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

departed, the darkness went away, and the great lake stood out, blue and magnificent, in the light. Far to the south moved the long canoe, a mere black dot in the water. Tayoga laughed in his throat.

"They rage and seek us in vain," he said. "They will continue pursuing us to the south. They do not know that Manitou sent the second storm especially to cover us up with a darkness in which we might escape."

"It's a good belief, Tayoga," said Willet, "and as Manitou arranged that we should elude them he is not likely to bring them back into our path. That being the case I'm going to dry my clothes."

"So will I," said Robert, and the Onondaga nodded his own concurrence. They took off their garments, wrung the water out of them and hung them on the bushes to dry, a task soon to be accomplished by the sun that now came out hot and bright. Meanwhile they debated their further course.

"The long canoe still goes south," said Tayoga. "It is now many miles away, hunting for us. Perhaps since they cannot find us, the Hurons will conclude that the storm sank us in the lake!"

"But they will hunt along the shore a long time," said Willet. "They're nothing but a tiny speck now, and in a quarter of an hour they'll be out of sight altogether. Suppose we cross the lake behind them—I think I see a cove down there on the western side—take the canoe with us and wait until they go back again."

"A wise plan," said Tayoga.

In another hour their deerskins were dry, and reclothing themselves they returned the canoe to the lake, the Hurons still being invisible. Then they crossed in haste, reached the cove that Willet had seen, and plunged into the deep woods, taking the canoe with them, and hiding their trail carefully. When they had gone a full three miles they came to rest in a glade, and every one of the three felt that it was time. Muscles and nerves alike were exhausted, and they remained there all the rest of the day and the following night, except that after dark Tayoga went back to the lake and saw the long canoe going northward.

"I don't think we'll be troubled by that band of Hurons any more," he reported to his comrades. "They will surely think we have been drowned, and tomorrow we can continue our own journey to the south."

"And on the whole, we've come out of it pretty well," said Willet.

"With the aid of Manitou, who so generously sent us the second storm," said Tayoga.

They brought the canoe back to the lake at dawn, and hugging the western shore made leisurely speed to the south, until they came to the neighborhood of the French works at Carillon, when they landed again with their canoe, and after a long and exhausting portage launched themselves anew on the smaller but more splendid lake, known to the English as George and to the French as Saint Sacrement. Now, though, they traveled by night and slept and rested by day. But Lake George in the moonlight was grand and beautiful beyond compare. Its waters were dusky silver as the beams poured in floods upon it, and the lofty shores, in their covering of dark green, seemed to hold up the skies.

"It's a grand land," said Robert for the hundredth time.

"It is so," said Tayoga. "After Manitou had practiced on many other countries he used all his wisdom and skill to make the country of the Hodenosaunee."

The next morning when they lay on the shore they saw two French boats on the lake, and Robert was confirmed in his opinion that the prevision of the French leaders would enable them to strike the first blow. Already their armed forces were far down in the debatable country, and they controlled the ancient water route between the British colonies and Canada.

On the second night they left the lake, hid the canoe among the bushes at the edge of a creek, and began the journey by land to the vale of Onondaga. It was likely that in ordinary times they would have made it without event, but they felt now the great need of caution, since the woods might be full of warriors of the hostile tribes. They were sure, too, that Tandakora would find their trail and that he would not relinquish the pursuit until they were near the villages of the Hodenosaunee. The trail might be hidden from the Ojibway alone, but since many war parties of their foes were in the woods he would learn of it from some of them. So they followed the plan they had used on the lake of traveling by night and of lying in the bush by day.

Another deer fell to Tayoga's deadly arrow, and on the third day as they were concealed in dense forest they saw smoke on a high hill, rising in rings, as if a blanket were passed rapidly over a fire and back again in a steady alternation.

"Can you read what they say, Tayoga?" asked Willet.

"No," replied the Onondaga. "They are strange to me, and so it cannot be any talk of the Hodenosaunee. Ah, look to the west! See, on another hill, two miles away, rings of smoke also are rising!"

"Which means that two bands of French Indians are talking to each other,
Tayoga?"

"It is so, Great Bear, and here within the lands of the Hodenosaunee! Perhaps Frenchmen are with them, Frenchmen from Carillon or some other post that Onontio has pushed far to the south."

The young Onondaga spoke with deep resentment. The sight of the two smokes made by the foes of the Hodenosaunee filled him with anger, and Willet, who observed his face, easily read his mind from it.

"You would like to see more of the warriors who are making those signals," he said. "Well, I don't blame you for your curiosity and perhaps it would be wise for us to take a look. Suppose we stalk the first fire."

Tayoga nodded, and the three, although hampered somewhat by their packs, began a slow approach through the bushes. Half the distance, and Tayoga, who was in advance, putting his finger upon his lips, sank almost flat.

"What is it, Tayoga?" whispered Willet.

"Someone else stalking them too. On the right. I heard a bush move."

