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

He picked up a heavy stick and threw it with all his might into the bushes on their right. It sped straighter to the target than he had hoped, as there was a thud, a snarling yelp, and then the swift pad of flying feet. Tayoga lay back and laughed.

"The Spirit of Jest guided my hand," he said, "and the stick struck him upon the nose. He will run far and his wrath and fear will grow as he runs. Then he will lie down again in some thicket, and he will not dare to come back. Now, we will wait a little."

"Anything more looking at us?" asked Robert after awhile.

"Yes, we have a new visitor," replied Tayoga in a low tone. "Speak only in a whisper and do not move, because the animal that is looking at us has no malice in its heart, and does not wish us harm. It has come very softly and, while its eyes are larger, they are mild and have only curiosity."

"A deer, I should say, Tayoga."

"Yes, a deer, Lennox, a very beautiful deer. It has been drawn by the fire, and having come as near as it dares it stands there, shivering a little, but wondering and admiring."

"We won't trouble it, Tayoga. We'll need the meat of a deer before long, but we'll spare our guest of tonight."

"He is staring very straight at us," said Tayoga, "but something has stirred in the brushwood—perhaps it's another wolf—and now he has gone."

"We seem to be an attraction," said Willet, "and so I suppose we'd better give 'em as good a look as we can."

He cast a great quantity of the dry wood on the fire, and it blazed up gayly, throwing the red glow in a wide circle, and lighting up the pleasant glade. The figures of the three, as they leaned in luxurious attitudes, were outlined clearly and sharply, a view they would not have allowed had not Tayoga been sure no enemy was near.

"Now let the spectators come on," said Willet genially, "because we won't be on display forever. After a while we'll get sleepy, and then it will be best to put out the fire."

The flames leaped higher and the glowing circle widened. Robert, leaning against a tree, with his blanket wrapped around him and the cushion of dead leaves beneath him, felt the grateful warmth upon his face, and it rejoiced body and mind alike. Tayoga and the hunter were in a similar state of content, and they were silent for a while. Then Robert said:

"Who's looking at us now, Tayoga?"

"Two creatures, Dagaeoga, that belong upon the ground, but that are not now upon it."

"Your answer sounds like a puzzle. If they're not now upon the ground they're probably in the air, but they're not birds, because birds don't belong on the ground. Then they're animals that have climbed trees."

"Dagaeoga's mind is becoming wondrous wise. In time he may be a sachem among his adopted people."

"Don't you have sport with me, Tayoga, because bear in mind that if you do I will pay you back some day. Have these creatures a mean, vicious look?"

"I could not claim, Dagaeoga, that they are as beautiful as the deer that came to look at us but lately."

"Then I make so bold as to say, Tayoga, that they have tufted ear tips, spotted fur, and short tails, in brief a gentleman lynx and a lady lynx, his wife. They are gazing at us with respect and fear as the wolf did, and also with just as much malice and hate. They're wondering who and what we are, and why we come into their woods, the pair of bloodthirsty rabbit slayers."

"Did I not say you would be a sachem some day, Dagaeoga? You have read aright. An Onondaga warrior could not have done better. The two lynxes are on a bough ten feet from the ground, and perhaps in their foolish hearts they think because they are so high above the earth that we cannot reach them."

"You're not going to shoot at 'em, Tayoga? We don't want to waste good bullets on a lynx."

"Not I, Dagaeoga, but I will make them acquainted with something they will dread as much as bullets. It's right that those who come to look at us should be made to pay the price of it."

"So you think that Monsieur and Madame Lynx have looked long enough at the illustrious three?"

"Yes, Dagaeoga. It is time for them to go. And since they do not go of their own will I must make them go."

He snatched a long brand from the fire, and whirling it around his head, and shouting at the same time, he dashed toward an old dead tree some distance away. Two stump-tailed, tuft-eared animals, uttering loud ferocious screams, leaped from the boughs and tore away through the thickets, terror stabbing at their hearts, as the circling flame of red pursued them. Tayoga returned laughing.

"They will run and they will run," he said, throwing down his brand.

"You don't give 'em much chance to see us, Tayoga," said the hunter. "Since we're on exhibition tonight you might have let 'em look and admire a while longer."

"So I could, Great Bear, but I do not like the lynx. Its habits are unpleasant, and its scream is harsh. Hence, I drove the two of them away."

"I suppose you're right. I don't dare care much about 'em either. Now we'll rest and see what other visitors come to admire."

Tayoga sat down again. Their packs were put in a neat heap near the three, Robert's and Willet's swords, and Tayoga's bow and arrows in their case resting on the top. Robert threw more wood on the fire, and contentedly watched the great, glowing circle of light extend its circumference.

"We knew we'd find peace and rest here," said Willet, "but we didn't know we'd be watched and admired like people on the stage at a theater."

"Have you seen many plays, Dave?" asked Robert.

"A lot, especially in London at Drury Lane and other theaters."

