The Hunters of the Hills / Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander), 1862-1919

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Title: The Hunters of the Hills

Author: Joseph Altsheler

Release Date: February 3, 2005  [eBook #14890]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)


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THE HUNTERS OF THE HILLS

A Story of the Great French and Indian War

by

JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER

Author of _The Tree Of Appomattox_, _The Keepers Of The Trail_, _The
Forest Of Swords_, etc.

Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.
New York

1916







FOREWORD


"The Hunters of the Hills" is the first volume of a series dealing with
the great struggle of France and England and their colonies for dominion
in North America, culminating with the fall of Quebec. It is also
concerned to a large extent with the Iroquois, the mighty league known
in their own language as the Hodenosaunee, for the favor of which both
French and English were high bidders. In his treatment of the theme the
author has consulted many authorities, and he is not conscious of any
historical error.




CHARACTERS IN THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR SERIES

   ROBERT LENNOX                 A lad of unknown origin
   TAYOGA                        A young Onondaga warrior
   DAVID WILLET                  A hunter
   RAYMOND LOUIS DE ST. LUC      A brilliant French officer
   AGUSTE DE COURCELLES          A French officer
   FRANCOIS DE JUMONVILLE        A French officer
   LOUIS DE GALISONNIERE         A young French officer
   JEAN DE MEZY                  A corrupt Frenchman
   ARMAND GLANDELET              A young Frenchman
   PIERRE BOUCHER                A bully and bravo
   PHILIBERT DROUILLARD          A French priest
   THE MARQUIS DUQUESNE          Governor-General of Canada
   MARQUIS DE VAUDREUIL          Governor-General of Canada
   FRANCOIS BIGOT                Intendant of Canada
   MARQUIS DE MONTCALM           French commander-in-chief
   DE LEVIS                      A French general
   BOURLAMAQUE                   A French general
   BOUGAINVILLE                  A French general
   ARMAND DUBOIS                 A follower of St. Luc
   M. DE CHATILLARD              An old French Seigneur
   CHARLES LANGLADE              A French partisan
   THE DOVE                      The Indian wife of Langlade
   TANDAKORA                     An Ojibway chief
   DAGANOWEDA                    A young Mohawk chief
   HENDRICK                      An old Mohawk chief
   BRADDOCK                      A British general
   ABERCROMBIE                   A British general
   WOLFE                         A British general
   COL. WILLIAM JOHNSON          Anglo-American leader
   MOLLY BRANT                   Col. Wm. Johnson's Indian wife
   JOSEPH BRANT                  Young brother of Molly Brant,
                                   afterward the great Mohawk
                                   chief, Thayendanegea
   ROBERT DINWIDDIE              Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia
   WILLIAM SHIRLEY               Governor of Massachusetts
   BENJAMIN FRANKLIN             Famous American patriot
   JAMES COLDEN                  A young Philadelphia captain
   WILLIAM WILTON                A young Philadelphia lieutenant
   HUGH CARSON                   A young Philadelphia lieutenant
   JACOBUS HUYSMAN               An Albany burgher
   CATERINA                      Jacobus Huysman's cook
   ALEXANDER MCLEAN              An Albany schoolmaster
   BENJAMIN HARDY                A New York merchant
   JOHNATHAN PILLSBURY           Clerk to Benjamin Hardy
   ADRIAN VAN ZOON               A New York merchant
   THE SLAVER                    A nameless rover
   ACHILLE GARAY                 A French spy
   ALFRED GROSVENOR              A young English officer
   JAMES CABELL                  A young Virginian
   WALTER STUART                 A young Virginian
   BLACK RIFLE                   A famous "Indian fighter"
   ELIHU STRONG                  A Massachusetts colonel
   ALAN HERVEY                   A New York financier
   STUART WHYTE                  Captain of the British sloop, _Hawk_
   JOHN LATHAM                   Lieutenant of the British sloop, _Hawk_
   EDWARD CHARTERIS              A young officer of the Royal Americans
   ZEBEDEE CRANE                 A young scout and forest runner
   ROBERT ROGERS                 Famous Captain of American Rangers




CONTENTS


   CHAPTER

      I. THE THREE FRIENDS

     II. ST. LUC

    III. THE TOMAHAWK

     IV. THE INTELLIGENT CANOE

      V. THE MOHAWK CHIEF

     VI. THE TWO FRENCHMEN

    VII. NEW FRANCE

   VIII. GUESTS OF THE ENEMY

     IX. AT THE INN

      X. THE MEETING

     XI. BIGOT'S BALL

    XII. THE HUNTER AND THE BRAVO

   XIII. THE BOWMEN

    XIV. ON CHAMPLAIN

     XV. THE VALE OF ONONDAGA

    XVI. THE GREAT TEST




CHAPTER I

THE THREE FRIENDS


A canoe containing two boys and a man was moving slowly on one of the
little lakes in the great northern wilderness of what is now the State
of New York. The water, a brilliant blue under skies of the same intense
sapphire tint, rippled away gently on either side of the prow, or rose
in heaps of glittering bubbles, as the paddles were lifted for a new
stroke.

Vast masses of dense foliage in the tender green of early spring crowned
the high banks of the lake on every side. The eye found no break
anywhere. Only the pink or delicate red of a wild flower just bursting
into bloom varied the solid expanse of emerald walls; and save for the
canoe and a bird of prey, darting in a streak of silver for a fish, the
surface of the water was lone and silent.

The three who used the paddles were individual and unlike, none of them
bearing any resemblance to the other two. The man sat in the stern. He
was of middle years, built very powerfully and with muscles and sinews
developed to an amazing degree. His face, in childhood quite fair, had
been burned almost as brown as that of an Indian by long exposure. He
was clothed wholly in tanned deerskin adorned with many little colored
beads. A hatchet and knife were in the broad belt at his waist, and a
long rifle lay at his feet.

His face was fine and open and he would have been noticed anywhere. But
the eyes of the curious would surely have rested first upon the two
youths with him.

One was back of the canoe's center on the right side and the other was
forward on the left. The weight of the three occupants was balanced so
nicely that their delicate craft floated on a perfectly even keel. The
lad near the prow was an Indian of a nobler type than is often seen in
these later days, when he has been deprived of the native surroundings
that fit him like the setting of a gem.

The Indian, although several years short of full manhood, was tall, with
limbs slender as was usual in his kind; but his shoulders were broad and
his chest wide and deep. His color was a light copper, the tint verging
toward red, and his face was illumined wonderfully by black eyes that
often flashed with a lofty look of courage and pride.

The young warrior, Tayoga, a coming chief of the clan of the Bear, of
the nation Onondaga, of the League of the Hodenosaunee, known to white
men as the Iroquois, was in all the wild splendor of full forest
attire. His headdress, _gustoweh_, was the product of long and careful
labor. It was a splint arch, curving over the head, and crossed by
another arch from side to side, the whole inclosed by a cap of fine
network, fastened with a silver band. From the crest, like the plume of
a Roman knight, a cluster of pure white feathers hung, and on the side
of it a white feather of uncommon size projected upward and backward,
the end of the feather set in a little tube which revolved with the
wind, the whole imparting a further air of distinction to his strong and
haughty countenance.

The upper part of his body was clothed in the garment called by the
Hodenosaunee _gakaah_, a long tunic of deerskin tanned beautifully,
descending to the knees, belted at the waist, and decorated elaborately
with the quills of the porcupine, stained red, yellow and blue and
varied with the natural white.

His leggings, called in his own language _giseha_, were fastened by
bands above the knees, and met his moccasins. They too were of deerskin
tanned with the same skill, and along the seams and around the bottom,
were adorned with the quills of the porcupine and rows of small, colored
beads. The moccasins, _ahtaquaoweh_, of deerskin, were also decorated
with quills and beads, but the broad belt, _gagehta_, holding in his
tunic at the waist, was of rich blue velvet, heavy with bead work. The
knife at his belt had a silver hilt, and the rifle in the bottom of the
canoe was silver-mounted. Nowhere in the world could one have found a
young forest warrior more splendid in figure, manner and dress.

The white youth was the equal in age and height of his red comrade, but
was built a little more heavily. His face, tanned red instead of brown,
was of the blonde type and bore an aspect of refinement unusual in the
woods. The blue eyes were thoughtful and the chin, curving rather
delicately, indicated gentleness and a sense of humor, allied with
firmness of purpose and great courage. His dress was similar in fashion
to that of the older man, but was finer in quality. He was armed like
the others.

"I suppose we're the only people on the lake," said the hunter and
scout, David Willet, "and I'm glad of it, lads. It's not a time, just
when the spring has come and the woods are so fine, to be shot at by
Huron warriors and their like down from Canada."

"I don't want 'em to send their bullets at me in the spring or any other
time," said the white lad, Robert Lennox. "Hurons are not good marksmen,
but if they kept on firing they'd be likely to hit at last. I don't
think, though, that we'll find any of 'em here. What do you say,
Tayoga?"

The Indian youth flashed a swift look along the green wall of forest,
and replied in pure Onondaga, which both Lennox and Willet understood:

"I think they do not come. Nothing stirs in the woods on the high banks.
Yet Onontio (the Governor General of Canada) would send the Hurons and
the other nations allied with the French against the people of Corlear
(the Governor of the Province of New York). But they fear the
Hodenosaunee."

"Well they may!" said Willet. "The Iroquois have stopped many a foray
of the French. More than one little settlement has thriven in the shade
of the Long House."

The young warrior smiled and lifted his head a little. Nobody had more
pride of birth and race than an Onondaga or a Mohawk. The home of the
Hodenosaunee was in New York, but their hunting grounds and real domain,
over which they were lords, extended from the Hudson to the Ohio and
from the St. Lawrence to the Cumberland and the Tennessee, where the
land of the Cherokees began. No truer kings of the forest ever lived,
and for generations their warlike spirit fed upon the fact.

"It is true," said Tayoga gravely, "but a shadow gathers in the north.
The children of Corlear wish to plow the land and raise corn, but the
sons of Onontio go into the forest and become hunters and warriors with
the Hurons. It is easy for the man in the woods to shoot down the man in
the field."

"You put it well, Tayoga," exclaimed Willet. "That's the kernel in the
nut. The English settle upon the land, but the French take to the wild
life and would rather be rovers. When it comes to fighting it puts our
people at a great disadvantage. I know that some sort of a wicked broth
is brewing at Quebec, but none of us can tell just when it will boil
over."

"Have you ever been to Quebec, Dave?" asked Robert.

"Twice. It's a fortress on a rock high above the St. Lawrence, and it's
the seat of the French power in North America. We English in this
country rule our selves mostly, but the French in Canada don't have
much to say. It's the officials sent out from France who govern as they
please."

"And you believe they'll attack us, Dave?"

"When they're ready, yes, but they intend to choose time and place. I
think they've been sending war belts to the tribes in the north, but I
can't prove it."

"The French in France are a brave and gallant race, Dave, and they are
brave and gallant here too, but I think they're often more cruel than we
are."

It was in David Willet's mind to say it was because the French had
adapted themselves more readily than the English to the ways of the
Indian, but consideration for the feelings of Tayoga restrained him. The
wilderness ranger had an innate delicacy and to him Tayoga was always a
nobleman of the forest.

"You've often told me, Dave," said Lennox, "that I've French blood in
me."

"There's evidence pointing that way," said Willet, "and when I was in
Quebec I saw some of the men from Northern France. I suppose we mostly
think of the French as short and dark, but these were tall and fair.
Some of them had blue eyes and yellow hair, and they made me think a
little of you, Robert."

Young Lennox sighed and became very thoughtful. The mystery of his
lineage puzzled and saddened him at times. It was a loss never to have
known a father or a mother, and for his kindest and best friends to be
of a blood not his own. The moments of depression, however, were brief,
as he had that greatest of all gifts from the gods, a cheerful and
hopeful temperament.

The three began to paddle with renewed vigor. Gasna Gaowo, the canoe in
which they sat, was a noble example of Onondaga art. It was about
sixteen feet in length and was made of the bark of the red elm, the rim,
however, being of white ash, stitched thoroughly to the bark. The ribs
also were of white ash, strong and flexible, and fastened at each end
under the rim. The prow, where the ends of the bark came together, was
quite sharp, and the canoe, while very light and apparently frail, was
exceedingly strong, able to carry a weight of more than a thousand
pounds. The Indians surpassed all other people in an art so useful in a
land of many lakes and rivers and they lavished willing labor upon their
canoes, often decorating them with great beauty and taste.

"We're now within the land of the Mohawks, are we not, Tayoga?" asked
Lennox.

"Ganeagaono, the Keepers of the Eastern Gate, rule here," replied the
young warrior, "but the Hurons dispute their claim."

"I've heard that the Mohawks and the Hurons, who now fight one another,
were once of the same blood."

"It is so. The old men have had it from those who were old men when they
were boys. The Mohawks in a far, far time were a clan of the Wanedote,
called in your language the Hurons, and lived where the French have
built their capital of Quebec. Thence their power spread, and becoming a
great nation themselves they separated from the Wanedote. But many
enemies attacked them and they moved to the south, where they joined the
Onondagas and Oneidas, and in time the League of the Hodenosaunee grew
up. That, though, was far, far back, eight or ten of what the white men
call generations."

