The Story of Old Fort Loudon Read online

  CHAPTER VII

  The winter wore gradually away. While the snows were still on theground, and the eastern mountain domes were glittering white against apale blue sky, all adown the nearer slopes the dense forests showed aclear garnet hue, that betokened the swelling of congregated masses ofmyriads of budding boughs. Even the aspect of more distant rangesbespoke a change, in the dull soft blue which replaced the hardlapis-lazuli tint that the chill, sharp weather had known. For the coldhad now a reviviscent tang--not the bleak, benumbing, icy deadness ofthe winter's thrall. And while the flames still flared on the hearth,and the thumping of the batten and the creak of the treadle resoundedmost of the day from the little shed-room where Odalie worked at herloom, and the musical whir of her spinning-wheel enlivened all thefire-lit evenings as she sat in the chimney corner, the thaws came on,and brought the mountain snows down the Tennessee River with a greatrushing turbulence, and it lifted a wild, imperious, chanting voice intothe primeval stillness. A delicate vernal haze began to pervade theair, and a sweet placidity, as if all nature were in a dream, notdead,--an expectant moment, the crisis of development. Now and againOdalie and Fifine would come to the door, summoned by a loud cracklingsound, as of a terrible potency, and watch wincingly the pervasive flareof the great elastic yellow and vermilion flames springing into the airfrom the bonfires of the piles of cane as the cleared land wastransformed from the cane-brake into fields. And soon the ploughs wererunning. Oh, it was spring in this loveliest of regions, in this climateof garnered delights! As the silvery sycamore trees, leaning over theglittering reaches of the slate-blue river, put forth the first greenleaves, of the daintiest vernal hue, Odalie loved to gaze through themfrom the door of the cabin, perchance to note an eagle wing its splendidflight above the long, rippling white flashes of the current; or acanoe, as swift, as light, cleave the denser medium of the water; or inthe stillness of the noon a deer lead down a fawn to drink. She was wontto hear the mocking-bird pour forth his thrilling ecstasy of song, thewild bee drone, and in the distance the muffled booming thunder of theherds of buffalo. Who so quick to see the moon, this vernalmoon,--surely not some old dead world of lost history, and burnt-outhopes, and destroyed utilities, but fair of face, virginal and fresh asthe spring itself,--come down the river in the sweet dusk, slowly,softly, pace by pace, ethereally refulgent, throwing sparse shadows ofthe newly leaved sycamore boughs far up the slope, across the thresholdthat she loved, with the delicate traceries of this similitude of theroof-tree.

  "Oh, this is home! home!" she often exclaimed, clasping her hands, andlooking out in a sort of solemn delight.

  "Why don't you say that in French, Odalie?" Hamish would mischievouslyask. For his researches into the mysteries of the French language,although not extensive, had sufficed to acquaint him with the fact thatthe tongue has no equivalent for this word, and to furnish him with thishome-thrust, as it were. Odalie, always rising with spirit to theoccasion, would immediately inquire if he had seen or heard of Savanukahlately, and affect to be reminded to urge him to put himself inpreparation to be able to stand an examination in French by thatlinguistic authority by conjugating the reflective verb _S'amuser_. "Somuch you might, Hamish, _amuse yourself_ with Savanukah."

  "I am not disturbed, now," Hamish would declare, "since we have madeinterest with the family. I'd just get your friend, Mrs. Savanukah, tointercede for me."

  For Odalie had to run the gauntlet of a good deal of merriment in thefamily circle because of her close acquaintance with the Indian women.Their visits annoyed her extremely. If she went for an afternoon's talkwith Belinda Rush,--the two had become fast friends,--she deprecatedleaving her scanty store of possessions lest their dainty order bedisturbed by the Indian intruders in her absence. She dared not quitFifine, whom it was sometimes inconvenient to take, even though thechild's father was inside the stockade, lest she be kidnapped, so covertand sly was their slipping in and out, for somehow they were neverdiscovered at the moment of entrance. Nevertheless, she treated herCherokee callers with such sweet patient courtesy that it is not to bewondered that they came again and again. She gave them trifles that shecould spare, and a share of the seeds of vegetables which she hadbrought with her, and this they received with real and unfeignedgratitude, for the women were the gardeners among the Cherokees and thetillers of the soil.

