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

keep warm within their bearskins. A second and a third day passed in like fashion, and their progress to the south was unimpeded, though slow. They beheld no signs of human life save their own, but invariably in the night, and often in the day, they heard distant wolves howling.

On the fourth day the temperature rose rapidly and the surface of the snow softened, making their southward march much harder. Their snowshoes clogged so much and the strain upon their ankles grew so great that they decided to go into camp long before sunset, and give themselves a thorough rest. They also scraped away the snow and lighted a fire for the first time, no small task, as the snow was still very deep, and it required much hunting to find the fallen wood. But when the cheerful blaze came they felt repaid for all their trouble. They rejoiced in the glow for an hour or so, and then Tayoga decided that he would go on a short hunting trip along the course of a stream that they could see about a quarter of a mile below.

"It may be that I can rouse up a deer," he said. "They are likely to be in the shelter of the thick bushes along the water's edge, but whether I find them or not I will return shortly after sundown. Do you await me here, Dagaeoga."

"I won't stir. I'm too tired," said Robert.

The Onondaga put on his snowshoes again, and strapped to his back his share of the ammunition and supplies—it had been agreed by the two that neither should ever go anywhere without his half, lest they become separated. Then he departed on smooth, easy strokes, almost like one who skated, and was soon out of sight among the bushes at the edge of the stream. Robert settled back to the warmth and brightness of the fire, and awaited in peace the sound of a shot telling that Tayoga had found the deer.

He had been so weary, and the blaze was so soothing that he sank into a state, not sleep, but nevertheless full of dreams. He saw Willet again, and heard him tell the tale how he had reached the lake and the army with Garay's letter. He saw Colonel Johnson, and the young English officer, Grosvenor, and Colden and Wilton and Carson and all his old friends, and then he heard a crunch on the snow near him. Had Tayoga come back so soon and without his deer? He did not raise his drooping eyelids until he heard the crunch again, and then when he opened them he sprang suddenly to his feet, his heart beating fast with alarm.

A half dozen dark figures rushed upon him. He snatched at his rifle and tried to meet the first of them with a bullet, but the range was too close. He nevertheless managed to get the muzzle in the air and pull the trigger. He remembered even in that terrible moment to do that much and Tayoga would hear the sharp, lashing report. Then the horde was upon him. Someone struck him a stunning blow on the side of the head with the flat of a tomahawk, and he fell unconscious.

When he returned to the world, the twilight had come, the hole in the snow had been enlarged very much, and so had the fire. Seated around it were a dozen Indians, wrapped in thick blankets and armed heavily, and one white man whose attire was a strange compound of savage and civilized. He wore a three-cornered French military hat with a great, drooping plume of green, an immense cloak of fine green cloth, lined with fur, but beneath it he was clothed in buckskin.

The man himself was as picturesque as his attire. He was young, his face was lean and bold, his nose hooked and fierce like that of a Roman leader, his skin, originally fair, now tanned almost to a mahogany color by exposure, his figure of medium height, but obviously very powerful. Robert saw at once that he was a Frenchman and he felt instinctively that it was Langlade. But his head was aching from the blow of the tomahawk, and he waited in a sort of apathy.

"So you've come back to earth," said the Frenchman, who had seen his eyes open—he spoke in good French, which Robert understood perfectly.

"I never had any intention of staying away," replied young Lennox.

The Frenchman laughed.

"At least you show a proper spirit," he said. "I commend you also for managing to fire your rifle, although the bullet hit none of us. It gave the alarm to your comrade and he got clean away. I can make a guess as to who you are."

"My name is Robert Lennox."

"I thought so, and your comrade was Tayoga, the Onondaga who is not unknown to us, a great young warrior, I admit freely. I am sorry we did not take him."

"I don't think you'll get a chance to lay hands on him. He'll be too clever for you."

"I admit that, too. He's gone like the wind on his snowshoes. It seems queer that you and he should be here in the mountain wilderness so far north of your lines, in the very height of a fierce winter."

"It's just as queer that you should be here."

"Perhaps so, from your point of view, though it's lucky that I should have been present with these dark warriors of mine when you were taken. They suffered heavily in the battle by Andiatarocte, and but for me they might now be using you as fuel. Don't wince, you know their ways and I only tell a fact. In truth, I can't make you any promise in regard to your ultimate fate, but, at present, I need you alive more than I need you dead."

"You won't get any military information out of me."

"I don't know. We shall wait and see."

"Do you know the Chevalier de St. Luc?"

"Of course. All Frenchmen and all Canadians know him, or know of him, but he is far from here, and we shall not tell him that we have a young American prisoner. The chevalier is a great soldier and the bravest of men, but he has one fault. He does not hate the English and the Bostonnais enough."

Robert was not bound, but his arms and snowshoes had been taken and the Indians were all about him. There was no earthly chance of escape. With the wisdom of the wise he resigned himself at once to his situation, awaiting a better moment.

