The Big Brother Part 4

In this, as we know, he was mistaken, and the error led him into some danger, as we shall see. Thinking the matter over, he decided that his first plan of a march down through the Tensaw Country to the neighborhood of Mobile would be the safest and best thing to undertake.

He was unwilling, however, to begin it with his companions without making a preliminary reconnoissance. Accordingly he explained the plan to Tom and Joe, and said:

"I'm going to-night down towards old Fort Mims, to see if the country is pretty free from Indians, and to find out what I can about the chance of getting away from here. I'll leave you here with Judie, and you must be extra careful about exposing yourselves. You've corn and mussels and sweet potatoes enough already cooked, to last you a week, and I'll probably be back before that; if not you must eat them raw till I do come: it won't do to build a fire while I'm away." After giving minute directions for their guidance during his absence, Sam put a sweet potato in one pocket and an ear of corn in the other, and set out on his journey, walking with a stout stick, having discarded his crutch as no longer necessary. How far he walked that night, I am unable to say, his course being a very circuitous one. The moon rose full, soon after dark, and shone so brightly that Sam dared not cross the fields, but skirted around them keeping constantly in the woods and the edges of canebrakes.

The next night and the next he continued his journey, though he found the country full of Indians. He saw their "sign" everywhere, and now and then saw some of the Indians themselves. The fourth evening found him so lame (his foot having swelled and become painful again) that he could not possibly go on. He had already gone far enough to discover that the country on that side of the river was too full of Indians for him to carry his little party safely through it, and so he determined to work his way back to the root fortress, and try the other side. Seeing a house in a field near by the place in which he had spent the day, he resolved to visit it for the purpose of bringing away any article he could find which might be useful to him in his effort to provide for his little band. In a grove near the house he found a horse,--a young and powerful animal, and as he feared his lameness would not permit him to reach his root fortress again on foot, he determined to ride the animal in spite of the fact that on horseback he would be in much greater danger of discovery by the Indians than on foot. The horse had a bridle on, and had evidently escaped, probably during a skirmish, from its white or red master.

Sam tied him in the grove, and went on to the house, which had been sacked and partially burned. Looking around in the moonlight, Sam discovered a hatchet, and, in the corner of what had once been a store-house, the remains of a barrel of salt. These were two valuable discoveries. The hatchet would be of great service to him not only in the root fortress but even more in forcing a pathway through the canebrakes when he should again cross the river and try to reach one of the forts. The salt he must have at any cost, and as he had no bag he made one by ripping off the sleeve of his coat and tying its ends with strips of bark. He had just filled it, and tied up the ends when, hearing a noise, he turned, and saw two Indians within six feet of him.

CHAPTER VII.

CONFUSED.

The two Indians who had startled Sam, were on the point of entering the old dwelling house, and seemingly were unaccompanied by any others. Sam happened fortunately to be standing in shadow, and they pa.s.sed without seeing him. But what was he now to do? He was at the back of the house, and a high picket fence around the place made it impossible for him to escape by the front-way, towards which the savages had gone. Looking through the door-way, he saw that the pair had pa.s.sed through the room nearest him and into the adjoining apartment. He knew that other Indians were in the neighborhood, and that a dozen of them might wander into the enclosure at any moment. Resolving upon a bold manoeuvre, he stepped lightly into the rear room of the house, and climbed up inside the wide mouthed chimney. Whether the Indians heard him or not he never knew, but at any rate he was none too soon in hiding, for he had hardly cleared the fireplace in his ascent when four or five savages came into the room and began to demolish the few articles of furniture left in the house.

They had got whiskey somewhere, and having drank freely were even noisier than white men get under the influence of strong drink. They remained but a short time, when, setting fire again to the half-burned house, they left the place yelling as savages only can. Sam escaped as soon as he could from his uncomfortable quarters and made his way to the grove. Mounting his horse he rode away in the direction of the root fortress, keeping in the woods as well as he could and taking every precaution to avoid coming suddenly upon savages.

As he rode only at night, the Indians' almost universal habit of building camp-fires wherever they stop for the night, helped him to avoid them. When morning came he sought a place deep in the forest, when he turned his horse loose to graze all day, while he slept at some distance from the animal, so that the noise of the beast's stamping and browsing might not lead to the discovery of his own whereabouts.