  Odalie herself had that strong nerve of sympathy with the springinggrowths of the earth that made every turned furrow of the rich mould adelight to her. It was not work--it partook of the nature of a pastime,wrought for the love of it, when following her husband's plough shedropped the Indian corn and covered it with her hoe. She loved thesoft, tender, sprouting blades, as they put strongly forth; she lovedhardly less the quickly springing weeds even as she cut them mercilesslyaway with her hoe. She loved the hot sun, and the clear, fresh wind thatcame rushing down the rushing river, and the delicious delicate perfumeof its waterside ferns, and the cool, sleeping shadows in the darkmysteries of the woods, and the solemnity of the great mountains on theeastern horizon, and the song of a thrush in mid-air above it all. Andwhen the clouds gathered and came the soft, soft falling of the steadyspring rain, she loved the interval it afforded for the setting ofthings in order within, and once more she and Hamish and Fifine and thecat were congregated on the buffalo rug in front of the fire, which haddwindled to an ember kept from meal to meal, to sort treasures broughtwith them in the small compass of a buffalo horn,--seeds now, the seedsof certain simple flowers, a bulb and a root or two,--the precious rootsof an eglantine and a clematis vine. And now that the chance of killingfrosts was overpast, Odalie and Fifine were grubbing much of the time inthe ground and Hamish often came and grubbed too. The seeds were sownand grew apace; the bulbs and roots throve; the vines began to clamberover the support of a rude bower of saplings built above the door; andsoon when Odalie sat here beside her spinning-wheel, in her white linendress with its broad collar of her own hand-wrought lace, to enjoy thecool air from the mountains, and the color of the red sunset on theriver, she had a canopy of vines above her head, and between her upwardglance and the sky, a blooming rose, faintly pink, and a bird's nestwith four blue eggs.

  Captain Demere, coming in at the gate of the stockade one afternoon,exclaimed in surprise and pleasure at the prettiness and thecompleteness of this rude comfort. There was but one room in the housewith a floor; the seats were only puncheon benches with rough staves forlegs thrust through auger-holes and one or two of her befrilled"tabourets"; the table was of like manufacture; the beds and pillowswere mere sacks filled with dried balsam fringes from the greatfir-trees, and supported on the rudest frames; but the fresh aromaticfragrance the fir dispensed, the snow-white linen the couches displayed,the flutter of the quaint bird-decorated curtains at the windows, thearray of the few bits of treasured old china, the shelf of precious oldbooks, the cluster of purple and white violets arranged in a greatopaline pearly mussel-shell from the river, in default of vase, in thecenter of the wabbly table, the dainty freshness and neatness of thewhole--"This is _home_!" he declared. "I accept a new anthropologicaldogma. Man is only the fort-builder--woman is the home-maker!"

  "Yes," said Odalie in content and pride, surveying her treasures, asshe conducted him about the place, for he had not been here since thecompletion of the improvements; "I often say that this is _home_!"

  "But never in French," put in Hamish at her elbow.

  Nevertheless, this did not contribute to alter Captain Demere's opinionthat the frontier was no place for women, though that would imply, withhis later conclusions, no place for home. He went away wearing in hisbuttonhole a sprig of sweetbrier, which he declared again reminded himso of home. He had not thought to find it here, and memory fell upon himunprepared and at a disadvantage. The moon was up when he stepped intohis boat, and the orderly, bending to the oars, shot straight out intothe river. Long, burnished white lines lay upon its gleaming surface,and looking back Demere could see beyond the shadow and sheen of thesloping bank the cleared spa
ce, where the moonbeams fell in unbrokensplendor before the stockade, and through its open gate the log-cabinwith its primitive porch, where, young and beautiful, she sat in herwhite dress in the bright light beside the silent little flax-wheel.Home undoubtedly! As the boat headed up the river he looked moodily atthe ripples, glancing in the moonbeams, and noted with a keen newsensitiveness the fragrance of the eglantine, reminiscent of summersdead and gone, and life as fleeting and frail as the transitory flower.

  For the news that came in these days from over the mountains was alwaysheavy news,--rumors of massacres, now of a single individual in someexposed and dangerous situation, and again of settlers surprised andovercome by numbers within the defenses of their own stanch stockade.

