A Virginia Scout Part 17

"Ike ain't got no stummick for a reg'lar stand-up fight. He'll hang round the creek and kill when he catches a red along."

"He'll get no powder from my stock to use around the creek," I declared.

Hughes eyed me moodily.

"What odds where they're killed so long as they're rubbed out?" he harshly demanded.

"Women and children are the odds," I retorted. "Crabtree kills friendly Indians. Even young Cousin, who hates reds as much as any man alive, won't make a kill in a settlement unless the Indians are attacking it."

"That's the one weak spot in Cousin," regretted Hughes. "He's a good hater. But he'd have a bigger count for that little sister of his if he'd take them wherever he finds them. It's all d.a.m.n foolishness to pick and choose your spot for killing a red skunk. And this friendly Injun talk makes me sick! Never was a time but what half the Shawnees and other tribes was loafing 'round the settlements, pretending to be friends, while t'other half was using the tomahawk and scalping-knife.

"That sort of medicine won't do for me. No, siree! Injuns are a pest, just like wolves and painters, only worse. They must be wiped out. That's my belief and I make it my business to wipe them out. Few men that's got more'n me."

It's a waste of time to talk with a b.l.o.o.d.y-minded man. Hughes' brother was killed by the Indians. As for that, there was hardly a settler in Virginia who had not lost some dear friend or relative. When the history of the country is written, it will surprise the coming generations to read the many names having opposite them, "Killed by the Indians."

I was sorry I had met Hughes. His company grated on me. It was impossible to think of Patsy Dale with the fellow's cruel babble ringing in my ears.

I remained silent and he garrulously recounted some of his many exploits, and with gusto described how he had trapped various victims. It was his one ambition of life. He cared nothing for land.

Offer him all of Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton's thirty-odd thousand acres on the Ohio and Great Kanawha as a gift, and he would have none of them unless they contained red men to slaughter. He had laid down a red path and it was his destiny to follow it. I had no love for Shawnee or Mingo, but my mind held room for something besides schemes for bloodletting.

And yet it was well for me that I had met Hughes the Indian-hater, and doubly well that I had brought powder and lead so that he had turned back with me. We were riding down the western slope and about clear of the mountains, I trying to think my own thoughts and he talking, talking, his words dripping blood, when ahead in the trace I spied something on the ground that caused me to exclaim aloud.

It was a brightly beaded moccasin, very small, and strangely familiar even at a distance. Hughes saw it and stared at it through half-closed lids. I leaped from my horse and started forward to pick it up.

"Don't touch it;" yelled Hughes. "Come back! Come back!"

I heard him and understood his words, and yet I continued advancing while I mechanically endeavored to guess his reason for stopping me.

"Jump, you fool!" he yelled as I stretched out my hand to pick up the moccasin. And his horse was almost upon me and covering me with dirt as he pivoted and slid into the bushes, his hindquarters. .h.i.tting me and hurling me over, half a dozen feet beyond the little moccasin. I landed on my head and shoulders with the crack of a rifle echoing in my dazed ears.

Instinct sent me rolling out of the trace and into the bushes. By the time I gained my knees and had cleared the dirt from my eyes Hughes was working rapidly up the right-hand slope. His horse stood at the edge of the bushes, rubbing noses with my animal. I kept under cover of the growth and halted abreast of the moccasin.

There was a furrow within a few inches of its embroided toe. I broke a branch and pawed the moccasin toward me and picked it up and went back to the horses. Then I took time to examine my prize. It was one of the pair I had given to Patsy Dale. She must have carried it carelessly to drop it in the trace without discovering her loss. I slipped it into my hunting-s.h.i.+rt and sat down to wait for Hughes. It was fully an hour before he came back.

"Couldn't git a crack at him," he growled, his face grim and sullen. "But you was a fool to be took in by such a clumsy trick as that."

"It's an old trick," I conceded, taking the moccasin from my s.h.i.+rt. "If it had been any Indian finery I would have kept clear of it. But this happens to belong to Ericus Dale's girl. She dropped it coming down the slope."

He heard this in astonishment and scratched his head helplessly.

"Then I must 'a' been asleep, or in a h.e.l.l of a hurry when I come to this slope," he muttered. "And it ain't just the right kind of a slope to go galloping over. I don't understand it a bit. They was riding into the settlement when I come out. I called to Dale and asked if he'd seen any Injun signs. He told me he hadn't seen any. Then that feller Ward come trotting out the woods, looking like a' Injun, and I was bringing up my rifle to give him his needings when Dale let out a yelp and said he was a white man. Wal, it'll tickle the gal to learn how near her moccasin come to killing you."

"The Indian knew it was there and knew we were coming, and used it for bait," I mused.

"A five-year-old child would know that," was the scornful rejoinder. "But what no five-year-old on Howard's Creek would 'a' done was to go for to git it after I'd called a halt. You must 'a' been foolish in your mind.

