The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hidden Children, by Robert W. Chambers

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Title: The Hidden Children

Author: Robert W. Chambers

Posting Date: March 8, 2009 [EBook #4984]
Release Date: January, 2004
First Posted: April 7, 2002

Language: English

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                           The Hidden Children


by

Robert W. Chambers, 1914


                             TO MY MOTHER

Whatever merit may lie in this book is due to her wisdom, her sympathy
                           and her teaching


                           AUTHOR'S PREFACE

No undue liberties with history have been attempted in this romance.
Few characters in the story are purely imaginary. Doubtless the
fastidious reader will distinguish these intruders at a glance, and
very properly ignore them. For they, and what they never were, and what
they never did, merely sugar-coat a dose disguised, and gild the solid
pill of fact with tinselled fiction.

But from the flames of Poundridge town ablaze, to the rolling smoke of
Catharines-town, Romance but limps along a trail hewed out for her more
dainty feet by History, and measured inch by inch across the bloody
archives of the nation.

The milestones that once marked that dark and dreadful trail were dead
men, red and white. Today a spider-web of highways spreads over that
Dark Empire of the League, enmeshing half a thousand towns now all
a-buzz by day and all a-glow by night.

Empire, League, forest, are vanished; of the nations which formed the
Confederacy only altered fragments now remain. But their memory and
their great traditions have not perished; cities, mountains, valleys,
rivers, lakes, and ponds are endowed with added beauty from the lovely
names they wear--a tragic yet a charming legacy from Kanonsis and
Kanonsionni, the brave and mighty people of the Long House, and those
outside its walls who helped to prop or undermine it, Huron and
Algonquin.

Perhaps of all national alliances ever formed, the Great Peace, which
is called the League of the Iroquois, was as noble as any. For it was a
league formed solely to impose peace. Those who took up arms against
the Long House were received as allies when conquered--save only the
treacherous Cat Nation, or Eries, who were utterly annihilated by the
knife and hatchet or by adoption and ultimate absorption in the Seneca
Nation.

As for the Lenni-Lenape, when they kept faith with the League they
remained undisturbed as one of the "props" of the Long House, and their
role in the Confederacy was embassadorial, diplomatic and advisory--in
other words, the role of the Iroquois married women. And in the
Confederacy the position of women was one of importance and dignity,
and they exercised a franchise which no white nation has ever yet
accorded to its women.

But when the Delawares broke faith, then the lash fell and the term
"women" as applied to them carried a very different meaning when spat
out by Canienga lips or snarled by Senecas.

Yet, of the Lenape, certain tribes, offshoots, and clans remained
impassive either to Iroquois threats or proffered friendship. They,
like certain lithe, proud forest animals to whom restriction means
death, were untamable. Their necks could endure no yoke, political or
purely ornamental. And so they perished far from the Onondaga
firelight, far from the open doors of the Long House, self-exiled,
self-sufficient, irreconcilable, and foredoomed. And of these the
Mohicans were the noblest.

In the four romances--of which, though written last of all, this is the
third, chronologically speaking--the author is very conscious of error
and shortcoming. But the theme was surely worth attempting; and if the
failure to convince be only partial then is the writer grateful to the
Fates, and well content to leave it to the next and better man.

BROADALBIN,

                                                   Early Spring, 1913.
  __________________________________________________________________

                                 NOTE

During the serial publication of "The Hidden Children" the author
received the following interesting letters relating to the authorship
of the patriotic verses quoted in Chapter X., These letters are
published herewith for the general reader as well as for students of
American history.

                                                              R. W. C.


                    149 WEST EIGHTY-EIGHTH STREET,

                            NEW YORK CITY.

MRS. HELEN DODGE KNEELAND:

DEAR MADAM: Some time ago I accidentally came across the verses written
by Samuel Dodge and used by R. W. Chambers in story "Hidden Children."
I wrote to him, inviting him to come and look at the original
manuscript, which has come down to me from my mother, whose maiden name
was Helen Dodge Cocks, a great-granddaughter of Samuel Dodge, of
Poughkeepsie, the author of them.

So far Mr. Chambers has not come, but he answered my note, inclosing
your note to him. I have written to him, suggesting that he insert a
footnote giving the authorship of the verses, that it would gratify the
descendants of Samuel Dodge, as well as be a tribute to a patriotic
citizen.

These verses have been published a number of times. About three years
ago by chance I read them in the December National Magazine, p. 247
(Boston), entitled "A Revolutionary Puzzle," and stating that the
author was unknown. Considering it my duty to place the honor where it
belonged, I wrote to the editor, giving the facts, which he courteously
published in the September number, 1911, p. 876.

Should you be in New York any time, I will take pleasure in showing you
the original manuscripts.

                          Very truly yours,

                                                ROBERT S. MORRIS, M.D.


MR. ROBERT CHAMBERS,

                              New York.

DEAR SIR: I have not replied to your gracious letter, as I relied upon
Dr. Morris to prove to you the authorship of the verses you used in
your story of "The Hidden Children." I now inclose a letter from him,
hoping that you will carry out his suggestion. Is it asking too much
for you to insert a footnote in the next magazine or in the story when
it comes out in book form? I think with Dr. Morris that this should be
done as a "tribute to a patriotic citizen."

Trusting that you will appreciate the interest we have shown in this
matter, I am

                           Sincerely yours,

                                                 HELEN DODGE KNEELAND.

                           May 21st, 1914.

                         Ann Arbor, Michigan.

                       MRS. FRANK G. KNEELAND,

                      727 E. University Avenue.
  __________________________________________________________________

  THE LONG HOUSE


  "Onenh jatthondek sewarih-wisa-anongh-kwe kaya-renh-kowah!
   Onenh wa-karigh-wa-kayon-ne.
   Onenh ne okne joska-wayendon.
   Yetsi-siwan-enyadanion ne
   Sewari-wisa-anonqueh."


  "_Now listen, ye who established the Great League!
   Now it has become old.
   Now there is nothing but wilderness.
   Ye are in your graves who established it._"

  "At the Wood's Edge."
  __________________________________________________________________

  NENE KARENNA


  When the West kindles red and low,
  Across the sunset's sombre glow,
  The black crows fly--the black crows fly!
  High pines are swaying to and fro
  In evil winds that blow and blow.
  The stealthy dusk draws nigh--draws nigh,
  Till the sly sun at last goes down,
  And shadows fall on Catharines-town.


  _Oswaya swaying to and fro._


  By the Dark Empire's Western gate
  Eight stately, painted Sachems wait
  For Amochol--for Amochol!
  Hazel and samphire consecrate
  The magic blaze that burns like Hate,
  While the deep witch-drums roll--and roll.
  Sorceress, shake thy dark hair down!
  The Red Priest comes from Catharines-town.


  _Ha-ai! Karenna! Fate is Fate._


  Now let the Giants clothed in stone
  Stalk from Biskoonah; while, new grown,
  The Severed Heads fly high--fly high!
  White-throat, White-throat, thy doom is known!
  O Blazing Soul that soars alone
  Like a Swift Arrow to the sky,
  High winging--fling thy Wampum down,
  Lest the sky fall on Catharines-town.


  _White-throat, White-throat, thy course is flown._

                                                             R. W. C.
  __________________________________________________________________


CONTENTS

       I  THE BEDFORD ROAD
      II  POUNDRIDGE
     III  VIEW HALLOO!
      IV  A TRYST
       V  THE GATHERING
      VI  THE SPRING WAIONTHA
     VII  LOIS
    VIII  OLD FRIENDS
      IX  MID-SUMMER
       X  IN GARRISON
      XI  A SCOUT OF SIX
     XII  AT THE FORD
    XIII  THE HIDDEN CHILDREN
     XIV  NAI TIOGA!
      XV  BLOCK-HOUSE NO. 2
     XVI  LANA HELMER
    XVII  THE BATTLE OF CHEMUNG
   XVIII  THE RITE OF THE HIDDEN CHILDREN
     XIX  AMOCHOL
      XX  YNDAIA
     XXI  CHINISEE CASTLE
    XXII  MES ADIEUX

  __________________________________________________________________




CHAPTER I

THE BEDFORD ROAD

In the middle of the Bedford Road we three drew bridle. Boyd lounged in
his reeking saddle, gazing at the tavern and at what remained of the
tavern sign, which seemed to have been a new one, yet now dangled
mournfully by one hinge, shot to splinters.

The freshly painted house itself, marred with buckshot, bore dignified
witness to the violence done it. A few glazed windows still remained
unbroken; the remainder had been filled with blue paper such as comes
wrapped about a sugar cone, so that the misused house seemed to be
watching us out of patched and battered eyes.

It was evident, too, that a fire had been wantonly set at the northeast
angle of the house, where sill and siding were deeply charred from
baseboard to eaves.

Nor had this same fire happened very long since, for under the eaves
white-faced hornets were still hard at work repairing their partly
scorched nest. And I silently pointed them out to Lieutenant Boyd.

"Also," he nodded, "I can still smell the smoky wood. The damage is
fresh enough. Look at your map."

He pushed his horse straight up to the closed door, continuing to
examine the dismantled sign which hung motionless, there being no wind
stirring.

"This should be Hays's Tavern," he said, "unless they lied to us at
Ossining. Can you make anything of the sign, Mr. Loskiel?"

"Nothing, sir. But we are on the highway to Poundridge, for behind us
lies the North Castle Church road. All is drawn on my map as we see it
here before us; and this should be the fine dwelling of that great
villain Holmes, now used as a tavern by Benjamin Hays."

"Rap on the door," said Boyd; and our rifleman escort rode forward and
drove his rifle-butt at the door, "There's a man hiding within and
peering at us behind the third window," I whispered.

"I see him," said Boyd coolly.

Through the heated silence around us we could hear the hornets buzzing
aloft under the smoke-stained eaves. There was no other sound in the
July sunshine.

The solemn tavern stared at us out of its injured eyes, and we three
men of the Northland gazed back as solemnly, sobered once more to
encounter the trail of the Red Beast so freshly printed here among the
pleasant Westchester hills.

And to us the silent house seemed to say: "Gentlemen, gentlemen! Look
at the plight I'm in--you who come from the blackened North!" And with
never a word of lip our heavy thoughts responded: "We know, old house!
We know! But at least you still stand; and in the ashes of our
Northland not a roof or a spire remains aloft between the dwelling of
Deborah Glenn and the ford at the middle fort."

Boyd broke silence with an effort; and his voice was once more cool and
careless, if a little forced:

"So it's this way hereabouts, too," he said with a shrug and a sign to
me to dismount. Which I did stiffly; and our rifleman escort scrambled
from his sweatty saddle and gathered all three bridles in his mighty,
sunburnt fist.

"Either there is a man or a ghost within," I said again, "Whatever it
is has moved."

"A man," said Boyd, "or what the inhumanity of man has left of him."

And it was true, for now there came to the door and opened it a thin
fellow wearing horn spectacles, who stood silent and cringing before
us. Slowly rubbing his workworn hands, he made us a landlord's bow as
listless and as perfunctory as ever I have seen in any ordinary. But
his welcome was spoken in a whisper.

"God have mercy on this house," said Boyd loudly. "Now, what's amiss,
friend? Is there death within these honest walls, that you move about
on tiptoe?"

"There is death a-plenty in Westchester, sir," said the man, in a voice
as colorless as his drab smalls and faded hair. Yet what he said showed
us that he had noted our dress, too, and knew us for strangers.

"Cowboys and skinners, eh?" inquired Boyd, unbuckling his belt.

"And leather-cape, too, sir."

My lieutenant laughed, showing his white teeth; laid belt, hatchet, and
heavy knife on a wine-stained table, and placed his rifle against it.
Then, slipping cartridge sack, bullet pouch, and powder horn from his
shoulders, stood eased, yawning and stretching his fine, powerful frame.

"I take it that you see few of our corps here below," he observed
indulgently.

The landlord's lack-lustre eyes rested on me for an instant, then on
Boyd:

"Few, sir."

"Do you know the uniform, landlord?"

"Rifles," he said indifferently.

"Yes, but whose, man? Whose?" insisted Boyd impatiently.

The other shook his head.

"Morgan's!" exclaimed Boyd loudly. "Damnation, sir! You should know
Morgan's! Sixth Company, sir; Major Parr! And a likelier regiment and a
better company never wore green thrums on frock or coon-tail on cap!"

"Yes, sir," said the man vacantly.

Boyd laughed a little:

"And look that you hint as much to the idle young bucks hereabouts--say
it to some of your Westchester squirrel hunters----" He laid his hand
on the landlord's shoulder. "There's a good fellow," he added, with
that youthful and winning smile which so often carried home with it his
reckless will--where women were concerned--"we're down from Albany and
we wish the Bedford folk to know it. And if the gallant fellows
hereabout desire a taste of true glory--the genuine article--why, send
them to me, landlord--Thomas Boyd, of Derry, Pennsylvania, lieutenant,
6th company of Morgan's--or to my comrade here, Mr. Loskiel, ensign in
the same corps."

He clapped the man heartily on the shoulder and stood looking around at
the stripped and dishevelled room, his handsome head a little on one
side, as though in frankest admiration. And the worn and pallid
landlord gazed back at him with his faded, lack-lustre eyes--eyes that
we both understood, alas--eyes made dull with years of fear, made old
and hopeless with unshed tears, stupid from sleepless nights, haunted
with memories of all they had looked upon since His Excellency marched
out of the city to the south of us, where the red rag now fluttered on
fort and shipping from King's Bridge to the Hook.

Nothing more was said. Our landlord went away very quietly. An hostler,
presently appearing from somewhere, passed the broken windows, and we
saw our rifleman go away with him, leading the three tired horses. We
were still yawning and drowsing, stretched out in our hickory chairs,
and only kept awake by the flies, when our landlord returned and set
before us what food he had. The fare was scanty enough, but we ate
hungrily, and drank deeply of the fresh small beer which he fetched in
a Liverpool jug.

When we two were alone again, Boyd whispered:

"As well let them think we're here with no other object than
recruiting. And so we are, after a fashion; but neither this state nor
Pennsylvania is like to fill its quota here. Where is your map, once
more?"

I drew the coiled linen roll from the breast of my rifle shirt and
spread it out. We studied it, heads together.

"Here lies Poundridge," nodded Boyd, placing his finger on the spot so
marked. "Roads a-plenty, too. Well, it's odd, Loskiel, but in this
cursed, debatable land I feel more ill at ease than I have ever felt in
the Iroquois country."

"You are still thinking of our landlord's deathly face," I said. "Lord!
What a very shadow of true manhood crawls about this house!"

"Aye--and I am mindful of every other face and countenance I have so
far seen in this strange, debatable land. All have in them something of
the same expression. And therein lies the horror of it all, Mr. Loskiel
God knows we expect to see deathly faces in the North, where little
children lie scalped in the ashes of our frontier--where they even
scalp the family hound that guards the cradle. But here in this sleepy,
open countryside, with its gentle hills and fertile valleys, broad
fields and neat stone walls, its winding roads and orchards, and every
pretty farmhouse standing as though no war were in the land, all seems
so peaceful, so secure, that the faces of the people sicken me. And
ever I am asking myself, where lies this other hell on earth, which
only faces such as these could have looked upon?"

"It is sad," I said, under my breath. "Even when a lass smiles on us it
seems to start the tears in my throat."

"Sad! Yes, sir, it is. I supposed we had seen sufficient of human
degradation in the North not to come here to find the same cringing
expression stamped on every countenance. I'm sick of it, I tell you.
Why, the British are doing worse than merely filling their prisons with
us and scalping us with their savages! They are slowly but surely
marking our people, body and face and mind, with the cursed imprint of
slavery. They're stamping a nation's very features with the hopeless
lineaments of serfdom. It is the ineradicable scars of former slavery
that make the New Englander whine through his nose. We of the fighting
line bear no such marks, but the peaceful people are beginning to--they
who can do nothing except endure and suffer."

"It is not so everywhere," I said, "not yet, anyway."

"It is so in the North. And we have found it so since we entered the
'Neutral Ground.' Like our own people on the frontier, these
Westchester folk fear everybody. You yourself know how we have found
them. To every question they try to give an answer that may please; or
if they despair of pleasing they answer cautiously, in order not to
anger. The only sentiment left alive in them seems to be fear; all else
of human passion appears to be dead. Why, Loskiel, the very power of
will has deserted them; they are not civil to us, but obsequious; not
obliging but subservient. They yield with apathy and very quietly what
you ask, and what they apparently suppose is impossible for them to
retain. If you treat them kindly they receive it coldly, not
gratefully, but as though you were compensating them for evil done them
by you. Their countenances and motions have lost every trace of
animation. It is not serenity but apathy; every emotion, feeling,
thought, passion, which is not merely instinctive has fled their minds
forever. And this is the greatest crime that Britain has wrought upon
us." He struck the table lightly with doubled fist, "Mr. Loskiel," he
said, "I ask you--can we find recruits for our regiment in such a place
as this? Damme, sir, but I think the entire land has lost its manhood."

We sat staring out into the sunshine through a bullet-shattered window.

"And all this country here seems so fair and peaceful," he murmured
half to himself, "so sweet and still and kindly to me after the
twilight of endless forests where men are done to death in the dusk.
But hell in broad sunshine is the more horrible."

"Look closer at this country," I said. "The highways are deserted and
silent, the very wagon ruts overgrown with grass. Not a scythe has
swung in those hay fields; the gardens that lie in the sun are but
tangles of weeds; no sheep stir on the hills, no cattle stand in these
deep meadows, no wagons pass, no wayfarers. It may be that the wild
birds are moulting, but save at dawn and for a few moments at sundown
they seem deathly silent to me."

He had relapsed again into his moody, brooding attitude, elbows on the
table, his handsome head supported by both hands. And it was not like
him to be downcast. After a while he smiled.

"Egad," he said, "it is too melancholy for me here in the open; and I
begin to long for the dusk of trees and for the honest scalp yell to
cheer me up. One knows what to expect in county Tryon--but not here,
Loskiel--not here."

"Our business here is like to be ended tomorrow," I remarked.

"Thank God for that," he said heartily, rising and buckling on his war
belt. He added: "As for any recruits we have been ordered to pick up en
passant, I see small chance of that accomplishment hereabout. Will you
summon the landlord, Mr. Loskiel?"

I discovered the man standing at the open door, his warn hands clasped
behind him, and staring stupidly at the cloudless sky. He followed me
back to the taproom, and we reckoned with him. Somehow, I thought he
had not expected to be paid a penny--yet he did not thank us.

"Are you not Benjamin Hays?" inquired Boyd, carelessly retying his
purse.

The fellow seemed startled to hear his own name pronounced so loudly,
but answered very quietly that he was.

"This house belongs to a great villain, one James Holmes, does it not?"
demanded Boyd.

"Yes, sir," he whispered.

"How do you come to keep an ordinary here?"

"The town authorities required an ordinary. I took it in charge, as
they desired."

"Oh! Where is this rascal, Holmes?"

"Gone below, sir, some time since."

"I have heard so. Was he not formerly Colonel of the 4th regiment?"

"Yes, sir."

"And deserted his men, eh? And they made him Lieutenant-Colonel below,
did they not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Colonel--of what?" snarled Boyd in disgust.

"Of the Westchester Refugee Irregulars."

"Oh! Well, look out for him and his refugees. He'll be back here one of
these days, I'm thinking."

"He has been back."

"What did he do?"

The man said listlessly: "It was like other visits. They robbed,
tortured, and killed. Some they burnt with hot ashes, some they hung,
cut down, and hung again when they revived. Most of the sheep, cattle,
and horses were driven off. Last year thousands of bushels of fruit
decayed in the orchards; the ripened grain lay rotting where wind and
rain had laid it; no hay was cut, no grain milled."

"Was this done by the banditti from the lower party?"

"Yes, sir; and by the leather-caps, too. The leather-caps stood guard
while the Tories plundered and killed. It is usually that way, sir. And
our own renegades are as bad. We in Westchester have to entertain them
all."

"But they burn no houses?"

"Not yet, sir. They have promised to do so next time."

"Are there no troops here?"

"Yes, sir."

"What troops?"

"Colonel Thomas's Regiment and Sheldon's Horse and the Minute Men."

"Well, what the devil are they about to permit this banditti to terrify
and ravage a peaceful land?" demanded Boyd.

"The country is of great extent," said the man mildly. "It would
require many troops to cover it. And His Excellency has very, very few."

"Yes," said Boyd, "that is true. We know how it is in the North--with
hundreds of miles to guard and but a handful of men. And it must be
that way." He made no effort to throw off his seriousness and nodded
toward me with a forced smile. "I am twenty-two years of age," he said,
"and Mr. Loskiel here is no older, and we fully expect that when we
both are past forty we will still be fighting in this same old war.
Meanwhile," he added laughing, "every patriot should find some lass to
wed and breed the soldiers we shall require some sixteen years hence."

The man's smile was painful; he smiled because he thought we expected
it; and I turned away disheartened, ashamed, burning with a fierce
resentment against the fate that in three years had turned us into what
we were--we Americans who had never known the lash--we who had never
learned to fear a master.

Boyd said: "There is a gentleman, one Major Ebenezer Lockwood,
hereabouts. Do you know him?"

"No, sir."

"What? Why, that seems strange!"

The man's face paled, and he remained silent for a few moments. Then,
furtively, his eyes began for the hundredth time to note the details of
our forest dress, stealing stealthily from the fringe on legging and
hunting shirt to the Indian beadwork on moccasin and baldrick,
devouring every detail as though to convince himself. I think our
pewter buttons did it for him.

Boyd said gravely: "You seem to doubt us, Mr. Hays," and read in the
man's unsteady eyes distrust of everything on earth--and little faith
in God.

"I do not blame you," said I gently. "Three years of hell burn deep."

"Yes," he said, "three years. And, as you say, sir, there was fire."

He stood quietly silent for a space, then, looking timidly at me, he
rolled back his sleeves, first one, then the other, to the shoulders.
Then he undid the bandages.

"What is all that?" asked Boyd harshly.

"The seal of the marauders, sir."

"They burnt you? God, man, you are but one living sore! Did any white
man do that to you?"

"With hot horse-shoes. It will never quite heal, they say."

I saw the lieutenant shudder. The only thing he ever feared was
fire--if it could be said of him that he feared anything. And he had
told me that, were he taken by the Iroquois, he had a pistol always
ready to blow out his brains.

Boyd had begun to pace the room, doubling and undoubling his nervous
fingers. The landlord replaced the oil-soaked rags, rolled down his
sleeves again, and silently awaited our pleasure.

"Why do you hesitate to tell us where we may find Major Lockwood?" I
asked gently.

For the first time the man looked me full in the face. And after a
moment I saw his expression alter, as though some spark--something
already half dead within him was faintly reviving.

"They have set a price on Major Lockwood's head," he said; and Boyd
halted to listen--and the man looked him in the eyes for a moment.

My lieutenant carried his commission with him, though contrary to
advice and practice among men engaged on such a mission as were we. It
was folded in his beaded shot-pouch, and now he drew it out and
displayed it.

After a silence, Hays said:

"The old Lockwood Manor House stands on the south side of the village
of Poundridge. It is the headquarters and rendezvous of Sheldon's
Horse. The Major is there."

"Poundridge lies to the east of Bedford?"

"Yes, sir, about five miles."

"Where is the map, Loskiel?"

Again I drew it from my hunting shirt; we examined it, and Hays pointed
out the two routes.

Boyd looked up at Hays absently, and said: "Do you know Luther
Kinnicut?"

This time all the colour fled the man's face, and it was some moments
before the sudden, unreasoning rush of terror in that bruised mind had
subsided sufficiently for him to compose his thoughts. Little by
little, however, he came to himself again, dimly conscious that he
trusted us--perhaps the first strangers or even neighbours whom he had
trusted in years.

"Yes, sir, I know him," he said in a low voice.

"Where is he?"

"Below--on our service."

But it was Luther Kinnicut, the spy, whom we had come to interview, as
well as to see Major Lockwood, and Boyd frowned thoughtfully.

I said: "The Indians hereabout are Mohican, are they not, Mr. Hays?"

"They were," he replied; and his very apathy gave the answer a sadder
significance.

"Have they all gone off?" asked Boyd, misunderstanding.

"There were very few Mohicans to go. But they have gone."

"Below?"

"Oh, no, sir. They and the Stockbridge Indians, and the Siwanois are
friendly to our party."

"There was a Sagamore," I said, "of the Siwanois, named Mayaro. We
believe that Luther Kinnicut knows where this Sagamore is to be found.
But how are we to first find Kinnicut?"

"Sir," he said, "you must ask Major Lockwood that. I know not one
Indian from the next, only that the savages hereabout are said to be
favourable to our party."

Clearly there was nothing more to learn from this man. So we thanked
him and strapped on our accoutrements, while he went away to the barn
to bring up our horses. And presently our giant rifleman appeared
leading the horses, and still munching a bough-apple, scarce ripe,
which he dropped into the bosom of his hunting shirt when he discovered
us watching him.

Boyd laughed: "Munch away, Jack, and welcome," he said, "only mind thy
manners when we sight regular troops. I'll have nobody reproaching
Morgan's corps that the men lack proper respect--though many people
seem to think us but a parcel of militia where officer and man herd
cheek by jowl."

On mounting, he turned in his saddle and asked Hays what we had to fear
on our road, if indeed we were to apprehend anything.

"There is some talk of the Legion Cavalry, sir--Major Tarleton's
command."

"Anything definite?"

"No, sir--only the talk when men of our party meet. And Major Lockwood
has a price on his head."

"Oh! Is that all?"

"That is all, sir."

Boyd nodded laughingly, wheeled his horse, and we rode slowly out into
the Bedford Road, the mounted rifleman dogging our heels.

From every house in Bedford we knew that we were watched as we rode;
and what they thought of us in our flaunting rifle dress, or what they
took us to be--enemy or friend--I cannot imagine, the uniform of our
corps being strange in these parts. However, they must have known us
for foresters and riflemen of one party or t'other; and, as we
advanced, and there being only three of us, and on a highway, too, very
near to the rendezvous of an American dragoon regiment, the good folk
not only peeped out at us from between partly closed shutters, but even
ventured to open their doors and stand gazing after we had ridden by.

Every pretty maid he saw seemed to comfort Boyd prodigiously, which was
always the case; and as here and there a woman smiled faintly at him
the last vestige of sober humour left him and he was more like the
reckless, handsome young man I had come to care for a great deal, if
not wholly to esteem.

The difference in rank between us permitted him to relax if he chose;
and though His Excellency and our good Baron were ever dinning
discipline and careful respect for rank into the army's republican
ears, there was among us nothing like the aristocratic and rigid
sentiment which ruled the corps of officers in the British service.

Still, we were not as silly and ignorant as we were at Bunker Hill,
having learned something of authority and respect in these three years,
and how necessary to discipline was a proper maintenance of rank. For
once--though it seems incredible--men and officers were practically on
a footing of ignorant familiarity; and I have heard, and fully believe,
that the majority of our reverses and misfortunes arose because no
officer represented authority, nor knew how to enforce discipline
because lacking that military respect upon which all real discipline
must be founded.

Of all the officers in my corps and in my company, perhaps Lieutenant
Boyd was slowest to learn the lesson and most prone to relax, not
toward the rank and file--yet, he was often a shade too easy there,
also--but with other officers. Those ranking him were not always
pleased; those whom he ranked felt vaguely the mistake.

As for me, I liked him greatly; yet, somehow, never could bring myself
to a careless comradeship, even in the woods or on lonely scouts where
formality and circumstance seemed out of place, even absurd. He was so
much of a boy, too--handsome, active, perfectly fearless, and almost
always gay--that if at times he seemed a little selfish or ruthless in
his pleasures, not sufficiently mindful of others or of consequences, I
found it easy to forgive and overlook. Yet, fond as I was of him, I
never had become familiar with him--why, I do not know. Perhaps because
he ranked me; and perhaps there was no particular reason for that
instinct of aloofness which I think was part of me at that age, and,
except in a single instance, still remains as the slightest and almost
impalpable barrier to a perfect familiarity with any person in the
world.

"Loskiel," he said in my ear, "did you see that little maid in the
orchard, how shyly she smiled on us?"

"On you," I nodded, laughing.

"Oh, you always say that," he retorted.

And I always did say that, and it always pleased him.

"On this accursed journey south," he complained, "the necessity for
speed has spoiled our chances for any roadside sweethearts. Lord! But
it's been a long, dull trail," he added frankly. "Why, look you,
Loskiel, even in the wilderness somehow I always have contrived to
discover a sweetheart of some sort or other--yes, even in the Iroquois
country, cleared or bush, somehow or other, sooner or later, I stumble
on some pretty maid who flutters up in the very wilderness like a
partridge from under my feet!"

"That is your reputation," I remarked.

"Oh, damme, no!" he protested. "Don't say it is my reputation!"

But he had that reputation, whether he realised it or not; though as
far as I had seen there was no real harm in the man--only a willingness
to make love to any petticoat, if its wearer were pretty. But my own
notions had ever inclined me toward quality. Which is not strange, I
myself being of unknown parentage and birth, high or low, nobody knew;
nor had anybody ever told me how I came by my strange name, Euan
Loskiel, save that they found the same stitched in silk upon my shift.

For it is best, perhaps, that I say now how it was with me from the
beginning, which, until this memoir is read, only one man knew--and one
other. For I was discovered sleeping beside a stranded St. Regis canoe,
where the Mohawk River washes Guy Park gardens. And my dead mother lay
beside me.

He who cared for me, reared me and educated me, was no other than Guy
Johnson of Guy Park. Why he did so I learned only after many days; and
at the proper time and place I will tell you who I am and why he was
kind to me. For his was not a warm and kindly character, nor a gentle
nature, nor was he an educated man himself, nor perhaps even a
gentleman, though of that landed gentry which Tryon County knew so
well, and also a nephew of the great Sir William, and became his
son-in-law.

I say he was not liked in Tryon County, though many feared him more
than they feared young Walter Butler later; yet he was always and
invariably kind to me. And when with the Butlers, and Sir John, and
Colonel Claus, and the other Tories he fled to Canada, there to hatch
most hellish reprisals upon the people of Tryon who had driven him
forth, he wrote to me where I was at Harvard College in Cambridge to
bid me farewell.

He said to me in that letter that he did not ask me to declare for the
King in the struggle already beginning; he merely requested, if I could
not conscientiously so declare, at least that I remain passive, and
attend quietly to my studies at Cambridge until the war blew over, as
it quickly must, and these insolent people were taught their lesson.

The lesson, after three years and more, was still in progress; Guy Park
had fallen into the hands of the Committee of Sequestration and was
already sold; Guy Johnson roamed a refugee in Canada, and I, since the
first crack of a British musket, had learned how matters stood between
my heart and conscience, and had carried a rifle and at times my
regiment's standard ever since.

I had no home except my regiment, no friends except Guy Johnson's, and
those I had made at College and in the regiment; and the former would
likely now have greeted me with rifle or hatchet, whichever came easier
to hand.

So to me my rifle regiment and my company had become my only home; the
officers my parents; my comrades the only friends I had.

I wrote to Guy Johnson, acquainting him of my intention before I
enlisted, and the letter went to him with other correspondence under a
flag.

In time I had a reply from him, and he wrote as though something
stronger than hatred for the cause I had embraced was forcing him to
speak to me gently.

God knows it was a strange, sad letter, full of bitterness under which
smouldered something more terrible, which, as he wrote, he strangled.
And so he ended, saying that, through him, no harm should ever menace
me; and that in the fullness of time, when this vile rebellion had been
ended, he would vouch for the mercy of His Most Christian Majesty as
far as I was concerned, even though all others hung in chains.

Thus I had left it all--not then knowing who I was or why Guy Johnson
had been kind to me; nor ever expecting to hear from him again.


Thinking of these things as I rode beside Lieutenant Boyd through the
calm Westchester sunshine, all that part of my life--which indeed was
all of my life except these last three battle years--seemed already so
far sway, so dim and unreal, that I could scarce realise I had not been
always in the army--had not always lived from day to day, from hour to
hour, not knowing one night where I should pillow my head the next.

For at nineteen I shouldered my rifle; and now, at Boyd's age, two and
twenty, my shoulder had become so accustomed to its not unpleasant
weight that, at moments, thinking, I realised that I would not know
what to do in the world had I not my officers, my company, and my rifle
to companion me through life.

And herein lies the real danger of all armies and of all soldiering.
Only the strong character and exceptional man is ever fitted for any
other life after the army becomes a closed career to him.

I now remarked as much to Boyd, who frowned, seeming to consider the
matter for the first time.

"Aye," he nodded, "it's true enough, Loskiel. And I for one don't know
what use I could make of the blessings of peace for which we are so
madly fighting, and which we all protest that we desire."

"The blessings of peace might permit you more leisure with the ladies,"
I suggested smilingly. And he threw back his handsome head and laughed.

"Lord!" he exclaimed. "What chance have I, a poor rifleman, who may not
even wear his hair clubbed and powdered."

Only field and staff now powdered in our corps. I said: "Heaven hasten
your advancement, sir."

"Not that I'd care a fig," he protested, "if I had your yellow, curly
head, you rogue. But with my dark hair unpowdered and uncurled, and no
side locks, I tell you, Loskiel, I earn every kiss that is given me--or
forgiven. Heigho! Peace would truly be a blessing if she brought powder
and pretty clothing to a crop-head, buck-skinned devil like me."

We were now riding through a country which had become uneven and
somewhat higher. A vast wooded hill lay on our left; the Bedford
highway skirted it. On our right ran a stream, and there was some
swampy land which followed. Rock outcrops became more frequent, and the
hard-wood growth of oak, hickory and chestnut seemed heavier and more
extensive than in Bedford town. But there were orchards; the soil
seemed to be fertile and the farms thrifty, and it was a pleasant land
save for the ominous stillness over all and the grass-grown highway.
Roads and lanes, paths and pastures remained utterly deserted of man
and beast.

This, if our map misled us not, should be the edges of the town of
Poundridge; and within a mile or so more we began to see a house here
and there. These farms became more frequent as we advanced. After a few
moments' riding we saw the first cattle that we had seen in many days.
And now we began to find this part of the Westchester country very
different, as we drew nearer to the village, for here and there we saw
sheep feeding in the distance, and men mowing who leaned on their
scythes to see us pass, and even saluted us from afar.

It seemed as though a sense of security reigned here, though nobody
failed to mark our passing or even to anticipate it from far off. But
nobody appeared to be afraid of us, and we concluded that the near
vicinity of Colonel Sheldon's Horse accounted for what we saw.

It was pleasant to see women spinning beside windows in which flowers
bloomed, and children gazing shyly at us from behind stone walls and
palings. Also, in barnyards we saw fowls, which was more than we had
seen West of us--and now and again a family cat dozing on some doorstep
freshly swept.

"I had forgotten there was such calm and peace in the world," said
Boyd. "And the women look not unkindly on us--do you think, Loskiel?"

But I was intent on watching a parcel of white ducks leaving a little
pond, all walking a-row and quacking, and wriggling their fat tails.
How absurd a thing to suddenly close my throat so that I could not find
my voice to answer Boyd; for ever before me grew the almost forgotten
vision of Guy Park, and of our white waterfowl on the river behind the
house, where I had seen them so often from my chamber window leaving
the water's edge at sundown.

A mile outside the town a leather-helmeted dragoon barred our way, but
we soon satisfied him.

We passed by the Northwest road, crossed the Stamford highway, and,
consulting our map, turned back and entered it, riding south through
the village.

Here a few village folk were abroad; half a dozen of Sheldon's dragoons
lounged outside the tavern, to the rail of which their horses were
tied; and we saw other men with guns, doubtless militia, though few
wore any fragment of uniform, save as their hats were cocked or
sprigged with green.

Nobody hailed us, not even the soldiers; there was no levity, no jest
directed toward our giant rifleman, only a courteous but sober salute
as we rode through Poundridge town and out along the New Canaan highway
where houses soon became fewer and soldiers both afoot and ahorse more
frequent.

We crossed a stream and two roads, then came into a street with many
houses which ran south, then, at four corners, turned sharp to the
east. And there, across a little brook, we saw a handsome manor house
around which some three score cavalry horses were picketed.

Yard, lawn, stables and barns were swarming with people--dragoons of
Sheldon's Regiment, men of Colonel Thomas's foot regiment, militia
officers, village gentlemen whose carriages stood waiting; and some of
these same carriages must have come from a distance, perhaps even from
Ridgefield, to judge by the mud and dust that clotted them.

Beyond the house, on a road which I afterward learned ran toward
Lewisboro, between the Three Lakes, Cross Pond, and Bouton's, a
military convoy was passing, raising a prodigious cloud of dust. I
could see, and faintly hear, sheep and cattle; there was a far crack of
whips, a shouting of drovers and teamsters, and, through the dust, we
caught the sparkle of a bayonet here and there.

Somewhere, doubtless, some half starved brigade of ours was gnawing its
nails and awaiting this same convoy; and I silently prayed God to lead
it safely to its destination.

"Pretty women everywhere!" whispered Boyd in my ear. "Our friend the
Major seems to have a houseful. The devil take me if I leave this town
tomorrow!"

As we rode into the yard and dismounted, and our rifleman took the
bridles, across the crowded roadway we could see a noble house with its
front doors wide open and a group of ladies and children there and many
gentlemen saluting them as they entered or left the house.

"A respectable company," I heard Boyd mutter to himself, as he stood
slapping the dust from hunting-shirt and leggings and smoothing the
fringe. And, "Damme, Loskiel," he said, "we're like to cut a most
contemptible figure among such grand folk--what with our leather
breeches, and saddle-reek for the only musk we wear. Lord! But yonder
stands a handsome girl--and my condition mortifies me so that I could
slink off to the mews for shame and lie on straw with the hostlers."

There was, I knew, something genuine in his pretense of hurt vanity,
even under the merry mask he wore; but I only laughed.

A great many people moved about, many, I could see, having arrived from
the distant country; and there was a great noise of hammering, too,
from a meadow below, where, a soldier told us, they were erecting
barracks for Sheldon's and for other troops shortly expected.

"There is even talk of a fort for the ridge yonder," he said. "One may
see the Sound from there."

We glanced up at the ridge, then gazed curiously around, and finally
walked down along the stone wall to a pasture. Here, where they were
building the barracks, there had been a camp; and the place was still
smelling stale enough. Tents were now being loaded on ox wagons; and a
company of Colonel Thomas's regiment was filing out along the road
after the convoy which we had seen moving through the dust toward
Lewisboro.

People stood about looking on; some poked at the embers of the smoky
fires, some moused and prowled about to see what scrap they might pick
up.

Boyd's roving gaze had been arrested by a little scene enacting just
around the corner of the partly-erected barracks, where half a dozen
soldiers had gathered around some camp-women, whose sullen attitude
discouraged their gallantries. She was dressed in shabby finery. On her
hair, which was powdered, she wore a jaunty chip hat tied under her
chin with soiled blue ribbons, and a kerchief of ragged lace hid her
bosom, pinned with a withered rose. The scene was sordid enough; and,
indifferent, I gazed elsewhere.

"A shilling to a penny they kiss her yet!" he said to me presently, and
for the second time I noticed the comedy--if you choose to call it
so--for the wench was now struggling fiercely amid the laughing men.

"A pound to a penny!" repeated Boyd; "Do you take me, Loskiel?"

The next moment I had pushed in among them, forcing the hilarious
circle to open; and I heard her quick, uneven breathing as I elbowed my
way to her, and turned on the men good-humoredly.

"Come, boys, be off!" I said. "Leave rough sport to the lower party.
She's sobbing." I glanced at her. "Why, she's but a child, after all!
Can't you see, boys? Now, off with you all in a hurry!"

There had evidently been some discipline drilled into Colonel Thomas's
regiments the men seemed instantly to know me for an officer, whether
by my dress or voice I know not, yet Morgan's rifle frock could be
scarcely familiar to them.

A mischievous sergeant saluted me, grinning, saying it was but idle
sport and no harm meant; and so, some laughing, others seeming to be
ashamed, they made haste to clear out. I followed them, with a nod of
reassurance to the wench, who might have been their drab for aught I
knew, all camps being full of such poultry.

"Gallantly done!" exclaimed Boyd derisively, as I came slowly back to
where he stood. "But had I been fortunate enough to think of
intervening, egad, I believe I would have claimed what she refused the
rest, Loskiel!"

"From a ruddied camp drab?" I asked scornfully.

"Her cheeks and lips are not painted. I've discovered that," he
insisted, staring back at her.

"Lord!" said I. "Would you linger here making sheep's eyes at yonder
ragged baggage? Come, sir, if you please."

"I tell you, I would give a half year's pay to see her washed and
clothed becomingly!"

"You never will," said I impatiently, and jogged his elbow to make him
move. For he was ever a prey to strange and wayward fancies which
hitherto I had only smiled at. But now, somehow--perhaps because there
might have been some excuse for this one--perhaps because what a man
rescues he will not willingly leave to another--even such a poor young
thing as this plaything of the camp--for either of these reasons, or
for none at all, this ogling of her did not please me.

Most unwillingly he yielded to the steady pressure of my elbow; and we
moved on, he turning his handsome head continually. After a while he
laughed.

"Nevertheless," said he, "there stands the rarest essence of real
beauty I have ever seen, in lady born or beggar; and I am an ass to go
my way and leave it for the next who passes."

I said nothing.

He grumbled for a while below his breath, then:

"Yes, sir! Sheer beauty--by the roadside yonder--in ragged ribbons and
a withered rose. Only--such Puritans as you perceive it not."

After a silence, and as we entered the gateway to the manor house:

"I swear she wore no paint, Loskiel--whatever she is like enough to be."

"Good heavens!" said I. "Are you brooding on her still?"

Yet, I myself was thinking of her, too; and because of it a strange,
slow anger was possessing me.

"Thank God," thought I to myself, "no woman of the common class could
win a second glance from me. In which," I added with satisfaction, "I
am unlike most other men."

A Philistine thought the same, one day--if I remember right.



CHAPTER II

POUNDRIDGE

We now approached the door of the manor house, where we named ourselves
to the sentry, who presently fetched an officer of Minute Men, who
looked us over somewhat coldly.

"You wish to see Major Lockwood?" he asked.

"Yes," said Boyd, "and you may say to him that we are come from
headquarters express to speak with him on private business."

"From whom in Albany do you come, sir?"

"Well, sir, if you must have it, from General Clinton," returned Boyd
in a lower voice. "But we would not wish it gossipped aloud."

The man seemed to be perplexed, but he went away again, leaving us
standing in the crowded hall where officers, ladies of the family, and
black servants were continually passing and repassing.

Very soon a door opened on our left, and we caught a glimpse of a
handsome room full of officers and civilians, where maps were scattered
in confusion over tables, chairs, and even on the floor. An officer in
buff and blue came out of the room, glanced keenly at us, made a slight
though courteous inclination, but instead of coming forward to greet us
turned into another room on the right, which was a parlour.

Then the minute officer returned, directed us where to place our
rifles, insisted firmly that we also leave under his care our war axes
and the pistol which Boyd carried, and then ushered us into the
parlour. And it occurred to me that the gentleman on whose head the
British had set a price was very considerably inclined toward prudence.

Now this same gentleman, Major Lockwood, who had been seated behind a
table when we entered the parlour, rose and received us most blandly,
although I noted that he kept the table between himself and us, and
also that the table drawer was open, where I could have sworn that the
papers so carelessly heaped about covered a brace of pistols.

For to this sorry pass the Westchester folk had come, that they trusted
no stranger, nor were like to for many a weary day to come. Nor could I
blame this gentleman with a heavy price on his head, and, as I heard
later, already the object of numerous and violent attempts in which, at
times, entire regiments had been employed to take him.

But after he had carefully read the letter which Boyd bore from our
General of Brigade, he asked us to be seated, and shut the table
drawer, and came over to the silk-covered sofa on which we had seated
ourselves.

"Do you know the contents of this letter?" he asked Boyd bluntly.

"Yes, Major Lockwood."

"And does Mr. Loskiel know, also?"

"Yes, sir," I answered.

The Major sat musing, turning over and over the letter between thumb
and forefinger.

He was a man, I should say, of forty or a trifle more, with brown eyes
which sometimes twinkled as though secretly amused, even when his face
was gravest and most composed; a gentleman of middle height, of good
figure and straight, and of manners so simple that the charm of them
struck one afterward as a pleasant memory.

"Gentlemen," he said, looking up at us from his momentary abstraction,
"for the first part of General Clinton's letter I must be brief with
you and very frank. There are no recruits to be had in this vicinity
for Colonel Morgan's Rifles. Riflemen are of the elite; and our best
characters and best shots are all enlisted--or dead or in prison----"
He made a significant gesture toward the south. And we thought of the
Prison Ships and the Provost, and sat silent.

"There is," he added, "but one way, and that is to pick riflemen from
our regiments here; and I am not sure that the law permits it in the
infantry. It would be our loss, if we lose our best shots to your
distinguished corps; but of course that is not to be considered if the
interests of the land demand it. However, if I am not mistaken, a
recruiting party is to follow you."

"Yes, Major."

"Then, sir, you may report accordingly. And now for the other matters.
General Clinton, in this letter, recommends that we speak very freely
together. So I will be quite frank, gentlemen. The man you seek, Luther
Kinnicut, is a spy whom our Committee of Safety maintains within the
lines of the lower party. If it be necessary I can communicate with
him, but it may take a week. Might I ask why you desire to question him
so particularly?"

Boyd said: "There is a Siwanois Indian, one Mayaro, a Sagamore, with
whom we have need to speak. General Clinton believes that this man
Kinnicut knows his whereabouts."

"I believe so, too," said the Major smiling. "But I ask your pardon,
gentlemen; the Sagamore, Mayaro, although a Siwanois, was adopted by
the Mohicans, and should be rated one."

"Do you know him, sir?"

"Very well indeed. May I inquire what it is you desire of Mayaro?"

"This," said Boyd slowly; "and this is the real secret with which I am
charged--a secret not to be entrusted to paper--a secret which you,
sir, and even my comrade, Mr. Loskiel, now learn for the first time.
May I speak with safety in this room, Major?"

The Major rose, opened the door into the hall, dismissed the sentry,
closed and locked the door, and returned to us.

"I am," he said smiling, "almost ashamed to make so much circumstance
over a small matter of which you have doubtless heard. I mean that the
lower party has seen fit to distinguish me by placing a price upon my
very humble head; and as I am not only Major in Colonel Thomas's
regiment, but also a magistrate, and also, with my friend Lewis Morris,
a member of the Provincial Assembly, and of the Committee of Safety, I
could not humour the lower party by permitting them to capture so many
important persons in one net," he added, laughing. "Now, sir, pray
proceed. I am honoured by General Clinton's confidence."

"Then, sir," said Boyd very gravely, "this is the present matter as it
stands. His Excellency has decided on a daring stroke to be delivered
immediately; General Sullivan has been selected to deal it, General
Clinton is to assist. A powerful army is gathering at Albany, and
another at Easton and Tioga. The enemy know well enough that we are
concentrating, and they have guessed where the blow is to be struck.
But, sir, they have guessed wrong!"

"Not Canada, then?" inquired the Major quietly.

"No, sir. We demonstrate northward; that is all. Then we wheel west by
south and plunge straight into the wilderness, swift as an arrow files,
directly at the heart of the Long House!"

"Sir!" he exclaimed, astonished.

"Straight at the heart o! the Iroquois Confederacy, Major! That is what
is to be done--clean out, scour out, crush, annihilate those hell-born
nations which have so long been terrorizing the Northland. Major
Lockwood, you have read in the New England and Pennsylvania papers how
we have been threatened, how we have been struck, how we have fought
and suffered. But you, sir, have only heard; you have not seen. So I
must tell you now that it is far worse with us than we have admitted.
The frontier of New York State is already in ashes; the scalp yell
rings in our forests day and night; and the red destructives under
Brant, and the painted Tories under Walter Butler, spare neither age
nor sex--for I myself have seen scalps taken from the tender heads of
cradled infants--nay, I have seen them scalp the very hound on guard at
the cabin door! And that is how it goes with us, sir. God save you,
here, from the blue-eyed Indians!"

He stopped, hesitated, then, softly smiting one fist within the other:

"But now I think their doom is sounding--Seneca, lying Cayuga,
traitorous Onondaga, Mohawk, painted renegade--all are to go down into
utter annihilation. Nor is that all. We mean to sweep their empire from
end to end, burn every town, every castle, every orchard, every grain
field--lay waste, blacken, ravage, leave nothing save wind-blown ashes
of that great Confederacy, and of the vast granary which has fed the
British northern armies so long. Nothing must remain of the Long House;
the Senecas shall die at the Western door; the Keepers of the Eastern
door shall die. Only the Oneida may be spared--as many as have remained
neutral or loyal to us--they and such of the Tuscaroras and
Lenni-Lenape as have not struck us; and the Stockbridge and White
Plains tribes, and the remnants of the Mohicans.

"And that is why we have come here for riflemen, and that is why we are
here to find the Sagamore, Mayaro. For our Oneidas have told us that he
knows where the castles of the Long House lie, and that he can guide
our army unerringly to that dark, obscure and fearsome Catharines-town
where the hag, Montour, reigns in her shaggy wilderness."

There was a long silence; and I for one, amazed at what I had
heard--for I had made certain that we were to have struck at
Canada--was striving to reconcile this astounding news with all my
preconceived ideas. Yet, that is ever the way with us in the regiments;
we march, not knowing whither; we camp at night not knowing why. Unseen
authority moves us, halts us; unseen powers watch us, waking and
sleeping, think for us, direct our rising and our lying down, our going
forth and our return--nay, the invisible empire envelops us utterly in
sickness and in health, ruling when and how much we eat and sleep,
controlling every hour and prescribing our occupation for every minute.
Only our thoughts remain free; and these, as we are not dumb,
unthinking beasts, must rove afield to seek for the why and wherefore,
garnering conclusions which seldom if ever are corroborated.

So I; for I had for months now made sure that our two armies in the
North were to be flung pell mell on Quebec and on Niagara. Only
regarding the latter place had I nearly hit the mark; for it seemed
reasonable that our army, having once swept the Long House, could
scarcely halt ere we had cleaned out that rat's nest of Indians and
painted Tories which is known as Fort Niagara, and from which every
dreadful raid of the destructives into Tryon County had been planned
and executed.

Thinking of these things, my deep abstraction was broken by the
pleasant voice of Major Lockwood.

"Mr. Boyd," he said, "I realise now how great is your need of riflemen
to fill the State's quota. If there is anything I or my associates can
do, under the law, it shall be done; and when we are able to
concentrate, and when your recruiting party arrives, I will do what I
can, if permitted, to select from the dragoons of Sheldon and Moylan,
and from my own regiment such men as may, by marksmanship and
character, qualify for the corps d'elite."

He rose and began to pace the handsome parlour, evidently worried and
perplexed; and presently he halted before us, who had of course risen
in respect.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I must lay bare to you our military necessity,
embarrassment, and mortification in this country of Westchester, so
that you may clearly understand the difficulty of furnishing the
recruits you ask for.

"South of us, from New York to North Castle, our enemy is in
possession. We are attempting to hold this line; but it is a vast
country. We can count on very few Continental troops; our militia has
its various rendezvous, and it turns out at every call. The few
companies of my regiment of foot are widely scattered; one company left
here as escort to the military train an hour ago. Sheldon's 2nd Light
Dragoons are scattered all over the country. Two troops and
headquarters remain now here at my house."

He waved his hand westward: "So desperate is our condition, gentlemen,
that Colonel Moylan's Dragoons have been ordered here, and are at this
moment, I suppose, on the march to join us. And--I ask you,
gentlemen--considering that in New York City, just below us, there are
ten thousand British regulars, not counting the partizan corps, the
irregulars, the Tory militia, the numberless companies of marauders--I
ask you how you can expect to draw recruits from the handful of men who
have been holding--or striving to hold--this line for the last three
years!"

Boyd shook his head in silence. As for me, it was not my place to
speak, nor had I anything to suggest.

After a moment the Major said, more cheerfully:

"Well, well, gentlemen, who knows after all? We may find ways and
means. And now, one other matter remains to be settled, and I think I
may aid you."

He went to the door and opened it. The sentry who stood across the hall
came to him instantly and took his orders; and in a few moments there
entered the room four gentlemen to whom we were made known by Major
Lockwood. One of these was our Captain of Minute Men. They were, in
order, Colonel Sheldon, a fretful gentleman with a face which seemed to
me weak, almost stupid; Colonel Thomas, an iron-grey, silent officer,
stern but civil; Captain William Fancher, a Justice of the Peace, Judge
of the Court of Common Pleas, and holding his commission as Captain of
Minute Men; and a Mr. Alsop Hunt, a Quaker, son-in-law of Major
Lockwood, and a most quiet and courteous gentleman.

With one accord we drew chairs around the handsome centre table, where
silver candlesticks glimmered and a few books lay in their fine, gilded
bindings.

It was very evident to us that in the hands of these five gentlemen lay
the present safety of Westchester County, military and civil. And to
them Major Lockwood made known our needs--not, however, disturbing them
in their preconceived notion, so common everywhere, that the blow to be
struck from the North was to be aimed at the Canadas.

Colonel Sheldon's weak features turned red and he said almost peevishly
that no recruits could be picked up in Westchester, and that we had had
our journey for our pains. Anyway, he'd be damned if he'd permit
recruiting for riflemen among his dragoons, it being contrary to law
and common sense.

"I've a dozen young fellows who might qualify," said Colonel Thomas
bluntly, "but if the law permits Mr. Boyd to take them my regiment's
volleys wouldn't stop a charge of chipmunks!"

We all laughed a little, and Captain Fancher said:

"Minute Men are Minute Men, Mr. Boyd. You are welcome to any you can
enlist from my company."

Alsop Hunt, being a Quaker, and personally opposed to physical
violence, offered no suggestion until the second object of our visit
was made known. Then he said, very quietly:

"Mayaro, the Mohican Sagamore, is in this vicinity."

"How do you know that, Alsop?" asked Major Lockwood quickly.

"I saw him yesterday."

"Here in Poundridge?"

Mr. Hunt glanced at Colonel Thomas, then with a slight colour mounting
to his temples:

"The Sagamore was talking to one of the camp-women last evening--toward
sundown on the Rock Hills. We were walking abroad for the air, my wife
and I----" he turned to Major Lockwood: "Betsy whispered to me, 'There
is a handsome wench talking to an Indian!' And I saw the Sagamore
standing in the sunset light, conversing with one of the camp-women who
hang about Colonel Thomas's regiment.".

"Would you know the slattern again?" asked Colonel Thomas, scowling.

"I think so, Colonel. And to tell the truth she was scarce a slattern,
whatever else she may be--a young thing--and it seemed sad to us--to my
wife and me."

"And handsome?" inquired Boyd, smiling at me.

"I may not deny it, sir," said Mr. Hunt primly. "The child possessed
considerable comeliness."

"Why," said Boyd to me, laughingly, "she may be the wench you so
gallantly rescued an hour since." And he told the story gayly enough,
and with no harm meant; but it embarrassed and annoyed me.

"If the wench knows where the Sagamore may be found," said Major
Lockwood, "it might be well for Mr. Loskiel to look about and try to
find her."

"Would you know her again?" inquired Colonel Thomas.