"But it's interesting, tremendously so," said Robert, reflectively. "I
find that the red races and the white don't differ much. The flux and
movement have been going on always among them just as it has among us.
Races disappear, and new ones appear."

"It is so, Lennox," said Tayoga gravely, "but the League of the
Hodenosaunee is the chosen of Manitou. We, the Onundagaono, in your
language Onondagas, Keepers of the Council, the Brand and the Wampum,
know it. The power of the Long House cannot be broken. Onundagaono,
Ganeogaono, Nundawaono (Senecas), Gweugwehono (Cayugas), Onayotekaono
(Oneidas) and the new nation that we made our brethren, Dusgaowehono
(Tuscaroras), will defend it forever."

Robert glanced at him. Tayoga's nostrils expanded as he spoke, the chin
was thrown up again and his eyes flashed with a look of immeasurable
pride. White youth understood red youth. The forest could be as truly a
kingdom as cities and fields, and within the limits of his horizon
Tayoga, a coming chief of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga,
of the League of the Hodenosaunee, was as thoroughly of royal blood as
any sovereign on his throne. He and his father and his father's father
before him and others before them had heard the old men and the women
chant the prowess and invincibility of the Hodenosaunee, and of that
great league, the Onondagas, the Keepers of the Wampum, the Brand and
the Council Fire, were in Tayoga's belief first, its heart and soul.

Robert had pride of race himself--it was a time when an ancient stock
was thought to count for much--and he was sure that the blood in his
veins was noble, but, white though he was, he did not feel any
superiority to Tayoga. Instead he paid him respect where respect was due
because, born to a great place in a great race, he was equal to it. He
understood, too, why the Hodenosaunee seemed immutable and eternal to
its people, as ancient Rome had once seemed unshakable and everlasting
to the Romans, and, understanding, he kept his peace.

The lake, slender and long, now narrowed to a width of forty or fifty
yards and curved sharply toward the east. They slowed down with habitual
caution, until they could see what lay in front of them. Robert and
Tayoga rested their paddles, and Willet sent the canoe around the curve.
The fresh reach of water was peaceful too, unruffled by the craft of any
enemy, and on either side the same lofty banks of solid green stretched
ahead. Above and beyond the cliffs rose the distant peaks and ridges of
the high mountains. The whole was majestic and magnificent beyond
comparison. Robert and Tayoga, their paddles still idle, breathed it in
and felt that Manitou, who is the same as God, had lavished work upon
this region, making it good to the eye of all men for all time.

"How far ahead is the cove, Tayoga?" asked Willet.

"About a mile," replied the Onondaga.

"Then we'd better put in there, and look for game. We've got mighty
little venison."

"It is so," said Tayoga, using his favorite words of assent. Neither he
nor Robert resumed the paddle, leaving the work for the rest of the way
to the hunter, who was fully equal to the task. His powerful arms swept
the broad blade through the water, and the canoe shot forward at a
renewed pace. Long practice and training had made him so skillful at the
task that his breath was not quickened by the exertion. It was a
pleasure to Robert to watch the ease and power with which he did so
much.

The lake widened as they advanced, and through a change in the color of
the sky the water here seemed silver rather than blue. A flock of wild
ducks swam near the edge and he saw two darting loons, but there was no
other presence. Silence, beauty and majesty were everywhere, and he was
content to go on, without speaking, infused with the spirit of the
wilderness.

The cove showed after a while, at first a mere slit that only a wary eye
could have seen, and then a narrow opening through which a small creek
flowed into the lake. Willet, with swift and skillful strokes of the
paddle, turned the canoe into the stream and advanced some distance up
it, until he stopped at a point where it broadened into an expanse like
a pool, covered partly with water lilies, and fringed with tall reeds.
Behind the reeds were slanting banks clothed with dense, green foliage.
It was an ideal covert, and there were thousands like it in the
wonderful wilderness of the North Woods.

"You find this a good place, don't you, Tayoga?" said Willet, with a
certain deference.

"It suits us well," replied the young Onondaga in his measured tones.
"No man, Indian or white, has been here today. The lilies are
undisturbed. Not a reed has been bent. Ducks that have not yet seen us
are swimming quietly up the creek, and farther on a stag is drinking at
its edge. I can hear him lapping the water."

"That was wonderful, Tayoga," said Willet with admiration. "I wouldn't
have noticed it, but since you've spoken of it I can hear the stag too.
Now he's gone away. Maybe he's heard us."

"Like as not," said Robert, "and he'd have been a good prize, but he's
taken the alarm, and he's safe. We'll have to look for something else.
Just there on the right you can see an opening among the leaves, Dave,
and that's our place for landing."

Willet sent the canoe through the open water between the tall reeds,
then slowed it down with his paddle, and the prow touched the bank
gently.

The three stepped out and drew the canoe with great care upon the shore,
in order that it might dry. The bank at that point was not steep and the
presence of the deer at the water's edge farther up indicated a slope
yet easier there.

"Appears to be a likely place for game," said Willet. "While the stag
has scented us and gone, there must be more deer in the woods. Maybe
they're full of 'em, since this is doubtful ground and warriors and
white men too are scarce."

"But red scouts from the north may be abroad," said Robert, "and it
would be unwise to use our rifles. We don't want a brush with Hurons or
Tionontati."

"The Tionontati went into the west some years ago," said Tayoga, "and
but few of their warriors are left with their kinsmen, the Hurons."

"But those few would be too many, should they chance to be near. We must
not use our rifles. Instead we must resort to your bow and arrows,
Tayoga."

"Perhaps _waano_ (the bow) will serve us," said the young chief, with
his confident smile.

"That being the case, then," said Willet, "I'll stay here and mind the
canoe, while the pair of you boys go and find the deer. You're younger
than I am, an' I'm willing for you to do the work."

The white teeth of Tayoga flashed into a deeper smile.

"Does our friend, the Great Bear, who calls himself Willet, grow old?"
he asked.

"Not by a long sight, Tayoga," replied Willet with energy. "I'm no
braggart, I hope, but you Iroquois don't call me Great Bear for nothing.
My muscles are as hard as ever, and my wind's as good. I can lift more
and carry more upon my shoulders than any other man in all this
wilderness."

"I but jested with the Great Bear," said Tayoga, smiling. "Did I not see
last winter how quick he could be when I was about to be cut to pieces
under the sharp hoofs of the wounded and enraged moose, and he darted in
and slew the animal with his long knife?"

"Don't speak of it, Tayoga. That was just a little matter between
friends. You'd do as much for me if the chance came."

"But you've done it already, Great Bear."

Willet said something more in deprecation, and picking up the canoe, put
it in a better place. Its weight was nothing to him, and Robert noticed
with admiration the play of the great arms and shoulders. Seen now upon
the land and standing at his full height Willet was a giant,
proportioned perfectly, a titanic figure fitted by nature to cope with
the hardships and dangers of the wilderness.

"I'm thinking stronger than ever that this is good deer country," he
said. "It has all the looks of it, since they can find here the food
they like, and it hasn't been ranged over for a long time by white man
or red. Tayoga, you and Robert oughtn't to be long in finding the game
we want."

"I think like the Great Bear that we'll not have to look far for deer,"
said the Onondaga, "and I leave my rifle with you while I take my bow
and arrows."

"I'll keep your rifle for you, Tayoga, and if I didn't have anything
else to do I'd go along with you two lads and see you use the bow. I
know that you're a regular king with it."

Tayoga said nothing, although he was secretly pleased with the
compliment, and took from the canoe a long slender package, wrapped
carefully in white, tanned deerskin, which he unrolled, disclosing the
bow, _waano_.

The young Onondaga's bow, like everything he wore or used, was of the
finest make, four feet in length, and of such powerful wood that only
one of great strength and equal skill could bend it. He brought it to
the proper curve with a sudden, swift effort, and strung it. There he
tested the string with a quick sweeping motion of his hand, making it
give back a sound like that of a violin, and seemed satisfied.

He also took from the canoe the quiver, _gadasha_, which was made of
carefully dressed deerskin, elaborately decorated with the stained
quills of the porcupine. It was two feet in length and contained
twenty-five arrows, _gano_.

The arrows were three feet long, pointed with deer's horn, each carrying
two feathers twisted about the shaft. They, like the bow and quiver,
were fine specimens of workmanship and would have compared favorably
with those used by the great English archers of the Middle Ages.

Tayoga examined the sharp tips of the arrows, and, poising the quiver
over his left shoulder, fastened it on his back, securing the lower end
at his waist with the sinews of the deer, and the upper with the same
kind of cord, which he carried around the neck and then under his left
arm. The ends of the arrows were thus convenient to his right hand, and
with one sweeping circular motion he could draw them from the quiver and
fit them to the bowstring.

The Iroquois had long since learned the use of the rifle and musket, but
on occasion they still relied upon the bow, with which they had won
their kingdom, the finest expanse of mountain and forest, lake and
river, ever ruled over by man. Tayoga, as he strung his bow and hung
his quiver, felt a great emotion, the spirit of his ancestors he would
have called it, descending upon him. _Waano_ and he fitted together and
for the time he cherished it more than his rifle, the weapon that the
white man had brought from another world. The feel of the wood in his
hand made him see visions of a vast green wilderness in which the Indian
alone roamed and knew no equal.

"What are you dreaming about, Tayoga?" asked Robert, who also dreamed
dreams.

The Onondaga shook himself and laughed a little.

"Of nothing," he replied. "No, that was wrong. I was dreaming of the
deer that we'll soon find. Come, Lennox, we'll go seek him."

"And while you're finding him," said Willet, "I'll be building the fire
on which we'll cook the best parts of him."

Tayoga and Robert went together into the forest, the white youth taking
with him his rifle, which, however, he did not expect to use. It was
merely a precaution, as the Hurons, Abenakis, Caughnawagas and other
tribes in the north were beginning to stir and mutter under the French
influence. And for that reason, and because they did not wish to alarm
possible game, the two went on silent foot.

No other human beings were present there, but the forest was filled with
inhabitants, and hundreds of eyes regarded the red youth with the bow,
and the white youth with the rifle, as they passed among the trees.
Rabbits looked at them from small red eyes. A muskrat, at a brook's
edge, gazed a moment and then dived from sight. A chipmunk cocked up
his ears, listened and scuttled away.

But most of the population of the forest was in the trees. Squirrels
chattering with anger at the invaders, or with curiosity about them, ran
along the boughs, their bushy tails curving over their backs. A huge
wildcat crouched in a fork, swelled with anger, his eyes reddening and
his sharp claws thrusting forth as he looked at the two beings whom he
instinctively hated much and feared more. The leaves swarmed with birds,
robins and wrens and catbirds and all the feathered tribe keeping up an
incessant quivering and trilling, while a distant woodpecker drummed
portentously on the trunk of an old oak. They too saw the passing
youths, but since no hand was raised to hurt them they sang, in their
way, as they worked and played.

The wilderness spell was strong upon Tayoga, whose ancestors had lived
unknown ages in the forest. The wind from the north as it rustled the
leaves filled his strong lungs and made the great pulses leap. The bow
in his hand fitted into the palm like a knife in its sheath. He heard
the animals and the birds, and the sounds were those to which his
ancestors had listened a thousand years and more. Once again he was
proud of his heritage. He was Tayoga, a coming chief of the Clan of the
Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the League of the Hodenosaunee, and he
would not exchange places with any man of whom he had heard in all the
world.

The forest was the friend of Tayoga and he knew it. He could name the
trees, the elm and the maple, and the spruce and the cedar and all the
others. He knew the qualities of their wood and bark and the uses for
which every one was best fitted. He noticed particularly the great
maples, so precious to the Iroquois, from which they took sap and made
sugar, and which gave an occasion and name to one of their most sacred
festivals and dances. He also observed the trees from which the best
bows and arrows were made, and the red elms and butternut hickories, the
bark of which served the Iroquois for canoes.

When Tayoga passed through a forest it was not merely a journey, it was
also an inspection. He had been trained from his baby frame, _gaoseha_,
always to observe everything that met the human eye, and now he not only
examined the trees, but also the brooks and the little ravines and the
swell of the hills and the summits of the mountains that towered high,
many miles away. If ever he came back there he would know the ground and
all its marks.

His questing eye alighted presently upon the delicate traces of hoofs,
and, calling Robert's attention, the two examined them with the full
care demanded by their purpose.

"New," said Tayoga; "scarce an hour old."

"Less than that," said Robert. "The deer can't be far away."

"He is near, because there has been nothing to make him run. Here go the
traces in almost a half circle. He is feeding and taking his time."

"It's a good chase to follow. The wind is blowing toward us, and he can
take no alarm, unless he sees or hears us."

"It would be shame to an Onondaga if a deer heard him coming."

"You don't stand in any danger of being made ashamed, Tayoga. As you're
to be the hunter, lead and I'll follow."

The Onondaga slipped through the undergrowth, and Robert, a skillful
young woodsman also, came after with such care and lightness of foot
that neither made a twig or leaf rustle. Tayoga always followed the
traces. The deer had nibbled tender young shoots, but he had not
remained long in one place. The forest was such an abundant garden to
him that, fastidious as an epicure, he required the most delicate food
to please his palate.

Tayoga stopped suddenly in a few minutes and raised his hand. Robert,
following his gaze, saw a stag about a hundred yards away, a splendid
fellow with head upraised, not in alarm, but to nuzzle some tender young
leaves.

