Crittenden Marriott

“ Abruptly Jack halted, stiffening like a pointer pup, and leaned forward, gun half raised, trying to peer through the sun-soaked bushes of the moist glade. He had heard no sound, seen nothing move, yet his skin had roughened just as that of a wildcat roughens at the approach of danger. Instinct—the instinct of one born and brought up almost within sight of the frontier—told him that something dangerous was watching him from the jungly undergrowth before him. It might be a bear or a wolf or a panther, for none of these were rare in Alabama in the year 1812. ”

“ To the left, nearer at hand, rose the black quadrilateral of the fort.
All around rose the voices of the night. A screech owl hooted from a near-by tree. A fox barked in the long grass. Nearer at hand restless horses and mules stamped at their fastenings. Over all rose the bellow of bullfrogs, the lapping of the river against its banks, and the ceaseless, strident calls of the crickets.
Once more Alagwa’s hot eyes sought the fort. Within it were the men of the race she hated—the men who had derided and had threatened the young white chief. ”

“ Cato was lying face down where he had fallen. Across his body lay that of the warrior who had stricken him down. Close at hand lay two other braves, their well-oiled bodies and shaven heads glistening in the sun. Alagwa did not even look at them; they were not friends—they were outlaws—outlaws suborned by Brito to attack Jack because he had been in search of her. The Shawnees were still her friends—she was still true to Tecumseh. But these were private foes. She had been trained in a hard school and their deaths affected her no more than would those of so many wild beasts. ”

“ Jack took the belt eagerly. To go to the lodge of Tecumseh to bring back a kinswoman to whom had descended great estates and against whom foes—he at once decided that they were foes—were plotting—What boy of twenty-one would not jump at the chance.
And to go to Ohio—the very name was a challenge. The Ohio of 1812 was not the Ohio of today, not the smiling, level country, set with towns, crisscrossed with railways, plastered with rich farms where the harvest leaps to the tickling of the hoe. It was far away, black with the vast shadow of perpetual forests, beneath which quaked great morasses. ”

“ I have married an American. I am an American. And I am proud of it! Yes! proud of it! I am proud of my husband and proud of the race that produced him. I hate their foes. I hate you. And, by the white man’s God I swear, that your triumph—if you win it—shall be hollow, for you will clasp a dead woman in your arms. And tomorrow—tomorrow—Tecumseh will come back and burn you at the stake!”
Brito did not answer in words. Instead, he leaped swiftly forward, clutching at the girl with outstretched arms.
Had Alagwa been bred in civilization he must have caught her. ”

“ If I ever marry, I shall marry some sweet gentle lady who never saw the frontier, who knows nothing of war, who has tread no rougher measures than those of the minuet. I want a bride whom I can shield from the world, not a mannish creature who can protect me. I want—Good Lord! What’s the matter?”
Alagwa had sprung to her feet, gasping. For a moment she stood; then she turned and fled to the house. Fantine glared at Jack; her lips moved but no sound came from them. For once, the situation was beyond her. With a hopeless gesture she followed the girl. Rogers stood staring. ”

“ She would make him safe. And when it was all over and he knew, she would die as an Indian maid should die.
Noiselessly—as noiselessly as she had moved through the forests—Alagwa rose from her bed and slipped to the door. Inch by inch she opened it and looked out. The house was black and silent; its inmates slept. Slowly she crept to the entrance to the big bar room. The night was hot and the windows and the door stood wide open, letting in a faint glimmer from moon and stars. In its light the sleeping forms of men on the floor loomed black. ”

“ Alagwa knew that Jack doubted his having left the country.
The dawn was beginning to break. The boles of the trees began to stand separately out; the leaves took on a tinge of green. Over all reigned silence. No faintest sound gave warning of approaching enemies. But the girl well knew that silence did not mean safety. Too often had she heard the Shawnee braves boast of how they crept on their sleeping enemies in the dawn. With renewed determination [184] she thrust forward her heavy rifle and strained her eyes and ears anew. Jack had trusted her; she must not fail him. ”

“ Both the Auglaize and the Maumee below the fort were navigable for small boats, and if Brito and his comrades had come in one, he might regain it and float down the Maumee, possibly to safety.
Should she let him go? No pity was in her heart. The frontier was grim; it translated itself into primitive emotions, taking no account of the shadings of civilization or of the blending of good and evil that inheres in every man. Those brought up amid its environment hated their enemies and loved their friends; they took no middle course. Brito was an enemy and Alagwa hated him. ”

“ A bullet drove the earth from the rampart into her face, filling her eyes and mouth with its spatter. Then from every tree, from every rock, forms, half naked, horrible, painted, came leaping. Bullets whistled before them, rending the tortured air. As they topped the ramparts one, wearing a woodsman’s garb, caught his foot and fell forward, sprawling; the others hurled themselves toward Jack and Cato. Alagwa did not stop to think that these were her people, her friends. ”

“ An instant he clutched at the air; then, like a cat, he was on his feet, launching forward to meet Jack’s assault.
In England boxing was in tremendous favor, and even in America, prone to more violent methods, it was in high esteem. Rich and poor, peer and peasant, alike prided themselves on their strength and quickness in feint and blow. Prize fighters were honored, not merely by the rabble but by those who held themselves to be the salt of the earth. Brito had fought many a time, both for anger and for pleasure. ”

“ And delay would be fatal to herself and perhaps to Jack. Metea would come for her at dawn. Before then she must make sure of Jack’s safety. Despairingly she looked to Stickney for help, only to find him half-unconscious, shaking with fever. Clearly he was incapable of doing more. If she was to gain immediate refuge she must gain it by her own efforts.
She looked at the captain and fury swelled in her bosom. Alagwa hated and loved with equal intensity, and she had hated Hibbs since the day she first saw him—the day he had scoffed at Jack. ”