"No, sir, I----" And I stopped short, because what I was about to say
was not true. For, when I had sent the soldiers about their business
and had rejoined Boyd--and when Boyd had bidden me turn again because
the girl was handsome, there had been no need to turn. I had seen her;
and I knew that when he said she was beautiful he said what was true.
And the reason I did not turn, to look again was because beauty in such
a woman should inspire no interest in me.

I now corrected myself, saying coolly enough:

"Yes, Colonel Thomas, on second thought I think I might know her if I
see her."

"Perhaps," suggested Captain Fancher, "the wench has gone a-gypsying
after the convoy."

"These drabs change lovers over night," observed Colonel Thomas grimly.
"Doubtless Sheldon's troopers are already consoling her."

Colonel Sheldon, who had been fiddling uneasily with his sword-knot,
exclaimed peevishly:

"Good God, sir! Am I also to play chaplain to my command?"

There was a curious look in Colonel Thomas's eyes which seemed to say:
"You might play it as well as you play the Colonel;" but Sheldon was
too stupid and too vain, I think, to perceive any affront.

And, "Where do you lodge, gentlemen?" inquired our Major, addressing us
both; and when he learned that we were roofless he insisted that we
remain under his roof, nor would he hear of any excuses touching the
present unsuitability of our condition and attire.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen! I will not accept a refusal," he said. "We are
plain folk and live plainly, and both bed and board are at your
disposal. Lord, sir! And what would Clinton think were I to send two
officers of his corps d'elite to a village ordinary!"

We had all risen and were moving toward the door. A black servant came
when the Major pulled the bell card, and showed Boyd and myself to two
pretty chambers, small, but very neat, where the linen on the beds
smelled fresh and sweet, and the westering sun struck golden through
chintz curtains drawn aside.

"Gad!" said Boyd, eying the bed. "It's long since my person has been
intimately acquainted with sheet and pillow. What a pretty nest,
Loskiel. Lord! And here's a vase of posies, too! The touch
feminine--who could mistake it in the sweet, fresh whiteness of this
little roam!"

Presently came our rifleman, Jack Mount, bearing our saddle-bags; and
we stripped and washed us clean, and put on fresh linen and our best
uniforms of soft doeskin, which differed from the others only in that
they were clean and new, and that the thrums were gayer and the
Iroquois beadwork more flamboyant.

"If I but had my hair in a snug club, and well powdered," sighed Boyd,
lacing his shirt. "And I tell you, Loskiel, though I would not boast,
this accursed rifle-shirt and these gaudy leggings conceal a supple
body and a leg as neatly turned as any figure more fortunately clothed
in silken coat and stockings!"

I began to laugh, and he laughed, too, vowing he envied me my hair,
which was yellow and which curled of itself so that it needed no powder.

I can see him yet, standing there in the sunshine, both hands gripping
his dark hair in pretense of grief, and vowing that he had a mind to
scalp himself for very vexation. Alas! That I remember now such idle
words, spoken in the pride and strength and gayety of youth! And always
when I think of him I remember his dread of fire--the only fear he ever
knew. These things--his brown eyes and quick, gay smile--his lithe and
supple person--and his love of women--these I remember always, even
while already much that concerned this man and me begins to fade with
the stealthy years.

While the sun still hung high in the west, and ere any hint of evening
was heard either in the robin's note or from the high-soaring martins,
we had dressed. Boyd went away first, saying carelessly that he meant
to look to the horses before paying his respects to the ladies. A
little later I descended, a black servant conducting me to the family
sitting room.

Here our gallant Major made me known to his lady and to his numerous
family--six young children, and still a seventh, the pretty maid whom
we had seen on approaching the house, who proved to be a married
daughter. Betsy, they called her--and she was only seventeen, but had
been two years the wife of Alsop Hunt.

As for the Major's lady, who seemed scarce thirty and was six years
older, she so charmed me with her grace, and with the bright courage
she so sweetly maintained in a home which every hour of the day and
night menaced, that even Mrs. Hunt, with her gay spirits, imperious
beauty, and more youthful attractions, no more than shared my
admiration for her mother.

In half an hour Lieutenant Boyd came in, was presented, and paid his
homage gayly, as he always did. Yet, I thought a slight cloud rested on
his brow, but this soon passed, and I forgot it.

So we talked of this and that as lightly as though no danger threatened
this house; and Boyd was quickly at his best with the ladies. As for
me, I courted the children. And I remember there were two little maids
of fourteen and eleven, Ruhannah and Hannah, sweet and fresh as wild
June roses, who showed me the tow cloth for our army which they were
spinning, and blushed at my praise of their industry. And there was
Mary, ten, and Clarissa, eight, and two little boys, one a baby--all
save the last two children carding or spinning flax and tow.

It was not easy to understand that this blooming matron could be mother
of all of these, so youthful she seemed in her Quaker-cut gown of
dove-colour--though it was her handsome, high-spirited daughter who
should have worn the sober garb.

"Not I," said she, laughing at Boyd. "I'd sooner don jack-boots and be
a dragoon--and we would completely represent a holy cause, my husband
with his broad-brim and I with my sword. What do you say, Mr. Boyd?"

"I beg of you first to consider the rifle-frock if you must enlist!"
urged Boyd, with such fervour that we all laughed at his gallant effort
to recruit such beauty for our corps; for even a mental picture of
Betsy Hunt in rifle-frock seemed too adorable. Mr. Hunt, entering,
smiled in his quiet, embarrassed way; and I thought that this wise and
gentle-mannered man must have more than a handful in his spirited young
wife, whose dress was anything but plain.

I had taken the tiny maid, Clarissa, upon my knees and was telling her
of the beauty of our Northland, and of that great, dusky green ocean of
giant pines, vast as the sea and as silent and uncharted, when Major
Lockwood bent over me saying in a quiet voice that it might be well for
me to look about in the town for the wench who knew the whereabouts of
Mayaro.

"While there is still daylight," he added, as I set Clarissa on the
floor and stood up, "and if she be yet here you should find her before
supper time. We sup at six, Mr. Loskiel."

I bowed, took leave of the ladies, exchanged an irritated glance for
Boyd's significant grin, and went out to the porch, putting on my light
round cap of moleskin. I liked neither my present errand, nor Boyd's
smile either.

Now, I had not thought to take with me my side-arms, but a slave waited
at the door with my belt. And as I buckled it and hung war-axe and
heavy hunting blade, I began to comprehend something of the imminent
danger which so apparently lurked about this country. For all military
men hereabouts went armed; and even in the house I had noticed that
Major Lockwood wore his sword, as did the other officers--some even
carrying their pistols.

The considerable throng of people whom we had first seen in the
neighborhood of the house had scattered or gone off when the infantry
had left. Carpenters were still sawing and hammering on the flimsy new
barracks down in the meadow, and there seemed to be a few people there.
But on strolling thither I saw nothing of the wench; so turned on my
heel and walked briskly up the road.

About the village itself there was nothing to be seen of the girl, nor
did I know how to make inquiries--perhaps dreading to do so lest my
quest be misunderstood or made a jest of by some impertinent fellow.

In the west a wide bank of cloud had pushed up over the horizon and was
already halving the low-hanging sun, which presently it entirely
swallowed; and the countryside grew luminously grey and that intense
green tinged the grass, which is with us the forerunner of an
approaching storm.

But I thought it far off, not then knowing the Hudson's midsummer
habits, nor the rapid violence of the July storms it hatches and drives
roaring among the eastern hills and across the silvery Sound.

So, with a careless glance aloft, I pursued my errand, strolling hither
and thither through the pleasant streets and lanes of old Poundridge,
always approaching any groups of soldiers that I saw because I thought
it likely that the wench might haunt her kind.

I did not find her; and presently I began to believe it likely that she
had indeed gone off a-gypsying after the escort companies toward
Lewisboro.

There is a road which, skirting the Stone Hills, runs east by north
between Cross Pond and the Three Lakes; and, pursuing it, I came on a
vidette of Sheldon's regiment, most carelessly set where he could see
nothing, and yet be seen a mile away.

Supposing he would halt me, I walked up to him; and he continued to
munch the green bough-apple he was eating, making me a most slovenly
salute.

Under his leather helmet I saw that my dragoon was but a child of
fifteen--scarce strong enough to swing the heavy sabre at his pommel or
manage the sawed-off musket which he bore, the butt resting wearily on
his thigh. And it made me sober indeed to see to what a pass our
country had come, that we enlisted boys and were obliged to trust to
their ignorance for our protection.

"It will rain before sundown," he said, munching on his apple; "best
seek shelter, sir. When it comes it will come hard."

"Where runs this road?" I asked.

"To Boutonville."

"And what is Boutonville?"

"It's where the Boutons live--a mile or two north, sir. They're a wild
parcel."

"Are they of our party?"

"Oh, yes, sir. But they hunt the leather-caps as we hunt quail--scare
up a company, fire, and then track down the scattered."

"Oh; irregulars."

"No, sir, not skinners. They farm it until the British plague them
beyond endurance. Then," he added significantly, "they go a-hunting
with their dogs."

I had already turned to retrace my steps when it occurred to me that
perhaps an inquiry of this lad might not be misunderstood.

So I walked up to his horse and stood caressing the sorry animal while
I described to him the wench I was seeking.

"Yes, sir," he said seriously, "that's the one the boys are ever
plaguing to make her rage."

"Do you know her?"

"By sight, yes, sir."

"She is one of the camp followers, I take it," said I carelessly.

"I don't know. The boys are ever plaguing her. She came from the North
they say. All I know is that in April she was first seen here,
loitering about the camp where the White Plains Indians were embodied.
But she did not go off with the Continentals."

"She was loitering this afternoon by the camp of Colonel Thomas's men,"
I said.

"Very like, sir. Did the men plague her?"

"Yes."

He bit into his apple, unconcerned:

"They are all after her. But I never saw her kind to any man--whatever
she may be."

Why, I did not know, but what he said gave me satisfaction.

"You do not know which way she went?" I asked.

"No, sir. I have been here but the half hour. She knows the Bouton boys
yonder. I have seen her coming and going on this road, sometimes with
an Indian----"

"With a Sagamore?"

He continued his munching. Having swallowed what he chewed, he said:

"I know nothing of savages or Sagamores. The Indian may have been a
Sagamore."

"Do you know where he is to be found?"

"No, sir, I do not."

"Perhaps this young girl knows?"

"Doubtless she does, seeing she journeys about with him on the ridge
yonder, which we call the Rock Hills."

"Do you know her name, soldier?"

"They call her Lois, I believe."

And that was all the news I could get of her; and I thanked the boy and
slowly started to retrace my steps toward the village.

Already in the air there was something of that stillness which heralds
storms; no leaves on bush and tree were now stirring; land and sky had
grown sombre all around me; and the grass glimmered intensely green.

Where the road skirted the Stone Hills were no houses, nothing, in
fact, of human habitation to be seen save low on the flank of the rocky
rampart a ruined sugar house on the edge of a maple ridge, I do not
know what made me raise my head to give it a second glance, but I did;
and saw among the rocks near it a woman moving.

Nor do I know, even now, how at that distance and in the dusk of a
coming storm I could perceive that it was she whom I was now seeking.
But so certain was I of this that, without even taking thought to
consider, I left the highway, turned to the right, and began to mount
the hillside where traces of a path or sheep-walk were faintly visible
under foot among the brambles. Once or twice I glanced upward to see
whether she observed me, but the scrubby foliage now hid her as well as
the sap-house, and I hastened because the light was growing very dim
now, and once or twice, far away, I thought I heard the muttering of
thunder.

It was not long before I perceived the ramshackle sap-house ahead of me
among the maples. Then I caught sight of her whom I was seeking.

It was plain that she had not yet discovered me, though she heard me
moving in the thicket. She stood in a half-crouching, listening
attitude, then slowly began to retreat, not cowering, but sullenly and
with a certain defiance in her lithe movement, like some disturbed and
graceful animal which is capable of defending itself but prefers to get
away peaceably if permitted.

I stepped out into the clearing and called to her through the
increasing gloom; and for a moment thought she had gone. Then I saw
her, dimly, watching me from the obscurity of the dark doorway.

"You need have no fear of me," I called to her pleasantly. "You know me
now, do you not?"

She made no answer; and I approached the doorway and stood peering into
her face through the falling twilight. And for a moment I thought I had
been mistaken; but it was she after all.

Yet now she wore neither the shabby chip hat with its soiled blue
ribbon tied beneath her chin, nor any trace of hair powder, nor dotted
kerchief cross-fastened at her breast and pinned with the withered rose.

And she seemed younger and slimmer and more childish than I had thought
her, her bosom without its kerchief meagre or unformed, and her cheeks
not painted either, but much burned by the July sun. Nor were her eyes
black, as I had supposed, but a dark, clear grey with black lashes; and
her unpowdered hair seemed to be a reddish-chestnut and scarce longer
than my own, but more curly.

"Child," I said, smiling at her, I know not why, "I have been searching
for you ever since I first saw you----"

And: "What do you want of me?" said she, scarce moving her lips.

"A favour."

"Best mount your cobbler's mare and go a-jogging back, my pretty lad."

The calm venom in her voice and her insolent grey eyes took me aback
more than her saucy words.

"Doubtless," I said, "you have not recognized in me the officer who was
at some slight pains to be of service----"

"What is it you desire?" said she, so rudely that I felt my face burn
hot.

"See here, my lass," said I sharply, "you seem to misunderstand my
errand here."

"And am like to," said she, "unless you make your errand short and
plainer--though I have learned that the errands which bring such men as
you to me are not too easily misunderstood."

"Such men as I----"

"You and your friend with the bold, black eyes. Ask him how much change
he had of me when he came back."

"I did not know he had seen you again," said I, still redder. And saw
that she believed me not.

"Birds sing; men lie," said she. "So if----"

"Be silent! Do you hear!" I cut her short with such contempt that I saw
the painful colour whip her cheeks and her eyes quiver.

Small doubt that what she had learned of men had not sweetened her nor
taught her confidence. But whatever she had been, and whatever she was,
after all concerned not me that I should take pains to silence her so
brutally.

"I am sorry I spoke as I did," said I, "--however mistaken you are
concerning my seeking you here."

She said nothing.

"Also," I added, with a sudden resurgance of bitterness that surprised
myself, "my conduct earlier in your behalf might have led you to a
wiser judgment."

"I am wise enough--after my own fashion," she said indifferently.

"Does a man save and then return to destroy?"

"Many a hunter has saved many a spotted fawn from wolf and fox--so he
might kill it himself, one day."

"You do yourself much flattery, young woman," I said, so unpleasantly
that again the hot colour touched her throat and brow.

"I reason as I have been taught," she said defiantly. "Doubtless you
are self-instructed."

"No; men have taught me. You witnessed, I believe, one lesson. And your
comrade gave me still another."

"I care to witness nothing," I said, furious; "far less desire to
attempt your education. Is all plain now?"

"Your words are," she said, with quiet contempt.

"My words are one with my intention," said I, angrily; far in spite of
my own indifference and contempt, hers was somehow arousing me with its
separate sting hidden in every word she uttered. "And now," I
continued, "all being plain and open between us, let me acquaint you
with the sole object of my visit here to you."

She shrugged her shabby shoulders and waited, her eyes, her expression,
her very attitude indifferent, yet dully watchful.

"You know the Sagamore, Mayaro?" I asked.

"You say so."

"Where is he to be found?" I continued patiently.

"Why do you desire to know?"

The drab was exasperating me, and I think I looked it, for the
slightest curl of her sullen lips hinted a scornful smile.

"Come, come, my lass," said I, with all the patience I could still
command, "there is a storm approaching, and I do not wish to get wet.
Answer my civil question and I'll thank you and be off about my
business. Where is this Sagamore to be found?"

"Why do you wish to know?"

"Because I desire to consult him concerning certain matters."

"What matters?"

"Matters which do not concern you!" I snapped out.

"Are you sure of that, pretty boy?"

"Am I sure?" I repeated, furious. "What do you mean? Will you answer an
honest question or not?"

"Why do you desire to see this Sagamore?" she repeated so obstinately
that I fairly clenched my teeth.

"Answer me," I said. "Or had you rather I fetched a file of men up
here?"

"Fetch a regiment, and I shall tell you nothing unless I choose."

"Good God, what folly!" I exclaimed. "For whom and for what do you take
me, then, that you refuse to answer the polite and harmless question of
an American officer!"

"You had not so named yourself."

"Very well, then; I am Euan Loskiel, Ensign in Morgan's rifle regiment!"

"You say so."

"Do you doubt it?"

"Birds sing," she said. Suddenly she stepped from the dark doorway,
came to where I stood, bent forward and looked me very earnestly in the
eyes--so closely that something--her nearness--I know not what--seemed
to stop my heart and breath for a second.

Then, far on the western hills lightning glimmered; and after a long
while it thundered.

"Do you wish me to find this Sagamore for you?" she asked very quietly.

"Will you do so?"

A drop of rain fell; another, which struck her just where the cheek
curved under the long black lashes, fringing them with brilliancy like
tears.

"Where do you lodge?" she asked, after a silent scrutiny of me.

"This night I am a guest at Major Lockwood's. Tomorrow I travel north
again with my comrade, Lieutenant Boyd."

She was looking steadily at me all the time; finally she said:

"Somehow, I believe you to be a friend to liberty. I know it--somehow."

"It is very likely, in this rifle dress I wear," said I smiling.

"Yet a man may dress as he pleases."

"You mistrust me for a spy?"

"If you are, why, you are but one more among many hereabouts. I think
you have not been in Westchester very long. It does not matter. No boy
with the face you wear was born to betray anything more important than
a woman."

I turned hot and scarlet with chagrin at her cool presumption--and
would not for worlds have had her see how the impudence stung and
shamed me.

For a full minute she stood there watching me; then:

"I ask pardon," she said very gravely.

And somehow, when she said it I seemed to experience a sense of
inferiority--which was absurd and monstrous, considering what she
doubtless was.

It had now begun to rain in very earnest; and was like to rain harder
ere the storm passed. My clothes being my best, I instinctively stepped
into the doorway; and, of a sudden, she was there too, barring my
entry, flushed and dangerous, demanding the reason of my intrusion.

"Why," said I astonished, "may I not seek shelter from a storm in a
ruined sugar-house, without asking by your leave?"

"This sap-house is my own dwelling!" she said hotly. "It is where I
live!"

"Oh, Lord," said I, bewildered, "--if you are like to take offense at
everything I say, or look, or do, I'll find a hospitable tree
somewhere----"

"One moment, sir----"

"Well?"

She stood looking at me in the doorway, then slowly dropped her eyes,
and in the same law voice I had heard once before:

"I ask your pardon once again," she said. "Please to come inside--and
close the door. An open door draws lightning."

It was already drawing the rain in violent gusts.

The thunder began to bang with that metallic and fizzling tone which it
takes on when the bolts fall very near; flash after flash of violet
light illuminated the shack at intervals, and the rafters trembled as
the black shadows buried us.

"Have you a light hereabout?" I asked.

"No,"

For ten minutes or more the noise of the storm made it difficult to
hear or speak. I could scarce see her now in the gloom. And so we
waited there in silence until the roar of the rain began to die away,
and it slowly grew lighter outside and the thunder grew more distant.

I went to the door, looked out into the dripping woods, and turned to
her.

"When will you bring the Sagamore to me?" I demanded.

"I have not promised."

"But you will?"

She waited a while, then:

"Yes, I will bring him."

"When?"

"Tonight."

"You promise?"

"Yes."

"And if it rains again''

"It will rain all night, but I shall send you the Sagamore. Best go,
sir. The real tempest is yet to break. It hangs yonder above the
Hudson. But you have time to gain the Lockwood House."

I said to her, with a slight but reassuring smile, most kindly intended:

"Now that I am no longer misunderstood by you, I may inform you that in
what you do for me you serve our common country." It did not seem a
pompous speech to me.

"If I doubted that," she said, "I had rather pass the knife you wear
around my throat than trouble myself to oblige you."

Her words, and the quiet, almost childish voice, seemed so oddly at
variance that I almost laughed; but changed my mind.

"I should never ask a service of you for myself alone," I said so
curtly that the next moment I was afraid I had angered her, and fearing
she might not keep her word to me, smiled and frankly offered her my
hand.

Very slowly she put forth her own--a hand stained and roughened, but
slim and small. And so I went away through the dripping bush, and down
the rocky hill. A slight sense of fatigue invaded me; and I did not
then understand that it came from my steady and sustained efforts to
ignore what any eyes could not choose but see--this young girl's
beauty--yes, despite her sorry mien and her rags--a beauty that was
fashioned to trouble men; and which was steadily invading my senses
whether I would or no.

Walking along the road and springing over the puddles, I thought to
myself that it was small wonder such a wench was pestered in a common
soldier's camp. For she had about her everything to allure the grosser
class--a something--indescribable perhaps--but which even such a man as
I had become unwillingly aware of. And I must have been very conscious
of it, for it made me restless and vaguely ashamed that I should
condescend so far as even to notice it. More than that, it annoyed me
not a little that I should bestow any thought upon this creature at
all; but what irritated me most was that Boyd had so demeaned himself
as to seek her out behind my back.

When I came to the manor house, it had already begun to rain again; and
even as I entered the house, a tempest of rain and wind burst once more
over the hills with a violence I had scarcely expected.

Encountering Major Lockwood and Lieutenant Boyd in the hall, I scowled
at the latter askance, but remembered my manners, and smoothed my face
and told them of my success.

"Rain or no," said I, "she has promised me to send this Sagamore here
tonight. And I am confident she will keep her word."

"Which means," said Boyd, with an unfeigned sigh, "that we travel north
tomorrow. Lord! How sick am I of saddle and nag and the open road. Your
kindly hospitality, Major, has already softened me so that I scarce
know how to face the wilderness again."

And at supper, that evening, Boyd frankly bemoaned his lot, and Mrs.
Lockwood condoled with him; but Betsy Hunt turned up her pretty nose,
declaring that young men were best off in the woods, which kept them
out o' mischief. She did not know the woods.

And after supper, as she and my deceitful but handsome lieutenant
lingered by the stairs, I heard her repeat it again, utterly refusing
to say she was sorry or that she commiserated his desperate lot. But on
her lips hovered a slight and provoking smile, and her eyes were very
brilliant under her powdered hair.

All women liked Boyd; none was insensible to his charm. Handsome, gay,
amusing--and tender, alas!--too often--few remained indifferent to this
young man, and many there were who found him difficult to forget after
he had gone his careless way. But I was damning him most heartily for
the prank he played me.

I sat in the parlour talking to Mrs. Lockwood. The babies were long
since in bed; the elder children now came to make their reverences to
their mother and father, and so very dutifully to every guest. A fat
black woman in turban and gold ear-hoops fetched them away; and the
house seemed to lose a trifle of its brightness with the children's
going.

Major Lockwood sat writing letters on a card-table, a cluster of tall
candles at his elbow; Mr. Hunt was reading; his wife and Boyd still
lingered on the stairs, and their light, quick laughter sounded
prettily at moments.

Mrs. Lockwood, I remember, had been sewing while she and I conversed
together. The French alliance was our topic; and she was still speaking
of the pleasure it had given all when Lewis Morris brought to her house
young Lafayette. Then, of a sudden, she turned her head sharply, as
though listening.

Through the roar of the storm I thought I heard the gallop of a horse.
Major Lockwood lifted his eyes from his letters, fixing them on the
rain-washed window.

Certainly a horseman had now pulled up at our very porch; Mr. Hunt laid
aside his book very deliberately and walked to the parlour door, and a
moment later the noise of the metal knocker outside rang loudly through
the house.

We were now all rising and moving out into the hall, as though a common
instinct of coming trouble impelled us. The black servant opened; a
drenched messenger stood there, blinking in the candle light.

Major Lockwood went to him instantly, and drew him in the door; and
they spoke together in low and rapid tones.

Mrs. Lockwood murmured in my ear:

"It's one of Luther's men. There is bad news for us from below, I
warrant you."

We heard the Major say:

"You will instantly acquaint Colonels Thomas and Sheldon with this
news. Tell Captain Fancher, too, in passing."

The messenger turned away into the storm, and Major Lockwood called
after him:

"Is there no news of Moylan's regiment?"

"None, sir," came the panting answer; there ensued a second's silence,
a clatter of slippery hoofs, then only the loud, dull roar of the rain
filled the silence.

The Major, who still stood at the door, turned around and glanced at
his wife.

"What is it, dear--if we may know?" asked she, quite calmly.

"Yes," he said, "you should know, Hannah. And it may not be true,
but--somehow, I think it is. Tarleton is out."

"Is he headed this way, Ebenezer?" asked Mr. Hunt, after a shocked
silence.

"Why--yes, so they say. Luther Kinnicut sends the warning. It seems to
be true."

"Tarleton has heard, no doubt, that Sheldon's Horse is concentrating
here," said Mr. Hunt. "But I think it better for thee to leave,
Ebenezer."

Mrs. Lockwood went over to her husband and laid her hand on his sleeve
lightly. The act, and her expression, were heart-breaking, and not to
be mistaken. She knew; and we also now surmised that if the Legion
Cavalry was out, it was for the purpose of taking the man who stood
there before our eyes. Doubtless he was quite aware of it, too, but
made no mention of it.

"Alsop," he said, turning to his son-in-law, "best take the more
damaging of the papers and conceal them as usual. I shall presently be
busied with Thomas and Sheldon, and may have no time for such details."

"Will they make a stand, do you think?" I whispered to Boyd, "or shall
we be sent a-packing?"

"If there be not too many of them I make a guess that Sheldon's Horse
will stand."

"And what is to be our attitude?"

"Stand with them," said he, laughing, though he knew well that we had
been cautioned to do our errand and keep clear of all brawls.



CHAPTER III

VIEW HALLOO!

It rained, rained, rained, and the darkness and wind combined with the
uproar of the storm to make venturing abroad well nigh impossible. Yet,
an orderly, riding at hazard, managed to come up with a hundred of the
Continental foot, convoying the train, and, turning them in their
slopping tracks, start back with them through a road running shin-high
in mud and water.

Messengers, also, were dispatched to call out the district militia, and
they plodded all night with their lanterns, over field and path and
lonely country road.

As for Colonel Sheldon, booted, sashed, and helmeted, he sat apathetic
and inert in the hall, obstinately refusing to mount his men.

"For," says he, "it will only soak their powder and their skins, and
nobody but a fool would ride hither in such a storm. And Tarleton is no
fool, nor am I, either; and that's flat!" It was not as flat as his own
forehead.

"Do you mean that I am a fool to march my men back here from
Lewisboro?" demanded Colonel Thomas sharply, making to rise from his
seat by the empty fireplace.

Duels had sprung from less provocation than had been given by Colonel
Sheldon. Mr. Hunt very mildly interposed; and a painful scene was
narrowly averted because of Colonel Thomas's cold contempt for Sheldon,
which I think Captain Fancher shared.

Major Lockwood, coming in at the moment, flung aside his dripping
riding cloak.

"Sir," said he to Sheldon, "the rumour that the Legion is abroad has
reached your men, and they are saddling in my barns."

"What damned nonsense!" exclaimed Sheldon, in a pet; and, rising,
strode heavily to the door, but met there his Major, one Benjamin
Tallmadge, coming in, all over mud.

This fiery young dragoon's plume, helmet, and cloak were dripping, and
he impatiently dashed the water from feathers and folds.

"Sir!" began Colonel Sheldon loudly, "I have as yet given no order to
saddle!"

And, "By God, sir," says Tallmadge, "the orders must have come from
somebody, for they're doing it!"

"Sir--sir!" stammered Sheldon, "What d'ye mean by that?"

"Ah!" says Tallmadge coolly, "I mean what I say. Orders must have been
given by somebody."

No doubt; for the orders came from himself, the clever trooper that he
was--and so he left Sheldon a-fuming and Major Lockwood and Mr. Hunt
most earnestly persuading him to sanction this common and simple
precaution.

Why he conducted so stupidly I never knew. It required all the gentle
composure of Mr. Hunt and all the vigorous logic of Major Lockwood to
prevent him from ordering his men to off-saddle and retire to the straw
above the mangers.

Major Tallmadge and a cornet passed through the hall with their
regimental standard, but Sheldon pettishly bade them to place it in the
parlour and await further orders--for no reason whatever, apparently,
save to exhibit a petty tyranny.

And all the while a very forest of candles remained lighted throughout
the house; only the little children were asleep; the family servants
and slaves remained awake, not daring to go to bed or even to close
their eyes to all these rumours and uncertainties.

Colonel Thomas, his iron-grey head sunk on his breast, paced the hall,
awaiting the arrival of the two escort companies of his command, yet
scarcely hoping for such good fortune, I think, for his keen eyes
encountered mine from time to time, and he made me gestures expressive
of angry resignation.

As for Sheldon, he pouted and sulked on a sofa, and drank mulled wine,
peevishly assuring everybody who cared to listen that no attack was to
be apprehended in such a storm, and that Colonel Tarleton and his men
now lay snug abed in New York town, a-grinning in their dreams.

A few drenched and woe-begone militia men, the pans of their muskets
wrapped in rags, reported, and were taken in charge by Captain Fancher
as a cattle guard for Major Lockwood's herd.

None of Major Lockwood's messengers were yet returned. Our rifleman had
saddled our own horses, and had brought them up under one of a row of
sheds which had recently been erected near the house. A pair of smoky
lanterns hung under the dripping rafters; and by their light I
perceived the fine horses of Major Lockwood, and of Colonels Sheldon
and Thomas also, standing near ours, bridled and saddled and held by
slaves.

Mrs. Lockwood sat near the parlour door, quietly sewing, but from time
to time I saw her raise her eyes and watch her husband. Doubtless she
was thinking of those forty golden guineas which were to be paid for
the delivery of his head--perhaps she was thinking of Bloody
Cunningham, and the Provost, and the noose that dangled in a painted
pagoda betwixt the almshouse and the jail in that accursed British city
south of us.

Mrs. Hunt had far less to fear for her quiet lord and master, who
combatted the lower party only with his brains. So she found more
leisure to listen to Boyd's whispered fooleries, and to caution him
with lifted finger, glancing at him sideways; and I saw her bite her
lips at times to hide the smile, and tap her slender foot, and bend
closer over her tabouret while her needle flew the faster.

As for me, my Sagamore had not arrived; and I finally cast a cloak
about me and went out to the horse-sheds, where our rifleman lolled,
chewing a lump of spruce and holding our three horses.

"Well, Jack," said I, "this is rare weather for Colonel Tarleton's fox
hunting."

"They say he hunts an ass, sir, too," said Jack Mount under his breath.
"And I think it must be so, for there be five score of Colonel
Sheldon's dragoons in yonder barns, drawing at jack-straws or conning
their thumbs--and not a vidette out--not so much as a militia picket,
save for the minute men which Colonel Thomas and Major Lockwood have
sent out afoot."

There was a certain freedom in our corps, but it never warranted such
impudent presumption as this; and I sharply rebuked the huge fellow for
his implied disrespect toward Colonel Sheldon.

"Very well, sir. I will bite off this unmilitary tongue o' mine and
feed it to your horse. Then, sir, if you but ask him, he will tell you
very plainly that none of his four-footed comrades in the barn have
carried a single vidette on their backs even as far as Poundridge
village, let alone Mile-Square."

I could scarcely avoid smiling.

"Do you then, for one, believe that Colonel Tarleton will venture
abroad on such a night?"

"I believe as you do," said the rifleman coolly, "--being some three
years or more a soldier of my country."

"Oh! And what do I believe, Jack?"

"Being an officer who commands as good a soldier as I am, you, sir,
believe as I do."

I was obliged to laugh.

"Well, Jack--so you agree with me that the Legion Cavalry is out?"

"It is as sure that nested snake's eggs never hatched out rattlers as
it is certain that this wild night will hatch out Tarleton!"

"And why is it so certain in your mind, Jack Mount?"

"Lord, Mr. Loskiel," he said with a lazy laugh, "you know how Mr. Boyd
would conduct were he this same Major Tarleton! You know what Major
Parr would do--and what you and I and every officer and every man of
Morgan's corps would do on such a night to men of Sheldon's kidney!"

"You mean the unexpected."

"Yes, sir. And this red fox on horseback, Tarleton, has ever done the
same, and will continue till we stop his loping with a bit o' lead."

I nodded and looked out into the rain-swept darkness. And I knew that
our videttes should long since have been set far out on every road
twixt here and Bedford village.

Captain Fancher passed with a lantern, and I ventured to accost him and
mention very modestly my present misgivings concerning our present
situation.

"Sir," said the Captain, dryly, "I am more concerned in this matter
than are you; and I have taken it upon myself to protest to Major
Tallmadge, who is at this moment gone once more to Colonel Sheldon with
very serious representations."

"Lieutenant Boyd and I have volunteered as a scout of three," I said,
"but Colonel Sheldon has declined our services with scant politeness."

Fancher stood far a moment, his rain-smeared lantern hanging motionless
at his side.

"Tarleton may not ride tonight," he said, and moved off a step or two;
then, turning: "But, damn him, I think he will," said he. And walked
away, swinging his light as furiously as a panther thrashes his tail.

By the pointers of my watch it now approached three o'clock in the
morning, and the storm was nothing abating. I had entirely despaired of
the Sagamore's coming, and was beginning to consider the sorry pickle
which this alarm must leave us in if Tarleton's Legion came upon us
now; and that with our widely scattered handfuls we could only pull
foot and await another day to find our Sagamore; when, of a sudden
there came a-creeping through the darkness, out o' the very maw of the
storm, a slender shape, wrapped to the eyes in a ragged scarlet cape. I
knew her; but I do not know how I knew her.

"It is you!" I exclaimed, hastening forward to draw her under shelter.

She came obediently with me, slipping in between the lanterns and among
the horses, moving silently at my elbow to the farther shed, which was
empty.

"You use me very kindly," I said, "to venture abroad tonight on my
behalf."

"I am abroad," she said, "on behalf of my country."

Only her eyes I could see over the edge of the scarlet cloak, and they
regarded me very coldly.

"I meant it so," I said hastily, "What of the Sagamore? Will he come?"

"He will come as I promised you."

"Here?" I said, delighted. "This very night?"

"Yes, here, this night."

"How good--how generous you have been!" I exclaimed with a warmth and
sincerity that invaded every fibre of me. "And have you come through
this wild storm all the long way afoot?"

"Yes," she said, calmly, "afoot. Since when, sir, have beggars ridden
to a tryst except in pretty fables?"

"Had I known it, I would have taken horse and gone for you and brought
you here riding pillion behind me."

"Had I desired you to come for me, Mr. Loskiel, I should not have
troubled you here."

She loosened the shabby scarlet cloak so that it dropped from below her
eyes and left the features exposed. Enough of lantern light from the
other shed fell on her face for me to see her smooth, cool cheeks all
dewy with the rain, as I had seen them once before in the gloom of the
coming storm.

She turned her head, glancing back at the other shed where men and
horses stood in grotesque shadow shapes under the windy lantern light;
then she looked cautiously around the shed where we stood.

"Come nearer," she motioned.

And once again, as before, my nearness to her seemed for a moment to
meddle with my heart and check it; then, as though to gain the beats
they lost, every little pulse began to hurry faster.

She said in a low voice:

"The Sagamore is now closeted with Major Lockwood. I left him at the
porch and came out here to warn you. Best go to him now, sir. And I
will bid you a--good night."

"Has he business also with Major Lockwood?"

"He has indeed. You will learn presently that the Sagamore came by
North Castle, and that the roads south of the church are full of
riders--hundreds of them--in jack-boots and helmets."

"Were their jackets red?"

"He could not tell. They were too closely cloaked,"

"Colonel Moylan's dragoons?" I said anxiously. "Do you think so?"

"The Sagamore did not think so, and dared not ask, but started
instantly cross-country with the information. I had been waiting to
intercept him and bring him here to you, as I promised you, but missed
him on the Bedford road, where he should have passed. Therefore, I
hastened hither to confess to you my failure, and chanced to overtake
him but a moment since, as he crossed the dooryard yonder."

Even in my growing anxiety, I was conscious of the faithfulness that
this poor girl had displayed--this ragged child who had stood in the
storm all night long on the Bedford road to intercept the Indian.
Faithful, indeed! For, having missed him, she had made her way here on
foot merely to tell me that she could not keep her word to me.

"Has the Sagamore spoken with Colonel Sheldon?" I asked gently.

"I do not know."

"Will you tarry here till I return?"

"Have you further use of me, Mr. Loskiel?"

Her direct simplicity checked me. After all, now that she had done her
errand, what further use had I for her? I did not even know why I had
asked her to tarry here until my return; and searched my mind seeking
the reason. For it must have been that I had some good reason in my
mind.

"Why, yes," I said, scarce knowing why, "I have further use for you.
Tarry for a moment and I shall return. And," I added mentally, "by that
time I shall have discovered the reason."

She said nothing; I hastened back to the house, where even from the
outside I could hear the loud voice of Sheldon vowing that if what this
Indian said were true, the cavalry he had discovered at North Castle
must be Moylan's and no other.

I entered and listened a moment to Major Lockwood, urging this
obstinate man to send out his patrols; then I walked over to the window
where Boyd stood in whispered consultation with an Indian.

The savage towered at least six feet in his soaking moccasins; he wore
neither lock nor plume, nor paint of any kind that I could see, carried
neither gun nor blanket, nor even a hatchet. There was only a heavy
knife at the beaded girdle, which belted his hunting shirt and breeches
of muddy tow-cloth.

As I approached them, the Mohican turned his head and shot a searching
glance at me. Boyd said:

"This is the great Sagamore, Mayaro, Mr. Loskiel; and I have attempted
to persuade him to come north with us tomorrow. Perhaps your eloquence
will succeed where my plain speech has failed." And to the tall
Sagamore he said: "My brother, this is Ensign Loskiel, of Colonel
Morgan's command--my comrade and good friend. What this man's lips tell
you has first been taught them by his heart. Squirrels chatter, brooks
babble, and the tongues of the Iroquois are split. But this is a man,
Sagamore, such as are few among men. For he lies not even to women."
And though his countenance was very grave, I saw his eyes laughing at
me.

The Indian made no movement until I held out my hand. Then his sinewy
fingers touched mine, warily at first, like the exploring antennae of a
nervous butterfly. And presently his steady gaze began to disturb me.

"Does my brother the Sagamore believe he has seen me somewhere
heretofore?" I asked, smilingly. "Perhaps it may have been so--at
Johnson Hall--or at Guy Park, perhaps, where came many chiefs and
sachems and Sagamores in the great days of the great Sir William--the
days that are no more, O Sagamore!"

And: "My brother's given name?" inquired the savage bluntly.

"Euan--Euan Loskiel, once of the family of Guy Johnson, but now, for
these three long battle years, officer in Colonel Morgan's regiment," I
said. "Has the wise Sagamore ever seen me before this moment?"

The savage's eyes wavered, then sought the floor.

"Mayaro has forgotten," he replied very quietly, using the Delaware
phrase--a tongue of which I scarcely understood a word. But I knew he
had seen me somewhere, and preferred not to admit it. Indian caution,
thought I, and I said:

"Is my brother Siwanois or Mohican?"

A cunning expression came into his features:

"If a Siwanois marries a Mohican woman, of what nation are the
children, my new brother, Loskiel?"

"Mohican," I said in surprise,--"or so it is among the Iroquois," and
the next moment could have bitten off my tongue for vexation that I
should have so clumsily reminded a Sagamore of a subject nation of his
servitude, by assuming that the Lenni-Lenape had conformed even to the
racial customs of their conquerors.

The hot flush now staining my face did not escape him, and what he
thought of my stupid answer to him or of my embarrassment, I did not
know. His calm countenance had not altered--not even had his eyes
changed, which features are quickest to alter when Indians betray
emotion.

I said in a mortified voice:

"The Siwanois Sagamore will believe that his new brother, Loskiel,
meant no offense." And I saw that the compliment had told.

"Mayaro has heard," he said, without the slightest emphasis of
resentment. Then, proudly and delicately yielding me reason, and
drawing his superb figure to its full and stately height: "When a
Mohican Sagamore listens, all Algonquins listen, and the Siwanois clan
grow silent in the still places. When a real man speaks, real men
listen with respect. Only the Canienga continue to chirp and chatter;
only the Long House is full of squirrel sounds and the noise of jays."
His lip curled contemptuously. "Let the echoes of the Long House answer
the Kanonsis. Mayaro's ears are open."

Boyd, with a triumphant glance at me, said eagerly:

"Is not this hour the hour for the great Siwanois clan of the
Lenni-Lenape to bid defiance to the Iroquois? Is it not time that the
Mohawks listen to the reading of those ancient belts, and count their
dishonoured dead with brookside pebbles from the headwaters of the
Sacandaga to the Delaware Capes?"

"Can squirrels count?" retorted Mayaro disdainfully. "Does my white
brother understand what the blue-jays say one to another in the
yellowing October woods? Not in the Kanonsis, nor yet in the
Kanonsionni may the Mohicans read to the Mohawks the ancient wampum
records. The Lenni-Lenape are Algonquin, not Huron-Iroquois. Let those
degraded Delawares who still sit in the Long House count their white
belts while, from both doors of the Confederacy, Seneca and Mohawk
belt-bearers hurl their red wampum to the four corners of the world."

"The Mohicans, while they wait, may read of glory and great deeds," I
said, "but the belts in their hands are not white. How can this be, my
brother?"

The Sagamore's eyes flashed:

"The belts we remember are red!" he said. "We Mohicans have never
understood Iroquois wampum. Let the Lenape of the Kansonsionni bear
Iroquois belts!"

"In the Long House," said I, "the light is dim. Perhaps the Canienga's
ambassadors can no longer perceive the red belts in the archives of the
Lenape."

It had so far been a careful and cautious exchange of subtlest metaphor
between this proud and sensitive Mohican and me; I striving to win him
to our cause by recalling the ancient greatness and the proud freedom
of his tribe, yet most carefully avoiding undue pressure or any direct
appeal for an immediate answer to Boyd's request. But already I had so
thoroughly prepared the ground; and the Sagamore's responses had been
so encouraging, that the time seemed to have come to put the direct and
final question. And now, to avoid the traditional twenty-four hours'
delay which an Indian invariably believes is due his own dignity before
replying to a vitally important demand, I boldly cast precedent and
custom to the four winds, and once more seized on allegory to aid me in
this hour of instant need.

I began by saluting him with the most insidious and stately compliment
I could possibly offer to a Sagamore of a conquered race--a race which
already was nearly extinct--investing this Mohican Sagamore with the
prerogatives of his very conquerors by the subtlety of my opening
phrase:

"O Sagamore! Roya-neh! Noble of the three free clans of a free Mohican
people! Our people have need of you. The path is dark to
Catharines-town. Terror haunts those frightful shades. Roya-nef! We
need you!

"Brother! Is there occasion for belts between us to confirm a brother's
words, when this leathern girth I wear around my body carries a red
wampum which all may see and read--my war axe and my knife?"

I raised my right arm slowly, and drew with my forefinger a great
circle in the air around us:

"Brother! Listen attentively! Since a Sagamore has read the belt I
yesterday delivered, the day-sun has circled us where we now stand. It
is another day, O Roya-neh! In yonder fireplace new ashes whiten, new
embers redden. We have slept (touching my eyelids and then laying my
right hand lightly over his); we have eaten (again touching his lips
and then my own); and now--now here--now, in this place and on this
day, I have returned to the Mohican fire--the Fire of Tamanund! Now I
am seated (touching both knees). Now my ears are open. Let the Sagamore
of the Mohicans answer my belt delivered! I have spoken, O Roya-neh!"

For a full five minutes of intense silence I knew that my bold appeal
was being balanced in the scales by one of a people to whom tradition
is a religion. One scale was weighted with the immemorial customs and
usages of a great and proud people; the other with a white man's subtle
and flattering recognition of these customs, conveyed in metaphor,
which all Indians adore, and appealing to imagination--an appeal to
which no Huron, no Iroquois, no Algonquin, is ever deaf.

In the breathless silence of suspense the irritable, high-pitched voice
of Colonel Sheldon came to my ears. It seemed that after all he had
sent out a few troopers and that one had just returned to report a
large body of horsemen which had passed the Bedford road at a gallop,
apparently headed for Ridgefield. But I scarcely noted what was being
discussed in the further end of the hall, so intent was I on the
Sagamore's reply--if, indeed, he meant to answer me at all. I could
even feel Boyd's body quivering with suppressed excitement as our
elbows chanced to come in contact; as for me, I scarce made out to
control myself at all, and any nether lip was nearly bitten through ere
the Mohican lifted his symmetrical head and looked me full and honestly
in the eyes.

"Brother," he said, in a curiously hushed voice, "on this day I come to
you here, at this fire, to acquaint you with my answer; answering my
brother's words of yesterday."

I could hear Boyd's deep breath of profound relief. "Thank God!" I
thought.

The Sagamore spoke again, very quietly:

"Brother, the road is dark to Catharines-town. There are no stars
there, no moon, no sun--only a bloody mist in the forest. For to that
dreadful empire of the Iroquois only blind trails lead. And from them
ghosts of the Long House arise and stand. Only a thick darkness is
there--an endless gloom to which the Mohican hatchets long, long ago
dispatched the severed souls they struck! In every trail they stand,
these ghosts of the Kanonsi, Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga--ghosts of the
Tuscarora. The Mohawk beasts who wear the guise of men are there.
Mayaro spits upon them! And upon their League! And upon their Atotarho
the Siwanois spit!"

Suddenly his arm shot out and he grasped the hilt of my knife, drew it
from my belt, and then slowly returned it. I drew his knife and
rendered it again.

"Brother," he said, "I have this day heard your voice coming to me out
of the Northland! I have read the message on the belt you bore and
wear; your voice has not lied to my ears; your message is clear as
running springs to my eyes. I can see through to their pleasant depths.
No snake lies hidden under them. So now--now, I say--if my brother's
sight is dimmed on the trail to Catharines-town, Mayaro will teach him
how to see under the night-sun as owls see, so that behind us, the
steps of many men shall not stumble, and the darkness of the Long House
shall become redder than dawn, lighted by the flames of a thousand
rifles!

"Brother! A Sagamore never lies. I have drawn my brother's knife!
Brother, I have spoken!"

And so it was done in that house and in the dark of dawn. Boyd silently
gave him his hands, and so did I; then Boyd led him aside with a slight
motion of dismissal to me.

As I walked toward the front door, which was now striding open, I saw
Major Tallmadge go out ahead of me, run to the mounting-block, and
climb into his saddle. Colonel Sheldon followed him to the doorway, and
called after him:

"Take a dozen men with you, and meet Colonel Moylan! A dozen will be
sufficient, Major!"

Then he turned back into the house, saying to Major Lockwood and Mr.
Hunt he was positive that the large body of dragoons in rapid motion,
which had been seen and reported by one of our videttes a few minutes
since, could be no other than Moylan's expected regiment; and that he
would mount his own men presently and draw them up in front of the
Meeting House.

The rain had now nearly ceased; a cloudy, greyish horizon became
visible, and the dim light spreading from a watery sky made objects
dimly discernible out of doors.

I hastened back to the shed where I had left the strange maid swathed
in her scarlet cape; and found her there, slowly pacing the trampled
sod before it.

As I came up with her, she said:

"Why are the light dragoons riding on the Bedford road? Is aught amiss?"

"A very large body of horse has passed our videttes, making toward
Ridgefield. Colonel Sheldon thinks it must be Moylan's regiment."

"Do you?"

"It may be so."

"And if it be the leather-caps?"

"Then we must find ourselves in a sorry pickle."

As I spoke, the little bugle-horn of Sheldon's Horse blew boots and
saddles, and four score dragoons scrambled into their saddles down by
the barns, and came riding up the sloppy road, their horses slipping
badly and floundering through the puddles and across the stream, where,
led by a captain, the whole troop took the Meeting House road at a
stiff canter.

We watched them out of sight, then she said:

"I have awaited your pleasure, Mr. Loskiel. Pray, in what further
manner can I be of service to--my country?"

"I have come back to tell you," said I, "that you can be of no further
use. Our errand to the Sagamore has now ended, and most happily. You
have served your country better than you can ever understand. I have
come to say so, and to thank you with--with a heart--very full."

"Have I then done well?" she asked slowly.

"Indeed you have!" I replied, with such a warmth of feeling that it
surprised myself.

"Then why may I not understand this thing that I have done--for my
country?"

"I wish I might tell you."

"May you not?"

"No, I dare not."

She bit her lip, gazing at nothing over the ragged collar of her cape,
and stood so, musing. And after a while she seemed to come to herself,
wearily, and she cast a tragic upward glance at me. Then, dropping her
eyes, and with the slightest inclination of her head, not looking at me
at all, she started across the trampled grass.

"Wait----" I was by her side again in the same breath.

"Well, sir?" And she confronted me with cool mien and lifted brows.
Under them her grey eyes hinted of a disdain which I had seen in them
more than once.

"May I not suitably express my gratitude to you?" I said.

"You have already done so."

"I have tried to do so properly, but it is not easy for me to say how
grateful to you we men of the Northland are--how deeply we must ever
remain in your debt. Yet--I will attempt to express our thanks--if you
care to listen."

After a pause: "Then--if there is nothing more to say--"

"There is, I tell you. Will you not listen?"

"I have been thanked--suitably.... I will say adieu, sir."

"Would you--would you so far favour me as to make known to me your
name?" I said, stammering a little.

"Lois is my name," she said indifferently.

"No more than that?"

"No more than that."

How it was now going with me I did not clearly understand, but it
appeared to be my instinct not to let her slip away into the world
without something more friendly said--some truer gratitude
expressed--some warmth.

"Lois," I said very gravely, "what we Americans give to our country
demands no ignoble reward. Therefore, I offer none of any sort. Yet,
because you have been a good comrade to me--and because now we are
about to go our different ways into the world before us--I ask of you
two things. May I do so?"

After a moment, looking away from me across the meadow:

"Ask," she said.

"Then the first is--will you take my hand in adieu--and let us part as
good soldiers part?"

Still gazing absently across the meadow, she extended her hand. I
retained it for a moment, then released it. Her arm fell inert by her
side, but mine tingled to the shoulder.

"And one more thing," I said, while this strange and curious reluctance
to let her go was now steadily invading me.

"Yes?"

"Will you wear a comrade's token--in memory of an hour or two with him?"

"What!"

She spoke with a quick intake of breath and her grey eyes were on me
now, piercing me to the roots of speech and motive.

I wore a heavy ring beaten out of gold; Guy Johnson gave it. This I
took from my trembling finger, scarce knowing why I was doing it at
all, and stooping and lifting her little, wind-roughened hand, put it
on the first finger I encountered--blindly, now, and clumsily past all
belief, my hand was shaking so absurdly.

If my face were now as red as it was hot, hers, on the contrary, had
become very strange and still and white. For a moment I seemed to read
distrust, scorn, even hatred, in her level stare, and something of
fear, too, in every quickening breath that moved the scarlet mantle on
her breast. Then, in a flash, she had turned her back on me and was
standing there in the grey dawn, with both hands over her face,
straight and still as a young pine. But my ring was shining on her
finger.

Emotion of a nature to which I was an utter stranger was meddling with
my breath and pulses, now checking, now speeding both so that I stood
with mind disconcerted in a silly sort of daze.

At length I gathered sufficient composure to step to her side again.

"Once more, little comrade, good-bye," I said. "This ends it all."

Again she turned her shoulder to me, but I heard her low reply:

"Good-bye--Mr. Loskiel."

And so it ended.

A moment later I found myself walking aimlessly across the grass in no
particular direction. Three times I turned in my tracks to watch her.
Then she disappeared beyond the brookside willows.

I remember now that I had turned and was walking slowly back to where
our horses stood, moving listlessly through the freshly mowed meadow
between drenched haystacks--the first I had seen that year--and God
alone knows where were my thoughts a-gypsying, when, very far away, I
heard a gun-shot.

At first I could perceive nothing, then on the distant Bedford road I
saw one of our dragoons running his horse and bending low in his saddle.

Another dragoon appeared, riding a diable--and a dozen more behind
these; and on their heels a-galloping, a great body of red-jacketed
horsemen--hundreds of them--the foremost shooting from their saddles,
the great mass of them swinging their heavy cutlasses and spurring
furiously after our flying men.

I had seen far more than was necessary, and I ran for my horse. Other
officers came running, too--Sheldon, Thomas, Lockwood, and my
Lieutenant Boyd.

As we clutched bridle and stirrup and popped upward into out saddles,
it seemed that the red-coats must cut us off, but we spurred out of the
meadow into the Meeting House road, and Boyd cried furiously in my ear:

"See what this damned Sheldon has done for us now! God! What disgrace
is ours!"

I saw Colonel Sheldon presently, pale as death, and heard him exclaim:

"Oh, Christ! I shall be broke for this! I shall be broke!"

I made out to say to Boyd:

"The enemy are coming in hundreds, sir, and we have scarce four score
men mounted by the Meeting House."

"They'll never stand, either," he panted. "But if they do we'll see
this matter to an end."

"Our orders?" I asked.

"Damn our orders," said he. "We'll see this matter to an end."

We rode hard, but already some of Tallmadge's terror-stricken patrol
were overhauling us, and the clangor of the British cavalry broke
louder and louder on our ears as we came in sight of the Meeting House.
Sheldon's four score troopers heard the uproar of the coming storm,
wavered, broke, and whirled their horses about into a most disorderly
flight along the Stamford road. Everybody ran--there was no other
choice for officers and men--and close on our heels came pelting the
17th British Dragoons, the Hussars, and Mounted Yagers of the Legion;
and behind these galloped their mounted infantry.

A mad anxiety to get away from this terrible and overwhelming force
thundering on our heels under full charge possessed us all, I think,
and this paramount necessity held shame and fury in abeyance. There was
nothing on earth for us to do but to ride and try to keep our horses
from falling headlong on the rocky, slippery road; for it was now a
very hell of trampling horsemen, riding frantically knee against knee,
buffeted, driven, crowded, crushed, slipping; and trooper after trooper
went down with a crash under the terrible hoofs, horse and rider
battered instantly into eternity.

For full three-quarters of a mile they ran us full speed, and we drove
on headlong; then at the junction of the New Canaan road our horsemen
separated, and I found myself riding in the rear beside Boyd and Jack
Mount once more. Turning to look back, I perceived the Legion Cavalry
were slowing to a trot to rest their hard-blown horses; and gradually
our men did the same. But the Hussars continued to come on, and we
continued our retreat, matching our speed to theirs.

They let drive at us once with their heavy pistols, and we in the rear
returned their fire, emptying one saddle and knocking two horses into
the roadside bushes.

Then they ran us hard again, and strove to flank us, but the rocky
country was too stiff for their riders, and they could not make out to
cut us off or attain our flanks.

"What a disgrace! What a disgrace!" was all Boyd found to say; and I
knew he meant the shameful surprise, not the retreat of our eighty
light horsemen before the thundering charge of their heavy hundreds.

Our troopers did not seem really frightened; they now jogged along
doggedly, but coolly enough. We had with us on the New Canaan road some
twenty light dragoons, not including Boyd, myself, and Jack Mount--one
captain, one cornet and a trumpeter lad, the remainder being rank and
file, and several mounted militiamen.

The captain, riding in the rear with us, was ever twisting his hatless
head to scowl back at the Hussars; and he talked continually in a loud,
confident voice to reassure his men.

