Part 6

“Brothers, the Ottawas, you hear what I say. Tell that to your fathers the French, for it is our mind, and we speak it from our hearts.”

While the Miamis hooted and defied, the Ottawas were given back their flag and their kegs of “milk” and their tobacco; and still weeping and howling they started off for the French at the Great Lakes. That seemed to settle the French.

The next day there was a grand Feather Dance, most remarkable. Three chief dancers, painted all over, pretended to be birds and jumped about inside a circle, to the beats of a drum, and waved feathered sticks. Warriors struck the post with their hatchets and sang of their great deeds, and threw gifts. The dance lasted half a day.

Then Christopher Gist and the Hunter left George Croghan and Andrew Montour, and the Miamis of Pickawillanee, and started home.

“Tell the Governor of Virginia that our friendship for the English shall stand like the loftiest mountain. We give no heed to the French,” Old Britain bade.

So having crossed the river again with Gist, Robert the Hunter rode south, through the rich prairies of Ohio, the two hundred miles to Shawnee town.

“You will have good word for the Washington company,” he said. Everything seemed to have turned out well.

“Yes,” said Gist.

“Now the French will see they cannot come in, and the Washington company will build their big houses.”

“Yes,” said Gist. “But the French are quick. They can travel down the rivers again while the men of Virginia are breaking through the mountains.”

“Long Knife Americans must get there first and block the road,” said the Hunter.

“Americans? Where did you learn that word?” asked Gist.

“I heard. Washington is American; you are American. Mebbe many Americans in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Not the same as English of the King across the water. Mebbe if you act quick you beat the French.”

“Your ears are big. You should be called the Rabbit,” laughed Christopher Gist. “Methinks the French are quick and brave, like the eagle; the English are slower, but also brave, and hard to turn when once they have started, like the buffalo. If we Americans, such as you call Washington, are free to act, we may partake of the qualities of both the French and English; but now we are children of the King. Well, from this Shawnee town I go down river to see more country. You will go up river, and tell Tanacharison what we have done. You have been a good boy; the horse you ride is yours.”

Then Gist travelled for the south, and Robert turned around and rode home alone, to report to Tanacharison and Scarouady.

He had left Logstown in the last week of November; he arrived at the beginning of the last week of March, having been gone four months.

V

THE YOUNG CHIEF ARRIVES

The French were coming! The great council of Mingos, Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots and Miamis had been held at Logstown. Christopher Gist was there and a man named Captain Joseph Fry to sign for Virginia. Washington had stayed home. Gist said that Washington’s brother, the sick chief, had died, and Washington was needed to comfort the widow.

The Iroquois from Onondago the council seat did not come.

“We do not meet to talk of business in the woods and weeds,” they sent word. “But the English have our permission to use land southeast of the Ohio. We do not give title to that land. The lands of Virginia stop on the sunrise side of the Alleghany Mountains.”

So a treaty of friendship was signed with Virginia. Tanacharison himself said, to Gist and Fry:

“Be quick to build us a big fort at the Forks of the Ohio, that will keep the French back. If the chief Washington is dead, let the young Washington bring in the men and build the fort.”

But the French were coming. The council had been ended a little time when runners from the west arrived with bad news. Two hundred and fifty Ottawas and Ojibwas of the French, led by Charles Langlade the bold French ranger, had attacked Pickawillanee of the Miamis, and taken it and its English traders, and the Ottawas had eaten old Chief Britain of the Piankashaws!

“Now we see that the French of Onontio are strong,” said the King Shingis of the Delawares. “They have conquered the Miami, but the English have done nothing. We had better wait and see.”

For the French were coming. Christopher Gist was laying out a town fifty miles southeast of the Forks, near a place called Great Meadows; but the Ohio company were still sitting in their storehouse at Will’s Creek on the Potomac, one hundred and fifty miles by trail from the Forks of the Ohio.

And the French were coming. Runners from Onondago arrived. Mohawks had seen a great fleet of French canoes loaded with soldiers making south upon the Great Lakes, to enter the Ohio Country.

The water was covered with boats, said the runners, and the boats bore six thousand soldiers and Indians, to drive the English out of the Ohio country.

Next, the French had landed and had built a fort on the southeastern shore of Lake Erie, from which they could march by land and river to the head of the Allegheny River. And from this place they cut a road through the woods to the River of Buffalo, which emptied into the Allegheny. Here they built another fort; and they would paddle down Buffalo River into the Allegheny, and down the Allegheny to the Forks of the Ohio. They sent men forward under Captain Joncaire to the Seneca and Delaware town of Venango at the mouth of the Buffalo River, and drove Trader John Fraser from his house and took it. Fraser had run away, to live in another house at the Monongahela, south of the Forks.

