The Hidden Children by Robert W. Chambers (books to improve english .TXT) 📗

on my back, half asleep, yet not wholly, and soon tired of this, and, wrapping me in my blanket and drawing on ankle moccasins, went down to the Chemung where its crystal current clattered over the stones, and found me a clear, deep pool to flounder in.

Before I plunged, noticing several fine trout lying there, I played a scurvy trick on them, tickling three big ones; and had a fourth out of water, but was careless, and he slipped back.

Some Continental soldiers who had been watching me, mouths agape, went to another pool to try their skill; but while I would not boast, it is not everybody who can tickle a speckled trout; and after my bath the soldiers were still at it, and damning their eyes, their luck, and the pretty fish which so saucily flouted them.

So I flung 'em a big trout and went back to camp whistling, and there found that my Indians had fed and were now gravely renewing their paint.

Tahoontowhee dressed and cooked my fish for me, each in a bass-wood leaf, and when they were done and smelling most fragrant, we all made a delicious feast, with corn bread from the ovens and salt pork and a great jug of milk from the army's herd.

At eight o'clock another gun was fired. This was the daily signal, I learned, to stack tents and load pack-horses. And another gun fired at ten o'clock meant "March." With all these guns, and a fourth at sundown, I saw an unhappy time ahead for my Indians. Truly, I think the sound makes them sick. They all pulled wry faces now, and I had my jest at their expense, ours being a most happy little family, so amiably did the Mohican and Oneidas foregather; and also, there being among them a Sagamore and a Chief of the noble Oneida clan, I could meet them on an equality of footing which infringed nothing on military etiquette. There were doubtless many interpreters in camp, but few, if any, I suppose, who had had the advantage of such training as I under Guy Johnson, who himself, after Sir William's death, was appointed Indian Superintendent under the Crown for all North America, Guy Johnson knew the Iroquois. And if he lacked the character, personal charm, and knowledge that Sir William possessed, yet in the politics and diplomacy of Indian affairs his knowledge and practice were vast, and his services most valuable to his King.

Under him I had been schooled, and also under the veteran deputies, Colonel Croghan, Colonel Butler, and Colonel Claus; and had learned much from old Cadwallader Colden, too, who came often to Guy Park, as did our good General Philip Schuyler in these peaceful days.

So I knew how to treat any Indian I had ever seen, save only the outlandish creatures of the Senecas. Else, perhaps, I had sooner penetrated the villainy of the Erie. Yet, even my own Indians had not been altogether certain of the traitor's identity until almost at the very end.

At ten another gun was fired, but only a small detachment of infantry marched, the other regiments unpacking and pitching tents again, and the usual routine of camp life, with its multitudinous duties and details, was resumed.

I reported at headquarters, to which my guides were now attached, and there were orders for me to hold myself and Indians in readiness for a night march to Chemung.

All that day I spent in acquainting myself with the camp which had been pitched, as I say, on the neck of land bounded by the Susquehanna and the Chemung, with a small creek, called Cayuga by some, Seneca Creek by others, intersecting it and flowing south into the Susquehanna. It was but a trout brook.

This site of the old Indian town of Tioga seemed to me very lovely. The waters were silvery and sweet, the flats composed of rich, dark soil, the forests beautiful with a great variety of noble and gigantic trees—white pines on the hills; on the level country enormous black-walnuts, oaks, button-woods, and nut trees of many species, growing wide apart, yet so roofing the forest with foliage that very little sunlight penetrated, and only the flats were open and bright with waving Indian grass, now so ripe that our sheep, cattle, and horses found in it a nourishment scarcely sufficient for beasts so exercised and driven.

That day, as I say, I walked about the camp and adjacent river-country, seeking out my friends in the various regiments to gossip with them. And was invited to a Rum Punch given by all the officers at the Artillery Lines to celebrate the victory of General Wayne at Stony Point.

Colonel Proctor's artillery band discoursed most noble music for us; and there was much hilarity and cheering, and many very boisterous.

These social parties in our army, where rum-punch was the favourite beverage, were gay and lively; but there was a headache in every cup of it, they say. I, being an interpreter, held aloof because I must ever set an example to my red comrades. And this day had all I could do to confine them to proper rations. For all spirit is a very poison to any Indian. And of all the crimes of which men of my colour stand attainted, the offering of this death-cup to our red brothers is, I think, the wickedest and the most contemptible.

For when we white men become merely exhilarated in the performance of such social usages as politeness requires of us, the Indian becomes murderous. And I remember at this Artillery Punch many officers danced a Shawanese dance, and General Hand, of the Light Troops, did lead this war-dance, which caused me discomfiture, I not at all pleased to see officers who ranked me cut school-boy capers 'round a midday fire.

And it was like very school-lads that many of us behaved, making of this serious and hazardous expedition a silly pleasure jaunt. I have since thought that perhaps the sombre and majestic menace of a sunless and unknown forest reacted a little on us all, and that many found a nervous relief in brief relaxations and harmless folly, and in antics performed on its grim and dusky edges.

For no one, I think, doubted there was trouble waiting for us within these silent shades. And the tension had never lessened for this army, what with waiting for the Right Wing, which had not yet apparently stirred from Otsego; and the inadequacy of provisions, not known to the men but whispered among the officers; and the shots already exchanged this very morning along the river between our outposts and prowling scouts of the enemy; and the daily loss of pack-animals and cattle, strayed or stolen; and of men, too, scalped since they left Wyoming, sometimes within gunshot of headquarters.

