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

enemies would do next. Conscious of right and strength he believed they could foil all attempts upon them, and while the question was still fresh in his mind Father Philibert Drouillard came in. Wrapped closely in his black robe he looked taller, leaner, and more ascetic than ever, and his gaze was even stronger and more penetrating. Now it rested upon Robert.

"I had a fair opinion of you," he said. "Coming with you in the Frontenac down the river I judged you, despite your weapons and the fact that you belong to another race than mine, a gentle youth and full of the virtues. Now I find that you have been fighting and fighting with intent to kill."

"Hold hard, Father," said Willet in a good-humored tone. "Only half of that is true. Your information is not full. He has been fighting, but not with intent to kill. He held the life of Count Jean de Mézy on the point of his sword, but gave it back to him, such as it was."

The deep eyes of the priest smoldered. Perhaps there was a distant and fiery youth of his own that the morning's deed recalled, but his menacing gaze relaxed.

"If you gave him back his life when you could have taken it, you have done well," he said. "As the hunter intimates, it is a life of little value, perhaps none at all, but you did not on that account have any right to take it. And I say more, that if the misadventure had to happen to any Frenchman here in Quebec I am glad it happened to one of the wicked tribe of Bigot."

"Your man Bigot, powerful though he may be, seems to have plenty of enemies," said the hunter.

"He has many, but not enough, I fear," said the priest gloomily. "He and his horde are a terrible weight upon the shoulders of New France. But I should not talk of these things to you who are our enemies, and who may soon be fighting us."

He quit the subject abruptly, and talked in a desultory manner on irrelevant matters. But Robert saw that Quebec itself and the struggle between the powerful Bigot ring and the honnêtes gens was a much greater weight on his mind than the approaching war with the English colonies.

After a stay of a half hour he departed, saying that he was going to visit a parish farther down the river, and might not see them again, but he wished them well. He also bade them once more to beware of Tandakora.

"A good man and a strong one," said Willet, when, he left. "I seem to feel a kindred spirit in him, but I don't think his prevision about not seeing us again is right, though his advice to look out for Tandakora is certainly worth following."

They saw the Ojibway warrior twice that afternoon. Either he concealed the effects of the wound in his shoulder or it had healed rapidly, since he was apparently as vigorous as ever and gave them murderous glances. Tayoga shrugged his shoulders.

"Tandakora has followed us far," he said, "but this is not the ground that suits him. The forest is better than a city for the laying of an ambush."

"Still, we'll watch him," said Willet.

The evening witnessed the arrival at the Inn of the Eagle of two new guests to whom Monsieur Berryer paid much deference, Colonel de Courcelles and Captain de Jumonville, who had been on an expedition in behalf of His Majesty, King Louis, into the forests of the south and west, and who, to the great surprise of the innkeeper, seemed to be well acquainted with the three.

Robert, Tayoga and Willet were having their dinner, or supper as it would have been called in the Province of New York, when the two Frenchmen dressed in their neat, close-fitting uniforms and with all the marks of travel removed, came into the large room. They rose at once and exchanged greetings. Robert, although he did not trust them, felt that they had no cause of quarrel with the two, and it was no part of his character to be brusque or seek trouble.

De Courcelles gave them a swift, comprehensive glance, and then said, as if they were chance visitors to Quebec:

"You've arrived ahead of us, I see, and as I learn, you find the Marquis Duquesne away. Perhaps, if your letters are urgent, you would care to present them to the Intendant, Monsieur Bigot, a man of great perception and judgment."

Robert turned his examining look with interest. Was he also one of Bigot's men, or did he incline to the cause of the honnêtes gens? Or, even if he were not one of Bigot's followers, did he prefer that Robert's mission should fail through a delivery of his letters to the wrong man? Bigot certainly was not one with whom the English could deal easily, since so far as Robert could learn he was wrapped in the folds of a huge conceit.

"We might do that," the youth replied, "but I don't think it's quite proper. I make no secret of the fact that I bear letters for the Governor General of Canada, and it would not be pleasing to the Governor of the Province of New York for me to deliver them to someone else."

"It was merely a suggestion. Let us dismiss it."

He did not speak again of the immediate affairs that concerned them so vitally, but talked of Paris, where he had spent a gay youth. He saw the response in the glowing eyes of Robert, and exerted himself to please. Moreover his heart was in his subject. Quebec was a brilliant city for the New World, but Paris was the center of the whole world, the flower of all the centuries, the city of light, of greatness and of genius. The throne of the Bourbons was the most powerful in modern times, and they were a consecrated family.

Robert followed him eagerly. Both he and de Courcelles saw the Bourbons as they appeared to be before the fall, and not as the world has seen them since, in the light of revelation. The picture of Paris and its splendors, painted by one who loved it, flung over him a powerful spell, and only the warning words Willet had spoken recalled to him that the Bourbon throne might not really be made for all time.

