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

the creek and stood in the doorway of the bower. He was a tall, thin young Mohawk, and he panted as if he had come fast and long.

"What is it, Oagowa?" asked Colonel Johnson.

"A hostile band, Hurons, Abenakis, Caughnawagas, and others, has entered the territory of the Ganeagaono on the west," replied the warrior. "They are led by an Ojibway chief, a giant, called Tandakora."

Robert uttered an exclamation.

"The name of the Ojibway attracts your attention," said Colonel
Johnson.

"We've had many encounters with him," replied the youth. "Besides hating the Hodenosaunee and all the white people, I think he also has a personal grievance against Mr. Willet, Tayoga and myself. He is the most bitter and persistent of all our enemies."

"Then this man must be dealt with. I can't go against him myself. Other affairs press too much, but I can raise a force with speed."

"Let me go, sir, against Tandakora!" exclaimed young Brant eagerly and in English.

Colonel Johnson looked at him a moment, his eyes glistening, and then he laughed, not with irony but gently and with approval.

"Truly 'tis a young eagle," he said, "but, Joseph, you must remember that your years are yet short of twelve, and you still have much time to spend over the books in which you have done so well. If I let you be cut off at such an early age you can never become the great chief you are destined to be. Bide a while, Joseph, and your cousin, Daganoweda, will attend to this Ojibway who has wandered so far from his own country."

Young Brant made no protest. Trained in the wonderful discipline of the Hodenosaunee he knew that he must obey before he could command. He resumed his seat quietly, but his eager eyes watched his tall cousin, the young Mohawk chieftain, as Colonel Johnson gave him orders.

"Take with you the warriors that you have now, Daganoweda," he said. "Gather the fifty who are now encamped at Teugega. Take thirty more from Talaquega, and I think that will be enough. I don't know you, Daganoweda, and I don't know your valiant Mohawk warriors, if you are not able to account thoroughly for the Ojibway and his men. Don't come back until you've destroyed them or driven them out of your country."

Colonel Johnson's tone was at once urgent and complimentary. It intimated that the work was important and that Daganoweda would be sure to do it. The Mohawk's eyes glittered in his dark face. He lifted his hand in a salute, glided from the bower, and a moment later he and his warriors passed from sight in the forest.

"That cousin of yours, Molly, deserves his rank of chief," said Colonel Johnson. "The task that he is to do I consider as good as done already. Tandakora was too daring, when he ventured into the lands of the Ganeagaono. Now, if you gentlemen will be so good as to be our guests we'll pass the night here, and tomorrow we'll go to Mount Johnson."

It was agreeable to Robert, Willet and Tayoga, and they spent the remainder of the day most pleasantly at the bower. Colonel Johnson, feeling that they were three whom he could trust, talked freely and unveiled a mind fitted for great affairs.

"I tell you three," he said, "that this will be one of the most important wars the world has known. To London and Paris we seem lost in the woods out here, and perhaps at the courts they think little of us or they do not think at all, but the time must come when the New World will react upon the Old. Consider what a country it is, with its lakes, its forests, its rivers, and its fertile lands, which extend beyond the reckoning of man. The day will arrive when there will be a power here greater than either England or France. Such a land cannot help but nourish it."

He seemed to be much moved, and spoke a long time in the same vein, but his Indian wife never said a word. She moved about now and then, and, as before, her footsteps making no noise, being as light as those of any animal of the forest.

The dusk came up to the door. They heard the ripple of the creek, but could not see its waters. Madam Johnson lighted a wax candle, and Colonel Johnson stopped suddenly.

"I have talked too much. I weary you," he said.

"Oh, no, sir!" protested Robert eagerly. "Go on! We would gladly listen to you all night."

"That I think would be too great a weight upon us all," laughed Colonel Johnson. "You are weary. You must be so from your long marching and my heavy disquisitions. We'll have beds made for you three and Joseph here. Molly and I sleep in the next room."

Robert was glad to have soft furs and a floor beneath him, and when he lay down it was with a feeling of intense satisfaction. He liked Colonel William Johnson, and knew that he had a friend in him. He was anxious for advancement in the great world, and he understood what it was to have powerful support. Already he stood high with the Hodenosaunee, and now he had found favor with the famous Waraiyageh.

They left in the morning for Mount Johnson, and there were horses for all except the Indians, although one was offered to Tayoga. But he declined to ride—the nations of the Hodenosaunee were not horsemen, and kept pace with them at the long easy gait used by the Indian runner. Robert himself was not used to the saddle, but he was glad enough to accept it, after their great march through the wilderness.

