29 A Feathered Message

I slept in a small log-hut on the fringe of the village, the rooms in the fort being limited, and Osseo now and then shared my quarters, but oftener passed the night in the woods upon some mysterious errand, coming into Cincinnati or leaving it as he chose. I knew that if he received proper treatment, his dignity being considered at all times, he would prove of great value to the commander, and General Wayne showed good understanding in the matter. Osseo visited him more than once at his quarters, and they were long in secret consultation.

“The Black Snake²⁴ is a great chief,“ he said to me after one of these conferences. ”He will not ride into the forest on the shoulders of his men.”

One morning, about an hour before daylight, I was awakened by a light sound at the door, as of something striking against it. I was alone, and one trained to forest life is suspicious of every noise; so I sprang to my feet, and seizing my rifle, rushed out. No one was there, and the sound was not repeated, but when I glanced at the door I saw by the wan light an Indian arrow buried deep in the wood, the feathered head still quivering with the force of the impact. It had been discharged from a bow, bent by a man of great power. That I knew at the first glance, and I cast about me for some point at which the bowman had been hidden. Then I remembered a clump of bushes inside our lines and at a considerable distance from my cabin, but not so far that a man of unusual strength might not reach it with an arrow. Moreover, an Indian of great daring could creep at night into the clump of bushes and then escape unobserved, save by the most watchful sentry.

It would have been the impulse of a man without experience of wilderness life to rush for the clump of bushes that he might catch or at least pursue the bowman; but I knew that the savage, ere the arrow left the bow, had glided back into the impenetrable forest, and I knew, too, that the missile was not sent in search of a human target; it was a sign, a signal, a message of some kind from somebody, and to me.

I looked thoughtfully at the arrow and the little black feathers still faintly quivering in the head of the shaft. Then I bent down and examined these feathers more closely. They were small and black, a jetty hue, but they were from the wing of the eagle. Now I knew. It was the arrow of Hoyoquim, the Black Eagle, the Wyandot chief, the man who had held Rose Carew in his power, and who beyond a doubt was seeking to hold her there again. He had been in the clump of bushes, and I knew it as well as if I had seen him when his mighty brown arm drew the bow.

My heart sank with a sudden dread for Rose Carew. She was a wilful woman, and she was going with us to Fort Greeneville, our most advanced and dangerous post, far into the Indian country, where naught save strong arms and strong hearts could protect her. She might fall again into the hands of Hoyoquim, and then there would be none, neither Osseo nor I nor any other, to save her. I had a bad quarter of an hour, after which I took my resolution. I would put the case to Rose Carew in such manner that she must change her purpose and stay behind.

I made haste to find her while still hot with my plan, and I had not far to seek. She was sitting alone upon the portico in front of Mr. Converse’s house. All our early builders of pretentious homes in the West followed the Greek styles of architecture, and were fond of columns and pillars, of wood most often, but painted white to resemble marble. As I saw her sitting there among the white pillars, and herself in white, she seemed to me more than ever out of place in the Indian-haunted wilderness, a flower whose home was in the peaceful and cultivated garden, and not in the wild woods. It was impossible for me to change again this sophisticated woman into the shy maid who fled with me through the forest. And yet I was not willing to lose either.

I had expected to be received with coldness, and the warmth of her manner, while a surprise, pleased me more than I am willing to confess. She gave me both her hands—an impulse I thought it, due perhaps to a sudden memory of the days we had spent together in the forest, for as I saw her now she was a woman of variable moods.

“You are in your uniform, your true uniform, Captain Lee.” she said. “I told you long ago that you should return to your place in the world, but you would not believe me then.”

“You were right and I was wrong,” I said, “and while I rejected your advice at the time, I am wise enough to accept it now. I mean to win back my old position. When this campaign is finished I shall return to the East.”

I spoke with decision, meaning that she should understand me clearly, but she was silent, nor could I draw from her looks either approval or disapproval of my words.

“’Tis, however, a matter of small importance compared with another of which I shall speak to you,” I said, “and if I have ever served you in any wise I pray that the memory of it will make you give some heed now to what I say.”