As the evening of the second day of his return came round, Sam found himself genuinely sick. His foot and leg were much inflamed, and the excitement of the preceding night, together with his continued exposure to the drenching dews of the Southern autumn, had brought back his fever with increased violence, and a very brief experiment convinced him that he could not go further that night. He mounted his horse, but had ridden less than a mile when he felt a giddiness coming over him and found it necessary to abandon the effort to ride that night. He could hardly see, and the pain in his head, neck, back and limbs was excruciating. He dismounted and threw himself down on the ground without taking the trouble even to separate himself from his horse. The truth is, Sam had what they call in South Carolina country fever, a high type of malarial fever, which stupefies and benumbs its victim almost as soon as it attacks him. The dews in the far South, especially in the fall, are so heavy that the water will drip and even stream off the foliage of the trees all night, and Sam had been drenched every night during both his journeys, having no fire by which to warm himself or dry his clothes.

Even without this drenching the poisonous exhalations of the swamps and woods would doubtless have given him the fever, and as it was he had it very severely. He laid down again almost under his horse's feet and fell into a sort of stupor. He knew that his fever required treatment, and that it would rapidly sap his strength, and the thought came to him: What if he should die there and never get back to the tree fortress? He was too sick to care for himself, but the thought of little Judie haunted his dreams, and he was seized with a semi-delirious impulse to remount his horse and ride straight away to the hiding-place in which he had left her, regardless of Indians, and of everything else. He dreamed a dozen times that he was doing this, and finally, when morning came, he forgot all about the danger of travelling by daylight, and mounting his horse in a confused, half-delirious way, rode straight out of the woods towards the open country, which he had hitherto so carefully avoided.

CHAPTER VIII.

WEATHERFORD.

The fiercest and most conspicuous leader of the Indians in this war was William Weatherford, or the Red Eagle, as the Indians called him. He is commonly spoken of in history as a half-breed, but he was in reality almost a white man, with just enough of the Indian in his composition to add savage emotions to Scotch intellect and Scotch perseverance. His father was a Scotchman, and his mother a half-breed Indian Princess. He was brought up in the best civilization the border had, his father being wealthy. He became very rich himself, and, despite his savage instincts, which were always strong, his wealth, in land and slaves, made him a conservative. At first he favored a war with the whites, but a calmer afterthought led him to desire peace, and when he found that the tempest he had helped to stir up would not subside at his bidding, he began casting about for a way of escape. He was a man of unquestionable genius; a soldier of rare strategic ability; an orator of the truest sort, and his courage in danger was simply sublime. Such a man was likely to be of great value to the Indians in their approaching war, and when they began to suspect his loyalty to the nation, they watched him narrowly. Finding it impossible to postpone the war, and not wishing to sacrifice his fine property near the Holy Ground, he made a secret journey to the residence of his half brother David Tait and his brother John Weatherford, who lived among what were known as the "peacefuls,"

namely, the Indians disposed to remain at peace with the whites in any event. His brothers, hearing his story, advised him to bring his negroes, horses and movable property generally, together with his family, to their plantations, and to remain there, inactive and neutral, during the struggle. When he returned to his residence for the purpose of doing this, however, he found that the hostile Indians had seized his family and his negroes as hostages, and, under the compulsion of their threat that they would kill his wife and children if he should dare to remain at peace, he joined in the war against the whites, becoming the fiercest of all the chieftains. He planned and led the a.s.sault upon Fort Mims, and was everywhere foremost in all the fighting. When the Creeks were utterly routed at the battle of the Holy Ground a month or so after the time of which I am writing, General Jackson issued a proclamation refusing terms of peace to the chiefs until Weatherford, whom he had determined to put to death, should be brought to him, alive or dead.

Weatherford hearing of this, although he was safe beyond the borders and might have easily made his escape to Florida, as his comrade Peter McQueen did, rode straightway to Jackson's head-quarters, where he said to the commander who had set a price upon his head:--

"I am Weatherford. I have come to ask peace for my people. I am in your power. Do with me as you please. I am a soldier. I have done the white people all the harm I could. I have fought them and fought them bravely.

If I yet had an army I would fight and contend to the last. But I have none. My people are all gone. I can now do no more than weep over the misfortunes of my nation."

