Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 312, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1917 — TIPPECANOE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TIPPECANOE

This is a story of pioneer days in Indiana, when courageous frontiersmen fought" the redskins and the wilderness and won vast territory

By SAMUEL McCOY

(Copyright, 1916. by Bobbs-Merrill Co.)

CHAPTER XV—Continued. With a bound he reached the bank of the stream, leaped down beneath its trien<W shelter, and ran on.noise., less moccasins along the shelving edge, back toward the- quarter from which the shot had come; if he were pursued, it would be better to let the chase pass him than to try to outdistance the Indian runners. At‘last he stopped and inch by inch crawled up to tiie top of the bank until he could lift his head with Infinite caution and peer through the tufts of weeds. No sound broke the stillness. For an eternity of time he lay, clutch- < ing his rifle in readiness; but the only sound was the querulous calling, of the little woodpecker, high overhead. Hesnapped under nit** tflow-moVlmr “*T<?ot. David scarcely breathed. A head rose above a< fallen giant of the forest, and a crouching shadow flitted from tree to tree, nearer, nearer . . . David raised his rifle ever so little . . . He saw the face of the dread hunter, peering with quick motions of the head from side to side, watchful as the brown water-snake. Nearer he canie ; the garb was that of an Indian, the face a white man’s! David was about to cry out with relief when the glittering eyes were turned full toward him, though they failed to pierce the sheltering covert, and with a sickening horror David recognized the face of Simon Girty, the renegade! On the instant, David lifted his rifle and fired full at the crouching figure. From Girty’s lips broke the roar of an infuriated Animal; he staggered back with the impact of the shot, but he did not fall nor yet did he lift his weapon to his shoulder; and David saw that his shot had struck only the lock of Girty’s rifle, rendering it useless but leaving the man unharmed. With a bellow of rage, Girty bounded ttriirwdtiim,swinging the broken weapon like a club. There was no time to reload. David leaped to the top of the bank and braced himself for the onset. As the clubbed rifle of the outlaw rose above his head, David swung his own upward to meet it. They crashed together and splintered with a shock; and in the same second, flinging the broken stock away, the mighty arms of Simon Girty flung themselves around David. With the strength of desperation, David strove- -to -Opposq,,the terrible sinews. Back and forth over the frozen grass the two men fought like, beasts, heaving, struggling, stumbling over roots, locked in an embrace as deadly as that of the, cougar. , But it

could not last long; David felt his strength ebbing under the terrific strain and his breath grew short and gasping; when suddenly the earth gave way beneath their feet and with a last despairing effort David twisted himself above as they toppled over the low bluff, and the fight was over. Girty, falling underneath, had struck his head upon a stone; and his arms relaxed • their hold. David stood up, panting. Girty lay very still. But David knew that he must make sure that the man was dead before he could be safe himself. He felt in his girdle for his

Mke; but it had fallen out during the . , fctale. Clambering up the bank *aw it lying on the ground fingers closed upon the > kught he heard a sob. Ihkin h’.o in ML. '

“Save yourself,” she murmured faintly, “there are Indians coming!” He kneeled and cut the thongs that boiind her ankles and then those of her wrists. '4 s s he tried to stand. _she swayed weakly and fainted. There was no time to lose; he lifted her limp form upon his shoulders and ran staggeringly in the direction of the .troops. He could never them—-the marching column and- the slow-moving wagons mustbe a mile awaybyriow. He stumbled on with desperate exertion. He reached the winding creek again, laid down his unconscious jjur"den and dashed the icy water in Toinette’s face. Her great blue eyes, shadowed by dark circles of exhaustion, opened slowly, looked ht Aum •Jstyikly. help ise !” s> t'-We shook 'flA by tne f sn&ulfers> Vstilnd up! Try'!” The light of consciousness came back into her eyes; she rose tremblingly and tried to walk. They found a place where the water gurgled over a stony bar, ankle-deep; crossed it and struggled up the bank on the farther side? As they reached the top there came to their ears the dreadful exultant yells of the Indians, three hundred yards behind. David put his arms around the girl’s shoulders and they ran on with palsied limbs. They seemed to be struggling on in that nightmare where the leaden and the pursuers fleet. Nearer and nearer came the fierce yelping. At last David and Toinette stood still and looked at each other. David drew his knife. She nodded, silently praying him to deliver her with that swift death from the- tortures of the savages. “Oh, God, not yet I” hemmed; and drevf her on in blind haste.-'Twice he shouted, with all the strength of his gasping lungs. Was it an echo, or an answering shout that came back? And then there came a burst of the sweetest music in the world: the cheers of a score of Harrison’s men, crashing through the woods a hundred yards away. The chase -was suddenly reversed. At the first shout of the backwoodsmen, the baffled Indians turned and fled. The rescuing party pursued them but a little way, firing vainly at the fleeing forms dodging among the tree trunks. Young Georgie Croghan, Harrison’s aid, was in command of the little squad. They had heard Gifty’s shot, fired at David, and a little later, David’s shot; and had come back from the troops with all speed. Toinette had sunk to the ground, laughing and sobbing; they gathered around her with wild hurrahs, a torrent of eager questions. They bore her on their shoulders back to the marching men. How the cheering ran along the line as the men caught sight of her! General Harrison and his staff galloped up one by one and shouted like boys. Old “Wash” Johnston leaned over and kissed her face, stained with happy tears. “I'm old enough, my dear,” he said. .And the men cheered again.

