The Big Brother

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"We mustn't stay here. Those red skins are working around this way, and 'll
find us. Crawl on your hands and knees, all of you, and follow me."

"Whar's ye gwine to, Mas' Sam?" asked Joe.

"_Sh, sh_," said Judie. "Don't talk Joe, but do as Brother Sam tells
you. Don't you know he always knows what's best? Besides, maybe he
hasn't quite found out where he's going yet, himself."

But Joe was not as confident of Sam's genius for doing the right thing
as Judie was, and so, after crawling for some distance, he again broke
silence.

"Miss Judie."

"What do you want, Joe?"

"Does _you_ know whar Mas' Sam's a-takin' us to, an' what he's gwine to
do when he gits dar?"

"No, of course I don't."

"How you know den, dat he's doin' de bes' thing?"

But the conversation was terminated by a word from Sam, who said, in a
whisper,

"Joe, I'll tell you _where we're going if you keep talking_."

"Whar, Mas' Sam?"

"Into the hands of the Indians. Keep your mouth shut, if you don't want
your hair lifted off your head."

As the black boy certainly did not want his hair cut Indian fashion, he
became silent at once.

When they had travelled in this way until they could no longer hear the
yells of the Indians and the popping of guns at the fort, Sam called a
halt. It was now nearly midnight.

"Here is a good place to spend the rest of the night," he said, "and we
must be as still as we can. We can stay here till to-morrow night, and
then we must try to get to Fort Glass. It's about twelve or thirteen
miles from here."

"Le's go on now, Mas' Sam; I'se afear'd to stay here," said the black
boy.

"We can't," said Sam. "I got scratched in the foot with a stray bullet,
just as we went into the thicket there at the fort, and I can't walk. I
am a little faint and must lie down."

At this little Judie, who fairly idolized Sam, and felt perfectly safe
from Indians and everything else when he was with her, was disposed to
set up a wail of sorrow and fright. If poor Sam were wounded, he might
die, she thought, and the thought was too much for her.

Sam soothed her, however, and the poor, tired little girl was soon fast
asleep in his arms.

"Bring some moss, boys," he said to his companions, "and make a bed for
Judie here by this log."

When he had laid her down, he drew off his shoe and wrapped the wounded
foot in some of the long gray moss which hangs in great festoons from
the trees of that region. Joe, with the true negro genius for sleeping,
was already snoring at the foot of a tree. Sam quietly called Tom to his
side.

"Tom," said he, "my foot is bleeding pretty badly, and I can't see till
morning to do anything for it. I have wrapped it up in moss, stuffing
the softest parts into the wound, and that may stop it after a while.
But I may not be able to travel to-morrow night, and if I can't you must
leave me here and try to find your way to Fort Glass, with Judie. You
must remember that her life will depend on you, and try to do your duty
without flinching. Don't try to travel in the daytime. Go on to the
south as fast as you can of nights, keeping in the woods and thickets,
and as soon as you see a streak of gray in the sky find a good
hiding-place and stop. You can get some corn and some sweet potatoes out
of any field, but you must eat them raw, as it wont do to make a fire.
Now go to sleep. I may be able to travel myself, but if I shouldn't,
remember you are a brave man's son, and must do your duty as a
Hardwicke should." And with that he shook the little fellow's hand.

After a time Tom, overcome by weariness, fell asleep, but Sam remained
awake all night, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his foot. He
knew that if he could go on with the others their chance of safety would
be vastly greater than without him, and so he was disposed to leave no
effort untried to be in a fit condition to travel the next night. When
morning came Sam called Tom and Joe, and directed them to examine his
wound, into which he could not see very well.

"Is the blood of a bright red, as it comes out, or a dark red?" he
asked.

"Bright," they both said.

"Then it comes from an artery," he replied. "Are you sure it is bright
red?"

The boys were not quite sure.

"Does it come in a steady stream or in spurts?" he asked.

"It spurts, and stops and spurts again," said Tom.

"It is an artery, then," said Sam. "Look and see if you can find the
place it comes from."

The boys made a careful examination and at last found the artery, a
small one, which was cut only about half way across.

"All right," said Sam. "If that's the case, I think I know how to stop
the blood. Put your finger in, and _break the artery clear in two_".

"O Sam, then you'll bleed to death," said Tom.

"No I won't. Do as I tell you."

