University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
FORE-SHADOWING OF THE HORSE-SHOE.

Notwithstanding the horrors of the massacre at Germana, many of the
remains of which stared our adventurers in the face, upon their arrival there
the night was spent pretty much as the others had been, by the young gentry,
viz. over their wine and cards. Carter and some of his friends were thus
engaged during the evening, when Moore and Lee entered with the hope of
dissipating the melancholy feelings engendered by the ghastly sights which
still haunted them. As they entered, the former could not help but observe
that he had been the subject of conversation, for an embarrassing silence
ensued, some meaning smiles might have been detected, and one young gentleman
unable well to control his risible faculties, burst into a loud laugh. Moore,
being a frank and straight-forward fellow, told them that he saw that he had
been the subject of their conversation, and begged to be informed of its cause.
To this appeal Carter was compelled to respond, for the eyes of all his companions
turned to him at once.

“Why, Moore,” said he, “I was only telling my messmates of the bargain
which you and I made in jest, about not prosecuting our suits with Kate until
our return, and how handsomely I had stolen a march upon you, before our
departure from the city.”

“Oh!” said Moore, with a sly but bitter smile, “and so you violated the
compact, and met with a rebuff for your pains?”

“I plead guilty to the first charge, Moore, but I have not spoken as to the
second count”

“Then, I suppose, we are to understand that you were successful, by the
cheerful manner in which you relate it?”

Carter made no reply, but plied his cards busily, and Moore continued,

“Silence is one sort of affirmation; am I so to understand you, Carter?”
Still no reply, but renewed attention to the game. He evidently designed only
to annoy Moore, and amuse his friends with him. But placed as the latter
was, (as the reader has already been informed,) he felt bound to rescue the
fair name of his lady-love from the imputation of double dealing. In that light
he knew her conduct would appear to Lee, to whom he had confidentially
communicated her gracious answer to his proposal. Accordingly, he renewed
the attack pertinaciously and with some warmth. “I insist, Carter, that you
give me an answer; now that you have carried the matter thus far, I demand
it as a right!”

“The devil you do!” said Carter, dropping his cards, “then I shall not give
any other answer than I have already given.”

Moore rose to leave the tent in anger, but Lee begged him to stay a moment.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “remember your positions, and think well of
whom you are about to quarrel—no less than the daughter of our commander.
If it comes to the light, which it will do if you prosecute it farther, it
must annoy the Governor excessively, and throw a damp over our whole
enterprise.”

Carter was excited with wine, and had been losing heavily at the game,
and was not in the most placid humor imaginable. True, he had been consoling
himself with a laugh at his adversary, but that, too, was now turned to
bitterness, and he sat sullen and without a word of reply to Lee's appeal.
Truth to say, he liked not the source from which it came. The other gentlemen
present, however, seeing the force of Lee's view of the case, interfered
and argued the matter with both belligerents, until they prevailed upon them
to drop it, at all events until their return to the capital. This armistice having
been thus concluded, Lee and Moore continued their walk, and the latter remarked
as they went, “did I not tell you that Carter would never resign his
pretensions without seeking a cause of quarrel? He betrayed me into a
basty acknowledgment of my rights, purposely. It was a settled and premeditated
design, and not accidental, as it seemed.”

“But how could he know that we were coming to his tent?”

“Oh, that as well as the subject of discourse at the moment of our entrance,
was accidental, but the turn given after that to the conversation, was in furtherance
of a preconceived design.”

“Well, well, Moore, let us drop the subject now, as you have agreed to
adjourn the point for a long time; meanwhile he will grow sober, and I hope
less bellicose.”

The sentinels were placed this night with unusual care, as the Governor
had a suspicion that the Indians would make a combined attack upon him here,
this having been for some time the centre of their operations. But the night
passed with unusual quiet, and though the scout and his band were out most
of the time, no fresh signs were discovered. Young Hall accompanied them,
in the hope of discovering some trace of his lost Eugenia. Jarvis assured
him that she was already beating hominy and carrying water for the old
squaw—the mother of her intended husband. Joe did not perceive that he was
every now and then thrusting a dagger into the heart of his new friend, by his
free and unbridled discourse, for the poor youth writhed in secret. The rude
scout was no sentimentalist, and had not the slightest conception of such sorrows
as were weighing down his silent and moody companion. The reader
has seen how he bore his own troubles of the same sort, and he imagined that
there was a remarkable congeniality and fellow feeling between them, owing
to the similarity of their misfortunes. Every effort at consolation, however,
only made the matter worse, as will be perceived by the following portion of
their dialogue:

“How is it, Jarvis, when a young woman is thus set apart for the wife of a
chief? Is her will nothing, or is she forced to compliance?”