"I will go to the right," whispered the young warrior, "and will you, my
friend, remain here?"

Robert nodded, and Tayoga slid silently among the bushes to secure a
nearer and better position for aim. The Indian admired the stag which,
like himself, fitted into the forest. He would not have hunted him for
sport, nor at any other time would he have shot him, but food was needed
and Manitou had sent the deer for that purpose. He was not one to oppose
the will of Manitou.

The greatest bowman in the Northern wilderness crouched in the thicket,
and reaching his right hand over his left shoulder, withdrew an arrow,
which he promptly fitted to the string. It was a perfect arrow, made by
the young chief himself, and the two feathers were curved in the right
manner to secure the utmost degree of speed and accuracy. He fitted it
to the string and drew the bow far back, almost to the head of the
shaft. Now he was the hunter only and the spirit of hunting ancestors
for many generations was poured into him. His eye followed the line of
coming flight and he chose the exact spot on the sleek body beneath
which the great heart lay.

The stag, with his head upraised, still pulled at the tender top of a
bush, and the deceitful wind, which blew from him toward Tayoga, brought
no warning. Nor did the squirrel chattering in the tree or the bird
singing on the bough just over his head tell him that the hunter was
near. Tayoga looked again down the arrow at the chosen place on the
gleaming body of the deer, and with a sudden and powerful contraction of
the muscles, bending the bow a little further, loosed the shaft.

The arrow flew singing through the air as swift and deadly as a steel
dart and was buried in the heart of the stag, which, leaping upward,
fell, writhed convulsively a moment or two, and died. The young Onondaga
regarded his work a moment with satisfaction, and then walked forward,
followed by his white comrade.

"One arrow was enough, Tayoga," said Robert, "and I knew before you
shot that another would not be needed."

"The distance was not great," said Tayoga modestly. "I should have been
a poor marksman had I missed."

He pulled his arrow with a great effort from the body of the deer, wiped
it carefully upon the grass, and returned it to _gadasha_, the quiver.
Arrows required time and labor for the making, but unlike the powder and
bullet in a rifle, they could be used often, and hence at times the bow
had its advantage.

Then the two worked rapidly and skillfully with their great hunting
knives, skinning and removing all the choicer portions of the deer, and
before they finished they heard the pattering of light feet in the
woods, accompanied now and then by an evil whine.

"The wolves come early," said Tayoga.

"And they're over hungry," said Robert, "or they wouldn't let us know so
soon that they're in the thickets."

"It is told sometimes, among my people, that the soul of a wicked man
has gone into the wolf," said Tayoga, not ceasing in his work, his
shining blade flashing back and forth. "Then the wolf can understand
what we say, although he may not speak himself."

"And suppose we kill such a wolf, Tayoga, what becomes of the wicked
soul?"

"It goes at once into the body of another wolf, and passes on from wolf
to wolf, being condemned to live in that foul home forever. Such a
punishment is only for the most vile, and they are few. It is but the
hundredth among the wicked who suffers thus."

"The other ninety-nine go after death to _Hanegoategeh_, the land of
perpetual darkness, where they suffer in proportion to the crimes they
committed on earth, but _Hawenneyu_, the Divine Being, takes pity on
them and gives them another chance. When they have suffered long enough
in _Hanegoategeh_ to be purified he calls them before him and looks into
their souls. Nothing can be hidden from him. He sees the evil thought,
Lennox, as you or I would see a leaf upon the water, and then he judges.
And he is merciful. He does not condemn and send to everlasting torture,
because evil may yet be left in the soul, but if the good outweighs the
bad the good shall prevail and the suffering soul is sent to
_Hawenneyugeh_, the home of the just, where it suffers no more. But if
the bad still outweighs the good then its chance is lost and it is sent
to _Hanishaonogeh_, the home of the wicked, where it is condemned to
torture forever."

"A reasonable religion, Tayoga. Your _Hanegoategeh_ is like the
purgatory, in which the Catholic church believes. Your God like ours is
merciful, and the more I learn about your religion the more similar it
seems to ours."

"I think your God and our Manitou are the same, Lennox, we only see him
through different glasses, but our religion is old, old, very old,
perhaps older than yours."

Although Tayoga did not raise his voice or change the inflection Robert
knew that he spoke with great pride. The young Onondaga did not believe
his religion resembled the white man's but that the white man's
resembled his. Robert respected him though, and knowing the reasons for
his pride, said nothing in contradiction.

"The whining wolf is hungry," said Tayoga, "and since the soul of a
warrior may dwell in his body I will feed him."

He took a discarded piece of the deer and threw it far into the bushes.
A fearful growling, and the noise of struggling ensued at once.

"The wolf with the wicked soul in him may be there," said Robert, "but
even so he has to fight with the other wolves for the meat you flung."

"It is a part of his fate," said Tayoga gravely. "Seeing and thinking as
a man, he must yet bite and claw with beasts for his food. Now I think
we have all of the deer we wish."

As they could not take it with them for tanning, they cut the skin in
half, and each wrapped in his piece a goodly portion of the body to be
carried to the canoe. Both were fastidious, wishing to get no stain upon
their clothing, and, their task completed, they carefully washed their
hands and knives at the edge of a brook. Then as they lifted up their
burdens the whining and growling in the bushes increased rapidly.

"They see that we are going," said Tayoga. "The wolf even without the
soul of a warrior in it knows much. It is the wisest of all the animals,
unless the fox be its equal. The foolish bear and the mad panther fight
alone, but the wolf, who is too small to face either, bands with his
brothers into a league, even as the Hodenosaunee, and together they
pull down the deer and the moose, and in the lands of the Ohio they dare
to attack and slay the mighty bull buffalo."

"They know the strength of union, Tayoga, and they know, too, just now
that they're safe from our weapons. I can see their noses poking already
in their eagerness through the bushes. They're so hungry and so
confident that they'll hardly wait until we get away."

As they passed with their burdens into the bushes on the far side of the
little opening they heard a rush of light feet, and angry snarling.
Looking back, Robert saw that the carcass of the stag was already
covered with hungry wolves, every one fighting for a portion, and he
knew it was the way of the forest.




CHAPTER II

ST. LUC


Willet hailed them joyfully when they returned.

"I'll wager that only one arrow was shot," he said, smiling.

"Just one," said Robert. "It struck the stag in the heart and he did not
move ten feet from where he stood."

"And the Great Bear has the fire ready," said Tayoga. "I breathe the
smoke."

"I knew you would notice it," said Willet, "although it's only a little
fire yet and I've built it in a hollow."

Dry sticks were burning in a sunken place surrounded by great trees, and
they increased the fire, veiling the smoke as much as possible. Then
they broiled luscious steaks of the deer and ate abundantly, though
without the appearance of eagerness. Robert had been educated carefully
at Fort Orange, which men were now calling Albany, and Tayoga and the
hunter were equally fastidious.

"The deer is the friend of both the red man and the white," said Willet,
appreciatively. "In the woods he feeds us and clothes us, and then his
horn tips the arrow with which you kill him, Tayoga."

"It was so ordered by Manitou," said the young Onondaga, earnestly.
"The deer was given to us that we might live."

"And that being the case," said Willet, "we'll cook all you and Robert
have brought and take it with us in the canoe. Since we keep on going
north the time will come when we won't have any chance for hunting."

The fire had now formed a great bed of coals and the task was not hard.
It was all cooked by and by and they stowed it away wrapped in the two
pieces of skin. Then Willet and Tayoga decided to examine the country
together, leaving Robert on guard beside the canoe.

Robert had no objection to remaining behind. Although circumstances had
made him a lad of action he was also contemplative by nature. Some
people think with effort, in others thoughts flow in a stream, and now
as he sat with his back to a tree, much that he had thought and heard
passed before him like a moving panorama and in this shifting belt of
color Indians, Frenchmen, Colonials and Englishmen appeared.

He knew that he stood upon the edge of great events. Deeply sensitive to
impressions, he felt that a crisis in North America was at hand. England
and France were not yet at war, and so the British colonies and the
French colonies remained at peace too, but every breeze that blew from
one to the other was heavy with menace. The signs were unmistakable, but
one did not have to see. One breathed it in at every breath. He knew,
too, that intrigue was already going on all about him, and that the
Iroquois were the great pawn in the game. British and French were
already playing for the favor of the powerful Hodenosaunee, and Robert
understood even better than many of those in authority that as the
Hodenosaunee went so might go the war. It was certain that the Indians
of the St. Lawrence and the North would be with the French, but he was
confident that the Indians of the Long House would not swerve from their
ancient alliance with the British colonies.

Two hours passed and Willet and Tayoga did not return, but he had not
expected them. He knew that when they decided to go on a scout they
would do the work thoroughly, and he waited with patience, sitting
beside the canoe, his rifle on his knees. Before him the creek flowed
with a pleasant, rippling noise and through the trees he caught a
glimpse of the lake, unruffled by any wind.

The rest was so soothing, and his muscles and nerves relaxed so much
that he felt like closing his eyes and going to sleep, but he was roused
by the sound of a footstep. It was so distant that only an ear trained
to the forest would have heard it, but he knew that it was made by a
human being approaching, and that the man was neither Willet nor Tayoga.

He put his ear to the earth and heard three men instead of one, and then
he rose, cocking his rifle. In the great wilderness in those surcharged
days a stranger was an enemy until he was proved to be otherwise, and
the lad was alert in every faculty. He saw them presently, three
figures walking in Indian file, and his heart leaped because the leader
was so obviously a Frenchman.

His uniform was of the battalion Royal Roussillon, white faced with
blue, and his hat was black and three-cornered, but face and manner were
so unmistakably French that Robert did not think of his uniform, which
was neat and trim to a degree not to be expected in the forest. He bore
himself in the carelessly defiant manner peculiar to the French cadets
and younger sons of noble families in North America at the time, an
accentuation of the French at home, and to some extent a survival of the
spirit which Richelieu partially checked. Even in the forest he wore a
slender rapier at his belt, and his hand rested now upon its golden
hilt.

He was about thirty years old, tall, slender, and with the light hair
and blue eyes seen so often in Northern France, telling, perhaps, of
Norman blood. His glance was apparently light, but Robert felt when it
rested upon him that it was sharp, penetrating and hard to endure.
Nevertheless he met it without lowering his own gaze. The man behind the
leader was swart, short, heavy and of middle years, a Canadian dressed
in deerskin and armed with rifle, hatchet and knife. The third man was
an Indian, one of the most extraordinary figures that Robert had ever
seen. He was of great stature and heavy build, his shoulders and chest
immense and covered with knotted muscles, disclosed to the eye, as he
was bare to the waist. All the upper part of his body was painted in
strange and hideous designs which Robert did not recognize, although he
knew the fashions of all the tribes in the New York and St. Lawrence
regions. His cheek bones were unusually high even for an Indian and his
gaze was heavy, keen and full of challenge. Robert judged that he
belonged to some western tribe, that he was a Pottawatomie, an Ojibway
or a Chippewa or that perhaps he came from the distant Sioux race.

He was conscious that all three represented strength, each in a
different way, and he felt the gaze of three pairs of eyes resting upon
him in a manner that contained either secret or open hostility. But he
faced them boldly, a gallant and defiant young figure himself, instinct
with courage and an intellectual quality that is superior to courage
itself. The Frenchman who confronted him recognized at once the thinker.

"I bid you good day," said Robert politely. "I did not expect to meet
travelers in these woods."

The Frenchman smiled.

"We are all travelers," he said, "but it is you who are our guest, since
these rivers and mountains and lakes and forests acknowledge the
suzerainty of my royal master, King Louis of France."

His tone was light and bantering and Robert, seeing the advantage of it,
chose to speak in the same vein.

"The wilderness itself is king," he said, "and it acknowledges no
master, save perhaps the Hodenosaunee. But I had thought that the law of
England ran here, at least where white men are concerned."

He saw the eyes of the great savage flash when he mentioned the
Hodenosaunee, and he inferred at once that he was a bitter enemy of the
Iroquois. Some of the tribes had a hereditary hatred toward one another
more ferocious than that which they felt against the whites.

The Frenchman smiled again, and swept his hand in a graceful curve
toward the green expanse.

"It is true," he said, "that the forest is yet lord over these lands,
but in the future I think the lilies of France will wave here. You
perhaps have an equal faith that the shadow of the British flag will be
over the wilderness, but it would be most unfitting for you and me to
quarrel about it now. I infer from the canoe and the three paddles that
you did not come here alone."

"Two friends are with me. They have gone into the forest on a brief
expedition. They should return soon. We have food in abundance, a deer
that we killed a few hours ago. Will you share it?"

"Gladly. Courtesy, I see, is not lost in the woods. Permit me to
introduce ourselves. The chief is Tandakora of the Ojibways, from the
region about the great western lake that you call Superior. He is a
mighty warrior, and his fame is great, justly earned in many a battle.
My friend in deerskin is Armand Dubois, born a Canadian of good French
stock, and a most valiant and trustworthy man. As for me, I am Raymond
Louis de St. Luc, Chevalier of France and soldier of fortune in the New
World. And now you know the list of us. It's not so long as Homer's
catalogue of the ships, nor so interesting, but it's complete."