"Let me cut it, then. It wont hurt you so much."

"No, no, no," cried Sam, staying his hand. "Don't cut it. Tear it, I
tell you, and be quick."

Tom tore it, and the blood stopped almost immediately. Sam then bound
the foot up with strips of cloth torn from his clothing, and as he did
so said:

"Now I'll tell you both all about this so that you'll know what to do
another time. If you know only _what_ to do, you may forget; but if you
know _why_, you'll remember. The blood comes out from the heart to all
parts of the body in arteries, and when it leaves the heart it is bright
red, because it is clean and pure. Your heart is a sort of force-pump,
and every time it beats it forces the blood all over you. The arteries
fork and branch out in every direction, until they terminate in
millions of little veins smaller than the finest hairs, and these
running together make bigger veins, through which the blood is carried
to the lungs. In the veins it flows steadily, because the _capillary_
veins, the ones like hairs, are so small that the spurts can't be felt
beyond them. The blood in the veins is thick and dark, because it has
taken up all the impurities from the system; but when it gets to the
lungs your breath takes up all these and carries them off, leaving the
blood pure again for another round. Now the arteries are long elastic
tubes, that is to say, they will stretch a little, and fly back again,
if you pull them, and when one is cut nearly but not quite off, the
contraction keeps it wide open. If it is cut or torn entirely in two,
the end draws back, and nine times in ten, if the artery is a small one,
the drawing back shuts the end up entirely and the blood stops. But it
is better to tear it than to cut it, because when torn the edges are
jagged and it shrivels up more. I don't quite understand why, myself,
but that is what the surgical books say. When anybody is hurt and
bleeding badly, the first thing to do is to find out whether it is an
artery or a vein that's cut. If the blood is bright and comes out in
spurts, it's an artery. If it is dark, and flows steadily, it's a vein.
If it's an artery and isn't cut quite in two, tear it in two. If that
don't stop it, you must make a knot in a handkerchief and then press
your finger above the cut in different places till you find where the
artery is by the blood stopping. Then put the knot on that place and tie
the handkerchief around the limb. You can stop a vein in the same way
and more easily, but if it's a vein you must tie the handkerchief so
that the cut place will be between it and the heart. You see the blood
comes from the heart in the arteries, and goes back towards the heart in
the veins, and so to stop an artery you tie inside, and to stop a vein
outside of the cut place."

I think it altogether probable that Master Sam would have gone into
quite a lecture on anatomy and minor surgery, if little Judie had not
waked up just then complaining of hunger. What he told the boys,
however, is well worth remembering. He took little Judie on his lap and
sent the two boys out to find a field of potatoes or corn. When they
came back all four made a breakfast of raw sweet potatoes, drinking
water which Tom brought in his wool hat from a creek not very far away.
Sam grew stronger during the day, and at night the party set out on
their way to Fort Glass. Sam's foot was not painful, but he was afraid
of starting the blood again, and so he held it up, walking with a rude
crutch which he had made during the day.

CHAPTER IV.

SAM FINDS IT NECESSARY TO THINK.

It was twelve miles from their first encampment to Fort Glass, and if
Sam had been strong and well, and the way open, they might easily have
made the journey before morning, by carrying little Judie a part of the
way. As it was, they had to go through the thickest woods to avoid
Indians, and must move cautiously all the time, as they could never know
when they might stumble upon a party of savages around a camp-fire, or
sleeping under a tree. Those of my readers who live in the far South
know what thick woods are in that part of the country, but others may
not. The trees grow as close together as they can, and the underbrush
chokes up the space between them pretty effectually. Then the great
vines of various kinds wind themselves in and out until in many places
they literally stop the way so that a strong man with an axe could not
go forward a hundred feet in a week. In other places the thick cane
makes an equally impenetrable barrier, and Sam needed all his knowledge
of the forest to enable him to work his way southward at night through
such woods as those. The little party of wanderers sometimes found
themselves apparently walled in in the pitchy darkness, with no possible
way out but Sam's instinct, as he called it, which was simply his
ability to remember the things he had learned, and to put two facts
together to find out a third, always extricated them. Once they found
themselves in a swamp, where the water was about eight inches deep. The
underbrush, canes and vines made it impossible for them to see any great
distance in any direction.

"Oh, I know we will never get out of here," whined poor little Judie,
ready to sink down in the water.

