The Story of Isaac Brock Part 4

CHAPTER X.

THE Ma.s.sACRE AT MACKINAW.

It was while stationed in Montreal that our hero met Alexander Henry, ex-fur-trader and adventurer and _coureur de bois_--then a merchant and King's auctioneer--a notable personage and leader in many a wild exploit in the far West, an old though virile man after Isaac's own heart.

From Henry he learned much of the Indian wars in the West, and the strategic value of various points on the frontier, possession of which in the event of war he foresaw would be worth a king's ransom. Not least were details respecting Michilimackinac, the Mackinaw already referred to. Nearly half a century before, Henry, a native of New Jersey, of English parents--his ambition fired by tales of the fabulous fortunes to be made in the fur trade--obtained from the commandant at Montreal a permit to proceed west as a trader. He outfitted at Albany, and the following summer set out for Mackinaw.

Meanwhile the Indian allies, under control of the great Pontiac, were fighting immigration and civilization. Between Fort Pitt--Pittsburgh-- and the Fox River, in Wisconsin, the home of the Sacs and Foxes, they had captured nine out of thirteen military posts, and were secretly planning the downfall of Fort Mackinaw. This was regarded as an impregnable post and vulnerable only through strategy--in Indian parlance another name for duplicity. Fort Mackinaw, as Brock well knew, was the most important trading _entrepot_ west of Montreal. It served a territory extending from the Missouri in the west to the far Kissaskatchewan in the north.

On Henry's arrival his friendship was sought by an Indian chief, Wawatam. Between these two men a remarkable attachment developed. They became brothers by mutual adoption. At this time the fort was garrisoned by ninety British regulars. One day, outside the walls on the surrounding plateau, several hundred savages were encamped, ostensibly for purposes of trade, some of them killing time by playing the Indian game of ball--the _baggatiway_ of the red-man, _la jeu de la crosse_ of the voyageur. Henry, acting upon a veiled warning by Wawatam, suggested to the officer in command extra precaution.

"I told him," said he, while Brock drank in every word, "that Indian treachery was proverbial." Now this recital was of the deepest interest to our hero, for Mackinaw, then in the possession of the United States, held the key to the Michigan frontier and control of the upper lakes.

While the huge log fire that roared in the chimney cast light and shadow on polished wall and the oak beams of the big dining-hall, Brock puffed away at his huge _partiga_, weighing every word that fell from the bearded lips of the trader.

"Major Errington," continued Henry, "while thanking me, laughed at my forebodings. Then Wawatam urged me, as his adopted brother, to depart for Sault Ste. Marie. But I delayed and once more sought Errington, who still ridiculed my fears. While I was yet expostulating with him we heard the louder shouts of the Indians. They had rushed through the fort gateway into the enclosure within the palisades in pursuit of a lost ball. This was but a ruse to gain admittance, for in a moment the laughter and shouts changed to wild yells and warwhoops. The guard was overpowered in a flash, and in the attack that followed almost the entire garrison was tomahawked and scalped."

"Ah!" said Brock, "so British lethargy and self-complaisance succ.u.mbed to Indian duplicity."

Then his thoughts turned to Niagara. He saw the open portals of Fort George, and Tuscarora youths playing the Indian game of ball in the meadows of the Mohawk village.

"Those who escaped ma.s.sacre at Mackinaw," said Henry, refilling his stone pipe and resuming his story, "were preserved for a worse fate.

Pontiac's allies--and you, Colonel, know something of these matters from the tales told you by the officers of the North-West Company--entered on a carnival of blood. From a garret, where a p.a.w.nee Indian woman had secreted me, I saw the captured soldiers tomahawked and scalped, and some butchered like so many cattle, just as required for the cannibal feast that followed."

"Tortured?" interrogated Brock.

"Tortured!" repeated Henry. "Why, the diabolical devices that those men resorted to to inflict acute physical agony were inconceivable-- unutterable, Colonel." He paused.... "After all, no worse, perhaps, than the tortures that have been inflicted by civilized fanatics in Europe."

There was silence for a moment. Both men were buried deep in thought, the one living in the past, the other striving to forecast the future.

