CHAPTER XIV.
THE CANOE FIGHT.
Before going further with the story of what happened around the rootfortress on that morning, it is necessary to explain how it came aboutthat a battle was fought there. I gather the facts from authentichistory.
During all the time spent by the Hardwickes in their wanderings and inthe root fortress, the war had been going on vigorously. The occupantsof Fort Sinquefield, when they abandoned that fort as described in theearly chapters of this story, succeeded in making their way to FortGlass, or Fort Madison, as it was properly named, though the peoplestill used its original name Fort Glass in speaking of it, for whichreason I have so called the place throughout this story. In July GeneralFloyd, who was in command of all the United States forces in thesouth-west, sent General Claiborne, with his twelve months' Mississippivolunteers to Fort Stoddart, with instructions to render such aid as hecould to the forts in the surrounding country. His force consisted ofseven hundred men, and of them he took five hundred to Fort Stoddart,sending the remaining two hundred, under Col. Joseph E. Carson, avolunteer officer, to Fort Glass. The two hundred soldiers added greatlyto the strength of the place, and with the settlers who had taken refugeinside, rendered it reasonably secure against attack. The refugees wereunder command of Captain Evan Austill, himself a planter of theneighborhood.
Shortly after the storming of Fort Sinquefield, and almost immediatelyafter the garrison of that place had reached Fort Glass, the Indiansappeared in great numbers in that neighborhood, burning houses, killingeverybody who strayed even a few hundred yards outside the picket gates,and seriously threatening the fort itself. In view of these facts Col.Carson sent a young man of nineteen years of age named Jerry Austill,the son of Capt. Evan Austill to General Claiborne's head-quarters,with dispatches describing the situation and asking for reinforcements.Young Austill made the journey alone and at night, at terrible risk, ashe had to pass through a country infested with savages, but on hisreturn brought, instead of assistance, an order for Col. Carson toevacuate the fort and retire to Fort Stephens. When he did so, however,Captain Austill and about fifty other planters, with their families,determined to remain and defend Fort Glass at all hazards. Among thosewho remained was Mr. Hardwicke, who, now that the Indians had murderedhis children, as he supposed, had little to live for, and was disposedto serve the common cause at the most dangerous posts, where everyavailable man was needed.
After a time Col. Carson was sent back to the fort with his Mississippivolunteers, and this freed the daring spirits inside the fort from thenecessity of remaining there. They went at once on scouting parties,Tandy Walker, the guide, being almost always one of the number going outon these perilous expeditions. They scoured the country far and near, inbodies ranging from two or three to twenty or thirty men, and fought theIndians in many places, losing some valuable men but making the Indianssuffer in their turn.
Finally it was determined to send out a party larger than any that hadyet gone, to operate against the savages on the south-east side of theriver. This expedition numbered seventy-two men, thirty of whom wereMississippi Yauger men, under a Captain Jones, while the others werevolunteers from private life. The expedition was under the command ofSam Dale, already celebrated as an Indian fighter, and known among theCreeks, with whom he had lived, as Sam Thlueco, or Big Sam, on accountof his enormous size and strength. During this Creek war he hadperformed some feats of strength, skill and daring, the memory of whichis still preserved in history, together with that of the celebratedcanoe fight, which we are now coming to. To tell of these deeds ofprowess would lead us away from our proper business, namely, the tellingof the present story; but the canoe fight comes properly into the story,being in fact one of its incidents. Three only of Dale's companionsfigured with him in the canoe fight, and they alone need mentioning byname. These were, first Jerry Austill, the young man already spoken of,who was six feet two inches high, slender but strong, and active as acat; second, James Smith, a man of firm frame and dauntless spirit; andthird Caesar, a negro man, who conducted himself with a courage andcoolness fairly entitling him to bear the name of the great Romanwarrior.