"I'm at your command," he said politely to Langlade.

The French leader laughed, partly in appreciation.

"You show intelligence," he said. "You do not resist, when you see that resistance is impossible."

Robert settled himself into a more comfortable position by the fire. His head still ached, but it was growing easier. He knew that it was best to assume a careless and indifferent tone.

"I'm not ready to leave you now," he said, "but I shall go later."

Langlade laughed again, and then directed two of the Indians to hunt more wood. They obeyed. Robert saw that they never questioned his leadership, and he saw anew how the French partisans established themselves so thoroughly in the Indian confidence. The others threw away more snow, making a comparatively large area of cleared ground, and, when the wood was brought, they built a great fire, around which all of them sat and ate heartily from their packs.

Langlade gave Robert food which he forced himself to eat, although he was not hungry. He judged that the French partisan, who could be cruel enough on occasion, had some object in treating him well for the present, and he was not one to disturb such a welcome frame of mind. His weapons and the extra rifle of Garay that they had brought with them, had already been divided among the warriors, who, pleased with the reward, were content to wait.

The night was spent at the captured camp, and in the morning the entire party, Robert included, started on snowshoes almost due north. The young prisoner felt a sinking of the heart, when his face was turned away from his own people, and he began an unknown captivity. He had been certain at first of escape, but it did not seem so sure now. In former wars many prisoners taken on raids into Canada had never been heard of again, and when he reflected in cold blood he knew that the odds were heavy against a successful flight. Yet there was Tayoga. His warning shot had enabled the Onondaga to evade the band, and his comrade would never desert him. All his surpassing skill and tenacity would be devoted to his aid. In that lay his hope.

They pressed on toward the north as fast as they could go, and when night came they were all exhausted, but they ate heavily again and Robert received his share. Langlade continued to treat him kindly, though he still had the feeling that the partisan, if it served him, would be fully as cruel as the Indians. At night, although they built big fires, Langlade invariably posted a strong watch, and Robert noticed also that he usually shared it, or a part of it, from which habit he surmised that the partisan had received the name of the Owl. He had hoped that Tayoga might have a chance to rescue him in the dark, but he saw now that the vigilance was too great.

He hid his intense disappointment and kept as cheerful a face as he could. Langlade, the only white man in the Indian band, was drawn to him somewhat by the mere fact of racial kinship, and the two frequently talked together in the evenings in what was a sort of compulsory friendliness, Robert in this manner picking up scraps of information which when welded together amounted to considerable, being thus confirmed in his belief that Willet with the letter had reached the lake in time. St. Luc with a formidable force had undertaken a swift march on Albany, but the town had been put in a position of defense, and St. Luc's vanguard had been forced to retreat by a large body of rangers after a severe conflict. As the success of the chevalier's daring enterprise had depended wholly on surprise, he had then withdrawn northward.

But Robert could not find out by any kind of questions where St. Luc was, although he learned that Garay had never returned to Albany and that Hendrik Martinus had made an opportune flight. Langlade, who was thoroughly a wilderness rover, talked freely and quite boastfully of the French power, which he deemed all pervading and invincible. Despite the battle at Lake George the fortunes of war had gone so far in favor of France and Canada and against Britain and the Bostonnais. When the great campaign was renewed in the spring more and bigger victories would crown French valor. The Owl grew expansive as he talked to the youth, his prisoner.

"The Marquis de Montcalm is coming to lead all our armies," he said, "and he is a far abler soldier than Dieskau. You really did us a great service when you captured the Saxon. Only a Frenchman is fit to lead Frenchmen, and under a mighty captain we will crush you. The Bostonnais are not the equal of the French in the forest. Save a few like Willet, and Rogers, the English and Americans do not learn the ways of woods warfare, nor do you make friends with the Indians as we do."

"That is true in the main," responded Robert, "but we shall win despite it. Both the English and the English Colonials have the power to survive defeat. Can the French and the Canadians do as well?"

Langlade could not be shaken in his faith. He saw nothing but the most brilliant victories, and not only did he boast of French power, but he gloried even more in the strength of the Indian hordes, that had come and that were coming in ever increasing numbers to the help of France. Only the Hodenosaunee stood aloof from Québec, and he believed the Great League even yet would be brought over to his side.

Robert argued with the Owl, but he made no impression upon him. Meanwhile they continued to march north by west.

CHAPTER VIII
BEFORE MONTCALM

The Owl, with his warriors and captive, descended in time into the low country in the northwest. They, too, had been on snowshoes, but now they discarded them, since they were entering a region in which little snow had fallen, the severity of the weather abating greatly. Robert was still treated well, though guarded with the utmost care. The Indians, who seemed to be from some tribe about the Great Lakes, did not speak any dialect he knew, and, if they understood English, they did not