In the morning Clark himself would be the first off through the gray rain, laughing and shouting and waving his sword in the air, and I after him as hard as I could pelt through the mud, beating the charge on my drum until the war-cries of the regiment drowned the sound of it.For we were upon a pleasure trip--lest any man forget,--a pleasure trip amidst stark woods and brown plains flecked with ponds.So we followed him until we came to a place where, in summer, two quiet rivers flowed through green forests--the little Wabashes.And now!
Now hickory and maple, oak and cottonwood, stood shivering in three feet of water on what had been a league of dry land.We stood dismayed at the crumbling edge of the hill, and one hundred and seventy pairs of eyes were turned on Clark.With a mere glance at the running stream high on the bank and the drowned forest beyond, he turned and faced them.
``I reckon you've earned a rest, boys,'' he said.``We'll have games to-day.''
There were some dozen of the unflinching who needed not to be amused.Choosing a great poplar, these he set to hollowing out a pirogue, and himself came among the others and played leap-frog and the Indian game of ball until night fell.And these, instead of moping and quarrelling, forgot.That night, as I cooked him a buffalo steak, he drew near the fire with Bowman.
``For the love of God keep up their spirits, Bowman,''
said the Colonel; ``keep up their spirits until we get them across.Once on the farther hills, they cannot go back.''
Here was a different being from the shouting boy who had led the games and the war-dance that night in the circle of the blaze.Tired out, we went to sleep with the ring of the axes in our ears, and in the morning there were more games while the squad crossed the river to the drowned neck, built a rough scaffold there, and notched a trail across it; to the scaffold the baggage was ferried, and the next morning, bit by bit, the regiment.Even now the pains shoot through my body when I think of how man after man plunged waist-deep into the icy water toward the farther branch.The pirogue was filled with the weak, and in the end of it I was curled up with my drum.
Heroism is a many-sided thing.It is one matter to fight and finish, another to endure hell's tortures hour after hour.All day they waded with numbed feet vainly searching for a footing in the slime.Truly, the agony of a brave man is among the greatest of the world's tragedies to see.As they splashed onward through the tree-trunks, many a joke went forth, though lips were drawn and teeth pounded together.I have not the heart to recall these jokes,--it would seem a sacrilege.There were quarrels, too, the men striving to push one another from the easier paths; and deeds sublime when some straggler clutched at the bole of a tree for support, and was helped onward through excruciating ways.A dozen held tremblingly to the pirogue's gunwale, lest they fall and drown.
One walked ahead with a smile, or else fell back to lend a helping shoulder to a fainting man.
And there was Tom McChesney.All day long Iwatched him, and thanked God that Polly Ann could not see him thus.And yet, how the pride would have leaped within her! Humor came not easily to him, but charity and courage and unselfishness he had in abundance.
What he suffered none knew; but through those awful hours he was always among the stragglers, helping the weak and despairing when his strength might have taken him far ahead toward comfort and safety.``I'm all right, Davy,'' he would say, in answer to my look as he passed me.But on his face was written something that I did not understand.
How the Creole farmers and traders, unused even to the common ways of woodcraft, endured that fearful day and others that followed, I know not.And when a tardy justice shall arise and compel the people of this land to raise a shaft in memory of Clark and those who followed him, let not the loyalty of the French be forgotten, though it be not understood.
At eventide came to lurid and disordered brains the knowledge that the other branch was here.And, mercifully, it was shallower than the first.Holding his rifle high, with a war-whoop Bill Cowan plunged into the stream.Unable to contain myself more, I flung my drum overboard and went after it, and amid shouts and laughter I was towed across by James Ray.
Colonel Clark stood watching from the bank above, and it was he who pulled me, bedraggled, to dry land.I ran away to help gather brush for a fire.As I was heaping this in a pile I heard something that I should not have heard.Nor ought I to repeat it now, though I did not need the flames to send the blood tingling through my body.
``McChesney,'' said the Colonel, ``we must thank our stars that we brought the boy along.He has grit, and as good a head as any of us.I reckon if it hadn't been for him some of them would have turned back long ago.''
I saw Tom grinning at the Colonel as gratefully as though he himself had been praised.
The blaze started, and soon we had a bonfire.Some had not the strength to hold out the buffalo meat to the fire.Even the grumblers and mutineers were silent, owing to the ordeal they had gone through.But presently, when they began to be warmed and fed, they talked of other trials to be borne.The Embarrass and the big Wabash, for example.These must be like the sea itself.
``Take the back trail, if ye like,'' said Bill Cowan, with a loud laugh.``I reckon the rest of us kin float to Vincennes on Davy's drum.''
But there was no taking the back trail now; and well they knew it.The games began, the unwilling being forced to play, and before they fell asleep that night they had taken Vincennes, scalped the Hair Buyer, and were far on the march to Detroit.
Mercifully, now that their stomachs were full, they had no worries.Few knew the danger we were in of being cut off by Hamilton's roving bands of Indians.There would be no retreat, no escape, but a fight to the death.
