brown dog lay near the comforting warmth, paws
outspread and tongue lolling expectantly as he glanced up at his master.

The mountain man looked back up the irregular line of snowshoe tracks he
had made coming down, and frowned. He and the dog could have been
another fifteen miles down the slope by this time. But you couldn't
travel that way with tenderfeet. Not that anyone except Cressman had
hung back, or complained of the cold and hunger. They just weren't
making it so well. George Parker and his wife were taking turns carrying
the little girl, but they had to rest every little while. Nate, the boy,
had plodded steadily along with his lightening pack--and it had been
lightened because Jim Clyman insisted on using the food he carried
before any other. Now that was gone, and Parker's was gone. He would
start using Cressman's tonight, and save his own for the last hard
stretch. He had rationed the food carefully, and they should make it if
the tenderfeet could keep up and if another bad blizzard didn't hit
them.

As he threw more wood on the fire, the dog rose from his bed in the snow
and cocked his head up the trail. Nathan Parker appeared, stumbling down
the snowshoe tracks with his head bent and his eyes streaming. The sun
had shone brightly all day, and the Parkers and Cressman couldn't seem
to get the knack of avoiding snow blindness by squinting properly. But
there was no point in exaggerating burdens, or of stressing them.

"Dog-gonit, Nate," he said, "I thought you'd took off on another track."

"Nope." The boy gave a tired grin and sat down to slip the blanket from
his shoulders. "I'll stick."

"Reckon you will. Well, fire's ready. Where's the others?"

"They re comin'."

Kate and George Parker, with the little girl riding on her father's
shoulders, staggered along the trail and threw themselves wearily down
by the leaping fire. Tired as she was, the mother took the child and
cradled her in her arms. Jim Clyman petted his dog, and watched them
reflectively. Once, when he was out with Ashley, a mountain man had come
stumbling into camp. He had travelled almost seven hundred miles through
hostile country, he said, and for the past nine days he had had nothing
to eat. Many times he had been tempted to give up and die, but he had
kept himself alive by thinking of the buffalo steak he was going to have
as soon as he got into somebody's camp. That man had lived on hope. Hope
was a wonderful thing, a sustaining resource when all others failed.
The Parkers had it in large measure.

Cressman came in to the fire and sat with his head hunched over his
chest, staring with vacant eyes at the flames. Clyman looked keenly at
him. Cressman, the laggard, who had been hanging back more than anyone
else the past three days, seemed more fit and ready to go on than any of
the others. His face was fuller; his color better. But his expression
was becoming more beast than human. The old man's eyes narrowed.

"Let's have your pack, Cressman. Time for grub--such as it is."

"My pack? _My_ pack...?"

Cressman raised his head, and glanced crookedly about. He dropped the
pack, and the mountain man stepped forward to unfasten the thongs that
bound it. But even before he did he knew that it was empty. He took a
step forward, his knife in his hand. A deep anger leaped within him, and
red shapes wavered before his eyes.

"You ate it!" he snarled. "You ate it, didn't you? That's why you hung
back!"

The hot cloud of rage slowly dissolved, and he again became the leader
of the little group. Dimly he saw the rest looking at Cressman, saw
civilized eyes glowing red in the reflection of the fire, betraying a
deep, elemental passion that went far, far back. They were primitive
people, cave people who had seen their food stolen. Cressman did not
notice them. His eyes were rolling, a vacuous grin played about his
lips. The trail was driving him mad.

"Eat the dog," he babbled. "We c'n eat the dog."

Jim Clyman stuck his knife in a log, drew his pack to him, and pulled
out a small piece of frozen meat. He saw the eager eyes of the Parkers
fixed upon him now, the greedy eyes of the half-mad Cressman. Cressman
started to rise, his hands twitching. Clyman reached for his knife.

"Sit down!" he growled. "Mebbe you eat tomorrow, but not tonight. You've
had your'n!"

He cut two thin slices of meat for each of the others, impaled them on
sticks, and put them over the fire to cook. Melting snow in the kettle,
he stirred a little flour into it, flavored it with a tiny piece of
meat, and handed it to Kate Parker. The baby ate hungrily, but when the
mother was given her own ration, she shook her head.

"Can't I save it for tomorrow?"

Beneath her question was a deeper and more penetrating one. There was
tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.... The baby had to eat all
those days. The future generation must survive.

"Eat it now," Jim Clyman said gruffly.

She did, tearing the meat into tiny morsels with her teeth and devouring
them reluctantly. While they ate, Clyman never took his eyes from
Cressman. But the man was apathetic, mumbling to himself and smiling
foolishly. When they had finished, the mountain man spoke as cheerfully
as he could.