"Through the intercession of Wennway, another friendly Indian,"

continued Henry, "my life was spared. Preparations were made for my secret departure. As I shoved my canoe into the water, _en voyage_ for Wagoshene, the prayers of Wawatam rang in my ears as, standing on the yellow beach with outstretched arms, he invoked the _Gitche Manitou_, the Great Spirit, to conduct me in safety to the wigwams of my people."

"Surely, Master Henry," commented Isaac Brock, "with all the latent qualities for good that seem to underlie the outward ferocity of some redmen, firmness and kindness are alone needed to convert them into faithful friends."

"An Indian, or Indians collectively," said Henry, pausing before he answered,--"I speak from personal experience only--are faithful so long as you keep absolute good faith with them. In this particular they are no different from white people; but never deceive them, even in trifles, and never subject them to ridicule. Then, if you treat them with consideration, you can reasonably depend upon their individual loyalty.

They expect a lot of attention. Yes! an Indian is naturally grateful, probably far more so than the ordinary white man, and seldom forgets a kindness. Should you come into closer contact with the redman, Colonel, as I have a presentiment you will before long, never forget that an Indian, by right of his mode of life, is deeply suspicious and painfully sensitive. He has a keen sense of humour, however, and is quick to discern and laugh at the weak points of others, which, until you understand his language, you will be slow to suspect. On the other hand, he won't stand being laughed at himself or placed in a foolish position.

For that matter, who can? Occasionally you will meet a savage with strangely high principles. Among the redskins there is a proportion of good and bad, as there is in all races, but less crime, under normal conditions, than there is among the whites. So, summing up his vices and virtues, the North American Indian, allowing for heredity and surroundings, differs little from ourselves."

"They are brave," interrupted Brock.

"Oh, yes," said Henry, "splendidly reckless of life. The courage of the fatalist I should say. You see, they are so constantly on the war-path that fighting is a compulsory pastime."

"Still," said Brock, "with what daring they fight for their homes."

"True, Colonel," retorted Henry, "but when it comes to fighting for home, a hummingbird will defend its nest. Their peculiar traits are largely the result of a nomadic life and tribal strife, hence, their duplicity. Superst.i.tion influences them greatly, as it does all savage races. In one respect they are at least superior to some of our own people--I refer to their treatment of their children. Their lovingkindness is pathetic. Contact with civilization, as you may discover, develops at first all their bad qualities, for they are apt imitators, so when the pagan Indian meets a trader without a conscience--and there are some, you know--why, he is not slow to adopt the bad Christian's methods."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BROCK'S c.o.c.kED HAT]

CHAPTER XI.

LITTLE YORK, NIAGARA, AMHERSTBURG.

In common with most great men, Brock found distraction in trifles. For weeks prior to leaving Quebec all kinds of gayety prevailed. A visit from Governor Gore of Upper Canada, and the arrival of the fleet from Guernsey and two frigates from Portsmouth, gave a fillip to society.

Races, water-parties and country picnics were the order of the day. Our hero's contribution consisted of a banquet and grand ball. He had his own troubles, however, that even the versatile Dobson could not overcome, and he roundly scolded his brother Irving for not sending him a new c.o.c.ked hat.[2]

"That c.o.c.ked hat," he said, "has not been received; a most distressing circ.u.mstance, as from the enormity of my head I find the utmost difficulty in getting a subst.i.tute."

His departure for York weighed upon him. In Quebec he had the most "delightful garden imaginable, with abundance of melons and other good things"--these, together with his new bastions and forts, he had to desert. Being somewhat of a philosopher, he said that since fate decreed the best portion of his life was to be wasted in inaction, and as President Jefferson, though he wanted war, was afraid to declare it, he supposed he should have to be pleased with the prospect of moving upwards.

Brock had been but a few weeks at Fort George--a "most lonesome place,"

as compared with Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, or even Little York, from which latter place he was cut off by forty miles of lake, or more than a hundred miles of dense forest and bridgeless streams--when he decided upon a flying trip to Detroit, where, during the French _regime_, the adventurous Cadillac had landed in 1701. He would inspect the western limit of the frontier now under his care and obtain at first hand a knowledge of the peninsula. "For," as he remarked to Glegg, his aide, "if I can read the signs aright, the two nations are rushing headlong into a military conflict."

