XXI
At last I declared that I must camp at the first brook we met, and so kept on, stumbling, and ready to fall down with fatigue. At this time, being come some two miles farther into warm sunlight and an open glade, all the brighter for the whiteness of the snow, I came to a stand and said, “Here is our stream; let us camp.” At this time Gist and I were near together, and the Indian about twenty paces away. Of a sudden he turned and fired at us. I cried out to Gist if he was shot. He said no, and we ran in on the fellow before he could load, and seized him and took his gun. Gist was for killing him at once, but this I would not allow, and we contented ourselves with taking his gun, and made him walk on in front. Gist, who was much vexed, said if we did not shoot him, which was the better way, we must contrive to fool him. At last it was agreed to pretendwe believed his excuses as to the shooting being an accident, and to let him go to his cabin. He said he knew we would never trust him further, and was pleased to be told he might go home and get some jerked venison ready, and that we would camp that night and follow his tracks in the snow at morning. We returned his gun, but took all his powder. We gave him a cake of bread, and Gist followed him until he had gone a mile. After my companion came back to me, we moved on rapidly for an hour and made a big fire, and, as it was night, took, by the light of the blaze, a course by compass, and set out, leaving, to my regret, the great warm flame behind us.
It was now clear and very cold. All night long we pushed on, now and then making a light with flint and steel to see the compass, and trying to observe the stars. We were well assured that we should be pursued, and on this account never halted the next day, and hardly spoke a word until, at evening, we came upon the Alleghany River.
There we made camp, and were up at break of day.
The ice lay out some sixty feet from thetwo shores, and between were masses of ice afloat and a great flow of water. Having only one hatchet, and that not very good, we were all day contriving to build a raft. At sundown we pushed it over the shore ice and got afloat. Midway we got caught in the jam of ice-cakes, and as I pushed with my setting-pole, the swift current and a block of ice caught it, and I was cast into the deep water. I caught on to a log of the raft, and Gist giving me a hand, I crawled on to the raft. I had lost my pole, and to go to either shore was not possible, and when we drifted on to an island I was thankful enough, and the raft swept away in the flood.
Very soon Gist had a great fire burning, and by this I dried myself; but to keep warm was impossible, for the cold was the greatest I have ever known, and so intense was it that Gist would not allow me to sleep, but made me walk about, although I was ready to drop, saying if we slept and the fire should die, so should we. By good fortune there was a large jam of drifted wood on the upper end of the island, and thus we had fuel sufficient.
What with fatigue and the cold increasingas the night went on, even Gist, who was of great endurance and hopeful, was concerned lest we should have been followed, and, as the island afforded small shelter, be shot from the shore. This troubled me less than to keep warm, for there was not snow enough to build a hut, than which there is no better shelter.
About ten o’clock that night we found that the river was rising, so that it would take little more to flood us. What I found worst of all was the delay. I said things could hardly be worse, but that the cold was such as would freeze the river by daylight. He said that was true, and we went back to the fire and shared a part of a flask of brandy St. Pierre gave me. Fortunately we had food enough. Gist kept me and himself awake with amazing stories of Indians and French, and of great bears. But, contrive as we could, Gist had his toes froze, and had to have them rubbed with snow to save them. I was well pleased at last to see red in the sky to eastward, and when we found the ice-cakes froze hard together we made haste to cross to the shore. There, being out of shot and the sun warmer every minute, we built another fire and ate breakfast,and took, each in turn, an hour’s sleep.
As we walked away, Gist said there was small fear of Indians either in the darkness or in great cold, for they liked neither, and he thought the cold had perhaps saved us from pursuit.
This was the case at Valley Forge in ’78, when, although my soldiers suffered greatly, the snows and the cold were such as to keep Sir William Howe in his lines.
From the top of a hill, as I looked back on the river, Gist said: “You will never again, sir, be in a worse business than that, nor ever see the like again.” But this I did, when, on the night before Christmas, in 1776, I crossed the Delaware in a boat with General Knox, amid as great peril of ice, on our way to beat up the Hessian quarters at Trenton.
While we were in danger, Gist had been silent; but now that we were released from anxiety and on a clear trail, he talked all the time, whether I made answer or not. I remember little of what he said, being engaged in thinking how soon I should be able to reach Williamsburg. I recall, however, his surprising me with a question asto whether I had ever before had a man shoot at me. I said never, and having my mind thus turned to the matter, felt it to be strange that so great an escape and such nearness to death had not more impressed me. But, in fact, I had no time to think before we caught the man, and after that the great misery of the cold so distressed me that how to keep warm employed my mind.