"I been in such fixes before, and I'll be in 'em ag'in. We're gonna get
through. But if anybody touches my pack, I'll kill him."

"Eat the dog," Cressman raved. "Kill and eat the dog."

Clyman glanced across the fire at him, and said nothing. But when he
rolled up in his blanket that night, the dog was beside him.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Jim Clyman himself_ was not exactly sure as to what took place the next
few days. He knew only that the two slices of meat were cut to one, and
that when they finally came out of the deep snow they cut the lacings
from their snowshoes, boiled them, and drank the gelatinous soup. The
last of the meat he carried had been eaten yesterday morning, while
starved eyes had looked at the little brown dog and then guiltily away
again. This morning the baby had had the last of the flour.

He walked on, the spaniel dragging wearily at his heels. On either side
the tall pines rustled, and the racing little brook he was following
cast itself furiously over the ice-sheathed rocks and boulders in its
path. It seemed that he was back with Ashley's men when the starved
hunter had wandered into camp. That memory was very plain and very
sharp, and he caught himself glancing around as though looking for the
bountiful fare that Ashley's camp had always offered. That hunter, he
remembered, had lived entirely on hope, on the hope of a meal of buffalo
meat. But tenderfeet weren't mountain men. They wouldn't believe that
they were going to get anything unless they could see it before them.
And all they could see was his dog....

[Illustration]

He forced himself back to reality. Behind him were people, hungry
people, each of whom, in his own way, thought of the things nearest and
dearest to him. Cressman, in his insane wanderings, had gone back to his
farm on the Fox River and was enjoying all the things it had once
offered him. Nathan Parker thought of going on, of continuing to follow
this man who had dared suggest coming over the divide when it was
impassable. George and Kate Parker thought of the child in her arms, and
of all the life that was to be.

But their whole minds, when they were at either the morning or the
evening fire, centered on the little brown dog and the salvation he
offered. Here was food, and food was life, and they had to live. They
could not be lured this far, then die within reach of their goal. He
turned aside, and gathered wood for a fire. He poured a little gunpowder
under the wood and lighted it. Tonight they would camp out of the
winter snow. The little dog lay down before the fire with his head on
his paws.

Nathan Parker appeared, and almost as soon as he sat down beside the
fire his eyes fastened on the dog. Carrying the little girl between
them, Kate and George Parker came stumbling out of the semigloom.
Cressman crawled up, babbling of fat sheep that had grazed beside the
Fox River and of the many meals he had eaten there. Then he, too, fell
silent, and all eyes were fixed on the dog.

Jim Clyman edged his knife out of its sheath. An animal was not supposed
to mean anything when human lives were at stake, but the little spaniel
was more to him than any person. He was a friend, one to whom he could
confide his innermost thoughts and troubles, one who had always been
satisfied to share his fortune. The knife point stopped at the dog's
throat, and Clyman held it there while he looked at the eager people
about the fire. They had been led on by tangible hope, by the certain
knowledge that, when their last food gave out, they had a final resource
in the dog. And they could go no farther without food. The dog would
feed them tonight, tomorrow, and perhaps the day after. It would see
them through. He touched the knife against the dog's throat, and the
spaniel whimpered in his arms.

"Well, by God!"

It was not a curse but a prayer, and it came from outside the circle of
fire light. A tall man with a rifle in his hands stood there, a strong,
well-fed man with a pack on his back.

"You came over the divide?" he asked incredulously.

They struggled to their feet, staring in disbelief at this man who had
brought them salvation. The caveman had gone from them. They were once
again civilized, thinking people.

"Got caught out on a long survey," the stranger explained, "and saw your
fire. Our camp's only a piece down the trail, but I reckon you'd better
eat right here." He swung his pack to the ground.

Jim Clyman slowly slipped his knife back in its sheath, and tickled the
little dog's ears with a bony finger.

"We made it, Bub," he said huskily. "We made it. This here's the end of
the trail."

[Illustration]

       *       *       *       *       *

_That's how it was. From the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Golden Gate,
foot by foot, mile by mile, through forests and plains and mountains,
the frontier was pushed steadily back by unpretentious, unknown, unsung
heroes: seamen and scouts, traders and trappers, boatmen and
bullwhackers, missionaries and mountaineers. Through three centuries of
expansion and across three thousand miles of wilderness, America's
destiny followed the trails blazed by the buckskin brigade._

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber's Note: Hyphen variations left as printed.




[End of Buckskin Brigade, by Jim Kjelgaard]
