The Riflemen of the Ohio Part 23

He was looking again toward the green wall, upon which a white spot suddenly appeared.

"It's a white cloth of some kind," said Major Braithwaite. "That means a flag of truce. Now what in the name of Neptune can they want?"

"We'll soon see," said Henry, as he and the Major advanced to the palisade and stepped upon the ledge. Many others did the same, and not a few among them were women and children. The Major did not send them away, as a bullet from the forest could not reach them there.

A man came from among the trees, waving a white rag on a stick, but stopped out of rifle shot. The man was tanned almost as brown as an Indian, and he was dressed in Indian style, but his features were undoubtedly Caucasian.

"Do you know who he is?" asked the Major.

"Yes," replied Henry, "it is the worst scoundrel in all the west, the leader of the men who fight against their own people, the king of the renegades, Simon Girty."

"Girty coming to us under a white flag!" exclaimed the Major. "What can he want?"

"We'll soon see," said Henry. "Look, there are the chiefs."

A dozen stately figures issued from the green gloom and stood beside Girty, silent and impressive, their hands folded upon the muzzles of their rifles, which rested upon the ground, their figures upright, figure and face alike motionless, an eagle feather waving defiantly in every scalp lock. There was something grand and formidable in their appearance, and all those who looked from the palisade felt it.

"Do you know any of them?" asked Major Braithwaite.

"Yes," replied Henry. "I see Yellow Panther, head chief of the Miamis; Red Eagle, head chief of the Shawnees, and Captain Pipe and Captain White Eyes, Delaware chiefs, but I do not see Timmendiquas, the White Lightning of the Wyandots, the bravest and greatest of them all. There are two more renegades behind the chiefs. They are Blackstaffe and Braxton Wyatt."

"Girty is coming forward. He is going to speak," said the Major.

The renegade advanced another dozen feet, still holding the white flag above him, and hailed them in a loud voice.

"Ho, you within the fort!" he cried. "I wish to speak with your leader, if you have one."

Major Braithwaite stepped upon the highest point of the ledge. He showed above the palisade from the waist up, and the morning suns.h.i.+ne touched his c.o.c.ked hat and buff and blue with an added glory. It was a strange figure in the forest, but the face under the c.o.c.ked hat was brave and true.

"I am the commander here," said Major Braithwaite in a clear and penetrating voice. "What does Simon Girty want with us?"

"I see you know me," said the renegade laughing. "Then you ought to know, too, that it's worth while to listen to what I have to say."

Henry stood on a lower part of the ledge. Only his head appeared above the palisade, and Girty and Wyatt had not yet noticed him. But Major Braithwaite, almost unconsciously, looked down to him for advice.

"Draw him out as much as you can," said Henry.

"I am listening," said the Major. "Proceed."

"I want to tell you," called Girty, "that this place is surrounded by hundreds of warriors. We've got the biggest force that was ever gathered in the west, and it ain't possible for you to escape us."

A groan came from the palisade. It was some of the women who uttered it.

But the Major waved his hand in reproof, and no one cried out again.

"You have yet to prove what you say," he replied. "We beat you off last night."

"That was only a little skirmish," said Girty. "We were just feeling of you. See, here are a dozen great chiefs beside me, Shawnee, Miami, Delaware, and others, which shows that we can send against you a thousand warriors, two thousand, if we wish. But we mean to be merciful.

I'm a white man and the chiefs will listen to me. But if you don't do as I say, nothing will be left of this place two days from now but ashes and coals. All the men will be dead, and the women and children will be carried away, the women to be squaws of our warriors, the children to grow up as Indians, and never to know that they were white."

Faces along the barrier blanched. Major Braithwaite himself shuddered, but he replied in a strong voice:

"And what is the alternative that you offer us?"

"We admit that we would lose lives in taking your fort, lives that we wish to save. So we promise you that if you surrender, your women and young children shall go safely up the Ohio on boats to Pittsburgh, the men to be held for ransom."

