Stories of American Life and Adventure Part 11

But Elizabeth said, "You cannot spare a single man. There are not enough men in the fort now. If I am killed, you will be as strong to fight as before. Let the young men stay where they are needed, and let me go for the powder."

She had made up her mind, and n.o.body could persuade her not to go. So the gate of the fort was opened just wide enough for her to get out.

Her friends gave her up to die.

Some of the Indians saw the gate open, and saw the young woman running to the house, but they did not shoot at her. They probably thought that they would not waste a bullet on a woman. They could make her a prisoner at any time.

She did not try to carry the powder keg, but she took the powder in a girl's way. She filled her ap.r.o.n with it. When she came out of the house with her ap.r.o.n full of powder, and started to run back to the fort, the Indians fired at her. It happened that all of their bullets missed her. The gate was opened again, and she got safely into the fort. The men were glad that they had powder enough, and they all felt braver than ever, after they had seen what a girl could do.

The Indians had seen the gate opened to let her out and to let her in again. They thought they could force the gate open; but they could not go and push against it, because the men in the blockhouse would shoot them if they did. So they made a wooden cannon. They got a hollow log and stopped up one end of it. Then they went to the blacksmith's shop in the little village and got some chains. They tied these chains round the log to hold it together. They had no cannon b.a.l.l.s, so, after putting gunpowder into the log, they put in stones and bits of iron.

After dark that evening they dragged this wooden cannon up near to the gate. When all was ready, they touched off their cannon. The log cannon burst into pieces, and killed some of the Indians, but did not hurt the fort.

The next day white men came from other places to help the men in the fort. They got into the fort, and after a few more attacks the Indians gave up the battle and went away.

Whenever the story of the brave fight at Fort Henry is told, people do not forget that the bravest one in it was the girl that brought her ap.r.o.n full of gunpowder to the men in the fort.

THE RIVER PIRATES.

A hundred years ago the country near the great rivers in the interior of the United States was a wilderness. It contained only a few people, and these lived in settlements which were widely separated from one another. Hardly any of the great trees had been cut down.

There were no roads, except Indian trails through the woods. Nearly all travelers had to follow the rivers. Steamboats had not yet been invented. Travelers made journeys on flatboats, keel boats, and barges.

It was easy enough to go down the Ohio and the Mississippi in this way, but it was hard to come up again. It took about fifty men to work a boat against the stream, and many months were spent in going up the river.

Boats were pushed up the river by means of poles. The boatmen pushed these against the bottom of the river. When the water was deep or the current very swift, a rope was taken out ahead of the boat, and tied to a tree on the bank. The line was then slowly drawn in by means of a capstan, and this drew the boat forward.

Sometimes the boat was "cordelled," or towed by the men walking on the sh.o.r.e and drawing the barge by a rope held on their shoulders. But when there chanced to be a strong wind blowing upstream, the boatmen would hoist sail, and joyfully make headway against the current without so much toil.

These slow-going boats were in danger from Indians. They were in even greater danger from robbers, who hid themselves along the sh.o.r.e. Some of these robbers lived in caves. Some kept boats hidden in the mouths of streams that flowed into the large rivers.

In 1787 all the country west of the Mississippi still belonged to France. The French territory stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to what is now Minnesota. It was all called Louisiana. New Orleans and St.

Louis were then French towns, and the travel between them was carried on by means of boats, which floated down the stream, and were then brought back by poles, ropes, and sails.

The trip was as long as a voyage to China is nowadays. The boats or barges set out from St. Louis in the spring, carrying furs. They got back again in the fall with goods purchased in New Orleans.

In this year, 1787, a barge belonging to a Mr. Beausoleil (bo-so-lay) started from New Orleans to make the voyage to St. Louis. The goods with which it was loaded were very valuable. Slowly the men toiled up against the stream day after day. At length the little vessel came near to the mouth of Cottonwood Creek. A well-known robber band lurked at this place. With joy the boatmen saw a favorable wind spring up. They spread their sails, and the driving gale carried the barge in safety past the mouth of the creek.

But the pirates of Cottonwood Creek were unwilling to lose so rich a treasure. They sent a company of men by a short cut overland to head off the barge at a place farther up the river. Two days after pa.s.sing Cottonwood Creek the bargemen brought the boat to land. They felt themselves beyond danger. But the robbers came suddenly out of the woods, took possession of the boat, and ordered the crew to return down the river to Cottonwood Creek.

When they turned back toward the robbers' den, Beausoleil was in despair. His whole fortune was on the barge. He did not know whether the robbers would kill him and his men, or not. The only man of the crew who showed no regret was the cook. This cook was a fine-looking and very intelligent mulatto slave named Cacasotte. Instead of repining, he fell to dancing and laughing.

