第76章 ``AN' YE HAD BEEN WHERE I HAD BEEN''(3)

So the Willing left on her long journey: down the Kaskaskia, into the flood of the Mississippi, against many weary leagues of the Ohio's current, and up the swollen Wabash until they were to come to the mouth of the White River near Vincennes.There they were to await us.

Should we ever see them again? I think that this was the unspoken question in the hearts of the many who were to go by land.

The 5th was a mild, gray day, with the melting snow lying in patches on the brown bluff, and the sun making shift to pierce here and there.We formed the regiment in the fort,--backwoodsman and Creole now to fight for their common country, Jacques and Pierre and Alphonse;and mother and father, sweetheart and wife, waiting to wave a last good-by.Bravely we marched out of the gate and into the church for Father Gibault's blessing.

And then, forming once more, we filed away on the road leading northward to the ferry, our colors flying, leaving the weeping, cheering crowd behind.In front of the tall men of the column was a wizened figure, beating madly on a drum, stepping proudly with head thrown back.It was Cowan's voice that snapped the strain.

``Go it, Davy, my little gamecock!'' he cried, and the men laughed and cheered.And so we came to the bleak ferry landing where we had crossed on that hot July night six months before.

We were soon on the prairies, and in the misty rain that fell and fell they seemed to melt afar into a gray and cheerless ocean.The sodden grass was matted now and unkempt.

Lifeless lakes filled the depressions, and through them we waded mile after mile ankle-deep.There was a little cavalcade mounted on the tiny French ponies, and sometimes I rode with these; but oftenest Cowin or Tom would fling me; drum and all, on his shoulder.For we had reached the forest swamps where the water is the color of the Creole coffee.And day after day as we marched, the soft rain came out of the east and wet us to the skin.

It was a journey of torments, and even that first part of it was enough to discourage the most resolute spirit.

Men might be led through it, but never driven.It is ever the mind which suffers through the monotonies of bodily discomfort, and none knew this better than Clark himself.Every morning as we set out with the wet hide chafing our skin, the Colonel would run the length of the regiment, crying:--``Who gives the feast to-night, boys?''

Now it was Bowman's company, now McCarty's, now Bayley's.How the hunters vied with each other to supply the best, and spent the days stalking the deer cowering in the wet thickets.We crossed the Saline, and on the plains beyond was a great black patch, a herd of buffalo.

A party of chosen men headed by Tom McChesney was sent after them, and never shall I forget the sight of the mad beasts charging through the water.

That night, when our chilled feet could bear no more, we sought out a patch of raised ground a little firmer than a quagmire, and heaped up the beginnings of a fire with such brush as could be made to burn, robbing the naked thickets.Saddle and steak sizzled, leather steamed and stiffened, hearts and bodies thawed; grievances that men had nursed over miles of water melted.Courage sits best on a full stomach, and as they ate they cared not whether the Atlantic had opened between them and Vincennes.An hour agone, and there were twenty cursing laggards, counting the leagues back to Kaskaskia.

Now:--

``C'etait un vieux sauvage Tout noir, tour barbouilla, Ouich' ka!

Avec sa vieill' couverte Et son sac a tabac.

Ouich' ka!

Ah! ah! tenaouich' tenaga, Tenaouich' tenaga, ouich' ka!''

So sang Antoine, dit le Gris, in the pulsing red light.

And when, between the verses, he went through the agonies of a Huron war-dance, the assembled regiment howled with delight.Some men know cities and those who dwell in the quarters of cities.But grizzled Antoine knew the half of a continent, and the manners of trading and killing of the tribes thereof.

And after Antoine came Gabriel, a marked contrast--Gabriel, five feet six, and the glare showing but a faint dark line on his quivering lip.Gabriel was a patriot,--a tribute we must pay to all of those brave Frenchmen who went with us.Nay, Gabriel had left at home on his little farm near the village a young wife of a fortnight.

And so his lip quivered as he sang:--

``Petit Rocher de la Haute Montagne, Je vien finir ici cette campagne!

Ah! doux echos, entendez mes soupirs;

En languissant je vais bientot mouir!''

We had need of gayety after that, and so Bill Cowan sang ``Billy of the Wild Wood,'' and Terence McCann wailed an Irish jig, stamping the water out of the spongy ground amidst storms of mirth.As he desisted, breathless and panting, he flung me up in the firelight before the eyes of them all, crying:--``It's Davy can bate me!''

``Ay, Davy, Davy!'' they shouted, for they were in the mood for anything.There stood Colonel Clark in the dimmer light of the background.``We must keep 'em screwed up, Davy,'' he had said that very day.

There came to me on the instant a wild song that my father had taught me when the liquor held him in dominance.

Exhilarated, I sprang from Terence's arms to the sodden, bared space, and methinks I yet hear my shrill, piping note, and see my legs kicking in the fling of it.

There was an uproar, a deeper voice chimed in, and here was McAndrew flinging his legs with mine:--``I've faught on land, I've faught at sea, At hame I faught my aunty, O;But I met the deevil and Dundee On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O.

An' ye had been where I had been, Ye wad na be sae cantie, O;An' ye had seen what I ha'e seen On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O.''