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

you can't predict with certainty that we'll soon come to the place where he made it ready for the eating."

"I cannot, Dagaeoga! Why, I am doing it this very instant. Mind! Mind! Did I not tell you to use your mind? O, Dagaeoga, when will you learn the simpler things of life? The Great Bear would not have risked a shot at a wild goose in enemy country, if he had not been very hungry. Otherwise he would have waited until he rejoined the rangers to obtain food. And, having risked his shot, and having obtained his goose, which was the fattest in the flock, he became hungrier than ever. And having risked so much he was willing to risk more in order to complete the task he had undertaken, without which the other risks that he had run would have been all in vain."

"Tayoga, I can almost believe that you have your dictionary with you in your knapsack."

"Not in my knapsack, Dagaeoga, but in my head, where yours also ought to be. Ah, here is where the Great Bear began to make preparations to cook his goose! His trail wanders back and forth. He was looking for fallen wood to build the fire. And there, in the little sink between the hills, was where he built it. Even you, Dagaeoga, can see the ashes and burnt ends of sticks. The Great Bear must have been as hungry as a wolf to have eaten a whole goose, and the fattest goose of the flock, too. How do I know he ate it all? Look in the grass and leaves and you will find enough bones to make the complete frame of a goose, and every bone is picked clean. Wild animals might have gleaned on them, you say? No. Here is the trail of a wolf that came to the dip after the Great Bear had gone, drawn by the savory odors, but he turned back. He never really entered the dip. Why? When he stood at the edge his acute and delicate senses told him no meat was left on the bones, and a wolf neither makes idle exertion, nor takes foolish risk. He went back at once. And if the wolf had not come, there is another reason why I knew the Great Bear ate all the goose. He would not have thrown away any of the bones with flesh still on them. He is too wise a man to waste. He would have taken with him what was left of the goose. Having finished his most excellent dinner, the Great Bear looked for a brook."

"Why a brook?"

"Because he was thirsty. Everyone is thirsty after a heavy meal. He turned to the right, as the ground slopes down in that direction. Even you, Dagaeoga, know that one is more likely to find a brook in a valley than on a hilltop. Here is the brook, a fine, clear little stream with a sandy bottom, and here is where the Great Bear knelt and drank of the cool water. The prints of his strong knees show like carving on a wall. Finding that he was still thirsty he came back for another drink, because the second prints are a little distance from the first.

"Then, after rejoicing over the tender goose and his renewed strength, he suddenly became very cautious. The danger from the warriors, which he had forgotten or overlooked in his hunger, returned in acute form to his mind. He came to the brook a third time, but not to drink. He intended to wade in the stream that he might hide his trail, which, as you well know, Dagaeoga, is the oldest and best of all forest devices for such purposes. How many millions of times must the people of the wilderness have used it!

"Now the Great Bear had two ways to go in the water, up the stream or down the stream, and you and I, Dagaeoga, think he went down the stream, because the current leads on the whole eastward, which was the way in which he wished to go. At least, we will choose that direction and I will take one side of the bank and you the other."

They followed the brook more than a mile with questing eyes, and Tayoga detected the point at which Willet had emerged, plunging anew into the forest.

"Warriors, if they had picked up his trail, could have followed the brook as we did," said Robert.

"Of course," said Tayoga, "but the object of the Great Bear was not so much to hide his flight as to gain time. While we went slowly, looking for the emergence of his trail, he went fast. Now I think he meant to spend the night in the woods alone. The rangers must still have been far away. If they had been near he would not have felt the need of throwing off possible pursuit."

They followed the dim traces several hours, and then Tayoga announced with certainty that the hunter had slept alone in the forest, wrapped in his blanket.

"He crept into this dense clump of bushes," he said, "and lay within their heart, sheltered and hidden by them. You, Dagaeoga, can see where his weight has pressed them down. Why, here is the outline of a human body almost as clear and distinct as if it were drawn with black ink upon white paper! And the Great Bear slept well, too. The bushes are not broken or shoved aside except in the space merely wide enough to contain his frame. Perhaps the goose was so very tender and his nerves and tissues had craved it so much that they were supremely happy when he gave it to them. That is why they rested so well.

"In the morning the Great Bear resumed his journey toward the east. He had no breakfast and doubtless he wished for another goose, but he was refreshed and he was very strong. The traces are fainter than they were, because the Great Bear was so vigorous that his feet almost spurned the earth."

"Don't you think, Tayoga, that he'll soon turn aside again to hunt? So strong a man as Dave won't go long without food, especially when the forest is full of it. We've noticed everywhere that the war has caused the game to increase greatly in numbers."