"And so you know London, as well as Paris?"

"Well, yes, I've been there. Some day, Robert, I'll tell you more about both Paris and London and why I happened to be in such great cities, but not now. We'll keep our minds on the forest, which is worth our attention. Don't you hear a tread approaching, Tayoga?"

"Yes, Great Bear, and it's very heavy. A lord of the forest is coming."

"A moose, think you, Tayoga?"

"Yes, Great Bear, a mighty bull, one far beyond the common size. I can tell by his tread, and I think he is angry, or he would not march so boldly toward the fire."

"Then," said the hunter, "we'd better stand up, and be ready with our weapons. I've no wish to be trodden to death by a mad bull moose, just when I'm feeling so happy and so contented with the world."

"The Great Bear's advice is good," said Tayoga, and the three took it. The approaching tread grew heavier, and the largest moose that Robert had ever seen, pushing his way through the bushes, stood looking at the fire, and those who had built it. He was a truly magnificent specimen, and Tayoga had been right in calling him a lord of the forest, but his eyes were red and inflamed and his look was menacing.

"Mad! Quite mad!" whispered the hunter. "He sees us, but he doesn't admire us. He hates us, and he isn't afraid of us."

The three moved softly and discreetly into a place where both trees and bushes were so dense that the moose could not get at them.

"What troubles him?" asked Robert.

"I don't know," said the hunter. "He may be suffering yet from a wound by an Indian arrow, or he may have a spell of some kind. We can be certain only that he's raging mad, every inch of him. Look at those great sharp hoofs of his, Robert. I'd as soon be struck with an axe."

The moose, after some hesitation, rushed into the glade, leaped toward the fire, leaped back again, pawed and trampled the earth in a terrible convulsion of rage, and then sprang away, crashing through the forest. They heard the beat of his hoofs a long time, and when the sound ceased they returned and resumed their seats by the fire.

"That moose was a great animal," said Tayoga with irony, "but his mind was the mind of a little child. He did nothing with his strength and agility but tear the earth and tire himself. Now he runs away among the trees, scratching his body with bushes and briars."

"At any rate, he was an important visitor, Tayoga," said the hunter, "and since we've had a good look at him we're glad he's gone away. I think it likely now that all who wanted to look at us have had their look, and we might go to sleep. How are your leaves, Robert?"

"Fine and soft. They make a splendid bed, and I'm off to slumberland."

He pushed up the leaves at one end of his couch high enough to form a pillow, and stretched himself luxuriously. The night was turning cold, but he had his blanket, and there was the fire. He felt as comfortable as at the Inn of the Eagle in Quebec, and freer from plots and danger.

They were allowing the fire to die now, but the coals would glow for a long time, and Robert looked at them sleepily. His feeling of coziness and content increased, and presently he slept. The hunter soon followed him, but Tayoga slept not at all. His subtle Indian instinct warned him not to do so. For the Onondaga the forest was not free now from danger, and he would watch while his white friends slept.

Tayoga arose, after a while, and taking a stick, scattered the coals of the fire. But he did it in such a manner that he made no noise, the hunter and young Lennox continuing to sleep soundly. Then he watched the embers, having lost that union which is strength, die one by one. The conquered darkness came back, recovering its lost ground, slowly invading the glade, until it was one in the dusk with the rest of the forest. Then Tayoga felt better satisfied, and he looked at the sleepers, whose faces he could still discern, despite the absence of the fire, a fair moonlight falling.

Robert and the hunter slept peacefully, but their sleep was deep. The youth was weary from the long march in the woods, but as he slept his strong healthy tissues rapidly regained their vitality. The Onondaga looked at the two longer than usual. These comrades of his were knitted to him by innumerable labors and dangers shared. In him dwelled the soul of a great Indian chief, the spirit that has animated Pontiac, and Little Turtle, and Tecumseh and Red Cloud and other dauntless leaders of his race, but it had been refined though not weakened by his white education. Gratitude and truth were as frequent Indian traits as the memory of injuries, and while he was surcharged with pride because he was born a warrior of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee, he felt as truly as any knight ever felt that he must accept and fulfill all the duties of his place.

Standing in a dusk made luminous by a silvery moonlight he was a fitting son of the forest, one of its finest products. He belonged to it, and it belonged to him, each being the perfect complement of the other. His face cut in bronze was lofty, not without a spiritual cast, and his black eyes flamed with his resolve. He looked up at the heavens, fleecy with white vapors, and shot with a million stars, the same sky that had bent over his race for generations no man could count, and his soul was filled with admiration. Then he made his voiceless prayer:

"O, Tododaho, first and greatest sachem of the Onondagas, greatest and noblest sachem of the League, look down from your home on another star, and watch over your people, for whom the storms gather! Let the serpents in your hair whisper to you of wisdom that you in turn may whisper it to us through the winds! Direct our footsteps in the great war that is coming between the white nations