Hardscrabble; or, the fall of Chicago. a tale of Indian warfare
Richardson, John, 1796-1852
English
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HARDSCRABBLE; or, The Fall of Chicago
A Tale of Indian Warfare
by John Richardson
CHAPTER I.
It was on a beautiful day in the early part of the month
of April, 1812, that four persons were met in a rude
farm-house, situated on the Southern Branch of the Chicago
river, and about four miles distant from the fort of that
name. They had just risen from their humble mid-day meal,
and three of them were now lingering near the fire-place,
filled with blazing logs, which, at that early season,
diffused a warmth by no means disagreeable, and gave an
air of cheerfulness to the interior of the smoke-discolored
building.
He who appeared to be master of the establishment was a
tall, good looking man of about forty-five, who had,
evidently, been long a denizen of the forest, for his
bronzed countenance bore traces of care and toil, while
his rugged, yet well-formed hands conveyed the impression
of the unceasing war he had waged against the gigantic
trees of this Western land. He was habited in a
hunting-frock of grey homespun, reaching about half way
down to his knee, and trimmed with a full fringe of a
somewhat darker hue. His trowsers were of the same
material, and both were girt around his loins by a common
belt of black leather, fastened by a plain white buckle,
into which was thrust a sheath of black leather also,
containing a large knife peculiar to the backwoodsmen of
that day. His feet were encased in moccasins, and on his
head, covered with strong dark hair, was carelessly donned
a slouched hat of common black felt, with several plaited
folds of the sweet grass, of the adjoining prairie for
a band. He was seemingly a man of strong muscular power,
while his stern dark eye denoted firmness and daring.
The elder of the two men, to whom this individual stood,
evidently, in the character of a superior, was a short
thick-set person of about fifty, with huge whiskers that,
originally black, had been slightly grizzled by time.
His eyebrows were bushy and overhanging, and almost
concealed the small, and twinkling eyes, which it required
the beholder to encounter more than once before he could
decide their true color to be a dark gray. A blanket coat
that had once been white, but which the action of some
half dozen winters had changed into a dirty yellow,
enveloped his rather full form, around which it was
confined by a coarse worsted sash of mingled blue and
red, thickly studded with minute white beads. His trowsers,
with broad seams, after the fashion of the Indian legging,
were of a dark crimson, approaching to a brick-dust color,
and on his feet he wore the stiff shoe-pack, which, with
the bonnet bleu on his grizzled head, and the other parts
of his dress already described, attested him to be what
he was--a French Canadian. Close at his heels, and moving
as he moved, or squatted on his haunches, gazing into
the face of his master when stationary, was a large dog
of the mongrel breed peculiar to the country--evidently
with wolf blood in his veins.
His companion was of a different style of figure and
costume. He was a thin, weak-looking man, of middle
height, with a complexion that denoted his Saxon origin.
Very thin brows, retrousse nose, and a light gray eye in
which might be traced an expression half simple, half
cunning, completed the picture of this personage, whose
lank body was encased in an old American uniform of faded
blue, so scanty in its proportions that the wrists of
the wearer wholly exposed themselves beneath the short,
narrow sleeves, while the skirts only "shadowed not
concealed," that part of the body they had been originally
intended to cover. A pair of blue pantaloons, perfectly
in keeping, on the score of scantiness and age, with the
coat, covered the attenuated lower limbs of the wearer,
on whose head, moreover, was stuck a conical cap that
had all the appearance of having been once a portion of
the same uniform, and had only undergone change in the
loss of its peak. A small black leather, narrow ridged
stock was clasped around his thin, and scare-crow neck,
and that so tightly that it was the wonder of his companions
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