"Yes we will, lady bird," said Sam cheerily. "What's the good of having
a big brother if he can't take care of you? Tell me that, will you?
Keep your courage up, little girl, I think I know where we are. Let me
think."

"I know wha' we is. Mas' Sam," said Joe.

"Where, Joe," asked Sam, incredulously.

"We'se dun' los',--dat's wha' we is," replied Joe.

Sam laughed.

"I know more than that," said Tom, "I know _where_ we're lost."

"Wha', Mas' Tom?" cried Joe, eagerly.

"In a swamp," said Tom.

"And I know what swamp," said Sam, "which is better still. This swamp is
the low grounds of a little creek, and I've been in it before to-night.
I don't know just which way to go to get out, because I don't know just
what part of the swamp we're in. But if my foot was well I'd soon find
out."

"How, Mas' Sam?"

"I'd climb that sweet gum and look for landmarks."

"Lan' marks? what's dem, Mas' Sam? will dey bite?"

"No, Joe, I mean I would look around and find something or other to
steer by,--a house an open field or something."

"I kin climb, Mas' Sam," replied Joe, "an' I'll be up dat dar tree in
less'n no time."

[Illustration: "WE 'S DUN LOS'--DATS WHAT WE IS."]

And up the tree he went as nimbly as any squirrel might. As he went up,
Sam cautioned him to make no noise, and not to shout, but to look around
carefully, and then to come down and tell what he had seen.

"I see a big openin'," said Joe, when he reached the ground again, "an'
nigh de middle uv it dey's a big grove, wid a littler one jis' off to de
left."

"Yes," said Sam, "I thought you'd see that. That's where Watkins's house
stood: now which way is it?"

"Which-a-way's what, Mas' Sam?"

"The opening with the groves in it."

"I 'clar' I dunno, Mas' Sam."

It had not entered Joe's head to mark the direction, and so he had to
climb the tree again. In going up and coming down, however, he wound
around the tree two or three times and was no wiser when he returned to
the ground than before he began his ascent.

"Look, Joe," said Sam. "Do you see that bright star through the trees?"

"De brightest one, Mas' Sam?"

"Yes."

"Yes, I sees it."

"Well, climb the tree, and when you get to the top, turn your face
towards that star. Then see which way the opening is, and remember
whether it is straight ahead of you, behind you, or to the right or
left."

Joe went up the tree again and this time managed to bring down the
information that when he looked at the star the opening was on his left.

With the knowledge of locality and direction thus gained, Sam was not
long in finding his way to firm ground again, and as soon as he did so
he selected a hiding-place for the day, as the morning was now at hand.

The next night they had fewer difficulties, the woods through which they
had to pass being freer from undergrowth than those they had already
traversed, and when the third morning broke they were within a mile or
two of Fort Glass. Sam thought at first of pushing on at once to the
fort, but, seeing "Indian sign" in the shape of some smouldering fires
near a spring, he abandoned the undertaking until night should come
again, and hid his little company in the woods. Something to eat was the
one immediate necessity. They were all nearly famished, and neither corn
nor sweet potatoes were to be found anywhere in the vicinity. Sam
directed the boys to bring some rushes from the creek bottoms, and
peeling these, he and his companions ate the pith, which is slightly
succulent and in a small degree nourishing. Sam had learned this fact by
accident while out hunting one day, and Sam took care never to forget
anything which might be useful. Towards night, when the rushes failed to
satisfy their hunger, Sam was puzzling himself over the problem of
getting food, when Tom asked him if he knew the name of a singular tree
he had seen while out after rushes.

"It has the biggest leaves I ever saw," he said, "and they all grow
right out of its top. Some of 'em are six feet long, and they've got
folds in 'em. There ain't any limbs to the tree at all."

"Where did you see that?" asked Sam eagerly.

"Right over there, about a hundred yards."

"Good! It's palmetto. I didn't know there was one this far from the sea
though. Here, take my big knife and you and Joe go and cut out as much
as you can of the soft part just where the leaves come out. It's what
they call palmetto cabbage, and it's very good to eat too, I can tell
you."