De Courcelles and Jumonville, who had no permanent quarters in Quebec, would remain two days at the inn, and, on the whole, Robert was glad. He felt that the three could protect themselves from possible wiles and stratagems of the two Frenchmen, and that they meant to attempt them he believed he had proof later, as de Courcelles suggested they might call in the course of the evening upon the Intendant, Bigot, who was then at his palace. They need not say anything about their mission, but good company could be found there, and they might be sure of a welcome from the Intendant. Again Robert declined, and de Courcelles did not press the matter. He and Jumonville withdrew presently, saying they had a report to make to the commandant of the garrison, and the three went to bed soon afterward.

Tayoga, who slept lightly, awoke after midnight and went to a window. The Onondaga, most of the three, distrusted Quebec. It was never Quebec to him. It was Stadacona of the Ganeagaono, the great warrior nation of the Hodenosaunee who stood beside the Onondagas, their lost Stadacona, but their Stadacona still. In his heart too burned the story of Frontenac and how he had ravaged the country of the Hodenosaunee with fire and sword. He was here in the very shrine and fortress of the ancient enemies of the great Iroquois. He had taken the education of the white man, he had read in his books and he knew much of the story of the human race, but nothing had ever disturbed his faith that a coming chief of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the mighty League of the Hodenosaunee was, by right, and in fact, a prince among men.

But while Tayoga learned what civilization, as the European races called it, had to offer, it did not make him value any the less the arts and lore of his own forest. Rather, they increased in size and importance by comparison. He had seen how the talk of de Courcelles had lighted a fire in the soul of Lennox, he had seen how even Willett, the wary, had been stirred, but he, Tayoga, had been left cold. He had read the purpose behind it all, and never for an instant did he let himself put any faith in de Courcelles or Jumonville.

The air of the room was heavy and fetid to Tayoga. His free spirit detected poison in the atmosphere of Quebec, and, for the moment, he longed to be in the great, pure wilderness, pure at least to one of his race. He opened the window more widely and inhaled the breeze which was coming from the north, out of vast clean forests, that no white man save the trapper had ever entered.

He looked upward, at first toward the blue sky and its clustering stars, and then, turning his eyes to the open space near the inn, caught sight of two shadowy figures. The Onondaga was alert upon the instant, because he knew those figures, thin though they seemed in the dusk. One was Tandakora, the Ojibway, and the other was Auguste de Courcelles, Colonel in the French army, a pair most unlike, yet talking together earnestly now.

Tayoga was not at all surprised. He had pierced the mind of de Courcelles and he had expected him to seek Tandakora. He watched them a full five minutes, until the Ojibway slipped away in the darkness, and de Courcelles turned back toward the inn, walking slowly, and apparently very thoughtful.

Tayoga thought once of going outside to follow Tandakora, but he decided that no good object would be served by it and remained at the window, where the wind out of the cold north could continue to blow upon him. He knew that the Indian and de Courcelles had entered into some conspiracy, but he believed they could guard against it, and in good time it would disclose itself.

There might be many hidden trails in a city like Quebec, but he meant to discover the one that Tandakora followed. He remained an hour at the window, and then without awaking his comrades to tell what he had seen went back to his bed. Nor did he say anything about it when they awoke in the morning. He preferred to keep Tandakora as his especial charge. A coming chief of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee, would know how to deal with a savage Ojibway out of the western forests.

At breakfast, Robert wondered what they would do during the coming day, as it was not advisable to go much about Quebec owing to the notoriety the duel had brought to them. Monsieur Berryer, suave, deferential and full of gossip, informed them that the fame of young Mr. Lennox as a master of the sword had spread through the city in a few hours. Brave and skillful young Frenchmen were anxious to meet him and prove that where Count Jean de Mézy had failed they might succeed.

"The young gentleman will not lack opportunities for honor and glory in
Quebec," said Monsieur Berryer, rubbing his fat, white hands.

"In view of our errand here you must let all these opportunities go, Robert," said Willet. "If we show ourselves too much some of these hot young French knights will force a fight upon you, not because they hate you, but from sporting motives. But it would be just as bad for you to lose your life in a friendly duel as in one full of hate."

Robert chafed, nevertheless. The Inn of the Eagle was a good inn, but he did not wish to spend an entire day within its walls. Young Captain Louis de Galisonnière solved the problem, arriving just after breakfast with a note addressed to Mr. Robert Lennox, which proved to be an invitation for all three of them from Monsieur François Bigot, Intendant of Canada, to attend a dinner given by him that evening at his palace. The letter was full of polite phrases. The Intendant had heard of young Mr. Lennox's surpassing skill with the sword, and of his success with Count Jean de Mézy, who wielded a good blade himself. But neither the Intendant nor those associated with him bore