"Don't think of accepting, Major!" exclaimed Henry. "Don't think of it, even if they had ten thousand warriors! If you put your people in his power, Girty would never dream of keeping his promise, and I doubt if the chiefs understand what he is saying while he is speaking Englis.h.!.+"

"Never fear that I shall do such a thing, my boy," said Major Braithwaite. "Meekly surrender a place like this to a scoundrel like Girty!"

Then he called out loudly:

"It may be that you can take us in two days as you say, but that you will have to prove, and we are waiting for you to prove it."

"You mean, then," said Girty, "that we're to have your scalps?"

"Major," said Henry earnestly, "let me speak to them. I've lived among the Indians, as I told you before, and I know their ways and customs.

What I say may do us a little good!"

"I believe in you, my boy," said Major Braithwaite with confidence.

"Speak as you please, and as long as you please."

He stepped from the high point of the ledge, and Henry promptly took his place. Braxton Wyatt uttered a cry of surprise and anger as the figure of the great youth rose above the palisade, and it was repeated by Simon Girty. The two knew instinctively who had put Fort Prescott on guard, and their hearts were filled with black rage.

"Simon Girty," called Henry in the language of the Shawnees, which he spoke well, "do you know me?"

He had deliberately chosen the Shawnee tongue because he was sure that all the chiefs understood it, and he wished them to hear what he would have to say.

"Yes, I know you," said Girty angrily, "and I know why you are here."

Henry suddenly put on the manner of an Indian orator. He had learned well from them when he was a captive in the Northwestern tribe, and for the moment the half-taunting, half-boastful spirit which he wished to show really entered into his being.

"Simon Girty," he called loudly, "I came here to save these people and to defeat you, and I have succeeded. You cannot take this fort and you cannot frighten its men to surrender it. Renegade, murderer of your kind, wretch, liar, I know and these people know that if they were to surrender you would not keep your word if you could. How can any one believe a traitor? How can your Indian allies believe that the man who murders his own people would not murder them when the time came?"

Girty's face flamed with furious red, but Henry went on rapidly:

"If Manitou told me that I should fall in fair fight with a Wyandot or a Shawnee or a Miami I should not feel disgraced, but if I were to be killed by the dirty hand of you, Girty, or the equally dirty hand of Braxton Wyatt, who stands behind you, I should feel myself dishonored as long as the world lasts."

Girty, choking with rage, drew his tomahawk from his belt and shook it at Henry, who was more than a hundred yards away. The chiefs remained motionless, silent and majestic as before.

"And you great chiefs," continued Henry, "listen to me. You will fail here as you have failed before. Help, great help, is coming for these people. I brought them the warning. I aroused them from sleep, and I know that many men are coming. Pay heed to me, Yellow Panther, head chief of the Miamis, and Red Eagle, head chief of the Shawnees, that you may know who I am, and that my words are worth hearing. I am that bearer of belts, Big Fox, who came with Brown Bear and The Bat into the council lodge of the Miamis and sent the warriors of the Shawnees and the Miamis astray. I was white and my comrades were white, but you did not know me, cunning as you are."

Now Yellow Panther and Red Eagle stirred. These were true things that he told, and curiosity and anger stirred in them.

"Who is this that taunts us?" they asked of Girty.

"It's a young fiend," replied the renegade. "Wyatt has told me all about him. Boy as he is, he's worth a whole band of warriors to the people behind those walls."

"There is more that you should remember, Red Eagle and Yellow Panther,"

continued Henry, wis.h.i.+ng to impress them. "It was I and my comrades who carried the message to the wagon train that you fought at the ford, where you were beaten, where you lost many warriors. I see that you remember. Tell your warriors that Manitou favors my friends and me, that we have never yet failed. We were present when the Indians of the south and many renegades like Girty and Wyatt here, men with black hearts who told lies to their red friends, were beaten in a great battle. As they failed in the south, so will you fail here. A mighty fleet is coming, and it will scatter you as the winter wind scatters the dead leaves."