The Shadow of the North: A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign, Altsheler [reading eggs books txt] 📗

like an arrow into the wilderness with all the news about us, and he's not the only one. If we could adjust this trouble with the Pennsylvanians we might start at once."

An hour or two after he uttered his complaint, Robert saw a middle aged man, not remarkable of appearance, talking with Braddock. His dress was homespun and careless, but his large head was beautifully shaped, and his features, though they might have been called homely, shone with the light of an extraordinary intelligence. His manner as he talked to Braddock, without showing any tinge of deference, was soothing. Robert saw at once, despite his homespun dress, that here was a man of the great world and of great affairs.

"Who is he?" he said to Willet.

"It's Benjamin Franklin, of Pennsylvania," replied the hunter. "I hear he's one of the shrewdest men in all the colonies, and I don't doubt the report."

It was Robert's first sight of Franklin, certainly not the least in that amazing group of men who founded the American Union.

"They say," continued Willet, "that he's already achieved the impossible, that he's drawing General Braddock and the Pennsylvanians together, and that we'll soon get weapons, horses and all the other supplies we need."

It was no false news. Franklin had done what he alone could do. One of the greatest masters of diplomacy the world has ever known, he brought Braddock and Pennsylvania together, and smoothed out the difficulties. All the needed supplies began to flow in, and on the tenth of an eventful May the whole army started from Wills Creek to which point it had advanced, while Franklin was removing the difficulties. A new fort named Cumberland had been established there, and stalwart Virginians had been cutting a road ahead through the wilderness.

The place was on the edge of the unending forest. The narrow fringe of settlements on the Atlantic coast was left behind, and henceforth they must march through regions known only to the Indians and the woods rangers. But it was a fine army, two British regiments under Halket and Dunbar, their numbers reinforced by Virginia volunteers, and five hundred other Virginians, divided into nine companies. There was a company of British sailors, too, and artillery, and hundreds of wagons and baggage horses. Among the teamsters was a strong lad named Daniel Boone destined to immortality as the most famous of all pioneers.

Robert, Willet and Tayoga could have had horses to ride, but against the protests of Grosvenor and their other new English friends they declined them. They knew that they could scout along the flanks of an army far better on foot.

"In one way," said Willet, to Grosvenor, "we three, Robert, Tayoga and I, are going back home. The lads, at least have spent the greater part of their lives in the forest, and to me it has given a kindly welcome for these many years. It may look inhospitable to you who come from a country of roads and open fields, but it's not so to us. We know its ways. We can find shelter where you would see none, and it offers food to us, where you would starve, and you're a young man of intelligence too."

"At least I can see its beauty," laughed Grosvenor, as he looked upon the great green wilderness, stretching away and away to the far blue hills. "In truth 'tis a great and romantic adventure to go with a force like ours into an unknown country of such majestic quality."

He looked with a kindling eye from the wilderness back to the army, the greatest that had yet been gathered in the forest, the red coats of the soldiers gleaming now in the spring sunshine, and the air resounding with whips as the teamsters started their trains.

"A great force! A grand force!" said Robert, catching his enthusiasm. "The French and Indians can't stand before it!"

"How far is Fort Duquesne?" asked Grosvenor.

"In the extreme western part of the province of Pennsylvania, many days' march from here. At least, we claim that it's in Pennsylvania province, although the French assert it's on their soil, and they have possession. But it's in the Ohio country, because the waters there flow westward, the Alleghany and Monongahela joining at the fort and forming the great Ohio."

"And so we shall see much of the wilderness. Well, I'm not sorry, Lennox. 'Twill be something to talk about in England. I don't think they realize there the vastness and magnificence of the colonies."

That day a trader named Croghan brought about fifty Indian warriors to the camp, among them a few belonging to the Hodenosaunee, and offered their services as scouts and skirmishers. Braddock, who loved regularity and outward discipline, gazed at them in astonishment.

"Savages!" he said. "We will have none of them!"

The Indians, uttering no complaint, disappeared in the green forest, with Willet and Tayoga gazing somberly after them.

"'Twas a mistake," said the hunter. "They would have been our eyes and ears, where we needed eyes and ears most."

"A warrior of my kin was among them," said Tayoga. "Word will fly north that an insult has been offered to the Hodenosaunee."

"But," said Willet, "Colonel William Johnson will take a word of another kind. As you know, Tayoga, as I know, and, as all the nations of the Hodenosaunee know, Waraiyageh is their friend. He will speak to them no word that is not true. He will brush away all that web of craft, and cunning and cheating, spun by the Indian commissioners at Albany, and he will see that there is no infringement upon the rights of the great League."

"Waraiyageh will do all that, if he can reach Mount Johnson in time," said Tayoga, "but Onontio rises before the dawn, and he does not sleep until after midnight. He sings beautiful songs in the ears of the warriors, and the songs he sings seem to be true. Already the French and their allies have been victorious everywhere save at Fort Refuge, and they carry the trophies of triumph into Canada."

