ON THE BORDER WITH ANDREW JACKSON

By JOHN T. McINTYRE

Illustrations by F. A. Anderson

THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 1915

COPYRIGHT 1915 BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY

Illustrations

[6]

On the Border With Andrew Jackson

CHAPTER I IN THE CREEK COUNTRY

“Much good place for camp! Heap fine water!”

It was a young Cherokee brave who spoke; from the back of his wiry little sorrel horse he pointed ahead to a small stream which could be seen winding its way among the trees.

“Yes; it looks as if it had been made for a camp, Running Elk,” replied a bronzed athletic white boy. “What do you say, Frank, shall we pitch the tent there to-night?”

Frank Lawrence glanced toward the sun, which was already lowering toward the horizon.

[8]“We might as well, Jack,” replied he. “We couldn’t go much farther, anyway.”

Jack Davis shook the rein of his black horse; and so the three rode toward the stream, which was perhaps a quarter of a mile away. It was late autumn and the year was 1812. The Muscogee country, as the state of Alabama was then called, was green with mighty forests, and in places almost untrodden by the foot of the white man; game was to be met on every hand; and the red huntsmen ranged the hills and valleys, seeking not only food, but their foes as well.

The young Cherokee warrior led a packhorse which bore upon its back provisions and camp equipment. The youthful savage was a handsome, supple fellow, attired in the picturesque dress of his nation, and carrying a bow and quiver of arrows; also a tomahawk and knife hung at his belt.

Jack Davis was about eighteen years of age; he had been born and reared upon the[9] Tennessee border, and had the keen, hardy look which comes of facing nature in her most rugged aspects. Frank Lawrence, on the other hand, was a product of civilization; he was fresh from Richmond; and while he had little of the bronze and none of the woodcraft of the other lad, still, ounce for ounce, it would have been a cunning choice to select the one who would have endured the greater fatigue.

Both wore fringed leggings, hunting shirts and coonskin caps; from the shoulders of each hung a long rifle, powder horn and bullet pouch; in their belts were thrust broad bladed hunting knives and keen edged hatchets.

“Since we got down into this country I’ve noticed a great number of small streams much like the one ahead,” remarked Frank. “It’s as though there were a sort of network of them.”

Jack laughed.

“I noticed that, too, first time I got[10] down this far,” replied he. “Those streams gave the redskins of this region their name. They call themselves Muscogees; but the whites call them Creeks.”

“It seems to me I’ve heard Running Elk speak of them by another name,” said Frank, with a glance at the Cherokee.

“Oh, yes, Red Sticks,” said Jack. “They get that name from the war club they carry, which is always colored red.”

“Red Stick no good,” spoke Running Elk, calmly. “Much bad medicine. Cherokee hate ’um.”

Both the white boys laughed at this unhesitating declaration; their nags loped easily forward over the velvet-like sward toward the creek; they were intent only upon camp, a good supper and a comfortable rest after the long ride through the wilderness. Suddenly Running Elk reined in his sorrel horse so sharply as to throw it back upon its haunches. With a gesture of warning he threw up one hand.

[11]“Stop!” said he.

The white boys scarcely needed the spoken warning; they had noted the young brave’s sudden stop; and their own was almost as short. They were at the top of a hill.

“What is it?” asked Frank, surprised.

But Jack Davis had no need to ask; his sharp eyes, as accustomed as an Indian’s to the signs of the forest, swept the growth of trees ahead, and at once saw the cause of Running Elk’s action.

“Look there,” said he, pointing.

Frank followed the direction of the indicating finger; from above the softly waving tops of the trees curled a slim column of smoke.

“Hello!” said he. “Some one else has camped there.”

All three drew back into the cover of a clump of beech; Jack dismounted and began to examine the ground. And as he worked over it, going from place to place[12] like a keen-scented hound, Frank joined him.

“Any tracks?” he inquired with interest.

“I don’t see any here,” replied the young borderer. “They may have come another way.” Upon his hands and knees, taking advantage of the tall grass, fallen trees and hummocks of earth, he made his way to the right of their own trail. “Keep as close to the ground as you can,” he warned Frank, who followed him. “We don’t know who they are, and as they are almost sure to be on the watch, we don’t want to be seen until we know they’re friends.”

