Part 21 (1/2)

'”Good!” says Red Jacket looking at the sun. ”My brother shall be there.

I will ride with him and bring back the ponies.”

'I went to pack the saddle-bags. Toby had cured me of asking questions.

He stopped my fiddling if I did. Besides, Indians don't ask questions much and I wanted to be like 'em.

'When the horses were ready I jumped up.

'”Get off,” says Toby. ”Stay and mind the cottage till I come back. The Lord has laid this on me, not on you--I wish he hadn't.”

'He powders off down the Lancaster road, and I sat on the door-step wondering after him. When I picked up the paper to wrap his fiddle-strings in, I spelled out a piece about the yellow fever being in Philadelphia so dreadful every one was running away. I was scared, for I was fond of Toby. We never said much to each other, but we fiddled together, and music's as good as talking to them that understand.'

'Did Toby die of yellow fever?' Una asked.

'Not him! There's justice left in the world still. He went down to the City and bled 'em well again in heaps. He sent back word by Red Jacket that, if there was war or he died I was to bring the oils along to the city, but till then I was to go on working in the garden and Red Jacket was to see me do it. Down at heart all Indians reckon digging a squaw's business, and neither him nor Cornplanter, when he relieved watch, was a hard task-master. We hired a n.i.g.g.e.r-boy to do our work, and a lazy grinning runagate he was. When I found Toby didn't die the minute he reached town, why, boylike, I took him off my mind and went with my Indians again. Oh! those days up north at Canasedago, running races and gambling with the Senecas, or bee-hunting in the woods, or fis.h.i.+ng in the lake.' Pharaoh sighed and looked across the water. 'But it's best,'

he went on suddenly, 'after the first frostes. You roll out o' your blanket and find every leaf left green over night turned red and yellow, not by trees at a time, but hundreds and hundreds of miles of 'em, like sunsets splattered upside down. On one of such days--the maples was flaming scarlet and gold, and the sumach bushes were redder--Cornplanter and Red Jacket came out in full war-dress, making the very leaves look silly: feathered war-bonnets, yellow doe-skin leggings, fringed and ta.s.selled, red horse-blankets, and their bridles feathered and sh.e.l.led and beaded no bounds. I thought it was war against the British till I saw their faces weren't painted, and they only carried wrist-whips. Then I hummed ”Yankee Doodle” at 'em. They told me they was going to visit Big Hand and find out for sure whether he meant to join the French in fighting the English or make a peace treaty with England. I reckon those two would ha' gone out on the war-path at a nod from Big Hand, but they knew well, if there was war 'twixt England and the United States, their tribe 'ud catch it from both parties same as in all the other wars. They asked me to come along and hold the ponies.

That puzzled me, because they always put their ponies up at the ”Buck”

or Epply's when they went to see General Was.h.i.+ngton in the city, and horse-holding is a n.i.g.g.e.r's job. Besides, I wasn't exactly dressed for it.'

'D'you mean you were dressed like an Indian?' Dan demanded.

Pharaoh looked a little abashed. 'This didn't happen at Lebanon,' he said, 'but a bit farther north, on the Reservation; and at that particular moment of time, so far as blanket, hair-band, moccasins, and sunburn went, there wasn't much odds 'twix me and a young Seneca buck.

You may laugh,' he smoothed down his long-skirted brown coat. 'But I told you I took to their ways all over. I said nothing, though I was bursting to let out the war-whoop like the young men had taught me.'

'No, and you don't let out one here, either,' said Puck before Dan could ask. 'Go on, Brother Square-toes.'

'We went on.' Pharaoh's narrow dark eyes gleamed and danced. 'We went on--forty, fifty miles a day, for days on end--we three braves. And how a great tall Indian a-horseback can carry his war-bonnet at a canter through thick timber without brus.h.i.+ng a feather beats _me_! My silly head was banged often enough by low branches, but they slipped through like running elks. We had evening hymn-singing every night after they'd blown their pipe-smoke to the quarters of Heaven. Where did we go? I'll tell you, but don't blame me if you're no wiser. We took the old war-trail from the end of the Lake along the East Susquehanna through the Nantego country, right down to Fort Shamokin on the Senachse river.