~A dozen times she was obliged to times the men lifted David on their shoulders and cheered him to the echo. But through all the rejoicing and the thanksgiving i David’s heart remained heavy; for the breach still seemedTmpossible to bridge. She, too, suffered; tormented by a debt of gratitude due one whose treason to his country must forever bar him from her love. Treason? Why was it, then, that David seemed sucii a hefo to all his comrades among the militiamen? Why had all of them received hitff-into their hearts like a brother? Toinette struggled all 'through the day with the secret which she thought so horrible. Little by little, she came to the conclusion that David had managed in some way to win a pardon from Governor Harrison, before the trip to the Prophet’s camp had’ been begun.

She went back over the circumstances of that tragic meeting in Corydon, when she and Ike had confronted David and found the proofs of treachery upon him. What had happened after she had left that scene? Perhaps Ike had prevailed on David to renounce his allegiance to England. Perhaps, then, he had interceded with Governor Harrison in his friend’s behalf. She pictured stern young gn-gapnrtf* oc cnvinff Ffiivlfl’s ITFtfL must depend on his faithful service to the territory in the future. Ike had never spoken one word to her about David from that day on. Little by little, as she went over each point in her heart, a sense that she had been tricked out of her love grew op, her, a sense that somehow she «had cheated herself. In the sleepless hours of the night that followed, she felt her eyes smarting with tears. What could she do? What could she do? The whole world seemed against her! ' , She could not bring herself to voice her inward trouble to anyone, least of all to David. She watched him striding along, among his comrades, jesting with them as only men whohave passed through death together can jest, and her torment almost mad- 1 ' dened her. What a sorryf tangle she dmu got herself into! What a little fool ka had been! 'But Ijfcvid, too, she > fcfaerself, had as unrea-

in his fixed resolve not to forget what had gone before. Why couldn’t he be sensible and talk to her as if nothing had' happened? ,As for herself, she would die before she begged his forglveness. And so matters stood when they- reached Fort Harrison, on the homeward journey. At Fort Harrison they found Ike Blackford, sound arid strong again. Toinette tad dreaded meeting him. He came toward her, his face bright with joy, but clouded when he realized that David and she had not yet settled their silly quarrel. Ike was miserable; but he kept silence. He knew better than to thrust his paw into that fire. . Th&.wmmd< tn the >rt HBsou mndhhe; johrney to Vincennes was soon accomplished. There they found the lady .mule Priscilla, and when the march to Corydon was resumed Toinette was ferried on the jenny’s patient back, while Ike strode beside her. And Ike laughed, striving to make her forget; but strove in vain D On the twenty-fifth of November they reached Corydon. Runners had gone on before with the news of victory; and the whole village came out to meet them as they neared the town; women ran among .the men even as they marched and flung their arms around the necks of brothers, fathers, husbands, though some sought in vain for those who would never return, or threw themselves with weeping beside the bodies of those who lay upon the litters. But a hundred hearts were happy and thanked God; and happiest of all was a little old man, Patrice O’Bannon, who strained his daughter to his breast and kissed her again and again with tears mingling with his kisses; for she had been brought back to him as from the grave.

CHAPTER XVI. • k The Poison Lingers* David stayed behind in Vincennes, going back to his work at the trading house of Francois Vigo. But he stayed thqre only a week or two before his loneliness made existence without a sight of Toinette an existence not to be endured. He hated the -sight of the ill-smelling store, with its heaps of green skins, its crackling bundles of furs, hated the sight of the cheerful Hoosiers and French who thronged the streets of the old capital, and loathed the wretched Piankeshaw Indians who slept In the doorway. Suddenly, one morning, he told old Vigo that he must leave; and the next day found him once more in Corydon, where Ike welcomed him with beaming face. Still the breach was open! Tt is so hard for young men and maidens to lay down their pride! To Toinette the days were almost unbearable. David acted like a bear with a sore head, she thought It was just what she have expected, she tpld herself. It is perfectly silly to be so big and flinty, she was sure. David had never spoken ten words to

