The Little Red Foot Part 30

"Ready," said he; and "Ready!" repeated every man.

So, rifle a-trail, I led the way out into the Fish House road.

CHAPTER XIII

THE DROWNED LANDS

For two weeks my small patrol of six remained in the vicinity of the Sacandaga, scouting even as far as Stony Creek, Silver Lake, and West River, covering Maxon, too, and the Drowned Lands, but ever hovering about the Sacandaga, where the great Iroquois War Trail runs through the dusk of primeval woods.

But never a glimpse of Sir John did we obtain. Which was scarcely strange, inasmuch as the scent was already stone cold when we first struck it. And though we could trace the Baronet's headlong flight for three days' journey, by his dead fires and stinking camp debris, and, plainer still, by the trampled path made by his men and horses and by the wheel-marks of at least one cannon, our orders, which were to stop the War Trail from Northern enemies, permitted no further pursuit.

Yet, given permission, I think I could have come up with him and his motley forces, though what my six scouts could have accomplished against nearly two hundred people is but idle surmise. And whether, indeed, we could have contrived to surprise and capture Sir John, and bring him back to justice, is a matter now fit only for idlest speculation.

At the end of the first week I sent Joe de Golyer and G.o.dfrey Shew into Johnstown to acquaint Colonel Dayton of what we had seen and what we guessed concerning Sir John's probable route. De Luysnes and Johnny Silver I stationed on Maxon's honest nose, where the valley of the Sacandaga and the Drowned Lands lay like a vast map at their feet, while Nick Stoner and I prowled the silent Iroquois trail or slid like a pair of otters through the immense desolation of the Drowned Lands, from the jungle-like recesses of which we could see the distant glitter of muskets where our garrison was drilling at Fish House, and a white speck to the southward, which marked the little white and green lodge at Summer House Point.

We had found a damaged birch canoe near the Stacking Ridge, and I think it was the property of John Howell, who lived on the opposite side of the creek a mile above. But his log house stood bolted and empty; and, as he was a very rabid Tory, we helped ourselves to his old canoe, and Nick patched it with gum and made two paddles.

In this leaky craft we threaded the spectral Drowned Lands, penetrating every hidden water-lead, every concealed creek, every lost pond which glimmered unseen amid cranberry bogs, vast wastes of stunted willow, pinxter shrubs in bloom, and the endless wilderness of reeds. Nesting black-ducks rose on clattering wings in scores and scores at our stealthy invasion; herons and bitterns flapped heavily skyward; great chain-pike, as long as a young boy, slid like shadows under our dipping paddles. But we saw no Indians.

Nor was there a sign of any canoe amid the Drowned Lands; not a moccasin print in swamp-moss or mud; no trace of Iroquois on the Stacking Ridge, where already wild pigeons were flying among the beech and oak trees, busy with courts.h.i.+p and nesting.

It was now near the middle of June, but Nick thought that Sir John had not yet reached Canada, nor was like to accomplish that terrible journey through a pathless wilderness under a full month.

We know now that he did accomplish it in nineteen days, and arrived with his starving people in a terrible plight.[4] But n.o.body then supposed it possible that he could travel so quickly. Even his own Mohawks never dreamed he was already so far advanced on his flight; and this was their vital mistake; for there had been sent from Canada a war party to meet and aid Sir John; and, by hazard, I was to learn of this alarming business in a manner I had neither expected nor desired.

[Footnote 4: One of his abandoned bra.s.s cannon is--or recently was--lying embedded in a swamp in the North Woods.]

I was sitting on a great, smooth bowlder, where the little trout stream, which tumbles down Maxon from the east, falls into Hans Creek. It was a still afternoon and very warm in the sun, but pleasant there, where the confluence of the waters made a cool and silvery clas.h.i.+ng-noise among the trees in full new leaf.

Nick had cooked dinner--parched corn and trout, which we caught in the brook with one of my fish hooks and a red wampum bead from my moccasins tied above the barb.

And now, dinner ended, Nick lay asleep with a mat of moss over his face to keep off black flies, and I mounted guard, not because I apprehended danger, but desired not to break a military rule which had become already a habit among my handful of men.

I was seated, as I say, on a bowlder, with my legs hanging over the swirling water and my rifle across both knees. And I was thinking those vague and dreamy thoughts which float ghost-like through young men's minds when skies are blue in early summer and life seems but an endless vista through unnumbered aeons to come.

