With Washington in the west;

It must be confessed that Dave was both startled and dismayed by the sudden turn affairs had taken. He had not wished to quarrel with Turtle Foot from the start, but the half drunken Indian was one of those persistent fellows who could not be avoided.

“Put down that knife!” he said, in as steady a voice as he could command. “Put it down!” And then he caught hold of the red man’s wrist and held on with all his strength. At once the fellow began to struggle, and Indian and boy swayed back and forth in front of the trading-post. The other Indians looked on in expectancy, but nobody tried to stop Turtle Foot in his evil intention to injure the youth.

Strange as it may appear, Dave did not think to cry out until it was too late, and even if he had done so, it is doubtful if he would have been heard above the general uproar the Indians were making. He felt himself pressed back against a stockade and then his foot slipped in a puddle of water and he went down on his knees. Instantly the Indian’s hand left his arm and glided to his throat and the red man held the knife aloft in front of his eyes.

“Consarn you!”

The exclamation came very much in the nature of an explosion, and was followed by the leap of a white man directly behind the Indian. Like a flash Turtle Foot was yanked backward by his hair and his hunting knife twisted from his grasp. Then the newcomer raised the Indian bodily over his head, rushed across the roadway, and threw the fellow into a ditch, where he went to the bottom with a loud splash.

“Thar, you miserable critter, lie thar and cool off! If you ever dare to tech this lad ag’in I’ll split your wizen fer you! The idee of you a-coming to the post to git rum and then cutting up sech a shindy as this! Clar out with you afore I kick you so full of holes your own squaw won’t know you! And you other redskins, you behave yourselves, or I’ll cut loose, and thar will be some tall shooting and knifing going on, I’ll warrant you!” And the speaker ended with a fist shaking that made the Indians retreat in all directions. They knew the man who spoke and knew he meant all that he said.

“Sam Barringford!” ejaculated Dave, joyfully, as he arose to his feet. “I’m mighty glad you came.”

“I’m glad myself, Dave,” returned the old hunter. “But tell me, what made him so sot ag’in you?”

“He got mad because I wouldn’t drink with him.”

“Did, hey? Wall, Turtle Foot always was a fool, and he’s a heap wuss when he’s in liquor.” Sam Barringford looked over to where the Indian was extricating himself from the mud. “Mind what I told you!” he shouted. “Git right away from here! You can come back for your knife to-morrow. I’ll leave it with Seth Crosby!” And not daring to remonstrate Turtle Foot limped down the trail away from the trading-post.

Sam Barringford was a typical hunter and trapper of that period, and well known throughout the whole of the Virginia valley, both to the whites and the red men. He was a man of fifty, tall, broad-shouldered, and with muscles of iron. His hair was long, as was his beard, and from under a shaggy pair of eyebrows peered a pair of black eyes as sharp as those of some wild beast. The look of his face was one of decision, yet not unpleasant, and his voice had a peculiar drawl to it that was whimsical in the extreme.

The hunter was dressed in buckskin, with a wide fringe to his leggings. On his feet he wore a pair of Indian moccasins, and on his head rested a coonskin cap with the tail falling over his back. Around his waist was a broad belt containing a hunting knife and a horn of powder, shot and ball, and across his back was slung a rifle which he had nicknamed Old Trusty, as good a piece of firearm as to be found anywhere.

“The Injuns are as foolish as some white folks when it comes to rum,” was Barringford’s comment, as he and Dave walked to where the horses were tied up. “They know it hurts ’em, and yet they won’t leave it alone. Ain’t here alone, are you?”

“No, Uncle Joe is inside the post. He left me to watch the horses. We are on our way to Annapolis to buy some things for father.”

“Then he’s settled on the Kinotah? I’m glad to hear of that, lad. He ought to do well. I shall hunt him up the next time I git out to that region. Took Tony and Putty with him, I understand.”

“Yes.”

“Them twins is all right and rattlin’ good shots to boot. He’ll do well if he treats the Injuns half right—and I know he will.”

“But what do you think of the French, Sam?”

The old hunter shook his head slowly. “Ain’t no telling what them garlic eaters will do—their mind ain’t the same two days. I’ve heard tell they claim the whole Ohio valley. But they might as well claim the whole airth and done with it.”

