From Farm House to the White House Part 23

"I suppose you were lost, and fired your gun."

"No, I was not lost," answered the savage, "I know where my cabin is, and it is not far away."

"Well, then," continued Gist, "do you go home, and here is a cake of bread for you, and you must provide meat for us in the morning."

The Indian was glad enough to get away without being pierced by a bullet, and he promised them excellent fare the next morning. It was nine o'clock at night when he left them, taking with him his gun, that Was.h.i.+ngton returned to him. Gist followed him for quite a distance, to be sure that he was not deceiving them, and then hurried back.

"Now, since you would not let me shoot the villain," he said to Was.h.i.+ngton, "we must shoulder our packs and hurry away, and walk all night, or we shall never see Williamsburg."

"You are right, Gist, and we will be off at once; and the fellow may keep his meat till we come this way again," replied Was.h.i.+ngton, with as much composure as if their lives had not been in jeopardy. By the light of the camp fire their compa.s.s showed them which way to go.

The excitement of this perilous episode seemed to rest Was.h.i.+ngton's weary limbs, so that they traveled rapidly through the whole night, finding themselves at the head of Piney Creek in the morning.

Was.h.i.+ngton's journal has the following entry for that day:

"The next day we continued traveling until quite dark, and got to the river, two miles above Shannopin's. We expected to have found the river frozen, but it was not, only about fifty yards from each sh.o.r.e. The ice, I suppose, had broken up above, for it was driving in vast quant.i.ties."

"What next?" said Gist, with an air which indicated that he recalled his warning words to Was.h.i.+ngton about the perils of such a journey. "If the Indian's bullet had taken effect we should have been saved some trouble here."

"A formidable difficulty, to be sure," answered Was.h.i.+ngton; "but a good share of wit and perseverance may overcome it. No way of getting over this stream, I think, except on a raft."

"A raft!" exclaimed Gist. "A raft would be swamped in a giffy by that ice. Besides, what have we to build a raft with? A hatchet alone will not do it."

"A hatchet is much better than nothing," responded Was.h.i.+ngton. "We will try what a hatchet can do towards it. If we fail, we will fail in trying."

"Try it is, then," said Gist, rather admiring Was.h.i.+ngton's hopefulness and pluck than otherwise. "I am at your service, and if anybody can cross the river, I think a man of your grit can."

So they set to work to construct a raft, with no implement but a solitary hatchet, consuming a whole day in the work. When the awkward affair was fairly launched, they went on board of it, and pushed off for the opposite sh.o.r.e. About mid-way of the river, the floating ice came down with such violence as to threaten the destruction of the raft.

"We can never reach the sh.o.r.e on this craft," said Gist, in a tone indicating entire resignation to a watery grave.

"Can't we stop the raft and let the ice go by?" answered Was.h.i.+ngton, at the same time putting down the setting pole to accomplish this purpose.

But the rapidity of the torrent dashed the raft with such violence against the pole that it threw Was.h.i.+ngton into ten feet of water.

"Hold on!" shouted Gist under the greatest alarm; "grasp this oar." And he reached out his oar to Was.h.i.+ngton, who had already caught hold of one of the raft-logs. A severe but short struggle, and he was on the raft again.

"A cold bath," remarked Was.h.i.+ngton, as he stood upon the raft again, shaking the water from his drenched clothes.

"It is a miracle that you were not drowned," replied Gist; "and you would have been if you were as nervous as some people."

"I am cool enough now," said Was.h.i.+ngton, his wet clothes already beginning to stiffen on his back in the wintry blast. "I shall not despair so long as I remember that one faithful saint is praying for me," referring to the promise of his mother.

They made a desperate effort to keep their craft right side up in the floating ice, but failed in the attempt.

"No use!" exclaimed Gist. "We must quit the concern and make for that island."

"Yes; and that immediately, if we would save ourselves," responded Was.h.i.+ngton, as he leaped into the water, followed by Gist. The island was but a few rods distant, and they reached it just at night, with the gloomy prospect of remaining shelterless upon it until the next morning.

"Not much better off here than we were in the water," suggested Gist.

"My fingers are frozen, and some of my toes; and what is to prevent the freezing of the remainder of my body?"

"If we perish, we will perish trying to keep alive," remarked Was.h.i.+ngton. "We have plenty of room to exercise ourselves here, and keep up a circulation, with no fear of being shot at by savages. It will not do to sleep in this predicament."