The boys, after receiving minute instructions, went to the palmetto-tree
and brought away several pounds of the terminal bud. On this the little
company made a hearty meal, finding the "cabbage," as it is called, a
well-flavored, juicy and tender kind of white vegetable substance, very
nourishing and as palatable as cocoanut, which it closely resembles in
flavor. Storing what was left in their pockets, they began to prepare
for their night's journey to the fort, which they hoped to reach within
an hour or two. They were just on the point of starting when a party of
Indians, under Weatherford, the great half-breed chief, who was the life
and soul of the war, rode across a neighboring field, and settled
themselves for supper within a dozen yards of Sam's camp. The sky was
overcast with clouds, and so night fell even more quickly than it
usually does in Southern latitudes, where there is almost no twilight
at all. Sam made his companions lie down at the approach of the savages,
and as soon as it was fairly dark, the little party crept silently away.
Before leaving, however, Sam had heard enough of the conversation
between Weatherford and Peter McQueen, the other great half-breed
warrior, to know that he could not reach the fort that night. The two
half-breeds talked most of the time in English, and Sam learned that
they had a large body of Indians in the vicinity, who were scouring the
country around Fort Glass. Sam knew enough of Indian warfare to know
that there would be numerous small parties of savage scouts lurking
immediately around the fort day and night, for the purpose of picking
off any daring whites who might venture outside the gates, and
especially any messenger who might attempt to pass from that to any
other fortress. He knew, therefore, that for some time to come it would
be impossible to reach Fort Glass, and penetrating the woods for a
considerable distance he stopped and sat down on a log, burying his face
in his hands, and telling his companions not to speak to him, as he
wanted to think.

CHAPTER V.

SAM'S FORTRESS.

Sam's companions kept perfectly still. Their reverence for Sam had grown
with every foot of their travels, and their confidence in his ability to
get out of any difficulty, and ultimately to accomplish his purposes in
the face of any obstacle, was now quite unbounded. And so, when he told
them it was impossible to reach the fort and that he wanted to think,
they patiently awaited the results of his thinking, confident that he
would presently hit upon precisely the right thing to do.

After a while he raised his head from his hands and said:

"Come on, we must get clear away from here before morning;" but he said
not a word about where he was going. His course was now nearly
south-east, and just as the day was breaking he stopped and said:

"There is the river at last. Now let's go to sleep."

They obeyed him unquestioningly, though they had not the faintest idea
where they were or what river it was which he had seen a little way
ahead. When Sam waked it was nearly noon, and he ate a little of the
palmetto cabbage left in his pockets, while the others slept. His face
was very pale, however, and he sat very still until his companions
aroused themselves. Then he explained.

"When I found that we could not get to Fort Glass, the question was,
where should we go? Fort Stoddart is probably surrounded by Indians too,
and so the only thing to do was to make our way down through the Tensaw
Country to Mobile; but that is about eighty or a hundred miles away, and
the fact is I am a little sick from my wound. My foot and leg are all
swelled up, and I've been having a fever, so that I can't travel much
further. It seemed to me that the best thing to do, under the
circumstances, was to find a good hiding-place where it will be easy to
get something to eat, and to stay there till I get better, or something
turns up, and so I thought of the Alabama River as the very best place,
because mussels and things of that kind are better than sweet potatoes,
and here we are; now the next thing is to find a hiding-place, and I
think I know where one is. It has a spring by it, too, which is a good
thing, for drinking this swamp and creek water will make us all sick. I
was all through here on a camp-hunt once, and I remember a place on the
other side of the river where two big hollow trees stand right together
on top of a sort of bluff. About fifty yards further down the river
there is a spring, just under the bluff. We must find the place if we
can, to-night, and to do it we must first get across the river. It's so
low now we can easily wade it, I think, and Judie can be pushed across
on a log."