But work on the four block-forts, just begun, progressed rapidly; and, alas, the corps of invalids destined to garrison them had, since the army left Easton, increased too fast to please anybody, what with wounds, accidents in camp from careless handling of firearms, kicks from animals, and the various diseases certain to appear where many people congregate.

There were a number of regiments under tents or awaiting the unfinished log barracks at Tioga Point; in the First Brigade there were four from New Jersey; in the Second Brigade three from New Hampshire; in the Third two from Pennsylvania, and an artillery regiment; and what with other corps and the train, boatmen, guides, workmen, servants, etc., it made a great and curious spectacle even before our Right Wing joined.

Every regiment carried its colours and its music, fifes, drums, and bugle-horns; and sometimes these played on the march when a light detachment went forward for a day's scout, or to forage or to destroy. But best of all music I ever heard, I loved now to hear the band of Colonel Proctor's artillery regiment, filling me as it did with solemn, yet pleasurable, emotions, and seemingly teaching me how dear had Lois become to me.

The scout, sent out the day before, returned in the afternoon with an account that Chemung was held by the enemy, which caused a bustle in camp, particularly among the light troop.

Headquarters was very busy all day long, and sometimes even gay, for the gentlemen of General Sullivan's family were not only sufficient, but amiable and delightful. And there I had the honour of being made known to his aides-de-camp, Mr. Pierce, Mr. Van Cortlandt, and Major Hoops. I already knew Captain Dayton. Also, of the staff I met there Captain Topham, our Commissary of Militia Stores, Captain Lodge, our surveyor, Colonels Antis and Bond, Conductors of Boats, Dr. Hogan, Chief Surgeon, Lieutenant R. Pemberton, Judge Advocate, Lieutenant Colonel Frasier, Colonel Hooper, Lieutenant Colonel Barber, Adjutant General, the Reverend S. Kirkland, Chaplain, and others most agreeable but too numerous to mention. Still, I have writ them all down in my diary, as I try always to do, so that if God gives me wife and children some day they may find, perhaps, an hour of leisure, when to peruse a blotted page of what husband and father saw in the great war might not prove too tedious or disagreeable.

In this manner, then, the afternoon of that August day passed, and what with these occupations, and the catching of several trouts, which I love to do with hook and line and alder pole, and what with sending to Lois a letter by an express who went to Clinton toward evening, the time did not seem irksome.

Yet, it had passed more happily had I heard from Lois. But no runners came; and if any were sent out from Otsego and taken by the enemy I know not, only that none came through that day, Thursday, August the 12th.

One thing in camp had disagreeably surprised me, that there were women and children here, and like to remain in the block forts after the army had departed from its base for the long march through the Seneca country.

This I could not understand or reconcile with any proper measure of safety, as the cannon in the block-houses were not to be many or of any great calibre, and only the corps of invalids were to remain to defend them.

I had told Lois that no women would be permitted at Tioga Point. That these were the orders that had been generally understood at Otsego.

And now, lo and behold, here were women arrived from Easton, Bethlehem, Wyalusing, and Wyoming, including the wives and children of several non-commissioned officers and soldiers from the district; widows of murdered settlers, washerwomen, and several tailoresses—in all a very considerable number.

And I hoped to heaven that Lois might not hear of this mischievous business and discover in it an excuse for coming as the guest of any lady at Otsego, or, in fact, make any further attempt to stir until the Right Wing marched and the batteaux took the ladies of Captain Bleecker, Ensign Lansing, and Lana, and herself to Albany.

After sundown an officer came to me and said that the entire army was ordered to march at eight that evening, excepting troops sufficient to guard our camp; that there would be no alarm sounded, and that we were to observe secrecy and silence.

Also, it appeared that a gill of rum per man had been authorized, but I refused for myself and my Indians, thinking to myself that the General might have made it less difficult for me if he had confined his indulgence to the troops.

About eight o'clock a Stockbridge Indian—the one who had been with the scout to Chemung—came to me with a note from Dominie Kirkland.

I gave him my hand, and he told me that his name was Yellow Moth, and that he was a Christian. Also, he inquired about the Mole, and I was obliged to relate the circumstances of that poor convert's murder.

"God's will," said the Yellow Moth very quietly. "You, my brother, and I may see a thousand fall, and ten thousand on our right hand, and it shall not come nigh us."

"Amen," said I, much moved by this simple fellow's tranquil faith.

I made him known to the Sagamore and to the two Oneidas, who received him with a grave sincerity which expressed very plainly their respect for a people of which the Mole had been for them a respectable example.

Like the Mole, the Yellow Moth wore no paint except a white cross limned on his breast over a clan sign indecipherable. And if, in truth, there had ever really been a totem under the white paint I do not know, for like the Algonquins, these peoples had but a loose political, social, religious, and tribal organization, which never approached the perfection of the Iroquois system in any manner or detail.

About eight o'clock came Captain Carbury, of the 11th Pennsylvania, to us, and we immediately set out, marching swiftly up the Chemung River, the Sagamore and the Yellow Moth leading, then