  All along the frontier the spirit seemed to extend, first toward thenorth and then southward, and it was apparently only a question of timewhen the quiet and peace that encircled Fort Loudon should be summarilybroken. Many of the pioneers, could they now have returned to Virginiaor the Carolinas without danger, would have forever relinquished theirnew homes, and have set forth on their long journey without delay. Butthe Cherokees about them, personally known to them and apparentlywithout individual animosity, seemed a slighter menace than the probableencounter with wild wandering bands, glutted with blood yet thirstingstill for vengeance. In one of Demere's reports about this time, earlyin the year 1759, he says: "We are living in great harmony here--no 'badtalks' at all."

  Again and again he and Captain Stuart, accompanied only by an orderly tomark their sense of confidence, went to Chote to confer in a friendlyway with the king and half-king, and seek to induce them to take someorder with these depredators, and restore the peace of the border.

  The great council-house at Chote was a curious circular structure,formed of withes and willows and wand-like timbers, woven together in adome-like shape to the height of twenty feet, with a diameter of thirtyfeet at the base; the whole was covered over with a thick coating withinand without of the deeply and richly tinted red clay of that region, andpierced by no window or chimney or other outlet than the tall and narrowdoorway. The last time the two officers together sought the presence ofthe kings in the _Ottare_ district, as the mountainous region wascalled,--the towns designated as the _Ayrate_ settlements signified thelower country,--they were received here, and Stuart, from the moment oftheir entrance, knew that their mission was hopeless.

  They had recently been ordered to demand the surrender to them ofcertain notable Cherokees, for having been concerned in the distantborder murders, and who lived in the towns of Citico and Tellico hardby, close at hand to both Chote and Fort Loudon. They realized that thismeasure was at once displeasing and impracticable to the kings, whoseauthority could not compass the surrender of their tribesmen to thejustice of the gibbet, after the expiatory methods of the English, andwho foresaw that such compliance would but provoke reprisal on thepaleface and further outbreaks.

  Sitting motionless on buffalo rugs, a number of which were spread overthe floor of the room, on which the two officers were also invited to beseated, the Indians advanced none of the equivocal statements anddoubtful promises and fallacious expectations of peace as heretofore,but kept their eyes fixed upon the ground, while the officers once moreexpressed their earnest remonstrances and made their summary demand,implicitly obeying their orders, although this extreme and impoliticmeasure was secretly deprecated by both.

  The "talk" was conducted by means of the services of an interpreter, anIndian, who stood behind the great chiefs and recited, now in Cherokeeand now in English, and always with a wooden, expressionless accent, asif he were a talking machine and understood not a word for which hefurnished the equivalent, in deference to the great company notpermitting his mind to take part in the deeper significance of the ideasthey interchanged. He kept his eyes fixed upon the blank wall opposite,and effaced his individuality as far as possible. But after the firstsentences of merely formal greeting, the wooden clapper of theinterpreter's tongue vibrated back and forth with Cherokee only, for theIndian chiefs said nothing to be rendered into English. Silent andstony they sat, looking neither to the right nor left, unmoved byurgency, stolid to remonstrance, and only when Demere with a flash offire suggested that Governor Lyttleton of South Carolina, or GeneralAmherst the new "head-man," who was now commander-in-chief of the army,would soon take fierce measures to retaliate these enormities, there wasa momentary twinkle in the crafty eyes of Oconostota, and he spokebriefly. The interpreter woodenly repeated:--

  "I can well believe you, for after an English treaty we have fraud andthen force and at last bloodshed."

  Stuart, the sombre red shadow of the terra-cotta walls hardly dullingthe glare of his red uniform, sat looking out, quite placid andself-poised, through the open portal at the scattered huts of the town,at the occasional passing of an Indian's figure, at Chilhowee Mountainin the middle distance, densely green with the dark lush growths ofsummer, and beyond at the domes of the Great Smoky range, a soft velvetblue against the hard turquoise blue of the sky. The object, however, onwhich his eyes fixed most intently was the bright spot of color of theorderly's red coat, like a buoy, one might say, against the glimmeringriver, in the foreground, as he rested on his oars in the glow of thesunset, while the little boat swung idly in the shallows.