“Why, Squire, the will of a woman does'nt pass for much among 'em, but
to tell you the truth and shame the devil, I believes they do sort o' ax their consent
at first, for they carries corn and hominy, and skins, and other plunder,
to the wigwam of the gal's father, and if she takes 'em, then he carries her off
some night, by force.”

“And have they no rites—no marriage ceremony?”

“Oh, as to that, they may jump the broom stick, or the likes o' that, but
cuss me if I think they're even so much christenated as that comes to. As to
this gal of yourn, you see she's got no father among 'em to cozen with the
skins and plunder, and as she's already in the wigwam of that he rascal that I
knocked on the head tother night, what's the use of rites and ceremonies, as
you call 'em? When he gets to home, if ever he does—consarn him—he'll
no doubt consider her as his'en already.” Here a groan from his auditor
averted the flow of his discourse for a moment, but he speedily resumed, “I'll
tell you what you've got to do, Squire Hall, you've got to slit his wind-pipe.”

“Oh, Scout, if I could only meet him in any sort of an encounter, however
unequal, how gladly would I seize the opportunity?”

“That's talking like a man, now! jist throw away them blue devils and
stick to that, and I'll bring you up with the rascals before we're clean over
the mountains. There's no need for you to take on so, any how, kase we've
to give them an etarnal thrashing afore they'll let us over the mountains,
or they will sculp us, in which case, you know, you won't want the gal.”

Leaving Germana, the course of the expedition was directed for several
days in a diagonal line towards the direct route to the mountains. That time
brought our adventurers into a region of country such as many of them had
never seen before. The land was thickly strewn with rocks, and stones, and
pebbles. These were a subject of curiosity and admiration at first, but soon
turned to one of annoyance, as will be seen as we progress with our narrative.

Several spurs of mountains stretching in broken lines from the main chain
of the Blue Ridge, already presented their formidable barriers before them, and
being able to grasp an extended view from their base, they thought that they
had already arrived at the long desired point of their journey. Eager were
the emulous young cavaliers in their struggles to see who should first lead their
followers to the top of these heights, but, alas! they were only destined to
meet disappointment, for the same interminable view of broken and rolling
country met the view beyond, bounded still by that dim blue outline in the
back ground, and seeming rather to recede as they advanced. Hearty was the
laughter of the Scout—in which even the Governor joined—as they stood
upon the highest summit of the first of them, and surveyed with dismay the
mountains piled upon mountains beyond.

Governor Spotswood now, for the first time, began to have clear conceptions
of the vast region which lay before him—the difficulties of the undertaking,
and the hardships which would have to be endured before he accomplished
his design. Already the hunting department had been greatly
enlarged, and as they progressed farther into the wilderness, game became
more abundant. Several buffalo had been encountered and taken, after a
severe chase and many hair breadth escapes. Still they encountered not
their great adversaries—the combined savage forces, those who had sworn
that they should never cross the mountains alive. But a new difficulty,
wholly unanticipated, began now, for the first time, to present itself. The
baggage wagons had been left at Germana, and of course the burdens of
the sumpter mules and the supernumerary horses required to be doubled.
These were nearly all lame already. The first day the lame animals were
relieved by others taken from the soldiers, while the latter were required
to walk. But the substitutes in their turn became lame. Small as the
difficulty at first seemed, not many days elapsed ere the whole expedition
was brought to a complete stand-still, and what added not a little to their

discomfiture, their saddle horses began to share the same fate, insomuch
that the stragglers, with their crippled animals, strewed the route for miles.
The experienced judgment of the commander quickly perceived that this
was exposing them to the hazard of a murderous attack from the Indians,
and a general halt was ordered for several day's encampment, to recruit
the cavalry. The encampment was pitched upon a beautiful plain, in that
region of country now called Albermarle, one of the most charming spots
in America. The mountains were distinctly in view, on more sides than
one, but the dark blue boundaries of the horizon in the West, were apparently
as far off as ever.

