CHAPTER VI
SIGHTING THE ENEMY
Like the slow lapping of black water the bands of creeping Indians ebbed forward. Frank Lawrence held his rifle ready to fire at the word; and as he stood waiting, he wondered why the command was not given.
But Jack Davis was observant; he had planned the direction of their attempt with an eye to probabilities; and what he had figured upon happening came about in due course. Upon this side of the knoll, but some distance from it, there was a shallow ravine; when the Creeks on this side advanced to the attack earlier in the day, they split their forces at this ravine and came on in two separate bodies. The boy took a desperate chance upon the same thing’s happening in the darkness, and so had led the way, with the ravine directly ahead.
Slowly the creeping redskins moved forward up the knoll; they passed within a dozen yards upon either side of the crouching group and continued unaware of the situation. A minute passed, then another—and when Frank had finally despaired, in the suspense, of Jack’s ever giving the word to go on, it came. Cautiously they urged their animals on down the slope; they were now behind the Creeks; ahead was the whole wide wilderness. A hundred yards or more from the spot where the savages passed them on the hillside, Jack whispered:
“Mount! But go slowly.”
They clambered into the saddle; Running Elk, who had clung to the packhorse during all, kept the faithful beast beside his own horse as they rode along. After having gone something less than a mile they heard a yell, faint, but high pitched and exultant, from the distance; rifles cracked and a flare of light lit the sky.
“They’ve reached the summit of the knoll,” spoke Jack. “And they’ve let drive with everything they had.”
After the scattering of shots there was a short pause; a murmur, dull and sustained, came from the direction of their late fort; then, as though the Indians had just realized the escape of their intended victims, a screech of rage, hate and disappointment swept the still night with shuddering intensity.
“I’m as well satisfied that we didn’t fall into the hands of those gentlemen,” observed Frank, as they rode away at a gallop. “I don’t think they’d stop at much.”
“The Creeks are not the merciful kind,” said Jack. “And they seldom take prisoners.”
“Creek burn and scalp,” stated Running Elk, calmly. “Him no good.”
They rode all that night in order to put as much distance between them and the savage bands as possible; in the morning they had breakfast, saw to their horses and rested for a few hours; then they were off again.
During that day they came upon innumerable Indian signs; in the course of the next they sighted a small party of Creeks headed through the forest, and toward evening they all but stumbled upon a large encampment.
“It looks as though they were gathering for trouble,” said Frank. “The woods are alive with them.”
“Like as not runners have been sent out to the different villages that the Prophet is here,” said Jack. “And, of course, they are all anxious to see him and hear his medicine.”
“Much war,” said Running Elk, as they made away from the vicinity of the savage camp. “Creeks and Shawnee burn blockhouse and white face tepees.”
“Do you think they’ll start soon?” asked Jack.
“No.” The Cherokee hunter shook his head. “Not yet. After the snow’s gone from hills. Tribes all join together. Heap fight.”
“That sounds like the facts,” nodded the young borderer to Frank. “It’ll take some time for Tecumseh to get the tribes together for the blow—if he can do it at all.”
“Next spring, then, a big outbreak may be expected?” said Frank.
“Maybe not so soon. But it will come, sooner or later, mark my words. The Injuns are about ripe for it.”
That night they were unable to light a fire because of the closeness of the Indian bands; and the greater part of the next day they were forced to remain in hiding because of the parties of savages constantly encountered. This went on for some days; they were unable to cook their food the greater part of the time, and had little real rest, for it was necessary to guard against surprise every moment.
After about a week of this sort of thing, Jack, one morning, said to Frank:
“It doesn’t seem as though we were going to locate your father’s land grant in a hurry, does it?”
Frank shook his head.
“No,” said he. “We’ll never be able to move in that direction now. It must be alive with Indians.”
“Too bad,” said Jack. “And we were just on the edge of it, too.”
“What do you think we’d better do?” asked Frank.
“Well, we can’t go back to Tennessee,” replied the young borderer. “That would be as dangerous as trying to locate the land marked on your chart. About the only thing I can see for the present, at least, is to make our way south to Mobile, and halt there for a while until this excitement among the redskins dies out.”
“Good,” said Frank. And the Cherokee hunter grunted his approval.
So from that time on their attempt was not in the direction of Tallapoosa, but toward the fort which stood overlooking the bay at Mobile.
This they searched after a tremendous effort through the wild country; and when they appeared at the stockade, they were stared at in amazement.
“Well, youngsters,” greeted a bluff old officer, who seemed to be in command, “where did you come from?” And when they told him, and related some of their experiences, he and the group of soldiers and frontiersmen who had grouped about opened their eyes still wider.
“Well,” said the commandant, shaking his head, “you’ve had great good fortune, lads. The country you’ve just come out of must be as thick with excited Injuns as a hive is with bees. I wouldn’t venture in there with less than five hundred men.”
Mobile and the section thereabouts was fairly well defended, and had little to fear from an uprising of the Indians alone.
“But the British are getting active,” the boys were told; “they are sending in supplies to the redskins; and the Spaniards are helping them.”
This condition of affairs held during the fall; the boys saw the winter come and spring show itself in its thousands of green shoots and blooms, and still they were forced to remain at Mobile.
The whole Indian country was surcharged with the madness excited in the people by the religious frenzies of the Prophet, who in turn was directed by the shrewd mind of Tecumseh. But some of the tribes through whose country he passed, like the Cherokees, the Choctaws and Chickasaws, turned a deaf ear to his plotting, for they had the wisdom to see that his plans could not succeed. But the others gave the Shawnees their attention, for with England’s aid they felt that they could finally overthrow the other white men.
