Part 21 (1/2)
Had his friend, his brother, deserved this?
”I askof an enemy,” declared Stuart, bluffly
”You know my heart--trust me”
Atta-Kulla-Kulla yielded If he experienced curiosity, the naave him afforded no clue as to the reason for their selection; one was a gun-smith, an armorer of unco and reled wilderness to Fort Prince George, should coercion overcoes; the other, an artillery-ence, hiuns of the expedition, with a good chance of a successful issue The massacre had swept away most of the cannoneers, and Stuart are that the infantryarrison would be hardly un service than was Oconostota, their careless and casual observation being worth little norance Nevertheless, with his exacting insistence on the extreed Atta-Kulla-Kulla, whose patience earing dangerously thin, to let him see them, speak to them for one moment
”You can hear all I say--you who understand the English so well”
As he stepped into the old exhausted store-rooether, squalid, heart-broken, ill, forlorn, Atta-Kulla-Kulla outside closing the door fast, a quavering cheer went up to greet Stuart For one ht with feeling too deep for words Then his voice rang out and he spoke to the point He wanted to rearrison had forced the surrender and left the officers no choice, no discretion; however the event would have fallen out, it would not have happened thus ”But I did not coe you to rely upon arrison by the governain a pitiful cheer,--”and as I ain this is my only chance _Be sure of this_,--no htest assistance in any enterprise against Fort Prince George, or takes up arms at their command”
He smiled, and waved his hat in courteous farewell, and stepped backward out of the door, apparently guarded by Atta-Kulla-Kulla, while that quavering huzza went up anew, the very sound al down his self-control
The next day Stuart, accompanied by Atta-Kulla-Kulla, the warrior's wife, his brother, the ar party,--set gayly and leisurely forth But once out of reach of espionage they traveled in a northeastern direction with the uth the trackless wilderness, guided only by the sun and ue, what anxious doubt and anguish of hope they endured, but added wings to the flight of the unhappy fugitives Nine days and nights they journeyed thus, hardly relaxing a ained the frontiers of Virginia, they fortunately fell in with a party of three hundred iht be escaping in the direction of that province froh Hamish's dispatches its state of blockade and straits of starvation had become widely bruited abroad With the succor thus afforded and the terror of capture overpast, the four days' further travel were accoitives to Colonel Bird's cainia
Here Stuart parted froret, and ent prayer that the chief would protect such of the unhappy garrison as were still imprisoned at Fort Loudon until they could be ransomed, measures for which Stuart intended to set on foot i of the Cherokees went his way back to his native wilds, loaded by Stuart with presents and co the radical course he had taken[14] Stuart had instantly sent off e of the threatened attack, and to acquaint the governor of South Carolina with the ier and the fall of Fort Loudon, for Governor Bull had expected Virginia to raise the siege of Loudon, unaware that that province had dropped all thought of the atte its h those vast and tangled wildernesses carrying the necessary supplies for its own subsistence Provisions for ten weeks were at once thrown into Fort Prince George, and a report was industriously circulated around about it on every side had been craftily mined to prevent approach[15]
Stuart found that Ha out for his return to the beleaguered fort with the responsive dispatches, had succumbed to the extrehout the wild fastnesses, many hundred miles of which were traversed on foot and at full speed under a blazing summer sun, and lay ill of brain-fever at one of the frontier settleh recognizing the officer in so dispatches, of the inattention and callous hearts of officials in high station, of delays and long waitings for audience in official anterooms, of the prospect of any expedition of relief for the fort, of Odalie, and red calashes, and Savanukah, and rifle-shots, and Fifine, and ”top-feathers,” and Sandy--Sandy--Sandy; always Sandy!
Later, Stuart was apprised that the boy was on the way to recovery when he received a coherent letter fro every endeavor-- heaven and earth as the phrase went--to coarrison still at Fort Loudon or the Indian villages in its neighborhood Hamish had heard of the fall of the fort and theunder the weight of the blow, he reh of the services which Odalie had rendered in venturing forth from the walls under the officer's orders, when he dared not seek to induce a e upon his consideration the fact that she ht be justly esteemed to have earned her ransom and that of her husband and child Hamish had an iht to Mrs MacLeod or any of her household, Stuart wrote with an uncharacteristic vehemence of protest, every influence he could exert, every half-penny he possessed, every drop of his blood would be cheerfully devoted to the service, so highly did he rate the lofty courage which had given to Fort Loudon its only chance of relief, and which under happier auspices would undoubtedly have resulted in raising the siege Whatever otten, assuredly it would not be the intrepid devotion of the ”forlorn hope” of Fort Loudon
Hamish, left to his own not overwise devices, decided to return to the country where he had quitted all that was dear to hiht be And, indeed, those estern woods included the boundaries of all the world to hie to realize that there were other people, other interests, other happenings ofremembered the sensation, and ont to tell of it afterward, hich he discovered, caht at the foot of a tree--for he journeyed now by easy stages, keeping sedulously froh the forest--the traces of a previous presence, a bit of writing cut on the bark of the tree
”Daniel Boon,” it ran, ”cilled a bar on tree in the year 1760”
Thathope and despair and death--a hunter here, all unaware of the ony away there to the south in the shadow of the sa his quiet sylvan craft, and slaughtering his ”bar” and the alphabet with equal calm and aplomb