His manner had remained light, almost jesting, and Robert judged that it
was habitual with him like a cloak in winter, and, like the cloak, it
would be laid away when it was not needed. The man's blue eyes, even
when he used the easy manner of the high-bred Frenchman, were questing
and resolute. But the youth still found it easier than he had thought to
meet him in like fashion. Now he replied to frankness with frankness.

"Ours isn't and shouldn't be a hostile meeting in the forest, Chevalier
de St. Luc," he said. "To you and your good friends I offer my
greetings. As for myself, I am Robert Lennox, with two homes, one in
Albany, and the other in the wilderness, wherever I choose to make it."

He paused a moment, because he felt the gaze of St. Luc upon him, very
intent and penetrating, but in an instant he resumed:

"I came here with two friends whom you shall see if you stay with me
long enough. One is David Willet, a hunter and scout, well known from
the Hudson to the Great Lakes, a man to whom I owe much, one who has
stood to me almost in the place of a father. The other I can truly call
a brother. He is Tayoga, a young warrior of the clan of the Bear, of the
nation Onondaga, of the League of the Hodenosaunee. My catalogue, sir,
is just the same length as yours, and it also is complete."

The Chevalier Raymond Louis de St. Luc laughed, and the laugh was
genuine.

"A youth of spirit, I see," he said. "Well, I am glad. It's a pleasure
to meet with wit and perception in the wilderness. One prefers to talk
with gentlemen. 'Tis said that the English are heavy, but I do not
always find them so. Perhaps it's merely a slur that one nation wishes
to cast upon another."

"It's scarcely correct to call me English," said Robert, "since I am a
native of this country, and the term American applies more properly."

The eyes of St. Luc glistened.

"I note the spirit," he said. "The British colonies left to themselves
grow strong and proud, while ours, drawing their strength from the King
and the government, would resent being called anything but Frenchmen.
Now, I'll wager you a louis against any odds that you'll claim the
American to be as good as the Englishman anywhere and at any time."

"Certainly!" said Robert, with emphasis.

St. Luc laughed again and with real pleasure, his blue eyes dancing and
his white teeth flashing.

"And some day that independence will cause trouble for the good British
mother," he said, "but we'll pass from the future to the present. Sit
down, Tandakora, and you too, Dubois. Monsieur Lennox is, for the
present, our host, and that too in the woods we claim to be our own. But
we are none the less grateful for his hospitality."

Robert unwrapped the venison and cut off large slices as he surmised
that all three were hungry. St. Luc ate delicately but the other two did
not conceal their pleasure in food. Robert now and then glanced a little
anxiously at the woods, hoping his comrades would return. He did not
know exactly how to deal with the strangers and he would find comfort in
numbers. He was conscious, too, that St. Luc was watching him all the
time intently, reading his expression and looking into his thoughts.

"How are the good Dutch burghers at Albany?" asked the chevalier. "I
don't seek to penetrate any of your secrets. I merely make
conversation."

"I reveal nothing," replied Robert, "when I say they still barter with
success and enjoy the pleasant ways of commerce. I am not one to
underrate the merchant. More than the soldier they build up a nation."

"It's a large spirit that can put the trade of another before one's own,
because I am a soldier, and you, I judge, will become one if you are not
such now. Peace, Tandakora, it is doubtless the friends of Monsieur
Lennox who come!"

The gigantic Indian had risen suddenly and had thrust forward the good
French musket that he carried. Robert had never beheld a more sinister
figure. The lips were drawn back a little from his long white teeth and
his eyes were those of a hunter who sought to kill for the sake of
killing. But at the chiding words of St. Luc the tense muscles relaxed
and he lowered the weapon. Robert was compelled to notice anew the great
influence the French had acquired over the Indians, and he recognized it
with dread, knowing what it might portend.

The footsteps which the savage had heard first were now audible to him,
and he stood up, knowing that Tayoga and Willet were returning, and he
was glad of it.

"My friends are here," he said.

The Chevalier de St. Luc, with his customary politeness, rose to his
feet and Dubois rose with him. The Ojibway remained sitting, a huge
piece of deer meat in his hand. Tayoga and Willet appeared through the
bushes, and whatever surprise they may have felt they concealed it well.
The faces of both were a blank.

"Guests have come since your departure," said Robert, with the formal
politeness of the time. "These gentlemen are the Chevalier Raymond Louis
de St. Luc, from Quebec, Monsieur Armand Dubois, from the same place, I
presume, and Tandakora, a mighty Ojibway chief, who, it seems, has
wandered far from his own country, on what errand I know not. Chevalier
my friends of whom I spoke, Mr. David Willet, the great hunter, and
Tayoga of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the League of
the Hodenosaunee, my brother of the forest and a great chief."

He spoke purposely with sonority, and also with a tinge of satire,
particularly when he alluded to the presence of Tandakora at such a
great distance from his tribe. But St. Luc, of course, though noticing
it, ignored it in manner. He extended his hand promptly to the great
hunter who grasped it in his mighty palm and shook it.

"I have heard of you, Mr. Willet," he said. "Our brave Canadians are
expert in the forest and the chase, and the good Dubois here is one of
the best, but I know that none of them can excel you."

Robert, watching him, could not say that he spoke without sincerity,
and Willet took the words as they were uttered.

"I've had a long time for learning," he said modestly, "and I suppose
experience teaches the dullest of us."

Robert saw that the Ojibway had now risen and that he and the Onondaga
were regarding each other with a gaze so intent and fierce, so compact
of hatred that he was startled and his great pulses began to beat hard.
But it was only for an instant or two that the two warriors looked thus
into hostile eyes. Then both sat down and their faces became blank and
expressionless.

The gaze of St. Luc roved to the Onondaga and rested longest upon him.
Robert saw the blue eyes sparkle, and he knew that the mind of the
chevalier was arrested by some important thought. He could almost
surmise what it was, but for the present he preferred to keep silent and
watch, because his curiosity was great and natural, and he wondered what
St. Luc would say next.

The Onondaga and the hunter sat down on a fallen tree trunk and
inspected the others with a quiet but observant gaze. Each in his own
way had the best of manners. Tayoga, as became a forest chief, was
dignified, saying little, while Willet cut more slices from the deer
meat and offered them to the guests. But it was the Onondaga and not St.
Luc who now spoke first.

"The son of Onontio wanders far," he said. "It is a march of many days
from here to Quebec."

"It is, Tayoga," replied St. Luc gravely, "but the dominions of the
King of France, whom Onontio serves, also extend far."

It was a significant speech, and Robert glanced at Tayoga, but the eyes
of the young chief were veiled. If he resented the French claim to the
lands over which the Hodenosaunee hunted it was in silence. St. Luc
paused, as if for an answer, but none coming he continued:

"Shadows gather over the great nations beyond the seas. The French king
and the English king begin to look upon each other with hostile eyes."

Tayoga was silent.

"But Onontio, who stands in the French king's place at Quebec, is the
friend of the Hodenosaunee. The French and the great Six Nations are
friends."

"There was Frontenac," said Tayoga quietly.

"It was long ago."

"He came among us when the Six Nations were the Five, burned our houses
and slew our warriors! Our old men have told how they heard it from
their fathers. We did not have guns then, and our bows and arrows were
not a match for the muskets of the French. But we have muskets and
rifles now, plenty of them, the best that are made."

Tayoga's eyes were still veiled, and his face was without expression,
but his words were full of meaning. Robert glanced at St. Luc, who could
not fail to understand. The chevalier was still smooth and smiling.

"Frontenac was a great man," he said, "but he has been gathered long
since to his fathers. Great men themselves make mistakes. There was bad
blood between Onontio and the Hodenosaunee, but if the blood is bad must
it remain bad forever? The evil was gone before you and I were born,
Tayoga, and now the blood flows pure and clean in the veins of both the
French and the Hodenosaunee."

"The Hodenosaunee and Corlear have no quarrel."

"Nor have the Hodenosaunee and Onontio. Behold how the English spread
over the land, cut down the forests and drive away all the game! But the
children of Onontio hunt with the Indians, marry with their women, leave
the forests untouched, and the great hunting grounds swarm with game as
before. While Onontio abides at Quebec the lands of the Hodenosaunee are
safe."

"There was Frontenac," repeated Tayoga.

St. Luc frowned at the insistence of the Onondaga upon an old wound, but
the cloud passed swiftly. In an instant the blue eyes were smiling once
more.

"The memory of Frontenac shall not come between us," he said. "The heart
of Onontio beats for the Hodenosaunee, and he has sent me to say so to
the valiant League. I bring you a belt, a great belt of peace."

Dubois handed him a large knapsack and he took from it a beautiful belt
of pure white wampum, uncommon in size, a full five feet in length, five
inches wide, and covered with many thousands of beads, woven in symbolic
figures. He held it up and the eyes of the Onondaga glistened.

"It is a great belt, a belt of peace," continued St. Luc. "There is
none nobler, and Onontio would send no other kind. I give it to you,
Tayoga."

The young warrior drew back and his hands remained at his sides.

"I am Tayoga, of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the
great League of the Hodenosaunee," he said, "but I am not yet a chief.
My years are too few. It is a great matter of which you speak, St. Luc,
and it must be laid before the fifty sachems of the allied tribes in the
Long House. The belt may be offered to them. I cannot take it."

The flitting cloud passed again over the face of St. Luc, but he did not
allow any change to show in his manner. He returned the splendid belt to
Dubois, who folded it carefully and put it back in the great knapsack.

"Doubtless you are right, Tayoga," he said. "I shall go to the Long
House with the belt, but meantime we thank you for the courtesy of
yourself and your friends. You have given us food when we were hungry,
and a Frenchman does not forget."

"The Onondagas keep the council fire in their valley, and the sachems
will gather there," said Tayoga.

"Where they will receive the belt of peace that I shall offer them,"
said St. Luc.

The Onondaga was silent. St. Luc, who had centered his attention upon
Tayoga, now turned it to Robert.

"Mr. Lennox," he said, "we dwell in a world of alarms, and I am French
and you are English, or rather American, but I wish that you and I could
remain friends."

The frankness and obvious sincerity of his tone surprised Robert. He
knew now that he liked the man. He felt that there was steel in his
composition, and that upon occasion, and in the service to which he
belonged, he could be hard and merciless, but the spirit seemed bright
and gallant.

"I know nothing that will keep us from being friends," replied the lad,
although he knew well what the Frenchman meant.

"Nor do I," said St. Luc. "It was merely a casual reference to the
changes that affect us all. I shall come to Albany some day, Mr. Lennox.
It is an interesting town, though perhaps somewhat staid and sober."

"If you come," said Robert sincerely, "I hope I shall be there, and it
would please me to have you as a guest."

St. Luc gave him a sharp, examining look.

"I believe you mean it," he said. "It's possible that you and I are
going to see much of each other. One can never tell what meetings time
will bring about. And now having accepted your hospitality and thanking
you for it, we must go."

He rose. Dubois, who had not spoken at all, threw over his shoulder the
heavy knapsack, and the Ojibway also stood up, gigantic and sinister.

"We go to the Vale of Onondaga," said St. Luc, turning his attention
back to Tayoga, "and as you advised I shall lay the peace belt before
the fifty sachems of the Hodenosaunee, assembled in council in the Long
House."

"Go to the southwest," said Tayoga, "and you will find the great trail
that leads from the Hudson to the mighty lakes of the west. The warriors
of the Hodenosaunee have trod it for generations, and it is open to the
son of Onontio."

The young Indian's face was a mask, but his words and their tone alike
were polite and dignified. St. Luc bowed, and then bowed to the others
in turn.

"At Albany some day," he said to young Lennox, and his smile was very
winning.

"At Albany some day," repeated Robert, and he hoped the prophecy would
come true.

Then St. Luc turned away, followed by the Canadian, with the Indian in
the rear. None of the three looked back and the last Robert saw of them
was a fugitive gleam of the chevalier's white uniform through the green
leaves of the forest. Then the mighty wilderness swallowed them up, as a
pebble is lost in a lake. Robert looked awhile in the direction in which
they had gone, still seeing them in fancy.

"How much does their presence here signify?" he asked thoughtfully.

"They would have the Hodenosaunee to forget Frontenac," replied Tayoga.

"And will the Six Nations forget him?"

"The fifty sachems in council alone can tell."

Robert saw that the young Onondaga would not commit himself, even to
him, and he did not ask anything more, but the hunter spoke plainly.

"We must wake up those fat Indian commissioners at Albany," he said.
"Those Dutchmen think more of cheating the tribes than they do of the
good of either white man or red man, but I can tell you, Robert, and you
too, Tayoga, that I'm worried about that Frenchman coming down here
among the Six Nations. He's as sharp as a razor, and as quick as
lightning. I could see that, and there's mischief brewing. He's not
going to the Onondaga Valley for nothing."

"Tandakora, the Ojibway, goes with a heavy foot," said the Onondaga.

"What do you mean, Tayoga?" asked Willet.

"He comes of a savage tribe, which is hostile to the Hodenosaunee and
all white men. He has seen three scalps which still grow on the heads of
their owners."

"Which means that he might not keep on following St. Luc. Well, we'll be
on our guard and now I don't see any reason why we should stay here
longer."

"Nor I," said Robert, and, Tayoga agreeing with them, they returned the
canoe to the stream, paddling back into the lake, and continuing their
course until they came to its end. There they carried the canoe across a
portage and launched it on a second lake as beautiful as the first. None
of the three spoke much now, their minds being filled with thoughts of
St. Luc and his companions.