“Tell it to me,” she replied, neither by word nor tone making any promise.

“I hear that you intend to go with the soldiers to Fort Greeneville. I ask you not to do so.”

She bent upon me a look of inquiry—a look that was without surprise, as if she had half divined my question before the utterance of it.

“Do not go,” I repeated. “Fort Greeneville is far in the Indian country. None can ever tell what will happen when opposed to such a numerous and active foe as the northwestern savages. Remember the fate of St. Clair’s army, and your own narrow escape. You know that the Indian chief, Hoyoquim, will seek to recapture you. There is no place in this column for a woman.”

“But other women are going with it?”

“Not such as you.”

“Their lives are as precious to them as mine is to me. Besides, my father is going. Should I not watch over him and tend his hurts if he is wounded? Is it the custom of our border women to shrink from danger? I shall go to Fort Greeneville with the army.”

“Even if I beg you not to do so by the memory of your former dangers?”

“I shall go in any event,” she replied firmly. “It is now for me to make a request of you, Captain Lee. Do not seek to persuade me against my will. My reasons for going, perhaps, are good.”

“I can not accede to the request,” I said.

“And I can not accede to yours; so I am not more obstinate than you,” she said.

Then I told her of Hoyoquim’s arrow, its obvious intent as a threat, and the extent of the danger to be dreaded from the chief’s wily and tenacious character. But I could not shake her in her purpose, and I could not alarm her either with the threat of dangers to be incurred, or with reminders of those past. “I shall go,” she would say, and she seemed to me to show a resolution most singular when time and circumstance are considered.

“Would you have me to be less brave than other women, who you say are of a lower grade than I?” she asked,

She smiled upon me for the first time since the conversation took this course, and then, shifting the subject, she became again the girl of the wilderness, my wood nymph, simple, unaffected, speaking of the dangers that we had shared, and from which I had saved her. It was but a brief glimpse of this Rose Carew that she gave me; then she was the woman of the drawing-room once more, talking wittily and brilliantly of social life in New York and Philadelphia, and speaking with the ease and familiarity of one who was in the heart of it. I felt her power; she had been able in former days to call up with vividness that larger world to me, but now she made the reality itself pass before my eyes. I was seized with an inextinguishable longing to become a part of it again, and take my ancient place there, and I knew even then that it was she, however unconsciously, who was most potent in drawing me on. And she did so all the more because hers was now an elusive character to me. I seemed to meet her here and there, and my mind touched hers, but it was only for a moment; then she was gone, and I was left in the air.

“My father and Major Lee are coming,” she said presently.

“Then I shall go,” I said.

But she bade me stay, and I passively waited, while her father and my cousin Jasper walked side by side along the footpath that led up the hill to the house.

Major Carew greeted me again with warmth, a warmth that seemed to me slightly in excess of reality, and Jasper nodded coolly, as was his wont.

“What do you think your cousin has been asking me?” said Miss Carew to Jasper.

“Nothing that he should not, I hope,” replied Jasper stiffly. I fancy that he did not like her use of the word “cousin” when speaking of me, though he used it at times himself, and perhaps I had as little reason as he to be pleased with it, though far from resenting such a use by her.

“That I do not go with the column to Fort Greeneville,” she said, supplying her own answer.

“Miss Carew rejects my advice, but I am sure that I am right,” I interrupted, and I related again the incident of Hoyoquim and the arrow, Jasper and Major Carew listening intently. I glanced at Jasper as I came near to the end of my story, and I saw his lips turn quite white. I knew full well that he saw the shadow of Hoyoquim across his path.

“I think that Captain Lee judges correctly,” he said when my tale was finished. “You should not go to Fort Greeneville, Miss Carew, as beyond a doubt you would be in great danger there. It is not even sure that you are free from it here. And, moreover”—his air growing gallant—“if you stay here I may be able to watch over you.”

She looked at him in surprise, not seeming to take his meaning. But I could have sworn that I was reading the processes of Jasper’s cunning mind.