Jackson was so impressed with the sublime courage and the dignity of the man upon whose head he had set a price, that he treated him at once with chivalrous consideration. He told him that the only terms upon which the Indians could secure peace were unconditional submission and uniform good conduct; but "as for yourself," he said, "if you do not like the terms, no advantage shall be taken of your present surrender. You are at liberty to depart and resume hostilities when you please. But if you are taken then, your life shall pay the forfeit of your crimes."

Weatherford calmly folded his arms and replied; "I desire peace for no selfish reasons, but that my nation may be relieved from its sufferings; for independent of the other consequences of the war, my people's cattle are destroyed and their women and children dest.i.tute of provisions. I may well be addressed in such language now. There was a time when I had a choice and could have answered you. I have none now. Even hope has ended. Once I could animate my warriors to battle. But I cannot animate the dead. My warriors can no longer hear my voice. Their bones are at Talladega, Tallashatche, Emuckfaw and Tohopeka. I have not surrendered myself thoughtlessly. While there were chances of success I never left my post nor supplicated peace. But my people are gone, and I now ask peace for my nation and myself. On the miseries and misfortunes brought upon my country, I look back with the deepest sorrow, and wish to avert still greater calamities. If I had been left to contend with the Georgia army, I would have raised my corn on one bank of the river and fought them on the other. But your people have destroyed my nation. General Jackson, you are a brave man,--I am another. I do not fear to die. But I rely upon your generosity. You will exact no terms of a conquered and helpless people but those to which they should accede. Whatever they may be it would now be folly and madness to oppose them. If they are opposed, you shall find me among the sternest enforcers of obedience.

Those who would still hold out can only be influenced by a mean spirit of revenge. To this they must not and shall not sacrifice the last remnant of their country. You have told us what we may do and be safe.

Yours is a good talk, and my nation ought to listen to it. They _shall_ listen to it."[1]

[Footnote 1: For these speeches of Weatherford's and for other historical details I am indebted to a valuable and interesting book, "Romantic Pa.s.sages in South Western History," by A. B. Mull, Mobile, S.

H. Goetzsl & Co. publishers, which is now, unfortunately out of print.

The speeches are well authenticated I believe.]

Jackson was too generous and too brave a man to remain unmoved under such a speech from a man who thus placed his own life in jeopardy for the sake of his people. He bade the chieftain return home, and promised peace to his people, a promise faithfully kept to this day. All this however occurred nearly two months after the time of which I write, and it is introduced here merely by way of explaining the things which happened to Sam on the morning of the rash resumption of his journey.

This man Weatherford, the fiercest enemy the whites had, with a party of about twenty-five Indians, bivouacked, the night before, in the edge of the woods, and when Sam mounted his horse that morning the Indians were lying asleep immediately in his path as he rode blindly out of the thicket. The first intimation he had of their presence was a grunt from a big savage who lay almost under his horse's feet. Coming to himself in an instant, Sam took in the whole situation at a glance, and with the rapidity and precision which people who are accustomed to the dangers and difficulties of frontier life always acquire, he mentally weighed all the facts bearing upon the question of what to do, and decided. He saw before him the savages, rising from the ground at sight of him. He saw their horses browsing at some little distance from them. He saw a rifle, on which hung a powder-horn and a bullet-pouch, standing against a bush. He saw that he had already aroused the foe, and that he must stand a chase. His first impulse was to turn around and ride back, in the direction whence he had come; but in that direction lay the thicket through which he could not ride rapidly, and so if he should take that course, he would lose the advantage which he hoped to gain from the fleetness of his particularly good horse. Besides, in the thicket he must of course leave a trail easily followed. Just beyond the group of Indians he saw the open fields, and he made up his mind at once that he would push his horse into a run, dash right through the camp of the savages, pick up the convenient rifle if possible, and reaching the open country make all the speed he could. In this he knew he would have an advantage, inasmuch as he would get a good many hundred yards away before the savages could catch and mount their horses for the purpose of pursuing him, and he even hoped that they, seeing how far he was in advance of them, would abandon the idea of pursuit altogether. All this thinking, and weighing of chances, and deciding was the work of a single half second, and the plan, once formed, was executed instantly. Without pausing or turning he pushed his horse at a full run through the group of savages, receiving a glancing blow from a war club and dodging several others as he went. He succeeded in getting possession of the rifle which stood by the bush, and reached the field before a gun could be aimed at him. It was now his purpose to get so far ahead as to discourage pursuit, and with this object in view he continued to urge his horse forward at his best speed. This hope was a vain one, as he soon discovered. The Indians, infuriated by his boldness, mounted their horses and gave chase immediately. Sam had an excellent habit, as we know, of keeping his wits about him, and of preparing carefully for difficulties likely to come. The first thing to be done was to escape, if possible, and so he continued to press his high-spirited colt forward, while he debated the probabilities of being overtaken, and discussed with himself the resources at his command if the savages should come up with him. He was armed now, at any rate, and if running should prove of no avail, he could and would sell his life very dearly.

