CHAPTER XXI--THE BURNING OF THE CABIN
Indian troubles along the border were perhaps never worse in the historyof the Northwest territory than in this year (1792) when Return Kingdomand John Jerome daily lived surrounded by dangers, the true, awfulextent of which they little realized.
The scalping knife was never sharper, seldom bloodier. The torch was putto cabin after cabin. At mid-day and at midnight the flames whichconsumed the scattered evidences of civilization west of the Ohio riverleaped skyward. The fierce war-whoop rang defiantly from Detroit southto the settlements in Kentucky and no white man was safe. Harmlesstraders, and peaceable hunters as well as settlers were murdered andtheir scalps hung high on the lodges of the Delawares, Shawnees,Chippewas, Wyandots, and all the tribes between the Wabash river and theAllegheny mountains.
And all the while the British at Detroit were urging the Indians on, andall the while the authorities of the American government were urgingmoderation on Wayne's part and trying hopelessly to bring about peace.
Some peace commissioners who were sent to treat with the Indians were atfirst received kindly, but without warning, a few days later, slain.
News traveled far less rapidly in those days than now. A family might atmidnight hear the redskins' dreadful yells and die fleeing from thefierce savages, even while flames devoured their home. But neighborsonly a few miles distant would continue to dwell in supposed security,knowing nothing of the outrage, and so only the more readily fallvictims of the same ferocious Indian band a little later.
Indeed, it is not remarkable that Return and John had felt little fearamong the Indians, while living so far from the frontier that news ofthe terrible tragedies along the border did not reach them. Their entireplan for the future had been from the first to make the redskins theirfriends. They had, with some rather serious exceptions, in which theywere not at fault, succeeded admirably until Lone-Elk incited CaptainPipe's people to hostility. But now, even had both the boys been attheir cabin, and seemingly at peace with every tribe, as they had oncebeen, they could not have failed to discover evidence of the warlikeactivity about them. They would not only have seen but, very likely,have felt, the increasing hostility of every redman the vast wildscontained.
No longer did the head men, such as Chief Hopocon or Captain Pipe, seekto restrain the bloodthirsty young warriors. They were allowed fullsway. Treaties still fresh in their minds, such as that fixing theCuyahoga and the portage trail as a definite boundary between the whitemen and their red brethren, were forgotten or no more regarded than theleaves which drifted before the autumn winds.
The arrival of John Jerome; bound hand and foot, at the Delaware town onthe lake was the signal for an outburst of ferocious savage hilarity, byno means comforting to that young gentleman.
Twice had John attempted to escape from the five young bucks--Indiansscarcely older than himself--and each time had he failed. First he hadtried to buy his liberty and exerted every effort to prevail upon theyouthful braves to give him his freedom, to give him at least a chancefor it, a start of three yards, then the use of his hands and feet andno start at all. His endeavors and his pleading were all fruitless.
Determined to escape, then, John made a bold-dash while the little partywas on the march; but the strap which held him was strong, and he wasstopped in a moment. His second attempt to get away was scarcely moresuccessful. The Indians had paused to rest and refresh themselves besidea little lake which lay but a few miles from the Delaware town. One ofthe fellows, the one who held the long strip of rawhide tied to thecaptive's neck, lay down on the beach to drink. For a moment he releasedhis hold on the strap and instantly John took advantage of it. But heran only a few rods before two of the braves caught him, and thepunishment they and the others administered was severe. Then it was thatthe prisoner's feet as well as his hands were bound and so was hedragged into the village at last.
In vain did John look about for Fishing Bird, for Gentle Maiden or someof the other Delawares who had been especially friendly in the past.Fishing Bird, of course, was not there, and Gentle Maiden remained outof sight. That she felt sympathy for the prisoner, however, is certain.She saw to it that proper food was carried to him, and exerted all herinfluence to prevent harm from coming to him. Especially did she urgethat the sentence of death for witchcraft should not be executed untilthe return of Captain Pipe, who was gone to the Delaware town on theMuskingum.
As Lone-Elk, also, was away, and as he had a strong personal interest inthe infliction of the punishment the Little Paleface must suffer, nomore was done to end the captive's life at once. But one by one theDelawares informed John of what he must expect. Some told him his fatewould be death at the stake. Others said that Lone-Elk would endeverything with one mighty blow with the same hatchet that had causedBig Buffalo's death.
Even these gloomy assurances, however, did not alarm poor John so muchas the wild hostility he saw everywhere about him--nearly all theIndians in war paint, their war-whoops ringing out at every hour of theday and night, as they contemplated the extinction of both the settlersand later the whole Paleface army, gathering as they knew, to marchagainst them. Much of the threatening demonstration was due to the keenzest of the younger savages. In the absence of their chief they wereunder no restraint and the ferocious delight with which they scentedfrom afar the expected fighting was but a part of their nature.
