The Free Rangers: A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi, Altsheler [great novels of all time TXT] 📗

depart, under any circumstance, from the City of New Orleans until he receive further instructions."

Alvarez, sprang up in anger, but a commanding gesture from the Governor General waved him down in silence.

"I do not wish to hear any protests, Don Francisco," he said, "but I do intend to look further into these matters."

"If we have not won, neither has the Spaniard," whispered Henry in Paul's ear.

Oliver Pollock glanced out of the big window and the turning of his head hid the twinkle in his eye. Yes, these were very delicate matters, and two great nations and another that hoped to be great, too, were involved, but one might make progress nevertheless.

Bernardo Galvez spoke to his secretary, who left the room, but returned in a few minutes with no less a personage than Lieutenant Diégo Bernal, mincing, scrupulously dressed, but very alert of eye.

"You will take six soldiers," said the Governor General to him, "and escort these five to the fortress. Treat them well, but hold them until further orders."

Oliver Pollock gave a nod to Henry. It said plainly, "go without protest." Henry and his comrades rose and followed Lieutenant Bernal from the Governor General's house. Thence they went to one of the forts in the wall that surrounded the town.

CHAPTER XVI IN PRISON

Their fortress prison was built of brick, but it was not a particularly somber place. They were all put in one large room which had two windows barred with iron; but plenty of air came in at the windows, and the place, though bare, was clean.

"Well," said Lieutenant Bernal, when they were inside, "tell me all that occurred before Bernardo Galvez."

Paul was again the spokesman telling everything that was said as literally as he could.

"I have an impression," said Lieutenant Bernal, "although my impressions are usually wrong and my memory is always weak, that you have scored, at least partially. You have sowed the fertile crop of suspicion in the mind of Bernardo Galvez. He has shown that by making Francisco Alvarez virtually a prisoner, also, and you have a powerful advocate in the Señor Pollock, the great merchant, and I may add the great diplomat, also."

"How long do you think we will be kept in here?" asked Shif'less Sol, looking around at the room, which, though wide, was by no means so wide as the forests of Kentucky.

"I do not know," replied the lieutenant, smiling—he understood the look of the shiftless one, "but you shall not be ill-treated, and do not feel that any disgrace lies upon you. This is a military prison. Good men have been confined here; I myself, for instance, because of some little breach of military discipline magnified by my officers into a fault. Oh, you shall not suffer!"

He bustled about cheerily. He had food and drink brought to them, and then he departed, volunteering to see that their private property on "The Galleon" was saved and brought to them.

No one spoke for a little while after his going, and then the silence was broken by a long, dismal sigh. It was drawn up from the depths of Long Jim's chest.

"Are you sick, Jim?" asked Henry.

"Yes, Henry," replied Jim in a melancholy tone, "I'm sick; sick uv all this jawin', sick uv seein' things pulled here, an' then pulled yonder, sick uv hearin' people lyin', knowin' that they're lyin', and knowin' that other people know that they're lyin'."

"Why, Jim," said Paul, who had a twinkle in his eye, "that's diplomacy, and the man who practises it is called a diplomatist or diplomat. It's considered a great accomplishment."

"It ain't so considered by me, an' I'm bein' heard from," said Long Jim with great emphasis. "Them dy-plo-may-tists or dy-plo-maws may reckon theirselves pow'ful big boys, but I've got another an' better name fur 'em, and it's spelled with jest four letters, uv which the furst is l an' the last is r, an' them that comes in between are i an' a, with the i first. Why, Paul, it makes me plum' sick, all these goin's on. In a big town like this, full uv Spaniards an' Frenchmen an' Injuns an' niggers an' mixed breeds, an' the Lord knows what, you can never tell nuth'in' 'bout nobody, 'cept that he says what he don't believe, an' that he ain't what he is.

"I guess I'm in love more with the big woods than ever. Thar things is what they is. A buffaler don't pretend to be a b'ar. He'd be ashamed to be caught tryin' to play sech a trick, an' a b'ar has the same respect fur hisself; he'd never dream uv sayin' in his b'ar language, 'Look at me, admire me, see what a fine big buffaler I am!' An' I've a lot uv respeck fur the Injun, too. He's an Injun an' he don't say he ain't. He don't come sneakin' along claimin' that he's an old friend uv the family, he jest up an' lets drive his tomahawk at your head, ef he gits the chance, an' makes no bones 'bout it. I'd a heap ruther be killed by a good honest Injun who wuz pantin' fur my blood an' didn't pretend that he wuzn't pantin', than be done to death down here, in some cur'us, unbeknown, hole-in-the-dark way, by a furrin' man who couldn't speak a real word of the decent English language, but who wuz tryin' to let on all the time that he hated to do it."

Long Jim stopped, breathing hard with his long speech and anger. Shif'less Sol rose, walked across the room, and solemnly held out his hand to his comrade.

"Jim," he said, "you don't often talk sense, but you're talkin' a heap o' it now. Shake."

Long Jim shook and added with a grin:

"When me an' you agree, Sol, 'bout anythin', it's shorely right."