The expedition left Fort Glass on the 11th of November, 1823. TandyWalker was its guide, and every man in the party knew that Tandy was notlikely to be long in leading them to a place where Indians wereplentiful. He knew every inch of country round about, and nothingpleased him so well as a battle in any shape. The day after they leftFort Glass, Dale's men reached the river at a point eighteen miles belowthe present town of Clairborne, and about fifteen miles below the rootfortress. Here they crossed, in two canoes, to the eastern shore of theriver, and spent the night without sleep. The next morning Austill, withsix men, ascended the river in the canoes, while Dale, with the rest ofthe party, marched up the bank. About a mile below the root fortress,Dale who was marching some distance ahead of his men, came upon someIndians at breakfast, and without waiting for his men to come up, shottheir chief. The rest fled precipitately, leaving their provisionsbehind. Pushing on, Dale reached a point about two hundred yards belowthe root fortress, and there determined to recross the river. The canoestransported the men as rapidly as possible, but when all were overexcept Dale and eight or nine men (among whom were Smith, Austill andCaesar), and only one canoe remained at the eastern side of the stream, alarge party of Indians, numbering, as was afterwards ascertained, nearlythree hundred, attacked the handful of whites still remaining. Theseretreated from the field, where they were breakfasting, and keeping theIndians in check by careful and well-aimed firing, were about to getinto the canoe and escape to the opposite bank, about four hundred yardsaway, when they discovered that their retreat was cut off by a largecanoe full of Indians, eleven in all, which had come out of the mouth ofthe creek just above. The savages tried to approach the shore, but, inspite of the fact that by careening the canoe to one side and lying downthey were able to conceal themselves, they were prevented from landingby Austill and one or two other men. Two of the Indians jumped into thewater and tried to swim to the shore, while the others, firing over thegunwale of the boat, were sorely annoying the whites. Austill shot oneof the swimmers but the other escaped to the shore, and joined thesavages there, informing them, as Dale supposed, of the weakness of hisforce, which they had not yet discovered. Dale called to the men on theother side of the river to cross and assist him, but they, after makingan abortive attempt to send a canoe load across, remained idlespectators of the terribly unequal conflict. Dale, seeing that no helpwas to come from them, and knowing that the Indians would shortlyovercome him by sheer force of numbers, resolved upon a recklesslydaring manoeuvre, namely, an attempt to capture the Indian canoe! Hecalled out to his comrades.
"I'm going to fight the canoe with a canoe. Who will go with me?"
Austill, Smith and Caesar volunteered at once, and Caesar took his post assteersman, while the three stalwart soldiers were leaping into thecanoe for the purpose of fighting hand to hand the nine Indians opposedto them. As they shot out from the shore the savages on the bankdelivered a fierce fire upon them, but fortunately without effect. Thesavages in the canoe had exhausted their powder, and Dale's party wouldhave had an advantage in this but for the fact that their own powder hadbecome wet as they were getting into their canoe. The fight must be handto hand, but they were not the men to shrink from it. When the boatsstruck, the Indians leaped up and began using their rifles as clubs.Austill, who was in the bow of Dale's boat, received the first shock ofthe battle, but Caesar promptly swung his boat around, and grappling theother canoe held the two side by side during the whole fight. Dale'sboat was a very small one, and he to relieve it sprang into the Indiancanoe, thereby giving his comrades more room and crowding the Indians soclosely together as to embarrass their movements. The blows now fellthick and fast. Austill was knocked down into the Indian boat, and anIndian was about to put him to death when Smith saved him by brainingthe savage. Austill then rose, and snatching a war club from one of theIndians used that
instead of his rifle. Eight of the savages were slain,and Dale found himself face to face with the solitary survivor, whom herecognized as a young Muscogee with whom he had been for years on termsof the most intimate friendship, and whom he loved, as he declared,almost as a brother. He lowered his up-raised rifle to spare his friend,but the savage would not accept quarter. He cried out in the Creeklanguage, which Dale understood as well as he did English.
"Big Sam, you are a man, and I am another! Now for it!" and with thatthe two joined in a struggle for life. A blow from Dale's gun ended atonce the canoe fight and the life of the young brave, who, even from hisfriend, would not accept the mercy which his nation was not ready toshow to the whites. It is said that to the day of his death Dale couldnot speak of this incident without shedding tears.