  Not again did either of the chiefs speak. Demere flushed with anger assentence after sentence rang out in English, now from Stuart's lips, nowfrom his own,--cogent, persuasive, flattering, fruitless; repeated bythe interpreter in Cherokee, and followed by a blank pause. FinallyDemere rose, and with a curt phrase of formal farewell, to which neitherof the chiefs responded, bowed angrily, and walked out, pausing near theentrance to wait for Stuart, who with blandest ceremony was taking hisleave,--saying how much he hoped there would be no interruption to thekind friendship with which the great men had personally favored them,and which they so highly valued; and how earnestly he desired to expresstheir thanks for the interview, although it grieved him to perceive thatthe chiefs felt they could say so little on the subject that had broughthim hither. He could not have bowed with more respectful formality if hewere quitting the presence of General Amherst himself, the cocked hat inhis right hand sweeping low as he made his obeisance; but he coulddetect in both faces no change of expression, except that the eye ofOconostota twinkled with derision or anger or pleasure--who can say? Heleft them sitting motionless there in the deep red dusk reflected downfrom the terra-cotta walls, and the interpreter, looking as wooden ashis voice sounded, standing bolt upright behind them.

  Stuart did not comment on the character of the audience vouchsafed as,shoulder to shoulder, he and Demere took their way down to the boat,where the young soldier awaited them. He only said, "I have been uneasyabout that orderly all the time for fear our presence here did notprotect him, as he was not on the ever-sacred soil of the 'beloved cityof refuge'--Chote--old town. I wished we had taken the precaution ofordering him ashore. Affairs are near the crisis, Paul."

  They seated themselves, and the young soldier pulled out from the shore,Demere, both angry and cast down, realizing as he had not heretofore theimminence of the peril to the settlement.

  Dusk was upon the river; stars began to palpitate elusively in thepallid sky; shadows mustered thick along the bank. Suddenly a sound,sharp, discordant, split the air, and a rifle-ball whizzed past betweenthe two officers and struck the water on the further side of the boat.The unarmed orderly seemed for a moment as if he would plunge into theriver.

  "Steady--steady--give way," said Stuart. Then to Demere, who had hishand on his pistol, and was casting a keen glance along the shorepreparatory to taking aim,--"Why do you return the fire, Paul? To makeour fate certain? We should be riddled in a moment. I have countednearly fifty red rascals in those laurel bushes."

  Why the menace was not repeated, whether the skulking braves feared thedispleasure of their own authorities, or the coolness of the littlegroup extorted their admiration, so quick to respond to an exhibition ofstoical
courage, no further demonstration was offered, and the boat waspulled down the five miles from Chote to Fort Loudon in better timeperhaps than was ever made with the same weight on that river. Thelanding was reached, to the relief even of the phlegmatic-seemingStuart.

  "So ends so much," he said, as he stepped out of the boat. "And I go toChote--old town--no more."

  But he was destined one day to retrace his way, and, sooth to say, witha heavier heart.

  The season waxed to ripeness. The opulent beauty of the earlysummer-tide was on this charmed land. Along the heavily-wooded mountainsides the prodigal profusion of the blooming rhododendron glowed with asplendor in these savage solitudes which might discredit the treasuresof all the royal gardens of Europe. Vast lengths of cabling grape-vineshung now and again from the summit of one gigantic tree to the ground,and thence climbed upward a hundred feet to the topmost boughs ofanother, affording ambush for Indians, and these darkling coverts beganto be craftily eyed by the soldiers, whose daily hunt for the provisionsof the post carried them through many dense jungles. Everywhere theexquisite mountain azalea was abloom, its delicate, subtle fragrancepervading the air as the appreciation of some noble virtue penetratesand possesses the soul, so intimate, so indissoluble, so potent ofcognition. It seemed the essential element of the atmosphere onebreathed. And this atmosphere--how light--how pure! sheer existence wasa cherished privilege. And always on this fine ethereal medium came theecho of woe; blended with the incense of the blooming wild grape seemedthe smell of blood; the rare variety of flame-tinted azaleas flaring onsome high, secluded slope showed a color reminiscent only of the burningroof-trees and stockades of destroyed homes. Peace upon the augustmountains to the east, veiling their peaks and domes in stillness andwith diaphanous cloud; peace upon the flashing rivers, infinitely clearand deep in their cliff-bound channels; and peace upon all theheavily-leaved shadowy forests to the massive westward range, level ofsummit, stern and military of aspect, like some gigantic rampart! Butthe mind was continually preempted by the knowledge that in the southwere murder and despair, in the east were massacre and pillage, thatrapine was loosed upon the land, and that this external fixity of calmwas as unstable as the crystalline sphere of a bubble to collapse at atouch. Every ear was strained to a whisper; the express from over themountain was met afar off by stragglers from the settlement, and came,delivering by word of mouth such news as he personally possessed, beforehis package was rendered up to the officers at the fort. Every heartseemed subject to the tension of suspense except such organ as mightserve Captain Stuart for the cardiacal functions. He appeared whollyengrossed in perfecting the details of battalion drill, and theattention of the garrison was concentrated on these military maneuvers;even the men of the settlement, especially the rattling single men, weredrawn into these ranks, the garrison not being strong enough to furnishthe complement desired. In their buckskin hunting-shirts and leggings,with their muscular, keen activity, their ready practice, and theirsuppleness in handling their rifles, the pioneers made what he waspleased to call "a very pretty body of fencibles." His praise and theirevident advance in proficiency gratified them, although the tacticalarts of war in the heavy growths of this wild and rocky country were ata discount, since the defeat of that martinet and military precisian,General Braddock. Thus the afternoon drill at the fort became ofincreasing public interest, and afforded the social opportunity of arendezvous for the whole settlement; and despite the growingdisaffection of the Cherokees, now and again groups of Indian spectatorsappeared at the gate.

