“Be quiet, Shad,” Matt said. He walked up to the small man, ignoring the pointed musket. “We’ve been on your trail ever since you crossed Slippery Rock. An Abenaki was also on your trail. We jumped him a few miles back.”
“Yes,” Shad said, coming up to them, “but it was nothin’ much. That Abenaki was only trying to run you and your friend down. He was only dolled up in his war paint and armed like a French fort. Matt here shot him dead after he’d bowled me’n Chief over like reeds in a high wind. You talk about scalpin’! That Abenaki would’ve had my scalp on his hip right now if it hadn’t been for Matt here!” He began to pound Matt’s shoulder with sledgehammer blows of admiration.
Matt dodged to one side and frowned at the big fellow.
The little man looked confused and slightly embarrassed. He tried to smile at Matt and cock a dubious eye at Shad at the same time.
“I don’t want to appear ungrateful,” he mumbled hesitantly. “I didn’t know that—”
“Gist!” a sharp voice called from somewhere beyond them; a voice that managed the difficult feat of sounding both pleasant and commanding. “Bring the gentlemen in here. I think you’ve kept them out in the cold long enough.”
2
MURDER TOWN
Two men, an Indian and a white man, were in a small secluded rock-ribbed glen. The white man sat on a log warming his hands before a fire in the snow. The Indian stood aside, slightly in the rear, and watched the newcomers without a hint of expression.
The white man stood up, moving with an abrupt gracefulness, showing Matt that he was tall, well-proportioned, and neatly clad in winter garments that strangely enough would be accepted in the best of Tidewater homes or in the heart of a howling wilderness. He was a man who would fit in, anywhere.
He was obviously a gentleman, yet not of the stiff self-important English breed. He was quite young: about Shad’s age. His face was both bluff and handsome. He smiled, showing bad teeth, and said:
“Welcome, sirs! Come closer and warm yourselves. I gather from what little I chanced to overhear”—turning his warm smile on Shad—“that I owe you my thanks. I’m Major George Washington of the Virginia militia. This other gentleman is Christopher Gist, my friend and guide. And this”—with an easy wave of his hand toward the silent Indian—“Half King, my friend.”
Matt and Shad shook hands with Gist and the major and inclined their heads to Half King; and Chief, who liked to imitate Shad, shook hands also, but ignored Half King, who in turn ignored him, there being no love lost between a Seneca of one tribe and a Seneca of another.
The major studied Chief closely, then turned to Matt. “Is he a Laurel Ridge Seneca? Do you trust him?”
“Do you trust Half King?” Matt countered.
“I have reason to. Half King sees that the French are taking his lands from him. He has turned to me for help.”
“Well, major,” Shad rumbled heavily, “we got a better reason to trust Chief. Chief here don’t care a hang about land, nor the French or English neither. Chief just likes me’n Matt.”
Washington canted his head slightly toward Shad, saying, “That’s a reason for trust that’s hard to beat. So be it. Now what about this Abenaki I heard you telling Gist of?”
Matt quickly repeated his tale, thereby cutting Shad’s opportunity to embellish the facts, and finished with—“Why would the French want you murdered?”
Washington was silent for a moment. He stared at the fire reflectively, then seemed to come to a carefully weighed decision.
“I see no harm in telling you that I am acting on behalf of the Ohio Company. Being trappers, you probably know that the Company has penetrated the Ohio country to the domain of the Miamis and beyond.
“But the French view this trangression with alarm, fearing they will lose their influence with the tribes of the upper Ohio Valley, and presage the ultimate destruction of their fortified line of communication between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico. That is why they have erected forts at Presque Isle, at le Boeuf, and at Venango.
“Naturally the Company complained of these hostile demonstrations; their lands lay within the chartered limits of Virginia . . . so Robert Dinwiddie, one of the Company, and now Governor of Virginia, decided to send a letter of remonstrance to M. de St. Pierre, the French commander at Fort le Boeuf, asking the French, politely, to remove themselves. I was elected to carry that letter.”
Shad whistled his admiration. “From Williamsburg, major? That’s nearly four hundred miles!”
Washington smiled. “As the crow flies. However, to a man on horse it is perhaps double. There were eight of us in the beginning, and the journey to le Boeuf was accomplished in forty-one days. After leaving Venango on our return, we found our horses so weak that we left them and their drivers in charge of Vanbraam, a friend of mine. Gist, Half King and I have been afoot ever since.”
“How did St. Pierre receive you and your demand, major?” Matt asked.
Washington appeared amused. “Much as you would expect a French officer and gentleman to do. He thanked us, entertained us for four days, and then delivered into my hands a sealed letter for Governor Dinwiddie.”
Shad hunched forward on his haunches, his fat face working with curiosity. “Well, what did the letter say? Ain’t you opened it yet?”
Washington looked sharply at Shad. “Opened it?” he echoed. “Why of course not. It’s not mine to open. I’m only the bearer.” Then his look softened, as though he understood the nature of Shad’s curiosity. “I can say this much on my own observation: the French are well fortified. I’d say they planned on staying where they are.”
“And how were things at Venango?” Matt asked, giving Shad a nudge to quiet him.
“Much the same. Joncaire is in command there. He has a friend with him, a young half-breed by the name of Cass, I think.”
Matt started. “Cassanna? I know him. His mother was a St. Francis Abenaki and his father a French officer. When I was a youngster the father brought Cassanna to my father’s stockade near Harrisburg and stayed with us for two weeks.”
Washington nodded, staring soberly at the fire. “I couldn’t bring myself to trust those two gentlemen. Oh, they were polite enough, but I discovered later that they’d gone behind my back and had tried to turn Half King against me.”
“Bad,” Chief announced suddenly. “Cassanna—much bad name.”
Washington turned his attention to the old Indian again.
“I see your friend is somewhat civilized. What is he chief of?”
Shad beamed at Chief proudly, saying, “He ain’t chief of nothin’. I just call him that ’cause it makes him happy. He don’t have much to do with them Laurel Ridgers, and they don’t have much truck with him. Tell you what, major, since Chief took up with me, he’s decided that he’d rather be a full-blown American instead a just an old Mingo. That’s why it’s harder’n iron to get Chief to talk Seneca, ’less he wants to tell me something private-like.
“Trouble is, though, now that he’s got himself all civilized with his English words and handshaking and hallelujah religion, his tribe sort a frowns on him—thinks he’s dandified himself a mite too much. But it don’t seem to bother Chief none. He didn’t even kick when they chased him out a the village this summer.”
“Why did they desire his departure?”
Shad looked sincerely indignant. “It’s the fault of civilization, major! Poor old Chief was a victim of the white man’s habits, and when he took to returning