"I am glad the boat was taken," he cried. "I have been beaten and abused long enough. Now I am freed from a hard master."

Cacasotte devoted himself to his new masters, the robbers. In a little while he had won their confidence. He was permitted to go wherever he pleased, without any watch upon his movements.

He found a chance to talk with Beausoleil, and to lay before him a plan for retaking the boat from the villains. Beausoleil thought the undertaking too dangerous, but at length he gave his consent. Cacasotte then whispered his plan to two others of the crew.

Dinner was served to the pirates on deck. Cacasotte took his place by the bow of the boat, so as to be near the most dangerous of the robbers. This robber was a powerful man, well armed. When Cacasotte saw that the others had taken their places as he had directed, he gave the signal, and then pushed the huge robber at his side into the water. In three minutes the powerful Cacasotte had thrown fourteen of the robbers into the waves. The other men had also done their best. The deck was cleared of the pirates, who had to swim for their lives. The robbers who remained in the boat were too few to resist. Beausoleil found himself again master of his barge, thanks to the coolness and courage of Cacasotte.

But the bargemen dared not go on up the river. Against the stream they would have to go slowly, and there would be danger from the robbers remaining at Cottonwood Creek: so they kept on down the river to New Orleans.

The next year ten boats left New Orleans in company. These barges carried small cannons, and their crew were all armed. When they reached Cottonwood Creek, men were seen on sh.o.r.e; but when an armed force was landed, the robbers had fled. The long, low hut which had been their dwelling remained. There were also several flatboats loaded with valuable goods taken from captured barges. This plunder was carried to St. Louis, and restored to the rightful owners. For fifty years afterwards this was known as "The Year of the Ten Boats." Cacasotte's brave victory was not soon forgotten.

OLD-FASHIONED TELEGRAPHS.

THE MUSKET TELEGRAPH.

There are many people living who can remember when there were no telegraphs such as we have now. The telephone is still younger.

Railroads are not much older than telegraphs. Horses and stagecoaches were slow. How did people send messages quickly when there were no telegraph wires?

When colonies in America were first settled by white people, there were wars with the Indians. The Indians would creep into a neighborhood and kill all the people they could, and then they would get away before the soldiers could overtake them. But the white people made a plan to catch them.

Whenever the Indians attacked a settlement, the settler who saw them first took his gun and fired it three times. Bang, bang, bang! went the gun. The settlers who lived near the man who fired the gun heard the sound. They knew that three shots following one another quickly, meant that the Indians had come.

Every settler who heard the three shots took his gun and fired three times. It was bang, bang, bang! again. Then, as soon as he had fired, he went in the direction of the first shots. Every man who had heard three shots, fired three more, and went toward the shots he had heard.

Farther and farther away the settlers heard the news, and sent it along by firing so that others might hear. Soon little companies of men were coming swiftly in every direction. The Indians were sure to be beaten off or killed.

This was a kind of telegraph. But there were no wires; there was no electricity; only one flint-lock musket waking up another flintlock musket, till a hundred guns had been fired, and a hundred men were marching to the battle.

TELEGRAPHING BY FIRE.

The firing of signal guns was telegraphing by sound. It used only the hearing. But there were other ways of telegraphing that used the sight.

These have been known for thousands of years. They were known even to savage people.

The Indians on the plains use fires to telegraph to one another.

Sometimes they build one fire, sometimes they build many. When a war party, coming back from battle, builds five fires on a hill, the Indians who see it know that the party has killed five enemies.

But the Indians have also what are known as smoke signals. An Indian who wishes to send a message to a party of his friends a long way off, builds a fire. When it blazes, he throws an armful of green gra.s.s on it. This causes the fire to send up a stream of white smoke hundreds of feet high, which can be seen fifty miles away in clear weather. Among the Apaches, one column of smoke is to call attention; two columns say, "All is well, and we are going to remain in this camp;" three columns or more are a sign of danger, and ask for help.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Smoke Signal.]

Sometimes longer messages are sent. After building a fire and putting green gra.s.s upon it, the Indian spread his blanket over it. He holds down the edges, to shut the smoke in. After a few moments he takes his blanket off; and when he does this, a great puff of smoke, like a balloon, shoots up into the air. This the Indian does over and over.

One puff of smoke chases another upward. By the number of these puffs, and the length of the s.p.a.ces between them, he makes his meaning understood by his friends many miles away.

At night the Indians smear their arrows with something that will burn easily. One of them draws his bow. Just as he is about to let his arrow fly, another one touches it with fire. The arrow blazes as it shoots through the air, like a fiery dragon fly. One burning arrow follows another; and those who see them read these telegraph signals, and know what is meant.