They were yet on the water when the day began to wane. The green forest
on the high western shore was touched with flame from the setting sun.
Then the surface of the lake blazed with red light, and in the east the
gray of twilight came.

"It will be night in half an hour," said Robert, "and I think we'd
better make a landing, and camp."

"Here's a cove on the right," said Willet. "We'll take the canoe up
among the trees, and wrap ourselves in our blankets. It's a good thing
we have them, as the darkness is going to bring a chill with it."

They found good shelter among the trees and bushes, a small hollow
protected by great trees and undergrowth, into which they carried the
canoe.

"Since it's not raining this is as good as a house for us," said Willet.

"I think it's better," said Robert. "The odor of spruce and hemlock is
so wonderful I wouldn't like to have it shut away from me by walls."

The Onondaga drew in deep inhalations of the pure, healing air, and as
his black eyes gleamed he walked to the edge of the little hollow and
looked out in the dusk over the vast tangled wilderness of mountain and
lake, forest and river. The twilight was still infused with the red from
the setting sun, and in the glow the whole world was luminous and
glorified. Now the eyes of Tayoga, which had flashed but lately, gave
back the glow in a steady flame.

"Hawenneyu, the Divine Being whom all the red people worship, made many
great lands," he said, "but he spent his work and love upon that which
lies between the Hudson and the vast lakes of the west. Then he rested
and looking upon what he had done he was satisfied because he knew it to
be the best in all the world, created by him."

"How do you know it to be the best, Tayoga?" asked Willet. "You haven't
seen all the countries. You haven't been across the sea."

"Because none other can be so good," replied the Iroquois with simple
faith. "When Hawenneyu, in your language the Great Spirit, found the
land that he had made so good he did not know then to whom to give it,
but in the greatness of his wisdom he left it to those who were most
fitted to come and take it. And in time came the tribes which Tododaho,
helped by Hayowentha, often called by the English Hiawatha, formed into
the great League of the Hodenosaunee, and because they were brave and
far-seeing and abided by the laws of Tododaho and Hayowentha, they took
the land which they have kept ever since, and which they will keep
forever."

"I like your good, strong beliefs, Tayoga," said the hunter heartily.
"The country does belong to the Iroquois, and if it was left to me to
decide about it they'd keep it till the crack of doom. Now you boys roll
in your blankets. I'll take the first watch, and when it's over I'll
call one of you."

But Tayoga waited a little until the last glow of the sun died in the
west, looking intently where the great orb had shone. Into his religion
a reverence for the sun, Giver of Light and Warmth, entered, and not
until the last faint radiance from it was gone did he turn away.

Then he took from the canoe and unfolded _eyose_, his blanket, which was
made of fine blue broadcloth, thick and warm but light, six feet long
and four feet wide. It was embroidered around the edges with another
cloth in darker blue, and the body of it bore many warlike or hunting
designs worked skillfully in thread. If the weather were cold Tayoga
would drape the blanket about his body much like a Roman toga, and if he
lay in the forest at night he would sleep in it. Now he raked dead
leaves together, spread the blanket on them, lay on one half of it and
used the other half as a cover.

Robert imitated him, but his blanket was not so fine as Tayoga's,
although he found it soft and warm enough. Willet sat on a log higher
up, his rifle across his knees and gazed humorously at them.

"You two lads look pretty snug down there," he said, "and after all
you're only lads. Tayoga may have a head plumb full of the wisdom of the
wilderness, and Robert may have a head stuffed with different kinds of
knowledge, but you're young, mighty young, anyhow. An' now, as I'm
watching over you, I'll give a prize to the one that goes to sleep
first."

In three minutes deep regular breathing showed that both had gone to the
land of slumber, and Willet could not decide which had led the way. The
darkness increased so much that their figures looked dim in the hollow,
but he glanced at them occasionally. The big man had many friends, but
young Lennox and Tayoga were almost like sons to him, and he was glad to
be with them now. He felt that danger lurked in the northern wilderness,
and three were better than two.




CHAPTER III

THE TOMAHAWK


Willet awakened Robert about two o'clock in the morning--it was
characteristic of him to take more than his share of the work--and the
youth stood up, with his rifle in the hollow of his arm, ready at once.

"Tayoga did more yesterday than either of us," said the hunter, "and so
we'll let him sleep."

But the Onondago had awakened, though he did not move. Forest discipline
was perfect among them, and, knowing that it was Robert's time to watch,
he wasted no time in vain talk about it. His eyes closed again and he
returned to sleep as the white lad walked up the bank, while the hunter
was soon in the dreams that Tarenyawagon, who makes them, sent to him.

Robert on the bank, although he expected no danger, was alert. He had
plenty of wilderness skill and his senses, naturally acute, had been
trained so highly that he could discern a hostile approach in the
darkness. The same lore of the forest told him to keep himself
concealed, and he sat on a fallen tree trunk between two bushes that hid
him completely, although his own good eyes, looking through the leaves,
could see a long distance, despite the night.

It was inevitable as he sat there in the silence and darkness with his
sleeping comrades below that his thoughts should turn to St. Luc. He had
recognized in the first moment of their meeting that the young Frenchman
was a personality. He was a personality in the sense that Tayoga was,
one who radiated a spirit or light that others were compelled to notice.
He knew that there was no such thing as looking into the future, but he
felt with conviction that this man was going to impinge sharply upon his
life, whether as a friend or an enemy not even Tarenyawagon, who sent
the dreams, would tell, but he could not be insensible to the personal
charm of the Chevalier Raymond Louis de St. Luc.

What reception would the fifty sachems give to the belt that the
chevalier would bring? Would they be proof against his lightness, his
ease, his fluency and his ability to paint a glowing picture of French
might and French gratitude? Robert knew far better than most of his own
race the immensity of the stake. He who roamed the forest with Tayoga
and the Great Bear understood to the full the power of the Hodenosaunee.
It was true, too, that the Indian commissioners at Albany had not done
their duty and had given the Indians just cause of complaint, at the
very moment when the great League should be propitiated. Yet the
friendship between the Iroquois and the English had been ancient and
strong, and he would not have feared so much had it been any other than
St. Luc who was going to meet the sachems in council.

Robert shook his head as if the physical motion would dismiss his
apprehensions, and walked farther up the hill to a point where he could
see the lake. A light wind was blowing, and little waves of crumbling
silver pursued one another across its surface. On the far side the bank,
crowned with dense forest showing black in the dusk, rose to a great
height, but the lad's eyes came back to the water, his heart missing a
beat as he thought he saw a shadow on its surface, but so near the
opposite shore that it almost merged with a fringe of bushes there.

Then he rebuked himself for easy alarm. It was merely the reflection
from a bough above in the water below. Yet it played tricks with him.
The shadow reappeared again and again, always close to the far bank, but
there were many boughs also to reproduce themselves in the mirror of the
lake. He convinced himself that his eyes and his mind were having sport
with him, and turning away, he made a little circle in the woods about
their camp. All was well. He heard a swish overhead, but he knew that it
was a night bird, a rustling came, and an ungainly form lumbered through
a thicket, but it was a small black bear, and coming back to the hollow,
he looked down at his comrades.

Tayoga and Willet slept well. Neither had stirred, and wrapped in their
blankets lying on the soft leaves, they were true pictures of forest
comfort. They were fine and loyal comrades, as good as anybody ever had,
and he was glad they were so near, because he began to have a feeling
now that something unusual was going to occur. The shadows on the lake
troubled him again, and he went back for another look. He did not see
them now, and that, too, troubled him. It proved that they had been made
by some moving object, and not by the boughs and bushes still there.

Robert examined the lake, his eyes following the line where the far bank
met the water, but he saw no trace of anything moving, and his attention
came back to the woods in which he stood. Presently, he crouched in
dense bush, and concentrated all his powers of hearing, knowing that he
must rely upon ear rather than eye. He could not say that he had really
seen or heard, but he had felt that something was moving in the forest,
something that threatened him.

His first impulse was to go back to the little hollow and awaken his
comrades, but his second told him to stay where he was until the danger
came or should pass, and he crouched lower in the undergrowth with his
hand on the hammer and trigger of his rifle. He did not stir or make any
noise for a long time. The forest, too, was silent. The wind that had
ruffled the surface of the lake ceased, and the leaves over his head
were still.

But he understood too well the ways of the wilderness to move yet. He
did not believe that his faculties, attuned to the slightest alarm, had
deceived him, and he had learned the patience of the Indian from the
Iroquois themselves. His eyes continually pierced the thickets for a
hostile object moving there, and his ears were ready to notice the sound
of a leaf should it fall.

He heard, or thought he heard after a while, a slight sliding motion,
like that which a great serpent would make as it drew its glistening
coils through leaves or grass. But it was impossible for him to tell how
near it was to him or from what point it came, and his blood became
chill in his veins. He was not afraid of a danger seen, but when it came
intangible and invisible the boldest might shudder.

The noise, real or imaginary, ceased, and as he waited he became
convinced that it was only his strained fancy. A man might mistake the
blood pounding in his ears or the beat of his own pulse for a sound
without, and after another five minutes, taking the rifle from the
hollow of his arm, he stood upright. Certainly nothing was moving in the
forest. The leaves hung lifeless. His fancies had been foolish.

He stepped boldly from the undergrowth in which he had knelt, and a
glimpse of a flitting shadow made him kneel again. It was instinct that
caused him to drop down so quickly, but he knew that it had saved his
life. Something glittering whistled where his head had been, and then
struck with a sound like a sigh against the trunk of a tree.

Robert sank from his knees, until he lay almost fiat, and brought his
rifle forward for instant use. But, for a minute or two, he would not
have been steady enough to aim at anything. His tongue was dry in his
mouth, and his hair lifted a little at his marvelous escape.

He looked for the shadow, his eyes searching every thicket; but he did
not find it, and now he believed that the one who had sped the blow had
gone, biding his time for a second chance. Another wait to make sure,
and hurrying to the hollow he awoke Tayoga and the hunter, who returned
at once with him to the place where the ambush had miscarried.

"Ah!" said the Onondaga, as they looked about. _"Osquesont_! Behold!"

The blade of an Indian tomahawk, _osquesont_, was buried deep in the
trunk of a tree, and Robert knew that the same deadly weapon had
whistled where his head had been but a second before. He shuddered. Had
it not been for his glimpse of the flitting shadow his head would have
been cloven to the chin. Tayoga, with a mighty wrench, pulled out the
tomahawk and examined it. It was somewhat heavier than the usual weapon
of the type and he pronounced it of French make.

"Did it come from Quebec, Tayoga?" asked Willet.

"Perhaps," replied the young warrior, "but I saw it yesterday."

"You did! Where?"

"In the belt of Tandakora, the Ojibway."

"I thought so," said Robert.

"And he threw it with all the strength of a mighty arm," said the
Onondaga. "There is none near us in the forest except Tandakora who
could bury it so deep in the tree. It was all I could do to pull it out
again."

"And seeing his throw miss he slipped away as fast as he could!" said
Willet.

"Yes, Great Bear, the Ojibway is cunning. After hurling the tomahawk he
would not stay to risk a shot from Lennox. He was willing even to
abandon a weapon which he must have prized. Ah, here is his trail! It
leads through the forest toward the lake!"

They were able to follow it a little distance but it was lost on the
hard ground, although it led toward the water. Robert told of the shadow
he had seen near the farther bank, and both Willet and Tayoga were quite
sure it had been a small canoe, and that its occupant was Tandakora.

"It's not possible that St. Luc sent the Ojibway back to murder us!"
exclaimed Robert, his mind rebelling at the thought.

"I don't think it likely," said Willet, but the Onondaga was much more
emphatic.

"The Ojibway came of his own wish," he said. "While the sons of Onontio
slept he slipped away, and it was the lure of scalps that drew him. He
comes of a savage tribe far in the west. An Iroquois would have scorned
such treachery."

Robert felt an immense relief. He had become almost as jealous of the
Frenchman's honor as of his own, and knowing that Tayoga understood his
race, he accepted his words as final. It was hideous to have the thought
in his mind, even for a moment, that a man who had appeared so gallant
and friendly as St. Luc had sent a savage back to murder them.

"The French do not control the western tribes," continued Tayoga,
"though if war comes they will be on the side of Onontio, but as equals
they will come hither and go thither as they please."

"Which means, I take it," said the hunter, "that if St. Luc discovers
what Tandakora has been trying to do here tonight he'll be afraid to
find much fault with it, because the Ojibway and all the other Ojibways
would go straight home?"

"It is so," said the Onondaga.

"Well, we're thankful that his foul blow went wrong. You've had a mighty
narrow escape, Robert, my lad, but we've gained one good tomahawk which,
you boys willing, I mean to take."

Tayoga handed it to him, and with an air of satisfaction he put the
weapon in his belt.

"I may have good use for it some day," he said. "The chance may come for
me to throw it back to the savage who left it here. And now, as our
sleep is broken up for the night, I think we'd better scout the woods a
bit, and then come back here for breakfast."

They found nothing hostile in the forest, and when they returned to the
hollow the thin gray edge of dawn showed on the far side of the lake.
Having no fear of further attack, they lighted a small fire and warmed
their food. As they ate day came in all its splendor and Robert saw the
birds flashing back and forth in the thick leaves over his head.