Day after day slipped by and Captain Pipe did not return. Confined in arude hut, without fire and without comforts of any kind, exceptingsufficient food, such as it was, John Jerome suffered both in body andin spirit. But he was to suffer more later. Indeed, each day brought itsadditional burdens of grief and pain.
Constantly watched as he was, the sorrowful boy found not one reason tobelieve that a chance to escape might come to him, and now was anxietyfor his own safety more than doubled by the conviction forced upon himthat Return Kingdom was gone forever--murdered, tortured, shot fromambush. He knew not how his life had been taken, but the certainevidence that Ree was dead was presented to him in the course of a nightof savage barbarity the like of which few white men ever had equalopportunities of seeing.
It was late in the afternoon of an ideal Indian summer day that Lone-Elkreturned to the Delaware town. He brought bullets and this time powderalso. Only a shrug of his bare shoulders marked his interest in the newswhen told that the "witch" was captured; that Little Paleface was evenat the moment safely held captive beyond all possibility of escape.
He did not so much as go to see and gloat over the unhappy prisoner; buta murderous gleam came in his eyes and he told Neohaw and several othersthat the stake and the fire would be the "witch's" portion when CaptainPipe came. He would not execute the death sentence before the chief'sreturn, for then they would have a celebration which would be a lessonto all the Palefaces for many days to come, just as the burning of the"White Chief," Crawford, had been.
Nevertheless Lone-Elk quickly laid his plans to torture and torment theyoung captive, and to instill in the minds of all the Delawares a hatredof every Paleface, and a belief in the certain ease with which theircountry might be rid of them. He arranged a war dance. Every warrior,every buck and brave in the village answered his summons. Gentle Maidenguessed at once the meaning of it all, as in the early twilight thefighting men of her father's people began to gather. It was useless forher to remonstrate, and as the fierce, sharp cries that accompanied thehorrid dance swelled in volume and in number, John himself was scarcelymore apprehensive of the outcome than was she.
Bound and round the campfire the savages danced. Their contortions offace and body, their violent shrieks and awful fervor were terrible tolook upon. Fiercest of all was Lone-Elk. Louder than all the others wasthe war-whoop of the Seneca, and at midnight he had wrought to thehighest pitch of bloodthirsty ardor every Delaware participating in thehorrible revelry.
"Come!" called the outcast loudly at last, "Come! Will the Delawaresclose their eyes in sleep when so near them is a house of the Palefaces?A h
ouse that will draw others to it till the forests of the Indians areall cut down and they themselves driven away and killed? Come! Who willcome with Lone-Elk!"
A fierce chorus of war cries greeted his words. Drunk with excitement,the Delawares paused not to consider. With terrible yells they surgedafter the Seneca and like a shrieking band of fiends hurried rapidlythrough the moonlit forest.
"Hold! Let the Delawares bring the Paleface witch!" cried Lone-Elk. "Letthe murderer of the brave Big Buffalo see the nest where birds of hiskind are hatched go up in fire!"
No sooner said than done. A dozen of the fiercest of the band, mad withthe passions that had been aroused within them, rushed back and in fiveminutes came dragging John Jerome after them. By a rope around his body,and by another about his neck, they both drove and pulled him. Theirawful yells could have been heard for miles.
Following the portage trail to its end and crossing the river, thesavages broke into the clearing about the cabin a little further on at arun. Up the hill they went and with whooping and yelling of impassionedfury they attacked the cabin, so humble, so quiet and so home-like andunoffending in its appearance that its destruction seemed the foulestcrime in all of border warfare's awful annals.
With tomahawks the door was beaten in, though but to have pulled thestring would have raised the latch, and the mad race of pillage andplunder began. Everything breakable was thrown down and destroyed.Table, stools, bedding and all the little conveniences that Ree and Johnhad been at such pains to plan and construct were thrownindiscriminately about.
"Let the witch burn his own foul nest," the Seneca yelled in his nativetongue, but the captive, trembling with anger and sickened by the awfulscenes he was compelled to witness, understood and drew back. In vaintwo Delawares who held him sought to force him to take and apply thetorch that a third held out. They burned his bare hands, set fire to hisclothing and his hair, but to no purpose. He could not fight, but hecould resist if it killed him, and resist John did, let the consequencesbe what they might.
"Ugh! Ugh!" loudly ejaculated one of the older Indians impatiently, atlast, and grabbing the burning hickory bark from the one who triedvainly to make the prisoner take it, he carried it quickly into thelean-to stable.
In an instant the dry hay and fodder were in flames. In another minutethe fire had reached the cabin. Soon the terrible glare filled all theclearing and while the home the boy pioneers had held so dear, and allthe things within it which long association made them fondly cherish,turned black, then red and yielded at last to the crackling, roaringdestroyer, the Indians danced about in savage celebration, brandishingtomahawks and scalping knives, yelling and shrieking like the untameddemons that they were.