"They're dropping off by tens and twenties," he said. "If they keep to
that habit we'll give 'em a charge. Wait till the odds lessen. Steady
there, boys! This cattle chase is not ended. We'll fetch 'em a crack
yet. We'll get a chance at their mounted infantry yet. All in God's
time, boys. Never doubt it."

The bugle-horns of the Legion were now sounding their derisive,
fox-hunting calls, and behind us we could hear the far laughter and
shouting: "Yoicks! Forrard! Stole away--stole away!"

My cheeks began to burn; Boyd gnawed his lips continually, and I saw
our dragoons turning angrily in their saddles as they understood the
insult of the British trumpets.

Half a mile farther on there ran a sandy, narrow cross road into the
woods on either side of us.

The captain drew bridle, stood up in his stirrups, and looked back. For
some time, now, the taunting trumpets had not jeered us, and the
pursuit seemed to have slackened after nearly three hard miles of
running. But they still followed us, though it was some minutes before
their red jackets came bobbing up again over the sandy crest of the
hill behind us.

All our men who had been looking back were now wheeled; and we divided,
half backing into the sandy road to the right, half taking the
left-hand road under command of Lieutenant Boyd.

"They are not too many," said the dragoon captain coolly, beckoning to
his little bugle-horn.

Willows hid us until their advanced troopers were close to where we
sat--so close that one of our excited dragoons, spurring suddenly
forward into the main road, beat down a Hussar's guard, flung his arms
around him, and tore him from his saddle. Both fell from their horses
and began to fight fisticuffs in the sandy ditch.

We charged instantly, and the enemy ran for it, our troopers raising
the view halloo in their turn and whipping out their sabres. And all
the way back to the Stamford road we ran them, and so excited became
our dragoons that we could scarce hold them when we came in sight once
more of the British main body now reforming under the rolling smoke of
Poundridge village, which they had set on fire.

But further advance was madness, even when the remainder of our light
troop came cantering down the Stamford road to rejoin us and watch the
burning town, for we could now muster but two score and ten riders,
having lost nearly thirty dead or missing.

A dozen of Captain Fancher's militia came up, sober farmers of the
village that lay below us buried in smoke; and our dragoons listened to
the tales of these men, some of whom had been in the village when the
onset came, and had remained there, skulking about to pick off the
enemy until their main farces returned.

"Tarleton was in a great rage, I warrant you," said one big, raw-boned
militiaman. "He rode up to Major Lockwood's house with his dragoons,
and says he: 'Burn me this arch rebel's nest!' And the next minute the
Yagers were running in and out, setting fire to the curtains and
lighting bundles of hay in every room. And I saw the Major's lady stand
there on her doorstep and demand the reason for such barbarity--the
house already afire behind her. Mrs. Hunt and the servants came out
with the children in their arms. And, 'By God, madam,' says Tarleton,
'when shots are fired at my men from houses by the inhabitants of any
town in America, I'll burn the town and hang the men if I can get 'em.'
Some Hussars came up, driving before them the Major's fine herd of
imported cattle--and a troop of his brood mares--the same he has so
often had to hide in the Rock Hills. 'Stand clear, madam!' bawls
Tarleton. 'I'll suffer nothing to be removed from that house!' At this
the Major's lady gives one long look after her children, which Betsy
Hunt and the blacks are carrying through the orchard; then she calmly
enters the burning house and comes out again with a big silver platter
and a load of linen from the dining-room in her arms. And at that a
trooper draws his sabre and strikes her with the flat o' the
blade--God, what a blow!--so that the lady falls to her knees and the
heavy silver platter rolls out on the grass and the fine linen is in
the mud. I saw her blacks lift her and get her off through the orchard.
I sneaked out of the brook willows, took a long shot at the beast who
struck her, and then pulled foot."

There was a shacked silence among the officers who had gathered to
listen. Until this moment our white enemies had offered no violence to
ladies. So this brutality toward the Major's lady astounded us.

Somebody said in a low voice:

"They've fired the church, now."

Major Lockwood's house was also burning furiously, as also were his
barns and stables, his sheds, and the new, unfinished barracks. We
could see it all very plainly from the hilltop where we had gathered.

"Alsop Hunt was taken," said a militiaman. "They robbed him of his
watch and purse, damning him for a rebel broad-brim. He's off to the
Provost, I fear."

"They took Mr. Reed, too," said another. "They had a dozen neighbours
under guard when I left."

Sheldon, looking like death, sat his saddle a little apart. No one
spoke to him. For even a deeper disgrace had now befallen the dragoons
in the loss of their standard left behind in Lockwood's house.

"What a pitiful mess!" whispered Boyd. "Is there nothing to be done but
sit here and see the red beasts yonder sack the town?"

Before I could answer, I caught the sound of distant firing on the
Lewisboro road. Colonel Thomas reared stiffly in his saddle, and:

"Those are my own men!" he said loudly, "or I lie like a Tory!"

A hill half a mile north of us suddenly became dark with men; we saw
the glitter of their muskets, saw the long belt of white smoke encircle
them, saw red-jacketed men run out of a farmhouse, mount, and gallop
toward the burning town.

Along the road below us a column of Continental infantry appeared on
the run, cheering us with their hats.

A roar from our dragoons answered them; our bugle-horn spoke, and I saw
Major Tallmadge, with a trumpeter at his back, rein in while the
troopers were reforming and calling off amid a whirlwind of rearing
horses and excited men.

Below in the village, the British had heard and perfectly understood
the volley from Thomas's regiment, and the cavalry and mounted infantry
of the Legion were assembling in the smoke, and already beginning a
rapid retreat by the Bedford road.

As Boyd and I went clattering down the hill, we saw Major Lockwood with
Thomas's men, and we rode up to him. He passed his sword to the left
hand, and leaning across in his saddle, exchanged a grip with us. His
face was ghastly.

"I know--I know," he said hurriedly. "I have seen my wife and children.
My wife is not badly injured. All are in safety. Thank you, gentlemen."

We wheeled our horses and fell in beside our infantry, now pressing
forward on a heavy run, so that Colonel Thomas and Major Lockwood had
to canter their horses.

Firing instantly broke out as we entered the smoky zone where the
houses were burning. Into it, an our left, galloped Sheldon's light
dragoons, who, having but five muskets in the command, went at the
Yagers with naked sabres; and suddenly found themselves in touch with
the entire Legion cavalry, who set up a Loud bawling:

"Surrender, you damned rebels! Pull up, there! Halt!"

I saw a trooper, one Jared Hoyt, split the skull of a pursuing British
dragoon straight across the mouth with a back-handed stroke, as he
escaped from the melee; and another, one John Buckhout, duck his head
as a dragoon fired at him, and, still ducking and loudly cursing the
fellow, rejoin us as we sheered off from the masses of red-jacketed
riders, wheeled, and went at the mounted Yagers, who did not stand our
charge.

There was much smoke, and the thick, suffocating gloom was lighted only
by streaming sparks, so that in the confusion and explosion of muskets
it was difficult to manoeuvre successfully and at the same time keep
clear of Tarleton's overwhelming main body.

This body was now in full but orderly retreat, driving with it cattle,
horses, and some two dozen prisoners, mostly peaceable inhabitants who
had taken no part in the affair. Also, they had a wagon piled with the
helmets, weapons, and accoutrements of Sheldon's dead riders; and one
of their Hussars bore Sheldon's captured standard in his stirrup.

To charge this mass of men was not possible with the two score horsemen
left us; and they retreated faster than our militia and Continentals
could travel. So all we could do was to hang on their rear and let
drive at them from our saddles.

As far as we rode with them, we saw a dozen of their riders fall either
dead or wounded from their horses, and saw their comrades lift them
into one of the wagons. Also we saw our dragoons and militia take three
prisoners and three horses before we finally turned bridle after our
last long shot at their rear guard.

For our business here lay not in this affair, and Boyd had disobeyed
his orders in not avoiding all fighting. He knew well enough that the
bullets from our three rifles were of little consequence to our country
compared to the safe accomplishment of our mission hither, and our safe
return with the Siwanois. Fortune had connived at our disobedience, for
no one of us bore so much as a scratch, though all three of us might
very easily have been done to death in the mad flight from the Meeting
House, amid that plunging hell of horsemen.

Fortune, too, hung to our stirrup leathers as we trotted into
Poundridge, for, among a throng of village folk who stood gazing at the
smoking ashes of the Lockwood house, we saw our Siwanois standing,
tall, impassive, wrapped in his blanket.


And late that afternoon we rode out of the half-ruined village,
northward. Our saddle-bags were full; our animals rested; and, beside
us, strode the Sagamore, fully armed and accoutred, lock braided, body
oiled and painted for war--truly a terrific shape in the falling dusk.

On the naked breast of this Mohican warrior of the Siwanois clan, which
is called by the Delawares "The Clan of the Magic Wolf," outlined in
scarlet, I saw the emblem of his own international clan--as I
supposed--a bear.

And of a sudden, within me, vaguely, something stirred--some faint
memory, as though I had once before beheld that symbol on a dark and
naked breast, outlined in scarlet. Where had I seen it before? At Guy
Park? At Johnson Hall? Fort Johnson? Butlersbury? Somewhere I had seen
that symbol, and in that same paint. Yes, it might easily have been.
Every nation of the Confederacy possessed a clan that wore the bear.
And yet--and yet--this bear seemed somehow different--and yet
familiar--strangely familiar to me--but in a manner which awoke within
me an unrest as subtle as it was curious.

I drew bridle, and as the Sagamore came up, I said uneasily:

"Brother, and ensign of the great bear clan of many nations, why is the
symbol that you wear familiar to me--and yet so strangely unfamiliar?"

He shot a glance of lightning intelligence at me, then instantly his
features became smoothly composed and blank again.

"Has my brother never before seen the Spirit Bear?" he asked coldly.

"Is that a clan, Mayaro?"

"Among the Siwanois only." "That is strange," I muttered. "I have never
before seen a Siwanois. Where could I have seen a Siwanois? Where?"

But he only shook his head.

Boyd and Mount had pricked forward; I still lingered by the Mohican.
And presently I said:

"That was a brave little maid who bore our message to you."

He made no answer.

"I have been wondering," I continued carelessly, "whether she has no
friends--so poor she seems--so sad and friendless, Have you any
knowledge of her?"

The Indian glanced at me warily, "My brother Loskiel should ask these
questions of the maid herself."

"But I shall never see her again, Sagamore. How can I ask her, then?"

The Indian remained silent. And, perhaps because I vaguely entertained
some future hope of loosening his tongue in her regard, I now said
nothing more concerning her, deeming that best. But I was still
thinking of her as I rode northward through the deepening dusk.

A great weariness possessed me, no doubt fatigue from the day's
excitement and anxiety. Also, for some hours, that curious
battle-hunger had been gnawing at my belly so that I had liked to
starve there in my saddle ere Boyd gave the signal to off-saddle for
the night.



CHAPTER IV

A TRYST

Above the White Plains the territory was supposed to be our own. Below,
seventeen thousand red-coats held the city of New York; and their
partisans, irregulars, militia, refugee-corps, and Legion-horsemen,
harried the lines. Yet, except the enemy's cruisers which sometimes
strayed far up the Hudson, like impudent hawks circling within the very
home-yard, we saw nothing of red-rag or leather-cap north of our lines,
save only once, when Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe nearly caught us.

His Excellency's army lay in position all around us, now, from West
Point down the river; and our light-horsemen patrolled as far south as
the unhappy country from which we had retired through the smoke of
Bedford's burning farms and the blaze of church and manor at
Poundridge. That hilly strip was then our southern frontier, bravely
defended by Thomas and Lockwood, shamefully neglected by Sheldon, as we
had seen. For which he was broke, poor devil, and a better man set
there to watch the red fox Tarleton, to harry Emmeriek, and to throw
the fear o' God into that headlong blockhead, Simcoe, a brave man, but
so possessed by hatred for "Mr." Washington that every move he made was
like a goaded bull--his halts merely the bewilderment of baffled fury,
his charges blind and bellowing.

I know how he conducted, not from hearsay alone, but because at sunrise
on our second day northward, before we struck the river-road, we had
like to have had a brush with him, his flankers running afoul of us not
far beyond a fortified post heavily held by our Continentals.

It was the glimpse of cannon and levelled bayonets that bewildered him;
and his bawling charge sheered wide o' the shabby Continental
battle-line, through which we galloped into safety, our Indian sticking
to my crupper like a tree-cat with every claw. And I remember still the
grim laughter that greeted us from those unshaven, powder-blackened
ranks, and how they laughed, too, as they fired by platoons at the far
glimmer of Simcoe's helmets through the chestnut trees.

And in the meantime, all the while, even from the very first evening
when we off-saddled in the rocky Westchester woods and made our first
flying-camp, I had become uneasy concerning the Siwanois--uncertain
concerning his loyalty to the very verge of suspicion.

I said nothing of this to Lieutenant Boyd, having nothing definite to
communicate. Nor did I even hint my suspicions, because distrust in the
mind of such a man as Boyd would be very difficult to eradicate, and
the slightest mishandling of our delicate situation might alienate the
Sagamore forever.

Yet, of one thing I had become almost convinced: the Siwanois, while we
slept, met and held communication with somebody outside our camp.

On the first night this had happened; for, awaking and missing the
Sagamore, who had been left on guard, I lay a-watching under my
blanket, and when he came in to the fire once more, it seemed to me
that far in the woods I heard the faint sound of another person
retiring stealthily through the tell-tale bushes that choke all second
growth hereabouts.

On the second day we crossed to the other side of the Hudson in flat
boats, with our horses. But on that night it was the same, I feigning
sleep when it came time for the Siwanois to relieve the man on guard.
And once again, after he had silently inspected us all, the Sagamore
stole away into leafy depths, but halted as before within earshot
still. And once again some nascent sense within me seemed to become
aware of another human being somewhere moving in the woods outside our
fire.

How I divined it I do not know, because this time I could hear no sound
in the starry obscurity of the Western Catskills, save only those
familiar forest sounds which never cease by night--unseen stirrings of
sleeping birds, the ruffle, of feathers, the sudden rustle of some
furry thing alarmed, the scratchings and pickings in rotting windfalls,
the whisper of some falling leaf severed by insects or relaxing its
brief clasp of the mother stem in the precocity of a maturity premature.

Yet, so strong now had become my suspicions that I was already
preparing to unroll my blanket, rise, and creep after the Siwanois,
when his light and rapid footfall sounded on the leaves close to my
head; and, as before, while again I feigned sleep, far in the thicket
somebody moved, cautiously retreating into tangled depths. But whether
I really heard or only guessed, I do not know down to this very day.

On the third night it rained and we made a bark hut. Perhaps the
Siwanois did his talking with this unseen visitor while away in
pretense of peeling bark, for he did not creep abroad that night. But,
somehow, I knew he had kept some tryst.

Now, on this fourth day, and our journey drawing to its end, I resolved
to follow the Siwanois if he stirred from our fire, and discover for
myself with what manner of visitor he held these stealthy councils.

During the long day's march I lagged and watched and listened in vain
for any follower along our route. Sometimes I even played at flanker,
sometimes rode far on ahead, and, at times, stuck to the Indian hour
after hour, seeming not to watch him, but with every sense alert to
surprise some glance, some significant movement, some cunning and
treacherous signal, to convince me that the forest had eyes that marked
us, and ears which heard us, and that the Siwanois knew it, and aided
and abetted under our very gaze.

But I had seen him do nothing that indicated him to be in secret
communication with anybody. He marked neither tree nor stone, nor leaf
nor moss, as far as I could see; dropped nothing, made no sound at all
save when he gravely answered some observation that we offered. Once,
even, I found a pretext to go back on the trail, searching to find some
sign he might have left behind him: and had my journey for my pains.

Now, had this same Indian been an Iroquois I might have formed some
reasonable judgment concerning his capacity for treachery; but I had
seen few Delawares in my life, and had never heard them speak at all,
save to boast in their cups of Uncas, Tamanund, and Miontonomoh. As for
a Siwanois Mohican, this Sagamore of the Magic Clan was the first of
his tribe and ensign that I had ever beheld. And with every motive and
every interest and desire in the world to believe him honest--and even
in my secret heart believing him to be so--yet I could not close eyes
and ears to what so stealthily was passing in the midnight woods around
me. And truly it was duty, nor any motive baser, that set me after him
that starlit night, when, as before, being on guard, he left the fire
about midnight: and I out of my blanket and after him in a trice.

The day was the 7th of July, a Wednesday, I remember, as I had writ it
in my journal, my habit being to set down every evening, or as near the
date as convenient, a few words which briefly recorded the day's events.

The night before we had camped in the woods along the Catskill road
leading toward Cobus-kill; this night, being fine and warm, we made
open camp along a stream, within a few miles' journey of the Middle
Fort; and, soupaan being eaten, let the coals die and whiten into
ashes. This, partly because we needed not the warmth, partly from
precaution. For although on the open roads our troops in detachments
were now concentrating, moving on Otsego Lake and the upper waters of
the Delaware and Susquehanna, this was no friendly country, and we knew
it. So the less firelight, the snugger we might lie in case of some
stray scalping party from the west or north.

Now, as I say, no sooner did the Siwanois leave his post and go
a-roving than I went after him, with infinite precaution; and I flatter
myself that I made no more noise on the brookside moss than the
moon-cast shadow of a flying cloud. Guy Johnson was no skilful
woodsman, but his Indians were; and of them I learned my craft. And
scout detail in Morgan's Rifles, too, was a rare school to finish any
man and match him with the best who ran the woods.

Too near his heels I dared not venture, as long as his tall form passed
like a shadow against the white light that the stars let in through the
forest cleft, where ran the noisy stream. But presently he turned off,
and for a moment I thought to lose him in the utter blackness of the
primeval trees. And surely would have had I not seen close to me a vast
and smoothly slanting ledge of rock which the stars shining on made
silvery, and on which no tree could grow, scarce even a tuft of fern,
so like a floor it lay in a wide oval amid the forest gloom.

Somewhere upon that dim and sparkling esplanade the Siwanois had now
seated himself. For a while, straining my eyes where I lay flat among
the taller fringing ferns, I could just make out a blot in the greyness
where he sat upright, like a watching catamount under the stars.

Then, across the dimness, another blot moved to join him; and I felt my
hair stir as chilling certainty shocked from me my lingering hope that
I had been mistaken.

Faintly--oh, scarce audible at all--the murmur of two voices came to me
there where I lay under the misty lustre of the stars. Nearer, nearer I
crept, nearer, nearer, until I lay flat as a shadow there, stark on the
shelf of rock. And, as though they had heard me, and as if to spite me,
their voices sank to whispers. Yet, I knew of a certainty that I had
neither been observed nor heard.

Hushed voices, whispers, undertones as soft as summer night winds--that
was all I heard, all I could make of it; and sniffed treason as I lay
there, making no question of the foulness of this midnight tryst.

It was an hour, I think, they sat there, two ghostly figures formless
against the woods; then one rose, and presently I saw it was the
Sagamore.

Noiselessly he retraced his steps across the silvery esplanade of rock;
and if my vague, flat outline were even visible to him I passed for a
shadow or a cleft beneath his notice--perhaps for a fallen branch or
heap of fern and withered leaf--I know not. But I let him go,
unstirring, my eyes riveted upon the other shape, seated there like
some grey wraith upon a giant's tombstone, under the high stars.

Beyond the ferns I saw the shadow of the Sagamore against the stream
pass toward our camp. Then I addressed myself to the business before
me; loosened knife and hatchet in their beaded sheaths, stirred, moved
forward inch by inch, closer, closer, then to the left to get behind,
nearer, ever nearer, till the time had come for me to act. I rose
silently to my moccasined feet, softly drew my heavy knife against
events, and lightly struck the ringing blade against my hatchet.

Instantly the grey shape bounded upright, and I heard a whispering cry
of terror stifled to a sob.

And then a stunning silence fell between us twain.

For I was staring upon the maid who had brought the Sagamore to us, and
she was looking back at me, still swaying on her feet and all a-tremble
from the dreadful fear that still possessed her.

"Lois?" I made out to whisper.

She placed one hand against her side, fighting for breath; and when she
gained it sighed deeply once or twice, with a low sound like the
whimpering wings of doves.

At her feet I saw a cup of water shining, a fragment of corn bread and
meat. Near these lay a bundle with straps on it.

"In God's name," I said in a ghostly voice, "what does this mean? Why
have you followed us these four days past? Are you mad to risk a
scalping party, or, on the open road, hazard the rough gallantries of
soldiers' bivouacs? If you had business in these parts, and desired to
come, why did you not tell me so and travel with us?"

"I did not wish to ask that privilege of----" She hesitated, then bent
her head. "----of any man. What harm have I caused you by following?"

I said, still amazed and wondering:

"I understand it all now. The Sagamore brings you food. Is that true?"

"Yes," she said sullenly.

"And you have kept in touch with us ever since we started?"

"With Mayaro."

"Why?"

"I have told you that I had no wish to travel in your company."

"But for protection----"

"Protection! I have heard that, too, from men. It is ever on men's
lips--that word meaning damnation. I thank you, Mr. Loskiel, I require
no protection."

"Do you distrust Lieutenant Boyd or me? Or what?"

"Men! And you twain are two of them."

"You fear such men as we are!" I demanded impatiently.

"I know nothing of you," she answered, "save that you are men."

"Do you mean Mr. Boyd--and his thoughtless gallantry----"

"I mean men! All men! And he differs in nothing from the rest that I
can see. Which is why I travel without your leave on my own affairs and
by myself--spite of the Iroquois." She added bitterly; "And it is known
to civilization that the Iroquois are to be trusted where the white man
is not!"

Her meaning was plain enough now. What this young girl had seen and
suffered and resented amid a world of men I did not know. Boyd's late
gallantry, idle, and even ignoble as it had appeared to me, had
poisoned her against me also, confirming apparently all she ever had
known of men.

If this young, lonely, ragged thing were what her attitude and words
made plain, she had long endured her beauty as a punishment. What her
business might be in lingering around barracks and soldiers' camps I
could not guess; but women who haunted such resorts seldom complained
of the rough gallantries offered. And if their charms faded, they
painted lip and cheek, and schooled the quivering mouth to smile again.

What her business might now be in following our little detail northward
I could not surmise. Here was no barracks wench! But wench or gypsy or
what not, it was impossible that I should leave her here alone. Even
the thought of it set one cold.

"Come into camp this night," I said.

"I will not."

"You must do so. I may not leave you here alone."

"I can care for myself."

"Yes--as you cared for yourself when I crept up behind you. And if I
had been a savage--then what?"

"A quick end," she said coolly.

"Or a wretched captivity--perhaps marriage to some villainous
Iroquois----"

"Yes, sir; but nothing worse than marriage!"

"Child!" I exclaimed. "Where have you lived to belie the pitiful youth
of you with such a worldly-worn and bitter tongue? I tell you all men
are not of that stripe! Do you not believe me?"

"Birds sing, sir."

"Will you come into camp?" I repeated hotly.

"And if I will not?"

"Then, by heaven, I'll carry you in my arms! Will you come?"

She laughed at me, dangerously calm, seated herself, picked up the
partly eaten food, and began to consume it with all the insolent
leisure in the world.

I stood watching her for a few moments, then sat down cross-legged
before her.

"Why do you doubt me, Lois?" I asked.

"Dear sir, I do not doubt you," she answered with faintest malice.

"I tell you I am not of that stripe!" I said angrily.

"Then you are not a man at all. I tell you I have talked with men as
good as you, and heard them protest as you do--yes, with all the gentle
condescension that you use, all of your confidence and masterful
advice. Sooner or later all have proved the same," she shrugged;
"----proved themselves men, in plainer words."

She sat eating thoughtfully, looking aloft now and then at the thick
splendor of the firmament.

Then, breaking a bit of corn bread, she said gravely:

"I do not mean that you have not been kind, as men mean kindness. I do
not even mean that I blame men. God made them different from us. And
had He made me one, doubtless I had been as all men are, taking the
road through life as gaily, sword on thigh and hat in hand to every
pretty baggage that a kindly fate made wayfarer with me. No, I have
never blamed a man; only the silly minx who listens."

After a short silence, I said: "Who, in the name of heaven, are you,
Lois?"

"Does that concern you?"

"I would have it concern me--if you wish."

"Dear sir," she said very coolly, "I wish nothing of the kind."

"You do not trust me."

"Why, yes, as I trust every man--except a red one."

"Yet, I tell you that all that animates me is a desire to render you a
comrade's service----"

"And I thank you, Mr. Loskiel, because, like other men, you mean it
generously and well. Yet, you are an officer in the corps d'elite; and
you would be ashamed to have the humblest bugler in your regiment see
you with such a one as I."

She broke another morsel from her bread:

"You dare not cross a camp-parade beside me. At least the plaything of
an officer should walk in silk, whatever clothes a soldier's trull.
Sir, do you suppose I do not know?"

She looked up at the stare, and then quietly at me.

"The open comradeship of any man with me but marks us both. Only his
taste is criticized, not his morals. But the world's judgment leaves me
nothing to cover me except the silk or rags I chance to wear. And if I
am brave and fine it would be said of me, 'The hussy's gown is brave
and fine!' And if I go in tatters, 'What slattern have we here,
flaunting her boldness in the very sun?' So a comradeship with any man
is all one to me. And I go my way, neither a burden nor a plaything, a
scandal only to myself, involving no man high or low save where their
advances wrong us both in the world's eyes--as did those of your
friend, yonder by a dead fire asleep."

"All men are not so fashioned. Can you not believe me?"

"You say so, sir."

"Yes; and I say that I am not."

"Birds sing."

"Lois, will you let me aid you?"

"In what? The Sagamore feeds me; and the Middle Fort is not so far."

"And at the Middle Fort how will you live?"

"As I have lived; wash for the soldiers; sew for them--contrive to find
a living as I journey."

"Whither?"

"It is my own affair."

"May I not aid?"

"You could not if you would; you would not if you could."

"Ask me, Lois."

"No." She shook her head. Then, slowly: "I do thank you for the wish,
Mr. Loskiel. But the Siwanois himself refuses what I ask. And you
would, also, did you know my wish."

"What is your wish?"

She shook her head: "It is useless to voice it--useless."

She gathered the scant fragments of her meal, wrapped them in a bit of
silver birch-bark, unrolled her bundle, and placed them there. Then she
drained the tin cup of its chilly water, and, still sitting there
cross-legged on the rock, tied the little cup to her girdle. It seemed
to me, there in the dusk, that she smiled very faintly; and if it was
so it was the first smile I had had of her when she said:

"I travel light, Mr. Loskiel. But otherwise there is nothing light
about me."

"Lois, I pray you, listen. As I am a man, I can not leave you here."

"For that reason, sir, you will presently take your leave."

"No, I shall remain if you will not come into camp with us."

She said impatiently:

"I lie safer here than you around your fire. You mean well; now take
your leave of me--with whatever flight of fancy," she added mockingly,
"that my present condition invests me with in the eyes of a very young
man."

The rudeness of the fling burnt my face, but I answered civilly:

"A scalping party may be anywhere in these woods. It is the season; and
neither Oneida Lake nor Fort Niagara itself are so distant that their
far-hurled hatchets may not strike us here."

"I will not go with you," said she, making of her bundle a pillow.
Then, very coolly, she extended her slim body and laid her head on the
bundle.

I made no answer, nor any movement for fully an hour. Then, very
stealthily, I leaned forward to see if she truly slept. And found her
eyes wide open.

"You waste time mounting sentry over me," she said in a low voice.
"Best employ your leisure in the sleep you need."

"I can not sleep."

"Nor I--if you remain here awake beside me."

She raised herself on her elbow, peering through the darkness toward
the stream.

"The Siwanois has been standing yonder by the stream watching us this
full hour past. Let him mount sentry if he wishes."

"You have a tree-cat's eyes," I said. "I see nothing."

Then I rose and unbuckled my belt. Hatchet and knife dangled from it. I
stooped and laid it beside her. Then, stepping backward a pace or two,
I unlaced my hunting shirt of doe-skin, drew it off, and, rolling it
into a soft pillow, lay down, cradling my cheek among the thrums.

I do not know how long I lay there before I fell asleep from very
weariness of the new and deep emotions, as strange to me as they were
unwelcome. The restlessness, the misgivings which, since I first had
seen this maid, had subtly invaded me, now, grown stronger, assailed me
with an apprehension I could neither put from me nor explain. Nor was
this vague fear for her alone; for, at moments, it seemed as though it
were for myself I feared--fearing myself.

So far in my brief life, I had borne myself cleanly and upright, though
the times were loose enough, God knows, and the master of Guy Park had
read me no lesson or set me no example above the morals and the customs
of his class and of the age.

It may have been pride--I know not what it was, that I could notice the
doings of Sir John and of young Walter Butler and remain aloof, even
indifferent. Yet, this was so. Never had a woman's beauty stirred me
otherwise than blamelessly, never had I entertained any sentiment
toward fashionable folly other than aversion and a kind of shamed
contempt.

Nor had I been blind at Guy Park and Butlersbury and Tribes Hill, nor
in Albany, either. I knew Clarissa Putnam; I also knew Susannah
Wormwood and her sister Elizabeth, and all that pretty company; and
many another pretty minx and laughing, light-minded lass in county
Tryon. And a few in Cambridge, too. So I was no niais, no naive country
fool, unless to remain aloof were folly. And I often wondered to myself
how this might really be, when Boyd rallied me and messmates laughed.

And now, as I lay there under the clustered stars, my head pillowed on
my deer-skin shirt, my mind fell a-groping for reason to bear me out in
my strained and strange perplexity.

Why, from the time I first had spoken to her, should thoughts of this
strange and ragged maid have so possessed me that each day my memory of
her returned, haunting me, puzzling me, plaguing my curiosity till
imagination awoke, spurring my revery to the very border of an unknown
land where rides Romance, in armour, vizor down.

Until this night I had not crossed that border, nor ever thought to, or
dreamed of doing it. No beggar-maiden-seeking king was I by nature, nor
ever felt for shabby dress and common folk aught but the mixture of
pity and aversion which breeds a kind of charity. And, I once supposed,
were the Queen of Sheba herself to pass me in a slattern's rags, only
her rags could I ever see, for all her beauty.

But how was it now with me that, from the very first, I had been first
conscious of this maid herself, then of her rags. How was it that I
felt no charity, nor pity of that sort, only a vague desire that she
should understand me better--know that I meant her kindness--God knows
what I wished of her, and why her grey eyes haunted me, and why I could
not seem to put her from my mind.

That now she fully possessed my mind I convinced myself was due to my
very natural curiosity concerning her; forgetting that a week ago I
should not have condescended to curiosity.

Who and what was she? She had been schooled; that was plain in voice
and manner. And, though she used me with scant courtesy, I was
convinced she had been schooled in manners, too, and was no stranger to
usages and customs which mark indelibly where birth and breeding do not
always.

Why was she here? Why alone? Where were her natural protectors then?
What would be her fate a-gypsying through a land blackened with war, or
haunting camps and forts, penniless, in rags--and her beauty ever a
flaming danger to herself, despite her tatters and because of them.

I slept at last; I do not know how long. The stars still glittered
overhead when I awoke, remembered, and suddenly sat upright.

She was gone. I might have known it. But over me there came a rush of
fear and anger and hurt pride; and died, leaving a strange, dull aching.

Over my arm I threw my rifle-frock, looked dully about to find my belt,
discovered it at my feet. As I buckled it, from the hatchet-sling
something fell; and I stooped to pick it up.

It was a wild-rose stem bearing a bud unclosed. And to a thorn a shred
of silver birch-bark clung impaled. On it was scratched with a knife's
keen point a message which I could not read until once more I crept in
to our fire, which Mount had lighted for our breakfast.

And there I read her message: "A rose for your ring, comrade. And be
not angry with me."

I read it again, then curled it to a tiny cylinder and placed it in my
pouch, glancing sideways at the reclining Mohican. Boyd began to murmur
and stretch in his blanket, then relaxed once more.

So I lay down, leaving Jack Mount a-cooking ashen cakes, and yawning.



CHAPTER V

THE GATHERING

Now, no sooner had we broken camp, covered our fire, packed, saddled,
and mounted, than all around us, as we advanced, the wilderness began
to wear an aspect very different to that brooding solitude which
hitherto had been familiar to us--our shelter and our menace also.

For we had proceeded on our deeply-trodden war trail no more than a
mile or two before we encountered the raw evidences of an army's
occupation. Everywhere spotted leads, game trails, and runways had been
hacked, trimmed, and widened into more open wood-walks; foot-paths
enlarged to permit the passage of mounted men; cattle-roads cleared,
levelled, made smoother for wagons and artillery; log bridges built
across the rapid streams that darkled westward, swamps and swales paved
with logs, and windfalls hewn in twain and the huge abattis dragged
wide apart or burnt to ashes where it lay. Yet, still the high debris
bristling from some fallen forest giant sprawling athwart the highway
often delayed us. Our details had not yet cleared out the road entirely.

We were, however, within a wolf-hound's easy run to Cherry Valley, Fort
Hunter, and the Mohawk--the outer edges of my own country. Northeast of
us lay Schenectady behind its fort; north of us lay my former home, Guy
Park, and near it old Fort Johnson and Johnson Hall. Farther still to
the northward stretched the Vale and silvery Sacandaga with its pretty
Fish House settlement now in ashes; and Summer House Point and Fonda's
Bush were but heaps of cinders, too, the brave Broadalbin yeomen
prisoners, their women and children fled to Johnstown, save old man
Stoner and his boys, and that Tory villain Charlie Cady who went off
with Sir John.

Truly I should know something of these hills and brooks and forests
that we now traversed, and of the silent, solitary roads that crept
into the wilderness, penetrating to distant, lonely farms or grist
mills where some hardy fellow had cleared the bush and built his cabin
on the very borders of that dark and fearsome empire which we were
gathering to enter and destroy.

Here it lay, close on our left flank--so close that its strange
gigantic shadow fell upon us, like a vast hand, stealthy and chill.

And it was odd, but on the edges of these trackless shades, here, even
with fresh evidences on every side that our own people lately passed
this way--yes, even when we began to meet or overtake men of our own
color--the stupendous desolation yielded nothing of its brooding
mystery and dumb magnificence.

Westward, the green monotony of trees stretched boundless as an ocean,
and as trackless and uncharted--gigantic forests in the depths of which
twilight had brooded since first the world was made.

Here, save for the puny, man-made trail--save for the tiny scars left
by his pygmy hacking at some high forest monument, all this magic
shadow-land still bore the imprint of our Lord's own fingers.

The stillness and the infinite majesty, the haunting fragrance clinging
to the craftsmanship of hands miraculous; all the sweet odour and
untainted beauty which enveloped it in the making, and which had
remained after creation's handiwork was done, seemed still to linger in
this dim solitude. And it was as though the twilight through the wooded
aisles was faintly tinctured still, where the sweet-scented garments of
the Lord had passed.

There was no underbrush, no clinging sprays or fairy brambles
intertwined under the solemn arches of the trees; only the immemorial
strata of dead leaves spread one above another in endless coverlets of
crumbling gold; only a green and knee-deep robe of moss clothing the
vast bases of the living columns.

And into this enchanted green and golden dusk no sunlight penetrated,
save along the thread-like roads, or where stark-naked rocks towered
skyward, or where, in profound and velvet depths, crystalline streams
and rivers widened between their Indian willow bottoms. And these were
always set with wild flowers, every bud and blossom gilded by the sun.

As we journeyed on, the first wayfarer we encountered after passing our
outer line of pickets was an express rider from General Sullivan's
staff, one James Cook, who told us that the right division of the army,
General James Clinton's New York brigade, which was ours, was still
slowly concentrating in the vicinity of Otsego Lake; that innumerable
and endless difficulties in obtaining forage and provisions had delayed
everything; that the main division, Sullivan's, was now arriving at
Easton and Wyoming; and that, furthermore, the enemy had become vastly
agitated over these ominous preparations of ours, but still believed,
from their very magnitude, that we were preparing for an advance into
Canada.

"Ha-ha!" said Boyd merrily. "So much the better, for if they continue
to believe that, they will keep their cursed scalping parties snug at
home."

"No, sir," said the express soberly. "Brant and his Mohawks are out
somewhere or other, and so is Walter Butler and his painted crew."

"In this same district?"

"No doubt of it, sir. Indians fired on our pickets last week. It will
go hard with the outlying farms and settlements. Small doubt, too, that
they will strike heavily and strive to draw this army from whatever
plan it meditated."

"Then," said Boyd with a careless laugh, "it is for us to strike more
heavily still and draw them with the very wind of our advance into a
common vortex of destruction with the Iroquois."

The express rode on, and Boyd, in excellent humour, continued talking
to me, saying that he knew our Commander-in-Chief, and that he was an
officer not to be lightly swayed or turned from the main purpose, but
would hew to the line, no matter what destruction raged and flamed
about him.

"No, Loskiel, they may murder and burn to right and left of us, and it
may wring his heart and ours to hear the agonized appeals for aid; but
if I judge our General, he will not be halted or drawn aside until the
monstrous, loathesome body of this foul empire lies chopped to bits,
writhing and dying in the flames of Catharines-town."

"He must truly be a man of iron," said I, "if we win through."

"We will win through, Loskiel," he said gaily, "--to Catharines-town or
paradise--to hell or heaven. And what a tale to tell our children--we
who survive!"

An odd expression came into his handsome face, and he said in a low and
dreamy voice:

"I think that almost every man will live to tell that story--yet, I can
never hear myself telling the tale in years to come."

On paths and new-made highways we began to encounter people and
cattle--now a long line of oxen laden with military stores or with
canoes and flatboats, and conducted by batt-men in smock and frock, now
a sweating company of military surveyors from headquarters, burdened
with compass, chain, and Jacob-staff, already running their lines into
the wilderness. Here trudged the frightened family of some settler,
making toward the forts; there a company of troops came gaily marching
out on some detail, or perhaps, with fixed bayonets, herded sheep and
cattle down some rutted road.

It seemed scarce possible that we were already within scouting range of
that never-to-be-forgotten region of Wyoming, where just one year ago
old John Butler with his Rangers, his hell-born Senecas, and Johnson's
Greens, had done their bloody business; where, in "The Shades of
Death," a hundred frightened women and little children had perished in
that ghastly darkness. Also, we were but a few miles from that scene of
terror where, through the wintry dawn at Cherry Valley, young Walter
Butler damned his soul for all eternity while men, women, and children,
old and young, died horribly amid the dripping knives and bayonets of
his painted fiends, or fell under the butchering hatchets of his
Senecas.

I could see that Boyd also was thinking of this ghastly business, as I
caught his sombre eye. He seemed to shudder, then:

"Patience," he muttered grimly, with a significant nod toward the
Siwanois, who strode silently between our horses. "We have our guide at
last. A Siwanois hates the Iroquois no more fiercely than do we
white-skins. Wait till he leads our van within rifle-range of
Catharines-town! And if Walter Butler be there, or that bloodless beast
Sir John, or Brant, or any of that hell-brood, and if we let them get
away, may God punish us with the prisoner's fire! Amen."

Never before had I heard him speak that way, or with such savage
feeling; and his manner of expression, and the uncanny words he used
concerning fire caused me to shudder, too--knowing that if he had ever
dreaded anything it was the stake, and the lingering death that lasted
till the very soul lay burnt to cinders before the tortured body died.
We exchanged no further conversation; many people passed and repassed
us; the woods opened somewhat; the jolly noise of axes resounded near
at hand among the trees.

Just ahead of us the road from Mattisses' Grist Mill and Stoney Kill
joined ours, where stood the Low Dutch Church. Above us lay the Middle
Fort, and the roads to Cherry Valley and Schenectady forked beyond it
by the Lutheran Church and the Lower Fort. We took the Cherry Valley
Road.

Here, through this partly cleared and planted valley of the Scoharie
Kill, between the river and the lake, was now gathering a great
concourse of troops and of people; and all the roads were lively with
their comings and goings. Every woodland rang with the racket of their
saws and axes; over the log bridges rumbled their loaded transport
wagons; road and trail were filled with their crowding cattle; the
wheels of Eckerson's and Becker's grist mills clattered and creaked
under the splash of icy, limpid waters, and everywhere men were
hammering and sawing and splitting, erecting soldiers' huts, huts for
settlers, sheds, stables, store-houses, and barracks to shelter this
motley congregation assembling here under the cannon of the Upper Fort,
the Lower, and the Middle.

As we rode along, many faces we passed were familiar to us; we
encountered officers from our own corps and from other regiments, with
whom we were acquainted, and who greeted us gaily or otherwise,
according to their temper and disposition. But everybody--officers,
troops, batt-men--looked curiously at our Siwanois Indian, who returned
the compliment not at all, but with stately stride and expressionless
visage moved straight ahead of him, as though he noticed nothing.

Twice since we had started at daybreak that morning, I had managed to
lag behind and question him concerning the maid who now shared
well-nigh every thought of mine--asking if he knew who she was, and
where she came from, and why she journeyed, and whither.

He answered--when he replied at all--that he had no knowledge of these
things. And I knew he lied, but did not know how I might make him speak.

Nor would he tell me how and when she had slipped away from me the
night before, or where she had likely gone, pretending that I had been
mistaken when I told him I had seen him watching us beside the
star-illumined stream.

"Mayaro slept," he said quite calmly. "The soldier, Mount, stood
fire-guard. Of what my brother Loskiel and this strange maiden did
under the Oneida Dancers and the Belt of Tamanund, Mayaro has no
knowledge."

Why should he lie? I did not know. And even were I to attempt to
confound his statement by an appeal to Mount, the rifleman must
corroborate him, because doubtless the wily Siwanois had not awakened
Mount to do his shift at sentry until the maid had vanished, leaving me
sleeping.

"Mayaro," I said, "I ask these things only because I pity her and wish
her well. It is for her safety I fear. Could you tell me where she may
have gone?"

"Fowls to the home-yard; the wild bird to the wood," he said gravely.
"Where do the rosy-throated pigeons go in winter? Does my brother
Loskiel know where?"

"Sagamore," I said earnestly, "this maid is no wild gypsy thing--no
rose-tinted forest pigeon. She has been bred at home, mannered and
schooled. She knows the cote, I tell you, and not the bush, where the
wild hawk hangs mewing in the sky. Why has she fled to the wilderness
alone?"

The Indian said cunningly:

"Why has my brother Loskiel abandoned roof and fire for a bed on the
forest moss?"

"A man must do battle for his own people, Sagamore."

"A white maid may do what pleases her, too, for aught I know," he said
indifferently.

"Why does it please her to roam abroad alone?"

"How should I know?"

"You do know!"

"Loskiel," he said, "if I know why, perhaps I know of other matters,
too. Ask me some day--before they send you into battle."

"What matters do you know of?"

"Ask me no more, Loskiel--until your conch-horns blowing in the forest
summon Morgan's men to battle. Then ask; and a Sagamore will answer--a
Siwanois Mohican--of the magic clan. Hiero!"

That ended it; he had spoken, and I was not fool enough to urge him to
another word.

And now, as I rode, my mind was still occupied with my growing concern
for the poor child I had come to pity so. Within me a furtive
tenderness was growing which sometimes shamed, sometimes angered me, or
left me self-contemptuous, restless, or dully astonished that my pride
permitted it. For in my heart such sentiments for such a maid as
this--tenderness, consciousness of some subtlety about her that
attracted me--should have no place. There was every reason why I should
pity her and offer aid; none why her grey eyes should hold my own; none
why the frail body of her in her rags should quicken any pulse of mine;
none why my nearness to her should stop my heart and breath.

Yet, all day long her face and slim shape haunted me--a certain sullen
sweetness of the lips, too--and I remembered the lithe grace of her
little hands as she broke the morsels of that midnight meal and lifted
the cup of chilly water in which I saw the star-light dancing. And
"Lord!" thought I, amazed at my own folly. "What madness lies in these
midsummer solitudes, that I should harbor such fantastic thoughts?"

Seldom, as yet, had dream of woman vexed me--and when I dreamed at all
it was but a tinselled figment that I saw--the echo, doubtless, of some
tale I read concerning raven hair and rosy lips, and of a vague but
wondrous fairness adorned most suitably in silks and jewels.

Dimly I was resigned toward some such goal, first being full of honours
won with sword and spur, laden with riches, too, and territories
stretching to those sunset hills piled up like sapphires north of
Frenchman's Creek.

Out of the castled glory of the dawn, doubtless, I thought, would step
one day my vision--to admire my fame and riches. And her I'd
marry--after our good King had knighted me.

Alas! For our good King had proved a bloody knave; my visionary lands
and riches all had vanished; instead of silk attire and sword, I wore a
rifle-shirt and skinning-knife; and out of the dawn-born glory of the
hills had stepped no silken damsel of romance to pause and worship
me--only a slender, ragged, grey-eyed waif who came indifferent as the
chilly wind in spring; who went as April shadows go, leaving no trace
behind.

We were riding by the High Dutch Church at last, and beyond, between
the roads to Duansboro and Cobus-Kill, we saw the tents and huts of the
New York brigade--or as much of it as had arrived--from which we
expected soon to be detached.

On a cleared hill beyond the Lower Fort, where the Albany Road runs
beside the Fox-Kill, we saw the headquarters flag of the 4th brigade,
and Major Nicholas Fish at his tent door, talking to McCrea, our
brigade surgeon.

Along the stream were the huts lately tenanted by Colonel Philip Van
Cortlandt's Second New York Regiment, which had gone off toward
Wyalusing. Schott's riflemen camped there now, and, as we rode by, the
soldiers stared at our Indian. Then we passed Gansevoort's Third
Regiment, under tents and making ready to march; and the log cantonment
of Colonel Lamb's artillery, where the cannoneers saluted, then, for no
reason, cheered us. Beyond were camped Alden's Regiment, I think, and
in the rear the Fourth and Fifth New York. A fort flew our own
regimental flag beside the pretty banner of our new nation.

"Oho!" said Boyd, with an oath. "I'm damned if I care for barracks when
a bed in the open is good enough. Why the devil have they moved us
indoors, do you think?"

I knew no more than did he, and liked our new quarters no better.

At the fort gate the sentry saluted, and we dismounted. Our junior
ensign, Benjamin Chambers, a smart young dandy, met us at the
guard-house, directed Boyd to Captain Simpson's log quarters, and then
led the Sagamore inside.

"Is this our Moses?" whispered the young ensign in my ear. "Egad,
Loskiel, he looks a treacherous devil, in his paint, to lead us to the
promised land."

"He is staunch, I think," said I. "But for heaven's sake, Benny, are we
to sleep in filthy barracks in July?"

"Not you, I hear," he said, laughing, "----though they're clean enough,
by the way! But the Major's orders were to build a hut for you and this
pretty and fragrant aborigine down by the river, and lodge him there
under your eye and nose and rifle. I admit very freely, Loskiel, no man
in Morgan's envies you your bed-fellow!" And he whisked his nose with a
scented handkerchief.

"They would envy me if they knew this Sagamore as I think I know him,"
said I, delighted that I was not to lie in barracks foul or clean.
"Where is this same humble hut, my fashionable friend?"

"I'll show you presently. I think that Jimmy Parr desires to see your
gentle savage," he added flippantly.

We seated ourselves on the gate-bench to await the Major's summons; the
dandified young ensign crossed the parade, mincing toward the quarters
of Major Parr. And I saw him take a pinch o' the scented snuff he
affected, and whisk his supercilious nose again with his laced hanker.
It seemed odd that a man like that should have saved our Captain
Simpson's life at Saratoga.

Riflemen, drovers, batt-men, frontier farmers, and some of the dirty
flotsam--trappers, forest-runners, and the like--were continually
moving about the parade, going and coming on petty, sordid business of
their own; and there were women there, too--pallid refugees from
distant farms, and now domiciled within the stockade; gaunt wives of
neighbouring settlers, bringing baskets of eggs or pails of milk to
sell; and here and there some painted camp-wanton lingering by the
gateway on mischief bent, or gossiping with some sister trull, their
bold eyes ever roving.

Presently our mincing ensign came to us again, saying that the Sagamore
and I were to report ourselves to the Major.

"Jimmy Parr is in good humour," he whispered. "Leave him in that
temper, for mercy's sake, Loskiel; he's been scarcely amiable since you
left to catch this six-foot savage for him."

He was a brave soldier, our Major, a splendid officer, and a kind and
Christian man, but in no wise inclined to overlook the delinquencies of
youthful ensigns; and he had rapped our knuckles soundly more than
once. But we all loved him in our small mess of five--Captain Simpson,
Lieutenant Boyd, and we two ensigns; and I think he knew it. Had we
disliked him, among ourselves we would have dubbed him James, intending
thereby disrespect; but to us he was Jimmy, flippantly, perhaps, but
with a sure affection under all our impudence. And I think, too, that
he knew we spoke of him among ourselves as Jimmy, and did not mind.

"Well, sir," he said sternly, as I entered with the Sagamore and gave
him the officer's salute, "I have a good report of you from Lieutenant
Boyd. I am gratified, Mr. Loskiel, that my confidence in your ability
and in your knowledge of the Indians was not misplaced. And you may
inform me now, sir, how it is proper for me to address this Indian
guide."

I glanced at Captain Simpson and Lieutenant Boyd, hesitating for a
moment. Then I said:

"Mayaro is a Sagamore, Major--a noble and an ensign of a unique
clan--the Siwanois, or magic clan, of the Mohican tribe of the great
Delaware nation. You may address him as an equal. Our General Schuyler
would so address him. The corps of officers in this regiment can scarce
do less, I think."

Major Parr nodded, quietly offered his hand to the silent Siwanois,
and, holding that warrior's sinewy fist in an iron grip that matched
it, named him to Captain Simpson. Then, looking at me, he said slowly,
in English:

"Mayaro is a great chief among his people--great in war, wise in
council and debate. The Sagamore of the Siwanois Mohicans is welcome in
this army and at the headquarters of this regiment. He is now one of
us; his pay is the pay of a captain in the rifles. By order of General
Clinton, commanding the Fourth, or New York, Brigade, I am requested to
say to the Mohican Sagamore that valuable presents will be offered him
for his services by General Sullivan, commander-in-chief of this army.
These will be given when the Mohican successfully conducts this army to
the Genessee Castle and to Catharines-town. I have spoken."

And to me he added bluntly:

"Translate, Mr. Loskiel."

"I think the Sagamore has understood, sir," said I. "Is it not so,
Sagamore?"

"Mayaro has understood," said the Indian quietly.

"Does the great Mohican Sagamore accept?"

"My elder brother," replied the Sagamore calmly, "Mayaro has pledged
his word to his younger brother Loskiel. A Mohican Sagamore never lies.
Loskiel is my friend. Why should I lie to him? A Sagamore speaks the
truth."

Which was true in a measure, at least as far as wanton or idle lying is
concerned, or cowardly lying either, But he had lied to me concerning
his knowledge of the strange maid, Lois, which kind of untruth all
Indians consider more civil than a direct refusal to answer a question.

Boyd stood by, smiling, as the Major very politely informed me of the
disposition he had made of the Sagamore and myself, recommended Mayaro
to my most civil attention, and added that, for the present, I was
relieved from routine duty with my battalion.

If the Siwanois perceived any undue precaution in the Major's manner of
lodging him, he did not betray by the quiver of an eyelash that he
comprehended he was practically under guard. He stalked forth and
across the parade beside me, head high, bearing dignified and tranquil.

At the outer gate our junior ensign languidly dusted a speck of snuff
from his wristband, and indicated the roof of our hut, which was
visible above the feathery river willows. So we proceeded thither, I
resigning my horse to the soldier, Mount, who had been holding him, and
who was now detailed to act as soldier-servant to me still.

"Jack," said I, "if there be fresh-baked bread in the regimental ovens
yonder, fetch a loaf, in God's name. I could gnaw black-birch and
reindeer moss, so famished am I--and the Sagamore, too, no doubt, could
rattle a flam with a wooden spoon."

But our chief baker was a Low-Dutch dog from Albany; and it was not
until I had bathed me in the Mohawk, burrowed into my soldier's chest,
and put on clean clothing that Jack Mount managed to steal the loaf he
had asked for in vain. And this, with a bit of salt beef and a bowl of
fresh milk, satisfied the Siwanois and myself.

I had been relieved of all routine duty, and was henceforth detailed to
foregather with, amuse, instruct and casually keep an eye on my
Mohican. In other words, my only duty, for the present, was to act as
mentor to the Sagamore, keep him pleasantly affected toward our cause,
see that he was not tampered with, and that he had his bellyful three
times a day. Also, I was to extract from him in advance any information
concerning the Iroquois country that he might have knowledge of.

It was a warm and pleasant afternoon along the river where the
batteaux, loaded with stores and soldiers, were passing up, and Oneida
canoes danced across the sparkling water toward Fort Plain.

Many of our soldiers were bathing, sporting like schoolboys in the
water; Lamb's artillerymen had their horses out to let them swim; many
of the troops were washing their shirts along the gravelly reaches, or,
seated cross-legged on the bank, were mending rents with needle and
thread. Half a dozen Oneida Indians sat gravely smoking and blinking at
the scene--no doubt belonging to our corps of runners, scouts, and
guides, for all were shaved, oiled, and painted for war, and, under
their loosened blankets, I could see their lean and supple bodies,
stark naked, except for clout and ankle moccasin.

I sat in the willow-shade before the door of our hut, cross-legged,
too, writing in my journal of what had occurred since last I set down
the details of the day. This finished, I pouched quill, ink-horn, and
journal, and sat a-thinking for a while of that strange maid, and what
mischance might come of her woodland roving all alone--with Indian
Butler out, and all that vile and painted, blue-eyed crew under
McDonald.

Sombre thoughts assailed me there on that sunny July afternoon; I
rested my elbow on my knee, forehead pressed against my palm,
pondering. And ever within my breast was I conscious of a faint, dull
aching--a steady and perceptible apprehension which kept me restless,
giving my mind no peace, my brooding thoughts no rest.

That this shabby, wandering girl had so gained me, spite of the
rudeness with which she used me, I could never seem to understand; for
she had done nothing to win even my pity, and she was but a ragged
gypsy thing, and had conducted with scant courtesy.

Why had I given her my ring? Was it only because I pitied her and
desired to offer her a gift she might sell when necessary? Why had I
used her as a comrade--who had been but the comrade of an hour? Why had
I been so loath to part with her whom I scarce had met? What was it in
her that had fixed my attention? What allure? What unusual quality?
What grace of mind or person?

A slender, grey-eyed gypsy-thing in rags! And I could no longer rid my
mind of her!

What possessed me? To what lesser nature in me was such a woman as this
appealing? I would have been ashamed to have any officer or man of my
corps see me abroad in company with her. I knew it well enough. I knew
that if in this girl anything was truly appealing to my unquiet heart I
should silence even the slightest threat of any response--discourage,
ignore, exterminate the last unruly trace of sentiment in her regard.

Yet I remained there motionless, thinking, thinking--her faded rosebud
lying in my hand, drooping but still fragrant.

Dismiss her from my thoughts I could not. The steady, relentless desire
to see her; the continual apprehension that some mischance might
overtake her, left me no peace of mind, so that the memory of her, not
yet a pleasure even, nagged, nagged, nagged, till every weary nerve in
me became unsteady.

I stretched out above the river bank, composing my body to rest--sleep
perhaps. But flies and sun kept me awake, even if I could have quieted
my mind.