  Stuart's tact never deserted him; one day when ordering a knot ofpioneers near the sally-port to "fall in"--for he himself drilled thefencibles--he motioned too, with his imperious gesture, to half a dozenbraves who were standing hard by, as if he made no difference betweenthem and the other civilian neighbors. One moment of astounded doubt,then they "fell in" as front-rank men, evidently infinitely flatteredand marvelously quick in adapting the manual exercise they had oftenwitnessed. Now and again there was an expression of keen interest ontheir stolid faces, and more than once when woe befell the effort toploy the battalion into double column to form square and the movementbecame a contortion, they laughed out gutturally--that rare Indian mirthnot altogether pleasant to hear. And as they went home in the red sunsetto Citico, and Great Tellico, and Tennessee Town and Chote, from alongthe river banks came their harsh cries--"Shoulder firelock!" or"Fa'lock," as they rehearsed it. "Feex Bay'net! Pleasant A'hms!"

  It became evident that they rehearsed their learning, suiting the actionto the word, once too often,--for they returned no more. Whatever mighthave been the advantage of their acquiring the secret of the militarymaneuvers from so competent and patient an instructor as thecondescending Captain Stuart, the powers that were at Chote had no mindto expose their stalwart young braves to the winning wiles of thatmagnetic commander, and permitting them to acquire among the troops,perchance, a personal regard for the officer and an _esprit de corps_ inaddition to a more available military spirit. If he had had a scheme andthe scheme had failed there was no intimation to that effect on theimperturbable exterior he maintained.

  It had always been known that Captain Stuart was somewhat fond of thepleasures of the table, and he suddenly developed a certain domesticityin this regard. He desired to experiment on the preserving of some"neat's tongues,"--as he politely called those of the buffalo,--and forthe sake of this delicacy utilized a floorless hut, otherwiseunoccupied, at the further end of the whole enclosure, as a smokehouse.Often smoke was seen issuing thence, but with this understanding itcreated no surprise. Sometimes the quartermaster-sergeant and two orthree other non-commissioned officers were seen pottering about it. Nowand again Captain Demere stood at the door and looked in. One day itchanced that Hamish, who had secured two tongues, desiring to offer themas a small tribute, came up close to him, in his deft, noiselessdeerskin buskins, before Captain Demere was aware. As he turned and sawthe boy, he instantly let the door in his hand fly back--not, however,before the quick young fellow had had a dissolving view of the interior.A fire smoked in the center of the chimneyless place, half smotheredwith stones that constituted at once a hearth and protection from theblaze, but one flickering shred of flame revealed not only the tongueswhich Captain Stuart coveted, but rows of haunches and saddles ofvenison and bear hams, and great sections of buffalo meat, as well aspork and beef.