Indeed the possession of the rifle roused all the spirit of battle there was in him, and great as the odds were against him, he was sorely tempted to pause long enough to shoot once at least. He remembered Tom and Judie and Joe, however, and their dependence upon him for guidance and protection, and for their sake more than for his own, suppressed the impulse and continued his flight. The Indians were nearly half a mile behind him, and, as nearly as he could tell, were not gaining upon him very rapidly. His colt seemed equal to a long continued race, and as yet showed no sign of faltering or fatigue. The question had now resolved itself, Sam thought, into one of endurance. How long the Indians would continue a pursuit in which he had the advantage of half a mile the start, he had no way of determining, but that his horse's endurance was as great at least as their perseverance, he had every reason to hope.

Just as he had comforted himself with this thought, a new danger a.s.sailed him. One of the Indians, it seemed, taking advantage of a minute knowledge of the country, had saved a considerable distance by riding through a strip of woods and cutting off an angle. When Sam first caught sight of him, coming out of the woods, the savage was within a dozen yards of him, and evidently gaining upon him at every step. Sam's horse was a fleet one, but that of the Indian was apparently a thoroughbred, whose speed remained nearly as great after a mile's run as at the start. Knowing the Indians' skill in shooting while riding at full speed, Sam leaned as far as he could to one side, so that as little as possible of his person should be exposed to his pursuer's aim. He continued to press his horse too, but the savage gained steadily.

Finding at last that he must shortly be overtaken, Sam resolved upon a bold manoeuvre, by which to kill his foremost pursuer. Seizing the hatchet he had brought away from the house, he suddenly stopped his horse, and, as the Indian came along-side, aimed a savage blow at his head.

"Don't you know me, Sam?" said the Indian in good English, dodging the blow. "I'm Weatherford. If I'd wanted to kill you I might have done so a dozen times in the last five minutes. You know I don't want to kill _you_, though you're the only white man on earth I'd let go. But the others will make an end of you if they catch you. Ride on and I'll chase you. Turn to the left there and ride to the bluff. I'll follow you.

There's a gully through the top. Ride down it as far as you can and jump your horse over the cliff. It's nearly fifty feet high, and may kill you, but it's the only way. The other warriors are coming up and they'll kill you sure if you don't jump. Jump, and I'll tell 'em I chased you over."

Sam knew Weatherford well, and he knew why the blood-thirsty chief wished to spare him if he could, for Sam had rescued Weatherford once from an imminent peril at great risk to himself, though the story is too long to be told here. Whether or not there is n.o.bleness enough in the Indian character to make the savage remember a benefit received, I am sure I cannot say, but Weatherford was _three-fourths white_, and with all his ferocity in war, history credits him with more than one generous impulse like that by which Sam was now profiting. The two rode on, Weatherford pretending to be in hot pursuit, shooting occasionally and yelling at every leap of his horse. The bluff towards which they rode was probably a hundred feet high, and was washed at its base by a deep but sluggish creek, on the other side of which lay a densely wooded swamp. Through the top of the bluff, however, was a sort of fissure or ravine washed by the flow of water during the rainy season, and where it terminated the height of its mouth above the stream was not more than forty or fifty feet. Down this gully Sam rode furiously, so that his horse might not be able to refuse the leap, which was a frightful one.

Coming to the edge of the precipice with headlong speed, the animal could not draw back but plunged over with Sam sitting bolt upright on his back. Riding back to the top of the bank Weatherford met his warriors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PERILOUS LEAP.]

"Where is he?" asked the foremost.

"His _body_ is down there in the creek. I drove him over the precipice,"

said the chief with well-feigned delight.[2]

[Footnote 2: This incident of the leap over the precipice is strictly historical, else I should never have ventured to print it here.