So up again, and walked to the hut door, where within I beheld the
Sagamore gravely repainting himself with the terrific emblems of death.
He was seated cross-legged on the floor, my camp mirror before him--a
superb specimen of manhood, naked save for clout, beaded sporran, and a
pair of thigh moccasins, the most wonderful I had ever seen.

I admired his war-girdle and moccasins, speaking somewhat carelessly of
the beautiful shell-work designs as "wampum"--an Iroquois term.

"Seawan," he said coldly, correcting me and using the softer Siwanois
term. Then, with that true courtesy which ever seeks to ease a merited
rebuke, he spoke pleasantly concerning shell-beads, and how they were
made and from what, and how it was that the purple beads were the gold,
the white beads the silver, and the black beads the copper equivalents
in English coinage. And so we conducted very politely and agreeably
there in the hut, the while he painted himself like a ghastly death,
and brightened the scarlet clan-symbol tatooed on his breast by
touching its outlines with his brilliant paint. Also, he rebraided his
scalp-lock with great care, doubtless desiring that it should appear a
genteel trophy if taken from him, and be an honour to his conqueror and
himself.

These matters presently accomplished, he drew from their soft and
beaded sheaths hatchet and knife, and fell to shining them up as
industriously as a full-fed cat polishes her fur.

"Mayaro," said I, amused, "is a battle then near at hand that you make
so complete a preparation for it?"

A half-smile appeared for a moment on his lips:

"It is always well to be prepared for life or death, Loskiel, my
younger brother."

"Oho!" said I, smiling. "You understood the express rider when he said
that Indians had fired on our pickets a week ago!"

The stern and noble countenance of the Sagamore relaxed into the
sunniest of smiles.

"My little brother is very wise. He has discovered that the Siwanois
have ears like white men."

"Aye--but, Sagamore, I was not at all certain that you understood in
English more than 'yes' and 'no.'"

"Is it because," he inquired with a merry glance at me, "my brother has
only heard as yet the answer 'no' from Mayaro?"

I bit my lip, reddened, and then laughed at the slyly taunting
reference to my lack of all success in questioning him concerning the
little maiden, Lois.

At the same time, I realized on what a friendly footing I already stood
with this Mohican. Few white men ever see an Iroquois or a Delaware
laugh; few ever witness any relaxation in them or see their coldly
dignified features alter, except in scorn, suspicion, pride, and anger.
Only in time of peace and amid their own intimates or families do our
Eastern forest Indians put off the expressionless and dignified mask
they wear, and become what no white man believes them capable of
becoming--human, tender, affectionate, gay, witty, talkative, as the
moment suits.

At Guy Park, even, I had never seen an Iroquois relax in dignity and
hauteur, though, of course, it was also true that Guy Johnson was never
a man to inspire personal confidence or any intimacy. Nor was Walter
Butler either; and Brant and his Mohawks detested and despised him.

But I had been told that Indians--I mean the forest Indians, not the
vile and filthy nomad butchers of the prairies--were like ourselves in
our own families; and that, naturally, they were a kindly,
warm-hearted, gay, and affectionate people, fond of their wives and
children, and loyal to their friends.

Now, I could not but notice how, from the beginning, this Siwanois had
conducted, and how, when first we met, his eye and hand met mine. And
ever since, also--even when I was watching him so closely--in my heart
I really found it well-nigh impossible to doubt him.

He spoke always to me in a manner very different to that of any Indian
I had ever known. And now it seemed to me that from the very first I
had vaguely realized a sense of unwonted comradeship with this Siwanois.

At all events, it was plain enough now that, for some reason unknown to
me, this Mohican not only liked me, but so far trusted me--entertained,
in fact, so unusual a confidence in me--that he even permitted himself
to relax and speak to me playfully, and with the light familiarity of
an elder brother.

"Sagamore," I said, "my heart is very anxious for the safety of this
little forest-running maid. If I could find her, speak to her again, I
think I might aid her."

Mayaro's features became smooth and blank.

"What maiden is this my younger brother fears for?" he asked mildly.

"Her name is Lois. You know well whom I mean."

"Hai!" he exclaimed, laughing softly. "Is it still the rosy-throated
pigeon of the forest for whom my little brother Loskiel is spreading
nets?"

My face reddened again, but I said, smilingly:

"If Mayaro laughs at what I say, all must be well with her. My elder
brother's heart is charitable to the homeless."

"And to children, also," he said very quietly. And added, with a gleam
of humour, "All children, O Loskiel, my littlest brother! Is not my
heart open to you?"

"And mine to you, Mayaro, my elder brother."

"Yet, you watched me at the fire, every night," he said, with keenest
delight sparkling in his dark eyes.

"And yet I tracked and caught you after all!" I said, smiling through
my slight chagrin.

"Is my little brother very sure I did not know he followed me?" he
asked, amused.

"Did you know, Mayaro?"

The Siwanois made a movement of slight, but good-humoured, disdain:

"Can my brother who has no wings track and follow the October swallow?"

"Then you were willing that I should see the person to whom you brought
food under the midnight stars?"

"My brother has spoken."

"Why were you willing that I should see?"

"Where there are wild pigeons there are hawks, Loskiel. But perhaps the
rosy throat could not understand the language of a Siwanois."

"You warned her not to rove alone?"

He inclined his head quietly.

"She refused to heed you! Is that true? She left Westchester in spite
of your disapproval?"

"Loskiel does not lie."

"She must be mad!" I said, with some heat. "Had she not managed to keep
our camp in view, what had become of her now, Sagamore?" I added,
reluctantly admitting by implication yet another defeat for me.

"Of course I know that you must have kept in communication with
her--though how you did so I do not know."

The Siwanois smiled slyly.

"Who is she? What is she, Mayaro? Is she, after all, but a camp-gypsy
of the better class? I can not believe it--yet--she roves the world in
tatters, haunting barracks and camps. Can you not tell me something
concerning her?"

The Indian made no reply.

"Has she made you promise not to?"

He did not answer, but I saw very plainly that this was so.

Mystified, perplexed, and more deeply troubled than I cared to admit to
myself, I rose from the door-sill, buckled on belt, knife, and hatchet,
and stood looking out over the river in silence for a while.

The Siwanois said pleasantly, yet with a hidden hint of malice:

"If my brother desires to walk abroad in the pleasant weather, Mayaro
will not run away. Say so to Major Parr."

I blushed furiously at the mocking revelation that he had noted and
understood the precautions of Major Parr.

"Mayaro," I said, "I trust you. See! You are confided to me, I am
responsible for you. If you leave I shall be disgraced. But--Siwanois
are free people! The Sagamore is my elder brother who will not blacken
my face or cast contempt upon my uniform. See! I trust my brother
Mayaro, I go."

The Sagamore looked me square in the eye with a face which was utterly
blank and expressionless. Then he gathered his legs under him, sprang
noiselessly to his feet, laid his right hand on the hilt of my knife,
and his left one on his own, drew both bright blades with a
simultaneous and graceful movement, and drove his knife into my sheath,
mine into his own.

My heart stood still; I had never expected even to witness such an
act--never dared believe that I should participate in it.

The Siwanois drew my knife from his sheath, touched the skin of his
wrist with the keen edge. I followed his example; on our wrists two
bright spots of blood beaded the skin.

Then the Sagamore filled a tin cup with clean water and extended his
wrist. A single drop of blood fell into it. I did the same.

Then in silence still, he lifted the cup to his lips, tasted it, and
passed it to me. I wet my lips, offered it to him again. And very
solemnly he sprinkled the scarcely tinted contents over the grass at
the door-sill.

So was accomplished between this Mohican and myself the rite of blood
brotherhood--an alliance of implicit trust and mutual confidence which
only death could end.



CHAPTER VI

THE SPRING WAIONTHA

It happened the following afternoon that, having written in my journal,
and dressed me in my best, I left the Mohican in the hut a-painting and
shining up his weapons, and walked abroad to watch the remaining troops
and the artillery start for Otsego Lake.

A foot regiment--Colonel Gansevoort's--had struck tents and marched
with its drums and colours early that morning, carrying also the
regimental wagons and batteaux. However, I had been told that this
veteran regiment was not to go with the army into the Iroquois country,
but was to remain as a protection to Tryon County. But now Colonel
Lamb's remaining section of artillery was to march to the lake; and
whether this indicated that our army at last was fairly in motion,
nobody knew. Yet, it seemed scarcely likely, because Lieutenant Boyd
had been ordered out with a scout of twenty men toward the West branch
of the Delaware, and he told me that he expected to be absent for
several days. Besides, it was no secret that arms had not yet been
issued and distributed to all the recruits in the foot regiments; that
Schott's riflemen had not yet drawn their equipment, and that as yet we
had not collected half the provisions required for an extensive
campaign, although nearly every day the batteaux came up the river with
stores from Schenectady and posts below.

Strolling up from the river that afternoon, very fine in my best, and,
I confess, content with myself except for the lack of hair powder,
queue, and ribbon, which ever disconcerted me, I saw already the two
guns of the battalion of artillery moving out of their cantonment, the
limbers, chests, and the forge well horsed and bright with polish and
paint, the men somewhat patched and ragged, but with queues smartly
tied and heads well floured.

Had our cannoneers been properly and newly uniformed, it had been a
fine and stirring sight, with the artillery bugle-horn sounding the
march, and the camp trumpets answering, and Colonel Lamb riding ahead
with his mounted officers, very fine and nobly horsed, the flag flying
smartly and most beautiful against the foliage of the terraced woods.

A motley assembly had gathered to see them march out; our General
Clinton and his staff, in the blue and buff of the New York Line, had
come over, and all the officers and soldiers off duty, too, as well as
the people of the vicinity, and a horde of workmen, batteaux-men, and
forest runners, including a dozen Oneida Indians of the guides.

Poor Alden's 6th Massachusetts foot regiment, which was just leaving
for the lake on its usual road-mending detail, stood in spiritless
silence to see the artillery pass; their Major, Whiting, as well as the
sullen rank and file, seeming still to feel the disgrace of Cherry
Valley, where their former colonel lost his silly life, and Major
Stacia was taken, and still remained a prisoner.

As for us of Morgan's, we were very sorry for the mortified New
Englanders, yet not at all forgetful of their carping and insolent
attitude toward the ragged New York Line--where at least the majority
of our officers were gentlemen and where proper and military regard for
rank was most decently maintained. Gad! To hear your New Englander
talk, a man might think that this same war was being maintained and
fought by New England alone. And, damn them, they got Schuyler laid
aside after all. But the New York Line went about its grim and patient
business, unheeding their New England arrogance as long as His
Excellency understood the truth concerning the wretched situation. And
I for one marvelled that the sniffling 'prentices of Massachusetts and
the Connecticut barbers and tin-peddlers had the effrontery to boast of
New England valour while that arch-malcontent, Ethan Allen, and his
petty and selfish yokels of Vermont, openly defied New York and
Congress, nor scrupled to conduct most treasonably, to their
everlasting and black disgrace. No Ticonderoga, no Bennington, could
wipe out that outrageous treachery, or efface the villainy of what was
done to Schuyler--the man who knew no fear, the officer without
reproach.

The artillery jolted and clinked away down the rutty road which their
wheels and horses cut into new and deeper furrows; a veil of violet
dust hung in their wake, through which harness, cannon, and drawn
cutlass glittered and glimmered like sunlit ripples through a mist.

Then came our riflemen marching as escort, smart and gay in their brown
forest-dress, the green thrums rippling and flying from sleeve and
leggin' and open double-cape, and the raccoon-tails all a-bobbing
behind their caps like the tails that April lambkins wriggle.

Always the sight of my own corps thrilled me. I thanked God for those
big, sun-masked men with their long, silent, gliding stride, their
shirts open to their mighty chests, and the heavy rifles all swinging
in glancing unison on their caped shoulders, carried as lightly as so
many reeds.

I stood at salute as our Major and Captain Simpson strode by; grinned
ever so little as Boyd came swinging along, his naked cutlass drawn,
scarlet fringes tossing on his painted cape. He whispered as he passed:

"Murphy and Elerson took two scalps last night. They're drying on hoops
in the barracks. Look and see if they be truly Seneca."

At that I was both startled and disgusted; but it was well-nigh
impossible to prevent certain of our riflemen who had once been
wood-runners from treating the Iroquois as the Iroquois treated them.
And they continued to scalp them as naturally as they once had clipped
pads and ears from panther and wolf. Mount and the rifleman Renard no
longer did it, and I had thought to have persuaded Murphy and Elerson
to conduct more becoming. But it seemed that I had failed.

My mind was filled with resentful thoughts as I entered the Lower Fort
and started across the swarming parade toward the barracks, meaning to
have a look at these ghastly trophies and judge to what nation they
belonged.

People of every walk in life were passing and repassing where our
regimental wagons were being loaded, and I threaded my way with same
difficulty amid a busy throng, noticing nobody, unless it were one of
my own corps who saluted my cockade.

Halfway across, a young woman bearing a gunny-sack full of linen
garments and blankets to be washed blocked my passage, and being a
woman I naturally gave her right of way. And the next instant saw it
was Lois.

She had averted her head, and was now hurriedly passing on, and I
turned sharply on my heel and came up beside her.

"Lois," I managed to say with a voice that was fairly steady, "have you
forgotten me?"

Her head remained resolutely averted; and as I continued beside her,
she said, without looking at me:

"Do you not understand that you are disgracing yourself by speaking to
me on the parade? Pass on, sir, for your own sake."

"I desire to speak to you," I said obstinately.

"No. Pass on before any officers see you!"

My face, I know, was fiery red, and for an instant all the ridicule,
the taunts, the shame which I might well be storing up for myself,
burned there for anyone to see. But stronger than fear of ridicule rose
a desperate determination not to lose this maid again, and whether what
I was doing was worthy, and for her sake, or unworthy, and for my own,
I did not understand or even question.

"I wish to talk with you," I said doggedly. "I shall not let you go
this time."

"Are you mad to so conduct under the eyes of the whole fort?" she
whispered. "Go your way!"

"I'd be madder yet to let you get away again. My way is yours."

She halted, cheeks blazing, and looked at me for the first time.

"I ask you not to persist," she said, "----for my sake if not for
yours. What an officer or a soldier says to a girl in this fort makes
her a trull in the eyes of any man who sees. Do you so desire to brand
me, Mr. Loskiel?"

"No," I said between my teeth, and turned to leave her. And, I think,
it was something in my face that made her whisper low and hurriedly:

"Waiontha Spring! If you needs must see me for a moment more, come
there!"

I scarcely heard, so tight emotion had me by the throat, and walked on
blindly, all a-quiver. Yet, in my ears the strange wards sounded:
"Waiontha--Waiontha--come to the Spring Waiontha--if you needs must see
me."

On a settle before the green-log barrack, some of Schott's riflemen
were idling, and now stood, seeing an officer.

"Boys," I said, "where is this latest foolery of Tim Murphy hung to
dry?"

They seemed ashamed, but told me, As I moved on, I said carelessly,
partly turning:

"Where is the Spring Waiontha?"

"On the Lake Trail, sir--first branch of the Stoney-Kill."

"Is there a house there?"

"Rannock's."

"A path to find it?"

"A sheep walk only. Rannock is dead. The destructives murdered him when
they burned Cherry Valley. Mrs. Rannock brings us eggs and milk."

I walked on and entered the smoky barracks, and the first thing I saw
was a pair o' scalps, stretched and hooped, a-dangling from the rafters.

Doubtless, Murphy and Elerson meant to sew them to their bullet pouches
when cured and painted. And there was one reckless fellow in my company
who wore a baldrick fringed with Shawanese scalps; but as these same
Shawanese had murdered his father, mother, grandmother, and three
little brothers, no officer rebuked him, although it was a horrid and
savage trophy; but if the wearing of it were any comfort to him I do
not know.

I looked closely at the ornamented scalps, despite my repugnance. They
were not Mohawk, not Cayuga, nor Onondaga. Nor did they seem to me like
Seneca, being not oiled and braided clean, but tagged at the root with
the claws of a tree-lynx. They were not Oneida, not Lenape. Therefore,
they must be Seneca scalps. Which meant that Walter Butler and that
spawn of satan, Sayanquarata, were now prowling around our outer
pickets. For the ferocious Senecas and their tireless war-chief,
Sayanquarata, were Butler's people; the Mohawks and Joseph Brant
holding the younger Butler in deep contempt for the cruelty he did
practice at Cherry Valley.

Suddenly a shaft of fear struck me like a swift arrow in the breast, as
I thought of Butler and of his Mountain Snakes, and of that mad child,
Lois, a-gypsying whither her silly inclination led her; and Death in
the forest-dusk watching her with a hundred staring eyes.

"This time," I muttered, "I shall put a stop to all her
forest-running!" And, at the thought, I turned and passed swiftly
through the doorway, across the thronged parade, out of the gate.

Hastening my pace along the Lake Road, meeting many people at first,
then fewer, then nobody at all, I presently crossed the first little
brook that feeds the Stoney-Kill, leaping from stone to stone. Here in
the woods lay the Oneida camp. I saw some squaws there sewing.

The sheep walk branched a dozen yards beyond, running northward through
what had been a stump field. It was already grown head-high in weeds
and wild flowers, and saplings of bird-cherry, which spring up wherever
fire has passed. A few high corn-stalks showed what had been planted
there a year ago.

After a few moments following the path, I found that the field ended
abruptly, and the solid walls of the forest rose once more like green
cliffs towering on every side. And at their base I saw a house of logs,
enclosed within a low brush fence, and before it a field of brush.

Shirts and soldiers' blankets lay here and there a-drying on the
bushes; a wretched garden-patch showed intensely green between a waste
of fire-blackened stumps. I saw chickens in a coop, and a cow switching
forest flies. A cloud of butterflies flew up as I approached, where the
running water of a tiny rill made muddy hollows on the path. This
doubtless must be the outlet to Waiontha Spring, for there to the left
a green lane had been bruised through the elder thicket; and this I
followed, shouldering my way amid fragrant blossom and sun-hot foliage,
then through an alder run, and suddenly out across a gravelly reach
where water glimmered in a still and golden pool.

Lois knelt there on the bank. The soldiers' linen I had seen in her
arms was piled beside her. In a willow basket, newly woven, I saw a
heap of clean, wet shirts and tow-cloth rifle-frocks.

She heard me behind her--I took care that she should--but she made no
sign that she had heard or knew that I was there. Even when I spoke she
continued busy with her suds and shirts; and I walked around the
gravelly basin and seated myself near her, cross-legged on the sand,
both hands clasping my knees.

"Well?" she asked, still scrubbing, and her hair was fallen in curls
about her brow--hair thicker and brighter, though scarce longer, than
my own. But Lord! The wild-rose beauty that flushed her cheeks as she
laboured there! And when she at last looked up at me her eyes seemed
like two grey stars, full of reflections from the golden pool.

"I have come," said I, "to speak most seriously."

"What is it you wish?"

"A comrade's privilege."

"And what may that be, sir?"

"The right to be heard; the right to be answered--and a comrade's
privilege to offer aid."

"I need no aid."

"None living can truthfully say that," said I pleasantly.

"Oh! Do you then require charity from this pleasant world we live in?"

"I did not offer charity to you."

"You spoke of aid," she said coldly.

"Lois--is there in our brief companionship no memory that may warrant
my speaking as honestly as I speak to you?"

"I know of none, Do you?"

I had been looking at her chilled pink fingers. My ring was gone.

"A ring for a rose is my only warrant," I said.

She continued to soap the linen and to scrub in silence. After she had
finished the garment and wrung it dry, she straightened her supple
figure where she was kneeling, and, turning toward me, searched in her
bosom with one little, wet hand, drawing from it a faded ribbon on
which my ring hung.

"Do you desire to have it of me again?" she asked, without any
expression on her sun-freckled face.

"What? The ring?"

"Aye! Desire it!" I repeated, turning red. "No more than you desire the
withered bud you left beside me while I slept."

"What bud, sir?"

"Did you not leave me a rose-bud?"

"I?"

"And a bit of silver birch-bark scratched with a knife point?"

"Now that I think of it, perhaps I may have done so--or some such
thing--scarce knowing what I was about--and being sleepy. What was it
that I wrote? I can not now remember--being so sleepy when I did it."

"And that is all you thought about it, Lois?"

"How can one think when half asleep''

"Here is your rose," I said angrily. "I will take my ring again."

She opened her grey eyes at that.

"Lord!" she murmured in an innocent and leisurely surprise. "You have
it still, my rose? Are roses scarce where you inhabit, sir? For if you
find the flower so rare and curious I would not rob you of it--no!"
And, bending, soaked and soaped another shirt.

"Why do you mock me, Lois?"

"I! Mock you! La! Sir, you surely jest."

"You do so! You have done so ever since we met. I ask you why?" I
repeated, curbing my temper.

"Lord!" she murmured, shaking her head. "The young man is surely going
stark! A girl in my condition--such a girl as I mock at an officer and
a gentleman? No, it is beyond all bounds; and this young man is
suffering from the sun."

"Were it not," said I angrily, "that common humanity brought me here
and bids me remain for the moment, I would not endure this."

"Heaven save us all!" she sighed. "How very young is this young man who
comes complaining here that he is mocked--when all I ventured was to
marvel that he had found a wild rose-bud so rare and precious!"

I said to myself: "Damn! Damn!" in fierce vexation, yet knew not how to
take her nor how to save my dignity. And she, with head averted, was
laughing silently; I could see that, too; and never in my life had I
been so flouted to my face.

"Listen to me!" I broke out bluntly. "I know not who or what you are,
why you are here, whither you are bound. But this I do know, that
beyond our pickets there is peril in these woods, and it is madness for
man or maid to go alone as you do."

The laughter had died out in her face. After a moment it became grave.

"Was it to tell me this that you spoke to me in the fort, Mr. Loskiel?"
she asked.

"Yes, Two days ago our pickets were fired on by Indians. Last night two
riflemen of our corps took as many Seneca scalps. Do you suppose that
when I heard of these affairs I did not think of you--remembering what
was done but yesterday at Cherry Valley?"

"Did you--remember--me?"

"Good God, yes!" I exclaimed, my nerves on edge again at the mere
memory of her rashness. "I came here as a comrade--wishing to be of
service, and--you have used me----"

"Vilely," she said, looking serenely at me.

"I did not say that, Lois----"

"I say it, Mr. Loskiel. And yet--I told you where to find me. That is
much for me to tell to any man. Let that count a little to my damaged
credit with you.... And--I still wear the ring you gave.... And left a
rose for you, Let these things count a little in my favour. For you can
scarcely guess how much of courage it had cost me." She knelt there,
her bared arms hanging by her side, the sun bright on her curls,
staring at me out of those strange, grey eyes.

"Since I have been alone," she said in a low voice, "no man--unless by
a miracle it be you--has offered me a service or a kindness except that
he awaited his reward. Soon or late their various songs became the same
familiar air. It is the only song I've heard from men--with endless
variations, truly, often and cunningly disguised--yet ever the same and
sorry theme.... Men are what God made them; God has seemed to fashion
me to their liking--I scarce know how--seeing I walk in rags, unkempt,
and stained with wind and rain, and leaf and earth and sun."

She made a childish gesture, sweeping the curls aside with both her
hands:

"I sheared my hair! Look at me, sir--a wild thing in a ragged shift and
tattered gown--all burnt and roughened with the sun and wind--not even
clean to look on--yet that I am!--and with no friend to speak to save
an Indian.... I ask you, sir, what it is in me--and what lack of pride
must lie in men that I can not trust myself to the company of one among
them--not one! Be he officer, or common soldier--all are the same."

She dropped her head, and, thoughtfully, her hands again crept up and
wandered over her cheeks and hair, the while her grey eyes, fixed and
remote, seemed lost in speculation. Then she looked up again:

"Why should I think to find you different?" she asked, "Is any man
different from his fellows, humble or great? Is it not man himself, not
only men, that I must face as I have faced you--with silence, or with
sullen speech, or with a hardness far beyond my years, and a gaiety
that means nothing more kind than insolence?"

Again her head fell on her breast, and her hands linked themselves on
her knees as she knelt there in silence.

"Lois," I said, trying to think clearly, "I do not know that other men
and I are different. Once I believed so. But--lately--I do not know.
Yet, I know this: selfish or otherwise, I can not endure the thought of
you in peril."

She looked at me very gravely; then dropped her head once more.

"I don't know," I said desperately, "I wish to be honest--tell you no
lie--tell none to myself. I--your beauty--has touched me--or whatever
it is about you that attracts. And, whatever gown you go in, I scarcely
see it--somehow--finding you so--so strangely--lovely--in speech
also--and in--every way.... And now that I have not lied to you--or to
myself--in spite of what I have said, let me be useful to you. For I
can be; and perhaps these other sentiments will pass away----"

She looked up so suddenly that I ceased speaking, fearful of a rebuff;
but saw only the grave, grey eyes looking straight into mine, and a
sudden, deeper colour waning from her cheeks.

"Whatever I am," said I, "I can be what I will. Else I were no man. If
your--beauty--has moved me, that need not concern you--and surely not
alarm you. A woman's beauty is her own affair. Men take their chance
with it--as I take mine with yours--that it do me no deep damage. And
if it do, or do not, our friendship is still another matter; for it
means that I wish you well, desire to aid you, ease your burdens, make
you secure and safe, vary your solitude with a friendly word--I mean,
Lois, to be to you a real comrade, if you will. Will you?"

After a moment she said:

"What was it that you said about my--beauty?"

"I take my chances that it do me no deep damage."

"Oh! Am I to take my chance, too?"

"What chance?"

"That--your kindness do me--no damage?"

"What senseless talk is this you utter?"

She shook her head slowly, then:

"What a strange boy! I do not fear you."

"Fear me?" I repeated, flushing hotly. "What is there to fear? I am
neither yokel nor beast."

"They say a gentleman should be more dreaded."

I stared at her, then laughed:

"Ask yourself how far you need have dread of me--when, if you desire
it, you can leave me dumb, dismayed, lip-bound by your mocking
tongue--which God knows well I fear."

"Is my tongue so bitter then? I did not know it."

"I know it," said I with angry emphasis. "And I tell you very freely
that----"

She stole a curious glance at me. Something halted me--an expression I
had never yet seen there in her face, twitching at her lips--hovering
on them now--parting them in a smile so sweet and winning that,
silenced by the gracious transformation, unexpected, I caught my
breath, astonished.

"What is your given name?" she asked, still dimpling at me, and her
eyes now but two blue wells of light.

"Euan," I said, foolish as a flattered schoolboy, and as awkward.

"Euan," she said, still smiling at me, "I think that I could be your
friend--if you do truly wish it. What is it you desire of me? Ask me
once more, and make it very clear and plain."

"Only your confidence; that is all I ask."

"Oh! Is that all you ask of me?" she mimicked mockingly; but so sweet
her smile, and soft her voice, that I did not mind her words.

"Remember," said I, "that I am older than you. You are to tell me all
that troubles you."

"When?"

"Now."

"No. I have my washing to complete, And you must go. Besides, I have
mending, darning, and my knitting yet to do. It all means bed and bait
to me."

"Will you not tell me why you are alone here, Lois?"

"Tell you what? Tell you why I loiter by our soldiers' camps like any
painted drab? I will tell you this much; I need no longer play that
shameless role."

"You need not use those words in the same breath when speaking of
yourself," I answered hotly.

"Then--you do not credit ill of me?" she asked, a bright but somewhat
fixed and painful smile on her red lips.

"No!" said I bluntly. "Nor did I ever."

"And yet I look the part, and seem to play it, too. And still you
believe me honest?"

"I know you are."

"Then why should I be here alone--if I am honest, Euan?"

"I do not know; tell me."

"But--are you quite certain that you do not ask because you doubt me?"

I said impatiently: "I ask, knowing already you are good above
reproach. I ask so I may understand how best to aid you."

A lovely colour stole into her cheeks.

"You are kind, Euan. And it is true--though--" and she shrugged her
shoulders, "what other man would credit it?" She lifted her head a
little and looked at me with clear, proud eyes:

"Well, let them say what they may in fort and barracks twixt this
frontier and Philadelphia. The truth remains that I have been no man's
mistress and am no trull. Euan, I have starved that I might remain
exactly what I am at this moment. I swear to you that I stand here
unsullied and unstained under this untainted sky which the same God
made who fashioned me. I have known shame and grief and terror; I have
lain cold and ill and sleepless; I have wandered roofless, hunted,
threatened, mocked, beset by men and vice. Soldiers have used me
roughly--you yourself saw, there at the Poundridge barracks! And only
you among all men saw truly. Why should I not give to you my
friendship, unashamed?"

"Give it," I said, more deeply moved than ever I had been.

"I do! I do! Rightly or wrongly, now, at last, and in the end, I give
my honest heart and friendship to a man!" And with a quick and winning
gesture she offered me her hand; and I took it firmly in my clasp, and
fell a-trembling so I could not find a word to utter.

"Come to me to-night, Euan," she said. "I lodge yonder. There is a poor
widow there--a Mrs. Rannock--who took me in. They killed her husband in
November. I am striving to repay her for the food and shelter she
affords me. I have been given mending and washing at the fort. You see
I am no leech to fasten on a body and nourish me for nothing. So I do
what I am able. Will you come to me this night?"

"Yes." But I could not yet speak steadily.

"Come then; I--I will tell you something of my miserable condition--if
you desire to know.... Truly I think, speaking to no one, this long and
unhappy silence has eaten and corroded part of me within--so ill am I
at moments with the pain and shame I've borne so long--so long, Euan!
Ah--you do not--know.... And it may be that when you do come to-night I
have repented of my purposes--locked up my wounded heart again. But I
shall try to tell you--something. For I need somebody--need kindly
council very sorely, Euan. And even the Sagamore now fails me--on the
threshold----"

"What?"

"He means it for the best; he fears for me. I will tell you how it is
with me when you come to-night. I truly desire to tell you--I--I need
to tell you. Will you come to me?"

"On my honour, Lois."

"Then--if you please, will you leave me now? I must do my washing and
mending--and----" she smiled, "if you only knew how desperately I need
what money I may earn. My garments, Euan, are like to fall from me if
these green cockspur thorns give way."

"But, Lois," I said, "I have brought you money!" And I fished from any
hunting shirt a great, thick packet of those poor paper dollars, now in
such contempt that scarce five hundred of them counted for a dozen
good, hard shillings.

"What are you doing?" she said, so coldly that I ceased counting the
little squares of currency and looked up at her surprised.

"I am sharing my pay with you," said I. "I have no silver--only these."

"I can not take--money!"

"What?"

"Did you suppose I could?"

"Comrades have a common purse; Why not?"

For a few moments her face wore the same strange expression, then, of a
sudden her eyes filled and closed convulsively, and she turned her
head, motioning me to leave her.

"Will you not share with me?" I asked, very hot about the ears.

She shook her head and I saw her shoulders heave once or twice.

"Lois," I said gravely, "did you fear I hoped for some--reward?
Child--little comrade--only the happiness of aiding you is what I ask
for. Share with me then, I beg you. I am not poor."

"No--I can not, Euan," she answered in a stifled voice. "Is there any
shame to you in sharing with me?"

"Wait," she whispered. "Wait till you hear. And--thank you--for--your
kindness."

"I will be here to-night," I said. "And when we know each other better
we will share a common purse."

She did not answer me.

I lingered for a moment, desiring to reassure and comfort her, but knew
not how. And so, as she did not turn, I finally went away through the
sunlit willows, leaving her kneeling there alone beside the golden
pool, her bright head drooping and her hands still covering her face.

As I walked back slowly to the fort, I pondered how to be of aid to
her; and knew not how. Had there been the ladies of any officers with
the army now, I should have laid her desperate case before them; but
all had gone back to Albany before our scout of three returned from
Westchester.

Here on the river, within our lines, while the army remained, she would
be safe enough from forest peril. Yet I burned and raged to think of
the baser peril ever threatening her among men of her own speech and
colour. I suppose, considering her condition, they had a right to think
her that which she was not and never had been. For honesty and maiden
virtue never haunted camps. Only two kinds of women tramped with
regiments--the wives of soldiers, and their mistresses.

Yet, somehow her safety must be now arranged, her worth and virtue
clearly understood, her needs and dire necessities made known, so that
when our army moved she might find a shelter, kind and respectable,
within the Middle Fort, or at Schenectady, or anywhere inside our lines.

My pay was small; yet, having no soul dependent on my bounty and
needing little myself, I had saved these pitiable dollars that our
Congress paid us. Besides, I had a snug account with my solicitor in
Albany. She might live on that. I did not need it; seldom drew a penny;
my pay more than sufficing. And, after the war had ended--ended----

Just here my heart beat out o' step, and thought was halted for a
moment. But with the warm thought and warmer blood tingling me once
again, I knew and never doubted that we had not done with one another
yet, nor were like to, war or no war. For in all the world, and through
all the years of youth, I had never before encountered any woman who
had shared with me my waking thoughts and the last and conscious moment
ere I slept. But from the time I lost this woman out of my life,
something seemed also missing from the world. And when again I found
her, life and the world seemed balanced and well rounded once again.
And in my breast a strange calm rested me.

As I walked along the rutty lake road, all hatched and gashed by the
artillery, I made up my mind to one matter. "She must have clothes!"
thought I, "and that's flat!" Perhaps not such as befitted her, but
something immediate, and not in tatters--something stout that
threatened not to part and leave her naked. For the brier-torn rags she
wore scarce seemed to hold together; and her small, shy feet peeped
through her gaping shoon in snowy hide-and-seek.

Now, coming hither from the fort, I had already noticed on the
Stoney-Kill where our Oneidas lay encamped. So when I sighted the first
painted tree and saw the stone pipe hanging, I made for it, and found
there the Indians smoking pipes and not in war paint; and their women
and children were busy with their gossip, near at hand.

As I had guessed, there by the fire lay a soft and heavy pack of
doeskins, open, and a pretty Oneida matron sewing Dutch wampum on a
painted sporran for her warrior lord.

The lean and silent warriors came up as I approached, sullenly at
first, not knowing what treatment to expect--more shame to the skin we
take our pride in!

One after another took the hand I offered in self-respecting silence.

"Brothers," I said, "I come to buy. Sooner or later your young men will
put on red paint and oil their bodies. Even now I see your rifles and
your hatchets have been polished. Sooner or later the army will move
four hundred miles through a wilderness so dark that neither sun nor
moon nor stars can penetrate. The old men, the women, the children, and
the littlest ones still strapped to the cradle-board, must then remain
behind. Is it the truth I speak, my brothers?"

"It is the truth," they answered very quietly, "Then," said I, "they
will require food and money to buy with. Is it not true, Oneidas?"

"It is true, brother."

I smiled and turned toward the women who were listening, and who now
looked up at me with merry faces.

"I have," said I, "four hundred dollars. It is for the Oneida maid or
matron who will sell to me her pretty bridal dress of doeskin--the
dress which she has made and laid aside and never worn. I buy her
marriage dress. And she will make another for herself against the hour
of need."

Two or three girls leaped laughing to their feet; but, "Wait!" said I.
"This is for my little sister; and I must judge you where you stand,
Oneida forest flowers, so I may know which one among you is most like
my little sister in height and girth and narrow feet."

"Is our elder brother's little sister fat and comely?" inquired one
giggling and over-plump Oneida maid.

"Not plump," I said; and they all giggled.

Another short one stood on tip-toe, asking bashfully if she were not
the proper height to suit me.

But there was a third, graceful and slender, who had risen with the
rest, and who seemed to me nearer a match to Lois. Also, her naked,
dusky feet were small and shapely.

At a smiling nod from me she hastened into the family lodge and
presently reappeared with the cherished clothing. Fresh and soft and
new, she cast the garments on the moss and spread them daintily and
proudly to my view for me to mark her wondrous handiwork. And it was
truly pretty--from the soft, wampum-broidered shirt with its hanging
thrums, to the clinging skirt and delicate thigh-moccasins, wonderfully
fringed with purple and inset in most curious designs with painted
quills and beads and blue diamond-fronds from feathers of a little
jay-bird's wing.

Bit by bit I counted out the currency; and it took some little time.
But when it was done she took it eagerly enough, laughing her thanks
and dancing away toward her lodge. And if her dusky sisters envied her
they smiled on me no less merrily as I took my leave of them. And very
courteously a stately chief escorted me to the campfire's edge. The
Oneidas were ever gentlemen; and their women gently bred.

Once more at my own hut door, I entered, with a nod to Mayaro, who sat
smoking there in freshened war paint. One quick and penetrating glance
he darted at the Oneida garment on my arm, but except for that betrayed
no curiosity.

"Well, Mayaro," said I, in excellent spirits, "you still wear war paint
hopefully, I see. But this army will never start within the week."

The Siwanois smiled to himself and smoked. Then he passed the pipe to
me. I drew it twice, rendered it.

"Come," said I, "have you then news that we take the war-trail soon?"

"The war-trail is always open for those who seek it. When my younger
brother makes ready for a trail, does he summon it to come to him by
magic, or does he seek it on his two legs?"

"Are you hoping to go out with the scout to-night?" I asked. "That
would not do."

"I go to-night with my brother Loskiel--to take the air," he said slyly.

"That may not be," I protested, disconcerted. "I have business abroad
to-night."

"And I," he said very seriously; but he glanced again at the pretty
garments on my arm and gave me a merry look.

"Yes," said I, smilingly, "they are for her. The little lady hath no
shoon, no skirt that holds together, save by the grace of cockspur
thorns that bind the tatters. Those I have bought of an Oneida girl.
And if they do not please her, yet these at least will hold together.
And I shall presently write a letter to Albany and send it by the next
batteau to my solicitor, who will purchase for her garments far more
suitable, and send them to the fort where soon, I trust, she will be
lodged in fashion more befitting."

The Sagamore's face had become smooth and expressionless. I laid aside
the garments, fished out quill and inkhorn, and, lying flat on the
ground, wrote my letter to Albany, describing carefully the maid who
was to be fitted, her height, the smallness of her waist and foot as
well as I remembered. I wrote, too, that she was thin, but not too
thin. Also I bespoke a box of French hair-powder for her, and buckled
shoes of Paddington, and stockings, and a kerchief.

"You know better than do I," I wrote, "having a sister to care for, how
women dress. They should have shifts, and hair-pegs, and a scarf, and
fan, and stays, and scent, and hankers, and a small laced hat, not
gilded; cloak, foot-mantle, sun-mask, and a chip hat to tie beneath the
chin, and one such as they call after the pretty Mistress Gunning. If
women wear banyans, I know not, but whatever they do wear in their own
privacy at morning chocolate, in the French fashion, and whatever they
do sleep in, buy and box and send to me. And all the money banked with
you, put it in her name as well as mine, so that her draughts on it may
all be honoured. And this is her name----"

I stopped, dismayed, I did not know her name! And I was about to sign
for her full power to share my every penny! Yet, my amazing madness did
not strike me as amazing or grotesque, that, within the hour, a maid in
a condition such as hers was to divide my tidy fortune with me. Nay,
more--for when I signed this letter she would be free to take what she
desired and even leave me destitute.

I laughed at the thought--so midsummer mad was I upon that sunny July
afternoon; and within me, like a hidden thicket full of birds, my heart
was singing wondrous tunes I never knew one note of.

"O Sagamore," I said, lifting my head, "tell me her surname now,
because I need it for this business. And I forgot to ask her at the
Spring Waiontha."

For a full minute the Indian's countenance turned full on me remained
moon-blank. Then, like lightning, flashed his smile.

"Loskiel, my friend, and now my own blood-brother, what magic singing
birds have so enchanted your two ears. She is but a child, lonely and
ragged--a tattered leaf still green, torn from the stem by storm and
stress, blown through the woodlands and whirled here and yonder by
every breath of wind. Is it fit that my brother Loskiel should notice
such a woman?"

"She is in need, my brother."

"Give, and pass on, Loskiel."

"That is not giving, O my brother."

"Is it to give alone, Loskiel? Or is it to give--that she may render
all?"

"Yes, honestly to give. Not to take."

"And yet you know her not, Loskiel."

"But I shall know her yet! She has so promised. If she is friendless,
she shall be our friend. For you and I are one, O Sagamore! If she is
cold, naked, or hungry, we will build for her a fire, and cover her,
and give her meat. Our lodge shall be her lodge; our friends hers, her
enemies ours. I know not how this all has come to me, Mayaro, my
friend--even as I know not how your friendship came to me, or how now
our honour is lodged forever in each other's keeping. But it is true.
Our blood has made us of one race and parentage."

"It is the truth," he said.

"Then tell me her name, that I may write it to my friend in Albany."

"I do not know it," he said quietly.

"She never told you?"

"Never," he said. "Listen, Loskiel. What I now tell to you with heart
all open and my tongue unloosened, is all I know of her. It was in
winter that she came to Philipsburgh, all wrapped in her red cloak. The
White Plains Indians were there, and she was ever at their camp asking
the same and endless question."

"What question, Mayaro?"

"That I shall also tell you, for I overheard it. But none among the
White Plains company could answer her; no, nor no Congress soldier that
she asked.

"The soldiers were not unkind; they offered food and fire--as soldiers
do, Loskiel," he added, with a flash of Contempt for men who sought
what no Siwanois, no Iroquois, ever did seek of any maiden or any
chaste and decent woman, white or red.

"I know," I said. "Continue."

"I offered shelter," he said simply. "I am a Siwanois. No women need to
dread Mohicans. She learned this truth from me for the first time, I
think. Afterward, pitying her, I watched her how she went from camp to
camp. Some gave her mending to do, some washing, enabling her to live.
I drew clothing and arms and rations as a Hudson guide enrolled, and
together she and I made out to live. Then, in the spring, Major
Lockwood summoned me to carry intelligence between the lines. And she
came with me, asking at every camp the same strange question; and ever
the soldiers laughed and plagued and courted her, offering food and
fire and shelter--but not the answer to her question. And one day--the
day you came to Poundridge-town--and she had sought for me through that
wild storm--I met her by the house as I came from North Castle with
news of horsemen riding in the rain."

He leaned forward, looking at me steadily.

"Loskiel," he said, "when first I heard your name from her, and that it
was you who wanted Mayaro, suddenly it seemed to me that magic was
being made. And--I myself gave her her answer--the answer to the
question she had asked at every camp."

"Good God!" said I, "did you, then know the answer all the while? And
never told her?" But at the same moment I understood how perfectly
characteristic of an Indian had been his conduct.

"I knew," he said tranquilly, "but I did not know why this maiden
wished to know. Therefore was I silent."

"Why did you not ask her?" But before he spake I knew why too.

"Does a Sagamore ask idle questions of a woman?" he said coldly. "Do
the Siwanois babble?"

"No. And yet--and yet----"

"Birds sing, maidens chatter. A Mohican considers ere his tongue is
loosed."

"Aye--it is your nature, Sagamore.... But tell me--what was it in the
mention of my name that made you think of magic?"

"Loskiel, you came two hundred miles to ask of me the question that
this maid had asked in every camp."

"What question?"

"Where lay the trail to Catharines-town," he said.

"Did she ask that?" I demanded in astonishment.

"It was ever the burden of her piping--this rosy-throated pigeon of the
woods."

"That is most strange," said I.

"It is doubtless sorcery that she should ask of me an interview with
you who came two hundred miles to ask of me the very question."

"But, Mayaro, she did not then know why I had come to seek you."

"I knew as quickly as I heard your name."

"How could you know before you saw me and I had once made plain my
business?"

"Birds come and go; but eagles see their natal nest once more before
they die."

"I do not understand you, Mayaro."

He made no answer.

"Merely to hear my name from this child's lips, you say you guessed my
business with you?"

"Surely, Loskiel--surely. It was all done by magic. And, at once, I
knew that I should also speak to her, there in the storm, and answer
her her question."

"And did you do so?"

"Yes, Loskiel. I said to her: 'Little sad rosy-throated pigeon of the
woods, the vale Yndaia lies by a hidden river in the West. Some call it
Catharines-town.'"

I shook my head, perplexed, and understanding nothing.

"Yndaia? Did you say Yndaia, Mayaro?"

Then, as he looked me steadily in the eye, my gaze became uneasy,
shifted, fell by an accident upon the blood-red bear reared on his hind
legs, pictured upon his breast. And through and through me passed a
shock, like the dull thrill of some forgotten thing clutched suddenly
by memory--yet clutched in vain.

Vain was the struggle, too, for the faint gleam passed from my mind as
it had come; and if the name Yndaia had disturbed me, or seeing the
scarlet ensign on his breast, or perhaps both coupled, had seemed to
stir some distant memory, I did not know. Only it seemed as though, in
mental darkness, I had felt the presence of some living and familiar
thing--been conscious of its nearness for an instant ere it had
vanished utterly.

The Sagamore's face had become a smooth, blank mask again.

"What has this maid, Lois, to do with Catharines-town?" I asked.
"Devils live there in darkness."

"She did not say."

"You do not know?"

"No, Loskiel."

"But," said I, troubled, "why did she journey hither?"

"Because she now believes that only I in all the world could guide her
to the vale Yndaia; and that one day I will pity her and take her
there."

"Doubtless," I said anxiously, "she has heard at the forts or
hereabouts that we are to march on Catharines-town."

"She knows it now, Loskiel"

"And means to follow?" I exclaimed in horror.

"My brother speaks the truth."

"God! What urges the child thither?"

"I do not know, Loskiel. It seems as though a madness were upon her
that she must go to Catharines-town. I tell you there is sorcery in all
this. I say it--I, a Sagamore of the Enchanted Wolf. Who should know
magic when it stirs but I, of the Siwanois--the Magic Clan? Say what
you will, my comrade and blood-brother, there is sorcery abroad; and
well I know who wrought it, spinning with spiders' webs there by the
lost Lake of Kendaia----" He shuddered slightly. "There by the black
waters of the lake--that hag--and all her spawn!"

"Catharine Montour!"

"The Toad-woman herself--and all her spawn."

"The Senecas?"

"And the others," he said in a low voice.

A sudden and terrible misgiving assailed me. I swallowed, and then said
slowly:

"Two scalps were taken late last night by Murphy and Elerson. And the
scalps were not of the Mohawk. Not Oneida, nor Onondaga, nor Cayuga.
Mayaro!" I gasped. "So help me God, those scalps are never Seneca!"

"Erie!" he exclaimed with a mixture of rage and horror. And I saw his
sinewy hand quivering on his knife-hilt. "Listen, Loskiel! I knew it!
No one has told me. I have sat here all the day alone, making my steel
bright and my paint fresher, and singing to myself my people's songs.
And ever as I sat at the lodge door, something in the summer wind
mocked at me and whispered to me of demons. And when I rose and stood
at gaze, troubled, and minding every river-breeze, faintly I seemed to
scent the taint of evil. If those two scalps be Erie, then where the
Cat-People creep their Sorcerer will be found."

"Amochol," I repeated under my breath. And shivered.

For, deep in the secret shadows of that dreadful place where this vile
hag, Catharine Montour, ruled it in Catharines-town, dwelt also all
that now remained of the Cat-Nation--Eries--People of the Cat--a dozen,
it was rumoured, scarcely more--and demons all, serving that horrid
warlock, Amochol, the Sorcerer of the Senecas.

What dreadful rites this red priest and his Eries practiced there, none
knew, unless it were true that the False Faces knew. But rumour
whispered with a thousand tongues of horrors viewless, nameless,
inconceivable; and that far to the westward Biskoonah yawned, so close
indeed to the world's surface that the waters boiling deep in hell
burst into burning fountains in the magic garden where the red priest
made his sorcery, alone.

These things I had heard, but vaguely, here and there--a word perhaps
at Johnson Hall, a whisper at Fort Johnson, rumours discussed at Guy
Park and Schenectady when I was young. But ever the same horror of it
filled me, though I believed it not, knowing full well there were no
witches, sorcerers, or warlocks in the world; yet, in my soul disturbed
concerning what might pass deep in the shadows of that viewless Empire.

"Mayaro," I said seriously, "do you go instantly to the fort and view
those scalps."

"Were the braids fastened at the roots with tree-cat claws?"

"Aye!"

"No need to view them, then, Loskiel."

"Are they truly Erie?"

"Cats!" He spat the word from his lips and his eyes blazed.

"And--Amochol!" I asked unsteadily.

"The Cat People creep with the Seneca high priest, mewing under the
moon."

"Then--he is surely here?"

"Aye, Loskiel."

"God!" said I, now all a-quiver; "only to slay him! Only to end this
demon-thing, this poison spawn of the Woman-Toad! Only to glimpse his
scarlet rags fairly along my rifle sight!"

"No bullets touch him."

"That is nonsense, Mayaro----"

"No, Loskiel."

"I tell you he is human! There are no sorcerers on earth. There never
were--except the Witch of Endor----"

"I never heard of her. But the Witch of Catharines-town is living. And
her warlock offspring, Amochol!" He squared his broad shoulders,
shaking them. "What do I care?" he said. "I am a Sagamore of the
Enchanted Clan!" He struck the painted symbol on his chest. "What do I
care for this red priest's sorcery--I, who wear the great Witch Bear
rearing in scarlet here across my breast!

"Let the Cat People make their magic! Let Amochol sacrifice to Leshi in
Biskoonah! Let their accursed Atensi watch the Mohicans from behind the
moon. Mayaro is a Sagamore and his clan are Sachems; and the clan was
old--old--old, O little brother, before their Hiawatha came to them and
made their League for them, and returned again to The Master of Life in
his silver cloud-canoe!

"And I say to you, O my blood-brother, that between this sorcerer and
me is now a war such as no Mohican ever waged and no man living, white
or red, has ever seen. His magic will I fight with magic; his knife and
hatchet shall be turned on mine! And I shall deceive and trick and mock
him--him and his Erie Cats, till one by one their scalps shall swing
above a clean Mohican fire. O Loskiel, my brother, and my other self, a
warrior and a Sagamore has spoken. Go, now, to your evening tryst in
peace and leave me. For in my ears the Seven Chiefs are whispering--The
Thunderers. And Tamanund must hear my speech and read my heart. And the
long roll of our Mohican dead must be recited--here and alone by
me--the only one who has that right since Uncas died and the Mohican
priesthood ended, save for the Sagamores of the Magic Clan.

"Go, now, my brother. Go in peace."



CHAPTER VII

LOIS

When I came to the log house by the Spring Waiontha, lantern in hand
and my packet tucked beneath my arm, it was twilight, and the starless
skies threatened rain. Road and field and forest were foggy and silent;
and I thought of the first time I had ever set eyes on Lois, in the
late afternoon stillness which heralded a coming storm.

I had with me, as I say, a camp lantern which enabled me to make my way
through the thicket to the Spring Waiontha. Not finding her there, I
retraced my steps and crossed the charred and dreary clearing to the
house of logs.

No light burned within; doubtless this widow woman was far too poor to
afford a light of any sort. But my lantern still glimmered, and I went
up to the splintered door and rapped.

Lois opened it, her knitting gathered in her hand, and stood aside for
me to enter.

At first, so dusky was the room that I perceived no other occupant
beside ourselves. Then Lois said: "Mrs. Rannock, Mr. Loskiel, of whom I
spoke at supper, is to be made known to you."

Then first I saw a slight and ghostly figure rise, take shape in the
shadows, and move slowly into my lantern's feeble beams----a frail and
pallid woman, who made her reverence as though dazed, and uttered not a
word.

Lois whispered in my ear:

"She scarcely seems to know she is alive, since Cherry Valley. A Tory
slew her little sister with a hatchet; then her husband fell; and then,
before her eyes, a blue-eyed Indian pinned her baby to its cradle with
a bayonet."

I crossed the room to where she stood, offering my hand; and she laid
her thin and work-worn fingers listlessly in mine.

"Madam," I said gently, "there are today two thousand widows such as
you betwixt Oriska and Schenectady. And, to our cause, each one of you
is worth a regiment of men, your sorrows sacred to us all,
strengthening our vows, steeling us to a fierce endeavour. No innocent
death in this long war has been in vain; no mother's agony. Yet, only
God can comfort such as you."

She shook her head slowly.

"No God can comfort me," she said, in a voice so lifeless that it
sounded flat as the words that sleepers utter, dreaming of trouble.

"Shall we be seated outside on the door-sill?" whispered Lois. "The
only seat within is on the settle, where she sits."

"Is this the only room?"

"Yes--save for the mouse-loft, where I sleep on last year's corn-husks.
Shall we sit outside? We can speak very low. She will not heed us."

Pity for all this stark and naked wretchedness left me silent; then, as
the lantern's rays fell on this young girl's rags, I remembered my
packet.

"Yes, we will sit outside. But first, I bring you a little gift----"

She looked up quickly and drew back a step, "Oh, but such a little
gift, Lois--a nothing--a mere jest of mine which we shall enjoy between
us. Take it as I offer it, lightly, and without constraint."

Reluctantly she permitted me to lay the packet in her arms, displeasure
still darkening her brow. Then I set my lantern on the puncheon floor
and stepped outside, closing the hatchet-battered door behind me.

How long I paced the foggy strip of clearing I do not know. The mist
had thickened to rain when I heard the door creak; and, turning in my
tracks, caught the lantern's sparkle on the threshold, and the dull
gleam of her Oneida finery.

I picked up the lantern and held it high above us.

Smiling and bashful she stood there in her clinging skirt and
wampum-broidered vest, her slender, rounded limbs moulded into soft
knee-moccasins of fawn-skin, and the Virgin's Girdle knotted across her
thighs in silver-tasselled seawan.

And, "Lord!" said I, surprised by the lovely revelation. "What a
miracle are you in your forest masquerade!"

"Am I truly fine to please you, Euan?"

I said, disturbed, but striving to speak lightly:

"Little Oneida goddess in your bridal dress, the Seven Dancers are
laughing at me from your eyes; and the Day-Sun and the Night-Sun hang
from your sacred girdle, making it flash like silvery showers of
seawan. Salute, O Watcher at the Gates of Dawn! Onwa oyah! Na-i! A-i!
Lois!" And I drew my light war-hatchet from its sheath and raised it
sparkling, in salute.

She laughed a little, blushed a little, and bent her dainty head to
view her finery once more, examining it gravely to the last red quill
sewed to the beaded toe-point.

Then, still serious, she lifted her grey eyes to me:

"I seem to find no words to thank you, Euan. But my heart
is--very--full----" She hesitated, then stretched forth her hand to me,
smiling; and as I touched it ceremoniously with finger-tip and lip:

"Ai-me!" she exclaimed, withdrawing under shelter. "It is raining,
Euan! Your rifle-shirt is wet already, and you are like to take a
chill! Come under shelter instantly!"

"Fancy a man of Morgan's with a chill!" I said, but nevertheless obeyed
her, set the lantern on the puncheon floor, brushed the fine drops from
thrums and hatchet-sheath, rubbed the bright-edged little axe with
buck-skinned elbow, and wiped my heavy knife from hilt to blade.

As I looked up, busy with my side-arms, I caught her eye. We smiled at
each other; then, as though a common instinct stirred us to caution, we
turned and looked silently toward the settle in the corner, where the
widow sat brooding alone.

"May we speak freely here, Lois?" I whispered.

She cast a cautious glance at the shadowy figure, then, lowering her
voice and leaning nearer:

"I scarcely know whether she truly heeds and hears. She may
not--yet--she may. And I do not care to share my confidences with
anyone--save you. I promised to tell you something about myself.... I
mean to, some day."

"Then you will not tell me now?"

"How can I, Euan?"