“I’ve been talking with Uncle Joe about it and he is afraid the peace won’t last. Nothing was said about Lake Erie or the Ohio valley in the treaty.”

“Then the French will make trouble, if they can git the Injuns to side with them—and I suppose they can, or, at least, they can git some of them—those up around the lakes. You see the Frenchman is the slickest talker on airth and he can make the redskin believe a whole lot what ain’t so.”

The old hunter and Dave continued to discuss the subject for a while longer, and then Joseph Morris came out of the trading-post in a hurry, having just heard that an Indian had attacked his nephew.

“What was it all about?” he questioned, and when told showed how much he was disturbed. “The rascal! He ought not to be allowed near the post! He might have killed you had not Sam come up. Sam, I owe you one for that,” he went on, warmly, catching the trapper by the hands.

“I suppose Turtle Foot will remember me, if ever we meet again,” said Dave.

“No doubt on that, lad,” answered Barringford. “But when you do meet him put on a bold front, and my word on it, he’ll sneak in double-quick order.”

The frolics of the Indians had now been resumed, and a number of backwoodsmen had come in to have a good time also. Some of these fellows were half-breeds and many wore the dress of their red brethren. They were a wild, lawless crowd and, on the whole, more to be feared than the Indians themselves. Soon the liquor was flowing freely, the Indians were dancing and whooping madly, and the backwoodsmen were shouting themselves hoarse and shooting their firearms into the night air. This orgy kept up until two o’clock in the morning, when it died away gradually, the Indians slinking off into the woods and the backwoodsmen dropping wherever it was convenient in drunken slumber.

Joseph Morris had secured accommodations for himself and Dave at a cabin close to the post, and hither they retired, leaving their horses in care of Sam Barringford, who tethered them to a tree in the woods and went to sleep beside them as innocently and as free from care as a child. When the carousal in the village broke up some of the Indians came toward Barringford, but as soon as they recognized the old hunter they took great pains to leave him undisturbed.

Dave slept but little that night previous to the end of the noise, and he sat for a long while at the cabin window looking at what was going on in the moonlight. He had witnessed such a scene before, when a white man and an Indian had been seriously hurt, and he anticipated similar results now. But this anticipation was not fulfilled, for with all the shooting, leaping, shoving and wrestling nobody was injured, and the most that anybody suffered was the tearing of his clothing. One backwoodsman who had refused to pay for liquor for his friends was ridden on a sharp rail, but this act was carried out more in fun than as a punishment.

When Dave came out in the morning and walked toward the trading-post and around it he felt somewhat astonished at the turn affairs had taken. One backwoodsman had aroused another, and all had stolen off as meekly and quietly as had the red men several hours before. The post was almost deserted in consequence and appeared more lonely than ever.

“It’s a way those fellows have,” said one of the traders to Dave. “They go out into the woods for weeks at a time and you never see hide nor hair of ’em. Then of a sudden the Indians come in and the half-breeds and the rest follow, and they kick up such a shindy as you saw. It seems they have got to break loose—they jest can’t help themselves. And they don’t mean no harm by it neither—at least the most of ’em don’t. That Turtle Foot is an exception, and if he don’t look out he’ll get a knife in his back some day.”

Sam Barringford was bound for the home of Lord Fairfax, but had business at Winchester which would keep him at the post for a day longer, so he had to part with the Morrises when they resumed their journey, much as he would like to have accompanied them, for he was strongly attached to Dave.

“Lord Fairfax is a great hunter, you know,” he explained. “But his style is the English one—behind the hounds. Now he wants to git right out in the woods after big game, and he’s offered me a pistole a day for my services, and I’ve closed with him for a month. It’s not bad pay in these times, and he says he may make it more, if I show him something worth bringing down, and I think I can.” And Joseph Morris agreed that it was a good offer, for a pistole in those days was worth about three dollars and sixty cents.

“Is Lord Fairfax going alone?” asked Dave.

“No, he is going to take Lawrence Washington and several others with him. I am calculating on a fine time, for my lord is a good liver and has the finest horses in this section of the country.”

“I know he has a fine estate,” put in Joseph Morris.