Through a pleasant and reflective haze which possessed my mind moved figures of those I knew or had known--my honoured father, grave, dark-eyed, deliberate in all things, living for intellectual pleasure alone;--my dear mother, ardent yet timid, thrilled ever by what was most beautiful and best in the world, and loving all things made by G.o.d.

I thought, too, of my silly kinsman in Paris, Lord Stormont, and how I had declined his pompous patronage, to carve for myself a career, aided by the slender means afforded me; and how Billy Alexander did use me very kindly--a raw youth in a New York school, left suddenly orphaned and alone.

I thought of Stevie Watts, of Polly, of the DeLancys, Crugers, and other King's people who had made me welcome, doubtless for the sake of my Lord Stormont. And how I finally came to know Sir William Johnson, and his great kindness to me.

All these things I thought of in the golden afternoon, seated by Hans Creek, my eyes on duty, my thoughts a-gypsying far afield, where I saw, in my mind's eye, my log house in Fonda's Bush, my new-cleared land, my neighbors' houses, the dark walls of the forest.

Yet, drifting between each separate memory, glided ever a slender shape with yellow hair, and young, unfathomed eyes as dark as the velvet on the wings of that earliest of all our b.u.t.terflies, which we call the Beauty of Camberwell.

Think of whom I might, or of what scenes, always this slim phantom drifted in between the sequences of thought, and vaguely I seemed to see her yellow hair, and that glimmer which sometimes came into her eyes, and which was the lovely dawning of her smile.

War seemed very far away, death but a fireside story half forgotten. For my thoughts were growing faintly fragrant with the scent of apple blossoms--white and pink bloom--sweet as her breath when she had whispered to me.

A strange young thing to haunt me with her fragrance--this girl Penelope--her smooth hands and snowy skin--and her little naked feet, like whitest silver there in the dew at Bowman's----

Suddenly, thought froze; from the foliage across the creek, scarce twenty feet from where I sat, and without the slightest sound, stepped an Indian in his paint.

Like a shot squirrel I dropped behind my bowlder and lay flat among the sh.o.r.e ferns, my heart so wild that my levelled rifle shook with the shock of palsy.

The roar of the waters was loud in my ears, but his calm voice came through it distinctly:

"Peace, brother!" he said in the soft, Oneida dialect, and lifted his right hand high in the suns.h.i.+ne, the open palm turned toward me.

"Don't move!" I called across the stream. "Lay your blanket on the ground and place your gun across it!"

Calmly he obeyed, then straightened up and stood there empty handed, naked in his paint, except for the beaded breadth of deer-skin that fell from belt to knee.

"Nick!" I called cautiously.

"I am awake and I have laid him over my rifle-sight," came Nick's voice from the woods behind me. "Look sharp, John, that there be not others ambuscaded along the bank."

"He could have killed me," said I, "without showing himself. By his paint I take him for an Oneida."

"That's Oneida paint," replied Nick, cautiously, "but it's war paint, all the same. Shall I let him have it?"

"Not yet. The Oneidas, so far, have been friendly. For G.o.d's sake, be careful what you do."

"Best parley quick then," returned Nick, "for I trust no Iroquois. You know his lingo. Speak to him."

I called across the stream to the Indian: "Who are you, brother? What is your nation and what is your clan, and what are you doing on the Sacandaga, with your face painted in black and yellow bars, and fresh oil on your limbs and lock?"

He said, in his quiet but distinct voice: "My nation is Oneida; my clan is the Tortoise; I am Tahioni. I am a young and inexperienced warrior.

No scalp yet hangs from my girdle. I come as a friend. I come as my brother's ally. This is the reason that I seek my brother on the Sacandaga. Hiero! Tahioni has spoken."

And he quietly folded his arms.

He was a magnificent youth, quite perfect in limb and body, and as light of skin as the Mohawks, who are often nearly white, even when pure breed.

He stood unarmed, except for the knife and war-axe swinging from crimson-beaded sheaths at his cincture. Still, I did not rise or show myself, and my rifle lay level with his belly.

I said, in as good Oneida as I could muster:

"Young Oneida warrior, I have listened to what you have had to say. I have heard you patiently, oh Tahioni, my brother of the great Oneida nation who wears an _Onondaga name_!" For Tahioni means _The Wolf_ in Onondaga dialect.

There was a silence, broken by Nick's low voice from somewhere behind me: "Shall I shoot the Onondaga dog?"