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

of going to sleep. Although Tandakora would not return, others might come, and for the night the care of the three was his. It had grown a little darker, but the blue of the skies was merely deeper and more luminous. There in the east was the great shining star, on which Tododaho, mightiest of chiefs, lived with the wise serpents coiled in his hair. He gazed and his heart leaped. The vapors about the star were gathering again, and for a brief moment or two they formed the face of Tododaho, a face that smiled upon him. His soul rejoiced.

"O Tododaho," were his unspoken words. "Thou hast kept thy promise! Thou hast watched over me in the fight with Tandakora, and thou hast given me the victory! Thou hast sent all his arrows astray and thou hast sent mine aright! I thank thee, O, Tododaho!"

The vapors were dissolved, but Tayoga never doubted that he had seen for a second time the face of the wise chief who had gone to his star more than four hundred years ago. A great peace filled him. He had accepted the white man's religion as he had learned it in the white man's school, and at the same time he had kept his own. He did not see any real difference between them. Manitou and God were the same, one was the name in Iroquois and the other was the name in English. When he prayed to either he prayed to both.

The darkness that precedes the dawn came. The great star on which Tododaho lived went away, and the whole host swam into the void that is without ending. The deeper dusk crept up, but Tayoga still sat motionless, his eyes wide open, his ecstatic state lasting. He heard the little animals stirring once more in the forest as the dawn approached, and he felt very friendly toward them. He would not harm the largest or the least of them. It was their wilderness as well as his, and Manitou had made them as well as him.

The darkness presently began to thin away, and Tayoga saw the first silver shoot of dawn in the east. The sun would soon rise over the great wilderness that was his heritage and that he loved, clothing in fine, spun gold the green forests, the blue lakes and the silver rivers. He took a mighty breath. It was a beautiful world and he was glad that he lived in it.

He awoke Robert and Willet, and they stood up sleepily.

"Did you have a good rest, Tayoga?" Robert asked.

"I did not sleep," the Onondaga replied.

"Didn't sleep? Why not, Tayoga?"

"In the night, Tandakora and two more came."

"What? Do you mean it, Tayoga?"

"They were coming, seeking to slay us as we slept, but I heard them. Lest the Great Bear and Dagaeoga be awakened and lose the sleep they needed so much, I took my bow and arrows and went into the forest and met them."

Robert's breath came quickly. Tayoga's manner was quiet, but it was not without a certain exultation, and the youth knew that he did not jest. Yet it seemed incredible.

"You met them, Tayoga?" he repeated.

"Yes, Dagaeoga."

"And what happened?"

"The two warriors whom Tandakora brought with him lie still in the forest. They will never move again. Tandakora escaped with an arrow through his arm. He will not trouble us for a week, but he will seek us later."

"Why didn't you awake us, Tayoga, and take us with you?"

"I wished to do this deed alone."

"You've done it well, that's sure," said Willet, "and now that all danger has been removed we'll light our fire and cook breakfast."

After breakfast they shouldered their packs and plunged once more into the greenwood, intending to reach as quickly as they could the hidden canoe on the Richelieu, and then make an easy journey by water.

CHAPTER XIV ON CHAMPLAIN

The three arrived at the Richelieu without further hostile encounter, but they met a white forest runner who told them the aspect of affairs in the Ohio country was growing more threatening. A small force from Virginia was starting there under a young officer named Washington, and it was reported that the French from Canada in numbers were already in the disputed country.

"We know what we know," said Willet thoughtfully. "I've never doubted that English and French would come into conflict in the woods, and if I had felt any such doubts, our visit to Quebec would have driven them away. I don't think our letters from the Governor of New York to the Governor General of Canada will be of any avail."

"No," said Robert, soberly. "They won't. But I want to say to you, Dave, that I'm full of gladness, because we've reached our canoe. Our packs without increasing in size are at least twice as heavy as they were when we started."

"I can join you in your hosannas, Robert. Never before did a canoe look so fine to me. It's a big canoe, a beautiful canoe, a strong canoe, a swift canoe, and it's going to carry us in comfort and far."

It was, in truth, larger than the one they had used coming up the lakes, and, with a mighty sigh of satisfaction, Robert settled into his place. Their packs, rifles, swords and the case containing Tayoga's bow and arrows were adjusted delicately, and then, with a few sweeps of the Onondaga's paddle, they shot out into the slow current of the river. Robert and Willet leaned back and luxuriated. Tayoga wanted to do the work at present, saying that his wrists, in particular, needed exercise, and they willingly let him. They were moving against the stream, but so great was the Onondaga's dexterity that he sent the canoe along at a good pace without feeling weariness.

"It's like old times," said Willet. "There's no true happiness like being in a canoe on good water, with the strong arm of another to paddle for you. I'm glad you winged that savage, Tandakora, Tayoga. It would spoil my pleasure to know that he was hanging on our trail."