Two routes were open to him, one overland, the other land and water. He chose the latter. A vast quant.i.ty of freight now reached Queenston from Kingston. Vessels of over fifty tons sailed up the river, bearing merchandise for the North-West Company. Salt pork from Ireland and flour from London, Britain being the real base of supply--the remote North-West looking to Niagara for food and clothing--the return cargoes being furs and grain. To portage these goods around Niagara Falls kept fifty or more farmers' waggons busy every day during the summer. A team of horses or oxen could haul twenty "pieces," of one hundred weight each, for a load. The entire length of the portage from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie was practically a street, full of all the bustle and activity that a scattered country population of 12,000 conferred upon it. Two churches, twenty stores, a printing house, six taverns and a scholastic academy supplied the varied wants of Niagara's 500 citizens who overfilled its one hundred dwellings.

From Lake Ontario, Newark, as it had been called, presented an inviting appearance. The brick-and-stone court-house and jail and brightly painted Indian council-house and cottages rose in strong contrast against the green forest. On the river bank was Navy Hall, a log retreat for seamen, and on Mississaga (Black Snake) Point a stone lighthouse flashed its red signal of hope to belated mariners. Nearer the lake sh.o.r.e, in isolated dignity across a mile of common, stood Fort George, a dilapidated structure with wooden palisades and bastions. Half-acre lots in the village were given gratis by the Government to anyone who would build, and eight acres outside for inclosures, besides a large "commonty" for the use of the people. A quite pretentious wharf lined the river, and from this, on any summer afternoon, a string of soldiers and idle citizens might be seen--among whom was Dobson--casting hook and troll for ba.s.s, trout, pickerel and herring, with which the river swarmed. On one occasion Brock helped to haul up a seine net in which were counted 1,008 whitefish of an average weight of two pounds, 6,000 being netted in one day.

Side-wheel ferries, driven by horse-power, plied between the river's mouth and the Queenston landing. The paddle-wheels of these were open double-spoke affairs, without any circular rim. A stage-coach also ran between Queenston and Fort Erie, the first in Upper Canada. For one dollar the pa.s.senger could travel twenty-five miles.

At Fort Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, Brock embarked in mid-August in a government schooner. He wished to familiarize himself with the upper water-ways. He made the long trip from Quebec to York, and thence to Niagara, Amherstburg, Detroit, Sandwich and return overland to Fort George, within two months--record time. Dobson accompanied his master. Brock was silent as to his impressions, but admitted he was convinced that the water route for a military expedition was the only practical one, and that Mackinaw, held by the United States, was the portal and key to the western frontier in case of invasion. He crossed overland through the "bad woods" and open plains to the Point of Pines, where batteaux and canoes awaited him. From thence he proceeded along the north sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie until abreast of the Miami, a confluent of the Ohio River, on the south sh.o.r.e, then turned northward up the Detroit River, twenty-five miles farther, reaching Amherstburg--called Malden by the Americans--250 miles from Fort Erie.

Here, after consulting with Colonel St. George, he inspected the battery at Sandwich, and with little ceremony visited Detroit--the old military post of Pontchartrain--on the opposite side of the river, later notorious as an emporium for "rum, tomahawks and gunpowder." From Amherstburg, a small village with an uncompleted fort and shipyard, he sent messengers to the remote post of St. Joseph, an island, fifty-five miles from Mackinaw, below Sault Ste. Marie, and started homewards overland.

In returning, he skirted the great tributary marshes, alive with water-fowl of every description, whose gabble and flapping wings could be heard at a long distance. He camped in the vast hardwood forests that covered the western point of the peninsula that extends west from Lake Ontario to the river connecting Lake Huron with Lake Erie. He shot big bustards and wild turkeys in the bush, where wolves and deer were as thick as rabbits in a warren, and tramped the uplands, teeming with quail and prairie chicken. Continuing by Delaware and the Government road at Oxford on the Thames, and by the "Long Woods" over the Burford Plains to Brant's Ford, he reached the Grand River, and then by Ancaster and the head of the lake to Burlington, when he followed the Lake Ontario southern sh.o.r.e road to Niagara.