The weather continued fine for winter, crisp, clear, sparkling with life and the spirits of all were high. Colonel Johnson beckoned to Robert to ride by the side of him and the two led the way. Kegneghtada, despite his extreme youth, had refused a horse also, and was swinging along by the side of Tayoga, stride for stride. A perfect understanding and friendship had already been established between the Onondaga and the Mohawk, and as they walked they talked together earnestly, young Brant bearing himself as if he were on an equal footing with his brother warrior, Tayoga. Colonel Johnson looked at them, smiled approval and said to Robert:

"I have called my young brother-in-law an eagle, and an eagle he truly is. We're apt to think, Mr. Lennox, that we white people alone gather our forces and prepare for some aim distant but great. But the Indian intellect is often keen and powerful, as I have had good cause to know. Many of their chiefs have an acuteness and penetration not surpassed in the councils of white men. The great Mohawk whom we call King Hendrick probably has more intellect than most of the sovereigns on their thrones in Europe. And as for Joseph, the lad there who so gallantly keeps step with the Onondaga, where will you find a white boy who can excel him? He absorbs the learning of our schools as fast as any boy of our race whom I have ever known, and, at the same time, he retains and improves all the lore and craft of the red people."

"You have found the Mohawks a brave and loyal race," said Robert, knowing the colonel was upon a favorite theme of his.

"That I have, Mr. Lennox. I came among them a boy. I was a trader then, and I settled first only a few miles from their largest town, Dyiondarogon. I tried to keep faith with them and as a result I found them always keeping faith with me. Then, when I went to Oghkwaga, I had the same experience. The Indians were defrauded in the fur trade by white swindlers, but dishonesty, besides being bad in itself, does not pay, Mr. Lennox. Bear that in mind. You may cheat for a while with success, but in time nobody will do business with you. Though you, I take it, will never be a merchant."

"It is not because I frown upon the merchant's calling, sir. I esteem it a high and noble one. But my mind does not turn to it."

"So I gather from what I have seen of you, and from what Mr. Willet tells me. I've been hearing of your gift of oratory. You need not blush, my lad. If we have a gift we should accept it thankfully, and make the best use of it we can. You, I take it, will be a lawyer, then a public man, and you will sway the public mind. There should be grand occasions for such as you in a country like this, with its unlimited future."

They came presently into a region of cultivation, fields which would be green with grain in the spring, showing here and there, and the smoke from the chimney of a stout log house rising now and then. Where a creek broke into a swift white fall stood a grist mill, and from a wood the sound of axes was heard.

Robert's vivid imagination, which responded to all changes, kindled at once. He liked the wilderness, and it always made a great impression upon him, and he also took the keenest interest and delight in everything that civilization could offer. Now his spirit leaped up to meet what lay before him.

He found at Mount Johnson comfort and luxury that he had not expected, an abundance of all that the wilderness furnished, mingled with importations from Europe. He slept in a fine bed, he looked into more books, he saw on the walls reproductions of Titian and Watteau, and also pictures of race horses that had made themselves famous at Newmarket, he wrote letters to Albany on good paper, he could seal them with either black or red wax, and there were musical instruments upon one or two of which he could play.

Robert found all these things congenial. The luxury or what might have seemed luxury on the border, had in it nothing of decadence. There was an air of vigor, and Colonel Johnson, although he did not neglect his guests, plunged at once and deeply into business. A little village, dependent upon him and his affairs had grown up about him, and there were white men more or less in his service, some of whom he sent at once on missions for the war. Through it all his Indian wife glided quietly, but Robert saw that she was a wonderful help, managing with ease, and smoothing away many a difficulty.

Despite the restraint of manner, the people at Mount Johnson were full of excitement. The news from Canada and also from the west became steadily more ominous. The French power was growing fast and the warriors of the wild tribes were crowding in thousands to the Bourbon banner. Robert heard again of St. Luc and of some daring achievement of his, and despite himself he felt as always a thrill at the name, and a runner also brought the news that more French troops had gone into the Ohio country.

The fourth night of their stay at Mount Johnson Robert remained awake late. He and young Brant, the great Thayendanegea that was to be, had already formed a great friendship, the beginning of which was made easier by Robert's knowledge of Indian nature and sympathy with it. The two wrapped in fur cloaks had gone a little distance from the house, because Brant said that a bear driven by hunger had come to the edge of the village, and they were looking for its tracks. But Robert was more interested in observing the Indian boy than in finding the foot prints of the bear.

"Joseph," he said, "you expect, of course, to be a great warrior and chief some day."

The boy's eyes glittered.

"There is nothing else for which I would care," he replied. "Hark,
Dagaeoga, did you hear the cry of a night bird?"

"I did, Joseph, but like you I don't think it's the voice of a real bird. It's a signal."

"So it is, and unless I reckon ill it's the signal of my cousin Daganoweda, returning from the great war trail that he has trod against the wild Ojibway, Tandakora."

The song of a bird trilled from his own throat in reply, and then from the forest came Daganoweda and his warriors in a dusky file. Robert and young Brant fell in with them and walked toward the house. Not a word was spoken, but the eyes of the Mohawk chieftain were gleaming, and his bearing expressed the very concentrated essence of haughty pride. At the house they stopped, and, young Brant