The Hidden Children Part 65

I could see the river, but could not hear it. From where I lay, close to the ground, the trees stood out in shadowy cl.u.s.ters against the vague and hazy mist that spread low over the water.

And, as I lay watching it, without the slightest warning, a head was lifted from behind a bush. It was the head of a wolf in silhouette against the water.

Curiously I watched it; and as I looked, from another bush another head was lifted--the round, flattened head and ta.s.selled ears of the great grey lynx. And before I could realize the strangeness of their proximity to each other, these two heads were joined by a third--the snarling features of a wolverine.

Then a startling and incredible thing happened; the head of the big timber-wolf rose still higher, little by little, slowly, stealthily, above the bush. And I saw to my horror that it had the body of a man.

And, already overstrained as I was, it was a mercy that I did not faint where I lay behind my rock, so ghastly did this monstrous vision seem to me.

CHAPTER XIV

NAI TIOGA!

How my proper senses resisted the swoon that threatened them I do not know; but when the lynx, too, lifted a menacing and flattened head on human shoulders; and when the wolverine also stood out in human-like shadow against the foggy water, I knew that these ghostly things that stirred my hair were no hobgoblins at all, but living men. And the clogged current of my blood flowed free again, and the sweat on my skin cooled.

The furry ears of the wolf-man, p.r.i.c.ked up against the vaguely l.u.s.trous background of the river, fascinated me. For all the world those pointed ears seemed to be listening. But I knew they were dead and dried; that a man's eyes were gazing through the sightless sockets of the beast.

From somewhere in the darkness the Mohican came gliding on his belly over the velvet carpet of the moss.

"Andastes," he whispered scornfully; "they wear the heads of the beasts whose courage they lack. Fling a stone among them and they will scatter."

As I felt around me in the darkness for a fragment of loose rock, the Mohican arrested my arm.

"Wait, Loskiel. The Andastes hang on the heels of fiercer prowlers, smelling about dead bones like foxes after a battle. Real men can not be far away."

We lay watching the strange and grotesque creatures in the starlight; and truly they seemed to smell their way as beasts smell; and they were as light-footed and as noiseless, slinking from bush to bush, lurking motionless in shadows, nosing, listening, prowling on velvet pads to the very edges of our rock escarpment.

"They have the noses of wild things," whispered the Mohican uneasily.

"Somewhere they have found something that belongs to one of us, and, having once smelled it, have followed."

I thought for a moment.

"Do you believe they found the charred fragments of my pouch-flap?

Could they scent my scorched thrums from where I now lie? Only a hound could do that! It is not given to men to scent a trail as beasts scent it running perdu."

The Mohican said softly:

"Men of the settlement detect no odour where those of the open perceive a mult.i.tude of pungent smells."

"That is true," I said.

"It is true, Loskiel. As a dog scents water in a wilderness and comes to it from afar, so can I also. Like a dog, too, can I wind the hidden partridge brood--though never the nesting hen--nor can a mink do that much either. But keen as the perfume of a bee-tree, and certain as the rank smell of a dog-fox in March--which even a white man can detect--are the odours of the wilderness to him whose only home it is.

And even as a lad, and for the sport of it, have I followed and found by its scent alone the great night-b.u.t.terfly, marked brown and crimson, and larger than a little bat, whose head bears tiny ferns, and whose wings are painted with the four quarters of the moon. Like crushed sumac is the odour of it, and in winter it hides in a bag of silk."

I nodded, my eyes following the cautious movements of the Andastes below; and again and again I saw their heads thrown buck, noses to the stars, as though sniffing and endeavouring to wind us. And to me it was horrid and unhuman.

For an hour they were around the river edge and the foot of the hillock, trotting silently and uneasily hither and thither, always seemingly at fault. Then, apparently made bold by finding no trace of what they hunted, they ranged this way and that at a sort of gallop, and we could even hear their fierce and whining speech as they huddled a moment to take counsel.

Suddenly their movements ceased, and I clutched the Mohican's arm, as a swift file of shadows pa.s.sed in silhouette along the river's brink, one after another moving west--fifteen ghostly figures dimly seem but unmistakable.

"Senecas," breathed the Mohican.

The war party defiled at a trot, disappearing against the fringing gloom. And after them loped the Andastes pack, scurrying, hurrying, running into thickets and out again, but ever hastening along the flanks of their silent and murderous masters, who seemed to notice them not at all.

When they had gone, the Mohican aroused the Oneidas, and all night long we lay there behind the rocks, rifles in rest, watching the river.

What we awaited came with the dawn, and, in the first grey pallour of the breaking day, we saw their advanced guard; Cayugas and Senecas of the fierce war-chief Hiokatoo, every Indian stripped, oiled, head shaved, and body painted for war; first a single Cayuga, scouting swiftly; then three furtive Senecas, then six, then a dozen, followed by their main body.

Doubtless they had depended on the Andastes and advanced guard of Senecas for flankers, for the main body pa.s.sed without even a glance up at the hilly ground where we lay watching them.

