Part 37 (1/2)
”The Indian, Long-Hair, whom I sent upon Lieutenant Beverley's trail, reported to me this afternoon that his pursuit had been quite successful. He caught his game.”
Alice's voice came to her now. She drew in a quivering breath of relief.
”Then he is here--he is--you have him a prisoner again?”
”A part of him, Miss Roussillon. Enough to be quite sure that there is one traitor who will trouble his king no more. Mr. Long-Hair brought in the Lieutenant's scalp.”
Alice received this horrible statement in silence; but her face blanched and she stood as if frozen by the shock. The s.h.i.+fty moon-glimmer and the yellow glow of the lamp showed Hamilton to what an extent his devilish cruelty hurt her, and somehow it chilled him as if by reflection; but he could not forego another thrust.
”He deserved hanging, and would have got it had he been brought to me alive. So after all, you should be satisfied. He escaped my vengeance and Long-Hair got his pay. You see I am the chief sufferer.”
These words, however, fell without effect upon the girl's ears, in which was booming the awful, storm-like roar of her excitement. She did not see her persecutor standing there; her vision, unhindered by walls and distance, went straight away to a place in the wilderness, where all mangled and disfigured Beverley lay dead. A low cry broke from her lips; she dropped the heavy swivel-b.a.l.l.s; and then, like a bird, swiftly, with a rustling swoop, she went past Hamilton and down the stair.
For perhaps a full minute the man stood there motionless, stupefied, amazed; and when at length he recovered himself, it was with difficulty that he followed her. Everything seemed to hinder him. When he reached the open air, however, he quickly regained his activity of both mind and body, and looked in all directions. The clouds were breaking into parallel ma.s.ses with streaks of sky between. The moon hanging aslant against the blue peeped forth just in time to show him a flying figure which, even while he looked, reached the postern, opened it and slipped through.
With but a breath of hesitation between giving the alarm and following Alice silently and alone, he chose the latter. He was a swift runner and light footed. With a few bounds he reached the little gate, which was still oscillating on its hinges, darted through and away, straining every muscle in desperate pursuit, gaining rapidly in the race, which bore eastward along the course twice before chosen by Alice in leaving the stockade.
CHAPTER XVII.
A MARCH THROUGH COLD WATER
On the fifth day of February, 1779, Colonel George Rogers Clark led an army across the Kaskaskia River and camped. This was the first step in his march towards the Wabash. An army! Do not smile. Fewer than two hundred men, it is true, answered the roll-call, when Father Gibault lifted the Cross and blessed them; but every name told off by the company sergeants belonged to a hero, and every voice making response struck a full note in the chorus of freedom's morning song.
It was an army, small indeed, but yet an army; even though so rudely equipped that, could we now see it before us, we might wonder of what use it could possibly be in a military way.
We should nevertheless hardly expect that a hundred and seventy of our best men, even if furnished with the latest and most deadly engines of destruction, could do what those pioneers cheerfully undertook and gloriously accomplished in the savage wilderness which was to be the great central area of the United States of America.
We look back with a s.h.i.+ver of awe at the three hundred Spartans for whom Simonides composed his matchless epitaph. They wrought and died gloriously; that was Greek. The one hundred and seventy men, who, led by the backwoodsman, Clark, made conquest of an empire's area for freedom in the west, wrought and lived gloriously; that was American.
It is well to bear in mind this distinction by which our civilization separates itself from that of old times. Our heroism has always been of life--our heroes have conquered and lived to see the effect of conquest. We have fought all sorts of wars and have never yet felt defeat. Was.h.i.+ngton, Jackson, Taylor, Grant, all lived to enjoy, after successful war, a triumphant peace. ”These Americans,” said a witty Frenchman, ”are either enormously lucky, or possessed of miraculous vitality. You rarely kill them in battle, and if you wound them their wounds are never mortal. Their history is but a chain of impossibilities easily accomplished. Their undertakings have been without preparation, their successes in the nature of stupendous accidents.” Such a statement may appear critically sound from a Gallic point of view; but it leaves out the dominant element of American character, namely, heroic efficiency. From the first we have had the courage to undertake, the practical common sense which overcomes the lack of technical training, and the vital force which never flags under the stress of adversity.