“Nothing finer. I read some of the reports that young George Washington brought in—you know he surveyed the tract for Lord Fairfax. He noted down all about the soil and the timber, and the water power and all. I can tell you that young fellow is a smart one. I don’t wonder that they have made him a public surveyor. Lord Fairfax is sure a surveyor from England couldn’t have been more accurate.”

“I should like to see a surveyor at work,” said Dave. “It’s always been a good deal of a mystery to me how they measured land, especially from one hill or mountain to another.”

“Perhaps you’ll meet Washington on your way to Annapolis, lad; he’s out somewhere in the neighborhood of the Shenandoah, surveying a grant of land for a man named Burger. The north end of the grant lies at Heckwell’s Creek.”

“We intended to cross near Heckwell’s,” said Joseph Morris. “How is the river?”

“Very low now and you’ll have no trouble;” and after a few words more the friends parted, and the Morrises continued on their journey.

The route was now directly eastward, across the broad and fertile valley of the beautiful Shenandoah, the name of which, in the Indian tongue, means, “Daughter of the Stars.” Here the forests were still immense, but broken by wide patches of luxuriant grass and “islands” of wild flowers, some of which were still in bloom. The scene was truly entrancing, and often Joseph Morris would call a halt and point out one object or another of special interest.

“How people can box themselves up in a city when they might come forth to enjoy something like this is past my understanding,” he said once. “Was ever air purer or sweeter, or music more full of melody than that which yonder birds are giving us? And listen to the murmur of that brook as it trickles along through the brush and over the rocks; it is a psalm in itself.”

“It certainly is grand, Uncle Joe. If only a painter could set it all down on canvas and show it to the folks that live in such a city as London!”

“Aye, but he couldn’t, for the breath of the life that is here would be missing. To me every tree and bush, and patch of grass, can talk as well as can yonder brook and the birds. And what painter could put that talk in his picture, or that feeling that comes over one as he stands here under such a blue sky? No, it’s not possible, and painters must know it, unless they be truly conceited.”

At midday they came to a halt under the wide-spreading branches of a gigantic oak, a veritable monarch of the forest, standing like a sentinel on a grassy knoll overlooking a wide creek flowing into the Shenandoah several miles beyond. For the last hour the trail had been uncertain, with many wet and slippery spots to avoid, and they had moved forward slowly and with care.

Both felt like eating something warm, and while Mr. Morris got out the provisions, Dave stirred round with a hatchet with which to cut some firewood. There was little on the knoll and he descended and walked over an opening to where grew some brush. Here lay a fallen tree with several dry branches well suited to his purpose.

Dave was hard at work chopping off one of the branches when a noise coming from the woods beyond the brush attracted his attention. There was a cry and then a thrashing around of a human being.

“Hullo, what’s up there?” he called out, and leaving the fallen tree, started in the direction from whence the sounds proceeded. Running through a strip of the woods, he reached a series of rocks where there was another open patch with a spring.

Just as Dave came to the opening a gun went off, and as the smoke cleared away the first thing he saw was a snake twirling and twisting on the ground in its death agonies. Several other snakes were close by, and in their midst was a young man who was doing his best to get away from the reptiles.

Dave had often encountered snakes on the farm, so he was not as frightened as he might otherwise have been. As the young man started to club one of the reptiles with the stock of his gun, Dave aimed a blow with his hatchet at another, and in a few seconds two more of the snakes were put in a condition where they could do no further harm. Then the young man and the boy attacked the remaining snakes, but these glided away between the rocks, and in less than five minutes after it had begun the battle was over and the snakes had departed to return no more.

“That was warm work,” remarked Dave, as he wiped the bloody hatchet on the grass. “Did that first snake bite you?”

“He struck at my boot, but the leather was too thick for him,” was the answer, delivered in quite a cool tone considering the excitement which had just passed. “I must thank you for coming to my assistance.”

“You were lucky to escape so easily. I know a man who got in a nest of snakes like that and was bitten three times.”

“I was somewhat on my guard, as it happens. I imagined there might be snakes around these rocks. But I had to come here.”

“Had to come here?”

“Yes. You see, I am surveying this tract of land.”

“Oh, then you are Mr. George Washington, the public surveyor?” cried Dave.

“I am.”