  The boy understood in an instant, for the hunters from the fort providedday by day for the wants of the garrison from the infinite reserves ofgame in the vast wilderness without; these were preparations against astate of siege, kept secret that the garrison might not be dispirited byso gloomy a prospect, possibly groundless, and the settlement with itswomen and children affrighted. Hamish, with a caution beyond his years,affected to see naught, made his little offering, and took his way andhis speculations homeward. There he was admonished to say nothing of thediscovery; it was very proper, Sandy thought, for the garrison to beprepared even against remote contingencies.

  Hamish dutifully acquiesced, although he could but feel very wise toknow the secret workings of Captain Stuart's subtle mind and divine hishidden plans, when that officer seemed to grow gravely interested in thedevelopment and resources of the country, in which he had no share savethe minimum of space that the ramparts enclosed. He speculated adroitlyabout mineral wealth in gossiping with the groups of settlers at thegates after the drill. He told some strange stories thatAtta-Kulla-Kulla had recounted of the vestiges of previous vanishedinhabitants of this country--of certain evidences of ancient miningventures where still lay curious outlandish tools; he felt certain ofthe existence of copper and lead, and he believed most faithfully too inthe proximity of gold; for his own part, he declared, he thought thegeological formation indicated its presence. These themes, transferredto the great hall, served to fill it with eager discussions and cloudsof tobacco smoke, and to detain the settlers as long as the regulationswould admit of the presence of visitors. As to iron and other minerals,the springs in
dicated iron ore beyond a doubt, and he inquired earnestlyhad any one ever tried to obtain salt by the usual primitive process ofboiling and evaporation at the big salt-lick down the river? Thus nobodywas surprised when Captain Stuart and the quartermaster and a detail ofsoldiers and a lot of big cauldrons were reported to be actively engagedin the effort to manufacture salt down at the lick. No necessaryconnection was apprehended between the circumstances when fourpackhorses came over the mountain laden with salt, for even after thatevent Captain Stuart continued the boiling and stirring that went ondown at the lick.

  Hamish wondered how long he would care to keep up the blind, for theneed of salt for the preservation of more meat had by this lastimportation been satisfied. Perhaps Stuart himself felt it a relief whenone day it chanced that some buffalo bulls met at the salt-lick,--as ifby appointment,--and the battle that ensued among them was loud and longand stormy. So numerous were the contestants, and so fiercely did theconflict wage, that the officer and his force were compelled to climb toa scaffold built in one of the gigantic trees, used by the settlers whowere wont to wait here for the big game and fire down upon them withoutthe danger of being trampled to death.

  This battle had other observers: a great panther in the same treecrouched on a limb not far above the soldiers, and sly and cowardly asthe creature is, gazed at them with a snarling fierce distention ofjaws, plainly unaware of any weapons that could obviate the distance,and counting on a lingering remnant of the party as evidently as on theslain bison to be left on the ground when the battle should be over. Nowand again came a glimpse of the stealthy approach of wolves, which thetumult of the conflict had lured to the great carcass of the defeated.Although the salt-makers waited in much impatience through several hoursfor the dispersal of the combatants, and were constrained to fire theirpistols almost in the faces of the wolves and panthers, Captain Stuart'schief emotions seemed expressed in admiring the prowess of a champion inthe fight, whom he identified as the "big _yanasa_[I] that was the pivotman of the wheeling flank," and, on his return, in guying thequartermaster on the loss of the great cauldrons, for their trampledremains were unrecognizable; but indeed, this worthy's countenance waslugubrious enough to grace the appellation of chief mourner, when he wasapprised of the sad ending of the salt-making episode, for he loved abig kettle, as only a quartermaster or a cook can, in a country in whichutensils are small and few and not to be replaced.

  That Stuart felt more than he seemed to feel was suspected by Demere,who was cognizant of how the tension gave way with a snap one day in theautumn of that year of wearing suspense. Demere looked up with achanged face from the dispatches just received--the first express thathad come across the mountains for a month, having dodged and eludedbands of wandering Indian marauders all the way.

  "Governor Lyttleton has taken the field," he said.

  "_At last!_" cried Stuart, as in the extremity of impatience.