The Injun took a spot where he could line his gun on the moccasin. The growth cut off any sight of the trace 'cept where the moccasin lay. All he had to do was to line it and shoot when you stooped over it. The second he couldn't see the moccasin he'd know some one's body was between it and him. He heard me bawl out, but he didn't git sight of you till you was over it, and by that time my old hoss give you a belt and made you keep on moving."

"He undershot, yet as I was bending close to it he would have bagged me,"

I said. "I have to thank you for saving my life."

"Part of a day's work," he carelessly observed. "Wal, seeing as the skunk has skedaddled, we might as well push on rather smart and tell the fellers there's a loose red round these parts."

When we entered the settlement we saw men and women gathered in front of the Davis cabin, frankly curious to see the newcomers and eager to volley them with questions. I joined the group and through a window beheld Patsy in animated conversation with what women could crowd inside. Mrs. Davis was very proud of her cousin's daughter and was preening herself considerably.

Patsy's cheeks were flushed and her tongue was racing as only a woman's can. As she talked I could see she was trying to get used to the table of split slabs and its four round legs set in auger-holes, the pewter tableware and the spoons and bowls fas.h.i.+oned from wood, and the gourds and hard-sh.e.l.l squash hollowed out for noggings.

With a slant of half-veiled eyes she also was studying the women's linsey petticoats and bare feet, for now that it was warm weather many dispensed with any foot-covering. In turn the women were openly examining the texture and style of her town gown, and shrilly calling on one another to come and admire her soft leather boots.

I did not see Dale, and Davis informed me he was inspecting the fort. As Ward was not in sight I a.s.sumed he, too, was at the fort. Making my way to the window, I caught Patsy's eye and handed her her lost moccasin.

She stared at the moccasin in bewilderment, but what with the newness of her experience and the voluble praise of the women and the open-eyed admiration of the men, she was finely excited. She forgot to ask where I found the moccasin or how I happened to be there. She was in the act of giving me a smile and a nod when Mrs. Davis tugged her to the right-about.

Realizing it was useless to strive for the girl's attention until the neighbors returned to their cabins, I walked to the fort, leading my horse. Hughes was there ahead of me and stood with a group of sullen-faced men who were being addressed by Ericus Dale.

"I say there ain't going to be any war," he cried as I took a position behind him. "The Indians don't want war. They want trade. Take a pack of goods on your horse and walk into a Shawnee village and see how quick they'll quit the war-post to buy red paint and cloth.

"Open a keg of New England rum among the Mingos and see how quick they'll drop their axes and hunt for tin dippers. Take blankets and beads to the Wyandots and watch them hang up white wampum. Take----"

"Oh, that's all fool talk!" thundered Hughes crowding forward and staring angrily into the trader's deep-set eyes. "You can't lead a pack-hoss fifty miles from this creek without losing your hair, neighbor."

"I can! I will!" wrathfully replied Dale. "I've traded for years with the Indians. I never yet went to them with a gun in my hand. If ever I need protection, they'll protect me. They are my friends. This war is all wrong. You can have it if you insist. But if you'd rather have trade, then you needn't build any more forts west of the Alleghanies."

Hughes laughed hoa.r.s.ely and called out to the silent settlers:

"What do you fellers say to all this twaddle? Any of you believe it?"

Uncle d.i.c.k, whom I had left whetting his knife on the stones of the Davis fireplace, gave a cackling laugh and answered:

"Believe it? No! But it's fun to hear him splutter."

The men smiled grimly. They had held back from affronting their neighbor's cousin. They looked upon Dale much as they looked on Baby Kirst when he came to the settlement and whimpered because he could not find ripe berries to pick. They were deciding that Dale was mentally irresponsible; only his malady took a different twist than did Baby's. He was an Indian-lover instead of hater. Dale's dark face flushed purple with anger.

By an effort he controlled himself and said:

"All right. You men want a fight. I'm afraid you'll have it. But I tell you that if Dunmore would call off that dog of a Connolly at Fort Pitt I could go among the Ohio Indians and make a peace which would last."

"How about the Injuns being willing for us to go down into the Kentucky country?" spoke up Moulton.

"If you want peace with the Indian, you must let him keep a place to hunt and live in. He can't live if you take away his hunting-grounds."

"Then let's take 'em away so they'll die out tarnation fast," cried Elijah Runner.

Drawing himself up and speaking with much dignity, Dale said:

"I am sorry for any of you men who came out here to make homes if you will let a few Indian-killers, who never make homes, spoil your chances for getting ahead."

"We don't go for to kill every Injun we see," said Davis, heretofore silent. "I'm a fambly-man. I don't want Injuns butchered here in the settlement like as Ike Crabtree done for Cherokee Billy. No sense in that."

"That's what I say, too," agreed another. And this endors.e.m.e.nt of Davis'