"Where did the Ojibway get his canoe?" he asked.

"The Frenchmen like as not used it when they came down from Canada,"
replied the hunter, "and left it hid to be used again when they went
back. It won't be worth our while to look for it. Besides, we've got to
be moving soon."

After breakfast they carried their own canoe to the lake and paddled
northward to its end. Then they took their craft a long portage across a
range of hills and launched it anew on a swift stream flowing northward,
on the current of which they traveled until nightfall, seeing throughout
that time no sign of a human being. It was the primeval wilderness, and
since it lay between the British colonies on the south and the French on
the north it had been abandoned almost wholly in the last year or two,
letting the game, abundant at any time, increase greatly. They saw deer
in the thickets, they heard the splash of a beaver, and a black bear,
sitting on a tiny island in the river, watched them as they passed.

On the second day after Robert's escape from the tomahawk they left the
river, made a long portage and entered another river, also flowing
northward, having in mind a double purpose, to throw off the trail
anyone who might be following them and to obtain a more direct course
toward their journey's end. Knowing the dangers of the wilderness, they
also increased their caution, traveling sometimes at night and lying in
camp by day.

But they lived well. All three knew the importance of preserving their
strength, and to do so an abundance of food was the first requisite.
Tayoga shot another deer with the bow and arrow, and with the use of
fishing tackle which they had brought in the canoe they made the river
pay ample tribute. They lighted the cooking fires, however, in the most
sheltered places they could find, and invariably extinguished them as
soon as possible.

"You can't be too careful in the woods," said Willet, "especially in
times like these. While the English and French are not yet fighting
there's always danger from the savages."

"The warriors from the wild tribes in Canada and the west will take a
scalp wherever there's a chance," said the young Onondaga.

Robert often noticed the manner in which Tayoga spoke of the tribes
outside the great League. To him those that did not belong to the
Hodenosaunee, while they might be of the same red race, were
nevertheless inferior. He looked upon them as an ancient Greek looked
upon those who were not Greeks.

"The French are a brave people," said the hunter, "but the most warlike
among them if they knew our errand would be willing for some of their
painted allies to drop us in the wilderness, and no questions would be
asked. You can do things on the border that you can't in the towns. We
might be tomahawked in here and nobody would ever know what became of
us."

"I think," said Tayoga, "that our danger increases. Tandakora after
leaving the son of Onontio, St. Luc, might not go back to him. He might
fear the anger of the Frenchman, and, too, he would still crave a scalp.
A warrior has followed an enemy for weeks to obtain such a trophy."

"You believe then," said Robert, "that the Ojibway is still on our
trail?"

Tayoga nodded. After a moment's silence he added:

"We come, too, to a region in which the St. Regis, the Caughnawaga, the
Ottawa and the Micmac, all allies of Onontio, hunt. The Ojibway may
meet a band and tell the warriors we are in the woods."

His look was full of significance and Robert understood thoroughly.

"I shall be glad," he said, "when we reach the St. Lawrence. We'll then
be in real Canada, and, while the French are undoubtedly our enemies,
we'll not be exposed to treacherous attack."

They were in the canoe as they talked and Tayoga was paddling, the
swiftness of the current now making the efforts of only one man
necessary. A few minutes later he turned the canoe to the shore and the
three got out upon the bank. Robert did not know why, but he was quite
sure the reason was good.

"Falls below," said Tayoga, as they drew the canoe upon the land. "All
the river drops over a cliff. Much white water."

They carried the canoe without difficulty through the woods, and when
they came to the falls they stopped a little while to look at the
descent, and listen to the roar of the tumbling water.

"I was here once before, three years ago," said Willet.

"Others have been here much later," said the Onondaga.

"What do you mean, Tayoga?"

"My white brother is not looking. Let him turn his eyes to the left. He
will see two wild flowers broken off at the stem, a feather which has
not fallen from the plumage of a bird, because the quill is painted, and
two traces of footsteps in the earth."

"As surely as the sun shines, you're right, Tayoga! Warriors have
passed here, though we can't tell how many! But the traces are not
more'n a half day old."

He picked up the feather and examined it carefully.

"That fell from a warrior's scalplock," he said, "but we don't know to
what tribe the warrior belonged."

"But it's likely to be a hostile trail," said Robert.

Tayoga nodded, and then the three considered. It was only a fragment of
a trail they had seen, but it told them danger was near. Where they were
traveling strangers were enemies until they were proved to be friends,
and the proof had to be of the first class, also. They agreed finally to
turn aside into the woods with the canoe, and stop until night. Then
under cover of the friendly darkness they would resume their journey on
the river.

They chose the heavily wooded crest of a low hill for the place in which
to wait, because they could see some distance from it and remain unseen.
They put the canoe down there and Robert and Tayoga sat beside it, while
Willet went into the woods to see if any further signs of a passing band
could be discovered, returning in an hour with the information that he
had discovered more footprints.

"All led to the north," he said, "and they're well ahead of us. There's
no reason why we can't follow. We're three, used to the wilderness,
armed well and able to take care of ourselves. And I take it the night
will be dark, which ought to help us."

The Onondaga looked up at the skies, which were of a salmon color, and
shook his head a little.

"What's the matter?" asked Robert.

"The night will bring much darkness," he replied, "but it will bring
something else with it--wind, rain."

"You may be right, Tayoga, but we must be moving, just the same," said
Willet.

At dusk they were again afloat on the river and, all three using the
paddles, they sent the canoe forward with great speed. But it soon
became apparent that Tayoga's prediction would be justified. Clouds
trailed up from the southwest and obscured all the heavens. A wind arose
and it was heavy and damp upon their faces. The water seemed black as
ink. Low thunder far away began to mutter. The wilderness became uncanny
and lonely. All save forest rovers would have been appalled, and of
these three one at least felt that the night was black and sinister.
Robert looked intently at the forest on either shore, rising now like
solid black walls, but his eyes, unable to penetrate them, found nothing
there. Then the lightning flamed in the west, and for a moment the
surface of the river was in a blaze.

"What do you think of it, Tayoga?" asked Willet, anxiety showing in his
tone, "Ought we to make a landing now?"

"Not yet," replied the Onondaga. "The storm merely growls and threatens
at present. It will not strike for perhaps an hour."

"But when it does strike it's going to hit a mighty blow unless all
signs fail. I've seen 'em gather before, and this is going to be a king
of storms! Hear that thunder now! It doesn't growl any more, but goes
off like the cracking of big cannon."

"But it's still far in the west," persisted Tayoga, as the three bent
over their paddles.

The forest, however, was groaning with the wind, and little waves rose
on the river. Now the lightning flared again and again, so fierce and
bright that Robert, despite his control of himself, instinctively
recoiled from it as from the stroke of a saber.

"Do you recall any shelter farther on, Tayoga?" asked the hunter.

"The overhanging bank and the big hollow in the stone," replied the
Onondaga. "On the left! Don't you remember?"

"Now I do, Tayoga, but I didn't know it was near. Do you think we can
make it before that sky over our heads splits wide open?"

"It will be a race," replied the young Iroquois, "but we three are
strong, and we are skilled in the use of the paddle."

"Then we'll bend to it," said Willet. And they did. The canoe shot
forward at amazing speed over the surface of the river, inky save when
the lightning flashed upon it. Robert paddled as he had never paddled
before, his muscles straining and the perspiration standing out on his
face. He was thoroughly inured to forest life, but he knew that even the
scouts and Indians fled for shelter from the great wilderness
hurricanes.

There was every evidence that the storm would be of uncommon violence.
The moan of the wind rose to a shriek and they heard the crash of
breaking boughs and falling trees in the forest. The river, whipped
continually by the gusts, was broken with waves upon which the canoe
rocked with such force that the three, expert though they were, were
compelled to use all their skill, every moment, to keep it from being
overturned. If it had not been for the rapid and vivid strokes of
lightning under which the waters turned blood red their vessel would
have crashed more than once upon the rocks, leaving them to swim for
life.

"That incessant flare makes me shiver," said Robert. "It seems every
time that I'm going to be struck by it, but I'm glad it comes, because
without it we'd never see our way on the river."

"Manitou sends the good and evil together," said Tayoga gravely.

"Anyhow," said Willet, "I hope we'll get to our shelter before the rain
comes. Look out for that rock on the right, Robert!"

Young Lennox, with a swift and powerful motion of the paddle, shot the
canoe back toward the center of the river, and then the three tried to
hold it there as they sped on.

"Three or four hundred yards more," said Tayoga, "and we can draw into
the smooth water we wish."

"And not a minute too soon," said Willet. "It seems to me I can hear the
rain coming now in a deluge, and the waves on the river make me think of
some I've seen on one of the big lakes. Listen to that, will you!"

A huge tree, blown down, fell directly across the stream, not more than
twenty yards behind them. But the fierce and swollen waters tearing at
it in torrents would soon bear it away on the current.

"Manitou was watching over us then," said Tayoga with the same gravity.

"As sure as the Hudson runs into the sea, he was," said Willet in a tone
of reverence. "If that tree had hit us we and the canoe would all have
been smashed together and a week later maybe the French would have
fished our pieces out of the St. Lawrence."

Robert, who was farthest forward in the canoe, noticed that the cliff
ahead, hollowed out at the base by the perpetual eating of the waters,
seemed to project over the stream, and he concluded that it was the
place in Tayoga's mind.

"Our shelter, isn't it?" he asked, pointing a finger by the lightning's
flare.

Tayoga nodded, and the three, putting their last ounce of strength into
the sweep of the paddles, sent the canoe racing over the swift current
toward the haven now needed so badly. As they approached, Robert saw
that the hollow went far back into the stone, having in truth almost the
aspects of a cave. Beneath the mighty projection he saw also that the
water was smooth, unlashed by the wind and outside the sweep of the
current, and he felt immense relief when the canoe shot into its still
depths and he was able to lay the paddle beside him.

"Back a little farther," said Tayoga, and he saw then, still by the
flare of lightning, that the water ended against a low shelf at least
six feet broad, upon which they stepped, lifting the canoe after them.

"It's all that you claimed for it, and more, Tayoga," said the hunter.
"I fancy a ship in a storm would be glad enough to find a refuge as good
for it as this is for us."

Tayoga smiled, and Robert knew that he felt deep satisfaction because he
had brought them so well to port. Looking about after they had lifted up
the canoe, he saw that in truth nature had made a good harbor here for
those who traveled on the river, its waters so far never having been
parted by anything but a canoe. The hollow went back thirty or forty
feet with a sloping roof of stone, and from the ledge, whenever the
lightning flashed, they saw the river flowing before them in a rushing
torrent, but inside the hollow the waters were a still pool.

"Now the rain comes," said Tayoga.

Then they heard its sweep and roar and it arrived in such mighty volume
that the surface of the river was beaten almost flat. But in their snug
and well-roofed harbor not a drop touched them. Robert on the ledge with
his back to the wall had a pervading sense of comfort. The lightning and
the thunder were both dying now, but the rain came in a steady and
mighty sweep. As the lightning ceased entirely it was so dark that they
saw the water in front of them but dimly, and they had to be very
careful in their movements on the ledge, lest they roll off and slip
into its depths.

"Robert," said Willet in a whimsical tone, "one of the first things I
tried to teach you when you were a little boy was always to be calm,
and under no circumstances to let your calm be broken up when there was
nothing to break it up. Now, we've every reason to be calm. We've got a
good home here, and the storm can't touch us."

"I was already calm, Dave," replied Robert lightly. "I took your first
lesson to heart, learned it, and I've never forgotten it. I'm so calm
that I've unfolded my blanket and put it under me to soften the stone."

"To think of your blanket is proof enough that you're not excited. I'll
do the same. Tayoga, in whose country is this new home of ours?"

"It is the land of no man, because it lies between the tribes from the
north and the tribes from the south. Yet the Iroquois dare to come here
when they choose. It's the fourth time I have been on this ledge, but
before I was always with my brethren of the clan of the Bear of the
nation Onondaga."

"Well, Tayoga," said Willet, in his humorous tone, "the company has
grown no worse."

"No," said Tayoga, and his smile was invisible to them in the darkness.
"The time is coming when the sachems of the Onondagas will be glad they
adopted Lennox and the Great Bear into our nation."

Willet's laugh came at once, not loud, but with an inflection of intense
enjoyment.

"You Onondagas are a bit proud, Tayoga," he said.

"Not without cause, Great Bear."

"Oh, I admit it! I admit it! I suppose we're all proud of our race--it's
one of nature's happy ways of keeping us satisfied--and I'm free to
say, Tayoga, that I've no quarrel at having been born white, because I'm
so used to being white that I'd hardly know how to be anything else. But
if I wasn't white--a thing that I had nothing to do with--and your
Manitou who is my God was to say to me, 'Choose what else you'll be,'
I'd say, and I'd say it with all the respect and reverence I could bring
into the words, 'O Lord, All Wise and All Powerful, make me a strong
young warrior of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the
League of the Hodenosaunee, hunting for my clan and fighting to protect
its women and children, and keeping my word with everybody and trying to
be just to the red races and tribes that are not as good as mine, and
even to be the same to the poor white men around the towns that get
drunk, and steal, and rob one another,' and maybe your Manitou who is my
God would give to me my wish."

