Rodney, the Ranger Part 16

Allison had fallen into a depression between two little knolls and the savage in falling had swept the bushes down over him so that he was covered from view. Later the Indians succeeded in dragging away their fallen comrade but overlooked, fortunately, the body of the white man.

General Lewis and his men were eager to pursue and thoroughly chastise the Indians. They reasoned that, while they were about it, the only wise thing to do was to administer such a defeat that the red people would keep the peace for years to come.

They crossed the Ohio and took up their march toward the Indian towns.

When Dunmore's messenger arrived with orders for them to join him they were angry. He had left them to their fate, they had won a hard earned victory and were determined to follow it to its logical conclusion.

Lord Dunmore's force, after building a hastily constructed fort at the mouth of the Hockhocking River as a base for their supplies, continued to advance on the Indian towns. The savages had met overtures for peace with evasive replies or delays until they heard of the defeat of Cornstalk at Point Pleasant, then they earnestly sued for peace.

Cornstalk urged a continuation of the war, but in vain. The savages had acted more determinedly under him than ever before, but now they wished to save their towns and crops from destruction.

Dunmore moved forward to a place called Camp Charlotte. Lewis pushed ahead to wreak vengeance on the savages, not stopping until a third order had been sent him by Dunmore commanding him to halt.

Lewis and his men thought this an interference with their rights.

There were many heartburnings in his command, and rumours that Dunmore was acting under the advice of England to put an end to the war were generally believed.

Rodney obtained permission to visit the camp of General Lewis, eager to find his father. He went without forebodings and with a feeling of a.s.surance that he should find him. The Indians had been defeated. The command had won a glorious victory, and, as is usually the case, while exulting over it, he overlooked the sacrifices made and hardships endured. He did not realize that General Lewis had lost half his commissioned officers and between fifty and sixty of his men. When told that his father, the man he loved above all others, was missing and undoubtedly had fallen in the battle, the blow was terribly hard to bear. He had known nothing like it, and made his way back to his quarters as one walking in his sleep. There, Morgan chanced to find him, his head bowed in his hands.

"Homesick, my lad, or a fit o' the blues?"

Morgan had a voice that sounded in battle like the roar of a lion, but in it, as he spoke to Rodney, was a tone of genuine sympathy and the boy broke down and sobbed, as though heartbroken. Throughout his captivity and when in extreme danger he had not shed a tear.

"Take heart, lad, an' let me know what I can do for ye."

After the boy, struggling with his sobs, had told him, there was silence for several minutes. Morgan's hand was laid kindly on the boy's shoulder, and finally he said, "I'd like to comfort ye, boy. He wouldn't like ye to mourn. He'd say, if he could, 'just go ahead an'

do yer duty.' Death comes to us all sometime. An' I want you to remember that Daniel Morgan'll never be too busy to lend ye a helpin'

hand if it comes his way."

A pressure of the sinewy hand on the boy's shoulder followed the words, and the kindliness it signified went straight to Rodney's heart. He never forgot it. That day another was added to the full ranks of those who loved Daniel Morgan and would follow where he led, though they might know certain death awaited them.

Governor Dunmore sent runners to the Indian towns requesting the chiefs to meet him. All complied with the request save a few in the northerly towns and Chief Logan. Major Crawford was sent with a force to destroy the towns of those who had failed to respond to the request, and in this force went the men under Morgan. They met with no resistance and, after burning the villages, the troops returned. An interpreter and a messenger were sent to Logan, and to them he is said to have made the memorable speech, a model of dignified eloquence and sublime pathos, beginning: "I appeal to any white man to say that he ever entered Logan's cabin but I gave him meat." Broken in spirit, he afterwards became a sot and was killed while in a drunken fury.

Hostages having been taken from among the Indian chiefs and arrangements made for the return by the Indians of all whites held captive by them, they promising to observe the Ohio River as the boundary of their territory, Governor Dunmore's army returned to Virginia.

On arriving at Fort Gower they were met by the news that England had closed the port of Boston, hoping by this arbitrary measure to punish the independent colonists. This news was doubtless received by Governor Dunmore with delight, but it was otherwise with the great majority of those in his army. Expressions of sympathy for the Bostonians were heard on all sides. Moreover, Dunmore's delight was to be tempered with chagrin when he heard that the House of Burgesses had appointed a day of fasting, as an expression of the Old Dominion's disapproval of England's act.

For several months these men of Dunmore's army had been deprived of what many, even in that day of primitive living, considered necessities. For weeks at a time they had eaten no salt; they had slept without other covering than the sky overhead. They were returning victorious, yet believing that Dunmore, instead of contributing to that victory, had belittled it.

Self-reliant, hardy, convinced they possessed in their own strong arms the power to live and rear their families in this great country of the new world without interference from England, they spoke very plainly.

Meetings were held, and at one of these a speech was made which, alluding to what they had been able to accomplish, concluded: "Blessed with these talents, let us solemnly engage to one another, and our country in particular, that we will use them for no purpose but for the honour and advantage of America and Virginia in particular."

A resolution was pa.s.sed to bear faithful allegiance to King George, the Third, "while his majesty delights to reign over a free people," a proviso worth noting; also worthy of note is the fact that this resolution pledged them to do everything in their power for the defence of American liberty. Indeed, many of the men shook hands on an agreement to march to the defence of Boston if necessary. Some of them were to be called upon to fulfil this promise.

Such demonstrations away out there on the frontier ought to have served as a warning to the royalists, but they gave it little heed.

The "Chevalier" forbore to take part and looked upon the whole affair with a pitying smile. "I know of none more in need of being ruled over, than you, my merry lads," he said and laughed at the scowls in the faces of his a.s.sociates. He laughed, too, at the retort of Ferguson, "Sure, me gallant warrior, 'tis we as will have a word to say aboot the ruler an' how he rules, mind ye."