Clark knew, when he set out on his march to Vincennes, that he was not indulging a visionary impulse. The enterprise was one that called for all that manhood could endure, but not more. With the genius of a born leader he measured his task by his means. He knew his own courage and fort.i.tude, and understood the best capacity of his men. He had genius; that is, he possessed the secret of extracting from himself and from his followers the last refinement of devotion to purpose. There was a certainty, from first to last, that effort would not flag at any point short of the top-most possible strain.
The great star of America was no more than a nebulous splendor on the horizon in 1779. It was a new world forming by the law of youth. The men who bore the burdens of its exacting life were mostly stalwart striplings who, before the down of adolescence fairly sprouted on their chins, could swing the ax, drive a plow, close with a bear or kill an Indian. Clark was not yet twenty-seven when he made his famous campaign. A tall, brawny youth, whose frontier experience had enriched a native character of the best quality, he marched on foot at the head of his little column, and was first to test every opposing danger. Was there a stream to wade or swim? Clark enthusiastically shouted, ”Come on!” and in he plunged. Was there a lack of food? ”I'm not hungry,” he cried. ”Help yourselves, men!” Had some poor soldier lost his blanket?
”Mine is in my way,” said Clark. ”Take it, I'm glad to get rid of it!”
His men loved him, and would die rather than fall short of his expectations.
The march before them lay over a magnificent plain, mostly prairie, rich as the delta of the Nile, but extremely difficult to traverse. The distance, as the route led, was about a hundred and seventy miles. On account of an open and rainy winter all the basins and flat lands were inundated, often presenting leagues of water ranging in depth from a few inches to three of four feet. Cold winds blew, sometimes with spits of snow and dashes of sleet, while thin ice formed on the ponds and sluggish streams. By day progress meant wading ankle-deep, knee-deep, breast-deep, with an occasional spurt of swimming. By night the brave fellows had to sleep, if sleep they could, on the cold ground in soaked clothing under water-heavy blankets. They flung the leagues behind them, however, cheerfully stimulating one another by joke and challenge, defying all the bitterness of weather, all the bitings of hunger, all the toil, danger and deprivation of a trackless and houseless wilderness, looking only eastward, following their youthful and intrepid commander to one of the most valuable victories gained by American soldiers during the War of the Revolution.
Colonel Clark understood perfectly the strategic importance of Vincennes as a post commanding the Wabash, and as a base of communication with the many Indian tribes north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi. Francis Vigo (may his name never fade!) had brought him a comprehensive and accurate report of Hamilton's strength and the condition of the fort and garrison. This information confirmed his belief that it would be possible not only to capture Vincennes, but Detroit as well.
Just seven days after the march began, the little army encamped for a night's rest at the edge of a wood; and here, just after nightfall, when the fires were burning merrily and the smell of broiling buffalo steaks burdened the damp air, a wizzened old man suddenly appeared, how or from where n.o.body had observed He was dirty and in every way disreputable in appearance, looking like an animated mummy, bearing a long rifle on his shoulder, and walking with the somewhat halting activity of a very old, yet vivacious and energetic simian. Of course it was Oncle Jason, ”Oncle Jazon sui generis,” as Father Beret had dubbed him.
”Well, here I am!” he cried, approaching the fire by which Colonel Clark and some of his officers were cooking supper, ”but ye can't guess in a mile o' who I am to save yer livers and lights.”
He danced a few stiff steps, which made the water gush out of his tattered moccasins, then doffed his nondescript cap and nodded his scalpless head in salutation to the commander.
Clark looked inquiringly at him, while the old fellow grimaced and rubbed his shrunken chin.