With Washington in the West
9781465677594
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
“Uncle Joe, an Indian is coming this way, down the Creek trail.” “An Indian, Dave! Can you make out who it is?” “Not yet. He’s in the shadow of the hemlocks.” The youth pointed along the brushwood bordering the watercourse. “There! do you see him?” “I do. He is trailing a gun, too, and wears white feathers. It must be White Buffalo.” “White Buffalo! Oh, Uncle Joe, do you think he’d be able to get back so soon?—over the mountains and rivers, and all?” “These redskins can travel swift enough when they want to, Dave, and like as not your father told him to bring the word back as quick as he could.” Joseph Morris continued to keep his eyes fixed on the trail, which wound in and out under the low-drooping trees. “Yes, it’s White Buffalo, and he’s coming straight for our cabin.” “I hope he brings good news,” went on Dave Morris. “Shall I go and tell Aunt Lucy? More than likely he’ll want something to eat—they all do when they come here.” “Yes, tell her to fix up a good supper for the redskin, and tell her, too, to get that new dress goods I bought at Winchester last week out of the way. If she doesn’t White Buffalo will surely want some of it for himself or his squaw—he can’t hold back on bright colors—although he’s not half so much of a beggar as some of them.” “I will. But, Uncle Joe, you’ll bring him right up to the cabin, won’t you? I’m so impatient to hear from father.” “Yes, I’ll bring him right up.” “It seems an age since father went away,” added Dave Morris. With these words the boy turned away from the bank of the creek and, axe in hand—for he had been helping his uncle cut down some scrub timber on the edge of a small clearing—moved quickly through a patch of corn and then into a belt of timberland composed of beautiful walnut, hickory, and mountain ash. Beyond the belt was a second clearing, long and narrow, spread out upon both banks of a brook flowing into the creek previously mentioned. In the midst of this was a rude but comfortable log cabin, long, low, and narrow, the eaves at one end coming down in a porch-like roof to shelter the kitchen door. There were four rooms in this home in the wilderness and all upon the ground floor, the upper floor under the roof tree being little more than a loft in which to store certain winter supplies. David Morris was a youth of fourteen, tall, strong, and by no means ill looking. His manner was open and frank, and this disposition made for him ready friends wherever he went. Since earliest childhood he had been used to a life in the open, and this made him appear somewhat older than his years. He could plow a field or cut down a tree almost as well as a man, and he was far from being ignorant of the use of firearms. Indeed, the winter before, he had gone out hunting with old Sam Barringford, one of the best of the hunters and trappers in the Virginia valley, and had acquitted himself in a manner to earn the ardent praise of that individual. As a matter of fact, Dave would rather have gone hunting and fishing any time than stick to the work on the farm, but he knew his duty to his uncle and his aunt and did not seek to evade it. Dave’s taste for woods and waters—for hunting, trapping and fishing—came to the lad naturally. His grandfather had been of New Jersey stock, and had drifted into Pennsylvania with the thrifty German pioneers who afterward did so much to make that great state what it is to-day. But old Ezra Morris could not remain in sight of the farms and plantations and had gone on south-westward, into what was then termed the great Virginia valley, between the Shenandoah and the upper Potomac Rivers. Here he had built himself a cabin, and it was here that James Morris, the father of Dave, was born and raised. The surroundings were wild, and the majority of neighbors—if those living half a mile or more away could be called such—were Indians.