About two score yards from their original stopping place he paused.

“Injuns!” said he.

Frank looked at the signs; there were the hoof tracks of a dozen or more horses; and the broad drag of the poles in the midst of these was unmistakable.

“I suppose none but the redskins drag[13] their camp stuff on poles at their horses’ heels that way, eh?” asked he.

“No,” replied Jack Davis. “But there are other signs, too. If you’ll notice, they rode in single file; Injuns almost always do that and white men never, unless the trail is narrow. And look where one of the redskins dismounted! See the print of his moccasin in the dust? Only Injuns have feet shaped like that.”

They made their way, in the same cautious fashion, back to the place where the young Cherokee guarded the horses.

“They’re Injuns,” said Jack.

Running Elk nodded; he did not seem at all surprised.

“Red Sticks,” spoke he. And then: “How many?”

“About ten—with packhorses, and lodge poles.”

This latter statement seemed to attract the young warrior’s attention. His keen eyes went in the direction of the curling[14] column of smoke as it was lifted above the tree tops.

“Not hunters,” said he. “Party from long way off.”

“What makes you think that, Running Elk?” asked Frank.

“Hunters no carry tepee; pack meat on horses’ backs.”

From their concealment behind the clump of beeches, the three watched the ascending smoke for some little time; then as the sun sank below the line of forest and the shadows began to gather, Jack said:

“Well, it looks as though we couldn’t venture down to the creek, at this point, anyhow; so, if we’re going to have any supper, we’d best be looking for another camping place.”

Remounting, they headed away to the west; darkness came upon them as they reached a narrow ravine. Here they built a small fire, carefully masked so as not to be observed by a chance prowler; some[15] small game, shot during the afternoon, was roasted upon their ramrods, with flour cakes baked upon the gray coals. While they ate, Frank looked soberly at Jack.

“I suppose we’ve been very fortunate in not coming upon any roving Indian bands before now,” said he.

Jack nodded.

“We slid through this whole Creek region as quietly as you please,” said he. “Never had to stop for anything except to kill a bit of meat now and then, and get a little sleep.”

“Well, now that we have run into a lot of reds,” said Frank, “I can’t help blaming myself for dragging you away down here and getting you into danger.”

Jack, as he polished a bone to which some scraps of meat still clung, grinned good-humoredly.

“Danger!” said he. “Why, the Injuns haven’t seen us; and a sight of the smoke from their camp-fire won’t do us any harm.”

[16]The young Virginian also grinned at this; but he resumed, soberly enough:

“Our coming on this band so unexpectedly has made me think. Here we are, away in the heart of this wilderness; there’s possibly not a white man nearer than Fort Mims, and that’s fifty miles away. Of course, we’re armed and our horses are good ones; but, if we were attacked by a party of Creeks of any size, we’d stand a poor chance.”

“We’re taking the regular chance of the border,” said Jack. “No more, no less.”

“I know that; and as it’s a kind of a desperate one, now that I get to thinking about it, it worries me. Not that I care very much for myself,” hastily. “It’s not that; for it’s my affair, and it’s only right that I should meet any of the dangers connected with it. But neither you nor Running Elk are concerned, except through friendly interest in me; and, still, your danger is as great as mine.”

[17]Jack listened to this with attention; but that he did not regard the situation with the same seriousness as his friend was evident by the twinkle in his gray eye.

“Well, seeing that this little expedition of yours is not any different from the hunting trips which Running Elk and myself take now and then, we’re not as ready as you are for the things that are likely to pop out on us suddenly. Richmond’s not like this border-land of ours; and the inconveniences, such as hostile redskins, panthers and other such varmints, are not so big to us as they might look to some one not used to them.” He wiped his mouth upon the sleeve of his hunting shirt and sat comfortably back against a tree. “So don’t worry about us, old boy; this is nothing new to Running Elk and me; just the day’s work, you might say; and if we weren’t down here with you, we’d be somewhere else, just as dangerous, on our own account.”

“Well,” said Frank, “it’s very good of[18] you to look at it that way, Jack, and I hope we’ll come through the trip without any great danger. But just the same I don’t mind admitting that I’ll be pretty well satisfied when it’s over.”

“As such things go,” said Jack, “you ought to be somewhere near the neighborhood of that old French land grant you’re looking for. If my calculations are right, inside a day or so you ought to have it located.”