Many of the settlers whom he met were from the Eastern States. These were the original Loyalists or their descendants, patriots to the core.

Other more recent arrivals--perhaps two-thirds of the whole--came from Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, attracted by the fertility of the soil and freedom from taxation, or to escape militia service. These latter he quickly realized were not the cla.s.s to rely upon in event of war, but he gave no public sign of distrust. It was from the pick of the first-mentioned stalwarts that Brock formed his loyal Canadian militia, his gallant supporters in the war of 1812, who made a reputation at Detroit and Queenston that will never die.

He was more than ever sensible of the resources of the country. This glimpse of the west enamoured him. To his "beloved brothers"--our hero always thus addressed them--he described it as a "delightful country, far exceeding anything I have seen on this continent." The extent of the Great Lakes amazed him, as did their fish. From these deep cisterns he had seen the Indian fishermen take whitefish, the _ahtikameg_ (deer-of-the-water), twenty pounds in weight; maskinonge-- _matchi-kenonje_, the great pike--more than twice that size, and sturgeon that weighed two hundred pounds and over, and in such quant.i.ties that he hesitated to tell his experiences on his return.

Henry's stories of five hundred whitefish taken with a scoop net at the rapids of Sault Ste. Marie in two hours were no longer questioned. The size of the red-fleshed land-locked trout (the quail-of-the-water), of pickerel and ba.s.s, astounded him. His travels had broadened his views.

The chatter of his Iroquois and Algonquin friends was now easier of interpretation. The riddles of the wilderness were more easily read. He now realized how possible it was, in this continent of unsurveyed immensity, to journey for weeks, after leaving the white man's domain hundreds of miles behind, and then reach only the rim of another kingdom of even far greater fertility. He also realized that beyond these laughing lands lay a rugged world of desolation, bounded in turn by the rasping ice-floes of the Arctic.

If Brock's mind had expanded, so had his body. He was, as he expressed it, as "hard as nails." The close of 1811 found "Master Isaac" a grand specimen of manhood. Inclined to be a little portly, he was still athletic. His face, though a trifle stern, had grown more attractive, because of the benevolent look now stamped upon it. He was still fair and florid, with a broad forehead, and eyes though somewhat small, yet full and of a grayish blue, a charming smile and splendid white teeth.

Always the same kindly gentleman and always a soldier. His life at Fort George had been one of great loneliness. He read much and rapidly, and would memorize pa.s.sages from the books that had left the deepest impression. History, civil and military, especially ancient authors, was his choice, and maps his weakness. Over these, with his devoted aides, he would pore late into the night, until he knew the country almost as well as his friend the Surveyor-General. For variety he feasted upon the robust beauties of Pope's "Homer," ever regretting he never had a master "to guide and encourage him in his tastes."

With Lieutenant-Governor Gore, formerly a soldier in Guernsey, our hero was on intimate terms. When the grind of duty let him, he would travel "the worst road in the country--fit only for an Indian mail-carrier--in order to mix in the society of York." He periodically returned these hospitalities by a grand ball at Niagara--always the event of the season. Brock, while fond of women's society, preferred brain to beauty.

Had his old Guernsey friends been present on these occasions they would not have recognized in the soldier, resplendent in a general's uniform, now dancing a mazurka, the handsome stripling who only a few years since had waltzed his way into the hearts of all the women of St. Peter's Port.

The unrest of the Indians at Amherstburg troubled him. He had seen over eight hundred in camp there, receiving rations for a month while waiting presents of blankets, powder and shot from King George. They asked British support if they took the warpath against the Americans--the Long-knives--_Gitchi-mokohmahn_, their sworn enemies. Tec.u.mseh, a Shawanese chief, had demanded from the United States the restoration of violated rights. This demand had not been complied with. The position was critical. Great tact was required to retain the friendship of the Indians, while not complying with their request.

In Lower Canada there was still discord among the French Canadians. The Governor, Sir James Craig, in a dying condition, relinquished office. In answer to Brock's application for leave, still hoping for a staff appointment in Portugal, the Governor-General implored him to remain.