 | CHAPTER VII. The wigwam and the cabin |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
“It was a fortunate affair for us. Lenatewá soon brought the
old Micco to terms of peace. For that matter, he had only consented
to take up the red stick because it was reported by the
black chief—who was the uncle of the young Micco, and had
good reasons for getting him out of the way—that he had been
murdered by the whites. This driv' the old man to desperation,
and brought him down upon us. When he knew the whole truth,
and saw what friends we had been to his son, there was no end
to his thanks and promises. He swore to be my friend while the
sun shone, while the waters run, and while the mountains stood,
and I believe, if the good old man had been spared so long, he
would have been true to his oath. But, while he lived, he kept
it, and so did his son when he succeeded him as Micco Glucco-Year
after year went by, and though there was frequent war between
the Indians and the whites, yet Lenatewá kept it from our
doors. He himself was at war several times with our people, but
never with our settlement. He put his totem on our trees, and
the Indians knew that they were sacred. But, after a space of
eleven years, there was a change. The young prince seemed to
have forgotten our friendship. We now never saw him among
us, and, unfortunately, some of our young men—the young men
of our own settlement—murdered three young warriors of the
Ripparee tribe, who were found on horses stolen from us. I was
very sorry when I heard it, and began to fear the consequences;
and they came upon us when we least looked for it. I had every
reason to think that Lenatewá would still keep the warfare from
my little family, but I did not remember that he was the prince
of a tribe only, and not of the nation. This was a national warfare,
in which the whole Cherokee people were in arms. Many
persons, living still, remember that terrible war, and how the
Carolinians humbled them at last; but there's no telling how
much blood was shed in that war, how many sculps taken, how
Our settlement had become so large and scattered that
we had to build a sizeable blockhouse, which we stored, and to
which we could retreat whenever it was necessary. We took
possession of it on hearing from our scouts that Indian trails had
been seen, and there we put the women and children, under a
strong guard. By day we tended our farms, and only went to
our families at night. We had kept them in this fix for five
weeks or thereabouts, and there was no attack. The Indian signs
disappeared, and we all thought the storm had blown over, and
began to hope and to believe that the old friendship of Lenatewá
had saved us. With this thinking, we began to be less watchful.
The men would stay all night at the farms, and sometimes, in the
day, would carry with them the women, and sometimes some even
the children. I cautioned them agin this, but they mocked me,
and said I was gitting old and scary. I told them, `Wait and
see who'll scare first.' But, I confess, not seeing any Indians in
all my scouting, I began to feel and think like the rest, and to
grow careless. I let Betsy go now and then with me to the farm,
though she kept it from me that she had gone there more than
once with Lucy, without any man protector. Still, as it was only
a short mile and a half from the block, and we could hear of no
Indians, it did not seem so venturesome a thing. One day we
heard of some very large b'ars among the thickets—a famous
range for them, about four miles from the settlement; and a party
of us, Simon Lorris, Hugh Darling, Jake Ransom, William
Harkless, and myself, taking our dogs, set off on the hunt. We
started the b'ar with a rush, and I got the first shot at a mighty big
she b'ar, the largest I had ever seen—lamed the critter slightly,
and dashed into the thickets after her! The others pushed, in another
direction, after the rest, leaving me to finish my work as I
could.
“I had two dogs with me, Clap and Claw, but they were young
things, and couldn't be trusted much in a close brush with a b'ar.
Old Clinch was dead, or he'd ha' made other guess-work with the
varmint. But, hot after the b'ar, I didn't think of the quality of
the dogs till I found myself in a fair wrestle with the brute. I
don't brag, my friends, but that was a fight. I tell you my
body, and I thought I was doubled up enough to be laid down
without more handling. But my heart was strong when I thought
of Betsy and the children, and I got my knife, with hard jugging
—though I couldn't use my arm above my elbow—through the
old critter's hide, and in among her ribs. That only seemed to
make her hug closer, and I reckon I was clean gone, if it hadn't
been that she blowed out before me. I had worked a pretty deep
window in her waist, and then life run out plentiful. Her nose
dropped agin my breast, and then her paws; and when the strain
was gone, I fell down like a sick child, and she fell on top of me.
But she warn't in a humour to do more mischief. She roughed me
once or twice more with her paws, but that was only because she
was at her last kick. There I lay a matter of half an hour, with
the dead b'ar alongside o' me. I was almost as little able to
move as she, and I vomited as if I had taken physic. When I
come to myself and got up, there was no sound of the hunters.
There I was with the two dogs and the b'ar, all alone, and the
sun already long past the turn. My horse, which I had fastened
outside of the thicket, had slipped his bridle, and, I reckoned, had
either strayed off grazing, or had pushed back directly for the
block. These things didn't make me feel much better. But,
though my stomach didn't feel altogether right, and my ribs were
as sore as if I had been sweating under a coating of hickory, I
felt that there was no use and no time to stand there grunting.