“Let us hope so,” said Frank, fervently. “Then my trouble will be over.”

But in the dim glow of the masked camp-fire Jack’s face looked somewhat dubious.

“Fact is,” said he, “I think your father made a little mistake when he took that old French grant in payment for a big debt.”

“I hope not,” said Frank, anxiously. “For it’s about all he has now; if it doesn’t turn out fortunately, things will go very badly with him.”

[19]“It’s not so much that I doubt the value of the grant,” said Jack. “But the Creeks claim this whole region; and it would be a hard thing to make good a claim of white ownership, no matter how small the tract. The whole tribe’d be down on you like a landslide before you’d know it.”

“But the government would back me up. The grant is a perfectly honest one; the land was once purchased from the Indians by the French government, which granted it to the man who transferred it to my father. Upon the United States purchasing the control of this territory from Napoleon a few years ago, our government recognized all legitimate claims of this sort; so there should be no real trouble.”

“Maybe not in the courts; but, as I said before, the Creeks will be sure to have a word or two to say.”

As the young Tennesseean spoke, Running Elk, who was reclining upon the ground beside the fire, lifted his head.[20] From across the stillness of the night there came a dull, throbbing sound.

“War drum!” said the Cherokee; and the hands of all three reached for their weapons.

CHAPTER II THE COMING OF TECUMSEH

The three youths stood there, at their lonely camp-fire, in the heart of the Muscogee wilderness, with darkness all about them, listening to the steady, monotonous beat of the drum.

“That’s kind of a new thing to me,” said Jack Davis. “Sounding a war drum must be a new fashion, eh, Running Elk?”

“Heap big medicine!” replied the young Cherokee. “Big war! Much pow-wow!”

Jack kicked apart the embers which made their small fire; then he trod them out after the manner of an experienced woodsman.

Frank Lawrence, after a space of listening, said:

“There is something unusual in that[22] sound, then, is there, Jack? Out of the ordinary?”

“Never heard it before except in an Indian village when some kind of a ceremony was going on.”

“Before I left Richmond,” said Frank, and there was some concern in his voice, “the newspapers were full of Indian news; reports of all sorts were going about; it seems that the savages had finally put their heads together, and were planning a league of tribes to resist the advance of the white man.”

“Yes; we’ve had the leaders of that thing down here,” said Jack. “But the movement was not among the tribes here on the southwestern border.”

“Ugh!” said Running Elk; and there was that about his exclamation which said he was not quite sure upon the point in question.

“Suppose,” said Frank, “we leave our horses tied here, and move a little nearer[23] to the Indian camp. There may be something going on that will be worth knowing.”

“All right,” agreed Jack, willingly enough. “I’m always curious to learn what the reds are up to myself.”

So the boys saw to their mounts, and the pack animal; then with their long rifles in the hollows of their arms, and Running Elk with his bow ready strung and his quiver of arrows handy for use, they moved quietly forward in the direction of the now intermittent sound.

There was no moon that night; the sky was without stars; nevertheless there came a soft coppery glow through the low hanging clouds which enabled them to make their way along without any great difficulty. But finally the beat of the drum ceased.

“We’ll locate them by the camp-fire,” whispered Jack Davis to Frank. “See, there it is, ahead among the trees.”

[24]Softly their moccasined feet padded the earth; carefully, noiselessly they advanced, flitting from tree to tree, from bush to bush. Because they were in the heart of their own country, the Creeks evidently had no fear of attack; therefore they had placed no sentinels about the camp. And because of this the boys found it possible to approach near enough to get a good view of the encampment through the open places in the tangle of brush.

In a circle sat a score of savages, each wearing a highly ornamental head-dress of colored feathers; their faces were streaked with paints of various colors and they passed a long stemmed, ornamented pipe from one to the other.

“Hello,” breathed Jack, his accustomed eye taking in the unusual features of the scene at a glance. “What does this mean?”

One splendid looking savage, by features evidently a half-breed, attracted the attention of Frank Lawrence.

[25]“That looks like a chief,” said he, in the same low tone as his comrade.

“Heap much chief,” spoke Running Elk. “Him Weatherford.”

This name, dreaded along the entire border, caused a thrill to run through Jack Davis.