We stood silent, thinking. Presently my eyes fell on the rough ladder
leading to the loft above. She followed my gaze, hesitated, shot a keen
and almost hostile glance at me, softened and coloured, then stole
across the room to the ladder's foot.

I lifted the lantern, followed her, and mounted, lighting the way for
her along low-hanging eaves among the rustling husks. She dropped the
trap-door silently, above the ladder, took the lantern from my hand,
set it on the floor, and seated herself beside it on the husks, her
cheeks still brightly flushed.

"Is this then your intimate abode?" I asked, half-smiling.

"Could I desire a snugger one?" she answered gaily. "Here is both
warmth and shelter; and a clean bed of husks; and if I am lonely, there
be friendly little mice to bear me company o' nights. And here my mice
and I lie close and listen to the owls."

"And you were reared in comfort!" I said with sudden bitterness.

She looked up quickly, then, shrugging her shoulders:

"There is still some comfort for those who can remember their brief day
of ease--none for those who never knew it. I have had days of comfort."

"What age are you, Lois?"

"Twenty, I think."

"Scarce that!" I insisted.

"Do I not seem so?" she asked, smiling.

"Eighteen at most--save for the--sadness--in your eyes that now and
then surprises me--if it be sadness that I read there."

"Perhaps it is the wisdom I have learned--a knowledge that means
sadness, Euan. Do my eyes betray it, then, so plainly?"

"Sometimes," I said, A faint sound from below arrested our attention.

Lois whispered:

"It is Mrs. Rannock weeping. She often weeps like that at night. And so
would I, Euan, had I beheld the horrors which this poor thing was born
to look upon--God comfort her! Have you never heard how the
destructives slew her husband, her baby, and her little sister eight
years old? The baby lay in its cradle smiling up at its murderers. Even
the cruel Senecas turned aside, forbearing to harm it. But one of
Walter Butler's painted Tories spies it and bawls out: 'This also will
grow to be a rebel!' And with that he speared the little smiling
creature on his bayonet, tossed it, and caught it--Oh, Euan--Euan!"
Shuddering, she flung her arm across her face as though to shut out the
vision.

"That villainy," said I, "was done by Newberry or Chrysler, if I
remember. And Newberry we caught and hung before we went to
Westchester. I saw him hang with that wretched Lieutenant Hare. God!
how we cheered by regiments marching back to camp!"

Through the intense stillness I could still hear the woman sobbing in
the dark below.

"Lois--little Lois," I whispered, touching her trembling arm with a
hand quite as unsteady.

She dropped her arm from her face, looking up at me with eyes widened
still in horror.

I said: "Do you then wonder that the thought of you, roaming these
woods alone, is become a living dread to me, so that I think of nothing
else?"

She smiled wanly, and sat thinking for a while, her pale face pressed
between her hands. Presently she looked up.

"Are we so truly friends then, Euan? At the Spring Waiontha it almost
seemed as though it could come true."

"You know it has come true."

"Do I?"

"Do you not know it, little Lois?"

"I seem to know it, somehow.... Tell me, Euan, does a true and
deathless friendship with a man--with you--mean that I am to strip my
heart of every secret, hiding nothing from you?"

"Dare you do it, Lois?" I said laughingly, yet thrilled with the
candour of her words.

"I could not let you think me better than I am. That would be stealing
friendship from you. But if you give it when you really know me--that
will be dear and wonderful----" She drew a swift breath and smiled.

Surprised, then touched, I met the winning honesty of her gaze in
silence.

"Unless you truly know me--unless you know to whom you give your
friendship--you can not give it rightly. Can you, Euan? You must learn
all that I am and have been, Is not this necessary?"

"I--I ask you nothing," I stammered. "All that I know of you is
wonderful enough----" Suddenly the danger of the moment opened out
before me, checking my very thoughts.

She laid both hands against her temple, pressing them there till her
cheeks cooled. So she pondered for a while, her gaze remote. Then,
looking fearlessly at me:

"Euan, I am of that sad company of children born without name. I have
lately dared to guess who was my father. Presently I will tell you who
he was." Her grey and troubled eyes gazed into space now, dreamily. "He
died long since. But my mother is living. And I believe she lives near
Catharines-town to-day!"

"What! Why do you think so?" I exclaimed, astounded.

"Is not the Vale Yndaia there, near Catharines-town?"

"Yes. But why----"

"Then listen, Euan. Every year upon a certain day--the twelfth of
May--no matter where I chance to be, always outside my door I find two
little beaded moccasins. I have had them thirteen times in thirteen
years. And every year--save the last two--the moccasins have been made
a little larger, as though to fit my growing years. Now, for the last
two years, they have remained the same in size, fitting me perfectly.
And--I never yet have worn them more than to fit them on and take them
off."

"Why?" I asked vaguely.

"I save them for my journey."

"What journey?"

"The long trail through the Long House--straight through it, Euan, to
the Western Door. That is the trail I dream of."

"Who leaves these strange moccasins at your threshold every year?"

"I do not know."

"From where do you suppose they come?" I asked, amazed.

"From Catharines-town."

"Do you believe your mother sends them?"

"Oh, Euan, I know it now! Until two years ago I did not understand. But
now I know it!"

"Why are you so certain Lois? Is any written message sent with them?"

"Always within one of each pair of moccasins is sewed a strip of silver
birch. Always the message written is the same; and this is what is
always written:

"Swift moccasins for little feet as swift against the day that the long
trail is safe. Then, in the Vale Yndaia, little Lois, seek her who bore
you, saved you, lost you, but who love you always.

"Pray every day for him who died in the Regiment de la Reine.

"Pray too for her who waits for you, in far Yndaia."

"What a strange message!" I exclaimed.

"I must heed it," she said under her breath. "The trail is open, and my
hour is come."

"But, Lois, that trail means death!"

"Your army makes it safe at last. And now the time is come when I must
follow it."

"Is that why you have followed us?"

"Yes, that is why. Until that night in the storm at Poundridge-town I
had never learned where the Vale Yndaia lay. Month after month I
haunted camps, asking for information concerning Yndaia and the
Regiment de la Reine. But of Yndaia I learned nothing, until the
Sagamore informed me that Yndaia lay near Catharines-town. And,
learning you were of the army, and that the army was bound thither, I
followed you."

"Why did you not tell me this at Poundridge? You should have camped
with us," I said.

"Because of my fear of men--except red men. And I had already quite
enough of your Lieutenant Boyd."

I looked at her seriously; and she comprehended the unasked questions
that were troubling me.

"Shall I tell you more? Shall I tell you how I have learned my dread of
men--how it has been with me since my foster parents found me lying at
their door strapped to a painted cradle-board?"

"You!"

"Aye; that was my shameful beginning, so they told me afterward--long
afterward. For I supposed they were my parents--till two years ago. Now
shall I tell you all, Euan? And risk losing a friendship you might have
given in your ignorance of me?"

Quick, hot, unconsidered words flew to my lips--so sweet and fearless
were her eyes. But I only muttered:

"Tell me all."

"From the beginning, then--to scour my heart out for you! So, first and
earliest my consciousness awoke to the sound of drums. I am sure of
this because when I hear them it seems as though they were the first
sounds that I ever heard.... And once, lately, they were like to be the
last.... And next I can remember playing with a painted mask of wood,
and how the paint tasted, and its odour.... Then, nothing more can I
remember until I was a little child with--him I thought to be my
father. I may not name him. You will understand presently why I do not."

She looked down, pulling idly at the thrums along her beaded leggins.

"I told you I was near your age--twenty. But I do not really know how
old I am, I guess that I am twenty--thereabouts."

"You look sixteen; not more--except the haunting sorrow----"

"I can remember full that length of time.... I must be twenty, Euan.
When I was perhaps seven years old--or thereabout--I went to
school--first in Schenectady to a Mistress Lydon; where were a dozen
children near my age. And pretty Mistress Lydon taught us A--B--C and
manners--and nothing else that I remember now. Then for a long while I
was at home--which meant a hundred different lodgings--for we were ever
moving on from place to place, where his employment led him, from one
house to another, staying at one tavern only while his task remained
unfinished, then to the road again, north, south, west, or east,
wherever his fancy sped before to beckon him.... He was a strange man,
Euan."

"Your foster father?"

"Aye. And my foster mother, too, was a strange woman."

"Were they not kind to you?"

"Y-es, after their own fashion. They both were vastly different to
other folk. I was fed and clothed when anyone remembered to do it, And
when they had been fortunate, they sent me to the nearest school to be
rid of me, I think. I have attended many schools, Euan--in Germantown,
in Philadelphia, in Boston, in New York. I stayed not long in school at
New York because there our affairs went badly. And no one invited us in
that city--as often we were asked to stay as guests while the work
lasted--not very welcome guests, yet tolerated."

"What was your foster father's business?"

"He painted portraits.... I do not know how well he painted. But he
cared for nothing else, except his wife. When he spoke at all it was to
her of Raphael, and of Titian, and particularly of our Benjamin West,
who had his first three colours of the Indians, they say."

"I have heard so, too."

She nodded absently, fingering her leggin-fringe; then, with a sudden,
indrawn breath:

"We were no more than roving gypsies, you see, living from hand to
mouth, and moving on, always moving from town to town, remaining in one
place while there were portraits to paint--or tavern-signs, or
wagons--anything to keep us clothed and fed. Then there came a day in
Albany when matters mended over night, and the Patroon most kindly
commanded portraits of himself and family. It started our brief
prosperity.

"Other and thrifty Dutchmen now began to bargain for their portraits.
We took an old house on Pearl Street, and I was sent to school at Mrs.
Pardee's Academy for young ladies as a day pupil, returning home at
evening. About that time my foster mother became ill. I remember that
she lay on a couch all day, watching her husband paint. He and his art
were all she cared for. Me she seldom seemed to see--scarcely noticed
when she saw me--almost never spake to me, and there were days and
weeks, when I saw nobody in that silent house, and sat at meat
alone--when, indeed, anyone remembered I was a hungry, growing child,
and made provision for me.

"Schoolmates, at first, asked me to their homes. I would not go because
I could not ask them to my home in turn. And so grew up to womanhood
alone, and shy, and silent among my fellows; alone at home among the
shadows of that old Dutch house; ever alone. Always a haunted twilight
seemed to veil the living world from me, save when I walked abroad
along the river, thinking, thinking.

"Yet, in one sense I was not alone, Euan, for I was fanciful; and
roamed accompanied by those bright visions that unawakened souls
conjure for company; companioned by all creatures of the mind, from
saint to devil. Ai-me! For there were moments when I would have
welcomed devils, so that they rid me of my solitude, at hell's own
price!"

She drew a long, light breath, smiled at me; then:

"My foster mother died. And when she died the end also began for him. I
was taken from my school. So dreadfully was he broken that for months
he lay abed never speaking, scarcely eating. And all day long during
those dreary months I sat alone in that hushed house of death.

"Debt came first; then sheriffs; then suddenly came this war upon us.
But nothing aroused him from his lethargy; and all day long he brooded
there in silence, day after day, until our creditors would endure no
longer, and the bailiff menaced him. Confused and frightened, I
implored him to leave the city--jails seeming to me far more terrible
than death--and at last persuaded him to the old life once more.

"So, to avoid a debtor's prison, we took the open road again. But war
was ravishing the land; there was no work for him to do. We starved
slowly southward, day by day, shivered and starved from town to town
across the counter.

"Near to a camp of Continental troops there was a farm house. They took
me there as maid-at-all-work, out of charity, I think. My father
wandered over to the camp, and there, God alone knows why, enlisted--I
shall not tell you in what regiment. But it was Continental Line--a
gaunt, fierce, powder-blackened company, disciplined with iron. And
presently a dreadful thing befell us. For one morning before sunrise,
as I stood scouring the milk-pans by the flare of a tallow-dip, came to
me a yawning sergeant of this same regiment to tell me that, as my
foster father was to be shot at sunrise, therefore, he desired to see
me. And I remember how he yawned and yawned, this lank and bony
sergeant, showing within his mouth his yellow fangs!

"Oh, Euan! When I arrived, my foster father--who I then supposed was my
own father--lay in a tent a condemned deserter, seeming not even to
care, or to comprehend his dreadful plight. All the defence he ever
made, they say was that he had tired of dirty camps and foolish drums,
and wished to paint again. Euan, it was terrible. He did not
understand. He was a visionary--a man of endless silences, dreamy of
eye, gentle and vague of mind--no soldier, nor fitted to understand a
military life at all.

"I remember the smoky lantern burning red within the tent, and the vast
shadows it cast; and how he stood there, looking tranquilly at nothing
while I, frightened, sobbed on his breast. 'Lois,' he said, smiling,
'there is a bright company aloft, and watching me. Raphael and Titian
are of them. And West will come some day.' And, 'God!' he murmured,
wonderingly, 'What fellowship will be there! What knowledge to be
acquired a half hour hence--and leave this petty sphere to its own
vexed and petty wrangling, its kings and congresses, and its foolish
noise of drums.'

"For a while he paid me no attention, save in an absent-minded way to
pat my arm and say, 'There, there, child! There's nothing to it--no,
not anything to weep for. In less than half an hour my wife and I will
be together, listening while Raphael speaks--or Christ, perhaps, or
Leonardo.'

"Twice the brigade chaplain came to the tent, but seeing me retired.
The third time he appeared my foster father said: 'He's come to talk to
me of Christ and Raphael. It is pleasant to hear his kind assurance
that the journey to them is a swift one, done in the twinkling of an
eye.... So--I will say good-bye. Now go, my child.'

"Locked in my desperate embrace, his wandering gaze came back and met
my terror-stricken eyes. And after another moment a slow colour came
into his wasted face. 'Lois,' he said, 'before I go to join that
matchless company, I think you ought to know that which will cause you
to grieve less for me.... And so I tell you that I am not your
father.... We found you at our door in Caughnwagha, strapped to a
Seneca cradle-board. Nor had you any name. We did not seek you, but,
having you so, bowed to God's will and suffered you to remain with us.
We strove to do our duty by you----' His vague gaze wandered toward the
tent door where the armed guard stood, terrible and grim and ragged.
Then he unloosened my suddenly limp arms about him, muttering to
himself of something he'd forgotten; and, rummaging in his pockets
found it presently--a packet laced in deerskin. 'This,' he said, 'is
all we ever knew of you. It should be yours. Good-bye.'

"I strove to speak, but he no longer heard me, and asked the guard
impatiently why the Chaplain tarried. And so I crept forth into the
dark of dawn, more dead than living. And presently the rising sun
blinded my tear-drowned eyes, where I was kneeling in a field under a
tall tree.... I heard the dead-march rolling from the drums, and saw
them passing, black against the sunrise.... Then, filing slowly as the
seconds dragged, a thousand years passed in processional during the
next half hour--ending in a far rattle of musketry and a light smoke
blowing east across the fields----"

She passed her fingers across her brow, clearing it of the clinging
curls.

"They played a noisy march--afterward. I saw the ragged ranks wheel and
manoeuvre, stepping out Briskly to the jolly drums and fifes.... I
stood by the grave while the detail filled it cheerily.... Then I went
back to the farm house, through the morning dew and sunshine.

"When I had opened my packet and had understood its contents, I made of
my clothes a bundle and took the highway to ask of all the world where
lay the road to the vale Yndaia, and where might be found the Regiment
de la Reine. Wherever was a camp of soldiers, there I loitered, asking
the same question, day after day, month after month. I asked of
Indians--our Hudson guides, and the brigaded White Plains Indians. None
seemed to know--or if they did they made no answer. And the soldiers
did not know, and only laughed, taking me for some camp wanton----"

Again she passed her slender hand slowly across her eyes, shaking her
head.

"That I am not wholly bad amazes me at times.... I wonder if you know
how hunger tampers with the will? I mean more than mere hunger; I mean
that dreadful craving never completely satisfied--so that the ceaseless
famine gnaws and gnaws while the sick mind still sickens, brooding over
what the body seems to need of meat and drink and warmth--day after
day, night after night, endless and terrible." She flushed, but
continued calmly: "I had nigh sold myself to some young officer--some
gay and heedless boy--a dozen times that winter--for a bit of
bread--and so I might lie warm.... The army starved at Valley Forge....
God knows where and how I lived and famished through all that bitter
blackness.... An artillery horse had trodden on my hip where I lay
huddled in a cow-barn under the straw close to the horses, for the sake
of warmth. I hobbled for a month.... And so ill was I become in mind as
well as body that had any man been kind--God knows what had happened!
And once I even crept abroad meaning to take what offered. Do you deem
me vile, Euan?"

"No--no--" I could not utter another word.

She sighed, gazing at space.

"And the cold! Well--this is July, and I must try to put it from my
mind. But at times it seems to be still in my bones--deep bitten to the
very marrow. Ai-me! I have seen two years of centuries. Their scars
remain."

She rocked slightly forward and backward where she sat, her fingers
interlaced, twisting and clenching with her memories.

"Ai-me! Hunger and cold and men! Hunger and--men. But it was solitude
that nigh undid me. That was the worst of all--the endless silence."

The rain now swept the roof of bark above us, gust after gust swishing
across the eaves. Beyond the outer circle of the lantern light a mouse
moved, venturing no nearer.

"Lois?"

She lifted her head. "All that is ended now. Strive to forget."

She made no response.

"Ended," I said firmly. "And this is how it ends. I have with my
solicitor, Mr. Simon Hake, of Albany, two thousand pounds hard
sterling. How I first came by it I do not know. But Guy Johnson placed
it there for me, saying that it was mine by right. Now, today, I have
written to Mr. Hake a letter. In this letter I have commanded some few
trifles to be bought for you, such as all women naturally require."

"Euan!" she exclaimed sharply.

"I will not listen!" said I excitedly. "Do you listen now to me, for I
mean to have my way with you--say what you may----"

"I know--I know--but you have done too much already----"

"I have done nothing! Listen! I have bespoken trifles of no
value--nothing more--stockings, and shifts, and stays, and
powder-puffs, and other articles----"

"I will not suffer this!" she said, an angry colour in her cheeks.

"You suffer now--for lack even of handkerchiefs! I must insist----"

"Euan! My shifts and stays and stockings are none of your affair!" she
answered hotly.

"I make them mine!"

"No--nor is it your privilege to offer them!"

"My--what?"

"Privilege!" she said haughtily, flushing clear to her curly hair; and
left me checked. She added: "What you offer is impertinence--however
kindly meant. No friendship warrants it, and I refuse."

I know not what it was--perhaps my hurt and burning silence under the
sudden lash of her rebuff--but presently I felt her hand steal over
mine and tighten. And looked up, scowling, to see her eyes brimming
with tears and merriment.

"How much of me must you have, Euan? Even my privacy and pride? You
have given me friendship; you have clothed me to your fancy. You have
had scant payment in exchange--only a poor girl's gratitude. What have
I left to offer in return if you bestow more gifts? Give me no more--so
that you take from me no more than--gratitude."

"Comrades neither give nor take, Lois. What they possess belongs to
both in common."

"I know--it is so said--but--you have had of me for all your bounty
only my thanks--and----" she smiled tremulously, "----a wild rose-bud.
And you have given so much--so much--and I am far too poor to
render----"

"What have I asked of you!" I said impatiently.

"Nothing. And so I am the more inclined to give--I know not what."

"Shall I tell you what to offer me? Then offer me the privilege of
giving. It is the rarest gift within your power."

She sat looking at me while the soft colour waned and deepened in her
cheeks.

"I--give," she said in a voice scarce audible.

"Then," said I, very happily, "I am free to tell you that I have
commanded for your comfort a host of pretty things, and a big box of
wood and brass, with a stout hide outside, to keep your clothing in!
The lady of Captain Cresson, of the levies, has a noble one. Yours is
its mate. And into yours will fit your gowns and shoon, patches and
powder, and the hundred articles which every woman needs by day and
night. Also I've named you to Mr. Hake, so that, first writing for me
upon a slip of paper that I may send it to him--then writing your
request to him, you may make draughts for what you need upon our money,
which now lies with him. Do you understand me, Lois? You will need
money when the army leaves."

Her head moved slightly, acquiescent.

"So far so good, then. Now, when this army moves into the wilderness,
and when I go, and you remain, you will have clothing that befits you;
you will have means to properly maintain you; and I shall send you by
batteau to Mr. Hake, who will find lodging suitable for you--and be
your friend, and recommend you to his friends not only for my sake,
but, when he sets his eyes on you, for your own sake." I smiled, and
added:

"Hiero! Little rosy-throated pigeon of the woods! Loskiel has spoken!"

Now, as I ended, this same and silly wild-thing fell silently a-crying;
and never had I dreamed that any maid could be so full o' tears, when
by all rights she should have sat dimpling there, happy and gay, and
eager as I.

Out o' countenance again, and vexed in my mind, I sat silent,
fidgetting, made strange and cold and awkward by her tears. The warm
flush of self-approval chilled in my heart; and by and by a vague
resentment grew there.

"Euan?" she ventured, lifting her wet eyes.

"What?" said I ungraciously.

"H--have you a hanker? Else I use my scandalous skirt again----"

And the next instant we both were laughing there, she still in tears, I
with blithe heart to see her now surrender at discretion, with her grey
eyes smiling at me through a starry mist of tears, and the sweet mouth
tremulous with her low-voiced thanks.

"Ai-me!" she said. "What manner of boy is this, to hector me and have
his will? And now he sits there laughing, and convinced that when the
army marches I shall wear his finery and do his bidding. And so I
shall--if I remain behind."

"Lois! You can not go to Catharines-town! That's flat!"

"I've wandered hungry and ragged for two years, asking the way. Do you
suppose I have endured in vain? Do you suppose I shall give up now?"

"Lois!" I said seriously, "if it is true that the Senecas hold any
white captives, their liberation is at hand. But that business concerns
the army. And I promise you that if your mother be truly there among
those unhappy prisoners she shall be brought back safely from the Vale
Yndaia. I will tell Major Parr of this; he shall inform the General.
Have no fear or doubt, dear maid. If she is there, and human power can
save her, then is she saved already, by God's grace."

She said in a quiet voice:

"I must go with you. And that is why--or partly why--I asked you here
tonight. Find me some way to go to Catharines-town. For I must go!"

"Why not inquire of me the road to hell?" I asked impatiently. She said
between her teeth:

"Oh, any man might show me that. And guide me, too. Many have offered,
Euan."

"What!"

"I ask your pardon. Two years of camps blunts any woman's speech."

"Lois," said I uneasily, "why do you wish to go to Catharines-town,
when an armed force is going?"

She sat considering, then, in a low, firm voice:

"To tell you why, is why I asked you here.... And first I must show you
what my packet held.... Shall I show you, Euan?"

"Surely, little comrade."

She drew the packet from her bosom, unlaced the thong, unrolled the
deer-hide covering.

"Here is a roll of bark," she said. "This I have never had interpreted.
Can you read it for me, Euan?"

And there in the lantern light I read it, while she looked down over my
shoulder.


  "KADON!

  "Aesa-yat-yen-enghdon, Lois!
  "Etho!
  [And here was painted a white dog lying dead, its tongue hanging
  out sideways.]
  "Hen-skerigh-watonte.
  "Jatthon-ten-yonk, Lois!
  "Jin-isaya-dawen-ken-wed-e-wayen.
  [Here was drawn in outline the foot and claws of a forest lynx.]
  "Niyi-eskah-haghs, na-yegh-nyasa-kenra-dake, niya-wennonh!" [Then a
  white symbol.]

For a long time I gazed at the writing in shocked silence. Then I asked
her if she suspected what was written there in the Canienga dialect.

"I never have had it read. Indians refuse, shake their heads, and look
askance at me, and tell me nothing; interpreters laugh at me, saying
there is no meaning in the lines. Is there, Euan?"

"Yes," I said.

"You can interpret?"

"Yes."

"Will you?"

I was silent, pondering the fearful meaning which had been rendered
plainer and more hideous by the painted symbols.

"It has to do with the magic of the Seneca priesthood," I muttered.
"Here is a foul screed--and yet a message, too, to you."

Then, with an effort I found courage to read, as it was written:

"I speak! Thou, Lois, mightest have been destroyed! Thus! (Here the
white dog.) But I will frustrate their purpose. Keep listening to me,
Lois. That which has befallen you we place it here (or, 'we draw it
here'--i. e., the severed foot and claws of a lynx). Being born white
(literally, 'being born having a white neck'), this happened." And the
ghastly sign of Leshi ended it.

"But what does it all signify?" she asked, bewildered.

And even as she spoke, out of the dull and menacing horror of the
symbols, into my mind, leaped terrible comprehension.

I said coolly: "It must have been Amochol--and his Erie sorcerers! How
came you in Catharines-town?"

"I? In Catharines-town!" she faltered. "Was I, then, ever there?"

I pointed at the drawing of the dead white dog.

"Somebody saved you from that hellish sacrifice. I tell you it is plain
enough to read. The rite is practiced only by the red sorcerers of the
Senecas.... Look! It was because your 'neck' was 'white'! Look again!
Here is the symbol of the Cat-People--the Eries--the acolytes of
Amochol--here! This spread lynx-pad with every separate claw extended!
Yet, it is drawn severed--in symbol of your escape. Lois! Lois! It is
plain enough. I follow it all--almost all--nearly--but not quite----"

I hesitated, studying the bark intently, pausing to look at her with a
new and keenly searching question in my gaze.

"You have not shown me all," I said.

"All that is written in the Iroquois tongue. But there were other
things in the packet with this bark letter." She opened it again upon
her lap.

"Here is a soldier's belt-buckle," she said, offering it to me for my
inspection.

It was made of silver and there were still traces of French gilt upon
the device.

"Regiment de la Reine," I read. "What regiment is that, Lois? I'm sure
I've heard of it somewhere. Oh! Now I remember. It was a very
celebrated French regiment--cut all to pieces at Lake George by Sir
William Johnson in '55. This is an officer's belt-buckle."

"Was the regiment, then, totally destroyed?"

"Utterly. In France they made the regiment again with new men and new
officers, and call it still by the same celebrated name."

"You say Sir William Johnson's men cut it to pieces--the Regiment de la
Reine?" she asked.

"His Indians, British and Provincials, left nothing of it after that
bloody day."

She sat thoughtful for a while, then, bestirring herself, drew from the
deerhide packet a miniature on ivory, cracked across, and held together
only by the narrow oval frame of gold.

There was no need to look twice. This man, whoever he might be, was
this girl's father; and nobody who had ever seen her and this miniature
could ever doubt it.

She did not speak, nor did I, conscious that her eyes had never left my
face and must have read my startled mind with perfect ease.

Presently I turned the portrait over. There was a lock of hair there
under the glass--bright, curly hair exactly like her own. And at first
I saw nothing else. Then, as the glass-backed locket glanced in the
lantern-light, I saw that on the glass something had been inscribed
with a diamond. This is what I read, written across the glass:

"Jean Coeur a son coeur cheri."

I looked up at her.

"Jean Coeur," I repeated. "That is no name for a man----" Suddenly I
remembered, years ago--years and years since--hearing Guy Johnson
cursing some such man. Then in an instant all came back to me; and she
seemed to divine it, for her small hand clutched my arm and her eyes
were widening as I turned to meet them.

"Lois," I said unsteadily, "there was a man called Jean Coeur, deputy
to the adventurer, Joncaire. Joncaire was the great captain who all but
saved this Western Continent to France. Captain Joncaire was feared,
detested, but respected by Sir William Johnson because he held all
Canada and the Hurons and Algonquins in the hollow of his hand, and had
even gained part of the Long House--the Senecas. His clever deputy was
called Jean Coeur. Never did two men know the Indians as these two did."

I thought a moment, then: "Somewhere I heard that Captain Joncaire had
a daughter. But she married another man--one Louis de Contrecoeur----"
I hesitated, glanced again at the name scratched on the glass over the
lock of hair, and shook my head.

"Jean Coeur--Louis de Contrecoeur. The names scarce hang
together--yet----"

"Look at this!" she whispered in a low, tense voice, and laid a bit of
printing in my hand.

It was a stained and engraved sheet of paper--a fly-leaf detached from
a book of Voltaire. And above the scroll-encompassed title was written
in faded ink: "Le Capitaine Vicomte Louis Jean de Contrecoeur du
Regiment de la Reine." And under that, in a woman's fine handwriting:
"Mon coeur, malgre; mon coeur, se rendre a Contrecoeur, dit Jean Coeur;
coeur contre coeur."

"That," she said, "is the same writing that the birch bark bears, sewed
in my moccasins."

"Then," I said excitedly, "your mother was born Mademoiselle Joncaire,
and you are Lois de Contrecoeur!"

She sat with eyes lowered, fingering the stained and faded page. After
a moment she said:

"I wrote to France--to the Headquarters of the Regiment de la
Reine--asking about my--father."

"You had an answer?"

"Aye, the answer came.... Merely a word or two.... The Vicomte Louis
Jean de Contrecoeur fell at Lake George in '55----" She lifted her
clear eyes to mine. "And died--unmarried."

A chill passed through me, then the reaction came, taking me by the
throat, setting my veins afire.

"Then--by God!" I stammered. "If de Contrecoeur died unmarried, his
child shall not!"

"Euan! I do not credit what they wrote. If my father married here
perhaps they had not heard."

"Lois! Dearest of maids--whichever is the truth I wish to marry you!"

But she stopped her ears with both palms, giving me a frightened look;
and checked, but burning still, I stared at her.

"Is that then all you are?" she asked. "A wisp of tow to catch the
first spark that flies? A brand ever smouldering, which the first
breath o' woman stirs to flame?"

"Never have I loved before----"

"Love! Euan, are you mad?"

We both were breathing fast and brokenly.

"What is it then, if it be not love!" I asked angrily.

"What is it?" she repeated slowly. Yet I seemed to feel in her very
voice a faint, cool current of contempt. "Why, it is what always urges
men to speak, I fancy--their natural fire--their easily provoked
emotions.... I had believed you different."

"Did you not desire my friendship?" I asked in hot chagrin.

"Not if it be of this kind, Euan."

"You would not have me love you?"

"Love!" And the fine edge of her contempt cut clean. "Love!" she
repeated coolly. "And we scarcely know each other; have never passed a
day together; have never broken bread; know nothing, nothing of each
other's minds and finer qualities; have awakened nothing in each other
yet except emotions. Friendships have their deeps and shallows, but are
deathless only while they endure. Love hath no shallows, Euan, and
endures often when friendship dies.... I speak, having no knowledge.
But I believe it. And, believing nobly of true love--in ignorance of
it, but still in awe--and having been assailed by clamours of a
shameful passion calling itself love--and having builded in my heart
and mind a very lofty altar for the truth, how can I feel otherwise
than sorry that you spoke--hotly, unthinkingly, as you did to me?"

I was silent.

She rose, lifted the lantern, laid open the trap-door.

"Come," she whispered, beckoning.

I followed her as she descended, took the lantern from her hand,
glanced at the shadowy heap, asleep perhaps, on the corner settle, then
walked to the door and opened it. A thousand, thousand stars were
sparkling overhead.

On the sill she whispered:

"When will you come again?"

"Do you want me?" I said sullenly.

She made no answer for a moment; suddenly she caught my hand and
pressed it, crushing it between both of hers; and turning I saw her
almost helpless with her laughter.

"Oh, what an infant have I found in this tall gentleman of Morgan's
corps!" said she. "A boy one moment and a man the next--silly and wise
in the same breath--headlong, headstrong, tender, and generous, petty
and childish, grave and kind--the sacred and wondrous being, in point
of fact, known to the world as man! And now he asks, with solemn mien
and sadly ruffled and reproachful dignity whether a poor, friendless,
homeless, nameless girl desires his company again!"

She dropped my hand, caught at her skirt's edge, and made me a mocking
reverence.

"Dear sir," she said, "I pray you come again to visit me tomorrow,
while I am mending regimental shirts at tuppence each----"

"Lois!" I said sadly. "How can you use me so!"

She began to laugh again.

"Oh, Euan, I can not endure it if you're solemn and sorry for
yourself----"

"That is too much!" I exclaimed, furious, and marched out, boiling,
under the high stars. And every star o' them, I think, was laughing at
the sorriest ass who ever fell in love.

Nevertheless, that night I wrote her name in my letter to Mr. Hake; and
the ink on it was scarce sanded when an Oneida runner had it and was
driving his canoe down the Mohawk River at a speed that promised to win
for him the bonus in hard money which I had promised for a swift
journey and a swift return.

And far into the July morning I talked with the Sagamore of Amochol and
of Catharines-town; and he listened while he sat tirelessly polishing
his scalping-knife and hatchet.



CHAPTER VIII

OLD FRIENDS

The sunrise gun awoke me. I rolled out of my blanket, saw the white
cannon-smoke floating above the trees, ran down to the river, and
plunged in.

When I returned, the Sagamore had already broken his fast, and once
more was engaged in painting himself--this time in a most ghastly
combination of black and white, the startling parti-coloured
decorations splitting his visage into two equal sections, so that his
eyes gleamed from a black and sticky mask, and his mouth and chin and
jaw were like the features of a weather-bleached skull.

"More war, O Mayaro, my brother?" I asked in a bantering voice. "Every
day you prepare for battle with a confidence forever new; every night
the army snores in peace. Yet, at dawn, when you have greeted the sun,
you renew your war-paint. Such praiseworthy perseverance ought to be
rewarded."

"It has already been rewarded," remarked the Indian, with quiet humour.

"In what manner?" I asked, puzzled.

"In the manner that all warriors desire to be rewarded," he replied,
secretly amused.

"I thought," said I, "that the reward all warriors desire is a scalp
taken in battle."

He cast a sly glance at me and went on painting.

"Mayaro," said I, disturbed, "is it possible that you have been out
forest-running while I've slept?"

He shot a quick look at me, full of delighted malice.

And "Ho!" said he. "My brother sleeps sounder than a winter bear. Three
Erie scalps hang stretched, hooped, and curing in the morning sun,
behind the bush-hut. Little brother, has the Sagamore done well?"

Straightway I whirled on my heel and walked out and around the hut.
Strung like drying fish on a willow wand three scalps hung in the
sunshine, the soft July breeze stirring the dead hair. And as soon as I
saw them I knew they were indeed Erie scalps.

Repressing my resentment and disgust, I lingered a moment to examine
them, then returned to the hut, where the Siwanois, grave as a
catamount at his toilet, squatted in a patch of sunshine, polishing his
features.

"So you've done this business every night as soon as I slept," said I.
"You've crept beyond our outer pickets, risking your life, imperilling
the success of this army, merely to satisfy your vanity. This is not
well, Mayaro."

He said proudly: "Mayaro is safe. What warrior of the Cat-People need a
Sagamore of the Siwanois dread?"

"Do you count them warriors then, or wizards?"

"Demons have teeth and claws. Look upon their scalp-locks, Loskiel!"

I strove to subdue my rising anger.

"You are the only reliable guide in the army today who can take us
straight to Catharines-town," I said. "If we lose you we must trust to
Hanierri and his praying Oneidas, who do not know the way even to
Wyalusing as well as you do. Is this just to the army? Is it just to
me, O Sagamore? My formal orders are that you shall rest and run no
risk until this army starts from Lake Otsego. My brother Mayaro knew
this. I trusted him and set no sentry at the hut door. Is this well,
brother?"

The Sagamore looked at me with eyes utterly void of expression.

"Is Mayaro a prisoner, then?" he asked quietly.

Instantly I knew that he was not to be dealt with that way. The
slightest suspicion of any personal restraint or of any military
pressure brought to bear on him might alienate him from our cause, if
not, perhaps, from me personally.

I said: "The Siwanois are free people. No lodge door is locked on them,
not even in the Long House. They are at liberty to come and go as the
eight winds rise and wane--to sleep when they choose, to wake when it
pleases them, to go forth by day or night, to follow the war-trail, to
strike their enemies where they find them.

"But now, to one of them--to the Mohican Mayaro, Sagamore of the
Siwanois, Sachem of the Enchanted Clan, is given the greatest mission
ever offered to any Delaware since Tamenund put on his snowy panoply of
feathers and flew through the forest and upward into the air-ocean of
eternal light.

"A great army of his embattled brothers trusts in him to guide them so
that the Iroquois Confederacy shall be pierced from Gate to Gate, and
the Long House go roaring up in flames.

"There are many valiant deeds to be accomplished on this coming
march--deeds worthy of a war-chief of the Lenni-Lenape--deeds fitted to
do honour to a Sagamore of the Magic Wolf.

"I only ask of my friend and blood-brother that he reserve himself for
these great deeds and not risk a chance bullet in ambush for the sake
of an Erie scalp or two--for the sake of a patch of mangy fur which
grows on these Devil-Cats of Amochol."

At first his countenance was smooth and blank; as I proceeded, he
became gravely attentive; then, as I ended, he gave me a quick,
unembarrassed, and merry look.

"Loskiel," he said laughingly, "Mayaro plays with the Cat-People. A
child's skill only is needed to take their half-shed fur and dash them
squalling and spitting and kicking into Biskoonah!"

He resumed his painting with a shrug of contempt, adding:

"Amochol rages in vain. Upon this wizard a Mohican spits! One by one
his scalped acolytes tumble and thump among the dead and bloody forest
leaves. The Siwanois laugh at them. Let the red sorcerer of the Senecas
make strong magic so that his cats return to life, and the vile fur
grows once more where a Mohican has ripped it out!"

"Each night you go forth and scalp. Each morning you paint. Is this to
continue, Sagamore?"

"My brother sees," he said proudly. "Cats were made for skinning."

There was nothing to do about it; no more to be said. I now
comprehended this, as I stood lacing my rifle-shirt and watching him at
his weird self-embellishment.

"The war-paint you have worn each day has seemed to me somewhat
unusual," I said curiously.

He glanced sharply up at me, scowled, then said gravely:

"When a Sagamore of the Mohicans paints for a war against warriors, the
paint is different. But," he added, and his eyes blazed, and the very
scalp-lock seemed to bristle on his shaven head, "when a Lenape Sachem
of the Enchanted Clan paints for war with Seneca sorcerers, he wears
also the clean symbols of his sacred priesthood, so that he may fight
bad magic with good magic, sorcery with sorcery, and defy this scarlet
priest--this vile, sly Warlock Amochol!"

Truly there was no more for me to say. I dared not let him believe that
his movements were either watched or under the slightest shadow of
restraint. I knew it was useless to urge on him the desirability of
inaction until the army moved. Be might perhaps have understood me and
listened to me, were the warfare he was now engaged in only the red
knight-errantry of an Indian seeking glory. But he had long since won
his spurs.

And this feud with Amochol was something far more deadly than mere
warfare; it was the clash of a Mohican Sagamore of the Sacred Clan with
the dreadful and abhorred priesthood of the Senecas--the hatred and
infuriated contempt of a noble and ordained priest for the black-magic
of a sorcerer--orthodoxy, militant and terrible, scourging blasphemy
and crushing its perverted acolytes at the very feet of their
Antichrist.

I began to understand this strange, stealthy slaughter in the dark,
which only the eyes of the midnight sky looked down on, while I lay
soundly sleeping. I knew that nothing I could say would now keep this
Siwanois at my side at night. Yet, he had been given me to guard. What
should I do? Major Parr might not understand--might even order the
Sagamore confined to barracks under guard. The slightest mistake in
dealing with the Siwanois might prove fatal to all our hopes of him.

All the responsibility, therefore, must rest on me; and I must use my
judgment and abide by the consequences.

Had it been, as I have said, any other nation but the Senecas, I am
certain that I could have restrained the Indian. But the combination of
Seneca, Erie, and Amochol prowling around our picket-line was too much
for the outraged Sagamore of the Spirit Wolf. And I now comprehended it
thoroughly.

As I sat thinking at our bush-hut door, the endless lines of wagons
were still passing toward Otsego Lake, piled high with stores, and I
saw Schott's riflemen filing along in escort, their tow-cloth
rifle-frocks wide open to their sweating chests.

Almost all the troops had already marched to the lake and had pitched
tents there, while Alden's chastened regiment was damming the waters so
that when our boats were ready the dam might be broken and the high
water carry our batteaux over miles of shallow water to Tioga Point,
where our main army now was concentrating.

When were the Rifles to march? I did not know. Sitting there in the
sun, moodily stripping a daisy of its petals, I thought of Lois,
troubled, wondering how her security and well-being might be
established.

The hour could not be very distant now before our corps marched to the
lake. What would she do? What would become of her if she still refused
to be advised by me?

As for her silly desire to go to Catharines-town, the more I thought
about it the less serious consideration did I give it. The thing was,
of course, impossible. No soldiers' wives were to be permitted to go as
far as Wyalusing or Wyoming. Even here, at this encampment, the
officers' ladies had left, although perhaps many of them might have
remained longer with their husbands had it been known that the
departure of the troops for Otsego Lake was to be delayed by the slow
arrival of cattle and provisions.

In the meantime, the two companies of my regiment attached to this
brigade were still out on scout with Major Parr; and when they returned
I made no doubt that we would shoulder packs, harness our wagons, and
take the lake road next morning.

And what would become of Lois? Perplexed and dejected, I wandered about
the willow-run, pondering the situation; sat for a while on the
river-bank to watch the batteaux and the Oneida canoes; then, ever
restless with my deepening solicitude for Lois, I walked over to the
fort. And the first man I laid eyes on was Lieutenant Boyd, conversing
with some ladies on the parade.

He did not see me. He had evidently returned from the main body with a
small scout the night before, and now was up and dressed in his best,
spick and span and gay, fairly shining in the sunlight as he stood
leaning against a log prop, talking with these ladies where they were
seated on one of the rustic settles lately made by Alden's men.

Venturing nearer, I found that I knew all of the ladies, for one was
the handsome wife of Captain Bleecker, of the 3rd New York, and another
proved to be Angelina Lansing, wife of Gerrit Lansing, Ensign in the
same regiment.

The third lady was a complete surprise to me, she being that pretty and
vivacious Magdalene Helmer--called Lana--the confidante of Clarissa
Putnam--a bright-eyed, laughing beauty from Tribes Hill, whom I had
known very well at Guy Park, where she often stayed with her friend,
Miss Putnam, when Sir John Johnson was there.

As I recognised them, Boyd chanced to glance around, and saw me. He
smiled and spoke to the ladies; all lifted their heads and looked in my
direction; and Lana Helmer waved her handkerchief and coolly blew me a
kiss from her finger-tips.

So, cap in hand, I crossed the parade, made my best bow and respects to
each in turn, replaced my cap, and saluted Lieutenant Boyd, who
returned my salute with pretended hauteur, then grinned and offered his
hand.

"See what a bower of beauty is blossomed over night in these dreary
barracks, Loskiel. There seems to be some happiness left in the world
for the poor rifleman."

"Do you remain?" I asked of Mrs. Bleecker.

"Indeed we do," she said, laughing, "provided that my husband's
regiment remains. As soon as we understood that they had not been
ordered into the Indian country we packed our boxes and came up by
batteau last night. The news about my husband's regiment is true, is it
not?"

"Colonel Gansevoort's regiment is not to join General Sullivan, but is
to be held to guard the Valley. I had the news yesterday for certain."

"What luck!" said Boyd, his handsome eyes fixed on Lana Helmer, who
shot at him a glance as daring. And it made me uneasy to see she meant
to play coquette with such a man as Boyd; and I remembered her high
spirits and bright daring at the somewhat loose gatherings at Guy Park,
where every evening too much wine was drunk, and Sir John and Clarissa
made no secret of the flame that burned between them.

Yet, of Lana Helmer never a suspicious word had been breathed that ever
I had heard--for it seemed she could dare where others dared not; say
and do and be what another woman might not, as though her wit and
beauty licensed what had utterly damned another. Nor did her devotion
and close companionship with Clarissa ever seem to raise a question as
to her own personal behaviour. And well I remember a gay company being
at cards and wine one day in the summer house on the river hew she
answered a disrespect of Sir John with a contemptuous rebuke which sent
the muddy blood into his face and left him ashamed--the only time I
ever saw him so.

Ensign Chambers came a-mincing up, was presented to the ladies,
languidly made preparations for taking Mrs. Lansing by storm; and the
first deadly grace he pictured for her was his macaroni manner of
taking snuff--with which fascinating ceremony he had turned many a
silly head in New York ere we marched out and the British marched in.

I talked for a while with Mrs. Bleecker of this and that, striving the
while to catch Lana Helmer's eye. For not only did her coquetry with
Boyd make me uneasy, knowing them both as I did, but on my own account
I desired to speak to her in private when opportunity afforded. Alone
and singly either of these people stood in no danger from the outer
world. Pitted against each other, what their recklessness might lead to
I did not know. For since Boyd's attempted gallantries toward Lois--he
believing her to be as youthful and depraved as seemed the case--a deep
and growing distrust for this man which I had never before felt had
steadily invaded my friendship for him. Also, he had already an affair
with a handsome wench at the Middle Fort, one Dolly Glenn, and the poor
young thing was plainly mad about him.

I heard Mrs. Lansing propose a stroll to the river before dinner, on
the chance of meeting her husband's regiment returning, which
suggestion seemed to suit all; and in the confusion of chatter and
laughter and the tying of a sun-mask by Mrs. Bleecker, aided by Boyd
and by the exquisite courtier, I cleverly contrived to supplant Boyd
with Lana Helmer, and not only stuck to her side, but managed to secure
the rear of the strolling column.

All this manoeuvre did not escape her, and as we fell a few paces
behind, she looked up at me with a most deadly challenge in her violet
eyes.

"Now," she said, "that you have driven off your rival, I am resigned to
be courted.... Heaven knows you wasted opportunities enough at Guy
Park."

I laughed.

"How strange it is, Lana," I said, "to be here with you; I in rifle
dress and thrums, hatchet, and knife at my Mohawk girdle; you in chip
hat and ribbons and dainty gown, lifting your French petticoat over the
muddy ruts cut on the King's Highway by rebel artillery!"

"Who would have dreamed it three years ago?" she said, her face now
sober enough.

"I thought your people were Tory," said I.

"Not mine, Euan; Clarissa's."

"Where is that child?" I asked pityingly.

"Clarissa? Poor lamb--she's in Albany still."

I did not speak, but it was as though she divined my unasked question.

"Aye, she is in love with him yet. I never could understand how that
could be after he married Polly Watts. But she has not changed.... And
that beast, Sir John, installed her in the Albany house."

I said: "He's somewhere out yonder with the marauders against whom we
are to march. They're all awaiting us, it is said; the whole
crew--Johnson's Greens, Butler's Rangers, McDonald's painted Tories,
Brant's Mohawks--and the Senecas with their war-chiefs and their
sorcerer, Amochol--truly a motley devil's brood, Lana; and I pray only
that one of Morgan's men may sight Walter Butler or Sir John over his
rifle's end."

"To think," she murmured, "that you and I have dined and wined with
these same gentlemen you now so ardently desire to slay.... And young
Walter Butler, too! I saw his mother and his sister in Albany a week
ago--two sad and pitiable women, Euan, for every furtive glance cast
after them seemed to shout aloud the infamy of their son and brother,
the Murderer of Cherry Valley."

"To my mind," said I, "he is not sane at all, but gone stark blood-mad.
Heaven! How impossible it seems that this young man with his handsome
face and figure, his dreamy melancholy, his charming voice and manners,
his skill in verse and music, can be this same Walter Butler whose name
is cursed wherever righteousness and honour exist in human breasts.
Why, even Joseph Brant has spurned him, they say, since Cherry Valley!
Even his own father stood aghast before such infamy. Old John Butler,
when he heard the news, dashed his hands to his temples, groaning out:
'I would have crawled from this place to Cherry Valley on my hands and
knees to save those people; and why my son did not spare them, God only
knows.'"

Lana shook her pretty head.

"I can not seem to believe it of him even yet. I try to think of Walter
as a murderer of little children, and it is not possible. Why, it seems
but yesterday that I stood plaguing him on the stone doorstep at Guy
Park--calling him Walter Ninny and Walter Noodle to vex him. You
remember, Euan, that his full name is Walter N. Butler, and that he
never would tell us what the N. stands for, but we guessed it stood for
Nellis, in honour of Nellis Fonda.... Lord! What a world o' trouble for
us all in these three years!"

"I had supposed you married long ago, Lana. The young Patroon was very
ardent."

"I? The sorry supposition! I marry--in the face of the sad and
miserable examples all my friends afford me! Not I, Euan, unless----"
She smiled at me with pretty malice. "----you enter the lists. Do you
then enter?" I reddened and laughed, and she, always enchanted to
plague and provoke me, began her art forthwith, first innocently
slipping her arm through mine, as though to support her flagging steps,
then, as if by accident, letting one light finger slip along my sleeve
to touch my hand and linger lightly.

Years ago, when we were but seventeen, she had delighted to tease and
embarrass me with her sweetly malicious coquetry, ever on the watch to
observe my features redden. I remember she sometimes offered to
exchange kisses with me; but I was a ninny, and a serious and hopeless
one at that, and would have none of her.

I believe we were thinking of the same thing now, and when I caught her
eye the gay malice of it was not to be mistaken.

"Lanette," said I, "take care! I am a soldier since you had your saucy
way with me. You know that the military are not to be dealt with
lightly. And I am grown up in these three years."

"Grown soberer, perhaps. You always did conduct like a pious
Broad-brim, Euan."

"I've a mind to kiss you now," said I, vexed.

"Kiss away, kind sir. You have me in the rear o! them. Now's your
opportunity!"

"Doubtless you'd cry out."

"Doubtless I wouldn't."

"Wait for some moonlit evening when we're unobserved----"

"Broad-brim!"

I laughed, and so did she, saying:

"I warrant you that your pretty Lieutenant Boyd had never waited for my
challenge twice!"

"Best look out for Boyd," said I. "He's of your own careless, reckless
kind, Lanette. Sparks fly when flint and steel encounter."

"Cold sparks, friend Broad-brim!"

"Not too cold to set tinder afire."

"Am I then tinder? You should know me better."

"In every one of us," said I, "there is an element which, when it meets
its fellow in another, unites with it, turning instantly to fire and
burning to the very soul."

"How wise have you become in alchemy and metaphysics!" she exclaimed in
mock admiration.

"Oh, I am not wise in anything, and you know it, Lana."

"I don't know it. You've been wise enough to keep clear of me, if that
be truly wisdom. Come, Euan, what do you think? Do you and I contain
these fellow elements, that you seem to dread our mutual conflagration
if you kiss me?"

"You know me better."

"Do I? No, I don't. Young sir, caper not too confidently in your coat
of many colours! If you flout me once too often I may go after you, as
a Mohawk follows a scalp too often flaunted by the head that wears it!"

I tried to sustain her delighted gaze and reddened, and the impudent
little beauty laughed and clung to my arm in a very ecstasy of malice,
made breathless by her own mirth.

"Come, court me prettily, Euan. It is my due after all these grey and
Quaker years when I made eyes at you from the age of twelve, and won
only a scowl or two for my condescension."

But we had reached the river bank, and there the group came once more
together, the ladies curious to see the batteaux arriving, loaded with
valley sheep, we officers pointing out to them the canoes of our corps
of Oneida guides, and Hanierri and the Reverend Mr. Kirkland reading
their Testaments under the shade of the trees, gravely absorbed in God.

"A good man," said I, "and brave. But his honest Stockbridge Indians
know no more of Catharines-town than do the converted Oneidas yonder."

Boyd nodded: "I prophesy they quit us one and all within an
arrow-flight of Wyalusing. Do you take me, Loskiel?"

"No, you are right," I said. "The fear of the Long House chains them,
and their long servitude has worn like fetters to their very bones.
Redcoats they can face, and have done so gallantly. But there is in
them a fear of the Five Nations past all understanding of a white man."

I spoke to a diminished audience, for already Boyd and Lana Helmer had
strolled a little way together, clearly much interested in each other's
conversation. Presently our precious senior Consign sauntered the other
way with pretty Mistress Lansing on his arm. As for me, I was contented
to see them go--had been only waiting for it. And what I had thought I
might venture to say to Lana Helmer by warrant of old acquaintance, I
was now glad that I had not said at all--the years having in no wise
subdued the mischief in her, nor her custom of plaguing me. And how
much she had ever really meant I could not truly guess. No, it had been
anything but wise to speak to her of Lois. But now I meant to mention
Lois to Mrs. Bleecker.

We had seated ourselves on the sun-crisped Indian grass, and for a
while I let her chatter of Guy Park and our pleasant acquaintance
there, and of Albany, too, where we had met sometimes at the Ten
Broecks, the Schuylers, and the Patroons. And all the while I was
debating within my mind how this proud and handsome, newly-married girl
might receive my halting story. For it would not do to conceal anything
vital to the case. Her clear, wise eyes would see instantly through any
evasion, not to say deception--even a harmless deception. No; if she
were to be of any aid in this deeply-perplexing business, I must tell
her the story of Lois--not betraying anything that the girl might
shrink from having others know, but stating her case and her condition
as briefly and as honestly as I might.

And no sooner did I come to this conclusion than I spoke; and after the
first word or two Mrs. Bleecker put off her sun-mask and turned,
looking me directly in the eyes.

I said that the young lady's name was Lois de Contrecoeur--and if it
were not that it was nothing, and human creatures require a name! But
this I did not say to her, nor thought it necessary to mention any
doubt as to the girl's parentage, only to say she was the child of
captives taken by the Senecas after the Lake George rout.

I told of her dreary girlhood, saying merely that her foster parents
were now dead and that the child had conceived the senseless project of
penetrating to Catharines-town, where she believed her mother, at
least, was still held captive.

The tall, handsome girl beside me listened without a word, her intent
gaze never leaving me; and when I had done, and the last word in my
brief for Lois had been uttered, she bent her head in thought, and so
continued minute after minute while I sat there waiting.

At last she looked up at me again, suddenly, as though to surprise my
secret reflections; and if she did so I do not know, for she smiled and
held out her hand to me with so pretty a confidence that my lips
trembled as I pressed them to her fingers. And now something within her
seemed to have been reassured, for her eyes and her lips became faintly
humorous.

"And where is this most forlorn and errant damsel, Sir Euan?" she
inquired. "For if I doubt her when I see her, no more than I doubt you
when I look at you, something should be done in her behalf without
delay.... The poor, unhappy child! And what a little fool! The Lord
looks after his lambs, surely, surely--drat the little hussy! It mads
me to even think of her danger. Did a body ever hear the like of it!
A-gypsying all alone--loitering around this army's camp! Mercy! And
what a little minx it is to so conduct--what with our godless, cursing
headlong soldiery, and the loud, swaggering forest-runners! Lord! But
it chills me to the bone! The silly, saucy baggage!"

She shuddered there in the hot sunshine, then shot at me a look so keen
and penetrating that I felt my ears go red. Which sudden distress on my
part again curved her lips into an indulgent smile.

"I always thought I knew you, Euan Loskiel," she said. "I think so
still.... As for your fairy damsel in distress--h'm--when may I see
her?"

In a low voice I confessed the late raggedness of Lois, and how she now
wore an Oneida dress until the boxes, which I had commanded, might
arrive from Albany. I had to tell her this, had to explain how I had
won from Lois this privilege of giving, spite of her pride.

"If I could bring her to you," said I, "fittingly equipped and clothed,
the pride in her would suffer less. Were you to go with me now in your
pretty silk and scarf, and patch and powder, and stand before her in
the wretched hut which shelters her--the taint of charity would poison
everything. For she is like you, Mrs. Bleecker, lacking only what does
not make, but merely and prettily confirms your quality and
breeding--clothing and shelter, and the means to live fittingly.... For
it is not condescension, not the lesser charity I ask, or she could
receive; it is the countenance that birth lends to its equal in dire
adversity."