Both Willet and Robert heard it also as they waited, and used as they were to the forest they knew that it was made by a human being.

"What's your opinion, Tayoga?" asked the hunter.

"A warrior or warriors of the Hodenosaunee, seeking, as we are, to see those who are sending up the rings of smoke," replied the Onondaga.

"If you're right they're likely to be Mohawks, the Keepers of the
Eastern Gate."

Tayoga nodded.

"Let us see," he said.

Putting his fingers to his lips, he blew between them a note soft and low but penetrating. A half minute, and a note exactly similar came from a point in the dense bush about a hundred yards away. Then Tayoga blew a shorter note, and as before the reply came, precisely like it.

"It is the Ganeagaono," said Tayoga with certainty, "and we will await them here."

The three remained motionless and silent, but in a few minutes the bushes before them shook, and four tall figures, rising to their full height, stood in plain view. They were Mohawk warriors, all young, powerful and with fierce and lofty features. The youngest and tallest, a man with the high bearing of a forest chieftain, said:

"We meet at a good time, O Tayoga, of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee."

"It is so, O Daganoweda, of the clan of the Turtle, of the nation
Ganeagaono, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee," replied Tayoga.
"I see that my brethren, the Keepers of the Eastern Gate, watch when the
savage tribes come within their territory."

The brows of the young Mohawk contracted into a frown.

"Most of our warriors are on the great trail to the vale of Onondaga," he said. "We are but four, and, though we are only four, we intended to attack. The smoke nearer by is made by Hurons and Caughnawagas."

"You are more than four, you are seven," said Tayoga.

Daganoweda understood, and smiled fiercely and proudly.

"You have spoken well, Tayoga," he said, "but you have spoken as I expected you to speak. Onundagaono and Ganeagaono be the first nations of the Hodenosaunee and they never fail each other. We are seven and we are enough."

He took it for granted that Tayoga spoke as truly for the two white men as for himself, and Robert and the hunter felt themselves committed. Moreover their debt to the Onondaga was so great that they could not abandon him, and they knew he would go with the Mohawks. It would also be good policy to share their enterprise and their danger.

"We'll support you to the end of it," said Willet quietly.

"The English have always been the friends of the Hodenosaunee," said Daganoweda, as he led the way through the undergrowth toward the point from which the smoke come. Neither Robert nor Willet felt any scruple about attacking the warriors there, as they were clearly invaders with hostile purpose of Mohawk territory, and it was also more than likely that their immediate object was the destruction of the three. Yet the two Americans held back a little, letting the Indians take the lead, not wishing it to be said that they began the battle.

Daganoweda, whose name meant "Inexhaustible," was a most competent young chief. He spread out his little force in a half circle, and the seven rapidly approached the fire. But Robert was glad when a stick broke under the foot of an incautious and eager warrior, and the Hurons and Caughnawagas, turning in alarm, fired several bullets into the bushes. He was glad, because it was the other side that began the combat, and if there was a Frenchman with them he could not go to Montreal or Quebec, saying the British and their Indians had fired the first shot.

All of the bullets flew wide, and Daganoweda's band took to cover at once, waiting at least five minutes before they obtained a single shot at a brown body. Then all the usual incidents of a forest struggle followed, the slow creeping, the occasional shot, a shout of triumph or the death yell, but the Hurons and Caughnawagas, who were about a dozen in number, were routed and took to flight in the woods, leaving three of their number fallen. Two of the Mohawks were wounded but not severely. Tayoga, who was examining the trail, suddenly raised his head and said:

"Tandakora has been here. There is none other who wears so large a moccasin. Here go his footsteps! and here! and here!"

"Doubtless they thought we were near, and were arranging with the other band to trap us," said Willet. "Daganoweda, it seems that you and your Mohawks came just in time. Are the smoke rings from the second fire still rising? We were too far away for them to hear our rifles."

"Only one or two rings go up now," replied Tayoga. "Since they have received no answer in a long time they wonder what has happened. See how those two rings wander away and dissolve in the air, as if they were useless, and now no more follow."

"But the warriors may come here to see what is the matter, and we ought to be ready for them."

Daganoweda, to whom they readily gave the place of leader, since by right it was his, saw at once the soundness of the hunter's advice, and they made an ambush. The second band, which was about the size of the first, approached cautiously, and after a short combat retired swiftly with two wounded warriors, evidently thinking the enemy was in great force, and leaving the young Mohawk chieftain in complete possession of his victorious field.

"Tayoga, and you, Great Bear, I thank you," said Daganoweda. "Without your aid we could never have overcome our enemies."

"We were glad to do what we could," said Willet sincerely, "since, as I see it, your cause and ours are the same."

Tayoga was examining the fleeing trail of the second band as he had examined that of the first, and he beckoned to his white comrades and to Daganoweda.

"Frenchmen were here," he said. "See the trail. They wore