The Conquest. Eva Emery Dye
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promised security," cried Captain Ruddle.
"I cannot stop them," said Bird. "I, too, am in their power."
Madly the Indians sacked the station and killed the cattle. Loading the household goods upon the backs of the unfortunate owners, they drove them forth and gave their cabins to the flames.
The same scenes were enacted at Martin's Station. The Indians were wild for more. But Bird would not permit further devastation. He could easily have taken every fort in Kentucky, not one could have withstood his artillery; but to his honour be it said, he led his forces out.
Loaded with plunder, the wretched captives, four hundred and fifty men, women, and children, were driven away to Detroit. Whoever faltered was tomahawked.
Clark immediately called on the militia of Kentucky. Hastening to Harrodsburg he found the newcomers wild over land entries.
"Land!" they cried, "you can have all you can hold against the Indians."
It was a grewsome joke. The Indians would not even let them survey. Like a military dictator, Clark closed the land office—"Nor will it be opened again until after this expedition."
Immediately a thousand men enlisted. Logan, Linn, Floyd, Harrod, all followed the banner of Clark. Boone and Kenton set on ahead as guides, into the land they knew so well.
"Is it not dangerous to invade the Shawnee country?" inquired one.
"I was not born in the woods to be scared by an owl," was Clark's sententious reply.
All the provisions they had for twenty-five days was six quarts of parched corn each, except what they got in the Indian country.
Canoeing down the Licking, on the first day of August they crossed the Ohio. Scarce touching shore they heard the scalp halloo. Some fell. Within fifteen minutes Clark had his axes in the forest building a blockhouse for his wounded. On that spot now stands Cincinnati.
On pressed Clark in his retaliatory dash—before the Shawnees even suspected, the Kentuckians were at Old Chillicothe. They flew to arms, but the Long Knives swooped down with such fury that Simon Girty drew off.
"It is folly to fight such madmen."
Chillicothe went down in flames; Piqua followed; fields, gardens, more than five hundred acres of corn were razed to the level of the sod.
Piqua was Tecumseh's village; again he learned to dread and hate the white man.
"That will keep them at home hunting for a while," remarked Clark, turning back to the future Cincinnati.
XVII
"DETROIT MUST BE TAKEN"
Again George Rogers Clark sped through Cumberland Gap, fair as a Tyrolean vale, to Virginia. And dashing along the same highway, down the valley of Virginia, came the minute men of the border, in green hunting shirts, hard-riders and sharp-shooters of Fincastle.
"Hey and away, and what news?"
The restless mountaineers of the Appalachians, almost as fierce and warlike as the Goths and Vandals of an earlier day, answered:
"We have broken the back of Tarleton's army at King's Mountain, Cornwallis is facing this way, and cruisers are coming up into the Chesapeake."
"Marse Gawge! Marse Gawge!"
This time it was little York, the negro, who, peeping from the slave quarters of old York and Rose, detected the stride of George Rogers Clark out under the mulberry trees.
The long, low, Virginia farmhouse was wrapped in slumber, an almost funeral pall hung over the darkened porch, as John Clark stepped out to grasp the hand of his son.
"Three of my boys in British prisons, we looked for nothing less for you, George. William alone is left."
"Girls do not count, I suppose," laughed the saucy Lucy, peeping out in her night-curls with a candle in her hand. "Over at Bowling Green the other day, when all the gallants were smiling on me, one jealous girl said, 'I do not see what there is so interesting about Lucy Clark. She is not handsome, and she has red hair.' 'Ah,' I replied, 'I can tell her. They know I have five brothers all officers in the Revolutionary army!'"
"What, Edmund gone, too?" exclaimed George. "He is but a lad!"
"Big enough to don the buff and blue, and shoulder a gun," answered the father. "He would go—left school, led all his mates, and six weeks later was taken prisoner along with Jonathan and the whole army."
That was the fall of Charleston, in the very May when Clark was saving St. Louis.
"We are all at war," spoke up Elizabeth, the elder sister, sadly. "Even the boys drill on mimic battlefields; all the girls in Virginia are spinning and weaving clothes for the soldiers; Mrs. Washington keeps sixteen spinning-wheels busy at Mount Vernon; mother and all the ladies have given their jewels to fit out the army. Mrs. Jefferson herself led the call for contributions, and Mrs. Lewis of Albemarle collected five thousand dollars in Continental currency. Father has given up his best horses, and Jefferson impressed his own horses and waggons at Monticello to carry supplies to General Gates. All the lads in the country are moulding bullets and making gun-powder. We haven't a pewter spoon left."
"An' we niggers air raisin' fodder," ventured the ten-year-old York.
York had his part, along with his young master, William. Daily they rode together down the Rappahannock, carrying letters to Fielding Lewis at Fredericksburg. It was there, at Kenmore House, that they met Meriwether Lewis, visiting his uncle and aunt Betty, the sister of Washington. "And when she puts on his chapeau and great coat, she looks exactly like the General," said William.
"What has become of my captured Governors?" George asked of his father.
"I hear that Hamilton was offered a parole on condition that he would not use his liberty in any way to speak or influence any one against the colonies. He indignantly refused to promise that, and so was returned to close captivity. But I think when Boone came up to the legislature he used some influence; at any rate Hamilton was paroled and went with Hay to England. Rocheblave broke his parole and fled to New York."
The five fireplaces of the old Clark home roared a welcome that day up the great central chimney, and candles gleamed at evening from dormer window to basement when all the neighbours crowded in to hail "the Washington of the West."
"Now, Rose, you and Nancy bake the seed cakes and have beat biscuit," said Mrs. Clark to the fat cook in the kitchen. "York has gone after the turkeys."
"Events are in desperate straits," said George at bedtime; "I must leave at daylight." But earlier yet young William was up to gallop a mile beside his brother on the road to Richmond, whither the capital had been removed for greater safety.
"Is this the young Virginian that is sending home all the western Governors?" exclaimed the people. An ovation followed him all the way.
"What is your plan?" asked Governor Jefferson, after the fiery cavalier had been received with distinction by the Virginia Assembly.
"My plan is to ascend the Wabash in early Spring and strike before reinforcements can reach Detroit, or escape be made over the breaking ice of the Lakes. The rivers open first."
George Rogers Clark, born within three miles of Monticello, had known Jefferson all his life, and save Patrick Henry no one better grasped his plans. In fact, Jefferson had initiative and was not afraid of untried ventures.
"My dear Colonel, I have already written to Washington that we could furnish the men, provisions, and every necessary except powder, had we the money, for the reduction of Detroit. But there is no money—not even rich men have seen a shilling in a year. Washington to the north is begging aid, Gates in the south is pleading for