Perhaps it ell for the future career of the adventurous young fellow that he fell in with so with ned to establish theoods at one of the Lower Towns of the Cherokees; they urged that he should attach himself to their er, or because of the industry and usefulness and ever ready proffer of aid in the frank, bright, a quite beyond their custom, yet not unappreciated They warned him that it would be certain death to him, and perhaps to his captive relatives, should he in a fli his hair a singular yellow and walking with a lies of those Cherokees by whoainst whose interest he had been eression The traders showed sonation, because of the treachery that had resulted in the lish were always the sworn foe of the French The leader of the party, elderly, of commercial instincts rather than sylvan, albeit a dead shot, and decorated with ear-rings, had a great proclivity toward snuff and tears, and often indulged in both as a luxury when Haht to portray the characters of the tragedy of the siege; and as the Frenchman heard of Fifine and Odalie, and Stuart and Dee and devices of despair--”_Quelle barbarie!_” he would burst forth, and Haht of remembrance Two or three of the party hborhood, and returned with the news that the ransoarrison as were there had taken place, and they had been delivered to the coe, but certain others had been re them were the French squaw, the pappoose, and the Scotchh Monsieur Galette sat late, with his delicate sentiht, and stared at it with red eyes, often suffused with tears, and took snuff after his slovenly fashi+on until he acquired the aspect of a blackened pointed muzzle, and looked in his elevated susceptibility like some queer unclassified baboon
But at Huwhasee Town Haht of those his e hich Monsieur Galette urged upon the head-men that some measures should be taken to induce Oconostota to remove that fence, of which they had heard at Chote, which had been built of the bones of the ive theaze of Christian people This was not pleasing, he said, not even to the French He was evidently growing old and his heart was softening!
Lured by a vague ruht had been removed to a remote Indian town on the Tsullakee River, Hamish broke away from Monsieur Galette, despite all remonstrances, to seek those he loved in the further west--if slaves, as Monsieur Galette suggested, he would rather share their slavery than without the And, constrained to receive two snuffy kisses on either cheek, he left Monsieur Galette shedding his frequent tears to mix with the snuff on his pointed muzzle
And so in company with a French hunter in a canoe, Ha after many days to their destination, to find only disappoint nu Monsieur Galette's letter, looked at one another with grave faces and collogued together, and finally becaht were somewhere--oh, far away!--in the country where noelt the expatriated Shawnees, and that region, so great an Indian traveler as he was must knoas inaccessible now in the winter season It would be well for him to dismiss the matter froe in the fur trade; his society would be appreciated With the well- French flattery they protested that he spoke the French language so well--they made hiht to have known from this statement what value to attach to what they said otherwise, conscious as he was how his verbs and pronouns disagreed, and dislocated the sense of his remarks, and popped up and down out of place, like a lot of puppets on a disorganized system of wires These traders were not snuffy nor lachrys--but they all looked sorrowfully at hiht one waswithheld
And so down and down the Tsullakee River he went, and after the junction of the great tributary with the Ohio, he plied his paddle against the strong current and with the French hunter came into the placid waters of the beautiful Sewanee, or cu for many reat hunting-ground of the Cherokee nation and absolutely without population His adventures were few and slight until he fell in with Daniel Boon, ca that year near the head waters of the Sewanee, who listened to his story with grave concern and a sane and effective sympathy He, too, advised the cessation of these ceaseless wanderings, but he thought Stuart's letter evasive, somehow, and counseled the boy to write to hi searches and their futility Hah by no means shallow, for he armly attached to his friends, were simple, direct, devoid of the subtlety that sometimes characterized his e, and its environment the mere incident
He now replied that he had not dared divulge all the truth while Hamish MacLeod was in the enfeebled condition that follows brain-fever, and had been loath, too, to rob hiht forlornly mourn his nearest and dearest But since the fact must needs be revealed he could yet say their sorroere brief In that drear dawn on the plains of Taliquo the mother and child were killed in the same volley of musketry, and afterward, as he ordered from time to ti in line with the troops, lying on the ground, quite dead ”You may be sure of this,” Stuart added; ”I took especial note of their fate, having from the first cared ht a radical change in Hamish From the moment he seemed, instead of the wild, impulsive, affectionate boy, a stern reserved iain by General Amherst to the relief of the Carolina frontier; for the difficulties in Canada being set at rest, troops could be put in the field in the south, and vengeance for the tragedy of Fort Loudon becaressive, stimulated to further cruelties by their triumphs and immunity Nevertheless, Atta-Kulla-Kulla went forth to otiate a treaty It ell understood noever, that he was in no sense a representative man of his nation, and his mission failed
Lieutenant-Colonel Jaomery's command had now devolved, at the head of this little aruard of ninety Indian allies and thirty white settlers, painted and dressed like Indians, under command of Captain Quentin Kennedy,--in all about twenty-six hundred men,--continued to advance into the Cherokee country At Etchoee, the scene of the final battle of Colonel Montgon in the previous year, they encountered the Cherokees in their whole force--the united warriors of all the towns A furious battle ensued, both sides fighting with prodigies of valor and persistence, that resulted in breaking forever the power of the Cherokee nation Three hours the rage of the fight lasted, and then the troops, pushi+ng forward into the country, burned and slew on every side, wasting the growing crops all over the face of the land, and driving the inhabitants froe of caves and dens of wild beasts in the mountains They stayed not their hand till Atta-Kulla-Kulla caain, now to humbly sue for peace and for the preservation of such poor remnant as was left of his people