Now Venango was French; the French were as close as the head of the Allegheny, sixty miles from Logstown, and the American-English of Virginia and of Pennsylvania had not paid any attention, except with words, to the Mingo wampum belts summoning aid.

“The French will build a line of forts all down the Ohio, and shut us from the English traders,” said Tanacharison. “Where is that Ohio Company, who have permission to build a fort for us? If we go to war with the French we lose our lands.”

And many of the Delawares and Mingos and Shawnees began to think that the English of Virginia and Pennsylvania were weak.

At last a man came, sent by the Governor of Virginia, to warn the French to stay back out of the country. His name was Captain William Trent. From Logstown he marched northwest, to find the French commander. But in a little time he was back again. When he had reached Pickawillanee he found only the French flag flying over the burned fort and houses, and his heart turned over. He did nothing at all.

“That man is a coward,” said Tanacharison. “He is afraid of the French, but I am not. I will go, myself, to the French at Lake Erie and find the head soldier, and tell him what he must do.”

Tanacharison was gone a month. Then he, too, came back. He had talked with the French chief, and had tried to return the peace belt which held the Mingos to the French. The French chief had laughed at him, and called him “child”――had thrown the belt in his face and ordered him home.

A Delaware who had been at Venango brought word to Logstown that the French were coming down in the spring; if the Indians meddled the Indians would be killed while the English were being conquered; and even if the English kept part of the lands, the other lands would go to the French and the Indians would have nothing. This was the warning sent by Captain Joncaire.

“If the English do not help us this fall, in the spring they will be too late,” said Tanacharison. “For in the spring when the waters are high the French will bring their canoes and men while the English are kept back by the snows in the mountains. Why do the men of Virginia sit with their hands between their knees?”

The Half-King sent a string of wampum to Trader Fraser’s house in the south on the Monongahela, and a speech for Assaragoa the Governor of Virginia, telling him that the Chippewas, the Ottawas and the Adirondacks of the north had taken up the hatchet for the French; he should hurry many men. Then, having done all that he could, the Half-King went hunting.

Scarouady stayed. If word came from the Governor, Robert was to carry it to Tanacharison at his hunting cabin.

Then, when Tanacharison had been gone only a few days, great news broke.

It was Robert who made the discovery. Early in the morning he had ridden up the Ohio, to hunt on the other side of the Meeting of the Waters. He kept a little canoe hidden in the bushes at the Forks, just for that purpose.

He passed King Shingis’s town, across the Ohio; and leaving his horse he was going for his canoe, when he saw two men among the trees of the bank opposite.

They were on horses, and so they were English; Indians travelled afoot. And he could see that they were white men, anyway. Thereupon the Hunter shoved right out and paddled over, and found George Washington waiting for him.

“Hallo!” Washington greeted. “It is the Hunter again. Welcome, Hunter.”

“Welcome, Washington,” Robert answered. “You build fort?”

The other man he did not know. That was a stout man, with a face like a wrinkled persimmon, and with red nose, very blue eyes, and the yellow hair of his chin cut to a point like a tuft of a lynx ear. He wore a uniform of old blue coat, buttoned tight, and pants tucked into boots.

Washington wore a three cornered hat, and a blue coat with white facings and bright buttons and tails turned back, tight breeches and boots. It looked like a soldier chief’s dress.

“This is a good place for a fort,” said Washington. “But I do not build it. I am going on.”

“You come Logstown with company?” asked the Hunter.

“Yes, to Logstown. Is the Half-King there?”

“Half-King gone hunting. He leave Scarouady and me to wait if any word come from English. You bring Long Knife Americans, Washington?”

“My men follow with a canoe so that we can cross,” said Washington.

“It iss a goot friend of yours, major?” spoke the stout, red-nosed man, in English hard to understand.

“He is the boy who showed me how to wade a stream by carrying a rock,” answered Washington. “Half-King is his father.”

Washington remembered. That had been several years ago; he seemed much older now, and the Hunter had grown, too. But he remembered.

Other men came. They were Christopher Gist and John Davidson the trader. They had left a third man to wait for the men bringing a canoe down from John Fraser’s place up the Monongahela.

Washington talked with Gist and Davidson. He had been looking at the land here in the Forks and had seen what Tanacharison had seen long ago――that it was the best place for a house with big guns.

“It lies high and level,” said Washington, “and commands the two rivers and the entrance to the Ohio. By the Monongahela we could travel to and from the Virginia outposts in the south, and no one from the north could pass out of the Allegheny.”

“Yah, it iss the proper meelitary situation,” said the red-nosed man. “Dere iss no better.”