Then there was a break in the line, an interval of many minutes before their pack horses appeared, escorted by green-coated soldiers.

And in the ghostly light of dawn, I saw Sir John Johnson riding at the head of his men, his pale hair unpowdered, his heavy, colourless face sunk on his breast. After him, in double file, marched his regiment of Greens; then came more Indians--Owagas, I think--then that shameless villain, McDonald, in bonnet and tartan, and the heavy claymore a-swing on his saddle-bow, and his blue-eyed Indians swarming in the rear.

Lord, what a crew! And as though that were not enough to affront the rising sun, comes riding young Walter Butler, in his funereal cloak, white as a corpse under the black disorder of his hair, and staring at nothing like a d.a.m.ned man. On his horse's heels his ruffianly Rangers marched in careless disorder but with powerful, swinging strides that set their slanting muskets gleaming like ripples glinting athwart a windy pond, and their canteens all a-bobbing.

Then, hunched on his horse, rode old John Butler--squat, swarthy, weather-roughened, balancing on his saddle with the grace of a chopping block; and after him more Rangers crowding close behind.

Behind these, quite alone, stalked an Indian swathed in a scarlet blanket edged with gold, on which a silver gorget glittered. He seemed scarce darker than I in colour; and if he wore paint I saw none. There was only a scarlet band of cloth around his temples, and the flight-feather of the white-crested eagle set there low above the left ear and slanting backward.

"Brant!" I whispered to the Sagamore; and I saw him stiffen to very stone beside me; and heard his teeth grate in his jaws.

Then, last of all, came the Keepers of the Eastern Gate, the flower of the warriors of the Long House--the Mohawks.

They pa.s.sed in the barbaric magnificence of paint and feather and s.h.i.+ning steel, a hundred lithe, light-stepping warriors, rifles swinging a-trail, and gorgeous beaded sporrans tossing at every stride.

An interval, then the first wary figure of the lurking rear-guard, another, half a dozen, smooth-bore rifles at a ready, scanning river and thicket. Every one of them looked up at our craggy knoll as they glided along its base; two hesitated, ran half way up over the rock escarpment, loitered for a few moments, then slunk off, hastening to join their fellows.

After a long while a single Seneca came speeding, and disappeared in the wake of the others.

The motley Army of the West had pa.s.sed.

And it was a terrible and an infamous sight to me, who had known these men under other circ.u.mstances to see the remnant of the landed gentry of Tryon County now riding the wilderness like very vagabonds, squired by a grotesque horde of b.l.o.o.d.y renegades.

To what a doleful pa.s.s had these gentlemen come, who lately had so lorded it among us--these proud and testy autocrats of County Tryon, with their vast estates, their baronial halls, their servants, henchmen, tenantry, armed retainers, slaves?

Where were all these people now? Where were their ladies in their London silks and powder? Where were their mistresses, their distinguished guests? Where was my Lord Dunmore now--the great Murray, Earl of Dunmore and Brent Meester to unhappy Norfolk! And, alas, where was the great and good Sir William--and where was Sir William's friend, Lady Grant, and the fearless d.u.c.h.ess of Gordon, and the dark and lovely Lady Johnson, and the pretty ladies of Guy Johnson, of Colonel Butler, of Colonel Claus? Where was Sir John's pitifully youthful and unfortunate lady, and her handsome brother, crippled at Oriskany, and the gentle, dark-eyed sister of Walter Butler, and his haughty mother?

All either dead or prisoners, or homeless refugees, or exiles living on the scant bounty of the Government they had suffered for so loyally.

The merciless Committee of Sequestration had seized Johnson Hall, Fort Johnson, Guy Park, Butlersbury; Fish House was burned; Summer House Point lay in ashes, and the charming town built by Sir William was now a rebel garrison, and the jail he erected was their citadel, flying a flag that he had never heard of when he died.

All was gone--gone the kilted Highlanders from the guard house at the Hall; gone the Royal Americans with all their bugle-horns and clarions and scarlet pageantry; gone the many feathered chieftains who had gathered so often at Guy Park, or the Fort, or the Hall. Mansions, lands, families, servants, all were scattered and vanished; and of all that Tryon County glory only these hara.s.sed and haggard hors.e.m.e.n remained, haunting the forest purlieus of their former kingdoms with hatred in their hearts, and their hands red with murder. Truly, the Red Beast we hunted these three years through was a most poisonous thing, that it should belch forth such pests as Lord George Germaine, and Loring, and Cunningham, and turn the baronets and gentry of County Tryon into murdering and misshapen ghouls!

When the sun rose we slung pack and pulled foot. And all that day we travelled without mischance; and the next day it was the same, encountering nothing more menacing than peeled and painted trees, where some scouting war-party of the enemy had written threats and boasts, warning the "Boston people" away from the grizzly fastnesses of the dread Long House, and promising a horrid vengeance for every mile of the Dark Empire we profaned.

And so, toward sundown, the first picket of General Sullivan's army challenged us; and my Indians shouted: "Nai Tioga!" And presently we heard the evening gun very near.