her at anyone time,=sineethe .-day..ha had knocked everything into a cocked hat by telling her he loved her. People who loved each other didn’t act as they did, she knew; why, whenever they ha 4 been together she felt as though something tremendous, something bigger than she was, was in the very air around and on the point of exploding. She didn’t approve of explosions, still less of things, nameless forces, that were bigger than she was. When* she had talked to David in the old days It was like talkineto the heart of one of those terrible creatures of steel, about which Mr. Livingston had written her father—that great throbbeing caldron which they fed with logs and which palpitated with fury and drove a boat from Pittsburgh to New Orleans in a month. It was bigger than she was and unmanageable and it was not at all her idea of love. Whenever she thought about it, that is to say about the atmosphere which was immediately and mysteriously evolved out of common day whenever David and she encountered, her eyes filled with tears of vexation. As for being sorry, that was another matter. If David wished to be flint, she was perfectly capable of being steel. Yet she thought about him every day.

—Her father, for the firstHffie roner experience, failed to be of any help to '■ her. At home, in New Orleans; *she had gone to him with the story of each boy who had danced attendance upon hei; and he had seen them as she did and together they had laughed each cavalier into oblivion; but she found it impossible to discuss this new problem with him. ■ It was.no use telling her father that she was afraid of something she couldn’t name. If it was true that she had trembled from head to foot when she felt that ths sparks which flashed back and forth from her steel and David’s flint were dangerously near a powder mine somewhere inside herr-that was her affair and she wofilff have to drown it with her own contempt as best she might.

Accordingly, the little old gentleman, who was sincerely troubled by the evident breach between his daughter and David, got small satisfaction from Toinette when he stuck a cautious finger Into the difficulty. ‘There was nothing wrong and «be was perfectly happy and if David chose to be a bear with a sore head that was his

concern and not theirs; and Mr. O’Bannon wisely forbore further attempts to effect a reconciliation. Ike Blackford, who remained a stanch friend to each, was likewise constrained to remain in troubled silence, he had opened a wellmeaning mouth to each in turn and had got no cakes to fill it at either fair. And at last her “happiness” was so perfect that she resolved to endure it no longer. She waited until she found him alone in the shop, the little room which had onee meant to him the beginning of life’s joyousness and life’s hopes; and which was now a prison house whence ghosts of yesterdays mocked him with

Toinette summoned all her strength. The tower of pride was- tottering ;_lt can be sent down in ruins so easily when a girl throws down the weapon of her sex! “I can’t stand it any longer, David,” she said breathlessly, “to see you suffer. I know you are suffering, because I —because I—because it hurts me so!” What a glorious crash the tower made! David took a quick step toward her. His pulses throbbed ungovernably. “Toinette, -what do you mean?” His face was glorious. “Have you—do you believe iu me now?” “You have blotted out all the past, David,” she said simply. —— The joy suddenly left his face. “But the past"” he said, in dread of what her answer might be, “the past — have you forgotten why you drove me from you? Have you forgotten what treason you charged me with?”

She waved the words aside. “That is all past now, David. It is the future that is everything. And I know now what you mean to me.” _ He clenched his hands at his side. He would be patient. Was it possible that she still believed the empty slander against his loyalty? “No, Toinette,” he said, as gently as he could, “I have not forgotten your charge against me. I can never forget it until you say that you were wrong.” The tower of pride reared itself up again from its dust. Why must 'tie' ask her to humble herself still further, when she had already said so much? She was silent. He waited for her answer, but none came; and at lastr IftFbowed gravely.

“Then it is useless to talk of—forgetting. Please let us end this foolish play.” He moved as though to go on with his work. “Wait, David!” she said tremulously-. Her eyes were blinded with tears. Her fingers had been plucking nervously at a purple ribbon which hung from her bodice. “Wait, I want to give you—a remembrance.” She lifted the great shears from the counter and clipped the silken cord from its fastenings. A tear ran down and stained it with a darker color. Her fingers twisted the sorry, token;quickly twisted it Into a wistful emblem such as happy, lovers laughingly give each other —a lover’s knot She raised her face and her blue eyes smiled wanly through the mist that clouded them. “Here, David, take this—just to be foolish, just to be foolish for once.” He took it. His hand was trembling. But his face was steel, unforgiving. All his yearning for her burned in his breast, a white caldron of passion; but around it closed the unyielding walls of his cold passion for his honor. He 1 could never forget that she had doubted him once. Until that stain had bedn washed away, he could not forgive. He remembered the young Sir Philip Sidney of whom her father, old Patrice, had so often told him —of his' proud guardianship of the white shield of manly honor; he himself had been only a wearer, but .here, In this new country, he was a man; and his' honor must be first!