Dale and his comrades had still a duty to do and some danger yet toencounter. The party remaining on the bank was in imminent peril, andmust be rescued at all hazards. The little canoe was not large enough tocarry them all, and so the big one must be cleared of the dead Indiansin it, and the heroes of the canoe fight accomplished this under asevere fire from the bank. Then jumping into the captured boat, theypaddled to the shore, and taking their hard pressed comrades on board,crossed under fire to the other side, whence they marched to Fort Glass,twelve miles away, having dealt the savages a severe blow without losinga man. Austill was hurt pretty badly on the head, and a permanent dentin his skull attested the narrowness of his escape.
This battle was waged within sight of the root fortress, the drift pilebeing indeed the cover from which the Indians fought. Tom, as we know,went to the look-out at the beginning of the fight, and he remainedthere to the end in the hope that the fortune of battle might possiblybring the whites within call, and thus afford the little refugee band achance of escape. No such chance came, however, and sadly enough thetwo boys, for Joe was also in the look-out, watched the passage of thelast of Dale's men across the stream, half a mile below.
"Mas' Tom," said Joe, "dem folks gwine right straight to de fort."
"Yes, of course," said Tom. "What of it?"
"Nothin', only I wish I could go wid 'em, and tell 'em Mas' Sam's heresick."
"So do I, Joe, but we can't go with them, and it's no use wishing."
"I reckon 'tain't no use, but I can't help wishin' for all dat. Whenfolk's got der own way dey don't wish for it. It's when you can't gityour way dat you wish, ain't it?"
Tom was forced to admit that Joe was right, and that in wishing to bewith the retreating party he was not altogether unreasonable.
The two boys sat there, looking and longing. The savages had disappearedalmost as suddenly as they had come, and presently Joe sprang up,saying.
"Dar's de little canoe lodged in the bushes, an' I'se gwine to fastenher to the bank anyhow, so's we'll have her if we want her."
What possible use they could make of the canoe, it had not enteredJoe's head to ask perhaps, but he tied the boat in the bushesnevertheless and secreted the paddle in the drift pile. He then visitedthe place where Dale's men had been surprised at breakfast, and broughtoff the pack of provisions which Dale had captured that morning from thesavages and had himself abandoned in his turn. The pack was awell-stored one, and its possession was a matter of no little moment tothe boys, whose bill of fare had hitherto embraced no bread, of whichthere was here an abundance in the shape of ash cake.
"Mas' Tom," said Joe that evening, "do you know my master?"
"Mr. Butler? Yes, certainly."
"Well, if anything happens to poor Joe, and if you ever gits to de fortan' if Joe don't, an' if you sees my master dar you'll tell him Joenever runned away anyhow, won't you."
"Yes, I'll tell him that Joe."
"Even if the Ingins ketches me an' you dunno whar' I'se gone to, you'lltell him anyhow dat Joe never runned away from him or from you nuther,won't you, Mas' Tom?"
"Of course, Joe. But there won't be any chance to tell him anythingabout it unless we all get back to the fort, and then you can tell himfor yourself. He thinks you are dead, of course, and doesn't dream thatyou ever ran away. You'll get back safely if the Indians don't catchyou, and if they catch you they'll catch all of us, so I won't be thereto tell your master about you."
"Dun no 'bout dat," replied Joe. "Dey mought catch Joe 'thout catchin'anybody else, an' 'thout you nor nobody knowin' nothin' 'bout it, andJoe wants you to promise anyway dat you'll stick to it to de las' datpoor Joe was no runaway nigger, nohow at all. Kin you do dat for me,Mas' Tom?"
"Certainly, Joe," said Tom laughing, "I promise you."
"Will you git mad if Joe axes you to shake han's on dat, Mas' Tom? Iwants to make sartain sure on it."
Tom laughed, but held out his hand, convinced that the poor black boywas out of spirits at least, if not out of his mind.