Ferguson had expressed the temper of the men composing the army, while the "Chevalier," with his confident smile, was a type of many throughout the colonies who did not for a moment doubt the ability of England to govern the new land as she might wish.

At the post where the men received some of the pay for their service, Rodney Allison was to undergo temptations and experiences that were to cause him bitter reflections. The soldiers had endured privations and, as frequently happens, many sought relaxation in debauch at the first opportunity. Liquor was to be had by those with money to pay for it, and many a frontiersman would not leave it until his last penny should be spent and then would resume his life of wandering and peril. With the drinking there was gambling with cards and dice.

The drinking had no attraction for young Allison; on the contrary he looked upon it with deep disgust. Ordinarily the gambling would have had no fascination for him. Indeed, until his captivity, he had not known one card from another. One of the accomplishments Ahneota had learned from his acquaintance with white men was the use of cards, for which he had a great pa.s.sion, and to please him the boy had spent many an hour playing various games.

Rodney's grief over the reported death of his father, his dread of returning home with the sad news to face debt and poverty, coloured his thoughts,--often woke him from sleep, and made him reckless. As he watched the games he heard a familiar voice and, looking, saw Mogridge at a table with large winnings at his hand. Rodney, from the day they first met, had cherished an unreasoning dislike for the young Englishman. He felt, rather than knew, that Mogridge had been instrumental in having his father dismissed by Squire Danesford. The boy was shrewd enough to suspect the fellow had come on with other adventurers to meet the army and fleece the unsuspecting. That money at his hand would clear the little home from debt and a.s.sure protection for the family for the present. How cool and insolent the fellow was!

"Sorry your luck runs so badly. The game's much less interesting, you know," Mogridge drawled as he swept the poor fellow's money into his own pile. Then, looking up and noticing Rodney, though it did not appear that he recognized him, he said in a bantering tone, "h.e.l.lo, here's a young warrior who looks as if he'd like to tempt the fair G.o.ddess, Chance, with a sixpence."

With the hot blood pounding his temples, and scarcely knowing what he did, the boy took the proffered seat.

"I'll take a hand, if there be no objection," said a bystander with a wink at Mogridge, which Rodney could not see.

While the cards were being shuffled the "Chevalier" came along and remarked that the game would be worth watching. Neither Mogridge nor his "pal" seemed pleased, but the "Chevalier" remained standing where he could observe every movement of Rodney's antagonists. The cards were dealt and played. The luck, which so often leads the amateur on to his downfall, smiled on the boy.

"If the gentleman from London doesn't like the luck that goes with the warrior's sixpence I'll let some worthier foeman have my place," said Rodney, who, now that his excitement had subsided, desired to leave the game.

Mogridge looked narrowly at the boy, but apparently failed to recognize him, and he replied, "Gentlemen usually grant their antagonists an opportunity to win back the smiles of the fickle G.o.ddess."

"Deal," replied Rodney with an air of importance he was far from feeling.

The "Chevalier" yet loitered near, and luck continued to run in Rodney's favour. After four hands, and with quite a little pile of winnings before him, he wanted to leave the game, but was ashamed to do so. Then Mogridge said, "Let's double the stake," which was done.

The cards were dealt, and the play was begun, when the "Chevalier"

coolly remarked, "Card exposed. You'll have to deal over."

Mogridge's little eyes looked like tiny, glowing coals, and closer to his long nose than ever, but the cards were dealt again, and again the boy won. Then Mogridge and his confederate rose and left the table while Rodney sat gloating over his winnings.

"One who would accustom himself to the whimsies of Fortune must learn to lose as well as to win. In your behalf I will endeavour to instruct you in that part of the game, my boy. Won't you gentlemen remain to see that I pluck the winner fairly?"

"You're welcome to such small game. We didn't know we were poaching on your preserves," replied Mogridge in a surly tone, walking away.

Rodney was surprised. He had no desire to play with his friend. Yet in a masterful way the "Chevalier" appeared to take it for granted that they would play, and proceeded to deal the cards. The boy shrank from saying or doing anything which would excite the man's ridicule, for he had come to regard him as a superior sort of a person, and was somewhat in awe of his rather grand manner.

The first game Rodney won. Then the "Chevalier" remarked, as though he were doing the lad a favour, "Now we'll not prolong this; I must be going. Here's my wager."

To meet it required the last shilling of the boy's winnings, but he staked it all, and the "Chevalier" won, coolly swept the money into his pocket, all but a few shillings which he carelessly shoved toward the boy, saying, "You'll need those to get home. It's bad practice to wager one's last farthing."

Friends of Rodney Allison would not have recognized him now as the same fellow he was an hour before. Fury filled him to overflowing.

That coveted money was gone and his own with it, taken by a man whose life he once had saved, his supposed friend, who now had plucked him as one would a pigeon. He seized the money and threw it in the Chevalier's face, then, as he reflected what his act signified, he grasped the handle of his knife in readiness to defend himself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE SEIZED THE MONEY AND THREW IT IN THE CHEVALIER'S FACE."]

The "Chevalier" fixed his handsome eyes on the boy. His face was pale but those burning eyes held the lad as under a spell. Then the man spoke, his words as cool as ice, his voice low but painfully distinct: "One might think, my boy, you had staked your character, your soul, and lost. That's what the gambler does. I did not realize this till I had killed my best friend. You will understand my motives better when you learn more."

He turned away. The boy looked after him, and shame quenched the fury in his heart.

CHAPTER XVII

SOMEWHAT OF A MYSTERY