The Masters of the Peaks: A Story of the Great North Woods by Joseph A. Altsheler (christmas read aloud TXT) 📗

"Your papers, please!"

"Unbind me and give me food!"

"Your papers first, our fish next."

As he spoke the hunter leaned over, and with his keen hunting knife severed Garay's bonds. The man sat up, rubbed his wrists and ankles and breathed deeply.

"Your papers!" repeated Willet.

"Bring me my pistol, the one that the Indian filched from me while I slept," said Garay.

"Your pistol!" exclaimed the hunter, in surprise. "Now I'd certainly be foolish to hand you a deadly and loaded weapon!"

But Robert's quick intellect comprehended at once. He snatched the heavy pistol from the Onondaga's belt, drew forth the bullet and then drew the charge behind it, not powder at all, but a small, tightly folded paper of tough tissue, which he held aloft triumphantly.

"Very clever! very clever!" said Willet in admiration. "The pistol was loaded, but 'twould never be fired, and nobody would have thought of searching its barrel. Tayoga, give Monsieur Garay the two spare fish and anything else he wants, but see that he eats sparingly because a gorge will go ill with a famished man, and then we'll have a look at his precious document."

The Onondaga treated Garay as the honored guest they had been calling him, giving him the whole variety of their breakfast, but, at guarded intervals, which allowed him to relish to the full all the savors and juices that had been taunting him so long. Willet opened the letter, smoothed it out carefully on his knee, and holding it up to the light until the words stood out clearly, read:

"To Hendrik Martinus At Albany.

"The intermediary of whom you know, the bearer of this letter, has brought me word from you that the English Colonial troops, after the unfortunate battle at Lake George, have not pushed their victory. He also informs us that the governors of the English colonies do not agree, and that there is much ill feeling among the different Colonial forces. He says that Johnson still suffering from his wound, does not move, and that the spirit has gone out of our enemies. All of which is welcome news to us at this juncture, since it has given to us the time that we need.

"Our defeat but incites us to greater efforts. The Indian tribes who have cast their lot with us are loyal to our arms. All the forces of France and New France are being assembled to crush our foes. We have lost Dieskau, but a great soldier, Louis Joseph de Saint Véran, the Marquis de Montcalm-Gozon, is coming from France to lead our armies. He will be assisted by the incomparable chieftains, the Chevalier de Levis, the Chevalier Bourlamaque and others who understand the warfare of the wilderness. Even now we are preparing to move with a great power on Albany and we may surprise the town.

"Tell those of whom you know in Albany and New York to be ready with rifles and ammunition and other presents for the Indian warriors. Much depends upon their skill and promptness in delivering these valuable goods to the tribes. It seals them to our standard. They can be landed at the places of which we know, and then be carried swiftly across the wilderness. But I bid you once more to exercise exceeding caution. Let no name of those associated with us ever be entrusted to writing, as a single slip might bring our whole fabric crashing to the ground, and send to death those who serve us. After you have perused this letter destroy it. Do not tear it in pieces and throw them away but burn it to the last and least little fragment. In conclusion I say yet again, caution, caution, caution.

Raymond Louis de St. Luc."

The three looked at one another. Garay was in the third course of his breakfast, and no longer took notice of anything else.

"Those associated with us in Albany and New York," quoted Willet. "Now I wonder who they are. I might make a shrewd guess at one, but no names are given and as we have no proof we must keep silent about him for the present. Yet this paper is of vast importance and it must be put in hands that know how to value it."

"Then the hands must be those of Colonel William Johnson," said Robert.

"I fancy you're right, lad. Yet 'tis hard just now to decide upon the wisest policy."

"The colonel is the real leader of our forces," persisted the lad. "It's to him that we must go."

"It looks so, Robert, but for a few days we've got to consider ourselves. Now that we have his letter I wish we didn't have Garay."

"You wouldn't really have starved him, would you, Dave? Somehow it seemed pretty hard."

The hunter laughed heartily.

"Bless your heart, lad," he replied. "Don't you be troubled about the way we dealt with Garay. I knew all the while that he would never get to the starving point, or I wouldn't have tried it with him. I knew by looking at him that his isn't the fiber of which martyrs are made. I calculated that he would give up last night or this morning."

"Are we going to take him back with us a prisoner?"

"That's the trouble. As a spy, which he undoubtedly is, his life is forfeit, but we are not executioners. For scouts and messengers such as we are he'd be a tremendous burden to take along with us. Moreover, I think that after his long fast he'd eat all the game we could kill, and we don't propose to spend our whole time feeding one of our enemies."

"Call Tayoga," said Robert.

The Onondaga came and then young Lennox said to his two comrades:

"Are you willing to trust me in the matter of Garay, our prisoner?"

"Yes," they replied together.

Robert went to the man, who was still immersed in his gross feeding, and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Listen, Garay," he said. "You're the bearer of secret and treacherous dispatches, and you're a spy. You must know that under all the rules of war your life is forfeit to your captors."

Garay's face became gray and ghastly.