"Don't be too happy, Great Bear," said Tayoga. "Within a week the Ojibway will be hunting for us. Maybe he will be lying in wait on the shores of the great lake, Champlain."

"If so, Tayoga, you must have him to feel the kiss of another arrow."

Tayoga smiled and looked affectionately at his bow and quiver.

"The Iroquois shaft can still be of use," he said, "and we will save our ammunition, because the way is yet far."

"Deer shouldn't be hard to find in these woods," said Willet, "and when we stop for the night we'll hunt one."

They took turns with the paddle, and now and then, drawing in under overhanging boughs, rested a little. Once or twice they saw distant smoke which they believed was made by Canadian and therefore hostile Indians, but they did not pause to investigate. It was their desire to make speed, because they wished to reach as quickly as they could the Long House in the vale of the Onondaga. It was still possible to arrive there before St. Luc should go away, because he would have to wait until the fifty sachems chose to go in council and hear him.

On this, their return journey, Robert thought much of the chevalier and was eager to see him again. Of all the Frenchmen he had met St. Luc interested him most. De Galisonnière was gallant and honest and truthful, a good friend, but he did not convey the same impression of foresight and power that the chevalier had made upon him, and there was also another motive, underlying but strong. He wished to match himself in oratory before the fifty chiefs with Duquesne's agent. He was confident of his gifts, discovered so recently, and he knew the road to the mind and hearts of the Iroquois.

"What are you thinking so hard about, Robert?" asked Willet.

"Of St. Luc. I think we'll meet him in the vale of Onondaga. Do you ever feel that you can look into the future, Dave?"

"Just what do you mean?"

"Nothing supernatural. Don't the circumstances and conditions sometimes make you think that events are going to run in a certain channel? At the very first glance the Chevalier de St. Luc interested me uncommonly, and even in our exciting days in Quebec I thought of him. Now I have a vision about him. His life and mine are going to cross many times."

The hunter looked sharply at the lad.

"That's a queer idea of yours, Robert," he said, "but when you think it over it's not so queer, after all. It seems to be the rule that queer things should come about."

"Now I don't understand you, Dave."

"Well, maybe I don't quite understand myself. But I know one thing, Robert. St. Luc is always going to put you on your mettle, and you'll always appear at your best before him."

"That's the way I feel about it, Dave. He aroused in me an odd mixture of emotions, both emulation and defiance."

"Perhaps it's not so odd after all," said Willet.

Robert could not induce him to pursue the subject. He shied away from St. Luc, and talked about the more immediate part of their journey, recalling the necessity of finding another deer, as their supplies of food were falling very low. Just before sunset they drew into the mouth of a large creek and made the canoe fast. Tayoga, taking bow and quiver, went into the woods for his deer, and within an hour found him. Then they built a small fire sheltered well by thickets, and cooked supper.

The Onondaga reported game abundant, especially the smaller varieties, and remarkably tame, inferring from the fact that no hunting parties had been in the region for quite a while.

"We're almost in the country of the Hodenosaunee," he said, "but the warriors have not been here. All of the outlying bands have gone back toward Canada or westward into the Ohio country. This portion of the land is deserted."

"Still, it's well to be careful, Tayoga," said the hunter. "That savage, Tandakora, is going to make it the business of his life to hunt our scalps, and if there's to be a great war I don't want to fall just before it begins."

That night they dressed as much of their deer as they could carry, and the next day they passed into Lake Champlain, which displayed all of its finest colors, as if it had been made ready especially to receive them. Its waters showed blue and green and silver as the skies above them shifted and changed, and both to east and west the high mountains were clothed in dark green foliage. Robert's eyes kindled at the sight of nature's great handiwork, the magnificent lake more than a hundred miles long, and the great scenery in which it was placed. It had its story and legend too. Already it was famous in the history of the land and for unbroken generations the Indians had used it as their road between north and south. It was both the pathway of peace and the pathway of war, and Robert foresaw that hostile forces would soon be passing upon it again.

They saw the distant smoke once more, and kept close to the western shore where they were in the shadow of the wooded heights, their canoe but a mote upon the surface of the water. In so small a vessel and almost level with its waves, they saw the lake as one cannot see it from above, its splendid expanse stretching away from north to south, until it sank under the horizon, while the Green Mountains on the east and the great ranges of New York on the west seemed to pierce the skies.

"It's our lake," said Robert, "whatever happens we can't give it up to the French, or at least we'll divide it with the Hodenosaunee who can claim the western shore. If we were to lose this lake no matter what happened elsewhere I should think we had lost the war."

"We don't hold Champlain yet," said the hunter soberly. "The French claim it, and it's even called after the first of their governors under the Company of One Hundred Associates, Samuel de Champlain. They've put upon it as a sign a name which we English and Americans ourselves have accepted, and they come nearer to controlling it than we do. They're advancing, too, Robert, to the lake that they call Saint