A Virginia Scout Part 39

Before I was dismissed I asked about Cousin. The colonel's face became animated.

"Oh, the young man with the sad history? He's out on a scout. That fellow is absolutely fearless. I am surprised every time he lives to return to make a report. It's useless to lay down a route for him to scout; he prowls where he will. But he's valuable, and we let him have his own way."

On the next day we marched to the mouth of the Elk where Colonel Charles Lewis was completing arrangements for transporting the supplies down the river. While at that camp I went on my first scout and found Indian tracks. One set of them measured fourteen inches in length. The men went and looked at the signs before they would accept my measurements.

The camp was extremely busy, for we all knew the crisis was drawing close.

Our armorer worked early and late unbreeching the guns having wet charges.

Three brigades of horses were sent back to Camp Union for more flour. I went with Mooney on a scout up Coal River and we found Indian signs four miles from camp. Other scouts were sent down the Kanawha and up the Elk.

On returning, I found Cousin impatiently waiting for me to come in. He had changed and his bearing puzzled me. He was given to laughing loudly at the horse-play of the men, yet his eyes never laughed. I took him outside the camp and without any circ.u.mlocution related the facts concerning his sister and Kirst.

"Tell me again that part 'bout how she died," he quietly requested when I had finished. I did so. He commented:

"For killing that redskin I owe you more'n I would if you'd saved my life a thousand times. So little sister is dead. No, not that. Now that woman is dead I have my little sister back again. I took on with this army so's I could reach the Scioto towns. To think that Kirst got way up there! I 'low he had a man's fight to die in. That's the way. Morris, I'm obleeged to you. I'll always remember her words 'bout sendin' a little sister to me. Now I've got two of 'em. We won't talk no more 'bout it."

With that he turned and hurried into the woods.

The men continued firing their guns without having obtained permission, and Colonel Lewis was thoroughly aroused to stop the practise. He directed that his orders of the fifteenth be read at the head of each company, with orders for the captains to inspect their men's stock of ammunition and report those lacking powder. This reduced the waste, but there was no stopping the riflemen from popping away at bear or deer once they were out of sight of their officers.

I had hoped Cousin would return and be my companion on the next scout, but as he failed to show up I set off with Mooney for a second trip up the Coal. This time we discovered signs of fifteen Indians making toward the Kanawha below the camp. We returned with the news and found a wave of drunkenness had swept the camp during our absence.

The sutlers were ordered to bring no more liquor into camp, and to sell from the supply on hand only on a captain's written order. This served to sober the offenders speedily. The scouts sent down the Kanawha returned and reported two fires and five Indians within fifteen miles of the Ohio.

It was plain that the Indians were d.o.g.g.i.ng our steps day and night, and the men were warned not to straggle.

We were at the Elk Camp from the twenty-fourth to the thirtieth, and on the latter date the canoemen loaded their craft, and the pack-horse men and bullock-drivers drew two days' rations and started down-river. It rained for three days and on October second we were camped near the mouth of the Coal. It was there that Cousin appeared, a Mingo scalp hanging at his belt. He informed Colonel Lewis he had been to the mouth of the river, making the down-trip in a canoe, and that as yet no Indians had crossed except small bands of scouts.

Breaking camp, we encountered rich bottom-lands, difficult to traverse because of the rain. Every mile or two there were muddy creeks, and the pack-horses were nearly worn out. Several desertions were now reported from the troops, a hostility to discipline rather than cowardice being the incentive. Another trouble was the theft of supplies.

As we advanced down the river signs of small bands of Indians became numerous; scarcely a scout returned without reporting some. I saw nothing of Cousin until the sixth of October, and as we were finis.h.i.+ng an eight-mile march through long defiles and across small runs and were entering the bottom which extends for four miles to the Ohio. The first that I knew he was with us was when he walked at my side and greeted:

"There's goin' to be a screamin' big fight."

He offered no explanation of his absence and I asked him nothing. It had required five weeks to march eleven hundred men one hundred and sixty miles and to convey the necessary supplies the same distance.

As we scouts in the lead entered the bottom Cousin called my attention to the high-water marks on the trees. Some of these measured ten feet. The Point itself is high. From it we had a wide view of the Ohio and Kanawha, up- and down-stream. It was Cousin who discovered a writing made fast to a tree, calling attention to a paper concealed in the hollow at the base of the tree. We fished it out and found it was addressed to Colonel Lewis.

Cousin and I took it to him. Before opening it, he gave Cousin a shrewd glance and remarked:

"I am glad to see you back, young man."

"If I've read the signs right I 'low I'm glad to git back," was the grave reply.

The letter was from Governor Dunmore, and he wrote to complain because our colonel had not joined him at the Little Kanawha. He now informed our commander he had dropped down to the mouth of the Big Hockhocking, and we were expected to join him there. After frowning over the communication, Colonel Lewis read it aloud to some of his officers and expressed himself very forcefully. It was soon camp gossip, and every man was free to discuss it.

Much anger was expressed against Governor Dunmore. And it did seem absurd to ask our army to move up the Ohio some sixty miles when such a tedious maneuver would lead us farther from the Indian towns than we were while at the Point. Had the order been given for the army to go to the Hockhocking there would have been many desertions.

I learned later that the letter was brought to the Point by Simon Kenton and Simon Girty, who with Michael Cresap were serving as scouts with Dunmore. While the camp was busily criticizing the governor our scouts from the Elk came in and reported seeing Indians hunting buffalo. When within six miles of the Point, they found a plowshare, some surveying-instruments, a s.h.i.+rt, a light blue coat and a human under jaw-bone.