“The Red Warrior!” He stared at the famous leader of the Creeks, who sat like a grimly carven statue within the fire-lit circle. “What in the world can he be doing here?”

Frank’s eyes left Weatherford and curiously roved over the remainder of the band; two who sat side by side, and whose commanding personality and different head-dress made them stand out from the others, now claimed his notice.

“They must be out of the ordinary, too,” said he. “They look different, somehow.”

Jack’s eyes went to the two.

“They are not Creeks,” said he, for he was well acquainted with the head-dress of that tribe. “They are strangers.”

[26]“Shawnee,” spoke Running Elk. “One great chief. Other much medicine.”

Frank Lawrence, who stood beside Jack, felt him start suddenly, and heard him draw in a long breath.

“Shawnees!” said Jack in a whisper. “One a great chief, the other a medicine man!” His hand went out and closed upon the arm of the friendly Cherokee. “What more do you know of them, Running Elk?”

“They come to the villages of the Cherokee before last harvest moon. They are from the north. The chief is Tecumseh and the medicine man is Elskwatawa.”

“By Jingo!” Jack’s voice was lifted to such a pitch that Frank quickly grasped him by the shoulder to recall him to a sense of their position. Then in a lower tone, the frontier youth continued: “Then the thing is spreading! These two are down here again trying to get the Creeks and other tribes into the league against the whites!”

Tecumseh, which, translated, means[27] “Wild-Cat-Springing-on-its-Prey,” was a Shawnee, and perhaps one of the most famous and sagacious of all the savage chieftains who figure in the stirring history of the border. At the time in which the boys saw him beside the camp-fire in the Alabama wilderness he was about forty-five years of age. He was the son of a Shawnee chief, but his mother had been a Creek; his birthplace was Old Piqua, near where the town of Springfield, Ohio, now stands. Elskwatawa, which means “the Loud Voice,” was his brother, a Shawnee sorcerer of great fame and known throughout the frontier of that day as the “Prophet.” These two, shrewd and able far above their race, saw that if the advance of the white men were not stopped the power of the Indian would be stripped from him forever.

So they set about forming a confederation of all the tribes, and in a solid body striking a desperate blow to regain the hunting grounds wrested from them by the paleface.

[28]The fame of the Prophet, as has been stated, was very great; the credulous red man looked upon him with awe, and never for a moment thought of doubting any utterances he saw fit to make. Tecumseh shrewdly saw the value of this; with mystic jargon, with religious mummery, the superstitions of the tribes were played upon until the confederation became a thing of fear to the scattered whites in the border settlements. From near and far the savages vowed to follow the commands of the “Great Spirit” as voiced by the Prophet; the Delawares, the Wyandottes, the Ottawas, the Kickapoos, the Winnebagoes and Chippewas had been dancing and preparing for the great blow at the white interloper for many months; and evidently not satisfied with this, the two leaders had secretly made their way south a second time, and were now, most likely, engaged in trying to arouse the Creeks and other nations against the settlers.

[29]All this passed through the minds of Frank and Jack; for they were well acquainted with the force behind the movement; indeed, it had been the one topic talked of in the lonely cabins or the little hamlets at which they halted during the journey through the forest.

“Well, if Tecumseh’s got down here again, and the Prophet with him, there’s likely to be an outbreak,” spoke Jack, with assurance. “For the Creeks have been acting ugly for some time, and it’ll not take much to set them on the war-path.”

Frank turned to Running Elk.

“How did they do with your people?” he asked.

The young savage lifted his taut strung bow.

“Cherokee is friend to paleface,” said he. “Tecumseh he go away much mad.”

“Good!” said Frank. “I hope it happens the same way with the Creeks.”

“Tecumseh is Creek on his mother’s[30] side,” said Jack. “That’ll weigh heavily in his favor—if anything is needed to turn the scale.”

All this talk had been carried on in the most hushed of whispers; and not for a moment had the three taken their eyes from the painted and warlike circle in the glare of the camp-fire. That the Indians were also talking was evident; but the boys were too far away to hear what was being said. After a little while Jack’s curiosity mastered him.

“I wonder if we couldn’t get a little closer without much danger,” whispered he. “Seems to me there must be lots of things in that talk that we ought to know.”