Curious and various were the emotions which passed in rapid succession
over her pretty features; and not all seemed agreeable. Then suddenly
her eyes reflected a hidden laughter, and presently it came forth, a
merry peal, and sweet withal.

"Oh, Euan, what a boy you are! Had I been any other woman--but let it
go. You are as translucent as a woodland brook, and--at times you
babble like one, confident that your music pleases everyone who hears
it.... I pray you let me judge whether the errant lady be what a poet's
soul would have her.... I am not speaking with any unkind thought or
doubt.... But woman must judge woman. It is the one thing no man can
ever do for her. And the less he interferes during the judgment the
better."

"Then I'll say no more," said I, forcing a smile.

"Oh, say all you please, as long as you do not tell me what you think
about her. Tell me facts, not what your romantic heart surmises. And if
she were the queen of Sheba in disguise, or if she were a titled Saint
James drab, no honest woman but who would see through and through her,
and, ere she rose from her low reverence, would know her truly for
exactly what she is."

"Lord!" said I. "Is that the way you read us, also?"

"No. Women may read women. But never one who lived has read truly any
man, humble or high. Say that to the next pretty baggage who vows she
reads you like a book! And in her secret heart she will know you say
the truth--and know it, raging even while her smile remains unaltered.
For it is true, Euan; true concerning you men, also. Not one among you
all has ever really read us right. The difference is this; we know we
can not read you, but scorn to admit it; you honestly believe that you
can read us, and often boast of doing it. Which sex is the greater
fool, judge you? I have my own opinion."

We both laughed; after a moment she put on her sun-mask and I tied it.

"Where do you and Mrs. Lansing lodge until your husband's regiment
returns?" I asked.

"They have given us the old Croghan house. What it lacks in elegance of
appointment it gains in hospitality. If we had a dish of tea to brew
for you gentlemen we would do it; but Indian willow makes a vile and
bitter tea, and I had as lief go tealess, as I do and expect to
continue until our husbands teach the Tory King his manners."

She rose, giving me her pretty hand to aid her, shook out her dainty
skirts, put up her quizzing glass, and inspected me, smilingly.

"Bring her when you think it time," she said. "Somehow I already
believe that she may be something of what your fancy paints her. And
that would be a miracle."

"Truly she is a miracle," I said earnestly.

"Then remember not to say it to Angelina Lansing--and above all never
hint as much to Lana Helmer. Women are human; and pretty women perhaps
a little less than human. Leave them to me. For if this romantic damsel
be truly what you picture her, I'll have to tell a pretty fib or two
concerning her and you, I warrant you. Leave that saucy baggage,
Lanette, to me, Euan. And you keep clear of her, too. She's murderous
to men's peace of mind--more fatal than ever since Clarissa played the
fool."

"I was assassinated by Lana long ago," said I, smiling. "I am proof."

"Nevertheless, beware!" she whispered, as Boyd and Lana came sauntering
up. And there seemed to me to be now about them both a careless
indifference, almost studied, and in noticeable contrast to their
bright animation when they had left us half an hour ago.

"Such a professional heart-breaker as your Mr. Boyd is," observed Lana
coolly to us both. "I never before encountered such assurance. What he
must be in queue and powder, silk and small-sword, I dare not surmise.
A pitying heaven has protected me so far, and," she added, looking
deliberately at Boyd, "I ought to be grateful, ought I not, sir?"

Boyd made her a too low and over-courtly bow.

"Always the gallant and victorious adversary salutes the vanquished as
you, fair lady, have saluted me--imputing to my insignificant prowess
the very skill and address which has overthrown me."

"Are you overthrown?"

"Prone in the dust, mademoiselle! Draw Mr. Loskiel's knife and end me
now in mercy."

"Then I will strike.... Who is the handsome wench who passed us but a
moment since, and who looked at you with her very heart trembling in
her eyes?"

"How should I know?"

They stood looking smilingly at each other; and their smile did not
seem quite genuine to me, but too clear, and a trifle hard, as though
somehow it was a sort of mask for some subtler defiance. I reflected
uneasily that no real understanding could be possible between these two
in such a brief acquaintance; and, reassured, turned to greet our
macaroni Ensign and Mistress Angelina Lansing, now approaching us.

That our regimental fop had sufficient diverted her was patent, she
being over-flushed and smiling, and at gay swords' points already with
him, while he whisked his nose with his laced hanker and scattered the
perfume of his snuff to the four winds.

So, two and two, we walked along the road to Croghan's house, where was
a negro wench to aid them and a soldier-servant to serve them. And the
odd bits of furniture that had been used at our General's headquarters
had been taken there to eke out with rough make-shifts, fashioned by
Alden's men, a very scanty establishment for these three ladies.

Lana Helmer, to my surprise, motioned me to walk beside her; and all
the way to Croghan's house she continued close to me, seeming to
purposely avoid Boyd. And he the same, save that once or twice he
looked at her, which was more than she did to him, I swear.

She was now very serious and sweet with me on our way to Croghan's, not
jeering at me or at any of her teasing tricks, but conversing
reasonably and prettily, and with that careless confidence which to a
man is always pleasant and sometimes touching.

Of the old days we spoke much; the past was our theme--which is not an
unusual topic for the young, although they live, generally, only in the
future. And it was "Do you recall this?" and "Do you remember that?"
and "Do you mind the day" when this and that occurred? Incidents we
both had nigh forgotten were recalled gravely or smilingly, but there
was no laughter--none, somehow, seemed to be left either in her heart
or mine.

Twice I spoke of Clarissa, wishing, with kindliest intention, to hear
more of the unhappy child; but in neither instance did Lana appear to
notice what I had said, continuing silent until I, too, grew reticent,
feeling vaguely that something had somehow snapped our mutual thread of
sympathy.

At the door of Croghan's house we gathered to make our adieux, then
first went mincing our Ensign about his precious business; and then
Boyd took himself off, as though with an effort; and Lana and Angelina
Lansing went indoors.

"Bring her to me when I am alone," whispered Betty Bleecker, with a
very friendly smile. "And let the others believe that you stand for
nothing in this affair."

And so I went away, thinking of many things--too many and too
perplexing, perhaps, for the intellect of a very young man deeply in
love--a man who knows he is in love, and yet remains incredulous that
it is indeed love which so utterly bewilders and afflicts him.



CHAPTER IX

MID-SUMMER

Since our arrival from Westchester the weather had been more or less
unsettled--fog, rain, chilling winds alternating with days of midsummer
heat. But now the exhausting temperature of July remained constant;
fiery days of sunshine were succeeded by nights so hot and suffocating
that life seemed well-nigh insupportable under tents or in barracks,
and officers and men, almost naked, lay panting along the river bank
through the dreadful hours of darkness which brought no relief from the
fiery furnace of the day.

Schott's riflemen mounted guard stripped to the waist; the Oneidas and
Stockbridge scouts strode about unclothed save for the narrow clout and
sporran; and all day and all night our soldiers splashed in the river
where our horses also stood belly deep, heads hanging, under the
willows.

During that brief but scorching period I went to Mrs. Rannock's every
evening after dark, and usually found Lois lying in the open under the
stars, the garret being like an oven, so she said.

Here we had made up our quarrel, and here, on the patch of uncut
English grass, we lay listlessly, speaking only at intervals, gasping
for air and coolness, which neither darkness nor stars had brought to
this sun-cursed forest-land.

But for the last two nights I had not found Lois waiting for me, nor
did Mrs. Rannock seem to know whither she had gone, which caused me
much uneasiness.

The third evening I went to find her at Mrs. Rannock's before the
after-glow had died from the coppery zenith, and I encountered her
moving toward the Spring path, just entering the massed elder bloom.
Her face was dewy with perspiration, pale, and somewhat haggard.

"Lois, why have you avoided me?" I exclaimed. "All manner of vague
forebodings have assailed me these two days past."

"Listen to this silly lad!" she said impatiently. "As though a few
hours' absence lessen loyalty and devotion!"

"But where have you been?"

"Where I may not take you, Euan."

"And where is that?" I asked bluntly.

"Lord! What a catechism is this for a free girl to answer willy-nilly!
If you must know, I have played the maid of ancient Greece these two
nights past. Otherwise, I had died, I think."

And seeing my perplexed mien, she began to laugh.

"Euan, you are stupid! Did not the Grecian maids spend half their lives
in the bath?"

The slight flush of laughter faded from her face; the white fatigue
came back; and she passed the back of one hand wearily across her brow,
clearing it of the damp curls.

"The deadly sultriness of these nights," she sighed. "I was no longer
able to endure the heat under the eaves among my dusty husks. So lately
I have stolen at night to the Spring Waiontha to bathe in the still,
cold pools. Oh, Euan, it is most delicious! I have slept there until
dawn, lying up to my throat in the crystal flood." She laughed again.
"And once, lying so, asleep, my body slipped and in I slid, deep, deep
in, and awoke in a dreadful fright half drowned."

"Is it wise to sleep so in the Water?" I asked uneasily.

"Oh! Am I ever wise?" she said wearily. "And the blood beats in my
veins these heated nights so that I am like to suffocate. I made a bed
for me by Mrs. Rannock, but she sobbed in her sleep all night and I
could not close my eyes, So I thought of the Spring Waiontha, and the
next instant was on my way there, feeling the path with naked feet
through the starlight, and dropped my clothing from me in the darkness
and sank into the cool, sweet pool. Oh, it was heaven, Euan! I would
you might come also."

"I can walk as far as the pool with you, at all events," said I.

"Wonderful! And will you?"

"Do I ever await asking to follow you anywhere?" said I sentimentally.

But she only laughed at me and led the way across the dreary strip of
clearing, moving with a swift confidence in her knowledge of the place,
which imitating, I ran foul of a charred stump, and she heard what I
said.

"Poor lad!" she exclaimed contritely, slipping her hand into mine. "I
should have guided you. Does it pain you?"

"Not much."

Our hands were clasped, and she pressed mine with all the sweet freedom
of a comradeship which means nothing deeper. For I now had learned from
her own lips, sadly enough, how it was with her--how she regarded our
friendship. It was to her a deep and living thing--a noble emotion, not
a passion--a belief founded on gratitude and reason, not a confused,
blind longing and delight possessing every waking moment, ever creating
for itself a thousand tender dreams or fanciful and grotesque
apprehensions.

Clear-headed so far, reasonable in her affection, gay or tender as the
mood happened, convinced that what I declared to be my love for her was
but a boy's exaggeration for the same sentiments she entertained toward
me, how could she have rightly understood the symptoms of this amazing
malady that possessed me--these reasonless extremes of ardour, of
dejection, of a happiness so keen and thrilling that it pained
sometimes, and even at moments seemed to make me almost drunk.

Nor did I myself entirely comprehend what ailed me, never having been
able to imagine myself in love, or ever dreamed that I possessed the
capacity for such a violent devotion to any woman. I think now, at that
period, somewhere under all the very real excitement and emotion of an
adolescent encountering for the first time the sweet appeal of youthful
mind and body, that I seemed to feel there might be in it all something
not imperishable. And caught myself looking furtively and a little
fearfully at her, at times, striving to conceive myself indifferent.


When we came to the Spring Waiontha I had walked straight into the
water except for her, so dark it was around us. And:

"How can you ever get back alone?" said she.

"Oho!" said I, laughing, "I left the willow-tips a-dangle, breaking
them with my left hand. I am woodsman enough to feel my way out."

"But not woodsman enough to spare your shins in the clearing," she said
saucily.

"Shall we sit and talk?" I said.

"Oh, Euan! And my bath! I am fairly melting as I stand here."

"But I have not seen you for two entire nights, Lois."

"I know, poor boy, but you seem to have survived."

"When I do not see you every day I am most miserable."

"So am I--but I am reasonable, too. I say to myself, if I don't see
Euan today I will nevertheless see him to-morrow, or the day after, or
the next, God willing----"

"Lois!"

"What?"

"How can you reason so coldly?"

"I--reason coldly? There is nothing cold in me where you are concerned.
But I have to console myself for not seeing you----"

"I am inconsolable," said I fervently.

"No more than am I," she retorted hotly, as though jealous that I
should arrogate to myself a warmer feeling concerning her than she
entertained for me.

"I care so much for you, Lois," said I.

"And I for you."

"Not as I care for you."

"Exactly as you care for me. Do you think me insensible to gratitude
and affection?"

"I do not desire your gratitude for a few articles----"

"It isn't for them--though I'm grateful for those things too! It's
gratitude to God for giving me you, Euan Loskiel! And you ought to take
shame to yourself for doubting it!"

I said nothing, being unable to see her in the darkness, much less
perceive what expression she wore for her rebuke to me. Then as I stood
silent, I felt her little hands groping on my arm; and my own closed on
them and I laid my lips to them.

"Ai-me!" she said softly. "Why do we fight and fret each other? Why do
I, who adore you so, let you vex me and stir me to say what I do not
mean at all. Always remember, Euan--always, always--that whatever I am
unkind enough to say or do to vex you, in my secret mind I know that no
other man on earth is comparable to you--and that you reign first in my
heart--first, and all by yourself, alone."

"And will you try to love me some day, Lois?"

"I do."

"I mean----"

"Oh, Euan, I do--I do! Only--you know--not in the manner you once spoke
of----"

"But I love you in that manner."

"No, you do not! If you did, doubtless I would respond; no doubt at all
that I also would confess such sentiments in your regard. But it isn't
true for either of us. You're a man. All men are prone to harp on those
strings.... But--there is no harmony in them to me.... I know my own
mind, although you say I don't--and--I do know yours, too. And if a day
ever comes that neither you nor I are longer able to think clearly and
calmly with our minds, but begin to reason with our emotions, then I
shall consider that we are really entering into a state of love--such
as you sometimes have mentioned to me--and will honestly admit as much
to you.... And if you then desire to wed me, no doubt that I shall
desire it, too. And I promise in that event to love you--oh, to death,
Euan!" she said, pressing my hands convulsively. "If ever I love--that
way--it truly will be love! Are you content with what I say?"

"I must be."

"What an ungracious answer! I could beat you soundly for it! Euan, you
sometimes vex me so that I could presently push you into that pool....
I do not mean it, dearest lad. You know you already have my
heart--perhaps only a child's heart yet, though I have seen ages pass
away.... And my eyes have known tears.... Perhaps for that reason I am
come out into this new sunshine which you have made for me, to play as
children play--having never done so in my youth. Bear with me, Euan.
You would not want me if there were nothing in me to respond to you. If
there ever is, it will not remain silent. But first I want my play-day
in the sunshine you have promised me--the sunlight of a comrade's
kindness. Be not too blunt with me. You have my heart, I tell you. Let
it lie quiet and safe in your keeping, like some strange, frail
chrysalis. I myself know there is a miracle within it; but what that
miracle may be, I may not guess till it reveals itself."

"I am a fool," I said. "God never before sent any man such a comrade as
He has sent in you to me."

"That was said sweetly and loyally. Thank you. If hearts are to be
awakened and won, I think it might be done that way--with such pleasant
phrases--given always time."

Presently she withdrew her hands and slipped away from me in the dark.

"Be careful," said I, "or you will slip overboard."

"I mean to presently."

"Then--must I go so soon?"

She did not answer. Once I thought I heard her moving softly, but the
sound came from the wrong direction.

"Lois!"

No reply.

"Lois!" I repeated uneasily.

There was a ripple in the pool, silence, then somewhere in the darkness
a faint splash.

"Good Lord!" said I. "Have you fallen in?"

"Not fallen in. But I am truly in, Euan. I couldn't endure it any
longer; and you didn't seem to want to go.... So please remain where
you now are."

"Do you mean to say----" I began incredulously.

And, "Yes, I do!" she said, defiant. "And I think this ought to teach
you what a comrade's perfect confidence can be. Never complain to me of
my want of trust in you again."

In astonished and uneasy silence, I stood listening. The unseen pool
rippled in the darkness with a silvery sound, as though a great fish
were swirling there in the pallid lustre of the stars.

After a while she laughed outright--the light, mischievous laughter of
a child.

"I feel like one of those smooth and lurking naiads which haunt lost
pools--or like some ambushed water-sprite meditating malice, and slyly
alert to do you a harm. Have a care, else I transform you into a fish
and chase you under the water, and pinch and torment you!"

And presently her voice came again from the more distant darkness
somewhere:

"Has the box which you commanded arrived yet, Euan?"

"It is at my hut. A wagon will bring it to you in the morning."

I could hear her clap her wet little hands; and she cried out softly:

"Oh!" and "Oh!" Then she said: "I did not understand at first how much
I wished for everything you offered. Only when I saw the ladies at
Croghan's house, as I was coming with my mending from the fort--then I
knew I wanted everything you have bespoken for me.... Everything, dear
lad! Oh, you don't know how truly grateful I shall be. No, you don't,
Euan! And if the box is really come, when am I going with you to be
made known to Mistress Bleecker?"

"I think it is better that I first bring her to you."

"Would she condescend to come?"

"I think so."

There was a pause. I seated myself. Then the soft and indecisive sound
of ripples stirred by an idle hand broke the heated silence.

"You say they all are your good friends?" she remarked thoughtfully.

"I know them all. Lana Helmer I have known intimately since we were
children."

"Then why is it not better to present me to her first--if you know her
so very well?"

"Mrs. Bleecker is older."

"Oh! Is this Miss Helmer then so young?"

"Your age."

"Oh! My age.... And pretty?"

"The world thinks so."

"Oh! And what do you think, Euan?"

"Yes, she is pretty," said I carelessly.

There was a long silence. I sat there, my knees gathered in my arms,
staring up at the stars.

Then, faintly came her voice:

"Good-night, Euan."

I rose, laid hold of the willow bush that scraped my shoulders, felt
over it until I found the dangling broken branch; stepped forward,
groping, until I touched the next broken branch. Then, knowing I was on
my trail, I turned around and called back softly through the darkness:

"Good-night, little Lois!"

"Good-night, and sweet dreams, Euan. I will be dressed and waiting for
you in the morning to go to Mrs. Bleecker, or to receive her as you and
she think fitting.... Is there a looking glass in that same wonder-box?"

"Two, Lois."

"You dear and generous lad!... And are there hair-pegs? Heaven knows if
my clipped poll will hold them. Anyway, I can powder and patch,
and--oh, Euan! Is there lip-red and curd-lily lotion for the skin? Not
that I shall love you any less if there be none----"

"I bespoke of Mr. Hake," said I, laughing, "a full beauty battery, such
as I once saw Betty Schuyler show to Walter Butler, having but then
received it from New York. And all I know, Lois, is that it was full of
boxes, jars, and flasks, and smelled like a garden in late June. And if
Mr. Hake has not chosen with discretion I shall go South and scalp him!"

"Euan, I adore you!"

"You adore your battery," said I, not convinced.

"That, too. But you more than my mirrors, and my lip-red, and the lily
lotion--more than my darling shifts and stays and shoon and gowns!... I
had never dreamed I could accept them from you. But you had become so
dear to me--and I could read you through and through--and found you so
like myself--and it gave me a new pleasure to humble my pride to your
desires. That is how it came about. Also, I saw those ladies.... And I
do not think I shall be great friends with your Lana Helmer--even when
I am fine and brave in gown and powder to face her on equal terms----"

"Lois, what in the world are you babbling?"

"Let me babble, Euan. Never have I been so happy, so content, so
excited yet so confident.... Listen; do you dread tomorrow?"

"I?"

"Yes--that I might not do you honour before your fashionable
friends?... And I say to you, have no fear. If my gowns are truly what
I think they are, I shall conduct without a tremour--particularly if
your Lana be there, and that careless, rakish friend of yours,
Lieutenant Boyd."

"Do you remember what you are to say to Boyd if he seems in any wise to
think he has met you elsewhere?"

"I can avoid a lie and deal with him," she said with calm contempt.
"But there is not a chance he'd know me in my powder."

There was a silence. Then the unseen water rippled and splashed.

"Poor Euan!" she said. "I wish you might dare swim here in this
heavenly place with me. But we are not god and goddess, and the fabled
age is vanished.... Good-night, dear lad.... And one thing more.... All
you are to me--all you have done for me--don't you understand that I
could not take it from you unless, in my secret heart, I knew that one
day I must be to you all you desire--and all I, too, shall learn to
wish for?"

"It is written," I said unsteadily. "It must come to pass."

"It must come," she said, in the hushed voice of a child who dreams,
wide-eyed awake, murmuring of wonders.


I slept on the river-sand, not soundly, for all night long men and
horses splashed in the water all around me, and I was conscious of many
people stirring, of voices, the dip of paddles, and of the slow
batteaux passing with the wavelets slapping on their bows. Then, the
next I knew--bang! And the morning gun jarred me awake.

I had bathed and dressed, but had not yet breakfasted when one of our
regimental wagons came to take the box to Lois--a fine and noble box
indeed, in its parti-coloured cowhide cover, and a pretty pattern of
brass nails all over it, making here a star and there a sunburst,
around the brass plate engraven with her name: "Lois de Contrecoeur."

Then the wagon drove away, and the Sagamore and I broke bread together,
seated in the willow shade, the heat in our bush-hut being
insupportable.

"No more scalps, Mayaro?" I taunted him, having already inspected the
unpleasant trophies behind the hut. "How is this, then? Are the Cats
all skinned?"

He smiled serenely. "They have crept westward to lick their scars,
Loskiel. A child may safely play in the forest now from the upper
castle and Torloch to the Minnisink."

"Has Amochol gone?"

"To make strong magic for his dead Cats, little brother. The Siwanois
hatchets are still sticking in the heads of Hiokatoo's Senecas. Let
their eight Sachems try to pull them out."

"So you have managed to wound a Seneca or two?"

"Three, Loskiel--but the rifle was one of Sir William's, and carried to
the left, and only a half-ounce ball. My brother Loskiel will make
proper requisition of the Commissary of Issues and draw a weapon fit
for a Mohican warrior."

"Indeed I will," said I, smilingly, knowing well enough that the
four-foot, Indian-trade, smooth bore was no weapon for this warrior;
nor was it any kindness in such times as these to so arm our corps of
Oneida scouts.

After breakfast I went to the fort and found that Major Parr and his
command had come in the night before from their long and very arduous
scout beyond the Canajoharrie Castle.

The Major received me, inquiring particularly whether I had contrived
to keep the Sagamore well affected toward our cause; and seemed much
pleased when I told him that this Siwanois and I had practiced the rite
of blood-brotherhood.

"Excellent," said he. "And I don't mind admitting to you that I place
very little reliance on the mission Indians as guides--neither on the
Stockbridge runners nor on the Oneidas, who have come to us more in
fear of the Long House than out of any particular loyalty or desire to
aid us."

"That is true, sir. They had as soon enter hell as Catharines-town."

The Major nodded and continued to open and read the letters which had
arrived during his absence.

"May I draw one of our rifles for my Mohican, sir?" I asked.

"We have very few. Schott's men have not yet all drawn their arms."

"Nevertheless----"

"You think it necessary?"

"I think it best to properly arm the only reliable guide this army has
in its service, Major."

"Very well, Mr. Loskiel.... And see that you keep this fellow in good
humour. Use your own wit and knowledge; do as you deem best. All I ask
of you is to keep this wild beast full fed and properly flattered until
we march."

"Yes, sir," I said gravely, thinking to myself in a sad sort of wonder
how utterly the majority of white men mistook their red brethren of the
forest, and how blind they were not to impute to them the same humanity
that they arrogated to themselves.

So much could have been done had men of my blood and colour dealt nobly
with a noble people. Yet, even Major Parr, who was no fool and who was
far more enlightened than many, spoke of a Mohican Sagamore as "this
wild beast," and seriously advised me to keep him "full fed and
properly flattered!"

"Yes, sir," I repeated, saluting, and almost inclined to laugh in his
face.

So I first made requisition for the lang rifle, then reported to my
captain, although being on special detail under Major Parr's personal
orders, this was nothing more than a mere courtesy.

The parade already swarmed with our men mustering for inspection; I met
Lieutenant Boyd, and we conversed for a while, he lamenting the
impossibility of making a boating party with the ladies, being on duty
until three o'clock. And:

"Who is this new guest of Mrs. Bleecker?" he asked curiously. "I
understand that you are acquainted with her. What is her name? A Miss
de Contrecoeur?"

I had not been prepared for that, never expecting that Mrs. Bleecker
had already started to prepare the way; but I kept my countenance and
answered coolly enough that I had the honour of knowing Miss de
Contrecoeur.

"She came by batteau from Albany?"

"Her box," said I, "has just arrived from Albany by batteau."

"Is the lady young and handsome?" he asked, smiling.

"Both, Mr. Boyd."

"Well," he said, with a polite oath, "she must be something more, too,
if she hopes to rival Lana Helmer."

So it had already come to such terms of intimacy that he now spoke of
her as Lana. For the last few days I had not been to Croghan's house to
pay my respects, the heat leaving me disinclined to stir from the shade
of the river trees. Evidently it had not debarred Boyd from presenting
himself, or her from receiving him, although a note brought to me from
Mrs. Bleecker by her black wench said that both she and Angelina
Lansing were ill with the heat and kept their rooms.

"We are bidden to cake and wine at five," said I. "Are you going?"

He said he would be present, and so I left him buckling on his belt,
and the conch-horn's blast echoing over the parade, sounding the
assembly.

At the gate I encountered Lana and Mrs. Lansing and our precious
Ensign, come to view the inspection, and exchanged a gay greeting with
them.

Then, mending my pace, I hastened to Croghan's house, and found Mrs.
Bleecker pacing the foot-path and nibbling fennel.

"How agreeably cool it is growing," she said as I bent over her
fingers. "I truly believe we are to have an endurable day at last." She
smiled at me as I straightened up, and continued to regard me very
intently, still slightly smiling.

"What has disturbed your usual equanimity, Euan? You seem as flushed
and impatient as--as a lover at a tryst, for example."

At that I coloured so hotly that she laughed and took my arm, saying:

"There is no sport in plaguing so honest a heart as yours, dear lad.
Come; shall we walk over to call upon your fairy princess? Or had you
rather bring her here to me?"

"She also leaves it to your pleasure," I said; "Naturally," said Mrs.
Bleecker, with a touch of hauteur; then, softening, smiled as much at
herself as at me, I think.

"Come," she said gaily. "Sans ceremonie, n'est-ce pas?"

And we sauntered down the road.

"Her box arrived last evening," said I. "God send that Mr. Hake has
chosen to please her."

"Is he married?"

"No."

"Lord!" said she gravely. "Then it is well enough that you pray....
Perhaps, however," and she gave me a mischievous look, "you have
entrusted such commissions to Mr. Hake before."

"I never have!" I said earnestly, then was obliged to join in her
delighted laughter.

"I knew you had not, Euan. But had I asked that question of your
friend, Mr. Boyd, and had he answered me as you did, I might have
thought he lied."

I said nothing.

"He is at our house every day, and every moment when he is not on
duty," she remarked.

"What gallant man would not do the like, if privileged?" I said lightly.

"Lana talks with him too much. Angelina and I have kept our rooms, as I
wrote you, truly dreading a stroke of the sun. But Lana! Lord! She was
up and out and about with her lieutenant; and he had an Oneida to take
them both boating--and then he had the canoe only, and paddled it
himself.... They were gone too long to suit me," she added curtly.

"When?"

"Every night. I wish I knew where they go in their canoe. But I can do
nothing with Lana.... You, perhaps, might say a friendly word to Mr.
Boyd--if you are on that footing with him--to consider Lana's
reputation a little more, and his own amusement a little less."

I said slowly: "Whatever footing I am on with him, I will say that to
him, if you wish."

"I don't wish you to provoke him."

"I shall take pains not to."

She said impatiently: "There are far too many army duels now. It
sickens me to hear of them. Besides, Lana did ever raise the devil
beyond bounds with any man she could ensnare--and no harm done."

"No harm," I said. "Walter Butler had a hurt of her bright eyes, and
sulked for months. And many another, Mrs. Bleecker. But somehow, Mr.
Boyd--"

She nodded: "Yes--he's too much like her--but, being a man, scarcely as
innocent of intention, I've said as much to her, and left her
pouting--the silly little jade."

We said nothing more, having come in sight of the low house of logs
where Lois dwelt.

"The poor child," said Mrs. Bleecker softly. "Lord! What a kennel for a
human being!"

As we approached we saw Mrs. Rannock crossing the clearing in the
distance, laden with wash from the fort; and I briefly acquainted my
handsome companion with her tragic history. Then, coming to the door, I
knocked. A lovely figure opened for us.

So astonished was I--it having somehow gone from my mind that Lois
could be so changed, that for a moment I failed to recognise her in
this flushed and radiant young creature advancing in willowy beauty
from the threshold.

As she sank very low in her pretty reverence, I saw her curly hair all
dusted with French powder, under the chip hat with its lilac ribbons
tied beneath her chin--and the beauty-patch on her cheek I saw, and how
snowy her hands were, where her fingers held her flowered gown spread.

Then, recovering, she rose gracefully from her reverence, and I saw her
clear grey eyes star-brilliant as I had never seen them, and a
breathless little smile edging her lips.

On Mrs. Bleecker the effect she produced was odd, for that proud and
handsome young matron had flushed brightly at first, lips compressed
and almost stern; and her courtesy had been none too supple either.

Then in a stupid way I went forward to make my compliments and bend low
over the little hand; and as I recovered myself I found her eyes on me
for the first time--and for a brief second they lingered, soft and
wonderful, sweet, tender, wistful. But the next moment they were clear
and brilliant again with controlled excitement, as Mrs. Bleecker
stepped forward, putting out both hands impulsively. Afterward she said
to me:

"It was her eyes, and the look she gave you, Euan, that convinced me."

But now, to Lois, she said very sweetly:

"I am certain that we are to become friends if you wish it as much as I
do."

Lois laid her hands in hers.

"I do wish it," she said.

"Then the happy accomplishment is easy," said Mrs. Bleecker, smiling.
"I had expected to yield to you very readily my interest and sympathy,
but I had scarce expected to yield my heart to you at our first
meeting."

Lois stood mute, the smile still stamped on her lips. Suddenly the
tears sprang to her eyes, and she turned away hastily; and Mrs.
Bleecker's arm went 'round her waist.

They walked into the house together, and I, still dazed and mazed with
the enchanted revelation of her new loveliness, wandered about among
the charred stumps, my thoughts a heavenly chaos, as though a million
angels were singing in my ears. I could even have seen them, save for a
wondrous rosy mist that rolled around them.

How long I wandered I do not know, but presently the door opened, and
Lois beckoned me, and I went in to find Mrs. Bleecker down on her knees
on the puncheon floor, among the mass of pretty finery overflowing from
the box.

"Did Mr. Hake's selection please you?" I asked, "Oh, Euan, how can I
make you understand! Everything is too beautiful to be real, and I am
certain that a dreadful Cinderella awakening is in store for me."

"Yes--but she wore the slipper in the end."

Lois gave me a shy, sweet look, then, suddenly animated, turned eagerly
once more to discuss her wardrobe with her new friend.

"Your Mr. Hake has excellent taste, Euan," observed Mrs. Bleecker.
"Or," she added laughingly, "perhaps your late prayer helped." And to
Lois she said mischievously: "You know, my dear, that Mr. Loskiel was
accustomed to petition God very earnestly that your wardrobe should
please you."

Lois looked at me, the smile curving her lips into a happy tenderness.

"He is so wonderful," she said, with no embarrassment. And I saw Mrs.
Bleecker look up at her, then smilingly at me, with the slightest
possible nod of approbation.

For two hours and more that pair of women remained happy among the
ribbons and laces; and every separate article Lois brought to me
naively, for me to share her pleasure. And once or twice I saw Mrs.
Bleecker watching us intently; and when discovered she only laughed,
but with such sweetness and good will that it left me happy and
reassured.

"We have arranged that Miss de Contrecoeur is to share my room with me
at Croghan's," said Mrs. Bleecker. "And, Euan, I think you should send
a wagon for her box at once. The distance is short; we will stroll home
together."

I took my leave of them, contented, and walked back to the fort alone,
my heart full of thankfulness for what God had done for her that day.



CHAPTER X

IN GARRISON

The end of the month was approaching, and as yet we had received no
marching orders, although every evening the heavy-laden batteaux
continued to arrive from Albany, and every morning the slow wagon train
left for the lake, escorted by details from Schott's irregulars, and
Franklin's Wyoming militia.

But our veteran rifle battalion did not stir, although all the other
regular regiments had marched to Otsego; and Colonel Gansevoort's 3rd
N. Y. Regiment of the Line, which was now under orders to remain and
guard the Valley, had not yet returned, although early in the week an
Oneida runner had come in with letters for Mrs. Bleecker and Mrs.
Lansing from their husbands, saying that the regiment was on its way to
the fort, and that they, the ladies, should continue at Croghan's as
long as Morgan's Rifles were remaining there in garrison.

Cooler weather had set in with an occasional day of heavy summer rain;
and now our garrison life became exceedingly comfortable, especially
agreeable because of the ladies' hospitality at Croghan's new house.

Except for Lois and for them my duties on special detail would have
become most irksome to me, shut off from the regiment as I was, with
only the Mohican to keep an eye on, and nothing else whatever to do
except to write at sundown every evening in my daily journal.

Not that I had not come to care a great deal for the Siwanois; indeed,
I was gradually becoming conscious of a very genuine affection for this
tall Mohican, who, in the calm confidence of our blood-brotherhood, was
daily revealing his personality to me in a hundred naive and different
ways, and with a simplicity that alternately touched and amused me.

For, after his own beliefs and his own customs, he was every inch a
man--courteous, considerate, proud, generous, loyal, and brave. Which
seem to me to be the general qualifications for a gentleman.

Except the Seneca Mountain Snakes, the nations of the Long House,
considering their beliefs, customs, and limited opportunities, were not
a whit inferior to us as men. And the Mohicans have always been their
peers.

For, contrary to the general and ignorant belief, except for the
Senecas, the Iroquois were civilised people; their Empire had more
moral reasons for its existence than any other empire I ever heard of;
because the League which bound these nations into a confederacy, and
which was called by them "The Great Peace," had been established, not
for the purpose of waging war, but to prevent it.

Until men of my own blood and colour had taught them treachery and
ferocity and deceit, they had been, as a confederacy, guiltless of
these things. Before the advent of the white man, a lie among the
Iroquois was punished by death; also, among them, unchastity was
scarcely known so rare was it. Even now, that brutal form of violence
toward women, white or red, either in time of war or peace, was
absolutely non-existent. No captive woman needed to fear that. Only the
painted Tories--the blue-eyed Indians--remained to teach the Iroquois
that such wickedness existed. For, as they said of themselves, the
People of the Morning were "real men."

They had a federal constitution; they had civil and political
ceremonies as wisely conceived and as dignified as they were
impressive, romantic, and beautiful. Their literature, historical and
imaginative, was handed down from generation to generation; and if
memory were at fault, there were the wampum belts in their archives to
corroborate tradition.

Their federal, national, tribal, sept, and clan systems were devised
solely to prevent international decadence and fraternal strife; their
secret societies were not sinister; their festivals and dances not
immodest; their priesthood not ignoble. They were sedentary and
metropolitan people--dwellers in towns--not nomads; they had cattle and
fowls, orchards and grain-fields, gardens for vegetables, corrals for
breeding stock. They had many towns--some even of two hundred houses,
of which dwellings many were cellared, framed, and glazed.

They had their well-built and heavily stockaded forts which, because
the first Frenchmen called them chateaux, were still known to us as
"castles."

Their family life was, typically, irreproachable; they were tender and
indulgent husbands and fathers, charitable neighbours, gay and
good-humoured among their friends; and their women were deferred to,
respected, and honoured, and had a distinct and important role to play
in the social and political practices of the Confederacy.

If they, by necessity, were compelled to decimate the Eries, crush the
Hurons, and subdue the Lenape and "make women of them," the latter term
meant only that the Lenape could not be trusted to bear arms as allies.

Yet, with truest consideration and courtesy toward these conquered
ones, and with a kindly desire to disguise and mitigate a necessary and
humiliating restriction, the Iroquois had recognised their priesthood
and their clans; had invested the Lenape with the fire-rights at
Federal Councils; and had even devised for them a diplomatic role. They
were henceforward the ambassadors of the Confederacy, the diplomats and
political envoys of the Long House.

And if the Delawares never forgot or forgave their position as a
subject nation, yet had the Iroquois done all they dared to soften a
nominal servitude which they believed was vitally necessary to the
peace and well-being of the entire Iroquois Confederacy.

Of this kind of people, then, were the Iroquois, naturally--not, alas,
wholly so after the white man had drugged them with rum, cheated them,
massacred them, taught them every vice, inoculated them with every
disease.

For I must bear witness to the truth of this, spite of the incredulity
of my own countrymen; and, moreover, it is true that the Mohicans were,
in all virtuous and noble things, the peers of the civilised people of
the Long House.

Those vile, horse-riding, murdering, thieving nomad Indians of the
plains--those homeless, wandering, plundering violators of women and
butchers of children, had nothing whatever in common with our forest
Indians of the East--were a totally different race of people, mentally,
spiritually, and physically. And these two species must ever remain
distinct--the Gens des Prairies and the Gens du Bois.

Only the Senecas resembled the degraded robbers of the Western plains
in having naturally evil and debased propensities, and entertaining
similar gross and monstrous customs and most wicked superstitions. But
in the Long House the Senecas were really aliens; every nation felt
this, from the Canienga and Oneida peoples, whose skin was almost as
white as our own, to the dusky Onondaga, Tuscarora, and Cayuga--darker
people, but no less civilised than the tall, stalwart, and handsome
keepers of the Eastern Gate.

I have ventured to say this much concerning the Iroquois so that it may
better be understood among my own countrymen how it was possible for
me, a white man of unmixed blood, to love and respect a red man of
blood as pure and unmixed as mine. A dog-trader learns many things
about dogs by dealing in them; an interpreter who deals with men never,
ultimately, mistakes a real man, white or red.

My isolation from the regiment, as I say, was now more than compensated
by the presence of the ladies at Croghan's house. And Lois had now been
lodged with them for more than a week. How much of her sad history Mrs.
Bleecker had seen fit to impart to Lana Helmer and Angelina Lansing I
did not know. But it seemed to be generally understood in the garrison
that Lois had arrived from Albany on Mrs. Bleecker's invitation, and
that the girl was to remain permanently under her protection.

The romantic fact that Lois was the orphan of white captives to the
Senecas, and had living neither kith nor kin, impressed Angelina
sentimentally, and Lana with an insatiable curiosity, if not with
suspicion.

As for Boyd, he had not recognised her at all, in her powder, patches,
and pretty gowns. That was perfectly plain to Lois and to me. And I
could understand it, too, for I hardly recognised her myself. And after
the novelty of meeting her had worn off he paid her no particular
attention--no doubt because of his headlong, impatient, and undisguised
infatuation for Lana, which, with her own propensity for daring
indiscretion, embarrassed us all more or less.

No warrant had been given me to interfere; I was on no such intimate
terms with Boyd; and as for Lana, she heeded Mrs. Bleecker's cautious
sermons as lightly as a bluebird, drifting, heeds the soft air that
thrills with his careless flight-song.

What officers there were, regular and militia, who had not yet gone to
Otsego Lake, came frequently to Croghan's to pay their respects; and
every afternoon there were most agreeable parties at Croghan's; nor was
our merriment any less restrained for our lack of chairs and tables and
crockery to contain the cakes and nougats, syllabubs and custards, that
the black wench, Gusta, contrived for us. Neither were there glasses
sufficient to hold the sweet native wines, or enough cups to give each
a dish of the rare tea which had come from France, and which Mr. Hake
had sent to me from Albany, the thoughtful soul!

If I did not entirely realise it at the time, nevertheless it was a
very happy week for me. To see Lois at last where she belonged; to see
her welcomed, respected, and admired by the ladies and gentlemen at
Croghan's--courted, flattered, sought after in a company so
respectable, and so naturally and sweetly holding her own among them
without timidity or effort, was to me a pleasure so wonderful that even
the quick, light shafts of jealousy--which ignoble but fiery darts were
ever buzzing about my ass's ears, sometimes stinging me--could not
fatally wound my satisfaction or my deep thankfulness that her dreadful
and wretched trials were ended at last, after so many years.

What seemed to Angelina and Lana an exceedingly quick intimacy between
Lois and me sentimentally interested the former, and, as I have said,
aroused the mischievous, yet not unkindly, curiosity of the latter.
Like all people who are deep in intrigue themselves, any hint of it in
others excited her sophisticated curiosity. So when we concluded it
might be safe to call each other Lois and Euan, Lana's curiosity leaped
over all bounds to the barriers of impertinence.

There was, as usual, a respectable company gathered at Croghan's that
afternoon; and a floating-island and tea and a punch. Lois, in her
usual corner by the northern window, was so beset and surrounded by
officers of ours, and Schott's, Franklin's, and Spalding's, and
staff-officers halted for the day, that I had quite despaired of a word
with her for the present; and had somewhat sulkily seated myself on the
stairs to bide my time. What between love, jealousy, and hurt pride
that she had not instantly left her irksome poppinjays at the mere
sight of me, and flown to me under the noses of them all, I was in two
minds whether I would remain in the house or no--so absurd and horridly
unbalanced is a young man's mind when love begins meddling with and
readjusting its accustomed mechanism. Long, long were my ears in those
first days of my heart's undoing!

Solemnly brooding on woman's coldness, fickleness, and general
ingratitude, and silently hating every gallant who crowded about her to
hold her cup, her fan, her plate, pick up her handkerchief or a bud
fallen from her corsage, I could not, however, for the life of me keep
my eyes from the cold-blooded little jilt.

She had evidently been out walking before I arrived, for she still wore
her coquette garden-hat--the chipstraw affair, with the lilac ribbons
tied in a bow under her rounded chin; and a white, thin gown, most
ravishing, and all bestrewn with sprigs and posies, which displayed her
smooth and delicately moulded throat above the low-pinned kerchief, and
her lovely arms from the creamy elbow lace down to her finger tips.

The French hair-powder she wore was not sprinkled in any vulgar
profusion; it merely frosted the rich curls, making her pink checks
pinker and her grey eyes a darker and purpler grey, and rendering her
lips fresh and dewy in vivid contrast. And she wore a patch on her
smooth left cheek-bone. And it was a most deadly thing to do, causing
me a sentimental anguish unspeakable.

As I sat there worshipping, enchanted, resentful, martyred, alternately
aching with loneliness and devotion, and at the same time heartily
detesting every man on whom she chanced to smile, comes a sly and
fragrant breath in my ear. And, turning, I discover Lana perched on a
step of the stairs above me, her mocking eyes brilliant with unkind
delight.

"Poor swain a-sighing!" said she. "Love is sure a thorny way, Euan."

"Have a care for your own skirts then," said I ungraciously.

"My skirts!"

"Yours, Lanette. Your petticoat needs mending now."

"If love no more than rend my petticoat I ought to be content," she
said coolly.

Silenced by her effrontery, which truly passed all bounds, I merely
glared at her, and presently she laughed outright.

"Broad-brim," said she, "I was not born yesterday. Have no worries
concerning me, but look to yourself, for I think you have been sorely
hit at last. And God knows such wounds go hard with a truly worthy and
good young man."

"I make nothing of your nonsense," said I coldly.

"What? Nothing? And yonder sits its pretty and romantic inspiration? I
am glad I have lived to see the maid who dealt you your first wound!"

"Do you fancy that I am in love?" said I defiantly.

"Why not admit what your lop-ears and moony mien yell aloud to the
world entire?"

"Have you no common sense, Lana? Do you imagine a man can fall in love
in a brief week?"

"I have been wondering," said she coolly, "whether you have ever before
seen her."

"Continue to wonder," said I bluntly.

"I do.... Because you call her 'Lois' so readily--and you came near it
the first day you had apparently set eyes on her. Also, she calls you
'Euan' with a tripping lack of hesitation--even with a certain natural
tenderness--"

I turned on her, exasperated:

"Come," said I, controlling my temper with difficulty, "I am tired of
playing butt to your silly arrows."

"Oh, how you squirm, Euan! Cupid and I are shooting you full as a
porcupine!"

"If Cupid is truly shooting," said I with malice, "you had best hunt
cover, Lana. For I think already a spent shaft or two has bruised you,
flying at hazard from his bow."

She smilingly ignored what I had said.

"Tell me," she persisted, "are you not at her pretty feet already? Is
not your very soul down on its worthy marrow-bones before this girl?"

"Is not every gallant gentleman who comes to Croghan's at the feet of
Miss de Contrecoeur?"

"One or two are in the neighbourhood of my feet," she remarked.

"Aye, and too near to please me," said I.

"Who, for example?"

"Boyd--for example," I replied, giving her a hearty scowl.

"Oh!" she drawled airily. "He is not yet near enough my ankles to
please me."

"You little fool," said I between my teeth, "do you think you can play
alley-taw and cat's-cradle with a man like that?"

Then a cold temper flashed in her eyes.

"A man like that," she repeated. "And pray, dear friend, what manner of
man may be 'a man like that?'"

"One who can over-match you at your own silly sport--and carry the game
to its sinister finish! I warn you, have a care of yourself, Lanette.
Sir John is a tyro to this man."

She said hotly: "If I should say to him what you have but now said to
me, he would have you out for your impertinence!"

"If he continues to conduct as he has begun," said I, "the chances are
that I may have him out for his effrontery."

"What! Who gave you the privilege of interfering in my affairs, you
silly ninny?"

"So that you display ordinary prudence, I have no desire to interfere,"
I retorted angrily.

"And if I do not! If I am imprudent! If I choose to be audacious,
reckless, shameless! Is it your affair?"

"Suppose I make it mine?"

"You are both silly and insulting; do you know it?"

Flushed, breathing rapidly, we sat facing each other; and I could have
shaken the little vixen, so furious was I at myself as well as at her.

"Very well," said I, "continue to play with hell-fire if you like. I'm
done with you and with him, too."

"And I with you," she said between her teeth. "And if you were not the
honest-meaning marplot that you are, Mr. Boyd should teach you a
lesson!"

"I'll teach him one now," said I, springing to my feet and gone quite
blind with rage so that I was obliged to stand still a moment before I
could discover Boyd where he stood by the open door, trying to converse
with Mrs. Lansing, but watching us both with unfeigned amazement.

"Euan!"

Lana's voice arrested me, and I halted and turned, striving to remember
decency and that I was conducting like a very boor. This was neither
the time nor place to force a quarrel on any man.... And Lana was
right. I had no earthly warrant to interfere if she gave me none;
perhaps no spiritual warrant either.

Still shaken and confused by the sudden fury which had invaded me, and
now sullenly mortified by my own violence and bad manners, I stood with
one hand resting on the banisters, forcing myself to look at Lana and
take the punishment that her scornful eyes were dealing me.

"Are you coming to your senses?" she asked coldly.

"Yes," I said. "I ask your pardon."

A moment more we gazed at each other, then suddenly her under lip
trembled and her eyes filled.

"Forgive me," she stammered. "You are a better friend to me
than--many.... I am not angry, Euan."

At that I could scarce control my own voice:

"Lanette--little Lana! Find it in your generous heart to offer me my
pardon, for I have conducted like a yokel and a fool! But--but I really
do love you."

"I know it, Euan. I did not know it was in me to use you so cruelly.
Let us be friends again. Will you?"

"Will you, Lana?"

"Willingly--oh, with all my heart! And--I am not very happy, Euan. Bear
with me a little.... There is a letter come from Clarissa; perhaps it
is that which edges my tongue and temper--the poor child is so sad and
lonely, so wretchedly unhappy--and Sir John riding the West with all
his hellish crew! And she has no news of him--and asks it of me----"

She descended a step and stood on the stair beside me, looking up at me
very sweetly, and resting her hand lightly on my shoulder--a caress so
frank and unconcealed that it meant no more then its innocent
significance implied. But at that moment, by chance, I encountered
Lois's eyes fixed on me in cold surprise. And, being a fool, and
already unnerved, I turned red as a pippin, as though I were guilty,
and looked elsewhere till the heat cooled from my cheeks.

"You dear boy," said Lana gently. "If there were more men like you and
fewer like--Sir John, there'd be no Clarissas in the world." She
hesitated, then smiled audaciously. "Perhaps no Lanas either.... There!
Go and court your sweetheart. For she gave me a look but now which
boded ill for me or for any other maid or matron who dares lay finger
on a single thrum of your rifle-shirt."

"You are wrong," said I. "She cares nothing for me in that manner."

"What? How do you know, you astounding boy?"

"I know it well enough."

Lana shot a swift and curious look straight across the room at Lois,
who now did not seem to be aware of her.

"She is beautiful... and--not made of marble," said Lana softly to
herself. "Good God, no! Scarcely made of marble.... And some man will
awaken her one day.... And when he does he will unchain Aphrodite
herself--or I guess wrong." She turned to me smiling. "That girl yonder
has never loved."

"Why do you think so?"

"I know it; but I can not tell you why I know it. Women divine where
men reason; and we are oftener right than you.... Are you truly in love
with her?"

"I can not speak of such things to you," I muttered.

"Lord! Is it as serious as that already? Is it arrived at the holy and
sacred stage?"

"Lana! For heaven's sake----"

"I am not jeering; I am realising the solemn fact that you have
progressed a certain distance in love and are arrived at a definite and
well-known milestone.... And I am merely wondering how far she has
progressed--or if she has as yet journeyed any particular distance at
all--or any more than set out upon the road. For the look she shot at
me convinces me that she has started--in fact, has reached that turn in
the thorny path where she is less inclined to defend herself than her
own possessions. You seem to be one of them."

Boyd, who had awaited the termination of our tete-a-tete with an
impatience perfectly apparent to anybody who chanced to observe him,
now seemed able to endure it no longer; and as he approached us I felt
Lana's hand on my arm tremble slightly; but the cool smile still curved
her lips.

She received him with a shaft of light raillery, and he laughed and
retorted in kind, and then we three sauntered over to the table where
was the floating island in a huge stone bowl of Indian ware.

Around this, and the tea and punch, everybody was now gathering, and
there was much talking and laughing and offering of refreshment to the
ladies, and drinking of humourous or gallant toasts.

I remember that Boyd, being called upon, instantly contrived some
impromptu verses amid general approbation--for his intelligence was as
lithe and graceful as his body was agile. And our foppish Ensign, who
was no dolt by a long shot either, made a most deft rondeau in flattery
of the ladies, turning it so neatly and unexpectedly that we all drew
our side-arms and, thrusting them aloft, cheered both him and the fair
subjects of his nimble verses.

I would have been glad to shine in that lively and amusing competition,
but possessed no such desirable talents, and so when called upon
contrived merely a commonplace toast which all applauded as in duty
bound.

And I saw Lois looking at me with an odd, smiling expression, not one
thing or another, yet scarcely cordial.

"And now," says Boyd, "each lady in turn should offer an impromptu
toast in verse."

Whereupon they all protested that the thing was impossible. But he was
already somewhat flushed with the punch and with his own success; and
says he, with that occasional and over-flourishing bow of his:

"To divinity nothing is impossible; therefore, the ladies, ever divine,
may venture all things."

"Which is why I venture to decline," remarked Lana. But he was set upon
it, and would not be denied; and he began a most flowery little speech
with the ladies as his inspiration:

"Poetry and grace in mind and body is theirs by nature," said he, "and
they have but to open the rosy petals of their lips to enthrall us all
with gems of----"

"Lord!" said Mrs. Bleecker, laughing, "I have never writ a verse in my
life save on my sampler; and if I were to open the rosy petals of my
lips, I should never have done a-giggling. But I'll do it, Mr. Boyd, if
you think it will enthrall you."

"As for me," quoth Angelina Lansing, "I require a workshop to
manufacture my gems. It follows that they are no true gems at all, but
shop-made paste. Ask Lana Helmer; she is far more adept in sugaring
refusals."

All turned smilingly toward Lana, who shrugged her shoulders, saying
carelessly:

  "I must decline!
  The Muses nine
  No sisters are of mine.
  Must I repine
  Because I'm not divine,
  And may not versify some pretty story
  To prove to you my own immortal glory?
  Make no mistake. Accept; don't offer verses.
  Kisses received are mercies--given, curses!"

Said Boyd instantly:

"A thousand poems for your couplets! Do you trade with me, Miss Helmer?"

"Let me hear your thousand first," retorted the coquette disdainfully,
"ere I make up my mind to be damned."

Major Parr said grimly:

"With what are we others to trade, who can make no verses? Is there not
some more common form of wampum that you might consider?"

"A kind and unselfish heart is sound currency," said Lana smiling and
turning her back on Boyd; which brought her to face Lois.

"Do make a toast in verse for these importunate gentlemen," she said,
"and bring the last laggard to your feet."

"I?" exclaimed Lois in laughing surprise. Then her face altered subtly.
"I may not dream to rival you in beauty. Why should I challenge you in
wit?"

"Why not? Your very name implies a nationality in which elegance,
graceful wit, and taste are all inherent." And she curtsied very low to
Lois.

For a moment the girl stood motionless, her slender forefinger crook'd
in thought across her lips. Then she glanced at me; the pink spots on
her cheeks deepened, and her lips parted in a breathless smile.

"It will give me a pleasure to do honour to any wish expressed by
anybody," she said. "Am I to compose a toast, Euan?"

I gazed at her in surprise; Major Parr said loudly: "That's the proper
spirit!"

And, "Write for us a toast to love!" cried Boyd.

But Lana coolly proposed a toast to please all, which, she explained, a
toast to love would not by any means.

"And surely that is easy for you," she added sweetly, "who of your
proper self please all who ever knew you."

"Write us a patriotic toast!" suggested Captain Simpson, "----A jolly
toast that all true Americans can drink under the nose of the British
King himself."

"That's it!" cried Captain Franklin. "A toast so cunningly devised that
our poor fellows in the Provost below, and on that floating hell, the
'Jersey,' may offer it boldly and unrebuked in the very teeth of their
jailors! Lord! But that would be a rare bit o' verse--if it could be
accomplished," he added dubiously.

Lois stood there smiling, thinking, the tint of excitement still
brilliant in her cheeks.

"No, I could not hope to contrive such a verse----" she mused aloud.
"Yet--I might try----" She lifted her grey eyes to mine as though
awaiting my decision.

"Try," said I--I don't know why, because I never dreamed she had a
talent for such trifles.

For a second, as her eyes met mine, I had the sensation of standing
there entirely alone with her. Then the clamour around us grew on my
ears, and the figures of the others again took shape on every side.

And "Try!" they cried. "Try! Try!"

"Yes," she said slowly. "I will try----" She looked up at me. "----If
you wish it."

"Try," I said.

Very quietly she turned and passed behind the punch bowl and into the
next room, but did not close the door. And anybody could see her there,
seated at the rough pine table, quill in hand, and sometimes
motionless, absorbed in her own thoughts, sometimes scratching away at
the sheet of paper under her nose with all the proper frenzy of a very
poet.

We had emptied the punch bowl before she reappeared, holding out to me
the paper which was still wet with ink. And they welcomed her lustily,
glasses aloft, but I was in a cold fright for fear she had writ nothing
extraordinary, and they might think meanly of her mind, which, after
all, I myself knew little of save that it was sweet and generous.