As soon as night fell the plan was put into execution. The river was
extremely low at the time, and Sam was confident that by choosing a wide
place for their crossing, they could wade the stream easily; but lest
there might be a channel too deep for that, he fastened four logs
together with grapevines, and putting Judie on this raft bade the two
boys tow it over, telling them that if they should find the water too
deep for wading at any point, they could easily support themselves by
clinging to the logs. They had no difficulty, however, and were soon on
the east bank of the stream. Sam's task was a much harder one. The
current was very rapid and the bottom too soft for the easy use of his
crutch, while his strength was almost gone. His spirit sustained him,
however, and after a while he reached the shore. When all were landed,
the search began for the hiding-place Sam had described. It proved to be
more than a mile higher up the river, and when they found it, the day
was breaking. The trees were not hollow, as Sam had supposed. The river
bank in that place is in three terraces, and the two great trees stood
almost alone on the second one of these. The sandy soil had been
gradually washed out from under the great trunks, so that the trees
proper began about fifteen feet from the ground, the space below being
occupied by a great net-work of exposed roots, some of them a foot or
two in thickness, and others varying in size all the way down to mere
threads. The freshets which had washed the earth away from the roots,
had piled a great mass of drift-wood against one side of them. Sam made
a careful examination of the place, and then all went to work. The two
boys so disposed some of the drift-wood as to make a sort of covered
passage from the edge of the bank to the two trees whose roots were
interlaced with each other. Sam cut away some of the roots with his
jackknife so as to make an entrance, and once inside the circle of outer
roots, he was not long in making a roomy hiding-place for the whole
party, immediately under the great trees.

[Illustration: JUDIE ON THE RAFT.]

"We can enlarge our house with our knives whenever we choose," he said,
"and if we stay here long enough, we must make Judie a room for herself
under the other tree, with a passage leading from this into it."

Sam said this to avoid saying something which would have alarmed and
distressed the others. In truth he knew himself to be really ill, and
believed that he would be much worse before being any better. For this
reason he knew they must have more room than the present hiding-place
afforded, and it was his plan to cut another room under the other tree,
with a very narrow passage between. "Then," thought he, "if the Indians
find us here, as I am afraid they will, they will find only poor sick
Sam here in the outer room, and won't think of hunting further." Sam
thought he was going to die at any rate, and his only care now was to
save the lives of the others. He had made them gather some mussels at
the river, and some green corn in a neighboring field, and he now said
to the two boys, "These things must be cooked. It will not do for you to
eat them raw any longer. They aren't wholesome that way, and so I've
been thinking of a plan for cooking them. The spring is down under the
lower bluff, and a fire down there won't make much smoke above the upper
banks. We must make one out of drift-wood, but we mustn't use any pine.
That smokes too much. The fire must be made in the daytime, because at
night it would be seen too far. You boys must do the cooking, while I
keep a look-out for Indians, and if any come within sight you can both
get in here before they discover you, or if they do see you, they can't
find you after you run away from the fire, and they will look for you
out in the woods somewhere. Nobody would think of looking here. Now let
me tell you how to cook the things. I was at a 'clam bake' in New
England once, and I know how to make these mussels and corn taste well.
You must dig a sort of fireplace in the sand bank and build your fire in
there. When it burns away until you have a good bank of coals, you must
put down on them a layer of the corn, in the shuck, then a layer of
mussels, then a layer of corn, and finally cover them all up with coals
and hot ashes, and leave them there for an hour or two, when they will
be cooked beautifully."

"But Mas' Sam," said Joe.

"Well, what is it, Joe?"

"How's we gwine to git de fire?"

"Well, how do you think, Joe?"

"I 'clare I dunno, Mas' Sam, 'thout you got some flints an' punk in your
pockets."

"No, I have no flints and no punk, Joe, but I'm going to get you some
fire when the sun gets straight overhead."

"Is you gwine to git it from de sun, Mas' Sam?"

"Yes."

"What wid, Mas' Sam?"

"With water, Joe."

"Wid water, Mas' Sam! You'se foolin'. How you gwine to git fire wid
water, _I'd_ like to know."

"Well, wait and see. I'm not fooling."

To tell the truth, Tom was quite as much at a loss as Joe was, to know
how Sam could get fire with water; but his confidence in his "big
brother," as he called Sam, was too perfect to admit of a doubt or a
question. As for Judie, she would hardly have raised her eyebrows if Sam
had burned water, or whittled it into dolls' heads before her eyes. She
believed in Sam absolutely, and supposed, as a matter of course, that he
knew everything and could do anything he liked. But Joe was not yet
satisfied that water could be made to assist in the kindling of a fire.
He said nothing more, however, but carefully watched all of Sam's
preparations.

That young gentleman began by tearing a strip of cotton cloth from his
shirt, and picking it to pieces. He then gathered from the drift-wood a
number of dry sticks, and broke and split them up very fine.

"We must have a few splinters of light-wood," he said; "but after the
fire is once started, we mustn't put any more pine on."

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