Shelby Cousin said the dead man was Thomas Hoog, who with two or three of his men were reported killed by the Indians in the preceding April while making improvements. Cousin insisted his death had been due to wild animals or an accident, after which the animals had dragged his remains into the woods. He argued that an Indian would never have left the coat or the instruments.

We pa.s.sed the seventh and eighth of the month in making the camp sanitary and in building a shelter for the supplies yet to arrive down the river.

Preparations also went ahead for moving the army across the Ohio. Most of the scouts were sent out to hunt up lost beeves, while a sergeant and squad were despatched with canoes to the Elk after flour.

Three men came in from the Elk and reported that Colonel Christian was camped there with two hundred and twenty men, that he had only sixteen kettles, and was fearing his men would be ill from eating too much roast meat "without broth." On the eighth there arrived more letters from Governor Dunmore, in which His Lords.h.i.+p expressed his surprise and annoyance because of our failure to appear at the Hockhocking.

This time Colonel Lewis was quite open in expressing his disgust at the governor's lack of strategy. The Kanawha was the gate to Augusta, Botetourt and Fincastle Counties. To leave it and move up-river would leave the way open for the red army to stream into Virginia and work its savagery while the colonials were cooped up on the Ohio or hunting Indian wigwams in the wilderness.

In the package was a letter to our colonel from Colonel Adam Stephens, second in command to His Excellency, which was given wide publicity.

Colonel Stephens reported very disagreeable news from Boston. It was to the effect that General Gage had fired on the people at Cambridge. Later we learned that while some gun-powder and two cannon had been seized by His Majesty's troops there had been no ma.s.sacre of the provincials. But while the rumor remained uncontradicted it caused high excitement and great rage.

On the evening of the ninth Cousin and I were ordered out to scout up the river beyond Old Town Creek. Our camp was near the junction of the Kanawha and the Ohio, almost at the tip of the Point. About a fourth of a mile to the east is Crooked Creek, a very narrow stream at that season of the year, with banks steep and muddy. It skirts the base of some low hills and flows nearly south in emptying into the Kanawha. Half-way between our camp and Old Town Creek, which empties into the Ohio, is a small stretch of marsh-land extending north and south, with bottom-lands on each side.

Cousin and I planned to keep along the Ohio sh.o.r.e until a few miles above Old Town Creek, when we would separate, one returning along our course to keep an eye on the river, the other circling to the east and swinging back through the low hills drained by Crooked Creek. This double reconnaissance should reveal any spies.

The men were very anxious to cross the river and come in contact with the Indians. They believed they would have the allied tribes within their grasp once they reached the Scioto. They were cheered by the report that the army would cross on the morrow. One tall Watauga boy boastfully proclaimed that all the Shawnees and Mingos beyond the Ohio wouldn't "make more'n a breakfast for us." Davis, because a man of family and more conservative, insisted it would be a "pretty tough chunk of a fight."

This was the optimistic spirit Cousin and I left behind us when we set out at sunset. Cousin was in a new mood. There was a certain wild gaiety, rather a ferocious gaiety, in his bearing. His drawn face had lost some of the hard lines and looked almost boyish and his eyes were feverishly alight. He seemed possessed of superabundant physical strength, and in pure muscular wantonness went out of his way to leap the fallen timbers which littered the sh.o.r.e.

As darkness increased he ceased his wild play and became the prince of scouts. We advanced most leisurely, for we had all night if we cared to stay out. We halted when abreast of the marsh-land and seated ourselves on the banks of the Ohio and watched the starlight find a mirror in the water. After a protracted silence he abruptly asked:

"My sister said she was sendin' me a new sister, you say?"

"Those were her words."

"I wish she could know to-night I ain't needin' any new sister. Wish she could know right now that she's always been my sister. When I reckoned I'd lost her I was just mistook. She was just gone away for a little while.

She found a mighty hard an' rough trace to travel. I 'low the Almighty will have to give her many belts afore He smooths out the path in her mind. I 'low it'll take a heap o' presents to make up for the burrs an'

briers an' sharp stones she had to foot it over. Thank G.o.d she died white!"

"Amen to that!"

After another silence he asked:

"You 'low she's with daddy an' mammy?"

"I do."

"That's mighty comfortin' to figger on," he slowly mused. "Much like a younker gittin' mighty tired an' goin' back home to rest. Daddy an' mammy will do a heap to make it up to her for what she had to go through. Yes, I can count on 'em, even if the Almighty happened to be too busy to notice her when she first crossed the border."

Dear lad! He meant no irreverence.

The night was calm and sounds carried easily. We had pa.s.sed beyond where we could hear the men singing and merry-making in camp, but the uneasy movements of a turkey and the stealthy retreat of a deer seemed very close at hand. The soft pad-pad of a woods cat approached within a few feet before the creature caught the scent, and the retreat was marked by a series of cras.h.i.+ngs through the undergrowth.

After a while we rose and continued up the river.

"No Injuns along here," murmured Cousin.

We reached Old Town Creek and crossed it without discovering any signs of the enemy; nor were we looking for anything more serious than a stray scout or two. We went nearly two miles above the creek and turned back after deciding we would separate at the creek, he taking the hills route and I following the river. We reached the creek and he was about to leave me when we both heard a new note, a splas.h.i.+ng noise, very faint. Our hands met in a mutual desire to grab an arm and enforce attention.

"No fish made it," I whispered.