"But the time for us to strike a great blow is at hand, Tayoga," said Robert, who, with Grosvenor had been listening. "Behold this splendid army! No such force was ever before sent into the American wilderness. When we take Fort Duquesne we shall hold the key to the whole Ohio country, and we shall turn it in the lock and fasten it against the Governor General of Canada and all his allies."

"But the wilderness is mighty," said Tayoga. "Even the army of the great English king is small when it enters its depths."

"On the other hand so is that of the enemy, much smaller than ours," said Grosvenor.

Soon after Croghan and his Indians left the camp a figure tall, dark and somber, followed by a dozen men wild of appearance and clad in hunter's garb, emerged from the forest and walked in silence toward General Braddock's tent. The regular soldiers stared at them in astonishment, but their dark leader took no notice. Robert uttered an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.

"Black Rifle!" he said.

"And who is Black Rifle?" asked Grosvenor.

"A great hunter and scout and a friend of mine. I'm glad he's here. The general can find many uses for Black Rifle and his men."

He ran forward and greeted Black Rifle, who smiled one of his rare smiles at sight of the youth. Willet and Tayoga gave him the same warm welcome.

"What news, Black Rifle?" asked Robert.

"The French and Indians gather at Fort Duquesne to meet you. They are not in great force, but the wilderness will help them and the best of the French leaders are there."

"Have you heard anything of St. Luc?" asked Robert.

"We met a Seneca runner who had seen him. The Senecas are not at war
with the French, and the man talked with him a little, but the
Frenchman didn't tell him anything. We think he was on the way to Fort
Duquesne to join the other French leaders there."

"Have you heard the names of any of these Frenchmen?"

"Besides St. Luc there's Beaujeu, Dumas, Ligneris and Contrecoeur who commands. French regulars and Canadian troops are in the fort, and the heathen are pouring in from the west and north."

"Those are brave and skillful men," said Willet, as he listened to the names of the French leaders who would oppose them. "But 'twas good of you, Black Rifle, to come with these lads of yours to help us."

After the men had enjoyed food and a little rest, they were taken into the great tent, where the general sat, Willet having procured the interview, and accompanying them. Robert waited near with Grosvenor and Tayoga, knowing how useful Black Rifle and his men could be to a wilderness expedition, and hoping that they would be thrown together in future service.

A quarter of an hour passed, and then Black Rifle strode from the tent, his face dark as night. His men followed him, and, almost without a word, they left the camp, plunged into the forest and disappeared. Willet also came from the tent, crestfallen.

"What has happened, Dave?" asked Robert in astonishment.

"The worst. I suppose that when unlike meets unlike only trouble can come. I introduced Black Rifle and his men to General Braddock. They did not salute. They did not take off their caps in his presence,—not knowing, of course, that such things were done in armies. General Braddock rebuked them. I smoothed it all over as much as I could. Then he demanded what they wanted there, as a haughty giver of gifts would speak to a suppliant. Black Rifle said he and his men came to watch on the front and flanks of the army against Indian ambush, knowing how much it was needed. Braddock laughed and sneered. He said that an army such as his did not need to fear a few wandering Indians, and, in any event, it had eyes of its own to watch for itself. Black Rifle said he doubted it, that soldiers in the woods could seldom see anything but themselves. There was blame on both sides, but men like General Braddock and Black Rifle can't understand each other, they'll never understand each other, and, hot with wrath Black Rifle has taken his band and gone into the woods. Nor will he come back, and we need him! I tell you, Robert, we need him! We need him!"

"It is bad," said Tayoga. "An army can never have too many eyes."

Robert was deeply disappointed. He regretted not only the loss of Black Rifle and his men, but the further evidence of an unyielding temperament on the part of their commander. His own mind however so ready to comprehend the mind of others, could understand Braddock's point of view. To the general Black Rifle and his men were mere woods rovers, savages themselves in everything except race, and the army that he led was invincible.

"We'll have to make the best of it," he said.

"They've gone and they're a great loss, but the rest of us will try to do the work they would have done."

"That is so," said Tayoga, gravely.

At last the army moved proudly away into the wilderness. Hundreds of axmen, going ahead, cut a road twelve feet wide, along which cavalry, infantry, artillery and wagons and pack horses stretched for miles. The weather was beautiful, the forest was both beautiful and grand, and to most of the Englishmen and Virginians the march appealed as a great and romantic adventure. The trees were in the tender green leafage of early May, and their solid expanse stretched away hundreds and thousands of miles into the unknown west. Early wild flowers, a shy pink or a modest blue, bloomed in the grass. Deer started from their coverts, crashed through the thickets, and the sky darkened with the swarms of wild fowl flying north. Birds of brilliant plumage flashed among the leaves and often chattered overhead, heedless of the passing army. Now and then the soldiers sang, and the song passed from the head of the column along its rippling red, yellow and brown length of four miles.

It was a cheerful army, more it was a gay army, enjoying the wilderness which it was seeing at one of the finest periods of the year, wondering at the magnificence of the forest, and the great number of streams that came rushing down from the mountains.

"It's a noble country," said Grosvenor to Robert. "I'll admit all that you claim for it."

"And there's so much of it, Grosvenor, even allowing for the portion, the very big portion, the French claim."

"But from which