So badly were many of the horses lamed, that some of the stragglers did not
arrive until after midnight, and even then some of them had not made their
appearance. The Governor became alarmed, lest they might have been cut
off by the ever watchful enemy, and he ordered the scout and twenty followers,
with the soundest horses to return and bring them in, while large fires
were kindled to show the position of the encampment. Lee and Moore determined
to be of the party—partly to amuse themselves and partly on account
of Moore's uneasiness about old June, who was among the missing. Indeed
Kate had specially charged her lover to have an eye to the safety of the faithful
old fellow.

They found the wearied soldiers, some tugging along leading their limping
chargers, with loud and bitter curses, while others, less persevering, were
sitting in despair by the way side, and the worn out animals were lying down
to die, as it seemed.

For miles along their route, they encountered nothing but lame horses and
worn out soldiers. Many of the latter having lost the blazed track, were shouting
despairingly to their companions from remote distances in the forest. Some
cried lustily for help, their horses having laid down in utter helplessness. The
darkness of the night only served to render their accumulating disasters more
annoying to the soldiers.

Lee, seeing how much this state of things could be remedied by keeping
the soldiers together, ordered those in the lead to halt until their lost companions
were found, and until those in the rear should come up. At the same
time he directed pine torches to be kindled and held aloft as a guide to the
poor stragglers. The whole scene resembled a defeated army during a retreat,
and the feeble minded and the wavering were already sunk in gloomy despair
at the prospect of such a termination of their enterprise. The distant mountains
in view, only seemed to render their despair more hopeless, for they
seemed rather to recede as the expedition advanced, and such glimpses as had
been caught from the tops of the highest spurs which they had yet ascended,
presented one continued pile of mountains behind mountains, seemingly
interminable in their breadth. These things it must be confessed, were very
disheartening to the timid, but not so to the old veteran, who commanded the
expedition. All day he marched on foot in the front ranks, cheering those
around him and carrying his instruments and his arms upon his person, while
his noble war-horse, as yet but slightly lamed, was given to a sick soldier.
The reader's particular acquaintances “of the order”—Lee, Dandrige, Moore,
and Carter, followed the Governor's example, and cheered up the drooping
spirits of the weary and despairing.

The former especially, now shone out in his true colours. He was every
inch a soldier, and the Governor relied on him now, with unreserved confidence—twitting
him the while, notwithstanding, concerning his vagaries at
the capital.

Lee and his friends pursued their backward route for some miles and until
the soldiers with their lame horses were becoming few and far between, and
yet no tidings were heard of poor old June. He had not been seen since the
noon meal, and the last straggler declared that he had not heard a single

voice in his rear. Still they pursued their route, determined to persevere
until day light, rather than give up the old banjo player. When they had
passed the last horseman, some five or six miles, and were just coming to the
conclusion that they would find him at the lunch ground, still some four miles
off, Moore halted abruptly behind a projecting point of hill, descending to a
creek which they were just about to ford, and laid his hand upon the bridle of
Lee's horse. The latter drew his pistol upon the instant, and placed himself
so as to be ready for action, but presently his ear caught a well known sound,
which induced him to return his weapon to its holster, while he could scarcely
suppress a laugh, so strange did old June's voice and banjo sound in the still and
solitary forest. They moved as close as possible, so as to catch a glimpse of
the old fellow and yet not to be seen. He was leaning against the saddle
and portmantean, his horse lying dead by his side, while he chaunted the following
words to one of his most melancholy airs,

“Why June,” exclaimed Moore, “has every one deserted you?”

“Oh, Mass Bernard, I glad to see you for true. I tought de Governor left
old June for good and all.”

“But your horse,—could you not get him along at all?”

“Oh, Mass Bernard, he settle all he account in dis world—he dead as a
makeral, and June glad ob it too.”

“Glad! why what are you glad for.”

“Case he grunt so solemcoly, go right trough June's heart like a funeral
sarmon.”

Moore mounted the old fellow on behind his servant, proposing to leave the
saddle, portmanteau, and even the banjo, until he could send back for them, but
to the latter part of the proposition, June stoutly objected, and they were fair
to take him, banjo and all, as it was getting to be late.

Before day dawned, all the stragglers with most of their horses were brought
safely into camp without the Indians having discovered their helpless condition,
if indeed they still watched the movements of the troops. Jarvis and
those most conversant with their habits argued from this circumstance, that
they no longer hovered upon the outskirts of the army.