“The spot where I was told to start a fort for the Ohio Company is yonder across the Monongahela, and two miles down the Ohio,” said Gist. “That’s where old Shingis of the Delawares lives, on the south bank. Do you wish to stop and see him, major?”

“Yes, we’ll stop and invite him to our council at Logstown,” replied Washington.

“How stands Shingis now? Is he friendly to the English?” asked John Davidson, in the Mingo, of Robert.

“The Delawares are of two minds,” answered Robert. “They wait. If the English are strong and give presents, Shingis will be English. If the French are strong and give presents, Shingis will be French. Let Washington talk with him. Who is that fat man with the red nose and the tight shirt? Is he American?”

“Ho ho!” laughed Davidson. “What is that word――American? You see Americans, but you see English, too. That man’s name is Jacob Vanbraam. He is a soldier captain from another white man’s country across the big water which they call Dutch Land. But now he is American-English. He teaches Washington to use the big knife which in English is sword; he speaks the French language and he goes with Washington to talk to the French in the north. We ask Tanacharison to help us on the trail.”

“Wah!” exclaimed the Hunter. “Is Washington a chief?”

“He is a major in the army of Virginia, and commands soldiers.”

“Wah!” uttered Robert. “That is good. He is a man. Tell him I will be a warrior under him, to fight the French. Now I go and tell Scarouady Washington is come against the French, and to make ready.”

Then the Hunter ran for his canoe. When he shoved out, the canoe from John Fraser’s, with two men in it, was coming in to meet Washington. The Hunter paddled across, and got on his horse and went at a gallop, full of news for Logstown.

First he saw Bright Lightning.

“What is it? The French?” she asked.

“It is Washington with men, for Logstown.”

“Many?”

“I saw six.”

“What can six do?” said Bright Lightning. “You are in a great hurry about one man and five! The French have a thousand. Your Long Knives are fools.”

The hunter next met old Juskakaka or Green Grasshopper, the principal councillor; and almost ran into him.

“What is this?” growled Juskakaka. “You are half white and have no manners.”

“Washington is come.”

“Where is he?”

“At Dekanawida. I saw him.”

“With men?”

“Five men.”

“Wah!” scoffed old Little Billy. “Does the Governor of Virginia sent a boy and five men to fight the French? It is true what the French say, that the English are blind and have no regard for the Indians.”

Next Robert found Scarouady, lying in his lodge.

“What do you want, entering a chief’s lodge this way?”

“The Americans are come. I have seen Washington.”

“How many?”

“Six, with Washington.”

“Where?”

“They are crossing the Forks, to visit King Shingis.”

“King Shingis? Don’t they know their way to the Mingo, where the head chief of all lives?”

“They come here, too.”

“What Washington?”

“The young Washington; the same we saw.”

“Wah!” grunted Scarouady. “What does he want?”

“He will talk with Tanacharison and then he goes to the French.”

“The Governor of Virginia sent one man to the French, and he grew afraid and ran home,” said Scarouady. “Now Assaragoa sends a boy. The French will laugh. The Mingo do not wish boys with speech belts; they wish men with big guns, to build a fort. But I will see this Washington again, and if it is worth while for Tanacharison to see him, we will send for Tanacharison.”

And――

“A boy with five men is very little,” agreed White Thunder. “Where is the company, to build the house we asked them to build?”

Washington and the others came at sunset, down the valley; and King Shingis was with them. The men set up a tent, while everybody watched curiously; but John Davidson inquired where Scarouady was, and he and Washington went to the lodge.

“Is that your Washington?” Bright Lightning asked of the Hunter.

“Yes.”

“Is he a chief?”

“He is a soldier major of the Long Knife army. The French send us only captains.”

“Well,” said Bright Lightning, “Old Juskakaka calls him a boy, but I can see that he is a man. The Governor of Virginia has not acted so foolishly after all.”

Scarouady and White Thunder and Juskakaka came to Washington’s tent, for presents of food. On the way Scarouady called to Robert.

“It is dark now, but in the morning you will go and bring Tanacharison. Tell him Major George Washington has come from Virginia to speak with the French, and wishes to hold council with the chiefs of the Ohio.”

Something in Scarouady’s tone told the Hunter that George Washington had proved to be strong.

VI

BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR

Tanacharison’s hunting cabin was on Little Beaver Creek, fifteen miles down the Ohio. When the Hunter found him in the morning, he was in no hurry to meet Washington.

“Instead of sending us a principal man,” he said, “the Governor of Virginia sends a boy without experience to talk with chiefs. I am Half-King and wish to talk with Assaragoa himself. He rules Virginia, and I rule my country. It is not dignified for me to run at the call of a boy. But I will go up during the day, when I have finished my business here.”