But she seemed in no manner perturbed, waiting smilingly for the noise
to quiet. Then she said:

"This is a toast that our poor tyrant-ridden countrymen may dare to
offer at any banquet under any flag, and under the very cannon of New
York."

She stood still, absent-eyed, thinking for a moment; then, looking up
at us:

"It is really two poems in one. If you read it straight across the page
as it is written, then does it seem to be a boastful, hateful Tory
verse, vilifying all patriots, even His Excellency--God forgive the
thought!

"But in the middle of every line there is a comma, splitting the line
into two parts. And if you draw a line down through every one of these
commas, dividing the written verse into two halves, each separate half
will be a poem of itself, and the secret and concealed meaning of the
whole will then be apparent."

She laid the paper in my hands; instantly everybody, a-tiptoe with
curiosity, clustered around to see. And this is what we all read--the
prettiest and most cunningly devised and disguised verse that ever was
writ--or so it seems to me:

  "Hark--hark the trumpet sounds, the din of war's alarms
  O'er seas and solid grounds, doth call us all to arms,
  Who for King George doth stand, their honour soon shall shine,
  Their ruin is at hand, who with the Congress join.
  The acts of Parliament, in them I much delight,
  I hate their cursed intent, who for the Congress fight.
  The Tories of the day, they are my daily toast,
  They soon will sneak away, who independence boast,
  Who non-resistant hold, they have my hand and heart,
  May they for slaves be sold, who act the Whiggish part.
  On Mansfield, North and Bute, may daily blessings pour
  Confusions and dispute, on Congress evermore,
  To North and British lord, may honours still be done,
  I wish a block and cord, to General Washington."

Then Major Parr took the paper, and raising one hand, and with a
strange solemnity on his war-scarred visage, he pronounced aloud the
lines of the two halves, reading first a couplet from the left hand
side of the dividing commas, then a couplet from the right, and so down
the double column, revealing the hidden and patriotic poem:

  "Hark--hark the trumpet sounds
  O'er seas and solid grounds!
  The din of war's alarms
  Doth call us all to arms!
  Who for King George doth stand
  Their ruin is at hand:
  Their honour soon shall shine
  Who with the Congress join:
  The acts of Parliament
  I hate their cursed intent!
  In them I much delight
  Who for the Congress fight.
  The Tories of the day
  They soon will sneak away:
  They are my daily toast
  Who independence boast.
  Who non-resistant hold
  May they for slaves be sold.
  They have my hand and heart
  Who act the Whiggish part.
  On Mansfield, North, and Bute,
  Confusion and dispute.
  May daily blessings pour
  On Congress evermore.
  To North and British lord,
  I wish a block and cord!
  May honours still be done
  To General Washington!"

As his ringing voice subsided, there fell a perfect silence, then a
very roar of cheering filled it, and the hemlock rafters rang. And I
saw the colour fly to Lois's face like a bright ensign breaking from
its staff and opening in flower-like beauty.

Then every one must needs drink her health and praise her skill and wit
and address--save I alone, who seemed to have no words for her, or even
to tell myself of my astonishment at her accomplishment, somehow so
unexpected.

Yet, why might I not have expected accomplishments from such a pliant
intelligence--from a young and flexible mind that had not lacked
schooling, irregular as it was? Far by her own confession to me, her
education had been obtained, while it lasted, in schools as good as any
in the land, if, indeed, all were as excellent as Mrs. Pardee's Young
Ladies' Seminary in Albany, or the school kept by the Misses Primrose.

And Major Parr, the senior officer present, must have a glass of wine
with her all alone, and offer her his arm to the threshold, where Lana
and Boyd were busily plaiting a wreath of green maple-leaves for her,
which they presently placed around her chip-straw hat. And we all
acclaimed her.

As for Major Parr, that campaign-battered veteran had out his tablets
and was painfully copying the verses--he being no scholar--while Boyd
read them aloud to us all again in most excellent taste, and Lois
laughed and blushed, protesting that her modest effort was not worthy
such consideration.

"Egad!" said Major Parr loudly. "I maintain that verses such as these
are worth a veteran battalion to any army on earth! You are an aid, an
honour, and an inspiration to your country, Miss de Contrecoeur, and I
shall take care that His Excellency receives a copy of these same
verses----"

"Oh, Major Parr!" she protested in dismay. "I should perish with shame
if His Excellency were to be so beset by every sorry scribbler."

"A copy for His Excellency! Hurrah!" cried Captain Simpson. "Who
volunteers?"

"I will make it," said I, with jealous authority.

"And I will aid you with quill, sand, and paper," said Lana. "Come with
me, Euan."

Lois, who had at first smiled at me, now looked at us both, while the
smile stiffened on her flushed face as Lana caught me by the hand and
drew me toward the other room where the pine camp-table stood.

While I was writing in my clear and painstaking chirography, which I
try not to take a too great pride in because of its fine shading and
skillful flourishes, the guests of the afternoon were making their
adieux and taking their departure, some afoot, others on horseback.

When I had finished my copy and had returned to the main room, nothing
remained of the afternoon party save Boyd and Lana, whispering together
by a window, and the black wench, Gusta, clearing away the debris of
the afternoon.

Outside in the late sunshine, I could see Mrs. Bleecker and Mrs.
Lansing strolling to and fro, arm in arm, but I looked around in vain
for Lois.

"She is doubtless gone a-boating with her elegant senior Ensign," said
Lana sweetly, from the window. "If you run fast you may kill him yet,
Euan."

"I was looking for nobody," said I stiffly, and marched out, ridding
them of my company--which I think was what they both desired.

Now, among other and importunate young fops, the senior Ensign and his
frippery and his marked attention to Lois, and his mincing but
unfeigned devotion to her, had irritated me to the very verge of
madness.

Twice, to my proper knowledge, this fellow had had her in an Oneida
canoe, and with a guitar at that; and, damn him, he sang with taste and
discretion. Also, when not on duty, he was ever to be found lisping
compliments into her ear, or, in cool possession of her arm,
promenading her to flaunt her beauty--and his good fortune--before the
entire fort. And I had had enough of it.

So when I learned that she was off again with him, such a rage and
wretchedness possessed me that I knew not what to do. Common sense
yelled in my ear that no man of that stripe could seriously impress
her; but where is the understanding in a very young man so violently
sick with love as was I? All men who approached her I instantly
suspected and mentally damned--even honest old Simpson--aye, even Major
Parr himself. And I wonder now I had not done something to invite
court-martial. For my common sense had been abruptly and completely
upset, and I was at that period in a truly unhappy and contemptible
plight.

I could not seem to steer my footsteps clear of the river bank, nor
deny myself the fierce and melancholy pleasure of gazing at their canoe
from afar, so I finally walked in that direction, cursing my own
weakness and meditating quarrels and fatal duels.

But when I arrived on the river bank, I could not discover her in any
of the canoes that danced in the rosy ripples of the declining sun. So,
mooning and miserable, I lagged along the bank toward my bush-hut; and
presently, to my sudden surprise, discovered the very lady of whom I
had been thinking so intently--not dogged as usual by that insufferable
Ensign, but in earnest conversation with the Sagamore.

And, as I gazed at them outlined against the evening sky, I remembered
what Betsy Hunt had said at Poundridge--how she had encountered them
together on the hill which overlooked the Sound.

Long before I reached them or they had discovered me, the Sagamore
turned and took his departure, with a dignified gesture of refusal; and
Lois looked after him for a moment, her hand to her cheek, then turned
and gazed straight into the smouldering West, where, stretching away
under its million giant pines, the vast empire of the Long House lay,
slowly darkening against the crimson sunset.

She did not notice me as I came toward her through the waving Indian
grass, and even when I spoke her name she did not seem startled, but
turned very deliberately, her eyes still reflecting the brooding
thoughts that immersed her.

"What is it that you and this Mohican have still to say to each other?"
I asked apprehensively.

The vague expression of her features changed; she answered with
heightened colour:

"The Sagamore is my friend as well as yours. Is it strange that I
should speak with him when it pleases me to do so?"

There was an indirectness in her gaze, as well as in her reply, that
troubled me, but I said amiably:

"What has become of your mincing escort? Is he gone to secure a canoe?"

"He is on duty and gone to the fort."

"Where he belongs," I growled, "and not eternally at your heels."

She raised her eyes and looked at me curiously.

"Are you jealous?" she demanded, beginning to smile; then, suddenly the
smile vanished and she shot at me a darker look, and stood considering
me with lips slightly compressed, hostile and beautiful.

"As for that fop of an Ensign----" I began--but she took the word from
my mouth:

"A fiddle-stick! It is I who have cause to complain of you, not you of
me! You throw dust in my eyes by accusing where you should stand
otherwise accused. And you know it!"

"I? Accused of what?"

"If you don't know, then I need not humiliate myself to inform you. But
I think you do know, for you looked guilty enough----"

"Guilty of what?"

"Of what? I don't know what you may be guilty of. But you sat on the
stairs with your simpering inamorata--and your courtship quarrels and
your tender reconciliations were plain enough to--to sicken anybody----"

"Lois! That is no proper way to speak of----"

"It is your own affair--and hers! I ask your pardon--but she flaunted
her intimacy with you so openly and indiscreetly----"

"There is no common sense in what you say!" I exclaimed angrily. "If
I----"

"Was she not ever drowning her very soul in your sheep's eyes? And even
not scrupling to shamelessly caress you in the face of all----"

"Caress me!"

"Did she not stand for ten full minutes with her hand upon your
shoulder, and a-sighing and simpering----"

"That was no caress! It was full innocent and----"

"Is she so innocent? Indeed! I had scarcely thought it of her," she
said disdainfully.

"She is a true, good girl, innocent of any evil intention
whatsoever----"

"I pray you, Euan, spare me your excited rhapsodies. If you prefer this
most bewitching--minx----"

"She is no minx!" I retorted hotly; and Lois as hotly faced me, pink to
her ears with exasperation.

"You do favour her! You do! You do! Say what you will, you are ever
listening for the flutter of her petticoats on the stairs, ever at her
French heels, ever at moony gaze with her--and a scant inch betwixt
your noses! So that you come not again to me vowing what you have vowed
to me--I care not how you and she conduct----"

"I do prefer you!" I cried, furious to be so misconstrued. "I love only
one, and that one is you!"

"Oh, Euan, yours is a most broad and catholic heart; and any pretty
penitent can find her refuge there; and any petticoat can flutter it!"

"Yours can. Even your fluttering rags did that!"

She flushed: "Oh, if I were truly weak and silly enough to listen to
you----"

"You never do. You give me no hope."

"I do give you hope! I am ever ladling it out to you as they ladle
soupaan to the militia! I say to you continually that never have I so
devotedly loved any man----"

"That is not love!" I said, furious.

"I do not pretend it to be that same boiling and sputtering sentiment
which men call love----"

"Then if it be not true love, why do you care what I whisper to any
woman?"

"I do not care," she said, biting the rose-leaf lower lip. "You may
whisper any treason you please to any h-heartless woman who snares your
f-fancy."

"You do not truly care?"

"I have said it. No, I do not care! Court whom you please! But if you
do, my faith in man is dead, and that's flat!"

"What!"

"Certainly.... After your burning vows so lately made to me. But men
have no shame. I know that much."

"But," said I, bewildered, "you say that you care nothing for my vows!"

"Did I say so?"

"Yes--you----"

"No, I did not say so!... I--I love your vows."

"How can you love my vows and not me?" I demanded angrily.

"I don't know I can do it, but I do.... But I will love them no longer
if you make the selfsame vows to her."

"Now," said I, perplexed and exasperated, "what does it profit a man
when a maid confesses that she loves to hear his vows, but loves not
him who makes them?"

"For me to love even your vows," said she, looking at me sideways, "is
something gained for you--or so it seems to me. And were I minded to
play the coquette--as some do----"

"You play it every minute!"

"I? When, pray?"

"When I came to Croghan's this afternoon there were you the centre of
'em all; and one ass in boots and spurs to wave your fan for you--oh,
la! And another of Franklin's, in his Wyandotte finery, to fetch and
carry; and a dozen more young fools all ogling and sighing at your
feet----"

Her lips parted in a quick, nervous laugh:

"Was that the way I seemed? Truly, Euan? Were you jealous? And I scarce
heeding one o' them, but my eyes on the doorway, watching for you!"

"Oh, Lois! How can you say that to me----"

"Because it was so! Why did you not come to me at once? I was waiting!"

"There were so many--and you seemed so gay with them--so careless--not
even glancing at me----"

"I saw you none the less. I never let you escape the range of my
vision."

"I never dreamed you noticed me. And every time you smiled on one of
them I grew the gloomier----"

"And what does my gaiety mean--save that the source of happiness lies
rooted in you? What do other men count, only that in their admiration I
read some recompense for you, who made me admirable. These gowns I wear
are yours--these shoon and buckles and silken stockings--these bows of
lace and furbelows--this little patch making my rose cheeks
rosier--this frost of powder on my hair! All these I wear, Euan, so
that man's delight in me may do you honour. All I am to please them--my
gaiety, my small wit, which makes for them crude verses, my modesty, my
decorum, my mind and person, which seem not unacceptable to a
respectable society--all these are but dormant qualities that you have
awakened and inspired----"

She broke off short, tears filling her eyes:

"Of what am I made, then, if my first and dearest and deepest thought
be not for you? And such a man as this is jealous!"

I caught her hands, but she bent swiftly and laid her hot cheek for an
instant against my hand which held them.

"If there is in me a Cinderella," she said unsteadily, "it is you who
have discovered it--liberated it--and who have willed that it shall
live. Did you suppose that it was in me to make those verses unless you
told me that I could do it? You said, 'Try,' and instantly I dared
try.... Is that not something to stir your pride? A girl as absolutely
yours as that? And do not the lesser and commonplace emotions seem
trivial in comparison--all the heats and passions and sentimental
vapours--the sighs and vows and languishing all the inevitable
trappings and masqueradings which bedizzen what men know as love--do
they not all seem mean and petty compared to our deep, sweet knowledge
of each other?"

"You are wonderful," I said humbly. "But love is no unreal, unworthy
thing, either; no sham, no trite cut-and-dried convention, made silly
by sighs and vapours.

"Oh, Euan, it is! I am so much more to you in my soul than if I merely
loved you. You are so much more to me--the very well-spring of my
desire and pride--my reason for pleasing, my happy consolation and my
gratitude.... Seat yourself here on the pleasant, scented grasses and
let me endeavour to explain it once and for all time. Will you?

"It is this," she continued, taking my hand between hers, when we were
seated, and examining it very intently, as though the screed she
recited were written there on my palm. "We are so marvelously matched
in every measurement and feature, mental and bodily almost--and I am so
truly becoming a vital part of you and you of me, that the miracle is
too perfect, too lofty, too serenely complete to vex it with the lesser
magic--the passions and the various petty vexations they entail.

"For I would become--to honour you--all that your pride would have me.
I would please the world for your sake, conquer it both with mind and
person. And you must endeavour to better yourself, day by day, nobly
and with high aim, so that the source of my inspiration remain ever
pure and fresh, and I attain to heights unthinkable save for your faith
in me and mine in you."

She smiled at me, and I said:

"Aye; but to what end?"

"To what end, Euan? Why, for our spiritual and worldly profit."

"Yes, but I love you----"

"No, no! Not in that manner----"

"But it is so."

"No, it is not! We are to be above mere sentiment. Reason rules us."

"Are we not to wed?"

"Oh--as for that----" She thought for a while, closely considering my
palm. "Yes--that might some day be a part of it.... When we have
attained to every honour and consideration, and our thoughts and
desires are purged and lifted to serene and lofty heights of
contemplation. Then it would be natural for us to marry, I suppose."

"Meanwhile," said I, "youth flies; and I may not lay a finger on you to
caress you."

"Not to caress me--as that woman did to you----"

"Lois!"

"I can not help it. There is in her--in all such women--a sly, smooth,
sleek and graceful beast, ever seeming to invite or offer a caress----"

"She is sweet and womanly; a warm friend of many years."

"Oh! And am I not--womanly?"

"Are you, entirely?"

She looked at me troubled:

"How would you have me be more womanly?"

"Be less a comrade, more a sweetheart."

"Familiar?"

My heart was beating fast:

"Familiar to my arms. I love you."

"I--do not permit myself to desire your arms. Can I help saying so--if
you ask me?"

"When I love you so----"

"No. Why are you, after all, like other men, when I once hoped----"

"Other men love. All men love. How can I be different----"

"You are more finely made. You comprehend higher thoughts. You can
command your lesser passions."

"You say that very lightly, who have no need to command yours!"

"How do you know?" she said in a low voice.

"Because you have none to curb--else you could better understand the
greater ones."

She sat with head lowered, playing with a blade of grass. After a while
she looked up at me, a trifle confused.

"Until I knew you, I entertained but one living passion--to find my
mother and hold her in my arms--and have of her all that I had ached
for through many empty and loveless years. Since I have known you that
desire has never changed. She is my living passion, and my need."

She bent her head again and sat playing with the scented grasses. Then,
half to herself, she said:

"I think I am still loyal to her if I have placed you beside her in my
heart. For I have not yet invested you with a passion less innocent
than that which burns for her."

She lifted her head slowly, propping herself up on one arm, and looked
intently at me.

"What do you know about me, that you say I am unwomanly and cold?" Her
voice was low, but the words rang a little.

"Do not deceive yourself," she said. "I am fashioned for love as
thoroughly as are you--for love sacred or profane. But who am I to dare
put on my crown of womanhood? Let me first know myself--let me know
what I am, and if I truly have even a right to the very name I wear.
Let me see my own mother face to face--hold her first of all in my
embrace--give my lips first to her, yield to her my first caresses....
Else," and her face paled, "I do not know what I might become--I do not
know, I tell you--having been all my life deprived of intimacy--never
having known familiar kindness or its lightest caress--and half dead
sometimes of the need of it!"

She straightened up, clenching her hands, then smiled her breathless
little smile.

"Think of it, Euan! For twenty years I have wanted her caresses--or
such harmless kindness of somebody--almost of anybody! My foster-mother
never kissed me, never put her arm about me--or even laid her hand
lightly upon my shoulder--as did that girl do to you on the stairs....
I tell you, to see her do it went through me like a Shawanese arrow----"

She forced a mirthless smile, and clasped her fingers across her knee:

"So bitterly have I missed affection all my life," she added calmly.
"...And now you come into my life! Why, Euan--and my sentiments were
truly pure and blameless when you were there that night with me on the
rock under the clustered stars--and I left for you a rose--and my heart
with it!--so dear and welcome was your sudden presence that I could
have let you fold me in your arms, and so fallen asleep beside you, I
was that deathly weary of my solitude and ragged isolation."

She made a listless gesture:

"It is too late for us to yield to demonstration of your affection now,
anyway--not until I find myself safe in the arms that bore me first.
God knows how deeply it would affect me if you conquered me, or what I
would do for very gratitude and happiness under the first close
caress.... Stir not anything of that in me, Euan. Let me not even dream
of it. It were not well for me--not well for me. For whether I love you
as I do, or--otherwise and less purely--it would be all the same--and I
should become--something--which I am not--wedded or otherwise--not my
free self, but to my lesser self a slave, without ambition,
pride--wavering in that fixed resolve which has brought me hither....
And I should live and die your lesser satellite, unhappy to the very
end."

After a silence, I said heavily:

"Then you have not renounced your purpose?"

"No."

"You still desire to go to Catharines-town?"

"I must go."

"That was the burden of your conversation with the Sagamore but now?"

"Yes."

"He refused to aid you?"

"He refused."

"Why, then, are you not content to wait here--or at Albany?"

She sat for a long while with head lowered, then, looking up quietly:

"Another pair of moccasins was left outside my door last night."

"What! At Croghan's? Inside our line!" I exclaimed incredulously.

"Aye. But this time the message sewed within them differed from all the
others. And on the shred of bark was written: 'Swift moccasins for
little feet as swift. The long trail opens. Come!'"

"You think your mother wrote it?" I asked, astounded.

"Yes.... She wrote the others."

"Well?"

"This writing is the same."

"The same hand that wrote the other messages throughout the years?"

"The same."

"Have you told the Sagamore of this?"

"I told him but now--and for the first time."

"You told him everything?"

"Yes--concerning my first finding--and the messages that came every
year with the moccasins."

"And did you show him the Indian writing also?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing. But there flashed up suddenly in his eyes a reddish light
that frightened me, and his face became so hideous and terrible that I
could have cried out. But I contrived to maintain my composure, and I
said: 'What do you make of it, O Sagamore?' And he spat out a word I
did not clearly understand----"

"Amochol?"

"Yes--it sounded like that. What did he mean, Euan?"

"I will presently ask him," said I, thoroughly alarmed. "And in the
meanwhile, you must now be persuaded to remain at this post. You are
contented and happy here. When we march, you will go back to
Schenectady or to Albany with the ladies of the garrison, and wait
there some word of our fate.

"If we win through, I swear to you that if your mother be there in
Catharines-town I will bring news of her, or, God willing, bring her
herself to you."

I rose and aided her to stand; and her hands remained limply in mine.

"I had rather take you from her arms," I said in a low voice, "----if
you ever deign to give yourself to me."

"That is sweetly said.... Such giving leaves the giver unashamed."

"Could you promise yourself to me?"

She stood with head averted, watching the last faint stain of color
fade from the west.

"Would you have me at any cost, Euan?"

"Any cost."

"Suppose that when I find my mother--I find no name for myself--save
hers?"

"You shall have mine then."

"Dear lad!... But--suppose, even then I do not love you--as men mean
love."

"So that you love no other man, I should still want you."

"Am I then so vital to you?"

"Utterly."

"To how many other women have you spoken thus?" she asked gravely.

"To none."

"Truly?"

"Truly, Lois."

She said in a low voice:

"Other men have said it to me.... I have heard them swear it with tears
in their eyes and calling God to witness. And I knew all the while that
they were lying--perjuring their souls for the sake of a ragged, unripe
jade, and a wild night's frolic.... Well--God made men.... I know
myself, too.... To love you as you wish is to care less for you than I
already do. I would not willingly.... Yet, I may try if you wish it....
So that is all the promise I dare make you. Come--take me home now--if
you care to walk as far with me."

"And I who am asking you to walk through life with me?" I said, forcing
a laugh.

We turned; she took my arm, and together we moved slowly back through
the falling dusk.

And, as we approached her door, came a sudden and furious sound of
galloping behind us, and we sprang to the side of the road as the
express thundered by in a storm of dust and driving pebbles.

"News," she whispered. "Do they bring good news as fast as bad?"

"It may mean our marching orders," I said, dejected.

We had now arrived at Croghan's, and she was withdrawing her arm from
mine, when the hollow sound of a conch-horn went echoing and booming
through the dusk.

"It does mean your marching orders!" she exclaimed, startled.

"It most certainly means something," said I. "Good-night--I must run
for the fort----"

"Are you going to----to leave me?"

"That horn is calling out Morgan's men----"

"Am I not to see you again?"

"Why, yes--I expect so--but if----"

"Oh! Is there an 'if'?' Euan, are you going away forever?"

"Dear maid, I don't know yet what has happened----"

"I do! You are going!... To your death, perhaps--for all I know----"

"Hush! And good-night----"

She held to my offered hand tightly:

"Don't go--don't go----"

"I will return and tell you if----"

"'If!' That means you will not return! I shall never see you again!"

I had flung one arm around her, and she stood with one hand clenched
against her lips, looking blankly into my face.

"Good-bye," I said, and kissed her clenched hand so violently that it
slipped sideways on her cheek, bruising her lips.

She gave a faint gasp and swayed where she stood, very white in the
face.

"I have hurt you," I stammered; but my words were lost in a frightful
uproar bursting from the fort; and:

"God!" she whispered, cowering against me, as the horrid howling
swelled on the affrighted air.

"It is only the Oneidas' scalp-yell," said I. "They know the news.
Their death-halloo means that the corps of guides is ordered out.
Good-bye! You have means to support you now till I return. Wait for me;
love me if it is in you to love such a man. Whatever the event, my
devotion will not alter. I leave you in God's keeping, dear. Good-bye."

Her hand was still at her bruised lips; I bent forward; she moved it
aside. But I kissed only her hand.

Then I turned and ran toward the fort; and in the torch-light at the
gate encountered Boyd, who said to me gleefully:

"It's you and your corps of guides! The express is from Clinton.
Hanierri remains; the Sagamore goes with you; but the regiment is not
marching yet awhile. Lord help us! Listen to those beastly Oneidas in
their paint! Did you ever hear such a wolf-pack howling! Well, Loskiel,
a safe and pleasant scout to you." He offered his hand. "I'll be
strolling back to Croghan's. Fare you safely!"

"And you," I said, not thinking, however, of him. But I thought of
Lana, and wished to God that Boyd were with us on this midnight march,
and Lana safe in Albany once more.

As I entered the fort, through the smoky flare of torches, I saw Dolly
Glenn waiting there; and as I passed she gave a frightened exclamation.

"Did you wish to speak to me?" I asked.

"Is--is Lieutenant Boyd going with you?" she stammered.

"No, child."

She thanked me with a pitiful sort of smile, and shrank back into the
darkness.

I remained but a few moments with Major Parr and Captain Simpson; a
rifleman of my own company, Harry Kent, brought me my pack and
rifle--merely sufficient ammunition and a few necessaries--for we were
to travel lightly. Then Captain Simpson went away to inspect the Oneida
scouts.

"I wish you well," said the Major quietly. "Guard the Mohican as you
would the apple of your eye, and--God go with you, Euan Loskiel."

I saluted, turned squarely, and walked out across the parade to the
postern. Here I saw Captain Simpson inspecting the four guides, one of
whom, to me, seemed unnecessarily burdened with hunting shirt and
blanket.

Running my eye along their file, where they stood in the uncertain
torchlight, I saw at once that the guides selected by Major Parr were
not all Oneidas. Two of them seemed to be; a third was a Stockbridge
Indian; but the fourth--he with the hunting-shirt and double blanket,
wore unfamiliar paint.

"What are you?" said I in the Oneida dialect, trying to gain a square
look at him in the shifty light.

"Wyandotte," he said quietly.

"Hell!" said I, turning to Captain Simpson. "Who sends me a Wyandotte?"

"General Clinton," replied Simpson in surprise. "The Wyandotte came
from Fortress Pitt. Colonel Broadhead, commanding our left wing, sent
him, most highly recommending him for his knowledge of the Susquehanna
and Tioga."

I took another hard look at the Wyandotte.

"You should travel lighter," said I. "Split that Niagara blanket and
roll your hunting-shirt."

The savage looked at me a moment, then his sinewy arms flew up and he
snatched the deerskin shirt from his naked body. The next instant his
knife fairly leaped from its beaded sheath; there was a flash of steel,
a ripping sound, and his blue and scarlet blanket lay divided. Half of
it he flung to a rifleman, and the other half, with his shirt, he
rolled and tied to his pack.

Such zeal and obedience pleased me, and I smiled and nodded to him. He
showed his teeth at me, which I fancied was his mode of smiling. But it
was somewhat hideous, as his nose had been broken, and the unpleasant
dent in it made horridly conspicuous by a gash of blood-red paint.

I buckled my belt and pack and picked up my rifle. Captain Simpson
shook hands with me. At the same moment, the rifleman sent to our
bush-hut to summon the Mohican returned with him. And a finer sight I
never saw; for the tall and magnificently formed Siwanois was in
scarlet war-paint from crown to toe, oiled, shaven save for the lock,
and crested with a single scarlet plume--and heaven knows where he got
it, for it was not dyed, but natural.

His scarlet and white beaded sporran swung to his knees; his ankle
moccasins were quilled and feathered in red and white; the Erie scalps
hung from his girdle, hooped in red, and he bore only a light
pack-slung, besides his rifle and short red blanket.

"Salute, O Sagamore! Roya-neh!" I said in a low voice, passing him.

He smiled, then his features became utterly blank, as one by one the
eyes of the other Indians flashed on his for a moment, then shifted
warily elsewhere.

I made a quick gesture, turned, and started, heading the file out into
the darkness.

And as we advanced noiselessly and swung west into the Otsego road, I
was aware of a shadow on my right--soft hands outstretched--a faint
whisper as I kissed her tightening fingers. Then I ran on to head that
painted file once more, and for a time continued to lead at hazard,
blinded with tears.

And it was some minutes before I was conscious of the Mohican's hand
upon my arm, guiding my uncertain feet through the star-shot dark.



CHAPTER XI

A SCOUT OF SIX

We were now penetrating that sad and devastated region laid waste so
recently by Brant, Butler, and McDonald, from Cobus-Kill on the
pleasant river Askalege, to Minnisink on the silvery Delaware--a vast
and mournful territory which had been populous and prosperous a
twelvemonth since, and was now the very abomination of desolation.

Cherry Valley lay a sunken mass of blood-wet cinders; Wyoming had gone
up in a whirlwind of smoke, and the wretched Connecticut inhabitants
were dead or fled; Andrustown was now no more, Springfield, Handsome
Brook, Bowmans, Newtown-Martin--all these pretty English villages were
vanished; the forest seedlings already sprouted in the blackened
cellars, and the spotted tree-cats squalled from the girdled orchards
under the July moon.

Where horses, cows, sheep, men, women, and children had lain dead all
over the trampled fields, the tall English grass now waved, yellowing
to fragrant hay; horses, barns, sheds--nay, even fences, wagons,
ploughs, and haycocks had been laid in cinders. There remained not one
thing that could burn which had not been burned. Only breeze-stirred
ashes marked these silent places, with here and there a bit of iron
from wagon or plough, rusting in the dew, or a steel button from some
dead man's coat, or a bone gone chalky white--dumb witnesses that the
wrath of England had passed wrapped in the lightning of Divine Right.

But Great Britain's flaming glory had swept still farther westward, for
German Flatts was gone except for its church and one house, which were
too near the forts for the destructives to burn. But they had laid in
ashes more than a hundred humble homes, barns, and mills, and driven
off more than a thousand cattle, horses, sheep, and oxen, leaving the
barnyard creatures dead or dying, and ten thousand skipples of grain
afire.

So it was no wonder that the provisioning of our forces at Otsego had
been slow, and that we now had five hundred wagons flying steadily
between Canajoharie and the lake, to move our stores as they arrived by
batteaux from below. And there were some foolish and impatient folk in
Congress, so I heard, who cried out at our delay; and one more sinister
jackass, who had said that our army would never move until a few
generals had been court-martialed and shot. And our Major Parr said
that he wished to God we had the Congress with us so that for once they
might have their bellyful of stratagem and parched corn.

But it is ever so with those home-loving and unsurpassed
butcher-generals, baker-brigadiers, candlestick-colonels, who, yawning
in bed, win for us victories while we are merely planning them--and,
rolling over, go to sleep with a consciousness of work well done, the
candle snuffed, and the cat locked out for the night.


About eleven o'clock on the first night out, I halted my scout of six
and lay so, fireless, until sun-up. We were not far, then, from the
head of the lake; and when we marched at dawn next morning we
encountered a company of Alden's men mending roads as usual; and later
came upon an entire Continental regiment and a company of Irregular
Rifles, who were marching down to the lake to try out their guns. Long
after we quitted them we heard their heavy firing, and could
distinguish between the loud and solid "Bang!" of the muskets and the
sharper, whip-lash crack of the long rifles.

The territory that now lay before us was a dense and sunless
wilderness, save for the forest openings made by rivers, lakes, and
streams. And it was truly the enemy's own country, where he roamed
unchecked except for the pickets of General Sullivan's army, which was
still slowly concentrating at Tioga Point whither my scout of six was
now addressed. And the last of our people that we saw was a detail of
Alden's regiment demolishing beaver dams near the lake's outlet which,
they informed us, the beavers rebuilt as fast as they were destroyed,
to the rage and confusion of our engineers. We saw nothing of the
industrious little animals, who are accustomed to labor while human
beings sleep, but we saw their felled logs and cunningly devised dams,
which a number of our men were attacking with pick and bar, standing in
the water to their arm-pits.

Beyond them, at the Burris Farm, we passed our outlying
pickets--Irregular Riflemen from the Scoharie and Sacandaga, tall,
lean, wiry men, whose leaf-brown rifle-dress so perfectly blended with
the tree-trunks that we were aware of them only when they halted us.
And, Lord! To see them scowl at my Indians as they let us through, so
that I almost expected a volley in our backs, and was relieved when we
were rid o' them.

When, later, we passed Yokam's Place, we were fairly facing that vast
solitude of twilight which lay between us and the main army's outposts
at the mouth of the Tioga. Except for a very few places on the Ouleout,
and the Iroquois towns, the region was uninhabited. But the forest was
beautiful after its own somewhat appalling fashion, which was
stupendous, majestic, and awe-inspiring to the verge of apprehension.

Under these limitless lanes of enormous trees no sunlight fell, no
underbrush grew. All was still and vague and dusky as in pillared
aisles. There were no birds, no animals, nothing living except the
giant columns which bore a woven canopy of leaves so dense that no
glimmer of blue shone through. Centuries had spread the soundless
carpet that we trod; eons had laid up the high-sprung arches which
vanished far above us where vault and column were dimly merged, losing
all form in depthless shadow.

There was an Indian path all the way from the lake, good in places, in
others invisible. We did not use it, fearing an ambush.

The Mohican led us; I followed him; the last Oneida marked the trees
for a new and better trail, and a straighter one not following every
bend in the river. And so, in silence we moved southward over gently
sloping ground which our wagons and artillery might easily follow while
the batteaux fell down the river and our infantry marched on either
bank, using the path where it existed.

Toward ten o'clock we came within sound of the river again, its softly
rushing roar filling the woods; and after a while, far through the
forest dusk, we saw the thin, golden streak of sunlight marking its
lonely course.

The trail that the Mohican now selected swung ever nearer to the river,
and at last, we could see low willows gilded by the sun, and a patch of
blue above, and a bird flying.

Treading in file, rifles at trail, and knife and hatchet loosened, we
moved on swiftly just within that strip of dusk that divides the forest
from the river shrub; and I saw the silver water flowing deep and
smooth, where batteaux as well as canoes might pass with unvexed keels;
and, over my right shoulder, above the trees, a baby peak, azure and
amethyst in a cobalt sky; and a high eagle soaring all alone.

The Mohican had halted; an Oneida ran down to the sandy shore and waded
out into mid-stream; another Oneida was peeling a square of bark from a
towering pine. I rubbed the white square dry with my sleeve, and with a
wood-coal from my pouch I wrote on it:


                   "Ford, three feet at low water."


The Stockbridge Indian who had stepped behind a river boulder and laid
his rifle in rest across the top, still stood there watching the young
Oneida in midstream who, in turn, was intently examining the river bank
opposite.

Nothing stirred there, save some butterflies whirling around each other
over a bed of purple milkweed, but we all watched the crossing, rifles
at a ready, as the youthful Oneida waded slowly out into the full
sunshine, the spray glittering like beaded topazes on his yellow paint.

Presently he came to a halt, nosing the farther shore like a lean and
suspicious hound at gaze; and stood so minute after minute.

Mayaro, crouching beside me, slowly nodded.

"He has seen something," I whispered.

"And I, too," returned the Mohican quietly.

I looked in vain until the Sagamore, laying his naked arm along my
cheek, sighted for me a patch of sand and water close inshore--a tiny
bay where the current clutched what floated, and spun it slowly around
in the sunshine.

A dead fish, lying partly on the shore, partly in the water, was
floating there. I saw it, and for a moment paid it no heed; then in a
flash I comprehended. For the silvery river-trout lying there carried a
forked willow-twig between gill and gill-cover. Nor was this all; the
fish was fresh-caught, for the gills had not puffed out, nor the supple
body stiffened. Every little wavelet rippled its slim and limber
length; and a thread of blood trailed from the throat-latch out over
the surface of the water.

Suddenly the young Oneida in mid-stream shrank aside, flattening his
yellow painted body against a boulder, and almost at the same instant a
rifle spoke.

I heard the bullet smack against the boulder; then the Mohican leaped
past me. For an instant the ford boiled under the silent rush of the
Oneidas, the Stockbridge Indian, and the Mohican; then they were
across; and I saw the willows sway and toss where they were chasing
something human that bounded away through the thicket. I could even
mark, without seeing a living soul, where they caught it and where it
was fighting madly but in utter silence while they were doing it to
death--so eloquent were the feathery willow-tops of the tragedy that
agitated each separate slender stem to frenzy.

Suddenly I turned and looked at the Wyandotte, squatting motionless
beside me. Why he had remained when the red pack started, I could not
understand, and with that confused thought in mind I rose, ran down to
the water's edge, the Wyandotte following without a word.

A few yards below the ford a giant walnut tree had fallen, spanning the
stream to a gravel-spit; I crossed like a squirrel on this, the burly
Wyandotte padding over at my heels, sprang to the bottom sand, and ran
up the willow-gully.

They were already dragging out what they had killed; and I came up to
them and looked down on the slain man who had so rashly brought
destruction upon his own head.

He wore no paint; he was not a warrior but a hunter. "St. Regis," said
the Mohican briefly.

"The poor fool," I said sadly.

The young Oneida in yellow clapped the scalp against a tree-trunk
carelessly, as though we could not easily see by his blazing eyes and
quivering nostrils that this was his first scalp taken in war. Then he
washed the blade of his knife in the river, wiped it dry and sheathed
it, and squatted down to braid the dead hair into the hunters-lock.

We found his still smouldering fire and some split fish baking in green
leaves; nets, hooks, spears, and a bark shoulder-basket. And he had
been a King's savage truly enough, foraging, no doubt, for Brant or
Butler, who had great difficulty in maintaining themselves in a
territory which they had so utterly laid waste--for we found in his
tobacco pouch a few shillings and pennies, and some pewter buttons
stamped, "Butler's Rangers." Also I discovered a line of writing signed
by old John Butler himself, recommending the St. Regis to one Captain
Service, an uncle of Sir John Johnson, and a great villain who recently
had been shot dead by David Elerson, one of my own riflemen, while
attempting to brain Tim Murphy with an axe.

"The poor fool," I repeated, turning away, "Had he not meddled with war
when his business lay only in hunting, he had gone free or, if we had
caught him, only as a prisoner to headquarters."

Mayaro shrugged his contempt of the St. Regis hunter; the Oneida youth
sat industriously braiding his first trophy; the others had rekindled
the embers of the dead man's fire and were now parching his raw corn
and dividing the baked river-trout into six portions.

Mayaro and I ate apart, seated together upon a knoll whence we could
look down upon the river and upon the fire, which I now ordered to be
covered.

From where I sat I could see the burly Wyandotte, squatting with the
others at his feed, and from time to time my glance returned to him.
Somehow, though I knew not why, there was about this Indian an
indefinable something not entirely reassuring to me; yet, just what it
might be I was not able to say.

Truly enough he had a most villainous countenance, what with his native
swarthiness and his broken and dented nose, so horridly embellished
with a gash of red paint. He was broad and squat and fearfully
powerful, being but a bulk of gristly muscle; and when he leaped a
gully or a brook, he seemed to strike the earth like a ball of rubber
and slightly rebound an the light impact. I have seen a sinewy panther
so rebound when hurled from a high tree-top.

The Oneida youth had now braided and oiled his scalp and was stretching
it on a willow hoop, very busy with the pride and importance of his
work. I glanced at Mayaro and caught a gleam of faint amusement in his
eyes; but his features remained expressionless enough, and it seemed to
me that his covert glance rested on the Wyandotte more often than on
anybody.

The Mohican, as was customary among all Indians when painted for war,
had also repainted his clan ensign, although it was tatooed on his
breast; and the great Ghost Bear rearing on its hind quarters was now
brilliantly outlined in scarlet. But he also wore what I had never seen
any other Indian wear when painted for any ceremony in North America.
For, just below the scarlet bear, was drawn in sapphire blue the ensign
of his strange clan-nation--the Spirit Wolf, or Were-Wolf. And a double
ensign worn by any priest, hunter, or warrior I had never before
beheld. No Delaware wore it unless belonging to the Wolf Clan of the
Lenni-Lenape, or unless he was a Siwanois Mohican and a Sagamore. For
there existed nowhere at that time any social and political society
among any Indian nation which combined clan and tribal, and, in a
measure, national identity, except only among the Siwanois people, who
were all three at the same time.

As I salted my parched corn and ate it, sitting cross-legged on my
hillock, my eyes wandered from one Indian to another, reading their
clan insignia; and I saw that my Oneida youth wore the little turtle,
as did his comrade; that the Stockbridge Indian had painted a Christian
Cross over his tattooed clan-totem--no doubt the work of the Reverend
Mr. Kirkland--and that the squatting Wyandotte wore the Hawk in
brilliant yellow.

"What is yonder fellow's name?" I asked Mayaro, dropping my voice.

"Black-Snake," replied the Mohican quietly.

"Oh! He seems to wear the Hawk."

The Sagamore's face grew smooth and blank, and he made no comment.

"It's a Western clan, is it not, Mayaro?"

"It is Western, Loskiel."

"That clan does not exist among the Eastern nations?"

"Clans die out, clans are born, clans are altered with the years,
Loskiel."

"I never heard of the Hawk Clan at Guy Park," said I.

He said, with elaborate carelessness:

"It exists among the Senecas."

"And apparently among the Wyandottes."

"Apparently."

I said in a low voice:

"Yonder Huron differs from any Indian I ever knew. Yet, in what he
differs I can not say. I have seen Senecas like him physically. But
Senecas and Hurons not only fought but interbred. This Wyandotte may
have Seneca blood in him."

The Sagamore made no answer, and after a moment I said:

"Why not confess, Mayaro, that you also have been perplexed concerning
this stranger from Fort Pitt? Why not admit that from the moment he
joined us you have had your eye on him--have been furtively studying
him?"

"Mayaro has two eyes. For what are they unless to observe?"

"And what has my brother observed?"

"That no two people are perfectly similar," he said blandly.

"Very well," I said, vexed, but quite aware that no questions of mine
could force the Sagamore to speak unless he was entirely ready. "I
suppose that there exist no real grounds on which to suspect this
Wyandotte. But you know as well as do I that he crossed not the river
with the others when they did to death that wretched St. Regis hunter.
Also, that there are Wyandottes in our service at Fortress Pitt, I did
not know before."

I waited a moment, but the Mohican said nothing, and I saw his eyes,
veiled like a dreaming bird of prey, so immersed did he seem to be in
his own and secret reflections.

Presently I rose, went down to the fire, felt with my fingers among the
ashes to be certain no living spark remained, chatted a moment with the
Oneida youth, praising him till under all his modesty I saw he was like
to burst with pride; then gave the signal for departure.

"Nevertheless," I added, addressing them all, "this is not a scalping
party; it is the six eyes of an army spying out a way through this
wilderness, so that our wagons, artillery, horses, and cattle may pass
in safety to Tioga Point.

"Let the Sagamore strike each tree to be marked, as he leads forward.
Let the Mole repeat the blow unless otherwise checked. Then shall the
Oneida, Grey-Feather, mark clearly the tree so doubly designated. The
Oneida, Tahoontowhee, covers our right flank, marching abreast of the
Mohican; the Wyandotte, Black-Snake, covers our left flank, keeping the
river bank in view. March!"

All that afternoon we moved along south and west, keeping in touch with
the Susquehanna, which here is called Oak Creek, though it is the
self-same stream. And we scouted the river region thoroughly, routing
out nothing save startled deer that bounded from their balsam beds and
went off crashing through the osiers, or a band of wild turkeys that,
bewildered, ran headlong among us so that Tahoontowhee knocked over two
with his rifle butt, and, slinging them to his shoulders, went forward
buried in plumage like same monstrous feathered goblin of the forest.

The sun was now dropping into the West; the woods on our right had
darkened; on our left a pink light netted the river ripples. Filing in
perfect silence, save for the light sound of a hatchet and the
slithering of sappy bark, I had noticed, or thought I noticed, that the
progress of the Wyandotte was less quiet than ours, where he ranged our
left flank, supposedly keeping within the forest shadow.

Once or twice I thought I heard a small stone fall to the willow gully,
as though accidentally dislodged by his swiftly passing moccasins.
Once, at any rate, I caught the glimmer of the sun striking some bit of
metal on him, where he had incautiously ranged outside the protecting
shadow belt.

That these things were purely accidental I felt sure, yet I did not
care to have them repeated. And for a long while there was neither
sound nor sun-glitter from him. Then, without even a glance or a word
for me, the Mohican quietly dropped back from the lead, waited until
the last Oneida had passed, and moved swiftly on a diagonal course to
the left, which brought him in the tracks of the Wyandotte.

He continued on that course for a while, I taking his place in the
lead, and the Wyandotte unconscious that he was followed. Then the
Sagamore came gliding into our file again, and as he passed me to
resume his lead, he whispered:

"Halt, and return along the bank. The Black-Snake has overrun a ford
where there are signs for my brother to read and consider."

I turned sharply and lifted my hand; and as the file halted I caught a
glimpse of the Oneida, Tahoontowhee, on our right, and motioned him to
cross, head the Wyandotte, and return with him. And when in a few
moments he came toward us, followed by the Huron, I said, addressing
them all:

"There should be a ford hereabouts, if I am not badly mistaken, and I
think we have accidentally overrun it. Did you see nothing that might
indicate it, Black-Snake, my brother?"

There was a furtive flicker of the Wyandotte's eyes which seemed to
include everybody before him, then he said very coolly that he had seen
no riffle that might indicate shallow water, but that there was a ford
not far below, and we ought to strike it before sunset.

"Halt here," said I, pretending to remain still unconvinced. "Sagamore,
do you come with me a rod or so upstream."

"There is no ford within a rod or two," said the Wyandotte stolidly.

And, after we had left the others, the Mohican murmured, as we hastened
on:

"No, not with one rod or two, but the third rod marks it."

Presently, speeding under the outer fringe of trees, I caught sight of
a thin line across the water, slanting from shore to shore--not a
ripple, but as though the edge of an invisible reef slightly affected
the smooth-flowing, glassy surface of the stream.

"He might have overlooked that," said I.

The Sagamore's visage became very smooth; and we climbed down among the
willows toward the sand below, and there the Mohican dropped on his
hands and knees.

Directly under his eyes I saw the faint print of a moccasin. Startled,
I said nothing; the Mohican studied the print for a few moments, then,
crouching, crept forward among the sand-willows. I followed; and at
long intervals I could make out the string of moccasin tracks, still
visible in the loose, dry sand.

"Could it be the St. Regis?" I whispered. "He may have been here
spearing fish. These tracks are not new.... And the Wyandotte might
have overlooked these, too."

"Maybe St. Regis," he said.

We had now crept nearly to the edge of the water, the dry and scarcely
discernible tracks leading us. But they were no fresher in the damp
sand. However, the Mohican did not seem satisfied, so we pulled off our
thigh-moccasins and waded out.

Although the water looked deep enough along the unseen reef, yet we
found nowhere more than four feet, and so crossed to the other side.
But before I could set foot on the shelving sand the Mohican pulled me
back into the water and pointed. There was no doubting the sign we
looked upon. A canoe had landed here within an hour, had been pushed
off again with a paddle without anybody landing. It was as plain as the
nose on your face.

Which way had it gone, upstream or down? If it had gone upstream, the
Wyandotte must have seen it and passed it without reporting it. In
other words, he was a traitor. But if the canoe had gone downstream
from this spot, or from some spot on the left bank a little above it,
there was nothing to prove that the Wyandotte had seen it. In fact,
there was every probability that he had not seen it at all. And I said
as much to the Sagamore.

"Maybe," he replied calmly.

We now cautiously recrossed the stream, scarcely liking our exposed
position, but there was no help for it. After we had dressed, I marked
the trees from the ford across the old path, which was visible here,
and so through to our main, spotted trail; the Mohican peeled a square
of bark, I wiped the white spot dry, and wrote with my wood-coal the
depth of water at the crossing; then we moved swiftly forward to join
the halted scouts.

Mayaro said to me: "We have discovered old moccasin tracks, but no ford
and no canoe marks. It is not necessary for the Black-Snake to know."

"Very well," said I calmly. "Do you suspect him!"

"Maybe. Maybe not. But--he once wore his hair in a ridge."

"What!"

"I looked down on him while he ate fish at the St. Regis fire. He has
not shaved his head since two weeks. There is a thin line dividing his
head, where the hairs at their roots are bent backward. Much oil and
brushing make hairs grow that way."

"But--what Indians wear their hair that way--like the curved ridge on a
dragoon's helmet?"

"The Eries."

I stared at him without comprehension, for I knew an Erie scalp when I
saw one.

"Not the warriors," he added quietly.

"What in heaven's name do you mean?" I demanded. But we were already
within sight of the others, and I heeded the cautioning touch of his
hand on my arm, and was silent.

When we came up to them I said:

"There are no riffles to indicate a ford"--which was true enough--"and
on the sand were only moccasin tracks a week old."

"The Black-Snake saw them," said the Wyandotte, so frankly and calmly
that my growing but indefinite suspicions of his loyalty were arrested
for the moment.

"Why did not the Black-Snake report them?" I asked.

"They were St. Regis, and a week old, as my brother says." And he
smiled at us all so confidingly that I could no longer believe ill of
him.

"Nevertheless," said I, "we will range out on either flank as far as
the ford which should be less than a mile down stream." And I placed
the Wyandotte between both Oneidas and on the forest side; and as the
valley was dry and open under its huge standing timber, I myself led,
notching the trail and keeping a lively eye to the left, wherever I
caught a glimpse of water sparkling.

Presently the Mohican halted in view of the river-bank, making a sign
for me to join him, which I did, briefly bidding the Stockbridge Mole
to notch the trees in my stead.

"A canoe has passed," said the Sagamore calmly.

"What! You saw it?"

"No, Loskiel. But there was spray on a boulder in a calm pool."

"Perhaps a deer crossed, or a mink or otter crawled across the stone."

"No; the drops were many, but they lay like the first drops of a rain,
separate and distinct."

"A great fish leaping might have spattered it."

"There was no wash against the rock from any fish-swirl."

"Then you believe that there is a canoe ahead of us going with the
current?"

"An hour ahead--less, I think."

"Why an hour?"

"The sun is low; the river boulders are not hot. Water might dry on
them in an hour or less. These drops were nearly dry, save one or two
where the sun made them shine."

"A careless paddle-stroke did it," I said in a low voice.

"No Indian is careless."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, Loskiel, that the boulder was splashed purposely, or that
there are white men in that canoe."

"Splashed purposely?" I said, bewildered.

"Perhaps. The Black-Snake had the river watch--until you changed our
stations."

"You think it might have been a sign for him from possible
confederates."

"Maybe. Maybe clumsy white men."

"What white men? No forest runners dare range these woods at such a
time as this. Do you mean a scalping party of Butler's men?"

"Maybe."

We had been walking swiftly while we spoke together in low and guarded
tones; now I nodded my comprehension, sheered off to the right, took
the trail-lead, replacing the Stockbridge Mole, and signalled the
nearest Oneida, Grey-Feather, to join Mayaro on the left flank. This
made it necessary for me to call the Wyandotte into touch, which I did;
and the other Oneida, the "Night-Hawk," or Tahoontowhee, closed in from
the extreme outer flank.

The presence of that canoe worried me, nor could I find any explanation
for it. None of our surveyors was out--no scouts had gone in that
direction. Of course I knew that we were likely to run across scouts or
scalping parties of the enemy almost anywhere between the outlet to
Otsego Lake and Tioga Point, yet somehow had not expected to encounter
them until we had at least reached the Ouleout.

Another thing; if this phantom canoe was now within an hour of us, and
going with the current, it must at one time have been very, very close
to us--in fact, just ahead and within sight of the Wyandotte, if,
indeed, it had not come silently downstream from behind us and shot
past us in plain view of the Black-Snake.

Was the Wyandotte a traitor? For only he could have seen this. And I
own that I felt more comfortable having him on our right flank in the
forest, and away from the river; and as I notched my trees I kept him
in view, sideways, and pondered an the little that I knew of him, but
came to no conclusion. For of all things in the world I know less of
treachery and its wiles than of any other stratagem; and so utterly do
I misunderstand it, and so profound is my horror of it, that I never
can credit it to anybody until I see them hanged by the neck for it or
shot in hollow square, a-sitting upon their coffins.

Presently I saw the Sagamore stop and make signs to me that the ford
was in sight. Immediately I signalled the Wyandotte and the farther
Oneida to close in; and a few moments later we were gathered in the
forest shadow above the river, lying on our bellies and gazing far down
stream at the distant line of ripples running blood-red under the
sunset light.

Was there an ambush there, prepared for us? God knew. Yet, we must
approach and examine that ford, and pass it, too, and resume our march
on the right bank of the river to avoid the hemlock swamps and rocky
hills ahead, which no wagons or artillery could hope to pass.

My first and naturally cautious thought was to creep nearer and then
send the Wyandotte out under cover of our clustered rifles. But if he
were truly in any collusion with an unseen enemy they would never fire
on him, and so it would be useless to despatch him on such a mission.

"Wait for the moon," said the Sagamore very quietly.

His low, melodious voice startled me from my thoughts, and I looked
around at him inquiringly.

"I will go," said the Wyandotte, smiling.

"One man will never draw fire from an ambush," said the Grey-Feather
cunningly. "The wild drake swims first into the net; the flock follows."

"Why does my younger brother of the Oneida believe that we need fear
any ambush at yonder ford?" asked the Wyandotte so frankly that again I
felt that I could credit no ill of any man who spoke so fairly.

"Listen to the crows," returned the Oneida. "Their evening call to
council is long and deliberate--Kaah! Kaah! Kaah--h! What are they
saying now, Black-Snake, my elder brother?"

I glanced at the Mohican in startled silence, for we all were listening
very intently to the distant crows.

"They have discovered an owl, perhaps," said the Wyandotte, smiling,
"and are tormenting him."

"Or a Mountain Snake," said the Sagamore blandly.

Now, what the Sagamore said so innocently had two meanings. He might
have meant that the cawing of the crows indicated that they were
objecting to a rattlesnake sunning on some rock. Also he might have
meant to say that their short, querulous cawing betrayed the presence
of Seneca Indians in ambush.

"Or a Mountain Snake," repeated the Siwanois, with a perfectly blank
face. "The red door of the West is still open."

"Or a bear," said the Grey-Feather, cunningly slurring the Canienga
word and swallowing the last syllable so that it might possibly have
meant "Mohawk."

The Wyandotte turned good-humouredly to the Mohican, not pretending to
misunderstand this subtle double entendre and play upon words.

"You, Sagamore of the Loups," he said, carrying out the metaphor, "are
closer to the four-footed people than are we Wyandottes."

"That is true," said the Grey-Feather. "My elder brother, the
Black-Snake, wears the two-legged hawk."

Which, again, if it was meant that way, hinted that the Hawk was an
alien clan, and neither recognized nor understood by the Oneida. Also,
by addressing the Wyandotte as "elder" brother, the Oneida conveyed a
broad hint of blood relationship between Huron and Seneca. Yet, there
need have been nothing definitely offensive in that hint, because among
all the nations a certain amalgamation always took place after an
international conflict.

The Wyandotte did not lose his temper, nor even, apparently, perceive
how slyly he was being baited by all except myself.

"What is the opinion of the Loup, O Sagamore?" he asked lightly.

"Does my brother the Black-Snake desire to know the Sagamore's opinion
concerning the cawing of yonder crows?"