"It will depend upon the position of the force to which the Great Bear belongs. If it is near he will not seek game, waiting for food until he rejoins the rangers, but if they are distant he will look for a deer or another goose, or maybe a duck. But by following we will see what he did. It cannot be hidden from us. The forest has few secrets from those who are born in it. Ah, what is this? The Great Bear hid in a bush, and he leaped suddenly! Behold the distance between the footprints! He saw something that alarmed him. It may have been a war party passing, and of which he suddenly caught sight. If so we can soon tell."

A hundred yards beyond the clump of bushes they found a broad trail, indicating that at least twenty warriors had gone by, their line of march leading toward the southeast.

"They were in no hurry," said the Onondaga, "as they had no fear of enemies. Their steps are irregular, showing that sometimes they stopped and talked. Doubtless they meant to join Montcalm, but as they can travel much faster than an army they were taking their time about it. We will now return to the bushes in which the Great Bear lay hidden while he watched. The traces of his footsteps in the heart of the clump are much deeper than usual, which proves that he stood there quite a while. It is also another proof that the warriors stopped and talked when they were near him, else he would not have remained in the clump so long. It is likely, too, that the Great Bear followed them when they resumed their journey. Yes, here is his trail leading from the bushes. But it is faint, the Great Bear was stepping lightly and here is where it merges with the trail of the warriors. He could not have been more than three or four hundred yards behind them. The Great Bear was very bold, or else they were very careless. He will not follow them long, as he merely wishes to get a general idea of their course, it being his main object to rejoin the rangers."

"And at this point he turned away from their trail," said Robert, after they had followed it about a mile. "He is now going due east, and his traces lead on so straight that he must have known exactly where he intended to go."

"Stated with much correctness," said Tayoga in his precise school English. "Dagaeoga is taking to heart my assertion that the mind is intended for human use, and he is beginning to think a little. But we shall have to stop soon for a while, because the night comes. We, too, will sleep in the heart of the bushes as the Great Bear did."

"And glad am I to stop," said Robert. "My burden of buffalo robe and deer and arms and ammunition is beginning to weigh on me. A buffalo robe doesn't seem of much use on a warm, summer day, but it is such a fine one and you took so much trouble to get it for me, Tayoga, that I haven't had the heart to abandon it."

"It is well that you have brought it, in spite of its weight," said the Onondaga, "as the night, at this height, is sure to be cold, and the robe will envelop you in its warmth. See, the dark comes fast."

The sun sank behind the forest, and the twilight advanced, the deeper dusk following in its trail, a cold wind began to blow out of the north, and Robert, as Tayoga had predicted, was thankful now that he had retained the buffalo robe, despite its weight. He wrapped it around his body and sat on a blanket in a thicket. Tayoga, by his side, used his two blankets in a similar manner, and they ate of the deer which they had had the forethought to cook, and make ready for all times.

The dusk deepened into the thick dark, and the night grew colder, but they were warm and at ease. Robert was full of courage and hope. The elements and all things had served them so much that he was quite sure they would succeed in everything they undertook. By and by, he stretched himself on the blanket, and clothed from head to foot in the great robe he slept the deep sleep of one who had toiled hard and well. An hour later Tayoga also slept, but in another hour he awoke and sat up, listening with all the marvelous powers of hearing that nature and cultivation had given him.

Something was stirring in the thicket, not any of the wild animals, big or little, but a human being, and Tayoga knew the chances were a hundred to one that it was a hostile human being. He put his ear to the earth and the sound came more clearly. Now his wonderful gifts of intuition and forest reasoning told him what it was. Slowly he rose again, cleared himself of the blankets, and put his rifle upon them. Then, loosening the pistol in his belt, but drawing his long hunting knife, he crept from the thicket.

Tayoga, despite his thorough white education and his constant association with white comrades, was always an Indian first. Now, as he stole from the thicket in the dark, knife in hand, he was the very quintessence of a great warrior of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee. He was what his ancestors had been for unnumbered generations, a primeval son of the wilderness, seeking the life of the enemy who came seeking his.

He kept to his hands and knees, and made no sound as he advanced, but at intervals he dropped his ear to the ground, and heard the faint rustling that was drawing nearer. He decided that it was a single warrior who by some chance had struck their trail in the dusk, and who, with minute pains and with slowness but certainty, was following it.

His course took him about thirty yards among the bushes and then through high grass growing luxuriantly in the open. In the grass his eye also helped him, because at a point straight ahead the tall stems were moving slightly in a direction opposed to the wind. He took the knife in his teeth and went on, sure that bold means would be best.

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