During the fall while the boys were safe in Mobile, the news came that Tecumseh and the Prophet had visited Toockabatcha, the great village of the Creeks. There were fully five thousand warriors of that nation assembled in the town; the Shawnee chief and the magician, painted and bedecked with all the trappings of savage custom, made their last great appeal. The British officers had told the Prophet that a comet was to appear—giving him the exact time; and the wily savage now used this information to good advantage. Rising before the assembled Creeks in all the impressiveness of paint and ornaments, he proclaimed:
“The Great Spirit will give you a sign. And when that sign comes, the Muscogee must take the war-path. You will see the arm of Tecumseh, the great chief, in the sky. It will be of fire and will be held out to destroy the paleface.”
This prediction made a great impression upon the superstitious Creeks. A saying of Tecumseh, which that leader had probably not meant to be taken literally, also caused great excitement among the savages. A Creek chief known to the white settlers of Alabama as “Big Warrior” had refused to believe that the Great Spirit had sent Tecumseh among them. With upraised hand the Shawnee had said to him:
“You do not believe me, chief of the Muscogees; you think I speak with a crooked tongue. But you shall believe. When I leave your country I will go to Detroit; when I reach there I will stamp my foot upon the earth; and the wigwams of this village will tremble.”
Unquestionably what Tecumseh meant was that the effects of the war which would begin upon his reaching the region of the Great Lakes would be felt as far as Toockabatcha; nevertheless a strange thing is said to have happened. About the time in which he must have reached Detroit, a sharp shock of earthquake shook almost the whole of the Creek country; and the wigwams of Toockabatcha did, indeed, reel and tremble. Instantly the Indians recalled the Shawnee’s words and were filled with fear.
“Tecumseh has reached Detroit!” they cried. “He has struck the earth with his foot and it has trembled.”
This was in December, 1812, and the entire Gulf region was affected by this earth tremor. At about the same time the predicted comet appeared in the sky; and the credulity of the Creeks at once saw in it the fiery arm of Tecumseh.
“War with the white man!” ran through the nation of the Muscogee. “War! The Great Spirit has commanded it!”
Through the remainder of the winter and the next spring, clashes took place between the military and the Indians, who were preparing for the war. Settlers were attacked, hunters were driven from their trapping grounds. At Burnt Corn, a number of whites and half-breeds were assembled for mutual protection; the Creeks attacked, defeated and scattered them. Farms were abandoned, the settlers flocking to the numerous stockades to await the expected onslaught.
Having remained idle, so far as their mission was concerned, through the fall, the winter and the spring, Jack and Frank, together with Running Elk, made up their minds that they could not afford to waste any more time. So, in the month of July, in spite of the protests of the friends they had made at Mobile, they took horse and rode into the wilderness once more.
“It’s a risk,” admitted Jack to his comrades, “but, then, we can’t wait forever.”
“I’d rather face the Creeks than the clock,” stated Frank. “They were the longest hours I ever spent toward the last.”
As for the young Cherokee hunter, he seemed greatly pleased with the venture; the danger, instead of being dreaded in his case, was welcomed.
“Brave must fight,” said he, elatedly. “Not like squaw or papoose.”
“Well, I’d just as leave dodge any fighting at the odds we’ll have to give,” said Jack, drily. “But,” and there was a hopeful note in his voice, “maybe we’ll not be molested much. You see,” to Frank, “that section of the Alabama River where the triple oaks stand has no white settlers; and the Indians at this time are mustering in the neighborhoods they mean to attack. We might go through the entire grant which you’re looking for and not see a single redskin.”
“I hope that turns out the case,” remarked Frank, though it was plain he had no strong expectations of the affair’s proving so. “But let us keep a good lookout, just the same. I haven’t had but a few brushes with the Creeks, but I know they have a habit of turning up just at the time you’re not expecting them.”
But it so happened Jack Davis’ judgment of the conditions of affairs along that section of the river was quite correct. At most times it would have been the region in which to find the Creeks the thickest; but, save for a few villages occupied by old men, and women and children, there were no braves to be seen. Signs were everywhere of parties having passed that way; they came upon the blackened remains of a half hundred camp-fires; but not a single eagle feather was visible anywhere about; not a bow twanged, not a war cry sounded.
Jack Davis was greatly interested in the movements of the parties who had camped on and moved across their track.
“Every one of them is headed for the settlements,” said he. “There must be thousands of them.”
However, they knew that the uprising was expected, and felt that the military authorities and backwoodsmen were alert; so they concerned themselves with the object of their expedition alone. The triple oaks were once more sighted; unmolested this time, they studied the chart upon the deerskin scroll; one by one they located the landmarks set down, blazed trees with their hatchets and explored. The result of five days’ work was that the old grant was shown to be a splendidly located one, having every natural advantage.
“It’s worth thousands,” said Jack, who had a fairly keen eye for such things. “If the Injuns are ever brought to see things in the right light, your father has a fortune here.”
With this fact greatly comforting him, Frank was willing to turn once more toward the settlements; so after one night more in the river bank camp, they took to the saddle and headed for the Tennessee line. After the first day, unmistakable signs of Indians compelled them to change their course somewhat; the twilight of the second day found them in the forest amid a perfect maze of fresh trails.
“They seem to be all around us,” said Jack, as they brought up at last, and sat their horses looking about them.
And he was right; for as the twilight deepened into dusk, and dusk into night, they saw the red twinkle of Creek camp-fires on every hand.