"The Great Bear has a silver tongue, and the words drop from his lips
like honey," said Tayoga. But Robert knew that the young Onondaga was
intensely gratified and he knew, too, that Willet meant every word he
said.

"You'd better make yourself comfortable on the blanket, as we're doing,
Tayoga," the youth said.

But the Onondaga did not intend to rest just yet. The wildness of the
place and the spirit of the storm stirred him. He stood upon the shelf
and the others dimly saw his tall and erect young figure. Slowly he
began to chant in his own tongue, and his song ran thus in English:

"The lightning cleaves the sky,
 The Brave Soul fears not;
 The thunder rolls and threatens,
 Manitou alone speeds the bolt;
 The waters are deep and swift,
 They carry the just man unhurt."

"O Spirit of Good, hear me,
 Watch now over our path,
 Lead us in the way of the right,
 And, our great labors finished,
 Bring us back, safe and well,
 To the happy vale of Onondaga."

"A good hymn, Tayoga, for such I take it to be," said Willet. "I haven't
heard my people sing any better. And now, since you've done more'n your
share of the work you'd better take Robert's advice and lie down on your
blanket."

Tayoga obeyed, and the three in silence listened to the rushing of the
storm.




CHAPTER IV

THE INTELLIGENT CANOE


Lennox, Willet and Tayoga fell asleep, one by one, and the Onondaga was
the last to close his eyes. Then the three, wrapped in their blankets,
lay in complete darkness on the stone shelf, with the canoe beside them.
They were no more than the point of a pin in the vast wilderness that
stretched unknown thousands of miles from the Hudson to the Pacific,
apparently as lost to the world as the sleepers in a cave ages earlier,
when the whole earth was dark with forest and desert.

Although the storm could not reach them it beat heavily for long hours
while they slept. The sweep of the rain maintained a continuous driving
sound. Boughs cracked and broke beneath it. The waters of the river,
swollen by the floods of tributary creeks and brooks, rose fast, bearing
upon their angry surface the wreckage of trees, but they did not reach
the stone shelf upon which the travelers lay.

Tayoga awoke before the morning, while it was yet so dark that his
trained eyes could see but dimly the figures of his comrades. He sat up
and listened, knowing that he must depend for warning upon his hearing,
which had been trained to extreme acuteness by the needs of forest
life. All three of them were great wilderness trailers and scouts, but
Tayoga was the first of the three. Back of him lay untold generations
that had been compelled to depend upon the physical senses and the
intuition that comes from their uttermost development and co-ordination.
Now, Tayoga, the product of all those who had gone before, was also
their finest flower.

He had listened at first, resting on his elbow, but after a minute or
two he sat up. He heard the rushing of the rain, the crack of
splintering boughs, the flowing of the rising river, and the gurgling of
its waters as they lapped against the stone shelf. They would not enter
it he knew, as he had observed that the highest marks of the floods lay
below them.

The sounds made by the rain and the river were steady and unchanged. But
the intuition that came from the harmonious working of senses, developed
to a marvelous degree, sounded a warning note. A danger threatened. He
did not know what the danger was nor whence it would come, but the soul
of the Onondaga was alive and every nerve and muscle in his body was
attuned for any task that might lie before him. He looked at his
sleeping comrades. They did not stir, and their long, regular breathing
told him that no sinister threat was coming to them.

But Tayoga never doubted. The silent and invisible warning, like a
modern wireless current, reached him again. Now, he knelt at the very
edge of the shelf, and drew his long hunting knife. He tried to pierce
the darkness with his eyes, and always he looked up the stream in the
direction in which they had come. He strained his ears too to the
utmost, concentrating the full powers of his hearing upon the river, but
the only sounds that reached him were the flowing of the current, the
bubbling of the water at the edges, and its lapping against a tree or
bush torn up by the storm and floating on the surface of the stream.

The Onondaga stepped from the shelf, finding a place for his feet in
crevices below, the water rising almost to his knees, and leaned farther
forward to listen. One hand held firmly to a projection of stone above
and the other clasped the knife.

Tayoga maintained the intense concentration of his faculties, as if he
had drawn them together in an actual physical way, until they bore upon
one point, and he poured so much strength and vitality into them that he
made the darkness thin away before his eyes and he heard noises of the
water that had not come to him before.

A broken bough, a bush and a sapling washed past. Then came a tree, and
deflecting somewhat from the current it floated toward the shelf.
Leaning far over and extending the hand that held the knife, Tayoga
struck. When the blade came back it was red and the young Onondaga
uttered a tremendous war whoop that rang and echoed in the confines of
the stony hollow.

Lennox and Willet sprang to their feet, all sleep driven away at once,
and instinctively grasped their rifles.

"What is it, Tayoga?" exclaimed the startled Willet.

"The attack of the savage warriors," replied the Onondaga. "One came
floating on a tree. He thought to slay us as we slept and take away our
scalps, but the river that brought him living has borne him away dead."

"And so they know we're here," said the hunter, "and your watchfulness
has saved us. Well, Tayoga, it's one more deed for which we have to
thank you, but I think you'd better get back on the shelf. They can fire
from the other side, farther up, and although it would be at random, a
bullet or two might strike here."

The Onondaga swung himself back and all three flattened themselves
against the rock. After Tayoga's triumphant shout there was no sound
save those of the river and the rain. But Robert expected it. He knew
the horde would be quiet for a while, hoping for a surprise the second
time after the first one had failed.

"It was bold," he said, "for a single warrior to come floating down the
stream in search of us."

"But it would have succeeded if Tayoga hadn't been awake," said the
hunter. "One warrior could have knifed us all at his leisure."

"Where do you think they are now?"

"They must be crouched in the shelter of rocks. If they had nothing over
them the storm would take the fighting spirit for the time out of
savages, even wild for scalps. I'm mighty glad we have the canoe. It
holds the food we need for a siege, and if the chance for escape comes
it will bear us away. I think, Tayoga, I can see a figure stirring
among the boulders on the other side farther up."

"I see two," said the Onondaga, "and doubtless there are others whom we
cannot see. Keep close, my friends, I think they are going to fire."

A dozen rifles were discharged from a point about a hundred yards away,
the exploding powder making red dots in the darkness, the bullets
rattling on the stone cliff or sending up little spurts of water from
the river. The volley was followed by a shrill, fierce war whoop, and
then nothing was heard but the flowing of the river and the rushing of
the rain.

"You are not touched?" said Tayoga, and Robert and Willet quickly
answered in the negative.

"They don't know just which way to aim their guns," said Willet, "and so
long as we keep quiet now they won't learn. That shout of yours, Tayoga,
was not enough to tell them."

"But they must remember about where the hollow is, although they can't
pull trigger directly upon it, owing to the darkness and storm," said
Robert.

"That about sums it up, my boy," said the hunter. "If they do a lot of
random firing the chances are about a hundred to one they won't hit us,
and the Indians don't have enough ammunition to waste that way."

"I don't suppose we can launch the canoe and slip away in it?"

"No, it would be swamped by the rain and the flood. It's likely, too,
that they're on watch for us farther down the stream."

"Then this is our home and fortress for an indefinite time, and, that
being the case, I'm going to make myself as easy as I can."

He drew the blanket under his body again and lay on his elbow, but he
held his rifle before him, ready for battle at an instant's notice. His
feeling of comfort returned and with it the sense of safety. The bullets
of the savages had gone so wild and the darkness was so deep that their
shelter appeared to him truly as a fortress which no numbers of
besiegers could storm.

"Do you think they'll try floating down the stream on trees or logs
again, Tayoga?" he asked.

"No, the danger is too great," replied the Onondaga. "They know now that
we're watching."

An hour passed without any further sign from the foe. The rain decreased
somewhat in violence, but, as the wind rose, its rush and sweep made as
much sound as ever. Then the waiting was broken by scattering shots,
accompanied by detached war whoops, as if different bands were near.
From their shelter they watched the red dots that marked the discharges
from the rifles, but only one bullet came near them, and after chipping
a piece of stone over their heads it dropped harmlessly to the floor.

"That was the one chance out of a hundred," said Willet, "and now we're
safe from the next ninety-nine bullets."

"I trust the rule will work," said Robert.

"I wish you'd hold my left hand in a firm grip," said Willet.

"I will, but why?" returned the youth.

"If I get a chance I'm going to drag up some of that dead and floating
wood and lay it along the edge of the shelf. In the dark the savages
can't pick us off, but we'll need a barrier in the morning."

"You're right, Dave, of course. I'm sorry I didn't think of it myself."

"One of us thought of it, and that's enough. Hold my hand hard, Robert.
Don't let your grip slip."

By patient waiting and help from the others Willet was able to draw up
two logs of fair size, and some smaller pieces which they placed
carefully on the edge of the stone shelf. Lying flat behind them, they
would be almost hidden, and now they could await the coming of daylight
with more serenity.

A long time passed. The three ate strips of the deer meat, and Robert
even slept for a short while. He awoke to find a further decrease in the
rain, although the river was still rising, and Tayoga and Willet were of
the opinion that it would stop soon, a belief that was justified in an
hour. Robert soon afterward saw the clouds move away, and disclose a
strip of dark blue sky, into which the stars began to come one by one.

"The night will grow light soon," said Tayoga, "then it will darken
again for a little time before the coming of the day."

"And we've built our breastwork none too soon," said Willet. "There'll
be so many stars by and by that those fellows can pick out our place and
send their bullets to it. What do you think, Tayoga? Is it just a band
taking the chance to get some scalps, or are they sent out by the
Governor General of Canada to do wicked work in the forest and then be
disowned if need be?"

"I cannot tell," replied the Onondaga. "Much goes on in the land of
Onontio at Stadacona (Quebec). He talks long in whispers with the
northern chiefs, and often he does not let his left ear know what the
right ear hears. Onontio moves in the night, while Corlear sleeps."

"That may be so, Tayoga, but whether it's so or not I like our
straightforward English and American way best. We may blunder along for
a while and lose at first, but to be open and honest is to be strong."

"I did not say the ways of Corlear would prevail. It is not the talk of
Corlear that will keep the Hodenosaunee faithful to the English side,
but it is the knowledge of the fifty sachems that when Onontio is
speaking in a voice of honey he is to be trusted the least."

Willet laughed.

"I understand, Tayoga," he said. "You're for us not because you have so
much faith in Corlear, but because you have less in Onontio. Well, it's
a good enough reason, I suppose. But all Frenchmen are not tricksters.
Most of 'em are brave, and when they're friends they're good and true.
About all I've got to say against 'em is that they're willing to shut
their eyes to the terrible things their allies do in their name. But
I've had a lot to do with 'em on the border, and you can get to like
'em. Now, that St. Luc we met was a fine upstanding man."

"But if an enemy, an enemy to be dreaded," said Tayoga with his usual
gravity.

"I wouldn't mind that if it came to war. In such cases the best men make
the best enemies, I suppose. He had a sharp eye. I could see how he
measured us, and reckoned us up, but he looked most at Robert here."

"His sharp eye recognized that I was the most important of the three,"
said Robert lightly.

"Every fellow is mighty important to himself," said Willet, "and he
can't get away from it. Tayoga, do you think you see figures moving on
the other bank there, up the stream?"

"Two certainly, others perhaps, Great Bear," replied the Onondaga. "I
might reach one with my rifle."

"Don't try it, Tayoga. We're on the defense, and we'll let 'em make all
the beginnings. The sooner they shoot away their ammunition the better
it will be for us. I think they'll open fire pretty soon now, because
the night is growing uncommon bright. The stars are so big and shining,
and there are so many of them they all look as if they had come to a
party. Flatten yourselves down, boys! I can see a figure kneeling by a
bowlder and that means one shot, if not more."

They lay close and Robert was very thankful now for the logs they had
dragged up from the water, as they afforded almost complete shelter. The
crouching warrior farther up the stream fired, and his bullet struck the
hollow above their heads.

"A better aim than they often show," said Willet.

More shots were fired, and one buried itself in the log in front of
Robert. He heard the thud made by the bullet as it entered, and once
more he was thankful for their rude breastwork. But it was the only one
that struck so close and presently the savages ceased their fire,
although the besieged three were still able to see them in the brilliant
moonlight among the bowlders.

"They're getting a bit too insolent," said the hunter. "Maybe they think
it's a shorter distance from them to us than it is from us to them, and
that our bullets would drop before they got to 'em. I think, Tayoga,
I'll prove that it's not so."

"Choose the man at the edge of the water," said Tayoga. "He has fired
three shots at us, and we should give him at least one in return."

"I'll pay the debt, Tayoga."

Robert saw the warrior, his head and shoulders and painted chest
appearing above the stone. The distance was great for accuracy, but the
light was brilliant, and the rifle of the hunter rose to his shoulder.
The muzzle bore directly upon the naked chest, and when Willet pulled
the trigger a stream of fire spurted from the weapon.

The savage uttered a cry, shot forward and fell into the stream. His
lifeless body tossed like dead wood on the swift current, reappeared and
floated by the little fortress of the three. Robert shuddered as he saw
the savage face again, and then he saw it no more.

The savages uttered a shout of grief and rage over the loss of the
warrior, but the besieged were silent. Willet, as he reloaded his rifle,
gave it an affectionate little pat or two.