But I made out to skin and to cut up the b'ar, and a noble mountain
of fat she made. I took the skin with me, and, covering the
flesh with bark, I whistled off the dogs, after they had eat to fill,
and pushed after my horse. I followed his track for some time,
till I grew fairly tired. He had gone off in a scare and at a full
gallop, and, instead of going home, had dashed down the lower
side of the thicket, then gone aside, to round some of the hills, and
thrown himself out of the track, it moutbe seven miles or more.
When I found this, I saw there was no use to hunt him that day
and afoot, and I had no more to do but turn about, and push as
fast as I could for the block. But this was work enough. By
this time the sun was pretty low, and there was now a good seven
miles, work it how I could, before me. But I was getting over
stomach was better, and my heart braver; and, as I was in no
hurry, having the whole night before me, and knowing the way
by night as well as by light, I began to feel cheerful enough, all
things considering. I pushed on slowly, stopping every now and
then for rest, and recovering my strength this way. I had some
parched meal and sugar in my pouch which I ate, and it helped
me mightily. It was my only dinner that day. The evening
got to be very still. I wondered I had seen and heard nothing of
Jake Ransom and the rest, but I didn't feel at all oneasy about
them, thinking that, like all other hunters, they would naterally
follow the game to any distance. But, jest when I was thinking
about them, I heard a gun, then another, and after that all got to
be as quiet as ever. I looked to my own rifle and felt for my
knife, and put forward a little more briskly. I suppose I had
walked an hour after this, when it came on close dark, and I was
still four good miles from the block. The night was cloudy,
there were no stars, and the feeling in the air was damp and oncomfortable.
I began to wish I was safe home, and felt queerish,
almost as bad as I did when the b'ar was 'bracing me; but it
warn't so much the body-sickness as the heart-sickness. I felt as
if something was going wrong. Jest as this feeling was most worrisome,
I stumbled over a human. My blood cruddled, when,
feeling about, I put my hand on his head, and found the sculp
was gone. Then I knew there was mischief. I couldn't make
out who 'twas that was under me, but I reckoned 'twas one of
the hunters. There was nothing to be done but to push for'ad.
I didn't feel any more tire. I felt ready for fight, and when I
thought of our wives and children in the block, and what might
become of them, I got wolfish, though the Lord only knows what
I was minded to do. I can't say I had any raal sensible thoughts
of what was to be done in the business. I didn't trust myself to
think whether the Indians had been to the block yet or no; though
ugly notions came across me when I remembered how we let the
women and children go about to the farms. I was in a complete
fever and agy. I scorched one time and shivered another, but I
pushed on, for there was now no more feeling of tire in my limbs
than if they were made of steel. By this time I had reached
now eleven years gone, that turned out to be a deception, and
it was nateral enough that the thing should come fresh into my
mind, jest at that moment. While I was thinking over the wonder,
and asking myself, as I had done over and often before, what it
possibly could mean, I reached the top of one of the hills, from
which I could see, in daylight, the whole country for a matter of
ten miles or more on every side. What was my surprise, do you
reckon, when there, jest on the very same hill opposite where I
had seen that apparition of a camp, I saw another, and this time
it was a raal one. There was a rousing blaze, and though the
woods and undergrowth were thicker on this than on the other
side, from which I had seen it before, yet I could make out that
there were several figures, and them Indians. It sort o' made
me easier to see the enemy before, and then I could better tell
what I had to do. I was to spy out the camp, see what the red-devils
were thinking to do, and what they had already done. I
was a little better scout and hunter this time than when I made
the same sort o' search before, and I reckoned that I could get
nigh enough to see all that was going on, without stirring up any
dust among 'em. But I had to keep the dogs back. I couldn't
tie 'em up, for they'd howl; so I stripped my hunting-shirt and
put it down for one to guard, and I gave my cap and horn
to another. I knew they'd never leave 'em, for I had l'arned
'em all that sort of business—to watch as well as to fetch and
carry. I then said a sort of short running prayer, and took the
trail. I had to work for'ad slowly. If I had gone on this time
as I did in that first camp transaction, I'd ha' lost my sculp to
a sartainty. Well, to shorten a long business, I tell you that I
got nigh enough, without scare or surprise, to see all that I cared
to see, and a great deal more than I wished to see; and now, for
the first time, I saw the meaning of that sight which I had, eleven
years before, of the camp that come to nothing. I saw that first
sight over again, the Indians round the fire, a young woman in
the middle, and that young woman my own daughter, my child,
my poor, dear Lucy!
| CHAPTER VII. The wigwam and the cabin | |