The Wyandotte inclined his ugly head.

"I think," said the Mohican deliberately, "that there may be a tree-cat
in their vicinity."

A dead silence followed. The Wyandotte's countenance was still smiling,
but I thought the smile had stiffened and become fixed, though not a
tremour moved him. Yet, what the Mohican had said--always with two
meanings, and one quite natural and innocent--meant, if taken in its
sinister sense, that not only might there be Senecas lying in ambush at
the ford, but also emissaries from the Red Priest Amochol himself. For
the forest lynx, or tree-cat, was the emblem of these people; and every
Indian present knew it.

Still, also, every man there had seen crows gather around and scold a
lynx lying flattened out on some arching limb.

Whether now there was any particular suspicion of this Wyandotte among
the other Indians; whether it was merely their unquenchable and native
distrust of any Huron whatever; whether the subtle chaff were playful
or partly serious, I could not determine from their manner or
expression. All spoke pleasantly and quietly, and with open or
expressionless countenances. And the Wyandotte still smiled, although
what was going on under that urbane mask of his I had no notion
whatsoever.

I turned cautiously, and looked behind us. We were gathered in a kind
of natural and moss-grown rocky pulpit, some thirty feet above the
stream, and with an open view down its course to the distant riffles.
Beyond them the river swung southward, walling our view with its
flanking palisade of living green.

"We camp here," I said quietly. "No fire, of course. Two sentinels--the
Night Hawk and the Black-Snake. The guard will be relieved every two
hours. Wake me at the first change of watch."

I laid my watch on a rock where all could see it, and, opening my sack,
fished out a bit of dried beef and a handful of parched corn.

Mayaro shared with me on my motioned invitation; the others fell to in
their respective and characteristic manners, the Oneidas eating like
gentlemen and talking together in their low and musical voices; the
Wyandotte gobbling and stuffing his cheeks like a chipmunk. The
Stockbridge Mole, noiseless and mum as the occult and furry animal
which gave to him his name, nibbled sparingly all alone by himself, and
read in his Algonquin Testament between bites.

The last level sun rays stripped with crimson gold the outer edges of
the woods; the stream ran purple and fire, and the ceaseless sighing of
its waters sounded soft as foliage stirring on high pines.

I said to the Mole in a low voice:

"Brother in Christ, do you find consolation and peace in your Testament
when the whole land lies writhing under the talons and bloody beak of
war?"

The Stockbridge warrior looked up quietly:

"I read the promise of the Prince of Peace, brother, who came to the
world not bearing a sword."

"He came to fulfill, not to destroy," I said.

"So it is written, brother."

"And yet you and I, His followers, go forth armed to slay."

"To prepare a place for Him--His humble instruments--lest His hands be
soiled with the justice of God's wrath. What is it that we wade in
blood, so that He pass with feet unsoiled?"

"My brother has spoken."

The burning eyes of the calm fanatic were fastened on me, then they
serenely reverted to the printed page on his knees; and he continued
reading and nibbling at his parched and salted corn. If ever a convert
broke bread with the Lord, this red disciple now sat supping in His
presence, under the immemorial eaves of His leafy temple.

The Grey-Feather, who had been listening, said quietly:

"We Iroquois alone, among all Indians, have always acknowledged one
Spirit. We call Him the Master of Life; you Christians call Him God.
And does it truly avail anything with Tharon, O my brother Loskiel, if
I wear the Turtle, or if my brother the Mole paints out the Beaver on
his breast with a Christian cross?"

"So that your religion be good and you live up to it, sign and symbol
avail nothing with God or with Tharon," said I.

"Men wear what they love best," said the Mole, lightly touching his
cross.

"But under cross and clan ensign," said I, "lies a man's secret heart.
Does the Master of Life judge any man by the colour of his skin or the
paint he wears, or the clothing? Christ's friends were often beggars.
Did Tharon ever ask of any man what moccasins he wore?"

The Sagamore said gravely:

"Uncas went naked to the Holder of the Heavens."

It was a wonderful speech for a Sagamore and an Algonquin, for he used
the Iroquois term to designate the Holder of Heaven. The perfect
courtesy of a Christian gentleman could go no further. And I thought of
our trivial and petty and warring sects, and was silent and ashamed.

The Wyandotte wiped his powerful jaw with a handful of dead leaves, and
looked coldly around at the little circle of men who differed with one
another so profoundly in their religious beliefs.

"Is this then the hour and the place to discuss such matters, and
irritate the Unseen?"

All eyes were instantly turned on the pagan; the Oneidas seemed
troubled; the Sagamore serious. Only the Christian Indian remained
placid and indifferent, his Testament suspended in his hand. But he
also was listening.

As for me, I knew as well as did the others what the pagan and burly
Wyandotte meant.

To every Indian--even to many who had been supposedly converted--air,
earth, and water still remained thronged with demons. The vast and
sunless wilderness was peopled with goblins and fairies. No natural
phenomenon occurred except by their agency. Where the sun went after it
had set, where the moon hid, the stars, the four great winds, the eight
thunders--all remained mysteries to these red children of the forest.
And to these mysteries demons held the keys. For no star fell,
showering the night with incandescence, no comet blazed aloft, its
streaming hair sweeping from zenith to horizon, no eclipse devoured sun
or moon, no sunrise painted the Long House golden, no sunset stained
its lodge-poles crimson, no waters ran, no winds blew, no clouds piled
up quivering with lightning, no thunder rumbled, except that it was
done by demons.

Fur, feather, and silver-scale also had souls, and slyly took council
together when alone; the great trees talked to one another in forest
depths; moonlit rocks conversed in secret; and peak whispered to peak
above the flowing currents of the mist.

It was useless to dispute such matters with them, while every
phenomenon of nature remained to them a mystery. For they had brains
and a matchless imagination, and they were obliged to solve these
things for themselves as best they knew how, each people according to
its personal characteristics.

So, among the Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks, evil demons were few,
and good fairies many; among the Cayugas good and bad seemed fairly
balanced; but among the sullen, brutal, and bestial Senecas, devils,
witches, demons, and goblins were in the vast majority. And their
perverted Erie priesthood, which had debauched some of their own
Sachems, was a stench in the nostrils of any orthodox Sachem, and, to
an ordained Sagamore, an offense and sacrilege unspeakable.


I sat looking hard at the Wyandotte, inclined to speak, yet unwilling
to meddle where intervention must be useless.

His small, unwinking eyes met mine.

"There are demons," he said in a low voice.

"Demons in human form," I nodded. "Some were at Cherry Valley a year
ago."

"There are witches," he said.

I shook my head: "None."

"And Giants of Stone, and Flying Heads, and the Dead Hunter, and the
Lake Serpent," he persisted sullenly.

"There never were either giants or witches," I replied.

The Mole looked up from his Testament in surprise, but said nothing.
Yet, by his expression I knew he was thinking of the Witch of Endor,
and the Dukes of Edom, and the giants of the scriptures. But it seemed
hopeless to modify his religious teachings by any self-developed
theories of mine.

All I desired to do was to keep this pagan Huron from tampering with my
warriors' nerves. And it required but little of the supernatural to
accomplish this.

No Indian, however brave and faithful and wise in battle, however
cunning and tireless and unerring on forest trail or on uncharted
waters, could remain entirely undisturbed by any menace of invisible
evil. For they were an impulsive race, ever curbing their impulses and
blindly seeking for reason. But what appealed to their emotions and
their imagination still affected them most profoundly, and hampered the
slow, gradual, but steady development of a noble race emerging by its
own efforts from absolute and utter ignorance.


I said quietly: "After all, the Master of Life stands sentry while the
guiltless sleep!"

"Amen," said the Mole, lifting his calm eyes to the roof of leaves
above.

An owl began to hoot--one of those great, fierce cat-owls of the North.
Every Indian listened.

The Sagamore said pleasantly to the Wyandotte:

"It is as though he were calling the lynxes together--as Amochol the
Accursed summons his Cat-People to the sacrifice."

"I know nothing of Amochol and his sacrifices," said the Wyandotte
carelessly.

"Yet you Wyandottes border the Western Gate."

The Huron shrugged.

"Hear the Eared One squall," said Grey-Feather, as the great owl yelled
through the darkening forest.

"One would think to hear an Erie speaking," said the Sagamore, looking
steadily at the Black-Snake. But the latter seemed totally unaware of
what amounted now to a persistent baiting.

"They say," continued the Sagamore, "that the Erie priesthood learned
from the Nez Perces a strange and barbarous fashion."

"What fashion?" asked Grey-Feather, so innocently that I could not
determine whether he was playing into the Sagamore's hands.

"The fashion of wearing the hair in a short, stiff ridge," said the
Mohican. "Has the Black-Snake ever seen it worn that way?"

"Never," said the Huron. And there was neither in his voice nor on his
features the slightest tremour that we could discover in the fading
light of the afterglow.

I rose to put an end to this, for my own nerves were now on edge; and I
directed the two sentinels to their posts, the Wyandotte and the
Oneida, Tahoontowhee.

Then I lay down beside the Mohican. All the Indians had unrolled and
put on their hunting shirts; I spread my light blanket and pillowed my
head on my pack.

In range of my vision the Mole had dropped to his knees and was praying
with clasped hands. Shamed, I arose and knelt also, to say in silence
my evening prayer, so often slurred over while I lay prone, or even
entirely neglected.

Then I returned to my blanket to lie awake and think of Lois, until at
last I dreamed of her. But the dream was terrible, and I awoke,
sweating, and found the Sagamore seated upright in the darkness beside
me.

"Is it time to change the guard?" I asked, still shivering from the
horror of my dream.

"You have scarce yet closed your eyes, Loskiel."

"Why are you seated upright wide awake, my brother?"

"There is evil in the wind."

"There is no wind stirring."

"A witch-wind came slyly while you slept. Did you not dream, Loskiel?"
In spite of me I shivered again.

"That is foolishness," said I. "The Wyandotte's silly talk has made us
wakeful. Our sentinels watch. Sleep, Mayaro."

"Have you need of sleep, Loskiel?"

"I? No. Sleep you, then, and I will sit awake if it reassures you."

The Sagamore set his mouth close to my ear:

"The Wyandotte is not posted where you placed him."

"What? How do you know?"

"I went out to see. He sits on a rock close to the water."

"Damn him," I muttered angrily. "I'll teach him----"

"No!"

The Mohican's iron grip held me in my place.

"The Night-Hawk understands. Let the Wyandotte remain unrebuked and
undisturbed while I creep down to yonder ford."

"I do not intend to reconnoitre the ford until dawn," I whispered.

"Let me go, Loskiel."

"Alone?"

"Secretly and alone. The Siwanois is a magic clan. Their Sagamores see
and hear where others perceive nothing. Let me go, Loskiel."

"Then I go, also."

"No."

"What of our blood-brotherhood, then?"

There was a silence; then the Mohican rose, and taking my hand in his
drew me noiselessly to my feet beside him.

By sense of touch alone we lifted our rifles from our blankets, blew
the powder from the pans, reprimed. Then, laying my left arm lightly on
his shoulder, I followed his silent figure over the moss and down among
the huge and phantom trees faintly outlined against the starlit water.



CHAPTER XII

AT THE FORD

When at length from the forest's edge we saw star-beams splintering
over broken water, cutting the flat, translucent darkness of the river
with necklaces of light, we halted; for this was the ford foaming there
in obscurity with its silvery, mellow voice, unheeded in the
wilderness, yet calling ever as that far voice called through the
shadows of ages dead.

Now, from where we stood the faint line of sparkles seemed to run a
little way into the darkness and vanish. But the indications were
sufficient to mark the spot where we should enter the water; and,
stepping with infinite precaution, we descended to the gravel. Here we
stripped to the clout and laid our rifles on our moccasins, covering
the pans with our hunting shirts. Then we strapped on our war-belts,
loosening knife and hatchet, pulled over our feet our spare
ankle-moccasins of oiled moose-hide soled with the coarse hair of the
great, blundering beast himself.

I led, setting foot in the icy water, and moving out into the shadow
with no more noise than a chub's swirl or a minnow's spatter-leap when
a great chain-pike snaps at him.

Feeling my way over bed stones and bottom gravel with my feet, striving
in vain to pierce the dense obscurity, I moved forward with infinite
caution, balancing as best I might against the current. Ankle-deep,
shin-deep, knee-deep we waded out. Presently the icy current chilled my
thighs, rising to my waistline. But it grew no deeper.

Yet, here so swift was the current that I scarcely dared move, and was
peering around to find the Sagamore, when a shape loomed up on my left.
And I reached out and rested my hand on the shadowy shoulder, and stood
so, swaying against the stream.

Suddenly a voice said, in the Seneca dialect:

"Is it thou, Butler?"

And every drop of blood froze in my body.

God knows how I found voice to answer "Yes," and how I found courage to
let my hand remain upon my enemy's shoulder.

"It is I, Hiokatoo," said the low voice.

"Move forward," I said; and dropped my hand from his shoulder.

Somehow, although I could see nothing, all around me in the water I
felt the presence of living creatures. At the same moment somebody came
close to me from behind, and the Sagamore breathed his name in my ear.

I managed to retain my presence of mind, and, laying my mouth against
his ear in the darkness, I whispered:

"The Seneca Hiokatoo and his warriors--all around us in the water. He
mistakes me for Walter Butler, They have been reconnoitring our camp."

I felt the body of the Mohican stiffen under my grasp, Then he said
quietly:

"Stand still till all have passed us."

"Yes; but let no Seneca hear your Algonquin speech. If any speak I will
answer for you."

"It is well," said the Sagamore quietly. And I heard him cautiously
loosening his hatchet.

Presently a dark form took shape in the gloom and passed us without
speaking; then another, and another, and another, all wading forward
with scarce a ripple sounding against their painted bodies. Then one
came up who spoke also in Seneca dialect, saying to the Mohican that
the canoe was to be sent up stream on observation, and asking the
whereabouts of McDonald.

So they were all there, the bloody crew! But once more I found voice to
order the Seneca across, saying that I would attend to the canoe when
the time came to employ it.

This Indian seemed to understand very little English, and he hesitated;
but I laid my hand flat on his naked back, and gave him a slight shove
toward the farther shore. And he went on, muttering.

Two more passed. We waited in nervous silence for the next, not knowing
how many had been sent to prowl around our camp. And as no more came, I
whispered to the Sagamore:

"Let us go back. If more are to come, and if there be among them Butler
or McDonald or any white man, he will never mistake me for any of his
fellows after he hears me speak."

The Sagamore turned, the water swirling to his waist. I followed. We
encountered nobody until the water began to shoal. Then, in mid-stream,
a dark figure loomed out of the night, confronting us, and I heard him
say in the Seneca language:

"Halt and turn. You travel the wrong way!"

"Go forward and mind your business!" I said in English.

The shadowy figure seemed astounded, remaining motionless there in the
ford. Suddenly he bent forward as though to see my features, and at the
same instant the Sagamore seized him and jerked his head under water.

But he could not hold him, for the fellow was oiled, and floundered up
in the same instant. No doubt the water he had swallowed kept the yell
safe in his throat, but his hatchet was out and high-swung as the
Sagamore grasped his wrist, holding his arm in the air. Then, holding
him so, the Mohican passed his knife through the man's heart, striking
with swiftness incredible again and again; and as his victim collapsed,
he eased him down into the water, turned him over, and took his
shoulders between his knees.

"God!" I whispered. "Don't wait for that!"

But the Siwanois warrior was not to be denied; and in a second or two
the wet scalp flapped at his belt.

Rolling over and over with the current, the limp body slipped down
stream and disappeared into deeper shadows. We waded swiftly toward our
own shore, crawled across the gravel, drew on our clothing, and stole
up into the woods above.

"They'll know it by sunrise," I said. "How many did you count?"

"Thirteen in that war-party, Loskiel. And if Butler and McDonald be
with them, that makes fifteen--and doubtless other renegades besides."

"Then we had best pull foot," said I. And I drew my knife and blazed
the ford; and, as well as I might without seeing, wrote the depth of
water on the scar.

I heard the Mohican's low laughter.

"The Senecas will see it and destroy it. But it will drive them
frantic," he said.

"Whatever they do to this tree will but mark the ford more plainly,"
said I.

And the Mohican laughed and laughed and patted my shoulder, as we moved
fast on our back trail. I think he was excited, veteran though he was,
at his taking of a Seneca warrior's scalp. "Had you not jerked him
under water when he leaned forward over your shoulder to see what
manner of man was speaking English," said I, "doubtless he had awakened
the forest with his warning yell in another moment."

"Let him yell at the fishes, now," said the Mohican, laughing. "No
doubt the eels will understand him; they are no more slippery than he."

Save for the vague forms of the trees dimly discerned against the
water, the darkness was impenetrable; and except for these guides, even
an Indian could scarcely have moved at all. We followed the bank,
keeping just within the shadows; and I was ever scanning the spots of
starlit water for that same canoe which I had learned was to go
upstream to watch us.

Presently the Siwanois checked me and whispered:

"Yonder squats your Wyandotte sentinel."

"Where? I can not see him."

"On that flat rock by the deep water, seeming a part of it."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes, Loskiel."

"You saw him move?"

"No. But a Siwanois of the Magic Clan makes nothing of darkness. He
sees where he chooses to see.

"Mayaro," said I, "what do you make of this Wyandotte?"

"He has quitted his post without orders for a spot by the deep water. A
canoe could come there, and he could speak to those within it."

"That might damn a white soldier, but an Indian is different."

"He is a Wyandotte--or says he is."

"Yes, but he came with credentials from Fortress Pitt."

"Once," said the Sagamore, "he wore his hair in a ridge."

"If the Eries learned that from the Nez Perces, why might not the
Wyandottes also learn it?"

"He wears the Hawk."

"Yes, I know it."

"He saw the moccasin tracks in the sand at the other ford, Loskiel, and
remained silent."

"I know it."

"And I believe, also, that he saw the canoe."

"Then," said I, "you mean that this Wyandotte is a traitor."

"If he be a Wyandotte at all."

"What?"

"He may be Huron; he may be a Seneca-Huron. But we Indians think
differently, Loskiel."

"What do you think?"

"We do not know for certain. But"--and the Mohican's voice became
quietly ferocious--"if a war-arrow ever struck this Wyandotte between
the shoulders I think every tree-cat in the Long House would squall at
the condoling council."

"You think this Wyandotte an Erie in disguise?" I asked incredulously.

"We Indians of different nations are asking that question of each
other, Loskiel."

"What is the mind of the Grey-Feather concerning this?" I asked,
horrified.

"Oneida and Stockbridge begin to believe as I believe."

"That this creature is a spy engaged to lead us to our deaths? Do they
believe that this self-styled Wyandotte is an infamous Erie?"

"We so believe, Loskiel. We are not yet certain."

"But you who have taken Erie scalps should know----"

"We know an Erie by his paint and lock; by his arms and moccasins. But
when an Erie wears none of these it is not easy to determine exactly
what he might be. There is, in the Western nation, much impure blood,
much mixing of captive and adopted prisoners with the Seneca
conquerors. If an Erie wear cats' claws at the root of his scalp-lock,
even a blind Quaker might know him. If one of their vile priests wear
his hair in a ridge, then, unless he be a Nez Perce, there need be no
doubt. But this man dresses and paints and conducts like no Erie I have
ever seen. And yet I believe him one, and a Sachem at that!"

"Then, by God!" said I in a cold fury. "I will go down to the stream
and put him under arrest until such time as his true colours may be
properly determined!"

"Loskiel, if yonder Indian once saw in your eye that you meant to take
him, he would slip between your hands like a spotted trout and be off
down stream to his comrades. Go not toward him angry, or with anything
in your manner and voice that he might distrust."

"I never learned to smile in the face of a traitor!"

"Learn now, then. Brother, you are young; and war is long. And of many
aspects are they who take arms in their hands to slay. Strength is
good; quickness and a true eye to the rifle-sight are good. But best of
all in war are the calmness and patience of wisdom. A Sagamore has
spoken."

"What would you have me do?"

"Nothing, yet."

"But we must make a night march of it, and I could not endure that
infamous creature's company, even if it were safe for us to take him
with us."

"My brother may remain tranquil. The Grey-Feather and I are watching
him. The praying Indian and Tahoontowhee understand also. When we once
are certain, the Erie dies."

"When you are certain," said I in a fury, "I will have him properly
tried by military court and hung as high as Amherst hung two of his
fellow devils. I wish to God he had executed the entire nation while he
was about it. For once Sir William Johnson was wrong to interfere."

The Sagamore laughed and laid one hand on my shoulder:

"Is it a custom for an Ensign to pass judgment on a Major-General, O
Loskiel, my dear but much younger brother?"

I blushed hot with annoyance and shame. Of all things on earth,
self-control was the most necessary quality to any officer commanding
Indians.

"The Sagamore is right," I said in a mortified voice.

"The Sagamore has lived longer than his younger brother," he rejoined
gently.

"And is far wiser," said I.

"A little wiser in some few things concerning human life, Loskiel....
Does my brother desire that Mayaro shall bring in the Wyandotte?"

"Bring him," I said; and walked forward toward our camp.

Tahoontowhee stopped me with his challenge, then sprang forward at the
sound of my voice.

"Men in the woods," he whispered, "creeping up from the South. They saw
no fire and prowled no nearer than panthers prowl when they know a camp
is awake."

"Senecas," I said briefly. "We make a night march of it. Remain on
guard here. The Grey-Feather will bring your pack to you when we pick
you up."

As I ascended the rocky pulpit, both the Grey-Feather and the
Stockbridge were standing erect and wide awake, packs strapped and
slung, rifles in hand.

"Senecas," I said. "Too many for us."

"Are we not to strike?" asked the Oneida wistfully, as the Mohican came
swiftly up the rock followed by the Wyandotte, who seemed inclined to
lag.

"Why did you quit your post?" I asked him bluntly.

"There was a better post and more to see on the rock," he said simply.

"You made a mistake. Your business is to obey your commanding officer.
Do you understand?"

"The Black-Snake understands."

"Did you discover nothing from your rock?"

"Nothing. Deer moved in the woods."

"Red deer," I said coolly.

"A July deer is in the red coat always."

"The deer you heard are red the whole year round."

"Eho! The Black-Snake understands."

"Very well. Tie your pack, sling it, and shoulder your rifle. We march
immediately."

He seemed to be willing enough, and tied his points with alacrity. Nor
could I, watching him as well I might in so dark a spot, see anything
suspicious in any movement he made.

"The Sagamore leads," I said; "the Black-Snake follows; I follow him;
after me the Mole; and the Oneidas close the rear.... Attention!...
Trail arms! File!"

And as we climbed out of our pulpit and descended over the moss to the
soundless carpet of moist leaves:

"Silence," I said. "A sound may mean the death of us all. Cover your
rifle-pans with your blankets. No matter what happens, no man is to
fire without orders----"

I stopped abruptly and laid my hand on the Black-Snake's
hatchet-sheath, feeling it all over with my finger-tips in the dark.

"Damnation!" I said. "There are tin points on the fringe! You might
better wear a cow-bell! Where did you get it?"

"It was in my pack."

"You have not worn it before. Why do you wear it now?"

"It is looser in time of need."

"Very well. Stand still." I whipped out my knife and, bunching the
faintly tinkling thrums in my fingers, severed the tin points and
tossed them into the darkness.

"I can understand," said I, "a horse-riding Indian of the plains
galloping into battle all over cow-bells, but never before have I heard
of any forest Indian wearing such a fringe in time of war."

The rebuke seemed to stun the Wyandotte. He kept his face averted while
I spoke, then at my brief word stepped forward into his place between
myself and the Mohican.

"March!" I said in a low voice.

The Sagamore led us in a wide arc north, then west; and there was no
hope of concealing or covering our trail, for in the darkness no man
could see exactly where the man in front of him set foot, nor hope to
avoid the wet sand of rivulets or the soft moss which took the imprint
of every moccasin as warm wax yields to the seal.

That there was in the primeval woods no underbrush, save along streams
or where the windfall had crashed earthward, made travelling in silence
possible.

The forest giants branched high; no limbs threatened us; or, if there
were any, the Sagamore truly had the sight of all night-creatures, for
not once did a crested head brush the frailest twig; not once did a
moccasined foot crash softly through dead and fallen wood.

The slope toward the river valley became steeper; we travelled along a
heavily-wooded hillside at an angle that steadily increased. After an
hour of this, we began to feel rock under foot, and our moccasins
crushed patches of reindeer moss, dry as powder.

It was in such a place as this, or by wading through running water,
that there could be any hope of hiding our trail; and as we began to
traverse a vast, flat shoulder of naked rock, I saw that the Mohican
meant to check and perplex any pursuit next morning.

What was my disgust, then, to observe that the Wyandotte's moccasins
were soaking wet, and that he left at every step his mark for the
morning sun to dry at leisure.

Stooping stealthily, I laid my hand flat in his wet tracks, and felt
the grit of sand. Accidentally or otherwise, he had stepped into some
spring brook which we had crossed in the darkness. Clearly the man was
a fool, or something else.

And I was obliged to halt the file and wait until the Wyandotte had
changed to spare moccasins; which I am bound to say he seemed to do
willingly enough. And my belief in his crass stupidity grew, relieving
me of fiercer sentiments which I had begun to harbour as I thought of
all we knew or suspected concerning this man.

So it was forward once more across the naked, star-lit rock, where
blueberry bushes grew from crevices, and here and there some tall
evergreen, the roots of which were slowly sundering the rock into soil.

Rattlesnakes were unpleasantly numerous here--this country being
notorious for them, especially where rocks abound. But so that they
sprung their goblin rattles in the dark to warn us, we had less fear of
them than of that slyer and no less deadly cousin of theirs, which
moved abroad at night as they did, but was often too lazy or too
vicious to warn us.

The Mohican sprang aside for one, and ere I could prevent him, the
Wyandotte had crushed it. And how to rebuke him I scarcely knew, for
what he had done seemed natural enough. Yet, though the Mohican seized
the twisting thing and flung it far into the blueberry scrub, the marks
of a bloody heel were now somewhere on the rocks for the rising sun to
dry but not to obliterate. God alone knew whether such repeated
evidence of stupidity meant anything worse. But now I was resolved to
have done with this Indian at the first opportunity, and risk the
chance of clearing myself of any charge concerning disobedience of
orders as soon as I could report to General Sullivan with my command.

The travelling now, save for the dread of snakes, was pleasant and
open. We had been gradually ascending during the last two hours, and
now we found ourselves traversing the lengthening crest of a rocky and
treeless ridge, with valleys on either side of us, choked with
motionless lakes of mist, which seemed like vast snow fields under the
splendour of the stars.

I think we all were weary enough to drop in our tracks and sleep as we
fell. But I gave no order to halt, nor did I dream of interfering with
the Sagamore, or even ask him a single question. It was promising to
give me a ruder schooling than my regiment could offer me--this
travelling with men who could outrun and outmarch the vast majority of
white men.

Yet, I had been trained under Major Parr, and with such men in my
command as Elerson, Mount, and Murphy; and I had run with Oneidas
before and scouted far and wide with the best of them.

It was the rock-running that tired us, and I for one was grateful when
we left the starlit obscurity of the ridge and began to swing downward,
first through berry scrub and ground-hemlock, then through a thin belt
of birches into the dense blackness of the towering forest.

Down, ever down we moved on a wide-slanting and easy circle, such as
the high hawk swings when he is but a speck in the midsummer sky.

Presently the ground under our feet became level. A low, murmuring
sound stole out of the darkness, pleasantly filling our ears as we
advanced. A moment later, the Mohican halted; and we caught a faint
gleam in the darkness.

"Sisquehanne," he said.

If, was the Susquehanna. Tired as I was I could not forbear a smile
when this Mohican saluted the noble river by its Algonquin name in the
presence of those haughty Iroquois who owned it. And it seemed to me as
though I could hear the feathered crests stiffen on the two Oneida
heads; for this was Oneida country, and they had been maliciously
reminded that the Lenape had once named for them their river under
circumstances in which no Iroquois took any pride. Little evidences of
the subtle but ever-living friction between my Mohican and the two
Oneidas were plenty, but never more maliciously playful than this. And
presently I heard the Sagamore politely mention the Ouleout by its
Iroquois name, Aulyoulet, which means "a voice that continues"; and
while I sent the Night-Hawk down to the water to try for a crossing,
Mohican and Oneida conversed very amiably, the topic being our enemies,
and how it was that on the Ouleout and in Pennsylvania they had so
often spared the people of that state and had directed their full fury
toward New York.

The Oneida said it was because the Iroquois had no quarrel with Penn's
people, who themselves disliked the intruding Yankee and New Yorker;
but they were infuriated against us because we had driven the Iroquois
from their New York lands and had punished them so dreadfully at
Oriskany. And he further said that Cherry Valley would not have been
made such a shambles except that Colonel Clyde and Colonel Campbell
lived there, who had done them so much injury at Oriskany.

I myself thought that this was the truth, for no Iroquois ever forgave
us Oriskany; and what we were now about to do to them must forever
leave an implacable and unquenchable hatred between the Long House and
the people of New York.

For on this river which we now followed, and between us and Tioga,
where our main army lay, were the pretty Iroquois towns, Ingaren,
Owaga, Chenang, and Owega, with their well-built and well-cellared
houses, their tanneries, mills, fields of corn and potatoes, orchards,
and pleasant gardens full of watermelons, muskmelons, peas, beans,
squashes--in fact, everything growing that might ornament the estate of
a proud man of my own colour. Thus had the Mohican described these
towns to me. And now, as I sat weary, thinking, I knew that even before
our army at Otsego joined the Tioga army, it would utterly destroy
these towns on its way down; ruin the fields, and burn and girdle the
orchards.

And this was not even the beginning of our destined march of
destruction and death from one end of the Long House to the other!

Now our Oneida crept back to us, saying that the river was so low we
could cross up to our arm-pits; and stood there naked, a slender and
perfect statue, all adrip, and balancing pack and rifle on his head.

Wearily we picked our way down to the willows, stripped, hoisted rifles
and packs, and went into the icy water. It seemed almost impossible for
me to find courage and energy to dress, even after that chilling and
invigorating plunge; but at last I was into my moccasins and shirt
again. The Sagamore strode lightly to the lead; the Wyandotte started
for the rear, but I shoved him next to the Mohican and in front of me,
hating him suddenly, so abrupt and profound was my conviction that his
stupidity was a studied treachery and not the consequences of a loutish
mind.

"That is your place," I said sharply.

"You gave no orders."

"Nor did I rescind my last order, which was that you march behind the
Sagamore."

"Is that to be the order of march?" he asked.

"What do you mean by questioning your officer?" I demanded.

"I am no soldier, but an Indian!" he said sullenly.

"You are employed and paid as a guide by General Sullivan, are you not?
Very well. Then obey my orders to the letter, or I'll put you under
arrest!"

That was not the way to talk to any Indian; but such a great loathing
and contempt far this Wyandotte had seized me, so certain in my mind
was I that he was disloyal and that every stupid act of his had been
done a-purpose, that I could scarce control my desire to take him by
that thick, bull-throat of his and kick him into the river.

For every stupid act or omission of his--or any single one of
them--might yet send us all to our deaths. And their aggregate now
incensed me; for I could not see how we were entirely to escape their
consequences.

Again and again I was on the point of ordering a halt and having the
fellow tried; but I dreaded the effect of such summary proceedings on
the Oneidas and the Stockbridge, whose sense of justice was keen, and
who might view with alarm such punishment meted out to mere stupidity.

It was very evident that neither they nor my Mohican had come to any
definite conclusion concerning the Wyandotte. And until they did so,
and until I had the unerring authority of my Indians' opinions, I did
not care to go on record as either a brutal or a hasty officer. Indians
entertain profound contempt for the man who arrives hastily and lightly
at conclusions, without permitting himself leisure for deep and
dignified reflection.

And I was well aware that with these Indians the success of any
enterprise depended entirely upon their opinion of me, upon my personal
influence with them.

Dawn was breaking before the Sagamore turned his head toward me. I gave
the signal to halt.

"The Ouleout," whispered Tahoontowhee in my ear. "Here is its
confluence with the Susquehanna."

The Mohican nodded, saying that we now stood on a peninsula.

I tried to make out the character of the hillock where we stood, but it
was not yet light enough to see whether the place was capable of
defence, although it would seem to be, having two streams to flank it.

"Sagamore," said I, "you and I will stand guard for the first two
hours. Sleep, you others."

One after another unrolled his blanket and dropped where he stood. The
Mohican came quietly toward me and sat down to watch the Susquehanna,
his rifle across his knees. As for me, I dared not sit, much less lie
flat, for fear sleep would overpower me. So I leaned against a rock,
resting heavily on my rifle, and strained my sleepy eyes toward the
invisible Ouleout. A level stream of mist, slowly whitening, marked its
course; and "The Voice that Continues" sounded dreamily among the trees
that bordered its shallow flood of crystal.

Toward sunrise I caught the first glimmer of water; in fact, so near
was I that I could hear the feeding trout splashing along the reaches,
and the deer, one by one, retreating from the shore.

Birds that haunt woodland edges were singing, spite of their moulting
fever; and I heard the Scarlet Tanager, the sweet call of the Crimson
Cardinal, the peeping of the Recollet chasing gnats above the water,
the lovely, linked notes of the White-throat trailing to a minor
infinitely prolonged.

Greyer, greyer grew the woods; louder sang the birds; suddenly a
dazzling shaft of pink struck the forest; the first shred of mist
curled, detached itself, and floated slowly upward. The sun had risen.

Against the blinding glory, looming gigantic in the mist, I saw the
Sagamore, an awful apparition in his paint, turn to salute the rising
sun. Then, the mysterious office of his priesthood done, he lifted his
rifle, tossed the heavy piece lightly to his shoulder, and strode
toward me.

I shook the sleeping Oneidas, and, as they sprang to their feet, I
pointed out their posts to them, laid my rifle on my sack, and dropped
where I stood like a lump of lead.


I was aroused toward nine by the Mohican, and sat up as wide awake as a
disturbed tree-cat, instantly ready for trouble.

"An Oneida on the Ouleout," he said.

"Where?"

"Yonder--just across."

"Friendly?"

"He has made the sign."

"An ambassador?"

"A runner, not a belt-bearer."

"Bring him to me."

Strung along the banks of the Ouleout, each behind a tree, I saw my
Indians crouching, rifles ready. Then, on the farther bank, at the
water's shallow edge, I saw the strange Indian--a tall, spare young
fellow, absolutely naked except clout, ankle moccasins, hatchet-girdle,
and pouch; and wearing no paint except a white disc on his forehead the
size of a shilling. A single ragged frond hung from his scalp lock.

Answering the signal of the Mohican, he sprang lightly into the stream
and crossed the shallow water. My Oneidas seemed to know him, for they
accosted him smilingly, and Tahoontowhee turned and accompanied him
back toward the spot where I was standing, naively exhibiting to the
stranger his first scalp. Which seemed to please the dusty and
brier-torn runner, for he was all smiles and animation until he caught
sight of me. Then instantly the mask of blankness smoothed his
features, so that when I confronted him he was utterly without
expression.

I held out my hand, saying quietly:

"Welcome, brother."

"I thank my brother for his welcome," he said, taking my offered hand.

"My brother is hungry," I said. "He shall eat. He is weary because he
has came a long distance. He shall rest unquestioned." I seated myself
and motioned him to follow my example.

The tall, lank fellow looked earnestly at me; Tahoontowhee lighted a
pipe, drew a deep, full inhalation from it, passed it to me. I drew
twice, passed it to the runner. Then Tahoontowhee laid a square of bark
on the stranger's knees; I poured on it from my sack a little parched
corn, well salted, and laid beside it a bit of dry and twisted meat.
Tahoontowhee did the same. Then, very gravely and in silence we ate our
morning meal with this stranger, as though he had been a friend of many
years.

"The birds sing sweetly," observed Tahoontowhee politely.

"The weather is fine," said I urbanely.

"The Master of Life pities the world He fashioned. All should give
thanks to Him at sunrise," said the runner quietly.

The brief meal ended, Tahoontowhee laid his sack for a pillow; the
strange Oneida stretched out on the ground, laid his dusty head on it,
and closed his eyes. The next moment he opened them and rose to his
feet. The ceremony and hospitality devolving upon me had been formally
and perfectly accomplished.

As I rose, free now to question him without losing dignity in his eyes,
he slipped the pouch he wore around in front, where his heavy knife and
hatchet hung, and drew from it some letters.

Holding these unopened in my hand, I asked him who he was and from whom
and whence he came.

"I am Red Wings, a Thaowethon Oneida of Ironderoga, runner for General
Clinton--and my credentials are this wampum string, so that you shall
know that I speak the truth!" And he whipped a string of red and black
wampum from his pouch and handed it to me.

Holding the shining coil in my hands, I looked at him searchingly.

"By what path did you come?"

"By no path. I left Otsego as you left, crossed the river where you had
crossed, recrossed where you did not recross, but where a canoe had
landed."

"And then?"

"I saw the Mengwe," he said politely, as the Sagamore came up beside
him.

Mayaro smiled his appreciation of the Algonquin term, then he spat,
saying:

"The Mengwe were Sinako and Mowawak. One has joined the Eel Clan."

"The Red Wings saw him. The Cat-People of the Sinako sat in a circle
around that scalpless thing and sang like catamounts over their dead!"

It is impossible to convey the scorn, contempt, insult, and loathing
expressed by the Mohican and the Oneida, unless one truly understand
the subtlety of the words they used in speaking of their common enemies.

"The Red Wings came by the Charlotte River?" I asked.

"By the Cherry, Quenevas, and Charlotte to the Ouleout. The Mengwe
fired on me as I stood on a high cliff and mocked them."

"Did they follow you?"

"Can my brother Loskiel trail feathered wings through the high air
paths? A little way I let them follow, then took wing, leaving them to
whine and squall on the Susquehanna."

"And Butler and McDonald?" I demanded, smiling.

"I do not know. I saw white men's tracks on the Charlotte, not two
hours old. They pointed toward the Delaware. The Minisink lies there."

I nodded. "Now let the Red Wings fold his feathers and go to rest," I
said, "until I have read my letters and considered them."

The Oneida immediately threw himself on the ground and drew his pouch
under his head. Before I could open my first letter, he was asleep and
breathing quietly as a child. And, on his naked shoulder, I saw a smear
of balsam plastered over with a hazel leaf, where a bullet had left its
furrow. He had not even mentioned that he had been hit.

The first letter was from my General Clinton:


"Have a care," he wrote, "that your Indians prove faithful. The
Wyandotte I assigned to your command made a poor impression among our
Oneida guides. This I hear from Major Parr, who came to tell me so
after you had left. Remember, too, that you and your Mohican are most
necessary to General Sullivan. Interpreters trained by Guy Johnson are
anything but plenty; and another Mohican who knows the truest route to
Catharines-town is not to be had for whistling."


This letter decided me to rid myself of the Wyandotte. Here was
sufficient authority; time enough had elapsed since he had joined us
for me to come to a decision. Even my Indians could not consider my
judgment hasty now.

I cast a cold glance at him, where he stood in the distance leaning
against a huge walnut tree and apparently keeping watch across the
Ouleout. The Grey-Feather was watching there, too, and I had no doubt
that his wary eyes were fixed as often on the Wyandotte as on the
wooded shore across the stream.

A second letter was from Major Parr, and said:

"An Oneida girl called Drooping Wings, of whom you bought some trumpery
or other, came to the fort after you had left, and told me that among
the party in their camp was an adopted Seneca who had seen and
recognized your Wyandotte as a Seneca and not as a Huron.

"Not that this information necessarily means that the Indian called
Black-Snake is a traitor. He brought proper credentials from the
officer commanding at Pitt. But it is best that you know of this, and
that you feel free to use your judgment accordingly."


"Yes," said I to myself, "I'll use it."

I took another long look at the suspect, then opened my third and last
letter. It was from Lois; and my heart beat the "general" so violently
that for a moment it stopped my breath:


"Euan Loskiel, my comrade, and my dear friend: Since you have gone,
news has come that our General Wayne, with twelve hundred light
infantry, stormed and took Stony Point on the Hudson on the 15th of
this past month. All the stores, arms, ammunition, and guns are ours,
with more than five hundred prisoners. The joy at this post is
wonderful to behold; our soldiers are mad with delight and cheer all
day long.

"Lieutenant Beatty tells me that we have taken fourteen pieces of good
ordnance, seven hundred stand of arms, tents, rum, cheese, wine, and a
number of other articles most agreeable to recount.

"On Wednesday morning last a sad affair; at Troop Beating three men
were brought out to be shot, all found guilty of desertion, one from
the 4th Pennsylvania, one from the 6th Massachusetts, and one from the
3rd New York. The troops were drawn up on the grand parade. Two of the
men were reprieved by the General; the third was shot.... It meant more
to me, kneeling in my room with both hands over my ears to shut out the
volley, than it meant to those who witnessed the awful scene. Marching
back, the fifes and drums played 'Soldiers' Joy.' I had forgotten to
stop my ears, and heard them.

"On Tuesday rain fell. News came at noon that Indians had surprised and
killed thirty-six haymakers near Fort Schuyler; and that other Indians
had taken fifteen or seventeen of our men who were gathering
blueberries at Sabbath Day Point. Whereupon Colonel Gansevoort
immediately marched for Canajoharie with his regiment, which had but
just arrived; and in consequence Betty Bleecker and Angelina are
desolate.

"As you see from this letter, we have left Croghan's new house, and are
living at Otsego in a fine Bush House, and near to the place where
Croghan's old house stood before it was destroyed.

"Sunday, after an all night rain, clear skies; and all the officers
were being schooled in saluting with the sword, the General looking on.
In the afternoon the Chaplain, 'Parson' Gano, as the soldiers call him,
gave us a sermon. I went with Betty and Angelina. Miss Helmer went on
the lake in a batteau with Mr. Boyd. The Rifles tried their guns on the
lake, shooting at marks. Murphy and Elerson made no misses.

"On Monday the officers had a punch, most respectable and gay. We
ladies went with Major Parr, Lieutenant Boyd, and the Ensign you so
detest, to view the hilarity, but not to join, it being a sociable
occasion for officers only, the kegs of rum being offered by General
Clinton--a gentleman not famed for his generosity in such matters.

"This, Euan, is all the general news I have to offer, save that the
army expects its marching orders at any moment now.

"Euan, I am troubled in my heart. First, I must acquaint you that Lana
Helmer and I have become friends. The night you left I was sitting in
my room, thinking; and Lana came in and drew my head on her shoulder.
We said nothing to each other all that night, but slept together in my
room. And since then we have come to know each other very well in the
way women understand each other. I love her dearly.

"Euan, she will not admit it, but she is mad about Lieutenant Boyd--and
it is as though she had never before loved and knows not how to
conduct. Which is strange, as she has been so courted and is deeply
versed in experience, and has lived more free of restraint than most
women I ever heard of. Yet, it has taken her like a pernicious fever;
and I do neither like nor trust that man, for all his good looks, and
his wit and manners, and the exceedingly great courage and military
sagacity which none denies him.

"Yesterday Lana came to my little room in our Bush House, where I sleep
on a bed of balsam, and we sat there, the others being out, and she
told me about Clarissa, and wept in the telling. What folly will not a
woman commit for love! And Sir John riding the wilderness with his
murdering crew! May the Lord protect and aid all women from such birds
o' passage and of prey! And I thought I had seen the pin-feathers of
some such plumage on this man Boyd. But he may moult to a prettier
colour. I hope so--but in my heart I dare not believe it. For he is of
that tribe of men who would have their will of every pretty petticoat
they notice. Some are less unscrupulous than others, that is the only
difference. And he seems still to harbour a few scruples, judging from
what I see of him and her, and what I know of her.

"Yet, if a man bear not his good intention plainly written on his face,
and yet protests he dies unless you love him, what scruples he may
entertain will wither to ashes in the fiercer flame. And how after all
does he really differ from the others?

"Euan, I am sick of dread and worry, what with you out in the West with
your painted scouts, and Mr. Boyd telling me that he has his doubts
concerning the reliability of one o' them! And what with Lana so white
and unhappy, and coming into my bed to cry against my breast at
night----"


Here the letter ended abruptly, and underneath in hurried writing:


"Major Parr calls to say that an Oneida runner is ordered to try to
find you with despatches from headquarters. I had expected to send this
letter by some one in your own regiment when it marched. But now I
shall intrust it to the runner.

"I know not how to close my letter--how to say farewell--how to let you
know how truly my heart is yours. And becomes more so every hour. Nor
can you understand how humbly I thank God for you--that you are what
you are--and not like Sir John and--other men.

"Women are of a multitude of kinds--until they love. Then they are of
but two kinds. Of one of these kinds shall I be when I love. Not that I
doubt myself, yet, who can say what I shall be? Only three, Euan--God,
the man who loves me, and myself."


"I sit here waiting for a rifleman to take my letter to the General who
has promised to commit it to the runner.

"A regiment is trying its muskets at the lake. I hear the firing.

"I have a tallow dip and wax and sand, ready to close my letter
instantly. No one comes."


"Lana comes, very tired and pale. Her eyes frighten me, they seem so
tragic. I learn that the army marches on the 9th. Yet, you went
earlier, and I do not think my eyes resembled hers."


"Soldiers passing, drums beating. A Pennsylvania regiment. Lana lies on
my bed, her face to the wall, scarce breathing at all, as far as I can
see. Conch-horns blowing--the strange and melancholy music of your
regiment. It seems to fill my heart with dread unutterable."


"The runner is here! Euan--Euan! Come back to me!

                                                "Lois de Contrecoeur."

My eyes fell from the letter to the sleeping runner stretched out at my
feet, then shifted vaguely toward the river.

After a while I drew my tablets, quill, and ink-horn from my pouch, and
setting it on my knees wrote to her with a heart on fire, yet perfectly
controlled.

And after I had ended, I sealed the sheet with balsam, pricking the
globule from the tree behind me, and setting over it a leaf of
partridge-berry. Also I wrote letters to General Clinton and to Major
Parr, sealed them as I had sealed the other, and set a tiny, shining
leaf on each.

Then, very gently I bent forward and aroused the Oneida runner. He sat
up, rubbed his eyes, then got to his feet smiling. And I consigned to
him my letters.

The Mohican, on guard by the Susquehanna, was watching me; and as soon
as the Red Wings had started on his return, and was well across the
Ouleout, I signalled the Sagamore to come to me, leaving the Mole and
Tahoontowhee by the Susquehanna.

"Blood-brother of mine," I said as he came up, "I ask counsel of a
wiser head and a broader experience than my own. What is to be done
with this Wyandotte?"

"Must that be decided now, Loskiel?"

"Now. Because the Unadilla lies below not far away, and beyond that the
Tioga. And I am charged to get myself thither in company with you as
soon us may be. Now, what is a Sagamore's opinion of this Wyandotte?"

"Erie," he said quietly.

"You believe it?"

"I know it, Loskiel."

"And the others--the Oneidas and the Stockbridge?"

"They are as certain as I am."

"Good God! Then why have you not told me this before, Mayaro?"

"Is there haste?"

"Haste? Have I not said that we march immediately? And you would have
let me give my order and include that villain in it!"

"Why not? It is an easier and safer way to take a prisoner to Tioga
Point than to drag him thither tied."

"But he may escape----"

The Sagamore gave me an ironic glance.

"Is it likely," he said softly, "when we are watching?"

"But he may manage to do us a harm. You saw how cunningly he has kept
up communication with our enemies, to leave a trail for them to follow."

"He has done us what harm he is able," said the Sagamore coolly.

I hesitated, then asked him what he meant.

"Why," he said, "their scouts have followed us. There are two of them
now across the Susquehanna."

Thunderstruck, I stared at the river, where its sunlit surface
glittered level through the trees.

"Do the others know this?" I asked.

"Surely, Loskiel."

I looked at my Indians where they lay flat behind their trees, rifles
poised, eyes intent on the territory in front of them.

"If my brother does not desire to bring the Wyandotte to General
Sullivan, I will go to him now and kill him," said the Mohican
carelessly.

"He ought to hang," I said between my teeth.

"Yes. It is the most dreadful death a Seneca can die. He would prefer
the stake and two days' torture. Loskiel is right. The Erie has been a
priest of Amochol. Let him die by the rope he dreads more than the
stake. For all Indians fear the rope, Loskiel, which chokes them so
that they can not sing their death-song. There is not one of us who has
not courage to sing his death-song at the stake; but who can sing when
he is being choked to death by a rope?"

I nodded, looking uneasily toward the river where the two Seneca spies
lurked unseen as yet by me.

"Let the men sling their packs," I said.

"They have done so, Loskiel."

"Very well. Our order of march will be the same as yesterday. We keep
the Wyandotte between us."

"That is wisdom."

"Is it to be a running fight, Mayaro?"

"Perhaps, if their main body comes up."

"Then we had best start across the Ouleout, unless you mean to ford the
Susquehanna."

The Sagamore shook his head with a grimace, saying that it would be
easier to swim the Susquehanna at Tioga than to ford it here.

Very quietly we drew in or picked up our pickets, including the
ruffianly Wyandotte, or Erie, as he was now judged to be, and, filing
as we had filed the night before we crossed the Ouleout and entered the
forest.

Two hours later the Oneida in the rear, Tahoontowhee, reported that the
Seneca scouts were on our heels, and asked permission to try for a
scalp.

By noon he had taken his second scalp, and had received his first
wound, a mere scratch from a half-ounce ball, below the knee. But he
wore it and the scalp with a dignity unequalled by any monarch loaded
with jewelled orders.

"Some day," said the Sagamore in my ear, "Tahoontowhee will accept the
antlers and the quiver."

"He would be greater yet if he accepted Christ," said the Stockbridge
quietly.

We had halted to breathe, and were resting on our rifles as the Mohican
said this; and I was looking at the Stockbridge who so quietly had
confessed his Master, when of a sudden the Wyandotte, who had been
leaning against a tree, straightened up, turned his head over his
shoulder, stared intently at something which we could not see, and then
pointed in silence.

So naturally was it done that we all turned also. Then, like a
thunder-bolt, his hatchet flew, shearing the raccoon's tail from my
cap, and struck the Stockbridge Indian full between the eyes, dashing
his soul into eternity.



CHAPTER XIII

THE HIDDEN CHILDREN

So silently, suddenly, and with such incredible swiftness had this
happened, and so utterly unprepared were we for this devilish audacity,
that the Erie had shoved his trade-rifle against my ribs and fired
before anybody comprehended what he was about.

But he had driven the muzzle so violently against me that the blow
knocked me breathless and flat on my face, and his rifle, slipping
along with the running swivel of my pouch buckle, was discharged,
blowing the pouch-flap to fragments, and setting fire to my thrums
without even scorching my body.

As, partly stunned, I lay on the moss, choking in the powder smoke, my
head still ringing with the crash of the old smooth-bore, man after man
leaped over me like frantic deer, racing at full speed toward the
river. And I swayed to my knees, to my feet, and staggered after them,
beating out the fire on my smoking fringes as I ran.

The Erie took the bank at one bound, struck the river sand like a ball,
and bounded on. Both Oneidas shot at him, and I tried to wing him in
mid-stream, but my hands were unsteady from the shock, and he went
under like a diver-duck, drifted to the surface under the willows far
below, and was out and among them before we could fire again.

The sight of him tore a yell of fury from the Oneidas' throats; but the
Mohican, rifle a-trail, was speeding low and swiftly, and we sprang
forward in his tracks.

A few moments later the Sagamore gave tongue to the fierce, hysterical
view-halloo of his Wolf Clan; the Oneidas answered till the forest rang
with the dreadful tumult of the pack-cry. Then, as I ran up breathless
to where they were crouching, a more terrible whoop burst from them.
The quarry was at bay.

It was where the river turned south, making a vast and glassy bay. A
smooth cliff hung over it, wet and shining with the water from hidden
springs, and sheering down into profound and limpid depths.

High on the face of the cliff, squatted on a narrow shelf, and hidden
by the rocky formation, our quarry had taken cover. The twisted strands
of a wild grapevine, severed by his knife, hung dangling below his
eyrie, betraying his mode of ascent. He had gone up hand over hand,
aided by his powerful shoulder muscles and by his feet, which must have
stuck like the feet of flies to the perpendicular wall of rock.

To follow him, even with the aid of the vine he had severed, had been
hopeless in the face of his rifle fire. A thousand men could not have
taken him that way, while his powder and lead held out, for they would
have been obliged to ascend one by one in slow and painful file, and he
had but to shove his gun-muzzle in their faces as they appeared.

The war-yelps of the Oneidas had subtly changed their timbre so that
ever amid the shrill yelling I marked the guttural snarls of baffled
rage. The Mohican lay on his belly behind a tree, silent, but his eyes
were like coals in their red intensity.

Presently the Oneidas, lying prone at our side, ceased their tumult and
became silent. And for a long while we lay waiting for a shot.

All this time the Erie had given no sign of life, and I had begun to
hope that he had been hit and would ultimately perish there, as wild
things perish in solitude and silence.

Then the Mohican said in my ear:

"Unless we can stir him to move and expose himself, we must lose him.
For his fellows will surely track us to this place."

"Good God! By what unfortunate accident should such a hiding place
exist so near!" I said miserably.

The Sagamore's stern visage slightly relaxed.

"It is no accident, Loskiel. Do you not suppose he knew it was here?
Else he had never dared attempt what he did."

"The vile Witch-cat has been here many a time," said the Grey-Feather,
his ferocious gaze fixed on the cliff.

"Is the Mole dead?" I asked.

"He is with his God--Tharon or Christ, whichever it may be, Loskiel."

"The Mole must not be scalped," said Tahoontowhee softly. "If the
Senecas pass that way they will have at last one thing to boast of."

I said to the Mohican:

"Hold the Erie. The Night-Hawk and I will go back and bury our dead
against Seneca profanation."

"Let the Grey-Feather go, Loskiel."

"No. The Mole was Christian. Does a Christian fail his own kind at the
last?"

"Loskiel has spoken," said the Mohican gravely. "The Grey-Feather and I
will hold the filthy cat."

So we went back together across the river, the young Oneida and I; and
we hid the Mole deep in the bed of a rotting log, and laid his
Testament on his breast over the painted cross, and his weapons beside
him. Then, working cautiously, we rolled back the log, replaced the
dead leaves, brushed up the deep green pile of the moss, and smoothed
all as craftily us we might, so that no Seneca prowling might suspect
that a grave was here, and disinter the dead to take his scalp.

Over the blood-wet leaves where he had fallen, we made a fire of dry
twigs, letting it burn enough to deceive. Then we covered it as hunters
cover their ashes; the Oneida took the Erie's hatchet; and we hastened
back to the others.

They were still lying exactly where we left them. Neither the Erie nor
they had stirred or spoken. And, as I settled down in my ambush beside
the Mohican, I asked him again whether there was any possible way to
provoke the Erie so that he might stir and expose some portion of his
limbs or body.

The Night-Hawk, who carried strapped to his back the quiver of an
Oneida adolescent containing a boy's short bow and a dozen game arrows,
consulted with the Grey-Feather in a low voice.

Presently he wriggled off to where some sun-dried birch-bark fluttered
in the river breeze, returned with it, shredded it with care, strung
his bow, tipped an arrow with the bark, and held it out to me.

I struck flint to steel, lighted my tinder, and set the shred of bark
afire.

Then the Night-Haw