"It will be our last sleep if we do," answered Gist. "The cold is rapidly increasing, and I hardly see how any amount of exercise can save us."

"Be a little more hopeful, Gist. I have faith to believe that we shall be saved yet," said Was.h.i.+ngton. "This increasing cold is providential, I think. It will freeze the river before morning, and thus provide a way for us to escape from this island."

"Well, that is a hopeful view, I confess," replied Gist; "but how the biting cold can freeze the river without freezing us is incomprehensible to me."

They made a remarkable night of it, and saved their lives by muscular exertion. They dashed about in the cold, gathering hope and courage from hour to hour as the water of the stream congealed harder and harder. In the morning they crossed the river on the ice, truly thankful to a kind Providence, which had delivered them from what, to human view, was inevitable death.

Once upon the other side of the river, they made their way as speedily as possible to the house of Mr. Frazier, a few miles distant, where they regaled themselves with fire and food to their hearts' content, recounting their adventures, and causing all to wonder that they were still among the living.

Here Was.h.i.+ngton met twenty warriors, who were going to the southward to war, but had returned from Great Kenhawa, because there they found a family of seven people killed and scalped.

"Why did you return?" inquired Was.h.i.+ngton of a chief.

"For fear the inhabitants might take us to be the murderers," the chief replied.

"Did the condition of the bodies show that the ma.s.sacre was recent?"

Was.h.i.+ngton inquired further.

"Not very recent; the bodies were scattered about, and several of them were much eaten by hogs," was the chief's answer.

"Have you any suspicions as to who the murderers were?" urged Was.h.i.+ngton.

"Certain marks which they left behind showed that the butchery was done by Indians of the Ottawa nation," was the information given in answer to his question.

Mr. Frazier informed Was.h.i.+ngton that an Indian queen, living three miles distant, had taken offense because he did not call upon her on his way to the fort. As he was obliged to wait two days for horses, he paid her a visit and made her a present of a watch-coat.

Was.h.i.+ngton's final entry in his journal is:

"Tuesday, the 1st of January, 1774, we left Mr. Frazier's house, and arrived at Mr. Gist's, at Monongahela, the 2d, where I bought a horse and saddle. The 6th, we met seventeen horses loaded with materials and stores for a fort at the fork of the Ohio, and the day after, some families going out to settle. This day we arrived at Will's Creek, after as fatiguing a journey as it is possible to conceive, rendered so by excessive bad weather. From the first day of December to the fifteenth, there was but one day on which it did not rain or snow incessantly; and throughout the whole journey we met with nothing but one continued series of cold, wet weather, which occasioned very uncomfortable lodgings, especially after we had quitted our tent, which was some screen from the inclemency of it."

Was.h.i.+ngton arrived at Williamsburg on the sixteenth day of January, and immediately reported to Governor Dinwiddie, delivering the reply of the French commander; the belts of wampum from the Indian tribes, as pledges of friends.h.i.+p; together with his journal, as his report of the expedition.

Weems says, "The governor was much pleased with the Indian belts, more with the Frenchman's letter, but most of all with Was.h.i.+ngton's journal."

"I shall have your journal published immediately," said the governor to Was.h.i.+ngton.

"I beg your honor not to give it to the public in print," replied Was.h.i.+ngton; "it is a very defective doc.u.ment, written, as it was, in the wilderness, under the most unfavorable circ.u.mstances. It was intended for no eyes but yours."

"My dear man," said the hearty Scotchman, "you are altogether too modest in this matter. I am sure that the doc.u.ment is worthy of the greatest publicity."

"But you will grant me the privilege of amending it," pleaded Was.h.i.+ngton, almost frightened at the idea of his journal appearing in print.

"Indeed, major, there is no time for that now," answered the governor.

"The a.s.sembly will rise to-morrow or next day, and I want each member to have several copies to carry home with him. You need not give yourself any uneasiness, man, for your journal is worthy of a perusal by the King of Great Britain, and I intend to present him with a copy."

The journal went to press at once, and was in the hands of members of the a.s.sembly before the adjournment. It was received with the greatest enthusiasm and praise everywhere, and was published in all the papers of the Colony. Copies were sent to England, and there it appeared in the journals of the day.