The Hunters of the Hills by Joseph A. Altsheler (best books under 200 pages txt) 📗

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