“It may be that I shall stay at Cincinnati when the army advances,” he said quite coolly. “This is a sort of base for us, and it is likely that I shall be put in command of it by General Wayne. I should prefer to go on and meet the savages, but in war one must obey.”

His manner seemed quite real, and, I was sure, deceived all but myself. But he changed the drift of the talk quickly, leading it upon lighter matters, and addressing himself more particularly to Miss Carew. Jasper, as I had often noticed, was not without a certain, charm for women. He possessed a power that seemed to draw them despite themselves, and now I observed with pain that Rose Carew hearkened closely to him, his conversation being of that light nature pleasing to a woman. I saw, too, that Major Carew looked upon Jasper with approval, particularly when Jasper was speaking to his daughter, and I recalled with a sudden sinking of the heart that there were no reasons why he should not; to any one who did not know him so well as I he might in very truth seem most desirable. My own position was of the lowest when compared with his, but when one has been battered about much by Fortune he sometimes reaches a point where fresh blows, instead of shattering, merely harden, and my resolution grew stronger as I matched myself anew with Jasper in the contest apparently so unequal. Jasper and I left the house at the same time, and when we were yet within hearing of Major Carew and his daughter he tapped me on the shoulder with an appearance of great friendliness and said:

“Let us walk together, John; there are some matters which I wish to discuss with you.”

I signified assent, and side by side we strolled down the path. Almost any one beholding the two men proceeding in such manner might have taken them for the best of comrades.

We passed on until our figures were lost to the observers at the house, if there were any, and I waited for Jasper to lead the way to the topics upon which he desired to speak with me. We were upon a slope of the hills which inclose Cincinnati, and a beautiful spectacle was spread out at our feet—the clustering houses of the little town almost hidden in the foliage, the broad and curving flood of the yellow Ohio, and beyond it the dark green mass of Kentucky, hidden in its deep woods, with the silver thread of the Lacking winding through.

“John,” said Jasper at length, “I think it well that we should know each what the other means.”

“The knowledge is already attained,” I replied. “I do not believe that either is mistaken about it.”

“Whatever your crimes may have been,” he said with some appearance of passion, “I have never taken you for a fool before. But now what else can you be? You, a convicted traitor, a broken man, an exile in the woods, to pretend to the hand of Rose Carew! Withdraw from such an absurd position and I shall help you all I can to regain your old name. You know this border warfare, and your services here may be an offset. I am not without influence in the East, and a good word for you there can go far.”

Long and silent meditation in the woods may give one the power to read the hearts of men, and I believed that his thoughts then were not unknown to me.

“If I am so low and my rivalry is so preposterous,” I replied, “why, then, do you fear it?”

He winced a bit, as if I had made a hit, and then he replied:

“You have some claim on Miss Carew’s gratitude, and that, as you well know, is a strong influence upon the mind of a girl.”

I felt the hot blood coursing through my veins, but I was able to restrain my temper, responding, I think, with a fair degree of coolness:

“Cousin Jasper, you and I often look at the same thing in a different way, and for that reason perhaps you are unable to understand that it is impossible for me to remind Miss Carew of such a thing as gratitude.”

“Your folly is greater than I can understand,” he said, affecting not to notice the point, “and I give you fair warning that if you presume to oppose me in my dearest wish I shall fight you with all the weapons at my command. Having an inclination to spare your feelings, I have said very little concerning you here. But I shall not be so considerate now. I make no bones about it. I shall let everybody know what you are. As you yourself are aware, you are not fit for the society of gentlemen.”

“Gentlemen of your kind—certainly not!” I replied.

We walked on together, and the chance observer might still have thought that we were the best of friends, as he kept his temper admirably, and I was careful never to raise my voice above its usual pitch. But he uttered further threats, and on the whole I was glad to hear them, preferring this open declaration of war to a false politeness. When we parted I was aware that I was likely soon to encounter unpleasant incidents, but I was quite resolved to give him blow for blow, and my mind glowed with the strength of its hostile purpose.

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