“ Fantine glanced swiftly at Jack. Then out of the corner of her eye she searched Alagwa’s face. “Oh! La! La!” she cried. “These men! Truly they all of a muchness. When they are young they all run after a pretty face and if they lose it they think the world stops. Later they know better. M. Jack will seek a bride some day. And when you do, M. Jack, see that you choose one who will stand at your side when you face the peril, one who will draw the sword and pistol to defend you. Do not choose some fair lady who will faint at the sight of blood and leave you to your foes. ”

“ Swift as prudence would allow he sped through the Indian camp to where Rogers and Cato waited, and together the three raced southward and westward, hoping against hope that they would yet be in time, hoping till the far-off rattle of rifles rose and fell and died away, till red flames crimsoned the sky, and the yells of exultant savages sounded across the snow and the ice. Then, hopeless, the three circled south and took the trail back to the Maumee, bearing to General Harrison the fateful news that General Winchester’s army was no more. ”

“ For his own sake he hoped that all of them had not fled or that Alagwa at least had been left behind. Once away from the optimism of the camp he found it hard to believe that foes so bitter and so often triumphant had fled without a blow.
At last the three reached the mouth of the short but broad Detroit River and turned up it from the lake. As they did so the moon set, leaving the great stars to arch in splendor across the cloudless sky. In the north the aurora still flickered, now shooting upward toward the spangled firmament, now dying [276] away to palest gold. ”

“ Hull’s surrender was not to actual foes but to possible ones, not to the threat of civilized warfare but to that of torture and murder by foes that kept no faith with the vanquished and that spared neither men nor women nor babes at the breast. “Surrender! If I have to attack I will not be able to restrain the fury of the Indians,” was in substance the message that brought about Hicks’s capitulation at Mackinaw, Heald’s massacre at Fort Dearborn, and Hull’s shameful surrender at Detroit. ”

“ But Jack knew them. Much had he forgotten, but in the last hour much had come back to him. Thoughts, memories, bits of ritual, learned long before and buried beneath later knowledge, struggled upward through the veil of the years and rose to his lips.
“They—they are like Masonic orders, father,” he began, vaguely. “They know no tribe, no nation. Mohawks and Shawnees and Creeks of the same clan are brothers, and yet—and yet—if the Shawnee sends a war belt to the Creeks, clan ties are suspended—just as between Masons of different nations. ”

“ Soon they were to find one in General Brock and the Americans were to realize too late that they had to meet not merely a handful of British and Canadians but a horde of the fiercest foes that any land could produce, some of whom, like Tecumseh, hoped to establish an Indian kingdom whose barriers would hold back the Americans forever, but most of whom fought merely for the spoils of war, secure in the British promise to give them a free hand and to protect them against any ultimate vengeance like that which had befallen them when they had risen in the past. ”

“ Alagwa was skilled in all forms of woodcraft; she could make [74] fire where a white man would freeze; catch game where he would starve; sleep warm and snug where he would shiver and rack with wet and fever and ague. She knew the forest trails, knew the rocks on which the rattlesnake sunned and the tufts of grass beneath which the copperhead lurked, knew the verdure that hid the quagmire, the firm-appearing ice that splintered at a touch, the tottering tree that dealt ruin at a breath. ”

“ Alagwa, watching, could see the drink dying out of the faces of the listeners.
Suddenly Mr. Hibbs staggered to his feet. His atramentous face had grown pale; his nostrils twitched; his chin sagged. “It’s a lie!” he blustered; “a lie cooked up by yonder dog and by that half-breed cub. It’s a lie.”
Stickney’s fever had come upon him and he was shaking in its grip. “It’s no lie,” he gasped. “It’s the truth! And there’s no time to lose. Preparations must be made this very night to send away the women and children, and to make the fort ready for a siege.”
Hibbs’s eyes widened. “Tonight?” he gasped. ”

“ The young white chief would not stand tamely by while his prisoner was killed. He would fight! He would fight hard. He would kill many of her people. But he would be pulled down at last and—and—No! Not that! Not that! Her revenge must wait.
Besides, Tecumseh had not sent her south to fight but to spy. If she called for vengeance on the murderer of Wilwiloway she betrayed herself and wrecked her mission. No! she must wait. ”

“ If a man travel with a girl and then not marry her?” A deep red had rushed to Alagwa’s cheeks; she bent down her head to hide it.
Jack shrugged his shoulders. “Brito wouldn’t refuse!” he declared.
“I mean not Brito only. I mean any man who had—had compromise a girl. Suppose he refuse to take her to his lodge in honor?”
“Any man who did that would be a scoundrel. The girl’s father or brother or friend would call him out and kill him. But, as I say, Brito would marry Estelle, of course. And he wouldn’t need to do anything to compel her. She’d marry him willingly enough. You know it.” ”

“ From time immemorial even civilized foes had punished spies with death. What doom then could he expect from savages who had been beaten and broken, whose ranks had been depleted, whose villages had been burned, whose allies (on whom they had relied to protect them from the consequences of their rebellion) were in full retreat? Jack knew well the fiery death he faced. But he knew, too, that if he did not find Alagwa that night he would probably never find her. ”

“ The sun was not yet up, but as the three cantered to the ford close beside the blockhouse, that frowned from the southwest corner of the fort, the morning gun boomed and the Stars and Stripes flung out to the breeze. An instant later, as the horses splashed through the shallow water, the sun thrust out through a gash in the clouds above the eastern forest, lighting up the snapping banner with its seventeen emblematic stars. ”