  For upon the massacre of all the inmates of a strong station, carried bystorm, in addition to other isolated murders up and down the frontier,the royal governor of South Carolina had initiated a series ofaggressive measures; asked aid of North Carolina, urged Virginia to sendreenforcements and provisions to Fort Loudon (it being a place whichfrom its remote situation was very difficult at all times to victual,but in the event of a Cherokee war entirely cut off from means ofsupply), and by great exertions succeeded in mustering a force of eighthundred militia and three hundred regulars to advance into the Indiancountry from the south. The vigor and proportions of this demonstrationalarmed the Cherokees, grown accustomed to mere remonstrance andbootless threats. They had realized, with their predominant militarycraft, the most strongly developed of their mental traits, that theoccupation of all the available forces of the government in Canada andon the northwestern frontiers crippled the capacity to make thesethreats good. Thus they had reveled in a luxury of fancied impunity anda turbulent sense of power. Now they were smitten with consternation toperceive the cloud upon the horizon. Suddenly the privileges of tradewhich they had forfeited,--for they had become dependent on the suppliesof civilization, such as ammunition, guns, tools, blankets, etc., andcertain stores in transit to them had been, by Governor Lyttleton'sinstructions, intercepted by Captain Coytmore, the commandant at FortPrince George;--the opportunities of a strong alliance that they haddiscarded; the advantageous stipulations of the treaties they hadannulled; all seemed precious when annihilated by their own act.

  The Upper towns and the Lower towns--the _Ottare_ and the _Ayrate_--metin solemn conclave at Chote to consider the situation.

  Fort Loudon, hard by, maintained quiet and keen watch and strictdiscipline. The drums beat, the bugles sounded for the measured routine.The flag waved in the sunshine, slipping up to meet the dawn, flutteringdown as the last segment of the vermilion disk slipped behind the dark,level, rampart-like summit of the distant Cumberland range, and thesunset-gun boomed till the echoes blared faintly even about thecouncil-chamber at Chote, where the warriors were gathered in state.Whether the distant thunderous tone of that potent force which theIndians admired, and feared, and sought to comprehend beyond all otherarms of the service, the artillery, suggested anew the untried menace ofLyttleton's invasion of their country with a massed and adequatestrength; whether they had become desirous now to regain those values oftrade and alliance that they had thrown away in haste; whether theirrepeated reprisals had satiated their greed of vengeance for theircomrades, slain on the return march from aiding the defense of theVirginia frontier; whether they were inspired only by their veileddeceit and savage craft, in which they excelled and delighted, and whichwe now call diplomacy, exercised between the enlightened statesmen ofconferring and Christian nations,--whatever motive urged their decision,no gun barrel was sawed off, an unfailing preparation for battle, nocorn pounded, no knife whetted, no face painted, no bow strung, nomysterious scalp-dance celebrated--the Cherokees were not upon thewar-path!

  A deputation of their "beloved men" went to forestall the martialadvance of the Carolinians--Oconostota, the "great warrior," with hismany wrinkles, and his crafty eye, and his port of meaning that heraldedevents; and Atta-Kulla-Kulla, of whom all had heard, whose courage wasfirst of the brain and then of the hand, whose savage instincts weredisciplined by a sort of right judgment, an intelligence all independentof education, or even of that superficial culture which comes of theobservation of those of a higher and trained intellect; and alsoWillinawaugh, fierce, intractable, willing to treat for peace, to besure, but with a mental reservation as to how far it might serve hispurposes. Savanukah was of the delegation, doubtful, denying, with adozen devices of duplicity; he could not at times understand the Englishhe spoke fairly well, and the French, in which he could chaffer smartlyand drive a bargain, nor even the Cherokee, for which he kept a deaf earto hinder a settlement he deprecated with the hated English--invaluableat a council was Savanukah! Of the number, too, was Tennessee Warrior,who fought, and did nothing but fight, and was ready and willing tofight again, and yet again, and to-morrow! He was always silent duringthe conferences, studying with successive scowls the faces of the whitemen. He knew nothing about numbers, and did not yearn to handle thematch, and make the big gun howl; he had but to paint his face, and whethis scalp-knife, and load his firelock, and blaze away with as deadly anaim as a pioneer's. What need had the Tennessee Warrior for diplomacy?If there was to be any fighting the Tennessee Warrior would rejoice ingoing along to partake. If there was to be only diplomacy, and diplomacywere long continued with peace unbroken, then the white men and the redmen might be sure of one thing--of hearing the Tennessee Warrior snore!He was an excellent selection to go to a council. Then there was BloodyFellow, Eskaqua, who had scant need of vermilion, so sure he was topaint himself red in another way. And Tus-ka-sah, the Terrapin ofChiletooch, and old Abram, Ooskuah, of Chilhowee, and Otassite, theMan-Killer of Hiwassee, and old Tassel, Rayetaeh of Toquoe,--aboutthirty-five in all,--went in a body to Charlestown to negotiate forpeace, and some of them si
gned. These chiefs who signed were Oconostota,Atta-Kulla-Kulla, Otassite, Kitagusta, Oconnocca, and Killcannokea.

