The Shadow of the North: A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign by Altsheler (free children's online books txt) 📗

"But he can't provide for every emergency!"

"Must I tell you for the twentieth time that you don't know Tayoga as
I know him?"

"No, Lennox, but I'll wait and see what happens."

The fall of snow lasted the entire day and the following night. The wilderness was singularly beautiful, but it was also inaccessible, comfortable for those in the fort, but outside the snow lay nearly two feet deep.

"I hope that vision of yours comes true," said Wilton to Robert, as they looked at the forest. "They say the Highland Scotch can go into trances or something of that kind, and look into the future, and I believe the Indians claim the gift, but I've never heard that English and Americans assumed the possession of such powers."

"I'm no seer," laughed Robert. "I merely use my imagination and produce for myself a picture of things two or three days ahead."

"Which comes to the same thing. Well, we'll see. I take so great an interest in the journey of your Onondaga friend that somehow I feel myself traveling along with him."

"I know I'm going with him or I wouldn't have seen him flying ahead on his snow shoes. But come, Will, I've promised to teach you how to sew buckskin with tendons and sinews, and I'm going to see that you do it."

The snow despite its great depth was premature, because on the fourth day soft winds began to blow, and all the following night a warm rain fell. It came down so fast that the whole earth was flooded, and the air was all fog and mist. The creek rose far beyond its banks, and the water stood in pools and lakes in the forest.

"Now, in very truth, our friend Tayoga has been compelled to seek a lair," said Wilton emphatically. "His snow shoes would be the sorriest of drags upon his feet in mud and water, and without them he will sink to his knees. The wilderness has become impassable."

Robert laughed.

"I see no way out of it for him," said Wilton.

"But I do."

"Then what, in Heaven's name, is it?"

"I not only see the way for Tayoga, but I shut my eyes once more and I see him using it. He has put away his snow shoes, and, going to the thick bushes at the edge of a creek, he has taken out his hidden canoe. He has been in it some time, and with mighty sweeps of the paddle, that he knows so well how to use, it flies like a wild duck over the water. Now he passes from the creek into a river flowing eastward, and swollen by the floods to a vast width. The rain has poured upon him, but he does not mind it. The powerful exercise with the paddles dries his body, and sends the pleasant warmth through every vein. His feet and ankles rest, after his long flight on the snow shoes, and his heart swells with pleasure, because it is one of the easiest parts of his journey. His rifle is lying by his side, and he could seize it in a moment should an enemy appear, but the forest on either side of the stream is deserted, and he speeds on unhindered. There may be better canoemen in the world than Tayoga, but I doubt it."

"Come, come, Lennox! You go too far! I can admit the possibility of the snow shoes and their appearance at the very moment they're needed, but the evocation of a river and a canoe at the opportune instant puts too high a strain upon credibility."

"Then don't believe it unless you wish to do so," laughed Robert, "but as for me I'm not only believing it, but I'm almost at the stage of knowing it."

The flood was so great that all hunting ceased for the time, and the men stayed under shelter in the fort, while the fires were kept burning for the sake of both warmth and cheer. But they were on the edge of the great Ohio Valley, where changes in temperature are often rapid and violent. The warm rain ceased, the wind came out of the southwest cold and then colder. The logs of the buildings popped with the contracting cold all through the following night and the next dawn came bright, clear and still, but far below zero. The ice was thick on the creek, and every new pool and lake was covered. The trees and bushes that had been dripping the day before were sheathed in silver mail. Breath curled away like smoke from the lips.

"If Tayoga stayed in his canoe," said Wilton, "he's frozen solidly in the middle of the river, and he won't be able to move it until a thaw comes."

Robert laughed with genuine amusement and also with a certain scorn.

"I've told you many times, Will," he said, "that you didn't know all about Tayoga, but now it seems that you know nothing about him."

"Well, then, wherein am I wrong, Sir Robert the Omniscient?" asked
Wilton.

"In your assumption that Tayoga would not foresee what was coming. Having spent nearly all his life with nature he has naturally been forced to observe all of its manifestations, even the most delicate. And when you add to these necessities the powers of an exceedingly strong and penetrating mind you have developed faculties that can cope with almost anything. Tayoga foresaw this big freeze, and I can tell you exactly what he did as accurately as if I had been there and had seen it. He kept to the river and his canoe almost until the first thin skim of ice began to show. Then he paddled to land, and hid the canoe again among thick bushes. He raised it up a little on low boughs in such a manner that it would not touch the water. Thus it was safe from the ice, and so leaving it well hidden and in proper condition, and situation, he sped on."

"Of course you're a master with words, Robert, and the longer they are the better you seem to like 'em, but how is the Onondaga to make speed over the ice which now covers the earth? Snow shoes, I take it, would not be available upon such a smooth and tricky surface, and, at any rate, he has left them far behind."

