Part 12 (1/2)

”She would be like bear for cub, she would die for him. Would Little Knife do as much?”

This name the savage had lately given the boy. The Indians termed the Virginians ”Long Knives,” hence the name, ”Little Knife,” applied to the lad.

That winter several of the men relied upon for hunting visited a distant tribe, and meat grew scarce. Since the departure of Caughnega and Maman, Rodney went about more freely and the old chief loaned his rifle and allowed him to hunt. He and Conrad made several excursions together. On one of these trips they set out with but little food and wandered for several days, nearly starved and half frozen. On the third day Conrad, discovering a hole half way up the trunk of a big tree, stopped.

”Vat you tink?” asked Rodney, mimicking his companion's speech, for now they were excellent friends.

”I tink dat one goot hole for bear, ain't so?” was the reply.

”You suppose an old fellow has a nest in there?”

”I tink some look in be goot.”

They cut down a sapling standing near, ”lodging” it against the big tree. Then they built a fire and, collecting the tips of green boughs and long gra.s.s damp with frost, tied them into a bundle at the end of a pole. While Conrad ”s.h.i.+nned” up the sapling till the pole would reach the hole, Rodney lighted the bundle which smoked like a ”smudge.” Conrad thrust the smoking bundle into the hole and, a minute later, a wheezing sound was heard. Bruin was there and was waking from his winter sleep!

Rodney seized the rifle while Conrad slid to the ground. But the bear looked out and made no effort to descend.

Conrad then relighted the torch and climbed up far enough to thrust it in the bear's face. This angered him and he began to back down the tree.

Unlike Rodney's first encounter with a bear, the lad now had ample time for taking steady aim and the brute fell mortally wounded.

How delicious the meal, which followed, tasted after their long fast!

Taking as much of the choicest cuts as they could carry, they returned to the encampment to find the Indians in a famished condition. Ahneota for the two previous days had given his allowance of food to the children.

The winter, what with hunting and trapping, pa.s.sed quickly. The wild, free life with all its hards.h.i.+ps and annoyances appealed to Rodney, and he came to understand how children taken captives by the Indians, and later returned to their parents, would occasionally run away and rejoin the red folk. His home ties were too strong, however, for him to entertain such a thought, and he lay awake many nights wondering how he might make his escape.

The severity of the winter had greatly weakened Ahneota. The skin was drawn over his cheekbones like parchment. He was so lame with rheumatism that he needed constant care and the boy served him in many ways.

The hunters, though few in number, had gathered a fine lot of furs, and, when the ice was breaking up in the streams, the sugar maples were tapped. Their implements for this purpose were crude. Their method consisted in cutting a gash through the bark with a tomahawk and into this driving a chip which served as a ”spile” to conduct the dripping sap into the dishes of elm bark, from which it was taken and boiled into sugar. This sugar was often mixed with bear's fat and stored in sacks made of skins, a mixture much prized by the Indians.

A little later the tribe returned to the bluff where Rodney was first introduced to its life, there to plant the corn and tobacco.

Rumours of trouble with the whites increased. The latter part of May Francois returned, but without Maman and Louis, and he brought, to trade for the valuable furs, rifles and ammunition and brandy, and waxed rich, while the savages with their new implements of war became more restless.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BEGINNING OF WAR

From the history of those days one learns that there were white savages who compared unfavourably with the red ones.

Of such were those border ruffians who, tempting the family of a friendly Indian with liquor till they were stupefied with drink, murdered them.

The Indian chief returned to find them weltering in blood. He was an Iroquois who had moved his family from New York to the Ohio River.

His Indian name was Tahgahjute, but he was commonly called Logan from the fact that he had in early life lived with a white family of that name. Ever after he had been a staunch friend of the whites. Now he became almost insane in his natural anger, and went about among the various tribes calling on them to avenge his wrongs.

Had those border ruffians desired to bring on an Indian war they could not have so quickly done it in any other way. Soon, tales of pioneer families murdered by the Indians were brought over the mountains into Virginia. Logan's friends were seeking vengeance.

Undoubtedly the war would have broken out later had not Logan's family been murdered. The Indians believed they must fight or be overrun by the white immigrants pouring into the western country.

The royal governor appointed by the king over the colony of Virginia was, at this time, Lord Dunmore. He was an ardent loyalist, but he also is said to have been interested financially in some of the land ventures, concerning which there was much interest in the colony, also much speculation. Though Governor Dunmore knew that the policy of the English ministry at the time was conciliatory, he did not hesitate to prepare for a war which should bring the savages to submission.