“Toinette,” he said in a low voice, “who told you that I had acted as a spy?” —•*" The blood rushed to her cheeks. This, too, she would give him. “Doctor Elliott,” she whispered, with bent head. ' -r “Who is he?” cried David in a fury. “That young doctor who comes here from Louisville? In God’s name, what has he against me? I’ve never seen the man! But do you believe him still?” “You have never —never denied — never—” she stopped miserably. She could not raise her eyes to face him. / “Then .nothing else matters,, Toinette.” H “Oh, David, that doesn’t matter either!” she cried. “Nothing matters! I. want you in spite of that!” But he shook his head. She became very pale again. “I have offered all I have,” she said proudly, “I have nothing moag to give.” “I can take nothing from yH^ while you believe me guilty. My name is all I have to give you." filer answer scarcely reached his ear: “Oh, David, let our love be epcugh.” The light had faded from the sky. David looked down-at her bent hea& and trembled., “Where is this man Elliott now?” he demanded suddenly. >

“I 00 not know,” faltereu xuuitiu, “but, ph, Davidt—” “Good-by!”[ he said. She did ndt answer, but held out her hand. He paid no heed. With a sob she turned and ran falteringly toward her father’s house. David set about the work he had to do. He directly to Blackford’s room at the taVern. Ike was not there. In a corner, beneath the wooden table where adozenlaw books lay scattered, was a narrow box. Ike had often exhibited its contents to him. He lifted fit upon the table and threw open the lid. Within lay two of those deadly weapons which none but gentlemen cherished—two dueling pistols, brownbarreled, glistening, long and lean as lightning. He drew forth one of them, tried its hammer; it moved swiftly, noiselessly. He loaded it, fitted the flint into the lock, placed it in the bosom of his coat, and went out, silently, his face white as linen. Night had fallen. Far to - the east a sheet of flame flickered palely. Long after, a faint roll of thunder followed. A drop of icy rain struck his face.

He passed swiftly from house to house, inquiring from each if there the young doctor from Louisville, young Doctor Elliott, was within; and? though several had seen him that .day, none knew where he might be found. It was late when someone he questioned recalled that he thought he had seen Elliott that night at Conrod’s tavern, outside the village. « • He' set out on the road that led to the east The storm had reached its height.

CHAPTER XVII. Young Doctor Elliott, lying prone on his blanket on the hewn logs of the floor of Conrod’s tavern, stirred uneasily in his sleep. Outside, the artillery of the last thunderstorm of the autumn rumbled and crashed above the steady rush of the rain. A hand fell upon the latch and the door burstQpen .before, the fury of the wind. Elliott woke to find the rain driving into his faee. He was about to rise to close the door when the whole rooSi-was struck out of darkness by the dazzling blue of shept lightning. It was gone as instantly as it came and the crash of thunder which accompanied it drowned his cry. in that single moment of the blinding flash he had seen, outlined against the shimmering sky, franlted in the rectangle of the door, the dreadful figure of a crouching Indian, knife in hand. His limbs froze in horror. The room was now as black as midnight, but his eyes ached with the impress of the lightning glare and the image that had been struck into them. Still in the pitch darkness he could see that sickening sac evil, its bloodshot eyes peering malevolently into the room.

_ He heard the rain-soaked moccasins of the savage take two steps inward., Before he could cry out again, a second flash of Jightnlng illumined the room, and showed a second man, tall, pale with anger, his foot on the threshold. With the hoarse snarl of a wild beast, the Indian leaped at the figure in the doorway. They grappled. In the darkness Elliott heard their quick terrible breathing as they swayed in a struggle for life. A stool trippedthem and they fell, rolling against him. Again the lightning flared and he saw the knife, dashed from the hand, lying beside him. -The white man was beneath, his face hidden by the straining shoulders of the savage. Blindly Elliott seized the weapon and struck with hysterical force. The man beneath shook off the relaxed arms of the hideous intruder and rose unsteadily to his feet Then he laughed aloud in the darkness. - “I can’t see who you are, friend,” he said, “but you’ve certainly saved me from a close call.” Elliott made no answer. He was sobbing weakly, his hand ’still clutching the blood-stained knife. From the upper room came the sound bf voices and the tavernkeeper caine hurrlg<UY down the narrow ladder leading from the loft, followed, by the awakened guests. Someone struck a flint; candles were lighted. , (TO BE CONTINUED.)

They Crashed Together and Splintered With a Shock.

The Name Burst From Him Like the Cry of the Soul Itself.