"In part of your assumption you're right, Will. Tayoga hasn't the snow shoes now, and he wouldn't use 'em if he had 'em. He foresaw the possibility of the freeze, and took with him in his pack a pair of heavy moose skin moccasins with the hair on the outside. They're so rough they do not slip on the ice, especially when they inclose the feet of a runner, so wiry, so agile and so experienced as Tayoga. Once more I close my eyes and I see his brown figure shooting through the white forest. He goes even faster than he did when he had on the snow shoes, because whenever he comes to a slope he throws himself back upon his heels and lets himself slide down the ice almost at the speed of a bird darting through the air."

"If you're right, Lennox, your red friend is not merely a marvel, but a series of marvels."

"I'm right, Will. I do not doubt it. At the conclusion of the tenth day when Tayoga arrives on the return from the vale of Onondaga you will gladly admit the truth."

"There can be no doubt about my gladness, Lennox, if it should come true, but the elements seem to have conspired against him, and I've learned that in the wilderness the elements count very heavily."

"Earth, fire and water may all join against him, but at the time appointed he will come. I know it."

The great cold, and it was hard, fierce and bitter, lasted two days. At night the popping of the contracting timbers sounded like a continuous pistol fire, but Willet had foreseen everything. At his instance, Colden had made the young soldiers gather vast quantities of fuel long ago from a forest which was filled everywhere with dead boughs and fallen timber, the accumulation of scores of years.

Then another great thaw came, and the fickle climate proceeded to show what it could do. When the thaw had been going on for a day and a night a terrific winter hurricane broke over the forest. Trees were shattered as if their trunks had been shot through by huge cannon balls. Here and there long windrows were piled up, and vast areas were a litter of broken boughs.

"As I reckon, and allowing for the marvels you say he can perform, Tayoga is now in the vale of Onondaga, Lennox," said Wilton. "It's lucky that he's there in the comfortable log houses of his own people, because a man could scarcely live in the forest in such a storm as this, as he would be beaten to death by flying timbers."

"This time, Will, you're wrong in both assumptions. Tayoga has already been to the vale of Onondaga. He has spent there the half day that he allowed to himself, and now on the return journey has left the vale far behind him. I told you how sensitive he was to the changes of the weather, and he knew it was coming several hours before it arrived. He sought at once protection, probably a cleft in the rock, or an opening of two or three feet under a stony ledge. He is lying there now, just as snug and safe as you please, while this storm, which covers a vast area, rages over his head. There is much that is primeval in Tayoga, and his comfort and safety make him fairly enjoy the storm. As he lies under the ledge with his blanket drawn around him, he is warm and dry and his sense of comfort, contrasting his pleasant little den with the fierce storm without, becomes one of luxury."

"I suppose of course, Lennox, that you can shut your eyes and see him once more without any trouble."

"In all truth and certainty I can, Will. He is lying on a stone shelf with a stone ledge above him. His blanket takes away the hardness of the stone that supports him. He sees boughs and sticks whirled past by the storm, but none of them touches him. He hears the wind whistling and screaming at a pitch so fierce that it would terrify one unused to the forest, but it is only a song in the ears of Tayoga. It soothes him, it lulls him, and knowing that he can't use the period of the storm for traveling, he uses it for sleep, thus enabling him to take less later on when the storm has ceased. So, after all, he loses nothing so far as his journey is concerned. Now his lids droop, his eyes close, and he slumbers while the storm thunders past, unable to touch him."

"You do have the gift, Lennox. I believe that sometimes your words are music in your own ears, and inspire you to greater efforts. When the war is over you must surely become a public man—one who is often called upon to address the people."

"We'll fight the war first," laughed Robert.

The storm in its rise, its zenith and its decline lasted several hours, and, when it was over, the forest looked like a wreck, but Robert knew that nature would soon restore everything. The foliage of next spring would cover up the ruin and new growth would take the place of the old and broken. The wilderness, forever restoring what was lost, always took care of itself.

A day or two of fine, clear winter weather, not too cold, followed, and Willet went forth to scout. He was gone until the next morning and when he returned his face was very grave.

"There are Indians in the forest," he said, "not friendly warriors of the Hodenosaunee, but those allied with the enemy. I think a formidable Ojibway band under Tandakora is there, and also other Indians from the region of the Great Lakes. They may have started against us some time back, but were probably halted by the bad weather. They're in different bodies now, scattered perhaps for hunting, but they'll reunite before long."

"Did you see signs of any white men, Dave?" asked Robert.

"Yes, French officers and some soldiers are with 'em, but I don't think St. Luc is in the number. More likely it's De Courcelles and Jumonville, whom we have such good cause to remember."

"I hope so, Dave,