Weatherford himself, on the 23d of December, 1813, after the battle of Tohopeka, escaped a body of dragoons in a precisely similar manner. A still more remarkable leap was that of Major Samuel McCullock, on the 2d of September 1777, over a precipice fully 300 feet high near Wheeling, West Virginia. He jumped over on horseback, thinking such a death preferable to savage torture, but singularly enough, both he and his horse escaped unhurt.]

His purpose evidently, was to satisfy the warriors that Sam was certainly killed, so that they might pursue him no further. Whether he was yet alive or not, Weatherford himself had no means of knowing. The last he had seen of him was as he went over the precipice, sitting bolt upright on his horse, grasping his rifle and looking straight ahead. He heard a splash in the water below, after which everything was still.

CHAPTER IX.

WEARY WAITING.

The days seemed very long to Tom and Joe and little Judie after Sam left on his journey. They had nothing to do but to sit still in their corners among the roots all day, and time always drags very slowly when people are doing nothing. Their provisions, as we know, were already cooked,--enough of them at least, to last a week, and before Sam left he had made them bring more than a bushel of sweet potatoes and all the corn they could find which was still soft enough to eat, and store it away for use if his return should be delayed in any way. The result was that their legs got no stretching, and they became moody, dispirited and unhappy before the second day of Sam's absence had come to an end. They found doing nothing the hardest and the dullest work they ever had done in their lives. Joe managed to sleep most of the time, but Tom was nervous, and poor little Judie, without Sam to depend upon, grew low-spirited and began to fear all sorts of evil things. Finally Sam's week was up and Sam had not appeared. The little people were now fairly frightened. What had become of him? they wondered. Had he fallen into the hands of the Indians? And if so, what were they to do now? They had never before known how dependent they were upon him. Even during his absence they had been regulating their lives by his minute instructions, and depending upon him for guidance after he should return. But what if he should never return? And why hadn't he come already? These thoughts were too much for them. Judie sat in her corner brooding over her trouble, and crying a little now and then. Joe was simply frightened, and his eyes grew bigger and rounder than ever. Tom was sustained in part by the thought that the burden of responsibility was now on him, and so he suppressed all manifestations of uneasiness, as well as he could, and gave himself up to the duty of studying the situation, calculating his resources and trying to decide what was the best thing to be done if Sam should not come back at all. He hit upon several excellent ideas, but made up his mind that before trying to put any of them into practice he would wait at least a fortnight longer for Sam's return. Their stock of provisions, eaten raw, would last much longer than that, and the fields were full of sweet potatoes, wherefore he wisely thought it best not to lose any chance of having Sam to do the thinking and planning. He was so anxious for his brother's return that he spent the greater part of his time on the drift-pile where he had built himself a little observatory, so arranged that he could see in every direction without the possibility of being seen in his turn.

Sitting there in his look-out, watching for Sam, he had time to think of many things. His thinking was not always wise, as a matter of course, but for a boy of his age it did very well, certainly, and one day he hit upon a really valuable idea.

The way it came about was this. He fell into a reverie, and remembered the happy old days at home, and one day in particular, when he was busy all day making a little wagon in which to give Judie a ride, and he remembered how very short that day seemed, although it was in June. Just then it popped into his head to think that there was a reason for everything, and that that day had seemed so short only because he had been very busy as its hours went by. If he had known what "generalization" means, he would have generalized this truth as follows:--

"Time pa.s.ses rapidly with busy people." He did nothing of the kind, however. He only thought.

"If poor little Judie had something to keep her busy all the time, she wouldn't be so miserable."

And so he cudgelled his brains to invent some plan or other by which to set Judie at work and keep her at it all the time.

When he returned to the fortress towards night, he said to the little woman; "Judie, I reckon poor Sam's foot is troubling him again, and that's the reason he hasn't got back yet. He'll work along slowly and get here after a while, but I'm afraid he'll be dreadfully tired and sick when he comes. We must have a good soft bed ready for him so that he can get a good rest."

To this Judie a.s.sented, though in her heart she feared she should never see Sam again, as indeed Tom did too, though neither would admit the fact to the other.

"Now I've been thinking," said Tom, "that it wont do, if he comes back half sick, to let him lie on green moss with all the outside on. Let me show you."