  The day on which they set forth Captain Stuart and Captain Demere,themselves in council in the great hall at Fort Loudon, heard the newsof the departure of the delegation on this errand, looked at each otherin amazement, and fell into bursts of laughter.

  Had their sense of triumph been such as to find joy in reprisal theymight have relished the fact that the anxieties, the secret fear, theturmoil of doubt, which Oconostota had occasioned to them, were returnedto him in plenitude on his arrival in Charlestown. Governor Lyttletonhad not yet set out, but the military forces summoned forth werealready entered upon their long and toilsome march from various distantdistricts to the appointed rendezvous at Congaree, and thither thecommander of the expedition felt that he must needs forthwith repair tomeet them. "I did not invite you to come here," he said to Oconostota,and despite the remonstrance of the delegation, and doubtless thinkinghe could treat with the savages to more effect at the head of an armedforce invading their country, he postponed hearing their "talk" till heshould have joined his little army, but offered them safe-conduct inaccompanying his march. "Not a hair of your head shall be touched," hedeclared.

  Returning thus, however, almost in the humiliated guise of prisoners, infact under a strong guard, accompanying a military force that wasinvading Cherokee soil, comported little indeed with Oconostota's prideand his sense of the yet unbroken power of his nation. The coercions ofthis virtual captivity extended to the stipulations of the treatypresently formulated. While ratifying previous pledges on the part ofthe Indians to renounce the French interest, and providing for therenewal to them of the privileges of trade, this treaty required of themthe surrender of the murderers concerned in the massacres along thefrontier; pending the delivery of these miscreants to the commandant atFort Prince George, and as a guarantee of the full and faithfulperformance of this compact, the terms dictated the detention at thefort, as hostages, of twenty-two of the Cherokee delegation nowpresent.[10]

  Oconostota himself was numbered among the hostages to be detained atFort Prince George until the surrender of the Cherokee murderers, butthe representations of Atta-Kulla-Kulla, who was at liberty, compassedthe king's release, urging his influence with his nation and the valueof his counsels in the British interest for the restoration of peace.The little band of Cherokees, helpless among overwhelming numbers, washardly in a position to openly withstand these severe measures proposed,and consequently the treaty thus signed on the 26th day of December,1759, might have been expected to prove of but slight cohesiveproperties. The hostages remained of necessity at Fort Prince George;the few Indians of the unfortunate embassy who retained their freedombegan to scatter, sullen, fierce, disconsolate, to their towns; thearmy, already discontented, mutinous, and eager to be gone because ofthe devastations of the smallpox in a neighboring Indian village, andthe appearance of that disease among a few of the volunteers, set outupon its homeward march, without striking a blow, from an expeditionthat cost the province the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds sterling.

  Oconostota and Willinawaugh, sitting together on the ground, in theflickering sunlight and the sparse wintry shadows of the leafless woods,looking like two large rabbits of some strange and very savage variety,watched the rear-guard file over the hill in the narrow blazed way thatseemed a very tolerable road in that day. When the last man hadvanished, they listened for a long time to the throb of the drum--thenthe sound was lost in the distance; a mere pulsing in the air continued,discriminated by the keen discernment of the Indians. At last, when noteven a faint ripple of sound-waves could be felt in the stillatmosphere, Oconostota keeled over suddenly and laid his ear to theground. No vague reverberation, no electrical thrill, no stir of atom ofearth striking against atom; nothing! The army was gone! The two savageold rabbits squatted again upright and seemed to ruminate on thesituation. Then, as if with a single impulse, they looked at each otherand broke into sudden harsh gutturals of triumphant laughter.

  FOOTNOTES:

  [Footnote I: Buffalo.]