"It's a good weapon," he said, "and with a fair light I was sure I
wouldn't miss. We've given 'em fair warning that they've got a nest of
panthers here to deal with, and that when they attack they're taking
risks. Can you see any of 'em now, Tayoga?"

"All have taken to cover. There is not one among them who is willing to
face again the rifle of the Great Bear."

Willet smiled with satisfaction at the compliment. He was proud of his
sharp-shooting, and justly so, but he said modestly:

"I had a fair target, and it will do for a warning. I think we can look
for another long rest now."

The dark period that precedes the dawn came, and then the morning
flashed over the woods. Robert, from the hollow, looking across the far
shore, saw lofty, wooded hills and back of them blue mountains. Beads of
rain stood on the leaves, and the wilderness seemed to emerge, fresh and
dripping, from a glorious bath. Pleasant odors of the wild came to him,
and now he felt the sting of imprisonment there among the rocks. He
wished they could go at once on their errand. It was a most unfortunate
chance to have been found there by the Indians and to be held
indefinitely in siege. The flooded river would have borne them swiftly
in their canoe toward the St. Lawrence.

"Mourning, Robert?" said Willet who noticed his face.

"For the moment, yes," admitted young Lennox, "but it has passed. I
wanted to be going on this lively river and through the green wood, but
since I have to wait I can do it."

"I feel the same way about it, and we're lucky to have such a fort as
the one we are in. I think the savages will hang on here for a long
while. Indians always have plenty of time. That's why they're more
patient than white men. Like as not we won't get a peep out of them all
the morning."

"Lennox feels the beauty of the day," said Tayoga, "and that's why he
wants to leave the hollow and go into the woods. But if Lennox will only
think he'll know that other days as fine will come."

The eye of the young Onondaga twinkled as he delivered his jesting
advice.

"I'll be as patient as I can," replied Robert in the same tone, "but
tomorrow is never as good as today. I wait like you and Dave only
because I have to do so."

"In the woods you must do as the people who live there do," said the
hunter philosophically. "They learn how to wait when they're young. We
don't know how long we'll be here. A little more of the deer, Tayoga.
It's close to the middle of the day now and we must keep our strength. I
wish we had better water than that of a flooded and muddy river to
drink, but it's water, anyhow."

They ate, drank and refreshed themselves and another long period of
inaction followed. The warriors--at intervals--fired a few shots but
they did no damage. Only one entered the hollow, and it buried itself
harmlessly in their wooden barrier. They suffered from nothing except
the soreness and stiffness that came from lying almost flat and so long
in one position. The afternoon, cloudless and brilliant, waned, and the
air in the recess grew warm and heavy. Had it not been for the necessity
of keeping guard Robert could have gone to sleep again. The flood in the
river passed its zenith and was now sinking visibly. No more trees or
bushes came floating on the water. Willet showed disappointment over the
failure of the besiegers to make any decided movement.

"I was telling you, Robert, a while ago," he said, "that Indians mostly
have a lot of time, but I'm afraid the band that's cornered us here has
got too much. They may send out a warrior or two to hunt, and the others
may sit at a distance and wait a week for us to come out. At least it
looks that way to a 'possum up a tree. What do you think of it, Tayoga?"

"The Great Bear is right," replied the Onondaga. "He is always right
when he is not wrong."

"Come now, Tayoga, are you making game of me?"

"Not so, my brother, because the Great Bear is nearly always right and
very seldom wrong. It is given only to Manitou never to be wrong."

"That's better, Tayoga. If I can keep up a high average of accuracy I'm
satisfied."

Tayoga's English was always precise and a trifle bookish, like that of a
man speaking a language he has learned in a school, which in truth was
the case with the Onondaga. Like the celebrated Thayendanegea, the
Mohawk, otherwise known as Joseph Brant, he had been sent to a white
school and he had learned the English of the grammarian. Willet too
spoke in a manner much superior to that of the usual scout and hunter.

"If the Indians post lines out of range and merely maintain a watch what
will we do?" asked Robert. "I, for one, don't want to stay here
indefinitely."

"Nor do any of us," replied Willet. "We ought to be moving. A long delay
here won't help us. We've got to think of something."

The two, actuated by the same impulse, looked at Tayoga. He was very
thoughtful and presently glanced up at the heavens.

"What does the Great Bear think of the sky?" he asked.

"I think it's a fine sky, Tayoga," Willet replied with a humorous
inflection. "But I've always admired it, whether it's blue or gray or
just black, spangled with stars."

Tayoga smiled.

"What does the Great Bear think of the sky?" he repeated. "Do the signs
say to him that the coming night will be dark like the one that has just
gone before?"

"They say it will be dark, Tayoga, but I don't believe we'll have the
rain again."

"We do not want the rain, but we do want the dark. Tonight when the moon
and stars fail to come we must leave the hollow."

"By what way, Tayoga?"

The Onondaga pointed to the river.

"We have the canoe," he said.

"But if they should hear or see us we'd make a fine target in it," said
Robert.

"We won't be in it," said the Onondaga, "although our weapons and
clothes will."

"Ah, I understand! We're to launch the canoe, put in it everything
including our clothes, except ourselves, and swim by the side of it.
Three good swimmers are we, Tayoga, and I believe we can do it."

The Onondaga looked at Willet, who nodded his approval.

"The chances will favor us, and we'd better try it," he said, "that is,
if the night is dark, as I think it will be."

"Then it is agreed," said Robert.

"It is so," said Tayoga.

No more words were needed, and they strengthened their hearts for the
daring attempt, waiting patiently for the afternoon to wane and die into
the night, which, arrived moonless and starless and heavy with dark, as
they had hoped and predicted. Just before, a little spasmodic firing
came from the besiegers, but they did not deign to answer. Instead they
waited patiently until the night was far advanced and then they prepared
quickly for running the gauntlet, a task that would require the greatest
skill, courage and presence of mind. Robert's heart beat hard. Like the
others he was weary of the friendly hollow that had served them so well,
and the murmuring of the river, as it flowed, invited them to come on
and use it as the road of escape.

The three took off all their clothing and disposed everything carefully
in the canoe, laying the rifles on top where they could be reached with
a single swift movement of the arm. Then they stared up and down the
stream, and listened with all their powers of hearing. No savage was to
be seen nor did anyone make a sound that reached the three, although
Robert knew they lay behind the rocks not so very far away.

"They're not stirring, Tayoga," whispered the hunter. "Perhaps they
think we don't dare try the river, and in this case as in most others
the boldest way is the best. Take the other end of the canoe, and we'll
lift it down gently."

He and the Onondaga lowered the canoe so slowly that it made no splash
when it took the water, and then the three lowered themselves in turn,
sinking into the stream to their throats.

"Keep close to the bank," whispered the hunter, "and whatever you do
don't make any splash as you swim."

The three were on the side of the craft next to the cliff and their
heads did not appear above its side. Then the canoe moved down the
stream at just about the speed of the current, and no human hands
appeared, nor was any human agency visible. It was just a wandering
little boat, set adrift upon the wilderness waters, a light shell, but
with an explorer's soul. It moved casually along, keeping nearest to the
cliff, the safest place for so frail a structure, hesitating two or
three times at points of rocks, but always making up its mind to go on
once more, and see where this fine but strange river led.

Luckily it was very dark by the cliff. The shadows fell there like black
blankets, and no eye yet rested upon the questing canoe which kept its
way, idly exploring the reaches of the river. Gasna Gaowo, this bark
canoe of red elm, was not large, but it was a noble specimen of its
kind, a forest product of Onondaga patience and skill. On either side
near the prow was painted in scarlet a great eagle's eye, and now the
two large red eyes of the canoe gazed ahead into the darkness, seeking
to pierce the unknown.

The canoe went on with a gentle, rocking motion made by the current,
strayed now and then a little way from the cliff, but always came back
to it. The pair of great red eyes stared at the cliff so close and at
the other cliff farther away and at the middle of the stream, which was
now tranquil and unruffled by the wreckage of the forest blown into the
water by the storm. The canoe also looked into one or two little coves,
and seeing nothing there but the river edge bubbling against the stone,
went on, came to a curve, rounded it in an easy, sauntering but skillful
fashion, and entered a straight reach of the stream.

So far the canoe was having a lone and untroubled journey. The river
widening now and flowing between descending banks was wholly its own,
but clinging to the habit it had formed when it started it still hung to
the western bank. The night grew more and more favorable to the
undiscovered voyage it wished to make. Masses of clouds gathered and
hovered over that particular river, as if they had some especial object
in doing so, and they made the night so dark that the red eyes of the
canoe, great in size though they were, could see but a little way down
the stream. Yet it kept on boldly and there was a purpose in its course.
Often it seemed to be on the point of recklessly running against the
rocky shore, but always it sheered off in time, and though its advance
was apparently casual it was moving down the stream at a great rate.

The canoe had gone fully four hundred yards when an Abenaki warrior on
the far side of the river caught a glimpse of a shadow moving in the
shadow of the bank, and a sustained gaze soon showed to him that it was
a canoe, and, in his opinion, a derelict, washed by the flood from some
camp a long distance up the stream. He watched it for a little while,
and was then confirmed in his opinion by its motion as it floated lazily
with the current.

The darkness was not too great to keep the Abenaki from seeing that it
was a good canoe, a fine shell of Iroquois make, and canoes were
valuable. He had not been able to secure any scalp, which was a sad
disappointment, and now Manitou had sent this stray craft to him as a
consolation prize. He was not one to decline the gifts of the gods, and
he ran along the edge of the cliff until he came to a low point well
ahead of the canoe. Then he put his rifle on the ground, dropped lightly
into the stream, and swam with swift sure strokes for the derelict.

As the warrior approached he saw that his opinion of the canoe was more
than justified. It had been made with uncommon skill and he admired its
strong, graceful lines. It was not often that such a valuable prize came
to a man and asked to be taken. He reached it and put one hand upon the
side. Then a heavy fist stretched entirely over the canoe and struck him
such a mighty blow upon the jaw that he sank senseless, and when he
revived two minutes later on a low bank where the current had cast him,
he did not know what had happened to him.

Meanwhile the uncaptured canoe sailed on in lonely majesty down the
stream.

"That was a shrewd blow of yours, Dave," said Robert. "You struck fairly
upon his jaw bone."

"It's not often that I fight an Indian with my fists, and the chance
having come I made the most of it," said the hunter. "He may have been a
sentinel set to watch for just such an attempt as we are making, but
it's likely they thought if we made a dash for it we'd be in the canoe."

"It was great wisdom for us to swim," said Tayoga. "Another sentinel
seeing the canoe may also think it was washed away somewhere and is
merely floating on the waters. I can see a heap of underbrush that has
gathered against a projecting point, and the current would naturally
bring the canoe into it. Suppose we let it rest there until it seems to
work free by the action of the water, and then go on down the river."

"It's a good idea, Tayoga, but it's a pretty severe test to remain under
fire, so to speak, in order to deceive your enemy, when the road is open
for you to run away."

"But we can do it, all three of us," said Tayoga, confidently.

A spit of high ground projected into the river and in the course of time
enough driftwood brought by the stream and lodged there had made a raft
of considerable width and depth, against which the canoe in its
wandering course lodged. But it was evident that its stay in such a port
would be but temporary, as the current continually pushed and sucked at
it, and the light craft quivered and swayed continually under the action
of the current.

The three behind the canoe thrust themselves back into the mass of
vegetation, reckless of scratches, and were hidden completely for the
time. Since he was no longer kept warm by the act of swimming Robert
felt the chill of the water entering his bones. His physical desire to
shiver he controlled by a powerful effort of the will, and, standing on
the bottom with his head among the boughs, he remained quiet.

None of the three spoke and in a few minutes a warrior on the other side
of the stream, watching in the bushes, saw the dim outline of the canoe
in the darkness. He came to the edge of the water and looked at it
attentively. It was apparent to him, as it had been to the other savage,
that it was a stray canoe, and valuable, a fine prize for the taking.
But he was less impulsive than the first man had been and at that point
the river spread out to a much greater width. He did not know that his
comrade was lying on the bank farther up in a half stunned condition,
but he was naturally cautious and he stared at the canoe a long time.
He saw that the action of the current would eventually work it loose
from the raft, but he believed it would yet hang there for at least ten
minutes. So he would have time to go back to his nearest comrade and
return with him. Then one could enter the water and salvage the canoe,
while the other stayed on the bank and watched. Having reached this wise
conclusion he disappeared in the woods, seeking the second Indian, but
before the two could come together the canoe had worked loose and was
gone.

The three hidden in the bushes had watched the Indian as well as the
dusk would permit and they read his mind. They knew that when he turned
away he had gone for help and they knew equally well that it was time
for the full power of the current to take effect.

"Shove it off, Tayoga," whispered Willet, "and I think we'd better help
along with some strokes of our own."

"It is so," said Tayoga.

Now the wandering canoe was suddenly endowed with more life and purpose,
or else the current grew much swifter. After an uneasy stay with the
boughs, it left them quickly, sailed out toward the middle of the
stream, and floated at great speed between banks that were growing high
again. The friendly dark was also an increasing protection to the three
who were steering it. The heavy but rainless clouds continued to gather
over them, and the canoe sped on at accelerated speed in an opaque
atmosphere. A mile farther and Willet suggested that they get into the
canoe and paddle with all their might. The embarkation, a matter of
delicacy and difficulty, was m