"You—you wouldn't murder me?" he said.

"There could be no such thing as murder in your case, and we won't take your life, either."

The face of the intermediary recovered its lost color.

"You will spare me, then?" he exclaimed joyfully.

"In a way, yes, but we're not going to carry you back in luxury to Albany, nor are we thinking of making you an honored member of our band. You've quite a time before you."

"I don't understand you."

"You will soon. You're going back to the Chevalier de St. Luc who has little patience with failure, and you'll find that the road to him abounds in hard traveling. It may be, too, that the savage Tandakora will ask you some difficult questions, but if so, Monsieur Achille Garay, it will be your task to answer them, and I take it that you have a fertile mind. In any event, you will be equipped to meet him by your journey, which will be full of variety and effort and which will strengthen and harden your mind."

The face of Garay paled again, and he gazed at Robert in a sort of dazed fashion. The imagination of young Lennox was alive and leaping. He had found what seemed to him a happy solution of a knotty problem, and, as usual in such cases, his speech became fluent and golden.

"Oh, you'll enjoy it, Monsieur Achille Garay," he said in his mellow, persuasive voice. "The forest is beautiful at this time of the year and the mountains are so magnificent always that they must appeal to anyone who has in his soul the strain of poetry that I know you have. The snow, too, I think has gone from the higher peaks and ridges and you will not be troubled by extreme cold. If you should wander from the path back to St. Luc you will have abundant leisure in which to find it again, because for quite a while to come time will be of no importance to you. And as you'll go unarmed, you'll be in no danger of shooting your friends by mistake."

"You're not going to turn me into the wilderness to starve?"

"Not at all. We'll give you plenty of food. Tayoga and I will see you well on your way. Now, since you've eaten enough, you start at once."

Tayoga and the hunter fell in readily with Robert's plan. The captive received enough food to last four days, which he carried in a pack fastened on his back, and then Robert and Tayoga accompanied him northward and back on the trail.

Much of Garay's courage returned as they marched steadily on through the forest. When he summed it up he found that he had fared well. His captors had really been soft-hearted. It was not usual for one serving as an intermediary and spy like himself to escape, when taken, with his life and even with freedom. Life! How precious it was! Young Lennox had said that the forest was beautiful, and it was! It was splendid, grand, glorious to one who had just come out of the jaws of death, and the air of late autumn was instinct with vitality. He drew himself up jauntily, and his step became strong and springy.

They walked on many miles and Robert, whose speech had been so fluent before, was silent now. Nor did the Onondaga speak either. Garay himself hazarded a few words, but meeting with no response his spirits fell a little. The trail led over a low ridge, and at its crest his two guards stopped.

"Here we bid you farewell, Monsieur Achille Garay," said Robert. "Doubtless you will wish to commune with your own thoughts and our presence will no longer disturb you. Our parting advice to you is to give up the trade in which you have been engaged. It is full perilous, and it may be cut short at any time by sudden death. Moreover, it is somewhat bare of honor, and even if it should be crowned by continued success 'tis success of a kind that's of little value. Farewell."

"Farewell," said Garay, and almost before he could realize it, the two figures had melted into the forest behind him. A weight was lifted from him with their going, and once more his spirits bounded upward. He was Achille Garay, bold and venturesome, and although he was without weapons he did not fear two lads.

Three miles farther on he turned. He did not care to face St. Luc, his letter lost, and the curious, dogged obstinacy that lay at the back of his character prevailed. He would go back. He would reach those for whom his letter had been intended, Martinus and the others, and he would win the rich rewards that had been promised to him. He had plenty of food, he would make a wide curve, advance at high speed and get to Albany ahead of the foolish three.

He turned his face southward and walked swiftly through the thickets. A rifle cracked and a twig overhead severed by a bullet fell upon his face. Garay shivered and stood still for a long time. Courage trickled back, and he resumed his advance, though it was slow. A second rifle cracked, and a bullet passed so close to his cheek that he felt its wind. He could not restrain a cry of terror, and turning again he fled northward to St. Luc.

When Robert and Tayoga returned to the camp and told Willet what they had done the hunter laughed a little.

"Garay doesn't want to face St. Luc," he said, "but he will do it anyhow. He won't dare to come back on the trail in face of bullets, and now we're sure to deliver his letter in ample time."

"Should we go direct to Albany?" asked Robert.

The hunter cupped his chin in his hand and meditated.

"I'm all for Colonel Johnson," he replied at last. "He understands the French and Indians and has more vigor than the authorities at Albany. It seems likely to me that he will still be at the head of Lake George where we left him, perhaps building the fort of which they were talking before we left there."

"His wound did not give promise of getting well so very early," said Robert, "and he would not move while he was in a weakened condition."

"Then it's almost sure that he's at the head of the lake and we'll turn our course toward that point. What do you say, Tayoga?"

"Waraiyageh is the man to have the letter, Great Bear. If it becomes necessary for him to march to the defense of Albany he will do it."

"Then the three of us are in unanimity and Lake George it is instead of Albany."

They started