So it was not until the middle of the afternoon that Tanacharison arrived in Logstown. He went to his own house, to change his clothes. But George Washington acted sensibly. Pretty soon he came to the house with John Davidson, who spoke Iroquois dialects, and after greeting Tanacharison he said:

“I am arrived at Logstown from your brother the Governor of Virginia, to talk with the Mingo, the Delaware, the Shawnee, the Wyandot. If Tanacharison, who is Half-King, will come to my tent, we can speak there in private away from the ears of women and children.”

Tanacharison looked Washington up and down.

“That is well said,” he answered. “You are young, but you have wisdom. This boy may come, to be present in case I do not understand. You know him. He is my son.”

Therefore the Hunter went with Tanacharison and Washington to Washington’s tent, and they sat down.

“I am told,” said Washington, “that you went, yourself, to the French chief at the Lakes, and commanded him to leave. As I am going there too, I should like to know what your words were to him and what his words were to you, and what the distance is, so that I may know how to act.”

“When I went, the distance was shorter,” replied the Half-King. “You are too late in the year to get there easily. The snows and rains have swollen the rivers and made many great bogs. The first fort is at least six nights’ sleeps by best travel.”

“Nevertheless, I am going,” said Washington. “Those are my orders from the Governor.”

“Me the French insulted. You they will laugh at, and think to fool, because you have no beard,” objected Tanacharison.

“If they think I am not worthy of notice,” Washington said quietly, “then they will not watch me and I can look about and see what they have.”

“Wah!” Half-King uttered. “The other man was a coward. You are no coward. I see you will go to the French chief.”

“If my brother will tell me what he said to the French chief and what the French chief answered, I will listen,” Washington prompted.

“The French chief treated me like a dog,” declared Tanacharison, growing angry. “He has since died; now there is another, and what his mind is I do not know. I went alone to see the first, who commanded last summer. I took the speech belt of friendship left us by Captain Joncaire. Instead of being polite and receiving me like a chief, the Frenchman sat down while I stood and he asked me who I was and what was my business there. I said to him:

“‘Father, a long time ago you set before the Six Nations a basin with the leg of a beaver, and bade us eat in peace and plenty; and if any person disturbed us, we should drive him out.’

“‘Now, father it is you who are disturbing us, by coming and building on our lands, and taking it away.’

“‘Father,’ I said, ‘a long time ago we kindled a fire for you at a place called Montreal, where you were to stay. I now ask you to go to that place, for this is our land and not yours.’

“‘Father,’ I said, ‘if you had come peaceably, like our brothers the English, you could have traded with us like they do. But to come and build houses without our permission and take our land by force we cannot allow.’

“‘Father,’ I said, ‘you and the English are white. We live in a country between; the land does not belong to either of you. Now I ask you to go out. I am saying the same to our brothers the English, and we will see which of you will pay attention and deserve sharing with us. I am here to say this to you, for I am not afraid to order you off our land.’ Then I handed the wampum belt to him, that he might know we were done with him.”

“Those were good words,” Washington nodded gravely. “What did he reply?”

“He said to me, speaking very rudely: ‘My child, I do not know this wampum with which you order me away. You need not speak, for I will not hear you. I am not afraid of flies or mosquitoes, such as Indians are. Down the river I will go and build upon it. If the river is blocked I am strong enough to burst it open and tread everybody under my feet.’

“Then he threw the speech belt in my face, and he said, laughing at me:

“‘Child, you talk foolish. You say this land belongs to you, but there is not so much as the black of your nail yours. I saw that land before the Six Nations took it from the Shawnees. With lead I went down and took possession of that river. It is my land and I will have it, no matter who tries to stand against me. If you will be ruled by me you will get kindness, but not otherwise.’

“He spoke angrily, with a red face,” Tanacharison continued. “So I took the speech belt and came home. You had better think a while before you go, for you will be treated with rudeness.”

“My chief the Governor of Virginia has ordered me to travel straight to the French and give the French chief a letter,” said Washington. “There I will go!”

“What is in the letter?” Tanacharison asked.

“It is a letter of much importance to us all,” said Washington. “And by this string of wampum Assaragoa asks you, his brothers, for young men who will go with me by the shortest road, and hunt for meat, and help me against the French Indians who have taken up the hatchet.”

“All this must come before the council tomorrow,” answered Tanacharison, “when the chiefs of the Shawnee and the Delaware will be present. But we should like to know your business with the French chief, and what the English intend to do. Do the English claim this land north of the river?”

“The first thing to do is to get rid of the French,” said Washington.

“That is so,” agreed Tanacharison, growing angry again. “Now I will show you where those French forts are.”

Then Tanacharison took a bit of charcoal from the fire, and a strip of bark from a log, and drew pictures.