We crossed the Juniata by Fort Granville, got into s.h.i.+ppensberg over the hills by the Ochwick trail, and then to Williams Ferry (it's a bad one).

From Williams Ferry, across the Shanedore, over the Blue Mountains, through Ashby's Gap, and so south-east by south from there, till we found the President at the back of his own plantations. I'd hate to be trailed by Indians in earnest. They caught him like a partridge on a stump. After we'd left our ponies, we scouted forward through a woody piece, and, creeping slower and slower, at last if my moccasins even slipped Red Jacket 'ud turn and frown. I heard voices--Monsieur Genet's for choice--long before I saw anything, and we pulled up at the edge of a clearing where some n.i.g.g.e.rs in grey and red liveries were holding horses, and half-a-dozen gentlemen--but one was Genet--were talking among felled timber. I fancy they'd come to see Genet a piece on his road, for his portmantle was with him. I hid in between two logs as near to the company as I be to that old windla.s.s there. I didn't need anybody to show me Big Hand. He stood up, very still, his legs a little apart, listening to Genet, that French Amba.s.sador, which never had more manners than a Bosham tinker. Genet was as good as ordering him to declare war on England at once. I had heard that clack before on the _Embuscade_. He said he'd stir up the whole United States to have war with England, whether Big Hand liked it or not.

'Big Hand heard him out to the last end. I looked behind me and my two chiefs had vanished like smoke. Says Big Hand, ”That is very forcibly put, Monsieur Genet----” ”Citizen--citizen!” the fellow spits in. ”_I_, at least, am a Republican!” ”Citizen Genet,” he says, ”you may be sure it will receive my fullest consideration.” This seemed to take Citizen Genet back a piece. He rode off grumbling, and never gave his n.i.g.g.e.r a penny. No gentleman!

'The others all a.s.sembled round Big Hand then, and, in their way, they said pretty much what Genet had said. They put it to him, here was France and England at war, in a manner of speaking, right across the United States' stomach, and paying no regards to any one. The French was searching American s.h.i.+ps on pretence they was helping England, but really for to steal the goods. The English was doing the same, only t'other way round, and besides searching, they was pressing American citizens into their navy to help them fight France, on pretence that those Americans was lawful British subjects. His gentlemen put this very clear to Big Hand. It didn't look to _them_, they said, as though the United States trying to keep out of the fight was any advantage to _her_, because she only catched it from both French and English. They said that nine out of ten good Americans was crazy to fight the English then and there. They wouldn't say whether that was right or wrong; they only wanted Big Hand to turn it over in his mind. He did--for a while. I saw Red Jacket and Cornplanter watching him from the far side of the clearing, and how they had slipped round there was another mystery. Then Big Hand drew himself up, and he let his gentlemen have it.'

'Hit 'em?' Dan asked.

'No, nor yet was it what you might call swearing. He--he blasted 'em with his natural speech. He asked them half-a-dozen times over whether the United States had enough armed s.h.i.+ps for any shape or sort of war with any one. He asked 'em, if they thought she _had_ those s.h.i.+ps, to _give_ him those s.h.i.+ps, and they looked on the ground, as if they expected to find 'em _there_. He put it to 'em whether, setting s.h.i.+ps aside, their country--I reckon he gave 'em good reasons--whether the United States was ready or able to face a new big war; she having but so few years back wound up one against England, and being all holds full of her own troubles. As I said, the strong way he laid it all before 'em blasted 'em, and when he'd done it was like a still in the woods after a storm. A little man--but they all looked little--pipes up like a young rook in a blowed-down nest, ”Nevertheless, General, it seems you will be compelled to fight England.” Quick Big Hand wheels on him, ”And is there anything in my past which makes you think I am averse to fighting Great Britain?”

'Everybody laughed except him. ”Oh, General, you mistake us entirely!”

they says. ”I trust so,” he says. ”But I know my duty. We _must_ have peace with England.”

'”At any price?” says the man with the rook's voice.

'”At any price,” says he word by word. ”Our s.h.i.+ps will be searched--our citizens will be pressed, but----”

'”Then what about the Declaration of Independence?” says one.