Then they fell silent for a while, each thinking in his own way of what had occurred. Henry Ware walked to one of the windows and looked out for a long while. He relished little the idea of being a prisoner for the second time, even if the second imprisonment were a sort of courtesy affair. He saw from the windows the roofs of houses amid green foliage and he knew that only a few hundred yards beyond lay the great forest, which, now in the freshest and tenderest tints of spring, rolled away unbroken, save for the few scratches that the French or Spanish had made, for thousands of miles, and for all he knew to the Arctic Circle itself.

The words of Long Jim stirred the youth deeply. He did not like intrigue and double-dealing and the ways of foreign men. Like Long Jim he longed for the great honest forest, and he, too, had his respect for the Indian who would tomahawk him without claiming to be a friend. He was glad, very glad, that he had come upon so great an errand, but he would like to cleave through the whole web of intrigue with one sturdy blow and then be off into the forest which was calling to him with such a dearly loved voice.

Paul saw Henry's face and he understood its expression. He knew that it was harder for his comrade than for himself to endure the confinement within four walls, but he said nothing. Words would be wasted.

Later in the day their door was opened, and Mr. Pollock came in bringing with him a cheery breeze.

"I've come to tell you what news there may be," he said, "and also to ask questions. Now, sit down and make yourselves comfortable. That's right. The cunning and ambitious Don Francisco Alvarez is in a rage. He is also somewhat frightened. He knows that Bernardo Galvez will be busy the next few days trying to secure the proof of the charges that you make against him. In my opinion, Galvez believes that they are true, but, as you will agree, he cannot act without proof."

"But that is exactly what we lack at this time," said Henry, "and how can we get it while we are locked up here?"

"Just so! Just so! That is a point to which I am coming. Now, about this renegade, this Braxton Wyatt. You say he is the man who drew the maps and who has been the intermediary in this whole nefarious scheme. Maps could be drawn, of course, for a purpose not wicked, but if they could be produced, and above all if Alvarez had made any notes upon them in his own handwriting, they would go far to help. If not proof, they would at least be a strong indication. Now, where do you think these maps are kept?"

"On the person of Braxton Wyatt," replied Henry promptly.

The merchant smiled with pleasure.

"Of course! Of course!" he said. "They belong to Wyatt and naturally he would keep them. Naturally, also, Alvarez would want him to keep them. He would take care that such things were not found on his own person. We must get possession of those maps. But we must go further. This renegade has lived among both the Shawnees and Miamis and is high in their confidence, is it not so?"

"Yes, both the great head-chiefs, Yellow Panther and Red Eagle, trust him."

"And to carry out this nefarious alliance some promise must have passed between Alvarez and the two head chiefs. That promise had to take a concrete form to be binding."

"War belts," suggested Henry.

"But a white man does not send war belts. He has another kind of token, and he makes that token with paper, ink, and a goose quill. Yes, Alvarez is cunning, I know, but the most cunning of all men when he enters a great conspiracy must leave a loose end hanging about somewhere. Or, to change my simile, there is no armor of deception so complete that there is not a crack in it. We must find that loose end, we must find that crack, and when we do, we can see victory just ahead of us."

"Do you mean," said Henry, "that Alvarez has probably sent a letter to the Northern chiefs, promising that as Governor General of Louisiana he will help them with soldiers and cannon against us in Kentucky?"

"I think it likely, quite likely," returned Oliver Pollock, nodding his head to give emphasis to his words. "He had to give them something that would bind. A conspirator must take a risk and in this case it seemed small. The villages of those chiefs are beyond the Ohio, fifteen hundred miles at least from here. The chance that such a letter would reappear in New Orleans was most remote, and Alvarez, might have expected to provide against that, too, by being Governor General within a few months. I feel confident that there is such a letter and we must find it."

"It's a pretty problem," said Paul.

"I admit it," said Oliver Pollock, "but a new continent teaches one to achieve the impossible. That is what are we to do; how, I do not yet know, but we must do it."

"It's important," said Henry, "that it be done soon."

"It certainly is," said Mr. Pollock with great emphasis, "because I wish to start North soon with a great fleet of canoes and other boats loaded with rifles, powder, lead, blankets, medicines, and other absolutely necessary things for our suffering brethren in the east. They are hard pressed there, and it takes a long time to pull up the Mississippi and the Ohio and then carry these things across four or five hundred miles of country to our army."

"It's shorely a wonderful thing," said Shif'less Sol, "that you kin take boats up a big river hundreds an' hundreds o' miles into the heart o' a continent, then bend off into another river runnin' into it that takes you nearly over to the Atlantic. An' mebbe ef you took one o' the rivers that runs in it on the other side you might follow it up 'till you got purty near to the western ocean. It says to me plain ez print that we must hev this here Mississippi all the way to its mouth. We can't stay bottled up."

"Sh-sh," said Mr. Pollock, warningly. "Leave that to the future. It will adjust itself, and I think it will adjust itself in the way that we wish, but we cannot talk of it now, while Bernardo Galvez is our good friend and Spain inclines to our side. Of course Louisiana may be passed back to France, but France is a better and more powerful friend than Spain can be."

"Do you think you can get hold of Braxton Wyatt?" asked Henry of Mr. Pollock.

"I shall try," replied the merchant. "Our association has agents here, and in such times as these and in such a great emergency much may be excused. If we can get